If I die between now and election day, Willie Herenton has my vote. Otherwise, I’ll probably be supporting the ’stache.

UPDATE: Autoegocrat got the same phone call, also on his cell phone.

UPDATE II: The call came from (866) 496-8261, which is apparently connected to The Parker Group.

I ran across this anagram generator and had to track down the ones I figured out for my name earlier. Here’s my top five:

1. law get him rich
2. the magic whirl
3. calmer high wit
4. chat while grim
5. HTML chili wager

Let’s see what the generator says about the 2008 hopefuls:

Democrats:
1. Only I can thrill (Hillary Clinton)
2. Aback a Rambo (Barack Obama)
3. Jaw shod nerd (John Edwards)
4. Shrill drab icon (Bill Richardson)

Republicans:
1. I dig unruly. Ai! (Rudy Giuliani)
2. PMS of hot nerd (Fred Thompson)
3. Chic ‘n’ on jam (John McCain)
4. My! Merit not (Mitt Romney)

It looked like H.C. would be the runaway winner… until I plugged one last name:

“Our plan”

Score one for the Ron Paul rLOVEution!

UPDATE: My wife, Alison is “also writhing.”

Hemingway would be proud, that “sneer, weighty man.”

UPDATE II: I must say these are significantly worse:

Lynch harlot in mid-oral (Hillary Rodham Clinton)

Damn hotpot fondlers (Fred Dalton Thompson)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

A friend of mine recently confided that he is afraid of developing a racist attitude following some disturbing interactions he’s had lately and some disheartening situations he’s found himself in. This was a pretty remarkable confession, given the extent to which he has gone to bridge the racial divide, at great personal effort and cost, and having volunteered an extended amount of his time to making a real, immediate difference.

Such conversations can turn into gripe sessions where everyone points to examples that support and excuse their racial prejudices. Instead, I shared with him my view that we are all mutually responsible for the blight in our community, and my belief that our own prosperity is inextricably tied to the prosperity of our neighbors. That part he no doubt understands better than I do myself.

But there’s a second part to that which is frequently overlooked, and that I thought might help encourage him. And that’s simply this: we’re all beneficiaries of the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement — all of us, not just one race or community. Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King… all of them fought and suffered so that we would one day live in a country that was truly free, legally impartial, nondiscriminatory, and open for equal opportunity. Because they paid that hefty price, I can be a friend to James, the African American who lives next door to me, and vice versa.

I’m confident that if everyone held those two beliefs — both mutual responsibility and mutual benefit — we’d all be much better off. There is nothing useful, nothing to be gained, from either community feeling the need to constantly justify and defend itself, to carry constant unmerited guilt, to harbor undying prejudice, to stay ever alert against every perceived slight, or to seek out only its own interest and entrench itself in exclusionary bunkers.

Commercial Appeal columnist Wendi C. Thomas gets it half right in her latest piece, calling for “a meeting of the minds” between blacks and whites. A community dialogue such as this could certainly be helpful, but only if it avoids devolving into mere swapping of grievances.

Watch out, or our minds will go to the familiar bitter places and our eyes will play tricks on us. This white person before you might morph into every white person who treated you poorly. Or the black person might become the embodiment of every nasty stereotype you suspected was true.

But stay focused. This is not a waste of time, no matter what your emotions may be saying at the moment. Resist this urge to get up and leave.

Its a promising opening, but then Thomas concludes by asking us to excuse and gloss over the racially bigoted comments of a Baptist reverend, suggesting that his prejudices are explained by his background and “life experiences.” Pardon me, but if I won’t entertain the creeping prejudices of a penitent friend, I’m certainly not going to abide hearing a preacher justify his unrepentant bigotry.

But Thomas, who previously admitted to her own racial prejudices, gets an “amen, sista” and an “I totally agree” from Richard Thompson of Mediaverse:Memphis, who argues that the victim of this pastor’s prejudice was actually blessed by the abuse he received, and may have actually “orchestrated” the entire affair. (more…)

Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist it any longer; I had to poke some fun at Herman Mustache and his magic sign.

Here’s some video I shot at the East Shelby Republican Club last week. In it, State Rep. Curry Todd explains that Tennessee is “flush with cash,” and that with the surplus, everyone wanted a “piece of the pie.” Rep. Todd signed on to a plan for each of the legislators to take a piece of this pie and feed it to his constituents, thus currying favor (pun intended) with the electorate, a process The Commercial Appeal labeled an “incumbent protection scheme.”

Rep. Todd’s pork request is here, made available online by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. His particular slice of the pie was designated for the Shelby County Schools PTA and Education Foundation. Of course, there’s certainly nothing wrong with state money going to schools. The problem is how the money gets there. First, these expenditures need to be part of the overall budget process, so that the money is distributed fairly and appropriately among all programs and areas, in accordance with our priorities. If the budget for schools was too low, that’s a problem Rep. Todd and friends should have fixed on the front end. Second, individual legislators must not be allowed to sprinkle tax dollars wherever they please, effectively buying votes in the process. After all, how do you think the beneficiaries will vote next time around?

And if Rep. Todd can’t find $50,000 in the regular budget for the Shelby County PTA, and that money is needed, perhaps he should donate the $50,000+ he raised to run unopposed in the last election (see FAQ 19, F for proof that it can be done).

Meanwhile, although the state is “flush with cash,” Rep. Todd says “maybe that’s alright” that we have “one of the highest sales taxes in the nation,” and that he is “in favor of the tax” increase on cigarettes. That just doesn’t add up. If the state is flush with cash, then we don’t need to be raising taxes. Instead, we should be cutting taxes.

