Suicide Cruise

Brown-Nosing Populism

2009-02-11T16:22:00.002-06:00

Campbell Brown has a show. It's called, "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull". We'll come back to that.

Yesterday, in a special commentary (read: jeerleading segment) called "Chutzpah", Ms. Brown dogged Wells Fargo for canceling a "swanky Las Vegas trip that it had planned for its employees last weekend at two high-end casino resorts". It was only canceled after the trip was reported in the AP--"economic crisis be damned", Campbell chimes.

Yes, because the last thing we want are banks spending money at places that employ people in an economically depressed region like Las Vegas.

Moving along, she goes on to mock them for taking out an estimated $200,000 worth of ad space in the NYT and the W. Post...which Wells Fargo did to explain to the country that it had to cancel its employee recognition program because the populist-shilling media are full of mewling dunces, and because Paulson essentially forced them to take the bail-out money against their wishes.

This is where it should be mentioned that this trip was to recognize outstanding workers--tellers, cashiers, and, yes, some brokers, too. Here's Campbell's sarcasm-laden, but bull-free recommendation for Wells Fargo.

"You wanna thank your workers? Try email; put the letter on your website instead, it won't cost you a dime."

From the bottom of my proletariat heart: Campbell Brown, that was a comment from a pampered, soulless, nitwit. You work at CNN. You have people dress you everyday, and put your makeup on for you. How about you don't comment when a company actually tries to do something nice for its non-commissioned employess. You wouldn't know anything about that. We workers are smart enough--and petty enough--to know that if it costs the company more, they mean it.

And (it must be said) it's called bullshit, sweetheart. Perhaps this confusion on who the bad guys are is rooted in this underlying confusion. Bullshit is a smelly, foul, useless excretion; clearly we can do away--cut--that. The bull is beneficial; it's the reason we take up the task of cutting the bullshit. Here's a cheatsheet:

Bull = Good. Bullshit = Bad.

Print that up, and hang it on your mirror. You can stare it while the beautician masks your age so they don't can you for a 25-year old FoxNews blonde.

Motley Fools has much better coverage, but still misses those poor workers.

Last (to bring these guns to bear on the CEO of Wells Fargo for a minute), the ad used the word 'boondoggle', and therefore gave occassion for that relentless scourge of a term to be weaponized against me yet once more. You, too, have earned my ire.

Kelis Ain't Got Nothin' On Kissel

2009-02-11T13:28:00.003-06:00

Nancy Kissel's milkshake brought her husband to the yard--the backyard. So she served up another milkshake to bring him to the graveyard.

Kissel was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2005 in the case widely referred to as the "milkshake murder." She was convicted of drugging her husband, Robert, with sedatives in 2003 and then bludgeoning the wealthy banker on the head with a metal ornament.

...

Kissel said her husband, a 40-year-old investment banker for Merrill Lynch, was an erratic whiskey-swilling workaholic who also snorted cocaine and forced her to have painful anal sex.

I know, I know: tasteless...tacky...American.

It's...

2009-02-04T15:53:00.002-06:00

Funny

Welcome to Seriousity

2009-01-20T22:16:00.002-06:00

I only hope that American minds can rise to the same height of thought as their adulation. We shall see. Godspeed during your years, Mr. President.

Meditations on Sufism

2009-01-17T23:25:00.003-06:00

Some people I know on Facebook have been posting some really intriguing things. I'm not going to bore you with 1) a whole lesson or 2) a dissection of why I think Sufism is the way forward. I'll stick to the biggie, and it's the crucial sentence.

And then there is the inspiring teacher, be he a humble man, an illiterate person, or a meditative soul, a great teacher or a humble one, he is what you think him to be, as everyone is to us what we think them to be.

Man, talk about a positive approach to life! If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: If only you had imagined that guy in the alley was a lover to you instead of a rapist. He's there to teach you, girl!

