The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • The Muslim Solution?

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    Tom Friedman, much revered St. Louis Park multiple Pulitzer winner has a pretty provocative column today in the NY Times entitled “If It’s a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution.”

    He states, “The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day – to this day – no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.”

    So, I wonder, does this suggest that Muslim hierarchy is supportive of terrorism? One could easily infer that it does. And, then, could one also infer that any Muslim devotees of this hierarchy are our enemies?

    Think about it. And think, too, of all the horror that religious fundamentalism of all sorts has wrought upon this world since history began. It should not be lost on us Christians that the communique from the presumed London bombers called the British government “crusaders.” Long memory they have. Longer than Bush, certainly. And certainly more cognizant of the meaning of the word. Crusade, literally, means to “mark with a cross.”

  • We love London and Madrid, but not enough to actually do anything about it

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    The War on Terror came home to roost again this morning, and reminded us that there is a price to be paid–and that the ones paying it are innocent civilians and volunteer soldiers from the countries Bush dragged with us into Iraq.

    But, it would be stupid to say this is Bush’s and Blair’s fault. It isn’t and anyone who says it is is full of shit. That said, though, it might be time to ask when we’re going to stop messing around in Iraq and concentrate on getting these bastards where they live–wherever that may be.

    That means stopping financing our own opposition by driving SUVs all over hell. It means we ought to raise the gas tax significantly and use it to discourage the consumption that funds our enemies, and to fund the war machine to kill them. It means concentrating on killing the SOBs in Afghanistan, where they started, and leave Iraq to sort itself out. It means, let’s stop worrying about gay marriage. And it means no more income tax cuts during war time.

    Aside from the few thousand killed on 9/11, the innocent commuters last year in Madrid and today in London, and our volunteer soldiers and their families, we haven’t paid a damn penny for this war. Hell, a lot of us even got tax refunds while we’re charging the price we will pay–mere money–to our children. Maybe they’ll realize what Mommy and Daddy were really like when we’re dead and gone and China presents them the bill for the oil they’re buying out from under us.

    We’re a rotten, selfish country to let others pay our bills. While we sigh, “Isn’t that terrible,” when London and Madrid are bombed, we can’t fill our recruiting quotas because we’re bogged down in the wrong war. The British and Spanish, to their cost, stood by us after 9/11. We should at least do the same for them by keeping our eye on the ball.

    When the Roman historian Livy wrote the preface to his history of Rome, he knew the beginning of the end of Rome when he saw it. Greed was everywhere, and the sense of duty and discipline which had made Rome great was failing. Here’s how he put it: “…we slide more and more, until we begin to fall over the cliff to that time when we finally see we can no longer bear the vices which afflict us nor their remedy.”

    Unless we’re really willing to take some of that remedy, and soon, Livy’s cliff is just going to keep getting bigger in the windshield of our SUVs.

    And my friends in my former home cities of Madrid and London will continue to pay for the gas that’s getting us there.

  • Weasels Ripped Our Flesh

    Sometimes things get so crazy around here on a day-to-day basis–y’ know, circulation scandals, declining stock prices, lapdog journalists going to jail for their petty, power-crazed sources–that we forget we’ve seen it all before. (Just for the record: Even lapdog journalists protecting God-complex sources shouldn’t have to forfeit their shoe laces–especially for articles they never actually wrote. Some things really are sacred; pride goeth before the fall, but hopefully it doesn’t take the Constitution with it.)

    A timely heads-up: This Tuesday, Dan Cohen will be reading at our happy hour book club, Raking Through Books. We hear that Dan’s phone has been ringing off the hook for the past week or so. This would be why: Cohen’s new book, Anonymous Source, details his little scrap with the Newspaper of the Twin Cities. Cohen was one of those nasty anonymous sources who used his position and his anonymity to besmirch the good name of a political rival in the finger-soiling pages of the Star Tribune; then the Strib turned on him, pretending it had never promised to cover his butt.

    It’s a strangely reminiscent episode in which no one looks very good, and the noble light of the First Amendment hardly redeems the press, its sources, or its targets. You can read a sort of round-up here, but you probably don’t want to miss the opportunity to jump right into the crucible. There are some interesting points to be made from the other side of the table–the anonymous source’s side, and it is interesting to consider that the only thing that has kept the real culprits out of the stockade so far in the Plame affair is the non-legally-binding pledge of confidentiality and its officious, if selective waiver.

    Nothing could ever make that slack-shouldered blowfish Bob Novak look good, but it’s just possible that he’ll emerge from all of this looking, well, less bad than almost everybody else. And that would be the biggest miscarriage of justice of all.

