Strategy of Fear

I am almost frightened out of my seven senses.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616), novelist and dramatist

Now that the curtain has been lifted off the White House and more people are starting to see for themselves just how mismanaged and corrupt the Bush gang is, it’s time to scare the crap out of everyone.

Bush is going to give a speech today about the potential pandemic the bird flu could become. Since the war has gone bad, cronyism has robbed the government of what little efficiency it did have, and the vice president puts our spies in harm’s way because they won’t buy into his lies, it’s time to dip into Turd Blossom’s bag of tricks to change the news and worry people into submission.

Presidents Bush depicted showing their compassion for storm victims

It looks to me that Bush is running the country similar to how Ken Lay ran Enron: oblivious to the real world, allowing underlings to run roughshod with a complete lack of ethics and a disregard for the rule of law.

If Katrina is any indication of how our government is prepared, we can expect hundreds of thousands to die, while the rich will have already horded their vaccines. For Bush to say anything is a joke because there are still people in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida without shelter and electricity. And, many people in those areas are losing hope.

Condemned to hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), lexicographer and writer

Separated at Birth:Ray Bradbury and Cory Doctorow

Two science fiction greats: Ray Bradbury and Cory Doctorow.

I'm reading Sam Weller's biography of Ray Bradbury this week (The Bradbury Chronicles), and it's quite a good read. Weller has had unfettered access to Bradbury and his life, and the biography is comprehensive, if at times a little simple in its style. Great stuff inside, like Bradbury's decision early in his career to write a short story every week, figuring that he'd have better odds of writing a good one that way.

Just as interesting (OK, maybe a little less) is the similarity of Bradbury to contemporary writer Cory Doctorow, about whom I've blogged before. His Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is already a sci-fi classic (I've linked to Amazon for you so you can buy it right now) and his latest, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a genre-bending great about which I've already blogged. And he looks a lot like Ray Bradbury!

From Harper’s Index

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963), novelist and essayist

The Republicans equate the Carter Administration with long gas lines and rising gas prices. According to Harper’s Index:

• Percentage change in the average monthly price of oil during the Carter Administration: +85
• Percentage change during the presidency of George W. Bush, before Hurricane Katrina hit: +107
  
  This one is incredible to me. Don’t tell me the administration didn’t purposely ignore the pleas for help in New Orleans:
• Days after Katrina kit that Dick Cheney’s office ordered an electric company to restore power to two oil pipelines: 1
  
  I believe in the long run the Iraq War will prove worse than the Vietnam War because of the lack of preparation. We may not lose as many soldiers thankfully, but the ramifications will be longer lasting:
• Number of journalists killed in Vietnam during twenty years of war there: 63
• Number killed in Iraq since March 2003: 71
  
  How I hope this is remembered come the 2006 mid-term elections:
• Years after the start of the Vietnam War that a majority of Americans first said it was a mistake: 3 1/2
• Years after the start of the Iraq War that a majority said this: 1 ¼
  
  Next time you go to buy something remember this:
• Number of consecutive years that the U.S. median income has failed to increase: 5

Noted without comment:Crowd surfing warning

This and That

Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.
Arthur Balfour (1848 - 1930), British prime minister

Toner Mishap. As you can see I have decided to keep writing for Toner Mishap. The two-week break was much needed and reminded me of the joy of writing on the blog. The discipline of writing for the blog I find spills over to creative writing. If I don’t write daily on the blog I'm less inclined to write at all. So I will continue to post items, but on my own timetable, no longer trying to post items daily before 9 p.m. (PST) in order to have fresh content for a new day by (EST),which will relieve the pressure I felt previously.

Without On the Mark and B2 contributing regularly (B2 will have a post on Monday) I feel as though I am in a big house by myself. So, I am sure the direction will change a bit, new blog links will start appearing, and some old ones will be leaving. Maybe I should borrow Jack’s title and call this Random Thoughts II, which has a nice ring to it, but I love Toner Mishap.

If you are sticking around thank you, if you are just coming around, welcome.

East Coast. I am heading out to New York for meetings for a couple of days and then I will zoom over and see Daughter in D.C. She already has tours lined up for the day. We are going to tour the Capital, the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress. I should have many pictures from my new camera and a few comments about D.C. This will be my first visit to the nation’s capital.

