Wrong path to democracy

31 December 2007

Benazir Bhutto's son and husband are now the bosses of her political party, because her will says so.

Pakistan will never achieve democracy this way. A political party should elect leaders, not have them foisted upon it.

There might be dozens of good ways to form a democracy, but nepotism isn't one of them.

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Ignorance is Sherri

30 December 2007

So, there's this (expletive deleted) lamebrain called Sherri Shepherd on "The View" on daytime TV, who believes that the world is flat, that nothing "predated Christians" and who rejects evolution.

A wise man once said (I can never remember names of the wise ones), paraphrasing: To remain ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain ever an infant.

Maybe Barbara Walters changes Sherri's diapers during commercial breaks.

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The horror, the horror

21 December 2007

If Bill O'Really didn't exist, the "liberal" media would have to invent him. I'm tired of this thug appearing here, there, everywhere. If I wanted to hear or see him, I'd watch his stupid show.

Thursday, someone on Air America was soundbiting the jerk, as part of commenting on how dense Billy-Boy is. Keith O. quotes, shows and imitates BodyOdor incessantly.

Come on, guys ... thanks for the warning about the Threat of Bill, but there are other monomanical phonies on the loose. How about free publicity for them?

Give Bill a rest.

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History bites U.S.

17 December 2007

Georgie W. doesn't know it, I'm sure, but history has his back, in his big-lie invasion of Iraq.

Michael Barone notes in "Our First Revolution — The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers" that in 1689 English pamphleteers wrote of the need to maintain a balance of power in Europe. (Barone's book is about the political and military battles that drove King James II out of the country, making William and Mary king and queen.)

A pamphlet titled "A View of the True Interests of the Several States since the Accession of their Present Majesties to the Imperial Crown of Great Britain" said, "It is a Maxim of True Policy that whensoever any Prince is exalted too high, and becomes formidable to his Neighbors, the other Princes ought to enter into a League together, to pull him down, or at least hinder him from growing greater."

Take that, Saddam!

One more invasion by W. and his Neighbors should smack him down, too.

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I hung up on a begging phone call this morning from some deep-voiced man representing some group raising money for some police charity. He started by saying that recently a police officer was killed in the line of duty in Las Vegas. That's where I cut in and hung up.

Don't police have life insurance, like other workers? Don't they have death benefits? Why should the public have to support these people? Yes, it is tragic when a person protecting the public is killed, but we don't get hit for money for bus drivers killed in wrecks on the job. Astronauts, carpenters, high-steel workers, journalists ... they all die on the job. What makes cops — and firefighters — special? They don't know how to find an insurance agent? The government agency they work for is so ill-funded, or breaking that law?

I should, I suppose, track down what Lost Wages pays its coppers, but fact-checking is not the Blogger way.

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End of civilization as we know it

2 December 2007

Forget Liberal versus Conservative, Protestant versus Catholic, Red Sox versus Yankees.

The true split in U.S. culture is between people who think that a 2-inch square screen is a good way to watch a movie and people who think a 52-inch flat screen isn't big enough.

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Oh, bother!

1 December 2007

I have now experienced the hell of hard-drive death. It was not pleasant.

I had dozens of insightful thoughts that have now fled down the drainpipe of my mind.

Enough about me. What do you think of me? Sorry ... long month.

I'm baack!

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Which god is that?

5 November 2007

Letters to the editor in the Oct. 27 Reno Gazette-Journal:

Motto shows we're a Christian nation

I totally agree with the letter from Zyna Gault regarding the motto on our coins [Voices, Oct. 15]. We must keep "In God We Trust," and thereby show the world we are a Christian nation and proud of it.

Zelda Forgey, Reno

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Hey, Zelda! The coins don't have an image of Jesus or the bearded bloke from the Sistene Chapel. How egotistically American to assume "god" is your god. There are 100,000 other gods worshipped on Earth and only one of them is yours.

Unlearned moron.