  • See That? That There's My Back: Rock's Greatest Kiss-Offs, Part One

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    I’m opening the phone lines for suggestions, but I’ll start off with a sample from one of rock’s most literate songwriters, and a perennial candidate for any list of great underrated musicians. This one always comes in handy for any unhappy relationship or untenable work situation:

    I’m giving you my notice,

    and it works this way:

    In two weeks time, you will

    notice I’ve been gone

    for fourteen days.

    —Nick Lowe, “Fourteen Days,” from The Impossible Bird

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  • Uncle Jumbo's Playground

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    –Illustration by James Dankert

    I’ve decided I’m not going to have squat to say about the Twins until they a) start scoring some stinking runs on a consistent basis; b) get some wins from somebody besides Joe Mays and Kyle Lohse; and c) get close enough to the White Sox that Shannon Stewart could hit them in the numbers with a throw from left field.

    Okay, I’d take either a) or b) right now, and I’m sure, actually, that I’ll have something to say about the Twins before any or all of those things happen. Right now, though, I don’t actually have anything to say and I’m getting tired of being ragged for not saying anything, so I’ll say something nonetheless.

    This is the time of the year when I almost always need a little rehab stint to heal my aching hammies, my sore feet, my bad back, and my general lousy attitude. Between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July is the toughest stretch in the season for me. There’s so much other stuff going on, at least compared to the rest of the year when there’s absolutely nothing else going on. (And I’m talking about my life here, of course, so when I say “so much other stuff going on” I mean, umm…oh, the occasional high school graduation, wedding, or funeral, and…lots of potato salad. My potato salad consumption during that stretch of the summer would kill a normal man.)

    Anyway, since I don’t really have anything to say about the Twins, and since I’m supposed to say something anyway because Zellar is off having a goiter removed or his tubes tied or something, I’ll tell you about my holiday weekend, in detail:

    I blew up a Ron Karkovice bobblehead doll.

    I ate a boatload of potato salad.

    I sweated so much that my nephews could see my man breasts through my threadbare tee-shirt, which delighted them no end. My sister-in-law begged me to put on a darker shirt, and I refused.

    I don’t have any kids of my own, thank God, but there’s little –perhaps nothing– I enjoy more than serving as a bad example to my nephews. I’m absolutely certain my brother and his wife would tell you that so far I’ve done a bang-job at this ongoing project.

    “Don’t go putting big ideas in their heads,” my brother will say to me all the time.

    Now it all depends, of course, on what you mean by the phrase “big ideas,” but I don’t suppose my brother has much to worry about on that count. Bad ideas, however, well, that’s another story.

    I consider putting bad ideas in my nephews’ heads to be my one true purpose in life.

    Also, I should say, this weekend I noticed this: Matthew LeCroy was leading the Twins in OPS (on base plus slugging) at .861. Go figure.

    Let’s all give it up for the fat guys of the world.

  • The Importance of Being Well Rested

    We take our holidays pretty seriously these days, and that means we don’t look at the newspaper if we can help it. But we’re grateful for certain industrious parties who obsess on the dirty work. So we heard from Rex that Garrison Keillor’s first newspaper column appeared this weekend, and we shuffled across the digital alley to read it.

    We got a bit further than Rex did, but it wasn’t particularly edifying. We’ve been saying for years that, no matter what you think of Keillor, you have to be awestruck by how prolific the man has been in the last ten years. Salon, Time, the Nation–is there a magazine he hasn’t written for on a semi-weekly basis, in addition to writing the entire PHC show, along with a couple of novels, the Writers Almanac, and a barnstorming audio CD? But his hectic schedule may be telling on him, judging by the new column; it’s pretty thin grits. (Said with the longstanding disclosure and caveat: We briefly worked for Keillor, and the experience ended badly. We still think he’s the nation’s greatest living humorist–and in no way diminished by the critical shortage of humorists today. But we also think we’ve noticed a few cracks appearing in his most beloved, flawless brand.)

    Anyway, the column. Two things are obvious: Garrison Keillor is tired. And Garrison Keillor is grumpy about editors. In the first place, anyone who has ever attempted humor knows how hard it is. You have to do giggly little jumping jacks every day to keep your funny-bone limber. Writing one funny joke–much less a truly humorous sketch or a monologue–can be a full day’s work, and none of it all that interesting or mirthful. When Garrison Keillor writes 800 words without managing to make us laugh once, then we figure he’s too tired to get that chin up to the bar this time.

    In the second place, Keillor clearly has a “no edit” clause. We count at least three serious prepositional danglers–often an artifact of someone who “writes to the ear” (that is, writes for out-loud recital). Keillor, of course, writes for print all the time, but we suppose it’s possible that his editors have always done him the service of making all those subtle little line edits that make a story behave on the page.

