Quote of the Day

Julian E. Zelizer, a Boston University history professor who specializes in congressional trends, said a conservative Republican movement that "built itself in the 1970s around attacking government has become the party of big government since 2000."

"Starting with the war against terrorism and climaxing with Congress intervening in [the Schiavo] case, we see a GOP that is quite comfortable flexing the muscle of Washington, and a Democratic Party which is increasingly finding itself in favor of limiting government," Zelizer said.

Well...duh.

The Dream Machine

Vivid dreams are part and parcel for my sleeping cycle. Here is last night's...

Part The First

Invited to a yacht party, I meet Harrison Ford. He's nice, and listens to me compare and contrast powered yachts to sailboats. He seems to agree that sailboats are superior, or at least more fun. We retire to a boardroom on the yacht for a more private discussion.

"You know," I say, "the first time I saw you I was twelve years old." I wonder why I say this, but I continue. "No, that's probably not true. I have a vague recollection of seeing American Graffiti before Star Wars."

He laughs politely.

I press. "Do you have a production company?"

"Yes." he replies.

"Well, I'd like to come work for you. I don't know what I'd do, but anything would be better than working for the House of Horrors."

He smiles, "Mid-life crisis?"

I shake my head. "Not exactly. Just mid-life non-crisis. I'd welcome a crisis. A crisis would be exciting."

"What can you do?" he asks.

"Well," I dissemble, "I don't know. I can write, maybe, but I don't have a screenplay or anything." I gently lie. I do have a screenplay, or at least an idea for one. Doesn't everyone? But I decide maybe he'd be more interested in me without a screenplay. The very novelty of the idea...

"Hollywood's pretty terrible. Do you want to be famous? Famous sucks."

I shake my head. "Yah, I understand Hollywood's awful. As for being famous. Not really. Revered by my peers or the chic-geek set, perhaps, but not recognizably famous to Billy Joe Bob and Wilma Sue."

"Famous sucks." He repeats. "Look at me."

"You look great, for, what, a hundred and two." I reply.

"I don't live in Hollywood. But, still, look at me." He opens his jacket and his guts spill out.

"That's famous." he says, looking at his intestines on the floor. "It sucks."

Part The Second

I am sitting with a crowd of expectant people on rusting, metal folding chairs in a parking lot. A white satin drape has been pulled across a open garage in the side of a on old red-brick warehouse. A beat-down drummer sits besides the drape, smoking a cigarette. In front of him stands a lonely snaredrum.

A hand appears from behind the satin drape, making an elaborate "OK" signal. The drummer flicks his cigarette away and begins a bombastic drumroll.

"Ladies and gentlemen, members of the International Julie Andrews Fan Club," he begins to shout, "I present to you, live and in-person, Ms. Julie Andrews!" He lifts a kazoo to his mouth and blows a dum-ta-da-dum-ta-dum and the satin curtain is pulled aside.

A matronly plump Julie Andrews in a red gown steps out into the afternoon glare in front of us. We clap. No one stands up.

"Thank you, all." she begins, "Thank you for coming to see me today."

Someone shouts "I love you, Julie!" I look around to see who shouted, but everyone is sitting in stoney silence.

"For my first song, I'd like to sing I loves ya, Porgy."

The drummer-kazoo player pulls out a pianica and begins to blow Gershwin's tune. She sings.

I loves ya Porgy
Don't let him take me
Don't let him handle me
And drive me mad
If you can keep me
Porgy I wanna stay here
With you forever
I got my man

She moves close enough that I can see her liverspots on her arms clearly. I study her matronly arms. They are fleshy, but betray strong muscles underneath. She lifts heavy objects with those arms. I can count the freckles and trace her sinews.

Someday I know
He's comin' back to call me
He's going to handle me and hold me
It's gonna be like dyin' Porgy
But when he calls me
I'll have to go

She's crying now. She comes right up to me and presses her face to mine, transferring her tears to my cheeks. I sit there, frozen. How does one respond to a singing, weeping Julie Andrews when she touches you? I elect to pretend I am dead.

I loves ya Porgy
Don't let him handle me
With his hot hands
If you can keep me
I wanna stay here
With you forever
And ever ever and ever
Ever and ever
Porgy I got my man

She finishes the song, the pianica whimpers off the coda. With the back of her hand, Julie Andrews wipes the snot dribbling out of her nose and snorts.

"That was written by George and Ira Gershwin." she informs us. But now it's just me, Julie Andrews, and the drummer-kazoo-pianica player. It's getting dark.

She sighs and sits down on a rusty chair beside me. Reaching up behind her head, she pulls off her auburn wig, letting her naturally grey hair tumble out. Her mascara is smeared, and that and her wild grey hair make her look very much like a Japanese ghost. The drummer lights another cigarette.

