WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) - In a surprise move today, the Bush administration announced the funding of a $5 billion project to build a time machine. White House representative Scott McClellan said today that the Democratic Party leaders' demands for a 24/7 accounting of Bush's whereabouts during his ANG service have, yet again, forced the administration to increase Federal funding for yet another ground-breaking new program.
McClellan said that the basis for the new project originated when several Missile-Defense analysts accidentally ingested some TCH pellets soaked in hash oil that had been designed for terrorist behavior-modification applications. This apparently induced an insight into the nature of time; that "one's location in time depends on a point of view moving on a specific vector on a toroidal surface," to quote one habitual user research specialist.
"We feel that the Worldview Anacron Yester-Balancing Annular Clock/Kinetic (WAYBACK) Machine will prove to be a ground-breaker for scientists," remarked McClellan, and followed up a FOX News question whether Chappaquiddick/1969 would be out of bounds ("We needed Massachusetts support," Scott explained) by saying that "No one will be allowed to go back and bet on the Super Bowl, or the World Series. Or, in the case of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, strangle liberal reporters in their cradles."
McClellan refused to comment on rumors that President Bush wanted "Mr. Wizard" to head the WAYBACK Machine project.
(with a tip o' the hat to Chris Muir)
The following article was written June, 2003, for a journalism class for Miami University.
I publish it here in testament to the spirit of a great journalist, Hugh Morgan, and my friend Dean Esmay.
They share, to some degree, many of the same gifts, and faults.
Enjoy.
OXFORD – Miami University English professor Hugh Morgan explained the terrible affect alcohol has had on journalists to his class Monday, June 9, including the affect on his life and his friends’ lives: “I found the major problem in my generation of journalists was alcohol.”
Morgan spoke passionately about alcohol abuse as he told the class how this affected lives and careers during his fifteen years with the Associated Press.
“I know ten [journalists] who died, and at least a hundred who never reached their potential due to alcoholism,” he exclaimed. The professor knows from painful personal experience just how much alcoholism hurts careers and lives; it killed two of his friends, and nearly him as well.
Morgan, who graduated in from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism in 1958, received his doctorate in history from Southern Illinois University in 1974, while teaching there. He spent the first half of his career with the AP in the Southwest, including Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas. It was El Paso, Texas where he met Mel and Anne Geary.
“Mel Geary was my boss as managing editor for the El Paso Times from 1963 to 1966,” Morgan recalls. “He was a big guy; about six foot four inches tall, and an artist. He had four kids with his wife, Anne: three sons and a daughter.”
“Mel worked a ten-hour shift. He would come in about 4 p.m. and leave at 2 a.m., with a two-hour lunch break in the middle. During his break he would go home, drink, and come back.
“About once a month he would say ‘Let’s go over to Juarez [Mexico] and have dinner.’ It was a short trip; maybe a five-minute drive to Juarez, then a five-minute to the Remo Bar. They always had the same bartenders there.
“Mel always asked for ‘un vaso de agua’ (a glass of water) that was really two-thirds vodka and a hint of vermouth, with a lime peel. He called the peel his lunch. He would have about two-and-a-half of these during lunch, and he’d be blotto by the time we got back.
“Drinking caused a personality change in him. He would go from a gentle bear to a raging giant.
“When his boss, William Ignatius Latham –a laconic man- was promoted to editor in 1968, Geary was promoted managing editor.
“Mel was divorced in 1970. It really shook him up, and by this time his wife was drinking heavily as well. She would get drunk and call the office to yell about Mel’s drinking.
“Mel was fired from the Times in 1970, and found a job in Odessa, Texas, at the copy desk, where he worked on headlines and stories.
“He died in 1974 in a veteran’s hospital from alcoholism, at age 42. His wife had died a year earlier, in 1973, when she gagged on her own vomit.
“In 1973 I had moved to the state capitol bureau in Lansing, Mich., where my drinking got worse. At the time I was dating a difficult woman, who would sometimes be very rude to me. I could only argue with her when I was drunk. I broke up with her a month before the Labor Day weekend of 1974.
