Today is my birthday so I decided to list a few of the other, more illustrious, Dec. 10ths courtesy of Born Today:
and somehow left off that list:
After reading Burnt Orange Report’s post concerning speculation that Carole Strayhorn might abandon the Republican party (as she once abandoned the Democratic party) to run for Texas governor as an independent, I half-facetiously commented with this:
I like the idea of someone who has officially rejected both parties considering that joining a party seems to be the first step towards political corruption. Perhaps people who join parties ought to be stripped of their right to run for office. We should still let them vote though, I suppose.
Thinking about it a day later, I like the idea even more.
It seems to me that someone who has officially quit both parties isn’t as likely to be told what to do by outside interests. I’ve always felt that people who believe that one party is more or less corrupt than the other are only kidding themselves. The basic problem is that once politicians get entangled in a party, their loyalties shift from their constituents to the party they rely upon for coin. This seems, more often than not, the root of a number of political problems that we see today ranging from the crooked financial dealing being exposed in congress to Bush family cronyism to actions that hover in the gray world between political revenge and treason.
I have no problem when people say that they are liberal, conservative, libertarian (with a lowercase l), moderate, whatever. I am deeply suspicious, though, of anyone who says he or she is a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or anything with a capital letter. Now, I’m not saying that everyone who joins a party is a crook or a traitor, but I do think that people who run as a member of a party have taken the first step on that road.
A local example. In 2003, the Texas GOP, under the influence of Tom DeLay, launched an apparently crooked mid-decade redistricting effort that split my home county of Travis into three districts in an effort to eliminate Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat. Incidentally, this is why DeLay now believes he can’t get a fair trial in Austin. Doggett kept his seat, but the effort managed to add several GOP congress-stooges to the US House, all of whom, naturally, owe everything to DeLay and the GOP machine that put them there and very little to the people who actually voted for them.
The most appalling thing, though, was the behavior of several members of the Texas House who went against the interests of their Travis county constituents and voted to spilt Travis County into three congressional districts in such a way that the city of Austin now has no US Congressional representative to call its own. I engaged in a thoughtful and interesting email discussion with my local house member, and the bottom line for him was that he had to stand with his “friends” (Tom DeLay) who had helped elect him. In the 2004 elections, the voters of Travis County wisely threw this guy out.
However, to say that corruption is a Republican problem is a fool’s paradise. This is why I won’t join a party, and will even support a competent candidate who is loyal to his or her constituents over a disloyal or incompetent one, regardless of either hypothetical politician’s party affiliation. I usually vote towards the left and since I live in the real world, I find I usually support Democrats over independents. I hate it, but there it is. Joining a party makes one an enabler, so when voting for either party, I’m hurting the state or the country. Of course, voting for independents seems to help Republicans, which in these times hurts us more. The best situation would be the total and simultaneous collapse of both parties, but that doesn’t seem likely.
Ultimately, I don’t know who I’ll support for Texas Governor except that it won’t be Rick Perry. I will also sit out the 2006 primaries so that I can sign Kinky Friedman’s petition to be added to the ballot as an independent. At least he’s trying. If Strayhorn decides to prove just how tough a grandma she is by going indy, that’s even better.
After continuing to experiment with categories for organizing blog posts, I broke down and started a del.icio.us account and began to experiment with tags. It didn’t take long to get hooked. Then I went back to freshblog’s Blogger Hacks and read up on categories using del.icio.us and various other methods. I experimented with this (which was cool but apparently doesn’t get picked up by Technorati) and read several other hacks, but ultimately decided I liked the ease of using this method, which relies on this bookmarklet to generate the del.icio.us and Technorati code for my tags.
I then tagged all my old posts (which only took an hour) and will continue tagging in the future. When I get a chance, I’ll install the del.icio.us tagroll or some other such tool in the sidebar to make it even easier to navigate.
Though I like the fact that the manual method doesn’t rely on an outside service and maintains a consistent feel to using the site, this is so much easier and doesn’t require constant re-publishing of old posts. I still wish Blogger would develop a system for internal categories, but for now I will tag. I’ll keep the categories link up and may continue to use categories for some of my posts.
In the meantime my del.icio.us tags are here.
Coming from New England it’s hard not to smile when everyone freaks out about the occasional ice storms. I know that most people who aren’t used to driving in icy conditions can have problems, and it’s been seventeen years since I lived in Rhode Island so I’m sort of one of those people now, but I just don’t dread these kinds of fronts. In fact, I love them.
Right now, the sky is a dark, hard gray and the trees are swaying gently back and forth. It’s nice to go outside for a few minutes and remember how much I wish for days like this when it’s 108 degrees in September. Given the choice between heat and cold, I prefer cold, but my brother makes a good case to the contrary when he points out that one never has to shovel hundreds of pounds of heat out of the driveway. Still, I’ll enjoy the cold while it lasts.
So I take it all in. The air – damp and cold – rattles my lungs a bit; the wind bites and stings. At first it doesn’t feel too cold, and I wonder what the big deal is (The University of Texas closed at 2:00) but then it works its way in, and I start to really feel it. I love staying out past that point, just starting to shiver, before going in for my coat. I wish it would actually snow or at least ice over enough to shut the city down for a day or two, but that’s a bit too much to ask. By Friday I’ll probably be wearing shorts again.
