FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
TEXAS BULLIES HONOR STUDENTS,
LSU GETS DICKED AT AUBURN

First, my beloved Longhorns. From ESPN:

No. 8 Texas holds Rice to minus
12 yards rushing in blowout win

If No. 8 Texas wouldn't have committed all those pesky penalties Saturday's 52-7 win over Rice would have been near-perfect.

And

Though Texas had its way with the Owls on both sides of the ball, coach Mack Brown was concerned with the number of penalties his team had. The Longhorns committed a school-record 19 penalties for 148 yards. On one drive late in the first Texas had three straight penalties -- two false starts and one for holding -- that forced the team to settle for a field goal.

"We made a lot of mistakes," McCoy said. "Their defensive line was yelling things. They did a great job of yelling and moving around and throwing us off."

Offensive coordinator Greg Davis was frustrated.

"It was way too many penalties for our standards," Davis said. "It's no question about it, we've got to get it cleaned up."

Click here for the rest, which includes a nifty video recap.

Well, even though Rice is playing as badly these days as they did when I was a kid in the 70s, it's nice to see the 'Horns bounce back so convincingly. But those penalties are disturbing. Actually, they did pretty well as far as that's concerned in the Ohio State game, so I figure that they're just a bit jumpy after that loss. Still, they did set a school record for penalty yardage, so I hope this isn't a harbinger of bad shit. Sloppy play is what I had to deal with back in the 80s when I was an undergrad in Austin; lots of penalties are, in my humble opinion, only a stone's throw away from fumbles and interceptions, which can turn a great team into a mediocre one. On the other hand, OU lost to Oregon, and A&M only barely beat Army, so maybe I have nothing to fear. The way I see it, the Big 12 Championship is UT's to take.

Next, the one that really pissed me off. Again from ESPN:

No. 3 Auburn outlasts No. 6 LSU
in classic defensive showdown

Brock's game-saving tackle just a few yards from the goal line on the final play preserved No. 3 Auburn's 7-3 win over sixth-ranked LSU on Saturday. He also tipped away a fourth-down pass to end another late LSU threat as Auburn turned away the visiting Tigers again and again.

And

With LSU facing fourth-and-8 from Auburn's 31 and 2:43 left, JaMarcus Russell fired the ball to Early Doucet near the goal line. A diving Brock deflected the pass, but Zach Gilbert was called for pass interference that would have kept the drive alive.

The officials overturned the call, although replays showed the contact came before the ball was tipped by Brock.

Click here for the rest.

I think if that bogus penalty withdrawal hadn't happened, LSU would have punched the ball in on the next play or the next, and their defense would have easily kept Auburn from scoring in the short time left, thereby winning the game. Instead, LSU got fucking dicked. Watching the replay was just fucking hell. One defender fucking tackled Doucet, while the other tipped the damned thing at least a second later: it was definitely pass interference. I mean, it was actually a great game to watch, nothing like a hardcore defensive battle, and losing fairly would have been a big drag. But this was just fucked-up, producing a totally different feeling from the one I got watching Texas lose last week.

I've discovered that I really have absolutely no understanding of what's a reviewable play in college ball and what's not. Fuckers.

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LYSISTRATA LATINA STYLE

From Reuters via the Houston Chronicle:

Sex strike hits Colombia gang members

They are calling it the "crossed legs" strike.

Fretting over crime and violence, girlfriends and wives of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have called a ban on sex to persuade their menfolk to give up the gun.

Click here for the rest.

Now that's feminism! It's also a case of life immitating art. Check out this bit from Wikipedia:

Lysistrata

Lysistrata . . . Aristophanes' anti-war comedy, written in 411 BC, has female characters, led by the eponymous Lysistrata, barricading the public funds building and withholding sex from their husbands to secure peace and end the Peloponnesian War. In doing so, Lysistrata engages the support of women from Sparta, Boeotia, and Corinth. All of them are at first aghast at the suggestion of withholding sex, but they finally agree and swear an oath to support each other. The woman from Sparta, Lampito, returns home to spread the word there.

And

The play also addresses the contribution that women could make to society and to policy making, but cannot because their views are ignored: All such questions are considered the purview of men only. See the exchange between Lysistrata and the Magistrate who comes to try to browbeat the women into giving up their plans.

Click here for more.

Amazing.

