This email was sent to me by accident today. It was intended for Leslie Moonves, the CEO of CBS.
12/28/06
From: Dick Cheney
To: Les Moonves
Re: Super Bowl Halftime
Hey Les. We're all sitting around up here talking about how to look better on the Iraq issue and we have an interesting proposition for you. I know this is the first Super Bowl for CBS since Janet Jackson. We worked together so well on that one. Karl's idea of the nipple reveal was a brilliant stroke. It took the heat off of us on the war, and sent your ratings through the roof. It also galvanized our base.
So how about this? I know it's coming to you late but….We're offering to hang Saddam on the 50 yard line at halftime at this year's Super Bowl. We figure if you start the promos two days before, the lefties will do the work of getting the word out. I can't wait to hear fucking Olbermann on this one lololol.
We'll pick up the construction of the gallows. KBR can get that built fast, if I tell them to.
If there's any trouble with the entertainment you've already scheduled, Condi had a great idea, have Prince and Beyonce sing "Where Doves Cry" in duet as the trap door opens. W suggested 50 Cent pay tribute to Saddam's crimes with some funky fresh thug rhymes (those are W's words) as Saddam is driven into the stadium in that spare Popemobile they keep in Miami.
I can understand if you want to keep Jim Nance and Phil Simms out of it. We can provide Bill O'Reilly for play-by-play. If you have a problem with Fox talent, I can get you Michael Buffer, everybody loves him.
We can arrange to have several thousand Iraqis in full native costume to weep and wail and cheer as he dies.
I know you understand the entertainment and ratings value of this. We figure it'll help get our momentum back. Get back to me asap.
Can't wait for us to go hunting again!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
James Brown In the Witness Chair c.1980
In the early 1980s, James Brown's empire was in tatters. He had sold his James Brown Motor Inn in Baltimore and had to sell WEBB, which before he bought it had been the first all-Black radio station in Baltimore, Maryland. He was selling off properties all over the country.
I was a story producer for Westinghouse's Evening/PM Magazine at the time and I heard that he was going to be in town for a court appearance. Apparently he owed millions. I wanted to see if he would do an interview for the show, so I showed up at the courtroom.
This was around the same time that the federal government had just bailed out Chrysler to the tune of $1.2 billion.
When I walked in, there he was, James Brown himself, on the witness stand. Lawyers interrogated him. The judge asked him questions. It was obvious he was in deep shit.
After a half-hour of questioning, James Brown turned to the judge and in that unmistakable rasp of a voice, and in one moment of pure insight said, "Judge, if I was Chrysler, you wouldn't be doing this to me."
Of course, he was right, but the proceedings went ahead anyway.
BTW….I got the interview.
One day his various behaviors will be forgotten and only the music will remain. Then we'll fully understand his singular genius.
This can also be found at huffingtonpost
I was a story producer for Westinghouse's Evening/PM Magazine at the time and I heard that he was going to be in town for a court appearance. Apparently he owed millions. I wanted to see if he would do an interview for the show, so I showed up at the courtroom.
This was around the same time that the federal government had just bailed out Chrysler to the tune of $1.2 billion.
When I walked in, there he was, James Brown himself, on the witness stand. Lawyers interrogated him. The judge asked him questions. It was obvious he was in deep shit.
After a half-hour of questioning, James Brown turned to the judge and in that unmistakable rasp of a voice, and in one moment of pure insight said, "Judge, if I was Chrysler, you wouldn't be doing this to me."
Of course, he was right, but the proceedings went ahead anyway.
BTW….I got the interview.
One day his various behaviors will be forgotten and only the music will remain. Then we'll fully understand his singular genius.
This can also be found at huffingtonpost
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Throwing Rocks at Republicans -- Real Rocks
Kenneth Dwayne Thomas is in jail today in Columbus, Ohio for doing what many of us would like to do if we didn't mind sitting in a similar lock-up. Columbus TV station WCMH said he "was caught on camera throwing rocks at the Republican Headquarters building in Columbus. Officials said windows at the headquarters on South 5th Street have been broken nearly a dozen times… They also said staff members have nearly been pelted with thrown objects. Republicans said they thought the vandalism would die down after the recent elections, but that wasn’t the case."
Is anybody else laughing besides me?
Kenny reportedly told police that Republicans were a cancer and should be exterminated.
He may have gone a little far there. A hefty dose of chemo, yes, but extermination is probably not a good word to use, Kenny. I understand though. Ohio Republicans stole the 2004 Presidential Election and therefore take on responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration since then.
Hey, sometimes you just wanna throw rocks, you know? A pie is more my speed, if I must throw something, but I'm better at throwing invective.
Although Ken is 58, what can a poor boy do? That sleepy college town is no place for a street-fighting man.
I'm surprised the Republicans haven't called it a terrorist act, YET. Give Fox news time though. But even though I'm not advocating the use of violence (did you read that Alberto?), Jim Webb DID want to punch Bush in the chops the other day. It isn't unreasonable to want to punish the Republicans for the damage they've done to America.
Still, a little "yessssssssssss" was heard all over America when folks like me who would like to form an organization called "People for American Payback" heard about Kenny's activities.
Is anybody else laughing besides me?
Kenny reportedly told police that Republicans were a cancer and should be exterminated.
He may have gone a little far there. A hefty dose of chemo, yes, but extermination is probably not a good word to use, Kenny. I understand though. Ohio Republicans stole the 2004 Presidential Election and therefore take on responsibility for the actions of the Bush administration since then.
Hey, sometimes you just wanna throw rocks, you know? A pie is more my speed, if I must throw something, but I'm better at throwing invective.
Although Ken is 58, what can a poor boy do? That sleepy college town is no place for a street-fighting man.
I'm surprised the Republicans haven't called it a terrorist act, YET. Give Fox news time though. But even though I'm not advocating the use of violence (did you read that Alberto?), Jim Webb DID want to punch Bush in the chops the other day. It isn't unreasonable to want to punish the Republicans for the damage they've done to America.
Still, a little "yessssssssssss" was heard all over America when folks like me who would like to form an organization called "People for American Payback" heard about Kenny's activities.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
W's Smirk is back
The arrogance and condescension is back in his voice and the smirk is back on his face…the straining to convince us that what he believes is right because he believes it; and exactly what's wrong with us for not believing him? He's leaning forward with that "Don't you KNOW? Don't you understand what I'm SAYING? Is it too COMPLICATED for you? What I'm saying is so OVBIOUS. Why don't you GET it?"
And the look that says, "How many times do I have to TELL you this before you GET it?"
In other words, after a short period of looking "thumped," he is back with all the aspects about him that Americans have rejected, those things that have made him the laughing stock of the world. The only ones not laughing are those who have suffered and continue to suffer and die under his regime.
Did you see him yesterday at his "news" conference with the military? Did you hear him talk about how brilliant they were? And did you notice the two guys flanking him? The one on the right who looked like his head had been used as a bowling ball and the one on the left who had apparently added an extra couple of stories to his forehead. They looked about as brilliant as the slow class at The United States Military College at Mortville.
Am I disrespecting the troops? I think I am. Think about it, what kind of idiot do you have to be to join the military this month? To fight for what? Has anybody told the troops over there that they're getting killed so some fat guys in Washington and Texas can buy mansions, stuff their faces and purchase whores?
You know what I call someone who puts on a uniform and flies to the other side of the world to risk his life for the Republican Party? I call him a terminal fool.
But then, that's what I've been calling W since the moment I first saw him. As part of the media pack when he visited Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2000, before the Republican Convention, I got to be close to him. The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. A sure sign of a drunk.
The second thing I noticed was that, like James Webb, I wanted to slap his monkey face. He was just like all of the fratboy assholes I had ever known. I have never wanted to have a beer, a line of coke with him, or spend another single moment in his presence.
So when he walked out with those stuffed uniforms yesterday, and his mouth formed that ugly smirk, and he said, once again that his way was the only way and fuck Baker and fuck Hamilton and the stretch limos they rode in on, I didn't feel quite a bad as usual. Why? Because he's a pitiful isolated lonely lunatic, clinging to power and ridiculed behind his back by everyone in the world. America's friends, its enemies, its trading partners, even countries who could give a rat's ass what happens in America are laughing at him.
We're all laughing at you George. Don't you get it? Even old Gerald Ford who did absolutely nothing as President, and got fired before he could fall down another time, even HE was voted a better president than W….and by a huge margin.
Wipe it off, W, the Dems haven't even started the hearings yet.
And the look that says, "How many times do I have to TELL you this before you GET it?"
In other words, after a short period of looking "thumped," he is back with all the aspects about him that Americans have rejected, those things that have made him the laughing stock of the world. The only ones not laughing are those who have suffered and continue to suffer and die under his regime.
Did you see him yesterday at his "news" conference with the military? Did you hear him talk about how brilliant they were? And did you notice the two guys flanking him? The one on the right who looked like his head had been used as a bowling ball and the one on the left who had apparently added an extra couple of stories to his forehead. They looked about as brilliant as the slow class at The United States Military College at Mortville.
Am I disrespecting the troops? I think I am. Think about it, what kind of idiot do you have to be to join the military this month? To fight for what? Has anybody told the troops over there that they're getting killed so some fat guys in Washington and Texas can buy mansions, stuff their faces and purchase whores?
You know what I call someone who puts on a uniform and flies to the other side of the world to risk his life for the Republican Party? I call him a terminal fool.
But then, that's what I've been calling W since the moment I first saw him. As part of the media pack when he visited Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2000, before the Republican Convention, I got to be close to him. The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. A sure sign of a drunk.
The second thing I noticed was that, like James Webb, I wanted to slap his monkey face. He was just like all of the fratboy assholes I had ever known. I have never wanted to have a beer, a line of coke with him, or spend another single moment in his presence.
So when he walked out with those stuffed uniforms yesterday, and his mouth formed that ugly smirk, and he said, once again that his way was the only way and fuck Baker and fuck Hamilton and the stretch limos they rode in on, I didn't feel quite a bad as usual. Why? Because he's a pitiful isolated lonely lunatic, clinging to power and ridiculed behind his back by everyone in the world. America's friends, its enemies, its trading partners, even countries who could give a rat's ass what happens in America are laughing at him.
We're all laughing at you George. Don't you get it? Even old Gerald Ford who did absolutely nothing as President, and got fired before he could fall down another time, even HE was voted a better president than W….and by a huge margin.
Wipe it off, W, the Dems haven't even started the hearings yet.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Sincere Senator Smith
About this Gordon Smith guy.
As a ten-year Oregon resident, my first lesson in Oregon politics didn't come from any one here. It came on my radio talk show (at the time) shortly after I moved here, and it didn't come from an Oregonian. It came from Washington (DC) writer Bill Thomas. I asked him about the Oregon Congressional delegation. You know, the dirt. He said, "Oh, well there isn't much. Oregon is one of those 'good government' states."
We have our right wing crazies here, of course, but they always lose. They've done their damage over the years; spending limits and mandatory sentencing, both of which have proven failures. This year's election saw the rejection of a conservative Republican and the re-election of the current governor who is best known for his bowling. Hardly anyone can think of a single thing he's ever done. In Oregon, that's not necessarily a bad thing, after all, the legislature meets every TWO years.
We tend to use government here in the way it was intended, to improve things. Although Portland has been living off its gloriously innovative recent past, it's still way ahead of much of the country in the way it decides how things get done. There is less of that now, as the condo class takes over the city, but still people flock here because it's just a better place to live.
There are lots of things on Gordon Smith's minus side. Oregon is the least churched state in the country, but we're tolerant and most of us tolerate Smith's belief in Mormon mythology. We didn't like his recent support of racist Trent Lott's quest to return to House leadership.
Smith isn't easy to pigeon-hole. He's literally from the Udall family. Mo is listed as a "double cousin" (whatever that is). If there is such a thing as the Republican center, he's in it.
He's generally pro gay rights but voted against gay marriage. He's generally with the administration but not on stem cell research. He was against the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law, but sponsored the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges. The act is named after his son who killed himself. It was around that time that he and Oregon's other Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, became close friends. Remember the striking video of Wyden consoling Smith on the floor of the Senate?
I sat I his office in 2000 when I was working on a magazine piece on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. The other Republicans were trying all manner of fakes and dodges to pander to their base and thwart the law, making things up right and left about the law and its administration. Smith was the only politician I interveiwed who looked me square in the eye and said it was a religious issue for him. I may disagree with him and I'm definitely in the Sam Harris camp when it comes to finding religious views absurd, but at least Smith was telling the truth.
So it was surprising but not terribly so to hear him speak out against the war the other day. He's from one of those "good government" states.
One insight into his personality comes from the Smith Frozen Foods website www.smithfrozenfoods.com. He bought his grandaddy's business in Western Oregon in the 1980s and is known among us snickering Progressives as "the peapacker." But he apparently takes it seriously. And why not? Here's what they say about him, " One of Gordon Smith's earliest memories is stepping into the freezer of a pea processing plant his family owned and feeling the cold air on his face. He saw rows and rows of boxed vegetables, ready for shipment. He saw his grandfather and father at work that day, long ago in the plant. For him, it produced an image frozen in time."
As inadvertent a joke as the phrase "frozen in time" may be, it gives you an idea that this guy may be on the wrong side of many if not most issues, but he's got sincerity coming out his ass.
Nevertheless, he's too late to the Iraq war party. Whether his sincerity overrides his bad choices in supporting the Administration on the war all these years sets up a fun show when he runs for re-election in 2008. He could be beaten by ex-governor John Kitzhaber, should he run. Kitzhaber is a physician who favors cowboy boots and is getting national buzz for his push for better health care. www.wecandobetter.org
this also appears on huffington.com
As a ten-year Oregon resident, my first lesson in Oregon politics didn't come from any one here. It came on my radio talk show (at the time) shortly after I moved here, and it didn't come from an Oregonian. It came from Washington (DC) writer Bill Thomas. I asked him about the Oregon Congressional delegation. You know, the dirt. He said, "Oh, well there isn't much. Oregon is one of those 'good government' states."
We have our right wing crazies here, of course, but they always lose. They've done their damage over the years; spending limits and mandatory sentencing, both of which have proven failures. This year's election saw the rejection of a conservative Republican and the re-election of the current governor who is best known for his bowling. Hardly anyone can think of a single thing he's ever done. In Oregon, that's not necessarily a bad thing, after all, the legislature meets every TWO years.
We tend to use government here in the way it was intended, to improve things. Although Portland has been living off its gloriously innovative recent past, it's still way ahead of much of the country in the way it decides how things get done. There is less of that now, as the condo class takes over the city, but still people flock here because it's just a better place to live.
There are lots of things on Gordon Smith's minus side. Oregon is the least churched state in the country, but we're tolerant and most of us tolerate Smith's belief in Mormon mythology. We didn't like his recent support of racist Trent Lott's quest to return to House leadership.
Smith isn't easy to pigeon-hole. He's literally from the Udall family. Mo is listed as a "double cousin" (whatever that is). If there is such a thing as the Republican center, he's in it.
He's generally pro gay rights but voted against gay marriage. He's generally with the administration but not on stem cell research. He was against the Oregon physician-assisted suicide law, but sponsored the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges. The act is named after his son who killed himself. It was around that time that he and Oregon's other Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, became close friends. Remember the striking video of Wyden consoling Smith on the floor of the Senate?
I sat I his office in 2000 when I was working on a magazine piece on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. The other Republicans were trying all manner of fakes and dodges to pander to their base and thwart the law, making things up right and left about the law and its administration. Smith was the only politician I interveiwed who looked me square in the eye and said it was a religious issue for him. I may disagree with him and I'm definitely in the Sam Harris camp when it comes to finding religious views absurd, but at least Smith was telling the truth.
So it was surprising but not terribly so to hear him speak out against the war the other day. He's from one of those "good government" states.
One insight into his personality comes from the Smith Frozen Foods website www.smithfrozenfoods.com. He bought his grandaddy's business in Western Oregon in the 1980s and is known among us snickering Progressives as "the peapacker." But he apparently takes it seriously. And why not? Here's what they say about him, " One of Gordon Smith's earliest memories is stepping into the freezer of a pea processing plant his family owned and feeling the cold air on his face. He saw rows and rows of boxed vegetables, ready for shipment. He saw his grandfather and father at work that day, long ago in the plant. For him, it produced an image frozen in time."
As inadvertent a joke as the phrase "frozen in time" may be, it gives you an idea that this guy may be on the wrong side of many if not most issues, but he's got sincerity coming out his ass.
Nevertheless, he's too late to the Iraq war party. Whether his sincerity overrides his bad choices in supporting the Administration on the war all these years sets up a fun show when he runs for re-election in 2008. He could be beaten by ex-governor John Kitzhaber, should he run. Kitzhaber is a physician who favors cowboy boots and is getting national buzz for his push for better health care. www.wecandobetter.org
this also appears on huffington.com
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Baker Boys -- A Total Waste of Time
With everyone running in circles, leaping for joy and clapping their hands over the fact that Jim Baker's boys have concluded what many of us knew before the war started, that you can't win in Iraq, it might be good to consider:
Any reading of history will tell you that this was the obvious outcome.
And if you had asked any Iraqi at the time (as many did), you would have discovered that yes, they wanted Saddam out, but they wanted us out just as fast.
The overwhelming sentiment in Iraq in the days before the U.S. invasion was that things would be fine if the U.S. would leave things to the Iraqis and go home quickly. Under ordinary circumstances you would expect the U.S. government to know things like that. It is the ultimate irony that the group led by James Baker, which represents the worst in American foreign policy in the 1980s (see: Iran-Contra, etc) would be the ones to bring a sliver of reality to the attention of the Bush White House.
All of those months of study, the thousands of hours of testimony and deliberations will be for nothing. That's because nothing but the total withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq will solve the problems Bush unleashed when he made all the wrong decisions.
He broke it. He can't fix it. America can't fix it. We've proven that. The Iraqis don't want the U.S. to fix it. And if we don't like the manner in which they will fix it themselves, that's our problem, not theirs. They have enough problems. Our leaving will solve one of them. How they solve the other problems is their sovereign choice, not ours. The U.S. doesn't care how the Sudanese are fixing their problems. Or how the Rwandans did.
