Swiftboatable: This photo speaks volumes. Imagine how the rightwing noise machine would howl if, say, John Kerry or Jack Murtha — or Bill Clinton — were photographed stepping on an American flag.
Magnitudes of disaster: Editor-In-Chief Jon always takes on a slightly condescending attitude when Co-Editor Trish and I complain about hurricanes. As a denizen of West Hollywood, Jon likes to point out that he lives right on top of a REALLY BIG FAULT LINE THAT COULD GO AT ANY MINUTE, WITHOUT WARNING (emphasis mine).
While Jon always is sympathetic to Trish and my plight as huge weather systems hundreds of miles across containing as much enegery as several atomic bombs come barreling toward the Sunshine State, he always plays the earthquake trump card — while we know for days ahead of time that a hurricane is coming and can prepare and/or evacuate, his cats tell him only minutes before he gets a temblor.
Well, buddy, we in Florida got our own earthquake this weekend, and a pretty big one, too, at 6.0 on the Richter scale. And we also had a 5.3 one last February. And — unlike Los Angeles — our earthquakes have the potential to generate that third horseman of the apocalypse for Florida: a tsunami! Top that, Jon Boy!
So what if we didn’t quite feel the quake and our killer tsunami looked like a typical two-foot Gulf wave — it’s the idea that it could happen that counts in the psychological game of potential-disaster one-upsmanship.
So let’s review: Dangers that Jon faces in L.A. inlcude earthquakes, not mudslides (since he doesn’t live in Topanga Canyon), traffic, not wildfires, rap-related drive-by gang violence, smog and the actions of a depraved Austrian fascist governor.
The dangers that Trish and I face include earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, alligators, several species of poisonous snake, West Nile virus, fire ants, Africanized bees, falling coconuts, sharks and, following Steve Irwin’s unusual death, stingrays. On top of that, we have the Army Corps of Engineers, which is capable of creating disasters on an epic scale; the dangerously incompetent Florida Legislature; Miami’s emotionally unstable Cuban community, and a chunky, sleazy, untrustworthy born-again governor.
So, Jon, the next time you are awakened by your collection of Hummel figurines crashing to the floor, take comfort in knowing that it was not an angry 10-foot alligator smashing the china cabinet, it was probably just a minor earthquake — and they get those in Florida, too.
In another day and another era, numbers like these might indicate a great awakening among the populace. These days, I’m not sure:
The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.
Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a “great deal” or a “moderate amount,” up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
Today’s New York Times marks the empty, token sacrifice we’ve made since 9/11, and names what we were really cheated of.
The attacks themselves have begun to acquire the aura of inevitability that comes with being part of history. We can argue about what one president or another might have done to head them off, but we cannot really imagine a world in which they never happened, any more than we can imagine what we would be like today if the Japanese had never attacked Pearl Harbor.
What we do revisit, over and over again, is the period that followed, when sorrow was merged with a sense of community and purpose. How, having lost so much on the day itself, did we also manage to lose that as well?
The time when we felt drawn together, changed by the shock of what had occurred, lasted long beyond the funerals, ceremonies and promises never to forget. It was a time when the nation was waiting to find out what it was supposed to do, to be called to the task that would give special lasting meaning to the tragedy that it had endured.
But the call never came. Without ever having asked to be exempt from the demands of this new post-9/11 war, we were cut out. Everything would be paid for with the blood of other people’s children, and with money earned by the next generation. Our role appeared to be confined to waiting in longer lines at the airport. President Bush, searching the other day for an example of post-9/11 sacrifice, pointed out that everybody pays taxes.
That pinched view of our responsibility as citizens got us tax cuts we didn’t need and an invasion that never would have occurred if every voter’s sons and daughters were eligible for the draft. With no call to work together on some effort greater than ourselves, we were free to relapse into a self-centeredness that became a second national tragedy.
What the Times doesn’t say is that it could have been no other way with a leader as morally vacant as ours, a president whose first words of inspiration were to buy, buy, buy and show our patriotism and courage by indulging in mindless consumerism.
There was a time when America could do better than this, and I’m still not convinced we chose the alternative. It’s a plain fact that George Bush received less of the popular vote in 2000, and from everything I’ve read about Ohio in 2004, I think the chances are good he did that year also. Those of us who want something finer are still out here. We just have to get better at claiming it.
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
