Appearance-wise I probably fit in well enough walking around that little festival organized by NORML, National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. I don’t in any other way — I… um… don’t do weed.

Actually the whole scene makes me a little bit dizzy. I imagine it’s all in my mind. After some procession of musical groups sing some white reggae, 60s psychedallic throwback rock, and folk music that makes frequent references to getting high, the speaker comes to the fore and shouts out the last call for bids on a “Bong autographed by Tommy Chong!” — the stage somewhere near an outlet marked “4/20 Candy!” — a candy that has gotten a number of parenting groups angry because they fear it’s aimed at the children, when quite obviously it’s a good hook for stoners of any age.

Three police officers patrol the area. I mentally cross out the word “cop” and replace it with “pig”, just to get in the spirit of this scene. I don’t know quite what they’re looking for — nobody appears to be actively dousing toking, but it appears that the majority have probably done so within the previous hour. The “pigs” float around the closed-tents, unable to walk in and probably ultimately not particularly wanting to, and thus it appears their accomplishments in apprehending a mass of misdemenors happening in their midst are awash.

God bless the honest business vendors, I suppose. I grew weary, and floated away. There are worst things and there are worst groupings of people, and I do not begrudge them.

What I knew on September 10 and what I did not know.

I knew Osama Bin Laden, though I did not know it was just as proper — if not more so — to say Usama Bin Laden. One thing I remember is listening to a rant from local sports radio host (who diverged from sports quite regularly because who the hell can talk about sports for three hours?) Colin Cowherd — a somewhat depressingly parachial screed along the lines of “Ain’t America Great?” with the cynical lesson to “the kids” that the idea that you should know about the world at large was Bs. “Our greatest enemy? Osama Bin Laden. Some nutcase in a cave. How can you be scared of that?”

I knew the Taliban. On September 10 their chief claim to fame amongst Americans was blowing up a set of historic Buddhist idols. Also of note, but largely forgotten from the American people (if they even caught it at the time), except perhaps from a certain class of fundamentalist Christian activists, was this persecution of Christian missionary relief workers in Afghanistan. It was (and probably still is, or is again) illegal for religious missionaries to proseltyze. The Christian missionaries claimed to not be “spreading the word” of Jesus Christ, but it has since came out quite definitively that they did. I don’t know, but it is a little difficult to sympathize with law breakers who go into a competing religion’s theocratic government seemingly seeking martyr status.

I did not know the name “al Qaeda”, and would not know that name until the following Sunday.

I knew the Hart — Rudman Report. I knew who Gary Hart was, and still have only the vaguest idea that Warren Rudman was a fellow Senator. I knew that the news of the Hart — Rudman Report had popped up to the top of the news cycle maybe two times during the previous spring through summer, before being drowned out by the Summer Infotainment news spectacles, Shark Attacks were that Summer’s News Du Jour. It was here that I came to largely loathe the news media.

I knew The Cole Attack. I remember talking politics and the 2000 presidential election campaign with my parents. Their sense was that war was beckoning, and perhaps this would show itself in the election with a “Don’t Change Horses in mid-stream.” My response was a “Yeah, but the public may look at Bush and basically see his father’s cabinet.” These were the ‘grown ups” we were supposed to revere and look past Bush’s flimsy record and see. I suppose in the end the Cole ended up being awash in terms of electoral advantages. Policy wise, your view depends on your partisan inclinations, and revisionist history dampens any serious discussion.

I did not know that Afghanistan’s major export is Heroin. The Taliban was pretty good at keeping the crop down — for religious reasons you see– although the 10 percent of the country controlled by that which was called “The Northern Alliance” pumped it out and out. Today the Taliban in Afghanistan has no qualms about growing Heroin — that classic sign that in the end, money for expediency trumps Religious ideology.

I believe my new roommate had moved the evening of September 9. It was probably technically breaking my lease — I ended up basically subletting a Korean student who was not taking any classes for a couple of terms (thus not eligible for housing), he giving me a check every month for half the rent thus getting around College Housing. So I went into the shower. In the next room, a student who I never did get to shut down his loud music at nighttime — was on the phone. The conversation from his side went like this, as I was stepping into the shower. “NA — UH!! […] Those goddamned Arabs! […] Hey, I’m sorry. Really.” It is likely he was talking on the phone with an Arab student down the hall, name escapes me… a man who disappeared for the next two weeks, who when he came back gingerly said, “Yeah, I’ve been laying low.”

The phone conversation told me the vaguest outline of what had happened, and I knew I would have to turn the television on when I came out. My roommate already had the television on, and turned to me to say, “Airplanes struck the World Trade Center in New York.”

The news regurgitated itself with no real development, thus telling me it was best to move on. Bush would signal to me that it was still okay to distrust him when answered the question of what Americans can do at this time in crisis with “Go Shopping!” Today the average savings rate of Americans has fallen to roughly ZERO. I suppose this cynical answer made some some sort of sense, though I’ve always thought it pointed to the great paradox of our economic system: that which is good for the individual economy can be quite bad for the overall economy and vice versa — at least in the short term. So it is that if I were to have ever been polled, I would have settled my way into that 10 percent of the public who would give Bush a negative approval rating through his entire presidency.

