Tuesday Is Recycling Day

In honor of all the recent debate over the politics of The Dark Knight Rises.

"The Right Stuff" (Originally Published, 2.17.09)

Gotta thank Cesca for leading me to this little gem: the National Review Online's compilation of the supposed "25 Best Conservative Movies."

What exactly makes a movie "conservative" is apparently known only to the brain trust at NRO, which includes the decidedly un-brainy Rich Lowry -- editor of the National Review and the guy who essentially publicly admitted to masturbating during Sarah Palin's vice presidential debate performance (see column below). While the most interesting thing about the list in general is what it subtly says about the effort undertaken by the Review's conservative readers to avoid appearing stereotypically uncultured (obvious choices are avoided: Superman, Top Gun, Die Hard, Norris's The Octagon, the Rambo series, etc.), equally fascinating is what a few of the individual choices say about how conservatives view their role in relation to the U.S. power structure. Put simply, they still, even after the last eight years of oppressive abuses and astonishingly expansive spending by a Republican administration, see themselves as the rag-tag band of rebels fighting the evil empire of big government. How else to justify the appropriation of films like The Lives of Others, 300, or -- in the "also-rans" list and possibly most shocking -- my beloved Serenity.

While scanning the list, look for a couple of truly great "What the Fuck?" moments, like the fact that all three movies by hyper-WASP Whit Stillman are included, as well as The Dark Knight (still pitched as a paean to George W. Bush), United 93 (if you didn't see that one coming...) and, well, Team America (its inclusion proof that brilliant satire ultimately fools those it's targeting).

The National Review Online: The Best Conservative Movies/2.23.09 Issue

Now that I've perused NRO's choices a few times, I can't help but feel like there are quite a few movies that the magazine neglected to mention. Movies that I think should've made the list before, say, Ghostbusters.

How about:

Last Tango In Paris

Features a selfish white guy who delights in bending over complete strangers and screwing them in the ass.

Wall Street

A perfect movie right up until the last ten minutes.

Casablanca

A clever American outwits the Nazis and dumps his foreigner girlfriend.

The Transporter

A white guy in an expensive car lives by a strict code that includes doing what he's told while never asking questions and never bothering to look at what his job entails and whether it's hurting anyone.

Titanic

The uplifting story of an unstoppable white object that sinks a boat full of poor people while most of the rich manage to save themselves -- a fine allegory for either the U.S. government or Wall Street, depending on your perspective.

The Big Chill

Its main character is a dead hippie.

Signs

Mel Gibson defeats illegal aliens.

American Psycho

A Wall Street investment banker murders hookers, homeless people, and other undesirables.

Thelma and Louise

Ends with Susan Sarandon driving off a cliff.

Any more suggestions? Have at it.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

It's been a while since I've done one of these under the old official name of the franchise, but given the recent influx of new readers I wanted to start bringing this feature back to DXM. A couple of nights ago, Aaron Sorkin's HBO show The Newsroom began with a well-written and impassioned mea culpa delivered on-air by the show's fictional news anchor, Will McAvoy. The soliloquy was everything you'd expect out of Sorkin; specifically it presented an important subject, in this case the American news media, not how it is but how intelligent people wish it would be.

Basically, McAvoy issued an "apology" to his audience for his complicity in bringing crap into its collective living room every night and for willingly contributing to the "dumbing down" of the American electorate. He copped to his own failures and promised to try to do better. It immediately reminded me of something I wrote for this site way back in February of 2007 in which I apologized for the TV news media's coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Admittedly, I was "in the closet" at the time -- working for CNN without divulging it here -- and I continued to be a part of the problem until being unceremoniously shown the door a year later. With that in mind, I can't get on too high a horse.

But what McAvoy alluded to during his fictional statement of purpose was correct in the real world: There are literally thousands of smart, dedicated, hard-working journalists in the news media who never signed up to cover garbage; who don't want to inflate every minor controversy or random event to the point where it explodes across the airwaves and pages day after day and night after night; who know that the truth is what journalists strive for and that it and it alone represents fairness, as opposed to some phony concept of forced objectivity; who understand that adding to the noise in the echo chamber in the name of the almighty ratings dollar demeans them and their chosen profession.

There are those who still remind us never to forget 9/11, as if such a thing were possible. I would, however, also remind everyone who takes an interest in being an informed populace that in the weeks just prior to 9/11 the mainstream news media as a whole was almost singularly fixated on trying to terrify every man, woman and child in this country into believing that he or she was about to be eaten by a shark.

And great white sharks have now been spotted off Cape Cod and the West Coast.

"And Now an Apology in the Form of an Open Letter To America" (Originally Published, 2.15.07)

Dear American Public,

I have no excuse. I have no defense.

I am a member of the American news media and have been for some time. This means that on more than one occasion I have -- willingly or unwillingly -- foisted upon you the trite, the inane and the monumentally ridiculous, and done so under the auspices of my supposed right to inform and educate you as to important events which affect your lives. I have been party to the beaming into your living room of seemingly endless video loops of JonBenet Ramsey dressed as a five-year-old prostitute. I have encouraged various interchangable Ken-and-Barbiesque meat-puppets, pompous and breathless, to sincerely attempt to convince you of the hidden threat lurking in your underwear drawer. I have conspired to make you believe that you were, at any given moment, in danger of being eaten by a shark. I have actually written the words "every parent's nightmare" -- more than once, in fact. I have dispatched correspondents to Aruba in search of Natalee Holloway. I have marveled at the ingenuity behind using an episode of Dateline NBC to promote The Apprentice. I've been good friends with Rick Sanchez for sixteen years.

In short, I have betrayed you. I have betrayed your trust.

I have let you down.

Yet I've never felt compelled to humbly ask for any sort of forgiveness for my offenses. I have never felt true shame, both for myself and my chosen profession. Until now.

I'm sorry for the coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

I'm sorry that so many supposedly venerable news organizations have elevated the all-but-inevitable self-destruction of a B-list former-stripper, Playmate, hack actress, gold-digger, tabloid queen, and all-around piece of human flotsam to the lofty heights of near-Shakespearian mythology. I'm sorry that we have treated an absolutely meaningless event as if it were somehow nothing short of a cultural earthquake, sure to send reverberations and tremors throughout society until they shake the very foundation -- the very soul -- of every man, woman and child in America. I'm sorry that we have devoted hour after hour to discussing and debating such asinine subjects as the paternity of this horrid woman's baby, even being willing to proclaim, with a straight face, that its father might be the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor. I'm sorry that we've allowed Wolf Blitzer and Diane Sawyer to look no better than Pat O'Brien and Maria Menounos. I am truly sorry that we have, even for a moment, lent a shred of credibility to the opinions of Nancy Grace.

During the past week, those charged with the awesome responsibility of relaying to you the global, cultural, political, economic and medical news which you rightly expect and demand from us, have instead willingly allowed ourselves to be taken hostage by every permutation of loathsome, opportunistic degenerate -- each claiming to be able to add yet another spoonful of pabulum to the pot we're all too happy to stir. During the past week, hundreds of American soldiers and innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq -- as our focus shifted to one minor celebrity who died just off the Florida Turnpike.

We have failed you.

We have failed ourselves.

The only possible consolation is that many of us are well aware of our own ethical bankruptcy in the continued pursuit of this absurdity. I could explain at length my own feelings in the matter, but better I allow an anonymous colleague of mine to be the eloquent, impassioned and utterly frustrated voice for the thousands currently toiling away on this story at otherwise-reputable news operations across the country:

"I'm sorry, but I did not spend tens of thousands of dollars in school to cover this bullshit. She's a celebrity for fucking the unfuckable; that's not an accomplishment. I actually announced to the newsroom this morning that I didn't go to journalism school to cover a two-bit Texas whore and that, if this was the kind of news we were covering, I could use my diploma for toilet paper. It's unbelievable. BREAKING NEWS??? I'm really sorry that the drug addict OD-ed, but that's what happens when you're an overweight drug addict."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

With Contrition,

Chez

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Because you knew he wouldn't stop at trying to right the wrongs of the world's vacuum cleaners and has now turned his laser-like focus to correcting that apparently inadequate fan in the corner of your living room, I have to bring this sucker back.

"Mr. Clean" (Originally Published, 3.8.08)

Am I the only one who thinks James Dyson is completely insane?

The commercials for his technologically advanced vaccums, which feature him unabashedly flaunting his nearly DSM4-level obsession with cleanliness and order, always strike me as, well, a little unsettling.

"I just want things to work properly," he says with Queegian deliberateness, seemingly stunned as to why most vacuum cleaners are unable to subvert the immutable law of utilitarian degradation.

He admits without so much as a hint of bemusement that his life's work has been a fanatical, Frankenstein-like quest to recreate both the vacuum cleaner and the hand dryer in his own image and, consequently, fulfill a vendetta against the technology which long ago let him down and left his carpets unclean and his hands wet.

Look beyond the sedate demeanor and the soothing voice and you can practically hear him saying, "Fools! They laughed at me when I said that vacuums didn't have to lose suction! Who's laughing now, Hoover?!" Like a mad scientist who fancies himself one of the Pythagorean Mathematikoi -- and who in reality likely suffers from a very acute case of Asperger Syndrome -- he feels the need to constantly demonstrate just how he's reinventing the wheel and how it will eventually help him win the compulsive lifelong war he's waged against the constraints of basic physics.

