My Favorite Tax Plan

We should do this. I'm not one for writing my representatives, but this is a radical, creative AWESOME idea that is PROGRESSIVE in nature.

I love it! (And I endorsed it, too! So should you!)

Don't Judge Me

I bitched about it. I did. The inspid, American commentary was terrible. If there was a simple explanation of what is wrong with the media today it was summed up in the truly pointless drivel that accompanied the Royal Wedding this morning.

Don't judge me. My mother offered free breakfast. So I made like an 80 year old man, took the Missus to bed at 9 o'clock last night and was up bright, early at the crack of dawn to watch the Royal Wedding. Live on drivel-tastic American television... (seriously- sometimes, the best moment of television don't need commentary. The media needs to learn that less can be more. Don't drivel on about the beautiful music, let us listen to the damn music. Seriously.)

Anyway: I'm a guy. And as a guy, I really could give a damn what I wear as long as there are no holes in the ass of what I'm wearing or the crotch. What I know about fashion could be inscribed on the head of a pin. But these hats:



these hats are crimes against nature. And what made it worse? Being Prince Andrew's daughter's- they were sitting right behind The Queen. (Other priceless moment that people seemed to notice: The Queen not singing 'God Save The Queen.' It made perfect sense to me- I mean, you can't really sing 'God Save My Gracious Me/God Bless My Noble Me/Long May I Reign...' that would be a little pretentious, no?)

Truth, Justice and... Somebody's Way?

So, Superman is renouncing his American citizenship and, in a twist of fate that makes me extremely happy, people are having a shit-fit about it. This makes me happy, because even after all this time, people care about Superman. People care about comics. The characters are iconic and really impact people. So truth, justice and the American Way is no more. I guess it's truth, justice and humanity's way? Earth's way? The United Nations way?

I don't like this. I didn't really like Superman Returns because it made Superman too untouchable, too divine, too much of a metaphor for Jesus for my liking. Superman needs to be human. He needs to be flawed and in touch with his humanity- that struggle, which defines the character in my book is what made Smallville some truly great television. At least the first five or six seasons of it. I don't know about seasons six through five hundred and twenty two. Seriously- is that show ever going to end?

At the end of the day, I'd like to think that Superman's appearance at a protest in Tehran with young people protesting against their tyrannical government is as American as apple pie. We're supposed to be about democracy, freedom and justice and all that crap. The 'last full measure of devotion' as Lincoln called it- a better story would be Superman getting STRIPPED over his American citizenship by a craven, weak, spineless government. And it doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat- I think we can agree that the government we have now is spineless and weak. It don't matter what party is in charge.

So, on the face of it: big deal. I don't think it's all that creative- Captain America renounced his citizenship back in the 70s for a bit, so what's the big deal. I think the biggest problem I have with this is that Superman is struggling as a character. Smallville works because it's relatable. The latest Superman movie have portrayed him as this almost divine figure. I prefer to imagine him struggling to understand and relate to his humanity. It makes him more human. Having him renounce his American citizenship only cuts ties to the one concrete bit of humanity he has left. He should have been expelled from America and stood up for how great America could be. The ideal America which seems to be so far away in these days of nonsense...

Changing My Tune

25 years after Chernobyl and with the current ongoing crisis at Fukushima Daichii in Japan, I'm going to have to do something fairly staggering: change my position on nuclear energy.

I think it's a bit of a shame. After all, we're one generation- just one- maybe two if we're lazy- of nuclear plants away from getting out of the fossil fuel business once and for all. Nuclear does have some extremely nasty byproducts, but it's clean, much better for the environment than coal and unlike wind, solar, hydro or wave power, it's something we can do right now.

Unless of course, it explodes.

Hence my newfound change in position. Would nuclear be the perfect energy to get us over the hump and away from fossil fuels once and for all? It would- if the political will and national sense of purpose were there to do it. Who are we kidding? No politician in this country is going to get us out from under fossil fuels. And if there's no clearly defined plan to perfect alternative energy to do that, then building a next generation of nuclear plants serves no purpose whatsoever.

So what to do? We can't survive on oil alone. Chopping the tops off of mountains in West Virginia ain't going to do it, either. Fracking has been causing Earthquakes in Arkansas. Oil sands from Canada just make more oil. We're crap at drilling for oil too apparently, given what happened in the Gulf of Mexico last year. I don't know what the answers are, but building a shiny new nuclear plant right here in Iowa is NOT the answer. I know that much.

Besides, everyone in the Middle East seems intent on burning the place down currently. And if $6 a gallon at the pump doesn't make people take another look at a hybrid, I don't know what will...

Let's All Act Our Age Now, Please

President Obama released his birth certificate today- a long form version, so that there will be no doubt, save in the minds of the creepy, paranoid just plain crazy people who will never be convinced no matter what he does. He did it, he said, to end the debate about 'the silliness' and move onto 'bigger things.' While it's easy to applaud the sentiment and funny that he followed that up with a long lecture to his BFFs, the Mainstream Media about encouraging this stupidity, it's worth noting that it's past time for the Left Wing to give up it's favorite sexist, creepy obsession: that of Trig Palin's parentage.

For those who hadn't heard: apparently Trig Palin's is Bristol's kid. There's a lot more nauseating sexism and misogyny to the story that I really don't want to get into here, but that's pretty much the long and short of it. Sarah Palin faked an entire pregnancy to make a point about teen pregnancy to her own daughter. It's creepy, sexist and downright disgusting and needs to be consigned to the realm of crazy, tin-foil hat wearing nutjobs along with the people that don't buy the birth certificate. (It's been less than a day, I'm sure there are some.)

Think I'm just spewing right wing talking points? (And if you're a good Liberal, you should be against things like sexism, right?) Consider this condemnation from Britain's Guardian newspaper- which is further left than any Democrat you've ever met.

My point: time for everyone to grow up.

Late Night Chronicles 82: Is Someone Getting Married This Week?

Published on Facebook. About a minute ago.

I've decided that the most irritating part of the British Royal Family is living in America. I'm sure people that live full-time in Britain have their own reasons for liking or disliking the monarchy, but living in America there are times when it becomes downright irritating and I can finally understand what Tony Benn, Christopher Hitchens and the rest of the snobby anti-monarchist republicans are getting at when they complain about the Royal Family. Especially on weeks like this.

Consider Sunday night: the Missus sat down, uploaded some photos from the weekend and watched The Insider- which is essentially 'Entertainment Tonight' without Mario Lopez on a different network and the big headline story on The Insider: Kate Middleton's weight. I rolled my eyes: who cares about her weight? Every woman who's ever lived wants to look perfect in her wedding dress and Ms. Middleton is going to be wearing the most examined, picked-over, analyzed wedding dress in the history of the entire world. She may have looked like she needed a nice, big, disgustingly greasy burger from somewhere like Hardees, but I also think it's probably better to look like Natalie Portman in Black Swan for a month or so than listen to a round of snide comments about a tiny ounce of backfat that some enterprising papparazzo espies with his telephoto lens.

The irritation of this insipid news story was then compounded- not only did The Insider feel the need to talk to experts about Kate's 'scary' weight loss, but they decided the height of expertise and the people who were in the know was the cast of Dancing With The Stars.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Who gives a damn what Ralph Macchio thinks of the Royal Wedding- and I'm sorry, but talking to Kristie Alley about weight loss? Not to be mean or anything, but she's had a little bit of a time getting it right herself- and granted, she's apparently doing a heck of a job on DWTS but it was all a bit too much to stomach.

What is wrong with America when it comes to the British Royal Family? Seems like whenever anything happens with the Royal Family, everyone's brains drip out of their ears and the entire country goes all googly over them. As far as I know (and if anyone British is reading this and can contradict me, please do) there were no commemorative Princess Diana Plates available EVERY SINGLE WEEK FOR A YEAR in the Sunday paper after her death. There might have been Beanie Babies for her (the Missus owns one. I haven't told my Diana-disapproving Mother yet) but I'm pretty sure that there's no radio station in the UK offering their listeners a chance to win a special replica of Kate Middleton's engagement ring. (Yes, Z102.9, I'm looking at you. Because I'm sure the people of Eastern Iowa will jump at the chance.)

So, Hitch, Benn, all you snobby anti-monarchist republicans: I get it. There's nothing like living in America to make you despise the British Royal Family.

That said, I don't think I'd be all that bothered by them if I lived in Britain full time (which I'd like to do some day). First of all, Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols hit the nail on the head: 'God Save The Queen/because tourists are money.' You can whine about what a bunch of inbred pillocks a lot of them are, but they do bring in tourists. People don't go to Britain to see empty, dusty palaces of an imperial past goneby. They want to see the big furry hats and the changing of the guard. It's the tradition, the pomp, the circumstance. Granted, a lot of these tourists will be twee Americans, but money is money.

