That British je ne sais quoi ain't jack!

This will be the shortest blog I will probably ever write. It simply directs you to some myth-bustin' article on the lineage of the English, and it ain't what they've been telling us. The truth of lineage is still in the jeans, and those jeans were worn by 19th century snobs who ignored lots of Roman stuff to fabricate a distinctive myth about their forebears. Tyrone. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817

Character

I lived in Virginia just around the time when George Allen was elected Senator. There have not been good political leaders from Virginia since Jefferson, and Allen is an example of that. The latest bit of nonsense is whether he used the “n” word in college, and whether, after a hunting trip, he put the severed head of a deer into the mailbox of an African-American family in the neighborhood of the University of Virginia, where he was a student at the time. Mr. Allen denies both allegations. Not that this doesn’t matter, of course, if you’re deciding on who is going to get elected to run the “Ministry of the Prohibition of Vice and the Advancement of Virtue”, but that job is already held by another noteworthy Virginian, an ayatollah named Jerry Falwell.

To consider re-electing a Senator, all that the voters need to know is whether AS SENATOR, Mr. Allen did his job fairly and impartially, and effectively, not whether he was once a racist or a liar. People change. Americans are silly and too moralistic about these things. We consider character as something immutable, like gold. Well that’s not true. Character is neither immutable nor is it like gold. Character is potential, and the degree to which that potential is realized is the degree to which we say a person has character. An old friend used to say, laughing, “Maybe telling one lie doesn’t make you a liar, but suck one dick...” This is a reflection of that moral streak in Americans. I stole when I was a kid, and I don’t steal anymore. Maybe Allen used to say the “n” word, and maybe he doesn’t say it—or even think it--any more. But Allen’s got a bigger problem, now.

Three of his four grandparents were Jews, including both of his maternal grandparents. Allen only supposedly found out a month ago, but his mother “swore him to secrecy”. Who’s his mother? Madeleine Albright? It just reaffirms that in Christian America, it’s worse to be a Jew than to be a racist. Oh, the shame of it all. Now everyone will know the deep dark secret that family has been keeping for 50-some years, as opposed to the open fact the family understood for 2,000. Self-hating Jews are the worst kind, but you could have understood it coming from the paternal, Nazi concentration camp survivor’s side. In order to guarantee that it never happened to his family again, he may have wanted to obliterate all traces of Judaism from his life. Fair enough. Difficult problems make for extreme solutions. But the mother swore him to secrecy, and both her parents were Jews. This is an open demonstration of how desperately some Jews need to fit in. That’s the self-hating side. Miss Daisy, of film fame, was both southern and Jewish—it’s possible, but you have to have character.
Why would someone bring up someone else’s “alleged” membership in the J-Club anyway? In America, one must always ask about motive. Our foreign policy is like us: we make allies, not friends, and that instrumentalism is part and parcel of American social life. America is not always what its promise is. It’s not always about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Sometimes it’s about surviving, escaping the past, and forgetting the sadness. Sometimes it’s also about what those around you will let you do, but it’s usually about what you let others do to you. Character.

Clinton's Pissed

I know, I know, it seems like I’m always picking on George W. Bush, our current President. Well maybe some of you will remember that I didn’t pick on Bill Clinton at all, so it’s even. There’s nothing like a well formed sine wave to show a fellow what he thinks—Clinton on top, Bush on the bottom. And it just so happens that’s the best way to visualize these two wild boys in San Francisco, which is right across the Bay from The PATIO.

Clinton comes up because yesterday, on Fox News, Clinton got pissed at Chris Wallace at being held accountable for not killing Usama bin Laden. Clinton said he came a lot closer to killing the SOB than Bush has gotten with 20,000 troops. He’s tired of taking that shit, and he ought to be. And from Chris Wallace, a guy who may never have entered the national press corps if his old man hadn’t already been a well known newsman.

