Feel Safe?

CW FISHER It's been 28 months since 9-11 and there still hasn't been another al-Qaeda attack in this country -- yet. For this I'm grateful but astonished. Perhaps the Bush administration has protected us after all. We'll never know. America's borders are long and unprotected, porous as tissue; our airspace is wild and blue and tempting with targets, our airports are spangled with security, but it all means nothing since a credit card torn in half can slit a throat as efficiently as a knife. Big deal, in a way. I have every confidence that any random planeload of people is today loaded with heroes who would willingly and immediately stand and fight. It happened over Pennsylvania on 9/11 and it's happened on every problem flight since. Sometimes this is helpful, othertimes not, such as that unruly drunk who was squashed to death by a well-meaning group of fellow passengers. Whoopsie. It has occurred to me several times that probably the best time to attack a country is when its military is on the other side of the world. I've often wondered whether the president's obsession with Iraq was coming at the expense of national security, of homeland security, social security and job security besides his own. Because these issues really need attention. I don't feel safe. I never really did. Those are my issues, and I own them. The rest of you I can't speak for. Now, after leafing through a pile of Richard Clarke's Polaroids, I don't trust these people anymore, not that I ever did, especially since their bar-the-door Nixonian response. Separation of powers they scream. Jesus! People died in this horrible event. It was our nightmare, our shared terror, that thing in the closet that took away our certainty of the way things would be; al Qaeda was the enemy and even worse still is, but the terror is in the fact that our country has been hijacked by a malign cabal of Reaganite extremists who have purchased their power by sharing what's not theirs to give with people who can install anything. The American people have become these people's installers. Trust this nest of bullies, this gang of thieves? These are way weird people. Rumsfeld? Rice? Ashcroft? Way weird. No confidence. The only people I trust in this country to save us from direct attack would be, first off, our military, if they were home, and if they weren't, well, maybe that's why the framers called for that second amendment. You put all those guns together, you got one hell of a civilian militia. There'd be no beating the home team, just like we learned in the American Revolution, and again in Vietnam, and if we're not careful, pretty soon in Iraq. Guns are not my specialty. I'm not a big advocate. I enjoy exploding into mist a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper with a .357 Magnum as much as any other American. It's just that, for me, having one around the house would be like having a new camera. I'd want to shoot everything. I would. I'm hoping, in the event that a civilian militia is ever required, that my shrugging shoulders and empty hands will convey to my passing neighbors that I'm unarmed and therefore unable to participate this time, but should anyone care to spare me, I'll have plenty of chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven along with several hot pots of coffee which, when thrown, explode into second- and third-degree burns over 60% of a typical victim's body. I don't know if the second amendment covers my coffee, but I do know this: I feel safer. And perkier. And curious. Where's John Ashcroft? He's been completely out of the news since March 5 when he went into the hospital for gallstone pancreatitis.

Cheney annihilates Kerry

CW FISHER AmericCo CEO Dick Cheney emerged from hiding today, saw his own shadow but stood his ground and spoke in a small voice not heard since the last campaign (in which he muttered only two words: "big time," in reference to a reporter's anus). This time he had talking points, each a Patriot missile that went to the heart of John Kerry's campaign. In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney accused Kerry of being a classic tax-and-spend Democrat who is "one of the most reliable pro-tax" votes in the Senate, "opposed (to) tax relief as a matter of principle." He accused Kerry of plotting enormous tax hikes that will punish married couples and children. Young families across America burst into tears at the news. According to Cheney, Kerry plans to eliminate a number of expiring tax cuts. He then put pencil to paper and showed how Kerry's arithmetic was off by $1 trillion. A trillion is a thousand billion. That's a lot of arithmetic. How could John Kerry be such a little liar? "It takes little imagination to figure out just how he would fill that tax gap," explained Cheney, who predicted "a major new tax increase on the workers, entrepreneurs and inventors of this country." Even the inventors? You mean that nice old man down the street with the apparatus in his basement? The inventor of the pocket duckhunter? Yes, even him. Then he dropped the cluster bomb, signaling the finale and causing many in the chamber to gather their blankets and beers and begin the long trek to find their cars. Every burst was another Kerry NO vote on tax relief. NO to the 10% bracket! NO to cutting the marriage tax penalty! NO to reducing the tax rate on dividend income! NO to expanding the child tax credit! "All of these 'no' votes now form the basis of Senator Kerry's economic plan," Cheney lied. "This is the record of a senator who will speak out against higher taxes when it suits the political moment, but is one of the most reliable pro-tax votes in the United States Senate." John Kerry, in a stunning betrayal of class, admitted privately that he plans to "stick it" to "the rich," who he defines as a taxpayer making more than $200,000 per year! You try raising children on that! Kerry pledged to expand tax breaks for the middle class, or anyone who makes under $200,000. Who's that going to benefit? Some cab driver who doesn't even speak English? John Kerry, whose language is described as "dreadful" by self-respecting Republicans, like when he fell down on his snowboard -- a 60 year old man snowboarding! -- falls down of course: says, "I don't fall down" then mutters the F word! (You'll never find Dick Cheney doing that) -- said President Bush's economic policy had cost Americans 3 million jobs and was driving gasoline prices toward $3 a gallon. What a little liar that little liar is, not to mention his filthy mouth and his known philandering and alcoholic, first-husband-obsessed wife and his horrible children that he keeps hidden from the press and also his first wife whom he drove crazy with depression until she had to leave him and write a book about it, not about their marriage, but about depression, which the Republican party plans to put on the bestseller lists, even though it's quite complimentary about John; nobody has to know that. Kerry accused the Bush campaign of "running a campaign of untruths, of misleading America. They're running a campaign in March of mid-October desperation." Well, that's just a pile of crap is all that is. Desperate? A tax-and-spend Liberal, that's right, we're using the L word, is calling the Republicans desperate? Ha. We know we are but what are you?

Why I Switched Parties

CW FISHER Yesterday I listened to NPR all day, the hearings, you know -- all too much to absorb, plus I was in the car, I couldn't take notes, didn't have my recorder. Had the camera! No help. Multi-tasking is bullshit. My mom used to call it doing everything at once. So I sat back and drove through the country. Nice. Hit 60 today. Gray day, misty. Wasn't Clarke terrific? When I got back to the office I didn't feel like slogging through transcripts looking for applause lines, blogging on the big stuff. Besides, everybody else was doing it. So I decided to be a big picture guy. I took a nap. When I awoke, I checked Blogcritics to see if I had any new comments to my last post. Yes, a few. Attached to my 600-word essay was the entire Republican briefing book, annotated. I'd made the mistake of being equanimous in spreading guilt around the various presidents who have dragged our country through their many misadventures, and I guess fellow blogger David Flanagan thought it was a barn door through which they could all escape. It was wonderful! Like a party at my post! First time that's happened. And I really didn't have to do a thing, including participate. Man, it was nice to be popular. I don't normally get a lot of comments. I mean, what's to say about the "Don't-Buy-It" diet? Come on! So I walked around with a plate of cheeseballs and listened and wondered: What does one say to a Republican? "What kind of car you driving?" "Did your bonus come through?" "You ever played Oak Brook?" Eventually something made me angry. I wrote some turgid prose, deleted it, wrote some more and backspaced through it, played solitaire, got depressed. Napped. Got over it. Now I'm picking up where I left off. God, I love these hearings. It's such good clean fun to watch these big shot arrogant mothereffers get deloused by microwaves. This stuff is every bit as thrilling as the Watergate Hearings and seems to be following a similar pattern: testimony unfolds, leaving in its wake newly minted heroes and villains. Either's and Or's. Don Rumsfeld, cornered, retreats to his CEO roots and bizpeak, "healing the seams" between CIA and State, the phony, scared to death, only too happy to have Wolfowitz, who truly looks his name, step in and save the day, setting the record straight on some metaphor somebody used to describe him somewhere that nobody remembered but he wanted it on the record that he resented it. Twenty minutes of witlessness from Wolfowitz damn near ran me off the road. Narcissism is a word in desperate need of understanding. Even though Condoleezza Rice hasn't testified in public, it's clear that Dr. Rice (just the fact she enjoys being called "Dr." is telling), is nothing less than an Executive Secretary whose job it is to protect the president from incorrect facts, inappropriate people and manners unbecoming. She replaces Karen Hughes, who replaced his tutor, whom he depended on through junior high and much of high school, who replaced his mother, who gave up early. Sometimes I think maybe these hearings could help "heal the seam" between the two Americas. As our nation gradually radicalizes, slowly, the way a pot of pasta water gradually heats up, I see us heading for Lincoln's house divided. It's not just us. Other houses around the world are dividing rapidly: Iraq, Israel, Spain, Britain, Russia. What the hearings are exposing is the danger of radical ideology. The element that is creating the most dangerous radicals quickest is the compound created by three parts politics and one part religion. This compound creates a third thing much worse than the first two, and entirely different from either. It is malignant, not benign, and this is always true. It's true in every country and every religion: Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism. Radicals are nuts. They don't listen. They have crazy ideas that are wrong. They have it in mind that they're right, end of argument. And there is something appealing in that position, especially to people who have been sidelined or beaten up a lot. It's called "having enough." Now the other side is radicalized. No one will live through it. The problem with radicals is they kill without batting a lash. They won't say so but they enjoy it. They have given way to a raging id that literally sweeps them up and has its way with them. Radicals are dangerous people who believe to the bottoms of their socks they are absolutely doing the right thing. They cannot be dissuaded from strapping a bomb to their own waist even as their children cry mama don't. Vengeance will be theirs because they have crossed that point of no return and there is no turning back. And there is no stopping revenge killings, from Ireland to the Hatfield's and McCoy's, to George W. Bush and Arial Sharon, to Hamas, al Qaeda, Bill Clinton, or Harry S Truman. Truman was Man with a Good Idea who thought up Israel. Everybody thought it was a Good Idea too, except the people who lived there already, who weren't asked. After all the violence, I am personally so disgusted that I say enough. Everybody out. If you can't play nicely, you can't play at all anymore. You blew it. Get out of paradise. Get out of the Holy Land. This Promised Land wasn't promised to Israel by the United Nations; it was promised to Man by God. The three major religions who claim it holy defile it every day. The world, through the UN, should say as one: disperse. You blew it. Get out. And it should be turned into a World Park, owned by the unnamed God we all agree on, the one that smiles down like the man in the moon and acts just like a Canadian. The J-man tried to tell us. But the promised land, and all the problems that have flowed from it, was exactly what he promised. If we had taken care of it, things would be ducky. If we didn't, things would go like this. It's why he talked about forgiveness, because it's the only way to stop the domino effect. If you're a domino with legs, you take a step to the left, you save the world. Get out of the way. Don't add to it. Cheeseball?

