Proud To Be a Vacuous American

If I hear one more republican spew crap like Mitt Romney did at the RNC this year, I'm going to freaking lose it: "Just like you, there has never been a day when I was not proud to be an American. We inherited the greatest nation in the history of the earth."

Ok, for starters - I can inherit my mother's china and then proceed to use it in the microwave and feed my cats with it. The china is probably not going to be as pristine as it was when I inherited from her. Well I'm not sure I'm too proud of the greed and bad decision making that destroyed our economy (thanks for that deregulation stuff, republicans - you're right - the market can totally take care of itself! Just watch it do it! Oh wait, didn't you just pump hundreds of billions of dollars into because it isn't taking care of itself? Hmmmm....).

I'm also not proud that we went into Iraq based on a lie (that Al Qaeda is there). What really gets me is so many people still think it's true, even though it wasn't! But even more shameful are the republican politicians still asserting it as fact and claiming that going into Iraq helped prevent future attacks against America. I'm calling bullshit on that one. Here's what the moron Sen. Lindsey Graham said at the RNC: "Because losing in Iraq would have been a nightmare for America. Al' Qaeda would have claimed victory over our nation."

Wow - now I'm really not proud that there are still those in office that are stating this bullshit in 2008, a good 4 years after the 9/11 Commission stated there wasn't a connection. Most likely he's aware of this, but he knows there are enough stupid people registered to vote who will believe what he's saying is face and vote for McCain based on how the Iraq war has prevented Al Qaeda from attacking us again.

This election is killing me...

The comfort of opinions without the discomfort of thought

If your answer to the question, “Why are you voting for _________” includes anything about hockey, mothers of five, cocktails or beers, or being able to have a conversation with the person (because they don't talk all smart-like), you are not using your brain and actually evaluating a candidate on the issues. You know, those boring policy thingies that they push once they're sworn in? Yeah, see it isn’t their personality or ability to drive a minivan to a hockey game or even the fact that decades ago he may have been in a box. What really is going to affect your life is the legislation and decisions they make. The campaign is just a show. The next four years will be the real thing.

And to all of you Undecideds out there. You wear your “Undecided” status like it’s a badge of honor. Because the media talks about your group all the time, you think, “Wow, my opinion really matters! I’m important!” Well you know what? You ARE important, but in a dangerous way. If you seriously aren’t informed enough about the issues to be able to pick a candidate by this point, then dude – just don’t go vote. Your vote will be lazily decided by something stupid reported in the media or a campaign ad at the last minute, as it probably has been every other election.

For example, a person interviewed on MPR stated that she was (in the past) super liberal, way to the left and she was like totally voting Obama. But then the whole scandal with his church came up and now she’s voting for McCain. The idiocy behind that important decision floors me. What the fuck….really?! A woman interviewed yesterday on NPR said she wasn’t going to vote for Obama. And when asked why, she paused, and then offered this, “I'd rather not say. I’m just a McCain girl!” Yep – no substantive reason. If she just picks someone and doesn’t have to think too hard about the “why” question, then it’s soooo much easier on her brain and she can devote more time to watching the latest reality television show.

Our country is obsessed with the Myth. The myth of small town America and hockey moms that erodes the intelligence from the minds of people in this country. The myth that allows a man to go on and on and on about being in a box - the War Hero. Palin reminded us all that the only person running for president who actually fought for us (America) is John McCain, insinuating that only physical fighting is how one truly serves and fights for our country. Belittling Obama's fight for underprivileged Americans as a community organizer. Right. That's not nearly as romantic as holding a gun and being captured and put in a "box." That's a Hollywood movie, baby! That's what I'm voting for - the best story, best personality, best hair! I'd have a beer with him! Ugh... The myth sells, and America is buying.

I think President Kennedy put it best about the danger of the Myth:

"For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinions without the discomfort of thought."

-President John F. Kennedy, commencement address at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, p. 234.

Monkeys, Christians, & Vonnegut (oh my!)

Alright, so this blog started off as a Mike Ness lovefest (as my L.L. Bro Mark P. stated in a comment), but now it has progressed to a Kurt Vonnegut lovefest. And for anyone who claims I should put a "jr." after his name, you can go ahead and read this, you inferior Vonnegut lovers. I did cite Wikipedia there, but this is a goddamn blog post not a freaking research article.

I've always championed a man's excuse for subscribing to Playboy: "But I only read it for the articles."

