Dispatches from Nowhere 12.29.05

Is it almost new years already?

Weird. Where did the year go?

I suppose this is when we usually start thinking about our resolutions for the next year and what things we want to accomplish. I don't usually go in for resolutions. Either I am going to d a thing or I am not. Deciding at year’s end/ beginning a list of stuff that I want to do just does not hold any particular weight for me.

However, I think I can agree with John Rogers' (of Kung-Fu Monkey) resolution this year.

(and I quote - how gauche)

For what little it's worth, my New Year's Resolution in 2006, is to disagree more. To dissent -- and welcome dissent and well-reasoned arguments from those who hold opposite views. Because they are not the enemy. The people who say "... just because", in all its myriad forms, are the enemy.

(from this post here)



In short, it's not if we agree politically, it is whether or not we support a search for the truth, an open and honest dialog about government, and (more to the point) how it is run in our names.

These days the government and its policies seem more about obfuscation and paranoia than governing for and by the people. Some times I think I sound like a broken record, or a minister preaching to the choir, but more and more I can't ignore what is being said, or more to the point, what is not being said.

I'm seeing stuff in the news that makes me wonder if the guys running the show read their history or just paid someone to write their term papers while they did Blow off a hooker's tits?

Maybe it's just me.

In other, less serious news,

I assume you have seen the SNL skit “Chronic (what!?) cles of Narnia”

If not, iTunes has it as a free download. If the link does not work, it should be on the front page of the iTunes music store.


It made me smile.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.28.05

I'm late.

I spent the last two days in the car. Really it was all of one day and 4 or 5 hours the second day. I have seen parts of Alabama and Florida I didn't know existed. I have made wrong turns. In the last 24 hours I have left the interstate to follow a new route, had fresh, hot, krispy kremes, and eaten a bunch of my moms cookies. I have had some really good pizza, watched some really inane video games, and generally hung out with family.

The kids have exchanged all the remaining Christmas gifts and we have handed out the remaining gifts that we brought with us. I played games with my brother, heard funny stories about ranger school after the kids went to bed and to end my day, I fell asleep watching Serenity.

Not a bad day.

I went running this morning, found the local coffee hut, and right now, as I write this, it is raining.

It could be worse. I have Hannah on my lap, the house is quiet, and the rain is sort of soothing. Give it an hour and the rest of the family should be awake and bedlam will ensue.

Family is like that. No matter where we are, it almost always feels like home if we are together.


Enjoy the silence while it lasts.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.22.05

I never feel like I have bought enough presents for my wife.

Maybe I’m saying something about myself here - but unless I find something really (and I mean really) cool, I don't feel like I bought enough for her. The sad thing is I know she will like what I got her, I know that she is happy with what I have bought her so far - maybe that is the trick. You can't really surprise her. She never really expresses an interest in anything that is weird and tech-y or geeky or what have you.

I hate buying flowers because, while they are pretty, they die. I hate that. She is a needle work and knitting junkie - but I already got her the cool books and she has all the needles she will ever need. (Don't talk to me about yarn. We have stacks of it.) I don't know. maybe I’m expressing my own insecurities here more than anything else, but unless I have Quested for said item, it just doesn’t feel like I’m done.

All that being said - my shopping is complete. I cannot think of anything else to get for her. Actually - I think all of our shopping is done. Kids, family members, etc, etc, etc. Everyone is done. Such bad consumers we are. Shouldn't we be out there spending and boosting the consumer confidence index?

Nahh.

The only shopping I may do now is to make cool food type stuff. Cookies, cakes, and pies. You know all the stuff that makes the holiday season taste really good - but makes your pants not fit at the end? Then again, maybe I won’t.

It doesn’t matter. I got what I wanted for Christmas this year. Another year with my family. Another year of all of them safe. We added a few new members to the family this year, and welcome additions they are. Oh wait, I'm not supposed to be nostalgic until after Christmas right? Oh well.

Either way, once the materialism of the season is stripped away – I’m just happy that we made it through another year (relatively) unscathed.

The day after Christmas, my family and I head down to sunny Florida to rendezvous with the rest of the clan. I don’t think the lot of us has been in one place since my brothers wedding. I know we haven’t been in one place for Christmas in years. This should be fun.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.20.05

I read in the news the other day about some critical stadium deal being on the verge of falling through here in DC.

Pardon me but, WHAT THE FUCK?

