Shawn Macomber

File Under: Not A Mental Recession

Here's an above the fold, front page headline from the New York Times today: WOMEN ARE NOW EQUAL AS VICTIMS OF POOR ECONOMY.

I thought initially this was a victory--Hey, Raul Castro may have recently declared egalitarianism dead, but not us! Go America!--but, as the article quickly demonstrates, this is actually a hitherto undiscovered strain of bad equality. To our political consultant friends, trust us, Equality of Opportunity...To Fail remains a losing campaign slogan. Or is it?

After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut. And they are responding as men have, by dropping out or disappearing for a while.

While losing a job is certainly not the best case scenarios, surely being in the position to be affected by downturns is better than being kept out of those positions during good and bad times, no? And, since this post title provides an opportunity as equal as any other, I've been meaning to post a link to James Poulos' typically outside the box take on Phil Gramm's now (infamous, I guess) pegging of ours as a nation of whiners:

The point is that Americans are whiners, but also sometimes not whiners. They are sometimes whiners about bad actual things they can't affect, and sometimes whiners about stupid things (my gas is going up! It'll cost so much to drive to Starbucks!) but not about much less stupid things (I won't be able to afford heat this winter!). Gramm's rhetoric is so troublesome because it's so falsely polarizing -- in a world where there are two types of people, whiners and nonwhiners, a redress of grievances is impossible, because there are no grievances worthy of the name.

So, yes, my initial glee at Gramm saying the unsayable has been somewhat tempered by the explications of two of my much smarter, well respected colleagues--Jim Antle, being the second--even if, I must admit, it has not yet been extinguished. Maybe it's a personal failing or just a soft spot for free-market orthodoxy espoused by those who resemble melancholy woodland creatures.

It's anyone's guess, really.

When Pollination Crosses The Line Into Ejaculation...

Too much information?:

Sexually deceptive orchids, as biologists have long known, look and can even smell so much like a female insect that males will try to mate with the flower in a sometimes vigorous process that can result in pollination. But scientists now report that the tongue orchids of Australia are such thoroughly convincing mimics of female wasps that males not only try to mate with them, but they actually do mate with them — to the point of ejaculation. “It’s always been described as pseudocopulation,” said Anne Gaskett, a graduate student at Macquarie University in Australia and the lead author of the study. “But it looked like true copulation to me.”

I can only hope Gaskett's superiors read this and give her what is clearly a long overdue, flower & wasp free vacation!

What Happens When You Take The Guns Away

From the New York Times:

Every day, it seems, there are more victims. Shakilus Townsend, 16, stabbed to death by a masked gang. Ben Kinsella, also 16, fatally stabbed during an argument outside a pub. Victims in Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow. Four people fatally stabbed in London in one 24-hour period alone last week. In a country where few people have guns or access to them, a spate of knife attacks, many involving teenagers, has forced the issue to the top of the domestic agenda. The Metropolitan Police are so concerned, they said recently, they have made knife crime their top priority, along with terrorism. Government and law enforcement officials are scrambling to produce plans to allay public fears.

On Monday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a series of measures that he said would make it “completely unacceptable to carry a knife.” The plan includes automatic prosecution for anyone over the age of 16 caught with a knife and doubling the maximum sentence for knife possession, to four years. It also sets up a $6 million advertising campaign to discourage young people from committing crimes with knives and a program to force perpetrators to confront their actions by, for instance, attending courses that describe what happens to stabbing victims.

I don't want to insult our British allies, but, mates, any criminal class that can be wowed into submission by an advertising campaign is displaying a woeful lack of dedication to its craft. But, then again, that's what the late, great comedian Bill Hicks told us long ago, isn't it?

Quote of the Day

“I would meet Einstein because he never washed his hair, and nobody ever listened to him when he talked about a lot of important things that the military could have used in the United States,”--a contestant on Queen Bees, the new reality show where Mean Girls hang with Tyra's shrink and compete for the $25,000 prize given to the girl who best reforms herself, when asked which historic figure she'd most like to meet. Surprisingly, the show isn't nearly as fun (yet) as the concept, although producers did do a great job of uncovering terrible people.

Mametfest Destiny

The American Spectator was kind enough to post my June cover story on the art and political conversion of writer-director David Mamet online. My review of his latest film Redbelt is here.

