mr. matthew lee welch brought up the concept of theo-cons, republicans who are rooted in Christianity who push moral agendas into american policy.

i say this without the least bit of sarcasm, but i am, in theory, in full support of such a concept.

the biggest problem that i have with this fine land is its shame in regards to religion. in order to distance ourselves from the religious zealots of the rest of the world, american politians oftentimes hide their spirtual beliefs so as not to be branded a Jesus-freak puppet or an echo chamber of the vatican.

westerners, and particularilly americans, have proved that they can balance their religion and their politics. most of us believe that God, infact, does NOT counsel the president of the united states to go to war with certain countries and/or to give tax breaks to the rich.

we have proven that you can have a moral compass that can work in conjunction to the bill of rights. we have proven that you can be a Christian nation minus Reformation.

what we have yet to prove is that we can govern a Christian nation by the teachings of Christ who preached things like “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none” (welfare), “turn the other cheek“, and His “new” commandment of “Love one another like I’ve loved you.”

if President Bush claims to be a Christian, I would like to see him rationalize his policies to the above.

i would also like to see more bible reading.

what i wouldn’t like to see is bible-thumping. America is great, in part, because of its diversity. i see no problem with a Christian president saying, “it is my belief that…” or “my faith teaches me… but I know yours might be different.” in fact i would encourage it.

ultimately i think that more religion in america, particularilly Christianity, would make for a less-violent country. i see very few places in the good book where it encourages preventative strikes on foreign lands.

and hardcore Christians, who see the Lord as their ultimate savior, and Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, should have a difficult time spending more money on “defense” and less on education.

if the Lord is our shepherd, after all, then whaddup with all the aircraft carriers?

but thats me, and i am obviously not reading the same bible as they are because within the second page of my bible it says that all the green seed-bearing plants are here for our use.

which to me means legalize it and free tommy chong.

so yeah, i would love to see the theo-cons out there, as well as the theo-libs.

sad thing is most of them are too chickenshit to stand up for what they truly believe in, and the others dont even know what they believe in, they just think that theyre supposed to believe in Jesus for some reason.

me, i believe, and i pray, and i trust. and hopefully ive shown in three years writing this that you can be a Believer, and the actions will mirror the beliefs far better than the words ever could.

simon world + matt welch + silverbake

so i wore shorts since its damn near ninety degrees here in hollywood.

when i got to my cubicle my commander had left a post-it note that he wanted to meet with me.

when the meeting was over i returned to my desk and i was thinking, what more could this fucking place do to me? which is a very victim-y way to think about anything, but its all i could come up with.

turned out one of my favorite people, the fella who sits next to me, had filled out a formal complaint about the fact that i had the nerve to play music at my desk.

a while back we made a deal that i would not play music until after noon, the halfway point of most of our days. i was pretty good about holding up my end of the bargain. but now even that amount of music was too much and i was being asked not to play music unless he was in the bathroom or away from his desk.

i dont know why some things bother me and some dont. call me a freak. the low pay, the extremely low pay, doesnt bother me.

the lack of opportunity: no biggie.

the lack of praise or respect for the fucked up work that im forced to deal with on the daily: whatev. ive grown to realize that there are very few perks to working at the xbi and kudos is low on their list.

people ask what the busblog is. what this is all about. and what the xbi is. and this morning taking the long walk from my commanders office to my little desk on the other side of the complex, i was realizing that the busblog is the written expression of endurance. of putting up with so much nonsense and not cracking. of turning shit into shinola.

its no accident that this blog didnt exist before i started at the xbi. and theres a little part of me that deals with all this whatever this is because the end result is writing that i dont mind putting my name on, because it isnt a daily barrage of venting, it isnt whines from the wilderness, it isnt bitchings from the balcony.

and the biggest struggle in this standoff regarding music is that i like the guy, and i know he has no love for music, and he knows how important music is in my life.

in the past i would be playing something and someone would ask me about it and i would talk about the songwriter, the guitarist, the producer, the label, the politics around it, the lyric that refers to a completely different song from a completely different person. i might even talk about one of the times that i saw the band. music to me isnt just the fa-la-la that it might be to someone else.