Clarke Bomb Hits Clinton

CW FISHER Richard Clarke recently insisted on CBS's 60 Minutes that there never "ever" was a link between al Qaeda and Iraq, only to have a 1999 article surface in which he is quoted making that very assertion. Its sudden appearance has Roving reporter written all over it, especially with Clarke and Clinton up to testify. Damn fine entertainment. Does the 1999 bombing of the El Shifa Pharmaceutical plant in Sudan ring a bell? It probably won't, because it didn't get a lot of press five years ago. Of course, back then we lived in a pre-September 11 world. Things were different then, only because we didn't know what we know today, which is that we've been targets all along. Something else we know now too. US espionage is a joke. Let's take another look at the bullet hole in Clarke's chest. On January 23, 1999, Richard Clarke, who occupied the newly created post of national coordinator of counterterrorism and computer security programs under President Clinton, was interviewed by the Washington Post. The excerpt: "Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance (nerve gas) was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan." What's funny is the irony. Clarke spinning the way the Bushies are spinning right now, for the same reasons. He got caught playing Espionage, International Game of Deceit and Subterfuge. The Clintonites put it on the Iraqis, same as the US had done for years. Bill Clinton, in retaliation for several bin Laden-sponsored acts of terror, launched his own series of terrorist attacks, missile style, under the premise that a bomb's a bomb. One of his seven targets was the El Shifa Pharmaceutical plant, which, US intelligence asserted, was producing nerve gas. Their evidence: the presence of the chemical Empta on the grounds surrounding the plant. Empta, when mixed with water and bleach, becomes V-X nerve gas, according to a 1999 article posted by web logger Scott Loughrey citing a pair of articles in Covert Action Quarterly (CAQ, Winter, 99). How could Clinton know the parking lot was rife with powdered nerve gas, but not know the facility produced half of Sudan's medicine and 90% of the most critically needed drugs? Turned out, he didn't. Well, their information might have been wrong. Well, the Empta turned out to be roundup. Roundup. Roundup is a weed killer that weekend warriors use too much of. This one, El Shifa, was Clinton's baby. El Shifa was what he should have been impeached for. As to Mr. Clarke, I would say his testimony is about as impugned as everybody else's. His impunity is just a lot more irrelevant now that he's retired. The truth will squeeze out the sides. One thing is becoming clear as a bigger picture puts itself together: this problem is bigger than George Bush. Unlike our Justice Department, our Intelligence is blind. Deaf and dumb too. We're in big trouble when our presidents -- note the plural -- are empowered to use American military power at their discretion and without the approval of Congress based on faulty or imagined intelligence. I was thinking it ought to be illegal when it hit me: it is. There appears to be enough dereliction of duty to go around.

Don't-Buy-It Diet -- Part 2

CW FISHER Life without a belly is different. I was tying my shoes when I noticed I was breathing normally. Getting into the car was suddenly easier. Walking was like skipping; my feet didn't hurt. There was a spring in my step and bounce in my knees. Even my face felt tighter when I was shaving. I fell on this diet by happy accident. I wasn't trying to lose weight. I didn't care what people thought about my pot belly. I was single mindedly pursuing something else: a book I was writing. I was trying to change my entire life all at once, something no expert would recommend. I'm unqualified to give advice. I don't know beans about nutrition. All I know is that I lost weight and kept it off, and the key to my weight loss was poverty. Wait! Don't go! You don't have to lose everything just to drop a few pounds. There's an easier route, and it takes you past Fast Food Row, then safely down the aisles of your grocery store. It's all about preventive dieting. About not putting yourself in a position to eat what makes you fat. We begin your diet with a trip to McDonald's. Order whatever you want, and get yourself a sundae. Please don't think of this as your last supper. The Don't-Buy-It Diet requires fast food before grocery shopping. Because it's true: if you shop hungry, you'll overbuy. You are now armed with energy from fat, carbs and sugar -- enough for up to two hours before you crash and burn, at which point you're completely worthless. Go directly to the grocery store. Walking in, I want you to notice something. You have no book, no guide, no notes, no calorie counters, no head full of crap, no theories about garlic. You have a nice full belly and an empty cart. Your new diet begins here in the grocery store. Your first trip will take you twice as long as usual and you'll be buying about half as much -- a major benefit, but beside the point. Still, I prefer for you to focus on things that are beside the point, because obsessing about fat makes you fat. Obsessing about fat makes you fail. Failure makes you hesitant to try again. Those of you who believe you can never change, change your mind. Because you're wrong. Change your mind and everything else will change behind you. The Don't-Buy-It Diet works because the decision not to buy something is easier than the decision not to eat something. Potato chips unbought will remain uneaten. Before the voice in your head has a chance to rebel at the thought of a chipless world, hear this: my diet is so permissive it's almost promiscuous. You will enjoy foods you like. You will lose weight eventually, but the moment you look for evidence, your diet is over. You will tell no one you're on a diet, because you're not. Your shopping is. When roommates or family members complain there's nothing to eat, just say, "Hm," and leave it to them to figure out that if they want something specific they can get it themselves. Next up: Dangerous Aisles.

September 12, 2001

CW FISHER I could tell you every detail of September 11, of what I was doing when I heard that an airliner hit the World Trade Center. But the day after? I have to think a bit, but I can come up with it. Mostly I remember how I felt: angry, hopeless, spilling over with grief, afraid, reactionary, prone to overstatement, given to tantrums over religious ideas that could justify murder. If on that day I'd seen Osama bin Laden at the White Hen I would have ripped his heart out and squished it on the floor. On that day, when I closed my eyes and saw bin Laden, I saw myself coming up behind him, I saw myself massage his shoulders and neck, I saw myself gently but firmly twist his head in a full circle, three times, followed by one decisive yank; I saw myself insert my thumb in his nose and two fingers through his eyes and roll his head like a bowling ball down a rocky mountain -- I heard a satisfying, hollow pop when it hit a rock. I was writing a show at the time and we were less than two weeks out. All the speeches had to change, the humor stripped out. We needed tributes to firefighters, a moment of silence, maybe a prayer. Definitely a rewrite. I remember resenting the do-over and feeling guilty about resenting it, knowing as I did how everyone's life had been interrupted, not just mine. I resented it anyway. The reason I'm sharing all this personal information, including a confession to a double murder on a single victim, is hard to explain. Like an itch just out of reach, or a star you can't see without looking away from it, or a drop of mercury you've been asked to pick up, I'm trying to say the unsayable. What was our aggregate feeling on September 11, 2001? How close did we come to feeling the same? I thought we shared one heart in the days and weeks following. There was twisted metal in every soul, but there was also unity, fearlessness and unbreakable resolve. It was our finest hour. At least that's how it seemed to me. I'm disturbed by revelations about our president's behavior on September 12, 2001, about his keen interest in seeing this horrible event tied to Saddam. The depth of a soul can be measured by a reasonable pair of human eyes. These people are dangerous.

