You Say You Want A (Green) Revolution...

via the always thought-provoking Still Life Living:

You say you want a (green) revolution,
Well, you know,
We all want to keep our kids from frying under a magnifying glass like ants,
You tell me that we need a solution,
Well, you know,
We all want to live sustainably.
But when you talk about reducing my consumption,
Don't you know that you can count all those other people out.
Do you know it's going to be all right?
all right? all right?

With apologies to Sir James Paul McCartney, KBE (Knight Commander of the British Empire).

According to David Eisenberg of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, if every man, woman and child alive today consumed at the average resource footprint level of Americans, we would need eight (8, VIII, 0001000) replicant planet earths to be sustainable. If, on the other hand, we take our current 7 or 8 billion brothers and sisters and try to establish sustainability goals for this blue-green ball called Earth, something’s gotta give. Population? Consumption? Equality? Biology? Rationality? While we may be Free to Choose, is it ethical to choose?

Quaker Ben told me once that he thought the world would evolve into either East Germany of the 1980s or the Rio de Janeiro of today.

Is that really our choice? Total information awareness, democratic fascism, or libertine laissiez-faire corporate colonialism where street urchins are hunted for sport?

Personally, I think it comes down to two choices: Arbeit Macht Frei versus The Truth Shall Set You Free.

You say you'll change a constitution
Well, you know
We'd all love to change your head.
You tell me it's the institution,
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.

My advice is to start to "Practice Sustainable Sex".

Re-Tour

Back from Canada. To America. So much alike, so many contrasts. For example, did you ever hear the phrase, "Blame Canada first?" Well, you have now. I invented it. And as the comedian Lewis Black says, living in America is like "being on the Titanic every single day and being the only person who knows what's going to happen."

Victoria's English Inn & Resort failed to impart comparable angst. It was more like being part of the Swiss Family Robinson, with yummy extras like good books, a sumptuous dining room, cacophonous kitchen, and a highly efficient wait-staff. Very cool.

The border crossing into the US was just like Canada's, except there were not one but two of them, starting with the first check-point at the ferry terminal in Victoria harbor, where a sign states like some freakazoid Zen master: "You are now on U.S. soil." Hmm. (Technically, it was linoleum.) Yeah, and instead of providing any hint of welcome such as we received on entering the Great White North, US customs agents have been trained to assume you must be smuggling a couple bricks of blow and possibly have a bomb in your pants. (Heheh!)

The reception may be chilly but it's perfectly understandable, professional, and polite...if we're coming from a starting point of paranoid delusion. Which, it's quite obvious we are. Canada "gets it." On our way to the ferry terminal, we saw people laughing at something in a shop window, so we stopped to look. It was a T-shirt. It said:

Canadians are just like Americans
except they're un-armed
and get Health Care

John Smeaton: Ready For Stardom (But Rather Quietly)

I have been remiss of late in checking for updates over at the Smeatsonian Institution, but much has been afoot. There is a new song out by Mick Merch above, put into a well-done music video by Swinestein Productions. The snappy, straightforward lyrics and catchy song are a fitting tribute to the Smeatonator, who continues to maintain a modestly low profile. Lest ye can't bring yourself to click on the vid and bask in the aural waves of Scottish schlag-metal, here are a couple of choice lines:

Come ahead
I don't care
if there's fire burning in your hair!

and:

We are Scots
We won't worry
We'll smash you up
in a f&**in' hurry!

The curator of the Institution, Mark Tortolano, who has visited Adored By Hordes, met with John Smeats personally and discussed beer, ferrets, how to have a fitting bash, and charities. Mark deserves big kudos for promoting Mr. Smeaton's cause, and for doing so with a great deal of integrity. Apart from the beers I'm sure he plans on sniping. Here is the picture of the fateful pow-wow, the "Big Nite Oot" between the phenom and his loyal Web Admin, complete with signing the PayPal password to 1,400 pints of beer in fresh web-admin blood to match the "unintentionally ironic" T-Shirt:



Viva Smeaton! Viva Scotland! Viva Tortolano!

