McCain on Obama's declining poll numbers

John McCain blinks too much and he can't pronounce Czechoslovakia, but I think he would have made a better president than the "clunker" we have now.

"Give him a couple bucks...."

Since we're getting high on the mountains, here's a little sumpin' to git yer feet a movin'.

Paging Doctor Sigmund Freud

Hoo, boy. Anyone here want to take a crack at Rod Dreher's latest dream, featuring the Greek Poet C. P. Cavafy? I don't really want to waste my precious time analyzing, so I'll just list the first two things that came to my mind. The first is naturally the line from Pee-wee's Big Adventure wherein the famed protagonist begins a vocal recollection of a vivid dream scape before an interruption: "I'm all alone. I'm rolling a big doughnut and this snake wearing a vest..." That line cracks me up.

The second is a couple of lines from Lorca's Novena by the Pogues:

And Lorca the faggot poet they left till last
Blew his brains out with a pistol up his arse.

Man, I love that song. Here's a link if you want to give it a listen.


Rod ends with his recurring refrain "...you ought to be seeking out ways to live more in tune with a localist, Christian, agrarian way of life...." Well, I live in a locality, I know my neighbors and I have a garden, so I suppose I'm covered. But maybe I am still lacking something. Maybe I'll have a dream someday in which a gay poet tries to ply me with Belgian beer; no doubt only then I will understand that Jesus wants me to raise chickens in my backyard.

My email to AFP

In a mass email, the Ohio Chapter of Americans for Prosperity asked for suggestions of "what to do next" with regards to the "Tea Parties". Following is my idea which I emailed to them. I admit at the end that I don't know if someone might already have done this:

Maybe the participants should take a cue from the original Boston Tea Party in these protests. The truth was that the colonists loved their tea, but the tax on tea angered them, so they dumped some for a powerful symbolic effect. Likewise we as modern Americans might love Chevrolets and Dodge trucks, but we are ever more infuriated in the realization that our tax money will serve to bail out and prop up these incompetent corporate hulks. Wouldn’t it be a powerful symbol if citizens took sledgehammers to automobiles easily identified as GM and Chrysler to show our disapproval of this use of our tax dollars? They could even dress in the colonial style, like George Washington with a powdered wig and everything. Or possibly wearing a Ford T-shirt and/or ball cap if budget constraints dictate.

I’ll admit this sounds pricey compared to dumping boxes of tea, but I’ll bet there are some mad-as-hell car dealers out there who, faced with being shut down by the Obama Administration, would donate some stagnant inventory for the cause. Those wishing to take swings could also be persuaded to donate to help cover costs.

I realize there might be a backlash against this demonstration. A Chevrolet is somewhat of an icon of cultural pride for Americans. But that’s the point. We would be saying “No more” and this would give us an opportunity to educate the public about why we are doing this. We would be saying, “Faced with a choice between these two powerful icons of our heritage, on the one hand that of the sleek, stylish automobile and on the other hand the freedom-loving colonial Patriot, we will choose the latter; substance over style, liberty over tyranny, humble common sense over hubristic government incompetence.” Many people have already stated that due to the bankruptcies they will never buy another one of these automotive products again. It’s a divorce of sorts, and you have to expect it to be messy. I also apologize if someone else already suggested this idea; I don’t view much television.

I didn't mention this, but I was thinking that after the smashing took place, it would be cool if a bunch of people dressed like Indians with the war paint and the feathers and loin cloths―the whole 9-yards of get-up―poured gasoline on the wreckage and lit if on fire.

Yes, I admit that this whole thing appeals to my destructive nature and my violent tendencies as a male person. But―wouldn't it be fun?

Sick and Senseless

Store owner Mike Dayem was murdered a block from our old house by an neighborhood waste-case with multiple priors named Bobby King who wanted to buy alcohol a week ago Sunday. So basically Mike paid the ultimate price for courageously upholding the law.

I used to chat with this guy, he was really friendly. You could tell he was a good man. We used to run over to the store to get a bottle of hot sauce or beer or bread. I bought a great phone card from him back in the dial-up modem days of 1999 when he had just opened the store.

He put up with a lot of crap. The drug peddling idiots used to hang out in his parking lot, riding their little sisters' 20-inch bikes around, waiting for clientele coming off I-71 or I-480. A lot of the stores in that neighborhood were what I call "front operations", and we'd rejoice every time we heard they went out of business or lost their liquor license which happened fairly regularly. But under Mike's ownership, JJ's was a legitimate business. You could just tell.

This is utterly tragic and I pray for Mike and his family. Secondarily, I hope the business remains in or falls into good hands to prevent the further disintegration of the West 130th neighborhood. Last but not least, I hope Bobby King gets a life sentence for this horrible, brutal and senseless crime.

How could we have been so myopic?

Robert Tait–who lived in Iran for some time–ends this article on the farcical Ahmedinejad re-election with the line "How could we have been so myopic?" I love how he starts:

With hindsight, we should have seen it coming. Why should a man who has bluffed, blustered, twisted, intimidated and–let's not dignify it with higher prose–lied his way through his four-year term of office surrender power to the whim of anything so mundane as a ballot box?

There's a great comment from AJM1969: "Nutters, you just can't trust 'em. Someone tell Obama, quick."