A Grand Illusion

Hiatus over. I need to post about this.

Real regime change comes from inside. I’m not going to get into a semantics argument, but at least we can all agree that it’s less likely to generate an insurgent movement.

We’re now seeing the second such movement of the year in Lebanon (the first one being Yushchenko’s Orange Revolution). Anyway, it appears that the government has collapsed under pressure from popular demonstrations in Beirut and opposition in parliament. This is the kind of regime change Americans need to be encouraging but it always seems to happen without us even knowing that it’s about to.

I suppose one could make the argument that the American intervention in Iraq has encouraged opposition parties to antagonize their governments but I don’t know how valid that is. It’s the kind of self-congratulatory argument that takes credit away from the actual people that faced down oppression. I love it when stupid people parrot out the notion that Reagan ended the Cold War and defeated the Soviet Union. What about the fucking people that stood in front of scores of tanks for days while Reagan, half amnesiac half narcoleptic, was taking mid-afternoon naps?

The U.S. can only assist such movements. And now it needs to foster democracy in Lebanon with surgeon-like precision.

Lebanon is the most liberal Arab country. How liberal? In the Arab world this question answered in by looking at the women of the country. Look at the picture below. Had you no auxiliary information, where would you think these women were from? Najaf or Cleveland? (Also, look at their hands, what do they want? In this context, is that not the most poignant hand gesture you’ve ever seen?

If that doesn’t convince you, then maybe this brief account by an Egyptian friend upon returning from Lebanon will: “you can buy porn in Beirut!”

But it could easily go the other way. This is not an American victory, and it certainly is not an Israeli victory. The Israeli and the Syrians are so pitted against one another that every surrounding country has become a stage for their antagonism. And many innocent Lebanese died because of this. This is a Lebanese victory that Americans and Israelis need to support, while only making sure that there’s no outside influence (including from our governments). The Lebanese, if left alone–and they’ve wanted nothing more for decades–will make the right decision.

I’ve been on a posting hiatus for the past two or three days. I’ll start posting when I start liking my job again–or when I am not expected to do actual work at, ahem, work.

My point: Alex Segura Jr., a contributor to AGI, and the man responsible for The Great Curve and its overnight success , has started a blog chronicling the hilarity of his everyday life–I am not being sarcastic. Check it, it’s a good one.

Though I’m a bit loath to link to Billboard, the mag’s site did announce that Paul Westerberg’s first — and coolest — band, the Replacements, will see their albums reissued in the near future. Despite a link to Westerberg’s site that doesn’t really take you anywhere, the story also reveals something more about the former ‘Mats lead singer/guitarist:

Paul Westerberg will be the subject of a solo retrospective this spring via Rhino. According to the artist’s official Web site, the 20-track set will feature two new songs, B-sides and rare tracks, Westerberg’s soundtrack contributions and highlights from his post-Replacements releases.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. My initial reaction was to scoff at another unwarranted and truthfully unnecessary compilation/best-of/box set/whatever-the-fuck. But if Toto can get the magic treatment, why not Paul, arguably one of the 10 best band leaders in rock history? Hell, everyone likes 14 Songs. I’d argue, though, that Westerberg’s most innovative post-Replacements work doesn’t even feature his name. Do yourself a favor and check out his wonderfully stripped-down work with pseudo-rock outfit Grandpaboy. Westerberg plays all the instruments, sure, but this is the closest he’s come to reigniting the glory that was The Replacements.

And for those on the pointless reunion watch, Westerberg recently revealed he’d written a song with former ‘Mats bassist Tommy Stinson for the film Elizabethtown.

But I wouldn’t hold your breath:

And while the likelihood of a Replacements reunion remains slim (”It can’t be the Replacements without Chris [Mars] the drummer, and he’s moved on into art and doesn’t really want to come back,” Westerberg told Jones), a host of reissues are in the works.

The best essay I’ve read about the Ward Churchill vs Bill O’Reilly kerfuffle appeared in this week’s Village Voice. Illinois State University professor Curtis White argues that Churchill and O’Reilly are bound to one another, a blustering Judas Iscariot and Jesus of Nazareth, hostages of a socio-economic system without which they couldn’t profit. This is not, needless to say, an observation of world-historic originality (paging Borges and Wilde), but sometimes the most obvious points need stressing:

This is not something Americans should fault him for. In all of these ways he is quite typically American. He’s movin’ on up, for God’s sake. He is in the most unexceptional way a whore to the system he claims to hate. He, too, is a Good German. We all are. In the end, we go to work, do what’s expected of us (even if that means just assigning grades), and accept our paycheck (and a nice six-figure thing that can be for a full professor at a flagship institution like Colorado, and you get to live in Boulder!). Worst of all, at the end of the year we pay our taxes, which we know are going toward things that would break our hearts to witness. And we have little choice but to continue to do these things

It’s mildly gratifying to read an academic with a grain of modesty.

