Salem’s Lots’ plan to unify Iraq

Since I”ve already had the hubris to make a political endorsement (as in, I’m not sure my FAMILY is going to vote for Briley, much less anyone not connected by blood), it’s time to aim higher: peace between the Sunnis, the Shia, and the Kurdish tribes of northern Iraq.

Forget the police force – the police force is riddled with militia members of the various sects.  The Salem’s Lot plan?   Help the Iraq team win the World Cup in 2008.

The Iraqi team won the Asian Cup over the weekend, and for a few brief hours, most citizens of Iraq were Iraqi, not Shia, Sunni or Kurd.  Celebratory dancing in the streets and much display of the Iraqi flag.  Yeah, there was a lot of gunfire, but the shots were fired in glee instead of venom.  Yeah, there were a few extremists who refused to join in the fun (two car bombs midst the revelry) and four people got killed because of gravity (bullets fired up must come down), but the country danced as ‘one’.

Let’s ensure that the soccer team has the best training facilities in the world.  Maybe Beckham could change his name and dye his hair for the cause.  I dunno, but sports has the ability to do what few other endeavors have accomplished – bringing people together.

Let’s go ‘Lion of the Two Rings’!! 

The soccer team was a mixed bag of Sunni, Shia and Kurd.

Speech must mention the Prezident 3 TIMES and tell how Comrade Bush’s 5 year plan is really shaping up..

Further evidence of the politics-first-who-gives-a-ratsass-about science or health mentality of some of the Bush acolytes, former Surgeon General Carmona had the audacity to write a speech about how the world’s health was our concern because boundaries are meaningless when it comes to disease.  Apparently the speech didn’t have its share of rah-rah-sis-boom-bah all hail the name of Bush, because it got throttled by the non-doctor, non-scientist who gets to control things like these.

If the President’s name was Clinton and his surgeon general had wanted to report that condom programs in Africa really aren’t that effective and some political lackey took the words ‘aren’t that’ and changed then to ‘are’ and then proceeded to add that Clinton should be mentioned in the speech supporting all that good in American foreign policy, the screams and cries of the right-wing radio crowd would still be reverberating.

What I would like to know is if any one of the dwindling crowd that actually supports the current Bush can justify this behavior?

Instead of attacking the former Surgeon General isn’t there someone in the White House with the balls to say ‘We were wrong’?    The mantra of taking responsibility for ones own actions seems to disappear in the rarefied air of the White house as fast as the bars on my phone down here in the mountains of north Georgia.

Endorsements and tough choices – Briley for Mayor

I feel compelled to say that I have no pretense that my endorsement of anyone via my blog, Salem’s Lots, has much more meaning than my yard sign. I don’t pretend that the citizens of Nashville are waiting, breath bated, for me to pronounce who they should vote for in the coming election.

So, here’s my blog yard sign, with a few more words than can fit on an actual sign.

We are lucky. We have more than one strong candidate for mayor. In the 19th District, I think we have THREE good candidates to suceed Ludye ‘cris’ Wallace*. Two of our mayoral candidates come from political lineage. One of them wouldn’t be seriously considered, in my opinion, if his father had not been a former governor of our state. The other candidate with said political ancestry, is David Briley.

Briley’s grandfather was the first mayor of Metropolitan Davidson County/Nashville. David Briley has been hearing about politics in Nashville from the time of his first steps. His step into the mayoral race is not based on political legacy, even though he was ‘to the manner borne’.

Briley probably knows as much about Nashville as anyone living here. The difference between him and many of us who call this city our home is that he has been THINKING about Nashville for most of his life. He’s a genial political wonk, who somehow has been able to transcend his ‘wonkdom’ into everyday English.

Briley’s followup to Purcell’s excellent commitment to neighborhoods is important to many of us. His commitment to environmentalism as it relates to government facilities and our city should be important to ALL of us. His courage to raise the issue of ‘environmental racism’ shows that is willing to speak out on issues that will not win him votes in all parts of town.

Briley was part of a team that performed an educational ‘miracle’ at Lockeland School and his knowledge of what it is going to take to make schools meaningful for ALL students is refreshing.

