Jenny Miller | Heck's Kitchen Pantry, 2004

11.17.04
"The older you get, the more you learn to avoid promises you know you will never keep," says Mr. Minter today, the first birthday of Bears Will Attack. Speaking as one who has broken more promises than most, I can add: learning to avoid making promises doesn't help. First of all, to not promise something you wish you could promise is a pre-admission of failure. And what can we do but keep trying to live up to the fairly low bar of expectations we've set for ourselves? Second, when you continually avoid making a promise, you're banished to a life in wishywashy indecision purgatory land, where only assholes live.

Along those lines, I have taken charge of THE ROSE FAMILY, as part of my company's secret santa program. They are a mom and five kids, and I think the mom possibly just got out of prison. If you feel like helping Jaimehotdish, WarriorGeek and I by chipping in a gift for a local ex-con and her crew, let me know.

Listen to this: Schwarzenegger Terminates Form of Animal Cruelty. "Demonstrating he truly cares about the welfare of animals, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed SB 1520 into law, a bill that bans the force feeding of ducks and geese in the production of foie gras. The bill also bans the sale of the product when made from force fed birds."

11.15.04
THE DOCKET: It's a lot of responsibility, being tasked with announcing every birthday, baby, graduation and sex scandal you people have. But I try. Therefore, HK officially reports the birth of DYLAN HUDSON (brother of Lily), who appeared two months early (but is doing fine). Also the great Mrs. Deborah Schwartz was TWENTY-EIGHT yesterday. And, in case we haven't made it clear, Caryn Compton has joined the ranks of the lawyer class. Divorce? Injury? DUI? Call Caryn. And congratulations to me and my roomies, who have succeeded in purchasing the EMERSON STREET HOUSE of fun. It's like a dream I never had come true.

SP and I are just returned from Brooklyn and Boston. I'll post some pictures later - have to work right now. Oh, so long Colin Powell! We look forward to your catastrophic nervous breakdown, and/or book.

11.11.04

Not to be missed: Rainbow TV "Twangers" clip, found by Underblog. "For those of you who don't know, 'Rainbow' was a credible childrens TV show from the 70's and 80's. This clip was actually broadcast and watched by millions."

I know we've looked at this before, but Claire sent it again, and it's worth pondering some more: Fundrace: Neighbor Watch.

Boston Dana says, "you know I'm always up on the beauty pageant news.....so I thought I'd answer your request for content: The Miss Queen 2004 Photo Gallery. "..the first-ever international transvestite beauty pageant."

I'm off for a long weekend up the blue Eastern seaboard. If you live in Boston or New York, plan to see me. Let's part with some humble lines by the great Barry Manilow (actually by Bruce Johnston).

"I've been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song. I put the words and the melodies together, I am music, and I write the songs."

11.10.04
The whole world has sent me this (plus BWA linked it all week), but it keeps growing - so here it is again: Sorry Everybody, wherein people apologize (pictorially) to the world for Bush's re-election. Chairman Meow favorite below.

As a five-time BMW owner, I swear it's true. From the venerable Washington Express:

Send me stuff people. I am very busy. Better yet, just take over for a bit. Please. Mommy needs a vacation.

I'm taking a little break from the site. Want to fill in? Entries of any sort on any subject will be appreciated. Unless they're really bad. Then I'll pretend your email got lost. Meanwhile, here's more piling on from we the losers.

STONE SOUP EDITION. Yum city. Thanks to the Brits for the new mast. Also, may Les and Jaime have the best birthdays ever.

Stuff from Danar: "The British are mourning with us... here's a couple good ones forwarded to me today: I loved this one's entertaining writing: GOD HELP AMERICA. This one is actually constructive and optimistic: Kerry should be glad he lost. Even if heading for Canada just ensures that the Jesus freaks win next time too... it's nice to know that the Canadians are willing to help us: Marry an American." There's some interesting spinning going on at The Emerging Democratic Majority WebLog that may hearten you.

My friend Matt just wrote me, asking how Emerson's weekly taco night went. But who has time to answer emails when you run a media empire like this one? Hey Matt - taco night was great. I believe I ranted incoherently on the porch; Anisha, Les, Rebecca, and Zombie Ed all soundly kicked my ass in some fighting game; we spent a curiously long time moving a Ninja cat head magnet over the faces of everyone on our refrigerator, trying to decide which was the most hilarious; at midnight we all called JAIME HOTDISH to wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY; watched The Daily Show; watched the video of the cat leaping out of the bushes and knocking that toddler down, again and again, AND we sang along to softcore Playboy karaoke videos Les just got from her dad. Yes. Taco night was good. For several hours I was nearly free of my wordly cares and woes.

Finally, from one Adam Felber (brought to our attention by Deb D.) the concession speech we all wanted to hear, reprinted here in its entirety, because I have a bunch of random pictures I feel like posting. Especially, the chipmunk glaucoma victim, sent by Zulk.

The Concession Speech We All Wanted to Hear

[Former candidate Adam Felber, flanked by his family and supporters, steps up to the podium in the bright autumn sunlight. Cheers and applause are heard.]

My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession.

I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.

I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that.

I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do.

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Letme tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"

More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.

Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.

Being an independent candidate gives me one luxury - as well as conceding the election today, I am also announcing my candidacy for President in 2008.

And I make this pledge to you today: THIS time, next time, there will be no pandering. This time I will run with all the open and joking contempt for my opponents that our President demonstrated towards the cradle of liberty, the Ivy League intellectuals, the "media elite," and the "white-wine sippers." This time I will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don't.

So that's why I'm asking for your vote in 2008, America. I'm talking to you, you ignorant, slack-jawed yokels, you bible-thumping, inbred drones, you redneck, racist, chest-thumping, perennially duped grade-school grads. Vote for me, because I know better, and I truly believe that I can help your smug, sorry asses. Vote Felber in '08! Thank you, and may God, if he does in fact exist, bless each and every one of you.

[Tumultuous cheers, applause, and foot-stomping. PULL BACK to reveal the rest of the stage, the row of cameras, hundreds of unoccupied chairs, and the empty field beyond.]

11.04.04
GROUP THERAPY EDITION: All right, enough moping. Beers are for shotgunning in the backyard, not for crying in. Time to soldier on and cowboy up and all that. Please send feel good stuff c/o Chairman Meow. Let's get started. Bob? "Most of these aren't very good, but if you scroll down to the last one, it's funny." Misinterpreted Movie Titles, from somethingawful.com. I actually prefer another of their Photoshop Phridays, Children's Books All Grown Up.

Jaimehotdish, another new Brooklynite and natural consoler, tries to console us. She also knows what to do with beer. "For reals, kids, it's not that bad. we still have each other, beer, vodka, wine, cherry limeades from sonic and the hope of barack and hillary." She also sent the amusing new map, below.

Brian, who we hope will resurrect the BWA Campaign Blog, might not have taken the joke properly, but I very heartily agree with his sentiment:

Thank you, Jaime and Brian. Let's have more of that kind of stuff. From my dad, who ALSO knows what to do with beer:

But what to do? Ohio native, Boston resident, and Reciplex abandoner Dana suggests atheist missionaries to the

South.