Shooting Pool. It seems that our weekly pool playing at On the Mark’s has slipped into about a once or twice a month gathering because of all the things that have to be done on a Saturday. The previous Saturday, On the Mark and I bought a half core of firewood that we picked up and delivered to our respective homes. You know it gets so cold out here that we have to have our firewood ready for our long dreary winters of 60-degree evenings. Nonetheless, having a fire creates a great ambiance for reading and napping.

The Boy King. No I am not talking about W, but King Tut and how we have turned him into a joke. Steve Martin’s King Tut single years ago was very funny, now this is humorous too, but in a sad sort of way. A tissue dispenser seems a bit silly, which is why it probably makes it a great office or bathroom item for discussion. I have to admit, I’m sorry I don’t have one.

Shopping Mall. We have a new shopping mall in my town and it has turned out to be a major pain to me. The main drive into the mall now intersects with the gym and getting in and out has added several frustrating minutes of stop lights and lots of cars to what once was a two-minute drive. People are acting as if they have never been to a mall before. It’s absolutely nuts.

Obscene Profits

I do not know where we are going, but I do know this—that wherever it is we shall lose our way.
Práxedes Sagasta, Spanish politician

Oil company profits are excessive which is proof that they were gouging consumers at the pumps. ExxonMobil made $10 billion in profit for the third quarter. That is more than $3 billion a month.

Worse than watching oil executives take home lotto-sized bonuses, is learning they have no plans to invest in furthering research in alternative or renewable energy.

"We're an oil and gas company. In times past, when we tried to get into other businesses, we didn't do it well. We'd rather re-invest in what we know," says Exxon spokesman Dave Gardner.

...Exxon [will not] significantly step up how much money it puts into finding oil or refining it into gasoline, which could help ease tight supplies that have driven oil and gasoline prices to records this year.

This is when the government should step in, tax the company, and invest the money in alternative energy. If one of our top energy companies, which can help or hurt the economy depending on either its greed or foresightedness, cannot see its way to improve then it should be up to the government to force its hand.

The Beginnings of Justice

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956), U.S. journalist

Rather than just having Vice Presidential Adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. indicted on obstruction of justice, false statement and perjury charges, real justice would be if it were the president who was charged on such counts and then impeached.

Update: Libby resigned and left the White House. I wonder if they will hire him as a consultant equal to his full pay, similar to what they have done with the former FEMA Director Brown.

Nature Being Natural

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
William Blake (1757–1827), English poet


If a tree has sex in the forest and there is
nobody around does it make a sound?



His and her veggies.



Pat Robertson might have something to say about this.

Timely News?

Our job is like a baker’s work — his rolls are tasty as long as they’re fresh; after two days they’re stale; after a week, they’re covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out.
Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish journalist

The Los Angeles Times finally got around to listing the obituary of Len Dresslar, the voice of the Jolly Green Giant. Why did it take so long? Any longer and Dresslar would have returned reincarnated. He died Oct 16.

The passing is certainly worthy of obit news, but if the paper waited this long it was either an oversight or someone from the family called and gave them hell.

In our consumer driven society the Jolly Green Giant has been acknowledged by Advertising Age magazine as one of the three most recognizable American advertising icons of the 20th century – after Tony the Tiger and the Marlboro Man.

Short-Term Poetic Justice

Avarice, sphincter of the heart.
Matthew Green (1696–1737), English poet

The banks and credit card companies worked long and hard to get the new bankruptcy bill passed. President Bill Clinton would not sign such an onerous piece of legislation that would hurt the working class. But, get a president who sides with the greedy corporate world and the people will suffer.

Har, har, har, I thoroughly enjoyed the New York Times article that reveals the gluttonous money-grubbers, who make organize crime blush at the high interest rates they charge, may have overreached and will now lose money. I realize it’s only short term, but I love it because the suits think mostly short term.

In recent days, the five biggest bank issuers of credit cards have said that the unexpectedly large flood of filings shaved hundreds of million of dollars off their earnings in the third quarter.

But with tens of thousands of petitions still being processed and Hurricane Katrina's impact on cardholders still being sorted out, the bankruptcy rush is likely to result in well over a billion dollars worth of losses by the end of the year.

Sallie L. Krawcheck, the chief financial officer for Citigroup, said, "It's clearly done some short-term earnings damage to the card industry."

We’ll get it in the end, but it’s worth gloating now.

My Den From My New Camera

This is where The Misanthrope ends up in complete indecision
about what to read next.


