Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Run, Humans, Run (and happy birthday to The Mudge)

Posted by Mickey Z on 09/14 at 04:56 AM

i don’t think its too negative at all. most of the people who want happy stories want them in order to forget the bad things that are happening all over. escapism is ok for a while but to quote a rubbish film “trouble is like a cancer - you have to get it early or it gets you.” you can’t ‘get it’ unless you diagnose it.

ignoring the worlds problems doesn’t fix them.

as for no solutions then i think Mr Orwell (as usual) said it right…

“Socialist thought has to deal in prediction, but only in broad terms. One often has to aim at objectives which one can only very dimly see. At this moment, for instance, the world is at war and wants peace. Yet the world has no experience of peace, and never has had, unless the Noble Savage once existed. The world wants something which it is dimly aware could exist, but cannot accurately define. This Christmas Day, thousands of men will be bleeding to death in the Russian snows, or drowning in icy waters, or blowing one another to pieces on swampy islands of the Pacific; homeless children will be scrabbling for food among the wreckage of German cities. To make that kind of thing impossible is a good objective. But to say in detail what a peaceful world would be like is a different matter.

Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness. This is the case even with a great writer like Swift, who can flay a bishop or a politician so neatly, but who, when he tries to create a superman, merely leaves one with the impression the very last he can have intended that the stinking Yahoos had in them more possibility of development than the enlightened Houyhnhnms.”

From the essay Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun (1943)
http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/fun.html

Posted by michael on from scotland 09/14 at 05:41 AM

How is it that a “pumping” storm trooper just brightened up my day? Do I have some sort of mental problem I should be worried about? I already know the answer to that question.

Hello, Michael. Happy birthday, Mudge!

Again, great post, Mickey.

“Do you think it would be easy to get him to change places with one of our steady workers? What sort of persuasion would you use? What now could you promise him that would be truly seductive?”

Henry was right, imagine, someone who truly lived life with out taking, destroying, polluting...who gathered and hunted only what they needed...who respected the earth and every plant, insect and mammal on it...imagine if he or she had to go to work everyday in a pharmaceutical plant here in PR, or a slaughter house in Chicago (if they still have them) or a skyscraper in NYC...walking streets of asphalt and concrete and living in a building that housed a thousand others all watching TV and eating microwaved meals until bedtime only to wake up the next morning to start all over again.

He or she would go running for the hills...and right into one of Scotland’s military bases. Talk about depressing!

“During the crisis, many New Yorkers (and Americans) felt some semblance of solidarity. Strangers shared smiles and tears. When “normal” reappears, horns will honk, pushing and shoving will return, and we’ll all pass each other on the street without so much as a glance.”

How right you were.

And Mickey, in response to your postscript, you can always say something that I can not...you have taken major steps in the way you live your life to leave “as light a foot print as possible” on this planet. I know you will say you have a long way to go…

I haven’t been able to figure out any better answers than one individual at a time...stopping wastefulness, removing him/herself from the problem, becoming self sufficient(a hard thing to do), working together to support those in the community.

I am working on myself and my lifestyle with this goal in mind and have a long, long way to go.

By the way, I have TV again now, I was without it by choice for 5 months or so...I haven’t been watching much, but I did notice that it was Day 107 of the missing girl in Aruba story on Nancy Grace’s show on CNN. I wonder how an Iraqi feels when he or she sees something like that...let’s say a woman who is going through day 232 of her entire family getting blown the #### up in front of her face by the US military.

By the way, did you know that Bush took responsibility for the failures after Hurrican Katrina? Or did he? Every headline read Bush: I take responsibility. They should have read: “to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”

So ends my tirade for the day.

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 09:07 AM

It’s difficult to offer solutions when everything in our culture contributes to the problem.

Posted by Luna_C on from Smoke Land Bog Fire 09/14 at 09:44 AM

wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘everything’ in our culture. typically the things that cause a problem are things that depart from culture in the true sense and then wrap it up in plastic, take the life out of whatever it was supposed to be, mass market it and sell it back to you for more money and more environmental damage than it would have caused in the first place.

thats for necessities like food and stuff.

don’t get me started on the things they invent to solve problems that you never had anyway.

