Flushing for the Future!

The greatest invention of Western Civilization? The printing press - nah! The internal combustion engine? Hell, no! Shaving cream? Why I oughta...

It's simple, every man out there will pull a Homer and slap his forehead with the force of spiritual revelation:

The toilet.

Yes, the lowly, the lovely indoor toilet is the greatest invention of our often ridiculous and contradictory and crazy Western civilization.

Think about it. Besides giving us a comfy place to read while crapping, the indoor toilet revolutionized how we deal with our waste. It carries it away from our homes on little tidal waves, into equally revolutionary public sanitation systems that keep our crap and piss out of the streets. The end result - less disease, fewer epidemics, a healthier and safer population.

Pretty cool. What if we could help the whole world to a toilet of their own? Check out this article about the need for a Flushing Revolution. We only need a celebrity spokesperson to kick start it.

May I suggest Jack Black? I'm not aware of any cause célèbre to which Mr. Black has attached himself and I can't think of any celebrity better suited to this toilet task.

Mr. Black, if you're out there, will you help us Flush for the Future (TM)?

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Now playing: Wolfgang Dauner - Just Bring It Out
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Celebration Salsa!

CELEBRATION SALSA '08

(2) Cans diced tomatoes (drained)
(1) Cup white vinegar
(1) Cup shredded carrots
(5) Whole jalapenos (stems removed)
(1) Bunch fresh cilantro (washed, stems removed)

Combine all ingredients in blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Chill. Serve.

This is my basic smooth salsa recipe. I used carrots this time, but I've also substituted various fruits, fresh or canned. Makes a great dip, topping for baked chicken or throw a half cup in your favorite tomato sauce for a zingy pasta dish.

If you like it chunky, don't process and leave out the vinegar, add some cracked pepper and lime juice and you've got a nice pico de gallo. Sans onions, you'll notice. Some of us love onions but are not loved in return by them.

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Now playing: King Crimson - Cat Food
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The Greatest American Hero

Plans I Make

Man, but I'm tired today. Didn't have to stay up too late last night, being in the Midwest and all. More emotional drainage. By ten o'clock we had the news. And we yelled and hollered so loud the cats went running!

A few minutes later, when it all started to sink in, we were watching Jesse Jackson's eloquently silent face at Grant Park and the tears streaming down his cheeks, biting on his hand to keep some of his reactions inside. We joined him - with tears of joy and relief and release, but tears also for all who struggled so long and so hard in this country, many of whom are not here to see this new American day. A new day in which the real message for Americans is not that a black man can be President of the United States but that any person regardless of skin color, religion or gender can be President of the United States. And that democracy, as freakish and imperfect a social and political system as any yet devised, can still respond to the will of the people when they decide to exercise that will.

It was an incredible moment. People in our little city were celebrating - we could hear them from blocks away! And the images of people dancing and cheering outside the White House - I'll never forget that. I hope it's burned on Bush's eyeballs, that he sees it in his meager dreams for the rest of his sad life.

For the rest of the world there was also cause for celebration. Like my pal Nuzz at Bleedin' Out, I know I've got quite a few overseas visitors here - to them I want to say thank you for your support and encouragement in this long, long election season. I hope that the end will justify the struggle, which is really just beginning as we try and clean up eight years of ruinous domestic and foreign policy, and that America will once again be a leader and a partner with other nations around the world. Thank you for hanging in with us.

Something I read this last weekend helped me hang in. I'm in the middle of a great novel right now by Christopher Priest called The Separation. I can't recommend it too highly. One passage hit me dead between the eyes. One of the primary narrators is writing about patriotism and the Second World War from several decades remove:

"I live in a time when it is fashionable in some quarters to be cynical about patriotism, bravery, political leadership, national purpose. I feel it myself sometimes, as in a properly sceptical democracy who should not? In 1941 things were different, for which I make no apology." (Pg. 71)

I feel like the last eight years have been a tremendous war, not over yet even if a battle has been won. Not anything as pathetic as a "culture war" or as mundane as a military war, but a war to define America in the 21st century. (See my earlier, weirder post for more on this). I also feel that my own definitions of "patriotism, bravery, political leadership, national purpose" have been more finely honed and sharpened during this war, that my sometimes nonsensical pursuit of meaning has been directly tied to these ideas and ideals more than at any other time in my life. Frankly, the cynicism that walled me in for most of my life should have led me to roundly dismiss these absurd, antique daydreams, to throw them in the trash. But that was before I saw my country ravaged by foul, literally evil men like George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Men for whom nothing mattered but their own ends, their own betterment, their own enrichment. They were wild dogs barely constrained by human form.

I therefore will make no more apologies in the round for the sometimes weird, sometimes angry, sometimes heartfelt things I write on this blog. If I screw something up or go beyond the pale and let my emotions get the better of me, I'll acknowledge it. But I'm done apologizing for caring and hoping. If anything, I'm more ready to continue the fight and win this war than at any time in the past. There's no going back, no giving up.

This is our time. Our time is now.

