Archive for January, 2009
45?
Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck’s show yesterday.
We wish she was moving into the Naval Observatory today (and that Todd could be out snowmachining on the lawn as early as tomorrow morning), but sometimes life doesn’t work out for the best (or, as our friend Sebastian puts it, “Sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast”).
Who knows, maybe Palin will be living in Washington herself in 4 years.
We. Love. This. Woman.
Where were the 5 million people? Where was The Greatest Inaugural Address Ever Written That Must Be Immediately Carved Into Marble?
We knew 5 million people were not going to show up to the Inauguration, so we always wondered why the Obama transition team hyped that figure so much, and why his supporters consistently claimed 3-5 million people would descend on Washington and cause all manner of chaos clamoring “to witness history”.
2 million people is an impressive number. It’s exactly what was expected by non-partisans in the non-Obama-cheerleading section of political thought. (UPDATE: ABC News is reporting only 1.4 million came out for Obama, just 200,000 more than LBJ had in 1964…at a time when travel was much more expensive and difficult. The US Government will not release an official total attendance).
But, 3-5 million is what the Obamafiles, Obamaians, Obots, whatever you want to call them, or whatever they call themselvs, claimed would attend the Inauguration. They were a million or more short of their floor, and three million-plus shy of their ceiling. That’s just pointless inflation of expectations.
And the same was true, of course, for the Inaugural Address, which was hyped, like all of Obama’s speeches, as sure to be The Greatest Inaugural Address Ever Written That Must Be Immediately Carved Into Marble.
Here’s the thing: Obama’s main speech writer is a twenty-something who thinks it’s both funny and appropriate to pose for vulgar photos with himself, another man, and a cardboard cutout of a United States Senator. We have no idea if Jon Favreau wrote the Inaugural Address, but it sure sounds like his special brand of nebulous, cliche-driven newspeak. More hope and change, whatever that means, more storms on the horizon and quagmires at the edge of the briar patch. All delivered in that trademarked Sunday morning oration Obama favors, learned deliberately off cassette tapes Jeremiah Wright sent him at Harvard Law school.
Like with any of Obama’s speeches, we ask people talking about the Inaugural Address today what was their favorite line, and they’re instantly stumped. They can’t think of one. No turn of phrase they’d carve into marble with their own blood, sweat, and tears to be sure.
That “seminal speech on race” Chris Matthews’ lauded as “the new Gettysburg address”? Does anyone remember a line from that?
What about any of his campaign speeches? Are any of Favreau’s bon mots marble-worthy from those?
Obama is a showman who appeals to a large part of the country who has either never set foot in a black church (so they are mesmerized by something we can see done much better any given Sunday here in Chicago) or who loves listening to preachers regularly. For those of us not so inclined, it’s an act we’ve seen before, done better. His oration has never impressed us because he never says anything particularly memorable — it’s just that a large number of people love hearing his voice.
Ronald Reagan’s actually the last president who said anything truly memorable in an Inaugural Address. Lord knows we love the Clintons, but aside from vague memories of “the bridge to the 21st century” we can’t recall anything Bill Clinton said in 1993 or 1997 (though we deeply missed seeing Maya Angelou today, as the poet Obama chose was mediocre at best, and that’s us being incredibly generous to someone following in Angelou’s and Robert Frost’s footsteps as only the fourth poet asked to recite at an Inauguration. And she wrote that? On what, the ride over to the Capitol in a wobbly cab?). We don’t recall anything either of the Bushes said, and are too young to remember Carter.
So, we had truly high hopes today that Obama would knock our socks off. We wore extra thick woolen socks too, so the thud of them being knocked off and sent flying across Buzzquarters would clue us in that, here, finally was proof of why this unremarkable man “from Chicago” is deserving of so much love and devotion, when we’ve never seen a single thing he’s done to warrant all the fuss. Morgan Freeman is a wonderful speaker. Dennis Haysbert has a beautiful voice. Both are talented black men who carry themselves impressively and have played presidents on TV and on film.
And that’s what Obama still feels like to us — someone playing a part, reading network drama-quality speeches, hitting his mark with cresdendos of oratory inflection (as practiced off his Wright cassettes), to the rapturous adulation of people who don’t seem to know any better, who have no appreciation for the meat and substance of Inaugural Addresses of the past, where new presidents spoke to HISTORY, to POSTERITY, to HUMANITY, and not to the TV cameras.