Religio Organica

Stared, chuffed, hooted and chattered at
by Neanderthals and then Cameroons,
I fled into a temple and was affixed
for syncretic centuries at its summit.

I was an idol who entered a priest;
I was worshipped and then sacrificed.
I took on the bloodied skins of Brahma
and raged through the forests of Eurasia.

For my demise, Shiva waited patiently
while Vishnu hissed and hated me;
they maintained I had done some deed
the ibis and crocodile had trembled at.

So they sealed me in sarcophagi
and left me to the yawning years.
I know the innocently smirking Sphinx
is far, far older than we think.

(With hat tips to Coleridge.)

Michael Moore Is Fat. Don't Listen To Him!

Moore is a documentarian who exploits issues, distorting them into rants which serve his purposes. He tells the truths we already know but don't want to hear, like some ruthlessly perverse anti-socialite who shows up at cocktail parties to show off a progressing cancer. His movies, 'Roger & Me,' 'Bowling for Columbine,' and 'Fahrenheit 9/11' all had the same signature in-your-face-give-me-answers approach. Despite that, some prefer to treat him like an overweight sahib criticizing the Raj or a drunken Eliot trashing high society in 30s Singapore. As someone who has become an insider, but really shouldn't be fully legitimated. Their best defense seems to be, "Make him look ridiculous," juxtapose the body of his work as lightweight against his too-great bulk. But Moore is no effete liberal, and neither is America media all that conservative, or deep.

Moore is a fellow Eagle Scout, a street fighter who doesn't realize he's not worthy. Rather, he realizes it, but he's pissed, on his home turf, and spoiling for a fight. He uses his appearance as a permanent feint, his leading questions like a bullfighter's cape. He is a patriot on a mission to avenge Flint, Michigan, and he doesn't really care if he looks perverse and ruthless. So when CNN ran a hit piece full of inaccuracies mouthed by the Spokes-doctor Sanjay Gupta right before Wolf Blitzer's interview, it was a pretty bad idea. By the interview's end, Moore had beaten Blitzer so bloody that he actually took pity on him, thanking him with a wry smile while thinking ahead to the proceeds of a coming libel lawsuit.

Lord Wife and I went to see Sicko last Friday night. Here's the short version. Pretty much all of us know the American system of health care is broken. I sure as #%$& do. If you don't know that yet, fall down on your knees and thank whatever god you should pray to for your good health. It's Lord of the Flies out here. I paid $1,420 a month for a top-notch COBRA plan in a state which has the most advanced health care research in the country. When my wife had an emergency appendectomy less than a month after our son was born, the plan refused to pay the surgeon who took out her appendix and saved her life. The operation took twice as long as standard, and the doctor wasn't directly employed by the hospital. So there was a loophole, you see. The surgeon's office came after us for his hefty fee. I could keep going way past there with many other anecdotes, some of which I have written about before. But by comparison to to others, me and mine are lucky, so I will stop.

Even so, before seeing 'Sicko' I half-believed people when they said, "Oh, Cuba is reporting false numbers, people have to wait forever to get seen there, Michael Moore is pulling a cheap Castro publicity stunt, etc." Uh-uh. Wrong. Wait until you see the lobby of Havana Hospital. It's more beautiful, efficient, and, for lack of a better word, thriving, than any hospital in the United States. This is not your father's communism. The Cuban doctors weren't faking their state-of-the-art MRI machines, CAT scans, dental implants, competent diagnoses and sterling bedside manners. The 9/11 volunteers who went there for treatment got it for free and were grateful to the point of tears. Because they sure as hell weren't getting their resultant pulmonary problems treated, or compensated for as promised, here. The kindness in Cuba may have been a publicity stunt. So what? It was also real. And for those of you who think Michael Moore is an ass...maybe he is. But he gives a damn, and unless you happen to be a robber-baron or a boot-licker, he's on your side, and he dishes highly effective counter-propaganda. All Americans are getting screwed by outsourcing. By guns. By resource wars. By blood-suckers. It's just a question of degree.

