Glob-a-log

So, it is true… Whether he was apprehended – or simply ascended: Karl Rove has finally left the building.

Maybe he’d grown tired of it all, and just couldn’t find the inspiration to come up with any more slanderous, Swift Boat type campaigns and decided to leave these things to other malignant trolls.

For, yes, whatever the perks may be, even evil grows old.

Anyway, I’m sure there will be other things for him to do. Maybe, like Tony, he can become an envoy for this, that or the other.

Or, even better, his former boss might make him a special agent – just like his predecessor (and fellow ‘Mr. Popularity’) Richard Nixon did for one of his supporters:

In 1970, Presley personally delivered a five-page letter to the White House, asking for a meeting with Nixon. Presley, then 35, requested to be appointed a “federal agent-at-large” in the war on drugs.

Wrote the King:

“I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques, and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good.”

Still, it’s a blow for old George. It can’t be much fun to have one of the only two men left in the US who are even less popular than you resign.

Mind you, the week hadn’t started all that well to begin with. It’s not nice, when you and your wife organize a barbecue, that one of the invited guests, very publicly, gives you the finger:

Cecilia Sarkozy’s decision to bow out of a picnic with the president of the United States this weekend is the latest proof of the French first lady’s unpredictable, even rebellious take on her new role.

President Nicholas Sarkozy travelled alone to meet George W. Bush and his family at their Atlantic holiday home after Cecilia bowed out due to a throat ailment. She was photographed later Sunday taking a stroll in town with two friends.

Now, Laura is pissed at her hubby for having befriended that little French troll, with that harpy wife, in the first place. Karl, as we’ve seen, has done a runner.

So, things couldn’t go any more wrong if you tried…

Weeelll… not quite.

For yet another Washington insider has gone on national TV, to tell the American people why the the country should never have invaded Iraq. Big deal, you might think: Just another well-fed rat, leaving the sinking ship.

That’s true – but it wasn’t what the guy was saying exactly, though it was pretty damning. No, it was who it was that did the talking that was a bit of a problem – and no, you’d never have guessed.

One hint? Alright. After Rove it was now the only guy left in the US of A who was more unpopular than Bush.

Indeed: Dick ‘the Vice’ Cheney himself – on tape, in his own words, calling the whole idea of invading Iraq insane.

Problem is, you think I’m joking – but I’m not. I’m really not! Just watch the clip for yourself.

Yeah, I know. Weird, isn’t it?

God knows what old Double Duh must be thinking right now… Ah yes, that’s true. Poor George. It’s even too late for that, now.

Let’s start with another lovely rant from the online Guardian’s Charlie Brooker:

Clubs are despicable. Cramped, overpriced furnaces with sticky walls and the latest idiot theme tunes thumping through the humid air so loud you can’t hold a conversation, just bellow inanities at megaphone-level. And since the smoking ban, the masking aroma of cigarette smoke has been replaced by the overbearing stench of crotch sweat and hair wax.

Clubs are such insufferable dungeons of misery, the inmates have to take mood-altering substances to make their ordeal seem halfway tolerable. This leads them to believe they “enjoy” clubbing. They don’t. No one does. They just enjoy drugs.

Drugs render location meaningless. Neck enough ketamine and you could have the best night of your life squatting in a shed rolling corks across the floor. And no one’s going to search you on the way in. Why bother with clubs?

He is quite right, of course: clubs are vile. So, why would anyone go there? Ah, do I hear a drooly: ‘Babes’ as feed-back (only followed, split-seconds later, by a horny: ‘Hunks’ whisper?)

Back to Charlie then:

“Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who’ll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o’clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother?”

Hear, hear. It’s much better then to stay at home and practice your De Niro moves in front of the mirror, snarling “Are you looking at me?!”, wearing your best tutu…

Hm…? Yes, I said tutu. Didn’t you hear about the movie Stardust, based on a Neil Gaiman story, in which De Niro… Wait: here’s part of the movie review, lifted from the Christian Science Monitor:

There’s even a pirate, Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Niro), who pilots a flying ship with a crew only slightly less scurvy than the one in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, and who cross-dresses in the privacy of his chambers.