CW's Don't-Buy-It Diet

Part One. Once there was a man who couldn't see his feet. For years he longed to see them again. He could hear them so he knew they were there. He tried everything. He cut out alcohol, lost a little but gained it back elsewhere; cut back on fat, ate more salad, exercised consistently off and on, cut out candy, ate only fruit, then only meat. Everything worked, but only in his imagination. Then one horrible day the fat man and his wife had a big fat fight, and the fat man exiled himself to a faraway land to sulk, living in an attic over a garage with no heat or plumbing so his wife, who was skinny, would feel real real bad. It was a dramatic time of the man's life. After many years of wanting to tell the whole world to go to hell, he was finally getting around to doing it. He began a novel, learned how to make do without plumbing, discovered that a rabbit hat with flaps makes a big difference when you can see your breath inside for longer than two weeks, and that it's possible to write fiction on a computer wearing gloves, but not mittens. When the man got the flu and couldn't get out of his blankets on the floor to get water or answer the phone, his wife broke into his hideaway, carried his fat ass down the stairs and took him to the hospital where he was revived from dehydration and sent home. Even then he was still too fat. He returned to his hideaway where his novel was screaming, "Write me!" and he did. He got a better heater and typed through spring and into summer, 6,000 words at a sitting with a 40-minute nap between, then back on it. His phone never rang because he never answered it anyway. Things got done. One day, passing a mirror in the mirror section of Wal-Mart, which was on the way to the public toilets he now favored, he noticed a man he'd never seen before: hair long and wild, beard a crazy gray, and no belly. Looking down he saw his feet and realized the miracle had happened. Whatever he'd done it had worked, and he had to tell America about it, because if it worked for him, it would work for America! Then he went poo. Those who expect me to cop to being this man can kiss my bony ass. Let's just say we're very close. Over the next month, I'll be blogging on the Don't-Buy-It Diet. It's a very simple concept with easy to understand guiding principles which I have managed to stretch out and expand and complicate beyond recognition for purposes of attracting a publisher or at least a few readers who appreciate the humor of trying to read yourself thin. Stick with me and I'll show you how to not only see your feet, but your ribs.

A Year After Shock and Awe

CW FISHER It's a windy day in DeKalb, Illinois, as it often is this time of year. It's the first anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad, and two planned demonstrations are underway: one for peace, and one for supporting the troops. Whatever they're chanting, the wind yanks away; their signs wrap them up like hot dogs. Driving through the middle I am right where I should be, since I am for peace, and I am for supporting the troops. I am for people shouting at the wind. I am against people pissing in it. It was windy too in Iraq a year ago when 100,000 American men and women left their lives behind, fought their way through sandstorms to deliberately put themselves in harm's way. A year ago we marveled at satellite phones and their ability to put us in the center of history as it was made. We stared for hours at roaring brown screens as the American moms and dads, sons and daughters pushed toward an unknown welcome in Baghdad. Back then when AmeriCo CEO Dick Cheney assured us the Iraqi people would give us "open arm welcome," our military was expecting Saddam Hussein to use chemical and biological weapons. We were primed for whatever he could dish out. First we had to destroy the country, in what was called "softening the target." We had to take out the power grid, the water supply, communications, airports, roads, hospitals, schools, some of which was not intentional, but that's war. If we had known then what we know now, we probably wouldn't have wrecked Iraq, because there was no military advantage to it, as it turned out. Neither Saddam nor his armies nor his people were prepared for the shock and awe of Shock and Awe. Now somebody has to rebuild the country, at a cost of billions of dollars to you and me. Freedom isn't cheap when Halliburton plans a war. Looking back through a lens of a year's worth of revelations, how different it all looks now. Nothing happened the way we expected. We found no air resistance; we bombed targets at will. Thousands of Iraqi people died. We don't know how many and we're not going to ask, but so far the minimum is 11,000 and the figure could be closer to 50,000. These are the costs of war to which we are wise to pay no heed, for if we did it would quickly bring any war to an end. But this was all before we knew that there wasn't much to know about Saddam Hussein. This was before we knew that Saddam was retired and hard at work on his second novel, which was set to become a musical, with Saddam himself as executive producer. He was deeply involved with the project, the way that writers get, and couldn't be interrupted. He'd been like this for years. We didn't know. Nor did we anticipate that his army would strip themselves of uniform and disappear. It could have been a brilliant trap or self preservation in the face of the inevitable. Or a brilliant trap. Many voices are now calling Americans to use the anniversary to honor our troops rather than protest the war. I think every day is a good day to honor our troops because they are giving their country everything they've got and if need be their lives. For us they never knew when they might meet sudden death. More than one of them died every day. The first of them are now coming home. Mental wounds are as serious as physical wounds. If we question this principle, we will dishonor our troops. If our senators voted for $87 billion to destroy a country, then they can't scream poor when the time comes to pay for the human toll. The only response to honor is honor. Parades can't pay them back, statues won't do it either. Honor shares a Latin root with honesty, and the truth is we've all been lied to by dishonorable men. The fault is not with the troops.

Who's trying to kill the Sierra Club?

CW FISHER America's most powerful environmental advocate, the Sierra Club, is in real danger of having its agenda hijacked and reversed. Somebody, right now, is in the process of trying to take it over. Three seats on the board are at risk of being filled by three anti-immigration candidates, and the club's membership knows nothing about these candidates, which was how the interlopers planned it. Why would three anti-immigration candidates want to serve on the board of an environmental group? In this case, to change the organization's direction. The environmental connection is that overpopulation is destroying America, and that sounds reasonable to me. But... ...anti-immigration people? I haven't heard the term. It sounds... loaded, fully loaded with divisive potential, sort of a dirty political bomb, gets everybody hopping mad and not gonna take it anymore. Damn if it doesn't sound like Rove. But it's not. Why would anti-immigration people who have no name, who share such a precise agenda, executed on an exacting timetable, not just infiltrating the Sierra Club but other social activist organizations, according to Groundswell Sierra, a club publication. Who are these guys? Their names are Dick Lamm, Frank Morris, and David Pimentel; they may have been advanced by a group called 'SUSPS.' It's unclear if this is an acronym or just coincidentally an extremely difficult word to say, and almost impossible to whisper. Say it. Got to be Karl... I just think it's funny. Three candidates have no Sierra Club experience but "hold interlocking roles on the governing Boards of outside anti-immigration organizations, some of whom are actively seeking to influence the Sierra Club's election," according to the club. Quick background -- and this has NOTHING to do with this story, okay? The Sierra Club is the same organization that brought a suit to the Supreme Court asking it to require Vice President Dick Cheney to make public all transcripts of his meetings with his energy advisory committee which included executives from Enron and Haliburton. This is the same lawsuit that just today provoked a 21-page tantrum from Justice Antonin Scalia in response to the Sierra Club's request that he recuse himself on the basis of his friendship with Cheney. All of which is probably beside the point and has nothing to do with the strange group of weirdos who are trying to shut down, yes, shut down, the Sierra Club (at least as we know it). Sounds like Karl Rove... but it's not. It is a quiet group of people without a name who came from nowhere. People who hate foreign people. Susps. Susps.

Impeach Scalia

A justice of the Supreme Court that appointed George Bush wants to know why his friendship with Dick Cheney should recuse him from judgment on a case before the court that involves the vice president. Antonin Scalia, who may or may not know a thing or two about the law, obviously has much learn about human nature. "If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined," Scalia wrote in a defiant 21-page memorandum, according to the New York Times. So cheap? "So cheap." Nino, what are you saying here? You can't be bought cheap? Then tell us how much. How many ducks, how many trips, how many male-bonding jokes and claps on the back to make you feel alive again, one of the boys, free for once of your robes and that Ginsberg bitch, finally hanging with the real men, shooting off real guns? So "cheap." Nino, Nino, Nino. Your judgment is way off. There is never, under any circumstances, cause for a 21-page memorandum on any subject, let alone ducks. All this exercise demonstrates is your emotional attachment to a buddy. Yes, you should be recused. Shame on you, moron. A 21-page rant. This is something I want to read in its entirety: it is sure to provide a fruit basket of delicious quotations. The case, which is being brought against the vice president by the Sierra Club,* involves the club's unsuccessful attempts to obtain information about what transpired in private meetings of the vice president's energy task force in 2001. You may remember this case. It involved "Kenny Boy" Lay and the Enron gang, among others, before the fall of Enron and the Iraq war. This information, if obtained, could easily contain smoking guns. Tony, who was one of the five American voters who elected George W. Bush President of the United States said that other justices have partied at Dick's house, in fact, just this last Christmas, a Christian holiday celebrating economic excess. "A rule that required members of this court to remove themselves from cases in which official actions of friends were at issue would be utterly disabling," Scalia wrote. Disabling? Meaning you couldn't do your job if you couldn't party with the same people you may have to judge one day? Disabling? There is a law against this sort of thing, correct? This justice needs to be disabled permanently. What's the procedure for impeachment of a Supreme Court Justice? I'm going to hunt for that 21-page salute to stupidity. Let's all go duck hunting. Hey, Nino. Duck.