On the other hand, I wonder if this actually is a case of life immitating art: the population of Pereira is about a half million, not a tiny hole in the wall, but not a cosmopolitan metropolis, either. Surely, there must be educated women there who have read the classics, but without any information to the contrary, I like to think that they figured this out by themselves. After all, witholding of sex has got to be a major motivator, behaviorally speaking, especially in a macho Latin culture. Really, it's kind of an obvious tactic, once women are organized and looking for a way to flex their muscle.

You gotta hand it to those ancient Greeks: they understood human nature as well as anyone alive today, which is, of course, why we continue to study them. Now, how can we get American women organized enough to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? My god, that would be so fucking cool. No sex until the fighting stops.

Heh. Make love, not war. I fucking love it!



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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Phil



Sammy and Frankie



Paz



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

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THE MYSTERY OF BLACK ROCK AND RON

So, my buddy Reuben emailed today an image to me with this explanation:

Hey Ron,

I found this on the internet and I thought you might like to use it on your blog or something. I don't know what it's for or what if refers to, but I figured you could use it for something. Hope you dig it.

Reuben

Here's the picture:



Of course, I do dig it, especially because, you know, my name is Ron. I'm also fond of the revolutionary and anti-imperialist ideas associated with the pan-African colors. Not to mention the fact that I'm a big fan of "black rock," or rock music performed by black people, such as Jimi Hendrix or Sly and the Family Stone. And it's just kind of neat, too.

So, I figured that I would go ahead and make some sort of blog post using the image. My take was just that I would post the pic, ask if anybody knew anything about it, and add a few links to Youtube videos of African-American rock stars. But once I got on Youtube and did a search using the terms "black rock," I had to change course a bit.

It appears that Black Rock & Ron was an obscure hip-hop group in the late 80s and early 90s. And, boy, when I say "obscure," I mean it.

From allmusic:

Rock and Ron Black are an American rap duo whose 1989 album Stop the World made the U.K. charts.

Click here for the rest.

Except for the fact that there isn't any "the rest." That's all the information I was able to find online about Black Rock & Ron. Which is pretty weird, because, you know, from what I'm able to tell from their two videos on Youtube, they were pretty damned good, shunning the MC Hammer style of glossy pop rap that was so dominant at the time and embracing a more rough-edged sound, with funkier samples, before many of their contemporaries did once ganster rap reigned triumphant. Check 'em out.

Here is the video for their song "You Can't Do Me None."

Here is the video for their song "Getting Large."

So, one mystery is solved: Black Rock & Ron were a hip-hop duo. But another mystery takes its place: if they were so good, and I think they were, what the hell happened to them? And why is there so little information about them online?

Can you solve the mystery of Black Rock & Ron?



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THE REAL TRAGEDY OF 9/11

From the Houston Chronicle, an essay by my favorite University of Texas radical journalism professor:

Sept. 11 offered a dramatic moment in which the most powerful country on the planet could have led the world on a new course. U.S. leaders had a choice to either (1) manipulate people's legitimate fears and understandable desire for vengeance to justify wars of control and domination, or (2) help create a world in desperate need of more justice, not more war.

To choose the latter would have taken visionary leadership; a role for which, sadly, virtually no one in the Republican or Democratic parties appeared qualified, then or now. But there were such voices — not leaders but ordinary people, speaking out clearly and early. For example, those who lost family but resisted the call for war formed "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" and campaigned for alternatives to war.

Antiwar activists immediately began developing the argument that war would exacerbate the terrorist threat and that a two-track solution — radically changing the unjust U.S. policies in the Middle East that provide fertile ground for terrorists to recruit, while pursuing vigorous law-enforcement efforts to track and capture terrorists — would be not only moral and legal, but also effective. War, we predicted, would not solve our problems.

Five years later, one thing is clear: The antiwar voices were right. We saw what was coming, not because we were so smart but because it was so obvious.

Click here for the rest.

The real tragedy of 9/11 is that the US blew its best chance to live up to its stated ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. What's been missing for years from the mainstream narrative about the "war on terrorism" is that the whole thing takes place within the context of American econmic interests abroad. By and large, US foreign policy is about business, which is far more than simply trade deals and the WTO: when a relatively weak nation refuses to play the game by our rules, we send in covert operatives to cause instability in hopes of regime change; when the secret agents fail, we send in the military.

