Qweeqweg's barb

Ron Pierpaoli Lives!!

2009-02-21T16:39:00.001-05:00

A year ago yesterday my father died of prostate cancer. My relationship with my dad was the most complicated and difficult relationship of my life; some of it was my fault and some of it was his, but the reality was that we barely spoke or saw each other for the last fifteen years of his life up until the final weeks when he was dying in hospital. At his wake and funeral it was very clear that he had aspects of his life I knew nothing about; he had been a basketball coach for years, a side of him I never saw or knew much about. In death it became obvious that we were both bigger than the things we always fought about and I was able to put a lot of hurt aside to write a eulogy for him. I am a writer, something he was often ambivalent about, and I have spent years dealing with my own issues of depression and repressed anger that keep me from writing as often as I’d like to or should. But the night before his funeral I found myself able to put any negative feelings and hurts aside to write about him in a way that I hoped would bring people together rather than drive them apart. The following is the eulogy I wrote for him and one of the few things I wrote in the past year that I actually feel good about. It took his death to prove to myself that I really did love him a lot more than I could admit during all those years I was mad at him. Unlike my younger siblings, as the firstborn & oldest, I found I had a lot of really vivid and positive memories from my childhood of him, things that really helped shape me into who I am today. He was a very spiritual guy and he certainly inspired a sense of spirituality and the eternal in me. In many ways I’ve realized that he will never really be gone from me as there is so much of him I still carry with me. I love you, Dad and I still miss you.

Ronald Joseph Pierpaoli
8/10/47-2/20/08

Fathers loom large over the lives of sons and daughters. Whether present or absent, the role and position of father in any family is that of primacy; in numerology the father is represented by 1. Paternal energy is synonymous with maleness and the life-giving radiance and energy of the sun.
Ron Pierpaoli loomed large as a father. He had two families, two sets of children and he straddled the gap, passing between them, sharing stories and meals, many meals.
Ron loved food. He was quite proud of that. He’d broadcast his thoughts on eating at Bridgeport Air Center beside his soapy-wet airplane, N2571 Quebec.
“We should probably start thinking about lunch.” He’d pat his belly loudly.
There were certain foods that elicited specific stories.
Sometimes the stories were serious stuff.
Polenta? Polenta is not just some porridge made of corn. Polenta helped conquer the world.
When eating polenta my father always told of how the Roman soldiers were able to carry corn meal in their packs. When they camped they would add water and over a fire they could cook and eat polenta right out of their helmets. It was part of how one of the largest most successful armies in history drew their strength for each military campaign and kept on moving across Europe all from the carbohydrate corn.
You could get a connection to the history of the world just by sharing a meal with this guy.
He was a great and expansive man. His mind and stories stretched out across continents and through millennia.
I have vivid memories of places I have never been from the richness of his stories.
I can see all the way to Papua, New Guinea; Daddy swimming in a river, wearing just his skivvies, minus his glasses, splashing and shooing away some large unknown serpent that had swum up to him with malevolent intent.
He told stories of aborigines and saltwater crocodiles. When he returned from The Philippines there were tales of Jeepneys, outrigger canoes and the Metro-Manila Aides.
My Dad wasn’t into a lot of typical hobbies, no NASCAR or fishing for him. Ron Pierpaoli was into ologies. Archaeology, theology, provolone-ology.
Did he ever tell you about Diatryma?
On every trip to the Peabody museum in New Haven my father would marvel at the bones of Diatryma; a giant bipedal bird who ate early dog-sized horses. My Dad loved Diatryma. This creature lived during the Age of Mammals, the Miocene Epoch to be more accurate, about 20 million years ago. Diatryma was this seven-foot heavy bodied flightless bird with a terrible parrot-like beak and powerful clawed legs. I have to think these things would have been pretty scary. But he loved them.
Maybe he imagined eating one.
He encouraged imagination in his children. When I was six, he took us up into the steep woods beside Laurel Ledge School in Beacon Falls, Connecticut in search of Bigfoot.
I can remember a lot of apes in my childhood.
There was a Tarzan cartoon we watched on Saturday mornings and in it Tarzan was friends with several gorillas and they would help him out when he needed some muscle. Mangani. That’s what Tarzan called his ape friends. My father adopted that word and often referred to his offspring as his mangani.
Ungk ungk mangani that’s what Tarzan would say to set his gorilla-buddies into action. My dad used it in basically the same way.
Ungk ungk mangani could mean get up and go to bed, get your toys cleaned up, or get in the car, or let’s get going, whatever.
He was often dramatic and sometimes prone to hyperbole.
Let's face it, the family boat was really a dinghy, just slightly larger than my outstretched arms but it became the HMS Biz; Her Majesty’s Ship Biz. He named the boat in honor of his wife.
His wife, Elizabeth Ann Ajello; in part she ceased being just an aka Betty-Ann when she met my father. She became The Biz. Ron dubbed her Biz and it was so.
He changed things with his words, his proclamations, and his advice.
He dreamed big, he made a lot of announcements; asked grand rhetorical questions.
“This could be it, Biz.”
“You can’t possibly be fighting!”
“I’m gonna need quiet in this car, this is a dangerous merge”
He liked silence for merging onto highways, whether he was driving or not.
“Ok, let’s turn off the radio. You’ve got this merge coming up.”
He could be rough to work for. My dad wanted your full attention even if he was the one working on something. He wanted you to be ready beside him in case he dropped a screw or wobbled on a ladder.
“Stand by one, huh?”
Stand-by-one; the concept was very clear.
Ron was unique and he did things big. Even snacks; maybe especially snacks. Keebler cookies, fig newtons, grapes, chestnuts; a snack was rarely just one item. There was usually a selection; a multitude of options in the cookie, nut or fruit department.
Ron Pierpaoli was a learned man.
He valued good old fashioned book learning from scores and scores of books. He taught me to read bibliographies, to always consider your sources.
He made me value language; to choose words sometimes by their pop and pow, not just their meaning and significance.
“In the beginning was the word…”
He loved the Gospel of John and he impressed upon me the power words have to conjure images and meaning beyond any of the five senses. Ron believed in the mystery of ritual and in the sanctity of words prayed.
The night he died we left Columbia Presbyterian and overhead the full moon had a little bite taken out of it.
A lunar eclipse.
It had just started, couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes into it.
I couldn’t help thinking my father timed that.
There were so many cultures he had studied and admired that were all so big on eclipses. The Toltecs, Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, Phoenicians; they were all into eclipses of the sun and of the moon.
I really think Ron wanted to check out in time to catch the eclipse. He probably wanted to soak it in from the new view; a celestial vantage point.
It’s gotta be something. It’s gotta be some view.
In so many ways I keep telling myself he must be so happy right now because he was looking forward to this, he has all the answers now. He was always aware of and deeply concerned with the eternal and with the spirit-body. He looked to ancient texts for their descriptions of the after-life and the pathways our souls are destined to travel. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Nag Hammadi Gospels, the Codex Mendoza and the Dead Sea Scrolls; my father studied and examined these ancient texts looking for their reflections in our times and their echoes in our modern lives.
He often told me there is a banquet in heaven and I’m sure that’s right up his alley.
I hope that is where he is right now. He is there with Alessandro, his grandfather that he loved so much, for whom I was named. Maybe Dawn and Penny are there too, tails wagging, under the table or sitting near him waiting for table scraps. Maybe they’re serving polenta today and Ron can tell his grandfather about how the Romans used corn to conquer the world and Alessandro will listen smiling, so happy to see him again and share his stories. And Renzo is there too. Father reunited with son. And it is beautiful. I am sure of that.
But there will be sadness here.
This man who was so much larger than life is passing from it.
I cannot Stand-By-One anymore.
This is it, Biz.
Ungk ungk mangani