The Misanthrope reads here, however slowly.


The Misanthrope writes the posts from here.

He Can't Be Serious!

There is no such thing as a man willing to be honest that would be like a blind man willing to see.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), writer

How can this be said without a laugh?

According to the Associated Press, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Cheney is doing a "great job" as vice president. The spokesman also said Cheney's public comments have always been truthful.

Reasons to be Misanthropic

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous for its prey.
Molière (1622–73), French dramatist. Philinte, in Le Misanthrope, act 1, sc. 1.

The death toll in Pakistan and India after the Oct. 8 earthquake has reached 53,000, according to the New York Times. Yet, these two countries are acting like little kids offering relief and rejecting it, coming up with proposals and counter proposals. Meanwhile, people’s lives are hanging in the balance. Surprisingly the Bush gang is not even involved.

I read Kurt Vonnegut’s “A Man Without a Country” and while I am not even trying to include myself in this group, I do have to say I join them in their belief:

Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even thought Twain hadn’t even see the First World War.

Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people, too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is not the first I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.

What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it their own?

Short People

Short People are just the same
As you and I
(A Fool Such As I)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(It's A Wonderful World)
Randy Newman, singer/song writer “Short People” (complete lyrics to song listed at the bottom of the post)

I decided to check some of the blogs unknown to me listed on our blogroll; Prontopup, in this case, which is where I discovered the link to Roger Ebert's reply to a short person who called him on his use of the word midget. (Here is another Toner Mishap secret, B2 is the technical guru here. I ask B2 to blog roll people and he always does, but I have not checked out everyone he has added. I will learn how to add sites yet.)

I apologize in advance for my ignorance and my prejudice, but short people (aka, midgets and dwarfs) give me nightmares, maybe it has something to do with the "Wizard of Oz." I promise to work on my shortsighted views. If I had a friend, was better read, or was close to someone abnormally short, I am sure I would have learned this long ago.

If there is anyone who is offended by this post, I sincerely apologize and I will definitely improve on my narrow mindedness. I found the following note rather amusing and enlightening:

The following exchange, reprinted here in its entirety, began with an e-mail to Ebert's Movie Answer Man column.
From Daniel Woodburn to Roger Ebert
April 6, 2005
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I am an actor that you have reviewed neither favorably nor unfavorably in two different movies: one was “Death to Smoochy,” the other "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her.” I have absolutely no objection to you trashing a film or lauding it. I do object to the use of the word "midgets" in your review of “Death to Smoochy.”

As a writer you are aware of the power of words. The use of the word midget is, for Little People, equated with any other hate word someone might use to describe a minority group. I simply ask you: if you were to see Little People children would you take away their humanity in the same way with the use of such a hate word? I can respect a yes answer but I cannot respect the person who answers yes.

Sincerely,
Danny Woodburn

From Roger Ebert to Daniel Woodburn
April 12, 2005
Dear Mr. Woodburn,
I had no idea the word "midget" was considered offensive, and you are the only person who has ever written to me about it. In my mind it is a descriptive term, like "dwarf." "Little People" has seemed to me to have a vaguely condescending cuteness to it. If I am now informed that "midget" is offensive, I will no longer use it. What is your feeling about "dwarf?" Is "Little Person" always the preferred term? Our newspaper's style book, based on Associated Press, does not consider "midget" or "dwarf" to be offensive terms, but perhaps we have not caught up.

Sincerely,
Roger Ebert

After the Wizard of Oz, my next familiarity with short people came from Frank Zappa and his dwarf bowling comments, which shows how mixed up I am. But, as Ebert says, I will catch up.

I decided to look up the word midget and I learned something:

midg·et. noun, 1. Offensive. An extremely little person who is otherwise normally proportioned.

Randy Newman's song is obviously a parody, similar to his song about Rednecks. In case you missed it in the '80s here are the lyrics to Randy Newman's "Short People."

Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
To live

They got little hands
Little eyes
They walk around
Tellin' great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet

Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
`Round here

Short People are just the same
As you and I
(A Fool Such As I)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(It's A Wonderful World)

Short People got nobody
Short People got nobody
Short People got nobody
To love

They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
Well, I don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
Don't want no Short People
'Round here

A Few Personal Items I Find Fit to Comment Upon

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain (1835–1910), author

Toner Mishap. There are days when I have missed commenting. In the two weeks that I have not written anything, I have not yet used the time wisely, which aggravates me to no end. Frankly, I have missed Toner Mishap. It’s just too good a site to let go to seed, so I plan to write more frequently, but no promises about daily writing.

