Sister Novena's PortaPulpit

A Simple Plan

This is how we win, kids:

* Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration
* Repeal the estate tax repeal
* Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI
* Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one)
* Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation
* Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there's probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.
* Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code
* Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.
* Reduce corporate giveaways
* Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan
* Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
* Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards "more decriminalization" of drugs, though the details complicated there too.
* Paper ballots
* Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter.
* Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.
* Marriage rights for all, which includes "gay marriage" and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.

...adding a few more things which would be obvious if we weren't living in the Grand and Glorious Age of Bush:

* Torture is bad
* Imprisoning citizens without charges is bad
* Playing Calvinball with the Geneva Conventions and treaties generally is bad
* Imprisoning anyone indefinitely without charges is bad
* Stating that the president can break any law he wants any time "just because" is bad.

(Atrios)

It's good for families, good for economic stability, good for democracy, good for the poor and middle-class, good for small business, and good for our international relations. Maybe we should try it, eh? Now that we know that neo-conservatism is a gross and utter failure on every conceivable level.

Personally, my liberalism rests on five basic ideas: 1) everybody has an essential right to the best education available, through postgraduate levels; 2) everybody has an essential right to the best healthcare available, regardless of their economic or social status; 3) the Christian fundamentalists don't own this fucking country; 4) the United States doesn't own this fucking planet; and 5) we all have a responsibility to contribute as best we can to the common wellbeing of our population, financially and otherwise, and that in doing so we also support our own wellbeing. So, pretty simple, really.

PS: What the fuck is this?! Didn't they just increase the debt ceiling to $9 trillion a couple of months ago? Fuck, somebody take away their credit card! "Fiscal conservatives," my ass!

PPS: I'm trying out a new blog-funding system, IndieKarma. Observant readers will notice that now a blue bar appears briefly at the bottom of this page when it first loads. The idea here is that every time an IndieKarma user visits a participating blog (like this one, for example), the owner of the blog will get a penny. It's not a lot of cash, obviously, but that's the point -- it's a painless way to contribute to the cost of blogging. I've always rejected things like blogads, but I thought I'd give this a whirl and see if it's worth my time (and I've signed up as a contributor, too. I'll be happy enough if the pennies coming in equal the pennies going out.)

Anyway, if you're one of the first 5000 to sign up (and you've still got breathing room to make it), your first $1 is free. And if y'all hate me for doing it, let me know. But I thought it was a pretty good idea.

Mr. Popularity

Wow... that's low.

President Bush's approval rating has slumped to 31% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, the lowest of his presidency and a warning sign for Republicans in the November elections.

The survey of 1,013 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, shows Bush's standing down by 3 percentage points in a single week. His disapproval rating also reached a record: 65%. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

Hey Mom, you still in that 31%?

Bush's fall is being fueled by erosion among support from conservatives and Republicans. In the poll, 52% of conservatives and 68% of Republicans approved of the job he is doing. Both are record lows among those groups.

Moderates gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals of 7%.

"You hear people say he has a hard core that will never desert him, and that has been the case for most of the administration," says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who studies presidential approval ratings. "But for the last few months, we started to see that hard core seriously erode in support."

(...)

"Historically it's been pretty devastating to presidents at this level," Franklin says. Even Republican members of Congress are "now so worried about their electoral fortunes in November that he has less leverage with them than he normally would with his own party controlling Congress."

You realize, of course, that this is 12 points lower than Clinton's lowest-ever approval rating, and 37 points lower than his post-impeachment approval rating.

Just sayin'.

King Fausto, We Hardly Knew Ye

I know, I know -- it's been quiet around here, and I'm sorry. I've only got a little more work to do, a few more bits of fiddly business to which I must attend, and then I promise I'll come back and slap my blog up.

In lieu of a proper post, please enjoy a brief meditation on the tragic life of Herve Jean-Pierre Villechaize: his fab maison, his body of work, his propensity for self-humiliation, the brutal suicide that narrowly prevented him from becoming Zoltar (or Brak, or maybe Moltar.)

Do not judge him by Tattoo alone ... once, he was considered the Toulouse Lautrec of his generation. Does that count for nothing?

