Category: Deep political thought

On the eve of a new year

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Soon 2008 will be in our collective rear-view mirror, and good riddance, says I. Adios, motherfucker. For the first time since January 2000 the world can look forward to a United States that isn’t hagridden by a clique of junior-varsity fascists bent on making the world safe for their bidness buddies and a bloody nightmare for everyone who doesn’t know their Secret Handshake.

I don’t envy Barack Obama. Sure, he asked for the gig, but cleaning up after The Decider has to be the worst janitorial job since Heracles tackled the Augean Stables. We’re not talking a fresh coat of paint and some air freshener here — more like dump truck after dump truck full of stinking sludge and toxic waste.

So when you’re celebrating this evening, raise a glass to the president-elect. His new year is not likely to be a happy one.

And on a lighter note, for a look back at the year in cycling, pop on over to VeloNews.com. I’ve posted all my editorial cartoons from 2008.

News you can’t use

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

If David Wright still had a wife he’d have someone to tell him he is insane for wanting to piss away a few mil’ on Singular, a magazine targeting the single crowd with “advice, travel suggestions and profiles of unmarried people who travel to Tonga, collect vintage sex manuals and play polo when not performing acupuncture.”

The only people writer Alana Semuels quoted in this Los Angeles Times article are over 50. Yeah, there’s a growing demographic for you; 50-somethings with money to burn. How ’bout a sister publication — Shit for Brains: The Journal Proving That Wealth Can’t Buy Smarts?

Speaking of the endless human capacity for self-delusion, Laura Bush and Condi Rice say history will reveal the true greatness of the Bush presidency. Uh huh. Here’s Steve Benen at Political Animal:

It must be comforting for Bush, Rice, and other top officials in the administration to think this way. It’s no doubt frustrating to wake up every morning, and go to work knowing that you’re reviled by most of the public, here and around the world. If you can convince yourself that you’ll be appreciated years from now, it probably takes the edge off.

But that doesn’t make it true. Indeed, wishful thinking about history’s judgment, in the midst of widespread failures in every aspect of government — foreign policy, economic policy, constitutional policy, domestic policy, environmental policy — borders on delusional.

Remember the end of the Clinton administration? How the Repugs were gloating about the adults finally being in charge for a change? Whatever happened to those wise old heads, anyway? This crowd apparently still believes in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny — and thinks all three of them are retarded.

Didja get any onya?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

The Decider has finally turned the money hose on Detroit, and don’t I wish I were standing nearby with a bucket. One of my paychecks has mysteriously gone walkabout again and Visa would like nothing better than to get me by the plums with a downhill pull.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of the holiday season, there’s a fresh rant up at VeloNews.com. No charge. Think of it as my little gift to you this Zappadan.

Interesting concept, eh? I get paid (or don’t, as the case may be) to dash off my little online japes. The editors get paid to read and post it. And the publisher has to write the check (or not). But you, you lucky devils — you get off scot-free. Except for having to notice all those bloody ads for this and that in your peripheral vision, which does tax the eyeballs, does it not?

Not only is my stuff free to you, it’s easily accessible. Couple clicks of the mouse and there I am in all my pointless, content-free glory. It’s a pretty specialized delivery system, when you think about it. If all you care about is reading me, or Lennard Zinn, or Bob Mionske, you don’t have to thumb through a wad of other stuff to get to us. Click, click and off you go.

(More on this later. Herself is screeching that I look like a coconut and am in dire need of a haircut.)

OK, I’m freshly shaven and back to deep thought. I click the mouse for my national and international news, coverage of fringe sports like cycling, leftist political commentary and expert advice I can use to make my life richer (investment advice, recipes from elite chefs, and so on). I know where to go and how to get there.

I would like to read local news, too, and plenty of it, without having to wade through a wad of other stuff that is more easily available online: the aforementioned national and international news; pointless coverage of mainstream professional sports already covered to excess by TV; and the endless smelly pile of treacly features keyed to days of the week (Food, Life, Money, et al). But I can’t get local and regional news — not a lot of it, anyway, and certainly not reliably — with a click of the mouse.

If the Gazette were to do without all the trappings that defined the Newspaper v1.0 and become a strictly local news source, I might subscribe again. But if it keeps trying to be all things to all people, I’ll continue to withhold my pennies and watch it die a slow, lingering death.

Late update: Incidentally, if this post seems even more scatter-brained than usual, it may be because the cats were dancing on my head at 4 a.m. and set me to thinking creakily about some of the excellent comments in an earlier post.

Sole brother

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
Someone's stink-foot nearly put a hurt on The Decider's nose.
Someone's stink-foot nearly put a hurt on The Decider's nose.

Finally, someone in the press corps grows a pair, and size 10s, too. Too bad he wasn’t one of ours. But they’re all too busy blowing kisses at Oprah to throw shoes at The Decider.

Could the Mystery Man have been a Zappatista? It’s not known for certain; it all happened too quickly for me to see whether those unidentified flying zapatos were  brown shoes (they didn’t make it, which may be a clue) or a pair of too-tight, stink-foot python boots.

Then again, he could’ve been a Firesign Theatre fan: “Shoes for Industry! Shoes for the Dead!” Just another returning deceased war veteran hungry for that good-paying job, more sugar, and the free mule he’d been dreaming of. Too bad everything he knew was wrong.

Hulk smashed!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .

Upstart Donk Mark Begich has sent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Pork) a nifty present for his 85th birthday — a one-way ticket back to Alaska.

Stevens was the ethically challenged engineer on a gravy train that has sent Alaska far more of the taxpayers’ money than it deserves during his six terms in office; let’s hope the pork gets sliced a little more thinly and spread around a bit more fairly in his absence.

The evil old fart, a self-styled “mean, miserable SOB” who famously donned an “Incredible Hulk” tie when preparing for legislative combat over drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, goes to his well-deserved fate not with a bang, but with a whimper: “I wouldn’t wish what I am going through on anyone, my worst enemy,” Mr. Stevens said Tuesday morning in the Capitol, according to The New York Times.

Gosh. Kermit was right — it ain’t easy being green.