Second of all, what's the big deal? That's what baffles me- unless you're going to fundamentally change the nature of British politics and move to an American style Republic (please don't- really, you'll regret it) or a French style Republic (why would you want too?) then you're going to have a purely ceremonial head of state, who smiles, waves and opens shopping malls- all things the Queen does anyway. So if I'm getting this right, snobby anti-monarchist republicans are asking for the right to select their meaningless figurehead? For God's sake, why? I could understand if the monarchy actually had real power- but it doesn't, so it's hard for me to be upset by it.

Now, could it use some modernization? Absolutely. Time for Prince Charles to learn how to do his own laundry and put his toothpaste on his toothbrush all by himself, methinks. And in an ideal world the vast majority of Royals should be working, paying taxes and not getting a damn thing from British taxpayers. The actual Monarch might deserve a small salary of some kind for putting up with politicians like, I don't know, Tony Blair but outside of that, cut their subsidies and send the buggers to work. I've got no problem with that.

But ending history, tradition and well, institutional memory on a whim, just because the snobs of the intelligentsia want the right to pick their own meaningless figurehead seems slightly silly. Is it worthy of great debate? Absolutely- but Britons beware: the day you decide you want a President is probably the day that Tony Blair announces his political comeback- which brings to mind the words of a truly great American, HL Mencken: 'Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.'

America (apparently the epitomy of republican ideals) gets the dubious honor of selecting it's head of state every four years. And here's a little secret for Hitchens, Benn and all the rest: 50% of the time we completely fuck it up. A halfway decent President these days is usually a complete fluke.

So if you live in America, yes, the British Royal Family can be quite irritating and if it was abolished, the media might actual report something useful for once. (Who am I kidding? Of course they wouldn't.)

But if you live in Britain, the grand old institution deserves a swift, modernizing kick in the backside- and that's certainly worthy of debate, but electing your own head of state? It's overrated.

(P.S. Mazeltov to the Happy Couple. Saturday can't come soon enough.)

Sounds Like Ron Paul...

is in.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson now has his work cut out for him. He needs to draw a contrast between him and Ron Paul if he wants to get anywhere at all. Quick, how many of you knew who he was and that he was running?

All in all, he should be a formidable player, but bad news, if there's any to be had comes down square on Gary Johnson.

Another question: what is Sarah Palin going to do?

Well, that was...

fast.

Barbour Is Out

Haley Barbour is not running for President.

Hmmmm... not sure what to make of this. People seemed to think that Barbour would have been a heavy-hitter had he jumped in, but a white southern governor with heavy ties to lobbyists would have come with all the usual baggage- and although he had gained prominence for his response to Hurricane Katrina and, I believe a stint as the head of the Republican Governor's Association he did not have a wide national profile.

This should add some more definition to a race that's becoming damn hard to get a grip on- though that's probably a good thing a million months away from the Iowa Caucuses. My initial instinct is to say that this seems like cautiously good news for Tim Pawlenty. Next question: what is Sarah Palin going to do?

Carter Lake, Iowa

I was in the lobby of a Days Inn in Council Bluffs (on some prior visit) when i noticed Carter Lake, Iowa. There was a large map of the surrounding area in the lobby and glancing at it- Council Bluffs on one side of the Missouri and Omaha on the other- I noticed a random suburb of what appeared to be Omaha named Carter Lake. Yet the state line spiralled out, west of the Missouri to encompass the town.

I was fascinated. What the hell was up with this? And if there's one thing amongst many in this world that I find fascinating, it's geographic anomalies. It turns out that once upon a time, Carter Lake was on the east side of the Missouri River until a flood in 1877 redirected the course of the river a couple of miles to the southeast. As a result, the bend of the river that Carter Lake nestled under was cut off (or avulsed, if you want the technical term) and became an oxbow lake (named Carter Lake, funnily enough) and stranded Carter Lake on the west side of the river.

This caused a bit of a spat between Iowa and Nebraska (soon to be eclipsed, I would imagine, by the upcoming Farmageddon hitting the gridiron turf in the fall) that had to be wrangled and refereed by the Supreme Court. Traditionally, the rule had been that state boundaries followed the natural borders of any given state- like rivers and the like, but the Supremes ruled that there was an exception when rivers cut chunks of themselves off- like in the case of Carter Lake.

Still technically part of Council Bluffs, they seceded in the 20s intending to become part of Omaha, but Omaha didn't want none of that- so they became their own little town. They became known as the hottest gambling spot between Reno and Chicago for awhile, as gambling was illegal in Nebraska but very much legal in Iowa for awhile there and now exist as a fascinatingly confusing bit of landscape that probably freaks people new to Omaha out, as they have to drive through a bit of Iowa to get to and from the airport.

In town for Easter yesterday, the Missus and I went driving and drove through this lovely little town. I would have liked to get some more pics of the Lake itself, but we forgot to turn and ended up in some truly scary looking neighborhoods in North Omaha- near where Malcolm X was born, strangely enough.

Omaha itself, was a mess. Everything seemed to be getting ripped up and it was a confusing jumble of identities. You could go from scary crackhouses to old rich money to hipster neighborhoods in the space of about five blocks. Though color me impressed: I didn't know President Ford was born in Omaha and in a strange twist of historical weirdness, so was Malcolm X. And thanks to the tour guide we knicked from the Travelodge, it turns out there's a lot more to do in Omaha that previously thought.

(Next bit of geographical Omaha weirdness: The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge- sadly barred to us due to the scary large SuperChurch services going on at the XCel Center for Easter. It's the longest pedestrian bridge connecting two states- 3,000 ft long right over the Missouri RIver.)

Albums2010 #38: Sigh No More

Mumford and Sons were another incredible surprise that again, is awfully hard to put a label on. Such music adds a certain zest and challenge to this project, but it also makes for complex, mature sounding music that is damn enjoyable to listen to.

So how do you describe them? For some reason, as I was listening to this album, I kept thinking: troubadors. Badass troubadors. Or possibly minstrels- and lo and behold, according to the font of all knowledge that is wikipedia, the album title 'Sigh No More' is a reference to Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing' (best Shakespeare movie EVER. Before what's-his-face got all mature and cynical and wound up on House M.D. plus: Emma Thompson: HOT.) And there is certainly something Shakespearean about them- bangos, folksy, even a vague spicy patina of bluegrass thrown in for good measure.

Wait- what's that you say? Did you say bluegrass? Do they have any American influences? Why- again, we refer to the font all of knowledge that is wikipedia and find that the songs 'Timeshel' and 'Dust Bowl Dance' were heavily influenced by Steinbeck's East of Eden, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Head Mumford Marcus Mumford added the following:

Mumford, in an interview, even compared touring to a Steinbeck adventure: "[Steinbeck] talked about how a journey is a thing of its own, and you can't plan it or predict it too much because that suffocates the life out it. That's kind of what touring is like. Even though there's a structure—you know what towns you're going to, and that you'll be playing a gig—pretty much anything can happen." Mumford also in his spare time runs an online book club on the band's official web site.

Whoa. So this guy is a serious fan of Steinbeck AND he runs an online book club on their official website? (Falls prostrate to the ground and repeats, in the voice of Mike Meyers: 'We're not worthy! We're not worthy!') What is there NOT to like? This is like a bunch of serious book fanatics got bored, started a successful band and decided to tour the world, play music and read books while they did.

It sounds too good to be true, but it's not: the music is fab and wanders back and forth between acoustic rock, folk and bluegrass seamlessly and with ease and makes for a fantastic mellow listen. There's up tempo happiness to be found here and gentle melodies to be found here and generally speaking this is an amazingly relaxed album.

Overall: Damn good stuff. Obviously, if you want to rage, scream and be angry you should throw Motorhead on your iPod and go from there, but if you want strummy guitars and mellow tunes Mumford and Sons is the place to be.

Albums2010 #37: The Suburbs

A far better Quebecois export than Celine Dion, Arcade Fire is one of those bands that can take you awhile to appreciate, understand and ultimately fall in love with. I've been pondering on why that is for awhile now, but think that I've finally managed to hit on an answer: they, more than any other musician/musical group/band that I've listened to over the course of this project deal in albums far more than singles.

What do I mean by that? When you think of Arcade Fire, you don't really think of a Top 40 radio hit. Turn on your local radio station: bet you don't hear any songs by Arcade Fire- but, here's the catch: as albums, they produce some brilliant gems. There's a reason these guys won "Album Of The Year' at the Grammys this year: it's because really and truly, they produced an amazing, complete album that lives up to the title.

