Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush’s Billionaires

While America obsessed about Brittany’s shaved head, Bush offered a budget that offers $32.7 billion in tax cuts to the Wal-Mart family alone, while cutting $28 billion from Medicaid.

“Now, after she shaved her head in a bizarre episode that culminates a months-long saga of controversial behavior, it’s the question being asked by her fans, her foes and the general public: What was she thinking?”– Bald and Broken: Inside Britney’s Shaved Head, Sheila Marikar, ABC.com, Feb. 19

What was she thinking? How about nothing? How about who gives a shit? How’s that for an answer, Sheila Marikar of ABC news, you pinhead?

Click here for the rest.

For the record, I’m not in favor of higher taxes. I’m in favor of fair taxes. And I’m all for cutting government waste. If the government is taking my money away from my family, I want to know that it’s being invested in a greater good for the community that, supposedly, we all share. I like investing in things like roads and bridges, schools, police, firefighters, hospitals, a strong national defense, meat inspectors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, civic plazas and such. I don’t want my taxes funding bridges to nowhere, third-party war contractors who bilk the treasury and endanger our troops, or “museums” such as the Coca Cola museum that should be funded by the owners of the trademark. (And that’s just for starters.)

I feel similarly about my media. I don’t mind a little coverage about Britney Spears’ latest hair-scapade, but I don’t want it at the expense of news.

So today Hillary and Obama got into it, through their surrogates. Billionaire David Geffen was once a FOB(AH) (Friend of Bill and Hillary), but no more. He held a fundraiser for Obama and said some unkind things about the Clintons. The Clinton camp shot back at Obama that this amounted to “going negative,” which Obama had sworn off, and therefore Obama (who hadn’t said anything) should apologize and — my favorite part — return the money raised. Obama’s flak returned fire that the Clintons didn’t seem to mind Mr. Geffen when he was writing checks to them and camping out in the Lincoln bedroom.

To me this all seemed very familiar. In fact, I hear a variation of this exchange just about every morning, between my 4-year-old and his 8-year-old sister. It’s usually about who poked whom first, who did or didn’t say a bad word and then who did or didn’t respond, whose turn it was to pick a TV show and so on.

This sort of back and forth isn’t confined strictly to my kids or the Democratic contenders who have been designated by the media as “the frontrunners” — whatever that means at this stage, given that the first caucus is a year from now. This morning the quote unquote vice-president was slinging hash on John McCain; McCain yesterday called the veep’s good friend Donald Rumsfeld “the worst secretary of defense in history.” Cheney’s response was a good one: that just recently McCain had said some unpleasant things about Cheney himself, and then rushed over to apologize — and perhaps he would be rushing over to apologize again. (My heartbroken feelings about Mr. McCain’s long slow slide from respect were expressed poetically here.)

All of this fills me with a sort of sadness. I’m not naive; I do understand the motivations of all involved — Hillary to show she ain’t takin’ no guff, Obama to show he’s tuff enuff, McCain to distance himself from the wrack of Iraq, Cheney to suffer no fools, and the media to somehow justify more than two years’ of expense accounts for covering these little snits. But that doesn’t make any of it taste any better.

To put it in perspective:

• 1/6 of the people on this planet can’t get a drink of clean water.
• Many double-income households (sometimes with two parents working more than five jobs) can’t afford a mortgage (especially in places like greater Los Angeles).
• The Middle East seems more unstable every day — especially, in some ways, Saudi Arabia, which is funding terrorism in an effort to appease its internal radical element — and that’s where most of our energy comes from.
• For most of us, traffic is impenetrable.
• Meanwhile whole sections of middle America are dying out, major industries having pulled up stakes,

and on and on.

And against all that, the major stories of the past two days were: Clinton and Obama’s meaningless dustup, and Britney Spears’ self-induced head shaving.

I realize I risk sounding like a relic, but I’m waiting for a candidate who will seriously address real issues. Even if it means standing up for something. And even if it risks the media not reporting it because it isn’t entertaining.