Aside: There was a newsman in Pittsburgh, on KDKA, named Bill Burns. People liked him, although I didn’t see him as being all that talented. Of course, being “Pittsburgh” is sometimes enough in that town, and that was the case with Bill. So, when his daughter came of age she was trotted out before the camera and, soon enough she was co-anchoring with “Dad”, as she brazenly referred to him during on-air transitions. Neither of them was particularly good, but Pittsburghers admire the working class values that enabled Bill to make room for Patty. We also like a joke, and rolled with laughter whenever one of these pros would trip over the words on the teleprompter.

Bill Clinton is also a working class man, unlike GW, who is a rich failure. Clinton grew up poor, went to schools on scholarship, and excelled because of his tremendous brains and ambition and hard work. Bush had a purchased education which he barely accepted by performance, has failed in every business, and has been a ridiculously poor public servant. Clinton must be sick of taking shit from people who try to compare him to his follower in the White House. He may like GW personally, but he’s way too achievement oriented to spend much time in that loser’s company. He knows there’s work to do that doesn’t involve a chain saw, and I don’t mean Dick Cheney in a mask with blood spurting in all directions.

Stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by making comparisons between Clinton and Bush. I’d say the only general comparison I can see is between Clinton and LBJ, who was from a similar background, had terrific ambition, and a very sharp mind. Yep, Bill and LBJ are great parallels, except that Bill got there faster, and will have more post-presidency years to seal his legacy. Compare him to LBJ before, and James Earl Carter since. What an interesting duo to bracket Clinton.

Patio News: We just put out some new menus. We took off some stuff that was covered with tape or just plain gone. We added some advertising testimonials, including a totally self serving one from Tyrone the Blogger, who talks about how we have the best burgers on the East Bay, which is true. We’re working on pushing a breakfast burrito that we might decide to sell in the mornings, assuming we want to get up earlier.

ALSO, for those of you who keep asking about the paperwork for extending our hours, we will be submitting it this week, along with a check for $769.00 ($736.00 for the actual fee, and $33.00 administrative costs). According to the person I spoke to, it might be done in a month or two if it’s not too complicated. This, my friends, is NOT too complicated. We need no new licenses, no new structural improvements, and I just had a health inspection that was successful. I cannot imagine what could be less complicated. Ah, but this is Berkeley where the town motto, in English to avoid the appearance of snobbery, is “Where Tyranny Comes Creeping from the Left”.

Emailed Hatred

I’m going to toss an exchange between me and someone I’ve never seen before into the blog today. It concerns a photo taken of an Arab man taking a snapshot of five, ostensibly, Arab women, all of whom are modestly dressed in line with the codes of many places in the Arab world—only the eyes are available aside from the black robes and the shoes. The picture was entitled “Pointless Family Photo”. I saw the humor, so I sent it on to a whole bunch of friends. What I got back that was just extra special was a humorless reply from a humorless person. (Here is my sparring match with her, with a short preamble to the same email recipients I sent the original picture to.)

