Thought That Came Unbidden

One of the prices you pay for living in the Nation’s Capital is sufferring – or having unprecedented access to depending upon your perspective – the rituals of state. The inaugurations, the marches, and yes, the state funerals.

The mythologizing of Gerald Ford began with two hours of local TV news coverage of the motorcade from Andrews Air Force base through Arlington, VA and up Pennsylvania avenue to the Capitol. Let me tell you something: it gets dark here around 4:45pm and there’s very little that is less fun that watching a line of cars with their headlights blazing driving at a snails pace through the city and surrounding environs.

I personally remember Ford taking office: more, I remember Nixon getting away with it. His triumphant wave to the assembled crowd as he boarded the helicopter to leave the city for the last time. Even as a child I could see in his face that he knew he was getting away with something.

What bothers me about these state events – most particularly the funerals – has less to do with the physical changes they wreak on the city and more to do with the spinning cloud of myth that blankets us until the event is over. As Christopher Hitchens writes in Slate:

One expects a certain amount of piety and hypocrisy when retired statesmen give up the ghost, but this doesn’t excuse the astonishing number of omissions and misstatements that have characterized the sickly national farewell to Gerald Ford. One could graze for hours on the great slopes of the massive obituaries and never guess that during his mercifully brief occupation of the White House, this president had:

1. Disgraced the United States in Iraq and inaugurated a long period of calamitous misjudgment of that country.
2. Colluded with the Indonesian dictatorship in a gross violation of international law that led to a near-genocide in East Timor.
3. Delivered a resounding snub to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the time when the Soviet dissident movement was in the greatest need of solidarity.

How, then, do we gain any perspective on our leaders? And what, exactly, will the mythical “they” say about George W. Bush during his turn to lay in the Capitol rotunda?

Cross posted to Amphetameme

21 December 2006
Washington, DC
Sunrise: 07:23 EST
Sunset: 16:49 EST
Total daylight: 9h 26m

24 December 2006
Washington, DC
Sunrise: 07:24 EST
Sunset: 16:51 EST
Totaly daylight: 9h 27m

Yes, that is a sigh of relief you just heard.

Just some random thoughts from the past few days that will probably never coalesce into full-blown blog entries but, nonetheless, deserve airing.

Christmas Holiday music

Is there any song that gets dragged out once a year that is more tuneless, pointless, and more of an ear-worm than George Michael’s Last Christmas? Don’t believe me? Go watch the video and see if you can get the damn tune out of your head in less than two days and without repeated high-volume listenings of Lady Marmalade (either version but the original is better).

Question celebrity

Why do we care that Nicole Ritchie was arrested for drunk driving? What, besides being famous, has Nicole Ritchie ever actually done?

I wonder about fame a lot while I’m waiting in line at the grocery store and staring at the tabloids. I’m utterly convinced that Paris Hilton thinks that money is going to protect her from the ravages of her excesses. It will be interesting to watch as the years roll past because I don’t think the media circus is going to be any less frenzied in the next decade. If anything we will, indeed, fulfill Andy Warhol’s prediction.

And is it just me or is Ellen Pompeo from Grey’s Anatomy just a sexed up version of Melissa Gilbert?

Inspiration

The mythical “they” tell us that writers write what they know; that we draw on experiences from our own lives to create characters, stories, plots, and conflicts. To a certain extent this is true. I look at my own fiction and I can see where my life has influenced some of the characters and conflicts. I can also look at it and see 100% pure inspiration; an idea that came to me out of the ether because I happened to be listening at just the right time.

Driving across town today I was obsessively flipping radio stations in a semi-vain attempt to avoid said Christmas holiday music. Yes, even our one remaining classical station has gone to holiday tunes, and while I like The Nutcracker I can only hear The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies so many times in a week before I want to scream.

The oldies station was playing Bob Seger’s Night Moves and I stopped because, frankly, I like the song (deal with it). And while listening the thought occured to me: somewhere in the world there is, most likely, a 50-something woman who hears that song and regularly thinks “You may not have been in love, buddy, but I sure was!”

Just random thoughts that have come unbidden during the holiday frenzy.

TGF and one of her best pals were famous for perverting song lyrics, everything from ad jingles to Christmas carols.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him but this completely dirty and perverted carol comes to you courtesy of Robert E. Badger, Jr. and TGF.

If you would prefer to have your Christmas sensibilities unsullied just think happy holiday thoughts and I’ll have another entry up here soon.
[Read more…] about The 12 completely dirty and perverted days of Christmas

What separates the U.S. from the rest of the world? It is, theoretically, our rights, those freedoms our government both simultaneously tries to restrict (can you say Patriot Act? Go ahead, try.) and waves in our face as justification for a foreign policy so reprehensible I often wonder if it wasn’t written by someone named Attila or Alexander.

So, what are these much vaunted rights? Given that a Zogby poll back in August found that just 24 percent of Americans could name two United States Supreme Court justices, while 77 percent could name two of Snow White’s seven dwarfs, I’m willing to bet that a lot of us (myself included) can’t name all 10 of the Amendments (you did know it was 10, right?) in the Bill of Rights.

Digest these facts about the Bill of rights:

• The Bill of Rights was ratified December 15, 1791.
• Congress adopted twelve amendments, of which only ten were ratified by the states by 1791.
• Over 200 years later, one more of the original twelve, concerning compensation for Congress was ratified on May 7, 1992, becoming the Twenty-Seventh Amendment.
• James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights and was inspired, in part, by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason.
• The Bill of Rights initially applied only to the federal government; however, the Supreme Court, through the Fourteenth Amendment, has incorporated some portions to apply to the states.
• Only 17 amendments have been ratified since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

And if you’re living in the U.S (yes, they apply to resident aliens too) see how many you can remember then go take a look to find out how close you were.

Why is all this important? Because if BushCo. is going to continue to try to rob us we need to know if what they’re trying to take is worth fighting for or if we can just let it go.