You can read up on the whole racket in this interview from Democracy Now, but suffice it to say that we're targeted by terrorists not because of the comic book motivation that "they hate our freedom;" rather, they attack us because our government treats their fellow Muslims as resources to be exploited rather than human beings. The only way out of this is to start treating the people of the world with respect, to construct our foreign policy around the concept of help rather than profit. Alas, the entire US power structure refuses to do things differently. What do they care if average Americans are hurt or killed by terrorists? We already know that they couldn't care less about the loss of foreign lives--just read up a bit on Chile in the 70s to understand exactly what I mean. It's just the cost of doing business; they're getting rich otherwise.

So, while Jensen is absolutely right to observe the real tragedy of 9/11, he completely glosses over the fact that it would take a near revolution here in the US to actually realize our potential to be a guiding light for justice among nations. The US isn't really interested in justice: there's no profit in it.

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FAREWELL ANN RICHARDS

From the Houston Chronicle:

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards dies at 73

Richards was the quintessential Texas woman, with a sassy homespun charm, sharp wit and tough pioneer spirit. With bright silver hair, a weathered face and an affinity for cobalt blue suits and pearls, Richards was instantly recognizable to national television audiences.

As a Democratic politician, Richards' 1990 race for governor against Republican cowboy oilman Clayton Williams became a battle of the sexes. Her victory symbolically broke down gender barriers for a generation of Texas women who were seeking professional careers.

Richards labeled her administration the "New Texas," appointing more Hispanics, blacks and women to state boards and commissions than any previous governor. She pushed for increases in public education funding and promoted business expansion in the state.

Click here for the rest.

You know, I usually write these memorial posts to show respect for some kind of progressive or artistic accomplishment, for an individual's life's work. Rarely, am I truly saddened when I write about these deaths--after all, I don't really know any of these people personally. Tonight, however, I'm pretty sad. Ann Richards was the first Democrat, the first liberal, for whom I ever voted. And even though I've since moved much farther to the left than Governor Richards ever was, supporting her, instead of the conservatives I'd always supported, was a very important step in my political growth. Back in 1990, when she became governor, it had only been two years since I'd voted for our current President's daddy, and even though I would go on to support the first Iraq invasion in 1991, I did so as a Democrat, a moderate Democrat to be sure, but I was certainly no longer a Republican--she made it all much easier than it might have been.

And Ann Richards really made being a Democrat into great fun. Her razor wit, which just cut the right wing back then to ribbons, was extraordinarily appealing to me in particular. The Republicans simply had nothing like her--Rush Limbaugh was, and still is, a big pile of stupid shit in comparison. Her constant barrage of rapid-fire barbs is how Richards, and her speechwriter Molly Ivins, showed me how to be a Texas liberal: because there are so many thick-headed conservatives in the Lone Star State, a Texas liberal has to shoot from the hip, fast, to kill, and smile while doing it. I hope my writing here honors her memory.

Man, I'm going to miss her presence and guidance.

Farewell, Ann Richards.

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School Bible courses sectarian, study finds

From the Houston Chronicle:

Among the findings:

•The vast majority of Texas Bible courses, despite their titles, do not teach about the Bible in a historical or literary context, as required under state law. Instead, the electives tend to be explicitly devotional in nature and reflect an almost exclusively Christian (usually Protestant) perspective.

•The Bible is often presented as being divinely inspired and biblical stories treated as literal history.

•Most Bible courses in Texas are taught by teachers who have no academic training in biblical, religious or theological studies and, it appears, little familiarity with separation of church-state issues. Some districts bring in local clergy to teach their Bible courses and fund them with private money.

The report cited three exceptions: San Antonio's North East Independent School District and the Leander and Whiteface independent school districts. It said all presented material in a more neutral manner.

Click here for the rest.

Given that Western Civilization, our civilization, is based on a weird combination of Greco-Roman philosophy and Christianity, it stands to reason that if one doesn't understand the Bible, one doesn't understand what it means to be a Westerner. I'm pretty much of the opinion that all Americans should study the Bible. But not like this. This kind of Bible study isn't about the dynamic interplay between Biblical ideas and society at large, isn't about how Christian philosophers elegantly found ways to combine the wisdom of the ancients with their own religious beliefs, isn't about how countless secular ideas today have a basis in Christian thought. No, this is religious indoctrination, plain and simple, paid for by taxpayer dollars, with a curriculum mandated by government entities. Totally unconstitutional. Totally unAmerican.

Totally wrong.

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Cheney's criticism of war critics is wearing a bit thin

The Washington Post's liberal guy, E. J. Dionne, via the Houston Chronicle:

Cheney seemed terribly impatient with democracy Sunday on Meet the Press when he suggested that those who oppose President Bush's Iraq policies are helping — excuse me, validating — the terrorists.

