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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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November 02, 2002
There are too many damned voters
Supposedly low voter turnout is a top complaint of seemingly nearly everyone in the political class. Politicians especially, but also journalists and all sorts of assorted do-gooder civics groups constantly bitch about it. Low voter turnout threatens the survival of democracy! Low voter turnout's going to kidnap your children, rot your teeth, and give you cellulite!
These folks mostly seem to be concerned with getting as many warm bodies to pull a lever in the voting booth as possible. It doesn't seem to matter that much to them which jacklegs they vote for or what kind of public policy they actually pursue once they get in. The main important thing is that everybody voted for somebody, anybody.
Now I don't understand this. Surely they don't think that mere random voting by uninformed voters can produce good results.
For example, a Barger family gathering a couple of years ago turned conversationally to politics, specifically the presidential election. Some of the family follows politics, some don't have that much interest, which is fine. However, one of my cousins suggested that she really liked Al Gore, and she was thinking about voting for him. She didn't know much one way or the other about his policies, but he was apparently considered quite handsome, all buff looking and in shape for the campaign. Apparently she was serious.
Now here's what's messed up: She gets to vote. Not only that, but her vote counts as much as mine. Now I'm asking you, is that right? Hint: the correct answer is NO.
Estimates say some 49% of eligible Americans cast ballots in 1996. I figure that's too high by about a factor of three. My experience suggests that nowhere near 49% of the public knows a damned thing about politics.
Now it's alright to disagree with me about public policy issues. Hey, everybody's got a right to be wrong. Once in a great while, someone even manages to change my mind about an issue.
However, if you can't at least name four or five guarantees from the Bill of Rights, then you probably don't have an opinion about American politics worth considering. If you can't name the three branches of the federal government, or have no understanding of the meaning of the phrase "separation of powers," then I'm not going to be interested in any opinions you have about foreign policy or what to do with Hussein.
Having the RIGHT to vote is pretty important. It gives you at least some way to partway fight back if the governmental machine starts sticking it to you too hard. Otherwise, you basically don't have much way to resist other than to start shooting the bastards.
However, you shouldn't vote just because you can. If you don't know anything about politics or issues DON'T VOTE. You're only going to contribute to electing a bunch of schmucks who are going to make things worse. Americans, if you have not read the constitution -which is supposed to be the basic social contract- then you have no business voting. None.
If you don't follow politics or read the news, then you're ignorant. That's ok. Some people have lives. Your children's Little League games may quite legitimately be more important to you than, say, studying China's human rights records.
If there are issues in the political realm that concern you, however, by all means study up and vote away. The internet makes it real easy to do a lot of research right quick like and in a hurry. More power to you, and I look forward to seeing you at the voting booth.
On the other hand, if you don't know or care about politics and you're voting out of some sense of duty, please don't. You're not helping. Leave it to those what know something about it.
Just go right about your regular Tuesday rounds drinking beer and watching Jackass and Everybody Loves Raymond. You'll be doing the whole country a much bigger favor.
posted by Al at 11/02/2002 10:24:00 PM
November 01, 2002
Happy birthday, sleazeball!
Larry Flynt was born November 1, 1942.
As the proprietor of Hustler magazine, Flynt himself would likely cheerfully tell you that he is a sleazebag and a pornographer. Printing pictures for guys to look at while they masturbate ain't the highest achievement in the history of mankind. His stupid defense of Bill Clinton during the impeachment didn't impress me much either- though I have to grant it was consistent of him.
However, Larry Flynt deserves substantial credit for advancing and protecting our freedom. He has been a hero and near martyr for the First Ammendment. In his own self-interested way, he's done more to promote and protect vigorous free speech than, for example, the worthless blowhard Walter Cronkite. Whereas the most trusted man in America worked tirelessly to sell the cheapest corporate liberal worldview, and block the expression of any other, Flynt was just doing his own sleazy thing, and running roughshod over any judges or do-gooders who tried to stop him.
Also, note that his high moment in public life didn't involve pictures of nekkid women at all. When he beat Jerry Falwell in the US Supreme Court case of Hustler v Falwell, he established legally the right to satirize public figures. This may seem silly, until you consider that a jury had awarded Falwell damages for his hurt feelings despite the fact that even the original jury agreed that the Campari ad parody in question was NOT libelous.
