My hometown of San Diego is on fire.

My family lives in Chula Vista, south of the fires, so that's something of a relief (UPDATE: I spoke too soon. According to my dad, a fire that started near the Mexican border has burned north, and is now in Otay Lakes- i.e., southeast Chula Vista. Holy fucking shit. The SD Union-Tribune reports that 15,000 acres are burning in South County). But I have friends all over the county; correspondent Tone Milazzo reports on his evacuation from his home in North County:

"As for me, I ran from the fire today. You might find my priorities amusing, I loaded up my car with comic books, then went back for more comics, the DVDs, oh, and a few clothes."

Good luck, all... my thoughts are with you.
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Here's something to cheer up my SD peeps: it's an honest-to-God article from a Netherlands nature journal on... um... homosexual necrophiliac ducks. The previous link goes to the abstract (in English, with pictures!), and you'll find the article itself here (warning: .pdf link, slow).

"I'll take 'Potpourri' for $500, Alex."

My dad is on the Atkins diet. I find this both admirable and inexplicably hilarious.

Blogger Slacktivist is doing a close analysis of the shitty eschatological novel series Left Behind. It's pretty great. Find the beginning of the series here, and look for posts with "L.B." in the heading thereafter.

A lawyer in Kentucky has apologized for calling potential jurors "illiterate cave dwellers." To be fair, I think the lawyer got kind of a bum rap. Too bad he doesn't live in Alabama; his statement would have been a lot more accurate.

Speaking of cave dwellers...

(Yesterday was, quite honestly, one of the worst days of my life. So, I'm keeping it light today.)

Here I am. Rock you like a hurricane.

My musical tastes are rather eclectic. Brief highlights from my CD collection: They Might Be Giants, Tom Waits, The Clash, The Ramones, Rainer Maria, Wesley Willis, The Beatles, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Bill Hicks, Frank Zappa, several jazz albums, and several dozen classical CDs (not surprising, given my education and job history). Of the classical stuff, most of the recordings are choral/vocal, but minimalist composers, medieval music and plainchant are well-represented.

I daresay that I have excellent taste in music... for the most part. Unfortunately, that makes the cheesy joy I get from listening to bad 1980s "hair metal" even more indefensible.

What can I say? It was, in large part, the music of my early adolescence. It's mindless and fun in the way that most good pop music is supposed to be mindless and fun (if you can get past the inherent creepiness in songs such as "Seventeen"), and there are quite a few songs in the genre that are really quite good.

If someone were to make me a mix CD of 80s rock tunes, here's what I would hope to hear on it:

Winger: Madeline, Seventeen

(I was in HS when the latter song came out, and most of the girls I was lusting after were seventeen at the time. Go figure. This song didn't creep me out until years later... but it still has one of the iconic guitar parts in the entire canon of 80s rock.)

Def Leppard: Rock of Ages*, Photograph, Animal

(Def Leppard was the first concert I ever went to, in 9th grade. It was at the Sports Arena in San Diego. I went with my dad. Tesla opened for them.)

Twisted Sister: We’re Not Gonna Take It

(I met Dee Snider at the San Diego Comic-Con in 1998. I was wearing a glam-metal style outfit for reasons better left undiscussed. The video footage of our meeting is hysterical.)

Motley Crue: In The Beginning/Shout At The Devil

(This tape was in my Walkman for all of eighth grade.)

Warrant: Cherry Pie

(Horrible band, horrible song. However, it should be on the mix CD. I'm drawing the line at Poison, though- I don't want to hear any of that shit.)

Whitesnake: Still Of The Night

(Whitesnake= the summer in between seventh and eighth grade)

Guns ‘n’ Roses: Welcome To The Jungle

Lita Ford: Kiss Me Deadly

(Another horrible song, but it should be on the list)

Extreme: Hole Hearted

(I don't care what anybody says... this is a great fuckin' song.)

Ratt: Round And Round

Scorpions: Wind of Change, Rock You Like A Hurricane

(I seem to recall that there was a really hot woman in a Scorpions video who was also supposed to appear in Playboy. As I was not yet of the age of majority, I toyed briefly with the idea of asking my mom to buy it for me, but decided against it. In retropect, she probably would have bought it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.)

Joe Satriani: Surfing With The Alien

(The second and third concerts I went to were both to see Satriani.)

Living Colour: Cult of Personality

(although they're not so much "glam" as "hard rock," whatever the hell that means. Easily the best band on this list.)

“Top Gun” soundtrack: Danger Zone

(again, not really glam, but just as cheesy and overdone as anything you'd hear by, say, Poison. I was totally into this album in seventh grade... long before I became a pacifist.)

