Running a Country just isn't Enough for Some People...

India gets downright medieval on its prime minister's book of poetry.




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There Once was a Man from Lubbock...

Bush the poet? Is nothing sacred? C'mon, do you think maybe Ari wrote it? There are a few three syllable words in it.



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You Know What They Say: One Bush in the Xanax is Worth Two Books on the Husband's Coke Habit... or Something...

Ah, Lady Bush, sweet maiden of the twit, your mouth is always open like a book. And I have paper cuts everywhere. I long for the days of hating Tipper Gore and her war against Judas Priest. (Hey, do these links mean I go on some kind of CIA malcontent list? Cool. If I disappear, you know what happened to me.)




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Essay: "Political poetry & the Canadian tradition"

http://www.danforthreview.com/features/essays/politicalpoetry.htm

We Read Your Work With Great Interest, But.... You Suck

George W. Bush gets a taste of life as a poet. Very funny.




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Dear George Bowering: "Invest in a thesaurus you Canadian bastard, you monster, you fraud!"

Poets Against the War gets one last crack at publicity even as this guy grinds it into po-chuck.



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"They Won't Say: the Times Were Dark. Rather: Why Were Their Poets Silent?"

The silence of writers (found through GoodReports)



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Spy vs. Clandestine Internuncio

Whereas former British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis was on MI5's most dangerous list, George Bowering is on CSIS's most nicest guy list...


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For Those of You Who Care About American Politics... Okay, for Jonathan...

Left vs. Right, Franken vs. Lowry. Two guys who can blow out rhetoric like it's free.



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I Had No Idea Dr. Seuss was a Conservative

Or a Liberal, for that matter.



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Aussie Police Take Student's Books

Because they thought she was a terrorist.



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You mean L.A. and Toronto aren't the only cities with racist cops? I'm floored!

Sleepy li'l Halifax has a bit of a rep too. It's strange, because Maritimers are so friendly...

"Being attached to America these days is like being in a pen with a wounded bull," Rick Mercer, Canada's leading political satirist, said at a recent show in Toronto. "Between the pot smoking and the gay marriage, quite frankly it's a wonder there is not a giant deck of cards out there with all our faces on it."

Today's NY Times

Hey, N.R.,
I'm not sure what your point was. Just passing something funny along? Drawing attention to Canada/US, Canlit/USlit differences? That was an interesting Times article, though.

I was taken with this: "To many commentators the two countries seem to be exchanging their traditional roles, one founded in America's birth as a revolutionary country and Canada's as a counterrevolutionary alternative. During the Depression, under the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States was the progressive force, while Canada stubbornly held on to conservative economic policies."

Do you think Canlit/USlit will affect this flip too? What would that mean?

I don't know what you're talking about.

What I Want is a Book from that Crazy Press Secretary Dude Who Kept Claiming Iraq Would Water the Desert with the Blood of the Infidels

In my darkest fantasies (LOL* MobyLives) it would be called "Nothing Fell Today but the Blood of Yankee Demons."



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Book Carrying Monsters!

Apparently the FBI is warning that terrorists often carry almanacs and maps. Maybe "terrorists" is a typo of "tourists."



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Leave it the George W. Bush administration to demonize people carrying books.

FK, you forgot to add "brown people" carrying books. Racial profiling is no doubt part of the paranoia around tourists carrying maps. My father is Roma and my mother is Indian, so you can pretty much guess what I look like. Plot Bucharest and Bombay on a map, then find a point in the middle...that's me. Many people who meet me assume I'm of Arabic extraction, which is something I can hardly blame them for, because I look very much like a dark-skinned Arab (not that there's anything wrong with that). My wife and I considered going to Florida for the holidays, but then we thought better of it. It's just not worth the harrassment at the airport, let alone being 'detained' by the Orlando P.D. for carrying a guide book.

My original headline for this was "Racial Profiling Has a New Best Friend..." but I was worried I was going too far. Thanks, Claude. That's gotta suck. But if it's any consolation (it's not), as a visa carrying alien in the US, I had to be fingerprinted and put through a mountain of ridiculous terrorist crap and you can practically see through my skin.

IRA.

I'm very white, too, but in a Semitic sort of way, with a thick black beard. I get mistaken for Lebanese (I'm actually 3/4 WASP, 1/4 hebe), and received undue attention in security checks long before 9/11. I have sworn off visits to the states for the foreseeable future.

Sci-Fi Writers Comment on Schwarzenegger's Election

For the record, I came up with that little Arnold/big Arnold combo first!



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Fraud! ... Um... Again!

Regarding George Wubblewoo Bush's poetry career: "The first lady lies in order to make the president look ... stupid?"



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I'm kind of relieved to know it was probably the Xanax ...

"A variety of distractions..."

They should be proud, these writers.** And by proud, I mean filled with self-loathing and shame.



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Milosz on the Future of Europe and Poetry

Could you imagine this here? He's being interviewed like a philosopher/statesman.



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On looking for the seeds of political/civic/social optimism in contemporary poetry, Milosz said: "On the other hand, verses like those that Tadeusz Rozewicz is writing in Poland weaken our hope." And shortly thereafter the interview ended. I wanted the interviewer to ask Milosz to expand on this, since it seems a starkly pointed statement. Admittedly, in my opinion anyway, Rozewicz's bent is somewhat apocolyptic, but I've always found his poetry to be more cautionary than nihilistic. I'm a fan of Milosz's poetry and of Rozewicz's, and would love to know more about what Milosz meant by this.

Milosz must also be a fan if he's gone so far as to translate Rozewicz. Seems to me like he's saying that we should be wary about pronouncements of what poetry oughta do, as a way of qualifying his comments about the ubiquity of pessimism.

It's a very tricky thing, isn't it, differentiating between honest, or cautionary, representations of the state of things and pessimism or, in its extreme form, nihilism. I'd be interested in hearing, in the absence of an expanded answer from Milosz, what some of you folks have to say on this. Specifically, John and George, given the tenor of their most recent books, but of course anyone else as well.

Some information on Rozewicz, for the curious:
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_rozewicz_tadeusz

And some poems:
http://oldpoetry.com/authors/Tadeusz%20Rozewicz
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/6170/poetfeat2.html

   Paul, Zach:

   To better understand what Milosz meant, see his comment on Philip Larkin's "Aubade" in Heaney's Finders Keepers.

Shane

Edited by author 02-06-2004 01:22 PM
Good point, Shane.

For the benefit of those without ready access to the book, here's what Heaney has to say in "Joy or Night: Last Things in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats and Philip Larkin":

"As Czeslaw Milosz has observed, no intelligent contemporary is spared the pressure exerted in our world by the void, the absurd, the anti-meaning, all of which are part of the intellectual atmosphere we subsist in; and yet Milosz notices this negative pressure only to protest against a whole strain of modern literature which has conceded victory to it. Poetry, Milosz pleads, must not make this concession but maintain instead its centuries-old hostility to reason, science and a science-inspired philosophy."

How does this relate to Stuart Ross?

Maternal cousin, twice removed.

I'm glad you asked that, Zip, 'cause it's something I've been thinking about a lot the last few days. One of the things I love about Ross's poetry--which I have only recently discovered--is how--like Beckett more than anyone else I think--he conveys the malaise of our times but almost always manages to laugh about it. "Life's a piece o shit, when you look a' it." I find his capacity for being angry and disturbing and funny, and so often in the same poem, affirming. And not in the way that Maya Angelou is life-affirming. That kind of affirmation makes me want to hold my breath forever.

This is pretty much all I have to say about "we should track poetry closely for seeds of hope."


Lament

Surely it has rained for forty days.
See! the river climbs from its bed,
Tired of being wet.

Yet this morning I arise and find
My dry eyes envy heaven's tears.

O sorrow,
Have even you left me?

Edited by author 02-07-2004 11:53 PM
"Poetry, Milosz pleads, must not make this concession but maintain instead its centuries-old hostility to reason, science and a science-inspired philosophy."

As much as I love reading Milosz, I have to disagree with him on this one. There's more then enough room in poetry for both the material and the metaphysical, for reason as well as faith, for critical social commentary as well as "hope".

Paul, I have to agree with you, though I think Milosz has earned the right to be proscriptive, a lot of my favourite poets have favoured the material world (not in the "luxury" sense, but in the tangible sense).

Yes, I think "suspicion of" would be more apposite than "hostility towards," myself. The latter lends itself too readily to bogus dichotomizing.

"...the only people who have anything to worry about are terrorists..."

Isn't this one of the seven signs?



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Authors Take Sides - On Iraq War

Barnes, Crace, Drabble, Gordimer, Guterson, le Carre, Pinter, Theroux - the list goes on.



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Holy Crap! It Woiks!

PEN works.



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More Poetry On Op Ed Pages!

"The first recognized political commentators, the first political talking heads, the first true Op Ed professionals, were bards. Before there was even writing, members of ruling elites never really knew where they stood until the old blind guy with the lyre posted the insiders scorecard in rhyme." And we're to be paid for this? Um, okay, do you prefer iambs or dactyls? More hometown lingo: F-in' eh! It's so crazy it just might work!



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It's heartening, I guess, to see this article on a website for intellectual conservatives. I wish I knew some.

Personally, I'd love to see more poetry in newspapers, as long as it's good poetry, and not ruminations on gardening and such by hobbyists.

Now there's a manifesto I'll get behind!

There are quite a few poets out there writing the kind of verse Silverstein is talking about. In the states, Martin Espada and here, GE Clarke, to name a couple. Doesn't Clarke get the odd piece of political verse printed in the Star?

So why don't you forward this article to the editors of Canada's major newspspers?

Hmmm. I smell a petition. Any takers? That's one I'd put my name on.

They can barely keep their books sections. Pick your battles, young Jedis.

Aw c'mon, this is better than books sections! Good call, Magee.

Edited by author 02-28-2004 09:08 AM
Isn't John Allemang the G&M's op-ed poet...??

The Case for Literature

Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian speaks out against the politicization of literature. "Controversies about literary trends or a writer's political inclinations were serious afflictions that tormented literature during the past century. Ideology wreaked havoc by turning related controversies over tradition and reform into controversies over what was conservative or revolutionary and thus changed literary issues into a struggle over what was progressive or reactionary. If ideology unites with power and is transformed into a real force then both literature and the individual will be destroyed." (From Elegant Variation)



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Lynne Cheney Dare Not Speak Love's Name

Her 1981 lesbian romance novel - "a breathy, gothic romance, horribly written. It's celebrating lesbian love and promotes the value of preventative devices, condoms, to women who want to remain free. It features a woman who has unmarried sex with the widow of her sister - all this by Lynne Cheney, the culture warrior of the right" - gets a revival. It was I shit you not, amigos.



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Testify!

"When the US State Department designated a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist as a "cultural ambassador", it probably did not plan for him to go around the world calling his president a "moron" who governs an "evil empire". Nor did it expect him to boycott Israel because of US foreign policy, nor to warn Australia that its culture would be "gobbled up" by a free trade agreement." Also: "So if Bush is not really a baby boomer, what is he? "He represents a paternal system, an oligarchy whereby his own course has been guided ruthlessly and covetously by his elders, and it goes on now, not only from his father but from Vice-President Cheney as his father's surrogate ... Bush is what he always has been: a son."Nothing more? "He was a better-than-average executive for a slightly less-than-average baseball team."" Richard Ford, patriot.



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Yes, yes, yes, yes. See Dick run. See Dick spit. Go, Dick, go!

Punk'd

Was it Mark Perry who said that punk died the day the the Clash signed with CBS? Nuh-uh. It's just been in a coma. It actually died today.* Not bookish, but I couldn't resist...



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I Grabbed My 9 All I Heard Was Shells Falling...

