Two Words: Jeff Ellis
Stealing yet another idea from
Shannon Black, I decided to put Windows Media Player on shuffle and keep track of the first ten songs that were randomly selected. And here they are:
1) U2 and Johnny Cash -- The Wanderer
2) Nine Inch Nails -- Something I Can Never Have
3) Lou Reed -- This Magic Moment
4) David Bowie -- Law (Earthling on Fire)
5) Tom Petty -- Don't Come Around Here No More
6) The Police and Henry Mancini -- Every Breath You Take/Theme From Peter Gunn (Mr. Ruggerio's Remix) (From the third season soundtrack of The Sopranos)
7) The Beatles -- Here Comes The Sun
8) REM -- Apologist
9) Talking Heads -- Memories Can't Wait
10) REM -- Crush With Eyeliner
Not sure what this says with me but it was kinda fun.
Well, another birthday had come and gone. I am now 31 years old. I was born on Nov. 25th, 1973. This year, my birthday fell on a Thursday that also happened to be Thanksgiving. At 12 midnight, Thursday, I was at work. When I went home eight hours later, I immediately went to bed, woke up for 30 minutes to open some presents from family and friends, then went back to bed. When I woke up, it was time to go to work again. So, at 12 midnight Friday, I was at work. In short, with the exception of 30 minutes, I basically spent my entire Thanksgiving and my entire Birthday at work, stressed out and feeling trapped.
In short, most depressing birthday ever!
I have a streak of gray in my hair now. I've had a few gray hairs since I was 24 but this is the first time that I've ever had to face the prospect that, from now on, when I look at myself in the mirror, a good portion of my hair will be gray. Proof positive that I'm getting older.
In short, I'm 31 now. I've been a real pain in the ass to be around for the past week, obviously. Every thought I've had has mutated into some sort of regret. I see the neighborhood children out playing in the street and most weeks, this would annoy me but not this week. This week, I see them and tears come to my eyes as I realize that I may never have a family of my own because I was too immature and selfish in the past. I go to work and I realize that this is probably the best I can hope for because while I could have gotten a degree, I didn't feel like going to class on a regular basis. Even my writing provides little comfort to me as of late -- everything I write, I find myself wishing I'd had the guts to write it years earlier when I was still young enough to be able to say I was at the beginning of a brilliant career. Every day this week, I have woken up and found myself wondering if it really means all the much that I woke up to face another day as opposed to dying in my sleep.
Life, or at least my life, has never seemed so pointless. So wasted.
In short, it has not been a good week to be me.
Been a while, I know. With the approaching holidays, work has been insane and most of my free time has been spent passed out on my couch, having nightmares inspired by watching too many Bill Kurtis Special Reports on A&E. (That said, you gotta love Bill Kurtis. When you think of the ideal anchorman, don't you just picture Bill Kurtis? And doesn't it suck when you turn on the TV and discover it's Dan Rather?)
Anyway, a quick rundown on my reactions to some of what has been going on in the world:
1) Powell is out, Rice is in. Isn't it funny how many liberal commentators have resorted to making Aunt Jemima jokes when talking about Condi Rice? Isn't it interesting to note how many times she's been referred to as the house slave? Liberal racism is always very revealing. Their problem with Dr. Rice doesn't so much seem to be the color of her skin as the fact that someone with the color of her skin doesn't vote the same way we do. Is that why all of you proud idealists went down South in the '60s? To require a group of people automatically agree with everything you say? Grow up, liberals, grow up.
2) More fighting in Iraq. So, are we winning, yet?
3) Continued speculation on why Arafat died. Can't we just be happy the S.O.B. is dead? I'm sure he is, seeing as how presumably he's getting to cash in on all the vestal virgin cards that he was saving up for the afterlife.
4) Bitter Kerry supporters seek therapy in the Blue States. Maybe if you guys had done this before the election, you would have nominated a better candidate than John Kerry.
