jude folly

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

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?

While living in San Francisco in the late ’90s I first browsed Lloyd Dangle’s Troubletown in one of the free Bay Area weeklies. His cartoons strike the viewer’s eye with their amateur-quality (even for political cartoon standards) illustrations, sinister facial expressions and squalor-tinged settings. 

Depicting whichever political scandal or celebrity idiocy of the day, Troubletown simply followed a public figure’s rhetoric to its most demented and self-serving conclusion. There’s something appealing about the crudely drawn figures that lends a deviant quality to the makers of media mayhem. You’ll often find them sketched with a diabolical brow and knowing sneer; dark rings under the eyes of those tirelessly at work on sordid schemes.

Take a look at his response to the enormous financial debt the United States owes to China. It’s a stark yet clever reminder of the lender-saturated advertising one most likely will endure while watching television or listening to the radio.  

The 50th anniversary edition of William Burroughs’ Junky includes, among other treats, a glossary defining some of the terminology used by the addicts, pushers and various other unsavory characters trafficking the underworld of post-war New York, New Orleans and Mexico City. Very appropriately the glossary introduction acknowledges the influence of ‘jive talk’–a language that defined the community of marijuana users (and I would guess jazz musicians who overlapped with potheads)–and ultimately merging with those considered ’hip’ (see glossary below).

To quote the introduction more directly, “Jive talk always refers to more than one level of fact”–to which I would add that this dialect of American English inscribed a code for the essential business of scoring the next fix, as well as illustrating much of the associated activities and consequences of getting high.

are you anywhere? (Do you have any junk or weed on you?) That this question should ring philosophical, even existential, cuts to the heart of the user’s raison d’être. I would imagine an outsider’s possible response to such a question–”Are you high?”–proportionally ironic.

burn down (To overdue or run into the ground.)  The glossary cites a scenario when junkies gathering too frequently at a particular eating establishment to score, that law enforcement eventually gets wise to it. The restaurant in question is then considered “burned down.”

croaker (A doctor.) As described in Junky’s text, one willing to prescribe a junky his fix. Burroughs elaborates on the type of physician a user will seek out.

Generally speaking, old doctors are more apt to write than young ones. Refugee doctors were a good field for a while, but the addicts burned them down. Often a doctor will blow his top at the mere mention of narcotics and threaten to call the law.

Doctors are so exclusively nurtured on exaggerated ideas of their position, that generally speaking, a factual approach is the worst possible. Even though they do not believe your story, nonetheless they want to hear one. It is like some Oriental face-saving ritual (pp. 17-18).

hep or hip (Someone who knows the score. Someone who understands ‘jive talk’; someone who is ‘with it.’) I believe any thoughtful observer of popular culture will acknowledge how this term has become orphaned from its origins and yet signifies the past fondly.

lush-worker(A thief who specializes in robbing drunks on the subway.) An economist accounting for the cash flow operating in the drug trafficking system in Manhattan (circa 1950) would have to account for the capital generated by preying on the intoxicated upwardly mobile.

poke (A wallet.) The pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow for your vigilant and industrious lush-worker. An example among several others when a specific action–poking around someone’s pockets–becomes a noun.

pop corn (Someone with a legitimate job, as opposed to a hustler or a lush-worker.) I suspect there’s a glint of insult in this term for someone with one foot in the “square” world and the other among the “hip.”

smash (Change, money, coins.) Another example of an action–in this case the destruction of coin-operated machines, to raise money for a fix–transformed by usage into a noun.

Often the terminology of a marginal community I have found equally amusing and intriguing. The amusement is self evident. The intrigue I owe to the mystery of appropriating accepted usage for a purpose quite far removed; to effect the function of concealing and revealing at the exact same moment; always referring “to more than one level of fact.”

Who seriously cares? The Huffington Post seems to be mining this story to unearth acrimony between McCain and Bush that errupted around the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina. At the time a push-poll of mysterious origins queried voters whether or not they’d vote for John McCain knowing that he had fathered a black child out of wed-lock.

What has troubled me to this day about Sen. McCain is that he hasn’t had the self-respect to publicly tell the Bush organization to screw off; the South Carolina dirty tricks he swallowed clean so he could one day earn the Republican presidential nomination.

From Glenn Greenwald’s post in Salon.com yesterday that discusses in part ”the twisted, petty personality-based themes that dominated” the 1988 presidential election and how they may factor in this year’s race for the White House–I found a link to a Washington Post piece about the challenge that candidate Sen. Obama faces in minting his own ‘brand’ of patriotism.

I won’t deny the factors of appearance and likability at play in a race for public office, but could we just once pry open the shell of this narrow notion of patriotism–lapel pins, flag saluting and cheerleading for national belligerance–and open the conversation to include such matters as the federal government upholding checks and balances established by the Constitution, defending civil liberties, and providing due process to those detained by the U.S. government? These principles define our country just as crucially as any flag waving gesture, no?