Rep. Alcee Hastings Seems Like A Cool Guy

This is awesome. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fl.) reads a bunch of...well, just watch, it's great.



I highly recommend watching the other video in the original post, too. [kissingsuzykolber]

Let's Be Smarter About These Cuts

In all the hubbub over extra flim-flam in the economic stimulus packages (hey, I got a package they can stimulate! Heyo!...Try the Prime Rib!), a lot of folks have been discussing what, exactly, to cut from the proposed Senate bill. Step up, Ben Nelson (R-CO) and Susan Collins (R-ME). These two centrists (I can vouch for the latter, but not so sure about the former) have put the following cuts on the table:

Among the initiatives that could be cut are $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million for climate change research. But so far, none of the suggestions come close to being enough to shrink the package on the scale proposed.

What a horrible, atrocious idea these particular cuts are!!!! Now I need to know what they want to keep in this bill. These are all things we desperately need, am I fucking crazy? Increased science funding? Yes. Better rail system? Yes. Research on STDs? Yes. Arts? Who needs to spend money on the arts during a depression? If you're seriously asking that question, I don't want you near my tax dollars, because you're fucking scum. Fuck you.
I'd go on longer and with more obscenities, but my lunch break is almost over and I have to finish eating.

Hey, Nelson and Collins, go jump off a fucking bridge!

~~~~

update: I f'd up in my haste to post on this. Ben Nelson is a conservative "Blue Dog" Democrat from Nebraska. My mistake. However, this doesn't change his status as a complete douchebag.

The White Tiger—Aravind Adiga

This year's Man Booker Prize-winner is Indian-born debutant novelist Aravind Adiga. The simplest summary of The White Tiger will tell you that it's the story of entrepreneur (and murderer!) Balram Halwai; a tale that reveals the conflicts underlying contemporary Indian society as it strives towards 21st Century technological and economic superiority. But of course that's the nutshell version.

Adiga has produced a panorama of modern India in the foreground of which narrator and protagonist Halwai "rises" from a lower caste to become a successful businessman. I qualify the term "rises" because it is a conflicted and controversial notion in a multifaceted nation still mostly understood in the West according to aged stereotypes. This isn't the crunchy India of spiritual enlightenment and millenia-old cultural tradition. Those attributes are present, of course, but any discussion of India today is incomplete without recognition of South Asian political realities and the tension between social classes; the entrenched and rigid markers of status that have been slowly breaking down over the past half-century. Adiga brilliantly displays the conflict—particularly salient among the lower classes—between adhering to family and tradition (the social world found here in "The Darkness") and attempting to create a life as a successful individual in a technologically advanced democratic society.

The India that the narrator inhabits is disgustingly corrupt, bigoted and backward-looking; characteristics highlighted ever more by the growing influence of American-style malls, pristine Bollywood shlock and the remnants of English colonialism. For Indians like Balram Halwai who attempt to supercede their anonymous (his parents actually don't bother to name him, simply calling him "boy") upbringings in "middle" India, there is almost no trickle-down of wealth from the upper strata of society. Halwai really only achieves success because he is an adept observer and learns how to undermine his bosses and understand the proper etiquette of corruption.

What makes the tale of the White Tiger ever more salient to a Western reader is not so much how Adiga portrays the many facets of Indian society for the uninitiated, but how he is able, as a child of both East and West (he spent some youthful years in Australia and attended university in England and the US), to critique modern democratic technological society as a whole. Adiga has not focused his criticism solely upon his native, growing India; the more abstract targets are supposedly "democratic" societies that tout their cultural breadth, scientific prowess and economic advancement as proof of their superiority. The past eight years of the American experience have demonstrated the fallacy of such beliefs. Adiga has situated his novel in a "new" India, but the themes he presents are as salient in modern America (and probably the UK, France, etc. as well) with our extensive poverty, crumbling infrastructure and corrupt—however hidden—politics.