I am not sure how many readers we have left, but those of you who show up thank you, your readership and comments are appreciated.

Las Vegas. Wife and I took a bit of a vacation last week to celebrate our birthdays. We went to Las Vegas because it was close, not cheap. I find that Las Vegas is extremely overpriced from their hotel rooms, food and drinks to gambling. We stayed at a middle of the road hotel (Monte Carlo) on the strip and we felt very much like cattle as the staff offered no interest in customer service. We were booked for a mini-suite for four days, but because they did not have the room cleaned at 3 p.m. as promised and we were tired from the drive, we opted to down grade to a regular room, wife’s wise decision. We even checked out a day early because the town’s greed and consumption just worn on us.

Elton John. We saw Elton John’s Red Piano show at Caesar’s Palace. Wife had never seen Elton John before and she loved the show, which featured a number of his popular songs. I had seen him at the Hollywood Bowl and I have been to far more concerts than she has and I found the audience was as active as store mannequins and that Elton John basically just phoned in his performance. I was disappointed, but wife loved it, so I didn’t rain on her parade (she won’t read this blog, neither will mother, thank goodness).

Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity. This was an excellent show. I loved every minute of it. The performers in this show are incredible. It was a very enjoyable show and I highly recommend it.

Rolling Stones. On the Mark predicted it, but I didn’t believe him. He said I would go see the Stones at the Hollywood Bowl and I denied it. Well… Wife and I are going to see the Stones at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday, Nov. 6. The seats are very much toward the back, but I’m hopeful there will be a large screen to see and the sound should be awesome, so I am looking forward to it.

Toner Mishap. Oh, it feels nice to write this stuff again.

Noted without comment:LadyClassic

"Designed especially for Lady golfers with long manicured finger nails who prefer to wear their jewelry while playing."

Magneto and Winston Smith

What’s the deal with Ian McKellen and John Hurt? Are they really different people, or what?

The Misanthrope – Sunday’s Lighter Side ‘Till the Next Good-bye

Until the next time we say good-bye
I’ll be thinking of you
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, singers/song writers

This could be the last time. May be the last time, I don't know. But it’s been fun, it’s been a thrill and it’s been time consuming. Yes friends, The Misanthrope is saying good-bye, but not necessarily so long, which means I could and most certainly will pop up from time to time, but I'm not going to be around daily as I have been, at least writing. Like any habit, I have gotten used to checking in on a handful of blogs rather regularly and that will continue.

B2, On The Mark and I have all talked but this day at various times, but we figured the one year anniversary was a good time to say so long, at least to writing daily. Here is a tidbit about Toner Mishap; On The Mark and B2 have never met. I don't think they have ever spoken except through the comments section.

My hat's off to my two colleagues figuratively and literally. B2 and I work together, which is my pleasure and makes the commute to work less hell (note, it would take more than B2 to make the drive a pleasure). B2 is the one who suggested a blog last year when I told him I used to have a dot net site called The Misanthrope, but I didn't want to do it again, alone. He said he would participate too and came up with the great name Toner Mishap by running misanthrope through an anagram site. I equate B2 to Nicholson Baker with his ability to find the unusual in the quotidian.

On The Mark and I have been best friends since the 10th grade when we were on the same misfit basketball team, so On The Mark will generally agree to some of my writing ideas. As you have seen, he is an excellent writer and has keen eye for reading between the lines and getting to the heart of the matter.

Both these guys are tremendous talents.

Highlights. We are going to put our best of pieces up shortly. The first time Boing Boing picked up a B2 post and the numbers jumped by a couple of thousand in a day, you would have thought we won the lotto. The second B2 post picked up by Boing Boing was just as thrilling and the numbers jumped by almost 10,000. What were the items? Something about Chewbacca and the other one was a post related to Star Wars from a B2 grocery store excursion, and if we could get royalties on those posts, we'd still be raking in the dough. I was also thrilled to be picked up by AOL blog news and finally Waxy picked B2's coffee table book-sized post about the Simpson’s in Spanish, and hence we will break 100,000 probably Wednesday is my guess. A post that was not picked up by the big blogs was Hopper Rolls Over in His Grave, this is an outstanding and entertaining piece on how a classic work of art has been high-jacked for all kinds of commercial purposes. If we don't post another item the hits will continue through the magic of Google images. On The Mark's Russian posts were terrific and very interesting.

