An open letter to Jim Bensman, eco-terrorist (alleged)
Dear Mr. Benson,
That'll learn you right, you damn hippie.
Aug 25, 2006
Aug 14, 2006
David Hack Does Not Bury Golf, But Praises It.
An open letter to David Hack, New York Times writer.
Dear Mr. Hack,
I've never much cared for golf. My reasons have always been fairly subjective, typical, and of no particular interest here.
But today I read your article in the New York Times about the frightening prospect of golfers using the kinds of performance enhancing drugs that have crippled the formerly popular sports of baseball, football, cycling, and The Olympics. It's easy to be cynical in this day and age, then, especially given the millions upon millions of dollars to be earned in the sport of golf. But when I read your article, I cried for a little while--I'm always surprised by how often that happens when I read the sports section. But they were not tears of rage or confusion--not this time--but tears of joy, for I had rediscovered the innocence I thought I had lost. And this time I don't plan on losing it again, at least not anytime soon, or intentionally, like the last couple times.
It was refreshing, you see, to read about an entire sport wherein our heroes exist on an ethereal plane above deceit and trickery, in that rareified and exalted land where the point is not cashing those checks for millions upon millions of dollars, but rather playing for love of the game itself. Or as you more eloquently put it:
"Professional golf finds itself in an unusual position on the sports landscape. Players call penalties on themselves, sometimes costing themselves strokes, victories and money. Cheating is seen as the worst possible sin...in interviews with several professional golfers and officials, none said they believed that professional golf had a steroid problem. But many recognized that their sport does not exist in a vacuum despite its being perceived as a game of honor."
Aaah, yes. Did you know that in the dishonored game of baseball they allow women into locker rooms after games to interview players? Well of course you did, David Hack; clearly, not much slips by that intrepid eye of yours. But that's where it all started, the steroid thing. That precious chapel of masculinity was invaded and perverted by female reporters; it was not long after their infiltration and subversion of the locker room that baseball players, having been so dishonored, began to juice. In golf, on the other hand, the exclusive clubs that act as nurturing caretakers for the sport continue to bar women from joining as members. That is to say, women are not even allowed to play on the most hallowed courses in our great nation. And nobody in golf uses steroids. Coincidence? Hardly. This proud Sport has weathered ninety years of women's suffrage--not to mention at least another forty years of distasteful rulings by the Supreme Court that keep getting the groundskeepers all uppity--to endure as a noble bastion of no doubt steroid-free Honor.
But you are a highly intrepid journalist, so you know that a story about how nobody in professional golf uses steroids has to be supported byscientific research anecdotes from professional golf players. And is there any voice in the world more reassuring yet authoritative than Tom Lehman's? I think that question answers itself, but that's why I'm a not an intrepid journalist. You actually take the trouble to find him and get a quote:
"'Maybe I’m naïve, because I have a hard time believing that anyone would cheat, I really do,' said Tom Lehman, the 1996 British Open champion and the 2006 United States Ryder Cup captain. 'The culture of golf is such that you play by the rules. If you read in the paper that Tom Lehman just won the U.S. Open and he just took a drug test and he’s been using the clear for the last two years, the guys out here would vilify me,' he added, referring to the steroid tetrahydragestrinone. 'It’d be over. For that reason alone, almost, it would keep guys clean.'"
Well, if you choose to ignore the qualifying 'almost' right there at the end, it's a pretty damn convincing argument. I also like that Tom didn't reflect glory unto himself by mentioning his own 1996 British Open win, but rather the hypothetical event of winning a US Open on THG, which is super-hypothetical considering THG had not been invented in 1996, nor does the PGA Tour test for it currently. Tom Lehman is also generally well respected by other golfers and has never won a US Open, which isn't particularly interesting, but it's also not something you could say about all golfers. Adding a contribution from noted human biodynamics smartypants and PGA golfer Bo Van Pelt seems almost like rhetorical overkill at this point:
“As far as steroids ever helping out golf or a golf swing, I just don’t see it. Just because you’re hitting it a little bit farther, your scores aren’t going to be that much different. In golf there is too much short game, too much feel, too much carving shots."
My guess here is that you'd worked strenously enough to exonerate golfers of suspected steroid use, David Hack, that you're using Van Pelt's comments as a subtle red herring to drive home the point--rather compellingly--that women don't belong in golf. Have you ever noticed that LPGA tees are closer to the hole than PGA tees? Most people assume that it's because of the physiological fact that men are generally stronger than women but, as Van Pelt convincingly argues, strength has nothing to do with playing golf well--after all, if it did, then men would be tempted to shoot themselves up with all kinds of funky chemicals, treating their bodies like dairy cattle or aging designated hitters. But golfers don't take steroids. So women's tees are closer than men's tees not because of any strength differential, but because of the even-more-of-a-physiological fact that women have no feel for the game of golf. And they have no honor. And, most importantly, they just don't have the steely nerves required to keep their hysterical natures in check.
I think that's the implication, because I'm not sure how but you managed to deftfully segue from crusading against women's lib into a discussion of golfers trying to find an edge with beta blockers--what are those, anyway? Like benzodiazepines for people who can't spell? I must have not been paying attention for a little while. Still, your argument remained no less compelling when I picked it back up:
"While there is no evidence suggesting steroid use on the PGA Tour, two players — Jay Delsing and Joe Durant — said they have heard of competitors taking beta blockers, which are often prescribed for heart ailments but can also be used to combat anxiety...Durant, also a member of the PGA Tour policy board, said...'I have heard of guys taking them and saying that they didn’t help them at all[.]'
That, right there, is when I became ashamed of myself. I realized what a pathetic cynic I've become. Baseball sold its sould to greed, avarice and the Long Ball and maybe a little bit of me died that day when congress single-handedly wiped out 63% of the value of my baseball card collection. Bastards. And that part of me is still dead, believe me. I don't have like this crazy partially re-animated Frankenstein's monster of a soul or anything. But the parts of me that aren't dead (on the inside), your story warmed them up a little, like a homeless person snuggled near a pile of burning tires. I think cockles were involved somehow.
It's almost a fairy tale, really: not long, long a ago but a pretty good while back, some wicked golfers got the idea in their heads that beta blockers would make them invincible gods of the greens. But the beta blocker bingers were beaten at their own game, which in golf sort of means they defeated themselves somehow, which kind of means they won something too. Honor, probably. With their honor restored--and fear of Tom Lehman's approbation or reprisals--they refrained from experimenting with other, actually potent drugs that are proven to improve the athletic abilities of athletes in other sports. Of course those drugs don't help you play better golf. If they did, science would go out and prove it, no doubt with grants from the PGA, who wouldn't mind a little scandal if it meant they could keep their sport pure as driven snow. Or maybe the grants would come from those companies that make all that money selling those really big titanium drivers. But there's no scientific proof that those kinds of drugs even help you play better golf, so drop it already and don't me ever catch you thinking about steroids and golf ever again. And everybody lived happily ever after.
Thanks, David Hack. I needed to believe in sports again, and you've won me over. All hail the noble sport of golf! I mean, when men play. I'd make a tasteless joke about steroids, the LPGA, and East German women here, but I think they're all actually kind of cute (East German women) so I'm going to show some restraint for once.
Yours,
Gabriel
Dear Mr. Hack,
I've never much cared for golf. My reasons have always been fairly subjective, typical, and of no particular interest here.
But today I read your article in the New York Times about the frightening prospect of golfers using the kinds of performance enhancing drugs that have crippled the formerly popular sports of baseball, football, cycling, and The Olympics. It's easy to be cynical in this day and age, then, especially given the millions upon millions of dollars to be earned in the sport of golf. But when I read your article, I cried for a little while--I'm always surprised by how often that happens when I read the sports section. But they were not tears of rage or confusion--not this time--but tears of joy, for I had rediscovered the innocence I thought I had lost. And this time I don't plan on losing it again, at least not anytime soon, or intentionally, like the last couple times.
It was refreshing, you see, to read about an entire sport wherein our heroes exist on an ethereal plane above deceit and trickery, in that rareified and exalted land where the point is not cashing those checks for millions upon millions of dollars, but rather playing for love of the game itself. Or as you more eloquently put it:
"Professional golf finds itself in an unusual position on the sports landscape. Players call penalties on themselves, sometimes costing themselves strokes, victories and money. Cheating is seen as the worst possible sin...in interviews with several professional golfers and officials, none said they believed that professional golf had a steroid problem. But many recognized that their sport does not exist in a vacuum despite its being perceived as a game of honor."
Aaah, yes. Did you know that in the dishonored game of baseball they allow women into locker rooms after games to interview players? Well of course you did, David Hack; clearly, not much slips by that intrepid eye of yours. But that's where it all started, the steroid thing. That precious chapel of masculinity was invaded and perverted by female reporters; it was not long after their infiltration and subversion of the locker room that baseball players, having been so dishonored, began to juice. In golf, on the other hand, the exclusive clubs that act as nurturing caretakers for the sport continue to bar women from joining as members. That is to say, women are not even allowed to play on the most hallowed courses in our great nation. And nobody in golf uses steroids. Coincidence? Hardly. This proud Sport has weathered ninety years of women's suffrage--not to mention at least another forty years of distasteful rulings by the Supreme Court that keep getting the groundskeepers all uppity--to endure as a noble bastion of no doubt steroid-free Honor.
