Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (aka glecharles) (aka loudpoet)

An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

The War in Iraq Summed Up

 In last night's debate, Obama put it this way: "The question is who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch. The fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but in fact she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue." And to John McCain today, he offered this: "John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq."…

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

About the Farrakhan moment

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=nJkU1e-_r3w]

The lowlight of tonight’s debate was, without question I think, when Tim Russert referenced Louis Farrakhan’s “endorsement” of Barack Obama this past weekend, asking if he accepted his support, and after Obama clearly and completely denounced Farrakhan’s past statements about Jews and Judaism as “unacceptable and reprehensible” and defended his own record on Jewish issues and U.S.-Israel relations, Hillary Clinton managed to sink beneath her husband’s worst “dogwhistle” moments in South Carolina and finally and effectively guarantee that I will never cast a vote for her ever again, in any election of any kind.

Referencing her first Senate run in 2000, she jumped into the discussion just as it seemed to be ending, noting with a straight face that she had “faced a similar situation” and, for a moment, I thought maybe she was going to do the honorable thing and defend Obama against a valid question that Russert was belaboring after 5 minutes, but instead she decides to attempt to score a cheap point by playing semantics:

“One of the parties at the time, the Independence Party, was under the control of people who were anti-semitic, anti-Israel, and I made it very clear I did not want their support, I rejected it. I thought it was more important to stand on principle…

You asked specifically if he would reject it and there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting. I just think we’ve got to be even stronger.”

(Transcription via Ben Smith)

Mind you, the Independence Party carries very little weight in a statewide race here in New York and, once Rudy Giuliani was forced to drop out because of his battle with prostate cancer, Clinton coasted to a relatively easy victory, so claiming that her rejection of their support was some principled stand as opposed to little more than a grandstanding pander bear moment for the Jewish community is simply disingenuous. Further, equating the formal support of a political party, no matter how small, with that of a singular, though controversial, individual is extremely disingenuous.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Monday Mash-up, 2/25/08

Stop. Drop. Roll.1) Virginia was simultaneously relaxing and a bit of a disappointment as the weather sucked the whole time we were there so we didn’t get any outside time.  I stayed home on Wednesday night intending to get to bed early but my empty-house-insomnia was in full effect and I ended up falling asleep around 2am. When I booked my 8am flight the week before, I hadn’t really thought about the travel time to JFK and ended up catching a cab at 5:45am to get there in time, passing out later that afternoon from exhaustion. The kids had a good time, though, as my mother pulled out all of the stops in the arts & crafts department, and my stepfather spent more time with them than he ever has, teaching Isaac how to play card games and hanging out with India watching TV. Also, Salomé cooked ox tails. Yum!

2) We caught Juno while we were there and absolutely loved it! I rank it up there with Say Anything and have tentatively penciled it in to my all-time Top 10 Favorites list. Ellen Page is adorable and sassy, reminding me a little bit of both Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz and Brooke Wacha, both in and out of character, and I totally related to Michael Cera’s understated Bleeker, who reminded me a lot of my not-cool, not-totally-uncool high school self. Interestingly, I picked up [Juno writer and Oscar winner!] Diablo Cody’s memoir Candy Girl : A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper in hardcover off of the bargain table at Barnes & Noble afterwards, and am looking forward to reading it. I suspect any additional copies have been taken to a back room and the paperback edition has been placed on a prominent display table in all of their stores as of this morning.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Radio Silence & Recommended Reading

I’m flying down to Virginia tomorrow morning for a long weekend and will be avoiding certain parts of the internet (guess which?) as much as possible while I’m there. Here’s some several-times-daily sites I’ll be missing out on that I highly recommend you bookmark and check regularly:

Andrew Sullivan:  My favorite blog of them all, hands-down, Sullivan is on vacation but has a few guest bloggers filling in who are doing good work in his absence. Hilzoy’s “Dear Chris Matthews: Please Do Your Job” is a must-read for those sick and tired of the “Obama’s inexperienced” meme.

First Read: MSNBC is my cable news network of choice as I find them to offer, relatively speaking, the most balanced election coverage and least overtly biased commentators, particularly Keith Olbermann, Mika Brzezinski, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and, believe it or not, Joe Scarborough. Their political blog often has solid analysis and interesting nuggets from the campaign trail and doesn’t feel the need to post about every single non-story that comes up throughout the day.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Last night at the Slam

It’s been a while since I judged a slam (publicly, at least!), especially at 13 where I know several of the regulars personally, so I was surprised when Lynne asked me to judge last night’s open slam. I was happy to do it as a critical listening exercise, though, because I think my ears have become much less sharp ever since I launched Spindle, and my focus has shifted to the page.

Way back in the day, I used to believe in never giving anyone less than 7 points for their work, respecting the effort it takes to simply get on stage and perform in front of an audience, but that floor dropped to 5 points last night for a terrible rhyming poem in the first round. Overall, it was a solid slam with no real standout performances and my scores were almost always the lowest or second lowest of the night with one surprising exception.

I wrote notes on each of my scores and here’s some of my favorites:

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

Monday Mash-up, 2/18/08

1) Spindle had a great week last week with a strong February update that generated our highest single-day traffic spike yet, and the announcement of our first contest, “Play Ball” — which offers a $50 honorarium for the best baseball / stickball / cricket-related poetry, fiction and non-fiction from a New York City perspective — has been well-received. The winner will be published in April as part of the “Play Ball” issue which I’m really looking forward to. Sports + writing = more fun than work.

2) Speaking of work, issue closings at the day job usually make for a rough week or two but the May/June issue closed last Tuesday without too much ado, partly because I’ve already locked up about 85% of our advertisers for the year. That last 15% is the difference between a solid issue and a great issue, though, so it wasn’t exactly a cake walk, especially since this issue was over-budgeted based on inflated numbers from last year, partly due to the change from a monthly schedule to bi-monthly the summer before. Overall, though, it’s shaping up to be a really good year and career-wise, the decisions I made over the past 18 months have really paid off.

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An arm with a tattoo: "I was made for the library, not the classroom."

I Love Keith Olbermann

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=NGPwXYAmZzQ] "If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it. There is a dictionary definition; one word that describes that toxic blend. You're a fascist! Get them to print you a t-shirt with 'Fascist' on it!" Keith Olbermann's latest Special Comment nails President Bush to the wall, taking him to task on playing the "fear card" (again) and the civil rights fiasco that is the FISA bill. For all of the over-the-top bluff and bluster of most political pundits, I like that Olbermann saves his righteous indignation for key moments like this,…

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