Esther Press

The remarks that Obama's former reverend made recently ought to be applauded. The U.S. is, of course, an imperialist country. There is none greater in the world. The hokum about the U.S. releasing AIDS on the African-American community, well, that I sincerely doubt, but I'll leave that discussion for someone else. Rev. Wright is now made out to be a lunatic, when in reality--at least on the menace of U.S. militarism--he's actually right on the money. It's Obama himself who has proven to be a phoney, dumping his friend of twenty years while in the heat of a presidential campaign. It's hard to believe that the reverend who married Barack and Michelle, and who baptized their two daughters, has changed his sermons and his thinking so completely that Obama is now "outraged". Wright himself said that privately Obama agrees with him, though he must make public displays of "outrage" so as not to offend voters.

Needless to say, but because of this The Huffington Post and The Nation are in full damage control mode right now.

Mount Shasta

Portishead's long overdue third album, titled Third, will be released in three days. Here's the video to the first single, "Machine Gun," followed by their early and only short film, "To Kill a Dead Man."

A NY Times reader's comment on the NY Times op-ed that I linked to yesterday:

April 23rd, 2008 11:02 am

The Obama campaign has employed a signature Karl Rove tactic against Hillary. "Attack your opponent's strength." Just as Bush/Rove attacked Max Cleland's patriotism and Kerry's war record so Obama/Axelrod have attacked the Clinton's strong support of civil rights and history of support for African Americans. Not only did it work, but you've completely turned it upside down by accusing her of dirty politics.

It is also worth noting that the media including the NY Times have refused to look at and report on Barack Obama's record. That puts Hillary in very difficult position in terms of getting the story out

The 8 largest states* in the US have about 48% of the total population. Hillary won 7 of those 8 primaries, not caucuses, primaries . Whether they are going to count at the Democratic convention or not, they will count in the November election. Barack only won Illinois, his home state. Under those circumstances why aren’t you all talking about Barack Obama dropping out for the good of the party?

* California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan

— Gail Johnson, New Jersey

The New York Times, employer of Obama shills Rich and O'Dowd, doing its "best" to save Obama's face, quickly posting this motherly opinion in strict damage control haste. If Hillary wins, she's either an evil witch, a manipulative demon, a bloodless pseudo-lesbian, etc. If Obama loses anywhere, it's victimhood hour. Barack Obama, victim. Millionaire, Ivy-League educated lawyer, Barack Obama. It's amazing to watch. Most of the major media outlets act like religious schoolmarms, propping up poor, thin, overly-elbowed and malnourished Obama. The Nation, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, the AP and Bloomberg, etc.

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Slate makes the case for Hillary.

"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett



Kudos to Viscount M. on notifying Esther of this lost play.

American Consumer Index:

Finished Isle of the Signatories, The Lost Explorer, The Romance of Happy Workers, and Climbing High.

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Received:

Envelope of Night, Michael Burkard, Nighboat Books, 2008.

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Watched:

Death on the Nile (1978). I don't like the whole form of these films, where the suspects are questioned, everyone seems like a possible murderer, and then there's the laying-out of who done it. So you don't have all the information at all. The Deduction period is supposed to show how amazing the Inspector is, but it's really just badly done. One has to sit for an explanation based on evidence which was not there for a viewer, so one feels like they're being told something, which is never as much fun as being part of the deduction.

I don't know how I missed this bit about Michelle Obama and her ties to Wal-Mart, the union-busting retail giant. Her husband was castigating Hillary for her connection to Wal-Mart, conveniently advoiding any mention of his wife's. Hillary resigned from Wal-Mart's board in 1992. Michelle resigned one year ago. Keep Hope Alive! Yes, We Can!

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Elsewhere, one admittedly pathetic-sounding writer in this article has this hilarious recollection of when he covered Obama in Illinois:

"My view of Obama then wasn't all that different from the image he projects now. He was smart, confident, charismatic and liberal. One thing I can say is, I never heard him launch into the preacher-man voice he now employs during speeches."

I would love to have been there when he tried out his preacher man voice for the first time. The debut of God, as it were.

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Finally, the news media did its usual horrorshow tonight in the debate, breaking some kind of obscene record for stupefying irrelevance, using up 63 minutes on gossip-mongering before a policy question could be mustered.

We watched Luis Buñuel's Viridiana last night. I had seen his early Surrealist films many times, and also his late work many times, but from the middle period I have not seen as many. I believe I've only seen Los Olvidados and El Bruto. Viridiana contains many delights, including an incestual uncle, a nun-to-be who believes she's been "compromised," impoverished drifters--thankfully unsaintly, and little girls peeking into terrace windows, ashes on beds, black bulls believed to be coming out of cupboards, an arrogant heir, fallow fields, and so on. The Last Supper scene at the end recalls the wedding dinner in Freaks. Google gobble.

