This week's Schadenfreude: The World Series and Election

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Boston is enjoying its first World Series championship since 1918. Yet questions remain... How do Stormtroopers feel about the earth-shattering Boston sweep of this year's world series? Inquiring minds want to know! (BTW, if someone could please call Derek Jeter and tell him to suck it, I'd be much obliged.)

Guess who's not getting invited to Crawford for Thanksgiving? Bush Relatives for Kerry

Forget Stephen King, Ron Suskind is the scariest author I know...

So there I am, sitting in my usual Sunday morning attire (briefs, not boxers) catching up on my online news reading when I manage to scare the hell out of myself. How did I do this fully 7 days before Hallowe'en? I started by reading this fun little article by Ron Suskind (co-author of former Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's tell-all "The Price of Loyalty"). It's a rather chilling portrait of how Bush's reliance on his version of faith in Christianity is used by the administration to shield its decisions from both internal and external scrutiny. It's light reading. (On the spooky-meter we're at Scream.)

During the course of making my way through the article, Suskind mentions David Rubenstein of the Carlyle group asking Bush to leave one of it's boards of directors because "I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company." (Spooky-meter jumps to most of Signs.) But this isn't the heavy military industrial complex stuff we're used to hearing about Carlyle being involved in. We're talking about a job he was given on the board of what used to be the catering division of Marriott. (The Shining) Bush was given the job because he was down on his luck, so he pays them back by spending three years sitting through meetings and telling dirty jokes (Blair Witch Project)... This was after Billy Graham saved him. (Blues Brothers 2000... Look, if you're a fan of the original, this was a horrifying film!)

OK, I'm sleeping with the nightlight on, but I'm OK so far. I keep reading and get to a reference to an earlier article Suskind did for Esquire magazine:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.

I decide to see if I can find that Esquire article by running a Google search using most of the above sentence as the search pharse (Don't worry, you can make up an email address to get access to it.) That's when the really disturbing part hits me. Most of the results I got back from Google were from bloggers talking about how creepy the article I was reading is. What's more they were choosing the following two paragraphs to illustrate the scariest part beginning with the sentence I had just searched! It was like realizing the killer was still inside the house with me! Observe:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

(Spooky level: The Ring) Oh {#@&! Now I'm spending the night with the lights on, every TV and radio in the house going while curled up inside my protective security blanket! This is a member of the executive branch saying that, in effect, the people running America are running an empire and aren't answerable to the constituents they serve who are merely engaged in the " judicious study of discernible reality". Well hell, when you put it that way... it scares the living $#*! out of me!

I'm sorry, but how are we supposed to proceed into this century when our leadership doesn't want to be bothered with abstract notions like reason and fact? What are we going to do? Pray our way out of uniting the Middle East against us? It's not like this is a novel idea. The "One Nation Under God" movement has only to look to European Christendom to see that not only did it not make European life more christ-like, but that it couldn't last forever. We're not "One Nation Under God" because not only do we not all believe in God, but those of us who do can't agree on who He is and what He wants. The problem with saying that you're on a mission from God, is that God never independantly verifies it to the rest of us. As for doing God's will in Iraq by deposing Sadam Hussein... Let's just say that starting pre-emptive wars against dangerous powers to liberate important regions has plenty of disasterous precedent.

Well, there you have it. Forget Kuntz, Barker, and King. If you want to send a real chill down your spine grab anything by the new master of modern horror, author Ron Suskind!

New Essay Blog (or) Intelligent Writing At The Top Of His Lungs

I'm about to tell you why you should check out what my friend, Nat Derickson, has to say in his new current events and essay blog. But, bare with me, 'cause I'm gonna say it fancy.

I really enjoy it when someone knows what the hell they're talking about and what their point of view is. I can listen to PJ O'Rourke without throwing something at the radio because even though I don't agree with 85% of what he concludes, I can understand where he's coming from and what the factual basis for his arguments are. I'd rather listen to him talk than Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter. Those two belong in the Special Olympics of critical thinking. (I think that's a track and field event.) The same goes for our politicians. For example, take our president... please! They hate us for our freedom!? Give me John McCaine, instead. Give me Chuck Hagel standing up and telling Bush, "I don't care whether or not we both get the RNC newsletter, Iraq is a mess!"

On the other hand, when it comes to getting my choir preached to, I prefer that the preacher in question refers to some chapter and verses I don't hear much. If you have my attention, keep me awake with something I haven't heard or thought of, yet. I don't care how much we agree, if you're telling me what I already know or what you think I want to hear, I will tune you out like a bad UHF signal. Make with the thought-provoking and the insight or go write a bumper sticker.

Thus it is with great fanfare and pomp (mostly pomp) that I heartily recommend:

World News Summary For the Busy American.

(Thrilling, isn't it?) I've gone from straight politics to a mix that includes more poetry, tech new and other subjects I'm interested in, but Nat really reminds me of why I started posting in the first place. He has a writing style that is sharp and pointy, yet thoughtful and well reasoned at the same time. He adds current news to the mix and his analysis seems to originate from this planet, unlike some other writers I could name. He's earnest and sincere the same way the desperate screams of a man watching the world around him twist and collapse in a slow-motion train wreck are earnest and sincere... but it's actually fun to read. By way of example, his take on the notion that whole "Osama-Bin-Laden-might-attack-the-US-to-disrupt/influence-the-election" idea is one of the more well reasoned arguments on the subject that I've read. Anyway, go check out the site. Agree or disagree, I think you'll see what I mean.

Prayer is...

Right now, Prayer is a pair of 19 year old kids in Baghdad who just want to live through the night, and as long as each doesn’t find out where the other one is, they’ll both get their wish.

Right now, Prayer is 13 and so desperate that she’ll strike a deal with God, Satan or any power who can hear her, if it will just keep her brother in his own bedroom tonight.

Right now, Prayer is just learning how to talk and doesn’t yet understand what she’s saying. But she knows when Daddy’s eyes are closed and his hands are folded together the things he’s saying are something the whole family listens to.

Right now, Prayer is just coming to grips with the idea that after 87 years of waking up every morning, he probably won’t tomorrow.

Right now, Prayer is 34 and just watched the most important responsibility he’s ever agreed to take on open his eyes for the first time and open his mouth to add his voice to the world.

Right now, Prayer is being offered by an enemy like a gift that will never be opened.

Right now, Prayer is as cheap as the talk it’s made of.

Right now, Prayer is being remembered just a little too late to be done.

Right now, Prayer is the only company a prisoner has on his 15^th day in solitary.

Right now, Prayer is glad just to be able to make the rent this month.

Prayer isn’t an audience with the almighty as much as a CAT scan that you know how to read for yourself.

God isn’t dead, He’s just listening… waiting… not for you to tell him what you want. He already knows that. He just doesn’t care. He knows what you need even if you don’t. Hearing you say it is the only thing He needs. It’s the sound of your own voice finally getting it. You are capable of so much more.

Six billion realizations radiate out from the planet every day like finger tips trying to stretch far enough to smudge the sky. Our souls struggle like drowning men as our bodies pull us back towards the earth. Sometimes we remember what we are meant to be: beautiful. I know because every face I’ve ever seen has my father’s eyes.

But we forget what we’re born knowing. We practice ugliness to hide ourselves from each other. We tell ourselves lies like loneliness, until we believe them. The preacher’s got it wrong. Most people damn themselves.

But prayer is the simple truth of breathing into a receiver and knowing that someone on the other end can hear you. You don’t even have to talk. Just take a deep breath and be yourself.

Amen.

Which file extension are you?

Which File Extension are You?

This explains a lot, actually...