We wouldn’t turn on MSNBC today if you forced us, so we have no idea what Chris Matthews is saying, or if he’s finally been fined by the FCC for verbally masturbating to Obama on the air, but we imagine Obama’s loyal media followers are gulping purple Kool-Aid with gusto.
The sky today over the Capitol was GORGEOUS. The flags and the bunting draped around columns and domes ENCHANTING. The assemblage of leaders of all stripes IMPRESSIVE. The military elements, in polished bronze and sharp dress, CAPTIVATING.
But Obama’s “Great Address” was anemic, at best, and pedestrian at worst.
And that’s coming from people who don’t like him, and aren’t going to suddenly magically start liking him today, but who truly — REALLY AND TRULY — wanted him to just knock this out of the park and give us some reason, SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to warrant the most expensive party this nation has ever thrown, at a time when collectively we barely have a pot to, uh, stew in.
With all of our economic troubles.
With all those cliche clouds hanging.
With all of the storm clouds massing on lazily-written uncharted horizons.
And he phoned in that forgettable speech?
Followed by a poorly-written and amateurishly delivered poem?
On the day Obama was supposed to start showing us what he’s got, and giving us some clue as to what all the fuss about him is about?
We’re still waiting. We’ll let you know if we ever see it — and honestly promise to be fair to the new president, the way we tried to be fair to former president George W. Bush. And we truly want Obama to succeed, and definitely want to be blown away by brilliance on an epic scale.
We were waiting for that for eight years…and it looks like we could be waiting for four more, if things continue at this level, on Day One, Year One, of The Golden Age of Obama.
Please pray for Senator Kennedy — he is having convulsions
Please send positive thoughts to Senator Kennedy, as he is having convulsions and has been rushed to the hospital.
The media is not telling the truth about just how bad Kennedy’s health is — he is not long for this world, the great lion of the Senate with a dark spot on his soul.
Because as laudable as his career in the Senate has been, every day we hope Kennedy comes clean about what he did to Mary Jo Kopechne. He does not have much time left, and the Kopechne family deserves that much from the Kennedys.
It seems to be a day of reflecting on deeply flawed, imperfect public servants — with former president Bush headed to Texas with a mixed record, and Kennedy headed to the hospital a hero to some, while something quite different to the Kopechnes and all those who remember that night in 1969.
It’s just a reminder, yet again, that no one is all-good or all-evil, and that the lot of us are an unqualified bunch to cast judgment on anyone.
And none of us are here on this Earth forever, so we should all make the best use of the time we’ve got, so we can all pass with a clear conscience…hopefully including a forthright and honest Ted Kennedy, while he’s still got the chance.
Goodbye and thank you, George W. Bush. You did the very best that you could, and we are grateful for your service.
We’ve been thinking of what to say about former President George W. Bush, now that he’s officially a former president. Our first impulse was to write about the Florida recount and the time we spent down in Tallahassee in 2000, screaming and yelling like crazy people, demanding justice and fairness and the unalienable right for all votes to count, but considering we had to go to Washington DC on May 31st last year (for the Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting) to scream and yell for the Democratic party to count all votes in Florida and Michigan, any residual anger we had over Election 2000′s been squarely absolved.
Then, we thought we’d open this by complaining about how silly it was that Bush gave everyone from staff members to world leaders nicknames, and carried on like an old frat boy long expelled but still planning the next kegger, but then we remember the Obama fist-bumps and the “hip slang” (hey, do me a solid) the 44th president tries to work into almost everything he says, and suddenly calling Vladimir Putin “Pooty-poot” doesn’t seem so unusual.
And George W. Bush doesn’t seem so bad after all.
All things considered.
Last night, at Sidetrack here in Boystown, the largest gay bar in the Midwest (if not the US, as its owners claim), the bar was decorated haphazardly with flags and stars leftover from the Fourth of July beer-b-que. The ubiquitously creepy Obama “Hope” lithographs were out in full force (hopefully for the last time) — that haunting picture of himself he likes so much, staring forward and to the right, cast in red and blue silkscreen like something from the Bolshevik’s revoluntionary printing presses. Little cards on all the tables advertised the big Obama party the bar was throwing on Inauguartion Day, “to celebrate history” by mocking the outgoing president with classless, crass, unadulterated hate.