Somos Hermanos, Es Nuestro Himno

This week's bullshit controversy (because obviously we can't talk about anything that's actually important):

There are several things that have to occur before we can become a one-world nation: first we have to be brought down to ground-level (make that ground-zero) submissiveness. We have to relinquish our guns; we have to get "in God we trust" off of our currency; we have to forget about equal rights unless we are in America waving flags from another country -- demanding amnesty for breaking laws, and waving signs for Americans to get off of their continent. And before too much longer, we should be getting Pesos and the Euro in place of American money. Next, they will be singing the new "Nuestro Himno" in place of our National Anthem at the opening session of congress. And I'll bet you donuts to a dollar -- children will be singing the Spanish version in public schools before long.

While Mexicans are on a roll -- somebody needs to implement a Spanish Pledge, and then the United States of America can be renamed Mexico. How's that for progress?

(ah, that welcoming smile)

My first thought upon reading this was, "exchange dollars for Euros? Where do I sign up?!" My second thought was, "how fucking scared are y'all of having to take foreign language classes, anyway?" And my third thought was, "why do you take the idea of a Spanish-language anthem as an insult, when it is so clearly intended as an overwhelming compliment?"

I marvel at the mindset that views the necessity of speaking a second language as a humiliation; it's the same mindset that views reading books as punishment. Foreign languages were one of my favorite subjects in school -- I studied Spanish, Russian and Latin, and I've done some French on my own as an adult. High up on my life's agenda is a desire to live in another language for some period of time -- which is exactly what millions of immigrants have found the courage to do, in the face of not only the inherent challenges of a world in which they can barely communicate, but also outright hostility from people who lack their own courage and resourcefulness. Anyone who doubts that it's one of the most difficult challenges an individual can undertake clearly hasn't bothered to try it for themselves -- and they should be able to muster up at least some grudging respect for those determined enough to carve out a life for themselves under such conditions.

As I have always said, one of the biggest social and cultural flaws our nation possesses is the absolute ignorance of our place in the larger world. We don't regard non-Americans as our equals because the vast majority of us have never bothered to get to know them on their own turf -- we don't travel, we don't speak their languages, we don't attempt to understand their cultures; we don't even attempt to understand that there are other, equally valid ways in which to live. Living abroad was one of the most humbling, transformative experiences of my life, one which I strongly recommend to everyone (especially other Americans), and which I'm eager to repeat. Through it, I learned about my relationship to my own culture, about the difference between life and habit, about the truth of essential human dignity; and I had all my assumptions, all the the little things I take for granted, pointed out and called into question. It's an experience that shakes you to your core, but leaves you stronger and wiser -- and it's an experience that every single immigrant to the Unites States shares. But for most Americans, the 95% of the world's people who live outside our country remain an abstract idea: they are people to look down upon to varying degrees, people who exist only in relation to our own needs and interests, as either people who supply our wants or obstruct our access to them. It's a supremely narcissistic, destructive way to regard our world, and the very definition of a global sociopath. It's not our freedom they hate, it's our arrogance and willful ignorance.

If and when I ever have kids, it won't even be under discussion -- fluency in a second and third language and a minimum one-year trip abroad (ideally to a non-English speaking country) will be obligatory for any sprog of mine. In this day and age, they should both be a necessary requirement for responsible citizenship; I wish I'd had the benefit of multilingualism growing up. Mandatory education in Spanish should be a given for every American schoolkid -- not to replace whatever culture they already possess, but to enrich it. And it would protect them from the pitfalls of this particularly all-American brand of ignorance. They might come to understand that the ability to communicate across cultural lines is not submission, but a valuable source of strength. Making sure a child enters adulthood with a few other ways to see and interact with the world is, I think, one of the most valuable and far-reaching legacies a parent can provide.

Regardless of the language, the meaning of the thing remains the same. And look at it this way: maybe our immigrant brothers and sisters will actually make an effort to learn all the words, or even a second verse... which, in my experience, is more than I can expect from the average American. Our immigrants are doing what they have always done: bringing us a gift of a stronger, more vibrant culture and society. And people who doubt their benevolence and good will might remind themselves of another foreign-lanugage phrase that has been enormously important in our history: e pluribus, unum.

PS: And we mustn't forget the often-noted tendency of people who bitch about people who wave Mexican flags to wave their own Confederate flags. It's irony on a base level, but I like it.

Funny / Not Funny

In light of the efforts of some to justify the near-total media blackout of Stephen Colbert's presidential bitch-slap on the basis that it was "not that funny," and because the subject is one that has been much on my mind of late, I think it's time for a quick review of what's funny and what's not.

