Just before moving, I sat down with my wife and two of our friends to watch the documentary The Aristocrats on DVD. It betrays nothing to tell you that the entire documentary centers around a joke entitled “The Aristocrats,” the structure of which goes like this:

1. A troupe approaches a talent agent as says “We’ve got an act.” The agent says, “well, what do you do?”
2. The troupe describes how they, usually members of a family, engage in all sorts of perverted sexual and scatalogical acts.
3. The talent agent says, “What do you call yourselves?”
4. The troups replies, “The Aristocrats!”

The documentary consists almost entirely of different comedians demonstrating and talking about their own versions of the joke. The idea is that by understanding the different ways of constructing and carrying out a single joke, you can understand a lot about the act of comedy.

My gut reaction to the documentary is that a lot of comics don’t really get comedy. More than one comic explained that the punchline is funny because aristocrats are the last people on Earth you’d expect to be engaging in all those depraved sexual and scatological acts described by the comedian. Actually, the most shocking and outlandish sex stories from history come from the aristocracy — Catherine the Great and that horse and the Marquis De Sade being just two examples. Aristocracy depends upon people almost exclusively sleeping with their cousins (and sometimes going closer than that). And yet, aristocracy relies on an image of propriety and gentility. The reason this joke is so funny is that it provokes a mental double-take. Aristocrats doing that stuff?!?!? Well, hey, yeah…

There’s another way in which some of comics in the documentary fall flat with their comedy: most of the variation they pursue is in the description of the perverted sexual and scatalogica acts that make up the middle part of the joke. A number of the comics were really, really impressed (barely holding back a giggle impressed) with their ability to combine the concepts of penetration, urination, defecation and vomiting. The first time in the documentary I saw such a speech taboo broken, I gasped. The second time, my eyebrows went up. The third time, I yawned, and the fourth time I started tapping my fingers in impatience. After fifteen minutes of self-impressed comics coming up with a new way for daddy to take a crap in the daughter’s mouth, I was really, really, really bored. This stuff got really old, really fast, because it wasn’t much more than Adult Mad Libs. “And then the [family member] [past tense verb] [gendered possessive] [sexual or excretory organ] [preposition] [second family member] with a [noun]…”.

I know it’s all a matter of taste, but for me the really good examples of comedy from within the documentary came not from this painting-by-numbers detail, but from some twist to the original joke. One comic, Wendy Liebman, described a family engaged in perfectly normal, mundanely suburban pursuits that could have been taken from Leave It To Beaver — and the name of her act was the “Cocksucking Motherfuckers.” And Steven Wright, the great great Steven Wright, calls everybody else’s bluff. For the comedians involved in the rest of the documentary, there’s a whole lot of self-congratulation about their testing of free speech limits and how inventive they are — but they’re all inventive in the same way, and you can tell they’re not serious about it, just playing. But Steven Wright delivers his entire joke in that serious deadpan of his, and sets up a really chilling scene about a father bludgeoning his wife and three darling daughters to death with a baseball bat — concluding with the agent saying, “yeah, yeah… I’d really like to see that act.” Genius.

With a few exceptions like these, and some interesting history behind the joke, the documentary ends up mostly as a big, juicy, cheerily revolting group hug of comedians who know and admire each other. It’s cute and all, but, hum, not much more. As I said before, it’s all a matter of taste, and I’m sure some of you will be shocked all the way and others will chuckle throughout. Maybe this documentary is a bit of a Rohrschach test. What kind of a person are you? If you don’t know the answer yet, and you’d like to find out, then sure, it’s worth a rent. Watch it with friends and get a conversation started about all these issues and more.

The Republican candidate for Governor in Ohio, Ken Blackwell, is twenty points behind in the polls. Even pandering to the religious right — he declared to the state’s largest newspaper that he believes in the literal truth of every word in the Bible — hasn’t helped make Blackwell more popular.

So what’s a Republican to do?

1. Stop working at his own job. Ken Blackwell has shown his commitment to work hard for the state of Ohio by, um, not working hard for the state of Ohio. Instead, he’s handed off his major job responsibilities as Secretary of State to his Deputy, even though state law mandates that the Secretary of State — Blackwell himself — perform the duties of his office.

2. Play dirty tricks and lie. OK, so if Ken Blackwell isn’t going to actually do the job he’s elected to do, then maybe he figures people will vote for him if they think he’s a morally upstanding guy. If that’s true, then he sure has a funny way of showing it. Just last week, the Ohio GOP got caught red-handed sending out e-mails accusing Blackwell’s opponent and his wife of being gay because — get ready for it — they don’t have kids! Of course, Ken Blackwell’s opponent denied this, but even the denial helped the dirty work get done. Headline: “Blackwell Opponent Denies Gay Rumor!”