America is the only country in the world, the only prosperous country, which does not have universal health care. I've lived and worked in quite a few other industrialized nations, East and West. All of them have cheap, readily available and effective care that regularly treats foreigners and tourists at no charge. We all sense the US health care system sucks by comparison, and is getting worse. But it's hard to understand how great the differential margin is until you see it for yourself. Fewer still, of course, understand that America is running a gigantic social engineering experiment to see how much profit can be extracted via people's illnesses. The perfect economic satisficing strategy would be to keep a patient alive and/or in treatment until, like a depleted oil field, there's no easy money left in them. Then you cut them loose and wait for them to die or for conditions to change. As Michael Moore says on Larry King, "There's no mystery here. It's the insurance company's money, and they have a fiduciary responsibility not to give it to you. It's against the law for them to not put their shareholders' returns first."

There's the Crossroads of the Problem. In the movie, you'll see that the for-profit health care system goes all the way back to...Richard Nixon. (Hello darkness, my old friend!) Nixon approved a massive conflict of interest, a scheme by Fred Kaiser to "make more money by providing less care," and the moment is actually caught on tape. To see Moore's knock-downs of Blitzer on CNN, the clip is hosted on Crooks and Liars. The YouTube clip above is from Moore's far more amiable and informative interview with Larry King. Sicko's main value is in exposing how insurers operate. They kill as many people as they can get away with, and they're looking at you. Go see how.

John Smeaton Found!

Everyone's favorite Everyman finally came out of his shell, granting a bombshell interview to News of the World. Al C., describing that publication as "one of Britain's most respectable papers," sent me the linkie. Thanks Al! I promise not to tell anyone you're running JohnSmeaton.com, a.k.a the Smeatsonian Institution. Its curator was also honored in the article, and news of the site is spreading to other publications. It's a great "Man Bites...Something" story, and during this lengthier interview John's characteristic good humor and healthy responses ("We don't kill people over here. That's not how we do things.") shine through. He describes the attack and the circumstances in relatively lucid detail; may his interview brighten your day as it did mine. It ends thusly:

The next day, John turned up at the airport as usual — but soon realised he was in no fit state for work.

"I couldn't concentrate and kept feeling over-emotional," he said. "In the end my boss said to take as much time off as I need to get over it.

"So I've been trout fishing and played on the Xbox — they're the two great loves of my life."

For the next 24 hours, John was blissfully unaware of his growing fame — until a friend showed him the website set up in his honour.

He said: "I went straight on it and I had the best laugh I've had in years. I'm pleased people have found humour in something so serious."

On Thursday John headed south to Cambridge with his parents Catherine, 68, and Iain, 66, for a cousin's wedding, and has enjoyed the opportunity to lay low.

Now John plans to go back to work as soon as possible — and start claiming his pints at the Holiday Inn.

"I'll treat everyone at work to some drinks but I don't think I'll get through them all," he laughed.

"I'm going to see if I can get the leftover money donated to a charity for soldiers in Iraq. They deserve a pint much more than I do."

He modestly added: "I'm no hero. I know 99.9 per cent of the British public would do exactly the same thing."

Catherine and Ian Smeaton raised a boy right. And did you get the names of his workmates? Kit Kat (always takin' a break), Wingman (for running the truck into an EasyJet), and old Paw Broon (erstwhile Paul Brown). Oh, you'll also find an embedded video of our man, in which you can cheerfully observe the effects of some early pint-ery. (Are those Boddington's I see in that picture??) John, the pints still awaiting ye at the bar at Glasgow airport's Holiday Inn have now grown to number 1,400. Best not let 'em get too far ahead!

John Smeaton - Hero For Our Time

You'll be happy to know that John Smeaton, the Glasgow Airport baggage baron/terrorist avenger, has the aforementioned and hoped-for 1,000 pints of beer lined up for him at the airport's Holiday Inn bar (via Paypal). Thirst no more, Johnny!

John is burning up Google at the moment, and rightly so. Endearingly foot-in-mouth after kicking al-Q'aandie ass, his nation can be proud. (Vids previously posted here, thanks to Al C.) Perversely proud, if they so choose. There's talk of a knighthood for Sir Smeato, and his impromptu promoter is seeking for more. I'll hand the blog to him for a minute:

But are you going to stop now? As well as melting the internet, is there more to be done?