Posted by michael on from scotland 09/14 at 10:01 AM

Hi, Fellow Expendables -
Yes - I enjoy rereading this post, Mickey. Thanks, again.
Hey, Happy Something, Mudge, and many more.

Miller’s point about the Indian and the steel mills, is a very old one. During America’s colonial period, colonists were sometimes captured by the Indians. Sometimes, too, escaped servants ( read: white slaves), and poor folk, ran off to the Indian tribes to escape their miseries. There are almost zero examples of any of these people seeking to return to “civilized life” with the WhiteMan.

Zinn seems to theorize, in People’s History, that one of the reasons the Indians were so relentlessly exterminated, and the survivors pushed into distant “ghettos,” was to make certain that there would be no examples of how excellent and equitable life could be, if it wasn’t organized around the relentless pursuit of wealth & power. Obviously, the US government has been passionately and savagely eliminating any and all “good examples,” everywhere in the world, for a long, long time. Perhaps early “Indian Life” is one example of that which Orwell finds so inconceivable and “utopian.”

I do not think that the possibility of people living together peacefully and cooperatively is such a utopian concept. Health, after all, is simply the absence of illness. Our illness is pretty simple, in my view: It’s not that people, generally, are sick and twisted and warlike - with a history of such ills to prove it. It is, rather, that throughout history, a very tiny portion of the population has enslaved the vast majority. An enslaved population behaves in very twisted ways - as does someone overcome with fever, or the physical pain and debility of illness. Excise the cause of the illness, and health should begin to shine forth naturally, from “inside,” without the need to artificially “create” it…

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 11:08 AM

“Many people imply that unless a critic expounds a specific strategy for change, the critique is worthless or too negative.”

I heard something similar from a friend last year - don´t knock something down unless you´re prepared to put something in its place. I don´t agree, it´s like saying I have to know how to fix my lawnmower before I can say it doesn´t cut the grass.

Posted by Owen on from Barcelona 09/14 at 11:28 AM

Hello all.

You know, I was thinking about giving the regulars here a collective name and was even considering a contest. But then Joe from Oregon casually coins “Expendables” and I’m thinking the contest is over.

Any thoughts?

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 11:42 AM

I’d just like to point out, as gently as possible, that indulging in the over-romanticization of Native American life as “excellent” or “equitable"--which is one of Zinn’s many historical sins in People’s History--badly misrepresents history. Worse still, it is simply false to say that “There are almost zero examples of any of these people seeking to return to “civilized life” with the WhiteMan.” Setting aside the fact that many published captivity narratives end in “restoration” (think Mary Rowlandson), relations between Indians and Europeans hardly fit into that kind of simplistic rubric. For a history without these sort of condescending, Zinn-style leftist platitudes, check out Richard White’s “The Middle Ground.”

Posted by The Infanta (Jordan) on from Queens now, weirdly enough 09/14 at 12:28 PM

Infanta,

I don’t think we are talking about the “noble savage” here at all. Pre-Columbus and early “America” Native Americans lived a sustainable lifestyle, we do not. They were also human.

Many stories may have ended in “restoration,” but restored to what and was it desired by the “restoree?”

As for Zinn’s sins, they pale in comparison to those considered historians by the media, education system, government, etc.

I agree, it is wrong to idealize indigenous tribes, but I don’t see the harm in admiring them...they were able to survive for thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. How long does “modern” man have left?

James

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 12:55 PM

I misread that as “expandables” and thought guiltily about needing to work out more. But I’ll go with “expendables”. A friend of mine calls his blog a dumpster.

Posted by Harry on from 09/14 at 12:56 PM

The Expendables? I like it. You could add a catchphrase along the lines of the Sean Connery line in the Untouchables: “he pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue,” but perhaps a little less violent.

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 12:59 PM

I’d go with The Expanding Expendables but it sounds too much like an “art film” that would star Ben Stiller and either Luke or Owen Wilson...with cameos galore.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 01:00 PM

Anyone into German humor?:

http://wdthu.blogspot.com/2005/09/i-happened-upon-german-website-and.html

Scroll down for the “translation.”

