Department of Book Reports 49: New Books, with backlist!

This week finds us a bit at a loss, SeattleTammy's got not one, but two wonderful mystery/thrillers to tell you about, but they aren't going to be published till later this month. And, SeattleDan is still working on Suite Francaise. So, here are some new releases that have caught our fancy.

Truth and Consequences, Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values, by Keith Olbermann (Random House $25.95) In Truth and Consequences, Olbermann collects the best of his Special Comments, presented here with additional observations and other new material. Whether taking to task the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and (the thankfully former) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who compare critics of the Iraq War to Nazi appeasers, or giving his impassioned perspective on why torture is un-American and what it really means to support our troops, or grilling timid lawmakers who fail to rein in presidential overreach and abuses of executive power, Olbermann’s devastatingly blunt (and at times wickedly funny) commentary cuts to the core of the duplicity and cynicism of a government that has lost the ability to distinguish between leading our great nation and ruling it.

Now in paperback:The Worst Person In the World: And 202 Strong Contenders (John Wiley and Sons, $14.95) I think my favorite might be: Barbara Bush, for making a generous donation to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund earmarked exclusively for the purchase of computer software . . . software sold by her son, Neil

Reporting Iraq, edited by Mike Hoyt (Melville House $21.95) Reporting Iraq is a fully illustrated narrative history of the war by the world’s best-known reporters and photojournalists. Included are contributions from fifty journalists, including Dexter Filkins (the New York Times correspondent who won widespread praise for his coverage of Fallujah), Rajiv Chandrasekaran (author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City), Anthony Shadid (the Washington Post reporter awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his Iraq reporting), and Patrick Cockburn (from London’s Independent).


In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press $21.95)
"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." I'm reading this one now. I really like Pollan's writings. If you haven't read Botany of Desire, drop everything right now and go get a copy.

Elswhere: Huckabee is a scab.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books and fine Independent Bookstores everywhere!

dammit democommie™™™™®© we showed up at the Denny's at 7 pm... You weren't there! What's minus 30 to you folk, huh?

Meeting My Fellow Republicans

About a dozen Cafe Wellstoners and I attended an Iowa caucus discussion at Second Life Republican Headquarters last night. I thought things were going quite well, although many of my fellow Republicans were angry at Wellstoner Solidad for not hating Mexicans enough.

That is everything went fine until I made an observation about a song that was playing in the background. At first I said that I didn't think the Nine Inch Nails song, "I Want to Fuck You Like an Animal" was appropriate for a Republican meeting. Then after thinking about it for a moment, I changed my position and declared that songs about having carnal relations with animals were indeed very appropriate for Republican meetings. Someone then responded that it was a simile and I was back to thinking it was inappropriate. Still, just to be safe. I offered up a link to my video of Mitt Romney doing the wild thing with a bear. Everything went black after that, and I couldn't return.

I thought it'd be nice to share some pictures with you.

I always like to begin my visits to SL GOP HQ, by stopping by the Reagan Monument and using the GOP's animated prayer balls (seriously, I am not making that up) to ask God to give my enemies a disease.



Here's a picture of the whole compound:



Here's the reception area. You can pick up a complimentary swag bag there.



Here's some of the "swag" you get in the swag bag. I've highlighted my favorites in yellow.



Summer was the first person to become angry with me. As a Huckabee supporter he was offended that my profile said I satirize the Christian right. You can't see it in the picture, but there was a tag identifying her as a "slave girl" in a fantasy group. She's very traditional.



This is my friend, Therik. He becomes very uncomfortable when a man, even one made up of bytes and pixels, stands close to him. But I like standing close to my friends, so that caused some conflict.



Here's a screen cap of Terik's profile. Don't mess with him. He's a member of the Fox Force Five.



More from his profile: in real life, he's a "defense contractor."

I would make a great Republican presidential candidate

23

Helmet tip to Get a Brain.

Update: Apparently this link is sending some, but not all, of my readers to a dating site. I have no connection to the site. I just thought it was funny.

Huh?

