Reportedly fueled by social media posts (on Twitter and Facebook), the Egyptian people seem to be rising up against the government of Hosni Mubarak.
Mubarak, a dictator who's run unopposed for "President" for 3 decades, is refusing (at least for now) to step down.
The U.S. government, which has supported Mubarak for years (and outsourced much of the Bush-era torture to him), is in a difficult position. On the one hand, Mubarak has been "our" friendly dictator. On the other hand, there is that whole "exporting freedom" phrase politicians like to throw around.
From the Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band's 2007 reunion album, here's a very British, very genteel version of the Kaiser Chief's "I Predict A Riot":
But revolutions are rarely neat and painless and genteel.
So (with hopes for the safety and freedoms of all involved) here's the original:
Apparently, Harry Nilsson was taking LSD one day and went for a walk. He was struck by how all the trees (and many other things in the neighborhood) literally ended in points.
And then he wondered what it would be like if everything in the world (including the people) had points.
And then he wondered what would happen if a round-headed boy were born into a world in which everything was required by law to have a point.
What would the point of that be? And could not having a point by the real point? At least some of the time?
Nilsson scribbled the outline to a fable, animator Fred Wolf did some drawings, and they sold the idea to ABC, who made The Point the first animated TV movie of the week.
The movie aired twice and featured Dustin Hoffman as a father narrating the story to his son and 7 new Nilsson songs (including "Me and My Arrow").
As was common in those days, the contracts didn't include provisions for video or DVD release (or, in this case, for anything beyond the initial airings). So when the movie reappeared on TV years later (and even later on video and DVD), Dustin Hoffman was replaced variously by Ringo Starr, Alan Thicke, and Alan Barzman.
But now, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast (or maybe because it's just cool), the great For the Love of Harry blog has the original Dustin Hoffman version in glorious 1971-era animation.
At the worst job I ever had, I had to report to the most boring woman who has ever lived.
I would fantasize about various industrial accidents that could befall her -- each dripping with subtext and irony.
Looking back, that may have been a sign that it wasn't the best job for me.
A week before I finally quit, she called me into her office.
"I'll make this quick," she said. But she didn't know the meaning of the word "quick." So she talked for hours.
After 5 minutes, I stopped listening. After 10, I left her office.
I walked out of the building, across the street to a park, and over to the other side of town.
I bought a round for a group of nuns who wandered into a bar.
I had a cheeseburger at an old diner that would soon be torn down.
I replaced an injured gravedigger in a game of pick-up basketball.
And eventually I made my way back.
Into the building.
Into my boss's office.
And she was still talking.
But eventually she looked up. "So you'll take care of it?"
"Absolutely," I said. I had no idea what she wanted me to take care of.
But I wouldn't have done it even if I'd known.
And when I went home that night, the job started to feel shimmery and fantastical, like something I'd dreamed about... and already had started to forget.
Hey, guy with the giant 70s boombox on your shoulder!
It's me, the girl in the ironic 70s denim overall dress.
Your haircut and b.o. would normally be off-putting, but I'm mad at my parents and need to bring a guy to dinner who'll make my current bass-player boyfriend look good.
Wanna save yourself 6 D-cell batteries, get some free food and help a girl out this Friday?
[Originally posted at the Mudflats Forum; more music tomorrow]
I finally figured out one of the things that's made me so angry since the shooting happened in Tucson.
I don't think anyone has said that Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, etc. are directly responsible for the shootings (and anyone who has said that is wrong).
What really bothers me is that so much of the country seems to have given up on the idea that leaders should set an example.
So the Right talks endlessly about how the shooter was mentally ill and there's no direct connection to right-wing hate speech, since Palin and the others didn't directly tell him to kill.
Have our standards gotten so low that "not directly telling someone to kill" is considered acceptable?
Or admirable?
Or Presidential?
Palin (and Beck and the others) could have said at any point "this isn't right. This isn't how we settle differences in America. We're not savages."
