Liberal Media Elite

As a coda on a discussion at the bar last night, the accomplishments, to date, of our 44th President:

Signed into law:

Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act.

SCHIP

An 800bn Stimulus Bill

The FY 2009 Budget

Omnibus Public Lands Act (I’m a big fan of this one, protecting over 2 million acres of public land, and over 1,000 miles of rivers, and other waterways. Awesome!)

Executive Orders:

Opening Presidential Records.

Banning Torture

Closing Gitmo

Lifting the ban on stem cell research.

Presidential Memoranda, other actions.

Overturning the Mexico City Policy.

Fast-tracking fuel-economy standards to the 2011 model year.

I could go on. The complete list is found at Whitehouse.gov.

More progressive goodness has come from this man’s first 72 days in office than the previous 8 years. And he hasn’t been in the job for a full 3 months. I think all the hand wringing, consternation, doubt and concern are, at this point a little premature.

Let me be clear, I do have concerns. The Geithner-Summers duo have me concerned. They seem to be of the mindset that dragged our economy into this mess, and don’t quite appear to have any good ideas to get us out. Granted, the mess is so completely intractable, I don’t think anyone has all of the answers, but I’d at least like to see a Krugman or a Stiglitz at the table on this one.

I also fail to see how contracts with AIG are somehow infallible, yet contracts with UAW and other unions need to be revisited, revised, and reduced every time corporate America feels their profits being pinched. That seems to be a double-standard the Administration has embraced.

So far he’s accomplished a lot. The big fights are yet to come, and they will certainly take all of us keeping on him and Congress to get the job done right.

Matthew can’t pimp work he does elsewhere.  That would be a smidge gauche.

But I can pimp it for him.

A great read.  Doubly so because I found while browsing the job listings.

Pretty clever little trailer here:

watch?v=t5eDQKaKLYE

I haven’t seen it so I don’t have an opinion of it yet, but so far, so good.

Here is a list of places you can go to see it for yourself.

And for those of you who aren’t into the whole communal aspect of movie watching, you can just download it yourself here.

And to toot my own horn, I was in some b-roll footage of the protests from the 4th night of the RNC on Rachel Maddow. OK, it was like a 15th of a second. But there I was. I was on Rachel Maddow. So now I will include “As seen on Rachel Maddow” as much as possible.

toothpastefordinner.com

That’s right everyone, it’s Fringe time. (As if most of our readership didn’t know that.) Those of us not at Yearly Kos or battling alligators are quite consumed in the festivities. Matthew is directing a show. Phillip is perhaps biting off more than he can chew, producing and performing a show as well as blogging about everyone else’s. If posting is light over the next week or so blame the art.

I have been let out of The Big Blue Theater just long enough to see one show. The Nonsense Company produced last year’s sleeper hit “The Great Hymn of Thanksgiving. Their offering this year was originally scheduled to be “American Folksongs: The Ballad Of Ferris Riley.” Sadly, due to “an eleventh-hour technical crisis” they performed in its stead “The Prince Myshkins” It’s a collection of political satire songs, which you can imagine would be right up my alley. Each song was more witty, incisive, and lyrically orgiastic than the last. From cataloging the attire of the attendants of the Constitutional Convention, to imagining 100 nuns storming Fort Benning and the SOA, to clucking along with prominent Chickenhawks, the songs and commentary were creative and unique enough to avoid wandering into the realm of polemics and preaching, which is where political art goes to die. Additionally, the performers Rick Burkhardt and Andy Gricevich are talented enough that they likely could make an hour of “row row row your boat” interesting. Anyway, I’m talking about it more than I meant to. It’s good. Go see it. Here’s the schedule of remaining performances

And, if you haven’t clicked that link from Matthew, do it now. Trust me, you’ll like that, too.

From the Strib…

Federal authorities are investigating a 19-year-old Eagan woman suspected of operating a prostitution ring of high school students through the Burnsville motel where she worked.

She advertised mostly through Craigslist.org.