Turns out I wasn’t alone in my outrage over Merck’s lobbying efforts to mandate STD shots (using their own drug, naturally) for kids, a marketing putsch I frothed over here, and here, and here. Bowing to pressure from parents, the company is immediately suspending this effort, as reported by Associated Press.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t make a difference.

Drugmaker stops lobbying efforts for STD shots

Merck criticized by parents and doctors for pushing cervical cancer vaccine

TRENTON, N.J. – Merck & Co., bowing to pressure from parents and medical groups, is immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate that adolescent girls get the company’s new vaccine against cervical cancer as a requirement for school attendance.

The drug maker, which announced the change Tuesday, had been criticized for quietly funding the campaign, via a third party, to require 11- and 12-year-old girls get the three-dose vaccine in order to attend school.

Last night I saw Michael Crichton on Charlie Rose’s show and was surprised to hear, for once, I talk-show guest who was careful to stick to the facts as he knows them.

I don’t share Mr. Crichton’s view on global warming (he doesn’t believe in it; this snotty speech will give you the overview), but honestly I’m not in a position to evaluate all the data and reach a scientific conclusion. What I do have is the evidence of my senses: increased storm activity, melting polar ice, and the vast expenditure of money by insurance companies in arming themselves against future financial effects. My experience of insurance companies is that they do nothing for the good of anyone but insurance companies, so if they believe in global warming, I believe in it.

What was refreshing about Mr. Crichton was his allegiance to the facts as he knows them. Unlike Jane Smiley, he didn’t purport to be able to read the mind of George W. Bush or to channel past events involving the quote unquote president. He parsed administration actions, like the partial ban on stem-cell research, for both the upside and the downside. When Charlie Rose tried to paraphrase Crichton’s words, the latter would gently but firmly correct him because the paraphrase wasn’t right. At other times, Crichton said, “I don’t know.” And why didn’t he know? Because he isn’t a mind reader, hadn’t been at the event, didn’t have empirical evidence, wasn’t presented with the data — and so, he couldn’t know.

Contrast this with the bulging-eye, popping-vein school of commentary on Fox News or MSNBC or, really, anywhere else. In media terms, Crichton was cool, and so much commentary has become hot that he almost seemed as though he didn’t belong on TV. An adherence to the facts as one knows them? Why would we expect that? And, given their personal interest, how many people in entrenched political camps want that?

What does the “E” in Wile E. Coyote stand for? Mark Evanier says the answer isn’t definitive, but he can clarify the origin of the name.

Here’s a recent New York Times piece about Robert and Aline Crumb, their new book, and their open marriage. By the way, I used to know one of Aline’s “second husbands” (who admitted that he hung out with her to get to Crumb himself).

Weird dream from early morning (3 a.m.?) of July 21, 2004:

I’m on what seems to be a campaign bus for George W. Bush. Everyone on board hates him, especially in the back where I am. A woman comes to get me and says I’m to see him personally, that I’ve been granted special time. I’m taken off the bus and go to sit with him in a dentist’s office he’s using. He has me sit down across from him and I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a white doctor’s uniform, has a stethoscope around his neck, and seems absolutely out of his mind. His hair is wild and his eyes are darting. He inserts a probe into the palm of my right hand – I ask him if this is absolutely necessary and he says it is. The probe is attached to a long catheter tube, and when he’s got it fully inserted, he starts to pump with a foot pedal and his large purple balloon rises from inside my palm. I’m amazed by this. He looks it over approvingly and says to the woman that this one seems just fine. I’m speaking with him sympathetically – he just can’t seem to get a break, I know he had good intentions in Iraq, it’s a shame no one likes him – while he performs the same procedure to the other palm. He’s surprised by my sympathy – and so am I! I’m wondering how much of a weasel I am; am I sympathetic because now, confronted with the man behind the headlines, I feel for him, or because he’s the president and I’m a sheep? I’m led back onto the bus and the woman announces to everyone that my procedure was a great success. I hold up my palms for all to see. They jeer at me for being friendly to Bush and saying nice things.