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An honest employee

29 October 2007

I received an e-mail Friday from the Marketing Department of the newspaper where I work, asking me as a subscriber to fill out a survey about the quality of the print version of the RGJ. So I filled it out, including my pet peeves and whines. Question is, will anybody in Marketing note the return address of the e-mail, coming from in-house? Not a chance.

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Correction: Spell it HannityColmes in the insult below.

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I raise my TV remote in salute of the genius of "South Park" and its "Imagination Land" saga. Even without the "Stargate" bit, it is a brilliant comment on the low status of entertainment and literature in the U.S. today. What I don't understand is including Wonder Woman on the ruling council of Imagination Land. Are they claiming Wonder Woman's not real? Jesus and Luke Skywalker I grant them, but Wonder Woman? Nnnooo!

(How is Nnnooo spelled in Stephen Colbert's scripts?)

I could do without the B plot about Cartman's obsession with making Kyle — or is it Stan? — lick his balls. Do 8-year-old even have balls? On second thought, don't answer that.

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Slashers and nutballs and blabbermouths, oh my

21 October 2007

The hell of maturity: The Entertainment industry is selling shows on subjects for the fourth or fifth time since I started paying attention 50 years ago. I didn't like rite-of-passage and coming-of-age stories after the second cycle. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

If Hollywood wants to keep Baby Boomers like me interested, it better let people my age (and a little younger) pick the stories. Damned if I'm going to sit through another slasher movie. I filled my quota in the 1970s, as a newspaper movie reviewer.

Show me something new, something I've never seen before.

The beancounters will never let them.

000

When Sen. Larry Craig says he's not gay, he's probably not lying. He likes to get his ashes hauled without all the lovey-dovey talk a woman demands. Quick orgasm and back to business. Stress relief at its most simple.

Don't the English have mouthwash dispensers in the men's loo across the street from Parliament?

On the other hand, Larry's from Idaho, Hicksville Central. He might actually be innocent. This time. His track record indicates he's been naughty before.

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The anti-immigration nutballs are scared little whimps who can't imagine life around people who don't speak their language, read their books, watch their television shows, pray their prayers ...

Their mommas didn't turn out such cowards; it had to be Daddy the biblical Patriarch.

And all Daddy can think of is to Build a Fence.

You have to learn how to show respect and how to listen to people, but Bible Daddy only orders: Do as I say or I'll whup ya.

What's Daddy to do when the Disrespected get a bigger Whup?

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W and his anal-brigade still think that the Silent Treatment equals Diplomacy. My father's mother, Grammie, and her sisters (I met only four or five of the 12) were World-class Silent Treatment abusers. It's a passive-aggressive tactic that can drive its target to tears. I saw my father punch a wall, once, when Grammie and the other old biddies gave him the Silent Treatment.

All of which prepared me for the time my best friend tried it on me for not following her orders. I realized what she was doing, and decided I wasn't playing. Silent all summer, she started talking to me on the first day of sixth grade ... but we weren't best friends any more and I didn't miss her a bit.

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Who is the media consultant teaching broadcast reporters how to find world-class whiners? Do those people whine like that when there's no interviewer, no camera or microphone?

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Of course melonheads Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Really, Glenn Beck, HannityCombs and the other loudmouths contradict themselves. Nobody can remember everything they've ever said. And since these Rite-Wing blatherers talk and talk, hours and hours every day, day in and day out ... the words just pop on out, like poop after laxative. Unconsidered, uncontrolled, unconscionable.

For the paycheck and the glory, they blabber on.

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About the online critter who begged people to "leave Hilton alone." Or was it Britney? Anyway, I was surprised when TV coverage of the lamebrain said it is male. Looked female to me. Even after repeated viewings. He ought to back off on the lipstick. Or color-check his camera.

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W. and dumbwer

30 September 2007

Stewart, Colbert and the "Bushisms of the Day" guy on Slate were chortling about Presidential Moron's slip of the tongue last week where he added an 's' to the word children. Again.

I think it's another example of how brain-damaged he is, due to booze, blow and whatever. Jeb kicking him in the head every night at bedtime, maybe.

