Bill's Notes

Kerry kicked his ass in the debate. Not even close. Bush sounded like a defensive and somewhat petulant child. Too bad. Now it looks like we'll have a presidential race. Shit. I was hoping for a blowout. Bush never should've debated this guy.

But hey, if you can't handle a debate with your opponent, perhaps you don't belong in the White House.

FWIW.

yack yack yack. problem with writing so much and reading so much is sometimes you just get sick of words. words, words, words. words. words, words, words. sentences. sentences and paragraphs. paragraphs and stories, and kickers and subheads and pull quotes and of course headlines, big screaming headlines demanding READ ME MOTHER F***ER OR YOU WILL SUFFER A SUDDEN, PAINFUL FIERY DEATH. you know, rhetoric. metaphor. analogy. synecdoche. a friend who thinks dodecahedron is a fun word to drop into conversation. metonymy. zeugma. parallelism. zeno's paradox. dialectical materialism. that sort of thing. words. language. yackety yack.

sometimes i think it would've been nice to have been a plumber. or a carpenter. or a stone mason. something where i could've just fixed something tangible and not have to say a whole lot. or an eastern [orthodox] monk.

you breathe in, you breathe out ... chant your mantra, then listen for it back, follow it down, witness/don't judge, and then wait for your consciousness to drop. see ya at the third chakra, amigos.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Open and just hold the lantern in the doorway,
For the freedom of it.
And you take the night air through your nostrils and you breathe
In out, in out
And you breathe just like that, just like that

How does it get you when it gets you
When it gets ya
You may not know it's got you until you turn around
And I'll point a finger at you, point a finger at you
You say which way, which way
That's alright, we've gotten hip to it
Goin' to do it right now.
Behind you
Beside you, beside you

Oh child to never wonder why
To never, never, never, never wonder why at all
Never never never never wonder why at all.

Some partisan jackass affixed a bumper sticker proclaiming, "Bush=Dishonor" to a "Do Not Enter" sign at the exit of my workplace parking lot. Thus, it would only be seen by lawbreakers, who were using the exit as an entrance, or by folks like me, who saw the sticker on the sign sign while watching for a break in traffic. Irked but not surprised, I removed the bumper sticker and crumpled it up. The heavy rains made the removal easy.

Now, if I can just remove the "mind-forged manacles" that caused the partisan to place the bumper stick there :)

The big picture is this: We are trying to turn the entire world into New Jersey (or at least Mississippi) before we destroy ourselves by all the means at our disposal and before the oil runs out.

Globalization ultimately means we can eventually fit into one world economy the entire world's population and resources and turn it all into a first world economy. Once we do this, we have an end to the threat of overpopulation, because developed nations usually have slightly negative population growth.

One we stabilize the population through a one-world, first-world economy, then the rest is easy: Instead of deficit spending, we tax to pay off our debts and run a surplus. This surplus is then use to create a fund that eventually becomes so big we can run the government on the interest earned. No more taxes.

Because we have zero population growth and no taxes, one generation will be able to pass its wealth -- land, annuities, and the like -- to the next generation, making them asset rich over many generations. Eventually the entire world will live off the interest earned by these trust funds ... making the entire world mind-bogglingly rich. The whole world will consist of literary artisans and craftsmen (and C programmers) living peacefully with each other in tastefully decorated homes.

All we have to do is not kill each other in the next 150 years and we'll get there.

Yeah, I suppose Filipinos, like almost all humans, like donuts. But what was that google search about reader?

Also:

Google search on 'Updike bloggers'?

You want me to pontificate on John Updike? Sure. Updike wrote the worst book ever -- Rabbit, Run. Otherwise, he's alternated between frustrating and brilliant. He's from nearby Shillington, you know. Uh. That's about it.

I became a Republican today. Renewing my driver's license and up pops a screen asking me if I want to make changes to my voter registration. So I say yes, and I switch my registration from Democrat to Republican.

This is not my beautiful house. This is not beautiful wife. My God. What have I done?

I suppose I'm more machine than man now, twisted and evil.

What have I done it? I don't leave things easily. What happened? Economically, my sense is the New Democrats had a better handle on things than the Republicans, who tend to say the craziest nonsense, like the deficit doesn't matter. Yeah, running up credit card debt doesn't matter, either. Let's just spend and spend and see what happens. Oh, that's the Republicans plan. Yet, despite my agreement with the New Democrats on economic policy, I'm switching.

