From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #453 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, January 14 2008 Volume 16 : Number 453 Today's Subjects: ----------------- news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [lep ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [lep ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [2fs ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [Tom Clark ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [2fs ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 [Rex ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [Rex ] Re: Re (extracting the) [Michael Sweeney ] Re: reap [Michael Sweeney ] Re: Re: [Michael Sweeney ] RE: Re (extracting the) ["Marc Alberts" ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 [Michael Sweeney ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [Capuchin ] Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use [lep ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 [Capuchin ] Re: Re (extracting the) [FSThomas ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 [FSThomas ] Re: Re (extracting the) [2fs ] Re: misread news of the day [The Great Quail ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Re (extracting the) [Jeff Dwarf ] Syd Barrett, Plastic People Hit Broadway Music and revolution collide in Tom St [HwyCDRre] Re: Re (extracting the) [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:25:36 -0500 From: lep Subject: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use hi feglist, robyn has a new myspace photograph: http://tinyurl.com/2sasgf (you might need a myspace account to view the photograph.) if anyone is so inclined, please comment on the guitar. i thought the one that was stolen (the telecaster, right?) was blue. is his new guitar blue (i.e. is that the new one in the picture?) (you can tell my keen guitar sense in how i identify them by colour.) also, i ran into this: http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html i don't know why it strikes me a bit odd. maybe it's the topic selection? like it would seem weird to buy a book on "daydream nation." admittedly, i have some similar books about movies from this series: http://www.powells.com/s?kw=BFI+film+classics&x=0&y=0 i have no idea why books about individual albums strikes me as a bit strange while books about individual films do not. perhaps i see watching movies as more of a "literary" experience than listening to music, i'm not sure. (oh, btw, the series is in dire need of a robyn book.) as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:31:17 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use i say: > http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html okay, i'm kind of evil, but the first few sentences of this description of "low" just cracked me up: << Synopses & Reviews Publisher Comments: "One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out." Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fueled Station To Station (Bowie: "I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was"), which welds R&B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on Low, his own expressionist mood-piece. >> from page: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-9780826416841-0 also, it reminds to wonder where kevin's been as of late (since he's kind of evil**, too.) xo lauren ** i mean: in a good way, of course. - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:20:14 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use On 1/13/08, lep wrote: > > > also, i ran into this: > http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html > > i don't know why it strikes me a bit odd. maybe it's the topic > selection? like it would seem weird to buy a book on "daydream > nation." admittedly, i have some similar books about movies from this > series: > http://www.powells.com/s?kw=BFI+film+classics&x=0&y=0 Well, the books are sometimes "about" the album, sometimes very much about other things. I've read a few, and they're pretty damned good. For example, you'll find out about a whole lot more than just R.E.M.'s _Murmur_ by reading that entry in the series...and Franklin Bruno's take on EC's _Armed Forces_ examines (among other things) the weird way rock makes use of and relates to black music and black people. And Carl Wilson's book on a Celine Dion album (I forget which one) is subtitled "A Journey to the Ends of Taste" - which gives you some idea what he's doing there (which is not at all just snarking on the album and people who like it). I think it's a brilliant series - it's about time there was an accessible forum for thoughtful, long-form writing on rock music, not to mention rock books that aren't just glorified fan club gush. The series is ongoing - any writers here ought to propose a treatment of a Robyn album (I'd think IODOT is maybe the best candidate). - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:44:29 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use On Jan 13, 2008, at 2:20 PM, 2fs wrote: > The series is ongoing - any writers here ought to propose a > treatment of a > Robyn album (I'd think IODOT is maybe the best candidate). IODOT is worthy from the Robyn-in-personal-ennui bent, but I think fegMania! or EOL are more worthwhile from a historical perspective. On Jan 13, 2008, at 1:31 PM, lep wrote: > i say: >> http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html > > okay, i'm kind of evil, but the first few sentences of this > description of "low" just cracked me up: > << > Synopses & Reviews > Publisher Comments: > "One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out." Los Angeles, > 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into > drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the > Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his > fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to > visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is > the cocaine-fueled Station To Station (Bowie: "I know it was recorded > in LA because I read it was") Check out "Laurel Canyon" by Michael Walker. Lots of good behind the scenes stories of LA music in the 60's & 70's - including Bowie's time there. