Hey Jack! Fuck You! And Rudy, Fuck You Too!

Hey, I never said the blog was PG-13, so deal with it. You remember the scene in Godfather II where Michael sees a Cuban rebel push one of Batista's lackeys into a car and detonate a grenade, killing them both in a suicide attack? Michael immediately deduces, from the rebel's determination, that future business in Cuba isn't likely to be as fruitful as Johnny Ola, Fredo, and Hyman Roth want to think. None of that trio survives the film, of course, which is as it should be.

I had occasion to watch a couple of interviews today that seem apposite, (Flash Video) one with former GE CEO Jack Welch, the (Flash Video) other with the endlessly-dubbed "Mayor of America" (except that Republican America really didn't seem to want that Republican mayor) Rudy Giuliani. Both clips, in their own ways, deal with the genuinely-laudable Supreme Court decision (PDF of the decision) Boumediene v. Bush. Both of these distinguished gentlemen opposed the narrow 5-4 vote that SCOTUS handed down last week, a decision that took the bold step of noting that the right of habeas corpus was enjoyed by those in the Gitmo gulag. Welch took the American-reputation angle, while Giuliani hewed to the talking-points memo, focusing on criticizing Obama.

I really admire the United States; the reasons for that are numerous and probably boring and certainly subject to mockery from my Canadian and especially European associates; the latter I find rather rich, given the fact that Europe--in the twentieth century alone--produced the worst catalogue of crimes against humanity imaginable. The best thing about the United States is not the Constitution of the United States itself, but the notion of constitutionialism, of fair dealing, of basic decency. Tocqueville rightly spotted, almost two hundred years ago, that race would become the Americans' great national scar, in great part due to the denial of that basic decency to black and native Americans.

One of the primary reasons that I grew to admire the United States was how broadly the term "American citizen" could be used. I was lucky enough to come across one such citizen, a Jew who was chosen to integrate, religiously at least, an important American law firm co-founded by the son of Abraham Lincoln, and another, who strikes me as a Yankee of the best kind and was raised all over the world and not very much in the States. The former man, much to my surprise (shows you what I know), was happy to build a flagpole for raising the American flag (and I was happy to buy him a flag for it), while the other has always served to remind me of the real promises of the United States and of that nation's failure to live up to it. He recently wrote to me of his outrage at John McCain's statement that the Boumediene decision was "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," suggesting that Dred Scott, Plessy, or Korematsu were indisputably worse, and horrifically so. My correspondent was entirely correct in his analysis. It says something about American intellectual life--and I mean the real one, not the one parodied all over the place--that I knew exactly what all three of those decisions were about. The best Americans I know are quite willing to hammer the administration and mood of the day, generally on the basis that some actions are simply un-American, in the best, and indeed only estimable, sense of that word.

So what about Welch and Giuliani? The former is guilty of the kind of "happy talk" rightly ridiculed by a recently-deceased Chicago writer. Just as Michael's doomed associates ignored the realities of the Cuban revolution, Welch seems to ignore the realities of the 42,000 miles he is so proud to have recently traveled. He gaily notes that several European leaders are more pro-American than their predecessors, which along with $2.60 will get you a cup of coffee, and prattles on about the gee-whiz enthusiasm of Eastern Europeans who attend the high-end conferences at which Welch prostitutes himself. Welch is very worried that the Bourmediene decision will somehow give away a decade's worth of intelligence, a claim that, beyond its prima facie absurdity, would seem to neglect the near-universal acknowledgment of the catastrophic failure of the ginormous American intelligence establishment with respect to Islamic terrorism. If I recall correctly, an NBC engineer died in the 9/11 attacks, and one of the many GE tentacles may have had offices somewhere in the World Trade Center complex. I don't dispute Welch's genuine sense of loss about 9/11, but this palaver about what transpired that day is more than a little hard to take.

As for Giuliani, I don't quarrel with the fact that he was the mayor of a city that was brutally attacked on 9/11. The loss of life on that day, in terrorism terms, was sadistic; if you were above the floors that the planes hit, you probably didn't get out, and if you were below those floors, you probably did survive. I choose not to pick on him for the placement of the NYC Emergency Response Center, or for any other of the other missteps he may have made before or after that event, though others are welcome to do so. Let's keep in mind, though, that Rudy made his bones by prosecuting the real-world equivalents of Michael Corleone's inheritors. To hear someone who once held the indisputably-serious position of United States Attorney dismiss the missile attacks that followed the 1998 Embassy bombings is genuinely shocking.

There are laws, and they matter. One would hope that Welch and Giuliani, who between their Catholic selves somehow managed to have six wives, would have grasped that, but it is clear that they don't. That is a goddamned shame. Unlike most of the readers of this here blog, I've actually been to places like Egypt and Israel and Iran. I have no sympathy for these Al-Qaeda or Taliban scumbags, who hate Westerners, Christians, Jews and women in no particular order, and I take real pride in the fact that the first war my essentially-pacifist nation has entered since Korea was against those bastards. I'm not at all sure that we will end up on the winning side, but if you don't fight this war against these motherfuckers, what war do you fight?

Having said that, nothing would make me prouder of the United States than its choosing to accord all of the Gitmo detainees every legal opportunity imaginable. Despite the O.J. and R. Kelly juries, I have every faith that any random group of Americans would decide fairly whether of any of these people should live free or die.

