Little Terrors

THIS IS TOTALLY TASTELESS...

2011-08-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

DIALOGUE - SYRIAN STYLE

2011-07-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

ROCK THE CASBAH - YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

2011-07-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

BRUBECK'S "TAKE FIVE" -- Pakistani Style

2011-06-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

STUCK INSIDE DAMASCUS (WITH THE MEMPHIS BLUES again?)

2011-06-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

I wake up in Damascus
To some noise out in the town
I open up the window
“Can’t you people hold it down?”

I spot a soldier standing
And I clear my throat, "Ahem!"
He sees me up above him
And he shouts, “You're one of them!"

I start to close the window
But he's Johnny-on-the-spot
He tells me I’m a pris’ner
Of the al-Mukhabarat.

He takes me to his Sergeant
In a room without a view.
Who says that he has proof that
I'm an agent of the Jews.

He shows me sev’ral photos
Of a club at Thomas Gate
“That bar’s a Mossad hangout
You were there. It’s check and mate.”

I sign a typed confession
And I thought that we were through.
But no, he tells the soldier,
“Take him up to the HQ."

The Captain at Headquarters
He’s a thug, his name’s Farooq
He takes one look and mutters
“Hell, that ain’t no Jewboy spook."

He tears up the confession
And he kicks me in the balls.
He says, “You’re in al-Qaeda
Give it up and tell me all.”

I rattled off a story
How I trained in Pakistan.
And taught Mohammed Atta
How to sneak through airport scans.

They type a new confession
And I sign my autograph.
Farooq decides to send me
To the Army Chief of Staff.

They toss me in a dungeon
In a place both dark and dank
They leave me there for six days
And the food they gave me stank

The seventh day this colonel
He's one of Bashar’s friends
He drives up to the prison
In a pink Mercedes Benz.

He glares at all around him
And he huffs and puffs and roars
His helpers cringe and tremble
As he calls for blood and gore.

He looks at me and hollers
“You’re a liar! You’re a fake!
You never were al-Qaeda.
Did you think you’d get a break?”

He tears up the confession
And he stomps and kicks a chair
“You’re CIA, I know it.
It’s a fact as clear as air.”

I sign a new confession.
As they watch the drying ink,
They post my face on YouTube
And they throw me in the clink.

They tell the world they got ‘im
Both the plotter and the plot
They have it down on paper
How this "terrorist" was caught

Each Friday before Moslem prayer
They trot me out to say,
“I’m an agent of al-Qaeda
Of the Jews and CIA.”

So that is all my story.
And each word I swear is true
I’m stuck inside Damascus
Guess it’s better me than you

But if you ever go there
And you’re feeling in a rut
Don’t go looking for trouble, Dude,
Just keep the window shut.

And stay out of the daylight
And sit there like a monk
And pour yourself a strong one
Hell, you might as well get drunk.

'Cause it's crazy in Damascus.
It's a parallel universe
Where all the cops are criminals.
It only can get worse.

The President's a werewolf
And his brother's a zombie queer.
His wife's locked in a tower.
She stares into a mirror.

The Parliament's a peep show.
The Prime Minister's a chump.
The Grand Mufti's a hunchback.
The Mosque's an ammo dump

So what's that sound we're hearing?
It's a wounded tiger's roar.
A regime in the throes of dying.
Let it die like the dinosaur.

Take care to guard that ticket
It's the last train to the coast.
You do not want to be stuck here
And end up being toast.

HITLER AND THE ARABS - nazis in the middle east

2011-05-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

First, a quick story. A few years back, Christopher Hitchens, the famous British atheist, was in Beirut. And he was walking with friends to a bar when he passed a Syrian Nazi Party poster on a wall. I'll let a blogger tell the rest of the story:

...we come across a poster for the Syrian Nazi Party on an abandoned
bagel shop -- abandoned, if I had this right, after Hezballah had attacked
it last year due to the overly Jewish connotations of bagelry.

So Hitchens immediately takes out a pen and writes "No, no, Fuck You" on
the poster. In case you were wondering, the Syrian Nazis are very unpopular.
Neighborhoods have tried to get the posters taken down. But when they try,
the Nazis threaten people and cause problems. So the state leaves them up.

And to avoid getting them defaced or torn down, the Nazis pay these
out-of-work goons to stand there and keep an eye on the posters.

