Les said, the better II

So I’m doing a project about terrorism and I got from the library a video about terror and terrorist groups. It was made back when we were fighting “terrorists” all over south America, like indigineous farmers and workers and the non-ruling classes. Back the first time that Rumsfeld and Cheney werre major players in a war on terror. I think we won that one, as the Mayans in Guatemala have not killed our children in the middle of the night. Nor did Nicuragua bomb us with jet planes, although given the level of violence we were unleashing upon them, it would have been morally justifiable as a “just war” on their part. Except for the end, where we would have nuked them.

Anyway, so back in the 80’s when this video was made, there were a bunch of very scary terror groups that struck out with violence in all directions killing innocent people. Including Armenians. There were Armenians in many many countries, lurking, waiting to bomb you. Why is that? Well, Turkey did a forced march wherein many of them expelled. More than a million Armenians were killed in this process in one of the unremebered genocides of the 20th century. And can you beleive it, some Armenians want to keep dwelling on the past! They raised money so that Armenians left in Turkey can try to fight the military state as it continues to crush them. These Armenians are engaging in murder, cold-blooded murder, against Turkish government officials. And Armenians all over the globe are participating! “where ever there are Armenians, there is terror.” (Fresno is given as an example of this phenomenon)
1.5 million dead Armenians = the state’s legitimate use of force and a thing of the past, so stop caring.
A few dozen (or heck, maybe a couple hundred) dead Turkish offcials = morally reprehensible, unjustifiable, criminal, evil murder
So, we had a bogey man, a war with evil, an unrepentant and inscrutable criminal element, bent on our distruction.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I would also like to note that Cobra, the bad guys in the GI Joe TV show were also terrorists intent on killing the entire western world for reasons that were completely unclear but had something to do with being evil. In 1985, this was a children’s cartoon. I guess that off and on for the last 20 or 30 years, it’s also been our political situation in Real Life. really.

Yeah, so very soon I must start applying for whatever I want to do next fall. My plan now is to apply to a bunch of stuff and then go to the one that takes me. Smart, eh? I have two things to worry about: my life and my career. But for composers, how seperate are these things? anyway, yes, I could go home and start a lovely career. Or I could not go home and get another degree and continue a little adventure of living far away and be able to use that degree to get a teaching job anywhere. Few west coast teachers have more than an MFA, but with a DMA (or other PhD level degree), I could go more places. Do I want to teach or do I want to compose? Do I get a choice? How many composers are teachers?

And I’ve been a it stressed lately. First week of classes is always a bit stressful. I have a low stress threshold, really. and things are still progressing on other fronts of stress improvement. I’ve just boxed up the dishes that I’ve been using for the last several years to send them to the ex. The dishes were made by her dad. My name is on the bottom of them. Packing them is a bit disconcerting. Can’t he just make her another set? Anyway. Yes, I have a tatoo that matches these plates. On my leg.
so dealing with this makes me feel a bit freaky. I start to worry about other things. I’m trying to pull myself back and wonder why I’m freaking out about possible future application suddenly. And it’s because the dishes are upsetting me. I’m trying to be aware of my actual sources of stress. Because then I can deal with them. Olga posts about how anxiety comes from thinking that dangers are greater than your reserves. But if you really look at it, you’re often maximizing danger and minimizing reserves when you contemplate things. So if you make a list or something, you find out you can handle your problems and are calm. I’m a step off from that, because I first start by worrying about unrelated things. Yes, you think I’m neurotic. Not so! I’m just displacing my worries.
Nevertheless, my reserves do get hit pretty hard. How much emotional reserve does one need to put the dress one’s ex wore to one’s wedding into a box and drop it in the mail? What if the majority of your friends and family were thousands of miles away? What if another year on the other side of the country was starting to freak you out anyway?
The seasons here are very strong. Fall looks like fall, it does not look like spring or winter (or summer, presumably), so when I walk around here this fall, I am strongly reminded not of last winter or spring, but of last fall. Let’s play the game: how has my life changed in the last year? I wonder if this year will be like last year? I wonder if I can handle it? Knowing what you’ve already survived ought to provide some confidence for the future, shouldn’t it? Knowing situations to avoid. (I know it would be unreasonable to start worrying about this thing, but it’s the sort of thing that worries me, so I think I’ll just avoid it.) When you start adjusting your life to deal with your insecurities, is it because you are getting better at dealing with stuff or is it because you’ve just given up trying? More healthy / less healthy?
I’m trying to be aware of the kind of things that freak me out and why they freak me out and how that shows up and what I can do about it. Knowing these things is somehow helpful. At the very least, I stop worrying about what I think I’m worried about and concentrate on what’s actually bugging me. I feel half as worried that way.
So my future plans are up in the air. But I don’t need to worry about them. Yet.

