Are We Embarrassed Yet?

I say it's time to adopt the South African Constitution...

Thanks for nuthin'!

God, even Rep. Murtha voted against it!!!!...

As Keith Richards would say, "talk is cheap".

indeed.

For every action...

So, it only took one press conference by Democratic Rep. John Murtha in which he stated that it was time to get the hell out of Iraq to set the White House into a frenzy of counter-insurgency activity: press secretary Scott McLeland compared Murtha, a pro-military hawk who served in Vietnam, to Michael Moore. Small Dick Cheney went on the offensive as well, deploring the irresponsibility of "rewriting history", and flatly asserting that the Iraqi people are better off now than they'd be under someone like bin Laden, again making the not-so-subtle suggestion that the US military presence in Iraq is somehow related to the 911 attack (have you no shame Dick?). Meanwhile, Rumsfeld does his part and goes on the Sunday morning talk shows to declare that American people will be in greater danger if the US military pulls out of Iraq (again, that 911 shadow...). Remember, when these dominoes start falling...

Forget John Murtha for a moment and ask yourself this: why is the White House so freaked out about this? Well, they are very, very concerned because of the effect Murtha's comments might have on people like you and me. If public opinion further shifts dramatically in opposition to the war and the occupation in Iraq, as it has in the last few months, then things start looking pretty bad for Rummy & Co. So, instead of calling Murtha's office and thanking him for doing something he and countless other spineless politicians should have done about 4 years ago when it would have mattered, call that pro-war uncle of yours, or talk to that bus driver who's always yapping about terrorism, or that co-worker who has a cousin in the 82nd Airborne. Talk to people around you and organize and make YOUR voice be heard, because THAT'S what Dick Cheney is REALLY afraid of, not Johnny-come-lately Dems like Murtha.

The Final Chapter??

So, I'm reading Rolling Stone, and I see that murdered rapper Notorious B.I.G. is coming out this month with yet another posthumous album called "Duets: The Final Chapter" . This album contains duets with other artists (some of them dead, like Bob Marley!) that were completely manufactured in the recording studio by various producers. These tracks are evidently all new.

Now, I'm not against trying new things musically, like Billy Bragg and Wilco recording music to unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics (they were actually invited by Guthrie's daughter to do so), but this is just stupid. The guy is dead. It's over. I thought so when Paul, George and Ringo recorded over a John Lennon demo in 1995 and released the track as a Beatles song, and I think so now.

Just stop it.

Bow Your Heads...

So, when Dubbya called for September 16th to be a National Day of Prayer for the victims of hurricane Katrina, I couldn't help but laugh and think about Led Zeppelin and the song "When The Levee Breaks" on Zep IV:

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down south
They got no work to do,
If you don’t know about chicago.
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin’ ’bout me baby and my happy home.
Going, go’n’ to chicago,Go’n’ to chicago,
Sorry but I can’t take you.
Going down, going down now, going down.

So Georgie, while I'm sure a lot of folks down on the Gulf Coast appreciated your thoughts and prayers, at the end of the day, it won't do them no good, so do us all a favor and quit it with the empty symbolic gestures!

Perdu Done It

In case anyone is wondering where Perdu went, my blogmate is in Brookhaven, MS helping out folks from New Orleans with the Red Cross at a local shelter. Here's to you my friend (raises Reed's ginger beer bottle)!

Let Them Eat Cake!

So, I've been out of commission for a little while (long Labor Day weekend and then insane work schedule the following week), and so much has happened since I last was able to read the news, it's hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll go the easy route with my favorite quote so far from the whole Katrina tragedy/fiasco.

For those of you who still think that wealthy politicians and their families care about the low income folks of this country, Barbara Bush, in her usual Marie-Antoinette style, reminded us that at the end of the day, we're just peasants to her.

Here's what her majesty said:

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. … And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
-- Former first lady Barbara Bush about Katrina evacuees housed in the Houston Astrodome

Yeah. This whole hurricane/flood/destruction/starvation/death thing has been working *really* well for those folks...

Sigh.

Life Imitates Art

Gareth Keenan, assistant to the regional manager

Michael Brown, assistant to the city manager

Gareth Keenan: "I'm the assistant regional manager."

David Brent: "Assistant to the regional manager."

