They Said It. I Repeat It.

The word evol?

"The Word 'Evol' In 'Revolution' Revolved Is Spelled 'Love'"

Dr. Dean Ahmad
Libertarian Party Nomination Speech
on behalf of Mary Ruwart for President

Umm, there is no such word as "evol," Doctor. This in a nutshell (emphasis on the "nut") epitomizes the Libertarian Party. Intriguing rhetoric speeding down the political highway only swerve and take the first exit to Crazy Town.

Now despite the above evidence of his zaniness, Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad is one of the Libertarian Party's most interesting figures. As a Harvard-educated Palestinian-American college professor, Ahmad doesn't fit the Libertarian stereotype. Did I mention that he's Muslim? That raises a simple question. If Dr. Ahmad hadn't spent the past 30+ establishing his Libertarian bona fides, would he be readily accepted as a Libertarian in this post-911 landscape?

Anyhoo, Dean Ahmad is also noteworthy as the founder the Islamic libertarian think-tank the Minaret of Freedom Institute. (Who knew there was such a thing as an Islamic libertarian think-tank?) Perhaps MFI's most interesting position is that on riba or usury. In a 2003 interview with Reason Magazine, Ahmad blames Islam's prohibition on usury for the Muslim world's relative technological backwardness. Here's why:

...When you have an entrepreneurial idea that is so radical that you can't convince anyone that there is a profit to be shared in it. I believe this may be why Islam never had an industrial revolution. If you look at Islamic history, they had strong business, they had international trade, they had factories, science, innovation. Yet somehow they never made that final leap to an industrial revolution. And when I look at the fact that the steam engine was called Fulton's Folly, I can't help but wonder, to what degree did the availability of interest play a role in the commercialization of the steam engine? And is it possible that the Islamic prohibition on interest meant that that just wasn't gonna happen in the Muslim world?

Seeing that as for centuries, the Arab world dominated all comers in the fields of science, mathematics, etc., this angle demands a closer look from Islam's leaders. All the more so since Ahmad confesses that he's made little progress pushing his position forward. Additional deets on his riba argument here.

-AF

Christine Smith For President

Libertarian Presidential candidate Christine Smith tries to make her mark challenging her party in a most condescending and strident manner.





Fun Facts To Know & Tell about Christine Smith:

1. Christine packs heat. She has a 95% kill rate with "seemi"-automatic pistol.
2. She's the author of A Mountain In The Wind - An Exploration of the Spirituality of John Denver
3. Christine Smith is an aspiring model & actress.
   

You can't make this shit up folks.

-AF

Libertarians Gone Wild!

I'm watching the Libertarian Party Convention on C-SPAN live from Denver. I highly recommend you watch some of it. It's surprisingly compelling TV but not for the reasons the Libertarians want. Chock full o' comedy gold too. More soon come…

Uncle Anacher's Punk Rock Tales: Johnny Rotten, Part 1

Public Image Ltd.'s signature song "Public Image."

The first time I interviewed Johnny Rotten was an experience to remember. It was **shudder** just over twenty-two years ago. Solely by virtue of his reputation, Johnny cuts an imposing figure. And I was in NYC for the first time as an adult. I was nervous as hell. For my own personal consumption, I had brought a modest quantity of high-powered herb. It was going to have to be enough. For unlike most people, pot calmed me down and helped me focus.

When we first met at his record co.'s HQ, Johnny was positively resplendent in what was without a doubt the loudest, custom-tailored no less, red plaid suit I have ever seen. I mean it was screaming. As far as this suit was concerned, Dicky Barrett and the rest of The Bosstones had nothing on Johnny. (An aside: I almost came to blows once with Dicky's older brother, Billy, over the music selection at one of our many high school graduation parties. That's a story for another time perhaps.)

Anyway, at about 11:00 AM, Johnny was drinking Beck's. We gave each other the once-over, glanced around the big stupid corporate conference room. I complimented him on his togs. I put down my tiny professional cassette recorder. We both chuckled at the absurdity of this scene.