Why then? Well, I think the Democrats are wrong. About a great. many. things. Two of the most important are federalism, which the Democrats seem to think is a cover for racism. And national security. The cluelessness is rampant on national security.

There was a time, not that long ago, 'cuz I'm not that old, when the Democrats criticized the Republicans for cozying up to dictators. Now the French do that and the Democrats love 'em for it. Go figure.

Oh yeah — I think someone can be pro-life without being anti-women, can have qualms about affirmative action without being racist, can want the cops to arrest and incarcerate criminals and not be a fascist, and someone can want the federal government to butt out of their life without being heartless.

In the fall of 1982, I was at a concert with the my treacherous lovely girlfriend Karen standing on the crowded field at the old JFK stadium in Philadelphia, listening to The Who. Baba O'Reilly. Long introduction. Power chords. And then the arms started pumping in unison ... a crowd of people with their fists thrusting into the air. And I thought, Nuremberg. This is where the fascists will come from, crowds like this. Saw a similar occurrence only a year earlier at a Bruce Springsteen concert. Made me a little uncomfortable then, too. Years later, so the same thing at a Black 47 concert in Baltimore.

Fascism, if it arrives, will come, not necessarily from the left, but from people who think they are rebelling against fascism. It won't be the nerds, the stockbrokers, or even the skinheads, but the kind of people who think attitude yields truth yet still stand in crowds, overwhelmed by the moment, thrusting their fists in the air.

OK, I'm a little far afield here. In the 22 years since The Who, one constant I have is freedom of conscience. Simply put, the Democrats pester people too much these days with their consciousness-raising efforts, usually related to issues in which they are wrong, for my taste -- and at the same time, the people who claim to be so free-minded can be close-minded and blind, emulating Nuremberg more than they think.

Bush is not a liar. The bad guys are the terrorists, not the neo-cons. Criminals need to go to jail. Housing projects in the city breeds crime. Treating behavior changes the thoughts, not the other way around. Democrats are not superior human beings by virtue of party registration.

There's a reason so many of us -- and I was a very loyal Democrat who never voted Republican until 2000 -- have been leaving the party. The Dems need to get honest about why. I don't think the Dems have been, and I don't hold out much hope for the future. But you know, I'll try to keep an open mind.

Just found out a former professor died back in December. He was a professor who enjoyed students and that's part of what made him such as excellent professor. The funny thing about him was he tried to trade in the latest critical theories, and he knew them inside and out and worked them into his lectures. He'd done all the reading, and seemed to believe it. He'd written books on it. But deep down, in his heart, which he revealed in his fiction, Bill V. was a humanist — and an obvious one. He loved his students. He loved writing. He loved literature. He loved life. That's not the kind of politicized detachment you get if you believe theory. It's what you get if you are an unrepentant affirmer of life, when you go around looking for things that are cool, which is what he did ... So he wrote about wives in Nigeria or a trailer park resident in Florida, or the story for which he was most well-known, about an aging father tending his garden.

Back in December, I sent him an e-mail telling him that a former colleague of his died. I never got a response, and thought it was unlike him. But now I know why. He'd have appreciated the irony.

RIP, Bill. Say hi to Sterne and Fielding for me.

Picking up a corn muffin at Genuardi's this morning and over the PA system comes a strange bit of Big Brother-speak in which the speaker praises Genuardi's and then says, "Diversity is our greatest strength."

Hmm..., I'd have thought Genuardi's greatest strength would have something to do with the business, say stocking lots of great products, fresh food, that sort of thing ... but no. It's the fact that the employees may be made up of different ethnic groups.

It's BS. It's a lie. The 1976 Cincinnati Reds' greatest strength was hitting, not the fact that Tony Perez, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan came from different ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, another load of shit in the "destruction of language and meaning" department: Use of the term "surgical strikes" in news articles. Any journalist with a bullshit detector set on low should be able to figure out what utter crap the use of the term "surgical strikes" is when talking about bombing. Surgeon's don't use explosives during surgery for a reason -- it makes a big mess. Yes, there is precision bombing, and to call it that is fair enough. Sure beats imprecision bombing. But "surgical strikes" referring to bombing counts as propaganda and bullshit and the journalists who use the phrase should be forced to sit inside a building where there is an alleged "surgical strike."