Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Neil Steinberg today mocks the moment of silence thing–wait, what is this? In public schools? Did I miss this? This certainly cannot be real! Isn’t that what Catholic schools are for? Education isn’t safe for anyone these days!

Again, just to cut back on the fuss, let me be clear: Religion, a wonderful thing, a big multi-scoop ice cream cone of happiness. Great that you can dig in and enjoy. Just do it without dripping your doctrine on my shoe, OK? Because your Eternal Truth from God on High is my band of tree cultists worshipping a seed ball.

He lost me at “wonderful thing,” then got me back with “tree cultists.”

Oh, is this sweet. Radiohead, continuing their beautiful promotional assault, cover The Smiths’ “Headmaster Ritual” (and lots other stuff) on something called radiohead.tv. I love this song. In fact, this weekend I got my record player fixed and Meat is Murder was the…second album I played, the first being Robyn Hitchcock’s Eye. How happy am I, to have my records back? Oh, so happy. I drove around for a while trying to find any little joint on Fullerton or wherever that might fix my turntable but then remembered the place where I had gotten a needle replaced years ago on Chicago Ave. and hit it. There he was! My guy!

The place was filled with electronic junk and cassettes and VHS tapes and boomboxes and tons of shit that will never sell, and he was sitting with his wife watching a tiny black and white television. Who ever goes in here? I put my turntable on the counter and he looked at it and went back and found the right rubber band thing and put it on. It took about 5 seconds. I asked how much do I owe you? and he said “it’s $25, for you, 20.” You need a guy? I got a guy.

The drive back home was torturous bliss, I was so excited and couldn’t wait to hook it up and I was yelling and singing along with the radio. I went down and got it going and then looked through the records, trying to decide what should be first. Ah, yes, Eye. Such a great album, sad and goofy and beautiful. I bought that album in Madison, Wisconsin after a long trip up north to see an old girlfriend. So worth it. The album, not the girl.

Anyway, the second album (or was it the third?) was Meat is Murder, and Joe Jackson’s Night and Day was on the table too. I’ve only just begun to rediscover my collection, all those Pete Townsend solo albums and R.E.M. and John Lennon and B-52s.

Anyway, this Radiohead thing on Stereogum is fantastic, they cover New Order’s “Ceremony” too, and the new songs, and all kinds of shit. YouTubes and mp3s at that link.

Roger Ebert’s four-star review of No Country for Old Men, the Cormac McCarthy novel that the Coen Brothers filmed (mentioned here earlier). Sounds awesome.

Radiohead does Bjork (get your mind out of the gutter!), it’s all here on this Stereogum post, and it’s great if you love them both like I do.

First Carrie, now Krist–Novoselic, that is, from Nirvana–blogging at the Seattle Weekly. I like him more than Dave Grohl, I’ll just say it. He’s my favorite surviving member of Nirvana. Ah, Nirvana…miss you very much.

UPDATE:

Finally read Krist’s post, and it is right on. Pacifist-anarchy DIY philosophy. I like that.

Rich. Priceless. Perfect. Someone named Lisa Schiffren says it all on NRO today. Expect a lot of this in the coming year: Sure, Bill Clinton was a scheming, leering, womanizing scumbag, yes, but change his name to Rudy and all is magically forgiven!

I don’t like some of his social views — but I think that those are not the most important issues the next president will deal with. I hate the way he dealt with his ex-wife — hate hate hate. I think his current wife is a nightmare. And he is clearly not much of a father. But I’ve seen a lot of successful men like that — and while it isn’t what I want in my life, we are not interviewing prospective husbands here. Character matters in leaders— but more for what it tells us about how a person will behave politically, than as a moral report card. Rudy’s flaws are Bill Clinton’s — which smacked of weakness, an excessive need to be loved by pretty much anyone, and inconstancy.

Yes, she is talking about Rudy there, not Bill Clinton. It’s been obvious for some time now, but as Pat Robertson proved, everything that the right-wing nuts hated about Clinton will be hypocritically tossed aside for their man Rudy. Rudy’s flaws are Bill Clinton’s (!), but hey, we’re not interviewing prospective husbands here!

Really? So the (prospective) president’s personal dalliances really don’t matter, after all? There are more important things than (gasp!) their sex lives, their marriages, their private parts? Well hot damn, this is a revelation! So we can take back all that silliness of the 90s and drop the obsession with Bill’s penis, yes? Great news! I always knew you would come around to my way of thinking!

You not just messing with me, are you?

UPDATE:

Lisa Scheffren responds:

I meant to say that Rudy’s flaw are NOT the same as Bill’s. Surely the distinction matters. Anyway, I think Bill lowered the bar forever.