Um, even so, my todo list has gone somewhat awry. I’m not going to find a double bass to play in time for Monday. Not going to happen. I’m just going to play tuba this semester. And I’m not packing dishes until tomorrow. I don’t think I have to record anything today, but, um, I dunno.

I don’t think I like my vocal piece, but it has to be done by tonight, so, um, yeah. [ MIDI | Scortch (requires free plugin) ] the text is from Nicole’s blog and the notes are from some words in Solresol. I think it sounds gimmicky, but Jess likes it. Or maybe she was just saying that so I would let her use my laptop.
Tomorrow: rehersal, learn some parts for tuesday, other parts for wednesday. I’m going to be a tuba playing fool. I’m a little sad about not playing bass, but, I have a tuba and I spent years taking lessons on it and I really ought to play it more often. And it’s a bit more portable.
My landlord ripped out part of the celeing of my bathroom. I wonder how long I will have hole in my ceiling?

If you’ve been obsessively reading the news today (what? “a life”? what do you mean?), you’re certainly aware that when CBS uncovered documents indicated that Dubya disobeyed direct orders, all sorts of media started claiming that those documents were forgeries. The charges of forgery are rediculous, but it doesn’t matter as doubt has been planted in people’s minds. In fact, the “forgery” story has overshadowed the original story. Dubya was going down, when boom, a massive distraction was created. It started appearing in blogs before CBS had even finished it’s broadcast.

Meanwhile, some guys who never met John Kerry put out a TV ad saying bad things about him and weeks later they seem to be still running ads. Kerry’s not hitting back in a way that gets media saturation. And he’s not exactly left wing. Bush is the antithesis of all I used to stand for, so he must be really right wing. And suppoerting him would be a lot less frustrating if I were a right winger, cuz 1. He’s really right wing and 2. He can put out a fire in a way the Democrats can’t. So I’m switching sides. I mean, kerry is a so watered-down version of what i support that he’s not even clearly identifiable as related.
But bush is the antithesis of what i would go for.
lots of people are itching to vote for bush.
cuz he’s evil and they like that.
they look at him and say, “hey, there’s my kind of evil!”
so if i were a rightwinger, i’d probably love bush.
It won’t be hard. I do kind of hate people who are different than me. Bush invokes an alien other a lot, so I’ll do that too. Goddamn heterosexuals! Also: cat people. Cat people are a clear threat to national security.
Plus they’re something not quite right about them.
it’s much more sexy to be evil.
you don’t have to worry about ethics.
you can do whatever you want.
you can use any tactic.
unscrupulous people frequently prosper. cheaters often win.
i’m switching to evil. and i support cat person profiling.
i’m also scapegoating men. I would like to point out that heterosexual, cat-people, men are especially dangerous. ‘m going to write a book explaining how they should all be rounded up.
evil is winning.
it’s a sign of the end times.
but i don’t beleive in the afterlife, so i’m throwing in my lot with the beast.

also, surgery for prostate cancer should only be performed in cases of rape or incest. cuz prostates have to do with sex, which is related, for men, to being men, and i need to scapegoat them. And, so if fetuses aren’t babies in cases of rape or incest, then men can have prostate cancer fixed only when it’s not their fault either.
Um, who else should I irrationally hate and deny basic rights to? Any ideas?