I get the feeling that if you ever read Yeats to him, particularly the poet's seminal notion that "things fall apart... the center cannot hold... mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," he would likely explode in an uncontrollable fit of violent rage, grabbing the nearest sharp object and plunging it into your throat again and again. This would be followed by his spending the ensuing several hours desperately attempting to build a new wet-dry vac capable of expurgating the mess and returning everything to a place of immaculate order.

Really, though, you've got to give credit to a guy who not only puts his neuroses out there for the world to see, but also uses them as a marketing tool to make him a millionaire.

I wish I were that crazy.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Because it's a slow news day, and because I now spend quite a bit of time playing with Inara in the backyard, under two big trees that remind me a lot of the one I describe here...

"Shade of Gray" (Originally Published, 12.9.08)

When Jayne and I were scouting for a new place to live back in July, we looked at quite a few apartments. Some were very nice -- some, not so much. But what made us settle on the Astoria townhouse we currently call home was its abundance of unusual charms: the high ceilings; the living room which had already been painted a warm and inviting red; the large kitchen; the second bedroom, perfectly suited for a nursery and facing the backyard; the large outdoor deck extending out over the same yard.

The big, beautiful tree in that backyard.

The one that our landlord is having cut down today.

We moved in during the summer, when the tree was lush and full; Inara was captivated by it when we would sit on the deck or in the rocking chair in her small bedroom. I fell in love with that tree; there was honestly nothing more relaxing -- more enchanting -- than sitting underneath it and listening to the wind blow through its leaves, watching its heavy branches sway languidly against the giant sky beyond. It was hypnotic. It was peaceful, in a city that offers very little peace. The tree was like some kind of ancient sentinel, standing watch over Inara's bedroom. Over our home.

And now it's coming down -- piece by piece.

To call it sad wouldn't even scratch the surface.

Apparently, the reason it needs to be destroyed is that our next door neighbors -- a retired NYPD cop and his very sweet, very Irish wife -- are tired of having to rake the stray leaves from it each fall. Why that requires that it be cut down completely is beyond me. Regardless of the reason, killing something that's been a part of this neighborhood longer than any of the parties involved have been alive -- removing something so beautiful from this Earth -- feels wrong. It is wrong.

I'm in no way a nature buff, nor would I call my views on the environment particularly left wing -- sensible, yes, but not left wing. And yet one thing keeps going through my mind as I watch this once majestic thing -- this seemingly invincible being that's seen and withstood so much in its lifetime -- be so casually shredded:

"It's not yours to kill. This tree doesn't belong to you."

As it's almost winter, there are no leaves left on the tree -- they've long since fallen off. Yet even in its skeletal state, the giant is so impressive that as it comes down and barren gray sky replaces the area where it once stood, the kitchen in our apartment -- and of course, the nursery -- becomes brighter and brighter. The shade that Jayne and I cherished so much when we moved here is vanishing before my eyes.

Sad doesn't even scratch the surface.

It's just heartbreaking.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Getting off the subject of the death of Osama bin Laden for a minute and back to -- prepare to cheer wildly -- our big DXM Fifth Birthday Jubilee: A few days ago, professional tool Andrew Breitbart played a card that's become all too familiar in the world of right-wing politics. He made the comically ironic claim, given his residency in Los Angeles, that President Obama and the "liberal media" outlets that supposedly worship him don't care about the victims of last week's devastating tornadoes because those victims happen to live in the Deep South. Once again, if you feel like you've heard shots ring out from this particular theater in the culture war before, it's because you have. As we dig back through the archives for some of the best pieces of the past five years, this is one of my favorites from the very busy period at DXM leading up to the 2008 presidential election.

"Both Ends Against the Middle" (Originally Published, 10.20.08)

“To read the papers and to listen to the news, one would think the country is in terrible trouble. You do not get that impression when you travel the back roads. The small towns do care about their country and wish it well.”

-- Charles Kuralt

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay. You know... morons."

-- Blazing Saddles

A few years ago, my wife and I, along with a close friend of ours, set out to do something we'd each dreamed about since we were in our late teens: We packed up a vehicle, grabbed a map, and hit the road with no clear plan in mind other than beginning at one ocean and ending at another. For almost a full month, we satisfied our Kerouacian wanderlust along the vast highways and off the beaten paths that run like veins and arteries through the heartland between Miami and Los Angeles. We spent obliterated nights crawling from one dive bar to another in New Orleans and Memphis; toured Graceland and marveled at every possible permutation of Elvis memorabilia available at every gas station a thousand miles in either direction; ate a steak the size of a regulation first base bag at the Big Texan Ranch in Amarillo; stood in awe at the edge of the Grand Canyon and stared silently across the seemingly endless void of White Sands; stumbled upon a group of Navajo children dancing at sunset just outside the Petrified Forest in Arizona; lost our asses in Vegas and partied like rock royalty at the Standard in L.A.; began the 4th of July at the annual UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico and ended it at something called the "Firecracker Fandango" in Odessa, Texas.

We bought a souvenir coconut head in Okahumpka, Florida.

To say that our little cross-country expedition changed me fundamentally would be the grossest of understatements; the fact is that the things we saw, the people we met, and the ground-level view of the country I'd lived in since birth but had never truly come to know opened my eyes and allowed me to better understand what it means to be an American -- the pride that should unequivocally go hand-in-hand with being able to call yourself one. To this day, I consider the entire adventure to be one of the most profound and cathartic experiences of my life.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And one of the main reasons why is that it allowed me -- a guy who'd been raised in Miami and had chosen to live in one big city after another as he grew into adulthood -- to fully appreciate the singular and simple beauty of the small town.

While the heavily populated areas along our route provided plenty of entertainment, it was the barely-there blips on the map that seemed to stay with me. The quiet pull of places like Erick, Oklahoma and Holbrook, Arizona was undeniable and somehow resonated inside my head long after we'd moved on; these little towns, most of them sleepy pockets of stunted civilization marked by not much more than a water tower, left me feeling as if I were missing out on something indescribable by living in a metropolis; something unspoiled; something that spoke directly to a secret desire of mine -- to exist in perpetual slow-motion -- in way that was, for lack of a better word, magical.


I ended our journey believing that there was wonder in small town life.

I realize that my romanticism of the rural milieu probably stems at least slightly from the grass always seeming greener on the other side of the cow pasture (or these days, the Wal Mart). Whether I could fully succumb to the charms of small town living and not feel stifled by the lack of unadulterated crazy in my day-to-day existence, who can tell. But I know better than to automatically assume that anyone who does choose to call the sprawling American outland home is an uneducated rube.

I'm not sure the same can be said for the people running the John McCain campaign right now.

On the contrary -- they must think that small town America is overflowing with idiots.

That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why they're lying to it, pretending to give a damn about it and, worst of all, exploiting it: its people; its preponderance of faith, not all of which demands to be brandished like a weapon; its sense of patriotism.

A long list of clever opportunists, both Republican and Democrat, seized on the idea of using the little guy as the main prop in a carefully stagecrafted piece of bullshit political theater long before McCain took up the mantle -- but I'm not sure anyone's narrowed the culture war down specifically to a battle between small town and big city with the kind of assurance that he and his people have this election. They've raised not simply pitting the classes against each other but actually undermining the infrastructure of this country to an art form.

And they've done it by trumpeting a single dubious claim over and over: "Our vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is from a small town and can therefore speak for every American in every rural area across the country; her God, guns, and guts belief system, along with her folksy 'hockey mom' style is not just what this nation needs, it is this nation -- far more than any of those overeducated elitists in the big coastal cities."

To say that this is presumptuous, if not flat-out ballsy-as-hell considering that it excludes and even demonizes a substantial portion of the country, would be like saying that John McCain isn't a kid anymore. What's worse, though, is just who the architects of this strategy are -- the campaign coordinators drawing up the battle plans centered around ingratiating their candidates to Little Town, USA.

They're basically K-Street lobbyists -- Washington neo-aristocracy.

They're Beltway-savvy future oligarchs using their Ivy League educations to cynically craft talking points written in faux-yokelese proclaiming the unassailable goodness of small town life.

They're the furthest fucking thing from the people they're pretending to give a crap about -- real elitists using the unwashed masses as pawns in a war against phantom elitists.


While no one would deny that the Democrats can be staggeringly adept at populist political manipulation, I've yet to see their own ability to divide and conquer through misdirection and outright bullshit come close to matching the GOP's. And this particular gambit -- claiming to hold the monopoly on "small town values" -- reaches new heights of lowness. It does it, first and foremost, by way of an underlying subtext with slyly racist implications. Even the densest of far-right acolytes understands that when he or she follows the talking points and parrots the virtues of rural tradition, there's another half of the equation that's left unsaid: that the opposite set of American values -- those of the country's "urban" areas, if you get my drift -- just don't measure up. Sure, when that white woman in the funny hat at the Republican National Convention last week spoke so highly of small town mores she meant "in comparison to those of the cosmopolitan 'elitists'"; but make no mistake, she was also subtly implying: "in comparison to those, you know, them -- Obama's people."

