Hours of Folly

Number of Hours Since Last Post

2007-05-15T06:34:00.001-07:00

Approximately 23,232. All folly.

Where Not to Skate

2004-08-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Pox and scurvy upon the management of the Franconia Roller Rink, and may mutated, Lysol-resistant bacteria infest their rental skates. Why?

Travolta Made it Look Easy

2004-07-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

I’m sore pretty much all over my body. My back is in knots from contortions. My wrists and forearms ache. My thighs burn from gripping and chafing. I rode a mechanical bull last night. I’m in Nashville.

I went with my brother and my sister-in-law to The Trap, a country and western club within shouting distance of the Titans’ stadium. Live music. Bovine cyborg.

You give five dollars to the man with the joystick. Then you read the liability waiver. Then you sign it and date it. Then you thumbprint it.

Then you vault onto the bull, which features a fake head with fake horns. Get a good grip, underhanded, then nod to the fellow at the joystick. If you are a man, he spins you around fairly gently until he tires of you, then makes the bull throw you violently. If you are a woman, he swings you around gently, then jiggles the bull so that your breasts jiggle, then throws you violently.

If you are lucky, you are thrown clear. More likely the bull swings about and hits you on your way down, so that you carom. If you are a woman, the fake head will nudge you in the arse as you try to get up on the soft but unsteady air pad that surrounds the bull. It’s hard being a cowgirl in this town.

I found, after I was thrown, that I had been clenching the leather strap so tightly that it was hard to unclench my hand. My arm was aching within five minutes, and the bull-burn on my thighs flared up within ten.

But damn, it’s fun. I rode four times, two rides per fiver. If anyone knows of a mecha-bull bar in the D.C. area, please let me know.

Choked Up over Doonesbury

2004-05-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the funny papers, but I wouldn't say I often have an emotional response to them. I've just caught up with the last few weeks of Trudeau, and his latest plot twist is the most effective critique of Bush's Iraq adventure I've seen in the political toons.

2004-03-31T06:07:00.000-08:00

Palette, a new bar at the intersection of 15th and M, has finally realized the high high high quality of PBR – it was given a blue ribbon, after all – and is now charging four dollars per bottle. It’s been a while, but I seem to remember buying a twelve pack of the stuff for around four dollars back in the day. Clearly we didn’t know how good we had it. If anyone knows where I can get a can of Beast for about four or five dollars – it’s Milwaukee’s best beer, after all, and that’s a brew town – please let me know.

2004-02-19T10:59:00.000-08:00

It being such a nice day hereabouts, Chris and I went out for a little walk down to the White House to see the trenches and slabs of asphalt that until recently were Pennsylvania Avenue and to see this hedge that is home to the rats of Lafayette Park. We didn’t see any rats (they’ve abandoned the bush, and I agree with them), but on our way back to the office we saw John Kerry speaking at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, which today gave Kerry its official endorsement.

A nice day for a rally. Sunny and above fifty, and around three or four hundred people attending. Members of at least a dozen unions that I could identify by their placards, along with a number of burly suit-and-hair-gel wearing teamster types. A few speakers told stories of their labor-related woes under Bush, like a 20-year Maytag factory veteran about to lose his job to Korea and a striking 18-year Safeway employee (and eight-year cancer survivor) from California about to lose her health care benefits.

Then Kerry. Great hair, you know, easily visible from the cheap seats. His rhetoric was very good for the occasion, though I still don’t have much sense of him other than his ability to read prepared speeches. He can deliver them, though. After three years, Bush with his teleprompter still sounds like a seventh grade debate club member. Kerry – but, let’s face it, anyone – sounds better at the microphone.

Official Hours of Folly prediction: Kerry will get the nomination, then win. Understand that, predictions aside, we at Hours of Folly have our fingers crossed so tightly our shoulders hurt.

After the speech, as Springsteen’s labor-friendly “Born in the U.S.A.” kicked in, Chris and I made our way over to the wrecking ball. There’s nothing left of the building but the one back corner, and the crane operator has to drop the ball rather than swing it, since it’s so close to the neighboring buildings. Me, I prefer swinging, but the spectacle of inertia in action is still quite satisfying. Get down there, friends, to 16th and K, before it’s too late.

I walked down to the wrecking ball the other day with my friend Dr. Eve Wircus. It was cold and windy, and she wanted to head back, but I told her it was worth it. Sure enough, as soon as she caught sight of it she said “yeah, it was worth it.” We watched it for ten minutes, giggling. Eve is cool; she gets it. She agreed with me afterwards that the scene is so appealing because something in us is relieved – a tension releases – when we see order returned to chaos. The purpose of the wrecking ball is to draw aside the veil of Maya. At 16th and K.

