The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

How Much Cock?

How much cock does Glenn Beck suck?

Fox News host Glenn Beck's apocalyptic political thriller has shrugged off a pile of bad reviews to debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list this week.

 

The story of a young, handsome PR executive's quest to save America from a 100-year-old plot to destroy it, The Overton Window was described as "didactic, discursive [and] sporadically incoherent" in the Los Angeles Times, and as "not just a bad book ... an instructively bad book because it offers a complete colour-by-numbers picture of the contemporary Wingnut psyche" in the Daily Beast.

We can presume just two things: one, Glenn Beck's rabid fans, all five of them, have bought multiple copies they can't afford on Social security and unemployment and, most likely, some right-wing welfare benefactor has gone out of his way to smooth Beck's feathers after the reviews he received, not just in what he might term "liberal mainstream media," but from respected writers and reviewers with no plausible agenda.

Which of course raises the issue "Who?" Who is stupid enough to push this godawful hateful shameless little man into a best-selling author, thus neatly overriding countless hours teachers across America have spent trying to instill in young minds good grammar, good syntax and a metaphorical prose somewhere north of a barroom tale?

Presumably, someone who hates America. Presumably, it was Glenn Beck himself, a man not known for, um, modest displays of temperment or emotion. The man cries often enough, we would have called him a sissy and made him wear a dress back in my old neighborhood.

However, even Beck could not possibly have that much money that he could afford to buy his own book (even if authors usually pay a remaindered price on copies they order). So we must search other, wealthier and more American-hating sources.

Rupert Murdoch springs to mind. His America-destroying agenda has been well-documented, as his Fox network competes with his Fox News network and various News Corp. in a race to the bottom, dragging millions of sheeple along with him. Why does Murdoch hate America so?

Any other ideas? List them in comments.

 

Day Three in Key West

The weather has been hot, muggy and threatening to storm each afternoon, but no relief.

This town is pretty awesome. Imagine Greenwich Village without the smug sophistication of enduring winters. Now add back in the inherent danger of running into the local rednecks while you're strolling around with your Noo Yawk walk and talk and political views.

I've felt more comfortable, at times, in the middle of Kingston, Jamaica, is what I'm saying. There are few places in the world where I've felt less local and more of an outsider. There's a hungry desperation in people's eyes, too. Concerns about the economy, no doubt, and to be sure there aren't as many people wandering Duval as I would have expected. The oil slick, the general economic malaise, and just people tired of being scared.

You wonder why Americans get so paranoid, and yet we do. This is still America, still a great nation. We can still come back and fashion a future.

I've managed to stay out of bar fights, and even tho soccer gets laughed at regularly when it's on the TeeVee, moments like the last American game prove a point: we simply don't know as much about the world as we would lie to. Underneath it all, underneath the braggadocio and bluster, America is still the baby brother who's trying to fit in with big brother's buddies.

One more full day to walk around. I promised ThumbPer I'd go to Hemingway House and visit his cousins, so that's on today's agenda. Plus, I need a dose of inspiration to get my books back on track.

Another Question

To the American naysayers who see soccer as a sport unworthy of the attention of our most exceptional nation:

DO YOU GET IT NOW???????????

A Question

So, who else is counting down the seconds until the wingnuts come out in full-throated defense of McChrystal?

I'm sure many of them are heaving a sigh of relief after this, because they now know what view is the exact opposite of Obama's and can scream accordingly.

UPDATE: Despite my familiarity with the inner workings of the wingnut mind, I did not anticipate speculations that Obama replaced McChrystal with Petraeus in order to ensure that Petraeus doesn't run against him in 2012. Bless their little hearts.

Margaritaville

I'm heading to Key West to attend to some business over the next few days. I'll be back on Saturday.

And yes, the Duvall Crawl is part of my plan!

See...I got bad news this morning...

