Peter Schuyff (thanks Caterina)
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Jimmy Breslin--Reagan should be on a $3 bill
"The great American news industry, the Pekinese of the Press with so much room and time and nothing to say, compared Reagan to Lincoln and Hamilton, they really did. This is like claiming that the maintenance man wrote the Bill of Rights. And almost all the reporters agreed that Reagan was the man who brought down Russia in the Cold War.
Just saying this is absolutely sinful. The Cold War was won by a long memo written by George Kennan, who worked in the State Department and sent the memo by telegram about the need for a 'Policy of Containment' on Russia. Kennan said the contradictions in their system would ruin them. Keep them where they are and they will tear themselves apart. We followed Kennan's policy for over 40 years. The Soviets made it worse on themselves by building a wall in East Berlin. When they had to tear it down and give up their system, Kennan was in Princeton and he sat down to dinner"
"The great American news industry, the Pekinese of the Press with so much room and time and nothing to say, compared Reagan to Lincoln and Hamilton, they really did. This is like claiming that the maintenance man wrote the Bill of Rights. And almost all the reporters agreed that Reagan was the man who brought down Russia in the Cold War.
Just saying this is absolutely sinful. The Cold War was won by a long memo written by George Kennan, who worked in the State Department and sent the memo by telegram about the need for a 'Policy of Containment' on Russia. Kennan said the contradictions in their system would ruin them. Keep them where they are and they will tear themselves apart. We followed Kennan's policy for over 40 years. The Soviets made it worse on themselves by building a wall in East Berlin. When they had to tear it down and give up their system, Kennan was in Princeton and he sat down to dinner"
Friday, June 11, 2004
Mark Ames
"But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over truth when given the chance?and not even very interesting lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies? What if Americans are not a likeable people? The left's wires short-circuit when confronted with this terrible possibility; the right, on the other hand, warmly embraces Middle America's rank soul and exploits it to their full advantage. The Republicans know Americans better than the left. They know that it's not so much Goering's famous 'bigger lie' that works here, but the dumber the lie, the more they want to hear it repeated. "
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Bear Snacks on Sub
"It took a bite out of the rudder and, finding it inedible, stayed around the area of broken ice around the rudder for a while, apparently thinking a seal (the bears favorite food) might use it as an air hole. The bear finally left when he heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. When an officer first looked around outside via the periscope, he noted that his sub was being stalked by a hostile polar bear. The periscope cam was turned on, and these photos of a polar bear chewing on the subs rear rudder resulted. The damage was said to be minor"
Whiskey Bar on Ashcroft
"LEAHY: Has there been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants, yes or no?
ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to answer that question.
LEAHY: Does that mean because you don't know or you don't want to answer? I don't understand.
ASHCROFT: The answer to that question is yes."
(thanks Sharp Sand)
Teen walks in on snacking Bear
"I've heard bears are pretty smart, but this one was really sharp,' said Sherry Walsh of her son Brett's close encounter on Tuesday night. 'He punched a hole in the screen mesh and put his paw through and unlocked the catch and then slid open the door.'
The animal, drawn, Walsh suspects, by a pot of bacon grease she had left on the stove, also helped itself to some ketchup and a package of goldfish food."
$Xvarenah$
"The Neoformalists have failed to imagine farther back than Frost; they have no more use for Pope than for Ginsberg."
Not just the neocons, sadly.
"The Neoformalists have failed to imagine farther back than Frost; they have no more use for Pope than for Ginsberg."
Not just the neocons, sadly.
Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush
" McClellan called the memo a HISTORIC or SCHOLARLY review of laws and conventions concerning torture. 'The memo was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques,' he said, 'It was ANALYTICAL.' "
" McClellan called the memo a HISTORIC or SCHOLARLY review of laws and conventions concerning torture. 'The memo was not prepared to provide advice on specific methods or techniques,' he said, 'It was ANALYTICAL.' "
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Gordon Burns on Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song": "Brenda was six when she fell out of the apple tree. She climbed to the top and the limb with the good apples broke off. Gary caught her as the branch came scraping down. They were scared. The apple trees were their grandmother's best crop and it was forbidden to climb in the orchard. She helped him drag away the tree limb and they hoped no one would notice. That was Brenda's earliest recollection of Gary.' "
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Boswell cuts up at the theatre with rhetorician Hugh Blair, from his "Tour to the Hebrides"--
At Mr Tytler's, I happened to tell that one evening, a great many years ago, when Dr Hugh Blair and I were sitting together in the pit of Drury-lane play-house, in a wild freak of youthful extravagance, I entertained the audience PRODIGIOUSLY, by imitating the lowing of a cow. A little while after I had told this story, I differed from Dr Johnson, I suppose too confidently, upon some point, which I now forget. He did not spare me. "Nay, sir," said he, "if you cannot talk better as a man, I'd have you bellow like a cow." "
[Note: As I have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes concerning other persons, I shall not withhold any part of this story, however ludicrous.-I was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the universal cry of the galleries was, "Encore the cow! Encore the cow!" In the pride of my heart, I attempted imitations of some other animals, but with very inferior effect. My reverend friend, anxious for my fame, with an air of the utmost gravity and earnestness, addressed me thus: "My dear sir, I would CONFINE myself to the COW!"]