Pre-Order Evil Awakening: The Slash is Back!

2008-05-21T23:08:00.001-04:00

Pre-Order Evil Awakening: The Slash is Back!
X Posse Press Release – May 21, 2008

The American Slasher film has returned. On August 19th, Evil Awakening will be released, bringing back the horror film that the people have demanded. X Posse Productions presents a film that has been called a “classic slasher film,” (Heidi Martinuzzi, Horror Post), and “Highly Entertaining,” (Josh Agnew, Evil Klown.com). This is a must for any fan of horror.

Synopsis:

Ludlow, a small and quiet town, was once terrorized by an insane serial killer. The townspeople brought him to justice, but true evil does not die. He will return and when a group of youngsters looking to party and have a good time in the very woods where he was killed, they will have to deal with the Evil Awakening and the bloodbath that ensues. Ludlow has a legend, and it carries and axe.

Now it is your chance to own the next great American Slasher Film, featuring music by Bitchslicer, Joe Becker, and Northern Liberties, and the gore and horror that you crave.

Pre-Order At Amazon.com Link: http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Awakening-Steve-Joseph-Adams/dp/B0019SKMPK/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1211419924&sr=8-12

Anti-Intellectual & Anti-Rational Right Winger gets roughed up

2008-05-16T09:50:00.003-04:00

Chris Matthews beats up on one of the numerous and clueless right wing radio hosts who knows his talking points but none of the facts or history behind them. Last night Matthews had guests on reacting to Dubya's asinine allusions to Nazi appeasement on the floor of the Knesset yesterday and things got heated, and especially revealing, as Matthews held his guest's nose to the mess he made on Hardball's rug. Kevin James of KRLA, this right wing radio host that works in the LA market has gotta be sharp and ready with his smears in that liberal left coast region, but this clip proves he might be very good at doing his duty for the White House in smearing Barack Obama but the guy's got no sense of history. What may be even more comical is when he uses the movie "Pathway to 9/11" as supporting evidence that the Clinton Administration did too little to catch Osama bin Laden. And he uses it to deflect Air America Radio's Mark Green's reference to reading Richard Clarke's book Against All Enemies. Ah, do you get the feeling Kevin's not a big reader? Matthews, in shock at his guest's lack of any sort of knowledge basis, makes an appropriate association in remebering White House Press Secretary Dana Perino's admission that she didn't know the difference between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Perhaps the most striking element of this video for me is that it really makes me wonder how many of these mad-dog right wingers with so much venom to spew actually have very little rational or factual basis for their arguments, smears and talking points. Would Rumsfeld, or Dubya himself, have been able to stand up to persistent questioning on what exactly they are alluding to when they raise the Nazi comparisons and analogies? Do they even know? These are folks that saw FDR and his New Deal as a great satan; comparing extremist Islam to Nazis belies a profound misunderstanding of both subjects. Plus, I have a feeling authoritarian types like most in this administration would get increasingly angry and increasingly awkward in trying to explain themselves. Sadly, our media simply doesn't question them. Instead we have the media asking whether Bush was actually referring to Obama with the smear? Huh? Come on. Bush is the most divisive, venomous politician who has ever disgraced our capitol, of course it was about Obama, and Carter and Pelosi and to whomever else sees the world and its inhabitants as more nuanced and more similar in our desires for coexistence than the shitheel from Crawford, Texas can comprehend. We've had enough of these liars and distorters. They don't know what they are talking about. They are loud and forceful and wrap themselves in false-patriotism to win arguments but they have very little knowledge or factual basis for so many of their arguments. These are a lot of the same folks who are thumping the drums for war with Iran right now. And, frankly, I'm not convinced many of them could even find Iran on a map of the world. But I guess that's what we have those expensive GPS satelites for, our bombs can probably find Iran, and that's enough for so many of them.
Enjoy the clip...