Online Friends. Blogging has created some online friends for me: Jack at Random Thoughts; Lorrianne at Horded Ordinaries, Janet at the Art of Getting By; Dr. Stephen Taylor at Poliblog; Dr. B at BitchPh.d; Q at Simply Put; Anita at Fighting Interia; and of course, our most regular commentor Chandira at Diary of a Hope Fiend. I have learned one thing or another from all of you, thank you! I don't want to forget Alice at Through a Looking Glass; Andrea Lewis at scratching surfaces; Panthergirl at The Dog's Breakfast or Laura at Daxohol.

Still Around. Really all this means is that we are stopping daily blogging. No one told us to blog daily, but we felt that to build readership and keep it we needed to blog daily.

The upshot of all this writing has inspired my creative writing, which I really want to focus on for a while without the distraction of the blog. When you combine the day job and dealing with the outside world, blogging creates additional pressure that I just don't need. I am hopeful if you have us blogrolled you can see when we have updated and you'll stop by. Already I want to write about congress considering taking away or reducing tax deductions for homeowners. I have truly grown to despise political hacks in both parties.

See you around,

The Misanthrope

And I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.

Twelve months, one thousand posts, and one hundred thousand hits. Give or take.

Toner Mishap has been a great way to spend my time, and the blogosphere has been a great place to coexist with my alternate self, but the time has come to close the curtain on this chapter of my life and bury the hatchet in a mixed metaphor. Or something like that.

My wife is always close to my thoughts. Whenever I start something new, I wonder how she will react -- to my papercutting, to my dads' zine (Another Mouth), to this blog... sometimes I clue her in early, and sometimes she finds out later, but she always supports me and makes me feel good about myself. When I told her that the Mishap was no longer going to be an everyday concern, but rather an every-so-often one, she voiced real concern; it seems that for her this has been a real window into my mind, and she wonders how we will connect now. For this, if for no other reason, I have something better to do with my time every day than attempting to amuse strangers with either (1) how geeky I am, or (2) how geeky I'm not: I just need little more time with my rabbi to let her know how much she means to me.

In the past year I've blogged on comics, D&D, Edward Hopper, and Chewbacca (and a few other things). I've shared music, photos, thoughts, and rants. I've introduced you to Guerilla Gorilla (who still, to this day, refuses to spell "guerrilla" correctly), and maybe even to Hector Vex, Attila, Beaucoup Kevin, Rick Richman's Jewish Current Issues, and Jay Pinkerton.

What will I do now? The hardest part about starting something new, I have learned, is finding the time to do it. I already have the time blocked out, because I committed it to Toner Mishap; now I hope to be spending that time with my my knife.

Thank you all for joining us on this adventure. Thank you to the Misanthrope and On the Mark for making it even more enjoyable. And thank you to my biggest fan, as always, my wife.

On The Mark -- Goodbye for Now

First, I want to thank The Misanthrope and B2 for inviting me to write for Toner Mishap. It's been a great experience.

Second, my hat is off to The Misanthrope and B2 for writing and posting well-written and well-researched articles every day. They were committed to keeping the Toner Mishap fresh with new material every day, no easy chore. The Misanthrope punched us in the gut with his hard-hitting commentary and B2, along with his great writing, opened my eyes to many things that were previously not in my universe.

This change for Toner Mishap doesn't really affect me too much, because I've only been able to post once or twice a week for a while now. I hope to be able to continue that pace. In fact, my next post will be tomorrow. But it will definitely be a noticeable change for my colleagues, because they were creating, researching, and writing every day -- and dedicated to making sure new material was live first thing in the morning.

I did notice one clear trend, though, over the year. Earlier in the year, when this blog would challenge the Bush Administration, we often had intelligent responses from those who support the Administration. But as the year has marched on, as more scandals in the Administration have erupted, the responses we've been getting have been trending toward being rude and childish. We like a good argument. We like a good fight. We like to hear the other perspective, even though we may not agree. There hasn't been much of a fight lately, mostly just name calling, but maybe that's because the Bushies are finding they have less ground to stand on.

We are in an interesting and scary time. More so than any other time in my nearly 50 years of life (that I was old enough to understand, anyway). Now, more than ever, we need critical thinking and writing.