Saturday, February 28, 2009

Sieg heil to our newly "presidential" president

[The following letter was sent to the Wall Street Journal today in response to one of its top writers praising Obama for finally becoming "presidential" in bearing.]

Peggy Noonan does not usually do “vapid,” but her column on Barack Obama allegedly attaining the presidential aura was like reading a 1938 commentary that Hitler no longer acted like a corporal and was instead “presidential.”

The man who currently occupies the Oval Office is a Keynesian charlatan who, like nearly all Democratic presidents of the last 80 years, has never had a real job and has no respect for business, ingenuity, free markets and wealth-creation. He is not so much socialistic as he is fascistic. He seeks to run businesses by fiat, as Hitler did. He speaks of the “greater good,” as Hitler did. He speaks of sacrificing for the nation’s benefit, as Hitler did. He rewards the evil-doers, as Hitler did.

He is the prickly Patrician in Chief who commands silence by announcing “I won,” and speaks condescendingly to his citizens with phrases like “let me speak plainly on this,” as if we American yokels cannot understand anything unless the chiding Daddy Obama “speaks plainly.”

And so we have Ms. Noonan stealing a Bill Safire moment to inform us liberty-loving citizens that our new dictator has ascended to “presidential” status.

Sieg heil!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Ashes to asses and duhs to dunces

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday for Catholics. Normally, I have to listen to people before proclaiming them ignorant, but when millions of people mark their foreheads with their ignorance, I'm saved the trouble, and I get to do a little razzing.

"Hey, Jay, you got something on your forehead. Looks like you stuck your finger in your fireplace and put a Plus sign up there."
"That's an ash cross, David. Today is Ash Wednesday. We're celebrating ..."
"Oh, yeah, Lint."
"It's Lent."
"Isn't that when you stop eating or something?"
"Lent begins our 40 days of fasting. Yes, some of us don't eat meat and others don't eat chocolate. Things like that."
"Does that include, like, steak and Whitman's chocolates?"
"Yes."
"No way, man!? Do you give up steak and Whitman's!?"
"I give up red meat and milk and alcohol."
"Why?!"
"Those are my favorite things."
"But that don't make sense. If they're your favorite things, why do you give 'em up? I mean, why not give up, like, liver and asparagus. Ha. Hell, I could live 40 years without liver and asparagus."
"That's the whole point, David. It's a time of abstinence and repentance. It's the preparation for the Lord's death and resurrection."
"Come again."
"It's a time when we abstain from bodily pleasure to heighten our sense of depravity that must be redeemed by our redeemer."
"Hey, have you ever seen that movie 9 1/2 weeks? You know, where Mickey Rourke pours all that stuff on what's-her-name and then he licks it off and they ..."
"Kim Bassinger."
"What's that?"
"The woman's name that Mickey Rourke is with is ..."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering if when he pours chocolate over her pussy ..."
"Shhhh! ... We're in a place of business, David. Keep your voice down please?"
"Huh. Oh. Yeah. Anyway, I was wondering if, when Mickey goes down to lick it off her you-know, then it must not be Lint or, if it is, he must not be a Catholic, or I guess he could just not have red meat and milk. But then I was wondering what he'd do if he was a Catholic and it was Lint and he gave up chocolate and he had that big beautiful Kim Bassinger pussy right there all covered in chocolate ..."
"Shhhhhhhhh!"
"Ooops, sorry 'bout that. Well, what the hell would you do if you was Mickey Rourke, Jay?!"
"Come again?"

Go to hell

I would've given a month's pay away to a liberal charity (egads!) to hear just once the words "Go to Hell" come confidently from the mouth of just one of the bank execs hauled before the Star Chamber in Congress this month.

I would've given two month's pay away to hear the exec belly laugh at the furious Inquisitors and say simply, "Read Atlas Shrugged, you fucking thieves!"

I would then send money to his defense attorneys after he was held in contempt of Congress and hauled off to jail. And then I would give his bank my money as deposit.

And then I would belly laugh.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Nipples nipples nipples nipples NIPPLES!!!!!!!!

For those of you who don't breastfeed (yes, that includes you guys, too) and haven't been following the Facebook fiasco, the online community with 270 million members has eliminated all photos from accounts in which women's NIPPLES are showing while breastfeeding.

Facebook says the photos fall under the rubric of "obscene, lewd or pornographic" content. Yes, we all know that little boy babies get erections when they see their mama's nipples and little baby girls become raging lesbians and that nipples themselves are simply lewd and obscene and turn all heterosexual men into voyeuristic felons.

