The Crusader
Ever since the 2000 election, I've had a very difficult time understanding what such a large segment of this country (although, clearly, not a majority, but that's neither here nor there) sees in George W. Bush as President. He's so obviously an elitist child of priviledge, a reckless anti-intellectual who can't be bothered to know the details and intricacies of fiscal policy or international diplomacy, and a bought & paid-for tool of the corporate establishment who does their bidding on the backs of the remaining 95% of the world's population. Why are these people voting for him?

Well, this Newsweek article goes a long way to explain it to me. I'm reminded of an episode of the late & lamented "Politically Incorrect" during the 2000 election where Naomi Judd, when asked why she thought Bush should be President, said something to the effect of "I just think he's a good man". As a evangelical, born-again Christian, Bush is one of the few political leaders I can think of who is not clergy who is able to speak to the public about his own personal relationship with Jesus. For a country that is still, at it's core, largely conservative and Christian, his conversion resonates. It also allows his supporters to see him as he sees himself: someone called by God to lead.

As a Christian myself, I find this to be the absolute height of hubris in it's most offensive form. Since Bush is convinced that he's on some sort of crusade, he believes that he's above criticism or debate. Because "God saved him for a reason", then, his instincts, impulses, and opinions are also blessed by God and, therefore, infallible. War & tax cuts for the rich are God's will, and those poor misguided Muslims in Iraq only need the word of the Christian God to feed their souls.

When a man is given power over millions, where no one questions his authority, where he believes he instinctively knows God's will and is an instrument as such, isn't it a very short trip to where he begins to think of himself as a god in his own right: all-powerful, all-knowing, the final arbiter of right and wrong, with the power of life and death over all, cloaked in righteous conviction?

Yes, that SHOULD scare you.

How Bad Do You Want It?
You may have noticed by now my love of the Classics (as in "the study of ancient Western Civilization" according to my alma mater). Lysistrata is a play written by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, in which the women of Athens refuse to have sex with their husbands until the men agree to outlaw war.

In light of current events, a group of actors have created The Lysistrata Project, where they've arranged for several hundred simultaneous performances of the play around the world as a a huge public statement against the impending war in Iraq. The current count has 1004 performances in 59 countries, and that number is increasing daily.

I LOVE this idea. Definitely find a viewing near you and go.

Maybe I should start an online collection to buy two tickets for the D.C. show for Laura Bush & Lynne Cheney....

Keeping The Peace
This editorial from today's Washington Post, written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, shows that, contrary to President Bush's popular pronouncements, the United Nations will not be irrelevant if it doesn't just roll over for the current American lust for Iraqi blood. As a matter of fact, the current situation (i.e. putting the breaks on war through civilized diplomacy, while backed up by the threat of military force) is exactly what the UN was designed to do in the first place.

The Stick, The Carrot, and the Survelliance Tapes
Surely no one is surprised by the strong arm tactics the Bush Administration is using to get members of the UN Security Council to vote for the 2nd resolution on Iraq, such as witholding foreign aid, or accelerating the closing of U.S. military bases abroad. After all, the French are playing hardball, too, by threatening to keep "New Europe" countries that support the war out of the EU. What is much more troubling is this report from the UK that the President has enlisted the use of the NSA to tap the phones and direct other electronic surveillance on UN delegates and diplomats from other countries on the Security Council while they're in New York to debate the issue. Of course, it's probably not illegal, thanks to the USA Patriot Act and all the other Homeland Security shennanigans Messrs. Bush & Ashcroft have been up to.

Bosom Buddies?
Hilary Clinton. Tom Delay. The embodiment of ying and yang in Washington. But, apparently, they both have a personal commitment to correcting the horrors of the foster care system in this country. Here's a joint interview they gave about their upcoming initiatives after they hosted a screening of Antwone Fisher.

Side note: things like this serve to remind those of us on the progressive left that, quite often, our ideological opponents have their hearts, if not their minds, in the right place.

God's Country
Here is a great editorial from Time magazine that says people support the idea of war in Iraq because it's been couched in these dualistic, good vs. evil terms. After all, who doesn't want to "fight evil"? But, somehow, the concept of war is comforting to a population that feels like it's under seige, and I don't just mean from terrorism either.

Favorite quote:"The identification of cross and flag after Sept. 11 needs to be called what it is: idolatry."

Memo From The Boss
Recent Grammy nominee Bruce Springsteen pontificates here in Entertainment Weekly about a bunch of stuff. I was looking for his comments on his latest album, 'The Rising', and it's 9/11 reflections, but I was most intruigued by his thoughts about the creative process, and how it changes and evolves over decades of being an active artist. Very kewl.

Clothes Make The Man
Here's a follow-up to an earlier Macroscope post, following the Army's drive, in conjunction with MIT, to use nanotechnology in the implementation of smart uniforms for the new millenium soldier. In theory, these uniforms will do everything from deflecting bullets, dressing wounds, defending against bio weapons, and boost physical prowess.

