Merry Christmas

I was wonderin' what kind of inspirational Christmas message I could put here. I was trying to think one up that covered all the bases, from the Prince Of Peace and Goodwill Toward Men to spirituality over commercialism, which I don't think is going very well anyway, to the winter solstice meaning the Sun's coming back, without sounding trite.

Couldn't do it, but I found one with a slightly different approach at Hoffmania, in toto:

Music is a powerful touchstone, so while you’re reading this, put on “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Let it play in the background.

So this is Christmas once again, the air filled with tinsel and anticipation. Houses all aglow in glittering lights and frosted windowpanes, whether from the can or Mother Nature. It is the one time everyone enjoys feeling cold or pretending it is cold and the one time a year when the inner child in all of us runs free.

In the great American living room stands the Douglas Fir or maybe a Blue Spruce. The odor of pine needles circles the walls and crawls across the carpet with cheery dreams. Huddled around the bottom of the Christmas tree like a small herd of happy wishes, are the presents dressed in their finest gift-wrap and holiday splendor.

They are the gifts a President gives his country; his legacy and promise for the future, his servitude to “We the People” and his vision of America.

So here under the tree, dazzling and glossy in sateen bows and velvet ribbons are the gifts of this President:

Sparkle laden paper wrapped around a box of Fear. The plastic paranoia sealed package contains all the colors of Fear from brown to yellow to pink and purple. A small booklet of instructions is included on how to apply Fear to every situation and person that is not “one of us,” and how to brush on racism, homophobia and bigotry with the mascara of mendacity.

A flag covered box of brightly painted brittle toy soldiers and game board, plus interchangeable body parts for when they get broken from too much rough play. Each toy soldier is hand-painted, un-numbered and anatomically neutered to withstand everything but real war. Families not included.

There is the whirring and buzzing latest techno must have self-injectable Micro-Thought Chip. A gift from your government to monitor your thoughts and ideas and provide auto electro-pulse correction should you waver from acceptable mind processes. A gift certificate is included for all your left-thinking friends. Let them embrace the light.

A small gossamer covered box with one of those glass globes you shake to create a snow flurry – only this one encases “Democracy” and when you shake it, a crystal storm of red, white and blue flakes spin madly about until “Democracy” disappears.

And the last gift is a huge box with a thousand ribbons and bows and soft crinkle tissue paper taped and mangled together as though made by a child but when you get it all unwrapped – it’s empty. Or so you think. It is a box of sadness. A place for broken dreams of what has been lost. A place to store the faded Polaroid postcards of the America that once was. An empty box big enough to hold a heart full of holes from nearly 4000 troops killed by the lies that cradle the deceit and treachery that sold a war for the benefit of the few who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones. It’s a big empty box that can hold the despair of 126 veterans who commit suicide every week in this country. Room enough for the 20-30% of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. But not big enough for a mother or father to crawl inside and rummage around for the touch and smell of their child killed or maimed in this war.

And then you spot it. The small package under the back branches of the tree, strings of tinsel dripping down and nearly covering the box. So tiny and forlorn. Not the same as the others. It looks so fragile, so precious. And you open it carefully, not ripping or tearing the paper while gingerly pulling the ribbon bows and lift the top off and then wide-eyed you smile. It’s stunning. It makes you giggle and tremble at the same time. You search for the card, but there is none.

And while no one is paying attention you scoot behind the tree, into the corner of the room and lift it out of the box and feel its warmth while your stomach shivers with that excited chill as you carefully set it down in front of you and watch.

The song Happy Christmas (War Is Over) ends. But you can’t help but think how nice it would be to sing Celebrate Me Home as the troops run across the tarmac and scoop up their loved ones. Or how good it would be to celebrate America once again.

And you watch your tiny gift pulsate and radiate:

PEACE and HOPE.

Dear USPS and Deutsche Bundespost,

You can both go fuck yourselves. When you say it will take 7 - 10 days to ship a package here and guarantee it will be here before Christmas, make sure it happens. I shipped two packages here the week before I left and was assured (I paid $150 for the privilege) they'd be here by now. They're not. Now, tonight, I have to explain to the children why I don't have presents for them.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

Fixer

PS: I can't do anything about the Germans, but god help the postmaster where I mailed the stuff when I get home.