Watching De Niro sashay in tutu and corset is easily the most otherworldly sight in “Stardust.”

Quite.

It also gives the rest of us a glimmer of hope. If you can get de Niro to wear a tutu, how hard can it be to reform the White House and turn it into something a bit more user- and planet-friendly?

In other words, if at ‘Rambo‘ you don’t succeed, why not go for ‘Pretty in pink’?

It would make such a difference, to be a bit more open and inviting. Think of the bridges you could build… (No, not that one! Let’s stay on message for once, okay?!) Turn swords into ploughshares; turn enemy into friend. Like, well, why not…?

Invite Bin Laden over, grab some dogs and a few beers and sit on the White House lane, watching the grass grow (or being mown by the new interns), rent some all American babe movie later. Take the families to the beach, catch some rays, take some family snapshots…

A far-fetched fantasy? Maybe not. The Bushes and the Bin Ladens have always been close, of course – so, what’s a bit of history between George & Bin in the grand scheme of things? In fact, there’s really no reason why ‘George goes Quaida’ couldn’t become as big a summer hit as ‘Debbie does Dallas’ once was.

I mean, forget about those fun-loving terrorists and talk about something really, outrageously weird: Old Double Duh has fallen in love with France all over again – so, obviously, nothing is off the table anymore.

They say that cleanliness is next to godliness. As sayings go, that one really needs a bit more potty training.

Talking of which:

Police in Walkerton, Ont., had a surprising encounter with a suspected drunk driver on the holiday weekend when he refused to take a breath test.

While officers were preparing to administer a breath analysis, the suspect managed to get hold of a contact lens case he had in his clothing, drink the lens fluid and eat one of his contact lenses. He then attempted to eat portions of his shirt and socks.

The suspect was then placed in a holding cell, where he put his head in the toilet and refused to provide a breath sample.

Elsewhere, police officers had it decidedly easier:

Detectives traced a suspected thief after he left his severed finger at the crime scene.

Let’s leave the boys in blue though and go straight to the Israeli army, for a woeful tale of black and blue:

Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs.

Reigning beauty queen Yael Nezri, a private who recently completed basic training, said the bruises were making it difficult for her to model in photo shoots.

It would seem that the Chinese army, while still being quite photogenic, has no such problems. In fact, the Chinese government is so proud of it, that they’re sending it on a friendly world tour, starting in England:

After successful negotiations between the British museum and the people of china the Terracotta army of warriors will be coming to London.

Though you can’t help but feel that this is also a subtle, Chinese dig at the English government, showing that there are more sensible and much more profitable ways of deploying your army than to keep sending it on ever more deadly fools’ errands to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ah well, whatever the truth of that would be, like stupidity, armies will be with us for quite a while yet – even if they, by insistingly keeping to grow in power and size, like the dinosaurs before us, carry the seed of their own extinction with them.

What’s more, when that end will come, it will, like the death of the great lizards, most probably neither be very safe nor particularly beautiful to behold.

I do like it when people make an effort:

Fire chiefs rushed 18 crew, three engines, a Land Rover and a rescue boat to a 999 call.

Residents feared a child had drowned as teams raced up to 35 miles to the scene with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Retired fireman Neil Guest, 54, said: “It was unbelievable. There were five men to each engine, an officer in charge and two with the dinghy.”

Locals were stunned to find the “casualty” was a duck, trapped in a drainage tunnel.

Warwickshire fire bosses said it was their “good deed for the day”.

Yes indeed, and so it was.

Making an effort is also very important within a relationship – and when you really want to engage with your loved ones, you have to do it on their level:

First lady Laura Bush, a former teacher well known for her advocacy of books, is now writing one. Bush and her daughter, Jenna, are collaborating on a children’s picture story, currently untitled, that will be published by HarperCollins in spring 2008.

