First Draft

Weekend Question Thread

Do you have any major uncompleted projects?

I have about four chapters of a novel, in bits, and the first eighth of a short story, on my hard drive, sitting there accusingly, asking me why I'm screwing around on Facebook instead of working on them.

A.

Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Post away.

A.

Quitting Time Booster Shot

Welcome back to the booster where we wonder if the folks at Rosetta Stone will be putting out a language-learning CD on this one...

-Apparently things in Wingnut land were pretty busy over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, because only now have they gotten around to discovering Mark Fiore and his "how to speak Teabag" cartoon. That said, they've got their game faces on, with hundreds of calls pouring in to NPR. The NPR ombudsman notes that their "tom tom was extremely impressive." I've got another word to describe it...

- Tip of the cap to Adrastos for the Arenas note. In a move that I'm sure has nothing to do with his albatross-like, salary-cap-killing contract, the NBA has suspended him indefinitely, thus opening the door for the Wiz to cut him via a moral turpitude clause.

- In another DC-related story, J.W. von Brunn, everyone's favorite elderly racist, died of "natural causes" the other day. What really caught me was this line high in the story: "On June 10, after double-parking his car outside the museum, Mr. von Brunn walked up to the building carrying a rifle and shot Mr. Johns in the upper chest at close range as the guard was opening the door for him, the authorities said."  Yep. That's big city life for you. The fact the guy tried to take out as many people as possible in the Holocaust museum isn't at the front of that crime-related sentence, but rather that he FUCKING DOUBLE PARKED! HOW DARE HE! THAT PRICK!

- From the department of "Qua?": Walmart and H & M in NYC have apparently been throwing out massive quantities of clothing AFTER PUNCHING GIANT HOLES IN THEM to make them worthless. There's not a charitable organization that could take them? My grandmother's neighbor used to do crap like that when she cleaned out her attic. She'd cut holes in furniture, break electronics by stepping on them or pouring water in them and more. Once, my grandmother even noted to her that she'd like to have something the woman was throwing away. "Mmmhmmm." the woman said as she cut holes in the lawn chair. I don't get either instance, but at least in one case you can blame it on the weirdness of an individual. What the hell is up with Walmart? 

- Tip of the cap to The Hawk for making the Hall. I saw clips of him play when he still had knees and man, it was something to behold. Even more, the clip of him getting drilled in the face after hitting a homer in the previous at bat was horrifying. Let's hope he goes in as an Expo, as it's great seeing people getting in from teams that no longer exist. It'd be awesome if a Seattle Pilot could make the hall one day.

Thanks for letting me share your air. If I'm not dead, I'll be back next week. (h/t to hoppy)

Doc

Rules to Die By

Got three funeral invites over the past week or so. One was to Athenae’s grandmother’s, which I would never have missed for the world. When you have a good friend, you’re always there.

It was one of the sadder moments I’ve seen recently, though, because when you see a hurt friend and you can’t solve what hurts them, you hurt with them. While it was a beautiful service, a giant gathering of people with the deceased present is an awful lot to deal with.

While we were talking, she told me point-blank: “Don’t let anyone do this kind of thing for me.”

That wasn’t the first time I heard someone tell me that. When Dad’s mom died, my Mom’s mom, dying of cancer herself, managed to make it to the funeral. As I sat with her during the visitation, she turned to me and said, “I don’t want a funeral.”

“Mom wants to have a service for you…” I began.

“Is this REALLY what you want for me?” she asked. “All these sad people? All this foofah? All this misery? Why?”

I couldn’t answer that one. She had had a rough go of it. About a year earlier, her husband died. She cobbled together what little money she could for a newspaper announcement only to have the obit she paid for include three misspellings and a number of errors. Trying to explain the benefit of these death rituals seemed pointless.

When Grandma died three months later, Mom had the service. Grandma wasn’t too far off in her assessment of how it felt.

Honestly, I hate death. It freaks me out. In fact, one of the recurring dreams I have when I’m horribly stressed is that I’m dead but not really. I can’t move and I’m being buried in a glass coffin. As shovel after shovel of dirt hits the casket, I want to scream but can’t. It’s usually those dreams that have me walking the floors at 3 a.m.