Quit Laughing, I Said It's Not Funny

The New York Times has a front page story today on the kid gloves approach late night television hosts have been using on Barack Obama, explaining it away as a natural product of Obama's lack of "buffonish" qualities. Hence, the absurd headline, "Want Obama in a Punch Line? First, Find a Joke."

Why? The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic “take” on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic persona.

Really, New York Times? That's your honest assessment? Or would you like to try again in, say, a few paragraphs?

There is no doubt, several representatives of the late-night shows said, that so far their audiences (and at least some of the shows’ writers) seem to be favorably disposed toward Mr. Obama, to a degree that perhaps leaves them more resistant to jokes about him than those about most previous candidates.

Yes, perhaps. Perhaps also grass is green and Saturday Night Live was onto something. Alas, it seems even the New York Times does not fully understand the phenomenon it strives to explain. After noting John McCain punch lines frequently end with some variation of "He's old," the article adds, "But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique."

I suppose the dig the New York Times is waiting for is not a knock at the senator's demigodish view of himself, but bits beginning with something along the lines of "Barack Obama is so buff..." or "Barack Obama is so eloquent..." or "Barack Obama is so young and vital..." Which, in a strange way, makes this the treatment for the never-launched sitcom based on Obama's life.

Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Baghdad

Meet Acrassicauda, Iraq's sole thrash band.

Actually, It's Clearly A Fantasy About Dick Cheney

Robert Thurman--Columbia University prof, father of Uma and the first American to be ordained a Tibetan monk--got a little too detailed in this New York Times Q&A this weekend about his meditation fantasies:

What do you think about when you meditate?

Usually, some form of trying to excavate any kind of negative thing cycling in the mind and turn it toward the positive. For example, when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.

You mean you fantasize about being breast-fed by Dick Cheney?

It’s a fantasy of releasing fear and developing affection. It’s a way of coming back to feeling grateful toward him and seeing his positive side, finding the mother in Dick Cheney.

I'm sure Cheney is touched by the gesture!

I Guess We Start Respecting Rights At No. 2?

John McCain, May 2006: "I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government."

John McCain, today: "This ruling does not mark the end of our struggle against those who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens. We must always remain vigilant in defense of our freedoms."

Have the scales fallen from his eyes? If so, I look forward to McCain's amicus brief in the next challenge to McCain-Feingold--or maybe he'd just rather slightly alter his hero Teddy Roosevelt's famous maxim, and teach the country to speak softly and carry a little gun.

What To Do After You've Lost It All In A Hooker Scandal

Go to Cambodia!

Perhaps not the best place to take a man with a well-documented proclivity for young prostitutes, but it's good to hear the guy will have a chance to get away from it all and better Southeast Asia than the Governor's office.

Kaboom!

It's not everyday I get to write about classic Twilight Zone episodes, imaginary militia-peoples and coloring books designed to teach kids about suicide bombers, but Friday was one such day.

The Guy Peddling Change I Can Believe In...

...can't quit smoking.

Now I'm just sad. Even if this does prove he won't go along with everything Michelle says, I was also depending on Obama to change, as promised, so many of my bad habits--like resisting my incorporation into the statist collective (H.O.P.E.), for example. I fear his failure to control his own habits might mean he will indeed  allow me to go back to my life as usual, leaving me leaderless, living my imperfect life as I see fit. And like the rest of my herd, this is what I fear more than anything else.

Noooo! Baaaa!

Always A Popularity Contest

You may or may not have heard about the recent Mothers Against Drunk Driving Gone Wild debacle, wherein a uniformed police officer was sent into several classrooms at a California high school to inform students one of their classmates had been killed in a drunk driving accident. No one actually had died, but local police, school administrators and MADD crusaders believed leaving these kids to stew in hysteria and sorrow for an hour before resurrecting the "dead" students at an assembly was in clearly their best interest. It was not without controversy, however, and so this weekend the California Highway Patrol sent Officer Paula Todd onto television to defend the event. The host, whom I didn't recognize, opened with what I believe is the most  pertinent question: "I'm curious, how do they decide which students to kill?"

"Well," Officer Todd answered, "we try to pick the more popular students, for impact on the student body."