While I'm not a famous author refused entry to the US, I've been in fear of it (um, being refused entry...) Those pricks at the border are notoriously small-minded power mongers - living proof that insecurity and low self-esteem (probably from not getting jobs as real cops) can encourage people to abuse whatever power they possess. It's funny how it always feels as though on the way back into Canada the customs people are laid back and friendly (generally) and into the US they're like a pack of snarling dogs waiting for a chance to pull a gun on someone. Here's a story from my recent trip to New York (during which I didn't manage to hook up with Maud, much to my dismay) - At Toronto's Pearson Airport, you go through US customs, by some arrangement, on our own soil, presumably to speed things up on arrival (as opposed to the establishment of a foreign paramilitary presence). The customs people are Americans who live in Toronto, and who apparently don't like it. I heard a woman with a southern accent commenting that she was sick of "this shit in Toronto" (referring to the rather peaceful flow of people through the scanners) and that all she wanted was to get transferred to a little town in Texas so she could "get my 9 back." For those of you unfamiliar with gansta rap, that's a firearm. The guy she was talking to said, "Mm-hm." I shudder to think they live among us.



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Americans Astonished: Books Matter

Apparently this years impeccably-timed crop of political books is actually having an effect on the campaigns... Quick! Ban something!



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The Poetry of General Patton

"Pale was her face with anguish, / Wet were her eyes with tears, / As she gazed on the twisted corpses, / Cut off in their earliest years. // Some were bit by the bullet, / Some were kissed by the steel, / Some were crushed by the cannon, / But all were still, how still!" Woof!



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Cheney Puts the Brakes on Republication of Her Lesbian Odyssey

This kind of thing is so cold war. It's amazing what Americans will take from their leaders.



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General Patton's poem "The Turds of the Scouts", wow! I mean WOW!

This is a joke, right?

on the topic of war poetry, Jessie Pope's poem "Cricket" (1915). Owen dedicated his Dulce et decorum est "To Jessie Pope, etc"

Where are those hefty sporting lads
Who donned the flannels, gloves and pads?
They play a new and deadly game
Where thunder bursts in crash and flame.
Our cricketers have gone "on tour",
To make their country's triumph sure.
They'll take the Kaiser's middle wicket
And smash it by clean British cricket.

Um, Sorry There Partner

Sorry and a shoulder chuck for McEwan. "After a 24-hour flurry of activity, border officials realised there was no rule limiting the size of honoraria. McEwan was admitted the next afternoon." What did I say back then? A prick at the border. I KNEW IT!



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Mazo de la Roche and Dorothy Livesay

"It is rare these days to see a radical poet and political thinker come to the aid of a High Tory, but Dorothy Livesay did this for Mazo de la Roche. Canada has such a civic and civil tradition, and, in many ways, Livesay and de la Roche embody such an sane and civilized way in our era and ethos of political correctness and culture wars. May we learn something from such grace and graciousness."



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So Carver, Proulx, DeLillo, Moore, Etc. Aren't Political?
The Globe wrassles with literature and ideology. That's a bear you can never beat, folks. Just try to look big while slowly backing away.
"Does fiction change anything? Do courageous novels about the big issues of war and injustice make a difference? Apparently that idea, once so inspiring, is now out of fashion. During a discussion at Montreal's Blue Metropolis writer's festival earlier this spring, five novelists from different countries gave a firm thumbs-down to Norman Bethune's belief that 'the writer has a duty to lead us into the future.'"

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I don't think that writing can be unpolitical or apolitical--unless it attempts to eschew sense altogether. Sure there's a spectrum ranging from solipsistically blithe to stridently partisan, and to my mind the least interesting (which is not to offend by saying "the worst") writing occurs at or around these extremes, but I think there's a confusion of terms here, where "political" is incorrectly identified with the espousal of a particular doctrine. Good writers never let their politics dictate their script, at least not when they're on their game; Blake's observation on Milton's depiction of Satan springs to mind here. Some of the more interesting capital "P" political novels involve the novelist struggling with the tenets of their beliefs, as in Ignazio Silone's "Bread and Wine."

It might be true that writing doesn't change the world, directly, but it's also true that people die every day for want of what's in a poem, to paraphrase WC Williams. Does anyone else find it a bit grim how resigned Helwig and others seem to be to the marginal status of writers? Maybe the notion that we can change anything is illusory, but some illusions are salutary.

Bob Woodward's new book sounds like a barn-burner:

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/Articl...Entertainment/Books

The Book as Weapon of War

"The sudden outpouring of inside details* in books about the Bush administration is all the more remarkable because of the administration's previous success at controlling the flow of information to the press about its workings. It is a phenomenon that is creating an unusual reversal in which books - the musty vessels traditionally used to convey patient reflection into the archives - are superceding newspapers as the first draft of history, leaving the press corps to cover the books themselves as news."



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Writing Bush Out of Office

Foer, Eggers, and others team up to create an anthology of powerhouse writers (fourth item down) dedicated to getting Bush out of office. "So far, most of the 120 writers have agreed to contribute, including Stephen King, Art Spiegelman, Paul Auster, Joyce Carol Oates and Paul Muldoon. "If you name somebody, they've probably said yes," said Mr. Foer, who spearheaded the project. The book, to be assembled in coordination with Mr. Eggers' publishing house, McSweeney's, will come with a CD with new music from about a dozen bands. They've invited Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes and the Beastie Boys to contribute. So far, he hasn’t publicized the book much, but "word will get out when the time comes."" It's a good thing they're donating the money to PACs and organizations dedicated to liberal values because if they were relying on the strength of their arguments to convince Republicans to switch they'd be in for a nasty surprise. It's about time American liberals hopped on the money train - it's the only way to win down there. Trust me, I used to work for a campaign finance agency. The biggest spenders almost always win.



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Political Books and TV, Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Political books get their tours on TV. And when they're about president Wubblewoo and an election is coming, they don't get bumped.

Given ... the publicity overload, television leaves many people feeling they've read the books even if they haven't — and most of the time that feeling is wrong. Karen Hughes's best-selling "Ten Minutes From Normal," by one of Mr. Bush's closest advisers, is a defense of the president cloaked in a mommy memoir about her decision to quit the White House and move back to Texas with her family. That image was never challenged during her "20/20" interview with Barbara Walters. But the book itself includes some howlers of spin. Looking back at the famous pop-quiz about world leaders that Mr. Bush flunked during his campaign — he couldn't name the president of Pakistan — Ms. Hughes says with a straight face that he remembers them now that he's actually met them. "I could never remember most of them, either, until we started meeting them in person," she writes.

I was supposed to go on CNN to talk about Poetry After 9/11, an anthology I contributed to while in New York - a political book of sorts. They called me the morning of to let me know I'd been bumped by a story out of Florida - two kids killing their parents or something. Damn. Just the thought of (non-Tupac/Jewel) poetry being discussed on CNN makes me all tingly.



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Edited by author 05-16-2004 11:46 PM
Is Ralph Klein a Plagiarist?

It appears he cribbed a swath of text for an essay on Chile from the Internet.

Heth said he examined the paper out of curiosity after Klein's inflammatory statements about Pinochet, but when he noticed a dramatic style change in the writing, he punched words from the essay into an Internet search engine.

It immediately took him to a website.

"There seems to be eight paragraphs that are essentially verbatim from the website," he said.

Heth said a person reading Klein's paper would have difficulty determining what parts were written by Klein and what parts were written by other authors.

A line by line analysis by the CBC determined that more than half the paper consisted of material from the Internet.

Come on... Like you didn't see this one coming... (Thanks to Brenda for the link.)


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Guess Who's Getting Fired...?

This is freaking nuts, and indicative of the arrogance of the current US administration. Colin Powell, being interviewed via satellite from Jordan by Tim Russert on CNN's Meet the Press, was being misquite grilled about WMDs in Iraq when his press aide decided she didn't like the questioning anymore and PUSHED THE CAMERA AWAY AND TOLD HIM HE WAS DONE TALKING (all with the mics still on and live, the dimwit)!

13 minutes in to the interview, Miller attempted to pull the plug.

As Russert grilled Powell on his presentation at the UN of Iraq's alleged WMDs -- Miller moved the single remote camera off Powell.

"You're off," Miller announced.

"I am not off," Powell warned.

"No. They can't use it, they're editing it..." Miller said on an open microphone.

"Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please," the secretary snapped.

Read the transcript here. All I can say is Holee Sheeit. (I don't even know what category I'm going to put this under for discussion. I might have to create something new like: Career Ending Idiocy or New Heights of Right Wing Arrogance.)



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Readings Are Normally Bad Scenes, But This Is Worse Than Usual
Apparently a reading in Kitchener was disrupted by some ugly racial abuse.

Readings have traditionally been decorous events. Now they may call for security guards. On Sunday at the Indigo Books store in Kitchener, a discussion of a novel by Howard Rotberg was stopped after two men identifying themselves as an Iraqi Kurd and Palestinian started shouting abuse at the first-time author. "I was talking about my book, which is called The Second Catastrophe, and they started to make anti-Israel and anti-American speeches," Rotberg recalled yesterday. "We hadn't gotten to the question period yet. They just took over and I was unable to continue. Then I heard the Kurdish man refer to me as a 'f---ing Jew.'"

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Edited by author 05-18-2004 11:03 AM
 re: m/74
you can watch it here. freaky.

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002135.php

While We're On the Unpleasant Subject of Patriotism
Here's Dr. Seuss at war.

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War of the Words

Our good pal and drinking buddy, New York sociologist Jon Wynn, has written a bit of a rant on his blog Palabris about how the rephrasing of American political discourse has lead to the current situation.

Gay marriage. Abuse. Insurgency. Security. Each of these terms has been strategically deployed over the course of the last few months. The war for the hearts and minds of a populous is waged on a battlefield of words, and I suspect this election year it will be intense. Easily dismissed malapropisms—and here is really where the genius of spinning Bush’s lack of intelligence into a ‘folksy’ everyman pays off in spades—the discourse emanating from the White House and Congress nurtures a devaluing of what politicians say. Political speech is dismissed and under-analyzed by everyday people. Carefully constructed jingoism that receives a thin gloss of carelessness results in acceptance, even forgiveness.

Change the name of national defence to "Security" and who will vote against you? Who votes against being "secure"? Interesting.


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So What This Really Says Is Books Never Change Anything
Russell Smith draws parallels between the Iraq prison violence and a certain literary classic.


By astonishing coincidence, a novel was published not too long ago whose story eerily echoes the recent sordid loss of control and civilization in the prison of Abu Ghraib. The novel, written by a Polish seaman living in England, takes place in Africa, rather than in Iraq, but there are so many other parallels to the Iraqi venture that it can hardly be coincidence: It is as if this novelist had some kind of insider knowledge of what would happen to those U.S. jailers as soon as they hit the dangerous wilds of a very foreign culture.

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You Know, I Can Be Hard on Some People...

But when you're doing good work, you're doing good work. Bravo, McSWeeney's.



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E.L. Doctorow Booed

And not for his writing!



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"On the fifth day of the five-week campaign, only the NDP has released its culture platform, pledging more money for arts programs and the CBC."

As the French say: quelle su-fuckin-prise. Remember to keep culture in mind when you vote. (From PFW)



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Going to War Against Anti-War Poetry

Poetry and conflict are as old as each other. From war springs suffering and from suffering song.

Fourteen months after the invasion of Iraq, the ancient association is as vibrant as ever. According to the Guardian, an anthology entitled 100 Poets Against the War has outstripped the opposition and become Britain's most frequently borrowed book of poetry. Even now I hold the volume in my hand. And I read with tremulous fascination about its torrid and telling birth-throes.
...
To be fair, the raw ingredients of poetry are certainly present here, namely language and feeling. Some of these efforts are not a million miles away from becoming poetry, in the way that a cow in a field is not a million miles away from becoming a hamburger.

But a number of technical refinements will be required first: lyricism, music, metaphor, imagination, a sense of pace and rhythm, habits of verbal organization, the feel for a resonant phrase that lingers in the mind after the page has been turned.

Ouch.



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The Long, Ugly History of Alliteration

I myself find it offputting and forced, probably because I grew up in this:

Americans are awash in alliteration.*

We are victims of anxious advertising executives and publicity-hungry politicians. Desperate to sell their messages quickly, they repeatedly load their slogans with words whose first sound repeats. They do this crudely and self-consciously, these villains, cheapening a subtly beautiful literary technique.