I mentioned earlier that we have hard choices. Karl Dean, if elected, will make an excellent mayor. He is probably the strongest executive ‘type’ in the bunch, but I believe Briley’s lifetime of envisioning Nashville is the best followup to two strong effective mayors.

Update: Liberadio has posted a list of bloggers for Briley. As Braisted said in the comments, the only blogger we can find who has come out for anyone else is the ‘Buck Dozier Blog’.

*I can’t speak to Ludye’s early years representing the North End, but I can honestly say that he has been the invisible man for most of the three years I’ve been living north-side. Of course, I don’t run late night poker games out of my house.

I endorsed Freda Player for the 19th in an earlier post, but am not reluctant to say that Erica Gilmore and David Shaw would serve the 19th well, if elected.

You know you’re in trouble when the FBI Director says you’re lying

I’ve got Alberto Gonzales on his second ‘standing ‘eight count‘. Why aren’t Republicans who are running for re-election (or E-lection to the Oval Office) sending a modern-day ‘Barry Goldwater‘ to the Bush White House to encourage a Gonzales ‘resignation for personal reasons’?

Arggggggggggggggggghhh – Stop with the freakin’ generalizations

If a person believed everything he/she read* and they only read conservative to right-right-wing blogs and talk shows you’d believe that liberals were illogical, america-haters, godless, semi-treasonous, responsible for the decline in American civilization as well as losing the Vietnam war, irresponsible, bad lovers, and a whole lot more, but this illogical liberal brain can’t remember any more.

What brought this on? Don Surber, a respected and genial blogger of the conservative bent, makes the following statement in a post about bloggers ‘owning’ the comments on their blog:

Of course, liberals never accept personal responsibility

good grief. Do you know all liberals, Don? Do you know me? Do you claim that Bobby Kennedy never accepted responsibility, or even .50% of all liberals? I am so sick and tired of people stating that ‘______________’ are all ANYTHING. It’s sloppy. It’s red meat to the sychophants, but little else.

And another thing..you state that a blogger ‘owns’ the comments made on his or her blog? Yeah, as a blog owner, I can delete comments, and I have on one or two occasions when the commentary was cruel. But the logical conclusion from your argument is to say a blogger is responsible for a commenter calling him ‘deranged’ and ‘irrational’. I’d leave those type of comments on my blog if the writer was talking about me, but I certainly don’t take responsibility for them. That’s why they’re called comments..commentary on the post. I know you are specifically targeting obscene and vile comments, but the ‘ownership’ implication seems to be far fetched.

*You don’t know how much I would love to believe that Hillary really did name Bigfoot as her running mate. Alas, the World News Weekly is going the way of the dodo.

Is an election ever NOT ABOUT the lesser of two evils

Sean Braisted endorses Diane Neighbors for vice-mayor (over Carol Baldwin Tucker).  S-townMike says a pox on both houses.  In the comments under Sean’s endorsement, Mike is bewildered by progressives who don’t understand that Neighbors is way too pro-business.  I think Tucker is obtuse and that Neighbors is the lesser of two evils.

All of this is to ask the question:  When is an election really NOT about the lesser of two evils?  Don’t candidates have to make compromises that blemish their ‘perfect’ man/woman for the job?

I guess I’m cynical, but the lesser of two evils is often part of my decision making process when it comes to voting.

Probably not much ‘conchord’ on this issue, but I love this show..

I can’t do, watch, or digest ‘John from Cincinnati’, but I find myself really enjoying ‘Flight‘. The show features two seemingly non-mensa-like musicians from New Zealand who have moved to New York to make it big. As one would suspect after watching their laconic stylings, they are going nowhere fast. But, the deadpan journey is wonderful grist for a 30 minute show replete with witty tunes a la ‘They Might be Giants’.

They have one groupie and a moronic manager and an occasional soon-to-leave girlfriend or two. Not a lot happens, but they make me laugh. I thought I was the only one (besides my wife) who enjoys the show (I’ve heard nothing but derision on talk radio and in blogs), but then I discovered one of my blog-heroes also loves the show. You rock, Lindsey.

Are there more of ‘us’ out there??