I say there is. I say let’s sort it out. I’m talking T In The Park.

The ‘official word’ goes as follows:

T in the Park organiser Geoff Ellis said: “Through his actions at the weekend John Smeaton absolutely epitomises the spirit of Scotland that we are always so proud of at T in the Park.

“However, due to heightened security and an incredibly tight performance schedule on the Main Stage at T in the Park this year, unfortunately we can’t allow him to get up on stage.”

This make no sense to me.

They talk of a tight performance schedule. And I answer, “But they let Amy Winehouse spend ten minutes falling all over the stage while introducing her band at Glastonbury”.

They talk of heightened security. And we all know, really, that that is a major concern for everyone. But, I ask you, “If you need security, who better to be there than the Smeatonator?”

There is a campaigns page coming soon for signing a petition. Apparently Smeats is already gratefully accepting donations in pubs, since no one has been able to find him for days. No doubt he'll turn up soon. Until then, we bid you "Cheers!" from this side of the pond, John.

Scooter Libby's Friend And Yours: Prozac The Clown Returns

Hi kiddies! It's great to be back at your great little day care. Prozac thought he'd drop by unannounced today because he knows that some of your parents will be talking about Prozac's fellow clown, a clown named Scooter Libby. He's got a very special clown job. It's to make the President happy!! And that's just about the bestest ever job a clown can have.

Now, remember last time Prozac was here, when people were saying how they were sending Scooter to jail and it made his head hurt because it didn't make sense? And Prozac put his hands up on both sides of his poor head, put them into his big red hair and he said, "Ow-wie!?" Well Prozac's head is better now! The President said Scooter doesn't have to go to jail after all. Now everything in Clown-Land makes sense again. Toot-toot!

Some of your parents might be very happy or very sad tonight. If they're happy, that's nice. It's nice when parents are happy, even if they are for pathetically wrong reasons. In Clown-Land we call that "Farce," and it's a tool we use when we want to make things look silly. And so many things are silly anyway that it's really easy. Toot! But if they're sad, and start spouting incomprehensible meaningless blathery-things like this:

Pelosi: Shows Bush's "Word Is Not To Be Believed"...Schumer: This "Completely Tramples On" Principal Of Equal Justice...Reid: Act "Disgraceful"
...Obama: Move "Cements The Legacy Of An Administration Characterized By A Politics Of Cynicism And Division"...Edwards: Bush "Clinically Incapable Of Understanding That Mistakes Have Consequences"

If they're sad and confused, they won't give you as many presents, and that's never good, huh? So when you go home you need to give them Prozac's Special Thought of the Decade, so they can start to be happy and make sense again. Repeat it after me so you don't forget:

"Dear Mommy and Daddy: where the hell have you been since before I was even born? Don't you realize these guys make Hitler and his goons look like a political vaudeville act? Why did you think the President was going to put his favorite clown in jail?"

Good! Here let's try it once more: "Don't you realize these guys make Hitler and his goons look like a political vaudeville act?" Better. You're such smart girls and boys, and you're going to do just gr-r-r-r-reeeat!

Now, you could also tell your parents, if they come back at you with any guff, a different Special Thought. Maybe even the Special Thought of the Century! So we can keep it as our secret, if you want. Because no one is going to believe us anyway. Prozac is just a clown. And lots of people think little kids aren't smart, and don't want to listen to them. But we know better, right? You can learn better and faster than just about anybody!

You know, Prozac sees lots of cars driving around with bumper stickers on them that say "01.20.09," or "Visualize Bush Out of Office," and he hears people saying, "We've turned things around before, and we can do it again." Prozac has to scratch his head, stroke his chin, and then maybe even scratch his butt when he thinks about that one. Prozac knows Scooter and the President's other clowns, he knows how much fun they're having and how good they are with the new tricks they've practiced so hard on. So his tiny clown brain doesn't see why they're going to get ready to leave. [Stage whispers to the day care children.] Maybe not ever leave.