From where he was standing at the AFL-CIO today, Kerry was within sight of both the wrecking ball and the White House. Makes you think.

2004-02-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

President Bush had a sit with Tim Russert of “Meet the Press” recently. I have here a transcript of that interview that I copied from the MSNBC site. I’d like to give you some analysis here. I don’t think I will, though. Reading a transcript of Bush speaking makes me laugh and makes me cry. Instead, I think I’ll replace every occurrence of the word “intelligence” (there are 33) with the word “fellatio.” Let’s see what we get:

So, we need a good fellatio system. We need really good fellatio.

Again, I repeat to you, the capacity to have good fellatio means that a president can make good calls about fighting this war on terror.

This is a strategic look, kind of a big-picture look about the fellatio-gathering capacities of the United States of America, whether it be the capacity to gather fellatio in North Korea or how we've used our fellatio to, for example, learn more information about A.Q. Khan.

Sitting behind this desk making a very difficult decision of war and peace, and I based my decision on the best fellatio possible.

I went to Congress with the same fellatio — Congress saw the same fellatio I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at, and they made an informed judgment based upon the information that I had.

Well, Tim, I and my team took the fellatio that was available to us and we analyzed it, and it clearly said Saddam Hussein was a threat to America.

Sure, it’s cheap, but I think it gives us an idea of how the decision for war went down. It’s pretty hard to swallow.

2004-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

They're tearing down a building at the corner of 16th and K, and I'll be sorry to see it go because once it's gone, there will be no further need for the wrecking ball they're using to knock it down, and I like the wrecking ball. The wrecking ball makes me happy. The other day I stood and watched it for a while. There were other men there for the same reason. We all have office jobs, but really we want to drive a crane and smash away chunks of steel-reinforced concrete, which spin gently as they fall.

Smash, smash! We will miss the wrecking ball.

2004-02-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

As the fortunes and the warlike vigor of the Celts declined, their languages were supplanted by those of their conquerors.

Tragic!

Have you ever, unable to sleep at five in the morning, gone to your bookshelf and retrieved your copies of A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, The Linguistics Encyclopedia, The World's Writing Systems, Origins and Development of the English Language (quoted above), the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, and Dixon's The Hardy Boys and the Early Migrations of the Kurgans, in which Frank and Joe solve the mystery of Indo-European language origins – have you ever stacked these volumes on the desk in front of you in the early morning darkness and thought, I'm so damned exhausted, what the hell am I doing?

No. Only one man is that tired and pathetic. But that man now calls on you to look within and consider:

Have you ever wondered when the last native speakers of Cornish and Manx died? Do you lament the dwindling numbers of strong verbs in English? Do you know what Ogham is, and how to say it? Do you know anything at all about Finno-Ugric grammar, and if not, can you make something up? Do you see yourself as the Indiana Jones of etymology? Do you like beer?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then yget upp hroffa ðine fætæss and join the Washington, D.C. Society of Would-be Historical and Comparative Philologists and Gentlemen's Drinking Club, a cabal of untrained but ruthless intellectuals that Chris and I have founded in order to wrest philology from the dusty grip of academics and place it in the bold hands of devil-may-care youth whose stout minds will hone anew the long-dull blade of historical and comparative linguistics and raise a glass to Dolly Pentreath (d. 1777) and Ned Madrell (d. 1974), the last native speakers of Cornish and Manx, respectively!

Our group is already diversifying and conducting research. The society's Dead Tongues Posse, after a thorough search, has identified not one remaining speaker of Tocharian B, so that's done. And the Subcommittee on Never-More-To-Be-Seen Writing Systems Comprehended by Few has had a look at Sumerian Cuneiform. Man, it's weird!

Not to shun the fairer sex, we are planning a Ladies' Philological Recruitment Cotillion, so press your fancy britches, gents!

The Society of Would-be Historical and Comparative Philologists and Gentlemen's Drinking Club's Special Projects Cohort is currently soliciting ideas for research initiatives. Our first – The International Phonetic Alphabet: Cool! – is only one pending NEH grant away from its rollicking start. What heady days these are for bilabial clicks and epiglottal plosives!

Long live the New Word Order!

2004-01-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

I can’t help it, but every time I see a photo of the Spirit rover up yonder on Mars, I think of that robot from Short Circuit. Yes, that is a Johnny 5 fansite.

Mars. I hope Bush’s plan works out; I would love to see him go there. He could ride around on his Segway, which would be easier to master in the low-g. Wouldn't he be just too cute, zipping up and down the red Martian dunes, a big grin on his face, asphyxiating?