These guys are unusual: they've got 8 members and play-guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin, and hurdy-gurdy. This isn't your average rock n'roll band, that's for sure-and it's hard to listen to one single Arcade Fire song in isolation. This album moves seamlessly from song to song, almost as if it's one, long experience.

So, The Suburbs: this is a damn difficult album to quantify. There's a certain sparse melancholy that seems to infuse a lot of the tracks of the album, which makes perfect sense to me. If Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town exposes the brutal, blasted wastelands of working class America to the world, then Arcade Fire turns it's equally powerful guns onto the spare, superficiality of life in the suburbs. It seems shiny and modern and yet underneath, there's angst and emptiness aplenty to go around. It seems to capture the mood of the Millenial Generation perfectly- which is why I keep meaning to burn The Quiet Man a copy.

But there's a catch: you jump from subdued melancholy into driving rock and back again throughout the album: the mood shifts. You could see these guys playing some tracks in rusty, run down smoke-filled clubs and you could see them playing other tracks to screaming hordes in sold-out stadiums- which just adds to the intriguing complexity of the entire album.

I had heard of Arcade Fire before this- listened to a track or two and didn't really seem like my cup of tea, but now I totally understand. Fans of Justin Bieber* take note: I firmly believe that the Grammys got this one absolutely right. The Suburbs is a complete package of songs that blend together to form an amazing album that truly was worthy of the title Album of the Year.

Overall: Amazing. If you've never wanted to dip your toes in the magnificent pool that is Arcade Fire, start here.

*A truly diabolic thought came to mind while driving out to Billion Hyundai this morning: maybe Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez are actually the same person! Has anyone checked into this?

Wild Whiskey Wednesdays #1

(Yes, my whiskey bottle FLOATS IN MID-AIR! The experiments with PhotoBooth continue!)

Kids, I promised you something new and exciting and here it is: Wild Whiskey Wednesdays. I don't know why I picked Wednesday- except maybe the alliterative aspect of the title, but I can tell you about whiskey. In my case, it ain't nothin' but a family thing. My Dad likes a good Single Malt, his Dad (my Grandad) liked a good single malt and there's enough Scottish blood floating around in my gene pool to make me as comfortable with whiskey as a duck is on water.

The first bottle of booze I ever purchased was a bottle of whiskey- a McCallan of some kind which was probably single malt and which I probably committed all kinds of crimes against by dumping Drambuie in it to make a Rusty Nail. I had a brief, strange love affair with Cutty Sark and Whiskey Sour Mix when I was an undergrad in college that flowered briefly and died- probably after overindulging one particular night in the Apartment with The Quiet Man and Mervgotti. (That happened a lot that year actually. One memorable night I got absolutely blasted and managed to down an entire sixer of Rolling Rock. And that shit, kids, did not taste good coming back up.)

I drifted away from whiskey for a bit, but came back to it in grad school- (don't we all) and actually wanted to learn something and appreciate what I was drinking. Several (whiskey can be an expensive vice to have) bottles later I've come to enjoy it greatly and just want to share some thoughts on my delicious vice. So without further ado, I give you April's offering:

The Glenmorangie Lasanta
Single Malt
Non-Chill Filtered (what the hell does this mean? Well chill filtering is used to remove excess residue from the whiskey mainly in the form of fatty acids, proteins and esters- proponents of the practice say that it improves consistency and flavor of the whiskey- opponents, the Sixteen Men of Tain amongst them say that it diminishes flavor.)
Extra Matured- In this case, the initial maturation was in bourbon casks and then a second round happened in Oloroso Sherry Casks- to 'create the rich, nutty flavor of the Lasanta. Why does maturation matter? Really and truly- flavor. If you get a whiskey that matured in port casks, it will have absorbed the sweetness of the port and so on and so forth.

Nose: well, kids I need a better nose. All I smell is a burning sensation in my nostrils. This shit is strong.
Brown sugar, vanilla, emerges on further sniffs. There's not a lot of fruit that I can smell, but I do agree that there's a certain dark nuttiness to it. I wanted to say almonds, but think, for some reason I'm going to have to go with walnuts.

Color: Honey (not really light enough to be what I would call gold, but not dark enough to be amber either.)

Taste: The initial taste sits very nicely on the tongue- it's smooth and goes down nicely- the afterburn follows in its wake.

AfterBurn: I think the best part of the Lasanta is the afterburn. A lot of Highland Single Malts have peat included in the water that's used in the distillation process, so their afterburns are pure smoke, sometimes. That can be delicious in the right circumstances- but the Lasanta is really perfect for a cold night- like this one. It hits the back of the throat and then works its way down, the warmth just spreading throughout what I believe the Scottish call 'the cockles of your heart.' Give this lovely thing credit: it does warm you right up.

Overall: B+ this is a very good Single Malt- but although it doesn't burn like a Highland Malt, it sits on your tongue smoothly and goes down in a rush of heat- perhaps a little too much heat for my liking. Therein lies the inherent contradiction of the Lasanta: I love the afterburn, yet I dislike it as well.

Late Night Chronicles 81: Tums By The Bucketload

Published on Facebook, 4/13/2011- you'll noticed that I skipped 78, 79 and 80. Those thoughts are a bit dated and I'm tired of writing about Libya. It irritates me.

I decided not to watch the news today. Between Republican saber-rattling about still more budget cuts and President Obama's promised speech on what he thought we should do about the deficit, I just thought that all the Tums in the world wouldn't be enough to hold down my bile. So I waited for the print version and kids, it turned out that I was right. Tums would have been needed. By the bucketload.

At this point, it's undeniable that we've got a little bit of a deficit problem. Everyone, despite the shortcomings in our education system should be able to do the simple math and think to themselves, 'damn, that's a lot of money. How are we going to pay that off?' Therein lies the question that will confront either President Obama for a second term in the White House or whichever Republican we are unlucky enough to inflict upon ourselves. The reason for my sense of utter disillusionment at this point is a deceptively simple one: everybody- and I do mean everybody is getting it utterly and completely wrong.

If there was ever an argument for a genuine, real, viable third political party in this country, the deficit mess should serve as no greater illustration for the need. As voters we are asked to choose between two social and political models: let's call them, for the sake of argument, the Red and the Blue- when one looks at what is being proposed and by whom, we find that both have serious shortcomings and both will ultimately produce failures- either though failing to achieve their objectives through political stalemate or through solutions so unpalatable to the majority of voters as to alienate large swathes of the political center.

The Red, (or Republican) would have us believe that all government is an inherent evil. No government, no Department of Education, little to no taxation and an end to all wasteful liberal frivolities like Seasame Street and Planned Parenthood. Entitlements too should be returned to the people- let people earn their money and play with it as they please. It is, after all, their retirement.

The Blue, (or Democratic) would have us believe that the rich aren't paying their fair share and if there is waste in government it is to be found in the Defense Department and moreover, the basic principle of Keynesian economics hold true- you spend more during a downturn until you can spend your way right out of it and then worry about balancing your budget.

The problem is, both of these visions- basic summations that they are, are utterly incorrect. I don't believe that all government is an inherent evil- I think we need less of it, but as President Obama himself said, it's not about bringing a machete to the table- we need smarter government- more decentralized government and more flexible government. Should some agencies be axed? Sure. Should some be consolidated? You bet- and more to the point, why do they all have to stay in Washington D.C.? Such a concentration of power in one place in the age of modern communications technology seems foolish- and given the distances involved, it isolates the center of power in this country from the vast majority of the rest of the country. People get so enraged with government and I think it's because, in general, we send people to Washington for decades at a time and then when they retire, they often do so straight into a lobbying position and never leave the place. How then are our leaders supposed to know the struggles of middle class America when they only see us on weekends?

I think the Department of Agriculture could be moved. (How much farming do they do in Washington, anyway?) The Department of Education could be scrapped. I'm not even sure why we have a Department of Commerce- Wall Street tends to fuck things up with the government's help and it's not like anyone's regulating commerce these days anyway. The Department of the Interior should, I think, perhaps be in the actual Interior and things like the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be scrapped as well. The President's right: smart government means going through every Agency and deciding what we really and truly need. At the end of the day, if we do that, then all Departments should emerge a lot thinner than they are now.

Entitlements are really easy if our politicians would actually have the courage to take them on. I'm not sure I'm down with Paul Ryan's mad plan on Medicare and Medicaid, but really and truly: we live longer than we did in the 1930s. Raise the retirement age to 70 and means test the shit out of these programs. To me- and maybe I'm crazy, but the point of the social safety net should be NOT TO NEED the social safety net. If I retire a bajillionaire- as we all wish too, then I don't need Social Security. Let someone else who actually needs it, take it. (And before Conservatives jump and down on the 'unfairness' of means testing, consider: you're not guaranteed anything in life. You could retire like Warren Buffet or you could end up like Ken Lay or Bernie Madoff. The whole point of means testing entitlements would be to ensure that they're there for the people who really need them- and unless you're Miss Cleo, you're not going to know if you need 'em until you get there.)

