Tea leaf reading and other dark arts

George W. Bush can generally be counted on to maintain a sunny optimism that is wholly unsupported by facts on the ground. We're winning the war in Iraq dontcha know!

This afternoon I heard him on the radio discussing the upcoming elections. Well, I guess 'discussing' would be overstating the conversation. ‘Boldly predicting’ was more like it. In this case he was predicting that the GOP would maintain majorities in both houses of congress. The President’s Press Secretary, Tony Snow, announced that the White House is not even preparing a contingency plan for the possibility that the Democrats might take one or – dare I say it – both houses of Congress. I guess that kind of thinking would be consistent with not making a contingency plan for what to do with Iraq once we had invaded it.

Now, I know that I’ve said a Democratic victory in November would be premature and to an extent I do still believe that. This theory was, of course, based on the assumption that if the Democrats were going to win they would only take the House and only by a narrow margin. I had not considered the possibility that the Democrats might actually take both the House and Senate, but I guess that would be ok.

It also doesn’t seem like a pipe dream anymore. The Senate will be tough. Absolutely everything has to go right for the Democrats, but somehow it is starting to seem at least possible. The Times/CBS poll is showing 48 Senate seats to each party with four toss-ups. Taking three of those four is a tough nut to crack, especially given that three of those races are in southern states that seemed like safe GOP territory even a few months ago(VA,TN & MO with the fourth being NJ). The House is just as close. This will be a nail-biter to the finish. That is for sure.

I just feel it breaking hard in the Democrat’s favor. I think we may witness a perfect storm of disaffection for the GOP. Races that were not supposed to be competitive have become heated. Long held GOP seats like Santorum’s in Pennsylvania and (this is my favorite) Tom Delay’s Texas seat actually look like they are going to move to the Democratic column. Scandals are taking their toll and the cannibalism of the blame game has begun to set in. Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader called the leaders of the Christian-right a “gang of thugs” (‘cause that’s always a good get-out-the-vote tactic). The President is trying to win support by calling the Democrats a bunch of tax raising terrorist appeasers. Fortunately, unlike 2004, when recent memories of 9/11 seemed more important to the electorate, this time those arguments seem just as hollow and ineffectual as they really are.

I am actually starting to believe it might happen.

A cautionary note though: Taking both Houses is good. Taking only one is bad. With a narrow majority in only the House, the Democrats will be unable to get anything done and in 2008 the GOP will be able to point out their control of the chamber and their ineffectualness – not to mention that Republican candidates will play up every cockamamie lefty proposal put forth in the next two years to try to paint the Democrats as radicals (something the Democrats never use to full advantage against the Republicans). Getting none and being able to claim that it wasn’t their fault is better for the Democrats than taking a little and not being able to do anything with it.

In the meantime, Democrats are almost giddy with anticipation, and this time their optimism does seem to be increasingly well founded.

Jeez I hope so!

A Pithy Observation

This comes from a buddy from college, the always entertaining Frisco Dave.....

The Nissan X-terra has a new ad campaign that says “show us your X”. This is of course a reference to the X-games-ness of all those “cool” things that people do and call sports. People who go to the X-treme for X-tra N-joyment of their L-ives.

So I thought I just take a moment to realize how we got here.

In 1983 I took algebra. I was told if X=Y and Y=Z then X=Z. X took a powder for a few years.

In 1991 when I was 21 years old, Doug Coupland (B. 1961) published a book about his generation, who were about 10 years older than me. Calling it “Generation X”. The people of this generation in his book were already in their early-thirties and living out happily go-nowhere lives. They were the predecessor of the modern day Slacker. It was Mr. Coupland’s best book.* I read his book and looked in wonder at what I thought might be my future.

At the time I was working a series of go-nowhere jobs in Bakersfield, California while managing a couple of rock bands and putting together shows. I had a ‘Zine**. I read RayGun. But we were not Mr. Coupland’s Gen X.

It did not, however, take long after Nevermind or 10 for us to be conferred the title by Mtv or Rolling Stone or someone else equally stupid.

We reigned as the center of the Cool-i-verse until we left our early 20’s. Pearl Jam became a classic rock band, it became stupid to wear hiking boots with shorts and a flannel unless you were actually hiking and then the marketers conferred the title of “Generation Y” on those people just younger than us and therefore “cool”. Gen X was promptly forgotten about until 20 years from now when Time wants to do a cover story on the first Gen Xer turning 60. As sure as Al Gore invented the internet, Gen Y invented the X-games***.

By the time the marketing folks caught up, Generation Z, which was still called Generation Y, was doing “X” things and they needed the equipment to do it.

Thus, The Nissan X-terra, X-box, X-files, superbowl XL and of course X-mas****

I just dug out my copy of Generation X and I think I might re-read it with the knowledge that I’m now just a little older than the people it was aimed at.

Over and out.

-dac


*Seriously, don’t read anything else.

** It was required. If you were to be a hipster you had to have a ‘Zine. My partner in this ‘Zine was a guy named Eric who changed his name to Eirick. The ‘Zine was called “Fencepost” and all known copies are in my garage.

