Saturday, September 28, 2002

UPDATE: I believe in responsible drinking, but there were plenty of opportunities to down one's drink today in the drinking game described in the previous post below. The previously unbeaten Beavers succumbed to a prolonged Trojan thrust, leading to a 22-0 final score.

posted by clark 7:02 PM

THIS AFTERNOON I'm enjoying my favorite TV drinking game, one you can only play once a year. It involves the Oregon State-USC football game. There's only one rule: Down your drink whenever an announcer says anything to the efffect of "the Trojans are deep in Beaver territory."

posted by clark 3:33 PM

ERSTWHILE LOCAL netzine editor Michael Kinsley has long been one of those New Republic liberal-buts. (That's a fella who says "I'm a liberal, but..." just before he endorses every conservative position.) But now, even Kinsley's sounding the alarm on war posturing as a domestic attack against democracy:

"The official U.S. government message on how citizens should decide about going to war is, 'Don't worry your pretty little heads about it.' Last week the White House issued a sort of Official Souvenir Guide to the Bush administration's national security policy, and it is full of rhetoric about democracy. Yet that policy itself, including at least one likely war, has been imposed on the country entirely without benefit of democracy. George W.'s war on Iraq will be the reductio ad absurdum of America's long, slow abandonment of any pretense that the people have any say in the question of whether their government will send some of them far away to kill and die."

posted by clark 9:43 AM

WHERE THE BOYS AREN'T?: British scientist Steve Jones (no relation to the ex-Sex Pistols guitarist) claims in his new book Y: The Descent of Men that human males don't have much of a future. Not only have average sperm counts declined in recent decades, but the Y chromosome itself is slowly but irrevocably devolving into uselessness. The result, as Jones tells Britain's weekly Observer: "'The chromosome unique to men is a microscopic metaphor for those who bear it,' Jones concludes. 'For it is the most decayed, redundant and parasitic of the lot... From sperm count to social status, and from fertilisation to death, as civilisation advances those who bear Y chromosomes are in relative decline.'… 'the Y chromosome will eventually disappear and be taken over by another sex-determining mechanism.'

posted by clark 1:12 AM

Friday, September 27, 2002

PROPAGANDA FOR TOTS: Be the first kid on your block to mount a protest against this year's more-explicit-than-ever pro-war toys!

posted by clark 11:12 AM

Monday, September 23, 2002

THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER was celebrated all over town on Sunday. Hundreds of bibliophiles prepared for the long indoor season ahead at the semiannual Friends of the Seattle Public Library book sale, held at a former Sand Point naval-air hangar. (This is also where Northwest Bookfest is moving next month.)

Nearby in Magnuson Park's no-leash beach, local dog owners gave their pets one last vigorous round of wet exercise.

Also nearby, Magnuson's public-art collection of military submarine diving-plane tails, arranged to resemble orca fins, might just help one remember the sacrifices incurred in past wars, and thus help one resolve to try to prevent future carnages.

But let's return, for now, to celebrating the equinox. A fairly large crowd gathered at Gas Works Park to do so, under the auspices of Seattle Peace Concerts. Hundreds paid varying degrees of attention to an all-day lineup of "blooze" music (you know, that music that's sorta like blues, only all-white and all-aggressive).

Hundreds of others sipped, chatted, and danced at the second Fremont Oktoberfest. Some of my favorite current local acts (Peter Parker, the Beehives) performed, along with an all-polka afternoon slate.

But serious autumnal responsibilities waited just outside the beer garden, with a street-poster reminder of the monumental tasks ahead of us.

(Thanx and a hat tip to loyal reader Stephen Cook for research help on this piece.)

posted by clark 6:32 PM

Sunday, September 22, 2002

JUST IN TIME for a new eve-O-destruction, it's "Songs About Nuclear War from the '80s."

posted by clark 11:46 AM

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