One of you sent the picture on to someone called Levina@XXX.XXX, with disastrous consequences for the woman herself: she was forced to reveal her true colors. I sent you all her first email to me about the plight of Muslim women, as expressed to deeply in the vacation picture I sent. Here are all her responses to me, with my responses to her. Watch and see how facades (interest in Muslim women) disintegrate into true colors (hatred of Muslims). If this is anyone's friend but Ms.7's, I can't relate! T. (Levina writes, on September 19, in response to the photo, itself). ”The point here is the degrading manner in which women are treated by Muslim society. Western women should take careful note of this and realize what the fight against terrorism means to them, in particular.” (T. writes, in response to the above, on September 19). “I don't know you and I didn't send this to you. I must have sent it to someone who knew you and thought you'd be amused. As a person who has spent nearly five years in the Middle East, I might know something about the plight of women, and I also might know a lot more Muslim women than you. Consider thinking twice before representing, as their feelings, your own. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes is more complex than you think, and we are all imprisoned by our own cultural mores, beliefs, and attitudes about those shoes. In what way are you imprisoned by your Western notions of what's right and wrong? White middle class American women, despite what they think, do not speak for the billions of women of color around the world who are quite happy to nominate their own representatives to echo their voices. And, finally, how women are treated doesn't stop me from laughing at a preposterous photograph where nobody looking at this picture in a scrapbook could tell who was in the picture. It is funny on its face (no pun intended). If you didn't think it was funny, [that] would have been just fine. To lecture me and my friends about your attitudes on world affairs from this jocular email is haram.” (Levina writes, on September 19). “You are not the only American who spent time living in the Middle East. I spent 3 yrs there. Be that as it may, you miss my point entirely. I don't care how Muslim women feel or don't feel. If they like their plight, as you suggest, fine for them. I do know that the VAST majority Western women would not like being treated the way Muslim women are treated. If the terrorists had their way, we'd all be converted to Islam and Western women would be subjugated, just as women are in the Middle East. That was my point and like it or not, it is true.” (T. writes, in response to the above, on September 19). “If you think I miss your point, you are mistaken. It's worse than that. You have no point to make. You're apparently fearful of Muslims, think they're all terrorists, and worry about conversion and subjugation. Don't you have anything else to do? I'm going to guess that your three years in the ME were in Israel. Mine were in Iran and Saudi Arabia. When your head clears, write back dispassionately and as though you had nothing to fear. It might improve your perspective.” (Finally, on September 20, with an ostensibly clear head, Levina writes). “Israel is the front line in the war on terror. Being there gave me first hand experience in what the terrorists do and what must be done to stop them. Before the dust of the WTC, the Pentagon, Madrid, London and Bali clears from my head, it will be quite a while, sir. I loath Muslims because, rather than come out and condemn what was done, their so called moderate leaders instead sit in quiet acquiescense. What those people want for me, and for all Westerners you can take for yourself, sir.”

(That “sir” shit is right out of Duck Soup, with Groucho referring to Louis Calhern in the same mocking way. I love it!) This is what might be called Crock Pot Psychology (not the other kind, which is Crack Pot): stir it occasionally, let it simmer a day or two, and the real flavors come out. There’s a lot of mental crock-pottery going on these days. My readers might imagine that I am a prime example, but I’m not really harboring any enmity toward anyone other than that particular stripe of born-again Christian who tired of the well-worn birth canal and decided to try the rectum for the second coming. No, I see myself as a reasonable man—a veritable paragon. I’m talking about street level bozos who metaphorically sit on the side of the dirt road with a sign reading “Will Bomb for Food”; or fatcats in places like Halliburton or the White House who should be taken to interesting places and cavity searched; or Muslims who hate Jews, the West, and pork chops; or Jews who hate Muslims, the East, and pork chops. I love pork chops, and you can have the rest.

