Your Early Thanksgiving Present!

1. In a rare move, I’m actually going to use my real name here because I feel like I need to stand up for what I’m going to say.

   I cannot disagree more with Joe Callahan’s guest commentary that his viewpoints on the war were unfairly squelched at the All Souls Procession.

   I feel like him stating that he was in the right to politicize a mourning event makes me consider his actions akin to how the Westboro Baptist Church protests at military processions to make a political statement.

   I am not criticizing the message presented, I am criticizing the politicization of an event relating to mourning the dead.

   “I’m offended by your sign; this procession is about mourning and not protesting.” Callahan paraphrases a man wearing a bird mask, adding with a certain amount of cockiness, “I don’t know how wearing a bird mask honors the dead, but it looked cool.”

   Masks are a traditional part of the Day of the Dead.

   It is admirable Callahan is standing up for our many, many fallen troops killed in this war. Let’s not forget the soldiers who have died. It just seems like using the event for political purposes is uncouth.

   It sort of reminds me of how people at my Alma Mater would picket weekly at the Planned Parenthood “to honor the unborn”. I never felt it was an appropriate place to make that message. The group’s argument was they were doing so under the guise of upholding the Scripture.

   Likewise, this commentary left a foul taste in my mouth as Callahan asserts his right to politicize the event under the guise of expressing his cathartic release for honoring the dead.

2. Good stuff in the issue to be thankful for.

   • Danehy writes a recap of his views on the Iraq war that is readable and has a few funny bits (comparing Persians and Arabs to black people and the LAPD will probably get some angry letters from Persians and Arabs demanding to know whether which is supposed to be which). Sounds like Danehy deals with a lot of idiotic right-wing callers on “The Tomil Franzehy Show.” Maybe in an upcoming column he could highlight some of the dumbest things people have said. That would be good for a laugh, chortle, snort, chuckle, belly laugh (different from a laugh), titter (heh heh…I said “titter”), giggle, grunt, or guffaw. It’s amazing to me in a region with so few basements, how many people behave like guys living in their mother’s basement.

   • The latest from Connie Tuttle (not Catherine O’Sullivan…I get so confused) is a weird one, but much better than her “I took a red-eye flight….and I couldn’t sleep!” column from two weeks ago. She writes about how European McDonald’s are experimenting with their menus and decorations to win over more customers, and how they ought to update McDonald’s to please people here. Then she writes about a number of enhancements that nearly made me barf. Topping that list is the concept of “McDonald’s Savory Chunks,” and those very words spoken together made me nearly blow savory chunks. I don’t know why Tuttle cares enough to try to help McDonald’s corporate come up with ideas, but I suppose it’s nice of her. If they followed all her advice — green chiles, jalapeno cheeses, horchata, wood seating, cactus arches, a bilingual clown — they’d have to design a new restaurant from scratch. And even then the food would still taste like ass. And by the way, I’ve been to a few McDonald’s in Europe, and they must not have received the memo because they were as nasty as anything in the U.S. Great places to pee, though, as long as you have a mini-bottle of hand-sanitizer in your pocket to use afterward.

   Here are my Tucson McDonald’s ideas, Tuttle (not Buttle): Grimace would be a barrel cactus and you could have a Prickly Pear Milkshake (careful not to drink the thorns at the bottom!). The Hamburglar would be The Methtweeker. Chicken McNuggets would be Roadkill McSluggets. Best of all would be a Mickey D’s with a good old fashioned Southwestern lynching. Rabble rabble rabble.

   • Joe Callahan writes a guest piece about various responses people had when he showed up at a mourning-the-dead procession with a sign and clothes more suited for an anti-war protest. His piece explains why he thinks this is appropriate (because people be dyin’ in the war — he mentions the figure of 800,000 Iraqis dying, which is the highest estimate I’ve heard yet, and I’d like to know where it comes from, though I don’t necessarily doubt it). All told it’s not a bad column. You can understand why some people would be offended by him, if their idea was for the procession to be non-political. Still, with him wearing a “Cheney mask, suit, jester pants and cowboy hat with crusader dolls taped to the front,” it sure makes things more interesting. Why no photo? This is a website and there’s extra bandwidth for photos! I demand a photo.

