Don’t take their insult!

Alright, how’s this take on what passes for our pretended chief executive? I know, it’s wasted upon you, dear reader (preaching to the converted is stangely both immediately satisfying and ultimately unrewarding), but I gotta ask it anyway, and this is my only forum. What does it say about what our betters in the Republican and Democratic establishment think of the American yoeman that they would even think of foisting upon us the idiot puppet who they represent as our President?
I believe it may be the worst crime they have visited upon this former republic, precisely because it mocks everything it should represent, and in so doing it engineers its demise.
Our only remaining hope may lie in the very good possibiity that the puppeteers are as incompetent as the dummy itself (and there is now plenty of evidence to support that argument), even if it means we find ourselves almost rooting for bad news. But in a small world and a nuclear age, is it better to have idiots at the helm, or wizards? And finally, can we assume no additional timely terrorist events or cynically-improvised war will once again send the population running for cover and the imagined safely of flag-ism?

ker-plop!

[the impact of Bushie’s speech on Wall Street today]
I really love the BBC site at the moment. The lead story is that speech, and even in the skeletal form of their headlines they’ve taken the opportunity to tell it like it really is.

“BUSH DEMANDS ‘NEW ERA OF INTEGRITY’
“The US president calls for longer jail terms for corporate fraudsters and demands higher ethical business standards.
“Analysis: Bush delivers too little too late
“Shares dive in US
“Scandals’ shadow over politics
“In Depth: Corporate scandals
“News in Video: ‘US economy is confidence-based’
“Talking Point: Has Bush convinced you?”

The Dow and NASDAQ each plunged about 2% today after the little talk.

the last intelligent patriot

Gore Vidal, described in an interview as also perhaps the nation’s last republican [small “r”], has a chance to do what he does best, elegantly cut through the muck of ignorance and mendacity to describe what really is happening to our world.
Those who are even the least bit interested in this item should note that he is not known to have been wrong in the past.

I don’t think we, the American people, deserved what happened. Nor do we deserve the sort of governments we have had over the last 40 years. Our governments have brought this upon us by their actions all over the world. I have a list in my new book that gives the reader some idea how busy we have been. Unfortunately, we only get disinformation from The New York Times and other official places. Americans have no idea of the extent of their government’s mischief. The number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947-48 is more than 250. These are major strikes everywhere from Panama to Iran. And it isn’t even a complete list. It doesn’t include places like Chile, as that was a CIA operation. I was only listing military attacks.
….
And people in the countries who are recipients of our bombs get angry.
….
[So it’s not true that people like Osama bin Laden] just come out of the blue. You know, the average American thinks we just give away billions in foreign aid, when we are the lowest in foreign aid among developed countries. And most of what we give goes to Israel and a little bit to Egypt.

point of information

[excerpts from a letter to the editor in today’s NYTimes]

What to do when it appears that the president engaged in financial misdealings before taking office?
We know what steps the Republicans think appropriate: hire a political appointee from the opposing party to investigate, give him essentially unlimited, unaccountable power, keep the investigation dragging on indefinitely, and expand it to include unrelated matters.

in the American tradition, telling it like it is

We just don’t hear enough from independent and courageous people any more, and in fact we cannot ever hear enough from them. So, does everyone else really believe it’s unamerican to do anything but cheer the chief?

“We have a president who owes his election more to a dynasty than to democracy,” said [veteran civil rights leader, Julian] Bond, chairman of the NAACP board, in an ardent opening address at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
“When he spoke to our convention in Baltimore in 2000, he promised to enforce the civil rights laws,” Bond said. “We know he was in the oil business. We just didn’t know it was snake oil.
“We have an attorney general who is a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Jerry Falwell. And too often, one political party is shameless and the other is spineless.”

Referring to massive disenfranchisement during the 2000 election, especially of blacks, Bond said, “There is a right-wing conspiracy, and it is operating out of the United States Department of Justice.”
And this from the Chairman of a very respectable, too often painfully conservative, century-old institution! Can we then hope it’s not too late?

[JAW—words fail me here]

Can the writer to the Daily News really be wondering how the 9th Circuit Court feels about religious oaths?

Bronx: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California says reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because of the words “under God.” I wonder how the court feels about a witness placing his or her hand on the Bible and swearing to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

Somehow I prefer the sense of the letter which follows that one.

Toms River, N.J.: How different are we from the Taliban if we let government force religion on our children?

Boeings and big bums

Great headline, but still, it’s a serious subject for anyone but the diminutive.
As far as I’m concerned, I’d now rather be drugged unconscious, slipped into a tube and shipped off to my ultimate destination than fly any skies no matter how friendly.
P.S. Re “Ryan Dilley,”—he of the byline—are reporters really allowed to look like that in the U.K.?

“Hand-Dipped Zeppole,” and much more!

We made it in time this year! Saw the Williamsburg “Dancing of the Giglio” this hot sunday afternoon. Not just saw it, but were almost in the middle of the 100-plus beefy Italian guys who shouldered the four-ton monster tower in an exercise of testosterone, some 1600 years of tradition, real devotional piety, community and cultural pride, and good sport.
By the way, they really do dance under there, and turn about! Here they are twirling the whole steel and papier mache monster with the parish priest, the sound man and an entire brass band onboard along with the saints. It’s something like a Neapolitan Tarantella, not surprisingly.
Ok, I was teary for a moment, just as they first lifted off. Their focus was pretty impressive, and I’m a sucker for maleness restrained. Also a history buff.
One of the links on Bloggy may be unique in addressing the problematic side of this male-oriented and occasionally self-described “sacred act of devotion and penance.”

“[Documentary film director Tony De Nono] is obviously a fan of the feast and its importance to the community, he also points out that women have been excluded from lifting the Brooklyn Giglio, though their sisters in Nola have lifted, albeit in “ceremonial lifts.”
“In Brooklyn the question still seems doubtful if women lifters will ever be allowed to partake in this glorious festival as lifters,” Badalucco narrates. “But since the Brooklyn structure is made up of unpliable, unforgiving solid metal beams with pointed corners that dig in the shoulder, the question is whether the women would ever want to lift this towering structure.” (The beams in other Giglio structures, in Queens and other tri-state feasts, are made of wood.)
De Nonno said that while compiling footage for his documentary, he witnessed little girls “sneaking” under the children’s Giglio, disguising their long hair under hats so they could participate. In 1999, the girls were officially asked for the first time to participate in the Brooklyn children’s Giglio dance.

Oh, we also noticed that the loaves of bread distributed as part of Fesival tradition are of exactly the same shape and fold as those found in the two-millenia-old ruins of Pompei, on the other side of Vesuvius.
Don’t miss Bloggy’s images! Much more than just zeppoles.

our high priest not quite off-duty

This headline and story beggars comment.

[At the Bushie vacation palace’s local Kennebunkport church] Chaplain M.L. Agnew, in honor of his powerful guests, diverted the congregation from the usual service briefly to lead them in the Pledge of Allegiance, a pledge of loyalty to the U.S. flag and “one nation under God.”
….
As the Bush family prepared to take the Episcopal communion, Agnew called Bush the “spiritual and political leader of the greatest nation in the world.”