“You know about the Phoenix Project?”
For the sake of politeness: “Well, I know that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity allows for…”
“Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is elementary physics.”
“Yes, but it’s the base, and it’d be the base for the supposed Phoenix Project.”
“Look it up.”
“Type into google ‘Phoenix Project’ and ‘Einstein’ and I’ll see a video of Einstein disappearing into time, you say?”
“Yes. You go do that.”
“You get this from Art Bell?”
“Who?”

………
“I’m confused. You said that your kids believed in God.”
“Yes.”
“And you said that they were atheists.”
“Yes.”
“They can’t be atheists who believe in God.”
“Hm. You’re right.”

Imagine you stand in between an on-coming bullet and the president of the United States of America. If you stay right where you are, you are dead. If you move to avoid the bullet, the president is dead.

So what do you do? Naturally, you move out of the bullet’s way. Your life is simply more valuable to you than the president’s life is. No hard feelings nessasarily, even though you don’t particularly like the president. It’s not even an entirely selfish act… if it had been a family member or a friend, you would have stayed there and taken the bullet. In a political vein, it’s hard to decipher: you don’t really know what you would have done if it had been a president you thought better of.

Let’s say that the entire mental debate is available on camera footage, for endless dissemination of close ups and slow motion replay. Nothing spectacular here — the footage shows that you caught sight of the bullet, turned your head and looked at the president, grimmaced, and stepped out of the way. All in a split second.

The president’s supporters… will not accept you stepping aside to protect your life. After all, they would have jumped right to the bullet to protect the man they see as the “Best Hope for America”, and don’t understand anyone who doesn’t consider him the “Best Hope for America”. To them, you are more guilty than the assassin him/her/themself. So, death threats come rolling in. Their media partisans spew venom at you on talk radio and newspaper columns and whatnot. And since the president is dead and receiving a funeral goodwill honeymoon, where everyone’s gushing about his new found greatness, and a generic “good citizenship dictates that you save the life of our president” ethos enters the public domain… you have no defenders.

Recall the last episode of Seinfeld and the “Good Samaritan” Laws that inspired it. Seinfeld and company stood by videotaping and laughing as a fat man was mugged. And, as it turned out, they were legally required to have helped the man out –legally required to a certain level of morality.

Imagine in the bowels of the law that you are legally obligated to save the president’s life in such a circumstance as described above.

What’s that mean? I don’t know. My thought experiment has reached a dead end.

Props to Rep. Gerald Allen.

Whatever props those are, I do not know.

Back in high school, my Literature class was reading Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”, in class.

A classmate asked, “What — are these guys gay?” The teacher shook her head, “No, they’re straight.”

I said, “The writer’s gay.”

The classmate said, “Really?”, and the teacher answered “Well, yeah, he was. But the characters … they’re straight.”

Though… not in all productions of the play. If I were prescient enough of how the gay adorers of Oscar Wilde occasionally change the focus of the play when performing the thing, I would have said right then “Not in all productions of the play.” (Though someone in the class would’ve then accused me of being gay…)

What I liked, though, was the biography in this Literature textbook. His flamboyance got him into legal trouble? What does that mean?

Never mind. I should stick to the more strongly heterosexual bible. Jesus Christ surrounded by 13 men, one who wants to kill him and the other 12 who want to wash his feet…

Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.

Marine commanders working in unheated, war-damaged downtown buildings are hammering out the details of their paradoxical task: Bring back the 300,000 residents in time for January elections without letting in insurgents, even though many Fallujans were among the fighters who ruled the city until the US assault drove them out in November, and many others cooperated with fighters out of conviction or fear.

One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons.

“You have to say, ‘Here are the rules,’ and you are firm and fair. That radiates stability,” said Lieutenant Colonel Dave Bellon, intelligence officer for the First Regimental Combat Team, the Marine regiment that took the western half of Fallujah during the US assault and expects to be based downtown for some time.

Bellon asserted that previous attempts to win trust from Iraqis suspicious of US intentions had telegraphed weakness by asking, ” ‘What are your needs? What are your emotional needs?’ All this Oprah [stuff],” he said. “They want to figure out who the dominant tribe is and say, ‘I’m with you.’ We need to be the benevolent, dominant tribe.

“They’re never going to like us,” he added, echoing other Marine commanders who cautioned against raising hopes that Fallujans would warmly welcome troops when they return to ruined houses and rubble-strewn streets. The goal, Bellon said, is “mutual respect.”

Nah… There just aren’t enough flowers to throw.

Actually, this is the future for America.

Nay. I’m just getting paranoid there.

Or am I?

Recommended reading: the latest issue of Harpers. Particularly of interest: Greg Grandin’s review of proclaimed pro-overt American Empire advocate Naill Ferguson’s latest book. I haven’t read anything from Ferguson — only seen him during the blathering class circuit– so maybe I oughta “hear him out on paper” more than the occasional creepy sentences I hear him speak when I hear/see him.

This is vaguely interesting.

Mostly because political battles have a way of turning toward the question of whether you’re a little too cozy with the Fascists or a little too cozy with the Communists. (Wasn’t that the battles on the street that were going on during the Weimer Republic Germany?)

Henry Wallace was deposed of as vice-president, by men in smoky backrooms at the DNC Convention. It kind of goes back to what the South wanted, actually.

“Do you know if George Bush really did win the last presidency? Do you know if your last mortgage firm gave you the best terms? Two valid questions. One way to deal with it: Investigate.”

And so goes the ad on Portland’s Air America Radio affiliate… another format Clear Channel can buy into, and throw up their grating voiceover guy, retoned to suit the audience. (Around Halloween time, it was “Dressing up as Dubya would be just too scary” or “Don’t let John Ashcroft bite.”)

Imageine this advertisement in a slightly different form on the right-wing radio stations. “Did Clinton kill Vince Foster?” or something like that.

Easily swarth into the cottage industry, one that I found tedious through the past few years and was hoping would vanish with a Kerry victory.

Enough of this crap, please.

Actually, back before the election, the Bush Campaign bought ads on the station. They were crafty enough ads, focusing on the flip-flopping and not the dangerous liberal — for the same effect the Republican pro-Nader ads of 2000 works — to demoralize any Kerry supporters.

The Clear Channel contribution to the mess seems to be to dump Chuck D’s program and install Ed Whatshisname, an ex-Republican DNC-enthused Dakotan who I wouldn’t be too suprised if you claimed made the ideological switch as a career choice. Whither Chuck D? I don’t know.

There is something to say with Jeanine Garofola’s expressed fatigue. The real problems with Air America Radio has little to do with the business crisis the company faced early on in its run back in April, but more with what happens when the various fixtures leave to pursue other projects. (I’m guessing the useless “Randi Rhodes” stays on — this is her career, as with Mike Malloy.) The trick is to maintain your brand.

There’s also something in something regular guest, of Brockley Almanac from out of Nebraska, hit a right tone: “The vote totals were probably already decided months ago. Go in a different direction.”

Sure.