micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links

George Carlin

George Carlin died 10 days ago, as I am sure everyone reading this already knows. Save for my father and myself, no single person is responsible for making me laugh more than Carlin.

I was first introduced to Carlin’s work via the 1992 special Jammin' in New York. I loved his use of words and I admired Carlin for saying that golf is a stupid sport that deprives the homeless of shelter. Somebody had to say it."

Most of all, I took great delight and solace in the fact that Carlin’s criticism of Gulf War was neither guarded nor full of platitudes about supporting the troops. The comedian took it for granted that the war was wrong and his job was to humorously explain how we got into such a fucked up position. Carlin explain lots of such things during his career –check out his take on the absurdity of planning a suicide from 2005’s Life is Worth Losing, for one of my favorites- and he usually did so brilliantly.

A few years ago, a friend of mine commented that I was good at swearing. I did not overuse the term "fuck,” she said, and when I did employ it, I did so to emphasize my point. If true, I owe all my skills to George Carlin.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay to the deceased is that I do not believe his death caused me to reference Carlin’s work in my head, and sometimes aloud, anymore than I had done in the previous 10 days. A several times a day event is a several times a day event.

Tim Russert's life is over: Humanity will soon follow

I cannot say that I was close personal friends with Tim Russert.

I cannot say I ever met the man or even watched one of his programs from start to finish a half dozen times.

But when Tim Russert passed away yesterday at the age of 58, I lost a friend because America lost a friend.

Russert was a friend to America that a person can only be if they have a father and are raised the small town Buffalo, New York. (You want to know how small Buffalo is? Their National Football League franchise has not even been to the Super Bowl in over a decade.)

To a lesser extent, Russert also had a wife and a son. Nobody seems interested in his mother so I am going to assume he did not have one.

Russert rose from these humble origins to become the Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for NBC News, but he gained the most fame for being the much admired host of Meet the Press, a Sunday morning public affairs programs that is also popular excuse for good citizens who skip church.

Russert had been the permanent host of the show since 1991 and during that time built a mighty following. The show usually was watched by less than 4.7 million viewers. If my calculations are correct, this means that Meet the Press was watched weekly by each and every person in the United States of America who has ever run for public office, been appointed to a position in the federal government and/or appeared on a cable news channel to talk about politics. And, on its most popular weeks, upwards of nearly one half dozen people who do not fit into any of those categories would also watch.

Russert had such a large audience because he was a skilled interviewer and a brilliant observer. For no apparent reason, examples of insightful questions or astute commentary from Russert have been left out of all of the highlight packages that have run since his death. Everyone says he was a great journalist, however, so presumably he was. Again, I very rarely watched the show and therefore will have to go with common wisdom that we turned to Russert when we needed to know the truth.

So what does the future hold for the world now that we have lost the host of Meet the Press? In the short term, I expect someone like Tom Brokaw to fill in. The upcoming U.S. presidential election will have to be postponed until the show has a permanent host who has been at the job for a minimum of 12 months.

As for the long term, there is no hope. We were already facing a world of high energy and food prices, where water is becoming scarce and cage fights are a popular spectator sport. Tim Russert was the only hope we had in this Road Warrioresque landscape. Without him, we are doomed.

For shame!

I am highly disappointed to find out that the government of Myanmar is accepting U.S. aid in any way, shape or form.

It was music to my ears, and good music too, when I read last week that they were not doing so. (Or maybe I just heard it. I don't really know.) Finally, I thought to myself, here is a government of what Moe Szyslak once so brilliantly called "one of them loser countries" that is not whining about this and demanding that. Give us food, buy us mosquito nets and don't bomb us are just some of the cries that make me sick to my stomach. They might be reasonable on some level, but I am just so tired of hearing them that I have to wonder, do these people have no sense of self-reliance? I mean, I don't blame them for thinking they are losers, as such is an accurate assessment of their situation, but at least have enough shame and decency to pretend that your life is worth living.

