Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
Carl Schmitt: Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Max Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (Cultural Memory in the Present)
Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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I can't believe I'm actually suggesting a piece at The New Yorker--but here I am doing so. You really need to read this piece on Borat. It is funny and dead on. Although I do have to say that gays are made fun of--just not to their faces, only with Alan Keyes.
One of the benefits of the Christmas season is that one can get away with listening to music he would not get away with listening to without shame and mocking being heaped upon him. Now, I'm usually not shy about broadcasting my, erm, different musical tastes here, but allow me the pretense that I put forward at least a somewhat normal front. So without further ado...
I have been scolded for posting too many videos on the website by a few people, so I won't post the thing here. BUT, I will have to say that the one comment under this video made me laugh out loud and still does every time I think of it. It is just perfect. The video is of extremely poor quality and the audio is nearly nonexistent, so just click here and read the comment and you will be done with it. Oh, the video is for OLN and John Denver's great duet, Fly Away.
Another Thanksgiving over and done with. It was a pleasant enough time. My flight on Thanksgiving morning was uneventful--and full. I certainly cannot complain. SIBLING, in his unending wisdom, decided to take a train from the Left Coast and had to sit next to the cream of our society (MOTHER reported that she nearly retched when she caught a whiff of SIBLING getting in from the train station--the stench was evidently ripe and powerful).
The meal was OK. I didn't get much of anything since my table-mates had picked over everything by the time I was finished saying the Grace (they didn't even bother to listen). I was very tired throughout since I had not slept much the night before and had gotten up early to catch the flight.
The rest of the weekend was leisurely and pleasant. I did a good bit of reading, but not as much as I'd have liked to have done (which is always the case). I also began to think about the outlines for the big papers that will demand my full attention beginning in a day or two. We saw, en masse, the new James Bond movie and the response was uniformly positive. I am not familiar enough with the Bond oeuvre to declare it my favorite or even compare it to my favorite, since while I have seen most of them, it was been such a long time since I've watched one. But I know enough to say that it was exceedingly well done. The action scenes were top notch, and I actually think the fellow did a very good job at being Bond--even though he is different than the others. Most of the griping is just grumpiness and negative nanciness. I did miss Q and his gadgets, Moneypenny, and the gratuitous silhouetted and shaded ladies in the opening, although I admit that while the song was dreadful the opening credits were still good and he did have some nice cars and there were some gadgets.
But of everything of this weekend, my trip back was a standout. I had to be at the airport an hour earlier than standard since SIBLING was leaving just a bit earlier than I was (we sat together before his flight, awwww). The airport was crowded but checking in and security was a breeze. My seat coming out was not a good one (although not a middle) but the seat coming back was wonderful, just about the best seat one can get in coach--the aisle seat in the 2 pair next to the door in a 757. There was nothing in front of me so I could stretch out to my heart's leg's content. I was the second or third person off the plane and went immediately to the baggage claim area without stopping to even powder my nose and there was all the luggage sitting on the belt waiting for everyone. It could not have been five minutes. Reagan National is not a big airport. But there it was. So I just walked on by, grabbed it and headed up to the Metro. Taking out the five minutes waiting for the Metro and the twenty waiting for the bus, the trip would literally have been two hours from wheels up to opening my apartment door. Amazing! Christmas came early!!
That is all.
I am all riled up tonight. I find solace in YouTube and share it with you. A pairing of two of my favorites. The songs are random, but it does the trick. I am not of my time.
One thing I find odd--and if the stakes weren't so high I would find it amusing--is the supposed enlighten, international thinking of "the Left". You know the types. The ones who always complain about how the rest of the world thinks about us (or more accurately, how the power-maximizing leaders of other countries position themselves against us to feed into their propagandistic doomsday media that makes ours look like Sally Sunshine). It is these same people who throw around some of the most undeveloped self-centered foreign policies. Take the 0.3334 term Senator from the State of Illinois, a bastion of foreign policy experience (hey, he went to Africa with a media entourage and didn't come back with a child, so credit is due there), Barack "Second Coming" Obama. He called today for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in 6 months. Can anyone say "arbitrary deadline?" What does he think the consequences of this action would be? For US interests? Or, heaven help us, the interests of the "region" or the Iraqi people in particular? Shouldn't we care about them? Won't this send a terrible message to the "international community"? I think the message would be something like this: "We give up. We don't have the guts to suffer setbacks." I am sure all the heads at the UN would bow down and give us credit for being so magnanimous and humble and that no one would take advantage of this.
Have these people given any thought as to the international consequences of their policies!?!?!? Do they think the terrorists in Iraq will pack up and go home when we do? That saying these kinds of things doesn't increase violence as they see a tactical opening? It doesn't seem like it. What it seems like is that their policy is increasingly isolationist (except that paragon of international virtue, global warming, which has the benefit of fulfilling their self-hating and fear mongering quotas all in one!) . The same people who scream and scream about this being another Vietnam are the ones propagating actions that would make it such. And here I thought they cared so much about the international community. I guess the people of Iraq and the Middle East don't count--only when aggregated into a media-fed orgy of anti-Jew, anti-West organized mobs that somehow always seem to find cameras nearby--that's the "the Arab street" for short.
I really have no patience for these things anymore.
One word...one thing...
Yes, I miss the Soviets. I won't get into why, but trust me, I have my reasons (most having to do with the concept of the "enemy" and the fact that it is much easier to wage war (albeit cold) on an enemy who acts according to the rules of statecraft rather than one that utilizes our weaknesses and who you can't stand up to because you are crippled by multiculti "tolerance").
Why am I telling you this now? Well, I stumbled upon a local access cable show in Russian, and it was just an old video of a music concert in what looked like early 80s USSR. The crappy music, hideously ugly singers and outfits, and the audience filled with fat, stoic looking bald men in grey suits. So here are some videos. Two commercials (one American, one Soviet) and a really bad rock song.
Tonight I put on my Saturday best (OK, not really, but I put on a tie and looked very rakish, hip and gradstudenty) and hopped on board a bus headed toward Old Town Alexandria to attend Llamapalooza. I have to be honest that I was really happy to find out that a bus went down there from just half a mile from my hovel (although it ended up taking almost 45 minutes). What money is down there! What hippy leftists! Nothing chaps my goat more than rich leftists. Gleefully reveling in the glories of the society they so eagerly hollow out...I could go on and on, but this isn't the point. My point is that I found my way to the meeting place but couldn't find anyone since I didn't know what anyone looked like. Supposedly one was supposed to be able to ask the host or hostess for the "llama party" but when I did that they just looked at me like I was crazy. I suppose I was to late getting there around 8:00? I was kind of sad. As proof of my endeavor, here is a picture.
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