DeRosaWorld

Saturday Musings

- Tim Russert’s funeral was a bit surreal. I guess when you serve the Emperor; you get an Emperor’s funereal. The military honors kind of raised the bar for dead journalists, though. I mean what do we do when Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite go? And can you image the funeral pyre for Rush Limbaugh?

- So, our Democrat-Congress gave immunity to the telecoms. FAIL.

- So, our Democrat-Congress keeps funding the Iraq war, no questions asked. FAIL

- Maybe someday someone will explain to me how George Bush, Jr. gets away with frightening and bullying everyone from journalists, to politicians to the military. He seems like a fucking moron to me.

- How’s the price of gasoline at your pump?

- Thank god President Bush, Jr. is visiting the flooded Midwest. It has been rumored he can part the waters.

- NASA confirmed there is ice on Mars. Of course, Earth has brought global warming to Mars by digging up the ice and letting it melt in the sun. If I were the Martians, I'd attack as soon as possible. Send the tripods now, before it is too late and you end up with McDonald's and second hand cigarette smoke.

- The airline industry, remember those guys and the $$$$billions taxpayers gave them after 9/11…well they are going to start raising prices and restricting flying with minimum stay-over requirements. Can we have the 9/11 money back?

- Too bad Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party crushed most of the unions in America. Maybe they would have wanted to help the average American. Ah, well.

- Don DeLillo’s Underworld blogging continues: Last week I finished the Prologue: The Triumph of Death. Now this was no ordinary prologue, this is about fifty pages of new wave cinema edited sports prose about October 3, 1951 and the Giants beating the Dodgers for the Pennant at The Polo Grounds, the same day the Russians set off an atomic bomb. I guess this would be called a tour de force. Among others we meet Cotter, a kid who jumps the gate to see the game and ends up with the game winning ball in his possession.

Part One: Long Tall Sally jumps us up in time to 1992. We meet Nick and learn that in the montage from the Prologue, Nick was the kid on a roof listening to the Game on the radio. He now owns the legendary baseball. He also has a typical, fucked up suburban life in Arizona. But, he also has a strange ex-lover who is painting Cold War era bombers in the desert. See this is a post-modern novel, so things are going to be revealed backwards. Man, some of this territory was covered fifty years ago by Norman Mailer. We get it.; being a middle-aged American male sucks, especially if you only moved to fucking Arizona instead of all the way to California.

The centerpiece of this section of the book is, I think the hot-air balloon ride Nick and his wife take over the nuclear bomber art exhibit. There is also a long passage full of wonder inside a condom store. Nick figures out that one of his friends and co-workers is banging his wife. Lot’s of experimental cross dialog in which you don’t know who is a talking. This just reminds me that John Huston’s Key Largo is on TCM. Huston did some sound/cross-dialog experiments in that movie. I stopped reading and put the television on and watched a couple of movies at the same time. I kept switching channels between TCM and IFC. There was a French movie on about a group of kids who decide to kill the leader of their group, for no real reason.  There is a small scene where two of the kids are riding on a motorcycle and they stop so one of them can throw-up. They were drinking and partying too much earlier. The kid who was sick asks the other if he has any gum because his mouth has such a bad taste in it. The kid offers him a strawberry flavored condom. The sick kid takes it and pops it io his mouth. And I thought. This was better that that entire condom store passage I just read in DeLillo.

Anyway, I am not quite ready to cry “bullshit” on Underworld, just yet. It may be the great American novel and because Cotter showed up again at the end of this section. So we are back in time tracing the baseball.

I’ll keep you posted on Part Two next weekend.

- Speaking of French new wave…Are you ready for this?…Belinda Carlisle has a new album out, Voila in which she sings completely in French. It doesn’t get no better than this folks. The Go-Go’s lead singer has always been a secret favorite of mine.  Guys, if reading Don DeLillo makes you worried about turning 50 or 60, Belinda Carlisle singing Jezebel in French is the cure for middle-aged angst.

