iowa underground blog

“There’s a wave of violence on college campuses, committed by what I’d call fascists opposing conservatives,” – David Horowitz.

Leave it to D.H. to discover ‘fascism’ in a pie toss. But then wingnuts have never been known for their sense of humor, have they. Hopefully someone will sit Dave down and explain the difference between pie, salad dressing, bullets and bombs one day.

And on that cheerful note, let’s continue our rememberance of the year that was:

Bill Kristol – March, 2005 Conservative pundit hit in face with pie

Patrick Buchanan – March, 2005 A Dressing-Down For Pat Buchanan.
Salad dressing not pie, but presents very similar visual impact. If you must, insert your own bukkake joke here. bonus video

David Horowitz – April 6th, 2005 Speaker Wants Punishment For Butler Pie-Thrower, then mutters…”I see fascists.”

(not actual photo. shoe added for dramatic effect)
Richard Perle – February, 2005. Points awarded for happening this year, though admittedly not part of the pie genre: Protester Throws Shoe at Richard Perle Transcript from the event can be found here.

And let’s not forget memorable pie tossings from yesteryear.

Man Coulter – October, 2004. “Al Pieda” Targets Ann Coulter

Jeff’s trial is coming up in the New Year. Verily we honor this slice from his past. Jeff Skilling, June 21st, 2001 Enron exec hit with pie

Bill Gates – February 4th, 1998. To be fair, Bill has become quite the philanthropist and that’s commendable. And if it weren’t for Microsoft’s history of anti-competitive, hegemonic habits and practices this one might not tickle the schadenfreude bone quite as much as it admittedly still does.
Bill Gates hit with cream pie

I hear you wondering aloud to yourself about now, “Hey, what can I do?” Well don’t just sit there, slacker… do something! The How To Pie Guide.

Excerpt:

Step 6: Launch the Attack
Some pie assassins work in teams: The Belgium attack was a masterful coordination of 30 individuals in roaming groups of three, loaded with a total of 25 pies. Decker prefers to work solo, saying, “It’s more heroic and romantic.”
As you hoist the creamy pastry into the face of your prey, a quick quip can highlight your action. Decker recalls, “I just walked up to him: ‘Mr. Friedman, it’s a good day to pie.’ It was nothing personal, just business.”

See also: Pie-Faced: Why throwing a pie at someone who deserves it is one of the most celebrated traditions in our so-called culture.

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Interesting story via Media Channel on editorial cartoonists and the like who’ve begun blogs this year and increased interaction w/ their readership as a consequence.

By Dave Astor
Source: Editor and Publisher

At least three syndicated creators started blogs this fall—joining a small but growing group of cartoonists and columnists who have taken that online plunge. Syndicated creators already have a public forum via their newspaper features, so why a blog, too? The reasons are many.

“I’m finding that, creatively, it might be the most fun I’ve had doing anything,” said “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, who began his blog Oct. 25. The United Media cartoonist explained that composing short blog entries—containing personal anecdotes, behind-the-scenes stories about how his syndicate edits “Dilbert,” and other topics of interest—is easier than writing a book and less confining than writing a comic strip that has room for only a few words and certain restrictions on what Adams can say.

“There’s no one checking my work in the blog, and no limit to what I can write within the confines of PG,” said Adams, whose blog can be accessed at Dilbert.com.

Mike Luckovich, who launched a blog Oct. 14, has a forum to offer his opinions as a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Creators Syndicate. He said one purpose of the new blog (at AJC.com) is to give his readers a forum, too. “I can comment, so why can’t they?” noted Luckovich.

The cartoonist added that a blog allows him to bring certain things to the attention of readers. For instance, Luckovich said he was thinking of posting a 1990s cartoon lampooning President Clinton to show that he satirizes politicians in power—not just Republicans, as some of Luckovich’s conservative critics claim.

Akron Beacon Journal/Creators editorial cartoonist Chip Bok said his “Bokbluster” blog, which launched Oct. 11 at his paper’s Ohio.com site, has several benefits. “Sometimes readers don’t understand my cartoon, and this gives me an opportunity to confuse them more by explaining it in writing,” he joked, adding that the blog allows him to link to old cartoons when they apply to a new event, promote his books and appearances, and more…

Oh, that Dilbert guy writes funny enough cartoons I suppose but you knew he was just another corporate shill, right? Check out Norman Solomon’s book The Trouble With Dilbert to learn more about that dynamic.

Someone care to translate this?

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for your end of the year enjoyment and consideration.

See also: Wiki-PNAC and PNAC homepage.

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And in that spirit, enjoy Chomsky v. Dershowitz won’t you? It’s on!

Tom Tomorrow’s Year In Review is worth a look-see, too.

One more thing, you can decorate your own Merry Fitzmas tree here.

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Rex Sorgatz of ‘Fimoculous’ fame has doggedly compiled what is surely the largest collection of year-in-review type links to be found anywhere online. You can judge for yourself here. If you find something terrifically interesting drop a line, won’t ya?

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It’s important to recognize when such a trait dares emerge from the current climate of overwhelming jingoism, fear and criminality.

