Jeremiah tore into his Pop Tart with the hunger of a man who hadn't eaten for days. He had, in point of fact, just eaten a Nutella sandwich minutes before. He was ravenous. In his haste, he didn't recognize that his meal was too hot for comfortable eating. Impossibly hot raspberry Pop Tart filling scorched his lower lip and his hunger was quickly forgotten. With disdain and more than a little anger, Jeremiah threw the rest of his meal into the sink. "Jesus" he exclaimed as he reached for a Brawny paper towel.
Minutes later, Jeremiah left a note for his mother before leaving to catch the 96 bus into Albany. It read:
Mother,
I burnt my lip on a Pop Tart and killed Dad. He's hanging in the downstairs closet. Well, most of him is, anyway. I'm sorry but I just lost it.
Jeremiah
PS-You're out of Pop Tarts.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Old Man Manipulates Young, Naive Fisherwoman
Women of American, can you feel it?! The hazy energy radiating from the McCain campaign is being emitted by new Vice Presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin! She may be against reproductive freedom, but you gals are going to love her! While it's true that she was only chosen by McCain in a crass, ham-handed attempt at grabbing up disaffected Hillary Clinton voters, but don't think McCain is pandering. He wouldn't do that. Would he?
Methinks he did. Palin mentioned Hillary Clinton several times in her speech, and John McCain mentioned the universal suffrage movement. It's no surprise that her anti-choice, NRA Lifetime Member thing makes her undesirable in the extreme in my book. And I'm sure many women will reject her for her stand on reproductive rights alone. But I must ask, would Palin be where she is right now if not for Hillary losing the nomination?
If not, that means that McCain found pretty much the only female Conservative with any experience and put her a heartbeat away from the presidency solely because of a crude strategy to pander to women.
And I'm hearing some Republicans on the tele tell me that the Republicans are "also for change" because they nominated a woman for VP. Well, apparently the future for a Republican is 1984 for a Democrat. That's when the Democratic Party first nominated a woman for VP, Geraldine Ferraro. Republicans are at least a quarter century behind.
McCain looks and sounds nervous and old, and Palin looks way out of her depth. They both cling to a harmful and stupid political and economic philosophy that would make them unappealing no matter what their gender, appearance, age, size, color, or species. McCain/Palin is a sad, pathetic but oddly arrogant ticket that has turned to pandering on their very first day together. I'm not talking about pandering in rhetoric. Oh, no. I'm referring to pandering in important decisions for political gain.
That's my early take. Can't wait for the debates. Hoochey Mama.
Methinks he did. Palin mentioned Hillary Clinton several times in her speech, and John McCain mentioned the universal suffrage movement. It's no surprise that her anti-choice, NRA Lifetime Member thing makes her undesirable in the extreme in my book. And I'm sure many women will reject her for her stand on reproductive rights alone. But I must ask, would Palin be where she is right now if not for Hillary losing the nomination?
If not, that means that McCain found pretty much the only female Conservative with any experience and put her a heartbeat away from the presidency solely because of a crude strategy to pander to women.
And I'm hearing some Republicans on the tele tell me that the Republicans are "also for change" because they nominated a woman for VP. Well, apparently the future for a Republican is 1984 for a Democrat. That's when the Democratic Party first nominated a woman for VP, Geraldine Ferraro. Republicans are at least a quarter century behind.
McCain looks and sounds nervous and old, and Palin looks way out of her depth. They both cling to a harmful and stupid political and economic philosophy that would make them unappealing no matter what their gender, appearance, age, size, color, or species. McCain/Palin is a sad, pathetic but oddly arrogant ticket that has turned to pandering on their very first day together. I'm not talking about pandering in rhetoric. Oh, no. I'm referring to pandering in important decisions for political gain.
That's my early take. Can't wait for the debates. Hoochey Mama.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Little Joey Beck
Perhaps I'm settling into some sort of 30-something funk, but I feel far less compelled to act on my social and political concerns than when I was younger. It could also be the crippling social anxiety and mental illness, but I'm less comfortable with that analysis. Not that getting older and not giving a rat's ass about activism anymore is any better.
There was a time when someone in the Socialist Party, or a letter from Jobs With Justice or some other organization, would compel me towards action. Back in the day, I'd pull my 440lb ass from door to door, getting signatures for this or that; health care reform, abortion rights, banning greyhound racing, that sort of thing. I even worked a phone bank and held a sign for Mike Dukakis back in 1988. These days, it would literally take a gun to my head (or anywhere else on me) to get me to canvas, work a phone bank, or do visibility.
McCain is almost as bad as a gunshot wound, and I have to admit I'm enthusiastic about Obama, even though I'm much farther to the left. I've been told that some members of Democratic Socialists of America are so unhappy with Obama that they are shopping for hopeless third-party candidates for which to vote. I've been there. The Socialist Party USA has a couple of good people, Moore and Alexander, as their ticket, although you'll have to write them in.
It saddens me deeply that the radical Left is in such disarray (it is). Eugene Debs was a long time ago, although that doesn't detract from his being a beautiful, thoughtful man whom I love in some ways. The same way I love Kurt Vonnegut and David McReynolds (a comrade with whom I still correspond). It's unlikely that I'll ever love Obama like that, but I don't have to love him, I just have to think he would do more to lessen economic injustice, maintain social programs and bolster them, and reduce American imperialism. And I do think that about him, particularly when cast in bas relief against McCain.
