Nauseating

Tucker Carlon's new show on MSNBC--"The Situation"--is awful, as expected. Last night Tucker was sneering in joking contempt at the very idea Valerie Plame was an actual deep cover agent. "She posed for pictures in Vanity Fair!" he shrieked.

That's true, Tucker--she was in Vanity Fair after she was outed as a CIA operative. I'd like to beat you up. Please meet me after school at the swingset.

Funny how conservatives are suddenly mocking the idea that outing a CIA agent is treasonous, let alone criminal. Remember Bush I and Philip Agee?

Central Services

In Terry Gilliam's dystopian masterpiece Brazil the characters barely react to violent explosions in department stores and restaurants; such things have become routine despite an increasingly militarized police and an intrusive government that spies on, detains, tortures and kills citizens with impunity.

Welcome to the future!

Every day I wake up wondering if there will be an attack somewhere. Last week Turkey got it, today London. Perhaps these bombers, like those in Madrid on 3/11, were trained in Iraq on the frontlines of The War on Terror?

Last night I was appalled to find myself agreeing with neo-con Francis Fukuyama, who was on Charlie Rose vociferously disagreeing with the Bush neo-cons, and in particular Charles Krauthammer, about the war in Iraq. It's a mad mad world indeed.

Judge Judy--Appropriately

Will Bunch gets it right:

But the Times' Judy Miller has not been afflicting the comfortable. She has been protecting them, advancing their objectives, and helping them to mislead a now very afflicted American public. In fact, thinking again about Watergate and Deep Throat is a good way to understand why Judy Miller should not be protected today. Because in Watergate, a reporter acting like Miller would not be meeting the FBI's Mark Felt in an underground parking garage. She would be obsessively on the phone with H.R. Haldeman or John Dean, listening to malicious gossip about Carl Bernstein or their plans to make Judge Sirica look bad.

Link courtesy of Atrios, image via Isebrand.

Mencken

I was just assisting a patron from Tennessee who teaches at Morgan State. He saw my reading material and we got to talking--he's researching a book on H.L. Mencken about the wholly unfair drubbing old Henry has taken from the PC crowd (he's been labelled racist and anti-Semitic and generally intolerant). My patron was impassioned about righting this injustice, given that H.L. was a friend of the NAACP and considering that most of his drinking companions and the members of his intellectual circle were German Jews, and I was pleased when he told me Knopf was interested in his book. "I used tuh be the director of the H.L. Mencken House before Baaaawltimawhr closed down the City Life museums," he told me in a long syrupy drawl, and we talked about Mencken and what he'd think of America today, overrun as it is by his least favorite sort of human being: fanatical Christers.

Here's what Mencken thought about Americans [from On Being an American]:

It is, for example, one of my firmest and most sacred beliefs, reached after an inquiry extending over a score of years and supported by incessant prayer and meditation, that the government of the United States, in both its legislative arm and its executive arm, is ignorant, incompetent, corrupt, and disgusting-and from this judgement I except no more than twenty living lawmakers and no more than twenty executioners of their laws. It is a belief no less piously cherished that the administration of justice in the Republic is stupid, dishonest, and against all reason and equity-and from this judgement I except no more than thirty judges, including two upon the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is another that the foreign policy of the United States-its habitual manner of dealing with other nations, whether friend or foe-is hypocritical, disingenuous, knavish, and dishonorable-and from this judgment I consent to no exceptions whatever, either recent or long past. And it is my fourth (and, to avoid too depressing a bill, final) conviction that the American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages, and that they grow more timorous, more sniveling, more poltroonish, more ignominious every day.

So why did Henry live here his entire life?

It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country on the face of the earth wherein a man roughly constituted as I am-a man of my general weaknesses, vanities, appetites, prejudices, and aversions-can be so happy, or even one-half so happy, as he can be in these free and independent states. Going further, I lay down the proposition that it is a sheer physical impossibility for such a man to live in These States and not be happy-that it is as impossible to him as it would be to a schoolboy to weep over the burning down of his schoolhouse. If he says that he isn't happy here, then he either lies or is insane. Here the business of getting a living, particularly since the war brought the loot of all Europe to the national strong-box, is enormously easier than it is in any other Christian land-so easy, in fact, that an educated and forehanded man who fails at it must actually make deliberate efforts to that end. Here the general average of intelligence, of knowledge, of competence, of integrity, of self-respect, of honor is so low that any man who knows his trade, does not fear ghosts, has read fifty good books, and practices the common decencies stands out as brilliantly as a wart on a bald head, ann is thrown willy-nilly into meager and exclusive aristocracy.

And here, more than anywhere else that I know of or have heard of, the daily panorama of human existence, of private and communal folly-the unending procession of governmental extortions and chicaneries, of commercial brigandages, and throat-slittings, of theological buffooneries, of aesthetic ribaldries, of legal swindles and harlotries, of miscellaneous rogueries, villainies, imbecilities, grotesqueries, and extavagences-is so inordinately gross and preposterous, so perfectly brought up to the highest conceivable amperage, so steadily enriched with an almost fabulous daring and originality, that only the man who was born with a petrified diaphragm can fail to laugh himself to sleep every night, and to awake every morning with all the eager, unflagging expectation of a Sunday-school superintendent touring the Paris peep-shows.

[emphases mine] Every time I read this I laugh heartily until the tears roll.

Office Space

It's not unusual for The Aunties at Cook Liberry to be in a tizzy about something, but I know the situation must be dire if I'm unable to avoid their urgent whisperings in my hidey-hole office.

On July 22nd some 'consultants' are touring the Liberry and meeting the Liberry staff; said consultants are supposed to observe workflow and organization and make assessments about the direction of Cook and the necessary skills of its future director. I take this in stride, coming from years of retail management. Some of the Aunties, however, are freaked out. Will there be layoffs? Will the 'consultants' mysteriously know that everyone here looks at 'blogs and plays games 20 hours/week?