    We did like this little bit, though:

    “On the Fourth, honoring one tidal change that did happen, the adoption of Mr. Jefferson’s little peroration against the King, you sit in the shade and think of America at its best, a generous and redemptive land, an amiable people. A nation of optimistic sentimental humorists. Europeans can be shocked at how instantly friendly we can be with people we don’t know. We meet strangers over a cup of coffee and suddenly we’re telling about the crazy uncle who ran off with the church secretary. We rally to help people we never met. Amiability is the basis of civil politics: You don’t cheat people you like, you don’t abuse people who might become your friends.”

    We like that not so much because of its empty self-flattery, but because it reminds us of a wonderful article in the current issue of Harvard magazine. It’s about the profound importance of sleep (much of it cribbed from the prescient work of Austrian philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, by the way), and in the context, writer Craig Lambert mentions that coffee has now become the world’s second biggest cash commodity–second only to oil. In an aside, Lambert also mentions that one small Starbuck’s coffee has 1,000 miligrams of caffeine (the normal cup of Folger’s is around 100 mg). Zoiks!

    So, Mr. Keillor, our unsolicited advice to you is this: Drink a little less coffee, stay away from Starbucks at the airport, don;t skimp on the jumping jacks, try to get a little sleep, and please accept the assistance of your modest copyeditor, who after all is only trying to make you look better.

  • Breeding lapdogs

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    I’ve got a strategist named Rove and a press corps I call Rover

    Judith Miller of the NY Times reports today to a judge for sentencing for her refusal to reveal her source in the Plame matter. There are some who think she should be going to jail for her complete bullshit reporting on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. (I love Jack Shafer.)

    But, I still can’t get behind the government essentially using reporters to do their investigative work for them. After all, prosecutors have the subpoena and the threat of jail they can use on suspects. And, as we saw in the Martha Stewart case, they can even put people in prison who didn’t actually commit a crime, but only lied to investigators.

    So, why jail reporters? A lot of us think it’s because it’s a hell of a lot easier than jailing the guys at the White House who actually did the leaking…and don’t think the prosecutor doesn’t know who it was. He has information from the slimy Robert Novak–otherwise he’d be in jail, too, right?–and he now has Matt Cooper’s notes from the spineless Norman Pearlstine at Time. (BTW, “Pearlstine” will henceforth be the default answer to the question, “Why should we not entrust the First Amendment to publicly held corporations?”)

    But, the real answer is that reporters, when they’re doing it right–and Miller (in this case) and Cooper were doing it right–are a danger to government run amok. Let’s look at some of the stories in my lifetime that relied on reporters being able to protect their sources: Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, My Lai, the Downing Street Memo–and those are just some of the big ones.

    Yup, a government who can’t control the press, either through subterfuge, payments, or intimidation can’t survive for long.

    Woof.

  • My Heart's Antietam, Or: I Believe That Bloody Pomegranate You're Holding In Your Fist, Madam, Belongs To Me

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    —Daniel Corrigan, Eddie Potomac. Publicity photos for Warriors: The Musical. 1984.

    I don’t know if there’s a way to measure how high you are, but I was super high. I was baked to the point where my brain was running two or three steps behind my tongue. Or maybe it was the other way around. No question about it, though, I was fucking flying, like…like an eagle, I guess.

    There was no way I could play Frisbee, and Hacky Sack was likewise out of the question. I was way too high. I could still listen to Bob Marley, though. I could still hear Bob Marley, and it was exactly like I knew what he was singing about, even though I really didn’t. I mean, on some level I like to think I did. Peace and all that, which I agree with.

    There was this humongous bonfire –a bunch of guys had thrown some car seats and gasoline on there– and I liked looking at that and thinking about the world, about how fucked up the world was. Or at least rushing out. I was kind of bummed to discover that I’d gotten mud all over my new suede Pumas.

    I wished I could get in the backseat of a car with one of the girls –they were all drunk enough that it was maybe even possible– but I was way too baked and hypnotized by the bonfire. I tried to sing along with Bob Marley, but I really didn’t remember the words. I don’t think, actually, that I ever did know the words. It wasn’t even my tape. I knew how the songs went, though, most of them, anyway, but I guess that’s not the same as knowing the words.

    At some point I must have gone in the river, because when I woke up in the tent all my clothes were super wet.

    Oh, yeah, we also blew up a bunch of shit.

    The whole weekend totally kicked ass.