After the electoral events of this past week, this novel only becomes more curiously topical. While detailed explanation of what I mean would be far too long for me to present here, the short of it revolves around the idea that the future is "browner", "darker" than most would have believed before November 4, 2008. Obama's Presidency-elect is a marker of future directions that Mr. Halwai hints at in his letters to the Chinese Premier that frame the novel's narrative. The era of White/Christian/Western (read as conservative, traditional Aryan Hindu in the novel) hegemony is coming to a close, though its effects will continue to be felt for some time and the actual changes that will occur in the world are impossible to predict. Halwai's "liberation" in the novel is one manner of portraying how these changes may occur, but as the author has stated, it is still fiction. Social upheavals have their newsworthy markers, though the tangible effects are more often arise through slow, painful, ambiguously moralized rendings. I'm not positive if this is what Mr. Adiga intended with this brilliant work, but it's the sea in which Balram Halwai's eventual prosperity left me floating.
____

addendum: In light of what I wrote above, this article in today's NYTimes Week In Review presents an interesting snapshot of Mumbai. While The White Tiger takes place in Delhi, Bangalore and several small villages, the details here give a good bit of context for Adiga's story.

I Know This Isn't A Diary, But...

...Since Tuesday's election results I've felt rather strange. The first reason for this is something I can pinpoint, mainly my lament at not having been out celebrating in the streets with people after Obama's victory was announced. Nothing against my roommates, but forever in the future when anybody asks me where I was the night of November 4, 2008 I'll have to say, "watching the election on tv in my apartment." Not out at some election party or at a bar celebrating with the world, but at home in front of the tv. Kind of a sucky answer.

To be fair however, I tried to connect with friends, but given my at-that-point intoxicated state, biking half-way across Brooklyn wasn't the best idea. Why was I already kinda wasted? Well, after getting up early to vote, I think I drank six or seven cups of coffee in the span of two hours. My manager at work brought in coffee and chocolate for everyone and I just went to town. That pretty much gave me anxious jitters the rest of the day until I got home, made dinner and started sipping bourbon to calm my nerves. Despite all evidence pointing to an Obama victory, I (alongside the majority of the US African-American population) still was expecting electoral shenanigans. Then, when the results from Massachusetts Prop.2 started coming in...well, you know where that leads.

Knowing that we were all in the midst of a world-historical event, I thought it appropriate to keep a running diary of what was going on. Unfortunately as soon as the race was called I took a gigantic swig of Evan Williams and had to sit down. Anyway the results of my diary experiment are as follows (and I'm not editing any of this):

Obama just won the election, car alarms are sirening, folks on the block are yelling out windows, we can hear distant yells and firecrackers.
on tv the pundits are speaking all sorts of nonsense while Obama supporters celebrate.
this is the first election that I've voted in on the winning side. and it's Obama. everyone is going crazy.
Brothers are drinking in the street! this is so fucking great. this is so little, but means so much it's the perfect step into a midnight we'll wake up in the morning smiling.
he's about to speak. more cheers outside. it's been an hour since the race was called. i've drank bourbon for America. I smoked for the voters of MA who overwhelmingly decriminalized weed.
Hello, Chicago. flag. tv fuzz skip. so many people voted! it's the Answer. How terrible is it that I just want him to wink and say "Where all the white women at?" I'd pee myself. McCain's speech was dignified and gracious and too long. Joe Biden gaffe in 3...2...1....The unyielding zookeeper. Michelle! New puppy! Oprah! Grandma!
Oh he's just a "campaign organizer" [pretty sure I meant "community" there—ed.] Really? That makes sense, because he's pretty much organized your ass's trek back to Alaska! HA!
Spellman College girls are loving it. Planet in Peril. I'm sitting with Perin [one of my roommates]. She's like my new sister it kicks ass in the gayest way possible. Steep climb! We're gonna ride this Donkey to the top!
Flag! False start on #08 Obama. More soccer, less NFL. I have calloused fingers and dirty hands. mmm bourbon. a new spirit indeed. Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old! she can vote as a black woman. obamerica. yes we can. Oprah again. This is our time. This is our time down here. These are peoples' wishes, this is my with and it didn't come true, so I'm taking it back. I'm takin' 'em all back. Yeah we took it back! Eat shit Bush. Lick my ass and suck on my balls. I can't comprehend what is happening right now [oh, you don't say?]. Hug, man love OBAMIDEN O'BIDEN Jesse Jackson is crying!
We got Florida Back and Ohio and more

So there you have it, a succession of moments of brilliance spurred on by the images and words coming at me from the picture box. If anyone has a transcript of that live feed they might be able to make out whatever I was referencing in there because clearly those three pages of writing start to lose coherence rather swiftly.

