Adventures in Expatriating: Day 2

I meant to wake up by 9 but woke up at 11:15. It was pouring and the rain sound was like Ambien. Considering I hadn't slept the night before, I don't feel at all guilty about sleeping for nearly 15 hours.

Today is a much better day than yesterday. It has been a day of self-made familiarity. Doing familiar things made me feel less like a stranger in a strange land. I had yogurt and raspberries with my muesli, and now I want to make my own muesli. I went for a run despite the rain, albeit a slow one. I made some brown rice and had rice and eggs for lunch. The eggs were amazing, with bright, rich yolks the color of a clementine. I walked to Place Flagey again, twice, and I didn't hesitate on the route home. I tried the other grocery store and found nearly everything on my list except the steel cut oats. When I got home, I found a live stream of football and cooked dinner. My husband is currently stuck in Heathrow, his flight delayed repeatedly due to mechanical bullshit. I popped open the Lambic because I'll be waiting for quite a while.

Running in the rain was much less miserable than I'd anticipated. In fact, it was kind of great, and after the first mile I stopped caring about how stupid I looked in my bright yellow jacket and cycling cap. I was out running, after all, not at home on the couch sulking and wishing it was sunny. I followed dirt paths around the ponds, into Abbaye de La Cambre, and out onto Ave. Franklin Roosevelt (I supposed the Brussels version of an FDR). I passed a turnoff onto Avenue Victoria but decided to keep running on Roosevelt. Dumb. The sidewalk pavers on that street are like ice in the rain, and even in my trail shoes I kept losing my footing. Not wanting to break my neck, I turned back and went onto Victoria. Fear of getting inexorably lost in the park kept me from entering, but after a bit I decided to try. It's like the Golden Gate Park of Brussels in there. I love it. The dirt paths were the perfect place to run in the rain.

First day of work tomorrow. I wish I had a day to spend exploring the city with Koshi before I started but there's always next weekend!

Adventures in Expatriating: Day 1

I arrived in Brussels this morning for my 3-month stint. The day was pretty rough. I was only able to sleep about an hour and a half on my flight from Chicago to Brussels and arrived completely exhausted. Last week, T-Mobile assured me that my plan was fine and I would be able to text internationally, so that is how I planned to connect with the person to let me into our temporary apartment. But when I landed, my phone wouldn't connect to any network. Panic. Found a payphone in baggage claim, tried to call, no answer. Left a message, got my bag, and took a cab to the place. Nobody here. I stood on the street for about 5 minutes freaking out, knocking and ringing the broken doorbell every 40 seconds or so in hopes that somebody would materialize inside. I figured that either I used the phone wrong (totally possible) or dialed the wrong number, so standing outside would do no good. I dragged my two suitcases up the street hoping to find something—a cafe, a pay phone, a magical wireless hotspot. At the end of my block I found a laundromat, Quickly Wash, with what I thought was a pay phone inside. Not a pay phone. More panic until I saw the free wifi sign. Used my computer to call the girl to meet me. She heard me for the first 2 minutes but then could hear nothing more. I called back, yelling into my computer in the laundromat. Still couldn't hear, but I could hear her say, "I'll be there in 2 minutes."

And this is how I spent my first hour and a half as an expatriate.

Many people have no problems operating on little sleep. I am not one of those people. I tried very hard to stay up as the internet had advised in order to overcome jet lag and decided that going out for a walk and visit to the grocery store would be a good idea. My first interaction was in a little food shop to get a piece of pumpkin quiche. In French. I took French in high school, and was really good at it then, but it has been 15 years since high school and I am not so good anymore. I can muddle through speaking ok, but I am having a horrible time understanding when people speak to me. Given my state of utter exhaustion, I smiled and nodded and pretended I understood most of it, but really I just wanted the goddamn food. It was good.

Then the grocery store. I remember walking into the market in Tokyo and being completely and utterly amazed. So many aisles, all of it perfectly organized. Of course, I realize I'm in Europe, not Japan, but I expected to be a little more excited by the strangeness of things than I was in the Place Flagey Delhaize. I spent 15 minutes trying to find milk. The eggs weren't in the fridge, but that's not unusual with farm fresh eggs. I gave up thinking there was some kind of strange milk crisis or a secret place you had to go to get milk. Yes, seriously. On the way home—after nearly getting hit by a car in the crosswalk, which I swear was not my fault—I stopped in a smaller market and asked the guy for milk. He pointed to the shelves next to him like I was an idiot. Milk. Lots of it. Not in the fridge, and in boxes like the ones I buy my organic chicken broth in. I also struck out finding steel cut oats. Multiple varieties of muesli, though. Muesli everywhere.

Demoralized, stressed out, and exhausted, I came home, showered, put on sweat pants, curled up on the couch, and turned on the TV. 2 out of 30 channels in English. I fell asleep watching cooking shows on BBC and slept for a few hours. I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and decided to putter around before taking another shot at the outside world. I found an organic health foods store nearby thinking that they would have brown rice and oats for sure. Rice yes, oats no. On the way to and from, I discovered a street with 3 butchers and a fish market, and a weird little 99 cent-type store. Score. But so hungry. I wasn't ready for fries, so I went to Cafe Belga for a beer and some manner of food. Shitty grilled cheese sandwich and a gueuze. A gueuze on tap. And then Lou Reed started to play in the bar. It all made me happy for the first time all day.

My husband arrives tomorrow night, and I'm very much looking forward to having a companion.

Hugh G. Rection

From the San Francisco Chronicle via Jason the Scientist:

And finally: First, the big new Federal Building in San Francisco was late and over budget. Then workers complained about needing sunglasses and umbrellas indoors to shield them from the glaring sun.

Now comes word about another bit of embarrassment at the $144 million "green" behemoth at Seventh and Mission streets.

Officials recently installed four giant, stainless-steel plaques near the entryway in recognition of the many planners, architects and others who helped make the eco-friendly building possible.