Well, when this Syrian Nazi goon saw Hitch do this, he confronted him and
kinda-sorta attacked him. I say "kinda sorta" attacked, because his main
intention was to delay Hitchens from leaving -- until the ten Nazi goons
he had just texted on his cell phone could arrive.

There was some kicking and pulling and hitting. Hitch and the others
attempted to get into a cab -- the Syrian Nazi goon got right in the cab
with them, still hitting Hitchens. They could not force him out. Eventually
they all exited, and attempted to get a fresh cab, but other cabbies were
now hip to the fact the Syrian Nazis had been riled and wanted no business
from them, so two cabs passed refusing their fare.

Now at this point the ten Nazi goons showed up (about five minutes into
this -- they came quickly) and Hitch and his friends were probably going
to get the crap beaten out of them, at best. However, they finally managed
to get a cabbie who was either brave or didn't know the trouble he was
getting into and got in, this time without the goon, and left the other
ten behind.

Now, as far as the damage Hitch suffered, it wasn't much. He did get some
lumps -- a knock on the leg, a scrape on the face. And also his writing
hand had been stomped on. He'd been roughed up, but didn't have "the shit
beaten out of him." Apart from a bit of pain walking and some more pain
typing, he was fine.

So. Nazis in Syria and Lebanon. Where did this shit come from? Read the rest and find out.

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.” And in the USA, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri —- who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years –- also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic
umbrella again, this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of
paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews and has added
another to the long list of surrenders to the Nazis.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable — so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.

The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens
your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth.
No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better
if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if
the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this,
rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…
Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors,
let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your
armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a 1944 Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented, but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to demonize and kill Jews.

READ IT IN LARGE PRINT HERE

DOWNLOAD A COPY HERE

ARAB NEWS, FOX NEWS STYLE

2011-04-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

THE UNITED STATES RECOGNITION OF ISRAEL 1948

2011-04-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

Download a copy here

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD'S OBITUARY

2011-04-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

June 12, 2018

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, missing for more than half a decade, died last week at the hands of an assassin.

He’d been living quietly in St. Joseph, Missouri under the pseudonym Robert B. McCoy. According to investigators, he’d taken in a former colleague, Mahdi Mostafavi. Friends say Mister Mostafavi, who'd legally changed his name to LeRoy Neiman, had fallen on hard times after the collapse of the Iranian Theocracy and Ahmadinejad was letting him stay in the Victorian-style home he had leased in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. At ten in the morning on the day of his death, Ahmadinejad was on a ladder hanging a print of da Vinci's The Last Supper when Mister Mostafavi came up behind him with a pistol, shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" and fired two shots and fled. Ahmadinejad’s fourth wife, Candy, heard the shots and called police. She reported his last words to be "Rosebud."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an anomaly, a mystery wrapped in an enigma slowly sinking into a deep muddy quagmire. Beloved by thousands, hated by millions, there was never a dull moment when he was at Iran's helm. What were the influences in his life? What social forces propelled him to become the most talked-about man in Iran, the man 99% of Persian women voted as "the guy least likely to get a sympathy fuck from me?"

He was born of Jewish-Scotch-Irish-Armenian parents in Aradan, Iran. Aradan is famous for two things: dog food and house painters. When he was five, his Uncle Krikor, a senior supervisor at Aradan Dog Food Plant Number 5 and a part-time house-painter, promised to get young Mahmoud "a good job on the assembly line" as soon as he celebrated his bar mitzvah. But his mother was heard to remark that she didn't want any more Saburjians (the family surname) "humping dog food." She sent him off to live with her Jewish-Gypsy cousins in Azerbaijan. He remained there eight years until Uncle Krikor keeled over from emphysema.

The Mahmoud who came back as a teenager was very different from the sweet little six-year-old boy the family remembered. Now he was described as a "shifty little weasel" who never looked you in the eye and someone you had to hide your wallet from whenever you took a shower. Some family members blamed the Jew-Gypsies. Professor Fawaz Younis Firouzbacht, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a recognized authority on Iranian Jew-Gypsies, commented, "those people can really fuck you up." Indeed, after Mahmoud returned, one Aradan resident recalled he taught every boy in the neighborhood how to pick pockets and every girl how to do the strip tease. It was then that his Uncle Koorken stepped in and ponied up the cash to send him off to Teheran to truck-driving school. He told Mahmoud's mother that the drug dealers were paying "big bucks" for long-haul drivers. Hearing that made her very happy.