Taxes and Subsidies are more complicated- I've become increasingly convinced that the income tax, weighed down with it's loopholes and deductions is becoming rapidly useless. We're a consumer-based society and we like to buy shit The more money you have, the more shit you tend to buy, therefore the more taxes you pay. A progressive way of imposing a straight up sales tax could be devised (if you make less than X amount of dollars, you pay no tax) and every August you could have a tax free month- a yearly economic boost just in time for back-to-school shopping.

While I tend to roll my eyes when Republicans talk about how high and crushing corporate taxes are (really? BP made how much last year in profits? Is life really that hard?) I do think the examples of banks who took god knows how much in taxpayer money and ended up paying no taxes at all is fine example of grade A bullshit. Lower the corporate taxes, fine, but strip out every single last loophole to make sure that business pays something at least- and there should be a hefty surcharge if they come begging for a bailout from the government.

We should end every dollar of corporate welfare and subsidies should be put under a microscope. (I'm a fan of both Planned Parenthood and NPR, yet have to ask: if they could make it without Federal money, shouldn't they? Wouldn't that allow them more freedom to do what they do without their budgets become a political punching bag?)

We should End the War On Drugs. We lost, a long time ago.

We should wind up our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, double down hard to finish the job in Libya and excise every stupid example of waste from the Pentagon's budget. If you're spending tax money on a plane that flies backwards instead of equipping our troops with the best equipment you can, then that's unacceptable as well.

Basically: we need original, creative, radical ideas. None of which are to be found in Washington today.

Now, where did I put those Tums?

Don't Feed The Beast

A University of Iowa Professor has landed in some hot water after telling College Republicans to 'fuck off' after receiving notification of their annual event 'Conservative Coming Out Week.'

My initial reaction was: Who cares? Uber-Liberal Iowa Professor calls Republicans Names. Alert the media on that one- it's not like people didn't already know that the vast majority of faculty at Iowa were howlingly liberal anyway. I mean, Johnson County is known far and wide across the state as 'The People's Republic of Johnson County.' This is the most Democratic county in the entire state pretty much. You can count Republicans on one hand here, pretty much.

But, the Professor in question should have known better. If Republicans are good at one thing, it's making humongous deals out of relatively tiny things and reaping tons of political plaudits for themselves as a result. Look at what happens whenever anyone calls Sarah Palin a name. Her operation goes into overdrive announcing this to all and sundry and she gets a ton of free media as a result that gets Conservatives very excited. Expect a similar thing to happen here.

(Another point worth making: I don't know why Conservatives at Iowa feel so apparently ashamed of themselves. Every year, they're urged to set aside their shame and be OUT and PROUD of their Conservatism. I don't get it. I grew up in Iowa City and developed a healthy aversion to Socialism and Politically Correct bullshit that is the hallmark of Progressive Politics in this country as a result. I'm no fan of Republicans- they, as I've noted before in the past, seem to be very eager to get involved in my sex life which is just creepy- but the intellectual pillars of modern Progressive politics have long since been exhausted by the inexorable march of time itself. Clinging to them desperately, in the face of all common sense and new economic realities just makes the Left, such as it is in this country, seem more reactionary than Republicans themselves at time.)

Wave Off, Christie, Wave Off!

Please don't do this. Don't go on a some suicide mission against Steve King. Come to the 2nd District and take on Loebsack. He's a carpetbagger, after all- or will be when he moves down here.

It'll be a long shot to take out King. He's sitting pretty in the most Conservative part of the state and is an entrenched incumbent- but, give the Democrats some credit. Mrs. V will probably be the best candidate they can run against him.

Bookshot #19: The War Of The End Of The World

Author's Note: I'm playing with PhotoBooth on the SexyHandMeDownMac (what I'm writing this on- it's twin is the ScruffyWorkHorseMac) and decided not to go through all the bother of taking a picture and uploading it. The drawbacks of using PhotoBooth should be immediately obvious, so all future Bookshots will be using the traditional method of taking a picture and uploading it.



And look what I learned how to do! Tip of the hat to The Quiet Man for the tip! (It does help when you actually explore a program a bit before just taking a picture.)


It took me years to crack this book. For some reason, it looked fantastic, it was so dense and so meticulous and required so much attention to all the details sliding past you that I would martial an attempt to read it only to fall short or get distracted. This book is incredible, but it asks a lot of the reader- by the end of it, I actually liked that. Books shouldn't be easy, necessarily- it's nice when they are, but occasionally you need a real bastard of a book that pushes you to read every word and pour over every page, because the reward of conquering such a book can be great indeed- doubly so if the author has managed to write something actually worth reading.

Happily Mario Vargas Llosa delivers and then some. The War of The End of The World tells the story of Canudos, a brief rebellion that flared in the Northeast of Brazil at the end of the 19th Century and was brutally suppressed by the- then anyway, New Brazilian Republic- the back of the book describes the place this way:

Deep within the remote backlands of 19th Century Brazil, lies Canudos, home to all of the damned of the Earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars and their like. It is a place where history and civilization are turned upside down. There is no money, property, income tax, no marriage or census, no decimal system. Canudos is the revolutionary spirit in its purest and most apocalyptic form- a state that promises to be a libertarian paradise but that the forces of the modern world and the nation-state cannot tolerate.

Make of that what you will. However the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia tells a slightly different story. Basically, Canudos was founded by an itinerant preacher from rural Bahia by the name of Antonio Maciel who eventually became known as Antonio Conselheiro or Anthony the Counselor. He attracted a racially diverse mix of followers to the area and they founded a settlement that at its height attracted 30,000 inhabitants and developed a prosperous leather exporting business. They came under attack by the Government for a variety of reasons- first, was that they essentially expropriated the lands belonging to the very powerful land owners at the time and second, there were rumors that Conselheiro was a monarchist- something that the newly minted Republic of Brazil was not a fan of, to say the least.

There were three attempts to take the settlement that were repulsed by the inhabitants- a fourth finally overwhelmed them and during the last siege Conselheiro died of dysentery and the Brazilian Army showed little, if any mercy to any inhabitants that were left. Today, the old city doesn't exist anymore. It was drowned when a dam was erected on the nearby river in the 70s- and the old church that used to stand there is visible sometimes in low water.

So now that you've got a little bit of a background, how does Vargas Llosa do it? Well, I think the back of the book sums it up nicely- Canudos was a revolutionary uprising that challenged both the traditional landholders in the area and the centralization that was being promoted by the Republican government in the country- the tragedy of the book is that the people of Canudos, the poor, the wretched of the area were attracted to the place because for them, it was a better life. And that better life was worth dying for in the end- and the characters- and there are many of them, all seem to be willingly embrace that fate.

I won't bother trying to decode all the characters- read the book- I don't have that kind of time. But what I have been wondering about is what does it all mean? What is Vargas Llosa trying to say? Do the poor and wretched of the Earth rise up just to be slapped down every time? Are we all doomed to misery- is the promise of salvation afterwards enough hope to find some purpose in a cruel, cruel world? Is government bad? Is government good? Are the rich and powerful- whether they're reactionary (like the landowners) or progressive (like the Republic) inherently evil? Do people have a chance against such entrenched forces? I'm not sure if even Vargas Llosa knows for sure- but the people of Canudos struggled valiantly only to be mowed under by the forces of modernization.

Overall: if there's a book that I love, it's a book that makes me think. It's an author that can tell a huge, complex, insanely intricate story and yet be thought-provoking at the same time- with a special bonus of telling me something about history that I didn't already know. Haunting, beautiful, tragic, The War of The End of The World is a Latin American Masterpiece- if not a must-read for any serious student of world literature. Put this on the shelf right next to '100 Years Of Solitude' and keep it there!

This Little Piggy Went To Market...

...and 50 years back, this little piggy should have stayed home.

Yes, it's the 50th Anniversary of the Foreign Policy debacle to end all Foreign Policy debacles, the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Eat some pork, drizzle it in baco-bits and maybe deep fry it just to celebrate and then, when heartburn and indigestion set in, eat a shitload of antacids and wallow in the guilt that our President at the time (Kennedy. The supposedly awesome one.) sent I don't know how many people back to Cuba to do our bidding and then let them swing.

Yes, a proud moment in our checkered Cold War History. Go America!

'The Civil War'-- A Review

I had actually toyed with the idea of watching this massive documentary before the 150th Anniversary Celebrations got me all aflutter at the thought of the Civil War- after that happened, it became practically appointment viewing- and what an amazing appointment it was.