The Media isn't asking about WMD when they're eating BBQ

2008-03-11T23:16:00.002-04:00

The video below is illustrative of a major problem in our 21st century excuse for a Republic. The press was meant to be the Fourth Estate which keeps the powerful honest and in check with the facts the public demands and deserves. We are simply not getting that today and the Iraq War was facilitated by media that didn't scrutinize anything and took what powerful people said as truth without challenging it or questioning it. Our media can't be in it for the popularity and the chances to rub elbows with powerful people. They need to get to the bottom of things and challenge these fucking politicians we've given the reigns to and they can't do that when they're helping the candidate season flesh for the barbecue and frolicking on the grounds of the Senator's palatial pad. Black coffee should be more than enough in the perks department for a true journalist. The point is to investigate, question, dig, prod, probe; and spending R & R time with the Senator simply doesn't help our democracy, in fact it does quite the opposite. If you share a nice sunny afternoon with a guy and his family and maybe schmooz with some really important folk you've always wanted to meet at his party, then the next time it matters, aren't you going to be a lot softer on the guy? Won't you be a helluva lot less likely to have the balls to ask your charming host who made those terrific ribs any tough questions? Our democracy depends on bold investigative reporting and fearless journalists seeking truth from the powerful. Maybe it's nice to see a Senator roll up his sleeves and eat some BBQ but there are far more important things at stake here and these party-with-the-press shin-digs do not serve the public at all.

KAYO Quick Bucks League Now Open to New Gyms!

2008-01-22T22:21:00.000-05:00

Hello, Fight Fans!

KOFantasyBoxing's Fourth Kayo Quick Bucks League begins Friday February 1st and it's sure to be the best yet! More fights, more interactive, and more prizes!!
This season will feature a Grand Prize of 200 dollars and larger second and third place prizes! The site is ready to accept new members right now so don't waste any time!

Check out KOFantasyBoxing's new league now!

Hillary turns on the waterworks!

2008-01-07T23:48:00.000-05:00

Here's Hillary speaking softly and getting desperate in New Hampshire. She's a panderer and a calculating career politician who doesn't like to lose. The latest polls have her way behind Obama in New Hampshire so we get the traditional ice-woman turning on the sprinklers.
I just don't buy that the choking back tears in this video is genuine at all. Hillary Clinton is part of the problem, not the solution and after Iowa I think that fact hasn't quite sunk in for her yet.
We were an empire long before the war in Iraq. The Clintons weren't liberals; they were labelled as such because of their stance on a few social issues that the Right Wing loves to scream about: gays and abortion. Aside from those issues the Clinton stance on corporate profiteering and American militarism are almost identical. Americans seem to be waking up to that and so we get Hillary scrambling to show a human side to out charisma Obama and Edwards.
Well, I doubt it'll work in New Hampshire tomorrow.

Ron Paul supporters chase and harangue Sean Hannity

2008-01-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

If you don't think this country is headed for a change this video might make you want to re-think that.
Ron Paul, a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, was excluded from Fox News' forum of Presidentials hopefuls which aired last night and was moderated by Chris Wallace. Allegedly Wallace's set was designed only to house 5 candidates and the moderator and Fox decided to allow Rudy Giulianni, whom Paul had defeated in Iowa by 3 points, to take up one of those precious five chairs.
Well, check out the video below and see how a crowd of Paul supporters react when they spot Sean Hannity walking along in New Hampshire.
They are a bit scary that's for sure; angry mobs tend to be. But I'm certainly not one to weep for Hannity. What's that saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend Seems appropos somehow.
But seriously, Ron Paul has been the only candidate on either side to bring up the issue of Blowback and American militarism. Gravel and Kucinich talk about it on the Dems side but Paul has been a lot more vocal it seems.
Ron Paul has gone toe-to-toe with McCain and Giulianni on the concept of blowback in the debates and he has been eloquent in describing the perils of our American Empire.
What Fox did by excluding him last night was insure that their viewers would not have access to the one and only Republican candidate talking about non-interventionist foreign policy and de-militarizing our economy.
Plain and simple, liberal and conservative Americans are sick of this war and we don't want to continue sewing the seeds of future blowback. Fox News clearly doesn't want Americans to hear that viewpoint echoed in a candidate.

