Yet another Jumpstart
Let’s see … (counting fingers) May, June, July, August, September .. holy crap!
Okay, so it’s been an eternity since I updated. I realised that sometime today and decided to finally do something about it. So here’s a bright and shiny WordPress blog for your tired eyes. I still need to port the comments (minus the spam) over somehow, but all the posts have been ported. (I can’t believe how much random linux/php stuff I remembered.)
I really need to get back into posting my thoughts on the interwebs. When I wrote that last post, I was really down and feeling a bit hopeless. The building of American concentration camps hit me pretty hard and took some wind out of my sails, but consider my sails re-winded.
Since the last post, I’ve improved upon my reading material and my temper, by how much remains to be seen. I’ve been reading Shakespeare’s Sister, Crooks and Liars, and DailyKos. Shakes has a lot of political ranting, often with LGBT-related viewpoints, a perspective I’m not familiar enough with. C&L is like a highlight reel for the 24-hour networks, offering videos of the 3-5 minutes of daily content that is buried among the yawns on CSPAN. Kos’s site takes a lot more concentration to get through, so I usually scan over it in a couple seconds to find bold text and embedded YouTube videos.
On TV, thanks to yotogi, I added Olbermann’s weekday Countdown to my TDS/CR crack habit. His special comments are second to none (none still employed anyway), and he shows videos of newborn pandas.
Air America has replaced pirated mp3s in my headphones lately although it, like KO’s show, has more commercials than I’d really care to endure. So I frequently switch between the a downloaded C&L clip, if available, or WinAmp (Beck’s ePro or Tripod’s Oasis Medley).
The political ranting hasn’t exactly been nil if you’re curious, it’s just been stewing in a handful of essays in my head, one of which is half done. I intend to get into a habit of writing political essays/articles/whatever, ideally every other week though I’ll say now that’s a pipe dream. The first topic is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that American media has been saying such nice things about lately.
Other topics for future articles follow. Please pester me if I take too long between them.
- 1930s Germany in Comparison to 2006 America
- Corporations, Groupthink, and Authoritarianism
- Well-Armed Cowardice
- Religion-something (to be narrowed down)
- Sleeping Giants
- The Struggle for Truth in The Struggle for Truth
And a series entitled “How to Do Your Job” with episodes for congressmen, the White House Press Corps, religious leaders, and conspiracy theorists. I had a self-mocking thought today that I rule so much I should just tell people how to do their jobs, and then thought that might actually be an interesting thing to try to write.
The last article idea I had was a generic ‘letter to friends and family’ sort of thing detailing lost liberties as if it was just ‘what I did last summer’. It should also be a good exercise - more practice in writing with irony and sarcasm while trying not to froth at the mouth.
Today the Senate passed a bill, I think it was called “Terror Terror Vote Republican Terror Terror Booga Booga”. The politicians advertised the legislation as a demonstration of how its supporters are strong on dealing with terrorists, and how those who voted against it must have been the polar opposite - Osama’s BFFs. They of course conventiently overlooked a few things - the vast majority of people killed or arrested by the multinational (in the sense that me myself and I are a trio) coalition are not terrorists, the majority of Iraqis want the US out of there and support attacks on our soldiers, and torture does not provide valid information.
In the dust storm of “I’m more Uncle Sam than you are! Are not! Am too! Are not times infinity!” the legislation wound up with an evidently insignificant problem. It grants the President the power to detain anybody who he views as a threat of any sort indefinitely and without court review. Yeah, just the wholesale elimination of Habeas Corpus. Or the right to say “Dude, WTF?”
But I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I mean, the president has been honest with the American people, and he’s really genuine about protecting our nation against the terrorist menace, right? Right?
What, he’s not?
Uh oh.