But you are a highly intrepid journalist, so you know that a story about how nobody in professional golf uses steroids has to be supported by
"'Maybe I’m naïve, because I have a hard time believing that anyone would cheat, I really do,' said Tom Lehman, the 1996 British Open champion and the 2006 United States Ryder Cup captain. 'The culture of golf is such that you play by the rules. If you read in the paper that Tom Lehman just won the U.S. Open and he just took a drug test and he’s been using the clear for the last two years, the guys out here would vilify me,' he added, referring to the steroid tetrahydragestrinone. 'It’d be over. For that reason alone, almost, it would keep guys clean.'"
Well, if you choose to ignore the qualifying 'almost' right there at the end, it's a pretty damn convincing argument. I also like that Tom didn't reflect glory unto himself by mentioning his own 1996 British Open win, but rather the hypothetical event of winning a US Open on THG, which is super-hypothetical considering THG had not been invented in 1996, nor does the PGA Tour test for it currently. Tom Lehman is also generally well respected by other golfers and has never won a US Open, which isn't particularly interesting, but it's also not something you could say about all golfers. Adding a contribution from noted human biodynamics smartypants and PGA golfer Bo Van Pelt seems almost like rhetorical overkill at this point:
“As far as steroids ever helping out golf or a golf swing, I just don’t see it. Just because you’re hitting it a little bit farther, your scores aren’t going to be that much different. In golf there is too much short game, too much feel, too much carving shots."
My guess here is that you'd worked strenously enough to exonerate golfers of suspected steroid use, David Hack, that you're using Van Pelt's comments as a subtle red herring to drive home the point--rather compellingly--that women don't belong in golf. Have you ever noticed that LPGA tees are closer to the hole than PGA tees? Most people assume that it's because of the physiological fact that men are generally stronger than women but, as Van Pelt convincingly argues, strength has nothing to do with playing golf well--after all, if it did, then men would be tempted to shoot themselves up with all kinds of funky chemicals, treating their bodies like dairy cattle or aging designated hitters. But golfers don't take steroids. So women's tees are closer than men's tees not because of any strength differential, but because of the even-more-of-a-physiological fact that women have no feel for the game of golf. And they have no honor. And, most importantly, they just don't have the steely nerves required to keep their hysterical natures in check.
I think that's the implication, because I'm not sure how but you managed to deftfully segue from crusading against women's lib into a discussion of golfers trying to find an edge with beta blockers--what are those, anyway? Like benzodiazepines for people who can't spell? I must have not been paying attention for a little while. Still, your argument remained no less compelling when I picked it back up:
"While there is no evidence suggesting steroid use on the PGA Tour, two players — Jay Delsing and Joe Durant — said they have heard of competitors taking beta blockers, which are often prescribed for heart ailments but can also be used to combat anxiety...Durant, also a member of the PGA Tour policy board, said...'I have heard of guys taking them and saying that they didn’t help them at all[.]'
That, right there, is when I became ashamed of myself. I realized what a pathetic cynic I've become. Baseball sold its sould to greed, avarice and the Long Ball and maybe a little bit of me died that day when congress single-handedly wiped out 63% of the value of my baseball card collection. Bastards. And that part of me is still dead, believe me. I don't have like this crazy partially re-animated Frankenstein's monster of a soul or anything. But the parts of me that aren't dead (on the inside), your story warmed them up a little, like a homeless person snuggled near a pile of burning tires. I think cockles were involved somehow.
It's almost a fairy tale, really: not long, long a ago but a pretty good while back, some wicked golfers got the idea in their heads that beta blockers would make them invincible gods of the greens. But the beta blocker bingers were beaten at their own game, which in golf sort of means they defeated themselves somehow, which kind of means they won something too. Honor, probably. With their honor restored--and fear of Tom Lehman's approbation or reprisals--they refrained from experimenting with other, actually potent drugs that are proven to improve the athletic abilities of athletes in other sports. Of course those drugs don't help you play better golf. If they did, science would go out and prove it, no doubt with grants from the PGA, who wouldn't mind a little scandal if it meant they could keep their sport pure as driven snow. Or maybe the grants would come from those companies that make all that money selling those really big titanium drivers. But there's no scientific proof that those kinds of drugs even help you play better golf, so drop it already and don't me ever catch you thinking about steroids and golf ever again. And everybody lived happily ever after.
Thanks, David Hack. I needed to believe in sports again, and you've won me over. All hail the noble sport of golf! I mean, when men play. I'd make a tasteless joke about steroids, the LPGA, and East German women here, but I think they're all actually kind of cute (East German women) so I'm going to show some restraint for once.
Yours,
Gabriel
Aug 11, 2006
Michael Kerry Burke is a Shitty Lawyer
An open letter to Michael Kerry Burke, attorney at law.
Dear Mr. Burke,
You, sir, are fired.
I do realize that I have not retained your legal services, nor am I under indictment of any kind, nor have I committed any felonies in the last three or four years that might reasonably be traced back to me. I suppose my wife and I are undertaking a divorce, but that's been kind of a DIY thing from the beginning and we're trying not to involve lawyers. You might say, then, that because I never hired you I cannot fire you either. To which I would reply: Donald Trump does it all the time. So you're still fired.
It's a precaution on my end, but a necessary one, to my thinking. You're probably wondering what you've done to merit pre-emptively being fired. It all goes back to a client of yours named Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild, and your spectacular mismanagement of his legal issues.
Now, I'm not here to pile it on with poor Joe Francis; there's been quite enough of that going around. Lots of people have lots of unkind things to say about Mr. Francis, and I need not re-iterate them here. As for you, Michael Kelly Burke, I'm not saying you shouldn't take on a well-heeled client just because he's almost universally reviled; nor do I mean to imply that you're the kind of attorney who would give Joe Francis a blowjob in the Girls Gone Wild tour bus potty stall if it was billable at time-and-a-half with the fringe of maybe scoping some of GGW's blandly ubiquitous jailbait titty, as it is no doubt infinitely perkier than what you normally pay for, Michael Kelly Burke, as most people of means within the orbit of Joe Klein--and you're his attorney--experience a thing in their deep heart's core not entirely unlike the experience of a puppy locked in a station wagon parked in front of a grocery store with the windows rolled up on a blistering hot day, and must therefore pay money to strangers in exchange for emotionally hollow and semi-violent sex in lieu of the meaningful intimacy they cannot achieve because, like all those puppies on the outside, they are so very dead on the inside. I'm not here to say any of that, because I think there's already been more than enough negativity surrounding your client Joe Francis. And negativity is not what I'm about.
Consider this more a critique, as the trouble I have with you, Michael Kerry Burke, is purely professional. This past week a highly unflattering article appeared in the LA Times about your client Joe Francis. Again, I don't want to get into innuendo or play armchair psychoanalyst by saying your client is in all likelihood a clinically sociopathic narcissist with a vicious authoritarian streak who, even if he isn't technically raping drunken eighteen year old virgens then he is, at the very least, less than entirely fucking gallant after having sex with drunken eighteen year old virgens. That's the worst kind of innuendo--the kind supported by scads of circumstantial evidence you can only really counter with 'Nuh-uh.' It's totally unfair--not entirely unlike the media raping your client, as he would say.
But that's the hand you've been dealt, and even if it was your dumbass client who pushed all of his chips into the middle of the table with a 3-5 unsuited against 10-J-A flop, you still have to be a professional and play the hand. Or watch the dealer flip the rest of the cards over, I guess, since you're all in. Whatver. Although, as an aside, a woman who reports on the adult entertainment industry probably had at least a pocket pair if she was going all-in. That's an old J-school trick they teach, to make it easier to rape Joe Francis. But you're a professional; I'll give you that much.
If I were your client, I'd expect nothing less. In fact, I'd be a much better client in this particular case because if the LA Times reporter who wrote the story called me for a comment about the alleged rape, I would not call her a cunt, I wouldn't threaten to sue her without running it by you, and I wouldn't threaten to put nails in her coffin, especially after physically assaulting her with a police officer present. I'm sure you'd prefer your client respond with a terse "No comment," and that's what I would have done. Although I'm sure even you can appreciate the delicious irony of your client being so totally juiced on the virtues of the first and twenty-first amendments of our Constitution while completely whiffing on the fifth. If that's not like a black fly in your chardonnay, I don't know what is.
So let's agree that your client isn't as media-savvy or likeable as OJ Simpson. Whatever. Like I said, if your client didn't need damage control you probably wouldn't stay on retainer, and then you wouldn't get flashed with barely-legal titty. You take the good with the bad, Michael Kerry Burke. That said, having your client deserves the best legal counsel he can buy with the money he makes by selling videos of drunken girls taking off their clothes; from the sound of things, he needs the best legal counsel he can get. And you, sir, are not that counsel.