Here's where I'm supposed to write something alliterative. (From ALDaily)



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Vote Liberal or You'll Have to Work for a Living!
Margaret Atwood worries about what could happen to Canadian culture if the Conservatives win the upcoming election.


In the absence of out-front cultural policies from the neo-Conservatives, I'm basing these assumptions on their stated wish to abolish all subsidies. I guess that would include culture, as well as farming and forestry and anything else. I can't speak for other sectors, but nuking the pump-priming apparatus would not make sense for Culture. You might as well mow it flat. These neo-Conservatives are not pragmatists, they're ideologues, and ideologues, whether left or right, will ignore any fact if it doesn't fit their worldview.

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Toys for Rich Kids
Kurt Vonnegut is getting all political again.


My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

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Atwood's Latest Dystopia: Canada

Our Margaret gets involved. And very articulately so.

Now for a mental exercise. Remember that map of North America after 9/11, with the vanishing planes? Think of all arts events just disappearing from the face of the Canadian map. Poof. Gone. No more Stratford Festival, or Shaw Festival, or Blyth Festival, or Annapolis Royal festival with its renowned costume ball, or Edmonton Symphony, or Royal Winnipeg Ballet, or Blue Metropolis, or poetry slams, or jazz singers, or Canadian literary publishing industry, or Alanis Morissette, or . . . Feel bereft? Well, hey -- you could always watch movies. Movies about the Second World War with no Canadians in them. Why do you need your own art, anyway?
...
Those calling themselves the Conservatives are really the Body Snatchers. They've eaten the comfy old Tories and peeled off their John A. Macdonald and John Diefenbaker skins and put them on, and now they're prowling the earth with destruction in their hearts. When these neo-Cons hear the word Culture, they reach for their nugs. (Guns turn into nugs when you pretend you didn't want Canada to join in the invasion of Iraq, although you did, too, want it.) Be very afraid!



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"Be very afraid!" ???? She stole my line!!!

Love that exclamation mark. Atwood might've taken note that theatre survived in Ontario after the Harris takeover in 1995. Body Snatchers? Peggy, adjust your meds.

Thin Girl, isn't Atwood making a distinction between the old PC Tories and this new party?

Both Harris and Mulroney are advisors to Harper. Clearly Harris was a neo-con and driven by the ideology Atwood is warning against.

BTW, I don't disagree with the critique. I disagree with the stridency of the critique. The neo-cons say, "You're with us or you're against us." The hard left says, "You're part of the solution or you're part of the problem." I say, "A pox on both your houses" (thanks, Bill, for that).

Let me propose for discussion: Canadian culture does not depend on government regulation. Seems to me the key word is "depends." Would Canadian soldiers disappear from documentaries about WWII? Is government regulation the only thing keeping the memories of "our glorious dead" alive? Would the Stratford Festival close shop if Harper were PM?

It seems to me Atwood is channelling the Liberals campaign strategy. Demonize the opposition. We should remember that Chretien promised stable multi-year funding the CBC in the 1993 campaign, then cut funding in the years after. The Libs are famous for running on the left, governing from the right. The Conservatives often do the opposite; say they will privatize the LCBO or TVO, for example, then do neither.

The fate of Canadian culture does not depend on who wins the election. The culture will continue to struggle. Some folks will get cash support, others will find ways to do without, others will close shop. Oh, maybe I'm just too cynical. I really don't think the new-brand-Tories are so much horribly worse than the right-leaning Libs under Martin. Yadda yadda yadda. It's all a stinking mess.

The fate of Canadian culture does not depend on who wins the election.

???

what? the first announcement by the new Tory gov't here by the Dept. of Tourism, Culture and Recreation was that we can hunt on Sundays.

They then proceeded to cancel the provincial art procurement program.

they then cancelled the opening of the $47 million facility that was to house the provincial archives, museum and art gallery. (we are now the only province without a provincial gallery).

Governments affect culture.

http://www.donotpadlocktherooms.com/

Edited by author 06-11-2004 02:39 PM
Yes, governments affect culture, but culture does not depend on government. Culture is not public policy. It is an organic human activity. It cannot be killed.

There are art galleries in the USA, where government support for culture is dry as a Texas desert.

Edited by author 06-11-2004 03:00 PM
public institutions depend on public money. museums, galleries, archives, libraries and the like preserve and promote the work of artists.

The human activity may not cease but it hardly is encouraging when governments fail to regognize that these artists need places to publish, display or perform. I think that public policy should at least acknowledge that this kind of organic activity is valuable.

Public policy does acknowledge that they are valuable. Back to my original point, the Stratford Festival survived the big cutback years of the Harris Tories. For Atwood to argue a Harper victory will wipe out culture in Canada is hyperbolic and beyond proof. Culture cannot be wiped out.

Yes, some government's are better nurturers of culture. Government has a role to support culture. But that's a different argument, one Atwood isn't making. She's all save/destroy. She's the flip side of Dubya; all for us and against them.

Oh, good. A scrap!

Stratford survived the Harris years because it has massive corporate sponsorhip and because of the strong american dollar. Taking the Mikado to Broadway when the Company was facing bankruptcy also turned out to be a brilliant and ballsy move.

There's the usual, somewhat shrill message about how government should support the arts, but I thought maybe her real, or best point is that these new conservatives are something of an unknown, now dressed up to represent the Progressive Conservative party that was around for over a hundred years. Harper is currently doing his best to appear moderate and like a reasonable alternative, but a year ago he was the guy in the suit with the redneck mouth, and he still hasn't been able to lose the cold eyes.

And these "new conservatives" are united right now, to win an election, but how united will they be after winning, when they all start pulling in different directions?

Even leaving the arts aside, Harper doesn't appear very democratic, with talk of using the notwithstanding clause to veto supreme court decisions on things such as allowing gay marriage - wasn't it Trudeau who wanted the notwithstanding clause taken out as undemocratic? I think Martin is, as Joe Clark suggests, the devil we know, even if he is something of an old boy. He could have called an election before these new conservatives had a leader, remember, which would suggest something honourable there (I'm no fan of Martin, I'd simply rather see him as PM).

But hey, I won't vote for either party, given that a great NDP candidate is in my riding.

Edited by author 06-16-2004 10:33 PM
"Art is not a loophole and that sort of U.S.-style fearmongering isn't a cultural policy and as Canadians we deserve better."

Artists gather to call attention to the lack of focus on cultural issues in the current political debate.

The gathering was organized by the Toronto branch of ACTRA, the actors' union. It was also addressed by performers Wendy Crewson, Shirley Douglas, Gary Farmer, Jessica Holmes, Sarah Polley, Leah Pinsent, Fiona Reid, Mag Ruffman, Tonya Lee Williams, Nicholas Campbell, Rick Mercer and novelist Susan Swan.

My question, and a question emailed to me by several others, is: where are the writing organizations in all this? What has the Writers' Union done to educate the candidates on behalf of their membership? What has the League done? Have they already admitted defeat? They're supposed to represent their membership in this forum, yet there's been scarcely a word. What are they being paid for? Webpages for members? A Conservative government will likely treat arts and culture like an appendix - a cure all excision for the abdominal pain of deficit. Yet these organizations haven't even laid out a plan to their membership for what they'll do if this happens, much less tried to stop it. The Union's website says: "The Union regularly represents writers' interests by making presentations to the Canadian government on matters such as inequitable taxation, copyright, the state of the book industry, detrimental international trade agreements, and other issues of concern." Um, when? I'm pretty concerned. The latest briefs to the government are dated September 2003 and the latest politically motivated press releases are from January of this year. If they are indeed doing something about all this, they're not doing a very good job of letting people know. This is why I, and others like me, don't join these organizations. They're not only out-gunned, they're outmoded and, it seems, out to lunch. On your dime. (I would love to have to retract this statement. Rather than being offended by this, please do something to make me eat my words.)



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It's true arts didn't come up once during the English language leaders debate. It came up during the French debate in the context of "industrial policy." How do politicians see the arts? See a recent report prepared for the Ontario government ...

http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/investing/reports/rp37.pdf

Edited by author 06-17-2004 11:58 AM
It seems to me that politicians only notice the arts when they need a string quartet at a function. a few years ago i organized a launch for a book that had funding from the Irish and Newfoundland governments. I was told that holding it in the day was the only way to ensure that Govt. types would come. The irony was that may of the poets in the anthology couldn't make it as they had to work.

also, this is from a website that is trying to raise awareness about how cultural philistinism by our gov't is economically irresponsible.

(as an aside, what make this so frustrating is that this place exploding with creative energy. The Provincial Arts and Letters Awards had 1000 entries. that's 1 in every 500 citizens)
   
"Our cultural industries make up the largest growing sector in the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador

Using 1999 figures, the direct economic impact of the cultural industries on Newfoundland and Labrador is estimated to be $58.8 million and the direct, indirect and induced impact is estimated to be $130.2 million

There are currently 12 000 people employed by cultural industries.

The total investment in culture (including arts and heritage) by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador this year is $9.5 million dollars.

Imagine what could happen with real investment... "

Thanks for the excerpt from the website, Kevin. I don't suppose you'd want to help their cause by posting the link, would you?

how about cultural philistinism on part of our "artists"? this what I find so esthetic irresponsible. lies, damn lies & statistics, like schopenauer say

could you provide an example of "culture philistinism on part of our artists", so we can know what it is you're talking about. thanks.

please, please note punctuation marks either side of artists. if you can't find own exs. i cant do much to help you. thanks.

I think I've posted this before but here it is again

http://www.donotpadlocktherooms.com/

Yeah, What About the Porn?
A Vancouver man manages to sneak discussions about the arts into the election campaign.


A Vancouver man disappointed by the lack of debate about cultural issues during the election campaign took matters into his own hands and organized an all-candidates debate about the arts Tuesday night. Duncan Low, manager of the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, was impressed with Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe's vocal support for the arts during the televised French-language leaders debate. But he was disappointed by the lack of cultural discussion during the English-language debate the following night. "The only time the words 'artistic merit' were mentioned was in relation to pornography," he said.

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Killing Bush

If someone published a book running through a multitude of ways to assassinate Bush, would you buy it?

More incendiary than Jay's assassination fantasies, in the end, may be the deep expressions of anger against the administration the book dwells on. In that respect it is not unlike Joseph Heller's 1979 novel Good as Gold, which included an extended rant against Henry Kissinger. The difference, though, is that Kissinger had been out of power for two years when Heller's book was published; Mr Bush is in the middle of a bruising re-election battle.

Shh. Ey-thay ight-may istening-lay........... (Actually, given the editorial around here that's not improbable.)



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And then my character is going to stick a bomb up George Bush's ass... where it will no doubt kill Cheney
We all know we're not supposed to say "bomb" on airplanes. But really, what's wrong with writing it on a note to yourself so you can remember a character's dialogue?


Without further explanation, they took me to the onsite police station, where I waited for an "interview" with the Transportation Security Administration. By then I was being accused of writing "bomb" on a piece of paper and waving it around for people in the back of the plane to see. While two policemen guarded the door, the honcho behind the desk informed me that my choice of dialogue was unfortunate, that life was not a stage play and that the tiniest thing can ignite fear in American travelers these days. He wanted a summary of my novel's plot to get the context for why I'd written what I had.

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Naw, it will just blow off Cheney's hand...

"Modern politicians don't read"?

Whatever do you mean? What about Hop on Pop? I ask you again, what about Hop on Pop?!!?

Modern politicians don't read. Tony Blair may claim Ivanhoe as his favourite book, but he is clearly a John Grisham man. His bibliophilic reputation is unlikely ever to recover from the tale of him meeting Ian McEwan at a party and telling him he had several of his works hanging on the walls of Number 10. Margaret Thatcher said she liked to "re-read" Frederick Forsyth novels on holiday. William Hague had a weedy fondness for The Wind in the Willows. John Major predictably liked Trollope. Oh, for the days of Gladstone's classical scholarship and Disraeli's novelistic nous.