Something Old, Something New

2009-01-17T22:27:00.004-06:00

"Hey Bob."

"Hey Carl. How's the plumbing business--still crappy?"

"Hilarious as always, Bob. Same ol', same ol'. What's new in your world?"

Bob extended his hand, pretending to idly examine it. "Oh, nothing much."

Carl's jaw dropped. "Oh. My. God, Bob! Sally proposed? Oh, I'm so happy for you! And your ring--it's beautiful!"

"Thanks. I like the marquise cut, but, I don't know--I've always been partial to the princess, you know?"

"I hear you. When Jane gave me mine I thought, "Wow: Cheap-o alert! But, I know she loves me. Anyways, congratulations, really."

"Thanks, Carl. Take care."

--later--

"And you should have seen that tacky crackerjack ring she got him, Dirk. Oh, it was just awful."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Bob's such a slut...I don't give them two years."

"Boyfriend, you ain't kiddin'."

Overheard, Near the Post-Christmas Day Runway

2009-01-08T17:45:00.005-06:00

Her: Yay! They fit!

Him: Uh, these are low-rise. You've dressed me like your brother.

Her: They make your butt look good.

Him: That's handy, because every time I bend over three inches of it are exposed.

To The Person In My House

2008-11-20T23:29:00.002-06:00

who is obviously poor of spirit, and whose poverty manifests itself by a galling and vapid insistence that the toilet paper roll be installed wrongways-round:

Stop it.

Off the Cuff

2008-11-15T19:26:00.003-06:00

Two Things:

1) Blogger looks great in Safari.

2) The Macbook Pro keyboard types better in the Mac OS than when I'm booted into Windows. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying: the keys feel to actually click differently while I'm using OS X, lending itself to a perfectly punctuated and sensuous experience. This is the worse sort of fascism--it's fashionism, and it's corrupt, and its delicious. This bears further investigation.

-----

I've been in Altanta for a week and a half, and I can't tell whether the people here love Obama, or not. Every other street corner has a gazillion Obama tee shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, and hats for sale. Tons of them. If Obama was popular, shouldn't these be sold out?

-----

I had to buy some equipment for the show I'm working on, so I got a cab to go out to a place called Little Five Points. My driver sounded almost Italian, or maybe Greek, but he had dark skin. We exchanged pleasantries and I told him my plans. As he drove on he said, "I love this show--you ever hear this?" It was Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion". At that moment, he was Guy Noir: Private Eye.

"Yeah, it's pretty funny."

"Man, I love this guy. There is a show on television?" he asked.

"No, just the radio." I said, looking out the window.

"Yeah, it's really really good. I listen to it every time."

I decided this guy was determined to talk to me, and any further blow-off attempts would be rude now that I've become cognizant. "However; they did make a movie."

"Oh."

We talked about some more things, and then we came to Best Buy.

"You sure you don't mind waiting for me?"

"How long you going to be?"

"15 minutes."

"Okay, I wait."

After awhile I exited the store and waited a minute or so until he came back around the corner. When I jumped in he said, "Man, you got it! 15 minutes exactly!"

"What can I say? I'm good." He laughed and lurched the taxi into traffic.

"Man, can you believe this guy won?" He said, pointing at some Obama posters. "A guy from Kenya is the president of America!"

I wondered whether he was speaking of heritage, or actually saying Obama was born in Kenya. I decided if I changed the subject it wouldn't matter. "Where are you from?", I asked.

"Africa", then he said something I couldn't understand. "Somalia-land", he finished up.

"You're from Somalia?"

"Yeah. Man, I can't believe this guy is president! Only in America could this happen. And you know something--God must have wanted this because nothing could stop him. Everything people say; all the evil people he hang around with; nobody know anything about him, and he still win."

"You think God wanted Obama to be president?"

"It's a miracle! It must be."

I wondered--in the ancient sense--at that. Did God want Obama to be the president? I'd never thought of it before; not in a direct there-was-an-intercession-for-Obama way. Maybe so.