Mars Too Cool

CW FISHER I'm no scientist, but when an apple hits my head, who knows? It could be gravity. I've got it in my head that we're all headed to Mars. I'm seeing underground everythings, and everything's the same as everywhere now, Wal-Marts and McDonald's, Jennifer Lopez movies at Multiplex theatres, all of it so vast you'd never even know you were underground. We're headed to Mars. I'm thinking about Mars these days, feisty little planet, always in the news. I often get the feeling it's just waiting for a Bugsy Siegel to see it for what it is: paradise, of some sort. If we could just get enough toys up there and enough cameras we could have a helluva robot war, take bets, big business, help pay for it and then some. Bush is so excited he wants to go there. We want him to go there too. But by the time the bus is ready, he'll be long gone anyway. I want to know where the water went. Last week we found a rock that proved the existence of water on Mars, not just snow, ice or vapor of some sort, but chemical evidence of what we know as water. So where is it? Come on! We know, man, I mean, we know that Mars was swirling with something and lots of it and we've known it for years. If it was water, which it probably was, then where in the name of Pete did it go? Nobody knows, yet, but the short version of current plausible theories combined is: 1) much of it may have been lost to the atmosphere and then to space because of low gravitational pull after some catastrophic event, and/or 2) much of the water is underground in a seasonal cycle of freezing and boiling. Maybe the seas come when the water boils. Maybe the season takes centuries to turn. It's enough to give any realtor the shivers. Still, there is the promise of water. And the boiling and freezing part sounds like energy to me, and a little Robert Frost. Water, doesn't that mean life? Oxygen? Hydrogen? Am I nuts or did Total Recall nail it? Except for that boiling part. And probably the eye-bugging part. And the three-breasted mutant part. The Johnny Cabs we'll see in Singapore this spring. I demand answers. I'm tired of these questions hanging right in front of us like a bigass moon. Even the origin of the moon is still in dispute. Let's not quibble over Mars. We know what it is. Mars is condemned by all known literature to be nothing but trouble. They don't call it the "red planet" for nothing. This essential "badness" is the very thing that will draw humans to it like a drug. We are going to Mars, people. Get used to the idea. I got in trouble recently for saying money would never be a problem for space exploration. Historically, money has always been the problem, but until recently the economic base of the space program was not quite capitalism as we know it. We're out of the Lewis & Clark phase and into the pioneer stage. As earthly boundaries are transcended, a new economy will be needed, with emoney issued by borderless banks. Cash stations without cash. Credits, in other words. Oh, my God, what's happening? And Arnold Scwartzenegger is governor! And all I can think of is Mars! Johnny Cab!

Open Letter to Kerry's Guy

CW FISHER John Kerry is coatless, circling a small stage like an inmate in solitary, talking to himself like Hamlet: "This administration... this president... this White House..." I am watching him on C-Span. I'm concerned. He looks haggard already. It's only March. David Wade, do your job. Your guy is all over the place. Execute a clean bitch slap and sit his ass down on a short chair. Add duct tape and a gag. Walk over to the VCR. Pop in a tape of his latest town meeting. "John," you say, "did Howard steal your coat? Because it'll be down to his knees. "Mr. Kerry, the American people don't want a shirtsleeve president. The last thing we want is a one-man band. We want a president who can lead. At a minimum that takes eye contact. You have got to stop talking to yourself, John. Lift up your head. The floor doesn't vote. "You've done a fine job bashing President Bush, but you're beginning to sound like my neighbor. People love to grouse, but they hate to listen to it. "If you want to be president, separate the issues from topics. Same sex marriage is a topic; civil rights, an issue. Address issues not with complaints, but solutions. Don't whine, don't blame: if you do it now, you'll do it when you're president. We don't want to hear about 'the congress' this and 'the republicans' that. Smite them. "In talking policy, never forget that Americans live on credit. If we don't like our bill, we go bankrupt, start over. We get by on good looks. If we don't like our looks, we have surgery. If we don't like our problems, we ignore them. If our leaders ignore them too, everything's peachy. "But we don't hire leaders who like to noodle out the giant problems in public -- deficits, tax hikes, social security, health care. You can't solve that stuff, you can only shake your head and fall asleep. Leaders like that are destined for subcommittees. "There is your dilemma, Mr. Kerry. While George Bush may have created many of these problems, it's not enough for you to simply point them out. You need to tell us what you propose. We don't need to be scared any more than we already are. Tell us your plan. Describe for us that shining city on the hill. Paint the picture. "Shut up about Nam; let others talk about it. Leave the past; we're in desperate search of a future. "Seize the menu and tell us what's on it. Talk about some things nobody else is talking about. Like mental health care. Put the argument in terms of the men and women returning home from war. Many will be depressed, some suicidal, others homicidal, some with drug addictions now, some with addictions to come. The truth is that war is hell for its warriors years after wars are 'over.' There's an example of a defining issue that spans multiple topics. "Here's another: China. The mainstream press has made it a story about all the jobs that China is sucking out of the U.S., but this is very old news. What's new is we've noticed there's no water in the tub. China is no longer a 'sleeping giant.' It's awake, and the exponential aspects of its economy are kicking in. China is already outsourcing jobs to South Korea. The China story is not about loss, but potentiality. Laws of nature dictate that the majority rules -- if they have the cash to back it up -- and China's getting richer. Good news? Bad news? Depends on how we dance. "See what I'm saying here, Mr. Kerry? Do you?" Mr. Kerry will nod enthusiastically here, but, David, before you rip off the tape you must make certain he won't scream or fire you. If it happens, have him contact me and my buddies. He needs jokes.

A Britney That Will Not Die

CW FISHER I spent 20 minutes with my head in the oven before I remembered: it's electric. I am not blaming Britney Spears for this bad idea on my part, not directly. She did the right thing today by promising not to shoot a music video depicting her suicide. MTV got their hands on the treatment, published it to their Web site, and soon the comments poured in. People whose brothers and sisters had killed themselves were particularly vocal. Moved by these letters Britney Spears decided against shooting the scenes. Sort of. According to Britney's handlers, Britney would have never approved that treatment. Britney herself said nothing and probably learned of it the way we did, by reading it, or by having it read to her. It's quite possible she's unaware of any of it. Britney rarely does any of her own thinking or speaking; I learned why when I saw her being interviewed. Under that blond hair is a really shallow dumb person with marginal talent who has captured the imagination of--me, actually. I do pause when she pops up, and I don't attribute it to the music. I don't know what it is about her. It's undeniable, unearned and unjust. That's not why I had my head in the oven either but it's getting closer. I googled the word "buzz" and it spat back Yahoo Buzz Index, which I thought was ironic. I was looking for blogging material. Of the top twenty subjects searched on Yahoo in the last 24 hours, week, month and year, Britney Spears is always on the list and very close to the top, followed by Jennifer Lopez but routinely bested (lately) by Paris Hilton. The Internal Revenue Service is also in the Top 20. Sadly, it was the only entry that interested me. That's why I had my head in the oven, that and a stew spill. You see, I don't want to live in a world that values Britney Spears. It's nothing against Britney. She'll only be around a few more years before she's Madonna, Annette, Cher, Marilyn or any other one-named chick except Oprah. Picture Britney at 40, a judge on American Idol. She'll be great. See? There is a future for her. But what about the rest of us? Stick your nose in this list for 20 seconds and see if it isn't curling. This is the stuff Yahoo's searchers are seeking -- and it's not just in America -- it's all around the world! Spain, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Britney, Paris, J-Lo. No culture left untainted. And what's at the very top of the heap, worldwide? Failed American Idol contestent William Hung. Welcome to Bizarro World.

Hubble Twubble

CW FISHER Tonight on 60 Minutes Bill Bradley gives the story on Hubble. As you've probably heard, NASA is shutting it down. Never mind that Hubble just got a shot that features 10,000 galaxies and shows "the universe the way it looked near the dawn of time." It's work is done. It needs a new gyroscope, new plugs, rotor, water pump; it's due to crash and burn in a few years. It is essentially space debris, not worth fixing. I don't cry easily, but this made me cry. I teared up. I had to get philosophical. Why mourn the vessel when we've still got the pictures? I slept on that, woke up pissed, searched the net to see how much of this was George Bush's fault, and either forgot what I was searching for or got interested in something else. Now I'm pissed again. I remember Bush saying we're going to Mars. It didn't catch on, so he never mentioned it again. He might as well have said, "We're going to McDonald's!" But what if that's why they're killing Hubble? That'd be a bitch, huh? What happened to us? Where's our willingness to boldly go where no human being has ever gone before? Back in the day of Star Trek, when time could be traveled as easily as an infinitive could be split, no one ever dreamed that time travel could ever be possible. Yet here it is in the Hubble. Time travel is now a reality, but unfortunately it's space junk. If the Hubble were just a telescope with a camera, it might make sense to let it drop. But Hubble is a type of time machine and its work is far from finished. There is a quiet race for a better model of the universe, a way for the human mind to more clearly grasp our place in the universe. Hubble may fall but it will not die. Hubble will be to the space program what the Casio digital watch once was to the consumer. It will be an accessory of the space station or some other shared platform which any visionary American president would be thinking about, and adjusting his actions to accommodate a climate of cooperation. Hint to Mr. Kerry. People out my way, 60 miles out of Chicago, haven't seen real stars or experienced actual night darkness in years. Last summer we thought we had the Northern Lights, turned out to be a new Wal-Mart. If you're curious about Hubble's future and the universe's past, it's on 60 Minutes on CBS.