"Did you like it? The song?" she asks.

"I loves ya, Porgy? Yah, I liked it."

"Makes me cry."

"Me, too."

She begins to dismantle herself. The earrings come off and her earlobes fall down and touch her shoulders. She pops the blue contacts out of her eyes, revealing cataracts beneath. With a sharp click, she removes her sparkling white teeth, revealing yellow-grey stumps.

"Did you like the yacht?" shes asks.

"I prefer sailboats."

She turns her back to me and motions for me to help her unzip the dress. I give it a yank, and she steps out, not naked but wearing a flabby grey fleece jogging suit.

"Sailboats are slower." she says, sitting back down and turning her melted face back to me.

I agree. "Yes, but they make you part of themselves. Like riding a horse or playing guitar."

She nods. "Very poetic. Did Harry give you that job?"

"I don't think so. Maybe we're still talking about it."

"Well, did you take a good look at me?" she glances at me. Her cataract-dimmed eyes widen. She smiles, crooked, yellow, black. "I'm famous."

Millipede!

Could IBM's Millipede mean the end of dedicated PDAs and MP3 players for good? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Years and years ago, I read an article in some engineering magazine about a scientist who was predicting that by 2010, we'd have low-power or no-power terrabyte memory the size of a credit card.

Well, it looks like he was fairly accurate, especially with the dates involved. But, he got the size all wrong. Our terrabytes will come on silicon significantly smaller than a credit card (more like a postage stamp).

Think of what this implies. A terrabyte of flashable memory on your computer means no more disk drives (why have them?). It means things like being able to instantly turn your computer on and off, even in the middle of applications. Why? Since there is no longer any latency (in fact any difference) between long-term, large-storage but slow memory (the disk drive) and short-term, high-speed memory (RAM), the concept of "safely shutting down" the computer (which really just means "write everything in memory out to disk") goes out the window.

It's just cool.

Jacket of Bugs

As some of you may know, I just returned from a 4-day excursion into the state of Arkansas on motorbike with El Grande. My badge of honor from this trip (around 1200 miles, I think) is not the mild case of hypothermia I endured (for it was breathtakingly cold on the last day coming home), but the hundreds of dead bugs that seem to have embedded themselves in my recently purchased leather jacket.

Which begs the question, do I break out the saddle soap?

Your Duck is Number 1, 203, 763

France. It's in Europe, you know, and somewhat unpopular with a segment of the American hoi polloi. Still, I found myself there with six friends last fall. Rive and Data finally got married, a Chateau marriage in France, and we met up with them in Paris to celebrate. Wanting to splurge, I selected La Tour D'Argent for dinner, on the advice of my hair-stylist who is French.

La Tour D'Argent (which translates to The Silver Tower, and more loosey-goosey to the Tower of Money) has been serving food in Paris since 1582. It is over-the-top elegant, with a ground-floor entrance and parlor which leads to a tiny elevator operated by a tuxedoed attendant, who lifts you up to the grand room of the restaurant, a giant window view of the Ile de Louis, the Seine, and Notre Dame.

It was our first night in Paris, and our French was not quite up to snuff yet, creaky and musty from resting unused too long in Texas. The staff moved about our large party with professional efficiency. While my companions looked at the menu, I asked for the carte des vins, which proved to be an encyclopedic volume of wine. Biting my lip, I asked the sommelier where I would find the côtés du Rhône and chateauneufs. He flipped to page 375 and sniffed as he pointed out the wines I was interested in. I scanned them quickly, noticed a good year bottle of Vieux Telegraphe and ordered it with my belaboured French: juh voodray uhn...uhn...oohn bootayeh deh veeuh telegraf, sihvooplay.

I must point out at this time that La Tour D'Argent is a palace of meat - duck meat, to be precise. Pressed, boiled, roasted, rolled - if you can do it to a duck, La Tour has probably done it. The restaurant invented canard a l'orange, after all. To this palace of ducky death, I had brought two vegetarians, the Cheese and his Missus. As I scanned the menu (no prices printed on it, by the way) for something - anything - not made of duck, my brow began to sweat.

Our waiter returned to take our orders, and I tried in my own way to explain that mes amis la were les vegetarians. The waiter cast a doubtful glance at them, as if perhaps they might explode any moment, but nodded and replied it would not be a problem. While the vegetarians fought their way to some veggie comestibles, Rive and Data ordered the canard a l'orange, and the Brain and myself decided to split le canard tour d'argent. Our waiter glanced at us and advised that the canard tour d'argent was a bit strong tasting, perhaps we'd like the a l'orange.