similarilly the groans from the guitars of lee rinaldi and thurston moore that i hear arent the shrieks that others hear. the tinklings of tones from thelonious monk that i enjoy isnt the background sounds that others here. and the walk of bass notes from john paul jones is more than just a fond recollection of past days that others might hear.

and being asked not to do something that i find nearly a neccessity to get through the day is horrible to me.

so im torn. and im tired. and ive hit the end of the road. i want to quit now. i want to stop this insanity. i dont want to have to fight for every little shred of happiness that im forced to wrestle over in my walk to earn my daily bread.

and im not getting laid.

damn good thing nothing in here is true.

her name is gruel + steph + andy dolan + and cheney too

and the twist of the gay marriage issue, which many believed to be a manufactured distraction to keep the public’s mind from the more universal issues like the war, the economy, the terrorism,

is that the party who has the most to lose is exactly the party who seems to be showing their hand of intolerence and dare i say hate because of the alleged non-issue.

The AP reports that Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. would disagree, “If you support … a mother and a father for every child, you are a hater. If you believe that men and women for 5,000 years have bonded together in marriage, you’re a gay-basher. Marriage is hate. Marriage is a stain. Marriage is an evil thing. That’s what we hear. People who stand for traditional marriage are haters, they’re bashers, they’re mean-spirited, they’re intolerant. … Well, we’re not.”

and unlike most of america, most of the senate is not in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, but the president and his posse of neoconservative congressional leaders seem to want to kamakaza their agendas on the american public despite whatever political losses they are sure to continue to rack up.

“This is a dramatically bad step for the president.” Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN. “He might get a little bump in the polls for a few days, but we all remember in 1992 when Pat Buchanan declared a cultural war on the country and it led to the defeat of the first President Bush. This is not a way to win an election — it’s a way to divide the American family.”

“We can’t sugarcoat this,” he said. “This amendment was written by the radical right in an attempt to make sure gay and lesbian families who want tax fairness won’t get it.”

Meanwhile the president on saturday continued to call traditional marriage “the most enduring human institution,” when everyone knows how laughable and phony that bullshit is.

the most enduring human institution, above love, above even fear, is hate.

certainly not marriage, and definately not marriage between a man and a woman. particularilly american men and women who are currently breaking their “until death do us part” commitment at a rate of 50%.

drive from the beach down the ten freeway, go north up the 405 and then east to hollywood on the 101 and you tell me how many new people you want to marry and then tell me how many new people you suddenly hate.

personally im not interested in the united states fostering any more of the most enduring human institution, im interested in the land of the free actually doing something unsual in human behavior and that is to accept something different.

and if the moralists in dc want to keep their jobs they better figure out a way to appease their party and their constituants without pissing off those humans who think that marriage between two people is a private personal choice that the government has no business meddling with.

the president’s only hope is to crack open the bible on tv and read from the passages that he thinks denounce homosexual activity, slam the good book and say something like,

“there it is, the Lord’s word. im a God fearing american and i believe in the Word. and either you do too and you’re with us, or youre in rebellion against the bible and against us.”

he was courageous and firm when he dragged us into war, it would be curious to see if he holds the same convictions when it comes to the morality behind what he considers the most enduring human instititution.

anti + burn sizzle bleed + gorilla mask

seriously, no bullshit, cuz a few of you love to bullshit. a few of you love to see old muhammad there, the champ, shaking around like hes gotta dance, and you act like every move he makes is a miracle.

i love champ. dont get me wrong, cuz a few of you love to get me wrong. but sometimes i get the feeling that you let someone else do your thinking. but am i crazy to think that if i ended up being this kickass dude. the symbol of masculinty and strength, that i would rather just sit in my rocking chair and keep the effects of parkinsons to myself.

theres probably something wrong with me for not wanting to be on tv like that, but we’ve always known theres something wrong with me.

still i want to know what im supposed to learn from him.

that will cant be broken. that humanity is deeper than appearences. that strength is in the heart. that we still havent cured everything yet. that life is precious and should be lived to the fullest every second of the day.

am i a dick for sorta getting that already?

ali’s life is so complex i doubt any of us will ever come close to understanding even a day of it. born poor, rose, won, triumphed, led, said fuck you to the war, went to jail, returned and won again, and again, and then the fall, and then the sickness, and then the olympic torch, and now this.

