:: Bee Blogger ::

:: Friday, January 14, 2005 ::

Prince Harry the Nazi
We've reached the point where young people are baffled by the open mouthed gasping, chest thumping, and howling that attends the display of a curious symbol that looks like a tilted windmill or broken cross - called the "swastika" by 20th century Germans who used it as a badge like the red tasseled cap of the French Jacobins who guillotined their own aristocracy. Maybe it's a good thing that young people are oblivious to this symbol. Every Broadway show, no matter how good, finally closes. Every human failure, no matter how evil, is finally forgotten. "The holocaust" has been milked for all it's worth, and maybe it's time to move on. We have museums and daily media reminders to perpetuate the vicarious guilt for what was perpetrated ages ago by far away strangers. These institutions are doing their job for those who insist on looking at the worst parts of the past, it's time to let the rest of us escape the dungeon of guilt that we've been thrown into for sixty years.

Thanks, Prince Harry, for letting us out.

:: doctorfixit 7:25 AM [+] ::
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Remembering Matsui

Public figures hold themselves up for judgement, thus it is now appropriate to assess the political life of Congressman Robert Matsui. He spent 26 years in Washington as a Congressman, and was never indicted, which for a democrat is miraculous. Loyalty to the party was everything. He obediently carried Clinton's NAFTA bill. Despite the damage that NAFTA would do to poor workers, Clinton was desperate for corporate campaign cash, and Matsui's loyal efforts opened the spigots. Matsui's deep concern for environmental principle led him to refuse any sort of compromise on flood control until the floods of '97 almost washed his district into SF Bay, at which point he prudently changed course and agreed to the deal he could have had ten years earlier. Matsui rarely displayed emotion, but in a rare case, he used tears to parlay his heritage into reparations for Japanese WWII internees, a remarkable legislative achievement that requires people who were not yet born in 1945 to pay for FDR's race crimes (although notably, no tears were shed for internees of German or Italian descent). Matsui worked tirelessly. He pored through millions of words of Social Security regulations that no one else ever bothered to read, and, having found proof that there really is a magic room full of money waiting for each and every one of us if only we keep repeating "Trust Fund", he assembled a panel of experts, including the Tooth Fairy, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun, and Pinocchio, to help defend the pyramid scheme. He was a model of modesty. During the long years that he took up space in our nation's Capitol, he never drew attention to his efforts to facilitate the eradication of the unwanted unborn. During his last years in Washington the low level of expectations in his own district allowed him to spend most of his time raising money for other democrats, and in his crowning role as chairman of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, Republicans made unprecedented gains in both houses. His lobbyist wife is now slated to inherit his House seat.

:: doctorfixit 8:23 PM [+] ::
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