Laura Blumenfeld's Vagina, or, Why I Love Bill Frist

Laura Blameful is the proprietor of the WaPo’s Off Camera column, featuring "Washington's top decision makers in their off hours -- outside the office and inside their lives."

This week, she takes on Senate Majority Leader Frist’s secret life as a gorilla surgeon. All obvious jokes aside, the article reads like a bodice-ripping tome reserved for the loneliest of overweight housewives with 72 multi-colored Support the Troops magnets on their 2003 Hummers. Some of my favorite tasty bits:

In medical school, Frist cut out a dog's heart and held it in his palm. It continued to beat for a slippery minute.

Is a slippery minute longer or shorter than a New York one?

"I gravitate towards insurmountable problems," Frist said, his long legs spilling between the front seats. "I try to use creative solutions." One day, he hopes to cure AIDS or cancer. He sucked on the stem of his glasses: "The typical person around here may not understand."

Spilling between the front seats?! I’ll say… I like that his dream of curing cancer was followed by a sentence that included the word “stem” in it, as in stem cells, as in let’s trash them instead of using them for good because presentient cells mean SO much to him. Also, he wont be able to find a cure for AIDS until he accepts the fact that a person CANNOT contract the virus from tears.

Frist joined the team, as he had on other mornings, tying on a mask. He unbuttoned his business shirt, revealing jungle-pattern surgical scrubs and a pair of hairy, toned biceps.

That’s hot….seriously. Hott. Two Ts.

He pressed his stethoscope to the gorilla's chest and narrowed his eyes. Kuja, a silverback patriarch, was breathing isofluorine. He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females. When Kuja started to stir, a veterinarian injected more anesthesia. One backhanded swipe could break Frist's neck.

No comment.

The stink of ape sweat and gorilla testosterone soaked his hair and clothes. "Gorillas, people, men. You look at the people here, a symphonic flow of people pitching in. It's the oneness of humanity."

The whole bleeding-heart-poet thing just doesn't suit The Fristian.

At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table. Across the city, rolling in a bed of hay, Kuja opened his eyes and grunted. The gorilla kept touching his tongue to his tooth. Something had changed inside of the beast while he slept. Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.

Methinks Laura Blumenfeld’s HooHa is the true source of the stench.

WonkyTonk blues

Michael Tomasky’s feature story in this month’s American Prospect started off like most articles trying to analyze and deconstruct the Democratic party until there’s nothing left but a few defeatist sighs. Despite the Democrats-have-no-ideas meme that’s been bandied about on every cable news show, they have begun to emerge as a disciplined opposition party in the face of corruption, blind adulation and broken promises. Tomasky discusses the brand of liberalism practiced by Democrats immediately after the New Deal:

“…liberalism was built around the idea--the philosophical principle--that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest.”

Civic republicanism is how Tomasky defines this participatory creation of the common good, and he approaches it from a center-left point of view of political labels and ideology. The new (old?) narrative should link politics and morality, moving beyond the endless lists of narrow coalitions and liberal interest groups. John McGurk in his book, Civic Republicanism, gives a clear interpretation of the "central strands in civic republicanism: they are, predictably, freedom, the civic virtues, participation, the common good, and public versus private interests." One of the central principles of the republican tradition in political theory is the belief in a notion of the “common good,” but what is that, exactly? Perhaps there was a time when the pursuit of the common good was a viable option in politics of the past, but right now, the US is a more unequal society than it has been in generations. To speak of a common good in such an unequal period of history is disingenuous and somewhat deceptive because like it or not, we are a class society with conflicting interests. Civic republicanism is a good start to forming a new idealogical face of the Democratic Party, but the idea of class politics has to be kept alive. There needs to be a constant state of creative tension between Democrats and Republicans in order to avoid the mutual destruction that we see on blogs, newspapers and the network news. Tomasky’s final thought:

“The Democrats must grasp this, kick some old habits, and realize that we are on the verge of a turning point. The Democratic left wants it to be 1968 in perpetuity; the Democratic center wishes for 1992 to repeat itself over and over again. History, however, doesn’t oblige such wishes -- it rewards those who recognize new moments as they arise. It might just be that the Bush years, these years of civic destruction and counterfeit morality, have provided the Democrats the opening to argue on behalf of civic reconstruction and genuine public morality. If they do it the right way, they can build a politics that will do a lot more than squeak by in this fall’s (or any) elections based on the usual unsatisfying admixture of compromises. It can smash today’s paradigm to pieces. The country needs nothing less. The task before today’s Democratic Party isn’t just to eke out electoral victories; it’s to govern, and to change our course in profound ways. I’d like to think they can do it. But the Democrats must become republicans first.