Back in 1992, the GOP attempted the same kind of crafty, nudge-nudge wink-wink sloganeering by appropriating the term "family values," blasting it as a suburban battle cry, and co-opting the meaning behind it as the exclusive property of the Republican party. George Bush and Dan Quayle couldn't make a public appearance without dropping the phrase at least three or four times, in tones ranging from scolding to triumphal. The problem, of course, is that even though the tactic worked as it was intended to -- as a means of energizing the conservative religious base -- it couldn't be recycled for the current Republican efforts; the unborn baby in Bristol Palin's belly pretty much shot that possibility all to hell. It's tough to claim that you're the party of old-fashioned family values when your vice presidential candidate's unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant by the local bad boy. That would require a level of hypocritical chutzpah even the Republicans don't possess.

So instead, they fashioned a similar call to arms around that vice presidential candidate's most notable characteristic (besides having a pregnant teen daughter): her small town background.

In the alternate universe that a phalanx of GOP operatives have conjured out of thin air in some Georgetown boardroom, Sarah Palin's small town charm and backwoods resourcefulness -- to say nothing of her "cute little filly" looks -- are all the qualifications she needs to succeed on the world stage and potentially take control of the most powerful nation to ever exist. She's been smartly packaged and sold to the common folk as one of their own -- a celebrity among those who claim to despise celebrities. What's more, it's not just Sarah Palin but what she supposedly represents that's cast as the cure for this country's ills. Like that laughably stupid grass roots push back in 1994 to "Elect Forrest Gump " -- only with a far more malevolent undertone -- voters are being asked to buy into the idea that provincial simpletonism, when thrust into the right situation by nothing more than circumstance, will not just prevail but will do so honorably. And the voters specifically being manipulated into swallowing this nonsense are those who supposedly share a special kinship with Palin that's based on nothing more than her having spent most of her life outside an urban center.

But as I've mentioned before, this election isn't about small town and big city; it never was -- regardless of what the GOP mouthpieces are encouraging you to believe. Not all who live in a small town are the same. They may have plenty of common social and cultural touchstones, just as those who call any particular place home do; however, to say that Sarah Palin and the Republican party is the one true voice of rural America is insulting -- especially when this claim is little more than a political parlor trick designed to get a guy elected. Besides, pitting one half of this country against the other based solely on where each happens to live isn't politics at all -- it's civil war. And it's wrong.

I live in the largest metropolis in America, and to assume that I know what every one of my eight-million neighbors is thinking would be ridiculous and presumptuous. I can't speak for them.

I've traveled to dozens of small towns across America, and I wouldn't dare try to speak for the residents of those places either.

And neither should John McCain.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

I was always very hard on myself. For a good amount of time during my relationship with my ex-wife, I punished myself for the sins of my past -- sins which I assumed left me permanently damaged to the point where I had no choice but to live a life of humble self-deprecation. I figured that since I was constantly reminded of the error of my ways, since I truly did feel like there were acts for which I needed to atone, and since I believed my wife -- certainly by comparison to myself -- to be some kind of saint, it would be foolish to pretend that I was Mr. Perfect. I couldn't help but hold my wife up as a kind of ideal to which I should strive as a spouse; the image she maintained, flawlessly, was one of absolute love, kindness and devotion.

And so I spent a good portion of the early days of this site pondering how exactly I got so lucky and expressing both my gratitude for my wife's apparent loyalty and the insecurities I grappled with when it came to maintaining the relationship which meant the world to me. The following piece has never been rerun since it was first published just a month-and-a-half after I started DXM. In it, I put my wife on a pedestal because at face value she gave me every reason to -- a pretense which was nearly impenetrable. But maybe, looking back on it for the first time in a very long time, I subconsciously sensed that something wasn't quite right. It would be only a few weeks after the posting of this column that I'd find out just how not right things were and for how long they had been that way.

I had no idea. Not a hint.

I beat myself up so relentlessly -- and while some of it was indeed justified, it's just tragically humiliating looking back on it now.

"If You Love Something Never Let It Out of Your Goddamned Sight" (Originally Published, 7.11.06)

I'm easy to love, and almost impossible to live with. I know this to be true because I've heard it from virtually every woman unlucky enough to have had her life intertwined with mine for any length of time. Literally -- the same words, phrased exactly the same way, spoken at just about the same point in each relationship; it's the interpersonal equivalent of the first chords of Starship Trooper at a Yes concert -- when you hear them, you know the show's just about over.

Being a somewhat selfish jackass, I admit that there's truth to the fact that I've never been much good at relationships. Most of mine -- those of any note at least -- have typically involved months of tumult and torture, culminating in the hurling of small appliances at one another. I used to joke that all of my bad relationships seem to have only one thing in common: me.

Thankfully, my wife Jayne is a patient woman -- which is an understatement along the lines of saying that the casting of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather III was a bad idea. She puts up with a lot, and I know that there are plenty of women out there who don't envy her -- essentially every woman who knows me -- but due in large part to her steadiness and resolve, I've become a better man, a better partner and a better all-around person. At some point during our relationship, our passionate insanity dialed-down to something even more wonderful: passionate sanity. We work together as a team, which may seem common and mundane for most adults, but is in fact a task which borders on the spectacular when it's being done by a couple that's made up of 50% retard.

I still have my issues, however, the most prevalent of which is the occasional crippling belief that she'll walk out the door and never come back. Psychologists would refer to this as a fear of abandonment; I look at it more as the fear of the wiser half of my relationship finally coming to its senses. I have no obvious reason to be as concerned as I am about this; it's not like my wife has begun quietly separating her CDs from mine. On the contrary, she seems highly adept at reading this feeling in me, and usually throws in an extra hug or cuddle to reassure me when she notices it coming on.

So why the worry?

I have a friend -- a woman -- who recently traveled overseas for a couple of months on business. She's currently involved in a relationship here in the states and when she left, her boyfriend kissed her goodbye and more than likely thought little of it beyond that. They were together. They were in love. That wasn't going to change.

Only it did.

The experience altered her -- opened her eyes so to speak. The woman who returned is far more complex and multi-dimensional than the one who left -- and whether he understands it or not, her boyfriend may not fit into the picture anymore. The best analogy I can think of is Einstein's belief that if you achieved light-speed, you could see the universe in an instant -- the same instant which would leave the world you departed from, and returned to, completely unchanged. The problem of course is that the person left behind -- the one who never achieved that level of experience with her -- now seems like someone from her very distant past. He knows nothing about her anymore. To put it in simple terms: she outgrew him.

Here's a question, though: Have you ever heard of a man saying that he's outgrown a woman? I'm sure it's happened, but for the most part, this particular sentiment seems to be a "woman thing." I don't doubt that those who base their assumptions about men on what they've seen on Everybody Loves Raymond would say that the answer is simple: men aren't constantly growing. They reach a plateau, generally in about the sixth grade, then stop. I'd love nothing more than to refute this kind of thinking, but every time I see the commercial for Bud Light's "Man Laws," or walk by an issue of Maxim on the newsstand, or see a TV ad for Girls Gone Wild I just shake my head and accept the fact that I don't have a goddamned leg to stand on. The deck's pretty well stacked against me by my own kind.

If that assumption is true, though -- that women seem to grow, and revel in the experience of growth -- then can any relationship ever be secure? As far as I know, my friend's boyfriend did everything right, at least to the best of his ability. He supported her in her journey. He remained confident in their commitment. He was, for lack of a better word, himself. Now, possibly without his knowledge and through seemingly no fault of his own, his relationship with the person he loves has struck an iceberg and is slowly, almost imperceptably sinking. If the other half of his relationship has already made the decision to leave, there isn't a thing he can do about it.

It will end one of two ways: she'll simply walk out, which will leave him stunned, or she'll begin to pick fights over the kinds of issues which were once completely innocuous -- at least before the secret meeting-of-one was held, and the final solution was decided on. Either way, the result will be the same. Another unfortunate fact is that I, and no doubt others, probably know more about this poor guy's eventual fate than he does. I feel sorry for him, and that feeling extends almost completely from the fact that I wouldn't want to be him -- or maybe because I have been him.

I've been warned throughout my life many times and in many ways of the importance of showing support for your partner's endeavors; have faith they say, and believe in the strength of your relationship. I've been told that to hold on to something, or someone, too tightly will only lead to disaster. But is the fear of your loved one simply moving beyond you really that impossible to fathom?

I realize that little in life is certain -- death, taxes, bad films from Michael Bay -- but if the one you love can outgrow you with any new experience, at what point can you stop being afraid?

At what point can I stop being afraid?

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

I've been obsessing quite a bit lately over the notion of the truth. For me personally, the internal debate over what's real and honest and what's complete fabrication is ancient history; it's not something I need to concern myself with anymore, even though at one time it was an all-consuming, paranoia-inducing proposition in my life. But a few things have happened recently to cause me to revisit a question that I once pondered endlessly and feverishly: If the entire life you know is an elegantly spun, nearly impenetrable lie, is it better to simply take the blue pill and go about your business, or is it a moral and intellectual imperative that you know the truth -- even if that truth will devastate you? I'm not sure I know the answer at this point in my life, but at one time I furiously staked out a position of absolute certainty on the pages of this site. Over the next couple of weeks, you'll probably see a number of reposts of pieces that touched on this subject, as well as a few new ruminations.