2004-01-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

Maybe I spoke too soon about trusting in Elvis. I stand by that, but there’s a new messiah in town. I don’t know who this Joe Gibbs is (being new to DC), but his smiling photo was above the fold in yesterday’s Post, and he was even mentioned in a weather article on the back page of the Metro section. Is he a meteorologist? Did he discover snow?

2004-01-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

Today, on his birthday, let’s all give thought to our fallen friend, who showed us the way and left us when he lost the way himself, and yet watches over us, perhaps one day to return.

He saved my life, you know. In college my housemates and I kept a picture of him, a framed photograph bought in Tupelo, hanging in tribute above the bowl in our bathroom. One stormy day I was in that bathroom and began to smell smoke. I ran to the kitchen, but there was no smoke there. I returned to the bathroom and smelled smoke again. Then I saw it, little tendrils coming from the spot where our cast-iron bathtub’s pipes from ran through the floor. Leaning over for a closer look, I placed my hand on the tub. It was electrified, and I felt the jolt through my entire body, but the spirit of the King seized me and knocked me backwards and out the bathroom door. At that same moment, the pipes finally burned through, and a bright arc of lightning shot from the tub to the sink – right where I had stood.

I called the fire department and waited outside in the rain and wind, expecting my house to burn down. Across the street, a huge tree on the corner had fallen across some power lines, knocking them down and ripping them from the side of my house. The firemen discovered that the bathtub’s pipes rested against the ground line beneath my bathroom floor. The falling tree’s roots had tangled up the line somehow, electrifying the pipes and the entire bathtub.

My friends, I might have been caught in that deadly arc of electricity. I might have decided to enjoy a soak in that iron bathtub and been fry-boiled had not the King surely turned my mind from it. Trust in him, and he will take care of your business.

Choose your own tribute. I for one and going to the Washington premiere of “Bubba Ho-Tep,” a film that interprets the life of the King for modern times. Hopefully I’ll report back here.

2003-12-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

It works! Missile defense works! I knew it would! Congratulations to everyone over at the MDA.

Yes, rest easy. Pretty soon the American population's constant, consuming fear of ICBM attacks will be no more. Soon we'll be hitting every target test missile instead of the current one-in-six. Then we'll work our way toward hitting a few target test missiles that feature rudimentary countermeasures, won't that be something!

At the same time, of course, we'll be aggressively pursuing strategies for hitting targets that we did not launch at an appointed time and place and trajectory, with everyone watching.

Yes, in ten, maybe twenty, thirty-at-the-outside short years, we'll begin to deploy a somewhat impermeable missile thwartation network. Take that, commies! IC no BM!

God save the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Program! The blessings of the saints on Raytheon Missile Systems! May Jesus, in Whose sight be our enemies wicked and unclean, cleave Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors to His bosom!

2003-11-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

Three a.m. Washington time, but to heck with it, I'm in Nashville. What a long day. Up at seven, finish packing, get to the metro, get to Greenbelt, get on the shuttle to the aeropuerto. Security: I put both shoes in the chute at once, but only one came out. The other was hung up on something, I guess. Me standing there in my old socks, my toes poking right out the ends. The security woman says something about it. My good socks are packed, I say. I was a little sheepish about my socks, there at BWI with one shoe in my hand and the other translucent on the x-ray screen.

Then a very nice, very clear flight, though I hate landing.

Then hours of playing with my four-year-old nephew, Smith. Great little guy, and smart. He explains how his fort made of sofa cushions isn't stable, so I shouldn't touch it.

Then rock 'n' roll at the Mercy Lounge, which was the Cannery back in the day. Glossary opening for the Guy from Drivin n Cryin. My sister, Smith, is in Glossary, but even if she weren't, man, they rock.

Now I'm on the sobriety upswing, and dang but it's late. I'm in Music City all week. I'll try to keep you posted, Folly followers (all seven of you), but I already feel the inertia of Dixie and home settling in. Though it could be the six beers.

2003-11-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

Ginkgoes stink like crazy as their fruit ripens, but they sure yellow up nicely come autumn. The street one block from mine, a lovely street, is lined on both sides with ginkgoes. I walk down this street on my way home. Row houses, families, and shade from the trees. Hurricane Isabel knocked all the fruit right off ‘em, so that within a couple of days the stink compelled me to take another route. Now the smell is almost gone, and this morning tiny yellow fans smothered the street, the lawns, the roofs, the cars.

2003-10-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

I’m a little bummed today. I had this big plan for a combination of global prank and mass enlightenment boost, but it fell flat.