Our allies in the war on terror, Cheney said, "want to know whether or not if they stick their heads up, the United States, in fact, is going to be there to complete the mission."

Then the punch: "And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we've had in the United States. Suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, simply feed into that whole notion, validate the strategy of the terrorists."

Meaning what, exactly? If Cheney doesn't like "the kind of debate that we've had in the United States," is there any other "kind," short of a lockstep endorsement of all of Bush's choices, he'd endorse?

Click here for the rest.

If only Dionne had been writing like this back in 2002 when it really mattered.

I, for one, have never fully understood the whole criticism-equals-endangering-troops line of thought. I mean, I understand the assertion: our enemies hear about domestic opposition, which somehow makes them feel like they're winning, which emboldens them to fight all the more aggressively. Putting aside free speech issues for a moment, I think it's fair to ask if that's what actually happens. That is, how does Cheney know that's the case? I'm pretty certain that there have been no studies on this issue done among the Iraqi insurgency, so, to the best of my knowledge, Cheney's assertion about war criticism is simply an interesting, but totally unproven, idea. My own thought is that the insurgency simply wants the US the hell out of Iraq, and they're going to fight until they're dead or we leave, which is exactly the kind of enemy the US was facing in Vietnam over three decades ago. Indeed, the Vietnamese had been fighting against imperial occupiers for decades before we even showed up; they didn't care who we are or what we wanted--they just wanted us out. So it seems entirely fitting that Cheney's and other right-wingers' point of view is so utterly Nixonian. Really, as with Nixon, attacking war critics is far more about domestic power than about winning in the colonies.

And, of course, in a democracy, if that's still what we are, public debate about important national issues like war is vital. Without it, it's not democracy. But then, I'm sure my definition of democracy differs greatly from that of the Vice President.

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EPA proposes easing refinery pollution rules

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The Bush administration proposed easing environmental rules today to allow oil refineries and other industries to change how they calculate whether they need pollution control equipment.

The oil refinery industry says the eased regulation would open the way for production of more oil and other products. But environmental groups say the proposed rules are gimmicks and loopholes allowing industry to emit more pollution, evade pollution controls and save money.

"This is a big gift to the refinery industry," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental watchdog group. "They are saying let's close our eyes and pretend pollution is not happening."

Click here for the rest.

This is actually from last week; I almost missed it, but I'm glad I didn't because this soooo obviously more of the same old dangerous cow shit coming out of Bush's ass. The three industries affected, oil, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals, are already doing quite well. The oil industry in particular, which continues to post record profits quarter after quarter, clearly needs no help--the real problem with gas prices isn't environmental rules; rather, it's that the industry has purposely reduced refining capacity over the years in order to create artificial shortages which raise prices. Meanwhile, over the last five years or so, Bush, with budget cuts and non-enforcement edicts, has degraded the EPA's ability to monitor emissions, which must now rely on industry self-reporting, which means that pollution is actually much worse than is reported. We need more stringency when dealing with pollution, not less. Like the environmentalist guy above says, this is nothing but another giveaway to GOP friends, but in this case, however, it's not simply the old reverse Robin Hood opertation that rips off average Americans like you and me: this time it's fucking dangerous, toxifying the air we breathe, causing cancers and weird asthmas, and accelerating even more our mad dash toward global warming induced apocalypse.

I know I'm not the only one out there who's sick of this shit.

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THE "WAR" ON TERROR

From AlterNet, another essay from Berkeley linguist George Lakoff:

How Bush's War on Terror Became Real

The war metaphor is still intimidating progressives. To come out against "staying the course" is to be called unpatriotic, weak, and defeatist. To say, "no, we're just as strong, but we're smarter" is to keep and reinforce the war metaphor, which the conservatives have a patent on.

It is time for progressives to jettison the war metaphor itself. It is time to tell some truths that progressives have been holding back on. What has worked in stopping terrorism is just what has worked in stopping international crime -- like the recent police work in England. What has failed is the war approach, which just recruits more terrorists. In Iraq, the war was over when we defeated Saddam's army. Then the occupation began. Our troops are dying because they are not trained be occupiers in hostile territory on the cusp of a civil war.

Bush is an occupation president, not a war president, and his war powers should be immediately rescinded. Rep. Lynn Woolsey's resolution to do just that (H.R. 5875) should be taken seriously and made the subject of national debate.