Why do I get this page when I search for the title of Jonah Goldberg's latest book, Liberal Fascism?

Am I still here?

Am I still here? Who's reading this post? Jesus? Moses? Billy Sunday? Does heaven really look like my mom's basement? Is the food at Taco Bell any better here?

Mea Culpa on VA Info - Sort of...

I would like to apologize for the incorrect cut-off date in my last blog entry. I got my information from www.military.com, a usually reliable source of information about the military, the VA, and other related topics. They had an article regarding the latest defense appropriations bill provisions, and I either misread the date or it was wrong at the time. The site has been updated.

Unfortunately, although I got the date wrong, the cut-off is real. It happened back on January 17, 2003. This is the VA's latest missive on the restriction. Please note, however, that this restriction applies to Category 8 veterans only as I stated in my original post. http://www.va.gov/healtheligibility/Library/pubs/EnrollmentRestriction/EnrollmentRestriction.pdf

For a complete description of eligibility groups: http://www.va.gov/healtheligibility/Library/pubs/EPG/EnrollmentPriorityGroups.pdf

Group 8: Veterans who agree to pay specified copay with income and/or net worth above VA Means Test threshold and the Geographic Means Test Threshold.
Subpriority a: Noncompensable 0% service-connected veterans enrolled as of January 16, 2003 and who have remained enrolled since that date
Subpriority c: Nonservice-connected veterans enrolled as of January 16, 2003 and who have remained enrolled since that date
Subpriority e*: Noncompensable 0% service-connected veterans applying for enrollment after January 16, 2003
Subpriority g*: Nonservice-connected veterans applying for enrollment after January 16, 2003

The "net worth" link is broken at the VA site and everywhere else I tried to access it. However, for 2007, a single veteran's income threshold is about $27,500. The "Geographic Means Test" is for certain areas (like Hawaii, Guam, Washington DC and other areas where the cost of living is much higher than the rest of the country)

Veterans falling into the restricted category are those with a * - in other words, they will be turned away if they try to access health care through the VA.

A report presented to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs in January 2006 stated that at least 260,000 veterans had been turned away from VA facilities as a result of this restriction. It was also noted that the actual number may be even higher since a lot of veterans were discouraged from even attempting to apply. http://veterans.house.gov/democratic/press/109th/1-24-06prio8.htm

Some of my original points still stand - why are veterans who were promised health care now suddenly not eligible? The obvious answer is the Bush Administration's cost-cutting on everything and anything to pay for the Iraq mess. And the fact that they absolutely abhor the very idea of the "government" doing anything for "the people".

And - lastly, a lot of veterans who fall into this category 8 served time overseas, although not "recently", and possibly make just a little more money than the income threshold - but not enough to be able to afford health insurance or their jobs don't provide health insurance. I got signed up before the cut-off so I'm good to go for the rest of my life. But someone just like me who missed the deadline is completely out of luck. What's fair about that?

So again, I will try to do more research before posting next time, and thanks for your understanding and support.

The Strangest Cult of All

I wonder if Utahns will ever understand what a treasure they have in Pat Bagley.

A helmet tip to Dover Bitch.

Broad-Based Support

SeattleTammy says C&L has more.

The Huckabee Ad you Didn't See

Update: My fellow Huckabee supporters aren't big fans of this video. I wonder why.

A Taste of Mittocrisy

DEAR MISTER ROMNEY, I really appreciate your steadfast commitment to your faith. I've heard people choose these types of ideologies because it grounds a person in morality and integrity and human values. And of course I can admire that. With all the hate- and fear-mongering filling the public square today, I welcome men of your caliber.

