a current events post

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the thing i find so fascinating about the uprisings in tunisia and egypt is how they're being spun to america.  the mainstream media seem to be focusing on the "blow for democracy" angle, the NPR types are endlessly dissecting the sociopolitical roots of the unrest, and the right-wingers are hysterically warning how it could happen here tomorrow.

what nobody seems to be talking about--and what they should be, because it's really the only important point--is, why now all of a sudden?

think about it:  a month ago this shit wasn't on anybody's radar, and now it seems to be spreading like wildfire all over the middle east.  what, pray tell, made these people--who have passively chafed under the iron-fisted rule of their respective dictators for years--pick now to go all apeshit?

the truth is simple: fuck all the highbrow analysis, these people are revolting for the same reason peasants have revolted since time immemorial.  problem is, it's an inconvenient truth, so it's not being talked about much here in america.

to illustrate my point, consider for a minute the following chart [because you know i'm all about the charts] i came across tonight, courtesy of one of my gurus, chris martenson--it shows the percentage rise in key commodity prices over the past year:

yeah.  the price of wheat--a staple food in the middle east--has risen 76% in the past year, not to mention how much everything else has gone up.

we first-worlders tend to forget that, when you live in a technologically backward country and spend most of your meager income on food, a price rise like that is a big fuckin deal, and hungry people tend to get really, really angry.

but wait--according to our own consumer price index, food inflation in december at 0.1% was the lowest it's been in five months.  and besides, ben bernanke has been reassuring us for a couple years that all his quantitative easing was justified because inflation was so low--so how could this possibly be?

well, as mark twain once said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

the truth is, as we americans have basked in our fool's paradise these last couple years and ben has printed his money, the bankers have taken all that new money and bought up lots of stocks, treasuries and commodities, thus driving up prices on everything.

and now they're rioting in the middle east and soon god only knows where else, and the chinese manufacturers are panicking because cotton is going through the roof which will kill the already paper-thin margins of american clothing retailers, and food manufacturers are downsizing their cereal boxes and hoping consumers won't notice, and oil is over $100 again, and--well, you get the picture.

but there's no inflation, right?

the only real question is, will this latest fed-induced bubble burst before any more serious damage is done?  my guess is no, because that would require ben to tighten the money supply--and if he did that, the stock and bond markets would crash, the "recovery" would evaporate and his fellow bankers would be really, really mad at him.

so my guess is there'll be more quantitative easing, and thus more commodity inflation, and thus more rioting and more new "democracy" in godforsaken places where iron-fisted dictatorships would be infinitely preferable.

actions have consequences, and the chickens of the past are finally coming home to roost.  history is happening now, folks--fasten your seatbelts, because it's gonna be a bumpy night.

because this is exactly the kinda shit that makes me laugh

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picture it:  moscow, new year's eve 2010

you're a suicide bomber--a woman, because who would suspect that?--strapped into a bomb vest meticulously connected to a freshly-purchased cell phone, the number of which is possessed only by the control who will dial same at the precise moment at which your murderous, suicidal ass is positioned for maximal damage in red square at midnight, thus blowing you and a few hundred of your nearest revelers to smithereens.

as you nervously await your cue at the safe house, you go over and over the plan in your head, looking for flaws, but there are none.

well, almost none.

if it's any consolation, know that even the forensic investigators later combing through the wreckage of your safe house and collecting what's left of your remains with a tweezer won't fault you for not anticipating that your service provider might want to cement its bond with you, their new customer, by sending you an early and unexpected "happy new year!" text message.

i tell ya, the only thing that could make this story more perfect is janet napolitano jumping in front of a camera and proclaiming, "see? the system worked!"

vince

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[i suppose this could be considered a sequel to this post]

i remember the first time i laid eyes on him, this slim, impossibly cute eurasian boy, as he pulled up to the curb in his shiny red jeep and jumped out to check out our "mike's moving out" yard sale.

i remember literally running over paul (who had already spotted him and was moving fast) and a dozen or so middle-aged russian-immigrant babushkas in order to get to him first.

i showed him everything we had to offer, but he saw nothing he wanted, except me.

the look paul gave me when i called out, "take whatever you can get for my shit" as vince and i piled into his jeep and peeled off into the sunset:  priceless

i remember i shot three times that first night, and vince not once.  i remember that never having happened before, but not caring, because i was smitten--that boy was something.

a senior at USC and a virtuoso trumpet player in its band, vince was possessed of that ineffable musician-cool that carried him through every situation seemingly untouched, and made me melt from day one.

my second-favorite vince memory:  from his balcony overlooking a pool party below, he tosses a water balloon into the chattering midst of a speedo-ed gaggle of weho muscle marys, and, as they shriek and scatter in every direction, looks at me with a twisted grin and says, "not so hot now, are they?''


i remember the last time i laid eyes on him--about three weeks in and we're high and i slip a couple fingers into him as a preliminary to the fucking and he asks for a third and then begs for a fourth and before i know it i'm deep inside him in a way i've never been inside anyone before and everything i hadn't understood about vince--23 years old and already ruined--suddenly becomes clear.

i remember he looked up at me, eyes on fire for the first time, and said, "fuck me, mike", and i did, and he finally came.

*     *     *     *     *

my favorite vince memory:  he and i on melrose in that open jeep on that first day with the sun on his face and the wind in his hair and all the boys looking at him and him rolling his eyes at me, saying, "i feel like i'm on a parade float when i drive this thing", and his song of the moment blaring outta the speakers



[to be truthful, this one wasn't exactly an "it came up on shuffle"--i heard it at the grocery store tonight for the first time in years and it brought it all back]

because i'm good enough, i'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me

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so i'm talking to a friend the other day and he tells me his therapist has assigned him the task of doing affirmations between sessions--no doubt he expected me to laugh along with him about such touchy-feely, new age nonsense.


imagine his shock when instead i said, "don't scoff--affirmations work, and you should totally do them."


this stopped him for a minute, and then he slowly asked, in a voice dripping with sarcasm and disbelief, "and you, mr. cynical, would know this... how?"

 *     *     *     *     *

picture it:  silverlake, 2005

so i'm dating this guy and he's slim and hot and i'm not, and neither of us particularly cares until this happens, and then i'm all like, i gotta lose some weight.

understand:  i deal with food just like those overly made-up and perfectly-coiffed fat women who fill the audience on oprah:  i love sugar, i love salt, i crave carbs and fat, and i eat to fill the void.  i can generally handle a healthy regimen for about a week, and then i say fuck it and binge.

so knowing a diet's not gonna work, i'm forced to look for another way.  i find a website telling me affirmations would effortlessly make me thin; didn't believe it, but figure what can it hurt?  i find a pad of paper, grab a pen.


for an affirmation to take hold in your subconscious mind, the website tells me, it must be written in the present tense, as if the behavior change you're trying to effect has already happened.  i think for a minute, write

i am in total control of what i put in my mouth

and then laugh, because that statement couldn't be more completely and ridiculously untrue.  never fear, the website tells me--make it as out-there as you want; go for broke!

so i pick up my pen and add a couple dashes followed by another outrageous lie:

eating right comes easy to me

and then, just to make it completely surreal, i stick a big, fat exclamation point at the end.

now all you have to do, the website assures me, is write your affirmation 20 times each day, while repeating it to yourself with great enthusiasm.  and before you know it, you're on your way to a healthy new behavior!

yeah.

by about the third day, 20 times is too much for my lazy ass, so i cut it down to 10, and i'm barely mumbling the thing to myself as my pen moves across the paper, and between each repetition i pause and say, "this is such bullshit"--but in my own half-ass way, i persevere.

and even though i only spend about five minutes a day writing it, i find the phrase coming into my head at odd times throughout the day--i even make a dumb little song out of it when i run.

the thing about real-life change is, it's never like in movies or TV--there's no sudden, dramatic shift in music or lighting or camera angles to tell you something has happened. in my case, i just looked up one day a couple months after i started the affirmations and realized i'd gone through all the notches on my belt, and i'd need to grab an old one outta my drawer if i wanted to keep my pants up.

and then i thought back, tryin to recall the last time i'd had a coke or a donut or any of that other crap at work, and i honestly couldn't remember.  wow--eating right truly had come easy to me.

*     *     *     *     *

so how did this sweet story end?  well, (a) sam and i broke up (for the third or twelfth time, i don't remember which), and (b) around that time, i shitcanned the affirmations, figuring i had the eating problem licked once and for all.


within about a month, i'm guzzling coke and popping peanut m&m's again, and my "thin" belt is back in the drawer, too small once more.


which brings me to the other thing this experience taught me about real-life change: when the thing you couldn't believe would ever happen actually happens, how quickly you take it for granted.  the website told me i'd have to reinforce my new behavior with at least three months of daily affirmations--but once it was working, i couldn't be bothered anymore.


so, to my dubious friend, i say, "give it a shot--and when it starts to work, make sure you stick with it."


and to those dubious readers who still think i make this shit up,

i really don't.

a walk down memory lane

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boy, this shot takes you back, doesn't it?  eight years of  "murderer!" and "nazi!" directed at the previous president, and nary a peep from the media or the leadership of the opposition as to how this sorta inflammatory, vitriolic hate-speech might, god forbid, incite violence against him.  guess since he was a nazi murderer and all, it was justified, right?

[for a truly breathtaking display of the whole panoply of non-inflammatory, non-vitriolic and totally civil "kill bush" images and words, click here--i promise it'll be as eye-opening for you as it was for me, because the media and lefty blogs sure as hell didn't evince any alarm or outrage over this shit (much less give it any coverage) when it was happening]

more recently, there was the way the media covered the discovery channel guy

y'know, the guy who strapped bombs around his body and took hostages.  an act of domestic terrorism?  nah--inconveniently, the guy was a non-white tree-hugger, and god knows the media won't tar any minority or any movement even remotely associated with the left with the "t" word.  were his wacko fantasies inflamed by all the hysterical "climate change" rhetoric we've all been marinating in for the last ten years?  never even brought up--crazed gunman, isolated incident.  case closed.

and before him, there was the inconveniently-muslim US army major nidal hasan

you remember him--mowed down 13 people at fort hood whilst screaming allahu akbar!,  but we were hastily assured by the media and the obama justice department that, rather than an act of domestic terrorism, this was merely an isolated incident involving a disturbed individual who couldn't possibly have been moved to violence by the inflammatory, vitriolic, jihadist hate-speech spouted by the extremist factions of his religion.  case closed.

so, knowing all this, anybody wanna hazard a guess as to why--within 30 minutes of determining nothing more than that the tucson shooter was a young, white male--the democrats, the mainstream media and every idiot liberal blogger on the interwebs were shrieking to the world that this was clearly an act of domestic terrorism inspired by the inflammatory, vitriolic hate-speech spewed by the tea party and the anti-illegal immigrationistas?

actually, never mind--i'll tell you why:  they desperately need a new timothy mcveigh to kill the fledgling grassroots limited-government movement with guilt by association, and they won't rest until they have a square peg they can jam into their round hole.

thing that kills me is, even as the truth has emerged about jared lee loughner--that, like so many assassins, he was a twisted loner whose politics, if any, had little to do with his murderous fixation on a public figure--far as the media and the left are concerned, it's still all dumbass sarah palin's fault for putting crosshairs on a goddam map.

*     *     *     *     *

it wasn't 9/11 that hurt us as a nation [yeah, it was bad, but in the overall scheme of horrific things that happen to nations, it wasn't that bad].  no, it was our hysterical over-reaction to 9/11 that truly hurt us--cursed us with the PATRIOT act, homeland security,  the ruinous wars in iraq and afghanistan. 

i.e., because the right effectively exploited our fear, we willingly traded our freedoms and our treasure for the illusion of safety.

today? an isolated shooting in arizona is being exploited by the left in order to serve the same ends.  at issue: the ability to regulate what you can see, say and hear, and whether or not you can own a gun--all, of course, in order to keep you "safe".

me?  i'll keep what's left of my freedoms and take my chances with the jared lee loughners of the world--i can only hope the majority of americans still feel the same.

yeah, but would i want her as a mother?

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i have always been awed by women like amy chua.  at 48, this ivy-league magna cum laude graduate has managed to become a full professor at the top law school in the country, write two critically-acclaimed books on geopolitics, maintain a home and husband and raise two "perfect" children--all while remaining thin and gorgeous.

the true magnitude of this accomplishment only became clear when the lengths to which she went to ensure the perfection of said children was revealed last week in a wall street journal excerpt from her new book--i mean, when you dedicate yourself to the full-time task of making your kids' lives a living hell, how could you possibly have time for all that other shit?

well, she pulls it off--the article, modestly titled why chinese mothers are superior, is a must-read for not only you, my four readers, but every half-assed parent in america whose precious high-school graduate can't find his own ass with both hands.
 
there are so many pull quotes i hardly know where to start, but here are my favorites:

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin.

sounds bleak, huh?  yeah, i thought so, too.  but wait, there's more:

If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

wow.  how much more antithetical to the ethos of today's typical american parent--whose fear of their childrens' wrath seemingly overrides any prediliction for strictness on their part--could that be?

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.

but what about damage to the child's precious self-esteem?

Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

and finally, the money quote (for me, anyway):

[M]any Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly.

and that really is the bottom line.

the stereotype has always been that the asians produce scholastically-excellent conformists, whereas the american educational system produces the sort of creative individualists who made this country great.

yeah, keep telling yourselves that, america--maybe if you repeat it often enough, it'll still be true.

if ms. chua's (and, by extension, her culture's) child-rearing methods seem extreme to you (and even to me)?  well, they probably are.  but i bet your grandparents wouldn't have thought so.

seriously, read the article--it is a tour de force of irony, self-awareness and hard truth.

gerry rafferty, 1947-2011

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i'll let everybody else in the blogosphere and elsewhere posthumously pee down both legs over stuck in the middle and baker street.

me?  i'll focus instead on a couple far more obscure songs which first made me suspect (a) how talented this guy really was





and (b) how he probably idealized his childhood just like me [steamboat row, in the following clip]





[which second point would only be confirmed when i read this obit earlier today]

RIP, you talented, tortured, drunken soul.