Saturday Musings

- Tim Russert didn’t want to learn the lesson all working class Irish, Italians and Jews learn the hard way. Never trust the WASPS.

- The Great Game in Afghanistan took a hit this week. About 870 prisoners escaped during a Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, And in western Afghanistan today, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle, killing four Americans.

- Bush, Jr. is still in Europe.

- The Cedar River was a force to be reckoned with this week in Iowa. And Des Moines’ levees were ruptured by the Des Moines River today. Let’s hope the government response matches the task.

- The Supreme Court decided that habeas corpus is an important part of the American Constitution. Bush, Jr. said he would nod his imperial head and abide by the Court’s ruling, although it was only a 5-4 decision….huh?

- The world continues to shake and quiver. Northern Japan took a hit yesterday. Is mother nature trying to tell us something, like “get off”.

- Speaking of getting off earth, NASA’s latest Mars lander, Phoenix has collected particles that offer a snapshot of millions of years of life on the Mars. NASA is hoping to find evidence of the existence of water and life-supporting organic minerals in the polar region. Now wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

- I hope that lift off clip thing that fell off the Space Shuttle doesn’t fall and hit me in the head. Something else to worry about.

- I’ve been under the weather lately, knocked down by one hell of a cold, with a slight fever, heavy chest congestion and lots of runny nose. Yesterday I made a lunch out of a can of imported tuna in olive oil from Genoa, Italy, a clove of fresh garlic and some rigatoni. I felt a lot better. I try to hold off the American over the counter medicine if I can, but not this time. Mucinex and Afrin are my bff.

- Glen Campbell has an album coming late summer in which he covers his favorite rock songs. I am so excited. There will be some Green Day and some U2 and god knows what else. That old boy can sing and play the guitar.

- Emmylou Harris, the reigning queen of alt-country also has a new album. All I Intended To Be. I need to catch up with Emmylou. She’s keeps churning out records and changing partners and I just can’t get enough of her.

- Don DeLillo’s Underworld…okay, so the opening is Pafko At The Wall, a tour de force of sports writing that seems like he turned his manuscript over to Oliver Stone to edit. I don know. There is something so un-noble about this so noble a moment in baseball. The kid listening alone on the rooftop and the people spilling out in to the streets captures the uniqueness of the moment, but most of the characters are out of the film noir era, post WW2 America that scared the hell out of the Republican Party and J. Edgar Hoover (and enamored the French). It is a big book and I will blog about it here each week until finished. The opening is certainly crafty, but am I reading the great American novel? I’ll let you know.

Saturday Musings

- As the primary season comes to a close with a surprise progressive hero, Senator Barack Obama coming from nowhere to claim the leadership of the Democratic Party in the post-Bush, Jr. (and maybe the post-Republican) era, the party bosses are gathering this weekend to try and wrap up the confusing and fucked up nomination process before the actual convention.

With the final primaries being held this week, Obama hasn’t actually won, yet. Arianna Huffington has the champaign on ice, though. The celebration is about to begin. Change and hope and pride in America is right around the corner. Out with the old. In with the new.

- Republicans have no wins on their card to run on. If Democrats don’t sweep both houses of Congress and the White House this year, they might as well shut the Party down.

Conservatism has lost and lost big time. Hit McCain on the issues: The Republican economy. The Republican health care system. Republican Party perversion and corruption.

Make John McCain defend the last eight years: Republican gas prices. Republican-run war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republican Veterans Hospitals. Republican Education.

How can he defend any of it? Just ask McCain if he is a neocon? I’d like to see him answer that question.

- Isn’t is awesome having oil men in the White House? And after taking over the country with the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world….Americans can’t afford to fill both their cars and their bellies at the same time. How’d that happen?