Small R republicans, mind you. Any thoughts? On a completely unrelated note, a Yale University historian found a letter from 1918 that maybe, just maybe, the urban legend of Geronimo’s skull being stolen by the super-secret Skull and Bones society might just be true. Whatever…if you want good Skull and Bones stories, you can hit up Alex Jones at Infowars.com. The thing I found most curious about the article is that there was no mention of George Bush senior, or George W. Bush as a couple of their more famous members. The only ones mentioned: Sen. John Kerry, President William Howard Taft, numerous members of Congress, media leaders, Wall Street financiers, the scions of wealthy families and agents in the CIA. Hm.

And finally, for no reason whatsoever, here's today's Bush-picture of the day:

Jenna and Barbara were WAY ahead of Old Navy with their puffy, oversized American flag tees.

Gayest. Bomb. Ever.

I’ve not posted in a week or so, but I feel I owe my silent readers a little somethin’ somethin’ to keep them on their toes this weekend. As most who have wandered onto my site via Edinburg/RGV-centric blogs, I rarely (if ever) post about anything on a local level simply because I’m not as well-versed in the minutiae as some of the existing bloggers. I choose to voice my opinions in the comment logs, a place where cowards have the opportunity to bad mouth opponents and naysayers to their hearts content without ever having to reveal their identities. If their anonymous intentions are ever questioned, they usually come up with some paranoid excuse for their actions. (Shaine, one of The Valley’s more ambitious bloggers, is one of the exceptions, of course) That being said, I’ll move on to today’s topic: NUCLEAR BUNKER BUSTERS!!! Seriously…the U.S. Department of Energy along with the National Nuclear Security Administration is testing out a 700-ton nuclear bunker buster. The name of the operation is Divine Strake. Aside from being the gayest name for a nuclear test EVER, why are we doing it? We're doing it because we're NOT going to war with Iran, right?

Divine Strake will be the biggest open-air chemical blast ever detonated in the United States. Our largest cargo plane is able to transport 35-tons of materials, equipment, etc. Think about it. According to Indian Country Today, the leading source for news affecting American Indians, the test will be a direct violation of the recent UN decision urging the US to freeze, desist and stop actions and threats against aboriginal Western Shoshone land. There hasn’t been a mushroom cloud over Nevada since we stopped testing nuclear weapons. The military has denied that it’s a nuclear test, though it will end up being WAY more powerful than any of the weapons in the US nuclear stockpile.

The Divine Strake blast will be five times larger than the military's largest conventional weapon, the Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Pete Litster, executive director of Shundahai Network, said ongoing weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site violate international law. ''They violate the standing treaty between the U.S. government and the Western Shoshone people. They also violate the spirit of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The test site is located on Western Shoshone territory, and must not continue to be misused in bold violation of standing agreements between the U.S. government and the Western Shoshone Nation.'' Although approval for the test was sought and obtained from the state of Nevada in January, the test detonation could be cancelled. The Western Shoshone National Council, the Western Shoshone Defense Project and Shundahai Network urged a united effort to halt the detonation.

What's the point, you ask? We already know that we can blow shit up beyond any kinds of repair...we're just flexing our muscle, right? Wrong. The point is that this test hasn't been covered by any of the major media outlets. Randi Rhodes, the Goddess of Radio, managed to get it out on Lou Dobb's show a few weeks ago, but so far, that's about it. If every single news outlet, camera crew & reporter isn't out in the desert on June 2nd, capturing the mushroom cloud for the world to see, we're all doomed. The test will serve to verify that we have the right sized nukes to go after the 40+ nuclear power sites in Iran. ...but we're not going to bomb Iran.

Oh, and the director of the CIA, Porter Goss, just resigned. Word is, he's too close to scandal-ridden Randy "Duke" Cunningham. It's beginning to smell a lot like hookers.