(This Is Not My Post on) Tea Party Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Characters from The Wire

I watched the election returns tonight on MSNBC, except for a brief interlude spent watching CNN on the treadmill. I don't know what kind of weird, non-partisan television policy the Y has going on--there's no Fox News there either--but it made for a really stupefying and frustrating jog. Putting aside the fact that Wolf Blitzer is actually a very stupid robot who's managed to grow human facial hair and who talks only in nonsense tautologies and regurgitated political platitudes--putting that aside, they have a small, banana republic for a political panel. I mean, there were maybe a hundred and forty-two people on their election team. At some point a mustachioed fellow yelled at Donna Brazile for making the incredibly pedestrian point that voters throw out the incumbent party during times of economic peril. There was a lot of "Let me finish my point! and "You were finished!!"in their exchange. I know you're supposed to pick motivational music when you go running to get that adrenaline going. I didn't and on the one hand, watching CNN kind of dulled my senses and physical capabilities, but on the other, nothing has made me want to run, full speed, to Vancouver as much as that broadcast. But I digress.

This is the post where I'm supposed to talk about how all the Tea Partying shitbags are like characters from The Wire. But here's the two-fold problem. 1) Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell both lost; Joe Miller is, at this moment, losing to "Write-In Votes." And this means I've lost some of my motivation. 2) I like the characters from The Wire too much apparently. I mean, as I was thinking about it, as I was considering Sharon Angle as Marlo Stanfield, it occurred to me that that's maybe too mean. Too mean to Marlo Stanfield who is a maniac, murderous drug kingpin. Still, the mission is the mission, and, anyway, Rand Paul won (peace and blessings be upon Aqua Buddha); Michele Bachman (see video above) is going to vye for a position in Republican leadership apparently; and Rick Scott, a corrupt turd monster, once fined $1.7 billion and charged with 14 felonies for his role in fraudulent hospital billing, is--thank Jesus--looking like he's going to pull it out in Florida, which is still, still, still the worst fucking state in the Union. So, all is not lost! There are going to be plenty of crazies heading to Washington and to the state capitols. We can all rest assured.

(Ed's note: Oh, baby Jesus. Sharon Angle is on TV now and in her concession speech just celebrated the fact that the vast majority of her donations came from outside the state. Has a candidate in the history of humanity ever admitted as nakedly that she's the creation of out-of-state non-voters? To borrow from Matt Taibbi, there is dumb, and there is dumb, and there is Sharon Angle. On a personal note: I was really looking forward to a lot of racial invective from her in this speech. No such luck, but this candid admission re: being a total whore comes a close second.)

Okay. So, Sharon Angle is definitely not Marlo Stanfield. She's more like Orlando--dumb, dumb, dumb, stupidly ambitious, later incarcerated, and later shot dead. These last two things haven't yet happened to Sharon Angle. But hopefully she will get sent to jail for being so dumb, and hopefully she is also now (politically) dead.

(Ed's Note II: Now Barbara Boxer is on TV, being weirdly passive aggressive (falsetto "I don't think so's" and "mmmmkays" everywhere with this one).)

Now, it's very late on the west coast. The promised blog entry hasn't really materialized and this has become some kind of post-prime-time, when-the-ballrooms-are-all-empty liveblog. Carly Fiorina has gone to bed without conceding; Michael Bennet is losing, which is super sad, but maybe some votes will shake out for him through the night. And Prop 19 is dead.

(Ed's Note III: Some guy in jeans from the Bennet campaign just delivered a statement to literally almost no one that said literally almost nothing. This ballroom he's in, though, has a carpet with a really interesting concentric circle pattern. No one can take that away from this ballroom. Okay. They are turning off the lights and dismantling things in the ballroom now, but MSNBC still has a reporter there saying things.) 

So, in closing, let me thank my wife, 'Pockets, my daughter, 'Pockets, jr. Let me also thank all the people at Dish Network for giving me television. God bless you. God bless America.

C4tS out. (Go Bennet!)

"My Name Was on the Street?"

It is the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, and I would be remiss if I let the moment pass without some commentary. Of course, Interweb Detritus' fierce and furious election coverage in the build-up to the 2008 hope and change extravaganza was -- history will judge -- worthy of awards and plaudits. The crowning pinnacle of my own offerings in those heady times can be found here. (7-part series; scroll to the bottom.)

