Thursday, April 15, 2004
I Have Freed You All In My Blog
It's five in the fucking morning, and I haven't slept and I won't tonight so let's fucking blog!
First-off: if you haven't seen this you absolutely fucking have to (pops up, asshole, so watch out).
I had some post a while back where I bemoaned the use of cultural icons of rebellion appearing in commercials, but fuck that -- this is so weird that it has to be enjoyed and loved by all, especially people who have no idea who that weird skinny old guy in the Vincent Price mustache is.
But we're living in a world where Dennis Hopper is stumping for Bush, so all bets are fucking off tonight!
Secondly, my buddy Ross is kind enough to review The Price of Loyalty so you don't have to:
(sorry, ross -- I didn't exactly have your blessing to post this, but it's too good to waste on me)
Thirdly, here's an ancient Roman joke:
An egghead was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will.' |
First-off: if you haven't seen this you absolutely fucking have to (pops up, asshole, so watch out).
I had some post a while back where I bemoaned the use of cultural icons of rebellion appearing in commercials, but fuck that -- this is so weird that it has to be enjoyed and loved by all, especially people who have no idea who that weird skinny old guy in the Vincent Price mustache is.
But we're living in a world where Dennis Hopper is stumping for Bush, so all bets are fucking off tonight!
Secondly, my buddy Ross is kind enough to review The Price of Loyalty so you don't have to:
I finished reading Suskind/O'Neill's "The Price of Loyalty" last night. It's got a few of those annoying literary devices that have become so popular with non-fiction writers these days: dramatic language, baseless suppositions about people's inner thoughts, ass-kissing, and just general bullshit. But not very much, really. It is literature, after all. For the most part it is very straight forward and based in fact. It's biased towards making Paul O'Neill look like a great guy, but since Paul O'Neill's greatness is itself based on transparency, objectivity, and honesty, it's not an overwhelming bias. All in all, it's definitely worth reading. It's horrifying, but in a wonky sort of way, and not in bits and pieces. You'd have to read at least a few pages if not an entire chapter to understand how frightening this Administration is, at least from O'Neill's point of view.
I think one of the scariest things is the fact that O' Neill's past experiences in government were under Nixon and Ford, and how badly Bush fares in comparison with them. It sounds like, unless Bush trusts you, he won't listen to you. And he only trusts maybe half a dozen people. He's not powerless, but he's so distrustful of everyone and everything except his tiny little cabal of advisors that they can basically get him to do whatever they want by controlling what information he receives. He's incredibly paranoid and trusting at the same time...if he trusts these people to tell him what's going on in the world, but he doesn't trust newspapers? How dumb can you be? If WaPo can lie to you, why not Karl Rove?
...
I was impressed that, when Bush fired O'Neill, O'Neill just said "They fired me." None of that "I want to spend more time with my family" bullshit.
Oh, and there's some misty-eyed stuff about poor people in Africa dying of Bono, or something, but not much.
(sorry, ross -- I didn't exactly have your blessing to post this, but it's too good to waste on me)
Thirdly, here's an ancient Roman joke:
An egghead was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will.' |