I am suggesting a conscious discussion of the war metaphor as a metaphor. The very discussion would require the nation to think of it as a metaphor, and allow the nation to take seriously the truth of our presence in Iraq as an occupation that must be ended. You don't win or lose an occupation; you just exit as gracefully as possible.

Click here for the rest.

Fighting a war against terrorism is like fighting a war against karate or fisticuffs. That is, terrorism is a tactic, a crime, not an opposing army or the nation state that sponsors it. We've never really been in a "war" against terrorism. I mean, okay, as Lakoff observes, the Iraq invasion was war, but that was against Iraq, not terrorism, despite what Bush has repeatedly asserted. The whole "war on terror" has been a con job from the get-go.

I would add to Lakoff's point about treating terrorism as a crime, the notion that we must also seek to dry up Islamic extremism's well of support: if we don't change the way we do business with the rest of the world, treating human beings as resources to be harshly exploited, we'll always have to deal with terrorism. That's the only way. Beyond that, however, Lakoff is, as usual, right on. Any discussion of the "war on terrorism" must have the concept of metaphor inserted. This'll definitely be helpful even at kitchen table conversations, but if somehow politicians and pundits start talking this way, it stands to abolish forever the spell the right wing has cast over America.

Lakoff makes it sound so easy.

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MORE ON THE UPCOMING GOP MUD SLING

Updating yesterday's post. From Talking Points Memo courtesy of Eschaton:

And who have they chosen to head up the effort?

According to the Post, that man is none other Terry Nelson.

And who is Terry Nelson?

Nelson has the unique distinction of being tied to two of the biggest cases of Republican campaign corruption in the Bush era. Nelson was implicated in the infamous New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal and he was an unindicted coconspirator in the political money-laundering case which ended Tom DeLay's career.

Click here for the rest.

So the GOP, having absolutely no positive record on which to run in the upcoming Congressional elections, has launched a negative "get the dirt on the Dems" campaign, which seeks to drown out common knowledge of near total loyalty to Bush by Republicans with a downpour rumor, innuendo, and lies. In other words, old-school Nixon style dirty tricks. I'm sure that Karl Rove, a master at this sort of thing, is providing spiritual guidance for the effort, but this guy Nelson, whose corporate-friendly bio says nothing about his fangs, sounds like nearly as big of a bastard. The fact that he was in on this phone-jamming thing says it all: the Republicans aren't just going to play dirty; they're going to cheat, just as they did in the 2000 Presidential election, just as they did in the '04 election.

I think I'm starting to figure out how to read right-wing code. "Taking the high road" means "mud-slinging," and "mud-slinging" means "election theft." These fuckers never tell the truth.

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THE BEST, QUICKEST ARTISTIC REACTION TO 9/11

From September 12, 2001:



Click here to see a bigger version.

Of course, Tom Tomorrow is a cartoonist, and cartoons are mostly funny, even when dealing with very serious subjects, as Tomorrow usually does. But not on 9/11. Like pretty much every other American, he was utterly devastated. Probably more so because he was living in New York at the time.

When I first saw the strip above, I marvelled at how perfect it was, how out of context it was for him, how with just a few words and a single oversaturated image he managed to capture and express my own feelings. Well, that's not entirely true. Words didn't completely fail me that day, although they mostly did: my first and pretty much only thought was something along the lines of "I fear the reaction of the American people far more than I fear any terrorist." And, of course, I was right to be afraid--a dark shadow of repression and hatred fell across our nation in the wake of 9/11, and many Americans wholeheartedly embraced it. Fortunately, most of my fellow countrymen eventually came to their senses.

But not everybody. My guess is that about 30% of the population continues to understand the "War on Terror" in terms of President Bush's comic book archetypes. They're the trigger-happy nuts who still support the Iraq occupation as a good thing, who support torture and ethnic profiling, who have no problem with a dramatic loss of civil liberties, who support Bush no matter what he does. In other words, the Republican base.

How the hell are we going to move forward as a nation when nearly a third of our citizens simply don't live in the same reality that the other two thirds do?

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GET READY FOR MUD AND SLIME

From the Washington Post courtesy of the Huffington Post:

In a Pivotal Year, GOP Plans to Get Personal

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire" and noted that he has sued 80 patients.

"Opposition research is power," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. "Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents."

Click here for the rest.

