The not-so clears

Saturday night I was at Borders in their café. At the table behind me was a guy--Old world Indian but with an American accent--talking to three other people. I wasn't eavesdropping, exactly. But after a few minutes, I had gathered enough to realize that he was giving a Scientology spiel. There was something about how "We don't worship L. Ron Hubbard" which I guess I had heard before. And he was articulate, but kind of peevish. He kept stopping to say that you can't compare Scientology to any other religion, taking a tone that sounded like a teacher who's seen one too many spitballs go flying. My guess is that his small audience were less likely to sign up afterwards, not more.

Maybe that's why the church wants every celebrity it can get recruiting for them. Aside from (the somewhat reticent) Beck, few of these people actually come off as cool. But it seems to be a message that carries better in mass media than in the one-on-one.

Friday Random brrrrrr Ten

Safe to say this was the coldest day since last February. As the psychologists and social workers at my job left for nefarious activities, one noted that like, a week ago, people had been walking around with short sleeves. Which some may still be doing, if they're part sasquatch.

1. Emmylou Harris--The Magdalene Laundries
2. Ry Cooder--Low-Commotion
3. Lou Rawls--Breaking My Back (Instead of Using My Mind)
4. Beck--Que Onda Guero
5. Child's View--Sabure
6. The Rolling Stones--Don't Bother Me
7. Johnny Mathis--Chances Are
8. Brian Eno--Kurt's Rejoinder
9. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings--100 Days, 100 Nights
10. Finn Riggins--Icy Sparks

Item: Living Dennis Miller still not as funny as dead Bob Hope

Yes, I'm still alive. Anyway, this kind of thing always bugs.

My top three fascinating people — my top three fascinating people this year are Ayn Rand, because I think she’s at the front of an objectivist movement that’s coming in this country. It’s exhibited through No. 2 on my list, which is John Q. Public, as exhibited by these people at the tea party. And the No. 1 fascinating person to me, as it is every year, is the American man and woman in our military forces who afford us the opportunity to sit back here and have capricious endeavors like top 10 lists at the end of the year.

This sort of playing to the balcony "and God bless the troops" sentiment is the kind of thing that may seem classy to your pet rock. 98% of the time the intended message from the speaker is "Hey, check me out! I'm patriotic!" And "making the world safe for top ten lists" is as depressing a mission statement as I can think of.

I'm not sure if I qualify as "John Q Public." I don't intend to go to any tea parties unless and until I have a daughter with imaginary friends. If that makes me less fascinating, so be it.

No justice, no Peanuts

If I were Barack Obama I would have stood stone-faced at the lectern and announced, "That's it! No more Charlie Brown specials until our oppressed brother Franklin gets his own show." Then followed up with a black power salute. Goofy, sure, but I bet it would be enough to make Glenn Beck's head explode.

Of course if I were ever elected to office, I'm sure my sense of humor would have me out again PDQ.

True confessions and a Friday Random Ten

My ambition is to be either the friendliest unfriendly person or the unfriendliest friendly person in the world. Both are tightrope walks, but I think I can pull off at least one.

Meanwhile...

1. Dirty Projectors & David Byrne--Knotty Pine
2. Talking Heads--Air
3. Ry Cooder--The Very Thing that Makes You Rich (Makes Me Poor)
4. Mika--Blue Eyes
5. XTC--Love at First Sight
6. The Beatles--Julia
7. Talk Talk--Dum Dum Girl
8. Bonzo Dog Band--Hunting Tigers Out in India
9. Annie Lennox--Ladies of the Canyon
10. Soul Coughing--Pensacola

And here's another version of "Hunting Tigers" introduced by a young and fetching Terry Jones.

Tug of war

Had a tooth pulled yesterday. Was kind of tense about it all day, mainly because my trusted regular dentist farmed the job out to someone else. But afterwards I eventually hit an even keel. Got a prescription for Vicodin, which is luckily not making me too dopey during work hours.

More later. On the road to dentureville.

(The pronouns and stuff are just sort of dropping by themselves. Swear, am not converting blog to a twitter feed.)

Neutrality fail

Gotta say, not helpful.

The sponsors of the initiative provoked complaints of bias from local officials and human-rights groups with campaign posters that showed minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman. Backers said the growing Muslim population was straining the country “because Muslims don’t just practice religion.’’

“The minaret is a sign of political power and demand, comparable with whole-body covering by the burqa, tolerance of forced marriage, and genital mutilation of girls,’’ the sponsors said.

They said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey compared mosques to Islam’s military barracks and called “the minarets our bayonets.’’ Erdogan made the comment in citing an Islamic poem many years before he became prime minister.

First of all, a law that this explicitly targets one religion, well...? How do you not call that religious discrimination.

The security rationale boils down to, "We heard this guy in Turkey say something once that sounded sort of threatening."

And laws like this make it difficult to tell the Muslim world that the West isn't making war on them en masse. The fact that this law seems to have shown up on the streets before it was written into the books doesn't help either.

The Swiss People's Party, which embraces fringe right policies well beyond immigrant policy, seems to have political power in the country out of proportion to their membership. American progressives disgusted by the Big Two often envy Europe, where parties are smaller and people give a damn about them. Both systems appear to be flawed.