"I voted for McCain", he continued.

"Really?"

About this time we pulled back up at the convention center. "Yeah, man, these guys, they don't know who they voting for. These blacks--these niggers--"

By this point we had stopped, and he was turned halfway around, facing me. The cringe in my head must have been on my face.

"--it's okay; it's just slang, you know? Anyway, these people don't know who they voting for. He's not black, he's Kenyan, and white. If you black, you're grandfather's grandfather's grandfather from here, right? They ought to elect that guy--that guy's black."

The Importance of Being Verdist

2008-10-12T23:15:00.014-05:00

Let me go on record as saying that--as a species--we have made great strides in recognizing our fellow earthlings as comrades in the struggle of destiny. There was a time when men would choose sides against one another based solely on the color of another's skin, or where he was born. We've seen some evidence that a few women did too, but not as much because women are so great, and those that did were probably misled by the oppressive patriarchal society that controlled them. You go girl!

Where was I? Oh yes, fascism... Bush is a Nazi, but despite that we've freed everyone that matters from their stereotypes and their prejudices. That is: those in the Northeast and California; with special recognition to Oregon--Go Beavers! I, uh... I meant that in a purely animal mascot manner, and in no way was I referencing women again... Not that there's anything wrong with women...or beavers. I certainly did not intend to offend our water-dwelling mammal friends with a cat slur... No, ma'am, I certainly did not mean to imply that it's acceptable to reduce women to their colloquially animal-phrased parts. Ma'am, that's rude--please put your finger down. What? Oh, sorry ma-, ah, Ms.. You are absolutely right; I've been thoughtless. Look, I'm pro-gay--especially lesbians, okay? What? I can't hear you behind that N.O.W. sign. Absolutely not! I never judge a woman by her mullet.

I really need to get this back on track.

Anyway, irregardless of Bushitler's best efforts, men and women have learned that we're all equal; again, women often moreso. And, in the last couple of years we've made great strides towards our social animal allies. I embrace our chimpanzee, dog, and fire ant allies in the struggle against oppression, and Christianity. That's right--how much longer would we have been friends if the Pope had not brainwashed the masses against stem-cell research? Where would the goldfish be without that, I ask you? But we overcame; yeah we did! And you're damn right we have something to applaud--no more 16-year olds will have goldfish to dangle over their toilets anymore. Here's snippet from ALF that shows where we're at in the struggle, and yet highlights how much further we still have to go.

"British gardeners were up in arms in 2006 when proposed changes to Britain's animal-welfare legislation included offering slugs and snails similar legal protection to cats and dogs. The measure failed, but it did become illegal for under 16s to win goldfish at fairs."

Sobering, huh? What kind of a society says, "Buddy, you want to flush a goldfish? Well then you'd best be of age like everybody else. But if you want to pour salt on them, go right ahead!" Have we learned nothing? Can any of us be safe when slugs--in our own gardens--are not?

But, comrades, I did not come here to depress you. Too many are already affected by the grim truth of English Death Gardens. Today is a day of celebration. As I said earlier, and as seen by the plight of the goldfish still in the clutches of angry, lucky, 17-year olds, the road ahead of us is long indeed, but no longer will that road be paved on the backs of our green brothers and sisters. That's right! Plants have rights too*! Switzerland has long been carrying the burden of freeing many of our friends and neighbors from the cruel reductionist, binary, and systemic oppression of "us" and "them" that has been perpetrated in an unjust war-for-oil by the corporate fascists of the world! Honestly: Cheney shot his FRIEND in the FACE. Why, you ask? Because that man dared to put himself between a gun and one of the weakest among us--a quail. THAT'S a hero.