Between the Falwell case and the bullet he took that has left him wheelchair bound and in pain, and a few dozen batches of knocking down idiot busybody prosecutors, Flynt has contributed more than his share to protecting our freedom.
Happy number 60, Larry.
posted by Al at 11/01/2002 04:41:00 PM
Celebrating the immortal
On a more edifying note, 490 years ago today- November 1, 1512- the Vatican unveiled the famous new ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, measuring 5,808 square feet. Michaelangelo was 37 years old. Pope Julius II had commissioned him four years earlier to paint a depiction of the whole story of the Bible.
posted by Al at 11/01/2002 04:40:00 PM
Julia Carson gets the vapors
Get the smelling salts for the "honorable" congresswoman. Julia Carson, incumbent Indiana 7th district congressman, dramatically walked out of a debate with Republican Brose McVey and Libertarian Andrew Horning.
She was deeply offended by the offensive and racist campaign of her Republican opponent, and couldn't stand to be on a stage with him. "I don't think I have ever in my life seen the political decay, the lowest common denominator that has been applied by my Republican opponent in this particular race. I don't feel comfortable being in the same room with him."
The offensive part came from McVey ads talking about her record of being consistently late in paying property taxes on several properties over a period from 1997 to 2001. She was particularly hurt because part of the reason she was delinquent in her tax payments came from being upset over her mother's illness and death. Mom died in 1987. I am NOT making this up.
McVey also committed the sin of "racial polarization, jamming my pictures in his TV ads in a very negative way." Using HER photo in his ad constitutes racism. Again, I am NOT making this up. They used an unflattering grainy black and white photo. This is racist. Apparently, if a Republican runs against a black Democrat, they are only allowed to use a glamour shot of the opponent.
In case you haven't figured it out by reading this far, this is a desperation move. Her campaign is in trouble. No Republican has won this inner city Indianapolis district in several decades. Andy Jacobs handed it to her several terms ago, but as evidenced by this type of tactic she sucks so bad that she can't hold on to it. Also, perhaps she has been hurt by her vote against the authorization for use of force against Iraq.
Of course, if she had any actual legitimate beef, she was already in the right forum to deal with it. There he was on the stage with reporters looking on; confront him with his specific misdeeds and demand an explanation. That kind of thing is just what a debate is for.
There are two likely possible explanations for her childish behavior. The more likely [and perhaps somewhat less bad] explanation is that the walk-out was a pre-planned stunt, calculated to demagogically inflame and motivate her core (ie black) constituency (at the risk of alienating the independents).
The other likely possibility would be to take her behavior purely at face value; she came to debate, but was spontaneously overcome by righteous indignation. This would reflect even far worse, arguably, on her fitness to serve, on her basic emotional balance and self-control.
Either way, she should be considered unfit for office on the basis of this action alone by any responsible voter, whether they be liberal or conservative in their policy views. Such a petty prank might be amusing in a state legislative race, or a city council election. Congress has to deal with serious historic life and death issues, though- war and peace, homeland security.
If Ms. Carson can't stand on a stage and have an adult conversation with a couple of polite Americans at the Kiwanis Club, how much help could she be to the president in figuring out how to handle, say, the nuclear armed tyrants in North Korea? She's not comfortable being in the same room with this mean old Republican who said bad things about her? Ahh!
Schoolgirl tantrums won't cut much ice with the actual bad guys. "Saddam Hussein, you stop that right now, or I'll call you a racist- and hold my breath till my face turns blue!"
posted by Al at 11/01/2002 01:45:00 AM
October 31, 2002
A birthday for the Texas Jewboy
Kinky Friedman was born October 31, 1944. Happy number 58! Yee-haw!
You have to love this guy just even as a force of personality. He's a songwriter, singer & novelist. He's a high brow Heb and a good ol' boy. He writes them sensitive country ballads, and that groovy smart-ass Jewish sarcasm. The Texan and the Hebrew parts of his background make a fine combination. Note that this makes him double bred for kickin' ass.
Which gets us to his signature song, "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore." He wrote a perfect hook laden honky tonk country bar room sing-a-long the equal of anything by Ernest Tubb or even Merle Haggard, except that the lyrics run a slightly different direction than what the usual clientele of such songs would be able to make much sense of:
No, they ain�t makin� Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don�t turn the other cheek the way we done before.
You could hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
�Lord, they sho� ain�t makin� Jews like Jesus anymore!�
Labels: country_music
posted by Al at 10/31/2002 03:11:00 AM
October 30, 2002
Boo!
