Is anyone really upset about Mike Huckabee's silliness this week? It's easier to amend the Constitution than to amend the word of a living god or some shit? WRONG. It's very, very, very hard to amend the U.S. Constitution and the word of "the living god" is about the most malleable thing there this. Isn't there an infinity of interpretations of such things? Anyone more or less with some official seal of some sanctioned or even unsanctioned religions may "change" anything he or she likes.
Civics is discrete. Religion is continuous. Game, set and match. Huckabee is wrong. Huckabee knows he's wrong. Huckabee doesn't care one way or the other. Huckabee is positioning himself as the most "Christian" candidate in an effort to capture the lion's share of 45% or so of the Republican electorate. He doesn't want anyone to the right of him on religion. Economists use an example of the geometry of guys selling Italian Ices on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. Huckabee wants to have the stand furthest to towards Bradley Beach and Ocean "Grave". It's smart, optimizing behavior. He needed to do it ahead of South Carolina, to be sure, though it was debuted in Michigan and not terribly received.
Unfortunately for Huckabee, the best he could get was 2nd in South Carolina. Fortunately for everyone else, the best he could get with that shit was 2nd in South Carolina. Unfortunately for everyone else, the winner in South Carolina was merchant-of-death John McCain. So, apparently the Wingnuts like war more than Fundamentalist Christianity. McCain, while certainly doffing a cap to the religious right, is not an obsessive. Huckabee while having been forced to "toughen up" a bit on war, has never really been a Christian soldier and has shown some pacifist tendencies.
Fortunately for everyone else, Senator Clinton will clean Senator McCain's clock for him in a general election.
Down South of Babylon here, you've already gotten the MSM take on Panamanian politics and Panama, while not a hot spot like Colombia or Venezuela, is a sovereign nation, a world trade and banking power and like the bigger developed nations in the region, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, is very much a "war-on-terror," "war-on-narco-terrorism" skeptic. Make no mistake about it. Washington noticed exactly what happened in Colombia and Venezuela last week and did not like it one bit. Some links to keep everyone apprised of all the goings-on.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7198768.stm
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5c1c09e-c785-11dc-a0b4-0000779fd2ac.html
http://rawstory.com/comments/43908.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/942/story/386580.html
Seems to me that Uribe got his marching orders and the MSM always has theirs, and as long as oil's high, Hugo Chavez will be able to do anything he likes. It seems to me anyway, as absurd as he can be sometimes with his medals and medallions and tri-color, he's been fairly restrained, emphasis on the fairly. He's a little authoritarian for my tastes, but he does seem to deliver for his people and poor folks in the Bronx and Roxbury, MA! Uribe's scared and I can't say I blame him. Just to get Rojas, her child and Perdomo out was an achievement. The U.S. is not going to let Uribe try to get Betancourt out in any way, shape or form other than in a casket. Uribe is not going to get re-elected without U.S. Republican help and he may not live long without their help either. Blackwater has many, many, many "employees."
Man, it must suck a dick to be Uribe right now. A week ago, he was the most popular person in the hemisphere. Now, Colombia appears to be back to square one and Uribe's only public appearances these days seem to involve chastizing Chavez for not getting the Grumman "anti-drug contractors" freed. Uribe, of course, has been appearing with U.S. Ambassador Brownfield. Meanwhile, back in the reality-based Bogota, I saw an hour long interview on Caracol with Ex-President Cesar Gaviria, whom Uribe defeated last time around. The interviewer is a grumpy old dude kind of like a more right-wing Brinkley or an older Bill O'Reilly, but Gaviria looked good out there. In a way it was kind of remiscent of Russert grilling Senator Clinton. Gaviria was never defensive even when accused of being a FARC and Chavez sympathizer. He was properly critical of both, properly respectful of both, but most impressively he was supportive of Uribe's efforts of the previous two weeks. A brilliant bit Chess-boxing (to steal one from GZA) as Uribe's no longer so supportive of Uribe's efforts! Gaviria looked crisp and comfortable and youthful in a way, even though I believe Uribe's quite a bit younger.
What else? Supreme court rules class-action suits for corporate fraud constitutional only in cases in which corporate officers communicated fraudulent information directly to investors. In other words if you bought a fund which contain a company which defrauded its investors, tough tit. If you bought shares in a fraudelent company on the advice of an investment "professional", tough tit. Nice. I told you equities sucked. But please, please keep quitting your schools and jobs to day trade. Keep CNBC on in your house all day. Have a blast.
We did Obama/Reagan. Did we do Romney's having signed gay-marriage into law and Kerry running away from it like the chickenshit he was back in 2004? If not, there you have it. Not a terrible reason to vote for Romney over Obama, if you're of that mind. I'm not. But I'm certainly not of a mind to vote for Obama. If Clinton gets the nomination, I'll vote for her. I'll vote for Edwards if he gets it.
