Dickhead of the [Inconsistent Time Period] - Mitch McConnell

For the past year, I've been writing fairly inconsistently here, at B&E, and what used to be everyone's favorite weekly feature, Dickhead of the Week, has hardly been a weekly feature. Hell, it's hardly been a monthly feature. In fact, in perusing the old weblog, I haven't named a Dickhead since April. The Dickhead of the Week on that April day was Biology. So the most recent actual Dickhead was Alberto Gonzales back in March.

So a Dickhead is overdue, and I hereby name Mitch McConnell DotW.

The Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky earmarked $25 million to a war contractor currently under investigation for widespread bribery. Not only did Bitchy Mitch add this money into the bill without it being requested from the Defense Department, but I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that the defense contractor in question, BAE Systems, has donated more than $53,000 to Bitchy Mitch's reelection campaign.

A recent Nation article discussed the coalition of anti-Mitch forces coming together in Kentucky to beat the Senator in the upcoming election. As usual, the Nation paints a promising picture of the "Bluegrassroots" fighting the good fight, and it's worth reading, like most things in that fine publication.

Anyway, Bitchy Mitch is a corrupt, war-mongering, Bush-loving, special-interest embracing twerp. He is therefore B&E's Dickhead of the Week.

American League Fan

The New York media has been quite atwitter about the revelation that Rudy Giuliani is rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series of Baseball on Fox - (tm) and (r) and (c).

I buy the argument that he's an American League fan one hundred percent.

It is also his allegiance to the American League that illuminates one reason why he's unfit for the presidency:

The American League game is much simpler than the National League game. The American League uses the Designated Hitter, which takes the nuance out of the game. The focus is on offense. There's a lot less strategy. Manager moves are more black and white. It's a game of brute force over strategy.

I think we've seen enough of that type of presidency for the time being.

Vote for Not Rudy!

Underwhelmed by the Choices

So we're getting into the home stretch of presidential primary season, and honestly, I'm inundated with information, but nothing that's putting any of the candidates over the top in my mind. It appears I'm not alone.

Hillary gets the support of corporate passion/dollars, but I don't know a single person who's genuinely psyched about her. And why does she insist on appearing as if she's willing to bomb the shit out of Iran.

The kids seem to like Obama, and no doubt the man's an inspirational speaker, but those of us waiting to be wowed by bold positions are still waiting.

Edwards says things I like the hear, but can't seem to get any momentum going. Plus, I'm not sure that Edwards is all that different from Hillary, actually, except that he does mention the poor from time to time. And no one else is doing that, so kudos to John.

And did you know that, of the entire Democratic field, only Kucinich, Gravel, and Richardson actually intend to end the war in Iraq? At least they're the ones who've said that all US Military personnel will be taken out of the country. Everyone else is talking about leaving some troops there. Well, now, that's still an occupation, isn't it?

I like Dennis Kucinich a lot, but even I find it difficult to vote for a man who won't eat cheese. Mike Gravel is interesting, but I must be ageist or something. I find it hard to get passionate about a senior. So Richardson? Maybe Richardson's my candidate. He doesn't raise money at the level of the top three, and therefore he barely gets heard. I don't know much more about him. And I'm relatively engaged in the process. Oh, man.

Fortunately, the republican side is equally underwhelmed. The people who don't actually know Rudy Giuliani seem to like him a lot. The Nation magazine, with its usual zeal, published this article about Rudy's money ties. The shit's scary, man. Rudy fucking freaks me out.

This whole election freaks me out. Today, and maybe I'm just having a pessimistic day, I feel like we're truly doomed until at least 2012, at which point the Chinese will be hosting the Olympic Games, and I'll have forgotten about all their toxic toys made in factories by people who breathe all that shit in at rates much higher than our children. And grammatically that doesn't really make sense, but I'm too annoyed to fix it.

UPDATED 10/24/07: The Chinese aren't hosting the Olympics in 2012.

Doris Lessing is Nonplussed

Man, I do love it when a Brit wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Back in 2005, during his pre-recorded Nobel Prize acceptance speech, a very ill Harold Pinter hit us full in the face with his anger. He doesn't much care for lying, and he shared his thoughts on lying with the power of his fully-operational battle station:

...the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed...

It got even better as he went on, giving the U.S. of A. a rather stern talking to. Apparently, he thinks our nation is a bunch of fucking liars. I'll stop discussing and give you an opportunity to watch the video yourself.

The fine people of the Nobel committee in venerable Stockholm took a break from the literary Brits for 2006 winner Orhan Pamuk but returned this week to name Doris Lessing the 2007 winner.

