Monthly Archives: June 2010

It’s hard to sum up a Steyn column, so I’m not going to try. I usually take something obscure from them and then think about it all week. This week, it’s been the final paragraph in Steyn’s weekend column.

Except in one respect. There is a big hole where our strategy should be.

It’s hard to fight a war without war aims, and, in the end, they can only come from the top. It took the oil spill to alert Americans to the unengaged president. From Moscow to Tehran to the caves of Waziristan, our enemies got the message a lot earlier – and long ago figured out the rules of unengagement.

Well, I guess that’s technically two paragraphs, but whatever. It’s not that the thoughts contained in these sentences have never occurred to me, it’s that no matter how often Barry’s indifferent foreign policy or flaccid war strategy are pointed out, nothing seems to get through. We’ve got a guy at the helm who doesn’t give a crap about effective or appropriate–if reality is contrary to the worldview that he came preprogrammed with, reality is what gets ignored. Or revised. Stubbornly, this administration pushes on, determined to remake America in the image of some abstract socialist utopia dreamt up by this president’s programmers professors.

It’s maddening. If I were a cartoon, I’d be pulling my hair out at this point.

And the federal government wants to take over my healthcare? Look, I don’t want the AIDS, and I think it’s absolutely–I don’t even have the words for it. It’s disgusting that we put our vets in this kind of danger. We’re neglecting them.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Carnahan, a Democrat from Missouri. “No veteran who has served and risked their life for this great nation should have to worry about their personal safety when receiving much needed healthcare services from a Veterans Administration hospital.”

“Unacceptable” is an understatement. The Dem from Missouri is correct. But wait, there’s more:

In June, Palomar Hospital in San Diego, California, has sent certified letters to 3,400 patients who underwent colonoscopy and other similar procedures, informing the patients that there may be a potential of infection from items used and reused in the procedures.

I don’t care where you’re from, there ain’t no reason “reused” and “colonoscopy” should ever be used in the same sentence.

On the way home from the store this evening, I heard Hugh Hewitt announce that Christopher Hitchens has esophageal cancer and must undergo chemotherapy. I’m terribly sorry to hear this, and I wish him all the best. I love crotchety contrarians, and even if I don’t agree with Hitch on everything, he’s one of my favorite writers. I became smitten when he flipped off Bill Maher’s audience a few years back. What had been admiration of a man’s talent blossomed into admiration of the man himself. At the time, some called it crass, but Hitch was astute enough to speak the only language Maher’s audience understands.

Whether he likes it or not, I’ll be bending my God’s ear on Hitch’s behalf. Sorry man, you’re just too important to the world of letters for me not to bring in the big guns.

Like an idiot, I listened to a bit of the Al Gore sex poodle allegations after I’d eaten lunch. Though I kept my quesadilla down, (I love me a good quesadilla, kids), it was a struggle. It was something akin to seeing Jon Lovitz full frontal. Dancing.

You know what I think about the whole thing? I think somebody took a creative writing class at the community college. The “very detailed” report the woman gave sounded more like one of those free romance ebooks everyone’s downloading on Amazon. Don’t even pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about; those wastes of digital space wouldn’t be at the top of the most downloaded lists on the Kindle page for nothing. Admit it. You love them.

Anyway*, the woman’s recounting of the incident sounds entirely too well-versed to not have a bit of embellishment in it. I’ve had to talk to police about things I’ve witnessed (nothing serious, FYI) and I’m a believer in adjectives, but this woman was writing her book as she recounted the alleged incident to police. It sounds rehearsed, weird.

I have no doubt that Al Gore is a freak, but I guess I’ve always pictured him attempting to make love to Gaia, not humping the leg of the hotel masseuse.

*I know that “anyway” is really supposed to be “any way,” but I hate writing it that way. Grammar and spelling be damned!

I know you all were worried. I haven’t even had time to play with the new phone I got a stupid good deal on. I’m so tired! Can you wait one more day for some real content? I know it’s a lot to ask, but just hang in there. I’ll be back, I promise.

My feet hurt. I got new running shoes, (the weird-looking Vibram 5 Fingers, which sounds like a sex toy but isn’t), and I love them. Running actually feels like fun and not work, which for me is a complete 180° from where I normally stand on running. (No pun intended.) It’s like running barefoot, like you did when you were a kid, but I’ve been running in those cement blocks called “running shoes” for so long, my feet are in shock. I now have an enormous blister on my toe from having run nearly four miles this evening. My daily run has lately consisted of zero miles per week, not counting the sprints we do at CrossFit.

So now I’m going to whine for the rest of the week.

Once again, I am too tired to write about Steyn’s column, but I’ve got to say how much I enjoyed it. Not that this is in any way unusual, but consistency does not negate excellence. Apparently, Steyn is consistently excellent. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Now I need someone to rub my feet and legs so I can go to sleep.

I’m going to write about Steyn’s latest later. It’s 1:30 PST and I’m very tired. I find I never want to publish a half-assed post on Steyn. It would be a cryin’ shame to do such a thing.

And it would be wrong.

I’m wondering if the Mexican government is getting lessons in PR from the Palestinians. The 15 year old “boy” who was shot “playing with his friends” at the US-Mexico border a couple weeks ago was actually an enterprising young human trafficker who had been arrested several times already.

