Chicago Boyz

Holy cow! No wonder the world is falling apart. The above quote and many similar bons mots are found in this steaming pile of verbal dung (thanks to Jay Manifold for alerting us).

Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte Neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago or towards Chicago Alumni at other universities. The University of Chicago became the “brains” behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. Attorney General John Ashcroft received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Many of his “lawyers” at the Department of Injustice are members of the right-wing, racist, bigoted, reactionary, and totalitarian Federalist Society (aka “Feddies”), which originated in part at the University of Chicago.

Although miseducated at Yale and Harvard Business School, the “Ivies” proved to be too liberal for Bush Jr. and his fundamentalist Christian supporters, whose pointman and spearcarrier in the Bush Jr. administration was Ashcroft, a Fundie himself. The Neo-cons and the Fundies contracted an “unholy alliance” in support of Bush Jr. across the board. For their own different reasons, both groups also worked hand-in-hand to support Israel’s genocidal Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an internationally acknowledged war criminal. Strange bedfellows indeed.

According to his own public estimate and boast before the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush Jr. hired about 20 Straussians to occupy key positions in his administration, many holding offices where they could push American foreign policy in favor of Israel and against its chosen enemies such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. . .

The Left once again demonstrates that the art of self-parody is alive and well.

They are both mainly about accountability. Sure, there are plenty of problems in the new Iraq. But such issues are secondary to the main goal of our invasion, which was to depose Saddam Hussein. We understood that making Hussein accountable for his threats and depredations was the key, not only to pacifying Iraq but also to reducing the threat (by increasing the expected cost) of aggression by North Korea, Iran and other hostile opportunists.

Similarly, recalling CA Gov. Gray Davis isn’t mainly about finding a replacement with better policy ideas. It’s about making Davis accountable for his incompetence and thereby encouraging elected officials to behave better in the future. It’s unfortunate if Arnold Schwarzenegger (assuming he’ll be Davis’s replacement) doesn’t have a good program but that’s secondary to punishing Davis. CA voters who support the recall in large numbers seem to understand this, as do members of the political class who oppose it.

In situations like these, often the fastest way to figure out whether to support a particular course of action is to look at who opposes it. You can’t go far wrong with a foreign policy whose opponents are mainly dictators, anti-American European politicians and leftist whackos. Nor as a rule will you go wrong backing domestic policies that are opposed by incumbent pols, establishment journalists, unions and big-business go-along-to-get-along types.

I was riding in a cab from the airport, and I had a Francophone African cab driver. He had a lot of trouble figuring out where Oak Park was. But I forgave him because he had a totally excellent tape of some French women singing pop songs and country western songs. I tried to get him to tell me who it was singing and his linguistic debility was a real obstacle. I tried to write down what he was trying to tell me. The one name I correctly got out of him was Françoise Hardy. I looked her up and bought The Vogue Years. It is a good record, with a nice period sound. (I may buy another one from her late ’60s period — any tips?)

As it happens, she was a hugely popular figure in the ‘60s, and I’m surprised I never heard of her. She was apparently the Queen of French pop. The site I linked to above, “All Over the World” is absolutely smashing, a real labor of love. See for example the page of Magazine covers. (The picture above is from there.) How much effort must have gone into pulling that collection together? Mlle Hardy was clearly one of the great beauties of the age, in addition to making some pretty fine records. Her cool, unsmiling, aloof look, to say nothing of her understated but hip fashion sense, goes along well with her her musical style. Moreover, she was part of a scene which is well documented on the ye-ye girls website. This site, too is an incredible thing, another labor of love. After poking around on the Net a little bit, I think I’m going to get a France Gall (and here) record next. (Again, any tips?)

While I’m at it, if you are a fan of 60s style and pop culture, you must check out the Swinging Chicks of the ‘60s website. Lots of cool stuff. It reminded me of the altogether wonderful Julie Newmar — whose chief claim to fame was playing Catwoman on the old Batman TV show. Damn she was beautiful. I thought so when I was about six years old, and I think so now. TV has really declined since those days, baby.

So Fannie Mae is going to go down the toilet, bring on a global depression and put us all in the bread line. I hate that. Especially since I don’t understand it.

So, turning away from cosmic disaster, let us briefly consider some pleasant news, however trivial, for a change.

The Muffs have a new website up. It is pretty cool. It’s got a bunch of videos and several complete songs on it. It also contains the bittersweet news that their new album won’t be out until February 2004. “Oh, OK. I see. (sniff).” The pain of the wait is partly assuaged by the two snippets of new songs. (Go to Muffs media, audio, down the bottom labeled “web exclusives”). These two delectable musical morsels entitled “Feel It” and “Just the Beginning” demonstrate that Ms. Kim Shattuck has got her pop mojo working red hot again. Woo hoo. These samples bode well for the new album. The message board is filling up with the usual silliness. One detail is that Ms. S. posted, assuring her fans that she would in fact unleash her legendary scream on the new record. It’s been a while.

Meanwhile a (reliable) little red bird tells me that despite various severe but unspecified travails the new Lisa Marr record will be out in September. Fingers crossed on that one. Lex is one of her more fanatical fans, and eagerly awaits this one — which no less a critic than Kim Shattuck says is going to be her best one yet. Watch this space for further news on these critical developments.

(Captain Mojo had a post here — to which I appended an even longer comment, praising Ms. Marr’s last record.)