Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did?

Nahhhh. From the mouths of babes and now the lips of Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry, poet and motorcycle hero, the everyman of every voter, who now apparently wants to corner the hiphop vote, interviewed in Rolling Stone:

Did you feel you were blindsided by Dean's success?

"Well, not blindsided. I mean, when I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, "I'm against everything"? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did."

Naturally the voting vox have their panties in a bunch over the foul language and tsktsk, isn't it worse than blowjobs and killing innnocent civilians, but the bigger concern should be the fact that he didn't think anybody thought Bush'd fuck it up as badly as he did -- Hell, even Emily Dickinson was aware of it!

Part Four: Time and Eternity
Emily Dickinson

XLI


LET down the bars, O Death!
The tired flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.

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Swing Low....

Yesterday was a day to celebrate in London. In fact, hundreds of thousands of England supporters paid tribute to their heroes at a victory parade in central London. Police estimated that 750,000 supporters made the trip to central London, making the day the largest sporting celebration of its kind in the United Kingdom

As The Independent notes:

"In Oxford Street the impact was astonishing. As the buses rolled under Marble Arch and swung into the street, the density of the crowds plainly stunned the players. Halfway down Oxford Street the people starting singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and, from every side street, they came running, businessmen in pin stripes, elegant lady denizens of Mayfair, shopgirls. A copper blew his whistle in long, jubilant blasts.

In Regent Street, the pavements and the rooftops and the balconies were jammed. A man in an Australian shirt waved that country's flag defiantly at the chariot, and the players laughed and cheered and nobody tried to storm his balcony. Hamley's toy store was not above a little bit of salesmanship - a great banner hung from its building, announcing: "The finest toys salute the finest boys in the world." At New Zealand House, the pain of All Black defeat had receded enough for a generous declaration: "100 per cent pure congratulations." Then, after the thronged old heart of the empire, Piccadilly Circus, there was Trafalgar Square and the great array of red and white, and the media calls and the receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. But you had to believe the heart, and the strength, of the day was in the streets, in the interaction of a people and its heroes. Whatever else happened, you knew that had been perfect.

In a pub in Shepherd's Market an ageing man, not unemotional, recalled a time of his youth when, as a member of a bomber crew which had to make a crash landing, he was obliged to walk with his crewmates through a town centre in Lincolnshire for a train that would take them back to base. They were were, of necessity, wearing their flying gear and something remarkable happened. People came out of their shops and their offices and applauded. The old man said that he had never felt such a sense of a nation as one, of such a strong bonding. He said that he heard more than an echo of that in the streets of London yesterday. Maybe everyone needs their heroes, on a battlefield or in the skies or a sports pitch."

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Cup Runneth Over

Don't look now but the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery out of Milton, Delaware has a beer out called World Wide Stout which has a staggering 23% alchohol by volume. The world's strongest dark beer, it is brewed using six different yeast strains over seven months and then aged. "Dark, rich, roasty, and complex, World Wide Stout has more in common with a fine port than a can of cheap, mass-marketed beer."

And to think, I learned all this sitting in a pub in the understated village of Kineton thumbing through one of the copies of the Warwickshire CAMRA newsletter.

I'm still wondering: "Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did?"

"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses."
-- Our Hero and Savior, President Bush, at a South Carolina oyster roast; quoted in the Financial Times, Jan.14, 2000

Speaking of fucking up, who'd have thought Nigel France, the landlord at the Kings Head in Southworld, Suffolk, could?

Nigel France is the idiot who decided to sell beer in either half-pint measures - served in a 12 oz glass - or a two-pint pitcher in his pub. WHY would someone do this, you might wonder...He said at home he wouldn't allow beer to slop over the top of a glass and onto his floor or table and he would not allow it in his pub. So there:

"The reason I don't sell pints is very simple," he said. "I just can't stand the stains, the rings and the stickiness left on the counter by pint glasses filled to the brim. I don't believe anyone at home gets a pint and fills it to the brim and lets the beer run down the sides, carries it dripping across their floor and then makes the Olympic logo on their tables and I don't like to do it in a public house," he said.

But Adnams Brewery was less than happy about his decision to remove the pint - a measure regarded as "synonymous" with traditional values. Managers travelled to the Kings Head pub in High Street, Southwold, for talks and informed him of their decision to terminate the tenancy agreement if he refused to back down.

"I can't believe such a drama can be created by something so insignificant," said the father-of-two. "I haven't served pints for 13 years and I don't serve a pint in my present establishment and because of that Adnams has given us notice.

"The 12oz measures I serve leave plenty of room for an attractive head. It's no more or no less than that. It's not rocket science. Only a minority of Neanderthal macho-males need the pint that badly.

"There must be more important things in a public house than the brimful pints - like service, standards and atmosphere. We're not disappointed. If Adnams want us out we'll go. We are just stunned that they could get into such a lather over it."

Adios, moron.

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AS DEATH APPROACHES
by Orhan Veli Kanik

Toward the coming on of evening, in winter time,
At the window of a sick man's bedroom-
I'm not the only one to be so alone;
It's dark on the sea, the sky is dark, too.
Funny, how the birds are behaving tonight!
Don't mind that I'm poor, that I'm alone in the world;
-Toward the coming on of evening in winter time-
I too in my time have had my love affairs.
To be famous, to have women, to make money-
In time one gets to know the world as it is.

Is it because we're to die that we have these regrets?
What were we, what happened to us in this world,
In this mortal old world, except evil?
We shall be rid of our dirt at our death,
With death we'll get to be good men at last.
Being famous, having women, making money, and all-
We'll forget all that when we die.


Translated by David Garwood (1982)

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