mushinnoshin

So I’m wrapping up my holiday, back to work tomorrow. Of course we’ll party again tomorrow night for new years, so we aren’t entirely back to reality, but we’re winding down.

Anyway I’m sort of annoyed because I’m going to have to drink nothing but the good vodka tonight — I’m out of the cheap stuff which I’d ordinarily turn to as the night wanes on. I would have bought more today, but of course we live in a place where conservatives tell people when and where they can buy alcohol, and by gum not on the Sabbath. So much once more for the “conservatives support free markets” nonsense.

But that’s not the point. The point was that I was pondering this fact and thinking about what our blue laws say about our state. But then the news came on and ran a story explaining why you shouldn’t shoot your gun in the air tomorrow night.

Sigh.

Maybe gravity is just a theory and we should embrace intelligent falling?

There aren’t too many professions whose lips are more permanently affixed to the teat of government than those of lawyers and royal estate agents — so it is rather amusing to see one of each going on about the evils of government. But my appreciation of the irony aside, the toxic stench of burning strawmen was far too thick over there to really wade into it.

Of course it’s partly my fault I suppose. I mean I can appreciate that it’s difficult to respond to someone whose ideology doesn’t fit into a talk radio caricature, so naturally the thing to do is to fall back on beating up the caricature. I’m not your garden variety liberal (well, part of the point of this post is that no one is a garden variety anything — something I shouldn’t have to explain to people who say they champion individualism — but bear with me). I’m someone who became a liberal by going so far to the right that I circumnavigated the political globe. (On economics I mean. I’ve of course always been a flaming ACLU liberal heathen on social issues.)

So do go on about the virtues of free enterprise (though you really shouldn’t talk about “capitalism” unless you understand the difference) — I’m right there with ya. I’m opposed to conservatism not because it supports free enterprise, but because it doesn’t.

Well that’s perhaps not fair. It *is* true, but explaining why it’s true in all cases takes us into esoteric territory that’s far beyond the scope of this post. So let me slightly rephrase it as:

The statement that conservatives believe in free enterprise is false.

…which is shown by merely noting that not all conservatives believe in free enterprise — at most it’s just those in the upper-right quadrant of the Nolan chart. Those in the lower right quadrant don’t even pretend to believe in free enterprise, and they are conservatives whether one likes it or not. See the thing is, you don’t get to perpetually redefine conservatism to suit your needs. And a statement like:

Conservatism is about the belief that, as Mark put it, “every individual is of equal and inestimable value and possesses unlimited potential.”

is just empty rhetorical nonsense. And saying that the movie was a conservative movie because hard work payed off and the human spirit triumphed is like — well, saying that Friday the 13th is a conservative movie because conservatives think murder is bad. (And liberals clearly are in favor of murder, because, ya know, they aren’t conservatives and only conservatives think murder is bad. See how that works?). What can one do but roll ones eyes at such silliness?

And how does one reconcile a purported belief in individualism with the downright bizarre notion that people aren’t different and don’t have differing abilities?

And where exactly did I say that someone with lesser abilities can’t succeed? I said that one person’s success doesn’t prove that the game isn’t rigged. Very different. And if conservatives truly believe in free enterprise, they should recognize the importance of making sure that it isn’t.

Which is a topic that takes us off the charted map and into “here be dragons” territory, requiring reforms that frankly just aren’t going to happen anytime soon. Which leaves us for now with little choice in realpolitik other than to support moderate steps to curb the worst abuses which exist due to our failure to create a truly free system — our failure to support free enterprise as opposed to the allodial corporate mercantilism that is today’s “capitalism”.

Weeeee, that one was a doozy, eh? Maybe I should stick to wine tonight. I did get a fancy new bottle opener from my sister for Christmas that needs breaking in.

Meanwhile, back in sobriety, lets catch up on a few fragments.

Heehee, this just showed up at Netflix:

Jonathan, the following movies were chosen based on your interest in:
Saved!
The Godfather
V for Vendetta

(wait for it…)

Mean Girls

Ha! Just how mean are those girls? Yeah yeah yeah, I know they’re talking about other movies farther down the list, but come on, that’s a funny juxtaposition.

Sigh. Anyway, what else? Ah yes, well I did my budget for the new year yesterday. Man, anyone who tells you there’s nothing wrong with our economy is a liar, idiot, or both. At the end of the day, I’m about $200 a month short of where I’d like to be, and $100 a month short of where I need to be. I mean I’ll be able to trim around the edges and get there, but damn. I mean I make a good living, and with the exception of my symphony subscription (which is in the cheap seats), I don’t exactly live extravagantly. Certainly I don’t live miserly, and granted it’s partly because I haven’t quite grown past the stretch I had to make to get into the house I wanted, but still — it is a house in the barrio, it ain’t exactly Oak Hill. I won’t say how much I make, but it is more than what half of the families in Davidson County make — so my point is mostly that I have total respect for anyone who can raise a family on it, and have to sadly shake my head at anyone who thinks people don’t have it tough, that the middle class isn’t shrinking, or that the poor aren’t getting poorer as the rich get richer.

Finally, has anyone tried this Ezekiel 4:9 bread? It’s apparently flourless, made entirely from fully sprouted grains. Plumgood had it discounted for their recent warehouse-moving sale, so I decided to give it a shot. Once I got past the name that is — it looks like the name comes from the bible verse from which they ganked the recipe or something.

Well, I didn’t realize it was a frozen bread, so they lose a lot of points there that will be hard to make up. And then I don’t know how much of their score on taste is compromised by the freezing. Anyway you can definitely taste a difference, but I can’t decide if it’s good-different or bad-different — it’s just different. The final verdict I think is that if the supposed nutritional benefits are real, then I could see myself working fully sprouted bread into my routine occasionally, but not making a total switch. And not so long as the only option is a frozen bread that ordinarily costs as much or more than a fresh loaf from Provence.

