christastrophe

When you are born and your skin is not White, you are born with your head down.

I grew up in a city where I was not a minority, overall. In fact, the culture was dominated by My People. Before I even know what these things mean, I know that they were Important.

But even that young, I noticed. Pulling up to a traffic light, and the pickup truck in front of us is full of lawn equipment and seven workers. None of those workers were ever White.

A long time ago my brother made a sad joke about how we, as a race, are shorter so it makes it easier for us to scrub floors.

In spite of all the cheerleading, in spite of all the fancy people on the cover of Latina magazine or whatever, we are still sub-citizens. I still stay up every once in a while, thinking about that waitress I worked with who told me that being a Mexican was like being a dog.

My scarring brushes with racism have been few and far between, but it is there. I know full well that I have a harder shot. I know I am representative of my race no matter what I do, no matter how much I want to and try to be post-racial. I have dashed away to one of the most liberal cities in the country, mostly to keep myself forever safe from those sorts of things. Still aching from the humiliation of dating a girl from a small town, and she asked me to lay down in the car so her neighbors didn't see her bringing home a Mexican.

But I did it. I fucking did it.

I did it because when your skin is dark you learn to do it. Learn to do what you're told. It's what I try, feebly, to rebel against. But sometimes you just have to take your lumps. It's something I learned from my family's example, something they knew all too well without having to talk much about it. When your options are limited there's not much using in crying over it. Just do whatever you have to do. Just keep going.

I have never had my skull cracked by the cops (not for civil rights, anyway). I have never faced angry mobs, fought the serious fights. I avoided belonging to any sort of minority fraternity until I reluctantly joined the minority theater troupe at UT, which I gave the hilariously inappropriate name "The Drive-By Players". When I'm completely honest with myself I admit that it's out of fear. I don't want to be a minority. I don't want to be pigeon-holed, or deal with any of the limitations. I just want to be me, and I want my thoughts and ideas and talents to be enough.

They aren't, though. I'm reminded of it in times like this, where I return to the casting notices, because I'm bored and I want to try to get a part in a play. And my heart sinks when I realize that the best chance I've got is the one about immigration, or any other "piece" that specifies that "all races and ethnicities are welcome". It's a small thing, probably something white actors never even think about. If I don't see that specific message, I know that I have pretty much no shot. I need permission to enter that room. I have pretty much never been color-blind cast since moving to New York (other than w/ MCT, God bless 'em). It has been a parade of accented dope fiends, illiterates, and Foreigners. Only when I cast myself do I get to play a Normal Human Being. Only when I cast myself can I appear on stage without an accent.

But this is small potatoes, a small price to pay compared to the struggles of those that came before me. When I was born I was allowed to walk into any restaurant in San Antonio. I know that didn't used to be the case. And I know that plenty of faceless Mexicans, with skin like mine, went before me and were murdered, hanged in the city where I grew up, for the crime of being from the came place I am.

It is with these eyes that I watched that speech, that moment last night, and I had to cry. I didn't prepare to, I didn't think I would, but I cried. What exactly it changes remains to be seen. But I never ever in my life thought I would see a minority standing on that stage. It's a grudge I've borne since I was cognizant. I knew it would never happen, no matter how many bullshit "American dream" stories were shoved down our throats in school. I knew America wouldn't let it happen. Not the America I knew. Not the one that pulled me over and searched my car for no reason.

And, God bless him, he barely said a word about it. He knew he didn't have to.

Why do you have to say anything, Barack Obama, when there are pictures like the one up there to tell the story for you?

*****

Last night was monumental for one other enormous reason. Last night Obama made the case for Liberalism, not the Democratic Party but LIBERALISM, and he made it in the simple decent way that I've always understood it.

Ours -- ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

The idea that helping our fellow man, of fulfilling the promise and the wise words set out by Jesus of Nazareth, of doing what is just plain morally decent is somehow something to be sneered at is the greatest perversion of modern time. That is the difference between the two parties, between the two ideologies, as laid out last night.

This is what I believe in, this is what I believe our government is meant to do. Private industry will never have a moral imperative to solve the things that our government should. Private industry has no morals, and answers to no one. I will never understand why they put so much faith in private industry, in these big companies that could give a rat's ass what happens to you. More to the point, if you are angry with private industry, what are you gonna do about it? It's not like the CEO of some insurance company is scared of being voted out of office. It's not like you can start this huge grassroots movement to affect change to some enormous insurance company.

But you can change government. You can hold them accountable. That is the brilliance of the design of our democracy, the brilliance of Jefferson and Adams. We don't always use that power properly, because sometimes we convince ourselves that its useless, but it's there.

I believe we have a moral imperative to help the people who can't help themselves. It drives me crazy to hear these golden-tongued Republicans crying about "welfare cheats" demanding "handouts", and saying nothing of the third-generation Harvard student getting in as a Legacy, or the children of privilege who never have to work a day of their lives. Liberalism deserves to come out of the shadows. It is not a dirty word. A thousand "tax and spend" liberal initiatives don't cost a fraction of a Republican War.

Now, I'm not some fresh-faced optimist and I don't believe that a President Obama is going to fulfill all of these great promises overnight, or solve all the world's problems. He will occasionally stumble and fall. But I believe that things will get better, and that's enough.

About that speech in a moment. First this. The geniuses at John McCain's headquarters ("Cheap fabric, and dim lighting. That's how you move merchandise!") have countered the Dem's historic Big Tent fulfillment of the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King by "breaking" a glass ceiling broken by the Democrats twenty years ago. We welcome to the stage longtime Wonkette GILF, Sarah Palin of Alaska, McCain's pick for VP.

A great achievement! One to be admired! And, as usual, August Pollock has summed it up perfectly:

Palin is governor of a state with a smaller population than Barack Obama's state senate district in Illinois. She has served less than half a term, her largest elected role before that being mayor of a town of 3,000 people. She's currently being investigated for abusing the power of her office. And this is the person who's going to be projected as ready to lead the United States if a 72-year-old McCain keels over? Alrighty then.

