Political Theater

Last Friday President Bush called the narrowly-passed supplemental appropriations legislation by the House of Representatives an “act of political theater.” Later, rumors were flying in Washington that President Bush was interviewing candidates to succeed Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. This report was later described as “political theater that has no basis in fact.”

Political theater? I’ll tell you what political theater is. Political theater stars a president who as a real man, when given an opportunity to exhibit his own “courage, honor, and dedication” by going to Vietnam, does everything he can to avoid that experience and ends up missing in action in the Texas Air National Guard. Then years later, as an actor-president playing dress up Hollywood style, he lands on the deck of an aircraft carrier where he emerges from a fighter plane, dressed in the garb of a fighter pilot (a la Tom Cruise in “Top Gun“), bareheaded with helmet in hand, and struts across the deck to announce - prematurely, as it turns out - under a huge White House-prepared banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” that active fighting has ended in Iraq. Now that is real political theater.

An Interesting Observation

I find it interesting that I tend to overuse the word “interesting.” That word always reminds me of Arte Johnson of the old “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In Show” on television back in the period of 1968-1973. There were several catch phrases from that show such as “Here come de judge!” But the most enduring one was Arte Johnson uttering that long, drawn-out “ver-r-r-r-ry interesting.” Then he would usually follow that up with “but shtupit!” Why did I watch that show every week? Because it was “ver-r-r-r-ry interesting and sshtupit!” And it also starred the gorgeous Goldie Hawn, now the mother of the gorgeous Kate Hudson, as a giggling dumb blonde.

Now I am going to make a valiant effort to rid myself of the overuse of the term "interesting" in both my speaking and writing. Instead of finding a situation interesting, I can state that it is an engaging situation or even a curious one. The situation might be interesting because it is attention-getting. If the situation consumes almost all of my attention and time, I can call it engrossing or absorbing; and if it seizes my total attention, I can call it gripping. Should the situation overwhelm me to point that I can not move, I might call it riveting.

If I am spellbound by the situation, I can say that I find it fascinating, transfixing, or possibly even intriguing. Should the situation be of concern to me, I can state that I find it worrying. A situation that diverts my attention in an agreeable manner, I can label as entertaining or amusing.

As you can see, I find the word “interesting” to be “ver-r-r-r-ry interesting but not sshtupit!”

Now the next word I have to work on is the word "situation."

What are some of the "pet" words or phrases that you use too frequently?

Finding a Rare Jewel in the Shower

Almost every popular and folk music lover is familiar with Jewel, a celebrated singer, songwriter, poet, actress, and painter. Born in Utah but raised in a remote area of Homer and Anchorage, Alaska, Jewel (born Jewel Kilcher) began her musical career by accompanying her musical parents and singing for Eskimos at the age of six. Her story is one of rags to riches, culminating in the release of her eleven-time platinum debut album “Pieces of You.”

Since her debut, Jewel has remained a unique and authentic artist, exploring fresh musical avenues for more than a decade that have taken her from the simplicity of acoustic-driven folk to the embrace of rock, pop, country, blues, jazz and classical influences. To date, she has sold over 25 million albums worldwide, enjoying a career longevity rare among her generation of artists. The magazine Stuff listed her among its “102 Sexiest Women in the World” while Blender went further, crowning her “rock's sexiest poet.”

It has been said that almost every family has at least one humorous story to tell, and our family is no exception. Back in 1993, one of our sons wrote poetry and was very much into composing lyrics for some of the songs he played on his guitar. He loved folk music and often frequented local coffee houses in Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach where folk musicians played. One night at Java Joe’s, a coffee house in Ocean Beach in the San Diego area, our son heard a folksinger who had a different voice and a different style. That folk singer was Jewel, who was living in a van and was barely scraping by financially, surviving on a diet of peanut butter and carrots.