5) Kerry in 2008? Why not? Hell, won't that be the 40th anniversary of his secret mission in Cambodia?
6) Michael Moore is upset. Boo-hoo.
7) Bill Maher is upset. Double boo-hoo. Hey, I'm upset and I don't see anyone giving me a series on HBO!
8) Texas Democrats leave Congress bitter about redistricting. Ah Hell, talking to the people waiting in line at the unemployment office just got a lot less appealing.
9) Desperate housewives do something desperate. Don't they always? How many housewives look like Marcia Cross? That many? Damn, I should have gotten married when I had the chance.
10) Harry Reid is the new Minority Leader? Yeah, that's real scary. Did Harry almost lose his '92 primary to Charles Woods!? (People in Alabama know what I'm talking about...for the rest of you, go look it up on google. That's what it's there for.)
11) Over on
politics1, Ron continues to sound like he's about to abandon the whole enterprise. Hey, Ron -- I'm sorry I called you a rabid dog. I'm addicted to your web site the way a junkie is addicted to the needle. Don't leave us!
12) The Libertarians continue to make asses out of themselves. Guys, stop reading so much goddamn Ayn Rand and just explain the logic behind the Libertarian party. It won't win us any more elections but at least I won't be embarressed to admit belonging to your party.
13) Ralph Nader wants a recount. Ralph, you lost. You lost BIG. You will never be President. You will never again be respected. You will never again be a folk hero. Maybe Bob Dylan can survive making huge misjudgments at various points in his career but check it out, Ralph -- you didn't write Mr. Tambourine Man. At best Ralph, you're like the fourth member of Peter, Paul, and Mary; latching onto the Dylans of the world but never once showing any special talent of your own.
14) Lastly, this is a point that I think needs to made. It's something that just has to be said and I fear no one else is ever going to say it unless I say it now:
Garrison Keillor is a tired, condascending hack and Lake Woebegone should be the 21st Century's Guernica!
(I remember watching the end of the movie
Dogville a few months back and thinking, "Now, if this film were called
Lake Woebegone, I'd actually be enjoying this...")
In today's
New York Times, there is a story that mentions widespread rumors that Arafat died of AIDS and the evidence that is provided -- while in no way proving anything -- is rather convincing. If true, this basically means that the Middle East now has a Roy Cohn of its very own...
Scott Petersen has been found guilty over murdering his pregnant wife, Laci.
My reaction to this news is identical to my reaction to the news that John Thune had defeated Tom Daschle in South Dakota: Good.
As the world knows, Yasser Arafat is now officially dead. His death, in Paris, was announced yesterday though I've read speculation that the old Devil had actually been dead for quite some time before that. Just what exactly he died of is just a little bit unclear at this time. Myself, I am hoping for a diagnosis of devine retribution.
So, what to say about a murderer who passes away in Paris? Not much, really. This is not a man who deserves a grand eulogy and, quite frankly, he is not a man who deserves mixed feelings. The most noteworthy thing about Arafat's death is that he did not die in a suicide bombing. He did not die while hijacking an airplane. He was no executed when his country's government refused to grant immediate amnesty and release to a handful of prisoners. No, those were fates that Arafat reserved for his followers and his victims. Arafat died in a Paris hospital bed.
All of Arafat's obituaries will mention that the man was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I'm proud to say that I was one of several thousand global citizens who signed a petition demanding that Oslo revoke that prize. I'm less proud to say that the petition had no effect whatsoever.
Anyway, for a better overview of just why no tears need be shed over Arafat, check out
this article from National Review Online.
According to stories out of both Boston and Los Angeles, it would appear that John F. Kerry has decided what to do now that he is no longer a Presidential candidate. No, he's not going to Disneyland. He's gearing up to run in 2008!
Now, when you just consider the raw data, this isn't exactly an insane idea. The man did win 48% of the nation's votes and if just a mere handful of voters in a few states had marked their ballots differently, Kerry would have won. This doesn't give him as big a justification for a second chance as the one Al Gore had -- Kerry didn't win the popular vote, after all. But still, Kerry could make a case based on the numbers and make the claim that, with no incumbent in the race, he'd stand a good chance of making it to the White House.