Two more today:

The Lost Explorer--Finding Mallory on Mount Everest, Conrad Anker and David Roberts, Touchstone, 2001.

Climbing High--A Woman's Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy, Lene Gammelgaard, Seal Press, 1999.

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Finished Into Thin Air, Starlight and Storm, and Touching the Void.

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We watched No Country For Old Men last night. What started off as a possibly new tonal frontier for the Coen Brothers devolved into more of the same cheap banter, as in their other films. They cannot seem to maintain anything remotely serious, to extend tension, without lightening it with quips and tossed-off comebacks. The intelligence of the script also went away after the transponder was located in the satchel, which is what I predicted to my wife, who didn't, it should be noted, seem impressed by my prophecy.

We have now seen three of the five Academy Award nominated films--No Country For Old Men, Michael Clayton, and There Will Be Blood. I really have no interest in seeing Atonement or Juno. Michael Clayton was a competent thriller, nothing more, really nothing less, but it featured perhaps my favorite female actor, Tilda Swinton, so it goes up a few notches. There Will Be Blood did contain some over-acting, to be sure, and the tension in it drifted after 2/3rds of the way in, but I still found it to be the better wrestler of bigger ideas of the three films. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, took a long leap in ambition in this film, and mostly glissaded past his earlier films' potholes of sentimentality. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes from here.

"Together we have known apprehension, uncertainty and fear; but of what importance is all that? For it was only up there that we discovered many things of which we had previously known nothing: a joy that was new to us, happiness that was doubled because it was shared, a wordless friendship which was no mere superficial impulse.

We felt at once that our ordinary lives and their pleasures no longer satisfied us, and as we came down towards the plains, nostalgia for the heights grew in us."

--Gaston Rébuffat, Starlight and Storm

I have been planning an attempt to climb Mt. Shasta for about six months now, ever since I climbed Brokeoff Mountain and Lassen Peak last September. Shasta is a big leap in preparation, as one needs a decent sleeping bag (mummy), crampons, various layers of clothing, outer shell, puffy (as they're called), inner synthetic layer, mountaineering boots, ice axe, wraparound sunglasses to stop the glaring sun above and from it reflecting off of the white snow, a 4000 cu. backpack, hat, pants, gloves, tent, stove, food, hiking poles, etc. One also must be in shape, something which I failed in doing for the last half of 2007. Since January I've taken up jogging, beginning in pathetic style, completely fatigued and coughing, whereas now I can jog for 35 minutes straight. One must also read books on the subject, talk to other climbers, become familiar with the mountain and the route. John Muir survived a whiteout blizzard on the mountain decades ago, barely living to tell this tale.

Since I began exploring the areas around Chico, my interest in hiking and mountain climbing has increased. Whether in the Sierra Nevada foothills, hiking to see the falls above the Feather River, moving through the fumes of volcanic Lassen national park, or wandering around in Whiskeytown, or in the Yolla-Bollys, or the Navarro Forest, or Black Butte lake, etc., I've really enjoyed the silences and the unexpected turns, the physical activity and the views, being with others or alone.

I've been reading many books on mountaineering over the past two years, and yesterday I bought some more. Here's the list:

Touching the Void, Joe Simpson, HarperCollins, 2004.

Starlight and Storm--The Conquest of the Great North Faces of the Alps, Gaston Rébuffat, Modern Library, 1999.

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer, Anchor Books, 1997.

In the Shadow of Denali--Life and Death on Alaska's Mt. McKinley, Jonathan Waterman, The Lyons Press, 1998.

It was amazing to find an article, especially at The Huffington Post, that casts Obama in a less than angelic light. Wayne Barrett writes on the Republican rigging of the Florida and Michigan primaries.

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Obama's greatest stroke was the simple-minded rhetorical move of billing himself as the Future and Hillary as the Past. Skip the ageist backstory to this stupid ruse, and just concentrate on the thinness of its merit. This immediately cancels out the age and experience differences between himself and Hillary (15 years his senior) and McCain (25 years his senior). He's already playing the same card with McCain.

The Future, you see, is an Ivy-League educated lawyer, financially backed--and mightily--by Wall Street--YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE, YES?--who has voted FOR the Iraq War every time he's had a chance, yet presents himself as being anti-war, who voted FOR the updated Patriot Act, and who was one of only 2 senators to not place a vote on the recent Iran bill, while criticizing Clinton for her vote. If the Future looks almost exactly like the Past, don't be alarmed. Concentrate instead on how mellifluous he sounds when he's saying his sweet nothings.