Palin eliminates the greatest talking point the GOP has over Obama- that he's not experienced enough to be president- and suggests that their plan will be pulling in disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. Which is really a stunning example of how the Republican Party has no understanding of women whatsoever. I'm sure a few Hillary supporters remain upset that their choice didn't make a ticket, but I don't think McCain picking a younger, prettier, but immensly less-qualified woman to get the promotion Hillary didn't is really going to be a choice move for middle-age female voters.

I'm all for the significance of this nomination and, as a progressive liberal, I enjoy what it represents. But, yeah. What he said.

Barack Obama, the first Black Presidential nominee in the history of the United States of America, will accept the nomination on August 28th, the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. In tribute, the stage where he will deliver his address has been made to look like the front of the Lincoln Memorial, where the famous speech was delivered.

I realized this when I first looked at it, because I have half a brain.

The entire Right Wing blogosphere is trying to give me an aneurysm, however, because they are having a field day with Obama's "Greek temple" that he has built for himself.

The funny thing is that this seems to be mostly based on a Reuters article where the dim-witted reporter referred to the stage as a "Greek temple" ("similar to structures used for rock concerts"). The writer, apparently assuming that pretty much every single monument and building in Washington DC is a Greek temple, went with the terminology and it has stuck.

It's dumbness beyond what I can fathom. I am done with the world. Like, if they attacked him for the chutzpah of comparing himself to Martin Luther King, that would at least be a valid point that would involve some level of knowledge of very very very basic history/architecture. But here everybody is basically sticking their fingers in their nose, inspecting their fingers, tasting their fingers, and then saying, "Dur whooo that shore looks fuhnneee!"

I try to be empathetic in situations like these and think about what I would be doing had Obama lost the nomination. But I look at videos like this and I just don't know what to do with myself.

And maybe there's a part of that which, ultimately, is the magical thing about politics. It's so great to see, for the first time in our lifetimes, candidates in a race that can actually bring out real human emotions other than angry confrontation (we have that all the time). There's a part of me that finds it really spectacular that Hillary Clinton supporters are crying this hard.

Of course, if the roles were reversed and this was an Obama delegate crying this hard, the story would be about the Obamessiah's Cult of Personality Kool Aid Jim Jones Hah hah ahaa. But it's Clintards, so it's about Respect and Closure.

The thing is, the hard fact is, there is literally nothing that can be done for these people. Nothing. There is nothing Clinton can say, nothing Obama can say that has not been said that will help these people. The only thing Obama can say that will make them feel better is, "I'm a stupid Doodyhead and Hillary is the President forever I quit." And that would make sense, because that is the emotional level we're dealing with here.

Yes, it is sad. But, if you're a Hillary Clinton supporter, as she said last night, WHY were you a Hillary Clinton supporter? Because if it's for any, y'know, issues, helping John McCain get elected is a really dumb way of acting out. And make no mistake, this is acting out.

I mean, the thing about this video up there, and of all interviews like it, and pretty much every post at No Quarter, is that it's not like Obama is Tom DeLay or something, like the choice is between two big mean Conservative Men. This Clinton supporter up there goes on and on about how she dreamed of a greener economy and better health care and all of that is GONE NOW, GONE!

Well, it's not gone. President Barack Obama will deliver it to you. But he can't do that if you vote for John McCain, or stay home on voting day. So then you can keep crying your thousands of tears for the loss of your green economy, for the loss of your health care and your international reputation, and you'll have only yourself to blame, you selfish pig.

*****

Wow, this post degenerated quickly, huh?

*****

I can't mask it, man. This election is too important, and I try to be empathetic but the global realities being what they are it just seems really silly that we have to stand around in one place and hold these people's little hands. It's like we're being chased by a werewolf, and our eight year old son is crying because we left his blanket in the car, and he refuses to run and GODDAMMIT, KYLE, GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR BEFORE THE WEREWOLF EATS OUR FUCKING FACES.

"No. I'd rather get my face eaten off by the werewolf than live life without - AAAAH! MY FACE!! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO MEEEE!!!!"

And, like, I'd feel less passionately about this if this was some kind of a hypothetical, like we didn't have incredibly recent history to compare this to. Think of, oh, 2000, and all those selfish asshole Nader voters who said, "Gore and Bush are basically the same person". Well, idiots, they're not basically the same person. President Gore, after being impeached for allowing 9/11 to happen, would never have authorized the War in Iraq, because he was impeached. President Lieberman would have, after nuking Iran.

This isn't insignificant. I don't want to be werewolf food. The difference between supporting Obama and apathy/active support of McCain is the answer to the question, "Do you want your children to go to war against Iran, China, and Russia?" Because, make no mistake, THAT WILL HAPPEN. Who do you think is gonna be in McCain's cabinet, Clintards? D'ya think it might be Bill Clinton? Perhaps Hillary, and that nice Howard Wolfson? Or, more realistically, perhaps all the old war hawks that John McCain has been working alongside for years. Who knows? Maybe a few guys can even keep their current offices, just for convenience sake.

I understand bitterness, and I understand the loss involved and how a period of disappointment and mourning is normal. But that's about as far as I can go. Anything beyond that is just plain old selfishness or projection.

And recognizing the projection is important here. Because there is no policy reason to support Clinton and not Obama. If you're a Clinton supporter, pretty much all of your policies will still be intact with a President Obama. So what's the problem? Experience? They said the same thing about Bill, which I'm sure you ignored. SO what then?

Oh, right. The Lady thing.