Call this the Thomas Dewey Doctrine -- Dewey lost to FDR in 1944 but only because he was running against FDR. Hence, come 1948, Dewey was the automatic front runner for the Republican nomination. Dewey was also a stiff, humorless man with little personal charm and an inability to connect with anyone outside of his own circle of cronies. Indeed, to say that John Kerry is the Democrat's Thomas Dewey; it's more true than even he would like to admit.
However, being realistic, the fact that Kerry is even considering this (assuming he actually is and these stories aren't just cases of bitter blue state imaginations working overtime) shows just how out-of-touch John Forbes Kerry really is. For all this talk of scare tactics and dirty tricks and voodoo curses and tantric sex secrets (Haven't heard about the latter two? You haven't been reading the right newspapers...), Kerry's loss, to a large extent, was due to the fact that he was John Kerry. And the majority of voters did not see much in John Kerry worth voting for. Kerry lost because he was a lousy candidate. Kerry lost because quite a few undecided voters rejected him personally. Kerry came as close as he did because Bush is probably the only politician who rubs almost as many people the wrong way as John Kerry.
So, John, for the sake of your own obviously fragile, male ego, stay in the Senate, keep your mouth shut, continue to leech off your wife, and leave 2008 for Mrs. Clinton. After all, there are voters across this country who have been waiting sixteen years for a chance to vote against her.
Who are you to deprive them of that right?
From the New York Daily Post,
when flakes commit suicide.
Kerry has conceded. He has not gone the Al Gore route of trying to win by beating his opponent into submission. Good for you, Kerry. Now, go away and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Over at
politics1, the site publisher, Ron Gunzberger, is more than a little bit ticked off about the results of this election. His comments, as of this moment, are about halfway down the front page, directly after all the dry facts of election night, 2004 are presented. Ron -- who I don't know well enough to call Ron but who I do have a great deal of respect for -- is considerate enough to title his editorial "Ron's Liberal Rant" and there are three liberal rants. Again, Ron shows a lot more class than most liberals by giving advanced warning that he's about to present his opinions and inviting his conservative visitors to just skip over them.
But the comments themselves might as well have been written by a rabid dog. "Enjoy the draft?" It's hard to believe that the man who created probably the web's premier site for unbiased political info. could also be capable of writing something so incredibly petty and -- well, just nutty.
But, I guess that's what liberalism does to you.
Still, it's a great site. Can't recommend it more. And Mr. Gunzberger, I hope you feel better soon. Really, I do.
I can afford to be charitable because my side won and your side --
Well, does your side even exist anymore?
Still watching Fox News, still waiting for them to call another state. So, while I'm bored and frustrated, let me share a random, rather sarcastic thought that popped into my head as I voted this afternoon.
Gee, I rhought earnestly to myself,
that McCain/Fiengold campaign reform bill sure did elavate the tone of this year's election, didn't it?
Other observations:
1) Yeah, I wrote in my vote for Jay/Taylor as promised. I notice that in Utah, the only state where the Jay/Taylor ticket was actually officially on the ballot, that the Personal Choice Party won a grand total of 331 votes. There might be a few other PC votes floating out there but I'm getting the feeling that the PC Party might not be sticking around. Oh well, so much for my hope for a hedonistic version of the Libertarians.
2) This year, only two Libertarians got my vote. That's a record low number for me. (Those two Libertarians where Quanah Parker and Tom Oxford who were both running for local judicial posts.) Hate to say it but I'm starting to get a bit burned out with the world of third party politics. The problem, I realized as I was voting, is that the Libertarians aren't so much running to win as their running for martyrdom. As of late, they're whole identity seems to be based on the idea of never winning, of always being a mocked voice in the wilderness. The Libertarians don't want to win. And if you aren't willing to win, what's the point of playing this whole political game?
