So I’ve just spent the last 5-6 weeks working somewhere that I hear continual contemporary country music (except for the one time that they played each Jolene and The Gambler) for 9 hours a day, twice a week. That works out to about 90 hours of this stuff in the last month or so. Nice. To keep things clear, I cannot stand this genre of music. I couldn’t stand it before I’d really ever heard any of it, and I certainly can’t now. But I must say that it was a learning experience.

I’ve never really heard any modern country music before and since this was a “top-40″ style station, there were many songs that I heard 3-5 times per day, each of those days (to paraphrase one of their slogans “all the greatest songs played over and over and over…”).

Now, in general, the country songs sung by the ladies are alright; sad “lost love” type songs. Which is fine, even if they are a bit trite and the style if boring. But the dude songs? Man. I can listen to the classics: Cash, Williams, Haggard… Those are great songs about loneliness, loss and too many drunken evenings, but that’s not what these new songs are about. These songs covered exciting territory like: four-wheel drives, Jesus and America. And that’s about all.

They also had a strong focus on what I would call intentional ignorance. A blatant support for the idea of “I don’t care what the truth might be, because whatever my daddy said is good enough for me”. It was actually quite depressing.

High points? Here are some of my “favorites”..

Some obnoxious song called Chickenfry. Here are the lyrics that really twisted my tongue:

Salute the ones who died
The ones that give their lives so we don`t have to sacrifice
All the things we love
Like our chicken fried

Cold beer on a Friday night
A pair of jeans that fit just right
And the radio up

I mean, is this their view of world affairs? Saddam and Bin Laden were out to get rid of the cold beer and fried chicken so we have to go and kill hundreds of thousands of foreigners who haven’t even heard of either?

Another one that thought bought up a fine grasp of the world was this:

I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young

So these are the folks who says “Support our Troops?” Which, in their eyes seems to mean send them to kill and die in other countries and don’t question it? “Invade/bomb/take over Iran/Iraq? Sure, since I don’t even know what those are”. It’s nice that they are so fond of this country and will stand behind mass destruction of other people and their countries without even caring to know what those nations are.

Especially since they seem to have a rather naive view of this country. These guys would be the first to say “Yay America! Yay “Democracy”! And yay to capitalism and the American way”. Yet they write these lyrics that show that they have no grasp of what this American capitalist way is that they love so much:

Because in the real world they’re
Shutting Detroit down
While the boss man takes his
Bonus pay and jets on outta town

What? Do they think that someone should be intervening with the bosses on behalf of the workers? Wouldn’t these same folks call that activity “socialism and/or communism (who can tell the difference)”, the same stuff that has also been out to get rid of our beer and fried chicken? How stupid can people be? And how desperately must these people stick to their frightened ignorance and stupidity in the glow of reality and knowledge all around? It’s very lame.

Finally, this lyric was just irritating… Especially when played over and over again in a song that I had to hear over and over every day.

‘Cause I’m a country boy, I’ve got a 4-wheel drive
Climb in my bed, I’ll take you for a ride

Well, of course I am no longer a resident of Portland, but as someone who both appreciates that city’s “progressiveness” and also finds it to be annoying and generally quite a facade. I thought that the news today was quite interesting. Last year we elected Sam Adams mayor. I did not vote for him: A) because he seems a bit shiny and fake to me (like Al Gore) and B) because he worked to much with Vera Katz who I blame much of Portland’s shallow and short-sighted “development” on.

But I did appreciate the fact that a somewhat large city would elect a gay person as mayor. I think that he is the first openly gay mayor of a “large” American city.

Regardless, he won in a landslide easily defeating his primary opponent (who, no, I didn’t vote for either) and now, not 3 weeks after he has taken office the newspaper’s and the attorney general are asking for him to resign! Why? Because a few years ago he (at 42 years old) had a sexual affair with a 17 year old (which, I believe, is illegal and rather improper). Not only that but as he was priming himself for his mayoral campaign these rumors started to flow. He not only denied tham and had the teen in question deny them, but he did that standard politican clat-trap crap of calling it all lies and a vile smear campaign and all of that. Now it has come out publically that it was all true! He is going to issue a public apology, but I mean, come on. Dude. you broke the law. Like the Governor of Illinois, you should be stripped of your office and sent to the slammer.