Teen hookers in Eagan and all I had to do was go to Craigslist once since November and I would’ve known about it. I mean…fuckin’ Eagan! Boring ass whitebread all the excitement of acoustic tile motherfuckin’ Eagan! DAMN! IT!

I have got to stop underestimating Minnesota.

1.) One book that changed your life.
Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I’ve pretty much outgrown this one — I don’t really agree with, well, most of the conclusions that he comes to, and the protagonist is something of a slack-jawed straw man — but I read this at just the right age for it to blow my mind, and I still adhere to the main revelation that I took from it: that human societies function best when organized at a smaller level.

2.) One book you’ve read more than once.
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Picked by virtue of the fact that I think I’ve read it more than any other book (with the possible exception of Le Morte D’Arthur) — I read it when I was six years old, it’s the first book I remember reading on my own, and I’ve come back to it at least once a year since. Its depiction of the corrupting influence of power, of evil as both an internal and external force, and its faith in the potency of ordinary people to resist it, have all had a powerful influence on my own thinking.

3.) One book you’d want on a desert island.
Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach. This sprawling, sixteen-book German epic about a bumbling simpleton being initiated into the mysteries of man and God is nothing less than the single greatest achievement of Western literature, and nobody’s even heard of it.

4.) One book that made you laugh.
Y’know, I don’t laugh that often when I’m reading — I might be amused, or think “Huh. That’s clever,” but actual, out-loud laughter? I’d have to go with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Every line in the damn thing is perfectly constructed, and it’s also the most bleak and bitter satire of the way bureaucracy destroys lives on a (literally!) cosmic scale that I’ve ever encountered

5.) One book that made you cry.
The Power That Preserves, by Stephen Donaldson. Another fantasy novel (can you tell I’m kind of a geek?) in which the epic final battle takes the form of an epic conversation, an almost Buddhist argument over the nature of reality and the function of morality within it. The conclusion that the protagonist comes to — that concepts such as hope and despair are irrelevant in a moral struggle, that evil must be resisted for its own sake, without anticipation of success — is a deeply moving one to me, not least because of what it costs him to achieve it, and probably explains why I’ve ended up allying myself with third parties.

6.) One book you wish had been written.
Chretien de Troyes’ continuation of Perceval, le Conte du Graal, not least because it would spare us all any number of nonsensical conspiracy theories about the Roman Catholic Church. For Chrissakes, they’ve done enough monstrous bullshit in their history without us having to invent more.

7.) One book you wish had never been written.
I guess I could come up with some kind of snarky response, like The Communist Manifesto or Atlas Shrugged, but the fact is that I really don’t jive with the whole “suppression of information” thing. Bring on all the ideas, good, bad, and ugly. And thus I, Clinton-like, will neatly tap-dance my way past this whole debate.

8.) One book you’re currently reading.
Time Enough for Love, by Robert Heinlein. It’s a bit of a slog, but much more enjoyable if you approach it as a loosely connected collection of short stories, rather than a coherent novel.

9.) One book you’ve been meaning to read.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I still haven’t made it through The 9-11 Commission Report, but I think I’m going to have to steal Rik’s response and say The Qu’ran. Islam is a rising geopolitical power, and I honestly have no genuine understanding of where they’re coming from.

10.) Tag six people.
Since four of them are the LME crew, I guess I’ll tag two: Ben and Dan.

Howdy, folks. My name’s phillip low, and Matt Foster was kind enough to invite me on board as a guest blogger. The bulk of my political writing can be found over at Libertarian Rage, a site loosely spun off of a play by the same title. In the meantime, prepare to be edified by all kinds of dazzlingly topical observations.

My presence here is worth raising an eyebrow over, since I don’t self-identify as a liberal, except in the classical sense. As the title of my other site implies, I am in fact a registered Libertarian — a cranky, tax-hating, anti-state porcupine. Y’know those crazy bearded guys, who live in cabins out in Montana, with the wife-beaters and shotguns, screaming “Get off my Goddamn property!”? Yeah, that’s the party I signed up with.