Douchebags In The News

Well, let's just say there's a lot of anger out there today, and leave it at that as way of introduction:

 

1) Gen'l Stanley McChrystal -- Apparently, his major complaint against Obama specifically was that he seemed inadequate to the task at hand in Afghanistan the first time he and the general met. Now, that's a bit off-putting, to say the least. A President has been fully briefed by the outgoing adminstration on all hot topics, he's met with the Joint Chiefs by then as well, I'm sure. You'd think he'd have a handle on things, unless you believe that there's some sort of conspiracy among the more strident radicals in the outgoing administration to prevent him from being fully informed. He did bring Gates back on board, so this is an unlikely scenario. Which leaves only one possible answer.

 

The magnitude of the situation was inconceivable to anyone, and I mean anyone. General Eisenhower could have walked into that meeting and walked out looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

 

Given the tenor and nature of McChrystal's remarks, he should be and likely will be fired. He should consider himself lucky to be allowed to retire without disgrace beyond what has been revealed. It's gross insubordination of the highest order, and gives aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war.

 

2) Steven Newman -- The definition of chutzpah must now be updated. In the dictionary, a man who kills both his parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court for being orphaned has always been the gold standard in chutzpah. But now, here we have one of the men most directly responsible for the Gulf oil spill whining about Obama's temporary moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf! (see also the cartel in London)

 

3) Miley Cyrus -- Normally, I could give a rat's ass about celebs, but here's a case where someone who's start in show business came about ONLY because her dad had a novelty country and western hit, suddenly believing they have talent and have earned their place in the pantheon of celebrity.

 

Good luck, Miley, it was nice knowing you. We expect naked photos and rehab by the end of the year.

 

4) Curren D. Price, California state senator -- Advertising on license plates. 'Nuff said.

 

5) Steve Jobs -- I love Apple. I love Apple computers, I love my iPhone, I love the new iPhone OS, I love my iPad. I hate the totalitarianism that Jobs sometimes inflicts on his customer base. That said, I wouldn't trade any of my Apple stuff for anything PC or Googled. 

 

6) Chimpanzees -- All we are saying, is give peace a chance. I fully expect the right wing to start confirming evolution with this revelation.

 

7) Megan Fox -- Noble concept. Let someone else do it. You can't act.

 

8) Portugal -- 7-0? Unnecessary.

Half-Gassed Solution

Are they ever going to stop kowtowing to Droopy Dog?

The Obama administration and a key player in Senate climate negotiations would consider a bill that caps greenhouse gas emissions from just the electric utility sector, which may face better political odds than an effort to cap emissions across the economy.

Naturally, that "key player" is Senator Joe Lieberman (I- Douchebag).

Yes, utilities are responsible for a large share of carbon emissions in America, primarily the coal and oil based plants. In practice, a form of carbon caps are in place on utilities already, since they can buy and sell power around the nation. More efficient plants, therefore, benefit from selling excess capacity to less efficient plants. This allows more efficient plants, which usually are less wasteful in carbon emissions too, to run at full capacity while encouraging less efficient and more polluting plants to lower their production.

This only happens at peak load times, tho, when it's cheaper for a utility to go buy power on the market rather than try to coax more power from its plants or worse, invest in a new plant that will lie idle much of the time. For normal capacity, this model does not exist.

It'll make a dent, but won't even begin to take effect until 2012, and won't be fully in place until 2018.

We. Don't. Have. That. Much. Time.

The UN IPCC has made it clear that, to avoid most of the major climate castastrophes associated with global warming, the world must see a 50-85%% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2050.

That gives us less than forty years to design, implement, enact, and enforce carbon emissions rules. In a nation where it took 100 years to put in place even the pitiful program we laughingly called "healthcare reform" AND given that much of that century was spent in fairly benign political climates, what are the odds that in 2018, the morons on the radically idiotic right will cave and accept even the mildest carbon emissions caps?

Slim, and none. And Slim's out burning firewood.

Smack this asshole down, Mr President. Let's get this thing done.

