Archives for December 2003

December 25, 2003

The Cookies of Justice

There's a new trend on campus; college Republicans are having bake sales in which they price cookies differently for differently-raced students, in what they think is an accurate and cogent protest against affirmative action.

Because, y'know, you don't know what discrimination is until you've seen anti-white-conservative discrimination.

But maybe they have a point. Maybe you can sum up 300 years of race relations in America with a cookie sale. Here's how you'd go about it:

1.) The bake sale runs from 11AM to noon. Until 11:45, only white students are allowed to purchase cookies.
2.) At 11:45, minority students will be allowed to form a single line to purchase cookies. They will only be allowed Hydrox and Walmart-brand discount shortbread, while the white students still have access to the Pepperidge Farm Chessmen and other quality baked goods.
3. At 11:55, concerned about the new makeup of the line, many of the white students will move to another table, where they will quietly begin dispensing gourmet treats brought in from a nationally-known bakery.
4. At 11:58, a couple of minority students will be waved to the front of the line and allowed to purchase Chessmen; at this time, the white students (those who haven't been secretly invited to the auxilliary table) may begin whining about having to share.

December 23, 2003

I Can Get Behind This

Labor unions in the Czech Republic are demanding concessions for store clerks who have to listen to constant Christmas music through all of December. $19 or two days off? Sounds good to me, after surviving these last few days. I'll take it a step further: any store playing that Paul McCartney Christmas song ("Wonderful Christmas time!", repeat 575 times) should be shut down by the EPA.

Speaking of Czechs, and apropos of very little...here's something I put together for all you Celtics fans.

A Note to Confused Parties

To clear up any confusion, such as that exhibited by one shall-remain-nameless correspondent to my earlier "Death of Horatio Alger" post:

Horatio Alger was the author of countless "rags-to-riches" stories around the turn of the 20th Century. Horatio Sanz is the current Fat Guy on SNL.

December 19, 2003

Stump the Panel

So I'm in the car, coming home from a disappointing night in Boston, and we're listening to "Back to the 80s Friday Night". And with me in the car are two other certified 80s buffs. And TWO songs come on that totally flummox all three of us; we can't identify them at all.

This is bad; someday I'll be on Jeopardy, and 80s music will be a category, and I'll confidently wager the whole quesadilla on a Daily Double, and now I just don't know if I'll hit it. It kinda shakes my faith in everything.

For the record, the two songs were: "Ain't Even Done With The Night" by John Cougar Mellencamp (we correctly guessed Mellencamp, but none of us knew the song), and "So Alive" by Love and Rockets. (I guessed Men Without Hats, for God's sake.)

There's a lot of work to be done.

The Death of Horatio Alger

Paul Krugman has a column in The Nation saying basically, that in modern America, it's getting close to impossible to climb up the socioeconomic ladder.

Definitely stick around for Page 2 of the column, where Krugman explains the ideal recipe for a stratified, caste-ridden society. And guess what? We're there!

Thomas Piketty, whose work with [Emmanuel] Saez has transformed our understanding of income distribution, warns that current policies will eventually create "a class of rentiers in the U.S., whereby a small group of wealthy but untalented children controls vast segments of the US economy and penniless, talented children simply can't compete."

Sound familiar? Can a VH-1 "I Love the 1790s" be that far off?

December 18, 2003

Kittens. Kittens Everywhere.

Welcome Infinite Jess to my blogroll. And wish Jess the best; she just got herself a new cat and learned today that she's about to have several cats. How many do you need to be a full-fledged Cat Lady?

Diebold

The great Atrios is away, but Thumb is standing in for him, and absolutely nails it on the head with this post about looming voter-machine fraud:

Here's a plan. Go here and print out any of the stories. Take a big black marker and hand write WHY IS THIS NOT BEING COVERED?? over it and mail it to every paper in your city. Start sending in letters to editors. Start sending letters to your favorite candidates campaign. Hey DNC: want a talking point? How about PRESERVE DEMOCRACY NOW! If this story can't be taken seriously then nothing else matters!