But suddenly there is hope. Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister-in-waiting, this week delivered a lecture which suggests that he will soon need a larger red box - to accommodate all the texts he is apparently devouring. The list of citations in his British Council lecture on national identity was formidable - Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837; Adam Nicholson's God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible; Norman Davies's The Isles: A History; Andrew Marr's The Day Britain Died; Bernard Crick's biography of George Orwell. He may have got the title of Marr's book wrong and given rather sketchy details of the others, but if this were a university essay it would surely merit an alpha.



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Corrected Index

You know, it's pretty darn easy to make fun of Cheney's slack-jawed possibly-former-cokehead-drunk oven-mitt Bush. But you've got to be pretty clever to come up with this baby.*



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Keeping America safe...

... from foreign writers.

...as a journalist, even from a country that has a visa waiver agreement with the United States, I should have applied for a so-called I (for information) visa. Because I had not, I was interrogated for four hours, body-searched, fingerprinted, photographed, handcuffed and forced to spend the night in a cell in a detention facility in central Los Angeles, and another day as a detainee at the airport before flying back to London. My humiliating and physically very uncomfortable detention lasted 26 hours.

You can bet this would be national news in the US if it happened to one of their reporters. In fact, it would be called a hostage situation.



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Poetry and POTUS

Poetry as political tool.

If he's your candidate, he's charming and smart. If he's the other guy, he's a pretentious smart aleck. It would be fun to have two poetry-quoting candidates as opponents - imagine the debates - but for some reason, that rarely happens.



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Ladies and gentlemen, your new Heritage Minister...

Despite "Frulla is seen a strong supporter of the arts", I see no mention of "art"? Dear me.



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Runaway bestseller

What's the hottest title in the book industry?

Online booksellers Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com both ranked it No. 1 on Friday and many local stores were already reordering. Its publisher told The Associated Press that stores had already ordered more than 80 percent of its 600,000-copy printing, selling a quarter of them Thursday alone.

No, it's not the new book of poems by George Murray, though you can be forgiven for making such a mistake, it's the 9/11 report.



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More poetry in politics

Can more poetry in politics ever be a bad thing? (The answer is so subjective....) (P.S. Now taking bets on how far into this article the first reference to Shelley's unacknowledged legislators bit is...)



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This fall, vote Stalin
John Kerry comes under fire for his use of a Langston Hughes poem.


"Let America be America again" comes from a poem published in 1938 by the Harlem renaissance poet Langston Hughes. But Hughes intended the line ironically. A black man living in the pre-civil rights era would have had to be insane to look back to a golden age of freedom and equality in America, and Hughes was not insane. Hughes was, rather, an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Soviet Union at the time he wrote "Let America Be America Again," which explains the poem's agitprop tone.


Well, a Stalinist dictatorship still has to be better than Bush's America.

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"Well, a Stalinist dictatorship still has to be better than Bush's America."

do we hear an "AMEN"

THE CROWDS SHOUT "AMEN" FROM ROOFTOPS ALL ACROSS THE DECAYING LAND.

The grass is always browner...

Checkpoint Nicky

Nicholson Baker may not be the left's literary avatar.

Baker has what he calls "a tortured relationship" with the party-line left. During the Carter years his contrarian streak led him to work on Wall Street. "I was a neocon," he says now. "But by the time Bush One came around, I started to see that the kind of conservative I am is really soreactionary—it has to do with old trees and stuff. I am medieval in my conservatism. I'm one of those 19th-century Tories who don't believe that democracy"—he laughs—"is really the thing."

(From Literary Saloon)



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Fiery speech = book sales

I wish a speech* were all it took... I blab all the time and still: nothing. But, man, isn't Obama the real thing? I may just buy the book.



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Hail to the moron

Philip Marchand tells us Americans like 'em smart and well-spoken or dumb as posts and misunderestimated.

Recently a story circulated about a new study of American presidents' IQ. According to the story, something called the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Penn., estimated the IQ of every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. Its list confirmed the widespread suspicion that the latter was plain stupid — his IQ was given as 91, below average. (Bill Clinton possessed the highest ranking, with an estimated IQ of 182.)



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Poor, poor conservative Republicans!

These people* are just SO marginalized. I can't believe no one's called attention to this sooner. It's a cultural genocide! (I love it, and by that I mean hate it, when the over-privileged seek marginal spaces from which to cry foul. Excuse me, but, a) you're fucking authors, not hard-labouring, health-insuranceless single parents, and b) you and the people you prop up with your skewed "analysis" run the fucking world. So go back to accumulating money off the blood of poor and stop trying to occupy sites of moral outrage as though they were oil-producing countries that dared give your daddy lip. Oh, yeah, one more thing: fuck you.)



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Now you're speaking my language! Ah, it's so like the everyday lingo at our dinner table.

Woman of subtlety stuck with a simpleton?

Um, I don't know about half of that... You gotta be a bit of a simpleton to get stuck with one... But then there's my Fulbright-winning wife... Anyway, I really want to see this play.*

Like many intellectuals, [playwright] Kushner views Laura Bush, a former teacher and librarian, as an enigma. Her husband is not known to share her love of language and literature. If Dostoevsky is, as she claims, her favorite writer, how can a woman attracted to contemplating the great Russian novelist's complex characters and moral issues accept the less ambiguous rhetoric that comes out of the White House?



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uh... her life is like one of those novels about intricate characters wielding global power? it might make up for the stupid guy in bed next to her. or maybe a pact with the devil?

Worse than Watergate
American writers speak out against Bush. Meanwhile, Republican writers respond with... where are the Republican writers...?


'Part of the problem presented by Bush and his gang is that they are so crude ... When you are confronted with things that are so crudely brutal, the writer's task of elucidating what lies beneath the surface is redundant. These people believe in cruelty, vengeance and brutality. I think Shakespeare would have done very well with these characters.'

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i heard that the US is going to use electronic voting across the board in this next federal election. already there has been electronic voting in democratic regions that produced surprising republican successes. that the firms that create and operate these machines are republican owned. if this occurs, does that make voting in america officially now purely fiction.

Both Metafilter and BoingBoing have had a number of posts about how easy those voting machines are to hack -- without leaving a trace.

But hey, why worry about the voting machines when you've got the Supreme Court in your pocket?

P

true. democracy in america was proven to be fiction back in the day.

Fucking crazies
A new book alleges that Colin Powell called the rest of the Bush administration "fucking crazies" in a conversation with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The only about this that doesn't make sense to me is why he's trying to deny it.

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The literary 9/11

No one seems to be going there.

You’d think that, if anyone would have published a literary work using the attacks as a plot catalyst, it would be Joyce Carol Oates, America’s most prolific and topical writer. Or maybe the conspiracy-minded Don DeLillo, whose fiction is studded with shadowy governmental plots and who wrote a best-selling novel about the Kennedy assassination, “Libra.” Bear in mind, though, that DeLillo’s musing on Oswald and the CIA came more than 20 years after the fact. If journalism is the first draft of history, as the saying goes, then the literary novel must be the fourth or fifth revision.

I, for one, am still processing it.



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Well, In the Shadow of No Towers is a pretty thoughtful take on 9/11.

http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/towers.html

And doesn't William Gibson's Pattern Recognition address it in some way? It's on my bookshelf but I haven't had time to read it yet.

Peter

What if Bush wins?
The Washington Monthly brings together 16 writers to consider what calamities may befall the world next. All I have to say is keep an eye out for flying monkeys.

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Slack-jawed yokel plays big in the sticks (that is to say, the USA)

Do Bushisms actually help Bush? Well, they aren't hurting him...

On the road, Bush lets any malapropisms or gaffes just flow out. This is Dubya unplugged, Dubya unworried.

After all, many of his supporters adore Bush for his average-guy charm. So, in a way, his unpretentious oddities can be a strength. Critics and late-night talk-show hosts have spent four years ridiculing Bushisms, and yet there's no evidence that Bush has been harmed politically.

Last week, Bush was finishing a long bus tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania, when he attacked his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry, over Iraq in a speech in Erie, Pa.

He was launching into a well-worn line about how Kerry voted no when Bush asked Congress to provide the troops with "body armor and spare parts." But in Erie, Bush melded the two. He recalled asking lawmakers if they could buy "armor and body parts." And, he said, he was furious that Kerry had refused to fund those items.



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"People are poor because they are lazy"
Slate offers a guide to Kitty Kelly's book on the Bush gang. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. If Dubya was born into any other family he'd be working as a crew chief at McDonald's for the rest of his life.

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"He recalled asking lawmakers if they could buy 'armor and body parts.'"

---that's really really funny in a sick sick way

yeah... anyone know where we can get these body parts?

P

Spelling? We don't need no stinking spelling.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is banned from a language conference because of his political views on, uh, spelling. Long live the revolution!


The greatest living author in Spanish has been barred from the International Congress of the Spanish Language, a meeting organised every four years by national academies of the Spanish-speaking countries.

Magdalena Faillace, Argentina's secretary of state for culture, who is hosting the meeting, said the author of One Hundred Years Of Solitude was excluded because he had "made trouble" at the same conference eight years ago.

"Spelling, that terror visited on human beings from the cradle onwards, should be pensioned off," Garcia Marquez told that meeting, held in Zacatecas, Mexico.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America has officially tipped into cartoonish idiocy

Can I get an "a-yhuk!"...? I said, can I get an "a-yhuk!"?

Bookspan, the parent company of The Book-of-the-Month Club, asked members of eight of its direct-mail book clubs what President Bush and Democrat John Kerry should be reading.

The readers' top recommendation for both candidates: the Bible.

This is a country of ideas and freedom that fights religious fundamentalists... or it's a religious fundamentalist country devoid of ideas and freedom. I can never remember which. (From Maud)



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Edited by author 09-24-2004 09:46 AM
I'm sure the forty-five percent of responding readers meant specifically that Bush and Kerry should read 'Revelations' and not necessarily the Bible in its entirety.

What's the matter with Kansas?
Thomas Frank's book tries to find an answer to why the people most victimized by the economics of the Republican platform are its strongest supporters.


a panorama of madness and delusion ... of sturdy blue-collar patriots reciting the Pledge while they strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of working-class guys ... deliver[ing] up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life [and] transform their region into a "rustbelt," [and] strike people like them blows from which they will never recover.


Andrew O'Hagan may have found the answer at the Republican convention in New York City.


'The Muslims just hate us for our love of freedom,' said a woman from Iowa wearing a cloth elephant on her head. 'They don't have any culture and they hate us for having a great one. And they hate the Bible.'

'Really?' I said. 'The Iraqis had a culture for thousands of years before Jesus was born.'

'What you saying?'

'I'm saying Muslims were building temples when New York was a swamp.'

'You support the Iraqis?'

'No.'

'You support the killing of innocent people going to work? People who have to jump out of windows?'

'You aren't listening to me.'

'No, buddy. You ain't listening. These people you support are trying to kill our children in their beds. Where you from anyway, the New York Times?'

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"But this president does not know what death is."
E.L. Doctorow muses about the grim nature of Junta leader George W. Bush.


You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

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US election the best thing to happen to US letters

There's just so much to write about! And so much to do. As reported much earlier here at Bookninja, Operation Ohio pits famous writers against the sloth and beer-addled brains of the average university student. Hey, wait, doesn't Contemporary Literature 101 do that too?



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Normal, maybe, but new?
Joan Didion on America.


During the spring and summer of 2004 some Americans, most but not all of them nominal Democrats, spoke of the November 2 presidential election as the most important, or "crucial," of their lifetimes. They told not only acquaintances but reporters and political opinion researchers that they had never been more "concerned," more "uneasy," more "discouraged," even more "frightened" about the future of the United States. They expressed apprehension that the fragile threads that bound the republic had reached a breaking point; that the nation's very constitution had been diverted for political advantage; that the mechanisms its citizens had created over two centuries to protect themselves from one another and from others had been in the first instance systematically dismantled and in the second sacrificed to an enthusiasm for bellicose fantasy. They downloaded news reports that seemed to make these points. They e-mailed newsletters and Web logs and speeches and Doonesbury strips to multiple recipients.

