* RADIO RANT: Indians--"I Know Nothin'"

Last Sunday night (7/27/08), conservative talk-show cretin Bill Cunningham uttered his version of the conservative mantra that goes something like "Native American tribes fought other tribes; ergo Euro-colonialism/genocide was entirely justified." And of course this formulaic defense can be uttered without really knowing anything about indigenous history. Thus Cunningham's stupidity began: "The Sioux did worse [things] to the Arapaho and the Iroquois" than the U.S. did to the Indians, blah-blah-blah. I could give Cunningham ten years to find a historical battle between the "Sioux"–a Great Plains tribe–and the Northeast-woodlands Iroquois. It's the constant recitation of such half-baked non-truths by such pundits and their "dittohead" acolytes that makes the conservative discourse so infuriating.

* RADIO RANT: Repub-POPulism

The Republican talk-show hosts are taking a certain brand of populism too far (e.g., Glenn Beck). The "damned government" can't do anything right, while "we the people" (whatever that inchoate conglomerate is) are inevitably right in our intuitions. (Then why'd we vote these fools into office in the first place? And is this, then, in contradiction to another conservative mantra, that democracy is the best of all government forms, especially as it manifests itself in the good ol' U.S.A.?). Frankly, I find the populist notion that "we" are smarter than the politicians to be an utterly foolish one. I wouldn't trust my next-door neighbor when it comes to determining foreign policy regarding, say, Afghanistan; would you? (Of course, I live in an apartment complex, but that's beside the point! . . .)

* RADIO RANT: Indian Wars (Still Going On)

Billy Cunningham is the "new" conservative talkshow host in these parts, replacing Matt Drudge on two local radio stations. Last Sunday night (11/25/07), I tuned into a discussion (or rant) regarding the "Indian Wars." To one caller's allegations of land theft & immorality, Cunningham replied [not verbatim here, but close], "It was war. We won. Get over it!" (I'm reminded of Paiute poet AC Louis's anecdote about a white student who told him, "We shoulda killed you all when we had the chance"!) "If the Indians had won," Cunningham continued, "they'd have done worse to us." No. We especially wouldn't have forced you to follow another culture's jealous monotheistic deity. But this radio guy is adamant that the Natives were apparently in need of a little good ol' Western Civilizing: "Why do you think they call them savages?" (And the phrase "Stone Age" was also tossed around liberally—er, conservatively.)

Hell, if these "GET OVER IT!" people (including some of my own students) were JUST talking about a survival-of-the-fittest social Darwinism, then I wouldn't be so upset. But if this "might makes right" is what you folks ultimately meant, it also means that you have to surrender any lofty pretensions regarding your Western ethics & religion, and acknowledge Christianity as a hypocritical & bankrupt enterprise, as mere prop and rationalization for capitalism & colonialism [cf. Vine Deloria, Jr.].

* RADIO RANT: Cheap Labor Through the Centuries

One of my local talk radio stations now has a new conservative radio talking head, a certain Bill Cunningham (yes, one "great American"). He was trying to be clever and ironic last night (10/14) in wondering aloud how our American economy ever "managed," from 1776 on, before the heavy 1990's influx of illegal labor. (Conclusion: we don't need 'em!) Of course, for almost a hundred years, we had—uh—SLAVES to help out w/ all that lowly menial labor. After that, we had waves of legal immigrants poor enough to willingly be degraded themselves as cogs in the capitalist machine until labor unions alleviated their plight to some extent. And hey, I've taught (legal-immigrant) ESL students who've told me horror stories of meat-packing plants: no, it ain't worth $20/hr. an hour to be disabled (i.e., one's hands) by the age of 40.

* It's a Hormonic Imbalance

So George Bush fucks up again: "childrens do learn. . . ." There's plenty of Hopi, and Lakota, elders who say that a precise use of language = a healthy culture. I fear for "ours."

* John & Martha X; Barbaric Discourse

* Lima Bean (& Ham) Soup

I'm making my famous-only-to-me bean soup today, another one of those recipes that sound so boring, but taste so good, and remind me of my childhood, and of the days before Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage! ("Yeh, Hubert Horatio Humphrey is still alive, and the future looks bright, and progressive. Yeh. Good beans, too.")

