During this holiday season...

...please take a little time out to obssess over how I'm oppressing you by not using the word "Christmas" in the title of this post.

In all seriousness, it does sadden me the way right-wing demagogues are hellbent poisioning this time of year by making it into a pitched ideological battle. I suppose nothing should surprise me anymore, but I still find myself amazed that people can be so joyless and hateful. Framing it as a "war," even...how is it possible for anyone to be so utterly lacking in self-awareness? And kvetching about "merry Christmas" not being used in ADVERTISING, fercrissake...because, of course, there's nothing that captures the reason for the season quite like stumbling through Wal-Mart searching for yugioh cards. Here's a good Salon article on the subject.

I just don't GET this.

Dude. You could've run off with her WITHOUT killing her parents. Which would have had the duel advantages of them not looking nearly so hard for you, and you NOT BEING WANTED FOR MURDER. Fergawdsake. I just don't get your reasoning here. Just purely for catharsis, I guess? That's pretty short-term thinking, I have to say. Or else just because you're irreducibly not that bright? Well, okay. But either way, you don't get much sympathy from me. I mean, you wouldn't even if senselessly murdering two people were unproblematic from a moral standpoint.

New Chick Tract

Yeah. It's actually kind of convoluted and lame, but I do like the way it plays on the sheer naked avarice of its readers. Notice that the scary wife never actually becomes any less greedy and grasping when she accepts Jesus. GODDAMIT I CAN'T BELIEVE I PASSED UP ALL THAT MONEY ARGH FUCK FUCK FUCK...what? Eternal salvation. Well...okay, I guess that'll be a partial consolation. Sigh.

In any case, a salutary message for sinners everywhere.

Random Ten

Yes, the long hard cold generally unpleasant wait is over.

01. Reverend Glasseye, “Sleep Sweet Countrymen”
This isn’t a band you’d expect to hear social commentary from, but this song seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on Bush’s war. It’s not my favorite of theirs, but it’s pretty good, and it gets points just for that. Why does the Good Reverend hate America? 7/10

02. Gordon Bok, “Harp Song of the Dane Women”
Great melody, great singing. 9/10

03. Joe Jackson, “Right and Wrong”
Night and Day, Body and Soul, Heaven and Hell, Laughter and Lust…okay, that last one isn’t really a dichotomy. At least I hope not, as it would represent a rather depressing view of human nature. But the pattern is clear. This is an all right song, but nothing to kill yourself over. As with most of Big World. 6/10

04. Buckner & Garcia, “Pac-Man Fever”
Well, you see, they’ve got Pac-Man Fever. And it’s driving them CRAZY. Sort of cheesily amusing, but really not much cop. There are better songs from the album, even. 4/10

05. mp, “Final Fantasy 6 Engineer Cid (factory)”
Eh, it’s okay. Certainly not the highlight of remixdom, but…okay. 5/10

06. The Pogues, “Worms”
Their sepulchral take on the popular children’s rhyme (the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out). Cute, but it would be better if they’d included all the words. 5/10

07. The Decemberists, “We Both Go Down Together”
Fantastic. Pure melodrama. I love when it rhymes “Miranda” with “veranda.” 10/10

08. Johnny Dowd, “Betrayal”
This is from Down In the Valley, his perversely anti-commercial, only-available-at-concerts-or-through-the-website EP. This track is mostly ambient sound-effects as he drawls, you sold me out, ya little weasel, and things of that nature. I like it, but I’m probably in the distinct minority here. 7/10

09. Nathalie Khoriaty, “Red Is the Rose”
Pretty traditional song. Nice singing. 7/10

10. Ian McCulloch, “Dug for Love”
Easy to like this one, unless you’re some kind of big fat JERK. 7/10

I just want to say...

...how awesome I think it is that Martha Stewart gets her show cancelled the day after appearing on The Daily Show. That oughta take her down a notch!

Dude.

I totally need this. It'll tide me over while I dream about the possibility of a Chick Tract videogame.