Clique-ity clack, or Ridin’ the Bozo bus

I was cool for about three minutes once when I lived in New York. Sadly that was over 30 years ago. I have a cool Keith Richards t-shirt and I know a few cool folks, but I’m about as cool as the current side of the pillow. I hear talk about blogging cliques and how people feel left out of things.

I know a lot of people in the so called Nashville blogging clique. I really like most of them, but folks, these people generally aren’t your party, seen in the Scene, Ricky Lee Jones Coolsville denizens. They are wonderful and many of them write as if they were born to the craft, but folks, there are a lot of social wallflowers in that patch. Many of us blog because we don’t really know how to say out loud what we think we know or what we know we feel. I was frankly beyond terrified the first few times I went to blogger shindigs, because I genuinely felt that THEY were all going to be Dorothy Parker or Robert Benchley (yeah, my references date me) or Cary Grants dripping bon mots as if they were to the manner borne. But guess what…most everyone I’ve met felt the same way. I think that’s one reason why we get along.

Not that all of you are social rejects are social ‘tards. It’s just the idea of a clique that cracks me up. Here’s how you get to be one of ‘us’. You blog. You show up. You say hello. You’re pretty much in like Flynn (or Flint). There are some cool bloggers around, to be sure, but one thing that makes them so cool is that they aren’t exclusionary in the least.

Music City Bloggers started because we missed the communal blogging spirit once the domain of NIT. Somebody had to start it. Those folks couldn’t wait until all 600 Nashville bloggers got together and decided what they wanted to do. Nobody asked me to join. I just did. You could have too. Maybe we didn’t do a good job of making that clear to begin with, but hey, in the words of the great Firesign Theater – we’re all just bozos on this bus.

Were they waiting for their visas to be processed?

Seven Mexican kangaroos die in four weeks..

My favorite name to say out loud..

Gerard Depardieu. The trick is, you say it slowly, with nasal, and one syllable at a time. I thought of this because we saw Monsieur Depardieu in a stimulating calvacade of film last night at the Belcourt. The name of the flick is Paris Je T’aime and it consists of 18 short films by 18 different directors. Each film-negtte was shot in a different sector of Paris.

The marvelously cheek-boned Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a narcotized actor in one (Maggie steals my heart every-time she appears on screen in any movie). Lotsa other folks you would recognize show up (Natalie Portman and the deliriously wonderful befuddled Steve Buscemi are two other highlights).

The film ends with a mid-western American’s ‘high school French’ rendition of her trip alone to Paris. At first you’re thinking…oh shit, it’s another Ugly American story, and then as it unfolds, you realize that she has a wonderful, if lonely, heart, and there is no patronizing attitude a’tall.

Recommended for movie lovers..great soundtrack.. Oh yeah, one of the bits has vampires!

What S-townMike said – Freda for the 19th

The political fortunes for those of us in the 19th district of Davidson County are going, in the words of the fabled cliche, from famine to feast. We’ve been under-represented by our current city councilman Ludye ‘cris’ Wallace for the past few seasons (honestly, I’m being kind with the hyphenated ‘under-represented’).

Ludye’s time is up, thanks to term limits. Normally, I’m not a fan of term limits (except for executive positions), but honestly, for once I’m grateful for this non-democratic law. We have a wonderful panel of candidates to choose from this year, including three very strong contenders, each of whom would serve our district well.

As impressed as I am with Erica Gilmore and David Shaw, I will be voting for Freda Player for basically the same reasons outlined in this ‘Enclave’ post by Mike. Freda has worked the neighborhoods and listened well. She understands our issues and has the capacity, energy, and political savvy to work the council.

Many of us in the Salemtown/Germantown area were impressed when all five candidates appeared at a recent forum both neighborhoods jointly sponsored. No matter who wins this race, our neighborhoods will be represented and heard. I appreciate the time, effort and spirit that each candidate has poured into this campaign.

Here’s your damn report card Mr. President

Bang: U.S. troops engage with Iraqi POLICE in gun battle after police lieutenant arrested for leading a cell dedicated to bombing American troops.   Mr. President, and all you, ‘we can’t leave because it would descend into chaos’ folks, do you understand what this means?   The so-called police force is riddled with Shiite militia members using their authority and uniforms to kill the Sunni.