“That weekend I was at another guy’s girlfriends’ house. I got drunk as can be on a quart of rum, and woke up in the extra bedroom, in the deepest depression of my life.
“That Sunday I went to see a doctor (it was right across from the state capitol) who gave me a vitamin shot, looked at me and said ‘You don’t need it anymore.’ That’s the only reason I’m here today. Well, he did give me some anti depressants, but I used exercise as a substitute for booze. It’s a better high.”
Then Morgan told the class: “If you need chemicals to be you, there’s something wrong with you.
“For many college students it’s the first time apart from their family. They want to show their independence from their parents by drinking. They find booze to be a crueler parent.
“Alcohol interferes with your life. You make a lifelong decision when you start to drink. Binge drinking is not fun! It’s bull! It’s stupid, just stupid!
“There are better ways: exercise, studying, getting involved [in campus activities].”
He concluded “There are too many date rapes on this campus related to alcohol. Most of them go unreported.”
Dear Dean and Rosemary,
I was going to write to you the other day, to explain why I hadn't dropped by the blog very often lately. I didn't think Dean to believe that it was due to hard feelings about the book critique. Nothing to do with that!
Part of that explanation was to be about depression about my own life, and difficulty getting a job now that I'm out of school.
Then I dropped by Dean's World, and read some truly sad things. On the other hand, I read some truly lovely things as well. The odd bit is that both involve the same words.
I guess the best way is to turn back the clock... Back when I was a kid we would drive our mom insane by bringing home cute kittens. We just didn't Get It; "But, mom, it's just a kitten!" To which my mother would reply "Kittens turn into cats!" But, God bless her, mom always relented, and away we went. After a couple generations of more cute kittens, mom would lay down the law, and away the entire (excuse the pun) kit and caboodle would go.
Until the next irresistible foundling came along. Sigh... {wry grin}
Certain members of our continual Cat Empire still come readily to mind. Leo, the red tabby. Felix, a perfect replica of his namesake. Sheba, a lovely chocolate Burmese, who gave birth to Inky, a black longhair with the most mellow personality I've ever seen in a feline body.
Then there was Snoopy. There was, at first, little to set Snoopy apart from the crowd, aside from his name. He was "Yet Another Grey Tabby With A Cute Name." But that was before he disappeared for two weeks, and our family had decided that Snoopy had found a family he liked better.
After we came to terms with Snoopy's abandonment of our family, he returned in a dramatic manner. One summer morning we opened the front door to find on the front porch an emaciated grey tabby missing his back right leg. All that was left was a shred of a tendon below the joint.
We never found out how Snoopy lost his leg, or how he returned. The best we can guess is that he ran afoul of a vermin trap, or some vicious sadistic punk with an axe. What we can say is that my older sister Amy took our friend to the vet, and paid the bills out of her own pocket.
You know, in a way it was really funny watching Snoopy run, after that. You haven't seen anything until you've seen a three-legged cat run, full out! Not only that, but the Snoopster showed how smart cats could be. He would walk up to you, look you straight in the eye, cock his head, and start waggling his stump just as if he were scratching behind his right ear. The message: "Scratch behind my ear, cuz I can't you dolt!" But we always got the message....
But that's not why I'm talking about Snoopy right now. He lived to a ripe old age, and veteran cat lovers know what frequently happens to old toms: kidney stones. Alas, with Snoopy and his old age, there wasn't much we could do by then, but how could we explain that to him? All he knew was we let him down! It hurt, dammit!
I don't think I'll ever forget his last minutes on this earth. I was in the dining room, near the door to our back porch. Snoopy hobbled up to me, and flopped down on his side with a disgusted air. He looked up at me, and gave an abbreviated yowl, as if to say "Blast it, this hurts. Do something."