This is definitely something to worry about. I mean, it's no surprise, but the fact that they've seemingly become so balls-to-the-walls committed to the idea is kind of scary because Republicans are so damned good at slime warfare. Memories of the 2004 campaign season are still fresh in my mind. Remember how the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" successfully converted John Kerry in the public discourse from war hero, a status that he had for decades, to near traitor? Or how two years before that the right wing smeared and beat war hero and Georgia Senator Max Cleland by running ads that morphed his face into bin Laden's? Those guys were golden, with perfect records, straight as an arrow, bona fide American heroes. With uber-slimer Karl Rove overseeing the whole shebang, I think we might be in for a repeat of recent election history. That is, I don't think the GOP will manage to avoid losing some seats on the Hill, but I think they've got a shot at keeping control of both houses.

I think that probably the best thing targeted Democrats can do is dismiss all slime as dirty tricks and evidence of desperation, while at the same time pounding hard on Iraq, and relating their opponents as much as they can to Bush. It's do-able if they have perseverance. And that's what scares me most: Democrats these days are losers by nature; "persevere" just isn't in their dictionary.

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Nude photo scandal costs officials their jobs

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The police chief, the mayor and a councilman in this small town resigned amid an uproar over nude photos of the chief's 300-pound, tattooed wife that she posted on a Web site.

Dozens of residents of the town of 1,500 had demanded Police Chief Tod Ozmun resign, and the district attorney recommended an obscenity investigation, but the City Council decided last week that the pictures were protected by the First Amendment.

On Friday, Ozmun, Mayor Dale Moore and Councilman Clifford Barnard said they were stepping down because they were fed up with the public attention and criticism of the chief. Another council member resigned earlier over the council's support of Ozmun.

And

"They have no morals as far as I'm concerned," said Shirley Anderson, who served as mayor in the 1990s and whose husband was mayor before that. "You should have respectable people in office. They need to go somewhere else where this is accepted."

Cristen Edgar, a 16-year-old high school student, said: "I don't think it's right for him to be the chief of police and for his wife to be doing what she's doing."

Click here for the rest.

You know, I'm tempted to simply dismiss this as the rantings of a bunch of stupid fucking Okies, but given that this kind of thing seems to be occurring more frequently these days, I wonder if I ought to be worrying about it. Of course, the bottom line here is that we live in the 21st century, the human body is beautiful, sex is natural and wonderful, you know, all that good modern stuff that essentially means these Puritans are big fucktards. But put all that into the context of the Conservative Movement, which puts their warped reading of the Bible over science and good sense, pushes a dangerous anti-condom agenda, impeached a President over his own personal business, and on and on, and it becomes increasingly clear that we may be in for trouble over the next few years.

I know what I'm going to do the next time somebody in my presence negatively criticizes sexuality or nudity: I'm going to call him a big dumb cunt-face.

Unless, you know, it's my parents. In that case, I'll just tell them I think they're wrong.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
LONGHORNS LOSE, TIGERS WIN

From ESPN:

With poise and precision, Smith
leads No. 1 Buckeyes past No. 2 Texas

In the first regular season matchup of No. 1 vs. No 2 in a decade, Smith riddled the Longhorns for 269 yards passing and two touchdowns, leading the Buckeyes to a 24-7 win Saturday night.

And

As for No. 2 Texas (1-1), which saw its 21-game winning streak snapped, the Longhorns will need some help if they hope to defend their 2005 championship at the end of the season.

Colt McCoy was no Vince Young in the rematch of last season's 25-22 Texas win in Columbus. The Longhorns' new starting QB threw for 154 yards with an interception and a touchdown.

Click here for the rest.

You know, sports are much more enjoyable if you don't care who wins. I mean, okay, it's also more enjoyable when you care who wins and your team is the winner, but you get my general drift. I know I said recently that I was purposely going to have low expectations this year, what with Vince Young now playing for the former Oilers over in Tennessee, but I guess I wasn't very successful, especially because the 'Horns actually looked pretty good in the first half, kicking ass with the option and moving it all over the field. In the end, however, it was the absent Young who made all the difference. That is, McCoy's pretty good and stayed focused in the face of what is, admittedly, a really great OSU team, but we really needed a true superhero in the quarterback position, and the young guy simply doesn't have the X gene that makes Young and other mutant heroes and villains so powerful.

Maybe this loss will make the season easier to deal with; maybe it'll truly lower my expectations. As long as we beat OU and A&M, I'll be happy.

Meanwhile, just about six blocks down the street from where I now sit...

Again, from ESPN:

Behind suffocating defensive display, LSU crushes 'Zona

Jonathan Zenon returned an interception for a touchdown for the second consecutive week, highlighting a smothering defensive performance by No. 8 LSU in a 45-3 victory over Arizona on Saturday night.