Stealth Election in Progress

CW FISHER You're still here? Shouldn't you be poking chad? You do realize it's Tuesday, right? It's mid-term election day, time to fill some vacants seats and exercise our most basic responsibility: bitching about turnout. If you've spent a lifetime defending your voting record, trying to explain away those very few times when you didn't vote because you couldn't vote because of some work thing or because you were out of town or some other excuse -- just stop it right now. Take your guilt, take your shame, take all your tired old stories and flush 'em. In Spain, they have their elections on Sunday. The skin peeled off my eyes. The world made sense again. It wasn't us. It never was. We always cared. It's just a little hard sometimes on a Tuesday to get to and from work and then get our butts back to our home county to stand in line and hope we're registered to vote. We shouldn't feel guilty. We should feel stupid. The framers made voting hard on purpose. Tuesdays were free for the idle rich, and they didn't want to ruin the weekends of the working folk, so they called it for Tuesday and put it in the constitution so nobody would mess with it. Significantly, voting day is not designated a holiday. Schools are in session. Places of business do not close down. This is useful only for those countries that seek the fewest possible votes. Since Americans seem to be gripped by the idea of amending the constitution these days, maybe Senator Kerry could propose an amendment with some actual merit and reschedule voting for the first Sunday of January. At the least, the move would provide a comparison between a useful amendment and a hateful amendment that will legalize bigotry. The amendment "protecting marriage" proposed by President Bush is a move to rejoin church and state that will have profound consequences on American culture by handing the Christian Right even more power to create their own Taliban, American-style. Bush, who doesn't believe in big government, who believes big government created most of the problems of society, wants to transform marriage into a sacrament of the state--not to get government too involved in our lives. (See, it's less government with a more intense focus on problem people and how best to marginalize them). What do you think? Am I off base here? Do you think a constitutional amendment to change voting day to the first Sunday of January is a good idea? Should it be declared a holiday?

Ken "Dahl" in talks

CW FISHER What do you tell a man who won't grow up, who's living in a dream that happened in the past, a dream that's over? And why should it fall to me? I barely know the guy -- he's all broke up inside: no kids, never married, no sex, she wants out. After 43 years! Ken and I go back a ways -- we were never friends. He was my sister's. Me and Ken on a rainy day might have a date or a series of horrible car accidents or cause an explosion at our very own wedding, but that's how it was when sisters trusted brothers to play Barbies. Someone must die, frequently and explosively until mom is gotten. This was the game as I understood it. For forty-three years those two were like this, and with one flick of a press release, Mattel released Ken from his contract, sending him back into the workforce at the age of 59, stripped of any further association with Barbie, who is seeking an order of protection. "I loved that woman," he said to me privately. "The Midge thing was a rumor. It happened when Barbie went Malibu." He stared off into space looking all his nearly 60 years. Ken is, in fact, a survivor of abuse at the hands of boys and teeth of dogs. He sees me staring. "Go ahead, stare, try to picture me when, everybody else does it; notice she still looks great, of course, she got all the new technologies, and me, well, I always said I don't need it." Here he breaks down. Today he learned he can no longer use his last name without a spelling change. Funny though. Through it all, the guy still looks sixteen. "So many surgeries she had!" I can barely understand him, but I let him go on. "By the time it was over she was a completely different person." I've seen what this guy can do when he gets worked up, so I put him back in the box where he couldn't do any damage. I had a few things to tell him. "In the first place," I said, "Barbie Mattel is a bitch. You think Britney Spears is bad?" Immediate argument. Ken's all over it. Barbie's smarter, Barbie's easier to talk to, Barbie's a better dancer, better singer, better lover, on and on. "Ken!" I had to shake him. "Wake up, little buddy, it's over, man, the end of the long free ride. Ken, you've been released. Mattel doesn't want you around. Nobody used the word discontinued. Nothing unusual happening on eBay -- yet." He perked up. "Kenny Boy," I said, "it seems to me that with Mattel putting you out to pasture and your rights worth about nothing... maybe we should snarf up those rights and work you over a bit, get rid of that accent, some new clothes, accessories like beards and bald tops and beer bellies, tattoos." He was like putty in my hands. "Then we put the whole thing on the stage. "Ken and Barbie, How It Was, What Happened, and Why Nothing Good Will Ever Happen Again: The Musical. Tom Hanks, Ken. Tom Hanks is Ken. And Barbie. Puh. She could be made out of plastic for all it matters, like Pamela Anderson." I'm holding him like an Oscar, thinking: it all goes in the screenplay, the Vietnam years, the day GI Joe showed up with all his cool action gear-- it broke Ken's heart. Ken, who'd never been allowed outside, was forced to remain the ideal of a little girl who'd forgotten all about him. Barbie, that whoring bitch. High tragedy and low comedy all mixed up in bad music and too much pink, yes, but if Ken can be had cheap, shouldn't he be grabbed?

Frozen Woman Season Nearly Over

CW FISHER You've heard the story: an old lady lives alone, newspapers start piling up at her door, cops take a look and find her sitting in front of the television, frozen solid. It's not an urban myth. It's a common occurrence in cities and towns around the world. And for reasons unexplained it seems to strike women, rather than men. A frozen woman is hard to forget. About a year ago we had one not too far from here: woman lived across the street from the golf course in a very nice house in an upscale neighborhood of a quaint little town. I read about it in the paper, recognized the address. It was cold and snowy and the police became curious due to a consistent lack of tracks in the snow, a situation they rectified by pulling into the driveway and trompsing about. Everything looked fine from the front, but the drapes were closed, so they went around to the back and noticed a hole in the roof the size of a Cadillac. They climb up, look inside. Floor to ceiling junk and stuff jammed too tight for human entry, and except for the snowy, windswept parts, the livingroom teemed with life: cats, mice, roaches, fungi living together under one half of a roof. Cops say, hm... where's the homeowner? wonder what's in the garage? They pop the door, walk inside -- it's dense but not full yet. There's an igloo of newspaper in the corner. It's cold. It's a garage in February. They find her sitting on an easy chair in a newspaper nest, kitty kat on her lap, curled up and dead, both of them stiff as statues. I googled the story, didn't find it but found similar stories in London and Toronto and Boston, which led me to conclude we were in the middle of another pandemic like the one I predicted a month ago (involving birds). This one, however, is sure to come, because whatever phase of life the baby boomers are going through, the whole damn world is sure to get dragged along. The Frozen Woman story usually follows a pattern: a widow, left alone with a huge house that's all paid for, kids gone, friends long lost, depression sets in, bills piled up, stuff gets turned off, calls that don't come, cold sets in, they fall asleep one night, freeze to death and are found a few months later. Sad. Seems like it ought to be preventable. The good news is on the job front. If you're looking to earn less than minimum wage trading in your life to take care of somebody else's, immediate openings are available. In-home nursing care, round the clock or 12 hour, is rapidly becoming the career of no-choice for white collar baby boomers who have been forced into early retirement only to learn the real value of what they used to call their "401k." Lacking real-world skills, such as butt wiping and mac-n-cheese making, is a problem that can only be overcome in the presence of total humility of the kind caused by completely empty pockets. Tonight or tomorrow, ring the neighbor's doorbell and bring them a gift, some small thing, just to say hello. It could easily be to your mutual good fortune.

How Tortured My Loathing

CW FISHER Hell is spelled HTML. Some people think "HTML" stands for "hypertext markup language," but it was actually named for its birthplace, the HOTEL MOTEL, as they call it when all the letters are lit. Here in the hotel, if one needs to boldface, one need only walk a short distance down the hall and make the first left, an immediate right--and remember to enclose everything in carats, for reasons known to . To find the toilet, shift View to HTML and locate src=img:"toilet.gif" and stare at it until your urge to urinate gradually goes away. Now forget why you're there and what it was you were doing, and why everything in HTML looks like email from Radio Shack circa 1981. Step behind the curtain, ladies and gentlemen, see how websites are made! Pardon the mess, excuse the dust, oh, you don't like that font? You don't like that font? Me tell you something. That font was good enough for your grandfather, it's good enough for you. Font! Ha! In the land of HTML everyone knows something you don't, but you don't know what it is. You suspect it would help if you purchased web space, but you've heard that involves money, and you don't normally spend money on things you don't understand. Why is the sky #d7d7fd? Why is the sun #f6f90b? Ask. You won't like the answers either. I keep wondering why my blog is spaghetti-puke pink. But I'm told it's not. It's #c3b0ac. Today I republished my entire blog -- and it looked great. Better at least. Then I noticed I lost the comments, so I put them back in. Then something else happened and something else and when I returned, I wasn't there. I was no longer there! So, after spending my Saturday hopscotching between programs, I gave up and restored everything back the way it was. And for this I was grateful! Which proves that the first requirement for any web aficienado is an endless capacity for boredom. Just keep pouring it in, keep pouring, keep it coming. Not this surfer boy. If you offer me advice, I can't promise I'll take it, but I will promise to get on a plane and come to your house no matter where in the world you live and slice you thinly and feed you to carp. If carp are convenient. Otherwise I'll put you in the meat drawer. Thanks in advance for your good intentions. No, I'll be fine now. I'm going to grab a nap and then whup myself into shape for tonight. What's tonight? Cybercide Saturday! I've still got bullets to file... nooses to tie...

