BBC Once, BBC Twice!

misses,
Will ya
Make me tea?
Make love to me?
Put on the telley?
To the BBC!
(Ming Tea)

Last night's debate was only ok because it is getting boring watching Kerry bury Dubya time and time again. Well, boring except for the part when Bush (who usually only looks stupid because he can barely speak) denied having said that he didn't think about OBL when of course, he did say that. On camera. Sadly, I felt kind of sorry for him right then, like when you're watching The Price is Right and some guy spins the Big Wheel and they're like, one little tile off from $1,000.00. You're like, "Aww, dude, you were so close!" In this case, he was so close to getting through a debate without looking like a total ass hat. I totally heard the sweat off Cheney's big, baldish head splash onto his desk when the palm hit his forehead. I named it "The Resounding Face-Palm of Doom".

American debates have become boring because everyone is trying to please everyone else. You have to go to the most polite place on earth for a good debate. If you want to have some real fun, you've got to listen to the BBC. Tony Blair got bus' upside the head with a condom full of purple flour in the House of Commons! You sure won't see that happen in the U.S. of A. Folks barely got close enough to W's limo to lob eggs at it during his inauguration, let alone flour him with an exploding Trojan! At the House of Commons, you can hear old, angry white guys grumbling when the debate is going on (so much more fun than us, who are trying to be polite or those sycophants who run around playing kissy assy with politicians. I think they call them "lobbyists", heh) and it's really fun listening to the Brits get feisty because they're really kind of known for being super-nice.

In Cincinnati, we're lucky enough to have the BBC overnight and (joy!) the station I most often listen to is also available over the internet (as is the BBC.) Watch out though, if you listen to this station in the afternoon, the dj has a love affair with Afro Celt Sound System and while at first, they are an intriguing sound, you eventually figure out that Africans + Irishmen = pygmies and pygmies are evil. Don't encourage them. Best just to listen at night, in the morning, and late afternoon (when my girlfriend Teri takes over).

You just haven't lived until you hear how unaffected and oddly chipper English people are when they're talking about blowing stuff up. Or chucking condoms at their Prime Minister!

BBC Peace!

O, John Kerry You're So Lovely...

Our times have seen the Looney Toon of all elections.

First, we have our two main characters, Sen. John Kerry and President George Bush who chase one another around like Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. I'll leave it up to you to decide which shoes go where but my money is on Kerry (Bugs) and Bush (Elmer Fudd). To fill out the cast, we have Cheney (Marvin the Martian), Edwards [Huckleberry Hound (technically not a Looney Toon but deemed acceptable by the judges)], The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote can be the conservative and liberal press alternately dropping anvils on the heads of anyone who makes the mistake of breathing. I am stuck on Foghorn Leghorn. Too bad Strom Thurmond isn't around to make fun of anymore because wouldn't that be too perfect?!

The pre-election frenzy is full of extremity like a Superbowl commercial. Sales pitches that promise to deliver the most unlikely of products, sexy chicks, stupid white men (I count Clarence Thomas among them), and fortunately, if you turn the channel, people who are making a lot of sense, but maybe that's because everyone else seems to have lost their fucking minds.

I've compiled a list of stuff that I'll remember for years to come and people that I loathe, people I admire, and sometimes, both.

The Stories and People I have Loved Thus Far:

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to Kerry: "Sure You Saved a Guy's Life in 'Nam But Only Took Like, a Minute!" (with a side note about Robert "I'm a wiener" Novak)

Kerry's hard livin' in Nam has been taken to task by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and that silly book ''Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry''. The lube has dried on the ass of ex-POW and now Senator John McCain, and so it was time to get feisty over yet another Vietnam veteran and (oddly...sarcasm: drip drip) another Bush rival, Sen. John Kerry. What do these guys do when they're not attacking their fellow veterans? Hang out with Lt. Dan?

I think the ink for this book was probably squeezed from the severed heads of a truck load of dead puppies, some bear cubs, and maybe a baby seal. It's just that level of incredulous, pompous, what the fuck are you doing, assholism. First, it was hugely promoted by Robert Novak(who thinks it is a-ok to reveal the names of his sources, even if they are active CIA agents. In other words, he is a fucktard). Secondly Novak's son published this book but Novak said that this particular connection to the book was not relevant! Soooo, ok, lemme get this straight: It is totally relevant to disclose the name of a CIA agent (ruining her career and perhaps jeopardizing her life and the lives of her family) but not relevant to disclose what seems to be a big, fat conflict of interest. In other words, if you were still taking Novak seriously, wake up and put him in the spot in your brain reserved for all of the pig fuckers who have made money from terrorist attacks and the witch hunts (like those guy selling pieces of the world trade center, people who sell t-shirts at ground zero, and Halliburton). In short, a book promoted by a crap peddler like Robert Novak has problems starting right there but this book has "Read Me and Go Straight to Heck" (even without Novak) written all over it. Between the lines that say that Kerry is a creep, of course.

Ann Coulter: You Mouthy Bitch, Come Sit on Mama's Lap

I don't understand why I like Ann Coulter so much. She's awful. She's just terrible. Wait, yes I do understand why I like her. She's so certain that she's right and she's just so opinionated and mouthy, and she talks smack like, from the moment she wakes up to the time she goes to bed! The woman is unstoppable. She also has sexy pictures on her own website right next to the scathing articles she writes because she's a woman, baby. She's like Bill O'Reilly but I think that Bill really wants people to like him and I betcha by golly wow that Ann doesn't care what you think. That's my kinda gal. Also, she helped advertise for the World Wildlife Fund, one of the many places I've worked but one of the few where I didn't get fired.

