He Believes He's Right, but Even as He Speaks He Knows within Himself That It's All Incidental

Landru spent Saturday afternoon MOCO politicking, spending an hour and a half yapping with *anc* *loree* in a Starbucks, two hours phone canvassing and handing out fliers for *an* *ieme*. Who the hell is *an* *ieme*?

I've never given a fuck about local government. I've always said it's because the MOCO Democratic machine is motherfucking invincible - You're anti-Ike Leggett? Bwaha. - and I live in what must be one of the most dependable MOCO Democratic machine districts, so why waste meh? I pay attention to school board elections when told to by my public school teaching wife. My mailing address is Kensington but I don't live in the incorporated town so can't vote for that.

On *anc* *loree*:

The absolute worst thing I can say about *anc* *loree* after yesterday's discussion is that she is, in fact, a politician. I don't think that's actually a bad thing to say; after all, it's true, and in our system, without politicians, we'd fall into the kind of anarchy that the other side dreams of. She got me thinking hard about the difference between the tenor and reality of national politics versus that of local politics. I think that the divide at the national level approaches irreparability, and it makes me very tired and sad. I simply don't have the energy to think about the magnitude of the sellout at the national level. Not so when it comes to the County, though passion on issues is strong, and MoCo's population is a bit too educated for its own good, with accompanying levels of self-righteousness and stubbornness.

After farting away all my aargh on the national clusterfuck I don't have the mwah this election cycle to consider reengaging on a local level or even to seriously think about whether that level of engagement is just another tug of the same drug. I enjoy my roobitude. A mentor keeps telling me, OK, call yourself a weathervane, but you're a motherfucking canaryhawk (I'm paraphrasing) faithfully squawking about motherfucking hawkcanaries, and god-bless you your miserable happy soul and god bless him his miserable soul and thank the both of you for saving me from the both of you.

Unka Paleo 101 Old Dirty Bama emails:

My 67 y.o. mother was canned in May. Just got a check for unemployment from Nazi Bama, for like $5k because her asshole employer contested the claim. Unemployment is like 16% in Bama, so chances are I have to get her after winter and bring her here so I can at least feed her. I had been cashing out my vacation to support her...I'm really happy that was an option. Obama is Epic Fail personified: could have been a hero, but turned out a zero.

I admire Landru's damn. He ran for student government president in 9th grade at Gaithersburg Junior High School (back before the county reorganized 6th graders into middle school and 9th graders into high school). His opponent was *al* *allinge*, successful fraud, liar, cheater (and at the time friend of mine too - it wasn't until he got into the pants of *ar* *ea* *avanaug* the night he went to talk her into dating a friend of his - not me, and I honestly don't remember who - that I wrote him off). Each made a speech before a full school assembly. *al* went first and blathered and yadda-ed. Landru takes the stage, stands behind the podium, and in that hushed voice all who know him recognize as a sign of his seriousness intones, "Apathy..... is a disease." It brought down the house.

Well, it is. I'm told there is a land between damn and no damn and it's stupid to live there and I keep trying to find it. I told Landru sometime in the middle of the wonderful time during United's suckfulness Saturday night (I want to say it was when Hamid threw up on the backpass that the Dorf scored on, but that would be only for a *snort*) that if I do reengage I'll reengage at micro level, and I suspect some of you would agree that's the only possible place to start to affect change. But In MOCO? the county every county in the country wishes it could be? and what can *anc* *loree* do for a state that has 16% unemployment that would never elect a *anc* *loree*?

BTW, FYI for some of you new folk here (thanks!), Landru and I have been bestfriends for 40 years.

• Duh, but good and angry duh.
• UPDATE! Heh, a response to the above.
• The last believer.
• Heh, look at this sublede to today's Ross Douthat column: Obsessing about extremists and conspiracy theories, on the right and on the left, is often a way for the elites to gloss over their own failures. Bwaha. Half right. 
• When Krugman's obamapostasy comes it will be awesome.
• UPDATE! There are times when I find myself wondering just what percentage of Obamalame's suckitude is that he's an ineffectual pussy.
• UPDATE! Must be opening day of the election season: And to those who may still run for office planning to privatize Social Security, let me be clear: as long as I'm President, I'll fight every effort to take the retirement savings of a generation of Americans and hand it over to Wall Street. Not on my watch.
• Line of best fit.
• Proportional vacuity.
• Decline and fall.
• Linkages to peruse.
• Cookies of gratitude.
• Haywire.
• Our conflicted relationships with animals.
• Religious outlier?
• Freida's most fucked-up post ever will burn an image into your brain you'll spend the rest of the day trying to erase.
• A 22-year-old man was shot in the Potomac section of Montgomery County after a dispute at a party, county police said. Where on your body is the Potomac section of Montgomery County?
• Typepad's category function is fucked. Typepad sucks sometimes. I swear, if it wasn't a bigger hassle than it's worth, I'd go back to fucking blooger.
• Analogue aesthetic.
• Bilbioklept on Wolf Hall (I am loving my rereading).
• UPDATE! Big changes at Dan's Reading Experience. Change your bookmarks and blegrells, yo.
• Josipovici (for those of you who do).
• Josipovici (for those of you who do).
• Jam bands are in.

POLITICS

C.K. Williams

They're discussing the political situation they've been watching evolve
        in a faraway country.
He's debating intensely, almost lecturing, about fanaticism and religion,
        the betrayal of ideals.
He believes he's right, but even as he speaks he knows within himself
        that it's all incidental;
he doesn't really care that much, he just can't help himself, what he's
        really talking about
is the attraction that he feels she feels towards those dark and passionate
        young men
just now glowing on the screen with all the unimpeachable righteousness
        of the once-oppressed.
He says that just because they've been afflicted isn't proof against their
        lying and conniving.
What he means is that they're not, because she might find them virile,
        therefore virtuous.
He says that there are always forces we don't see that use these things for
        evil ends.
What he means is that he's afraid the she might turn from him towards
        someone suffering,
or, as possible, towards someone who'd share with similar conviction her
        abhorrence of suffering.
He means he's troubled by how sure she is, how her compassions are so
        woven into her identity.
Isn't the degree to which she's certain of her politics, hence her rightness
        in the world,
the same degree to which she'd be potentially willing to risk herself, and
        him, and everything?
Also, should she wish to justify an action in her so firmly grounded socio-
        ethical system,
any action, concupiscence, promiscuity, orgy, wouldn't it not only let
        her but abet her?
Sometimes he feels her dialectics and her assurance are assertions of some
        ultimate availability.
Does he really want someone so self-sufficient, who knows herself so
        well, knows so much?
In some ways, he thinks - has he really come to this? - he might want
        her knowing nothing.
No, not nothing, just.... a little less.... and with less fervor, greater
        pragmatism, realism.
More and more in love with her, touched by her, he still goes on, to his
        amazement, arguing.

Woke up with this in my head; be in yours: