Politics - Libby Guilty, Will Go Free

I don't think anybody doubts that Libby will never see the inside of a prison. If his appeal doesn't get drawn out to the next century, Bush will simply pardon him. In any event, if by some miracle he should be sentenced and not pardoned, he's looking at 1 - 3 years for treason, though nobody has the balls to actually charge him with Treason. One to three years, when somebody selling a nickel-bag of weed can get banged up for 20 years or more.

Speaking of no balls, why isn't anybody going after Bush and his boss, Cheney? Does anybody doubt for a second that they were involved? For christ's sake. Clinton gets taken to the cleaners for a blowjob, and these pricks get away with murder. Yes, murder. Over a hundred thousand people are dead because of their false pretexts for war, a CIA agent's life was jeopardized, the American Intelligence community was compromised in a time of war. And BushCo gets a free ride.

That's why I hate the Democrats nearly as much as I do the Republicans. While the GOP may be evil incarnate, the Democrats have absolutely zero balls. No teeth. No conviction. Bush and Cheney are every bit as guilty as Scooter, but our "democratic process" allows the pantomime of a fallguy.

Them's me two bits. Rant over.

Society - Obsessed With Guilt

Ten years ago, when I lived in Korea, a friend shared with me his observations about the differences between Occidental and Oriental cultures. One of the most important, he noted from his experiences working with various corporations, is that in the West, when there is a problem of some kind, the first thing people do is try and establish who is to blame for the problem. In the East, the first thing they do is try and fix the problem. In general, people have faith that the one responsible will not only be aware of their culpability, but will also be conscious that others will be aware of it too. And it wasn't until my Asian friend pointed this out to me that --in my experiences over there-- I recognized it to be true.

That's not the case in Europe and the Americas. An anecdotal example of this happened to me just this past Friday at work. I showed up on my day off in order to collect some papers and prepare a fax that needed to be sent for my visa application. Unfortunately, my boss, who never works on Fridays, had failed to leave two very important papers. I informed the secretary of the problem, adding that it was urgent that this fax be sent out that very day. And, instead of looking through the files to find the necessary papers, she began asking me why I didn't make sure the boss had left the papers for me.

Feeling somewhat on the defensive, I mentioned the list of three items I'd given the boss, that it was very clear and that it was she who had only provided one of these items. "Yes, but why didn't you make sure of this yesterday?" the boss' right-hand woman insisted. It went back and forth like this for a long minute: Me claiming that I had done what was necessary and her asking the same question over and over.

It was aggravating, and I took a long breath to keep my cool. This was going nowhere, so I decided to change tack. I pointed out that whatever happened --or failed to happen-- the previous day was in the past and not relevant now. More important was the fact that these papers are missing and that we needed them at that very moment. "This is what we should be thinking about now," I added with finality.

She blinked, somewhat disconcerted. Then, after a pause, she said, "Yes, but why didn't you take care of this yesterday?"

Now, I'm a passionate man, but I recognize that in difficult moments this passion can cause me to act like a prick. So, experience has taught me to curb my reflexes and not go on the attack. At least, that is, when I want or need something from my nemesis. Thankfully I was able to suppress whatever words were clawing to escape my throat. But in moments like these, when that surge of anger and adrenaline make my face burn and my eyes rattle, when the room itself seems to tremble, it's impossible for me to be completely silent. A quick mental calculation chose a self-effacing yet sarcastic response: "Because I'm stupid. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?"

I thought it was benign enough. But she didn't. The end result was an emotional rant from an unstable secretary, no aid in securing the papers, and a wasted 6 months of aggravating preparation for this moment. Not only that, but my boss runs the risk of paying a €30,000 fine for having an undocumented employee. This is what happens when irrelevant pursuits get the best of us.

Perhaps it's all the Judeo-Christian crap that is our inheritance, this Jonathon Edwards bullshit that invests so much importance on culpability. But, criminy, what a senseless waste of thought and energy. One could say that the secretary where I work is a jerk, or was just in a bad mood or whatever. But if you think about it, she behaved very typically for people in Europe and the Americas. If she were a person who had behaved in the opposite manner, by leaping on the problem and trying to solve it rather than establishing who was responsible for the mess, she would be remarkable for having an enlightened character. Yet, in the East, such enlightenment is more the rule than the exception.

We have a lot to learn over here.

