SYNDETIC FLUXION: the best unread blog in the world!

White people love newspaper subscriptions. Especially subscribing to major market newspapers from a major market other than the one they live in. I.e.: A New York Times subscriber who lives in Los Angeles, or a Washington Post subscriber living in New York city.

White people have been known to leave the newspaper on the driveway or stoop until well into the evening as a beacon to their whiteness. It’s a badge of superiority to have that New York Times blue plastic bag lying there, as is having your paper recycling pile topped off with a copy of the New York Times Book Review. At the dog run, scooping up your dog’s poop with a blue New York Times bag asserts your alpha-whiteness over another white person who’s using a simple black plastic bag. Only those white people who use a Whole Foods bag are on par with those using the New York Times bag. All other bag users are inferior.

White people subscribe to newspapers not to actually read them (though many have been know to), but to show neighbors and peers that they are enlightened. Keeping one folded under your arm as you commute via mass transit is an ideal way to assert whiteness. New media is great, but nothing appeals to a white person’s sense of intellect and vintage chic quite as much as a physical newspaper; it’s a two bird killing stone. Sure, you look cool and connected when you bring your MacBook to the coffee house, but whip open a copy of the London Times and you are suddenly whiter-than-thou. Even if you’re just doing their Sudoku, perhaps especially so.

Flipping through a copy of The Economist (okay a magazine, but its editors refer to it as a newspaper) on the L trail to/from Williamsburg/Greenpoint tells other white people that you don’t tow the white party line 100%, and thus this minor act of subversion makes you even more of a white person. Reading The Nation is simply too white-trite these days.

Having a newspaper on their person or on their driveway/stoop is a distinctive trait of the white person. It simply telegraphs whiteness.

Who gives a fuck if the damn thing fits in an interoffice mail envelope? I mean those things are kinda spacious anyway. You can fit about a quarter ream of paper in them. You can actually fit a regular fat-ass MacBook Pro in one. Plus, do the young whippersnappers even know what an interoffice mail envelope is anyway? Stuff a laptop in a standard #10 business envelope and I’ll be impressed.

I bet some douchebag designer is gonna make a fabric laptop shoulder bag to look like an interoffice mail envelope. If so, I’ll expect a check.

While many are going on and on about how we need to bring America and Americans back together again, recent evidence suggests that most American’s are united about a few things. Recent (and not so recent) polls show that nearly two-thirds (and sometimes many more) of Americans agree about the following . . .

1. Bush is a lousy president

2. Cheney is a lousy vice-president.

3. Congress is pretty lousy too.

4. The Iraq war sucks, and we should get troops out of Iraq right away.

5. The economy also sucks, and America is in a reccesion.

6. Oil prices are too high and are affecting American’s bottom line, and America needs to reduce it’s dependence on oil.

7. The world needs to lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the air.

8. Americans would like to see a decrease in the number of illegal immigrants entering America.

9. The health care system in America needs revision.

10. FEMA could be doing more to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

That’s right TWO-THIRDS of American’s agree on the above things! Two-thirds is a landslide mandate in American politics these days. America seems rather united to me, despite what you see going on in the debates in both houses of congress.

(poll data source: pollingreport.com)

Is this the beginning of the end for Barak Obama? His recent problems . . .

1. Seems to be against new primary elections for the people in Florida and Michigan.

2. Has not completely disassociated himself from Reverend Wright.

3. His wife Michele’s recent comment about being proud of America for the first time.

Oddly the press does not seem to think these issues will have much effect on Obama moving forward. I disagree. I think the Clinton campaign will jump on this soon; she’s already all over the Florida/Michigan issue. And once McCain returns to the states and shakes off the jet-lag, he’ll be all over it too. But worst of all, if Obama does win the DNC nomination he will be eaten alive in a national election by the GOP and the far right as they are sure to accuse him of being less than patriotic and American. It would be naive to think that they will not attack his character and patriotism about the above three things. Hell they were giving him heat over his middle name, for Christ’s sake! A neo-con 527 group is sure to put together a real spicy and negative ad against Obama using the above three things, and perhaps more. Normally — and if it were earlier in the primary elections — the above three things would end a candidate’s campaign. Too risky too controversial, people would think, and vote for someone else.