Blog on folks. Let the hours of punditry reign for a couple of news cycles. It won't matter. Nothing will change until there isn't a single American, military or mercenary, left in Iraq.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Any reading of history will tell you that this was the obvious outcome.
And if you had asked any Iraqi at the time (as many did), you would have discovered that yes, they wanted Saddam out, but they wanted us out just as fast.
The overwhelming sentiment in Iraq in the days before the U.S. invasion was that things would be fine if the U.S. would leave things to the Iraqis and go home quickly. Under ordinary circumstances you would expect the U.S. government to know things like that. It is the ultimate irony that the group led by James Baker, which represents the worst in American foreign policy in the 1980s (see: Iran-Contra, etc) would be the ones to bring a sliver of reality to the attention of the Bush White House.
All of those months of study, the thousands of hours of testimony and deliberations will be for nothing. That's because nothing but the total withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq will solve the problems Bush unleashed when he made all the wrong decisions.
He broke it. He can't fix it. America can't fix it. We've proven that. The Iraqis don't want the U.S. to fix it. And if we don't like the manner in which they will fix it themselves, that's our problem, not theirs. They have enough problems. Our leaving will solve one of them. How they solve the other problems is their sovereign choice, not ours. The U.S. doesn't care how the Sudanese are fixing their problems. Or how the Rwandans did.
Blog on folks. Let the hours of punditry reign for a couple of news cycles. It won't matter. Nothing will change until there isn't a single American, military or mercenary, left in Iraq.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Saturday, December 02, 2006
CounterPunch December Playlist
While waiting for Rick Rubin to offer O.J. Simpson an album deal:
1. Zoe Keating "one cello x 16: natoma" CD
You can't cross the street without engaging a cello these days. At least that's the way it seems. Keating, a tall woman with stalks of wild red hair and an international following has cooched up her cello with electronics, loops herself, plays percussion on it, and sounds like a one-woman string quartet with self-percussion.
Matter of fact, she even calls it "layered cello." And even though if you say that aloud, it sounds like some kind of dessert, it is the cello equivalent of "prepared piano." Of course, given today's technology, prepared piano is a quaint concept. This isn't quaint.
If I were writing for a MSM publication I might have to tip-toe around and mew shit like, "this is very modern but it's totally accessible." Well I don't give a rat's ass if it's accessible or not. It's accessible to me, and this is the stuff I'M listening to. On the other hand, this album made it to #2 on iTunes classical chart at one point, so she's certainly well-known.
This is gorgeous, it's exciting and irresistible. She is getting a new cello in a few months. He current cello has been with her since she was twelve. She is all excited about it. She'll continue to travel with the old one, but if you see a new studio album in the future, it will be with the new one. She is all excited about it. She is recording live in Portland, Oregon at Mississippi Studios in December with the old one.
www.zoekeating.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUDI256PY4E
2. John Callahan "Purple Winos In the Rain" CD
He's the quadriplegic nationally syndicated cartoonist with a dark sense of humor that twenty-somethings only dream of having. There is something to be said for a bad attitude coming from a person who actually earned it.
A few years ago videographer/editor Greg Bond and I made a music video of one of Callahan's songs for a TV show we were working on. It was "Portland Girl." Few knew that Callahan was a song writer or a singer at the time. The song was oddly sentimental. Sentiment is not something John is known for.
Guitarist Terry Robb produced this album and John did the illustrations for its brilliant packaging.
The songs are not happy ones, sentiment aside. They come from the depths but are not the whining of someone just out of puberty who never grew out of teen-angst. These are adult, sarcastic; sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic.
It includes a recording taken from Callahan's voice mail of Tom Waits singing one of Callahan's songs to him.
Callahan's voice is soft and fragile, sometimes reaching for notes. Every time he reaches you want him to make it.
Although "Purple Winos In the Rain" is the title tune, and the most promotable for the title if nothing else, the key song is "Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel." You'll have to make that journey on your own, dear reader.
You're going to be hearing about this soon. Remember you heard it here first.
www.callahanonline.com
3. Bob Dylan "Theme Time Radio—Food"
Dylan's radio show on Sirius has evolved from his playing recordings of other people and either cracking wise or obviously reading (stiffly) copy it sounded like someone else had written about the subject of that show.
These days, he sounds much more relaxed, is quipping and making those bad jokes he has become known for in his later songs, and has added audio clips from other songs, radio commercials and other ephemera. His show has gone from a curiosity to a treasure of great old tunes that Dylan finally sounds like he's having fun with.
There have been thrity-one of them at this writing. You can find them online at
http://www.whitemanstew.com/2006/05/12/bob-dylans-theme-time-radio-hour/
It will lead you to the shows.
4. "Let the Good Times Roll: A NW Tribute to Ray Charles
The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon is one of the best in the country, and perhaps the only one booked by a working musician. Two years ago saxophonist Patrick Lamb, best known for his "smooth jazz" recordings, wanted to get back to his R&B roots and put together an all-star Portland band to pay tribute to Ray Charles.
The result is this album, and it's a powerhouse. New star vocalist Liv Warfield does a duet with harmonica virtuoso and singer Paul DeLay, soul/blues diva Linda Hornbuckle sings on two cuts, veteran vocalist Sweet Baby James Bentonswings, and Wildman Lee Garrett takes the band to outer space.
Solos by ex-New Orleans great Reggie Houston, by Lamb himself, pianists D.K. Stewart and Janice Scroggins, and out of the blue, Eddie Martinez comes out of nowhere on guitar.
A couple of solos on this are poignant to jazz fans in the Northwest from fiery trumpeter Thara Memory, a force of nature for a long time here. He is currently in a wheelchair, a victim of diabetes and is in bad shape. It is lovely to remember him as he was here.
www.nwraycharlestribute.com
5. Bunker Hill "Hide and Go Seek (Part 1)" on Ace CD "The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Volume 6"
I bought the single new. I was partial to jungle drums and wild R&B. Little did I know that "Bunker Hill" was actually Dave Walker who had just come from singing with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and after a brief solo career would rejoin them.
Nor did I know that the musicians behind this song and all of his recordings as Bunker Hill, was none other than Link Wray. Matter of fact the line up on this out-of-control gospel-party-out-of-church is as follows: Bunker Hill - vocals, Link Wray - guitar, Vernon Wray - piano, Doug Wray - drums, Shorty Horton – bass…not that I can hear any guitar. You can listen for yourself on the MySpace page.
Hill (Walker) had been a professional boxer in D.C. Legend has it that he was 18-5-5, with many of his fights on TV. Billboard Magazine even said the he had been Archie Moore's sparring partner, but who knows what the truth is?
The real truth is that I keep playing this over and over. I did when I bought the single, and I continued after I discovered it on this great CD collection (which includes the Sparkletones' "Black Slacks," and Noble "Thin Man" Watts' "Hard Times (The Slop)." I even put "Hide and Go Seek" on my own MySpace page: www.myspace.com/tvdpdx. I have never gotten tired of it.
Walker (Hill) had written "You'll Never Know," one of the songs on the Mighty Clouds of Joy's first album and sang lead on it. His career as Bunker Hill was something he kept separate and concealed, as much as possible.
You can hear the gospel influence as Bunker Hill, and the devil's too. He hooked up with Link Wray in D.C. He wanted to remain anonymous. Link and his brother wanted to call him "Four H. Stamp," but settled on Bunker Hill.
When "Hide and Go Seek" was released in 1962 (in two parts—both sides of the single) it made Billboard's Hot 100, stayed there for thirteen weeks and got up to #33. At a time when Rock n Roll had turned into pop drivel people like Bunker Hill and Gary U.S. Bonds kept the flame alive.
After his next few records stiffed, Walker (Hill) went back to the Clouds. He is said to have died in Houston in the 1980s. But even the most fanatical website can't confirm this. Most of the facts above were taken from such sites. You think I KNEW this shit?
What is this song about? Who the fuck knows? I just can't stop playing it. I'm STILL not ready!!!! (Listen and you'll understand.)
www.myspace.com/bunkerhill
6. Gil Evans "The Individualism of Gil Evans" LP
From 1964, on Verve, I group this with his two Impulse! albums "Out of the Cool" and "Into the Hot." He was a total individual then, and his work remains equally unique.
The personnel on here are astounding. On two of the cuts he uses THREE bassists, Paul Chambers, Richard Davis and Ben Tucker on one and Milt Hinton, Paul Chambers and Richard Davis on another. Ron Carter and Paul Chambers are on yet another tune.
Horn players? Only Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Jerome Robinson, Wayne Shorter and Johnny Coles among others. Elvin Jones is the principal drummer.
Many familiar Evans classics were recorded here first, "The Barbara Song" and "Las Vegas Tango" for two.
There is beauty here that was unparalleled at the time it was released, and which has lost none of its adventurous luster. And it sounds so good on vinyl.
I come back to Gil Evans over and over and over.
7. Flat Mountain Girls "Honey Take Your Whiskers Off" CD
You want to have some fun? Get this album. These girls (and one guy) play old-timey music with great speed, passion, humor and virtuosity. The three women are unique, strikingly unique personalities. In performance you don't know who to watch. In recording, these personalities blend and balance and compliment each other.
Nann Alleman, who fronts her own group, Spigot, has one of the most unforgettable voices in the history of voices. Lisa Marsicek, the fiddler and leader keeps everything from spinning off into outer space. Rachel Gold banjos up a storm.
Most of all, it's great fun.
www.flatmountaingirls.com
This also appears on counterpunch.org
1. Zoe Keating "one cello x 16: natoma" CD
You can't cross the street without engaging a cello these days. At least that's the way it seems. Keating, a tall woman with stalks of wild red hair and an international following has cooched up her cello with electronics, loops herself, plays percussion on it, and sounds like a one-woman string quartet with self-percussion.
Matter of fact, she even calls it "layered cello." And even though if you say that aloud, it sounds like some kind of dessert, it is the cello equivalent of "prepared piano." Of course, given today's technology, prepared piano is a quaint concept. This isn't quaint.
If I were writing for a MSM publication I might have to tip-toe around and mew shit like, "this is very modern but it's totally accessible." Well I don't give a rat's ass if it's accessible or not. It's accessible to me, and this is the stuff I'M listening to. On the other hand, this album made it to #2 on iTunes classical chart at one point, so she's certainly well-known.
This is gorgeous, it's exciting and irresistible. She is getting a new cello in a few months. He current cello has been with her since she was twelve. She is all excited about it. She'll continue to travel with the old one, but if you see a new studio album in the future, it will be with the new one. She is all excited about it. She is recording live in Portland, Oregon at Mississippi Studios in December with the old one.
www.zoekeating.com
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUDI256PY4E
2. John Callahan "Purple Winos In the Rain" CD
He's the quadriplegic nationally syndicated cartoonist with a dark sense of humor that twenty-somethings only dream of having. There is something to be said for a bad attitude coming from a person who actually earned it.
A few years ago videographer/editor Greg Bond and I made a music video of one of Callahan's songs for a TV show we were working on. It was "Portland Girl." Few knew that Callahan was a song writer or a singer at the time. The song was oddly sentimental. Sentiment is not something John is known for.
Guitarist Terry Robb produced this album and John did the illustrations for its brilliant packaging.
The songs are not happy ones, sentiment aside. They come from the depths but are not the whining of someone just out of puberty who never grew out of teen-angst. These are adult, sarcastic; sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic.
It includes a recording taken from Callahan's voice mail of Tom Waits singing one of Callahan's songs to him.
Callahan's voice is soft and fragile, sometimes reaching for notes. Every time he reaches you want him to make it.
Although "Purple Winos In the Rain" is the title tune, and the most promotable for the title if nothing else, the key song is "Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel." You'll have to make that journey on your own, dear reader.
You're going to be hearing about this soon. Remember you heard it here first.
www.callahanonline.com
3. Bob Dylan "Theme Time Radio—Food"
Dylan's radio show on Sirius has evolved from his playing recordings of other people and either cracking wise or obviously reading (stiffly) copy it sounded like someone else had written about the subject of that show.
These days, he sounds much more relaxed, is quipping and making those bad jokes he has become known for in his later songs, and has added audio clips from other songs, radio commercials and other ephemera. His show has gone from a curiosity to a treasure of great old tunes that Dylan finally sounds like he's having fun with.
There have been thrity-one of them at this writing. You can find them online at
http://www.whitemanstew.com/2006/05/12/bob-dylans-theme-time-radio-hour/
It will lead you to the shows.
4. "Let the Good Times Roll: A NW Tribute to Ray Charles
The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon is one of the best in the country, and perhaps the only one booked by a working musician. Two years ago saxophonist Patrick Lamb, best known for his "smooth jazz" recordings, wanted to get back to his R&B roots and put together an all-star Portland band to pay tribute to Ray Charles.
The result is this album, and it's a powerhouse. New star vocalist Liv Warfield does a duet with harmonica virtuoso and singer Paul DeLay, soul/blues diva Linda Hornbuckle sings on two cuts, veteran vocalist Sweet Baby James Bentonswings, and Wildman Lee Garrett takes the band to outer space.
Solos by ex-New Orleans great Reggie Houston, by Lamb himself, pianists D.K. Stewart and Janice Scroggins, and out of the blue, Eddie Martinez comes out of nowhere on guitar.
A couple of solos on this are poignant to jazz fans in the Northwest from fiery trumpeter Thara Memory, a force of nature for a long time here. He is currently in a wheelchair, a victim of diabetes and is in bad shape. It is lovely to remember him as he was here.
www.nwraycharlestribute.com
5. Bunker Hill "Hide and Go Seek (Part 1)" on Ace CD "The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Volume 6"
I bought the single new. I was partial to jungle drums and wild R&B. Little did I know that "Bunker Hill" was actually Dave Walker who had just come from singing with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and after a brief solo career would rejoin them.
Nor did I know that the musicians behind this song and all of his recordings as Bunker Hill, was none other than Link Wray. Matter of fact the line up on this out-of-control gospel-party-out-of-church is as follows: Bunker Hill - vocals, Link Wray - guitar, Vernon Wray - piano, Doug Wray - drums, Shorty Horton – bass…not that I can hear any guitar. You can listen for yourself on the MySpace page.
Hill (Walker) had been a professional boxer in D.C. Legend has it that he was 18-5-5, with many of his fights on TV. Billboard Magazine even said the he had been Archie Moore's sparring partner, but who knows what the truth is?
The real truth is that I keep playing this over and over. I did when I bought the single, and I continued after I discovered it on this great CD collection (which includes the Sparkletones' "Black Slacks," and Noble "Thin Man" Watts' "Hard Times (The Slop)." I even put "Hide and Go Seek" on my own MySpace page: www.myspace.com/tvdpdx. I have never gotten tired of it.
Walker (Hill) had written "You'll Never Know," one of the songs on the Mighty Clouds of Joy's first album and sang lead on it. His career as Bunker Hill was something he kept separate and concealed, as much as possible.
You can hear the gospel influence as Bunker Hill, and the devil's too. He hooked up with Link Wray in D.C. He wanted to remain anonymous. Link and his brother wanted to call him "Four H. Stamp," but settled on Bunker Hill.
When "Hide and Go Seek" was released in 1962 (in two parts—both sides of the single) it made Billboard's Hot 100, stayed there for thirteen weeks and got up to #33. At a time when Rock n Roll had turned into pop drivel people like Bunker Hill and Gary U.S. Bonds kept the flame alive.
After his next few records stiffed, Walker (Hill) went back to the Clouds. He is said to have died in Houston in the 1980s. But even the most fanatical website can't confirm this. Most of the facts above were taken from such sites. You think I KNEW this shit?
What is this song about? Who the fuck knows? I just can't stop playing it. I'm STILL not ready!!!! (Listen and you'll understand.)
www.myspace.com/bunkerhill
6. Gil Evans "The Individualism of Gil Evans" LP
From 1964, on Verve, I group this with his two Impulse! albums "Out of the Cool" and "Into the Hot." He was a total individual then, and his work remains equally unique.
The personnel on here are astounding. On two of the cuts he uses THREE bassists, Paul Chambers, Richard Davis and Ben Tucker on one and Milt Hinton, Paul Chambers and Richard Davis on another. Ron Carter and Paul Chambers are on yet another tune.
Horn players? Only Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, Jerome Robinson, Wayne Shorter and Johnny Coles among others. Elvin Jones is the principal drummer.
Many familiar Evans classics were recorded here first, "The Barbara Song" and "Las Vegas Tango" for two.
There is beauty here that was unparalleled at the time it was released, and which has lost none of its adventurous luster. And it sounds so good on vinyl.
I come back to Gil Evans over and over and over.
7. Flat Mountain Girls "Honey Take Your Whiskers Off" CD
You want to have some fun? Get this album. These girls (and one guy) play old-timey music with great speed, passion, humor and virtuosity. The three women are unique, strikingly unique personalities. In performance you don't know who to watch. In recording, these personalities blend and balance and compliment each other.
Nann Alleman, who fronts her own group, Spigot, has one of the most unforgettable voices in the history of voices. Lisa Marsicek, the fiddler and leader keeps everything from spinning off into outer space. Rachel Gold banjos up a storm.
Most of all, it's great fun.
www.flatmountaingirls.com
This also appears on counterpunch.org
Robert and Me
June 2001 to September 2005, Portland, Oregon
By Tom D’Antoni
On the day I was to meet the subject of a documentary I wanted to do on Physician-Assisted Suicide (legal only in Oregon) I wasn’t ready to meet the patient.
I pulled up outside the beige, white-trimmed nondescript one-story post-World War II bungalow in gritty North Portland at 3:30 p.m. on June 8, 2001. It was the home of Robert Schwartz. I didn’t want to go in. My stomach turned. Inside there was a dying man whom I had never met. What would I find? A picture of best friend Garey Lambert formed in my mind. I was in the hospital room as he died from AIDS five years before. In my mind’s eye I saw him take his last breaths again. I heard them.
I looked at the grey wooden ramp lined with red roses leading up to the front porch. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it was for a wheelchair.