Perhaps we can ask Sean Hannity about potential blowback from Fox' decision. Well, we don't have to ask, just watch...

Time is running out...

2008-01-02T22:45:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, Fight Fans!

KOFantasyBoxing's Fourth Grand Prize League begins this Friday January fourth and it's sure to be the best yet! More fights, more interactive, and more prizes!! I am currently updating fighter records and the rankings and they'll be ready to go on Friday. This season will feature a Grand Prize of 500 dollars and larger second and third place prizes! The site is ready to accept new members right now so don't waste any time!

Check out KOFantasyBoxing's new league now!

Blitzer blowhard no better than Russert, maybe worse...

2007-11-16T16:31:00.000-05:00

The latest CNN debate was another sad benchmark in our slide towards an entirely corporate controlled election process. Wolf Blitzer, CNN's mouthpiece for the evening, consistently posed A or B, this or that, childish and simplistic questions for the candidates and he seemed downright unashamed of that or the shunning of Dennis Kucinich throughout the evening. Here's the Chris Dodd Campaign's Debate Clock which shows who got what share of the talking minutes. As usual Dennis gets the least and Wolf gave himself plenty of time.

It seems pretty clear that the debates aren't doing much to give the American people a look at each candidate. Tim Russert did his best to torpedo the hopes of a Kucinich presidency with his asinine UFO question and he was downright combative on so many points with gotcha questions that did little more than glorify Tim Russert.
Counterpunch has more on this- Paul Krassner on Russert David Swanson on Blitzer
The corporate media clearly wants a Clinton versus Giuliani campaign and it seems likely that's what we'll get. I'm really going to puke.

Looking Forward to HorrorFest 2007!!

2007-11-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

Once again the folks at AfterDark films have amassed 8 scary little movies for horror fans and below is the kick ass trailer for the weekend festival. Last year it was also a kick ass trailer for some less than spectacular movies. Let's hope this year is an improvement. I dig the genre so I'll be there no matter what.

Generals need love!

2007-09-23T15:21:00.000-04:00

This would be even more funny if it wasn't so close to what we've been seeing in the past 10 days or so from the White House and the Fox News crowd who really have explored new limits of hypocrisy in their hullabaloo about MoveOn.org's smarmy ad in the NY Times. The idea that Generals exist outside of the political realm and are therefore undeserving of the same crass and often sophomoric name-calling that Fox News so often uses against Democrats is true only to the far reaches of the Right Wing. It has been this President more than any in recent memory who has so shamelessly politicized the military. Can you remember General Abizaid's wanton support for the Dubai ports deal that most of this nation not related to the Bush family thought was a horrendous idea?

Generals are human beings and are subject to the same political leanings anyone else is. Even Fox News viewers should be able to understand that. This MoveOn versus Petraeus non-issue is another one of their distractions and the video above stands as a satiric but accurate commentary on the whining we hear from Republicans who would rather wail about smears of character and denunciations of Americans they disagree with than any substantive discussion on when this war will end or why they want us there indefinitely. People are dying and rather than cover that they are trying to save their general from a weak pun.

That's Fair and Balanced, isn't it?

New Arms Race Anyone?

2007-09-14T14:17:00.000-04:00

Doesn't the world seem safer now that the Bush administration has dabbled in pre-emptive war, occupied a country that did nothing to us, and added their own brand of poisonous rhetoric to the international debate?

Marvel's Iron Man Movie Trailer!

2007-09-14T14:13:00.000-04:00

2006-11-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

Say it ain't so, Kosmo

This is two and a half minutes of disturbing footage. No matter how bad heckling may be, when it sparks an outpouring of racial epithets it reveals a whole lot more about the Heckled than the Hecklers. As a Seinfeld fan I find this particularly disturbing, something along the lines of finding out Babe Ruth corked his bat. The show Seinfeld was always very lacking of ethnic diversity, especially considering it was set in the great melting pot of cities; New York. But Kosmo Kramer seemed the most racially blind of the central characters. He was friend to all sorts of people--like Silvio the hispanic superintendent, Sid the African-American that parked cars on the block and Ping the Chinese delivery boy. But fiction and reality are very different things, and Michael Richards will have a hard time getting past this venomous diatribe.

Big Surprise!! Saddam sentenced to hang just in time to save the Republicans

2006-11-07T21:02:00.000-05:00

Hey, we got our October Surprise—a couple days late—but how surprising was it to see the verdict handed down in the Saddam Hussein mockery…I mean, trial, all gift wrapped and ready for the Monday morning news blitz in the U.S.?

Great post from Sunday at Baghdad Burning about the Saddam Hussein verdict and how little it means to anyone outside the White House. The idea that the trial was ever fair or public or just is really comical. It’s been a show for the Western media and has been spun or blacked-out completely in Iraq. Granted, Saddam Hussein was and is a bad guy and he should be punished, but the idea that any of this is some triumph of justice is comical.