But they don't do that. They stoke the hatred, then step back and deny any responsibility for what happened.
And maybe they're legally right. There's probably nothing that could prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law that Palin (and her ilk) caused the violence.
But "not directly telling someone to kill" is a horrible standard for leadership. It's certainly not good enough for someone who presents herself as a potential president.
John McCain (who's done many things I find reprehensible) at least recognized this fact late in the Presidential campaign when a woman at his event said Obama was an Arab and not an American. To his credit, McCain acted like a leader in that moment -- he intervened. He corrected the crazed woman. He refused to let evil and prejudice stand unchallenged.
Maybe we'll never again see a leader as bold as a Bobby Kennedy. But our standards as a country have to be higher than "not directly telling someone to kill" or else we're doomed.
Before they were the best band in the world, XTC was a jumpy punk band
The first time I saw her, she was leaning against a wall, singing.
Well, not really singing. More like chanting. With a hint of melody that disappeared if you listened hard enough.
And it was a song that sounded familiar. But at the same time I knew I'd never heard it before:
There's a hole at the bottom of my brain At the bottom of my heart At the bottom of the sea That's right!
The second time I saw her, she was leaning against a wall, humming.
The same song. Except when it got to the end and she'd say very softly "That's right."
The third time I saw her was at a party. She was leaning against the keg.
I went up to her and said hi.
She looked at me and said "You know why Chinese kids don't like skateboards?"
I didn't.
But she did. Or at least she had a theory. Which unfolded over the course of 27 minutes, during which time she probably only inhaled 2 or 3 times.
It was something to do with Mao and ballbearings. And the chemical composition of rice.
And I listened. Because she was pretty. And because she was different. And because I suddenly got sucked into her monologue and desperately needed to know why Chinese kids don't like skateboards.
When she was done, she smiled and looked at me like she'd just noticed I was there.
"That's interesting," I said. Not because it was interesting (or even comprehensible), but because she had a nose ring that reflected light in a mesmerizing way and when she'd jerk her head to the left and right it would shine into my eyes just long enough to distract me from thoughts of what she'd looked like naked.
"There's a hole in the bottom of the ocean," she said, leaning over to whisper in my ear. "NASA put it in there, so they'd have someplace to bury all the rockets. Didn't you ever wonder what happens to the rockets that fall to Earth? They had to go somewhere, so they dug a hole in the ocean. But now they can't plug it up because they aren't sending up enough rockets, so the oceans are slowly draining into the center of the Earth."
Her exploration of this topic lasted 32 minutes. I nodded 163 times.
She yawned, took a pill from her pocket and drank it with a swig of beer.
"If I have a baby," she announced, "it won't be born in a hospital. Because the hospitals drill holes in the bottom of babies' brains and insert a tiny chip. It doesn't do anything yet, but one day someone in Montana will flip a switch and the chip will activate. Only it won't be babies anymore, it'll be grown-ups, an army of grown-ups following the commands of that guy. In North Dakota."
"You mean Montana?" I asked.
She leaned into me again. "They want you to think it's Montana. They're very clever that way. You'll spend all your time looking in Montana and won't ever suspect they packed everything up and moved it to Fargo."
10 minutes into that conversation I started to back away. The nose ring no longer reflected light in my eyes. I realized her legs were too thin. And I knew that no matter how naked she got, she'd never stop talking.
Jumpy, nervy, disjointed, disconnected talking.
This wasn't drug-taking as a way of opening the "Doors of Perception." It wasn't the cool, trippy, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" drug-taking.
This was a rambling, incoherent, paranoid schizophrenic, speed-freak marathon, drug-taking. (And I don't mean that in a good way.)
And when she stopped, I said "Nice talking to you," even though it wasn't. Even though I'd hardly done any talking.
And she started to chant, wanting to sing:
There's a hole at the bottom of my brain At the bottom of my heart At the bottom of the sea...
So before I turned away, I smiled a sad smile for her.
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