revision99

Forgive me. I know this is cheap and lazy.

Here’s a referral for your reading pleasure: Go and read Jane Smiley’s article Notes For Converts on The Huffington Post. Make sure you have a half hour or so to spare before you start, because you are going to want to read the whole thing.

In it Ms. Smiley attempts to explain to confused former Bush supporters exactly how they have been betrayed by their hero, and how they have unwittingly taken part in their own betrayal. Jane’s eloquent outrage almost made me stand up and shout.

Whether your sentiments lie with the Left or the Right, you should read this article. That’s all.

Just a quick one.

I want to get this in tonight, before Pops gets hold of it.

We all know that God works in mysterious ways. We hear it every time a tornado demolishes another mobile home park in Oklahoma. Amazingly, one trailer is always untouched, surrounded by horrifying devastation. The folks who lost everything are always consoled by hearing of God’s Mysterious Ways. We can’t comprehend the methods of the Lord. Or maybe the nicest, hardest-working guy at your job gets fired for being late because he stopped on his way to work to help an old lady change a tire on the freeway. A crippled old lady. No doubt God has plans for that young man, big plans, but since he’s working in Mysterious Ways, we can’t see them, or we think they don’t make any sense. Or, if you’re a Democrat, every four years your serious, experienced and thoughtful candidate gets trounced by some yahoo in a plaid Howdy Doody shirt, and you have to think - say it with me - Mysterious Ways.

As mysterious as these occurrences are, as opaque and unfathomable, they are flickering shadows on the wall of the cave compared to this crazy thing discovered by German scientists. I mean, tell the truth, did you ever think in your wildest peyote-induced fantasy that the ultimate salvation of the human race would come from the balls of mice? That’s right, German mouse testicle researchers have shown us that you can probably get stem cells from sperm-producing cells in your testicles. Stem cells, you’ll recall from recent congressional debate, are cells that can morph into any other kind of cell in your body, thus they can be used to rejuvenate your burned-out liver after fifty years of heavy drinking, not to mention grow new heart valves and eyeballs and restore damaged nerves and brain cells. They are - dare I say it? - the fountain of youth!

Trouble is, up to now the main source of them has been embryos, and no one wants to violate the sanctity of the embryo, right? Luckily for them (the embryos), the defenders of the rights of citizens who have no voice, primarily because they are undifferentiated cells who live in petri dishes, have managed to stymie any serious progress in the field of stem cell research, which leaves that tantalizing fountain of youth miracle just out of reach.

Enter the mouseball boys from the Georg-August-University of Göttingen. Through an elaborate process, undertaken who-knows-why, they have discovered that they can get stem cells from mouse testicles. Of course it’s not likely these cells will work in humans, but it’s only a matter of time before they get hold of some guy’s testicles and start to demonstrate that there are stem cells there, too.

What this means is that the ethical dilemna (or political pandering, you decide) of using embryos to obtain stem cells will evaporate, stem cells will become plentiful, research will forge ahead and guys like Alan Greenspan will start to look and feel young again.

Of course, this will only work if you happen to have testicles. Sorry girls. God works in mysterious ways.

OK, I am the Oldest Blogger and everything, and maybe I’m getting a little crotchety,

but I have a request, and I hope you’ll all take it in the warm spirit with which it is asked and not get insulted or anything, because God knows I have very little social capital left and I certainly don’t want to squander it on a careless remark. And of course I am not addressing those Precious Few who actually look me up and read this blog on any kind of regular basis, because you are exempt at all times from any criticism here.

But to the rest of you, would you please stop saying “the internets” when you mean “the internet?” Yes, I know, it’s a joke. I get it. You’re misusing the word intentionally, acting like a goober to bring into sharp focus the fact that you are anything but. And oh, how witty and sophisticated it was, the first time. Yes, I got quite a chuckle out of it, the first time I saw it on somebody’s blog, who shall remain nameless.

But it’s old now, people. Get a new joke. Unlike the one about the penguin and the dish of vanilla ice cream, this one is not funny every time. And if you have a blog, there is nothing you can do to convince the world that you are not a geek.