"Why say you strong?" the Brain inquired.

"Because, sir, it is cooked in its own blood, which becomes the sauce." the waiter replied.

The Brain smiled and says, "That's formidible!" The waiter nods and writes the order down.

We also ordered the fois gras for an appetizer.

It dawned on me that the proper drink to have with fois gras was sauterne, so I summoned the sommelier back to the table. The conversation went like this:

Me: Sir, we would like some sauterne with our fois gras, if it pleases you.

Him: Of course. How much?

Me: We would like a little...a little...a...well...a small half-cup each.

Him: (sniffing derisively) Sir, we do not serve wine in cups.

Me: (quivering) A glass. A glass, I say. If it pleases you. Thank you.

The sauterne - in glasses - arrived with the fois gras. The meal proceeded apace. The whole, uncooked ducks were brought to the table for viewing, Voici vos canards, mesdames et messieurs, then whisked away to the kitchen for pressing and cooking. When the ducks reappeared, they were cooked and sauced. Our blood-cooked duck basked in a shallow grey-black pool of cooked blood.

It was good. A little scary, but quite tasty.

While I was eating and talking to my friends, the owner of the restaurant, who must be ninety, came over to my side and asked me a question beginning with "How..." and ending with "...you?". My brain freezes. I barely even heard him. "How...blah blah blah....you?" What did he just ask me?

Two options spring to mind. Microseconds tick by. He's waiting for an answer.

"I call myself Blubrik."

I knew it was the wrong answer the moment the words left my mouth. I didn't need the Brain's cackling, choking sputter to tell me I'd just put a big sign around my neck - Hello! I'm an Idiot!

To his credit, the owner only smiles and shakes his head slowly.

"No, sir," he repeats slowly, "I asked, how does it go with you?"

"Oh!" I recover, "It goes very, very well! Very well! Thank you!"

The Brain wastes no time in telling the rest of the table.

As the cheese course approaches, I once again brace for the sommelier. For you pleasure, the conversation:

Me: Sir, with the cheese we would like some red wine, something a little rustic.

Him: Of course. What kind?

Me: I do not know, really. Something like a countryside wine.

Him: (sniffing derisively) Sir, we do not serve countryside wine.

Me: (quivering) A côté du Rhône would be perfect.

Him: (nose pointing to ceiling) Very well, sir.

By now, it's getting late and the restaurant crowd has diminshed to our table and one other. We sate ourselves on cheese and wine, stairing out across Paris at night. It's a lovely site, and no better city exists on Earth.

As we prepare to leave, our waiter brings us two postcards. On one side, a painting of the original canardier. On the back, an odd, freshly printed sentence:

Your Duck is Number 1, 203, 763.

AlterNet: What Jesus Wouldn't Do

AlterNet: What Jesus Wouldn't Do

I have long considered the current path the Christian Right has choosen to follow as profoundly un-Christian, focusing on one or two blood-raising issues (abortion, gay issues) to the exclusion of a more nuanced and complete Christian ethic. It's nice to see that at least a few other people agree with me.

My Teabag is Broken

Everyday, about 3 in the afternoon, I engage in the ancient ritual of drinking tea. I developed this habit after a trip to Europe, where tea or cafe in the afternoon was de rigeur. However, my afternoon teas are rarely attended with crustless finger sandwiches, scones and Devonshire clotted cream. It's usually me, a styrofoam cup, a dribble of hot water from the coffee machine, and a bag of mint-green tea.

I'm going to talk about broken tea bags, European tea orgies, and God, so hang in there with me.

We were in Bath, in England. Bath is a lovely city of museum-quality Georgian houses, a pretty river, a pretty Abbey (really, a cathedral), and the ancient Roman Baths. It was me, the Brain, the Big Cheese and the Missus. We'd enjoyed a leisurely afternoon inspecting the baths and had moved to the Pumproom above them for a full tea service. A Harry Potter-look-a-like waited on us, or I should say, we generally waited on Faux Potter to serve us. Young and cuddly-cute in that Harry Potter-way, I suspect he spent much of his time investigating some Faux Hermione's girlish magic in some nearby dark closet. Or maybe a Faux Snape. But I digress, almost to the point of slash fiction. I must draw a line somewhere.

Vincent Vega would no doubt say, "Harry Potter's not much of a waiter." I'll leave it at that.

High tea at the Pumproom was servicable (when served), though mildly inadequate. We'd not actually eaten lunch, so I was quite hungry. While I was still enjoying my little sandwiches, the larger, fattier tray of scones and cakes was brought to the table. I resigned myself to having to fill up on sugaries rather than tomatoes and cucumbers.

