The Likudniks like to pretend that they represent American Jewry, but they do not. And they like to suggest that objecting to their policies is tantamount to anti-Semitism, which is sort of like suggesting that if you don't like Chile's former dictator Pinochet, you are bigotted against Latinos... US Likud backers in the Defense Department who had the Iraqi army dissolved as soon as Saddam was overthrown. This step threw Iraq into chaos and led to the deaths of nearly a thousand US servicemen so far, since an Iraq without an army would inevitably depend on the US military. But with the Iraqi army gone, and with Egypt and Jordan neutralized, Syria was left the only country anywhere near Israel that could make active trouble for Sharon if he completely screwed over the Palestinians. And Syria was now weak and isolated. So Sharon has had a free hand in his expansionist aggression. And, because the US public has been preoccupied with Iraq, the Likud could pursue its annexation of West Bank land and its expropriation of even more Palestinians without anyone over here even noticing. It is the best of all possible worlds for the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky. The Likud policies of reversing Oslo and stealing people's land and making their lives hell has produced enormous amounts of terrorism against Israel, and the Likudniks have cleverly turned that to their political advantage. Aggression and annexation is necessary, they argue, because there is terrorism. Some of them now openly speak of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians, using the same argument... The drawback for the US in all this is that US government backing for Sharon's odious policies makes it hated in the Muslim world.
Oh, I can think of a few. It's times like this when I absolutely abhor some American Olympians' sense of entitlement, only egged on by the insipid presenters and fawning media. More and more, the grace of their competition from other countries just shows them up every time. (On the other hand, I was rooting hard for her because her aunt is a former coworker of mine, which is the closest degree of separation I've ever had from an Olympic athlete...)
Two new celebrity blogs worth checking out - Zach Branff's Garden State Blog and Quentin Tarantino's Diary. To tell you the truth I haven't really seen the work of either gentleman (although I know who they are) but that's not how I judge a good celeblog anyway.
We don't have a dining room table (or even a dining room, for that matter) so we eat in the living room off standing trays, of which Amy becomes quite fond when she likes the smell of the food. Time to wash that tray again, methinks...
Just in time for my morning commute, Avedon Carol "reviews" some of the commercials she hears on the streaming feed of Air America Radio to which she listens. I'd be curious to see what she thinks of one of the newer ones for a law firm that couldn't pander to the station's target audience more if it held up a raised fist and screamed "Off the pigs!" (Or have I just dated myself?)
Via Zed at MemeMachineGo, since it's shaping up to be a dreary and cloudy day 'round these parts, here are some good Discordian games to lighten things up.
Okay, the day was Monday but I'm still behind in my blog reading. Anyway, it's from Mark Kleiman, who pretty much sums up the whole Swift Boat GOP game as far as I'm concerned. Runner-up is this headline from Max Sawicky from yesterday about the Republican defense of Rumsfeld in light of the Abu Ghraib report.
Mark Morford waxes eloquent about his precious Spider-Man comic. As first glance it perpetuates the stereotype of how most non-fans view old comics as first and foremost commodities, but I think he redeems himself quite nicely.
Via e-mail from eRobin: "The latest Passion of the Present project is to hold a Day of Conscience this Wednesday, August 25. Please talk it up. Link to the Day of Conscience site, where people can get suggestions for activities that range from very simple (donating money to relief groups, wearing a green ribbon and passing out as many as you can to friends) to the more complicated (vigils).Thanks!" eRobin suggests we post about Dafur tomorrow but I'm woefully ignorant of much beyond "it's a genocidal horror" so I'm going to spend as much of the day as I can educating myself. If you have a bit of green cloth to put together a ribbon for tomorrow, and people want to know what it's about, you can make copies of this Word document to hand out. Here's another Word document on actions taking place around the country, courtesy of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, but there are no NY events listed. (Although there has to be something going on around these parts, as the UJA Federation has signed on as well.) And here's the online donation page.
Coming to a comic shop near you, sooner or later - Giant Chicken Robot. Don't say I didn't warn you, Glovefox, this is the sort of thing that happens when you ring me from England... (Yes, I know, you can't get into Glovefox's blog unless you know the Secret Password, so if any regular readers leave your e-mail address in the comment section I'll encourage her to pass it along...)
Walter Cronkite penned his final syndicated column yesterday. Here's the site where you can find all of them; it was on my sidebar but I've now retired it.
Well, I slacked off yesterday, didn't spend a lot of time on the computer (and none on my ironing), so once again I've fallen behind in blog reading. Wonder how much worse it'll get when all these folks are back from vacation? :) Hanan Levin says "This item [displaying all of George W. Bush's medals] will be picked up tomorrow by 51% of bloggers in America, me predict," so who am I to buck a trend?