What was I saying? Ah yes: womyn are special, and so are plants. Did you know that some of the Nazi scientists had children? And now Bush funds them to bio-engineer vegetation that can yield a larger harvest, or resist blight! You want to hear something really chilling? Have you noticed how they've started putting fences around the wheat fields? First they came for the beans, and I said nothing. Then they came for the bean sprouts, and I said nothing. Then they came for the wheat... Mark my words--they're coming for the baby wheat next. Let me ask you: do you know the age of that wheat in your whole-wheat nuts-and-twigs dry toast you had with egg substitutes and soy curd this morning? There's a whole generation of crops growing up in this country reproducing like crazy just to be put on the the supermarket shelf! That's why I headed up the condoms for bananas intiative, and co-wrote that Gwen Stefani hit. But back to the issue: Understand that we are all partners in crime of the systematic enslaveryment and destructionation of wheat children in this country.

And what about the other countries? So what if Africans could use a more stable food supply? Is it our responsibility to provide them with resilient whole grains? Should we spend our sap and treasure bailing them out of the droughts they've gotten themselves into? Is it right that we interfere in the natural course of their lands? Worse: should we be party to plantocide here to "supposedly" help them there? That's right, I used air quotes, buddy. I mean, do we even know if more food is a good thing? When you think about it, who's to say? Maybe a cheap, renewable source of nourishment would wreak havoc in Sub-Saharan Africa. By the way: what do they call those guys above the Sahara; Pro-Saharans? What do the Pro-Saharan Africans get, huh? Is that fair? Should we be pro-Sub, or pro-Pro? Why can't we be for them both? Why do we always have to meddle; especially under the power of Granular Death Camps? I say: let them solve their problems as we have, like responsible, rational adults. Look, I buy fair trade coffee like everybody else, but we have to draw the line somewhere, and I say that line starts with our verdant brothers and sisters.

You've been a great audience, folks. Please stop by my booth on the way out to pick up a book, or maybe a "I'm BANANAS for BIRTH CONTROL!" tee shirt. Believe me: those kids in Malaysia are happy to get five cents a day. And pay a visit to the lovely ladies at the Gravel Treats vendors--corporate sponsorship makes this all happen.

*Found via Friar's Fires

UK Attempts to Undermine America's Cause in the World

2008-10-10T20:54:00.005-05:00

English assassins attempted to slay American icon Meat Loaf by presenting him with an award for "Classic Song". Immediately afterward he was rushed to a London hospital, but is said to be flying out of there, "rodentus wingae ex inferno".

A source close to the lucky singer said, "I reckon he don't speak no Latin."

Can You Spare a Bucket?

2008-09-30T21:06:00.007-05:00

Rich Lowry posted an article about how we need THE BAILOUT. Bailout...sinking ships...I think this qualifies for a Suicide Cruise post.

He starts off with a pithy remark, "Is it possible to have capitalism without capital?" Oh, Rich, you're too...rich. And I imagine he is. Mr. Lowry is the editor of National Review (of which I am a huge fan) and travels in that circle of people to whom Big Money is customary. He's always on opinion shows, and newspaper columns. In fact, for a member of the conservative movement, he seems to be fairly well liked by liberal media outlets. He's as likely to be on The News Hour, as Hannity and Colmes. The point, readers, is that Mr. Lowry, in all likelihood, has an awful lot of money in play on the stockmarket. As we're about to find out, he not only believes in it, but credits it with the rise of the West in general. With that in mind, let's go back to the comment. Capitalism, for those of you unfamiliar with Adam Smith, is based on trade, not money. So, if Wall Street were to suddenly collapse (which it won't), capitalism would go on. That's not to say that there wouldn't be effects, or repercussions, but the idea that capitalism as a whole would cease to exist is very silly.

This next quote is long, but fully covers the division between us:

"[P]resumably [the honest laboring man] wants to buy a house (which requires a mortgage), not pay for everything with cash (which requires credit cards), have a job (which requires a business that is very likely dependent on loans) and buy big-ticket consumer items he can't pay for upfront (which requires car loans, etc.)."