Because interspliced with the lively showtune videos Sidetrack shows on a Monday night, cut into all the singing and laughter and good times, were nasty little jabs at President Bush that drove the crowd wild in a most childish way.
We were embarrassed in the way we are when our nieces and nephews run wild at Chuck-E-Cheese, coming close to lighting the animatronic rat ablaze with birthday candles, or we catch the little hellions making fun of someone who’s slipped on the ice or dropped their lunch tray, in that particularly chilling Children of the Corn way cold, unmitigated cruelty comes shockingly natural to some kids — despite their being sweet, chubby cherubs just moments before.
The VJs at Sidetrack whipped up compilation tapes of Bush tripping on stairs, flubbing lines in his speeches, dropping things, taking a wrong turn and trying to open a locked door, etc. All the things that any one of us does in the course of a week, or a day, but are mercifully never recorded doing (there’s a reason we don’t have a web cam, folks) — since we don’t have film crews monitoring our every waking moment, the way Bush did. For eight years, with zero personal privacy. So, with more than seventy thousand hours of footage from Bush’s presidency available for creative editing, a cobbled-together string of flubs and fumbles sent Boystown into hysterics, mocking the soon-t0-be-former president.
And the nastiness and hate that welled up in the crowd and lasered in on Bush was palpable and frightening, if not particularly shocking, considering where we were (this is the same bar, after all, where another favorite video compilation during the election was mocking Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin, using Saturday Night Live’s greatest and most sexist hits — because making fun of women and babies is always a hit with some gay men).
It was ugly, in a world where not a frosted-tipped hair’s ever out of place and fawning over youth and beauty is the order of the day; it was cruel and clumsy where sensitivity and nuanced expression are normally prized; it was unbridled and irrational hellfire from people who stage whole parades to complain about religious people and Republicans’ unbridled irrational hatred of them.
Hello pot? This is kettle, welcome to fabulous — and to the Jekyl meets Hyde cocktail of Bush hate and showtunes at Sidetrack on a Monday in Boystown, where we very much realized we didn’t know where we belong anymore.
Because, as the Bush Administration ends, so too ends our days of believing Democrats are always good, Republicans are always evil, and gay men have a monopoly (or even firm handle) on what’s witty and clever. Democrats can be just as nasty and hate-filled as the insufferably vile Rev. Fred Phelps. Gay Democrats can be a room full of bitchy, malevolent queens, martinis in hand, oblivious to how petty and unattractive hatred of any kind truly is.
And this from supporters of “The One” who was sent to Earth by a God none of them believe in to bring us all together, heal the planet, and distribute unto us unicorns in fluffy rainbow parades of lemonade and pixie dust.
We were probably the only people in that bar who looked up at George W. Bush on the screen and instead of mocking him, raised our Pilsners and toasted a decent and gracious man who stood up to the challenges that confronted him, made tough choices and never shirked his responsibilities, and did the very best job that he could, every day, for the last eight years.
Oddly, it’s the same way we feel every time Madonna turns up on Sidetrack’s screens, in the train wreck that was Evita, pleading for Argentina not to cry for her, while we realize that yes, an untalented actress truly put her heart and soul into this part and did the very best that she could do with what she had to work with, and the script she received.
George W. Bush is a man we wish had never been president, the same way we wish today that Obama had never become president, and the same way we wish Madonna stuck to singing and dancing and left the acting to others. In Bush’s place, we would have rather had Al Gore or John McCain in 2000, and John Kerry (or even Howard Dean or John Edwards) in 2004. This year, we wanted Hillary Clinton, and then John McCain. But, things certainly worked out differently in all cases the last eight years (and there was just no saving The Next Best Thing, Shanghai Surprise, or Body of Evidence, regardless of creative retrospective casting).
For a very long time, we found ourselves firmly in the company of Bush-haters, though we never rose to the level of nastiness we saw on display at Sidetrack last night (a level on par with the worst of the Clinton-hating and gay-bashing the right’s ever put forward). There was a spell when we refused to even refer to Bush as the president, instead calling him “Dracula”. Some people found that hard to follow, as they never knew if we were talking politics, or oddly referencing Bram Stoker while delving into energy policy. Those oil-vampires from Texas, just wanting to get their fangs into Iraq, up to their nefarious schemes, out to get all of us, such evil people.
