~ ted rall [w] knows how to lay it out:
“Every time someone was raped at Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base or Gitmo, Tom Friedman and Christopher Hitchens and Bill O’Reilly and David Brooks were de facto accomplices.” [w]
~ we are thinking about getting some cola – either china or blue sky. do they still make dr. rush?
~ we raise our tea in toast to all those folks getting hitched in massachusetts today; let’s hope that we don’t have to wait until brown vs. board’s 100th anniversary to celebrate the day that a constitutional amendment protecting the right of all people to marry is ratified.
~ the ‘u scan it’ line at the corporate supermarket is not meant to be some kind of adventure. it is also not intended to give you an opportunity to display your inability to interpret the phrase ‘1 to 15 items’. it is meant for those of us who want to spend as little time as possible amongst the shelves of low-carb pasta and hi-carb snickers; we just ask to purchase our apples, butter beans, and silk, and to leave for homes and lives with little interruption. if playing with the scanner is the best entertainment that can bring you from your nest of doritos, miller lite, and ‘american idol’, or if you think that ’15’ is english for ’50’, then you are not capable of using the ‘u scan it’; you need to go to the line where there is someone to hold your hand.
~ we knew that the issue of not shying away from the consequences of war was put more plainly than we could put it. sixty (60) years ago, when printing the first image of american troops who died in the pacific, life magazine pointed out, regarding the challenge to the soldier, if he “had the guts to take it, then we ought to have the guts to look at it.”
~ anyone wishing to fund a six (6) month project of research into the amount of time that transpires between uses of the phrase ‘on the ground’ on national public radio should contact the angry red planet. if ‘arab is the new black’, then ‘on the ground’ is the new ‘kalashnikov’.
~ congratulations to lenny bruce. fuck!
~ congratulations to former president bill clinton on his ability to include both george orwell and gabriel garcía márquez in his list of 21 favorite books. this serves as a mediocre antidote to the dismal news of the award to stephen king of the ‘medal for distinguished contribution to american letters’ from the national book foundation and the embarrassment of having elementary school librarian from texas serve as the u.s. representative to unesco, despite the work of folks like john dos passos and michael henry adams, respectively.
~ while the angry red planet eschews all forms of idolatry, we wish the best for the celebrations for fellow georgian martin luther king, jr.
~ happy veteran’s day.
~ congratulations to fellow georgian jimmy carter on his new prize. we hope he wears it better than some of the previous peace laureates.
~ are members of congress allowed to read the news? from their recent votes, one would surmise that they are not informed about some of the feelings of the populace of this nation and that of the governments of some others. we would not mind if most of them are in the dark about what is going around their town, and that they mow the lawn or pump their gas or stand in the streets accordingly.
~ happy birthday, gore vidal.