Tag Team

Tag Team (2006)

Something new lifted fresh off the pixel mat...

From the now completely juried Wikipedia:

In professional wrestling, a tag team consists of two or more wrestlers who are working together as a team. They usually wrestle against a like number of opponents, however in the occasional "handicap match" there may be an unequal number of competitors (André the Giant was often pitted against two or more opponents). The term "tag team" has since become used in a metaphorical sense for a pair of partners who alternate in participation in an activity, and "tag-teaming" for the act of alternating with an ally, e.g. a couple tag-teaming in an argument with another person.

According to the rules of pro wrestling, only one competitor per team is allowed in the ring at a time, and the only way that a wrestler can change places with a partner is for the competitor in the ring to "tag" him or touch him on some part of his body. The referee must also see a tag for it to be legal. Given the nature of pro wrestling, the "rules" are seldom adhered to and exist as part of kayfabe, the suspension of disbelief required for pro wrestling to work as entertainment. This means that often both members of teams, especially heel teams, are in the ring simultaneously with only one member of an ostensibly rule-abiding face team.

A spot that occurs in practically every tag team match is the hot tag. One member of the face team would be in the ring taking a beating from one of his heel opponents. Occasionally, both wrestlers from the heel team would attack him, while his partner protests to the referee about this bending of the rules (and therefore, unintentionally "distracting" the referee on behalf of the heels). Eventually the weakened face wrestler does make the tag to his partner, who comes in as the fresh man and is able to take on both opponents quite easily.

Forget NASCAR Dads. What can fire up the Bush base more than pro wrestling...

...although I suppose things could get a little too waaay down under.

[Photograph seen on Obsessed with Wrestling]

~/~

Going on vacation until sometime after July 4th. Blogging will be sporadic to slim, so I'm hot tagging you. Please enjoy the many fine sites and blogs to your right during downtime. And feel free to distract the ref while pummeling wingnuts, okay...

Fluxion

Fluxion (1999)

Umm, what the flux...?

From dictionary.net:

Fluxion \Flux"ion\, n. [Cf. F. fluxion.]

1. The act of flowing. --Cotgrave.

2. The matter that flows. --Wiseman.

3. Fusion; the running of metals into a fluid state.

4. (Med.) An unnatural or excessive flow of blood or fluid toward any organ; a determination.

5. A constantly varying indication.

Less to be counted than the fluxions of sun dials. --De Quincey.

6. (Math.)

(a) The infinitely small increase or decrease of a variable or flowing quantity in a certain infinitely small and constant period of time; the rate of variation of a fluent; an incerement; a differential.

(b) pl. A method of analysis developed by Newton, and based on the conception of all magnitudes as generated by motion, and involving in their changes the notion of velocity or rate of change. Its results are the same as those of the differential and integral calculus, from which it differs little except in notation and logical method.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913).

I hope that clears things up. If not, this excerpt from the Grand UniVerse Discussion Group should clarify everything:

As it turns out, there is a condition, spaceless, sizeless and instantaneous, capable of generating space-time, energy and matter, capable of creating and containing the universe, described herein as a Fluxion Wholeness. Though it is the foundation of the Calculus, it has been described by Mathematicians and Theologians as well as a curiosity. Though it has been in plain view at least since the time of Newton and Leibniz and perhaps for many thousands of years prior, little realization of its true nature, of what it ultimately represents has been achieved.

Because the concept of "nothingness" has been so powerful in the minds of Humans and because Mathematicians are grounded in the art of math, Theologians and Philosophers in the art of subjectivity and Scientists in the art of objectivity, each dedicated to their own separate fields of endeavor, they have failed to collectively evoke the unified concept of this mathematical "curiosity" as representative of the actual foundation of universal existence. Hence, as we have only perceived the Fluxion as a curiosity, we have allowed the mistaken concept of "nothingness" to take precedent, while the actual mechanism of creation lies just below our threshold of recognition.

Recently, a few bright minds have come out and said that "nothingness" is not what we thought it was, that it had functions capable of generating the universe and thus it is not actually "nothing" -- and such a statement is a breakthrough because it allows for a functional pre-space-time condition to exist.

Better? Or...slightly below your threshold of recognition?

Yes, just another in yr. blogger's ongoing series of posts about nothingness.

Forbidden City

Forbidden City, Morning (2004)

Forbidden City, Evening (2004)

Two views of China's imperial conclave.