RFK is old as fuck. MLB wants a new stadium. NOVA and DC want a new baseball team. Record attendance at the games and yet, for some reason, there is a possibility that we will lose ANOTHER FUCKING TEAM because some asshats in DC can't get their shit together? You know, I like having Baseball in DC. I liked it when they talked about moving the Nationals to a spot in NOVA. I thought that was great. But now - due to some sort of political two step (the old Washington shuffle) we might lose Baseball again. What a fantastic idea. Because Las Vegas would LOVE to have the Nationals (I’m sure calling them the Wynn Lucky Devils or some other name that is equally ego stroking) and once again leaving the Nations capitol bereft of a baseball team.

As long as I have lived here, I have heard people say how great it would be to have a baseball team in DC. Well, now we have one and due to the usual backroom deals and Washington two-step, we might be losing them after only 2 years back in town.

Way to go team.

Way to go.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.15.05

I was listening to the radio the other morning and it cam across the news that the gentlemen on Capitol Hill are debating whether or not they should vote to extend the Patriot Act.

You know the Patriot Act…. the little law that gives the government the authority to do.. Well pretty much anything they want – all in the name of protecting you. One of the quotes I heard was “The American people may have to give up some of their liberties, in the name of safety”

Wow.

Did I miss something?

We need to give up our freedoms in the name of an illusory safety that is not possible to achieve? What happens next? We give up these few freedoms and then they ask for a few more, and then more and more and more.

What do we have left?

Safety? What sort of newspeak is that?

What sort of life will we have when, we have no rights left?

But – don’t take my word for it. Take a look at what the EFF has to say about it.

There are too many things in the world, to many distractions, that keep us from recognizing the important things in life. For example’ Today I went and saw my son in his Christmas performance. I don't know if there is anything funnier than a bunch of 3 year olds singing the 12 days of Christmas. It was fantastic.

It is for him that I worry about these idiotic laws. I want him to grow up in a better world than the one I grew up in. Is that so much to ask?

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.13.05

(and now for something completely different)


Come out of the bathroom, into the greenish lights of the hallway, turn the corner and press the button to call the elevator. The elevator dings to let you know it has arrived almost before your fingers have left the button. What’s that in the doorway – is there some one inside? There is no one there. Just the slightly damp smell that seems to be ever present in this elevator – it’s the last on the left – you know the one – across from the service elevator? Right. That one.

Step inside. Hit the button for P2. What was that? It’s nothing. Nothing moved. You’re just tired at the end of the day. It’s the lights playing with your eyes. The incandescents are hell for color. The elevator creeks and groans as the doors shut.

“What if it doesn’t stop?”

The voice tickles at the back of your brain, tweaking your adrenal glands. Your heart skips a beat.

Relax. It is just the end of the day and you are tired. Nothing to worry about. Just push the button. Take a deep breath.

“What if it just keeps going past your floor and slams in to the earth – its only seven floors – you might survive. It could happen.”

“What if it just keeps going past your floor and never stops?”

“Go ahead. Press the buttons. They buttons all light up – but they don’t work anymore. The phone cord has been chewed through or ripped out – it all looks the same.”

The elevator lurches into motion, starting the journey down.

Just breathe. It will be over quickly.


Breathe.

The doors open on your floor. The lights are normal and your car is waiting. The elevator dings as the doors close.


(all rights reserved Matthew Messenger 2005)

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.08.05

Someone explain this to me.
(go read the link)

What, if I may ask such an impertinent question, are they thinking?

How can this possibly be construed as a good idea?

I know - Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin are 80 years old and loved the world over - lets fuck with the formula. What a fantastic idea. You can almost see the coke residue on the nose of the executives that thought this little gem up. I can just hear the conversation now:

"Sorry Chris, You are too old to be playing with Pooh Bear any more. It's ok; we have a new friend for you to meet. His name is Old Yeller. You'll love him. [phone rings] What's that? I have a meeting? Be right there. OK Chris, are you ready? It's time for us to go behind the woodshed and meet your new best friend!"

I know. I'm just upset because they are messing with my childhood. But hey - I'm not the only one.

Is there something so wrong with Winnie the Pooh that they feel they really need to rewrite the story? Did you ever feel alienated because of Christopher Robin? Maybe it's me - I always felt he was pretty gender neutral, and that sex didn't really have anything to do with it. But I could be wrong. Heck, according to Disney marketing - I am.