Some homeschooling moms with a sense of irony and injustice found their photos removed recently in this puritanical crusade, so the moms posted photos of their husbands naked from the waist up with their NIPPLES in plain site. Facebook has not removed those photos and, of course, the perplexed moms have planted tongue firmly in cheek with comments belittling the double-standard, which of course is prevalent at the beach, on the street and everywhere else in America except "pornographic" places.

Facebook doesn't seem to be relaxing its policy, for fear that it will upset the ever-vigilant priss-police, so may I suggest to the nursing mothers that they put the photos back on their sites with the NIPPLES blurred out and over them simply type the words: Nipples nipples nipples nipples NIPPLES!

Yeah, baby.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

2 hasty exits, 2 dirty martinis and 3 mohito martinis

I did something last night that I've never done: walk out of two movies in one evening. My sweetheart friend Marita and I went to see "Slumdog Millionaire" because of all the raves the movie has been getting and despite a "sinking feeling" that Marita had about how existential she thought it might be. I had it, too, but we both hoped the grimy realism wouldn't drown out the inspirational protagonist's triumph. Alas ...

... Marita was right! It is a ghastly grim film -- well, at least the first 40 minutes were, because that's all we could take before we looked at each other and nodded, which we each know means it's time to grab the popcorn and hit the exits. We'd already been subjected to child prostitution, child torture, child kidnapping, grotesque overcrowding, filthy slum-dwelling, corrupt and brutal police and a child caked in excrement before the wretched scene that forced our sickened departure: bandits blinding a child by drugging him and pouring acid into his eyes to use him for their own ends.

The film is the cinema realite that so entrances and titillates Hollywood's leftist artistes, reaffirming their jaundiced and malignant weltanschauung. It is pervasive darkness with a token good guy thrown in, like "Batman." It is the gloomy cynicism of "The Reader" ("American Beauty" redux). It is the dour "Frost/Nixon" without the suits and ties.

As we were walking from the theater in head-shaking disgust, we happened upon the theater manager. I told him we walkd out of "Slumdog" cause it sucked and asked if we could go see another movie instead. He was nice and said "sure." So Marita and I decided we needed to see a comedy to purge the filth with some belly laughs. We walked into "He's Just Not That Into You," (20 minutes into the movie) even though we suspected it wouldn't be very good. Boy, were we mistaken. It was laughably horrible. We were giggling at just how bad of an actress Drew Barrymore really is. The writing was equally bad, and I'm sure the theater-goers around us were probably getting perturbed at our looks of ridicule and teasing. Fifteen minutes into our new movie, just as our seats got warm, we beat a retreat to the exits again after Jennifer Aniston lived up to her reputation of being just an infinitesimal fraction better than Barrymore on the silver screen.

Ironically, having walked out of two movies and having so much horrible grist for discussion, Marita and I had a lovely time at a nice restaurant bar, gabbing and bragging about leaving two movies in one night as she sipped her dirty martinis and I luxuriated in my mohito martinis.

Here's to you, sweet Marita! :)

Saturday, February 21, 2009

End drug war by ending moralistic ban on drugs

Here's a letter to the editor I just sent to the Wall Street Journal:
________________________________


If the Weekend Journal article on the infamous drug war and its 6,000 related murders in Mexico doesn’t change people’s minds on the so-called drug war and the legality of drugs, not much will, I suspect.

Have we not learned that the banning of commodities creates black markets and gangster territorialism that utilizes murder and kidnapping as means for eliminating competition and keeping subordinates in line? Governments cannot (I repeat, cannot) halt such terrorism by underground supply-and-demand cadres.

The only way to eliminate them is to end puritanical moralizing about drugs and let them join the free market. Human beings have a right to harm themselves by ingestion (and suffer the consequences) and be free of altruistic, pulpit-barking restrictions. The real antagonists in this modern-day witch hunt are elected officials, the voters who vote them into office and the media (including this newspaper) who condone moralistic bans.

Please don’t forget to look in the mirror when you decry the 6,000 deaths. Mea culpas all around.

My favorite 40 albums of all-time

Think of 10 to 40 albums that had such a profound effect on you that they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. Mine are below.