Only it wasn't long before office workers were making pilgrimages to the wall - and snickering at the engraved name of one "Hugh G. Rection."

That plaque is now gone. Of course, so are all the others, temporarily - seems they were installed crooked.

Daily Show: Sarah Palin Gender Card

Amazing job juxtaposing Fox News comments on Democrats with Fox News comments on Republicans in the same situations. It's truly brilliant.

Ann Coulter: Ramble on Easy

On Saturday, I watched a marathon of My Coolest Years, that VH1 show about what comedians and tv personalities were like in high school. I caught the Dirty Hippies episode and guess who was a Deadhead? None other than our favorite sandwich-needing neocon McCarthy loving bitch, Ann Coulter.

She's been to over 60 Grateful Dead shows (which is really nothing compared to *real* Deadheads) and claims that people shouldn't be surprised by this because, "It's the music."

Yeah. The music... and the acid and the tie dye. BOOO YA!

This revelation puts snarky comments about liberal women like this one, from the article that got her dropped like a dead cat from USA Today, into a different light:

As for the pretty girls, I can only guess that it's because liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the UN Security Council's approval. Plus, it's no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars. My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention.

Someone is running from her past!

Additionally, there's now a documentary all about Ann: Is It True What They Say About Ann? by Elinor Burkett and Patrick Wright. I hope somewhere they address the question, "Is Ann really as batshit crazy as we think she is?"

Visiting Hours are for Friends and Family, not Congress

On the front page of CNN.com at 9:28am PT, Tuesday, March 22, 2005:

It's the family of Terri Schiavo, who are in denial of the fact that while medicine allows her body to survive mechanically, Terri herself is no longer with them. From this CNN.com article yesterday:

"I asked her if she was ready to take a little ride, and I told her that we were going to take her for a little trip and take her outside and get her some breakfast, and that got a big smile out of her face, so help me God," Schindler [Terri's father] said.

Despite everything that the doctors have told him, this man truly believes that his daughter responds, thinks, and loves. She doesn't. Let her rest in peace.

What Americans hate even more than change, is watching the government involve itself in intensely personal family issues. "Gay Marriage" and "Abortion" are less personal stories involving one or two people and more blanket issues that have been adopted by the parties as platform points in swaying public opinion. They are buzz phrases, personal experience removed. But the Schiavo case is particularly dangerous for the republicans because it is not some buzz issue whose basis in reality has been diluted by its incorporation into political platforms. It is one family, one woman, and one very personal case. It's as if Congress has now stepped into the rooms of our hospitals, into an intensely personal situation that strikes an emotional chord for Americans like no other event since possibly September 11th. Except this time, most Americans seem certain that this is not an issue in which the government should involve itself. This does not concern them. Their "intervention" is merely political grandstanding and too many people for the GOP's good see it as such.

The only benefits i can see them drawing from this endeavor are: 1) increased fervor from the pro-life side; 2) another charge of "judicial activism" to levy against the judicial branch; and 3) applause from the zealout Christians who would see this "stopping of life" as "playing God" (nevermind the fact that having her life prolonged by feeding tubes and machines could, to the purist, be construed as "playing God" in the first place).

A right-wing conservative group has been lobbying for this intervention for a long time. THIS woman's death should NOT become a political debate.

I'd also like to note that this is just one more example of why we choose our mates but not our family... her husband wants to respect her choice. Her family sits in denial, involving government in a life that no longer exists. It's disgusting. Hopefully it will be stalled in the courts long enough that her body dies before the family has the chance to find one judge who rules to put the tube back in.

Does Madonna like Gefiltefish?

I have a friend/co-worker who adores Madonna and today she sent me an email with this link to a scanned NY Post page asking me to tell her what the "Jewish lettering" (her words) on the $75 t-shirt in the picture meant. I explained that I don't know Hebrew but that I'd try to find out somehow.

The t-shirt in question

Turning to my old friend Google, I did a search for "Madonna hebrew t-shirt." The search returned a few interesting results.

First of all, I found the t-shirt in question on a fan t-shirt website. The Hebrew letters on the front spell out "Madonna." From the shirt description:

Featuring two dramatic portraits of Madonna, this unique garment touches on themes from the Kabbalah, an ancient mystic theology. The front says MADONNA in Hebrew while the back features some of the 72 Names of God, meditation on which is said to have spiritual and healing powers.

I cringed when I read that. It's like she's gone from Material Girl to the faux Jewish equivalent of a Christian rock band (remember DC Talk's Jesus Freak merch from the 90s?) Putting Hebrew on your merch because you've discovered Jewish mysticism and it has changed your life in 2 years? How pure of you to show such great respect for your newly found piety that you would want to slap it on a t-shirt and sell it for $75 at a show where the tickets themselves probably cost between $50 and $100 in the first place!

After solving the mystery of the "Jewish lettering" I looked at another Google result that caught my eye, an article from Fox News. For the first time in history, I think they have a point, which is the same point I was getting to above: she's flaunting her new "religion" but in such a superficial way one can't help but think she's full of shit.

But that led me to another thought... Fox News accuses her of flaunting her religion and incorporating it into her "act." But isn't that exactly what George W. Bush does? Isn't that one of the calling cards of the neoconservative right wing of the United States, their religion? God hates gays, gays can't marry; God hates this, we can't do it; God things this is bad, BAN IT. Bush was a material boy of sorts before finding religion, snorting coke to his heart's content, drinking beer out of kegs in the halls of Yale, yet his "conversion," his "being saved," is considered natural and pure. The Material Girl herself, however, is just a phony. Maybe if she'd picked Christianity instead...

In my world, hey, it's cool if you have God in your life, just keep it out of my face. Enjoy it for yourself, but don't impose it on me, and don't flaunt it. Don't put Kabbalah mysticism on t-shirts and don't tell me that God wouldn't like what I think.

And Madonna, seriously... get that shit off of your merch, you look like an idiot.