Indeed.

To Be Young, Rich and Dumb

Paris Hilton's show got better ratings than Diane Sawyer's interview of Bush the other night.

It's hard to pick - but if anyone else out there still believes in the inheritance tax, you couldn't find two better poster children than the spoiled, stupid scions of the Hilton and Bush fortunes.

December 15, 2003

Forgive My Lack of Unrestrained Glee

The world is better off with Saddam Hussein locked up. No doubt. But several questions remain unanswered.

Where and when will he be tried? Trying him in an Iraqi court leads to the troublesome question of who's actually in charge over there. Trying him in front of The Hague or another international tribunal could lead to some real interesting public revelations about Hussein's dealings with the US in the past. I expect a Guantanamo Bay quickie trial, if it even gets to trial (Is there a would-be Jack Ruby out there?)

When we couldn't find Hussein, the Republicans cautioned that "this war isn't about one man". Now that they've found the man, is that still the talking point? No, I'm sure that this will be pitched as the greatest day in American history, and they'll try to cast Bush as William the Conqueror. And the turkey stunt last week was the motivation our troops needed. And the ADD-addled American public just might buy it. Look...Michael Jackson's in trouble!

Will Hussein help us find the WMD? Look! Paris Hilton! And she's doin' stuff!

Wasn't the Iraq thing just a sideshow? Aren't we still looking for Bin Laden and the people who actually perpetrated 9/11? Who? Look! Two people died of the flu 1,500 miles away!

What happens in Iraq next? Your guess is as good as mine. And unfortunately, probably better than the people running the show.

Look, any time you can remove a tyrannical dictator from the picture, it's a Good Thing. But Bush and his people have built up such a reservoir of cynicism and badwill in me that I can't see this as the end of anything. I don't know what the right move is; no one does. So let's not have V-J day just yet.

December 10, 2003

Snow Job

So we got 18 inches of snow here, starting Friday night and ending Sunday afternoon (but not after providing New England with some frozen seafood).

And I made it to work all three shifts. And everyone I work with made it, too.

And I actually heard some whining from the public on the order of, "Why did this have to happen on Saturday? Why couldn't it happen on a day when we can get a day off?"

And it made me want to spit. You people - and you know who you are - are the ones who make up holidays, or co-opt existing holidays (Labor Day?). You're the ones who tell clerks "Have a nice weekend!" on Saturday afternoon.

You're the ones who, on the hint of snow, cram the supermarkets, buying enough milk, eggs and butter to serve French toast to the entire planet. And buying shovels (really - who in Boston needs new shovels every year?). And freaking out because you get to the video store at 11:30 on Friday night and all the Pirates DVDs are already rented out.

And you're the ones who, if it snowed on Thursday, wouldn't even get out of bed until noon.

It just boils down to this: there are two kinds of people in the world. People who find a way to get to work, and people who find a way not to go to work. And next time it snows, you might want to thank the gas station attendant, or the supermarket bagboy, or the video clerk, for having a hell of a lot better work ethic than you do.

Like I said...you know who you are. Thus endeth the rant.

December 05, 2003

Hi

So...um...how's everybody?

It's been kind of a wacky month; major changes are afoot in my offline life. So I may continue to be sporadic for the next few weeks.

But the important things:
1) I watched Birth of A Nation; I just have to find the right words to express my feelings on it.
2) John Kerry: Drop it, dude. You're just wasting time and money now.
3) Curt Schilling!
4) The Republicans are pushing to get Ronald Reagan to replace FDR on the dime. I did some quick and dirty math, and figured that if you used dimes to symbolize the growth of the national debt under Reagan, there would be a stack of dimes that stretched down I-90 from Boston to Seattle. For 445 round trips.

Back to your regularly scheduled whatever.