Nobody Asked Me, But....

1) Walking (back) the dinosaur. While it still can be used as a campaign tool this year to tar Republicans in general, it's going to be very very hard to make it stick as a charge against a specific candidate. Pity. I was hoping Barton had a real spine.

 

2) All that whinging you hear about BP being the victim? Fuggedaboutit. They are a prime takeover target and BP investors will make out like bandits.

 

3) The long and the short of it.

 

4) Digging Bobby Fischer?

 

5) South Carolina, the state best known for weird politics, just got weirder.

 

6) Interesting. NJ passed a medical marijuana law just before John Corzine left office. I was expecting the new governor, Chris Christie, to seek to overturn it. Surprise, surprise, altho there are strings attached. I wonder...there might be an "I didn't inhale" moment coming.

 

7) Let she who is without sin cast the first softball. Do the right wingers even know about women's softball? Maybe they should ask Elena Kagan...I don't think she's about to tell.

 

8) Really! Was the breathalyzer even necessary???

 

9) Maybe they should have hired these guys to scare the slick away from the shores? Just a thought.

 

10) Finally, the most exclusive restaurant in the world. So exclusive, it's not even IN a building!

A Rational Explanation For Teabagging

Astounding article in the Times the other day: a think piece on the underlying psychology of Teabaggers. While it's true the movement is an astroturfed phenomenon, it caught fire for an unexpected reason, one that ultimately will backfire on Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the Republican party:

Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that  one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions.

In other words, what happened under the Bush administration was the dismantling of the illusion that we are all self-sufficient, that we can get by on our own, that we can, ultimately, make it on merit.

 

Who would get angriest at this causation? Not the reality-based community, who have known all along that each of us relies heavily on an unseen network of peers and support from people wholly unrelated to your capacity as a citizen in your community. Yes, the teachers you grew up listening to, but also the auto mechanic who built your car, the utility person who repairs your phone lines before you even know they're out, the fisherman who lands that net of shrimp that contains your dinner.

 

Warren Buffett's Responsible Wealth does yeoman work trying to remind people of this every day.

 

Who would get angriest at this causation? The very people who enabled the dismantling, which is why you see fervent Bush accolytes suddenly grumble about how "liberal" he really was. Ironic, isn't it, that the prophet of the Ownership Society would see it crumble under his very feet, his name now mud on both sides of the aisle.

 

The Teabaggers want to see the budget balanced but no taxes raised and they certainly don't want to see spending cut on things they like, such as defense, highways, water, farm subsidies, infrastructure that serves them, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. They want the government to stay away from the people but please leave Medicare alone, don't regulate Wall Street, but banks ought to be able to lend to small businesses on demand. 

 

A little paranoid schizophrenia, in other words.

 

Here's the thing: as J. M. Bernstein points out, the notion of self-sufficiency is an artifice, a creation of society, an institution. It is no different than marriage or a corporation, no different than being Republican or Democrat. It is granted by mutual consent and can be taken away unilaterally if one party to the agreement holds power over the other. 

 

And society, far and away, holds power over the individual. This was the whole raison d'etre of unions, if you recall. They are a way to give individuals power and influence in an wholly unbalanced equation of at-will employment.

 

Events of the first decade of this century proved that this artifice is in need of some adjustment. We saw a growing threat of international terror, coupled with the climax of a long term degradation of that thing that makes it all worthwhile to get up in the morning and head to work: a paycheck. Housing values became wildly unstable, creating a game of musical chairs that saw you land in a house you could afford when the music stopped, or in deep, desperate trouble. And finally, we saw a government, now two, confront a crisis that it was unprepared and ill-equipped to handle.

 

Mostly because politicians pandered to our baser instincts of giving us mo' money each week in our paycheck, and damn the debt the government was running up! 