Look, I'm not gonna pretend here. I know I'm not an Obama guy because of ideology (in that department I'm a Russ Feingold type of liberal bruiser). Obama is too centrist for me, but I like him for the most part, and I won't pretend - I love that he's Black. I love the idea of a minority in the White House. I won't deny that it makes me feel good. I'd love to be a Mexican with a Black man in the White House. Do you even KNOW how great it feels to be walking around Bed-Stuy and seeing Obama signs in the store windows, Obama buttons sod on the street? Obama signs and shirts being air-brushed like he's Michael Jordan or something. It's great, man. And I won't deny that, had he lost, I'd be grumbling about racism. Hell, I'm still grumbling about racism just because he's not polling as well as he should.

There is some discussion of this in some places, and I think it merits some real attention because it's important. And it's not even meant to diminish Hillary Clinton's accomplishments or the reasons people backed her. But if you look at her supporters, one demographic refuses to budge toward Obama: middle-aged women. And the most current Gallup poll showed a drop in married women.

Ladies, let's not pretend.

We know why you're mad. We know why you cry. You're not crying because Clinton's health plan called for full universal coverage and Obama's fell short of that. You're not crying over differences in Iranian diplomatic policy.

And I say that out of respect, because it's more real. Realer than the issues, even. When you see something of yourself in a public figure, in a movement, it's hard to tear away. Travis wrote an exceptional post, which I agree with entirely, on how being from San Antonio makes you identify yourself with the Spurs, so it absolutely crushes you when they lose and it makes you invincible when they win.

Without this sort of projection, we're nothing (and by We, I mean artists and consumers of art). We need this connection.

The loss of The Presidency of Hillary Clinton isn't a disappointment because her policy papers are so great, it's because she's a woman, and having a woman President would have made these women feel great. Just like I feel great about a minority President. We need to admit that and talk about that more openly. Because there is no rational, policy-based reason to not support Barack Obama. It's all personal, and that shit has to fade. There has to be a point where these PUMA's and PUMA-lites have to just admit, their girl lost. Their girl ran a shitty, 20th Century campaign and were beaten by a team of really great political strategists who just straight up built a better mousetrap.

So Alex Jones and his various assorted crazies took time off from jabbering about black helicopters or whatever and showed up at the DNC to protest because they hate the Democrats for various reasons. And then Michelle Malkin showed up and started taking pictures of everybody, presumably for a fair-minded and balanced oh who am I kidding I can't even type this sentence. She's there to find the weirdest idiots she can post their pictures (and, hey, their addresses maybe) and try to tie them to mainstream liberals and say, "See?"

So Alex Jones sees Michelle Malkin and starts yelling at her, for various reasons. Alex Jones does not, in general, need reasons to yell.

This becomes, in the mind of Gateway Pundit:
"Leftists Ambush Michelle Malkin!"

And, OK.

If Alex Jones is a "leftist" I'm a cold bowl of cereal. If Alex Jones is a "leftist" then I'm a car battery in July. You can argue back and forth about how exactly to categorize Alex Jones' Crazed Libertarian deal, but pretty much all you need to know is that he thinks Obama is a secret Muslim. HE'S NOT ONE OF OURS.

Second, I'm not sure how Michelle Malkin got "ambushed" by, uh, showing up at a pre-scheduled demonstration. Like, Alex Jones showing up at the hotel bar during Malkin's "Lock Up All the Coloreds Except For Me"-themed cocktail hour, that's an ambush.

Third, I love seeing all the commentors on GP's site saying, basically, "Alex Jones, like all liberals, hates freedom of speech, so someone ought to lock him in jail for what he just said."

(And, subset of point the Third, kudos to all of the idiots on GP's site linking the behavior of people protesting the DNC with the DNC itself. "This is what Democrats are like." No, asshole. The Democrats are inside the building. Nice try, though.)

Fourth, Alex Jones is an asshole, but if you think some random guy in the background yelling "Kill Michelle Malkin" translates to a literal attempt on Michelle Malkin's life, as though the guns and knives were about to come out, you're an idiot. THIS IS AN ATTEMPT ON SOMEONE'S LIFE, stupid. (Oh, hey, look at the names of the guys who got arrested. It appears that Nyet was on a meth prowl, like he does.)

Fifth, I hate Alex Jones and Michelle Malkin so so so very much that I really really really wanted them to lock eyes at some point while he was screaming at her and then, "Shut up and kiss me!" and they get married and have the babies.

They got a standing ovation.

Of course they did. We drank a bottle of Knob Creek and watched the DVD to wish them luck. My wife indulged my self-obsession, which is one of the many reasons why she's so great.

At 8:45 EST I raised a toast and said, "Their SM just gave them 15 minutes."

At 9:00 EST I said, "They're on stage. He's doing it."

Somewhere, hours before that, Damien decided he didn't like Colleen anymore and tried to kill her.


It should be noted that Colleen, Sara and I have a weekly happy hour (that is so not weekly, mostly because of Colleen and her fabulous goings-on) and had Colleen made it to happy hour this week she would have been too hungover to ride her bike. And, to her credit, she admits as much. Also, thank you Damien for not taking Colleen from us because she's excellent.

So Darren (mojodragonfly) has been around these parts for years, having been an early supporter of In the Middle of the Ocean and somehow stumbling upon this journal years later. His LJ is friends only, but if you knock I'm sure he'll let you into his world of great poetry, stunning photographs, and tales of raising his precocious ten-year old son Connor. It's great stuff.

Darren's fallen on some hard luck recently, and if Fortuna has her way he'll wind up with seven less houses than John McCain (zero).

If you're in Austin, he's offering his services if, in his words you "have a crappy job, or some time consuming piece of crap something or other that you need to get done, and wish you had someone to do it for you".

That probably won't help most of you, but if I were you I'd take a look at his Flickr photostream and see if any of these prints interest you at all.

Here's my pitch: Hey, all you Austin ex-pats! Sitting around wishing you had at least one crystal clear perfect little breathtaking photo on your wall of your old stomping grounds, to remind you of that afternoon at Bull Creek or the time you were at Campbell's Hole and they dared you to jump off that really high rock and you jumped and you felt like The Man?? Or, perhaps, you're just in the market for a picture of Lynn Mikeska in pirate stockings.