I'm particularly bothered by your response to the rape allegations that surface in the LA Times article. I am quoting this from an email that you sent out in defense of your client:
"In an e-mail, [you] [say] Francis and Szyszka did have sex--consensual sex--and that neither Francis nor anyone affiliated with "Girls Gone Wild" gave her any alcohol. "Neither Mr. Francis nor any of the GGW staff in or around the bus recall Ms. Szyszka making any complaint or comment about Mr. Francis.Neither Mr. Francis nor any of the GGW staff in or around the bus recall Ms. Szyszka making any complaint or comment about Mr. Francis. In fact, Ms. Szyszka was in good spirits after the encounter, and numerous witnesses have stated that she danced with her friends outside the bus for nearly two hours afterward," [You] write []. [You] adds: "Though Mr. Francis cannot speak to Ms. Szyszka's discomfort during the encounter, other news stories have commented that Mr. Francis is reputedly well-endowed."
First of all, nothing in your statement addresses Joe Francis' claim that he never had sex with the girl, and moreover it does not address the girl's actual statement that she actually said no to your client while he was actually having sex with her. That's sort of a problem, from a credibility standpoint. A lot of that's heresay to begin with, no doubt, but it'll sound defensive when you're forced to backtrack on this.
I must say that your rhetorical sleight of hand on the girl's alleged level of intoxication is pretty good. If she'd hopped in a car and killed a family of four your guy would totally be in the clear. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Your statement also refers to what she did not say to your client's sycophantic toadies immediately after what may or may not have been a sexual assault on his private tour bus, as opposed to what she did say to her friends and family once she and said friends shrank from those bluish spotlights on the GGW cameras that make Joe Francis enough money to keep you on retainer. There's been a lot of ink spilled in pop-culture analyses about why those girls lose their inhibitions around those cameras, but my inclination is to say that there is such a thing as magic in the world, Joe Francis has performed some sacred rite of alchemy, and bottled the stuff to be sold at $9.99 a pop. Truly, we live in remarkable times.
That said, your facile refutation of the girl's actual account--offering her behavior immediately following the incident as evidence she made the whole thing up later--does not take into consideration the behavior of her friends, the nature of the relationship and level of intimacy previously established, and above all her own ability to process what she'd just experienced. I hear that rape isn't the easiest tihing in the world to talk about; that isn't to say your client raped her, it just means her first act may not have been to run into a crowd of girls already gone wild to level the claim, is all. As a matter of fact, your "counter-evidence" manages to skip cleanly off the suface of a deep, well-established and meticulously researched body of social science that fails to exculpate your client. It's part of what's known as Rape Trauma Syndrome; you'd do well to look it up in the future. Professionally, I'd expect a more learned defense from my legal counsel.
This is not to say you weren't crafty; I'll give you that. Unfortunately creativity isn't rewarded in court the way it should be; it's really more like the GGW empire itself, just a mindless repetition of established precedent that keeps the machine creaking inexorably onward. I don't see the Immense Penis Defense catching on anytime soon, as it clearly defies just about every precedent of jurisprudence that I ever learned from watching LA Law, Matlock, and Law & Order. And that's a lot of jurisprudence, even if these days I'm pretty much left with Criminal Intent because original L&O is pretty stale and SVU makes me feel dirty every single time I watch it. I can't imagine you have that problem, Michael Kelly Burke, not in the least. Although you must surely agree with me when I say--although I'm by no means the first to point this out--that Ice T portraying a police officer is just plain weird. But is Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Gorin the best cop since Andre Braugher on Homicide, or what?
I suppose that's really a matter of taste. As a point of law, let's pretend for a minute that I'm your client, and you're a competent attorney. Now, say I'm arrested for tax evasion. Statement true of false: The best defense moving forward would be that I was raking in so much cash at the time that it may have given the appearance of tax evasion to the layperson or even typical auditor, both of whom know nothing of the joys of lolling around naked in a bed of thousand-dollar bills and probably hate freedom. The short answer is no, stupid.
I don't want to seem narrow-minded on the subject of novel defenses. I'd give the Twinkie Defense a good listen in its particulars, I believe the M'Naughton Laws guarantee some necessary baseline of quid pro quo in the social contract, and DeCSS might be free speech. But even those defenses have limitations built into them; if the Immense Penis Defense caught on, you'd have to deal with the logical entailment that Tommy Lee could never have truly consensual sex. And an America where Tommy Lee can't have sex with damn near anyone he pleases is not the kind of America I want any part of. Although I'd love to see appeals get you to SCOTUS, just for the sake of having Scalia and Clarence Thomas weigh in on the matter.
All the same, Michael Burke Kelly, you're a shitty lawyer, and you are fired. This is purely a business decision; I do wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Yours,
Gabriel
Dear Mr. Burke,
You, sir, are fired.
I do realize that I have not retained your legal services, nor am I under indictment of any kind, nor have I committed any felonies in the last three or four years that might reasonably be traced back to me. I suppose my wife and I are undertaking a divorce, but that's been kind of a DIY thing from the beginning and we're trying not to involve lawyers. You might say, then, that because I never hired you I cannot fire you either. To which I would reply: Donald Trump does it all the time. So you're still fired.
It's a precaution on my end, but a necessary one, to my thinking. You're probably wondering what you've done to merit pre-emptively being fired. It all goes back to a client of yours named Joe Francis, founder of Girls Gone Wild, and your spectacular mismanagement of his legal issues.
Now, I'm not here to pile it on with poor Joe Francis; there's been quite enough of that going around. Lots of people have lots of unkind things to say about Mr. Francis, and I need not re-iterate them here. As for you, Michael Kelly Burke, I'm not saying you shouldn't take on a well-heeled client just because he's almost universally reviled; nor do I mean to imply that you're the kind of attorney who would give Joe Francis a blowjob in the Girls Gone Wild tour bus potty stall if it was billable at time-and-a-half with the fringe of maybe scoping some of GGW's blandly ubiquitous jailbait titty, as it is no doubt infinitely perkier than what you normally pay for, Michael Kelly Burke, as most people of means within the orbit of Joe Klein--and you're his attorney--experience a thing in their deep heart's core not entirely unlike the experience of a puppy locked in a station wagon parked in front of a grocery store with the windows rolled up on a blistering hot day, and must therefore pay money to strangers in exchange for emotionally hollow and semi-violent sex in lieu of the meaningful intimacy they cannot achieve because, like all those puppies on the outside, they are so very dead on the inside. I'm not here to say any of that, because I think there's already been more than enough negativity surrounding your client Joe Francis. And negativity is not what I'm about.
Consider this more a critique, as the trouble I have with you, Michael Kerry Burke, is purely professional. This past week a highly unflattering article appeared in the LA Times about your client Joe Francis. Again, I don't want to get into innuendo or play armchair psychoanalyst by saying your client is in all likelihood a clinically sociopathic narcissist with a vicious authoritarian streak who, even if he isn't technically raping drunken eighteen year old virgens then he is, at the very least, less than entirely fucking gallant after having sex with drunken eighteen year old virgens. That's the worst kind of innuendo--the kind supported by scads of circumstantial evidence you can only really counter with 'Nuh-uh.' It's totally unfair--not entirely unlike the media raping your client, as he would say.
But that's the hand you've been dealt, and even if it was your dumbass client who pushed all of his chips into the middle of the table with a 3-5 unsuited against 10-J-A flop, you still have to be a professional and play the hand. Or watch the dealer flip the rest of the cards over, I guess, since you're all in. Whatver. Although, as an aside, a woman who reports on the adult entertainment industry probably had at least a pocket pair if she was going all-in. That's an old J-school trick they teach, to make it easier to rape Joe Francis. But you're a professional; I'll give you that much.
If I were your client, I'd expect nothing less. In fact, I'd be a much better client in this particular case because if the LA Times reporter who wrote the story called me for a comment about the alleged rape, I would not call her a cunt, I wouldn't threaten to sue her without running it by you, and I wouldn't threaten to put nails in her coffin, especially after physically assaulting her with a police officer present. I'm sure you'd prefer your client respond with a terse "No comment," and that's what I would have done. Although I'm sure even you can appreciate the delicious irony of your client being so totally juiced on the virtues of the first and twenty-first amendments of our Constitution while completely whiffing on the fifth. If that's not like a black fly in your chardonnay, I don't know what is.
So let's agree that your client isn't as media-savvy or likeable as OJ Simpson. Whatever. Like I said, if your client didn't need damage control you probably wouldn't stay on retainer, and then you wouldn't get flashed with barely-legal titty. You take the good with the bad, Michael Kerry Burke. That said, having your client deserves the best legal counsel he can buy with the money he makes by selling videos of drunken girls taking off their clothes; from the sound of things, he needs the best legal counsel he can get. And you, sir, are not that counsel.
I'm particularly bothered by your response to the rape allegations that surface in the LA Times article. I am quoting this from an email that you sent out in defense of your client:
"In an e-mail, [you] [say] Francis and Szyszka did have sex--consensual sex--and that neither Francis nor anyone affiliated with "Girls Gone Wild" gave her any alcohol. "Neither Mr. Francis nor any of the GGW staff in or around the bus recall Ms. Szyszka making any complaint or comment about Mr. Francis.Neither Mr. Francis nor any of the GGW staff in or around the bus recall Ms. Szyszka making any complaint or comment about Mr. Francis. In fact, Ms. Szyszka was in good spirits after the encounter, and numerous witnesses have stated that she danced with her friends outside the bus for nearly two hours afterward," [You] write []. [You] adds: "Though Mr. Francis cannot speak to Ms. Szyszka's discomfort during the encounter, other news stories have commented that Mr. Francis is reputedly well-endowed."