I only have a small question. Given that a central tenet of Mormonism is that the Indians of the Americas are descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, how do you reconcile your current anti-immigrant stance with the fact that Mexicans are descended, too, from these same people? How do your actions fit into the theological framework now that you are the one trying to stop them from wandering?

and furthermore—

DALLAS - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is Mexican on his father’s side, reports Diario La Estrella. George Romney was born in Galeana in the Mexican state of Chihuahua in 1907. The history of Mormons in Utah and Mexico is inextricably linked, Diario La Estrella reports. In the 1880s, when Utah was petitioning to be a U.S. state, polygamy was practiced by some Mormons there, which went against American law. Those who practiced polygamy sought sanctuary in Chihuahua, Mexico and founded a colony there. By 1910, there were 4,000 Mormons in Mexico. During the Mexican Revolution, guerrilla groups attacked the Mormons, forcing them to send their children to Utah. George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father, was one of these children.

—Mitt Romney’s Mexican Heritage

Wait a Minute Mitt Romney has Mexican Roots?

An article posted on AlterNet reveals Mitt’s Mexican connection.

Mitt Romney’s father George was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907, the son of Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt. Three generations of Romneys lived in Mexico because Miles Park Romney, a polygamist, moved the family there in 1884 as it became increasingly clear that the U.S. government would not tolerate polygamy in the Utah Territory. The 1882 Edmunds Act stripped polygamists of the basic rights of U.S. citizenship, denying them the right to vote, serve on juries or hold office. Not dissimilar to current immigration raids, U.S. federal agents hunted and arrested polygamists. Polygamists were forced to leave the country or risk jail.

Mitt’s grandparent’s crossed back into the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution. But that hasn’t made this candidate any softer on the immigration issue.

Source : AlterNet

Damn. And all this time, you been hidin' ya raza under a bushel??? Dunno, Mittski! Maybe you and Jessica Alba, and Malkin, and Tancredo all oughtta get together. Self-Loathers and Self-Deniers for a Confused Country Coalition, seeking to sublimate the locking down and locking up and interment and eradication of all demons you refuse to see within yourselves. Just a thought.

Or you can continue (what we must by now call) "Republican Repression-Projection Politics."

---

Crossposted at The Unapologetic Mexican, Culture Kitchen, and Corrente.

The Fable of Greebey Vather, Time Traveler Extraordinaire

I see a screenplay blooming. Dealing with a favorite theme: time travel. You now think you'll steal this zeitgeisty gem from me, but you cannot because in the future, I have already finished it, and am mailing it to myself yesterday in a walnut sealed in Presidential earwax and pressurized to resist even election-year terror alerts.

OUR TALE BEGINS with a man who desperately seeks an answer to his deepest, heart-sprung questions, headed up by the quintessential and Googlicious How Do I Get Rid of the Mexicans? You see, our protagonist feels his very nation is under dire attack by the filthy mongrel hordes from the South, those who bark that most Arrogant and Sickening of Languages—Español, those who dare to settle into his beautiful nation, hellbent on storming the kitchens and fields and meatpacking plants and canning plants and steel factories or to otherwise seek to implement that most foul of Mexican behaviors: the trading of work for pay.

Let's call our protagonist "Greebey." Let's call him "Greebey Vather." Let's pronounce that "Vay-thur." Let's make his middle initial "N" and then let's give him two rags in his back pockets, one on each side. One is the confederate flag, which he never uses to blow his nose. The other is the one he uses to blow his nose. But he always carries both. No, make that confederate flag a stars N stripes. but with the circle of stars, not the rows. No, make it a Budweiser eagle bandanna, yeah, bleached from too many days in the sunlight falling upon his cracked dashboard, where it usually rests. Render Vather's bandanna Made in China. We don't need a label. Wait, make it a bleached-out watermark on the bandanna. Only Vather never looks close enough to see it.

Okay, so Greebey N. Vather, being an amateur culture-healer, has diagnosed the trouble with his nation. It's not greed, it's not war, it's not ignoring the sick and the weak and the poor, no, it's nothing like that. In fact, Vather has a name for it, and he calls it "Immigration-Stress Syndrome." To tell you the truth, Vather is pretty proud of himself. After all, he comes up with the name after simmering on the couch in a chunky stew of flatus barely penetrable by the hyper-acidic rays of TV punditry and a well-aimed onslaught of advertisements that urge him endlessly to Please Check With His Physician if he suspects he is coming down with "Thoughty Head Syndrome." (Which he scoffs at, of course.)