- BBC Series "The Office," 2001.

Time magazine reported that FEMA chief Michael Brown's official bio described his only stint in emergency management as "assistant city manager" in Edmond, Okla. But a city official told Time that the FEMA chief had been "an assistant to the city manager."

- Maureen Dowd, NYT, 11 September, 2005

Sean Puff P. Diddy Daddy Combs

A post from Eve's Apple about Mr. Combs changing his name yet again triggered a thought about his two big hits, Come With Me and I'll Be Missing You. These two songs are essentially him singing over someone else's tune, namely Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and The Police's "Every Breath You Take". This is of course beyond lame, but I think that Steve Albini of Shellac and Big Black fame put it best when talking to Punk Planet about sampling:

I don't have a lot of respect for records that are made out of other people's records. It seems like a trivial task. I don't find it enlightening. The key to me is that when I hear a piece of music that's made of samples of other people's records, the bit that you like about it is not the fact that it has been assembled in this new thing, the bit that you like is remembering this other song that they've stolen: "Oh yeah, that's that Creedence Clearwater song. I like that song. Therefore I like this thing."

Mr. Albini goes on:

I made an analogy at one point that it's sort of like taking whole pages out of somebody else's book and re-stapling them into your cover and calling it your book.

So, Mr. Combs, you can call yourself anything you want, you're still no Jimmy Page or Police-era Sting.

Beat it.

New Bar Tipping Rule

Nothing like a blog post on tipping to get everyone and their mother jumping into the fray. I just posted the following comment to a discussion at Majikthise on what to tip bartenders and such:

This discussion has helped me clarify a new rule for me: Tip bar staff based on effort required to make and serve the drink, not on the price of the drink.

Yes, last time I went to my neighborhood tap, it stuck in my craw a bit when I handed over a dollar tip for the $2 bottle of beer that the bartender put on the counter.

But, if I think about it, the same effort would have been required for him to put a $7 bottle of Belgian Hefewhatever on the bar, and I wouldn't have batted an eye at tipping him a buck for that.

So: in a bar, I will henceforth tip based on effort, not price.

Now my question is: Is there a tip differential for the cocktail server who brings the $2 bottle of beer to my table? As compared to the bartender who can lift it out of the cooler and put it on the bar without moving his feet?

(And re: $2 beer. Yes, I am a cheap SOB who doesn't know what real beer tastes like. Sue me.)

If This is Pottery Barn, I'd Hate to See Pier 1

Can we call a halt to the "Pottery Barn Rule" phrase? It didn't apply back when Colin Powell reportedly said it in 2002, and it doesn't apply now.

Today Tim Russert had a quartet of retired generals on Meet the Press to discuss Iraq. The options advocated by the generals ranged all the way from A to B, from "Stay the Course" to "Stay the Course, But With a Bigger Boat."

One of the guys urged that the U.S. stay the course, and he mentioned the "Pottery Barn Rule:" You break it, you bought it.

Can I just point out that once you start talking about launching Tomahawk cruise missiles off of a destroyer in the Persian Gulf, we're really beyond the scope of a shopper dropping a fragile porcelain candle holder on the floor in a home furnishings store. So right off the bat the "Pottery Barn Rule" is pretty unhelpful, is it not?

Even if we allow the "Pottery Barn Rule" People some poetic license, what is the military equivalent of a customer breaking something in a home furnishing store? Well, in Iraq, it certainly couldn't entail much more than the first shock-and-awe bombing of March 2003. Seems like in that case, the next step under the Pottery Barn Rule would have been to say, "Oops, sorry about that," and then to send the Iraqis a check for $45.6 million or whatever it took to repair the damage, with a little extra for maybe some hummus or a nice cup of coffee.

Obviously, we've done a bit more in Iraq than the military equivalent of breaking a candle holder. Imagine that you are a manager of a Pottery Barn store. The biggest dude in town thinks that to protect everyone he needs to come in to your store and throw everything on the floor, tip over shelves, pour the dirt out of the planters, and then punch everyone in the gut for good measure.

Then, once he starts trying to "clean up," it turns out that this big dude is more of a Jerry Lewis type. He starts slipping and sliding all over the place, dropping the stuff that didn't break the first time, saying things like "Whoa, Dean! Friction burning!" and "Whoa Dean! Hot water, burning hand!" and even a "Ladeee!" or two. Generally making the mess worse, in other words.