First of all, nothing in your statement addresses Joe Francis' claim that he never had sex with the girl, and moreover it does not address the girl's actual statement that she actually said no to your client while he was actually having sex with her. That's sort of a problem, from a credibility standpoint. A lot of that's heresay to begin with, no doubt, but it'll sound defensive when you're forced to backtrack on this.
I must say that your rhetorical sleight of hand on the girl's alleged level of intoxication is pretty good. If she'd hopped in a car and killed a family of four your guy would totally be in the clear. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Your statement also refers to what she did not say to your client's sycophantic toadies immediately after what may or may not have been a sexual assault on his private tour bus, as opposed to what she did say to her friends and family once she and said friends shrank from those bluish spotlights on the GGW cameras that make Joe Francis enough money to keep you on retainer. There's been a lot of ink spilled in pop-culture analyses about why those girls lose their inhibitions around those cameras, but my inclination is to say that there is such a thing as magic in the world, Joe Francis has performed some sacred rite of alchemy, and bottled the stuff to be sold at $9.99 a pop. Truly, we live in remarkable times.
That said, your facile refutation of the girl's actual account--offering her behavior immediately following the incident as evidence she made the whole thing up later--does not take into consideration the behavior of her friends, the nature of the relationship and level of intimacy previously established, and above all her own ability to process what she'd just experienced. I hear that rape isn't the easiest tihing in the world to talk about; that isn't to say your client raped her, it just means her first act may not have been to run into a crowd of girls already gone wild to level the claim, is all. As a matter of fact, your "counter-evidence" manages to skip cleanly off the suface of a deep, well-established and meticulously researched body of social science that fails to exculpate your client. It's part of what's known as Rape Trauma Syndrome; you'd do well to look it up in the future. Professionally, I'd expect a more learned defense from my legal counsel.
This is not to say you weren't crafty; I'll give you that. Unfortunately creativity isn't rewarded in court the way it should be; it's really more like the GGW empire itself, just a mindless repetition of established precedent that keeps the machine creaking inexorably onward. I don't see the Immense Penis Defense catching on anytime soon, as it clearly defies just about every precedent of jurisprudence that I ever learned from watching LA Law, Matlock, and Law & Order. And that's a lot of jurisprudence, even if these days I'm pretty much left with Criminal Intent because original L&O is pretty stale and SVU makes me feel dirty every single time I watch it. I can't imagine you have that problem, Michael Kelly Burke, not in the least. Although you must surely agree with me when I say--although I'm by no means the first to point this out--that Ice T portraying a police officer is just plain weird. But is Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Gorin the best cop since Andre Braugher on Homicide, or what?
I suppose that's really a matter of taste. As a point of law, let's pretend for a minute that I'm your client, and you're a competent attorney. Now, say I'm arrested for tax evasion. Statement true of false: The best defense moving forward would be that I was raking in so much cash at the time that it may have given the appearance of tax evasion to the layperson or even typical auditor, both of whom know nothing of the joys of lolling around naked in a bed of thousand-dollar bills and probably hate freedom. The short answer is no, stupid.
I don't want to seem narrow-minded on the subject of novel defenses. I'd give the Twinkie Defense a good listen in its particulars, I believe the M'Naughton Laws guarantee some necessary baseline of quid pro quo in the social contract, and DeCSS might be free speech. But even those defenses have limitations built into them; if the Immense Penis Defense caught on, you'd have to deal with the logical entailment that Tommy Lee could never have truly consensual sex. And an America where Tommy Lee can't have sex with damn near anyone he pleases is not the kind of America I want any part of. Although I'd love to see appeals get you to SCOTUS, just for the sake of having Scalia and Clarence Thomas weigh in on the matter.
All the same, Michael Burke Kelly, you're a shitty lawyer, and you are fired. This is purely a business decision; I do wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Yours,
Gabriel
Aug 3, 2006
Ilona Billing has Lonely Friends
An open letter to Ilona Billing, my best friend.
Dear Ilona Billing,
I was delighted to receive an email from you recently and I'd like to start out by thanking you for your brevity. Most of my friends are borderline alcoholics with festering, untreated psychiatric conditions and generally surly dispostions. This I can tolerate, natch, but they are by and large insufferable windbags to boot. So I do appreciate your brevity. In fact, the entirety of your message can be quoted here, without edits (although, charitably, I might suggest a copy editor or two should you have room in the budget for an intern):
"k these married girls don't want to be lonely, so why not have fun with them at www.shesdoingitnow. com opssy delete space before com WO"
Ilona: thank you. We aren't exactly tight, you an I--in fact I don't recall that we've ever met--but it's not a big secret that things have been slow around here of late. And by 'around here' I mean 'having sex' and 'slow' I mean to say 'not happening at all.' I mean, with some of the verb tenses changed or whatever. Oh, and 'with women' figures prominently in that last part, too, I guess. So I'd like to thank you for tossing me a frieking bone.
Don't get me wrong; I mean, in lieu of dating I've had lots of time to develop other, more useful hobbies that are really very interesting but unfortunately too numerous to be named here. But they are rewarding, those hobbies of mine. Sporting events, also. The local teams have been winning and or losing in quite dramatic fashion of late. And the weather, as you know, has been copious. At the same time, all things being equal, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.
So you have at the very least my gratitude for taking an interest in my personal life; offering to set me up with your friends is just the cherry on top. You are in many ways a better friend than any other friends of mine that have not lifted a finger to help me out in this area, which is to say you are a better friend than the rest of all my friends. Which is to say that you, Ilona Billing, are my best friend.
So, yes: I appreciate the sentiment. But I cannot take you up on the offer. I'm not going to lie to you and say I've never had sex with a married woman, because I have. Not saying I'm proud of it, I just don't want you to think I'm a stick in the mud or anything. It's just that your friends don't sound like they'd be my type. I mean, if they don't like being lonely then why in God's name did they get married? That's just not thinking things through, and I am nothing if not a thoughful man.
I wouldn't be perfectly candid with you if we weren't best friends, Illona Billing, but since we are I will be. You & I are Just Friends and I don't think of you In That Way, so I've never mentioned this to you before, but since you're trying to set me up with your friends I think it's only fair for me to tell you that based on everything I know about you I'm reasonably certain that you, all of your friends, and their websites are just oozing with all kinds of nasty viruses and infections. I'm not judging here, I'm just saying. And I'm a grownup and there are things I can do to protect myself, so it's not a deal-breaker for me. But my computer? That's a horse of a different feather; I can't seem to get these damn comdoms around my monitor without having them break on me. So I guess we won't be making it to shesdoingitnow.com anytime soon. But are you free for brunch this weekend?
Yours,
Gabriel
Dear Ilona Billing,
I was delighted to receive an email from you recently and I'd like to start out by thanking you for your brevity. Most of my friends are borderline alcoholics with festering, untreated psychiatric conditions and generally surly dispostions. This I can tolerate, natch, but they are by and large insufferable windbags to boot. So I do appreciate your brevity. In fact, the entirety of your message can be quoted here, without edits (although, charitably, I might suggest a copy editor or two should you have room in the budget for an intern):
"k these married girls don't want to be lonely, so why not have fun with them at www.shesdoingitnow. com opssy delete space before com WO"
Ilona: thank you. We aren't exactly tight, you an I--in fact I don't recall that we've ever met--but it's not a big secret that things have been slow around here of late. And by 'around here' I mean 'having sex' and 'slow' I mean to say 'not happening at all.' I mean, with some of the verb tenses changed or whatever. Oh, and 'with women' figures prominently in that last part, too, I guess. So I'd like to thank you for tossing me a frieking bone.
Don't get me wrong; I mean, in lieu of dating I've had lots of time to develop other, more useful hobbies that are really very interesting but unfortunately too numerous to be named here. But they are rewarding, those hobbies of mine. Sporting events, also. The local teams have been winning and or losing in quite dramatic fashion of late. And the weather, as you know, has been copious. At the same time, all things being equal, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.
So you have at the very least my gratitude for taking an interest in my personal life; offering to set me up with your friends is just the cherry on top. You are in many ways a better friend than any other friends of mine that have not lifted a finger to help me out in this area, which is to say you are a better friend than the rest of all my friends. Which is to say that you, Ilona Billing, are my best friend.
So, yes: I appreciate the sentiment. But I cannot take you up on the offer. I'm not going to lie to you and say I've never had sex with a married woman, because I have. Not saying I'm proud of it, I just don't want you to think I'm a stick in the mud or anything. It's just that your friends don't sound like they'd be my type. I mean, if they don't like being lonely then why in God's name did they get married? That's just not thinking things through, and I am nothing if not a thoughful man.