Somewhere right now, a band geek is writing a heartrending letter to the producers  of MTV's Made--"I want to be made a dead student in next year's student faux drunk driving massacre!" God bless the people who know what's right for our children--pandemonium, hysteria and a blood-soaked popularity contest. 

Where You At, Son?

I'll be guest blogging the next two weeks for one of my favorite people, James Poulos, at his wonderful Postmodern Conservative site. Visit me and leave some comments if you get a chance.

UPDATE: My interview with Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency, lives here. AND a dual review of two novels on art and power in The Weekly Standard.

Is Dissent As Patriotic As Screaming Fits?

The New York Times euphorically recounts the scene this weekend at Wesleyan University when word came down that Barack Obama would "pinch hit, Indiana Jones-style"--the reporter's balanced interpretation of the heroic nature of Obama stepping up to a mic in front of a crowd of college kids (!)--for ailing Ted Kennedy. Here's a snippet:

Let's face it, Wesleyan's getting Mr. Obama as a last minute graduation speaker, even if under trying circumstances, was a little like Notre Dame getting the pope. "Everyone found out at the same time after we put it on our web page," said Holly Wood (yes, but she's actually just a working-class kid from the Poconos), co-founder of a widely read student blog, Wesleying. "I got out of my car and everyone was screaming, and my phone went off and someone told me, and I screamed. It was like this relay effect of people on the campus, all screaming."

Summation: New York Times on Barack Obama--bigger than the pope, hot as a young Indiana Jones and able to make the kids--even working-class kids from the Poconos!--scream like the Fab Four combined Volton-like into one giant hope-spewing machine. It's settled, I think. He's got all the right qualifications. Let's make him president.

Fire, of course, burns in the distance...

...and the penis’s cavalier attitude toward the mini-apocalypse is disturbing on several levels.

"MAYBE We Can, But We Still Probably Shouldn't"

That's the slogan that'll earn my vote this year, I don't care if it comes from the Snowball's Chance Party.

Global Warming Alarmists Turn On The Pudgy

Great, now people are gonna shoot at me with harpoons and darts and yell sh-t about my carbon waistline--the Gotham City Insider on a British survey linking obesity to global warming.

(Pre)Vengeance Is Mine

It's not every day I get to talk Death Wish and The Legend of Billie Jean in the same piece, so I was thankful to the recently launched DoubleThink Online for giving me the opportunity to do so in this review of the film Teeth, the touching coming of age story of an abstinence-boosting teen who learns, much to her dismay, that she is actually a mythological creature with a toothed vagina sent to rain vengeance down on sexual predators and deviants.

My Absurd Life As An Extreme Metal Journalist

I write the memoir for Radar today. Unfortunately, most of my recent metal features--Testament, Death Angel, Shai Hulud, to name a few--are print only in Outburn magazine, but here are recent bits from others pubs on Napalm Death, Trap Them, Megadeth and, uh, Tony Orlando. Party on, dudes.

Redbelt, Not Red Belt

As a precursor to my large feature on David Mamet's political conversion in the June issue of The American Spectator, I have a review up this weekend of his new film Redbelt.

"The Reverend Al Sharpton crept in and out...

...of the designated protest area at One Police Plaza like the blob in a lava lamp."

Woe Is Us

As is now common with political campaigns of all stripes, I was emailed a copy of John McCain's prepared remarks at Wake Forest University this morning hours before they were delivered. I never understand why we aren't just provided the meat of the speech, rather than the meat and all the niceties and playful banter which instantly reveals itself to be meaningless once you're informed it's contrived. For example:

We appreciate the hospitality of the students and faculty of Wake Forest University, and especially during exams. I know exam week involves some tough moments, like when you're up at 3:00 a.m. and have to choose between studying or watching one of Fred's old movies. Most of the students here look confident and ready, so you need no advice from me as final exams draw near.

Was Fred in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle? Well, at any rate, that's the American college student for you. Long before you've even actually laid eyes on them you can already be sure they'll look confident and ready at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Things have apparently changed since I was in college back in ought-two when students would stumble into 3 p.m. classes bleary-eyed and woefully unprepared. That was before Obama started filling their hearts with hope, I guess. More:

But for those of you who might be feeling a slight sense of panic coming on, all I can say is that a few bad grades don't have to be end of the road -- so just give it your best and move on. An undistinguished academic record can be overcome in life, or at least that is the hope that has long sustained me.