The Missus has been on me to have a will made out, a plan set up and more. The closest I’ve gotten is buying our plots in the family portion of the cemetery back home. I took her there and jokingly told her, “Look, I bought you land!”

So here’s the deal: I confront fear and discomfort with humor. I decided that Ms. A is right: The funeral route is no route for me. I’m done playing Mr. Nice Guy with the death industry. Here’s my “preplanned life-exit strategy.”

Read on with a grain of salt.

Doc

Quit Choosing Failure

Paulie K asks a question:

Health care reform is almost (knock on wood) a done deal. Next up: fixing the financial system. I’ll be writing a lot about financial reform in the weeks ahead. Let me begin by asking a basic question: What should reformers try to accomplish?

And Dan offers a comment:

Just a hunch, but I think credit scores are going to lose some of their mythical aura over the next few years. The big boys walk away when it's in their interest. Why should anyone else feel obligated to be a sap?

This got discussed over at Balloon Juice a few weeks back, talking about executive bonus limits or eliminations, and I said at the time that I thought what we needed was not limits on bonuses but limits on severances. 

If I make a sweet salary with a nice bonus, but I get stupid money if I do badly enough to get canned, you wanna bet how fast I start showing up to work in my pajamas and talking shit about the boss? SO FAST. It removes all incentive to do well when, if you gut and skullfuck the place and everyone in it, you make a ton of money once they shove you out the door.

Huge severance packages incentivize either total failure or the corporate practice of keeping stupid assholes around for ages because it's too expensive to buy them out. I don't get all that worked up about bonuses but "so and so who ruined a newspaper company got $4 million just to leave us alone forever" stories drive me up a tree. 

A.

Friday Ferretblogging: Blogger FAIL Edition

We got a truly awesome amount of snow here yesterday. The kind of snow that silences the city and makes even the neighbors you hate your best friends as they help you dig your car out or shovel off the porch. Instead of pushing them in strollers moms were pulling their kidlets around on sleds. Since I walk to work and have good boots, it was awesome, and I thought hey, I'll take the ferrets out in it. Bucky first!

No. Like he hated it so much I couldn't even stand to take a picture of his baleful glare. He backed away from the snow, from the leash, from me, against the wall of our building and stayed there until I took pity on him and brought him inside.

But hey. Puck loved it last year! So I took him out. OH HELL NO. Not only would he not go near the stuff, he crouched on the ground pathetically with his tail the size of a Christmas tree and squeaked. I felt like the worst mommy on the planet.

I didn't even bother with Riot.

After all, I need at least one of them on my side or I'll be outnumbered.

A.

Considering the Alternatives

From Album3

Just a quick post here on a busy day, but I've been thinking: despite the VERY legitimate criticism of the Obama administration from a progressive perspective, I've gotta believe the alternative -- literally liars...or worse, their even more demented tea bagger alter egos -- would just. be...

Well, I don't even wanna think about it.

So, sigh: Obama is merely a lesser of evils...but goddamn if the greater evil isn't, well...evil.

Party On, Teabaggers

The Tea Party folks are holding their first national convention. They seem to be alarmed about "liberal trolls." TPM is reporting that Rachel Maddow has been banned from the "tea party nation" email list because she's supposedly a troll. Rachel may be a librul but she's also media so one would think they wouldn't shit in their pants at the thought of her getting the odd email. I wonder how long it will be until TPM is banned as well? Don't the tea partiers realize that we liberals want them to wreak havoc on the right and damage GOP electoral prospects this year? Go, teabag nation.

Anyway, I've signed up for the tea party nutters email list and y'all should too if you're in the mood to be a troll. I'm hoping to be banned but I'm probably too obscure; just like Jude...< Hardy rim shot>

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow ain't no troll. Someone's using her name to annoy the teabaggerazzi.

'Lilly White America is fed up !!!'