There were beat-up cars parked on the street. There were blacks and working class whites on the block.
Portland, Oregon is considered by most to be one of the most enlightened, most beautiful, most livable cities in the United States. It is politically progressive, has little crime, a great public transportation system, logical land-use laws and a rich cultural life, all wrapped up in a slightly provincial, exceptionally polite and friendly atmosphere. People don’t even cross the street against the light here.
But the travel guides don’t send you to North Portland. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t sophisticated, even though over the past few years there has been a lot of migration by folks looking for low rents as wealthy Californians have moved North to Portland, pushing writers, artists, musicians and such out of the more desirable areas.
What would Robert Schwartz be like?
I asked George Eighmey of Compassion In Dying if he could find a patient for me for a TV documentary. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 2001, an email showed up from Eighmey titled “Patient for interview.” It read:
Dear Tom:
I contacted the person who is willing to be interviewed for you new project. His name is Robert Schwartz. He is 50 years old. His illness is late stage AIDS. He does not yet have his pills. He told me he plans to pick them up this Friday. He lost his partner, Oliver, to AIDS 2 years ago. Robert was active in the Death With Dignity campaigns in 1994 and 1997. His family is supportive of his decision. His mother and brother plan to be present when he takes the meds. His father and stepmother can’t be present but are supportive.
I told him you would be calling him soon. Let me know how it goes.
I held it for a few days before calling Robert. I dreaded putting myself through the emotional turmoil I suspected it would cause. I printed it and kept it on my desk. I called on June 5th and was relieved that he wasn’t home. I called again on the 6th, same result. I sensed this experience might change my life, but I did not sense the extent.
If I had wanted to write what the next two years would bring as a piece of fiction, nobody would have believed it.
I finally spoke with Robert for the first time on Thursday, June 7, but he told me he wasn’t feeling well enough to see me. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was he close to death? Just weak? He agreed to meet me the next day, in the afternoon.
I took the long way to his house. I drove through the neighborhood. I drove around the block several times. I didn’t want to do this. I sat in front of his house. I didn’t want to go in. Finally I walked up the ramp and rang Robert’s bell. Nothing would be the same after that.
He didn’t look 50, and he didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look well, either. He was thin, but with a protruding stomach. He was rugged. His face was lined around the eyes, which were soft blue, and kind with a twinkle. His eyes were very alive. His voice was also soft, but strong. There was a small black earring in his left ear. His hair was brown and cut short. He had a red beard. There were bags under his eyes and creases on his forehead. Still, if you guessed his age, you wouldn’t have been an idiot for saying mid-40s.
He looked like a normal guy, and was not obviously gay.
We sat in his living room and talked about the documentary project, Robert in his old cushioned rocking chair which was covered by a patterned quilt. That same chair was the one from which he got up to walk into the bedroom and take his own life 23 months later.
We did not talk very much about his condition. I told him almost immediately that I would not be asking him at this meeting the questions I would ask when the camera was present, that it was my belief that it spoiled the spontaneity of the interview.
He seemed sharp and very aware even though he was in pain.
I told him I had been at the bedside of my best friend Garey as he died from AIDS, and how wonderful it was for him to have his friends and family with him at the end. I mentioned that I was not gay, myself.
He was concerned about exploitation. He may have even mentioned the words, “snuff film.” I explained to him that I had objected to what 60 Minutes had done with Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Thomas Youk. In that segment Kevorkian administered a lethal dose to the terminally ill Youk. I told Robert that although I thought Kevorkian was a pioneer in end-of-life issues, that there was no real context for Youk’s death. That you never got to know Youk and what went into his decision to allow Kevorkian to administer a lethal injection.
Robert agreed.
I told him that the one thing I could promise was that there would be a complete context for him, however this documentary progressed.
He agreed to begin shooting the following Monday, June 11, 2001, on the day he was to receive the pills that would end his life. He wasn’t going to take them that day. He had no firm plans for taking them, no specific date. He was also ambivalent about allowing us to videotape him as he took the pills and died. He wasn’t ruling it out, but he was unsure. I had not yet gained his trust.
For the next 23 months we made the documentary. The story wasn’t all pretty. Over that time, Robert fell in love, was betrayed by that man but later reconciled. He chose two dates to end his life and changed his mind. He had his spleen removed. Finally, when he received a diagnosis of a lung condition that would make him suffocate to death, he ended his life by drinking liquid Nembutal, prescribed legally under the Oregon Death With Dignity law, on camera wearing our mic. That law came under challenge by the Bush administration during the course of shooting. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court last year.
I promised Robert many times that I would tell his story and do right by him, the last time just moments before he ended his life.
Turns out it wasn’t so easy for me. It took two years of legal wrangling for me to get final cut and copyright control of the material. It cost me everything but the love of my wife. What else could I do? I had promised Robert I would tell his story, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.
I didn’t cry when he died. I was working.
I didn’t cry at his memorial, where I eulogized him.
I got emotional now and then during the editing, but that was such an intense tornado of work, I didn’t have time to dwell.
I was sitting in the post production house, after it was edited, after it was posted, looking at the final version. Greg was out of town and couldn’t be there, so it was just me and an editor whom I didn’t know.
I sat through the whole thing. When it came to the bedroom scene I was overcome. Suddenly I didn’t want Robert to die; I desperately wanted him to live.
That’s when I cried.
this originally appeared on commonties.com
By Tom D’Antoni
On the day I was to meet the subject of a documentary I wanted to do on Physician-Assisted Suicide (legal only in Oregon) I wasn’t ready to meet the patient.
I pulled up outside the beige, white-trimmed nondescript one-story post-World War II bungalow in gritty North Portland at 3:30 p.m. on June 8, 2001. It was the home of Robert Schwartz. I didn’t want to go in. My stomach turned. Inside there was a dying man whom I had never met. What would I find? A picture of best friend Garey Lambert formed in my mind. I was in the hospital room as he died from AIDS five years before. In my mind’s eye I saw him take his last breaths again. I heard them.
I looked at the grey wooden ramp lined with red roses leading up to the front porch. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it was for a wheelchair.
There were beat-up cars parked on the street. There were blacks and working class whites on the block.
Portland, Oregon is considered by most to be one of the most enlightened, most beautiful, most livable cities in the United States. It is politically progressive, has little crime, a great public transportation system, logical land-use laws and a rich cultural life, all wrapped up in a slightly provincial, exceptionally polite and friendly atmosphere. People don’t even cross the street against the light here.
But the travel guides don’t send you to North Portland. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t sophisticated, even though over the past few years there has been a lot of migration by folks looking for low rents as wealthy Californians have moved North to Portland, pushing writers, artists, musicians and such out of the more desirable areas.
What would Robert Schwartz be like?
I asked George Eighmey of Compassion In Dying if he could find a patient for me for a TV documentary. On the afternoon of Thursday, May 30, 2001, an email showed up from Eighmey titled “Patient for interview.” It read:
Dear Tom:
I contacted the person who is willing to be interviewed for you new project. His name is Robert Schwartz. He is 50 years old. His illness is late stage AIDS. He does not yet have his pills. He told me he plans to pick them up this Friday. He lost his partner, Oliver, to AIDS 2 years ago. Robert was active in the Death With Dignity campaigns in 1994 and 1997. His family is supportive of his decision. His mother and brother plan to be present when he takes the meds. His father and stepmother can’t be present but are supportive.
I told him you would be calling him soon. Let me know how it goes.
I held it for a few days before calling Robert. I dreaded putting myself through the emotional turmoil I suspected it would cause. I printed it and kept it on my desk. I called on June 5th and was relieved that he wasn’t home. I called again on the 6th, same result. I sensed this experience might change my life, but I did not sense the extent.
If I had wanted to write what the next two years would bring as a piece of fiction, nobody would have believed it.
I finally spoke with Robert for the first time on Thursday, June 7, but he told me he wasn’t feeling well enough to see me. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was he close to death? Just weak? He agreed to meet me the next day, in the afternoon.
I took the long way to his house. I drove through the neighborhood. I drove around the block several times. I didn’t want to do this. I sat in front of his house. I didn’t want to go in. Finally I walked up the ramp and rang Robert’s bell. Nothing would be the same after that.
He didn’t look 50, and he didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look well, either. He was thin, but with a protruding stomach. He was rugged. His face was lined around the eyes, which were soft blue, and kind with a twinkle. His eyes were very alive. His voice was also soft, but strong. There was a small black earring in his left ear. His hair was brown and cut short. He had a red beard. There were bags under his eyes and creases on his forehead. Still, if you guessed his age, you wouldn’t have been an idiot for saying mid-40s.
He looked like a normal guy, and was not obviously gay.
We sat in his living room and talked about the documentary project, Robert in his old cushioned rocking chair which was covered by a patterned quilt. That same chair was the one from which he got up to walk into the bedroom and take his own life 23 months later.
We did not talk very much about his condition. I told him almost immediately that I would not be asking him at this meeting the questions I would ask when the camera was present, that it was my belief that it spoiled the spontaneity of the interview.
He seemed sharp and very aware even though he was in pain.
I told him I had been at the bedside of my best friend Garey as he died from AIDS, and how wonderful it was for him to have his friends and family with him at the end. I mentioned that I was not gay, myself.
He was concerned about exploitation. He may have even mentioned the words, “snuff film.” I explained to him that I had objected to what 60 Minutes had done with Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Thomas Youk. In that segment Kevorkian administered a lethal dose to the terminally ill Youk. I told Robert that although I thought Kevorkian was a pioneer in end-of-life issues, that there was no real context for Youk’s death. That you never got to know Youk and what went into his decision to allow Kevorkian to administer a lethal injection.
Robert agreed.
I told him that the one thing I could promise was that there would be a complete context for him, however this documentary progressed.
He agreed to begin shooting the following Monday, June 11, 2001, on the day he was to receive the pills that would end his life. He wasn’t going to take them that day. He had no firm plans for taking them, no specific date. He was also ambivalent about allowing us to videotape him as he took the pills and died. He wasn’t ruling it out, but he was unsure. I had not yet gained his trust.
For the next 23 months we made the documentary. The story wasn’t all pretty. Over that time, Robert fell in love, was betrayed by that man but later reconciled. He chose two dates to end his life and changed his mind. He had his spleen removed. Finally, when he received a diagnosis of a lung condition that would make him suffocate to death, he ended his life by drinking liquid Nembutal, prescribed legally under the Oregon Death With Dignity law, on camera wearing our mic. That law came under challenge by the Bush administration during the course of shooting. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court last year.
I promised Robert many times that I would tell his story and do right by him, the last time just moments before he ended his life.
Turns out it wasn’t so easy for me. It took two years of legal wrangling for me to get final cut and copyright control of the material. It cost me everything but the love of my wife. What else could I do? I had promised Robert I would tell his story, and nothing was going to get in the way of that.
I didn’t cry when he died. I was working.
I didn’t cry at his memorial, where I eulogized him.
I got emotional now and then during the editing, but that was such an intense tornado of work, I didn’t have time to dwell.
I was sitting in the post production house, after it was edited, after it was posted, looking at the final version. Greg was out of town and couldn’t be there, so it was just me and an editor whom I didn’t know.
I sat through the whole thing. When it came to the bedroom scene I was overcome. Suddenly I didn’t want Robert to die; I desperately wanted him to live.
That’s when I cried.
this originally appeared on commonties.com
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
Pelosi---Anything BUT a San Francisco Democrat
"Anybody who's ever dealt with me knows not to mess with me." – Nancy Pelosi
First of all when Republicans first started using the term "San Francisco Decmocrat" it was shorthand to their base of hate. It meant, "I like gay people," and all that goes with it.
As years went by it grew to mean, "soft on everything," "weak," "and everything the Republican base, in all it's bigoted splendor, hated.
More than one Republican called Nancy Pelosi a "San Francisco Democrat." Typical of Republican lies, she is anything but. Yes, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and has for a long time, but she learned her politics in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old-time city machine headed up by her dad, Mayor Thomas J. D'Allesandro, Jr., known in Baltimore as Old Tommy. He was Mayor from 1947 to 1959, having also served in Congress from 1939 to 1937. He is still fondly remembered for having brought the Orioles to Baltimore from St. Louis. He is also revered by the Italian-American community in Baltimore.
Old Tommy was tough as nails.
Her brother is Thomas J. D'Allesandro III, known as Young Tommy in Baltimore. He was Mayor from 1967 to 1971.
So rather than growing up in the laid-back west coast culture, she was schooled in the cauldron of tough East Coast big city politics. One of her first jobs was on her brother's staff. Some say she was one of the most influential members of that staff, keeping track of favors and who owed what to whom.
Politics is in her blood, as the foes she has defeated over the years will tell you.
She's Old Tommy's daughter and about as much a "San Francisco Democrat" as Rudy Giuliani.
She is the tough Democrat we've always been looking for.
First of all when Republicans first started using the term "San Francisco Decmocrat" it was shorthand to their base of hate. It meant, "I like gay people," and all that goes with it.
As years went by it grew to mean, "soft on everything," "weak," "and everything the Republican base, in all it's bigoted splendor, hated.
More than one Republican called Nancy Pelosi a "San Francisco Democrat." Typical of Republican lies, she is anything but. Yes, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and has for a long time, but she learned her politics in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old-time city machine headed up by her dad, Mayor Thomas J. D'Allesandro, Jr., known in Baltimore as Old Tommy. He was Mayor from 1947 to 1959, having also served in Congress from 1939 to 1937. He is still fondly remembered for having brought the Orioles to Baltimore from St. Louis. He is also revered by the Italian-American community in Baltimore.
Old Tommy was tough as nails.
Her brother is Thomas J. D'Allesandro III, known as Young Tommy in Baltimore. He was Mayor from 1967 to 1971.
So rather than growing up in the laid-back west coast culture, she was schooled in the cauldron of tough East Coast big city politics. One of her first jobs was on her brother's staff. Some say she was one of the most influential members of that staff, keeping track of favors and who owed what to whom.
Politics is in her blood, as the foes she has defeated over the years will tell you.
She's Old Tommy's daughter and about as much a "San Francisco Democrat" as Rudy Giuliani.
She is the tough Democrat we've always been looking for.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
41's Crew--Didn't we throw them out in '92?
The smirk has begun returning to W's face. That's probably because he can't help it, but also because he's about to be bailed out by daddy again. Among the many problems with that, the biggest is that these are the same people with the same philosophies that we turned out of office in 1992.
That we welcome them back to power is a measure of the level of incompetence and evil in 43's administration. That 41's people are seen as "pragmatic" and "reasonable" just underlines how dogmatic and unreasonable the current administration has been.
They aren't back to save 43's presidency, they're back because their interests are threatened by the past six years worth of disaster. I never thought I'd ever be glad to see Brent Scowcroft again. I'm not, but you know what I mean.
The best we can hope for? A couple of years of better intentions from the Democrats in Congress which pries the levers of power from the cold dead hands of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.
I think we haven't gotten over the disbelief that America agreed with us. I may be speaking for myself, but I don't think so. Didn't you feel a sense of unreality as the returns came in? We never wavered in our beliefs, fighting against what seemed to be an unyielding avalanche of Republican evil, but there was a fatalism as election day approached.
We really thought they were going to steal the election.
As the old 41 crew attempts to establish some order in 43's unraveled presidency, we can stop and smell the flowers, but only for a moment. You can be sure that Rove and the Boehner's of the world are planning more and better ways of regaining power, keeping happy the corporations who own them, and spreading bigotry.
On the other hand, those same corporations are most likely the ones who have sent 41s people into the breach. Oh wait, 41's people ARE the corporations.
Smirk or no smirk. 41's crew or no, it's nice to breathe again.
That we welcome them back to power is a measure of the level of incompetence and evil in 43's administration. That 41's people are seen as "pragmatic" and "reasonable" just underlines how dogmatic and unreasonable the current administration has been.
They aren't back to save 43's presidency, they're back because their interests are threatened by the past six years worth of disaster. I never thought I'd ever be glad to see Brent Scowcroft again. I'm not, but you know what I mean.
The best we can hope for? A couple of years of better intentions from the Democrats in Congress which pries the levers of power from the cold dead hands of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.
I think we haven't gotten over the disbelief that America agreed with us. I may be speaking for myself, but I don't think so. Didn't you feel a sense of unreality as the returns came in? We never wavered in our beliefs, fighting against what seemed to be an unyielding avalanche of Republican evil, but there was a fatalism as election day approached.
We really thought they were going to steal the election.
As the old 41 crew attempts to establish some order in 43's unraveled presidency, we can stop and smell the flowers, but only for a moment. You can be sure that Rove and the Boehner's of the world are planning more and better ways of regaining power, keeping happy the corporations who own them, and spreading bigotry.
On the other hand, those same corporations are most likely the ones who have sent 41s people into the breach. Oh wait, 41's people ARE the corporations.
Smirk or no smirk. 41's crew or no, it's nice to breathe again.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
America to Bush: STFU
Yesterday America stood up and told Bush, "Stop it. Shut up. We think you're an idiot. We think you're a moron. We're sorry you got the job. You are not the king. You are a dumb jock frat boy, and you always will be. You will now stop all this shit, immeditately. We voted yesterday and threw your boys out of Congress. If you don't want us coming after your own ass, you will sign what we pass and change your ways."
Yesterday we spoke. We reduced the Universal Presdient to the Little Boy President. A slap in the face. A kick in the ass. A rejection. A repudiation of a President who has embarassed us before the world, put our safety at great risk, and perverted the constitution he swore to uphold.
You wouldn't listen to reason, Bush. You behaved like a crazy person. You allowed yourself to be led around by the nose by dangerous lunatics. You're to be pitied.
We have spoken.
Get out of our face, we have adult work to do.
Yesterday we spoke. We reduced the Universal Presdient to the Little Boy President. A slap in the face. A kick in the ass. A rejection. A repudiation of a President who has embarassed us before the world, put our safety at great risk, and perverted the constitution he swore to uphold.
You wouldn't listen to reason, Bush. You behaved like a crazy person. You allowed yourself to be led around by the nose by dangerous lunatics. You're to be pitied.