So what the hell am I doing here? That probably has something to do with the fact that I find myself being allied more and more with the left, and that almost certainly has a lot to do with this current administration, particularly ever since the so-called party of small government became the party of absolutely raving foaming batshit insane. Democrats and Libertarians may not see eye-to-eye on the solutions, but the same problems are looming up in front of all of us. So…maybe we have something of merit to offer each other in this unpleasant hour, hmm?

1.) One book that changed your life.
Danton’s Death by Georg Büchner. A play about the French Revolution and how it ate its children. Robespierre is the ideologue, Danton his proto-liberal (and very decadent) counterpart. Lesson learned: don’t drum for the revolution if you can’t stomach some bloodshed, ideological inconsistencies and really all you want is to talk politics while getting hammered. Not sure if that was the lesson of the book, but it’s what I took from it. I don’t cheer for people like Fidel Castro.

2.) One book you’ve read more than once.
Johanna. A book about a teenage farm servant in Austria in the 1920ies. It’s a great mélange of a personal liberation story and the looming catastrophe of World War II. Just what you want when you are 15 years old an a history buff.
Also: On the Beach by Nevil Shute. Feeding my nuclear angst, because that is what us cold war babies used to do.

3.) One book you’d want on a desert island.
I am as practical as Matthew and want to bring a survival guide, please.

4.) One book that made you laugh.
That’s a hard one…many. But I got my first laughs from the Ephraim Kishon books on my mom’s bookshelf when I was a kid.

5.) One book that made you cry.
The Auschwitz Trial Protocols.

6.) One book you wish had been written.
“Kitchen safety for complete and utter Dummies.” I am very sorry for not posting in the last two weeks or so. Ahem.

7.) One book you wish had never been written.
Oh bah. Books don’t kill people. If we are talking stupid books: I put them away if I don’t like them, so I can’t tell.

8.) One book you’re currently reading.
Jung Chang/Jon Halliday: Mao. The unknown story. What a bastard.

9.) One book you’ve been meaning to read.
Bad, bad, bad Deutschie. Still hasn’t read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

10.) Tag six people.
I tag Katherine Kersten. This was a group effort, and I hope she counts for two.

I hate being it.

1.) One book that changed your life. My Side of The Mountain by Jean George. I read it when I was about 10. Wanted to go live in the woods ever since. That book is the sole reason I ever ended up in Alaska.

2.) One book you’ve read more than once. Given my deep love for being stumbling drunk in Europe, I’ve read The Sun Also Rises a couple of times.

3.) One book you’d want on a desert island. I think Hemingway’s Complete Short Stories would be great, except I’ve mostly memorized it by now. Barring that, 101 Uses for Coconuts would come in handy.

4.) One book that made you laugh. Tomcat In Love by Tim O’Brien. It’s one of the few books I’ve read more than once, and each time in less than 24 hours. And also funny.

5.) One book that made you cry. Yeah, what Rik said.

6.) One book you wish had been written. 101 Uses for Coconuts. Just in case. (See Above)

7.) One book you wish had never been written. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Actually I don’t mind that he wrote it. I just mind that he did’t bother to edit it to a reasonable 300 pages.

8.) One book you’re currently reading. So sometime in January, while about halfway through, I left Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet in the car. Since I generally don’t read and drive, I’m still in the middle.

9.) One book you’ve been meaning to read. 100 Years of Solitude. Everyone whose opinion I trust says it’s good.

10.) Tag six people. Since this has been a tag team tagging, I nominate Caitlin and Allegra.

Okay. We got tagged. And Matthew answered and re-tagged us. That’s like being double-dog-dared. Kinda have to respond.

1.) One book that changed your life. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. The short synopsis…we’re runnin’ out of water, particularly in the West, and it’s our fault.

2.) One book you’ve read more than once. Hmm…there’s more than one even though I rarely reread a book. So, I’ll go with a couple of different ones. The Fool’s Progress by Edward Abbey. Catcher in the Rye. Y’all know who wrote that one.