* The opening line of "Rock of Ages" is "Gunter glieben glauchen globen." I think the English translation of that phrase is "Our one-armed drummer beats his wife."

Transmission From The Future: Political Careers of Actors Who Appeared In Predator

Jesse "The Body" Ventura (played "Blaine"): Served as governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. Switched to the Republican Party in 2017; served as vice-president of the United States (with President Jenna Bush) from 2020 to 2024.

Sonny Landham (played "Billy"): In 2002, briefly ran for governor of Kentucky as a right-wing Republican (an interesting choice for someone who did porno as a young actor).

Arnold Schwarzenegger (played "Major Dutch"): Elected governor of California via recall in 2003. In 2004, a recall petition against Arnold was started by disgruntled Democrats when he moved to settle the state's claims against Enron for pennies on the dollar. Schwarzenegger was narrowly recalled in a special election; improbably, professional "comedian" Gallagher was elected. Recalls then became a once-a-year phenomenon in California, only ending with the election of porn actress (and graduate of Fort Lauderdale's prestigious Pinecrest School) Mary Carey in 2007.

Carl Weathers (played "Dillon"): Ran as the Democratic candidate for governor of Louisiana in 2012 against Republican nominee (and former Klansman) David Duke. During their final debate Duke unleashed a stream of racist epithets against Weathers, who then walked over to Duke's podium and laid him out cold with one "Apollo Creed"-style uppercut. Weathers was elected in a landslide, and would serve two terms as governor. Ran for President in 2020 (with running mate Bill Duke, who incidentally played "Sergeant Mac" in Predator), and narrowly lost to the Bush/Ventura ticket.

Kevin Peter Hall (played "The Predator"): The intergalactic community finally decided to step in and take over Earth (one rationale for doing so was that the planet's most powerful nation could not stop electing incompetent Bushes to high office). In 2021 they resurrected deceased actor Kevin Hall, applying cybernetic enhancements so that he would resemble a seven-foot-tall fanged and armored alien hunter. Once appointed as "Planetary Governor" by the intergalactic Ruling Council, Kevin Peter Hall mercilessly ruled Earth for one hundred years from the ruins of Washington D.C., until a group of fundamentalist "freedom fighters" calling themselves the "Sons of Pat Robertson" managed to destroy the Predator's fortress with a crude nuclear bomb.

Sorry... no political stuff today. I'm just not in the mood.

Next Sunday, I'm singing in a benefit concert over at the Church By The Sea, performing several selections from Aaron Copland's song cycle Old American Songs (I'm also doing some duet work with Julie, and there are quite a few other performers). I rehearsed with the pianist today... and I sounded like crap.

Despite having a good voice (and a part-time community college gig as a classical voice instructor), I've never really seen myself as a "singer." Aside from some oratorio work and singing in a couple of professional choirs, I haven't seriously used my voice outside of the context of a choral rehearsal since college. Conducting is my passion, and I've always seen my voice as just a vehicle to make me a better choral director. But it's always been nice to know that I have an expressive instrument. Plus, the fact that I'm a tenor who sight-reads like a monster will hopefully secure me a choral TA position when I audition for graduate schools this winter.

I've had tremendous problems with laryngitis lately. Both schools I teach at have ridiculously noisy air conditioners (I travel from classroom to classroom), and talking over the white noise is just wiping me out. The frustrating thing here is that I figured a year of teaching elementary school music would give me the free time I needed to prepare for auditions. I do have marginally more time, but my voice is in the worst shape ever as a direct result of the work environment. And even though my principal audition at any given school will be in conducting, I'll also need to do a vocal audition as well.

Needless to say, the vocal health problems have been especially traumatic. Julie's been really supportive (and it's times like these that I'm glad I'm married to a speech-language pathologist with a singing background!). Her advice: I need to drink more water, warm up in the morning before going to work, and get a "personal voice amplifier" so I can talk at a reasonable volume and still be heard over the A/C in the classrooms. I'm also going to give a lot of written work this week so I can avoid overusing my voice- ideally, I'll recover enough so that I sound decent in the recital next week.

Truth is funnier than fiction

From the Philadelphia Enquirer:

BUSH ORDERS OFFICIALS TO STOP THE LEAKS

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else.

News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately.

Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.