So off Mahmoud went to Teheran, a suitcase in his hand and a song in his heart. Unfortunately, this was the time of the uprising against the Shah. And Mahmoud, by chance or design, fell in with a couple of ne'er-do-wells named Mirdami and Habibollah. These two con artists had concocted a get-rich-quick scheme: take over the American Embassy and hold it for ransom. Mahmoud, being a country boy just off the proverbial turnip truck, thought it sounded like a really cool idea, so he said, "Can I write home and tell my mom?"

Well, the rest is history. The US Embassy hostage spisode jump-started Mahmoud's career as a professional terrorist, torturer and all-around thug. Over the next thirty years he rose in the ranks of the revolutionaries right up to President of the Islamic Republic. It was a heady time. His mother bragged to her friends in the tea circle back in Aradan about her "big-shot son, the President." Interestingly enough, he never learned to drive a truck.

But you know the saying, whatever goes up, must come down. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Presidency crashed like a bowling ball on a fat man's big toe the day General Salehi changed sides and pledged his support to Mehdi Karroubi. Mahmoud saw the handwriting on the wall, quickly donned the emergency burka he had hanging in his office closet and made a beeline for the Armenian border.

Soon enough, in the euphoria of the mass executions of Mullahs in Teheran, the world lost interest. But every so often, there would be tidbits of information referred to in the National Enquirer as "Mahmoud sightings." There was the unnamed naked male in a grainy Czech porn film who had an uncanny resemblance to you-know-who. There was the middle-aged pick-pocket in Rome who lost his temper and beat up four Gypsy kids for "crowding him out." There was the strange man in the public park in Denver who bragged to a group of drunks that he used to be the "Prince of Persia." And finally, there was the shaky little man with the accent who showed up at a US Serviceman's funeral in Kentucky with a "God Hates Fags" sign.

Strangely enough, when the St. Joseph police first arrived at the scene, they referred to the decedent as an "unidentified male." It wasn't until two days later that they found out Robert B. McCoy was in fact the former Iranian dictator. And this is how it happened. It seems at the time of the US Embassy takeover, Mahmoud was sent to the Soviet Embassy with a "You Assholes Are Next!" message. He was drinking Coca Cola from a can. When he delivered the verbal message to the Russian Guards, he hurled the can into the compound to emphasize his point. The Russians saved it and it was DNA from that very can on an Interpol terrorist database that confirmed Mahmoud's identity. Crazy stuff, huh? Like the Grateful Dead song says, it's been a long strange trip.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will definitely be missed. Or perhaps not.

Read it in large print here

Download a copy here

A REJECTION LETTER FROM HUNTER S. THOMPSON...

2011-04-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

If you had had the temerity to have sent an unsolicited manuscript to the late Hunter S. Thompson, you would have received this "Dear Writer" form letter acknowledging receipt of same...

Dear Writer:

You worthless, acid-sucking piece of illiterate shit! Don't ever send this brain-damaged swill in here again. If I had the time, I'd come out there and drive a fucking wooden stake through your head. Why don't you get a real job, asshole? Like maybe delivering advertising handouts door to door, or taking tickets at carny rides?

You cocksuckers are all the same. You're just like the drug-addled geeks at Rolling Stone who keep sending me this crap. I'd just as soon kill them all.

Do me a favor, dipshit. Jam this tissue of delusions where your readership will better appreciate it.

Up your ass!

Sincerely,

Yail Bloor III, Minister of Belles Lettres

P.S. Keep up the good work. Have a nice day. Loser.

Good news! This post was reposted here

BLAKE SNYDER, RIP

2009-07-29T18:09:00.000-07:00

Who's Blake Snyder? He wrote Save The Cat, which is the latest in a series of "must-read" books about screenwriting. If you take a screenwriting class anywhere in Academia, the name "Blake Snyder" will pop up.

Blake Snyder says something must happen on page 25. Must. He says whenever someone hands him a script, the first place he goes is, you guessed it. But don't take my word for it. Let's go straight to Blake himself:

Wise words, succinctly put.

He died a couple months back. All of us who read his books will miss him.

30,000 HITS...

2009-07-19T02:36:00.000-07:00

Woo-Hoo!!!!!!

EGO-BOOSTER NUMBER 7...