I do feel bad for the gay rights folks in Portland (well, and beyond) who have the bad splotch of his actual character to soil that exciting milestone of his election.

Sadly, politians are people. People who will generally lie or say whatever they need to say to get  where they want to get. What’s the old adage? Anyone who wants to be a politican probably isn’t a good person to be a politican…

I was just bobbling around cnn.com looking at the election stuff when I stumbled on a page listing the various states ballot measures… Grit your teeth for 6 of the first 8 listed:

Arizona: Ban on Gay Marriage
Arkansas: Ban on Gay Couples Adopting Children
California: Ban on Gay Marriage
Colorado: End Affirmative Action
Colorado: Human Life from Moment of Conception
Florida: Ban on Gay Marriage

I mean what? First off, what’s with all the gay hating? Personally, I’m not too concerned one way or the other with gay people getting married, but I can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with it (or adoption). It is one of those things that I can’t understand at all… Unless ones opposition to it is from some sort of religious philosophy. Then I could see that, but that stuff has no place in laws. If your church is against gay people, then don’t allow them to get married in your church. Trying to enforce your godtalk on everyone else is just plain wrong… And somewhat against the constitution, though a lot of folks seem to have forgotten about that.

Same goes for that ridiculous “life from moment of conception”. Since, I imagine, a large number of pregnancies (counted from moment of conception) end in early miscarriages, would those women be under indictment for involuntary manslaughter? The thing that I think that most of those “pro-life” people some to forget is that no one wants to get an abortion. I don’t think that it is considered fun recreation in any clique.

I don’t know about the “End Affirmative Action” one. In concept it sounds like a nice idea, but there is still enough bigotry out there (yes, even in Colorado), that the statement of ending Affirmative Action makes me somewhat uncomfortable.

In other exciting news. With the election four days away, the polls basically handing the election to Obama, the memories of the GOP tomfoolery that “gave” them the 2000 and 2004 election and the wishy-washy lameness of the Democrats in those situations… Does give much food for thought. It is very hard to imagine Bush just stepping aside in two months and handing the reins to Obama… But the GOP? Christ. If they are going to rip of an election, couldn’t they have come up with a ticket that some one might actually vote for? I mean, a couple of years ago I wouldn’t of held too much against someone (well, a conservative someone) if they voted for McCain, as he didn’t seem too bad for a Republican. But lately, after aging seemingly 10 years and selling out whatever beliefs he had for the sake of getting the party’s nomination, it just seems like they could have found about 1000 better GOP/Lawyer’s to put up instead. But I could still see a die-hard GOP supporter voting for him. That is, until Sarah Palin. I don’t know if they were thinking that they could catch the disgruntled Hilary Clinton vote by pulling this illiterate creationist out of the woods, but man. More people opt against McCain because of her, then are going to vote McCain because of her. They lost votes and credibility by trying to put a blue ribbon on this chicken that can’t even walk straight. Every moment that I’ve seen her talk, she oozes insincerity, ignorance, arrogance, and a very uncomfortable nervous defensiveness that kills me! Not even to mention her condescending ways of trying to relate to middle America.

If they try and fake this election again, but with this ticket, it will be an even greater insult to the general voter intelligence than were the two W Bush scams.

So for some reason, I was just stumbling around looking for local blogs and I came across this one: Rob Kremer. As I looked around the stuff was so naive and/or sinful that at first I assumed that it was intended as tongue-in-cheek. But, of course, I soon realized that the guy was serious. One of those prickish shoeshine boys of the far-right (how far right? Not only is he in cahoots with the nearly incomprehensible Lars Larson, but he also seems to think that Sarah Palin has some worth). Sadly, these folks do have some success as getting the more lemming-like masses to accept their greed, fear and hostility as common sense. But they should leave me out of it.