We're also loving on Planned Parenthood today. Sarah immediately signed up for volunteering this morning. And Shauna wrote,

As someone who has lived in a tent, I'll offer this advice: get a guard dog, or you may come "home" to find all your stuff in a heap and your house stolen.

To summarize, let's stick together, do good things, destroy property if you must, go ahead and toss some Christians to the lions, and don't drink for sadness - drink for happiness. Ok, I hope that was cathartic. Love, JM.

11.03.04
I don't know what to say today. Neither, it seems, does Bears Will Attack. I've never seen so many of the people I care about all crushed and despairing at once. Obama-land's Zulk might have the right idea. Across-the-sea Random offered this cheery bit: Savonarola. Oh, and the GOP has come to wish Sherm an unhappy birthday. But she seems to be taking it well.

Despite the fact that the beginning of the end of the world is nigh, I, like you, have to go on working. I'll update through the day, if I can find the heart.

California:
Agonizing wait --
twelve hours til Daily Show.
Must have satire!

Burkittsville, Md.:
a Republican wife
all the whils't we've been married,
finally saw the light,
and voted for Kerry.

Baltimore, Md.:
Time to say goodbye to Bush,
Don't let the door hit him in the tush.

Chicago, Ill.:
I simply can't take
the stress of this election.
Please give me a drink!

MoveOn sent this Bill Moyers speech this morning. It's long, so click on the title to expand, or listen to the mp3. Text of speech to the Take Back America conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, June 4, 2003, Washington, DC:

This is Your Story — The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality -- one nation, indivisible -- or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

Let me make it clear that I don't harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy; I worked for Lyndon Johnson, remember? Nor do I romanticize "the people." You should read my mail -- or listen to the vitriol virtually spat at my answering machine. I understand what the politician meant who said of the Texas House of Representatives, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents."

But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.

Look at our history. All of us know that the American Revolution ushered in what one historian called "The Age of Democratic Revolutions." For the Great Seal of the United States the new Congress went all the way back to the Roman poet Virgil: Novus Ordo Seclorum" -- "a new age now begins." Page Smith reminds us that "their ambition was not merely to free themselves from dependence and subordination to the Crown but to inspire people everywhere to create agencies of government and forms of common social life that would offer greater dignity and hope to the exploited and suppressed" -- to those, in other words, who had been the losers. Not surprisingly, the winners often resisted. In the early years of constitution-making in the states and emerging nation, aristocrats wanted a government of propertied "gentlemen" to keep the scales tilted in their favor. Battling on the other side were moderates and even those radicals harboring the extraordinary idea of letting all white males have the vote. Luckily, the weapons were words and ideas, not bullets. Through compromise and conciliation the draftsmen achieved a Constitution of checks and balances that is now the oldest in the world, even as the revolution of democracy that inspired it remains a tempestuous adolescent whose destiny is still up for grabs. For all the rhetoric about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it took a civil war to free the slaves and another hundred years to invest their freedom with meaning. Women only gained the right to vote in my mother's time. New ages don't arrive overnight, or without "blood, sweat, and tears."

You know this. You are the heirs of one of the country's great traditions -- the progressive movement that started late in the l9th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century. I call it the progressive movement for lack of a more precise term. Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician. Progressives exalted and extended the original American revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history, not only here but in aspiring democracies everywhere, especially those of western Europe.

Step back with me to the curtain-raiser, the founding convention of the People's Party -- better known as the Populists -- in 1892. The members were mainly cotton and wheat farmers from the recently reconstructed South and the newly settled Great Plains, and they had come on hard, hard times, driven to the wall by falling prices for their crops on one hand and racking interest rates, freight charges and supply costs on the other. This in the midst of a booming and growing industrial America. They were angry, and their platform -- issued deliberately on the 4th of July -- pulled no punches. "We meet," it said, "in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin....Corruption dominates the ballot box, the [state] legislatures and the Congress and touches even the bench.....The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced....The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few."

Furious words from rural men and women who were traditionally conservative and whose memories of taming the frontier were fresh and personal. But in their fury they invoked an American tradition as powerful as frontier individualism -- the war on inequality and especially on the role that government played in promoting and preserving inequality by favoring the rich. The Founding Fathers turned their backs on the idea of property qualifications for holding office under the Constitution because they wanted no part of a 'veneration for wealth" in the document. Thomas Jefferson, while claiming no interest in politics, built up a Republican Party -- no relation to the present one -- to take the government back from the speculators and "stock-jobbers," as he called them, who were in the saddle in 1800. Andrew Jackson slew the monster Second Bank of the United States, the 600-pound gorilla of the credit system in the 1830s, in the name of the people versus the aristocrats who sat on the bank's governing board.

All these leaders were on record in favor of small government -- but their opposition wasn't simply to government as such. It was to government's power to confer privilege on insiders; on the rich who were democracy's equivalent of the royal favorites of monarchist days. (It's what the FCC does today.) The Populists knew it was the government that granted millions of acres of public land to the railroad builders. It was the government that gave the manufacturers of farm machinery a monopoly of the domestic market by a protective tariff that was no longer necessary to shelter "infant industries." It was the government that contracted the national currency and sparked a deflationary cycle that crushed debtors and fattened the wallets of creditors. And those who made the great fortunes used them to buy the legislative and judicial favors that kept them on top. So the Populists recognized one great principle: the job of preserving equality of opportunity and democracy demanded the end of any unholy alliance between government and wealth. It was, to quote that platform again, "from the same womb of governmental injustice" that tramps and millionaires were bred.

But how? How was the democratic revolution to be revived? The promise of the Declaration reclaimed? How were Americans to restore government to its job of promoting the general welfare? And here, the Populists made a breakthrough to another principle. In a modern, large-scale, industrial and nationalized economy it wasn't enough simply to curb the government's outreach. That would simply leave power in the hands of the great corporations whose existence was inseparable from growth and progress. The answer was to turn government into an active player in the economy at the very least enforcing fair play, and when necessary being the friend, the helper and the agent of the people at large in the contest against entrenched power. So the Populist platform called for government loans to farmers about to lose their mortgaged homesteads -- for government granaries to grade and store their crops fairly -- for governmental inflation of the currency, which was a classical plea of debtors -- and for some decidedly non-classical actions like government ownership of the railroad, telephone and telegraph systems and a graduated -- i.e., progressive tax on incomes and a flat ban on subsidies to "any private corporation." And to make sure the government stayed on the side of the people, the 'Pops' called for the initiative and referendum and the direct election of Senators.

Predictably, the Populists were denounced, feared and mocked as fanatical hayseeds ignorantly playing with socialist fire. They got twenty-two electoral votes for their candidate in '92, plus some Congressional seats and state houses, but it was downhill from there for many reasons. America wasn't -- and probably still isn't -- ready for a new major party. The People's Party was a spent rocket by 1904. But if political organizations perish, their key ideas don't -- keep that in mind, because it give prospective to your cause today. Much of the Populist agenda would become law within a few years of the party's extinction. And that was because it was generally shared by a rising generation of young Republicans and Democrats who, justly or not, were seen as less outrageously outdated than the embattled farmers. These were the progressives, your intellectual forebears and mine.