"I knew the formation the Arizona receivers were going to run ... and I broke on it," Zenon said of his 41-yard interception return. "Our coaches are giving us a great scheme defensively and we already know what is about to happen."

Arizona had only 54 total yards through the first three quarters. The rest of the Wildcats' yardage came after replacements had begun to take over and a boisterous crowd of 92,218 was half gone.

"Obviously, playing a team like LSU they can expose some weaknesses," Arizona coach Mike Stoops said, dejectedly resting his chin on his hand. "There's no weaknesses when you play LSU. ... We just weren't ready for this."

Although the Tigers (2-0) put up 45 points for a second-straight week, they could have scored more. They settled for a field goal on their opening drive after having a first-and-goal on the 3. Three other drives ended with turnovers in Arizona territory on two fumbles and an interception.

Click here for the rest.

I didn't even get to watch this one--I did kind of hear it, though; the whole damned neighborhood hears it every Saturday the Tigers play at home. Sounded like rip roaring fun, actually. Nothing like sitting on a massive lead to get the testosterone pumping. But then, I was watching Texas lose, which made my testosterone levels drop dramatically. You know, this football blogging was easier last year. I like the Tigers, and they are my current school's team and all, but it doesn't really bother me that much when they lose, which they did two or three times last season: Texas didn't lose at all last year, and blogging about it was always a grand experience.

Aw, hell.

Geaux Tigers!

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
AT THE HALF, OHIO STATE 14 TEXAS 7

I don't know why I do this to myself. This game's driving me nuts! I'll post again after the game. If I don't die of a heart attack first.

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HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY STAR TREK

From the Huffington Post:

Star Trek Haters, Take Your Snotty Attitudes And Stuff It

Yes, Star Trek is a vital part of our culture. But it is that standing that frustrates more than a few science-fiction fans as well as large contingents of general fiction adherents.

Many of them are quick to embrace Heinlein, Bradbury and even the fantasies of Tolkien as literature- while consigning the original "Star Trek" and even its several successor series as little more than cartoonish escapades.

While I cannot say the authors I've cited have a lack of merit, I find much of their work intolerably quirky or overly ponderous. Sometimes both.

Yes, the original "Star Trek" had its hokey moments, but its memorable high drama as well. Some involved the complexities of moralistic dilemmas. Successor series, such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine," were graced with plots that richly explored human tableus and taboos- the preservation of dying races and creatures, the inner struggle many of us face between our good and potentially evil sides, the balance between emotion and logic, the question of whether or not it is ever justifiable to expend some lives to save many more, the appropriateness of whether or not to interfere in another culture's civil war.

Hear today's headlines in the examples I've just cited?

Click here for the rest.

Anybody who knows me, or reads my blog, knows what a big Star Trek fan I am. Always have been. It's actually one of my earliest television watching experiences. Consequently, it's always been a big influence on me, even today, in numerous areas like science, philosophy, morality, ethics, the greatness and evil of humanity, the notion of exploration and research, comedy, tragedy, music, dramatic action, and, yes, even acting. Shatner's Kirk often tended toward melodrama, but he was usually effective, and he definitely had his moments, like in the episode City on the Edge of Forever. Kirk is the epic hero in my own aesthetic. And Leonard Nimoy has never been matched by any other actor trying to do a Vulcan: Spock's internal struggle between extreme logic and extreme passion, such as in the episode The Naked Time, is, in my humble but well educated opinion, one of the great performances of the 20th century. I also appreciate the camp value--me and my buddy Shane once giggled ourselves silly through a viewing of the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before: "... and if successful, ma-roon-him-there." But just because I get the joke doesn't mean I don't take Star Trek seriously. Like I said, it has profoundly influenced me, maybe more than any other single cultural artifact.

So, anyway, happy birthday Star Trek. We've had a good life together, and I have no doubt that we'll be together for many years to come.

Here's an amusing interview with Nimoy and Shatner courtesy of my buddy Matt.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the original series.

Here are the opening credits in German.

A couple of cool pics:





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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Phil



Frankie



Sammy



Paz



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

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ABC alters 9/11 show under pressure

From the LA Times courtesy of the Huffington Post:

After much discussion, ABC executives and the producers toned down, but did not eliminate entirely, a scene that involved Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill Bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities involved.

"That sequence has been the focus of attention," the source said, adding: "These are very slight alterations."