Chapter One

Grover had just gotten out of bed, exhausted after a long night with Kitty. Kitty’s claim to fame is that she was once an Olympic class gymnast who, after she broke her wrist at the Olympic Trials, started drinking heavily. It was unattractive on a 14 year old, and just as unattractive now that she was 18. Grover was 40, a little paunchy, and had been “dating” Kitty for nearly two years now, despite that only being legal in states where they never resided. No matter, she was 18 now and that’s all that counted.
“Hey Grovey,” she practically screamed as she stretched, “What about breakfast.”
“What about it?”
“I want some. I’m hungry. You made me hungry from all that exercise.”
“Okay, let’s go to Nibs,” Grover smiled.
“Nibs!”
Nibs was a local joint that opened and closed early for the breakfast crowd and the senior citizen early birds. They both liked the place, and the coffee was pretty good. Not Peet’s, but pretty good.
Kitty dragged herself out of bed. At five-one, she was tall for a gymnast, and since she hadn’t been working out for several years, she didn’t squeak from the performance enhancing drugs, she wasn’t rock hard through the torso, and she had regular menses. In short, she was a living doll—an often drunk doll, but still a doll.
Maybe it was the Irish in her. She was intense, intelligent, and a hard liquor drinker. Her father, Cornelius Caboodle, was a hard-working, hard-drinking sort who died when Kitten—her given name, was just a wee tot. Mary McFadden McKenna Caboodle was a bright, cheerful woman who disdained drink and loved baseball.
“Oh, those Giants are playing woefully below their capabilities, even with that mountain of a Barry Bonds to bang out some homers and the occasional bingle on a rope,” she’d intone. You’d also hear some “good eyes” and some “way to looks” from her. Yes, she was a true Giants fan, and held no stock in the Athletics across the Bay. They might as well have been a Brazilian soccer team to Mary McFadden McKenna Caboodle. She had hoped that one day Kitty would grace a Cheerios box, but that would never happen, not since the wrist and the booze. Ah, poor Kitty, she thought as Bonds came up to the plate.
“Ready, Kitty?”
“Grover, don’t bother me. You know it takes women a little time.”
“Christ, Kitty, your hair’s short as mine and you don’t wear underwear, so what’s the big deal!” Grover knew what the big deal was. Kitty was drinking in the bathroom. He hated it, but where else was he going to find anyone who cared so much for him. He suspected that he cared a little, too.
“I’m coming, I’m coming! Gimme a goddamn break.”
She popped out of the bathroom, smiled at Grover, grabbed her bag, trotted to the front door, opened it, and ducked just in time to avoid the dead fish that was flung at her at high speed.
“Duck Grover!” she shouted, and just in time, too, for as he hit the carpet the lumbering carp went sailing through the door and landed smack in the middle of their sofa, where it bounced once and settled. It would have hit him without Kitty's warning! He owed his life to Kitty, for it surely would have ended had he been hit in the temple by the long, sharp, bony dorsal fin of that 17 pound aquatic throwback.
Once the shock was over, Grover jumped up and, when he saw that Kitty was safe, pushed through the open door only to see the rear taillight configuration of a 1961 Nash Rambler, the one with the flip down front seats admired by Grover’s old friend, Chuck Williams. But Chuck couldn’t have done this. There was no reason. They were old friends from Oakland going back almost 25 years. Chuck was back east governing the State of Pennsylvania, anyway--or was he. Perhaps Grover should make a call. There was something about a carp from his youth at Pymatuming that was nagging at him but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
Grover and Kitty looked at each other knowing that Nibs would have to wait for another day. Today, they were having carp.

Lee and Leslie

Lee married Leslie today, or was it the other way around. For those of you who remember Lee Remick and Leslie Nielsen, it ain’t them. It just goes to illustrate that times have changed since Dick and Sue. The excellent Lee (the mister) married the excellent Leslie (the missus), and that’s the wedding I missed. Alex went, but between him, his uncle, and Mapquest, he didn’t get there until the reception started. No matter. It’s a laid back crowd. Dick commented that the hora reminded him of the beginning of “Deer Hunter”, and I said better the beginning than the end. Anyway, Leslie and Lee are that excellent kind of people who, at around thirty, decide to settle down a bit. Lee is an outdoorsman with an Ivy League MBA and a shiny social conscience, and Leslie is an outdoorswoman who ropes and rides as good as any cowboy, and puts up beautiful web pages, too. These two remind me of Leslie’s own paternal grandparents, Stan and Virginia, and my wish for them is that they have a marriage and a life like them. Good luck to you both. T.

Ban Religion

If there were ever a time to fear religion it’s today. The Pope, who’s used to speaking to those who are not from subsistence farms in Pakistan, or to those who are meat sellers in a Cairo souk, put his jewel encrusted foot in his mouth by quoting some arcane 14th century nonsense about jihad, and Muhammad’s notion of conversion by the sword. Did the Pope think that Muslims would understand his intellectual ramblings? If so, he’s a dope as well as a Pope. And if the Muslims have their way, he’ll be a Pope on a rope.

Now, Tyrone, you’re generalizing again, huh. Yep, that’s true. It’s not the Muslims, Jews, or Christians I know who go out and weep over miracles, kiss feet, fear the arts, or raise fists and shout through bad teeth. No, those are true believers that represent, maybe, the 20-30% of religious people who are the stupidest, most vicious, and most judgmental fucking morons on earth (present company excepted, of course). For the sake of the rest of us, let’s move to ban religion from the earth!

Oh, but Tyrone, how would we know right from wrong without religious guidance? You’re part of that fucking moron community I was speaking of if you don’t know right from wrong already, ya putz. Lots of atheists like me managed to raise kids who understand right from wrong and live according to the “rules”. I’ll bet you know plenty of wild-ass children from religious homes, don’t you. No, I know I’m exaggerating because I know some excellent kids who grew up in religious homes. But those success stories are about those who grew up to be liberal, not conservative.