People are stupid. Hit their panic buttons, and they'll believe any ignorant, totally unsubstantiated thing you want to tell them.
On this day in 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his now famous radio drama "War of the Worlds." A simple Halloween radio drama cast as a series of news reports of an invasion of Martians set the nation into panic. There were people running amuck, panic in the streets. Cops were brought in. Lawsuits were filed. There were newspapers editorializing for censorship of the airwaves.
On a totally unrelated note, we have American elections next week. Keep in mind that if the Republicans get control of the congress, they will cancel Social Security, and re-direct all the old people's money to Ken Lay.
posted by Al at 10/30/2002 06:02:00 PM
I pass on your kind offer of a Paul Wellstone memorial reaming
Tender sympathy be gone. After the disgraceful display at the Wellstone "memorial" on 10-28-2002, you'd be a fool to show anything but contempt for the Wellstone legacy, or his surviving sons. Screw the memory of Paul Wellstone- and for that matter the memory of his wife, daughter and campaign aids. Their people up and down the line took all our displays of sympathy and broke them off back up in us.
The sons endorsed and participated in this display of wickedness. They forfeited whatever natural gestures of empathy we might be inclined to give them. By their own actions, they said that the main thing about Dad was that he was a powerful politician, and the most important thing to do is to hold onto power by any means necessary.
In life, Paul Wellstone was just another cheap socialist congressmen. Talking himself into really, really believing just gave him the moral excuse to pursue his utterly common, mundane and contemptible lust for power. If you think this analysis of Wellstone too rough, then look at the actions of the people he chose as associates, and the actions of his sons. By their fruits ye shall know them.
Whatever the qualities of the dead, they are gone and it matters not to them what we say. Life is for the living. The living relatives of the dead in this case deserve nothing but contempt. About the time their "memorial service" audience started booing Republicans, they lost my goodwill, and I don't even like Republicans.
Cheap sensitivity be damned. Democrat assholes care nothing about poor Saint Paul. They are only evoking his memory to manipulate voters and intimidate their opponents in their ceaseless quest for power. Paul Wellstone's bestest buddy Rick Kahn used this service to call specific Republicans out by name, begging them to support Mondale for senate as proof of their love for their deceased colleague. This walking turd addressed Republican congressman Jim Ramstad: "You know that Paul loved you. He needs you now. . . . Help us win this race."
They intend to squeeze our goodwill for every drop of partisan advantage they can, in this election and in the coming legislative session. The very day of the crash, Democrat operatives were on the tube pushing their legislative agenda in his honor. His name will be invoked with great gushings of crocodile tears for absolutely as long as it will get them a bit of advantage. They will not stop.
I for one do not plan on volunteering to be reamed out by these worthless bastards just to prove that I have a kind heart. The only rational response is to give them back the ridicule they so richly deserve.
posted by Al at 10/30/2002 06:02:00 PM
Dedicating this one to Saint Paul Wellstone
With another election right upon us, let me recommend one of the great songs for the season. The song is called "Selling My Birthright." Download it HERE. [Find more of this artist.]
This acoustic jam comes out a tough country song, a catchy acoustic apocalypse by Orwellian metaphor.
Selling my birthright for corn and hay to feed my sacred cow.
You should definitely have the refrain of this tune echoing in your head as you pull them levers.
posted by Al at 10/30/2002 02:11:00 PM
Republicans, Democrats, and Median Mediocrity
Jacob Levy has an intriguing post on the calculations of American electoral politics, based on a 1957 academic thesis called Anthony Downs Median Voter Theory. "In a competitive two-party system with a unidimensional political spectrum (and some other technical constraints) the parties will tend to converge around the preferences of the 50%+1th voter." He goes on to analyze some of how this has played out in the last 10 years of national politics.
The basic idea seems pretty unassailable. The two parties will tend to cluster as close to the exact center of voter preferences as they can calculate from their finely tuned opinion polls.
This means that they will tend to be very close to saying the exact same things most of the time, which leaves the voters with little if any real choice. You could say this acts as an academic explanation of George Wallace's famous comment about there not being a dime's worth of difference between the parties.
