jude folly

It hasn’t been too difficult to resist writing about Morrissey since I’ve not been an enthusiast for quite a number of years.  However, The Smiths remain, for me, the peak of pop music in the English speaking world; a rupture across the staid and dreary 1980s conformist landscape. They recorded sweet, enchanting tunes tilted by Morrissey’s exceptional lyrics - etchings of a whimsical pathos that would embolden the bashful and cause the brutish to blush.

Anyway, the Morrissey song I’ve posted above is a guilty pleasure given its scant lyrical content, tho’ I relish the Mancunian’s fatalistic conclusion, “My only mistake is I keep hoping”.  In concert, amuzingly enough, I’ve heard him change the chorus to “My only mistake is I’m English”.

With a number of contenders sniping for visibility and sound bites, the presidential primaries proved far more interesting than the two-candidate race we now witness in the months leading to the November election.  I admit the change we seek from that last seven years of Bush administration incompetence, nepotism and deception - may not amount to the dramatic policy sweep our country merits.

Yet, the choice between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain strikes me as overwhelmingly obvious.

Several years ago, when I had read Richard Branson’s profile (full disclosure: I am a Virgin Mobile customer) in Esquire’s recurring feature What I’ve Learned, the statement that jabbed me between the eyes was his headmaster’s parting words upon graduation: “Congratulations, Branson, I predict you will either go to prison or become a millionaire” (further support to the wisdom that the most brilliant people are incarcerated).

Not long after, I recall his cameo appearance on “Friends” as a souvenir vendor applauding Joey’s nutty determination to walk around London sporting a Dr. Suess ‘Cat in the Hat’ topper. Thereafter, I began to notice his television appearances, whether trying to break some hot air balloon flight record or launching space tourism - no matter the venue or occasion, he’s always flashing that toothy grin and never one to betray the starchy pallor you may notice in 90% of corporate executives.

As if to spite those who take exception to his risk-oriented approach to business, his ventures succeed just as well as the rest.

The flush-lipped one goes into labor. I don’t give a damn; why should anyone else?

after having been submitting notes to this venue for the last couple of months it struck me as quite the irony that readers have devoted more attention to the ‘writings‘ (no content) page than to reading this blog (updated content).

so, i thought, why not just post the biographical sketch about a former girlfriend i’ve worked on for the last several years. after having been turned down by the dozen or so literary journals i’ve approached, i figure it was time to give it a larger audience (admittedly, not that much larger).

I’m on the edge of my seat reading about the Congressional deliberations over the FISA bill. Very briefly, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act attempts to balance privacy rights vs. national security by requiring a court-approved warrant for a wire tap of any U.S. citizen, allowing a spy agency up to 72 hours to file for such approval after the fact (as amended in 2002; see p. 14).

Sounds reasonable, no? That’s of course if you have a pre-9/11 mentality that inspires your opposition to any of the Bush administration’s power-grabbing maneuvers.

I digress. As I read of Sen. Chris Dodd’s preparation to filibuster the House-approved ‘compromise‘ (granting immunity to telecom corporations that enabled NSA’s violation of FISA), I came across this nifty web site, MAPLight.org, that tracks political contributions to elected officials on what appears to be an issue-by-issue basis.  There were a number of Democrats who initially opposed granting immunity to telecoms now recently flipped to support it.

Put the coin in the slot, pull lever.

Special thanks goes to Charles Bukowski for inspiring this gem of wisdom. He once presented a signed a book of poems to Larry Mullen Jr (U2’s percussionist), wherein the poet inscribed the followng maxim: “Humanity at its greatest is a failure.”

The Huffington Post–along with throngs of nay-saying science whizes –on Wed. 18 June, debunked the topic written about in the last posting. I apologize for my euphoric rush to pass on a truth-deprived story; what seemed to me at that moment, Necessity’s nursing of a much needed energy alternative to petroleum.

What’s kind of fun to read are the responses of those who read The Huffington Post debunking–ardently splitting the atom, as it were, about what defines a fuel and what defines a catalyst, etc., et. al.,  ad nauseum.

I’ll wager that for its importance this is the most under-reported story of the day. A Japanese manufacturer of electricity generation technologies, Genepax, has unveiled an automobile fueled by hydrogen processed from water.

More than anything else, this story should serve as a reminder that the global economy should not carry on captive to only one source of energy (ahem, petrolium). Yes, the water-mobile alone will not rehabilitate us from our dependence on oil. It will be a diversity of alternative energy sources the moves the economy past a petrolium-dominated system. I look forward to watching that transition unfold.

It surprises me no one has offered this scenario (at least publicly) about the Sept. 2007 disappearance of Steve Fossett: wouldn’t the ultimate adventure be that of vanishing from publicized human contact, if not all human contact?