We have spoken.
Get out of our face, we have adult work to do.
Friday, November 03, 2006
A Victory Speech for November 9
As the Republicans continue to try to scare us into losing, I thought it would be beneficial to write a potential victory speech one of us might give on November 8:
My fellow Americans, as we celebrate our victories and regaining the control of both houses of Congress, we must stop for a moment before we move on to the job of cleaning up the mess, and taking new steps to make laws that benefit most Americans, rather than the few.
Before we take those steps we must pause to consider the recent past. It is our responsibility to attach responsibility for the state of the nation. While we were out of power our nation was taken to war under false pretenses. And once at war, those in positions of responsibility, although they dislodged Saddam from power, did not heed the words of the Iraqi people when they said, before the war, to many journalists, "Depose Saddam, but leave quickly or face the consequences. We are a complex nation, made of many groups who have been kept from each other's throats by the dictatorship of Saddam. But the one thing we Iraqis hate worse than one another, is the invader. Have you not read our history?"
The Republicans did not hear them. As the bodies of our military men and women were coming home, hidden from us, the Republicans were sending their corporate benefactors, their pockets filled with our money, and money borrowed in our names, into Iraq to "rebuild." They did not rebuild. They profited from the blood of our children, brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands and wives. Many Iraqis feel they are worse off now than under Saddam.
Meanwhile the Republicans tortured in our names, broke the Geneva Conventions, spied illegally on us, subjected our military people to death from all sides in a civil war, and breached the U.S. Constitution when they monkeyed with habeas corpus.
Our first pledge to you is to find out what happened and why, who is responsible, and how they can be held accountable. We now have subpoena power. The Republicans can no longer block Congressional oversight. We promise to conduct fair but tough investigations into why we went to war, how we went to war, and who profited from the war and what laws we can pass to make sure this never happens again.
The Constitutional questions are difficult. There are still three branches of government and the current President is of a mind to continue these outrageous acts of aggression on traditional American values. We pledge to fight for the Constitution and for the freedoms and privacy we have always come to expect.
We promise to spare not a single penny in caring for the Americans who fought in Iraq and were injured. Full medical care. Proper respect. Our thanks and a promise that America will never again fight a war for the wrong reasons.
So there is a lot to clean up in that regard.
There is so much more to clean up. Curing the cancer of incompetence and neglect and of the fox watching the hen house when it comes to industry regulations, environmental safeguards and scientific research, will take time. We wish we could stop it today, but that's not realistic. The Republicans still control the Executive branch of government, but the days of their running roughshod over the health and safety of the American people so that corporations can make obscene amounts of money are over.
This is going to take time. There has been much damage done. The United States Government is in tatters thanks to the perfect storm of greed and incompetence of those who have held power these past years.
You have given us a direct message. Work in the interests of the American people, not corporations. Make decisions based on what is the right choice, not on what will play to the worst in us.
Most of all, the best thing we can do from this day forward is to replace the climate of fear with one of hope. This can't be done overnight. Fear will give way slowly. When we implement all of the recommendations of the 911 Commission … that will be a first step. But what you can expect from us is that we will confront our problems with confidence, not fake bravado; that we will, as we always have, include everyone in the actions of government, not demonizing one group or another in order to build hate.
We're not about hate. We never have been.
Give us some time. This is the first step, but it's a new day. Let's go to work.
This is also on huffingtonpost.com
My fellow Americans, as we celebrate our victories and regaining the control of both houses of Congress, we must stop for a moment before we move on to the job of cleaning up the mess, and taking new steps to make laws that benefit most Americans, rather than the few.
Before we take those steps we must pause to consider the recent past. It is our responsibility to attach responsibility for the state of the nation. While we were out of power our nation was taken to war under false pretenses. And once at war, those in positions of responsibility, although they dislodged Saddam from power, did not heed the words of the Iraqi people when they said, before the war, to many journalists, "Depose Saddam, but leave quickly or face the consequences. We are a complex nation, made of many groups who have been kept from each other's throats by the dictatorship of Saddam. But the one thing we Iraqis hate worse than one another, is the invader. Have you not read our history?"
The Republicans did not hear them. As the bodies of our military men and women were coming home, hidden from us, the Republicans were sending their corporate benefactors, their pockets filled with our money, and money borrowed in our names, into Iraq to "rebuild." They did not rebuild. They profited from the blood of our children, brothers, sisters, fathers, husbands and wives. Many Iraqis feel they are worse off now than under Saddam.
Meanwhile the Republicans tortured in our names, broke the Geneva Conventions, spied illegally on us, subjected our military people to death from all sides in a civil war, and breached the U.S. Constitution when they monkeyed with habeas corpus.
Our first pledge to you is to find out what happened and why, who is responsible, and how they can be held accountable. We now have subpoena power. The Republicans can no longer block Congressional oversight. We promise to conduct fair but tough investigations into why we went to war, how we went to war, and who profited from the war and what laws we can pass to make sure this never happens again.
The Constitutional questions are difficult. There are still three branches of government and the current President is of a mind to continue these outrageous acts of aggression on traditional American values. We pledge to fight for the Constitution and for the freedoms and privacy we have always come to expect.
We promise to spare not a single penny in caring for the Americans who fought in Iraq and were injured. Full medical care. Proper respect. Our thanks and a promise that America will never again fight a war for the wrong reasons.
So there is a lot to clean up in that regard.
There is so much more to clean up. Curing the cancer of incompetence and neglect and of the fox watching the hen house when it comes to industry regulations, environmental safeguards and scientific research, will take time. We wish we could stop it today, but that's not realistic. The Republicans still control the Executive branch of government, but the days of their running roughshod over the health and safety of the American people so that corporations can make obscene amounts of money are over.
This is going to take time. There has been much damage done. The United States Government is in tatters thanks to the perfect storm of greed and incompetence of those who have held power these past years.
You have given us a direct message. Work in the interests of the American people, not corporations. Make decisions based on what is the right choice, not on what will play to the worst in us.
Most of all, the best thing we can do from this day forward is to replace the climate of fear with one of hope. This can't be done overnight. Fear will give way slowly. When we implement all of the recommendations of the 911 Commission … that will be a first step. But what you can expect from us is that we will confront our problems with confidence, not fake bravado; that we will, as we always have, include everyone in the actions of government, not demonizing one group or another in order to build hate.
We're not about hate. We never have been.
Give us some time. This is the first step, but it's a new day. Let's go to work.
This is also on huffingtonpost.com
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Only Way to the Truth: Torture Hastert
Is there anything worse, in the minds of most Americans than being a sexual predator to underage kids? Why it's right up there with rape and murder. Finding out who in Congress knew about Foley, when did they know it, and why didn't they do anything about it is as important to the nation as finding out who was behind 9/11. Are our children worth less?
There's only one way to get this information. Send Foley, Hastert, Boehner, and the rest of them to Guantanamo and torture the information out of them.
I mean, that's this administration's policy, isn't it? Why restrict it to Muslims? Why not just expand it to all involved in anti-social activities, especially one as serious as this.
That we'd have to build a double-wide waterboard for Hastert is beside the point.
Habeas Corpus? Pfaff! If President Bush can waive it for Muslims, he can waive it for those who prey on our children, right?
It's the policy of the administration that Bush has the power to choose whom to torture. It's only logical thing to do, and the only way to get the truth out of these Republican Congressional leaders.
Living by the sword makes for tough payback.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
There's only one way to get this information. Send Foley, Hastert, Boehner, and the rest of them to Guantanamo and torture the information out of them.
I mean, that's this administration's policy, isn't it? Why restrict it to Muslims? Why not just expand it to all involved in anti-social activities, especially one as serious as this.
That we'd have to build a double-wide waterboard for Hastert is beside the point.
Habeas Corpus? Pfaff! If President Bush can waive it for Muslims, he can waive it for those who prey on our children, right?
It's the policy of the administration that Bush has the power to choose whom to torture. It's only logical thing to do, and the only way to get the truth out of these Republican Congressional leaders.
Living by the sword makes for tough payback.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Friday, September 15, 2006
Hey Rich Folks! We Want Our Money Back!!
Here's a speech you'll never hear from the Democrats:
If you elect us and throw out the criminals who have infested our government, we will put the rich on notice.
We'll say to them, "Get out your checkbook, we want our money back! We may never get it all back from you, but you've had your hands in our pockets long enough! Your gravy train is over!
"We're replacing the boys you bought to run the government, the one's who sent you truckloads of our money, and then borrowed more money from the Chinese and all the others all over the world who saw a good deal…and gave THAT to you, too.
"Not did your boys give you the tax cuts, which let you off the hook while we kept on paying more and more, but they threw you money that they told us was to 'fight terrorism.' We know you have profited from the deaths of our sons and daughters and we're holding you to account.
"They made it possible for you to run the price of gas so high that it's breaking our personal banks. Oh, I know the price has come down lately, but we understand you did that because an election is coming up. We know the price will go over $3 again in December.
"Your boys filled your bank accounts on our medical miseries. Not only ours, but those of our most vulnerable, the old who can't fight back.
"This is going to stop, guys. We're taking back our money."
That's right, my fellow Americans, when we take office, the rich who have stolen our money are going to give it back. Yes, we're going to raise taxes. Not on you and me, but on THEM. We're going to get our money back and they're going to suffer for it.
They'll tell you all kinds of shit about it, but you know by now that they will lie, cheat and steal twenty-four hours a day to keep taking our money.
It's OUR MONEY. We PAID them for the gas. We PAID them for the health insurance. We even paid them to despoil our beautiful country. They don't care. They live in gated communities. They're not like us. They're greedy bastards and their time is up.
If you throw these un-American slime out of office and elect us, we promise to put real American values back on the table: fairness, that all-for-one'ness that made American great. There will be no former Haliburton CEO's to profit from the deaths of our soldiers. There will be no religious fanatics. There will be no mean-spirited name-calling. And there will be no lies.
Yes, no lies. Imagine that?
There's only one way out of the mess the Republicans have put our nation in. First throw them out. And then elect some smart people who know how to put the brakes on the largest robbery since Lufthansa. We're going to become Robin Hood and his merry men. The Republicans have robbed from the poor and given to the rich.
This will stop.
Then I woke up and remembered I was dreaming. No Democrat would ever make that speech.
This is also available on huffingtonpost.com
If you elect us and throw out the criminals who have infested our government, we will put the rich on notice.
We'll say to them, "Get out your checkbook, we want our money back! We may never get it all back from you, but you've had your hands in our pockets long enough! Your gravy train is over!
"We're replacing the boys you bought to run the government, the one's who sent you truckloads of our money, and then borrowed more money from the Chinese and all the others all over the world who saw a good deal…and gave THAT to you, too.
"Not did your boys give you the tax cuts, which let you off the hook while we kept on paying more and more, but they threw you money that they told us was to 'fight terrorism.' We know you have profited from the deaths of our sons and daughters and we're holding you to account.
"They made it possible for you to run the price of gas so high that it's breaking our personal banks. Oh, I know the price has come down lately, but we understand you did that because an election is coming up. We know the price will go over $3 again in December.
"Your boys filled your bank accounts on our medical miseries. Not only ours, but those of our most vulnerable, the old who can't fight back.
"This is going to stop, guys. We're taking back our money."
That's right, my fellow Americans, when we take office, the rich who have stolen our money are going to give it back. Yes, we're going to raise taxes. Not on you and me, but on THEM. We're going to get our money back and they're going to suffer for it.
They'll tell you all kinds of shit about it, but you know by now that they will lie, cheat and steal twenty-four hours a day to keep taking our money.
It's OUR MONEY. We PAID them for the gas. We PAID them for the health insurance. We even paid them to despoil our beautiful country. They don't care. They live in gated communities. They're not like us. They're greedy bastards and their time is up.
If you throw these un-American slime out of office and elect us, we promise to put real American values back on the table: fairness, that all-for-one'ness that made American great. There will be no former Haliburton CEO's to profit from the deaths of our soldiers. There will be no religious fanatics. There will be no mean-spirited name-calling. And there will be no lies.
Yes, no lies. Imagine that?
There's only one way out of the mess the Republicans have put our nation in. First throw them out. And then elect some smart people who know how to put the brakes on the largest robbery since Lufthansa. We're going to become Robin Hood and his merry men. The Republicans have robbed from the poor and given to the rich.
This will stop.
Then I woke up and remembered I was dreaming. No Democrat would ever make that speech.
This is also available on huffingtonpost.com
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Job #1 Is NOT Iraq
Not that the "Democratic Tsunami" (as front-runner Chris Matthews likes to say) is a sure thing…but should the public throw the evildoers out of Congress and out on the (K) street, Iraq, while important, is not the most important issue facing Americans.
Yes, global warming and the dozens of other environmental issues must be addressed, and they will be once (or if) the oil companies are divested of ownership of the American government. We know what to do about that.
But Job One should be health care.
It is the sole issue that touches each of us every day. There are powerful forces to be beaten, but what the health care industry (pimping the Republicans, and many Democrats like Joe Lieberman) have designed…what passes for a "Health Care System" …is criminal in the extreme. The problem is there are no criminal penalties against it. To the contrary, the health care industry owns the levers of power in government.
For a start, let's stop calling them "the health care industry." They are "illness profiteers" and no better than war profiteers. They make money from our illness. They make it if we're not sick, and they make more if we are.
First, they take our money in CASE we get sick. Then they want us to be sick enough to need medical care and then borrow money from the banks (in on the deal) to pay for it. So the pharmaceutical companies get our money, the hospital industry gets our money, and doctors too, but banks via their credit card operations, and medical loan companies get to transfer money to those industries and then bill us at a huge rate of interest so we can pay it off.
We're hit three times. Number 1: We pay premiums. Number 2: The money we owe when the coverage isn't enough (or through deductibles and co-pays), and Number 3: The interest we pay when we have to go into debt to pay off the deductibles, etc.
Nice thing they've set up for themselves. A license to print money? No, a license to steal from us, when we are at our most vulnerable.
Why aren't these people in jail?
On top of that, millions upon millions of us don't have ANY health care. When you stop and think about that, it's hardly within the imagination of folks of good will, that this could even be possible. The illness profiteers are not good folks.
And as soon as you begin to talk about a system of national health care as they have in Canada, the illness profiteers will start screaming "Socialized Medicine," as though that's a bad thing. Ever talk to a Canadian about it? Of course there are problems. We're all human and human institutions and individuals make mistakes. We always tinker with things and try to make them better.
The simple fact is that the Canadian system works for folks. Please don't bother commenting here with anecdotal problems. For the vast majority of Canadians, the thing works. And it could work here.
If the Democrats were truly different from Republicans, they'd have a plan on the table NOW, and stop grandstanding about Rumsfeld. The American public has already made up its mind about Iraq and Bush. Even moderate Republicans know they made a big mistake electing that bunch to two terms.
Why is Sen. Clinton so silent on the subject? Who knows better than she what Americans are up against in the fight for fair health care? It's like someone sat her down like Howard Beale was sat down in "Network" and shut her up, because she's been silent ever since the first year of her husband's first term.
I can safely say that if it weren't for employer-provided health care, hundreds of thousands of people would be dead. I'm one of them.
The illness profiteers, who make billions from the real and potential suffering and misery of all of us, must be defeated.
It's a national shame.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Yes, global warming and the dozens of other environmental issues must be addressed, and they will be once (or if) the oil companies are divested of ownership of the American government. We know what to do about that.
But Job One should be health care.
It is the sole issue that touches each of us every day. There are powerful forces to be beaten, but what the health care industry (pimping the Republicans, and many Democrats like Joe Lieberman) have designed…what passes for a "Health Care System" …is criminal in the extreme. The problem is there are no criminal penalties against it. To the contrary, the health care industry owns the levers of power in government.
For a start, let's stop calling them "the health care industry." They are "illness profiteers" and no better than war profiteers. They make money from our illness. They make it if we're not sick, and they make more if we are.
First, they take our money in CASE we get sick. Then they want us to be sick enough to need medical care and then borrow money from the banks (in on the deal) to pay for it. So the pharmaceutical companies get our money, the hospital industry gets our money, and doctors too, but banks via their credit card operations, and medical loan companies get to transfer money to those industries and then bill us at a huge rate of interest so we can pay it off.
We're hit three times. Number 1: We pay premiums. Number 2: The money we owe when the coverage isn't enough (or through deductibles and co-pays), and Number 3: The interest we pay when we have to go into debt to pay off the deductibles, etc.
Nice thing they've set up for themselves. A license to print money? No, a license to steal from us, when we are at our most vulnerable.
Why aren't these people in jail?
On top of that, millions upon millions of us don't have ANY health care. When you stop and think about that, it's hardly within the imagination of folks of good will, that this could even be possible. The illness profiteers are not good folks.
And as soon as you begin to talk about a system of national health care as they have in Canada, the illness profiteers will start screaming "Socialized Medicine," as though that's a bad thing. Ever talk to a Canadian about it? Of course there are problems. We're all human and human institutions and individuals make mistakes. We always tinker with things and try to make them better.
The simple fact is that the Canadian system works for folks. Please don't bother commenting here with anecdotal problems. For the vast majority of Canadians, the thing works. And it could work here.
If the Democrats were truly different from Republicans, they'd have a plan on the table NOW, and stop grandstanding about Rumsfeld. The American public has already made up its mind about Iraq and Bush. Even moderate Republicans know they made a big mistake electing that bunch to two terms.
Why is Sen. Clinton so silent on the subject? Who knows better than she what Americans are up against in the fight for fair health care? It's like someone sat her down like Howard Beale was sat down in "Network" and shut her up, because she's been silent ever since the first year of her husband's first term.
I can safely say that if it weren't for employer-provided health care, hundreds of thousands of people would be dead. I'm one of them.
The illness profiteers, who make billions from the real and potential suffering and misery of all of us, must be defeated.
It's a national shame.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
The New Orleans News Cycle Is Over--Now DO Something
The TV crews are gone. The politicians have gone home. The news cycle has turned. Yet, the unreality continues, made worse by the fact that the unreality is so real.