I wouldn't be perfectly candid with you if we weren't best friends, Illona Billing, but since we are I will be. You & I are Just Friends and I don't think of you In That Way, so I've never mentioned this to you before, but since you're trying to set me up with your friends I think it's only fair for me to tell you that based on everything I know about you I'm reasonably certain that you, all of your friends, and their websites are just oozing with all kinds of nasty viruses and infections. I'm not judging here, I'm just saying. And I'm a grownup and there are things I can do to protect myself, so it's not a deal-breaker for me. But my computer? That's a horse of a different feather; I can't seem to get these damn comdoms around my monitor without having them break on me. So I guess we won't be making it to shesdoingitnow.com anytime soon. But are you free for brunch this weekend?
Yours,
Gabriel
Aug 2, 2006
Weeds has a Retarded Silent Aitch.
An Open Letter to Weeds, a series on the Showtime Television Network.
Dear Weeds,
I don't normally open electronic correspondences from your network Showtime; I happen to think Pat Riley is a greasy, self-satisfied glory-hound who stabbed Stan Van Gundy in the back just as he threw him out the window of a moving car. Point is, I hate everything that might be associated with Pat Riley. This includes the Showtime network, for reasons that should be abundantly clear to you.
Also, a very dear friend of mine works for you and insists she didn't put me on the subscriber list for your network, adding that she would never put anyone on the list for such a crap network. But things have been slow in the old inbox lately, so I opened the message and lo, there was an advertisement for your second season.
Based on the African-American couple standing a bit in the background of the cast photo, I correctly surmised that your show is about selling marijuana in a place you wouldn't normally find African-Americans: suburbia. Without having seen your show, I can say with some confidence that no matter how good it might be, you would have been better off shelling out the extra money it would have taken get Chris Tucker. I mean, did you see Friday After Next? Then again, if you could have gotten Chris Tucker you'd be on HBO, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Because HBO doesn't send me spam.
But seriously, Weeds. I'm never going to watch your show, but I'd like to thank you for giving work to Elizabeth Perkins and Mary Louise Parker. I don't understand why attractive, perpetually middle-aged actresses can't get steady work any more than I understand my own lifelong obsession with attractive, perpetually middle-aged actresses; it just kind of is what it is. And even if the work isn't steady, I don't lose sleep at night about whether or not Meryl Streep or Jody Foster or Helen Hunt or Annette Benning or Barbara Hershey can put food on the table. But Elizabeth Perkins? God, she could have been dead drunk in the gutter for all I knew. I had a crush on her when she was in the vastly underrated Big, which came out in 1988, before Tom Hanks was even a vastly overrated actor. You probably don't remember that, Weeds. But I do.
And Mary Louise Parker is actually more of a thespian than an actress, AND I have her cofused with the girl who played Dorothy Parker in that one movie. Come to think of it, that other girl was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Hudsucker Proxy, so I'm way off base with that middle-aged thing. Maybe I'm part of the problem here.
But Elizabeth Perkins!
All the same, Weeds, I'm a little curious about your tagline:
"Putting the herb [punct. sic.] in suburb"
I guess you're what passes for an expert these days, so I'll ask you: does one pronounce the first letter of the word 'herb'? You're rhyming it with 'suburb' here, so I assume you're in the 'uuuurb' camp. And that's cool. I mean, in Spanish all the aitches are silent, if you can believe that. But it's worth pointing out--and I don't mean to quibble with you, Weeds, I really don't--that you're broadcast on Showtime and not Telemundo. Although I do wonder if, in that event, you'd have the juice to break El Gordo y la Flaca's stranglehold on primetime Latino entertainment. Maybe if you hired Erik Estrada and his psychic pals, you could make a demographic push. Whatever. Point is, Weeds, that you're filmed in English, and the word 'herbs' has a fucking aitch in it. So maybe you should take that into consideration.
Maybe we should all just put that in our pipes, and smoke it.
Yours,
Gabriel
Dear Weeds,
I don't normally open electronic correspondences from your network Showtime; I happen to think Pat Riley is a greasy, self-satisfied glory-hound who stabbed Stan Van Gundy in the back just as he threw him out the window of a moving car. Point is, I hate everything that might be associated with Pat Riley. This includes the Showtime network, for reasons that should be abundantly clear to you.
Also, a very dear friend of mine works for you and insists she didn't put me on the subscriber list for your network, adding that she would never put anyone on the list for such a crap network. But things have been slow in the old inbox lately, so I opened the message and lo, there was an advertisement for your second season.
Based on the African-American couple standing a bit in the background of the cast photo, I correctly surmised that your show is about selling marijuana in a place you wouldn't normally find African-Americans: suburbia. Without having seen your show, I can say with some confidence that no matter how good it might be, you would have been better off shelling out the extra money it would have taken get Chris Tucker. I mean, did you see Friday After Next? Then again, if you could have gotten Chris Tucker you'd be on HBO, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Because HBO doesn't send me spam.
But seriously, Weeds. I'm never going to watch your show, but I'd like to thank you for giving work to Elizabeth Perkins and Mary Louise Parker. I don't understand why attractive, perpetually middle-aged actresses can't get steady work any more than I understand my own lifelong obsession with attractive, perpetually middle-aged actresses; it just kind of is what it is. And even if the work isn't steady, I don't lose sleep at night about whether or not Meryl Streep or Jody Foster or Helen Hunt or Annette Benning or Barbara Hershey can put food on the table. But Elizabeth Perkins? God, she could have been dead drunk in the gutter for all I knew. I had a crush on her when she was in the vastly underrated Big, which came out in 1988, before Tom Hanks was even a vastly overrated actor. You probably don't remember that, Weeds. But I do.
And Mary Louise Parker is actually more of a thespian than an actress, AND I have her cofused with the girl who played Dorothy Parker in that one movie. Come to think of it, that other girl was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Hudsucker Proxy, so I'm way off base with that middle-aged thing. Maybe I'm part of the problem here.
But Elizabeth Perkins!
All the same, Weeds, I'm a little curious about your tagline:
"Putting the herb [punct. sic.] in suburb"
I guess you're what passes for an expert these days, so I'll ask you: does one pronounce the first letter of the word 'herb'? You're rhyming it with 'suburb' here, so I assume you're in the 'uuuurb' camp. And that's cool. I mean, in Spanish all the aitches are silent, if you can believe that. But it's worth pointing out--and I don't mean to quibble with you, Weeds, I really don't--that you're broadcast on Showtime and not Telemundo. Although I do wonder if, in that event, you'd have the juice to break El Gordo y la Flaca's stranglehold on primetime Latino entertainment. Maybe if you hired Erik Estrada and his psychic pals, you could make a demographic push. Whatever. Point is, Weeds, that you're filmed in English, and the word 'herbs' has a fucking aitch in it. So maybe you should take that into consideration.
Maybe we should all just put that in our pipes, and smoke it.
Yours,
Gabriel
Sep 7, 2005
Katrinalia
These are emails I've sent out the last week. I felt like putting them up here just because I haven't seen enough bloggers commenting on the subject.
***
Sep. 1, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel:
oh, and if this Marshawn Lynch kid is the goods, the Cal beats USC. they've lost too much on defense. those guys were monsters last year; the difference between having a great run defense and a pretty good run defense is huge. i'm telling you, a new day has dawned.
September 4, 2005
to Gabriel, from Randall
i wrote that last email not having seen or heard about exactly how bad it was. at that point, i had just seen the superdome, and figured a lot of the coverage to be cnn rhetoric. unbelievable. it's just gone. the few people i know from down there, their lives have been completely destroyed. water to the attic, jobs gone, living with grandparents. and they were lucky to be able to escape. i agree with kanye, and wonder if this will get back to bush.
the guy hasn't been held accountable yet. those of us up here with saying that if this had happened in cali, the guard would've been on it days before, like you were mentioning. i hope they don't just scapegoat the fema guy. i've heard bush was trying not to smirk and laugh between telecasts.
September 5, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel
there was no way you or i could have known it was going to be like this.
maybe this is when america finally comes to the conclusion that cynically opportunistic, morally bankrupt, and ideologically vacuous do not make for good government. hell, even fox news has become a bunch of New Deal Democrats in the last week, even if they're going to deny as soon as people stop, you know, dying and shit. the people who run DHS and FEMA are going to get put down, but the real sport will be watching the republicans cannibalize Dubya over the next three (!) years. it was bound to come to this, of course; the republicans' loyalty has always been to their bastard non-Christian, non-Conservative "values" (Jesus' big thing was never supply-side economics--almost the exact opposite, in fact, unless my edition is a bad translation or something), and Dubya's priority--like Gingrich, Bush the Elder, Reagan, Nixon--has always been his own political survival and personal ambition. it should be good sport, anyway, watching that pack of rabid fear-crazed hyenas tear that fat lipped cocksucker apart--incidentally, just me, or is he about as Texas as Emily Dickinson? you can hear them sharpening thier knives, in anticipation of sacrificing their great leader in the interest of their own re-election campaigns (Bush polls lower on Iraq right now than LBJ on Vietnam in 1968)--and then Dubya goes on national television to officially hand the "relief effort" over to W.J. Clinton--in the oval office no less (a pale shade resembling Bush the Elder may have also been in the room; neither i, nor anyone else, really noticed); he may as well have handed Hillary the keys to the white house while he was at it, if the bloated corpses of black people on CNN haven't done the job for him already.
not to get all partisan about it, though. when people have stopped dying and the investigations start, i hope they dust everything with that phosphorescent CSI shit and whoever left their fingerprints within a mile of this repugnant miasma should be sentenced to a week without food or water in triple digit heat, festering in their own piss and shit the whole time, just to restore some sense of justice in this country. and then some of their family should die, too, just for good measure. the orwellian platitudes of this administration (what farmers used to call "spin") don't go down so easily when there's no fog of war fig-leafing their stupidity and inhumanity and greed. Bush gutted the FEMA budget when he rolled it up into the pork pie that calls iteslf the DHS, and now Halli-fucking-burton has the contract to rebuild the gulf coast. the howling injustice of those bastards raking in millions of dollars to bury the dead and "reclaim" the land (some of it at pennies on the dollar for themselves) it is just too much to get my brain around. it was rotten from beginning to end, and the whole of it might be the most sickening stupidity perpetrated on America by a sitting president in this century--i say maybe only because it'll be awhile before i can soberly measure new orleans against baghdad or even downtown manhattan.