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  • Here's one for those who think I'm liberal

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    I want your property

    I happened to spend part of my Fourth of July with the former mayor of one of our most affluent suburbs…as if I needed reminding of why I don’t live out there. First I heard of all his suburb’s problems–high taxes, hard to park on main street, white kids into beer (or was it martinis?) and driving too fast, and the local scandal at the country club over who was banging who else’s wife. So far no murders, though.

    From this perspective, he began to tell me what was wrong with liberals like me. The answer, basically, is we like oral sex and don’t care who knows it. Yup, Clinton and the gays. That’s why the religious right has taken over. “It’s your fault I have to explain what a blow job is to my 10-year-old daughter.”

    That logic kind of got past me. I asked, “Could you please explain that to me?”

    “It was all over the TV for a damn year. How you gonna keep them away from that?” he sputtered.

    “Turn off the TV news,” I suggested. “It works for me.”

    He didn’t like that idea, so I followed up with, “Don’t give a special prosecutor an unlimited budget and an unlimited portfolio to attack a sitting president and his wife unless you have a reasonable cause to believe he’s done something wrong. You started in on Whitewater, found absolutely nothing except that the Clintons lost money on the deal, then ended up impeaching him because he lied about having sex with an intern. How would you answer if I asked you in front of your wife if your intern had been under your desk?”

    Of course, there’s not much sense in arguing with someone who doesn’t see any connection about lying about sex and lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Because one stained blue dress is certainly more of an indictment of our disrespect for truth, justice and the American Way than having started a war that’s killed 1700 American soldiers, maimed thousands of others, and killed untold thousands of Iraquis. Even when I tied it up neatly with the question “Why do we impeach Clinton for screwing an intern and let Bush get away with screwing the whole country?”

    Of course, we know the answer to that one: the government is completely for sale. Every level of it. The only difference between the federal, state, city or dogcatcher levels is how much it costs.

    And, don’t kid yourself, both sides are for sale. If you didn’t believe that before, be sure to think again about last week’s Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London. The court’s liberal wing got together to sanctify the right of governmental bodies the right to take private property in order to give it to other private concerns so they can build something that will qualify for big tax breaks. (If you don’t think that can happen here, remember the Walser car stores that used to be where the Best Buy headquarters is now.)

    I never thought I’d find myself on the same side of an important issue as Antonin Scalia, and I really hadn’t given much thought to how much we’re going to miss Sandra O’Connor until I read her dissent. But damn if I didn’t think what a bunch of idiots Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer, Stevens and Kennedy are, to give more power to local governments, who are well known to sell out cheap, to take your property and sell it to big campaign donors.

    Yup, that’s in the best tradition of exactly what Bush has been doing since he was elected President by the Supreme Court in 2000. Take from the poor and give to the rich. Dems can do it too, and they will get to like it more and more…especially when they can use the power of eminent domain to help themselves get re-elected, too. Why didn’t we think of that sooner? Let’s us liberals ally ourselves with big business and let the Republicans have the religious right wing.

  • Reach for the Stars

    Last week, we had the opportunity to tour the new Guthrie down our way, and we were impressed. The shell is more or less complete, and now the finishing work begins–a Herculean task that makes shoveling the stalls of Augeas look like a July picnic. Anyway, we were finally convinced of the genius of “the endless bridge”–which we had shamefully been calling the “skyway to nowhere.” The bridge is actually a spectacular, free-flying, glass stairwell, in this case a low-angle ramp connecting the third and fourth levels of the building, with a detour to the other side of River Road. Now we get it! Awesome!

    We’ve heard a few other somewhat more phallic euphemisms, but this is a family blog.

    We also noticed this quiet little game of brinksmanship amongst the world-class architects currently romping through our modest little cabbage patch: Who can build the most impressive cantilever? Nouvel’s bridge at the Guthrie wins going away, of course. (There are two other cantilevers in the new Guthrie.) But it’s interesting to consider the ramifications of Pelli’s wing above the new public library, and Herzog and De Meuron’s blocky overhang–not so much a cantilever as an exposed bottom.

    With the worsening flap about what should be done with Ground Zero, we think the answer is pretty obvious. Cantilevers are the new skyscrapers. Skyscrapers were a brilliant marriage of form and function–you know, minimize the footprint of actual real estate, and make use of all the headspace, while celebrating the, ah, thrusting ambitions of 20th century capitalism. But their vulnerabilities are unbearable today. (Have the terrorists won if we don’t build another towering phallus of commerce in lower Manhattan?) And if you think about it, nothing would be more fittingly decadent in a self-righteous, post-industrial, xenophobic, me-first nation than a two- or three-story skyscraper, turned on its side and suspended just a few feet above the ground. Why not go entirely yonic and historic-revisionist, and make it a levitated Pentagon?