My Favorite Online Radio Stations

Someone at the blog I post to with a group of friends posted this link today from the SF Chronicle online (sfgate.com). It's basically about radio stations that don't suck. I posted the same thing there that I'm about to post here, but I think it's deserving of being posted here. Besides, I have to try and use this blog more often now that I took the time to make it look nice.

From that Chronicle link, I highly recommend KEXP, WOXY, and one show on Indie 103.1. The show is Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and it's Monday - Friday from noon until 2 (if I remember correctly). It's great... blocks of the Clash, Iggy & the Stooges, the Cure, even the occasional MC5 track.

I used to listen to Indie 103.1 daily but then I realized they played basically the same songs in the afternoon that they played in the morning and I stopped listening. They also played this song I hate ALL the time... "Run" by Snow Patrol. I couldn't take it anymore. It's only "indie" to a degree because most of the stuff they play is in that sort of weird indie-on-the-cusp-of-mainstream category. And a lot of that stuff is honestly garbage. Snow Patrol, for instance. I hate them. And as the article mentions, Indie 103.1 is in the clutches of Clear Channel.

WOXY is pretty good too, although I was only introduced to it recently. I don't listen that much but when I do there's not much to complain about. It's more "indie" than Indie 103.1, but not nearly as well-versed in the obscure as KEXP. Their artist database is kinda weak, to be honest. They do, however, play a wider variety of genres than KEXP on an ordinary work day (for instance, right now on their recently played queue is a Buzzcocks song). One of the nicest things I've found is that if you play the station through iTunes, it will show you the name of the track currently being played. With KEXP you have to go to their website and keep the playlist page open to see the titles and artists. Also, someone else has pointed out there there is significantly less chatter on WOXY than KEXP.

KEXP is really awesome because it's listener supported and when you email a request they actually play it. It's in my opinion the best independent radio station that exists (bold claim, I know). They are always on top of the new stuff coming out yet still play the indie oldies that I remember from the days when I got the Matador Records catalog in the mail. They also have a very cool variety of shows (during the day it's basically all indie pop/rock but at night and on the weekends they play all kinds of other stuff... browse their streaming archive to get an idea) KEXP is by far my favorite radio station to stream at work. I listen to it a lot. The only thing that sucks is when they play crappy socially conscious hip hop.

Also, as a sidenote, that article is a good find, O Anonymous Poster, but the guy who wrote that piece sounds like a total tool. I mean...

This, then, is merely an overview, a sampler platter, a big sloppywet hint of the joy that awaits you once you turn away from the J.Lo/50 Cent/Kid Rock dark side and click back into the groove of what true radio was, should be and perhaps, if all stars align and the corporate choke hold is somehow loosened and the current draconian self-righteous agenda of the FCC dies a flaming white-hot death, will be again.

I guess he missed that lesson in journalism class where they warn against using clichés. CLICHÉ OVERLOAD! Yeesh! Does he even know what he's trying to say?

First attempt at music writing: the blurbs

The following three blurbs appeared in the Noise Pop program, along with the feature I did on The Walkmen.

Micah P. Hinson

Texas-via-Memphis singer/songwriter Micah P. Hinson is known for world-weary tales you’d never expect from someone who’s only 22, but the sordid experiences he writes about are all genuinely his own. Hinson’s import-only debut full-length, Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress (Sketchbook), which was created with the help of The Earlies, combines his bittersweet lyrics and raspy, haunting voice with crisp, melancholy guitar that’s reminiscent of ‘60s folk. JESS HEMERLY

Howie Statland

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg may have taken the smoking out of NYC bars, but Lower East Side band New York City Smoke remain. Much like The Who, the band that continues to influence NYCSmoke, the gritty outfit’s frontman, Howie Statland, has done more during his career than simply release albums and play shows. Statland has been tending to a burning passion for music since the age of 8, when he started his formal music training on piano. A former member of Thin Lizard Dawn, he’s collarboarted with avant-garde composer Phillip Glass and written scores for independent films, most notably Low Flame—written by Statland himself—and NYCAria. NYCSmoke recently issued their self-released second full-length, Hearts & Stones. JESS HEMERLY

Vietnam

Richard Nixon and Gavin McInnes—the man behind the Vice media empire—have more in common than conservative political views: they’re both responsible for prolonging an endeavor with the name Vietnam. Fortunately it didn’t take the assassination of a president to keep Vice Records band Vietnam going, just three guys with a zealous dedication to invading and pacifying the American rock scene. The native Texans, armed with powerful guitars, heartfelt lyrics and bluesy rhythms, are currently supporting their debut EP, The Concrete’s Always Greener on the Other Side of the Street. JESS HEMERLY

Obviously the Vietnam blurb is my favorite because it's so ridiculous.

Redesign!

That's right, those godforsaken dots are gone and I even learned a little about CSS in the process.

Hopefully this will encourage me to use this blog more often.

My first attempts at music writing

I did a feature and a few blurbs for the program for Noise Pop, a weeklong smattering of indie music shows across San Francisco. I email interviewed one of my favorite bands of today, The Walkmen, and wrote the feature for the program. You will find it below.

THE WALKMEN
A Fire Inside

Following the breakup of underground favorites Jonathan Fire*Eater, organist Walter Martin, drummer Matt Barrick and guitarist Paul Maroon teamed up with singer/guitarist Hamilton Leithauser (Martin’s cousin) and bassist Peter Bauer---who had been playing together as The Recoys---to form The Walkmen. Though the New York outfit has only been together since 1999, the guys have known each other since childhood. Leithauser met Barrick at summer camp back in fourth grade; he met Bauer in a DC park in ninth grade; and he was introduced to Maroon in high school when Maroon became the new guitarist in Martin’s band.

"I called Walt on the phone when I realized that [The Recoys] weren’t gonna survive," explains Leithauser. "I said, ‘Your singer is wack. I can do a better job.’ He bought it, and a few months later we were in what became our studio, trying to get the ball rolling.