One thing to keep in mind is that the horrendous crimes he has been sentenced for occurred one year before this video and we absolutely knew it at the time but for some reason we weren’t appalled back then. At least not appalled enough to stop doing business with him.

Hearing Bush herald the Hussein verdict yesterday as some triumph of justice and democracy reminded me of the scene in HBO’s terrific series Rome in which Caesar presides over the public execution of a beaten down and barely conscious old king of Gaul. The Caesar allegories weren’t just in my own head however, here’s a piece from Guardian that points to similarities between the Roman Emperor and our Emperor-in-Chief.

End Joe-mentum; Ned Lamont for Senate

2006-11-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

I voted for Ned Lamont today because Joe Lieberman has been a yes-man to the Bush-Cheney Invasion Juggernaut from the start. I voted for Joe three times before today—though not for him as VP candidate in 2000, that year I voted for Nader. For me it was this interview and this statement from Lieberman that soured me on the guy—though the idea he has ever really been a liberal is a joke. Remember, in 2000 Joe was the right-leaning, hawkish foil to the liberal environmentalist Al Gore. And don’t forget about Terry Schiavo—Joe was on the wrong end of that one too.

Since mid-July I have been a volunteer working for the Ned Lamont campaign because I think Connecticut deserves a Senator who doesn’t roll-over for Dick Cheney and George Bush. This is an administration out of control and Joe’s claims of bi-partisanship are downright ludicrous when you’re dealing with a bunch that values embryonic goo over innocent men, women and children in Baghdad. The fundamental difference between Lamont and Lieberman is that Lieberman believes the Neocon crap about democracy’s infectious qualities and the idea that somehow a Western-friendly Iraq would become an ally and more importantly a beachhead in the Middle East from which the U.S. could launch missions into Iran and Syria. That dream looks pretty ridiculous now in the very bloody reality we see in Iraq but that hasn’t stopped Joe Lieberman from giving Bush-Cheney the green-light on Arab-killing and corporate profiteering in the Tigris-Euphrates Delta.
Plain and simple the Iraq War hasn’t helped anyone, except Iran, Halliburton and plenty of defense contractors.
The Bush-Cheney administration has terribly mishandled the War on Terror by sending US forces into Iraq—a country that had nothing to do with 9/11—and Joe Lieberman has cheered Bush on the entire time.
What do the experts say about Iraq and the Republican talking point that says “we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them over here”?

“That argument works if you assume there is a finite group of people you can attract to one place and kill, but we seem to have expanded that group of people. The National Intelligence Estimate says we’ve expanded that group of people. This is not a group of flaming liberals saying this, it’s the collective opinion of 16 separate US intelligence agencies saying that there are more jihadists because of the Iraq War… Terrorism figures have basically gone exponential since 2003, when the 2006 figures come out I think it’s going to be a pretty sobering set of figures.”-Peter Bergen, author & terrorism analyst (AC360, 9/26/06)

“The American military presence has become a liability to long-term political stability in Iraq. And, the American presence in Iraq is radicalizing mainstream Muslim public opinion throughout the Muslim world, not just in Iraq. I don't think American policy makers have an appreciation of the gravity of the crisis and the damage that the American military presence has done to vital American interests in the region…”-Fawaz Gerges, author & professor of Islamic Studies (CNN’s AM, 10/24/06)

"While our army is bogged down in Iraq, the Iranians who had suspended their uranium enrichment activities have resumed them. Basically they are going full speed ahead toward a nuclear weapon. And they mock our president because they say: You can’t do anything. And why can’t you do anything? Your army is tied down in Iraq and secondly if you attack us our allies in Iraq, our Shiite allies, who you put in power, will attack you." –former U.S. ambassador Peter Galbraith BookTV C-Span2

People say monomania isn’t good for any political party but the Iraq War has become the central issue in this campaign and Joe Lieberman has been wrong on Iraq from the start. At about 250 million dollars per day, the Iraq War is costing American tax-payers more than our schools, or health care or social security combined and for what? We’re spending money to make more terrorists?
Joe has been in the Senate for 18 years and when you look at his record, how he's voted and which votes he's skipped, it's very clear he has lost touch with Connecticut’s citizenry. Let’s hope it stops tonight.
The polls are closed now in CT. Let the counting begin!

2006-11-06T23:05:00.000-05:00

Paul O'Neill, one of a long line of whistle-blowers

One of the now very numerous insiders to tell us all how out-of-touch and incompetent our leaders are.
The White House dismissed everything he wrote as self-agrandizing lies, of course.

2006-11-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

Scary Dick Cheney

Cheney's take on the Terrrorist-election connection is really paranoid stuff. This administration is in fantasy land.
When Stephanopoulos reads the Perle/Adleman criticism it clearly angers him and Cheney gives his usual, didn't read it-won't comment.
What the public thinks doesn't matter to Dick.
He makes it clear there will be no accountability, no oversight, no end.

2006-11-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

Cheney, a despot? Or is he just playing one on TVv?

According to Dick the terrorists loved it when Ned Lamont won the Primary over Joe Lieberman.

2006-11-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

Joe Lieberman is against wiretapping but not enough to tell the President about it

Hey Joe, the bi-partisanship stuff has worn thin.
You can't be bi-partisan with these guys, they've drunk the Kool-Aid.
Sometimes I swear you have too.
That's why I ain't voting for you.