- Sydney Pollack is a great loss to Hollywood and movie lovers. He was one of the last producers of films made for grown-ups. Since he died, I can't get scenes from his films out of my head: Robert Redford in the snow in Jeremiah Johnson. The dancers in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Barbra Streisand's sad face in The Way We Were. Sally Field's indignation in Absence of Malice. Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in the airplane from Out Of Africa. Robert Mitchum kicking through paper walls in The Yakuza. Dustin Hoffman walking down a New York City street in drag from Tootsie. Thanks Sydney!

- I have not seen Iron Man. I will not go to see Sex and the City.

- I’ve been listening to a lot of The Doors’ music lately: Strange Days and Waiting  For The Sun. They are my drive-time background music. Ever since I watched the season finale of American Idol I have not been able to get David Cook’s mock-rock screeching out of my ears. Jim Morrison had some pipes and some spooky rock chops.

- Hey, John McCain’s favorite book is Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls.

- I was told recently that I needed to read Michael Chabon. He’s the pseudo-gay writer of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (a memoir of the 2008 Pennsylvania Primary) The Wonder Boys (The secret love story of John McCain and Joe Lieberman) and something called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the Pulitzer Prize winner from 2001. I picked that book up and put it down a half dozen times. (One of them decides he’s gay). So now I have Summerland, a children’s book about baseball and elves. I’ll try, but it is an awfully fat book for a children’s book. I haven’t finished Julian Green’s Memoir’s yet, and I’m getting old.

- I’m goint to try to eat more apples.

Saturday Musings

- After almost 8 years of squatting in the White House, President Bush, Jr. finally has an economic plan. In order to stop another American revolution, he is going to send regular folks a check to buy gasoline.

- Some car manufacturers are making theft-proof gas cap doors, anticipating Americans stealing from each other. When all we have to do is elect Hillary Clinton President. I remember paying 89 cents a gallon at one point during Bill Clinton's Administration.

- So, Pennsylvania... It took a while to see because there was a lull in primaries, but Senator Obama's campaign came to a crashing halt. Now all Hillary has to do is win a few more and get to the convention. Obama has no support left among the Democratic Party power brokers. So Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell and Wes Clark and Gerry Ferraro and the like are going to be working the coat rooms and hallways. You gotta love American politics. I can smell the whiskey and cigar smoke.

- As for the Philadelphia debate on ABC leading into the PA primary. Senator Clinton swats media "gotcha" questions like flies. If the Senator from Illinois can't handle a hostile Press, then he needs to concede the nomination to someone who can.

- As for Obama's big moment in front of General Petraeus...there wasn't one.

- Okay, on to the Republican. John McCain is visiting impoverished regions and bringing nothing but a photo-op. The Press loves him though!

- Out here in California, rumors abound of Governor Schwarzenegger switching Party affiliation...He may become Green!

- Pipelines and US Soldiers got blown up in Iraq this week.

- Afghanistan is so fucked up the media doesn't know how to report on it. So they don't.

- John Adams is dead. After two Yale death scenes Abigail (Laura Linney) and John Adams (Paul Giamatti) passed once again into history on HBO's miniseries John Adams. I enjoyed the show mainly for the time it took to debate the issues surrounding independence in America and the Revolution. I also admired their lack of hero worship and how they portrayed American Presidential politics being corrupt from the first three Presidents on. It helped me put the election of 2000 into perspective.

- Now it's time to get the real dirt. I picked up Gore Vidal's Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson. America's Suetonius ought to fill in the blanks nicely.

- And the hand wringing and research is over. I put my money down on Babylon 5: The Complete Series. I read every comparison I could find, I asked my geek friends and sci-fi fans...It was either B5 or Deep Space Nine. Harlan Ellison won the day.

- On that same multiple-versions-insanely-opinionated-fans vein, I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar (The Original Studio Recording) this week again after about 30 years. Overall, it got on my nerves before the end, but Heaven On Their Minds, Everything's Alright, I Don't Know How To Love Him and Superstar brought back memories of my Catholic Grade School days and the debate between the lay teachers and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart over this music being sinful or respectful. Respectful won the day and we were played the music in our classrooms as if it were a Church sponsored event and a victory for Vatican II.

