Any of you ever have an elderly parent enter the hospital? How about spending time in a hospital yourself? Well, I’ve had that experience (as millions have) and one of the first 
things you do is fill out paperwork designating a health care proxy, establishing medical directives (i.e. resuscitate or not), and so on. Basically routine stuff that the hospital needs to know when a loved one is receiving care and may not be able to speak for him/her self at a crucial juncture. Pretty scary, eh? What…. aren’t you scared of that? Because that’s what Sara Palin (a.k.a. the Wassila brain trust), John Boehner (pronounced “boner”), Chuck Grassley (a.k.a. his own grandmother), Newt Gingrich (a.k.a. Captain Yesteryear) and others are trying to make you afraid of: a routine consultation that proposed health care legislation might end up providing coverage for. Not some new federal power to cull the herd. Just funding for the kind of meeting people have with their doctors all the freaking time. Be afraid!
The fact is, your grandma need fear Obama only if she lives in Afghanistan, or maybe Iraq. The only “death panel” we’ve got is the gaggle of advisors who keep these wars going year after year. Just this morning NPR reported on the expanding war in “strategic” Helmand Province, leading with reports of the many pains taken to avoid civilian casualties, including a British air strike called off at the last minute to spare civilians, then proceeding into an interview with a Major General Michael Flynn that talks about a new “focus” on the population, rather than the enemy – looking to understand what they want… after nearly eight years of the U.S. war. Unaddressed in that interview was the issue of what happens if the people of Afghanistan want something other than what U.S. policymakers want, such as, get your military the hell out of my country. Might have been a good question to ask the general, inasmuch as he and his colleagues are taking such pains to determine what’s in the hearts and minds of the people that are suffering as a result of this blinkered policy.
When I see the air time allotted to the immensely ill-informed protesters at various Congressional town hall meetings, I feel grateful that we live in a nation that allows a voice to dissent… until I recall that, in the run-up to both the Afghan and the Iraq wars, very very few voices of articulate dissent were allowed on the airwaves, and almost as few have been heard from since… even though, in the case of Iraq particularly, the claims of the anti-war movement have been borne out to an extent that no one would have thought possible six years ago. Seems that only those dissenters who are aligned with major corporate interests can expect to be heard from loudly and clearly. Not that they seem all that appreciative. Hell, here they are at a public forum that allows private citizens to comment, participate, and even debate political leaders, and they act as though they’re being squelched, even though they are, in fact, squelching the opinions of those who disagree with them.
It almost seems like that’s the whole point. Hmmmmm….
luv u,
jp
Oh, hiya. Didn’t hear you log on. (Usually, I’m pretty good at that.) I was just engaging in a little scientific debate with our mad, mad science adviser, Dr. Mitch Macaphee, Ph.D., D.M.S.A. (that last one stands for “Diplomate of the Mad Science Academy”, and august body located in Madagascar), who claims that our weight ratios are all askew for lift off. You see, this is the problem with mad geniuses… they get this crazy idea, and it may be a really, really good idea in crazy town, but here in NORMAL-ville, it’s bug fuck nuts, okay? I mean, I happen to know (from watching repeats of Lost in Space over and over again) that the Jupiter 2 space vehicle is very weight sensitive. If our cargo is off by even just a few ounces, we could go spiraling off into deep space, rudderless and alone, waiting for bored television writers to scribble us back to civilization. This was the fate of the Robinsons, as many of you know, on more than one occasion. This will NOT be the fate of Big Green … yet again.
doing it, Hump!) And though no one else seems to give a shit, I am trying my damnedest to keep it from happening again. And yet here I have Mitch trying to convince me that weight doesn’t matter, because in an alternate universe that he’s visited recently, there exists an equal and opposite counterbalance to every object in our universe. Ergo, according to Mitch, nothing weighs anything, if you think of the two universes as part of a single, infinitely massive (or not) thing. And I’m like, w.t.f., Mitch… you can go ahead and kiss the equal and opposite doppelganger of my ass in that other universe.
Lincoln.) Downright dangerous, in fact. After all, our nefarious corporate label, Loathsome Prick Records, has chosen to send us on a swing through the terrifying Kuiper comet belt just beyond the orbit of Neptune. I think Matt spoke for all of us when he said, “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” He may have understated the matter slightly. The Kuiper belt is not known for particularly good indie-rock venues, though there are one or two annual events that are relatively well-attended, I’m told. (Not sure who… or what… typically attends them, but no matter.) A whole lot of frozen ammonia out there…. which piques Anti-Lincoln’s interest.
own small community who have given far more to the causes they believe in, and I respect them for it. Just as I respect pacifism, as someone who (while no fan of violence) is not a committed pacifist. It does my heart good to see those large numbers of protesters in the streets in Iran. This is a huge moment for them, one that many of the younger people among them, particularly, will never forget. Though the mainstream political and media pundits would probably disparage this connection, it’s something like the massive anti-war actions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which of course our popular culture has shrunken down to something akin to a flower-power postage stamp. (Just as it has reduced the civil rights movement to Martin King saying “I have a dream.”)