2009-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

Good news! Dead Angel will have a five-week run at the Whitefire out in the San Fernando Valley. Here's the straight skinny from the Whitefire website and the Dramatists Guild online newsletter:

DEAD ANGEL - a short one-act play

THE SHAH, RIP...

2009-06-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

You gotta admit, with the Shah of Iran, you got a snappy dresser with a hot chick perched behind him on a hog...

RIP, Shah Dude...

RIP MICHAEL JACKSON...well, kind of...

2009-06-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

The Iranian Mullahs needn't worry about any further US interference as all Americans pause to mourn the tragic and untimely passing of a prominent pedophile.

EGO-BOOSTER NUMBER 6...

2009-06-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Just got an email from John Lant, the head honcho at Write Act Repertory. Attached to the email were scans of the postcard front and back for the upcoming one-act fest. Looks pretty damn good, doncha think?

Oh, and by the way, here's my actress. She emailed me, told me she really likes my play. I love it when they say they like my play. Don't ever tell people flattery doesn't work. 'Cause it does...

Opening night is June 26th. Write it down...

DEAD ANGEL - a play about two cheaters and what happens when one cheater drops dead in the act of...

THEY ALREADY HAVE THEIR REWARD...

2009-06-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote this letter-to-the-editor to the OC Metro in 2004 in response to an article on Paul Folino's fund-raising endeavors to benefit the South Coast Repertory Theatre.

The letter, in retrospect, was probably too snarky and certainly too bitchy. But the point was (and is) valid.

Theatres like the SCR will survive. They have the support of the community bigwigs who will always give to "The Arts" because they want to appear cultured and refined, even when they're not.

But the struggling small theatrical entities will always remain under your basic OC billionaire's radar. I'm talking about the theatres that operate out of storefronts in the inner city. Theatres where the members of the company work for no pay.

These are the ones who take the risks and carry on for the love of the art. But nothing is forever. And sadly, when one of them gives up the ghost, nobody seems to notice, or care.

We have maybe eleven theatres that do live stage in the OC. We used to have twelve, but the Rude Guerrilla just shut its doors. The landlord raised the rent and...well, you get the picture.

It happens. It's too bad when it does. I'll miss it. RIP, RG.

PROP 8 IN THE OC...

2009-05-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

So this was last Friday's front page of our local throwaway, The Ladera Post...

...despite the fact there was a really juicy incident in our community worthy of front page coverage. Seems a mother of two right here in Ladera Ranch was arrested on suspicion she murdered her millionaire boyfriend back in her former life. Now that deserves front page with a pic. But no! The Humpty-Dumpties at the OC Register kicked it to page 3 and led with a real yawner about Adam and Steve, still shell-shocked by the flak from Prop 8, trying to lead lives of quiet desperation in the OC.

This calls for a letter to the editor...

News update. The Ladera Post ran the letter. They left out the "grow some cojones" line, but hey, I got my name in the paper. And in the end, isn't that what really counts?

THE CHICKENS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST...

2009-05-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

The final score on Prop 8 last November was: 7,001,084 aye, 6,401,082 nay. That's 600,000 votes short of the brass ring. 48%. And getting from 48 to 50 will be a bitch. Ask any policy wonk.

Truth to tell, 48% may be the high water mark. 48 may be as good as it's ever going to get. Let's crunch some numbers. In the last election, the whites split about 50-50, maybe 48-52 against Prop 8. It was among the Hispanics and the Afro-Americans where you had the big pro-Prop 8 percentages. Strange how homosexuals think of Latinos and Afro-Americans as their natural allies. As brothers and sisters in a common bond of oppression. Just another one of their fairy tales, I guess.

Looking to the immediate future, looking to kick off the post-Prop 8 season on something of a high note (and to get everyone's eye on the prize, I guess), California homosexual activists have some special events planned. One is called "Meet in the Middle" and it consists of a rally/demonstration/happening/whatever in Fresno, of all places.

Why Fresno? First of all, Fresno is in the Central Valley, at the geographical center of California. Middle, get it? Secondly, the Central Valley is California's "Bible Belt" and Fresno is the buckle.

Speaking of Bibles... Homosexual advocacy groups went to great lengths to blame the Mormons for Prop 8's success. And it's easy to blame the Mormons, easy to make them the bogeyman. Easy because Mormons don't hit back.

