FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy



Frankie



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Legal Skirmish Colors National Day Of Prayer

From the Religion News Service via the Huffington Post:

As Rep. Randy Forbes sees it, the decision by a Wisconsin federal judge that the law creating a National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional is little more than one person's opinion.

Millions of Americans, Forbes said, think otherwise.

"That's not what the Constitution says," the Virginia Republican declared Wednesday (April 21), surrounded by other members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus. "That's what one unelected judge says the Constitution says."

On Thursday (April 22), the Justice Department said it would appeal the decision, capping a week of political uproar from conservatives after Judge Barbara Crabb of Madison, Wis., issued her April 15 ruling.

And

Jews on First and the Interfaith Alliance, two groups that have accused the National Day of Prayer Task Force of hosting exclusionary Christian events, sent a joint letter to Obama asking him to issue a proclamation that promotes inclusive observances.

"We're certainly going to encourage people to have interfaith, inclusive events but the line that we're going to take now is it's important for there to be a healthy separation as well as a healthy respect for religion," said Rabbi Haim Beliak, one of the co-directors of Jews on First.

More here.

You know, I've always loved church/state controversy. It's a fun and interesting issue that drives people insane on both sides. For the record, I'm one of those Americans who strongly support keeping the government out of religion, and vice versa. I'm in good company: it was founding father Thomas Jefferson who coined the phrase "wall of separation between church and state." In spite of all the bullshit we hear about how we were founded as a "Christian nation," and how all the founders were men of faith, the reality is that many, if not most, of them were deists, that is, not at all Christians in the way we understand the term today. And as rational Enlightenment era men of conscience, they were strongly disturbed by centuries of sectarian strife in Europe, cynically used by nation states for their own benefit. Thus, they included in the first amendment guarantees for religious freedom, as well as prohibitions against government establishing its own official religion.

Separation between church and state, right? Pretty easy. But what, exactly, does it mean to "establish" an official religion? There's the rub. If you're Pat Robertson, or any other fundamentalist thinker, it means there cannot be a Congressionally created organization, funded by tax dollars, known as the Church of America or somesuch. And that's it. For these types, establishing an official religion does not mean funnelling tax dollars into religious coffers, or requiring prayer in school, or keeping religious symbols away from government properties and offices. That is, to Christian fundamentalists, the government can favor religion all it wants. As long as there isn't an official organization called the Church of America, it is in compliance with the first amendment.

Of course, that's total bullshit. If you use the fundamentalist interpretation, you might as well just throw the whole "establishment" clause out of the window because it essentially has no meaning. That is, from their point of view, the government can indeed establish an official religion, preferably one that is fundamentalist Christian in nature, as long as they don't actually call it a religion. Unfortunately for them, this interpretation is utterly out of line with some fifty years of Supreme Court rulings on the subject. Generally, these decisions have interpreted the word "establish" to mean the government showing any sort of favoritism to any sort of religion. Which is a good thing because, really, it's all a slippery slope. It may not be creating an organization called the Church of America when we require students to pray in school, but it sure as hell constitutes the state ramming religion down the throats of American citizens, and that's close enough.

Anyway, to the point. The National Day of Prayer, a government sanctioned activity, clearly violates the first amendment. The government has no business encouraging people to pray, just as it has no business discouraging prayer. But I, personally, don't get so worked up about it. It strikes me as a rather meaningless gesture, a bone thrown to the faithful among us, with minimal tax dollars involved. Beyond making the observation that it violates the Constitution, I have no plans to fight the good fight on the issue.

But prayer in school, which just keeps coming back like Nixon or a zombie, is something that infuriates me. Ditto for "intelligent design" as a stealth vehicle for creationism inserted into biology classes. Same thing with "faith based" initiatives, or, more correctly, handing over tax dollars to religious organizations for their "charitable," which means "proselytizing," activities. That is, there are numerous real threats, with teeth, to our sacred wall of separation between church and state.

Taking down that shit, that's the good fight.

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STAR TREK
Friday's Child

From Wikipedia:

"Friday's Child" is a second season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #40, production #32, and was broadcast December 1, 1967. It was written by D.C. Fontana, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

Overview: The crew of the Enterprise become entangled in a planet's tribal power struggle.

More here.

(Because I screwed up, this one falls out of order. More here on that.)

Memory is a weird thing. I recall "Friday's Child" as mediocre. But when I watched it again last week, probably for the first time in ten years, I really enjoyed it. Maybe it's just me; I have aged a decade in the meantime, and, I'm sure, changed my tastes to some extent, as well. No matter. This is where I'm at right now.

"Friday's Child" isn't a classic or anything, but it's as good as Star Trek gets without being brilliant. That is, if you want to expose Trek somebody who's never seen it before, this one can safely be called representative.

The episode, like most other good episodes, is set up well in the teaser, a nice, quick, efficient delivery of exposition in the form of one of those increasingly common briefing room scenes. Kirk and crew spend only a moment discussing the MacGuffin, the negotiation of a mining treaty, but very quickly we learn what the episode's really going to be about, interacting with a relatively primitive race which fights at the drop of a hat, or any other violation of about a billion of their essentially unlearnable taboos. In moments, we're down on the planet, seeing a red shirt die meaninglessly to illustrate the point. Quick, efficient, simple storytelling, that's usually the key to good Trek, and that's what we get with "Friday's Child."

The episode's alien race, the Capellans, appear at first glance to be yet another goofy throwaway. But they grow on you. Indeed, in addition to their cool stature, generally over six feet, they have weird and cool clothing, with bizarre cowls and feather boas. They don't talk much, I mean, sure, they talk, but their dialogue is sparse, which means there is much less of a chance for them to say something stupid. The sets, mostly tent interiors, are minimal, too, but they work well.

Okay, the lone Klingon in the mix kind of sucks. Really, he's just a lame actor who doesn't seem to understand what the Klingons are about, even for such an early era as 1960s Star Trek. But at least he's there, unlike the unseen Romulans in "The Deadly Years."

Actually, that's an interesting compare and contrast exercise. That is, "The Deadly Years" and "Friday's Child" have a similar story structure in that both have subplots where major recurring foes threaten the Enterprise. In the former, the Romulan story appears to be simply pasted on, slipshod, not having much to do with the main plot. In the latter, however, there is a meaningful dynamic between the events taking place on the planet's surface, and the events taking place back on the ship--while the Klingons play cat and mouse with the Enterprise out in space, their agent on Capella IV works his own subterfuge against Kirk and his landing party; each story line has consequences for the other.