It's all here. Personally, once I get paid tomorrow I'm going for the B&W ferris wheel, because we're like that. They're great photos, and $35 for an 8x10 would do a lot to help out a good guy in need. (darren.german@gmail.com)

(Oh and, hey Darren, since your LJ is locked I'll be sure and lock this up in a day or so if you'd prefer. Just wanted to get word out to friends who don't have LJ accounts. Thanks.)

*****

Meanwhile, tonight is the opening night for In the Middle of the Ocean: Starring Hakeem Olajuwon. So....WHOOPEEEE! I'm terrified for them, I can feel the 1st day jitters in my bones, and I just hope they have a blast. It's a fun little machine and I'm glad to share it.

We used to, as our warm-up, go into the back alley behind The Hideout and sing a song together, arm in arm, at the top of our idiot lungs. So, in honor of the guys at Melusine Theater Company:

Break a leg, guys.

Who knows exactly how accurate it is, but this is incredible news. Apparently those horrible assholes in the Bush administration finally got around to doing something sensible and, according to the Wall Street Journal, have set a timetable for leaving Iraq:

BAGHDAD -- U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal of combat troops from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the goal date by which U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, American troops will be leaving cities, towns and other population centers by the summer of 2009, living in bases outside of those areas, according to the draft.

Teams of American and Iraqi negotiators spent months haggling over the deal, which represents a remarkable turnaround from just a few months ago, when talk of timetables and deadlines was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and other Republicans in Washington.

I'm absolutely shocked. I don't know what to do with this. This is great news. Good, smart, practical. What is Bush thinking? He's always been against this. What happened?

Of course, the speculation turns immediately to the election. I'm honestly not as optimistic as Kevin Drum. He's right: this is a HUGE victory for Democrats and Obama, who have been calling for this forever, who had this plan endorsed publicly by Maliki during Obama's World Your, and who can claim total ownership in the vein of "finally George Bush has come around to the wisdom we already had."

But I wouldn't discount the sharp messaging of the GOP. They are going to scream, and all of their little minions are going to join in, over and over about how this is the result of The Surge and it was John McCain's Incredible Leadership that made this possible. Nevermind that they didn't endorse this plan, that they dismissed it outright, that McCain has been talking for months about how Obama's timetable plan is tantamount to defeat (which he's tied to Obama's cynical political ambitions). There will be no apology, there will be no corrections. They will claim this is what they wanted all along, because they are shameless. And the media will let them get away with it, I 100% guarantee you. I call it here: within two or three weeks, if this deal goes through, the question from the pundits will be, "Will Obama Acknowledge the Success of the Troop Surge now that the troops can come home?"

You want proof? Take the example of McCain taking credit for the Anbar Awakening. The surge hadn't even started yet, wasn't even talked about yet, when this internal revolution took place in Anbar province. McCain outright lied on national television. Got history wrong, and not even ancient history. It was an empirical, provable lie. When he was confronted with it, he just kept lying and smiling. And no one has spoken about it for a month, because it didn't have Paris Hilton.

Make no mistake, they will claim credit. And, no, Kevin Drum. It's not weak spin. Or, OK, it is. But that doesn't mean it won't work. They'll just keep saying, "And now, thanks to the judgment of John McCain, those troops are coming home!"

(Of course, that same judgment chose to enter this disastrous, pointless war in the first place. And that judgment shorted the actual important factors in the drop in violence, namely the turning of public opinion in Iraq against Al Queda and the cease fire by Sadr).

(And also, let us never forget, the sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, a enforced segregation that put an end to civil war because, well, everybody either died or became refugees).

Anyhoo, politics aside this is great. There is actually an end to this in sight, and we didn't have to wait for a President Obama to bring it. Now we just have to hope that President Obama can refine this policy before President McCain has a chance to dismantle it and attack Russia.

*****

Also, this is dumb silly season kind of stuff, but I love that everyone's picking up on the fact that John McCain, the Man of the People, can't even remember how many houses he owns. But don't you forget that Obama's an elitist, because he grew up poor, raised by a single mother, and worked his way up to law school.

*****

Finally, this new study shows that late night comedians are laying off Obama and going after McCain and the Clintons (remember?). And, because Richard Cohen let me down this week, the comedy Gods gave me another edition of Humorless Conservatives Try Their Hand at Comedy. Prefaced, as per usual with statements like, "Why, the jokes practically write themselves. Here's a couple I came up with off the cuff:"

Obama should have been suspicious the first time he visited Bill Ayer's house. The Threat Level Sign outside his door was clearly set to Orange.

*****

Obama is having a conversation with Bill Ayers while visiting Ayer's office. Obama is reading the plaques on Ayers' wall.

"Bill, what's this plaque for?"

"Barry, I got that award for my program to assist elementary school children."

"How about that one over there?"

"Oh, that's my Terrorist of the Year award from Weather Underground."

*****

What no one seems to understand is it’s a good thing that Ayers is a major supporter of Obama. The thing about Ayers is, when he tells you someone is "the bomb, yo!" he speaks from experience.

*****

Obama and Ayers are having dinner together in a Chicago restaurant.

Ayers gets up to use the bathroom.

When he comes out of the bathroom, he rushes right past their table and out of the restaurant.

Seconds later a bomb explodes in the bathroom blowing debris into the dining room.

Barack stands up and shouts, "I have no idea who that man was."

I...OK, I have to go somewhere and cry. And, like, listen to something funnier, like cats dying.

Do you remember that one Bloom County, from Night of the Mary Kay Commandos, and they show the Bloom County Animal Testing Facility, and it's some guy from their syndicate showing potential comic strips to a room full of bunnies, and one joke is so bad that it stuns all the bunnies into a catatonic shock? Yeah. That.

