Late Update

It is time for an update. I was in Spain for about two weeks and couldn’t think of anything good to write, plus I was trying to write a bit of fiction. That went ok, but I am not really satisfied with my work: I never seem to be. I expect perfection from myself. I hate doing things half assed. I think this is a positive attribute that I possess, but at the same time I can see that it also holds me back from trying new things here and there. What usually goes along with this type of attitude is the fear of failure. I don’t know why I have that. To fail is to be human and everyone will sooner or later. The trick is to learn how to turn that failure into a future desire to succeed again. I am talking in clichés here and will just give the book list as it currently stands.

Reading list 2011:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (finished)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

10. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike (finished)

11. Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass (currently reading)

12. The Blind Assassin: a Novel by Margaret Atwood (finished)

______________

Idiocy vs Islam (which one is worse?)

I thought for a few days that I could do it: that I could just stop writing about the idiocy that is American politics. Reading news nowadays generally results in my blood boiling to the point that I don’t feel like doing anything at all. It isn’t healthy, and yet I keep doing it.

Today I read an article about a woman with the name Brigitte Gabriel (she uses a fake name). I wanted to go ahead and quote something that she said. I thought perhaps some of you might find it interesting, as I know that I did.

“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.” -NY Times

My first reaction to this was to start laughing and I am not talking about a light chuckle here either, I mean serious eardrum splitting laughter. Then after I let it sink in a bit I realized something more serious about this: history is just repeating itself in a very sad way. Does anyone remember the McCarthy era? It was that wonderful time in American history where the HUAC in the government blacklisted people because of their personal political beliefs. Its really hard to believe this today, since Americans are brought up on some kind of steady diet of freedom, liberty, and justice since the moment they are born, that it was possible their own citizens had been forced out of earning their daily bread.

So how was the HUAC really any different than Pete King’s Congressional hearings this coming Thursday on Muslims? I don’t really know yet, but to be honest I am not looking forward to finding out either. If America were really the great country that the Republicans keep telling us it is, then why is it threatened by a religion? This is all really a waste of space to be honest and the truth is that you cannot really reason with idiots like Gabriel or King: they are right and you are wrong end of discussion. What we can do on the other hand is ignore them and the people who vote for King would be wise to stop doing so: the man is not completely there.

If people live in America and choose to follow a religion, then they are free to do so. Of course they are not allowed to kill because of their religion, but we have laws for that kind of thing like most nations around the world do. Holding a hearing on the threat of a religion really amounts to nothing less than fear mongering. Of course that was what the HUAC was all about anyway.

All this got me thinking about a song by Bob Dylan: Talkin John Birch Paranoid blues.

Substitute the word Muslims for commies or reds and you get just about what the right wing sentiment is at the moment. Things don’t change at the core they just acquire new shapes.

_________

American Politics and Debt

The US Political Media are obsessed with talking about debt, debt, and debt. Its almost like they woke up one morning and were like “oh, shit we have debt, we really didn’t know that.” Then on top of that, there has been this continuous, and its not ending any time soon, talk about cutting this and cutting that. The list of things that is going to be cut looks oddly like the usual Republican wish list. Planned Parenthood? Oh, yeah because that took up so much money.

There are two things that aren’t up for discussion on the Republican side of the spectrum: the defense budget and raising taxes. I agree there are things that could be cut, but the real problem the Americans are having has to do with the fact that the Republicans cut taxes and then maxed out their credit card. Irresponsible, but that’s what that party stands for.

I have realized something from watching American politics: it’s a circus act, and a freak circus act at that. That idiots and fools are given so much time to spew garbage, lies (I am looking at you Huckabee), and wallow in their own stupidity is a great portrait of a country that seems to be stuck in the toilet. To be honest, I am not sure a people as stupid as the Americans deserve a country so rich and free as what they currently have. With all that being said, I am going to try to write about other things on this blog for a while. I will let the idiots take care of themselves.

__________

If she only had a brain!

I am in the mood to be particularly vile today. I want to tear something or someone to pieces. I got out of bed after attending a great concert yesterday and the only thing that I can really think of doing is ripping someone to shreds. I mean this figuratively of course. I have chosen my weapon this morning as well for this deserved ripping: the written word, which as we shall soon see is the appropriate tool. I have chosen my target: Bristol Palin. Let the ripping commence!

She’s got a book deal and it’s for a memoir. Pardon my limited understanding of the literary world and the American system as a whole, but I have somehow been under the false impression my whole life that someone writes a memoir after they have accomplished something memorable in their life that probably effected others as well. Usually a memoir would include some great event. Think Mandela, Gandhi, or even someone as horrible as Silvio Berlusconi (but he does have stuff to write about). Bristol Palin though, what does she have? Well to be fair and balanced like her dear mother’s devoted channel, she was on Dancing with the Stars (or something like that) wasn’t she? Besides that she got knocked up, in what may or may not be the most famous out of wedlock pregnancy since the virgin birth (in America dear readers only in America), by a head case redneck named Levi Johnson.

Add to this that she is Sarah Palin´s daughter and suddenly we have a book taking shape. Wait, I still haven’t seen anything here that is really memorable at all! Maybe someone should tell her that this is what a diary is for: people’s lives that aren’t good enough to be memoirs. We live in a capitalist society and it’s the markets that decide whether or not a book like this comes to fruition (or comes to term). That means that someone at a conservative book company decided that this was really good enough to sell. I don’t know what this proves more than that the worst and most tasteless garbage sells pretty well apparently. Are they even going to pretend that Bristol is going to do the writing? Will Bristol even read the book? I would like to go on and mention that this girl is obviously a nitwit for allowing someone to do this for to her, but then when you think about it this might be how the Palins are planning to pay for her college, since they don’t make enough between Sarah’s Fox News skits and all those speaking fees. Desperate times call for desperate measures and so as the rest of America suffers in the midst of economic stagnation, they will have to do so with more information about the Palins on the front shelf at Borders.

Was Bristol famous before she got knocked up or was it during her first trimester? That anyone cares so much is a shame, and if any other politician’s kids have ever written books like this then shame on them as well. America is a place where nonsense is being sold for profit. Where can I cash in?

___________

Trains again and books of course

Thinking about the issue with the funding for trains and public transport in the United States. Why can’t they just give the money to the states that really want it? There must be some governors and states that can come up with a plan for the future, where they want to invest in and diversify their various transportation networks. Its one thing to call a train system socialist and all that political jumbo designed to ignore the actual issues at hand, but its another to consider that these kind of things might be really useful to have in the future.

The notion that urban development in the US is to be entirely based on the Automobile in the future is pretty laughable to be honest: you can only fit so many cars in an area. Where are we going to keep parking all the cars? The list of problems with not diversifying the transport options keeps growing. Is there anyone who is listening? I hear crickets chirping.

I have finished reading Joseph Conrad’s novel Lord Jim. For anyone who enjoyed Heart of Darkness I can honestly say that from everything else I have read from him, this was the closest in magnitude (and yet it still didn’t quite make it). Now I have moved on to the Widows of Eastwick by John Updike. After that it will time for Günter Grass in German for the first time.

The Reading List as it stands:

1. I Married a Communist by Phillip Roth (finished)

2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (finished)

3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (non-fiction)

4. Going After Cacciato by Tim O´Brien

5. The Green House by Mario Vargas Lhosa (hard to find in English)

6. Grimms Wörter by Günter Grass

7. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin (taken a break for now)

8. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (finished)

9. Invisible by Paul Auster (finished)

10. The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike (currently reading)

11. Peeling the Onion by Günter Grass

____________