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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Coming Teabagger Revolution Vs. Your Lying Eyes 

...the numbers are rolling in from around the country and the message is clear, as is displayed by the AP headline:
Tens of thousands rally at tax day 'tea parties'

Well, that just says it all, doesn't it.

Clearly, there is a swelling tsunami wave of 'nonpartisan' grassroots unrest sweeping across this great nation of ours, organized by hundreds of 'concerned citizens' backed by right-wing 'foundations' funded by fabulously wealthy right-wing 'philanthropists' and aggressively promoted by a right-wing cable TV channel that has finally abandoned all pretense of being a real live hard 'news' network. This "citizen revolt" is a remarkable display of the power of a spontaneous expression of outrage...in the same way that tossing a lit match onto a pile of gas-soaked rags is a display of spontaneous combustion...

According to the AP report, "tens of thousands" of angry Americans poured into the streets to protest...well...something, although whether that "something" was being on the losing side for the first time in 15 years or whether it was about there not being a White Republican male in the White House is still a point that is up for debate. The raw facts are pretty simple:

-- this upwelling of righteous American anger about the current path down which our country is traveling managed to bring out - all across the country - numbers of protesters that are several single-digit percentage points larger (hell, let's be charitable; the numbers may run into the low teens of percentage points larger) than a single free Decembrists performance at Portland's Tom McCall Waterfront Park that features a guest appearance by Democratic presidential primary campaign candidate Barack Obama...

-- this sweeping demonstration of the power of average citizens to come together to protest an unaccountable and out-of-control Federal government was able, in several major metropolitan areas, to attract as many empowered average citizens as were allowed into a high school gymnasium on the brutal, remote, desolate, sparsely populated High Desert of Central Orygun, deep in the heart of reliably Republican country, to see Barack Obama in a primary campaign appearance...

OK, so the second point is admittedly unfair.

The reason there were about 2000 people at the Obama rally in Bend, Orygun, was because that was the limit imposed by free ticket availability and the insistence of the Fire Marshall. Had organizers known that the weather was going to be so nice that day and planned for an outdoor venue, there would have probably been twice as many people able to attend the Obama event, rendering any comparison between that primary campaign event and the overwhelming outpouring of citizen indignation displayed by today's various tea party events available to much larger population centers absolutely silly...

But never mind all that silly numbers stuff. Revolution is at hand! The overpowering outrage that common, salt-of-the-earth working folk like you and me - and we are beginning to wonder a bit about you, "comrade", just so you know - is sweeping the nation as Tens Of Thousands flow into the streets like some sort of molten human magma consuming and subsuming all the evil lying in its path. It may not look like much right now, given that either of the two NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Bristol Motor Speedway will attract far more spectators than all of the Tea Parties combined, but this is a building force, I tell ya...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:52 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Where Will YOU Be On Tuesday Nights? 

...with all the crap, garbage, and nonsense on television these days (I'm looking at YOU, cable news talking heads), there are still a few shows in this reality-based world that have the power to wrap themselves around the deeper primitive recesses of the Cerebellum and truly drag you into a world that you most likely don't - and can't possibly ever - really know. Discovery Channel has had such a show for the last few years, and with tonight's debut of the fifth season of "Deadliest Catch", what has become my own personal TV crack is up and running again...

I won't even pretend that I can explain why this particular show grips me more than something like "Ax men" (created and produced by the same people who bring us "Deadliest Catch) except to say that I have spent the last fifty-mumblemumble years around PacNW loggers, so that particular story line is a far more familiar gig. Doesn't even matter, though; "Deadliest Catch" season Five starts tonight, and I know where I am going to be...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:21 PM 0 comments

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Case Of The Curious Backstory 

...so in the course if watching the breathless cable news coverage of Capt. Richard Phillips' rescue from Somalian pirates, I came across a curious backstory. Not the observation by the FAUX news anchor carrying on about the "long" 25-meter shots taken by the Navy snipers; highly trained Navy snipers could hit these guys with my open-sight Ruger 10/22 target practice plinker at 25 meters; heck, I could take 'em out at 25 meters with my plinker. No, what caught my attention was the Very Deep Concern that this event may cause an escalation of violence by the pirates in the future...

I found this odd because the French have been roaring about the region acting like Rambo, rescuing hostages and capturing or killing Somalian pirates (and, unfortunately, a hostage) for the last year without anyone seeming to be interested in raising this point. Why is it only coming up now? Is it because some of the pirates and their confederates are finally getting international press attention because of a dramatic hostage standoff involving an American and are taking the opportunity to shoot their mouths off about revenge and escalation? Is it because an American citizen and the U.S. Navy are involved? Or (and this is somewhat related, I suppose) is this Deep Concern just another manifestation of the sense of exceptionalism that still permeates so many corners of our public discourse?

If anybody were needing to be concerned about retaliation and escalation, you would think it would be the French. Yet that subject had not been broached until today - or at least the cable news talking heads were discussing it as if it were a new issue brought on by today's action, and I've not heard any such talk in the aftermath of the French rescue missions. It seemed like a discordant, jangly sort of aside to the jubilation over today's rescue, and struck me as a curious backstory in the context of what's been happening around the Horn of Africa...
Posted by: Jack K. / 2:53 PM 0 comments

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