Contempt

Tonight, PBS's Charlie Rose said, "I think it's just a bad, bad idea to have contempt for a whole group of people during an election. I mean, it's a recipe for defeat."

He is so right. The election lasts four years, people. It has already begun. It began on November 3rd. Let's not have contempt for red states. We need to understand why they think the way they do. It's the only way to win. The only way.

My coffee

Yesterday evening, I sipped on the decaffeinated coffee that arrived a few weeks ago in a sealed box addressed to the previous tenant of what has since become my condo. That would now also make this coffee my coffee.

Oh, really? You think I should repackage these remaining packets of exotic decaffeinated coffee and wait for my predecessor, a woman whose name escapes me, to come back for them. I've been here nearly two months, man. She has yet to show herself. The coast is clear.

That coffee tasted so good in my designer coffee mug last night. I'm definitely going to brew some more before I go to bed today. This time, maybe I'll add some Sambuca.

Blinded by the Right!

...locked up by a Bush
What a liar and a blight!

It's the new rage sweeping the nation: "Political Fun With Annoying Classic Rock Tunes."

In Exhibit A, above, we have the beginnings of what could be great political fun with "Blinded by the Light," the early Bruce Springstein hit later covered by Manfred Mann. Help me out with the rest of the alternative lyrics. Just one rule applies: They must make fun of our president.

Remember. It's the new rage sweeping the nation. All the cool people are doing it.

Different worlds

James Brown once sang:

This is a man's, man's, man's world
But it wouldn't be nuthin'
Nuthin'!
Without a woman, or a girl

"It's a sexist thing to say. Absolutely! Yes, honey. I know. It doesn't matter that he kind of said something nice about women. It's still horrible. I'm sorry he sang it. Had I only been there to stop him, I would have done so. Honestly, honey. I'm sorry he wrote those lyrics 40 years ago, before I was born and could do anything about it. I'll burn the CD right away. I promise."

James Brown, you male chauvinist pig, get thee to a National Organization of Women rally, and pronto. You just cost me my share of sex for the foreseeable future.

With my imaginary girlfriend now on her way to the store to spend all my money and the Godfather of Soul now sequestered inside a crowd of angry women--may God spare the poor bastard's soul--say we turn the tables. Let's entertain a silly little hypothesis:

In a parallel universe, women rule a world much like ours.

Stay with me.

In this woman's world in a parallel universe, a Godmother of Soul enjoys a notoriety much like James Brown's. The question is this:

Would she ever even consider penning, with a sentiment much like James Brown's, the lyrics to this parallel universe's equivalent of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"?

Our universe isn't so bad, you know.

Friends, foes, and fiends of Brent's Polemics, pay heed. I have changed the template. Once I get home this evening, I hope to add my photo here as well.

Also:

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Alas, the process to do so erased all the comments that were here. Yet Haloscan is so much better. I can live with the consequences. Can you?

Who let the Dogg out the Doors?

The October 29th edition of Redriff.com reports:

In what has to be the most startling musical remake of the year, rapper
Snoop Doggy Dogg has announced he has remixed the mythical "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors.

Diehard Doors fans are upset. Go to "A Dogg without a tune" for a report on their ire.

What's the problem? I'll tell you. The country is crawling with too many Doors fans. That's the problem.

According to yesterday's New York Times, Snoop remixed the classic "with the surviving members of The Doors," and it "includes outtakes of Jim Morrison's vocals."

OK. Let me get this straight. The surviving members of The Doors are so in favor of this that they re-recorded the song with Snoop right there in front of them, in the studio, and rapping to the tune in real time. It seems pretty cool to me, and it seems like everybody except you diehard Doors fans are cool with it, too--even the actual Doors.

Don't forget, Doors fans. The real Doors think it's very cool and even recorded the new version, from scratch, with our friend Snoop. So, please go get a life. In fact, why don't you all catapult yourselves about 15 years into the future, in a "past perfect verb tense" sort of way, and become diehard fans of The Cult? Thank you.

What's that smell?

"Hey," said Bob, the graphics guy at work, yesterday. "I'm headed to the trucks for lunch. Want to join me?"

"Sure," I replied. Bob and I share interesting political conversations. In ways, he is more of a realist than I am. From the left, this is no simple feat. Eternally the optimist, I fancy liberals regaining recently lost political mindshare in short order. It is only a matter of time, I tell myself. Reason will prevail. It surely will.

"We live in a fascist state, Brent," said Bob as we neared the Chinese food vans parked adjacent to the new buildings at MIT that resemble the kinds we all used to see in Dr. Seuss books. "It's already happening."

Bob is right. The air is thick in America, thick with a stench familiar to generations past and present. The odor has waxed and waned for millennia, wafting here and there, only to settle in the very fabric of human existence. Once the foul smell of fascism sets in, it's tough to wash out, a task replete with abject misery and epic struggle.

As I sat in the park and shared an interesting political conversation with Bob yesterday, I took care to be more cautious than usual about what I was saying. I smelled something.

Preemption is the key

Has the right wing already fashioned a preemptive strike against Blue States' designs to ally with Canada?