Originally rendered in Fractal Zplot and then graphically bludgeoned into thrashed pixels in Photoshop and Photo-Paint.

Coronation

Coronation (2000)

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
--T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

From The Nation -- "The Hidden State Steps Forward" by Jonathan Schell:

Bush's abuses of presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He has launched an aggressive war ("war of choice," in today's euphemism) on false grounds. He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize it by specious definitions of the word. He has asserted a wholesale right to lock up American citizens and others indefinitely without any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He has kidnapped people in foreign countries and sent them to other countries, where they were tortured. In rationalizing these and other acts, his officials have laid claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers he has asserted in the wiretapping case. He has tried to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over these and other actions.

There is a name for a system of government that wages aggressive war, deceives its citizens, violates their rights, abuses power and breaks the law, rejects judicial and legislative checks on itself, claims power without limit, tortures prisoners and acts in secret. It is dictatorship.

The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form. Until recently, these were developing and growing in the twilight world of secrecy. Even within the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the normally constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff has called a "cabal." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet meetings were for show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another White House official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the White House. "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm." As in many Communist states, a highly centralized party, in this case the Republican Party, was beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart of government, a semi-hidden state-within-a-state, by which the real decisions were made.

With Bush's defense of his wiretapping, the hidden state has stepped into the open. The deeper challenge Bush has thrown down, therefore, is whether the country wants to embrace the new form of government he is creating by executive fiat or to continue with the old constitutional form. He is now in effect saying, "Yes, I am above the law--I am the law, which is nothing more than what I and my hired lawyers say it is -- and if you don't like it, I dare you to do something about it."

Calling all Democrats. Do you dare? Do you dare disturb the reign of Mad King George? Do you?

Or is this what we can expect:

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
--T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Only John Murtha and a few others seem to have sufficient courage and patriotism to ask the "overwhelming questions."

As for the rest...

And would it have been worth it, after all...

[Cartoon by Mike Keefe]

The Democrats. I do not think they will sing to me...

Maid's Day Off

Maid's Day Off (2003)

No wonder this blog is such a dump lately...

~/~

Some comforting CDs I've been listening to while recovering from surgery. Some new, some not:

Rather Ripped by Sonic Youth
Uninvited, Like the Clouds by The Church
Show Your Bones by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Upsetter in Dub by Lee "Scratch" Perry
London Calling (25th Anniversay Edition) by The Clash
Too Much Too Young by The Specials
Mezcal Head by Swervedriver
Welcome to the Canteen by Traffic
Live at the Fillmore by Derek and the Dominos
Talk Normal (Anthology) by Laurie Anderson
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain (Deluxe Re-Issue) by Pavement
Made from Technetium by Man or Astroman?
Dust Bunnies by Bettie Serveert
Script of the Bridge by The Chameleons

Awaiting the Muse

Awaiting the Muse (1999)

...and waiting...and waiting...

Yogi and Boo Boo Go to Peru

Yogi and Boo Boo Go to Peru (2006)

Hey. Boo Boo. Don't bogart that psychotropic pic-ka-nic basket...

You're Soaking in It

You're Soaking in It (2000)

Ann Coulter. Sigh...

In a sane world, Coulter's utterances would be seen and discussed for what they are: ravings. But it's an apocalyptic sign of how far national discourse has fallen that the Coulters, Falwells, O'Reillys, Limbaughs, et. al. are taken seriously and given national forums instead of being pushed out of the proscenium and into the backstage lunatic fringe. Coulter turns up on both the Today and Tonight Show as if she shares the same level of credibility as Edward R. Murrow. Like the fish that slowly becomes oblivious of the water it swims in, our discourse environment of whacked-out-is-the-new-normal has become status quo. We are unaware -- like the salon patron contentedly soaking cuticles in dishwashing liquid only to be informed by playing-a-hairdresser-on-TV Madge the manicurist that, yes, you're soaking in it.

Coulter's political shtick is easy to see through. At every opportunity, use outrageous, inflammatory hyperbole to sell books and increase her fame and wealth. In a case of mass transference where the pot slinky black dress calls the kettle mourning clothes black, Coulter accuses the 9/11 widows of being guilty of her own modus operandi, since the Jersey Girls are "millionaires" who enjoy "reveling in their status as celebrities." Of course, it is Coulter herself who is "enjoying" the terrible deaths of the J. Girls's husbands -- all the way to the bank.