Anyway, I know, they’re flopping about all over and who cares? Well, I don’t really either. But then the description of his blog is an irritating piece of hogwash that I find rather offensive. As he seems to be trying to imply that all of us (Portland) Oregonians are shallow, knee-jerk, greedy Republicans like himself:

“Portland, Oregon is occupied territory. It was invaded years ago by a non-native species of political animal from back east who took over our political and cultural institutions in order to try out their utopian socialist dreams on our great state. This blog will chronicle the insurgency that is trying to free Oregon from the occupiers’ grip by shining a bright light on their most egregious scheme.”

But I just can’t get behind Obama. Well, I haven’t tried too, either. I am still stuck on Nader or or Gravel or maybe even Kucinich (except that apartment by mine with the stupid “Kuchinich, the eyes that see through the lies” poster in the window irritates me to no end).

Certainly, I would rather have Obama than Mccain or some other blatant fascists, as I would rather have had Clinton. But both parties are uninterested in presenting an actually meaningful candidate. Yes, both Clinton and Obama are meaningful in the sense of what they imply about the improving lot of women and minorities in this country, but politically? Certainly not. Dean was the only decent candidate who both would have made a serious impact and who also had a chance of getting the nomination since Jimmy Carter first rolled on the scene. I could hardly believe that the Republicrat machine put Kerry and Gore up as candidates… Gore especially, the democrats Quayle.

Luckily the candidate that they put up on the other side was such an obvious bad choice that he hadn’t a chance in hell of winning… Sad that Justice and the Democrats opted to let the Republicans get away with the theft of office… Twice! Another sign that the Demo’s don’t want to do anything that might challenge our little two-party system.

No matter how much the Democrat’s and Republican’s spar at each other, they are two halves of the same coin. Their attempts of them to ridicule and sideline third parties (and to get the media and public too also) are because they are a political version of the christian god and satan ideas. Godboys love to gripe about satan, and satan folks love to gripe about god, but most of them don’t want to be involved in discussions about other beliefs. Why? Because belief systems like that are based on being the only game in town and once people start looking at other systems, the fallacies become too apparent for any thinking adherent to stomach. It’s the same with politics. it’s a mindlessly easy comparison to look at the “good” Democrats and the “bad” Republican’s, but there aren’t that many differences to them, and those differences are more of degree than of content. They are both power oriented, capitalist organs who, while in power, continue to permit corporations to exist in a fashion that was illegal here not that long ago, keep a military supremacy over the world, dictate the policies of foreign nations, maintain profits for the rich, maintain the IRS and the fed’s ability to tax any and everything, maintain the corrupt system of lobbyists, and repressive “justice and education” systems that make things worse, work to support and spread the mentally and culturally sapping powers of the mass media, etc.

If the press or public started to give more attention to socialism, or greens or libertarians or whomever, then they people would be able to actually judge these politicians objectively rather than by standards that they have created themselves, and some might actually start to say. Hey politicians, why don’t you actually pull our military out of all the countries of the world, why don’t you actually throw out the tax system and reinvent it in a way that is clear and sensible, not garbled by talk and weighed down by mass designed to ensure that only the government can really translate, instead of continually making it more obtuse and manipulated by special interest groups?

Anyway, Democrat/Republican and god/satan. In a country as obsessed with “freedom” as this one, it is shocking how little freedom there is if you want to exist outside of these two control obsessed autocratic systems, who instill fear and ignorance in the people so as to ensure their continued survival and power.

I know that most people out there can’t stand Nader, mainly due to the terribly inaccurate misrepresentation of him by the media and the government, especially around the 2000 election. One statistic that people don’t like to point out is that way more Democrats in Florida voted for Bush than voted for Nader. I don’t see how that puts the blame for Bush’s preidency on Nader… Bush’s victory was just plain fraud, or if you don’t believe those kind of theories, then it was becuase the Democrat’s couldn’t get their own voters behind their chosen candidate. Either way, it certainly has nothing to do with Nader. but both parties will stop at little to demean and misrepresent third party or independent candidates, as they are a threat to the two party powershare of the Democrat and Republican machines.

The more votes Nader gets, the better. The two party system has to go. Anyone who has the moxie to watch “An Unreasonable Man”, will learn a lot about how the republicrats aren’t just the two biggest parties, this country’s government is set up to have those as the only viable parties, and their joint control of the “Official” Presidential debates is just the tip of the problem. There is a lot at stake in keeping it that way. Especially for the corporate interests who are the backbone of the big parties.