3.) One book you’d want on a desert island. The Swiss Army Knife User’s Manual. If such a thing exists. And, I guess, it’d be particularly useful if I had a Swiss Army Knife. Other than that Joyce’s Ulysses. Or Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. ‘Cause I’d finally have enough time on my hands to stick with ‘em and finish the damn things. And possibly even understand them. If that didn’t work (and it probably wouldn’t) I’d have a convenient excuse for why I’d gone batshit crazy on a desert isle.

4.) One book that made you laugh. Hell…everything by Tom Robbins has made me laugh. As has everything by Rush Limbaugh (really…I’ve read ‘em all). I mean, talk about good theatre of the absurd.

5.) One book that made you cry. Hmm…can’t think of any.

6.) One book you wish had been written. Reckon if I could think of that I’d write the fucker.

7.) One book you wish had never been written. There’s a bunch I wish had never been read but I can’t think of any that I’d say shouldn’t have been written. Even all the drivel the Bimbo has churned out is alright by me.

8.) One book you’re currently reading. Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin In American History by James Marone. It’s actually my 3rd try to get through it. Fascinating topic but a delivery that’s just not grabbing me.

9.) One book you’ve been meaning to read. The Koran. Read parts. Read a bunch about it. But I think I gotta go to the source, you know?

10.) Tag six people. Um…no. But I will tag dav since he asked for it. And he, too, is a consultant so we’re like brothers, y’all. And Shimmy. That’s one smart cat.

We got tagged by Power Liberal. And while I normally don’t do this sort of thing, I’m bored. Besides, it’s kind of cool to get tagged.

I also encourage my other LMEers to answer the questions. Because I know they’re bored, too.

1. One book that changed your life. I almost hate admitting this. Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. I was 16. It was the 4th of July. I bought it at Al’s Oasis in Chamberlain, S.D., on the way to my sister’s house/fireworks stand. My Mom thought it was religious. It was, in its way…

2. One book you’ve read more than once. Even discounting reading the same book in more than one language, The Stranger by Albert Camus—I think I’ve read that one at least 12 times in English and/or French. The ultimate in pretentious arts and letters. However, apart from that, I collect copies of Le Petit Prince in the languages of the countries I go to. That remains the only book I’ve ever finished (or could have ever finished) in Icelandic.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island. Some sort of survival guide, I’d imagine. I’m practical that way. Barring that, probably The Andromeda Strain just so I could convince myself I was the last person still alive.

4. One book that made you laugh. Hands freakin’ down, Cintra Wilson’s A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Reexamined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations. The one-time Salon.com columnist knows her funny and you’ll feel much better for not trying to be famous after reading it.

5. One book that made you cry. I was inconsolable after reading When the Wind Blows, a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs. It’s about an English couple’s experiences in a post-nuclear-attack world… I had a lot of nuclear anxiety when I was in elementary school. Like, a lot. Like, I had an ulcer when I was five.

6. One book you wish had been written. Noam Chomsky’s treatise on why he became a neoconservative. Let him tank on someone else’s dime. In nonfiction, I’d prefer to read Why I Love Matthew Foster More Than I Love Baby Jesus by Paul Rudd.

7. One book you wish had never been written. The list is so long, what to pick? The Turner Diaries seems like as good a place as any to start. Or possibly Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service. Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity.

8. One book you’re currently reading. More One Minute Stories by István Örkény. It’s a collection of extremely short stories that read more like poetry than prose. It also helps fuel my obsession with the Czech, Polish and Hungarian histories under Communism. Fucking Russian bastards.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read. Honestly? Harry Potter en de Geheime Kamer. The Dutch translation. Must… slog… through… and… learn… Nederlands. I buy children’s books in other languages in hopes that I’ll keep my vocabulary and grammar up. It never works.