From the fuckwits who blew up Oklahoma City because of the fuckwit David Koresh, or the fuckwits who think Muhammad okayed four wives for all time when it was clear that he was ONLY talking about helping widows and orphans, particularly those of the Muslim war with the Meccans, or the fuckwits who believe that only god can usher in Zion but who walk around the Israeli settlements strapped and fighting their own government, or those fuckwits who believe in a hidden 12th Imam, and seem to be hiding their true intentions about nuclear weapons. Well fuck you all, every last one of you. You deserve all the shit you get, and if you try to give some of that shit to me, I’ll make you eat it.



Have a nice day.

Burglary

I’ve never seen such a wide variety of brainless misfits as in Berkeley. How so many people who manage to know nothing more than bong construction and the binomial nomenclature of every known strain of marijuana came to live—if you call this living—in a narrow little piece of town about a dozen square blocks from the Sather Gate of the University of California at Berkeley is amazing and stupendous. It’s also very disheartening to old farts like me who see all this as a real waste of human potential. Oh, I’m talking about the Peter Pan Complex types who just never wanna grow up, and that’s about 78% of them. People ranging in age from 30 to 60, and who somehow think that they can have their habits and do their shite without being a right fukein nuisance to the rest of the community. I’m here to proclaim that they are a fukein nuisance. They are more than that. They are a liability to every citizen of Berkeley who wants to build a better world. These people are not about world building. They’ve been nowhere and done nothing, and they distrust their government while sucking at the federal and state teats whenever possible. I’m rarely conservative, but I do want to shake some of these stiffs until their neurons begin to fire. I’m worried about those 30 years olds I’m describing, because it appears they don’t look at the 60 year olds and see themselves thirty years hence. One plus one equals two, yet these people don’t get it. If they couldn’t see themselves at 30 when they were 15, no problem. But they aren’t 15 anymore. Can’t they be even remotely introspective? Is everything about California sunshine and stinkweed? Don’t they know that medical advances mean they are destined to a far longer life of poverty, dissatisfaction, and mental illness than am I? It doesn’t matter if they don’t believe it, because there are lots of things we don’t believe that are true anyway. I don’t imagine that anyone who would read this blog would fit this category, but only you would know that. The Patio was burglarized for the second time last night (Thursday night, that is). They got a little change and decided to take nothing else. That’s because they’re as stupid in their criminal masks as they are in their other masks. I’ve spread the word that I want to know which fuckwit(s) did this. I want to take a picture of the moron, blow it up, and plaster posters all over Berkeley that I will have any tweaker arrested who I find messes with my place. Don’t you wish they cared so much about anything in their meager lives, especially themselves. Look, if you idiots are bound to get toothless and die somewhere under the stars, move to Tahoe right now and you’ll be dead by Ground Hog Day. If you don’t give a flying fuck, why should I!

Fascism is the Path to the White House in America

I recently received an email with some interesting content about fascism, including the following definition: (1983 American Heritage Dictionary) “Fascism: ‘A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.’ (The US dictionary definition has gotten somewhat squishier since then, as all the larger dictionary companies have been bought up by multinational corporations.)”

The writer goes on to say that, “Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’ he wrote, ‘If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.’ But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation. In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the ‘Camera dei Fasci e delle corporazioni’ - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations.”

Interesting, I think, especially when Prescott Bush, the current President’s grandfather, reportedly lost a business under the Roosevelt Administration for dealing with the Nazis. Like grandfather and father, like son. What’s that warmonger business that the Bush family and its friends own called … hmm… oh, yeah, the Carlisle Group! Don’t tell me it can’t happen here. It’s just less likely to result in a holocaust of people living in America, which leaves a lot of people elsewhere who might be our scapegoats. Maybe we started with the Iraqis.



