And When the Sky was Opened

A very old woman ran into me at the market today, slammed me in the butt with her cart. She started to cry, and her daughter (about my age) swooped in to rescue her... and I realized that she was what we used to call 'senile'. I guess the acceptable term is now Alzheimer's, that catch-all diagnosis for when the mind goes. I patted her, assured her it was okay. But I was alarmed, because in her distress, I could see myself and what awaits us all.

Buddha told us to meditate on death, and I have.

I once realized the abject terror in the old Twilight Zone episode, "And When the Sky Was Opened" -- was based on the fact that it mirrored our own experience and terror of death. In the show (written by Rod Serling and adapted from a short story by fantasy-genius Richard Matheson), three men come back from a flight into space, and begin to disappear, one by one. The title of Matheson's original story was, fittingly, Disappearing Act.

On the day of their return, the newspaper headline reads "Three Spacemen Return from Crash: All Alive" and then, after a strange chain of events, there are only two. But... there have always been two. The newspaper headline has changed, and now announces: Two Spacemen have returned. It is as if the third astronaut never existed. The two astronauts remaining start to panic, as everyone around them insists, no, there were only two of them, not three. Never three.

At the end, it is James Hutton (father of Timothy) who is the last astronaut left, looking for his suddenly-missing friend, the second astronaut. He then sees the newspaper headline, which now says only ONE astronaut has returned. The expression on his face has remained with me all of my life, ever since seeing this particular Twilight Zone episode as a child. And when I Googled the image, there it was (see above). Obviously, I wasn't the only one.

He knows he is next.

And the show ends with an empty room. None of them have returned from the flight. The camera pans to where their aircraft was. It is gone, too.

My grandmother died in 2004 and my mother died in 2006; it was when my mother died that I realized, I was up next. Maybe not for awhile, one hopes, but up nonetheless. It was no longer a far-away thing that happened to the old people... I was now the old people.

And so it was today, when I saw the old woman in the store, crying and confused. I saw that it was not simply her confusion that made her cry, although it was that, too... it was that she was afraid. I saw James Hutton all over her face. And then, I saw myself.

As I comforted her, I hoped someone would do the same for me.

~*~

Speaking of which, a sweet voice of my childhood is gone. Let us take a moment to remember Scott McKenzie, who recorded John Phillips' folkie-pop hippie anthem, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)".

I remember being in San Francisco, hearing the song and feeling oddly displaced, because of course the San Francisco I had moved to was not the one in the song, although it had always inspired me. I had moved to Kool and The Gang era San Francisco, the end of the disco era. I remember falling asleep under an open window and starry sky in Oakland and hearing it there too, thinking how odd it was that the song had helped make San Francisco too expensive for people like me to live in. For this reason, it made me sad to hear it, one of the first feelings of aging that I ever remember experiencing.

I came home from the market, and my experience of the woman running into me and weeping, to hear that McKenzie had passed.

It was the perfect ending to a day I had started with an extended meditation on death.

~*~

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) - Scott McKenzie



In this video of McKenzie performing the song at the Monterey Pop Festival, you see Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass... again, the perfect ending to my daily meditation...

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Shutting the door on it

I am fascinated by what people will and will not allow on their Facebook Timelines.

The much-ballyhooed "Timeline" is an online biography. It is therefore especially interesting to note what people allow there, and what they won't.

Today, on the radio, I fussed that our history is being forgotten, and ordered everybody to post their radical history online ... or (quite honestly) ANY history.

I have long been amazed that certain events have seemingly been completely forgotten, dropped down the proverbial memory hole, and cannot be found even after extensive online searching. They have evaporated into the ether, or they have been totally buried in dusty academic archives. My antidote was: tell your stories, share your histories. And then I decided I should probably practice what I preach.

I opened my long-forgotten cedar chest and created a photo album aptly named Daisy opens her magical cedar chest. I unearthed a bunch of old leaflets and posters of radical events, benefits, rock bands and even now-defunct businesses (such as the old Trotskyist-themed bookstore in the photo above, Red Rose Books), and hoped people would pass them on. And some of them did.

If you know how Facebook works, you know what it means when I say I "tagged" various people in photos or notified them if they were at various events. This means these events had to be vetted before they would be permitted to appear on these folks' Facebook feeds or timelines. And yes, I get that. I don't want Republicans posting political propaganda on my timeline (and I know plenty of em), so I am grateful for the feature. But that's what I mean when I say: I was fascinated by what was allowed to be shown and what was not.

