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July 11, 2009

John Long — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:30:39 +0000

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Yesterday, when I went someplace with a large, black asphalt parking lot, my car thermometer that was showing 109 degrees on the concrete street began just blinking and couldn’t register the temperature on the asphalt. Thank you all, but I think I’m beyond needing to hear remarks that it is hot in Oklahoma in July. Since you’re the same people who tell me it is cold in Oklahoma and bitch and moan in February, you can leave that out of our conversations as well. When it’s too hot to have the top down on my convertible, it’s too hot. Further, if the top is up on my Midlife Chrysler, no man is truly free. I also do not feel the need to hear you say something incredibly stupid about man-made climate changes.

Sen. Inhofe, this includes you. Perhaps, Sen. Inhofe, you may wish to direct your attention to other areas. Clearly, you know absolutely nothing about climate because you are fast earning the title of most clueless U.S. Senator, which puts you in some pretty scary territory considering your Republican cohorts. May I suggest you consider a discussion with our other U.S. Senator, Dr. Tom Coburn? That whole “C Street” and “The Family” stuff with Sen. Ensign might be a good place to start. In all your glorious Republican Party-ness, maybe you might could possibly discuss just how inappropriate it is to pay off a blackmailing cuckold to the tune of $96,000 in just-under-the-radar-reporting-requirements payments of $12,000 from Sen. Ensign’s parents, Vegas casino millionaires.

OTOH, I may be getting more conservative than I used to be concerning another issue: the 2d Amendment. I have been someone who thought it perfectly appropriate and constitutional to restrict the private ownership of automatic weapons, rifle propelled grenades, bazookas, and even so-called “Saturday Night specials”. Just right now, I’m trying to re-think my notions of the “right to bear arms.” What’s got me there is watching the Iran demonstrations. I realized that the maurading Basijis with batons on motorcycles who have beaten and injured so many protestors in Teheran wouldn’t last long in America. Oh, maybe the crowds would have been dispersed by these thugs on the first day, but the second day? There’s enough firepower in the hands of private individuals in the good ole’ U.S. of A. that yahooligans on motor bikes wielding clubs wouldn’t last long against an angry American crowd on the second day.

Of course, Americans didn’t take to the streets in 2000 when a coup put Bush in the White House. I’m not so sure that if the events of the 2000 election should take place in today’s economic climate that things would be the same as they were back then. A botched election plus 10-12 percent unemployment and some empty bellies has a way of making crowds more unpredictable because jobless angry people have nothing to lose, the very definition of freedom if we listen to Kris Kristofferson and Janice Joplin. Is anyone else finding themselves listening to Bob Dylan while watching the events in Iran, specifically “The Times They Are A-Changin'”? Or, maybe, The Who’s “We Won’t Be Fooled Again”? In a discussion of these matters last night with the Oz, he said something I thought was brilliant: “I’m too old for the army, but I’m just old enough for the revolution.”

Speaking of the 2000 coup d’etat, the latest news about W’s secret surveillance programs and the possibility that Cheney directed a secret assassination squad outside all oversight makes me long for a Congress and, yes, even a president, with the backbone to frog march those war criminals into a cell next to Joseph Padilla or maybe someone as yet unnamed in Gitmo.

It’s too hot to write any more. Anyone else hot? Gee, do you think it’s hot enough? Wow. It’s really hot, isn’t it?

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June 22, 2009

John Long — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:51:48 +0000

June 16, 2009

John Long — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:15:19 +0000

Solidarity

Both William Kristol’s Weekly Standard on the right and David Corn’s The Nation on the left seem to have similar positions about the events in Iran. A couple of weeks ago, I’d have bet the farm those two mags couldn’t have agreed on Mom and Apple or Cherry Pie. Astounding. I suppose even highly improbable events seem to happen on a quantum level and, thus, chaos in the macro and random events will happen, no matter how unlikely.
Meanwhile, I’m glued to my computer. The internet has been far and away the best source of news out of Tehran compared with television, radio and newspapers — with very few exceptions (I’m thinking NPR, Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek and CNN, the NY Times blog, TheLede) — and those exceptions are vacuumed up instantaneously. It’s a one-way line, it appears. You would think those journalism outlets would try to link up when nobody can be “on the ground” under the present circumstances.

In all events, it is a signal event that the situation in Iran, even in its smaller cities, is being provided by private individuals telling what they saw and heard and felt in real time. Photos are not far behind and there are rare bits of video that have escaped. This one from the storming of the Basiji militia barracks yesterday is amazing.

My friend, the Ultimate Webmaster, used to preach that “information wants to be free” is proving more correct than I believe he imagined.

shut up, he explained

One lesson I’ve learned is that I tend to think of Iran as a 2d level nation; not a “first-world” nation like the US or Europe. However, it’s obvious that the infrastructure for wireless communications are available even in small towns in Iran and that’s impressive to me. These events couldn’t happen this way in North Korea or the Sudan because no one has cellphones and the nations don’t have the infrastructure to make them work. Satellite phones, yes, but that’s a king’s ransom in those countries.
Meanwhile, nearby, about 15,000 American troops are deploying out of Kabul south towards the Pakistani border as the Pakistanis prepare to strike into Waziristan, part of their loosely controlled territories, making one big pincer movement against the Taliban and AlQaeda. Some of the top people in AQ are reported fleeing to Sudan and Yemen when they can get out. As far as I know, bin Lauden remains in Waziristan, but no one knows north or south and that’s two different Imam/Tribal Warlords. However, Waziristan is Pashtun and the Taliban are Pashtun and they don’t pay all that much attention to the borders. It is a very isolated part of the world.

Enough of my lecturing my friends about boring shit. I had a pretty good day. Saw Mom and spent a good hour with her. Sinatra stayed out all night and has been quite snuggly today. If I didn’t know he’d been cut, I say he acted all shagged out. I loaded 44 CDs into this computer and I’m playing through them randomized cut at a time. My Rose of Sharon is blooming outside my window. Life is still shit, but today wasn’t my day to bite that sandwich.
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