The Power and the Glory

Food for thought for this holiday season. Phil Ochs was one of, if not the, best, one of the most perceptive and one of the most vibrant of the 60s protest singers. Virtually all of his lyrics still ring true today. He committed suicide in 1976 in part because he was "no longer relevant." What a tragic misconception. Phil Ochs is probably more relevant today than ever. To wit:



Phil Ochs - The Power And The Glory

Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land

Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand

Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains

Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain

Here is a land full of power and glory

Beauty that words cannot recall

Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom

Her glory shall rest on us all (on us all)

From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too

Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new

Texas and Ohio and the California shore

Tell me, who could ask for more?

Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor

Only as free as the padlocked prison door

Only as strong as our love for this land

Only as tall as we stand

Happy Holidays everyone!

JG.

Frohe Weihnachten*

As most of the Brain's regular readers know, I'm a godless, heathen, atheist, infidel bastid, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the magic of Christmas, especially here, in the land that gave us the fairy tale. There's nothing like seeing the look of surprise in a child's eyes when they open their presents, or just the joy of being with people that you love dearly.

Last night, I got to watch a Jewish girl from Levittown experience that magic for the first time as she helped my cousin decorate their Christbaum. It's the little things that make the season wonderful.

And I also celebrate Jesus Christ, not the myth but the man, who lived humbly and preached respect for others. If today's religious leaders would be more like the man himself, the world would be a lot better place. Jesus would puke and then crucify himself if he could see what has been done in his name over the centuries.

And at this time, those who aren't as fortunate as I am are on my mind as well. When I sit back and think about how blessed I am, to have such a great family, to be married to a wonderful woman, to be pretty well off, and to live in a land that hasn't known war and unrest as many have, I feel for those whose lives are spent in poverty and oppression.

Yes, ladies and germs, whatever your religion and circumstances, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and please take it in the spirit it is intended. And all I want for Christmas is true "peace on Earth and goodwill to all". I leave you with Sir Bob and the gang because what they sang in 1985 is just as relevant today, maybe more so.



Merry Christmas, everybody. Or, as they say here:

Frohe Weihnachten und ein herzliches, gluckliches, Neues Jahr!

From my family to yours.

*Spelling corrected thanks to JerseyGuy.

Curses ...

Tagged again. This time by Brother Lurch:

Da Rulez

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share Christmas facts about yourself.
3. Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Welcome to the Christmas edition of "Getting to Know Your Friends."

1. Wrapping or gift bags?
Wrapping.

2. Real or artificial tree?
Normally no tree, this year, real.

3. When do you put up the tree?
This year, last night (see link in post above)

4. When do you take the tree down?
Normally, since I don't put one up (re:godless, atheist, heathen, infidel bastid in the post above), I don't have to take it down. Here it's done on 6 Jan.

5. Do you like egg nog?
Ick. I will take a shot of Jack Daniels' if it's offered though. Heh ...

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
My Flexible Flyer sled, which I still have, from 1966.

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
Not hardly.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Orders to SAC in 1984.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail.

10. Favorite Christmas Movie?
None, they're all too sappy for me.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
We shop all year round. When we see something someone will like we get it and put it away for Christmas.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Anything that doesn't bite me first.

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Clear.

14. Favorite Christmas song(s)?
None, and you can thank the fact they start playing them in the stores just after Halloween. By the time Christmas rolls around I'm sick of 'em all.

15. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Stay home except for this year.

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
You gotta be shittin' me.

17. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Star.

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?
Christmas Eve.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
The commercialism and the crowds.

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color?
No.

21. What do you leave for Santa?
Fuck Santa, he's got more money than I do.

22. Least favorite holiday song?
All of 'em. (See #14)

23. Favorite ornament?
Don't do a tree, don't got no ornaments.

24. Family tradition?
Mrs F and I usually spend the day eating and drinking. Normally we're at my sister-in-law's for an Italian fish-a-thon.

25. Ever been to Midnight Mass or late-night Christmas Eve services?
More times than I'd like to admit but one of my aunts sings in the church choir back home and I go to hear her.

Hmmm ... Who to tag?

The Old White Lady

Creature

UL

The PolitcalCat

'Nucks

POP (when she gets the chance)

42

"Bush fascisti are now buying each others dirty linen"

Get a good laugh at Pensito Review:

Rove’s Book Sold for Half of What He Expected - And Buyer Was Mary Matalin

From 'comments':

Now, this would actually be funny,if it wasn’t so pathetic. It’s bizarre how none of the “real” publishing houses want to touch this with a 100-foot pole. Maybe they think they’ll be somehow complicit in the lies and high crimes and felonies if they publish it. Matalan is such a stupid dope that she’s probably thinking she’s doing the world a favor. Blechhhhh, may they all rot in hell.