So, yes, if it takes a picture book to get the 43rd president of the US of A to listen to you and to really get what you’re trying to tell him: don’t be proud and go for it.

Congress should take note of that, perhaps.

Again, making an effort does make all the difference. It doesn’t matter whether you are at play, building some snowman, or hard at work, saving the lives of various flood victims: doing your best will always be worth it.

In fact…

Yes? What…? Oh, well, yes, alright, there will always be some exceptions…

but still, and on the whole…

What…??!!

Yes, alright already, I’ll give you that. That’s not of much use either.

Okay, where was I…? Right. As I was trying to say… Now what?! What?! Why should I read…? Ah:

A dog is to be destroyed after it bit an expert called in to prove it was not dangerous.

Ian Donnelly asked an animal psychologist to examine his German shepherd Zak which had attacked four children and two men in two years.

But the shrink was mauled as he took notes.

Give me strength! Alright, I give up. Take an effort; don’t take the effort: see if I care.

Thomas Wolfe once wrote,

You can’t go home again. That’s still true – but maybe not in the way Wolfe meant.

What it means these days is, to put it bluntly, that we’re fucked. What used to be home is now either a parking lot, a McDonald’s outlet or a war zone.

For the rest, what’s left to us are memories and bad debts. The debts are cool: they will stay with us. They’re pretty loyal, those debts. Memories are less reliable. The most we can do is take them to the shrink – and then the shrink tells us that it will cost us.

So, we’re screwed – and our leaders aren’t a blind bit of good either. You’re still hoping good old Bush & Co. Unlimited will provide, in the end? Yes, thought not.

Problem is, our so-called spiritual betters aren’t much help either. Look at the oldest Christ joint we have: the R.C church. Or maybe not…

A Catholic priest faces an indecent exposure charge after police said he went jogging in the nude about an hour before sunrise.

The Rev. Robert Whipkey told officers he had been running naked at the Frederick High School track and didn’t think anyone would be around at that time of day, a police report said.

Still, at least this was one of those victimless crimes – well, okay, let’s just say they haven’t found any small and badly bruised body so far. You can’t say that much for all R.C. priests who go for a walk around town:

A Catholic priest in Mexico who killed his son so the Church would not know he had broken vows of celibacy has been jailed for 55 years in Mexico City.

What’s the pope doing about all this, you ask? Good question. Well, not much, to be honest – but then, he’s been awfully busy, lately. He recently reinstalled the Latin mass, which means that the Church is now, once again, praying for the Jews,

that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.

When people protested that this might look as if the Church was going back to its happy, antisemitic roots, the Pope decided he’d better make quite clear, once and for all, what the Church’s position was on antisemitism:

The Vatican, trying to allay Jewish concern over Pope Benedict’s meeting with a radical Polish priest accused of making anti-Semitic remarks, said on Thursday its stance toward Jews had not changed.

The brief statement followed a meeting on Sunday between the Pope and Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who publicly apologized in late July after accusing a “Jewish lobby” of trying to extract millions from the Polish state.

Jewish rights groups condemned the meeting and called on the Pope to denounce Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja, which they accuse of spreading xenophobic, anti-Semitic statements.

The Vatican did not address those demands in its one-line statement, saying only that Rydzyk’s widely reported kiss of the German-born Pontiff’s hand had no broader implications.

Indeed.

Of course, it’s not just the Roman Catholic Church that fails to be anything but a moral vacuum, these days. Christianity’s newer brands are also not quite up to scratch in the Just follow Jesus department:

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

The church and its pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps, have become notorious over recent years for their claim that the attack of 9/11 was an act of God’s vengeance and their determination to make that case at the funerals of U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq.