Nuke: The Next Generation
Since, apparently, ICBMs are just so yesterday, President Bush has authorized the military to find new, more exciting ways to kill people with nuclear fission, which would, of course, be a violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. See what the BBC has to say about this, and ponder just how many more treaties are their left in the world for Bush & Co. to break..

Movie/Music Collision Quote of the Day

"You can even tell that muthaf---in' Jesse Jackson/ Pay your child support/ Keep your payments up/ Put a rubber on"


- Ice Cube, on the new Westside Connection album, responding to Rev. Jackson's criticism of Barbershop. Somewhere along the way, Cube also manages to take shot at Samuel L. Jackson, too, for complaining about rappers-turned-actors.

I miss this Ice Cube. Now if only he had something to say about Iraq....

Manipulative Restatement of the Day

"If only I wasn't Black. Then people would stop sweating me for contributing to the cultural erosion of the Black community, the further objectification of Black women, and increased demonization of young Black men while I'm lining my pockets. It's SO unfair!"

- my shamelessly manipulative paraphrasing of a lament from BET founder Robert Johnson over the difficulties he faces in his career, from an article found in today's L.A. Times.

"Why isn't anybody saying anything?!?!?"
Here's a speech from Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVa), castigating the Bush administration for recklessly pushing the entire world community to the edge of collapse, both militarily & financially, and the Senate for saying absolutely nothing about it.

Truly Patriotic Quote of the Day

"The president is not a king."

- John Bonifaz, the lawyer representing a group of American soldiers, parents of soldiers, as well as Congressmen John Conyers, D-Mich, Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.; Jim McDermott, D-Wash.; Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.; and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas who've filled a Federal lawsuit against President Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld. The suit states that the congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq is unconstitutional and that the deployment of American soldiers without a congressional declaration of war is illegal.

I find myself reminded of Cassius's plea to Brutus, both members of the Roman senate, as Caesar is contemplating making himself king and replacing the Republic, from Shakespeare:

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

It's about time somebody tried to do something about this.

The State of the World
I haven't fully digested exactly WHAT the World Economic Forum is, but anytime you put Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft, Bill Gates, the heads of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Sony International & Goldman Sachs, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury in the same room, it's probably in your best interests to know what they're talking about. Here's the POV from a proverbial fly on the wall, and the view ain't pretty.

Escape from L.A.
C.I.A. director George Tenet just confirmed that the North Koreans have the ability, as of right now, to drop a nuke on the West Coast of the United States.

And I can say, right here, right now, in this moment, I became afraid.

I mean, afraid that there is a very real nuclear crisis blowing up in our faces that the President is just hoping will go away so he can go kill a dictator for Daddy. I'm afraid that they're stubborn arrogance to deal with the North Koreans could result in a disaster of unspeakable proportions, and not just because yours truly would get vaporized in the first salvo. After all, if the North Koreans start going nuclear, and we respond in kind, don't you think those itchy trigger fingers in Pakistan & India are going to start scratching?

You'll have to excuse me while I start making my peace with my maker.

Hollywood Shuffle Quote of the Day

"Hey, Shaun, get those eyes bugging. That's the money shot."

- John Bowman, executive producer of "Cedric the Entertainer Presents", said to one of the show's performers.

Yes, this bothers me alot. But, on the other hand, that "The White Man's Holding Me Down" skit is hi-la-ri-ous.

Meteorology
Micah Wright is a former Army Ranger who now makes his living writing, among other things, the comic Stormwatch: Team Achilles, which details the exploits of an elite group of very-human military operatives who are funded by the UN to beat the snot out of any and all super-humans (heroes, villains, mascots, whatever) who make life difficult for the rest of the population. Fun stuff.

However, in his spare time, Micah is a VERY vocal opponent of the Bush Administration's foreign policy towards Iraq, as evidenced by the series of faux-propaganda posters he's created and selling on the web to highlight the lunacy of the impending war. Here's an excerpt from his Delphi web forum where he lays out in broad detail what he thinks is and is not an appropriate application of the most awesome military force in the history of mankind.

The Un-American Way
In case you haven't noticed, Mark Millar, the writer of comic titles like The Authority and The Ultimates, is one of best in the biz, in my opinion. This spring, DC Comics is releasing what may be his masterpiece:

What if the small spacecraft carrying the last survivor of the planet Krypton, instead of touching down in Kansas, the breadbasket of Ameroca, crash landed in Stalinist Ukraine?

Purveyors of Smut
Back in October of 2000, The New York Times did an article that, among other things, included a map that illustrated the percentage of pornography consumption on a state by state basis. Oddly enough, the states with the highest consumption rates map almost exactly to the states that would vote for Al Gore as President the following month. Someone at The Atlantic monthly believes that this is more than a coincidence.

New Age Battle Dress
Here's an article from the Washington Post that details military research at MIT to develop "smart" uniforms for the army, to combine GPS technology, biotoxin detection & relief, performance enhancement, and all other sorts of goodies, through the wonders of nanotechnology.