depressing and exciting

i mean i may seriously have to do a self-imposed news blackout, it's getting that bad.

and it's not just that the brits foil a terror plot and this pathetic president of ours crows like it's some victory for him, and starts stoking the fears again, and trolling through the cable news shows yesterday evening it's all suddenly validation for domestic wiretapping and data-mining and sneak and peak and all the other dubious tactics that this administration wants to use for our purported protection.

and why exactly is this a war rather than the routine business of intelligence and law enforcement?

again, here are todays selected headlines from mediamatters.org:

• Network morning shows provided forum for Lieberman's attacks, no forum for Lamont
  
• Cal Thomas: Lamont's victory "completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing" [even though 60+% of americans agree with lamont's position?]
  
• Kristol: Democrats oppose Lieberman because he is "pro-American"; Coulter claimed Lamont supporters are "anti-American" [even though 60+% of americans agree with lamont's position?]
  
• Fox's Gibson on Daily Kos and Michael Moore: "Pol Pots," "Khmer Rouge wing of the Democratic Party" [even though -- how many times must we say it? -- 60+% of AMERICANS AGREE WITH LAMONT'S POSITION]
• MSNBC's Carlson called Gore a "religious zealot," after previously labeling him a "wild-eyed religious nut" [as opposed to those urging the coming of the rapture in the middle east]
  
• Beck has a warning for Muslims "who have sat on [their] frickin' hands" and have not "lin[ed] up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head" [as if this even remotely resembles civilized public discourse?]
  
• Despite GOP attacks, Hotline's Todd claimed that Republicans invoked national security "in a positive" way in '02 and '04 [positive like comparing a senator who lost three limbs in vietnam for this country to saddam hussein?]
  
• On CNN and Fox, Robertson claimed he was "misquoted" about God punishing Sharon for "dividing God's land" [misquoted as in those were his actual words?]

the continuous drone of lies is simply getting unbearable.

------------

thank god there are books! too many of them, as anyone who's seen my apartment knows. and i don't care whether or not i read them all, just knowing they are there gives me incredible joy and relief and hope.

synchronicity: i write here about the first appearance of lucid dreaming in alice notley's poetry, only a day after discussing lucid dreaming with dan hoy as a part of the editorial stance of soft targets, and onyly one day before i find this book at second story dupont: stephen laberge's lucid dreaming (an early dell pocket paperback version without to CD).

also james robinson's edition of the nag hammadi manuscripts, al nielsen and lauri ramey's recent anthology of experimental african-american poetry, and philip selznick's the communitarian persuasion whic, i think, pretty much identifies my politics right now. have a look.

i also realized i've got a manuscript of mark's to read too that's long overdue: first priority for today before i get on with the notley...