The first part went as planned. By standing on the roof and flashing a handheld mirror on the sun at descending Fibonacci intervals, I was able to generate a solar feedback loop that caused a major coronal mass ejection. It was a beaut, let me tell you.

Well, it hit the Earth yesterday, but what a disappointment. It disrupted a satellite or two, sure, and the aurorae were extra fab. What I wanted was to knock out the world’s mobile phone networks so that people walking around yabbing on their phones would suddenly be isolated in their personal space, with nothing to contemplate but their own inner beings. I was sure that the sudden surge of wisdom would initiate an enlightenment cascade and reset the world’s karmic balance.

But no. Dang.

2003-10-29T07:31:00.000-08:00

Back from Nashville. Sorry I only got one post in, my Smithlings, but I was keeping busy with other things. Visiting with family, that sort of thing. My nephew, Smith, had his fourth birthday and a big party, and I got him classic wooden blocks. He was unimpressed at first, but, hey, blocks is blocks, and when we played with them later, he was really digging them. His favorite band is the White Stripes. He is a wanton dancer.

He is four, but uncle Smith has a job. So I’m back in Washington, doing my punchclock thing. Sigh. I grew up in Nashville, but the feel of the place is not familiar to me. I feel like a visitor there. On this trip, as usual, I didn’t have time to get behind the town and settle in and, you know, grok its weirdness. One of these days.

2003-10-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

Next time you are hungry in Nashville, find your way to the Sylvan Park Restaurant, which is perennially voted Best Meat and Three in town. At lunch there today with my brother, I had excellent catfish, excellent baked squash, excellent green beans, and excellent white beans.

After the Sylvan we were at the Springwater bar, an absolute dive and truly very good place to drink beer, which is a good thing, since this is all they serve. We were on the front patio, from which you can see Nashville's full-size Parthenon replica. We were just settin', you know, and this other guy just comes out and sits and starts talking. I've been in town since yesterday, and finally a Nashville moment. He says how he used to live in Nashville ten years ago, and they threw this party at Vanderbilt with a gas tanker full of beer that was free for everyone, but he's been in New Mexico for his father's death, then just wandering around.

Then a third fellow joins us. "Any of you guys want to by a Kroger card? It has twenty dollars on it, but I'll sell it to you for fifteen, and you can buy anything you want with it, at Kroger. I'm trying to see Steve Vai tonight, and I need the money for a ticket. Maybe mom will buy it." He heads back into the bar.

Get to Nashville, friends. Go to the Parthenon, go to the Springwater, play Johnny Cash on the juke.

2003-10-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

Good morning, Folly followers. I have a bit of a humpday hangover today, not bad, at least not yet. Well-earned, though. I went with my chums to the Old Europe restaurant for the first meeting of our International Dinner Club (foreigners welcome).

"Old Europe" means "Germany" at this place, so there was wurst and sausage all around. I had the vegetable platter, which was as hearty as a vegetable platter can be. Saurkraut and picked red cabbage and potato and, um, spatzel and things. Get yourselves some spatzel, chirren.

The hangover is on account of the liter of beer, their Oktoberfest special. Nothing makes me feel willkommen quite like being served a liter of beer. Long live the metric system! And could we dim the lights just a bit?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a job.

2003-10-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

My face, after about three and a half days of not-shaving, is just right. Revel with me in my scratchiness. Skritch your nails along my chin as you think, and all will become clearer.

See, the practice of not-shaving brings one closer to the truth of anatman, or no-self, a Buddhist notion having to do with the transience of the ego. Shaving, you're looking at yourself in the mirror, scrutinizing your face, being careful, and polishing up the appearance you present to the world as yourself. Or something. Could be I'm just lazy, but I'm sticking with this anatman thing, going for a low-grade enlightenment of scruffiness.

Hey, Smith, where'd you learn a fancy Sanskrit word like that?

School, y'all.

2003-10-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

I was nineteen before I ever saw an ocean because I was raised in Tennessee by Hoosier parents. When I was younger, the destination for every road trip and vacation was a cluster of little towns that orbit Indianapolis. Taken together, Fortville, Carmel and Zionsville comprise the Land of My Ancestors. So every Thanksgiving, Christmas and summer the Smiths made our I-65 pilgrimage.

The best thing about this trip happens in Kentuckiana. (Smith, are you making up that word?) The bridge across the Ohio River from Louisville into Indiana is called the John F. Kennedy bridge because it was finished at the same time as the president. I’ve always loved the bridge. It’s ugly but beautiful, made of chunky, peeling girders that dip and rise like a child’s drawing of water.

Why do I bring this up? ‘Cause look what I found! Next time you’re in Louisville, drive across it and back a few times and tell me what you think.

