orbis quintus

I don’t really know who qualifies as an intellectual. Although the current climate in America seems deeply anti-intellectual, i cannot divorce myself of pop culture enough to embrace a rigorous intellectual life. Sorry.

However, i did vote in that deeply flawed Prospect poll for the Top 100 Intellectuals of the moment. I had never heard of quite a few of these people, and many of the ones that i’m most familiar with i’m baffled by their inclusion. (I too call bullshit on Christopher Hitchens with no hesitation.) My votes are for the most part little more than who i like, not people who i know are the most worthy. My picks are:

So screw that silly twit Tom Friedman and drunk Chris Hitchens. I know that there are plenty of other worhies on that list, and far more that were excluded. While i deny that i have any kind of pantheon of heroes, this list has me reassess that reaction.

(Oh, i missed Martin Rees earlier, although i still woudl have voted the same….)

As for who the prettiest intellectual is, i don’t care much. It will be amusing to see who the internet populace votes for though.

Laghonia “Bahia” Yup. It’s a Sixties Peruvian band, kinda psych, but not quite. Most of their stuff seems too derivative of English and American bands, even to my uncritical ears. It’s solid, but they were influenced by bands that were not my top tier faves in the first place. Unterberger picks this as the most original, most standout track, and i am compelled to agree, most enthusiastically. It’s not surprising that it’s also one of the two most Latin songs off of their album Glue. If Laghonia had followed this muse, they would be a lot better known than the band that eventually became We All Together. It still kinda sounds like a cross between Santana and Cream, bands that i don’t care for on their own, but here sounds great.

Laghonia “Billy Morsa” This one comes in a close second. Apparently they were trying to merge Lennon style guitar chords to a Latin beat. It’s peculiar how exact that hybrid turns out to be. Dark little murder ballad.

Some of the speculation about the letter from Scooter Libby to Judith Miller is beginning to tickle my funnny bone. I’ve been holding my breath, hoping that Fitzgerald can nail most of the senior members of the Bush administration with the cover-up of the Plame leak, but that letter is turning out in droves the tinfoil hat folks that i love so dearly. I love a good conspiracy!

The Plame leak is real, too real. There is certainly some coded message being passed in the Libby letter to Miller. However, so far i’ve seen so awesomely paranoid musings that give me giggle fits:

So If Baldur/Jesus is Bush, who is Hod/Judas? Bring on Ragnarok!

Seriously, the illegality of Plame leak is very real. I just enjoy the loopy shit that paranoids and professional disinformation operatives spread too much to ignore it.

Ideologically, Miers might even be considered a moderate, but more dangerous than any kind radical is someone whose primary loyalty is to Bush, not this country. Reading this summary of her career, i don’t see many qualifications aside from her undivided loyalty to Bush. This is not a right or left issue.

She’ll be confirmed, of course… I’m just grousing that she’ll be a political hack that is incapable of making a decision without considering the interests of her longtime patron first. If by some magical longshot impeachment hearings do emerge, i’ll lay good odds that she won’t bother to recuse herself.

There are rumblings that compare her nomination to the kind of decision that awarded Michael Brown the post of head of FEMA. That’s a little bit of a stretch, as Miers actually is a lawyer (and it doesn’t matter that she has not been a judge,) but her longtime, close ties to Bush magnify the problem. Bush is not serious about an independent judiciary.

In a sick way, i’m relieved. I hope that conservatives realize that this entire administration has not been about remaking the country in their image, but in consolidating power for a select few, whose only ideology is self-preservation.