3) In the spirit of the above comment, I'm forced to admit something that I've probably always known but that I've always tried to deny. I may support drug legalization, I may oppose the death penalty, I may be a writer who enjoys films that could be called out-of-the-mainstream, I may have voted for Andre Marrou in 1992 and for Charles Jay this year, and Hell, I may have once actually run a brief campaign for Congress as a Libertarian, but when you get right down to it, I'm just another Texas Republican.
4) Pete Sessions beat Martin Frost and it looks like the Republicans have finally claimed a majority among the state's Congressional delegation. Veteran Democrats like Nick Lampson, Max Sandlin, and Charles Stenholm are all losing. It looks like, of all the Democrats tossed into new Republican leaning districts, only Chet Edwards appears to have survived. Still, I think Frost -- a long time political insider who is 62 years old and has a few more years of possible activity ahead of him -- will be back, in some way, in 2006. I could very well see him running for Kay Bailey Hutchison's Senate Seat. Frost is going to be the newest Democratic martyr in Texas and Democrats love their martyrs.
5) It's looking like the Republicans are going to be gaining seats in the Senate and the House. What does this mean? It probably doesn't mean that the Republicans have captured the hearts of America but it definitely means that the Democrats have lost them.
6) Moveon.org. Hey, guys, did you ever consider that you might have been a lot more effective if you weren't always so obnoxiously abrasive? I know, I know -- me saying that is like the pot calling the kettle black. But, and here's a lesson for the Democrats, you may have noticed that the Bush campaign never made any effort to promote my occasionally profane little blog as the voice of America.
7) Before Kerry says that he lost because of Republican dirty tricks, it should be remembered that Bush probably would have lost to Joe Lieberman. He probably would have lost to Dick Gephardt. The only dirty trick that decided the election was the dirty trick the Democrats pulled by nominating the one candidate that inspired less confidence in voters than George W. Bush.
8) Wow, it sure was a good idea to run with John Edwards, wasn't it? Has Kerry won a single state below the Mason-Dixon line?
9) Anyone notice the numbers in the Obama-Keyes race? It was something like 73-27 in favor of Obama. I don't know what worries me more -- that 73% of the voters of Illinois voted for a liberal Democrat or that 27% voted for Alan Keyes. Conservatives, we have our George McGovern and his name is Alan Keyes.
10) It really looks as if Thomas Daschle is going to lose his Senate seat to John Thune. Good.
11) Meanwhile, in Illinois, it looks like longtime conservative Phil Crane is about to lose the House seat he'd held since 1969 to Melissa Bean. Crane ran for President in 1980 (lost the Republican nod to Ronald Reagan, of course) and has been best known for being a largely inactive Congressman ever since then. The guy was one of the 1st supply side conservatives to enter the House but once the rest of America caught up, Crane suddenly went quiet and he got overshadowed by similar Congressmen like Jack Kemp, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, and others. Crane recently had a chance to take over as chair of the important Ways and Means Committee but was rejected, despite being the most senior Republican in the House, by his party's caucus. This was around the same time that Crane admitted that he'd been going through the past few decades in an alcoholic haze. So, his defeat isn't a huge shock but it's still impossible for me not to mourn what Phil Crane could have been as he joins John Kerry in the haze of obscurity and mediocrity.
Okay, it's late. I'm logging off. The vote stands Bush 269/Kerry 242. Bush has won. Deal with it and get on with your lives.
I'm watching the election returns coming in on Fox News. Right now, it is Bush 269 -- Kerry 221. Kerry is talking about challenging Bush's victory in Ohio. Assuming Bush wins the one more state needed to win reelection (and he will), Kerry will challenge. Just a feeling I have. That's the new Democratic way. Rumor and innuendo. Rumor and innuendo.
But, look, this is what it all comes down to. Bush is going to be reelected. And whether Kerry admits that tonight or months from now after another pointless legal struggle, Bush is and will be President.