I use a slow cooker now for this recipe, though like chili, it's hardly required, or even preferable.
Ingredients:
* HALF-bag of dried beans, your choice (recipe originally designed for large lima beans, but baby limas, black beans, even that bag of 13 assorted beans—all fine)
* spices of choice: mine include (lemon) pepper, salt (substitute), (1/2) bay leaf, garlic powder, dry mustard powder, and Tabasco sauce . . . (Yes, I used to SMOKE—and so used/still use lots o' spices so I can taste the food. Also, having recently acquired a love for Asian Indian food, I even added some minced ginger this time.)
* veggies of choice: chopped carrots & celery are bourgeois de rigeur; good, too: several garlic cloves (my favorite vegetable), and (half?) a chopped onion
* [OPTIONAL:] ham product of choice—a hamhock (my traditional way, in the days sans money), or a ham part/steak w/ bone, or that precooked cubed ham, etc. (UNcooked is preferable, if you want those "traditional" fat droplets floatin' atop yr soup.)
* small can of tomato sauce

[Crock-pot cooking time: Low: 6-8 hours; High: 3-4 hours (?—I don't mind my beans & veggies al dente!)]
1. Prepare beans, either by overnight soaking or that "quick-prep" boiling method given on the back of most dry-bean packages (former method preferable).
2. Throw some water into the slow cooker. (Doesn't matter how much—you'll be adding more later.)
3. Add spices & beans.
4. Add "hard" vegetables (carrots, onions, etc.).
5. Add ham, if uncooked. If cooked, you can wait several hours (see #6).
(I like to stagger the steps above by a half-hour or so, just to take a break from the computer. Also, add water as needed at any stage.)
Several hours later/halfway through the process:
6. Add (cooked) ham. Add "soft" vegetables (probably only celery here).
(Half-)hour before serving:
7. Add tomato sauce. (Overcooking tomato sauce makes everything taste "burnt" or "turned," for some reason.)

8. Last, but most importantly: add approx. 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar to that bowl o' beans you just ladled out: mmm, mmm! Serve with hard rolls or other bread of choice (spread w/ "oleo"?—as my mom used to call it), to dip into the soup.

Of course, these crock-pot recipes make a lot more than a person living alone can handle, in one meal, or even one day; for soups or stews like this one, I eat as much as I can (bad advice!), and then freeze the rest in individual microwaveable bowls (covered with aluminum foil), which I can slowly unthaw/reheat in the microwave on a rainy day.

[Added same day:] Oh! The ginger makes it entirely NEW. I added more. . . .

* John & Martha IX

* RADIO RANT: A Demagogue's Spleen

One of Michael Savage's current promo spots contains one of his characteristic diatribes against the "leftist" government+media establishment, against which he pits himself and all other Americans, apparently: "WE are the backbone of America!" I would limit the breadth of that populist "WE" a good deal, and modify the metaphor. No, Mr. Savage, you are rather the SPLEEN of the American body politic, and your toady-acolyte of an adoring audience, the BLACK BILE thereof. (A dangerous—but ultimately hackneyed—remark follows: I sometimes feel that I'm listening to some crank in Germany of the 1930's; seriously "bad—and scary—vibes, man.")

Savage's clever demagoguery was in full splendor last night (8/1/07), as he fed his masses suggestions that the Minneapolis bridge collapse was "perhaps" an act of Islamic terrorism. As he repeated a bald attempt at sarcasm—"but we CAN'T consider the possibility of terrorism because the government TELLS us it isn't"—his callers became more and more rabid in their speculations. "There's a huge Muslim population right in that area!"; "I've lived in Minnesota, and they're so liberal and P.C., they're a perfect target!" To all such (il)logic, Savage was cleverly "reluctant" to draw his own overt conclusions, repeating his sarcastic mantra above, but it was all too clear that he relished his rhetorical power over his slavering/salivating lackeys. (Historical analogy: screaming rhetorician finds scapegoat, and whips followers into a frenzy against said scapegoat.)