If you're the store owner, do you really want this guy to keep on trying to "clean up?" No. You'd probably say, "Hey, friend, thanks for your 'help,' but you're really doing more harm than good here right now so why don't you pay me for the damage and then GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

At this point, if we really want to observe the "Pottery Barn Rule," we should ask how much Iraq needs to repair the damage we caused, leave the money on the counter, and leave. Because that's what would really happen in a Pottery Barn.

Right?

Inconsequential Observation

OK, I gotta get this off my chest: I'm all for people being able to wear comfortable shoes at work (especially women), but this whole beach-flip-flops-and-corporate-suit thing really looks stupid! I know it's hot out there, but there are plenty of much cuter open-toe shoe options other than the $30 GAP flip-flops color-coordinated with the $50 JCrew tank-top. Enough already!

Friday Random Ten - Sweet Finnish Truncated Song Pool Edition

This week's FRT comes to you Straight Outta JP Center, from the Sweet Finnish bakery (owned by people from Finland, not poor spellers), and the song pool is roughly half as large as normal, owing to the fact that I'm using Helen's laptop and Helen is uh, more selective in filling out her itunes library than I am.

So: The first 10 songs to come up on shuffle mode are:

01 - Luxury Liner - Emmylou Harris Hot beat Emmylou!

02 - Do You Want to Know a Secret - The Beatles Cool-as-a-colada Latin-y beat from Ringo.

03 - Black Wind Blowing - Billy Bragg Lyrics by Woody Guthrie.

04 - Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI - IX) - Pink Floyd Don't you just love the transition from Part VII to Part VIII? Almost as good as the transition from Part III to Part IV.

05 - Job of Journeywork - The Chieftains Music to burn peat by.

06 - My Sharona - The Knack Ask me to show you the 1988 video of me performing this song on my Mom's Yamaha keyboard. Classy lyrics.

07 - We Want a Rock - They Might Be Giants "Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around." I know I do. An accordion-soaked fave from John and John.

08 - Keep on the Sunny Side - The Whites From the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.

09 - Big Rock Candy Mountains - Harry McClintock Another "O Brother" song. "There's a lake of stew, and whiskey too, you can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe!" I'm there!

10 - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! - ABBA One of the London Symphony Orchestra's finest moments.

Speaking Terrorist

A friend who works in the anti-war arena recently passed along a comment received from a member of the public about why we need to keep on fighting the war in Iraq:

"I DON'T WANT TO LEARN TO SPEAK FRENCH OR GERMAN OR TERRORIST..."

Leaving aside for a moment the military threat posed by the new French-German Alliance (is it based around smelly cheeses?), here is a short phrase guide for the tourist traveling in Terrorist-speaking areas:

ENGLISH: Can you direct me to the restroom?
TERRORIST: Can you direct me to th- (Explode self.)

ENGLISH: Do you have a cigarette?
TERRORIST: Do you hav- (Explode self.)

ENGLISH: Where can I purchase a newspaper?
TERRORIST: Where can I purch- (Explode self.)

Volume

In addition to Pain's staggering age tabulations below, I can report that the Stones concert was clearly audible at Ruggles Station when I passed through there on my bike at about 8:30 pm on Tuesday. According to Yahoo Maps, Ruggles is about a mile from Fenway Park. This means that almost the entire MIT campus plus all of Simmons and Emmanuel Colleges and Northeastern University could also hear it.

Time is on our side...

So, by my calculations, when the 4 remaining members of the Rolling Stones opened the US leg of their world tour and hit the stage at Boston's Fenway Park Monday night, their combined age was 245 years. That's nearly 2.5 centuries. I'm not entirely sure what that means exactly, but that mathematical fact is, in and of itself, impressive.

Ah, OK, I get it now...

So, according to Dubbya, while addressing an audience in Salt Lake City on Monday, we ought NOT to discuss withdrawing from Iraq because of the American soldiers who have died there and in Afghanistan. W said: "we owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for" (NYT, August 23, 2005).

Ze logic is superbe!!

French Here

Salut les potes! French here. Let's do this!

Toast Here.

Hello. Toast here. Welcome to French Toast.

French will be along shortly. At that point, anything can happen.