SavageDem

"I don't belong to an organized political party – I'm a Democrat." – Will Rogers

Author: SavageDem

  • Tortured Logic

    Torture is immoral, illegal, and unjust. So why all this banter about whether or not it’s acceptable?

    The United States embodies – or should – the foundational tenet of justice for all. All one need do to determine if something is right is employ a simple litmus test: If my mother/brother/cousin were being held by a foreign government, would I accept <insert brutal treatment> being performed on him/her? If the answer is “No,” then we shouldn’t be doing it either. Torture is cruelty. It is inhumane. It is never justified. It is humankind at its worst. It is only advocated by fearful, mouth-breathing, still-stuck-in-Maslow’s-second-level, shallow, vengeful cowards.

    The far-right cerebrally-challenged fearmongers who keep advocating barbarism seem to justify it based on two arguments, used singly or in conjunction:

    1. Torture produces results.
    2. Other countries/organizations torture, so why shouldn’t we?

    Neither of these justifications can be rationally supported. First off, it’s been documented ad infinitum by everyone – military, intelligence services, psychologists – that torture does not produce reliable results. So strictly from an effectiveness point of view – removing emotion, compassion, justice, and morality from the equation – torture is ineffective.

    The second argument – they do it, so we should, too – is so inane as to almost not require a response. This “argument” is as stupid as the clichéd “jumping off a bridge because your friend did.” The actions of another are never any excuse for ours. “Someone stole my soda out of the breakroom refrigerator, so I can steal someone else’s.” “I know a guy that embezzled $40,000 from our local futbol club, so it’s okay if I take money that isn’t mine.” That’s not logic. That’s immorality, plain and simple. It’s acting out of vengeance. It’s childish, unprincipled, unethical, and misguided.

    The response to the rabid neocon hypocrites is simple: we don’t torture because it is wrong. It’s unethical. It’s barbaric. It is unjust. It is one of the most horrific violations of decency and morality possible. We’re better than that. It’s easy to be an armchair interrogator and say, “Hell, who cares what we do to them? They deserve it.” It’s a lot harder to set the example and stand up for what is right. But that’s what the United States is about: setting the standard for the world. We’ve forsaken that for awhile here – Bush, Bush and Reagan (with some help from Clinton) unscrewed the light bulb in the beacon of hope – but it’s not too late to reclaim our status. We can start down that path by investigating and prosecuting the criminals – including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al – responsible for this detour to the dark side.

    I know President Obama has said it’s time to turn the page, but – as others have pointed out – you can’t turn the page until you’ve read it. We need to exorcise this cancer that has spread through our country. Yes, it will be painful. Yes, it will take time. But it is necessary.

  • Arrested Development

    Lately I’ve been giggling every time I use my vehicle. As my spouse has the furthest to travel – and thus has dibs on the most fuel efficient ride – “my” vehicle has become the standard suburban minivan. This, in and of itself, has not lead to my fits of self-induced hilarity. On the contrary, most often it produces worries that I am becoming Chevy Chase in Vacation, and induces pre-mid-life crisis thoughts of sports cars and the BMW 535i… But no! I shall not covet my neighbor’s ass-et.

    No, what has been amusing me is the accoutrement theThe Family Truckster family truckster acquired a week ago, and which I have been too lazy/pre-occupied to remove. A long weekend family trip – for State Tournament hockey, if you must know – necessitated me equipping the van with our Yakima Space-Boosterâ„¢ cargo “pod.” Since returning over a week ago, I’ve been tooling about town with my topper still attached. And every time I walk out to get in it, I can’t help but think I’ve suddenly become Michael Bluth.


    Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) of Arrested Development
    Bluth, as you’re no doubt aware, is the only semi-functional member of the extended Bluth Family in the outstanding show Arrested Development. When his father is finally arrested for his illegal dealings in the house-of-cards Bluth Company, one of the only assets remaining to the company – now headed (in bankruptcy) by son Michael – is the stair truck formerly used to service the corporate jet. As it is the only vehicle he has, Michael uses it for all his travel around L.A.


    While my extended family is not quite as messed up as the Bluths, I still guffaw every time I go to run an errand.

    The Bluth Company stair truck
    The Bluth Company stair truck
    The SavageDem Family Truckster
    The SavageDem Family Truckster


  • Norris. Beck. Palin. Traitors.