Blogstalkers

CW FISHER Blogstalking is a relatively new phenomenon characterized by the appearance of an unrelenting series of unwanted comments at the end of an article, remarks that are typically insulting and confrontational. A good blogstalker can have six arguments cooking at the same time, but an excellent blogstalker can virtually shut down a site by simply goading everybody into a fight fight fight fight. Blogstalking should not be confused with its older cousin "cyberstalking," which grew out of chat rooms and soon became a favorite tool of the FBI, whose productivity took a nosedive the moment they discovered their laptops and couldn't stop playing with them. FBI agents, who tend to be men and women of action, became 13 year old girls and boys on the internet, liked it, stuck around. "Blogging," which was changed from "web logging" when somebody realized: no trees, is the act of publishing one's thoughts for the purpose of confirming one's existence while hiding one's true identity. The "blogosphere" is by nature a clean, well-lighted place where bloggers, who are writers, read each other and comment. The best place on earth for activity such as this, as far as I know, is Blogcritics.org, where even the stalkers are good writers. Most blogstalkers are disgruntled bloggers lugging an old grudge, fighting their inner demons on a world stage the size of the monitor, and some might even be drinking a smidge and get smudgy. Until now, there was no known way to deal with a blogstalker. Negotiation fails. Engagement of any sort is risky. Flesh rips easy in the sphere and revenge is quick as our wits which are quicker than most we might add--en garde! A war of words, clash of syllables, xylophonic weapons drawn, engagement thence decided, arrows slung, striped with "shan't" and "whilst." How nice if these exchanges were only the soporific musings of a few self-involved, self-publishing, self-imolating blogstalkers--but these aren't the blogstalkers -- these are the blogstalker's unwitting shills, the bloggers who react and write back indignant and reasoned replies that take them the better part of the afternoon to revise and rewrite, only to have the blogstalker right there when they post with a hook to the nose in language so insulting that if something regrettable isn't said it'll never be said at all. The shill, now stripped of face (which can even happen to anonymous people), hopes for the support of the greater blogging community, who have been known to rush out onto the field depending on what's on. Soon flies the eff word. The blogstalker, meanwhile, makes a sandwich. If you find yourself hunkered over the keypad, typing harder than usual, hitting the enter key like it's the answer pad in Family Feud, typing fast enough to do "geek breaks in" sfx, please consider: In responding you provide the blogstalker their raison d'etre. Deny them the stage, no raisons. No raisons, no raisonettes. Sometimes when everything is said, everything has been said. Those are the best times to say nothing.

The Glaring Solution to Eyestrain

CW FISHER Computers and eyestrain go together like lasagna and reflux. If you work at a computer -- and I know you do -- then you struggle with eyestrain all the time. This has made you cranky and frankly unbearable to live with. Get out. And while you're packing, consider this: I have the solution. You won't find it anywhere else, because I discovered it myself. In exchange for sharing my secret, all I ask is that you forward The Apologist to ten people, no more, no less. And remember: if you break the chain, bad luck could befall you! Why do your eyes hurt? Glare. Right now you're staring at a light source that is likely brighter than the rest of the room. Glare is exhausting. The iris, which is essentially a sphincter muscle, is constantly opening and closing to adjust either to the room or the screen. This muscle gets tired. If you've ever watched an automatic camera try to decide on an exposure when it's pointed toward a window, this is pretty much what your eye is doing. One day I got the nesting bug and started hanging pictures on the wall behind my computer. Then I found a clip light, clamped it to the back of my desk and splashed the wall with light from below. The light source was completely hidden behind the monitor. I liked my new set-up immediately. The pictures gave my eyes something else to look at, while providing a much-needed distraction from more important things. It was clear from the start that my eyes felt better. People began to comment. Hey, what happened to those ugly dark circles around your eyes? Hey, they put you on Viagra or something, maybe MiracleGro? Hey, you look nine pounds younger! Botox? It's not botox! God, I'm so sick of saying that all the time! All I did was balance the brightness of the monitor to everything else in my view. Keep in mind, though, your monitor emits light. Overcoming its direct rays can't be achieved by simply turning up the existing lights. The reason the wall-washer works is because it's an even, but very bright, reflected light, and most important: the source is completely hidden. Forget about fluorescents: they make it worse. Fluorescent light flickers and so does your screen. All that strobing flicks you up.

The Best Worst Day of My Life

CW FISHER I've been a freelance writer since 1978, and I've always worked at home. Solitude suits me. I became an observer of groups at a young age as the result of being thrown out of them. When they picked teams on the playground I was always last. My nickname was "No," as in "No! Don't shoot!" My name was often the last thing you'd hear just before the other team got the ball. When I was nine years old I founded the Jackson School Sports Club. It consisted of eight single-spaced typewritten pages, not just lists of people, places and equipment, but literate paragraphs spelling out the need for after school activities such as these. I worked on it for weeks and smiled to myself every recess because I knew something they didn't know. I'd decided on 25 members, all the boys in both 4th grade classes, but the typing was killing me. Xerox machines hadn't been invented. My mom said I could probably get it mimeographed at the office, but then I wouldn't have anything to type anymore. I did not finish typing all 25 manifestos because somewhere in the third copy I invented what is today known as "editing," a process by which a long document is made short by means of typing less. I was able to use everything, however, by carrying it around on my clipboard, my proudest object ever. "What is that?" they asked me. "Typing," I said. My pages were just as proud, curling up to show some leg. These were finished pages, embossed like Braille with whacks from my own Corona, bricked up solid floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I called everyone together for Saturday at the swingset and they all came, every last one, and clustered around me and my mysterious clipboard. I had practiced this speech, imagined it and reimagined it. I was already looking back on it fondly. And now here it was. I carefully unclipped the flyers and began to pass them out. "These are, just take one, this is a, I'm trying to tell you, this is, it's a sports club--" "All right, I'll take Deitelhoff." It was Dan Purdom, alpha man, responding to the groans. Gary Deitelhoff, my best friend who would be a 9th round NBA draft pick in 1974, stepped behind him, and Deutsch picked next. My flyers were chasing each other across the playground. I was picked last. The game began. It was the best worst day of my life, but it took me 40 years to realize it. All this time I thought it was a story about how I never fit in, and it turns out it was the story of how -- and why -- I became a writer. I still find groups difficult, but over time I've learned to deal with it, either by showing up in a funny-guy mask, or showing up late and leaving early, or by simply standing in a corner and smiling until it's over. Once or twice when the funny-guy mask didn't come off I'd stop showing up and hope somebody would come get me and beg me to return. Sometimes it's happened that way. Other times not. Withdrawal is awful. Returning to an empty place, once again defeated, is to plunge into the spongy lap of hopelessness and pray to disappear. In this fetid nest I keep the things I've known all along: that I'm no good, that I'm selfish, that I'm a loser and a compulsive basket shooter and the reason nobody likes me is I'm not likeable. What gets me out of my self pity is more self pity followed by months of additional self pity until my self is worn away and it just becomes pity, at which point I become one with the universe, not the alpha man I'd hoped for but a beta man for it. The Big Duh us always the same, that We're All The Same. Who hasn't desperately wanted to be part of a group? Who hasn't felt the ice of rejection? Who doesn't fear public humiliation more than death itself or even electrocution? On television, when somebody gets voted off the island or rejected by the bachelorette, or midgit, or real estate mogul, it resembles real life. Or does it? Is life just a series of judgements, those laid upon us, and those we lay on others? Is it simply a matter of who goes and who stays? Is this how we actually operate? Yesterday I lost a friend at Blogcritics. No, nothing like that, he just quit is all, fed up to here with criticism, well, blogcritics would be critical, but never mind that. I wrote him a long letter full of philosophy when I should have been posting, and I'm trying to figure out how to recycle it now that I received a rather perfunctory reply. There were some good lines, like: "We are all former somethings and current something elses on our way to something better." And "the web is a wicked web of massive deceit, every page another stage for someone else's conceit, and even when we join beneath a banner as a unit, we are liars sniping liars on a battleground of bullshit." I thought that was pretty good. I might put it to music. Or just add it to the top of the clipboard.

The Apologist BANNED IN CHINA!

CW FISHER After weeks of wondering why 10% of our hits have been coming from China, The Apologist just learned we have been BANNED IN CHINA! BANNED IN CHINA! We're so excited, we've reverted back to the "we." Whee! We must be doing something right! Banned... in China. ...diggin on th soun a dat... "The Apologist, banned in China, today issued a statement..." I wasn't even trying to get INto China! It was my friend that was doing it. Sending me all over the place. I appreciated it and told him so, but suddenly his penpals, who must be on some enormous chain, can't open me, us, it. Banned in China, Curt hung his head. I wasn't even trying to get INto China, he thought. What did I do? As The Apologist, he was compelled to either explain what he did or say sorry, but to whom, he wondered, and for what infraction? For jumping over the pronoun fence and calling himself ourself? flipping time zones and tenses as if it's a reasonable thing to do? creating shamelessly long sentences that i/we/us/he seem to be proud of but ought to be ashamed of because it's an attack on the English language? I know why I'm banned in China. They can't follow me. They don't know where I'm going. Either. How many time zones are left? What if I blow it here too? One day you click The Apologist, but you can't. Because it is banned. Banned. It's all I ever wanted. Maybe a few more stages between, a small but loyal readership, perhaps to see some moderate success or even wild success, any of it would have been fine. But to go from blog to banned is -- phew -- typical. Could he have meant to write "bland?"