The Terrorists Strike Today!

I wasn't gonna post today - but then I saw this diary on DailyKos:

Bomb threat closes Wis. polling place

Naturally, this got my Badger blood heated up, so I had to read it...to find it's about my old high school! Middleton High School, in Middleton, Wisconsin, where I graduated third from the bottom of my class in 1984, received a bomb threat this afternoon, while students were still present and polling was ongoing.

Election mayhem or student prank? I think the former. I was in Middleton this last weekend and there are Obama signs everywhere. Even my own brother's lawn was literally festooned with them! (I didn't expect it - we don't discuss politics though I never really thought he'd be voting for McCain-Palin).

I know just how nutjob and plain fuckin' retarded folk around Middleton can be. I went to school and then lived there for years. There's still a very conservative rural element around there, regardless of all the freaks from Madison that have moved into Middleton.

I assume the threat wasn't real, there is no bomb, it's just scare tactics. But to the students of my alma mater (no matter how much I hated it while I was there), I extend my sympathies. No one should have to endure these kind of TERRORIST TACTICS in the United States, especially when they are perpetrated by fellow Americans.

In case you haven't fuckin' done it yet - GO AND GODDAMN VOTE, YOU STUPID SLACK-ASS MOTHERFUCKERS! And do it right. Vote Obama.

Update - I was wrong. It was a student prank. I still stand by my assertion about the backwardness of some residents of Middleton, though. This was evidently the work of a student at the school. He's been arrested. He's a stupid little shit. I don't like to condemn teens - I work with them all of the time and I know full well how much on the edge some of them are and can be, far more than many people realize - but he terrorized fellow students and the public and disrupted the voting process too. I'd like to know why he did this, but it doesn't really matter in the end. I'm just glad a bunch of other idjits and morons and mouth-breathers didn't take it upon themselves to emulate him or take his stupidity one step further.

If I was a "little" more emotional and foul-mouthed in this post, I apologize. My nephew may have been in that building at the time of the threat and I was very upset and worried.

The Final Countdown

Less than 24 hours to go, kids.

It's been a long freakin' year, hasn't it?

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we were there in Springfield when Obama announced his intent to run. As a former Wisconsinite, I've experienced cold weather in my lifetime, but I can tell ya that was one mother of a freezing day on the square at the Old Capital building. We're all glad we went though. One doesn't get to witness history very often, to say "I was there!"

And tomorrow, regardless of the outcome, we'll all be "there" - where ever "there" is for you.

What are your plans?

Me, I'm getting up as normal, getting the family fed and caffeinated and off to school and work, then I'm going to vote. I'm not really expecting huge lines. Our precinct isn't that dang big. But I'll bring a coffee and a book (reading a great one now - subject of a future post!).

Then off to work myself. I've got a lot to do this week, so the day should go by quickly. After work, we're coming home and doing all our normal junk - running The Boy to his martial arts class, taking out the trash, making dinner, etc.

Finally we can settle down and watch the returns. I think I'll make some pico de gallo for snacking. We've got a fancy, expensive, tiny bottle of champagne in the fridge already. And I've got my Laphroig at hand too. Plus our favorite Wisconsin beer - now in CANS!

Remember, if Obama wins Virginia, he's won it all. You can start celebrating then. If he doesn't, you'll just have to wait a few hours longer.

And, if for some reason you are still undecided or think that Obama is some kind of weirdo liberal nutjob, check out this piece by a former speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan, who's endorsing Obama. He calls Obama a "conservative"! (And if his definitions are right, so am I to an extent. Very creepy.)

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Now playing: Roky Erickson - The Looking Glass Song
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Trickster? Or Treat?

Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1985)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 1
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 2
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1991) Part 3
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1992-94)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1995)
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 1
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 2
Julian Cope - Live on the Radio (1996) Part 3

You lucky bastards. I've been working on this all week and only just got it all done and uploaded this morning. I hope you appreciate it, you ungrateful swine!

I'm just kidding. Maybe. I've been wanting to post this stuff since day one, but organizing it was a bit of a chore and I'm a lazy sod, so you've had to wait. Nothing here is on Julian's Floored Genius Vol. 2 - which you should immediately buy if you don't have it already. I do have enough unused tracks from the same sessions used on FG2 to fill a whole CD. If you send me lots of love and kisses, maybe I'll edit them together for you crazy kids.

Have a safe and happy one. As I do every night, regardless of the season or holiday, I will be sitting on my porch tonight, throwing candy and razorblades at the children. Candy razorblades, naturally. Don't the kids just love 'em!

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Now playing: Julian Cope - The Great Dominions
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Storm the Reality Studios!

We are at War.

Not in Iraq. Though we are. Not in Afghanistan. Though we are. Hopefully not in Iran or Syria or Pakistan in the final few days before this fateful election. Though we might be.

We are at War for Reality.

On one side (or one of the sides?) we have the last eight years of misrule as represented by the Bush Administration.

On another side we have a continuation of and possibly even an expansion of this misrule as represented by John McCain.