Evil was a word we threw around pretty lightly, ascribing it to everything in the Bush Administration, the Bush family, and the Republican party in general. Because we lived in an isolated Democratic little world of our own, of course we were never corrected on any of this — far from it, we were always encouraged. Bush is stupid. Bush is a drugged out drunk. Laura Bush is a murderess (for accidentally killing her friend in a high school car accident). The Bush Twins are out of control. Barbara Bush is Lady MacBeth. Dick Cheney shot a man in the face (well, actually, this one is true).
One of the reasons it’s been so hard to put together our thoughts on Bush as he leaves office is because, honestly, we feel badly about the way we’ve treated him, about the things we’ve said about him, all these years.
Because George W. Bush is a decent man with a servant’s heart who did the best damn job he could. He kept us safe for seven years. He stood up to the bullies and terrorists and scoundrels of the world and said with Texas gumption and flare that America under his watch would kowtow to NO ONE.
Maybe too much Texas for the likes of us city slickers, and maybe a lot of his personal style and flare was hokey or unrelatable to urban elites, but even his loudest critics would be hard-pressed to argue the man didn’t always show his heart — a larger than life heart, beating strongly with a love of country and its men and women in uniform.
That’s what we’re thinking about today: what an excellent Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush was, and how he respected and revered all those who serve the nation, in every way under the sun. There’s a lot of things Bush did wrong, but he was good to our troops, and the military obviously loved him, and that’s mighty impressive in our book.
It’s also impressive Bush never cut funding to AIDS charities, and instead INCREASED funding to unprecedented levels, in terms of both treatment and scientific research into a cure.
All those men screaming and yelling at Bush on the screen in Sidetrack’s, making fun of him, laughing at a tired Bush flubbing a speech — and not one of them stopped to think about the simple fact that if this man was truly as stupid and evil as they claim, and if he was TRULY deserving of all that hatred, then why on Earth didn’t he cut funding to AIDS charities and other LGBT resources as president?
No one has an answer for that.
Obviously, Bush knew the gay community hates him, and that he’d never win their votes. So, why didn’t he divert all those millions to causes that would have won him more independent and conservative voters? Why waste all that precious capital on people who hate him, who want to destroy him?
And yet, Bush never lifted a finger to harm us…he never cut funding to the LGBT community…he didn’t lash out at those who made him their enemy.
He really and truly was a compassionate conservative after all — and a kind and decent man who exercised his power with great restraint.
After 911, with media cheerleading behind him and an acquiescent public, Bush could have declared himself Emperor and enacated anything his heart desired. He could have used the cover of tragedy and the unprecedented free hand he was given in its aftermath to do any number of crazy things. He could have seized control of the entire government and forced through any number of draconian measures, sticking it to the left every way he could.
But he didn’t.
His response to crisis was measured, restrained, and even-handed.
Yes, we booed and laughed along with all our liberal friends at Bush sitting in a classroom reading about a pet goat while minutes ticked by on the screen in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911. We ridiculed the president for just sitting there, like a fool we thought, seemingly not knowing what to do.
But, today we see that day differently. After spending two years on the campaign trail for Clinton and then McCain, after doing countless interviews and writing on this site every day, we realize Bush was responding carefully and deliberately to a situation unfolding before him — the way a responsible public figure does. THINKING before ACTING. Not wanting to terrify children needlessly, not wanting to create panic by abruptly getting up and running from the room. What was the man supposed to do as the Secret Service established its plan to get the president to a secure location, and Bush waited the mere minutes it took to arrange a successful and well-executed plan to calm the nation in a catastrophic crisis?
On a day none of us was prepared for, that seemed lifted out of comic books and bad movies, when the federal government moved rapidly to respond to the worst thing to happen on American soil in half a century.
Because he’s affable, because he tells jokes, because he speaks with a twang, Bush is mocked as stupid and slow while others in his place would have been considered careful and even-keeled.
But, none of the men who’ve made it into the White House are stupid (all men so far, unfortunately, but that will change soon enough if we have anything to say about it). And some are better under fire than others.
With seven years to look back on 911, we have a lot to say about the intelligence failures that allowed a preventable event to scar the nation, but we will, until the day we die, be forever grateful to President Bush for being the resolute and honorable Texan who stood up that horrible day and grabbed that bullhorn at Ground Zero and told the world in a loud clear voice that America would soldier on, would prevail, and will rebuild.