 

The bill is coming due, and people are angry. They can't be angry at themselves, no, so they take it out on the most visible icon of this mess, the government. And this anger comes at a moment when, indeed, any rational person can only see that MORE government intervention in the world is needed, not less. We need the government to step into the markets and protect consumers and we need the government to intervene and help homeowners and banks work out their differences and we need the government to create work for those who are long-term unemployed and we need the government to protect us from the predations of corporations who gamble not only their economic futures but the very lives of American citizens on a short-term profit. 

 

And we need it now, but a significant portion of this nation hasn't woken up to smell the tea.     

 

If Man Can Walk On The Moon...

The famed scientist, David Suzuki, tells the parable of a test-tube of bacteria, starting with a single cell that doubles in population every minute, so that by the end of an hour, it has filled the test tube and exhausted its food supply and air. He points out that, at 59 minutes, the test tube is only half full, and at 58 minutes, just 25% full.

 

He imagines the debate the bacteria at 55 minutes:

"We're running out of space, we're running out of time, we're running out of air and food."

 

"Nonsense! Look! We have nearly all the tube left. There's plenty for all of us!"

This was the image that popped into my head while watching Obama's speech last night, particularly at this passage:

"Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor," Obama said. "The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight."

"We cannot consign our children to this future," he added. "The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny."

Indeed, the time may be past to salvage any chance of a future as we've imagined it. When just one oil company spends more on drilling in the US-- one of the less promising resources for oil-- than the nation spends on energy research, we've got a major problem.

In the past, I've pointed out an optimal solution to train the guns of America and the world on renewable energy, and it's one I still haven't seen a serious "player" suggest, so I'm throwing it out there again: offer a government stipend, a grant of one billion dollars with no strings attached beyond the competition. If you can develop a truly renewable energy resource, one that doesn't pollute and can be harnessed with minimal environmental footprint, and have it produce BTUs at the rate of fossil fuels, you win the prize.

But I digress...

 

Obama termed the oil spill an "epidemic" and this is an excellent analogy. It's not a devastating attack like 9/11 was. It's not an act of God that swept through the Gulf, like Katrina was. This was foreseeable, preventable, and once unleashed, should have been containable.

 

That it wasn't contained is the real story here, one the media refuses to tell honestly. Obama's popularity has wrongly taken a hit here. It was the Bush administration that approved the license, it was the Bush administration cronies that allowed BP to dummy up inspections and set their own rules, and it was the Bush administration that, yet again, killed that region of the nation. BP, and if the testimony before Congress is any indication no oil company, should not have been allowed to drill without a massive contingency plan for the worst case scenario.

 

We have a chance now to set in motion not only our energy policy for the next few years, but for decades to come. We can wean the nation off oil and onto something healthier and safer for us all. We've done this before, heck, we've done it often, from whale oil to coal to crude, and from CFCs in the atmosphere to even better propellants and refrigerants. We've beaten back challenges. We will continue to do so.

 

Geology is the study of pressure, and time. Right now, epochal forces are acting on the American people. We can crumble into dust, or we can turn into diamonds.

Whoa!

This might be a little hard to process on a Monday morning, especially if you haven't had coffee yet.

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we've been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

Let me try to suss out what the good Dr Lanza is saying: if you saw the movie "Star Trek:Generations", you've been made aware of a plot device called the Nexus, which you reach by slipping through a tear in space-time and where a part of your consciousness remains, even if you manage to escape.

Now, in this Nexus, your consciousness can visit anyplace, at any time. Not in our reality, of course, but in a parallel universe that can be created and destroyed in an instant by your consciousness. Want to be married to that girl you knew in high school? Think it and you get to live it.

So here's the question Lanza is posing and fumblingto answer: at death, what happens to your consciousness?

In life, consciousness seems to be stored in the brain, presumably holographically, since it's not just your memories, but also consists of your dreams, ideas, fantasies, and beliefs.