This also underscores one of my ongoing points about the importance of third parties. Even if they rarely actually win and take office, they serve a vital function in pulling the Republicans and Democrats apart, making them pay some attention to their "base voters," as some have put it. For example, a staunch pro-gun Libertarian threatening to draw even three or four percent can stiffen the spine of some Republican jackass tempted to support another round of "sensible gun control."
posted by Al at 10/30/2002 01:28:00 PM
October 29, 2002
Making friends:)
I've gotten a couple of interesting responses to my post about the "Where is Raed?" site.
Legendary Monkey, on her Sudden Nothing site, does not appreciate my temerity in questioning the understandably concealed identity of the Raed author. Her main criticism seems to be that I can't read. Hey, it says right there on the site that he's in Iraq. I would hope for a more skeptical analysis than this from a student of Robert Anton Wilson. It was from him that I picked up much of my particularly sharply honed media cynicism.
Her other proof consists of having exchanged emails with the Raed author. What, a CIA agent wouldn't be clever enough to use Hotmail? Or are the Legendary Monkey and her cats CIA fronts? Wheels within wheels...
Still, I'm happy to have the attention of a cute monkey girl, even if it is but in the form of ridicule from 1000 miles away. Plus, she conceded that I'm not a TOTAL moron. Geez, I'm turning into Milhouse.
More significantly, Salam posted a response on the Raed website itself. He apparently feels that I have attacked him, when such was not at all my intent. For starters, I mentioned the rough quality of his use of the English language. That was not criticism. I cited it as some evidence of authenticity. I wouldn't expect someone in Iraq to speak or write the King's English. As it is, he expresses himself in English better than half the crackers here in Indiana.
I'm not saying that Salam is fraudulent. He seems convincing. I'm working on the assumption that he is exactly as he presents himself. That seems to be the most likely conclusion.
How would we know, though? That's no knock on Salam. That's more a commentary on the world we live in- particularly the world HE lives in. He CAN'T reveal himself. I wouldn't WANT him to; there's no need for him to get himself killed trying to prove his identity to me.
Which leads me back to my original point of that post: I'm just interested in what he's got to say. I doubt that I'm alone in wanting more windows into that part of the world- particularly ones not owned by Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch. Please, come join our reindeer games.
Blog on brother!
POST SCRIPT: GO HERE for my new updated thoughts on Salam as of March 2003.
posted by Al at 10/29/2002 01:42:00 PM
Truly heartless sonsabitches
Todd McCormick has so far spent about three years in a California prison. Is he a terrorist? Rapist? Murderer?
Close. He's a cripple who uses marijuana as a pain medicine to cope with a severe spinal condition. He had cancer nine times before age 10, and more nasty painful problems than a mere mortal such as I could bear. The top five vertebrae of his neck are fused.
Having found substantial relief from pain through plain old marijuana, he wanted to share this relief with others. Since this reasonable and compassionate desire is in accordance with California law since the popular referendum Proposition 215, he and partner Peter McWilliams (an AIDS sufferer) set about helping the sick.
Note that they were not asking public funding, so no one who objects was forced to be involved.
Nonetheless, they were arrested. McWilliams deteriorated and quickly died without medicine. [Who is Todd McCormick? a note from Peter McWilliams]
Perhaps he was lucky though, for Mr. McCormick sits in prison, isolated and without his pain relieving medicine. He's got years of jail time to look forward to.
What kind of stupid and evil people, Republican or Democrat, would think this is the thing to do? Hey, how about they free up a cell for some Al Qaeda member, someone who's actually done something TO someone? Perhaps we could use the resources to knock down someone who is even actually breaking a law. But for whatever combination of religious aversion to the idea that someone might have a good time mixed with pure cheap politics, Mr. McCormick and more like him get to rot in jail.
One little thing you can do, though: write him a note, perhaps send him a Christmas card. Let him know he's not been abandoned to the heartless system.
Todd Patrick McCormick
Inmate # 11071-112
F.C.I.
P.O. Box 3007
Terminal Island, CA 90731
posted by Al at 10/29/2002 12:34:00 AM
October 28, 2002
The power of a mind
Dr. Jonas Salk was born October 28, 1914. He would have been 88 today. He invented a vaccine for polio, and near single handedly wiped out a widespread and devastating disease.
When you hear some politician going on about how much they've helped out society by voting to spend your money on some or other welfare program, as Robert Torricelli recently did in his infamous speech dropping his re-election bid, or in memorials for Paul Wellstone- think of Jonas Salk. He may not have been as "compassionate" as the Torch or the sainted senator Wellstone. However, he really seriously actually did something to advance humanity- and he didn't raise your taxes to do it.