Remember, kiddies, this message to your parents is optional. "Optional" means you can tell it to them if you feel like it, or you can forget all about it and get popsicles or ice-cream sandwiches from the freezer and go play Nintendo and get your hands and the controllers all sticky!! Prozac is only going to tell you because you're such special boys and girls and he thinks you're so clown-eriffic! Toot-toot! Ok. Here it is:

"Dear Mommy and Daddy: What will you do if the President and his clowns don't leave?"

So kiddies, not to end on a downer. C'mon, not one of you is 5 years old yet, and your day care provider just threatened me with an icy gaze. Prozac really thinks what happened today is good. Scooter Libby, while a very, very good clown, is just a clown who works for a very big and very bad man. That's why Prozac works alone! Toot! And people are going to get more and more mad at the bad man for things like this, and maybe if they get angry enough they will take Scooter's bad President to where they take all bad men. Away! See you soon, kiddies!

John Smeaton "Set About Ye" Terror-Timmies

Al C. alerted me this AM of a local Weegie hero who assisted a Glasgow airport policeman who was being assailed by a flaming...terror-asst. John Smeaton, baggage handler extraordinaire, promptly ran up and "set things right." Smeaton is being hailed as a hero and someone has put up a web site, the purpose of which is to honor Smeats with 1,000 pints. I have ponied up what should be good for a couple pints, even with the exchange rate what it is. Here's a short vid:



And a longer clip of the interview. Quite entertaining. Smeats was quickly assisted by "4, 5, mebbe 6" others in beating the car-bomber down to the ground. Seems terrorists aren't destined to have much luck with Scotland. If ye go te-a Glas-goww, they're sure to "set about ye."

Introducing: Prozac The Clown

Several Hordies have taken the time to blame me personally for throwing them into spiralling black funks of suicidal depressions, stemming directly from one of my recent book reviews. Hey... guys: look at it this way: at least I saved you from reading the book. Plus, it was on Oprah's Book Club, it won a Pulitzer Prize, and I even told you about the happy ending! Humanity survived in the end, didn't it?! And can I help it if Lord Mother watches Oprah, fer chrissakes? I do feel your pain, and so have decided, just for you, just for today, to become...Prozac the Clown. I am putting on my fake nose right now.

Toot, toot! Hey kiddies! Do you know who Scooter Libby is? He's a clown, too! Only he's a very special clown. His job was to make the President happy. And that's why he was called Scooter Libby, that's right, Emily! Scooter got his federal prison inmate number assigned today. That makes Prozac feel very sad for Scooter because he and many of his friends are fellow clowns. But it turns out that clowns can go to prison, too. Even if they work for the Bush Administration. Having the President's favorite clown go to prison doesn't make sense to poor Prozac, it makes his head hurt, oww-ie, so Prozac will believe it when he actually sees it. Can you say, "the jury is still out?" Sometimes Prozac says that when he doesn't know if something is finished yet. The jury's still out! The jury's still out! Hee-hee! Even so, just in case, Prozac has had a T-shirt made for his friend Scooter to wear in prison:

I'm Here For Dick (Cheney).

Haa-ha-ha-hee! Toot-toot! Kiddies, maybe you've heard your parents or their friends say funny stuff like this:

"If the liberals would stop spending so much money on midnight basketball, free abortions and treasonous investigations of the Executive and Vice-Presidential branches of government, we could afford to build more small-town prisons and boost the local economies."

If you're like Prozac, you know that grown-ups can be ree-eee-ally silly sometimes! This stuff about midnight basketball and treason is just fancy-talk, kind of like when they spell things with letters so you can't understand. What they really mean is that they're freaking out and will beat you with a shoe after you fall asleep. And what's that mean? Right, that means they need a Time Out. Say it with Prozac: "Mommy, you need a Time Out." "Daddy, you need a Time Out." Good! You're such wonderful boys and girls. Oh, and if any of them touch you in or around your "bad places," then you come tell Prozac right away, ok? Then we can report them to the state and send them to prison to keep the economy boosted!