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 01:41 PM

I just left Amazon, Infanta. It looks like a truly great book.

I just have to ask, however: What’s your point? I mean, first of all, why is this fellow’s scholarship superior to Zinn’s. Why are those authors who take him to task “correct,” while Zinn is obviously simplistic and platitudinous? Now, obviously, Zinn wasn’t attempting to be either fair or balanced. He was attempting to demolish our general perspective of US history. But, everyone has a more or less “selfish” aim; everyone has an agenda - even your Mr. White.

I’m sure many people made it to the tribes, only to be killed or tortured or used as slaves. I’m sure there are innumerable horror stories. But, that’s not the point.

The point, for my purposes, was that, generally speaking, life in the tribes seemed better than life in white society - for those at the bottom of the ladder: more equitable, more reasonable, more honest. Zinn, like others I’ve read, seems to say just that.

The study that you cite, though I’ve not read it, must present Indians in a very unusual and stressful condition, since they were, in one way or another, doomed - and the brightest among them must have been aware of it. Their position was surely similar to the position of the Cubans after 1959, or the Russians after the February revolution - or any number of populations after socialist / communist revolts: An enormous and relentless power from without, was attempting to crush them. Whether this power was successful or not, it completely altered the society it attacked.

People behave unusually in such circumstances. Anxiety, fear, rage, resentment, frustration - these emotions tend to prevail during such periods and, of course, they do strange things to the folks who experience them. Most history, however, seems to study ordinary people while in this condition, and proceeds to draw rather enduring conclusions about normal “Indian Life,” or normal “Human Behavior.”

I’m profoundly interested in what we might do and who we might be, when some greater human power isn’t fucking with us. I’m convinced that generally, history has behaved like some alien explorer who visited - only - Folsom prison for a few years, and returned to his home planet to tell his fellows about “human nature.” The history of our “twisted, bizarre behavior” is then used as an excuse to keep us imprisoned: It’s for our own good! After all, we’re twisted & bizarre.

I believe such history is flawed and does no one - no one at all - any good. I want to toss it into a dungheap, somewhere. This, then, is “my agenda,” and I used Zinn toward this aim. Perhaps you can suggest some readings that might assist me in this, admittedly, biased pursuit? You’ve obviously read some good stuff.
Thanks for the note, Infanta. - joe
PS - “Expendables” sounds good to me, Mickey. “The Muppets” might be good, too. It sounds self-deprecating, but hey, it would eliminate the anxiety of “high expectations.”
James - great stories, in any language…

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 02:16 PM

JoeKnows.Net, I’m telling you.

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 02:33 PM

James, you’re a sweetie.
But, hey, I’m just a babbler.
Well, I’ve got a ( hopefully appropriate ) story:

I used to live with a friend, in a van, in Hawaii. We bought a membership to the YMCA so we’d have a place to shower whenever we were near by. While at the Y, we met a guy named Harry. Harry had been a logger in Washington State. He visited the Y almost every day, to lift weights.
Harry was a big boy!
One day he came out of the YMCA & knocked on the side door of the van. He smiled and said: “Guess what I just did, Joe?” I said” “What’d ya do, Harry?”
He said: “I just curled 225 pounds, 7 times in a row.”
I sometimes asked him what he was going to do with all that power. He’d reply: “I’ll be strong. I’ll be strong for life. Life is hard, you need to be strong.”

I always thought that was an insufficient use of such an amazing talent and tool…

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 03:37 PM

Thanks to each and all for the lovely birthday wishes! I am having a lovely day off from my struggles with the bureaucracy. I spent the day with my daughter ONLY and we chatted up and about a storm. No grandkids underfoot. No husbands, roommates, friends, cellphones. Just did errands together. >aaaahhhhhh<

MZ, I guess I told you about being Darth Vader in a Halloween haunted house in 1977...the Storm Trooper in our skit was my boyfriend’s little brother. Nice memories. I love the pochoir on the main page just for me!

Posted by The Mudge on from Birthdayland! 09/14 at 04:26 PM

Michael, I understand Scotland’s lovely green glens are infested with military hardware of a sophistication unsurpassed anywhere...so that extra green glow I spoke of in yesterday’s post is probably already part of the light your eyes filter out by habit. What kind of cancer would you like? We’ll see if the Death Industry...ooops, Defense industry, silly me!...can make it a curable on this time.