Any American touched by New Orleans prior to the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers and the subsequent flood, and who has re-visited or even keeps in touch with things there, knows how bad things are.
There's an old Meters' song, "Talkin' 'Bout New Orleans," that says, "If you've ever been there, then you know what I mean." It meant the good things. It even meant the bad things. It meant the things about New Orleans that made it unique on the planet.
Now, if you have visited New Orleans since the flood, you have another sense of that song.
And by the way, let's stop calling the disaster "Katrina." It's short and convenient, but let's get it right. Call it the flood. A man-made flood caused by incompetence and greed. It wasn't a hurricane that drowned a city, it was a flood caused by massive, criminal incompetence.
But that's not what this is about.
This is about the emotions those of us who have a New Orleans connection are feeling. The emotions that come through the psychic air 3500 miles away here in Portland, Oregon…the despair, the anger, the sense of living in a daily nightmare that just won't seem to go away. The sense of loss. Loss and abandonment. Is anyone surprised that the suicide rate in New Orleans has tripled in the past year?
Can you feel it?
How dare Bush show his face? The shame of the conditions in New Orleans is on him. It should eat him alive at night…that and the tens of thousands of dead and maimed Americans and Iraqis from his own personal boutique war.
I was at Jazzfest in May, and as I wrote here at the time, the anger and despair of the people of New Orleans ran as deep as the Mississippi. Lately these feelings have been given more exposure, but if Bush had a single testicle, he would have faced some real people and took the heat. Taking heat is not in his job description. Taking heat is part of taking responsibility, he doesn't do that.
Thankfully, his allies are deserting him. If we are able to swing the House of Representatives in the fall, he will stand with his administration and have to answer for what he's done. I would prefer that he move into the cell formerly occupied by Milosovic and be tried before the world, but that's not going to happen.
The anger and despair of the people of New Orleans (at home and also those who are part of the tragic diaspora) and their sense of unreality is the legacy of American greed and bumbling.
I can feel it. Maybe you can too.
The power must be taken away from the Republicans. Congress must be taken back, and these jackals and their servants must be swept out of the Executive Branch, from top to bottom.
Feel like you want to do something for the people of New Orleans other than sending money their way? Do something to change the balance of power.
The next sixty days are crucial. Don't let it slip through your fingers again.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Any American touched by New Orleans prior to the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers and the subsequent flood, and who has re-visited or even keeps in touch with things there, knows how bad things are.
There's an old Meters' song, "Talkin' 'Bout New Orleans," that says, "If you've ever been there, then you know what I mean." It meant the good things. It even meant the bad things. It meant the things about New Orleans that made it unique on the planet.
Now, if you have visited New Orleans since the flood, you have another sense of that song.
And by the way, let's stop calling the disaster "Katrina." It's short and convenient, but let's get it right. Call it the flood. A man-made flood caused by incompetence and greed. It wasn't a hurricane that drowned a city, it was a flood caused by massive, criminal incompetence.
But that's not what this is about.
This is about the emotions those of us who have a New Orleans connection are feeling. The emotions that come through the psychic air 3500 miles away here in Portland, Oregon…the despair, the anger, the sense of living in a daily nightmare that just won't seem to go away. The sense of loss. Loss and abandonment. Is anyone surprised that the suicide rate in New Orleans has tripled in the past year?
Can you feel it?
How dare Bush show his face? The shame of the conditions in New Orleans is on him. It should eat him alive at night…that and the tens of thousands of dead and maimed Americans and Iraqis from his own personal boutique war.
I was at Jazzfest in May, and as I wrote here at the time, the anger and despair of the people of New Orleans ran as deep as the Mississippi. Lately these feelings have been given more exposure, but if Bush had a single testicle, he would have faced some real people and took the heat. Taking heat is not in his job description. Taking heat is part of taking responsibility, he doesn't do that.
Thankfully, his allies are deserting him. If we are able to swing the House of Representatives in the fall, he will stand with his administration and have to answer for what he's done. I would prefer that he move into the cell formerly occupied by Milosovic and be tried before the world, but that's not going to happen.
The anger and despair of the people of New Orleans (at home and also those who are part of the tragic diaspora) and their sense of unreality is the legacy of American greed and bumbling.
I can feel it. Maybe you can too.
The power must be taken away from the Republicans. Congress must be taken back, and these jackals and their servants must be swept out of the Executive Branch, from top to bottom.
Feel like you want to do something for the people of New Orleans other than sending money their way? Do something to change the balance of power.
The next sixty days are crucial. Don't let it slip through your fingers again.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Monday, August 21, 2006
REVEALED! Whitney Solo Concert for Osama--1985
All of our current difficulties in the world could have been prevented. We would not be in Iraq. 9/11 would never have happened. We would be at peace around the world, had it not been for one 1985 incident that I have now been authorized to reveal.
The location was a remote palace in Yemen. The principals were Osama Bin Laden and Whitney Houston. No one knew that the fate of the planet would turn on the events that night, but indeed that was the case.
As the New York Post has reported, "Kola Boof, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, 'Diary of a Lost Girl,' which is excerpted in the September Harper's: 'He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.'"
But Boof (pronounced "Booth" in Sudanese) did not know about the clandestine solo concert Bin Laden ordered performed for him by Houston in 1985. Bin Laden's people contacted her personally, bypassing her agent, telling her that he wanted to hear her sing a capella, for his ears only, in exchange for $1 million in cash, all in untraceable bills.
When she asked why, she was told Bin Laden admired her beauty and her voice and craved a one-on-one concert. She asked if he expected sexual favors and was told that no, he had great respect for her.
She agreed and was handed a brief case containing the money. The next day she was picked up by his representatives and driven to a private airport in a huge limo where a private jet was waiting. Houston found it filled with lavish gifts of jewelry, perfumes, food and clothing. She was shocked to find all of the clothing fit her perfectly. When she asked why that was, the servant told her that Osama had done his homework.
When she arrived at the palace she was pampered and massaged and spent the night alone in a suite the size of her entire Hollywood mansion. She was told her meeting with Osama was to take place early that evening.
According to the New York Post story, Boof reported that, "He said he wanted to give [her] a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney, he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives."
She was introduced to several of his children during the day. They did not know who she was because he did not allow Western music to be played in the palace.
Finally the time came for their meeting. She walked into a vast marble room, the floor covered with Persian rugs, finding him sitting in a large wooden throne-like chair. The first words out of his mouth were compliments to her beauty. She smiled. He smiled and told her how truly Islamic he thought she was, something he also told Boof, according to the New York Post. The comment confused her, but she complimented him on his children, saying, "I believe the children are our are future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."
He was pleased to hear that, and told her she must be very wise. She added, "You should make sure you show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be."
He said, "Will you sing for me now?"
She sang several songs. Osama was visibly moved, and also visibly sexually excited. This was confirmed by Boof when she wrote, "'In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. 'African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures,''" she quoted him as saying.
He was so excited that he proposed marriage to her on the spot. She asked, "But where is the mother of the children I met today?"
He replied that, according to Islamic custom, he had several wives and many children. "Did you think I was saving all my love for you?"
She stood up in front of him and boldly said, "I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity."
He told her she had been brainwashed by American culture, a statement confirmed by Boof, and quoted in the New York Post article.
At that point, she spread her arms and sang the Star Spangled Banner just as she would at a subsequent Super Bowl. When she finished singing, she turned her back and walked out of the room.
It was downhill from there. Jihad was declared, buildings were destroyed, countries invaded and thousands of lives lost. Oddly enough, one survivor was Houston's husband, Bobby Brown whom Osama threatened to kill, according to Boof.
We can only imagine what would have happened, had Houston's decision gone the other way. When she returned to America, she wrote to a friend, "I could feel his love for me but the greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself …it is the greatest love of all"
You can also find this at huffingtonpost.com
The location was a remote palace in Yemen. The principals were Osama Bin Laden and Whitney Houston. No one knew that the fate of the planet would turn on the events that night, but indeed that was the case.
As the New York Post has reported, "Kola Boof, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, 'Diary of a Lost Girl,' which is excerpted in the September Harper's: 'He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.'"
But Boof (pronounced "Booth" in Sudanese) did not know about the clandestine solo concert Bin Laden ordered performed for him by Houston in 1985. Bin Laden's people contacted her personally, bypassing her agent, telling her that he wanted to hear her sing a capella, for his ears only, in exchange for $1 million in cash, all in untraceable bills.
When she asked why, she was told Bin Laden admired her beauty and her voice and craved a one-on-one concert. She asked if he expected sexual favors and was told that no, he had great respect for her.
She agreed and was handed a brief case containing the money. The next day she was picked up by his representatives and driven to a private airport in a huge limo where a private jet was waiting. Houston found it filled with lavish gifts of jewelry, perfumes, food and clothing. She was shocked to find all of the clothing fit her perfectly. When she asked why that was, the servant told her that Osama had done his homework.
When she arrived at the palace she was pampered and massaged and spent the night alone in a suite the size of her entire Hollywood mansion. She was told her meeting with Osama was to take place early that evening.
According to the New York Post story, Boof reported that, "He said he wanted to give [her] a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney, he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives."
She was introduced to several of his children during the day. They did not know who she was because he did not allow Western music to be played in the palace.
Finally the time came for their meeting. She walked into a vast marble room, the floor covered with Persian rugs, finding him sitting in a large wooden throne-like chair. The first words out of his mouth were compliments to her beauty. She smiled. He smiled and told her how truly Islamic he thought she was, something he also told Boof, according to the New York Post. The comment confused her, but she complimented him on his children, saying, "I believe the children are our are future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."
He was pleased to hear that, and told her she must be very wise. She added, "You should make sure you show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be."
He said, "Will you sing for me now?"
She sang several songs. Osama was visibly moved, and also visibly sexually excited. This was confirmed by Boof when she wrote, "'In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. 'African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures,''" she quoted him as saying.
He was so excited that he proposed marriage to her on the spot. She asked, "But where is the mother of the children I met today?"
He replied that, according to Islamic custom, he had several wives and many children. "Did you think I was saving all my love for you?"
She stood up in front of him and boldly said, "I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity."
He told her she had been brainwashed by American culture, a statement confirmed by Boof, and quoted in the New York Post article.
At that point, she spread her arms and sang the Star Spangled Banner just as she would at a subsequent Super Bowl. When she finished singing, she turned her back and walked out of the room.
It was downhill from there. Jihad was declared, buildings were destroyed, countries invaded and thousands of lives lost. Oddly enough, one survivor was Houston's husband, Bobby Brown whom Osama threatened to kill, according to Boof.
We can only imagine what would have happened, had Houston's decision gone the other way. When she returned to America, she wrote to a friend, "I could feel his love for me but the greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself …it is the greatest love of all"
You can also find this at huffingtonpost.com
REVEALED! Whitney Solo Concert for Osama--1985
All of our current difficulties in the world could have been prevented. We would not be in Iraq. 9/11 would never have happened. We would be at peace around the world, had it not been for one 1985 incident that I have now been authorized to reveal.
The location was a remote palace in Yemen. The principals were Osama Bin Laden and Whitney Houston. No one knew that the fate of the planet would turn on the events that night, but indeed that was the case.
As the New York Post has reported, "Kola Boof, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, 'Diary of a Lost Girl,' which is excerpted in the September Harper's: 'He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.'"
But Boof (pronounced "Booth" in Sudanese) did not know about the clandestine solo concert Bin Laden ordered performed for him by Houston in 1985. Bin Laden's people contacted her personally, bypassing her agent, telling her that he wanted to hear her sing a capella, for his ears only, in exchange for $1 million in cash, all in untraceable bills.
When she asked why, she was told Bin Laden admired her beauty and her voice and craved a one-on-one concert. She asked if he expected sexual favors and was told that no, he had great respect for her.
She agreed and was handed a brief case containing the money. The next day she was picked up by his representatives and driven to a private airport in a huge limo where a private jet was waiting. Houston found it filled with lavish gifts of jewelry, perfumes, food and clothing. She was shocked to find all of the clothing fit her perfectly. When she asked why that was, the servant told her that Osama had done his homework.
When she arrived at the palace she was pampered and massaged and spent the night alone in a suite the size of her entire Hollywood mansion. She was told her meeting with Osama was to take place early that evening.
According to the New York Post story, Boof reported that, "He said he wanted to give [her] a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney, he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives."
She was introduced to several of his children during the day. They did not know who she was because he did not allow Western music to be played in the palace.
Finally the time came for their meeting. She walked into a vast marble room, the floor covered with Persian rugs, finding him sitting in a large wooden throne-like chair. The first words out of his mouth were compliments to her beauty. She smiled. He smiled and told her how truly Islamic he thought she was, something he also told Boof, according to the New York Post. The comment confused her, but she complimented him on his children, saying, "I believe the children are our are future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."
He was pleased to hear that, and told her she must be very wise. She added, "You should make sure you show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be."
He said, "Will you sing for me now?"
She sang several songs. Osama was visibly moved, and also visibly sexually excited. This was confirmed by Boof when she wrote, "'In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. 'African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures,''" she quoted him as saying.
He was so excited that he proposed marriage to her on the spot. She asked, "But where is the mother of the children I met today?"
He replied that, according to Islamic custom, he had several wives and many children. "Did you think I was saving all my love for you?"
She stood up in front of him and boldly said, "I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity."
He told her she had been brainwashed by American culture, a statement confirmed by Boof, and quoted in the New York Post article.
At that point, she spread her arms and sang the Star Spangled Banner just as she would at a subsequent Super Bowl. When she finished singing, she turned her back and walked out of the room.
It was downhill from there. Jihad was declared, buildings were destroyed, countries invaded and thousands of lives lost. Oddly enough, one survivor was Houston's husband, Bobby Brown whom Osama threatened to kill, according to Boof.
We can only imagine what would have happened, had Houston's decision gone the other way. When she returned to America, she wrote to a friend, "I could feel his love for me but the greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself …it is the greatest love of all"
You can also find this at huffingtonpost.com
The location was a remote palace in Yemen. The principals were Osama Bin Laden and Whitney Houston. No one knew that the fate of the planet would turn on the events that night, but indeed that was the case.
As the New York Post has reported, "Kola Boof, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, 'Diary of a Lost Girl,' which is excerpted in the September Harper's: 'He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.'"
But Boof (pronounced "Booth" in Sudanese) did not know about the clandestine solo concert Bin Laden ordered performed for him by Houston in 1985. Bin Laden's people contacted her personally, bypassing her agent, telling her that he wanted to hear her sing a capella, for his ears only, in exchange for $1 million in cash, all in untraceable bills.
When she asked why, she was told Bin Laden admired her beauty and her voice and craved a one-on-one concert. She asked if he expected sexual favors and was told that no, he had great respect for her.
She agreed and was handed a brief case containing the money. The next day she was picked up by his representatives and driven to a private airport in a huge limo where a private jet was waiting. Houston found it filled with lavish gifts of jewelry, perfumes, food and clothing. She was shocked to find all of the clothing fit her perfectly. When she asked why that was, the servant told her that Osama had done his homework.
When she arrived at the palace she was pampered and massaged and spent the night alone in a suite the size of her entire Hollywood mansion. She was told her meeting with Osama was to take place early that evening.
According to the New York Post story, Boof reported that, "He said he wanted to give [her] a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney, he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives."
She was introduced to several of his children during the day. They did not know who she was because he did not allow Western music to be played in the palace.
Finally the time came for their meeting. She walked into a vast marble room, the floor covered with Persian rugs, finding him sitting in a large wooden throne-like chair. The first words out of his mouth were compliments to her beauty. She smiled. He smiled and told her how truly Islamic he thought she was, something he also told Boof, according to the New York Post. The comment confused her, but she complimented him on his children, saying, "I believe the children are our are future. Teach them well and let them lead the way."
He was pleased to hear that, and told her she must be very wise. She added, "You should make sure you show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be."
He said, "Will you sing for me now?"
She sang several songs. Osama was visibly moved, and also visibly sexually excited. This was confirmed by Boof when she wrote, "'In his briefcase, I would come across photographs of the Star [magazine], as well as copies of Playboy. 'African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures,''" she quoted him as saying.
He was so excited that he proposed marriage to her on the spot. She asked, "But where is the mother of the children I met today?"
He replied that, according to Islamic custom, he had several wives and many children. "Did you think I was saving all my love for you?"
She stood up in front of him and boldly said, "I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity."
He told her she had been brainwashed by American culture, a statement confirmed by Boof, and quoted in the New York Post article.
At that point, she spread her arms and sang the Star Spangled Banner just as she would at a subsequent Super Bowl. When she finished singing, she turned her back and walked out of the room.
It was downhill from there. Jihad was declared, buildings were destroyed, countries invaded and thousands of lives lost. Oddly enough, one survivor was Houston's husband, Bobby Brown whom Osama threatened to kill, according to Boof.
We can only imagine what would have happened, had Houston's decision gone the other way. When she returned to America, she wrote to a friend, "I could feel his love for me but the greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself …it is the greatest love of all"
You can also find this at huffingtonpost.com
Friday, August 18, 2006
Corporate lies: Tobacco Department. And a Slap on the Wrist
Yesterday Federal Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that "smoking causes disease, suffering, and death," and that tobacco companies were gulping profits like a Hummer gulps gas, “with little, if any, regard for individual illness and suffering, soaring health costs, or the integrity of the legal system.”
The defendants are Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Ltd.; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A.; and the now-defunct Tobacco Institute.
She added that "Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke."
She isn't kidding. But are you aware of the extent of what the tobacco companies told us was true about cigarettes?
Kirven Blount, in his book, "What's Your Poison: Addictive Advertising of the '40s- '60s," reprints dozens of cigarette ads. The outrageous lies the tobacco companies told us are astounding, given what we know about cigarettes, and the fact that they knew those same facts when these ads were written. Forget the Marlboro Man and the "image" ads, these are very specific.