Thank you, Internet, for allowing these people to find each other:

I estimated the crowd at 400 but was told 100 more people, who couldn't get in the banquet room, gathered in another room where they couldn't even hear the speakers. Yet they refused to go home.

Claris Van Kuiken, 55, of New Lenox, said she joined the movement because she fears politicians are not only attempting to undermine the country but Christian institutions as well, with a vision of a one-world government and occultism.

"I wrote a book about it," she told me. "Americans really don't understand what is happening to our government and our churches."

Susan Carduff, also of New Lenox, was there with her husband, Michael, to "get rid of corruption politicians," to oppose gun control and battle for lower taxes.

Nancy Mirabelli, of Palos Park, said she's pro-life, pro-family and "just tired of a lot of stuff going on in Washington."

I really think we should just form the Tired of A Lot of Stuff party and let everybody who thinks "they're all just as bad as the others" and "everyone in Washington sucks" and "throw them ALL out" join up, like when I was in college and a party was formed to dissolve the student government. It got itself elected, dissolved the student government, and then everybody stood around for a few years scratching their asses and wondering why nobody listened to students and tuition kept going up and the chancellor wrapped himself around corporate interests like a koala around a tree. 

I really don't blame these nutjobs for their nutjobbery. People do have a really good radar for when things aren't as they should be, and it's pretty hard to argue that anyone isn't screwed these days. I blame the hucksters and liars who glom onto that vague sense of dissatisfaction and turn it into an assault on God or the flag or something not being "pro-family" as if boys kissing is the problem here and not that the manufacturing base has collapsed and middle class debt-free living is nonexistent and Oh God I'd Better Not Get Sick and Vera Bradley's making handbags and there seems to be absolutely no way that anyone can explain that any of this will get any better.

I mean, if I think about it too hard I'll go kind of crazy again and start stockpiling dry goods like last spring  when I was convinced we'd revert to some kind of agrarian barter economy in which I'd have no useful skills to sell so I bought all the flour that was in the store. BECAUSE.

(Fuck, I need to get out that cookbook my mother in law gave me for Christmas and bake bread with all that stuff. And to stop reading post-apocalyptic lit.)

I understand panic, what I don't understand is the level of sociopathy that lets you take advantage of panic to sell something. Which is all the national Tea Party leaders are doing, and not any new thing at all. It is the political equivalent of solar ovens and urine-purification water systems for the Y2K apocalypse.

Oh, and that book mentioned above? MAN: 

This book reveals the account of several faithful witnesses who stood gallantly for the truth of God's Word in the face of persecution from the members of their own church's governing body-for a period of four years! The controversy centered around the writings of a well known "Christian" auther and the denial of essential doctrinal teachings of the Christian faith. Yet, the problem was much deeper than these writings; it rested in the utter refusal of the pastors and elders to stand for the faith even in the face of numerous denials of Scripture. "Unity for the price of truth" seems to characterize the political shenanigans that ensued. But what was most amazing was the spiritual strength of the 'appellants' (including the author) in cutting through the deception and denials that surrounded the proceedings-. This is a true story of courageous, martyr-spirited Christians who would not give up as long as there was still hope that truth would prevail. I urge you to read ! this riveting book . . . after all, this kind of situation could happen even in YOUR church. Be ready for it!

Yeah. "Auther."

A.

Happy Dodd Photo

Seriously, I don't know if I'm overreacting or what, and obviously Dorgan's a bigger deal because it will be harder to hold that seat, but ... Dodd, man.

 

There's a whole slideshow of Dodd win over at TPM, including this pic where he looks like his skin is crawling from Bush touching him, which cracks me up.

A.

Never Confuse Ideology with Avarice

Matt nails it with the Blue Dogs:

After all, the whole motus operandi of the Blue Dogs, as described by Robertson, is that they vote like Republicans and then tell their constituents about it. That is, they convince their constituents that when they vote for a Blue Dog, they are getting a Republican with the power of a member of the Democratic majority.

