Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

WTF

. . . is up with my site? Nothing against the Dalits, you understand, but . . . WTF? posted by Carlton at 3:33 PM

POSTCARD UPDATE

So I recently received a couple of more postcards, this time from Alaska. The character and tone of these cards has varied pretty wildly -- some have been fairly cordial, while others (these last ones) are insulting. Yes, I'm sure I do have a "tiny member" and I am a "dickhead". Thanks for letting me know, however!
I do wonder whether this is a person who has ever had access to my member. There aren't that many.

These cards have been from all over the US, with different kinds of artwork, messages and handwriting. Several have had individual letters wriiten on them (in addition to the text) and circled, although I have been unable to make any sense out of them as an anagram (the first three were "CWK", my initials). Since no one really jumps out at me as a prime suspect -- which is to say that I know people who are crazy and would do this, but none that I think could organize it -- I am led to one of two theories:

1. This is a random person whom I do not know, which means there is nothing to figure out, and I'm just receiving some low-level harassment from a troll, perhaps an internet troll, OR

2. This is someone whom I know, but who plays a less significant role in my life than she appears to believe. In this case, the person expects me to say "Aha!" and realize who she is immediately, because I am undoubtedly thinking about her all the time anyway. Apparently that is not the case.

I do believe that this person reads this page. If so, I'd invite her to go ahead and let me in on it. Otherwise, she can keep sending the postcards -- I have a nice little stack in the drawer. I show them to people when they come over -- my guests find them much more interesting than I do.

I got tickets to Radiohead! posted by Carlton at 3:35 PM

ANOTHER LITTLE NOTE

About Iraq . . . (UPDATE: in retrospect, this post really isn't about Iraq at all! How interesting!)

Looking back on our Glorious Leader's track record, a pattern emerges: through no merit of his own, he is placed in a position of prominence and authority (director of a company, owner of a baseball team, political office), and in EVERY CASE the operation goes downhill during his tenure. The constituents (shareholders, citizens) suffer. And he profits.

My Corporations professor used to call that "looting".

The latest in what I think will be an endless stream of articles criticizing the Bush Protectorate of Iraq appears here.

And some irony, courtesy of the Memory Hole. posted by Carlton at 12:26 PM

HULLO, BERTIE

Ms. Twink's book club is reading The Code of the Woosters, one of my fave books as a kid! I'm so excited! Interestingly, I have a theory that a lot of people will hate it. But I love it! posted by Carlton at 5:24 PM

8-MINUTE ABS

Actually, I am referring to 8-minute DATING, a new thing that is sweeping the nation and Boston bars specifically. It works like this: the organizers get a roughly equivalent number of single males and females together in a room (usually a barroom), and they sit across from each other at little tables. The newly introduced couples get to talk for the magical eight minutes, and then a bell rings and the couples all switch. (to the best of my knowledge this is just a hetero thing -- I haven't heard of gays and lesbians doing it.) There are several rounds of this.

After each round, the conversation partners rate one another (basically "Yes" or "No"). I believe that when both partners rate each other a yes, one of them is given the other's phone number.

A friend of mine (girl) is going to do this sometime soon. Back when I was a swinging single (cringing lonely wretch), I had made a date with another female friend to go check it out -- which we never did. To be honest, it sounded like a lot of fun. I have NO game in the bar setting, but I interview well, so it would be interesting to see which one prevailed. It could have been a big ego crusher. I guess I'll never know . . .
posted by Carlton at 5:22 PM

CAT'S AWAY

So, the light of my life is out of town for the weekend. What kind of trouble can I get myself into?

I see that our Dear Leader is pushing us towards war with Iran. That's cool, since our other wars are going very well. Bush is climbing the ladder of enemies, since Iran has about THREE TIMES the population of Iraq, and is much bigger to boot. Of course we could defeat the Iranians in war -- that has never been in doubt, or the point. Do we really want 66,000,000 new subjects in our empire?

One possible result of all this that I KNOW Bush et alia do not intend is the waves of immigration from our new colonies that are bound to result. Britain has very large populations of its former colonials in its borders, as does France. I believe that we will end up with a great many more Iraqis, Persians and Afghans in the lower 48 than we would have had otherwise. I'm not complaining -- it may even be a good thing -- but I KNOW it is not what these cats intend.

posted by Carlton at 5:14 PM

THE ETERNAL QUESTION

"What kind of people loot dirt?" Things in occupied Iraq not going smoothly. posted by Carlton at 12:55 PM

WRITING A BOOK

I used to think I wanted to write a book -- a novel, almost certainly. I liked to write fiction when I was younger, and I still think about it. Teachers, etc. used to say "Carlton's going to grow up and be a writer!" Yeah, whatever. The cares and woes of adulthood have educated me about what you need to do this: freedom from the day job, tenacity, a willingness to fail spectacularly, a belief that the process is worthwhile no matter if no one ever reads or likes the product. Oh and, uh, talent. I'm missing at least one of these.