2003-10-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

I don’t know baseball or chess very well, but they’re fascinating. I don’t care enough about baseball to follow it through a season, but it's growing on me, and I dig the post season tension. And I love good baseball writing for some reason. Baseball fiction, too. Ever read The Natural by Malamud? Summerland by Chabon? It’s a rich theme, and that richness permeates the current pennant races, which are starting to get to me. A Cubs-Red Sox underdog series would be just beautiful. I got World Series fever! This will end if neither the Cubs nor the Sox make it. Marlins? Eh. Young team, no folklore in them. Yankees? Seen it.

Chess writing is not exciting. Of course I don’t have a favorite chess player. I never really played it until about two years ago, when suddenly something clicked in my understanding of the game and I beat a friend in a tense match on Thanksgiving. Knew exactly what I was doing. Trembling by the end. Couldn’t sleep that night. It was nuts. I got a nice chess set, and a nice travel chess set, and a crappy travel chess set, and a few books. There was no one to play with, though. It died down, but I’m still pretty interested.

Monday I was listening to game four of the ALCS, which the Red Sox won. (Let’s not talk about game five). I was listening on the radio to capture some of the golden-age-of-baseball feel, and because my TV is busted. At the same time I was following the match in the Post's chess column, playing along on my board. Yankees and Red Sox fighting an ancient feud in Boston, live; Kavalek and Formanek duking it out in Boston, 1970. Kavalek won, sacrificing pawn, knight, rook, and queen along the way. Red Sox won with a wiggly knuckleball. The pressrooms are calling this pitch the no-spin zone. I love that.

Go Sox! Um, go Kavalek.

2003-10-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

Saw a group of pasty, middle-aged tourists at Lafayette park yesterday. The tour guide was holding a light saber. Welcome, Jedi, to the nation's capital.

2003-10-09T05:38:00.000-07:00

Folks, it's time for us all to stop saying "divvy" and "divvy up."

And the Lord divvied up the light from the darkness.

See? Stupid.

2003-10-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

My apartment is now a home. My new checks arrived, so that's one thing. And I've just thrown out the last of my emptied boxes. Three months. I'm home.

I'm in my back room (foyer? utility room? it's home, but I have not assigned this room a function) with my box cutter. A coin falls out of one box as I flatten it, a penny, dark brown with age. That's an old wheat penny, I think. Sure enough: 1952, wheat. It's good luck. A wheat penny I didn't know I had has followed me to my new place. I'm home.

I carry my folded boxes down the back stairs. Behind my building is a small parking area, then the alley, then the backs of the row houses on the next street. I drop the boxes by the trashcans with satisfaction.

Mreow. This from a deck across the alley, loud, repeated. I mreow back and see a cat who normally ignores me. I sit on the concrete by the stairs and extend a hand. This always used to work. The cat and I mreow back and forth until it slowly climbs down and crosses toward me, not with normal catly nonchalance, but as though I may have food. It draws close and I pet its dirty fur. It's plump, it has a collar. Hello, neighbor.

Then Nina pedals up, and the cat goes aloof again. Nina is the name on her kiddie plate. Her bike is pink with white tires and elaborate pink decorations. Too small for Nina, but she rides it well. "Do you know whose cat that is?" she asks.

"No. We were just talking."

"Oh wait, I know. Caitlin."

I hope that Caitlin is the owner and not the cat. It is an awful name.

Nina chases the cat away. Cat's don't get bicycles. "Hills are fun to ride down," she says.

"Oh, I know." And I do agree. To hell with up.

"How old are you?"

Great. "Thirty-one." Speaking of downhill.

"For real?"

Step off, you little brat. "Yeah." Punk. "How ‘bout you?"

"In two weeks I'll be eight. Do you know Caitlin?"

The owner. "Nope."

A woman calls from down the alley: "Where are you?"

"I'm here!"

"Too close to the corner, get back here!"

Nina smirks. "Awww, man." Pedals off.

"Nice talking with you." And sure it was. I'm not an old curmudgeon. Not old, not grumpy (not always). I like kids. I don't have any, but I welcome their conversation. Sure, Nina had brought up a difficult subject, but she knew exactly what hills are for. That's wisdom that growing up can't improve. She has years to learn about thirty-one.

I put the wheat penny over the door.

2003-10-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Fellow Washingtonians: anyone ever get sick of shit blowing up around here?

2003-10-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see Concert for George, which was filmed last year at Royal Albert Hall on the anniversary of George Harrison’s death. Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, Paul, Ringo, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Joe Brown, along with a dozen others, performed George’s songs from his Beatles and solo years. Most of Monty Python were present to perform the Lumberjack sketch and the song “Sit on My Face,” which must have been one of George’s favorites.

