Apparently Holgers is throwing a red tie party this Sunday.  I think it's Sunday.  Yep.  Those of you who know what I'm talking about should attend.

I've been looking at the world...more carefully?  Closely?  I've been paying more attention lately.  It pays off.  Fantastic!

Still not really digging this "stuck in Madison" thing though.

And I've set up my new tattoo design: St. James cross with,  "Tout est grâce."  "Deus lo vult," written underneath it.  Should be awesome.  I've got the money; now I just need to get over to UA to set up an appt.

"Daddy, why do men cheat?"

"Women."

Still dragging from the heavy drinking last night.  Gotta head to work in a half hour; as you might imagine, I'm really looking forward to it.  Then I get to work again tomorrow during the day.  Hurrah for football jackasses.  Tomorrow night I'm hiding unless someone can convince me of a damned good reason not to.  Then Sunday I'm meeting some dude my priest referred me to for a discussion on soteriology and christology.  My life is so exciting these days.

This was triggered by something over on Bob's blog-o.  Rant time...

I'm sick of being told that political discourse needs must be "calm" and "civil".  It is a particularly modern, and American, assumption that the only way one should be allowed to express one's political views is to write a businesslike letter, or cower in line at a town hall meeting; waiting for just one chance to make a sniveling, not remotely to the point, and appropriately deferential, inquiry of the elected official who has committed some evil, some crime, in our name (for we live in a representative democracy, and our leaders' actions carry forth into history, and the world, our implicit stamp of approval).

"But James," you cry, "you're not political!  The most you've ever done is scream at Dave once or twice.  Who are you to criticize others?"

The reason I refuse to participate in politics in America is that I have no faith in its political establishment, or its public sphere.  The war in Iraq is an outrage.  It is an atrocity.  That tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children have been put to the proverbial sword for the sake of a lie causes every ounce of my being to recoil in horror.  It does not take a saint, or an academic with a lifetime of studying moral philosophy, to recognize the current war for the crime against God and humanity that it is.  I'm a boozer and a dilettante and even I get it.

And it disgusts me to no end that Americans, in the face of this travesty, still sit idly by.  And it disgusts me that the "opposition" candidate seems very likely to be Clinton, who still will not apologize for her role in sending this nation to war and for her culpability in the deaths of those tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.  And it disgusts me that I will be expected by my peers to cast my vote for that bitch or risk being blamed for a potential Republican victory.  And it disgusts me that the country is not roaring its disapproval in the streets as it did during Vietnam (due mostly, of course, to our all volunteer military); nor will it, because Americans are fat, lazy, anti-intellectual and selfish, paralyzed by decades of not having to lift a finger for the public good.  And that last point is why I play the cynic.  Because it is impossible to save a country that has absolutely no interest in saving itself, and I have never been one for wasting my time.

Another cartoon row has erupted...

And again, I feel the need to remind those who think that we Westerners should curtail our freedoms because their religion says so that they can fuck right the hell off.  Don't like the way we do things?  Don't move to our countries.  Certainly don't move to them thinking we're going to change for you.  Fleming Rose (the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, the paper that caused the Danish controversy) put it well in the editorial piece he wrote for The Washington Post:

Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.

Luciano Pavarotti died today.  *cries in corner*