It has been almost three years since that series. Back then we didn't even know that ______ was going to get capped by his own ______; and that blank would avenge his death by capping _______. Season 5 of The Wire, its laboring and loopy goodness (not greatness) had yet to kind of disappoint us. The economy hadn't yet fully cratered; Obama still had a glimmer of promise; "Predator drone" and "top kill" were not part of our quotidian exchanges.

The day after the soul-shattering election of 2008 I changed the subheading to the blog to what it reads now. I wish I weren't so cynical, but neither cynicism--nor presecience for that matter--can be credited with those words. We elected a slippery, fundamentally non-ideological person--someone who announced himself that way--but who somehow convinced us that his rhetoric was different than all the rhetoric that came before. To reconstitute the words of Slim Charles, when you run on a lie, I suppose, you lose--or lose ground--on that lie too.

And so here we are. The midterms of 2010, and the economy has not improved; the same bovine, unprincipled middle 30% that liked the branding two years ago has found a different brand to get behind now. When you unleash a hope for change in the electorate, that feeling will become endemic. I don't know. What I do know is this: there are some fucking first-class fuck-ups who are taking their guns and their pillboxes and their serpentine flags to Washington come January. After the election results are posted tomorrow, I'll check the count and tally the bodies. Check back in then for....

Elected Tea Party Horsemen of the Apocalypse as Characters from The Wire.

fancy ride in a free car

in this week's new yorker (a decent issue so far, much to my relief), there is a cartoon of a man standing in front of his burning house. he's holding his hand out to stop the approaching firefighters and the caption reads, "no thanks, i'm a libertarian." it's a fairly typical new yorker cartoon, minus the dog on the therapist's couch and aggravatingly precocious kids.

well, except that there are people who really believe this. if you know me at all, you know i spend more than my fair share of time wondering about people who really distrust the government. i view them like a different species because they fascinate me in an unironic and not-too-judgmental way.

a few days ago, the journal featured an eye-opening story on colorado springs, the second largest city in colorado. voluntary labor and donations are taking over the administration of community centers, garbage collection, street lights and even the police force:

Taxi drivers have been recruited to serve as a second set of eyes for stretched police patrols. Residents can pay $100 a year to adopt a street light. Volunteers are organizing to empty the garbage cans in 128 neighborhood parks. The city is asking private swimming programs to operate its pools, and one of the city's four community centers soon will be run by a church.

granted, colorado springs is the home of focus on the family, not exactly a bastion of progressivism. and yes, colorado springs represents a trend of sorts. like most other cities in america, colorado springs must confront the twin problems of decreasing tax revenues and inflated budgets left over from rosier days (and, in the case of california, a third problem: the inability to raise tax rates). the numbers are not adding up, and more and more drastic measures are being introduced as a result. in fact, new york city just floated a proposal to charge the working homeless rent for shelters. in addition, unemployed homeless people (or at least one individual in a homeless family) will be required to obtain a job before qualifying for a shelter subsidy.

i definitely do not idealize government. it can be and is often inefficient, bullheaded and wasteful. and like in virtually every other aspect of life, many have figured out elaborate ways to game and manipulate the system. even though i've been tempted on more than one occasion to remind government workers that my tax dollars are funding their salaries, i don't really think i'm getting my money's worth when i'm arguing with time warner for the umpteenth time or the asshole at the apple genius bar rolls his eyes at my "problem." so what do people want?

"Let's start cutting stupid programs that cost taxpayers a pot of money," says Tim Austin, a 48-year-old former home builder now looking for a new line of work. "It's so bullying and disrespectful to take money from one man's pocket and put it in another's."

ok fine. but you know, while it's nice to believe that a group of local residents will convene to collect trash in the surrounding area, good luck with that. i'd much rather have a group of people with some degree of accountability and monetary incentives dealing with something as important as basic sanitation. and who's to say what's stupid?

then it makes me think, am i cynical for not believing in voluntary collective action or are the others cynical for eschewing government? is cynicism the issue? are we all mistaken about others' motivations? is there some public/private sweet spot?