    I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, we’ve all seen incredible hypocrisy over the past eight years under B*sh. Accusations of unpatriotic behavior while the Constitution was shredded, attempts to marginalize the Legislative and Judicial branches of government while complaining about an “obstructionist” Congress, a rush to “Christianize” our government while implementing a social policy that was as anti-Christian as anything imaginable, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The Republican party of today doesn’t traffic in silly things like logic, common sense, and reason. Their chief weapons are fear, surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope – but not ruthless efficiency…

    Yet I was still surprised to read the drivel spewn by has-been Chuck Norris. If you can get through this half-assed screed without gagging, you’ll read Chuck’s rationale about why it’s okay for the state of Texas to secede from the U.S. if “the going got rough in America.” The intellectually-challenged turncoat got the inspiration for his traitorous writings from an interview he did with Faux News’ Glenn Beck, another Nazi sympathizer. Beck asked Norris a self-answered rhetorical question about from whence a rebellion would come. Norris agreed wholeheartedly that Texas was the place. He says,

    I’m not saying that other states won’t muster the gumption to stand and secede, but Texas has the history to prove it.

    These morons – Beck and Norris – actually advocate for another Civil War! I cannot fathom the mindset that generates this garbage. This is the same crowd that crowed “Not a patriot!” from every rooftop when anyone dared to question why we were going into or staying in Iraq. And now they openly push sedition.

    But Norris and Beck aren’t the only unpatriotic crazies; in fact, we just had a Vice-Presidential candidate – I know, it’s still hard to believe that the Repubs were really that stupid – and her husband that supported secession! Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, even though the records on this have been expunged, and as recently as 2008 addressed the AIP, where she “shares your party’s vision of upholding the Constitution of our great state.” The AIP’s main goal is to turn Alaska into their own country, where they’re free to rape the environment, homeschool their kids (not kidding! check out their web site!), carry guns wherever, and in general not let nobody tell them nothing no-how. The AIP reveres their wise and benign founder, Joe Vogler, who once said:

    The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. … and I won’t be buried under their damn flag.

    What a patriot. The great “snow machine” racer Todd Palin was a registered member of the AIP from 1995 to 2002, and while Sarah now says she was never a member, the chairman of the AIP told ABC News – before retracting her statement – that both Sarah and Todd were members in 1994.

    Secessionists love to claim that there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that expressly forbids seceding. Multiple Constitutional law types – which I do not claim to be, but am still allowed to reference – have put this to rest over the years following the Civil War, but none perhaps so definitively as contained in the SCOTUS ruling in Texas v. White (a lawsuit arising out of the Civil War), wherein it states:

    Considered as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention, and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union.

    and…

    The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.

    So, back atcha neocons: if you don’t support this country, you’re a traitor. If you talk secession, you’re  a traitor. If you believe that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many…or the one (reverse copyright: Spock), you’re a traitor. Start being part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Stop being cut ‘n runners, and work for the greater good. Sure, it’s hard to figure out how to fix everything right now; but that’s what Americans are known for! The saying isn’t, “Good old-fashioned Norwegian know-how,” is it? (No offense to Norwegians) It’s American know-how!

  • Jindal’s Jihad

    If you haven’t heard, the neocons are having Louisiana governor – their next Sarah Palin – Piyush “Bobby” Jindal give the nutjob…I mean, Republican… rebuttal to President Obama’s (I love saying that!) speech tonight. This guy is just as scary as Palin, perhaps even scarier, as he was a Rhodes scholar, and therefore has a tad more brainpower than Caribou Barbie. A Hindu-turned-Catholic (at least publically), his background is disturbing in that he seems to be quite chameleon-like in his ability to blend into his environment in his quest for power.

    Here is an interesting read from a Louisiana native that covers Jindal’s history, conversion to Catholicism, brush with the devil, and more. Has some links to articles that Jindal himself published in the mid-90s about wrestling with his faith and his part in an illegal exorcism.

    I think we’ll have some fun with this guy when the Repubs trot him out as their 2012 candidate…

  • Those Wacky Mormons!

    I’m currently reading a fascinating book called Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. It uses a brutal double-homicide (mother-child) committed by Mormon fanatics as the catch, but covers the entire history of the Mormon “church.” I now realize how incredibly little I knew about those wackos. I realize that doesn’t sound very accepting. I’m normally a very accepting person; you want your own religion, fine. But when the religion advocates misogyny, male chauvinism, polygamy, murder, and an incredibly antiquated patriarchal system of rule, as well as a complete disregard for any form of government outside its theology, then I have a problem with it.