Rant - Stinking Flu

You know what sucks about having the flu? It's like a time machine that automatically takes you back to the days when you were a kid and people took good care of you and coddled you and didn't make you feel guilty about laying out on the sofa and watching crap tv. It's an oddly pleasant memory that makes you realize immediately those days are gone forever.

When you're older, nobody cuts you any slack. Your partner gets pissed off that you don't help out around the house; your boss indirectly makes you feel guilty for taking a day off --and maybe even insists that you get a doctor's note, when all you really need is rest; your kid still needs looking after; and even your own conscience hounds you about all the things that need seeing to. (That's the super-ego working overtime, right?)

Anyway, that's my long explanation about why I'm not posting anything decent today. You got a problem with it? Get in line.

Society - More Statistical Bullshit

Among the top headlines today is a report by the BBC that 94% of banknotes in Spain have residues of cocaine on them. The story suggests that not all of those bills were used for snorting, but that residues may have come from contact with other banknotes.

Now, how did the un-named “experts” in the article come to this sweeping generalization about the approximate one billion banknotes in Spain? They sampled 100 bills. 100 out of a billion. That's 0.00001% .

Further, they sampled 20 bills from each of 5 cities. The cities and their populations are:

Barcelona 1,600,000

Bilbao 350,000

Madrid 3,000,000

Valencia 735,000

Seville 695,000

________

Total: 6,380,000

That’s 6,380,000 out of a population of 40,000,000. 16%. They sampled 0.00001% of the banknotes in the country focusing on 5 urban centers which comprise 16% of the population, not taking into account any of the rural communities. And somehow that is considered hard research worthy of international headlines.

Granted, I’m no statistician. And perhaps the nuances of the science escape me. But that sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.

Rant - Cracking Under The Barrage

Sometimes I wish I had a firehose, like riot cops, so that I could just spray it around me in a circle as I struggle through the city.

Every day I take a crowded metro to work and have to push my way through bodies just to disembark. At my destination there are always a couple of guys at the top of the escalator, slowing down the crowd as they hand out free “newspapers,” which are light on news and heavy on ads. They block the escalator, shoving their rags in my face and I burst through them like Henry Rollins in an angst-laden music video. Often they’re accompanied by a man named Professor Ali who hands out flyers offering his services as a professional psychic. He actually goes so far as to shove his flyers, unsuccessfully, into my clenched fists. I get across the street and there’s an old gypsy woman in a shawl who steps in my path with her hand raised and pleading for a donation in a sing-song voice.

Her intrusive technique is similar to another beggar who prowls the metro on my return trip. He never fails to shock me by shoving a scabrous stump between my face and the pages of my book. Walking the sidewalk to my apartment, I’m often confronted by people with clipboards who want to tell me about some “amazing offer” they have for a travel agency or in the Mormon Church.

I get home and the phone starts ringing. It’s somebody wanting me to change telephone or internet providers. While I’m sitting down to lunch, the doorbell rings. It’s somebody else with a clipboard and a bright, irritating smile. After lunch, it’s back to the street and metro for more of the same.

Speckled throughout my day, I’m inundated with a barrage of disorienting advertisements in the form of posters which practically scream out for attention, video screens in the metro selling some product and the incessant abuse of television spots. Like the beggars who invade your psyche with a visual appeal to your conscience, or the chipper door-to-door and telephone salesmen who invade your home, these ads are scientifically designed to get in your head visually or through the use of jingles. Even on Sundays, there’s a man who sets up a large electronic keyboard which pours forth a cacaphony even though he plays with just one finger.

And it’s driving me fucking crazy. Somehow, what we consider to be rude behaviour is considered acceptable when it plies the interests of Capitalism. (Even the beggars where I live are part of an organization that provides training, transport and coordination.) For some reason it’s okay to be pushy and offensive, as long as you don’t do it within your own monkeysphere.

And why is that? I mean, what if I stood in front of the elevator doors in my apartment building and blocked my neighbours, asking them for financial assistance or forcing them to take some paper that sells my services? Maybe I could ring their doorbells at dinner time and try to sell them something. I could plaster posters up in the lobby, stand there with a guitar and sing obnoxious jingles. How long do you think I would last in my building before somebody gave me a royal ass-kicking? Yet we accept this horrible behaviour from complete strangers.

You know, I like money, I like having things. And I recognize that the economy depends on the buying, selling and promotion of things. But every day, I feel more and more that Capitalism is just so stinking obnoxious.

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