And it's not simply that the subplot is so well woven into the overall episode: it's pretty darned good in itself. It's fairly cliche by this point in the series' run to have the Captain leading an away team while a subordinate officer takes charge back on the ship. That is, it's something of a Star Trek formula. But this time is particularly strong, and Mr. Scott continues to cement his reputation as a Kirk-level command officer when he gets his chance in the chair. Of course, Scotty's got some good quotable quotes, all in that marvelous Scottish accent of his:

We'll go right down their throat if necessary. Let's see if they have the belly for it.

It is important, for me, to note that Mr. Scott gets right what President Bush got wrong years later:

Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

At any rate, the story on the ship comes together, in cavalry rescue form, with the story on the planet by episode's end. The image of red shirted Scotty leading a team of security red shirts to save the day is something embedded in some of my earliest memories; it's as good a moment as in any TV western ever produced, better actually.

And Scotty doesn't have a monopoly on good lines in this one. Spock's "I would rather, I would rather not" when offered the newborn baby to hold is classic, as is his "'Oochi woochi coochi coo?'" question uttered after Bones and Kirk repeat the phrase in rapid succession. And the Science officer's exclamation of non-Vulcan indignation, "I think you're both going to be insufferably pleased with yourselves," when he learns that the baby has been named after both Kirk and McCoy, "Leonard James," is an important lesson for all actors playing Vulcans today: that is, it's not that Vulcans don't have emotions; it's that they suppress those emotions, and sometimes not too terribly well.

Indeed, Spock is the king of witticism here, at his best with Kirk, his personal Dean Martin or Bob Hope:

Spock: Fortunately this bark has suitable tensile cohesion.

Kirk: You mean it makes a good bow string.

Spock: I believe I just said that.

And then repeated but with a reversal of roles:

Kirk: The cavalry doesn't come over the hill in the nick of time anymore.

Spock: If by that you mean we can't expect help from the Enterprise, I must agree.

Not funny at all, but, like the image of Scotty with his own Federation cavalry, also embedded in my brain at a very early age:

Spock: Revenge Captain?

Kirk: Why not?

But beyond what I've already mentioned, there's simply a treasure chest of fun stuff. A bunch of the episode's scenes are shot in that quarry space used in several other episodes like "Arena" or "Shore Leave." It's also tech heavy, with communicators used to create an avalanche by sonic disruption (who ever knew your cell phone could do such a thing?), something from the Doctor's medicine bag, a "magnosite tablet," used to start a camp fire, and, as far as I know, the only time we get to see Sulu's tactical computer emerging from his helm console, something that still gets me giddy. And there are fights. Lots and lots of fights. Good stuff, actually, especially because this is something for which the aliens are known, no bullshit about working it all into a script where it doesn't belong. This one needs a lot of fighting, and it delivers.

In the end, with all its cliche and formula, all its aliens who like to mix it up with blades and fists, all of Kirk's pompous blustering, "Friday's Child" ought to be lame and mediocre. After all, there are more than a few other Trek episodes offering the same TV staples, but they fail, and this one succeeds extraordinarily well, and it includes lots of fun little surprises. Actually, after writing about it, I think I really really dig this one. Something of a box office sleeper?

Whatever. Go see for yourself.


Kirk and Spock go native.

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INTRO TO NOAM CHOMSKY

From AlterNet:

“I don’t bother writing about Fox News,” Chomsky said. “It is too easy. What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice. They are basically the guardians of the faith. They set the limits. They tell us how far we can go. They say, ‘Look how courageous I am.’ But do not go one millimeter beyond that. At least for the educated sectors, they are the most dangerous in supporting power.”

And

“I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions,” Chomsky said when asked about his goals. “Don’t take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can’t. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself. There is plenty of information. You have got to learn how to judge, evaluate and compare it with other things. You have to take some things on trust or you can’t survive. But if there is something significant and important don’t take it on trust. As soon as you read anything that is anonymous you should immediately distrust it. If you read in the newspapers that Iran is defying the international community, ask who is the international community? India is opposed to sanctions. China is opposed to sanctions. Brazil is opposed to sanctions. The Non-Aligned Movement is vigorously opposed to sanctions and has been for years. Who is the international community? It is Washington and anyone who happens to agree with it. You can figure that out, but you have to do work. It is the same on issue after issue.”

More here.

It's not so much that something is right because Chomsky says so, as it is that reading his stuff puts you in an intellectual place where you're much more able to see the contradictions and inconsistencies within the rhetoric on a given issue.

Many people, for instance, take what they read or hear in the news at face value, or, at least, have a vague sense that some kind of liberal or conservative bias exists within the reporting, and clumsily try to filter for it. Chomsky, on the other hand, reminds us continually that the news business is, in fact, a business, motivated by the sole desire to deliver audiences to the advertisers who provide the industry's income, rather than being motivated by some pure desire to inform citizens for the sake of better democracy. Such a motivation shapes and selects the information we call news in surprising and weird ways, but the net effect is to continually misinform the population, often hurting democracy, rather than improving it.

But once you have a handle on how the news is actually constructed, you're much better equipped to see what's being avoided, what's being distorted, and why. That is, you're no longer much of a slave to "conventional wisdom," whatever that might mean.

And that's just one example. Chomsky uses this approach for all kinds of issues, digging deeply, assuming that what people in power assert is usually motivated by more than a simple desire to tell the truth. Reading Chomsky is indispensable intellectual training in our era of mass communication and public relations.

The above linked article is a very good start. Go check it out.

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Don't Just Smoke a Joint on 4/20

From CounterPunch:

The movement to end marijuana prohibition is very broad, composed of people who love marijuana, people who hate marijuana, and people who don’t have strong feelings about marijuana use one way or the other. We all agree on one thing though – marijuana prohibition is doing more harm than good. It’s wasting taxpayer dollars and police resources, filling our jails and prisons with hundreds of thousands of nonviolent people, and increasing crime and violence in the same way alcohol Prohibition did. Police made more than 750,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2008 alone. Those arrested were separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in many cases prohibited from accessing student loans, public housing and other public assistance.