Hey, Sleazy: is it my imagination, or is that Dominie's/Ramblas regular and frequent Ghost Runner supporter Fireman John with a huge spread in today's Daily News? Cuz if it isn't, he needs to pretend that it is, cuz it sure looks an awful lot like him.

Fireman John, per this article, engaged in great heroics:

When firefighter John Jacovina pulled her from the crumbled Sheetrock and shattered glass, he feared Duaa Al Ghaithi would not live to see her sixth birthday.

She had been burned over 60% of her body in a ferocious gas explosion that ripped through her Harlem apartment building, killing her mother.

Jacovina could barely believe his eyes on Wednesday as Duaa climbed in his lap, flashed him a big grin and gave her hero a tender and appreciative peck on the cheek.

"I always wanted to see her again - she's really cute," the 37-year-old firefighter gushed.

*****

Jacovina of Ladder 14 and Lt. Tom Keery of Ladder 26 teamed up and entered the wrecked apartment with little hope. Then they heard the cries of Duaa and Lina from beneath the rubble.

"She must have heard us, she let out a cry; then we knew exactly where she was," said Jacovina. "The Sheetrock had fallen and made kind of a teepee. We pulled it off of her, and there she was, standing up with her arms open."

Firefighter Jermaine Martin, 31, recalled Jacovina and Keery emerging from the apartment building with Duaa and Lina in their strong arms.

"I felt bad for them, they were so tiny," Martin said. "They were burned pretty bad. They definitely look good now."

Duaa's father, Rassas Al Ghaithi, embraced each of the firefighters who saved his children on their darkest day, hugging Jacovina the longest.

Tears filled the 29-year-old Yemenite immigrant's eyes, and his voice was choked with gratitude. "Oh, my God," he said. "Thank you so much. Thank you, brother."

This is totally rad. Again, I don't know if this is our Fireman John. But if it is, Dominie's Hoek has a board where you can put money up and anybody can buy a drink for anybody. Just sayin'.

And even if it isn't him, you might as well buy Fireman John a drink anyway, cuz he's hysterical.

If there's a rock and roll heaven, you know they've got a hell of a horn section as of today.

We lost two massive talents yesterday: Johnny "Dizzy" Moore of The Skatalites died of cancer at the age of 70, and LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band died of complications from, of all things, an ATV accident about a month ago. Johnny Moore played trumpet, LeRoi Moore saxophone.

I happened to be hanging out with just the right crowd in the early 90's, when fundraiser dances for Amnesty International just turned into big ska parties. I've done my share of skanking, and partied to my share of Skatalites. This is sad news, man. But nice work if you can get it - the original lineup of the Skatalites was only together for a year, apparently. I was unaware of that.

LeRoi Moore makes me sad because I love my Bug. He's long held his DMB banner over his head, weathering any attacks to his character that come along with it. I've never owned an album, but I've become a staunch defender. There's not a single guy on stage with Dave Matthews who doesn't smoke pretty much every other musician out there. It's not my stylistic cup of tea all the time, but they have my absolute total respect as musicians. They absolutely smoke it, and LeRio's sax was a huge part of defining what that great jam sounded like.

So, in honor of the man, here's LeRoi with DMP doing what they do best: absolutely crushing it live with an extended jam. The comments on YouTube are pretty devastating, too. Somebody wrote "it just seems unreal....i saw him live over 40 times and to think that i will never see him again is just unfathomable. leroi will be missed greatly"

I started the Richard Cohen Project as a weird way to make fun of Richard Cohen, and also as a writing exercise for myself. So, in that spirit, I'm gonna give TRCP a week off, because I feel the need to actually man up and salute Richard Cohen and say that this is the smartest column I've read about the conflict between Russia and Georgia. There is literally nothing for me to grab a hold of and mock. It is a first. No soapy platitudes, no lame cultural references, no inadvertently horrible metaphors. Just a really well-written column.

So, awesome. I am uninspired to mockery, Richard Cohen. You've won this round, and you've done it by being a level-headed realist:

Last year, Brent Scowcroft described to the Council on Foreign Relations his "most difficult judgment call" as George H.W. Bush's national security adviser. It entailed preparing Bush for an early morning news conference regarding an attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Later on, Scowcroft was asked about the first Bush administration's decision to look the other way as Saddam Hussein's attack helicopters slaughtered Shiites in the south of Iraq. He seemed unmoved. It is not for nothing that he is called a "realist."

Now I, too, would like to become a realist -- if just for a day. I'd like to ask who among us is willing to fight to bring South Ossetia back into the Georgian fold? How about Abkhazia? These are the ethnic enclaves that Georgia claims and Russia -- not to put too fine a point on it -- supports. They are the immediate reasons for the recent war.

I ask my nasty little questions because it has been the policy of the current Bush administration to have Georgia as well as Ukraine admitted to NATO. This would mean that if either country got into a dust-up with its neighbor Russia, we would scramble the jets, stoke up the usual talk radio personalities and sally into yet another lovely war. Before this happens, can we at least debate whether this is a good idea? Cynic that I am, I have my doubts.

The whole thing is good and he's right. And this pops up from time to time, any time there's some regional conflict somewhere, people start talking about Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Germany invading Poland and whatever else, and the only reason for it is straight up bloodlust. People love war. People love to see their country asserting itself, so they get excited about the prospect of this tiny regional conflict, ANY tiny regional conflict, inflating itself into World War III. Then Vietnam what? Afghanistan who? We must defeat the new Hitler, for he is easily defined as evil!

Anytime I hear anybody talk like this I picture them in Superman underoos. It makes CNN more bearable.

Why do they like war so much? Why do they salivate every time some tiny skirmish breaks out? "This is it! Now Iran's going to side with the fruit cart vendors and England will side with the hot dog vendors and China and North Korea will join Iran and we and the Australians will defend the stake the hot dog vendor has for this corner and then BLASTO! We dominate the woooooooorld!!"