    Now, I know that many will say, “But Christianity and Islam also advocate many, if not all, of those same principles! True, if you are a Biblical or Koranical (!) literalist. The fundamental – but not fundamentalist – difference to me is that modern, reflective Christians and Muslims have outgrown those tired ways of thinking, and instead concentrate on the spirit of the faith, which in both cases is love and caring for your fellow human.

    I will not make the dogmatic case that any faith has ultimate authority, even though I subscribe to a modernist Christian theology; none of us will know – if we do then! – the truth of the matter until it’s too late to communicate back to the rest of the unwashed masses still breathing. And that’s why I react so strongly to any “faith” that purports to have the answer to everything. And especially one that preaches outdated, harmful and repressive tenets. Which is why I could go on a rant about the Catholics as well, but I digress.

    Come to think of it, Mormons and Catholics share quite a bit! Patriarchal. Repressive of females. Governed by “revelations” coming through a male leader who has some secret conduit to God not available to others. Established their own strongholds (Vatican, Utah) to escape secular governance. Aggressively pursue spread of religion via fomenting of procreation by using made-up policy (anti-birth control, polygamy). Incredibly secretive. Attempt to theocratize government with huge cash influxes.

    Amazing that millions of people – I’m talking Mormons again – revere, follow, and devote their lives to a narcissistic, lying (the Mormons are quite proud that he was an accomplished liar), philandering, power-mad man (I’m talking about Joe Smith). But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – history is littered with examples of this.

  • ‘Tis the Season

    Just some randomness going through my head today whilst participating in economy-building activities (aka Xmas-shopping). Overt displays of generosity and selfishness both seem to become more abundant at this time of year.

    An example of the former: I was late getting going today, as I had an entire list of “to-dos” to complete on my first day of Xmas vacation. I was driving (only made it about 200 yds from my home as the proverbial crow flies; about 1/4 mile via road) and trying to multi-task placing my (newly acquired) Bluetooth headset over my ear. Mea culpa, I was driving too fast (not overly fast, but too fast for conditions) as I took a 90° RH turn on almost-glare ice roads (temps of -10°F tend to do that to snow-packed surfaces). The rear-end of my Ford Fusion floated out, and I was unable to recover it in time to prevent sliding nose-first into the neighbor’s snow-covered lawn on the right side of the road. Hindsight being 20-20, I should have added a touch of gas to pull it out of the slide (being FWD), but instead had just backed off the accelerator. Ach, what are ya gonna do?

    Not given to histrionics – no comments from the peanut gallery – I figured that I’d just clear the snow away and back out. No big. Kicked snow from around both front tires in no time flat, but the car still wouldn’t budge – just a spinning right front tire. Then proceeded to clear snow from around entire front area of car. Still wouldn’t move. I then realized that it had ridden up on the snow enough that the tires weren’t making solid contact with the ground – just barely touching. I had just resigned myself to walking back home to get a couple shovels to dig out when the cavalry arrived in the form of John, a pickup-driving neighbor (whom I did not know). For old-time’s sake we tried the push-and-spin-tire routine, but that was fruitless. John then offered to give me a lift back to the house, which I was grateful for. Not that it was that far, but I was in a hurry to get my errands done, and especially wanted to get to the post office before the crowds arrived around noontime! And it was still a few degrees below zero… John whisked me back home, I grabbed the shovels, he brought me back, and we dug the car out in about 60 seconds. John continued on his way, and I on mine.

    Now this wasn’t a radical thing; John didn’t save my life, pull me out of a burning house, lend me a kidney (mmmmm…kidney pie), or any such melodramatic thing. He just performed a very simple, straightforward, genuine, unselfish act of kindness. For which I was very grateful. And it made me reflect on the nature of the season.

    To the counter-example: I was later in my sojourn ensnared in god-awful traffic in the parking lot of REI (an outdoor & sporting goods shop, for those uninitiated). Construction had closed one entrance into the lot, and competition was fierce to get in and out of the parking area. I started to back out of my spot only to have a woman race up behind me to gain access to the exit road. As soon as she moved, I started to back up again, only to have a guy in an SUV studiously ignoring my protruding rear-end (the car, not me!) and brake lights – “I see nothing, nothing!” – pull up directly behind me, blocking egress. This happened one or two more times before I was able to complete backing out and effect my escape. Far more important that these people make haste in their getaway than to allow my partially extricated vehicle to leave. Just plain rude if you ask me.

    Many other far more engaging tales abound of woman’s humanity and inhumanity to woman (and man’s to man, and hermaphrodite’s to hermaphrodite, and all possible combinatorics of same), but it was these humble examples I experienced today that brought me to rumination on said topic. And a gentle reminder to me to try to be more John-like every day.