I'm careful here to divorce the actual way information is stored in our brains and used by our minds with the New Age concept of the holographic universe. There's pretty good evidence for a sub-quantum effect that allows for the immediate transfer of information between widely spaced quantum particles, but there is zero factual evidence for this operating on a human scale, or that human's can consciously alter the universe.

What Lanza proposes is that your consciousness enters or even creates a "blank slate," a brand new universe that allows you to be in control of its initial state and all outcomes, based strictly on your mind. Time goes back to zero, and you get a brand new clock.

It's not impossible. Indeed, chaos theory demands a probability be assigned to it, however low, since by the simple act of imagining it you presume the possibility of its reality. And now we have the paradox: if consciousness cannot create a universe at death, then how can this be a possible outcome, but it must be a possible outcome since our consciousness can create the idea.

Like I said, go have a cup of coffee. Ponder that for a while.

Apparently, you have an eternity.

An Open Letter to Chuck Schumer

Dear Senator Schumer:

Fuck you.

First of all, as Think Progress points out, what you said isn't true. I'm beginning to think that people who are most militantly opposed to the two-state solution are rightwing Israelis and their supporters. Which, you know, makes sense, since Israelis have a shit-ton more power than Palestinians and can do anything with our blessing other than actively, explicitly ethnically cleansing a region. Why would they settle for a two-state solution when they seem to be able to take it all? At the very least, in light of statements like this, why would we be surprised that Palestinians might be wary of promises to establish two states?

To echo what you said, I also think that countries should have boycotted trade with the US the second time we elected Bush. Maybe China should have called in their debts. Hey, maybe Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern states should have stopped selling us oil. Wait, what? Only we're allowed to elect violent, incompetent assholes and sociopaths without retaliation from other states? Democracy (tm) is fucking great!

Finally, although I'm sure you meant that Palestinians oppose Zionism because it's not part of their religion, when you say "they don't believe in the Torah," it almost sounds as if you're saying they won't support peace because they're subhuman unbelievers who will always be prone to violence. As a member of a group of people who have been historically ostracized, oppressed, and murdered for their beliefs, maybe you should learn from Helen Thomas and think about what you say before you fucking say it.

Yours truly,

Truculent A. Unreliable

PS: I'm aware that the majority of Israelis support a two-state solution, as well, but just as in the case of Islamic extremism, those voices aren't always loudest in the room. Hell, you don't sound like you're a fan of the two-state solution, yourself.

PPS: Fuck you. No, really. As a seasoned politician, how hard is it for you to avoid saying something so inflammatory at a time like this? I suppose it's safe to assume that any Islamic militants who might possibly use your statement as a recruiting tool don't have TVs or newspapers or internet access?

Nobody Asked Me, But...

Special Big Apple Edition

 

1) I stand with the Empire State Building ownership: religion is too controversial a topic to start honoring individuals with ceremonial lighting. Could you imagine the screaming if Mother Teresa was Muslim?

 

2) Actually, you don't have to imagine. Bigotry abounds even in liberal New York City.

 

3) If you're arrested and charged with adultery, it's probably a bad idea to admit to it by saying "yes, it happened but we weren't naked!"

 

4) If ur been eetin by a goat, ur doin it rong!

 

5) Turns out, the sexytary who was fired by Citibank for her distracting appearance may have made it all up.

 

6) While I support the Empire State Building, I have no problems honoring a centennial birthday. Here's a gallery of the finest of Jacques Cousteau, a man who inspired me and millions in his life to follow his example and explore the oceans. Why World Oceans Day was Tuesday and not today is beyond me. By the way, the Empire state Building was lit up for World Oceans Day.

 

7) The New York Times makes it official: Tweeting is for twits.

 

8) It's tempting to go with a "why buy the cow when the milk is free...um, oops!" joke here.

 

9) The other week, I posted about how you have to dehumanize when you commit violence against another person. Exhibit A.

 

10) From your keyboard to God's ear, one can only hope.

Introductions All Around

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! And you there, on the railings!

