nonpretentious

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

With apologies to the post below, not all of us are thrilled at Barack Obama’s victory yesterday. I would go so far to say that I am the opposite of thrilled. Let’s break down the pros and cons of America’s choice:

• Pros: A person of color is elected President of the USA.
• Cons: Everything else

When I went to vote yesterday I was viewed with thinly veiled disgust when the poll workers found out my party affiliation (hint: not democrat). I ignored their scorn and did my civic duty, although I knew even then that it would probably be futile. Continue reading…

Can I Get A Witness

We, as Americans, have not been witness to many joyous occasions in the last ten years. It’s been a decade racked with tragedy, scandal, depressions, and disasters. I can say that even in my own entire lifetime (a mere, but sometimes long, 29 years) my national and international memory is not exactly something to celebrate. We have not had the opportunity to witness a particularly positive history. I don’t mean to insinuate that it has been bleak in its entirety, but it has been rather difficult for me to recall more than a few historic moments I could celebrate, rather than mourn.

History is a difficult thing to define. Linguistically, the Random House Unabridged dictionary has 8 different contextual meanings. These for the most part are uninteresting to me. They seem too limited in scope, arresting, rather than freeing. Language is, I think, inherently arresting, it requires us to categorize, paraphrase, and summarize our thoughts. This is often difficult for us to recognize, because spoken language becomes such a dominant form of communication that we believe that even our thoughts are regulated by it. So formal, institutionalized definitions should be approached with a recognition of their limits. We must be able to see their constructions, accept them, and then try to move beyond them if it so required of us. Continue reading…

Alastair Harper’s Response to a Groupie

Hi there,
Firstly, thank you for such kind words. Even my vanity levels are not
high enough to see the justification in comparing me to Lawrence Sterne,
James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon in one sentence. Maybe two of the three
I could handle.

I got your letter in Italy in the same town that Gore Vidal described
himself as having always lived in his mind. I’m not quite sure what that
means, but he must have a big old brain to fit the whole place in. Now
it is a cold day in London and America is presumably about to vote in
Barack Obama as president. Earlier on in the street I saw a middle-aged
man in a McCain badge. This isn’t a common thing in London, the poor
sap. Continue reading…

Alastair Harper’s Response to a Groupie

Hi there,
Firstly, thank you for such kind words. Even my vanity levels are not
high enough to see the justification in comparing me to Lawrence Sterne,
James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon in one sentence. Maybe two of the three
I could handle.

I got your letter in Italy in the same town that Gore Vidal described
himself as having always lived in his mind. I’m not quite sure what that
means, but he must have a big old brain to fit the whole place in. Now
it is a cold day in London and America is presumably about to vote in
Barack Obama as president. Earlier on in the street I saw a middle-aged
man in a McCain badge. This isn’t a common thing in London, the poor
sap. Continue reading…

Debate II: Live Twitterized Coverage

…

Welcome the Twitterized live coverage of the debate from the living room of me, RustedJesus. I decided to use this form because it saves space. Meaning, I don’t push down the posts of other contributors as I rant and rave. The downside is that there is no automatic update, i.e. you have keep refreshing your browser if you want to read my latest update. The only way around this is to create a live chat module would have taken more time and some collaboration with the editor-in-chief. And as our site is running slow already (don’t worry we are in the process of fixing) I didn’t want to add to our php woes. So you’ll have to do with this. I’m going to fix a sandwich, crack a beer and turn on the tube. See you in a minute.

…because nonpretentious knows how to spot talent

if you missed our interview with Alec Brownstein, go read it now!

once you’re done reading it, you’ll feel like you know him.

then, you can read his latest at the Huffington Post and say to yourself, “hey, i know that guy!”

If my Mom can change, so can you!

My mom used to forward me emails like this:

Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen? Consider this:

Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.

Domestically, no, because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)

Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually, no, because when we declare “one nation under God,” the Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran’s 99 excellent names.

Therefore after much study and deliberation….perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish…it’s still the truth. If you find yourself intellectually in agreement with the above, perhaps you will share this with your friends. The more who understand
this, the better it will be for our country.

Pass it on. The war is bigger than we know.

Fucked up, no? Trust me, my moms and I had some words after that one. But bless her heart, she sent me this one today:

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election
By

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because ‘every family has challenges,’ even as black and Latino families with similar ‘challenges’ are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay. Continue reading…

Fuck Fuck Fuck

Goddamnit.

I’m so fucking pissed. I missed the Obama speech and I can’t find it online anywhere. CNN has it all broken up into cute little sound bites with parts missing. CSPAN has some fucked up quicktime shit that isn’t working on my quicktime player. The DNC website has some state-of-the-art HD player that only plays on fucking OS Tiger or Jaguar…Jesus. what the fuck happened to giving the people what they need. There’s a whole new sort of elitism happening on the web. If you don’t have the newest fucking computer/iPhone you can’t watch shit.

I’m about to destroy something. I’m exploding! AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Update

Thanks to Jenna! for alleviating my freak out session. I just watched the speech and it’s fantastic. It’s so exciting! And yes, Fortuna Koln, it is a speech by a politician. But it’s not just any speech. It shouldn’t matter who you support in the election, or even if you don’t support either major party candidate. What makes this different, what makes this special, is it’s the first time in the history of our nation that a person of color has been nominated by a major political party for the office of the president of the United States of America. It’s History! That’s exciting, to be a witness to history! So far in my life, most of the major historical events I’ve witnessed have been tragedies: Challenger explosion, 9/11, Iraq War, Katrina, and Kobain. And most of them have been inextricably linked to politics. So to be able to witness this event is great for me, it’s extraordinary. It’s pretty damn exciting.

But sure, I understand, it doesn’t have to be for you. That’s fine. I’m just tired of being a cynic. I’ve been a cynic for the last eight years and it’s been exhausting. There’s all these alarms going off in my brain saying “Don’t buy into the Hope, the Change, it’s just empty talk like the last years. Your heart will be broken again. You will want to move to Canada, again. We should have gotten out of here a long time ago.” But damn, it feels so good to let all that pessimism go and just believe that someone might actually start us down a new path. And trust me, I’m not an idiot. I don’t expect any administration to “fix” our problems. But just to make a turn and start walking down a different path, a slightly better path is something to look forward to. So that’s what I’m doing, I’m looking forward.

But yeah, sorry about the freakout session and profanity prayers. I probably should have waited more than a half hour for the video to posted to the Interwebs in an easily accessible location and format. What can say, I expect a lot from technology. I’m still waiting for those pills you put in a microwave and you have an instant turkey dinner. I guess this will have to do in the interim:

http://dnc08.c-span.org/

Delicious.