THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
In
Sinatra's time it was really cool to be 50, to be a man.
You put on a hat, and a suit and you keep on going until
you die. Now you get 50-year-old guys in sleeveless
T-shirts, going to the gym and desperately trying to fix
their hair, and you think: 'Whatever happened to real
men?'"
—Rob
Dougan
Kevin
Michael Grace,
7.17 pm, 30 August 2008►
MASTERS
OF PROSE
In
the end I believe Obama will win because McCain is aligned
with the unpopular Bush regime. But until then, it's a
high-stakes branding chess game no different than selling
soap or cornflakes or SUVs or Brad Pitt only a lot more
important to humanity.
—Diane
Francis, "Obama
McCain Brand Strategies,"
National Post, July 27, 2008
Let's
see: Obama is going to win, but everybody agrees to go
through the motions, which take the form of a board game,
which is no different than selling consumer goods
or Brad Pitt (what about Angelina?) and is terribly
important to humanity, hence the "high stakes,"
except that Obama has it already wrapped up. Don't ask me
to imagine what "branding chess" might be.
I got as far as pawns reaching to the eighth rank and then
being promoted, not to Queens, but to Cadillac
Escalades...and then blood started seeping from my ears.
This isn't writing; this is Mad Libs.
Francis: The José Raúl
Capablanca
of the mixed metaphor
Kevin
Michael Grace,
7.10 pm, 30 August 2008►
LOWER
48 WELCOMES FREAK STATE VEEP
WASHINGTON—Americans reacted
mostly positively Friday to the surprise selection by John McCain of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Republican nominee for Vice President. The 37-year-old Palin continued her meteoric rise to
political demigod status, which began just 9 years ago, when she was elected Mayor of
Kolyma, AK, population 79, and continued two years ago when she was elected Governor after the entire Republican
state hierarchy was indicted for corruption and then photographed in a giant hot tub with underaged Boy Scouts.
In an already historic Presidential year, one that has seen left-field Democratic candidate Barack Obama ride a wave of guilty hysteria to triumph over supposed
sure-thing Hillary Clinton, Gov. Palin brings her own considerable exoticism to the table. A working mother,
she is married to her dog-mushing school sweetheart, Ookpik, who runs a thriving
seal-gutting business when not doing something or other
for Alaska's only major employer, Big Oil. Ookpik, who is 1/32
Eskimo on his stepmother's side, is an X-treme moose-eating
champion and enjoys staring at the aurora borealis. The Palins have five children, Truck, Trig, Sine, Cosine and Hypotenuse.
The glamorous Gov. Palin is
sure to turn heads on the campaign trail. Chosen Miss Skagway in 1989,
she was featured in Vogue last year wearing the traditional Alaskan
summer costume of mukluks and a dress constructed entirely of ThermaCare heat patches.
Experts contend that Gov. Palin's candidacy will
considerably enlarge Sen. McCain's base of embittered
Bush'ite loyalists, hedge traders and End Timers.
According to Catholic University of America political
scientist Ed Neuwirth, "She will go over especially
well with 'curling' moms, men who think women who wear $1,500 titanium eyeglasses are
'hot' and all Americans ignorant of the 25th Amendment to the
Constitution" (which stipulates that upon the death or incapacity of the President, the Vice President assumes his
office).
David Gergen, U.S. News
& World Report editor-at-large and former adviser
to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, had
particular praise for the choice, saying, "Sen.
McCain has demonstrated his bedrock commitment to our core national values of vibrancy, diversity and the Hail Mary
pass."
Dan Quayle, however, struck a discordant note. Reached at his home in
Paradise Valley, AZ, the former Vice President declared, "You remember the shit I went through when Bush picked me in
'88? I was 'too young' and 'too inexperienced.' Well, compared to this broad, I was
Daniel Fucking Webster." Quayle refused further comment, mumbling enigmatically, "It's Miller time."