I was once so sure. Now I'm learning that, as William Goldman famously said, "Nobody knows nothin'."

"Where the Truth Lies" (Originally Published, 11.11.07)

"There will be time, to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet."

-- T.S. Eliot

"THE TRUTH CAN BE ADJUSTED"

-- Poster for Michael Clayton

In the pantheon of exceptional lies ever told, it probably doesn't even merit a seat. The Great Teacher's Note Cover-up is initially noteworthy insofar as it was the first time I attempted to put one over on anyone -- in this case, my mother and father -- in such a grand fashion. It obviously wouldn't be the last.

When I was a first-grader at Miami Lakes Elementary, my teacher Miss Feingold made a hobby out of issuing lengthy written diatribes decrying my lack of attention, lack of respect for authority and general lack of interest in anything she had to say. I remember she would give me a look which I now know to be the bitter snarl of the miserably undersexed, then tuck the official teacher-parent document into my backpack and send me on my way -- safe in the misguided knowledge that, perhaps because she was an adult and in a position of some power relative to my own standing, her silly little rant would reach its intended target unscathed. Believe it or not, her missives actually did find their way into my parents' hands most of the time. This had almost nothing to do with a desire to do right by Miss Feingold and everything to do with the fact that, as a child, I fully believed that my father could read minds, see through walls, be in seven or eight places at the same time -- invisibly -- and make me disappear from the face of the planet as if I'd never existed, should the mood strike him. I never wanted to run the risk of not giving his omniscience its due, and wind up paying dearly for it.

Well, almost never.

The timing of one specific note was such that even the threat of filicide wasn't enough to keep me from ensuring that my parents would never lay eyes on it. It was opening day of the big Miami Lakes carnival -- an annual event that I awaited with the same kind of desperation that a death row inmate waits for that last minute call from the governor -- that Miss Feingold apparently realized it had been some time since she'd pointed her resentment for a 20-something-year tradition of failure in my direction. She penned a nasty note detailing my supposed unwillingness to complete my assignments as instructed -- what she called "lazy" I called "unchallenged" -- and as usual sent me home, this time with what amounted to a ticking time bomb sure to destroy my hopes of going to the carnival once it reached the hands of my father. (In hindsight, I'm almost certain she picked that particular day deliberately.)

Needless to say, I had to take decisive, deceptive action to save my dream of ferris wheels and cotton candy -- so I torched the thing.

It's really a testament to my belief in the investigative abilities of my father, who at that time was a Miami-Dade cop, that I felt the need not only to hide the offending letter but to literally obliterate it. I figured wherever I hid the note, he would find it. Whether I dumped it in a 7-11 trash bin or buried it in the next door neighbor's backyard or mailed it to Alaska, one way or the other he'd sniff it out, track it down and pull it out of his ass one night at the dining room table, just to see the look on my face. It was with these superhuman powers in mind that, later that afternoon, I grabbed a book of matches from the aforementioned 7-11, then ran to an alley near my house, set Miss Feingold's words on fire and -- just to be absolutely sure -- buried the ashes in a field a few blocks away.

Later that night, I went to the carnival; I had a great time.

By the way, I fully expect a phone call from my father at any moment informing me that I'm grounded.

As I said, The Great Teacher's Note Cover-up was not by any means the most impressive lie I ever told nor was it the most creative instance of my burning and burying the facts; what was significant about it though was that it marked the first time I realized that lying, despite the admittedly considerable risk involved, had the potential to yield immeasurable benefits. Even more significant was that I suddenly understood that it was indeed possible to do it and not get caught and, most edifying or troubling depending on your point of view, that I could do it without so much as a word of protest from that underdeveloped thing supposedly known as my conscience.

So do it I did -- over and over for a period of my life that I can now say, in retrospect, lasted far too long for me to be able to consider myself a decent and worthwhile person when the totality of my existence is taken into account.

There were times that I simply bullshitted. There were times that I outright lied to people's faces. There were times that I rationalized what I knew to be insincere behavior: I told myself that the truth would hurt too much, so really why bother with it? (In the end, you're doing someone a favor by not telling the truth; it would only cause unnecessary trauma, right?) Providing the ultimate irony was the fact that I worked as a journalist; my job was to tell the truth, and yet in my personal life I told lie after lie after lie. Even when the lies occasionally unraveled, I told more -- at times forgetting what was real and what was nothing more than my own personal pageantry.

I lost track of who I was; I damn well became something I never wanted to be.

Here's the thing, though: In spite of the lies I told myself about why I was lying in the first place -- the things I said in the hopes of calming my conscience once it finally did begin putting up a fight -- I somehow always understood that the truth mattered, and that I had no excuse for what I was doing.

I'll say it again -- the truth matters.

It matters, despite what we've come to believe.

At the risk of sounding grandiose, we for some reason now accept that the truth is like anything else in our society: fleeting, malleable, up for debate, at the whim of democracy or subject to adjustment by whoever shouts the loudest. We're expected to believe that all supposed "truths" are equal and are therefore deserving of equal consideration. This is a lie in and of itself.

Not only do we seem to not mind being lied to, we've come to expect it. Bill Clinton can take you for an idiot by forcefully declaring his lack of sexual contact with a chunky White House intern; Dick Cheney can insult your intelligence by literally trying to make you believe that your eyes, ears and gut are, ironically, lying to you about what's going on in Iraq; Paris Hilton can claim, with a completely straight face, that she doesn't do drugs. The fact that they each have the ability to do it isn't a surprise; the fact that they think no one will care enough to call them on it -- their firm belief that they can get away with it -- is just fucking deplorable.

We're willing to seriously debate the concept of "intelligent design," despite there not being a shred of proof to back it up; we give it creedence simply because there are enough morons out there who believe it, as if reality is subject to the whims of whomever. The problem with this kind of debate is that if we consider all so-called facts to be equal, if pick and choose what we hold up to evidentiary standards, we render the truth worthless.

One more time -- the truth matters.

It matters, because it's a standard by which we measure a lie.

Chuck Klosterman's written a lot over the years about his fascination with questions of reality -- what's real and what isn't, and how can we tell the difference. He makes no apologies for his populist references, and I won't either in this case. In one of his better essays, Klosterman waxes philosophical on the movie The Matrix. One of the underlying questions posed by the movie -- one of the more subtle aspects of the film that's tough to spot in between crap being blown up and Keanu Reeves turning in yet another mannequin-like performance -- is whether it's preferable to live a comfortable lie or a harsh reality. His argument, and it's a damn good one, is that if nothing about your life is real -- if it's all a lie -- then that lie becomes the truth. Once again, there's no standard by which to measure the fakery, so it makes no difference either way.

But what if only one part of your life isn't real? Is it better then to be comfortable, despite not being aware of what's really happening? Is there genuine bliss to be found in ignorance? Better yet, is a lie that hasn't been discovered really a lie? The answers to these questions of course are no, no and yes. Bullshit is bullshit regardless of whether you personally can smell it.

The truth matters.

It matters because any decision made without all the facts can never be the right decision.

If my father had received that letter from Miss Feingold all those years ago, he likely wouldn't have allowed me to go to the Miami Lakes carnival -- or maybe he would have.

I'll never know, because I never gave him the chance.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

One of the more entertaining posts from last year:

"Her Mind Is Aglow with Whirling, Transient Nodes of Thought Careening Through a Cosmic Vapor of Invention" (Originally Published, 3.25.10)

You know, I have to admit, I sat up pretty late last night trying to come up with something clever to do with this item.

I thought maybe I'd do a "Hannah Giles Orders Take-Out Chinese" theme, which would feature the bikini-clad Princess Leia to Andrew Breitbart's Jabba the Hutt -- Hannah Giles -- using all sorts of flowery metaphors and generally ostentatious vocabulary in the pursuit of the most mundane of tasks. Or maybe a fake ad for the "Hannah Giles School of Creative Writing," which would ostensibly offer to teach the neophyte the kind of poetic mastery of the English language that Hannah makes seem so effortless.

But it was Simon Owens over at Bloggasm who made me realize that you really can't beat up on Hannah Giles and feel good about it. She's just a dumb kid who got in way over her head. Yeah, she played an all-too-willing role in pretend provocateur James O'Keefe's ridiculous "take down" of ACORN -- a toothless non-profit that could barely afford to keep its fucking lights on, much less act as some sort of left-wing mafia enforcer; and sure, she really seemed to enjoy riding the wave and bathing in all the warm encomia from the right that followed her and Jimmy's little sting. But in the end, what the conservative media did to her was, ironically, what you'd expect to see done to the character she played in the now famous videos. They used her -- like a prostitute. Everybody did, to some extent.

So no, I'm not gonna pile on. That said, she does at least deserve to have the piece she penned for Breitbart's Big Journalism site regarding the dismantling of ACORN as a national organization -- her humorously florid pep talk to Right America about the need to keep fighting the good fight -- circulated far and wide. It's, well -- colorful.

Here's a chunk of it:

"Let me tell you something: If you know what is right, if you know what is pure, and if you can but for a second imagine attaining and sharing those things, then you must will all your power seek it out. If you do not, then the memory of that moment you imagined will forever itch inside your head and ache inside your heart until you are ruled by fear and tormented by regret...