His brain should start leaking out his ears any day now.

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Presidential caucus plan unveiled

30 September 2007

I figured it out! Nevada, Florida and a bunch of other states are breaking GOP and Demo rules left, right and center in a scramble to be the first to vote in presidential caucuses.

Why?

W. is now so despised by everybody on the North American continent that grassroots and professional pols want the presidential election to be held sooner than constitutionally mandated. If this were Britain or India or France, Bush's farce of a government would fall and he'd be replaced. But, the U.S. mandates full terms even for war criminals like Bush and Cheney.

It's led to the subconscious drive to move the entire election process earlier and earlier. The newly elected president can move into the White House, staff the West Wing and start running things, while Bush plays with his toy soldiers.

I'm staying registered non-partisan, but it's nice to know some of the GOP is ready to dump W.

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Bill vs. sanity

27 September 2007

So, Keith Olbermann thinks Bill O'Reilly's mentally ill? Nah ... intense hatred of the parts of the world that doen't kiss your ass is not mental illness. Assholeism, perhaps. But not kookie in the head.

On the other hand ... hey, Keith! Keep pushing and prodding and questioning and being a general irritant. O'Reilly will go postal at some point, just from his delusions of grandeur. The sooner, the better for the smell of public discourse in the United States.

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What evil lurks at Area 51 ...

25 September 2007

I wish I knew how to start rumors on the Internet. We've got Steve Fossett lost in the High Sierra. We've got that Iranian guy with the multiphasic name hanging out in NYC.

Rumor is: Fossett and Mahmoud are meeting with Bill Gates, secretly, at Groom Lake to do a deal for storing Iranian nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. It's going to be transported from Iran to Nevada by hot-air high-altitude balloons. Microsquish will write the software for the auto-pilots.

Naaa ...

High-roller Mahmoud wants to open a casino in Tehran; IGT will supply the slot machines and Fossett will be the Pit Boss.

Naaa ...

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Scientific literacy

12 September 2007

I've always thought of the magazine Scientific American as an honorable publication, exploring facts and labeling opinion, but the rag's marketing department seems to be ethically challenged.

Today's mail brought an 8 inch by 12 inch envelope that says "Please Accept a FREE Issue."

OK so far. Magazines gotta have subscribers.

The orange-y brown envelope has a triangle-pattern in black around all four edges, with "priority delivery" in the triangles. It was mailed, however, at mass-mail rates. Still OK; fancy pattern, eyecatching.

But, at bottom, center left, of the envelope, it says:

"Sparks Postmaster:
The enclosed documents are intended solely
for the addressee listed and should be opened
by the aforementioned only."

Anybody who swallows that sheep dip is too dumb to read Scientific American.

Even my grandmother, Sparks Postmaster in the 1940s, would sneer at the stupidity of that message.

And, if you don't get my point, sod off, lamebrain.

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All news is ... news

6 September 2007

Surreal moment while channel-surfing last night: CNN was covering the search for missing zillionaire daredevil Steve Fossett, while on CNN Headline News, pandering witch Nancy Grace and her minions were foaming at the mouth over the prick who left his infant child in a car in 95-degree heat while he got his rocks off in a brothel.

Sex, child abuse, and vanishing rich guys ... not what the tourism mavens want as publicity for Nevada.

I kept surfing.

Drink up, sidewalk

3 September 2007

The difference between April 1 and Sept. 1:

I started the yard-watering season with great care, using two different sprinkler heads for the lawn, setting them carefully so they wouldn't water the walkways. I dutifully moved them in a fixed pattern with fixed timing, letting patches soak up the sky-juice, wetting the corners ... Twice a week, obeying the drought/save water laws.

Tonight, as I hauled the hose from the bushes to the lawn I realized that for the last couple of weeks, I've put the biggest sprinkler head on, positioned it in the middle of the grass-patch and turned it up high, watering sidewalk, driveway and other non-vegetable matter. What's more, I no longer care about the water waste.