Vather has waited in agony for someone else to address the dire disaster that threatens the very existence of his nation, but nobody is picking up the slack. Vather hoped he would see some noticeable housecleaning results from Bicyclists Picketing in Affluent Areas, an anti-immigration-rights group of folks which was supposed to "force change faster," by preaching in nicer and whiter parts of town but was surprised to note that their brave actions only resulted in a slight uptick in business at the local NeufChatel Luncheonette.

Our protagonist, himself, lives in Errol, New Hampshire (which is 2000 miles from the Mexican border), but the 3 out of 300 people who are Hispanic is still far too many for his liking. After all (at least in my screenplay), the English language has been a part of Vather's fantabulous nation since the Framers shat America forth in a bloody ball of maize-peppered stool after seven days of parchment-smoking rituals in the aftermath of the Great Boston TeaBagging Party, and thus—it is a divinely-ordained language. In fact, Vather is often complimented on his love of all things English and how fiercely he protects the purity of the beloved language.

"What can I say?" He'll proudly rhyme. "It's my for-tay." And then he'll reach for his eagle-rag.

We watch our hero in a series of "Rocky Training Sequences" (minus the Rocky and plus a TV and bag of chips) as he reads the paper, or listens to the tube, and cheers on the efforts in some states to punish businesses that hire the Aliens. At one point, a neighbor of his observes that some of these businesses are simply outsourcing to Mexico now, or gradually going out of business entirely and thus hurting America's economy, but Vather only gets a patriotic twinkle in his dusty, scar-colored eyes.

"Good!" He says, relishing a strawberry from the bunch he just bought, off-season, in the local supermarket-plex. He sucks his teeth earnestly and eagerly for a noisy moment, as if they are disappearing cinnamon candies he has just discovered jammed into his gums.

"To make this nation great, we need to rid ourselves of this scourge," he muses between sucklings of his molars, and eerily, almost in exact tandem with the voice of Lou Dobbs (whose audio runs under all the scenes Vather is in like a burbling brook...if said burbling brook has a scummy green film on top of it, that is.) Dobbs will echo from Vather's TV and through his empty home like the hectic rant of an empassioned but whiny preacher, bouncing off of the bare walls like angsty anti-mexican gnats.

But to Vather, Dobbs irritated voice is like the brass in an anthem. As we listen, Vather looks to the horizon with a deep reverence misting his eyes. "I simply understand what the Framers understood. That this great land is beset on all sides by savages. And we need to protect our American culture from them." He looks up then, the fire of sunset begrudgingly illuminating his rheumy eyes. "Anyway, the only people who need to worry about the pressure on Illegals and those who hire them are those who have something to hide!"

Vather looks over suddenly at this reporter (Did I say "screenplay"? I'm reporting a screenplay, that is, the author travels through time, too, it's all very Castenada-meets-Kar Wai-meets-Godard-trips-with-Burroughs-y-Gasset-while-Waiting-on-the-border-For-Fuentes) and whispers And I have something that will help us Clean the Scourge for once and all.

[HYPERQUICK AND JAGGED VIOLIN RIFF

I follow Vather to the shed, where he furtively checks over all shoulders before reaching down to lift a tarp, which exposes to our view a small, shellacked and black box. It has colorful flowers painted across it in random and fluid patterns. He holds it out to me, his gnarled and yellowing nails suddenly almost touching my cheek, and I stagger back quickly. But then I compose myself, and step to it again, to get a bit of a closer look.

Vather continues to glance about us, as if in great fear of discovery.

"It's...pretty?" I offer, wondering if I should mention the MADE IN CHINA sticker, probably once-white, but now blending in to the ebon tone rather well, undoubtedly from countless secret fondlings by Vather.

He pops the box open. And inside is what looks like a little grain of corn. And that grain of corn seems to be glowing, though nibbled off in very tiny chunks.