is the message to keep fighting all the way to the end. that life isnt about rocking chairs when youre the greatest of all time.

that living means living even in the late rounds

tired

beaten

mush.

that truly living means having one more

rope a dope

left in ya.

and then

pow.

dos boheinde and seymore + raymi posted my poster + lost in hype

but then says she cant because of her boyfriend. who’s not even her real bf. its so complicated.

everything in hollywood is drama. have i ever told you that?

so few people are banging the people that they should be banging, and i will tell you this right now, most these hos should be banging me. and yet im banging the keyborad.

shes tall. thin legs. almost not even there. whisps of legs. she wraps them around me and throws her head back and eyes roll in the back of her flawless face and her mouth opens and she says the best things.

and we go at it. and it doesnt end. pictures fall from the walls. stars fall from the sky. universes implode on itself and then regenerate.

and then we eat chimmy changas. or however you spell it.

oh look at this. now shes im’ing me saying she doesnt want to cheat. she wants to cheat. and its not cheating anyhow cuz she wants me. im not being conceiting, im being real. she wants it and she should. its great and it always has been.

problem was there was no hollywood drama and the bitches in LA first of all, are crazy, but secondly are not satisfied unless theres drama in the hizzy and this lonely beastie doesnt play that shit. im like mary j, no drama.

how hard is it to pick up the phone and go, ring ring ring, hey tone wanna bone? sure hottie. come over and bring some chicken. and then drink and eat and bone and drink and eat and bone and pass out? pretty easy.

am i the only sane person in this city?

i think i am.

me, i dont know, i think id not only keep shaq, who still has a year on his contract, and tell kobe to blow me, and trade his ass for vince carter tracy mcgrady shawn marion or somewhoe who sees the value of playing with the biggest baddest bigman ever.

similarilly i see the value of having me around. problem is all these girls want to tie me down. they all want me to be their man. exclusively. and i dont mind being someones boyfriend if im feeling it. and i wont unless i do feel it. and that turns some hot chicks off. but i wont commit to anything unless i know i can commit. call me crazy.

which im sure you would if you see this shit that wants me but wont have me because i wont play the fools game.

im feeling sick again.

you cant go down again.

i wish the cubs would win.

i suck at everything.

in other news tonight is baseball’s allstar game and i sorta wanted to watch it alone anyway.

sunrise times + sceithire + jennifer

with me, they start snooping around in my closets, under my bed, in my crawl spaces, up in my shit.

im not exactly what theyre looking for as my panty collection is clearly marked, as are my boxes of loveletters, and autograph wall.

and yet they continue to seek.

what they will find is that i have hoards of old electronic equipment. dvd players, hard drives, vcrs, video camera equipment, radar detectors, old ISDN modems.

and of course they ask why i still have the old stuff and i usually say its because i cant part ways with a dvd player whose only fault is it doesnt play the discs, to which they look at me like im crazy, which i am, which they know, but which theyre just starting to realize as to the depths of my insanity.

but now i see where Offic Depot is working in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard to promote electronic recycling this summer.

“From (this) Sunday to Sept. 6, Office Depot will accept computers, monitors and most other peripherals, digital cameras, copiers, fax machines, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and TVs 27 inches or smaller. Customers can recycle one product per day. A PC and its peripherals count as a single item.” USA Today reports.

Office Depot, the second-largest office supply company in the US, who earlier this year committed itself to more green business practices. On March 25 they agreed to The Paper Campaign where they promised to:

� Phase out all paper products coming from rare and vulnerable forests, forests containing exceptional biodiversity values, forests subject to unsustainable management, and forests that have been illegally logged

� This phase out will mean a movement away from sourcing its paper from three of the world�s remaining endangered forest areas, including the Southern United States, the Boreal forests of Canada and the forests of British Columbia

� Achieve an average of 30% post consumer recycled content across all paper products it sells

� Phase out products from industrial forest operations that convert naturally diverse forests to monoculture plantations

� Commit to not sourcing its paper from areas that natural forests have been replanted using genetically modified trees

intelectualize + treacher + leah

and before steve dahl there was disco.

there is a Lord and sometimes the good Lord puts the right people in the right places and everything works out.

the Lord in this example put Steve Dahl, the original “shock jock” in chicago at the same time that Bill Veeck was the owner of the Chicago White Sox. the white sox were the second fiddle to the cubs even 25 years ago, and Bill Veeck was an innovator even before then.

but in 1979 all the stars aligned for a double header against the detroit tigers. veeck had invited Dahl who had just been hired by the hard rock station WLUP “The Loop” to help promote an “Disco Demolition” night.

the way i remember it, if you brought in a disco album you got in for thirty three cents, and if you brought in a 45 you got in for 45 cents, but other people remember you getting in for 98 cents with a record as the Loop was 98FM.