*** As near as I can tell the main goal of the X-games is to do the stupidest thing you can and not die. As in “Dude, that was sick when you reverse bungee luged off a 270 degree negative 2000 foot drop! Whoa.”

****Dude, that was sick when you gathered the family together to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ! Whoa.

Fashionable accessories and ammunition too.

Every time I go to visit New York I come back to Pittsburgh with a readjusted view of the world. Suddenly I realize that I may have become complacent about my surroundings in Western Pennsylvania. Perhaps I've becom too accepting of elements of that persistent red-state phenomena sometimes known as 'redneckiness'. Fortunately a trip to the Big Apple always jolts me back.

Case in point: I needed a jacket. A casual jacket. Something to keep me from freezing my tuckus in the morning chill. For some reason, I thought, instead of going to the mall or just ordering from Bean's I'll try something different. I decided to go to Cabella's. They have stuff like that.... and so much more. If you've never been to a Cabellas I have to say, it's really something. It is, I suppose, essentially a hunting and fishing store, but on a grotesque super-sized kind of scale. It’s sort of a Caesars Palace for people to take discussions of bass worms and shotgun shells VERY seriously.

Yes, this is where I decided to go look for a jacket.

So where to start..... The parking lot. The parking spaces are about two feet wider than you would find in a typical retail establishment, specifically to accommodate all of the Chevy Z71s, Ford F-250 Dualies and chrome wheeled Dodge Rams that Cabella's patrons tend to drive. There were also a lot of Jesus fish in evidence. Planning ahead for this scene, I wisely left my little Japanese car in the garage and took my wife's Durango, complete with dog hair in the back.

I wanted to blend.

As you enter the store, which is a gigantic log cabin, you are greeted by a sign on EVERY door that reads, "Please check all firearms with the welcome desk before shopping." I'd say this is a good idea because there are enough stuffed dead animals inside (more on this in a moment) that a befuddled hunter might get the wrong idea and start blasting. There is a lot of camouflage. Things you didn’t even know could be camouflaged, like underwear, that leave you wondering why on earth they need to be camouflaged at all. They sell guns, ammunition, fishing tackle, and there is even a ‘lifestyles’ section where you can purchase furniture, meat smokers and assorted decorative paraphernalia evocative of the outdoor life. They sell ‘turkey jerky’ dogs treats that actually qualify ‘dog treat’ with “Not for human consumption”.

Fun.

So I’m looking around and I find myself in a section of all camo gear. And there is a table full of hats in front of me. I started to turn to find the non-camo section when a fellow wearing a ‘Git-R-Done’ t-shirt walks up to the table and puts on a hat (pictured above) over his neatly coifed mullet. He turns to me and he says, “Hey, what d’ya think of this hat?” I’m really thinking to myself that if that hat was in lavender it would look like something that the ladies at the Ebenezer AME church would wear on Sunday. So I look at the guy with stern appraising glance and I say, “Well, in a different color it might look….. frilly.”

He stared back at me for a second and finally said, “Frilly?”

“Yes”, I said.

Then he silently put the hat down and walked away.

Incidentally, I did learn that this hat is what they call ‘3-D camo’ which is designed to break up your silhouette against the brush so the deer can’t see you before you blow its head off. I guess that’s important.

So I did mention that there are a lot of stuffed dead animals. There is also a live trout stream that passes through the middle of the store - because you need one of them. The animals though are set up in their respective regional dioramas to offer, for example, a glimpse of a polar bear hovering over a baby seal on the tundra, or a mountain goat on a ledge, or prairie dogs in the arid southwest. Ah yes, the prairie dogs. Mind you, this store is absolutely, completely, one hundred percent devoid of any irony whatsoever. These people are about hunting and fishing and they mean business. The prairie dogs – there are two – have a slightly different thing going on. I’m sure the intent was to make pose to look like they were horsing around. One of them is posed on his back with his legs up in the air. The other one is mounted over the first in what might have been intended to look like the moment of attack in a mock wrestling competition. In reality it looks sort of…well…missionary. That’s right. The prairie dogs look like they’re getting it on, but I’m sure I’m the only one who noticed this.

In any event, I did actually find a jacket. A little fleece number with nylon patches on the shoulders, no Camo, and, I'm sorry to say, I didn’t get the extra ten-percent discount that comes with your NRA membership card, but it wasn’t too bad.

Then, safely back in the Durango, I heard a man exclaim as he stepped out of his small Japanese car, “Jeez, look at all these trucks.”

I’ll not repeat that excursion again for a while. I am ready to go back to visit New York again though.

A one question poll

So my friend Raoul seems to feel strongly that the country can't take two more years of GOP autocracy and that the Democrats have to take back one of the sections of government - the House of Representatives being the most likely victory. He believes there's a real chance that a continued GOP dictatorship will leave the President an opportunity to pursue war in Iran ('cause we're doing such a good job in Iraq) and that this will also allow the GOP to break the back of the Federal government, presumably leaving the country with fewer and ineffectual governing regulations; a field day for for the rich a greedy. All legitimate concerns to be sure.