More here.

Since its inception in the late 1930s, marijuana prohibition has been fucking stupid. There are no good arguments for it. The arguments that sound good are dishonest. That is, relative to alcohol, tobacco, Ambien, Ritalin, Xanax, Prozac, Viagra, and even McDonald's french fries, marijuana is rather benign. Marijuana does not cause crime. Marijuana is not a "gateway drug." Nonetheless, for reasons about which I can only speculate, we spend billions keeping the devil weed a contraband substance. That, alone, is a damned fine reason to end this chronic folly. But there's much more. Pot prohibition illegitimately makes criminals of millions. We lose millions of dollars in tax revenue because the entire ganja market is underground. We violate the spirit, if not the letter, of our Constitutional right to privacy when the government, without cause, prohibits a relatively harmless activity.

I mean, there are some pretty stupid arguments in favor of legalization, too, like the dubious hemp based green economy thing, or how taxing pot would pay the national debt. But the stupid arguments don't invalidate the good arguments: marijuana prohibition is stupid bullshit that costs our nation dearly. Fortunately, as the above linked article asserts, attitudes appear to be changing. Indeed, come November, California may very well be the first state in seventy years to make marijuana use and possession legal. What will happen then?

Anyway, I'm very seriously considering writing my legislators on this issue. The time finally seems right. Maybe our society's pompous and fat politicians are now capable of considering the issue on its merits, rather than through a drug war induced haze of incompetence.

Here's Reefer Madness:



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Exxon's Income Tax: $0

From Mother Jones:

The most hilarious part is ExxonMobil still finds a way to bitch about its lot in life. The corporation's website includes an issues page on "industry taxes," which threatens that energy innovation is already on the ropes because of excessive taxes, and it will be forever consigned to the dustbin by any new taxes on windfall profits (or, we'd assume, plans like President Obama's to close the offshore earnings loopholes that saved ExxonMobil from the IRS this year). "While our worldwide profits have grown, our worldwide income taxes have grown even more. From 2004 to 2008 our earnings grew by 79 percent, but our income taxes grew by 130 percent," ExxonMobil's flacks wrote, presumably while playing the world's smallest—and most expensive—violin.

Not that this should shock anybody. In 2008, the New York Times discovered that one in four of the US's largest corporations regularly pay no income tax to the IRS, and billions are lost.

More here.

With all the corporate news media's hoo-hawing this past week about a recent study showing that forty seven percent of Americans had no income tax liability for last year, without mentioning that these lower income bracket citizens fork over a sizable percentage of their earnings in payroll taxes and sales taxes, it seems like a little context is in order. That is, when I and people who make what I make as a waiter in a corporate chain restaurant, or less, are not paying any income taxes, the feds lose out on, at most, some chump change, even when multiplied by forty seven percent of the population. But when a quarter of America's massive corporations welsh on their tax obligations, the feds are out hundreds of billions.

Which is the bigger problem, losing some spare change to allow people living paycheck to paycheck to relax a bit, or losing serious money because the massive aggregations of wealth known as corporations employ armies of accountants and lobbyists to ensure that they pay nothing? Your answer probably has a lot to do with how wedded you are to reality.

Look, corporations and the super-rich are always going to whine about taxes. To be fair, there is definitely a threshold beyond which higher taxes for the rich will begin to affect the economy in bad ways, but trust me, the extravagantly wealthy Exxon, and other corporations of its ilk, are nowhere near that threshold. That is, we can, if we wanted, tax the fuck out of them, all of them, and they would still be profitable. Right now, however, we're not taxing them at all, but they still whine about how taxes are going to fuck them up. That's what they do: make money at all costs, whether it is legal or illegal, whether people live or die, whether it is right or wrong. Of course they're going to whine about taxes when it is unreasonable to do so.

Personally, I think it's great that nearly half the country got out of paying income taxes this time around. It's for people who actually need the money, as opposed to people who are strangely and sickly obsessed with acquiring more wealth than they can ever possibly spend. And it may very well be good for the economy in terms of old fashioned Keynesian economic stimulus. I've already bought a new computer with my return money, which helps software and hardware manufacturers, suppliers, the store where I bought it, and on and on. Exxon most likely dumps it into offshore accounts, or raises executive bonus checks, helping god-knows-who, but not most Americans.

Bottom line: corporations fucking owe us. Time to pay their fair share.

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School district in Temple revives paddling

From the Houston Chronicle:

One school district in central Texas has brought back the paddle as a way to restore respect and discipline in the classroom.

Although most American school districts have banned corporal punishment, Texas doesn't seem to believe in sparing the rod. Of the estimated 225,000 students spanked in schools in 2006, the latest available figures, nearly one-fourth were from Texas.

But Temple is unusual in that after banning the practice, the school district revived it last May at the request of parents who were nostalgic for the orderly schools of yesteryear. Without it, there weren't any consequences for students, according to Steve Wright, Temple's school board president.

More here.

So most of my radical critique of American education concerns the dramatic effectiveness of the unrecognized curriculum. The recognized curriculum deals with reading, writing, math, history, and various other traditional school subjects. The unrecognized curriculum deals with everything else. Taking roll, being seated in your desk when the bell rings, speaking only after you've been called on, wearing the proper clothing, busy work, all the many punishments endured when deviating from desired norms, and a whole lot more, all these things comprise the authority and obedience curriculum that nearly all American schools, public and private alike, rigorously pursue.

Students may, or may not, master the recognized curriculum. Indeed, many students graduate from high school as functional illiterates. But almost all students master the unrecognized curriculum. That is, you may not, after completing school, understand the difference between, say, democracy and capitalism, but you will most certainly understand that there are rewards for doing what you're told, and punishments for disobedience.

Teachers complain that students these days are disrespectful, or unruly, or out of control, whatever. Never mind the fact that teachers have always said this. After spending six years in front of a high school classroom, myself, my own take is that teachers aren't willing to use the disciplinary apparatus available to them. That is, they're not working hard enough to maintain order, and blame the kids for teachers' unwillingness to be the fascists that the job requires them to be.

In other words, beating children isn't really necessary.