One of my heroes in all of this is William Allen White, a Kansas country editor -- a Republican -- who was one of them. He described his fellow progressives this way:

"What the people felt about the vast injustice that had come with the settlement of a continent, we, their servants -- teachers, city councilors, legislators, governors, publishers, editors, writers, representatives in Congress and Senators -- all made a part of our creed. Some way, into the hearts of the dominant middle class of this country, had come a sense that their civilization needed recasting, that their government had fallen into the hands of self-seekers, that a new relationship should be established between the haves and the have-nots."

They were a diverse lot, held together by a common admiration of progress -- hence the name -- and a shared dismay at the paradox of poverty stubbornly persisting in the midst of progress like an unwanted guest at a wedding. Of course they welcomed, just as we do, the new marvels in the gift-bag of technology -- the telephones, the autos, the electrically-powered urban transport and lighting systems, the indoor heating and plumbing, the processed foods and home appliances and machine-made clothing that reduced the sweat and drudgery of home-making and were affordable to an ever-swelling number of people. But they saw the underside, too -- the slums lurking in the shadows of the glittering cities, the exploited and unprotected workers whose low-paid labor filled the horn of plenty for others, the misery of those whom age, sickness, accident or hard times condemned to servitude and poverty with no hope of comfort or security.

This is what's hard to believe -- hardly a century had passed since 1776 before the still-young revolution was being strangled in the hard grip of a merciless ruling class. The large corporations that were called into being by modern industrialism after 1865 -- the end of the Civil War -- had combined into trusts capable of making minions of both politics and government. What Henry George called "an immense wedge" was being forced through American society by "the maldistribution of wealth, status, and opportunity."

We should pause here to consider that this is Karl Rove's cherished period of American history; it was, as I read him, the seminal influence on the man who is said to be George W.'s brain. From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley, who was in the White House from 1897 to 1901, and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley. Hanna had one consummate passion -- to serve corporate and imperial power. It was said that he believed "without compunction, that the state of Ohio existed for property. It had no other function...Great wealth was to be gained through monopoly, through using the State for private ends; it was axiomatic therefore that businessmen should run the government and run it for personal profit."

Mark Hanna -- Karl Rove's hero -- made William McKinley governor of Ohio by shaking down the corporate interests of the day. Fortunately, McKinley had the invaluable gift of emitting sonorous platitudes as though they were recently discovered truth. Behind his benign gaze the wily intrigues of Mark Hanna saw to it that first Ohio and then Washington were "ruled by business...by bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." Any who opposed the oligarchy were smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, "or worse." Back then they didn't bother with hollow euphemisms like "compassionate conservatism" to disguise the raw reactionary politics that produced government "of, by, and for" the ruling corporate class. They just saw the loot and went for it.

The historian Clinton Rossiter describes this as the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history." Conservatives -- or better, pro-corporate apologists -- hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress", "opportunity", and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was hijacked, too, so that conservative politicians, judges, and publicists promoted, as if it were, the natural order of things, the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the "survival of the fittest."

This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove -- the reputed brain of George W. Bush -- as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today.

No wonder that what troubled our progressive forebears was not only the miasma of poverty in their nostrils, but the sour stink of a political system for sale. The United States Senate was a "millionaire's club." Money given to the political machines that controlled nominations could buy controlling influence in city halls, state houses and even courtrooms. Reforms and improvements ran into the immovable resistance of the almighty dollar. What, progressives wondered, would this do to the principles of popular government? Because all of them, whatever party they subscribed to, were inspired by the gospel of democracy. Inevitably, this swept them into the currents of politics, whether as active officeholders or persistent advocates.

Here's a small, but representative sampling of their ranks. Jane Addams forsook the comforts of a middle-class college graduate's life to live in Hull House in the midst of a disease-ridden and crowded Chicago immigrant neighborhood, determined to make it an educational and social center that would bring pride, health and beauty into the lives of her poor neighbors. She was inspired by "an almost passionate devotion to the ideals of democracy," to combating the prevailing notion "that the well being of a privileged few might justly be built upon the ignorance and sacrifice of the many." Community and fellowship were the lessons she drew from her teachers, Jesus and Abraham Lincoln. But people simply helping one another couldn't move mountains of disadvantage. She came to see that "private beneficence" wasn't enough. But to bring justice to the poor would take more than soup kitchens and fundraising prayer meetings. "Social arrangements," she wrote, "can be transformed through man's conscious and deliberate effort." Take note -- not individual regeneration or the magic of the market, but conscious, cooperative effort.

Meet a couple of muckraking journalists. Jacob Riis lugged his heavy camera up and down the staircases of New York's disease-ridden, firetrap tenements to photograph the unspeakable crowding, the inadequate toilets, the starved and hollow-eyed children and the filth on the walls so thick that his crude flash equipment sometimes set it afire. Bound between hard covers, with Riis's commentary, they showed comfortable New Yorkers "How the Other Half Lives." They were powerful ammunition for reformers who eventually brought an end to tenement housing by state legislation. And Lincoln Steffens, college and graduate-school educated, left his books to learn life from the bottom up as a police-beat reporter on New York's streets. Then, as a magazine writer, he exposed the links between city bosses and businessmen that made it possible for builders and factory owners to ignore safety codes and get away with it. But the villain was neither the boodler nor the businessman. It was the indifference of a public that "deplore[d] our politics and laud[ed] our business; that transformed law, medicine, literature and religion into simply business. Steffens was out to slay the dragon of exalting "the commercial spirit" over the goals of patriotism and national prosperity. "I am not a scientist," he said. "I am a journalist. I did not gather the facts and arrange them patiently for permanent preservation and laboratory analysis....My purpose was. ...to see if the shameful facts, spread out in all their shame, would not burn through our civic shamelessness and set fire to American pride."

If corrupt politics bred diseases that could be fatal to democracy, then good politics was the antidote. That was the discovery of Ray Stannard Baker, another journalistic progressive who started out with a detest for election-time catchwords and slogans. But he came to see that "Politics could not be abolished or even adjourned...it was in its essence the method by which communities worked out their common problems. It was one of the principle arts of living peacefully in a crowded world," he said [Compare that to Grover Norquist's latest declaration of war on the body politic. "We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals -- and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship." He went on to say that bi-partisanship is another name for date rape."]

There are more, too many more to call to the witness stand here, but I want you to hear some of the things they had to say. There were educators like the economist John R. Commons or the sociologist Edward A. Ross who believed that the function of "social science" wasn't simply to dissect society for non-judgmental analysis and academic promotion, but to help in finding solutions to social problems. It was Ross who pointed out that morality in a modern world had a social dimension. In "Sin and Society," written in 1907, he told readers that the sins "blackening the face of our time" were of a new variety, and not yet recognized as such. "The man who picks pockets with a railway rebate, murders with an adulterant instead of a bludgeon, burglarizes with a 'rake-off' instead of a jimmy, cheats with a company instead of a deck of cards, or scuttles his town instead of his ship, does not feel on his brow the brand of a malefactor." In other words upstanding individuals could plot corporate crimes and sleep the sleep of the just without the sting of social stigma or the pangs of conscience. Like Kenneth Lay, they could even be invited into the White House to write their own regulations.

