THE SMIRK IS GONE: GONZALES UNDER OATH, WHILE LEAHY COMMENTS UNDER-REPORTED (Bring Me the Head of Alberto Gonzales)

"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation." --GOP Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma at today's questioning of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.


Washington D.C.--This was extraordinarily entertaining. The Senators on the Senate Judiciary panel all came-out-swinging, and were making-contact with their opponent. Again, this is all supposed to be adversarial traditionally, without the comments of those being questioned being taken at face-value (as they were during the 109th and 110th Congress).

This is how the system is designed to work, irregardless of what party affiliation the person under oath happens to be. He's in an unimaginable amount of trouble. It's very hard to be in this much trouble, and this writer isn't referring to the US Attorney firings--he's worried about all the other crimes they're going to uncover in their investigations. It won't be hard, since federal investigators will be tripping-over them in their search for other pieces-of-information.

It cannot be stated enough: the entire game the Bush administration was playing--primarily Cheney and Rove's designs--was only possible under the former-GOP majority. They obstructed justice, and now their hands are tied as they should be. After all, they tied-themselves-up in the White House's web. Senator Coburn's comments came at the end of a very ugly-day of testimony where Gonzales was literally pelted by his GOP-peers. They had better be doing this if they want their party to survive (naturally, I don't). The Democrats got to get a little payback, which they're due:

Democrats, too, bored in."Since you apparently knew very little about the performance about the replaced United States attorneys, how can you testify that the judgment ought to stand?" asked Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Gonzales whether he had reviewed the evaluation records of the dismissed prosecutors, who Justice Department officials initially said had been fired for inadequate performance. He said he had not. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., questioned Gonzales sharply over his insistence that one former prosecutor, Carol Lam of California, had been told of Justice Department concerns with her record on immigration violations. The senator said Lam had testified to the contrary. But given Gonzales' political need for Republican support, the line of questioning from several GOP lawmakers was ominous. (AP, 04.19.2007)

Today was the 12th-anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and Coburn's comments can be viewed as symbolic of a general lack-of-faith in President Bush's handling of the war on terror, and the Bush administration itself generically. Forget the presidential elections of 2008, we're talking about just surviving this as a party now. But there have been a few divisions within the GOP since Bush began occupying the Oval Office (like the Columbia students in 1968--same generation, remember?). Oh yeah, and almost all of the Bush administration could go to prison. This writer cherishes the possibility.

The only way now is to hold the Bush administration accountable for everything they've done that's illegal. This writer can envision hearings and investigations that continue into the 2010's.The croc-smile was gone today, having vanished once the oath had been administered, and the legal-repercussions of lying were in-place. It behooves-the-question that we may consider having all employees in the Executive branch under oath while on-the-job until the time when they're no-longer federal employees and public servants. Interestingly, Gonzales threw them a bone: he had a conversation with the President about the evaluations of US Attorneys in October, and there might have been more-than-one.

"I now understand there was a conversation with myself and the president," he said at one point. Democrats have stoked the controversy over the dismissals, suggesting there were political considerations. But the first several hours of the hearing produced few if any fresh details.Gonzales acknowledged speaking with Bush and White House adviser Karl Rove about complaints over election fraud cases in New Mexico, where David Iglesias was the U.S. attorney. The conversation with Bush occurred on Oct. 11, Gonzales said. Iglesias' name was added to the list of those to be fired between Oct. 17 and Nov. 15 — a week after the November elections. (ibid)

This is BIG NEWS, yet there are no headlines proclaiming it. Yahoo and AP just had a lame one--"Gonzales rejects call for ouster," and other boring variations that wilfully-ignore the real story today. Bloomberg wasn't so coy: "Gonzales's Candor, Judgment Questioned by Senators (Update4)." The L.A. Times headlined with "Gonzales' performance might not matter." It's good to hedge-your-bets in a headline. Be vague when the political winds are shifting. We have been told by the Attorney General that the man who appointed him spoke with him about the US Attorney evaluations and firings beforehand. We also know they were expedited with incredible-speed after this conversation. It sure was faster than getting help to people in the Gulf states after Hurricane Katrina, wasn't it?

In one of the sharpest exchanges at today's hearing in Washington, Specter scolded the attorney general for interjecting that he is always prepared for his appearances before the Judiciary Committee. "Do you prepare for your press conferences?'' Specter shot back. "And were you prepared when you said you weren't involved in any deliberations'' on the firings? News Conference Gonzales, at a March 13 news conference, said he hadn't attended meetings or read memos about the dismissals. Documents given to Congress showed he attended the Nov. 27 meeting, which took place 10 days before the dismissals. "I've already conceded that I misspoke at the press conference,'' Gonzales said. (Bloomberg, 04.19.2007)

Yes, the March 13th press conference where we all remember he said he hadn't been in meetings, or read memos about the evaluation-lists and the subsequent firings of the eight US Attorneys, Carol Lam (San Diego), Bud Cummins (East Arkansas), Margaret Chiara (Grand Rapids, Michigan), David Iglesias (New Mexico), John McKay (Seattle), Paul Charlton (for all of Arizona), Kevin Ryan (San Francisco), and Daniel Bogden. Note: never send Alberto to fetch groceries.

Out of a total of 93 US Attorneys, these eight had to go. Oddly, it appears that in all-but-one case, performance wasn't an issue at all. It should also be repeated that David Iglesias was serving in the Reserves (called up by you-know-who) during part of his tenure as a federal prosecutor--his absence was sited as part of the reason behind his dismissal. It's just another example of how the Bush administration doesn't support our troops in any substantial respect.

But this administration's crimes are far-worse, and have violated numerous international laws approved before and after WWII, many governing the rules of war. They are alien interpretations in our system of governance and law. This is the other story the media is under-reporting, and so, Senator Leahy's comments have gone below the radar (unless you do some searching). This is to prevent it from being salient in the public mind.

Earlier in this process, it seemed that the Administration was concluding that any answer will do, whether it was rooted in the facts, or not. Those days are behind us. Just any answer won’t do anymore. We need the facts, and we will pursue the facts until we get to the truth. Just as respect for the United States as a leader on human rights has been diminished during the last six years, the current actions have served to undercut confidence in United States Attorneys. Just as Mr. Gonzales cannot claim immunity for the policies and practices regarding torture that were developed under his watch while White House counsel, he cannot escape accountability for signing off on this plan to undercut effective federal prosecutors and to infect federal law enforcement with narrow political goals. His actions have served to undermine public confidence in federal law enforcement and the rule of law. By getting to the truth, we can take a step toward restoring that trust. (judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement, 04.19.2007)

Nobody can save Alberto Gonzales except Alberto Gonzales. His days are numbered, and he'd better start talking a lot, and very-very soon. Today was just a starter.