Our son said she played and sang beautifully but looked almost like a street person. After they had conversed for some time about folk music and poetry, she told him that she was living in a Volkswagen van and hadn’t showered for some time. When she found out that he had a bachelor apartment she asked him, without sexual overtones, if she might use his shower. Our son said he took one look at her physical appearance, and although he loved her music and poetry, he didn’t think it was a good idea. So he made up a story about living next door to the manager of the apartment, who had strict rules against having ladies in the apartment. At that point they parted.

Well, as everyone knows, two years later Jewel had her debut album and later published a book of her poetry . She went on to sell 25 million albums and bought a $5 million house in Rancho Santa Fe, a wealthy suburb of San Diego. At the same time, our son continued to live in his Ocean Beach bachelor apartment. One of the Christmas presents we got him the first year she achieved her success was a copy of her album “Pieces of You,” and in 1998 one of the Christmas presents he received was a copy of Jewel’s debut poetry collection titled “A Night Without Armor,” which sold over a million copies. Now we never fail to remind our son of that fateful night that he could have found a rare Jewel in his shower.

The Sins of Bush and Clinton - Which Ones Are Worse?

Clinton: Putting a stain on a dress.

Bush: Putting a stain on our nation’s honor.

Clinton: Lying to a grand jury about a sexual encounter.

Bush: Lying to the nation about WMD and starting a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Clinton: Liking blowjobs.

Bush: Liking blowing jobs away by shipping them overseas.

Clinton: Giving us Whitewater.

Bush: Giving us Katrina water.

Now you can add to the list:

Like a Rocket

Perhaps some of you might have noticed that Blogstream’s “Most Popular Blogs” has a new tenant - Adam Warlock’s “What Would You Do?”. A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by several members of Blogstream who noted his meteoric rise to stardom and wondered how it was achieved, particularly since the number of comments he receives would indicate that his blog does not get very many visitors from Blogstream. My experience has been that about 30% of the readers of my blog posts leave comments. Since Adam has averaged about 400 visitors per day over the past two weeks, one would expect him to have at least 100 or more comments each day. Yet most of his posts get between one and three comments.

Just a few days ago, I received an unsolicited message from Adam answering some questions which I had not asked. I can only assume that someone wrote him a message in which they said they were going to complain to me about the situation. Here are some excerpts from Adam’s message: “Whit, it seems strange to me, the amount of visitors I get and the decreased amount of comments I get.”
“Since I have noticed that I reached the "homepage" I have found that while my visitors increase, my comments seem to decrease, or at least don't increase with the increased amount of visitors that I receive.” “I guess I feel confused as to what has changed my status here on blogstream."

Yesterday, I sent this PM to Adam:

“Adam:

I have been contacted by an individual on Blogstream who thinks that you are using an RSS feed for your blog. If that is how you have accumulated all those hits recently, you should know that it is a violation of the rule as I understand it for getting on the "Most Popular Blogs" list. That category is limited to those people who have gotten their hits from Blogstream alone, not through an RSS feed.

Then my question is, "Are you using an RSS feed for your blog?

This is some pertinent information I found on Google about RSS feed:

Each RSS channel can contain up to 15 items and is easily parsed using Perl or other open source software. If you want more details on creating RSS files see Jonathan Eisenzopf's excellent article in the February issue of Web Techniques. But you don't have to worry about the details, we've made it easy to create your own RSS channel with free open source scripts, all Web based. More on these later.

Once you've created and validated your RSS text file, register it at the various aggregators, and WATCH THE HITS ROLL IN. Any site can now grab and display your feed regularly, driving traffic your way. Update your RSS file, and all the external sites that subscribe to your feed will be automatically updated. What can be easier?”

I got this reply from Adam:
“Whit, honestly, I have no idea what that is. I don't want to be where I am. I was happy where I was, and don't want to incur peoples displeasure for some manner of cheating. It is not important where I am on blogstream.
It was more of a wondering as to why what has happened has happened.”

Perhaps one or more savvy bloggers out there in Blogstream can help Adam find out what is happening. Is it possible that a virus has caused it? Or a hacker? I am sure Adam would appreciate any help you can give.