Rhinocrisy

Please already have noted that I changed the layout again. Change is good, I think, and this change is good in particular. Also, I am getting sick of warding off destruction with this one hand – the other one is cramped and I think my shoulder has become dislocated. Any ideas for a new subtitle?

Marshall Grossman.

The turf battles over Malibu’s oceanfront … what is public and what is private … property owners bringing in heavy equipment to scoop up tons of public beach and pile it onto their property … skip loaders have erected a massive ridge of sand between the ocean and the community … the arrival of earthmoving machinery has raised a new array of issues … Marshall Grossman, a Broad Beach homeowner and lawyer, said the intent was not to block public access, but simply to restore the sandy dunes in front of the homes that eroded during last winter’s storms.

“When that happens, homeowners bring their own sand back to the dunes or bring in replacement sand from the outside in order to restore the dune areas,” Grossman said. “It doesn’t interfere with public access at all because the dunes are simply restored to what they were.”

Guns.

What the hell is a directed energy discharge? Google turns up 8 hits, of which 6 are about Star Trek, one is a quote from the X Files, and one refers to a conspiracy theory about the Shroud of Turin. If you have any idea what this tool is, please respond in comments.

A couple days ago, reporters questioned U.S. presidential spokesman Scott McClellan about a report from the Government Accountability Project that claimed the White House had a former oil lobbyist edit its science documents about climate change — giving him a chance to wordsmith the prose after scientists had already gone through it for accuracy. Mr. McClellan did not deny that the editing took place. Instead he said,

These reports should always be based on our scientific knowledge and what is the best available science. And that’s what we expect. And that’s what those reports are based on.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear “based on,” the only thing that comes to my mind is made-for-TV movies: based on a true story.

By the way, it’s worth clicking to that press conference to see something amazing and strange — reporters really grilling the guy. They stuck to this one and wouldn’t let him weasel. Of course, the resulting story was pretty wimpy. (I had typed “stories were” but then found nothing in the LA Times, nothing in the Washington Post, nothing on NPR, and who would even ask about TV news?)

UPDATE (33 minutes later) The dude behind me at this Internet cafe was talking loud on his mobile phone so I overheard him tell someone that “Chris Mooney had already posted the climate story on our blog” so I googled that name and found this interesting story. Apparently this is not the first time the NY Times has busted Bush screwing science. Thank the tech-god for loud phones and quiet cafes.

UPDATE 2 (77 minutes later) The LA Times does mention the story today, here. You’ve got to appreciate the note that the new EPA chief is “the first scientist to head” the agency.

Check out Jean Friedsky’s story at the NarcoSphere on the differences between the street battles in Bolivia which forced another president to resign and what she remembers from American protests:

Here, “the revolution” is anything but a party. Dancing hippies, drum circles and four-story high puppets are notably absent from the recent mass mobilizations that have rocked Bolivia for the past two weeks. There are no breaks for concerts, no hemp clothing for sale.

When I think about disciplined forces in American politics, it is often the negative impression of “party discipline” in the RCP or other marxist parties. But here Jean (and in the comments section, Al) offer another model of discipline: the discipline of the Zapatistas and the Aymara, who are fighting to “WIN”, as Al puts it. Are drum circles holding us back? Is puppet theater just a fun distraction? Does the Aymara model translate to American politics?

I made it to Washington, D.C., accompanied by fighter jets and an overheated Amtrak train. I drove 3,741 miles to get here and got to know exactly zero people well enough to get a phone number or e-mail address. I rode Amtrak for the last leg, between NYC and here, and made a couple new friends and got to know a semi-famous performer. But in the big interior, while not talking to anyone but the occasional gas station attendant, I had a lot of chance to listen to my WalMart (first thing I ever bought there) portable radio (the car radio was stolen before the trip). Here is what I learned.

• Replace your car tires.
• Risk-free moneymaking offer.
• Jesus loves me.
• Got smote someone or another with the help of the Maccabees.
• The Spurs made it to the playoffs.
• Liberals are in charge of the military, which is why “we” aren’t yet “giving the Islamofascists all we’ve got.”
• Liberals are the only ones who care about the Geneva Conventions.
• Those who follow the lord are likely to be persecuted
• The U.S. is the underdog now
• Architects from the AIA can help students perform
• Generic drugs are tested by the FDA

A small brick roadside Protestant church along state highway 60 near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia is decorated with new, crisp, red-white-and-blue ribbons. Out front stands a big white signboard, the kind that often blocks the sidewalk at a used car dealership on a suburban strip but fitting in surprisingly well on the carefully mowed church lawn by the paved parking lot in a lush river valley in the most culturally Confederate of the historic Union. Red lettering on the sign proclaims, “One Nation Under God.” Though blue-staters like myself might read the line as jingoistic repetition of a nationalistic slogan, the sentiment contains a vigorous sense of rebellion.

An anti-authoritarian sensibility pervades American life. It’s one of the most exciting and refreshing aspects of living in this country, one of the reasons I’ve spent my adult life struggling to find health insurance here rather than retreating to the comfort and generosity of my other home and native land. The same rebellious spirit exists on the freeway, where everyone drives 8 or more mph over the speed “limit,” in our lungs, where 80 percent of US residents say they have at least tried smoking pot, and in the workplace.

The growing theocratic sentiment in the United States arises from a sense — misguided, perhaps, but genuine — that liberals have taken over the country and are enforcing secularism in violation of American history.

What’s amusing about this is that liberals who support separating church and state also feel like underdog rebels. They pay attention to the unreligious deism of the Founding Fathers, rather than the intensely conservative Christianity that led to the invention of “freedom of religion.” They see a creeping theocracy in laws controlling gay marriage and reproduction, rather than the decline of right-wing religious values with the advent of gay rights and widespread acceptance of abortion.

I have no idea if there’s really a trend in either direction, or if the coasts are really diverging from the interior, or the cities from the country, or what. All I know is the sense stays strong of grievance and victimization and righteous rebellion. And that’s a sign of hope.

(Now if some of these “victimized” Christians could learn the other side of history…)

On Saturday night I happened to run into a local anarchist-type while I was at a party*. I didn’t know him very well, but he somehow recognized me, and although he was typically taciturn he did confirm my suspicions: absolutely nothing is happening in the left-activist scene.

This is good, because it means I haven’t been missing anything. But, obviously bad because I haven’t had anything to miss. What the heck? This should be an ideal time to organize, for reasons I don’t think I have to enumerate. The list of grievances is long, discontent is high. People should be running around on the street with veins in their teeth, gunning down corrupt politicians and breaking open corporate coffers. Spontaneously. Instead, they’re just… what?

Last time I went on this rant, I concluded we were taking a contemplative time-out. But it seems even the non-contemplative activists, the from-the-gut whose-streets-our-streets types, are thrown. I have to revise my hypothesis to: shell-shock.

There’s two responses when you’re encircled and the enemy is closing in with blades drawn: get your back up and fight hard, or fall down and wail and tear your hair in despair.

Earlier this morning I went out to have lunch in the bright, bright sun. While I was toasting my skin and scarfing down my Cajun-style burrito, I had an existential crisis on behalf of the entire universe.

“Jesus fuck!” I suddenly thought. “This whole system is cooked up out of nowhere! Like, the strong nuclear force? Why is that around?” Except it was more sudden than that, more epiphanic and less valley-girl.

Fortunately, in the very next instant I thought, “Whew! Surely there must be some Almighty force, an undifferentiated Purpose, underwriting this all.” This allowed me to continue eating my burrito without becoming completely unhinged.