And I Myself Have Whitened in the Weathers Of Heaped-Up Januaries

I'm scolded by Digby and mocked by Cole for expecting more of fucking Democrats; I'm chided by IOZ for expecting anything from fucking Democrats and screamed at by Silber for even considering voting for a fucking Democrat. I like my holy hobbyhorses; if I kiss myself right I sleep sound at night.

Reason 77 (in what I hope will not become a series) for Not Pursuing the Doctorate: I hate taxonomy just more than I'm not good enough at it, and I hate taxonomists who measure their declensionability with moral calipers; I'm reminded of Carlin's distinction that an asshole is someone who drives faster than you, a jerk someone who drives slower. Or is it the other way around? GAH! I hate categories.

I know the lesser assholes I vote for aren't looking for ways to be even lesser assholistic, they're  negotiating the boundaries of how big an asshole they can be that I'd still vote for them.

How fucking shitty is the Democratic Party?

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said the atmosphere was a serious threat to Democrats. “I do think there’s a chance that Congressional elites mistook their mandate,” Mr. Bayh said. “I don’t think the American people last year voted for higher taxes, higher deficits and a more intrusive government. But there’s a perception that that is what they are getting.”

Why don't you fight the fucking perception, Evan Fuckface Bayh? Rhetorical question, that.

If I hope Republicans kick Democratic ass this election cycle, the pwoggles will consider me a foolish and bitter old man willing to condemn the country's and world's neediest to a shittier existence to satisfy my anger; if I hope Democrats kick Republican ass, the postpwoggles will consider me an addict to my roobiness willing to condemn the country's and world's neediest to a shittier existence to satisfy my guilt.

Or is it the other way around?

• The Mendacity of Hope.
• Television: Simulacrum or creating communities. Again, the tyranny of the either/or.
• Socialism and sovereignty.
• Taking Haiti. (h/t)
• Chomsky on Haiti.
• UPDATE! Red Tape.
• Greenwald v Krugman.
• UPDATE! The Unspeakable David Brooks.
• Does anyone really care?
• Fuck Safeway too.
• A reaction to the Digby piece I linked to above.
• Party of Grifters.
• Palin, Fox, and Jesus on Acid.
• Limbaugh's Heaven.
• Re: America's pigs' reaction to Haiti - Hmmm... what do the victims of Katrina and Haiti have in common?
• On categorization, of a sort.
• Your Photoshop of the Day.
• Vigor Quest.

• There's a reason developers don't develop Wheaton.
• MOCO subsidy to bring Costco to Wheaton?
• Mysterious resignation in Baithersgurgle?
• Open-air drug markets in Briggs Cheney?
• 150 years of Rockville?

• It is a improvement over last year's. And since the photo-shoot had already been paid for, this might explain one reason United traded Fred instead of Simms.
• UPDATE! wOOt?
• Strike? "I'm getting positive vibes about the negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement between MLS and the players' union. Might we see a tentative agreement before the expiration of the current deal at the end of this month? A work stoppage in preseason, which for many teams is scheduled to begin in two weeks, wouldn't be catastrophic, but any delay to the start of the league schedule in late March would be a public relations setback for the league and sport in this country."
• UPDATE! We're going up to Philadelphia for the April United game v PU, and I was doodling around PU's website for ticket prices and stuff, and LOOKEE HERE! see where PU's banished their Supporters Club. What of LOUD SIDE! mofos? Wouldn't it be nice to have to worry about it?
• USMNT WC10 Uh-Oh.
• Worst pop-up ever?
• Why yes, the colors here are a bit different, it's the links, they're yellower, done solely for me and my old man's eyes.

• Shockingly, the word prolific is in the first sentence of the set-up to an interview w/Joyce Carol Oates.
• Harold Bloom on James Wood.
• UPDATE! Luckily I have access to a university library's stacks.
• Eno interview.
• UPDATE! On Eno and the above interview.
• Don't forget counterstream.
• You should bookmark and check-out chromewaves daily.
• A standard of SUCK! Gordon Sumner sucks.
• UPDATE! Cockerel?

• Hamster has a new avatar. Let's have dinner soon.
• Another one of dozens of my five favorite songs.
• Phantogram.
• UPDATE! FLESH!
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• Early Fleetwood Mac.
• John Martyn.

Born sixty-one years ago today:

SARABANDE ON ATTAINING THE AGE OF SEVENTY-SEVEN

Anthony Hecht

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark;
White is their colour; and behold my head.
                                -- George Herbert

Long gone the smoke-and-pepper childhood smell
Of the smoldering immolation of the year,
Leaf-strewn in scattered grandeur where it fell,
Golden and poxed with frost, tarnished and sere.

And I myself have whitened in the weathers
Of heaped-up Januaries as they bequeath
The annual rings and wrongs that wring my withers,
Sober my thoughts, and undermine my teeth.

The dramatis personae of our lives
Dwindle and wizen; familiar boyhood shames,
The tribulations one somehow survives,
Rise smokily from propitiatory flames

Of our forgetfulness until we find
It becomes strangely easy to forgive
Even ourselves with this clouding of the mind,
This cinerous blur and smudge in which we live.

A turn, a glide, a quarter turn and bow,
The stately dance advances; these are airs
Bone-deep and numbing as I should know by now,
Diminishing the cast, like musical chairs.