I don't know if Salk was a "hero." He wasn't risking getting shot on some battlefield, but then maybe heroism is overrated. I don't know that he had as much "guts" as a great general. Salk certainly did more to actually help people than about any military bravery has done, though. The power of the mind ultimately rates higher than "guts" or "compassion."
posted by Al at 10/28/2002 08:28:00 PM
OK, enough with the crocodile tears
Yeah, Paul Wellstone was a real swell fella. He was loving and kind and sincere. I hear he liked puppy dogs, too. Damned shame for his family, him getting killed and all. Certainly it is a great tragedy that his family members and staff and pilots died.
However, he made his name and his living on the huge, incredible presumption of using force of arms to spend OUR money and force US to give up our lives and liberty for HIS pet causes. In short, he was just another (friendly and sincere) commie jackass.
Here are a couple of folks who will break it down in ways that ol' Al is just too danged nice to:
Ayn Rand freak Arthur Silber at his Light of Reason site writes:
Wellstone wanted to point a gun at your head, and demand your money -- at the cost of your freedom, which means at the cost of your own life. Frankly, given the nature of his beliefs, I don't care that he might have been "sincere" or "principled." That only means that he really believed it was right for him, or for anyone, to do this: to enslave all men, to pay for his idea of what a "good" society should be.
The official Cold-Hearted Bastard prize here, however, must go to Billy Beck at No Treason! who writes:
Paul Wellstone was a common fool, risen to uncommon prominence. I don't give a damn for his sincerity, or his sunny disposition or any of the rest of it. In brief; I have no kind or patient regard for this or any other variation of the Nuremburg Defense: it makes no difference to me that he was "just doing his job". I say that his job was invalid and wrong.
Somebody here is not working and playing well with others. But was it the bloggers with perhaps less than charitable attitudes, or the big honkin' politician sending people with guns out to take your money and run your life?
On the other hand, James Lilek would get the big hearted guy award for his comments on Wellstone, if I cared about such things. Still, he makes me feel like something of a poopie head for being churlish. I just don't know what to think.
Even the day he died though, I heard various people wanting to push through some mental health entitlement in his honor, some grand scheme that he and Pete Domenici had been working on. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but screw him if his sainted memory is supposed to serve as the impetus for saddling the living with yet another multi-billion dollar welfare plan.
posted by Al at 10/28/2002 02:56:00 AM
October 27, 2002
Yeah, just where the heck IS Raed?
There's a web journal called "Where Is Raed" apparently written on the sly by a couple of regular Joes in Iraq, specifically Baghdad. It fascinates me on a couple of general grounds.
First, I'm damned curious what people in Iraq (and the whole Middle East, for that matter) really think of the US. This looks like an invaluable window into this part of the world. Do they mostly even kind of half believe the Baath party American Satan thing? Do they anxiously await us to come "liberate" them, as our government generally insists they will? Raed seems to welcome our prospective liberation- if perhaps with some trepidation. "Ha. Bomb us already, stop pussyfooting."
The other fascinating thing: how do we know this site is as it claims? It is getting recognition and links from various blog sites, and comments back on them. But how do we know this site is actually written by Iraqis? Could it be a CIA put-up, a propoganda ploy? That would not strike me as overly farfetched. How would we know the difference? It puts me in mind of the epistemological hall of mirrors that is the Orson Welles movie "F Is for Fake."
The site looks believable. Also, however, I WANT to believe. This alone makes me a little suspicious. They have a somewhat cynical and fatalistic tone that I'd find likely. There are cryptic personal notes. The use of the English language is convincingly rough. But does that really mean that it's real? If someone at the CIA were trying to construct a convincing fake Iraqi website for our domestic consumption, it would probably look somewhat like this. If "Raed" is a fake, it's a fairly convincing one.
Raed can't really be expected to prove himself. He's writing stuff that would get him shot in a second if Hussein's goons found him. So, he can't very well put a real name and address where we could send him a postcard; he's straight out of the underground. Only this ain't the American "underground" where you have an idiot punk rock band in an obscure basement club that the straights just don't care about. This would be more the kind of underground where you must purposely hide your subversive activities because the straights will SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE if you are found out.
Any y'all out in webland can tell me how to properly analyze Raed, let me know.
posted by Al at 10/27/2002 10:29:00 PM
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