That was no weak kumbaya moment. That was George W. Bush at his finest, saying what we all in our hearts wanted a tough Commander-in-Chief to say.
Yes, any president would have said those things.
Yes, any president would have received massive approval ratings in response to an attack (that’s what Americans do, we rally around the president in times of trouble).
But, would President Gore have struck that perfect note? Would he have been the testosterone infused Commander-in-Chief in the body of an average man we needed and wanted that day?
We don’t know. Maybe.
But, Bush sure held the world together that day, when he was just what we needed, when we needed him most.
AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL. We moderate, gay, Hillary loving, Boystown-living, lifelong Democrats will always hold a special place in our hearts for Dubya and his bullhorn. We were proud to be Americans on that terrible, terrible day — and proud of our president who led us with such clear conviction and courage. We didn’t vote for the man (either time), but were sure glad he was on duty on a day we’ll never forget.
What followed in his presidency was a mixed bag in our eyes — with more missed opportunities than we can recount. If only Bush had asked Americans to enlist in the military, Peace Corps, or Americorps instead of telling them to go shopping to help the economy. If only he had taken our friends and foes in the world up on all of the help they offered after 911, when everyone from France to Cuba extended hands of friendship and wanted to join America at that terrible hour. If only we had found a way to carry those sentiments of “We are all New Yorkers now. We are all Americans today” forward in the months and years ahead, instead of alienating so many with what was perceived as a failed go it alone, it’s us or them mentality. If only he had pushed to rebuild those towers, taller than every, in record time — so seven years later, we wouldn’t still have a big hole in the ground in New York where a phoenix should have risen, as indelible and resolute as our nation itself.
The last eight years is a presidency of if onlys, buffered up against one we believe will be the disappointments of “what might have been” and “we were promised” (we hope Obama proves us wrong and that changes, but that part is squarely up to him)
The loud chorus of angry voices in Boystown claim Bush will go down in history as the Worst. President Ever. We think those cocktails went down too fast last night, because that’s ridiculously far from the truth.
Bush, in our opinion, will be judged much better than Jimmy Carter, just a touch above his father, George H. W. Bush, but below Bill Clinton — all somewhere in the middle of US Presidents when the rankings sort out in thirty years of proper retrospect and dispassionate evaluation that will come.
Iraq some day will be a new Germany and Japan, a once hostile nation so firmly democratic and pro-American we’ll never be able to recognize it if flung into the future from today. Regardless of what you think about the case for war, or the merits of invading Iraq, Bush will one day get credit for creating the future, prosperous Iraq, and all the benefits Americans will enjoy from that. Part of us wishes strongly he had gone to war with Iran instead, because that’s a true threat the world could do without, and is a continuously proven sponsor of terrorist operations against Israel and American interests, but that’s a whole other topic of debate.
Though we never in our lives thought we’d say this, we truly do look forward to some day soon meeting former president Bush, shaking his hand, and thanking him for his service — whatever history will end up thinking of him.
That’s something we couldn’t imagine back in January 2001, when we spent Inauguration Day muttering about Dracula this and evil that and cursing the Supreme Court and that idiot Donna Brazile (for botching the Gore campaign).
After we watched the 747 formerly known as Air Force One wing into the air and bank right towards Midland, Texas this afternoon, we were struck by just how bizarre it is that a bunch of Democrats who positively hated this man eight years ago were proudly a little teared up to see him off to retirement. That’s a fairly good measure of a man right there, if he can, without knowing or trying, change strong opinions of him in the most unlikely of places.
And you can’t get much more unlikely than the lot of us, here in Boystown, wishing George W. Bush a heartfelt and gracious goodbye — and thanking him, from the bottom of our big gay hearts, for doing the best he could, every day, for each and every one of us (whether any of us liked or voted for him or not).
So, channeling him for a moment, “Ya dun good, Dubya. Best ya could. And we’re grateful!”.
Where our thoughts are today
Some of you are wondering where we are today, and why we’re silent, when normally we post up storms of snark on this site. Well, today we all got a tremendous shock and are still reeling from it.
A very dear friend here in Boystown told us he’s having surgery next week, for prostate cancer, and in essence, he’s not long for this world.