And here are just two final bits of testimony from actual politicians -- first, Brand Whitlock, Mayor of Toledo. He is one of my heroes because he first learned his politics as a beat reporter in Chicago, confirming my own experience that there's nothing better than journalism to turn life into a continuing course in adult education. One of his lessons was that "the alliance between the lobbyists and the lawyers of the great corporation interests on the one hand, and the managers of both the great political parties on the other, was a fact, the worst feature of which was that no one seemed to care."

And then there is Tom Johnson, the progressive mayor of Cleveland in the early nineteen hundreds -- a businessman converted to social activism. His major battles were to impose regulation, or even municipal takeover, on the private companies that were meant to provide affordable public transportation and utilities but in fact crushed competitors, overcharged customers, secured franchises and licenses for a song, and paid virtually nothing in taxes -- all through their pocketbook control of lawmakers and judges. Johnson's argument for public ownership was simple: "If you don't own them, they will own you. It's why advocates of Clean Elections today argue that if anybody's going to buy Congress, it should be the people." When advised that businessmen got their way in Washington because they had lobbies and consumers had none, Tom Johnson responded: "If Congress were true to the principles of democracy it would be the people's lobby." What a radical contrast to the House of Representatives today!

Our political, moral, and intellectual forbearance occupy a long and honorable roster. They include wonderful characters like Dr. Alice Hamilton, a pioneer in industrially-caused diseases, who spent long years clambering up and down ladders in factories and mineshafts -- in long skirts! -- tracking down the unsafe toxic substances that sickened the workers whom she would track right into their sickbeds to get leads and tip-offs on where to hunt. Or Harvey Wiley, the chemist from Indiana who, from a bureaucrat's desk in the Department of Agriculture, relentlessly warred on foods laden with risky preservatives and adulterants with the help of his "poison squad" of young assistants who volunteered as guinea pigs. Or lawyers like the brilliant Harvard graduate Louis Brandeis, who took on corporate attorneys defending child labor or long and harsh conditions for female workers. Brandeis argued that the state had a duty to protect the health of working women and children.

To be sure, these progressives weren't all saints. Their glory years coincided with the heyday of lynching and segregation, of empire and the Big Stick and the bold theft of the Panama Canal, of immigration restriction and ethnic stereotypes. Some were themselves businessmen only hoping to control an unruly marketplace by regulation. But by and large they were conservative reformers. They aimed to preserve the existing balance between wealth and commonwealth. Their common enemy was unchecked privilege, their common hope was a better democracy, and their common weapon was informed public opinion.

In a few short years the progressive spirit made possible the election not only of reform mayors and governors but of national figures like Senator George Norris of Nebraska, Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin, and even that hard-to-classify political genius, Theodore Roosevelt. All three of them Republicans. Here is the simplest laundry-list of what was accomplished at state and Federal levels: Publicly regulated or owned transportation, sanitation and utilities systems. The partial restoration of competition in the marketplace through improved antitrust laws. Increased fairness in taxation. Expansion of the public education and juvenile justice systems. Safer workplaces and guarantees of compensation to workers injured on the job. Oversight of the purity of water, medicines and foods. Conservation of the national wilderness heritage against overdevelopment, and honest bidding on any public mining, lumbering and ranching. We take these for granted today -- or we did until recently. All were provided not by the automatic workings of free enterprise but by implementing the idea in the Declaration of Independence that the people had a right to governments that best promoted their "safety and happiness."

The mighty progressive wave peaked in 1912. But the ideas leashed by it forged the politics of the 20th century. Like his cousin Theodore, Franklin Roosevelt argued that the real enemy of enlightened capitalism was "the malefactors of great wealth" -- the "economic royalists" -- from whom capitalism would have to be saved by reform and regulation. Progressive government became an embedded tradition of Democrats -- the heart of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and honored even by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who didn't want to tear down the house progressive ideas had built -- only to put it under different managers. The progressive impulse had its final fling in the landslide of 1969 when LBJ, who was a son of the West Texas hill country, where the Populist rebellion had been nurtured in the 1890s, won the public endorsement for what he meant to be the capstone in the arch of the New Deal.

I had a modest role in that era. I shared in its exhilaration and its failures. We went too far too fast, overreached at home and in Vietnam, failed to examine some assumptions, and misjudged the rising discontents and fierce backlash engendered by war, race, civil disturbance, violence and crime. Democrats grew so proprietary in this town that a fat, complacent political establishment couldn't recognize its own intellectual bankruptcy or the beltway that was growing around it and beginning to separate it from the rest of the country. The failure of democratic politicians and public thinkers to respond to popular discontents -- to the daily lives of workers, consumers, parents, and ordinary taxpayers -- allowed a resurgent conservatism to convert public concern and hostility into a crusade to resurrect social Darwinism as a moral philosophy, multinational corporations as a governing class, and the theology of markets as a transcendental belief system.

As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed -- to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington -- the same Grover Norquist -- has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" -- one of the states -- "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.

It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime. I'll be frank with you: I simply don't understand it -- or the malice in which it is steeped. Many people are nostalgic for a golden age. These people seem to long for the Gilded Age. That I can grasp. They measure America only by their place on the material spectrum and they bask in the company of the new corporate aristocracy, as privileged a class as we have seen since the plantation owners of antebellum America and the court of Louis IV. What I can't explain is the rage of the counter-revolutionaries to dismantle every last brick of the social contract. At this advanced age I simply have to accept the fact that the tension between haves and have-nots is built into human psychology and society itself -- it's ever with us. However, I'm just as puzzled as to why, with right wing wrecking crews blasting away at social benefits once considered invulnerable, Democrats are fearful of being branded "class warriors" in a war the other side started and is determined to win. I don't get why conceding your opponent's premises and fighting on his turf isn't the sure-fire prescription for irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence. But I confess as well that I don't know how to resolve the social issues that have driven wedges into your ranks. And I don't know how to reconfigure democratic politics to fit into an age of soundbites and polling dominated by a media oligarchy whose corporate journalists are neutered and whose right-wing publicists have no shame.

What I do know is this: While the social dislocations and meanness that galvanized progressives in the 19th century are resurgent so is the vision of justice, fairness, and equality. That's a powerful combination if only there are people around to fight for it. The battle to renew democracy has enormous resources to call upon -- and great precedents for inspiration. Consider the experience of James Bryce, who published "The Great Commonwealth" back in 1895 at the height of the First Gilded Age. Americans, Bryce said, "were hopeful and philanthropic." He saw first-hand the ills of that "dark and unlovely age," but he went on to say: " A hundred times I have been disheartened by the facts I was stating: a hundred times has the recollection of the abounding strength and vitality of the nation chased away those tremors."

What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" -- and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work -- our work.

Ideas have power -- as long as they are not frozen in doctrine. But ideas need legs. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage, the conservation of natural resources and the protection of our air, water, and land, women's rights and civil rights, free trade unions, Social Security and a civil service based on merit -- all these were launched as citizen's movements and won the endorsement of the political class only after long struggles and in the face of bitter opposition and sneering attacks. It's just a fact: Democracy doesn't work without citizen activism and participation, starting at the community. Trickle down politics doesn't work much better than trickle down economics. It's also a fact that civilization happens because we don't leave things to other people. What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it -- as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit -- to believe that the flame of democracy will never go out as long as there's one candle in your hand.

