Author: rakemag

Cheney and Rummy: 31 years of listening only to each other

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not winning in Iraq. It’s not the military’s fault, unless you fault them for not rising up, deposing Bush and Rumsfeld, and restoring the democracy that was taken from us in 2000. At any rate, the military has finally had enough, and is at least speaking out about what a boob Rumsfeld is.

An old friend, who was an actual combat soldier for years, said to me two years ago that Bush and Rumsfeld were idiots. “Anyone who’s ever been in combat would never say ‘Bring it on,’” he told me. “Anyone who’s ever been in combat wants the enemy to take it somewhere else.”

One day, Bush will wake up and realize he’s been duped by Rummy, Cheney, and the rest. Or maybe not. In the meantime, our soldiers continue to pay the price. Bush buries his mistakes. America buries its sons and daughters.

Now, I could humor you all with fake Secrets… Or I could just come clean and tell you what I’m really up to weekend. Meet me there, if you’d like.

I’m going to that cool-sounding Days and Nights show at the Grain Belt Office Building tonight.

I’m going running tomorrow morning–probably something like nine miles since I am now officially in-training for the Chicago Marathon. (Oi! Why am I doing this–this being ruining–to my summer?!) Then I’ll likely swing by the big textile garage sale at the Minnesota Textile Center, since I have resolved to start sewing again. I’ve also had this hankering to buy notions, although I’ll have to practice restraint in this area. I’ve decided to start honing in on the minimalist look.

Saturday night: I’m going to see The Internationalist: A Foreign Play at the Red Eye, and I’ll be filling in for Mr. Papatola once again. So that makes two dark “experimental” works in just one weekend, which is fine by me since I have been yawn-yawn-yawning over all the explaining that’s been happening on the local stage. Oh, and if you must know exactly the definition of “experimental theater,” go ahead and bother yourself with this ridiculous thing.

I hope to skip the family Easter function come Sunday. My brother and sister happen to be feuding, and as the neutral party in it all, I’m tempted to feign benevolence in skipping the torturous affair all together. (I’ll call it a “boycott.”) What I really want to be doing is drinking Bloody Marys on the back porch at my best friend Andrea’s place, and then moving into her kitchen, where we’ll content ourselves by microwaving Marshmallow Peeps–probably a much better way to commemorate the Second Coming, if you ask me. But there’s a good chance that my mother, preying upon my Catholic guilt, will make me go to my sister’s anyway. And there will be no Bloody Marys in sight. Just a whole lotta Lambrusco and boxed Zinfandel. Happy Easter anyway.

If you were to google-stalk me, which I’m sure you weren’t, but just indulge me here for a moment, and pretend, if you will, that the small matter of my incessant self-googling doesn’t exist. Now. Depending upon which search engine you were to use (note here how “google,” as a verb, is in danger of becoming a generic; you know, like “rollerblading”), you might stumble upon a certain Amazon.com customer review I wrote, in about 1998, for Julia Alvarez’s In The Time of the Butterflies. These things are embarrassing, and in this case the review comes replete with misspellings–my, that’s charming! But the more important thing is that I described Butterflies as a “very important book.” And that’s charm squared, if you ask me. I was a late-bloomer.

This is a book I have since bought for blood-relatives and old chums in need of gassing up on some “girl power.” But sadly, I’m pretty sure none of them ever picked up the thing. I’m sure glad I did though, because I remember admiring the Mirabelle sisters and their varying paths to political resistance and feminism. This latter virtue was more important to me then, as I had not yet experienced life under a repressive regime. (Remember: Bill Clinton was president, and as a later-bloomer, I can hardly be expected to remember the administrations of Reagan and Bush Sr. Sheesh!)

This, too, was my final tangle with that whole “multiple perspective” trick–you know, the same thing Barbara Kingslover used in The Poisonwood Bible and countless other authors have used for their popular books–although other examples don’t immediately pop to mind. It’s a crafty trick. Sure I’ll use it myself when I write my great novel one day. (Another note: late-bloomer + ADHD. Sucks for me, yo.) Nevertheless, the whole “multiple voice” schtick strikes me now as being rather non-committal, sorta like a theatrical revue or a faux-hawk. But I’m not above non-committal.

I haven’t read Alvarez’s other books, including this newest one, Saving The World–which has great feminist potential. But because I have such fond memories of Butterflies, I hereby crown Alvarez’s Talking Volumes debut as Secret of the Day. There.

The only thing I can possibly imagine doing tonight is going to the Soul Asylum concert at the Fine Line–but of course, I will not be going. I’ve already noted how little I like standing in place for hours on end. And I do tend to dance at these things. I just haven’t been moved to do so by any one alternative rock band as of late, that’s all.

Where be my Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain CD when I need it?! Range Life was a pretty groovin’ tune, if I do say so myself. Anyone care to pipe in with their favorite danceable indie song? Is there a specific Soul Asylum tune? The closest thing to dancing that Soul Asylum has ever inspired, at least in and about my apartment, was some flitting about to the tune of Someone to Shove. But that wasn’t so much dancing as it was human metronome activity, if you ask me. In any case, I’m so glad my snobbish ex-boyfriend left behind his Grave Dancer’s Union disc, accusing it of being some such Soul Asylum sell-out. He had no more use for it, he said–basically the same thing he was then saying about me. He was a real jerk, that guy! (An aspiring, but failed, musician if you’ll believe it!) And if you must know, no, he did not dance. Just banged his head a lot.

Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t dance. That’s my mantra now that I’m older, wiser, and subsisting as I do on a diet of public radio and Louis Armstrong re-releases.

Another reason why I won’t be attending tonight’s rock show is that my cultish running club will be engaged in its regularly-scheduled Wednesday night activity: working the legs and then flexing the biceps, so to speak. But given the strong current of grups, ripsters, and all other manner of fat-phobic Gen Xers, I’m sure I could talk ’em into having a little Soul Asylum with their Amstel Lights.

This is similar to the one Mark Antony used

Just when you think George Bush can’t get any stupider, this comes along. Oops, it seems George himself authorized the leak of classified information.

A Strib letter writer suggested this morning (several items down) “It doesn’t matter with the Republican Party whether you are a congressman, a senator or the president — if you cross the line, you fall on your sword.”

Is releasing classified data for political purposes crossing the line, Mr. Letter Writer? Or do you want to redefine the virture of the Republicans some other way today?

We’re voting for Michele

A Minnesota Senate committee yesterday voted to put a stop to Michele Bachmann’s attempt to put a gay marriage ban amendment on the ballot this fall.

Before we get all weepy about it, let’s remember what this actually means. A key Republican strategy is to fire up their base of right wing zealots to vote in elections they don’t otherwise have much stake in. (After all, if you believe in Adam and Eve, you probably don’t have much of a head for nuanced politics.) So the GOP tries to get the Fire and Brimstone Set to vote by making it all a referendum on whether we ought to rename Minnesota Sodom and Gomorrah.

And, who do those primates vote for? People like Michele Bachmann.

For Michele Bachmann, for God’s sake–instead of for someone like Patty Wetterling, who has actually done more to keep families safe than Michele could possibly imagine?

Show me the way