There’s a strange irony regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq — the war that was sold in the shadows of 9/11 as — at best — a trajectory “front” to make the Middle East Safe for Countries that Do Not Harbor Terrorists, and at worst a War to defeat Osama Bin Laden. Before 9/11, I would have been likely more supportive of military action in Iraq. For one thing, I knew that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons — I do not believe that the somewhat numb-minding term “weapons of mass destruction” had been brought into general American parlance as of yet. I would reassess this false knowledge throughout 2002 as the Bush Administration kept opening up their mouths and saying things that were demonstrably false, and as their assessments came out as hopelessly unrealistic. The strange reality is that in terms of American politics, I have since 9/11 become more dovish — though the definition of “dove” has seriously been watered down.

The controversy surrounding The Road to 9/11 has been referenced to that which greeted The Reagans, which lands one to that cute and lazy “Independent” stand that we’ve landed on the partisan yin-yang. Republicans outraged, Democrats outraged — with enough room for each to claim “Hypocrite”.

If I recall right, the Drudge Report filled its page full of quotes and excerpts from The Reagans — the focal point being dialouge about Nancy Reagan consulting Astrology. I vaguely recall something about scoffawing AIDs — a case which is “Doth protesteth too much”. The Astrology stuff I will defer to the journalist who recently released a book of interviews with our recent presidents: if you look at the decisions that were attributed to Astrology, they were all pretty good decisions. Nonetheless, a depiction that was reportedly relatively positive met the rage of Reagan fans due to its failure to rise to the level of Haliography — and thus shoved off to be not seen on Showtime.

The Road to 9/11 puzzles me in a way that The Reagans can’t, even if you assume that it portrayed Ronald Reagan as the anti-Christ. It is the sheer import that ABC brought to bear on the film. It was to be broadcast sans advertisements — a sign of import I last remember tied to a broadcast of Schindler’s List. These pretenses have gradually been dropped — the study lesson that they developed for schools to use in class was abandoned, they have declared it “a drama”, its claim to be a representation of the 9/11 Report has been dropped, and ABC says they are making their last minute changes.

So The Road to 9/11 reminds me more of Stolen Honor, a broadcast of remarks from that cadre of Vietnam veterans bitter due to Kerry’s war protests, which Sinclair Broadcasting owned stations broadcast in prime-time during the 2004 campaign. The bias of Sinclar Broadcasting was shown when the executive said that its just counter-programming to the bias shown in the news proper when they reported negative developments in Iraq.

Thinking about The Road to 9/11, and looking over the constellation of these anti-Clintonites. Dick Morris now claims, belatedly, that his suggestion to Bill Clinton on becoming a “Great President” was to reform Welfare, and Defeat Terrorism (presumably as George W Bush is). Which is something that is not terribly believable, but falls into line with the mish-mashing of the claims that have spewed upward to this film about Clinton’s gross negligence of “The Gathering Threat”.

Stumbling about, I think I just found what is just about the most hilarious and hyper-ventilating editorial about Ned Lamont’s defeat of Joseph Lieberman. From the right-ward publication “Human Events” comes some fair reminiscent of Pravda. A selection of pargaraphs.

The Lamont victory over a former vice presidential candidate of the party means one thing and one thing only. The wealthy but crazed inhabitants of the left-wing fever swamps are taking over a party that has been trying to re-identify with the voters who allowed it to dominate American politics for most of the last century. The purge that began with the McGovernite seizure of the party in the early seventies has been reinvigorated.

Lamont’s victory was a triumph for the left and a defeat for the United States because it may mean that future elections will be run between candidates of a proU.S. party and nominees of an anti-U.S. party.

How can anyone argure with all of that? Probably just have to go ahead and match the shouting vitrol, I suppose.

There’s a comic strip in the Oregonian from a former (or current?) elementary school teacher from Vancouver, Washington. A while ago, the Oregonian surveyed several comic strips to decide which new strip to add to the paper and replace the Peanuts reprints. Since all the new comic strips sucked (although I was mildly partial to Lio, but it was a case of grading on a curve), the winner as the Peanuts reprint — over 50 percent of respondents voted for it. “Adams’ Apple”, the Vancouver based strip, came in second, and thus ended up replacing some forgetable comic strip that had lingered on the Comics page unnoticed for some time.

I am not one that derides the comics page of the newspaper. There are about a dozen good strips — not terribly great and not really Appointment Reading. The best of the lot seem to lose something in collected book form where a Calvin and Hobbes would gain something.

Adams’ Apple is a strip that I suppose would garner knowing nods of recognition from teachers. The art isn’t terribly great, and the gags go no further than the cartoonists’ observations and anecdotes. So it was that it aggrivated me a few week’s ago. For a moment I had to ponder whether I had wandered a little too far into Political Correctness for my own good to decide whether this former (or current) teacher and now cartoonist of a not terribly good comic strip and a stupid gag of mild intolerance was worth a couple seconds worth anger.