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:18:30 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use On 1/13/08, Tom Clark wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2008, at 2:20 PM, 2fs wrote: > > > The series is ongoing - any writers here ought to propose a > > treatment of a > > Robyn album (I'd think IODOT is maybe the best candidate). > > IODOT is worthy from the Robyn-in-personal-ennui bent, but I think > fegMania! or EOL are more worthwhile from a historical perspective. Could be. It seems the 33 1/3 series is less interested in establishing any sort of canon than in demonstrating the way albums interact with the humans (more to the point: a particular human) who interact with them. The albums need to be more or less well-known, simply so that relation/interaction is generally legible to anyone else - but beyond that, I don't think anyone's saying "not this album [by a particular act], that one." It's likely that they wouldn't want a second album by the same band (maybe) - but I imagine that if two proposals came to them, one about IODOT and another about EOL, what would determine which gets published is not which album is more suitable but which proposal is better: which writer is likelier to produce an interesting book. The reason I thought of IODOT is it's simultaneously seeming very personal vis a vis Robyn but very relatable to anyone (that is, "personal" in a more general sense as well) - and the books in the series that I've read seem interested in that particular relation to an album - not a general "here's why this is the best album of 1984" approach. Then, it's not as if I've read them all - only a handful. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:37:58 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 On Jan 13, 2008 11:28 AM, 2fs wrote: > On 1/13/08, Capuchin wrote: > > Again, I didn't find anything. But I'd be surprised if it were STDs. > > Presumably, your partner's pretty much got whatever you've got or knows > > about it by the time you're that far into the process of coupling. > > > You're forgetting that US laws were made under the absurd assumption that > the engaged couple would both be virgins. And that any attempt to change > the > laws, on grounds that such an assumption is absurd and counterfactual in > most cases, would be strenuously objected to by the usual fundamentalist > wackos and other reality-deniers and wishful thinkers. > Which is why most states have done away with it, yes. I still haven't googled it myself, but someone else did, and passed these along, the first of which corroborates my shaky memory on syphilis in particular: http://www.coolnurse.com/marriage_laws2.htm http://family-law.freeadvice.com/family-law/bloodtestmarriage.htm Incidentally, I hope I don't come off as a know-it-all here... the only reason I ever learned this was that I happened to get married in a blood-testing state the first time (WV), and most of my friends got married in CA (as I would eventually as well), and in the course of comparing notes, the topic came out and we looked it up... eleven years ago or whatever. It was just kind of the intellectually inquisitive person's response to shit he or she has not thought about before (as in, more literally, the case of having a child and thus finding out what miconium is (and that, friends, is some obscure scatological punnery right there, and shit)). In an case, that whole thing about CA allowing cousin marriage is news to me... I guess that could, you know, come in handy for certain folks... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:00:14 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use On Jan 13, 2008 1:25 PM, lep wrote: > hi feglist, > > robyn has a new myspace photograph: > http://tinyurl.com/2sasgf > > (you might need a myspace account to view the photograph.) > > if anyone is so inclined, please comment on the guitar. i thought the > one that was stolen (the telecaster, right?) was blue. is his new > guitar blue (i.e. is that the new one in the picture?) (you can tell > my keen guitar sense in how i identify them by colour.) It's not the Tele, or a Fender. The comments on the photo now have some discussion of it-- i don't recognize it and the name on the headstock is too blurry. > > > also, i ran into this: > http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html > > i don't know why it strikes me a bit odd. maybe it's the topic > selection? like it would seem weird to buy a book on "daydream > nation." It would? There's a good deal to write about with any Sonic Youth record (from guitars to recording techniques to which obscure SF writers and hardcore bands (etc.) are being referenced in the lyrics), and DN is their longest and densest one. (I actually don't have any books from that series... seems like a nerd rubicon I've yet to let myself cross, although of course a lot of the records are of interest.) > > > (oh, btw, the series is in dire need of a robyn book.) As is the world at large... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:41:51 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: Re (extracting the) James wrote: >No offence to US voters, but I'd >rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings of >education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... A) No offense taken whatsoever... B) Couldn't agree more and thankfully C) It will not have to be a concern in any way, shape, or form Michael "Still early, but wouldn't worry too much about Mitt Romney (and his Golden Salamander) either..." Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Watch Cause Effect, a show about real people making a real difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:44:38 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: reap Jeff-eff-eff wrote: >On 1/10/08, michael wells wrote:>>>> Edmund Hillary, 88.>>You know why I read that post? > >Because it was there. ...Yeah? Well, Tenzing Norgay read the post first, then read it to you, THEN let you crow to everyone about your bloody well reading it... Michael "All this 'Hillary' talk -- what about Sir Edmund Obama? [ducking]" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:40:07 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: Re: Jeff N. wrote: >On 1/9/08, Tom Clark wrote:>>>> On Jan 9, 2008, at 3:19 PM, Benjamin Lukoff wrote:>>>> > I'm not a big fan of "nine-one-one" (911).>>>>I've been told it's a joke in my town. Who knew? >>MY PUBLIC ENEMY HAZ A FLAVA... ...Damn -- man, I woulda been all over that joke back last Wed, if I hadn't been in the hospital 'til today (got much better, at least...) (but didn't even get the chance to watch the anomalies of Peyton losing and Eli winning (but, still, the bit in their stupid Oreo commercial where their dad, Archie, just keeps shaking his head in disgust -- while their mom claps enthusiastically -- may be the funniest thing on TV this month this side of Jack Donaghy and Dwight Schrute re-runs))... Michael "13 goddamned hours in the ER before I'm even looked at (even with a reference to show up there from a Dr. on staff)" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:51:43 -0800 From: "Marc Alberts" Subject: RE: Re (extracting the) > James wrote: > > >No offence to US voters, but I'd > >rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings of > >education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... Personally, I'd rather no one in government had those purse strings in their hands. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:58:00 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 Jeme summarized: >California allows cousin marriage and West Virginia does not. So Rex's >experience is consistent with my theory that this is the purpose of blood >teseting. > >Someone should have told George Michael and Maeby. "Come on!" Michael "Stair-car" Sweeney _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:04:08 -0600 (CST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, lep wrote: > admittedly, i have some similar books about movies from this series: > http://www.powells.com/s?kw=BFI+film+classics&x=0&y=0 I just read The Big Lebowski from this series last night (well, finished it last night) and it was really great. It provided a very nice defense of the Coens as sentimental humanists and that those who see them as cold and concerned more with style than substrance are confusing the medium with the message. Really excellent and highly recommended. It helps if you've seen The Big Sleep by Howard Hawkes and The Long Goodbye by Robert Altman -- as well as all the other Coen films and Sullivan's Travels by Preston Sturges. J. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:32:04 -0500 From: lep Subject: Re: news you can (maybe, maybe not) use Rex says: > On Jan 13, 2008 1:25 PM, lep wrote: > > also, i ran into this: > > http://www.powells.com/subsection/Music3313Series.html > > > > i don't know why it strikes me a bit odd. maybe it's the topic > > selection? like it would seem weird to buy a book on "daydream > > nation." > > It would? There's a good deal to write about with any Sonic Youth record > (from guitars to recording techniques to which obscure SF writers and > hardcore bands (etc.) are being referenced in the lyrics), and DN is their > longest and densest one. (I actually don't have any books from that > series... seems like a nerd rubicon I've yet to let myself cross, although > of course a lot of the records are of interest.) i should probably say that i didn't mean odd as in "like that's completely fucked up"; i meant it more that it just isn't something that would strike me as being in existence. or maybe just that i would do a double-take if i saw it on a bookshelf. jeff 2fs comments help make the idea make more sense to me, in the way that there's a bigger picture than just the album itself. but, like i said, i likely just don't see albums, in and of themselves, as something i would want to read about all that much. which i guess would make sense given that i tend not to deconstruct music (lyrics, yes); music is generally a gestalt for me. as an aside, i loved "daydream nation" so much that i never bothered to flip the lp (or change to the second one). so i guess it's only side A that i can say i love. otherwise, i'm not a big sonic youth fan and i believe they hold the distinction of being the only band that i'm not sure whether i've seen. sometimes i'm pretty sure i saw them in trenton, NJ once, and sometimes i think i only thought i saw them (not a "pot thing" or anything, just some sunspot or other on my memory.) as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:50:11 -0600 (CST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 On Mon, 14 Jan 2008, Michael Sweeney wrote: > Jeme summarized: >> California allows cousin marriage and West Virginia does not. >> >> Someone should have told George Michael and Maeby. > "Come on!" Well, that was a freebie. J. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:58:11 -0500 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Re (extracting the) Marc Alberts wrote: >> James wrote: >> >>> No offence to US voters, but I'd >>> rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings of >>> education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... > > Personally, I'd rather no one in government had those purse strings in their > hands. Amen. (Ha!) I'd rather not see a socialist not get elected, either. We need a contraction in the size of the Fed, not an expansion. - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:09:28 -0500 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 Rex wrote: > In an case, that whole thing about CA allowing cousin marriage is news to > me... I guess that could, you know, come in handy for certain folks... Here in Georgia you're allowed to marry your first cousin, which is kind of creepy. I remember going through the whole process and while there was no blood test (the state stopped requiring them in 2003) you were asked to sign a form stating that you both knew you weren't closer than first cousins or some pap like that. Looking up some of the stranger facts, while the legal age of consent is 18 (16 w/parental consent), until 2006 you could marry anyone, regardless of age, if pregnancy was involved. They changed that after a 37-year old woman who got knocked up by her then 15 year-old boy friend. (Lovely.) Until '67 it was called miscegenation (and a crime) for a white to marry into a different race. (Lovely x2.) That one was knocked down in the case of Loving v. Virginia (no joke, either). - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:03:17 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Re (extracting the) On 1/14/08, FSThomas wrote: > > Marc Alberts wrote: > >> James wrote: > >> > >>> No offence to US voters, but I'd > >>> rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings of > >>> education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... > > > > Personally, I'd rather no one in government had those purse strings in > their > > hands. > > Amen. (Ha!) > > I'd rather not see a socialist not get elected, either. We need a > contraction in the size of the Fed, not an expansion. Right! I'm in total agreement with you guys! (whew. almost started a political argument.) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:46:41 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: misread news of the day Rex writes, > I've gotten married in two states. Me too! First drunk, then shock. Anyway, when I was married in Pennsylvania, they required a blood test, which I was told was for syphilis only. No, not AIDS or herpes or any more relevant, modern STD, but good old fashioned syph, just in case I brought it back from the Great War, I suppose. New York didn't require a blood test. I have always thought that the whole blood test checking for cousins was a myth. The technology alone seems to make it prohibitive, no? - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:47:48 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V16 #451 Michael Sweeney wrote: > Jeme summarized: >> California allows cousin marriage and West Virginia does not. So >> Rex's experience is consistent with my theory that this is the >> purpose of blood teseting. >> >> Someone should have told George Michael and Maeby. > > "Come on!" Of course, they weren't biologically cousins (Lindsay having been adopted), so .... > Michael "Stair-car" Sweeney "I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them." -- Tom Lehrer "The eyes are the groin of the head." -- Dwight Schrute . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:10:24 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Re (extracting the) Michael Sweeney wrote: > James wrote: > >No offence to US voters, but I'd > >rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings > >of education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... > > A) No offense taken whatsoever... > B) Couldn't agree more > and thankfully C) It will not have to be a concern in any way, > shape, or form but: 1) never-ever-ever-ever-ever underestimate the ability of the democrats to blow a should be absolute gimme national election; 2) if not Huckabee, who would be the GOP nominee? Giuliani has demonstrated the uncanny ability to make voters like him the more they see him (see his de facto withdrawls from the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire as his polling numbers dropped), Romney just because the first current or former Massachusetts governor or senator to lose in NH and is the phoniest motherfucker to run for office in the US in the past 50 years (plus the evangelicals won't stand for a mormon),... which leaves the GOP with the two guys the leadership hates most, Huckabee (because he actually is one of those evangelicals they've been courting and because he cares more about poor people than cutting taxes) and McCain (for being, well, uppity and independent, relatively speaking); 3) and, most importantly and again, NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER-EVER underestimate the ability of the democrats to completely fuck up what should be absolute gimme national election. Especially if they are running against someone who does exude the genuine likeability that Huckabee does. Even if he is a creationist who freed a serial rapist because one of the victims was Bill Clinton's 47th cousin twice removed, which still leaves him as more or less the least scary GOP possibility (if I had to guess at this point, the GOP ticket is McCain-Huckabee -- seriously). > Michael "Still early, but wouldn't worry too much about Mitt Romney > (and his > Golden Salamander) either..." Sweeney > > _________________________________________________________________ > Watch Cause Effect, a show about real people making a real > difference. > http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause > "I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them." -- Tom Lehrer "The eyes are the groin of the head." -- Dwight Schrute . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:21:50 EST From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Syd Barrett, Plastic People Hit Broadway Music and revolution collide in Tom St Syd Barrett, Plastic People Hit Broadway Music and revolution collide in Tom Stoppard's new play DAVID FRICKEPosted Jan 10, 2008 9:27 AM _http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17978069/syd_barrett_plastic_people_hi t_broadway_ (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17978069/syd_barrett_plastic_people_hit_broadway) **************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:42:13 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Re (extracting the) On 1/14/08, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > Michael Sweeney wrote: > > James wrote: > > >No offence to US voters, but I'd > > >rather a creationist like Huckabee didn't have the purse-strings > > >of education, scientific research, NASA et al in his hands... > > > > A) No offense taken whatsoever... > > B) Couldn't agree more > > and thankfully C) It will not have to be a concern in any way, > > shape, or form > > but: > 1) never-ever-ever-ever-ever underestimate the ability of the > democrats to blow a should be absolute gimme national election; > > 2) if not Huckabee, who would be the GOP nominee? Giuliani has > demonstrated the uncanny ability to make voters like him the more > they see him (see his de facto withdrawls from the contests in Iowa > and New Hampshire as his polling numbers dropped), I take it you meant "dislike"? > > 3) and, most importantly and again, NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER-EVER > underestimate the ability of the democrats to completely fuck up what > should be absolute gimme national election. Especially if they are > running against someone who does exude the genuine likeability that > Huckabee does. Even if he is a creationist who freed a serial rapist > because one of the victims was Bill Clinton's 47th cousin twice > removed, which still leaves him as more or less the least scary GOP > possibility (if I had to guess at this point, the GOP ticket is > McCain-Huckabee -- seriously). I think you may be right, at least about McCain. Fact is, the party (and, it seems, its voters) don't really like Huckabee, Romney, *or* Giuliani...and while they don't like McCain, he doesn't have the liabilities any of those three do. I don't know...I'm kind of frightened by all of 'em. Huckabee, because his likability combined with his nutbar evangelicalism makes him truly dangerous; Romney because he's a phony motherfucker (to borrow your technical terminology); Giuliani because he's an egomaniacal creep who would just love love love to step into W's "unitary president" shoes and create emergencies so's he can walk about in rubble with a megaphone again (incidentally: I can't recall who wrote it, but I recently read a review of a book that basically demolishes Giuliani's claims re his genius in handling 9/11 - basically, he fucked up beforehand and PR'd everything afterwards); McCain because his reputation as a maverick gives him credibility and popularity far exceeding the worth of his generally right-wing positions. Uh, in other words, they're Republicans. On the other hand: NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER-EVER underestimate the ability of the Democrats to completely fuck up what should be absolute gimme national election. They'll blather at each other, compromise endlessly, decide that Hillary's the most middle-of-the-road candidate...and she'll founder, attacked from the left for her war vote and general likelihood to continue the military status quo, and from the right and center for...well, being Mrs. Bill Clinton and being Mrs. anything. McCain will emphasize his experience vs. Clinton's relative inex- and his principledness vs. her perceived lack of same (not that difficult a perception to see), and middle-of-the-road voters will see McCain as principled and experienced vs. Clinton as neither, and pull the trigger for McCain. An Obama candidacy is vulnerable on the experience issue (although Obama should point out that W. had about the same experience...and that the TX governorship is a less executive position than most states' governorship), less so on the character one. I don't think he's the best candidate in terms of positions (hell, that might even be Mike Gravel..."who?" says America) but he's probably the best in terms of the combination of viability and positions. The system is broken utterly, however. I don't want to even go into it, but the absurdity of the Iowa caucus happening a week after Christmas (and as if it should mean anything) is a big part of it... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #453 ********************************