Thanks to the folks at Bloglines, who were kind enough to replace the old feed with the new feed. So for those of you who have subscribed to the old feed all along, wondering why there’s been all this silence (there hasn’t), that’s what happened. Anyway, didn’t mean to break the hiatus, but wanted to clarify the confusion.
Year / 2005
We Can’t Be Funny Anymore We Can Be Funny, We Just Prefer to Stay Sane So We’re Taking a Break
The news is so fundamentally awful and depressing that we’ve now resorted to heavy drinking hanging with friends and disconnecting for a tad so that the profound rage, hopelessness and sorrow we feel doesn’t spread like a cancer into the depths of our soul — the way these incompetents in power want it to. We’ll be back on Tuesday.
[UPDATE: We walked thirty miles in 24 hours. If that doesn’t give you a sense of the crazed lengths we’ve gone to in order to remain calm, nothing will. Of course, wiser folks looking at our neuroses from the outside have been kind enough to put things into perspective. We speak for us (and them) in suggesting that you at least spend about twelve hours away from your television set (pointing out that recusal doesn’t necessarily translate into abdicating one’s responsibilities to stay informed!), doing something modest and without thought that reminds you of the world’s profound wonders. When in doubt, feed the ducks or flirt with someone.]
America is Fucked
Conversation at Cafe
A: I’ve never seen the beginning of A Clockwork Orange. Every time I see the movie on TV, it always starts in on the part where Alex is raping the writer’s wife.
B: Okay, so at the beginning, they’re at this milkbar. They’re drinking milk, which is a sort of crack cocaine.
[ED, a Burgess and Kubrick freak, can’t stop his ears from pricking up.]
ED: Crack cocaine? I don’t think so. Did we ever once see Alex getting a case of the shits? It could have been amphetamines.
B: Methamphetamines, yes.
ED: It could have been alcohol. It could have been a futuristic version of Kahlua. Or do you think that the sensation of drinking the milk was all inside their heads? Perhaps a placebo effect?
B: Well, they did say that the milk sharpened everybody up for a bit of the old ultraviolence.
ED: Yes. But it sharpened them up. One might argue that the instinct to pillage was already there.
B: Or perhaps the milk represented something maternal.
ED: That too!
B: Given the Christ imagery in the film, the milk was a liquified form of heroin.
ED: Wait a sec. So you’re saying then that violence is irrevocably tied in with drugs?
B: Maybe.
ED: Well, I should point out that Hitler was a vegetarian and a teetotaler.
Katrina Headlines XXVIII
- Crooks and Liars: Amazingly, FOX News now concedes of the failure to help. Geraldo Rivera held up a baby, demanding all viewers to see the face of reality. Shep Smith shouts at Hannity!
- Associated Press: Rhetoric not matching reality.
- General Honore: “By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated; I would be, too. I get frustrated at the cash register counter when the paper runs out.” I like this guy.
- WWL: Convention Center still not secure; considerable unrest.
- NOLA: Loss of real estate records dating back to early 1800’s, could be nightmare at providing insurance claims.
- Headline of today’s Times-Picayune: “HELP US, PLEASE.”
- Paul Krugman weighs in: “At a fundamental level, I’d argue, our current leaders just aren’t serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don’t like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.”
- Flamethrowing response from Steven Gilliard.
- Storm Digest points to this DHS report about what’s coming in the convoy. No reference to MREs being distributed to Convention Center.
- The Katrina “I’m OK” Registry.
- Link to live New Orleans police radio scanner.
- The Interdictor is still posting: “Homeland Sec comes driving by and yells water and hums a 20 ouncer at our feet without slowing down….Bunch of stressed out, trigger-ready police and military types driving by suspicious as all hell. It’s not safe just standing out on the street even if you look like you belong there.”
- Accountability? Maybe: “Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel’s top Democrat, said they would begin an oversight investigation next week into what they called an ‘immense failure.'”
- 70 year-old Nellie Washington: “What took you so long? I’m extremely happy, but I cannot let it be at that. They did not take the lead to do this. They had to be pushed to do it.”
- Kanye West criticizes bush during telethon: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
- Kids set up lemonade stand for victims.
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