There was, at least for me, a bit of weirdness in that Johnny was in the middle of his "I'm-not-Johnny-Rotten-
I'm-John-Lydon" phase. Still, the interview went surprisingly well. I was well-versed on all the outstanding musicians with whom he had collaborated. Johnny warmed to me. By the time we wrapped up, I had the distinct feeling that this was one his better chats of this particular press junket.

To put a capper this day, Johnny's wife Nora burst in. Looking for all the world like a twisted version of the St. Pauli Girl (right down to the long braids), she was a sight to behold. It wasn't until I returned from NYC that I realized Nora is Ari Up's mom. Oh yeah, she's also the heiress to the Beck's Beer fortune hence Johnny's brew of choice.

I took Amtrak home later that afternoon. I had barely enough of my stash left to enjoy a quick bowl on the New Haven platform whilst the electric locomotive was swapped for diesel. I arrived home both exhausted and exhilarated. I wish I still had that interview tape. It's long, long gone.

Recounting this story seals it. My next audio adventure is to digitize my Metal Box vinyl. They can master it for CD nine ways to Sunday and it will never sound as good as it does on wax. The occasional bit o' scratchiness just lends it more character.

-AF

I Demand An Apology From GOP "Ladies"

Every last one of them...For their very existence. Given the GOP's hideous record against families, children, education, women, our environment and everything else just, right, good and fun, I can't think of anybody more self-loathing than Republican chicks. OK, maybe I can. Log Cabin Republicans. But, as Peter Griffin would say, I digest...

Minnesotan GOP "ladies" want Al Franken to apologize for a Playboy CEO Christine Hefner-hosted fund raiser plus his "Porn-O-Rama"satire he wrote for that mag back in 2000. They're hoping against hope that these two tiny "issues" of minimal importance resonate with Minnesotans.

These "ladies" probably think Franken's hi-larious as Stewart Smalley. (I disagree). But don't let him make funny about sex. After all, sex is wicked icky. It's shameful. It's only for makin' other lil' Republicans. Sex is what their husbands do with other men.

As Raw Story reports:

The Republican Party of Minnesota web site, notes that "Rep. Laura Brod, Dr. Laura Dean, Sen. Michelle Fischbach, Mary Igo, Annette Meeks and Laura Merickel called Franken’s column an 'extreme example of the kind of disrespect for the role of women in society that all of us have fought our entire lives' and called on Franken to 'denounce this article and apologize immediately.'"

This "issue" ranks up there with idiot Arlen Specter's ill-advised attempt at investigating my beloved over-investigated New England Patriots. Meanwhile two wars rage on, health care blows, a record number of homes are being foreclosed, people are out of work, gas prices are sky-high, food has become ridiculously expensive, the economy's tanked and Republicans have looted our treasury.

Al Franken has absolutely nothing to apologize for. But every single Republican owes America an apology for the past eight disastrous years.

-AF

Life From A Window

I took a break from blogging due to poor physical and mental health. I'm more or less back. Thanks for your patience.

Great news! After a year unemployed and/or seriously underemployed, Mrs. Forester actually found a job in her chosen field! I feel blessed to be married to such a remarkable woman.

-AF

Thorn In My Side

When I misappropriated the phrase "intellectual quicksand," I could not help but think of these "post-hardcore" buds o' mine.

"It's Still Early Yet" And Other Election Ruminations

No, Hillary. It's too late for you. But early days yet for this election season. Today's Bob Herbert Op-Ed, "Party Like It's 2008", rips our clueless political establishment and punditocracy. Their antiquated pre-2000 notions have found them unable to "tell the difference between Facebook and, say, AOL." Blinded by nostalgia these dinosaurs of democracy are "too busy salivating over the Clintons’ vintage 1990s roster of fat-cat donors to hear the major earthquake rumbling underground."