I say, "abbreviated" because I've never heard a cat just stop in the middle of saying anything. Right after that he flopped back, and quit moving. A minute later some fluid ran out of his nose. He was dead. I had never seen any living creature die while I watched. I hope to God you never have to watch anything you love die, while you watch.
We found out later his bladder had burst. The fluid was the urine that had backed up in his body.
Why do I bring this up? I know, in my bones, what happens when a pet you love suffers. And I'm not the only one. We know, Dean and Rosemary, what you are going through; and we're there for you.
In your other post you say that you realize that you are an alcoholic:
"I can't stop. It's affecting my life, and I can't stop.
Damn it.
How pathetic is it that I share this with you publicly?
I can't stop. What's wrong with me?"
Dean, my dear friend, there is nothing wrong with you! It isn't pathetic. It's human. Actually, it's healthy, because you have confronted your demons, in public.
I have no words to say how much we love you, and support you. All I can do is give my own testament. Please find attached an article I wrote for a journalism class I took last summer at Miami University, taught by Professor Hugh Morgan. Hugh isn’t "just" (as mentioned in the article) a journalism teacher; he's an Associated Press veteran of 15 years standing. Hugh is also an alcoholic; something he decided to reveal to our class...
Feel free to publish this article, or not. It's up to you.
All I can say, at the end, is that: Dean and Rosemary, there are quite a few
of us in the blogosphere who love you, and yours, and we care.
God be with you, my friends.
Casey
Ara over at E Pluribus Unum sez (if I understand him) that the big money always wins in elections.
In fact, he even did a little thought experiment:
Imagine that we're running for the Senate from Iowa. Imagine that Dick Morris is your senior campaign consultant if you like. [shiver]
Now, imagine that you are standing in a room where there are two stacks of money on two tables. One table holds a stack of money totaling $2.5 million. The other table holds a stack of money totaling $5 million. You are free to choose whichever pile on one condition: your opponent will get the stack you leave behind.
So, which one do you choose?
I'd say that's not the point. To quote Sun-Tzu: "A lion will attack an ant with all of his power." In other words, it's human nature to take the $5 million, no matter whether it affects the election or not.
But that's not the real point. The real point is that Howard "I have a Scream" Dean spent upwards of $60 million up until the Iowa caucus (with Iowa getting a lions' share), but Kerry still beat him like a red-headed stepchild in K-Mart in every state.
Now, what was that about big money again? Heh.
Ok, I have to come out of the closet, and admit something that personally embarasses me.
Hillary Clinton turns me on.
There! I said it....
Here's what you have to do:
1)drink a sixpack, do some tequila shots, burn a splif; whatever you usually do to alter the ol' conciousness.
2)fire up some of the Beatles' odder tracks, like Tomorrow Never Knows, or Within You Without You. Or Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, if you like.
3)click on this link.
4)enjoy....
Whoa.....
So you're bored. You've become the Mickey Mantle of the penguin-homerun crowd, and hitting 'em out past 330 yards just doesn't do it for you anymore.
My friend, I have the answer: YetiSports - Orca Slap.
This one's a bit different: you don't use a bat to hit the penguins, and it's a timed game. The trick is to nail ten penguins in the shortest time possible.
Mucho fun. But I'm still waiting for a Linux-lover to do a shockwave of Tux knocking MSYeti into a snowbank. Heh heh heh...
Rosemary Esmay (AKA Queen of all Evil) has Laid Down the Law:
"I have had it with the hurling of criminal accusations at the President of the United States. Or anyone else for that matter.
Being AWOL, a rapist, a deserter, a murderer are crimes. From now on, this is a conspiracy free zone."
Amen, Your Majesty!
Please note that Rose is not excepting Democratic/liberals with this: anyone coming up with the latest version of the "Vince Foster conspiracy" will get short shrift as well.
This is as it should be. I strongly lean towards Bush these days, but we -as citizens- should handle our obligation to select representatives in a responsible manner.
Even if Bush looks like Curious George, and Kerry is Botoxulon.
