…And in other news, Michael Jackson.

We love Marta!

One courageous woman

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Support David Letterman's right to make bad jokes!

Thread? What thread?

When Sarah Palin used the media last week to express her "outrage" at jokes David Letterman made about her recent visit to New York, including what may have indeed been slightly tasteless references to her daughters, I became curious about this "thread permeating society" that "makes it okay" to make fun of "statutory rape" of underage girls, thinking it is "funny".

Now, I looked high and low for this thread to which she refers, and I'll be damned (some think I already am) if all I could find was another thread that thinks it's okay to make broad, unsubstantiated claims to cynically manipulate the media in an effort to stir up support from people barely able to think for themselves. To wit: "good ol'" Sarah Palin, stirin' up her base.

Following are some comments made by people that came out for a "Fire Dave" rally in New York. Reports are that more press showed up than protesters. Nonetheless, these stalwarts were vocal in their thoughts. I quote some highlights with my reaction:

• Everyone in the country is very, very frustrated and upset that he was allowed to make a rape joke about a little girl, fourteen years old, sitting on the sidelines watching of all things an American basketball game"

  - Okay, I'm not a sports fan, so let me see if I have this right: basketball is where they use a wooden stick to hit a ball thrown at them at about a hundred miles an hour. If they hit the ball, they get to run around in a big circle, ending up right where they began. And what's baseball again? By the way, did you actually hear this "rape joke" that Letterman told, or did you just hear about it from Sarah Palin?
  Ma'am, I've got one word of advice: research.

• He made A-rod a pervert too…"

  - Everybody knows that A-rod is just a horn-dog.

• I think he stinks, I'm a Jay Leno fan"

  - Fair enough, sorry Jay.

• At least Jay Leno has interesting people, this Schmuck has nobody… Do you know what schmuck means in Jewish?"

  - Do tell. (And you're right, Leno did get president Obama on his show. That's who you meant isn't it?

• I only watch Fox news channel"

  - Now that's just plain stupid

• …I believe his son was born out of wedlock, I believe there's a term for that"<'blockquote>
  - Does that go for Sarah Palin's grandson as well?

• …especially, you know, when he had a daughter out of wedlock as well"

  - What? Who? Lady, do you even read?

• …when he has a bastard son and a slut for a wife"

  - Now I'm really confused, are we talking about Letterman or making jokes about Palin's almost son-in-law?

• You think you're so smart, you think you know soooo much"

  - Well, I didn't until I saw you.

• Close the borders. Close everything down for the next twenty years. Clean your house and you'll see how this economy will come back."

  - Excuse me ma'am, the right wing-nut rally you're looking for is a few blocks over.

• Keep children safe from David Letterman's mouth! He will rape them with his mouth! He is a child abuser, he is a verbal pedophile! Wake up! Go home and take care of your kids! They could be next."

  - Lady, you're just freakin' scary. You have kids? Talk about abuse.

The Sarah Palin Pledge:
I, Chastise Man, do hereby swear that if Sarah Palin ever sets foot in the White House in any official capacity other than governor of Alaska, if she should ever be any closer in line to the presidency than what an entire disappearance of the president, vice-president, cabinet, and both houses of Congress would require to manifest, then I will leave the country immediately and move to France.

On Religious Extremism and Being Agnostic

I do not deny the existence of an intelligent designer - God - a presence and influence evident with every breath we take.

Extremism (fundamentalism) demands of it an assuredness of belief that bestows the right of divine vengeance on others. That is where I draw the line.

That we should endeavor to speak for, or imagine to know the thoughts of such a presence, is original sin all over again. Imbuing oneself with authority to dispense divine retribution is The Downfall reign supreme.

I don't know, mind you, I'm agnostic after all, but I would guess that if Hell does exist, the quickest route there is to condemn others to it.

It is disturbing to get anywhere near such minds, charred as they are with ignorance, hatred, and unwavering conviction of their atrophied humanity. But it is instructive and necessary to look, if for no other reason than to understand the level of dysfunction in the human psyche, to recognize it when it creeps into the backwoods of our own mind, and to encourage the fortitude to resist it when it does.

—-
To the Extremist:

God didn't send the shooter; The murder of Dr. Tiller was not the will of God; God doesn't hate "fags"; You aren't an infidel if you don't believe as I believe (though perhaps not that bright); Democrats can be Christians (or any damn religion they choose - so can Republicans for that matter); And "praying" that Barack Obama will die (and professing such action in public media) is little more than cowardly and criminal.

You are no closer to God than any of these people, to me, or to anyone else. I'll see you in hell.

Of that I can be sure.

This guy is a messenger from God?