Bloomberg Today: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDqjRg4mXkos&refer=home

AP Today on the Ass-Whipping: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_go_co/gonzales_prosecutors

Senator Leahy's comments on today's hearings: http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=2632&wit_id=2629

SENATE REPUBLICANS STALL MEDICARE BILL THAT COULD ENSURE LOWER DRUG PRICES FOR AMERICANS: VOTE ALSO HURTS TROOPS

“Now is the time to create some balance in the public-private partnership which is the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit by allowing the HHS Secretary to have a proper and appropriate role in negotiating for Medicare prescription drugs. Most of us want this program to succeed and we can do that by giving the Secretary a full oversight role. He should be examining performance and pointing out where drug plans need to improve. But today if he pointed out a product on which poor discounts were being achieved, he would be accused of interference. And if a plan reported intransigence, he could not respond. That makes no sense. It serves neither taxpayer nor the Medicare beneficiaries." --Senator Olympia J. Snowe. (R-Maine), 01.12.2007. (senate.gov)


Washington D.C.--The vote is getting closer than it ever has, so we're seeing some progress on this bill. Leave it to the GOP to continue hurting the average American so someone can turn-a-buck. Nonetheless, there are defections occurring within their ranks on this one, sensing that they now really have to give an angry public something for their hard-earned taxes paid into the public-fund. They know that we're all smelling-blood, and itching for some more payback at the polls next-year, so some of them are losing their nerve. The real name of the bill is "Medicare Enhancements for Needed Drugs Act of 2007," or S.250 for the 110th session of Congress, which was first introduced by Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), and co-sponsor senators Feinstein (D-Cal.), John McCain (R-Az.), Wyden (D-Or.) on February 1st, 2005.

Wyden has been one of the real stalwarts in this, and has kept the legislation alive-and-well. Today was just a minor-setback, as the vote is now 55-42, just five shy of a cloture. It's not yet at the 2/3rd's needed to overcome a Bush veto, but he might not even be in office after this year anyway. Snowe and Wyden have been working-at giving the Health and Human Services Secretary the ability to negotiate the prices of drugs for Americans, veterans, and even our wounded.

Snowe and Wyden have a long history of seeking to give the HHS Secretary that power. In 2004, they first introduced legislation to allow such bargaining and in March 2006, the Senate voted 54-44 a Snowe-Wyden amendment to accomplish the same goal. However, the measure needed 60 votes to overcome a point of order. Additionally, the Snowe-Wyden bill would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report on prescription drug prices including prices from private plans, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration and Part Medicare. (snowe.senate.gov, 01.12.2007)

Yep, the U.S. Department of Defense, which means veterans, active-duty--in-other-words, our "troops." Republicans in the Senate--simply-put--aren't supporting our troops, and neither is the Executive. But it's worse when they inflict this on all of us, and it's an ongoing-criminality. The margin is closing on this bill, and it will eventually be passed. The majority of Americans want this, it just depends on how you phrase the questions, as pollsters know all-too-well.It's interesting that John McCain supports this legislation, it really is.

It's like Johnson thinking that he could pay-for "the Great Society" programs while running a war. Why he continues to support the Bush administration, while pushing such substantial social legislation is probably more a question about politics itself than McCain or his voting-record. More Republicans are going to have to follow-his-lead as their popularity erodes to nil when the occupation of Iraq finally collapses.

AARP advocacy volunteers last month hand delivered signed petitions from Arizona constituents to the offices of Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl. The petitions, signed by 2000 Arizona residents, urge the Senators to vote for a bill that is coming up for a vote this month in the U.S. Senate that would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to bargain for lower Medicare drug prices under Medicare Part D. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed H.R. 4, the "Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007" by a bipartisan vote of 255 to170. AARP strongly supported H.R. 4 and is now putting its weight behind a similar piece of legislation coming before the Senate. (AARP.com)

Perhaps S.250 (The MEND Act of 2007) is the trump card he's keeping to save himself when that time comes. This makes him either incredibly schizoid, or smarter than most GOP incumbents. That's not hard, yet he's leading the charge with Iraq, even now. A strange man, possibly insane, but we'll take his support of this bill. The fact that there are a lot of senior citizens in Arizona also might have influenced his stance on all of this.

It's supporting bills like this that could save the GOP, but we all know it's antithetical to what they are: the political-arm of Big business and finance. But perhaps they can disentangle themselves from Big Pharma and the insurance companies. Only major-upheavals in the realms of the political and social were ever going to do it, and again, the internet has been making-inroads in this direction for Progressives of every-stripe.

The Text of the MEND Act, or S.250: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.239

Senator Snowe's comments from January 2007: http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=16d57c1b-802a-23ad-4f0e-e074e923a917&Region_id=&Issue_id=

"AARP Delivers Petitions to Kyl and McCain": http://www.aarp.org/states/az/az-advocacy/aarp_delivers_petitions_to_kyl_and_mccain.html

WHY HARRY REID DOESN'T WANT A RUSH TO MAKE NEW GUN LAW REFORMS: HIS VOTE ON S.397

wArSHINtuHn--It appears Harry was in on this one: to make the gun companies, gun-dealers (wonderful people), ammunition-manufacturers and distributors, yadda-yadda, immune from any civil/legal-lawsuits against them for guns being (mis)used by the criminal-underclass they target as consumers. Here's the header's language:

A bill to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others. (sen.gov, 07.29.2005)

Senator Harry Reid voted "yea", in-favor of this bill. It is despicable, and placed/places Reid on the far-right of his party. Ask him why this-week, and that you want S.397 removed as a law permanently. Obama voted "Nay" (no), Kerry voted nay, Kennedy voted nay, Hillary Clinton voted nay, Specter yea, McCain yea, Lindsey Graham yea, Bayh nay, Dick Lugar (never failing to be wrongheaded and criminally-minded) yea, Chuck Hagel yea, and-so-on.

What else is Harry Reid, a Janus-faced liar? It's probably the war--why do I think he's part of the faction that doesn't see eye-to-eye with the antiwar elements in Congress? It's a deflection, pretending you're not part of the roadblock to some reasonable resolution. In the case of gun-control, he's an obstacle. On this issue of the gun industry being responsible for their products like all the others are puts Harry Reid to the extreme-right of even the hard-right Hillary Clinton, or even Rockefeller and Schumer. Schumer actually voted nay, while Rockefeller is a Rockefeller--what did you expect? Perhaps Mr. Reid's connections to gun lobbyists should be investigated? I see no reason why not. He's been too-cozy with the Bush administration, and it's time for him to change or leave office in the next elections.

Senate.gov on July 29th, 2005's S.397: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00219

MONDO NEW YORK (1988) review

What a documentary this could have been! I first saw this in 1989 on home video, right before I was off to college. At the time, it was pretty shocking to these Midwestern eyes, but then, I was 21. There are only a few reasons to watch this at all: Karen Finley, Lydia Lunch's prologue rant, nutsoid artist Joe Coleman, Annie Sprinkle naked, some good poetry, and even some interesting looks at gay culture at that time in NYC.

However, embarrassing segments like the ones with John Sex and Phoebe Legere doing some really dumbass air guitar to a tape of her godawful 80s song called "Marilyn Monroe" sink this film. I've never been to New York City, and I don't see why I should anymore. That city is gone, and those of us who never saw the place never can now. It is gone. At least director Harvey Keith was there to document some of it, he just managed to miss most of the interesting-parts. Somehow, I think that was the fault--once again--of the money people (the Executive producers). Also embarrassing in Mondo New York are the 80s styles and fashions (the haircuts being the worst). There's no real nostalgia here, except for the New York City that is no more. There is no more cultural nexus like Greenwich Village anymore, a place where artists of all mediums can germinate naturally. It's all been cleaned-up and gentrified. Soho is the same.

A friend of mine saw Allen Ginsberg's final walk through Central Park around 1994, and he also witnessed the Village die, succumbing to gentrification. It's gone. So are the scarlet streets (where the whores were), live sex shows, and the glory that was Times Square. It's now the bureaucratic hell that Herman Melville saw it becoming back in the 1850s. The job is now done, and Big business and old money can now stew in its own self-imposed Apocalypse of meaninglessness.

