Why did I learn to talk?

Every now and then my true social ineptitude shines. My mouth advances before my brain and I remember why I should never say words.

So, here's the deal: I have very few talents in life: one of them is that I am masterful at parking my car in tight spaces. So, whenever I'm behind any car in the office parking garage -- which has only tight spaces -- I know it's going be an ETERNITY before they inch themselves into the space.
So I was pleasantly surprised today when I followed a black BMW 525i into my parking garage and, in one handsome turning swoop, it glided into a tight space next to a pillar. I was impressed. The sun was shining, there were other good parkers in the world, and I became Chatty McChatwell.
The fellow who parked his car got into the elevator with me.
"Were you the one who parked next to the pillar just now?" I asked.
"Yes, I was."
"Great job, that was very well done, you did it in one turn."
"Why thank you," he said appreciatively.
We both chuckle.
"I just appreciate good park."

Pause.

Pause.

What in the holy mother of god fuck did I just say?

I appreciate good park??????

I might as well have said, "You give good park." Or "Wanna park sometime, big fella?". Or "Here, touch my boob."

Thankfully he swam right past it and said
"My car has a very good turning radius."
He then proceeded to flirt. Of course, comporting myself like two-bit hooker didn't have anything to do with it, i'm sure.

On Blogging

A full-bodied discussion on blogging, below, courtesy of Howard Kurtz.

Some things I hadn't thought of:
1. The overabundance of media criticism in blogs rather than analysis of the issues at hand: "Show me a New York Times story on war in Sudan, and I'll show you 20 bloggers who think the real story is how the Times fails in its coverage of war in Sudan." says a Weekly Standard dude. I take your point, yo.
2. The ranty, pontificatory nature of many blogs (ooh, but I do it soo well)
3. The lack of truth squadding, the need to employ journalism basics. "Would blogs be more of a factor in public debate if more of their practitioners did a little research -- say, including the very old-fashioned notion of calling people up -- instead of merely pontificating?" Again, good point, Kurtzalicious.

Now the girl from Slate irritates me. She fancies herself a novelist, and she pulled the plug on her blog because she didn't become Wonkette or Opinionista with their neato book deals. Fine, but that's not what many of us are in it for. We don't, or I don't, give a crap about a book deal. This seems to me a backhanded way of saying that blogs aren't the high art she expected them to evolve into. Or maybe she's talking about her own persnickety artistic process stunted by the blog form. Well, DUH. Blogs are not novel run-ups, by and large. They are an alternative way of expressing life in the 21st century with a little indulgence mixed in. So put on your beret, write your goddam novel and leave blogs and journalism to us peasants, ok?

Ok, that was a little harsh, ranty and critical of the media without all the facts, a slap in the face of 1, 2, and 3 above. Bad porcupine.

Blogging: Good or Evil
Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

Gas Prices

The way news editors are covering the rise in gas prices would lead one to think that we are in the midst of the Great Depression, things are so bad. And the way newspapers are framing it -- pointing out the suffering of individuals or delicate businesses -- is the weakest attempt at a consumer sob story ever.
First, we pay ridonkulously less per gallon than virtually any other country in the world, and that's taking into account a slew of other factors, cost of living, taxes, etc. In fact, the only thing it doesn't take into account is our anemic investment in alternative transit.
We are only one of the few to have no gas tax I heard today; we consume, what is it now -- 25 percent? -- of the world's oil supply?
All this for a bargain retail rate of $3, maybe $4 a gallon.
I'm not saying some people whose lives depend on the use of vehicles aren't suffering, they are.
But are they a majority? No.
We are leading charmed lives. And those of us born into those lives -- the ones who got a Toyota at 16, take public transit optionally, fill our tanks at Exxon weekly -- we are just awakening to our individual dependence. And that dependence has empowered large companies, whose greasy existence is entirely due to our crack-like dependence on these luxuries.

Meanwhile, the idea of giving up what has always been ours -- a car, gadgets, convenience --, well, let's just say scoring a $100 check and drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, two of the hundreds of colossally granchildren-screwing moves currently under consideration-- is much easier to swallow.

So we continue hearing about discussions with OPEC; we in no way comprehend the oil distribution system, we are devoted to the idea that we cannot change our national psyche when it comes to growth, urban planning, and automobile use, and we convince ourselves that greed will always win out. How unimaginitive, boring and lazy.

The things we do to prop up flimsy, fucked and ultimately doomed systems.

But we don't have to. Really, we don't.

Fidel Castro

So Fidel Castro is on a plane headed for New York to address the United Nations as a member of the nonaligned nations or some such, and some journalist traveling with him on this historic journey asks him if it's true that he always wears a bullet proof vest.
Castro smiles, rests his cigar in his mouth, and starts unbuttoning layers until we see chest hair.
"Morality is my vest," he says.

Journalists and their romantic rumors.