We live in a quick cruel world that demands we bolt out of dreamland and wipe nostalgia’s sweet kisses away. Principles and beliefs are ageless only so long as those who possess them see to it they are not forgotten. Societies will always tend towards all things bad if the powers-at-be do not lead wisely and are not held accountable by the people.

The future is a blank canvas, a giant glowing question mark held in place by eternity. This is something that would send most people into a tailspin of wonder ,anxiety and fear. But to others, this makes life a bit simpler, an unknown future ought allow us to fully operate and thoroughly enjoy the present moment.

Challenge: take a step back and look at life on the Grand Scale. We are but specks of dust, here today gone tomorrow. What kind of spec are you going to be: The kind that gets swept under the rug? Or the mote that flies into the eye of deceit, threatening to agitate it beyond repair and forcing it to submit to truths brutally thorough cleansings?"

So, yeah. See, here I am -- not piling on at all.

Incidentally, the responses to the piece in the comment section are what you might expect:

"This lady can write. This has to be some of the most profoundly stirring prose I've read in some time."

-- impeach them all

"Great writing Hannah! You are truly an inspiration to me! I'll do what I can to be that "fly in the eye of deceit" from this end. I know you'll hold up yours! God bless you. God bless James. I have every confidence that we will win this war against this President of 'God damn America' Barack Hussein Obama and his comrades who are trying to enact a coup d'etat on America. Darkness is always overcome by the light."

-- Once always a marine

And with that, I'm doing what anyone in my position would do -- taking my laptop outside and ceremonially setting it on fire. Just not sure I'll ever be able to reach the lofty standards set by Cormac Giles there, so I don't see why I should even bother anymore.

Wait, does that count as piling on?

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

As a follow-up to the conversation that's been going on in the comment section of yesterday's Quote of the Day from Cesca, here's one of my earliest takes on the progressive tendency toward self-defeat.

"With Friends Like These..." (Originally Published, 8.21.09)

"So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back."

-- Paul Krugman in an editorial in today's New York Times

I'm not one of those people who listens to right-wing radio, even occasionally, looking for something to piss him off. If I wanted to make myself angry for no good reason, I'd call my estranged wife -- or maybe put on a Phish record.

That said, I was flipping through Sirius XM radio a couple of days ago when I stumbled across the America Right or "Patriot Radio" channel. The show that happened to be on at the time was something called The Wilkow Majority (I'll give you a minute to shake your head at the right's ongoing and obligatory need to cast itself in the most muscular terms possible) hosted by a guy named Andrew Wilkow. What separates Wilkow from the rest of the crazy-come-latlies out there in conservative radioland is his belief that he's, well, a punk.

I'm not kidding.

Both Wilkow and his producer, an at one time faux-hawk-sporting kid named Nick Rizzuto, have gotten it through their heads that they're the personification of the right's new school -- and that the new school they represent also happens to be the logical next step in the evolution of punk. They've even started a website called "Conservative Punk." If this sounds fucking laughable, believe me -- it is. Do yourself a favor and don't think too hard about trying to fit the square peg of punk rock culture into the round hole of unabashed capitalism and conservatism; I tried for awhile and it only made my head hurt. Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins are turning over in their graves at this ridiculous conceit and they're not even dead yet. You almost have to give credit to the right's lack of shame when it comes to attempting to co-opt some of the better trends of the left while forcibly trading off its own misdeeds, clumsily trying to shove them under the banner of its enemy and hoping that no one notices how full of shit the whole notion is (Hitler was a leftist, racism is a liberal ideal, etc.).

Needless to say, neither Andrew Wilkow nor his remora, Nick Rizzuto, is a punk. To twist a somewhat legendary phrase: Boys, I grew up with punks. I was good friends with punks. I was a punk (and according to some, still am). You're no fucking punks.

The reality is that, after taking a quick glance at his website, Wilkow looks like he could be just about any other right-wing talking head. This is especially amusing when you consider the fact that he is actually quite a bit younger than the usual suspects and yet still looks like your basic perpetually middle-aged white guy who hasn't been blown since college. I guess that's what being Sean Hannity's hand-picked protege does to you. (Now's a good time to once again remind you that a guy who counts his introduction to Hannity among the greatest moments in his life also considers himself an up-the-establishment standard bearer of punk rock's new blood. You've gotta be fucking kidding me.)

All very easy shots at Wilkow and his show aside, though, I have to admit that while listening to him for a few minutes the other day, he made a surprisingly good point -- one that I sort of made here earlier in the week. I guess we're both on the same "Punk Rock Manifesto Weekly" mailing list.

The Wilkow rant in question had to do with the tendency of liberals to seemingly revel in martyrdom and self-sabotage -- their propensity to almost embrace their roles as losers and to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of even the most assured victory. The crux of his argument was this: The Democrats have near-complete control of the government right now -- from the White House to the Hill. Legislation-wise, they can accomplish practically anything they set out to, and yet they're somehow content to bitch, moan and blame Republicans for standing in the way of progress when in reality no one's completely blocking their path. Worse than all of that, and this is something Wilkow didn't broach but I will: Liberals can't help fighting amongst themselves. It's as if it's ingrained in their DNA to never completely agree on anything. And we've all seen how well that strategy works when it comes to pushing through an agenda or, you know, winning elections.

A couple of days ago I published a piece decrying the Democrats for not being willing to take off the gloves and get their hands a little dirty when it comes to battling the Republican noise machine trying to thwart them at every turn. My point was that there won't be much solace in being able to say, "Well, at least we stuck to the ideals that make us better than the GOP automatons," four years from now if nothing got done and a Republican president is back in office. I'm not saying that there can't and won't be disagreement and dissent; I'm saying that in order to get the job done and give Barack Obama the clout he needs to move his agenda forward by leaps and bounds, there has to be, to a large extent, a united front to face the consistently united front staring you down from the other side of the aisle. To paraphrase The Godfather, as far as outsiders are concerned, you never take sides against the family.

Sure this is slightly robotic and seems to stand against everything left-wing America stands for, but guess what? It fucking wins.

Sometimes you've gotta look at the big picture -- and if there's anyone who can't seem to do that because they're too busy picking every little thing apart just to prove how intellectual, analytical and multi-faceted they are, it's liberals.


Case in point: today's New York Times editorial by Paul Krugman.

First of all, let me state unequivocally that Krugman's a genius; he's one of the smartest people around, and his views are always worth listening to. Let me also make it clear that I'm not suggesting that any side of the political spectrum let its leaders get away with anything and everything. The good of the nation should, for all intents and purposes, trump the good of the party. My argument is that the battle lines are so clearly drawn these days, the alternative for either party is so far removed from its own desired reality for the country, that each side has to be willing to accept that a big picture victory, even a partial one, is infinitely better than a complete loss. The Republicans realize this; the Democrats seem not to. Krugman's editorial, which takes President Obama to task for supposedly betraying the progressive base that helped put him in office, is a perfect example of the self-defeating splinter cell tendency of left-wing politics. Yes, Barack Obama seems to have slipped comfortably into a more middle-of-the-road stance than much of the left-leaning electorate would've liked, but make no mistake: a New York Times editorial from one of the leading liberal voices in America declaring that Obama has lost the support of progressives and now has to earn it back accomplishes nothing aside from doing the job of Republican strategists for them.

An editorial like Krugman's is every conservative's wet dream -- because those on the right know that any well-publicized dissension within the Democratic ranks makes Obama look weak and proves their point to those on the fence: that even when the Democrats have what they need to run the government their way, they can't make it happen. They can't seal the deal, despite having everything on their side.

As Wilkow said, they're born losers.

Right about now, the Democrats need to take a hint from a recent song by Green Day: Know Your Enemy. At the very least, know who he is.

Of course, Green Day actually have something in common with Andrew Wilkow: They're not real punks either.


And, in case I'm not being pointed enough, there's this:

"Why We Suck" (Originally Published, 10.31.10)

I'll make this really quick.

I may not have made it to yesterday's Rally to Restore Sanity, but I watched just about every minute of it on TV. While I did this, I of course engaged in the post-modern news and opinion-gathering technique of monitoring the pulse of those who were either there or were watching at home by logging on to Twitter and Facebook. And quite a bit of what I saw, to be honest, left me wanting to throw my laptop through a window.

I don't mean to pick on him personally, but professional disgruntled liberal standard-bearer Peter Daou's take on the rally was typical of what was popping up across the left-leaning Twitterverse, and it was essentially that what Stewart, Colbert et al were doing was unfocused, unfunny and desperately in need of some good, old-fashioned 60s-style civil rights march muscle -- that because it wasn't overtly political or especially pointed or even "entertaining" it was a missed opportunity.

And that, in a snapshot, is everything that's wrong with the left these days. Not only is nothing that's done with its general interests in mind ever enough, it's so utterly self-obsessed with what it thinks is best that it's more about personal satisfaction -- me, me, me; keep me happy; give me what I want -- than it is about actually moving the country in the correct direction.

Let me be really blunt: Look, you petulant fucking children, you overly analytical jackasses looking down disapprovingly from Olympus, willing to sacrifice some progress in favor of none whatsoever, it's not always about you.