  • A day we’ll remember our entire lives: The dawn of a new age.

    I’ve just come back – OK, two hours or so ago – from volunteering as an Election Judge in perhaps the most important election in the history of the United States. And Barack’s our President! I’m so ecstatic I just want to – as a friend of mine voiced – run out into the neighborhood and shout it out to everyone. President Barack Obama! President Barack Obama!

    No, you haters out there, I don’t think he’s the Messiah. Or the Saviour. I do, however, think that his election is important on many fronts: the end of – hopefully forever – selfish, me-based, f*ck the poor, fear-based, decidedly and diametrically opposed to Christian tenets, neocon politics; the beginning of a positive, we-based, empowering, forward-thinking culture; and a final don’t-let-the-door-hitcha-on-the-way-out kick-in-the-pants end to racism, discrimination, bigotry, and small-mindedness.

    No, of course that won’t happen at once; but it’s a powerful start! Just by being there Barack will force the morons still rampant in our society to face up to what most of us have known for a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng time: skin color is no determinant of intelligence, ability, or performance. Like it or not, these intellectually-challenged members of our society must recognize that their President has a greater concentration of melanin in his skin than they might, but that this has no bearing on his ability to whip their collective intellectual asses. And if they don’t own up to this, than we’ll label them what they are: traitors. Isn’t that the standard neocon label that they put on anyone who disagrees with or dislikes a Republican President? Not patriotic. Not ‘merican.

    So back atcha. Support President Obama, or you’re not a patriotic American. And Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-bama!

    Now, if only Al Franken pulls through in MN in the wee hours, my joy will be unbounded…

  • 100 Pushups

    These Internets are really a cool thing for seekers-of-all-knowledge like myself. One can totally see how a person could lock herself in a climate-controlled room with a feeding tube, IV-drip, catheter, and T1 connection for her laptop, and never emerge again. Sort of a Matrix redux as you get “the feed” pumped into your brain for whatever floats your boat.

    My latest attempt at getting back on the fitness bandwagon began in typical Internet-segue fashion with the quest for a solution to a nagging software problem. After finding the answer on a blog – thank you, Trevin Chow! – I naturally had to surf the site a bit to see what was there (since Trevin had some similar interests to mine, e.g. photography and technology). He had an interesting note in there about hundredpushups.com and the Hundred Pushups training program. This piqued my interest.

    Essentially, Steve Speirs – the owner of the domain – has put together a six-week program to enable virtually anyone to perform 100 consecutive pushups. And no, it’s not a scam, there’s no catch, you don’t have to pay anything, yada, yada, yada. It’s something he did himself, and decided to formalize it to make it available to others. He’s got a great, clear, easy-to-follow web site with stupid-proof instructions, and you can even log your progress online and hold yourself accountable (thanks for putting the pressure on, Orlo…) by utlizing Andreas Viklund’s very nice Pushups Logger site.

    So check it out. I’m on Week 1, Day 2. Oh, you want to know what my baseline was? 14. I could maybe have squeaked out 15, but my arms were already shaking. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m gonna see if I can get mi esposa to participate as well.

    P.S. Here’s something else cool that I found during this foray: pocketmod. A new turn on the old tech of paper-folding. Turn an 81/2” by 11″ piece of paper into a small book that contains anything you want: day-planner, to-do list, or hundred pushups log!

  • Borneo intangible fruitcake

    There. I did it — I think.

    I was recently ruminating on the ability to do, say, or experience something unique. This thought process was touched off when I pulled out an old cassette (yes, some people still have these!) to run through the car cassette player. This particular tape was bequeathed to me by a friend circa 1986, and has a bunch o’ tunes on it that reside nowhere else in my music library (a condition which I mean to rectify). In fact, this tape introduced me to several artists and genres that influenced my musical growth – although some would not view it as “growth” per se – and radically changed, essentially, my life. Artists such as Billy Bragg, The Proclaimers, Voice of the Beehive, and Morrissey inhabit this tape, and this simple spool of magnetized metal oxide particles on polyester (a Maxell XLII 90 – I always bought these!) shaped what I would listen to for the rest of my life, and in doing so, broadened my horizons incalculably.