So I am doing a presentation on the Cuban revolution tomorrow for Spanish class and just finished watching Adriana Bosch's "Fidel Castro" video, which was totally fascinating and confusing at the same time. Bosch's family is part of the exile community, which she admits to in the Bonus Materials part of the DVD, and the portrayal of Castro bears this out. I suppose the depiction is fair -- in a he-said, she-said kind of way, but we are left to draw our own conclusions about everything without being given sure footing about anything.
Here's a man who at the age of 30 led just over a hundred men in an attack on fortified Army barracks belonging to the repressive dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, in what he surely knew was a suicide mission. He is captured, jailed and his life spared only by the pleas of a Catholic archbishop.
He comes back, overthrows Batista, but instead of having democratic elections, he retains sole posession of all things Cuba, including its leadership. He nationalizes every damn thing including his mother's farm, a move she never forgives him for, but a move that further fortifies his street cred. He is a populist always hugging everybody and appearing to relate really well.
Then we are told he is rabid-dog, upside-down-igloo crazy. He was ready to launch nukes at the U.S. and was willing to sacrifice Cuba, he told the Soviets, for the sake of communism nee socialism. For real?
Then we are told everybody gets food, healthcare, education. It becomes the highest-skill, lowest-wage country in the world -- an economist's wet dream. Tourist dollars, dollarization and remittances fatten the economy.
Then we are told they are impoverished. Huh? So confused.
He defies the U.S. by helping Angolan communists, but refuses to denounce the clearly fucked up Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
I can't believe that no journalist has gotten Castro to sit and answer to all this, though Barbara Walters appeared to have almost done it -- and while wearing a bonnet, no less. I mean, all he wants to talk his socialist Cuban fantasy and committment to revolucion around the world. And by the way, can we make a distinction between socialist and communist? Is he or isn't he or what is he?

Something doesn't ring true. I want to know the truth, not some muddled attempt at history throught the pretense of balance. Or is that all we, journalists, can do? No, it's not, I just decided.

Anyhow, she could have done better. Not that I'm friggin Ken Burns or anything, but the documentary would've been better served by someone else, I think.
Was the "bloodbath" of political executions following the revolution just? Is his repression any different than the repression of various "free expression" and capitalist countries? So many questions Adriana Bosch, I fear you Bosched this one royally.
I also felt weird about finding Castro extraordinarily attractive, particularly during the 600-mile victory roll into Havana. And the Che Guevara in Bolivia thing-- what the hell was THAT about?They made it seem like he betrayed Che? Say it aint so Castro.

It's just that, the moment on the plane sort of exemplifies my feelings about the whole documentary. I wonder if it is one journalist's romantic rumor.

Oh -- and by the way -- FUCK the CIA. (Jack Bauer notwithstanding.)

I am SO on the list now. Please tell my parents I love them.

Apocalypse-averting motivation

When a friend asks another friend for the motivation to eschew calendar listings, start on cover letters and begin work on quality stories in her spare time, and that friend responds with this speech, referencing "24," the top-rated television show featuring ruggedly handsome Kiefer Sutherland as CIA operative Jack Bauer, let me tell you that a weapons of mass destruction-like motivation sets in, yes indeed.

"OK, here's your main problem: You’re clearly missing the obvious question. When faced with this kind of situation, you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself…

…what would Jack Bauer do?

If CTU command stuck Jack Bauer in a desk and said, “Here, Jack, go ahead and write up this calendar listing for Beth Shalom’s bake sale,” do you think he would do it? HELLS no.

I’ll TELL you what Jack Bauer would do. Jack Bauer is a FIELD OPERATIVE. He’d wait ‘til his boss wasn’t looking, throw his hoodie over his head and move straight for the door all casual-like, and maybe do some ninja shit to the assistant editor if she tries to stop him on the way out the fuckin’ door. When Jack Bauer’s boss finally got wind of what he’d done and called him on his cell phone asking him WHAT exactly he thought he was doing, Jack Bauer would say, “I don’t have time to discuss this with you, THERE ARE MILLIONS OF LIVES AT STAKE,” punctuating the end of the conversation with the CLAP of his cell phone shutting.

What would Jack Bauer do? He’d take matters into his own hands and make that shit happen. He’d report on a kick-ass story AND write a damn cover letter before the “beep-shoomp-beep-shoomp-beep-shoomp-beep-shoomp” signaling the end of the first commercial break. You can do this. Harness your inner Jack Bauer.


Boo-yah."

A couple of thoughts before I head into that pretty little piece of night sky called Dreamland:

a) Cosi is the food-retail embodiment of a war criminal. At $7.69, $8.50-something with tax, their signature salad is a fiscal outrage. It ought to rot in a holding cell at The Hague.

Lettuce petition it to go to trial. I'm going to do that tomato or the day after tomato. It would grape if it could be put away for life. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. I am so funny. You know, accompanying myself through life is not half bad. I kill me.

b) I have no other thoughts. Sorry. Until tomorrow then, goodnight.