“I was dreading the whole thing,” Dahl said later. “It seemed to me if I drew 5,000 people, I would be parading around in a helmet and blowing up records in what looked like an empty stadium.”

But the joint was filled with 50,000 rock fans who were hyped up for the festivities that were to take place inbetween games.

Comiskey Park at the time was hailed as being Chicago’s Biggest Tavern, as they served hard booze all over the park. you could get two shots, a beer, and a dog, just as easilly as you could get cotton candy.

after the first game had ended, Dahl marched out on the field and several boxes of disco records were wheeled out behind him. the crowd went nuts. the summer of 79 was the peak of disco fever, but for rock fans it was a low for what they loved.

the chant Disco Sucks echoed through the 70 year old stadium after Dahl blew up the first box of records.

the chant grew louder when he blew up the subsequent boxes.

and when he exploded the last, huge crate of records the drunken crazed crowed errupted and swarmed the field and started a near riot in the stands, setting everything they could on fire which wasnt difficult as Comiskey was built of wood.

Dahl, Harry Carry, even some of the players and managers pleaded with the crowd to calm down but disco apparently sucked and if it took a new Chicago fire to prove it then it was going to go down, and it was going to go down right there on the south side.

kids who couldnt get into the sold out event climbed the fences and there were too many people for the security to deal with, fires blazed in the seats, and the long haireds and their led zeppelin music won.

“I grew up when people were marching for civil rights, marching against the war,” said Michael Veeck, head of White Sox promotions at the time, and Bill Veeck’s son. “I didn’t think they would be marching because they hated the Bee Gees.”

the white sox had to forfeit the second game as both teams sped away in their sports cars, and rock and roll would live to see another day, while disco’s future had on that night, 25 years ago, seen its inevitable end in an evening that howard stern in all his glory has yet to eclipse.

jason v + one reaction + mc brown

starring Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire

directed by Sam Raimi

the food poisoning subsided in the late afternoon so my sweet love and i risked it and went to westwood to catch the four o’clock showing of spiderman at the historic mann village theatre, which is rarely full, and this afternoon was no exception.

there was us and two other couples and four old ladies.

even though i hadnt eaten anything since a glass of juice at dawn, i still had my eye zeroed in on the mens room and was glad that nobody would be in my way.

but sam raimi, kirsten and toby’s sole expression of awe sent me into another world another time another place entirely. the world of spider-man.

sami raimi is one of my favorite directors. evil dead 2 is a classic that i saw in westwood weeks after it had come out. to have someone as talented and creative and darkly funny as sam raimi on a big budget comic book blockbuster like this is a match made in heaven. it is the real success of this franchise.

and the writing is good. and the special effects are flawless. the music sucks but kirsten is gorgeous and the colors are perfect and sam knows how to deliver the goods.

and it’s funny. and the antagonist is strong, and quick and fast and tough. all the things that are important to a good story. and kirsten is a babe.

and america there are lessons there for everyone.

it got a little heavy.

but it was alright.

on the greg vaine scale of reviewing films i give spider-man 2 a good good good.

– – – – –

box office mojo reports that spidey ($45 mil) nearly doubled second-place weekend finisher anchorman ($28), and king arthur in third was almost half of that ($15 mil).

but in fourth, remarkably is Fahrenheit 9/11 who earned $11 million last weekend while only showing on two thousand screens. spider-man, to add perspective was on 4,166 screens, anchorman was on 3,091 screens.