Anyway, that’s it. Oh, one more thing. While you’re at it could you also stop using periods between.every.fucking.word? You know, to add emphasis? We are writing, aren’t we, and we should think of writerly ways to add emphasis. Unless you’re a teenage girl. If you’re a teenage girl, you are probably required to do that period-between-every-word thing at least twice in every post, because, OMG, that’s the way you talk!

Really, that’s all I need to be completely happy in life, so think of the power you hold, to cheer me. And next time you’re writing one of your trademark witty posts, weigh it against the nanosecond of pleasure you’ll get from writing internets.

Not worth it, is it?

I won’t bother to crank up an indignant rant about this.

The Bush Administration has started something in Iraq that has gotten completely out of control. Tens of thousands of human lives have been ended (including a couple thousand of our own), many many more crippled and maimed. The financial burden stands at over 350 billion dollars, at the same time that ill-advised tax cuts for the wealthy make it unlikely that we’ll be able to pay the bill. And the reasons given for the attack have proven to be untrue, if not outright lies.

Americans are fed up. No one believes President Bush any more, but he persists in his folly, staging photo-op maneuvers in Iraq and mounting PR campaigns to convince us that this adventure is worthwhile, or even important.

A basketball coach who screwed up this badly - assuming he didn’t get fired - would be rethinking, regrouping and reorganizing the team and the strategy. Why is Bush so stubborn in the face of all the evidence? Is he in it for the oil and war profits that he and his family and his friends are gaining? Does he really think he can force Western-style democracy on the Middle East? Or is he just plain stupid?

Whatever it is, this is one anniversary I hope I don’t see again.

Have you ever been walking along the road, minding your own business, and then you get hit by a truck?

Man I hate it when that happens. It’s bad enough when the thing is moving fast, like sixty miles an hour or more. I mean, one second you’re strollin’ along, wondering if there’s a convenience store anywhere up ahead, trying to decide if you’d rather have an RC or an Orange Crush, and the next second - wham! - and you’re like, “Oh, shit!”

Probably you’re more like “!!!” because at that moment when the grille of that big rig smacks you in the back at sixty miles an hour, fifty thousand pounds of hot iron, your brain doesn’t even have time to form the simplest epithet, because it happens in a microsecond, or some real short period of time, hardly worth mentioning. However long (I mean short) it is, that’s how long it takes for most of your bones to be shattered and your spinal column severed, and now you’re flying through the air like a loose-packed sack of buckwheat, only with blood and squishy things leaking out.

So you fly for maybe 200 feet and then you hit the ground, but you’re still moving pretty fast, and with all your bones broken you can’t really stop yourself from flipping and flopping like a rag doll along the gravel for another fifty or so feet, decorating the roadside with red designs of your own blood, and the last thought you have is “Jeez, this is going to take a lot of rehab.”

And that’s if it hits you fast.

If it hits you slow, like thirty miles an hour, then half the time you get hooked on something, and instead of flying, you get dragged along. Usually there’s not as much bone-breaking, so you struggle a little to get free, but all that happens is you manage to get yourself under the truck with your torn pants caught in the front axle and the rest of your clothes ripping and burning off as you scrape along at thirty miles an hour, asphalt against skin, and believe me, the skin is not winning this one.

If you’re like me, when something like this happens you say to yourself, “I am definitely going to be more careful the next time I am walking out here on the road. I am going to walk on the left side so I can see the traffic coming, I am going to stay way the hell off to the side and I am going to wear reflective clothing at night, because that is the last time I am going to get hit by a truck.”

Amen, brothers and sisters.

My name is Larry, and I am a cilantroholic.

My story is probably not that much different from yours. I had my first taste of cilantro at a Thai restaurant in Hollywood. I went there with a friend who wanted me to try the Tom Ka Gai - spicy soup made from coconut milk, with chicken, lemon grass and “thai bird” chiles. He thought it would be hot enough to burn off the top of my head, and it was, but this particular Thai restaurant had a secret ingredient, and as I ate my soup, the cilantro spoke to me.

