Not Done Opening...

I see every mind in my generation dissected,
Splayed out in HTML, each detail laid bare,
Twittered and spat out, partially digested,
Read and ignored, dis-punctuated,
Unimpressed,
Utterly devoid of mystery.

I see them laughing in upper case consonants,
Cursing in Absentia,
Commenting commenting commenting
Always,
Opinions made in haste,
Expressed in links to more eloquent voices,
And answered with
STFU.

I see millions of cameras
Voluntarily trained on each personal train wreck,
Each major crime or minor infraction,
Eagerly soaking in humanity,
Alienated from its creator,
Sending his voices, receiving his messages,
Affirming his context.

I see friends reunited and houses divided,
Couches sit vacant save the vagrants, miscreants,
Children and dogs that still watch with both eyes that
Flickering fickle oracle of entertainment and diversion.
Desks contain us all, sustain us, enthralled, by this
Face in the mirror hewn from our peers’ reflections,
Monetized and analyzed by unseen teams.

The Nielsons are dead as the Cleavers-
Even The Simpsons are old news, past their prime;
Time for shows is reduced as we skim over commercials,
Sped up but still selling, and there’s not even time to pee
Without those ads, nor time to discuss without the specter of the show
Hanging over each word in paused agony
As you try to speed through that last dialogue before
We hit PLAY.

Pay day. V Day. Friday. Saturday.
Work day. Week day. May day.
No way. My way. All day.

Every day.

"On Wednesday night, Rep. Joe Wilson [R, SC-2], shouted "You lie!" at President Obama when he said that the healthcare bill would not cover illegal immigrants. "The supporters of the government takeover of healthcare and liberals who want to give healthcare to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan," Wilson said the next day in a campaign fundraising video.

However, in 2003, Wilson voted to provide federal funds for illegal immigrants' healthcare. The vote came on the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which contained Sec. 1011 authorizing $250 million annually between 2003 and 2008 for government reimbursements to hospitals who provide treatment for uninsured illegal immigrants. The program has been extended through 2009 and there is currently a bipartisan bill in Congress to make it permanent."

These are the ironies that make the reasonable person inside of me weep.

To finish a single task,
Is not too much to ask,
But it is easier said than done.
Saturday's efforts paid dividends on Sunday,
When there was time to play
With my son.
Watching him slipping and sliding on river rocks,
Watching my father do the same thing,
And marveling at how
Much of this world
We've all managed
To preserve,
To not totally fuck up;
To see the smile my wife
Shares
With my son.
It all rests on this pinhead,
Where we dance,
Impossibly defying gravity
And inertia,
Spinning and laughing
While we can.
As the stars slowly burn out,
And the rivers dry up,
As the ideas get recycled,
It is important to see these things as they are.
It is important to be greedy with this love.
To soak in it until we are wrinkled and pruned.
We may be running out of parking places,
But there will always be room to dance.

"To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance, Congress is considering universal health care legislation financed by a surcharge on income above $280,000 -- that is, a levy almost exclusively on 1-percenters. This surtax would graze just 5 percent of small businesses and would recoup only part of the $700 billion the 1-percenters received from the Bush tax cuts. In fact, it is so miniscule, those making $1 million annually would pay just $9,000 more in taxes every year -- or nine-tenths of 1 percent of their 12-month haul."

Not since 1929 have the super wealthy had it so good. I forgot to link the source on this, but it was on alternet.com I think.

http://vimeo.com/5732745

Don't tell me there is no magic left...