Bang: Iraqi Prime Minister says that ‘US can leave anytime it wants and that we are capable of keeping the peace’, albeit with a little more training and weapons.  We installed a government.  It is theoretically a democracy and sovereign entity. Maybe if they are telling us we can go, we should listen.

Bang: One of the top aides to the PM says that ‘US is treating Iraq like a laboratory and that  the troops are committing human rights violations and cooperating with terrorist thugs”.   This ain’t Michael Moore or some lefty armchair cynic. This is from the office of the Prime Minister of Iraq.

Bang: US military have decreased the number of estimated Iraqi units who can stand on their own.  The old estimate was 10, the new one 6, far less than the necessary 100 needed to for an adequate military force.

So..hows that working out for ya, again??

A deeper understanding of the game…

My I’m just grumpy this morning because my stomach is recovering from the ingestion of this barium concrete solution taken in order that the ‘cat’ scan folks can better view my inside-parts, .which fits in with my policy of celebrating Friday the 13th with a special viewing. I really do feel like a concrete mixing truck.

I was reading Sports Illustrated and ran across the interview with Joey Chestnut (the new hot dog eating champion) when I noticed that he was the 3-time winner of the freaking ‘Fried Asparagus Eating’ competition. WTF? Not only is there a ‘Fried Asparagus Eating contest, there is a damn GOVERNING BODY for eating contest (International Federation of Competitive Eating). I suspect they were created to grab their own piece of the competitive-eating pie.

The IFoCE actually has rankings of the top 50 eaters (world wide), including, my favorite – Crazy Legs Conti. The bio on Crazy L actually contains the lines:

Legs struggled in 2006 to maintain the momentum he showed in his early years. However, his perseverance has earned him a greater knowledge of self and a deeper understanding of the game.

In addition, he has shown himself to have an affinity for lobster eating, twice placing in the money in this difficult discipline.

Has the apocalypse begun and I missed it? Is there any better example of an over-fed greedy populace than the competitive ingestion of food (other contests include pancakes, gelatin, crawdads, pizza, and of course, pigs feet).

Do the folks down at Second Harvest get a little verklempt when they read this stuff?

Oh wondrous nature, or why I’m personally going green..

oh wondrous nature,

with beauty so serene,

I lift my head up to the sky,

and sneezefor 12 freaking minutes in-a-row because of the g’damned histamines exploding in the air like so many leftover fireworks.

CHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sista goes to college..

And has a VERY special message for her old junior high school counselor.

I”m sure that most of us had positive encouragement from teachers and counselors back in junior high and high school, but if you are like me, you may remember some of the positive stuff, but the criticism and negativity is still up there rolling around the cranium.

I had a junior high teacher who was also the junior high basketball coach.  He had seen me attempt to play sports rather clumsily over the years, and apparently that image was pretty well burnished into his meager brain-pan.  It’s not that I really metamorphosed into a hoops killah, but my game got pretty good when 8th grade rolled around.  Good enough to make the 8th grade team.   But, I had no chance, thanks to what the coach couldn’t get past my past.   Sadly, my game went downhill from that point.  I’ve forgiven the big jerk, but I haven’t forgotten!

Where were we?  Oh yeah, BIG CONGRATS to the Sista!

Weird science, or former Surgeon General Bush-whacked

According to this Reuters story on MSNBC,

“The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.

“Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,” Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation’s top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.”

Medicine and science should not be filtered through ideology. The scientific method doesn’t involve Rovian puree’ or theological cleansing. This is another in a long line of shameful episodes from this administration…a parade of cronys, phonys, ideologues, and incompetents. When they get a good one, they suppress and marginalize.

In this case, we are not talking about a shunned Clinton leftover. This was supposed to be their man. But, they didn’t want a man. They wanted a patsy.

Your ship is sinking, Bush-ites (the few of you that are left).

2009 can not get here soon enough.

Bud Selig is a dipwad

For those of you who don’t know (and maybe don’t care), Selig is the commissioner of baseball. He’s been presiding over my favorite sport for many years, including the grand steroid era, when Barry Bonds hat-size grew and Mark McGwire’s arms took on the appearance of Popeye post-spinach. Home run records were obliterated. The fact that the players and NOT the ball that was juiced was the worst-kept secret in baseball. What did Bud do? Nothing. He proffered a tepid drug policy which captured the cannabis intake, but did little to curb the appetite for bigger and longer and deeper home runs.