Take the Camel Brand. No cute cartoon characters back then. Nope, just statements like (all caps and capitalizations as they appear in the ad):
"According to a recent Nationwide survey:
MORE DOCTORS SMOKE CAMELS THAN ANY OTHER CIGARETTE
EVERY DOCTOR IN PRIVATE PRACTICE WAS ASKED"
There's a photo of a grandfatherly "doctor" in one ad and a female "doctor" in another. In other Camel ads:
"28% LESS NICOTINE EXTRA COOLNESS FLAVOR"
And testimonials:
"Vivian Blaine says; 'I've tried the different mildness tests. My throat made my choice….CAMELS!' Not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking CAMELS."
"These smokers gave CAMELS 30-YEAR Mildness Tests."
"'My voice is my living'…says Vaughn Monroe radio and recording star."
Below it there's a word balloon coming out of Vaughn's mouth.
" …so it's only common sense that I smoke the cigarette that agrees with my throat…CAMEL!"
They cap it off with these lines:
"Not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking CAMELS
Make a note…Remember Your Throat"
"Camels agree with more people than any other cigarette."
And, apparently Camels are good for your psychological well-being:
"WATCH YOUR NERVES…LET UP…LIGHT A CAMEL
In hazardous jobs—in every-day 'grinds"—smokers say 'CAMELS ARE SOOTHING TO THE NERVES.'"
They were not alone. Philip Morris pulled this out of their corporate asses:
"DO YOU INHALE?
All smokers do—some times. And inhaling increases the chance of smoking-irritation.
Reported by eminent medical authorities is this vital difference between Philip Morris and four other leading cigarettes. On comparison, the other four brands averaged 235% more irritant than the strikingly constrained Philip Morris.
Further—the irritant effect of the four other leading brands was found to last more than five times as long! You can't see this difference…but you can feel it, especially when you inhale! That's vital to all who smoke.
Especially if you inhale—Call for Philip Morris! Enjoy the world's finest tobaccos—with no worry about throat irritation.
MEDIAL AUTHORITIES KNOW THIS ONE IS SUPERIOR--- PHILIP MORRIS
Scientifically proved less irritating to the nose and throat.
When smokers changed to Philip Morris, substantially every case of irritation of the nose and throat---due to smoking---cleared up completely, or definitely improved!
This is from the findings of distinguished doctors, in clinical tests of men and women smokers---reported in an authoritative medical journal. Solid proof that this finer-tasting cigarette is less irritating to the nose and throat."
It is one thing to cover up the fact that your product is a major cause of DEATH and DISEASE, but it's another to ACTIVELY tell you it doesn't.
A news story yesterday said, "Mark Smith, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company…said, the company was disappointed by Kessler's finding that the companies had conspired to violate federal law and deceive consumers." This goes to show you that they haven't stopped lying. Consider these Chesterfield ads:
They got SINGERS to endorse the cancer sticks.
"'You might say I'm careful, that's why I say Chesterfields SATISFY me!' Rise Stevens (autograph) Metropolitan Operas World Famous Carmen"
"MILDNESS—plus No Unpleasant After-taste *
* from the report of a well-known research organization…and only Chesterfield has it!"
"Hundreds of prominent tobacco growers say: 'When I apply the Standard Tobacco Growers' Test to cigarettes, I find Chesterfield is the one that smells Milder and smokes Milder.'"
"Only Chesterfield is Made the Modern way---with ACCU RAY to bring you SMOOTHER, COOLER SMOKING than was every before possible."
Accu-ray, how space-age.
They all seem to acknowledge that cigarettes make you feel bad, but they all claim that THEIRS doesn't. Take Pall Mall:
"Guard Against Throat-Scratch
…smoke PALL MALL the cigarette whose mildness you can measure.
Outstanding…and they are mild!"
The problem with the ruling yesterday is that the death-dealing liars got to keep their money. No reparations for killing your parents and grandparents. This is thanks to the Bush administration. The justice department tried to keep the damage to their corporate masters as minimal as possible. They succeeded.
Tomorrow, nobody will remember this story.
Just add it to the list of lies, lies and more lies. They don't mind killing you for money. Remember that in November. They don't mind killing you for money.
They've merely stopped telling us that we'll get pleasure from it as they did in this Camel ad:
"IT'S A PSYCHOLOGICAL FACT: PLEASURE HELPS YOUR DISPOSITION
For more pure pleasure…have a CAMEL"
They use fear now, not pleasure. The lies are the same, however. And they're from the same folks.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
The defendants are Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Ltd.; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A.; and the now-defunct Tobacco Institute.
She added that "Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke."
She isn't kidding. But are you aware of the extent of what the tobacco companies told us was true about cigarettes?
Kirven Blount, in his book, "What's Your Poison: Addictive Advertising of the '40s- '60s," reprints dozens of cigarette ads. The outrageous lies the tobacco companies told us are astounding, given what we know about cigarettes, and the fact that they knew those same facts when these ads were written. Forget the Marlboro Man and the "image" ads, these are very specific.
Take the Camel Brand. No cute cartoon characters back then. Nope, just statements like (all caps and capitalizations as they appear in the ad):
"According to a recent Nationwide survey:
MORE DOCTORS SMOKE CAMELS THAN ANY OTHER CIGARETTE
EVERY DOCTOR IN PRIVATE PRACTICE WAS ASKED"
There's a photo of a grandfatherly "doctor" in one ad and a female "doctor" in another. In other Camel ads:
"28% LESS NICOTINE EXTRA COOLNESS FLAVOR"
And testimonials:
"Vivian Blaine says; 'I've tried the different mildness tests. My throat made my choice….CAMELS!' Not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking CAMELS."
"These smokers gave CAMELS 30-YEAR Mildness Tests."
"'My voice is my living'…says Vaughn Monroe radio and recording star."
Below it there's a word balloon coming out of Vaughn's mouth.
" …so it's only common sense that I smoke the cigarette that agrees with my throat…CAMEL!"
They cap it off with these lines:
"Not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking CAMELS
Make a note…Remember Your Throat"
"Camels agree with more people than any other cigarette."
And, apparently Camels are good for your psychological well-being:
"WATCH YOUR NERVES…LET UP…LIGHT A CAMEL
In hazardous jobs—in every-day 'grinds"—smokers say 'CAMELS ARE SOOTHING TO THE NERVES.'"
They were not alone. Philip Morris pulled this out of their corporate asses:
"DO YOU INHALE?
All smokers do—some times. And inhaling increases the chance of smoking-irritation.
Reported by eminent medical authorities is this vital difference between Philip Morris and four other leading cigarettes. On comparison, the other four brands averaged 235% more irritant than the strikingly constrained Philip Morris.
Further—the irritant effect of the four other leading brands was found to last more than five times as long! You can't see this difference…but you can feel it, especially when you inhale! That's vital to all who smoke.
Especially if you inhale—Call for Philip Morris! Enjoy the world's finest tobaccos—with no worry about throat irritation.
MEDIAL AUTHORITIES KNOW THIS ONE IS SUPERIOR--- PHILIP MORRIS
Scientifically proved less irritating to the nose and throat.
When smokers changed to Philip Morris, substantially every case of irritation of the nose and throat---due to smoking---cleared up completely, or definitely improved!
This is from the findings of distinguished doctors, in clinical tests of men and women smokers---reported in an authoritative medical journal. Solid proof that this finer-tasting cigarette is less irritating to the nose and throat."
It is one thing to cover up the fact that your product is a major cause of DEATH and DISEASE, but it's another to ACTIVELY tell you it doesn't.
A news story yesterday said, "Mark Smith, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company…said, the company was disappointed by Kessler's finding that the companies had conspired to violate federal law and deceive consumers." This goes to show you that they haven't stopped lying. Consider these Chesterfield ads:
They got SINGERS to endorse the cancer sticks.
"'You might say I'm careful, that's why I say Chesterfields SATISFY me!' Rise Stevens (autograph) Metropolitan Operas World Famous Carmen"
"MILDNESS—plus No Unpleasant After-taste *
* from the report of a well-known research organization…and only Chesterfield has it!"
"Hundreds of prominent tobacco growers say: 'When I apply the Standard Tobacco Growers' Test to cigarettes, I find Chesterfield is the one that smells Milder and smokes Milder.'"
"Only Chesterfield is Made the Modern way---with ACCU RAY to bring you SMOOTHER, COOLER SMOKING than was every before possible."
Accu-ray, how space-age.
They all seem to acknowledge that cigarettes make you feel bad, but they all claim that THEIRS doesn't. Take Pall Mall:
"Guard Against Throat-Scratch
…smoke PALL MALL the cigarette whose mildness you can measure.
Outstanding…and they are mild!"
The problem with the ruling yesterday is that the death-dealing liars got to keep their money. No reparations for killing your parents and grandparents. This is thanks to the Bush administration. The justice department tried to keep the damage to their corporate masters as minimal as possible. They succeeded.
Tomorrow, nobody will remember this story.
Just add it to the list of lies, lies and more lies. They don't mind killing you for money. Remember that in November. They don't mind killing you for money.
They've merely stopped telling us that we'll get pleasure from it as they did in this Camel ad:
"IT'S A PSYCHOLOGICAL FACT: PLEASURE HELPS YOUR DISPOSITION
For more pure pleasure…have a CAMEL"
They use fear now, not pleasure. The lies are the same, however. And they're from the same folks.
this also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Monday, August 07, 2006
Hezbollah didn't win. Nobody won.
Don't believe the nonsense you hear that Hezbollah (or Hizbullah, or any other manner of spelling it) has won the latest chapter in the centuries-old war in the Middle-East. Nor have they lost. Neither has Israel won or lost.
A cease-fire will be just that, they'll stop shooting, for the most part. There is no victory. There can be no victors. There will be no final victors. And when the oil runs out, it will stop being important to the rest of the world. When the oil runs out, nobody will care if the Shia wipe out the Sunnis or who lives in Israel/ Palestine/West Bank/Gaza/Kurdistan/the other two parts of Iraq/or any of the Emirates.
Most of us will never see that day, but it is as inevitable as death.
When the oil runs out the hatred and killing in the Middle-East will be as remote to the rest of the world as the same behavior in Sudan is now or as Rwanda was a decade ago.
"The Arab Street" will be as meaningless as "The Peruvian Street." And by the way, how crazy is it to decide life and death and the possible annihilation of the planet by how many goobers are jumping up and down on top of flags they don't like, firing guns into the air and acting like fools?
Why not just decide everything the same way the winner is decided on "American Idol?" So kindly don't tell me that Hezbollah won because "The Arab Street" believes it to be true. They also believe that women should walk around with their heads covered up and that thieves should have their hands cut off.
It is like having U.S. foreign policy decided by the students at Bob Jones University. Of course, that's how the Republicans gained control of U.S. foreign policy. The Arab Street and The Republican Base have a great deal in common.
And before you get to weeping over the slaughter of the innocent in Lebanon, consider that many of the surrounding countries, and all of the radical Islamists want Israel wiped off the map. What would you do if they said the same thing about the United States and attacked us. Oh, you mean they did? And you even supported BUSH when it came to raining fire on the Taliban who supported Al-Qaeda, didn't you.
Supported? You cheered.
And when the Germans and Japanese threatened our survival you didn't hesitate to wave the flag when we fire-bombed the civilians of Dresden and wiped out two entire major Japanese cities with nuclear weapons.
So don't come crying to me when innocents are killed in a war.
This is dirty. We encouraged it. We stood by while the bombs fell. No, we were not threatened. You're doing a heckuva job, Condi.
Hezbollah didn't win. Nobody won. Everybody lost. There is no chance for a lasting peace, and hardly a chance for any kind of settlement brokered by the crew currently representing us. Perhaps when the Republican finger-painters who are at the controls lose their jobs in 2008, some reason might be restored to the process, but even Clinton couldn't make a peace with those who only wanted Israel destroyed.
On the other hand, it was Europeans who created the country of Iraq out of three groups who hate each other and planted the seeds bearing fruit today by their other colonial mistakes. It was also Europeans who decided that Jews should own the land where Israel now sits, and told the people who had been controlling that land to go fuck themselves. There's that.
People tend to forget these things.
It's obvious the U.S. has squandered any positive role it might have had in the Middle-East. Perhaps a leader from a country other than the U.S. can emerge and stop all this, but I doubt it. The state of the holy land is the best argument for atheism.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
A cease-fire will be just that, they'll stop shooting, for the most part. There is no victory. There can be no victors. There will be no final victors. And when the oil runs out, it will stop being important to the rest of the world. When the oil runs out, nobody will care if the Shia wipe out the Sunnis or who lives in Israel/ Palestine/West Bank/Gaza/Kurdistan/the other two parts of Iraq/or any of the Emirates.
Most of us will never see that day, but it is as inevitable as death.
When the oil runs out the hatred and killing in the Middle-East will be as remote to the rest of the world as the same behavior in Sudan is now or as Rwanda was a decade ago.
"The Arab Street" will be as meaningless as "The Peruvian Street." And by the way, how crazy is it to decide life and death and the possible annihilation of the planet by how many goobers are jumping up and down on top of flags they don't like, firing guns into the air and acting like fools?
Why not just decide everything the same way the winner is decided on "American Idol?" So kindly don't tell me that Hezbollah won because "The Arab Street" believes it to be true. They also believe that women should walk around with their heads covered up and that thieves should have their hands cut off.
It is like having U.S. foreign policy decided by the students at Bob Jones University. Of course, that's how the Republicans gained control of U.S. foreign policy. The Arab Street and The Republican Base have a great deal in common.
And before you get to weeping over the slaughter of the innocent in Lebanon, consider that many of the surrounding countries, and all of the radical Islamists want Israel wiped off the map. What would you do if they said the same thing about the United States and attacked us. Oh, you mean they did? And you even supported BUSH when it came to raining fire on the Taliban who supported Al-Qaeda, didn't you.
Supported? You cheered.
And when the Germans and Japanese threatened our survival you didn't hesitate to wave the flag when we fire-bombed the civilians of Dresden and wiped out two entire major Japanese cities with nuclear weapons.
So don't come crying to me when innocents are killed in a war.
This is dirty. We encouraged it. We stood by while the bombs fell. No, we were not threatened. You're doing a heckuva job, Condi.
Hezbollah didn't win. Nobody won. Everybody lost. There is no chance for a lasting peace, and hardly a chance for any kind of settlement brokered by the crew currently representing us. Perhaps when the Republican finger-painters who are at the controls lose their jobs in 2008, some reason might be restored to the process, but even Clinton couldn't make a peace with those who only wanted Israel destroyed.
On the other hand, it was Europeans who created the country of Iraq out of three groups who hate each other and planted the seeds bearing fruit today by their other colonial mistakes. It was also Europeans who decided that Jews should own the land where Israel now sits, and told the people who had been controlling that land to go fuck themselves. There's that.
People tend to forget these things.
It's obvious the U.S. has squandered any positive role it might have had in the Middle-East. Perhaps a leader from a country other than the U.S. can emerge and stop all this, but I doubt it. The state of the holy land is the best argument for atheism.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Sunday, July 30, 2006
CounterPunch July Playlist
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band 40th Reunion. DVD 2006
This concert took place in the UK in January of 2006.
I don't feel like I should have to explain who they are and I will not, but I know I should because the band had a relatively short lifespan, was British, never had a hit, and was too strange to make it out of cult status.
I am a member of their cult. Wanna buy a flower?
Missing only the dearly departed Vivian Stanshall (a man), the band is led by another man who calls himself Neil Innes, but doesn't look a bit like Neil Innes did forty years ago. Also appearing are old men impersonating Roger Ruskin Spear, Rodney Slater, Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, and Legs Larry Smith. Also also appearing is the electric trouser press instrument, and the theramin leg.
Also also also appearing: Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone. Looking very relaxed Adolf Hitler on vibes. Eric Clapton on ukulele. Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. Really wild, General! Thank you, sir. Roy Rogers on Trigger. We welcome Val Doonican as himself. (Hello there.)
Among others.
Viv was such a huge presence in the Bonzos, that several people have stepped in to fill his shoes, including Stephen Fry, doing recitations such as:"My darling, in my cardboard-coloured dreams, once again, I heard your laugh. And I kiss, yes, I kiss your perfumed hair. The sweet essence of Giraffe. And eachtime I hear your name, oh, oh, my, my, how it hurts! In the wardrobe of my soul...in the section labeled "shirts."—from "Canyons of Your Mind."
Phil Jupitus stepped in for the dead Viv with a bowel-moving rendition of "The Strain," Stanshall's ode to taking a shit.
The audience was so attuned that when Innes athked the muthical lithp, "Do you like thoul muthic?" the audience replied, "No," en masse. Tho did I.
The audio sucks, the shooting sucks, Innes loses some of his voice as the night wears on, clams abound and few of the props seem to work; in other words, a perfect evening.
When they started playing "Jollity Farm," I cried.
I'll repeat that, the shirt event.
Nancy King Untitled CD c. mid-1990s
Nancy King is in the top 5 of our greatest living jazz singers. Thankfully, she is just now, at an age somewhere over 55, getting some of her due. She's quirky, scatty, bright, sarcastic and sweet, with the evidence of a difficult yet rewarding life advertised on her face.
She has been active nationally with a recent CD with pianist Fred Hersch.
She has lived most of her life in Portland, Oregon where she has frequently collaborated with the virtuoso bassist Glen Moore of the band "Oregon," as well as her long time pianist, Steve Christopherson.
She burned this CD for me in 1997 for an appearance on a radio show I was doing. I'm not sure when it was recorded, but I'm guessing it was shortly before that, maybe not. I played it underneath our interview, stopping along the way to talk to her about aspects of what we were hearing.
To tell you the truth, she puts all the current slim, cute jazz divas to shame. What she's got, only time and life gives you. Thank goodness she's still around to communicate that.
She's bop, she's ballad, she's irony and love, she's a brat and a seductress, as contemporary as they come but with deep roots. You can find a not-so-up-to-date website at http://www.nancykingjazz.com/.
Raymond Scott "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" CD 1992/1998
Call me old fashioned, but the father of cartoon music never sounded better. Of course, as every schoolboy knows, Scott didn't compose these familiar tunes to be used in cartoons. He had all but abandoned Hollywood for New York when Carl Stalling decided to put some of Scott's music to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.