So go for it. Never mind the odds. Remember what the progressives faced. Karl Rove isn't tougher than Mark Hanna was in his time and a hundred years from now some historian will be wondering how it was that Norquist and Company got away with it as long as they did -- how they waged war almost unopposed on the infrastructure of social justice, on the arrangements that make life fair, on the mutual rights and responsibilities that offer opportunity, civil liberties, and a decent standard of living to the least among us.

"Democracy is not a lie" -- I first learned that from Henry Demarest Lloyd, the progressive journalist whose book, "Wealth against Commonwealth," laid open the Standard trust a century ago. Lloyd came to the conclusion to "Regenerate the individual is a half truth. The reorganization of the society which he makes and which makes him is the other part. The love of liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated group of strengths known as the government of the United States." And it was then he said: "Democracy is not a lie. There live in the body of the commonality unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshed strength which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of tapping some reserve of their power of self-help," he said, "this story is told to the people."

This is your story -- the progressive story of America.

Pass it on.

11.01.04
Happy last day of the Bush era. Speaking of the end of the '80s all over again, last night a few of us settled in for an evening of Halloween recovery at the olde Emerson Street house (est. 1910). After sending off the last of the marginally costumed trick-or-treaters ("I'm a student!" "I'm nothing."), we cued up John Carpenter's They Live ("You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong."), a one-trick pony so of its time, so very, very 1988, it was impossible to watch as anything other than a strange but familiar artifact. Plus, it was really crappy. It starred Rowdy Roddy Piper, who wasn't that bad, with poor Meg Tilly as the love interest/femme fatale. There was exactly one good idea and one scary idea in the whole plodding mess - the world is run by rich aliens from "Andromeda" (I thought they were zombies), who keep humans submissive and blind to "reality" using a satellite signal and subliminal messages, more or less. Roddy stumbles upon some oversized Wayfarers the rebel alliance have developed which allow them to see the Truth - the truth being that we live in a colorless world full of hidden commands to SUBMIT, OBEY, and CONSUME, and that those in power walk among us, but have heads that look like x-rays of dead people (that was the creepy part). So, we have some LSD, peeling away layers-of-reality kind of stuff going on, and the evil rich, who move freely without care for laws or nations, and cops beating people in L.A., and black guy-white guy buddy-buddiness, and homeless families in tent cities, and some dawning ideas of globalism and corporate power, all backed by some horrible, terrible bass and harmonica down-and-out hobo music.

Now it seems like the '80s were so hopeful and naive. Is that how 20 years ago always seems? I don't know. But here are some wicked Zombie Prom attendees. And see below the fold for news from my Dad from The Heart of it All.

First the Redskins, lose. And finally, the right-leaning Columbus Dispatch most recent poll on Friday indicates the race is a dead heat in Franklin County. This is significant because the state splits along the ideological fault line of I-70, with everything south of here to Cincinnati going red and the Toledo-Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown axis going blue. Metro Columbus population has eclipsed both Cleveland and Cincinnati since you've lived here, so we are the very epicenter of a major swing state.

I'm on my way to spend a shift at the county democrats phone bank harassing people during their dinner hour to vote for change.

I'm making this simple appeal: Call all your whining and/or outraged friends and remind them now's their chance to throw the bums out, regardless of how they feel about our imperfect electoral process. And if you ever say a prayer to whatever gods of karma, divinity, comedy or justice you invoke in times of crisis, this would be a good time to ask for a blessing for us all.

Ward 2 Council Member, 4-year term, partisan office.

Jack Evans, Incumbent. Democratic Party Candidate. Really, we'll take the birdman, Jack Evans.

Position Statement: "Jack enjoys doing the 'other half of his Council job' by addressing the many challenges that arise daily in Ward 2's twelve distinct neighborhoods."

Jay Houston Marx. D.C. Statehood Green Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "My priorities: Education First! Transportation Solutions. Healthcare For All. Citywide Recycling for all businesses (People will do the right thing if Government makes it easy for us.) Twenty-five cent local pay-phone calls."

Jesse James Price, Senior. Republican Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "He is in recovery for mental illness for more than 32 years. He lives independently in a small apartment."

HK's choice: We're impressed with Jesse James' apartment, but, you know when you pass out on the last train home, wake up at the end of the line, and find that your cellphone's dead? And now you've got to dig around for 50 damn cents for a payphone? Fuck that. Vote MARX.

(Actually, vote for Jack Evans. He seems normal, and his wife just died of cancer, and HK hates cancer.)

Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, 2-year term, partisan office.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Incumbent. Democratic Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "Four victories stand out: D.C.'s $5,000 Homebuyer and Business tax credits; A regionally sponsored bipartisan $800 million bill for D.C. that increases annually; D.C. Budget Autonomy passed in the Senate; D.C.'s gun law saved from repeal."

Michael Andrew Moore. Republican Party Candidate. 25-year old Republican, looks like a jackass.

Position Statement: "I'm Michael Andrew Moore, a third-generation DC Native, and I would like your vote."

HK's choice: Too bad, Michael. We don't like Republicans. Besides, you're only 25, and you look like a jackass.

At-Large Member of the Council, 4-year term, partisan office.

Carol Schwartz, Incumbent. Republican Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "I love this city and its people. I bring a history of accessibility, responsiveness, and compassion, as well as what I believe is a well-deserved reputation for being open-minded and straight-forward."

Laurent Ross. D.C. Statehood Green Party Candidate. Probably not that bad a person, despite party affiliation.

Position Statement: "I think the incumbent, Carol Schwartz, is bad for your health."

Kwame Brown. Democratic Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "Member, Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. I will provide summer jobs for students with 50% set aside for vocational training, to ensure every student that meets school attendance requirements will graduate with an employable skill."

HK's choice: The media's been tough on Kwame, accusing him of being lazy and not worth the Wizard's number one pick. We say, give him a chance.

Ward 7 Council Member, 4-year term, partisan office.

Michelle Tingling-Clemmons. D.C. Statehood Green Party Candidate. fed most children without errors.

Position Statement: "Brother, Supreme Court Judge. Hosted radio talk show host 3 years. Directed Agency for Child Nutrition Programs, two years, fed most children in summer 2001 (without errors)."

Jerod Tolson. Republican Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "Completed 2 years at Georgetown University School of Business. If a young man in Ward 7 has the learning capacity to steal a car, then he has the learning capacity to fix a car."

HK's choice: Um, we're going to have to go with the Democratic candidate, Mr. Vincent C. Gray. He really cares about retarded people, too.

Ward 8 Council Member, 4-year term, partisan office.

Marion Barry. Democratic Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "I will introduce legislation for a mandatory 10-year sentence for anyone caught with a gun."

W. Cardell Shelton. Republican Party Candidate.
Position Statement: He has circulated a petition calling for the recall of Mayor Anthony Williams. "He has failed the city, with blatant cowardice and incompetence. He has let unions, big businesses and banks control our city. He is a racist, who doesn't support Black businesses, and is determined to put all Blacks out of business. He has no Blacks working on our neighborhood projects."