But Coulter's most hypocritical claim, spit out to Matt Lauer in an interview earlier this week, is that the Jersey Girls capitalize on the sentimentality of their husbands' deaths to insure a kind of infallible and irrefutable discourse. "How about sending in someone we are allowed to respond to?" whines Ann. Meanwhile, the right, in a case of wanting their yellowcake and eating it too, gives the public appearance of being divided over Coulter's venomous comments -- but it's a smoke-screen crock. Do a quick Google search on ANN COULTER JERSEY GIRLS and notice the stream of hits from wingnuttia defending Coulter. She does speak for them. Still, in an attempt to show that Republicans aren't wiping foam from the corners of their mouths, the handlers send forth the likes of Mary Matalin to defend Coulter's "larger point." So, in other words, Coulter can be rabid, but "godless" liberals (like the Jersey Girls "witches") deserve to be bitten.

Such bullshit. No one is stopping anyone from responding to the Jersey Girls. In fact, isn't that exactly what Coulter is doing again and again when she attacks and ridicules them? It would be nice, though, if wingnut responses used facts rather than relying on invective. If you seriously believe that George Bush has made the world safer for husbands like those of the Jersey Girls and sons like those of Cindy Sheehan, then bring it on. But let's see your concrete proof because current events don't look convincing. The Katrina debacle has yet to stabilize with news of FEMA's misspent $1.5 billion. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the new Iraqi government wants to grant amnesty to terrorists who have killed American troops. New documents this week suggest the Pentagon lied about Cheney's role in awarding Hallibuton's no-bid contracts in Iraq. And with 27 dead (so far) in Iraq today, it seems unlikely that al-Zarqawi's (who represented less than 10% of the insurgency) assassination will slow the bloodshed. And let's not forget the Dubai ports fiasco. So, respond away.

But it's pointless, isn't it? What's really chafing the right wing's tinfoil these days is not the fact they can't "respond" to widows of 9/11 and mothers of Iraq. No, what they can't do is convincingly swiftboat them. Why? Because their grief is real. And so, since they can't argue, just as they can't govern, they resort to the Rovian playbook and fall back on the old Smear and Scare. It's all they have. The widows are witches who enjoy seeing their loved ones burned alive. The mothers speak out and are accused of "sinister piffle" for trying to "ventriloquize the dead," as Christopher Hitchins said of Cindy Sheehan.

Smear at will.

And once that fails, then Scare with Extreme Prejudice. The game plan for November is set to bludgeon the public with the tried and true fundie fodder of gay marriage and flag burning. And here's a sampling of what will not be discussed:

Iraq
Iran
North Korea
Afghanistan
Global Warming
Stem Cell Research
Health Care
Deficits
Minimum Wage
The Patriot Act
NSA Spying
Body Armor for Troops
WMDs
Cooked Intelligence
Halliburton
Diebold
"Mission Accomplished"
2,500 Dead Being "Just a Number"
Torture and Prisoner Abuse
Guantanamo Suicides
Misspelling bin Laden
Katrina
Cronyism
Gutting Privatizing Social Security
Gasoline Prices
Plamegate
Jack Abramoff
Tom Delay
Terri Schaivo
Bathroom Breaks
Bringing It On
Getting Wood
Hard Work
Turning the Corner
Last Throes

and so much more. No, it's safer to watch this drive of firing up the base with hot button non-starters. Yr. blogger believes BushCo doesn't want you to dwell on the incompetence and criminal activity laid out in the list above. After all, without red meat diversions, you might start to become aware of what you've been soaking in since 2000.

Red Room

Red Room (1999)

At dawn
the waves crash in
red as storm clouds
hung over the Gulf like
a steam puff rising above
a cooling tower under which
control rods glow red
fired with the power
found in the sun's
center, the same sun
that turned on me
and burned my skin
red as the blood
swirling beneath layers
of cells, red as
Cupid's heart or real
roses not the mythic
ones found in poems,
red as a clown's nose
or my own face
when you start in
laughing at me,
red as a tip
of lipstick or cigars
lit and glimpsed at
night in passing cars,
red as a brake light
right in your face before
impact, red as the stripes
on Freddy's sweater or
the corsage on your prom
dress that someone other
than me pinned on, red
as the moon viewed
through 3-D glasses, red
as a broken catsup bottle
or your neon toenails, red
as my eyes in
every photograph
you take of me.

Math Major

Math Major (2004)

Drink in today's framed array of zeros and ones...