I'll leave you with this:

Disney's Kanter says the new cartoon represents not an abandonment of an old, familiar world, but rather an alternate universe for Pooh and his crew.

"Christopher Robin is still out there in the woods, playing,"

Right. He's out there with Old Yeller - romping behind the woodshed.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.07.05

I know. I'm late. I'm sorry. I'm a bad person. Can we still be friends?

When did it become ok to joke about having a pace maker blow out? Is it considered nice, and loving, and accepting, even liberal, to wish death on a fellow human being because we happen to disagree with their political views?

Sorry kids, what ever you’re selling – I ain’t buying.

My definition of liberal remembers compassion and tolerance are virtues. But then again, so does my definition of conservative. Cracking jokes and openly wishing for major political figures to keel over and die isn’t in my definitions.

I really wish that before people would make comparisons between our current administration and the Nazi’s they would read some history. To do less, cheapens those that perished at the hands of that particular genocidal regime. Do some fucking research and skip the hyperbole. You might actually contribute something worthwhile to the debate. Instead, you continually chose to reduce the entire discourse to little more than schoolyard name calling.

My three year old is more civil than this.

In other news,

I saw this reported on my friend-list in the last day or so. Instead of arbitrarily linking to someone I don’t know and I am not sure if he wants the attention, I’ll go to the source.

I’m not one for supporting or teaching Intelligent Design. I don’t buy it, nor do I particularly care. However I do firmly believe that if you are going to freak out about some one wanting to teach ID, then you should also be upset when a small group of hindu nationalists succeeds in having textbooks rewritten to support their propaganda worldview over the objections of historians and linguists.

I’ll quote two of the more pertinent passages here:

Hindu nationalists have a few beliefs outside the mainstream of academic thought, including one view that science can prove human civilization has been around for 1,900 million years. They believe Hinduism originated in India and that Aryan culture traveled to Iran from India rather than vice-versa. They also believe Sanskrit is the mother language of every language in the world, including that of Native Americans. These unorthodox views are disputed by most historians and linguists who believe that the Vedic religion and Indo-Aryan Languages came from Central Asia along with the Aryans around 3500 years ago.

And,

The lobbying prompted Harvard Indologist Michael Witzel to write a letter to the California Board of Education which said, in part:

The agenda of the groups proposing these changes is familiar to all specialists on Indian history, who have recently won a long battle to prevent exactly these kinds of changes from finding a permanent place in the history textbooks in India. The proposed revisions are not of a scholarly but of a religious-political nature, and are primarily promoted by Hindutva supporters and non-specialist academics writing about issues far outside their area of expertise.

(emphasis mine)

Well, so much for our vaunted scientific impartiality. We complain about I.D. being taught in schools, but we let this slide in the name of …. What? Evil Western Christianity oppressing all view points but their own? Religious Tolerance?

Come on guys, if we are (as we say we are) for separation of church and state, then we should be up in arms about this as well.

Yeah. Right. That’s gonna happen.

Dispatches from Nowhere 12.01.05

You know, I understand that you don't give a public time table for withdraw from occupying a country. I get the rhetoric that says don't go until the job is done. I just don't give a shit. I don't want to kill another American solider when the mission keeps changing. For that matter I don't want to kill another American solider. Maybe I’m thinking with my heart as opposed to my head. Because really, I don't want my kids to grow up in the world as it stands.

Here is the trick George. Maybe if you had ever fought in a war, had family die in a war, or … I don’t know, done anything other than get a lot of people killed, I’d listen to you. As it stands I’m not sure that this little bit of rage isn’t correct.


“I see a man with a box in one hand. That box is labeled "Oppression". In his other he holds a glass labeled "Suppression". He is passing out the contents of the box and giving drinks from the glass to all he meets. On the road he is walking you can see the word "Tyranny" underneath the worn gilt that used to read "Freedom."

And still you sit there, smiling and taking what he is handing out because “hey, it could be worse”

Behind this man is another man with a spear in his hands. The spear is labeled “war” and he jabs it into the earth when ever anyone starts to question. He skewers the innocent to provide a distraction and still

you sit there and take it.

Because “Hey – it is not me they are after.”



Enough of that. Next Thought.

Today is World Aids day. Stand up and take notice.

Next.

OoO. According to CNN - Coffee helps boost short term memory. Maybe I should go get some.

Ok. Short dispatch today.

More in a bit.