Bruner Blog

Shhhh, don’t tell, but we get free cable. It’s not really as good as it sounds. When we moved in here three years ago, there was a cable sticking out the wall, so naturally we tried plugging it into our TV. Basically, it gave us clear reception on the free broadcast channels plus TNT (all “Law & Order” all the time), C-SPAN, MetroTV (which we love), and then a bunch of Chinese and Spanish language channels that we don’t much care about.

But then a strange thing happened a few weeks ago: we suddenly got a lot more channels. Mostly, more Chinese and Spanish channels, but also a few interesting ones, including TBS Superstation, CNN Headlines and, most remarkably MNN — the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. In fact, four separate MNN channels. Weird community access cable. In fact, I’ve actually never had real cable before in America, so I’m totally getting off on community access cable, which I’ve only seen parodied on Saturday Night Live till now.

My favorite new show: Spic ‘n’ Spanish. Tonight’s episode: our host wandering around in Spanish Harlem drunkenly on New Year’s Eve chatting up chubby Hispanic girls showing off their asses, intercut with (obviously pirated) on-topic retorts from movie scenes, with a heavy emphasis on Austin Powers clips. Sample commentary: “That’s some serious assage!” and ” J-lo ain’t got nothing on that ass!”

As the credits, such that they were, ran, this exciting opportunity: “Wanted: SNS Webmaster. Must be willing to work for free.”

Next up, Lowa East Side Regulars. This episode: the all shout-out show (*yawn*).

Other promising titles: “Inebriated Kitchen” and “The Tony Pignatoro Show: Deranged rambling from the basement.”

And — incredible that I didn’t know about this before (oh, it’s on at 8:30am on Sunday; yeah, right) — “Hungarian TV Magazine: Updated news from Hungary, one of the drastically changing Eastern-European countries”

(”drastically”?)

How did I ever live without this? Who the hell needs blogging? I want my own community access show. Who’s with me?

I remember this NYC. This photo is from 1980, but it doesn’t look much different than when I was going to school at Columbia in the late ’80s. Recently I’ve started to notice small pieces of graffiti sneaking back into the subways, and I always think, “Vigilance please, Mr. Bloomberg.”

The photo is by Bruce Davidson, part of a recent exhibition for his newly reissued book Subway. Blue Jake photo documents and Aaron Bailey comments.

NYT reports that you can often get fantastic bargains on eBay by searching for misspellings. Bruner Blog reported this nearly two years ago. Except in my story, my friend saved $11,000 on a tractor, not a few hundred dollars on a “labtop.”

My new favorite song for the next 24 hours is “Money (That’s What I Want),” by Josie and the Pussycats.

(Miki, put that in your iPod and smoke it.)

I think it’s fair to say Dean’s campaign is imploding at this point and that worrying about his latest stupid statement is really moot, but I was annoyed to hear his comment the other day:

“You can say that it’s great that Saddam is gone and I’m sure that a lot of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone. But a lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot worse now than it was before.”

As if this were about “living standard,” a phrase that makes me think of color TVs and air conditioning. Despite all of my friends and family thinking I’ve turned into a Bush-loving conservative, I still consider myself a liberal (perhaps a neo-liberal or some such designation I haven’t yet pinned down). I still think Bush is evil and stupid and must be stopped. I still love the environment, feel sorry for poor people, etc., etc.

But, despite everything, I still think going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do, for most of the same reasons I blogged about here on the war’s eve. Yes, I’m as disappointed and surprised as anyone that there were no chemical and biological weapons, but for me, this was about more than that. It was about demonstrably changing the U.S.’s historic pattern of coddling fascist dictators. I am no pacifist. I believe we have it too easy at the expense of most of the rest of the world that lives in terror and poverty, which we do nothing about. Sure, we’re hippocrates and still coddling many of them (notably in Saudi Arabia), and, yes, it may not be practical to send in the army to chase out every tyrant. But that is not a good excuse for not starting somewhere, like notably with one of the worst there is. Let the rest of them think hard about what it might mean for them, as the Iranian Mullahs and Colonel Qaddafi seem to have been doing.

I realize it is not my place to tell mothers of dead U.S. soldiers that it was worth their sons’ and daughters’ lives to liberate Iraqis from tyrany, but I hope, for their sake, they believe so, as it would be tragic for them to believe their loved ones died in vain. But considering how many lives have been lost and ruined around the world making Americans’ lives more comfortable, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for us to sacrifice in exporting justice and democracy and hopefully prosperity to other parts of the world. And I’m not the kind of patriot, unlike most of the popular media, who believes that American lives are somehow worth more than Iraqi lives or lives elsewhere. Were I to believe in God, I would agree with Bush that democracy is a divine right, one all people should enjoy.

What I find particularly odious about Dean’s comment above is that he’s making the judgment call on behalf of Iraqis and parents of dean American soldiers that it wasn’t worth it, that the soldiers died in vain and Iraqis were better off with Saddam. What an ass.

Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to link to this Iraqi’s blog where he says the same thing, asking who the hell Dean thinks he is. Oddly, the guy seems more perturbed on behalf of the dead American soldiers than in everyday Iraqis hope for a better future, but either way, he clearly has the moral authority to have an opinion on this that Dean certainly lacks.

Moreover, I was also pleased to find this essay from Paul Berman, published in Dissent Magazine no less, making the liberal case in favor of war. It’s lonely being a pro-war liberal these days, but I know that I’m not alone, including among my friends (who I won’t name, as I don’t know how public some are about their feelings or their continued self-identity as liberals) and commentators such as Thomas Friedman and Christopher Hitchens.

Hungarian-born big-time Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Flashdance, The Music Box, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, among others), in an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer (where he grew up) about his new memoir, Hollywood Animal, has this to say about our beloved Magyars:

Q: You’re proud of your heritage but critical, too. What are some Hungarian traits you write about?

A: Being pushy, suicidally passionate, judgmental, narrow-minded, anti-Semitic, racist - and those are the good qualities. (Laughs) In the book I mention the saying, “If you see a Hungarian in the street, walk up and slap him. He’ll know why.”

Via Miki (web site coming soon)

Here is a Huge URL for http://bruner.net/blog/

Posted by Rick E. Bruner under aa-home No Comments »