But consider how corporal punishment figures in the unrecognized curriculum. What does it teach? Corporal punishment teaches children that it's perfectly acceptable for the strong to brutalize the weak. That violence isn't simply acceptable: violence is desirable. That it is better to be an oppressor than a victim. Indeed, that the world is divided into two groups, those who oppress, and those who are oppressed. That hitting is better than discussion. And on and on. I'm sure you get the point.

In the end, all that corporal punishment does is create a population that is very comfortable with the notion of torture. And that an individual ought to be tortured if he doesn't do as he's told. Given the deplorable state of our prisons, and the collective yawn offered by the US public in the face of widespread military torture scandals, it seems we already have such a population. A revival of corporal punishment stands to make things much worse.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Roi



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Metairie tea party supporters call for less government, more freedom

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

About 500 flag-waving activists gathered on the Veterans Boulevard neutral ground in Metairie Thursday to protest big government and voice support for less government, lower taxes and more freedom.

Sponsored by the Greater New Orleans Tea Party, the "We the People" gathering was held in conjunction with Thursday's federal tax deadline.

And

Gisela Chevalier recalled her childhood in Cuba, saying that the socialism she lived under for so many years is making its way to America under the leadership of President Obama and the Democratic Congress.

And

Many waved American flags and carried signs that said "Save Our Constitution," "Repeal Obamacare" and "Just Say No to Big Spending." Some lined up to sign a recall petition against Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana.

More here.

I live in Metairie, and today's protest took place about a block from the restaurant where I work. It strikes me as no accident that the "Greater New Orleans Tea Party" chose to stage its demonstration here, just over the parish line, rather than in New Orleans proper: Metairie, a classic white flight community, which launched Klan leader David Duke to state prominence by sending him to the legislature back in 1989, is by far the most conservative community in which I have lived. And I'm from Texas. Metairie is just perfect for both misguided and psychopathic right-wingers alike.

When a lot of the demonstrators came in for some spaghetti and chicken parmesan after their political action had ended, a liberal friend of mine with whom I work was like, "Ron, are you going to talk to the Tea Baggers?"

I told her that I wouldn't even know what to say. For starters, I'm not even sure what these people believe. All I know is what I've heard second hand, on FOX News, and those shock stories on liberal web sites. But beyond that, I'm pretty sure that the conversation would get pretty absurd within seconds. I mean, they think Obama is a socialist. What am I supposed to do, lecture them on Karl Marx? They want to recall Mary Landrieu from the Senate for being too liberal, even though she's a staunch anti-abortion Democrat, absolutely pro-war, and is totally on the take with Big Pharma; that is, she's pretty fucking conservative. These people don't understand what liberalism or conservatism actually mean. Or so it seems. So I avoided any discussion about politics with them.

Besides, who the fuck wants their waiter talking politics with them?

At any rate, strictly for my own personal financial reasons, I was happy to see them. It's been slow lately, and I was looking at not making much money tonight. Instead, the Tea Baggers came in and gave me some business. And for that, I'm thankful. Not bad tippers, either.

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NO POST TONIGHT AND STAR TREK NOTE

I'm busy tonight, so no post with any real substance. Star Trek, of course, will resume next Wednesday, but I'm going to be stepping back a few episodes to post one that I've apparently missed, "Friday's Child," which I should have placed between "Metamorphosis" and "Who Mourns for Adonais." I've been following the original production order, which is, I believe, the order in which they all aired for syndication, and is consequently the episode order with which I grew up. But for the last decade or so, it seems that everybody, on the internet, and in terms of DVD season releases, has been all about the original broadcast order, which wildly deviates from the production order. So I'm usually looking at two numbers when figuring out which one comes next, and I guess I got confused.

Sorry 'bout that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm the only one who really gives a shit about such arcane trivia.

Anyway, back with more incoherent political babble tomorrow night.

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Get Ready for a More Conservative Supreme Court

From the Washington Post courtesy of TruthDig:

Nonetheless, it’s entirely possible that a more conservative court could be Obama’s paradoxical legacy—particularly if he serves only a single term. The likelihood of the court shifting to the right is greater than that of its moving leftward.

In part, this could have been predicted even before Obama took office. It reflects less about him than it does the identity of the departing justices, one liberal followed by another. The next oldest justice is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 77. Conservatives are reaping the benefits of Bush father and son having selected justices who were relatively young. Justice Clarence Thomas was 43 when tapped, Chief Justice John Roberts was 50, and Justice Samuel Alito was 55.

More here.

This is a classic example of how establishment wisdom functions: bend over backward to avoid referencing the elephant in the middle of the living room. That is, this Washington Post op-ed totally makes the right conclusion, that Obama is certain to pick a nominee who is more conservative than Stevens, but for reasons that are virtually insignificant when compared to the real reason.

It is impossible for Obama to nominate, and for the Senate to approve, a liberal for the Supreme Court. For starters, the President, in spite of the endless assertions of right-wing nut cases, is simply not a liberal, and is in no way inclined to pick one for this Presidential legacy position. Even if he was a liberal, the Democrats who control the Senate are not. They don't want a liberal, either. And even if Senate Democrats leaned left, Senate Republicans, who are already threatening to filibuster the nomination, even though they have no idea who it will be, would never let it happen. They'd blow up Washington first.

This is the real reason the Court will move to the right with whoever takes Stevens' place: liberals are essentially powerless in our nation's capitol. I mean sure, the issues brought up in the WaPo essay, relative age and ideology of sitting Justices, historical trends, Obama's damnable urge to find "the middle" of any and all controversies, all that shit, will no doubt play some sort of role in the final decision. But by far the biggest factor is that nobody in Washington wants a liberal to sit on the Supreme Court. Why can't the power establishment just admit it?

You know, this is particularly disturbing because Stevens isn't even a liberal. He's a moderate, nominated by Gerald Ford, a Republican President. It's simply that thirty years of right-wing ideological terrorism has redefined what we think of as liberal and conservative. That is, these days "liberal" means right-moderate, and "conservative" means far-right reactionary extremist. I mean, shit, if we hadn't been suffering this awful realignment of the political spectrum for so long, I'd be considered a moderate, myself, maybe even having fun taking pot shots at real liberals, communists, anarchists, socialists, that sort of thing.

Everything is so fucked up. This isn't the world I thought I'd be inheriting.