   • Tucson Weekly’s new columnist Jimmy Boegle (or Boeglewulf?) puts a fresh face on the realm of Tucson column-writing with his piece about his upcoming dinner with his cat Garrett and their plans to dine out at a restaurant that in no way resembles a Southwestern McDonald’s. Nice to see there’s some new blood at the Weekly! Boegle tells us to stop and smell the creosote and set aside petty crap it’s a heartfelt sentiment. Unfortunately many of us out in internet-land have also recently lost some loved ones. (For example, my uncle’s wife recently lost both her parents when they ran into the back of a semi that had suddenly slowed down in a near-hurricane-level storm on a Jacksonville, Florida freeway…while they were on their way driving out from Arizona to see them) It will be a sad holiday season but the rest of the family will be together and we’ll have a nice time.

   • As sometimes happens, the letters section is almost more interesting than the articles. Some women wrote to complain there weren’t enough women (actually, any women) included in the Tuesday-night bike ride piece, and it’s funny, because while reading that piece in the back of my mind I did wonder, “Is this a gay thing?” since there were few to no ladies mentioned. Another letter writer points out that the local government offers free helmets and other safety items for people who complete bicycle safety courses. (One of the ride’s founders mentioned that the city should be giving out reflectors ‘n’ stuff, not tickets.) Cool.

   • Mari Herreras has a piece about Tumamoc Hill that seems well-written and about an important subject involving land, government, usage, law, history, and other important junk. Boooo-riiiing! Just kidding. Seems to be a fine piece about a worthy subject, but I got stuck on the phrase, “Tucson’s version of the Acropolis.” The Acropolis is this huge mega-famous highly visible tourist-attraction thing known the world over. It’s not a Tumamoc!

   • Tim Vanderpool’s piece about the Veteran’s Day parade depicts a situation that pisses me off: Michael Allen and his son (and a guy named Robert Lee — there’s a photo of the dicks standing there looking dickish) holding up a large cloth in front of some protesters who have a sign that reads, “In memory of those killed in Iraq. How many more?” Because they thought the sign was inappropriate, they took it upon themselves to block it from view every time vets walked by. Seems somebody was playing hooky the day they taught First Amendment stuff at Super-Patriotic Testosterone School. Speaking of things that are inappropriate, at the end of the piece Vanderpool describes a float containing a yellow mousetrap with the slogan, “Trapping the Enemy, Truly Nolen Style.” Holy shit, are they comparing Iraqi insurgents to mice? Wow, anybody remember a comic book called “Maus?” The display might as well have read: “Dehumanizing the Enemy, Truly Nolen Style.”

   • Gene Armstrong writes a piece about a concert tribute to Rainer Ptacek who died 10 years ago. I am all for honoring creative people who passed away, even 10 years later. It’s sweet and shows how much people enjoyed his music and liked him. (I imagine people won’t have much to say about me 10 years after I die, except possibly, “what’s that smell?”) But my question about this homage, or maybe this article, is why, if you’re honoring a guy and discussing his work and memory, there isn’t a prominent link to a website where you can listen to .mp3’s, see photos, read about him, etc. The article doesn’t even so much as mention his MySpace page, which has music right when you load it up.

   • Not much to say about James Reel’s piece about a theatrical version of “A Christmas Carol” except: (1) It’s a well-done piece, (2) the lead about carbon footprints is a little weird even though he does callback to the recycling concept later on, and (3) I’m always a sucker for a reference to my favorite TV show of all time, “Wallace and Ladmo”! It would seem Reel spent some time living in Phoenix.

   • I read several other articles but don’t have time to babble about them. I read Digiovanna’s review of the Coen Bros. picture (great review as usual, this time about a great-sounding movie) and I can’t wait to see it. I also want to see “Beowulf (in 3-D)” which Grimm reviewed, even though it sounds hokey and like the sort of thing to beo-wolf down some pot brownies before seeing. Not that I’d do that sort of thing.

3. Got to correct Sin Twister’s assumption that I once lived in Phoenix. I actually spent much of my impressionable youth in Yuma; we got KPHO from Phoenix via cable. (Cable TV came to Yuma a good 20 years before it got to Tucson.) An oddity of Yuma’s ability to collect TV stations from both Arizona and California: For some reason, there was one season during which I could see two episodes of Star Trek each week (this was when it was a first-run series). I guess the Arizona station was somehow a week behind. Not sure that NBC would have approved, but Yuma was a backward town.

4. The reason the Arizona station was a week behind in “Star Trek” episodes is because Arizona does not use week-light savings time.

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