…so darned inconvenient to not be a conspiracy freak. ‘Cause if I were (and I’m not), I’d be all over the news that FBI resources are now so heavily devoted to the “war on terror,” including assorted authoritarian dirty tricks, that the bureau conveniently can’t do much to fight “white collar crime”—you know, the high-level fraud and corporate shenanigans that are the beloved hobby of so many big GOP campaign contributors.

I’m sure it’s all just a big coindicence. Really.

No, really.

THE MAILBAG: Anne Silberman liked my rather less-than-reverent remembrance of B.C. cartoonist Johnny Hart:

“Hooray Clark!I’m proud of you for telling the truth about Johnny Hart and his B.C. strip!

May I just add that this man was a raging misogynist. The only two female characters in his strip were gross characterizations of female physical traits and they didn’t even have names!!! They were called “the fat broad” and the “cute chick”!!!!

May this dinosaur and his cave man ideology never grace the planet again!

Elsewhere in troglodite-land:

HELLO, IMUS BE GOING: So the original “shock jock” (on the air almost continuously since 1971) has been sacked from his MSNBC cable gig, and might lose his syndicated radio gig as well.

Over the years, Mr. Imus has “refreshed” his on-air schtick, and kept his share of the angry-white-male audience segment, by “borrowing” the most effective (i.e., loudest and dumbest) aspects of other talk hosts’ acts. Thus, he long ago embraced sexist, racist, and homophobic “jokes.” In pure macho-coward fashion, he often left the worst remarks to be spoken by his team of co-hosts, allowing himself plausible deniability.

He not only got away with this kind of “extreme” nonsense for so long, he was courted and sucked-up to by politicians and political operatives of all stripes, eager to get access to Mr. Imus’s “guy” audience. The “mainstream” media also loved the guy, or at least respected his ability to stay at the top of a volatile market.

But now, with one unfunny “joke” comparing a college women’s basketball team to common street prostitutes, he’s apparently on his way out of the bigtime. Will any of his many fellow airwave bigots follow?

Author Marybeth Hamilton claims blues music, from its first appearance on 78 rpm records, has always been a vehicle for white intellectuals and curators to fantasize about the supposed primeval “authenticity” of ethnic folks. And it has continued to be so, on to the recent fad for Paul Simonized “world” music and the thug stereotypes deliberately perpetuated by gangsta rap.

WELL-DUH DEPT. #2: The TV show 24 is produced and written by pro-war Republicans. Who else would so lovingly depict torture as an act of heroism?

…of new-age philosophy evolves ever more passive-aggressive odes to hyper-happy obedience, a Rice U. researcher claims “grumpy workers” make the best employees.

…(besides the beautiful, beautiful snow, of course): “GE buys aerospace division of Smiths Group.” I needed a buyout, and then I got a buyout, and heaven knows I’m miserable now….

It’s the madcap return of the MISCmedia In/Out List.

As always, this, the most accurate In/Out list published anywhere, compiles what will become hot and less-hot in the upcoming year, not necessarily what’s hot and less-hot at this current point in time. If you believe everything that’s hot now will just keep getting hotter in the future, we’ve got some Skykomish River waterfront cabins to sell you.

…why females, including female politicians, should not be slandered with demeaning references to sex organs and sexual activity: “I don’t understand why I should regard vaginas with the negative attitude that the metaphorical use suggests…. every interaction that I have had with a vagina in my life has been a positive one.”

“Doctors say how we taste affects health.” The Colbertian response: Yes. If we weren’t so delicious, bears wouldn’t stalk us.

…officially begins tonight. Here’s some of the costumes I’m fully expecting to see along the party/club circuit these next five days:

• Curious George.
• Incurious George.
• Mark Foley and a Congressional page.
• A Brokeback Mountain couple with Bush and your least favorite Republican politician (yes, including Joe Lieberman and Tony Blair).
• A politicial “attack ad.”
• A Seattle Times vending box attacking a Seattle P-I vending box.
• A Super Bowl referee.
• Matt Hasselbeck on crutches.
• An Oklahoma Sonic.
• Howie Mandel and the Deal Or No Deal models, with metal briefcases.
• A celebrity baby.
• An adopted celebrity baby.
• Dr. House.
• Marie Antoinette.
• Samuel L. Jackson covered in rubber snakes.
• A dissected human body.
• A “cylon” from the new Batlestar Galactica.