You hear things about 'Ken Burns' and 'The Civil War' everyone raves about it and what an amazing, engrossing documentary it is and blah, blah, blah- there's enough hype out there about this thing to make your average cynic roll his eyes- but guess what: this amazing, 9 episode, engrossing documentary on The Civil War lives up to every single bit of its hype and more.

Burns is brilliant: he takes what can be- and usually is, in many high school history classes across the country, a dry and dusty subject and he brings it to life, using a treasure trove of primary sources ranging from interviews to letters to the speeches of the people of that time. It has a powerful effect on you, listening to a gaggle of respected actors put those words in front of you and helping to bring them to life. It also helped to illustrate just how bloody the war really was at the end of it all- which again, is something you know, numbers wise, but you really don't get a sense of just how brutal it was until you sit through the sequence about Gettysburg or learn about battles like Cold Harbor and The Crater and how terrible the loss of human life was.

At Cold Harbor, Grant lost 7,000 men in 20 minutes. Think about that. Wrap your head around that- it's damn near impossible to do. We've been in Afghanistan for a decade now and we've still got a ways to go before we get anywhere close to numbers like that. At the Battle of The Crater, during the siege of Petersburg, Union forces blew a huge hole in the Confederate Defenses and rushed into the huge crater that resulted, intending to throw back the Confederates and break the siege- but didn't bring ladders and failed to take advantage of the surprise of the explosion and were pretty much slaughtered. It sounded terrible.

Burns is also careful to place every year of the war into its historical context: what was going on elsewhere in the world and the like- and talk about the influence of things like photography on the war and how technological change and advancement was going on, even throughout the bloody carnage of the Civil War itself.

No stone is left unturned and a, at least to my eye feels like a balanced, unbiased look at the conflict is promoted. Slavery isn't avoided, it's dealt with head on- and for all the moralizing you usually see about how wonderful the North was and how the war was clad in some shining noble purpose, Burns does not hide the fact that Lincoln never wanted this to be about slavery and took political heat in the North for the Emancipation Proclamation- but did it anyway.

The end of the series is especially poignant: between the tragic assassination of Lincoln so soon after the final victory and the dignified, quiet surrenders of Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnson- the last two Confederate Generals left standing by 1865, there's a sense of melancholy that permeates the series- the South is in ruins and what had they been fighting for? This sense of melancholy becomes downright haunting when Burns interweaves footage from the 1913 Anniversary Commemorations at Gettysburg and you see grizzled, aging veterans of the war shaking hands, coming together and setting aside their differences to recognize that old aphorism that politicians love to quote: that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. In no small part thanks to the last full measure of devotion given by the Blue and the Gray during that awful war, that can no be seen to be fundamentally true.

And Ken Burns brings it all to life.

Overall: This documentary deserves all the awards it won and more. Brings dry and dusty history alive and you'll learn more about the Civil War and really experience the war in a whole new way.

Queens v Presidents

Johann Hari, columnist for the UK's Independent and republican (as in the form of government, not the American political party) has seen the upcoming Royal Wedding and is less than pleased.

The tiresome debate over monarchy versus republic tends to emerge whenever the Monarchy in the UK has a wedding, a funeral, a whatever and it's usually the province of a vocal minority or hardcore Laborite Tony Benn- it's always kind of amusing to watch it from all the way over here. I mean, are Presidents really all that they're cracked up to be? Is picking a head of state really all that important- especially when your head of state is a ceremonial figurehead who, by the way, brings in a shitload of tourist money, every single year?

My ties to the United Kingdom are through blood and birth and apart from what I expect is going to be a lifelong habit of pronouncing blueberry 'bluebury' I'm fairly Americanized at this point, yet still, I think- and as pompous as this sounds- retain enough knowledge of my homeland to bring a somewhat unique perspective to the question.

Me: I'm all about the monarchy. Britain has a perfectly functional, healthy parliamentary democracy that has served it well for 4 centuries now- so why rock the boat? Why is it so damn important to have a President and be a Republic? America has the dubious honor of 'picking its own head of state' every four years- and you know what- I'll tell all these diehard anti-monarchists a tiny little secret: we always fuck it up.

Should the British Monarchy pay taxes? Damn straight it should. Should it, in a perfect world not cost British taxpayers a dime? Again, damn straight it should. Should it perhaps let go of some of the more stuffy, anachronistic traditions (does Prince Charles really need a servant to put toothpaste on his toothbrush? Really?) I think so. But ultimately, the monarchy represents something that America doesn't have and never will have: respect for history.

That's why I secretly love the monarchy. It's the tradition. It's the history of it- and although I don't watch the fawning, eye-roll inducing media coverage the Royals get over here, I gotta respect the institution. It's as British as tea, crumpets, soccer and Winston Churchill. Can they be modernized? Yes- and I expect Prince William will do that when he gets his chance. But I can't imagine Britain as a Republic of any kind. It's just too weird. And why does everyone want to be like America anyway? Our system of government is our worst export and having- and selecting Presidents is not all it's cracked up to be.

Latham, Loebsack On The Move

Damn. Looks like I won't get that inter-party slugfest I was looking forward to in 2012- Congressman Tom Latham is on the move south to the newly minted 3rd District where he's going to take on (in all likelihood) Congressman Leonard Boswell, leaving Steve King the new 4th District all to himself.

Dave Loebsack is also on the move south, wanting to avoid a match-up with Bruce Braley in the new 1st District and preferring instead to stay in the 2nd District- there are rumors that former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack is building support for a run somewhere and I'd really, really like it if she took Loebsack on. (Miller-Meeks vs Mrs. Vilsack! Now that would be a kick-ass Congressional race!)

The 3rd District should be a kick-ass, vicious race to watch. I like it. But the really interesting one in 2012 is going to be the 2nd District. Will Miller-Meeks go for a third try? Will Christie Vilsack take on Loebsack? Will Loebsack be able to win and hold his seat? Conventional wisdom says yes and the addition of more urban areas like the Quad Cities and Newton might be seen as an advantage for him, but the Quad Cities aren't as liberal as Cedar Rapids and I don't know about Newton- but it sure doesn't feel all that liberal to me.

Interesting stuff. Me likey.

A City With Vision

...that's Coralville, bay-bee. Our smaller neighbor wants to make a buck or two, so they're working on accepting all plans to figure out what to do with their Riverfront. Where's Iowa City's gumption? We seem to be more intent on being sclerotic and stagnant that trying to beat Coralville at it's own game.

(Sure, there's this. But they've been talking about this for years and I'll believe it when I see it. And then there's this. Um, OK?)

No Gameday Vendors?

If there's one thing I can admire about Iowa City, it's this town's propensity to constantly shoot itself in the foot. The latest in a long, long line of head-scratchingly amusing errors of judgement: banning vendors on Melrose Avenue during GameDays.

Wow. Remember far back in the mists of time when the school district banned Halloween? We couldn't have kids dressing up and witches because it might offend you know, witches. In my incredibly innocent elementary school kind of way, I was amused by this controversy: after all, it turned out that Regina, the Catholic hub of elite snobbery in town was the only school to have a Halloween Parade, complete with costumes and all for awhile there.

For an encore: they wanted to build a new mall. Iowa City thought about for ten minutes and decided that they wanted none of that action. So Coralville said, 'We'll take it' and downtown Iowa City has been a gutted wasteland of what it was once was ever since.

For a double encore: they wanted a convention center/hotel combo somewhere. Iowa City should have been all over this like a fat kid on a candy bar, but noooooooooo, we didn't want that either. It's not as if a Division I University would have found any use for one of those. So Coralville took that too.

I could go on and on and on, kids, I really could. Whether it was the quixotic attempt to block the First Avenue Extension or the way Elite Liberals in this town automatically assume in that wonderfully racist they have that any arrested south of Burlington has to be 'one of those people' or 'obviously from Chicago,' Iowa City never ceases to amaze me with it's collective stupidity.

And now this: after years of these vendors operating without problem along Melrose on gameday, they want to ban them. Yet curiously, they don't want to enforce the ordinance against parking on the grass- which brings up once again the age old question of 'cui buono' or 'Who benefits?'

The answer should be obvious: money-grubbing homeowners have decided to start wringing their hands in despair over the state of their poor, poor neighborhood so they can score more parking and therfore more money on gamedays. After years of these vendors operating on gamedays with nary a problem, the fact that this has crept up so suddenly is suspicious indeed. Not conspiracy theory suspicious, but suspicious nonetheless. Personally, I think fans should boycott all parking on Melrose if these vendors are banned. Or at least demand that the City enforce ALL ordinanances along Melrose Avenue.