You’re welcome, I’m sure.

And Orwell’s correctness quotient is really very unnerving. I read DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON at the beginning of this trip into poverty and was revolted and unsurprised and saddened that the world Orwell describes is still there. I love the statement that a perfect society consists, to a utopian, of the endless continuation of something that had value only because it was temporary! >ding< Throw that Brit a fish! Clear thinking is not a modern trait, but it was gasping for life in 1943 when Orwell said that!

Have a good morning, as it doubtless will be when you read this...clear skies over you, soft grass under you, good whiskey inside you.

Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Texas 09/14 at 04:38 PM

>>>When discussing the future, the first step is often an identification and demystification of the past and present. In order to hit the reset button, we must all agree that we got it wrong the first time.<<<

That’s where the disconnect comes, IMO. Admitting “we were wrong” doesn’t come easy for most people, only marginally easier than “I was wrong.” The key in my few conversations of substance with those leaning Rightward went best when I pointed out the role of “improvement” in every person’s life...and the role of welfare and subsidies and such-like in bringing that “improvement” to life. All but the meanest of spirit and mingiest of charity can be wrestled to the ground with this angle on argument.

Posted by Agrani Yoccapovic on from Through the looking-glass, apparently 09/14 at 05:00 PM

Greetings to every “Expendable” one of you. I have been on the road for days and just rushed home so that I could wish MUDGE A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!! I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that while I was away doing some guest speaking at a very right wing college in Albany I was successful in getting the students to focus on the moral issues of warfare...so much so that after I left, the sudents asked their professor if they could do their first papers on the issues that I brought up. It was a wonderful experience for me because I think that they liked my presentation even though they thought that they had a pro-war view at first. I convinced some of them that they didn’t really believe what they thought that they did. ...Now for the bad news. Today, the Cindy Sheehan bus tour, minus Cindy, came to Albany. There were a lot of U.S. flags, speeches, etc. I asked why there was NO MENTION OF THE SLAUGHTERED IRAQIS. The answer that I received was. “Oh, we just never thought about them.” Somebody out there tell me, which is a bigger obstacle to peace,the left wingers or the right wingers. Today it was the left wingers.

Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from crossing the line 09/14 at 05:04 PM

Just a quick “jump in” here.

How about “The Fungibles.” ?

Isn’t that the word Mr. Rumsfeld used?
“Human beings are fungible.”
( One must assume he didn’t mean himself, his wife, his kids or his friends… He meant us - we, here, at Mickey’s Place. )

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 05:07 PM

In honor of the Iraqis Rosemarie just mentioned:

fun·gi·ble
adj.
1 Law. Returnable or negotiable in kind or by substitution, as a quantity of grain for an equal amount of the same kind of grain.
2 Interchangeable.

n.
Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Often used in the plural.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 05:12 PM

>>>I did notice that it was Day 107 of the missing girl in Aruba story on Nancy Grace’s show on CNN. I wonder how an Iraqi feels when he or she sees something like that...let’s say a woman who is going through day 232 of her entire family getting blown the #### up in front of her face by the US military.<<<

Don’t have to that far afield for horrified reactions, James [and thanks for the birthday wishes!]...just imagine the fury and hurt of the African-American moms and dads whose daughters are missing and no Nancy Grace (whoever she is) is doing a countdown for them. We’ll leave aside all male missing persons, because clearly males are perpetrators and not victims. The kidnap-and-killing spree in the Borderland of south Texas is pretty much unknown north or east of Austin, I wager. They’re just [racialepithet] girls, they don’t count.

I watched about 30min/week of TV from 1974-1992. I read the local paper, the NY Times, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, The Nation, etc etc to learn about news. I lost my lover, my job, and the rest of my inherited wealth AND had my first crippling attack of gout in 1992 (four months flat on my back)and I bought a TV to entertain me...since then I’ve been routinely REVOLTED by what is most folks’ sole information source. I’ve never had cable because I refuse to give the bastards money to bring advertising into my bedroom. My advice: GET RID OF THE THING NOW!!

