You want to know what really bugs me?

The lies.

Beltway myth: "The left-wing base" vs. "the American people" on Iraq

Glen Greenwald, Salon.com

Monday July 7, 2008 07:58 EDT

How much clearer could that be? The truth is exactly the opposite of what Liasson said. Americans want to withdraw from Iraq in accordance with Obama’s timetable (if not faster) regardless of circumstances “on the ground” — not conditioned on those circumstances. But because that’s not the view Liasson and her establishment colleagues embrace, they just lie and claim that the majority view is the one held only by the “left-wing” fringe, while their own actually fringe view is the one embraced by “the American people” and thus defines the “Center.”

This is the standard propaganda tactic of establishment media stars like Liasson, and she’s hardly unique — in this way or in any other. This is how they manipulate public opinion and coerce political officials to disregard the views of most Americans in favor of the fringe, establishment view. The views of the establishment pundit class are automatically labeled “the Center” even when they’re rejected by majorities of “the American people.” By contrast, views that are actually held by majorities but which the pundit class dislikes are demonized as those of “the Left.” Thus, they argue, political candidates, in order to win elections, must embrace the views of the establishment and reject the view of most Americans. That’s how a candidate “moves to the Center.”

My emphasis.

So now it’s July, high summer.

I heard Ben Stein today on CBS’s Sunday Morning talking about air conditioning.  While I am much younger than Ben I certainly remember when air conditioning entered my life.

As a wee lad I mostly haunted the Library, but a short walk from my house where I quickly read through the Kids Section absorbing the collections of Hardy Boys, Tom Swifts, and Nancy Drews as well as Science Fiction, History, Biography and miscellaneous other categories until I exhausted the catalog and was booted upstairs to the Adults Section, most of the shelves of which I couldn’t reach, yet.

The Library was air conditioned, but when it was closed I’d go down to the basement (the coolest part of the house) and lie in front of a hurricane fan using a table knife to hold down the pages.  Some nights everyone had to sleep downstairs by parental edict.  I found the enforced togetherness as enervating as the heat.

I in fact spurned other than found air conditioning (pervasive, isn’t it, now that you think about it) until the early 90s when I started noticing persistent heat related failures in my computer equipment.

So let’s just say, I know what a Long.  Hot.  Summer.  Is.

No justice, no peace.

So what’s it going to be like when the rolling blackouts come campers?  When your air conditioning and your fans and your lights and your television and your internets operate but a few hours a day and never when you need them.  When your rationed energy is totally absorbed by scrounging enough to merely survive.

Will you read books by candlelight?

Hey ek!

Hey what?

Hey ek!

Hey WHAT!

Show us how you get down.

NO WAY!

Show us how you get down.

ok.

D-O-W-N and that’s the way you get down.

D-O-W-N and that’s the way you get down.

Volume doesn’t work for me, I have to turn it up.  Lyrics below.

So I’ve been driving ’round a bean field.  Staring at the sun.  Walking in the mud.  Talking to people I once knew.  Meeting and greeting.  Pretending not to pay attention, looking another way.

Hearing about births and deaths.  Hanging on.  Trafficking in triumph.  Who, after all, is better than me?  Skulking around after dark hiding from the dreaded vampire mosquitos in clouds of chemicals.  Maintaining my own crypt-like pallor with more of the same.

Eating slave food and drinking beer.  Top shelf whiskey, but no grilled vegetables.  I miss the vegetables, the asparagus would make the bathrooms stink, but I’m best buds with the comfort station guy and he always puts an extra cake in my urinal.

Now all is dust.  Actually more mud, but I like my metaphors mixed just like my cocktails- shaken, not stirred to piss off the bartenders.  Shrink wrapped in stacks it waits in trailers for a next time that may never come.  Winding down partings of missed meetings and tired indifference it drifts away as it came.

So for the last little bit on Rush Limbaugh I’ve been listening to Jonathan from Rockwell Tx. (outside Dallas) who picked up a broken compact florescent in a storeroom even though Rush told him the Mercury was toxic.  Rush praised him for his self sacrifice like he had fallen on a grenade.

He felt faint and headachy so his boss filled out an accident report and called the (offsite) RN who had him 911 the paramedics that sent him to the emergency room where after a few hours and some Tylenol the headache went away (but make sure you keep monitoring says Rush).

The Loading Dock I worked on was roofed by reinforced concrete decking on steel beams all coated with spray asbestos insulation to meet fire code.  I smoked Kools at the time and we ignored the “No Smoking” signs because hey- it’s the Loading Dock and we make our own rules. (Security guy was a smoker too, which didn’t hurt).

Is this bad?  Let me tell you what we did for amusement.

Our store occupied 2/3rds of a former retail space and they just left the basement filled with all kinds of fixtures (which we stole) and other exotic (not meaning “African Americans” Pat) leftovers which included boxes and boxes of standard florescents which it would have been unprofitable to pay us to check whether they still worked.

So instead we stood around on our smoking breaks and played Jedi light saber with them or pitched them into the Dumpster like spears.

Good news for a change.  In 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that internees at Guantanamo are entitled to have their cases heard by a U.S. Federal Court.

So much for an October execution of KSM to improve Republican prospects in the election (or just make its theft more credible).

This AP Story is just a stub (update: now enough details to quote)-

Supreme Court backs rights for Guantanamo detainees

Associated Press

4 Minutes ago

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court’s liberal justices in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

So I’m going to disappear, except I’m not really, but I do have business that is going to take me away from my regular internet connections.

This has happened before though everyone has had the good grace not to notice it in part because I’ve acculturated you to expect nothing but negligence.

I assure the fans of my occasional and diffident nature my departure is merely intermittent and temporary.  During this time I shall be making random and haphazard appearances here and there.  This week is ramp up to Friday when the show goes into Out of Town tryouts. After that, Monday we go Off Broadway and Wednesday is the day the critics come for Opening Night at the Big Show.  We close Sunday and everyone goes on the road except the roadies (isn’t it ironic) and if history is any guide I’ll have the sets and lights packed up by Tuesday after, ready to send to the next stop on the tour.

I will lift heavy objects many times.  I will eat dust and walk in mud.

Occasionally in my lighthouse I will doze as the grand plan unfolds.  Gotta love it when that happens.

The more things change the more they stay the same.  See you around.