 

I wanted to introduce a valuable acquisition to the SLB team: my commenting buddy from "Sadly, No!": TruculentandUnreliable.

 

I didn't really need another team member, but she writes such cogent and extensive comments and hell, she puts up with my incessant badgering and pestering her for a quick peek at her boobs that I thought I ought to give her a safe place to vent her thoughts and feelings.

 

Please extend a laurel...and hearty handshake to her!

Do Not Want

I've been struggling with a sense of disharmony and unease for a while now.

 

Usually, this time of year finds me full of myself: the weather's nice, flowers are blooming, I get to ride my bike, cute girls are showing more skin...you know the drill.

 

And that's there this year, but for some strange reason, I am unable to shed this ennui and the recessive feelings of winter. Naturally, I attribute it to some underlying physical state. Some kind of infection, perhaps a reaction to some medication, I'm not sure.

 

Or maybe it's an emotional state. Maybe I'm depressed and can't find my usual groove that rides me back to my manic state, that wildly creative impulse that's seen me write a book in 48 hours, or invent some of the funniest comedy in my life. I mean, I've seen bits and pieces of that spark here and there, but I look at what I've written lately, the photos I've taken, and I notice there's a sense of mean-spiritedness, of boredom, of sadness.

 

I can't put my finger on it, of course, but I notice it's not as shiny and happy as it can be, as filled with love as it has been.

 

I do a self-check. I don't seem to be depressed. I don't exhibit my standard flags for depression. I'm losing weight, I'm riding my bike as frequently as I can (with allowances for rest), I'm not drinking heavily, I'm even socializing and watching less TV and getting more done around the house.

 

I feel fine, apart from the stress of daily living.

 

Except...something was off.

 

I woke up this morning feeling my oats, except for that haunting little buzz that nagged me like the tinnitis I suffer from years of standing too close to the speakers at too many concerts as a kid. Ceaseless, yet I'm able to work around it. Incessant, but it is ignorable.

 

I got up, had coffee, checked my messages and email, and sat down for my morning contemplation/meditation, which usually involves petting ThumbPer, sipping coffee and laughing at the news if I can. Not hard today, I found, despite the realization that in 52 days, BP has done more damage to the environment than I've done in 52 years.

 

But hell, that probably happened back on day 7, so what do I know?

 

The mornings are quiet time for me. There's little noise coming through my window, save for the buzzing of the traffic helicopters coming into the city and the chirping birds. The crows haven't arrived yet. I dread that part of the summer. ThumbPer is awake and calm, as I've just fed him and he's thankful. The coffee is fresh and strong. My mind is quiet and unstressed.

 

I flipped the news off when they ran this ridiculous fluff piece around 7:30 and turned to Free Speech TV. And my eyes opened.  

 

I mean, they really opened. Not in an alarmist, "OMG! END OF THE WORLD!" kind of way. More of "AHA! I get it now!" kind of way.

 

I do not want any more.

 

I have enough. As I sat there, drying off from my shower, my suit laid out on the bed, I realized I'm tired of being marketed to. I'm tired of being told what I must have, and how badly I want it. Good thing, too, but looking around, I want everything I have and have nearly everything I want.

 

In America, we live in the freest society in the history of the planet, and yet we are enslaved. How ironic that the very tools that gave us nominal freedom from tyranny allow us to be tyrannized. We have choice, yes. We can choose to go bankrupt buying this, or that. Take your pick! Don't want to buy either this or that? No problem! We have the other!

 

As I sit on my pile of stuff, I realize it's exciting. It's thrilling. I own an iPad! Look at me! But what does it mean? It means I'm chained to a life that demands I work a set number of hours five days a week at precisely the same time each day, get up precisely the same time each day. It means I have to get on the same subways, walk the same blocks, see the same sights, eat at precisely the same time.

 

I'm a monkey in a cage, a shark in a tank. Sure, I can alter this routine a little, but that's like the shark swimming right instead of left. He's still in the fucking tank! Or I could switch jobs, but ultimately I have to be in a tank.