(Two more things to note as a mild post-script: first of all, I have no sympathy whtsoever for these homeowners. You made the choice to live next to a 70,000 seat Stadium. Your choice. Not mine- yours. Therefore, suck it up and deal with it or move somewhere else. Second of all, is anyone else tired of whiners? People whine about urination and out of control tailgating and yet whine when law enforcement produces a plan to start doing something about it. People whine about the out of control drinking in downtown then whine that the cultural character of downtown is being destroyed when the City passes a 21-only ordinance- because One-Eyed Jakes with such a throbbing center of light and culture. Please.)

UPDATED: See? People agree with me.

Exciting?

If this comes to fruition, it will be- perhaps! There have long been rumors that the Dragonriders of Pern series is being adapted by some Hollywood scribe or another but nothing seems to come of them.

No, No, No...

...a bad idea suddenly gets worse. No, no banning of secret videos anywhere. If these farms were treating animals the way they were supposed to, there'd be no need for these videos. Companies need to behave better, not ban critics from secretly filming them.

I do think this Amendment is designed to kill the Bill, more than anything else. I can't imagine Matt McCoy being serious about this.

Oh wait. I can.

This Is Why...

...I didn't go to Prom.

Well, that and the awkwardness, social ineptitude, general weirdness and the fact that at the time, women avoided me like the plague.

But really: I don't think I regret it too much. I went to Party After my Senior year and that was a lot of fun- would have been more fun with alcohol, of course, but I still had fun. MORP, the crazy, costume-wearing madness for underclassmen and (presumably) dectractors of Prom was a lot more fun. I went to that twice. And managed to get a date both times...

Qadafi Could Run Out Of Cash...

...unfortunately, not soon. In a few months, says the latest official to defect from Tripoli. NATO is also being urged to up its attacks on the Qadafi's heavy weaponry and it wouldn't surprise me all that much if discreet arms sales and training of the rebels start- if they haven't already.

This is going to be a long one, I think. Qadafi is a crafty bastard and won't go easily- but we should have known that going in and not been so half-assed about it. I heard Hillary Clinton on the radio yesterday applauding the arrest of deposed Ivorian Strongman Laurent Gbagbo and found myself cursing my ineptitude for not voting for her in 2008. I had some valid reasons at the time, but suddenly, they don't seem quite so valid anymore. She would have been an AMAZING President. Certainly better than what we've got going now...

(When Howard Stern is unimpressed, then you know you've done a half-assed job.)

The LensCrafters of Big Abortion...

That's what Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann dubbed Planned Parenthood on her latest swing through Iowa. She was in Iowa City last night, but I didn't go. I figure if she does run for President she'll be back through here again so if I'm that tickled by her campaign, I'll have opportunities to see her again.

But: this Social Conservative crap needs to change it's tone. The rhetoric seems reckless and out of control and it's going to turn moderates and independents off if the Republicans nominate a candidate who runs this far to the right on social issues. Now, I get it: if social issues are important to you, then I don't expect you to compromise your principles. Personally, I think less abortions would be a good thing- but I also think high quality family planning services are also a good thing and Planned Parenthood provides lots of those. I also think that with divorce rates for straight couples in this country running at about 50% or so long before the gay marriage issue came to the forefront, I'd say marriage has been in trouble for awhile now and it has nothing to do with the gays! (And I'm pretty sure no less an authority that Jesus himself said something meaningful about getting the two by four lodged in your eyeball pried loose before worrying about the splinter in your neighbor's eye. So we can do with less hysteria on that score too, please...)

But I do get it: people of faith care about these issues and this is America- there's a lot of church-going folk here. But there's got to be a way to speak to those issues without sounding, oh, how do I put it? Well: without sounding completely batshit crazy to the large swathes of people that don't share your extremist theology.

Besides: 'the LensCrafters of Big Abortion?' Really? How's LensCrafters going to feel about that?

Yuri's Night

In a weird intersection of historical anniversaries, today also marks the 50th Anniversary of human spaceflight. 50 years ago today, the Soviets beat us into space and Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth for 108 minutes.

I hope the Russians get their groove back, I really do. I admire the Russians when it comes to their space achievements, I really do. America put Skylab up and it fell down- Russia had the Mir Station up for at least 20 years after its sell by date and held the thing together with duct tape and spit for at least 5 years towards the end before, reluctantly letting it fall down and to me, it may have become a floating tin can death trap, but it was one hell of a technical achievement that it stayed up for as long as it did.

But really, the Russians can be summed up in this wonderful little story: America spent millions of dollars trying to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity. What did the Russians do? They used a pencil.

See? Those are the kind of scrappy, sensible people I can admire. A lot of our Apollo astronauts were the same way of course, but something went weirdly awry somewhere and we ran the car off the tracks by dicking around in low earth orbit with the shuttle for as long as we did. NASA needs vision, NASA needs ambition and more importantly, NASA needs a swift kick in the ass from the burgeoning private space industry- and I hope like hell they get it. Because America needs to get its space groove back too.

Time to explore the Final Frontier, kids. Let's make the next 50 years as amazing as the first have been... (Interesting question posed by the Beeb: what if the Soviets would have beaten us to the moon? Hmmmm...)

UPDATED: The super-weirdness continues- it's also the 30th Anniversary of the first flight of the Space Shuttle- April 12th, 1981. I had no idea. Shows you how much of a nerd I really am...

Civil War Sesquicentennial Begins

Charleston held (and I believe is holding) commemeorations today marking the start of the Civil War, 150 years ago today with the attack on Ft. Sumter. Union troops held out for 36 hours before surrendering the fort to Confederate forces and amazingly, there were only two casualities: a Confederate horse and one Union soldier who died with a gun misfired as surrendering Union troops fired off a salute to the Union flag.

Kids, I'll give you fair warning: it's entirely possible that I'll spend the next four years in a giddy state of historical nerd-excitement and might turn into a fully fledged Civil War buff. I'm already scanning Mapquest.com to see if a trip to Gettysburg might be possible on our way back from Philadelphia later this summer and there are some Civil War sites like Shiloh or Vicksburg that are probably closer still. As I'm going to be 78 when the bicentennial rolls around in 2061, I'd like to soak up everything I can while I still have both my hips in good working order.

Alexander, Bolte Drafted

Iowa's Kachine Alexander and Iowa State's Kelsey Bolte were both picked up in the WNBA Draft yesterday- Alexander returns to her hometown of Minneapolis to play with the Minnesota Lynx and Bolte heads south to play with the Atlanta Dream.

While I can't say that I've ever actually watched a WNBA game, I'm glad it's there. There's so much talent in the women's game, it would have seemed a little strange not to have a professional league for them to play in- and both Alexander and Bolte are talented enough that they more than deserved a shot to play at the next level.

(I think I posted on this before, but I'll ask the question again: given the odd popularity of the women's game in-state, could Iowa support a WNBA franchise? Looking at the map of the league, I'd say it might be possible. Professional sports franchises tend find their strength depending on the relative size of their media market- but that hasn't stopped teams like Clevland or San Antonio from having relative amounts of success in the NBA- and a WNBA team based in Iowa would have the advantage of not being hip-deep in other franchises. Minnesota and Chicago have WNBA teams but St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee- all of them do not. Reading a little about the history of the franchise, it seems that expansion or even maintenance of a lot of teams does become an issue, long term- at least three WNBA teams have folded during the league's existence and dispersal drafts have had to be held. But if Des Moines' continued growth attracts money and media heft, it's entirely possible that the discussion could come up- and maybe a WNBA franchise would work. Maybe it wouldn't...)

Gbagbo Arrested, Qadafi To 'Talk' Peace

Ivory Coast's former President Laurent Gbagbo has been captured after a French military operation in the capital of Abidjan... hopefully this will start restoring some order to the violence-torn nation- and soon.

Colonel Qadafi has rolled out the red carpet to a delegation of leaders from the African Union who came carrying a roadmap for a peace plan. He has, apparently, accepted it in principle- yet shelling continues. Undeterred, the AU Delegation is heading to Benghazi to put it in front of the Rebels. They've said any plan that doesn't involve the good Colonel leaving will be unacceptable to them.

Color Me Excited

...OK kids. Small confession to make here: I'm a recovering Trekkie. Or Trekker. Whatever the correct term is- but in the distant realms of my spotty youth, I did carry quite the torch for Star Trek. There were books. There were posters. There were episode guides. It wasn't all that pretty and when I was watching the Mr. Bean movie and realized that Harris Yulin was in the movie and suddenly realized what episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine he had guest-starred in (there have been several, before any over zealous fan boy/girl sends me a list) I decided that might have a problem.

So, reluctantly, I stepped back. I live maybe 10 minutes away from Riverside, Iowa the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk and I've never once been to TrekFest. (I might- might have to remedy that this year.) And in general, I can enjoy Star Trek now, but not obsess over it. Deep Space Nine is probably one of the grittiest pieces of science fiction space opera that's been on television ever. You have to appreciate the original series if for no other reason that the first interracial kiss on network television was groundbreaking to say the least. And The Next Generation? Well, come on now: Patrick Stewart- total badass. Things went a bit wobbly with Voyager, but the quality stayed high. Enterprise: sucked balls.