And yet it’s hooked me again...I ever watch soap operas. >hangs head< I’ll go quietly.

Posted by The Mudge on from Texas 09/14 at 05:13 PM

Wonderful news, dreadful news, Rosemarie.
Well, perhaps they’ll think of the Iraqis, now… You should be doing a bus tour, Rosemarie. [ I don’t think I’m joking...] People need to hear what you have to say, far more urgently than they need to hear Cindy Sheehan.

Still, it makes me want to cry. A very great many things, of late, make me want to cry. In times like these, however, it’s just a waste of water.

Posted by joe on from nowhere near here 09/14 at 05:16 PM

Rosemarie, I passed along your contact info to Chris @ Gorilla Radio so I’m hoping you’ll be on his show soon.

Really glad you had a nice b’day, Richard.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 05:24 PM

>>>Our illness is pretty simple, in my view: It’s not that people, generally, are sick and twisted and warlike - with a history of such ills to prove it. It is, rather, that throughout history, a very tiny portion of the population has enslaved the vast majority. An enslaved population behaves in very twisted ways - as does someone overcome with fever, or the physical pain and debility of illness.<<<

Oh, so true, Joe, so very true. Slavery by any name ("migrant workers” or “serfs” or “telephone sanitizer third class") creates an absence of desire for excellence, and the desire for excellence is, I believe, what motivates each of us in this haven...the desire for excellence of thought and of spirit and of our body politic.

Thanks for the birhtday wishes, too! Hawaii by van...I love Maui and I really want to see Kauai one day. Tourists can have Oahu, and all of us oughta leave the Big Island alone ‘til it’s off that magma vent.

“Harry” (so as to distinguish him from Harry who posts here) fell into a common trap..."SO! You got your dream! Now what?” I get lots of evil eyes from people who think I am the worst kind of bastard when I refuse to venerate Mother Teresa for feeding all those kids...so they’re alive, good, now what? Someone saved them, but let’s get a plan in place to DO SOMETHING WITH THEM!! I am NOT arguing with the rightness of their lives being saved...I’m saying our responsibility doesn’t END there!!

Heck, Joe, this isn’t aimed at you, so I’ll just go off in a corner and mutter sulphrously to myself.

Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Hell, it would seem! 09/14 at 05:27 PM

>>>“Oh, we just never thought about them.” <<<

8~0

They didn’t think about the war dead. The **protesters** didn’t think about the war dead.

Out of anyone else’s mouth, I would cry “hogwash” because that is, bar none, the scariest thing I have heard today...and this is the day I heard that a family of three headed by a pregnant mother can receive $236 a month for housing *temporarily*, going to $0 in three months, in the wealthy state of Texas.

Only OUR dead count?

Why is that exactly?

Posted by The Mudge on from Texas 09/14 at 05:37 PM

Mudge:

“During the Vietnam War,” writes Edward S. Herman, “it was reported that cynical U.S. lawyers working in that country had coined the phrase ‘mere gook rule’ to describe the very lenient treatment given to U.S. military personnel who killed Vietnamese civilians.” This policy held sway right on through various American intervention in Latin America, the “humanitarian”
effort in Somalia, and, of course, the Gulf War and Kosovo. Herman sums up the philosophy as follows: “If our opponents do not submit and we are obliged to blow them up, clearly it is their responsibility.”

Excerpted from:
http://tinyurl.com/aeedj

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 05:41 PM

Rosemarie, it was churlish of me not to say right off that I thank you for the birthday wishes! It’s been a nice day. It’s made nicer by the kindness of friends and those whom I admire. I know you’re the latter, and I hope you’re the former too!

And may I second Joe’s not-humorous suggestion that you begin assembling a tour with illustrious autodidact MZ and the hunky brainiac Sander? Call it the Intergenerational Expendables Tour! Motto: “Move over, Ralph, the Fungible Left Squad’s in the house!”

Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Ooops, I didn't mean to be rude 09/14 at 05:43 PM

Sander’s hunky but I’m just illustrious?