The government of Myanmar had an opportunity to send a very clear that message to both their people and the rest of the world that the losers once known as the Burmese suck and that a natural disaster should not provoke any concern that does not otherwise exist. But now they are even admitting to getting assistance from outside the country (New York Times, May 14). What's next? Cadillacs and t-bones?

I wish there was an easy answer to this predicament as the truth is we Americans really are to blame. After the cyclone, or whatever it was, hit last week, our cable news networks were all too eager to make this the second largest story in the world without any regard to how doing so might prevent a talking head from repeating for the ninth time an opinion about the U.S. presidential election that everybody has already heard expressed by 50 other people.

Is that the kind of America you want to live in?

The rapture will have happened before you read this

How do I know? The Pope, having finally bothered after three years to visit God’s Greatest People, is now speaking before the general assembly of the United Nations.

Seriously, since Jimmy Carter gets criticized for meeting with members of Hamas, I think the Pope should get some flak for meeting with George W. Bush.

The best you can do

Last night’s 60 Minutes featured a stunning revelation from former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Bush that it was possible that the U.S. would not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

OK, to be fair, Feith does not actually say this on camera, but 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft does say, Feith "says even Rumsfeld conceded privately that the U.S. might not find any weapons of mass destruction on the ground. And he told the president so in a memo that outlined all of the things that could possibly go wrong."

It isn't clear if Kroft is getting this from his conversation with Feith and/or Feith's soon to be released book War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (Harper). I suppose Kroft could be engaging in mischaracterization here, but I can find no evidence that Feith or anyone else has disputed this characterization, which if true is damning. If George and Rummy did not know that they would find WMDs in Iraq then there can be absolutely no doubt that the Bush Administration dishonestly justified the invasion and occupation of Iraq, not that there should be any even before this.

In a world that made sense, a congressional committee or two would immediately subpoena Feith and Rumsfeld and get them to answer questions under oath. Rumsfeld would be asked if had written such a memo or expressed such thoughts and, if so, who would have read the memo or heard him express such thinking. Feith would be asked if such a memo really did exist and who would have seen the memo. Then this committee would gather all named by Rumsfeld and Feith and they would asked if they had seen this memo or heard Rumsfeld say that there was possibility that weapons of mass destruction would not be found in Iraq.

Just as detectives do not wait for months to start conducting an investigation after a crime, these committees should be able to do all of this with great speed. Maybe there would be some legal delays, but that would a cop out if used to justify moving like a Hare at the big Hare vs. Tortoise race. After this is done, I suspect I would start to seriously contemplate whether I should make a onetime only exception to opposition to capital punishment.

But none of this is going to happen. Democrats, who sadly probably make up the vast majority of people who even claim to be opposed to the Bush Administration, do not have much interest in this story. I can find no mention of Feith on the front pages of AlterNet, Daily Kos or Eschaton. There is a post on The Huffington Post on Feith (Lionel Beehner, April 7) but it has nothing about WMDs.

I have a theory that if Bush came out and said, "Yes, I lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and I thought you were all fucking stupid for not picking up on it" that we would be plunged into a national conversation on whether or not it is acceptable for a U.S. President to say "fucking" in public. And if Bush left out that particular profanity, almost no attention would be paid to the statement.

Democrats apparently will take just about anything from Bush, and they will do the same from their own presidential candidates. Over the weekend, Barack Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki said, "John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such" (quoted in AP, April 5). Actually, "warmonger" is an objective description of McCain and people of decency and intelligence would be wary to support the presidential candidacy of anybody who did not agree with this assessment. Suffice to say, the major liberals sites mentioned above are even less interested in this matter than they are in Feith.

Democrats won't stand up to the Bush Administration just as they will not stand up to advocates of Team Bush’s war(s).

I am not sure which is worse.

News related to Iraq

Sources tell me the assault/demolition of Basra and Sadr City is scheduled to begin as soon as U.S. and Iraqi military officials are done consulting with Janet Reno.