"intelligence failures" my fucking ass--that's like me saying i'm late for work because i had "car trouble." i don't have a car and you don't have any fucking intelligence you stupid, stupid fucks. i don't believe in Evil. but i do know that stupid is the enemy of the Good, and stupid people are runnning my country right now.
(speaking of stupid, contrary to the opinions of certain speakers of the house, nobody builds a city in a stupid place. yes, it sits below sea-level, but new orleans exists and evolved the way it did because it also sits at the mouth of the mississippi river and serves as the gateway to to the midwest--it's a shipping port, essentially, and a staggering number of interstate highways and rail tracks run into & out of the city. which is to say, the argument that new orleans was somehow cut-off or otherwise inaccessible is laughably stupid. more laughable if people hadn't died because nobody gave the order to go in, but still.)
incidentally, you're probably not getting a great feel for the media coverage in j-town, but http://www.wonkette.com/ has been doing a good job; you get a feel for the trajectory of the story. and i love the reporters going all Herb Williams, taking their despair out on bullshit politicians--although i think the more apt parrallel would be Steinbeck as he wrote Grapes of Wrath, the parts where he takes a step past the familiar Dorothea Lange and even Walker Evans territory and gets all, you know, subjective and lefty political and shit. (i think the dust bowl was the last comparable moment in american history; i also think that i'm just now coming around to understanding why so many people have trouble stomaching that book, given that that kind of thing could never...oh, hell.) as for myself, just when i think i've found my safe ironic distance, i see shit like this, and i'm angry again::
http://www.wonkette.com/images/WRC_09-04-2005_10.58.46.wmv
it's just not right.
g
September 6, 2007
to Randall, from Gabriel
September 7, 2005
to Jaimie, from Gabriel
***
Sep. 1, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel:
i don't know what kind of moving pictures have been getting beamed your way, but i hadn't seen any television news until my lunch break. i'l tell you what, man; no matter how bad everything sounds right now, it looks a thousand times worse. and it doesn't look to be getting any better anytime soon.
about the suffering, i'll say this: i'd never realized this before, but the effect of seeing disasters happen in third world countries is blunted by the fact that foreign victims never have voices. but when you see a man interviewed in front of the astrodome, and all he can say is "I'm just so tired," over and over again, wipe his eyes, and walk away, then it has a greater impact than 1,000 sally struthers voice-overs.
about the suffering, i'll say this: i'd never realized this before, but the effect of seeing disasters happen in third world countries is blunted by the fact that foreign victims never have voices. but when you see a man interviewed in front of the astrodome, and all he can say is "I'm just so tired," over and over again, wipe his eyes, and walk away, then it has a greater impact than 1,000 sally struthers voice-overs.
that said, i'll skirt the human suffering angle. i can't do it justice.
here's something, though: all the people i'm seeing on the news, they're black. and the black mayor of new orleans is talking about how they're running out of supplies and they need help and "We're letting the people march to...find what they need." meanwhile, you have the white governor of louisiana suspending rescue operations to clamp down on lawlessness, the director of homeland security assuring us that the relief operation is going infinitely more smoothly than the tsunami relief, and the white leader of FEMA shrugging and saying, hey, we gave the warning, you shoulda got out of town...
incidentally, shouldn't every national guardsman east of the rockies been mobilized, oh, about a day or two before the hurricane made landfall? or at least by the time i sent you an email joking about new orleans being destroyed the day before it got destroyed? it's not like i was working with inside information. that decision's going to haunt some people. speaking of which, can you name the head of the department of homeland security? (you know, the guys who run the national guard now). neither can i.
remember when i said Bush was going to be remembered as Lyndon Johnson, minus the record on domestic/social policy? yeah. only now, it's worse. (LBJ = Great Society, GWB = swollen black corpses floating down Bourbon Street.) like i said, you have to watch the newscast for only a couple minutes, but when you see it, it's shocking. the anger is palpable, it's on everyone's face, in every shot and it just oozes off the screen. i don't know what it means--i'll have to wait for jason whitlock to weigh in on the matter--but i'm guessing race is going to become a huge issue in the next election. not to put too fine a point on it, but american citizens are dying--not suffering, which doesn't get middle america all that riled up, but dying--right now because they are black and poor, and at some point americans will probably think about holding someone responsible, if for no other reason than it's going to be about the only thing on television for the next couple of weeks, and it's kind of a downer, and america hates downers.
not to get too far ahead of anything, but my mom had a theory that republicans hated Clinton because black people loved him. i don't know how true the first part of that statement is, but there's no denying the latter.
oh, and if this Marshawn Lynch kid is the goods, the Cal beats USC. they've lost too much on defense. those guys were monsters last year; the difference between having a great run defense and a pretty good run defense is huge. i'm telling you, a new day has dawned.
post-apocalyptically,
gabriel
September 3, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel
yeah. suddenly, i'm a kanye west fan.
g
September 3, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel
yeah. suddenly, i'm a kanye west fan.
g
September 4, 2005
to Gabriel, from Randall
the guy hasn't been held accountable yet. those of us up here with saying that if this had happened in cali, the guard would've been on it days before, like you were mentioning. i hope they don't just scapegoat the fema guy. i've heard bush was trying not to smirk and laugh between telecasts.
September 5, 2005
to Randall, from Gabriel
there was no way you or i could have known it was going to be like this.
maybe this is when america finally comes to the conclusion that cynically opportunistic, morally bankrupt, and ideologically vacuous do not make for good government. hell, even fox news has become a bunch of New Deal Democrats in the last week, even if they're going to deny as soon as people stop, you know, dying and shit. the people who run DHS and FEMA are going to get put down, but the real sport will be watching the republicans cannibalize Dubya over the next three (!) years. it was bound to come to this, of course; the republicans' loyalty has always been to their bastard non-Christian, non-Conservative "values" (Jesus' big thing was never supply-side economics--almost the exact opposite, in fact, unless my edition is a bad translation or something), and Dubya's priority--like Gingrich, Bush the Elder, Reagan, Nixon--has always been his own political survival and personal ambition. it should be good sport, anyway, watching that pack of rabid fear-crazed hyenas tear that fat lipped cocksucker apart--incidentally, just me, or is he about as Texas as Emily Dickinson? you can hear them sharpening thier knives, in anticipation of sacrificing their great leader in the interest of their own re-election campaigns (Bush polls lower on Iraq right now than LBJ on Vietnam in 1968)--and then Dubya goes on national television to officially hand the "relief effort" over to W.J. Clinton--in the oval office no less (a pale shade resembling Bush the Elder may have also been in the room; neither i, nor anyone else, really noticed); he may as well have handed Hillary the keys to the white house while he was at it, if the bloated corpses of black people on CNN haven't done the job for him already.
not to get all partisan about it, though. when people have stopped dying and the investigations start, i hope they dust everything with that phosphorescent CSI shit and whoever left their fingerprints within a mile of this repugnant miasma should be sentenced to a week without food or water in triple digit heat, festering in their own piss and shit the whole time, just to restore some sense of justice in this country. and then some of their family should die, too, just for good measure. the orwellian platitudes of this administration (what farmers used to call "spin") don't go down so easily when there's no fog of war fig-leafing their stupidity and inhumanity and greed. Bush gutted the FEMA budget when he rolled it up into the pork pie that calls iteslf the DHS, and now Halli-fucking-burton has the contract to rebuild the gulf coast. the howling injustice of those bastards raking in millions of dollars to bury the dead and "reclaim" the land (some of it at pennies on the dollar for themselves) it is just too much to get my brain around. it was rotten from beginning to end, and the whole of it might be the most sickening stupidity perpetrated on America by a sitting president in this century--i say maybe only because it'll be awhile before i can soberly measure new orleans against baghdad or even downtown manhattan.
"intelligence failures" my fucking ass--that's like me saying i'm late for work because i had "car trouble." i don't have a car and you don't have any fucking intelligence you stupid, stupid fucks. i don't believe in Evil. but i do know that stupid is the enemy of the Good, and stupid people are runnning my country right now.