If, on the other hand, the state government needs all this extra cash, it ought to be budgeted in a responsible way. It was more than exasperating to see the state scramble to double-check our bridges after the one in Minnesota collapsed, and now to hear them call for putting in tolls. It’s time for our legislators to stop passing out animal crackers and start putting together real budgets that address real needs, and make a plan for how they will prevent and prepare for emergencies.

While we’re on the subject, let me note my displeasure with Rep. Todd on some other matters.

The first of these is the smoking ban he voted for. Like with the money for schools, there’s nothing wrong with protecting people from the dangers of second-hand smoke. But there is a problem with second-hand government taking away our liberties. Not only is the smoking ban an assault on our freedom, it’s also wholly unnecessary, for at least two reasons: 1. if you want to protect yourself from cigarette smoke, all you need to do is simply stop visiting establishments that allow smoking; 2. several businesses had already declared themselves smoke-free just prior to the smoking ban vote. Of course we need to protect ourselves from things that will harm our health, but we don’t need government to do that for us. What’s more dangerous than second-hand smoke is a government that continues to take away more and more of our freedoms. And the next wave is going to be food, with the government telling us what we can and can’t eat. Thanks, but I think we can take care of ourselves.

Now for the ironic grace note: while Rep. Todd was out taking away freedoms from business owners and their customers, he was also sponsoring a bill that would lift the mandatory motorcycle helmet law. So it’s ok for the government to stamp out our cigarettes, but the state can’t keep us from splattering our brains on the street?

Is it too much to ask for a little consistency?

And, finally, there’s the issue of guns, and our Second Amendment rights, which has been perceived to be one of Rep. Todd’s greatest strengths among conservative Republicans in his district. Rep. Todd sponsored H 411, which allows permit holders to take their firearms into restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages. But when he was “approached by another legislator about a push to allow handguns on college campuses,” he said, “I don’t know if this is the proper time to do that,” following the Virginia Tech shootings.

If it’s not a proper time to affirm the right of students to defend themselves in the aftermath of a psychopath’s rampage (who by the way murdered his victims in a “gun free zone”), when is there a proper time?

I thought I was going to be an artist when I grew up, and I was almost right, only now I design with software instead of pencils, paint with words instead of acrylics and use a canvas made of liquid crystals instead of stretched fabric.

But I still love real art, and real artists, and will occasionally pick up a brush or make some little cartoons or sketches. I like visiting art museums, and I’m a big fan of creative movements such as minimalism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, cubism. I appreciate skill, craftiness and near-photographic realism, but I’m more fascinated by the personalities behind some of the most whacked-out art: Warhol, Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso. Those are the guys who feed my imagination.

Art is a passion I may have inherited from my grandmother, who painted animals and country scenes and decorated wooden toys crafted by grandpa. She was still doing some painting here and there until she died, about seven years ago now. You can see some of her supplies and gear at this Flickr photo set, including this schedule from a painting class she took in 1980.

As a kid, I spent lots of time drawing and filling up sketchbooks with cartoons, parodies, sci-fi doodles, imagined faces, and even the occasional landscape. I also enjoyed writing little stories that went along with the drawings. Sometime I’ll have to post some drawings of “Ace,” my first cartoon hero, a ridiculous looking pirate-type dude that my brother teases me about to this day.

I was already a standout art student in grade school and middle school, so by the time I moved up to high school, my classes on drawing and painting were of supreme importance to me.

My freshman year, I was introduced to Steve Sams, a serious-looking man with old-fashioned glasses and a stern mustache. Contrasted against all the messy, frantic, free-spirited art teachers I had before, this guy was quite the disciplinarian. His classroom was clean and orderly, and compared to the creative work we’d done before, his assignments were stoic and regimented. He introduced us to art history and even gave written tests. All this was a rude awakening for many of the kids who had signed up for art because it had always been easy and self-directed, and several of them dropped the class. But while I shared some of my classmates’ reticence about Mr. Sams, I appreciated this new, disciplined approach to art.

By the beginning of my sophomore year, I had really warmed up to Sams, and he to us, now that our wild habits had been tamed a little. That fall semester, I spent lots of time chatting with him each morning because his was my first period class, and around that time I was getting to school very early in the morning. My locker was one of a few dozen located on the third floor right next to his classroom, and I would sometimes beat him to school and would hang out by his door reading or drawing in my sketchbook. He would often joke with me about it, asking if I had spent the night there.

Once inside, Mr. Sams would brew his specialty blend of coffee and turn on the stereo, usually something soothing like Enya. He had a collection of American Gothic parodies by his desk, and at the front of the classroom, there was a little sign that simply said, “Visual Communication.” Looking back, I was probably being a pest, but I saw him as a role model. With my parents divorced, my dad living in another state, my grandfather recently dead, and my brother off at college, Mr. Sams was the only man I could look up to.

One morning in November, I was sitting at his door as usual, probably drinking a carton of chocolate milk. It was nearly time for class, and Mr. Sams hadn’t arrived yet. When somebody else finally showed up, it was a classmate of mine. She was crying.

“What’s wrong,” I asked.

“Haven’t you heard,” she replied. “Mr. Sams killed himself last night.” (more…)

Here’s an interesting comment on an old post of mine about Hezbollah. This comes from “ali” in Adana, Turkey.

hezbollah is not terrorist organisation , hezbollah is the freedom that all muslims are looking for , all the world specially islaqmic will be hezbollah we are going to cancel isrsel from this world , this is what allah says about it, hams and hezbollah with iran and syria are the winner inshallah we are going to beat israel to destroy it inshallah , also america at al iraq theey will loose

Who, those guys, terrorists? What, are you kidding me?! No, they aren’t terrorists. It’s just that they want to destroy Israel. And, oh yeah, Iraq and the United States, too. Just that. But, no, not terrorists.

Thanks, ali. We’ll make a note of it.