10. Tag six people. Apart from my fellow LMEers, I will tag 2 people (we were tagged as a unit, so we’ll share tagging duties): Leah and Zoe. I’ll move this into Minnesota’s artsy blogosphere as opposed to Minnesota’s politico blogosphere.

Just a note to whatever readership we might have: Rik’s out of town, Natascha’s out of town and Bill and I are slammed with work. So posting for the next few days might be light. This might be a good thing. It might be a bad thing. I leave it to you to decide.

Well, here we are! At the new server! I love the new server smell, don’t you? So festive.

Anyway, don’t mind our mess as we settle in. The biggest problem so far seems to be that none of the comments transfered over and all of the old blog posts are attributed to Matthew… We’ll get that stuff fixed.

Okay, it’s been a long night at the computer. Going to bed now. See you in the morning.

Another bunch of people watching CCN, drinking heavily. But hey, it’s us. Pictures after the jump. Sorry they are late, I was traveling. It’s 5.30am in Germany right now. I heart jet lag.

[I'm afraid the photo's didn't survive the move to our new servers. -Ed.]

Alrighty. We’re headed into the final push, boys and girls. And you know what that means: Vote. Really. I know everyone always tells you to vote, and this may be preaching to the choir. But you really, really have to. And you have to call everyone you’ve ever known and remind them to, too. Also, if you have time, you might want to call the candidate or party of your choice and volunteer tomorrow. Just sayin’. It never hurts to remind.

Anyhowzle, there’s quite a few new polls out today that show a downturn in momentum for the Democrats on generic ballot match-ups. The people over at Pollster have a very nice post about why we shouldn’t get too freaked out over this. It’s not the best omen we could hope for, but it’s no cause to act like the Democrats have already lost this election. DO NOT—REPEAT: DO NOT MAKE THIS A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY, YOU DUMB-ASS MOTHERFUCKERS. That means you, New Republic. If the Florida recount of 2000 taught us anything, it’s that if you act like a winner, you are the winner. Seriously. How else to explain this administration? Imperial trappings beget imperialism. All is vanity. You know the drill.

Natascha and I are going to be posting our final predictions tonight. We don’t claim anything but our gut instincts on what’s going to happen. And maybe we’ll ask tarot cards or runes or something. Very Network.

It’s the US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud. Enjoy! Be patient, it takes a little longer to load. They ended up on Reddit.

(Thanks to my geek boyfriend for this one:-)

…without buying a new blue hoodie and new blue jeans. Union made. American made. From a place that isn’t a big box. Little boxes. Not made of ticky-tacky.

I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries lately about the horrors of free trade, etc., and I feel guilty for buying clothes made overseas. Cheap? Yes. But at what cost?!?!?!?!?!?!? Pretty high, as it turns out.

Louise is back! My cat of, gosh, five years or so is back at my apartment after spending the last three years at an extended slumber party at Leah Cooper’s place. And then Leah married Alan Berks. And then they got a dog.

None of that fazed Louise, but then Leah and Alan decided to quit their jobs and go to South America for as long as the money lasts. Which they’re doing in a few weeks. So I got Louise back.

As you can see, she’s thrilled to be here in my loving arms. At least there’s no dog, she seems to be saying to herself. I can’t go outside any more. There’s only one human to pet me and feed me. My fur smells like smoke. But at least that fucking mutt isn’t trying to put my head in his mouth. All that from a brain the size of a walnut.

For those of you who haven’t met Louise, she has the personality of a reincarnated Denny’s waitress. Very old school. Think Flo from Mel’s Diner from “Alice.” Like that. Kitten! Fluffnugget!

In other news, this blog will be expanding pretty rapidly this next week. Soon, other authors will be joining me here. I’ll be getting rid of all the personal posts (including the ones about cats) and moving them over to a different site. And Liberal Media Elite will be dedicated to politics only. Because there just aren’t enough goddamn political blogs.

Our niche? We say fuck a lot. And none of us have any real credentials.

Which means we don’t have a blogosphere niche at all.

Woo!