(By the way, Rose, have I told you lately how damned sexy you look, when you get mad? Heh)
Don Sensing, over at One Hand Clapping, has been very busy lately, with topics ranging from The Great Christian Divide to al Qaeda, and why conservatives are "too stupid to hire," according to a Duke University professor.
Check him out.
The good news is that Lucasfilm, Ltd. and 20th Century Fox Home Video are releasing the three original Star Wars films on DVD this fall.
The bad news is that it's going to be a boxed set, so expect to pay a hefty premium.
Sigh...
Any party that reigns unchallenged for a long period of time tends to become corrupt. Acton once said "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Analog editor John Campbell once said that he would change that to "unchallenged power corrupts absolutely." I think that this is largely true.
Recall that for at least a generation after the Civil War, the GOP reigned supreme over the United States, damn near literally. A single act sufficed, generally, to quell any possible Democrat upstart: waving the bloody shirt; a phrase introduced at this time by actually waving a bloody, torn shirt supposedly taken off of the body of a man flogged by unreconstructed Rebels in the South.
Point being that Republicans could taint any Democrat with the slur of "traitor" until the Spanish-American War, wherein the old hostilities finally ended.
This granted the Republican Party nearly unchallenged power for a good generation. This tends to explain the degree of corruption found in Republican politics of the time.
The Democrats, stymied by the perennial charge of treason, and lacking a great leader, found little to lead with until the emergence of the Populist movement just before the turn of the century.
That movement gave them the first impetus to an appeal to populism that has lasted through the 20th century.
Wilson managed to touch many Americans with his idealism, but he ultimately failed as a political leader. It fell to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bring the populist message into the mainstream of Democratic thought, and his skills allowed the Democrats to regain their supremacy for the first time in over 70 years.
FDR melded together a “party of underdogs,” as it were; all those who weren’t part of the dominant party were attracted to the opposition. By 1932, this included the great majority of Americans, especially after the Crash of ’29…
(an aside: This explains the hoary old myth that the GOP is the party of rich people. The GOP didn’t kowtow to rich men; rather men became so because they joined the Republican Party. This –again- illustrates the principle that any group or organization will become corrupt in the absence of any major external challenge.)
Let us return to FDR. His first two terms were marked by a return of optimism and hope to American political life (one of my favorite quotes of the time comes from Will Rogers: “Even if he burnt down the White House, we can say ‘At least he got a fire started!’” ). The Republicans of the time, in the face of a resurgent Democratic Party, could only regurgitate the ossified slogans of their predecessors. They could offer no new vision to challenge Roosevelt’s work.
(another aside: FDR has to have been one of the most vilified men to ever hold the Presidency, bar one. I would say that, in order, the five worst would be
1. Lincoln
2. FDR
3. Washington
4. Bush Jr.
5. Clinton
One may wish to swap FDR & Washington.)
What really infuriated Republicans was that FDR broke the unofficial, but hitherto sacred precedent of Washington’s “Two term limit.” Worse yet, he did so to the tune of humiliating majorities in both houses for two elections.
When you add to this his brilliant leadership in World War Two, the GOP looked, well, like a bunch of selfish contrarians. They were up against a smart politician with a healthy vision who played it smart in a major war. I imagine they were tempted to cry in frustration more than once…
The Truman administrations can be considered as an extension of the Roosevelt organization, with the additional issues of “who lost what to the Communists,” and the ancient problem of unchallenged corruption. By this time (1952) the Democratic Party had reigned unchallenged for twenty years. Eisenhower was elected for 2 major reasons: he led the Allies to victory in Europe, and he symbolized a return to a less corrupt polis.
I believe it is significant that Eisenhower was the only real challenge to Democratic Party primacy until the 1968 election, and even Nixon’s election was a reaction to the Democrat’s poor handling of the Vietnam War.
It wasn’t until the 1972 election (AKA the “Great Ass-Whup of ’72”) that the GOP scored a major victory over the Democratic Party, as I count the election of 1968 as a negative reaction to the party in power, as opposed to a positive reaction to the party in opposition.