And that's when Greebey N. Vather lays out the whole story for me. It seems that he can go back in time when he nibbles this piece of corn. He doesn't know where it came from, he was walking behind someone one day and they dropped it. Greebey sort of lagged behind until the woman was out of sight, and then he scooped up what he thought was a piece of gold maybe, and kept it between his hot fingers until he got home, worrying it like a rosary bead in the hidden darkness of his lint-stuffed pocket.

Whetever the magical grain's origin, Vather doesn't care, except to note that he can go backward in time. The larger a chunk he swallows, the further back he goes. So he has decided, after four very small jumps which he used to calculate the ratio of size:span of time traveled, that he will go back far enough to make an important change in American history and see how it plays out. He imagines it will have a huge effect on today's "INVASION OF ILLEGAL ALIENS." In fact, by the time he is done thinking it out, he is sure of it.

How does he become sure? Well, Vather doesn't read up on any history. He doesn't research the Bracero program, or the railroads' recruitment, he doesn't investigate law, he doesn't bone up on Polk and Slidell, or the history of America and Mexico, or America and Russia, or America and Japan, or America and China, or America and Africa. That wouldn't fit in with Vather's character.

Let's give him the idea from TV. Let's go back to his ubiquitous harmonizer, Lou Dobbs. And of course, we won't actually call him "Lou Dobbs." Let's call him "Dimulous Vox," or "Populous Nodds" or maybe "Peor del Mobbs." [Clearly, I'll have to sketch this part out, the details are not so much a Macguffin but rather an important element. As a placeholder, let's just say he hatches a plan and decides on a particular juncture where he can make a crucial change. Puro Sci-Fi stuff, even room for a lot of comedy in how he comes up with this.] And we'll need a catalyzing event, so let's make it something like The Illegal Immigrant being named Texan of the Year. This would really set Greebey off.

Before Vather leaves his home in high spirits for his final, world-changing aventura, he hangs up a banner in his living room anticipating his own successful return. The banner spells out, in crudely-cut letters reminiscent of ransom-note typography: WELCOME TO A LAND WITHOUT HUMAN FILTH! GOOD JOB REMOVING THE SKURGE!!1!" (The "1" is actually cut out and glued in along with the regular punctuation. Touches like this will imbue the film with some kind of Coen Brothers feel, or so I tell myself, I could easily overreach here and end up with more of a Farrelly Brothers vibe...which would be interesting for such a topic.)

Cue surreal time-travel sound effects as Greebey eats the whole piece! Sequence of travel/experience like the Lizard King in the desert under the peyote sun! Flashes of Oliver Stone editing directed with a Michel Gondry flair and scored by Bernard Hermann!

And BOoOm, Vather is in the past.

Have you guessd the end by now? Do you grin anyway?

Vather lands at his Important Temporal and Historical Junction. Let's start the clock, because he only has as long as his body retains the cornmatter to change history and thus rearrange his "real" time Present. If he does not make his changes by then, he reverts back to his time period, and all will be just as he left it. So of course, when Vather lands in the Past, he does not eat and at all costs, avoids using the toilet. [Good opportunities for humor here, awkward social situations, although, again the specter of the Farrelly Brothers lurks nearby.]

But Vather does make the change in time. He manages to interfere with a certain message being delivered on time by a seemingly insignificant person, a person never noted in history books, but whose small action made possible the crux that underpinned a series of events alllowing millions of immigrants coming to America. [research immigration history here for some plausible creative nonfiction type historically-rooted event, this is important to solidify narratively.]

And thus, the entirety of the present is shifted, Vather is successful!

...In a sense.

Because he doesn't actually manage to stem, or slow, the tide of Mexicans, who, in the new (changed) Present reality, currently outnumber all other ethnicities in Mexerica, write most of the books, and make most of the movies.

Greebey was wrong about what his actions would mean, and what the course of the future would turn out to be, because, of course, he is blind to realities of cause and effect and contribution and consequence in the first place. [A major point of the film, clearly.]

The good part is that his house (originally built by "illegal" construction crews) remains where it always stood! However, inside the house—alone in the thick silence—is a dusty and yellowed banner that still awaits the return of a man...who (now) never existed in America.