A few days later, we found ourselves in London, once again having tea. This time, we went to the rooftop of Harrod's, a reasonably respected location for good high tea. The service was impeccable (and highly managed) and the sandwiches were stellar. The tomato sandwiches, in particular, were note-worthy. Tomato sliced paper-thin, a sprinkle of salt, a crunch of pepper, and fresh wheat bread meticulously devoid of crust. These I devoured along with the other fingerling sandwiches of salmon, cucumbers, and egg salad. I commented to my partners on how happy I was with the tomato sandwiches. The Cheese, likewise, opined on their superiority.

The manager came to clear our table of the empty sandwich plates before the sweeter comestibles were brought to the table. Through my mind went the words, Ask for more. Ask for more. But I did not.

Apparently, however, Mr. Al-Fayed hires psychics at Harrod's. The manager stepped away from the table, then turned back and asked, "Would anyone like more sandwiches?"

"Yes, please," I replied, "I'd like another slice of tomato sandwich, please." The Cheese, not wanting to be left out, requested the same. The Brain and Missus, content, said nothing.

Now, allow me to descibe a plate of finger sandwiches at Harrod's precisely: a white plate, 10 inches across, with five finger-sized planks of sandwiches, 1 inch by 1.5 inches by 4 inches. Each sandwiches consists of a different subject: one tomato, one cucumber, one watercress and salmon, one egg salad, one ham or other sliced meat.

In asking for "another slice of tomato sandwich", one would suppose I would get the following: a white plate, 10 inches across, with precisely one finger-sized plank of tomato sandwich, 1 inch by 1.5 inches by 4 inches.

Harrod's, in addition to hiring psychics, apparently hires generous ones. The Cheese and I each received: a white plate, 10 inches across, with five finger-sized planks of tomato sandwiches, 1 inch by 1.5 inches by 4 inches.

The Brain and the Missus were quickly enlisted against their will to help reduce the number of tomato sandwiches extant on our plates.

As far as high teas go, that was the best one ever.

Now, God. Let's talk about this guy for a bit. I saw one of his bumper stickers yesterday. This is not hard in Dallas. God's made a fortune on bumper stickers. This one, in particular, was apologetically liberal, though. It said:

God is not a Republican (or a Democrat)

That's what I mean by "apologetically" liberal. Rather than make a simple, true statement (God is not a Republican), God apparently felt it necessary to apologize obtusely for this statement (by way of being fair to Republicans who thought God was a member of the G.O.P. and might be upset to learn he was not) by informing us that he's also not a member of the Democratic Party, either. One presumes, therefore, he has fled the major party system for the Libertarians or the Greens or whatever, but ran out of space on the bumper sticker to continue further disclaimers.

It occured to me that perhaps what God was trying to tell me on this bumper sticker of his was that he's not anything. That is to say, what God really wanted the bumper sticker to say was:

God is not Human

That'd about cover it, for humans anyway. Then it occured to me that this has a similar problem. He's correctly removed himself from the set of human possibilities, but forgotten to disclaim the other possibilities as well. He'd need to cover God is not Canine, for example, lest his bumper sticker consumers become schismatically confused.

A recursive loop of sorts ensues, with the bumper sticker becoming much to large to read while passing, let alone sitting in grid-lock for any reasonable amount of time. God, however, being God can come up with one bumper sticker that does the job:

God is not God

Whew!

The nice thing about this is that it's true. God is not God. God is. And God is not. That is to say, God is everything you cannot understand and God is not anything you can understand. To say you know God is to commit the ultimate lie, for your comprehension of God is so limited and so futile, only hubris of the highest order could bring you to that conclusion. You only know that you do not know God.

God is not what you think God is.

Likewise, you cannot possess a personal relationship with God, for God is ultimately impersonal, since a personal relationship requires a person -- a human -- to exist. To believe you can, again, is utter hubris. And pride goeth before the fall.

God is and is not.

Ah, but the Bible says that God created Man in his image. Quite true, God did create Man in his image, in precisely the same way that and with as much effort as the Sun creates its image upon a million, billion waves of the sea. We briefly reflect God, like a wave reflects the Sun. And we are as like God and as near to God as the image in the wave is to the Sun.

But to strive for God, to strive for the ultimate and unknowable, and to love and cherish and delude yourself about the very thing you can never know, that is beautifully, poetically human.

Now, my teabag is broken. Apparently, the box of mint-green tea currently in the office kitchen is faulty. The strings are improperly attached and come loose from the bag with the slightest tug. Meaning, I have to fish the teabags out of the tea with my fingers.

Oh, Harrod's, wherefor art thou?