Former vice-president Dick Cheney has recently come out of hiding and brought on a mystifying defense of early Bush administration policy justifying torture on anyone deemed a suspected terrorist. Further, Cheney claims that by unequivocally denouncing torture and authorizing the closure of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , the newly elected Obama administration has left the country less safe.

If it is true concern for the safety of all Americans, some gnawing bit of humanity, or grand conceit that forces him into the sunlight, I certainly cannot say. Nonetheless, bereft of a covert position to wield power, he is forced to come down the mountain of his own delusion of greatness in order to whip up a climate of fear, portending national tragedy unless we pursue a course of policy codifying the worst human tendencies for vengeance, cruelty, and barbarism.

Early after the attacks of 9/11, Cheney told reporters that finding the perpetrators of the attack would require a strategy of "operating on the dark side."

In his grand delusion he has become consumed by the "dark side."

Until now, Cheney has been an enigma. A slightly out-of-focus face standing behind the sharp glare of attention focused on George Bush. A menacing scowl adding weight to the former president's often incoherent words. Without the cover of Bush, Cheney is forced into the open to make his own disquieting case as more truth into the nature and extent of the use of torture begins to see the light of day.

His assertions that what was done was not only necessary but also legal, despite clear national and international law to the contrary, play into a veil of fear and our own private tendency to "the dark side."

Cross me, my friends, family, and loved ones, and I will, for a brief moment at least, wish upon someone to pay - dearly. I may even wish them dead. That gives me no right to wreak my own vengeance as I see fit. Greatness is never achieved in so doing. I become sullied by the very evil I wish to vanquish.

This must be true for nations just as it is for individuals. In the end it is one person torturing another, and no twisting legal logic laid out in a memo euphemizing torture as "enhanced interrogation" changes that. If we are a nation of laws, founded on ideals of basic humanity, the only real proof of that will come from our actions.

Dick Cheney is a man who lost his moral bearing years ago. For so many important issues facing the country this decade he has been wrong at best and deceitful at worst. There was no connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, no WMD's, the insurgents were not in their "last throes" in 2005, that was a man's face - not quail, we did torture. Why much credence should be given to anything he says now is the mystifying part of his resurgence into the public spotlight. He is incompetent in his analysis, conceived with a skewed worldview he feels should be bullied into weaker intellectual mortals than himself - "enhanced rhetoric", if you will, that is tantamount to psychic torture of a nation.

If terrorists seek comfort in the actions of American policy and leadership, they will find it in a man who would damage the soul of a nation in order to assert a false sense of security that rests in fear mongering and retribution.

Is evil required to defeat evil? That's a question I can't answer. I am not convinced humanity has ever really given the alternative a chance. There seems the ever-present risk, as in the case of Dick Cheney, of becoming consumed by that which you seek to exterminate.

It truly isn't about the terrorists but about us. Evil exists. We must therefore strive not to be evil.

Is waterboarding torture? How about "walling" (throwing someone into a wall), or putting insects inside a "confinement box" with someone afraid of insects?

If so, and if charges are ever brought against anyone involved in committing torture, the Obama administration has announced they will be defended by government attorneys.

Four Bush-era memos defending torture where released yesterday, the full text of these memos is available here (pdf).

Following is a statement from the Deparment of Justice:

In connection with ongoing litigation, the Department of Justice today released four previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") opinions – one that OLC issued to the Central Intelligence Agency in August 2002 and three that OLC issued to the CIA in May 2005.

"The President has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture," said Attorney General Eric Holder.  "We are disclosing these memos consistent with our commitment to the rule of law."

Holder also stressed that intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on authoritative legal advice from the Justice Department that their conduct was lawful, and conformed their conduct to that advice, would not face federal prosecutions for that conduct.

The Attorney General has informed the Central Intelligence Agency that the government would provide legal representation to any employee, at no cost to the employee, in any state or federal judicial or administrative proceeding brought against the employee based on such conduct and would take measures to respond to any proceeding initiated against the employee in any international or foreign tribunal, including appointing counsel to act on the employee’s behalf and asserting any available immunities and other defenses in the proceeding itself.

To the extent permissible under federal law, the government will also indemnify any employee for any monetary judgment or penalty ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide representation in congressional investigations.

"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said.

After reviewing these opinions, OLC has decided to withdraw them:  They no longer represent the views of the Office of Legal Counsel.

It is the ostentatious display of emotion, the inauthentic tear, the feigned choke on one's own immense capacity for empathy and compassion.

To me, this is the true sign of a fraud and a fake. Prove me wrong.

January 19, 2009 - Near the National Mall, Washington DC

By Monday mid-afternoon, Washington was simply giddy with excitement. This happy couple reflects the general mood of the day.