Talk about an inclusive campaign--Good morning students! Confident and ready to aim low? Join us! Slavishly in need of a strong leader you've never met to validate your existence and re-make your life? Choose the other guy! Lord, woe is us.

More Denial

For anyone who may be interested, I've followed up my recent Lawrence Solomon Q&A with a review of his excellent The Deniers in today's Washington Times.

Well, There Was That Whole 2004 Primary Thingee

"God used David to challenge Goliath," Sharpton said. "So what makes you think God can't use Al Sharpton to challenge George Bush?"

Come on, Rev. God didn't even want to use you to take on Dick Gephardt. Plus, remember He once put an unholy love of tracksuits in your heart. Not a good sign.

Location, Location, Location

Everyone is whining about gas prices, but could Rosemary's baby even fit in this $800,000 basement room at the famed Dakota? I think the Fritzl dungeon had roomier digs. (Thanks, Karol.)

C'Mon, Girl. Growl Like You'd Rather Be On A Bike

Occasionally, I'll get the heavy metal itch again--most recently scratched in 2005--and check the Craig's List postings for keywords like "grindcore" or "hardcore" to see if there are any other old bastards out there looking to recreate something that had its heyday between 1981 and, say, maybe 1994? Here's an intriguing ad I came across recently:

Hey y'all. I am a female vocalist-I have never been in a band before but I am pretty sure I can scream and growl real well. I'm looking to start a band - preferably with more female members. The lyrics would definitely be coming from a pro-fat, pro-sex, pro-queer, pro-bicycle, feminist, anticonsumer culture, situationist prospective. Any takers??

What I'm reading here, between the lines of "pro-fat," "pro-bicycle" and "anti-consumer culture," is one hell of a hunter-gatherer with a very sturdy bicycle and loud amplifiers built entirely out of organic dung and dumpstered wire. Maybe I can swing with this. (I got to admit, she's got impeccable taste in crusty-grindy stuff.) You know, from a situationist perspective.

Pleased...

...but most certainly not delighted.

"In addition, we'll also tell the kids tales from norse mythology, which has been of great inspiration for all of us..."

I don't know if playing a kindergarten is necessarily the best career move for a self-described "Viking metal" band, but Norway's Helheim is apparently saying damn the torpedoes!

HELHEIM will play acoustic for the children, but will be in full costume for the show. No need for parents to worry, though. "We're there to entertain, not to scare the kids," the drummer says.

Elisabeth Alnes of Klosteret Barnehage sees absolutely no problem in letting the viking metal band play for the children. "Lots of people get this all wrong, and think metal and Satanism are two sides of the coin," she says. "These are great guys, and Norse mythology is a very important part of our cultural heritage."

So, relax, parents of Klosteret Barnehage: Your children will be keeping company with a costumed, pagan -mythology-loving band that feels the need to reassure you that they aren't there to scare the kids. Move along, nothing crazy-like to see here. Actually, all I feel when I read this story is...I'm sending my children to school in Norway, where they know how to really educate--via heavy metal.

Apocalypse Maybe Later

I've been a bit remiss with site updates this week thanks to travel and research obligations, but I did have two pieces run: First, a Q&A with Canadian environmentalist Lawrence Solomon regarding his absolutely essential new book on global warming, The Deniers, as well as a more controversial piece on the positive vibe I got when I recently met with Carly Fiorina, former HP CEO, now McCain...uh, Victory Chairwoman.

Honor Thy Call Girl

It's been a tough year for Randi Rhodes. First, she wasn't the victim of a fascist right-wing attack which probably would have gotten her a book deal, and now, insult to injury, she winds up getting fired by Air America for calling former hero-of-the-left-turned-reactionary-demon Hillary an "f--ing whore" during the least funny stand up routine ever.

On the bright side, maybe she'll get that book deal now. Dissent is, after all, patriotic and should be rewarded.

The best part of this, however, is Rhodes former writer Barry Crimmins  who in the midst of much bashing of Air America ("an allegedly progressive talk show network") and Hillary ("the perfect tool of the patriarchal war machine"), explains, "something no one is talking about is that she said this in San Francisco where many sex workers are unionized and she used 'whore' as a pejorative."