So Obama it is, and I'll vote for him with enthusiasm. Someone on Fox News called Obama a "socialist" and a "Marxist" the other day. If that's true, what the hell am I? If the spectrum has moved that far to the Right I must have fallen off the Left Wing and am now floating in some sort of Void. Maybe I'm dead. Like Bruce Willis in that movie with the kid that used to be cute but is now sort of ugly.
Many people still support a national, universal health care system that is publicly-funded. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. Maybe there are even a few who want to nationalize the oil and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the airlines. Perhaps not as many, but still.
Obama is definitely not a socialist (come on), and "Marxist" is just silly. He's a Centrist Democrat, no matter what Glenn Beck tries to tell you.
As I vote for Obama, though, I'll be thinking of Debs, who once said:
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
I'll probably be stone-cold dead before the pendulum swings back to the radical Left, but swing it will. And then Glenn Beck will have a real Socialist to complain about. Or maybe his kids. Little Joey Beck.
There was a time when someone in the Socialist Party, or a letter from Jobs With Justice or some other organization, would compel me towards action. Back in the day, I'd pull my 440lb ass from door to door, getting signatures for this or that; health care reform, abortion rights, banning greyhound racing, that sort of thing. I even worked a phone bank and held a sign for Mike Dukakis back in 1988. These days, it would literally take a gun to my head (or anywhere else on me) to get me to canvas, work a phone bank, or do visibility.
McCain is almost as bad as a gunshot wound, and I have to admit I'm enthusiastic about Obama, even though I'm much farther to the left. I've been told that some members of Democratic Socialists of America are so unhappy with Obama that they are shopping for hopeless third-party candidates for which to vote. I've been there. The Socialist Party USA has a couple of good people, Moore and Alexander, as their ticket, although you'll have to write them in.
It saddens me deeply that the radical Left is in such disarray (it is). Eugene Debs was a long time ago, although that doesn't detract from his being a beautiful, thoughtful man whom I love in some ways. The same way I love Kurt Vonnegut and David McReynolds (a comrade with whom I still correspond). It's unlikely that I'll ever love Obama like that, but I don't have to love him, I just have to think he would do more to lessen economic injustice, maintain social programs and bolster them, and reduce American imperialism. And I do think that about him, particularly when cast in bas relief against McCain.
So Obama it is, and I'll vote for him with enthusiasm. Someone on Fox News called Obama a "socialist" and a "Marxist" the other day. If that's true, what the hell am I? If the spectrum has moved that far to the Right I must have fallen off the Left Wing and am now floating in some sort of Void. Maybe I'm dead. Like Bruce Willis in that movie with the kid that used to be cute but is now sort of ugly.
Many people still support a national, universal health care system that is publicly-funded. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. Maybe there are even a few who want to nationalize the oil and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the airlines. Perhaps not as many, but still.
Obama is definitely not a socialist (come on), and "Marxist" is just silly. He's a Centrist Democrat, no matter what Glenn Beck tries to tell you.
As I vote for Obama, though, I'll be thinking of Debs, who once said:
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
I'll probably be stone-cold dead before the pendulum swings back to the radical Left, but swing it will. And then Glenn Beck will have a real Socialist to complain about. Or maybe his kids. Little Joey Beck.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Actually, 19 Cannibals
According to the highly-scientific calculations provided by this website, an advertisement for an online dating service, my body would feed 19 cannibals. The "10 cannibal" comes from a calculation involving a 115lb woman I know. I just know that if she can feed 10 people, I can feed WAY more than 19. But anyway, check out the link.
The compulsion to write about my painfully uninteresting stupidity and mental illness has mercifully waned of late. Although, clearly I'm still motivated to engage in self-deprecation. Really, that's a brutal combination. It's amazing anyone can exist near the black hole that is me.
Blah, blah, blah, woe is me, splat, fart.
The Olympics just ended. Quite a spectacle. An explosion of Chinese people in bicycle helmets climbing a five-story tower, jumping off, and climbing it again. China is a country of 700 million hot Asian women. Think of that. China is the country that cares not about Darfur, and a genocide they could have stopped. China has the largest military and navy in the world. Everything you and I own is made in China. At the last Olympics, and obviously at this one, Taiwan was terrified by China into calling herself, "Chinese Taipei." But worst of all, China told a cute little girl that she was too fucking ugly to sing at the Olympics.
These are not nice people. Then again, they are no worse than the US or Britain when they were emerging nations and centers of commerce. The USA is on the fast track to becoming a quaint little former superpower on the opposite side of the globe from the biggest, wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth.
I think we should set up committees, like Draft Boards of old, to find our own cutest little boys and girls. You know, just to be cautious.
The compulsion to write about my painfully uninteresting stupidity and mental illness has mercifully waned of late. Although, clearly I'm still motivated to engage in self-deprecation. Really, that's a brutal combination. It's amazing anyone can exist near the black hole that is me.
Blah, blah, blah, woe is me, splat, fart.
The Olympics just ended. Quite a spectacle. An explosion of Chinese people in bicycle helmets climbing a five-story tower, jumping off, and climbing it again. China is a country of 700 million hot Asian women. Think of that. China is the country that cares not about Darfur, and a genocide they could have stopped. China has the largest military and navy in the world. Everything you and I own is made in China. At the last Olympics, and obviously at this one, Taiwan was terrified by China into calling herself, "Chinese Taipei." But worst of all, China told a cute little girl that she was too fucking ugly to sing at the Olympics.
These are not nice people. Then again, they are no worse than the US or Britain when they were emerging nations and centers of commerce. The USA is on the fast track to becoming a quaint little former superpower on the opposite side of the globe from the biggest, wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth.
I think we should set up committees, like Draft Boards of old, to find our own cutest little boys and girls. You know, just to be cautious.
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