- The weekend is here. It is a perfect Southern California day. I just launched the results of four months worth of hard work. I have a new bottle of Campari and a box of Stella D'Oro assorted cookies. Life is sweet.

A Georgia Peanut Farmer in Hamas' Court

In an interview with USA TODAY, Carter said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was "mistaken" and "misinformed" about warnings she says her office gave advising him not to meet with Hamas, which the U.S. government has declared a terrorist organization.

"Hamas was not legitimized by my visit," Carter said. "They were legitimized by the fact that their people voted for them to be the ruling party in their parliament."

Where Rice "gets this repetitive claim that I was warned and advised not to go and urged not to go — she's completely mistaken," he said. "I think she's being misinformed. I don't think Condoleezza is deliberately lying, but the statement she's making is false."

Here is a transcript of Carter's meeting with Condoleeza Rice and her State Department team:

"Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom told us what it was. It was a crusade.

"What's a crusade?" I says.

He looked scornful, the way he's always done when he was ashamed of a person, and says:

"Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don't know what a crusade is?"

"No," says I, "I don't. And I don't care to, nuther. I've lived till now and done without it, and had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, I'll know, and that's soon enough. I don't see no use in finding out things and clogging up my head with them when I mayn't ever have any occasion for them. There was Lance Williams, he learnt how to talk Choctaw, and there warn't ever a Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him. Now, then, what's a crusade? But I can tell you one thing before you begin; if it's a patent-right, there ain't no money in it. Bill Thompson he—"

"Patent-right!" he says. "I never see such an idiot. Why, a crusade is a kind of war."

I thought he must be losing his mind. But no; he was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly ca'm:

"A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim."

"Which Holy Land?"

"Why, the Holy Land—there ain't but one."

"What do we want of it?"

"Why, can't you understand? It's in the hands of the paynim, and it's our duty to take it away from them."

"How did we come to let them git hold of it?"

"We didn't come to let them git hold of it. They always had it."

"Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don't it?"

"Why of course it does. Who said it didn't?"

I studied over it, but couldn't seem to git at the rights of it, no way. I says:

"It's too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to—"

"Oh, shucks! you don't know enough to come in when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain't a farm—it's entirely different. You see, it's like this. They own the land, just the mere land, and that's all they do own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven't any business to be there defiling it. It's a shame, and we oughtn't to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them."

"Why, it does seem to me it's the most mixed-up thing I ever see. Now, if I had a farm and another person—"

"Don't I tell you it hasn't got anything to do with farming? Farming is business, just common low-down worldly business, that's all it is—it's all you can say for it; but this is higher—this is religious, and totally different."

"Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?"

"Certainly! it's always been considered so."

                                                                       from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective.

Saturday Musings

- In the unlikely event that Hillary Clinton takes the Democratic Presidential nomination (and she will literally have to take it at the the convention) many progressive Obama supporters will not vote for her and will probably find solace in voting for a third party, Republican sponsored, progressive candidate, thus giving the election to John McCain.

- If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the Press and the Republican Party will see to it that he loses 49 out of 50 States. (A large part of the Democratic Party machine, sitting on their hands or unwelcome in the Obama campaign will watch bitterly from the sidelines).

- When John McCain becomes President the world will once and for all turn their backs on America as a serious influence in the world. What possible use would Europe or Asia or South America have for us? We are a nation of bridge burners.

- Economic Musing: By the second half of this century your grandchildren will be sewing blue jeans for $5.00 a week for Chinese export.

- President Reagan did away with most of the College Student Grants in the 1980's so Americans had to go into debt to educate themselves. Now the Student Loan network is collapsing. This didn't come up at the ABC debate in Philadelphia. (learn to sew blue jeans)

- Our television shows are not going to be needing commercial breaks to sell products. (That damned mute button should never have been allowed on remotes.) Products are going to be incorporated into the programs so its more of a brainwashing. NBC is starting with some on-line experiments and well, we'll keep watching. Just another thing changing this century...for the worse as movies, internet, games, TV all blend into one system that makes us capable of doing nothing else but...sew blue jeans.