Because somebody had to do it. But first, these messages:
Via Augie DeBlieck, the IOC has banned Olympic athletes and their support personnel from blogging during the games, except those prescient enough to have started their blogs beforehand. Also, "To protect lucrative broadcast contracts, athletes and other participants are also prohibited from posting any video, audio or still photos they take themselves, even after the games, unless they get permission ahead of time." No wonder mainstream media coverage is getting shittier and shittier, they're determined to have a lock on what we can and cannot see and hear. Fortunately, some mainstream places still produce interesting tidbits, like the Beeb's report yesterday on doping (I didn't even know 11 atheletes were booted from Sydney four years ago; I think the Athens games are up to 10 so far). And the Olympics aren't the only place where heroic athletes can be found; the same broadcast reported on Bula Chowdhury's amazing feat of becoming the first woman in the world to swim across seven channels and the British fellow who ran 50 miles a day for two months to win the 3,100-mile ultra-marathon.
Now, to the list so far. Feel free to substitute your drug of choice. I'm mostly concentrating on the NBC networks' coverage (including ads) rather than the athletes themselves, but I'm also staying away from obvious ones like "sip/toke every time a commentator says something politically stupid" because they just do it too often and that kind of indulgence might be a bit much. I'll be adding to this as I think of things or get suggestions:
Sip/toke every time a volleyball team does a group hug when they haven't even factored into the play (i.e., when the other team botches the serve).
Gulp/drag deeply every time that horrid Bush campaign ad comes on, which is still playing even over the objections of the Iraqi soccer teamand the USOC. You'll need to. "Free nations," my ass; get the hell out of there then tell me whether they're "free." Arrogant SOBs.
Sip/toke every time a (usually US) silver or bronze medalist, the second or third best athlete in the world at that particular moment, is portrayed as though they've lost. Gold medals aren't a de facto US entitlement. Similarly, sip/toke every time a commentator makes a lame excuse for an American not winning the gold; gulp/drag deeply if the excuse has something to do with a judge. Buncha bad-sportsmanship whiners.
Sip/toke every time a commentator complains about rules not being favorable to a US team, as with softball. So what you're saying is, if the Yankees and Boston meet 12 times in the regular season and the Yanks win 11 out of those 12, but Boston wins the wild card spot, and they beat the Yanks in the playoffs, it's not fair? 'Cause that's the same exact deal going here. Teams get into the finals based on their overall record against all competitors, you xenophobic morons, not how many times they're beaten by Us. Gulp/drag deeply if the same commentator completely reverses this opinion once he/she is talking about US chances for a medal despite repeated losses (as with basketball).
Sip/toke every time a short race is replayed repeatedly from multiple camera angles. I think I counted a dozen showings of a women's sprint yesterday.
Sip/toke at every historical inaccuracy passed on as though it were true. Gulp/drag deeply any time an "in depth" report begins with a sentence like, "The theory of evolution is controversial." (This actually happened.)
Per eRobin Stelly in the comments, sip/toke every time a commentator tries to explain away poor attendance, or contradicts what you can clearly see or hear for yourself (i.e., the roar of the mostly-silent crowd or "energy" in a half-filled room).
Sip/toke every time a meaningless stat is intoned as though it had any significance whatsoever. The only low point in the amazing and wonderful coverage of the women's marathon was when one of the commentators started talking about the weight of the running shoes.
Speaking of which, raise your glass/pipe and salute every instance where actual interesting historical stuff about Greece is passed on; same for actual inspiring (not tear-jerking) stories about athletes. Extra sip/toke if those athletes aren't American. Two sips/tokes if a non-American wins and is interviewed by NBC.
More to come. Incidentally, I've decided that women's trampoline is my new favorite sport of the moment. The costumes are lovely, the athletes well-toned, and the athletics superb. Of course, I still believe that beach volleyball should be buried up to its neck.
I've written to Blogger to find out how I can scootch down the template a bit so you can see the top again. I've also added retailer Brian Hibbs and DC senior editor (for collected editions) Bob Greenberger to the Kultcha Guys list. Now that we're at the point where we can actually think about reshelving our 20,000+ comics, I'm trying to get back into that aspect of my blogging life. I just sorted our July/August DC comp box and marked off the comics in the biweekly haul we get from Midtown, so that brings my reading pile back up to two solid boxes, but hey, I'm making progress! My most recent marathon reading has been Jane's World; Paige Braddock kinda has a Doonesbury-ish style (the older strips drawn entirely by Trudeau, not the more recent ones) with an Alison Bechdel sensibility, but it's not really politically-oriented as much as slice-of-life stuff with some cool fantasy elements thrown in. And Robin and I have two social-event New York comic conventions coming up in September, the Big Apple Con (pending acceptance; we're all set for their National Expo in November but I only just asked about the September one) and Ithacon, one of my favorites 'cause I get to drive through the Catskills at the height of fall foliage season and hang out with Roger Stern and Carmela Merlo whom I never see often enough. So come the autumn I expect the obligatory comics content portion of this blog to increase a bit more.