The banner reads

WELCOME TO A LAND WITHOUT HUMAN FILTH! GOOD JOB REMOVING THE SKURGE!!1!

And may I say—with a friendly smile and delicious breakfast burrito especially prepared for you—welcome America, to an era where not only your voters, but your media makers will be increasingly of a mind to challenge what has long been a dominant framework of perception, uncontested, and unexplored, grown fat and malodorous and lazy and malignant in the absence of challenge and fresh air. Those Greebey N. Vathers of today will fight these changes, and new voices, for they are of a twilight that threatens to overshadow the good of the whole, the health of la gente, the dissemination of news and worldly views through any lens but their own. And they fear change, because they understand exactly what changes would benefit the rest of us, and what that would mean to the lock they have on so many powers today.

But dawn will rise, is rising, will continue to rise—with the brilliance and luminance and insistence and inexorability that powers the hearts of all people today who insist upon scraping away the hypocrisy which poisonously festers in the gap between the words in our anthems and the deeds of our nation; who need to hear stories not recited in a self-hypnotic and lulling tone by the well-oiled cash machine, or by the prison-camp overlords, or by the fearful, apathy-glazed mainstream media horde.

Can you feel it? It's a new day breaking all across the land, and we really oughtta get out in the sun. Because we don't just need more light, and we don't just need more heat. We need lots of both, and at once. Ignorance and pain and rot bloom in those rooms kept gloomy sans la luz, and if we're gonna make our way to rationality and humanity, we'll need to burn down and away the fungal rot of much of yesterday's hate.

¡Adelante!

treatment © 2007 XOLAGRAFIK Media

---

Crossposted at The Unapologetic Mexican, Culture Kitchen, and Corrente.

The Guliani /Karadzic Solution

Guiliani surrogate John Deady:

I don't subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. They're all Muslims.

and:

We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic:

They [Muslims of Bosnia] will disappear, these people will disappear from the face of the earth.

and:

Within a few days there will be no Sarajevo...within a month the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina will be destroyed!

New Years Eve with the General

New Years Eve

Please join me at the best New Years Eve Party held on a roof next to a Spermatazoan-American liberation and housing center named after Mike Huckabee anywhere.
Cafe Wellstone in Second Life.

*Wednesday, Jan 2

2pm
Dancing at Etopia Eco-Village
Etopia Eco-Village

6pm
Live Music Night!
Joaquin Gustav is playing incomparable tango guitar direct form Buenos Aires, Argentina. Set yourself up with a fruity drink with umbrella...you'll feel warmer and mellower listening to him.
The Lonely Yak Roadhouse

*Thursday, Jan. 3

6pm
George Lakoff, Glenn Smith and Eric Haas all of the Rockridge Institute will be guests of Virtually Speaking in Second Life on Thursday Jan. 3 at 6 p.m. The dicussion will focus on National Health Care, and how that issue can be framed.
The panel discussion will be followed by an informal groups conversation about the early results from the Iowa Caucuses.
InWorld Studios

*Friday, Jan. 4

6pm
Dancing Liberally at the Beach
Join us at Tanna's Winter Home as we dance to Mike Huckabee's new hymn about the immorality of the sperm whale (yes, it's Mike Huckabee sperm joke week at the General's place).
Tanna's Winter Home


*Saturday , Jan. 5

8 am
radi Roffo
electro, electro clash, minimal, techno. http://www.myspace.com/clubvital
Conscious Lounge

9:30 am
Welcome to Conscious Lounge!
A quick tour of our spaces, and what we are doing. New folks welcome. ^_^
Conscious Lounge

10 am
Lag4Peace meeting.
Planning future actions + whatever gets added to the agenda. All are welcome; contact any1 Gynoid or solidad Sugarbeet for details.
Conscious Lounge

Noon
Open/facilitated discussion on left issues; topic will be announced a few days before the discussion. Last week, we had an engaging conversation about the situation in Pakistan; this week...who knows? We'll see how the week unfolds.
Conscious Lounge