So, really, the Democrats enjoyed nearly unchallenged power from 1932 until 1972; 40 years. This beats the Republican Party domination of 1865-1895 (30 years).
I shall pass on the next few years (Ford was unelected, and Carter quickly dis-elected), and later administrations, except to note that Reagan marked the renaissance of the Republican Party.
My conclusions are:
First: any party in a position of unchallenged power tends to ossify and become corrupt. This happens in other areas as well: American auto manufacturers in the 1970s, for example
Second: when challenged, the dominant party has trouble developing a new meme to suit new circumstances, including a crumbling power base and loss of dominance.
Third: the now-eclipsed party clings to outmoded memes because they have no new ideas: they look back to past greatness and “good times.”
Finally: any renaissance of the now-eclipsed party must come from an outsider (vis: FDR and/or Reagan) as the insiders still cling to past glory.
It should be quite apparent that I consider the Democratic Party to be the current “now-eclipsed” party.
Most of the Democratic Party leaders look back to the halcyon times of the 1960s, when the counter-culture and rebellion were not only stylish, but sexy as well. Rock songs feted their actions, while news organizations hung upon every word.
This was the time of Watergate, and the Washington Post; when the Fourth Estate could bring down Presidents.
Modern leaders, alas, confuse popularity and accolades with leadership and vision. They fail to see that rebellion, per se, is not a virtue, and must be viewed in context.
The modern Democratic Party harks back to old days of glory, when Buffalo Springfield could sing “must be a thousand people / in the streets,” and everyone knew that the government was after, well, everyone. Considering Nixon’s paranoia, this was not too far off the mark.
The problem is that Nixon’s dead, and Vietnam’s over. African-Americans have made great strides economic as well as political leadership, and even the gay-lesbian community has advanced their agenda to the point where gay/lesbian marriage is now considered a mainstream political issue, instead of something that only freaks and perverts worry about.
The problem is that the Democratic Party –as a party- has run out of traditional issues.
I do not claim that America no longer has any social issues, any more than I would claim that (as some have said) that history ended with the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union.
I will also say that, in this context, it becomes understandable why Democratic Party stalwarts fall back on hyperbole and ad hominem attacks on the Bush administration: they have no relevant arguments to put forward as an alternative.
I conclude that the Democratic Party members, and all American citizens, need new memes, and new social paradigms to discuss modern challenges in a relevant way.
Otherwise we face the possibility that the GOP will be able to reign unchallenged for yet another generation, to the detriment of our country. Note that this is not an attack on the Republican Party; merely an observation that both parties are subject to the corruption of unchallenged power.
Who will be the next William Jennings Bryant, and (more important) who will be the next FDR, or Reagan?
That gallant adventurer, Blackfive, recently posted some links to absolutely lovely microscopic photos of his favorite drinks.
I personally enjoyed the Tequila..
These scans come from a website called Molecular Expressions. The site includes a Microscopy primer, a marvelous teaching aid entitled "Science, Optics & You," and of course pictures of teeny tiny things, some of them measuring only microns across.
What I thought was really cool was the information that chip designers like to draw pictures on their chips!! These guys obviously have too much time on their hands.
Still, I enjoyed:
The California license plate,
Dilbert,
this Cincinnati Bearcats logo,
a Coat of Arms on a Hewlett-Packard chip,
a lovely Osprey,
the RoadRunner (meep! meep!),
and finally, one of my favorites,
Tux the Linux Penguin.
How cool is that? This is a great website to get the kids interested in science.
Highly recommended.
By now everyone but the Hottentots know about Janet Jackson's little "accident" during the Super Bowl half-time show. I'm sure way too much bandwidth has been spent on it, but I just couldn't resist one more observation.
Over on Dean's World, Dean himself said several times that "I continue to believe that Jackson's costume was fragile--anything made of cheap stuff leather and rivits can come apart easily," even though he had no basis for that.