So, when Mammon’s high priest is the incompetent Bush and Jesus’ replacement is too busy reviving quaint old hobbies like Jew-baiting, where’s good old, honest Joe Blow to go for a little comfort and some peace of mind?

Well, the answer is that, apparently, he goes here:

A news reader reported Thursday that a couple of North Shore men want parents of school going children to consider bulletproof backpacks.

It started with the Columbine shooting in 1999. Curran and Mike Pelonzi said that they watched and worried for their own children.

“If the kid has a backpack next to them, or under the desk, they can pick it up, the straps act as a handle and it becomes a shield,” Curran said.

After three years of experimenting, the backpacks ranked threat level two. It stops an assortment of bullets, including 9-millimeter hollow point bullets.

Wait – but what’s that…? Yes, praise be: Hark the herald angels sing!

But what are they singing…?

Ah yes, of course:

Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over. They’re done.

Once upon a time, life was simple. You could tell a story in about ninety minutes – and the only ingredients you needed was some real scary monster, or some intriguing (or insane) villain and, of course, one of those strong, silent type heroes, who would always bring that old happy ending safely home.

That – with some popcorn and a Coke – was all that was really required from any story. Or life, for that matter.

Nowaday, things are so complicated – and so ugly with it.

Our leaders look like cartoon characters, while the cartoon figures just look plain weird – and what used to be slightly skewed only gets weirder… and weirder… and yes, positively demented.

So, it is with some pride and no small relief that we can announce today, that finally, we saw some of those old values restored. Yes, one man made a stand, and decided to turn back the clock, to show us sweet glimpses of an older, more innocent and by far more predictable world.

So, Paris, Lindsay and Britney: take note. This is how a true pop star behaves…!

Harpies, ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Keith Richards…!!!

Keith explained that the matter may have become confused because, while he ingested his dad, he didn’t mix him with cocaine, as some people reported.

“The cocaine bit was rubbish. I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with”, said Keith before confirming in an interview on NME.com that the rest of it was 100% straight up legit.

“I pulled the lid off (my father’s urn) and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I’m going, ‘I can’t use the brush and dustpan for this’.

“What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of … y’know, he went down a treat.”

Ah yes, such happy, carefree times.

One would wish that that good old Past would have remained an only child and never had ended up with those two ugly little brothers: Present & Future.

Ah yes, this brave new world of ours is rotten as the state of Denmark, as Hamlet used to say, and it ain’t smelling like any teen spirit you’d ever like to date.

Right, now I’m starting to sound like I inhaled someone’s dad. Time to go – but not before we’ve listened to Keith and the boys again.

So, just take us away, lads, for one more, last time.

People like control. Or, at least, they like the idea of control. Mostly, because lack of control is deemed to be bad. Lack of the control is scary. It’s that weird guy with the ax, grinning and screaming, HERE’S JOHNNY…!!!

Control is good, though. You can use control in many ways, for all kinds of things – but mostly to warn people that if they do this (or don’t do that) the man with the ax will either be kept from the door or invited.

People who love control always love to have a man with an ax around. Fact.

Still, people do – let’s say it politely – have control issues:

A man who believed his car was ‘flashed’ by a camera rented a circular saw and returned, climbing a stepladder to cut off the camera’s ‘head’. He then took it home and put it in his garden. But witnesses had taken down his registration number and the man was traced by the police. When the police examined the camera, there was no record that the man had committed a traffic offence.

It’s not just individuals, of course, who have these slight control lapses or hiccups:

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report.

Mind you, if you behead a traffic camera, you just get nicked for your efforts. Big organizations, like the Pentagon, still have some control over certain events, when the (’Here’s Johnny…!!!’) ax threatens to come down on them. They can, for instance, hold a press conference:

One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used against U.S. forces.

(My bold script, admittedly, but really: ’some’ of the weapons?! Like: 99% of the Iraqi population are law-abiding citizens and US army fans, who would bring any weapons they found immediately to their local police station?!)