So, uhh, yeah. I’m blogging about bread. The drunk posts really are more fun, aren’t they?

Well I suppose we should continue the series wrapped around movies I’ve watched this vacation while drunk. So Wednesday at the Belcourt I saw Margot at the The Wedding, and tonight On Demand delivered Bewitched.

The combination leaves me thinking about the time that I too was in love with an actress named Nicole.

Simpkiss, as it was — a costar of mine in a comedy improv troupe known as Comics Anonymous, and co-founder of our offshoot sketch show “Serious Comedy Forum” — we really were magic together. Our fearless leader Frank even saw it, and scheduled us together as often as possible. “Alphabet” was our specialty, a game in which our alternating improvised lines had to adhere to an alphabetic sequence — no one did it like us, and if we didn’t make it to “Z”, I guarantee we did it on purpose.

She never got how rare she was to me — she knew and loved a version of me that didn’t exist when she wasn’t around, a version that none of you know, a version of me that I too loved and wished could have defined me from there on out — but she didn’t know or didn’t care, or — well, she left — and he died.

I mean I can’t really blame her. We were kids. She went into the Army, to pay for college. It was on the books before we met.

Me? I did acid.

LOTS of acid. Seriously, I’m talking amounts that would have made Syd Barrett blush. Whatever it took to make my brain — and heart — shut the fuck up.

Well it wasn’t all bad, these were the days that led to staring the band and much that would define me. The point I think is just something along the lines that everything happens for reasons, the tao working mysterious ways, yada yada yada.

Flash forward to 1999 or so. I’m back in Tennessee, trying to find ground zero — and there she is, I find her online. And everything is perfect. The connection as solid as ever, the me that she creates lives again. A thousand miles away yet she touches me as deeply as she ever did.

Only to tell me that she’s married — Ms. Dickson now –, and nothing I could say or do could supersede.

And though I wish there was more to the story, that’s where it ends. Which is probably the saddest part of all. I just can’t believe I let her break my heart twice.

So the point of all this? Well, to you my current muse, who torments me this day, I suppose it’s meant to give you relief, to let you know the depths we haven’t even scoped, to know you’ve caused no pain that hasn’t been eclipsed…

while yet perhaps it hints at just how much your love could wash away, if ever you could see your way to let it flow.

‘Til then, more vodka. And I think “Dead Mean Don’t Wear Plaid” is On Demand. Steve Martin always was a hero.

Allright, so I’m drunk blogging again. Shut up, I’m on vacation.

Anyway I just watched The Pursuit of Happiness. Great film, but what’s bugging me is I’m seem to remember some mumblings about it being a good pro-conservative-values film.

–

Are you fucking kidding me?

–

First of course being, “hard-work-triumphs” is not a value exclusive to conservatism, no matter what ridiculous propaganda has convinced you otherwise.

Second of course being — OK, so an extraordinary person graced with extraordinary intelligence and extraordinary perseverance can beat the odds in a game extraordinarily stacked against him — and this somehow justifies the game, and its odds?

Please.

Perhaps you see justice in a world where the extraordinary may one day rise from the gutters in the hopes of perhaps being able to feed their fucking children.

I see insanity in a world that wastes such intelligence and energy on subsistence, and leaves the merely ordinary in the gutter, as if that’s somehow natural.

It isn’t.

The key, as ever, is that wealth controls who benefits from access to the Earth’s resources. So long as that remains true, everything else you think you know is spin.

The play the ends against the middle,
They hide the truth behind a riddle,
They make their victims their accomplice,
They lie, and say it’s in your interest

the poet? laughing, hardly.
words like jazz; the river’s water
rampaging through his submerged hands
he captures by cupping
very little

oh certainly he assuredly
plays with placement and pronunciation,
enunciation; still an actor though at core,
a vaudeville comic skilled
in serving satire
in surreal sincerity;
loving language, and — its sensuality

But poetry?
Not me.

Not, at least, in that which I
know how to let you see.

Interesting compilation of presidential candidates responses to the International Campaign for Tibet. Richardson’s response was excellent of course, though to be fair every response — of those who have responded — is acceptable. Really it’s a no-brainer, it’s the sort of thing you just don’t answer unless you have the right answer.

So naturally, silence from the Republicans. What’s the matter, only people who live near oil deserve to be free?

Not to be partisan, crickets from Obama’s camp are also disappointing.

Awesome.

Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status

see also: USA Today.

An interesting footnote is that Russell Means was in the running for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nod back in 1988. Sadly he lost to a xenophobe with a womb control fetish named Ron Paul.

Sigh. Internet Explorer will be the death of me.

The proper CSS rule should be display:table-row. Firefox like this a lot better and expands the TR without the mangling. But IE for Windows will throw an error, because — unlike its MacIE cousin — it doesn’t support table-row.

A few more things I learned, though I suppose these don’t fall under the “fucking asshats” category:

• It doesn’t like trailing commas in an array declaration, eg it doesn’t like the comma after ‘bar’ in:

  var myarray = ( 'foo', 'bar', );

  I’ll give ‘em that one, it’s more of a “bonus points for supporting it” sort of thing. (Why? So that you can easily manipulate items, move them around, insert/delete from the list etc, without worrying about that final comma or lack thereof.)

• Also, IE apparently won’t let you assign an element (like say a <ul> structure) to the innerHTML of a <p>, you have to use a <div>. Again I’ll give ‘em this one, it is the right thing to do, it’s just more strict than one might expect.

• Finally it looks like array.push doesn’t work in IE5.