Obama Gets Your Gun

Oh my. It’s supposed to be funny, right, and not stoke the fears of the racists, right?

@JNOV: I would say yes – and overall I think it succeeds. Makes all of those nutbags seem ridiculous. You have to love “whatever scares you the most”.

@homofascist: @JNOV: Of course that being said, MM will no doubt post it to her site as proof that Obama is going to do those things. The wingnuts don’t get humor – it is just not something they do.

@JNOV: Most definitely. I haven’t read “Get Your War On” in years (wasn’t even aware the guy had moved on to animation), but the cartoon originated as a low-tech response to all the government bullshittery that bloomed after 9/11.

I thought it was hilarious, but my anxiety level is waaaay high, so I’m all freaked out about how our enemies will use humor against the good and just cause.

And I’m looking forward to flying the new US flag outside my apt.

@mellbell: Damn, I lurrrv Get Your War On. I dint know he was doing animations either. Hope™ he keeps it up!

TJ/ Any of you know how to meditate? My anxiety levels are at an all-time high, and my therapist thinks I should pick up a meditation CD. So, I’m going to Borders and checking out their meditation for beginners type stuff. Do you think guided meditation is helpful? Eventually I hope to be able to move onto self-guided meditation, but right now I need all the support I can get.

I went to 236.com to see the entire series. Taken in that context this video wasn’t too frightening. Taken on its own merits the video may very well stir up exactly the kind of racist/anti-government paranoia that seems to be near the boiling point in the country right now.

The anger of the gays in California about Prop 8 is minimal compared to the anger of the significant percentage of whites who feel like all of the rights they assume were just taken away from them, and even worse primarily by the blacks. The right to run the nation. The right to being the first choice for every job opening. The right to expect everybody to believe in the same god and the same dogma they believe.

I was looking at a New York Times video of the reaction to the election in Selma, Alabama on YouTube. These people had been beaten with clubs by the police in 1965 simply for wanting to cast a vote. The comments on YouTube were horribly depressing. The panic at the basic idea of changes in the country was mind-boggling. I hadn’t appreciated how much blind hate was surfacing since Tuesday. The incendiary language used causes me to think there could very easily be violence.

@JNOV: I think you’re supposed to try to think of nothing. And you chant some kind of mantra, like “O Manny Spank Me Home”. I tried it a few times but for me masturbation works better. Or a nice nap. Still, worth a try.

@JNOV: I’ve tried a number of these, and at the risk of being mocked, I recommend Andrew Weil and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Meditation for Optimum Health: How to Use Mindfulness and Breathing to Heal. If you don’t want tot leave the house, you can order from Amazon here. I like it because you can use the breathing techniques anytime when you feel an anxiety attack coming on.

@Pedonator: I’m so out of sorts, even the old standby Magic Wand, AKA Old Faithful, has no pull.

@Mistress Cynica: I will look them up. I’m unable to quiet my mind by willing it, but I might take direction well. And who doesn’t love a soothing voice and calming music?

And when I feel especially bad, my mantra is “You have earned that new puppy that is coming with us to the White House.” That brings me joy.

@Pedonator: He did a reading at my school shortly before the Iraq War began. Sitting in the same auditorium where I’d had class that afternoon and hearing him deadpan lines like “War on Terror in the motherfucking house!” was a real treat.

@JNOV: I haven’t done serious meditation myself, but I know something about it, and support it highly. I can get you started with my favorite basic meditation:

Sit down on a comfy chair, or the bed, or pillows. Quiet, calm music or not, at your discretion (I like putting on some Ravi Shankar). No distractions is vitally important at first, so hand the boy $15 for a movie and turn off the phone.

Sit comfortably, however you like, and close your eyes. Breathe through your nose (or your mouth, if your nose is stuffed up), as slowly and calmly as you can. Concentrate on your breathing. In, out. Focus your concentration down until your entire world is composed of the air rushing in, and rushing out. Feel it in your nose/mouth, your throat, your lungs. Listen to the sound it makes. Feel the muscles in your chest contracting and expanding. Feel how perfectly your body performs this basic function of life.