These folks' state of oblivion is far-reaching and oh-so-painful to behold:

Hillary Clinton’s attempt to impersonate a Nascar-lovin’, gun-totin’, economist-bashin’ populist went bust: Asked which candidate most “shares your values,” voters in both North Carolina and Indiana exit polls opted instead for the elite and condescending arugula-eater. Bill Clinton’s small-town barnstorming tour, hailed as a revival of old-time Bubba bonhomie, proved to be yet another sabotage of his wife, whipping up false expectations for her disastrous showing in North Carolina. Barack Obama’s final, undercaffeinated debate performance, not to mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s attempted character assassination, failed to slow his inexorable path to the Democratic nomination.

This occurred despite the talking heads' and the (non-Obama) political strategists' best concerted efforts to ensure the exact opposite effect. What a bunch of witless bastards:

Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year’s campaign into the square holes of past political wars. That’s why race keeps being portrayed as dooming Mr. Obama — surely Jeremiah Wright = Willie Horton! — no matter what the voters say to the contrary. It’s why the Beltway took on faith the Clinton machine’s strategic, organization and fund-raising invincibility. It’s why some prognosticators still imagine that John McCain can spin the Iraq fiasco to his political advantage as Richard Nixon miraculously did Vietnam.

The year 2008 is far more complex — and exhilarating — than the old templates would have us believe. Of course we’re in pain. More voters think the country is on the wrong track (81 percent) than at any time in the history of New York Times/CBS News polling on that question. George W. Bush is the most unpopular president that any living American has known.

Our country's political topography is changing at a rate so fast it's leaving the dinosaurs in the dust:

The demographic reshaping of the electoral map, though more widely noted, still isn’t fully understood. From Rust Belt Ohio through Tuesday’s primaries, cable bloviators have been fixated on the older, white, working-class vote. Their unspoken (and truly condescending) assumption, lately embraced by Mrs. Clinton, is that these voters are Reagan Democrats, cryogenically frozen since 1980, who come in two flavors: rubes who will be duped by a politician backing a gas-tax pander or racists who are out of Mr. Obama’s reach.

No great shock. When you put a gaggle of simpletons in a studio, the only possible result is a simplistic (and completely wrong) assumption. Adding the sum total of their misperceptions and preconceived notions to the mix creates an intellectual quicksand of sorts. To wit, the harder these know-it-alls struggle to understand this new political paradigm, the further away from the truth they drift:

But this isn’t 2004, and the fixation on that one demographic in the Clinton-Obama contest has obscured the big picture. The rise in black voters and young voters of all races in Democratic primaries is re-weighting the electorate. Look, for instance, at Ohio, the crucial swing state that Mr. Kerry lost by 119,000 votes four years ago. This year black voters accounted for 18 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters, up from 14 percent in 2004, an increase of some 230,000 voters out of an overall turnout leap of roughly a million. Voters under 30 (up by some 245,000 voters) accounted for 16 percent, up from 9 in 2004. Those younger Ohio voters even showed up in larger numbers than the perennially reliable over-65 crowd.

It's fascinating to watch these political "experts" ignore the demographic actually driving the upcoming election. Instead they choose to concentrate on older white folks like them. Through this classic Freudian projection, these "experts" have deluded themselves into believing they, and only people they perceive to be like them (read: blue collar), will be the arbiters deciding our next President. What's worse is that, intentionally or otherwise, they're working overtime to fool the rest of us into believing it too. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Herbert has plenty o' gold today. Read the whole thing here.

-AF

It's Only A Flesh Wound

After her drubbing in North Carolina and her close call in Illinois, can Hillary Clinton move the goal posts yet again?

-AF

Leave Them All Behind

Like New Order's "Temptation" (the scoop here), I've obsessed over "LTAB" for 15+ years. This epic version is from a 1992 Brixton Ride show. I wanna say that I saw 'em around the same time. While I can remember almost every one of the countless acts I've seen, my early NYC years do have quite a few blurry patches.

I popped up to Boston to give my mom a hand. She's kept me busy. Later today I'll be putting a face to everything that is wrong about how the "Support Our Troops"-car-magnet-
sporting-lapel-flag-pin-wearing-Bush Administration treats our military.

-AF