Though I haven’t really settled one way or another between Obama and Clinton (not that it matters, I’ll vote for whichever gets the nod), the tide keeps turning me more towards supporting Obama. This newest dumb flap about the “behind closed doors” comments he made about “bitter voters” really just takes the cake. The eternal facade about politicians understanding “middle America” is so tiring. I doubt that any national career politician (except for Jimmy Carter) has really had much understanding of, or at least respect for and interest in “middle America”. For McCain and Clinton to come down on Obama  for being honest is  lame irritating and  quite telling. It really does point out that, at least for the present, Obama  actually is an outside voice. Someone who is willing (or more willing, at least) to express and stand by the honest truth.

Clinton and McCain both know darned well that his comments are true. People are bitter and feel a loss of control and people do flock towards more localized and personal concepts (recreation, entertainment, religion), when they feel disconnect or at the whim of bigger issues.

And I realize that it is standard politics to through anything back at someone that might be harmful to them, even if it makes one a hypocrite, but it is still annoying and I think that this issue puts me firmly into the Obama camp.

It’s rare that something makes me take the side of big business, especially take the side of the music business, as I don’t support the merger of many business into just a few conglomerates and I don’t support the homogenization of the music business into just a few mainstream artists. But one things that always lends my support to just about any business and their profits is hearing tales of that great America destroyer, Wal-Mart. Ever since watching that documentary from a few years ago that showed how Wal-Mart, in their drive for their own personal success uses their market position to force manufacturers to lower their prices so much that they can lose money and even go out of business, I have felt the hope that something would be done.

At this stage in Wal-Mart’s success (and how half of the US population seems to have sold their souls and communities to them), it seems that the only way Ito save American culture, businesses and business communities from this blight is for the major industries to band together and refuse to do business with Wal-Mart! What brings this on? Well today good ol Slashdot directed my attention to an article at Rolling Stone called Wal-Mart Wants $10 CD’s. This article describes how Wal-Mart is pressuring labels to lower the price on their CD’s to them. While this sounds like a good thing, it is a great example to point out the problems of Wal-Mart… The ones that stick out from this issues seem to be:

1) The cheaper that Wal-Mart drives their own costs down, the harder it will be for other retailers to compete, hence continuing the drive toward eliminating small businesses and lessening the variety of our culture.

2) The article states that while the average Tower stocked 60,000 different titles, Wal-Mart stocks 5,000. With Wal-Mart becoming the place that most people go for music, this is a terrible blow to musicians, fans, creativity, art and the future evolution of music… Not to say the terrible effect it could have on our culture

3) If the label’s need to lower their prices, they will need to lower their costs, which will affect the American economy. Whatever manufacturing and design that still takes place here will be driven overseas and, of course, the artists themselves will be the first to see their royalties diminished.

4) Wal-Mart is also know for having a specific and rigid moral standards. Their reputation for censoring the movies and music that they sell, and their unwillingness to sell music that they don’t approve of, may work fine for the corner christian music shop, but on this kind of national scale it is unacceptable.

On the bright side though, maybe a good portion of the population will continue to ignore Wal-Mart and to buy what they want where they want and will realize that sometimes, it is better to spend a bit more money to have a richer reality and a strong community. But with how much Wal-Mart keeps getting bigger and with seeing first hand communities who have had their small businesses shut down by their neighbors who would rather saving a little money than support their community, I don’t know how much hope I have for the population to do their part. It seems like some people have an obsessive drive for cultural homogenization.

In a conversation at work today, I had to get into my “the US wants Israel there because they want to start a war, since they’re waiting/hoping for Armageddon” mode. Of course, one of my favorite subjects for loathing/complaints, for many reasons. I remember reading some quote from GHW Bush once that I thought implied that he believed such crap. Once again, yet another reason why religion is a plague that must be removed! Okay, maybe it’s a bit excessive to blame this stuff on all religion. But if you, like me, don’t at all comprehend religious tolerance or sects that are not orthodox, then we may as well just lump them all together. While I couldn’t find whatever quote is was that I was thinking of, I did find some interesting stuff… Looking around online, there are some interesting websites These are both quite uplifting…

A story on Alternet called Lobbying for Armageddon and from there I connected to a story about some evil/crazy/nut/lunatic/moron named John Hagee in the fittingly titled TV Evangelist John Hagee Wants War With Iran, and He Wants It Now!

