Halffull.org

It was a disaster from the beginning. When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, a loud outcry went up from conservatives everywhere. The nomination came as a huge shock to, well, just about everyone. If you normally read this site, you’re probably fairly up to date on the situation. If not, then try this and that.

When we last left off, the Senate Judiciary Committee threw a big hissy fit at the questionnaire Miers returned, and asked for more information. The revised questionnaire was due yesterday. In the meantime, Miers was continuing to meet with various Senators, and the media was reporting on Senators who had begun to change their minds in support of the President’s candidate, as well as those who were still clearly unconvinced. Commercials were appearing from conservatives who support Bush but feel the nomination was a mistake, asking for conservatives who feel likewise to sign an online petition against Miers. And the Senate waited for the revised questionnaire. And waited some more. Speculation was pouring in that the President could not rescind the nomination himself, because it would make him look even worse in this scenario.

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Every week as I am searching around the internet for newsworthy items, I will sometimes run across snippets from sources that I am not familiar with, i.e., never heard of in my life. And since I do not really like to write more than one news summary per week, I try to be selective about what I rehash here. For example, early last week I found a strange snippet about Marilyn Manson coming out with a new fragrance. I wanted to put this into last week’s summary, but I had never heard of this website before, and I couldn’t find anyone remotely credible that knew anything about it either. And it’s not like I’m friends with the guy so I can’t really phone him or his “people” to confirm the story. A couple of days later, even Fark was reporting the news of this new fragrance, but I hadn’t heard of the website they were linking either. And after everyone else started mentioning it, I didn’t want to mention it anymore. Although, I’m not sure why I am concerned with reporting “factual” information anyway, since no one else is.

Speaking of which… Out to prove to the public that the media lies, Michelle Kosinski of “The Today Show” was reporting on location about the New Jersey floods, live on camera, sitting in a canoe to demonstrate the severity of the flooding… as two men walked in front of the camera, the water only up to their ankles. By the way, there’s probably a job opening on “The Today Show” if any up and coming reporters are looking for a job. Qualifications include a minor in theatre. The link I added goes to Newsbusters, and if you scroll down a bit on their article, you can click to download the canoe debacle. Whatever happened to trustworthy, ethical news sources? Someone bring back Gary Gnu – that’s a name you can trust.

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A recent article by hulk asserts that “The biggest problem in the black community today is that they are waiting for help. They expect it to come from outside.” I have a slightly different take on the issue — that poverty, which tends to afflict more racial and ethnic minorities, creates a cycle of learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness is a theory in psychology that states when an organism is exposed to repeated aversive conditions from which it cannot escape, the organism eventually stops trying to escape. To apply it to this problem, if a person learns though repeated experience that he cannot escape poverty, that whatever job he can get will pay minimum wage, and that he can’t survive on that, he may stop trying to escape poverty and begin living hand to hand, without saving money, because he has come to believe that his actions have no effect on his world and that everything around him is out of his control.

A friend of mine worked in a free reproductive health clinic that served mostly patients without insurance or other access to healthcare. One of her patients was a 13-year-old girl, already sexually active. My friend explained the need for the patient to protect herself against disease and unwanted pregnancy, explained the birth control options, and then asked which of the options the girl would like to choose. The girl said, whatever happens to me is going to happen — I have no control over it. At 13, she had already decided that she had no control over her life, even over what happened directly to her body.

So if learned helplessness is happening in poverty-stricken areas of the US, what can be done? Welfare won’t help, because it’s a benefit that happens to someone, not a benefit that someone causes to happen. Handouts, however well-intentioned, won’t help either. What needs to happen is a sense of ownership and a sense of control being given back to people, starting at an early age — people need to learn that what they do has an effect on their world and that they can make changes, for better or for worse, in their lives.

I’ve received questions from a couple of people now, asking what the real deal with Harriet Miers is. If you haven’t been able to follow the hand grenades being lobbed around, or you’re intentionally trying to avoid the whole thing, I don’t blame you one bit. Given that all of my information on Miers was obtained via the media, I can’t promise that all I am about to say is entirely true. But it’s all been in the media, whatever that means.

To start, Wikipedia has a summary on Miers, including biography, awards, government service, career, blah blah blah. Down at the bottom there are a variety of news links and various websites pertaining to her. Click if you feel lucky. Well, do ya, punk?

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Previously, I expressed my frustration over the number of Americans between the ages of 18 – 24 who do not vote, and a large percentage of that age group whose primary source of news is satire – namely, Jon Stewart. From time to time I like to ask people in this demography why they did not vote in presidential elections, and to no surprise, the answers I receive are usually the same: “Politics are stupid; it’s all stupid. I don’t agree with anyone.”

After giving this a great deal of thought, I have come to the conclusion that many of the programs and campaigns aimed at this demography are actually doing more harm than good. Humor and satire rule the day when it comes to wooing the younger voter to the ballot box, however, as this has proven more and more ineffectual, the level of sarcasm slopped on top of these attempts has increased to painful decibels. It is my opinion that sarcasm-overkill is creating the mindset in younger voters that politics are stupid, and is ultimately deemphasizing the importance in voting and the long-term effects of individuals in office. As I obviously enjoy humor and satire as much as the next person, the level of bullshit being slapped onto important issues are doing more harm than good. It is time to pare back to news Cliffnotes with some simple satire.