Fact is, the Mormons are a small cult with minimal clout. How minimal? They don't even control Salt Lake City anymore. The last SLC Mayor, Rocky Anderson, was about as gay-friendly as you can get. Nevertheless, California gays persisted in hammering home the fiction that it was Mormon gold and Mormon lies that turned the tide.

When in fact, the truth all along was Latino and Afro-American voters were the ones who did the damage. That's the truth, but truth is never the object when you've been kicked to the curb and you're looking for people to blame. So in the aftermath of Prop 8, you saw these massive angry gay photo-ops at the Mormon tabernacle in Westwood Village, but nary a peep of protest outside any of the Afro-American churches in South LA or outside any of the Pentecostal iglesias in the barrio.

But happily, the chickens are about to come home to roost. Because there's one other thing I forgot to mention about Fresno. It has a big, big Latino population.

Stay tuned. Should be interesting.

Note: regarding the "bite my pillow" bit. Watch this:

UPDATE ON PROP 8 - - GAVIN'S DOUBLE WHAMMY NIGHTMARE...

2009-05-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

A confidential source close to San Francisco City Hall leaked that the California Supreme Court was gearing up to issue its opinion on Proposition 8 on Thursday, May 21, but decided to delay after getting a call from Gavin Newsom.

Remember Gavin Newsom? The goofy little tool who singlehandedly blew any chance the homosexuals might have had of getting Prop 8 defeated with his ill-advised "whether you like it or not" speech?

Right. That Gavin Newsom.

The source reported that "Newsom reached out to the Supreme Court and asked them to hold off releasing the decision so it wouldn't coincide with the anniversary of the White Night riots."

It turns out Thursday is the 30th anniversary of the San Francisco riots, which erupted when the Gay Community there learned Dan White had successfully copped a voluntary manslaughter plea in the Harvey Milk/George Moscone murder trial. If you don't know who Harvey Milk was, rent the movie.

The ensuing riots in San Francisco on May 21, 1979 caused massive damage from which the Bay Area has only lately begun to recover. Examples of the destruction abound. Here are two taken at random: a claim submitted to the city for fifteen dollars to repair a crack in a Chinatown bistro window caused by flying debris from a rioter's exploding piñata; an estimate of $300,000 to paint over the slogans scrawled on the sides of buildings on Castro Street (happily, the UN, having been deliberately misinformed that the grafitti was a free-form, stream-of-consciousness expression of solidarity with an obscure Cuban dictator, declared it a World Heritage Artifact, after which the city certified it as a tourist attraction).

Par for the course, Newsom's office shot off a press release denying he approached the justices.

Nevertheless, it's very possible the leak story is accurate. First of all, Newsom has access; his father is a retired state appellate court judge. Secondly, the smart money has the Court upholding Prop 8; releasing the opinion on the anniversary of the White Night Rights Riot (say that three times fast) would be a bit of a double whammy, n'est pas?

May 23rd update: the rumor is accurate. The Justices agreed to delay the issuance of the opinion until Tuesday, May 26.

FEEDING THE EAGLES...

2009-05-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

In January the weather on parts of Vancouver Island was so cold the eagles were cruising over houses looking for kitty cats to make a quick meal. Some kind souls decided to feed them down at Goose Spit so they would survive the cold spell.

Here's what happened! A colleague took these photos in front of his home. They are incredible!

THE BURN

2009-05-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

My friend, Mike, produced a new song, The Burn. The voice you hear is that of Mrs Mike (AKA Alizabeth) who also, by the way, is the composer.

I like the song a lot. Please give a listen.

The Burn - Alizabeth Jackson

This is Mike in his Sunday best.

EGO-BOOSTER NUMBER 5

2009-05-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

In some of my previous posts, I mentioned that I once worked for the US government. That's right. I was a Fed. And working for the government is mostly boring work. Dull. Really, really dull. Dull workspaces, dull people, dull assignments. Don't let anyone tell you different.

But occasionally, very occasionally, something interesting happens. And if you're lucky enough to be there, it leaves a mark.

Here's my "something interesting." One of my colleagues was cheating on his wife. He and this woman (who, by the way, was cheating on her husband) would spend nights in a hotel room whenever they happened to be "on the road" together.

One night, sometime in the wee hours, she died. Or to put it another way, the next morning he woke up. And she didn't.

Hey, it happens. You just hope it doesn't happen to you.

