It's Not Racist When They Do It

You tell me. Do you see the racism in the Virginia bumpersticker?




Here are some hints on what to look for. (Read up here and here.)






It seems a blatant, if somewhat innocent, use of a racist image to me. Certainly others have gotten into trouble for less.

But not a word of protest I've seen. Hmmmmmm.... I guess it's only residual racism, subconsciously absorbed from the environment via osmosis, since he supports Obama. Nothing to hold him to account for. No doubt he'd happily apologise and submit to re-education. Maybe even redesign the sticker.

If someone called him on it.

The Numbers, They Do Not Lie

Via the Unc, we learn that Congress' job approval ratings are the lowest in modern history! Single digit, in fact. And it only took two years -- one half a presidential election cycle -- to get there.

What happened? Well, it might be the switch to the Pelosi-led Democratic majority. It might also be the utter sell-out by the Republican leadership to the altar of Mammon (where Democrats are also worshipping). You'll notice that Pelosi and Reid aren't much in the news of late. Can you blame them?

Oh, wait. Yes you can!

Democrats promised so much and then completely failed to actually achieve any of it. No, wait, I misspoke. They did raise the minimum wage. Yay for them.

President Bush, meanwhile, has an approval rating three times higher than Congress. And that's after almost 8 years of bashing by Democrats and the media.

Pundits and Democrats are saying that Congress will go even further Democratic this next election, but if you dig into those Rasmussen numbers you'll see that the moderate and independent voters Obama is going for are the very people who are least happy with Congress right now. Reagan Democrats all, they were also mightily pissed off with Obama by the later primaries, as witnessed by Hillary's wins.

It all depends on whether or not the Republicans can get their act and image together in the next few months....

Bwahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, couldn't keep a straight face saying that. They've completely screwed the pooch in the past four years. The promise for conservatives in the 1994 Contract With America was assiduously ground into dust so that Republican leadership could make buckets of money.

At least the Libertarians have the best possible candidate this time around in Bob Barr. He's a professional politician from the mainstream and not some lunatic ideologue as past nominees have often been. He doesn't immediately start talking about disbanding the IRS and legalising drugs and prostituion on Day One. He's a gradualist who wants to move things a little at a time. He stands for things the Democrats and Republicans have demonstrated they don't care about any more. So, I hope we see and hear more from him

But I still don't hold out a lot of hope for America. Republicans have become the party of "We're not as bad as the Democrats!" They don't go after their own principles of smaller government, reduced Federal spending and lower taxes any more. I really do fear we've finally turned the corner into a nation that will vote itself unlimited benefits from the Federal Treasury, paid for with higher taxes today and promissory notes on the future.

Even if Obama loses (and I think he will) McCain is still the sort of person who will dicker and bargain with the Democratic Congress on legislation that's still bad for the country, even if it's good for his name. Like McCain-Feingold. He's not so much a leader as a "strike out on your own" kind of guy. That leaves the Congress in charge (which is, ironically, where the power and control ought to be in my opinion), and they'll whip him around like a bulldog on the knotted end of a rope.

An Obama presidency? Well, I really do think it might be a short one. The threat of assassination is very real, even if the media don't seem to want to discuss it. The attitude of the news media always seems to be a shocked surprise that there are still recidivist racists out there. It's just not a proper subject for adult discussion. Look at how they twisted the Democratic primary votes in places like Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where Hillary won big on the backs of rural, lower class whites. Remember Obama's slur of them as backwards bigots holding on to guns and God out of fear?

So, I fear it's very possible that he might be killed within the next two years. I don't want or welcome it, but it's a probability (not a possibility) that needs to be kept in mind. There are still a lot of people who really don't want a black president for "their" country. It's ugly but true. Who he picks as his vice-presidential candidate really is very important, even if the media won't always own up to why.

Along that line of thinking, I've heard some who think Obama's first term will be like John Kennedy's (hmmmm ... Kennedy) in that he'll pass a lot of important, historic legislation with a Democratic Congress. That legislation won't come into full effect until his second term, if he gets one.

I think an Obama presidency will turn into the Carter administration. I lived through it and it was a horrorshow for this country. We have many of the precipitative ingredients in place -- weakened economy, oil troubles, increasing inflation, farm troubles (thanks to corn and biofuels), disrespect from Arab countries. I think Obama will bring in lots of intellectuals who don't have much common sense and they'll end up dumping this country into a raft of troubles. Just look at the people he's been chucking overboard this year who were his advisors until they got him into problems.

Arch-enemy of the media Dick Nixon led to Gerald Ford. Ford's ineptness led to Jimmah Carter. And Carter's asshattery brought us Ronald Reagan.