Which I suppose means the left-wing's latest position is, Don't call Hillary a whore...it might insult prostitutes.

Tap, Tap, Tap. Bore, Bore, Bore.

Dave Weigel has a good write up of the The Week magazine's Opinion Awards over at Reason. This was my favorite bit of celeb dish, though:

When emcee Margaret Carlson made a joke about wiretapping abuses, Rove stage-whispered a joke: "Your calls aren't that interesting, incidentally."

Mourning in St. Patrick's

Thoughts and scenes from William F. Buckley's funeral last friday.

The Man Who Would Be A Cartoon Pig

I have a interview up with Bob Bergen, the man who took over several classic cartoon voices when Mel Blanc passed. Here's the opening:

A mere five years into his life, Bob Bergen already felt confident enough to share the culmination of his worldly ambitions with his parents: When he grew up, the wee lad declared, he didn't want to be an astronaut or a race car driver or a fireman. No, Bergen would not rest until he became . . . Porky Pig.

"My mom said, 'You can't be Porky Pig. You're Jewish,' " Bergen recalled. "Being more '-ish' than 'Jew,' I had no idea what she meant. I just knew there was this cartoon character I liked and could imitate...

Hey Man, Is That Freedom Rock? Well, Turn It Up!

John McCain's search for a campaign song may have just narrowed a bit:

Web Poll IV of more than 27,000 respondents cited stronger than expected interest in the November 2008 election among fans of rock, classic rock, and alternative radio stations. It also found that John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, was the top pick for the Oval Office for men and classic rock partisans--those people who tune in to stations playing music from the "original classic rock era" of 1964 to 1975, comprised of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Pink Floyd.

Meet the new boss, same party as the old boss. The big news here might be that there are three people who say they actually want Ted Nugent to be president.

Addendum: Title explanation.

So, I Had A Chance To Chat With Tony Orlando...

...and he was a pretty super guy. Much more interesting than I was led to believe by Yo La Tengo back during the youthful days when I somehow found virtue in boring music.

Pavlov's Party Members

Howard Dean gets his Princess Leia on.

How To Not Buy Into "Feminist Orthodoxy"...

...and still find a nice girl.

Actually, some of this interview with six conservative female bloggers about dating is funny, but I also have to admit I found it somewhat disturbing that political persuasion would be such a make or break issue with these ladies. (Although, when Karol, a pal and one of my favorite bloggers, warns, "Some of the guys I have dated started out liberal, but they didn't stay that way," I have to just say all's fair in love and war.

Not that I want any of them to have to suffer through an Obama lecture/rally with a crying and/or fainting date and, per usual, I'm probably an outlier, but, lord, if I had been determined to find someone with exactly corresponding political views to mine, not only would my courting opportunities have been basically limited to gun shows, tax day protests and a convention I attended recently where a pick-up truck with the license plate "ANTIGOV" pulled up, but I'd almost certainly be sitting home alone tonight watching Twilight Zone and The Prisoner box sets.

Quote(s) of the Day

New York magazine has a fun profile of John Waters up now. Within the first four paragraphs the reporter manages to tag along as Waters practices his new hobby ("Hitchhiking is my midlife crisis") and reveal that the shock director accidentally smoked crack at a recent party held at his own house when he mistook it for pot, which happens all the time I'm sure:

“I thought, Am I addicted? Am I gonna rob my parents now? I had a horrible hangover, but I’d been drinking anyway. I was glad, actually, in a way. I would never now purposely try a new drug, I don’t think, but I’m secretly glad I know what it feels like. All I remember is it freezes your lungs. I did meth when I was young, but it was methedrine, which became like a terrible biker drug, like the lowest-class redneck drug, and how it ever became a gay drug is still a mystery to me, because it was so déclassé.”

Uh, Yeah, This Might Be An Uphill Battle

Lord, anyone who hasn't read this GQ profile of Meghan McCain yet is really missing out. I could just as easily cut and paste the whole crazy thing in the space, but, instead, I'll show some restraint and offer just two of my favorite bits:

Meghan recalls the day when actor Wilford Brimley, he of the Quaker Oats ads, called to offer his support. An operative got off the phone and grandly announced to the room, “We’ve got Brimley!” The phrase, she says, became a rallying cry for the campaign.