Read the whole thing here. via Atrios

One of the most underrated sections of The Onion is "What Do You Think?," their "man-on-the-street" section. Unfortunately, the WDYT sections don't get archived, so for posterity's sake I'm gonna post their take on Der Terminfuerher:

"I voted for Arnold because I agreed with his economic plan. And because I was afraid he might punch me in the face if I didn't." (Daniel Powell, sound engineer)

"It certainly is an interesting career path, to go from bodybuilder to movie star to politician to man in way over his head." (Will Becton, anesthesiologist)

"Who would have thought that a bad Austrian artist who's obsessed with the human physical ideal could assemble such a rabid political following?" (Sarah Jacobs, lyricist)

"At last, a political family that combines the remnants of the Camelot dynasty with the origins of the Predator franchise." (Molly Prather, executive secretary)

"I'm from Minnesota, and I demand some credit. We elected a ridiculous joke of a governor years ago." (Brandon Calhoun, systems analyst)

"Don't blame me—I voted for the porn star." (Kevin Napier, radio operator)

What do C. Everett Koop, the NAACP, Boys II Men and Hallmark Cards have in common?

They're all on an NRA list of organizations, public figures and celebrities who "have lent monetary, grassroots or some other type of direct support to anti-gun organizations." Find the NRA's "enemies list" on their legislative action site.

Funny, Mary Tyler Moore is on the list, but Michael Moore (writer/director of the anti-gun documentary Bowling for Columbine) isn't. Maybe they don't think he's a "celebrity" (despite having a couple of bestselling books- his latest is currently #3 on Amazon- and an anti-NRA documentary that won an Oscar and a major prize at Cannes). He should occupy a proud place on that list, though, seeing as how he schooled the NRA's asses.

StopTheNRA.com is a joint effort between the "Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence" and the "Million Mom March." Their current focus is stopping a bill, apparently slithering through Congress right now, that will grant negligent gun dealers immunity from prosecution even when they repeatedly sell weapons that end up killing people. Go there, and sign their petition.

And if you do, know that you're not alone. Most Americans want tougher firearm regulation according to the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. Read their "2001 National Gun Policy Survey" here (warning: .pdf link, loaded slowly on my dial-up connection).

"It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

(And no, I'm not talking about the latest press release from the White House)

Finally, some defense spending I can support:

"Tucked inside the $368 billion defense bill, approved by Congress last month, is an easily overlooked item because it is so relatively small — $1 million for Shakespeare performances."

This is actually pretty cool.

I'm especially psyched that Macbeth is being performed- the tale of a ruler whose tragic flaw is his "vaulting ambition" seems especially appropriate in these times.

Three posts for the price of one

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American Taliban

Many people seem to be concerned about a nuclear weapons program that may or may not be under development in Iran. I'm not among them. (The nation of Israel is, though. The biggest problem with that is Israel's own nuclear arsenal, which if unleashed on Iran could turn the Middle East into a sea of fire that would make Kim Jong Il pee his pants in envy.)

But a possible Iran/Israel conflict is not the only nuclear threat in the world. Pakistan and India both have the bomb, and are perpetually warring over Kashmir. North Korea has nukes. Unfortunately we're too busy spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find these weapons in a nation that never had them to be concerned with a country that actually possesses them right frigging now!

And here at home there is one man- a self-identified fundamentalist- who has not only stated a desire (twice!) to detonate a nuclear weapon in this country, he actually has selected the State Department headquarters in Washington D.C. as his target.

That man is the decidedly loony Rev. M. G. "Pat" Robertson. Read about the good Reverend's terroristic fantasies here.

Pat's not a Muslim though, so the chances of him ending up in Guantanamo Bay are slim.

UPDATE: A while back, Pat encouraged his followers to pray that certain Justices of the Supreme Court would retire (unfortunately, Scalia and Thomas weren't among them). I then issued a "prayer counter-offensive" calling for Pat's retirement. Three months later neither of us has emerged victorious.

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Domina mea exstat a tergo! (My mistress stands out behind!)

Some guy with a LiveJournal (normally a refuge for goofy teenagers) has translated "Baby Got Back" into Latin. Incredible.

This is one of the greatest things I've ever read on LiveJournal (along with the Kim Jong Il LiveJournal, Justin Achilli's journal... oh yeah, and Tone's journal!)

UPDATED 10/14: Another LiveJournaler finished "quislibet's" translation of the song. And inspired by the Latin translation, someone else translated "Baby Got Back" into Greek. I'm gonna do a Google search in a few days and see if any more translations of this song into classical languages appear (how about Sanskrit?).

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Time after time, indeed

Turning thirty didn't really make me feel that old.

But the fact that our twelve-year-old neighbor didn't know who Cyndi Lauper was, did.

I've got a Dungeon Master's Guide... I've got a twelve-sided die... (or: "Roll your saving throw, Jehovah")

via mefi

A while back, Einstein said "God doesn't play dice with the universe."