In addition, what most people don't know is that Scott was a pioneer of electronic music, building proto-synthesizers and other such machines. He also composed hundreds of jingles and other ephemera. Odd then, that he is best known for music to chase wabbits by.
He was also Dorothy Collins' husband and led the band on "You're Hit Parade." (Ask your grandfather.)
One of the oldest methods self-entertainment includes the following: 1) smoke some dope, 2) turn on the TV, 3) put some music on, and 4) turn the TV audio off and continue to change the channels till the music fits. Laugh if you like, but it still works. And it's still just as much fun.
It works with old movies, it works with Wolf Blitzer and the other night Raymond Scott's CD worked with a silent Dada film from the 20s. It worked really well. Like it was written for it.
Might have just be me. Doesn't matter.
The CD I have is a 1998 re-mastered version of the original 1992 transfer to digital. Ray would have loved it.
Papa Grows Funk "Live at the Leaf" CD 2006
Even if Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk occupies the throne of New Orleans funk bands, PGF is thatclosebehind. This was recorded live last April at the Maple Leaf Bar, a creaky old place in New Orleans. It might look like it's going to fall down any moment, but the Leaf is a cathedral of great music.
PGF has been holding down Monday nights there for years, in that narrow, sweaty, way-to-loud room next to the bar where you swear that any moment the whole place may explode, implode or otherwise self-destruct due to the level of funk and blues. I'm not exaggerating.
John Gros (pronounced Grow, hence the name of the band) holds all the keys to the rooms where they store the legacy of the great New Orleans piano players. He knows it, lives and plays it. It's in him. It is him. Add fiery guitarist June Yamagishi, ultra-cool Jason Minglesdorf on saxes, Fatback Mark Pero on bass and you've got all the funk you can use. They have had one major change in their lineup in the past year or so. Although Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander is a fine drummer, nobody can replace Russ Batiste. Nobody, nohow.
Still, if you're 3000 miles away from New Orleans like I am, slipping this CD in the drawer and closing your eyes will very nearly make you sweat no matter what the temperature.
P.S. Now that they've got the live CD done, they could use some new tunes.
Salif Keita "M'Bemba" CD 2005
Have you ever seen a bad review of a world music recording? I never have, although I don’t go looking for reviews good or bad. I think it's probably politically incorrect to not like something like this. Not that this is a review. I don't know what this is. David Vest just told me I should write these things, and he's rarely wrong about such matters.
My taste in African music tends toward old Ethiopian soul music and Tabu Ley Rochereau. And I don't keep up with it. This didn't grab me. I know that Mali is supposed to be where the roots of American music lie. I wanted to like this. I paid cash, retail full price, too.
I am prepared to be wrong.
Delmark Goldfarb "Up To My Neck" CD 2004
From the deep past when men were men and it was cool to play in jug bands, comes Del Goldfarb who spent some time working for the Blues Museum in Memphis, organizing the collection by day and trying on clothes worn by Johnny Cash and Billy Lee Riley donated to the museum by night.
He also spent a long time playing with jug band legends like Fritz Richmond and people like John Sebastion. Both of them are on here, plus Cody Dickson from the North Mississippi All-Stars. Del lives in Portland, Oregon now where he plays, records and drives a delivery truck.
The title of the album refers to major back surgery he had a while back which is documented on the front of the CD by a nasty photo of the scar running up to the back of his neck.
This is a pretty amiable, kinda dog-eared good-timey type-a-thing. Which is also pretty much describes what Del is like, too. Find it at http://www.delgoldfarb.com/
"James Brown's Funky Summer" CD included in August 2006 issue of Mojo Magazine
Mojo, the British music magazine always includes a CD and most of them are spectacular. Not all of them. I never want to see another album of Beatles or Kinks covers, but this one falls into the classic category.
Not only does it include, "Gut Bucket" a cut from James Brown's new recording due out next year and a welcome return to his brand of funk instead of following trends, something that's left him in the wilderness for decades. The best thing about the tune is that he seems to have regained his voice which had been reduced to a hoarse shout. He'll never have the ballad voice of "Please, Please, Please," but he actually sounds like James Brown on this.
The rest of the disc is filled with musicians who worked with Mr. B or covered his tunes. One from from "Maceo (Parker) And All The King's Men" is included. I found that LP years ago. It was recorded (poorly) during a time when Maceo and James weren't working together. Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Bobby Byrd, Vicki Anderson and Lyn Collins from various versions of the Famous Flames/JB's have solo cuts. Tammi Terrell, Albert King (Cold Sweat), Soul Survivors (minus the traffic), Roy Brown (!), The 5 Royales cover other JB tunes.
The magazine is always a treasure, even if I don't care about British pop (and never did), but this CD makes it extra-special.
This also appears on CounterPunch.com
This concert took place in the UK in January of 2006.
I don't feel like I should have to explain who they are and I will not, but I know I should because the band had a relatively short lifespan, was British, never had a hit, and was too strange to make it out of cult status.
I am a member of their cult. Wanna buy a flower?
Missing only the dearly departed Vivian Stanshall (a man), the band is led by another man who calls himself Neil Innes, but doesn't look a bit like Neil Innes did forty years ago. Also appearing are old men impersonating Roger Ruskin Spear, Rodney Slater, Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, and Legs Larry Smith. Also also appearing is the electric trouser press instrument, and the theramin leg.
Also also also appearing: Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone. Looking very relaxed Adolf Hitler on vibes. Eric Clapton on ukulele. Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. Really wild, General! Thank you, sir. Roy Rogers on Trigger. We welcome Val Doonican as himself. (Hello there.)
Among others.
Viv was such a huge presence in the Bonzos, that several people have stepped in to fill his shoes, including Stephen Fry, doing recitations such as:"My darling, in my cardboard-coloured dreams, once again, I heard your laugh. And I kiss, yes, I kiss your perfumed hair. The sweet essence of Giraffe. And eachtime I hear your name, oh, oh, my, my, how it hurts! In the wardrobe of my soul...in the section labeled "shirts."—from "Canyons of Your Mind."
Phil Jupitus stepped in for the dead Viv with a bowel-moving rendition of "The Strain," Stanshall's ode to taking a shit.
The audience was so attuned that when Innes athked the muthical lithp, "Do you like thoul muthic?" the audience replied, "No," en masse. Tho did I.
The audio sucks, the shooting sucks, Innes loses some of his voice as the night wears on, clams abound and few of the props seem to work; in other words, a perfect evening.
When they started playing "Jollity Farm," I cried.
I'll repeat that, the shirt event.
Nancy King Untitled CD c. mid-1990s
Nancy King is in the top 5 of our greatest living jazz singers. Thankfully, she is just now, at an age somewhere over 55, getting some of her due. She's quirky, scatty, bright, sarcastic and sweet, with the evidence of a difficult yet rewarding life advertised on her face.
She has been active nationally with a recent CD with pianist Fred Hersch.
She has lived most of her life in Portland, Oregon where she has frequently collaborated with the virtuoso bassist Glen Moore of the band "Oregon," as well as her long time pianist, Steve Christopherson.
She burned this CD for me in 1997 for an appearance on a radio show I was doing. I'm not sure when it was recorded, but I'm guessing it was shortly before that, maybe not. I played it underneath our interview, stopping along the way to talk to her about aspects of what we were hearing.
To tell you the truth, she puts all the current slim, cute jazz divas to shame. What she's got, only time and life gives you. Thank goodness she's still around to communicate that.
She's bop, she's ballad, she's irony and love, she's a brat and a seductress, as contemporary as they come but with deep roots. You can find a not-so-up-to-date website at http://www.nancykingjazz.com/.
Raymond Scott "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" CD 1992/1998
Call me old fashioned, but the father of cartoon music never sounded better. Of course, as every schoolboy knows, Scott didn't compose these familiar tunes to be used in cartoons. He had all but abandoned Hollywood for New York when Carl Stalling decided to put some of Scott's music to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.
In addition, what most people don't know is that Scott was a pioneer of electronic music, building proto-synthesizers and other such machines. He also composed hundreds of jingles and other ephemera. Odd then, that he is best known for music to chase wabbits by.
He was also Dorothy Collins' husband and led the band on "You're Hit Parade." (Ask your grandfather.)
One of the oldest methods self-entertainment includes the following: 1) smoke some dope, 2) turn on the TV, 3) put some music on, and 4) turn the TV audio off and continue to change the channels till the music fits. Laugh if you like, but it still works. And it's still just as much fun.
It works with old movies, it works with Wolf Blitzer and the other night Raymond Scott's CD worked with a silent Dada film from the 20s. It worked really well. Like it was written for it.
Might have just be me. Doesn't matter.
The CD I have is a 1998 re-mastered version of the original 1992 transfer to digital. Ray would have loved it.
Papa Grows Funk "Live at the Leaf" CD 2006
Even if Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk occupies the throne of New Orleans funk bands, PGF is thatclosebehind. This was recorded live last April at the Maple Leaf Bar, a creaky old place in New Orleans. It might look like it's going to fall down any moment, but the Leaf is a cathedral of great music.
PGF has been holding down Monday nights there for years, in that narrow, sweaty, way-to-loud room next to the bar where you swear that any moment the whole place may explode, implode or otherwise self-destruct due to the level of funk and blues. I'm not exaggerating.
John Gros (pronounced Grow, hence the name of the band) holds all the keys to the rooms where they store the legacy of the great New Orleans piano players. He knows it, lives and plays it. It's in him. It is him. Add fiery guitarist June Yamagishi, ultra-cool Jason Minglesdorf on saxes, Fatback Mark Pero on bass and you've got all the funk you can use. They have had one major change in their lineup in the past year or so. Although Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander is a fine drummer, nobody can replace Russ Batiste. Nobody, nohow.
Still, if you're 3000 miles away from New Orleans like I am, slipping this CD in the drawer and closing your eyes will very nearly make you sweat no matter what the temperature.
P.S. Now that they've got the live CD done, they could use some new tunes.
Salif Keita "M'Bemba" CD 2005
Have you ever seen a bad review of a world music recording? I never have, although I don’t go looking for reviews good or bad. I think it's probably politically incorrect to not like something like this. Not that this is a review. I don't know what this is. David Vest just told me I should write these things, and he's rarely wrong about such matters.
My taste in African music tends toward old Ethiopian soul music and Tabu Ley Rochereau. And I don't keep up with it. This didn't grab me. I know that Mali is supposed to be where the roots of American music lie. I wanted to like this. I paid cash, retail full price, too.
I am prepared to be wrong.
Delmark Goldfarb "Up To My Neck" CD 2004
From the deep past when men were men and it was cool to play in jug bands, comes Del Goldfarb who spent some time working for the Blues Museum in Memphis, organizing the collection by day and trying on clothes worn by Johnny Cash and Billy Lee Riley donated to the museum by night.
He also spent a long time playing with jug band legends like Fritz Richmond and people like John Sebastion. Both of them are on here, plus Cody Dickson from the North Mississippi All-Stars. Del lives in Portland, Oregon now where he plays, records and drives a delivery truck.
The title of the album refers to major back surgery he had a while back which is documented on the front of the CD by a nasty photo of the scar running up to the back of his neck.
This is a pretty amiable, kinda dog-eared good-timey type-a-thing. Which is also pretty much describes what Del is like, too. Find it at http://www.delgoldfarb.com/
"James Brown's Funky Summer" CD included in August 2006 issue of Mojo Magazine
Mojo, the British music magazine always includes a CD and most of them are spectacular. Not all of them. I never want to see another album of Beatles or Kinks covers, but this one falls into the classic category.
Not only does it include, "Gut Bucket" a cut from James Brown's new recording due out next year and a welcome return to his brand of funk instead of following trends, something that's left him in the wilderness for decades. The best thing about the tune is that he seems to have regained his voice which had been reduced to a hoarse shout. He'll never have the ballad voice of "Please, Please, Please," but he actually sounds like James Brown on this.
The rest of the disc is filled with musicians who worked with Mr. B or covered his tunes. One from from "Maceo (Parker) And All The King's Men" is included. I found that LP years ago. It was recorded (poorly) during a time when Maceo and James weren't working together. Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Bobby Byrd, Vicki Anderson and Lyn Collins from various versions of the Famous Flames/JB's have solo cuts. Tammi Terrell, Albert King (Cold Sweat), Soul Survivors (minus the traffic), Roy Brown (!), The 5 Royales cover other JB tunes.
The magazine is always a treasure, even if I don't care about British pop (and never did), but this CD makes it extra-special.
This also appears on CounterPunch.com
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
A Middle Eastern "Who's On First" History Lesson
Let me get this straight.
We attacked Saddam in GW1 and then promised the Shiites that we would help them to overthrow him. Then we shrugged and said, "Nah, never mind," freeing Saddy to kill them, while the Baathist Sunnis remained in power.
Then we attacked Saddam again, killed a lot of Sunnis, and we threw the Baathists out and made friends with the Shiites who were building armies of their own, some of whom were killing our soldiers. Then we tortured a lot of Sunnis and put the Shiites in power.
Then somebody told the home office that Iran was full of Shiites who liked the idea that Iraq was going to be run by their home boys. Then the Sunnis started killing everybody, our soldiers, lots of Shiites and a few Kurds.
So then to stop the Sunnis from killing everybody, we made a place for them in the new "government," while building ourselves a palace/embassy which would enable us to stay in Iraq in perpetuity. For what reason, we've never been told.
Then the Shiites and the Sunnis decided that maybe they should concentrate on killing each other. "Oh, ok," they said, "we'll kill a few Americans, but they're not much of a factor anymore, and those Americans will probably be ok with whoever won, as long as they can hand out fat contracts to their friends and be involved in oil."
That particular civil war has been raging for several months, although the liars in government and the scaredy cats in the media alternately said, things were getting better or (at worst) things were "verging" on a civil war. Meanwhile, to anybody in Iraq, civil war was a fact of life and death.
So guess what happens then? The Shiite Hezbollah sparks a new war vs. Israel. They get their weapons from the Shiite Iranians, FWB of the Iraqi Shiites. Hezbollah also gets support from Sunni Syria. All of a sudden, it is suggested we might begin playing diplomatic footsie with Sunni Syria against Shiite Iran.
Oh, wait a minute. We're not involved in diplomacy. It's the Democrats who are suggesting that we bring Syria into line with the Saudis and Jordanians and against Iran and Hezbollah.
It's the home office which is helping fill orders for missiles and watching the price of oil rise (their version of Viagra). How much money do you think they could make with just "one more week" of carnage?
And the deaths? I can see them sitting around a table, like the representatives of the Five Families in The Godfather and hearing Cheney say, "Let them lose their souls."
So let's add this up. We set up the Shiites in Iraq. They're FWB with Iran which we might invade. The Sunnis whom we defeated in Iraq, and who have killed the bulk of the American military in Iraq and may now end up on our side in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
We have made friends of our enemies who still try to kill our men and women. We have made enemies of the guys we brought to power in Iraq and we have given Israel a blank check and a lot of death machines to kill them. And now the Iraqi Shiites just announced that they want Hezbollah to win.
Third base.
Cheney is Abbott. W is Costello. The problem is the jokes aren't funny. And the movie is out of control.
This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com
We attacked Saddam in GW1 and then promised the Shiites that we would help them to overthrow him. Then we shrugged and said, "Nah, never mind," freeing Saddy to kill them, while the Baathist Sunnis remained in power.
Then we attacked Saddam again, killed a lot of Sunnis, and we threw the Baathists out and made friends with the Shiites who were building armies of their own, some of whom were killing our soldiers. Then we tortured a lot of Sunnis and put the Shiites in power.
Then somebody told the home office that Iran was full of Shiites who liked the idea that Iraq was going to be run by their home boys. Then the Sunnis started killing everybody, our soldiers, lots of Shiites and a few Kurds.
So then to stop the Sunnis from killing everybody, we made a place for them in the new "government," while building ourselves a palace/embassy which would enable us to stay in Iraq in perpetuity. For what reason, we've never been told.
Then the Shiites and the Sunnis decided that maybe they should concentrate on killing each other. "Oh, ok," they said, "we'll kill a few Americans, but they're not much of a factor anymore, and those Americans will probably be ok with whoever won, as long as they can hand out fat contracts to their friends and be involved in oil."
That particular civil war has been raging for several months, although the liars in government and the scaredy cats in the media alternately said, things were getting better or (at worst) things were "verging" on a civil war. Meanwhile, to anybody in Iraq, civil war was a fact of life and death.
So guess what happens then? The Shiite Hezbollah sparks a new war vs. Israel. They get their weapons from the Shiite Iranians, FWB of the Iraqi Shiites. Hezbollah also gets support from Sunni Syria. All of a sudden, it is suggested we might begin playing diplomatic footsie with Sunni Syria against Shiite Iran.
Oh, wait a minute. We're not involved in diplomacy. It's the Democrats who are suggesting that we bring Syria into line with the Saudis and Jordanians and against Iran and Hezbollah.
It's the home office which is helping fill orders for missiles and watching the price of oil rise (their version of Viagra). How much money do you think they could make with just "one more week" of carnage?
And the deaths? I can see them sitting around a table, like the representatives of the Five Families in The Godfather and hearing Cheney say, "Let them lose their souls."
So let's add this up. We set up the Shiites in Iraq. They're FWB with Iran which we might invade. The Sunnis whom we defeated in Iraq, and who have killed the bulk of the American military in Iraq and may now end up on our side in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
We have made friends of our enemies who still try to kill our men and women. We have made enemies of the guys we brought to power in Iraq and we have given Israel a blank check and a lot of death machines to kill them. And now the Iraqi Shiites just announced that they want Hezbollah to win.
Third base.
Cheney is Abbott. W is Costello. The problem is the jokes aren't funny. And the movie is out of control.
This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com
Monday, July 17, 2006
Another Bush Pet Goat Moment
We have just witnessed yet another "Pet Goat" moment in the sad history of the Bush presidency. Another one of the many we have suffered through. The first one of such moments was, of course, when he did not act when informed of the airliner hitting the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and continued reading the now-famous book.
There have been many others we have not seen, but the most public "Pet Goat" moment since then had been when he appeared to be totally disengaged as New Orleans was destroyed.