I, Lab Rat

CW FISHER It was just a brief encounter. It all happened so fast. I turned the corner into Blogcritics and there she was. "Hello," I said, "what's this?" She didn't move, just smiled at my mouth. There was no flash. She was only a jpg. But I got a pop-up. Dude I swear she wanted me -- weird -- like there I was, okay? I'm walking into the hippest bookstore / coffeehouse / place where I hang out and talk about what's happening with folks from Timbuktu, coffee's good. So I'm walking in the door... and there to greet me is Juanita. Juanita... ...was that... a flesh-colored thong... or a scar... Juanita was the one on her right, on her knees. Juanita... It was neat to meet a Juanita, it was nice she brought her sisters, I could have done without the brother, and as my arrow sailed skyward and landed on his crotch I nearly clicked -- then I came to. Holy Jesus! I came for Mel! I just came in to see who's blogging -- clik-a-wika-WAK -- WHOA! It was then that I shuddered, a deep, spinal shudder that fluttered all the way out to my fingers--causing one of them to click. Sweet Jesus, no! Behind me, little children, anxious clusters of young mothers, old mothers big mothers all eyeing my screen -- I'm whacking Esc! EscEscEsc! -- back of my neck's on fire crowd pressing closer must escape bloodrushing hiding inthecenter ofmy being waiting for the explosion of pop-ups that never comes. Heart resumes, triple time, narrow miss catch breath wonder why realize. It's my conditioned response to surprise pornography. Cause of death: heart attack. Of course, by the time I post, the picture'll probably be gone, but I think you get the picture. Still I'm glad the subject came up, because porn is something we should talk about, then never mention again. I think of the internet as a tightrope over a sea of undulating porn, and as we tiptoe by on our way to elsewhere it's hard to ignore the ululation of the siren's sighs the size of wav.s... or that crashing burning itching feeling you get when you realize one day that there are little pornblots all over your history -- your permanent record. Porn's bad. Big too. Insidious. And big. Bigger than we talk about. Huge. Enormous. Blackmail big. Do I sound cocky? You think this is just wordplay? The fact is that sex makes people stupid. For proof, read any of the above. I come to Blogcritics for the higherbrow stuff. I worry that my favorite coffeehouse is going to turn into a disco. But if anyone's seen Juanita, tell her she can reach me here.

Dental Retardation

CW FISHER I am embarrassed and ashamed, therefore I blog. My confession regards those precious gifts that God and Dr. Fee put in my head: old Mr. Backmolar, and my proudest dental achievement, the venerable and honorated Dr. Wisdom Tooth, who's been with me since, what, Doc? '69? '70? I think he said '71 but he's so surrounded in tissue, I can't tell. Mind if I talk about my mouth? My mouth, once a happy place where anything went, admired by the man with the whistling nose who turned out to be Satan, and which through adolescence and adulthood became right-standing and upwhite, a decent set of choppers that saw their share of flashbulbs, is sadly losing two soldiers whose service I have always appreciated and admired. How they mash and grind and click to the musick. Not dead but dying, victims not of abuse nor neglect but of the rule of Law: The Last Shall Be First, as written on the walls of certain temples but never in walk-in freezers. What happened is this. It all started when my dentist, who's a great dentist, sent me a reminder note for an appointment that I failed to remember receiving, causing me to continue in a straight line without dental interruption for three years or more, depending on what the date is. I am not blaming my dentist, nor am I blaming my wife, who deliberately stopped waving the mail in my face and screaming to get my attention -- and God bless her for it. It's been quiet but uneventful, since I don't open mail. But I learned there are better ways to get a person's attention than reminder cards or phone calls. Toothaches will slowly do the trick. Months ago I bit down on something and saw a pain squirt like black ink from my head across the room, w/ shards of blue. It put me to my knees. Made me want to twist my head off. Then it peaked and went away. But I knew. It would come back, whatever it was. This time I'd be ready. I found the Orajel. For babies. I qualified, and besides, it works better than the adult stuff (I think, although, come to think of it, by the time I popped for the adult stuff I was pretty far gone). Late at night I would awaken with an itch on my jaw that I knew was the advancing ink with blue streaks and yellow stabbing things, and I'd swing into action, looking looking for an ittibitti thing that feels almost like nothing in every single pocket that I am racing through to find the OW before OWW ooooOWwww which wakes everybody up including five small dogs who join in their favorite song -- but by cover of dogs the secret remained mine. Heh heh. They'll never get ME! Not alive anyway!! I learned to chew on my left side, and eat only soft foods such as ice cream, rarely touching true solids, like swirls. I wouldn't say a strict diet, but a diet nonetheless. My wife noticed I was in pain many times and used it as an opportunity to make an important point that would always start with the same surprised exclamation, "Huh!" Finally, when the pain was unbearable, I went to a drugstore I have never been to before. It was an alien, unfranchised place that was all gift shop. No one knew me. No one could see the tremendous blob of pain that blacked me out from my shoulders up. I scanned the narrow, shallow selection of no-name pain relievers for mouth, teeth and gums. But I wanted the best. Baby Orajel. And I would pay any pr-- they didn't have it. They were out of Baby Orajel. All they had was one Maximum Strength Gel Orajel brand Oral Pain Reliever for Toothaches-- and I was staggering to the door in blinding pain. Then it hit me. Go back! It's your last hope, man! I grabbed the last one. "Sen harrs?" I said, dropping to my knees, looking for a second $7 tube. None. I'd have to go easy. I'd have to make it last. I'd have to go to the bank and beg for a loan. Seven dollars. The package was open before I got to the counter, and the girl at the register had a pair of scissors that were necessary for cutting off the end of the mother--of the end the teeny little tube. Can you believe that? Scissors? For immediate pain relief, first find the scissors. Long story short. Lisa finally called the dentist, made an appointment -- for the wrong time (I had to call and correct it). Then I had to make her a nice dinner and clean up and bring her a Swiss Miss and go to the dentist who took one look in my mouth and tore his mask off. I'd rather have him rip my teeth out with a pair of pliers than get another look like that. Using only his eyes, my dentist said: You take my reputation and throw it on the ground like a Snicker's wrapper? So! I'm losing two teeth and a cheekbone, I guess. I don't know how I'll wear sunglasses. It'll be like a five car garage in my mouth. I hope my dentist gets over this. Maybe he'll let me link to him, get a little free PR out of it. He has a lot of pride in his work and he doesn't need me messing it up. Between attachments on his DitchWitch, I asked him just how exactly a back molar and a wisdom tooth might be removed these days. He scooted back in his chair, pulled down his mask thoughtfully, and smiled. "We use pliers," he said. And for the cheek? Liposuction? I have brought this on myself, but I will make everyone pay, as usual, providing every unasked for detail of my experience in the body of a man. And you will enjoy it. For I am the Mentist. What's your dentality? Share your mouth below.

Fisher launches Cycho Suicide Saturday

CW FISHER In what could be an unhappy coincidence or dangerous trend, the bloggers of Blogcritics were forced again, for the second week in a row, to reach out and save someone on the brink of cybercide. Some screamed, "Jump!" Others yelled, "Shoot!" Some begged when they were asked to, then rolled over and did tricks, followed by crotch digging and obnoxious pawing. And before it was all over, the scrivenly whore enjoyed a laying on of hands that got a little Swedish, then veered into a sponge bath. I am that scrivenly whore. Mac Diva, whom I love and adore, got it right when she said, "Methinks Curt is looking for some attention." The unfinished truth, awaiting only Minwax, is always cheaper than the other kind. Attention is all I ever wanted, and now that I've got it I'd like to misuse it. I guess when people read "I'm packing my bags" and "my absence is needed" they think I'm leaving. Yet everything I say is tongue in cheek. This is why I write. I'm a blithering idiot. I liff in a pile shit is what I say, but what I mean is I live in a pirate ship. At least I don't have to keep a stiff upper lip anymore. That was a real bitch. I looked stupid and I talked like a loner with ear flaps. I have never understood the phrase "stiff upper lip." If you or someone you love knows the answer, please radio immediately. I realize that reading me is a little like watching a chicken race, with the chickens representing ideas. But this is the beauty of blogging. No adults. Between us chickens I heartily recommend the sponging experience. I love this "place" Blogcritics. It's like going to mom's. I don't quite live here, but I feel like I do, and neither do you, and so do you. I'm not sure who "mom" is, and I'm positive I don't want to know. But I do thank the Olsen's for their hospitality and vision. I know little about any my fellow Blogcritics beyond everything I've read, and I've read a ton. Blog Bloke I can picture because I've seen his picture. He's Patrick Moynihan. He's not from around here because he doesn't know what a Krispy Kreme is. I'm not going to tell him because he's better off. I know what Ms. Tek looks like when she's depressed, happy, joyful, pensive, angry, sexy and sleepy and that she is developing into a fine writer who sometimes takes chances--but those are the only blanks I've let myself fill. And Joe of bookofjoe, I know that happy face: his is the blog that goes ping! and makes me ask where the hell does he GET this stuff? The rest of you are mysteries, filled in blank by blank by me, like a police artist. Whoops, add a few more lines on Shark, he's older than I thought. Over time I've learned Shark's human name, that he looks like Willie Nelson and lives in Texas and has a wife with whom he appears to be friendly. The blanks I've filled include a Harley in the garage, well covered, and a collection of riding mowers he doesn't know how to get rid of. He could be confined to a wheelchair. For Shark there is no greater pleasure than picking off prairie dogs from 100 yards, backyards that is: he's from Texas. Al Barger is very tall, very smart, an active multi-tasker who can toss a grenade over his shoulder and into your watch pocket while posting on two separate computers simultaneously. He is likely confined to a wheelchair, but it's very high tech. Hal Pawluk is a billionaire who posts from a private jet. Dirtgrain is a high school writing teacher of an unknown gender who's class we should all audit. Eric Olsen is short, has reddish hair and looks like a leprechaun, which is tragic, because he's supposed to look like a Viking, like his brothers -- none of whom can write their was out of a paper bag. He is married to Dawn, who is even shorter and has a small tattoo on her shoulder which pissed off Eric royal, though he's never admitted it to anyone, and will likely deny it again. They live in Cleveland, Wheelchair of the Midwest. I continue to suspect that Eric is a musician and renaissance-man type who blogs on the treadmill and never sleeps. Mac Diva is a black woman in her early thirties who threw her wheelchair over the blogony years ago. She's smarter than us, stronger than us, and I want her to hold me down NOW. I will not tell you what it is like to wriggle beneath the Diva, but I will tell you this: it's better than a sponge bath from Ann Coulter. Why would I care what you people look like? Or where you're from? Or what your favorite color is? I don't! I love the mystery. It's the unscratchable itch. It's the perfect way to meet someone, severed from their body. Severed from the basics of who, what, where, when, why, we are forced to judge each other by different criteria, by qualities that are colorless, ageless, sexless and placeless, a purer place than any I've been. It is fair to hide if the hiding reveals, fair to sublimate our own identities too, if only to fulfill Strunk's first rule. 1. Place yourself in the background. And it is a wonderful thing to learn you're hot in Singapore or have a following in Australia. It's a wonderful type of fame that doesn't require you to wear a ski mask in Wal-Mart. I'm not going anywhere. Like my buddy Pete said to his boss the J-man, sitting by the sea: Where else would I go? Expect me on the precipice next Saturday at 7:30 sharp.