If it's Obama, I'll pay it no mind and keep my focus on PRD versus the renamed or reconstitued or whatever, PP. Moscoso wants to do the same with the old UP. Who the hell knows but the Panamanian center-right is as fractured as the US Republicans are it seems and no manner of wishing on the part of The Economist is going to stop Balbina or somebody good coming out of the PRD from keeping the presidency. I doubt very much if Bush has a third war here in him because of the canal and the banks. Whether he takes a run at Venezuela and ropes Colombia into it full-bore is a whole other story, but a lot will hang on how much Uribe wants to stay president. Nevertheless, the less Sammy down here, the better under any and all circumstances.
Giants advance to Super Bowl.
Kelso's Nuts love you
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5 comments:
Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. It's my policy, however,not to put up those things. Don't be insulted. Your comment remains. I'm just cranky about the blog world being DIY and these things being barriers to entry and what about all of the bloggers who are better than I am who didn't get the widget....? I know it's weird.
Thanks, again.
Nice recap and interesting articles.
I'd be interested in further explanation of your perspective on the blog world and awards and such.
No problem, Suzi:
In advance, I have to make clear that this isn't a value judgement. I don't want to be high-handed or pretentious about it, although I may well come off that way.
Blogging is my hobby. I enjoy it. I relaxes me and stimulates me. I don't ever want to try to make money off it and I don't ever want it to be a source of anxiety or stress. I'm pretty competitive but in the blog world, I'd rather express that with my arguments than with a trophy case. Knowing myself, if I started worrying about why I didn't have "The Thinking Blogger" prize. Or the "Young Intellectual" cup. Or the "Thompson'sWaterSeal Liberal Philospher Of The Year Vase" that would take all the fun out of it for me and I'd get paranoid about who liked and who didn't. If I had the whole trophy case, I'd feel guilty that there were better bloggers than me who were, perhaps, missing the "PepsiFritoLayKFC Progressive Blog Thinker's Golden Quadrangle".
I also never check any stats. Too much stress for no gain. My work is competitive enough. This way, I'm chill and I can just express myself beginning from the standpoint that without any imprimatur of any kind, I'm assuming that I'm a crap blogger and will generally be perceived that way, so I'll have the opportunity to surprise people by doing good work and making people laugh or think about stuff in a new way. I wouldn't want to take a chance of congratulating myself and then what if I write something boring or stupid which I often do?
Look,I was so concerned about shit like this that I only recently started linking because I didn't want to leave anyone good out. Also, I consider myself to be part of the "unconventional" or "left" or "skeptical" corner of Blogovia. As such, it seems odd in some way to be looking for that sort of affirmation. Who knows, if I considered awards to be equal affirmation to good comments, maybe I wouldn't have been as persistent on the Obama thing for fear of pissing people off who might bestow a "FreeportMcMoRan FreeThinker Pentangle"?
That's my personal take. My macro take is that I love the DIY aspect to blogging and I think that it's possible that the awards add an element of elitism and perhaps serve as a barrier to entry to writers who are trying this out and are just finding their voice. If you're a pro or on the verge of going pro, or have a tremendous amateur blog like Jonestown or the Hellions, I think that the award thing is great and the more graphics the better.
Those are my wooden nickels. Take them for what they're worth.
I think I wrote about this before. If I wanted to put in the time it takes polticking enough to get a lot of awards for no financial recompense, I'd be better off just putting in the time improving my golf and/or bridge.
I'm down with all of that. I think of blogging as the modern version of zine publishing. As I'm sure you know, the Riot Grrrl movement was all about DIY. I loved doing zines in high school and college. It really caught on in the early to mid 90's, but the kids today are all about the myspace and shit.
You deserve the award but I completely understand your reasons for not putting it up on your blog.
Indeed I do, Suzi. I was getting my MBA at UCLA at the apex of the riot grrrl movement and KXLU was button #1 on all radios. I was heavily into HOLE, BABES IN TOYLAND, L7, SLEATER-KINNEY, HAMMERBOX...and on and on...but those are the big names. I was always willing to check out up and comers and check out the zines, too. I thought the whole scene and the music was the best step forward for feminism in a generation, and it came at the perfect time: when Camille Paglia was selling lots of books and setting the women's movement back a century.
I don't keep close track of music much these days because for business reasons I'm forced to listen to so much electronica that I prefer my old stuff and public affairs radio shows when I'm working at home. I hope some vestiges of the riot grrl scene remain. I think in some ways it should have stayed a WEST-COAST/TEXAS phenomenon. Writing as a native NY-er, I think it was NYC what ruint it. Not that there wasn't good stuff there; how can you say anything bad about Kim Gordon? But the zines morphed into Bust which fucking morphed into Lucky! And when I left NYC for good, it was way more about "Sex And The City" than about DIY. A similar lament to yours.
Don't worry, I wasn't a dirty old man chasing college girls. My ex-wife was in the music business.
But I think you're doing great work and I'd be proud if you collected lots of blogger awards. But, please, get back to your drug-war series. And we still haven't done the Colombia back and forth. Big news there every day.
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