Oh, and the whole point of this post was why I have been feeling "off" since then. Well, other than the historical celebration that I missed out on, we have this whole "reality" thing going on. I still wake up struggling to make ends meet just like millions of others across the country. People are still racist and bigoted and homophobic (even California, shame on you!). There is a lot of actual work that has to be done to fulfill even the most meagre promises of Obama's campaign. After all he is human, not some saint or messiah or redeemer. Let's chalk all my negativity up to an extended campaign/election/celebration hangover because, strangely enough I feel more positive about existence than I have in quite a while.

Election Day!

Hopefully any Americans reading this today have gone and voted (or will vote before their locals polls close). Previously I voted absentee in Massachusetts, making today my first time voting in an actual booth. A bit groggy from just waking up, I went over to the basement of PS 18 down the block, wandered around confusedly between lines and then the Voter Aides led me to the right line. I didn't know what to expect of line length, but that whole process took me 10 minutes and that includes the walk. The voting machine was weird, too. When I was a kid and "went voting" with my parents I remember going to Leominster City Hall, waiting in line for my ma or pa to get their name crossed off a giant table-sized list before wading through the labia of democracy: the boothflaps.
This New York machine was weird. It looked like an old cigarette vending machine with a giant lever on the bottom. You're supposed to put the lever in position, turn little knobs for the candidate(s) of your choosing, then pull the lever back to cast the vote(s). Such a contraption is quite different than the old Massachusetts machines from my youth. Those things were little boxes with punch cards that had to be lined up properly before casting a vote by punching the lever in the correct position. Then you bring the ballot to another desk and put it in a box. Today? No actual ballot and no box, either. Hm.
Overall, an easy process of which every eligible person should be partaking. My main gripe with American voting (besides the massive fraud of the past two Presidential elections) is that Election Day is not a national holiday. Give every person the day off (or at the very least a half-day) so that they can go cast their vote at their leisure. That people have to get up early or leave work early or skip their lunch break to go vote is stupid. Then again if everyone could vote at their leisure poor, working people would be able to vote. And you know what happens when poor people vote? Baby Jesus cries and the terrorists win again.

On that note (sorry, it's too early for me yet) get out and vote for Obama because if you vote for the old angry guy and the clearly unqualified woman you're an asshole.

Election Prediction via Intrade

Yesterday I caught my annual autumn cold so instead of heading out to friends' comedy and music shows, I stayed in and watched the VP debate. What a travesty Sarah Palin is. I'm not going to go into it, she disgusts me and is an insult to women (among other things). However, in between naps today I found myself at Intrade, the market predictor of important things. As of today there is a 70% chance that Obama/Biden win the election and these type of markets have been consistently accurate in predicting recent election winners. Getting wind of this perked me up a bit and it's worth keeping tabs on over the next 5 weeks (also, make sure you're registered to vote, you have until next Friday 10/10 to do this).

Katie Couric v. Sarah Palin

I don't watch the evening news on television, nor did I ever watch the Today show when Ms. Couric was on that, so my ability to compare interview styles and/or toughness are lacking here. But let's face it, no matter how Couric stands up, the real focus here is on Sarah Palin.

She's had a couple weeks since that Charles Gibson interview to hunker down and cram on policy issues, though clearly whatever she studied for wasn't on this "test". Frankly, this is just embarrassing and she's gonna get her ass handed to her when she finally debates "Screamin' Joe" Biden. Four years of McCain/Palin is stacking up to be even worse than what we have going on now. Hear that? WORSE!

This interview is cringeworthy and anyone who seriously believes this woman is qualified to run anything needs their head examined. To paraphrase my man Dennis Kucinich: WAKE THE FUCK UP AMERICA!

Look At All The Crazy White People!

Um, I'm sitting here watching the John McCain speech and wondering where the fuck all these rednecks got suits. Did all the billionaire splurge for formal attire and razors? I haven't been privvy to such jingoism since the Nuremburg rallies. For pete's sake, quit it with the "USA, USA, USA" chants you ignorant apes! And yes, you are apes, you are descended from a common ancestor along with chimps and bonobos.

To be fair, I didn't watch the DNC, and I'm sure it was chalk full of hope and more hope, but at least it wasn't this horseshit parade.

I'm still considering voting for a joint ticket of Jimmy Carter and Dennis Kucinich. You know, as soon as I remember to register to vote.
~~~~~