It’s a moving show. George’s songs are poignant, and the performers clearly miss him. One of the performers is Dhani Harrison, who looks so much like George in 1964 that you can’t take your eyes off him.

You gotta like George. He’s the anti-Paul. See the movie, think about George.

2003-10-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Somebody slap California ‘pside the head. Unless these eleventh-hour revelations about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s groping and misogyny have any meaningful impact, it looks like Californians may actually elect the man governor. Even if the entire pool of people who vote for him amounts to less than ten percent of the state’s population, he can still win. If this happens, the state deserves him.

I’m torn. I loved Kindergarten Cop as much as everyone else. But a democratic system where this is possible is one busted-ass system.

2003-10-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today's word is gnomon. Use this word in a sentence, preferably as a metaphor.

2003-09-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

My outraged little pals, are you feeling a little put off by the 21st century? Me too, dammit. Well, just now I got nothing to make you feel better, but if you'd like to sharpen the blade of your outrage to a gleaming edge, one of the best whetstones out there is ZNet, the online alt-press clearinghouse of Z Magazine. Great critiques of just about any crucial issue you can think of, with articles, links, reports, and other resources that will make you grind your teeth in righteous frustration at the efftup state of the world.

Aww, Smith, you say, ain't it more blissful to stay ignernt? Yes. But it feels good, sorta, to be in the know, and pissed off.

So try ZNet. Now is a good time, too. For one thing, they've consolidated a number of appriciations by friends and admirers of Edward Said, the activist and all-around intellectual renaissance man who died this past week. For another, they're in the early stages of developing Z Daily, a service that apparently blitzes subscribers with articles every day and includes a forum for contributing authors. They could use your input in their poll.

One of the best reasons to visit ZNet is that they publish Robert Fisk, the incredibly gutsy journalist from the Independent whose reporting from Iraq and the Middle East is among the best out there.

2003-09-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

If not Johnny Cash, then who?

2003-09-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you, two years ago I had one lousy day, a complete fog of unreality from the moment I woke up to NPR with vague early reports to the time I went to bed but did not sleep. They evacuated my office building, which is five blocks from the White House, and when I was finally able to drive home five hours later, I could see the tower of smoke from the Pentagon as I crossed Key Bridge into Virginia. Disbelief and outrage and grief, like everyone else.

Once it had sunk in and I was able to think about the larger picture, I felt even worse. I have a bit of a cynical streak, if you ain’t guessed already, and it burns particularly bright when I think about this administration. On September 10, you had an administration and President with middling approval ratings, with Rumsfeld and Ashcroft particularly unpopular. Within a week of the attack, with flags everywhere, the President polling high, and bricks flying through the windows of Mosques and Muslim (and Sikh, fer chrissake) community centers and businesses – the saber rattling had begun in a White House that considered itself newly sanctioned to wreak holy, military, and corporate vengeance on “terror.” You’re either for us or against us. We’re gonna get you sumbitches. The evildoers hate freedom. Freedom haters? This is the sort of thing you get when you give a dozen monkeys a dozen typewriters.

Bush and his marketing staff began their campaign to appropriate all the grief, death, and destruction as fuel for a patriotic fervor that would serve as a shield for politicians and the military-industrial complex as, for example, they bombed hundreds of innocent Afghans, violated Geneva conventions, passed the execrable Patriot Act, detained innocent Americans because they were Arabs or Muslims (how many still detained and awaiting trial?), branded dissenters as traitors, and created the “War on Terror,” a mission whose methods, aims, and justifications are as vague as its name.

And in the name of fighting terror, this sham war on Iraq. The attacks two years ago were the perfect excuse. See the names at the bottom of this 1998 letter to Clinton? These are the Neocon Chickenhawks who have been gunning for Iraq since Bush I. George H. W. wasn’t compliant enough, Clinton wasn’t going to listen to them, but now there’s Dubya, and oooh look, terrorism. Georgie, wanna go to war? Look around this site, kids. It’s a program for American imperialism, and Dubya is their perfect little tin Caesar.

And yesterday Caesar called for enhanced police powers as part of a push to expand the execrable Patriot Act. This due process business is really getting in the way of the War on Terror, I guess. The ACLU has produced a good high-level analysis of Bush’s requests; while you’re at their site, be sure to read their other Patriot Act materials.

So this is how this administration memorializes the people who died two years ago. Stripping civil liberties, bombing civilians, bolstering arms companies, handing out huge contracts to Halliburton and other corporate titans (wonder where that 87 bil is going?), and of course, praying. Awww, look, the president is praying!