Maybe Mary Matalin is a shrew(d) businesswoman who expects book sales to soar when Rove hits death row.

Say, under some sort of community property rules, doesn’t that mean that half of the advance came out of the wallet of that staunch Liberal, James Carville?

Isn't there a 'Son of Sam' law that prevents criminals from cashin' in on their crimes? Doesn't look like there's gonna be much profit on this one in any case.

Note to Turdblossom: I'd like to see your life story of lies published posthumously by the Charmin folks so I could wipe my ass with it. Next week would be OK, but I'll wait until ya get the Texas needle as a reward for everything you've done to this country.

The torture tape fingering Bush as a war criminal

Andrew Sullivan in the Times (UK) on the CIA/Bush torture tape cover-up in the particular case of Zubaydah:

And that is where the story becomes interesting. The Bush administration denies any illegality at all, insists it does not “torture” but refuses to say whether it believes waterboarding is torture or not. But hundreds of hours of videotape were recorded of Zubaydah’s incarceration and torture. That evidence would settle the dispute over the extremely serious question of whether the president of the United States authorised war crimes.

And now we have found out that all the tapes have been destroyed.

But this case is more ominous for the administration because it presents a core example of what seems to be a cover-up, obstruction of justice and a direct connection between torture and the president, the vice-president and their closest aides.

What are the odds that a legal effective interrogation of a key Al-Qaeda operative would have led many highly respected professionals in the US intelligence community to risk their careers by leaking top-secret details to the press?

What are the odds that the CIA would have sought to destroy tapes that could prove it had legally prevented serious and dangerous attacks against innocent civilians? What are the odds that a president who had never authorised waterboarding would be unable to say whether such waterboarding was torture?

What are the odds that, under congressional grilling, the new attorney-general would also refuse to say whether he believed waterboarding was illegal, if there was any doubt that the president had authorised it? The odds are beyond minimal.

Any reasonable person examining all the evidence we have - without any bias - would conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that the president of the United States authorised illegal torture of a prisoner and that the evidence of the crime was subsequently illegally destroyed.

Congresswoman Jane Harman, the respected top Democrat on the House intelligence committee in 2003-06, put it as simply as she could: “I am worried. It smells like the cover-up of the cover-up.”

It’s a potential Watergate. But this time the crime is not a two-bit domestic burglary. It’s a war crime that reaches into the very heart of the Oval Office.

Knowing Bush is a war criminal is one thing. I know it. Proving it is another thing entirely. I pray, yes, pray, to whatever gods may be listening that something surfaces that can prove it forever and ever, for once and for all, clearly and unequivocally so that he can't parse and weasel out of it any longer, and send that son of a bitch to prison where he belongs. And the horse he rode in on AKA Cheney.

While you were sleeping ...

At least, those of you in the western hemisphere, I was out having my morning cigarette and I couldn't help taking a pic of the beautiful winter scene.

Click to embiggen

Eis und Nebel

When fog meets freeze in the mountains, you get beauty. Figured I'd share some of it with you.

Blindly Into the Bubble

One little post before I head for the coast. Gee, if I replaced the 't's with apostrophes (did it again!) I'd be a hip-hop poet...

A 'must read' Paul Krugman:

When announcing Japan's surrender in 1945, Emperor Hirohito famously explained his decision as follows: "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

There was a definite Hirohito feel to the explanation Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, gave this week for the Fed's locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone decision to modestly strengthen regulation of the mortgage industry: "Market discipline has in some cases broken down, and the incentives to follow prudent lending procedures have, at times, eroded."

That's quite an understatement. In fact, the explosion of "innovative" home lending that took place in the middle years of this decade was an unmitigated disaster.

In a 1963 essay for Ms. Rand's newsletter, Mr. Greenspan dismissed as a "collectivist" myth the idea that businessmen, left to their own devices, "would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings." On the contrary, he declared, "it is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product."

It's no wonder, then, that he brushed off warnings about deceptive lending practices, including those of Edward M. Gramlich, a member of the Federal Reserve board. In Mr. Greenspan's world, predatory lending - like attempts to sell consumers poison toys and tainted seafood - just doesn't happen.

Yeah, they're all little angels. Not.

Of course, now that it has all gone bad, people with ties to the financial industry are rethinking their belief in the perfection of free markets. Mr. Greenspan has come out in favor of, yes, a government bailout. "Cash is available," he says - meaning taxpayer money - "and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this."