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 05:44 PM

>>>I’m convinced that generally, history has behaved like some alien explorer who visited - only - Folsom prison for a few years, and returned to his home planet to tell his fellows about “human nature.” The history of our “twisted, bizarre behavior” is then used as an excuse to keep us imprisoned: It’s for our own good! After all, we’re twisted & bizarre.

I believe such history is flawed and does no one - no one at all - any good. I want to toss it into a dungheap, somewhere. This, then, is “my agenda...<<<

Joe, you are the kind of thinker I want to be. I don’t know whether to hex you from jealousy or love you from afar. It’s a dangerous balance....

Posted by The Mudge on from Texas, blast it 09/14 at 05:52 PM

If I wasn’t such a supremely secure human being, I would’ve hexed Joe a long time ago.

Fungibles? Expendables? Any other suggestions? I think I’ll put this to a vote on Friday.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 05:57 PM

>>>A U.S. Army poll in 1943 found that roughly half of all GIs believed it would be necessary to kill every Japanese on earth before peace could be achieved.<<<

MZ, I am as always astounded by your ability to find and retain horrible, hideous, disfiguring facts without becoming yourself horrible and disfigured. It is incredibly impressive.

Hideous, now, that’s another matter.

>ducks MZ’s heaved computer<

I avoid commenting on your impressive, lithe, lean, and lovely body because I’ve observed straight men get all macho and stupid when another man compliments them publicly. Whatever other lovely qualities you possess, you’re relentlessly and unimaginitively straight. Sander’s not here, so he need never know I called him “hunky” though I have done so to his face aforetimes. He didn’t quite know what to do. I still giggle over that.

Posted by The Mudge on from Texas 09/14 at 06:08 PM

How complex am I, folks? Diverse aspects of me are lithe, lean, and lovely...yet horrible, hideous, disfiguring. Top that, Brad Pitt.

Richard, compliments from straight, gay, bi, and transgender humans are welcome...always.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 06:31 PM

You are indeed complex, though for the record I specifically said you weren’t horrible or disfigured, only hideous.

And I suspect Brad’s a bottom, not a top.

Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Texas, blast it 09/14 at 06:45 PM

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This press release was distributed through eMediawire by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: http://www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above

Posted by Richard the Curmudgeon on from Through the looking-glass, apparently 09/14 at 06:54 PM

Richard, I am ready for the tour. My toothbrush is still packed. Only problem is that all of you have to come with me. Each one of you posting here today have unique talents, so maybe you really are not so expendable. Think of all of the fun that we’d have on the road. We could put Kerouac to shame for his lack of inventiveness. ...I just checked today’s Bennington Banner. They ran a letter opposing my position based on the false information in their Editorial. That’s OK. I don’t mind that. I face a lot of opposition. The problem is this...the Banner NEVER ran my rebuttal to their Editorial which criticized me for not being willing to “...accept the consequences of my action...”. Their failure to publish a retraction OR my rebuttal is an example of the lowest form of journalism, especially in a newspaper in a town where there is no other newspaper to provide another view. This site is the only place where my rebuttal was published. Thanks, Mickey. Since the Banner published erroneous information about me, what do you think that we should do about it. If this keeps up, I am apt to use a bad word and we can’t have that. I always smile and speak politely, even while I am being arrested.
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/Stories/0,1413,104~8671~3053363,00.html

Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from crossing the line 09/14 at 06:59 PM

Why, there’s so much going on here at Mickey’s place, that I’m struck dumb. This has happened to me only once in my long, absurd existence -
it was just after I observed the invention of water…

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 07:18 PM

wow, did things just get steamy in here or what?

Glad to hear you were able to spend some time alone with your daughter, Richard. Point taken on Katrina victims and Ms. Nancy Grace/CNN, they were on my mind as well when I wrote the comment. Oh and I suspect you’re right about Brad.

Since we happen to be discussing straight men’s discomfort with homosexuality...I am currently watching Birdcage, which many might find silly or perhaps even offensive, but I find hilarious. Great line in the movie (paraphrased)-

Idiotic right wing straight man played well by gene hackman: I think homosexuality is tearing at the fabric of society.