Dave Chappelle - funny
Carlos Mencia - not funny

The Boondocks (comic strip) - funny
Curtis (comic strip) - not funny
The Boondocks (cartoon) - not especially funny, but well done

Wonder Showzen - very, very funny, but a bit nauseating
South Park - not funny very often anymore

Jon Stewart - funny
Dennis Miller - not funny

mocking the president to his face - funny
the president getting all pissy about it - funny
the media getting pissy about it - not funny

Clear?

PS: How the word "funny" looks after you've written/read it a dozen or so times - funny

PPS: Stephen Colbert - funny
Richard Cohen - not funny.

For Local People

Forgive me, blog... I've been neglecting you. We seem to go through this once or twice a year, don't we? I'm so sorry, I apologize.

Alas, you're not going to be getting much additional attention tonight, as I've finally found a copy of The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse and intend to spend the rest of the evening watching it. I know that Little Britain is the show that gets all the attention these days, and it's pretty good, I guess. But it's strictly the light-beer version of The League of Gentlemen. LoG is blacker, harsher, sicker, and all-around more toothsome. I don't know whether the film adaptation will be any good, but I know I have to find out.

Three hours later: God damn it to hell, it won't play in this DVD player. Why? No fucking clue; it just won't. I'll have to dig out my magic DVD player tomorrow. I did manage to watch the third series of the show again, and if anything it's much better than I remembered it being the one time it aired on American television.

24 hours later: My magic DVD player, because it's magic, played the disc perfectly without so much as a pause to consider its options. Considering the thing cost me $30 brand new, I have to say I've been extraordinarily pleased with my purchase, as I have not yet found a disc it won't play. And the movie was pretty good. Not, y'know, as glorious as the show, but pretty damn good... very meta. And I like meta. But you'd really have to watch the show first -- which you should do anyway, in order, from beginning to end.

Scandalicious

ass-raping America is hard work

In light of my last post, this is probably courting trouble. But I'd mentioned to someone else that I wanted to do it, and I still want to do it, so I'm going to try to do it.

I want to assemble an as-thorough-as-possible list of all of the Bush administration scandals. The problem is, there are so fucking many I can't even begin to remember them all. This isn't for any particular political point, just for the sake of long-term perspective.

Here are a few off the top of my head (in no particular order):

Hookergate
Illegal Wiretapping
The Valerie Plame affair
(corollary: The Niger forgeries)
The Abramoff Scandal
The Ney Scandal
Dick Cheney shoots an old dude in the face-gate
Dieboldgate
(corllary: Florida '00 and Ohio '04)
The Jeff Gannon incident
The WMD Deception
Everybody Hates Rumsfeld
(corollary: Unequipped and Unarmored Troops)
Pre-Katrina
Post-Katrina
Post-Post-Katrina
(corollary: Heckuva Job Brownie-gate)
Halliburton/KBR/War Profiteering
The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
Medicare Plan D
Tom DeLay Is So Fucked-gate
Torture-gate
The Armstrong Williams incident
Anton Scalia's Recusal Refusals
The Downing Street Memos
Eastern European Black Detention Centers
Guantanamo Bay
... and lest we forget, that whole Iraq War thing.

That feels like a good start, but I'm sure I'm missing a lot. If any of you know of something I've forgotten, post it comments and I'll add it to the list. I'll also be trying to go through and source everything I've listed so far.

Update:

My Pet Goat-gate
Fuck the Constitution, I'm a Wartime Preznit
Bigger Deficit than the Previous 42 Presidents Combined
Debate Backpack

Full Up

This is it: I am officially maxed-out. My brain is now so completely occupied with its various intellectual chew toys that adding even one more would bring the risk of sending it into a perpetual feedback loop. Everything I have to do, I can do and want to do; but anything else that I find will, for the time being, have to wait. In truth, I've already cut a few lesser things out to make room for better opportunities. But this is it. I'm barricading the door.

I blame last year's academic sabbatical for all this. After a year of tying up all my theoretical and intellectual loose ends (and doing nothing else), when I then found myself free of all that I immediately started loading up my metaphorical plate with all the tasty stuff I hadn't ever had room for previously. And now, after a few months of hardcore buffet-mongering, I feel a bit sick.