Sen. McCain celebrated his
72nd birthday Friday, and his VP pick was expected to be
closely scrutinized, considering the sensitive topic of his
bumptious decrepitude. A former spokesman for defeated
rival former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said off
the record, "We all wondered about it, since we all
know he's got a 50/50 chance of stroking off in any given
week. There's a rumor been going round for months that
McCain signed a deal with the Devil, promising that he'll
be elected President if he agrees to allow his soul to be
ripped from his husk of a body and delivered shrieking
into the bowels of Hell at precisely 12 noon, January 20,
2017. I never gave [the rumor] much credence
before, but then he went
and picked Palin. Makes you think, doesn't it?" Calls
to the Devil's head office in Las Vegas were not
returned.
She doo:
Gov. Palin on her morning commute to the state capital in
Juneau
Kevin
Michael Grace,
5.12 pm, 29 August 2008►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
"You're
as bad as my friend Arthur," said Ferdie. "He
seriously believes that nothing violent need ever happen
if we all get together and love one another."
"Love,"
said Nina Cattermole. "Yes, I think there is
definitely a place in any non-violent revolution for
personal relationships."
"I
agree," said Ferdie. "There's this girl called
Elizabeth Pedal in the class who I am beginning to think
seriously about. But I never let that sort of thing
interfere with one's political beliefs."
"Don't
you?" said Nina, looking him in the eyes. Ferdie
smiled. She might have something. One did get rather bored
sitting in the office for hours on end, doing nothing.
"But
seriously," he said. "I am not sure that I want
a revolution anyway. And if I did, my experience of
revolutions is that they have to be pretty violent. You
will never goad the inert grey masses of the English
proletariat into doing anything violent, so you might as
well give up any ideas of a revolution."
"This
is precisely what I have been trying to say all along. Because
the English working class is so inert, grey and
inarticulate, it will put up no opposition to a
revolution provided it is non-violent. As soon as
you start shooting people, or hanging them, the English
fill up with Dunkirk spirit and make trouble. But if you
just quietly take over the Government and start passing
laws, nobody would notice. The would complain about it in
the pubs, of course, and a few people would write letters
to the Daily Telegraph, but everybody would realize
in their hearts that we were being progressive."
"And
how are you going to quietly take over the
Government?" Scorn poured off Miss Catterpole's back
like fat from a basted duck, leaving her slightly browner
and tastier than before.
"By
a gradual process which need not even be conscious. It is
happening all the time, although, of course, it will be
speeded up a bit when the younger people like ourselves
begin to make themselves felt in politics."
—Auberon
Waugh, Who
Are The Violets Now?
(1965)
Kevin
Michael Grace,
12.44 am, 29 August 2008►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
Ofcom's
annual report on the communications
market offers a nightmare picture of British society in
which everyone is trying to do several things at the same
time. People watch only six minutes less television a day
than they did in 2002 - but television is no longer enough
to keep them satisfied. The young, in particular, are
constantly using their mobile phones and checking the
internet, even while they are watching TV. Sending text
messages is especially popular, with the number sent in
2007 having risen by 36% from the previous year to an
astonishing 60bn. According to Ofcom, there are now more
mobile phones in circulation than there are people in the
United Kingdom.
The
spread of the internet and mobile telephony has produced a
compulsion to keep in touch that prevents people from
concentrating on any one thing at a time. It is, of
course, nice to communicate with other people
occasionally, but to do so constantly and for no
particular purpose is a kind of disease.
Why
do people do it? Are they frightened of missing out, or of
being forgotten or overlooked? Whatever the reason, it
means that they are losing the ability to focus for long
on anything, which can't be a good idea. It can only
result in us all becoming more stupid, more ignorant, and
more neurotic.
Addiction
to communication seems to me as dangerous as addiction to
cigarettes or alcohol and should perhaps be taken as
seriously by the health authorities, who might advise
treatment in the form of a few hours reading or meditation
a day.
—Alexander
Chancellor
Kevin
Michael Grace,
12.11 am, 23 August 2008►