And now, every single episode is coming to Netflix Instant. Kick. Ass.

History In The Air

With the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War two days away, history is in the air. I'm working my way through Ken Burns' majestic and all-encompassing documentary: 'The Civil War' (courtesy of Netflix streaming) It's slow, slow going as episodes seem to be about an hour a pop, but it's amazing. Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about The Civil War but were afraid to ask.

Re-enactors are also getting excited. A starburst shell is set to light up Charleston Harbor on Tuesday to mark the start of a 30 minute cannon bombardment by re-enactors to mark the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. Big numbers are expected for the Anniversary of the First Battle of Bull Run in July and even bigger numbers are anticipated for Gettysburg in 2013. I think I'd like to make it to one of these re-enactments... we're going out to Philadelphia to visit a friend later this summer. Maybe we can swing through Gettysburg- and if not this summer, then I'm thinking 2013?

In Canada...

...I'm apparently a Liberal.

Not that anyone's remarked on it much, but Canada is enroute to a Federal Election in a few weeks and, like it's British Counterpart, the CBC has fantabulous election widgets and coverage of all the action up there.

They also have this. I decided, in a fit of curiosity, to see where I'd land on the Canadian political spectrum, so I took the quiz. Answered honestly as I could and gave no opinions as to the potential Prime Ministers in waiting- since I really can't rate any of them and it turns out, I'm pretty damn Centrist in Canada, yet closest to the Liberal Party. (For the purposes of this quiz, I decided I was going to be older than 18 and from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Just because.)

However, when I broke it down question by question a rather interesting trend emerged- and it's unclear just how significant this trend was because it cut across parties and there was plenty of overlap, but I appeared to swing wildly to the left. The three main Leftist parties, the NDP, Greens and Liberals lined up with me for 20 on my answers- while the Conservatives amounted to 9 answers, the Bloc Quebecois 5 and 8 answers were outliers that didn't match with anyone.

I'm not clear what this means, but I think it means something. (Probably that I SUCK at regression analysis.) So get your Justin Bieber on and see where you lie on Canada's wild roller coaster of a political spectrum...

Gbagbo Out

The nitty-gritty is being worked out, but it looks like Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo is set to stand down in favor of his internationally recognized competitor, Alesane Ouattara who won a disputed run-off election earlier this year. The battle for Abijan between the supporters of the two Presidents had been raging for a couple of days now- and it looks like a combination of UN and French military intervention seems to have finally persuaded him to step down.

While the eyes of the international community seem to have been more fixed on events in the Middle East, the violence in the Ivory Coast has been extreme as forces loyal to Ouattara advanced southwards towards the capital of Abijan. While I've got to applaud the newly muscular French foreign policy (nothing like bombing some people to help your election chances, eh Sarkozy?) that's emerging for getting rid of this guy, again, this would have been a lot more helpful had it come sooner- though to the credit of France and many other countries, there had been widespread international pressure building on Gbagbo for some months now- not that the American media was going to report it or anything.

Bonus for all you readers wondering why the hell you should care: gas prices we notice more, but have you noticed the price of candy? It's gone up- and I'm not an economist, but when the world's leading supplier of cocoa drops into what amounts to a Civil War, it probably drives prices up. Now that Gbagbo's apparently on his way out, hopefully those of you craving your chocolate fix will be able to get it without hurting your wallets quite so much.

UPDATED: Yeah, not so much apparently...

Shootout Near Sigourney

A Keokuk County Sheriff's Deputy was shot and killed in the line of duty yesterday while exchanging fire with a man engaged in a standoff in a house near Sigourney- that man was later shot and killed by the State Patrol's Tactical Team. It was the first time in 25 years that an Iowa Law Enforcement officer had been shot and killed while on duty.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and everyone down in Keokuk County today...

And may all our Law Enforcement Personnel continue to stay safe!

50 Years Of Spaceflight

...coming up April 12th is the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space. And there are some kick-ass celebrations planned apparently.

But whither goeth spaceflight in the next 50 years?

That's a murkier question. NASA seems to be flailing without the shuttle and it's attempt to go back to the big, heavy lift, Apollo-style rockets to spur a return to the Moon and then possibly Mars after that ran aground on the rocks of the hard fiscal realities we're trying to deal with. China is tip-toeing into the human spaceflight game and Russia has a good thing going selling seats to the International Space Station but is no where near what it once was in terms of space power.

So where to from here? Should we even bother? I would say yes. Population here on Earth continues to go up, up and up, and technological progress goes with it yet we can never be sure of our survival as a species until we establish permanent colonies on other planets in our neighborhood. That lofty goal might be centuries off, but the fact is that death from above can occur at anytime and Bruce Willis won't be there to save us. If an asteroid comes, we're done. Game over. And then thousands of years of history, culture, art, progress, technology- all of it will be gone and for what? It's not like the Universe at large will care. So for me, it's a long term self-preservation argument more than anything else.

There are issues to overcome though: the amount of radiation in space and on, say, Mars would require us to live underground pretty much most of the time unless terraforming can be raised from science fiction to science- which I don't know is possible or not anytime soon. Radiation would also impact human fertility. There's no point in establishing a Mars colony if no one can have babies.

Then there's Earth's gravity well. The sheer cost of space travel, which a lot of people see as a needless waste of time can be chalked up to the problems of getting people away from gravity. Things like a Space Elevator (again, science fiction-y, but people are really working on making this happen- albeit slowly) or building a ship in orbit would solve that problem. The moves that both the Bush Adminstration and now the Obama Administration have made towards opening up space to private enterprise might spur competition enough to find another solution to the problem entirely. But if you can make gravity less expensive, then space travel, such as it is, becomes a whole lot cheaper.

So what would I like to see in 50 more years? I'd like to see us go to Mars, establish a more permanent presence in space- either on the Moon or at another station and I'd really like technological progress towards mitigating radiation and Earth's gravity well to make space travel and potential colonization more palatable and more of a reality.

No Ring For Wills

Hmmm... apparently Prince William won't be wearing a wedding ring.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Certainly, it's inspired a lot of controversy and discussion and at the end of the day it comes down to whatever personal choices the couple wishes to make, but I would tend to vote in favor of a wedding ring. Maybe I'm secretly a traditionalist, but it never occured to me not to wear one. I know some people hyphenate their names or some women keep their maiden name instead of taking their husband's last name and that tends to be thought of in some circles as a hip, modern thing to do, but not wearing a wedding ring?

To me, it's weird, because it's a big deal and yet not a big deal at the same time. I haven't been married that long in the grand scheme of things, so I barely notice the ring anymore, yet feel oddly naked without it on and I really do think of it as a symbol of a marriage. Yet there's also so much more to a successful marriage than a simple ring.

And that's really where the discussion ends if you think about it. Every marriage is unique and to make marriage work you need more than a ring. It's sappy, but it's about your committment to your spouse more than anything else. And if Wills and Kate have that (which I think they do) they'll be fine- rings or no rings.

Don't Pull A 'Lost'

Apparently, the ending of 'Lost' has become synonymous with rage-inducing weirdness that alienates fans and generally pisses people off. Forthcoming HBO Series 'Game Of Thrones' author George RR Martin recently confessed his fears of 'effing up the ending' and 'pulling a Lost.'

This inspired the ire of 'Lost' co-creator Damon Lindelof via Twitter so I guess we have another mindless celebrity feud on our hands.

But, there are a few things worth noting:

1. Martin needs to have an ending, before he can worry about 'effing it up.' As of this writing, his fantasy series 'A Song Of Fire and Ice' remains unfinished.

2. Better advice for Martin: don't pull a Robert Jordan. Who, unfortunately, died before he could finish his series, 'The Wheel of Time.' (Brandon Sanderson is stepping in to finish it off using Jordan's notes.)

3. As finales go, 'Lost' doesn't sound half-bad. I mean, if you were a fan of the show, you should have realized that something damn strange was going on in about Season 1. There are worse finales. 'Seinfeld' springs to mind, but I was never a huge fan of that show. If you want to go old school, I can't imagine something more irritating that getting invested in a television show just to discover that it was all a dream ('Roseanne' or 'St Elsewhere') or even just ending randomly, apropos of nothing like 'The Sopranos.'