Story from Reuters

excerpt:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of U.S. President George W. Bush’s authorization of a domestic spying program, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Citing two sources, the newspaper reported U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as FISA, sent his resignation to Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday.

The Post said the resignation letter gave no explanation for Robertson stepping down. Robertson declined comment when reached on Tuesday, the newspaper said.
...

The Post said Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless National Security Agency surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants.

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The following tag will allow you to insert a flash-based audio player into your FPP’s. It’s for mp3 files only. See Bush post below to view in action.

Bush was against unauthorized and illegal wiretaps before he was for them. Thank god the New York Times, Liberal flagship ‘paper of record’, sat on this story for over a year while ‘flip-flopper’ charges were hurled at the hapless John Kerry. I mean, the less the American citizenry knows what a thieving, lying cabal of jackbooted thugs BushCo. is the better, right?

Via crooks and liars

White House:

...there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

(Canofun has a little more.)

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If you want to post a lengthier submission (encouraged) – for the sake of brevity and page load time let’s excerpt the first 2 or 3 paragraphs on the front page. The rest can be read in full on the comments page. To accomplish this, just include the following code at the point where you want your post to be ‘cut’:

There’s a quick tag button for this from your posting panel, too:

Thanks!

Thursday, December 22, 2005; 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Iowa City Public Library

Public radio’s new show Big Brain is in search of life’s little questions, the ones you might never think to ask. You and the thousands of the listeners who tune into the live broadcast make up the Big Brain. Together we meld our minds for the hour to ask questions and come up with answers, educated guesses, and yes, we admit, sometimes just good hunches. Send your improbable and elusive questions to wsui@uiowa.edu with the subject line Big Brain and then tune in!

Live on The Library Channel, cable channel 10.

More here

What better way to demonstrate compassion for the poor during this time of year than to donate $5,000,000 to attract a new dean to the University of Iowa’s business college. A charitable donation, indeed:

—loquacious

Business leader Tippie donates more to U of I.

The man whose name is on the University of Iowa business college has given the college $5 million to attract a new dean to the school.

Henry B. Tippie of Austin, Texas, said he hopes the gift will help the university find a well-qualified candidate to succeed Gary Fethke, who is retiring as the college’s dean in 2006. Tippie gave the college $30 million in 1999 for a variety of uses.

“Henry understands the concept of transformational philanthropy – that is, generosity designed to help already excellent institutions take huge strides forward into greatness,” said David Skorton, university president.

From the Des Moines Register

I was thinking about the movie As Good As It Gets this morning. Not sure why exactly. But, anyway, I was thinking about the scene in the restaurant when Helen Hunt was about to walk out on Jack Nicholson and said to him “Say something nice to me or I’m leaving.” Jack Nicholson has this pained look on his face and he’s clearly struggling to find the words, to find the part of him that loves this woman and let it out. And just as she’s about to leave he looks up, clear-eyed, and says (best line he’s ever delivered) “You make me want to be a better man.”

It’s the tastiest scene in the movie. It would be too contrite to say that it was Nicholson’s moment of redemption. It was, but to say it so simply perhaps doesn’t do it justice. As I was thinking about it I began to imagine what might happen if there was a sequel. Fast-forward a year later in their lives. Helen Hunt has quit her job as a waitress and has gotten engaged to Nicholson. But one day she runs into a waitress she used to work with at the restaurant. As they’re catching up, Hunt mentions to the woman that she’s engaged. There’s the usual excitement and congratulations. So the waitress asks her “So, who’s the lucky guy?” and Helen tells her that it’s the cantankerous old goat that used to come into the restaurant all the time. The other woman is dumbfounded and asks why, how, when, where—what?!

Helen explains everything and mentions the scene at the restaurant as the turning point when she started to really fall for him. She then goes on to say that he kept putting is foot in his mouth even as they were dating, but less and less so over time. So much less that she mentions that it’s been months since he’s said anything that could be considered remotely mean. In other words, he truly has become a better man through his relationship with her. But not only has he become kinder and gentler with her, he’s become kinder and gentler with everyone. The waitress is bewildered but uplifted by this story. She mentions to Helen that she still works at the restaurant and says that the two of them should drop by the restaurant sometime—”You have to! No one there will believe it and they’ll think I’m nuts if you don’t. Please come by!”

Via DrewMiller.net: The drink list from the DNC Christmas Party.

Through sheer happenstance, I was invited to the DNC Christmas Party. Once again, mostly interesting to me, but I think some readers might get a kick out of the drink list:

The Daily Iowegian—Country life was centered around family:

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(Via State 29.)

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Despite what has become Dubya’s habitual penchant for tongue-twisted weaselism, the most troubling aspect of his performance this evening was how detatched and unaffected he was when talking about the (Lehrer’s numbers now) 30,000+ thousand Iraqi civilian deaths and the 2100+ American deaths. Pawns in the game to this guy. Shit happens.

And what the hell is up with that omnipresent jaw twitch? Perhaps the question we should be asking is this: Precisely what kind of psychotropic medications is the leader of the free world now on and how long has he been on them?

“hehhh…We tapped your home, too Jim.
Can’t be too careful, heh he.”

You can review the festivities for yourself here.

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