Update: This morning when I got to work I was discussing last night's speech with my manager. He informed me that even the Dems burst into impromptu "USA!" chants, which made him wretch. So fuck them as well. Cut the shit with the "USA!" bullshit, people. We're not that great and this isn't Nazi Germany. Wait, what's that you say?...

Let's Prevent A White House Shotgun Wedding

In case anybody hasn't heard, McCain VP Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant. Bristol, a 17 year old, was knocked up by her boyfriend (no word on his age and possible statutory-rape status) who she now plans to marry. Good for them and hooray for government-funded abstinence-only sex-ed. Her mother supports that, by the way, and is also anti-abortion.

And in case you were wondering, yes, the McCain campaign said they knew about the pregnancy (which is now in its fifth month. "Fif, I plead the Fif...F-I-F...FIF!"). Palin has 5 children, the youngest of which, Trig, is only a few months old (and has Down's Syndrome). Apparently the talk of the town this weekend was that Trig was actually Bristol's kid, as she had disappeared with Mono for months and Mom Palin never looked pregnant. Whatever, we don't need more rednecks hanging around the White House.

Oh, also, on the whole family names thing...Bristol and Trig are joined by eldest brother, Track (on his way to Iraq) and sisters Willow and Piper. So...yeah, they all have stupid names.

Sen. Joe Biden & The War On Drugs

Just the other day, after Sen. Obama named Sen. Biden as his running mate, I saw a few posts floating around taking Biden to task on some of his past drug war positions. Not being too familiar with Biden's domestic endeavors, I was unaware that he had been an original architect of our current failed drug war policies in the '80s. Whether this was due to his Delaware constituency and the prevalence of pharmaceutical companies is not clear (at least, I haven't checked up on it), but it true that his positions vis-a-vis drug policy were not exactly progressive.

Yesterday, however, I was heartened to receive a letter from the Drug Policy Alliance Network that gave some updated news on their stance on Biden as prospective VP. While Biden was among the responsible parties that gave us the ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy), the RAVE Act, and prison-flooding mandatory minimum sentencing, he has more recently advocated eliminating the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity (a bill he introduced that both Obama and Clinton co-sponsored) and has been a notable supporter of treatment for addicts.

As DPAN Exec. Dir. Ethan Nadelman points out in his press release (which I recommend you read for yourself), the fact that Obama has selected Biden as his running mate may mean that the latter's positions may be shifting. Obama has not hidden his views that drug war policy in the US has failed and needs to be changed so bringing Biden on board probably doesn't have the negative connotations that some have put forth, regardless of his stances on certain issues.

No More Babies

For many of us who live in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods, we've been privvy to a sort of mini population explosion over the past few years. I don't necessarily want to say that Williamsburg is becoming the new Park Slope, but it's definitely heading in that direction. Most of my friends, at least at this stage in their lives, are anti-breeders, so such a trend is discouraging. To many demographers this is welcome news however. The U.S. has the industrial world's highest birth rate, a whopping 2.1%, that far surpasses its European and Asian rivals. What's happening there do you ask? Declining birth rates and steady population losses. Yesterday's NYTimes Magazine had a feature article by Russell Shorto that outlined many of the issues surrounding the "problem" of population loss.

I, for one, don't consider this to be an actual problem. Truthfully, I think it's a good thing societally and ecologically, but I'm in the minority. Luckily, there are some folks out there (in the former East Germany) who are thinking creatively about their demographic issues and don't see it as a problem but as a chance for some creative thinking about urbanism and how we live today. Here's an excerpt of a piece I just wrote over on the Helium.com site on this topic:

What if "dying" cities began to reclaim abandoned urban spaces for localized agricultural purposes? That would not only be a smart ecological move, but it could foster a sense of pride in place and tie existing residents to the "soul" of the city. Who knows, that may encourage people to have kids to grow up and inherit this city with newfound love.

There are many cities whose population bases are shrinking but can't seem to get out of the "We must grow and expand to survive!" mode of thinking. Unfortunately they can't seem to realize that their time in the sun is over and they must move on, establish a new rationale for existing. As I mention in my article, Detroit is a city that could use some new thinking like this. So much of that landscape is comprised of (nearly) contiguous abandoned buildings and empty lots that they could establish all manner of parks, urban gardens, local farm plots. Of course a lot of work and bureaucratic wrangling would have to occur, but it's not beyond the scope of actual planning. Population decrease doesn't have to be the monumental catastrophe that too many people are making it out to be, but it does require a shift in our thinking; a shift in our perceptions of where our societies should be heading and the goals we should really be focusing on.