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Saturday, January 25, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The President has promised that the tax breaks will be fair to all income levels... the way it works is... the richer you are, the fairer it gets!"
- - Jay Leno
WEB SITE OF THE WEEK:
"Gulf War Game" (you're shrub/get your briefing/then play the game)
http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/fbi_eyes/
RHINO HERE:
Rhino's Blog readership has grown by leaps & bounds. Thanks to Peter Coyote for trusting my blogability enough to pass his readership here when his workload recently increased (see next story). To the new readers, a hearty welcome and a heads up that my M.O. is 5 serious blogs a week & a 6th of weekend political humor.
PETER COYOTE PREMIERES TALK TV SERIES - SAT. JAN. 25
This Saturday & Sunday premieres "THE ACTIVE OPPOSITION", a TV talk show hosted by actor & veteran political activist, Peter Coyote. Broadcast by the always courageously progressive satellite network, "WorldLink TV", Peter's premiere episode, "Iraq: Eyewitness Reports", features Sean Penn on his recent trip to Iraq, Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector & Dennis Halliday, former head of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. It'll replay several times. Check the schedule, & the other great WorldLink TV programming, including the only nationally broadcast TV series on Indigenous people's issues, "First People's TV".
http://www.worldlinktv.com/
THE BOTTOM LINE article is written by Rupert Fike, an old friend from my days (13 years that is) of living in the spiritual community in Tennessee known as "The Farm". An Atlanta based writer & poet, his piece, How SUVs Can Save America's Ass is both funny & extremely relevant to the day. It's not another lambasting of the over consumption, or the dangers of driving SUVs. Instead, he makes a case that if used properly, SUVs could counter the threats to the U.S. by both AIDs & terrorism. A great read. But first...
POLITICAL SITE OF THE DAY - Friday, Rhino's Blog was honored as "POLITICAL SITE OF THE DAY" by the web site "About Politics". They've reviewed political web sites for 6 years. Their archives are surfable. You can also sign up to receive a once a week list of their featured sites.
http://www.aboutpolitics.com
MARK MORFORD'S POLITICAL HUMOR
Last Tuesday my Bottom Line Article, "Happy Imbeciles At War" was written by S.F. Gate columnist Mark Morford. It was a fairly serious piece on the ridiculousness of the shrub gang's claims of why war with Iraq is necessary.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103207/2003/01/14.html
But seriousness is not why I love Mark Morford, nor is it the theme of my weekend blogs. I love this guy for his ability to take the day's news and write his own style of devil be dammed humor, right between the lines of the articles published by his bosses at the S. F. Chronicle. 3 examples of his wit below, each with a link to the news piece he's commenting on. You can get on his trice weekly newsletter by signing up at:
http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/archive/
Grimace & Hamburgler Lick Satan's Pinky Ring by Mark Morford
The universe was heard to quietly applaud and sigh with a tiny sense of shimmering hope for the soul of humanity after all, sort of, just a little, as McDonald's Corp. reported the first loss in its history -- a $343.8 million setback, due to an unprecedented slump brought on by consumer weariness with fast food, a crowded restaurant market and its own problems with service, and the fact that it's been gnawing the very soul of human health for 50 years and it's about damn time karma slapped its flabby ass. McDonald's was founded in 1955 and has been publicly traded since 1965. The bloated toxic burger giant said it is closing 719 under-performing restaurants, which will take its grand total down to a mere 45,999,809,757,630. But it also disclosed plans to open 850 more traditional McDonald's, because it is just that noxious and never ending a cultural cancer. "We foresee great opportunities in the pre-teen market, those cute little flabby rugrats as of yet not completely addicted to our crap and sucked into the giant Happy Meal vortex," gurgled the McD's CEO from his throne of lard and green bubbling Dow Chemical additives and something resembling meat but which is actually pulverized kittens and reconstituted gobs of Lynne Cheney's cellulite, as a weirdly mutated hairless dwarf Ronald McDonald-like creature quivered on his lap and purred, its green eyes flashing.
McDonald's posts first-ever quarterly loss
Hey Baby Come Bite My Ethical Hors D'oeuvres by Mark Morford
The quite slimy little Shrub administration's point person for telecom policy had phone company lobbyists help pay for a private party at her home, and then 10 days later urged a policy change that benefited their industry, gosh aren't you just all shocked and flustered yeah right. Assistant Commerce Sec'y Nancy Victory said she regards the lobbyists as personal friends, not adding that they were also a bunch of sycophantic nabobs who brought her really good tequila and pot and Ecstasy and who the hell even cares anymore this is screw-you Bush era and it's all about cronies and blatant flagrant corporate inbreeding anyway. "My friends paid for this party out of their personal money," Victory said, snivelingly, still nicely sore from the pony rides and the spankings and the happy sodomizing of public policy in the fetish dungeon. She added she believed it was "ridiculous" to draw a connection between the party and her letter 10 days later to the FCC urging an immediate end to a decade-old restriction on wireless spectrum, immediately after which everyone tried to keep a straight face for a few moments but then burst into chortling demon-like laughter because it was just so goddamn stupid and obvious.