 

Why? Because I want. And now, I'm full. The damnable thing about it is, I've known this for a while and yet, I've kept running my credit card at meltdown speed. It's an addiction, and it's an addiction we all suffer from. And like all addictions, even tho we've reached a point where it's just not healthy anymore, we keep stuffing our houses with just one more thing.

 

Notice, this isn't about spirituality. It's not about suddenly deciding to become a full-throated Buddhist and shedding all my possessions, slicing the tops off my shoes and living in a tree, learning to play the flute. I feel fine spiritually. I'm in a good place.

 

It's about slavery. It's about the people of the United States freely trading governmental tyranny for the tyranny of the marketers and marketplace and their co-horts, employers. It's about finally rising up and saying "STOP!" I've become my own worst fear, a human "doing". I don't live, I do.

 

Socrates was right about so many things in his life, and back in ancient Greece "to do is to be" made a lot more sense when the most you could hope to acquire in your lifetime was some property to grow your own food or a ship to sail the ocean. If Socrates saw what his mantra hath wrought, it strikes me he'd be livid at Americans, and regret that statement.

 

We surrendered this land, this great and bountiful land, to a corporatocracy that will do the bare minimum to keep us quiet as it picks our pockets, the pockets of our children and grandchildren and the pockets of anyone else it can reach. And. We. Did. It. Freely.

 

And for what? A new car every few years, a new toy, a faster commute, an easier way to do the dishes, a more stylish look? Ben Franklin famously said "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

 

We've done worse. We gave up essential liberty for a pair of designer shoes. And we put it on the credit card. We'll be paying for those shoes long after they've worn down and been thrown out.

 

I thoroughly understand the thrill of acquisition. Later this month, in fact, I'm due to claim my share of a shipwreck's treasure, paid for with money I do not have any longer, but at least there's an intrinsic value to it. At least it will be as valuable as what I paid for it. At least I will never throw it out, and I will be more thrilled because it's a part of history.

 

I segregate the thrill of having from the thrill of being a part of history. And it's the former thrill that one feels when one gets a new computer, or a new ring.

 

But what's the history to be had with that? What does it mean?

 

Is that really all it's about? How boring! How yawning a chasm of despair are we trying to climb out of when we buy a bauble and enjoy it?

Can Futbol Matter?

International sports has a place in international relations. There's something about meaningless competitions in games on a global scale that forces international tensions to the fore, and highlights conflicts.

 

Just ask the Soviet men's water polo team in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Or the 1972 US men's basketball team at Munich. Or the Israeli wrestling team at the same games.

 

Soccer is no different. Sometimes it can even result in tragedy, as in the death of a Colombian defender in the 1994 World Cup who scored an "own goal" (a goal knocked inadvertently into the goal you are defending), who was gunned down upon his return home.

 

And sometimes, it can unite a nation that is torn by bloody civil strife. We saw this in the last World Cup, in 2006, when factions battling for control of the Ivory Coast declared a truce that lasted the length of the games. While it wasn't perfect, is it a coincidence that just nine months later, a peace accord was signed? I think not. And cetainly it gives Didier Drogba and his side incentive this time out.

 

Which brings me to the point of this article: The World Cup 2010 comes to a continent torn asunder with growing pains, corruption, exploitation, and yet, hope. Somalia is overrun with terrorists and pirates. Zimbabwe seems to be hanging together by a thread and this unrest is destablizing northern South Africa itself (some of the games will be played in the north in Johannesburg and its environs). And that's all before we look at the war in the Congo and the situation in Darfur.

 

And all this happens against a larger backdrop: the lurking threat of global Islamic terror and the inclusion of nations such as the US and the UK in the 32 teams heading to the tournament.

 

It would be easy to focus on the negative politics of potential matches like Ghana versus Nigeria or Algeria (to make up a crisis out of thin air), or South Korea v. North Korea.