Okay, I'm disappointed. I wanted to link to someplace that had a 2004 Olympics drinking/toking game, but nobody seems to have come up with one yet, so I suppose it's up to me. Must get my list together, as I only have about 3 or 4 so far, but look for it later on. Meanwhile, via Trevor, have some fun with Lightness Perception and Lightness Illusions.
Because I need something to fill up the space so my sidebar doesn't stretch beyond the content... Okay, I mentioned the paperbacks, DVDs, videos and records were already done:
That's in the part of the living room we face as we sit in our recliners. Today I unpacked the rest of the boxes marked Graphic Novels and shelved them behind the chairs at the opposite end of the living room:
We left some empty space, on purpose, as we still have unopened boxes marked Comics and a few of those may have graphic novels in them as well. We also chose not to shelve any of the stuff still stored in magazine boxes:
That's the only bit in the living room I still don't care for, but we're not sure where we're going to put them yet. (There are some more magazines that still need to be taken out of moving boxes and stored properly in boxes like these, so figure they'll total around 20 in all.) Next step is to tackle the 50+ comics boxes and mounds of loose comics in the library, of which this is a small sampling:
Big job, but I'm done for this weekend; tomorrow is ironing day, if my muscles will let me, in addition to blog-catch-up-day-but-you've-heard-that-before...
Here's another one to add to the list of shenanigans surrounding Florida absentee ballots: Andante has been reading The Daily Kos more often than I've had a chance to, and Kos contributor murfmom raised a point about mailing her Dade County ballot: "The clerks at my local post office confirmed my suspicion that extra postage is necessary for delivery. You need $0.49 of postage, not a $0.37 stamp as printed in the official instructions!!!" Talk about nickel-and-diming voters to death! This could mean a whole bunch of ballots will never make it to their destinations. Or maybe just the ones from the elderly black voters' homes and not the ones from the Republicans targeted by the flyers...
I said yesterday I was aiming to catch up on blog reading. I shall make no such jinx-inducing prediction today, only note that it's the weekend and I have no specific plans so anything's possible. Meantime, I'm cannibalizing Hanan Levinagain for this site, Middle East Gawker, a parody of you-know-where.
Hey, you guys, it's getting time to do the laundry... Amy loves our new hamper. posted by Elayne Riggs at 7:35 PM |
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On Speaking Too Soon
So much for bloggy plans. I just spent a hellacious 6+ hours mostly tied to the phone trying all sorts of machinations to get reasonably-priced tickets for a one-way international flight with only a 2-day window (meaning none of the discount sites could get me tickets so I had to go directly to the airlines which wouldn't allow me to purchase by phone, etc. etc.) and unable to do much else, even eat. So naturally an errand for my boss' wife fell through the cracks because I couldn't leave my desk to perform it and I didn't send an e-mail at the time to cover my patootie and so she came into the office and yelled at me. Which I didn't need considering the hoops through which I'd been jumping and so my response to her was all wrong and disproportionate because I was so tired and aggravated and I need to learn how to take deep breaths from now on because I know that however hard I work there is always a strong chance, at any given moment, that I will suddenly find myself in this sort of situation where I will lose my temper and then possibly my job. Which in a better economy wouldn't be a bad thing, but we don't have one of those at the moment. Sorry for babbling. God I'm hungry. Maybe someday my coworkers will ask me if I want anything when they all order lunch (on which there's a $10+ minimum for delivery).
Good morning! My boss is in Boston, the COO is taking a vacation day, it's too darn hot and humid to go anywhere, and I'm looking forward to a day of actually catching up on my blog reading! Yes, I know I've said that before, but y'all write a lot. :) Via Hanan Levin, and because it's Friday, the Cat's in the Kettle - hope I didn't spoil your breakfast! Me, I've already eaten.
Ah, I was wondering why I couldn't delete the "-->" from the top of my page; it indicated Blogger was about to put a nifty search engine atop my template. Great! I never could figure out the hang of putting the Google thing on my sidebar and making it work correctly. Now I just have to figure out how to lower the top of the template a bit so it doesn't get cut off... Oh, by the way, "(Sir) Paul is Dead" still proves a giggle-worthy conspiracy theory after all these years.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