All three are pretty cool. I feel so light on my feet, only having three classes. But I must write a lot of music. I must write a solo vocal piece by tomorrow evening. I will take the text by a blog liscenced under a creative commons liscence that allows derrivative works. It is my plan to use blogs under that liscnce as a source for words for any future works. If you want your blog to be a possible source for songs I write, you should so liscence your blog. If you don’t want me mucking around with your words, then don’t liscence anything.

I took my language exam today in Esperanto. UC Sanata Cruz faxed me some text by Lou Harrison. They are super awesome. I found out that I could have just used a magazine. I wish that I had, as lou designed his own fonts and they’re hard to read. I will keep this in mind if (when) I re-take the exam in the spring.
I have things I could rant about (no, not republicans (except: who are these swing voters? and kerry has a 20 point lead among people who vote based on issues. what else do you vote on? who’s cuter?)), but it would be unseemly, to rant publically.
I’ve received word that Chicken, a cat belonging to my ex, has taken to making flying attack leaps and drawing blood on people above the waist. Do you like ferral cats? Would you like to host one for a while? I think maybe a large cage is the answer. If she were a dog, she’d be in the pound right now. Heck, if she belonged to me, she’d be in the pound right now. Maybe she’ll go to the pound anyway.

the New York Times has published pictures of the thousand soldiers killed in Iraq.

You know why this guy kicks ass? Because he’s so on-message! Right, like, anything we disagree with is terrorism. Like, we don’t like Iraq, so they’re all terrorists. Well, we don’t like the teacher’s union. So Paige called them a terrorist organization. Isn’t that awesome?

Whatever the size of our armed forces or economy, no nation can sustain its greatness unless it educates all of its citizens, not just some of it. 

Um, some of “them.” Education are sure important.

No one understands this better than President Bush.

No one else has the courage to ask “is our children learning?”

He’s always had a compassionate vision for education

We know what “compassionate” means when we apply it to Bush. Don’t worry. We won’t have the masses getting uppity with book learning.
This speech is too short to mock properly. They must have given this guy all of ten minutes. Either that or he spoke really slowly. I think it shows where education falls on the Bush agenda. Now that we’ve heard a short speech on education, we can get back to the important stuff: war, terror, fears and icky queers.
Hell, he probably said something about NEA terrorists because he thought somebody from the white house might accidentally pay attnetion to education.

This is weird, cuz remember when Frist got in trouble for racism and then got disgraced and lost his position of leadership? Why are they letting him speak after that? What do you mean he didn’t get in trouble for it? what?

Well, today the nameplate on the door of my Capitol office reads just that William Frist M.D. It’s a constant reminder of my dad’s advice: to work each day to better the life of every individual American.

I’m a doctor, so nothing I say can possibly be wrong or crazy

Thanks to [Bush’s] leadership, over 40 million seniors and individuals with disabilities will soon have access to prescription drugs.

What’s more, prescription drug coverage is the centerpiece of something bigger: the first real reform of Medicare since its creation.

Something had to be done about medicare. I mean, billionaires don’t need it. Why is it still here?
So, we started by changing it so people could sacrifice benefits for drugs. Just because I’m a doctor, you don’t need to worry. I’m a Republican. No one in this party since Nixon will ever tell you that healthcare is a right.

And let me point out that our opponents talked about doing this for eight years.

ha ha ha! Remember how we derailed them? Hoo-boy, we ran those ads. And we attacked the health plan until it was on life support. and then we practiced some compassionate euthanasia on it. Can I give a shout-out to my good buddy, Dr. Kevorkian!

Our opponents have a way of confusing compassion with dependency.