Ideally, you’re not thinking of anything else — that’s the purpose of focusing on your breathing: let it become your whole existence, to the exclusion of all else.

If you’re doing it right (and you probably won’t the first few times, but don’t worry about that), you can lose track of time doing this. I’ve been suprised to look at the clock and see how much time has passed (both more and less than I would have thought). It takes practice, so don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t seem to work at first. You can’t be good at something you’ve never done before, and every Zen monk in the world started with the same handicap. I find it’s helpful to remember things like that.

@JNOV: One thing the Zen guys say is “let the monkey dance,” meaning let your thoughts go where they may but don’t pay any attention to them. I sat zazen for a number of years at the Zen Center of LA and my “practice” was following my breath, as IanJ suggests. It’s hard to disengage from the racing thoughts but you can do it.

From the Bailout?! animation:

“It’s called the Isle of Davos. It’s where all the rich people go. They put on tribal makeup and they butt-fuck copies of Atlas Shrugged and slurp oysters out of Thomas Friedman’s belly button.”

I’m gonna have nightmares for weeks now.

Also: can you believe Thomas Friedman doesn’t have a page on Dickipedia? The internet must be broken.

@Dave H: even though Hope (TM) prevailed, we still are a hair’s breadth away from such a scenario, with the gheyz and the Bitters both equally pissed off. The white gay rage has gotten racist in some quarters, and only the FSM knows what the Bitters will foment. Prezdint Obama had better ready himself to essentially tell the nation to calm the fuck down.

Get your Uzis, AKs and semi-auto pistols with the barrels threaded for silencers while you can, y’all.

“Assault Weapons Ban Coming Back” – thefirearmsblog.com

I knew I should have posted that after coming back from the range this morning. Shot some 1-inch groups at 100 yards both with and without the bench rest.

@Dodgerblue: The monkey danced me into a restful sleep for the first time in a looong time. I don’t know if I’m coming down from the stress of the past two years or what, but I do want to learn how to calm my mind.

Thanks to you and everyone else who have always tried to help me with my moods (there’s a great book about bipolar disorder — An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
by Kay Redfield Jamison, BTW). I’ll never be able to live drug free, but maybe I’ll reduce my need for anxiety meds through meditation.

@JNOV, Blue Zen Monkey: Watching a dry fly float down the stream to entice a trout will empty your mind like nothing else. The fish will strike the second you do not live in the moment, and you won’t know you are on the road to Fail until after it happens. Trying to catch a fish by bouncing a nymph along the bottom and detecting the unfelt strike is even more esoteric. The shooting sports also clear the mind.

@redmanlaw: I love fishing. I’ve never been fly fishing, but I would love to go.

I can never own a firearm because of the bipolar disorder. I would never shoot anyone else, but I would likely shoot myself.

@JNOV: Some people should not have guns, true, but everyone should have a fishing pole.

@redmanlaw: :-D

I watched Exodus on TCM this evening and I was struck by the similarity between the Palestinian Muslims in 1948 and the American Christians today. Both groups felt/feel that outsiders were squeezing them out. In some regards both were/are exactly right. Change can be devastating to the less adaptable.

The old USA of government of and for and by the WASPs is dead. Some evangelicals may try for a violent resurrection. They may want to read their Old Testament again. From the Book of Judges, Chapter 4:

And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.
But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles; and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left.

@Dave H: I dunno. I think the plutocracy was pulling for The Eagle. Evidence – GM advertising on “The Stephanie Miller Show.”

@redmanlaw: As a plutocrat I think I’d have made the following comparison:

One guy is getting economic advice from Warren Buffett.
One guy is getting economic advice from Phil Gramm.

Talk about your financial no-brainer.

Hee Hee. I went fossicking through the comments at 236 and there was a link to this this video touted at the next national anthem.

It includes a Terrorist Fist Bump even.

@CheapBoy: Maybe we could get Rage Against the Machine (not Zack solo) to reform with Cypress Hill to do
“How I Could Just Kill a Man” for the inaug. THEN we’d have an angry leftist black man from Harvard (guitarist Tom Morello) laying it down. Message – we shall not tolerate the theft of one’s rims in tha New America.

“Homie – comin’ at cha!”