"If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won't get a chance to produce children. When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies... Don't think I am saying this in a lighter vein. I am serious... Eighty percent of population growth can be reduced through TV."
-- Ghulam Nabi Azad, India's Health and Family Welfare minister

(memo to self: stop paying for cable and turn off that damned noise box tonight)

Why isn't the FBI breaking down the doors of the commercial and investment banks and grabbing computers so as to preserve incendiary e-mails that will most definitely implicate executives? Why are managements that caused this still in their jobs and still receiving bonuses? Are the bonuses paid to the folks at AIG that caused its collapse nothing more than hush money? How can the rating agencies still be in business? Why don't we make one arrest and lean on the bankster to see if he will fold like the cheap suit that he is and name other conspirators? The FBI spends more time investigating $2,000 drug buys than they have to date investigating the biggest heist in the history of the world: $40 trillion, that's trillion with a T, that's 40 million bags each containing $1 million.
--David Talbott
--http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/22/economic_crisis_part_one/

From Glenn Greenwald's column in Salon today...

"It would be one thing for the Obama administration to argue that there is no value in releasing torture photos specifically, and in investigating and imposing accountability for past abuses generally, if there were consensus among Americans that torture is wrong, barbaric and -- as Ronald Reagan put it (hypocritically but still emphatically) -- "an abhorrent practice" justifiable by "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever." But we have the opposite of that consensus: we have an ongoing debate over torture that is fluid, vibrant and far from settled, with half the population embracing the twisted and morally depraved pro-torture position. For that reason, to suppress evidence of what our torture actually looks like and the brutality it entails -- particularly graphic evidence -- is to make it easier for that pro-torture position to thrive, just as it would have been easier for the Iranian Government to slaughter protesters with impunity if they had succeeded in suppressing the images of what they were doing (it was this same dynamic that led the Israeli Army to defy its own Supreme Court and forcibly block reporters and photographers from entering Gaza and which caused the embedded American press to suppress images of the massive civilian deaths which their protectors, the U.S. military, was causing in Iraq)."

I copied this right off of Doonesbury's site.

"You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it."
-- Dick Cheney, on Richard Clarke

"Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack" (5/3/01)

"Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing" (5/26/01)

"Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent" (6/23/01)

"Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats" (6/25/01)

"Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (6/30/01)

"Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays" (7/02/01)

-- subject lines of Richard Clarke emails to Bush Administration prior to 9/11/01

I was talking to a friend about the relative bias of the major cable news networks, and I kept asserting that the right-leaning media, particularly Fox News, tends to be more ridiculous in their arguments against people they disagree with than say, CNN is. I allowed that stations like MSNBC show obvious bias too. I just think that Fox News, for whatever reason, keeps making itself look stupid. Hannity is the worst offender here in my opinion. I couldn't find a great example while we discussed it, but then I saw this this morning, and I thought it was a perfect example. Is this really worth harping on?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-mustard-obamamay11,0,1652607.story

Dijon mustard is elitist? I just thought it was tasty. Also, since when did ketchup become a masculine condiment? I just feel like the people making these statements live in an entirely different world than I do.

And bacterium talk amongst each other... and we've cracked their code... and we will have them working for us quite soon...

AMAZING science lecture from the TED...

http://digg.com/d1oFG6

This is now a redundant blog, as it seems anything cool gets posted to me Facebook these days... However, I am not ready to get rid of this either. What a tangled mess of websites I have! I'm afraid to go to MySpace again, as I'm sure it's become an overgrown jungle during my extended absence.

Maybe I'll just post song fragments from my newish band which isn't quite a band yet, Downstem.

Still the Same

I swear, I've been right here before
I see, the same characters and plots
It's a, tipping point you're looking for,
Is there, Something new in store,
No motion, just emotions that are moving me to
Stop here in my tracks

I
Haven't changed
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision

You tweet the same things, over and over,
I scream the same things right back, my voice cracks,
We cry together, Lie that we're changing,
It's here where we've always been fading
To black, say we're gonna get
Better one day but

I
Haven't changed
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision

Inertia is only broken through force,
Of course, off course, circling back,
Until our tracks overlap, our gums flap,
To no one but ourselves and

I'm
Still the same
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision
I
Haven't changed
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision

Here I am at the next door,
Just like the one before,
But, Something is happening,
Unraveling I feel I'm giving up
Lifting up with the winds
And then I open up my eyes realize that


I'm
Still the same
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision
I
Haven't changed
And you're to blame
For all the
Indecision

This editorial is full of questions I'd like someone to ask all those people who think they are so conservative that they can't stomach national healthcare. Are we getting ripped off in a "free market" this badly? Really?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/03/09/healthcare/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/who-keeps-screwing-us-ove_b_166438.html

This stimulus package just lost all its teeth, and the new administration just deflated a whole lot in my eyes. Seriously. This was a stand that needed to be taken. LEt Wall Street and the banks walk away if they want Call their bluff... DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY MORE MONEY!