Now, kiddies, Prozac has to go really fast to visit another party, but when you get home he wants you to get out your dictionaries and look up this word: immigrants. Im-mi-grants. Will you promise Prozac to do that? Good! Because then we can talk about it next time! [Prozac mounts brightly painted orange, lime, and purple scooter festooned with pom-poms.] Bye-bye kids, and remember the Prozac Promise: Take Your Ritalin to Be a Good Citizen!

Regina Spektor: On The Radio

One more reason for keeping the borders open, despite the risks:

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again.

Iran Inside (TM)

As you can see from the video, Iran is an oppressive society which deserves to be squashed like an insolent dung beetle in a regime-changing river-dance of righteous fury. For example, 60% of college students there are women, forced to learn against their will without tuition while their families are held hostage, balanced precariously on the edge of death. In fact, people there are so scared that the rate of violent crime on Western tourists is the lowest on earth. Gee. Now that's oppressed! You couldn't catch me there being drawn and quartered by camels on a ski slope. Look closely, and tremble, because Iran is about to attack San Francisco and blow up the Golden Gate Bridge.

(Thanks to Naj at Iran Facts for the vid. Rick Steves also had a special on travel to Iran today on his NPR radio show.)

Quiche Du Jour: Rule Breakers

A great artist told me once, "You gotta learn the rules so you know how to break 'em." Although the self-portrait above does not convey much in the way of outrageous impudence to us today, it very much did back then, and Albrecht Duerer was such a successful rule-breaker he has been called by many the first "Modern Man." Artistically, he was an innovator, and socially and religiously he was a revolutionary.

I remember the first time seeing an image of one of his paintings, a rabbit, in a well-worn high school social studies book. Though utterly realistic and a wholly unsentimental likeness of a rabbit, it still managed to be a masterpiece. Later, Duerer was largely responsible for securing the city of Nuremburg's support of Martin Luther, when most of Bavaria did not.

To break a system, you get inside one you want to change, and then you start breaking its rules to make good things happen. If you keep making the good things happen, people will try to find your "corruption handle" to get you under control. They'll start to panic if they can't find it, but you'd better not have an obvious handle if you want to follow through on your revolutions, no matter how tiny they may be.

To The Scandals, A Sacrifice

The scandal flurries continue, and I haven't posted for a couple of days. It's kinda like when you've known a hard winter was coming, and you finally get that unmistakeable feeling when the season turns. The first serious snow starts to accumulate and has the "I can keep falling all month" quality to it. You could check the barometer or the weather channel or the newspaper, but instead you go make yourself some wimpy kind of herbal tea you almost never drink except maybe when you were home sick from school, like chamomile, only you're not a kid anymore and you stand at the living room window sipping your wimpy herbal tea, savoring nature's implacable harsh realities and wondering if the cycle of sacrifice ever really ended.

I could've written about the state attorneys who got fired for not dancing Republican enough. I could've written about the bottom dropping out of the sub-prime mortgage market. I could've written about more soldiers getting the shaft. I could've written about markets not going up forever. I could've written about an ex-CIA beauty holding 9/10ths of her story back, and may yet. Every one of these, you could see it coming from a long way off. They're just details from the same stories we've been making since we started, as a species, to wear clothes. All those corny old sayings run through your head: rust never sleeps, the bells toll for thee, and it's going to get deep. Nature can't be denied.

You can almost smell the tang of iron, the noble old scent which blood emits when it hits the air anew; no minor official or minion will do. The tree has been split, and then pried apart with great force to create a highly tensioned, yawning place. It waits to embrace another king in its Golden Bough.

New Saddam Morgue Video

Yeek. Shows some interesting post-execution anatomical defects.

(h/t to Howie at Wonkette.)

Calling America--Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)

Electric Light Orchestra is probably a pretty forgotten band by now. When I was in high school, though, they were big and their album was one of the first and most-played records in my small collection. They were melodic, croony, poppy, and classically based, with layered background vocals and lots of time changes. Lightweight stuff at first listen, but then Jeff Lynne's sharp lyrics start to cut through the cushions, and when the cushions and syrup all wore away they could cut glass. I've been meaning to get some of his music for years, and now it's on YouTube.