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Edited by author 10-03-2004 12:47 AM
i'm thinkin' ... if the corporate-run media reports persistently enough that the race is tight, then the republican owned electronic voting machines can create what seems like a democratic text of close-shave republican victory. everyone can keep just talking about loss of civil rights, and the future of america... for now... but of course the privilege of speech is also eroding

Speaking of poetry and politics...

When is a poem not a poem? When it's an (overtly) political poem. Then it's just crap.

These kinds of poems use poetry in the worst sense of that word -- to forward a partisan agenda. If, for instance, we already agree with the agenda (kicking dogs is bad, say), then we're just one of the choir being preached to, and we might even say the poem is good, great or terrific because the poem proves that we've been right all along. If we disagree with the agenda -- Rudyard Kipling, for instance, wrote poems in praise of colonialism -- then aren't we right to call the poem simply propaganda?

I'd like to read a political poem so good it would make Wubblewoo's head explode. Or collapse, as the case may be. (From PFW)



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Christopher Hitchens -- left-wing ideologue or right-wing ideologue?
I suspect the answer may be found in the brand of whisky he drinks in this interview on Islamofascism. Any guesses?


To many of Christopher Hitchens' old friends, he died on September 11, 2001. Tariq Ali considered himself a comrade of Christopher Hitchens for over thirty years. Now he speaks about him with bewilderment. "On 11th September 2001, a small group of terrorists crashed the planes they had hijacked into the Twin Towers of New York. Among the casualties, although unreported that week, was a middle-aged Nation columnist called Christopher Hitchens. He was never seen again," Ali writes. "The vile replica currently on offer is a double."

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Edited by author 10-05-2004 05:55 PM
Laphroaig

But what vintage, Twinkle?

Peter

Oh, for peat's way-too-smoky sake, the 10 year old

What do you get when you mix Christopher Hitchens, Henry Kissinger and a camera crew lead by Bernard–Henri Lévy?

The police involved. (From MobyLives!)



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Novelists do it with the left hand...

Well, left for America where all choices except for Nadir (yes, that's on purpose) are well right of centre. Slate tallies the votes of 31 prominent novelists and comes up with a Kerry landslide. If only it were only novelists voting. After this misery is over and that semi-retarded killer gets back in, I suggest we vote with our book-buying dollars. (What the FUCK has happened to Orson Scott Card? Was he always like this? Or does he have a case of the itching Hitchens?)



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Rupert Murdoch: Demeecrat

If I disappear for writing that, avenge my death by flooding his office with letters of protest.

Cal Morgan, the editorial director of ReganBooks, said the idea that a publishing company owned by Mr. Murdoch must have a political agenda* is specious. "We have an agenda to publish strong voices that speak to an eager audience," he said. "That we follow the direction of any larger corporate entity is just an illusion."

Mr. Murdoch, of course, has been criticized for appearing to do just that. In 1998, HarperCollins canceled a book by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, a move that some interpreted as a move by Mr. Murdoch to protect his interests in China. Mr. Murdoch blamed publishing executives.



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PEN in danger of implosion

Things are afoot at PEN that may just lead to the eventual demise of the organization.

The origins of the present trouble date back to the three-year terms of Niven's immediate predecessor, the biographer Victoria Glendinning, and her predecessor, the novelist Rachel Billington. Under these grandes dames, the organisation began to expand its horizons beyond the unglamorous world of torture and imprisonment towards more congenial, British-based activities. With this burgeoning agenda came a drive for growth. "We need larger and better premises; we need to expand our current projects and create new ones," Glendinning declared.

When Niven took over last December, he pushed on with this "New PEN" mission, strengthening the grip of paid executives at the expense of ordinary writer-members. The pattern will be familiar to members of other voluntary organisations caught up in the fashion for professionalisation, with its attendant jargon of "programmes" and "governance issues". Fresh initiatives were launched, such as the Writers in Translation programme, which stages parties to celebrate the work of overseas authors, even if they are in no danger at all. Among PEN's more traditionalist members, concern began to develop.

Juicy! Straight out of John Grisham. The "governance issues" part gave me goosebumps.



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Speaking of Voting...

The New Yorker endorses Kerry. The first time they've made a political endorsement in 80 years. Think people feel something's at stake in this mess? I somehow doubt this is going to reach Bush's base, though.



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Operation Ohio

An embedded Voice reporter dishes on the literati's war against Bush.

As the election runs hotter than ever, it seems everyone is doing something. The national party committees, more flush than ever, are churning wakes through the swing states like ocean liners. A bit more nimbly, MoveOn's digital democracy is changing the political landscape with its innovatively funded and clever ad campaigns. Grassroots organizations of all kinds are springing up to fill in with letter writing, phone banking and walking precincts. In Ohio alone, Bush backers claim to have more than 60,000 volunteers spreading the word through their Amway-style multilevel-marketing operation. America Coming Together has fielded an army of professional canvassers to lay the groundwork for what will be the biggest Election Day Get Out the Vote operation in the history of Earth. To that end, they've raised $125 million—10 times what the DNC spent on GOTV in 2000. A lot of that coin is spilling into Ohio, but the war chest keeps replenishing itself: The week we arrived, the Vote for Change tour, a set of fund-raising concert dates featuring musicians ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Death Cab for Cutie, was under way across the state, on its way to raising another $44 million.

It was into this storm of activism that Stephen's literary assembly made a landing in late September—a bumpy one, as it happens, since everyone flying in that day sensed the planes getting tossed roughly on the final approach into the Columbus airport. Having traveled with Stephen for much of the campaign season, I came along as an observer. Plus, I too felt compelled to take action. With a month left, why not get started? Now in Columbus, four hours before curtain time, as Stephen was finishing last-minute preparations, we were talking about the question that must plague all small-scale organizers: Does any of this matter?

And still we'll be left with that fucking wired marionette (see below).



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this might be a bit wandering off-topic, but... i was in ohio last week reading poetry, saw many signs for both parties. saw a man by a freeway exit waiving a Bush sign like he was advertising a sandwich shop around the corner, or flashing a will-work-for-food sign. people there are very concerned about losing jobs, yet, very conservative.

The Bush survival guide, but only if there is a Bush to survive

If Wubblewoo doesn't go the way of his one-term, war-losing daddy, Random House will be publishing a survival guide to his presidency.

Random House Editor in Chief Jonathan Karp says that the unusual publishing arrangement calls for Stone to get paid either way, though he will receive less money if the book does not get published — i.e. if Kerry wins — than if it does. The same is true, of course, for the house, which cannot make money on a book it doesn't publish.

Still, Karp says, Random House was happy to take the financial risk. "We believe publishers have a moral responsibily to prepare readers for calamitous events," he says.

If Kerry wins, RH should seriously consider getting their money out of this dude by turning the book into a cleaning-up-after-Bush manual. (From GalleyCat)



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Note to politically motivated novelists: shut up

Ah, the good old days... (Mind the source of this one, ninjas...)

For much of our history, litterateurs held themselves aloof from everyday politics, considering it a grim and grubby business. The novelist of the early 20th century was far more likely to be concerned with reproducing the experience of the common man--or rallying on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti--than forming committees in support of, say, Warren Harding or James B. Cox. Even F. Scott Fitzgerald's Amory Blaine--the Kerryesque hero of "This Side of Paradise"--was a socialist and revolutionary rather than a Democrat or Republican.

Writers began to embrace electoral politics after World War II, when Henry Wallace and then Adlai Stevenson seemed to capture their affections. But Stevenson lost, and lost. Things accelerated when John F. Kennedy created Camelot in 1961. But even then there were contingencies. Diana Trilling remembered meeting James T. Farrell (author of the great "Studs Lonigan" novels about Chicago) on a train to Washington, looking disheveled and disreputable. He had been invited to a White House dinner by the Kennedys and was carrying a bulging briefcase stuffed with old royalty statements. Farrell believed that his invitation would allow him to settle the matter of some past IRS audits while enjoying the president's hospitality.

In the same administration, William Styron helped the great, if underrated, novelist Richard Yates to get a job as Robert Kennedy's speechwriter. Yates's tryout was to write a speech to be delivered by the attorney general at a private women's college. Yates won the job--according to his biographer, Blake Bailey--by imagining Kennedy as a fictional character, "an attractive young man seductively persuading a group of female admirers to support the cause of civil rights." The Kennedy years were supremely suited to fiction at its most self-regarding.

And you walked to school five miles uphill, through fire, over broken glass and in blinding snow... both ways... This guy puts the cur in curmudgeon.



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DLJ for prez

MobyLives proprietor Dennis Loy Johnson shows why we all missed him so much in his latest column, "Bush vs. Books". Here he is interviewed at Beatrice (From MoorishGirl)



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Bush finally elected — maybe!

As fans of David Rees, the Onion and The Daily Show, we welcome the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. As we've said all along, Kerry may win, but that doesn't mean Bush won't be president for another four years.

As we go to press here at Bookninja HQ, the election is still too close to call. On the one hand, Kerry may pull a BoSox and come from behind to win. On the other hand, Dubya may finally get officially elected. We're too tired to wait up to see what happens. So in the spirit of things, we've put together a list of classic works of fiction that we feel speak to the New American Century. Enjoy.


There's this thing called civilization. It's built of hopes and dreams. It's only an idea. It's not real. It's artificial. No one ever said it was real. It's not natural. No one ever said it was natural. It's built by the learning process; by trial and error. It breaks easily. No one said it couldn't fall to bits. And no one ever said it would last forever. — Graham Swift, Waterland

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the focus on Ohio eliminated attention on the discrepancy between exit polls and the electronic polls in Florida, which have no recount potential, no paper. same game, different tools?

the Swift quote is lovely

Roy accepts Sydney peace prize, fires lasers from her eyes

Arundhati Roy calls the Iraq war what it is: cowardly.*

She advised the audience to think about the kind of world they wanted to live in.

"There are two ways of looking at this: the American way ... or to begin to move towards some kind of semblance of social justice," she said.

"We need to expand our way of thinking, we need to ask ourselves some serious questions about our limitations."

I'm pretty sure she's a micronized Zentradi warrior under that disguise.



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What went wrong with Iraq?
A lot of scholars think it began with Bernard Lewis and his scholarly work on Islam. I recently got around to reading Lewis's What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle-Eastern Response. I learned a lot of interesting history, but I was just as intrigued by what the book wasn't telling me.


Lewis has long had detractors in the scholarly world, although his most ardent enemies have tended to be literary mavericks like the late Edward Said, the author of Orientalism, a long screed against the cavalier treatment of Islam in Western literature. And especially after 9/11, Bulliet and other mainstream Arabists who had urged a softer, more nuanced view of Islam found themselves harassed into silence. Lewisites such as Martin Kramer, author of Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (a fierce post-9/11 attack on Bulliet) and other prominent scholars such as Robert Wood of the University of Chicago, suggested that most academic Arabists were apologists for Islamic radicalism. But now, emboldened by the Bush administration's self-made quagmire in Iraq, the Arabists are launching a counterattack. They charge that Lewis's whole analysis missed the mark, beginning with his overarching construct, the great struggle between Islam and Christendom. These scholars argue that Lewis has slept through most of modern Arab history. Entangled in medieval texts, Lewis's view ignores too much and confusingly conflates old Ottoman with modern Arab history.

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"We need to expand our way of thinking, we need to ask ourselves some serious questions about our limitations."

Isn't this, like, a contradiction?

Preaching to the converted
Jane Smiley is the latest writer to discuss the losing ways of the Democrats over at Slate.

The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

Maybe we should just invade their country, kill their leaders and convert them to civilization.

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9/11 Report — literary thriller of the year!
Part of a proud tradition of "reconstructed nonfiction."