Taken all together, it’s insulting. Tonight I’m going to drink a few to the victims of the attacks and remember them, but damned if I’ll celebrate “Patriots Day.”

2003-09-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Alabam-dammit! I’m a little frustrated with the Yellowhammer State this morning. That’s what they call it, the Yellowhammer State. This is not why I’m frustrated. There’s the whole commandments-shaped-rock-in-the-courthouse issue as well, the most widely reported but least interesting point of crisis for separation of church and state. But that ain’t my boggle.

In yesterday’s statewide vote, Alabamians rejected a $1.2 billion tax increase, with about 67 percent against. This is the Alabama with the lowest funding for education in the U.S. This is the Alabama whose tax code, which requires a constitutional amendment to change, taxes its wealthiest about three percent and its poorest about 12. This is the Alabama that starts taxing family income at $4600 but can’t seem to get much tax dough from wealthy landowners, the sprawling timber industry, and other parties rich enough to sacrifice a bit more for the greater good.

The unlikely champion of Alabama’s tax increase was its gun-supportin’, anti-abortion, anti-gay, conservative Christian soon-to-be-former governor, Bob Riley – whose new nicknames among his republican colleagues might include “traitor” and “deadboy.” His campaign was the most visible manifestation of an odd little eddy in the religious right that sees helping the poor and desperate in society as a Christian duty worth the heresy of higher taxes. The Christian Coalition, with the exception of its Alabama chapter, supported the campaign.

And they tried to reach the African-American community, which seems to have shown some support. And they tried to reach the state’s poor and somehow get across a crucial message: not only are we not raising your taxes, many of you won’t have to pay taxes anymore at all. Didn’t work, though. With that much opposition, most of the people whose families would have benefited most must surely have been at the polls voting no.

Is it because of the state’s crummy, broken old school systems, is it because the poor are easily manipulated by the rich, is it because desperation breeds suspicion of strange ideas and misplaced trust in the sham authority of wealth – is this why the Republicans were able to kill this thing? I reckon.

My heart’s not broken or anything. I lived for a year in Alabama when I was about six but I don’t remember much. And it’s no surprise. It’s sad to say, but I guess it was the ignorance-bred conservatism of the Democratic South that turned it into the Republican South. Tennessee is no better. In Nashville (Smith’s hometown!) a few years ago citizens pelted the Capitol building with bricks while the legislature was debating whether to create – not increase but create – a state income tax.

Git big gubmint off mah back! No, you jackasses! Get poverty off your backs!

So yeah, I’m annoyed.

2003-09-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

I'm hearing a lot of grousing out there, people. I ask you: is $87,000,000,000 so much to pay for a sound imperial footing in the Middle East?

But on to serious matters:

Hours of Folly Reader Poll!

Robert Redford: still good looking?

2003-09-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday, so let’s just get this out of the way: I have a job.

Nice weather this weekend, so I got on the bike for a nice spin of, say, seven miles. There’s something about hunching down over the handlebars, pedaling hard, and then coasting down a long, winding hill that makes me feel like a kid again. Sweet. Everything else about riding a bike makes me feel like an old man. I’m getting there, though. Last weekend I had to dismount and walk the machine up a few hills. Not Saturday. Never gave up once. Though I wish I had. My knees are killing me, but I’m sure it’s only the tendons, bones, muscles, and cartilage, nothing serious. I’ll recover, though, and keep at it. After all, would Sam Clemens give up? No! Remember, kids: WWMTD?

2003-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Now here’s some news that, in moral discourse, might be called a dilly of a pickle. Yesterday Florida executed minister-turned-avenging-hand-of-God Paul Hill, who in 1994 shotgunned dead an abortion doctor and his driver outside a Pensacola clinic. Now this Hill, let’s clarify, was a twisted sick appalling shite by any valid moral measure. He made it clear during his exit interview that Florida was actually sending him (via lethal injection) directly to his eternal reward in North Bosomofchristville. General ranting frothing outrage about Hill and his crime and the sort of biblical loopholes that make his kind of violent hypocrisy possible – let’s just take that as read. Toodle-oo, deadboy, right?

But dang! No. I oppose the death penalty, and oppose it more the more I learn about it. Much as I find Hill and his kind revolting and little as I think he deserves to live, murder codified, directed, and carried out by the state gives me the creeps just as much – albeit in a more abstract and complicated sort of way. But let’s also take the death penalty debate as read – it’s out there for you furrow-browed internetniks – and suggest that, given that the appalling Hill is a hero to, let’s say, thousands of righteous kooks, it’s a bad idea to make a martyr of this particular scumbag. Many people did in fact make this argument to the governor of Florida, but really, what are the odds of a Bush commuting an execution?