A 15-year-old Mexican boy shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent was among El Paso’s most wanted juvenile immigrant smugglers, according to federal arrest records reviewed by The Associated Press.

The records show Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca had been arrested at least four times since 2008 and twice in the same week in February 2009 on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Hernandez was repeatedly arrested along the U.S. side of the border near downtown El Paso, not far from where he was killed, but was never charged with a crime by federal prosecutors.

Do you think anyone condemning the Border Patrol agent knew about Sergio’s criminal aspirations? I suppose assuming a punk kid throwing rocks at Border Patrol agent had any priors would be considered racist since he was, you know, Mexican.

I work out with several FBI agents, and they’ve told me some interesting things about just who is coming across our borders illegally. They aren’t always the folks looking for some temp work outside the Home Depot and they aren’t always Mexican. Our southern border is a huge national security risk, and activists are trying to turn it into a race issue. That tactic is both dishonest and dangerous.

It’s time we start paying attention.

Bummer.

Whether or not we made it all the way is not as important as our team giving their all in a sport where they are unrecognized and unappreciated by the country they are representing. Regardless of the public’s fickle adoration, Team USA kicked ass this World Cup. I’m proud to have called them my team.

Having just finished Imperial Bedrooms, I have no idea what to make of it. It went so dark so fast, spiraling down so quickly and yet unsurprisingly, it was a little disorienting. Bret Easton Ellis is a wonderful writer, though it seems very hard for critics to overcome his subject matter. A majority of the praise seems shallow and predicated solely on Ellis’ image as a “subversive” writer, which sets the “sophisticated” set alight with admiration without the burden of understanding. Much negative criticism seems equally shallow, with the critic’s own morality getting in the way of an impartial assessment, which is a mistake. Ellis is as moral a writer as they come, for though he unflinchingly chronicles the great gaping void at the heart of our culture, he never condones it. He does not judge but reveals, and what we see is ugly, soulless, terrifying.

His earlier work was in some ways frantic, the thin veneer of detachment covering a well of paranoia and hysteria. Something was wrong, very wrong, with the world, he seemed to be telling us. His earliest characters were screaming inside.

But his later novels have taken on a sense of apathetic inevitability–the characters are not searching so much as ignoring the disappointment and emptiness of their lives. They have everything but their souls, and while that might cause a certain amount of existential discomfort if they were to contemplate it, they’d rather check out and keep up appearances.

The view from Ellis’ eyes is bleak, surreal, cynical and joyless. His characters beg for some kind of connection, something real, but are too jaded to ever find it. The scariest part of reading Ellis, however, is not recognizing the emptiness in the world around you, but the emptiness inside of you. Even his protagonists are in many ways unimportant and faceless, and more than once, you glimpse yourself in their reflection as they pass a mirror or window.

That’s the worst part.

Oh, how I laughed out loud when I read this. The Onion is such fun.

“I know you’ve been really excited about helping us ever since that whole ‘Save the Whales’ craze began back in the ’70s,” the whale said. “But I think we can agree that the past 35 years have basically been a death march, so let’s just part ways.”

“We had a good run,” added the creature, who requires 1.5 million calories each day to survive. “But species come and go. It’s a natural cycle and we are at peace with it.”

The consortium of blue whales admitted they had begun beaching themselves on purpose, and ordered the environmentalists to stop wasting time organizing volunteers who only prevent the suicidal creatures from experiencing the sweet release of death. They also urged the activists to end their practice of collecting signatures for petitions and to put their efforts into something that has a chance of succeeding, such as saving historic buildings.

I just don’t read the Onion enough, apparently. I need to make it a habit.

Um, ew.

Scientists studying swingers — straight couples who regularly swap sexual partners and indulge in group sex at organized meeting — say they have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) than prostitutes.

Moral of the story: Even prostitutes are cleaner than you dirty, nasty swingers.

After a very bitchy detour, I’m back and wondering what a “crazed sex poodle” is. It sounds pretty freaky. The lady in question also sounds less than credible. Perhaps he made a pass at her, but attempting to sell one’s story for a cool mil this late in the game is a bit tawdry, even for me. The Laurie David rumors? Those are believable, though why anyone would willingly get hot and heavy with Al is beyond me. This poodle story is just a bit too convenient a truth to worry about.

If the story were actually in the National Enquirer, well, then I’d have to reconsider.

Why do liberals want to make babies cry? Why? Why?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a liberal consumer advocacy organization, has announced it will sue McDonald’s unless the fast-food franchise stops using toys to market its “Happy Meals” to children.

“This morning, CSPI notified McDonald’s that we will file a lawsuit against the company unless it stops using toys to beguile young children,” said Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

“We contend that tempting kids with toys is unfair and deceptive both to kids who don’t understand the concept of advertising and to their parents who have to put up with their nagging children,” he said.

Dude, Little Hyacinth is a very spirited young girl. I put up with nagging for nothing, so I’d rather there was a toy at the end to make the noise go away. And besides, why can’t kids just be kids? Part of being a kid is whining about toys you’ll play with once.

Liberalism threatens to take the joy out of life completely. That alone is reason to fight it.