Rupert

It sounded like a good idea at the time

I'm not sure what to make of Sarah Palin. I think George W Bush actually helped realize Martin Luther King's dream by appointing nincompoops of all ethicities and genders to his cabinet. I definitely can say I judge people by the strength of their character rather than the historic significance of their place in a high government office because I think Condeleeza Rice is the devil. Anyway, my first impressions of Palin are that she seems a lot like W, gender be damned.

Is that change we can believe in... another jackass a step away from the oval office?

I voted for Hillary making my record as a primary voter a perfect .000 (Jackson, Tsongas, Bradley, Kucinich, Kucinich and Clinton... and if I had been old enough to vote the primary in 1984, I would have voted for McGovern... thanks for asking)... and as Bill Maher said this week, I don't understand why McCain thinks so little of women that he'd belive a woman would vote for someone who's against everything Hillary believed in just because she's a woman.

Just about everything I wanted to say earlier today about this cynical move seems to have been said by others. Here are two of my favorites:

From Salon
From Daily Kos

It turns out Krispy Kreme really is better

I've felt inclined this morning to write a long, witty post about the implications of Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins being bought out by the Carlyle Group.  No really, the Carlyle Group. I'm not kidding.

However renaissance grrrl at Daily Kos did such a good job, I really don't see a need to expound. Click here.

So, wonderful, it's freezing, there's a Dunkin Donuts in the lobby, I love their coffee, my family has a prior connection to Baskin Robbins, I love Pralines and Cream, and can't really find myself spending money there anymore. But luckily, my health will be saved by my return to oatmeal for breakfast.

Do They Know It's Halloween?

Before I post, let me just say someone please post a dangerous household item story related to a celebrity. This isn't just for your reading pleasure, okay. You have to participate.

Meanwhile, here's another Unicef item. Unicef and Halloween. What goes together better? Unicef will do anything to save children, including wiping out a village of hypothermic oompa-loompas, and I have fond memories of Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy comics and Bewitched episodes promoting Trick or Treat for Unicef.

So I'm glad to report that this year a CD single has been released in the tradition of Do They Know it's Christmas, except, being named Do They Know it's Halloween, it focuses on a much cooler holiday. And not to dis Bob Geldof and Bananarama, but it has a pretty great cast including Thurston Moore, Peaches, Beck, The Arcade Fire... okay fine, but wait for it... Geno Washington! Tagaq! NARDWAUR!!!!! Liane Balaban from New Waterford Girl! David Cross singing!

Hear the song at this link. There you can also read the lyrics and look at the full credits. You can also download it as a ringtone. Buy the single in a hipster store near you! Or donate about four dollars to Unicef by downloading the EP version on iTunes, featuring three other mixes of this new classic of well-intentioned and highly entertaining cheese...

Le Morte de Les Schtroumpfs

Fearing that overexposure to images of tragedy has desensitized people, UNICEF is running a gutsy ad in Belgium in which the Smurfs (eighties pop kitsch here but as eternally beloved as Mickey Mouse and Snoopy in Belgium) are bombed leaving a trail of dead blue bodies among the smoking remains of the Smurf village. Designed to call attention to the plight of the child soldiers of Burundi, the clip (viewable here) ends with the message "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

The message, however, was lost of U.S. President George W. Bush, who, unable to speak French or Flemish, saw the clip out of context and has called upon the UN to form a coalition against Gargamel and his number one agent Azreal to relinquish their weapons of mass destruction.

Three free iTunes! (With just one tiny condition...)

So my big unexpected laugh of the day: going to IMDb and finding a banner ad declaring that you can WIN THREE FREE iTUNES! with a tiny logo in the bottom left corner reading "Army National Guard" Wow, there's an incentive to go to take a trip to Baghdad, I thought. And of course I clicked on the ad.

Here's the pop-up URL. Since it was a pop-up it may not work twice: http://www.clk4.com/NGD_10359/index.cgi Here's an alternate link.

"Yes, I understand that the Army National Guard will send me information about great new Army National Guard benefits! I also understand that I will be contacted by a recruiter, and that's OK with me!"

Honestly, I usually get annoyed with the marketing of military life to kids using the same methods that are used by skateboard companies and the tobacco industry. And I don't believe in social darwinism. But honestly, if you go into the military at this point in history, and your carrot was three itunes (not even a whole album, just three songs!), well, good luck to you. I just hope you make it longer than a week.

Then again, I don't know if those are the best people to be representing the US either. Right now I'm trying to reevalute my loyalties both to Apple and to the IMDb for accepting this silliness. But I do thank them for the chuckle.

The face of suffering - brilliant post by Van Jones

Van Jones on Bush's neglect of New Orleans:

Poor people and Black people didn't "choose to stay behind." They were left behind. All evacuation plans required the city's residents to have working, private cars -- plus gas money, nearby relatives or funds for a hotel stay. And if you didn't have all those things, tough luck.
Had the responsible agencies valued the lives of the poor, they would have helped the destitute flee in the face of the hurricane -- even those who couldn't afford a car or a motel room. But when the "face of suffering" is Black, somehow our high standards for effective action and compassion begin to sag.
Of course, seeing this, Bush could have taken a strong stand for the poor and the suffering. But his half-hearted, emotionally flat statement on Wednesday did little to rally the nation. It seems that, as long as "the terrorists" didn't do it, Bush just can't get himself too worked up about Americans dying by the hundreds.