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Iraqis are demonstrating against Maliki and calling for him to resign (The Real News, March 28), but to no effect. These people are excessively ambitious for an American style democracy.

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Great Britain’s Ministry of Defense said yesterday that its Real British Heroes tortured nine Iraqis in September 2003 and that one of these Iraqis died (Kim Sengupta, The Independent, March 28). In other words, Gitmo detainees should stop complaining.

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In light of Dick Cheney's infamous "so" comment last week that he explained meant he did not care what people in the U.S. of A. think of U.S. policy towards Iraq and Dana Perino explaining that Bush didn't care either, I found it a bit odd that Bush gave a speech yesterday trying to justify U.S. policy towards Iraq. Is this just an example of a totalitarian's prerogative to give speeches? Or does Bush actually enjoy coming across as an idiot while knowing that no professional journalist will come out and say this?

I think it is great for America that the governor of the state where all the journalists live has been caught in business dealings with women who prostitute themselves.

This news will discourage regular clients of prostitutes, as well potential news clients, from utilizing these services and instead they will be forced to explain to their lovers and spouses that watching panda porn is the only way they can get aroused. This will bring couples closer together as people try to accommodate the sick perversions of their one and only, or perhaps split them up leading to a necessary realignment. America will eventually be a much happier place as a result.

More importantly, due to decreased demand for their services, men and women will leave the prostituting arts for more lucrative careers in let us say bank robbing. This in turn will lead to an increase in the number of dead bank tellers that is both stark and dramatic. Cemeteries will be forced to expand by purchasing new tracts of land. This will bid up the price of real estate and therefore will end our nation's housing crisis and bring us out of the economic troubles that threaten to make us a place the terrorists won't even bother to want to destroy.

Or, at the very least, Kandy will now believe me when I tell her I am the governor of a state in some other part of the country.

My advice to Ralph Nader

Dear Mr. Nader,

I hate you and blame you for stealing the 2000 presidential election away from the only Vice President cool enough to do a voice on Futurama and keeping a Jewish man from being the veep. Your are the reason are soldiers have died in Iraq and the president is not a smart man. You suck.

I believe a third party would be nice, but now is not the time. Maybe you could do it in 2004  2008 2012 or whenever Republicans do not exist. You should not run for president this year because you have already done enough damage and I don't like you and we have an exciting candidate this time. John Kerry Barack Obama isn't like Al Gore John Kerry. We've got a good progressive candidate this time.

Also, I think you did good things once in your life but now you are just an egotistical, crazy, foolish, evil, senile old man who should be hit by a car after he retires. Oh yeah, you should retire now.

Wait a second, I'm not a Democratic idiot. I think some of the work from my day job as a member of the Democratic Party (yes, I know I should transfer to Wal-Mart, but I find dignity to be overrated) has accidentally been pasted here. So now, with no further delay, here is the irregularly scheduled post...

I'm Micah Holmquist and I am having a hard time deciding what to think of Ralph Nader's officially announced yesterday presidential campaign. I believe that Nader is the best candidate the anti-war left can put forward this year in terms of reaching people, but, at the same time, I do not think he will reach many new people this year.

Four years ago should have been wonderful time for a Nader presidential bid. Congressional Democrats had done very little to keep a check on the Bush Administration and its authoritarian bellicosity –even less than they have done now- and the Democratic nominee was the pro-occupation of Iraq John Kerry. And yet roughly one percent of the presidential votes went to candidates not named Bush or Kerry (AP, November 24, 2004).

Similarly, it seems to me that 2008 should be great for a third party anti-war candidate due to the Democrat Party's established record of not doing much to end the occupation of Iraq even though they control the U.S. Congress. But then I see the vicious attacks directed at Nader by the likes of Joshua Micah Marshall (February 24), John Mashek (U.S. News & World Report, February 25) and the Daily Kos crowd, and I start to believe that Nader’s campaign is unlikely to have any positive progress this year.