Based on new data from NASA some scientists are theorizing that the universe is not only finite... it may wrap back on itself in such a way that the "shape" of the universe is that of a dodecahedron.

In other words, the universe could very well be a seventy-billion-light-years-across d12.

So not only does God quite literally "play dice with the universe," He's a geek!

NPR Disappoints Again

Bush is complaining about media coverage in Iraq. He thinks that the media is being negative because they're talking about, I don't know, people dying and stuff. From the article: "Bush's speech fell on one of the more violent days in Iraq; an attack on a police station killed eight, a Spanish diplomat was slain and another American soldier was killed in an attack on a convoy. Bush did not directly acknowledge those setbacks..."

On NPR's The World, a man from Harvard's Shorenstein Center pointed out that the media was extremely positive- even overly positive- during the major conflict, that this swing in coverage was normal, and that Bush was just upset that he was no longer framing the debate. Yay. (For more on this phenomenon, visit fair.org)

Then, All Things Considered wimped out. Rather than continuing to give Bush the hammering he so richly deserves, they ran an overwhelmingly positive story on reconstruction efforts in Iraq (even though this was one of the bloodiest days in Baghdad in weeks). This probably wasn't in response to Bush's speech; NPR's story was probably already written and produced before Bush's speech was given today. But it underscores my concern that no one in the major media (or in the Democratic pre-primary) is really holding Bush's feet to the fire. If they were, you'd be hearing more about the Valerie Plame fracas and the "sixteen little words" on the news, and it would be leading in the paper every day.

Long, long Enron post. But funny and enlightening.

My in-laws (who really are lovely, lovely people) forwarded this email to me; no doubt just to needle me in a kindly manner...

>This is an interesting bit of information that you don't hear much about in the media ---
>a.. Enron's chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.
>b.. Enron gave $420,000 to the president's party over three years.
>c.. It donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration festivities.
>d.. The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times.
>e.. The corporation had access to the administration at its highest levels and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.
>f.. The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction.
>Scandalous!!
>g.. BUT...the president under whom all this happened WASN'T George W. Bush.
>h.. SURPRISE ......... It was Bill Clinton!
>
>Please pass this on so the whole Country will Know. The Media Won't!

I put together the following response in just under half an hour using information (with a lot of cutting-and-pasting) from Public Citizen, the nonpartisan (and absolutely incredible) Center For Responsive Politics, and my own memory in a couple of cases...

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To: inlaws@rnc.org
From: thebone@leftwing.com

(Jerry and/orJeanne: all of the following is written in love)

> > h.. SURPRISE ......... It was Bill Clinton!

Cute. But irrelevant.

Most large corporations make hefty contributions to both major political parties hoping that whichever party is in power would grease the legislative wheels on its behalf. This has been going on for ages, and is one of the main reasons that I don't vote for Democrats in a knee-jerk fashion. Enron dealt with whomever it had to in order to make a buck.

But the company would much rather deal with Republicans.

Evidence:

a. Bush raised nearly $114,000 in PAC and individual contributions from Enron in 1999-2000, making the company one of his biggest donors.

b. Kenneth Lay and his wife contributed a total of almost $883,000 to candidates and parties since 1989, of which 90 percent went to Republicans. (Ninety percent! To Republicans!)

c. Enron spent $2.1 million lobbying Congress and the White House in 2000, an increase over the $1.9 million it spent on lobbying in 1999.

d. During the 2000 election cycle, Bush flew around America on the Enron company jet.

d. The 100K that Clinton received from Enron for his inauguation was dwarfed by the $300,000 the corporation contributed to the Bush-Cheney 2001 Inaugural Fund.

e. Over 50 high-level Bush administration officials have had meaningful ties to Enron (most notably Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White, who worked at Enron for nearly two decades and served as vice chairman of Enron Energy Services).

f. Lay was highly involved in crafting White House energy policy, serving as something of a "shadow advisor" to Bush and Cheney on energy issues. Enron officials had at least six meetings in 2001 with Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials who were drafting energy policy. The eventual administration recommendations, focusing on increasing energy supplies at the expense of the environment, were very favorable to Enron. That access was a much bigger perk than staying in the Lincoln Bedroom during the Clinton years was.

g. Lay was also involved in the process of appointing people to key government posts. For instance: In winter 2001 (during Enron's meltdown!), Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay supplied President Bush’s chief personnel adviser with two names, Pat Wood III and Nora Brownell, to fill two vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Lay also offered then FERC chairman Curtis Hebert Jr., who disagreed with Enron on certain electricity deregulation issues, political support to retain his position if he changed his views. He did not and was forced out by the administration. Bush then appointed Wood as FERC chairman.

h. Kenneth Lay called two of the Bush administration’s cabinet officers, the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce departments seeking federal support just before the company filed for bankruptcy.

i. Multiple sources report that Bush refers to Lay by the affectionate moniker "Kenny Boy." I don't believe Lay and Clinton were ever as close as that.

j. "Kenny Boy" should be in prison. But he isn't. The administration, apart from some bogus rhetoric about toughening standards vis a vis corporate crime has spent a lot of time and effort quietly lobbying Congress to torpedo those same "reforms." And they have been particularly lax in ensuring that Lay and company receive their just due for essentially stealing untold amounts of money.