(speaking of stupid, contrary to the opinions of certain speakers of the house, nobody builds a city in a stupid place. yes, it sits below sea-level, but new orleans exists and evolved the way it did because it also sits at the mouth of the mississippi river and serves as the gateway to to the midwest--it's a shipping port, essentially, and a staggering number of interstate highways and rail tracks run into & out of the city. which is to say, the argument that new orleans was somehow cut-off or otherwise inaccessible is laughably stupid. more laughable if people hadn't died because nobody gave the order to go in, but still.)
incidentally, you're probably not getting a great feel for the media coverage in j-town, but http://www.wonkette.com/ has been doing a good job; you get a feel for the trajectory of the story. and i love the reporters going all Herb Williams, taking their despair out on bullshit politicians--although i think the more apt parrallel would be Steinbeck as he wrote Grapes of Wrath, the parts where he takes a step past the familiar Dorothea Lange and even Walker Evans territory and gets all, you know, subjective and lefty political and shit. (i think the dust bowl was the last comparable moment in american history; i also think that i'm just now coming around to understanding why so many people have trouble stomaching that book, given that that kind of thing could never...oh, hell.) as for myself, just when i think i've found my safe ironic distance, i see shit like this, and i'm angry again::
http://www.wonkette.com/images
it's just not right.
g
September 6, 2007
to Randall, from Gabriel
I'm not a psychic or nothing, but i'm guessing that there's going to be a congressional hearing, and they're going to call Michael "Brownie" Brown to testify about FEMA's role in this mess, the expectation being that the criminally underqualified Brown will roll over on G. Dubya...until Dubya himself dramatically shows up to the hearing accompanied by an olive skinned stranger, who turns out to be none other than Brown's sicilian brother. "Georgie over there? Yeah, I know Georgie," Brown will testify, clearly more flusterd than usual, if that's possible. "Me and his dad used to be in the olive business. Fuhgeddaboudit."
Ted Kennedy will die of a heart attack on the spot. Shortly thereafter consigliere Dick Cheney will have a secret meeting with Brown and say some confusing stuff about Romans. Then Brown will be ironically found dead in his bathtub. And by "ironically," I guess I mean "drowned."
Ted Kennedy will die of a heart attack on the spot. Shortly thereafter consigliere Dick Cheney will have a secret meeting with Brown and say some confusing stuff about Romans. Then Brown will be ironically found dead in his bathtub. And by "ironically," I guess I mean "drowned."
Then it will occur to Dubya that hurricane relief is an action that comes easily in the fiefdom of his brother Jeb. "I know it was you," Dubya will tell him. "I know it was you who let Katrina destroy my political career. You broke my heart, Jeb, you broke my heart." A week or so after that meeting Jeb Bush will be shot to death in his fanboat. Or whatever the hell they call those swamp hovercraft things they got, you know the ones I'm talking about. With the big fans on 'em.
After that, it's on to Part III of the epic Bush Saga. People who'd been hoping for a flourish befitting anyone audacious enough to proclaim himself The War President are bound to be disappointed. Part III will be slow, artsy, and maybe a little depressing as it tracks not really a downfall per se but rather the calcification of an iconic, of polarizing, character. Even hardcore fans of the series are going to be hard-pressed to think of anything exciting or even memorable, except maybe an incongruous and somewhat gratuitous helicopter attack. Also, if anyone explains to me why the Pope gets offed, I'm all ears because frankly, that shit don't make no sense. Such hubris on so grand a stage demands an operatic gotterdamerung, but instead Dubya will fade from existence, our last glimpse of him sitting alone feeding pigeons anonymously on the porch of Trent Lott's house, rebuilt with federal assistance money freed up by massive cuts to social service budgets across the country. Love him or hate him, it will be a highly unsatisfying ending regardless, but it may also be the truest ending.
Or maybe he'll become a Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton ambassador of goodwill. The fuck do I know? Those are my predictions for the week.
Or maybe he'll become a Jimmy Carter/Bill Clinton ambassador of goodwill. The fuck do I know? Those are my predictions for the week.
g
September 7, 2005
to Jaimie, from Gabriel
"As your WAR PRESIDENT, I think the American People need to hear decisive answers to some of the criticism leveled at this administration in the last week. I know the pictures don't look good, and I understand the frustration of the brave people of New Orleans who were courageous enough to stay alive during the five days it took for any kind of federal relief to arrive, but as the WAR PRESIDENT I want you to know that mine is not a racist administration. To be honest, I've been so busy with being WAR PRESIDENT that I haven't given much thought to much of anything else besides the war. Except tax cuts for the people who voted for me, since that's what I promised them when they paid $10,000 to have dinner with me. I've also been working on a plan to let you take the money you've been putting into Social Security and flooding the stock market with it, because that's what America is about. Also I've been busy imposing federal standards for student achievement while simultaneously insisting that teaching Intelligent Des--aw, hell, Creationism--should be a decision left to the individual municipal school boards of across our great nation. Point is, your WAR PRESIDENT did not let those people die because he is a racist. America is the greatest country I can think of or even know about, and I think a lot of that greatness probably depends on contributions from our brown-skinned citizens. What we should all keep in mind during a moment of tragedy like this is that neither your WAR PRESIDENT nor anyone I've appointed to handle disasters at the federal level is competent to do the job. Race is a very sensitive issue in our great nation, so as WAR PRESIDENT I'd like to stress that last point; those poor African Americans who died in New Orleans did not die because of racism, but rather my own stupidity. I hope this clarifies things for a few people out there, and allows us to move forward in making the greatest nation on earth great once again."
i mean, in that light, it's almost excusable, isn't it?
g
Jun 19, 2005
Postprandial
Done, made, taken, happening, etc. after dinner; after-dinner. (Chiefly humorous.)
Hence post"prandially adv., after dinner.
Hence post"prandially adv., after dinner.
Fulminate
I. In physical senses.
1. intr. To thunder and lighten. rare.
2. To issue as a thunderbolt.
†3. Metallurgy. Of gold: To become suddenly bright and uniform in colour. Obs.
†4. trans. To strike with lightning. Obs. rare.
5. To flash forth like lightning.
6. †a. trans. To cause to explode with sudden loud report (? obs.). b. intr. To explode with a loud report, detonate, go off.
II. fig.
[Originally a rendering of med.L. fulminare, the technical term for the formal issuing of condemnations or censures by the pope or other ecclesiastical authority; afterwards used with wider application and with reference to the literal sense.]
7. trans. To ‘thunder forth’; to utter or publish (a formal condemnation or censure) upon a person.
8. To strike with the ‘thunderbolts’ of ecclesiastical censure; hence gen. to denounce in scathing terms, condemn vehemently.
9. intr. Of the pope, etc.: To issue censures or condemnations (against); gen. to ‘thunder’, inveigh violently against.
10. Path. Of a disease: to develop suddenly and severely. (Cf. fulminating ppl. a. 3.)
Hence "fulminating vbl. n., the action of the vb.
1. intr. To thunder and lighten. rare.
2. To issue as a thunderbolt.
†3. Metallurgy. Of gold: To become suddenly bright and uniform in colour. Obs.
†4. trans. To strike with lightning. Obs. rare.
5. To flash forth like lightning.
6. †a. trans. To cause to explode with sudden loud report (? obs.). b. intr. To explode with a loud report, detonate, go off.
II. fig.
[Originally a rendering of med.L. fulminare, the technical term for the formal issuing of condemnations or censures by the pope or other ecclesiastical authority; afterwards used with wider application and with reference to the literal sense.]
7. trans. To ‘thunder forth’; to utter or publish (a formal condemnation or censure) upon a person.
8. To strike with the ‘thunderbolts’ of ecclesiastical censure; hence gen. to denounce in scathing terms, condemn vehemently.
9. intr. Of the pope, etc.: To issue censures or condemnations (against); gen. to ‘thunder’, inveigh violently against.
10. Path. Of a disease: to develop suddenly and severely. (Cf. fulminating ppl. a. 3.)
Hence "fulminating vbl. n., the action of the vb.
Osculate
1. trans. To kiss, salute with contact of the lips; intr. to kiss each other. rare.
2. trans. To bring into close contact or union.
3. intr. To come into close contact or union; to have close contact with each other, to come together. In Nat. Hist. To have contact through an intermediate species or genus (cf. osculant).
4. Math. trans. To have contact of a higher order with, esp. the highest contact possible for two loci; to have three or more coincident points in common with; intr. (for refl.) to osculate each other: as two curves, two surfaces, or a surface and a curve.
Hence "osculating ppl. a., usually in sense 4, as osculating circle, curve, plane, sphere.
2. trans. To bring into close contact or union.
3. intr. To come into close contact or union; to have close contact with each other, to come together. In Nat. Hist. To have contact through an intermediate species or genus (cf. osculant).
4. Math. trans. To have contact of a higher order with, esp. the highest contact possible for two loci; to have three or more coincident points in common with; intr. (for refl.) to osculate each other: as two curves, two surfaces, or a surface and a curve.
Hence "osculating ppl. a., usually in sense 4, as osculating circle, curve, plane, sphere.