2006-11-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

Joe Lieberman is a Culture Warrior

This guy has never been progressive.
He wanted to ban Resident Evil 2. Come on, that's enough reason to dump him right there.

2006-11-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan & Christopher Hitchens weigh-in on Kerry's bumble-mouth, Iraq and the sorely-need Bush Intervention

As a liberal I always love to see conservatives or libertarians that I respect see things my way or the Leftie way. Hitchens and Sullivan are pretty rough on Dubya and Grand Moff Cheney in this clip. It's delicious. Hitchens has such a kicking vocabulary he is great to listen to. Likewise for Sullivan.

-A.P.

We Need a Change and You Can Help

2006-10-30T00:49:00.000-05:00

If you’re sick and tired of hearing about a congress that rolls over for a renegade Chief Executive; if you want to see some actual oversight on contract abuse, torture policies, wire-tapping; something done to fix illegal immigration; some real action on alternative energy sources; if you want your government to act on things that matter to everyday Americans, then we need to shake things up on Election Day and throw A LOT of bums out!

Spend a little time this week—even 20 minutes will help—and call folks in districts where every vote is going to matter to get people energized about voting Democrats into office this Election Day. Karl Rove is doing all he can to make sure Bush and the Republicans keep a firm grip on your government. It’s going to take all of us to stop them and you can help.

MoveOn.org's Call For Change Program--Start Right Now!

2006-10-26T00:39:00.000-04:00

Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America

Keith Olbermann goes off on our out-of-control & out-of-bounds Cheif Executive.

2006-10-23T17:17:00.000-04:00

President Bush on Iraq: It's Never Been

This guy is such a liar. Does anyone take him seriously anymore?

2006-10-23T12:45:00.000-04:00

Battlestar Galactica - The Adama Tactic

This is by far the best show on television and this clip from Friday's episode was one of the coolest sci-fi stunts I've seen. Adama and crew jump the Galactica into New Caprica's atmosphere and as they are in free-fall they launch all vipers and then jump away before they hit the ground. Totally bad ass.

George W. Bush Blindsided

2006-10-08T21:21:00.000-04:00

RTE’s ‘Prime Time’interview with GWB, with Carole Coleman. The White House didn't like this in in 2004.

This is one of my all-time favorite interviews with Dubya. Notice how, in true authoritarian fashion, he uses and abuses the power of his position and a stern "lemme finish please" to prevent any honest or substantive responses to the questioner. It's amazing how off balance and beligerrent he is when someone doesn't throw him predictable softball questions. Wow, what a leader!
Great work by the Irish reporter who conducted the interview. It's amazing how odd it looks when any member of this Bush crowd is actually faced with real questioning. I wonder if Coleman has interviewed the Mayberry Machiavellian since this sit-down?
--A.P.

Batman: Dead End

2006-10-03T02:32:00.000-04:00


Made by Sandy Collora, a fan film where Batman fights the joker, and finds himself in a deadly dead end Bats kicks much ass in this homemade original. If you dig the Dark Knight this is 8 minutes you will love! -Alex P

David Rovics: Operation Iraqi Liberation (Oil)

2006-10-03T01:53:00.000-04:00


David performs one of his songs about the War in Iraq, "Operation Iraqi Liberation (Oil)" in Port Townsend, WA at the Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Listen to a studio recording of Operation Iraqi Liberation at David's MySpace: www.myspace.com/davidrovics

Brownie’s takin' care of things while Darkie's drownin’ Dubya!

2005-11-24T04:55:00.000-05:00

I think Kanye West was right. I don’t think George W. Bush cares much about black people. And Dubya and “his base” Republican-types certainly care even less for poor people. Bush had no problem executing blacks during the period he was governor of Texas, when he presided over more executions than any governor in US history, of which 52 of the 156 executed were black men. One of which was Gary Graham, a juvenile at the time of his crime, who was convicted by the testimony of only one witness which his attorney didn’t even cross examine. Bush claimed that while governor he and his staff spent 15-30 minutes evaluating death penalty cases before deciding whether or not to intercede. The only pardon, or more accurately, commutation of the death sentence to life in prison by George bush was for serial killer Henry lee Lucas. Why? Of all people to pardon, why Henry? But I digress…
Bush also benefited tremendously from the racist felony list created under Catherine Harris and his brother Jeb before the 2000 election which barred many innocent people—non felons—from voting at all. Most of those listed were minorities, of which most vote democratic; who do you think benefited from that?
Katrina’s brutality exposed the ugly side of Barbara Bush too; when Dubya’s mom described the conditions of evacuees and thought they looked as if they were movin’ on up. The scary thing is that I think most rich white people think like the Bushes. They assume blacks are mostly lazy, have too many kids, are likely to be poor and prone to commit crimes and that it is only some of them that actually rise to the top of the mix.
You saw Do the Right Thing, right? I think it's a little like the character Vito's attitude about Prince and Michael Jordan in DTRT. I get the feeling that to Dubya, Condi Rice is kinda like Prince or Jordan--she's better than black, worth more than the rest of them. She's risen above.
Then there’s good ol’ Michael Brown, not as much a racist as he is a buffoon. He is oblivious, and when you watch him it seems he’s clearly lying and distorting reality. On Frontline he was asked if when local officials are overwhelmed, as they were in NOLA (his word overwhelmed) isn’t that exactly the condition for which FEMA exists? His answer: “Based upon the priorities of the state...we [Feds] don’t come in and take over. We don’t have the resources to take over.”
He’s amazing. He puts it on the state, sheds responsibility, even when the record clearly shows he didn’t fulfill what was requested. The supply lines had been cut. The whole thing had been restructured, privatized. When a city floods the city needs rescue by the Feds!! If not the Feds, then who? Halliburton? No, they’ll just get all the rebuilding contracts while reports suggest they’re mistreating workers.
Dubya doesn’t care about poor blacks, or poor whites for that matter. How many poor white kids did he alienate with his callous response to the national tragedy of Katrina? Kids that might grow up hating the federal government that let their friends and neighbors drown; and that might hate the blacks that looted their friends and neighbors houses—Bush, Brown and Chertoff’s disregard might end up spawning Timothy McVeigh style terrorists with a bayou flavor here in the U.S. just like our brutality spawns terrorists in Iraq.
Compassionate conservatism, brothah.

