GRABBINGSAND

We all had a lovely time with the original Church Sign Generator, so go celebrate the new design with more textual irreverence.

Maybe history has a way of repeating lessons unlearned.

Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a war.”*

It’s early. Iraq is not Vietnam. 2004 is not 1971. But something rings familiar and it sounds like arrogance.

After an unforgiveable delay, my review of Kill Bill, Volume Two is posted at JIVE.

In other movie-related news, why does this poster fill me with dread, instead of glee?

Occasionally, you might wish to communicate with those who represent you in State and National politics. To make this easier, here are some helpful links to help you address your envelopes and direct your emails.

US House of Representatives
US Senate
Georgia State Legislature

Get out your pens and write.

Now let us read from Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 71, Section 1464 of the United States Code. It refers to the broadcast of obscene material by means of radio. Ahem.

“Whoever utters any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both(.)”*

Ah. The nigh-biblical words of our blessed codified law. Note the use of the word “utter” … derived from the word utteren in Middle English, meaning “outer” or perhaps “to disclose.” Gives the subject a kind of implied menace that only the precise language of law can provide, doesn’t it? Not only is it bad to say something obscene, but even letting such a thing slip by accident is just as wrong.

But wait. Some considerate folks believe that there is just not enough precision in old Section 1464. In fact, they’d like to make it plain and clear just what obscene really is. Isn’t that nice? Why should you be troubled with having to actually exercise your own discerning logic? True, you could let your own tastes and values decide when you should reach for the radio dial, but why bother? So now let us read from the amendment proposed by Congressman Doug Ose of California.

“As used in this section, the term `profane’, used with respect to language, includes the words `shit’, `piss’, `fuck’, `cunt’, `asshole’, and the phrases `cock sucker’, `mother fucker’, and `ass hole’, compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms).”*

Whoa … that’s pretty saucy, Mr Ose. Good thing I’m quoting from the public records available online via our venerable and dependable Library of Congress. Otherwise, I’d be concerned that I was spreading filth to the masses. As it is, I’m simply repeating information offered without censor by our own federal government. What a relief, that is.

Here’s a funny thing. I wonder if Mr Ose realizes that he has now provided a new game to scores of precocious grade-schoolers. I call it Find Dirty Words In The Leglative Record. Try it yourself! It’s great! Just go to the LOC’s Thomas site, pop in one of the Big Bad Words mentioned in the proposed amendment, and … voila! Let the giggling commence, because there it is!

1 Bill from the 108th Congress ranked by relevance on “piss “.

1 bill containing your phrase exactly as entered.

Teehee! Way to go, Mr Ose!

And by the way, if you think that Mr Ose is just a silly man with a plan, you might want to check this handy list of 41 co-sponsors. I would like to specifically direct the attention of my fellow Georgians to familiar names like Nathan Deal, Johnny Isakson, and Charlie Norwood. Perhaps you would like to express your heartfelt appreciation for their attempt to safeguard you from the dangers of dirty words … (Thanks due to Neil Gaiman for bringing this to my attention.)

“Like all teenagers, I provisioned my garrison with art: books, movies, music, comic books, television, role-playing games. My secret confederates were the works of Monty Python, H. P. Lovecraft, the cartoonist Vaughan Bod, and the Ramones, among many others; they kept me watered and fed. They baked files into cakes and, on occasion, for a wondrous moment, made the walls of my prison disappear.”*

Michael Chabon on the need to let teenagers languish and be ugly. (Thanks, Kayt.)

It’s been two years. Wow. Almost to the day.

Two years ago, I participated in a couple of online mix-CD swaps, and now I’m doing it again. This year’s Spring Mix is another of the non-stop variety, marked by my obsessive need to connect each track to the next track like legos or tinker-toys. I’ll be sending out a total of 15 CDs to various strangers here and there. Would I send one to you? Well, I’ll make you a deal. Leave a comment expressing interest with a viable email and I will contact you directly with an address. Then you can send me a blank-CD (or a mix-CD of your own creation) and I will reply with a copy of this one. Fair enough?

The theme for this mix? Is it about faith in the face of adversity and remaining true to your nature, or maybe just variations on a damned good beat? Either way, the track listing is here.

My first column for JIVE is up and ready for consumption and criticism. Feel free to weigh in here with thoughts of your own, either about the piece or the subject matter.

Semantics. I spent most of my college years dealing with the semantics of language, both in class and on stage. It’s an interest that has remained with me, an observation that I can’t shut off. Sure, I hear what you’re saying, but what do you really mean? Do you even know yourself? And when I reply, did I even hear the question? It keeps language from being dull and static. We communicate through so much text these days, but even the most inventive emoticon can fail to invoke meaning. That requires nuance, intonation and inflection. And context always helps, though soundbitten newsbots would convince us otherwise.

“We’ve got to stay the course, and we will stay the course.”

So sayeth our President. Again. Just yesterday. He loves that phrase. It invokes determination, gives an impression of leadership. I believe he’s shooting for historical quotability, kind of like Churchill’s “Never Surrender.” But where the late Prime Minister was giving his people hope, imploring them indisputably to maintain and fight against an incursive threat, President Bush’s call to continue is far more nebulous in meaning.

Stay the course, he says. Keep going, he means. Carry on.

His phrase has an interesting, if elusive, history. William Safire delved into it’s origins back in January, finding curiously that “staying” once actually meant “stopping” rathing than “going.”

“When Faustus had with pleasure ta’en the view
Of rarest things, and royal courts of kings,
He stayed his course, and so returned home…“
– Christopher Marlowe, The Tragickal History of Dr Faustus, 1588

Faustus. Now he was a deal-maker. Had a pact with the devil himself, yet still knew enough to turn back from time to time.

Staying the course. If you take it in way it is most widely understood, he means for the US to stay in Iraq, to shepherd her into the impending independence of June 30. Afterwards, we can start to scaledown and step back. Or perhaps not.

“There’s not going to be any difference in our military posture on July 1st from what it is on June 30th, except that we will be there then at invitation of a sovereign Iraqi government…”
– Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, April 2, 2004

The line between the rebuilding of Iraq and the on-going War on Terrorism is going grainy like sand in a storm. So it’s likely that he is always referring instead to that War, his modern crusade, implying that the course has a long, long, long way to go before we will see the end.

It’s all semantics, anyway.

Today’s New York Times has an article worth-reading called “Imagining a $7-a-Gallon Future.” While the article calms some fears about the end of oil as we know it, the prescient history of our addictive resource is worth remembering.

After World War I, the American government’s top oil expert predicted a coming “gasoline famine.” One solution was to cobble together the three easternmost provinces of the defunct Ottoman Empire into a new country, called Iraq, believed to be rich in oil resources and safely under British control.

It’s the oil, my friends. Always has been.