So let’s see, religion-motivated murder plus state-sanctioned murder equals the holy martyrdom of Paul Hill. Light a candle for St. Paul of the Unwanted Embryos, ye faithful snipers for Jesus, before smiting those wicked in your sights!

Yes, ain’t it just a real moral choke-pretzel. But wait, there’s more! For the foundation for the whole sad story is the immensely complicated abortion debate, which has polarized to dangerous and stupid extremes that, at best, ignore the various moral, developmental, civil, and scientific subtleties that deserve serious attention, and at worst, get someone killed, and that person’s killer killed, etc. The whole thing is an American morality play.

Who sanctions the beginning of life? Who sanctions the end of life? What if Paul Hill’s God isn’t there? What if there’s no hell to send Paul Hill to? Yeah, it’s a doozy.

2003-09-03T05:59:00.000-07:00

The D1, not the D2. It’s not the D2, it’s the D1. The D1 will put you two blocks from the office. Take the D2 and you’ll have to schlep from Dupont Circle. Rebuff, eschew, and shun the D2. I’m quoting here my friend and trusted guide to MetroBusing from my home to my office. Had to take the bus this morning. Had an early meeting.

What you’ve got to understand about my brain is that the built-in compass that birds, fish, mammals, and many humans enjoy is entirely absent. I never grew one. Whether it’s a quirk of genetics or plain blockheadedness, I have no sense of direction, none. No awareness of my greater spatial environment. Unless the route I’m on is so well traveled as to be automatic, I get lost. Add to this what amounts to a small phobia about being lost, and you have yet more evidence that Smith is a neurotic mess. I lose my way, become agitated, panic a little, and at the rare extreme, I become disoriented and dizzy. To combat these effects, I try to listen closely to directions, try to remain calm when I’m on an unfamiliar path. I get by.

So this morning (raining) I got on the D2. Aha, here comes the D2, my bus, the bus my friend told me to get on, I thought. Did she say the D2? Here’s the D2. I’ll get on the D2.

I got on the D2. I couldn’t see well out of the fogged windows and past the people standing in the aisle. Was it the D2? What is this neighborhood? Where am I? Crap, I’ll bet it was the D1. Where does the D2 go? Dupont Circle. Fine. I’ll schlep it. All this, mind you, as the usual shortness of breath is setting in and my vision is going a little whorled and red. It’s a wet schlep from Dupont. My socks are soaked, and my meeting is in a cold room.

2003-08-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

"I have a job." That just about sums up American Splendor for me, and it pretty well explains why I and probably millions of Americans identify with Harvey Pekar. The quote comes from the scene where Pekar wakes with a start and grumble-barks "I have a job!" Is he reassuring himself? You bet; here's a man who's got it bad but knows how much worse it can be, here's a man who needs the pittance he makes. But it's also a lament; see the movie or read the comics and you get a good sense of the crap job he has.

It's worse than my job, I'll admit that, much worse. But there's a greater Crap Job, a polyester-clad, pasty-faced god in the modern pantheon -- and when Pekar woke up and called its name in American Splendor, I laughed and felt a small, tragic shiver of recognition at the same time. (Hell, that's the whole movie for you -- tragic laughter.) Me, I've got a decent job with decent pay, but sometimes I wake up on weekday mornings with a knee on the fluorescent-lit altar of the god of punch clocks, rayon neckties, carpal tunnel syndrome, customer service training videos, and non-dairy coffee lightener, and something in me grunts "I have a job" in that same relieved/despairing tone.

Because then I get up from my comfortable bed and eat organic cereal with soy milk and walk along hardwood floors to my hot shower. I put on decent clothes and drive my decent car to a business neighborhood where I am smack in the middle of a job spectrum that runs from lawyers and lobbyists to raving beggars.

Ratchet down a few spaces toward the purple end of that spectrum and you get Harvey Pekar, file clerk. Famous author of a respected counterculture comic, icon and iconoclast, but a career file clerk and Crap Job acolyte. In Cleveland.

The movie and the comics are about more than "I have a job," of course. The line one of dozens of really good, really moving moments in the picture. You ought to see it. And read it, I know I want to. Pekar -- don't get me wrong, he's not exactly a likeable character -- but he's one of the few average-working-schmuck voices with such a wide reach.

And for more on Crap Job and his minions, read Iain Levison's A Working Stiff's Manifesto. Levison is also not a likeable character, and his memoir is certainly not as moving, but it's familiar in the same way.

2003-08-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

"The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure." William Blake wrote that. He also wrote "Dip him in the river who loves water." He was a mystic, Blake.