Bush administration official was feted by lobbyists
My Identical Twin Bogarted The Doobage by Mark Morford
A study of Australian twins and marijuana, bolsters the fiercely debated "gateway theory" that pot can lead to harder drugs, but then again, so can living in the screw-you Bush era and dealing with the incessant karmic icepick-stabs provided by pallid Dick Cheney's flying monkeys. The researchers actually received funding to locate 311 sets of same-sex twins in which only one twin had smoked marijuana before age 17, and yes, apparently that many sets of twins exist where only one lit up in high school and the other didn't, like this is somehow indicative of anything. Early marijuana smokers were found to be up to five times more likely than their twins to move on to harder drugs, which could have something to do with the fact they're sick to death of being goddamn twins and have had to put up with crap exactly like this since they were born and have had to participate in dumbass drug research not to mention how their straight milquetoasty non-pot-smoking twin is like, a total geek and hasn't even gotten laid yet much less dropped some premium acid or some peyote buttons and then gone into a sweat lodge and had their very skull carefully unscrewed so their brain could be lavishly licked by a luminous purple flying demon-Goddess made of fire and blood and chocolate.
Twins study bolsters marijuana `gateway' theory
8:37:41 AM 
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By Rupert Fike (rhfike@mindspring.com)
While visiting my Peace Corps daughter deep in the bush of Burkina Faso, West Africa, I came across a beat-up SUV with a flat tire under some Mango trees. The driver was busily working to get it rolling again, and via my halting French I found out that he was part of a country-to-country relief agency from The Netherlands installing new water systems for 6 villages. That is, he would be if he could ever get the bombed-out Toyota going.
This became an unshakeable image of Africa, because after returning to the US, everywhere I looked were hundreds of gleaming, four-wheel drive, go-anywhere vehicles. And behind the wheel were robust Americans seemingly craving some adventure even as they settled for carefully parking their spotless rides in a strip mall.
Relax, this is not yet another harangue on the evils of SUVs. In fact, you could call me a PETA-type advocate for a more humane treatment of SUVs. They need some off-road exercise, to get in low range and track over rocky inclines with their master driving just like in the commercials. And do I have just the place.
Africa - a continent perfect for some rough-riding, all terrain action. A continent also in the grips of a heart-breaking pandemic, AIDs, that grows exponentially every day that the rest of the world ignores it. We've heard the stats. South Africa with a quarter of the population HIV positive. Botswanna, forty per cent! And each week thousands of HIV positive babies are being born when the administration of Nevaripine (now down to a dollar a dose) to mothers could prevent that transmission in well over half the cases. Beginning to get the picture? We have the drugs. We have the go-anywhere SUVs, we have the eco-adventure thirsty drivers. Plus, yes, we have an image problem.
I know, I know - there is not a causeway from Miami to Dakar. But there are such things as C5As and C-141s. And for a fraction of the cost of one hour of an Iraq war, they could transport hundreds of anti-retro-viral packed SUVs as easily as they deliver tanks, helicopters and munitions.
Think of all those buffed-out-at-the-health-club dudes and trim soccer moms in their ForeRunners and Explorers and Suburbans, long lines of them driving up into the bellies of C5As after a few weeks of CDC training, and then on the Africa side, out they go, roof racks loaded with Nevaripine, condoms and even some malarial, river blindness and guinea-worm drugs - a strike force of citizen diplomacy!
We could show the world that our technological might and consumeritis can do other, needful things besides rain bombs and pollution. And surely this plan, or anything similar from America would cut the knees out from under global terrorism. Al Queda recruitment would dry up. The world, quite possibly, might stop hating us.
There is nothing here but win-win-win. Africa gets shown compassion. America becomes safer. GIs and Iraqis will not have to fight and die. Our limitless armada of SUVs can cease being the symbol of arrogant consumption. Plus they'll get to finally go have a romp, maybe even get a scratch or two. Perhaps those giant brush guards will actually push down some brush to get to a remote AIDs decimated village.
Our president talks a lot about "US interests," and certainly we should look out for this country's well-being, but the fact is that Africa cannot be decimated by AIDs without that tragedy eventually having a serious impact on America and the whole planet. Maybe not tomorrow or next year, but it will come. And right now we can only address this problem with the tools we possess - volunteerism, medicines and our fleet of strong, heroic SUVs. Let's roll!
(Rupert Fike can be reached at: rhfike@mindspring.com)
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8:21:08 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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