Wee Fish Ewe...

...a Merry end of the Winter seasonal holiday of choice!

We have been enjoying (the royal we, that is) the start of my time off from college teaching (five months of pure bliss!). We started by watching Tom Jones in Las Vegas-- oh yeah, it's not unusual! Was great fun. Sorry not much on the blogside, but I'll try to get back into it after this coming Sunday.

It's not that I muchly celebrate Christmas anymore-- I'm not a Catholic, much less a Christian anymore (all of you out there like me, raise your hands! I thought so...). However, my SO is UCC/Episcopalianish, so I don't mind doing some stuff up. Besides, I think about it this way-- I can really dig Jesus' message, I just cannot dig what humans have warped it into to fit nefarious plans.

In some way, this is a lot like the modern political process. You have a few good people willing to do the dirty work of governance, and you have a whole lot more, apparently, willing to make a ton of cash off of politics to further their own semi-inbred family legacy. Now, given that I don't have many political aspirations myself (But I think I'd make someone a good speech writer!), this is Monday-morning quarterbacking, but still and all I think the analysis is correct. Moreover, I think the analogy of religion and politics as potential tools for evil is apt.

Here's the kicker-- in a country like ours, where the banners of religion and politics are raised high, who can untangle the true meaning of both--usually noble-- endeavors from the machinations of Men (and I do mean men...)?

..and a Happy New Year!

Kofi Annan's last speech...

So he wasn't the most strident person. So he wasn't Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali. So he wasn't perhaps the Churchill of his times...

But you can't fault Kofi Annan's parting shots, though many will, and many will fault his leadership of the UN. So let THEM try next!
Kofi Annan

THAT RAT BASTARD PINOCHET!

F*%$#ng Pinochet goes and dies before he can be broasted and brought to justice?

RAT... BASTARD!
Here's the sick news...

What are YOU dreaming of?

Man Eegee, Blogger extraordinaire, always provokes thought, so I wondered, ala his post about a White Jesus...

I deram of a peaceful world with a measure of understanding and kindness, not to mention hope

I dream of multipartisanship, not just red-blue makes purple (although I'd be a member of the Purple Party!)

I dream of a reevaluation of our economy of greed and capital at any cost

I dream of the ozone healing because we have come to our collective senses in the heavily industrialized nations

I dream of a world in which love of all kinds, consensual and true, are shown respect and honored as wonderful

I dream of a place where everyone is safe, no one goes hungry, and everyone can live without fear

I dream of terrific, free, and massively funded education for all

and finally...

I dream of a place it's okay to dream.

How about y'all?

Second Civil War (click here)

I showed one of my classes the HBO film "The Second Civil War", about an Idaho governor who decides to close the state borders rather than let a planeload of Pakistani orphans land in Boise. Every politician in the film is being led by ratings, polls, and lobbyists, and no one comes out looking well, although somehow the governor of Idaho (Beau Bridges) is in love with an immigrant Mexican reporter (Elizabeth Pena) and wants to name their future son "Juan Pablo Farley".

It is funny, but in a dark, dark way, and the nexes are remarkably complex and I think depressingly real. One hopes this really ISN'T how our government runs itself... but whoever wrote the film knows a little bit about how pollsters and lobbyists work...

Interestingly, it was apparently only shown once on HBO, in 1997. Hmmm...

I'm tired. But I taught the last class of my year!

Democrats obstructing Bush's vowels... and 2008?!

...latest CNN buzz is all about, it seems (when they're not airing Shrub's anger at those damn obstructionist Demmies), is the 2008 elections.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE *sound of breaking glass*

Is it conceivable that we can get thru the elections with all the votes counted and then have a few months before we worry about the next Prez? I mean hell, Christmas stuff was up before Halloween in my part of the globe.

So far the buzz is Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton-- the SO and I were wondering over brekkies whether the American people could find a way to justify rejecting both a woman AND a person of color, or if there would only be one on the ticket, and wuold that make us better if we had a lopsided race where, let's say, the Repugnocrat was Trent Lott or his ilk yet he STILL got voted in.

Here's a good questions-- which is more deeply entrenched in the US right now-- sexism or racism?