I'm Thankful for Giant Apes

2005-11-23T13:49:00.000-05:00

In our home Thanksgiving always meant giant apes. At least that was the case for me as a child when Thanksgiving usually heralded an all day festival of flicks like King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Son of Kong and King Kong versus Godzilla. Nowadays I never see classics like that on the holiday but this year that’s all going to change! This year you can bring the biggest ape of them all into your home on DVD with the kick ass release of the original King Kong. If you haven’t already picked up a copy I highly recommend doing so as it looks amazing—very cleaned up and rich with detail you probably never noticed in all the times it’s been rebroadcast on TV. Mad bonus features on the second disk as well.
Speaking of giant apes…a few weeks ago I attended a cryptozoology symposium at Bates College in Lewiston Maine. It was a blast listening to artists and cryptozoology enthusiasts there and talking with other folks that don’t actually think you’re crazy for believing in Bigfoot. There’s a write up about the weekend here and you can always learn more about the subject of cryptozoology here. I went because of my fascination with Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, as he is often called.
Is Sasquatch a North America descendant of Gigantopithecine lineage, a massive ape that migrated from Mongolia and Northern China over the land bridge and down through Alaska, Canada and into North America? The Gigantopithecus americanus, if we can call him that, is bipedal and may have broken into at least one sub-species preferring warmer wetter climes since there have been numerous sightings in the American south as well as the Pacific Northwest which is more commonly thought of as Bigfoot Country.
Hopefully, conclusive proof of the ape man-creature known as Bigfoot will someday come in the form of video or photo evidence, although there is a substantial portion of Bigfoot “enthusiasts” who wish to shoot one dead, in order to prove they exist. I’ll give you a second to try and follow that logic...
Of course science is interested in taxidermy and seeing a North American primate in a museum diorama would be impressive, but at what cost would we cull such a creature? If they really are out there, it’s a species so rare it is on the way to extinction anyway, and killing off even one of the last few individuals would help Sasquatch stride off into oblivion and who could be in support of that? There is no singular fact or finding that proves Bigfoot exists nor is there any singular fact or finding that disproves his existence either. There is a tremendous amount of supporting evidence and a very significant number of very credible sightings. Bigfoot phenomena shouldn't be included in the now trendy classification of Urban Legend because number one, the sightings of Bigfoot have numerous consistent details-urban legends often grow more outlandish with each retelling-Sasquatch sightings are extraordinarily similar. And second, tales of Bigfoot are rarely set in an urban setting at all-most Sasquatch sightings occur in rural to remote areas. Urban Legends are the man with a hook for a hand that harasses kids on lover’s lane or alligators in the sewers. Bigfoot and other cryptozoological critters are different.
Bigfoot is more than folklore. Of the 500, or thereabouts, Native American Nations that were here before white men, almost fifty percent of those tribes told tales of giant men covered in hair that roamed the deep woods. The amount of tracks, feces, hair samples and eyewitness accounts that have been found and documented cannot be wholly dismissed. I'm not saying I'm certain there are apes in America but I'm not so sure I would dismiss it so easily. Science needs evidence so yes, at this point we cannot say they exist but saying they definitely do not exist would be just as foolish. If Bigfoot is gigantopithecus he is a survivor of the Pleistocene epoch, the period when much of our modern species existed; the genus homo first gained its footing, while the extinction of megafauna like the mammoth, sabre-toothed tiger, the giant sloths and the wooly rhinoceros also occurred as the epoch wound down. Bigfoot would have had to survived in small isolated pockets of wilderness; and for the most part that’s exactly where he is usually spotted.
And before you say no way, not a chance, rremember, it was just this past year that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a species long thought extinct, was photographed in the US. The mountain gorilla was first identified just after the turn of the twentieth century and the Coelacanth, a fish thought extinct millions of years ago, has been caught first off of South Africa in 1938 and on several occasions in the Indian Ocean. It's not that unrealistic to assume there may be more going on in the North American forests than we suspect. At least I’d like to hope so. When Loren Coleman signed my copy of his book Bigfoot: The true story of Apes in America, he wrote a simple dedication of three words that speak volumes to cryptozoologists, both amateur and professional: Enjoy the Quest.
In the end perhaps that’s all we’ll ever have, and perhaps that’s enough.