Do we have a minimum of four years to wait for a strong presidential leader to emerge from either party? Or will we wait up to eight more years?

The "Netroots Progressive Left" was born in the loss by Gore in 2000. They've been raging and recruiting ever since. They've had almost no successes. The new Democratic Congressional majority was supposed to be their crowning achievement and you can see how that went. Obama is their newest crowning achievement and I already know how that will go.

Like they say, no matter who wins, we all lose.

Conversational Exchange of the Day

Manny: I thought you were, actually. Gay, I mean.

Bernard: So did I for a bit. Then I found out about the prohibitive standard of hygiene. And all that DANCING!

From Black Books.

The Slow Decline Progresses

News from California has to come as a horrid shock to newspaper folks across the nation: The Orange County Register is outsourcing copy-editing to a firm in India.

Now, the Commercial Appeal here in Memphis has already announced that Scripps (their corporate owner) is outsourcing advertising layout and design to another Indian firm. This, however, is a whole new level. Copy-editing is reading the text for errors of spelling, punctuation and usage. It generally takes a person with good skills in English and a sharp eye for detail. The second can come anywhere, but the first? Have you talked with "Peggy" in an Indian support-line call center lately?

The cost of sending digital data across the world is trivial, but the people who manipulate that data in India will do it for much less than Americans will. They have a lower relative cost of living. Plus they don't have pesky OSHA and other workplace laws, nor do they have unions. It saves money.

Will the editors of the papers that benefit from this kind of outsourcing print editorials against it, as they do against other industries doing the same thing for the same reason? Will they swear that the product won't suffer by this change?

Will it? Will the community that supports this paper, and the people who won't work there any more, put up with it if they ever find out? Who will tell them?

The Forgotten Anniversary

Usually, television news and the newspapers are sure to have stories on the various anniversaries of political, historical and cultural events. It's easy to write reviews of past events; just contact a few of the principals to get some current quotes and you're good to go.

So, it's rather surprising to me that a major anniversary -- a tenth -- has been passing all year long with nary a peep from the news.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Boy, you'd think that one would be all over the place, especially as the media went at their coverage hammer-and-tongs back in the day.

But no, it's quietly slipped by and continues to escape major review. Could that have anything to do with the big Democratic primary battle that's been going on all year?

It's also worth reminding people that during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal another anniversary was also taking place: the twenty-fifth anniversary of Watergate. I can remember then how stories about Nixon, et al, were pushed into the back pages of the newspaper. There seemed an aversion in the press to having echoes of Nixon's disgrace and eventual resignation being bandied about while Clinton was struggling to stay in office.

Not As Dumb As I Feared

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Whew! I feel a bit better now. It's not that hard, really. Some of the questions do require careful reading, though.

What Those T-Shirts Should Say

Story here.

Glamorising a wealthy doctor who used his privileged background to gain entry into "forbidden" parts of society and his knowledge of medicine and the human body to make sure his personal victims died? No thanks. He was a brutal and repulsive killer.

BTW, "Che" was Argentinian slang (at the time) for "Hey, you!"

Bill Clinton Gets Desperate

Oh, come on. Like you haven't seen Blazing Saddles.

You know it's coming.

Quote of the Day

An intriguing comparison of Civil War generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood with today's presidential candidates includes the following quote, from famous boxer Billy Conn:

What's the use of being Irish if you can't be thick?

Thick, of course, is British slang for stupid or dim-witted. Yep, that's me to a T.

Read the post linked above. Ever since the run-up to the Second Iraq War, I've been endlessly struck by the many parallels between the Civil War era and today, especially politically, and all the lessons we've already learned and forgotten.

The most striking parallel: Both the elections of 1864 and 2004 had unpopular wartime presidents running for re-election against former soldiers who ran as anti-war Democrats.

A Question on the Democratic Convention

For those of you who still sometimes come by, I have a question.

What is the rule for how delegates to the Democratic Convention in Denver this year are held to the candidate they are pledged to? In other words, are delegates held to their candidate until the candidate themself releases them, or is there some releasing mechanism like, say after the first or second round of voting, they can vote their conscience?

I've searched various convention and Democratic sites but can't find a specific rule on it. And I'm not asking about superdelegates.

I ask because I'm curious if the Clintons are staying in the primary race until the convention, hoping to be able to arm-twist released delegates and thereby secure the party's nomination. It's a frightening thought but very Clintonian.

Thanks!