[NOTE:] Those of you who read me know that I do believe that Bush and his cronies are lying through their teeth at every waking moment. Such is the nature of fascism, where a “need to know” consideration is all that counts, and that’s as much inside information as I have—I don’t need to know anything, so they don’t tell me anything. Conspiracy theorists also tell me things I find difficult to swallow but, in an ironic turnabout, they give more information than I want to know. As a result, I have as much trouble believing the overwhelming “evidence” of conspiracy theories as I have the paucity of “evidence” I get from Bush, Cheney and that super-secret junkyard dog, the nefarious Mister Rove. In a capitalist world (as Andy Warhol knew intrinsically), all that matters is whether you can profit from your work, and conspiracy theorists who manage to winnow their way to the top are in a mighty position to profit, whether their theory is right or wrong. It’s all capitalist nonsense to me because I see all sides as special interests in a capitalist circle jerk.

Meena #2

Okay, so Meena and Thomas (Vorpahl, as I was corrected, and rightly so – my apologies, Thomas) had a great time in Cologne, and some difficulty saying goodbye when Meena had to leave for Istanbul. That’s good, honest stuff. Meena wanted me to say “merhaba” to the Patio crowd, which is an Arabic greeting meaning merhaba in Arabic, but we all know that already.

Meena has settled in quite nicely in her lavish suite of rooms a 15 minute walk from her job. She and her roomie, Sean, get along great and the same goes with Sean’s girlfriend, Kelly. Meena also apparently heard English spoken on the street when she was out walking off the anguish of Steve Irwin’s death. She engaged the two guys who were talking and found they were also ESL teachers, one of whom was a linguistics major who had just arrived in country. So, there’s evidence that she’s broadening her circle, which can only mean increased comfort and better adjustment. That’s how it goes overseas, especially for single travelers.

Here’s another international travel situation. Meena and Sean want to get wireless internet service in their flat. Here, you call the company and they come and install it. There, the school administrator contacts the landlord to discuss the matter. When Meena asks for a status report, she gets, “I have not yet been able to contact…” Yes, Istanbul is more Asian than European. On the positive side, every Arab friend of ours has told us that the food in Istanbul is fantastic. Meena reports that she has settled in at one of her local restaurants and that the food is great… and cheap! The equivalent of tapas and drinks for $5. Sounds like a bargain! Just like the Patio!

On a neighborhood note, Afghanistan is crashing hard. Bush’s only “victory” in this wasteful and ill-advised campaign is going away, and he’s going to leave office with absolutely nothing more than too many dead people, which is what you get when you give people guns and tell them to shoot other people. And why did Bush believe that the people of Afghanistan (who even I know better than Bush does) want to trade security for foreign domination. Deal with the devil you know, and that’s the Taliban, who are not going away (just as surely as Americans will). These guys have been around a long time.

And Iraq is even closer to Turkey (on its border), where the Turks are looking as carefully at the Kurds as are the Iranians. Getting a Kurdish state might be good all around because the Kurds being discriminated against by the Iranians and the Turks (less so will the EU looking at everything very closely) will have their own Israel, and the parallel may not be lost on the Kurds, Muslim or not. A Kurdish state, however, will mean a failure in Iraq, the other state that the new Kurdish state will be carved out of. That leaves a three state solution in Iraq: Shi’i in the south, with the capital in Karbala; the Sunnis in the north, with Baghdad; and then the Kurds wherever they alight. So if that happens, how are we better than the Brits, gerrymandering borders for their own purpose. Two states with jack-shit, and one -- the Shi'i one -- rich beyond belief with all of Iraq's known oil reserves. And while there is no love lost between Arabs and Iranians, they are both Shi'i, and both would be rich. All I know is that there will be no Iraq if this happens, so what was Bush doing there in the first place! I never heard the eradication of Iraq as the goal of Bush's policy... did you?

The guys are stupid or crazy, and some are both. Pin a tail on the donkey of your choice.

Happy Birthday!

Here at the Patio, we have a long-standing tradition of celebrating a customer’s 21st birthday with a free beer (in German, aufshaus). You’d be surprised how few beers we buy on account of a 21st birthday. Anyway, that’s all I want to say about birthdays, so the title is misleading.