"This is what we have always wanted to do," continues Leithauser. "We’ve all been in bands since middle school, so we all knew that no one was going to out and out quit."

Armed with the remainder of their DreamWorks funding and backing from hopeful investors, the former Fire*Eaters bought a 600-foot space in what was once a Nash Rambler car factory in Harlem and converted it into Marcata Recording, which has been used by everyone from French Kicks to The Kills to, of course, The Walkmen.

"A lot of Harlem is really great," says Leithauser. "If you go north or south of Marcata you can find these fantastic old houses that are mainly on run-down, out of the way streets. It’s right where Royal Tenenbaums was filmed."

As evidenced on both of their full-lengths, 2002’s Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone and last year’s Bows + Arrows (Record Collection), The Walkmen vary their emphasis on guitar, drums and keys to create a sound that continues to move away from their previous bands’ garagey tendencies. While they’re often compared to early U2, their influences range from The Velvet Underground to Fugazi and The Make-Up. The Walkmen’s sonic diversity was driven home by the first single off of Bows + Arrows, "The Rat," which is markedly different than the rest of the album.

"We try to keep our stuff as varied as possible," says Leithauser, "because inevitably it always ends up sounding like us."

In addition to a recent appearance on The O.C., the band has been in Marcata working on its next album.

"We have a bunch of groovy songs that are just gonna knock your socks off," promises Leithauser. "I hope it’s very different from the last one, but we’ll have to wait and see."

Leithauser says The Walkmen are looking forward to closing Noise Pop this year and enjoying everything that the Bay Area has to offer.

"San Francisco’s one of the only places," he says, "along with Chicago and Miami, that I could see myself living outside of New York." JESS HEMERLY

The Walkmen headline Bimbo’s 365 Club on Sunday, February 27th.

I don't have the edited copies of the blurbs on hand... I'll retype and post them later. But the point is, that after a very long creative dry spell that had less to do with my ability to write and more to do with the lack of clarity caused by drama drama drama, seeing SOMETHING I've written in print again lit the fire. It's like waking up from a coma.

Howard Dean elected DNC Chairman

DEAN IS THE NEW DNC CHAIRMAN



I am so pleased. So, so pleased!

Howard Dean: "Meet the Press", December 21, 2004

Transcript available here from msnbc.com

In a paragraph of his own words, this is why Howard Dean should run the Democratic party:

"We can change our vocabulary, but I don't think we ought to change our principles. The way I think about this is--and it gets into the gay marriage stuff, too. We're not the party of gay marriage. We're the party of equal rights for all Americans. You know, I signed the first civil unions bill in America, and four years later the most conservative president the United States has seen in my lifetime is now embracing what I signed. We've come a long way. We're not the party of abortion. We're the party of allowing people to make up their own minds about medical treatment. It's just a different way of phrasing it. We have to start framing these issues, not letting them frame the issues."

Other personal highlights:

MR. RUSSERT: You said you're thinking about running for chairman of the Democratic national party. If you did, in fact, run for chairman of the party and win, could you run for president in '08 as well?

DR. DEAN: No, absolutely not. You cannot--the reason I'm interested in running for the DNC chairmanship is because I think we need some fundamental things done differently. I think we are left by Terry McAuliffe with a big surplus, and he's done a great job in terms of leaving this party in good financial condition. Something I've never seen in my lifetime in politics is the DNC with a surplus after a presidential election. So the next chairman doesn't have to dig out from debt.

What we do have to do is look at what the Republicans do well and, frankly, what we did well at Democracy for America. We elected candidates in places like Alabama and Utah and Idaho and Georgia. Democrats can win in those places. First, I think we have to have a 50-state strategy, and secondly, I really believe we have to stand up for being Democrats. We have a message to sell. I frankly think it's a better message than the Republicans; we've just got to figure out how to get it out there. Grassroots, empowering people elsewhere in the country, instead of trying to run things from the top down, I think, is the way to do it. It was successful for us. I think it can be successful for the Democratic National Committee.

MR. RUSSERT: You just spent the weekend in Florida meeting with the state Democratic Party chairs. Are you close to running? Were they encouraging to you?

DR. DEAN: Well, you know, I am going to run if I think that I can win, if I think that they really want me. This is an institution and the people in the institution know that they have to change, but the pain of change is always greater. Until the pain of changing is less than the pain of staying the same, they aren't going to change. And I had a lot of debates with myself about whether to try to change things from the outside or change things from the inside knowing it was going to be a significant institutional resistance if I try to change things from the inside, but I concluded it's faster to change the party from the inside.

We have got to get back in power in this country. We can't afford these two trill--imagine the president talking about spending $2 trillion of additional deficit charged to our children's credit card to take senior benefits away. These people who are running this country are running it in a short-term way, racking up enormous deficits, enormous future national security problems for us. We can't afford the Republicans. We've got to get rid of them as fast as fast as possible because they can't run the country properly. And so I concluded that trying to move the party in a direction where we can start winning elections at the local level first, because that's where it all starts, and then at the national level as fast as we can is the right thing to do.

...

MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk about your potential run for state chair. For Senator Bob Kerrey had this to say. "[Dean's] got tremendous skills, and if he became [DNC] chairman, he'd do a good job. ...But if he runs, he's going to have some 'splaining' to do, as Ricky Ricardo used to say. ... Which Howard Dean are we talking about? ...If we're talking about the Howard Dean who was governor of Vermont, I would say fine. But if it's a presidential candidate Dean, I would say probably no."

DR. DEAN: Well, you know, everybody's going to have their own opinion about whether I should run for the DNC chairmanship or not, but let me just say a little bit about what I think I could bring to the job. First of all, I think it's accepted that our campaign brought hundreds of thousands of new people, not all of them were Democrats, into the fold especially young people to vote for Democrats which--and they voted for John Kerry by a significant margin.