ELO was the background music when I got acquainted with a feral, beautiful Catholic girl in her parents' living room after school, when I met her for the first time in front of my locker and she invited me to walk her home. Her mom was never more than 20 feet away from the couch, fixing supper and doing dishes in the kitchen. It seemed really bad then, yet seems pretty wholesome now. So there's a general sense of indulgence, sin, and twelve-part harmony wrapped up in ELO for me, paradoxically innocent, probably similar for many others who share my demographic space and time. I was a kid, and was lucky to survive. (Edit: I meant to say, "Lucky to survive Catholic girls." But since I married one, I'm not sure that's really the case.)

ELO's most popular songs were probably Do Ya ("Do ya do ya want my love?"), Sweet Talkin' Woman ("You've gotta slow down, sweet talkin' woman."), and It's A Living Thing ("It's a given thing, what a terrible thing to lose.") They had a song, one of their last hits, which makes me a lot less bashful about having listened to them. Calling America. The lyrics, at least, seem to stand the test. People were trying to reach this country with metaphor even back then, and whether he meant to be or not, Jeff Lynne was ahead of his time:

(Somebody...)
Told her that there was a place like heaven
Cross the water on a 747
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Pretty soon she's really got the notion
Of flying out across the big blue ocean
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Well talk is cheap on satellite
But all I get is...(static!)
Information, I'm still here;
Re-dial on automatic.

Calling America (can't get a message through)
Calling America (that's what she said to do)
Calling America (that's where she has to be)
Calling America (she left a number for me)
Calling America.

But I'm just talking to a satellite
Twenty thousand miles up in the sky each night
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

All I had to do was pick up the phone
I'm out in space, trying to talk to someone
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

She left a number I could call
But no one's there, no one at all
There must be something going wrong
That number just rings on and on.

Said she'd call when she'd been gone a while
Guess she's missing me across the miles
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world.

Calling America (can't get a message through)
Calling America (that's what she said to do)
Calling America (that's where she has to be)
Calling America (she left a number for me)
Calling America, Calling America, Calling America...

Yes, America, You Can Un-Shit The Bed!

It's come to this, now: Jonathan Chait, an Establishment writer who poses as a liberal-leaning smarty-pants, and who wields his mighty pen for hoity-toity publications I've forced myself to read on occasion, has called for the return of Saddam Hussein in an LA Times Op-Ed piece:

Jonathan Chait: Bring back Saddam Hussein

Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need. Have a better solution?

It goes on from there, and there is a chance he means it as a comedy piece, but I don't think so:

Restoring the expectation of order in Iraq will take some kind of large-scale psychological shock. The Iraqi elections were expected to offer that shock, but they didn't. The return of Saddam Hussein — a man every Iraqi knows, and whom many of them fear — would do the trick.

A large-scale shock. Huh. Yeah...obviously killing 600,000 thousand or so Iraqis (oh, well, who's counting?) wasn't enough to shock the benighted savages into docility. We need to bring back Saddam, who did such a good job for the CIA until he went off the farm after we attacked him. Silly bugger didn't know his place. That'll teach him to turn down Pizza Hut franchises.

Comedy or not, Chait came out and stated the perfect Companion Meme to the burgeoning "Blame The Iraqis For Their Problems Meme," currently being passed around the think tanks, which made its way through the strenuously Darwinian process of cocktail party discussions devoted to crafting the most artful mask to put on the face of massive failure. Both memes are implicit in the messages Bush and Cheney just delivered to Iraq's elected leaders (gag#bullcrap!#hack) and to interested parties in the region: "Well, old boy, if you can't govern your own people, then you shouldn't really have a government, should you? Best get cracking on the insurgency, wot-wot? Those Swiss bank accounts can be awfully dodgy, you know."

Now I'm certain the US forces are pulling out of the Sunni Triangle. Sunnis will be paid in oil for their blood, to counter the Shiite mullahcracy. The picture above is from the movie Trainspotting, when the character got wasted, slept in his girlfriend's house, and copiously lost control of his bowels during his sleep. He attempted to hide the incontinent evidence by folding up the corners of the sheets and carrying the bundle past the family in the breakfast nook. It didn't end well.