Tonight I just found out that the shop in New York City that made the outfit is kinda pissed at Janet J. for dissing their work:
' Furious staffers at the freaky Manhattan fetish shop that sold Jackson the bustier she wore at the Super Bowl say she altered it to make a tearaway bra cup — giving folks the impression that their clothing for the kinky crowd is badly made.
"There's no way it would have ripped that way," fumed Sam Hill, the female manager of DeMask. '
You talk about keeping jobs here in America; you encourage folks to "Buy American," and this is the thanks that honest, hard working citizens like Ms. Hill have to face.
There ain't no justice, I tell ya...
Now this is interesting; over half a million Syrians have signed a petition that is scheduled to be presented to Syrian authorities on March 8.
"Some 600,000 citizens, including intellectuals, lawyers and human rights activists, have already signed the document, the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria said.
The group said it hoped for a million signatures by March. Syria has a population of around 18 million. "
But this has nothing to do with the Iraq invasion. Not a bit.
Purely coincidence, I'm sure.
Heh.
Ok, it's official. The Penguin Bashers have gone insane!
Me, I like the "Internet Explorer has encountered a penguin" message. Heh.
And only Ariel Sharon can evacuate Jewish Setttements in Gaza.
Apparently Prime Minster Sharon is serious about removing the settlements, even if his timeline isn't very specific at the moment.
Before the critics start flailing away, I would like to point out that even this much shows terrific courage on Sharon's part.: 'A Gaza settler spokesman called Sharon's comments "miserable" and vowed that the nationalist camp would work "to cut short Sharon's term as prime minister through legal means."' (from the Reuters article)
Everyone knows that the Israel/Palestine problem is nearly impossible to solve; the problem is that both sides have something they don't want to give up. The coservative Israelis want to keep the settlements; the Pals want to keep killing Jews.
The good thing for Israel is that giving up the settlements -as long as they keep building the Security Wall- is to their long-term benefit. Even if the Pals don't give up their murderous agenda, all Israel has to do is shoot every SOB that tries to cross the wall. The sections they have up have already dramatically reduced the number of terrorist attacks, as well as casualties.
Once the wall is done, they can hand Gaza and the West Bank over to the Palestine Authority, and let the newly-minted citizens of that country support themselves.
They want freedom? Then give it to them, good and hard.
Frank does it again, when he reveals that John Kerry (who -by the way- served in Vietnam) is in actuality Botoxulon!!
Alas for our villian, his secret vulnerability seems to be... Go read the story and find out. :)
Will Botoxulon return? Will George Bush bet on the Cowboys next Superbowl?
Stay tuned for the next episode of In My World, only at Frank J.'s place.
For Linux fans, the MyDoom worm has a silver lining. Worm-infected computers have knocked the SCO company website off the net with a DOS attack today.
I gotta say it: it couldn't happen to a nicer guy (er...) company!
But the fun's not over yet. A newer variant, called MyDoom B, seems to be targeting MicroSoft as the next victim.
ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - The second-worst attack since the US occupation began took the lives of 56 people in Abril today.
The attacks were directed at the Kurdish leadership in Northern Iraq, targeting the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Among the dead are Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister of the KDP government in the north, Arbil Province governor Akram Mantik, and deputy governor Mehdi Khoshnau.
It would seem that the terrorists are changing tactics. Instead of trying to kill US/Coalition troops, they are now starting to focus on the civil infratstructure in Iraq.
The goal is obvious: to turn the country into another Lebanon, so that the group with the most guns and money comes out on top. This is how the Sunni Baathists expect to regain power after the US leaves.
It's only 10:36 a.m. EST, so I still have time for a Super Bowl prediction:
Panthers 23, Pats 21.
And you heard it here first!
The United States, in cooperation with coalition forces, announced that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) is now considered a terrorist organization, along with any affiliated organizations.
If you haven't heard of them, the PKK is a Kurdish separatist group that has fought with Turkish forces in the past, as well as being responsible for attacks in Turkey.
I'm sure the Turks feel better, now.