How do I know that I have reached my limit? Because just now, while I was reading this piece on quantum mechanics and a sleeping puppy, I felt something in my brain pop out of existence. I don't know what it was: if I knew, I'd be able to remember, and thus it would still be there -- or else, something else would pop out of existence in its place and I'd be right back where I am now. All I know is, it was there, and now it's not, having been replaced by some babble about a puppy around which I can only barely wrap my head.

I was going over my situation yesterday and it occurred to me that organizing all of my assorted projects is at the point of becoming a project in itself. The good news is, as is often the case with an associative mind like mine, everything I'm doing seems to be at least slightly interconnected with everything else I'm doing. So in one sense, at least, all of these projects are just part of one much larger project -- and maybe if I can figure out how to organize that one, all the rest of it will fall neatly into place.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, here's the sort of thing I'm talking about. One of the activities I've dropped is a class I was going to take. In truth, I had a number of reasons for dropping the class -- a select few of which served as my rationale, even though they were really among the least important of the lot. The real reason I dropped the class was because taking it would have required that I spend too many hours of my life reading a book and watching a film that I have absolutely no interest in reading or watching. (I'm not going to mention them by name, but suffice to say that they both represent highly-concentrated and unnervingly popular forms of New-Age bullshit.)

I was really torn up about this prior to dropping the class, because one the one hand, I hate to be the person who walks in and harshes everyone's mellow by saying, "this is the stupidest crap I've ever heard in my life," but on the other hand, I also didn't feel comfortable playing along with it when I feel so strongly about the subject. So I was envisioning a situation in which I would have to play the "I-respect-your-emotional-response-to-this-bullshit-but-it's-still-bullshit" game. And I hate playing that game. Not that anything bad would've happened, and I could've managed it, I think. Maybe I could've even made a valuable point to the others: that creativity (the subject of the class) is not irrevokably tied to this irrational, airy-fairy bogus reality with which it is so/too often associated. That, if anything, the real world as it really exists is a far, far better source of artistic inspiration than the gross misunderstanding of quantum mechanics could ever be. But making that point wasn't worth the expense in time, energy, and money to me.

The curious thing is that I myself am a recent adherent to that idea (hence, no doubt, my strong reaction against the required reading, although I've been leaning that way for a long time.) I only first read Dawkins a few months ago, and since that time it seems as though the universe has gone out of its way to litter my path with deluded new-agers. I'm not sure what the point of this challenge is, except maybe to ensure that I don't start going around acting like I know everything (unlikely in any case), but it's been happening everywhere I turn. I have one acquaintance who has abruptly decided that he can astrally project and move objects with his mind -- and y'know, whatever, I don't care what crazy stuff he believes. If he really thinks it's helping him to relax and get his life together, then I'm cool with it. He can go have fun with his coven, it's no skin off my nose. (I only ask that he doesn't turn into a fundamentalist about it. The only person I could imagine being more annoying than a fundamentalist Christian is a fundamentalist Wiccan.)

To run through the rest of this train of thought quickly (because I've got work to do), finishing college begat my rediscovery of science, begat my reading of Dawkins, begat also re-rediscovering Douglas Adams (who, coincidentally, also first read Dawkins around age 30), begat part of another massive project I'm toiling at in secret, begat this new conviction that art and rationality can be buddies after all, begat dropping this class, begat the discovery that my mind's eye is bigger than my mind's stomach, begat reading just one last article about quantum puppies, begat my having lost... something. Something that I wouldn't be able to understand as well had I not just read about quantum puppies. (I think.)

I bet the Germans have a word for this.

God Bless Stephen Colbert

... forever and ever and ever. His show has attracted a wider array of wingnuts than the Daily Show, I think mostly because the typical Republican doesn't "get" irony sufficiently to realize that they're being mocked. But I bet they won't make that mistake anymore. Colbert eviscerated Bush with surgical accuracy while standing a few feet away, looking the man straight in the eye, completely unthrown by the frosty reception -- hands-down the best performance of this entire administration by anyone, anywhere.

This was no good-natured ribbing. This was a comedy hitjob. It's about damn time.

Update: It would be better to ignore the video link above -- turns out, that video is grossly truncated. You can read the complete transcript here -- reading the entire speech lifts this from merely "brazen" to simply phenomenal. I can only hope it hurt Bush's feelings as much as Bush has hurt my country.

Update 2: The entire speech is available on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

PS: Don't miss this: Thank You Stephen Colbert