(e.g. Obama is going to force people to accept “death counseling” – be afraid!) with the anti-Iraq war movement that pegged the drive towards war largely on the influence of neoconservatives formerly associated with the Project for a New American Century, which, in fact, led the drive for war and regime change in Iraq starting in the Clinton Administration. Now, I’d say that is a little bit too fact-based to qualify as a conspiracy theory on the order of, say, Obama’s mandatory death counseling. The fact that the neoconservatives associated with PNAC were not the only ones in favor of the Iraq war doesn’t exactly absolve them of all responsibility. But the flaw in Brook’s comparison goes deeper than that. The pre-emptive movement against the War in Iraq was a massive, organic, global phenomenon that grew in the near-total absence of any articulate anti-war opinion in the mainstream media during 2001-2003. These crackhead gatherings at town hall meetings (including one in my own town led by some idiot from Rome who later went on the even more profoundly idiotic Glen Beck’s show) are not anything like a mass movement organized around a coherent goal. They’re just disparate groups of disgruntled conservatives shouting about having been out of power for six whole months.
Wha-at? Oh, man… what an awful dream! Not that you asked me what it was about, but… I dreamt I was an MBA in the accounting department at Enron, and… Oh, no, wait. That was Thursday night’s. Last night’s was a bit more blood-curdling (if that can be imagined). But I won’t go into that in detail. Suffice to say that it resembled something from mid-sixties television, populated by big pointless-looking computer consoles covered with flashing, multi-colored pin-sized lights. (They made whirring sounds. It was terrifying!) Lucky to get out of that particular sojourn alive. Thank uncle Jebus our tours are nothing like that. When we do interstellar travel, we tend to avoid whirring sounds…. at least, the evil, low-pitched ones. Uuuhhhllll….
forty-year-old rust bucket. (You weren’t going to say that? Bugger.) In any case, I’ve asked Marvin to work with the man-sized tuber in bondo-ing up all the panels that have rusted-through on the J-2 spacecraft since our last tour. About 4 dozen spots. More than I’d imagined, actually. (We put it up on blocks all winter, too. Go figure.)
haven’t had anything beyond basic cable in, like, five years. Mitch Macaphee rides a bicycle that doesn’t even have fenders on it. Seriously…. we can handle anything deep space can dish out. As long as it isn’t on fire. Or radioactive. I hate radioactive stuff. (It makes my fillings glow.) Besides, Mitch (our mad science advisor) has assured us that the J-2 replica is perfectly safe to fly, so long as we stay away from that massive swarm of comets circling menacingly just outside the orbit of Pluto. We told our agent in no uncertain terms – by no means book anything within the deadly comet belt!
Beer at the ‘House. Like you, I saw the photo of the president and vice president sitting down with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. Looked friendly enough, as intended. For me, though, it doesn’t erase that disturbing image of Gates being led out of his house in handcuffs – a man who walks with a freaking cane – in obvious distress. Whoever made the decision to subject Harvard’s Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute to this level of humiliation is, well, let’s say not a nice man. I don’t care what Gates said to the police in his own home. If he didn’t wave a gun at them or try to assault them in some way, there was no reason to arrest him. They were responding to a non-existent crime. They could have just left the scene. They chose otherwise.
Isn’t this kind of rewarding stupidity and selfishness? Again – I think they should extend the program, and I see the point of it. But w.t.f., you feds – share the love a little bit. Shouldn’t folks who bought more modest vehicles – who are just as crunched as any suburban truck-drivers – get some help too?
Well, great day in the morning… I was wondering where I left that freaking thing. Who might have thought it would turn up in the rock garden? What’s next, eh? (Well, the next thing you know, old Jed’s a millionaire…)
It’s always hard to know what you’ll need on this kind of journey. Big Green’s last interstellar tour required a great deal of ingenuity on our parts, and that’s mostly because we didn’t have the proper supplies. This time, that’s not going to happen. In fact, we’ve given Marvin (my personal robot assistant) the responsibility of being our quartermaster. He has, as I’m sure you realize, a machine-like memory. (I don’t mean a computer kind of machine… more like a desk stapler or tape dispenser.) In addition, he has the strength of ten ordinary men (like the cartoon Hercules), so he can load whatever he requisitions. Now that is what I call efficient use of humanoid resources. Now if he could only convince the man-sized tuber to put his little push-cart to use loading the spacecraft. (Though that degree of efficiency might be considered borderline obsessive. Scratch that.)
come from. Trust me – the biggest help he can be is by staying right there until launch date (or launch date plus one, even). Posi-Lincoln, for his own part, has been keeping to himself of late. I think he’s working on an address of some sort. He keeps poking his head out and asking Marvin to find him some used envelopes and a spare bottle of India ink, then he disappears again, scratching away. Another Gettysburg address in the works? No man can say. Not sure what the occasion would be. Maybe he’s working on his memoirs… though they are likely to make a very strange read at this juncture. (I’ll look with interest for the chapters describing his transit to the 21st Century via Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device.) And then there’s Mitch, who… who…. Oh, bloody hell! He’s blown a hole in the side of Jupiter! Nice going, Mitch! They’re going to love us in the Big Red Spot! 