On the other hand, I think that winning now would be a long term strategic mistake for the Democrats and would leave them open to losing Congress and the White House again in 2008. They can't run as outsiders fighting a corrupt party if they are already in power. My concern is that in this election swing voters would be voting Democratic simply out of disaffection with the GOP and not out of any real political conviction; a situation that would leave those voters vulnerable to being recaptured by the GOP in two years. I would also like to see the Republicans entering a presidential election year so completely discredited that they lose both houses of Congress and the White House in one massive shift of power.

What do you all think?

This guy would shoot himself in the foot.

Here's a real winner of an idea....

MADISON, Wis. - In the wake of school shootings in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania during the last two weeks, a state legislator says he plans to introduce legislation that would allow teachers, principals, administrators and other school personnel to carry concealed weapons.
Rep. Frank Lasee, a Republican, said Wednesday that, while his idea may not be politically correct, it has worked effectively in other countries.
"To make our schools safe for our students to learn, all options should be on the table," he said. "Israel and Thailand have well-trained teachers carrying weapons and keeping their children safe from harm. It can work in Wisconsin."

Do we realy want Mr. Garrison armed with a Glock?

Meanwhile, back in the political theatre....

Well the GOP has proved again that they are the party traditional values. When faced with a potential child molester within their ranks they handled it in the most traditional manner: They swept it under the rug and tried to pretend it didn't happen. I seem to recall the same thing happening to a large wealthy organization in Boston a couple of years ago and it didn't work out well for them either.

Never the less, I am pleased to say that I am beginning to have some confidence that the Democrats might actually do all right this time out. With less than a month to the election Casey is holding a twelve point lead over (Little) Ricky Santorum and - I'm sure to the consternation of the Ricky camp - those poll numbers have been holding steady for several weeks. I think Ricky's going down, and I'm going to enjoy voting against him.

The Republicans are also making a mess of themselves in Washington this week. The Mark Foley thing is getting a lot of traction. I think it's kind of ironic though, that instead of something truly big and important to hammer the GOP with - say, their incompetence at running the war in Iraq - they're taking lumps for their incompetence at dealing with one pervert in their own midst. Party of family values indeed.

Now I'm of two minds on the subject. As much as I bemoan Republican control of Congress I think it's too soon for the Democrats to take over the House. They haven't spent enough time rebuilding the party and I think their control of the House for the next two years would make them vulnerable to lose it again in 2008. I still haven't heard the Democrats articulate what they stand for. You might get away with 'we're not Bush's lackeys' in this election, but you won't get that lucky twice. To my mind they are better off letting the GOP screw things up all by themselves for another two years and then throw them out of Congress and the White House in one fell swoop. I think defeat of the GOP at that point would be much more dramatic and punishing. I know a lot of people don't think we can afford to wait that long, but contrary to a lot of dire predictions, democracy in the United States is pretty durable.

As long as I'm picking on obscure christian cults.....

See, I'll bet that for a second you were thinking, "Surely he isn't going to pick on the Amish right after all those terrible murders?'.

No I'm not.

However, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas deserves a good kick in the ass.

According to the Post-Gazette:

Gov. Ed Rendell said said today he would ask Amish elders if they want state police protection from a Kansas church group that planned to demonstrate at the funerals.

The Westboro Baptist Church routinely pickets military funerals, saying that American servicemen and women are dying overseas because God is displeased that the United States tolerates homosexuals.

These are the people who show up at the funerals of U.S. servicemen and woman who've died in Iraq with signs that read 'God hates fags' and other idiocy. Apparently after initially planning to appear at the funerals of the these children the group thought better of it and announced that they were going to stay home. I'd like to think that our state troopers would have used that 'unnecessary violence' that was approved for apprehension of Jake and Ellwood to really show these bastards what it means to fear God. They should be beaten for even contemplating this trip.

We're holier than you are!!!

This is bloody funny. It features articles by the Baptist Invoking God's Old Testament Standards (BIGOTS) and sermons with titles like, "Alabama: A Preview of the Glories of a Christian America.”
The great thing about the site is that it never actually admits to being a satire.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

It’s a huge site too. Hours of reading enjoyment on this one.

Halloween Special: Remember when it was all about the candy?

This might be old news for some, but it was a new one for me.

Apparently, out in the god-fearing heartland, there are churches that are trying to counteract the dangerous satanic overtones of Halloween by organizing 'Hell Houses' where the the goal is to "scare the hell out of people" by depicting the consequences of an unrepentant life.

Wikipedia provides the following explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_house

Here are a couple of other articles: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_he.htm; http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/hallow4.htm.

And lest anyone think I'm just quoting secular sources, here's one directly from Baptists: http://www.baptiststandard.com/1999/10_27/pages/halloween.html.

Another from a church that puts one of these things on: http://www.potosisbc.com/jh2.html.

In all the years that I went out trick-or treating (until I was about 25) I never took any meaning from it other than lots of free candy and maybe some fun throwing toilet paper over the neighbors house.... and maybe some fireworks under cars and other assorted acts of vandalism.... OK, they might have something here..... But the point is, I never started worshiping Satan over it. I mean, great guns!!!

As always, these people really need to lighten up.