What Stewart and Colbert did yesterday was exactly what needed to be done right now, and it wasn't about keeping you entertained or engaged; it was about the 215,000 people who turned out to provide a show of force for the beliefs that for the most part you claim to espouse. It was a victory for what Progressive America is supposed to stand for of the highest order imaginable -- and that should never be forgotten or devalued.

Related:

DXM: When Complaints Go Marching In/8.31.10

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Because George W. Bush is mercilessly back front-and-center in the national consciousness thanks to his current "I'm Still Not Sorry for Fucking the Country Raw" book tour, I thought I'd bring back this piece from January of last year. It's especially pertinent, given that Bush remains thoroughly arrogant and deluded about his entire record as president, but particularly on the subject of torture -- the torture he admits to personally authorizing.

"Walk of Shame" (Originally Published, 1.15.09)

It's probably a good idea to preface what I'm about to say with a quick fact: I was in New York City two days after September 11th, 2001; I covered the aftermath of the attack that leveled the World Trade Center both from ground zero and from the 69th Regiment Armory at 25th and Lexington, which was where many of the families of those missing and presumed dead were sent to have their cases processed. I held in my arms men and women who'd just lost loved ones and who were, at that moment, devastated remnants of the people they had been just a few days earlier. Because of all this, I felt an electrified rush of jingoistic venom like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I wanted to see those responsible for the catastrophic anguish around me not simply brought to justice, but made to suffer in the most excruciating way possible. The people who brought down the World Trade Center -- and part of the Pentagon, and a commercial jet full of innocents in Pennsylvania -- deserved to die, and die horribly. They still do.

I need to make all of these experiences and these feelings clear, because maybe if I do it will help to lend a certain kind of weight to what I think now has to be said.

George W. Bush and members of his administration should be investigated and stand trial for their crimes -- for their trampling of the Constitution, their illegal and unnecessary war, launched under false pretenses, against a country that didn't pose a clear and present danger to the United States and, most egregiously and despicably, their illicit and explicit approval of the torture of enemy prisoners.

Last month, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report detailing the Bush Administration's fingerprints on a plan, first hatched in 2002, to reverse-engineer the SERE training (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) given to some U.S. special forces units. The object of SERE is to teach special-ops personnel how to withstand the kind of interrogation methods they could face if captured by countries or militias that don't honor the Geneva Conventions. It was the creative idea of the White House to have SERE instructors turn around and teach torture techniques to covert interrogation teams involved in the War on Terror.

For years, this underground program remained largely and safely removed from public scrutiny; although it was in fact reported on, the administration engaged in its usual obfuscation and deflection while quietly charging those who dared to ask too many questions with being unpatriotic in a time of war. Over the past couple of weeks, though -- maybe emboldened by knowledge that their time is almost up and that they'll likely never be held accountable for their actions -- the Bush Administration's chief architects of this plan have begun, Colonel Nathan Jessup-style, to admit that they ordered the Code Red and would do it again if given the chance. Dick Cheney in particular confirmed in no uncertain terms that the U.S. tortured al Qaeda prisoners and all but dared potential critics to do anything about it.

He knows he can be as forthcoming -- to say nothing of brash and arrogant -- as he likes right now, because he knows that he's right: His critics in the incoming administration aren't going to do a goddamned thing about any of it. They'll talk tough -- say they're not ruling anything out and that investigating the past transgressions of the Bush clan is always on the table. But when all is said and done -- in other words, next Tuesday -- it will end the same way for Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, et al: They'll live out their lives in expensive homes far from Washington, DC, counting the money they're making from honorary corporate positions and speaking engagements. And they'll sleep very, very well -- with clear consciences.

The problem is that many of the Bush Administration's sins, with special attention paid to the issue of authorized torture, don't qualify as a simple case of a bunch of guys improvising during an unprecedented time in American history -- doing the best they could with what they had. George W. Bush and his cronies broke the law. Willfully. Wantonly. And if we truly adhere to the belief that no one is above the law, then that makes them all criminals.

I'm more than willing to admit that, from a political perspective, any attempt by incoming president Barack Obama to prosecute members of the Bush White House would be a lousy idea, one sure to be met with resentment from many of the leaders he needs to work with and outrage from a portion of the country he needs to help heal. Most Americans who consider the Bush era to be a dark age in our history are content to see its engineers and enablers thrown out on their asses, their lasting legacy one of unmitigated shame. Most people just want to move forward; that's what electing Barack Obama was all about. But if we remove the political question, what we're left with is solely a legal one: Did Bush and company break the law?

Again, they did.

And this country's standing and stature can't be restored simply by swinging a U-turn and looking toward a new kind of future without taking responsibility for the mistakes of the past. We'll never get our respect -- self and otherwise -- back if we just pretend like the last eight years never happened and let the men behind one of our nation's most embarrassing periods quietly walk away from the disastrous mess they made.

We don't torture. That's not who we are -- not what this country is about.

What we're about is bringing the guilty to justice.

Whether it's a foreign terrorist or a U.S. president.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

I've republished and referenced this piece more than once since it was originally posted. But as a complement to last night's post on Glenn Beck -- and in deference to the new readers currently roaming around this place -- I'm putting it up again. Honestly, it's shocking to read this and think that I wrote it more than a year ago. As I said at the time, that was just the beginning of the madness.

"Revolutionary Goad" (Originally Published, 4.7.09)

Exactly how far is too far?

Several times over the past month or so, I've dismissed Glenn Beck, the new clown prince of Fox News, as being not much more than a guy doing Kaufman-esque stand-up -- an opportunistic little turd who's playing his audience of paranoid conspiracists like a badly tuned piano in the name of making himself rich. At one point, I even admitted that Beck was basically good, clean fun -- or at least would be until some tinfoil-hatted psychopath who took his nonsense way too seriously decided to fire off a few rounds at President Obama.

But given what we're now seeing, the question has to be asked: Is it just a matter of time before something like that does in fact happen?

Over the weekend, a man in Pittsburgh gunned down three police officers who showed up to the home he shared with his mother on a domestic disturbance call. He strapped on a Kevlar vest and armed himself with an AK-47, waited for them to come through the door, then picked them off one by one. The details that have come out about the shooter since the attack are as infuriating as they are not-the-least-bit-surprising: 22-year-old Richard Poplawski is identified as a Marine Corps wash-out, a recently unemployed white supremacist who believes that the Jews control the media and that, most tellingly, the Obama Administration is planning to ban his beloved guns. In other words, he's exactly the kind of guy who, if you went on TV and told him that his worst paranoid hallucinations were coming true and that the new left-wing government was indeed poised to kick down his door and take his freedoms away, would believe every fucking word of it and act accordingly.

And if you don't think that that's exactly the message the Richard Poplawskis of this country are being inundated with from the far right these days, you're even more delusional than Poplawski himself.

Over the space of just the past couple of weeks, Glenn Beck has warned his loyal, terrified viewership of the coming socialist junta; lunatic congresswoman Michele Bachmann has claimed that the U.S. dollar is about to be replaced by foreign currency, American youths will soon be sent to "re-education camps," and patriotic citizens should be "armed and dangerous" and ready for revolution; disgraced CNBC loudmouth Jim Cramer has called the Democrats "Bolsheviks" and compared the U.S. House of Representatives to the Politburo; and Dick Morris, the no-lie smarmiest shitbag alive, spat this little pearl of wisdom into the Fox News echo chamber:

"Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘we’re going to kill ATF agents because the UN’s going to take over’ -- well, they’re beginning to have a case."

In case you missed that, let's rewind: Dick Morris says that militaristic nutjobs willing to kill government agents now have a fucking case.

Once again, exactly how far is too far?

While free speech has to be respected and the right to it protected, is there no line of rhetoric so incendiary, so dangerous, so shameless in its aim of instigating simply for the sake of ad revenue, that it can't provoke absolute outrage? If you know that there are an inordinate number of Richard Poplawskis listening to you and that they already buy thoroughly into half-baked persecution fantasies -- and then you purposely try to at best validate their fears or at worst scare the hell out of them even further -- don't you bear at least a small amount of responsibility for the outcome? Shouldn't there be accountability?

In a display of hypocrisy that's almost staggering, many on the right who once railed against the twin evils of violent video games and Marilyn Manson and decried their supposed relation to teen violence are now hiding behind the very argument they say bleeding-heart liberals used against them way back when: that you can't blame the messenger for the effect the message might have on one or two unstable individuals. To his credit, Bob Cesca has a good take on this specious comparison; he points out that the difference between, say, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold -- the Columbine killers -- and someone like Richard Poplawski is that Harris and Klebold, while certainly being budding gun fetishists, hadn't yet developed the intransigent political ideology that goes hand-in-hand with a maniacal worship of weapons in this country. Harris and Klebold, like Cho Seung Hui -- the Virginia Tech killer -- were basically impressionable kids using guns to lash out and make themselves feel powerful (the latter, a trait they indeed shared with Poplawski and one that should have precluded them from ever owning a goddamned gun in the first place). They loved guns, sure -- but they didn't yet have the distrust of a government they feared would one day come and take their precious weapons away. Poplawski was impressionable in another way in that he did think that his weapons made him part of a larger culture of True Believers, and any confirmation of an attack on the way of life espoused by he and those like him would be all it took to set him off. And it did. Poplawski likely always figured his guns could be used to level the socio-political and economic playing field, and in his twisted mind, that's exactly what happened.