2pm
CL expansion blowout PARTY!
We now have two spaces, one of which is in the amazing activist and non-profit community Commonwealth Islands (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Commonwealth%203/129/16/32); also, the original space has been extensively expanded and overhauled, as in: - 120 seat capacity - over 12,000 m2 - more djs and live music - two classrooms - a theater - vendor space (social justice tees and such) and a commons - and dj mycki spins badass electro, hip hop and drum n bass for the gig! Come feel the /thump, and celebrate! WOOT! :D :D :D
Conscious Lounge

7pm
Broken New Years Resolutions All-Request Blow Out
Bring your cigarettes, cake, and booze to the Lonely Yak and lounge on the couch in your unused athletic gear as DJ Rocky wallows with you.
Dick Cheney will have broken his vow to be nicer at 12:01 January 1, so this will be ancient history. Good thing cause we're keeping our new location a secret from him.
The Lonely Yak Roadhouse (New Location)

*Sunday, Jan. 6

11 am
DJ Andi spins the hard beats. Come wear your baddest, sexiest gear and get apocalyptic with us. EBM and Industrial means you want it.
Conscious Lounge

Remembering Gilly

A lot of bloggers are angered by this Times piece on Steve Gilliard because it got a number of things wrong. Remembering how Steve detested such pieces, I bet he would have hated it too.

But I think those bloggers are overlooking the most important thing: the gift the article is to the family. It's an honor to be written up in the Times. No matter how badly the editors and writers handle most everything, it's still the most influential paper in this nation. I'm sure the Gilliards are very proud of their son. I'm glad they had this opportunity to celebrate his memory.

BTW, that pic in the piece is the one I made for the top right corner when he passed. I'm honored the family values it the way they do.

Veterans Need to Enroll in VA Healthcare Before January 17

As another brilliant example of the Bush Administration supporting our troops, hidden in one of the many bills passed during the Republican-controlled Congress was a little-noticed provision to cut off VA Health Care for millions of veterans from all our wars of aggression.

Under this provision, any veteran who is 0% service-connected (not disabled by being wounded or otherwise injured during their service) will be unable to enroll in VA Health Care after January 17, 2008. This ends a promise made to vets that has stood since WWII, that their health care needs would be taken care of in perpetuity.

ALL VETERANS: Take a copy of your DD214 and RUN do not walk to your nearest VA Clinic and enroll in VA Health Care - even if you don't need it right now! If you lose your civilian health insurance and need to fall back on VA Health Care - you will not be able to unless you enroll now.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WAR VETS: This applies to you as well - only the news is actually worse. In the last military appropriation bill, your "free" health care was extended from two years to five. Yes, you heard right - you are currently only entitled to two years of free health care - even if you have seen combat. After Bush vetoed the military spending bill, which contained another three years, you are back to TWO WHOLE YEARS!

EVERYONE: Write to your Congresscritters and protest this asinine policy. I am a veteran - who never saw combat during the Vietnam era. I am enrolled, and as such, am entitled to whatever healthcare I need for the rest of my life. I have no other health insurance (due to pre-existing conditions and past medical problems) so the VA system is my lifeline. But why in the world are the combat veterans of our latest idiotic wars being told they can only have TWO YEARS? Some ailments do not become apparent until much later. For instance - Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange develop diabetes at a rate that has resulted in an automatic assignment to a special group for care. However, this diabetes does not develop in some cases for 10-20 years later. Another example - Gulf War vets from the first time who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome develop strange cancers and other problems - but much later than two years after the fact - and many are still fighting to get their diagnoses confirmed.

This is totally nuts - and is yet another example of the Bush Administration's support of the valiant fighting men and women - NOT!

So...if you are a vet - or you know one - urge them all to go sign up. Even if they don't need it. Right now. Even if they have heard horror stories. Even if they never use it. Sign up anyway. We need to send a message that VA Health Care is a right for ALL VETERANS as compensation for their service. (The pay certainly isn't much!)