Last night, I got my telescope out for the first time in years and set it up in the driveway, which gave me a nice view of the Moon slipping below the roof of the house. Low in the sky and in its waxing crescent phase, the Moon looked beautiful to the naked eye. Through the ‘scope I just about got lost in the impact craters and mountains thrown into starkest relief by the sun’s light raking across its surface. I could have stared at it for hours, slowly tracking the telescope along the terminator, studying each mountain, each crater.
When it finally fell below the roof, I turned the ‘scope around to the east to try for a glimpse of the Pleiades, but a street light ruined the view so I’ll have to wait until later in the winter (or the night) to catch a better view when it clears the glare. I didn’t try for Mars for the same reason, but perhaps if I go to the backyard, I might be able to see it over the house, which might block the accursed light.
We’re getting one of those leaden-sky cold fronts that comes through every now and again. Looking out the window, I see that the sky now displays a vaguely striped pattern. The light is very cold, very blue, and finally wintry looking. The trees hardly move, and I can’t see a single bird. I love being outside on days like this when everything seems quiet and just waiting.
On Saturday, we went to see Hell’s Belles, the Seattle-based all female AC/DC tribute band, play Stubb’s. As mentioned in a previous post, my cousin, Lisa (Malcolm Young) Brisbois, is in this band and that’s what brought us to the show. Now I know my cousin is in this band, so I may be biased, but I’m also not that into AC/DC so I think it balances out.
In a way, not being familiar with much other than AC/DC’s most well-known songs allowed me to appreciate the band in their own right. Had it not been for such crowd-pleasers as “Highway to Hell,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” and “Big Balls,” I probably wouldn’t have known that they were covering AC/DC. But it didn’t matter. Hell’s Belles just absolutely rocked. I love seeing shows when I know very little of a band’s music and still walk away having totally enjoyed the set. This was one such evening.
One of the things that contributes (emphasis on tribute) to the band’s show is what comes across as a real love for AC/DC. This is not a parody or a deconstruction act; this is truly a tribute to the energy, excitement and fun of AC/DC’s music, and seeing that legendary band’s testosterone-heavy swagger performed with such enthusiasm and love for the material by a group of highly talented women is wickedly subversive in its own right, which is exactly what hard rock should be.
Lead guitarist Adrian (Angus Young) Conner and Singer Jamie (Brian Johnson/Bon Scott) Nova maintained an all-out intensity throughout the evening that had everyone on both levels of Stubb’s indoor venue rocking, dancing, and having a great time. This was a show where everyone was into the music and having fun. Even the woman who fell and busted her ass while doing what appeared to be an I-used-to-be-a-stripper routine for her husband came up smiling and kept on rocking.
This was one of the most energetic, all-out rockin’ shows I’ve seen in a long time, and I do hope they come back. In the meantime, Conner – who is based in Austin – has a band called Adrian and the Sickness that is surely worth checking out when they play around here.
Episode 12 of The Armadillo Podcast has been posted. You can hear Steven Phenix interview me about living in Austin, writing novels, and Kinky Friedman’s gubernatorial campaign. Check it out.
Since we lost Zephyr, Daphne has been going through changes, but the most pronounced have been in the month since Phoebe came along and Daphne realized that it was up to her to seize the mantle of canine leadership.
For the past three years, Daphne has been generally afraid to go anywhere in the house apart from the living room, our bedroom, and the study, which she only discovered back in June. Shortly after Phoebe came, Daphne started to develop an interest in the kitchen and the mysterious goings-on in there. At first we thought it was cute (look, she’s being brave), but then last week as my wife was making some peanut butter sandwiches, Daphne rose up on her hind legs, planted her front paws on the kitchen island, and took a piece of bread out of her hand. This was so unexpected that after my wife regained the power of speech, she could only laugh.
I prefer a dog that doesn’t steal food off the counter, at least not while we’re watching, but at the same time, I was kind of proud of big Daph because it’s so seldom that she asserts herself. I don’t know what kind of abuse or neglect she suffered at the hands of the monsters who owned her (she was a black-market greyhound, which means she was owned by people who were engaged either in a) illegal racing, b) illegal rabbit hunting, or c) illegal dog-fighting) before she was saved by a greyhound rescue group, but after three years, we’re thrilled to see her coming out of her shell and becoming more of a dog.
Of course that means now she may have to learn some manners.
In other hound news, my parents’ dog Nigel (who isn’t a greyhound, but we don’t hold that against him) wanted to ensure that no ants would be attracted by stray crumbs:
[saveagrey]
I’m looking forward to tomorrow as it will be a day of football and live music. After the Longhorns sew up their bid to play in the Rose Bowl for the national title, Hell’s Belles, the Seattle-based all-female AC/DC tribute band, will be playing a free show at Stubb’s, which is especially exciting for me because my cousin, Lisa Brisbois, is in this band. I haven’t seen her since 1982 when we were kids, so not only do I get to catch up with my cousin and show off how cool Austin is, but I am about to rock. Salute me! Or come and salute yourself.