I want back all the time I spent this summer hauling the hose.

I want watering and mowing season over.

Enough already.

Flush with laughter

31 August 2007

Pardon me while I laugh until I cry at the sight of another sexually repressed Republican pricked on his own petard. Larry Craig’s finished in politics because the far-right nutballs are repressed, too.

The crux of the crisis is that people whose emotional development stopped somewhere around the age of 12 run this country. (Bushies are their sock puppets.)

Sex is the only thing all humans have in common, and, as religionists noted millennia ago, if you can control his sex life, you’ve got the man by the short hairs.

The Middle East would be less of a rat hole if the women-haters of the Prophet’s time had been fed to the wolves. If Osama's boy-men with the bombs and the guns got laid on a regular basis (with women who volunteered), they’d not need to kill, kill, kill. The riot-stagers in Pakistan wouldn’t be able to raise a mob in an instant. They’d all have a more balanced view of life.

Back to the Senator: Why does the tough-on-crime crowd, when one of them gets caught, accuse the cops of entrapment or lying or being out to get them? What ... they support our men in blue only if people they hate get arrested?

Larry-boy pleaded guilty, so nobody has to worry about the "innocent until proven" ideal.

Should a Liberal criticize the Bushies’ Gestapo, Craig and his ilk scream "traitor, commie," etc.

But when he’s the deer caught in the headlights … suck hard on that petard, Larry.


Short trip from idealism to cynicism

Nevadan Ryan Costella, co-founder of the nonprofit organization Youth Voice, recently wrote in the Reno Gazette-Journal, "... I'm living in the political epicenter of the world ... Working in the U.S. Senate has illustrated to me the realities of public life, and more importantly, the many challenges facing our country. Yes, it requires tremendous personal sacrifice, but if more of us pick up the torch, the sacrifice won't be so heavy. ... Every American must pitch in to preserve our country's position as the beacon of hope for the world and the shining symbol of excellence and achievement, regardless of the challenge. I believe we're up to it. Do you?"

Political epicenter? Ah, American arrogance. Beacon of hope for the world? Grow the hell up, kid.

All about the money

28 August 2007

Should Mitt Romney be the GOP nominee for president, I just might vote for him. Christianists foam at the mouth at the thought of a Mormon president, but he could be good for the country. Joseph P. Smith Jr. founded his church on a quest for money, aka buried treasure (he didn't lead parties of gold-seekers into the New England wilderness for his health). His extra wives were widows (in the 1830s, a widow needed a replacement husband to handle her inheritance; women were owned, not owners), a tradition that the other early Mormon polygamists followed religiously.

When Brigham Young and his troupe settled Deseret, later-arriving immigrants were required to turn all their money over to the church leadership, which used it to build a worldwide billion-dollar empire.

If Mitt can prove he's added to the Romney family fortune, he might be OK as president. GWB is throwing U.S. money into bonfires by the Hummvee-ful, but a Mormon won't burn wealth. He'll hoard it.

Can't be worse than GWB.

Religion: Include me out

Heaven and Hell: In trying to understand suicide bombers, I've concluded that while the final moments of the final act take courage, the bomber actually commits an act of cowardice.

If you accept the premise of Islam, a faithful Muslim who kills in the name of Allah, who volunteers to be a martyr, goes to Paradise. Good for him. And the occasional her.

However, his family and friends are left on Earth, to face endless war and hate and terror.

Mr. Martyr is off to eat dates with virgins, while his mother, whether she grieves or blesses his sacrifice, still has to find food, fresh water with which hubbie can cleanse himself before praying, and otherwise cope with life in a war zone. And bury more of her children.



Not the boss of me: I don’t take orders from dead people. The Chinese say that their ancestors sit around in the afterlife, watching their grown children and punishing misbehavior. The Bible, the Quran and other holy books are full of “don’t” and “do” and ... all written by people now dead. They had their shot. It’s my turn.