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obama inauguration, washington , patriotism

Washington awoke this morning relieved and exhausted. The magic anticipation of the days preceding the event every bit the festival as the event itself, and even more so; like the last few days before Christmas. Then Christmas comes and just as it does, it is over.

That was the vibe in Washington today. The people that actually work in D.C. got their city back - more or less. The striking of the massive set required for such a happening was in full swing when we took our remarkably empty (relatively speaking) train into D.C. to attend the reception given by Nancy Pelosi for her San Francisco constituents.

Arriving fashionably late for the 11:30 to 1:30 reception, we found the caucus room in the Capital Office Building packed with all the most important movers and shakers in the community. At least in their own mind.

Such thoughts I may have harbored as I impulsively stuffed my GlobalWarmingisReal.com business cards in my shirt just before leaving the hotel room where soon dashed - there would be little hope of me introducing myself to Nancy and handing her a card. The knot of people clinging to her as she edged her way around the room were far beyond my schmoozing skills, once again reminding me that I am not as important as I think I am.

Jayne and I each had a sparkling water, sweet pastry, circled the room once - I on one or two occasions seeing faces that looked vaguely familiar - and then left.

We walked into the chilly, sunny afternoon, past the House of Representatives end of the Capital to our spot where yesterday we stood with nearly two million others - a quarter of a million on the capital grounds (the proud, the few, the ticketed) - the rest spreading back on the National Mall toward the Washington Monument and all the way to silent and ever vigilant Abe.

The spot was nothing now but the unassuming top of  short row of stairs leading to a patch of grass behind a small clump of trees, their branches barren in the mid-winter cold. I recognized the familiar trunk that lay in the few arc-seconds of visual plane directly between where I stood and where Barack Obama stood. Far from cursing the tree as being in the way the day prior, I realized the tree was just as much a part of the experience as anything else.

The cold, the crushing crowds, the hours waiting in 'line", ("en-masse" is more accurate) the blocked sightline, the magical swelling of united spirit starting from the moment we landed in Washington; growing more each day, the electricity in the air building, until nearly two million people turned out to a single spot, for a single, peaceful purpose.

Just as you realize that such a thing is really possible and you're right in the middle of it, it's gone. Washington is still there, the history, the grand monuments, the priceless museums, but the moving throngs of people have been replaced by cars.

The whole trip has been remarkable. As I try to describe here, for no more than the feeling of it. It was indeed palpable in the days beforehand. I am glad we spent more time here before than after.

What also stands out in my mind:
Being in front of the White House on GW's last afternoon, the general mood of the massive crowd of strangers merging into a common relief of it indeed being his last afternoon - witnessing the end; The national treasures of American history at the Smithsonian, from Betsy Ross' "Star Spangled Banner" flag, to documents written in Lincoln's own hand, to a Lunar Lander from the Apollo mission; Hearing the powerful mastery of Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman; Listening to the words of a new president as they wafted clear and powerful over the very lawn from which he stood and spoke them; That within the mass of millions of people we connected with those next to us, as surely happened throughout the assembled multitude, all come in peace and a spirit of celebration.

America is certainly a country that can do great things. Inaugurating a new president is one of them.

But just as Obama has gone back to work, as has Washington, and so must I.

My work - our work - here is done, and the world has turned!

The anticipation and excitement in Washington grows exponentially with each successive day, Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday. The streets of the city become ever more tightly wound as the afternoon sun settles into the cold western sky.

We join a tight crowd of people wrapping around the fence facing the south lawn of the White House. Tourists, to be sure, wanting to catch a glimpse of this fabled mansion, this center of power.

The crowds are tight, and slowly it turns into a little more than just a mob of tourists gawking at the White House. Shouts rise up from the crowd.

Liar! War-Monger!! You're a liar and a War-Monger

A man and woman surge against the general flow of the inching crowd holding signs saying "I hated George Bush Before it was Cool!" I resist the temptation to tell the man that he still isn't cool - rejecting George Bush's disastrous presidency isn't about being "cool"

I make my way toward the middle of the fence and spy what it is the crowd is now murmuring about - on the south lawn a few years inside the fence - a pair of shoes.

Much bonding and snapping of pictures, until a man with a very big and deadly looking gun and the unfortunate task of guarding the White House on the afternoon of George Bush's last day in office strolls purposefully toward the object. Eying it suspiciously he ascertains that it is a pair of shoes - ceremonial, symbolic shoes - but still, just a pair of shoes. The agent walks back toward the White House.

Moments later, from behind us, another agent tells us that we must all move away from the fence, to a more secure area further back. Presumably beyond shoe-throwing distance.

We're just trying to say Goodbye to George Bush.

And keeping a watchful eye over the entire proceedings:

Honest Abe