    ANYHOW…back on point: I had not pulled out this tape in many a moon, and was reveling in all the great tunes I had not heard in some time. Whilst jamming to Blush by The Hummingbirds, the thought popped into my head that I was most likely the only person in the world – and thus, the Universe! – currently listening to that song (although I am not taking into account parallel Universes or quantum states). I calculated the odds as pretty good: an obscure – my most standards – Australian band that hasn’t been together in 15 years, unknown to probably 99.9993% of the world’s population (and I assure you, that figure was derived in a wholly scientific fasion…), and receiving zero – or approaching that – airplay. I did have to factor in the Internets (all of them). And I was mildly surprised to find that some other persona aficionada a la música had placed a video of this tune on youtube (said link listed above). But as the last comment was left over a week ago, and there had been only 4,353 views in over 14 months – only about 10 per day – I felt it was safe to say that it probably wasn’t being watched at the same moment at which I was listening to it on my retro car stereo.

    To be unique in a world of 6,000,000,000+ souls – and that’s only the living! – is a difficult thing. It is almost assured that someone somewhere is doing what you’re doing, thinking what you’re thinking, eating what you’re eating, viewing what you’re viewing, etc. So I felt – for one brief, transcendent moment – the awesomeness of “doing” something (however small) that no one else in a span of untold light-years was.

    Which then brings me to the singular title of this post: I am quite convinced that this series of words, in this specific order, has never been uttered – or written – before in the history of humankind. Uniqueness. Something for which we all at some time strive.

  • Here’s another editorial…

    …I wrote for the Savage Pacer. I’ve included the original unedited version below.

    First of all, I’d like to commend Syd Gross for an excellent article in last week’s Community Voices regarding the futility, horror, and wastefulness of the Iraq war.

    Secondly, I felt compelled to respond to John Benedict’s letter to the editor from last week. The basic gist of Mr. Benedict’s message is that the so-called “liberal media” isn’t reporting all the “good stuff” from the war, and that we don’t have any right to second-guess the all-knowing and all-powerful Oz…I mean, President.

    To begin with, I wish we did have a “liberal media.” Maybe then every newscast would lead off with images of coffins being returned to the United States on a daily basis, and children and women lying dead in the streets of Iraq. But George Bush has prohibited footage of any returning caskets being shown, and we don’t like to be disturbed by seeing the awfulness of war on our evening news. Perhaps because if we were faced daily with the graphic reality of the horror that is the Iraq war, we’d be quicker to demand that our troops come home.

    While there is no doubt, as Mr. Benedict says, that some good things have come from the occupation of Iraq, the fact is that this is an un-winnable war, and it’s time for us to leave. First of all, this is a civil war. There is no traditional “enemy” for us to fight, or “win” against. Roughly 60 percent of Iraq is Shiite Muslim, and about 35 percent is Sunni Muslim. The divide and conflict between these two groups dates back about 1400 years – and we’re caught in the middle. If we back the Sunnis, we anger the Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia. If we back the Shiites, we provoke Iran even further. George Bush keeps talking about “winning”, but there is no winning here: this is a centuries-old clash, and our presence there is fanning the flames.

    Our own history teaches us that it’s incredibly difficult to impose democracy – it’s taken the United States 300+ years, and we still don’t have it right. We started with the brutal annihilation of Native Americans, followed it with the brutal oppression and slavery of blacks, had a Civil War of our own, continued with suppression of women’s rights, and are still struggling today with gay rights and voter rights (but that’s another story). It’s incredibly naïve to think we can impose democracy on Iraq by force in just a few short years, while overcoming over a thousand years of religious and cultural strife.

    Lastly, the idea that Mr. Benedict promotes that we should trust this President to know and do the right thing is laughable. Bush is the guy that pulled weapons inspectors out of Iraq (where they found no weapons of mass destruction, by the way), and manufactured evidence (if you don’t believe that, try Googling “Italian letter Iraq”) to manipulate Congress and the American public into going to war. He then continued the falsehood by promoting the lie that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. And if you still think that there is a connection there, perhaps you should read the 9/11 Commission report from Congress, which found no link at all between 9/11 and the government of Iraq. It did, raise some interesting questions about ties between the terrorist organization Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia – an ally of ours. This President is interested in his image, power, and oil, not in what’s good for the people of Iraq or the United States.

    Americans should be mad as hell. Mad that we’re mired in an endless war that’s ruining our economy for generations, killing our soldiers, and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Mad that we’ve been lied to and misled continuously by our government. Mad that companies like Halliburton and Blackwater have stolen billions from YOU, the taxpayer, in falsified and shoddy work in Iraq reconstruction, and virtually nothing has been done about it (see the movie Iraq for Sale if you really want to get mad). Mad that our government is ignoring the 60+ percent of Americans who want our troops home as soon as possible.

    Remember: the President and government are work for us, not the other way around. Get involved.