[snip]

Blue Dogs get a great deal by being part of a large majority, with a large enough bloc of coherently unified conservative ideologues who frequently bring the Democratic Party to its knees. They get millions of dollars of cash from the DCCC to support their re-elections. And they get this backing from the party, often in districts where if they ran as Republicans they would likely face strong primary opponents. Why would these Blue Dogs be ready to jump ship from the Love Boat the Democratic Party has them sailing on?

And, for serious. If there was a Republican majority, or they could help make one, I could see the party-switching being a thing for different selfish reasons, but the current selfish reasons suit these fucksticks just fine. They not only get to vote their interests and make their asshole constituents happy, they also get to act martyred and put-upon every time somebody calls them fucksticks on a blog because it's so OMG HAAAAAARD to be as centrist and sensible and normal as they are! The whole world is full of anti-war protesters with puppets who don't want the banks bailed out and they're so MEEEEEN. 

Ideologically, 40 years ago these would have been Republicans. The only reasons they're not Republicans are a) have you SEEN the Republican party lately, they're repped by that Red State fool and the Tea People and b) being a Republican wouldn't allow them to act so aggrieved while simultaneously cashing in.

A.

The Weight

This sketch, the beginning of it anyway, is the first thing I thought of when I heard Brit Hume's comments on the superiority of Christianity over other spiritual paths.

As for the rest of the sketch, I think we can agree that the preacher character is as useful to politics as it is to stand up comedy, no?

Saviors

Sigh:

Honestly, I think this is sheer wankery—any time you’re betting that a new technology that doesn’t yet exist will save an industry via a new business model that doesn’t yet exist, you’re probably wrong.

And yet I find the idea kind of intriguing. There is something about the lay-out of hard-copy papers that I prefer to online editions (even though I mostly read online editions) and in some ways I prefer reading the NYT on my iPhone to reading it online (I also like the Sportacular and Fandango Apps better than their online counterparts).

Do any of you think there is any way some kind of table device could revive the print media industry?

No. There is absolutely no device that could revive the print media industry, for the very simple reason that the print media industry's problems have nothing to do with print media. You could beam this shit directly into everybody's head and the current crop of newspaper company execs in charge would still find a way to fuck it all up.

A new toy isn't going to make up for a toxic aversion to marketing. This is the thing that makes me the craziest when starry-eyed tech-huffing n00bs to the debate start wittering on about how all we need to do is put everything on line and our costs will go down to NOTHING! Just like magic! That's usually when I turn on the TV and wait for a web site commercial like the ones Monster.com used to run every hour to air.

People don't come to you just because you're on the web. Audience retention online isn't some kind of automatic. People think this, still, that you put up a web site and the money comes rolling in. And dude, I wish, but you still have to tell people where you are and convince them to check you out. That takes money, lots of it, up front and immediately, spent across any number of platforms where your readers might be found, money most media executives are incredibly unwilling to spend. They'd like to find some easier way, some tablet, some 'net, some phone, some way around doing the work you've always had to do and will always have to do to build and engage readers.

I mean, these assholes still haven't figured out that you sell advertising by pimping your readers' attention to clients. For hundreds of years this has been true, but they still haven't figured it out, and if they haven't figured it out since Ben Fucking Franklin was setting type I don't hold out much hope that they'll be able to grasp it on this newfangled Interweb thingy, which most of them encounter only when a friend's kid gets in trouble at school for posting her titties on The Myspace.

So no, I don't think a device, real or imagined, can save the print media industry. If an industry pulling double-digit profit margins in the middle of a recession can't save itself, it's just rude to ask Steve Jobs to do it for them.

A.

Hooplehead

Dumbassery and professional sports go together like red beans and rice. My favorite recent example is the trouble Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas has gotten into over pulling a gun on a team mate. Arenas is now saying the whole thing was just a joke. Obviously. I don't know about you but nothing tickles my funny bone like having a gun pointed at me. Hardy har har. The District of Columbia has very strict gun laws so Arenas could face charges and wind up being lionized by the NRA. 