No more grindhouse theaters, no more venues for independent art and music, no more revival houses, nada. Zip. Just a playground for the rich. Record stores? They're almost all gone throughout the nation. Bookstores? Who reads anymore? Some of us, but not many. If there is any nostalgia to be had, it's for a NYC that was once a free-for-all cesspool that was affordable. It was oddly refreshing in its freedom. There are certainly contemporary pockets there where scenes exist, but NYC is no longer the center of American culture, especially since Giuliani and the internet. And that's why Mondo New York isn't relevant today, and merely a so-so social document of some of the weirdness that was once allowed to flourish within the city limits of NYC. That's over.

Watching this, I had to wonder: "Where's Sonic Youth? Where's the Knitting Factory scene, the Jewish jazz scene, the hip-hop, and where's Bill Laswell, John Zorn, the Swans, and the wave of postpunk artists who were doing well at that time?" Where's Keith Haring? Where's Jean Paul Basquiat?

The answer on the music-side: the morons who produced the documentary had cheese-head/coke-head Alan Douglas overseeing the music in the film. Douglas is the guy who gave Al Hendrix $30,000 for the rights to Jimi's music after 1970.

Some rumors have it that he's hopelessly-addicted to cocaine to-this-day, with one story involving a garden-hose... Also, the score is really horrible and was done by Luis Perico Ortiz and Johnny Pacheco. I think a Casio keyboard and those godawful Yamaha DX-7s (digital piano, ugh!) were used, so it sounds incredibly dated and trivializes most of what you see in the documentary. Perhaps this was "to take the edge off" for Midwestern audiences at that time, I don't know, but it's a great case of how not to score a film.

We see cock-fights, a voodoo ritual--creepin' Christ, there's a lot of dead-chickens in this one, that's for sure. We see Joey Arias do a bad impersonation of a woman singing the worst rendition of "A Hard Days Night" that you'll ever hear. We see a junkie shooting-up, possibly for real. We see a Black comedian (the late great Charlie Barnett) make racial jokes to an audience in Washington Park that wouldn't float nowadays! Ann Magnason is pretty funny with her performance art shorts. Probably the best part of this whole mess is Joe Coleman, known for his folk art/iconographic paintings of serial killers and other sundry criminals and nut-jobs. What's great is his performance-art pieces. He comes out as his persona "Professor Mombuzu," and begins a rant that makes a certain sense, and then whips-out two white-mice named "Mushmouf and Pumkin' puss."  Coleman then bites their heads off and flies into a complete rage. But he isn't done yet: once the audience are sufficiently scared and outraged, he pulls-out a fuse from his 19th century gambler's-vest and blows-himself-up! You couldn't do it today after 9/11.

Seeing shots and hearing references to the World Trade Center just makes this a really sad reminder of how things are worse than the 1980s. This is something many of us never would have imagined back then.

The 1980s sucked, and Mondo New York reminds us of this fact, but it also reminds us that things have gotten much worse since then and that a cultural American Spring is badly needed. If this was our Weimar cabaret before the fall, we really suck, folks! Trashy doesn't really do any service to most of this, and why the dopey blonde as the thread that takes us through all these locations and scenes, why the need for a narrative? If you're going to be titillating, go-for-broke. Like the 80s, it's just another half-measure, with no ejaculation at the end. The viscera needs to be serviced on occasion, and the Devil given his due.

So this is Babylon--how boring, how banal and predictable. No Nick Zedd, Bill Laswell, no hip-hop, no Nowave (NO), no Swans, no Diamanda Galas, no Marc Ribot, no Ornette Coleman, no Rockets Redglare, John Zorn, no Al Goldstein, Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, Jim Jarmusch, no Quentin Crisp, no vice squads and police brutality, almost no street musicians, no Moondog, no real street crazies, no Allen Ginsberg, canned audio for the CBGB's footage, no reflections on the end of the nightclubbing scene after the death of Andy Warhol, the fallout of AIDS, and no Richard Kern. The hookers are on screen all-too-briefly. There's not much of the best of the 80s underground here, which was the real freak show! Where are the sex clubs? There was a subculture where people just went to these underground clubs and fucked each other, even after AIDs. Where are they? After the end of most of this, we got Michael Alig and the club kids. We know how that one ended.

Postscript, 02.09.2013: Appropriating the term "Mondo" couldn't save what is mostly a disastrous plunge into the inane of NYC in the 1980s. Eliot was right that the world ends with a whimper. Were it not for Joe Coleman and Karen Finley, none of this could rise to the level of Jacopeti and Prosperi's original Mondo documentaries, not even close, but it wasn't an entirely wasted effort. We at least get Lydia Lunch at the beginning, the Santeria, but a lot of this is simply embarrassingly stupid and unimportant. Interviewing bums around the Bowery would have been better--and where is the fucking Chelsea?! At least they documented aspects of the gay community, and in the arts. Heavy Metal magazine was doing a better job reporting on the underground there at the time, several years earlier. I could go on forever, and I wasn't even there at the time. Oh well. I blame John Waters.

THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS: THE KILLER'S PLAY "RICHARD MCBEEF"

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA--Once again, http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ have done it again, and produced some public-documents relating to a pertinent-case. This time, we have some of the papers of 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui--a play. The play depicts a step-father who's a pedophile and who has murdered the biological-father of the play's 13-year-old main-character, "John." Was Seung-Hai molested by a family-member? Child-abuse is out of the closet, but child-molestation is still one of America's worst-kept secrets.

The light is finally beginning to shine in a little, but is the Virginia Tech event related? It begs investigating, and should be given a high-priority. Somehow, I don't think it will--we might actually learn something. All this "shock-and-dismay" is a sham. We know why many of our troops have been raping and molesting Iraqi men and women. They were molested right here at home. Monkey-see, monkey-do. The problem is an epidemic. Small wonder other nations are frightened of such a dysfunctional culture as our own.

A most-distressing passage from "Richard McBeef": http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0417071vtech4.html

GONZALES HEARINGS POSTPONED OVER VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS: WHY NO MAJOR MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE CONSERVATIVE LETTER TO BUSH?

Washington D.C.--This is an appropriate move by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Attorney General Gonzales will be busy in his involvement in the investigations of the rampage, and it will create more stress and tension within him and the White House having to wait two-more days. See how good things come out of the bad? This was an interesting remark by Gonzales's spokesperson at the Justice Department:

Justice Department spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said: "The attorney general would like to testify as soon as possible. But out of respect for the family members impacted by this horrific tragedy he will defer to the chairman's judgment on when to hold the hearing." ...A half-dozen Republicans have joined numerous Democrats in calling for Gonzales to resign over how the firing of the federal prosecutors was handled. (Washington Post, 04.17.2007)

In-other-words, they're saying "you got us on this one, and we're only accepting this setback because of the public would see us as inhuman as we really are if we pressed this one." Something like that. Crocodile-tears and grins for all! Imagine the pressure these people in the Bush administration are dealing-with. Imagine how it felt when you sat by your phone when you thought you were going to be laid-off or fired for whatever at your job.

Now, magnify this several-hundred times--you're possibly going to jail for the hundreds-of-crimes you know you committed while holding public office. It's pretty hard to be in this much trouble, besides maybe being Benedict Arnold, John Wilkes Booth when he was on-the-run from Union troops in Virginia, or an exposed Soviet mole during the Cold War. It takes incredible effort to be in this much trouble. As a criminal, you want to get your story and your explanations out there, and you want the testimonies to be over quickly. But at least they have time to get their stories straight.