Burning Flags, Forests, Fallujah, and Philadelphia, Mississippi

2005-06-23T20:28:00.000-04:00

I never think about burning a flag. I never want to burn a flag; at least not until they tell me there may be a law that says I can't. Burning a flag as an expression of disgust or whatever rage against the nation it represents should be protected under our constitution. Free speech and expression isn't about stuff that's sweet and filled with puppy dogs; free speech is about allowing the most acerbic of expressions and protestations against authority. A free country that is strong and secure enough in its national self can withstand, and even grows stronger from, the diverse exchanges and communication that occurs within.

So glad to see Lisa Bloom back today on Anderson Cooper 360 and the other day we got a double dose--Heidi Collins and Rudi Bakhtiar were on.

Sounds like the judge's son might have killed that girl, Natalie Holloway. they even arrested the judge. This is a friggin compelling little mystery the news has a hold of! these little crime dramas are midly interesting and they tickle the drama fancy of everyone--but when we've got a war going on they are weapons of mass distraction.

The trickerations and horseshit continues from this administration about Iraq and meanwhile the dying continues. One of the items in today's hearing, and right along it's been an issue, was the number of trained Iraqi forces. Just how many trained soldiers are there?? They can't seem to answer that. That answer should be in numbers not in explanations clarifications and sound byte babbling.

Terrible wildfires seem to be the norm in our warmer wetter world...I guess not wet enough when and where we need it.

Very sad about Cosmos 1's failed attempt at becoming the first solar sail deployed in orbit. As the saying goes, back to the drawing board. You can join in the journey here.

They sentenced the old klansman and I will enjoy thinking of him rotting away in prison...he got 60 years, he's 80 now, let's assume he won't be getting out.

Big big fight coming up this weekend...more on that later.

welcome to washington mr.afghanistan man

2005-05-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

Former Unocal exec and first president of Afghanistan Hamid Kharzai visited Pres. Bush today in DC. Karzai towed the party line about prisoner abuse and even softened the degree of outrage he had towards the Qu'ran-toilet issue. Karzai sounded a lot bolder before he left Afghanistan than he did at today's presser with Dubya. And Bush didn't do anything to make him feel any safer or more in charge back in Kabul.

At the presser with Karzai one reporter asked Dubya about the filibuster-Nuclear clash and Bush went through the whole Up-or-Down Vote talking point line or two and how it's all he asks, they're entitled. Whatever. There will be no compromise coming from him that is certain. 95% is way too little when you are that arrogant.
Should be interesting to watch how life plays out for Hamid Karzai since the current administration expects nothing less than obedience from him. Karzai really can't ever hope to be much more than a US satelite state where the peace in Afghanistan is balanced with our need to keep bases and lots of weaponry there. Anyway...

24 ends tonight. Can't say I'm upset about it. It flaunted with that whole leaping over the cartilaginious fish phenomena--Can you tell I refuse to use that phrase?--when Jack staged the convenience store robbery. I think it still had some great moments after that, like the 12 minutes when Jack stormed the hideout and foiled the webcast execution. That was amazing. But then it has really sucked out loud since the F117 shoot down--they blew that on a lot of levels. I'll get into it some other time...I am looking forward to how it ends tonight. I get this feeling there will be some war or major issue created with China--my guess is Jack gets taken as a prisoner of state to China. They will demand it I gotta figure because of the incident when they stole that dude. I suck with names on that show. Peace.

Welcome to my Blog!

2005-05-07T15:28:00.000-04:00

Hello Cyberspace, with this post I am officially joining the Blogosphere and the news/information revolution. Yes, I'm a liberal and I'm not afraid of the word or the connotations that seem to have gotten attributed to it over the years. Does it mean I'm pro-abortion and anti-death penalty? Yes. It also means I'm pro-civil rights and I'm against nationalist aggression in the name of economic growth or natural resource acquisition.

So, what's got me steamed today?

How about this little tid-bit involving a beheaded little girl's body found 4 years ago on a walking trail. In these days of runaway brides, neighborhood sexual predation, laci peterson and terry schiavo there is no way media would have ignored this story had little Erica Green's headless body been white. The outrage that would have been generated by such a find in a white neighborhood would have launched manhunts and candlelight vigils and a nation of mourning. This nation is divided into political camps these days that is certain but to think we have reached some racial detente is ludicrous. There are still two Americas, a white one and a black one and occasionally they rub up against each other and still generate age-old tensions and hatreds. We have a long way to go.

Interesting piece here by Ted Rall about free speech and how much influence an employer has on that right.

Terrifying news coming out of Red State America where Darwin's radical and controversial(yes, read that as sarcasm!) theories of evolution are being challeneged by christians and supporters of the non-scientific horseshit known as Intelligent Design. How do you convince people the earth is getting warmer and wetter when they don't even believe in one of science's fundamental truths?

If you visit my homepage, have patience, I'm still working on it.
Any boxing fans out there? You can read my preview of tonight's big lightweight showdown here. Enjoy.