An interesting sub-plot to the Arenas story is that the Wizards used to be known as the Bullets when they had a good team that won a championship and had some great players such as Earl (The Pearl) Monroe, Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld. But yet again, I digress: the team nickname was changed by owner Abe Pollin in 1996 because of his concern that the old name glorified gun violence in a city wracked by it. Way to go, Gilbert: dishonoring the memory of the recently deceased owner of your team.

It occurred to me that the word that best describes the hoop star Arenas is one frequently used by Deadwood's master of invective, Al Swearingen. Gilbert, you sir, are not only a hoopster but a fucking hooplehead.

Cross-posted at Adrastos.

And the Week Tips Over Into TREMENDOUS SUCK

Dodd stepping aside:

Embattled Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) has scheduled a press conference at his home in Connecticut Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek re-election, according to sources familiar with his plans.

Dodd's retirement comes after months of speculation about his political future, and amid faltering polling numbers and a growing sense among the Democratic establishment that he could not win a sixth term. It also comes less than 24 hours after Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced he would not seek re-election.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is widely expected to step into the void filled by Dodd and, at least at first blush, should drastically increase Democrats' chances of holding the seat.

A.

Overcomplicating This Tiger Woods vs. Jesus Thing

Brit Hume's critics are thinking too hard about this:

To briefly review, on "Fox News Sunday," Hume said the golfer's Buddhism is inadequate to deal with Woods' personal problems. The ostensible journalist said Woods can "make a total recovery and be a great example to the world" if he'd only "turn to the Christian faith."

O'Reilly asked a reasonably good question: "Was that proselytizing?"

"I don't think so," Hume said, before reiterating his comments from Sunday that Woods should convert to Christianity.

Hume said that given Woods problems, he "needs something that Christianity, especially, provides, and gives and offers." That includes, he said, the chance for "redemption and forgiveness." Later in the segment, Hume said: "I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs."

I suspect for Fox News, dictionaries suffer from liberal biases, but "proselytize" isn't a word burdened by nuance. It means "to induce someone to convert to one's faith." For Hume to deny that he was proselytizing on the air is absurd. That Fox News considers this incident consistent with its professional standards tells us all we need to know about the so-called "news" network.

Was it proselytizing? How about this: Was it STUPID? How exactly is Jesus Christ supposed to keep Tiger from sticking his dick in women he's not married to? How exactly does that work? Tiger is at the bar, getting eyes made at him by some adult woman, because who can blame her he's Tiger Frigging Woods and though I don't find him attractive I can see where girls want to hit that, and he's thinking, "Hmm, maybe I ought to have sex with her despite my being married to another lady," and Buddy Christ comes down and is all:

Because I don't think it works that way. In the First Church of Athenae, God is not your traffic cop. God is not your mommy. God is not your Fuckup Insurance. Far too many fucking people seem to be all up in God's stuff all day long asking Him to keep them from being assholes, and I just really ... You being inspired by Jesus to be a good person doesn't mean it is Jesus's job to make you a good person, and this is a critical distinction a lot of evangelical practitioners of Consumer Christianity seem to miss.

It is no one's job to make you a good person but you. It is your job to be that way. You can draw inspiration to not be a dick from anywhere you like, so far as I'm concerned, and I'm not opposed to whatever makes you happy being called God, but this constant acting like all it takes is a shot of the Jesus Vaccine to make your bullshit go away helps no one. It's ineffective. It's cheap.

So I don't really care if it was proselytizing or not. It was goddamn dumb.

Pun intended.

A.

You Were as Bright as Christmas

Via the man's Twitter, which is pretty much the only celebrity feed I follow.

A.

I need a shot of rhythm and blues

Ever have one of those days? It's been like that since before Christmas for me. One crisis after another, compounded by my home computer biting the dust. So here I am blogging from my phone, because I'm home sick with walking pneumonia. So, whatever I did karmically to deserve this, I'm frakking sorry, okay? Jeebus. Anyway, the phone doesn't have an alt key, so only one category. Pretend this is also categorized Stupid Republican Tricks.