Second of all, we raised more money than any other candidate because we taught people how to run grassroots. Since that time, we've had an organization, Democracy for America, which has raised even more grassroots money and pumped into the local races and we've had some successes in so-called red states.

I understand what it is to empower people who aren't in Washington. I think we can't win anymore unless the message is made in the states and then filters up to Washington rather than made at the DNC and then we tell the state parties what to do because the message--there'll be an overall Democratic message, but the message needs to come from places like Alabama, not just Minnesota, if we're going to win and have a chance in Alabama. So I think I have a lot to offer the DNC and we'll see if they agree with me or not.

...

MR. RUSSERT: Harry Reid, the new leader of the Democrats, was on the MEET THE PRESS last week, and he said he would be open to Antonin Scalia being appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court. There may be some ethical problems, he said. If he could get by those, he was very much impressed by the brilliance of his mind.

DR. DEAN: Well, first of all, I like Harry Reid a lot. He's a straight shooter, and I think he's going to be a good leader. I disagree with him on this one. I think Antonin Scalia ought not to be on the Supreme Court let alone chief justice because I think he lacks judicial temperament.

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

DR. DEAN: Because when you--and I have appointed a great many judges as my career as governor--the second thing after a work ethic that you look for when you're appointing a judge or a justice is judicial temperament. That means--in our judicial system, it's very important for the loser and/or the winner in any case to be--to feel like they've been treated fairly and respectfully by the court system. That's what is the glue that binds us together as a society. When you are sarcastic and mean-spirited, as the justice often is from the bench, it leaves the losing--the loser in that case feeling as if they were not respected by the judicial system, and that's why you don't put people with bad temperament on the--on any court, and I certainly don't think they should be on the Supreme Court of the United States.

MR. RUSSERT: When specifically was he mean-spirited or sarcastic?

DR. DEAN: You've seen many, many times. I don't have a specific time, but you could go read almost any oral argument in the last year and find sarcastic, mean-spirited remarks from the justice in those arguments.

...

MR. RUSSERT: It sounds like you'd really like to be chairman of the party.

DR. DEAN: I would like to be chairman of the party, but you know, it's an odd dance. It's not like going out into the primaries and bringing people in. There's 447 people that get to vote on this, and, you know, I'm not much of an insider, and this is a pretty insider game.

MR. RUSSERT: When do you have to make a final decision?

DR. DEAN: Not for a while. There's a lot of people who are sort of in and out and moving around, and there's a lot of talking behind the scenes, and I'm very much hoping--I'm hoping actually, oddly as it sounds for me, to be a somewhat of a consensus person. I'm hoping that we'll be able to bring all the factions together. It's going to take some time, because I really fried the party while I was out there running for president, I think with some good reason. But I am a Democrat. I think the Democratic Party is a far better vehicle for reforming America than some other vehicle that you'd have to start from scratch or some interest group. And in the long run, if we can make the Democratic Party the party of real reform, then I think we'd really gain something for the country.

MR. RUSSERT: You said if you win chairman of the Democratic Party, you can't run for president in '08. If you do not become chairman of the Democrat Party, might you consider running for president?

DR. DEAN: I'll think about it, because I never turn down any, you know, proposal without thinking about it carefully. So certainly I suppose I'd be in the mix for a while until I figured out what I was going to do. But my first choice is to be the DNC chair if I can be.

[Take Me] Away In A Manger

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6650997/site/newsweek/

Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll on beliefs about Jesus.

*cough* *cough* *cough*

Reflections on the Election

This appears on themacdevil.com (don't ask) but I figured I'd put it here too, for fun.

Reflections of a Yellow Dog Democrat a Week After the Fall

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004, was a day I spent in a melancholic haze. Many of my friends said they felt numb. Others, like myself, cried on and off. Fortunately, I live in the "liberal enclave" of the West Coast and have company in misery.

We don’t need to try to figure out what happened. We know what happened. We, the "reality-based community," got served by a phony cowboy who will go back to his ranch in Crawford, TX and roll around in oil money like Uncle Scrooge in his vault on Duck Tales. This election was not, however, about John Kerry versus George W. Bush. It was about the reality-based community versus neo-conservative Christian America. And they won by a narrow margin. Karl Rove made the rules, and Kerry’s team chose to play by them, but they played the game badly. It was about "values" or at least perception of values, and "image." Poor Kerry wanted it to be about the issues, but Rove is just too good at the game. People didn’t realize Kerry was a human being until he almost burst into tears during his concession speech.

Once again the Democratic party gave in to potential pressure from the media, in an attempt to avoid the "spoiled loser" moniker, by not fighting to make sure EVERY LAST VOTE was counted before conceding the election. In 2000, they focused on only counties, not an entire miscounted state. This time, they let Ohio go when the math didn’t seem to work out in their favor. In an article for TomPaine.com, Greg Palast, contributing writer for Harper’s writes:

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Palast believes that were all the votes counted the way they legally ought to be counted in a this country, Kerry would have won Ohio. But to have those votes counted properly would have caused Kerry, Edwards, and the Democratic Party to engage fierce litigation and would have left the nation without a winner for an unpredictable amount of time.

Essentially, the Democratic Party gave up on the hope and the values of democracy to save face. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I can say that I’m sorely disappointed. You cannot concede an election and follow it with a promise that every vote will be counted. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Kerry and Edwards caved to pressure, hoping to return to Senate seats in Washington, and go back to life as usual. They fought the "good" fight and lost.

But the bigger loser in this election is not John Kerry. It is America.

The United States are no more united after four years of George W. Bush than in 2000 and, with a lame duck neoconservative president backed by a Republican congress, it is likely that in 2008 we will be even more deeply divided. The president no longer has to pander to the moderates for votes. He can dive head first into the sea of the neocon agenda. The left and the right will likely be even more hostile toward each other. We see what they do not see; they have blind faith in what we do not have faith in. All of us think that we’re right.