HK's choice: Faced with a choice of crazy old men, we'll take the crackhead. We don't like city people with guns, either. Sally adds, "I'm surprised that Barry would be a fan of mandatory sentences for *anything* after he got set-up by those bitches."

U.S. Representative (unpaid statehood lobbyist)

Ray Brown. Democratic Party Candidate.
Position Statement: "I fully support statehood for D.C. Although interim steps may move us in that direction, only statehood gives us control of our budget and courts." Named daugher Arundhati

Adam Eidinger. D.C. Statehood Green Party Candidate.
Position Statement: Named his daughter Arundhati. "I plan to mobilize hundreds of D.C. citizens to visit Capitol Hill for a Strike for Statehood, an annual holiday to be celebrated on October 1, the first day of the federal fiscal year."

HK's choice: Well, the hipster has "identity glasses" and will give us a holiday. The other guy seems pretty boring. We'll take the boring dude.

* * * * * *

PHEW!

ROUNDUP: 2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes by Dan Savage and Company. Love The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib. From Seattle man Eskridge. From Bob: "i almost feel bad about sending this. i could not help but read it. i don't know if you'll wanna post it, read it, or just delete, but here it is--a scene by scene script summary for star wars, episode 3, revenge of the sith (beware of spoilers)." Speaking of nerds, from Bostonian Dana King, "And last but not least, for all of my favorite geeks who have actually read this entire email.... the Star Wars/Red Sox analogy depicted in amusing fashion. Woo-HOO! YAY RED SOX! I read that the players are getting statues near Fenway. Weird! But it promises new opportunities for pilgrimmages to the bronzy "Mesmer-thighs" of Jason Varitek/Han Solo. That's all. Now I shall take a victory nap under my desk." And finally, watch that Skins/Packers game on Sunday. From SSB, Trend: As the Redskins go, so goes the election.

10.25.04
So many things to worry about. Will we be eaten by zombies? Will we grow old, bitter and unpublished? Will we become zombies, and eat our friends? Will the Republicans steal another election? Probably. Tomorrow we'll post the widely-anticipated OFFICIAL HECK'S KITCHEN VOTING GUIDE and HK's SUPER ENDORSEMENTS. Today, Constitutional scholar Underblog explains why we might get fucked again. "Four times in the illustrious history of our American political democracy, the man who became President was NOT the choice of the majority of voters. The four were John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and most egregiously, George W. Bush in 2000." [20dissidents]. Please see Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 and 2000 results by state and BWA Campaign Blog for supporting materials. Without further ado, HK proudly presents.....

What is an Electoral College, and Why Do We Have One?

The Electoral College is how the US chooses its president. It reflects our "partly national, partly federal form" of government.*

The Electoral College is composed of Electors delegated from each of the 50 states and 3 from DC. The number of Electors each state sends is the sum of the number of Senators and Representatives it sends to Congress. Thus, South Dakota has 3 because the entire State is one congressional district, while California with 53 congressional districts has 55.

Each state legislature is responsible for choosing its Electors. All states except Maine and Nebraska (and possibly Colorado, after Tuesday) are "winner take all"; whoever wins the popular vote in the state gets all the State's electors. This way, the State retains the maximum possible impact on the outcome of the vote. Electors however are not bound to vote for the candidate who wins in their state (or their district, in the case of Nebraska and Maine); usually when an Elector "defects," it is merely as an inconsequential protest vote. State parties determine the identity of the Electors; they are usually people with long track records of party service.

A majority (270) of the electors in the College is needed to choose a President. If no candidate wins a majority, the House of Representatives decides, each state delegation having one vote. A majority of the States are needed to elect a President.

California and Texas think they're all that.

Why do we have an Electoral College? Why not have direct majority elections instead?

Like many provisions in the Constitution, the College was the result of compromise between large states and small states. It may be fairly argued that states are less important today, given the nature of interstate commerce. Two sorts of arguments can be made here: practical and theoretical.

Since the Electoral College is established in the Constitution (see Twelfth Amendment), it will take a constitutional amendment to change it. Amendments to the Constitution take ratification of three quarters (ie, 38) of the states. Since the 21 smallest states combined have a population less than California's, it is unlikely that they will cede their disproportional electoral influence to the more populous states. For example, Wyoming has 3 Electors, or 1 for 166,666 residents. California has 55 electors, or 1 for every 800,000 residents. Is it possible that Wyoming will ever give up its votes when it can only lose and not gain from the arrangement?

If we take national popular majorities to be a better method of determining leadership than state by state representation, then we might as well do away with the Senate as well. (This is actually impossible: no amendment to the Constitution can deny a State its equal representation in the Senate without its consent—see Article V.) After all, it is disproportionate representation in the Senate that gives small states their influence in the Electoral College.

Undoing the College would certainly weaken federalism, viewed by many as an essential check on powerful central government. States would cease to matter electorally, so large geographic areas of the country would tend to be permanently ignored by presidential candidates.

For better or for worse, it is the Constitution which establishes the form of government which Americans have today. As parties to the Constitution, the states through their legislatures (or popular conventions) have to approve changes to it. Whether or not we consider ourselves Marylanders or Minnesotans, when we vote for President, that is how we are counted.

Thanks UB! Now here's a great story, sent by Bob and Shauna, Dwarf Human Ancestors Lived on Pacific Island: Three-Foot-Tall Hunters Existed 18,000 Years Ago. Amazing these small hominids lived at the same time as modern humans, far later than Neandertals, which were thought to be the last of the other human races. Agreed paleoanthropologist Ken Mowbray, of the American Museum of Natural History, "It's really cool."

10.25.04
We've got a great show for you today. First up, LIVE (LIVE) FROM NEW YORK! ATOMIC BOMBING: HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF (RT). This handy booklet's cheerful message includes passages like this:

Speaking of the future of D.C., tune in tomorrow for the OFFICIAL HECK'S KITCHEN VOTING GUIDE and HK SUPER ENDORSEMENTS. Because there's other stuff on that ballot, and that other stuff will actually count.

HORROR VIDEO! A while back I caught this great PBS special, showing starfish (in timelapse) running all over the ocean floor, wrestling and having sex. The same biologists took another video of a starfish eating a mussel from inside its shell. Definitely check it out. Complete with hilarious dramatic score, and ridiculous war rhetoric! Digesting Mussels in the Shell (RT). And while we're doing timelapse wildlife movies, here's another Ranger Ted find: all kinds of cells dividing like crazy. Very beautiful, and reminiscent of LSD 101.

Round 'em up: We've missed two whole issues of Bears Will Attack, including Cybernetic Hounds and the Women Who Love Them, and The Moons of Saturn. We're incredibly pleased to report the spaceship is landing in XANADU. May angels on rollerskates await. Oh, yes, and an update to the venerable BWA Campaign Blog, now in its 10 month!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT IN 1952, I've posted the 38th issue of Lovers, just for you. This particular issue of Lovers is somewhat special, in that the cover, which is pretty cool, was illustrated by Al Hartley, a drawer/writer of Archie, who later became one of the first big Christian comics guys after he got into Jesus. Al was a pretty persuasive guy. "In the 10 years after Al's conversion 26 [of his] family members were born again," reports Christian Comics Intl. Geez.