 

Instead, a thought experiment: what would it mean to Africa if Cameroon, or Nigeria, or Cote d'Ivoire, or South Africa itself, were to win the Copa Mondial?

Karma Is A Bitch

So many forms of karma are running around the news today.

 

Let's take a few looks:

 

1) Blanche Lincoln - It's not nice to throw your weight around on a President's most significant piece of legislation, Senator.

 

2) Joran van der Sloot - OJ had it right: when you get away with murder, keep your head down. It's nothing to be proud of, certainly nothing to keep records of on your laptop. This sleazebag will be lucky to see the light of day ever again.

 

3) Steve Jobs - The beauty of Apple products for those of us who have used them for, like, ever, was that they were our little secret. We could smugly brag about them, and no one would listen because Apple was always on the verge of bankruptcy or deportation or whatever bizarre fate the world had in store. And then Setve Jobs returned, and made Apple the hottest tech company on the planet. And now he has to deal with the millions of people who hang on his every word.

 

4) Tony Hayward - I think Obama dropped a big hint to your bosses back in Britain. I guess you'll be "getting your life back" sooner than you anticipated. Speaking of BP...

 

5) BP - $3,000 a barrel spilled is peanuts when you consider they announced a $10.5 billion dividend for this quarter. BP ought to pull that dividend back and start investing it in paper towels and dish detergent. It has a monumental task ahead of it.

 

6) Finally, Helen Thomas - The saddest karmic come uppance of them all. Eighty nine years old and still able to whip out a bit of journalism. She spoke hyperbolically, precisely the same kind of hyperbole she has skewered for longer than most people can remember. The irony here is pretty full, too. She demanded that Jews leave Israel and move back to Poland and Germany, the lands they fled for precisely the kind of treatments that Israel is being blamed for now. Her underlying sentiment, that we can have peace only when the rights of all people are respected, is genuine and thoughtful, but her words were not. Again, ironic and karmic for a woman who spent her life crafting words.

 

Every once in a while, the Barkeeper in the Sky settles accounts. Today seems to be one of those days.

A La Recherche Du Temps Perot

The Teabaggers are a blip on the radar. Poorly conceived, ill-timed and ultimately as all movements born of anger, doomed to fizzle out.

 

You may recall from the 1990s a similar "movement" gathered force when Ross Perot managed to climb into Presidential politics spending billions of his own money to create what ultimately became the Reform Party. That party scored exactly one coup: electing Jesse Ventura governor of Minnesota. Apart from that, any impact it had on American politics was to exacerbate already existing memes, like stealing more votes from George H W Bush than from Bill Clinton, all but guaranteeing Clinton's election, which was pretty much a foregone conclusion by the time Perot slipped into the polls.

 

That "movement" managed to slide quickly to the fringes despite the fact that it had been well-financed by Perot, and had gathered an impressive percentage of the popular vote in 1992. So abrupt was its decline into irrelevance that, even tho it is still an active party in America, the Teabaggers have refused to even discuss an alliance.

 

This, despite as has been pointed out, the Teabaggers are woefully short of money and woefully short of organization outside of a handful of states where they have managed to cull a few insigificant victories in a few small but strategic elections: convention votes, an underattended primary, and of course, the special election in Massachussetts less won by Scott Brown than lost by Martha Coakley...who promptly turned his back on the Baggers!

 

Tomorrow, Baggers will have opportunities in Nevada and California to gain some momentum. Don't bet on it. While they stand a good chance of stealing a Senate nomination in Nevada, it's no lock and this is Nevada where establishment politicians are despised, right or left. California will likely see the repudiation of the Baggers, an intriguing development from the state that delivered us unto the evil that is Ronald Reagan and is shackled in its bankruptcy by Prop 13.

 

The Baggers represent America at its worst, and while there are parts of the country where the worst is accepted and even applauded, it's to America's credit that this movement remains mired in the bottom of the toilet.