Personally, I don’t think these things are all that bad. What does trouble me is that Obama has not made it a number one priority to dismiss these blunders as just that, blunders. Okay, he gave a world-class speech yesterday, but unfortunately it did not go far enough to squelch his detractors now and probably into the future. Rev. Wright is going to haunt him for a long time. Especially since Obama has made his judgment the central theme of his campaign. All one has to do is say, “what does having had Rev. Wright as your pastor for over 2o years say about Obamas judgment”? I think Obama needs to show what it takes to win a national campaign and put issues like these way behind him and unequivocally assure American’s that he is the real deal and truly patriotic –and perhaps more so — than his opponents. Unfortunately this requires a type of non-academic, non-intellectual speech that Obama has yet to master. He better start wrapping himself up in the American flag. Or at least start wearing an American flag pin on his lapel.

I predict Obama’s campaign will lose momentum right away. The only question is how much and for how long.

SynFlux Top Five Alternate Names For St. Patrick’s Day:

#5: National Bring Your Booze To Work Day

#4: St. Bushmill’s Day

#3: It’s Easy Being Green Day

#2: Soon To Be A Friend Of Bill Wilson’s Day

. . . and finally . . .

#1: The Mother Of All Hangover’s Eve

This is a great article about the hypocrisy of conservatives and federal handouts. The neo-cons say: Working-class entitlements? No way! Brokerage bailouts? Yes please!

Feel asleep at 10:30pm after a shawarma and falafel, wide awake at 2:30am. Had a dream I went skiing with Denzel Washington, then helped Dukie from The Wire make pasta. Last night’s fall-asleep time: 5:30am. But I think the late-night wine and coffee were to blame. Lately my sleep hygiene is filthy. Not sure why though, doing most things right.  Could use more exercise, per normal. I’ve been thinking of taking up running.

Here’s an interesting article about London. Comparisons can be made between the dynamics there and here. Interesting stuff about banking and derivatives, if that’s your bag.

Took the MC out for the first substantial ride of the new season yesterday. The weather was right on for armor and leathers. I did the run up to Nyack. Nyack was full of other riders, like bike week or something. Blame the weather.  I took 9W up with the Harleys, Palisades Parkway back with the sportbikes. It’s interesting to see how the cruisers stick to the secondary roads, and the super-sports prefer the highway. P Parkway is a great ride, nice moderate radius turns and relatively smooth pavement. A lot of police though, so you really have to watch your speed. Having said that, I hit an indicated speed of 105mph at one point. Rode out to the end of Peirmont Landing for the views of the Hudson. It’s pretty rad out there. An interesting little community where you’d least expect it. I wanna get out today too, but the pavement is still a little wet. Maybe later . . .

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO: “Waiting for Kristen”

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO: “Waiting for Kristen”

I was walking from work down 6th Avenue headed to Staples to get printer ink and postage stamps. At the corner of 25th & 6th I saw a small crowd gathering in front of the new luxury apartment building there. News vans and crews, cameramen, photographers were all gathered around. People were curious what was up. A pedestrian asked one of the Univision cameramen what was going on. He said, “the hooker, she lives there, on the ninth floor”. Of course today that could only mean one thing: I was in front the building of Kristen’s, the home of Ashley Alexandra Dupre. She’s the alleged call girl that Eliot Spitzer allegedly hired to have sex with. You know, the whole Client 9 thing.

The press were gathered at the door to this building waiting for Dupre to enter or exit. The news stations were conducting their 5 o’clock stand-ups here, “live from the Kristen condo” style. Struck by the minor media circus, I decided to go get my own video camera to shoot a little footage. I have a paying video shoot coming up on April 9th that I need to practice for as I am really a video editor, not a shooter. Plus maybe I’d even catch that million dollar shot? So I went back to my studio, got may camera and shot for a bit. Nothing was really going on and I started to get cold and bored. So I stopped shooting after a few minutes. I then continued on to Staples and finally bought the ink and stamps.

When I got back to my studio, I cut together the little clip linked above. I like to think it makes a statement on the absurdity of the media’s obsession with this story. Or at least a statement on my absurd obsession with the media’s absurd obsession on the story. Enjoy!

Footnote 3/14/2008, 5:00pm: The press is still there. Photographers are now staking out the rear service entrance right across the courtyard from the building I work in. Hopefully they will not take over the public courtyard as it is a cool place to go and chill for a while.