After a bit, Bush comes onto the bus and sits down next to me. I must be his only friend. I don’t think I’m his friend at all, so I’m confused by my own reactions, because now I’m feeling truly sorry for him if he has confused me for a friend when my only idea was to be polite. Now thrilled by our budding friendship, he has offered to detour the bus so he personally can drive me home. I give him directions. At some point the bus becomes a large stakebody truck in which we’re all sitting in the back. We pull up to my home – which is more like an apartment complex with a large parking lot. We pull in and I jump out excitedly to show everyone who I’ve got with me – I may not be entirely crazy about him, but hey, he’s hanging out with me, so this shows a new level of power and influence for me. I say, “Mr. President, can you wait 30 seconds? Please? I’d really like to get a picture.” I can’t believe I called him “Mr. President” because I know damn well he wasn’t elected – now I’m really feeling like a weasel, but I’m excited by the prospect of my having a photo of the two of us together that I can use on the website. He says, “You really mean two minutes” and says it to mean that I have only two minutes.

The front door is locked, so I try to scramble in from an upstairs window, except they have large wooden barriers from the inside. Meanwhile, my neighbors and guests, specifically including my friend Elaine, start to flood out to check on all the excitement. My wife hands me the camera very reluctantly – she hates Bush and can’t imagine why I’m hanging out with him and, worse, am excited about it! – but I grab it and run back to have the assistant woman take my picture. Bush poses with me and I’m wondering just how useful this picture will be given that everyone hates him and he’s lost his mind and looks it. Bush shakes Elaine’s hand, but while everyone else is impressed to see him in my parking lot, no one else is eager to shake his hand. He scowls and climbs back into the stakebody truck. I run after him and ask if please I can get him to go to meet my son Lex’s friend Brandon, because the boy idolizes Bush.

This is just the tonic Bush needs, so we’re off again.

Five thoughts that recur whenever I come across the latest PBS pledge drive and Dr. Wayne Dyer’s show “The Power of Intention”:

1. The Shaya thing – I’ve seen this three times now and always come in at the same point in the story. Because I never get to see it all, Dr. Dyer might tell me that Source doesn’t want me to see it all. More likely, I’m switching over from another program during a commercial break. On a similar note, I’m reminded that Jack Kirby also called God “The Source” but that was in comic books circa 1972.

2. Suspending judgment – Every time he talks about suspending judgment I’m reminded of what I’ve just read (or not read) in the newspaper. Maybe we need more judgment. And when he says that when you judge someone as stupid you are merely showing that you’re capable of judging them as stupid – why is that a bad thing?

3. He’s anti-drug, not as a moral choice but as a personal choice. That’s fine. As a reader of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe I’m aware of the upside of drugs. And I believe many American Indians use drugs to get closer to Source. So who’s right? If he can’t handle them, that’s a separate issue.

4. This show makes a bad argument for funding PBS, because Dyer’s show is essentially an infomercial that he should be paying for on basic cable. PBS is a bonanza for him, but it’s not a free ride:  We’re paying for it.

5. Why is it sophisticated for the PBS base to sneer at some religions (let’s say Pentecostals, or Southern Baptists), but heartless to attack a guy who preaches a mushy pantheism to the cultured and comforted few? Because most people choose their religions based upon class, and it’s easy to mock the lower class. And also because pantheism doesn’t require much in the way of adherence to doctrine (since it has none), just a determination to be nice.

So it looks like I’m not the only one who has Lost interest. My friend Paul directs me to this story:

New ‘Lost’ Episode Hits a Ratings Low

By LYNN ELBER
AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Lost” crashed in the ratings this week, hitting an all-time low for a new episode. ABC’s drama about plane crash survivors stranded on a mysterious island drew an estimated 12.8 million viewers Wednesday, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research. That’s well off the peak of more than 20 million for the drama that became an instant sensation when it debuted in September 2004.