F-9/11 was on fewer screens than any other film in the top ten. the notebook, white chicks, dodge ball, the terminal, shrek 2, and sleepover were all on more screens than michael moore’s documentary, and all got beat by him.

in the three weeks that its been out, the award winning film has earned over $80 million in the US.

meanwhile yesterday in the UK it broke their opening day record for a documentary by raking in $2.4 million over the weekend.

the controversial film is on pace of breaking the $100 million mark in the US, which would be a first for a documentary.

darren + the detox + bunnie + pic of the day

Maj. David W. DiNenna is one of the MPs accused of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He was given two General Officer Memorandums of Reprimand, which is far less than Spc. Jeremy Sivits (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Andrew J. Sting (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Jeremiah J. Trefney (eight months in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge).

Several others are awaiting their court martial (Sgt. Javal S. Davis – Abu Ghraib

PFC Lynndie R. England – Abu Ghraib, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II – Abu Ghraib, Spc. Charles Graner Jr. – Abu Ghraib, SPC Sabrina Harman – Abu Ghraib, Maj. Clark A. Paulus – Camp Whitehorse, Sgt. Gary P. Pittman – Camp Whitehorse).

US News & World Report today posted some of the some of the annexes that are included in the Taguba report, for it was prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

DiNenna, the S-3 operations officer for the 320th Military Police Battalion at Abu Ghraib during the summer and fall of 2003, wrote several chilling emails that are now seeing the light of day.

Here is is the PDF, and here are some excerpts:

November 2, 2003

Have you ever experienced about 80 prisoners standing in line at 2130hrs at night, cold, and being told that the vendors do not have any more food? Well this is becoming an nightly routine, and because I was there I can tell you it is a very unpleasant experience. Why is it so difficult to bring enough food? That is what the MP (soldiers) are asking every meal due to the fact that they, not you, or me, have to deal with it every day. So I guess my question is who in the hell can fix this so that we can at least give the soldier the basic necessary tools to guard prisoners without them having to worry about a riot, fight, or other related problems in the compounds during meal times.

November 5, 2003

At the 1600 meal for the prisoners, the caterers were short well over 100 meals. SFC Bedene, S-4, gave the caterers the morning count of 3950 meals even though there were roughly 3700 prionsers on ground. Still the caterers came up short over 100 meals. This is happening on a daily basis.

November 7, 2003

As you know we had a very serious riot last night[…] this is an unstable situation[…] I have been to many prisoner riots since March and I can tell you that last night was one that could have turned real bad real quick[…] We must reduce the population real quick […] Please forward this to whoever can expidite the process

As you can see from the below SIR, the issues are that there are many Security Detainees that have been held for long periods of time and 1)NOT interrogated yet, or 2) have been questioned months ago and are still being held.

from a different email sent a half hour later…

The situation here is now critical. Last night we had a significant riot[…] we need the dogs. We have the housing for the dogs and handlers (the engineers are building kennels).

many more acounts here, a fascinating and terrifying look at iraq’s most infamous prison as the shit was going down. via Metafilter who, in their discussions this evening, have sorta missed the point of the testimony.

randomfrost + splink‘s trip to afghanistan has been squelched + sk smith

Chops ‘Fuck’ from PBS Show

PBS is usually a little slower to the trendy behavoir of commericial television, but the new Richard Dreyfuss cop drama is jumping on the (self-)censorship bandwagon, and the grey-haired star isnt happy to be caught in the jaws of conservativism.

“The new FCC regulations represent an unacceptable assault on our First Amendment rights, on everyone’s First Amendment rights, an act unworthy of a free country, an act of censorship,” Black told the critics. To underscore the irony of the required bleeping, Black added: “As for the word ‘f—,’ I stand with Vice President (Dick) Cheney, who recently used the word on the Senate floor and who said sometimes you have to use it unapologetically because it makes you feel better afterwards.”

Dreyfuss, speaking via satellite from New York, where he is starring in “Sly Fox” on Broadway even as he battles pneumonia, called the required deletion of the words “a real-world moral and ethical battle with grimly wrongheaded un-American types who play pick and choose when they define our freedoms of speech and religion as it fits their particular political needs.”

He added: “Officeholders should remember that we are not children and shouldn’t be patronized or protected from ourselves.”

– via Jeff Jarvis’ Buzzmachine

Who knew they said fuck on pbs in the first place?