I'm sure Wilford Brimley was as shocked by this as anyone else. Then again, maybe the Colbert Report sketches have gone to his head. More:

Meghan confesses that her real love life hasn’t been especially active lately. She’s gone on only one official date since her dad’s campaign began, but she bowed out early with a “headache.” Then there was also the rumor that she’d been seen with—horrors—a Ron Paul supporter. “That has been blown out of proportion in every way!” she exclaims. “What happened is that I dropped my coffee and he helped me with it and was like, ‘Do you want to go to Baja Fresh?’… Not that I would be against dating a Ron Paul supporter, but he turned out to be very strange. He collected Barbie dolls. I called my girlfriends after and was like, ‘That’s weird, right?’ ”

Riiight. Weird. I love Baja Fresh and voted for Ron Paul, so I suppose if I want to stay this side of wacky I better stop salivating over those dolls in the Toys R' Us flyers. Thanks be to Jim Antle for pointing me to this.

I Bet He Got An "A" In How To Dress Like A Goofy Meat-Hammer-Swinging Dipshit 101

This morning at the gym I ended up fitness machine-ing next to a guy wearing athletic shorts over his  black and blue spandex pants and a T-shirt that read in college-style print: Porn Star in Training. Way to top off the ensemble, pal. I wanted to ask if that was a two or four year program, what sort of facilities the school has and if there was a remote learning option for people parked on the information superdriveway like me,  but, alas, the opportunity never arose.   

In other news someone arrived on my site last night Googling www.shawn is gay Welcome, friend! I'll be blogging here until my hanging for treason!

When Does My Show Trial Start?

So in today's American Spectator I have an interview with Paul Crespo, president of Civica Americana, discussing how to best help Hispanic immigrants become part of our culture without losing theirs. It went up at Midnight. Here's an excerpt from the first email I received fifteen minutes later:

Instead of defending Americans right to their own memory, customs and identity, you eagerly shilled for the browning of America. Having chosen treason, you should not whine when the day of reckoning for traitors arrives.

Well, striving not to whine, all I can say is I hope you have a nice day too!

War On Terror Pretty Much Over?

First Anbar tribal councils turned on al Qaeda in Iraq. And now at least one gay porn mogul has joined the fight against jihadists. How much longer can the radical Islamists withstand the pressure!?

Sigh. Scooped again by The New Republic. 

"The cop said ‘since you think it's bullshit we are now going to give you all full body cavity searches.’"

This account of California death metal buzz band Brain Drill breaking up is pretty damn funny. Keeping with Lambgoat readers' policy of complete over-the-top callousness, commenter Portslob notes, "proves my point that everyone from california is a faggot."

I like not only that this is a "point" a guy who nicknames himself Portslob continues to strive to prove, but also that he believes a story about potheads in a death metal band arguing with border patrol over illegal fireworks  somehow validates his theory about everyone in California. Go you, buddy!

Utopia Banished? Not!

For the second time, I had the pleasure of chatting with the vocalist of the band that put the "extreme" in "extreme metal," Napalm Death. We got pretty far afield of music in this one:

Sampling such apocalyptically cacophonic songs as "Fatalist," "Puritanical Punishment Beating" and "Rabid Wolves (For Christ)" from "Smear Campaign," the latest offering from legendary extreme metal progenitors Napalm Death, those unfamiliar with the band could be forgiven for perhaps assuming a dark thing or two about the band's vocalist/lyricist, Mark "Barney" Greenway.

That Greenway is actually a peace-loving Ralph Nader-endorsing charming and witty Brit probably wouldn't land in the average person's top 50 guesses. But it's the truth. "I always liked that guy," Greenway said of the now-perennial presidential candidate. "I think he's straight up. Unfortunately, the way things are, he doesn't get a significant enough share of the vote to make a difference. Still, you can only align yourself with what you believe to be right. It's a bit of a conundrum, really."

Read the rest. Title reference here.

So Goes The Nation

New Hampshire's sissy legislators continue reveling in their pathetic fears.

'Kind Of Stupid' Is the New Black So Long As It Comes Accented With Green

Former supermodel/actress Shannon Tweed spoke recently to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about her 25 years of happily "unmarried life" with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, who she swears--despite, um, significant evidence to the contrary--has been faithful to her since 1983. This was the bit I enjoyed most, though:

What one thing about Gene would surprise us the most?