Doesn’t Ken Blackwell get it? His attempts to win a race as his campaign sinks ever farther into ethical disarray only make him, and the Republican Party, look worse.

Just a quick link with a quick thought this afternoon. I’m working to organize a new political poetry project, which I’ll let you know about soon, and was looking at the web site for Poets Against War, a fine organization that does great work.

The one thing I noticed, though, is that, both on the front page of the site and in the newsletter itself, I couldn’t find a poem against war. I had to go to the “poems” link to find the poetic work.

So, I’m wondering this: If poets organize to support a political cause, to what extent should their poetic work be integrated into the project? Where should the poems stop, and why?

You know, the Republicans love to call non-Republicans elitist. They called people in Iowa elitist for thinking about voting for Howard Dean. They call Americans in general elitist for not sharing their taste in movies. Or drinking the wrong kind of coffee drink. Or preferring violins to electric guitars. That kind of stuff.

This is an odd definition of elitism: having an uncommon (or really, un-Republican) taste. But that’s not what elitism is. “Elitism” is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “selectivity.” Princeton’s Wordnet defines “elitism” as “the attitude that society should be governed by an elite group of individuals.” The American Heritage dictionary defines elitism as “the belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment” and “control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.” The common thread in these definitions of elitism is a small group of people who believe they have the right to control others by limiting access to the tools of power: knowledge, status, and political power.

It is this definition of elitism that brings me this morning to Republican apologist and National Review Editor at Large Jonah Goldberg. In his latest column, Goldberg writes about who should and who should not vote:

I don’t know about you, but when that Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot gets really high I like to go down to the local convenience store and ask the good folks waiting for hours to buy a fistful of tickets, “Hey, do you think Condi Rice should cut a deal with Bashar Assad?” Or, “Excuse me sir, I know you’re busy filling out those little ovals for the same 78 numbers you play every week, but I was wondering whether you think reimportation of Canadian drugs is a good idea?” I mean, where else can you find the distilled genius of the vox populi than a line of people at the 7-Eleven who have a lot of time to spare during working hours?… Voting fetishists often liken democracy to a national “conversation” or “dialogue.” So, tell me: What intelligent conversation is aided by the intrusion of Beavis and Butt-head?

In short, Goldberg’s arguing that it’s best if those stooopid working class people at the 7-Eleven didn’t vote. His vision of democracy is one in which only the Right Sort (judged from Goldberg’s standpoint, of course) participate.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds like a pretty good fit to the definition of “elitist.” Considering Goldberg’s recent argument that the media should withhold information from the public, it seems altogether fair to chalk Jonah Goldberg up as yet another Republican elitist, in the truest sense of the word.

If you’re of military age, watch out. As America’s wars engender greater chaos, and more American soldiers are wounded and killed, the military needs more soldiers to send, in formation, into harm’s way. The recruiters are coming your way.

You don’t need to let them take you away. You can still say no. Spreading the word is the mission of Not Your Soldier, and organization sponsored by groups like The Ruckus Society and The American Friends Service Committee.

This isn’t one of those of those anti-recruiting groups that consists only of graybeard Vietnam vets prefacing their advice with “You have to understand, this was the Sixties…” Not Your Soldier speaks to the generation currently of recruiting age on its own terms, and is working to set up regional anti-recruiting camps across America.

With the military busy scanning databases to sniff out vulnerable teenagers to convert into fodder, it’s a much needed organization, but it looks like they need a little bit of help getting off the ground. Check them out and see if you can give them some help.

George W. Bush is on vacation again, but rumor has it that he won’t be spending as much time at his dude ranch in Crawford, Texas as in previous years, because he wants to avoid Camp Casey, the protest camp named after an American soldier killed in Iraq. So, while Cindy Sheehan’s group has bought some land next to the President’s dude ranch, much of this year’s demonstration has moved to Washington D.C., to form something they’re calling Camp Democracy.

This new camp takes a seasonal focus, with what they call a “Summer of Resistance” and an “Autumn of Accountability”. What topics will the camp take on? Here’s what the organizers promise:

“end war, peace, nonviolence, accountability, impeachment, human rights, civil rights, immigrants rights, workers rights, women’s rights, voting rights, Katrina, end corporate welfare, meet human needs, healthcare, energy, education, environment, communications and creativity, hands-on media, and arts training.”

All those sound like important issues, but it’s a lot for one protest camp in Washington, D.C. to take on, isn’t it?

I’ve got an idea for another political camp in D.C. this summer: Camp Focus. Its mission will be to help progressive activists learn how to avoid laundry list campaigning, and focus on communicating core ideas in clear, concise language.