In retrospect, it's clear that the big group of authors and the highly charged subject matter contributed not only to the report's narrative emphasis (it's easier to get bipartisan approval for a story than for policy recommendations) but to the spare, Elements-of-Style quality of the writing, widely praised by reviewers. Every stroll away from just the facts would have made consensus that much tougher. Commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton told the New York Times, "Democrats pushed for adjectives to support President Clinton while Republicans pushed for adjectives to support President Bush. It was such a minefield that we finally cut out all adjectives and ended up with a sparse, narrative style."

No adjectives? That's my kind of book!

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It's the end of the world as we know it
Richard Ford realizes he's been wrong about America all these years.

But with George Bush now re-elected, my disagreement with him and with most of my fellow voters, makes me think my country is not as good and as humane and as inclusive and as morally strong as I'd always thought it was; and that this leader, this majority, this set of values is how we really are over here now. Those who thought that the previous election was an aberration have now been proven to be entirely wrong. This is America now — which is quite hard to stomach if you love your country and consider yourself a patriot, as I do.

Humane? Inclusive? Has he ever met his fellow voters? Good luck, y'all.

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I for one welcome our new French overlords
I've been saying all along that Canada should be trading with the EU, not the U.S. Now a couple of new books back up my argument.

Once you grasp that this transatlantic cold war is not only happening but rapidly intensifying — as Jeremy Rifkin and T.R. Reid, the authors of two almost simultaneous books on the European conundrum, agree — you see the major news events of the last year or two in a different light. Both the Iraq war and this year's presidential election, for instance, start to look like key symbolic episodes in the U.S.-Europe conflict.

What was the contest between Bush and John Kerry, after all, if not a proxy war between pommes frites and freedom fries, a referendum on Europe conducted among the American electorate? Kerry, we were told, spoke French and "looked French." These gibes might have played as humor on Fox News, but they were in deadly earnest.

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Where are all the political American writers?
Well, if they have any sense, they've moved to Europe. Because they can't do anything here.

if you believe a Philip Roth book is going to change people's politics in 2004, then you might as well believe that Saul Bellow can melt metal with his mind. Any novel that doesn't feature a conspiracy theory involving the Knights Templar and a Renaissance cultural figure, a fat girl finding love, a pubescent male wizard, the apocalypse, or some combination of the above won't find an audience among the residents of that "foreign country" in the American center.

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more on the electronic votes

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/Story.asp?ID=4688

for those interested in going to Ottawa to welcome Bush, this site will be helpful
http://www.nowar-paix.ca/

Haitian author's elderly uncle dies in US custody while seeking asylum

This story is utterly revolting. Edwigde Danicat's* elderly uncle dies in custody, WITH A LEGAL VISA and a family waiting to support him! I can't believe the Homeland security people are trying to defend themselves on this. They detained an elderly man, denied him his medicine and he died a short time later. Then they try to dismiss the importance of this by deriding the efficacy of his treatment (which they make out to be some kind of tribal witchdoctor potion). If the medication was so ineffectual anyway, why keep it from him? You're a bunch of rat-bastard killers. When is America going to wake up?



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Edited by author 11-22-2004 11:49 AM
george, i read my almost-15-year-old the news stories from your link. he asked me to print them to take to his high school. he's starting a peace group there and wants to get it going by bringing in this. too, i gave him a copy of this page of this bulletin board, and the poster from website kevin posted. opposition to the fascist, power-thirsty, racist, right-wing agenda is widespread. there is hope in the growing opposition, though it doesn't bring anyone back to life.

Edited by author 11-22-2004 01:15 PM
Oh, come on, Anne, you can't seriously think that this guy is racist, can you?

I thought it was just me, and that I was being uncharitable about that smirk, but he really is saying, Hey, lookit this crazy getup, ma! isn't he? I've seen that before, that fratboy look of amusement with other cultures. What funny clothes! Hey, I could use this on Halloween!

G

now, seeing that pic, i realise:

my bad. what was i thinking. it was just that crazy—objection to domestic and foreign death toll and torcher—talking.

thanks man~

The post-election tell-all killed by the mid-election tell-all

Next up, the pre-election tell-all. Watch for the 2006 release of Put a Little Muscle Into It: How the 2012 Schwarzenegger Campaign Wrestled America to the Ground like an Unsuspecting 1970s Gym Bunny.



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(posted by George)

did you learn to do that at blog camp? cool!

Cleaning up for company

What happens when someone wakes you from your suburban slumber with a call asking whether you can entertain Michael Moore and assorted fans for a book signing on your dining table? Hypothetically speaking.



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fuck off. i mean really. who would say no to micheal moore. just speaking as the voice of non-bush america here. and there is a majority of non-bushes in america. just check out the non-mainstream media reapraisal of electronic voting.

Novelist full of opinions about opinions

Jonathan Franzen, inciting Maud to bust a verbal cap his ass, says writers oughtta shaddap about their political views. I think the quote may be out of context... At least in this article, it seems more like he's bemoaning the state of the author as public intellectual than pulling a Neal Pollack.



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George Bush: author

No, calm down. Not yet... And besides, when he finally gets around to it, it's almost a sure thing he'll use a ghoulwriter. But his ancestors are another matter entirely.

The censors at al-Azhar, Cairo's center of Islamic learning, have recommended the government ban a 19th century biography of the Prophet Mohammad by a scholar portrayed in the Arabic media as an ancestor of President Bush.

An al-Azhar official, who asked not to be named, said on Monday the ban applied to the original English version of The Life of Mohammad by the scholar George Bush, first published in 1830 and reissued in the United States in 2002.

Oh, come on... we all know illiteracy is genetic...



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Edited by author 12-15-2004 11:17 PM
Let your Giftmas dollars vote

DLJ over at Moby tells us about Buyblue.org, a site that tracks corporate political spending so Democrats (and conversely, one would suppose, Republicans) can buy at companies that supported their candidates.

For example, wondering whether to buy books online at Amazon.com or at BarnesandNoble.com? Does it make the decision easier for you to know that 98% of B&N's corporate political donations went to the Democrats, while 61% of Amazon's went to the Republicans?

Or maybe you'll be encouraged to get offline entirely and shop at an old–fashioned brick and mortar store upon hearing the news that Borders gave 100% or its donations to Democrats?

Hmm. I read this about ten seconds before buying something from Amazon. Good thing.



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Where's a deus ex machina when you need one?
The Toronto Star finds some similarities between the Aegean Empire of The Iliad and the Bush administration.

Says Queen's University classics professor Caroline Falkner, "the fact that Troy is so relevant today is probably why the film was made. When Agamemnon talks about his Aegean empire, I see George Bush."

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Did you get the memo, FUKNUT?

Your American tax dollars, what you didn't get back, hard at work. The Pentagon's searing research into and iron-fisted terror-fighting control of acronyms.



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Is the EU better than the U.S.?
More books on my favourite question!

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What's the frequency, Kenneth?

David Kipen examines Wubblewoo's speech writing.

Where once speechwriters used to strive for the rhythm, cadence and crescendo that would singe a line into everlasting memory, nowadays the perfect speech is the one so inert that we don't even have to forget it, because we hardly hear it the first time.

So it might be instructive to look at which of history's wordsmiths the president's outgoing chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has been cribbing from -- if only to get a baseline for comparison with former Wall Street Journal editorialist William McGurn, who'll take over for Gerson in the coming weeks as ghostwriter-in-chief. During all the fawning inaugural post-game shows last Thursday, only one commentator had the temerity to wonder over an open microphone whether it would be asking too much for the leader of the free world, just this once every four years, to write his own damn speech, without any help from the West Wing term-paper mill.

That commentator, I was just as surprised as anybody else to discover, was Dan Rather. In television as in politics, watch out for the lame-duck with nothing to lose.



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All good insights into W&Co's BushHell. For something rather more recent try, HOMELAND: A Novel (Other Press - New York; or Dewi Lewis - UK), by Richard Weber (me). From a recent issue of The Spectator, UK upmarket weekly magazine of politics (conservative, no less) & culture:

"... Weber's Homeland is for those who prefer to face the troubles of our times head-on. It is April 2008, and three people tell their stories. American professor Paul Vines simultaneously begins a new literature class at a Berlin university and an affair with a married German student. At Guantánamo Detention Camp, criminal psychologist Lara Ivans gains experience of interrogation techniques. And in JFK airport, FBI agent Dougherty investigates a suspicious tourist whose background is uncannily similar to his own. Each character is linked to the others in unexpected ways, and each faces moral questions of frightening contemporary relevance. Torture at Guantánamo is described in sickening detail, but the love relationships between the various characters are finally much more powerful. Caught in his or her own tangle of compromises, each hesitates between independence and insecurity. Weber's theme is fear: of loneliness, of guilt, of an invisible, malign super-power. Fear "oozes" everywhere, "like an invisible gas, a manufactured menace". Ample quotation from Koestler's Darkness at Noon, the text that Vines is teaching, underlines Weber's point in this dark, impressionistic novel: overshadowed by terrorism, we feel no safer nor have we any more control over our lives today than did Koestler's tormented characters in Stalin's Russia. "

The Tribune (UK) December 17th 2004 said almost the same, plus:
'... Weber excels at conveying the emotions of quiet shame and desperation among decent people.'

Jenna confesses to Uncle Tom

In honour of Wubblewoo getting his rocks off reading about his daughter's sex and drinking life,* Low Culture brings you the new Bush reading list. (From Maud)



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Canada vs. U.S.
Are we a culture fighting for independence and freedom? Or are we a second-rate society blindly emulating our Yankee masters?

Most writers who want to say something meaningful, something truly descriptive about Canada and the United States, are defeated from the start. The reason is "history." The "history" is and has been a pattern of intense propaganda; of calculated falsification of events and ideas; and of an imperial/colonial relation, the nature of which is constructed upon falsehoods and is maintained only by the continuation of falsehoods.

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Edited by author 02-10-2005 09:30 PM
Quite the three-ring circus in the commentary on that article. I think Mathews would be chagrined if he was honest enough to get below the thin skin of his nationalism. Sure, we've got a better track record than the States. Not saying much. There was something on CBC's Ideas last night about just how big a gap has grown between our perception of ourselves as a nation and our actual conduct. As long as we view ourselves in relation to someone else--as Mathews, not just those he criticizes, seems intent on doing--we're not likely to get very far, either in literature or in politics.

Ever want to get wasted with, and argue politics with, Christopher Hitchens?

This guy did. (Thanks, Roland, for the link.)



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Let's get political, political...

Steve Almond's call to artistic arms on Moby.

What I am suggesting is that artists need not regard their political identities as wholly separate from their artistic ones — especially given our unique historical circumstance.

Look at what's happening: our country is being led down a path of almost unprecedented moral negligence, a kind of suicidal selfishness in which the civic discourse has been reduced to bumper stickers. Those in power stand ready to vilify anyone who threatens their power. The opposition has abdicated its duties to John Stewart.

Virtually every writer I know recognizes this. (I do not know Tom Clancy.) They are all deeply distressed.

My question is simple: when are we going to allow this grief to inform our art?



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It's always the children's authors...

Arthur Ransome, author of kiddie book, Swallows and Amazons, was spied on by the British. The Red Menace made us all do crazy things in those days. Back then, we called turkeys "walking-birds" too -- eating a pair of drumsticks was called the hoochie-coochie two-step, and could earn you quite a thrashing.



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Campaign finance reform targets bloggers

Grassroots journalism under attack by law designed to promote grassroots politics and remove the influence of big (corporate) money from US elections.

How about a hyperlink? Is it worth a penny, or a dollar, to a campaign?
I don't know. But I'll tell you this. One thing the commission has argued over, debated, wrestled with, is how to value assistance to a campaign.

Corporations aren't allowed to donate to campaigns. Suppose a corporation devotes 20 minutes of a secretary's time and $30 in postage to sending out letters for an executive. As a result, the campaign raises $35,000. Do we value the violation on the amount of corporate resources actually spent, maybe $40, or the $35,000 actually raised? The commission has usually taken the view that we value it by the amount raised. It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly.