We believe true compassion encourages and empowers Americans to be responsible and take control of their own lives.

That’s what President Bush and the Republican Congress did when we made Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) the law of the land.

Because it’s not compassionate to just give somebody with cancer radiation treatment. That’s like giving a starving person a fish instead of teaching them to fish. If we don’t encourage people with cancer to have extra income, how will they ever have any savings. Look, people, it’s simple: stop living from hand to mouth and from paycheck to paycheck. If you want to survive cancer, you’re going to have to stop being so poor.

So here’s the choice: do we grow the bureaucracy and gouge you with higher taxes, as Mr. Kerry will do?

Or, do we let the American people grow their own HSAs and own their health care, as George Bush wants to do?

Do we want to help our rich friends dodge taxes or do we want to help poor people keep living their miserable lives? You know, one of the great tenants of McKinleyism was social darwinism. It’s an idea whose time has come back.

Another reason health care costs too much is our abused medical liability system.

The culprits are personal injury trial lawyers.

We oppose these predators.

They are so evil. They have the crazy idea that companies should pay for hurting people. And did you realize that the democratic veep candidate is one of these vipers? He’s clearly a communist.

[A doctor] said the [insurance] situation has worsened. Though he has never been sued, his liability insurance has doubled.

And although regulating insurance would be the logical solution to this problem, or better yet, nationalizing care, that would cut the profits of our biggest donors, so we’ll screw patients instead.

That hospital has the only level 1 trauma center in the region. What if it closes?

Vote for us or terrorists will attack us with nuclear weapons, all the hospitals will close and your children will be molested by homosexuals!

Let’s be clear: you can no longer be both pro-patient and pro-trial lawyer.

Really, you can’t be pro-patient and pro insurance company, but hey, let’s blame people who advocate for patient’s rights. Have you ever had an accountant deny a standard treatment to a gravely ill relative? Well, it’s not the fault of the accountant, it’s the fault of the lawyer you hired to write them a threatening letter so they would treat your mother’s cancer.

[Edwards] is the “Dr. No” of tort reform in America.

Liberals are so out of control with their over-the-top rhetoric! Have you seen the crazy things the protesters have on their signs?

An embryo is biologically human. It deserves moral respect.

unlike those non-billionaires who are sick and think insurance companies should have to pay for treatments.

Tax credits for the uninsured, electronic medical records, a just, fair and fast medical liability system: these could be part of our future. But, only one candidate will lead us there – President George W. Bush.

Cuz uninsured people totally have extra cash!

We have a choice. John Kerry’s trillion-dollar government-run plan will place your health in the hands of others far away.

Allowing folks access to healthcare costs too much.
Everything is better if it’s done for the benefit of rugged individuals. Cuz that means people who can pay for it! Not those stinky poor people. If we did things collectively, why that might be more efficient. And remember, profits come from inefficiency. This party will never stand in the way of profit. Especially not on behalf of people who can’t donate to us.

Hey, remember when she was running against Bush in the primaries and then her own husband donated a bunch of money to bush and not her? I bet she does too! (insert viagara joke here)

[Mr. President,] You have restored honor and dignity to the White House.

Number of blowjobs from interns: zero!
Amount of blow ingested: let’s no discuss that.

[Republicans] still believe that character is king. We saw that lived out in the life of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Asleep in meetings? Can hardly string a sentence together? Have no idea what’s going on? It’s ok as long as you look good and like puppies.

Ronald Reagan, who called an empire evil and won the Cold War.

This party will never learn from massive foreign policy blunders. And if things work out despite all of our near-disasterous errors, well, we’ll take credit for it forever.

We still believe that liberty is the birthright of every soul. That’s why in Afghanistan, women were freed from virtual slavery and given access to books and education and a future. That’s why in Afghanistan and Iraq, the dark clouds of oppression have parted for 50 million people.

Yes, everything in Afghanistan is going great.