Esq. There are, of course, the ongoing wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan, with much of the attention focused on the U.S. soldier captured by an Afghan Taliban group. I did hear other news of the Afghan conflict this week – the 
refusing to officially acknowledge the presence of hundreds of Israeli nukes (a largely useless arsenal that will continue to prompt nuclear proliferation efforts in the Middle East). She and the administration have been making relatively encouraging noises on the Honduran coup, calling for the return of President Zelaya, but it seems to be having little effect. Unfortunately, the Honduran military is an institution designed not for national defense, but for “internal security” (i.e. keeping the peasants and workers in line), much like the many other militaries we helped foster in that region. Once you teach the little dog to bite, he may continue to do it, even if doggy daddy no longer wants him to.
Sorry, Mitch. The batteries aren’t charged yet. No, sir… still got a few more hours to go. Hey, where’d you find those used fuel tanks? Clever man. Very clever.
way it worked out. We got the two Lincolns to run upstairs and bang pots and pans in the courtyard while we were playing. That’s just to throw the local constabulary off – we’re still behind about 28 months on the taxes and are technically squatters. Fact is, the boys in blue don’t know we’re in here… and so long as they don’t read this blog, they probably won’t catch on. I think the ruse worked, at least to the extent that it got Anti-Lincoln arrested for disturbing the peace. (While he’s in jail, we should get posi-Lincoln to do outrageous things and then deny responsibility, since Lincoln is obviously in jail. Clever, eh? No? Just checking. )
coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and its aftermath, quite frankly. Apparently our news outlets don’t consider this “newsy” enough. In any case, what I’ve heard and seen have been snippets of interrogations by Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama… I think the “R” stands for “Racist”) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina, a.k.a. “McCain’s brain”), also a bit from Dr. Coburn (R-Oklahoma). Certainly on that side of the partisan divide, the Judiciary committee comes off as a kind of cracker-town. And because the Democrats are, on the whole, utterly spineless and all-too-willing to fold on matters of principle, it is very often the core “values” of these southern conservative senators that end up carrying the most weight.
on abortion, and practically dance on Emmett Till’s grave, the Republicans are finding a great deal to complain about with this nominee. It’s frankly laughable to hear Jeff Sessions – who considered the voting rights act a “piece of intrusive legislation” and who had no problem with the KKK until some were caught smoking dope – and Lindsey Graham raising the banner against discrimination. Have they taken a look at their own panel? Are there a whole lot of black and Latino members of the Judiciary Committee? The Senate itself? Any chance that “reverse racism” is going to whittle away at their advantage in that august body? They need to calm down a bit. Though I suspect this is more about positioning the G.O.P. as a defender of Joe Six-pack (a.k.a. white working guys) than any genuine concern about the nominee. (See: Pat Buchanan)
Hi, friends. Just caught me going over the list of necessities for our upcoming interstellar tour de force. Here’s an item destined to cause trepidation. Radioactive deutronium fuel – $5,600.00 per pint bottle. Jesus H. Christmas. I guess prices on Aldebaran have been anything but stable over the past year. (The Aldebarans were heavy investors in Bear Stearns, rumor has it.) Not sure why they need to earn it back off of our asses, but there you have it. Anyway, it’s on the list because, as you may have surmised, Big Green has indeed secured transport for our tour. I’m glad to be the one to tell you that it will not be one of those Korean missiles. No sir, this is a proper space vehicle. Or so we’re told.
crashing on a desert isle, modifying it for a seafaring voyage, etc., etc. It was a bit worse for wear when we got back, needless to say. I suppose if they had a rating system for spacecraft renters, we’d probably only get one star. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) felt a bit embarrassed by our rank carelessness with another person’s property. (This was all the more remarkable since embarrassment hadn’t been programmed into Marvin by that point – Mitch Macaphee had, in fact, programmed it out and replaced it with joy…. yes, unbridled JOY.)
impact. It’s like throwing a hammer at a wall. If it’s one of those little featherweight rubber hammers that come in a child’s carpentry set, the wall won’t mind at all. But if it’s a big old drop-forge hammer of the kind that used to be made at the Cheney Hammer Mill, well…. that wall will duck if it’s got the sense the god of walls gave it. I mean, hell… wouldn’t you? Think about it.