Nathan Lane, caberet star pretending to be his son’s mother: Really? That’s what I thought too until I heard Alexander the Great was a fag.

Talk about gays in the military!

I second or third the motion that Rosemarie go on a bus tour to educate people and emphasize the Iraqi innocents. Ignorant left wingers piss me off more the those on the “right.”

I like expendables better than fungibles, Mickey…

and Joe, it’s never a waste of water to cry.

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 07:18 PM

That letter-writer sums up nicely why nothing changes a whole lot: “I have nothing against anyone protesting. But do it lawfully. If you block traffic or hinder people expect to pay the consequences.”

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 07:20 PM

yeah, Mickey...keep your disagreements nice and quiet, orderly and off to the side...that’ll work.

sorry, Joe and Rosemarie posted while I was writing…

Don’t worry, Rosemarie, some of us curse enough for all of us.

Joe, for such an old guy, you sure have “young” ideas. What am I talking about? The youth of today are falling in line so quick my head is spinning.

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 07:34 PM

I can’t stop laughing after Joe’s #38 comment...things are so funny here in Mickey’s parlor tonight that that my sides hurt from laughing.....About the misinfo center of the universe here in Bennington, almost no one in town knows what I was arrested for...it was NOT blocking traffic, it was DISORDERLY CONDUCT WITH INTENT TO HARRASS AND ANNOY. I think that the jury also made that mistake and thought that they were convicting me of blocking traffic. Did I ever tell you all, that at the Trial, TWO police officers testified under oath that he was the one who arrested me. Impossible. I was arrested only once by one policeman. That was just one of many errors in Court that day. And if you guys keep it up here tonight, you will be almost as funny as my Trial was.

Posted by rosemarie jackowski on from misinfo center of the universe 09/14 at 07:36 PM

Bush asking Rice for permission to use the bathroom at UN session

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 07:59 PM

Rosemarie - I didn’t see your post, sorry.
The Banner is doing, on a small scale, what the mainstream media is doing throughout the US. Since you’re presenting the Banner with the truth, all it can do is lie or attack your “character.” It certainly can’t allow a debate with you. You’d reveal far more too much to the sleeping masses.
(Shhhhhhh, Lady! You might wake them!)
I’m unable to think of any way to get at this paper, as the rest of the media, also, seems quite content with such policies.

James, is that really Bush? The poor fellow is so completely lost, almost anything seems possible. Maybe we should petition Gepetto about a brain or a heart, for our poor, misguided puppet.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 08:12 PM

He has a brain. It’s named Karl Rove.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 08:14 PM

yeah, it’s bush...reuters ran it:

pretty stupid, really...the press will start making fun of bush now that he’s at 38% approval...how about some real news?

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 08:24 PM

oops, if this doesn’t work it’s on drudge:

Posted by James on from Puerto Rico 09/14 at 08:27 PM

Now we know the real caption to that first photo caption contest I ran: “Please Condi, I gotta taka wiz.”

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/14 at 08:28 PM

“He has a brain, it’s named Rove.” Excellent.
So, these Elite boys even name their brains.
Pompus bastards.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 09:08 PM

James - thanks for the photograph - and for the attempted photos. Entire years of my life could be reasonably summed up with the symbol of a couple of nested boxes with a red X inside.

MUDGE!
You truly did a great deal of work, posting that “head-hunter” search for the Supreme Court Justice, and I guess it just got lost. I’m sorry - I got caught up on my own blather… (Nasty business. Stand clear.)
Great post!
I know a personal injury lawyer in Schenectady, New York, who would surely qualify. He’s drives around town in a small “Winnebago.” On the side he has his name and number, which is something like: 1 - 800 - AutoAccident…
He’d fit right into the court, and he could help accident victims nationwide.
Anyway, thanks for the post, Mudge, and one last Happy Birthday.

Posted by joe on from Oregon 09/14 at 10:57 PM

Great post Mickey! A real intellectual tour de force and not too negative IMHO. Keep up the good work - please!

Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 09/14 at 11:53 PM

‘Impressive, lithe, lean and lovely body’ - that would be Mickey to a T. I could not agree more, Mudge - and Happy Birthday from me as well!

Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 09/15 at 12:05 AM