I searched the web for the strip, since I would rather present it than explain it, but it appears “Adams’ Apple” isn’t on the web. Which is just as well.

So the teacher has the class rise to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. One student asks the teacher if he can be excused from the recitation of the Pledge. The teacher thinks “Oh boy. It’s one of those kids.” The next panel shows the teacher reciting a spiel about “Oh, no. We respect diversity of religion and etc.” The final panel has the kid saying “So I can go use the bathroom”, and the teacher breathing a sigh of relief.

Is the cartoonist just a little obnoxious? Goddamned those Jehovah’s Witnesses who put an unwelcome spork in our daily rituals and just mildly don’t conform. Why must we change slight things around for their benefit?

On Labor Day, President George W Bush claimed to be a “Progressive”:

And so, here on Labor Day, I say to the union members who are here, happy Labor Day, and thanks for supporting leadership that is progressive, smart, capable, and has your best interests at heart.

I’ve never been able to fully digest the meaning of the word “progressive”, but in modern American political parlance progressive really simply means “liberal” who is afraid to tag themself with that label due to years of both demonization and periods of liberal inertia. I have seen commentary bounced back and forth by blog-denziens parcing out the meaning, and coming full forth on the side of “Progressivism” before “Liberalism”, but I’ve pushed it aside and largely skipped over it and ignored it.

So, I’ve generally thought the use of the word “Progressive” managed to reinforce a bad image of Liberalism as — weak-kneed… not gumptious to the fight… spineless. And over the past few election cycles, I’ve cringed as various Centrist Democrats tapped into the word to define themselves for a difficult election cycle with their skeptical partisan crowd — Gray Davis initially tagged himself as “Progressive” when trying to feel himself for a way to win his Recall Election, and it came across like a slimy mole. The effect and botton line is the term is meaningless in the hands of political hacks.

After hearing Bush use the term, I have to reconsider the political muscle of the word. I don’t know if I’d end up changing my considerations of what the word means circa this moment in history, but it’s worth thinking about. Bush thought it was worth co-opting, and thus I pause.

Rhode Island’s Republican Senate primary race and the lines of demarcation between the incumbent Lincoln Chafee and the challenger Steven Laffey have taken a strange turn.

I turn briefly to the New Jersey Governor’s race of 2005, where the Demcrat Jon Corzine used a tagline against Republican Doug Forrester “Doug Forrester is George Bush’s Choice. Is He Yours?” That strikes me as one of the most hilarious political ads ever, because its sheer audacity: of course Doug Forrester is George Bush’s choice — he’s a Republican — How can he not be?

Steven Laffey now seems to be tapping into that very premise of connecting the candidate to the unpopular president — albeit Laffey makes various conservative (in both the good sense of the term and bad) against Bush and — by way of extension — the most liberal Republican in the Senate — Chafee. A paraphrase from the appearance on the Sunday Morning Chattering Class program “This Week with George Stephanopolis” — heard in soundbyte form — goes “I don’t think Karl Rove and the bunch know how to deal with someone as Independent as me.”

The irony is that Lincoln Chafee is the least reliable Republican for a party line vote. Laffey would be more ideologically in tune with the Republican Caucus, and therefore — drum roll please — less Independent, such as that is. Yet, Chafee has the full backing of the Republican Party Campaign Apparatus, far beyond that which the Democratic Counterpart gave Joseph Lieberman, and thus… “Lincoln Chafee is George Bush’s Choice. Is he Yours?” may as well be used for a goddamned Republican Primary.

Two notable votes where Lincoln Chafee broke with his party? He was the lone Republican Senator to vote against authorizing war against Iraq. When asked to defend his Republican credentials, he has said that he is a keeper of the “traditional” Republican values of fiscal responsibility, personal freedoms, the environment, and healthy skepticism of “foreign entanglements.” The other notable ote Chafee made against the Republican Establishment: he did not cast his ballot in 2004 for President George W Bush, instead writing in as a protest against the president George H W Bush.

Thus the Rhode Island Republican Senate Primary race double backs on itself and becomes a strange mirage of who both supports and doesn’t support at the same time the Republican Party of the moment.

To be fair to Hillary Clinton, the recent “shocking” news that she made the oh boy oh boy how so very self-serving pronouncement that she believed that “America is Ready for a female President” and a coy “stay tuned” comment (because you see, she would be the one able to control the programming of when someone will wait to be tuned in to the programming), was all the result of a question posed to her. “Do you believe America is ready for a female president?” Thus the entire spectacle is one giant Kabuki Dance amongst the chattering class and the politician as Hollywood celebrity, all just to get the headline “Clinton says America is ready for a female president”.

Nonetheless, I will go ahead and thank Hillary Clinton for giving a much needed shout out to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.