And now for the mark it left. I decided to write a one-act play (without naming names, of course) on the subject of cheating, deception, betrayal, death. And, oh yes, honesty. Got to have honesty in there. Add a dollop of fantasy. Toss in a sprig of whimsy for good measure. And voilà!

I call it Dead Angel. And it will be produced by Write Act up in Hollywood in June and July...

DEAD ANGEL - a short one-act play DEAD ANGEL - a short one-act play Dale Andersen Two cheating lovers spend a night of stolen love in a hotel room. They wake up, but one of them is dead...

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MANNY BEING MANNY AND VIC THE BRICK....

2009-05-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

The Dumbest Country Cocksucker in America just got dumber. Manny "Manny Being Manny" Ramirez got caught using a banned substance. And what's worse, he got caught by Major League Baseball, which has the lamest testing program in the KNOWN UNIVERSE. You have to be extra-special stupid with sprinkles on top to fail that test. But the Dodgers, being the Dodgers, signed the only man in baseball who could fill that bill. Way to go, Frank!

But the real villian in this debacle is Vic The Brick. Who is Vic The Brick? He's this Los Angeles sports talk goofball who begged the Dodgers to sign Ramirez. Begged them to give Manny anything he asked (even though no other team wanted him). Vic wanted Manny on the Dodger roster so badly he would have sucked Frank McCourt's dick on the pitcher's mound during 7th inning stretch on Ball Day (Lucky for him Frank doesn't have one) if that's what it would have taken.

And guess what? The Dodgers actually listened to Vic the Brick. They signed the motherfucker for 45 Mill for 2 years.

So, if you want to know whose ass to kick for signing Manny, go down to AM570 and ask for the Resident Idiot. Dollars to doughnuts, every finger in the joint will point to Vic the Brick.

And just to get you in the right mood for some big time ass kicking, watch this video before you go. It's Vic the Brick welcoming Manny to Los Angeles. But a word of caution. Don't watch on a full stomach...

THE TALIBAN ARE 60 MILES FROM PAKISTAN'S NUKES

2009-05-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Taliban's Atomic Threat

By JOHN R. BOLTON

President Barack Obama endorsed Pakistan's official position that it has secure control over its nuclear-weapons arsenal. Mr. Obama said he was "gravely concerned" about the situation there, but "confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands."

His words are not reassuring.

Our security, and that of friends and allies, depends critically on preventing more adversaries from acquiring nuclear weapons. Unless there is swift action, Pakistan faces two very worrisome scenarios.

One scenario is that instability continues to grow, and that the radicals disrupt Pakistan's weak democratic institutions and the military. In these circumstances -- especially if, as Secretary of State Clinton testified recently, the nuclear arsenal has been dispersed -- there is a tangible risk that some weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could find their way to al-Qaeda, with obvious global implications.

The second scenario is even more dangerous. Instability could cause the constitutional government to collapse and the military to fragment. This could allow a well-organized, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the Pakistani government. If that happened, a radical Islamicist regime in Pakistan would control a substantial nuclear weapons capacity.

Not only could this second scenario give terrorists access to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase. Moreover, Iran would certainly further accelerate its own weapons program, followed by others in the region (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey).

With respect to the fighting in Pakistan, it is not a case of "have nots" against "haves," but of True Believers on a divine mission. Accordingly, neither greater economic assistance, nor more civilian advisers upcountry, nor stronger democratic institutions will eliminate the strategic threat nearly soon enough.

We are reaping the consequences of failed nonproliferation policies. Add to that, the Bush administration, by pushing former President Pervez Musharraf into unwise elections and effectively removing him from power, simply exacerbated Pakistani instability. Mr. Musharraf's performance against the terrorists left much to be desired, and he was no democrat. But removing him was unpleasantly reminiscent of the 1963 coup against South Vietnam's Diem regime, which ushered in a succession of ever-weaker, revolving-door governments. Benazir Bhutto's assassination was a direct consequence.

To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan's military; roll back Taliban advances; and with increased efforts, decisively defeat the militants. This may mean stifling our democratic squeamishness. This may mean a Pakistani military takeover.

If the civilian government melts before radical pressures, so be it.

We must strive to keep Indo-Pakistani relations stable. At the same time, we should contemplate how to extract as many nuclear weapons as possible from Pakistan.

Failure to act decisively could well lead to strategic defeat in South Asia.