Of course, you don’t really need reality, when it comes to control issues. Some people feel that they need the comfort of imaginary friends. Sometimes, though, imaginary foes (or imaginary actions from real foes) can be so much more fun:

Iranian intelligence operatives recently detained over a dozen squirrels found within the nation’s borders, claiming the rodents were serving as spies for Western powers determined to undermine the Islamic Republic. Iranian news agency IRNA reported that,

“The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services.”

Quite.

Evidently, you can never have enough control. It’s one of those weird, psychological facts, but the more control people and governments actually have, the more paranoid they become about needing to have more and more of it:

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

A well, it should not come as a surprise that people have all these control issues. We are talking about a species that has invested quite a lot of time and money in developing things like the perfect waterproof watch.

Yes, if you don’t mind your symbolism (or metaphors) with a lick of carnie paint, here’s what could be the defining image of homo controliens:

He’s standing on top of a sinking ship, looking at his watch and still wearing the smug kind of half smile that comes with the knowledge that he will be able to tell you, to the exact second, the moment the ship that carries him and his watch will reach the bottom of the cold, cold ocean.

So, America has a new poet laureate: Charles Simic.

It may not be the first thing one thinks of, when the US of A is mentioned: a poet laureate.

McDonald’s & drive-by shootings; George Bush, Paris Hilton & Fox News: yes. A poet laureate: no, that’s not the first that springs to mind.

Still, with America up to its ears in self-created messes, from the inner chambers of the White House and Minnesota’s crumbling bridges, to the streets of Baghdad and the mountain tops of Afghanistan, it can’t exactly hurt to honour a man who wrote:

Fear passes from man to man
Unknowing,
As one leaf passes its shudder
To another.

All at once the whole tree is trembling.
And there is no sign of the wind.

But then, Charles Simic, who is 69 now, was born in Yugoslavia, in Belgrade and only moved to the United States when he was sixteen. So, he knows what he is talking about.

Also, in honouring Simic, America – in this small way – is honouring all that is good about itself, about this vast and big-hearted, yet so often misguided country: that it has always welcomed new-comers and that it has always believed in new beginnings, and new chances.

So, yes, let’s honour Simic – and let us also remember what America once stood for, and what it could, once more, become: a land of opportunity – open and welcoming, trusting and generous, optimistic and always eager to turn a new page.

Once more, mister Simic; give us one more…:

Leaving an Unknown City

That mutt with ribs showing
We left standing near a garbage truck
With a most hopeful look,
His tail on the verge of happiness
As the train picked up speed
The outcome left open

With the dusk falling rapidly
Making the dusty windows reflect
Our five traveling companions
Sitting with hat-shrouded eyes,
The absent-minded smiles
Already firmly set on each face.

You know what’s the most popular game these days – played by young and old? You don’t know? Well, don’t look at me like I’ve just buried your damn puppy alive: I’ll tell you already!

it’s the blame game. Yes, you do know it! It goes like this:

Eileen Amy Politano, of North Fort Myers, Fla., was charged with felony child neglect Friday after leaving an 11-month-old girl in a car while she went into a grocery store.

Politano told police she intended to run into the store for a few minutes to buy some meat for dinner, but said there were too many specials to pass up.

And you know what makes the blame game extra special? it’s not just people who can play; it’s whole countries too:

Nearly half of the pregnant teens in China’s financial hub, Shanghai, met their partners on the Internet, state media said on Tuesday.

Doctors blamed the situation on adult Web sites, videos and books and appealed to parents, teachers and society at large to pay more attention to sex education.

A survey by Zhang’s hospital found that only 7.9 percent of the parents queried talked to their children about sex, and 79 percent of high school and university students said they got their ideas about sex from the Internet.