Seymour Hersh: The Guy I Wish Was my Grandpa

Seymour is awesome and reminds me a lot of my former professor and good friend Ron Hoffman. He is elegantly passionate about all the right things (yeah, ok, all the things I really like) and he really seems to have integrity, which is so lacking in the world today. The thing that I like about him so much is that he shares the same incredulity that I have when I hear about human rights violations. After everything both of us have seen, we're still horrified that people are so cruel. This leads me to believe (though I admit, I could be mistaken) that he feels just as sad as I do when I see people doing terrible things to one another or to themselves. He also offers a perspective of the Iraq war that doesn't seem quite as hideously evil as some of the conspiracy stories that I've heard (that we're only over there to score some fat cash for our already morbidly obese corporations). Don't know that I buy it but it's compelling and the man is brilliant and not pandering or patronizing. I bet he drinks tea and has a "comfy chair" somewhere in his house. Teri Gross, one of the ladies of whom I speak with great fondness,interviewed him on my most beloved of NPR programs, "Fresh Air". Listen to him, he's spiffy.

Jon Stewart: Why Must You Rock so Hard Jon? Why?

It is difficult to say anything good about Jon Stewart that has not already been said a blue-million times over. What sold me on Stewart was an editorial (click on the link and scroll down) he did on the Supreme Court decision to stop executing mentally disabled Americans. Or Retarded People, as he calls them. I am not a fan of the death penalty for anyone. It's just dumb to kill off the people who are (as I've said before) by-products of our system. In all of my years of trying speak to people about my own feelings on the death penalty, it rarely ends with any type of lucid connection with another person, particularly if they're offering an opposing point of view. I think that's why I'm impressed with this one. No anger or hostility, just a wonderful way of making it look as ridiculous as I see it. Here is an excerpt:

Well, it's finally happened. The Supreme Court ruled we can no longer execute the retarded.
The death penalty was the only thing that we had to keep the retarded walking the straight and narrow people! Now, the fox has been let into the henhouse! The keys to the Golden City have been tied to a shoelace and placed around the neck of the wolf! With a note, pinned to his sweater, telling the Little Yellow Bus to take him to the sheep buffet in amnestyville!
By this time tomorrow, I fear, they will be upon us. Smiling. Hugging. Murder on their minds. And all we have to defend ourselves against this pillaging hoard is is our vastly superior intellect, an array of powerful weaponry, and superbly trained law enforcement officials. Lock your doors, people.

Nice. Thanks for making me laugh when everyone else is trying to scare the crap out of me.

Finally, Everyone Who Really Thinks John Kerry is a "Great Guy":

I am obviously, obviously biased. I don't like George Bush. But truth told, I don't like Kerry either. He has just done less to piss me off. Also, I think that there will be less dead people if Kerry is da prez.

Don't be fooled though. If anyone thinks that Kerry is some big hero and is any less the greedy magnate from a greedy magnate family than George Bush is, do your research. Kerry's maternal grandfather is James Grant Forbes, y'all. I'll link it for you but please read about the Opium wars. I fear that very little money in America at this point is bloodless. Kerry merely represents a different cog in the gigantic machine that is devouring the world. While I would love to be romantic and idealistic about Kerry (or anyone at this point), I cannot. I can though, concede that it would be nice to have the world not hating us again. Except the French who will always act snobby but truly, they make xenophobia look really cute and sophisticated.
More importantly, America is not about freedom anymore. We are about hoarding resources, oppressing other people, and happily living in willful ignorance. I know people who call themselves liberals, Buddhists, hippies, and various other counter-culture folk who talk a good game but can't pull a moment of selflessness out of their asses if they saw a kitten on fire. No matter who you are in America, you are a consumer and most likely, consuming more per day that people in third world countries consume in a week or even a month. Our leaders reflect that value and will do what they can to both defend and perpetuate it.

Our presidents, while playing for different teams, are playing the same game in the same league. Don't cozen yourself into being idealistic and later disappointed. I encourage people to vote but more than that, to vote without ignorance.

I am not as angry as I used to be, mostly because I neither have time to be angry and because I kind of try to look at life from a perspective that is less now.
What truly extracted me from feeling angry toward the world as a whole (oddly enough) was a politician named Robert McNamara, the 8th Secretary of Defense for the Kennedy/Johnson Administration. Listening to his memoirs, I realized that what is happening now has happened many times over. Especially during and after World War II. People walked around with surgical masks on their faces because they feared a flu epidemic (this really happened, sound familiar?), we (our country) bombed the crap out of Japanese civilians and that was before set them up the bomb. Then the Cold War happened and millions spent all of their time in fear of the very bomb that was used to off millions of innocent people in a country that we later rebuilt and eventually became the backbone of the world's economy.

Hmm....bombs, nation building, fear, surgical masks...that smells like..why is smells just like NOW!

Don't let yourselves get too distracted by fear or anger. Make informed decisions, not decisions based on fear or revenge or willful ignorance. And don't for a minute just take my advice. Go seek out this information for yourself.

Yes I Know It, I Can't Hellllp It!