Of course attendance grew, and the summer of 98′ when both Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hit prodigious home runs at an unheard of rate, Bud was front and center, shining like the gleaming used-car saleman that he was in his former life.

But a few years ago when newspapers and baseball beat writers began to air their suspicion, and even the President mentioned the problem in his State of the Union address, old Bud began to sing a different tune: ‘We have a problem’ and then proceeded to nothing about it until congress held hearings and then bygoshgollygumgee, we suddenly had a steroid policy. So far the policy has netted about a dozen major leaguers, mostly Hispanic.
So, here we are in 2007. Barry Bonds is about to break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. By my estimation, about 200 of those home runs are a result of the juice. Based on his normal pre-steriod years, he was averaging about 40 home runs a year. Barry is the first player in major league history to actually IMPROVE in his late 30s, early 40s. Pretty much everybody outside of Barry’s immediate family believes he was juiced round the turn of the century.

Normally when a milestone as big as the all-time home run record is broken, the commissioner makes an attempt to be in attendance. But, milquetoast Bud is still wavering. If he doesn’t attend because he thinks Barry is guilty, then he needs to do something about Barry. If he doesn’t believe Barry is guilty, then he needs to attend. But, Bud wants it both ways…he lavished in the luxury years of the steroids and then acted serious when the heat was on.

Take a stand Bud, and let’s get this right.

Say it ain’t so, Dan Patrick

I don’t get to listen to radio much at work.  Streaming internet not allowed and the reception inside our concrete fortress encasing all of us at the Cordell Hull who don’t have real jobs is spotty (that’s being kind).  But, sometimes when I’m out and about in the afternoon, I have the privilege of listening to Dan (of ESPN radio fame). I especially enjoy the show since Rob Dibble got booted off left.

Patrick IS a personality and yeah, sometime his ‘I’m Dan Patrick schtick’ gets a little heavy and the supposed self-deprecation is not well-disguised, but the man knows his sports.  He knows the sports world.  His guest list is diamond dusted.  He doesn’t shy away from controversy and almost always has an opinion, AND he’s leaving ESPN.

I don’t know anyone who can adequately replace him.  The days he goes on vacation, his substitute hosts are effective but not effervescent.  I’m going to miss Dan Patrick, even though I rarely hear him now.

Good luck Dan, and for the love of Jack Buck, don’t bring back Dibble!

If you asked the Attorney General how to spell his name, he’d probably answer Gonzaliz

According to this Washington Post story*, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked during the hearings regarding the renewal of the Patriot Act if he knew of any violation of civil or legal rights of the citizenry.

“There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse,”

Perhaps the good General had been drinking his nightly dose of milk of amnesia, for it seems that he had been informed that there had been at least half a dozen legal or procedural violations, including property invasion. Is there something in the White House water, a side effect, that results in massive spontaneous and pre-digested prevarication?

As a public service to key members of the Bush administration, Salem’s Lots offers an absolutely FREE refresher course on what made and makes this country great.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Oh yeah, and those ten commandments you guys love to bandy about…there’s that one about false witness. Just sayin’.

Maybe THEN I’d read the Davidson A.M. section…

I have god-awful handwriting.  My notes should be put on powerpoint slides and presented as mandatory lesson plans for third grade teachers to show their charges what NOT to do when it comes to putting pencil or pen to paper.   I’m fascinated by folks whose handwriting has flair along with the functionality of actually being readable.  The pinnacle of my penmanship was in the 3rd grade when I learned the cursive language.  Rolling downhill from there, I am to the point where I often can’t even decipher my own handwriting.

All of this is to say, I was blown away when I read that there is a newspaper in India that is actually HAND-WRITTEN each day by a team of calligraphers.  It’s a Muslim paper, but they actually hire women, which is apparently kind of a lib thing to do in that section of India.

Check this out…somebody should frame each edition.  I bet the classifieds are a bi-atch to write!

ht: Melissa Maples – check out her post on the t-shirts she found at a Turkish bazaar!