I won’t argue that the "reality-based" community of the left is smarter than the ideologically fueled cowboys of the right because that gets us nowhere. And I, too, as a writer, would like to save face in order to persuade a few people on the other team to see things our way----or at least get them to take off their blinders and think critically about our nation’s plans for itself and the world. Invective will not do that. Unfortunately, neither will reason.

Just as in the "War on Terror," our elusive enemy is not a single person. We are fighting ideology. The numbers don’t lie. The wealthy and uneducated white people of this country supported Bush; the educated, poor, and lower middle class supported Kerry. The civil war brews not only between the classes but also between urban and rural Americas. We want very different things, the left and the right. The right wants to make sure gays can’t marry, put God in schools, protect their wealth, and wage wars without consequence. The left wants to protect the Constitution and give away rich people’s money to help those in this nation who need it. Very, very different things. Yet, liberals are called "un-American." How quickly our own great nation’s history has been forgotten, particularly the founder’s principles, which today would be considered coffee shop liberal idealism by the right. How quickly we forget...

What you won’t see is the left calling the right "un-American." You didn’t see that in the 90’s when the neo-cons, led by Newt Gingrich, impeached Clinton. We didn’t call the impeachers "un-American." Crazy, maybe. Annoying, certainly. But never un-American. And we won’t do it now, because that in itself would be un-American. Our disagreement with their principles does not equate to un-American behavior. Dissent is not un-American. We are a nation founded by men whose principles relied on equal representation regardless of opinion.

What we won’t do is sit idly by and watch the erosion of our civil liberties, and we will not allow cynicism and apathy to erode our own base. We will fight for our rights, for an overhaul of our own party, and we will come back in 2008 reorganized and strong, ready to win the next battle in the ideological war. Because, ladies and gentleman, America as we once loved it is worth fighting for, and no ideology can erase history completely.

Secularism... if if if...

A friend called my attention to a great article in the Christian Science Monitor about the response of French Muslims to the the Iraqi Militants' kidnapping of french journalists, Kidnappings backfire on Iraq militants.

Basically, the gist is this: "A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq threatened to kill two French journalists unless France agrees to scrap a controversial ban on wearing Islamic head scarves in schools."

I'd like to call attention to one particular paragraph:

The ban, which forbids all conspicious religious garb in the name of secularism, was passed earlier this year amid French concerns that Islamic militancy could change the character of the country. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe apart from Turkey.

My dream is that one day, a paragraph like this will be included in an article about the United States. Something, perhaps, like this:

The ban, which forbids all conspicious religious speech and activity in the name of secularism, was passed earlier this year amid American concerns that Evangelical Christian extremism could change the character of the country. The United States has the largest Evangelical Christian population in North America.

Wouldn't that just be a dream???

Long-Awaited update?

I've been using my livejournal for articles and such again lately, which I promised myself I wouldn't do. The articles and such are supposed to go here. But, quite frankly, Blogger annoys me senseless. My livejournal clients make it much easier to update there.

But alas, ladies and gentlemen, soon there will be a WHOLE NEW blog, and a proper writing portfolio to boot. Construction is finally underway. I'm very excited, and I owe Michael a big fat thank you for getting it set up for me, and hosting it on his server.

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It's time for the Republican National Convention! I'm so excited. All the great speeches, homage paid to patriotism and Americanism, honesty, integrity... oh wait REPUBLICAN convention. My bad.

Conventions are what I like to call "Political Circle Jerks." The muzakified popular ballads, the balloon chutes, the stupid hats, the bad dancers, and, of course, the parties.

Let's hope that the Republicans don't decide to pull a Florida Recount maneuver and send staffers to pose as "liberal troublemakers" and set things on fire, thereby allowing the Right and the Media to associate firestarters and destructors of property with Liberals. I hope, I hope.

Mother Jones has a great article in today called Immoderate Republicans, about the right wingers who came out among the left wing protestors to show their support (a sort of PROprotest) for President Bush and the crew. This is the kind of person who scares me:

"Four more years! Four more years!" The chant works its way from cluster to cluster, shifting occasionally from English to Spanish. "¡Cuatro años más!" cries 32-year-old Kirsys Vasquez, the production manager for an interior designer and a self-described "Dominican for Bush." A lifelong Democrat, Vasquez voted for Al Gore four years ago -- and now, she says, "I hate myself" for that vote. The political conversion came while she was pregnant.

Urged by some coworkers to consider abortion, Vasquez viewed some graphic pro-life literature, which led her to decide it was immoral to terminate a pregnancy. The rest of her political beliefs followed suit, she says, realigning along the Republican axis -- and after Sept. 11, she became an ardent supporter of the invasion of Iraq. "If Al Gore was president, we’d have been bombed every week," she says. "The Democrats -- they’re not right to fight this war."

For fear of sounding like a total asshole, I will refrain from explaining exactly why this scares me other than to say that when people align along a platform because of some Enlightenment regarding one issue, they are being stupid. If Al Gore was president, we might have Osama bin Laden (instead of just assuming that we already have him and that he will be triumphantly produced from the bowels of Guantanamo in October), and we most CERTAINLY would not be engaged in conflict in Iraq. North Korea would not be calling our leader a "tyrant," and maybe, just maybe, the projected federal deficit would be a lot smaller.

But what if... what if... let's not digress into a cavalcade of what ifs...

(On the downside, I wouldn't have nearly as much fun tearing apart speeches and gaffes within them.)

Even if you think it's pointless, I implore you to read first, then vote. It's great to encourage everyone to vote, and I support that --- it's a first step. But in order to stave off apathy, people really need to find a REASON to vote, and that reason needs to be something positive within a candidate's platform. Listening to them on TV, well that's really exciting. Enjoy that image. But reading about them, reading what they've done, what they've said, etc etc.... it makes a huge difference, and makes it all seem less futile.

Of course, I am the kind of person who lives in a world of ideals built upon words. So what do I know anyway?