Comfort is a Myth

New Yorkers will be familiar with "Poetry in Motion" on the subway. Barnes and Nobel sponsors subway ads in conjunction with the MTA displaying a few lines of poetry (Emily Dickenson, Kenneth Koch) for commuters to soak in while trying to avert their eyes from other commuters. Usually, the poetry is well-chosen but neutral. (Prime example: the William Carlos Williams poem about eating the cold plums). This morning I was greeted in my commute by Macbeth's "tomorrow and tomorrow" monologue. I guess with the current emotional atmosphere, "out out brief candle" is considered to be a good way to prepare straphangers for the worst. My feelings lately have been that all of the show over subway security is basically a tale told by an idiot, anyway... sound and fury signifying nothing.

Last week, I didn't carry my bag on Thursday or Friday. I try to find ways to not carry my bag all the time. My bag is basically an iPod and snack holder pretending to be a place to put workpapers. It looks bulky because it contains five or six New Yorkers and Time Outs that I haven't gotten to yet. When the MTA made their announcement that random bag checks would be made, I thought about the odder things in my bag--the emergency deodorant stick for example--and decided I didn't want to risk total strangers discovering what a slob I actually am, so I waited this weekend to tidy up my bag a bit.

I was also worried about some poor jerk carrying around a dime bag of pot and becoming another strain on the taxpayers because his bag was randomly searched. But then I read a Village Voice report that you can say no to the searches as long as you don't board the train. While that made me feel better about my own civil liberties and slovenliness, it also drove home the point that that nothing, once again, was being accomplished.

First of all, I've only seen two checkpoints. One was in Penn Station on Day One, the other was in the N/R station in Herald Square. Both stations have a high tourist traffic. The lesson to anyone carrying a bomb would be to get on the subway in residential areas and if you're stopped, don't get on the train and find someplace else to bomb. Honestly, I really don't feel safer.

You might ask me what my answer is. It's basically this: I don't think there is an answer other than to try to live your life. Somehow we're less safe now than we were before the London bombings, but to me all those bombings proved were that we were never safe and we never are. All this worry about trying to make things look safer does is create water-cooler talk about bag searches that noone seems to actually go through, and probably creates a sense among those who think that killing people is a strategic political move that their tactics are working.

Rereading this post, I begin to see why I don't post that often. I'm not sure if I really have anything to say on this other than, well, don't assume things are safe. Just keep your heads and be careful.

Homeland Stupidity

Listening to Randi Rhodes for admittedly the first time in a while. She suggested that Tom Ridge by:

1. raising the terror alert level during the Democratic National Convention (in order theoretically to get divert the public's attention); and
2. outing the guy in jail in London who happened to have been used as a mole...

... screwed up an ongoing investigation which happened to be focusing on preventing a bombing attack on London subways.

Basically, there's a better chance of preventing terrorist attacks if you don't give out secret information for political purposes. Wonder what the outing of Valerie Plame mucked up?

Here's a story on the web corresponding with the above theory:

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/ghost-of-muhammad-naeem-noor-khan-john.html

Argh.

Meanwhile, thoughts and prayers go out once more to the people of London today after the newest attacks.

Thirteen days later

The irony of July: I was posting so often at the end of June that I'd decided to post every day in July at least once unless my co-author or any of the guest authors posted. Hi, it's July 20.

The blog entries that I'd saved up mainly had to do with a number of very good movies I'd gone to see in theaters or on DVD. As much as I'd procrastinated I assumed I'd post eventually. Then the bombings in London happened and suddenly I didn't feel like posting about movies anymore.

But I also felt like I had nothing really to say about the whole thing. I was in NYC on 9/11 and as much as I realize now that I was safe, I remember the feeling that I wasn't. I could identify with the people of London even as I understood that while reporters in the US kept proclaiming "now England has it's 7/7", it's presumptious to equate our terrorist attack on the day the bubble burst with an attack in Londoners who lived through the blitz and the IRA's attacks. How obnoxious of us to play the older sibling.

My feelings now are similar to those four years ago. There's nothing noble in killing. Killing people going about their business is profane and despicable. You don't win people to your cause by being crazy even when you aren't violent. You lose me forever when you're blow up subways.

This is said knowing that the example is all-encompassing. There's NOTHING noble in killing. You don't win causes by killing people. Saying that the actions may not have happened if Iraq hadn't been invaded is not blaming the victims or the west or excusing the people who did it. It's just looking at the world rationally and wishing our leaders had an actual vision.

Insanity in religion is a symptom of poverty and powerlessness. When there's no hope on earth, heaven seems better, even when you're taking other people along for the ride. The way to fight this is to create hope - to cut alliances with dictators even when they supply you with fossil fuel, to not bomb people to begin with - but once you do, to have the people rebuild their own land rather than give the jobs to westerners out of cronyism, to create hope even when it's not profitable.

That's saying nothing new, except noone seems to get it, which is why we're not safe. Collaborating with the world isn't giving aid to killers, it's creating insurance of your mutual self-preservation for the good people of the world who want to live on this planet and not in an imagined heaven that you somehow get into after destroying innocent people.

Okay, maybe I can write some movie reviews now...

O'Connor resigns: danger danger danger...

Progress for America has already raised $18 million to support a potential Bush nominee who may be the new swing vote toward overturning Roe v Wade.

If you disagree with their position, you may want to go here and make an emergency donation to Feminist Majority to help them lobby against a potential Bush appointee if he or she may push back years of progress on this issue.