why bush doesn't read the paper

"It had been almost a year since I was in the Iraqi capital, where I worked as a reporter in the days of Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and the occupation, guerrilla war and religious resurgence that followed. On my return, it was difficult to grasp how atomized and violent the 1,250-year-old city has become. Even on the worst days, I had always found Baghdad's most redeeming quality to be its resilience, a tenacious refusal among people I met over three years to surrender to the chaos unleashed when the Americans arrived. That resilience is gone, overwhelmed by civil war, anarchy or whatever term could possibly fit. Baghdad now is convulsed by hatred, paralyzed by suspicion; fear has forced many to leave. Carnage its rhythm and despair its mantra, the capital, it seems, no longer embraces life."

(Anthony Shadid, The Washington Post, 10/29/06)

fear/shock and awe

I was just shocked by something I saw on CNN.

I never dreamt I would see our country become the type of place where I would see such a blatant and deceptive piece of fear propaganda. I saw this air during a commercial break in the normal newscast.

WHO is buying this message?
LEAD me to these people so that... I can stare at them, dumbstruck.

the muddy throne

I was reading Nietzsche while waiting outside Chief Ike's Mambo Room on Columbia Road for the 42 bus. It was a gray day.

"State I call it where all drink poison, the good and the wicked; state, where all lose themselves, the good and the wicked; state, where the slow suicide of all is called 'life.'"

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

"Behold the superfluous! They gather riches and become poorer with them. They want power and first the lever of power, much money - the impotent paupers!

Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness - as if happiness sat on the throne...

My brothers, do you want to suffocate in the fumes of their snouts and appetites? Rather break the windows and leap to freedom.

Escape from the bad smell! Escape from the idolatry of the superfluous!"

Thus spoke Zarathustra while two middle-aged Hispanic men sitting next to me were working through a stack of $5 scratch tickets with, alas, no riches to be won.