I didn’t know what it was that first time, but the exotic flavor intoxicated me. With each sip I fell more in love, and I determined right then that I had to have more. I asked the server what was that unusual flavor, but the language barrier was insurmountable that day. Frustrated, I had to leave the restaurant unenlightened. For weeks I tried to discover the magic ingredient, asking everyone I knew who cooked.

I went to the spice section in grocery stores and lingered there, reading labels. If I couldn’t identify the spice from the label, I bought it and took it home to test (damn those tamper-proof caps). It seems foolish now, but I didn’t know what form it came in - what else could I do?

Then one day at a California Cuisine/Southwestern-Style/Mexican Restaurant/Grill in Laguna Beach, there it was again. This time it was in a salad, so when that special flavor zapped my taste buds I was able to pick through the greenery until I found the source. I held it up to the waiter and demanded to know what it was.

“It is cilantro, senor. Mexican parsley.”

Never mind that it’s Chinese parsley. The important thing was that now I knew what it was, and I could go out on my own and score some of it.

At first I used it sparingly. I chopped it up finely and sprinkled it daintily on salads. I put a little in burritos, a dash of it in soups. As my tolerance grew, I began to chop it not so finely, and use more and more of it. When dining out I pored over menus, looking for dishes that might contain cilantro. If I ordered something that I thought was going to have some in it, I’d get belligerent if it didn’t. I embarrassed my friends, making ugly scenes in bistros all over town.

If I didn’t have my cilantro for a couple of days, I became moody and unpredictable. When I was out of my supply I’d visit friends and ask if they wanted to do a few leaves, hoping they’d break out their stash. More often than not, if they did, I’d finish it off before I left. Gradually, the invitations stopped.

I started to hide cilantro in different places - the storeroom at work, in the trunk of the car, on a high shelf out in the garage - so I could sneak away and have some on the sly, and not have to share.

My work began to suffer. At lunch, I’d drive half way across town to go to the original Thai restaurant where I’d first tasted my sweet, sweet cilantro, and end up taking a three-hour lunch break. I couldn’t keep a girlfriend, because no one wanted to be around that much cilantro. To hell with ‘em.

Eventually I dropped all pretense of sophistication. I’d go to the Farmer’s Market and buy nothing but cilantro, big bags of it, fresh, pungent and inviting. Sometimes I wouldn’t even wait to get home and wash it - I’d just grab handfuls of it and stuff it in my mouth as I was driving. Dangerous? Sure, but I didn’t care. I would consume it so fast I’d barely taste it, and yet I only wanted more. I wasn’t getting the same kick I used to, no matter how much I ate.

I told myself that I wasn’t one of those - an addict - that I could quit any time. And I did. I quit many times. Once I white-knuckled it for two months, the worst 60 days of my life. I know now that I can’t do it alone. I’m powerless against cilantro. Some people can have it once in a while, enjoy it and get on with their lives. But my kind - we think “If a little is good, a whole bunch will be better.”

I was clean for almost a year, until tonight. Tonight I made myself a pita wrap. I browned some ground beef, grated some cheese, and then I remembered I’d eaten the last pita for lunch. I headed out to the grocery store, and that’s the last thing I recall.

When I woke up on the kitchen floor, the pita was there, and the cheese and the meat. Tell-tale leaves were plastered around my mouth. The only sign of the cilantro I must have bought before I blacked out was a few stems and an extra-large plastic bag. My breath reeked of cilantro.

My name is Larry, and I’m still a cilantroholic.

It has occurred to me…

that one of the big differences between working in a mom and pop setting and working for a huge corporation is that your boss in a huge corporation is really sort of a “compliance manager.” His main gig is to satisfy the requirements of the corporation, immutable edicts often handed down by faceless officers in another city whom he will never meet. They say what they want. He has to get it done for them.

Thus, he turns to his people, whoever works for him, and, if he’s good, makes them do whatever the hell the corporation thinks it wants that month. He will be held accountable if the job isn’t done. Knowing that, he can’t waste any time or pleasantries in handing out the chores. Explaining things would take too long, and failure will bring harsh consequences - for him. His fear is transmitted to the staff, who don’t know exactly what’s going on or why. They grow restive and crabby.