MidSouthCon

I went to the MidSouthCon last weekend. I had a pretty good time, too, though I think I set my expectations a tad too high. I didn't have a plan for events (especially all the programming tracks) and let myself drift around too much. I missed or wasted a lot of opportunities that way. Below are some photos I took. I wasn't really thinking photos, so I just snapped pics when it occured to me that I should do so.

A few views of the Dealers' Room. Lots of repeats from last year, but the used bookseller I was hoping would be there wasn't this year. And all the board games were of the Munchkin / Carcassonne / Settlers of Catan stripe. The only dealer who had games beyond that didn't have anything I was interested in. (Or could even afford.) There were a couple of t-shirt dealers, though, which was new.






Found this woman in the hallways. There seemed to be fewer costumed people this year than last, though that may be a subjective perception. The wagon she's holding onto is a Radio Flyer-type that she had some Con stuff in along with her infant son, who seemed to be enjoying himself way too much.


Here's a series of shots from the Boardgaming Room, which was mostly my base this weekend. Surprisingly, I didn't play that many boardgames on Saturday. I did spend some time in the video room (which was packed) but didn't have the nerve to rock out on the Rock Band videogame in front of all the kids. (I could have been a grandparent to some of them! Yeesh.) The boardgame closeups are from a game called Tide of Iron. Pretty fun; similar to Memoir '44 or BattleLore.
















I did spend some time in the Anime Room, which had some good stuff this year. I missed the truly weird, dark stuff Saturday night as I was ... boardgaming! The Video Room was hopeless -- lots of the same old movies you've seen a million times. (Star Wars! Star Trek! Superman! Independence Day! King Kong!) Nothing bizarre or foreign or out there or hard to find. I was deeply disappointed.

My buddy Mark Havener was manning the Games Workshop / Battle Bunker demo table on Saturday. That's him in the red t-shirt. He's with the Warhammer 40K Apocalypse game.







The Battle Bunker also had a demo of the game Space Hulk. I'm not much of a tabletop wargamer (like with figures shown here), but Space Hulk seems kinda appealing. I only play Epic: Armageddon, which is with 6mm figures and is much more strategic (almost chess-like), rather than slugging it out man to man.

Mark and I did a demo of Epic at last year's Con, which was a lot of fun. Many folks stopped by to watch and participate. But now that Games Workshop has withdrawn support for the Specialist range (which includes Epic), it wasn't going to happen. Ah well....





Another costume pic I took. Zombies!!


That, unfortunately, is that! Not many pics, but I thought I'd share my meager selection anyway.

I'm already saving up for next year's MidSouthCon.

Homeless Guy Returns!

In February of 2007 a homeless guy took up residence on the front steps of the antique store on the corner. (Monroe and Avalon) He showed up anywhere from early in the morning to around 10AM and stayed in that spot until dark. He never went anywhere else, nor talked much to anyone. Once in a while, he'd yell at traffic. But mostly, he just sat there all day. For a while, he was bringing a bike with him. No one ever saw him leave at night; he just disappeared. We suspected he took up a spot in the alleyway behind the strip malls on the north side of Union.

We started calling the police on him. The guy told a story about waiting for his girlfriend down the block's boyfriend to leave for work before heading to her apartment and laying up there while the boyfriend was away. Suuuuuuuure.... And the business wasn't posted with signs (it's been closed for years) so the cops couldn't really do anything. Homeless guy would show up anywhere from three to six days a week and just sit there in the shade with his carry-alls and backpack. And he always wore a red cap of some kind; usually knit.

One day, I saw someone working over there and went to introduce myself. Turns out it was the business agent for the elderly woman who owned the antique business! He said she was afraid to come into Midtown for fear of being robbed or killed, so he was taking care of things. I told him about the homeless guy and our problems with him (he had begun to attract the occasional friend).

The agent went out and bought a "Posted No Trespassing" sign to put in the window, right next to where the homeless guy sat. When he got back, the homeless guy was there! Agent told him to get lost, stay gone and if he returned then he'd be arrested. Much yelling, but the homeless guy left.

For a week. Saturday, he returned. And then Sunday. We called the police again. But they told us that since I wasn't the owner or the agent, I had no standing to do more than report a trespasser and they couldn't really do anything but shoo him along. (They gave me the sense that they were getting tired of that, too.) We had to get the agent to sign an "Authorisation of Agency" so the police could actually arrest the guy for showing up.

One problem: we had to have the guy's name. This was the fall now and we still didn't know who he was. The police wouldn't tell us, either. Quandary.

One Sunday night, after he'd been there all day, a bunch of fire trucks show up and break into one of the apartments across the street. There are twenty units in three buildings, but it's abandoned mostly. A handful of apartments have been rented out to some guys attached to the Door of Hope program. I can't understand any agency putting people in there, as there are safety issues (no outside lights in the whole complex at all) and health issues (mold and rot inside the apartments), but their response is always, "Well, where else would you have us put these guys?"