When, over the past how-many years, I’ve bitched about San Franciscan attitudes, I was talking about:

• Professional counterculture celebrities who are merely famous for being infamous, who’ve never really written/painted/recorded anything of value but who are adored for their (carefully contrived) outlaw images;
• Loudmouth entertainment/restaurant/fashion hustlers who come up here as cultural colonists, forever whining that this hick town will always suck unless it gets a _____ exactly like the _____s in San Francisco;
• Unimaginative Seattleites who think the only path to true cultural creativity is to copy something already done down there.

I do not, and never have, dissed Frisco (and, yes, I still insist on calling it that) for having gays or liberals within its overpriced midst.

Therefore, I hereby renounce the right wing sleaze machine’s attempt to scare citizens out of voting for Democrats because the Dems would place
a known San Franciscan as Speaker of the House.

…on the latest e. coli scare? Everyone agrees: Bluto did it.

…than watching myNetworkTV:

• Buffing toenails.
• Cleaning tile grout.
• Emergency oral surgery.
• Removing the cellophane wrapping from compact discs.
• Reconfiguring a small-office LAN installation.
• Tongue piercing sans local anesthetic.
• Proofreading volumes of small towns’ municipal codes.
• Scraping old gum off the bottoms of restaurant tables.
• Hand-grading standardized tests.
• Separating recyclables from non-recyclables.
• Being interviewed for a job you don’t even want, pretending you want it.
• Listening to jackhammers.
• Listening to coworkers or customers complaining.
• A ten-mile freeway backup.
• A middle-school piano recital in which you are not related to any of the performers.

“If Seattle’s really the brainiest city in America, why can’t we figure out how to ________?”

…“How is it that at 4:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, ‘evil’ Bill Gates became a saint?”

• “The curse,” reversed?
• Could Stephen Colbert be right about America’s biggest threat being bears?
• It’s official: Even Marshall Field’s in Chicago is getting Macyfied, alas.
• The mainstream media have discovered that Starbucks is a “lifestyle brand” even more than it’s a restaurant chain. Duh. I could’ve told you that, and have. From the pre-Howard Schultz start, Starbucks’ original founders intended to rebrand European-style coffee as an essential acoutrement to a young-professional, neo-bourgeois lifestyle. They offed the image of coffeehouses full of bongo-playing beatniks, and invented the image of a home espresso machine next to every Cuisinart.
• My recent acquaintance David Goldstein has a nice essay pondering out loud about whether we can use the “F” word (no, not the boring ol’ “F” word but another, more incindiary one) to describe the current U.S. political machine.My take: This word has been so overused in political discourse, especially in online discussion boards, that it’s become nearly worthless as a descriptor. Besides, its use can easily confuse readers/listeners. We’re not (or at least I’m not, and I believe Goldstein’s not) talking about some wholesale adoption of all the cultural, verbal, and sociological shticks of 1933 Germany—or even those of 1920 Italy, which our current regime more closely resembles.

  A Texas two-step is not a goose-step.

  America’s devolution from democracy to empire has occurred in an all-American way. It’s rooted in the dark side of our own traditions. And it’s within the good side of our own traditions that its effective responses must be found.

• Last week, I was interviewed by a white hip-hop DJ from the Seattle U student Internet radio station. He was eager for stories about gangbangin’ violence in Belltown. I tried to explain to him that the noise and the rowdiness and the drunken brawling seen on First Avenue in the weekend wee hours are principally the work of young affluent Caucasians, who often arrive here en masse on chartered buses from the Eastside.I could have digressed, but didn’t, that the whole gangsta mythology was a stereotype invented a decade ago by LA record producers, specifically to nakedly exploit young affluent Caucasians’ images of young black males as sexy savages.

  In real life, violent criminals of any race tend not to be alluringly handsome, well-spoken, or well-dressed. They’re far more likely to be pathetic, desperate losers, out of touch with their own souls.

Bush attended the annual White House reporters’ banquet Saturday night. Faux-reporter and self-deemed superpatriot Stephen Colbert gave a shockingly satirical speech, totally in character.

The so-called “MSM” chose not to discuss the speech, preferring to report on the banquet with footage of Bush himself appearing in a comedy skit with a lookalike. But online videos and transcripts of Colbert’s performance spread all over. As have bloggers’ responses to it.

A freshly-minted “Thank You Stephen Colbert” fan-blog has logged more than 10,000 responses from grateful viral-video viewers. (Say that five times fast.)