It's like bad kids. Like children. They want so so so so bad to break things, any excuse to break things. Any excuse to smash Iran's face in, even though they pose no actual threat to us. Any excuse to, in the sage words of Jonah Goldberg, "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." These are the big words of cowards, the easy words of shit-stained little men who will never actually be the ones to do the "throwing" (the patrolling, the shooting, the being shot, the being dismembered and torn to pieces, the nightmares for years from memories of dismembering and tearing to pieces). These are soft little boys in air conditioned rooms, where it's so easy to sound so goddamned tough.

War is occasionally a sad necessity, but to these horrible creatures it's just a game. A gleeful, exciting game. For them there is no debate about whether we should go to war over some tiny skirmish that will work itself out in a week or two. There is only the thrill rising in their chest that "Oh boy this could be The One!!"

So, way to go Richard Cohen. Great column.

All of which is to say that (in spite of the fact that yes yes polls don't mean anything in the summer when nobody's actually paying attention and the conventions haven't even started) I'm amazed that John McCain has taken a national lead in the polls. In poll after poll after poll, without a name attached to it, the country prefers Obama's policies (tax hike on rich, pulling out of Iraq on timetable, pro-choice, diverting billions to investment in renewables, etc). Most of these polls aren't even close. But they prefer McCain when a name is attached to it. They trust him more to handle the economy, even though they disagree with his economic policies. America, do you need Bernie Mac to come back to life to get in your face?

That just says to me that (a) brainless attack ads work and (b) people is fo' dumb.

*****UPDATE*****
Didn't see this, but this poll pretty much makes my point again. Middle class voters overwhelmingly prefer liberal positions on things like health care and immigration, but the more liberal candidate is still tied with the conservative. What makes people vote against the guy who will do what they want, other than effective "branding" (read: "personality-based innuendo and attacks").

You head it here first, unless you heard it somewhere else first, and hell maybe its wrong and more likely than not its a red herring. But BarackObama.com and OBAMASEBELIUS.COM are both owned by the Obama campaign. OBAMABAYH.COM, OBAMAKAINE.COM, and OBAMABIDEN.COM are not.

A source inside Obama's ad agency has apparently leaked that "the discussions there are regarding material logistics in terms of Kathleen on the vice president ticket."

So there you have it. It's definitely Joe Biden.

The simple truth is that Obama should stay on vacation for another week. His poll numbers will shoot up dramatically. The thing is, McCain has absolutely nothing without demonizing Obama. He can't offer any huge brilliant ideas because he really doesn't have any. He's not generating any enthusiasm among his supporters. And yet the race is neck and neck because the usual readymade off-the-rack "My opponent (insert name of Democrat here) is a raging liberal who will raise your taxes and San Francisco and France."

It works remarkably well, particularly on the raw cookie dough that is the Uninformed Conservative Brain. Anybody who, at this point, thinks that Obama is a Muslim. There is no candy-coating it. They are idiots.

But everybody's sick to death of this thing already and we haven't even hit the conventions yet. It's all silliness at this point. And I could give a crap about the Religious Forum thing that happened over the weekend (Obama was never gonna come out of that thing on top, even if John McCain showed up blind drunk with his pants around his knees). And, apparently, there is some controversy over whether or not John McCain "cheated" at this event by not being in his sound-proof booth before coming out and playing Family Feud. I could give a shit.

I agree with this guy:

But the fact that McCain may have had a slight advantage isn't what caught my eye. What did was how sanctimonious his campaign got when asked about the situation by the press. Here's the New York Times:

Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous," Ms. Wallace said.

That's pretty bold, isn't it? The assumption is that McCain is above question in this, and basically every, situation because he is a former prisoner of war.

Look, I respect John McCain's experience in Vietnam. Don't assume otherwise because I'm a DFH blogger. But this sort of thing happens all the time. McCain always insists that he doesn't like talking about his POW experience ("One of the things I've never tried to do is exploit my Vietnam service to my country because it would be totally inappropriate to do," he once said), and the mainstream media always buys it. But in actuality McCain has made his war service the centerpiece of many of his advertisements and videos, and he discusses it regularly.

For example, when Obama criticized McCain for not supporting the more generous version of the GI Bill that recently passed Congress, McCain responded, "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."

I had the same reaction, and I've been seeing more and more of this (most hilariously, last week when Sean Hannity used McCain's time in a POW camp as an excuse for him cheating on his crippled first wife, a good seven years after he'd returned from Vietnam). And I hope that somebody asks him about it, hopefully somewhere public where the cameras can show McCain completely lose it and turn into the terrible asshole he's rumored to be behind closed doors. Personally, it makes me sick and it's such a crybaby pussy move. "McCain's budget doesn't make any sense, and will actually spiral the US further into debt." "YOU DARE QUESTION A FORMER PRISONER OF WARR?????"

This won't get us anywhere, and it showed itself last week with McCain dancing solo on the whole Georgia/Russia thing. Threatening Russia (while we have no military whatsoever to do anything) is a really dumb idea, dumber than even Bush. It's a sad day when George W. Bush makes you look like an undiplomatic idiot.

Anyway, since Jon Stewart is our country's most respected newsman, I hope he can get on the case with this dumb Military Service thing. The Reluctant Warrior John McCain cannot stop talking about how he doesn't like talking about his POW camp experience, or working it into every other sentence, which it pains him to do, but he'll do it anyway, if only to tell you that he doesn't like to do it. Maybe Giuliani can teach him the subtleties of working in little nuggets like that ("Well, as the mayor during the 9/11 attacks, I can tell you that the shrimp scampi is excellent here.")

For rules of The Richard Cohen Project click here.

I think Richard Cohen is trying to kill me. He's aware of the Richard Cohen Project and he's trying to give me a goddamned aneurysm.