And until they can clearly see the blue skies of freedom, we are standing by them. 

Ok, it’s not actually going great. And we’re not actually standing by them, siince we’ve diverted all our troops to Iraq, but her, who cares?

Yet we know our true strength is not in our weapons. We are a great nation because we are a good people. And we are a good people because of what we believe. We believe in the dignity of every life, the possibility of every mind, the divinity of every soul. This is our true north. We believe in life . . . the new life of a man and woman joined together under God. Marriage is not important because it’s a convenient invention or the latest reality show. Marriage is important because it is the cornerstone of civilization and the foundation of the family.

Our strength is not just in our big bombs, but also our willful intolerance. Yes, my fellow americans, ignorace is strength.

We value the sacred life of every man, woman, and child. We believe in a culture that respects all life including the most vulnerable in our society, the frail elderly, the infirm, and those not yet born. 

Unless the fetus is a homo and then it can go to hell.

We believe in the treasured life of faith. Two-thousand years ago, a man said, “I have come to give life and to give it in full.” In America, I have the freedom to call that man Lord, and I do.

Well, saying that is more or less compulsory in this convention and, hopefully, will be soon all over the world. And then we’ll all have that freedom. Freedom is slavery.

In the United States of America, we are free to worship without discrimination, without intervention, and even without activist judges trying to strip the name of God from the pledge of allegiance, from the money in our pockets, and from the walls of our courthouses.

Everyone in America freely worships Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior or else. Freedom is slavery.

The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I saw that on a bumper sticker on a humvee in the parking lot! Isn’t it clever? We can all worship Jesus in the fundamentalist church of our own choosing!

The last century was known as the “American Century.” In a single lifetime, I have seen Americans split the atom, abolish Jim Crow, eliminate the scourge of polio, win the Cold War, plant our flag on the surface of the moon, map the human genetic code, and belatedly recognize the talents of women, minorities, the disabled and others once relegated to the shadows. 

Um, but we invented Jim Crow . . .
And a little too belatedly. They told me a lady couldn’t be president. My own husband refused to support me! You bastards will let me speak on this stage, but not sit in the oval office. You sexist assholes. I would like to conclude this speech, not in the requisite call for blessing, but by telling you to all go Cheney yourselves.

No political figure is too unimportant to lampoon, especially ones that write lesbian pulp fiction and go on to have lesbian daughters.

It was just eight — just eight days ago that Dick and I embarked on this campaign. And the enormity of the honor that you have bestowed upon him is still sinking in. It is such a proud moment for our family.

and unlike my daughter, I like dick. heh heh.

Hello, family.

Hi mom!

My task tonight is to introduce Dick. And I could start with his resume. It is a pretty spiffy resume: White House chief of staff, congressman, defense secretary, distinguished business leader. But since I have a unique perspective on Dick’s life, I want to spend most of my time telling you things you may not know.

I just said “spiffy” because I’m a woman of the people. Really, even more so, a political wife. I am not an elite academic or the author of several books. I’m a republican stepford wife. And Bush is from Texas.

I have heard Dick talk about visiting his grandparents, staying with them in the railroad car in which they lived, and traveling up and down the line as his granddad cooked for the section gangs. This was not only an enormous adventure for a boy of 9 or 10, Dick learned from his time with his grandfather that cooking is an honorable male occupation.

not only has Dick interacted with the working class without spitting on them, he’s actually descended from them. And being around the non-rich is certainly an adventure, as I’m sure you delegates know, especially those of you brave enough to try riding the subways in this crazy city!
also, dick isn’t 100% mysoginist!

Conversations with Dick have a way of taking unexpected turns; problems get redefined and you find yourself thinking about things in new ways. I cannot imagine the discussion that would not benefit from his presence. He will be a very good vice president.

He completely twists the facts, makes things up and frames the dialog in an insane way. Also… wait a minute . … this is a speech from the 2000 convention. damn it