One rumor: a more "professional" dress code. This always made me laugh at Borders; the idea of making employees who spend much of their day genuflecting while shelving, pushing carts around, unloading trucks--making them wear dress pants and ties is plain foolish. Here at the Liberry the same silliness abounds; why should I wear a button-down shirt and dress pants at the Service Desk when la plupart of our patrons have their thongs and asscracks visible over their PJ bottoms?

I Heart the TU Cleaners

In the Men's Room off the 2nd floor lobby here at Cook Liberry is a sink for handwashing. When I left Thursday [before a four-day holiday weekend] there was a loogie, a paper towel, and a big ass dead cockroach in said sink.

The cockroach is still there, with the loogie and the towel, though everything is moved around a bit by multiple handwashings. I'm not going to touch the bug because I want to see how long it stays.

Netflix

Interesting primarily because it's a Xmas story from Japan. Tokyo Godfathers is not nearly as interesting as Kon's Millennium Actress, and features far too many convenient coincidences, but is nonetheless touching and beautifully animated. Worth a visit.

Unadulterated Racism?

We spent the weekend in Toronto for a wedding--not just any wedding, but the wedding of Cha's cousin Marivee (she's half-Filipina, half-Japanese) and her fiance Keif (half-Irish, half-Greek).

Despite Toronto's amazing success as a melting-pot, we had an interesting experience at the airport Comfort Hotel. Cha's father decided Sunday that we were not going home as planned that afternoon--we were staying until Monday. This left us in the lurch, and we finally found a hotel room at midnight Monday morning. I called and made a reservation under my last name, and while I was parking Cha ran in to check in.

Cha: My husband called 20 minutes ago and made a reservation.

Desk Clerk: I hardly think so.

Cha: He did. You said we didn't need anything but to leave our name.

Desk Clerk: What's the name?

Cha: G.......y.

Desk Clerk: Oh, um, ok. I do have that here.

[I arrived at the desk at this point to find Cha talking to an elegantly dressed Indian man who spoke English with upper-crust UK affectations. I handed him my credit card and we began the transaction when another man approached the desk and waited for a few seconds. The desk clerk acknowledged him finally with a glance and the man very politely asked for a pen which the desk clerk gave him.]

Desk Clerk: That explains why I'll never go to Mexico. Those people are rude, incapable of waiting their turn, and expect one to drop everything at their whim!

[I hadn't noticed any rudeness on the part of the pen seeker--he waited until noticed before asking, and asked kindly. I'd also not noticed he was Mexican, but now heard him speaking to friends in Spanish behind us. Cha and I exchanged an uncomfortable glance.]

Desk Clerk: Do you have this problem?

Cha [with sarcasm]: Um, no, not really. [Keep in mind that Cha's last name, like that of most Filipinos, is Hispanic. She is as much a Latina as she is an Asian.]

Me: There are rude people everywhere, from every culture.

Desk Clerk: Are you being honest, or are you just afraid to say something in front of your wife?

Me: There are rude--and racist--people from every culture. I encounter them everywhere.

When we got in the elevator Cha flipped out--had we not been desperate for a room we'd likely have stormed out. There were two large busloads of Mexican tourists at the hotel--perhaps the guy was just fed up and decided to vent. Perhaps he saw Cha and assumed she was one of "them" when she first came in. I dunno, but I was furious, and considered calling Comfort Hotel and letting them know about their jackass employee. Then, however, I imagined this guy getting fired and deported and not being able to feed his kids, and decided against it. Now, in retrospect, I think I made the right choice, but I still feel guilty, like I let someone get away with a racist joke or comment without challenging it. Then I thought about Cha's aunts and uncles telling us not to visit downtown Toronto because of "the blacks and the Chinese," and then I thought about the bad blood between many of her relatives and the father of the bride at the wedding--he's Japanese, and the older Filipinos remember quite well their childhood under the occupation. Cha's parents used to send her to Canada for months at a time because she had black friends and they wanted her out of their reach. These are not terrible people, but they have casual racist attitudes and share them with those they imagine might agree. I did not challenge Cha's parents' racial attitudes, nor those of her aunts or uncles--so what right did I have to sit in judgment of some frustrated hotel employee?

Is it always wrong to let racist comments slide? Is it wrong to be politic about it with family members? Another illustration: my brother Pork Heaven and I sitting with my stepdad at his house.

Dad: I used to go to a bar in downtown DC every week when I was single, but got fed up with it because later on the spooks started hanging out there.

Me: Jesus Christ, you can't say that. What the hell sort of comment is that when kids are around? [my niece and nephew were there]

Pork Heaven: Jesus, Dad, that's pretty awful.

Dad: What are you guys talking about?

Me: Calling black people 'spooks' is bad enough, but saying the fact that a bar has black patrons is reason enough to stop frequenting such an establishment is so 1950s.

Pork Heaven: All the bars I hang out in have black patrons. Who cares?

Dad: Holy shit, "spooks" are spies! I was working for defense contractors and they'd listen to our lunch conversations, for Christ's sake. That's what I'm talking about!

Sometimes we over-react with good intentions, and make snap judgments like the worst reactionaries; it's one of the things I despise about many liberals who condemn others casually and with an almost evangelical fervor. I'm (obviously) guilty of it myself from time to time. Other times, people are jerkasses, plain and simple. We stopped at my mother-in-law's favorite restaurant (Wendy's-ugh) on the way home, in a small town in central PA. Nothing like getting stared at by the entire clientele because I'm with three Asians. Of course, it might have been the "B-More for Peace" T-shirt I was wearing.