Now, I need to earn my keep around here. I am well and truly baffled by the persistence of the Republican dominance of the national security issue. The two most successful military endeavors of American history were presided over by Democrats. The Republicans, however, presided over the end of the Korean conflict (not exactly a win) and Vietnam (essentially a cut 'n run, by Republican definitions). So why do pundits like Cokie Roberts still keep parroting the idea that it's a winning issue for Republicans?

Because Democrats keep letting them. This latest "crisis" is a case in point. There have been two nearly identical incidents of attempted bombings of planes, one under Bush, one under Obama. Come on, Democrats, grow a pair, willya?

I'd go on, but my thumbs are tired. How do kids text so much?

Resenting the Youth

Amanda comes close to articulating the thing that always trips my wires about Those Kids Today stories:

As much as it defeats the desires of curmudgeons to believe that kids these days are somehow losing their way, the truth is that IQ scores have been rising steadily over the generations, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect.  Science writer Steven Johnson wrote an entire book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, where he effectively argues that the very "overstimulation" that people like Farndale resent is probably why people keep getting smarter.  Having spent the past two days deeply immersed in the newest version of Super Mario Brothers, I can safely agree with Johnson that video games actually worked my brain pretty hard, with no noticeable decline in my literacy skills.  After all, a good video game is a rapid fire series of problem-solving situations.  Shouldn't we want kids to spend their leisure time working on that? (Scientist friend on hand wants it to be known that video games are used as therapy for ADHD kids, to retrain their brains to concentrate.  Also that it works a lot better than boring kids to death in public schools.)

[snip]

Not that I think any of this reality will cause the curmudgeons of the world to lay off complaining about kids and their video games.  Once you give yourself permission to resent kids for having access to pleasures that baffle you, you're probably not going to be in the mood to applaud them for also being better at problem-solving and having greater comfort with rapidly changing technology.

Emphasis mine, because it is resentment, and the reason it makes me crazy is that it's unproductive. Look, man, I'm sorry I don't have to walk uphill both ways to school, but that ... what ... I mean, what does that even DO? If I apologize for not knowing how hard you had it, can we move on to cure cancer and end poverty and shit now? We have things to DO here.

I pull this shit, too, I'm not immune, I wear 1940s dresses and write about local history and this is my current favorite movie, but let's not pretend it's a dodge. For example, my telling you all about how I used to go home from my job at the paper with line tape in my hair and six bandages on my fingers from Xacto knife cuts and covered in wax from doing paste-up may be funny to us both, but it doesn't actually help you get the paper out your own self. Living in the world we live in, what are we to do? Memory lane is awesome, I live there part of the time. But memory lane starts being a destructive escape the moment you start acting like it's a year-round hangout and using it as a way to avoid worrying that somebody is passing you by.

Now, granted, not everyone thrives with the Wii or the Interwebs jacked directly back into their heads, but this is exactly the point. This one-size-fits-all attitude that the future is always scary and entertainment is always suspect and pop culture is always destructive and TV rots your brain and typing on a typewriter is just more virtuous because it's REAL (tm) and whatnot is just as dumb as saying the iPhone is automatically better than anything ever and Facebook is the new Christmas and you old, motherfucker and we should all stop speaking to one another in anything but binary and burn all our books because they take up space in the library. People do not all react the same way to everything.

We all have things that shaped us and we all have values but this turns into an argument not about those values but about brand loyalties. The Internet does not prevent us from working hard or having meaningful interaction with others, not by its own self. Video games by the nature of their existence do not make someone an anti-social asshole, they just help people who are already anti-social assholes reinforce those tendencies; if it wasn't video games it'd be something else. Didn't we have this dumbassed argument after Columbine, already? I don't even play video games, because I'm lazy as hell and it takes work to build up any skill at those things, but I get so nuts when people try to blame the existence of morons on anything but those morons.

And it doesn't really say anything all that nice about the speaker, either, saying that your generation was awesome just because you didn't have all this stuff. Better to argue, really, that it was your superior work ethic and your general adherence to Good Things in The World and your innate power of Great that kept you from sucking, and not a lack of access to Playstation.

A.