Of course, and this is the beauty of the game, there’s always somewhere to turn, when it seems there’s no-one left to blame but yourself. So, yes, when in doubt, blame Bush:

With all the destruction man has wrought on the environment since he first crawled out of his primordial goo, it’s nice to see Mother Nature even the score every once in a while. When that infernal bridge collapsed yesterday, it was as if the Mighty Mississippi had finally cast off the steel shackles that had enslaved her and was at last free to flow unobstructed by man’s technological wizardry. It was a shame that so many innocents had to die for the river to gain her freedom, but the blame for their tragic deaths lies solely on Bush’s shoulders.

(Or, if your tastes run more to the cleavage kind of thing, blame Hillary. This, from a somewhat outdated newsflash:

Enjoying a comfortable lead over her GOP punching-bag opponent in her Senate re-election bid, New York’s own Hillary Clinton was cast by evangelist Jerry Falwell as a favorite candidate for the 2008 presidential election:

“I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate,” Falwell said at a breakfast session Friday in Washington. “I hope she’s the candidate, because nothing will energize my (constituency) like Hillary Clinton,” he said. “If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”)

Ah, there you are: at last! I was waiting for you to show up around now.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention for a moment? Fine. Now, let me introduce you to the hand-wringing voice of so-called reason. So, give us a big hand for the voice – and yes, there she blows…:

“But what kind of example will all of this set for our children?”

That was it? That was the best you can do? Then begone, foul dinosaur!

Bad example for the children, my foot. Believe me, give them a few years and they will be better at this whole blame game than any of us grown-ups. Kids learn fast these days – and they are as used to being sold out from day one, as they are willing to do some serious soul-selling themselves, at the first opportunity that arises.

Hell, and God knows I’m not exactly giving away state secrets here when I say that the first thing you need to know when you do want to sell out is how to divert all blame from yourself.

So, believe me, the future of the blame game will rest in pretty safe hands indeed.

Modern life is strange and comes with all kinds of weird head-aches. Once, if you were a parent, you could tell your kids, if asked about this, that some kind stork had dropped them through the chimney – a bit like Santa Claus, sans beard and sans annoying red-nosed reindeer.

No more though:

Another bright idea from our caring authorities: stick all of a child’s genetic information on a birth certificate, even if a parent is a sperm or egg donor, and so reduce parenthood to the proud status of what a student does in a plastic cup. Instead of “Anon” in the space for father, perhaps they can just put “Onan”.

Yes, once there was that old Love & marriage thing that belonged together like a horse & carriage. Love, ah yes. Like old Sinatra songs… Mostly dead as a dodo now, of course. The things people get up to nowadays beggar – or bugger – belief:

Police found the video camera and a “large amount” of 8mm and VHS video of Dills engaged in masturbation and sex acts with traffic signs near his home.

Still, as John Lennon once sang: Whatever gets you through the night.

True, of course, but people can be really, really weird, like Peanuts cartoons drawn by Charles Bukowski. While some things they do are so breathtakingly stupid – and so silly that you can’t actually call them perversions anymore and keep a straight (or disapproving) face.

I mean, everybody knows – or should know – that sexual harrassment is bad. We also know that it happens and that it, like the poor, will probably always be with us.

Some of these predators though can be pretty pathetic. Would you, before you started to seriously harass someone, let your intended victim strap you in, having just handed her (or him) one of the most hideous instruments of torture ever invented by man?

Well, weirdly enough, this guy did just about do that:

A man in Singapore who made obscene noises and claimed he was orgasmic while under treatment by a woman dentist has been fined SIN$1,500. Odd-job worker Benjamin Lim Chy Meng, 38, pleaded guilty in district court to insulting the 28-year-old dentist’s modesty.

Truly, there is one born every minute…

P.S: The title was lifted from The little shops of horrors’ Dentist Song.

P.P.S.: Just because it’s a very weird clip - and therefore dedicated to Mr ‘odd-job’ Benjamin Lim Chy Meng (38) - here’s a scene with Jack Nicholson from the old black & white movie version of The little shop of horrors. Enjoy!