Too Late

Here's some poetry I wrote a while back. As dark as it is, it's almost funny to consider that I was in my 20's at the time:

Dude needs to shut up

I can get as knee jerk as any civil libertarian when it comes to the subject of 1st amendment rights. If there is anything I see as sacred, it is the right of each and every red blooded American to make as much of an ass of themselves as they see fit.

However, Ward Churchill needs to STFU.

If you're not familiar with the man, read this to catch up. To sum it up neatly, the man has suggested that many (not all) of the 9/11 victims had it coming to them because, like little Adolf Eichmann's, they were working dutifully for the corporate machine that spread so much pain across the world. He then went on to commend the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America.

The Beautiful and The Damned

I don't have the patience to pore through the baroque prose of most “classic” authors. Call it a character flaw, but I find that archaic writing styles cross my eyeballs. The usual line of demarcation is around 1950. One of the rare exceptions to that rule is F. Scott Fitzgerald. His writing has such a viscous beauty to it that, although it takes me 4 times a long as most modern writers, I will still take the time to be instructed by one his books.

This is a test ...

c0c0c0 is a POS sitting under my desk. It runs, among other things, the latest "stable" version of the Drupal OS CMS (http://www.drupal.org) and whatever version of Linux with which I am currently infatuated. Don't be surprised if it acts as buggy as v.90 freeware.

c0c0c0 is a bully pulpit to rail at whatever has crawled up my ass. This can be anything - you'd be amazed at the stuff I allow to piss me off - but I like to consider this blog a form of therapy that enables me to avoid molesting innocent bystanders.

But They Can Burn the Constitution . . .

This rant was originally published in June of 1997.

House Joint Resolution 54:

Resolved that the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

"The Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

Judge For Yourself

This rant was originally published in January of 1998.

Voir Dire and the Fully Informed Jury

Don't fool yourself: This isn't a democracy and it was never meant to be. You wouldn't want to live under the rule of the majority. The majority of people don't give a damn about you and your problems.

That's why, in this country, we have a covenant that protects individuals from the whims of popular opinion. Our founding fathers knew that, sooner or later, we'd all find ourselves in the unfashionable minority. Without a stated list of inalienable rights, any one of us could be persecuted for our peculiarities and inconvenient dispositions.

In Praise of Archie Bunker

This is a reprint of a rant originally published in April of 1998.

The Move to Censor Racial Discourse

Ga-State Rep. Earl Ehrhart recently proposed that affirmative action was a program that had run its course and should be discontinued. The NAACP called him a racist and has targeted him for negative ads next election. Professor Philippe Rushton released scientific findings daring to suggest that there are physical differences between the races. His works were confiscated as "hate literature" and his university threatened to fire him if he would not recant. Alvaro Cordona, a student at UCLA, was confused when interviewers for a tutor position repeatedly stressed racial rage validation as a central role of a tutor. He agreed that he would help students who had experienced discrimination find help, but that he understood a tutor's job to be helping student's become coherent writers. He was told to come back when he understood what UCLA was really like.