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Texas Prisons Top Rape List: DOJ Drafts Reform

From AlterNet:

The number of rapes being committed annually in the U.S. prison system is just deplorable. And what’s even more shocking is that the majority of these crimes are reportedly being perpetrated by corrections officers. Who are the vast majority of victims? Women, gay men, juvenile offenders, the mentally disabled and the physically weak.

What’s even more gruesome is that five of the worst offending prisons are in Texas, which to me, suggests there is an atmosphere of abuse happening in the Lone Star State. At present, there is no automatic auditing of certain prisons where these rapes seem to be happening at a greater frequency. There currently is no uniformed process in which prison administrators are assessing the risk to certain inmates. In most of these prisons, there is not even a written mandate for prison officials to report any suspicions of sexual assault.

Consequently, we have prisons like the Estelle Unit in Huntsville, Texas—which topped the Bureau of Justice’s report— where 15.8 percent of its inmates report being raped annually. That means 470 people are raped in that prison each year, and the majority of those victims say they were raped multiple times.

More here.

This is exactly why I had so much trouble the last time I was on a jury panel back in Houston.

Well, it was more than that, actually: in addition to widespread rape, US prisons are also places where gang violence and racism among inmates are strongly encouraged by prison staff; health care is problematic, to say the least--prisoners with AIDS and cancer have very low prospects for survival. That is, if you're on a jury, and you convict somebody, there is a very good chance that you will be sentencing them to be raped, or to have the shit beaten out of them, or to death, even though the court simply calls it "ten to twenty years."

I, for one, refuse to take part in such vicious euphemizing. The next time I'm up for a jury, I will declare to the judge that my knowledge of the deplorable state of our prisons will definitely be a factor for me in determining the defendant's guilt or innocence. I will not be responsible for anyone being brutalized or murdered. I mean, I'll be dismissed from the panel, for sure, which is a drag because we need more people of conscience to serve in this capacity, but I have to be honest, too.

At any rate, the essay excerpted above goes on to report that Attorney General Eric Holder is taking a few baby steps toward some prison accountability. It's not much, but it is the first time I've ever heard of any government official doing anything about this national embarrassment.

Maybe in twenty or thirty years I'll be able to serve on a jury where the only drama is the crime itself.

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Republicans convene in New Orleans, with no mention of Katrina

From Politico courtesy of TAPPED:

Five years after President Bush's failed response to a natural disaster in New Orleans deeply damaged his party's credibility and helped sweep them from power, top Republicans speaking to supporters in New Orleans tonight made no mention of Hurricane Katrina.

The series of speakers to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference at a Hilton conference center on the Mississippi River paid passing tribute to New Orleans' food, its culture, and its championship football team, but made no reference to the disaster still shadowing what Mary Matalin called a "vibrant city."

More here.

Actually, I think it would have been surprising if the Republicans did mention Hurricane Katrina. After all, the anemic federal response to what was essentially a man made disaster, in that the levees failed due to Army Corps of Engineers design flaws and lax maintenance, was the coup de grâce for Republican dominance of the US political system. Out of sight, out of mind. On the other hand, it is bizarre, indeed, that Republicans would put themselves in a position such that they have to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room.

Why on Earth would they return to the scene of the crime and pretend as though it never happened?

Obviously, the GOP continues to be utterly clueless. I mean, so are the Democrats, but much less so. Just more evidence that, even though they are still quite capable of causing all kinds of trouble, the Republicans are effectively on the outside. The real game is now internal to the Democratic Party. Yeah, that's not necessarily good news, but at least a liberal such as myself can rejoice in the fact that Republicans are essentially irrelevant on the national scene, and doing all they can to keep it that way.

Yeah, I'll take these victories where I can imagine them...

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DA's Sex Ed Warning Befuddles Wis. Teachers, Kids

From the AP via the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton:

Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth last month sent a letter to area school districts warning that health teachers who tell students how to put on a condom or take birth-control pills could face criminal charges. The warning has left many teachers, school administrators and parents flabbergasted.

''Seems like a step back in time,'' Taake said of Southworth's logic.

Southworth, a Republican and a Christian evangelical, took issue with a law Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle signed in February requiring schools that teach sexual education to adopt a comprehensive approach.

Southworth warned that teaching a student how to properly use contraceptives would be contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months behind bars and a $10,000 fine. He said it would be promoting sex among minors, who are not legally allowed to have sex in Wisconsin.

And

Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor and former state Supreme Court justice, said she didn't understand Southworth's legal logic. She said that if he tried to prosecute a teacher for adhering to guidelines approved by the Legislature and governor, the case would likely be dismissed.

More here.

Yeah, I heard about this a few days ago and have been avoiding posting about it because it just seems so incredibly stupid. But stupid is one of the main problems facing our great nation today, so I figure I might as well make a few totally obvious points, you know, just to combat rampant American stupidity:

1. Clinical discussions about sex led by bored, tired, middle aged, asexual high school teachers cannot in any way be construed as "promoting sex among minors." If you're really curious about what actually can be construed as "promoting sex among minors," turn on your television.

2. Teenagers really will have sex whether or not adults talk about condoms, not only because we live in a sexually obsessed mass media drenched environment, but also because teenage bodies are so soaked in sexual hormones that it is often difficult for them to think about anything but sex--ah, those were the days! Given this reality, it is insanity to teach abstinence instead of birth control.

3. It is also insanity, given this reality, to criminalize sex among minors. What the fuck is up with Wisconsin?

4. It is also insanity, as observed in the excerpt above, to believe that following state law constitutes breaking state law.

5. Evangelicals, fundamentalists, "Bible believing" Christians, whatever you want to call them, are stupider than dog shit festering on the sidewalk on a hot day in July. Yeah, it's funny, but I'm not kidding. I'm really sick of this shit. I'm really sick of hearing fundamentalists talk total bullshit and having everybody take them seriously. It's like when you're "born again" they take an icepick to your nose. What happened to all the cool stuff about love and forgiveness and compassion for the poor? Nowadays it's all about teen sex and gay sex and "the End Times." How can anybody be attracted to such views?

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Dash and Reine



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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NOT ABOUT SLAVERY?

From Ph.D. Octopus courtesy of Eschaton:

In honor of Confederate History Month, as proclaimed by Virginia Governor Bob McConnell, I present some of the Declarations of Secession of Southern States:

Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth...