Ooh, is da big scawy pwesident mad?

He's an angwy wittle pwesident, isn't he? Yes he is! Yeessss he iis! He don't like all da meeeeeaan attacks fwom da meeeeaaan cwitics! That's good! You show those big fat mean cwitics what happens when they say mean things about a big tough pwesident like you! That's a gooood wittle pwesident!

I don't watch much television.

However: fuck.

How cool is this?

RARGH! KILLER SEA CROCODILES! I like how the story tells us that the paleontologists "believed the animal is the most bizarre marine crocodile known to date." That somehow doesn't sound very scientific to me...

This is fun.

Which level of Hell are YOU bound for?

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Nauseating.

They have John McCain on the Daily Show right now. GODDAMN I hate that bastard. Listening to him defending Cheney's support of torture--christ, HOW is this man a "maverick?" It just blows my mind. Listen, you fucking apparatchik, you cannot oppose torture and at the same time SUPPORT TORTURERS. This DOES NOT COMPUTE.

But hey, at least we're presumably no longer obliged to have a grudging respect for him based on his having spent five years in a Vietcong prison camp--after all, they HAD to torture him! He could have had information that would have been VITAL to winning the war on American Imperialism! I mean, sure okay, we might have a "legitimate disagreement" over whether that was the right course, but you certainly can't dismiss it out of hand! That would be going too far.

Now he's defending the invasion of Iraq. What can you say?

The wind whispers your name

"[Your name]," it says. "[Your name]." At first, I enjoy this: it has a quality of romantic melancholia that appeals to my sensibilities. I sit at the windowsill staring out into the night, sighing the sighs of the lovelorn.

After a few hours, however, it becomes clear that the wind is not going to stop anytime soon. Don't get me wrong; your name is really great, but it does get a little tedious after I've heard it six hundred times in a row.

I close the window and go to bed, but the damn wind won't shut up, and I can still hear it quite clearly. It appears to be shouting your name now. Okay, wind. I get the picture. Some of us DO have to get up in the morning, you know.

One unfortunate fact of modern life is that there's nobody you can call to complain about excessively rude meteorological phenomena. Thanks to funding cuts, the police are not equipped to handle things like this. The Ghostbusters, as it turns out, don't actually exist, and in any case, the wind isn't really a ghost, per se. And don't even ask about the National Weather Service. You wouldn't believe how unhelpful those damn weathermen are.

So I decide to take things into my own hands. I throw on some clothes and go out onto the porch. The wind shows no sign of abating.

"Okay!" I shout. "That's more than enough from you!"

"Woosh, woosh," goes the wind. "[Your name]."

"Goddamnit," I say. "What do you want me to do? She's gone. It doesn't matter how much you say her name. Sure, it sucks, but you'd better get used to it, because that's the way it fucking IS."

"Joe's Steakhouse has live music and half-priced beer on Friday evening," the wind says. "So come on down for great food, great drinks, and big fun!"

Apparently, the wind is selling advertising space during your name. Is it really that expensive to run a show like this? Well, economically sensical or not, it seems crass, and it makes me angry.

"Rargh!" I shout, shaking my fist at the night sky. "Damn you, wind! Damn you to hell!"

"And now, we return to our program. [Your name], [your name], [your name]," the wind continues. I give up and go back inside. Not much else I can do, it seems. I put cotton in my ears, and that helps. I'm able to sleep, at any rate. But I have a dream about you. I come home after what seems to have been a long, tiring trip, and there you are, sitting on the sofa, reading the Atlantic. I find it shocking that you're there, but you look up briefly, smile, and go back to your reading, as if this is perfectly normal. I try to speak, but for some reason all I can say is your name. No other words will come. You listen to me, at first patiently, but gradually looking more and more uninterested. I can see that I'm losing you, and I start to become desperate. You put aside the magazine and stand up. You give me a brief, dry kiss on the lips, then walk out the door. I wake up deeply depressed.

In the morning, the wind has died down. I try to call you, but your number has been disconnected.