Given the role of conservative ideology in the mortgage disaster, it's puzzling that Democrats haven't been more aggressive about making the disaster an issue for the 2008 election. They should be: It's hard to imagine a more graphic demonstration of what's wrong with their opponents' economic beliefs.

Shorter: The Repugs have been, are, and ever shall be just plain wrong about everything. Not only are they wrong, they insist the rest of us go down with their ship, which they can no longer deny is sinking, all the while blaming everyone else for their expensive failures..

They gotta go.

So do I. I'll catch up with ya from Arroyo Grande.

Lame ...

Unabashedly stolen from Brother Lurch.

Can't lose ...

If I did my job like they do, I'd be walking the streets forthwith. Wish the car business worked like Wall Street.

This increase is even better than the pay increases Congress gives itself. You just can't lose on Wall Street, even when you lose billions ...

Saturday whorage

As usual on Saturday, another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

And, if you want to follow the progress of our trip to my ancestral home, click here.

Let us know what's going on at your place in comments.

The first truth ...

I heard about 'Charlie Wilson's War' since 1983:

... Charlie Wilson and the CIA funneled 3.1 billion dollars to Afghani resistance fighters in the hopes of defeating the Soviets. The thing is, a good chunk of this money went to a fellow named Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a rabid anti-American who, with the help of his pal Osama bin Laden, used the money to establish a string of terrorist training camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan. At these camps, a group of yahoos got it into their heads that flying planes into the World Trade Center would be a good idea ...

They're still on the payroll, ladies and germs. Let's hope Tom Hanks goes broke on this one.

Thought For The Day

From Allison Kilkenny at HuffPo:

The most brilliant trick the rich ever pulled over the poor was when they reinforced fractures between the serving class. The rich have always encouraged the poor to think of themselves tribally. Irish, Italian, Black, Blue-Collar, White-Collar, Asian, Indian, Arab, Christian, Muslim, Man, Woman, Child, Elderly, Northerner, Southerner, West Coast, East Coast. After all, when the poor squabble among themselves, they can't really unite and...ya' know...set fire to the plantation.

A pretty good comment on Repuglican policy.

Have a very ...

White House Christmas. From an email Gord sent me. Definitely not safe for work.

Update:

And while we're at it, our pal Skippy dug up another great Christmas message.

Quote of the Day

One of our all-time favorite bloggers, the Rude One:

... For Bush and Cheney and many Republicans and some Democrats, democracy is like being told you can jack off in the corner while this big-dicked stud fucks your wife ...

Obstructionism, the thing to do ...

Yes, I'm a posting fool this morning because the Mrs. and my cousin are out shopping, professionals both, and I have some free time to get caught up on the blog world. Greenwald's post from yesterday is most enlightening:

...

As Benen notes, the GOP has used the filibuster as a common tool on virtually every piece of significant legislation, all part of what Trent Lott described as their strategy: "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail . . . and so far it's working for us."

But this extraordinary obstructionist behavior has hardly been highlighted at all by most journalists covering Congress. Part of the reason for that is the fault of Senate Democrats, who have, in essence, allowed Republicans to filibuster without forcing them actually to filibuster, thus removing the theatrical display of the obstructionism. But the obstructionism is the same, and it ought to be reported as such. But it isn't.

...

I think the Dem leadership needs a remedial class in Civics 101.

...

Whereas filibusters were previously used as an extraordinary tool to preserve minority rights in the Senate, and were routinely depicted as "obstructionist" by the press when wielded by Democrats, they have now become the standard course for Republicans. Yet [Washington Post reporter Paul] Kane, and most other Congressional reporters, simply refuse to point that objective fact out -- that Republicans are using this obstructionist tool on virtually every issue at a record rate -- because to point that out would be to violate the Sacred Law of Balance, even though it is true. [my ems]

...

You can thank Josef Goebbels Rupert Murdoch and his gang of propagandists at Fox Noise for giving the term 'fair and balanced' the aberrant, bastardized meaning it has today. Most of the Washington press corpse wouldn't know either 'fair' or 'balanced' if it bit them in the ass.

Abuse ...

Generally I've learned, over 45 years of life, that people who hold the lives of animals in disregard, or are actively cruel to them, are horrible human beings.

Culling the herd ...

Don't let it hit ya in the ass:

GOP presidential dark horse Tom Tancredo, angry at being called a "dark horse," is cutting and running, abandoning his bid for the presidency.

Back to your cave, asshole.