uTopianTurtleTop

GRUMPY

I’ve felt for a while that Bush is going to lose in a landslide, at least a popular vote landslide. At first Bush’s only natural constituents were the rich people who happen not to care about their fellow Americans or fellow humans or life on the planet in general, and single-issue anti-abortionists. Now add to those groups the people who put banning same-sex marriage near the top of their to-do list. And people who really think America should tell every country in the world to go to hell.

Add those people up: his natural constituency is small.

Now that the economy has got the big hurt, and Bush’s piles of lies are starting to catch up with him, and the media have suddenly cut off his supply of “Get Out of A Lie Free” cards, people are grumpy. A lot of people.

Doesn’t necessarily mean Bush’s henchmen won’t find a way to steal it for him. The devil knows they’re gonna try like hell.

And, you know, I thought Kenneth Starr was going to go to jail for the illegal leaks coming from the Office of the Special Persecutor during the Whitewater-Blow-Job scandal. You might want to increase your potassium intake to alleviate the effects of the salt which I recommend as seasoning for my political predictions.


I HAVE A FEW

Regrets. And I'll mention one. I regret writing disparagingly of consensus decision making yesterday. Cumbersome, yes. Time-consuming, usually. Maddening, often. And, if it's at all possible, the best way to go. A lesson learned from making music: When people come up with their own parts for a song, they're more deeply into the song and more deeply themselves in the song, and the song almost always benefits.

The great jazz critic Martin Williams, writing in 1969: "The high degree of individuality, together with the mutual respect and co-operation required in a jazz ensemble, carry with them philosophical implications that are so exciting and far-reaching that one almost hesitates to contemplate them. It is as if jazz were saying to us that not only is far greater individuality possible to man than he has so far allowed himself, but that such individuality, far from being a threat to a co-operative social structure, can actually enhance society."

And the Hues Corporation, singing in 1974: "Rock on with your bad self."