Footnote 3/17/2008, 5:00pm:  The press is gone!

Here’s my BIG question about NAFTA: is Greenland getting its fair shake?

Holy crap this is funny:

Great production value too!

Why the hell did Obama say (essentially) he will not consider a v.p. spot if Clinton were to win? There’s still a fair chance that Clinton will win the nomination, as the two candidates are essentially tied. And when the Clintons say that he would make a good vice president, but isn’t ready to be president, yes they are being hypocritical. But if you say you won’t consider a v.p. spot, aren’t you giving that argument a bit of credence? Saying you won’t take the v.p. spot doesn’t convince anyone of your drive to become president.

Obama needs a bit of reality check; he is just barely the front-runner. There’s a very good chance that neither him nor Clinton will win enough delegates to lock up the DNC nomination by convention time. Florida and Michigan may decide this race, and those states have indicated a preference for Clinton already. And here’s another hypocricy: Obama campaigns on his ability to bring people together. He has not shown that skill in this episode.

Al Gore and John Edwards must be feeling a touch better about all this.

I tried to post this on the CNN AC 360 blog, but the moderator didn’t allow it:

Saying you won’t take the v.p. spot doesn’t convince anyone of your drive to become president. I feel Obama made a huge political mistake here. Don’t be surprised if Hillary uses this against him. If Obama wants the presidency so much, he should be willing to take a v.p. spot on any presidential ticket. Also, Obama is exhibiting his own hypocrisy here since he campaigns on being the person most able to unite people and America. Yet he can barely bring his own political party together. He is just barely the front runner as the race is essentially tied. Clinton may still win. If the delegates and super-delegates have to elect the party’s nominee, they may not be so thrilled by Obama’s indignation at the idea of serving the party and America as vice president.

Prescription drugs in the water? Duh. That’s why I only drink rain water or grain alcohol. POE.

Can will call him/her the Bicycle Bomber now? Bike Bomber? UnivegaBomber? Ross Bomber? Lance Bomber? Critical Massive Attack Bomber? Chinese Delivery Bomber? VeloBomber?

Bush vetoed a bill that would make illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding as an interrogation technique, refusing to to hold the CIA to the same standard as the military and law enforcement.

The education president has become the torture president.

Apparently McCain knew Bush was going to do this when him appeared with him earlier in the week. McCain has been against torture since the days he was subjected to it as a POW in the Vietnam war. Yet McCain urged Bush to veto the bill, saying it would hamper the CIA’s ability to gather intelligence if the bill were signed into law. McCain’s contradiction as being against torture but for CIA waterboarding will surely have a negative effect on his presidential campaign. His critics will be wise to point to this hypocrisy.

“The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six and a half years is not a matter of chance,” said Bush in his Saturday radio address, ignoring the bombing in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday.

Interesting article on Barak Obama in The New York Times, click here.

How about camo? Crackers love the camo! They hate war and the military, but they loves the camo!! They never serve in the armed forces, but they love love love camo!!! (Blame The Clash.)

But ONLY the 1960’s vintage jungle kind. Not the 1990’s Gulf War desert type or the current Iraq War digital type.

And the 1960’s camo type has to be in shades of green &/or brown. Blue, black, red, orange, and any other color jungle camo is the exclusive province of non-whites.

Okay, the post below (Fuck Off Florida, pt.2) is not meant to let the DNC off the hook.

Why did they insist on punishing Florida and Michigan on what seem to be harmless offenses? Why did the DNC not want these two states to hold their primaries early? What problem did that cause? I know rules are rules, by why was this rule made? What was it trying to prevent? And why did the DNC decide to strip Florida of its delegates once the republican controlled senate and republican governor decided to move the primary up? How would this serve the democratic voters in Florida and the DNC? I think the DNC really fucked up this time. They should pay to hold the primaries again, with new soft money.

One things is for sure: no one can blame the voters in Florida and Michigan, they did the right thing.

Alright, new rule: no more elections in Florida. Florida has proven time and time again (okay, twice) that is has no clue how to run an election. We need to revoke Florida’s right to have elections. They are embarrassing the US and the world. From now on, all votes needed in Florida will be cast by the citizens of Alaska, in a proxy vote.