loco

Fighting Like Cats and Dogs

If you don’t have a subscription to www.abqjournal.com, you may want to endure a stupid ad for the opportunity to read two guest columns today. On the Right, we have Sally Mayer and to her Far Right, Don Harris. You gotta love a fair-and-balanced debate between two Right Wingers. Especially when you get to read Harris’ concerns about totalitarianism. I’m fairly sure Harris would vote to replace the Bill of Rights with the Ten Commandments, so his concerns about totalitarianism are either laughable or terrifying. Meanwhile, it’s funny to read Mayer’s use of the word progressive without quotes or other signs she is holding her nose. Funniest of all is that these two are in near agreement on major aspects of animal control legislation. Perhaps this is a new tactic of the Radical Right to continue to monopolize the media by feigning disagreement. Or is it possible the Radical Right isn’t a monolith that crushes all dissent? Nah. mjh

PS: We love and care for our two cats and one dog, all rescued and neutered. But we object to being required to plant a bug on each of them (especially the 17 year old who barely goes beyond the perimeter of the house). There must be a cheaper and less invasive technique. Oh, I know, let’s require collars and tags!

ABQjournal: Proposed Ordinance Treats Animals Like People By Don Harris, City Council District 9

a proposal that is as breathtakingly radical as it is totalitarian.

ABQjournal: Misinformation Skews Debate on New City Animal Regs By Sally Mayer, City Council District 7

a balanced and progressive approach

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Duke City Fix » TONIGHT — City Council votes on “HEART”

Letters-to-the-Editor

Where are the anti-Republican Libertarians?

Fri 04/28/06 mjh

I am writing to warn you that Mike Blessing may be masquerading as a Libertarian. It is clearly Mr. Blessing’s intent to give people the impression that Libertarians haven’t read a newspaper since Joe McCarthy’s day. His anti-communist rhetoric ignores that there are only 3 communist regimes in the world and we have strong words for the two tiny ones and many thanks for the big one buying all our debt.

If you see Mr Blessing, calmly back away and do not risk antagonizing him by pointing out that left unregulated, the sacred Market will work you to death, pay you nothing and sell you products that don’t work but kill you. Do not mention that the self-professed anti-government “starve the beast” crowd has given everything to their corporate masters while funneling money to evangelical causes and claiming unlimited authority.

To waste a single breath against communism or socialism today is to be completely out of touch with the times. Where are the Libertarians against American Christian Fascism? Where are the Libertarians against the national debt? Where are the Libertarians against the politics of fear and loathing? Anti-communist? Where are the anti-Republican Libertarians? mjh

[printed by alibi . may 4 – 10, 2006]

alibi . april 27 – may 3, 2006
Eric the Red

Dear Alibi ,

[RE: Punch Line, “Food For Thought,” April 20-26]

Once again, Mayor Griego (sic) is preaching his religion of socialism—“Thou shalt worship Government as The One True God, and I am its prophet”—as the “solution” to a perceived “problem” here in Albuquerque. This week, it’s the lack of an “international” dining scene.

First, Mayor Griego needs to put down The Communist Manifesto long enough to skim through the “Restaurant” section of the Yellow Pages, and he’ll see plenty of ethnic restaurants—Arabic, Cajun, Chinese, Cuban, French, Greek, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Native American, Persian, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, not to mention various styles of American (that does still count, right?).
Continue reading Where are the anti-Republican Libertarians? →

media

Troll Bites Man

Thu 04/27/06 mjh 2 Comments

Duke City Fix » Trains, planes, and uh, sex toys

andrew wrote:
MJH has a lot of time on his hands, and he’s not perfect either. For instance, he capitalizes “mother,” but two words later, the word “brother” is lowercase.

Is he implying that his mother is more important than his brother?

We all make misteaks.

Good one, andy (or is it Andy?).

I know I’m about to prove aNdy’s point, but he proved mine, so I’m happy to repay him.

You see, anDrew correctly apprehended the meaning of my capitalization. So, was my writing in error? Apparently not that part of it. I meant no insult to my brother, I just have trouble writing about my Mother without a capital, much as I cannot write god with one.

Still, while he grasped that subtlety of case, andY missed/ignored my sincere declaration of not being perfect.