After almost three years working for the New York City Campaign Finance Board, I shudder to bring you this news. Mostly because I am scarred from knowing people involved in campaign finance reform. They all have the theme song from Law and Order playing in their heads as they strut around like hens in the yard. Oh, and what a small little yard it is... But that's neither here nor there. After how blogs were used in the last election, what I can tell you is this situation is going to get ugly. I've noticed the attacks on bloggers and blogging heating up these last few months, much at the same rate war chests are already starting to fill for 2008... (From DailyKOS)



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Edited by author 03-22-2005 08:08 AM
What are those little brown people saying

I can't hear through that weird accent. I went to a mesmerisingly brilliant katak/tabla classical Indian dance/drum solo the other night and on the bulletin board of the studio was a clipping saying "329 Dead, 0 Responsible". Turns out Canada knew the Sikhs were up to something but we didn't want to be racist. Or something. Ex-spy and former diplomat Maloy Krishna Dhar spills the beans.

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Edited by author 03-23-2005 09:03 AM
Only in Canada, you say

Shaughnessy Cohen prize for political writing turns out to be named after, well

the outspoken and popular member of Parliament from Windsor, Ont., who died suddenly in the House of Commons in 1998 after collapsing from a brain hemorrhage.

Oh yeah, Jane Jacobs is nominated. I got a bit distracted by the visceral imagery.

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Border clash

Will Ian McEwan get back into the US? Will he want to?


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Edited by author 04-29-2005 11:39 AM
All of life's a stage

New book by Guantanamo Bay translator (Inside the Wire by Sgt. Erik Saar) details the length to which US security went to stage interrogational hoaxes. This is America imitating Hollywood imitating America at its best and simultaneously at its very very worst.

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Edited by author 05-09-2005 10:40 AM
The Jeanne D'arc of Islamic reform

Irshad Manji's call to arms; blatant self promoter or God's messenger?

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Edited by author 05-11-2005 09:51 AM
US Officials have to wipe the crap off their faces

Protests turned violent in Jalalabad after reports of Guantanamo Bay interrogators flushing a copy of the Holy Koran down the toilet.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said U.S. officials are looking into the matter.

I just hope they look deep enough.

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Speed reading with Bush

Bookslut points to a funny bit on Wonkette about Wubblewoo. Apparently he's STILL reading Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. Sound it out, Georgie. Mouthbreather.


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Edited by author 06-02-2005 10:40 AM
Rajasthani women's groups smoking

Has the world gone mad?

Over a dozen women's organisations have demanded the resignation of Rajasthan Minister of State for Tourism and Devasthan Usha Punia against the glorification of sati in a state government book.

Sati as a tourist attraction? Oh my...

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Edited by author 06-17-2005 10:18 AM
Terrorist bookshop browsers and library users safe

US Congress votes to repeal an anti-terror law that allows the government to gather information of what people buy from bookstores and lend from libraries.

But Assistant Attorney General William Moschella lambasted the amendment in a letter to Congress.

"[Bookshops and libraries] should not be carved out as safe havens for terrorists and spies, who have, in fact, used public libraries to do research and communicate with their co-conspirators," he wrote.

All you inquisitive people, you think you're so smart. Line up against the wall and we'll see how smart you really are, huh?

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Refusing the Queen

Authors refusing to bow to HRM? Don't you think she's used to this? Come on, I bet Phillip says no on a regular basis... Oh my! (Just close your eyes, Philly. Think of the old nickel and do it for England!)


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maybe people are allowed to take books out of libraries without being reported on, but not to talk about them in public classrooms. the 1950's commie-laws are still on the books and being re-introduced all around the states

http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/22230/

Edited by author 07-18-2005 10:51 AM
Oprah or Osama?

Australian officials concerned about national bookstores selling Osama bin Laden endorsed books.

Books endorsed by Osama bin Laden and discussing the effectiveness of suicide bombings are on sale in Australian bookstores - and authorities say they are powerless to act.

How the hell is bin Laden managing to endorse books? And imagine having a terrorist endorsed gold sticker on your book, wha?

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Edited by author 07-19-2005 09:19 AM
Does Putin poop and scoop?

Not sure if this book'll tell you. What the heck is it with books told from the POV of dogs? Virginia Woolf did it. Paul Auster did it. ENOUGH ALREADY. Okay, now let's talk about my dog, my new cutey, wootey, mooty, sweetie babykins. Now a book from his POV, that'd be interesting...

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Booker winner a dissident?

The controversy over Ismail Kadare continues in a compelling piece at MobyLives.

No one stumbles to the head of the pile inadvertently. Kadare had to successfully lobby for himself among the powerful Soviet hyenas that called the shots with a fist of fury. Not a job for the fainthearted or the free–spirited. How many "dissident" writers, beside himself, did he protect and propel into the public eye? If he was anything like other heads of Unions of Writers in other communist countries, he did very well for himself, held active party membership, participated enthusiastically in expelling true political critics from the Union damning them to publishing oblivion, and knew all the right people up top intimately.


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See George invade. Invade, George, invade.
Apparently books put Bush to sleep. Given the number of novelists in his cabal, he must be a narcoleptic. Which would explain a lot.

Bush presides over an administration chock full of novelists, particularly among the neo-conservative faction surrounding vice-president Dick Cheney. Lynne Cheney, the vice-president’s wife, has written three novels, as well as several children's books. Before becoming the vice-president’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby made his literary debut with a historical romance set in early twentieth-century Japan. And, Richard Perle, who has been a formidable advocate for an aggressive foreign policy as the erstwhile chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board (DPB), is the author of a Cold War thriller. At the DPB, Perle shares the table with Newt Gingrich, who also has a thriller to his credit, an alternative history novel set during World War II. When the Bush administration sought the Pope’s blessing for the Iraq war, they sent over a special diplomatic delegation to the Vatican headed by Michael Novak, a prolific Catholic political philosopher and author of two autobiographical novels about his religious experiences.

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9/11 publisher finally names charities

Norton will give 600 large to three charities. This is about 20% of the money they made off a public domain book. Pack of lies or not, the book really belongs to the American people. Where's the rest of the dough going?


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The administration and the fury
If William Faulkner wrote the story of the Bush administration.

Down the hall, under the chandelier, I could see them talking. They were walking toward me and Dick's face was white, and he stopped and gave a piece of paper to Rummy, and Rummy looked at the piece of paper and shook his head. He gave the paper back to Dick and Dick shook his head. They disappeared and then they were standing right next to me.

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Patriot Act

Well, a few bombings later it's official and we're not getting rid of it. The ALA thinks it's Kafkaesque. No shit.


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Bushit!

I think we have to come up with a new term for the least harmful, most preposterous lies that come from the White House these days. I humbly submit "Bushit". As antecedent for this, I give you Bush's summer reading (or "carrying") list: Salt: A World History, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. Three well calculated-to-make-you-feel-like-research-is-being-done books that this well-documented bozo is supposed to be able to finish in five weeks. Um, will there be puppet shows? And, wait: he gets five weeks of vacation? Hasn't he been on vacation a few times this year already? It would be interesting to calculate his vacation time in terms of Marines (much less others). In 2005, George W. Bush had __ dead Marines worth of vacation.


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Salt in wound
Mark Kurlanksy, author of Salt, wonders why Bush is reading his book.

What does it mean that George W Bush, a man who has demonstrated little ability for reflection, who is known to read no newspapers and whose headlong charge into disaster after cataclysm has shown a complete ignorance of history, who wants to throw out centuries of scientific learning and replace it with mythical mumbo-jumbo that he mistakenly calls religion, who preaches Christianity but seems to have never read the teachings of the great anti-war activist, Jesus Christ, is now spending his vacation reading my book, Salt: A World History?

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Edited by author 09-14-2005 10:13 AM
Egg on face

But who threw it? Even a swell, upstanding guy like Brian Mulroney has regrets.

A spokesman said Monday that Mulroney was stunned to turn on his television and learn that his private and often R-rated reflections would be on store shelves this week in a book written by Peter C. Newman. "'I was reckless in talking with Peter C. Newman,' " Mulroney said, according to spokesman Luc Lavoie.

What goes around comes around. This book sounds like the anatomy of a narcissist.

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Don't you mean the anatomy of a gnarly cyst otherwise known as Giant Smell Brianoma?

Edited by author 09-19-2005 10:52 AM
Indira Gandhi and the KGB

Great name for a rock band.

Russia's feared KGB spy service penetrated all levels of the Indian government under Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and became a major cash backer of her Congress (R) party, according to a book published on Monday.

The KGB operation in India during that period was its largest in the world outside the Soviet bloc and it even had to create a new department to handle it, according to The Mitrokhin Archive II based on the KGB's own secret files.

This seems less surprising the more I read about it.

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Edited by author 09-20-2005 10:26 AM
Tony Blair denies everything

Apparently, Lance Price, former spin-doctor, uh, media advisor to the Prime Minister, is a liar. Well, at least he's written a few things that have rather upset poor Mr Blair. Apparently, for instance, Blair did not "relish" sending troops into Iraq. Oh and in other biographical news, Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, do not practise voodoo with their toenail clippings.

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Sharon Olds has nads

Not only can she write a mean poem, she's got the cajones to back it up. (From Bookslut)


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Politics affect publishing?

Heaven forefend!

Two years ago, when I agreed to write an afterword to William Kaplan's sequel on the Airbus affair (a book in which I have no financial interest), little did I imagine the pre-emptive pressures that high-priced and well-connected lawyers could put on publishers.


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Buy my book of poetry or I'll commit war crimes on your lawn

I know they've called it dic-lit (as in dictator), but I think twit-lit might be both more inclusive and more accurate. (By the way, that headline wasn't in reference to this article... it was just a warning...)


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White House lacks sense of humour as well as compassion and intelligence

The trifecta! We can now officially call the current administration "inhuman". The White House has asked satire newspaper The Onion to stop using the presidential seal. The Onion responds with, "Fuck You, Mr. President." But somehow it's funny when they say it.


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Moonlighting on politics

As a novelist. Ew! If she sells used cars, she's got the unholy trinity of scum.


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Edited by author 11-25-2005 12:01 PM
Bin Laden from bin Laden

This'll make a great stocking stuffer. Musings from the great one himself, Messages to the World , published by Verso, is filling the world with more happiness. But does the world really deserve to be this happy?

The whole book seethes with simpering vanity and paranoiac self-importance. And some other feelings, too: "Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval Office?" I had, for ages. There must have been a shortage of interns around Tora Bora.

Surely there were POWs.

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The US government is spying on its peace activists

When will you people take to the streets with pitchforks and torches? Oh, wait, let me just check this database. I think the date is in here. (discuss ... at your own risk)


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A Bookninja political moment

My fellow Canajuns. Thinking of voting for Harper? Leave now. But if you're a fence sitter, read this speech to an American Christian organisation. A few choice quotes:

"Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term"

"In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance."

"the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men"

"The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum. The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things."

"As long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in schools."

Still not swayed? Leave now. If you're thinking he's changed, Nike and Starbucks would like to talk to you about some merchandise. (Thanks, Paul)


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In case anyone is looking for context, the speech is from 1997 and the audience is the Council for National Policy, an "obscure right-wing American Organization" according the the CTV article from December that reported on the resurfacing of this speech. I thought I'd pass the verification along for anyone who distrusts the veracity of unattributed material appearing on blogs.

Not that I distrust Bookninja, of course - I was refering to the *other* blog. Bookninja = 'word of god' to me :-)

Amen.

G

P.S. Janine!!! Glad you're still out there.

Edited by author 01-05-2006 04:23 PM
"As long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in schools," Harper declares. This is perhaps the only part of his speech that shows compassion and insight into the needs of his fellow Canadians. Indeed, I remember praying many times during exams: "Please don't let me fail, please don't let me fail, please don't let me fail."

Edited by author 01-05-2006 07:51 PM
Don't you go voting for him now, Susan, just cause he tickled your nostalgia bone...

I got the joke (I assume your post was a kind way of pointing the joke out for me), but I still think that everything behind it is creepy and illustrative of a radical religious right perspective. Don't forget, there WOULD be prayer in school if he got his way. And you can bet your arse none of it would be done wearing yarmulkes or facing Mecca.