The house he bought was too big, acquiring debt is a bad idea for the honest laboring man (after all, if he were a finacial wiz, he wouldn't be laboring, and a good chance he's not honest. Oh come off it: selling short is inherently dishonest.), and he definitely shouldn't be buying big-ticket consumer items on credit. It's a virulent, nasty rumor that says we should, and it preys on our basest instinct: Have it now! You can't live without it! Life would be different with this!

"The financial crisis is so disturbing exactly because finance is so centrally important. Our sophisticated financial system -- inherited from the British -- has been one of the glories of Anglo-American capitalism...Without this system, Britain and America wouldn't have risen to global pre-eminence, and consumer capitalism as we know it -- dependent on credit -- wouldn't exist."

You mean dependent on debt. And, pray tell, what in the world makes you believe that this current mess should be sustained? Was our place rightfully achieved, or was it swindled behind the backs of the debtors? Here's a question: since the USSR rose to global pre-eminence through the systematic extermination of the ill-fit population to free up resources for the Party, am I required to honor it? He's usually more thoughtful. I am disappointed. Somewhere else I quoted another person, who bears quoting again, here.

There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest—what we call investment—is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or "usury" as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and were only dunking of the private moneylender, and that, therefore, we need not bother about what they said.

That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible for the state we are in or not This is where we want the Christian economist. But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilisations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole life. ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There's a lot of speculation (some of which I've engaged in here) about who would profit and who would lose in a bailout, and it's all been split along the lines of wealth.

"The rich have their profits privatized, and their risk socialized", and, "It's really the poor who need their 401Ks and their retirements protected." This goes on without end in blog comments and various places of democracy. Who can say who wins the most in a bailout, or who profits the most? Economists don't agree, and to a significant extent I don't think we'll ever know.

I propose a new metric for division: the wise and the foolish. Those who were foolish enough to live in debt--as has been warned against down through the ages--ought to bear the burden. Those who are without debt ought to be left alone.

That seems fair to me.

Scene From a Film I'd Like to See

2008-09-25T18:01:00.009-05:00

"Heeey! Hello in there! Hey--what's so important? Whatcha got here that's worth living for?"

"Tuuuuuuh blaaaaaae..."

"True love! You heard him! You could not ask for a more noble cause than that."

"Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world...except for a nice MLT--a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich--where the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is ripe. They're so perky; I love that. But that's not what he said! He distinctly said "D. Blaine", and--as we all know--"D. Blaine" is that super-boring sideshow numbskull that doesn't really do anything, but attracts large crowds of people who are even less productive. And yet--yet!--he manages to bore those people. Tah-dah! If he's got a talent, that's it: a precise and culling attraction to the lowest intellects, who wish to be moved still further down the list. Take it from me, Miracle Max, it's the lowest form of the dark arts. I refuse to be party to idiomancy. Here, you can bury him in this holocaust cloak."

A Treatise on Public Negotiations

2008-09-24T12:53:00.002-05:00

There's a very disturbing trend in America that I've yet to see one word of in the media. The owners and consiglieres of public restrooms are installing toilet seats with impressions of butt-cheeks molded into them. I don't have enough hope to hope that this is an answer to a question never asked. Who needs this? The sort of person who cannot regularly and accurately negotiate a commode without a visual and tactile cue of where his rump should go is either: cursed by the gods, or a child. Neither should be loosed in public, and certainly not in a public sanitary facility.

The End

2008-09-24T08:49:00.001-05:00

I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? It will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market. ~Starbuck, from H. Melville's Moby Dick

This is my catalog of American errors committed in the quest for equality and democracy. It's my desire to show that freedom and responsibility--often best achieved through those two great whales--are to be preferred, and, yet, not let them, too, drive man mad. I trust some of these gaffes will appear to be European, or Asian, or African in origin, but almost always I think we'll see Cap'n America is truly at the helm.