The problem is: when you know you've violated as many laws as they have, it's only going to take one smoking-gun memo, tape, e-mail, voice-mail...you get the picture. We've already got several of those "guns," but it was the former-GOP majority that obstructed justice for the president and his cabinet for four very-long years. Justice has been subverted for a long-time. The only thing that's good about all of this is that the Bush White House won't even get their usual news white-out on Iraq and the Gonzales hearings, just a zero-sum gain.Yesterday, there was a lot of bloviating at the White House press conference:

Q Has the White House received a letter from some conservatives asking for Gonzales's resignation? Has the President seen that?

MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of. Go ahead, Les. [Ed.-the topic is briefly switched to questions and comments on the Duke university scandal, Paul Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank, and more questions about the US Attorney firings.]

Q Follow up on Terry's question about the letter from conservatives. And whether you know any specifics on this letter or not, I'm just wondering, in general --

MS. PERINO: I've not seen one.

Q In general, though, when the President receives a letter like this from, in this case, conservatives who include longtime supporters of the President, expressing concern and criticism and calling for Gonzales to step down, does a letter like that get the President's attention more than other letters, given the fact that they are long-time supporters?

MS. PERINO: A lot of things come across the President's desk. Usually in a case like that, if the letter didn't make it directly to him to look at, then one of the senior staff members would have brought it to his attention, sure.

Q The phone call -- did he speak with Gonzales by phone or face-to-face?

MS. PERINO: By phone, by phone this morning.

Q Okay. Thank you. (Whitehouse.gov, 04.16.2007)

This letter from prominent conservatives--many of them past-supporters of the president--is getting virtually no coverage whatsoever in the mainstream media. It isn't salient, and it's being backgrounded. It's not at yahoo, or any of the major news-ports as a major headline. You don't need a Virginia Tech-sized event to do this, just allies who own nearly all of the nation's news-outlets and wire services. But Time magazine is at least doing their marginal-best, and have done a pretty good story on it yesterday.

The group, ostensibly called "the American Freedom Agenda" can be seen as a last-shot for many mainstream conservatives (not traditional ones) at salvaging what's left of their ideology and credibility after having thrown-in their lot with President Bush and his cabinet. Where were they in the Fall of 2002 during the mad-dash to pass the Patriot Act, thus rolling-back all of our rights? Where have they been up-to-now? If the results of the November 2006 midterms had preserved their majorities in Congress, it's doubtful we'd be hearing and reading such high-flown rhetoric about preserving our freedoms and credibility as a nation--they missed that boat in 2000, and the immediate aftermath of September 11th, 2001.

The two-page letter, written on stationery of the American Freedom Agenda, a recently formed body designed to promote conservative legal principles, is blunt. Addressed to both Bush and Gonzales, it goes well beyond the U.S. attorneys controversy and details other alleged failings by Gonzales. "Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," it declares. "He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm." Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: "He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice." ...It is the first public demand by a group of conservatives for Gonzales' firing. (Time.com, 04.16.2007)

Like I wrote previously--this is pretty belated, and it comes-off more as just simple damage control once things went truly sour for the signees. Otherwise, President Bush would be their hero, but nobody likes a loser in America. Especially when one got them there, aided in the looting of the public-funds, and now suspect that they're going to go down with him if they don't start cooperating and changing their tunes. Power only concedes to threats (including ones backed-up by the potential for violence) and demands, a historical-truth in human social reality. It doesn't matter if any us of like it or not, it's an objective-truth unconnected to human semantics and trivialities.


The Washington Post Today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601077.html

Whitehouse.gov Yesterday:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070416-1.html

Time Yesterday on the American Freedom Agenda letter: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1610738,00.html

THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS

"There are worse things than being poor."
--Pier Paolo Pasolini

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA--None of this should be a surprise in a society that throws-away people and provides no real social safety-net. It also shouldn't surprise anyone in a culture that has no real value for human-life, and this can be another one that underscores how we aren't learning anything. I gotta be frank: I don't care. Nobody cares about the tens-of-thousands that die every month in the third world, the poor who rot-away due to the inherent shortcomings of our economic system, or the silent suffering of the average American who's straining under an inhuman system. People can only take so much abuse and neglect, and so, in a society that tolerates these things, an event like this is just more of the same. For those who always wonder why these things happen: start thinking.

The pundits are going to demonize the deceased as "disturbed"--he may well have been, I wouldn't argue this, but is he a Richard Speck or Charles Whitman? We may never know why this happened.What I'm trying to highlight is that nobody really cares at all about anyone affected by this, and nobody has any genuine desire to discover why he really murdered (at this writing) 32 human-beings. If we really did, we'd be running-around hunting our representatives and demanding reforms. Most of us don't want to face the responsibilities of living in a technological society. But when you know that you can sink in this society without anyone caring, these events become more-likely, and they're going to become a daily-occurrence in the future. As people are more-and-more dehumanized by bourgeois-capitalism, as the wars continue, life will become more devalued. As workers, most Americans know full-well that they are "reified" (objectified/dehumanized) by their employers. They are seen as objects to be used, exploited, and discarded.

If we can learn anything from such events as Virginia Tech, it's that it doesn't really matter in a society that has no value for that which is human. It won't be some nuclear catastrophe that destroys humanity, it will be humanity that destroys itself. We are seeing the acceleration of this process, and it's only going to worsen as people lose their ability to empathize and communicate meaningfully. When individuals renounce the social contract--sticking-together as a society for our mutual-survival and prosperity--it means that they have perceived the contract to have been broken by the rest of society. The truth is, we all have neglected the social contract, and we're paying-for-it. The shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech are warning-signs, but the machine just rolls-on, and the demands of business and capital must be fed regardless. Save the phony moralizing.

THE END IS NEAR: ARLEN SPECTER CALLS FOR RE-HIRING OF FIRED US ATTORNEYS

Washington D.C.--Arlen's not playing any more bait-and-switch for the Bush administration--the love-affair is over. The thrill is gone, he's dead, Jim. This is appropriate: if there were improper reasons and procedures for firing these eight federal prosecutors, then they should be reinstated immediately if they choose to be. Of course this is political brinkmanship, and of the highest-order, but it's necessary in a healthy democracy. Keep-in-mind, this is coming from Arlen Specter, a senior Republican Senator from Pennsylvania who isn't known for these kinds of actions. What do you do when you're cornered like the Bush administration is? You obstruct, and you make demands that you know are never going to be met--you buy-for-time just as all criminals do in this situation.

Specter said some of the attorneys released are under a professional cloud because the Justice Department initially said they were fired because of their performance. "If they were released improperly, there ought to be a statement to that effect,'' the Pennsylvania Republican, 77, said. "If he was wrong, replacement -- reinstatement wouldn't be a bad idea if it could be done administratively.'' (Bloomberg, 04.15.2007)

It's still hard to believe this is coming-from a Republican Senator, but there it is, for all to see. Both Lindsey Graham (R-Sc.) and Specter are senior senators, meaning that when they leave the Bush orbit, so too will the majority of GOP incumbents in the Senate. This could also have repercussions in the House. Nevertheless, President Bush surrounded himself with a number of human-parachutes today (vets who are stupid enough to still support him and his war), demanding that Congress pass the supplemental funding-bill ($96-to-$124 billion--take-your-pick) NOW.