In other news, something reasonable might be happening in the Gaza strip? Could it be that these leaders of men have finally decided the relentless killing and dying aren't actually worth some shitty, blood-soaked piece of dirt? Wow, we really doubt it.

Finally, the recently mighty Cardinals of St. Louis are about to be swept by the Sox? Boswell succinctly sums up the critical moment of last night's embarassment:

"... this World Series may have been decided in the third inning when Cards pitcher Jeff Suppan beat out a dribbler to third base, then lumbered to third base on a double by Edgar Renteria. The Boston infield played back, conceding a run on a ground ball that would have tied the game at 1. Walker hit just such a groundout to second base. Any base runner on earth could have trotted home to score. Especially since Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz, normally a designated hitter, took the throw casually, expecting no further developments. Suppan, however, is not just any base runner. He is now officially the worst on earth. Somehow, he stood frozen exactly midway between third base and home as if hoping to disappear or praying that Ortiz would not notice him. But eventually, Ortiz observed that there was an extra person in a strange place. So, Ortiz threw out the mortified Supine Suppan as he stumbled and crawled back to third base."

I'd like to apologize to everyone I forwarded Bob's party invitation yesterday. I was unaware the attachment was a 900 pound bitmap. Anyway, here it is in still large but managable size. Also, don't forget Saturday night's NIGHTMARE ON EMERSON STREET party. Come over and destroy the house before we buy it.

10.23.04
We're a week and a day from the election, and to the surprise of no one, it's getting ugly. We're going to ignore all that in favor of fun scary stuff. Specifically, horror comics.

"Another EC classic from artist Johnny Craig. This controversial cover holds a special place in the history of the formation of the Comics Code. I've borrowed the following commentary from Richard Wolfe's excellent crime comic cover website - Crimeboss."

His site led me to The Seduction of the Innocent Page. "Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham in 1953 ... changed comics for more than a generation. Dr. Wertham examined an anecdotal relationship between delinquency and comic books. He pointed out that violence in comics were carried out and served as inspiration to troubled youths. He also discussed the portrayal of female characters as victims of violence and the use of bondage and torture and its impact on these youths. Below are number of pictures taken from both comics I collect and from SOTI that depict some of things I find most interesting in the Golden Age books." WARNING: Slow download and irritating geocities site with ads, but good stuff.

Stephen Hunter's claiming the Buffy-starring Americanized The Grudge is as good as the Japanese original, Ju-on. If true, there's a good reason - same director, and set in creepy Japan. Let's see, what does this remind us of? Oh yes, the crappy American ripoff called The Ring, which was directed by some guy named Gore "Mouse Hunt" Verbinski, and set in the unscary Pacific Northwest.

I'm sorry if you saw The Ring and liked it. I thought it was every bit as hamhanded, obvious, blonde and scrubbed clean-looking as I feared it would be. Ringu rules. Rent it today. Better yet, drop me a line and I'LL SEND YOU ONE IN THE MAIL. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Exhibit A: THE KILLER VIDEO.

WHAT THE HELL'S THAT? IT'S SCARY.	PRETTY LADY, WINDY BEACH. NOT SCARY.

PRETTY BOY WARY OF TV. yawn	SHE'S COMIN OUT THE TV! AAAHHH!!!!!

Prepare to be scared out of your shorts on the night of Halloween Eve (October 30th) by the semi-annual Emerson Street Halloween party. There will be a "haunted dance floor", bobbing for tiny pumpkins in beer, and Dave has promised to have the third floor bathtub filled with rodent blood. Some drinks will be provided but you are encouraged to also bring stuff so we don't run out and have to shut the party down early before the house is completely destroyed. Dressing up is of course not mandatory, but you're going to look pretty stupid if you're not wearing something stupid.

So...to recap:

HALLOWEEN PARTY AT EMERSON ST
when? Saturday the 30th
what time? partytime
where? 1320 Emerson St NW 20011
questions? just send me an e-mail
feel free to bring whomever you like

10.21.04
Well, the books were wrong on the Sox, and they'll be wrong on Kerry, too. You can still lay $100 to win $160 right now (Bush is $100 to win $50). People, I'm tellin' ya, when Boston comes back from 3 games down to win the series (only the first time a team's done that in 101 years), it can only mean Bush is going down. Trust Jenny the Greek™.

The O'Reilly Factor for Lesbians, by Frank Rich, from Deb D. [nytimes]. Couldn't a said it better myself. "From all the outcry over Mr. Kerry's invocation of Ms. Cheney, with the attendant rhetoric about the evil of exploiting a candidate's "child" in a campaign, you might never guess that the child in question is not Chelsea Clinton at age 12 but a 35-year-old woman (two years older than Andrea Mackris). Or that she lives openly with her partner, Heather Poe, whom she brought onstage after the vice presidential debate. Or that she is the paid director of vice presidential operations for the Bush campaign, and that her mother is the author of a notorious potboiler ("Sisters," 1981) that drools over the prospect of lesbian coupling with O'Reilly-like glee. (For choice excerpts from Mrs. Cheney's fiction, go to http://whitehouse.org/administration/sisters.asp)."

From RT, A Witness to Yahweh. This cheery site runs a "Cost of the War in Iraq Counter" alongside a "Starved Baby Counter." Enjoy! Also from Deb D., Mosterslash - A little cartoon about the administration as serial killers in the forest.

I like when TV critic Tom Shales hates something. CBS's 'Universe' Belongs in a Galaxy Far, Far Away [wapost]. "CBS continues on its lonely, peculiar and mysterious campaign to bolster the morale of the Great American Fat Man by assuring him he might end up with a svelte, adoring wife and a collection of cute kids who all have quips at the tips of their tongues. And wouldn't think of leaving them there."

Halloween's coming up. Watch this space for Bob's and Caryn's ZOMBIE PROM and Emerson House Halloween party announcements. Meanwhile, here're some collies in fast food costumes, care of Claire Z.

10.20.04
As you may have heard, my cohabitants and I are trying to purchase the Emerson Street house. Our Canadian commune-dwelling landlady is putting it on the market for a bit under a half million dollars. I'm not sure how they arrived at that number. It is a creaky, drafty old house. Sometimes water leaks through the ceilings. And lots of stuff is broke. Including us, once we buy this house.

Nevertheless, we think it will be a good investment in the long-run, unless that suitcase nuke 'splodes in DC soon, in which case we'll have invested in a pile of smoking ash. Uh..what was my point? Oh yeah. The guys are planning to build Nerd Central in one of our three living rooms, by souping up the Playstation Gran Turismo experience with:

More illegal crabapple jelly: New Slang, The Shins (by Sherm's request), and Blackbird, Sarah McLachlan.

Mary Cheney is a lesbian. An out, 35-year old lesbian. Who works for the President's campaign. It is NOT an insult to make note of her lesbianism. IT IS NOT AN INSULT TO CALL A LESBIAN A LESBIAN. Really. Are we still in fourth grade? What Everybody Doesn't Know About Mary Cheney [wapost].

Brian keeps posting poems over there, or as my sister calls them, "pwems." Well, I need some filler, too. Here's the only poem I can recite.