Cold Rain and Snow

It's been very cold this week by our standards in New Orleans. No, it's not Minnesota or Wisconsin cold but we have had two freezes with more to come. It may not be as cold as Chicago but our houses aren't built for under 40 degree weather; they're designed to stay as cool as possible in the summer, which means that even with central heat, baby it's cold inside.

My circa 1920 house is raised off the ground and has high ceilings, which means that I'd be warmer if I could sleep on the ceiling. I have a bad case of Spidey envy right now. And our wood floors are *almost* frigid tonight because there ain't nothing underneath them except for the wintery air. Trust me, if I liked the cold I'd live somewhere else...

The tourists have been complaining the last few days about how cold and windy it has been in the Quarter but my only response is, "it's January." My winter NOLA travel tip to friend and relations (very rarely the same thing) is to be prepared for temperatures ranging from 30 to 80. In short, look at the weather on the internets and, for chrissake, bring a fucking coat and don't wear flip flops when it's 42 degrees and damp, damp, damp.

Anyway, I'm cold tonight but not as cold as some of my readers who have to "run out in the cold rain and snow" like, say, the Del McCoury Band or the Grateful Dead. That's right, this post was a feeble excuse to post two versions of one of my favorite wintery tunes:

Bookstraps!

Libraries and community:

The library was shut down in March after a pipe burst in the building where it was housed. The building is old, built in the 40s when Altgeld was constructed as housing for black war workers, and fixing the damage is expensive. City officials at the library, the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Public Schools are looking for a replacement, and have some hope of a new plan being announced soon. But until then, no library for the kids at Altgeld.

Last week, I was down at Altgeld with resident and community advocate Cheryl Johnson. I asked her about the library closing and her thoughts on what its meant to the kids she works with in the community.

“If they want to do homework, if they want to look something up on the internet, they don’t have a place to do it,” she said. “What are you telling our kids? Your only future mindset is to be a prisoner.”

[snip]

The city is working on a plan to reopen the library. Both library and CHA officials told me they hope to have something to announce soon about when a new facility will open.

But sitting there at Altgeld, Cheryl asked me – if this happened in your neighborhood, how long do you think it would go on?

I don’t know, I said. But nine months later, I don’t think we’d still be waiting for an answer.

If my local library shut down for nine days with no word about when it would reopen, never mind nine months, people would have a fucking cat with wings. I mean it, there would be riots. Not just because it's the local kiddies' source for all things Harry Potter, or a way to amuse the little nippers when school is out, though that's a sizable part of it. And not just because of the mystical thing about books and how stories bring us together and all that shit that gets writer-dorks like me hot, though that's in there too.

Because it's also a way for people out of work to job-search. If you don't have a computer, you need a way to search for work online and send out e-mails and your resumé, not to mention something to format that stuff on in the first place. The computer labs and Internet portals are always jammed, there's always a waiting list, there's always a line. I take stuff like being able to log on to whatever job site or Craigslist  whenever or Facebook or LinkedIn or blogs for granted so much, because I can, but if I couldn't? I would LIVE at whatever place I could do those things, and for many people that's the library. 

Not to mention work experience for teenagers and volunteer experience that helps you build a resumé in a world where nobody wants to hire you to get the experience you need before you can get hired, and a place for the elderly to hang out and read the newspapers and magazines and whatnot. For God's sake, if we're going to smug on all day about how young people don't read anymore and don't know how to write in anything but AOL kiddiespeak, then how can we turn around and shut down places that foster a love of those things and the valuing of them?

This is what makes me so crazy all the time about glibertarian bullshit that people should just rise up and overcome whatever, like it's easy, not understanding how this stuff actually works. I mean, just fucking THINK: The places you grew up, not just literally but intellectually, the places you went and felt safe, the places that had things you needed, the places that helped you, who would you be if those places didn't exist? Who would you be if you didn't have them to go to? And if you say you know, if you say you have any idea, you're lying.

A.

Life During Wartime

Married and shipping out:

Two 19-year-olds are the first couple to be married in a civil ceremony in Cook County in 2010.