Anyway, I found this on the web over lunch.

So why do people do write books? I come up with these possible explanations:

Some hope to hit the jackpot despite the odds

Some have a dream about being an author, or taking part in "literature"

Some are obsessed lunatics -- ie., they feel they just gotta

Some don't know better (these usually never write a second book)

Some have other ambitions, and writing a book is a step along the way

A handful are determined to be trade-book authors as a career, and know what the game consists of, and have (or think they have) the tenacity, toughness, talent, luck and energy to succeed.

Saddam Hussein wrote romance novels. They were big sellers in Iraq, I hear. posted by Carlton at 1:26 PM

FILTHY LUCRE

This week, I am finally able to pay my parents back what I borrowed from them 2 1/2 years ago, which is nice. They seem to like it, too -- I think that parents who make loans to their children must subscribe to that "if you love it, set it free" philosophy. Maybe it will be made productive, maybe it was used to pay for an uninsured car accident that I never told you about -- sorry! Well, this actually made it back, unharmed and better for the experience. posted by Carlton at 7:55 PM

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

My advice to all those out there on the front lines against the Bush people: do little things to annoy them. It is apparent that these radicals are utterly humorless (well, W joked about putting people to death, but I don't think that counts) and very prickly in temprament. They also tend to fly off the handle when confronted or directly questioned -- hence W's refusal to be confronted or directly questioned about ANYTHING. Some have explained W's mania for ousting Saddam as a result of Saddam's "thumbing his nose" at the Bush Administration. It certainly looks like that war was not such a good idea.

The trick here is in getting to them. We are all asking questions that they don't like, but they simply refuse to be questioned. Our media won't do it, and the Dems seem to be congenital cowards. Bush's people seem very able to ignore the general public.

But if you CAN get to them, just watch -- they get rattled, go off script, off message. Sometimes they even say whet they are actually thinkng. I'd like to see that. posted by Carlton at 2:00 PM

WORTH READING (Despite the typos)

Article: Am I still An Unpatriotic Traitor? posted by Carlton at 2:33 PM

INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS

I opined some time ago that the opposition Democrats were actually protecting W from himself, meaning that the more of his goals he accomplishes, the closer he gets to self-destruction. I'm not ready to say I Told You So just yet, because he's still got his hands on the levers of power, but it is interesting that the war he was so hot to wage is really coming back to bite him after the fact. Let's see how this goes, shall we? posted by Carlton at 1:12 PM

HILLARITY ENSUING

So Hillary R. Clinton has a new book out. I might just buy it and read it.

I've never really understood the animosity that the right has for Hillary. My brother, for example, seems to think she is from the Devil -- literally. The right-wing media is aghast at her version of the Whitewater/Monica story. (In case you are just joining the world in progress, the Monica controversy was the necessary result of Ken Starr finding NOTHING of any value to use against the Clintons after spending FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS.)

Everyone HATES this book. The conservatives are foaming at the mouth. The New York Times is even somewhat snippy about it, which is understandable as they destroyed entire forests in the name of Travelgate and Whitewater and Filegate and every other little pseudo-scandal that didn't turn into anything. Everyone, that is, except for the reading public, who bought what, 200,000 copies yesterday? (I have lost the article.)

But what gets to me is that none of these critics feel they can safely cut Hillary any slack at all, on any subject. I actually saw a Margaret Carlson (see the Daily Howler), some sp[ecies of commentator, on television the other night, making me regret I now have cable. Oh please, she kept saying. Hillary is so insincere. I can't believe she's trying to make us believe she didn't know about Bill. I can't believe that Hillary would try to make us believe that she has a single impulse that isn't a coldly calculated attempt to gain herself political power.

Hillary comes across as being somewhat cold, it's true. She rubs a lot of people the wrong way, so to speak. If you listen to people like Carlson, however, you'd have to conclude that Hillary is some sort of nonhuman, an alien, an android, an insect. They have demonized her for so long that that can't even recognize that she is a PERSON -- instead, she is some kind of an evil force that can only be killed with a stake in the heart, a beheading and wolfsbane stuffed in the mouth. She couldn't possibly have wanted to believe her husband (especially after other charges of philandering had turmed out to be untrue), she couldn't possibly have been shocked, heartbroken, devastated, betrayed. No, according to her critics, the only acceptable solution is that she knew about Bill and Monica, and that it was somehow part of her EVIL PLAN. She doesn't love, she doesn't hope, she doesn't trust. Vampires don't cry.
posted by Carlton at 5:47 PM