That said, perhaps I am really horrible at political prognostication, in which case maybe, just maybe, this current run will help some people see how Democrats and Republicans work together for glories of war.

Two things I would like to see from Nader are more emphasis on the Iraq war and more straightforward denunciations of the Democratic Party as a misnamed party of war. Another is a more confrontational tact with hostile journalists. Take this exchange from yesterday's Meet the Press where, as always, Tim Russert represents every single journalist there is:

MR. RUSSERT:  How would you feel, however, if Ralph Nader's presence on the ballot tilted Florida or Ohio to John McCain and McCain became president, and Barack Obama, the first African-American who had been nominated by the Democratic Party--this is hypothetical--did not become a president and people turned to you and said, "Nader, you've done it again"?

MR. NADER:  Not a chance.  If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form. You think the American people are going to vote for a pro-war John McCain who almost gives an indication that he's the candidate of perpetual war, perpetual intervention overseas?  You think they're going to vote for a Republican like McCain, who allies himself with the criminal, recidivistic regime of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the most multipliable impeachable presidency in American history?  Many leading members of the bar, including the former head of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco, absolutely dismayed over the violations of the Constitution, our federal laws, the criminal, illegal war in Iraq and the occupation?  There's no way.  That's why we have to take this opportunity to have a much broader debate on the issues that relate to the American people, as, as, as a fellow in Long Island said recently, Mr. Sloane, he said, "These parties aren't speaking to me.  They're not speaking to my problems, to my family's problems."

Nader’s response is fine, I guess. He gives the people of the land of the free way too much credit, but I understand why he is not going to say, "If John McCain is elected, people will deserve what they get."

Still, I would like to see him take a different tact and respond along the lines of, "Well Tim, are you going to ask the Republican nominee how it feels to be yet another good white Christian man trying to keep a darkie out of a job? Or if Hillary Clinton somehow recovers and becomes the nominee are you going to ask the Republican how it feels to be actively working to beat a woman? Moreover, have you ever asked any candidate why they do not want a Lebanese man to be president? If not, shut the fuck up and let me give a speech on important matters."

OK, that probably wouldn't work but I do not believe it would hurt the campaign any and it would get people talking.

My questions for Clinton and Obama

Politico (February 8) and ABC 7 (which looks to cover the general Washington DC area) are asking people to submit the questions they would like to see Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama asked. So I figured I would list some that are on my mind…

-Why have you not actively used your position as a member of the U.S. Senate to end the occupation of Iraq?

-Given that you support the death penalty, do you favor a law that turns a president lying in order to justify war into a crime punishable by death?

-What is your opinion of the Federal Communication Commission's enforcement of prohibitions against profane broadcasts?

-Why have you voted for the USA PATRIOT act?

As you can probably gather, I was not trying to be funny with these questions. I wanted them to be inquiries that I would like to hear Clinton and Obama's answers to and yet, while reasonable by the standards of mainstream political discourse, probably will not be asked. Save for one obvious exception, I believe my questions meet these criteria.

Also, if I asked the last question, I would be strongly tempted to add, I mean, why not just come out and say, "the Bush Administration is a fine group of trustworthy fellows?"

Why I've decided to endorse Barack Obama

With his victory in the caucuses of Iowa and apparent lead in the opinion polls of New Hampshire, Barack Obama has proven that he is the bright, young, youthful, optimistic leader that America needs right now at this moment in time when we need fresh ideas like raiding a Pakistani village and rummaging through all the houses because we have some info suggesting Osama might be there. (I assume that is what acting upon "actionable intelligence" means since nobody seems too interested in finding out for sure.)

The only problem with this endorsement that I can possibly see is that it encourages the bandwagon effect, a little known, rare occurrence where something becomes even more popular as a result of something becoming more popular.

Nonetheless, I have to go with Obama because, unlike Ralph Wiggum, the candidate I'd support if electability were not such an important issue, he is a serious candidate.