Can someone out there please verify a rumor that I heard yesterday concerning John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s song “Happy Christmas (War is Over)“? I heard that it’s been remade, with a Lennon-sound-alike, removing all the “troubling” mentions of war and fear. I can’t imagine this it true, but you never know these days.
A very Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fearWar is over!
If you want it
War is over!
Now!
I’m happy to report that the American Civil Liberties Union is filing suit against the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania school district that recently ordered its students be taught “intelligent design” (aka “creationism”) as an alternative to evolution. Here’s a snippet from the story:
The state American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Dover Area School District to stop the district from teaching an alternative theory of evolution that many say is just another form of creationism.
The lawsuit stems from the Dover Area School Board’s decision to mandate the (teaching) of an alternative theory to evolution. The theory, called intelligent design, holds that the complexity of the universe suggests creation by a divine being rather than through evolution.
The School Board voted 6-3 on Oct. 18 to include this curriculum in its biology class.
Six of the 11 school parents who are plaintiffs took part in a press conference Tuesday at the state Capitol. Angie Yingling is one of those parents. She said the School Board established the curriculum for religious reasons, not to improve science education…”
Let’s just hope that the courts do the right thing now.
My gym routine requires that I be completely pant-less for about six seconds. Generally speaking, it’s the longest six seconds of my day. It’s usually proceeded by a minute or so of me standing there awkwardly, in my underwear, trying to calculate when to best “make my move.” Today there was a complication. I’d changed my shirt and removed my shoes, and I was ready to make the transition. I was just standing there, waiting for just the right moment. Once the elderly man on my left began his phlegm-spraying coughing fit, I knew it was my chance (the only other guy in there with us was trying to remember how to tie his shoes). I had my thumbs tucked into the elastic band of my underwear and I was beginning to go, when, all of a sudden… a naked man leaps out from around the corner, swinging a giant loofah sponge on a string. Never having encountered anyone in the locker room with a loofah, let alone one as large as my head, I had no idea what to do… I think I just stood there and stared for a few seconds, unable to make sense of what I was seeing. Then, thinking quickly, I pretended to have been overcome by a dire need to scratch my neck. I pulled my underwear back up to where it started, and then proceeded to scratch furiously until he found his way to the shower, where he probably went on to light some candles or something…
While at the gym, I had an idea for a reality TV show for my friend Jeff and me. I think it’s a good idea, but, as it would require that we abandon our families, I don’t think we’ll probably end up pitching it to the networks… The setup is pretty straight forward — Jeff and I abandon our families and move to Columbus, Ohio to make it as male escorts/models/writers/factory workers (the profession can change depending on the network that options it). The show’s called Deadbeat Dads. It’s kind of like The Real World meets The Fugitive meets Midnight Cowboy, but with the added drama of two broken homes. We get to wear disguises, and there’s a real bounty hunter after us!
I also had an idea for a children’s book called, “Bitch pulled my weave out.” I don’t have anything other than the title though.
Trying to cheer a friend of mine up just now, I mentioned that as a single, 30 year old male he’d have his choice of women once the draft started. That seemed to raise his spirits considerably. (“See, there’s a silver lining.”)
The baby hasn’t pooped in four days, so Linette called the pediatrician. He said that it probably wasn’t anything to worry about, but that, if we wanted to, we could give her some apple juice. Well, we just did, and now we’re waiting for something absolutely awful to happen. (If one of her regular, every day poops can send a hot stream of the stuff shooting out the ankles of her pants and the neck hole of her onesie at the same time, I can’t imagine what four days worth could do. Maybe I should just lay her in the tub for a while.)
I’m wondering if there’s a way that you can all chip in and buy me a sheet of Wacky Pack stickers for Christmas.
The person I know who’s related to Don Knotts just told me that she can’t help me set up an interview, so, if you know someone else who knows him, please let me know. It’s more important to me than Wacky Packs.
I hear the baby exploding in the distance. Wish me luck.
If you didn’t read An Empire Wilderness today, you missed not only another great post by my friend Cory, but a link to a very nice open letter written by University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos to all those SUV drivers out there who make such a point of advertising how much they “support our troops”. Here’s a clip:
You, sir (or madam), are a monumental jackass. At this moment, American troops are risking their lives to protect your inalienable right to live your life in an impenetrable fog of selfishness and stupidity.
If not for the need to service this grotesque monstrosity on which you squander your money and that of the taxpayers who subsidize your comfortably numb life, those troops you support would not be getting killed and maimed in a country I doubt you could find on a map.
I sometimes wonder if anything short of dynamite can shatter your complacent fantasy that the Iraq war is about bringing democracy to the Middle East.
The truth is that every Arab from Casablanca to Khartoum could be cutting his brother’s throat, and yet this would remain a matter of indifference to our government if not for the need to ensure that you will be able to fill your Excursion with cheap gasoline.
To expect others to sacrifice everything for you, while advertising by your own behavior that you will sacrifice exactly nothing for them, is the height of political and social immorality. And to do so while claiming your political views are an expression of “moral values” is an obscene joke.
Drive off, Ford Excursion. Head back to your gated community, to patiently await the Rapture, or the next Nordstrom’s sale. You’ve driven me past the limits of pundit endurance, and I long to return to the world of thoughtful observation…
Apparently David Cobb has a witness. Here’s a clip from the Blue Lemur site:
David Cobb, the unsuccessful Green Party presidential candidate, aired startling allegations at the Democratic House Judiciary Committee’s Columbus hearings Monday, alleging that a voting company representative tampered with voting equipment in Columbus last Friday and attempted to plant false information into the Ohio recount.
Cobb says that a witness who had requested anonymity watched a representative of Triad Systems enter the Columbus Board of Elections unannounced and tamper with a vote tabulator which then lost all data.
The representative then, Cobb said, tried to convince employees to post false information so that it would appear as if the data was valid and had never been lost…
While we’re on the subject of election tampering, here’s a link that will take you to video of Clint Curtis’s testimony yesterday in front of the Democrats of the Judiciary Committee as they met in Columbus, Ohio. Curtis, as you’ll recall, is the programmer, who, while employed at Yang Enterprises (a NASA subcontractor in Florida), claims to have been approached concerning the possibility of rigging electronic voting machines in order to “control the vote.” (You can also find a transcript here.)
And, while we’re at it, here’s a speech given the other day by investigative journalist Greg Palast on the subject.
(note: Since I haven’t said it in a few weeks, I thought that perhaps I should reiterate one more time that I do not necessarily believe that there was fraud in the 2004 election. I do believe, however, that the evidence needs to be considered, and that the problems that do exist, whether they happened due to malicious intent or not, need to be dealt with. This isn’t about changing the outcome of the 2004 election in my mind. This is about ensuring that every vote is counted, in 2004, and in the future… So, please don’t write in and call me a conspiracy theorist for linking to Palast. I know that he’s on the fringe. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t raise good points though.)