So I was too hungover/tired to do my usual installment of TRCP on Tuesday (thanks to the Spaniard show at The Delancey), so I put it off until today. And then, it turns out, the guy went ahead and did a special Thursday edition of his column! What was so great that he couldn't wait until next Tuesday to file?

It is this. It is columns like this that made me choose Richard Cohen over, say, Michael Goldfarb. Richard Cohen is doing his own thing, The Barack Obama Project, where he's writing fan fic about what Obama is thinking about on vacation. It has it all: hack political writing incorporating DC conventional wisdom, a tin ear, and a throwaway boomer reference in the form of a citation of a line from a popular Bob Dylan song. As punishment for all these transgressions I'm having lil' Rich Cohen crap his pants this week.

Anyway, time for his usual Tuesday goodness. Once again, he has treated me well:

Russia is mighty; Georgia is not. Russia is huge; Georgia is tiny. The whole thing is a mismatch from the word go, and the Georgians -- when it is appropriate to do so -- have to be reminded that you do not poke a sleeping bear with a stick.

*****

It is also a refreshing reminder that sprinkling BMW dealerships hither and yon in this or that country does not, in the end, change the culture all that much. Russia, as my grandmother could have told George W. Bush, always fights dirty.

*****

He likes the West. But he ought to be reminded that the West no longer likes him. That, too, is reality.

( Always fighting dirty... )

Happy Fifth Birthday, Blackout!

Twas five years ago today that I looked out the window at my job in Times Square, saw that all of the flashing lights had gone dead along with our own, and braced myself for aliens to start punching Will Smith in the street. And then the feeble sound of somebody caught in the elevator a floor and a half down.

I was supposed to play a gig at Sleazy's bar that night (a solo set at that BBQ joint he worked in/managed for a hot minute), so I had my acoustic with me. I lugged that dumb bastard home to Greenpoint across the 59th street bridge. It took three hours.

Eric was kind enough to walk over and check on me, and let me know that Bina was safe and sound in the city. And we drank a beer or two, but not more than that because I had no cash and (obvs) no ATM. Bars were open, candlelit and rowdy. One place had a back-up generator run by a guy on a bicycle. I drank two 40's of Bud and played my acoustic in my apartment until I passed out.

However, I look at pictures from that Gothamist article there and I realize I missed out on the Bacchanaliaist night evah, and that sort of regret does not sit well with me. Then again, hangover with no A/C or fans would probably not have rested well with me, either. Still, you hear about the big dumb parties with the lights out that people had all over the place (and the big weird celebration that erupted anyway at Sleazy's bar "You should have come anyway!!") and I feel like I wasted a perfectly good opportunity to do something monumentally stupid.

Ah well. I don't really like monumentally stupid things anymore. Too many dumb fights. Just sayin'.

Ha ha HA! Get it?? It's funny because yesterday the Democratic party chairman in Arkansas was gunned down, weeks after a right wing lunatic shot up a liberal church! Ha! Still don't get it? It's really subtle humor, which probably escapes you humorless liberals. Ha!

Anyway, on the real son, far Right wing pundits have spent the past fifteen years or so drilling into their millions of listeners/viewers the idea that all of their problems can be blamed on Liberals, Democrats, and immigrants. And if you were to make some sort of connection between that and people beating and killing Liberals, Democrats and immigrants well, damn son, you'd probably be pretty much clinically insane to think something as ludicrous as that. (h/t TMW)

*****

Oh and hey, while I'm being flippant and brief, really John McCain? "We are all Georgians?" Really? We all used our military to crush dissent in our own country in a narcissistic attempt to rally possible Western allies to our side, using fears of World War III as blackmail in our own little regional conflict, with the endgame of increasing our international clout? Because I don't remember doing that.

This is what I hate about American politics, punditry and media. Everybody just wants to know "OK, who's the Bad Guys, who's the Good Guys, who's the Liberals, who's the Republicans? Who does Bush like? Who would be played by Harrison Ford in the movie?" It's just like the shit Reagan pulled with The Contras in the 80's, and we were just that dumb then. The simple fact is there aren't any real good guys in my estimation here, and its nowhere near as simple as John McCain or a lot of pundits are making it out to be. But, y'know, "The Great Russian Bear" and all.

It's creepy. It's like watching conservative pundits get drunk and call their old girlfriends, but it's live on national television and it's embarrassing for everyone.

I didn't want to write about this at all, because it's the dumbest thing since boiled candy, but this new John McCain ad is hilariously dumb and also bad and also dumb and ugly and poorly made and bad. It's the latest in the line of "That Obama, He Thinks He's So Cool But He's So NOT" ads, and it's horrible.

First of all, fine - there are lots of people who support Obama who aren't the brightest bulbs in the world. That's true of all candidates forever everywhere. I pray Obama's people don't (but OK, pray that Somebody does) but it would be so much more hilariously bad and wonderful if they made a commercial of the dumbest McCain supporters they could find. Because the whole idea is to swing moderates, to say, "You don't want to be like these idiots." But this is a funny road to go down, because I'm sure most moderates would rather hang out with the Kind of Clueless Young People than the Angry Racist Guy Who Keeps Calling Obama a Bad Racist Word and Kicking His Dog.

But I digress. The thing that slipped by me, that irritated me but went away, was the bumper at the end where they showed a sixteen-year old clip of a catchphrase that died long ago: Wayne and Garth saying "We're not worthy!" to Alice Cooper.

Now, perhaps some of you were acolytes of one Wayne Campbell and his best friend Garth Algar, and perhaps you even had a baseball cap that said "Wayne's World" on it that you wore everywhere, including on The Rattler at Fiesta Texas, where it flew off your head on that first big drop, but the park workers were nice enough to retrieve it for you. Perhaps you are familiar with their myriad sayings, such as "'No way.' 'Way.'" or "These pretzels are making me thirsty."