Stardust and Black Coffee: "Sarah Vaughan's 'Stardust', written by Lucky Roberts, and 'Black Coffee', written by Paul Francis Webster and Reginald (Sonny) Burke are beautiful songs. Listening to them, I noticed that they were basically in the same tempo and seemed to have other relations also. So I cut them both into loops to see how they intermixed together. "
"Die Walkure" (Parker Bros. 20's) one of many splendid Old Jigsaw Puzzles (much more at Sugar 'N Spicy)
American homeland security
"Somewhere in central Los Angeles, about 20 miles from LAX airport, there is a nondescript building housing a detention facility for foreigners who have violated US immigration and customs laws. I was driven there around 11pm on May 3, my hands painfully handcuffed behind my back as I sat crammed in one of several small, locked cages inside a security van. I saw glimpses of night-time urban LA through the metal bars as we drove, and shadowy figures of armed security officers when we arrived, two of whom took me inside. The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel. "
"Somewhere in central Los Angeles, about 20 miles from LAX airport, there is a nondescript building housing a detention facility for foreigners who have violated US immigration and customs laws. I was driven there around 11pm on May 3, my hands painfully handcuffed behind my back as I sat crammed in one of several small, locked cages inside a security van. I saw glimpses of night-time urban LA through the metal bars as we drove, and shadowy figures of armed security officers when we arrived, two of whom took me inside. The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel. "
Alan Turing, whose reward for inventing the computer and winning WWll was homophobic persecution, belatedly honoured.
Monday, June 07, 2004
the terrific Like Anna Karina's Sweater (who remembers "Puzzle of a Downfall Child"!)--has a list of film blogs...
Robert Quine
"I play with singers/songwriters and one thing that's crucial is that I LISTEN TO THE LYRICS. Like with Lou Reed's 'Waves of Fear,' if it had been about making an egg cream, my solo would be different than a guy having a nervous breakdown. It's really obvious to do this but it's important."
"I play with singers/songwriters and one thing that's crucial is that I LISTEN TO THE LYRICS. Like with Lou Reed's 'Waves of Fear,' if it had been about making an egg cream, my solo would be different than a guy having a nervous breakdown. It's really obvious to do this but it's important."
A place in the sun: "Lampedusa's book has become a morbidly seductive guidebook to the island, its glamour and despair; the sensual revelling in decrepit palaces, burnt landscapes studded with temples, sugary pasticceria (Lampedusa spent a lot of time in cake shops) and the magnificent ball in a gilded Palermo salon that is so gloriously visualised in Visconti's just re-released 1963 film of the book, make you breathe Sicily."
Alterman in 2000--Where's the Rest of Him?
"Reagan showed a similar indulgence toward the terrorists in El Salvador. The President and his equally immoral advisers consistently behaved as if they were hired public relations agents for the murderers of children, nuns, priests and peasants. Not long after these killings reached the amazing level of more than 200 per week--in a country with just 5.5 million people--Reagan mused aloud that they were not the work of 'so-called murder squads' on the right, but of 'guerrilla forces' who think they 'can get away with these violent acts, helping to try and bring down the government, and the right wing will be blamed for it.' In fact, only days later, Vice President Bush flew to San Salvador to insist that 'every murderous act' committed by 'right-wing fanatics...poisons the well of friendship between our two countries,' and that 'death squad murders' could cost the killers 'the support of the American people.' Didn't Reagan know what Bush knew? Does anyone care? After the war, the Catholic archdiocese in San Salvador documented the number of killings on each side. The tally: military and government-assisted death squads, 41,048; left-wing guerrillas, 776. Reagan was off by almost 5,500 percent. Liar or moron? You tell me."
"Reagan showed a similar indulgence toward the terrorists in El Salvador. The President and his equally immoral advisers consistently behaved as if they were hired public relations agents for the murderers of children, nuns, priests and peasants. Not long after these killings reached the amazing level of more than 200 per week--in a country with just 5.5 million people--Reagan mused aloud that they were not the work of 'so-called murder squads' on the right, but of 'guerrilla forces' who think they 'can get away with these violent acts, helping to try and bring down the government, and the right wing will be blamed for it.' In fact, only days later, Vice President Bush flew to San Salvador to insist that 'every murderous act' committed by 'right-wing fanatics...poisons the well of friendship between our two countries,' and that 'death squad murders' could cost the killers 'the support of the American people.' Didn't Reagan know what Bush knew? Does anyone care? After the war, the Catholic archdiocese in San Salvador documented the number of killings on each side. The tally: military and government-assisted death squads, 41,048; left-wing guerrillas, 776. Reagan was off by almost 5,500 percent. Liar or moron? You tell me."
Laura Sinagra on Alanis 'n Avril
"Yes, it's a special kind of labored playfulness that births lines like 'You make the knees of my bees weak.' (She has bees??) "
"Yes, it's a special kind of labored playfulness that births lines like 'You make the knees of my bees weak.' (She has bees??) "
The Leopard on DVD
" If at times he seems remote, not fully present in the life swirling around him, it's simply because he suffers, as the great 19th-century poet Giacomo Leopardi did, from a too acute and too constant awareness of transience. 'We were the leopards, the lions,' he tells an earnest politician, and 'those who take our place will be jackals, hyenas.' But even that bitter-sounding statement isn't offered as a defense of his class, for he continues: 'And all of us--leopards, lions, jackals and sheep--will go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.'"
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