South Carolina:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States...

Georgia:

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery...

Click here for more, including an excerpt from the declaration of secession of my home state Texas.

So the left wing was all ruffled yesterday about the Virginia governor declaring April to be "Confederate History Month" without referencing that the white supremacist regime was philosophically and economically based on the institution of African slavery. To his credit, the governor corrected his mistake, announcing that, yes, slavery was definitely a part of what the Confederacy was about. Nice guy; he admitted the obvious.

Personally, I'm not so enraged about this incident in particular. I see the whole thing as simply part of a much larger, old, and ongoing strain of Southern culture that persists against all rationality, that is, the notion of "Southern pride" manifest in terms of glorifying the CSA, waving around the Confederate battle flag, and denial that slavery was, by far, the unifying principle upon which the rogue nation was founded. I'm enraged by that.

It's really difficult for me when I'm faced with otherwise intelligent people who are like, "Oh, well, you know, it was much more about states' rights, federalism, trade issues, maritime law, stuff like that." Really? So I'm to assume that the hardcore and sometimes violent abolition movement didn't play a role in national politics leading up to the secession? I'm to assume that decades of intense Congressional infighting about which territories would be admitted to the union as slave states and which would be admitted as free states was just a pass time for our representatives and senators? I'm to assume that Southerners weren't outraged by the election of Lincoln, an abolition sympathizer? I'm to assume that the massacres and near war fought in Kansas between pro-slavery forces and abolitionists were meaningless? I'm to assume that Northern industrialists didn't desire an end to Southern economic dominance?

I'm to assume that the most divisive and important political issue in the years before the Civil War played only a minor role in the formation of the Confederacy?

Of course, that's all total bullshit, which is why it's so hard to deal with people who honestly believe it. Face it, in spite of all of the Gone with the Wind fantasies, the Confederacy was evil. It was literally founded on racism and brutality. Plantations weren't romantic: they were the nineteenth century equivalent of death camps. Anybody who celebrates the Confederacy might as well be celebrating Nazi Germany. That's why the stars and bars crowd has to deny that the CSA and the Civil War were about slavery. Problem is, such a point of view is hopelessly at odds with historical fact. And Southerners at the time would be the first to admit it.

Really, this whole romanticizing of the old South is part of an even bigger problem, American exceptionalism in general. That is, the point of view that we Americans are somehow better than everybody else, more moral, more ethical, freedom-loving, hard working. We're not. As Noam Chomsky likes to point out, we have the same genes as everybody else, we're the same biological entities as all other humans around the world, subject to the same kind of delusions and barbarity. Until we, as a nation, come to understand that we are not perfect, that we can and do fail just like all other nations, we're going to see more Iraqs and Vietnams, and we're going to provoke more 9/11s.

I think a good start to this change of consciousness is to call bullshit on the Southern pride people. Slavery is, after all, one of our nation's original sins.

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STAR TREK
The Deadly Years

From Wikipedia:

"The Deadly Years" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast December 8, 1967 and repeated on August 16, 1968. It is episode #41, production #40, written by David P. Harmon, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

Overview: Strange radiation exposes the command crew of the Enterprise to the effects of rapid aging.

More here.

Well, if you're not a fan, and this is the only episode of Star Trek you've ever seen, you may wonder what all the hubbub for the last forty years has been about. But if you're already a fan, you'll definitely dig it. That is, "The Deadly Years" isn't brilliant. It doesn't cover any new ground for the show, doesn't tackle any cool or interesting issues. It's not tightly written. But it's solid. Makes you want to know what's going to happen next. A good place keeper for the second season, which is chock full of gems.

I mean, this one isn't a gem, more like a plastic ruby, but then, plastic jewels are fun, too, at least for a little while. And there's some good stuff here. Chekov, for instance, makes the absolute most of his few moments of screen time. The reaction shot of his seeing one of the dead Gamma Hydra colonists is fab. So, too, is his well known "samples" speech, which allows yet another one of those great Lenny and Carl moments with Sulu. There is a fantastic brain storming session later in the episode, which is quickly followed by a quick two shot montage of Spock, Chapel, and Kirk's former lover Dr. Janet Wallace engaged in scientific research, both moments serving as a strong reminder that first and foremost Star Trek is a show far more about ideas than action and adventure. The brain storming scene is also strange and cool because all the characters are positively decrepit at this point. Indeed, the old age makeup, generally speaking, is not too terribly good, even by my forgiving standards, but it works well enough to tell the story, and Spock ends up looking pretty darned cool toward the end. There's also a fun moment when Kirk takes the Enterprise to warp eight, something rarely done.

Kirk also has some fine moments. I'm starting to realize that he's far more interesting when he's trying not to be romantic. That is, as with last week's successful romance scene in "Mirror, Mirror," the Captain in this episode has reasons to keep his distance from a woman he ought to be totally coming onto; something about the contradictory objectives, "to love" versus "to avoid love," settles Shatner down, takes his actor bullshit out of the equation, making him far more honest and authentic than when he tries simply "to love." Or maybe he's just getting the hang of it midway through the show's run. I don't know. But this is his second good romance in two episodes. He also has a scene with McCoy, when they discuss the onset of Kirk's arthritis, that's like the good old days. That is, it has the look and feel of being very early in the first season, a surprisingly welcome development. And Shatner shows his training and experience as a stage actor with the physical adjustments he makes for the rapid aging his character undergoes. Really, the hunched shoulders and rared head remind me of President Nixon, a paranoid man with the weight of the Cold War on his back--as longtime Real Art readers know, I have an inexplicable fascination with the only US President ever to resign his office.

This might have gone down as one of the more memorable Kirk episodes, if not for the disjointed weirdness in some of the writing. For instance, the narrative establishes that Kirk's senility is manifest essentially in terms of forgetfulness. But by the time of his competency hearing, he is in full denial that this strange disease has made his command ability severely problematic. Indeed, his denial is so strident that it appears to be another symptom of his rapid aging, a sort of dementia. But he's otherwise extraordinarily rational. What gives? This could have been easily fixed, a few extra lines here and there making him out to be more irrational. Instead, the viewer is left to figure it out for himself, and the script isn't much help--personally, it confused me a bit.