NYC Transplantation Essay

i am entering this essay contest with the essay below. i posted the last draft, but this is the final final that i just emailed. i totally forgot to put my name & info in the body with the essay, so i assume if they want to contact me they will just email me. i'm too neurotic about these things.

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An Open Letter to New York City:

I wanted to tell you that I didn't intend to walk out on you so abruptly. I have always believed that saying goodbye is important. If nothing else, it offers a rudimentary sense of closure. I never said goodbye properly, and I've longingly avoided you ever since. My hurried exit in a rented silver mini-van with a feeble wave to the skyline from Hoboken as we headed toward my parents' house in Pennsylvania with everything from my last New York City apartment was by no means a proper goodbye. I think now is the perfect time to finally say what I should have said when I left over a year ago.

I lived my life on the island of Manhattan for four years. It takes a while to warm up to you, but staying with you despite the awful experiences (they probably wouldn't have happened anywhere else) has made me stronger than I ever imagined I'd be at 22. I arrived armed with a craving for discovery and departed knowing that while I was experiencing life, life had experienced me. I experienced things that taught me more than any education at any university in the world possibly could endeavor to teach. It is horribly unfair that people discount the New York experience for students at the city's universities. Yes, the stacks of books in our libraries buffer us from much of the coldness of reality. College certainly does give us a clear purpose - paths mapped out in curricula that lead to jobs, to Master's Degrees, to the sweet life.

It is hard to understand how you can become a New Yorker while going to college unless you have done it. Becoming a New Yorker has nothing to do with whether you live in Manhattan or Brooklyn or Queens or Bronx or Staten Island. Whether we live in the projects, a penthouse on Central Park West, or in an NYU dorm, the city is still on the other side of our front doors. We can make decisions that are rash and stupid or be cautious and calculating. It is about how we interact with you, the city, that makes us New Yorkers. It's about being ready to play any hand you deal us, good or bad. It's life in a pressure cooker and life lessons come that much faster, and often harder.

Somehow I feel like I gave up, like I tried to escape a closet full of demons instead of opening the door and forcing them to stop interfering with my life. That is a sign of weakness. Perhaps this letter is only my wounded pride speaking, a final bark before it descends into the abyss of un-self, lost. Yet, logically my decision to leave New York City after graduation and move to Washington, DC was sound. Politics is what I love, and DC is a whole city devoted to politics. I wanted to explore somewhere new and different and, most importantly, I needed to start over. I comforted myself with the fact that you would still be there when I was ready to come back, knowing I would be a stronger woman for having taken risks and learned the consequences.

I didn't like it there, though, and I left after only six months. This time I wasn't running away from something, I was running to it. I was lured by new love and the magnificent Bay, forever embracing the incoming Pacific tides, surrounded by a beautiful city and even more beautiful mountains. I know that you are still there, and will be there when I return from San Francisco, a destination I reached under the false pretense of an ephemeral love. San Francisco is spectacular, and I am certain that within a month or two of moving out of Oakland and into the city proper, I'll feel comfortable calling it my home. Yet you will still be waiting.

Every day I walk in the shadows of the sub-par skyscrapers in San Francisco's Financial District on my way to and from work, and every day I think about how your buildings would scoff at them. I am an expatriate New Yorker, and miss you, so I try to think of the New York qualities that made life hell. The apartment on 142nd Street, the L train rides to Canarsie at 3:30am and E train rides from Jamaica at 7am. Visiting my criminal ex-boyfriend at Riker's Island after class for four months on every "last names starting with A-K" visiting day. Riding the subway, buses, and even Metro North into the depths of the outer boroughs to sell party cruise tickets at area hospitals. I summon these awful memories but I still can't hate you. Instead I am left with the dull ache of regret.

I often wonder if I left only because all I could do to extricate myself from damaging personal relationships, including the one with myself, was to escape. I was caught up in a wave of anxiety and doubt that I sometimes still revisit. Was it really time to go? Should I really have left? Was I just running away from something? In many ways, I think no, but in hindsight I probably was just running away. I still believe that to a large extent only my heart wanted me to remain there. I fell in love with the city, I was caught in its bizarre spell, and I was jaded, afraid to move like a shadow among the fantasy world outside of New York. After a year away, I sometimes feel like everywhere else, even San Francisco, is false, as if the people live in denial of the reality of life in other parts of the world.

I miss you. I miss your hum, your glow, and your unrivaled ability to comfort and entertain. It was as if I left a lover on false pretenses, because of an irreconcilable situation. It was like something out of Wharton's The Age of Innocence, my favorite New York story. As the mini-van plunged into New Jersey's industrial wasteland on the Hudson, you may as well have darkened your lights and ruined my view as I, my neck straining, looked out through the back window. You know I hate goodbyes.

It was a wild ride, old friend. I learned more about you by being there than I could from any documentary or book. You are a living, breathing entity, drawing all of us in with your every breath. Every second can be nerve-wracking, or exciting-or both. The term "New Yorker" offers the best example of the cosmopolitan ideal that exists. We truly believe we are citizens of the world, and in many ways we are. Natives are natives and they pride themselves on being such. Everyone else comes to realize dreams, and pride themselves on achievement. What an amazing city.

I'm not sure that I can return to you. I am young and I have a lot to do. I will be fine. Your patience is the only thing in life of which I am certain. But you taught me never to make promises that I can't keep, so I won't promise a triumphant return any time soon. I need to find my dreams, and I'm not going to find them with you, at least not yet. The city is changing and the world moves forward. The New York I experienced was not like the New York of the 80s, the city I return to will not be the city I left. The landscape changes but the heart remains the same. I will change, and I will grow, and maybe I will come back with a companion or maybe I will come back alone. I wish I could see the future and be able to tell you when I'll be ready, but you know I can't do that. You, New
York, unlike any human companion, will wait patiently. Your life carries on, and our paths will meet again when I'm ready. If only my life was like that. If only it was like you, unconcerned with ultimatums, unable to be forced into impractical and unreasonable decisions. New York, if only I were more like you.