The owner or manager in a small operation must take care of his workers, because they are the ones who take care of him. He sees them as coworkers, and they really are. The orders don’t come in emails or bulletins from a distant land. They usually come from down the hall, or the next cubicle. There is a chance to discuss how a program should be implemented, if it should be modified or even if it should be dumped altogether. The people who must carry out the orders are actually involved in the reasoning behind them, or at the very least they are there to observe first hand their genesis. The workers have a sense of being at least a little bit in control, so, to the extent one can feel good about trading their precious time for money, they feel good.

My office has a new manager, one sent from The Corporation to replace the one who retired. The retiree had fifty years of experience in the industry and had done every job. She was efficient but not brutally so, and she cared for her workers like a stern but loving great aunt. The new guy is in his thirties, with The Corporation for 18 months, an advanced degree in accounting. He takes literally the orders from headquarters, does not not understand passive resistance, thinks everybody who works for him has equal abilities and aptitudes and so anybody should be able to handle any task handed them. In his effort to comply with corporate mandates he has made abrupt changes, giving only cursory explanations or none at all. They are turning out balance sheets and reports as required, and morale has never been worse.

Virtually everyone is looking for a new job somewhere else.

Most of this affects me only peripherally, since for some time I have been gradually reducing the amount of actual work I do around there, and at this point I am down to about thirty-five minutes per hour. Plus, I have been there longer than all the bosses, and all of them think I work for someone else. So I can stay under the radar pretty much. although I know The Corporation will find me eventually, and fire me or give me something to do and, God forbid, someone to report to.

In the meantime, I am watching the show with some alarm. The Corporation has no clue how to manage people or what to do to correct course when things aren’t going well. This disruption in the office, caused by them, is likely to be dealt with through some ham-handed management school method, which, taken to it’s extreme, could spell the end of my job.

To paraphrase another blogger ” I don’t want to get fired, but I don’t want to be there, either.”

If today’s “neoconservatives” spoke in plain English and said right out loud what their real agenda is,

most of us would recoil in horror, and the Republicans wouldn’t be able to win an election for dog catcher for the next fifty years. The last right-winger who tried this was Barry Goldwater in the presidential election of 1964, and the voters handed him his butt by a landslide margin of two to one. So near and yet so far, eh, Republicans?

But the Repubs/Neocons are a crafty bunch, and to prevent this kind of embarrassment in the future they decided to modify - just a bit - the words they used to describe their vision for the U.S. and the world, to sort of, um, obscure their true intentions and meanings, while making sure “the base” can figure out what they are talking about. In fact, over the decades what they have done for all practical purposes is create a new language altogether, a language so twisted and arcane that it only seems like English.

For example, you may think you know what is meant by the phrase “class warfare.” Revolution, anarchy, cities burning, unwashed masses mindlessly slaughtering the wealthy with machetes and looting their homes, right? Uh-uh. The new meaning of class warfare is “…any attempt to raise the minimum wage.”

Since the neocons are in charge now and we have to listen to them and their new language all day on Fox, I looked up The Republican-to-English Dictionary on the internet, so I could keep up. This thing first started appearing in late 2001, as nearly as I can tell, back when Democrats/liberals/progressives still had a sense of humor. It exists all over the place in various permutations, and I take no credit for it.

Here are a few entries:

bipartisanship: Sometimes also seen as “spirit of compromise.” Willingness by Congressional Democratic leaders to support, accept or fail to oppose public policy proposals from President Bush and the Republican Congressional leaders despite the mutual understanding that the proposals are not supported by a clear majority of the American people. When used by Republican leaders this term is synonymous with capitulation.

big government: Any attempt by a duly constituted public authority to regulate or put limits on the power of private corporations or make them responsible for the consequences of their actions, with the exception of the gaming or entertainment industries.

compassionate conservatism: Consists of smiling while cheating women, minorities and the working class out of their share of the nation’s productive output. Replaces the term friendly fascism.

death tax: New Republican term used to replace the traditional term “estate tax,” one of the traditional mechanisms in a democracy to ensure that a self-perpetuating aristocracy is unable to establish itself then capture and subvert democratic institutions. Fully 98% of the U.S. population is unaffected by the estate tax, which primarily burdens the 200 families in the U.S. with a net worth greater than $1 billion.