But that's not the only weirdness in "The Deadly Years." Conversation between Kirk and Wallace suggest that she has some sort of old man fetish. Wallace's rebound relationship after Kirk dumped her was with a man twenty six years older than her, and she appears to be pursuing the Captain ever more aggressively as he ages. This is sexually creepy and interesting, but the story just doesn't follow up on it. It's like WTF? There is a big foil wrapped dildo in sickbay for some reason. A symbol of Wallace's sexual excitement toward old men? We'll never know for sure.

But the most disjointed aspect of "The Deadly Years" is the storyline following Commodore Stocker and the Romulans. The script takes great pains to establish that Stocker, who at first respectfully defers to Kirk and Spock, isn't much more than a desk jockey, utterly out of his element on a Starship, and utterly aware of this fact. Nonetheless, he takes command, which makes no sense at all. I mean, he's a paper pusher, not an idiot: after all, he's the guy who first figures out that Kirk is no longer fit to run the ship. And not only does he take over, when "junior officer" Sulu would have been a much better choice, he directs the Enterprise into the fucking Romulan Neutral Zone, one of the more stupid moves in Star Fleet history. Like I said, he's not an idiot; why on Earth do the writers turn him into one once he's in the captain's chair? Why on Earth do they turn him into a sniveling piece of shit, face in hands, moaning "What am I going to do?" as the Romulans pound the Enterprise again and again?

Indeed, the presence of the Romulans in this one seems to be more about providing a dramatic counterpoint to the old age storyline's climax. Just a literary device clumsily pasted onto the plot for effect. We don't even see a single Romulan, just a ship taking shots at the Enterprise. Pretty lame.

Strangely, none of this ruins the episode. I mean, it keeps it from being great and all, but it's still pretty good in spite of itself. Solid Trek. Go see.


"Hope I die before I get old."

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Mine owner ran up serious violations

From MSNBC:

The coal mine rocked by an explosion that killed at least 25 workers in the nation's deadliest mining disaster since 1984 had been cited for 600 violations in less than a year and a half, some of them for not properly ventilating methane — the highly combustible gas suspected in the blast.

The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine has focused attention on the business and safety practices of the owner, Massey Energy, a powerful and politically connected company in Appalachia known for producing big profits, as well as big piles of safety and environmental violations and big damage awards for grieving widows.

And

Massey became a political and industrial powerhouse under the guidance of Blankenship, who rose from poverty to become one of corporate America's highest-paid and least apologetic executives, a guy who proudly displays in his office a TV set with a bullet hole from a striking union miner's rifle.

He freely spent millions of dollars from his personal fortune to help install a West Virginia Supreme Court justice, a maneuver that led to an important conflict-of-interest ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, and on a failed bid to elect a Republican majority in the state Legislature.

And

Blankenship's hard-driving approach was illustrated in a 2005 memo in which he told mine workers that if their bosses ask them to build roof supports or perform similar tasks, "ignore them and run coal."

"This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills," he wrote.

More here.

In 1981, President Reagan, using a rarely enforced law preventing government workers from striking, fired almost all civilian air traffic controllers, who were on strike at the time, and banned them for life from federal service. Even though it took nearly a decade for the FAA to fully restaff American airports, employers from coast to coast rejoiced: the federal government now had their backs in labor disputes. That is, this was the beginning of the end for conceptualizing workers as human beings and citizens, rather than as resources to be economically exploited. Three more presidential administrations, one of them Democratic, followed Reagan's example, Congress, too. Today, worker rights are something of a joke. Employers generally hold all the cards, hiring and firing at will, regardless of their workers' grievances, while employees hold none.

Business sections in newspapers thrive as never before; labor sections, once deemed just as important, aren't even a memory. The entire culture no longer understands the difference between workers and capital--that is, when considering economics, it's always from a business perspective.

This is the context in which this latest mining disaster, and, of course, the big one in Utah three years ago, take place. Massey's CEO Blankenship sounds like an extraordinary son of a bitch. But he's not too terribly different from lots of other CEOs. His problem is that he was too aggressive, that he killed too many workers in one fell swoop, creating the spectacle on which the corporate mass media love to feast. So now he's in the spotlight, and will probably have to pay dearly for his crimes. Other CEOs are smarter, more cautious, but have no more human decency than Blankenship does. That is, if it's profitable, if they don't get caught, or sued (and oftentimes even if they are sued), mining companies, manufacturers, car makers, all of them would happily throw their workers into meat grinders. Because in this era of business-as-holy-ritual, workers aren't people. They're meat.

Why wasn't this operation shut down after 600 safety violations in only eighteen months? I mean, by its very nature, mining work is already dangerous. When you have 600 safety violations in such a short amount of time, I think it's safe to say that such a work site is not suitable for human occupancy. But the federal government allowed the fates of these miners to languish in legal limbo. I'm not sure what President Obama has been doing to reverse decades of relaxed regulation oversight, but it's obvious that he's not doing enough, at least, not enough to help these 25 dead workers, real people, who had real lives and real families.

I guess, in some ways, it isn't fair to lay blame for this on the President. After all, he's a product of the times, operating within a social context that makes workers a fairly low priority. Really, it's this dominant cultural strain, the one that makes most of us identify with business owners instead of the people they employ, you know, people just like you and me, that makes capitalist disasters like this mine collapse inevitable. Personally, I'd love to see a change in the American consciousness on this issue. But such things don't just happen. Historically, lots of people have to die, have to be maimed, have to be forced into intolerable situations. As long as the corporations keep the price of air conditioning within reach, and as long as their propaganda apparatus, a.k.a. the mass media, continues to bombard us with capitalist friendly messages, workers will continue to be meat.

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GOP Congressmen Say That ‘Everyone’ In
Congress ‘Would Agree That Iraq Was A Mistake’

From Think Progress courtesy of Eschaton:

Yesterday, the libertarian Cato Institute hosted a panel discussion on conservatism and the war in Afghanistan with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN). When the conversation shifted to the war in Iraq, Rohrabacher said that “once President Bush decided to go into Iraq, I thought it was a mistake because we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan,” but that once Bush “decided to go in,” he “felt compelled” to “back him up.” He then added that “the decision to go in, in retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake.”