- A friend of mine just gave me The Complete Tom Sawyer novels by Mark Twain. (This includes Tom Sawyer, Detective !) I am going to sit in my yard and let myself drift back to a more youthful, more innocent time. With a drink in my hand of course.

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."  - Mark Twain

Charles Darwin's Works Now Online

"The first draft of a book which changed the world's attitude to evolution is available for the first time online.

Papers which led to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were previously only available to scholars at Cambridge University's library.

The draft notes are among 20,000 archive items created by the 19th Century naturalist during his lifetime.

Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, said: "He changed our understanding of nature."

Some light reading can be found here: The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Bitter Pennsylvania Super-Delegate After Having A Shot And A Beer

Detective Rugs Carlucci from K.C. Constantine's novel Brushback.

“Nothin' funny about it, Mister Mayor. There are some people, ...they're so used to havin' people say yes to 'em all the time, they think there's nobody around can remember how to say no. ...All those Republicans just got elected to Congress, they're tryin' to tell everybody what's wrong with this country, it's all poor people's fault. Poor people and sick people and teenage black girls. And old people.

“Can you imagine, Mister Mayor, the balls it takes to tell that lie? Huh? The balls it takes to believe it? The U.S. government's in financial trouble because of poor people, old people, sick people, and black girls? You believe that, Mister Mayor, next thing you gotta believe is that's who wrote the laws.

“I mean, Jesus, did poor people write the tax laws? Who wrote Social Security, a bunch of geezers? And I guess sick people wrote Medicare and Medicaid. And who wrote the welfare laws—illiterate black girls? Who wrote those laws? I mean, no.

“I didn't know black teenage girls got elected to Congress, did you? And people with terminal diseases? When did that happen?  Mister Mayor, people can believe bullshit for as long as they want, but sooner or later, reality's gonna jump up in front of 'em and they're gonna have to deal with it. Nobody's gonna tell me it was homeless people shut all those steel mills down, shipped 'em to Korea and Brazil and Mexico.

“It wasn't people livin’ in cardboard boxes wrote those defense budgets. See what kills me, Mister Mayor, is anytime those poor, sick, illiterate black girls in Congress, anytime they don't like somebody, like Noriega or Saddam Hussein, man, they never talk about how the government's goin' broke when they wanna drop some bombs on somebody, do they? You hear anybody talkin' budgets and deficits when they were callin' ol' Hussein the new Hitler? I didn't hear a word about budget deficits then, did you? I mean if I'm wrong, tell me.

“You hear anybody say, hey, we can't be goin' over there, we can't afford it, you hear any of those illiterate black girls in Congress, you know, those teenagers can't keep their knees together, especially the ones on the foreign affairs committees and the defense appropriations committees, you hear them talkin' about how that's gonna raise financial hell for our children and our grandchildren, make 'em pay taxes forever, huh?

“All the while I was in Vietnam, I thought I had lost my marbles. The whole time I was there, every time my father used to send me the paper from here, I used to read about all those lights at the end of all those tunnels, and how we were winnin' their hearts and minds, man, I'd look around, there were tunnels all right, there were fucking tunnels everywhere, but I never saw any lights comin outta 'em. Only thing I heard was incoming. Headed for me or the guys right around me. And I enlisted. Yeah. Guys'd look at me like I was completely fuckin' nuts. Gone. You enlisted? You volunteered for this shit? You thought it was your duty? To serve your country? What the fuck're you smokin'?

“And now here I am. Still doin’ my duty—tryin’. Only now I'm as confused as I was over there, at the end. Nobody here is sayin' anything about lights or tunnels or winnin’ anybody's hearts or minds....”

Saturday Musings

- Even the media and the progressive blogosphere had trouble covering for Senator Obama on his remarks about those stubborn Archie Bunker voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere across the United States who are not supporting him for some godforsaken reason. They just don’t want hope.