Ten Fascitimnating Facts About Tim

Here are ten things that make me endlessly interesting, nay, irresistible (and you can imagine how hard it was to narrow it down to ten):

1. I have met every Canadian Prime Minister since Dief (and including him), except Lester B. (he died too quickly after famously pissing on LBJ's rug) and the incumbent, Stephen Harper, who is too busy writing his hockey book to invite me up to the old hotness that is 24 Sussex. I have met none of them while they were actually Prime Minister. Trudeau, you'll be shocked to learn, was with a stunning woman who appeared to be younger than my girlfriend at the time.

2. I have been at the water's edge of all four oceans, but haven't been in any of them. I have been in one Great Lake (North American variety), and can't say I liked it much.

3. I have lived in only one city whose name did not end in a vowel (and I've lived there twice!).

4. My grandfather was born in 1878. I'm only 39, so you do the math.

5. I haven't been to the two cities where I spent my first 18 years since 1994 and 1995, respectively, and cannot imagine that I will return to either of them.

6. I once saw, live, all (28 at the time) Major League Baseball teams in one year, in one city.

7. I can spell my name--and probably yours, too--in Yiddish. This is great at parties!

8. I can summon up the actual names of more Canadian military units than anybody I know.

9. The only Passover service I have ever attended--I'm not Jewish, but I prolly should have been--was in Isfahan, Iran. "Surreal" might be an apt description of the experience (though I am open to suggestions).

10. I was once simultaneously employed by two institutions with names so anachronistic that they could be viewed as detrimental to the cause, and even possibly offensive. The terms in question, for those who want to know, were "Oriental" and "Lying-In."

Bonus biscuit: My porn name is Fluffer Upton.

There--aren't you a better person for having read this? I know I am!

Ahoy! Avast! Arrrr!

My nautical "vocabulary" is now exhausted at what seems to be two words and interest. Anyway, I spent a year aboard this puppy one week:


I guess it's a good thing it wasn't that week! I'm not sure what the Robertson II has been used for of late, but I believe she was the last Nova Scotia schooner in service on the Pacific Coast. Sailing on her was lost on a lunkhead like me, but I suspect her former use as a kind of Outward-Bound boat was beneficial to others. It looks like she's staying where she is, until the sea's salt and currents inevitably win out.

I'm No Art Critic

But I know what I hate, and I don't hate this:


That's pretty damn good, right down to the red and the blue merging (Obama will never get over that speech). Michelle's dress at the coronation in St. Paul--and don't go calling her a St. Pauli Girl now--was, if you recall, purple, which all the kids know is what you get when you mix red and blue. It's by a well-known (though not to me of course) street artist named Shepard Fairey.

My graphic skills are highly limited, in the way that Dick Cheney's hatred for the oil industry is highly limited. However, I do think the poster could be equally effective as I have rendered it below.


Come to think of it, those two little words could be the whole campaign. No need for the town halls, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the deathly regular debates, the rallies, the baby-kissing, the slick website, etc. Instead, they could spend the four or five hundred milldo on a really kick-ass party; just make sure to invite me and at least a few women who aren't too picky. See you there!

Kalimera, Kanada!

While Greece has The Iliad, Canada has... Anne of Green Gables. Guess that's not exactly a win for my home and native land. On the other beaver paw, Canada has Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, while Greece has Nana Mouskouri and Yanni.

I only just learned that Joni and Len hooked up for a brief time in the 1960s (no word on whether the two Greeks ever did so, but I fervently hope not). This news evoked the following thoughts for me: it's a metaphysical certainty that they read their poetry to each other, though at least in this case, the poetry didn't completely blow; can you imagine how intolerable their pillow talk must have been; and, finally, has Leonard Cohen laid everything but the Atlantic Cable? Jesus, for a Jewish guy who can't really sing, he does pretty well. Come to think of it, I'm going to have to check his touring schedule around late December 1967, when I began existence. I'm not casting any undue aspersions on my blessed mother here, and in fact the real story of my conception is fairly hilarious, but it is true that she did have a couple of his albums, the only post-Bill Haley popular music she ever owned.

If Only I'd Known This...

I might have felt differently.

I mean, this is like the girl who won't talk to you all through high school and then confesses her undying affection for you at graduation. What am I supposed to do with that? We could have had some laughs! I might have even helped with the Democrats Abroad primary vote (though I am not a Democrat or, I suppose, a broad). Sigh...

You Know... This Was Kind Of A Big Deal

Now that Hillary has decided to act, if one day late, like herself and not that scumbag husband of hers, it seems appropriate to note that the Democratic Party (and they were the more pro-slavery ones, remember, and all those dumbass crackers like Jesse Helms started as Democrats) has nominated a black man for President. I have friends, who can actually vote, who are more or less convinced that a black man (or a woman) will never be elected President. I happen to think that they are in error, but they are not obviously wrong.

This is a genuinely gargantuan development. Even if he loses, which means that Grandpa Moses wins, it's a BFD. The New York Times is falling over itself in noting the approval in foreign quarters, which both is and is not important, and I'll likely blather on about that in greater detail down the road.

I hope the guy wins. He's hardly perfect, but he's a damn sight better than the other guy, his wife will kick your ass just for the fun of it, and he isn't an asshat, which might come in handy in the coming years.

In other news, I deeply heart Maureen Dowd. Ideally, my remaining days on earth will give me a chance to strike out with her, as I have with all the other politicas I have flirted with. No names are forthcoming, mind you: a gentleman doesn't not kiss and tell.