All of what he said in that old speech is still under there, it's just now got a PR team applying makeup before (and quite often after) every photo op. Frightening.

I would like to reemphasize one passage, in bold: "including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things." [emphasis mine]

Allow me to take Christianity back out of his oily paws for just a second. JESUS H. CHRIST! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! I feel like throwing holy water on him and yelling, "The Power of Christ compels you!"

G

Vote for him? I wouldn't spit on him if he were on fire! (Or maybe I would feel compelled to, because I'm one of the Devil's party, committed to massive redistributive programs...)

I'm betting the dog won't talk about the five hamburgers, the quick stop at the intern's desk, and the briefcase full of non-sequential, unmarked bills...

I kid. Kid, because I love. I love my decadent Democrats. Ted Kennedy has "written" a children's book about a dog that follows his senator around for a day.


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Regarding Kennedy's children's book...

Maybe "Splash" will teach children how to get a drowning woman out of the back-seat of a Senator's car.


(Splash is a Portuguese Water Dog and Kennedy's co-protagonist in "My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington, D.C.")

Edited by author 01-12-2006 12:11 PM
It's my democracy and you can't have it

White House won't allow author, William Blum attend a book fair in Cuba. Ironically, his book is called Killing Hope.

Killing Hope, translated into Spanish and published by Editorial Oriente, is a detailed account of the involvement of the Pentagon, the US State Department and the CIA in diverse parts of the world spanning from the end of the Second World War until the mid-1990s.

It's weird, you know; the US government is rarely so short-sighted in these matters. Here's what you do, Mr Blum. You buy a ticket to Toronto and then fly to Cuba from here. You can even stop over and have dinner at my place; meet the kids, see my photos of Havana (nice town, btw, though a little run down what with all the sanctionsand the fall of communism).

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Communism may have fallen in Cuba, but Cuba is now a dictatorship. Only a year or two ago it rounded up 20-30 journalists and threw them all in jail for no particular reason. I don't recommend Bookninja to people anymore because lately it has been occupied by such ignorant leftism as can be found in Kathryn's post.

And yet here you are.

Hey, no. Many thanks for not attaching your name to ours.

G

Actually, I'm pretty much Christian right. Pretty much.

K

"Actually, I'm pretty much Christian right. Pretty much."

Your middle name isn't, say, Kelly, is it? Kristin? Karen? Just checking.

Vote Canadian Arts

Nice website. Now let's get some votes. The stack of five dirty loonies really captures it, eh? (Thanks, Paul)


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"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."

--John Stuart Mill

The church of Stephen Harper

Ninja reader Paul pointed out some interesting tidbits on the website of the church (Christian & Missionary Alliance) to which Conservative leader, and presumptive Prime Minister, Stephen Harper belongs. Paul did a search on the term "women" which turned up this page of results . Click anything to have the Holy Bejesus scared out of you. But for a real scare click point #5 (Role of Women in Ministry - page 61) which will open a Word document that will knock your socks off. I pulled a couple choice quotes, in case you don't want to sully your computer with the download (emphasis is mine).

THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN MINISTRY

From its inception the Alliance leadership has interpreted Scripture to affirm the woman’s right in the apostolic church to be the channel of spiritual gifts for the edification of the local assembly. Furthermore, Alliance leadership has historically affirmed a restraint upon the woman’s role in the government of the local church. The Board recognizes that the Holy Scriptures teach the following principles.

BASIC SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES OF WOMEN IN MINISTRY

1. Authority and Submission. It is recognized that God has sovereignly ordained, in the order of creation and redemption, relationships of authority and submission. “Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of woman and God is the head of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:3). The nature of authority is modelled in the humility and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11). The goal of authority is to build up the household of faith (II Corinthians 13:10). Submission to authority is noble and gives substance to unity (Ephesians 4:1-6).

4. Eldership. It is recognized that the historical and biblical pattern has been that elders in the church have been men. The weight of evidence would imply that this pattern should continue.

Why isn't this being reported on the national news? It would be interesting to see what other keyword searches turn up. If you're a swing voter and you go Harper, you're going to regret it. Mark my words.


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I expect you're, ahem, preaching to the choir hereabouts, G. It is odd tho that some enterprising journalist hasn't dug this shit up. It wouldn't make much difference to his core of support, but it would definitely alarm any conservatives still clinging to the threads of "progressive."

Cover of the Star yesterday had something about how Harper will run the country. Sorry, but is the election over or something? Geez...

G&M article today alludes to this issue, in the words (from Nov 2001) of David Sweet, who introduced Harper at yesterday's news conference: "[M]en are natural influencers, whether we like it or not. There's a particular reason why Jesus called men only. It's not that women aren't co-participators. It's because Jesus knew women would naturally follow."

Edited by author 01-20-2006 01:29 PM
Stephen Harper is a sexist, a racist, and a homophobe.

We know he's a sexist because he belongs to a church that declares that women should be subordinate to men. If he didn't share this belief, he wouldn't belong to the church, would he?

He proved he was a racist when he said, "You’ve got to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western Canadian society."

And, given his track record on gay marriage and gay rights, we know he doesn't believe that homosexuals should have the same rights as other Canadians.

Basically, Harper is a bigot and a pig who will sell us out to the Yanks faster than you could spit on him.

CHB, could you supply the rest of us with the source of that disturbing quote in your middle paragraph?

One thing that no one in the media has brought up, until Rick Mercer the other night, is the company that Harper keeps. Stockwell Day. Myron Thompson (he's my MP - please pick a deity and pray for us). Rob Anders. Others.

Yikes.

Edited by author 01-21-2006 12:07 AM
Not hard to find with google. Here's one of many sites with the quote. You can link to the full conext if you'd like to offended any further.

http://www.stephenharpersaid.ca/

Did you know Stockwell Day believes the Earth is only 6000 years old, because that's whast he figgers from the Bible.

He could be the next federal minister of _________________.

Stop the insanity. People of Canada. Don't vote for the ignorant, biggoted pigs.

Edited by author 01-21-2006 02:52 PM
Vote with your mind not your wallet

The Harper Conservatives are hiding their loud mouth candidates. Harper has figured out how to appear 'bland.' Canadians like bland. We live for bland. The Conservatives have sequestered their anti-abortion, misogynistic, racist candidtaes and are trying to make this party look like a middle of the road, sensible choice for a good strong accounting-style government. It's got Margaret Wente fooled (who says you can't fool the fool?). It's got a lot of stay-at-home mums fooled (re: childcare policy). The truth is, with Harper we won't get what we want (i.e. bland), we'll get something far, far other).

Will America return to the culture that made it great, our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture? Or will we continue the long slide into the cultural and moral decay of political correctness? If we do, America, once the greatest nation on earth, will become no less than a third world country.

Judeo-Christian? Hello? Get your heads out of the sand. These are the people who want Harper to win. Call your waffling parents. Call your culturally shielded aunt. Plead. On hands and knees. For the sake of bland, tell them, do not vote Conservative.

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And if you are wondering who's working behind the scenes?

After the last election, the Conservatives cleaned house at party headquarters. Everyone there is now former Alliance, there are practically no Red Tories left.

This is why I never was upset when Stronach crossed the floor. This isn't the party she was trying to lead.

How'd They Vote
If you're still uncertain about which party to vote for in Monday's federal election -- "Hmm, am I evil? Good? Or just plain neutral?" -- then this site may help you.

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Edited by author 01-21-2006 05:43 PM
Re /m259: Oo, oo, Education, teach, Stock, teach.

I heard somewhere that the arts tend to flourish under totalitarian regimes. I don't think I want to find out whether that's true.

Edited by author 01-22-2006 05:31 PM
Aw, c'mon, gorch, it ain't that bad. The judges'll hold him in check. And if they don't, I'm sure God will...

NYT looks at Bush's ballast

What books has Wubblewoo been carrying this year? And what message do they send to the world? They say, Georgie-boy has arms strong enough to carry this book around. They say, this is what Uncle Dick's people say he should show around.


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Edited by author 01-23-2006 12:15 PM
What separates me from you?

If every government in the world becomes extremely conservative in its world view, what does separate me from you? This is terrifying news, here. An Osama bin Laden backed book has become a bestseller. What can I say? Watch out Oprah? By the way, the author of the book, William Blum, is still having trouble getting to Cuba. Here's an interview with him on the topic of bin Laden's new talk show.

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Hey, Alberta! You suck!

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system before moving on. They say the arts flourish under conservative/totalitarian regimes, but how anything can flourish in that bloody desert of the mind, I'll never know. Dear American liberal friends: I'll can the high-and-mighty superiority complex now. I'm sorry, we let you down.


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In related news: Hey, Ontario! You suck too!

You know, I've always been ashamed that we inherit US policy the way we do. Partly because US policy sucks, and partly because we're so slow on the draw. Six years after Wubblewoo was appointed president, we get his kid brother. So sad. And I blame it all on World War II. You fucking baby boomers. Yes, I'm railing against my parents. This means you, Dad. I'm so gonna stony-silence you when I see you next. Crossed arms and heavy sighing. You just wait. It'll be 16 all over again. (From Bookslut)


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... on the upside, we had the largest percentage of Green votes. Does that count for anything?

No? OK, er... just checking.

What's up with the bizarre links, George?

From what I've heard of the Green platform, whenever they get off their single plank, they're actually pretty reactionary. The leader of the NS Green Party divorced himself from the federal party because of this and told his supporters to vote NDP instead.

I wish more former NDPers who now vote Green would read the Green Party platform carefully. Not only are they one trackish, they're also not very socially progressive. And isn't there shit about meteors and stuff in there? Or maybe I made that up.

G

The new culture minister?

"Culture" minister? I have my eyes tightly closed and am peeking through my fingers, horror film-style. Canada is the bimbo teen who just heard a noise down in the basement and decided to go investigate armed with a faulty flashlight and a wooden spoon, bare knees bent in and shaking. "Hello..? Who's down there..?"


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/m271 - Fits nicely with #4 on the linked list.

/m270 & /m271
Hm. Three things:

First, their "single plank" is also the sole plank that supports us all; you'd have to be a complete idiot to deny it. It's also a plank that the other parties give lip service to (and yes, that the NDP is better than the Libs or CAs on). And that plank is rotting. If it gives way, you can have all the social progression you want but it won't mean squat.

Second, I don't know who's spreading the rumours that the Greens aren't socially progressive (the NDP, maybe?) but I don't see it. Maybe I'm socially conservative (nah), but their platform dovetails quite nicely with my own views on a range of issues. More so than any other party. And in the absence of the necessity for strategic voting (I live in a riding where all non-Alliance votes are "protest votes," all other parties combined not coming within leagues of the winning party) I feel very good about having the option of voting close to my conscience.

Third, the Greens will never make up a government; they may not even ever make up an opposition. But a couple of Green MPs would go a LONG way toward pushing the other parties in the direction of more aggressive responsibility toward the environment. That tired old plank.... :)

Rumsfeld's war on the mind has civilian casualties

American propaganda document says US government doesn't really care if Americans receive misinformation intended for foreign audiences, so long as it doesn't specifically target them.

Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and posted on the Web today, the 74-page "Information Operations Roadmap" admits that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa," but argues that "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S. government] intent rather than information dissemination practices."

Sweet bunch, they are.


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Further to the Green Party issue...
The Green Party is fairly new to the game, and is farther along in its development of a complete, coherent platform than a lot of parties have been in their infancy and adolescence. The NDP, bless their hearts, are still getting past the idea that the country can be run like a union; the Re-Al- (oops, it's hard to keep track) Conservatives are not yet past the idea that the country can be run like mom-and-pop corner store business. Their only question in the House in the Manning years was "but whAt abOUt the DEficit?" (I'm trying to mimic Presto's one-man regional regional accent.) That was a single-plank platform and look where they are now. Gawd help us all.
I can't believe that my MP is Jabba the Hutt in a Stetson.

 There will be no bargain, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die - that is, if it's the Free Market's will. Come down and git some flapjacks at the House!