Kids,,,

I'm feeling a little introspective today- not really about life, but more about this blogging endeavor of mine. It's going well and I've managed to keep it active with some success, but I think I want to start concentrating more on quality not necessarily quantity and expand my topical horizons a little bit. I may love the news and I certainly am not shy about commenting on the events of the day, but there's more to me than that- and that should be reflected a bit better in this blog. So, as we head towards summer keep an eye out for the following:

1. Albums2010: I decided to try and listen to 100 albums last year and review them all. I need to step my game up and get this done.

2. Adventures In Gardening: The Missus and I just spent the weekend landscaping our yard for a vegetable patch out front and plant herbs, flowers and even strawberries in various pots and hanging baskets around our front porch. The amazing adventure: watching them all grow (or not).

3. Bookshots: These may be awhile in coming, but there's a small pile of books with my name on it and I'm going to read them.

4. Wild Whiskey Wednesdays: I love scotch. So I think I'll drink that and share.

...and in general, I want to blog more about where I go and what I do and what's going on in the community. Take some photos (if I can manage to reclaim my camera from the Missus that is) and enjoy this beautiful weather, because I don't know about you, but I'm ridiculously excited for warm weather again.

Ooooh, Sexy...

The Gazette is floating this suddenly sexy possibility for a potentially new 2nd Congressional District (assuming the First Plan is approved): Loebsack v Vilsack?

That's former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack that is! She hails from Mt. Pleasant and Loebsack hails from Linn County- but has pronounced himself willing to move to avoid going up against First District Incumbent Bruce Braley.

I like this idea. I like it a lot, actually. Christie Vilsack, from my limited knowledge of her resume looks to be a very accomplished woman and as first lady she lead a statewide literacy intitiave which I totally approve of- and I think she'd be a far more dynamic and exciting candidate that Loebsack would. No offense to our Congressman, but I'm not really all that enthusiastic about him. He tends to fade into the background and pop up every couple of years just to remind you that he's still around- and maybe that's the best thing for a politician to do, but I'd like a touch more dynamism. Or if he is doing awesome things (which he might well be) it'd be nice to get a memo or something, that way I know and don't prejudge the guy for looking like a seat-filler.

But, the even sexier (and just as an aside: I don't mean 'sexy' in a gendered type of way. I mean 'sexy' in a weird, nerdy way of saying 'coooooool.') possibility looms that if Christie Vilsack wants and/or gets the nod, she could well be going up against Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (presuming she wants a third try at this) and then, finally, FINALLY Iowa could send one of two extremely qualified women to Congress.

That is something I can get excited about.

No, It's Everybody's War On The Young

A column I stumbled across from The Washington Times has managed to irk me greatly- the tiresome old meme of 'oh, those naive young kids who voted for Obama. What rubes! We old people know best' that Conservatives love to sneer about these days is on fine display in all it's glory, accusing Obama of waging an 'energetic war on the young' and how, us poor college kids/recent college grads don't know that a lifetime of servitude to big government awaits and haha you silly bastards, this is what you get for voting for Obama!

First of all: could I just say that it would be thrilling to see the President wage an energetic war on anything at this point in Presidency. (Afghanistan springs to mind, for instance. Maybe even that turd sandwich of Libya he's so hot on.)

Second of all: I really don't know why this bothered me. It's the Washington Times. I'm pretty sure the Reverend Moon owns this thing. Not exactly the pinnacle of awesome journalism.

Third of all (and this is the meat and potatoes kids): This really pisses me off sometimes. What am I, Bambi? For all the posturing and gloating this column does it fails to mention a fairly salient point in all of this: Republicans are no picnic. Yes, I did vote for President Obama. No, I probably won't do so again- but understand this: I don't believe in the brand of Christianity that wants to force itself on people. I don't like social conservatives trying to convert me to their brand of Christianity and I really don't like hypocrisy from Republicans who preach about the evils of government, yet want to get it just small enough to get into bed with Americans everywhere to make sure they're not sleeping with someone who's the wrong gender or into anal sex or things like that.

So yes, I voted for President Obama. Because I want no part of the so-called Culture Wars- I just want to be left alone. I don't want sermons on morality or the supposed evils of gay marriage. People can believe what they want to believe and that's fine. I'll be over here believing what I want to believe all by myself.

And another thing: yes, college professors did try to spoon-feed you left wing bullshit in college, but I'm certainly no brain-washed zombie and neither are a lot of people my age that I know. Young people may be Bambi-esque at times, because we're young and idealistic and haven't had life to beat the shit out of us yet, but we're also incredibly cynical. And I have a lot of faith in that cynicism.

Basically: Republicans suck. Stop pretending like you're friends to the young when you are just as bad as President Obama is.

The Money Race

Well this has changed the 2012 equation just a little bit. It seems like no Republican wants to take a shot at President Obama next year- and to be frank, their bench is shallow this year. Very, very shallow. Candidates like Mitch Daniels may talk sense, but they're about as appealing as a slice of wonderbread. Sarah Palin has been too coy for far too long (though she could make plenty of noise if she choose to run- but Fred Thompson played coy in 2008 and flamed out- hard.) Mitt Romney has health care hanging around his neck. Huckabee has too narrow of an appeal, Pawlenty might be serious but doesn't have a high national profile.

And then there's Michelle Bachmann and the Pauls. Bachmann put up an impressive $2.2 million in the first quarter and only libertarian die-hards Ron and Rand Paul put up more. Now money doesn't necessarily equal viability- or that you're going to win or even get the nomination, but $2.2 million is a serious number.

Politically speaking, it's hard to say what Republicans will need to make a serious run at unseating President Obama- funnily enough, I learned recently that President Carter was the only Democrat in history (I think- at least in the 20th Century) to not get re-elected when standing for a second term- so intangibles tend to be on the President's side in 2012. It stands to reason that Republicans should be looking for someone who can harnass the incredible energy of the Tea Party and Bachmann, though her social conservative views make her a complete anathema to me personally might just be the candidate do that.

But is she too polarizing to win? It's worth noting that everyone thought Reagan was too polarizing to win and he managed too. And Bachmann doesn't have the national profile that Sarah Palin does. Moderates are now all too familiar with Palin rants and Facebook notes- they've become an expected part of the media cycle now and although Bachmann's been out there a few times and had her shares of mis-steps, there's nowhere near the danger of overexposure that Palin now risks should she run. I think... reluctant as I might be to say it, that Bachmann may have read the tea leaves correctly. She can appeal to the Tea Party and her Social Conservative credentials are impeccable- but the question becomes: can she appeal to moderates, independents and the center? Will she drown everyone in social issues and turn off half the country in the process?

All interesting questions- and with $2.2 million in the bank, all just become a lot more pressing...

A Defense Of Anti-Intellectualism?

Hmmm... interesting links over at Instapundit lead first to this and then to this interesting quote from noted (and excellent) author Neil Stephenson:

The twentieth century was one in which limits on state power were removed in order to let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. . . . We Americans are the only ones who didn’t get creamed at some point during all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals.

I have to ask though- it seems like both these arguments, if they're not essentially Libertarian in nature tend to be more Conservative in nature- and yes, nothing in either the link or the quotation is wrong. President Wilson would be, I suppose, what you would consider an intellectual. He was terrible at foreign policy. He couldn't even get the Treaty of Versailles approved. The Nazis didn't have brutes with limited brainpower doing their dirty work- no, it was Doctors, Scientists and Bean-Counters galore- all educated, 'intellectual' people were at the frontlines of evil or just plain incompetence. (Not that I want to put Wilson in the same boat as the Nazis- just wanted to float an American example and a well, evil example.)

So they're not wrong. But what I have issues with is the constant drumbeat coming from Conservatives that education is somehow bad. Whether that's just my impression or if there's actually some basis in fact to it, I don't know, but there always seems to be a sneer permanently engrained on the faces of many Conservatives when they talk about education. Fancy education. Soft education. Liberal education for weeny, girly-men that don't know the value of a hard day's work.

Now, no doubt: education in this country is a mess. But I think both sides of the debate confuses education and 'intellectualism.' I want to be a life-long learner- that's the value of the education I've gotten, such as it is- I want to keep learning. But I don't want to be an 'intellectual' of any kind. I believe in ideas and the power of ideas and I'd like to get together and talk to people about ideas- but only if those ideas and debates actually go somewhere and can be translated into real solutions. Navel-gazing and drooling on yourself or going around and around and around over the same tired debates are indeed the hallmarks of intellectualism in this country- or they seem to be, from where I'm sitting.

But 'intellectualism' and 'education' need a little bit of separation if we're to fix education at all levels in this country. I work hard and I'm pretty damn educated. That doesn't mean I'm a sad, pathetic loser to be sneered at- which is the sense I think a lot of people get from certain corners of the Conservative end of things- and I'm certainly no intellectual 'pursuing the life of the mind' or anything like that.

So sure, criticize intellectualism. But don't use that as a cover to devalue education, which is critically important for every American to get, in some form or another.