There aren’t words, that we know of, to tell you what a horrifying, hideous shock this is, because of all the people we’ve met in this wide and wonderful world, this guy, Lionel, ranks at the very top. Class, style, grace, kindness, compassion, verve, positivity, energy, light, laughter and life. That’s Lionel. One of the great angels of Chicago who lights up a room and makes many a day just by being himself, and smiling that 1,000 watt smile of his.
And though we’re certainly never afraid to cry around here (former hockey and rugby players that we are), we hate having to do so today, because a truly wonderful human being is facing something unspeakably awful.
As usual, Lionel’s being his sunny self — as if every day was summer and there’d be strawberry shortcake and sweet tea for everyone at the big party he’s planning — intead of talking about going under the knife with a slim chance of making it, no matter how well the operation goes.
It is the most powerless and humble we ever feel when we hug a dear friend and hold back the tears as we realize there’s not a damn thing we can do for him.
We can’t phone bank for him. We can’t go to Dubuque, Iowa and knock on people’s doors to make him better. We can’t research a bunch of stuff and write a snarky essay all about it. We can’t throw a big Prostate Cancer Results Party or organize a bus trip somewhere, stage a rally, or dress up in crazy costumes for a protest.
We’re not religious, so we can’t even pray. Or, maybe we can, but we don’t think anyone will listen.
So, today we’re gathered here at Buzzquarters telling our favorite Lionel stories, and figuring out how we can help in a few weeks when he heads home from the hospital. We’ll cook, we’ll visit him, will make cards and CD mixed tapes and will throw all energy into cheering him up and boosting his spirits — the way he does so effortlessly for the rest of us.
But, we can’t make Lionel better and it kills us. Breaks our hearts.
So, today we’re taking a short break from politics and are just going to be a bunch of humans grappling with one of those nasty, far too-real shocks the universe throws at us in our lives away from the computer.
If you’re so inclined, and if you have time, we’d consider it a personal favor if you’d send a little love Lionel’s way, in whatever way you choose. Say a little prayer. Light a candle. Give someone a hug. Do something kind. When a whole mess of negative and nasty falls in our path, and we can’t slay that particular dragon, the only thing we can fall back on is positivity and love. If that kindess can’t help Lionel, at least good is spread in his name, by people he’ll never meet in places he’ll never go.
He’d like that.
Today in History: January 19th
1419 – Henry V completes conquest of Normandy when Rouen surrenders
1840 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming Wilkes Land for the United States
1862 – Battle of Mill Springs: Confederacy suffers first major defeat
1883 – First overhead electric lighting system built by Thomas Edison and begins service in Roselle, New Jersey
1915 – German zeppelins bomb British cities: first use of aerial bombardment of civilian targets
1917 – German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican Alliance against the United States
1920 – United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations
1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world’s first men’s briefs
1937 – Howard Hughes sets new air record, flying from Los Angeles to New York in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds
1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes International Military Tribunal for the Far East to try Japanese war criminals
1949 – Cuba recognizes Israel
1953 – 68% of all television sets in the US are tuned to I Love Lucy as character Lucy Ricardo gives birth to Little Ricky
1966 – Indira Ghandhi elected Prime Minister of India
1977 – President Ford pardons Tokyo Rose (Iva Toguri D’Aquino)
1977 – Snow falls on Miami, Florida for the first time in history (also snows in the Bahamas too). Curse you, Anthropogenic Global Warming!
1978 – Last VW Beetle made in Germany
1981 – Iran Hostage Crisis: US and Iran sign agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months in captivity
1983 – Klaus Barbie arrested in Argentina
1983 – Apple Lisa computer released (first personal computer with graphical user interface and mouse)
1993 – IBM announces $4.97 BILLION loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in US history
2006 – New Horizons probe is first space mission to Pluto
So predictable: some call for killing Canada geese to stop aircrashes
The article above is interesting because it captures some of what we’ve heard since USAir flight 1549 went down this week: just kill the birds before they bring down more planes!
Here come the mob with the torches and pitch forks again.
Even though it’s been a long time since anything similar happened with birds and planes.
Let’s all just fly off the handle and overreact, until we all forget about what happened this week once we move on to whatever the next big media story is.
Who wants to bet few will be talking about birds or planes next week anyway, since it will be all about the Inauguration at least through February?