HILARITY ENSUED

At one point this past weekend, a New York-type person addressed my dear Molly as "Ms. King". For some reason I found that to be immensely funny. One reason is probably that she has made it very clear that no matter whom she might marry, she will keep her own (admittedly very cool) last name. Another is that, despite my many years and long white beard, I am always surprised to be considered old enough to be married. (I've been told a time or two that I would make a "good husband" -- mostly in the context of being rejected as an "inadequate boyfriend".) Most of my contempraries from high school, college and grad school are married, but i still feel too young. I'm just a kid at heart, I guess.

posted by Carlton at 2:07 PM

SO I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

23dec2002 -- A couple of months ago while staying with a friend in Bisbee, it was my task to be Official Tutor del Computer. She did a classic double-take when I mentioned that it was possible to lock the taskbar. She thought I had said "Rock the Casbah." So that was the end of that lesson, and for days afterward, at regular intervals, we couldn't keep from breaking into, "Sharif don't like it / [bum badeep bum ba deep] / Lock the Taskbar! / Lock the Taskbar!"
R.I.P. Joe.
Update, 04jan2003 -- The day after the Rock the Taskbar incident, another Clash-related verbal misunderstanding arose with another friend. But I couldn't remember it even with great exertion until just now, even though I was looking at a note I'd written about it. Just couldn't decipher it. Anyway, after all of that, here's what happened: we were in southeastern Arizona and I said Sierra Vista and she thought I said Sandinista. There you go. I'm sure that doesn't take any weight off your mind, but it takes one power load off of mine. Whew.

The rest of this (somewhat interesting) page may be found here.

NOTE: Blogger has suddenly and without warning changed the format of the page I use to post things -- it's all flickery.
Down with change! Shun the new! Cling to the old! posted by Carlton at 12:01 PM

I LIKE NEW YORK IN JUNE

So, I spent the weekend in New York with Ms. Twink -- sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? As it turns out, however, this was NOT the weekend to go. Given the pouring rain on Saturday (all day), the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday (which made Manhattan an impassible grid), the fact that the L train to Brooklyn chose not to run at the EXACT TIME we wanted to take it, that the Guggenheim museum was filled from top to bottom with a special exibit designed to be both impenetrable and disgusting (major themes included Vaseline, prosthetic limbs and blood), and the fact that I don't know my cardinal directions . . . well, it was actually OK. She was a good egg, as always. We always seem to have a good time together.

We caught a ride to NYC, and took the Chinese Bus back. Everyone in Boston seems to know about this bus; it runs from Chinatown here to Chinatown there and back about fifty times a day and costs (no lie) $10 each way. Bostonians who haven't taken it seem to all share misconceptions about this bus: that live animals are brought on board, that it only runs at midnight, etc. Those are not true. It has its own idiosyncrasies, to be sure (we were shown an "inflight" mowie, which was "Black Mask 2: City of Masks" with such bad picture quality that it made some passengers physically ill), but otherwise is just a bus. I hate the bus. posted by Carlton at 11:18 PM

OBSERVATIONS

First of all, everyone should stop making comparisons between anyone and the Nazis/Hitler. Bush is not like Hitler. Saddam Hussein was not like Hitler. The Baath Party was not like the Nazis. The comparison is overused and, simply, stupid -- and provides an excuse not to engage an issue on its real face. It also shows that not many of us know very much about Hitler (myself included, although I did once skim a short biography of the man). So stop it.

Second of all, the MTV Movie Awards sucked ASS -- one groaner after another. The thing at the beginning about the Matrix was cool, the Gollum thing was cool, watching the Tatu song and dance number made me feel like a groundskeeper at Smith College. The rest of it, though -- THIS was the best that our hip young writers could come up with? That fact, more than anything Bush might do, makes me fear for the health of our society.

Third of all, I have gotten a couple of more of the anonymous postcards, at least one instructing me to "use the clues" to figure out the sender's identity. To the sender, who I believe reads this page, I say this: I am obviously not going to figure this out, either through lack of wit or lack of interest. You seem to want to be discovered -- if so, either come clean or, preferably, just disappear.

And fourth: I have another new hero -- Al Franken. posted by Carlton at 5:14 PM

ITEMS OF NOTE

A fun job.

My hero has another column.

Everyone has to have a hobby. posted by Carlton at 12:00 PM

EVIL, ANYONE?

For those of us keeping score at home . .. posted by Carlton at 1:03 PM

MORE THAN FRIENDS

Some, uh, really odd pictures from the G8 summit.

posted by Carlton at 6:10 PM

THE POSTCARD STALKER RELOADED

Looks like I'm not the only one who has been on the receiving end of some anonymous postcards. If this is the same person, she's expanded her technique a bit since choosing me.

Interestingly, I began receiving mine shortly after this guy got his last one . . .

Freaky.

More soon.
posted by Carlton at 3:57 PM