Another of Savage's populist slams last night was against "the old white-boy hegemony." For one thing, people who pronounce hegemony with a hard "g" shouldn't be using the word in public. Secondly, if Savage's own tired & predictable sexism, racism, and (lip service to) morality-driven conservatism isn't part of "the old white-boy hegemony," I don't know what is.

* RADIO RANT: A Savage Democrat Plot

Listening to Michael Savage last night (7/30/07), I learned a new phrase—not sure how it's spelled, but it's pronounced "VIHSA VERSA"; and I learned that Chief Justice Robert's seizure may well have been the work of a conspiracy by the Democrats, who can't stomach a conservative Supreme Court. . . . (Come, now: wouldn't such perfidious schemers wait for a Democratic president? If Roberts died now, Bush would have time to simply nominate a new conservative. And another objection to this inane hypothesis: there are "batter targets"—more diehard [no pun intended] reactionaries—to choose from on the Supreme Court.)

* KALI--"India's Greatest Export"

Channel-surfing, UGH!: All-Star Wrestling (or at least that's what they called it when I was a kid). This is so f%$#ing sad. After an intro of "flower girls," etc., suggestive (but totally simulative) of the heights of Hindu culture, "Kali" strolls upon stage, as "India's greatest export," to utter some gibberish syllables in no way related to any discernable language of modern India. (The US audience boos, of course, in fine white-trash xenophobic fashion. And that's what the producers wanted.)

Geez, it occurs to me that, if such TV fare is indeed popular, our media is producing, or at least promulgating, the very anti-"foreigner" mentality that militates against any viable rapport with the rest of the planet. "No wonder they all hate us." Remove quot. marks: NO WONDER THEY ALL HATE US (U.S.).

To return to a previous theme: other academics keep asking me why the hell I care about such "low-brow" examples of pop culture. It's the ideology, people. Get it, or be taken down, without your concern or consciousness.

* John & Martha VII

(Obviously—and intentionally—you can read this cartoon in a variety of ways.)

* Happy Thoughts IV

Quot. of the Day:

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.
    --Gibbon

* Dennis Miller

Is it just me, or has Dennis Miller become incredibly less funny once he became overtly (& conservatively) political in his humor? And I don't think it's just my liberal bias, either: the labored jokes just seem more strained, more petty, more "trying too hard."

* YouTube Debate: The Unasked Questions

I believe that tomorrow night is the CNN "YouTube" Democratic debate, for which "home youtubers" can send in their video questions for the candidates. Questions you WON'T hear in the debate:

1) What should the government be doing about Silicon Lizard? ["Silicon Lizard" = the title of an old surrealist poem of mine]

2) Please raise your hand if you think all this talk about religion in the primary debates has been a bunch of disingenuous, pandering, hypocritical bullshit. [Assuming no hands are raised, a follow-up question (the one that Larry King asked Paris Hilton!):] What is your favorite passage from the Bible? [Then:] How many minority groups does this passage alienate & ostracize?

3) Would you consider a gay Native American paraplegic as a running mate?

4) Please raise your hand if you really consider George W. Bush to be an illiterate nincumpoop who will certainly be remembered as the worst president in history by far.

5) Tell us what you think—or know—that the candidate to the right of you likes to do in bed, as his/her most lascivious & taboo turn-on. (The candidate on their far right can speculate instead on whether metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.)

6) When did you last beat your significant other?

7) If elected, do you promise never to serve, and to leave the country & never come back? [a paraphrase from somebody else's poem, by I forget who]

8) If you idiot Democrats couldn't even beat George W. Bush in two straight elections, what are you wasting our time for, again? (Shouldn't we select a candidate, at least, whose first name is CHAD?)

9) Given you liberals' great concern for global warming, will you promise to campaign around the country without the use of fossil-fuel transportation? (Hey, it'll work those hips & bellies off o' some of yu'.)

10) Will you PLEASE promise never to end a speech with anything close to "God bless America"? If not, could you define both "God" and "America" in your campaign materials? If no to both, could you please read Dante's Inferno and accustom yourself to the most nether circle of Hades, because that's where I'm telling you to go?