We have just witnessed the gaudy sentimentality of the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I resent and reject that as pure schmaltz, and as a crass attempt to subvert deeper issues like whether we are safer, what have we done to build bridges rather than bomb them, and who does President Andrew Jackass think he is, anyway! I can comment freely on the last item.

President Andrew Jackass thinks he’s sumpin’. He’s awright, boy. He’s slicker’n snot. He’s cool as an Eskimo pie. He’s an Arab-stompin’ patriot and a regaler ‘Merican hero. He’s a god-fearin’ bible-totin’, librarian-marryin’, Harvard and Yale attendin’ good ol’ boy, like Tommy Lee Jones, except he ain’t no democrat and can’t ride the shit out of a horse. Yes, if these words are the sort you use in your regular speech, you might think Bush and company don’t lie, cheat, or steal, or at least not any more than your average republican.

Bill, our resident conspiracy theorist, can’t imagine why I don’t believe in all the 9/11 theories (building couldn’t have collapsed that way; finding a conspirator’s passport in the rubble; war games just like the attack, etc) since he knows I’m no fan of Bush. I don’t know why I have to believe in hysterical nonsense just because I think Bush is lying to me daily. The problem with American men is that they think if they can engineer a dam or fix a Chevy, they can also speculate on the whys and wherefores of their government, especially when the government is attempting to cover things up. I’m satisfied to know that Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice are trying to fuck up the world (for Jesus or for American hubris) every single day. That’s why I don’t mind when Bush disappears for a month at a time. Hell, Cheney’s always disappearing. Do you know where he is right now? See!

Why I Love the Pittsburgh Steelers

I love the Pittsburgh Steelers, and have since the days when Big Daddy Lipscomb intimidated Alex Karras and John Henry Johnson dropped his son off on Ellsworth to join a neighborhood game. It’s partly because I love Pittsburgh that I love the Steelers. I mean, you grow up in a town and you know the back roads, the holes in the fences, who you can tease, where to stay away from, and how to drive under the bridges. You know where they keep the railroad signal bombs, what the “Flying Fraction” is, and who came from Pittsburgh. (Yes, all you Bears fans, Ditka’s from Pittsburgh, dahn the Ohio, where the steel mills are a mile long, and every kid who played football in that place was as tough as Ditka, if not as talented.)

We heard tales of Unitas, who supposedly impossibly threw a football over the Millvale Bridge. And the great Marino was a neighborhood boy who went to Central Catholic and was a classmate of one of the Cunningham brothers. And as the greater Pittsburgh area grows, so we claim Namath, and Montana, and even the Kent State guys who were closer to Pittsburgh than to Cleveland, and had loyalties outside Ohio. Jack “Splat” "Count Jackula" Lambert was such a guy, and I hear he lives out around Oakmont, both happily and quietly, with his family. I used to see Rocky Bleier and his wife at the Pittsburgh Public Theater on Thursday nights, when my wife and I also had season tickets. Andy Russell made bank ads, and who could forget Mean Joe Green’s Coke ad, or the latest fashions worn by Frenchy Fuqua. Then there was Franco’s Italian Army, and the conviction that Bradshaw could choose between Swann and Stallworth on any play and that either would be up to the task.

In Roethlisberger we have another Steeler “legend in waiting”, but Charlie Batch, a home boy from Homestead (the steel mills up the Mon from Pittsburgh), threw three TDs to Ward et al in the season opener and showed us we could win with him, too, when the starter was recovering from an appendectomy, and after the city lost a well-respected mayor earlier in the week to cancer. And who did the work on D? The fabulous linebacker corps and the secondary! They’re going to be around for quite a few years and are just going to get better. Bill Cowher is Pittsburgh, and his teams have been successful largely due to his work, and to the Rooneys. He's tough and aggressive, and he has a big heart. His team reflects that Pittsburgh bluster and heart, and the team looks to him to represent Pittsburgh from the sidelines.