Then, you have Cheney stating on tv Sunday that "the Democrats will cave in on the legislation," which he's gravely mistaken about. The Democrats have no choice but to follow-through with a bill that sunsets the occupation of Iraq. It's not going-away. Ever. This is a worst-case scenario for any presidential administration, yet the Bush White House has continued to make demands in a context where over 2/3rd's of the public is against the Executive on almost everything. Granted, they've never cared about the will of the public before, but their behavior in this new political-context now simply appears isolated and strange. Do they know something we all don't? Perhaps they'd like to share it with all of us, but that would be giving more of the game away then they already have.

But Specter is saying only "some" of the US Attorneys should be reinstated. Why? Unequivocally, an evaluation on a case-by-case basis should occur, but it appears that all eight were fired improperly from what we already know. The Office of Special Counsel would be "the decider" on all of this, not simply the president, and not Congress. It appears that in the case of former-prosecutor David Iglesias (New Mexico), President Bush has let-down another soldier. It won't be the last-time. To writ:

Justice Department officials have not directly claimed that Iglesias was fired because of the more than 40 days a year he was away on Reserve duty, but they have accused him of being an "absentee landlord" who delegated too many responsibilities to his first assistant, Larry Gomez, now the acting U.S. attorney. The Office of Special Counsel, which also investigates whistleblower complaints and suspected illegal political activity by government workers, has the power in a normal case to order reinstatement and back pay for an employee who has suffered discrimination. But the Constitution gives Bush the authority to hire and fire U.S. attorneys, and the Office of Special Counsel would have to resolve the conflict. (Scripp News, 04.05.2007)

This is an interesting aspect of the Iglesias-firing, and complicates the recent rhetoric of the president and vice president. This is why you probably haven't seen this aspect of the story until now, though it's extremely pertinent. The Bush administration may be losing her allies in the GOP, but they'll have most of the right-wing owned press and media until the very end. The question is, will the press have any credibility left after all of this? Who cares? Everyone in the Soviet Union knew Pravda and all their media was rubbish--a certainty we don't have here, today, in the United States of America.

Nonetheless, power has its limits, and we're seeing them currently in this country. The old games aren't working anymore (the law of diminishing-returns). On March 18th, Specter had this to say on a Fox News roundtable with Iglesias, Cummins, and Sen. John Kerry.

WALLACE: Let's talk about the firing of Mr. Iglesias that we just discussed with him. When you hear that Senator Domenici and Congresswoman Wilson called him before the election, he alleges to ask him about a politically charged investigation; when they confirmed the fact, if not the substance, of those conversations; when you see this e-mail traffic which shows the chief of staff to the attorney general saying that Domenici's chief of staff was happy as a clam, does this trouble you?

SPECTER: Well, I think the issue really is whether Mr. Iglesias was performing properly [Ed.-except it's more-complicated than that.]. The New York Times has a very extensive story today outlining both sides of the matter -- lots of complaints about what he was doing and lots of complaints about what he was not doing. Now, if a United States attorney is not doing his job, he ought to be replaced. And it wouldn't be unusual for the chief of staff of the senator who makes the recommendations to be happy as a clam if they're going to get somebody in who's well qualified.

Look, Chris, it all turns on the facts. Was he doing the job or wasn't he doing the job? We know that the president has the authority to fire without any reason. President Clinton fired 93 U.S. attorneys when he took office, and nobody said a word. But there's a real question here if he fires for a bad reason, if he fires because a U.S. attorney would not respond to pressure to prosecute or if there was pressure on him to not prosecute. ... (realclearpolitics.com, 03.18.2007)

It isn't clear-cut as Senator Specter makes it appear. If Mr. Iglesias was serving his country in the Reserves, there wasn't any basis for "performance" in his firing, and he has an excellent case to sue the Bush administration for reinstatement and/or back pay. Currently, he's opting for the back pay and having his name cleared professionally. Senator Specter knows better, but he seems to be coming-around from the haze of the 109th and 110th Congress's disastrous tenure. At 77, he doesn't want his last-years to look as bad as all the others.

Bloomberg Yesterday: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070415/pl_bloomberg/a8zc7nyappek;_ylt=AjThJd0ahAvotLThx6T5qsgGw_IE

Scripp News 04.05.2007: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/20874

Fox News' Chris Wallace transcipt of the 03.18.2007 roundtable:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/david_iglesias_bud_cummins_arl.html

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: "I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE [..., BECAUSE WE DELETED THE E-MAILS.]"

wAshINtUHN--Vice President Bush and President Cheney have stated they have "every confidence" in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, which is like having the Devil on your side at judgement day. Could the Bush administration be more politically-toxic? Give it a few-days--about two. You know there's trouble when President Cheney has to leave his S.P.E.C.T.R.E. hideout to chime-in on all of this. You know where he is right-now? That mutha' owes me money. Now, even scumbags like Lindsey Graham are hinting-at bailing on the AG.

Two days before Gonzales is to make a showdown appearance before Congress, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said none of Gonzales' public statements so far has convinced him that the department's ouster of U.S. attorneys was justified. In an op-ed Sunday in the Washington Post, Gonzales apologized for the handling of the matter, including a series of misstatements about his exact role that he acknowledged "created confusion." ...Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another member of the Judiciary Committee, said Gonzales has "an uphill struggle to re-establish his credibility with the committee given prior statements." Still, Graham said he believed Gonzales could save his job. (AP, 04.15.2007)

There's no reason to recount all the different versions Gonzales has used, I don't intend to insult the intelligence of J-7 readers. It's hilarious that Graham said that he thought Gonzales "could save his job." Man, gimme some of what he's having, he doesn't sound biased. Not-at-all. Also, I was unaware that Alberto Gonzales had any credibility to "re-establish." When did I miss that part of his life in the public-sphere? Again, he doesn't appear to make a credible Mexican.

Soon--very-soon--Gonzales, Cheney, Bush, and even Tony Snow and Jeff Gannon, will not be chanting "Kumbi-ya" together, but a great-rendition of Queen's "We Are the Champions." The fourth-line is important: "And bad-mistakes, I made a few... ." Yes, it will also serve as a Gay Power ballad. I'm still waiting for the GLBT community to really begin attacking all the gays and transsexuals (a Bush-crony at FEMA paid-for a sex-change with Katrina funds, remember?) in the Bush administration for simply being criminals. Seriously, protecting them because they're gay just shows the obvious-shortcomings of your identity politics and pseudo-ideologies. What if Hitler was gay? He probably was, so would you defend him because he was gay? He was a vegetarian too.

A Democrat on the committee, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, said Gonzales' statement was not much help. "Not a single important question we have asked is answered in his opening statement," Schumer said. Specter also said he believed the White House would agree to a transcript of interviews of administration officials involved in the dismissals. The White House has suggested interviews in private with no transcript. "There is not going to be any budging as far as I'm concerned -- and I think others in Congress too on congressional oversight -- to have a transcript. This is indispensable," said Specter. (Reuters, 04.15.2007)

The problem Gonzales and the Bush administration have had with all this is having a record of what they say. They have also complained of having "perjury traps" being set for them. Is that not enough of an admission that you do in-fact have something to hide? The fact that they have thus-far refused to testify--making comments to-the-extent that they wouldn't--sound like the statements and behaviors of innocent people? We can only find-out if they're innocent by having them testify and investigating, using our well-established traditions that they've flouted as much as possible since their forced-entry into the Oval Office in 2000. They believe they are above the law. This makes them extremely-dangerous--and violent--revolutionaries who hold beliefs and values that are alien to America. We can thank ourselves that they're being reined-in.

