Synaptic Firings

I don't care if McCain fooled around with a lobbyist, so can we talk about something else, please? I never attended that school that believes that if a political leader fools around, he or she is no longer fit to rule. I just don't buy it. Besides, Vicki Iseman looks just like McCain's wife. He's old, maybe he got confused.

Meat is murder. Ever see one of those hidden journalist stories on slaughterhouses? They're not pretty. Kind of gross to see a pre-cut, furry cow hanging from the ceiling by a hoof. Even grosser to see a meatcutter accidentally slice the wrong part of the cow and have its fecal waste gush all over the place. Saw that video myself a few years ago. I think it was on 20/20. They're supposed to shut the place down, clean everything up, and throw the meat out when that happens. Think they do it? Hmmm, I wonder. Heard they had to recall 134 million pounds of beef last week because an undercover journalist filmed a bunch of slaughterhouse workers torturing, and ultimately using, "downer" cows -- cows that are too weak, diseased, or crippled to move themselves. That's a big no-no. Downers are linked to mad cow disease, E. coli, and other health problemos. I heard that 1/3 of that beef found its way to schools, where some of it had already been ingested by schoolchildren. Oops. I really want to be a vegetarian. I really really do. I just wish I didn't crave a steak every so often.

Fidel's retiring. Good for him. He's had a long run, and I think he's earned himself some R&R. As far as dictators go, he was worse than say, Yugoslavia's Tito, but nowhere near as criminal as Augusto Pinochet or Saddam Hussein or the Shah of Iran, i.e., brutal dictators the United States supported financially and militarily. There is political repression in Cuba. The press is not exactly free and there are plenty of political dissidents who are rotting in jail. Not a perfect country. But then again, neither is ours. A part of me admires a man who, for fifty years, gave the finger to a superpower 90 miles away, defied a cruel and utterly senseless economic embargo by said same superpower, never cashed a single Guantanamo rental check, survived six American Presidents (and counting), as well as a dozen attempts on his life, and pursued a revolutionary ideal, though to an uncompromising fault and at the expense of his own people. One can only wonder what would have happened if fate had taken a different course and Fidel had ended up pitching for the Yankees, or if the U.S. had taken a more forward-thinking and less arrogant approach towards Cuba these past five decades. I'll tell you one thing, if Florida didn't have so many fucking electoral votes, we would've dropped the embargo thirty years ago. I for one am looking forward to my first trip to Cuba in 2011, when President Obama finally ends the idiotic embargo and normalizes relations.

Well, well, they finally shot down that troublesome satellite with a missile. Pretty impressive. What's not so impressive is that this expensive missile defense system we've got requires a carefully calibrated window of time and a stationary target to work properly. That might fly when you're trying to blow up a brainless satellite the size of a bus, but it ain't gonna work too well when the shit hits the fan with China and we need to take out 200 incoming ICBMs. Better warm up that bunker. And where the fuck are the lasers, anyway? Shouldn't we be in Star Wars territory by now?

Roger Clemens is a lying sack of douche. And so's his wife.

I've got Dengue Fever. I heard this song called Sni Bong the other day, and now I can't get it out of my head. It's funky, foreign, and downright sassy. And I don't understand a damn word. I think the lyrics are Cambodian. Anyway, they played at McCarren Pool in Williamsburg last summer and I'm just catching on to them now. That's me, always at least 6 months behind the curve.

My parents finally got broadband Internets and some decent cable movie channels (HBO, Showtime). I'll probably visit them more often now.

Catatonic Lyonnais. That's the name of the California town where Ann Coulter told me that actor James Cromwell was holding my two sisters and my mother, whom he'd kidnapped for ransom in the dream I had last Sunday night. Catatonic Lyonnais. I actually Googled it the next day, just to see if it was an actual place. Shocker: it's not. Aren't some dreams bizarre? I should really lay off the hooch.

Students packing heat. I read a story today about college students who are now carrying concealed weapons to class. They've got permits and all, so apparently it's legal in some states. But I can't help thinking that this isn't a good development. While school shootings are definitely becoming more prevalent, it's not exactly an epidemic. I think it's far more likely that one of these gun-toting yahoos will snap during finals or a weekend keg party.

I'm reading my first Philip Roth book, American Pastoral. How did Mr. Roth escape my attention for 39 years? His sentences make me chartreuse with envy.