* Happy Thoughts II

Quot. of the Day:

Everything that a man does in service of the state he does against his own nature.
    --Nietzsche

* RADIO RANT: ProNOUNciation

As someone who grew up a poor breed introvert in the "sticks," I spent a lot of time reading the classics on my own—but never hearing anyone pronounce the names of the people I was reading. So through junior high and high school, I thought "Yeats" rhymed with "Keats," and I pronounced the German author of Faust as "GOHTH"—and never lived it down, in my own mind. So I'm particularly sensitive about pronunciation. The following, then, are really complaints about mes semblables et mes frères, to paraphrase Baudelaire:

1) Rush Limbaugh, for instance, had a running commercial blurb a few weeks ago in which he mocked those (of us) who have mocked his grandiloquence. But he pronounced the word "grandELoquent." There's irony for thee, good apothecary.

2) But Michael Savage is (again) my main target of complaint. Since his doctorate is in nutritional science (or nutritional ethnomedicine—there seems some controversy here), you'd think he'd know that the h in "herbal" is silent, but he continually aspirates it when he speaks of formerly being in the "herbal business." This may be some inside joke with himself and long-time listeners; if so, I don't get it. (Like Rush, he also seems to think that emphasizing one syllable of a word overly long is either very funny or otherwise incredibly rhetorically effective. Again, I don't get it.) . . . Also, instead of pronouncing homocide as "HAWMuhside," like most of us, he insists on saying "HOMOside." But this may again be an attempt at humor & political-moral commentary: "Look! I can attack gays even when I'm talking about something else completely!" . . . However, I'm certain that he doesn't know how to pronounce monolingual and proselytize; the first syllables, respectively, are not "MOH" and "PROH." . . . Finally (and this is grammar, not pronunciation), Savage has half-remembered some apocryphal Voltaire this last week or two, having at several points said to us liberals that he "will fight to the death your right to"—well, be stupidly, wackily liberal and wrong. But the original is "defend to the death," of course; Savage's version is syntactic gibberish. (Or the OPPOSITE of what he means: "fight your right"?!)

3) Finally, it's no great shock that the French language has never had a chance in the good ol' USA. Close to home—in South Dakota—French-Indian names that end in -eaux often end up being pronounced as "-ooh" (e.g., Roubideaux; Flandreaux). A vowel shift of sorts, really. But my big gripe in this category involves media pronunciations of Moulin Rouge, especially in the song "Lady Marmalade" from the recent movie about said French placename. Why someone has insisted that they sing "moohLAW(n)" is beyond me, especially since there are also many mainstream media examples of its correct pronunciation. (This includes the actors in the movie itself, one web site claims, although I don't remember myself if this is true. It's another of those movies that my wife made me watch. While that damned bird of hers bit the hell out of me!)

* Peahen Politics

*RADIO RANT: Dryden True

Michael Savage defended his hate-laced, race-baiting demagoguery last night (6/25/07) by appealing (once again) to some bon mot by Dryden on satire. (In other words: what I do isn't hate! It's in the grand tradition of Dryden & Pope & Swift!) Well, he got Swift's first name right, but he referred to Dryden—twice—as "Robert Dryden," reaffirming my suspicion in a previous blog entry [4/13/07] that Savage, our foremost man of les belles lettres, is really no great aficionado of the English writer . . . JOHN Dryden. Savage even said that he put the quot. from this "Robert" Dryden at the beginning of his latest book; but again, it's obviously straight from a quotation dictionary (or another 2ndary source), then, not from Savage's deep excursion into the annals of British Neoclassical lit & wit.

* "Lose the 'Old Country,' Damned Immigrants!"

I'm tired of these immigrants to the grand ol' U.S.A. who refuse to assimilate. You know who I mean. For instance, there's this town in Nebraska I drive through on the way to my wive's in SoDak: since it dubs itself the "Swedish Capital of Nebraska," many of its business signs sport the foreign word, Valkommen. (This may be some code word to new illegal Swedes, for all I know, still sneaking in by the buggy-load . . . from Minnesota?) Let's ASSIMILATE, people! We didn't let you into this country so that you could cling to the antique foreigner ways of your ethnic isolationism—which, from what I hear on the talk radio, consist mainly of sexual and socialist perversions.