In addition, the network decided that the credits would say the film is based "in part" on the 9/11 commission report, rather than simply "based on" the bestselling report, as the producers originally intended.

ABC, meanwhile, is tip-toeing away from the film's version of events. In a statement, the network said the miniseries "is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews."

The statement adds: "The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, so it's not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate. The attacks were a pivotal moment in our history that should never be forgotten and it's fitting that the discussion continues."

Click here for the rest.

Well, I bet these changes don't amount to too terribly much--after all, ABC has apparently been heavily marketing this thing to conservatives, and I'm sure they don't want to lose too much of their audience. However, this last minute editing is a good sign. They had already sent out review copies to numerous media outlets, and such a thing isn't usually done when there's still more work to do on a project. That is, the public pressure has made them back down to some extent. In other words, this incident shows once and for all that big media companies are just as vulnerable to extreme liberal flak as they are to the usual conservative version. Only now, however, are liberals willing to use their dormant strength.

Actually, this vulnerability to flak has been known for some years. Here's a bit I wrote a while back about Chomsky and Hermann's book Manufacturing Consent:

FLAK AND THE ENFORCERS refers to organized negative responses to news products. The way this works is such that any reporting that is perceived as unflattering to the views or aims of these "flak machines" is attacked so endlessly that the news business loses money. A worst-case scenario, in these terms, is a boycott of news advertisers--advertising is the entire reason for the news business's existence. Of course, both liberal and conservative groups create flak (but I would say that the most powerful "flak machines" are conservative; they've got the money), but the point is that the news business is highly vulnerable to this kind of pressure and they certainly never admit it to their consumers.

Click here for more.

You can just scratch out the word "news" and pencil in the word "TV network" and it works just the same--at this point news and entertainment are all the same, anyway. The lesson here is that the left now has tangible evidence that they have the ability to successfully pressure the corporate media into fairer coverage. If I had a few million bucks, I'm pretty sure of where I would direct my activist dollars...

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Bush Fears War Crimes Prosecution, Impeachment

From ZNet:

With great fanfare, George W. Bush announced to a group of carefully selected 9/11 families yesterday that he had finally decided to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other alleged terrorists to Guantánamo Bay, where they will be tried in military commissions. After nearly 5 years of interrogating these men, why did Bush choose this moment to bring them to "justice"?

And

The President is undoubtedly familiar with the doctrine of command responsibility, where commanders, all the way up the chain of command to the commander in chief, can be held liable for war crimes their inferiors commit if the commander knew or should have known they might be committed and did nothing to stop or prevent them.

Bush defensively denied that the United States engages in torture and foreswore authorizing it. But it has been well-documented that policies set at the highest levels of our government have resulted in the torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of U.S. prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo.

Click here for the rest.

Oh yeah. The President is definitely a war criminal, and that notion ought to be uncontroversial to pretty much anybody who's actually read even a smattering about what a war crime is.

For instance, there's this bit from the Wikipedia article on war crimes:

Under the Nuremberg Principles, the supreme international crime is that of commencing a war of aggression, because it is the crime from which all war crimes follow. The definition of such a crime is planning, preparing, initiating, or waging a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances. Also, participating in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any such act constitutes such a crime.

Click here for more.

I suppose it all depends on whether you think the Bush administration simply made the grandest fuck-up of all time in their belief that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, or if the whole WMD thing was a big lie. Personally, I think it was a lie, and there appears to be, at this point, a mountain of evidence that strongly suggests that's the case. But even if you set that aside, it is undeniable that Bush invaded Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council, which is definitely a violation of treaty obligations--come to think of it, Clinton did the same thing with Yugoslavia, Bush I with Panama, Reagan with Grenada, and JFK, LBJ, and Nixon with Vietnam. Really, when you get down to it, war crimes are a very annoying habit of US Presidents.

But really, I don't think that's the biggest problem, the fact that he's actually guilty, with holding Bush accountable for his horrible crimes: in America, war crimes are something other people do, something Germans or Russians or Rwandans do. But not us. We're the good guys. I fear that most Americans simply cannot accept that their President is up there with Hitler and Stalin in terms of guilt--remember how many Republicans were freaking out a few months back about Democrats' use of the word "Nazi" to describe the administration's behavior? How easily they were shot down by squirrelly "arguments" about specifics?

Sad, but true. However, if this country is ever going to have any sense of moral credibility, Bush not only has to be thrown out of office, but also put behind bars. For life. Anything less is making ourselves accessories to his crimes.

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