Fox News goes to Canada

Nothing else to do

I'm sorry, but I have to say it: I just feel like beating the shit out of every conservative I see. Why not? They won't even count our votes anymore. What else is left to do?

America doesn't get what she deserves

In a letter to the Boy President, Dr. Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University, had this to say:

"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America--though she doesn't deserve it--a reprieve from the agenda of paganism."

Well, you know what? In a way, Bob Jones is right.

America doesn't deserve the casualties of an unnecessary war in the Persian Gulf.

America doesn't deserve the ire of ultra-right-wing Christian Conservatives who--let's face it--have nothing to do with Christianity.

America doesn't deserve to lose her vast bastions of wilderness to gluttonous oil tycoons and a ravenous timber industry.

America doesn't deserve to have to cede her pole position in the field of medical technology just because a bunch of dogmatic free marketeers think the government shouldn't fund scientific research.

America doesn't deserve political discourse that is anything but discursive.

America doesn't deserve a news media that's more interested in making money than fulfilling its role as public watchdog.

America doesn't deserve a president who doesn't know how to do the job and doesn't care.

I could go on and on. You get the picture. I don't deserve this crap, and neither do you. We are America, too, and deserve the very best, no matter what Bob Jones says.

Everyone needs to go to this link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/15/233218/99

Whether this investigation truly involves Senator Bob Graham is unclear, but mark my words: The caca is about to hit the fan. I don't know about you, but I can't friggin' wait.

Right and wrong

Give those who want to do the right thing the right thing to do.

How to destroy a nation

As I drove the short jaunt to work yesterday, I wanted to cry. No immediate, external stimuli precipitated my emotions. No, it was the ever-present thoughts of George W. Bush that cast their pall over my morning.

This is a great nation filled with great people who want to do the right thing. Red states, consider yourselves included. Sure, we screwed the Native Americans back in the day. Our leaders have committed all sorts of other "bads," too. But I don't feel like I, personally, screwed the indians, and you probably don't, either. This is the point.

September 11th, as horrible an atrocity as it was, summoned the camaraderie of great people living in a great nation. We weren't new to this amity, this togetherness and shared sense of purpose. We've felt it before, and it has led to great triumphs and some of the very best in world history. Victory in World War II comes to mind.

So, why did I want to cry yesterday morning on my way to work? Well, it dawned on me. The best strategy to destroy a nation as great as ours and crush the spirits of the great people who populate this land would go something like this:

Allow a calamity of epic proportions to befall us. Take the distinctly American brand of goodwill and sense of purpose that grows out of shared loss and squander it. Pit Americans against Americans in time of war. Watch us lose the War on Terror.

If it weren't so despicable, it would be masterful.

The deaf, dumb, and blind lead us to oblivion

Arianna Huffington spelled out the obvious in yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

The Architects of Defeat

I laugh. It is nervous laughter.

James Carville, Bob Shrum, Stan Goldberg, and the rest of Kerry's mistaken campaign strategy team have a lot of splainin' to do. They thought the economy would decide this election.

Yeah, right.

Huffington says, and I paraphrase: Anybody with half a brain should've known the war was the driving issue, the fuel to fill the tank in the vehicle to drive to the White House.

Hell, I could have told them that. For Pete's sake, put me in the driver's seat. I mean, really. What kind of dumbasses thought the economy would drive voters' decisions? James Carville, Bob Shrum, and Stan Goldberg. That kind.

Exodus

Attorney General John Ashcroft is now just plain ol' John Ashcroft. He has resigned. The White House released the news tonight. This is not good.

Wait. I know what you're thinking.

What? Brent likes Ashcroft? He's a demagogue! No! Brent! This is good!

Well, maybe. We can all smoke weed another day, for instance. We all have another day to read all those books, like Huckleberry Finn, on the pyre slated for that burning. We can all listen to our Insane Clown Posse CDs for another day, even. Hell, I'm gonna run down to the bar, have a few beers, and maybe even bring a chick home to have sex out of wedlock with while I still can.

These are but a few of the countless reasons it's good that Ashcroft has left the Bush Administration. But you know what? It's bad for Bush. Our president has lost his one remaining spiritual peer in the White House. Reports from earlier this year indicated that Bush and Ashcroft prayed together obsessively. And while their shared spirituality, we can all agree, is pretty messed up, something tells me Bush is a lost soul indeed without Ashcroft riding shotgun.

See what I mean?

Don King is a Republican

I'm watching "The McLaughlin Group" on PBS this afternoon. Yeah, I'm like that.

The show aired footage of President Bush's victory speech from last week. As the camera panned to the audience, the tell-tale hair, steely gray as it responded to imaginary magnets in the sky, caught my eye.

Holy shit! I blurted to the imaginary wing man in my living room who shares my political persuasions without exceptions. Don King is a friggin' Republican!

Holy shit! I blurted again. It just seemed so appropriate to say holy shit twice. Conservatives have yet another reason to gloat over their election victory. Don King, bastion for values and font of morality, is on their side.