Sunday, December 31, 2006

Note the Chicago Tribune Headline:

Was justice too swift?
Critics say Hussein's speedy execution casts doubt on Iraq's judicial system and leaves unresolved more grievous alleged crimes

That venerable bastion of dubious and politically-motivated journalism sure speaks my mind...a terrifying prospect for us all.

I'm going back to Champaign where the papers never say anything newsworthy. Or true, for that matter.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti

Saddam Hussein was the best thing to ever happen to Iraq. I mean, not the Kurds, but everyone else. He secularized the state, implemented universal healthcare and free education plans, and greatly advanced women's rights. I mean, maybe he wasn't the most tolerant absolute ruler ever, but maintaining a unified country full of minorities is rough--especially when they're trying to kill you.

Also, had the trial been held in any other country or judicial system, it would have been declared a mistrial. The whole thing was a circus. It didn't even have a consistent judge and I join the former president in questioning even the legitimacy of the court in which he was tried. It was a pageant and his subsequent execution was a crime.

I'm not condoning genocide by any means...I'm just saying that his execution was unjust and that the media paints a very one-sided picture of his reign. He was, basically, the Abraham Lincoln of Iraq--reviled by half of Iraq, revered by the other half, and, above all, a patriot dedicated to the preservation of his country, even at the cost of many lives.


Also, he had such a warm smile! He and his daughter look so nice!

Also, I will never be convinced that they executed the real Saddam Hussein.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

COLLEGE COSTS MOUNT AS COLLEGE PRESIDENTS' SALARIES RISE by James Traficant

Madam Speaker, economists say they are mystified. They cannot understand why college costs are going so high.
It is no mystery to me, Madam Speaker. Check this out: The president of Vanderbilt makes $480,000 a year. The president of Penn, $450,000. The president of Wake Forest, $450,000. The presidents of NYU and Yale make $425,000.
Madam Speaker, if that is not enough to tax our student loan, the president of Northeastern makes $1 million. Who is kidding whom? It does not take a Ph.D. to figure this out. Costs are going up at the college level because college presidents are getting hernias from carrying money bags around. Meanwhile, college graduates and students are filing for bankruptcy. Beam me up.
Madam Speaker, the President of the United States makes $250,000. I yield back all of those Ph.D. presidents; they are all piled higher and deeper with money bags, I might add.

October 23, 1997

http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i13/13b00301.htm

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin

Rasputin, also known as "The Mad Monk", is a plant that produces a tart, sweet, red composite fruit in summer or early autumn. In proper botanical language, it is not a berry at all, but instead an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets around a central core. No, that's a raspberry. I am sorry to have misled you.

Really, Rasputin is the current State Minister of Denmark. He is the leader of the Liberal Party. He leads a right-wing coalition of his Liberal Party and the Conservative People's Party which took office in 2001, and won their second term in 2005.

Oh, my bad. I have misled you once more. I was thinking of Anders Fogh Rasmussen. My apologies.

Rasputin is a brand of cold and cough medicines produced by Wyeth Consumer Healthcare. They are available over the counter in many countries worldwide, including the United States and Thailand. Oh, but that's Robitussin and once again I have misled you.

So, this isn't new or anything, but I think we should all just take a moment to admire Rasputin's pickled penis in a jar.

Monday, December 25, 2006

From the AP

Now what, pray tell, is wrong with this picture?

"Church bombings and other sectarian attacks spiked amid a wave of anti-Christian anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI in September that seemed to link the prophet Muhammad's teachings to violence.

In October, a priest in the northern city of Mosul was kidnapped by a group demanding that he retract the pope's statements. He was eventually found beheaded."

Everybody is just so cute!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

A Brief Quote from Note-Book of Anton Chekhov and an entirely too vehement rant against the holidays

"Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness which is not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable."

Also, I do not particularly care for Christmas, and I do not think that makes me a bad person. I don't work in retail, but I shop in retail, and even the few hours that I spend in public give me the blue meanies. I am, as you all know, a gracious and caring person for about ten months out of each year. The holiday season, however, it too much to take. The fault isn't mine, I assure you. The carols are annoying, shrill, and often incomprehensible. O. Tanenbaum sounds more like an entry in a phone book than an ode to a tree. I love gift giving and, even more, gift receiving, but the winter holidays are getting out of hand. In this post-9/11 world, I simply cannot stand another rendition of "All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth." That is no one's favorite song. Kill it.

It is not that my shoes are too tight or that maybe my head isn't screwed on just right, and my heart is definitely exactly the right size. It's just these carols and lights--they so irk me that I want to scream horrific and invented invectives into the faces of every beaming child in every store in America.

