if you rss this blog

.

you'd do well to refresh before you read, because this shit almost always changes materially and for the better after mkf hits "publish," sees it in that final white-on-black just like everybody else and realizes he's lost his last chance to fix things without anybody noticing, and then does so anyway.

words to the wise, all i'm sayin.

the whole affirmative-action thing

.

[i know i still haven't posted part 3 of the whole gay-marriage thing, but tying up all the loose ends in that messy little package is gonna require more alcohol than i can allow myself mid-week.

this one, on the other hand, was quick and easy, so it's going in.]

* * * * *

if you're a good fag who reads all the right blogs, you've already seen the following clip--i'm merely posting it here for reference.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

the point is, after their debate over sonia sotomayor and affirmative action was done, aired and in the can, rachel maddow, in a particularly brilliant and sneaky maneuver, later went back after pat buchanan without allowing him to defend himself, all under the pretext of merely correcting his "factual errors."

in the spirit of fairness, i dashed off the following to her (and--because, what the fuck--cc'd him) tonight:

i think when pat claimed that "white men built america," what he was really trying to say--albeit badly--is that white men were the brains behind the country; he and people who make this argument tend to ignore the contributions of the brawn.

but he's got a point--most of the countries in which american minorities such as blacks, hispanics and middle-easterners natively predominate tend to be of the sort to which no one in his right mind would want to emigrate--hell, they're all dying to come here, and i can hardly blame 'em.

the basic problem with affirmative action (aside from its intrinsic discrimination against merit) is that it requires a dumbing-down of well-established standards and practices in order to accommodate the minorities it seeks to serve.

is this lowering of america's standards to more closely match those of the cultures from which these minorities are trying desperately to escape worth the inevitable trade-off?

seeing as how i'm a middle-aged white american male, i might be the wrong person to ask.

this broke my heart (and yes, i do have one)

.
so today i'm trolling the internet and come across the following image of a building i'd never seen before--where and what the hell is it?

turns out it had been right under my nose at one time--the first pasadena state bank building, circa 1962 [this particular pasadena being a suburb of houston--the city in which i'd been living at the time this building came to be--rather than the more well-known pasadena near which i currently reside].

i'm smitten--obviously its author was a wright disciple who knew what the fuck he was doing. i wanna see more, so i google.

here's what comes up next (embiggen if you wanna appreciate the full horror):

all that beauty, forlorn and abandoned.

it's the next image that really gets to me, though--the other, better side of the building (which, through its sad, broken facade, its essential goodness still shines):

i take it all in at a glance--a skilled, passionate architect on a mission who a half-century ago somehow managed to talk a conference room fulla tight-fisted bankers into financing his extravagant vision (because lemme tell ya, this was was not an inexpensive project--each articulation, each projection, each reveal added boucoups of bucks to what a simple square box would've otherwise cost). i see passion and virtuosity in every graceful line of this building.

i mean, even if you're not an architect, you gotta love this detail:


a little research revealed the story--read it if you want.

bottom line: there's no money to fix this. even if the building weren't in a currently economically-depressed area, the cost to remove the goddam asbestos alone would preclude its rehab--cheaper to just tear it down.

hurts me to think about it--easier to just mix another drink.