I could continue... I put together this list of Enron's favorable dealings with Republicans in all of twenty minutes, and there is much more. But you get the idea. Enron loved GWB like Bill Bennett loves the ponies, and GWB loved 'em right back.

> > Please pass this on so the whole Country will
> > Know. The Media Won't!

Sorry, but the myth of the "liberal media" is just that... a myth. Most of the publishers and owners of the largest media corporations in the country are very conservative (e.g. Rupert Murdoch of News Corp./Fox; Clear Channel; The Washinton Times; much of the New York Times; and the list goes on and on).

If I had it my way, CNN would become "The Enron Channel." But the major media has given the energy company a pass, and has barely covered the extensive ties Enron had to this administration.

Please pass my rebuttal on so that the country will know... the media certainly isn't telling 'em.

;)

Much love,

Chris

Blackshirt singing in the dead of night...

“I’m the commander. See, I don’t have to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” (From Bob Woodward's book Bush At War)

One would think that the President might feel that he owes the American people an occasional explanation.

You know... the folks that almost elected him.

Or perhaps not. That's the interesting thing about being a proto-fascist; you don't feel like you owe anybody an explanation. (That last link goes to an article by Italian semiotician and author Umberto Eco that is absolutely worth reading)

A Great Week To Be A Liberal

Wow. Uraniumgate is taking off, the words "special prosecutor" are being bandied about since no one with a brain trusts Ashcroft to fairly investigate the White House, Rush Limbaugh is hooked on "hillbilly heroin," The Harassinator has been outed as a woman-hating clod with no impulse control (see the post below)... and there are NO WMDs IN IRAQ!!!*

(About that last item: the government has spent $300 million so far investigating, and is requesting $600 million more. Almost one billion dollars, if that request goes through, and nothing to show for it. Note to David Kay: If you had thrown a little of that money my way, I could have told you the same thing almost a year ago)

I am as giddy as a schoolgirl.

*Not now, at least... when the government plants and "discovers" them in, say, October of 2004, it'll be a different story. You heard it here first, folks.

Governor Groper

"Did he rape me? No," said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger touched her breast. "Did he humiliate me? You bet he did."

Schwarzenegger's campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said that the candidate was merely performing an impromptu breast examination, concerned that the woman might have cancer. According to Walsh, "At the end of the exam Arnold was thrilled to be able to tell the woman, 'It's not a tumor!'"

(In all seriousness, this is sick and sad. Oh, and notice the lack of Republicans denouncing Arnold's treatment of women. I guess it's only appropriate for conservatives to be outraged at this type of behavior if it's alleged to be displayed by a Democrat)

Why does God hate Republicans?

The Valerie Plame story, simmering since summertime, has finally grown legs...

...master political sleaze Karl Rove (arguably the man that got GWB the White House) is under seige...

...Rush Limbaugh is getting toasted for borderline racist comments on ESPN (he just stepped down!), and there's apparently a story coming out in the Enquirer about his drug addiction...

...all this information adds up to one delicious schadenfreude sandwich, and I'm taking a big bite.

(many of these links are via atrios, who is kicking ass at staying on top of all the fun)

Goober-natorial Recall

Arianna's out. Unfortunately.

Joe Brooks, one of my oldest and dearest friends, sent me some info on two entertaining recall candidates that have avoided the public's consciousness (yep, they're much more entertaining than Gallagher):

Trek Thunder Kelly. Statement: Dear Voters, Please vote for me, thus breaking the Seventh Seal and incurring Armageddon.

Kevin Richter. Platform: I breathe.

My elegant solution to the whole mess (calling this recall a circus is an insult to lion tamers and bearded ladies everywhere) is this: Davis should resign the night before the recall. Bustamante, as lieutenant governor, automatically gets the job. The recall doesn't happen because, hey, the guy resigned! Schwarzenegger doesn't weasel into Sacramento; instead, he signs on to play the leading role in Kindergarten Cop 2: John Kimball vs. Predator.

And best of all, the Republicans will have wasted millions and millions of dollars!