Uh huh. Riiiight. She didn’t correct her post; Freudian slip, perhaps? A later post in The Corner reveals all that is needed to know about Ms. Schiffren, in which she exposes what her poor daughter is up against:

I have forbidden every other vulgar, horrible TV show, but the 12 year old wore me down one night with the (pathetic) argument that she really wanted to be able to discuss the show at the lunch table with the cool girls at her (religious day) school. It was a weak moment.

Her daughter wanted to watch Ugly Betty, perish the thought. That poor kid. The rebel yell is gonna be loud in that house.

This is helpful. One-time Iraq War supporter Andrew Sullivan spells out quite clearly where and how he was wrong, and I think it’s a useful tool for all war supporters out there still clinging to their delusions. There are many good points in this post, but I’ll highlight this portion in particular:

Even if, in a decade or so, we see something approaching a normal society in Iraq (which would be the first time in centuries), I will still have been fantastically wrong…To have embroiled ourselves in a large, open-ended, $3 trillion occupation of a country that is clearly no longer a country, and to trap the bulk of the military in that theater while threats proliferate globally, and to have no viable exit strategy ever: this is a colossal, historic error. And all this holds even if it turns out in the very long run to have made Iraq a more normal society than it was under Saddam.

I still hope passionately that this will be seen as a long-term not-catastrophe – or maybe even something better. But I cannot see the last five years as evidence for much optimism on that count. And, while one can and should be grateful for some minimal counter-insurgency competence from Petraeus this year, I’m not going to extrapolate madly from the last five weeks.

It’s still hard for me to believe that so much was ignored before the war began, from the history of Iraq all the way to the exit strategy for this occupation; how do you not know or weigh any of these things before starting a military operation? Or do you just ignore it? That is, apparently, what so many did. (Added: I am speaking of politicians and masters of war here who approved and allowed this to happen; that so many American people silently agreed to this war is an entirely different subject, but no less maddening.)

The Booze Cabinet stands firmly behind its opposition to this war from its earliest days.

I feel slightly bad for George Ryan today, mostly because watching a 73 year-old man go to prison is an ugly sight, but I guarantee I will not feel the same when Donald Rumsfeld is cuffed and taken away. No, he doesn’t deserve to be waterboarded (no one does) but most everything else, yeah, sure, why not?

Pat Robertson has endorsed . . . Rudy for Prez! This strikes me as funny. The thrice-divorced ex-mayor of blue New York City who supports gay rights and abortion rights has won over the Religious Wrong. It’s not about principles or morals or values; it’s about power, and keeping it! Not really a surprise there.

Why are Republican men still so infatuated with Bill Clinton’s penis? You know they are. And they can’t wait for Hillary to become President so they put Bill’s member back in their . . . sights. Everything feels so inevitable right now, it’s quite sad. We are doomed to repeat ourselves, I fear.

UPDATE:

An even funnier bit of irony to the Pat Robertson endorsement: America deserved 9/11. Now vote for Rudy! I get confused as to who said what–these Religious Wrong guys all say the same shit–but yes, it was Robertson and fellow nut Jerry Falwell (he’s dead now, right?) who said that America had it coming because of all the damn gays and abortions and shit. These are Rudy’s guys! Who’s dumb enough to vote for more of this? Oh, I know you have it in you, America! Too too well.

UPDATE II:

Andrew Sullivan on this meeting of the minds:

It doesn’t surprise me that he sees eye to eye with Giuliani. They are very similar characters. The fusion of Giuliani’s authoritarianism with Robertson’s Christianism is indeed one future path for the GOP. It is enlightening to me to witness two very similar politicians sink their differences to forge that new, fascistic direction.

Here’s Dennis Kucinich calling for the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Hey, it’s early, I haven’t committed to any candidate yet. Make it happen, Dennis, and watch the ground swell beneath you!

Carrie from Sleater-Kinney has a blog up at NPR now. I miss them coming ’round to Metro and kicking my ass. And Carrie, well, she’s just dreamy.

Washington Monthly held a contest for the nuttiest right-wingin’ blog post, called the Golden Wingnut Award, and they have a big winner! It’s a good one too, from a blog called Powerline, that starts out like this:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

This is not a joke. And written in July of 2005, well after any there were any doubts to his lack of extraordinary vision and brilliance. Well after. Long, long after. These people are rich! The runner-up is that brilliant law professor who I had a brief interaction with recently, Mr. Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds. Good stuff, read it all here!

Too funny. Or sad, whichever:

Q: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?

MS. PERINO: In our opinion, no.

She’s talking about Pakistan and she is, of course, lying. Or unaware of who her boss is.