It was a majority of eligible-voters (myself-included) who helped wash out the former-GOP majority, ending one of the most acute constitutional crises this young democracy has ever weathered--and it's not over yet. This is why we hear President Cheney telling us today that "Democrats will back down on Iraq [Ed.-the funding]." It's tit-for-tat. A game of brinkmanship that began in the Autumn of 2000. See what happens when you put-off a real resolution of a constitutional crisis? Also: Lindsey Graham's comments on virtually anything are suspect, granted, but he's sending messages to the Bush administration that he and their other GOP allies in Congress cannot hold-out much longer, hence the "blistering attacks." Sorry President Cheney, Congress has a higher approval-rating than you do.

Cheney's blistering criticism of Democrats, the latest in a series of recent speeches and interviews, drew harsh words from Levin. "He has misled the people consistently on Iraq," Levin said. "He has misstated. He has exaggerated. And I don't think he has any credibility left with the American people." The uncooperative tone comes just as Bush plans to meet bipartisan leaders of Congress this week at the White House. The purpose of that session on Wednesday is to discuss how to get a war-funding bill done, yet no negotiation is expected. Meanwhile, in Iraq, four bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite sections of Baghdad on Sunday. They killed at least 37 people in a renewal of sectarian carnage that set back the U.S. push to pacify the capital.(AP, 04.15.2007)

They can try to obstruct, but the political reality is changed until they're out-of-office...whenever that is. Sooner will be better than later. It's almost amusing to hear President Cheney state "progress is being made" while Baghdad is aflame. Mortar-rounds are hitting within the Green Zone on-a-regular-basis, as well as within the city in-general. So, like LBJ (the other schmuck from Houston), you have the clowns in the White House refusing to hear any bad-news, and a schism between what they say and the reality on-the-ground occurs. It's nothing-new, but it's becoming more pronounced in 2007.

Only the most emotionally-attached, indoctrinated, or sublimated cannot see that there is no possibility of any military solution or victory in Iraq. But, the longer all the no-bid contractors are there, the more treasure they're able to funnel from the public-funds. The US Attorney firings is just the icing on-the-cake. Of course they deleted the e-mails on-purpose. Of course they're guilty of more things than we even know-about presently. Of course they're all criminals in the White House--that's what the White House is for, to create a cocoon from civilized law-and-order for elites.


AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors

Reuters Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070415/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc_2;_ylt=AiSX6febNOYgO_uTK9967cqWwvIE

What a DICK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq;_ylt=AmNlX1xhaXelZhpXYnOKGbiWwvIE

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MARK FOLEY?

wArSHINtuHn--And when is Dennis Hastert going to have to testify under oath about his cover-up regarding former-GOP Representative Mark Foley? What about all the others involved? What's the deal? Besides, Fay Wray is dead. Sie ist todt.

One good thing I got from 9/11

"My week beats your year."
--Lou Reed, from the liners of Metal Machine Music (1976).

It pushed me towards a radical epicureanism. Before 9/11, I was procrastinating on buying a DVD-player, but that was it. I had to finally get one, and I wasn't disappointed. One of the first films I bought was Sergei Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" from Criterion, and Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (Der Spieler, or "player"). The quality made VHS look as bad as I always thought it was--horrendous, but Americans thought it was better since the tapes were larger. Yes, we're a retarded culture. Since late-2001, I think my collection has reached over 1,000-titles.

When 9/11 happened, I told myself, "Self--you need to watch every single major film worth-watching." And so it began: Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Coppola, Bergman, Orson Welles, Pudovkin, Tarkovsky, John Ford, Tobe Hooper, Peckinpah, Kubrick, Ozu, Roman Polanski, Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: Iron Man), Dreyer, Derek Jarman, David Cronenberg, Kenneth Anger, Jodorowsky, Scorsese, Pabst, Pasolini, Wadja, Fellini, Klimov, John Carpenter, Billy Wilder, Ulrich Seidl, Wim Wenders, Paul Morrisey, Fassbinder, Herzog, John Huston, Jess Franco, Dario Argento, Stroheim, Demille, Ken Russell, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, Michele Soavi, Leni Riefenstahl, Mario Bava, Jules Dassin, Terry Gilliam, George Romero, and countless others you've never had the pleasure to watch. Why? Because when I saw two airliners slam-into the WTC that day, I wagered our time is running-out rapidly. It still is.

It reminded me that: there is no-meaning to life except what one creates, and that you had better enjoy the things that you're truly passionate about. For myself, it's film, music, and food, drink, sex (to the consumerist-slobs: quality, not quantity), and good smoke. Since 9/11, I've enjoyed all these things in-spades. If a car ran-me-over tomorrow, I'd probably have a grin on my chin(s). For tourists of this site, you might incorrectly assume that all of the topics I write about make me unhappy. You couldn't be more wrong. As bad as the Bush administration has been, at least they're incompetent assholes who have given most of the game of deceit and manipulation of all of us away.

The Democrats are better at that side of politics than the Republicans. Their drug is sex and power, mine is cinema and all the other mediums of art. I get a great outlet thrashing these morons, as well as commenters who post here not bothering to read the policies-link at my blog's profile. If you have something constructive to post, I'm listening, otherwise, you're my quarry, my prey, my videogame. This isn't a site for conformists, and I reserve the right to treat you as you treat me. Most of my passions are here, and I have a lot to say about them. If you have something to add that's pertinent, or you at least have some manners, you'll be treated with dignity. It's not a negative act to attack destroyers, anymore than it's negative to write about what you love. Both are positive acts. Realizing who we really are is a positive act in every sense. Be your own best-friend, it's a great feeling.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: SWINGIN'-DICK WORLD BANK PRESIDENT WHO GAVE US IRAQ QUAGMIRE

"A guy doesn't pay to be with a prostitute--he pays them to go-away."--a wise adage, author unknown (probably Zoroaster).


NEW YORK CITY--Even The Economist (that magazine of Sadeian truth) is saying it's curtains for pimpster Paul Wolfowitz...who? You know, the guy who was the architect of the war in Iraq? That guy. He was one of the prime-instigators and facilitators of that ongoing-catastrophe. It finally appears that his protection is gone, and that he's going to--gasp--be held-accountable for hiring his girlfriend (lover, the woman who...you know) for a position (not missionary) at the World Bank. Ah yes, and she was given a staggering pay-raise since he couldn't put her directly-within the World Bank's facilities, but at a subsidiary insititution. Hey, you help start a war that enriches the once-flagging Halliburton, as well as oil corporations and war-profiteers everywhere, and you get some ass in the deal (yo'!). Also according to The Economist, it seems that his immediate-staff have been angry about this for a very long-time:

The affair also seems to have extinguished what little support Mr Wolfowitz had with his own staff. They have always resented the baggage—and a couple of the people—he carried with him to the bank from his controversial past. You do not need to be popular with your staff to be a good boss [Ed.-actually, you do.], but you surely need their confidence. Mr Wolfowitz it now seems will never gain that, even if he does get another chance. (Economist, 04.13.2007)

That's pretty bad, especially since it might cause the relationship to founder--no more ass. Ms. Shaha Riza must be an exceptional lover to command the kind of perks she got back in June of 2005 when George W. Bush appointed Wolfowitz to the post. What kind of sexual magick must she possess? Is it in the Kama Sutra? Did Kinsey ever study it? Is it legal in Georgia and Texas? Are sexual-rewards part of the Bush administration's policy for appointments? Go ask Jeff Gannon.It's interesting how this is playing-out, and it took far too-long. He's gone, it's just a matter of time. So, what were the mechanisms that finally forced the media to make this story a priority? Probably some whistle-blowers (the real kind) in his office, and high-level European-members who had knowledge of it, and who found it to be a corrupt series-of-actions:

He stands accused of helping engineer a massive pay hike for his Libyan-born girlfriend, former World Bank communications specialist Shaha Riza, when she was transferred to the US State Department in 2005. Wolfowitz has admitted to mistakes in the procedure under which the pay package was approved and has received a vote of confidence from President George W. Bush, for whom as a deputy defense secretary he helped plan the Iraq war. But he still faces an open revolt from outraged World Bank employees pressing for his departure. Bank policymakers are due to convene here Sunday, after which Wolfowitz is scheduled to address a press conference alongside IMF counterpart Rodrigo de Rato. (AFP, 04.14.2007)

Hey, we all know how well the war in Iraq went-off, so it's safe-to-say Wolfowitz has never had any confidence at the IMF/World Bank, and that the resentments began upon his appointment ala' John Bolton by President Bush's dubious recommendation. Wolfowitz is just another sundry example of Bush cronyism gone-awry. They thought they'd always have the GOP majority in both houses of Congress until January of 2009. The Bush administration and the RNC were wrong, and the rest will be history. Just not in American history textbooks, but the internet will continue to fill that particular gap.

It's not as if the kids have ever believed much of what they're taught about their history anyway.These things happen every day in the corporate world--but the World Bank and the IMF isn't that place, but a quasi-governmental organization that's supposed to function "multilaterally" (ahem: meaning nobody dominates the institution). World Bank employees have been posting their complaints about Wolfowitz on internal bulletin-boards, but now it appears that it's getting more-widespread. Worldbankpresident.org has been getting some interesting anonymous comments that likely originate from World Bank staff:

Posted By Anonymous Fri, Apr 13, 2007, 21:10

Mr. Wolfowitz. At this point, it's not about the technalities. It's not about which rule was broken, according to which memo. It's about a profound distrust in you, your advisers, your policies. As Nancy Birdsall puts it, we need a strong world bank now and you are a distraction. You leaving will certainly not solve all of the problems faced by the institution but judging from the commitment, passion and will to change things expressed in these comments over the past few days, I have no doubt that staff is ready to do things differently and better. Our clients do not trust you, our partners do not trust you, staff does not trust you. The only one who as expressed support is GW bush and we all know his shortcomings. So my plea is: dont be like that. Dont hang on to the last bit of power until you are kicked out, by the board or by the staff. Act with dignity. You must leave now. If you dont, you will be booed at townhall, people will mock your opeds, clients will turn to others, and not only will you not be effective, you will contribute to bringing this institution further down the lines of irrelevance and obscurity. Leave now.

This really sums-up the core dynamic behind the Bush administration: a wanton power-grab that has no regard for accountability, the public's confidence, popular-support, or any recognition for the common good of humanity. Neoconservativism never constituted an ideology, but simply the Conquistador's lust for treasure and power. The anonymous e-mail truly sums-up the remedy: dignity, something George W. Bush and his criminal co-conspirators have no concept of. Not within themselves, and consequently, within others.

None of this is surprising to those of us who saw it coming back in 1999, during the tail-end of Bush's disastrous term as governor of Texas. He was never supposed to be president, but the Cheney-Rove factions won, and they got their time in the White House (again). When the smoke has finally begun to clear, when their facilitators on-the-margins like Wolfowitz have been felled, it will be time to deal with all those in Congress (in both parties) who also enabled what is likely to be the most criminal administration in the political history of the United States. Like the Coolidge and Harding administrations, they will be a curse on the lips of Americans for several-decades. Like Herbert Hoover--who offered no solutions and barely any aid during the worst-years of the Great Depression--they will be called every expletive that comes-to-mind for at least fifty-years.

World Bank staff and global development organizations called for Wolfowitz to step down as anger increased even after a public apology on Thursday in which he said he erred in the handling of the 2005 promotion of Shaha Riza, a former senior communications officer in the bank's Middle East Department. Bank staff expressed their outrage on internal Internet bulletin boards, which included calls for Wolfowitz to resign and support for a staff protest on Saturday.The outpouring reflected resentment over Wolfowitz's close ties to the Bush administration and his role as an architect of the Iraq war while he was U.S. deputy defense secretary. (Reuters, 04.13.2007)

In frankness: these people must truly hate themselves. How could anyone want this as their legacy? The toppling of America as a world power will be one of Paul Wolfowitz's legacies--the only good one. Perhaps Ms. Riza can tell us his other attributes, but we can rest-assured that a tell-all biography is coming from Harper Collins. We can assume that Ms. Riza wasn't the only prize involved, and that money and a position at some financial institution or corporation will be waiting for Mr. Wolfowitz after his dismissal. What should really be happening is a massive-investigation into his role in selling the war in Iraq, but it now appears this is likely. Good things come to those who wait.


The Economist Yesterday: http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9023322&top_story=1

AFP Today: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/270368/1/.html

An Excellent source on the World Bank's Presidents and their skilled-lovers: http://www.worldbankpresident.org/

Reuters Yesterday: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070414/pl_nm/worldbank_wolfowitz_board_dc

Tobe Hooper's Mortuary (2005) review

This was just so much fun, not perfect, but a lot of fun. People are still expecting Tobe Hooper to direct another Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is too bad, because this is a really enjoyable horror movie. It has a lot of great B-movie atmosphere, hot chicks, small town punks and some original gore concepts that left me feeling repulsed and violated. In other words, it's a very successful low-budget horror movie.

The idea of a conscious fungus colony is pretty creepy, gross, and horrific! Living-ooze is definitely a Lovecraftian theme, and some parts of the small town's back story resemble "The Colour Out of Space", "The Dunwich Horror", and a little bit of "The Outsider." Besides, what could be more primal than living-ooze? That's what we used to be, and where we'll eventually return (we appear obsessed in achieving this). Mortuary shares some similarities with Lucio Fulci's "The House By the Cemetery," one of the best "cursed house" films outside of the original "Haunting" (1963) or the "Legend of Hell House" (1973).

There are also a few nods to Hooper's "Poltergeist" (1982), and "Eaten Alive" (1976), and 1998's "Phantoms." This really is just a very funny and creepy ride that a normal family can watch together. It doesn't have any great statements to make and a lot of it isn't new, but the combinations in it are new. Let's be honest: sometimes it's just good to have some fun with the genre.

Denise Crosby was really great as the single mom who moves her poor family to a cruddy little California town for a job as the new mortician. They find a really rundown old mortuary that literally rests on an island of muck--we know we're in for some grim, dirty horror here, and Hooper and his collaborators deliver. Greg Travis returns from the Toolbox Murders (2003) as a shady local businessman who rents the accursed property to unsuspecting tenants. His foppish gimp character laughs all the time, creating a genuine sense of unease. All the characters are well-drawn and likable with a few notable-exceptions, so those characters "die" early-on as we hope for them to as horror fans.

What's impressive is howHooper's characters all seem to act as real people do, like Dan Byrd's as the son, he's very believable. "Normal" behavior and conformity are the targets of the film, and as is standard in a Tobe Hooper movie, they're the fodder for some spot-on social satire.

While the film is a light-horror with lots of black humor, the plot line is actually very grim. Many online reviewers have expressed anger at the climax of this film, calling it a "cheap ending," but I don't see this at all. Was it supposed to be a Spielberg ending where everyone's safe and happy? That would be a "cheap" ending. Did I mention the girl with the Kool-Aid hair looked pretty hot?