Doris was apparently quite surprised to see the paparazzi at her home, as she lugged her bags of groceries out of her taxi. Now 88 years old, when the reporters told her she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Doris had quite a response:

Oh, Christ. I couldn't care less. I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK? It's a royal flush."

She said that since the Nobel folks have to award a writer who's still alive, they probably figured this was their last chance to give it to her before she "popped off." She's also already resenting all the scalawags who will be begging her for a piece of the $1.5 million prize, although she does admit that if her works are read by a larger audience, it would be "very nice."

I just hope those readers stay off of her lawn and keep their goddamn music down.

A Bald Monk and Engaged Buddhism

Thich Nhat Hanh is a bald, Vietnamese Buddhist monk who teaches and practices a little something called Engaged Buddhism. At its simplest, Engaged Buddhism is the practice of mindfulness in all daily activities.

I don't know that much about Buddhism. My religious upbringing has left me, in general, simultaneously drawn to and wary of religions. The missus is a big fan of the Buddhism and even has a meditation chair (Merry Christmas, missus!), and with my ongoing struggles against high blood pressure, my doctor has suggested that I start meditating.

A couple of months ago, Thich Nhat Hanh spoke in Boston. I don't particularly care for Boston but the missus loves her Thich Nhat Hanh, so we drove up in the morning, heard the bald monk speak, and drove back late that night.

I rather enjoyed his talk, which rambled on for more than two hours. Because his English is spoken in a relatively thick (Thich!) accent, listening requires great focus. But hey, as long as you're practicing Buddhism, you can focus on things.

Thich's talk was called, "Walking the Path of Love in Muddy Shoes." Well, the missus and I wouldn't know anything about that. And oddly enough, he made reference neither to muddy shoes nor to the metaphor in general. So I've decided that it's not a metaphor at all. There is a path called love somewhere and people get their shoes muddy while walking on it.

He told two tragic anecdotes about how a lack of communication caused death. Both anecdotes featured men who thought they'd been cuckolded by their wives but in fact had not been. If only they'd said to their wives, "Darling, I'm suffering" -- and if the wife in turn, upon poor treatment, had said to her husband, "Darling, I'm suffering" -- death could've been avoided.

Needless to say, perhaps, the missus and I now often say to each other, "Darling, I'm suffering." We're not quite ready to die.

Buddhism, and perhaps religion in general, is difficult for me because of a lack of irony. Spiritual practice inherently requires earnestness, and I strive to be a removed observer in life. It's why I write, after all.

So this idea of Engaged Buddhism came up again this morning, as I was doing some catching up on current events (unrelated to baseball). Over at The Nation magazine online, a fella called Andrew Lam has written this little ditty about the Buddhist monks in Myanmar.

Lam discusses these Asian monks who are not necessarily anti-violence. It's just that they practice mindfulness in their actions. Inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's Engaged Buddhism, they are (mindfully) telling the Myanmar government to go fuck themselves.

These are not monks who are sitting in the woods, peacefully reflecting on the beauty of a flower or the softness of the dew. These are monks who self-immolate.

This, dear B&E readers, is Engaged Buddhism. And these monks are badasses.

So I'm coming around to an idea related to Engaged Buddhism. Perhaps I can be removed and observational and, dare I say, ironic, as long as I'm mindful in my practice of such things.

I'm not setting myself aflame, but I'm living the way I know how.

The End of the Mets

What everyone is calling the Mets' "Stunning Meltdown" hasn't affected me as much as it would have if, say, the Mets had somehow deserved to go to the playoffs. But they were the worst team in baseball for the past month, so it would almost seem wrong if they were playing in the postseason.

What does seem wrong, however, is that former Mets second baseman and fan scapegoat Kaz Matsui is playing in the postseason. Mmrrr?

So the Mets sent this email to all of us on their list:

Dear Mets Fan:

All of us at the Mets are bitterly disappointed in failing to achieve our collective goal of building upon last year's success. We did not meet our organization's expectations -- or yours. Everyone at Shea feels the same range of emotions as you -- our loyal fans -- and we know we have let you down. We wanted to thank you for your record-breaking support of our team this year.

Equally important, Ownership will continue its commitment in providing the resources necessary to field a championship team. Omar will be meeting with Ownership shortly to present his plan on addressing our shortcomings so that we can achieve our goal of winning championships in 2008 and beyond.

You deserve better results.

Many thanks again for your record-breaking support.

Mets

I'm not seeing any offer for free tickets there, front office.

Anyway, for all of you lucky non-baseball fans and even luckier non-Mets fans, enjoy Johnny Depp. The missus loves Johnny Depp.