Two things come up here. First of all, it comes out that Mike Meyers had them pull the clip because the inclusion of a scene from Wayne's World violates copyright law. And, uh, if your job, if your ONLY JOB is in media/advertising/etc, don't you think that you'd be familiar with the most basic laws concerning copyright infringement, of clearance and permissions? The ineptitude of this campaign is just brutal.

Secondly, I know they're not trying to be hip. That's not the point, and I guess I can appreciate that. Of all the pandering John McCain is doing, at least he's not walking around in crocs making bad jokes referencing Jonas Brothers songs or whatever. ("I agree with Katy Perry - I kissed a girl and I liked it, too! And she's right here! My wife, Cyndi. Make out with one of these girls, Cyndi.")

The story is written and clear. Obama attracts younger people, McCain skews older, and keeps the demographic of older white people without college educations out of Obama's grasp. McCain's shoring up his support from people who don't know and don't care that referencing Wayne's World is really, really dorky. In fact, this ad probably delighted them. I mean, this is a guy who still talks about "Czechoslovakia", for God's sake. If we can't keep him up to date on geopolitical affairs how can be expect him to know that Dana Carvey does not, in fact, get mobbed everywhere he goes.

"And I sincerely believe that Barack Obama has the skills and experience necessary to lead this country into the new millennium...NOT!" Huge applause line.

Anyway, I can't wait until the McCain campaign makes some sort of joke out of a New Kids on the Block song or the Macarena or something. A pet rock. In fact, that'll be our drinking game for the GOP convention. Anytime somebody makes a cultural reference that's older than Abigail Breslin we have to chug three tall boys of Coors Light and a shot of tequila. I'll see all of you in the emergency room.

I don't get this. So, Obama's doing his big speech in Colorado, right? The acceptance speech in the football stadium, right? And tickets are free, but you have to enter yourself in a lottery, right? And you can increase your chances of getting tickets and getting better seats if you volunteer for the campaign, right? But it's not mandatory - you just have to take your chances if you opt not to volunteer.

It makes pretty perfect sense to me. It's a good idea, and it encourages people to help out. And if you don't want to, you don't have to. You just have to live with the idea that maybe you won't get in.

Of course, I am not Completely Off My Rocker Insane, like some people over there on the right, so it would never occur to me to make the logical jump that, say, this Michelle Malkin reader makes when he writes:

We’re witnessing his Marxist mentality in action. Marxists use positive words to hide their true intentions and anyone showing disloyalty or a lack of enthusiasm better watch out.

Next is the picnic at the reeducation camps that were so popular in Communist countries once they achieved victory. It is all the same codespeak and we should be wary whenever they speak that way. Ultimately, everyone is a pawn to these people and the only Have’s in their society will be for those on top. Scary stuff if you really think about it.

Now, I know its unfair to take one batshit lunatic and make him represent everyone, but I just picked the most well-written of the dozens of similar comments on this board. And the comments section of the original article is no better, with a few Hillary supporters saying, "See! Hillary was right! Hillary never asked us to do a thing!"

And, well, of course Hillary never asked you to do a thing. She needed all the warm bodies she could get. Obama is going to have to turn away people from a venue that seats 72,000. No Presidential candidate in recent history can equal that level of enthusiasm and demand.

And, secondly. Yeah. "We never put in any hours for Gore or Kerry, and look how great those campaigns turned out!"

Man. If I were Obama I'd want to be in Hawaii right now, too. Can't win for losing. And I guess that's a notch in the Win column for McCain and Hillary supporters, that they've been able to successfully spin as a negative the fact that the biggest problem with Obama is that he's too popular and has injected too much enthusiasm into the political process.

Per Nate's request yesterday I finally got off my luddite ass and downloaded a DVD ripper. And, voila, the first ten minutes of In the Middle of the Ocean.

I only uploaded two segments, which is all I'm gonna upload because crappy videos always take the magic out of theater, but watching my brother play a guitar solo blindfolded is worth all the distorted pixels in China.

This is really starting to get weird, man. Both Sleazy and my brother wrote to me last night about it, and Bug and I have talked on it for a while. We're all pretty much in the same place, because we all have a sense of ownership (the song used in the promo video, which underscores the tale of the old pirate from the ghost ship, is after all titled "Cap'n Sleazy's Pirate Stomp"). It's not just that they're using my words and music, they're using arrangements and choices that we arrived at as a group, as a family.

Hell, I may have written the show, but every single song was really arranged by Junebug and I. We spent weeks working through each song until it was perfect, before we even brought in Sleazy and Aaron (which then, of course, led to further refinement). And Aaron contributed the underscore music for the preacher scene and so many other little musical/theatrical moments that were just pure Outer Space Magic. This is all of us.

God, and then all those hours of refinement and discussions and arguments with Maria and Louis. I had forgotten how hard we worked on this show. Doing it ten minutes at a time in Maria and Louis's living room, then taking breaks to wire the switches for the set. God, the thrill of testing that thing out for the first time in their driveway, this enormous monster with lights all over it and big pivoting arms and chains. Still can't believe we never caught on fire.

Everybody worked themselves to death on this show. Even Maria's kids, handing out flyers in front of the Ontological Hysteric theater.

There's so much there, and it's bringing up tons of old memories and old feelings of how great it is to work really hard on something and have it pay off, have it be worth it. And also how great it was that one time we were pissed about this or that and we all got completely hammered before the show (because all shows need a mini-fridge backstage completely packed with Lone Star tallboys) and then we found out that the show was actually sold out so, crap crap crap crap, guess we have to do this show wasted in front of lots of people. It was, of course, the greatest show ever.

Man. So so so so much. I'm going crazy with anticipation.

Alright. Enough of that. Time to schedule some meetings for my manager, which is the polar opposite of being a punk rock pirate clown. But, eh, it pays the bills.

I don't care who you are or what you're doing or how many private jets you're flying around in or if your mom is made of rollercoasters. This is the best thing you will do all day long:



I'm such a sucker for this kind of stuff, man. Kids are the absolute coolest.