Entries from June 2005 ↓

I was chugging along the Long Island Expressway today at a glorious 12-15 mph, when a man zipped by me in the right-hand lane. (Yes, on a bumper-to-bumper LIE, the right-hand lane is the fast lane, but oh, watch out for those disappearing lanes and merging vehicles.)

The man in question was middle-aged, with ginger hair and freckles from here to Tipperary, and he was blasting a lovely tune, and jammin’ away, dancing and singing loudly. “Got to admit, it’s getting bettah, it’s a little bettah, all the time. It can’t get no worse!”

Ahh, I thought, the Be-atles, as Ed Sullivan would say. I loves me some Beatles (as Ed Sullivan would not say.) I turned off my beloved Hugh Hamilton to hear my only-slightly-more-beloved Beatles (sorry Hugh, truly–you’re just a millisecond behind, really.)

And I basked a moment. Then the man jutted ahead, and I popped Hugh’s “Talkback Live” back on, WBAI (Pacifica Radio NYC). He was, as he always is, balanced and fair (note, I did not say fair and balanced), and he was tempering some over-zealous caller’s unsupported rant, with decorum, style, grace, intelligence, and that damned fine Guyanese accent.

If you don’t know Hugh Hamilton, you should. He does the best radio call-in show ever, and he’s progressive, but never lets things get cheap or sleazy or stupid. Unlike some.

A little later, the right lane slowed, and the happy singing freckled man returned to my side. And he was still singing, but this time it was “Band on the Run.” And I realized, with some dismay, that he was not listening to the Beatles at all. It was Paul McCartney and Wings. It was a concert and the road was loud, so it is not surprising that the former song sounded right.

What a disappointment, freckle-man.

I smiled again, but this time the smug smile of a true Beatles fan. I cranked Hugh up as he threw down another crazy caller, propped up another wise one, and kept everything just so.

I hope to blog more frequently soon, as Hugh says when he signs off every day, “The Good Lord Willin’, and the creek don’ rise.”

Hmmm… I looked under international jobs for writers (you never know), and the following popped up between Tech Writer gigs in Iowa and Calgary:

INTELLIGENCE POSITIONS

Description & Details
Location:
Iraq, Iraq
(Is that like New York, New York?)

Description:
INTELLIGENCE
Please send resume with salary requirements to ***@***.com. Be sure to indicate the position that you are applying for.

Please refer to the How to Apply section (found below) for more detail.
(Editor’s note: The How to Apply section did not load.)
Job Function:
Political Organization/Lobbying

Applications for this position will be accepted between 6/18/05 and 7/18/05.

I once screened baggage for an airline. Perhaps my screening skills are relevant?
Hotjobs.com indeed.

What are the ten most dangerous books of the 19th and 20th centuries? Oh Dear. Those aren’t all the ones I had in mind. Having said that, Mein Kampf makes sense. But it was not number one.

This, of course, is not surprising. Phyllis Schlafly is scared of The Feminine Mystique and The Communist Manifesto. They’re right up there with Mein Kampf. I mention Phyllis because I am happy to report I have not heard of most of these other distungished judges. Do look at the list of runners up, including such dangeous cats as J. S. Mill and Rachel Carson.

This reminds me of how G. Gordon Liddy is parading around in a little smokescreen talking about how horrible Deep Throat is–how he’s such a traitor and a criminal. Hello! G. Gordon Liddy is a criminal! Are these people mad?

(Don’t worry, that was a rhetorical question.)

And this reminds me of David Horowitz’s cranky “Discover the Network” website
where he profiles the members of “the Left”–everyone, in his mind, from convicted members of Al Qaeda to Louis Farrakhan to the Weathermen to Bill Clinton and John Kerry. Reading it is almost comical.

And Horowitz sets out to expost the left “networks.” You can even look at image maps of how everyone fits together.

Note, this did not work for me on Mozilla, which does not surprise me, since Mozilla is a commie pinko search engine. And it will take up to five minutes to load on IE. And once it loads, it will be well-nigh mind-numingly boring to wait for the “connections” to load, once you move beyond the Ford Foundation and try to find out about a group or individual. Too bad because I was interested in this mystical network.

Um, what do Sheik Omar Adbel Rahman and Roger Ebert have in common? Evangelical Lefty Jim Wallis and Barack Obama? Al Qaeda and Bill Clinton and the Weathermen? Jimmy Carter and Mumia? What Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has taught us is that it’s easy to link people if you’re trying to. Michael Berube has written a much more detailed and useful critique of the Networks site.

Think what would happen if we played connect-the-dots games with “Right.” As we all know, Bush would be directly linked to Bin Laden via the latter’s family. No hocus pocus or imagination needed. Funny that.

MinJungKim has a nice entry yesterday about the life cycle of a blogger…. she seems to omit several steps I’ve taken recently: a) get busy and stop blogging and reading blogs (with no fanfare); b) come back to blogging and apologize profusely for not blogging; c) stop blogging again with no warning.

Dear reader, this is step d): I am back again, but I won’t apologize again. I know you’ve survived just fine. Though I do hope you’re still there.

Me, I’ve been busy. I expect to be busy for the next month, too, but I’ll be around from time to time. I did miss you, you know. What’s new?