Tweed: How soft he is. He's very sweet, and kind of stupid. [Laughs] He can't make a sandwich—but he can make a lot of money.

Well, you knew there had to be some reason a woman would be with a man who would go on NPR to tell Terry Gross (of women in general): "If you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also going to have to welcome me with open legs." There's more to life than sandwiches, you shallow bastards! (And, yeah, stupid+money=sweet.) By the by, a few years ago a conservative website commissioned me to do a review of one of Simmon's books at a time when the bassist was dissing jihadists or somesuch. They eventually paid a kill fee and it never ran. It was pretty strange stuff, a lot of Simmons praising the free-market and quoting Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Which explains why Eliot Spitzer has yet to have made a cameo on Family Jewels. The time for a tie-in/potential spin-off series is clearly ripe, however.
 

A Little Good News

The luminary willing to ambivalently wander away from the spotlight while still relevant is rare bird, indeed, but these fowl do exist as one quickly learns chatting with Canadian folk-rock institution Anne Murray.

The Prescience Of Pastor Wright

Nearly a year ago the New York Times ran a story exploring some of the issues the Obama campaign might have with the candidate's church leader--stressing the progressive and social justice elements of the church, of course, as is the media's wont whenever the hate-monger in the pulpit happens to be a left-winger. The last few graphs are instructive:

Despite the canceled invocation, Mr. Wright prayed with the Obama family just before his presidential announcement. Asked later about the incident, the Obama campaign said in a statement, "Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church."

***

Mr. Wright, who has long prided himself on criticizing the establishment, said he knew that he may not play well in Mr. Obama’s audition for the ultimate establishment job. "If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me," Mr. Wright said with a shrug. "I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen."

And so it came to pass. If Pastor Wright foresaw this, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss his other contentions. Maybe whitey is the devil...

The Naughty Time Revolution

You know any post that begins with "I'm a 52-year-old man with sexual issues" is going to be entertaining, but even that opening salvo does little to prepare you for Philip Weiss' defense of Eliot Spitzer by way of attacking the “widely-upheld pretense that bourgeois American marriage resolves sexual life for all men.” It’s a revolution, Weiss cries! “Gays had their liberation, women had theirs, what about straight married guys?” 

Well, yes, why not? In fact, this very evening I plan to put the proposition to my wife in the plainest possible terms: “Look, we gave you the right to vote. Now you’re going to sign this permission slip saying I can have sex with whatever neighbor or acquaintance is interested in servicing a slightly chubby man’s sexual desires. You’ll do it because we both believe in equality.” Honestly, I’m not that optimistic and the sure-let-my-wife-screw-other-guys! revolution is no doubt a bit further off... More:

In Europe his needs would have a place. Not a place of honor, but a place. In the U.S. we make marriage a sexual stronghold in the midst of a hypersexualized culture, then stoke the men with Viagra like hormone-fed cattle, stroke them with internet porn, politicize married sex as a kind of covenant of citizenship.

Spitzer likely appreciates the support now, but one gets the impression he wouldn’t have been lenient with the supposed prostitution ringleaders he took down if they had only argued they felt like stroked hormone-fed cattle being forced into a puritan covenant. Me? I say legalize it, but let's not celebrate it.

Still, Weiss clearly feels passionately enough about Spitzer’s case to issue rare praise for Alan Dershowitz (“Execrable on Palestinian human rights, he was eloquent on Spitzer's”), whom he normally finds himself at loggerheads with over the vast Israel Lobby complex, as well as Spitzer’s call girl (“beautiful chick, amazing rack”). And if someone such as…Oh, I don’t know, say, Silda Wall Spitzer happens to believe maybe an “amazing rack” doesn’t supersede wedding vows or create an air of nobility, Weiss isn’t having it:

I know what [Spitzer] was thinking; I get it. And all the patronizing talk about men's stupidity bothers me. God made me this way. Any smart wife knows there's an upside.

Yes, quit being so stupid honey, and pass me the checkbook. I've been um, difficult with my special paid lady friend again, and she needs some more cash to accept it's...safe. Lord! “I'm not complaining about marriage,” Weiss insists in his original post, “it's the best thing in my life.” Just potentially not better than a legal, if a bit too pricey, prostitute.