Look, I don’t watch every game (although I have watched a few at Zack’s, in Millbrae, a Steelers bar here in the SF Bay Area), and I don’t know every player by number or by stats. I do know that Pittsburgh was a great town to grow up in, and that the Steelers made me happy. I had more to do with the Pirates, since I grew up near Forbes Field, and since Roberto Clemente was the best ever, and since Vernon “Deacon” Law was active in the Mormon Church across from my house and regularly gave us kids general admission tickets on Sundays, and since I liked listening to Bob Prince call the games, and since I was happy for all the people who managed to have “chicken on the Hill with Will” when Willie Stargell hit a homer. Just the same, I have always loved the rough and tumble of football. It better reflects the town than baseball, which is redolent of cow shit rather than steel. Yes, I love the Steelers, win or lose, because I love the town they represent, and they have represented us so well over the decades. The only things that keep me from getting a big screen TV and a football package here at the Patio is that I can't afford them, and that I don't want the 1-Pabst-per-4-hours crowd. Suggestions are welcome, except for cover changes.

September Message from Senator Tyrone

Message From Senator Tyrone “Moishe” Phipps Han von Vargas,

Republicrat, Massamissimichitexagon


My fellow Americans,


I think it’s time that I spoke out on many important issues facing the people of my state, and of this great nation. Fresh in my memory is that tragic day in 2001 when the thousands of brave men and women of the World Trade Center tried to stop, with almost no hope of success, two planes from destroying them. Those in the Pentagon and in the field in Pennsylvania did better, fortunately, allowing only Saddam Hussein to escape with his life and flee to Iraq.


Two years later, our brave soldiers, sailors, pilots, and administrators put their lives on the line confiscating “weaponized” anthrax near Baghdad, which they immediately destroyed so nobody would be hurt by the production of the Taliban’s evil chemists. Yet, after chasing these Taliban around Iraq for what seems like years, now, all we have to show for it is an elected government, which is not so bad, but far less than the Afghanis deserve. I recently heard that Hussein can’t even drive around outside his house because he might be killed. It’s deplorable that the elected head of the Afghanistani folks can’t even drive a car!


These people are backwards, and that’s America’s real problem over there in Lebanon. Stealing Jews gets people bombed in Lebanon! Now, isn’t that something that’s wrong for stealing Jews in Lebanon? It’s true of us in America when Canada steals regular people in America, but that’s the difference between how we do things here in a free country. Jews are used to this, anyway, so what do the Lebanites think they're doing. I am positive that Old Glory shines o’er the grain when Americans bomb Canada for kidnapping.


There’s some interest in providing an increase in the minimum wage in my state, and even all across the country. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but it ought to be matched by a fiscal plan to reduce hours so that income remains the same. That way, there is no increase in cost, and I believe in that whole heartedly. Otherwise it’s like a new tax, and I campaigned on a no new taxes under God platform, and that’s what I pray for each night at bedtime.


I’d also like to address the rate at which young African-American and youth from Hispaniola are failing school examinations for high school graduation. We have a national obligation to help these disadvantaged and marginalized people, and I am four-square behind my own plan. I propose that we rescale the exam so that there are even bands on the rating scale. Teachers tell me that an “F” is any grade less than 60%. Now why should that be so! Why are the divisions so lopsided? I proposed on the floor of the Senate, and I also introduced a Bill. But what I really want to tell the American public is that a failing grade should be that, and nothing more, and it should be any grade less than 20 so that all the bands are even. The passing rate should dramatically increase when my proposal is enacted into law, and when we couple it with decreased standards, I imagine our passing rate will be the envy of the world.


Finally, I’m appalled by the lack of free speech in this great nation. Our Founding Fathers, like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams gave their lives for our freedoms and so we should at least be willing to exercise them. Note that our Administration never fails to exercise its freedoms. Same with the Court and the Congress. It’s only the folks and the press that don’t, and they should be ashamed of themselves. I, for one, can tell you I love to hear from constituents, and I will talk to any person my chief of staff passes me on to, and that’s how I stay in touch. It’s also a great way to raise funds because I can’t tell you how often the people who get to speak with me also volunteer a contribution. Free speech is one of the things that separates the Land of the Free from the rest, and so is modern thinking and psychology. Let’s combine them and exercise our freedom of speech to express all the positive things we can. By expressing nothing but the positive, others will learn to love us, we will love ourselves, and we will again train the world in the right way to do things…so help me God.


Thank you.