But, honestly, could the ending be any more unexpected? Horror has its conventions (no, not the merch ones), there are only so many, and the only options left are to mix-things-up. How is this movie any different from any 1970s-80s indie horror? Texas Chainsaw Massacre looks better with hindsight, but it was very cheaply done and only meant as entertainment. The same applies here. No, what many so-called "horror fans" expect is a predicatable, safe ending that doesn't go in new directions. Horror fans have been criticizing Hooper for revitalizing and redefining horror for a very long time. You can't please everyone. What angered many viewers was the fact that characters they liked and identified with died in a way that negated their identities.

Usually, in an American horror movie, the characters who aren't sympathetic die quickly and the "good" characters survive for the most part. Yes, it is the much reviled American optimism. Not many American horror directors allow sympathetic characters to die-off completely or have their identities taken over or destroyed (like the original "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"). It's in the indie productions or Asian and European horror that this occurs in the story if it does at all.

We remember John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982) because he breaks this rule again-and-again, even to the very end of the film. Knowing the rules helps! At the time, many people were angered by this but it's part of the original short story by John W. Campbell Jr. from 1938.

There is aboveground horror, and there is underground horror like Campbell and Lovecraft, Bloch, Derleth, etc. We know there are some things that you just don't do in a mainstream film, which is exactly why they should be done in horror. To do horror well, you have to betray the audience.

The only way for horror to progress is by a violation of contemporary taboos and a knowledge of what works in the genre. Killing the heroes certainly works, and that's too bad for those who feel emotionally betrayed by the authors of a movie. The ending of Mortuary was just a fun fake-out. There were two other scenes that stood-out: the infected mother robotically serving the kids dinner in a parody of domesticity and the scene in the subterranean well where the role of the "authority figure" gets deconstructed...literally.

As in "Funhouse" (1981), Hooper makes his infected completely mechanical and insane, replaying his own fear of the mechanistic nature of the universe. What could be more fearful than something that cannot be reasoned with?

The latter-scene was a nod to parts of his own "Invaders from Mars" (1986), his remake of the 1953 classic. If you hadn't noticed, most of Hooper's films center threats to a family unit in some way, or one family threatening another. He makes some pretty interesting comments on the family in his films and not all of them are sympathetic. This film just supports his countercultural credentials, and people get irritated by his jabs or when they simply don't get it. Sometimes, that's the whole point. Learning the horrible truths of our lives isn't supposed to be a pleasant experience.

The only major complaint I have with Mortuary is that some of the CGI effects could have been better. Some of sequences drew too much attention to themselves, but overall of they were pretty good considering the film cost less than $1 million when it was made. As much as it costs, why not do a few matte paintings and miniatures in the real world? It might look a lot better and could have even cost less. Another weak moment here was the scene in the mortuary where some accident victims "reanimate," and it could have been staged better, it looks hurried. Overall, the Mortuary looks great and has a very solid cinematography, it looks very assured. The real "star" of the film is the house, real location that was once the home to one of California's first senators. You can't replicate real decay and grime.

Nearly every small town has a local boogeyman story like the "Bobby Fowler" character, haunted places, and the cemetery surrounding the mortuary house was well-drawn: an accursed place of death where nothing grows...but something there feasts on the dead and the living underneath the earth. The townsfolk whisper rumors of the Fowler place and warn of its dangers after dark. Local folklore has it that the last family to live there vanished, perhaps devoured by the land itself. Even their cattle became sick and mysteriously wasted away. Time passed, and after the biggest rain in fifty years, something has reawakened to feast again on the town and its inhabitants. This is a portrait of a town that's literally decaying from the inside-out.

Hooper seems to enjoy portraying people in disintegrating social roles (cop, mother, punker, movie reviewer, skater, girlfriend, employee, businessman, sibling, goth, metal head, authoritarian, homosexual, criminal, judge, manager, wife, husband, etc.) portraying them all as a form of living-death, but who can complain when this is how we chose to "live"? The anarchist in me loves watching identities in free-fall, seeing conformity collapse abruptly beneath its own paradoxes.

All-in-all, Mortuary was just entertaining (I know, the end of the world!), with a few jolts and some effectively disgusting makeup that can only be achieved with almost no budget. The tone gets more-and-more hysterical and bizarre which is what I expect from Tobe Hooper. This is the same level of filmmaking he was at when he did Eaten Alive, and it's a low-budget attempt but very solid. The origins of the zombification were pretty original and there were some moments of greatness in the imagery. I'm a sucker for graveyards.

This is another great addition to the works of Tobe Hooper and he has nothing to be ashamed of here. The Echobridge entertainment DVD is excellent, with a 53 minute featurette, a great widescreen transfer, and even a commentary track and DTS-sound. Mortuary is a horror film for the family, and it's fun to watch. That's all it ever claimed to be: A decent B-movie horror with a some shocks. Nobody sets-out to make a masterpiece, they just do. Mortuary is a good reminder that everyone you've ever looked up to can be wrong, and that some people are just doomed from the start.

Revised, 12.01.2008

American Idol...

"A guy doesn't pay to be with a prostitute--he pays them to go-away."
--A wise adage, author unknown.


Cue "Axel-F": I don't know what it is (yo, what it is?) about this show, but while it basically-sucks...I kinda like aspects of it. What's that English guy's name--Simon? The Black guy--no idea who he is. But the English pansy is probably my favorite judge. He's just so brutally honest about how he thinks a performance of a contestant was, and has a comeback for everything. For fuck's sake, Oscar Wilde would be jealous of this Brit.

Someone on the show has to be a real judge, because Paula Abdul is so obviously inebriated and stupid to judge anything, while the Black guy likes almost everyone. Paula Abdul: I have always loathed her music, her choreography, and the fact that she can speak (OK, barely). She reminds me of what all the cheerleaders from High School must be like now: washed-up alkies, poodles for their rich husbands, yet atavistically demanding of some sort of "respect" in the situation they chose. Millions of human-beings who are better than her die every year, while she makes a mountain of cash...for what? Proof that the universe is fundamentally irrational...

Hey, it's not easy handing someone their asshole-casserole, it's a shit-job. Even the guy on the "Dirty Job" tv-show would balk and gag at it. But back to the Simony feller: he's gotta be the product of the English Public School system. For those of you who don't know, this is their legendary circuit of boarding schools that serve as a pederasty factory for schoolmasters, instructors, and upper-classmen throughout the UK. You know, future members of Parliament and the upper-crust of England. Tony Blair probably got his first buggering there, so you can understand him and his relationship with Bush a lot better now. Was I writing about American Idol? Sorry, I digress again.

The acts (non-sexual): it was mean to throw the scantily-clad chick off recently, she wasn't that bad (to look at). Most of the show's song selections are a strange-mix of James Bond themes (the worst-ones), salty rock n' roll from the 1960s-1970s, some jazz-standards, standards, standards and practices, tantric-sex, and 1% hip-hop (fine-by-me). I'm waiting for some smart-ass to sneak through the auditions with a cover of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man," or at least an unexpurgated version of "Darling Nikki" or the Hungarian suicide song, "Black Sunday." How about doing "Strange Fruit"? If you're gonna have the schmaltz, why no Cole Porter, Noel Coward, or Hoagie Carmichael? There have been a few moments that come close, but where's the original songs?! My challenge to American Idol: bring Diamanda Galas on as a guest-judge. Fuck you Fox, cancel the Simpsons.