Scumble
1. a. trans. In Oil Painting. To soften or render less brilliant (the colours in a portion of a picture) by overlaying with a thin coat of opaque or semi-opaque colour; to spread or ‘drive’ (a colour) thinly over a portion of a picture in order to soften hard lines or blend the tints; to produce (an effect) by this process. b. absol.
2. In Pencil, Chalk, or Monochrome Drawing. (See quots.)
3. transf. of natural effects.
Hence "scumbled ppl. a., "scumbling vbl. n.
2. In Pencil, Chalk, or Monochrome Drawing. (See quots.)
3. transf. of natural effects.
Hence "scumbled ppl. a., "scumbling vbl. n.
Vagary
1. †a. A wandering or devious journey or tour; a roaming about or abroad; an excursion, ramble, stroll. Obs.
Freq. in the 17th c., chiefly in verbal phrases as to fetch, make, or take a vagary.
†b. to play his vagary, of a horse, to leave or refuse to follow the proper or desired course. Obs.—1
c. An irregular course or distribution.
†2. A wandering in speech or writing; a rambling from the subject under consideration; a digression or divagation. Obs. (passing into sense 5).
3. a. A departure or straying from the ordered, regular, or usual course of conduct, decorum, or propriety; a frolic or prank, esp. one of a freakish nature. Now rare or Obs. (passing into sense 4).
†b. Without article: Frolic, gambolling. Obs.
4. a. A capricious, fantastic, or eccentric action or piece of conduct.
I'm pretty sure I left Coda a voicemail the day before his birthday or the day after, but he never called me back. Not that it bothers me when Coda doesn't call me back. We've had some lively email exchanges but our phone conversations have generally been one-off affairs, not really part of an ongoing dialogue or anything. Not that I have a leg to stand on the returning of phone calls tip; I'm at +5 for outgoing calls made vs. return calls made (meaning there's three people I'm supposed to call and eight people who are supposed to call me, applying somewhat subjective and arbitrary rules of etiquette) but if you consider email correspondence roughly equivalent to returning a phone call, which I do, then I'm at -8, unless you count friendster testimonials, which I don't, in which case I'd be at -13 for the year.
Coda did call me back, though, even if it took him a couple months. I'd run into him on IM and demanded to know where the hell he'd been. "Falling in love," he said somewhat cryptically, as if that means anything at all to me.
Freq. in the 17th c., chiefly in verbal phrases as to fetch, make, or take a vagary.
†b. to play his vagary, of a horse, to leave or refuse to follow the proper or desired course. Obs.—1
c. An irregular course or distribution.
†2. A wandering in speech or writing; a rambling from the subject under consideration; a digression or divagation. Obs. (passing into sense 5).
3. a. A departure or straying from the ordered, regular, or usual course of conduct, decorum, or propriety; a frolic or prank, esp. one of a freakish nature. Now rare or Obs. (passing into sense 4).
†b. Without article: Frolic, gambolling. Obs.
4. a. A capricious, fantastic, or eccentric action or piece of conduct.
I'm pretty sure I left Coda a voicemail the day before his birthday or the day after, but he never called me back. Not that it bothers me when Coda doesn't call me back. We've had some lively email exchanges but our phone conversations have generally been one-off affairs, not really part of an ongoing dialogue or anything. Not that I have a leg to stand on the returning of phone calls tip; I'm at +5 for outgoing calls made vs. return calls made (meaning there's three people I'm supposed to call and eight people who are supposed to call me, applying somewhat subjective and arbitrary rules of etiquette) but if you consider email correspondence roughly equivalent to returning a phone call, which I do, then I'm at -8, unless you count friendster testimonials, which I don't, in which case I'd be at -13 for the year.
Coda did call me back, though, even if it took him a couple months. I'd run into him on IM and demanded to know where the hell he'd been. "Falling in love," he said somewhat cryptically, as if that means anything at all to me.
Feb 18, 2005
Not if the Meteor Kills Us First!
The conference also heard a gloomy analysis of the way the North Atlantic Ocean is reacting to global warming from Ruth Curry of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Her new study showed that vast amounts of fresh water more than 20,000 cubic kilometres have been added to the northernmost parts of the ocean over the past 40 years because the Arctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting.
According to Dr Curry, the resulting change in the salinity balance of the water threatens to shut down the Ocean Conveyor Belt, which transfers heat from the tropics towards the polar regions through currents such as the Gulf Stream. If that happened, winter temperatures in northern Europe would fall by several degrees.
The possible failure of the North Atlantic conveyor has been discussed for several years and was fictionalised last year in the film The Day After Tomorrow. Dr Curry said the accumulation of freshwater in the upper ocean layers since the 1990s meant that the risk should be taken seriously. (Financial Times)
A Burglar Alarm for a House with no Locks
On Tuesday, Bill Gates and other Microsoft executives at the RSA Conference in San Francisco outlined several moves to beef up Windows' security, including giving away anti-spyware software for personal and home use, assembling a consumer-oriented anti-virus service, and releasing a beta of an updated Internet Explorer -- dubbed IE 7.0 -- to Windows XP users by the middle of 2005. (Information Week)
Mission Accomplished!
New allegations of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been revealed in Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The documents show photographs of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions. The photos were taken at a base in southern Afghanistan (Fire Base Tycze) between December 2003 and February 2004. Some members of the infantry regiment said they took the pictures for fun and destroyed some of them after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq to avoid another public outrage. (Voice of America)
Feb 11, 2005
On the Fourth Day There Will Be Questions
The woman who claimed to have seen a baby being tossed from a moving car fabricated the story as a cover to abandon her newborn and hide an unwanted pregnancy from her family, authorities said Friday. State law allows a mother to take a baby to any medical facility or fire station within the first three days the baby is born without any questions asked.
"That provides parents or women with an option. You don't have to just abandon your child in way that would endanger his or her life," said Veda Coleman-Wright, a sheriff's office spokeswoman. (AP)
A Diplomatic Tussle Nobody Anticipated
Michael Jankelowitz, a Jewish Agency spokesman, said just over 10,000 Jews from the Soviet Union moved to Israel last year. In comparison, 12,000 moved to Germany, where he said they are granted refugee status and receive generous welfare benefits.
Israel has pressed Germany to cancel its absorption benefits to help encourage the remaining 800,000 Jews in former Soviet lands to move to Israel, he said. (Moscow News)
Israel has pressed Germany to cancel its absorption benefits to help encourage the remaining 800,000 Jews in former Soviet lands to move to Israel, he said. (Moscow News)
Feb 10, 2005
It's Like They Don't Like Us or Something
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned Thursday that any invader would be met by a "burning hell" as tens of thousands of people braved blizzards to join rallies for the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. After close to a week of record snowfall, Tehran and much of the north has been virtually paralysed - making it virtually impossible for many people to find transport to take them to the town centre for the annual anti-American demonstrations. But regime loyalists were out in force, parading effigies of US President George W. Bush and his new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. According to powerful former president and top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the strong turnout "in this snow and cold should send a message to America." (Middle East Online)
Feb 5, 2005
A Few People Had Their Suspicions at the Time
Is this a new and improved Corey Dillon, or have we finally been allowed to see the real Corey Dillon?
"People are going to view me how they want to," said Dillon, who admittedly has matured since his college days and his early years in Cincinnati, which included run-ins with the law. "The way I look at it, people didn't think Jesus was Jesus, so who am I? People are going to think what they want." (Espn.com)
"People are going to view me how they want to," said Dillon, who admittedly has matured since his college days and his early years in Cincinnati, which included run-ins with the law. "The way I look at it, people didn't think Jesus was Jesus, so who am I? People are going to think what they want." (Espn.com)
And what is it that they are, sir?
A 1999 trial in Alzheimer's disease patients that Pfizer sponsored but never published found an increased risk of heart problems in those taking Celebrex. And the National Institutes of Health ended a study in December after finding that high doses of Celebrex more than tripled the incidence of heart attacks and strokes in patients. "They are what they are," Dr. Feczko [President of Pfizer] said of those two trials. But "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence" indicates the drugs are safe, he said.
Over all, Pfizer has performed much less research on Bextra than on Celebrex, Dr. Feczko said. Most of the company's studies of Bextra have been short term, with many lasting only two weeks. As a result, Pfizer has less data to support its contention that Bextra is safe, he said. (NY Times)
Over all, Pfizer has performed much less research on Bextra than on Celebrex, Dr. Feczko said. Most of the company's studies of Bextra have been short term, with many lasting only two weeks. As a result, Pfizer has less data to support its contention that Bextra is safe, he said. (NY Times)
Feb 4, 2005
Oil Execs Can't Always Have Unimpeachable Integrity
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday he was "shocked" by an initial investigative report that found the man in charge of the U.N. oil-for-food program made illicit oil deals. Paul Volcker's report, released Thursday, said Benon Sevan "repeatedly solicited" several million barrels of oil worth about $1 million on behalf of a company named African Middle East Petroleum. The illicit deals "violated standards of integrity," the report said.
"We do not want this shadow to hang over the U.N. So we want to get to the bottom of it, get to the truth and take appropriate measures to deal with the gaps," he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. (CNN)
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