It seems an obvious thing to do, but then again, sometimes the most obvious things are those that are left neglected. So, I’ll send a link this morning over to Voters for Peace, but with a couple of questions.

The idea of Voters for Peace is to solidify antiwar voters into a potent political bloc. That’s a good idea. The group points out: “Polling has revealed an unrecognized anti-war voting block which is large enough (two-thirds of progressives) that candidates and incumbent politicians cannot afford to ignore it. It is larger than the pro-gun, anti-abortion, or the anti-gay marriage voting blocks.”

To this end, Voters for Peace is asking people to sign the following pledge: “”I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign.” The group defines a war of aggression as “any war that is not in response to an invasion, or attack on a nation.”

Here’s my questions: The group doesn’t mention the war in Afghanistan. Why? Is it because that war doesn’t qualify as a war of aggression? Does that mean that we could permanently occupy Afghanistan, and be perpetually fighting the Taliban there, and a group like Voters for Peace still wouldn’t oppose that war?

Let’s keep in mind that the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, which was a major justification for the invasion of Afghanistan, has been called off. The destruction of the Taliban, another objective of the war, has still not taken place - in fact, the Taliban seem to be getting stronger the longer American troops stay in Afghanistan. It’s been almost five years now that the Afghan War has been going on. How much longer must it persist?

I also have to question the definition of a war of aggression, because it seems to be open to a very broad interpretation. George W. Bush and the Republicans say that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was done in response to the attacks by Al Quaida on September 11, 2001. The Iraq War was a “response”, though Al Quaida had nothing to do with the Iraqi Government, and the Iraqi Government had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks. So, when voters take this pledge, how far can they accept the justification of response? Should they accept the idea that a war against Iran and Syria would not be a war of aggression? What are they to make of the war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon, where both Israel and Hezbollah claim to be defending themselves against aggression, and not committing aggression at all?

Why can’t a group calling itself Voters for Peace offer a more simple pledge, one to oppose any politician in Congress who votes to approve any war? Why has the categorical opposition to all war become taboo?

Quarrels over land
And who hit first fell three stories down.
Neither has the right to return
After that building’s collapse.

“The Jews are Responsible for all the Wars in the World.” — Mel Gibson, July 2006

My goodness! I always thought George W. Bush was one of the Goyim! Well, live and learn, that’s what I always say.

The War Against Christians continues. I note with despair that despite yesterday being the Christian Holiday of the Memorial of St. Martha (roommate of Lazarus and patron saint of dietitians), not a single memorial to St. Martha was erected in my neighborhood park. Not a single banner declaring “Happy St. Martha’s Day!” Not a single plaque declaring the thanks of dietitians everywhere for St. Martha’s patronage. What has become of this country that our Christian Holidays have been apparently banned from our parks? Where are the St. Martha’s carolers on the streets? Who is bobbing for St. Martha’s Macintosh apples? All right, admittedly they’re out of season, but in this age of refrigeration that should be no excuse!

Shame on us all for participating, even passively, in this War on Christianity. Somewhere up there in heaven, St. Martha is doing her own intervention, adding a few hundred calories of transfats to your Sunday stew.

Mel Gibson, the actor well known for using his fame to promote his vision of right wing morality, got arrested for drunk driving a couple days ago. Funny things happen when a person gets drunk. The inhibitions are lowered, and people talk about things that they ordinarily keep undercover.

When he got drunk, Mel Gibson stopped being an actor. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what Gibson meant when he told the police officer who arrested him, “I’m going to fuck you.”

Gibson had more important things on his mind than who he was going to fuck. Gibson’s thoughts about war, peace, and ethnicity also came bubbling out. For some reason that only Gibson can explain, he kept on ranting to the arresting officer about Jews. The police report quotes Gibson as saying, “Fucking Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

That was a pretty stupid thing for Gibson to say. I’d like to know how Jews were responsible for the Falklands Islands War, for example. That must be a good story. And how are Jews responsible for the war in the Congo?

Mel Gibson was being anti-semitic. He was speaking out against Jews because they’re Jews. Gibson even asked the arresting officer if he was a Jew, apparently suspecting that the drunk driving arrest might be part of some Jewish conspiracy to get him. If Gibson said these kinds of things while sober, we’d suspect him of being insane. Given that he was drunk, we can only conclude that he’s a jerk who ordinarily knows how to keep his vicious imaginings secret.

