It's Your Third Year of Democracy - Happy Birthday!

Greetings, friends,
Sunday I brought in the morning by watching a DVD of "Desperately Seeking Susan", and I'm prepared to argue it might be the greatest movie of the 1980s, even better than "Berlin Alexanderplatz" or "Blade Runner". You laugh, but when your teenage kids ask you in 2016, "What were the Eighties like?" how else would you show them? C'mon, folks, Madonna and Carly Simon together. The scene in Danceteria alone sums up the Eighties in two minutes. It's a dopey movie (anything with the amnesia plot must be dopey by definition) but the choreography of the editing, the style, and seeing some of my underground heroes (like Arto Lindsey) in the background is tremendous fun.

But what do I know, I'm sitting here listening to Gordon Lightfoot and Richard Pryor CDs. Besides, there are some things about the 2000s I will admit are even funnier than the 1980s (thanks, Geri):
Police Raid 'Marijuana Candy' Factory in California
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1738612
Newsbrief: Marijuana Candy Bars Appear in Bay Area
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/343/candybars.shtml

DEA raids East Bay medical pot distributor

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/14123336.htm
Raids net pounds of pot-laced candy
Feds arrest 12, seize marijuana plants, cash and weapons from massive East Bay operation
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_3612155

California fuckin' ROCKS.
"You know you're high when your throat gets dry
And everything is fine and dandy
You're goin' down to the candy store
Blow your cork on peppermint candy
And then you know your dad might have said
Don't give a damn if you don't pay the rent
The sky is high and so am I
And you know I love you
If you're a viper"

Since I gave up drinking and smoking and such for Lent, and y'all apparently lost my number, I've been spending a lot of time in my apartment, listening, reading and writing. This is why I've always been religious about hoarding good music, movies and books, in case of an outside intellectual famine. While I was in New Orleans I plunged into a Francophile's nightmare that I'd like to share. First I started reading A Night of Serious Drinking (La Grande Beuverie) by René Daumal...a surrealist hallucination from the early 1930s...slow going at first, but once he gets going with a vision of the 20th century better than Dante, I was laughing out loud. Then I plunged into Between Fantoine and Agapa by Robert Pinget, a "nouvelle roman" set in the Touraine from the 1950s. I'm a huge fan of both surrealist fiction and the New Novel, tough writing that I can only recommend in good conscience to a pair of big-brained sisters in the South of France and a few others, but if any of the rest of you want a taste, these sound like good translations to my ear; like the best European humor, they come across with a smirk and a pat on the back across a wooden table covered in glasses and plates of good cheese.

I've also been gnawing away at The Fall of Paris by Alastair Horne, which some of you might remember I've been at for almost a year. It's a book thick with tragedy and lessons for our time, which provides a nice segue into the rancid meat hanging from the bones of this SCREED. Because like the fall of Paris in 1870, the fall of Iraq is also coming with the spring, when the hunger of winter becomes the burning of summer, and baby, the Commune ain't far behind:
Attack on Shia Shrine in Iraq Sparks Angry Protests
By Gareth Smyth
The Financial Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206J.shtml
Sunni Party Quits Iraq Government Talks after Mosque Bombing
CNN News
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022306A.shtml
Sectarian Fighting Changes Face of Conflict for Iraqis
By Ellen Knickmeyer
The Washington Post
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031306O.shtml
Sunni-Shia Schism 'Threatening to Tear Iraq Apart,' Says Conflict Group
By Michael Howard
The Guardian UK
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706K.shtml
Studies of the Iraq Disaster: When Democracy Looks Like Civil War
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent studies offer a damning assesment of the Bush administration's
policies in Iraq. Thanks to US political and military failures, the
country could soon become failed state. Experts warn that it's time
to implement an emergency plan before civil war breaks out.
By Yassin Musharbash
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,405306,00.html

You know things are getting ugly when even prosperous parts of the country are starting to fall into disorder:
Kurds Destroy Shrine in Rage at Leadership
By Robert F. Worth
The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706I.shtml

Yeah, we've done the nation of Iraq, cobbled together by the British and held together by a series of dictators, a big favor by giving them democracy. They've learned well from our example:
Death Squads on the Prowl in a Nation Paralyzed by Fear
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent UK
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032006N.shtml

I'm not being a pessimist, but it's hard to imagine a country of such disparate origins being held together.
Civil War Is Here
By Robert Dreyfuss
TomPaine.com
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031606F.shtml

And a lot of good George Bush did us here:
Murtha: 'Iran and al Qaeda Benefit From US in Iraq'
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030606K.shtml

We didn't do much for "peace in the Middle East":
Hamas Calls For 'Giant Summit' With All Israelis

People have been saying that the Bush Administration is finally beginning to learn its lesson:
Abu Ghraib, Symbol of America's Shame, to Close Within Three Months
By Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian UK
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031006J.shtml

But the reaction of even so-called liberal Democrats to the Arabs in the Dubai port deal makes me doubt that; I dread even bigger mistakes ahead:
Iraq: Permanent US Colony
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t Perspective
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031306A.shtml

Beating them into shape is a time-tested tradition:
Months of Blows and Panic
By Olivier Bertrand
Libération
Mourad Benchellali, who left France in 2001 for a Taliban camp, recounts the horror of his detention by the Americans in Kandahar, then at Guantánamo.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206B.shtml

The enclosed photo is even more crass than my friend Tanya the nurse flashing me, but I meant to send it along in celebration of 8 March, International Women's Day; courtesy of Paul T., it proves that Paris Hilton may be rich, but she doesn't have any class.

And finally, just to return to the Eighties theme, the lyrics of "Get Into the Groove":
And you can dance
For inspiration
Come on
I’m waiting

Get into the groove
Boy you’ve got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be

Music can be such a revelation
Dancing around you feel the sweet sensation
We might be lovers if the rhythm’s right
I hope this feeling never ends tonight

Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free
At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see
I’m tired of dancing here all by myself
Tonight I wanna dance with someone else

Get into the groove
Boy you’ve got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be

Gonna get to know you in a special way
This doesn’t happen to me every day
Don’t try to hide it love wears no disguise
I see the fire burning in your eyes

Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free
At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see
I’m tired of dancing here all by myself
Tonight I wanna dance with someone else

Get into the groove
Boy you’ve got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be

Live out your fantasy here with me
Just let the music set you free
Touch my body, and move in time
Now I know you’re mine

You’ve got to
Get into the groove
Boy you’ve got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be

Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free
At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see
I’m tired of dancing here all by myself
Tonight I wanna dance with someone else

Live out your fantasy here with me
Just let the music set you free
Touch my body, and move in time
Now I know you’re mine
Now I know you’re mine, now I know you’re mine
Now I know you’re mine, now I know you’re mine

You’ve got to
Get into the groove
Boy you've got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be

Get into the groove
Boy you've got to prove
Your love to me, yeah
Get up on your feet, yeah
Step to the beat
Boy what will it be?

It'll be the screed!