Claims for an afterlife: Unimaginative, mundane, describing Heaven as like here, only better. The Greeks had their dreams of the Elysian Fields, where dead heroes sit around, bragging and eating grapes.

Boring. The next life should be exciting: Mardi Gras 24-7, 4th of July fireworks six times a night. I want to fly like an eagle and swim like a shark. Float on the winds of Venus, probe the depths of Jupiter.

Heaven should be so different that Fundamentalists, who have no imagination anyway, won't comprehend it.

In the beginning ...

23 August 2007

SPARKS, Nev.

I can resist no longer; I must join the millions in the Blog-O-Sphere, shaking bits and pieces of memory, opinion and random fact out of my brain and into bytes.

Don’t expect deep thoughts; I grew up on daily-paper deadlines and to-the-point writing. We'll see if I've lost the touch.


Rambling wreck: Despite the eon-ages of work on Interstate 80 around Reno's Spaghetti Bowl, the construction artists missed the wondrous puddle that forms in rain or snow on eastbound I-80 in a low spot at Rock Boulevard.

My 1970 Fireduck loved that puddle: Splash through it and the power steering cut out. Which was OK if I didn’t need to change lanes before Mustang.


For the love of Smokey: A news report about Bear Crossing signs being installed on Lake Tahoe highways led me to ponder TV funnyman Stephen Colbert’s bear fixation. Bears consistently make the Top 5 on the Threatdown list of “The Colbert Report.” (Comedy Central.) Tell the Tahoe Chamber of Commerce to forget inviting him to do a show from the Lake; too many bears.

Colbert refers to TV not-funnyman Bill O’Reilly as “Papa Bear.” If Bear equals Threat and Bill equals Bear, does Threat equal Bill?

Or is Colbert trying to coyly signal something, by pronouncing his name French style: col-bear?


RR Xing: I wish my parents had lived to see the train trench in downtown Reno. When they trekked downtown from the homestead in Sparks, Mom insisted on driving. Dad worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad (30 years) and company rules made all employees stop at all rail crossings, on the job or off. Mom, on the other hand, believed in stopping for nothing, including tornadoes, bears and train tracks. Unicorns, maybe.


Settle down, already: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are in danger of catching the late-night TV disease that already infects Jay Leno and David Letterman: applause-itis. Main symptom: The in-studio audience hoots, hollers, stamps, swoons and claps, claps, claps. Then there’s the phony standing ovation for Bill Maher.
The audience has been there for hours, with warm-up comedians and other entertainment, getting jazzed. I, however, have had a long day, a headache and heartburn. Start the show … gimme the opiate of the masses.
I miss Ted Koppel. Heck, I miss Linda Ellerbee and her 1970s late-night philosophy: Your body never outgrows its need for another animal story.


Immigration integration: A 2005 book by Russell Shorto, “The Island at the Center of the World — The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America,” contrasts the boisterous live-and-let-live — drinking, whoring, fighting, suing over the fighting — attitude (of the residents, not the governors) with the intolerant zealotry of the Puritans of New England. Whether in New England or New Netherlands, everybody massacred Indians now and again.

I started reading it because my mother’s father’s ancestors arrived from the Dutch Republic in the 1620s courtesy of Peter Minuit. The Van Huycks aren’t in the book, but it’s a good read anyway.

Turns out, people in North America have complained about newcomers since around 1610, when Henry Hudson said howdy to the Delaware Indians. The Dutch built a wall on Manhattan to keep the English out. Didn’t work then; won’t work now, against anyone, anywhere on the continent.

When England took control (at cannon-point) of New Amsterdam in 1664, the townsfolk were from homelands as far afield as Morocco and Poland, and included freed African slaves, Danes, Bavarians, Italians and English. And pirates. And a kosher-deli owner.
Dutch legacies include cabbage salad called koolsla, aka cole slaw; Sinterklaas, aka Saint Nicholas, aka Sanity Klaus; and koeckjes (pronounced cook-yehs), which is why Americans don’t eat biscuits.

Pass the chocolate-chip koeckjes, please.

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