But for those who would still claim that everyone is impressionable in his or her own way and that, at some level, both the creators of GTA4 and Glenn Beck need to acknowledge that their actions may have unintended consequences: You're right, to an extent. The bottom line is that while free speech and expression must be respected, there has to be a level of responsibility attached. It's reckless, dangerous and immoral to knowingly stoke the demons of a person's nature -- and what's worse, to pass off fantasy as fact and do it in the name of making a buck or a political point. It's intellectually dishonest to pretend that you're operating in a vacuum -- whether you're Marilyn Manson or Michele Bachmann -- and that nothing you say will have an impact on the crazies within your target audience.

So, I ask yet again: How far is too far?

I talked to my father a few days ago. He's an ex-cop and ex-Navy SEAL who now lives part-time in a little Florida town called Sebring -- right in the center of the state's hyper-Republican I-4 Corridor. He's had a concealed weapons permit for decades and is about the most qualified and responsible person I can imagine being allowed to carry a weapon. He mentioned to me that he had recently been to the local Wal-Mart looking for ammunition for his handgun -- the kind of thing that's typically in abundance at a Central Florida big box store. But what he found surprised him, and scared him a little.

The place was almost completely out of ammo. In fact, it turns out they can barely keep the stuff on the shelves these days.

Somebody out there is listening to the "warnings."

And I'm betting that what we've seen lately is just the beginning of the nightmare.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Quick, which mega-selling pop star consistently has the most drama in his or her life? Kanye? Britney? Eminem? Try Susan Boyle. You can Google her name just about any time and you'll always be sure to turn up a treasure trove of mind-bogglingly weird news items. When she's not suffering from exhaustion or having a full-on mental breakdown, she's being stalked to the point where her brother fears she'll end up like John Lennon or being saved from choking on a pineapple by a complete stranger. I get that Boyle never set out to be the supernova she's become, and that there's ample evidence of her being an entirely exploited and victimized Patient Zero in the world's current obsession with viral phenomena, but at some point she'll need to buck up and deal with the fame that's been foisted upon her. Once you willingly perform for the Pope, you've pretty much embraced your new standing in the world. Regardless, Boyle's next album is due out in November and, word has it, it will likely own the holiday season, thanks largely to her mammoth, big box discount store fan base -- which makes this as good a time as any to bring back this little piece from late last year. Lord, the hostile reaction I got to this sucker when it was first posted over at HuffPo. For the record, this piece was never really about Susan Boyle -- it was about hypocrisy.

"The Ugly Truth" (Originally Published, 11.13.09)

I'll try hard to make this quick for two reasons: One, because I've done my best to avoid writing about either of these people for a long time and so far have been mercifully successful, and two, I kind of feel like the point I'll make is so obvious it almost goes without saying.

The whole Controversy™ over Sharon Osbourne calling Susan Boyle a "hairy arsehole" who looks like she's been beaten with an "ugly stick" is completely fucking ridiculous.

Yesterday, in a move that had been predestined since about three seconds after the offending comment, Osbourne apologized to Boyle -- and by proxy everyone else on the planet, all of whom had taken it upon themselves to demand repentance -- for being so callous and insensitive during an appearance on Opie and Anthony (a radio show that's raised callous-and-insensitive to an art form). In the week since Osbourne made the on-air crack, you honestly would've thought that she'd driven her Bentley to Susan Boyle's house and taken a crap on her front lawn; the amount of contrived outrage from both the slavish celebrity media and the lifeless dolts who eat that kind of nonsense up has been hilariously deafening.

It really should go without saying, first and foremost, that Opie and Anthony do a comedy show; if you've never listened to it, trust me when I tell you that somebody calling somebody else a hairy asshole is probably the least offensive thing you'll hear on that show on any given day. The fact that people can't take a joke, a rude one, sure, but still a joke -- and most poignantly, one that wasn't really aimed at their tender ears in the first place and was only brought to their attention by a mass media machine that makes its living off of those who are constantly on the lookout for something to be outraged over -- is a hell of a lot more offensive in my mind than the joke itself.

But beyond that, the outpouring of indignation -- the shock and anger over a comment from a woman who's not exactly known for being classy or tactful, directed at a supposedly defenseless wallflower -- isn't just absurd, it's disingenuous. The reality is that Susan Boyle is unattractive. She's really unattractive. And guess what? The event that catapulted her to stardom in the first place capitalized on the fact that just about anyone who sees her believes this. When Susan Boyle stepped out onto the stage on Britain's Got Talent, you were supposed to think that she was an ugly, overweight frump who was doomed to embarrass herself in spectacular fashion the minute she opened her mouth. For God's sake, they practically played the Baby Elephant Walk from Hatari as her intro music. That moment, which became a cultural phenomenon, was all about the juxtaposition of her very impressive voice with her anything-but-impressive looks; the show's producers engineered it to shame the audience they knew would make an instant assumption: that somebody who looked like that couldn't possibly be talented -- not somebody that ugly.

People don't respond well to being forced to face the rottenest parts of their character -- like, say, the part that snickered when it first saw dowdy, awkward Susan Boyle and heard that she had dreams of being a successful singer -- and they usually respond by overcompensating in the opposite direction. Hence, you get thousands of people commenting on celebrity news websites or penning impassioned diatribes calling Sharon Osbourne "the one who's TRULY ugly" and making the obligatory knee-jerk demand that she be fired (from what exactly? Britain's Got Talent? America's Got Talent? Her job as Ozzy's manager?). Or how about this -- to really prove to themselves that they're good people, enlightened beings above petty prejudices, 68% percent of those who took part in a poll earlier this week by Access Hollywood engaged in the pop culture equivalent of voting for the handicapped kid for prom king: They proudly declared that when compared with Sharon Osbourne, Susan Boyle had more "sex appeal."

Think about that for a minute.

68% of those who watch Access Hollywood -- a show hosted by a couple of living Barbie and Ken dolls with hardly a brain cell between them, a show that traffics in gossip about the lives of the most gorgeous people in the world -- believe that Susan Boyle has more sex appeal than Sharon Osbourne.

Right.

What does that poll really tell us? It tells us that it's not even that so many in this country can't take a goddamned joke, it's that so many would rather lie, even to themselves, than admit that they're nowhere near as evolved as they pretend to be. That although she may have been crude about it, Sharon Osbourne wasn't saying anything the rest of us weren't already thinking.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

You know, how the hell was I not aware that Oprah's cable network is called "OWN?" Holy hell, what a flawless double entendre of mind-boggling narcissism. How does this woman do it? I've had my moments of arrogant prickness, but I can't even imagine being that self-obsessed.

With that in mind, let's delve deep into the archives today.

"There's No 'I' in Oprah" (Originally Published, 10.25.06)

***INTERNAL MEMO//NOT FOR RELEASE***

From the Law Offices of Jeremy, Jameson, North and Hartley

Beverly Hills, California

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

RE: Oprah Winfrey/Harpo Inc. Copyright and Trademark Rulings


We are pleased to report that as of 9:00am PDT this morning, the proposed copyright and trademark implementation initiated on behalf of our client has been ruled official and legally binding (O. Winfrey Petition, Case #0598672, CA Superior Court/Part 53). As discussed, being that a favorable designation from the client (or authorized association with the client) carries with it certain benefits -- both social and financial -- and said designation lends the recipient an unparalleled level of legitimacy with a vast market which would otherwise be untapped by the recipient, from this point forward the following is true: said recipients of this "hallowed blessing" (the official term to be used forthwith) will be considered the intellectual and industrial property of the client and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harpo Inc.

The current breakdown -- which can and will be adjusted for time, favored status and general rises to and falls from grace -- is as follows:


Oprah's Friend Gayle^(c)(tm) // Gayle King, who for some time has been familiar to the general public strictly by the designation "Oprah's Friend Gayle" will now be known by that name and only that name, both professionally and personally. This will replace any previous moniker which may have been applied to her -- including but not limited to: "Oprah's Girlfriend Gayle," "Oprah's Lesbian Lover Gayle," "That Bitch Who Looks Like Whitney Houston Fresh Out of Rehab," "The Sycophant," and "Who?"

Note: if at any time the client chooses to admit the truth about her sexuality, Oprah's Friend Gayle's^(c)(tm) name will immediately and legally become "Gayle, the Woman Who Makes it Okay for You to Admit that You're a Lesbian and Leave Behind Your Family and Constricting Life in Suburbia, Girlfriend^(c)(tm)."

Oprah's Favorite Chef^(c)(tm) // Henceforth, this copyrighted and trademarked label will be applied to the woman formerly known as Rachael Ray and will be exclusively used by her in all professional and personal interactions. It has been brought to this firm and its client's attention that the beneficiary of this hallowed blessing recently began taping a talk show which bears her erstwhile moniker. As a concession, the client will allow the name of the show to be changed to "The Rachael Ray Show, Which Owes its Entire Existence to the Good Nature of Oprah and the Fact that Miss Ray is, in Fact, Oprah's Favorite Chef." It is also the client's wish that Oprah's Favorite Chef^(c)(tm) be reminded by this firm that her contract remains legally binding and that the client is under no obligation to return her soul.