Actually, I haven't seen any beaming children in the stores. They all look terribly unhappy to be dragged around by their parents through crowded malls as a horrific loop of Mariah Carey's slaughter of Christmas standards wails from hidden speakers. At Barnes & Noble, I witnessed a little girl (possibly named Austin Mackenzie Haydn Flurphlee) standing patiently as her mother crawled around on the floor muttering about M.C. Escher and whispering obscenities. It was grotesque and on most other days of the year, my delicate sensibilities would never have been subjected to such an vulgarity. I guess she was possessed by the holiday spirit and went into a trance.

I have puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore, and I just don't understand this world. I wish that my environment would not change seasonally. I don't mean the leaves and all of that...just the stores. I need them to stay the same. I need them to not dramatically change their stock for holidays of any kind. I need them to not change their stock months in advance. Schnuck's already has Valentine's Day balloons, for chrissakes. I promise you, they will have deflated by February, even if I have to shoot ball bearings at them with my trusty slingshot.

I do not advocate an end to Christmas or to Halloween, just an end to public celebrations. Keep it all in the home, not outside of it or, horror of horrors, ON it. I just want everyone to chill out a little bit and remember the rest of the days of the year. Remember them and let the reality of life lull your celebratory little spirt into a quiet monotonous melancholy. Remember that every twinkling merry little light that you put up has to come down again, probably on a dismal, cold, and slush-filled day in the spring. Remember September 2nd, June 9th, and April 23rd--they suck and nothing happens. Remember that on December 26th, on February 15th, and July 5th, you'll be the same person that you were on the 24th, the 13th, and the 3rd.

At the very least, do your shopping in an orderly and timely manner. Online.

And turn off the damned music.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Time Magazine Person of the Year: You

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

What a pile of steaming, creamy, wet, bullshit.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

My First Pataphor

I am like a mighty collosus as I leap whole forests with a single bound. Hitting the ground, the Earth's crust pops and shatters beneath me, like ice on a pond in a spring thaw. The cracking sounds continue and water leaks through the fractured frozen layer. Jimmy, out for an afternoon of ice fishing, smiles in satisfaction and tosses his line through the break and into the cold, dark depths. He settles back on his stool and, as he begins the long wait for a bite, he wishes that he hadn't forgotten the thermos of hot coffee that Jenny had filled for him earlier that morning.

Also, you could buy this for me, but not YOU.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Muss es sein? Es muss sein!

Reasons Why German is a Cool Language
Zugzwang: compulsion to move
Weltschmerz: world-pain or world-weariness
Schadenfreude: pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune
Angst: fear or anxiety, (in Danish, dread)
Wanderlust: the yearning to travel
Sturm und Drang: storm and stress
Urtext: original text

Other fun words:
ennui
anomie
saudade
melancholia

Not to mention Pataphysics and pataphors (which are not to be confused with petit-fours, though they are somehow more delicious).

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Fighting the Haze

Sometimes, and I've mentioned these times before, the air is thick and clotted and so are the mucous membranes of my mouth and throat and all music is nausea to me except La Marseillaise as sung by Edith Piaf. Her empassioned voice washes away all of the harsh and phlegmy voices of the dry black bluesmen that I usually enjoy. When they sing, their crackling voices have to fight through all kinds of hissing, popping static--the product of digital transfers from worn wax recordings. The whole mess is beautiful and deeply attractive on cleaner days, but when the air is oppressively dry and heavy, there is nothing like the sharp wet declarations of Edith Piaf. Any other music just adds to the repulsive weight of the atmosphere.

On these terrible days, I try to drink a lot of cold wet liquids, but none of them are usually acid enough to fight through the muck. Usually, I fall back on carbonated beverages like Sprite, but sometimes the sticky syrup of it clings to my lips and makes me more unhappy, particularly if it is not cold Sprite. (On a side note, how delicious would a beverage called Spite be? Especially if there was a food called Revenge. Then, Revenge could be a dish best served cold and it could be said to pair well with Spite.) Anyway, the solution is Arizona Green Tea with Lemon, Honey, and Ginseng. This beverage is the liquid equivalent of Edith Piaf's La Marseillaise. It is vaguely acid, sweet, and thirst-quenching. It is, at least theoretically, energizing due to the sugar content and Ginseng. What's more, the honey is no ordinary honey. It is Sue Bee's Orange Honey, made from the pollen of Orange Blossoms.

Delicious.

If any of you ever feel like the world is sinking into a hazy weird gelatin, I promise you that a big glass of ice cold Arizona Green Tea with Lemon, Honey, and Ginseng and La Marseillaise will put things to rights again. If it is still not enough, I highly recommend a car accident. The jarring collision is just the thing to snap you back to reality. Or out of it.

Friday, December 01, 2006

The Eleventh Plague

I have been visited by a plague. Gigantic itchy hives have appeared on my body repeatedly in the last three days. Life has become a horror. The sun has been blotted out. Here are a series of pictures that accurately depict my life. I've spared you the picture of my malady. It is available, however, by special request.