ABC has worked hard to try to protect a show that helped turn the network’s fortunes around, moving it to 10 p.m. EST Wednesday this year to steer clear of Fox’s blockbuster “American Idol” and CBS’s increasingly strong “Criminal Minds.”

After “Lost” fans complained about reruns interrupting the show’s serial flow last season, the network tried an experiment: It split the current season in two, airing six episodes before an extended break and then resuming with 16 additional episodes.

The story goes on; click above for the rest.

While I’m not going to lose any sleep over the show’s slow downturn, I do want to acknowledge that when it was cool it was very cool. The writing crackled. And it was refreshing to see a cast of actors who truly reflected a band of world travelers: Koreans, Aussies, Brits, Yanks, Africans, and so forth. Try finding anyone in a Woody Allen flick who isn’t upper-middle-class white or Jewish. (I guess such people don’t exist in New York.)

The guys at my local comics shop tell me that comics writer Brian K. Vaughn has been enlisted to write episodes this season. (And that the producers of the series brought him into the store for a visit.) Vaughn is a terrific writer (of comic books, at least), so perhaps there’s some new energy in the offing. I hope so. Because I’m still watching the show every week with my daughter.

Dr. Mabuse, as you may recall from this earlier post, writes a manifesto of evil that compels acolytes to bring down society through chaos and confusion. To contemporaries — including Josef Goebbels, who initially banned it — the second Mabuse film, “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse,” presented an allegory for Hitler, who wrote “Das Kampf” and then inspired others to implement it.

In Europe, the legend of Dr. Mabuse continues to grow. And why not? They experienced his “testament” of World War II in a way we did not. Many people have taken the Mabuse mythology and twisted and interpreted it for their own reasons, and again, I say why not. If Supergirl can go through so many iterations, then Goebbels is free to shoot new framing sequences that insist that Fritz Lang’s film blames society’s ills on the Weimar Republic and that herald Hitler as the cure.

Some of this was on my mind last night in a conversation with a friend who, surprisingly to me given his proclivity for the provocative and obscure, hasn’t seen these Lang films. Today, he emailed with another coincidental and bizarre Mabuse appearance (and before I quote him I should note that during this conversation I connected Lang, and Mabuse, and World War II, with a lengthy discourse on Samuel Beckett hiding from the Nazis durings World War II):

Curiouser and curiouser. Last night after we spoke I opened a box of books I had ordered. There was a novel titled “Red” by Richard James. It involves “the curious machinations of Dr. Mabuse” and thanks Grove Press for permission to quote from Samuel Beckett’s play, “Krapp’s Last Tape.” Does any of that sound familiar??? Beyond coincidence? (Play “Twilight Zone” theme here.)
I bought it from edwardrhamilton.com. The original price was $14.95 but they have it as a remainder for $3.95. The stock number is 6050662, in case you want to check it on ERH’s search engine. It was published by gaymenspress.co.uk, if you would like to check there for more info. I imagine it will have a bunch of gay men somewhere in it.

I checked out “Red” by Richard James on Amazon.com, and yes, there seems to be a connection to my new master, who orchestrates all our doings behind the scenes. My heart goes out a bit to Richard James; not only does the novel not seem to have sold well, but it appears that he’s taken to reviewing it himself on Amazon, and under his own name, as this link reveals. If you can write a clever book involving a mastermind plotting to take down society, certainly you’re clever enough to set up a psuedonym to review your own books, no?

I suppose I should be unsurprised that someone who would want to touch on Dr. Mabuse would also gravitate toward Beckett. I think the big surprise is that Grove Press permitted the quote (perhaps these things are easier now that Beckett is in the ground). One can’t tell from either site, Amazon or Hamilton, that the book is published by “Gay Men’s Press” (Hamilton says “GMP”), but when you click the latter site for “related reading,” you get titles like “Fag Hag,” “Father’s Day,” and “The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket,” so it seems a safe bet that the book relates not only to society’s “irreversible decline,” but also to the man (and men) behind it.