On the third side we have a new (or is it an old?) revisioning of American politics as represented by Barack Obama.

Why do I say this is a Reality War? Why isn't it just another Presidential election cycle? Because we're talking about our Commonly Perceived Reality or CPR. (Pretty nifty how suitable that acronym is given the deflated state of the economy and our political spirit, eh?) Because the three sides of this imaginary coin each represent a different version of reality that we can either accept or reject, that we can submit to or battle against.

When you vote next Tuesday, if you haven't already, you are casting a vote as a shaman may cast a spell. Your intent is to change reality.

Our current CPR is a bleak, fearful, distrustful and discouraging one. Do not believe that this is an accident of time and space, that it is the sole result of accident at all. The engineers of our current CPR spent years planning and maneuvering to achieve the type of control over our perceptions that they now have. The public records and history of Cheney and Rove and friends make this very clear, though pundits and historians will only talk of this as politics and policy. It is neither.

It is piracy. Their stated goal was a "permanent Republican majority." Translate this as "permanent reality control" and you now understand. Like others before them who imagined permanent control, who dreamed of Thousand Year Reich’s, the Republicans hoped to have perpetual control of our reality via the Presidency, the Congress, the Courts and certain parts of the media. Bush had planned war and using the side effects of war to cement power and change our CPR before he entered office. The events of September 11, 2001 were, without meaning to trivialize them, only a fortunate catalyst for his plans. The terrorists gave Bush a powerful wedge on that day with which he could shift reality. And Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Rove took full advantage of it.

The result is the America we live in today. It is not the America of ten years ago, not that the CPR of the Clinton years was a perfect one, regardless of the nostalgia so many Democrats feel for it. There probably is no perfect CPR. We are too diverse a nation to create perfection.

But we can strive for perfection. This has always been part of the American CPR, the idea that we can be better than we are. Our nation would not exist without this central tenet. In retrospect, we may endowed our past efforts with this idea, but we could never have risen up against and overthrown a king without this belief. We are the children of the Enlightenment. Progress and perfection are inherent in our founding, in our idea of reality.

This has been lost to us in the current CPR. We have been blinded to the idea that we can work for the betterment of all. Fear and ignorance - willful and imposed - have worked to rob us of this basic American ideal. The enrichment of a few at the expense of the many, using manufactured fears and political weapons of control, has been a dominant theme of this CPR.

It's time for that to end. It's time for the people to go to war with reality. With a flip of the coin, we can reveal a new face for the future. Our votes are power and with them we will perform a tremendous feat of magic on November 4, 2008. We will change reality.

What we do with it after that is up to us.

Vote Obama!

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Now playing: Steve Hillage - Saucer Surfing
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North to Alaska, Comrades!

In case ya hadn't heard, Sarah Palin is the Governor of the most socialist, spread-the-wealth state in the Union!

Every damn individual in Alaska gets thousands of dollars handed over to them every year - totally tax-free and without any condition except citizenship - as a government stipend from oil revenues. This year, Governor Palin increased the refund by $1200 per person! And she claims that Alaskans somehow actually own the land of their own state, not the oil companies and other corporations - silly girl! - so that the people of Alaska "share in the wealth" when their resources are plundered. What a Commie!

That, my friends, is a socialist welfare state if ever I heard of one. It's the biggest dole in the nation. Nothin' but a handout to keep the proles happy. I'm surprised they don't have free satellite TV - with every ESPN channel! - for every citizen.

No wonder she likes being so close to Russia. Probably misses the good old days. Spends hours staring out her million-dollar windows at the Promised Land, sighing, wishing for a man like Joseph Stalin again.

Thanks to JedL at Daily Kos for jumpstarting this brainfart for me.
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Now playing: Roger Miller - The Promised Land
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A "Baa" In the Night

It's very simple really. It all came clear to me this morning as I drank my Obam-Aid (TM) Orange Style Simulated Breakfast Drink with Extra HOPE! Also, I was online looking at pictures of the hundreds of thousands of smiling, hopeful people that have been turning out to hear Obama in just the last few days, in Coloradaoand Missouri and everywhere else he goes in the country.

We just want a future. And Obama is the first candidate since JFK and FDR before him that says we can have a future. Not just a continuation of past policies, a reinforcing of the status quo, but an honest-to-Jeebus future for ourselves and our children. He's not promising that it will be easy, either. He's not talking down to us. He's said repeatedly that it will be a struggle and that we will have to work together for this future. I don't mind. I'm ready to work. I think I've been waiting all my life for this chance, for this kind of job.

And I like that. I like being asked to take responsibility and do some work. I don't want another old man talking down to me and telling me that if I give him my sacred vote he'll take care of me, just trust him, don't worry about the details, everything will be okay, close your eyes, go back to sleep, sleep, sleep my little sheep..........

Don't be a sleepy sheep. Wake up and "Baa!"

Vote O-Baaaaa!!!-ma!

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Now playing: DAVE KUSWORTH - The Story So Far
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