- Hillary pounced of course.

- McCain made poopy in his Depends.

- Is McCain really this stupid or is the senile old man routine some Rovian game plan to keep the White House under Republican siege. What happened to the ‘maverick’, the guy who was thinking of switching Party affiliation?

- Bush, Jr. War score:
Iraq…fucked up and getting worse.
Afghanistan…ignored by press...FUBAR.
Iran…boy are they asking for it.
America…Supply lines running out of gas, food, water, cash and credit.
Generic ‘on terror’…Al Qaeda!

- George Jr. is going to make one hell of an ex-President. Every post Presidential interview is going to produce gems. How are the Republicans and his media apologist going to keep his stupid mouth shut. He basically admitted to treason this week when asked about his involvement in his Administration’s interrogation techniques. He doesn’t understand the concept of plausible deniability.

- Dick Cheney’s sunglasses…did you ever see that movie Jeepers Creepers?

- A Newseum opened in Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the US Capitol. Every word is a lie including ‘and’ and ‘the’.

- The beginning of the end: April 12, 1945. FDR dies in office and Harry Truman becomes President, as does the Military Industrial Complex.

- The beginning of the beginning: April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth in the space ship, Vostok 1.

- The French are fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia. What century is it?

- Lock up your jungen, or at least the boys. Pope Benedict XVI
(God’s rottweiler) is coming to America this week and he’s hungry.

- Because of HBO's John Adams mini-series, I'm reading John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel. We don't make 'em like we used to folks. JQA and Andrew Jackson make Bush vs. Gore look like a 'cripple-fight'. Americans never vote for the smart guy.

Saturday Musings

- Americans are fighting in Basra and we are not allowed to know the details. I’m afraid that magic number of 5,000 dead US soldiers is going to come sooner rather than later. Maybe even before Bush, Jr. leaves office.

- Some Democrats want Senator Clinton to drop out of the race before her three-state sweep coming up in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Indiana. Why should she? Obama supporters made a mistake that probably can not be reversed, so I guess they want it certified. We all go down together?

Face it Obamamaniacs, you blew your opportunity to vote for the first woman running for President of a major party. Your liberal 'progressive' credentials are in tatters. You got confused and scared, your Primary came, you voted for Obama, now you regret it and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about your choice now. Except hope Clinton steals the nomination. It's a win-win situation for you. You can keep your progressive ID card, but not actually have to deal with an Obama Presidency.

- Senator Obama said something about the economy this week, too…hope, blah, blah, shared blame, blah, blah…he doesn’t know what he is talking about folks. Sorry. Ever see the movie The Candidate?

- The Federal Reserve in printing up another $100 Billion to prop up Banks. Should we be worried now? Can someone check on those New Deal-era Bank reforms that were supposed to protect us? Are there any left? Are we screwed?

- California State Regulators cut by more than half the number of emission-free vehicles that car manufacturers have to produce in the coming years – oh well, fuck the environment, the air and lower gas prices. Big Oil wins again.

- Maybe we should start thinking about boycotting those Olympics in Beijing. What do you think? There doesn’t seem to be any penalty any country or the United Nations is willing or able to place on China. They really want to put on a great show for the world. Let’s not show up.

- President Bush, Jr. and President Vice Dickhead Cheney really love their Iraq war. If it’s good for Haliburton, It’s good for America...and we're winning.

- Another Iraq-themed movie tanked at the box office this weekend. Stop-Loss was ignored by the American people, especially young men. Hollywood can’t put its head around this war and Americans don’t seem to want to deal with it much either.

- A friend of mine turned me on to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. This former Riker’s Island prison guard is the real next American Idol. Soul singing with a punch in the gut. 100 Days, 100 Nights is the latest.

- Heading south of the border with my reading list. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano has reached the top of the stack. Just started it and it is blowing the cobwebs off a lot of what I've been reading lately.