Zygoteville

my cup of hate

First the birthers and now the angry mobs disrupting health town hall meetings across the nation. I don't even know if I'm supposed to feel better that some of these mobs are part of organized conservative astroturf efforts. I am so tired of being disappointed at how eager Americans are to rise up against their own self-interest and the self-interest of other Americans. And I am also so tired of trying, and failing, to understand the people responsible for facilitating this kind of behavior. Enough, already. My cup of hate doth overfloweth.

Radicalize + bull testicles, or bust!

We have all been cautioned against hoping too much of President Obama. But what of our legislators? Last time I checked, we still had -- at least on paper -- three branches of government.

In this month's issue of Harper's, Kevin Baker writes that "[i]t is impossible not to wish desperately for [Obama's] success as he tries to grapple with all that confronts him." However, Baker predicts that Obama, like Herbert Hoover, will be unable to "radically alter his thinking" as he must to find viable solutions to those problems that confront us, helpfully listed in part as: "worldwide depression, catastrophic climate change, an unjust and inadequate health-care system, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ongoing disgrace of Guantanamo, a floundering education system." Baker acknowledges that it is "not too late for [Obama] to change direction and seize the radical moment at hand," but worries that necessary action will be forestalled by our cool as a cucumber president's penchant for prudence, common sense, and reasonableness.

Baker then goes on to reserve his harshest words for those of Obama's own party who have lacked the courage and political will to rise to the occasion:

One might have assumed that the adrenaline rush of regaining power after decades of conservative hegemony, not to mention relief at surviving the depredations of the Bush years, or losing the vestigial tail of the white Southern branch of the party, would have liberated congressional Democrats to loose a burst of pent-up, imaginative liberal initiatives.

Instead, we have seen a parade of aged satraps from vast, windy places stepping forward to tell us what is off the table. Every week, there is another Max Baucus of Montana, another Kent Conrad of North Dakota, another Ben Nelson of Nebraska, huffing and puffing and harrumphing that we had better forget about single-payer health care, a carbon tax, nationalizing the banks, funding for mass transit, closing tax loopholes for the rich. These are men with tiny constituencies who sat for decades in the Senate without doing or saying anything of note, who acquiesced shamelessly to the worst abuses of the Bush Administration and who come forward now to chide the president for not concentrating enough on reducing the budget deficit, or for "trying to do too much," as if he were as old and as indolent as they are.

Reading Baker's piece reminded me of another story I recently read. In the midst of California's ongoing budget crisis last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent to State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg a metal sculpture of bull testicles, evidently as a suggestion that Steinberg find the fortitude to close the budget deficit. (Unamused, Steinberg returned the gift.) Perhaps what Obama needs is indeed -- as Baker only vaguely and not particularly helpfully sketches out -- a radical streak. But perhaps what Obama's fellows Democrats need are their very own bull testicle sculptures, so as to inspire in them the fortitude to fucking shut up and step up.

What say you? Shall we take up a collection box?

From Tiananmen to Tehran

Both photos from The Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" series. [More photos of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, more photos of last week's protests in Iran.]

The Infamous Bai Jiu Incident VII

I am shocked, shocked, that it has been seven years since The Infamous Bai Jiu Incident of June 15, 2009. I am perhaps even more shocked that it has been three years since I have solicited similar stories from Zygoteville readers. The time has come again for friends and frenemies (you know who you are) alike to share your stories of inebriation. Please don't be shy.

As you can see, on my end pretty much nothing has changed:

"Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day

Tomorrow, March 20, 2009, would have been the 81st birthday of Fred Rogers, known the world over as Mister Rogers. In honor of his birthday, the city of Pittsburgh last year held the first ever "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Day, in which they asked people to celebrate Mister Rogers' birthday by wearing their favorite sweaters and participating in activities that promote kindness and caring for your neighbors, broadly defined.

My second most favorite story about Mister Rogers is how one day the second-hand Impala that he had been driving for years, was stolen from its parking spot near the WQED studio. Rogers filed a police report, and the story was picked up by the local news outlet. Within 48 hours, the car had been returned to the spot from where it had been stolen, along with a note stating: "If we'd known it was yours, we never would have taken it!"

My first most favorite story is this one.

I'm wearing my favorite sweater tomorrow, because I miss Mister Rogers.

revisiting the torture question

Mark Danner had a horrific article in today's NY Times detailing the torture experienced by detainees in the C.I.A.'s secret prisons abroad. How will the Obama administration respond? As information increasingly comes to light of torture committed with the explicit approval of senior Bush administration, will it force the hand of Attorney General Eric Holder, who already stated during his confirmation hearings in the Senate that waterboarding is torture, and later added that "no one is above the law"?

Perhaps. But at least for now, ranking members of the Bush administration -- including Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice -- who demonstrated a profound lack of a moral imperative by authorizing treatment that any civilian would identify as torture, are simply sauntering back to their pre-2001 lives with their confidence and self-assuredness intact. Thus, in a recent interview in the Stanford Report, Rice acknowledges that "It's perfectly legitimate to be critical of what's been a complicated and sometimes controversial and always consequential last eight years," but goes on to say: "The only thing I ask is that people be respectful of listening to the views and what we faced and how we went about it."

Respectful? How can you respect a National Security Adviser who knowingly authorized torture and in doing so profoundly jeopardized the security of American soldiers abroad and damaged the international credibility and reputation of the country as a whole? Why does she deserve our respect when she betrayed (helpfully, another article in today's NY Times reminded us where in Hell Dante placed betrayers) our most sacred trust and helped to leave our country the weakest and most insecure that it has been in decades? She and Cheney and the others do not deserve our respect. Nor do they deserve our inaction. The question is, will we act to bring them to justice? When? How?

I would argue that if we do not confront head-on the Bush administration's flagrant disregard of the law and of common human decency, our inaction will in the end wreak far graver consequences than our current economic crisis. At the same time, I fear the likely reality is that we as a country are too busy bailing out our banks, auto industries, and 401ks to do anything about it. By the time the Bush torturers are back in our sights, it may already be too late to bring them to justice. But maybe by then it won't matter anyway, because by that point there won't be anything left of the America that once was, or might have been, to be worth trying to save at all.

Letters from Sammy: October 21, 1992

In following with tradition (2007, 2008), here are two letters and one school essay from my cousin Sammy. All came in the same envelope.

Sammy would be 25 years old today.

Letter #1: The earthquake Sammy references was the magnitude 7.3 Landers Earthquake, which took place on June 28, 1992.

Letter #2: Based on the date of the envelope, Sammy would have been eight years old. However, in this letter he says he's nine. I may have consolidated multiple letters from different dates into this envelope at some point. Also, FYI, the Raphael that Sammy is talking about were these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dolls that transformed from a pet turtle looking creature to the ninja-fighting street warrior. I found some pictures of a similar TMNT mutations toy here.

School Essay: I am assuming the house that Sammy talks about in this letter is our cousin Gene and Angels' house, since they were the only ones growing up who lived near the ocean.