No, really baby, we shall be victorious. I swear. Finally, please see Deb's interview of Underblog, former mayor of Dunsmuir, CA.

10.18.04

I've been getting some romance comics-related mail lately, which is unusual, so I checked the old site stats, and lo, I'd been linked to by some Czechs. The site's called Novinky, and if you scroll down you'll see they've taken some liberties with my cover scan of I Loved, Vol. 1, No. 29 September, 1949.

Shauna, our print media watchdog, has sent an alert. "hey look! it's the dumbest article on earth!" Friends Gone Wild Recalling the Life of the Party -- and a Party to Trouble. Says some used-to-be-cool person, "I really wouldn't trade my mortgage and my 401(k) to have back that chaotic year in Brooklyn. On a day-to-day basis, I like who I am. I like being the square." You know, you can have it both ways, sister.

It's a slow day, sorry. Here's a couple things from the Washington Post magazine. This Jargon Is Too Stupid! in which Dave Barry correctly admonishes adults for succombing to the idiot language of Starbucks, and A Course in Wife Sciences, by Gene Weingarten - a bit of the generally loathesome "women and men are different" genre, but, it's funny.

10.17.04
Today is Day 17, your monthly chance to pretend you're a writer. Unless you are a writer. In which case you're making us feel bad about ourselves. Haven't we suffered enough?

But our little indignities are nothing compared to the losers on the exciting new reality program, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. Will the Humiliation genre never end? What joy are people finding in portrayals of their own kind as worthless garbage? DOESN'T ANYONE CARE THAT THESE SHOWS SHAME ALL OF HUMANITY? Uh, no Jenny. Were you raised by hippies or something?

More fundraising ideas for purchasing the best little whorehouse on Emerson Street - from Bob:

One more thing. ATTENTION JOE GIBBS! MARK BRUNELL SUCKS! REALLY, REALLY BAD! PLEASE THROW THE OTHER CHRISTIAN TO THE LIONS! THIS ONE'S FINISHED!

Also, ATTENTION BUDWEISER!* ALL WOMEN ARE NOT HARPIES! I HEREBY CALL FOR A BOYCOTT OF YOUR SHITTY BEER! AND WE DRINK A LOT!

*this applies also to every beer and auto maker who can't stop playing the "women just don't get it" card. man, that is some tired shit.

10.15.04
Suggestions offered for raising money to buy the Emerson Street House ($444,000).

Item #1 - rest in peace, good dog. We all say a sad goodbye to Jill's and Eric's sweet pup Mookie.

In Briefs: The Smoking Gun does Bill O'Reilly "...a copy of Andrea Mackris's complaint, an incredible page-turner that quotes O'Reilly, 55, on all sorts of lewd matters." (thanks for the reminder, Bob). Retired Phil Jackson goes after pain-in-the-ass Kobe. Male bass fish in the Potomac are making eggs. Because our rivers are special.

I am looking at your website on Romance Comics. I see a few pages missing from the following comics. Do you have them? If so can I get a copy to read of the missing pages?

No, problem Wayne, thanks for inquiring. How could I have missed the first page of I WAS ASHAMED OF HIM! "He was crude, unrefined...a roughneck! But I loved him!" Wedding Bells, November 1956 also includes, DON'T SAY GOODBYE, SARGEANT, WHICH ONE FOR ME? and WHY DID HE STAND ME UP?

And check out Wayne's Old Time Radio Page. You can listen to shows, if you can get stupid RealPlayer to work.

10.14.04
Republican Christine Todd Whitman, erstwhile head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who quit in May because she couldn't stand dealing with the Bush administration anymore....has written a book. It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party — and Bringing the Country Together Again. [NYPost]

Says Whitman, "My GOP's been hijacked by social fundamentalists. They're marginalizing women and we've done so much for this country...The Republican Party today is a tragedy. What happened to the party of Lincoln?"

HK is not inclined to sayings like, You go, girl! But we'll make an exception in this case. We know there must be sane Republicans somewhere, but why they're not trying to fix their party is beyond us. Oh, right, they're just drunk on winning. Well, that's all about to change.

10:00PM: "No child left behind is really a jobs act," says Bush. Of course. And Social Security is really a missile defense program. And Federal Highways funding? Actually a part of the Metric Conversion Office. And clean coal legislation helps you make soup.

I was directed over there by the very fine (but rarely updated) Antiprint. That dude's got a nice little collection of links, too.

Could the NBA players kindly stop abusing their dogs? I swear, basketball players are the most badly behaved of millionaires who play games for a living. I'd boycott the sport, but they probably wouldn't miss the two beers I buy at the one game I get a free ticket to per year. Big jerks.

The BWA Campaign Blog has some pre-debate advice for, well, none of you: "What we fail to comprehend is the idea of the undecided voter. At this point, someone watching these debates who is unable to come to a conclusion as to which candidate he or she best agrees with is someone we would not trust with our children. The differences, despite what Ralph Nader and some of his more brain-damaged acolytes would have us believe, are stark and clear, and we urge those concerned voters unable to make up their minds to lay off the weed."

I haven't gotten around to writing about my adventures in sleeping, but Deb did: Dream Themes.

Happy birthday to Dave! And, our own Sherm won an award for her book! We're supposed to be quiet about it. But whatever. Yay Sherm! And Dave!

DC invasion threat at Code Red: the creepy Family Life people are coming to town this weekend, warns my mom. Something about aborting queers, I think. Please treat them respectfully. Just kidding. Please treat them as you would any guest who thinks you're a criminal/pervert/murderer/Democrat.

Today I'd planned to write about flying dreams, but then I got all pissed off about Jayson Williams, the human piece of garbage, and the Family Life freaks, who have half-brainwashed my family. So, I guess you're in luck. Because really, not even your girlfriend wants to hear about your flying dreams. And by the way guys, if you're bothered by Amorous Dreams (and who isn't?), the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices would like you to try The Timely Warning (pictured).

Here are a couple tunes for you from Tess' Good Folk mix: Two Points, by Deb Talan, and Fast As I Can, by Erin McKeown. Actually, go here and click the Grand Radio icon in the upper right for more better E.M. songs.

Six to Eight Black Men

I'VE NEVER BEEN MUCH for guidebooks, so when trying to get my bearings in a strange American city, I normally start by asking the cabdriver or hotel clerk some silly question regarding the latest census figures. I say silly because I don't really care how many people live in Olympia, Washington, or Columbus, Ohio. They're nice enough places, but the numbers mean nothing to me. My second question might have to do with average annual rainfall, which, again, doesn't tell me anything about the people who have chosen to call this place home.

What really interests me are the local gun laws. Can I carry a concealed weapon, and if so, under what circumstances? What's the waiting period for a tommy gun? Could I buy a Glock 17 if I were recently divorced or fired from my job? I've learned from experience that it's best to lead into this subject as delicately as possible, especially if you and the local citizen are alone and enclosed in a relatively small space. Bide your time, though, and you can walk away with some excellent stories. I've heard, for example, that the blind can legally hunt in both Texas and Michigan. They must be accompanied by a sighted c

This Space for Rent Archive XIV: Fall, 2004.