Read them and weep, and know thine enemy. As Nomeansno say, “If every fourth animal in the world is a beetle, maybe every fourth person is a DUMB FUCK”.

Yes, another cop-out headline from our local daily, the always vapid “Oregonian”. This time it was “Al Qaeda trains kids to Kidnap, Kill”! Well, yes, all governments (and similar groups) train young people to kidnap and kill. That’s what foreign affairs and national security are all about. Threatening others with death. It is so prevalent throughout our history that I would assume that everyone knows that “everyone does it” and would stop thinking that you could judge the enemy for it. Yes, a lot of forces use people younger than we would, but using the young and ignorant as cannon fodder is wrong regardless of how young they are. But the three great plagues that feed off of us: Nationalism, religion, and business, don’t care about age. In fact, they all try to start indoctrinating us as young as possible. Religion has always enlisted the young and now that they are prey to business by way of advertisements and products aimed at them at young and younger ages, well, why not have them suffer and inflict the horrors of nationalism?

More to the point, the Oregonian seems almost thoughtless in its dull repetition of hollow news. Todays headline is one point, attempted fear-mongering with so little meat on its bones that I doubt anyone will bother to read whatever kind of one-sided hogwash they’ve thrown together (including, of course, me). But I am reminded of another recent “story”. Last year, somewhere in the midwest, a bridge collapsed. The next day, the Oregonian headline was something akin to “Are our bridges safe”. They don’t actually pay people to put such drivel on there, do they? As they use to say back when Bob Packwood was news, “if it matters to Oregonians, it’s in the Washington Post”. Plus, bar none, they have the worst newspaper website that I have ever seen. Terrible to navigate and virtually no connection to the content that is actually in the paper. But I suppose that is a minor issue.

Honestly, if one wants to read a newspaper with actual objective and relevant news, it seems that we are still stuck with naught but The Christian Science Monitor.

Even if the underdogs ran away with the handful of rings, I still don’t see this years Superbowl as all that important an event. But today though, well, this election season in general. Either Hillary or Obama are going to be the democratic presidential candidate which is rather shocking, either way. It’s a great thrill and relief to me that the people who are probably the two most likely to become our next president (barring anymore Diebold machines being used out there) include no white males. I figure after two hundred and thirty years of the White Male House, it is certainly time for a change. Though I am thrilled with both of their candidacies, as politicians, I’m not sure which I would vote for. There is something in me, after all these Bush years, who wants a clean sweep, a new spirit to get in and try to shake things up. But on the other hand, after things getting so messed up over the years, the voice of experience  also speaks to me. Since I’m not a democrat, I don’t have to choose between them, so it’s only so relevant, but I will be curious to see how it goes, being such a close race so far.

On the other side of the fence, I even consider McCain to be good news. Romney looks creepy, Gulianne is a selfish fascist and Huckabee, aside from not having a presidential name and not looking like a president,  is a crazy religious nut! Which is sort of a good thing, because he is very upfront about his “beliefs”… While some crazies down south will swoon over his creationist, pro-life, god-boy gibberish, I think that the majority of the country will be creeped out by it. As I translate the separation of church and state, only atheists should be in government. But certainly, no one who makes public statements supporting religion while in a political arena should even be able to be elected to anything but local church bingo coordinator. McCain? Sure he’s a conservative, war-pig republican, but he also seems to be a (comparatively)  honest conservative fellow, who doesn’t seem to be saddled with the fascist/baptist dogma that all those others spew about.

I feel confident that we’ll have a democrat up next, which is good. Sadly it won’t be Mike Gravel, but it’s better then the crap we’ve had for 20 of the last 28 years. What we really need to do is get rid of both those parties. A political system controlled by two parties who, with the blessing of the government,  conspire to prevent any other party from having any success is a disgrace to the notion of democracy, even such a weak one as ours.