"Confined to its own phantom zone of crazy, there's only so much harm this can do. After all, Limbaugh's puffy melon has been bombarded with a mountain of hillbilly heroin large enough to crush God. But I wish I could report that this was wholly the product of Limbaugh's condition. It's also a theory that was also repeated by Donald Luskin: a seriously wrongheaded economist and, go figure, former economic adviser to Senator John McCain."

Pretty interesting. Not my normal reading, but the headline was simply too compelling not to click on... The above quote is where I lost it. To those still listening to these guys: is it really this bad?

The New Deal worked, despite what THEY are telling you...
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/02/02/the_new_deal_worked/

All THOSE bloggers are increasingly shrill and hopeless... it is showing... http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/?last_story=/politics/war_room/2009/02/02/obama_simpson/

And Ronald Reagan was not a great president... he WAS a forgetful one, and a popular one, but he didn't do half of what he is credited with doing these days by the likes of Hannity and Rusch...

I was born thirty years ago today and promptly named Nathan Paul Isenhardt. After an entirely pleasant and remarkably wholesome childhood I went on to christen my adolescent self as Not Done Opening. It is a moniker that has served me well, all the way to the present. I still feel as though the world is constantly new all over again, each day the sun rises. I might not be the most open-minded dude on the planet, but I like to think I'm still trying to open my eyes rather than squint in some jaded glance off into the horizon. I will not be jaded. I will not be sad. I will be opening, all the days of my life. There is nothing to fear in vulnerability, and sunburns come with fun under the sun. I bought the ticket, and I'm taking the ride.

I'm thankful for my family, my son and wife, my blood, but also, my confidantes, my friends. I like to think I give them back as much as they give me, and whether it is true or not, I intend to keep striving for that goal. In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Some will wonder at having a birthday so close to Christmas. I must admit, it can be a melancholy feeling, almost like taking time out to celebrate your birthday is an imposition on Christmas. It breaks the momentum one might get in the ramping up to Christmas that now starts in July sometime after Independence Day. That being said, people are usually ready to party at this time of year, and my God, the candies and cookies available are always top-notch. There is also the possibility of combining one's Christmas list with one's birthday list which can make for some pretty lavish gifts as one grows up. So I like my Christmas birthday just fine.

More importantly, I love having a birthday on (or near, depending on your calendar) the winter solstice. It is the shortest day, and the longest night, and that suits me better and better each year. I like the night-life. I like to boogie. (not really).

30 years is twice as long as it takes to make a damn fine Scotch. Thirty years is long enough to barely remeber Reagan not being able to remember, but not long enough to remember disco. 30 years is a blink of an eye, and it's my whole life as well. It's long enough to destroy and rebuild one's credit, but not long enough to say one is old. It is long enough to know that if you're not done opening by now, you probably never will be. Cheers!

( Read more... )

More on this here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain/print

 And income taxes equal socialism.

I've been saying this for years, and people rightfully called me a simplifying idealist.

Changing the existing tax structure is doing just that, nothing more.  As long as people are willing to ok any form of a progressive tax, we'll be more socialist than if we went to a flat one or whatever.


McCain is just as socialist.  They just have different targets for tax increases and decreases.


Lester needs to find his funny again.


And Joe the Plumber is no John Galt.


http://www.comics.com/editoons/lester/

Obama vs. McCain, and we officially can no longer trust our own eyes, at least, if we squint a bit...
http://www.break.com/index/unbelievable-mccain-vs-obama-dance-off.html