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By now, most of you know that President Bush has nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Miers has zero judicial experience, but has been a very close advisor to the President. Oh yeah, I knew it was going to happen as soon as I saw that Bush had alluded to nominating a woman or minority: We were about to have a mini-Bush nominated to the Court. It’s the trade-off, see? Everyone gets their woman or minority, and Bush uses this compensation as an opportunity to appoint his Mini-Me. I was not disappointed in my conspiracy theory, and thus, the outcry of the nation against Bush. Hey, if you’re the so-called “leader of the free-world”, wouldn’t you want to give your buddies a leg-up? If appointed, this woman’s going to have a job as a Supreme Court Justice for the rest of her natural life. That’s more than most of us can say.

I’m not sure how I found the weblog for Mr. Sun. One day I was trying out the new Google Blog Search and found it. Who knows what keywords I had entered, but there it was, shining like a guilty pleasure before me. Earlier this week, when I went for my routine check-up on the site, Mr. Sun had posted a hilarious article regarding Bush appointing his close friend to the Supreme Court, and further actions along this vein. Well, I say ‘article’, but it’s more of a diagram… Actually, I’m not even sure how to describe this thing. You’ll just have to see it for yourself. Kudos to you, Mr. Sun. The conservative in me was offended, but the rest of me was laughing so hard that my latte was coming out of my nose.

Rummy 4-Ever!

Because I avoided the news like a plague last week, I feel as though I’m running to catch up on everything that’s happening. And there’s quite a bit going on, so I felt this warranted another news update.

A special elected House of Reps committee is investigating the foul-up surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this week they interviewed former FEMA Director Michael Brown. “Wow,” is about all I can say to this debacle. A couple of weeks ago I noted that in the myriad of people who didn’t handle the hurricane crisis correctly, someone was going to have to go down for it all, because it’s not going to be President Bush, and every politician around wants to get as far away from this clusterf*ck as possible. Michael Brown has stepped up to the plate with enthusiasm, donning a large bullseye on his forehead like a moron. Among the horrific claims he made, he told the committee that his two biggest mistakes were that he did not hold a press conference immediately after he arrived in Louisiana and that he “did not recognize that Louisiana was dysfunctional,” referring to dissention between New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco that ultimately caused response failure. But why stop there when you’re on a roll? Brown hit bottom when he stated the FEMA is not a first response agency, instead, it is a coordinator of the first response agencies. Yep, just when you thought he couldn’t make it any worse, he did. Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, became nasty at this point and justifiably so when he said, “I’m glad you left. Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren’t capable to do the job.” Hey, now that there’s a large moving target of idiocy in the forefront, everyone else can jump out of the way.

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I have delved out the news lowlights. There’s a reason for that, and a really good one too: I was sick of it. Everywhere you turned, it was nothing but Katrina and Rita. And more Katrina. And even more Rita. But I can’t procrastinate any longer because we really should catch up on current events. Unfortunately there isn’t much out there that’s really funny, but I’ll try my best.

Vice President Dick Cheney has had a long history of serious health problems. This weekend, he went in for surgery for knee aneurysms. According to the hospital, his surgery went smoothly and without complication. Apparently he was only scheduled for one knee, but during the surgery, his doctors decided to do the second. Cheney was released from the hospital, walking without assistance. Moving slowly and rigidly to the car, he looked, strangely enough, like Anakin Skywalker after his transformation to Darth Vader. I’m not alluding to anything; I’ll let you draw your own conclusions to that. At any rate, Vice President Darth Cheney worked from home yesterday, recuperating from the surgery. He is expected to be back at work soon, where his first action will be to head down to the D.C. police department and Force Choke Cindy Sheehan.

Fox TV’s “Head Cases,” starring Chris O’Donnell and Adam Goldberg, the completely unfunny television show about two lawyers who are released from an institution and forced to work together, was cancelled after only two airings. And there was much rejoicing.

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This afternoon I was writing up the weekly news report (since I haven’t done it in two weeks) when I reached the portion about the anti-war protests at the White House this weekend and Cindy Sheehan’s arrest. And that was when it happened: I felt the hate rise up within me and explode onto the page. It was in danger of taking over the article, so I cut it out and decided to stick it here instead. You’ll get the regular news report tomorrow, but in the meantime, you’re stuck with my opinion.

This weekend, over one-hundred thousand people camped outside of the White House, protesting the war in Iraq, among other things. During the protest, police had to keep telling Sheehan and her fellow protestors to “keep moving”, and not sit down on the sidewalk. After having to tell them on three different occasions, the message was still not sinking in and the police started making arrests. Cindy Sheehan was the first to be arrested, while protestors chanted, “The world is watching.” Okay, whatever you say, crazy people.

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And we thought the EMP was ugly. I don’t even know where to begin, so I’m just going to point you here. Read that article now; you won’t be sorry that you did. Just in case you missed it the first time, read THIS ARTICLE.

Some Viennese “art group” (they’re calling it art) knitted the most awful pink bunny rabbit and will leave it on an Italian countryside for the next twenty years. TWENTY YEARS! First off, I must point out that it’s made completely of wool. I’m not sure what they’re going to do about rain. Then again, they wanted to knit up the largest and ugliest bunny rabbit ever and leave it on the Italian countryside, so we’re obviously not talking logic. My favorite part of the article is where one of the artist group members said, “It’s supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can’t help but smile.” I think that’s a mis-quote, and I’m sure what he said was, “laugh your ass off until you asphyxiate and die.”