Oprah's Designer^(c)(tm) // From this point forward -- as a matter of simplification -- the designer who most recently has been known to the general public as "Nate Berkus, Oprah's Designer" will relinquish the proper-name portion of that title, as it barely matters anyway. Oprah's Designer^(c)(tm) will also agree to be addressed simply as "Girlfriend" by the client for the remainder of his existence or until the client tires of his bold use of Feng Shui, whichever comes first.

Barack Obama, Oprah's Candidate^(c)(tm) // The client acknowledges the unfortunate necessity for the future presidential contender currently known as Barack Obama, the Junior Senator from Illinois, to retain his proper name. However, the client wishes for this firm to remind the Senator -- upon his inevitable election -- to whom he owes his political fortunes. The client expects an appointment to a cabinet post in the Obama administration befitting her role in his incredible appeal to middle-class soccer moms across the country; it is her wish that she be granted the post of Secretary of State or higher, as this rise to power will be necessary to facilitate the coming of the Christ-Child and the client's eventual war with the Nazarene.

He Who Has No Name // Henceforth, the author and blasphemer formerly known as James Frey shall cease to exist in a figurative sense and shall be banished from public consciousness.

Tom Cruise // It is the client's prudent decision that her name in no way be associated with Tom Cruise. This decision is legal and binding.

Dr. Phil, the Ingrate^(c)(tm) // The client acknowledges a lapse in oversight which has allowed the one-time recipient of the hallowed blessing to succeed despite having no continued attachment to her. She will not make the same mistake again, and wishes for the firm to take measures to ensure that Dr. Phil, the Ingrate^(c)(tm), his wife and son are all "dealt with" at the firm's earliest convenience.

Caveats and Codicils

The client officially lays copyrighted and trademarked legal claim to the following:

* The term "Girlfriend," and all sassy uses of it.

* Weight-loss of any kind.

* The entire depth of human experience, as the client insists that she is not only understanding of any and all interpersonal situations, but is in fact the progenitor of said situations and can provide unequalled validation to those who experience them subsequently.

Any unauthorized use or application of the preceding will result in immediate legal action, which this firm is empowered to take on behalf of the client. Punishment will be swift and without mercy.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

Given that Ted Haggard has been back in the news lately -- now piously touting his born again again status as someone who overcame his demons through the Lord Jesus Christ and can now safely criticize the supposed witch hunt that led to his disgrace -- I figure it makes sense to bring back what I had to say when the Haggard gay-sex-meth scandal first broke.

"Sympathy for the Reverend" (Originally Published, 11.5.06)

A few years back, my wife and I, and one of our closest friends, undertook an adventure which wound up becoming one of the seminal events in each of our lives: We went on a three-week, cross-country road trip. We started in Miami, drove all the way out to Los Angeles, then back. During our journey, we stopped in several major cities -- New Orleans, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Vegas -- but also in the tiniest of tiny towns. It was during the time spent taking-in the smaller blips on the map that most of our fondest memories were created. From an entertaining conversation with a teenage check-out girl in Erick, Oklahoma -- one that involved my inability to understand the concept of grasshoppers stuck in the grill of our SUV -- to stumbling upon an impromptu dance by a group of Native American children in Holbrook, Arizona, to the purchase of a souvenir coconut head in Ocala, Florida, to a drunken 4th-of-July celebration in Odessa, Texas, the entire experience opened my eyes to the astonishing beauty of my homeland. It's something I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

We saw so many strikingly different kinds of terrain -- met so many wonderfully unique people.

As we pushed inward from the coast, into the heartland of America, we did, however, notice one particular image which seemed to assert itself inescapably everywhere we traveled (aside from Elvis, whose face -- thin or bloated -- adorns every kind of memoribilia imaginable from sea to shining sea).

That image is the cross.

You don't fully comprehend or appreciate America's unquestioning adoption of the Christian faith until you realize that a whole lot of people obviously believe there is no landscape so pristine or flawless in its own right as to avoid being improved upon by the insinuation of the ancient torture device on which Jesus was supposedly executed. Whether on a major highway or a lone, isolated road, crosses can be seen everywhere -- in all variations of shape and size. They are made of wood and stabbed into otherwise empty fields; they adorn the tops of steeples which dot the topography; and in the otherwise unremarkable roadside town of Britten, Texas -- they are made of corrugated steel, and literally pierce the sky at a height of 190 feet.

Needless to say, we had to stop.

My friend would later perfectly articulate the overwhelming sense that each of us had while standing in the shadow of a cross the size of a building. "The effect is fearsome and oppressive, a symbol not of love and acceptance and forgiveness, but of domination. Looking up at it, you expect to see a zeppelin moored to its top, illuminated by giant search lights," he'd write. My mind, on the other hand, couldn't shake a much more succinct term for what we were witnessing in the middle of the expansive Texas plains: Industrialized Jesus. We'd witnessed hundreds of franchises of Christianity throughout our journey and would no doubt witness many more still; this one just happened to be the biggest -- the Jesus Christ Super-Center.

After the requisite time necessary to fully document the giant cross on film -- on the chance that someone back home might not believe the existence of such an object -- we pressed on, continuing our southwestern route through the United States. This course, took us nowhere near Colorado Springs, Colorado -- a place which might have been a required destination should we for any reason have desired to see the true fulmination of the Industrialized Jesus concept. It's there that we would have found the New Life Church, a mammoth structure dubbed, with all possible lack of subtlety, a "Mega-Church." It seats thousands and could be mistaken for a shopping mall were it not for that ubiquitous cross making it perfectly clear that what's being sold inside is nothing less than salvation. Up until yesterday, it was also the religious seat of arguably the single most powerful Evangelical Christian in the country: the Reverend Ted Haggard.

Haggard is a man who has spent the past thirty-four years of his life preaching the gospel of Jesus and the unerrant truth of every aspect of the Bible. Recently, he was the leader of the 30-million-strong National Evangelical Association and a personal friend and advisor to President Bush -- even participating in weekly conference calls with the White House. He's also been, for some time now, a staunch opponent of gay-marriage and has worked tirelessly to support ballot amendments which would ban it in eight states this election day.

And that's exactly why, last Thursday, an openly-gay male escort publicly destroyed Reverend Ted Haggard.

What 49-year-old Mike Jones did was the figurative equivalent of an assassination: He calculated his actions perfectly and timed his shot to inflict maximum damage not simply to Haggard but to his cause. He claimed to have proof of a three-year affair with the reverend that included not just sex but regular use of methamphetamines. Before those who would certainly jump to the defense of Haggard could even get their talking points in order -- before the Rush Limbaughs of the world could power up a mic to cry election-year foul -- Jones disarmed them by admitting that political consideration was indeed integral to the timing of his attack; he wanted to expose the hypocrisy of Haggard and the demagogues on the right and specifically chose the moment that would hurt and disillusion them the most. The truth was -- and is -- simply staggering: the leader of America's Evangelical Christians, exposed as a gay drug-user.

Haggard initially denied the accusations, insisting that he hired Jones for a massage but never had sex with him and that he bought meth from him but threw it away. Although not quite as catchy, both retorts seem destined to become the new "I didn't inhale." Since then, however, Haggard has admitted to having a "lifelong sexual problem," telling his followers in a letter that he's a "deceiver and a liar," "sexually immoral," and that there is a part of his life which he calls "repulsive and dark."

That sound you hear right now is a whole lot of people gloating with satisfaction.

While the level of hypocrisy and arrogance involved in Haggard's private life versus his self-righteous public crusading is indeed sickening and indefensible -- and there is certainly plenty of legitimate nose-rubbing to be done to Haggard's many intolerant minions -- for some reason, after a reflexive moment of giddy schadenfreude, the news of this man's downfall and his own reaction to it began to stir a different emotion in me entirely.

Sadness.

Ted Haggard has spent most if not all of his existence living a lie and he's done so for only one reason: because his unwavering belief in the literal teachings of a 2000-year-old book has taught him that he must. There's a distinct possibility that the reason Haggard found Christ to begin with was because he sincerely hoped that through him all things were indeed possible -- the suppression of his true feelings and urges being the most pertintent of those things. There are thousands if not millions of Christians out there who hope for the same transformative power of religion. The enrollment in schools which the church claims can "straighten-out" homosexuals is proof of that hope; the success-rate of those schools is proof of its futility.

Many claim that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, does more good than harm; it gives meaning to life and provides its believers a moral compass with which to navigate the world.

Really?

Ted Haggard is married and has five children -- all of whom don't need to concern themselves with angry threats of an impending hell because they're going through it right now. The person they love and admire the most has devastated them, simply because he could never admit who or what he truly was and is -- because Ted Haggard the fire-and-brimstone preacher has always believed that the true nature of Ted Haggard the man is "immoral, repulsive and dark," when in fact, it is nothing of the kind; it's only the dishonesty that's immoral. A man's relentless submission to superstition has destroyed himself, the family he loves, and more than likely a small part of those who have respected him and held him up as an example.

The biggest tragedy, however, might be that Ted Haggard has wasted the one life he was given.

He's done it by lying to himself and by trying to convince others that they should do likewise.

For that I blame not the believer but the belief -- the same belief that would lead someone to plant a giant metal cross in the middle of a place that was so beautiful just the way it was.