I subscribe to Playboy, and you do spend the first 5 mns looking at the naked ladies, but then you move on..............to what? Yes, the articles! Some of the greatest authors have had their short works of fiction published in the classy pages of Playboy magazine, one of which is the fabulous Mr. Kurt Vonnegut.

That story was "Welcome to the Monkey House," which happens to be the title of his collection of short stories. In one of those stories, "Where I Live," he loosely quotes H.L. Mencken: "Nobody ever went broke overestimating the vulgarity of the American people." Now funny thing about H.L. Mencken is he was a columnist for the Baltimore Sun and reported on the Scopes Trial, which was of course the legal duel between Creationism and Evolution. This trial was also referred to as the Monkey Trial. Which brings us back full circle to Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" and the funny little bit about how a masturbating zoo monkey resulted in all of the world losing the right to feel sexual pleasure. How a minute incident lead to such a total fuck-up in the governing of the world.

So in the title story (which takes place sometime in the future), there's this drug everyone is required to take called "ethical birth-control pills." As quoted from the book:

"The pills were ethical because they didn't interfere with a person's ability to reproduce, which would have been unnatural and immoral. All the pills did was take every bit of pleasure out of sex. Thus did science and morals go hand in hand."

Now this is funny in many ways (thanks, Vonnegut, for being such a literary god).

But what's funnier is how this ethical birth-control came to be. The drug was originally invented by a guy who was appalled when he witnessed a monkey at the zoo playing with its private parts, so he created a drug that would numb the lower half of the body to prevent such an offense for a "Christian family to see." The original inventor of the pill, J. Edgar Norton, never intended them to be consumed by humans: "His dream was to introduce morality into the monkey house at the Grand Rapids Zoo."

Well the World Government took hold of the drug when overpopulation was getting out of control and enforced it on everyone. Oh, and they also opened up "Suicide Parlors" where a Hostess will "kill you painlessly while you lay on a Barcalounger." These were always located next to a Howard Johnson which provided the last meal for the volunteer suiciders. Brilliant.

But all of this boils down to monkeys and Christians: the eternal battle. What a condensed piece of beautiful humor. And yet so goddamn sad.

I haven't yet read Vonnegut's Galapagos book. But it just made its way into my GoodReads required reading list.

Hot Sugared Donut Holes meets Intellectuality

While this blog doesn't really have a point other than to satiate narcissistic tendencies, I'm going to make an attempt to bring some intellectuality into it. You read me correctly, Intellectuality. According to Blogger it is a word, as there isn't a dotted red line underneath it. But I digress from the intellectual...

So I just finished another Vonnegut novel: Slapstick. It's perfect Vonnegut. I don't think I'm cool enough to catch every subtle nuanced meaning from his brilliant books, but I can scrape the surface and glean some deep entertainment from them.

As one who frequently cites, "those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it" whenever I'm pissed off by the current powers that be, I found this response in Slapstick to be most therapeutic:

"History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again."

I must dedicate the following Slapstick excerpt to Erin:

"Fascists are inferior people who believe it when someone tells them they're superior."

And this to Jon, the original Vonnegut fan:

"You are so ugly, you're the sexiest thing I ever saw."

And this possible eggcorn root to Mark:

"He looked up at last, and I was amused to see that he was the spit and image of his grandfather, Dr. Stewart Rawlings Mott..."

Sincerely,
an overdressed little sparrow-fart

New Year's Eve South of the Cities

Ok, so it's my first New Year's Eve outside of St. Cloud that I can remember. I figured it'd be low key, some burgers, fries done up right via Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Frites recipe and a fabulous Cool Daddy fry appliance.

Around 2 minutes after midnight, and refusing to watch any of the countdowns on TV, I hear this loud shooting sound outside the balcony door. It sounded like the 4th of July, not the gunshots mom warned me about when I moved down here.

So wide-eyed and giddy I headed out to the balcony with the dog and my Slayer hat and watched the fireworks behind one of the apartment complex buildings. It was cold and beautiful...

I can't scrape the cheesy goodness off of that one. It is what it is. I lived in the same town for 28 years, so this was special considering this is my first year venturing out of that town.

Aside from the cheesy crap, there were these kids running around outside with goose & duck calling reeds, yelling "Happy New Years!!!!" It was especially funny when a cop drove by and you could hear one kid yelling, "that was a cop!" Sometime during all of this, others from nearby apartments were hooting and hollering re: the Happy New Year.

It was all very funny and entertaining - good enough to make this quiet New Year's "party" at the apt. worth something. Surely not as cool as Jen's party, but not nearly as lame as I anticipated. I heart the southern 'burbs, yo.