L'etat c'est George

There he goes again.

One can scarcely pick up the paper without reading about yet another instance of the President's lawlessness. He violates national and international law with a breathtaking frequnecy. And with seeming good faith. He really does seem to believe that his disregard for law is for the greater good.

This is what we get for electing a sub-norm on the grounds that we would like to have a beer with him.

His use of "signing statements" to limit the power of laws that he signs is a clever little circumvention of the Constitution. I see Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it. This neat trick saves the hassle of a veto--and the possibility that the veto would get overturned.

If this use of signing statements ever gets challenged, it's a good thing for Bush that Samuel "Unitary Executive Theory" Alito will have his back in the Supreme Court.

How come when it's a matter of seeing an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution, that's judicial activism, but when a Justice wants to dismantle the checks and balances that are the foundation of the Constitution, that's just good old fashioned judgifying?

When I Get That Feeling, I Want Textual Healing

The Missus and I visited my folks this weekend. Their spare bedroom has a weird collection of books.

The owner's manual for the Datsun 510 they traded in in 1985.
Needlepoint books.
A few Tom Clancy novels.
A couple of books on how to mix drinks.

But what sends me is The Art of Sexual Ecstasy next to Profiles in Courage. Do my somewhat aged parents like to think about JFK while they get it on? I’m not sure what to do with that thought.

Maybe I'll buy a pill-box hat for my wife.

It's all very unseemly.

More (Semi) Aleatory Poetry

I had so much fun writing my "text-stat" American Psycho poem, I thought I'd give Jane Austen a go. Here is Pride and Prejudice:

having heard elizabeth say:
"oh, mr. wickham, really!"
darcy felt hope.

And I actually got the hyperlinks to work this time. Go me.

The Only Thing Worse than a Republican is a Depublican

I mean a Democrat. Whatever.

It’s become axiomatic that the New Left is the Old Right. But more and more the New Left is looking a lot like the New Right.

Only one Democratic Senator voted against the Patriot Act (I’m still a little gay for you, Russ Feingold).

The Clinton administration did more to roll back environmental protections than either of his Republican predecessors.

When was the last time anyone publically admitted to being a liberal?

The New Left was so pro-war that they couldn’t offer up a candidate in the last presidential election who could honestly present himself (or herself) as an alternative. It was excruciating to watch Kerry lamely try to his distinguish his pro-war stance from the Bush administration’s pro-war stance. God forbid he should have just been honest and said: “Sorry America. I fucked up bad—I was gutless and gullible and I voted in error. Now let’s move on.”

But he didn’t, because he didn’t want to look like a “flip-flopper,” so he rambled on about how his new stance wasn’t really different from his old stance.

Now the American people are pretty stupid. But we’re not that stupid.

So we had two candidates who didn’t really stand for anything substantially (or discernibly) different, so people voted for the guy who had been seemed most straightforward (see above, re: we are stupid).

The Democrats have abandoned the interests of working Americans. Between 1997 and 2007 Congressional pay raises total $34,900. The Spokesman Review does a startling bit of math:

It would take more than three workers to make $34,900 at the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour – just $10,712 a year – since Sept. 1, 1997.

Most Americans don’t make in a year the amount that Congress has added to its pay, while refusing to raise Americans minimum wage.

But even this isn’t the worst of it. What it really so damaging is the Democrats beholdenness to corporate America, voting for big-business tax “incentives” (which mean that the people making $5.15 and hour get to pay their bosses taxes) and international trade agreements that hurt American workers and foreign workers who often labor in criminally bad conditions.

Our choices are: the party of the rich that will let you have an abortion or the party of the right who won’t. And the Democrats have the gall to blame the Green Party for their losses.

So as we head into midterm elections, the Dems are following their usual gameplan: drifting ever farther to the right and trying to suppress any voice that offers legitimate opposition to conservative hegemony. I think that the Democrats logic is that this move to the right will defang Republican criticisms.

They should worry less about what the Republicans will say and more about the well-being of the workers and of the world. I think they would be surprised by how well voters would respond.

American Psycho

Murder, torture, cannibalism, yuppies. The book depicts such horrors that Simon and Schuster refused to publish it AFTER paying Bret Easton Ellis's $30,000 advance. The main character, Patrick Bateman, savagely rapes, kills, and dismembers friends and strangers alike.

But for me, the most terrifying moment in the novel is Bateman's review of Huey Lewis and the News.

For proof that Patrick Bateman is deeply disturbed, we need look no further than the fact that he prefers Huey Lewis to Elvis Costello and that he can write, apparently without irony: "Lewis is a vocalist, musician, and writer who just can't be stopped."

Yikes!!! I didn't sleep for a week.

Second and third scariest moments: the business cards and the Genesis review.

Addendum:
I've discovered the most delightful thing: amazon.com's text stats. They have a feature that lists the hundred most frequently used words in a book, with font size varying according to frequency of iteration. It makes for a wonderful combo of literary criticism and aleatory poetry.

Here it is for American Psycho:

again another anything asks away bar bateman black bret call christie come courtney dinner down drink ellis evelyn even eyes face fucking get girl glass go god going good guy hand head jean know last let listen long looking looks luis maybe mcdermott mean mouth move myself new next night now oh okay open owen patrick patten paul pause place price really right room say see seems should shouts sigh silk sits smiles someone something sounds staring start still stop suit sure table take tell thing think though tie time toward trying turn two van walk want wearing wool yes

I here propose my own aleatory hyperlinked exegetical haiku (hoku?) (I think this will be the Next Big Thing in literary genres) on American Psycho.

eyes open,
staring.

fucking.

wearing wool, yes.
someone say something.

sigh.

Ok—I’ve got to go return some videotapes.