By leaving the city, I attempted to end one chapter and start another on a fresh page with some new characters and a much happier plot. Nobody likes a story mired with tragedy and a depressed protagonist. I really believed that changing the setting could be a positive thing for me. I am doing the right thing.

I am sitting on a hill in San Francisco's Alamo Square with the wind whipping at my back, waiting for a prospective roommate to return my call. The sky is unnaturally clear and I am enjoying the view of the city as the tourists, camera bags dangling from their necks, pause in the grass to take pictures of the six famous Victorians near the square. The downtown skyline is framed by their angular rooftops and the sun reflects off of the skyscrapers and the bay behind them. The panoramic view from this hilltop park is breathtaking. Surrounded by all of this, I feel a connection to San Francisco that I have only felt with one place before: you. And I feel that, with this letter, I am finally giving myself the closure I need to enjoy and grow up in the world outside of New York.

We'll catch up some other time, I'm sure. Maybe not for long. Maybe for a chance meeting or a temporary stay. Or maybe you will figure back into the logical realization of a dream. I am no seer of futures, sadly not even of my own. Regardless of what happens, I will continue to see the world through the eyes of a New Yorker. My senses will continue to penetrate through what is false and beyond the scope of the deniers of the reality in my company.

I must admit that I compare the features of other cities to your own very often. I think of your sidewalks packed with hurried people, your avenues stretching endlessly into the horizon, the fluorescent light of the subway cars piercing the blackness of the tunnels, your blocks crowded with skyscrapers, tenements, and high-rise buildings, and I think of my former home.

Yours,
Jess

October Surprise!

I HAVE A NEW THEORY RE: THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

it is not nearly as conspiratorial as the Bush Administration producing bin laden in october, but you still may need a bit of tin foil.

so you know how Tom Ridge just said that THE INFIDELS ARE DEFINITELY PLANNING AN ATTACK BEFORE THE ELECTIONS?!?! there is intelligence but no SPECIFICS. right?

there will be no attack this summer. but in october, they'll announce that they thwarted the most potentially heinous terrorist attack in history, and lay out all the details of said attack -- but really, this "specific intelligence" will all be made up by the Administration, a brilliant work of fiction like something Stephen Glass would produce... hell, maybe they already have Glass and Jayson Blair working behind the scenes...

but anyway people will buy it even though it's all totally bogus and false, and the Admin will return to HERO status like after 9/11 because they saved us all. "WE SAVED YOU FROM THE BAD BAD ARAB MEN" tom ridge and george w. will say. and then the moronic people of this nation will be like "omfg we are in danger we can't lose dubya and this awesome leadership" and, like lambs to the slaughter, will elect dubya in november.

yes. that could be the october surprise.

Harvesting the Church Vote

The Bush campaign people are brilliant. It's terrible how brilliant they are, but they are political GENIUSES. If they can pull this off without incurring tremendous backlash from church/state separation groups and moderate church-goers, this could be huge. The Bush Campaign knows who his potential voters ARE NOT, and so they don't even bother to change their minds.

They have pulled the spirituality card in a huge way. That's not to say religious organizations have no involvement in politics, because of course they do.

My name is in a church directory. If I start getting mail/phone calls from the Bush Administration, I'm going to flip.

Churchgoers Get Direction From Bush Campaign

By Alan Cooperman, from today's Washington Post.

The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives.

Campaign officials said the instructions are part of an accelerating effort to mobilize President Bush's base of religious supporters. They said the suggested activities are intended to help churchgoers rally support for Bush without violating tax rules that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activity.

"We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law," said Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign.

But tax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individual congregants and impermissible activity by congregations. Supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, charged that the Bush-Cheney campaign is luring churches into risking their tax status.

"I think it is sinful of them to encourage pastors and churches to engage in partisan political activity and run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status," said Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer of America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush.

The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 "duties" to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to "send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give [it] to a BC04 Field Rep" and "Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive."

By Aug. 15, they are to "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04" and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign."

By Sept. 17, they are to host at least two campaign-related potluck dinners with church members, and in October they are to "finish calling all Pro-Bush members of your church," "finish distributing Voter Guides in your church" and place notices on church bulletin boards or in Sunday programs "about all Christian citizens needing to vote."

The document was provided to The Washington Post by a Democrat. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, Frank Keith, said, "It would be inappropriate for the IRS, based on a limited set of facts and circumstances, to render a judgment about whether the activities in this document would or would not endanger a church's tax-exempt status."

He pointed out, however, that the IRS on June 10 sent a strongly worded letter to both the Republican and Democratic national committees, reminding them that tax-exempt charitable groups "are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office."

That warning came one week after The Post and other news media reported on a Bush-Cheney campaign e-mail that sought to identify 1,600 "friendly congregations" in Pennsylvania where Bush supporters "might gather on a regular basis."

The IRS letter noted that religious organizations are allowed to sponsor debates, distribute voter guides and conduct voter registration drives. But if those efforts show "a preference for or against a certain candidate or party . . . it becomes a prohibited activity," the letter said.

Milton Cerny, a tax specialist in the Washington office of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale who formerly administered tax-exempt groups for the IRS, said there is nothing in the campaign instructions "that on its face clearly would violate" the law.

"But these activities, if conducted in concert with the church or church leadership, certainly could be construed by the IRS as the church engaging in partisan electioneering," he said. "The devil is in the details."

Rosemary E. Fei, a tax specialist at the San Francisco law firm of Silk, Adler & Colvin, said the campaign checklist "feels dangerous to me" not just because of what is in it, but because of what is not. "There's no mention whatsoever that churches should be careful to remain nonpartisan," she said.

Holt suggested such warnings are unnecessary. "Why would we warn one citizen about the boundaries of their political discussion with another citizen?" he said.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company