What’s wrong with anti-semitism? Well, it’s the same thing that’s wrong with every kind of hatred motivated by ethnicity. It’s particularly cruel to hate people because of the family they were born into, and its an historically out-of-date way of thinking. I’ve noticed that people who tend to hate one ethnic group also have plenty of hate to spew out at other groups. Right now, I’m thinking of a person I used to work with who kept a copy of the racism-justifying tome The Bell Curve on his coffee table. When he got drunk, he would make slurs, literally, against mutliple ethnicities all in one breath, complaining about the “god damned kikes, spics and jigaboos”. Yes, he really used the word jigaboo.

I reflect on all this now in relation to the new war in the Middle East. Here at Irregular Times, I’ve criticized Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon. There are some who characterize such criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. After all, they reason, Israel is Jewish state, so criticizing Israel must be equivalent to anti-semitism.

I don’t buy it. To make this judgment is to confuse nationality and ethnicity. At times, to some extent, the two overlap, but in the modern world, this overlap has become quite thin. The fact is that there are as many Jews living outside of Israel as there are Jews living in Israel. Also, many Israelis are not Jews. The nation of Israel is not at all equivalent to the Jewish ethnicity.

Besides, I’m not criticizing the Jews for being Jews. I’m criticizing the government of the nation of Israel for its policies - most notably for its actions in the war against Hezbollah and Lebanon. For example, this morning I’d like to criticize Israel’s decision to attack Qana, a village where Lebanese refugees had sought shelter. A huge number of civilians, including “including at least 20 children”, were killed in the attack.

Is it anti-semitic of me to criticize Israel’s attacks against Lebanese civilians? Not on your life. This criticism is based on a general principle that applies equally to all people: The principle that war causes more harm than good, and that killing civilians in wartime is particularly reprehensible. I’m a pacifist. I believe sincerely in the value of nonviolence, and I’m against war, whether it is waged by Israelis or by Americans, by Iraqis or by Russians. That’s why I’ve criticized Hezbollah’s part in the war as well as Israel’s part in the war.

The war between Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon is not wrong because of incidents like the massacre at Qana. Rather, incidents like the massacre at Qana illustrate why war is wrong.

Instead of taking sides in this war, as our American government has done, or blaming one tribe for all the troubles of the world, as Mel Gibson has done, we need to take a step back and realize that war is a plague that equally afflicts all who are touched by it. We need to achieve a larger vision of a single human tribe in which war itself is a crime.

Cease fire. Cease fire.

The newspapers aren’t mentioning it. I just heard the briefest aside about it on the radio, during a news piece about something else. But we all should be hopping about it. What is this “it” I’m talking about?

Well, while gas prices are surging above $3.00, while the Taliban remains unconquered in Afghanistan, while Iraq slowly disintegrates, while war expands across the Middle East, while the minimum wage for full-time workers remains at the poverty level (no, Virginia, a minimum-wage hike has only passed the House, not the Senate), while it remains unclear that the Gulf Coast is prepared for the latest hurricane season powered by another really hot year, while the death toll from the American heat wave continues to climb…

George W. Bush is going on a month’s vacation. Again.

It’s summer time, and so America is in the mood for a party. Okay, I get it. Party. But party with a purpose.

On Monday, at 8:00 Eastern Time, 7:00 Central and Pacific Time, there will be 632 Just Deserts political potlucks held all across America - and you’re invited to the one near you. They’re MoveOn house parties, centered around this year’s congressional campaigns. They’re called Just Desserts, because all the people who attend the events will bring their own desserts to share with others. Yummy, huh?

It will be just 100 days until Election Day, so if you’re not involved with your local campaigns, now is the time to join in. If you’re the type that seeks out star power, well then, you can be reassured that star power will visit these parties, albeit over the telephone. Using the old Dean for America schtick, Barack Obama and Al Franken will be on a “conference call” that all the parties can listen in on. Personally, Al Franken grates on my nerves. He always sounds bored with everyone other than himself, and we need enthusiasm, not world-weariness. Barack Obama ought to counteract the Franken Fatigue Factor.

Search for a Just Desserts event near you, sign up with MoveOn to register as a participant in the event, bake a delicious treat, and, on Monday, get ready to eat and meet with other progressives in your area who are eager to help take back Congress.

Nicky Hayden has been described as America’s Hero.

What for? Did he save lives? Help people in need? Do something dramatic to improve the lot of the USA?

No, none of the above.

He rode on a fast motorcycle.

Honda, the company that made Nicky Hayden’s motorcycle says that Hayden was heroic because it was very hot outside while Hayden gunned his motorcycle’s engine really fast…

burning gasoline…

spewing greenhouse gases…

during an energy crisis…

for a thrill.

Nicky Hayden didn’t defeat the heat. He helped create it.

That makes him the monster of his own heroic tale.