By the way, we all have the same time on our hands, whether we realize that or not. mjh

Uncategorized

Almost Cut My Hair

Thu 04/27/06 mjh 1 Comment

Lately, my hair has grown beyond the dandelion charm of Einstein to the look of the love child of Shirley Temple and Charles Manson. It’s a mop befitting a clown with huge balls of curls cum tumbleweeds piled below the sparse meadow that once was my glory. My negative-mohawk. For old men, hair moves like landslides, denuding the peaks and gathering in the valleys and ear canals below.

So, cut your hair already. (Or, rather, have Merri cut it as she has for over 20 years.) I don’t participate in very many rituals that are imposed on me, prefering to satisfy my human need for ritual through some of my own making. Over the years, my hair has played an important role in many of these rituals. I cut my braid on more than one anniversary of my Mother’s death. I had my friends shave my head at 40 (in Chaco Canyon). I shaved my head again for my 50th and then resolved to go unkempt for a full year following. I’m still 4 weeks away from the anniversary of my last haircut. I’m beginning to think the wisdom of age is to suspend rituals that do no good. mjh

media

He Had Went and Really Gotten to Myself

Wed 04/26/06 mjh 5 Comments

ABQjournal: Astorga Alone During Stop, Police Say By T.J. Wilham, Journal Staff Writer

Marcantel said Astorga, 29, knew that had McGrane, 38, taken his driver’s license and went back to his squad car, the deputy would have known about the warrant within minutes.

ABQjournal: Mayor Had a Reason to Speed By T.J. Wilham, Of the Journal

Last Friday, Schultz invited myself on a ride-along.

OK, I am officially an old-fart — something you probably already knew about me. I have to say these two abuses of language get to me, especially seeing both by the same writer on the same day in two separate articles.

Understand, I shattered my glass house years ago. I’m a recovering perfectionist whose recovery began with recognizing I can’t be perfect nor can I expect that of anyone else.

Even before that, I was shaken from incipient language-fascism by my great language mentor (after my Mother, of course), my brother, Dan. When, as a young-fart, I attacked some change in language that offended even my young ears, he set me straight on the inevitability of change and the irony of that progression from “misuse” to mainstream and the reversal of fortunes that comes when “saying it correctly” suddenly sounds archaic. Shakespeare would be appalled by my very best English and I sometimes don’t get his.

In fact, the conundrum of celebrating the richness of language is that one cannot define what is wealth. Which is not meant to give in and say “it’s all good” (snap). At any one moment, it’s not all good — context rules.

Ah, but what of journalists? Their context has its own rules and stylebooks. Is something that would be terrible in the context of oratory or literature more acceptable on newsprint? More than likely.

All that aside, these two examples really grate on me. I hope T.J. Wilham can rise above the colloquial. I wish he had an editor who would help him do so. mjh

Dump Duhbya, Uncategorized

Cognitive Dissonance

Tue 04/25/06 mjh

Monterey County Herald | 04/25/2006 | Bush urges realistic immigration reform By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press

Bush said community health centers are the best place for the poor to get primary care. ”There needs to be a campaign to explain what’s available for people so that they don’t go to the emergency rooms,” he said.

ABQjournal: Bush Budget Would End Aid By Leslie Linthicum, Journal Staff Writer

[A] one-line item in President Bush’s proposed 2007 federal budget that would eliminate all federal funding for urban health clinics around the country that principally serve Indians. It would slice about $1 million from First Nations in Albuquerque, forcing it to eliminate or find other funding for about half of its services.

The waiting room was full of people who count on the free clinic, which serves about 5,000 patients a year, 90 percent of them Native American.

Dump Duhbya

The Doolittles’ Rich Deal

Tue 04/25/06 mjh

The Doolittles’ Rich Deal
How one congressional couple collected campaign checks — and put $215,000 in their pockets

IMAGINE THAT every time members of Congress received a $1,000 campaign contribution, they could skim $150 off the top and put it straight into their personal bank accounts. Sound shady? That is, in effect, how Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and his wife, Julie, operate. According to our review of campaign finance records, Mrs. Doolittle has received at least $215,000 from Mr. Doolittle’s various campaign committees since 2001. This doesn’t include $6,800 in payments to another of Mrs. Doolittle’s companies, Events Plus, before she started doing his fundraising work. She’s taken in nearly $100,000 during the 2006 campaign alone.

The arrangement couldn’t smell more.

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