fair and balanced: Republican term meaning archconservative news source serving as a tool of corporate interests while masquerading as impartial. Examples include Fox News, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, etc.

get over it: Warning to the listener that questioning the legitimacy of George W. Bush’s claim to the presidency will not be tolerated as a topic for American citizens to discuss. As a threat it recognizes the vulnerability of the Bush regime to the growing popularity of the observation that Bush won fewer votes than his opponent in Florida as well as nationwide. Please note, you may also hear this idea expressed as “Stop your whining” and/or “Deal with it.” [Also, “We won. Shut up.” - Editor]

illegal vote: Any ballot in which the voter did not precisely follow the exact requirements as set forth in the voting instructions, and in the case where the voting instructions were erroneous or unclear any vote for a non-Republican. Note: this rule does not apply to military ballots. (See related term, legal vote.)

legal vote: Any ballot in which a Republican’s name can be interpreted as having been indicated by the voter. (See related term, illegal vote.)

liberal: Once commonly used to mean “one who is open minded,” Republicans have successfully redefined this word to mean dangerous, irresponsible and unpatriotic fanatic.

partisan: In common Republican usage is now defined as any mean-spirited, illegitimate and unpatriotic attempt by non-Republicans to question the current administration’s goals or methods, or to call for debate, or to ask for consideration of alternatives.

patriot: Anyone proud to be a Christian, God-fearing Republican, who believes strongly in the immutability of the status quo. See traitor.

property rights: Laws designed to protect the interests of the oil, timber, mining and livestock industries and enable them to exploit public lands to secure private profits.

special interest: Formerly this phrase was reserved for economic interests who sought special privilege. In common Republican usage however it has come to mean any citizen or group of citizens who petition their government to respond to their concerns.

traitor: Godless humanists who may either be domestic enemies of the state (Democrats) or foreign enemies (Communists), and who continuously question the legitimacy of the Bush presidency even after patriots have clearly instructed them to “Get Over It.” (Please see Get Over It.)

unconstitutional: Any action that is not favorable to the Republican agenda.

welfare reform: Forced reintroduction of uneducated and unskilled workers into the job force to exert downward pressure on wage demands, undercut job training programs and ensure that corporate lobbyists continue to call for an easing of immigration restrictions rather than for improved education and training for American citizens.

Oh, wait. We don’t have to watch Fox News all day, do we?

I was listening to a segment on NPR’s “Day to Day” earlier this week,

about Muslim families in a Muslim community in Fremont, California. It was concerning real estate. Specifically, how hard it is for these Muslim families to find a home that allows for proper protection of the modesty of the women. One house-hunting husband, whose wife is kept covered head to toe whenever anybody’s around, said he was looking for what all good Muslims were looking for: a floor plan that would allow his wife to get from the bedroom to the kitchen or bathroom without being seen by guests. So they have to buy bigger homes than non-Muslims, so they will have enough space to create the convoluted back passageways necessary to keep the wifey’s skin private, and it turns out that - surprise! - bigger houses cost more.

Way to keep the womenfolk in their place, Muslim dudes! They won’t be gettin’ uppity and competing with you, will they? Not if they can’t even walk past a visitor in the living room. Keep them in the labyrinth in the back of the house, going to and fro between the bedroom, the kitchen and maybe the laundry room. The hiding will prevent any confusion as to who’s boss, and the covering up should act as a constant reminder of the lowly position of women.

Clearly, this is the order that Allah intends. Otherwise why make men so much stronger and more intelligent than women? Oh, sure, some spoilsports might raise the issue of fairness, or the equality and “dignity” of all people, but these people are inspired by Satan, and besides, they are exactly the non-mahrem men you need to protect the women from in the first place.

OK, I know my sarcastic attitude will offend some of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, but I hope they will be able to take solace in the fact that I’m pretty offensive to everyone, paticularly those with harsh and rigid religious beliefs. And in any case, Muslims, think how much easier it will be for you to take over the world and kill all the infidels if you get your women - fifty percent of you, remember - into the act.

Suggested reading: Hijab Basics: The Requirements of the Muslim Woman’s Dress