He glazes over. He doesn't know what to do. He can't think. He becomes inert. We have seen it, publicly, a few times. How many times do you think Rove, Cheney and company have seen it and told him what he should do?
At the precise moment when the nation needs a leader, he fails.
This weekend is the latest example. Look at him with the other leaders. He looks out of place. Look at Putin humiliate him at the news conference as the audience of reporters laughs in his face when Putin gets off a good line about the Iraq "democracy."
Look at him making a fool out of himself driving that little golf cart. It makes Dukakis on the tank look like Patton himself.
And when he was caught talking with the microphone on, did he give a well-thought out analysis of the situation? No, it was locker room talk, the only kind he knows. He said, "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."
Now there's a statement for the ages.
George W. Bush never fails to disappoint the nation. He makes fools out of all of us.
He looked totally out of his element at G8. What is his element? Hanging out with a bunch of rich goobers cracking jokes is. It is certainly not leading the world out of a dangerous conflict which threatens to become a wider war, dragging the United States in.
He is weak. He is lost. Just look at him. I've interviewed thousands of people. I am a good judge of character and intelligence. He has neither. He made a stop at the Portland, Oregon airport in the spring of 2000, long before he gained the Republican nomination. I went out there, in the media crush, just to see him and get a sense.
The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. "Oh," I thought, "he must be an alki." I watched him glad hand. I came away with the simple conclusion that this was one of those men who I have tried to avoid my whole life. He was not the kind of man I wanted to drink with. I've never understood that. Wouldn't you want to drink with a man you could hold a conversation with? He looked mean and stupid.
I have had to revise my evaluation downward since then.
Perhaps someone should make him a tape of the newscasts on the Israel/ Hezbollah conflict. Never mind, he still would sound just as lost as he did all weekend. The Middle East is burning and nobody is home at the White House. We can't help because his keepers cut the U.S. off from the Islamic combatants.
The best we can hope for is that several of the G8 leaders took him by the hand and gave him a few good ideas. God knows, he's never had one on his own.
As we stagger and lurch toward the day when we are finally rid of him and his crew, America should invoke all the gods to help us avoid something irrevocable…Jesus, Allah, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha…you name the god, we'll invoke his name.
Yes, it's that bad.
This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com
There have been many others we have not seen, but the most public "Pet Goat" moment since then had been when he appeared to be totally disengaged as New Orleans was destroyed.
He glazes over. He doesn't know what to do. He can't think. He becomes inert. We have seen it, publicly, a few times. How many times do you think Rove, Cheney and company have seen it and told him what he should do?
At the precise moment when the nation needs a leader, he fails.
This weekend is the latest example. Look at him with the other leaders. He looks out of place. Look at Putin humiliate him at the news conference as the audience of reporters laughs in his face when Putin gets off a good line about the Iraq "democracy."
Look at him making a fool out of himself driving that little golf cart. It makes Dukakis on the tank look like Patton himself.
And when he was caught talking with the microphone on, did he give a well-thought out analysis of the situation? No, it was locker room talk, the only kind he knows. He said, "See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."
Now there's a statement for the ages.
George W. Bush never fails to disappoint the nation. He makes fools out of all of us.
He looked totally out of his element at G8. What is his element? Hanging out with a bunch of rich goobers cracking jokes is. It is certainly not leading the world out of a dangerous conflict which threatens to become a wider war, dragging the United States in.
He is weak. He is lost. Just look at him. I've interviewed thousands of people. I am a good judge of character and intelligence. He has neither. He made a stop at the Portland, Oregon airport in the spring of 2000, long before he gained the Republican nomination. I went out there, in the media crush, just to see him and get a sense.
The first thing I noticed was that his neck was bright red. "Oh," I thought, "he must be an alki." I watched him glad hand. I came away with the simple conclusion that this was one of those men who I have tried to avoid my whole life. He was not the kind of man I wanted to drink with. I've never understood that. Wouldn't you want to drink with a man you could hold a conversation with? He looked mean and stupid.
I have had to revise my evaluation downward since then.
Perhaps someone should make him a tape of the newscasts on the Israel/ Hezbollah conflict. Never mind, he still would sound just as lost as he did all weekend. The Middle East is burning and nobody is home at the White House. We can't help because his keepers cut the U.S. off from the Islamic combatants.
The best we can hope for is that several of the G8 leaders took him by the hand and gave him a few good ideas. God knows, he's never had one on his own.
As we stagger and lurch toward the day when we are finally rid of him and his crew, America should invoke all the gods to help us avoid something irrevocable…Jesus, Allah, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha…you name the god, we'll invoke his name.
Yes, it's that bad.
This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Feeling Like Slim Pickens On the Bomb
Waving my hat and yelling "Yahoooo." (Not in the internet way, but rather in the Pickens way, with the exhilaration of going out with a bang.) In the sense that events may be overtaking themselves in momentum and severity. The news stations are already in clear-the-decks this-looks-like-some-bad-shit mode. A new logo has appeared at the bottom of the screen.
Somewhere a neo-con is clapping his hands while the rest of us are wondering if a couple of missteps could lead to U.S. forces crossing over into Iran, or at least bombing it. The Republicans have proven that it doesn't take much for them to order up more weapons and ammo from their friends. And if you buy it, you gotta use it, right? And what better way than to have it all coalesce right in Bibleland. It's a slam-dunk.
With the rest of us riding the Republican bomb, Pickens style.
At a time like this, it is critically important that our leaders speak the truth to us. What we're faced with is a group of people so pathologically successful in their lies, that when we hear them now, we figure that the truth is whatever opposite to what they're saying.
Republicans lie. Republican lies. Easy to say. These four words should always be handy when discussing current affairs. Republican lies: two words joined at the hip. Synonymous even. I don't have to enumerate. Just about everything of any significance they've ever said in public has been carefully constructed and brilliantly conceived lying.
Hey, I appreciate the talent, thanks for the bomb.
Republican hate is another thing that makes me want to wave my hat as I dive through the clouds. This afternoon, the same old white racist evildoers from Georgia are in the U.S. Congress trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act. Here is the mating of Republican lies and Republican hate. A double-dip, not only do we get to fix some elections again, but we get to screw Negroes.
It must be fun to be a white racist Republican Member of Congress, or any Republican.
This is why I feel like a Pickens-on-a-bomb. Their demonstrated lack of the ability to govern and operate a government, not to say a super-power sits me astride the nuke, screaming. I don't think the Republicans have it in them, at best, and at worst, it may allow them to unleash the war they'd really like to fight.
I'm kissing my ass goodbye.
This can also be seen on huffingtonpost.com (although why would you go there to read it again?)
Somewhere a neo-con is clapping his hands while the rest of us are wondering if a couple of missteps could lead to U.S. forces crossing over into Iran, or at least bombing it. The Republicans have proven that it doesn't take much for them to order up more weapons and ammo from their friends. And if you buy it, you gotta use it, right? And what better way than to have it all coalesce right in Bibleland. It's a slam-dunk.
With the rest of us riding the Republican bomb, Pickens style.
At a time like this, it is critically important that our leaders speak the truth to us. What we're faced with is a group of people so pathologically successful in their lies, that when we hear them now, we figure that the truth is whatever opposite to what they're saying.
Republicans lie. Republican lies. Easy to say. These four words should always be handy when discussing current affairs. Republican lies: two words joined at the hip. Synonymous even. I don't have to enumerate. Just about everything of any significance they've ever said in public has been carefully constructed and brilliantly conceived lying.
Hey, I appreciate the talent, thanks for the bomb.
Republican hate is another thing that makes me want to wave my hat as I dive through the clouds. This afternoon, the same old white racist evildoers from Georgia are in the U.S. Congress trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act. Here is the mating of Republican lies and Republican hate. A double-dip, not only do we get to fix some elections again, but we get to screw Negroes.
It must be fun to be a white racist Republican Member of Congress, or any Republican.
This is why I feel like a Pickens-on-a-bomb. Their demonstrated lack of the ability to govern and operate a government, not to say a super-power sits me astride the nuke, screaming. I don't think the Republicans have it in them, at best, and at worst, it may allow them to unleash the war they'd really like to fight.
I'm kissing my ass goodbye.
This can also be seen on huffingtonpost.com (although why would you go there to read it again?)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Leary Bio: Opportunity for Unfounded 60's Revisionists
The reviews of Robert Greenfield's biography of Timothy Leary have allowed "sixties" revisionists to spread unfounded and uniformly negative opinions on an entire era.
Having been one of the publishers/editors of the same "underground" paper in Baltimore that P.J. O'Rourke, the first of such revisionists, made his mark lying about, I have some expertise on the subject.
Here's the myth promoted by the revisionists: The sixties were all about hedonism and self-satisfaction.
I wish.
First of all, the subject of "The Sixties" is so broad and complex, so full of contradictions and countervailing points of view that to generalize about it at all is not worth the effort. There are a few aspects that need attention, however.
Simply put, the ethos of the era for us can be summed up in these words: fairness, community, freedom of personal choice, and peace. Period. End of sentence.
Fairness in how government treated its citizens, and how people treated each other. After having been told that America was the land of the free, we saw people refused voting rights, freedom to reside where they could afford to, even denied service at lunch counters, hotels and rest rooms.
Imagine that? "Who would make rules like that?" we wondered.
We were told that America stood for peace in the world and then they sent us to fight a war of vanity in Vietnam. That didn't make sense to us and we did everything we could to bring our peers out of that hell. Many of us refused to participate.
The women in our life knocked us upside the head and let us know that things weren't so hot for them. Made sense to us. In the eyes of conservatives, hippies were girlie-men then, and stayed that way. And the hippie women were manly-girls, let's not forget that. This is nonsense and shouldn't be believed any more than any of their familiar lies which have come into current relief so clearly these days, but which are consistent with their history.
We were told that sex was, what a sin? With the development of the birth control pill we were the first generation, and maybe the last to be able to have unprotected sex anytime we wanted, with whom we wanted. Was there something wrong with that? Did we keep on with it? Nah, we got married and had kids. Did we have fun while we tried out everything under God's Red Light? Fuck yes.
Is that hedonism? Only to those who didn’t' get any.
When we dressed or acted in ways that seemed strange to the generation before us we got out asses kicked, literally. Would you like to know how many times I was arrested on trumped up charges simply because I was a long-haired hippie who worked for "that" paper? Don't forget, people were killed and imprisoned for exercising the rights guaranteed them in the Constitution.
What we found out was that the America we were taught existed was a figment of a script writer at best, and the deliberate misrepresentation, at worst.
All this has nothing to do with Timothy Leary, and none of it was taken into account by reviewers, NY Times and New Yorker included, who lashed out at an entire generation.
Did we take LSD? Sure we did. I took tons of it. I loved my hallucinations, even the bad ones. Did I find God? I'm still looking. Did it change my life? Yes, in some ways. It loosened the reins. I think if you asked P.J. O'Rourke if he regrets taking LSD and smoking all that dope, he would say he took some good things away from it.
But don’t tell me that Timothy Leary is responsible for anything except talking a good game. I enjoyed what he had to say. Some of it made sense and some of it didn’t'. I guess a few people bought it all, but that's just human nature.
The bluster and meanness of the revisionists who have attacked an era in which the driving idea was to make a better world reveals their own bleakness of spirit. They build the idea that Leary was much more influential than he ever was.
Take my word for it, he wasn't. The stars of the "counter-culture" (which actually existed) were just that, stars. We liked them. They entertained us. We took from them what we needed.
As those of us who fought for the right to control every aspect of our lives grow old and begin the fight to control the manner of our own death, the record needs to be set straight. Don't fuck with us. We're old, we know the score and we're still determined to "reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it."
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Having been one of the publishers/editors of the same "underground" paper in Baltimore that P.J. O'Rourke, the first of such revisionists, made his mark lying about, I have some expertise on the subject.
Here's the myth promoted by the revisionists: The sixties were all about hedonism and self-satisfaction.
I wish.
First of all, the subject of "The Sixties" is so broad and complex, so full of contradictions and countervailing points of view that to generalize about it at all is not worth the effort. There are a few aspects that need attention, however.
Simply put, the ethos of the era for us can be summed up in these words: fairness, community, freedom of personal choice, and peace. Period. End of sentence.
Fairness in how government treated its citizens, and how people treated each other. After having been told that America was the land of the free, we saw people refused voting rights, freedom to reside where they could afford to, even denied service at lunch counters, hotels and rest rooms.
Imagine that? "Who would make rules like that?" we wondered.
We were told that America stood for peace in the world and then they sent us to fight a war of vanity in Vietnam. That didn't make sense to us and we did everything we could to bring our peers out of that hell. Many of us refused to participate.
The women in our life knocked us upside the head and let us know that things weren't so hot for them. Made sense to us. In the eyes of conservatives, hippies were girlie-men then, and stayed that way. And the hippie women were manly-girls, let's not forget that. This is nonsense and shouldn't be believed any more than any of their familiar lies which have come into current relief so clearly these days, but which are consistent with their history.
We were told that sex was, what a sin? With the development of the birth control pill we were the first generation, and maybe the last to be able to have unprotected sex anytime we wanted, with whom we wanted. Was there something wrong with that? Did we keep on with it? Nah, we got married and had kids. Did we have fun while we tried out everything under God's Red Light? Fuck yes.
Is that hedonism? Only to those who didn’t' get any.
When we dressed or acted in ways that seemed strange to the generation before us we got out asses kicked, literally. Would you like to know how many times I was arrested on trumped up charges simply because I was a long-haired hippie who worked for "that" paper? Don't forget, people were killed and imprisoned for exercising the rights guaranteed them in the Constitution.
What we found out was that the America we were taught existed was a figment of a script writer at best, and the deliberate misrepresentation, at worst.
All this has nothing to do with Timothy Leary, and none of it was taken into account by reviewers, NY Times and New Yorker included, who lashed out at an entire generation.
Did we take LSD? Sure we did. I took tons of it. I loved my hallucinations, even the bad ones. Did I find God? I'm still looking. Did it change my life? Yes, in some ways. It loosened the reins. I think if you asked P.J. O'Rourke if he regrets taking LSD and smoking all that dope, he would say he took some good things away from it.
But don’t tell me that Timothy Leary is responsible for anything except talking a good game. I enjoyed what he had to say. Some of it made sense and some of it didn’t'. I guess a few people bought it all, but that's just human nature.
The bluster and meanness of the revisionists who have attacked an era in which the driving idea was to make a better world reveals their own bleakness of spirit. They build the idea that Leary was much more influential than he ever was.
Take my word for it, he wasn't. The stars of the "counter-culture" (which actually existed) were just that, stars. We liked them. They entertained us. We took from them what we needed.
As those of us who fought for the right to control every aspect of our lives grow old and begin the fight to control the manner of our own death, the record needs to be set straight. Don't fuck with us. We're old, we know the score and we're still determined to "reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it."
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Keyword For Dems: Competence
I started to write this last week. Senator Brownback's sham hearing on assisted suicide intervened and I posted about that instead. Yesterday, this site bannered a story in which exasperating-but-many-times-right Senator Joe Biden used the word "competence."
These should be the Democrats' keywords from this time forth: 1. Competence. 2. Incompetence.
You and I know that those who currently hold power are a pack of lying thieves, religious lunatics, sadistic and immoral perpetrators of evil, and despoilers of the planet.
The problem is that if you say these truths in public, you're branded a left-wing nut. Pointing out these truths hasn't been enough to shake the electorate out of the habit of voting for those who appeal to their worst instincts.
Here's the only issue that matters: competence. Progressives know how to run a government and conservatives don't. It is demonstrable on every level. From the broken furniture of the Medicaid prescription drug plan, to getting food and water to folks trapped in New Orleans.
At every turn, even when it comes to running wars, something that conservatives SHOULD be good at, given their love for starting them, they prove that they can talk a good game, but can't deliver.
The only thing they CAN deliver is dollars to themselves and the people who put them in power.
Even then they constantly get caught stealing.
We know how close they have come to making this country a police state. We know that (dare we say?) they staged what amounts to a coup in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Doesn't matter, sounds like whining.
They can't pick up the garbage. This requirement of all local politicians must be required of Federal politicians. They have to do the job. It's simple. Republicans have failed. Democrats must point out how they have succeeded in the past; that they know how to pick up the garbage.
There's nothing more to say: Competence vs. Incompetence. Those are the talking points. No more, no less.
Ok, there is one other thing Democrats can do. When a Republican says you don't support the troops, you say, "OK, I'll make a deal with you, I'll start supporting the troops when you stop having cheating on your wife with the pizza boy.
That might shut him up.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com.
These should be the Democrats' keywords from this time forth: 1. Competence. 2. Incompetence.
You and I know that those who currently hold power are a pack of lying thieves, religious lunatics, sadistic and immoral perpetrators of evil, and despoilers of the planet.
The problem is that if you say these truths in public, you're branded a left-wing nut. Pointing out these truths hasn't been enough to shake the electorate out of the habit of voting for those who appeal to their worst instincts.
Here's the only issue that matters: competence. Progressives know how to run a government and conservatives don't. It is demonstrable on every level. From the broken furniture of the Medicaid prescription drug plan, to getting food and water to folks trapped in New Orleans.
At every turn, even when it comes to running wars, something that conservatives SHOULD be good at, given their love for starting them, they prove that they can talk a good game, but can't deliver.
The only thing they CAN deliver is dollars to themselves and the people who put them in power.
Even then they constantly get caught stealing.
We know how close they have come to making this country a police state. We know that (dare we say?) they staged what amounts to a coup in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Doesn't matter, sounds like whining.
They can't pick up the garbage. This requirement of all local politicians must be required of Federal politicians. They have to do the job. It's simple. Republicans have failed. Democrats must point out how they have succeeded in the past; that they know how to pick up the garbage.
There's nothing more to say: Competence vs. Incompetence. Those are the talking points. No more, no less.
Ok, there is one other thing Democrats can do. When a Republican says you don't support the troops, you say, "OK, I'll make a deal with you, I'll start supporting the troops when you stop having cheating on your wife with the pizza boy.
That might shut him up.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com.
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