Dom Passantino of Stylus magazine. Here’s the first sentence of his review of Tori Amos’s latest, The Beekeeper:

I’m going to hell anyway, so I may as well come out and say what you’d be thinking if you sat all the way through Tori Amos’ career from Y Kant Tori Read to The Beekeeper: the only way that we’re going to get a good album from her in this day and age is if someone has the decency to abduct and kill her daughter.

Points also for misspelling Beekeeper in the second paragraph, and finally getting to what amounts to quite a flaccid review of the cd in the penultimate paragraph. Keep ‘em coming, Dom!

Points go to Kraft for gross-out chewables:

The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy — in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels — fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Doesn’t beat Testa-Mints for originality, though…

I just know the bastards at Vatican City are gonna build a faster, stronger Pope, somehow….

VATICAN CITY The health of Pope John Paul II took a serious turn for the worst Thursday as a tracheotomy was performed on him to ease troubled breathing, which forced his second emergency hospitalization in a month….

I wonder who’s gonna play the part of Yoda?

Choice words by Rep. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, to Rep. Val Vigil, D-Thornton, courtesy of Rocky Mountain News:

“If you try that again, I’ll ram my fist up your ass.”

Oh, those reppies and their potty mouths….

Gannon/Guckert on the Today show. Stolen from AMERICAblog; the complete transcript can be found at MSNBC:

Brown: You have said that you registered a number of pornographic Web sites. Is that accurate?

Gannon: Well, I registered a number of domain names, that some have suggested are…

Brown: Pornographic Web sites.

Gannon: Well, yes.

Brown: Did you advertise yourself as a gay, male escort for hire on a Web site?

Gannon: I cannot go into those specifics. I can tell you that there is a lot of misinformation out there. There’s a lot of fabrication out there, and a lot of misinformation.

Brown: Why can’t you then clear it up right now? The cameras are rolling.

Gannon: As I’ve said, I’ve been advised not to get into the specifics out there. Is there some truth out there? Yes. Is there a lot of falsehood out there? Absolutely.

Does anyone know why Alas, a Blog is no longer up? That was a good blog.

Does anyone know why Alas, a Blog is no longer up? That was a good blog.

From Christopher Hitchens obit on Hunger S. Thompson. Bringing out the Dead indeed:

“He was never one to hang around when it was time to go,” a mutual friend e-mailed me on Monday. The realization that this might have occurred to him before it occurred to us is a very melancholy one.

The Pope’s still a spazz, but a spazz with a recurring case of the heebeejeebees.

From The Onion (thank you Liza):

The U.S. went to war in Iraq to remove an evil and dangerous political adversary from power. Now that we have done that, the American troops must remain in Iraq until the country is a fully functioning democracy, able to spark change throughout the entire Middle East. While I find this obvious, there are still a lot of people in our country who fail to grasp it. I support Bush-administration foreign-policy goals, but I stand firmly against the individual men and women on the ground in the Persian Gulf.
Yes, occupying Iraq does require troops, but they are there for one reason and one reason only: to carry out the orders of the U.S. Defense Department. As far as their overall importance goes, they are no more worthy of our consideration than a box of nails. Ribbons and banners in ostensible “support” of the troops miss the whole point of the invasion, which is to gain a strategic hold over that volatile and lucrative geopolitical region.

From The Onion (thank you Liza):

The U.S. went to war in Iraq to remove an evil and dangerous political adversary from power. Now that we have done that, the American troops must remain in Iraq until the country is a fully functioning democracy, able to spark change throughout the entire Middle East. While I find this obvious, there are still a lot of people in our country who fail to grasp it. I support Bush-administration foreign-policy goals, but I stand firmly against the individual men and women on the ground in the Persian Gulf.
Yes, occupying Iraq does require troops, but they are there for one reason and one reason only: to carry out the orders of the U.S. Defense Department. As far as their overall importance goes, they are no more worthy of our consideration than a box of nails. Ribbons and banners in ostensible “support” of the troops miss the whole point of the invasion, which is to gain a strategic hold over that volatile and lucrative geopolitical region.