At any rate, instead of resorting to killing birds that didn’t jam themselves into an airplane on purpose, why not figure out a way to divert the birds from an airport’s danger zone? If the birds follow set migratory patterns, why not stop building airports in the path of their travel? Or, figure out what directs the birds, and find a way to bump their path slightly left or right to keep them out of danger zones?
Years ago, we managed to send a bunch of men to the moon (or at least to a convincing-looking studio somewhere in Burbank), so we should be able to push geese onto safer flight paths if we really focused on an electronic, sonic, or magnetic system to do so.
Necessity, mother of invention, and all that.
But, as of January 20th when the world changes, maybe we’ll just be able to tell the birds to stop flying into engines, as one of Obama’s magical powers might be Doolittle-esque.
Do-nothing’s what we’re expecting, so maybe he’ll surprise us!
Liberal Top Chefs have metaphoric egg on the face after complaining about Cristeta Comerford
First female White House Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford
This article is hilarious for how bad the reporting is.
Read it first, then come back and we’ll tell you what they either forgot to mention, or were too stupid to figure out.
Today in History: January 18th
1535 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzarro founds Lima, Peru
1778 – James Cook reaches Hawaiian Islands, naming them the “Sandwich Islands” (because they were so delicious)
1861 – Georgia secedes from the Union
1896 – X-rays exhibited for the first time
1903 – President Theodore Roosevelt sends first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States (message to King Edward VII of England)
1911 – First aircraft to land on a ship (in San Francisco harbor)
1919 – Bentley Motors is founded
1943 – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
1944 – Three-year siege of Leningrad ended
1967 – Robert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, sentenced to life in prison
1977 – Scientists identify bacterium as cause of Legionnaires’ Disease
1990 – Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry arrested for drug possession in FBI sting
1991 – Eastern Air Lines goes out of business after 62 years, citing financial problems
1993 – Martin Luther King Day observed in all 50 states for the first time
1997 – Norwegian Boerge Ousland becomes first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided
2003 – Airbus A380 becomes world’s largest commercial jet
Things HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy is celebrating today:
350 – Generallus Magnentius declares himself Emperor of Rome
474 – Leo II is proclaimed Byzantine Emperor
1126 – Emperor Quinzong ascends Chinese throne
1486 – King Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York
1701 – Frederick I becomes King of Prussia
1871 – Wilhelm I proclaimed Emperor of Germany
Poppies and Pomegranates in a Narco-State
The world needs her more than ever
Akin to Oprah objecting to being called a glutton for eating all the cupcakes again, Afghanistan’s upset Hillary Clinton used the word “narco-state” to describe a country that readily admits it has no control over one of its own provinces, which just happens to be the province that produces the most opium, en route to processing into heroin.
So, the nation that exports 90% of the world’s heroin takes umbrage at the term “narco-state”? When it admits its own renegade province is responsible for all of those narcotics?
Interesting.
Delusional, but interesting.
The opium situation is a difficult one to control, even if Afghanistan could manage to bring its provinces in line.
Maybe Clinton will get the Afghani people to see the wonderful benefits of pomegranates.
Afghani pomegranates are the best in the world (but still unavailable in the US, where all the pomegranate seeds you sprinkle on your green tea yogurt at Pinkberry or juice you gulp from funny little POM Wonderful bottles comes from a single mature California orchard), and could actually yield more profit for Afghan farmers than poppies produce, but only after pomegranate orchards mature.
That’s hard to do in a constant war zone. It requires investment and patience, while poppy harvests are fast and easy in comparison.
If only Afghanistan actually controlled all of its provinces, and was able to encourage development of large scale pomegranate cultivation to usurp the opium industry.
But, look who’s talking. This is the United States, where Illinois is a corrupt embarrassment to the nation, hardly under any sort of ethical control itself. If we can’t produce an Illinois that’s run for the good of the people, with limited or nonexistent mob control, then how we can hope to push Afghanistan into eliminating its own crooks, criminals, and renegade provinces? Especially when Americans have just sent a whole bunch of Chicago machine politicians to do unto all of us what they’ve done unto Illinois.
Hillary Clinton’s sure got her work cut out for her. Our champ’s in for the fight of her life.
And we’ve got some baking to do. Lemon poppyseed Baked Alaska with pomegranate sorbet sounds like a great dessert for dinner tomorrow. Yes, in fact, we are that gay.