Anyway, turns out someone had broken into the apartment and started a fire while cooking something. Problem was, the guy next door didn't call the fire department and if they hadn't show up, he likely would have died, as he was deep asleep at the time and had no idea what was happening. There was no external sign whatsoever of a fire inside.

Homeless guy showed back up to watch the activity and then I heard someone talking about how the fire department had received a cell phone call about the fire. We know homeless guy has a cell phone, as we've seen him use it. We think homeless guy was actually inside the apartment, maybe sleeping or cooking, and the fire got out of hand. He fled, then called 911. Can't prove this, but it seems to be the concensus of the neighborhood now.

After a few serious squabbles with the cops over the "No Trespassing" sign over the following weeks, he was forced to take up residence west a couple of blocks up the street, under the shade of some old trees. The couple of times I went past him, he gave me the Death Glare.

The situation dragged on until the cold set in, about December. He stopped coming around all winter. We thought he was gone for good.

Nope, he showed back up yesterday. Today, when he returned, I called the agent and the cops. The agent will be down tomorrow if homeless guy shows up again and we'll reolve this once and for all.

Here he is today, napping on the steps:


A closeup:


Just a minute (literally!) before the cops appeared, he suddenly collected his things and moved up the street.




The cops arrived and talked with him. He left for points unknown.


I don't doubt we'll see him tomorrow anyway.

Your Monty Python of the Day

see more crazy cat pics

Random Photoblogging

Just some pictures I've taken lately.

First, Bennie asleep on the bedroom floor in a spot of sunlight. This came out better than I expected, but still not quite what I was hoping for.


Riding the bus one rainy Saturday.


There's a stray that a couple of my neighbors take care of. She lives outside and claims the whole building as her territory. She and Bennie do not get along at all.


I rather like this shot of the stray, named Pook-A-Pook. My neighbor Danny gave her the name. He can't explain what it means nor how to spell the anme. She obviously used to be someone's pet before she went stray. I'm guessing she was put out. It's not obvious in the photo, but she's a polydactyl. Her paws look like huge mitts.


Another view of Pook, in her upstairs home. I bought that cat condo for Bennie, and she utterly ignored it; so, I donated it to Pook. Danny put it up high on the A/C unit in his living room. (We live on the second floor.) Pook loves it for the view she has of her domain and its trespassers.


I've mentioned before that I like to play EPIC: Armageddon. This is a closeup of a game in progress. Sorry for the blurriness, but I like the composition and angle.


"What?"

Testing... Testing... Testing....

Is this thing on?

Christmas Eve Photoblogging

For the first time in ... well, ever, I bought some Christmas lights and strung them up in the bedroom window. Here's the street view:


And here's the bedroom view. Sorry for the darkness, I'm still learning how to set film "speed." Ho! Ho! Ho!


And here's Miss Bennie sleeping on her bed recliner. My neighbor Danny gave it to me and I put it up on these shelves next to the bed. Bennie immediately claimed it for her own.


A different view of the living room. Swank and stylin', eh?

Thanksgiving Sunday Photoblogging

A couple of shots of Bennie enjoying the heat. Bow down before the one you serve! That's Bear-Bear on the sofa behind her. She used to drag Bear-Bear around the apartment when she was a kitten and Bear-Bear was nearly as big as she was. Nowadays, she barely acknowledges Bear-Bear. Fickle feline friendships.


A closer shot with some cropping. Believe it or not, she used to love to sleep in front of the radiant electric wall heater in our old apartment. I couldn't stand in front of it for more than a minute or two, but she'd sleep 18 inches away all afternoon.


Me at the desk. Sorry for the glare in the glasses. I'm not sure why it's slightly out of focus, either. I was experimenting with putting the camera on a ledge near the desk.


Meager offerings today. Come back again!

Photoblogging

I bought a new digital camera recently, so I'll occasionally photoblog stuff. I know: it's sad.

First, me. Mike needz brainz!!



Bennie on the living room carpet. She's my 7 year old tabby.



Bennie on the desk, hanging out while I work.



Bennie naps as Mr. Jefferson watches over her.



A box of gaming dice.



I'll probably... no, certainly be posting more pictures.

Chris Davis is Still My Bitch

I'm changing the tag line under the blog name, so I just wanted to archive the old one in a post. Chris Davis is still my bitch.

Satisfied now, mother?

I'm a Feminist!

I'm a Feminist!

You Are 84% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

[Note: This post was deleted and reposted to remove some comment spam.]