Rumours -- Fleetwood Mac
IV -- Led Zeppelin
Dark Side of the Moon -- Pink Floyd
The Wall -- Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here -- Pink Floyd
Boston -- Boston
Greatest Hits 1 -- Elton John
The Long Run -- The Eagles
Get Close -- The Pretenders
The 9th Symphony -- Ludwig von Beethoven
Best of Bee Gees -- Bee Gees
Greatest -- Bee Gees
Now In a Minute -- Donna Lewis
Imagine -- Eva Cassidy
Greatest Hits -- Frank Sinatra
Super Hits -- George Jones
These Dreams -- Heart
Greatest Hits -- Journey
The Best of -- KC & The Sunshine Band
Soundtrack -- Last of the Mohicans
Back in Black -- AC/DC
Greatest Hits -- Olivia Newton-John
Best of -- Van Morrison
Tracy Chapman -- Tracy Chapman
Van Halen -- Van Halen
Our Time in Eden -- 10,000 Maniacs
I Don't Want What I haven't Got -- Sinead O'Connor
Best of -- Simon & Garfunkel
1962-66 -- Beatles
Greatest Hits 1 -- Billy Joel
Kick -- INXS
The Immaculate Collection -- Madonna
The Best of -- Michael Jackson
Greatest Hits -- Neil Diamond
Greatest Hits -- Rod Stewart
Double Vision -- Foreigner
Come Away With Me -- Nora Jones
Soundtrack -- Matrix
All-Time Greatest -- Roy Orbison
Best of -- Three Dog Night

My favorite poems and fiction of all time

Which fiction or poetry is your favorite of all-time? Which remind you of a period in your life? Which do you remember fondly? Which changed your life? Poetry and fiction only. Here are mine.

Pride & Prejudice -- Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo -- Alexandre Dumas
Anne of Green Gables -- L.M. Montgomery
Pillars of the Earth -- Ken Follett
The Fountainhead -- Ayn Rand
Sense & Sensibility -- Jane Austen
Les Miserables -- Victor Hugo
Atlas Shrugged -- Ayn Rand
I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud -- William Wordsworth
To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
The Raven -- Edgar Allen Poe (haunting but lyrical)
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day -- William Shakespeare (Sonnet 18)
The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (depressing but gorgeous writing)
The Sun Also Rises -- Ernest Hemingway (his best writing, vivid)
A La Recherche de Temps Perdu-- Marcel Proust (long-winded, meandering, whimsical, brilliant)
Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky (maybe best and most psychological writer ever)
Lanterns on the Levee -- William Alexander Percy
A Confederacy of Dunces -- John Kennedy Toole
Kubla Khan -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Hamlet -- Shakespeare
Coriolanus -- Shakespeare
When I have Fears -- John Keats
Cyrano de Bergerac -- Edmond Rostand
Jerusalem -- William Blake
The Metamorphoses -- Ovid
The Odyssey -- Homer
Gulliver's Travels -- Jonathan Swift
Da Vinci Code -- Dan Brown
Calumet "K" -- Merwin Webster
Breakfast at Tiffany's -- Truman Capote
Antigone -- Sophocles
Shane -- Jack Schaefer
Heart of Darkness -- Joseph Conrad
The Call of the Wild -- Jack London
Emma -- Jane Austen
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
Robinson Crusoe -- Daniel Defoe
Candide -- Voltaire
The Last of the Mohicans -- James Fennimore Cooper
The Three Musketeers -- Alexandre Dumas
Moby Dick -- Herman Melville
Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card
The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Milan Kundera
Persuasion -- Jane Austen
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy -- John le Carre
The Day of the Jackal -- Frederick Forsyth
Essay on Criticism -- Alexander Pope
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds -- Shakespeare (Sonnet 116)
Because I Could Not Stop for Death -- Emily Dickenson
Annabel Lee -- Edgar Allen Poe
She Walks in Beauty -- Lord Byron
The Divine Comedy -- Dante

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Sunday morning going down

At 9:52 this morning, my next-door neighbor (Mr. M) walked out his front door and strolled around his yard. He waved to me politely as I sat on my front porch in the warm Georgia sun and sipped my coffee while reading my Sunday newspaper -- a favorite time of the week.

And then, at 9:59 ... Armageddon!

LEAF BLOWER!

The word "clueless" was among the nicer names that ran through my head as my jaw hung open. Mr. M was even courteous enough to begin his leaf-blowing on the side of his house that abuts my property, so that I might see the brand name of the toy which emits a rip-roaring hum that penetrates the human brain like a sonic drill.

At 10:00, I sat on my favorite cushion chair inside my house with my coffee at my right hand and my thoughts upon the most painful forms of torture.

Mr. M may count himself lucky that I am a civilized man. For if I weren't, he would now, at 10:05 a.m., have five fewer fingernails on the offending leaf-blowing hand.

Alas, my imaginary world of justice has sated my soul and I am back at my peaceful place -- though just five missing fingernails does seem a bit too lenient.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Print and TV media -- dumb and dumber

If you've been reading the pages is this blog, you'll remember my mentioning of the tsunami that is Congress and the blame they should take for the current economic crisis. Well, the media is the clueless eminence grise behind the Capital Hill cabal.

Here's a great column explaining it.