Christ died to sharpen our debating skills

Those who seek to win arguments in politics or religion are doomed to bang their heads against the wall until they finally get it. Those who don't get it can be found at the bottom of Mac Diva's recent entry in Eric Olsen's Passion pile. I've only been around Blogcritics a little more than a month and here I am packing my bags already. It's either that or join the fray, and I'm feeling the fray needs my absence. My blogs generally don't get a lot of comments, because I'm not here to provoke. I'm here to pretend I'm employed. But now my heart's beating too fast because somebody said Catholics don't read the Bible, which is a lie, an enormous, hate-filled, "total" lie -- and a back-breaking straw. Want to see how many names I can pack into a paragraph? Want me to bait you into saying something you'll regret? I refuse. It's beneath me and you too. What Would Jesus Blog? I imagine he'd just write something in the dust with his finger and wait for us all to shut up. Or maybe he'd get up and heal somebody. Or tell a story. I really don't know. I'm Catholic. Personally I think Christ died to give us a message that we failed to understand. I was taught by the Catholic Church that I killed Jesus Christ, not the Jews. Me. I was taught that anytime I act in hate rather than love I'm killing him again. I found that useful. Jesus lives in my heart, not on a screen or in the pages of a book. He didn't come here to become a throwable statue. He's not impressed by anyone's outrage. Jesus Christ doesn't care what religion you are. He was no fan of "organized religion." He called the religious the greatest sinners. That's why they killed him. The God I pray to needs no defense from me. He's really powerful, lightning bolt powerful, earthquake strong. What name can I throw that can do any more but send another reader away for good? Is it a Christian act to invite all comers to comment while we stand just inside the door with clubs? Because, if that's how it is, Blogcritics is just another closed-loop blogring -- bloggers blogging bloggers. Folly. Note that I used the word "folly," a word on my "Words I Hate" list. That means it's time to go. It means I'm getting uppity, thinking maybe I'm better than you. When in fact I am exactly the same. Comments?

Neocon: A new word for an old con

CW FISHER Pity about Chalabi. I like the word. I could type it for hours. It would have made a great breakfast item at Taco Bell. But that's over. Democrats can uncock their pointing fingers and untwist their fists. George Bush was not responsible for taking the U.S. to war under false pretenses. He was conned. Misled. Lied to. Just as we all were. It's slowly dawning on the entire world that we've been duped in the biggest con job ever pulled off, a story so utterly implausible that even Tom Clancy couldn't have pitched it. One man tells a lie that causes a U.S. president to invade a sovereign state against the will of the world; then, as the president's reelection campaign begins, we learn the truth. Stranger still, the revelation of the lie has done little to change public opinion. Those for and against have merely dug in and fortified, ignoring the fact that the facts are fiction. See if you can follow this. Three men and a basketball. The first man chucks the ball to the second man who passes to the third who shoots and scores. The crowd's on its feet: half are screaming the ball's a fake while the other half are screaming a basket's a basket. Months pass but still the crowd argues until a fourth Mann writes a book... and one by one the crowd hushes, pondering the same question. What happened to the first man, the one who first appeared with the so-called "ball?" The man with the "ball," the big lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction poised and ready to kill us all right now, was created in whole by Ahmed Chalabi who passed it to Vice President Dick Cheney who passed it to President Bush who invaded Iraq on the basis of Cheney's conviction that Chalabi was absolutely correct in his every assertion. Where's Chalabi right now? Hanging out around Baghdad awaiting a crowning, possibly this summer. Now that the many smart people have put two and two together and come up with one, you'd think Chalabi'd be scrambling for cover, maybe diving into Saddam's own pit on the theory that lightning never strikes twice, disproved a short time ago on the set of The Passion. But he's not in hiding. That's for depressed guys like Cheney, with whom Chalabi has no more use. Chalabi's not a nice man, so he's fit to be king. He's a convicted criminal on the run from Jordan for embezzling millions from his own bank. Sentenced to prison for 20 years, he pulled a Dubya and didn't show up, then went on to become chums with powerful Americans who don't read newspapers. The lie created by Cheney and Chalabi outdoes anything Sagretti and Rove ever cooked up under Nixon. These two men have done more damage to America than the combined efforts of the American Communist Party and Joe McCarthy. Their landfill of lies makes Nicaragua and Grenada look like the PR stunts they actually were. In an interview soon to be aired on 60 Minutes, Chalabi asked incredulously, "You're telling me that (the) United States government took our word without checking out the people?" He added in defiance: "I want to be asked to testify in the United States Senate in the Intelligence Committee. I want to do this in an open session." Sure he does. But will he show? Chalabi's about to get that new country he's had his eye on. Cheney and Bush might lose theirs, but they'll be adding billions to their offshore accounts very soon. The fans in the stands? Eh, they lost a few sons and daughters but they'll get over it. Somebody has to pay, and it's the American people, but not in an election year. There's plenty of room for truth after November. Right now we're smack dab in the middle of lying season. What the Bush administration needs now is a perfect patsy -- and here he comes. Here, Wolfie. Here he is. Good boy. Put your money on Wolfowitz. He's second tier, he's passionate about the lies he helped tell, he's disliked worldwide for his arrogant memo informing France and Germany they won't be having any U.S. cake or ice cream. Plus -- and I don't say this lightly in this combustible age -- Wolfowitz is Jewish. Anti-Semitism is sparking again and here comes a big wind. Stamp it, friends, because history goes round like a clock. Today, so freshly duped, we are all neocons.

Quartering Martha

CW FISHER Behold Martha Stewart, American Icon, NYSE Symbol of Women Gone Wild, as in 'wild success.' She went up, we cheered. She came down, we cheered louder. Success in this country is a lot like the WWF. Vicious and rigged, cast with people we love to hate, cartoons that can't get hurt, celebrities celebrated for stumbling into the public arena where anything goes and nothing's off limits. This afternoon a jury of Martha's peers -- as if she has any -- found her guilty on all four counts on insider trading, but the real verdict came long ago: Martha's a known bitch who deserves whatever she gets because Martha's a known bitch. The bitch is spayed and will no longer have the run of the house. The house will suffer for it. Those who laugh at the jokes about Martha adding homey touches to her prison cell might want to think about this: It could be you. You get a tip, your stock's about tank. Who do you call? The police, your attorney or your broker? Think Martha's a bitch? Which Martha? The character, the businesswoman, the brand name, the logo, the magazine, the tv show, the clothing line, the home furnishings, or the real person underneath it all -- is that the one we've been instructed to call a bitch? Because I refuse. I'm tired of these public trials, floggings, executions and stonings. I'm sick of seeing justice strut around the barnyard so cock-sure of itself, sick of these cock-peckin' prosecutors preying on high-profile people in order to send a great big message, which is mostly about themselves and future public office. They say she's guilty, she's guilty: hope she learns from it. But to dismiss Martha Stewart as a bitch is a mode of character assassination that is easy to replicate in a windy public forum. When Martha Stewart is weighed alongside her many substantial achievements, it seems incredible that anyone would buy into this "bitch" characterization. Bitch is such a round-about lamer than "lame" gender-derisive, borderline but edgy nearly n-word that's too old to have a definition anymore, the way "cool" no longer has a definition. Martha taught me how to make muffins, if only in my mind, but mental muffins are to me far better than the real thing: less work, less fattening. Let us now praise those whose heads have cracked beneath the folding chairs of brutes, and as they are dragged from the arena, let us stand at least in silence.