Moderator Grover Norquist then asked Rohrabacher to provide a “guesstimate percentage of Republicans in Congress who would share that view — not that they opposed the President at the time, but today looking back.” Rohrabacher replied that “everybody I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now”

More here, including video.

So how about a massive apology to the anti-war movement? You know, the people the right wing branded as everything from stupid to treasonous before, during, and after the invasion. How about a sincere promise to listen seriously to dissenters with reasonable arguments, and to consider honestly what they have to say, the next time the nation ponders extraordinarily important issues? You know, like right now, on Afghanistan, health care, global warming, the economy, and more.

Yeah, I know. It's a bit too much to expect people with massive dildos of self-righteousness rammed deep in their asses to learn from their mistakes. Besides, it wasn't just the Republicans. Most of the Democrats in Congress were frothing at the mouth about getting Saddam Hussein. The news media, too. Really, the whole fucking nation just went nuts after 9/11. I mean, sure, the Republicans led the way, but most willingly followed.

As the years go by, I'm really starting to understand why George Carlin claimed to have given up on humanity during the last years of his life, why Mark Twain got so dark and cynical when he was an old man. We're just a bunch of stupid apes cursed with language and intellect. We continually act out emotionally driven alpha male domination scenarios on a grand scale, while philosophizing it all as somehow noble or enlightened.

I'd have been much better off if I'd never gone to college, never graduated high school. Maybe then I wouldn't be so disgusted all the time.

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THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Lieutenant Uhura!

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Some scholars fear the story of resurrection has gone far astray

From the Houston Chronicle:

Just as Christmas for many has become less about the miracle of the virgin birth, Easter may be losing its connection to the resurrection.

Fewer than half of Americans mentioned Jesus' death and resurrection when asked about the significance of Easter, according to a survey released last month by Christian researchers the Barna Group.

At the same time, the National Retail Federation reports we'll spend more than $13 billion on the holiday for food, clothes, candy and greeting cards.

Although the holiday is meant to be the central celebration of the church, disassociating Easter from the biblical narrative of the resurrection or seeing it in symbolic terms makes Christianity “safer” for con-temporary churchgoers, some local Christian leaders say.

“Jesus is very challenging. To encounter him is existentially challenging. It can be scary and uncomfortable,” said Jeremy Wilkins, assistant professor of systematic theology at St. Mary's Seminary in Houston. “There is a strong pressure in our culture to reinterpret (the resurrection) or explain it or not to deal with it as the mighty and miraculous thing that it was.”

More here.

Call me crazy, but it strikes me as wildly funny to worry about a pagan fertility festival, which originally had absolutely no connection with Christianity whatsoever, losing its association with the resurrection. "Put the Christ back in Easter" doesn't sound quite as compelling as "Put the Christ back in Christmas," which was also originally a pagan festival, in this case celebrating the Winter solstice.

But that's neither here nor there. As longtime Real Art readers know, I hate Easter. Well, I don't hate Easter, but contemplating its meaning makes me vaguely uncomfortable. Today, I will avoid Easter by working, taking bad tips from people who rarely go to restaurants, but make an exception on Easter Sunday because they might as well, seeing as how they dragged themselves out of bed way earlier than they would have on any other Sunday, just to, you know, go to church.

Actually, that's something of a refreshing notion, especially when paired with the info from the above linked article. That is, I'm starting to believe that, even though most Americans self-identify as "Christian," people don't really give a shit about religion when it comes right down to it. I mean, if Americans really were such devout Christians, Easter would be much bigger than Christmas. But it's not. Indeed, if people cared about Christianity, they'd be in church a lot more than twice a year.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that American "Christianity" is about tribalism, rather than theology or religion. We're Christian because we're American. Or something to that effect. Not because we really care one way or the other that the baby Jesus died for our sins. Seen in that light, the devolution of Easter into just another candy and greeting card holiday makes complete sense. I mean, the only people I know who really care about Easter are people who are totally religious, and there don't seem to be too many of those types around these days. Is American Christianity dying a slow weird zombie death before our very eyes?

You know, this is shaping up to be one of the best Easters for me in recent memory.

Here, go watch the South Park Easter episode. Theologically, it makes just about as much sense as the resurrection.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy and Frankie Lounge with Dog Toys



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Environmental Groups Decry Obama Plan to Lift Moratorium on Offshore Drilling

From Democracy Now:

BRENDAN CUMMINGS: It’s horribly disappointing. Rather than instituting a fundamental change of the failed energy policies of the Bush-Cheney era, what we saw yesterday is Obama essentially embracing wholeheartedly the policy of—that we can really drill our way to energy independence, that we can drill our way out of the climate crisis, and that somehow it’s OK to permanently sacrifice some of the most sensitive, some of the most ecologically important areas of our nation just for short-term political gain. And that’s horrendously disappointing, and we would have hoped for far better from the President.

Click here to watch, read, or listen to the rest.

I've noted here a few times in the past how the environment is not one of the issues that makes me burn with passion. I mean sure, I'm concerned, definitely. But it wasn't really until I started to understand that the same forces that have whittled away at the middle class for decades, that have driven millions of average Americans into debt, that flagrantly and shamelessly exploit workers in order to gain outrageous profits, and that have shifted the US from a democratic republic to an oligarchic plutocracy are, in fact, the same forces that are destroying the environment. Actually, it all comes together with global warming: corporate capitalism, if unrestrained, will make our planet incapable of supporting modern civilization as we currently understand it, all for short term profit.

So it's more the nexus between economic justice and environmentalism that brings me on board. Unfortunately, the sight of baby seals covered with oil may pull at my heart strings, but it doesn't piss me off the way that rich and powerful greedy bastards bending us over the barrel does.

But then, that's what this "liberal" drilling plan is about.

Whether the President really believes that tapping out the two percent of world oil reserves existing in American territory will really make us energy independent, which it won't, or whether he's simply tossing a bipartisan bone to a right wing which is currently pissed off beyond all rationality about the recent passage of health care legislation is really kind of a moot point. New offshore drilling will definitely spoil the environment. New offshore drilling will necessarily contribute to global warming. New offshore drilling will line the pockets of the already wealthy oil industry with even more colossal amounts of cash.

That is, how the fuck can anybody, anybody at all, describe President Obama as a "liberal" while keeping a straight face?

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