Janette Diaz of Schererville, Ind., and Jeremy Rodriguez of Chicago said their vows at 9:30 a.m. with County Clerk David Orr presiding. Rodriguez, a U.S. Marine who has already served one tour of duty in Iraq and will be doing a tour in Afghanistan in 2011, leaves Monday for Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

The couple arrived for their marriage at 6 a.m., well before the office opened at 9 a.m.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - Freeper "civility lecture" Edition

Good Monday morning, and happy 2010, everybody!

There's been a lot of sturm und drang over at Moron Junction about how the bad old libs were mean-mouthing their Godhead Rush Limbaugh when he was admitted to a hospital with chest pains.

Everyone suit up, let's go in to the entry, and I'll offer my rebuttal.

Folk-rocker Vic Chesnutt dies in Ga. at 45 (Barf Alert ending!)
Breitbart/Twitter ^ | Dec 26 10:53 AM US/Eastern | AP

Posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:49:24 PM by pillut48
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Vic Chesnutt, the folk-rocker whose sometimes dark reflections on life were influenced in part by a car wreck that left him paralyzed, has died. He was 45.
Family friend Christina Stuckey, who answered the phone at Chesnutt's home, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. Chesnutt's record label, Constellation Records, said in a statement on its Web site that Chesnutt died on Christmas Day, Friday.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

I really don't know who this guy was, but the kicker to the whole story came in the last few paragraphs:

" However, Chesnutt had recently struggled with a lawsuit filed by a Georgia hospital after he racked up surgery bills totaling some $70,000, the Athens newspaper reported. He said he couldn't afford more than hospitalization insurance and couldn't keep up with the payments.

The problems baffled his Canadian bandmates, Chesnutt said.

"There's nowhere else in the world that I'd be facing the situation I'm in right now. They cannot understand what kind of society would inflict that on their population," he said. "It's terrifying."

Did the Canadian health system take care of this guy all these years? If it was soooooo wonderful, WHY did he get treated HERE in the USA (with it's 'terrifying' health care system) instead of GOING TO CANADA FOR FREE TREATMENT?!?!?!

Oh - I don't know. Maybe it's because HE WASN"T CANADIAN, you dumb prick??

1 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:49:24 PM by pillut48

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To: pillut48

Chesnutt died on Christmas Day, Friday. "Chesnutt's roasting on an open fire..."
(sorry, couldn't resist)

3 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:55:03 PM by OrangeHoof ("Barack Obama" is Swahili for "Bend over suckahs".)

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To: pillut48

I would’ve sent his sorry, socialist behind to Cuba. They’d take care of him (euthanasia) free there.

4 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 2:56:17 PM by davisfh ( Islam is a very serious mental and social illness)

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To: mikrofon

LOL. Thank you for that. Now I don’t feel so alone...
Chestnutt resting in an open bier
Tag now hanging from his toes

7 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 3:03:10 PM by green pastures (Cynicism-- it's not just for breakfast anymore...)

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To: kickonly88

In the article there’s a quote from him about “sensitive punk rockers”...

Sensitive to what? Needles larger than 22 gauge?

12 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 3:15:53 PM by raybbr (If you try to kiss your son on the head while he's running you WILL get a fat lip.)

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To: pillut48

i live around athens and have never heard of him. athens is made up of almost all dems.

16 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 3:27:13 PM by junkyarddawg

Well - there you have it.  If someone who calls themselves "junkyarddawg" hasn't heard of you, you couldn't have been very important.   (And as for the rest of his acumen: 58.09% of the people in Athens-Clarke County, GA are registered as Democrats. 40.26% are registered Republican. This is obviously some new use of the term "Almost all".)

To: green pastures

At least the fellow had the good sense to criticize the American health care system before he died, finally guaranteeing himself some press attention. Heck, he may even win a Grammy & be inducted into the American Music Hall of Fame next year.

11 posted on Saturday, December 26, 2009 3:15:18 PM by skeeter

Anfd there you have it.  Freepers in a nutshell.  I could post what they said about Teddy Kennedy when he did die, but I think you can imagine.

Further fractious foolishness after das jump..