This will probably be the second election in a row that the Democrats will claim they lost as a result of some shadowy conspiracy. Sorry, guys, the reason is because you nominated Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 -- arrogant technocrats that the majority of voters simply could not feel comfortable with. There are hundreds of Democratic officials out there that could have beaten Bush in these elections. But you didn't nominate them. You nominated men who fit your litmus tests and kept your activists happy. You screwed up. Deal with it, baby blue, deal with it.
And, hey, John Kerry --
Gotta say this before you vanish into the myths of obscurity and mediocrity --
And I apologize to those who I may offend--
But gotta say it--
Fuck you and fuck the lies you told about the men who served with you in Viet Nam and fuck the votes you cast in the Senate and fuck the soulless hacks who forced you upon the American people and fuck the shills who claimed you had a soul and fuck your wife for financially supporting your career and fuck George Soros and every other rich man who says that he knows what's right for the poor and fuck John Edwards for supporting you and fuck Ted Kennedy for trying to use you to do to the country what he did to Mary Jo Kopechne with a car.
That's out of my system. The need for profanity, at least on my part, is over.
Now, on to 2008!
Hey, it's Tuesday and in another few hours, it will be time to go and vote and pray. Hear that God? I know I haven't been the world's best Catholic but I will become as old school as a Mafia Don if Kerry loses tomorrow. And if he doesn't? Well, Scientology appears to be where all the beautiful people are going. Those are the stakes. Now, let's have some devine intervention!
Seriously, it sometimes feels like that is what it is going to take to avoid four years of Kerry/Edwards. So, how am I planning on voting in tomorrow's key races?
Well, there are only three big races on my ballot tomorrow -- President, U.S. House, and Dallas County Sheriff. As I have previously states, I will be casting a write in vote for President and that vote will be for Charles Jay and Marilyn Chambers Taylor of the Personal Choice Party. (Check out the acronym. I think we're all going to need something similar to survive four years of Theresa Heinz Kerry telling us all to eat cake.)
For the 32nd House District of the state of Texas, I will be reluctantly voting for Pete Sessions, who is running neck-and-neck with Democrat Martin Frost. Sessions is probably my least favorite Republican; someone whose actions and manner tend to be that of a classical vacous politician. You look at the man and feel that he'd be a Communist if that happened to be the majority party in this state. Frost, I actually have a bit of respect for but he is pretty much a loyal Democrat and, as moderate as he may sound in Texas, his actual record is quite a bit more liberal. Originally, I was going to vote Libertarian but I have to be realistic enough to admit that Kerry could very well win this thing. It is vitally important, therefore, that the Democrats not win control of the House or the Senate. So, I will be voting for Sessions.
As far as Dallas County Sheriff is concerned, I will be voting for Republican Danny Chandler who, I feel, is probably the only candidate who help the department get through the current scandals that incumbent Jim Bowles has left them as his going away present.
Now, the standard refrain in news reports about the election is "It's almost over." This is a lie. Elections are never over and as soon as the final vote is counted, it'll be time to start preparing for 2008. As of right now, my choice for President in 2008, regardless of today's results, is the former Mayor of New York, Rudy Guiliani. My dream ticket would be Guiliani for President and the former Governor of New Mexico (and one of the few articulate voices for drug legalization out there) Gary Johnson.
Hell, a Kerry victory might be worth it just for the chance to see him trying to debate Guiliani in 2008. However, until Guiliani officially declares, I'll be hiding out in Australia.
This is the point where I'm supposed to encourage you to vote and have your voices heard. However, since I am convinced that most of the people out there are idiots, I can only say this -- STAY HOME! If you think Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman alive, stay home. If you think it's unfortunate that Howard Dean didn't live up to the hype, stay home. If you're a guy with a pony tail who wears open toed sandals, stay home. If you call yourself a vegan and don't smirk, stay home. STAY HOME, STAY HOME, STAY HOME!
Thank you and God bless.
View my Guestbook