Certainly, I understand when pro-marijuana activism is not posted on one's timeline, even if it WAS from 30 years ago and easily explained away as youthful indiscretion. If I used my legal name on Facebook, which I don't, I would be reticent about that, too.

But what about something you should be proud of, like helping to organize the American Rock Against Racism tour? I would be proud of that, even if I used my legal name. I have always been proud of my involvement in that cause.

Other people aren't.

I am wondering: Is anti-racism as a cause UNCOOL now? Is it possible that people are afraid anti-racism from white people is somehow too weird or too radical? Are they concerned it might get them fired? What would be some possible reasons for not wanting to own up to it?

If you have done an about-face in your political alliances, I can understand not wanting to own up to your past radicalism. But the few people I know who HAVE done such an about-face, do not seem to be the ones worried about that.

The worried people seem to be the ones who have moved up, who now have the good jobs.

Aha, thought Daisy, is THIS why the history is disappearing? Have people been just plain BOUGHT OFF?

The baby-boomers often like to brag about having done all kinds of great political stuff (I include myself), and yet, it seems plenty of these same baby-boomers are not proud of actually OWNING their political stuff and putting a name and date to it. Their one-time radicalism is a warm and fuzzy memory, but nothing they want to seriously contemplate now. Perhaps because (as one of my friends suggested) they are no longer doing anything political, and feel the reproach of their past-selves?

Whatever the reasons, it bothers me.

After all, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

And so, as I listen to a diehard Republican statistician on C-Span assure me that Mitt Romney WILL win the presidency (and gives us the electoral-vote numbers, backing up his assertion), I wonder if that will be what it takes? Or do the masses of baby-boomers now only worry about obtaining ample medicine and antidepressants? Have they (we) conceded the fight?

I have (wholly unwelcome) visions of turning into Mother Jones, an old lady rabble-rouser, leading a bunch of young kids (probably immigrants) into the fray, raising hell all the way up to the house of Mitt Romney (as Mother Jones once organized a children's march to the home of Teddy Roosevelt). I find this an unnerving vision, as I ask myself: Where were her contemporaries? Why was she the only one left? Why were there so few others?

I am starting to get it. I don't WANT to get it, but I am getting it nonetheless. I don't think I will be all alone out here, but I don't think there will be very many of us. And I once thought there would be droves. In fact, I worried I could not keep up.

One of the "promises" of Alcoholics Anonymous is: We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. Which of course, is a pretty tall order.

But you know, it was not an ORDER, it was a PROMISE. I was startled when I discovered that this promise has come true for me. And like so much else, I wish I could share this reality with other people, who did not have the benefit of needing recovery... and as a result, they have had to muddle through their lives without making friends of their pasts.

Thus, they never learned how.

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Odds and Sods - Don't you let that Deal go down edition

Back from Georgia, where the interesting ex-Democrat, now Republican Nathan Deal was elected governor in 2010, by less than 2500 votes. At least, that's the story, and they are sticking to it.

As you know, a Deadhead could never resist the lyrical reference. (song is below!)

~*~


And here is the recent scoop/scandal on Deal, all over the Atlanta Journal Constitution the day of our arrival.

Hmm:

Nathan Deal and his wife, Sandra, owned 90 percent of a failed sporting goods store started by his daughter and son-in-law by the time it closed, according to documents released by the state ethics commission through an open records request.

The state Ethics Commission's investigative file for the Nathan Deal cases is hundreds of pages long and contains complaints that resulted in him agreeing to pay $3,350 in fees but saw major complaints against him dismissed.

The ownership by the Deals in the Habersham County venture is greater than they had previously acknowledged. The financial woes of the business became an issue during Deal's 2010 campaign for governor.

During the race, Deal downplayed his involvement in Wilder Outdoors, which went out of business in March 2009. Deal — who with his wife co-signed for $2.3 million in loans that launched the store — said at the time that he was simply a father helping a child. The Deals also invested another $2 million in Wilder.

But Deal's actual ownership stake in the store had been in question. His 2007 personal financial disclosure, when he was a member of Congress, declared him a 50 percent partner in the venture. But a 2009 bankruptcy filing by Deal's son-in-law, Clint Wilder, and daughter, Carrie Deal Wilder, said the Wilders were 100 percent shareholders. Nathan Deal's name appeared nowhere on the bankruptcy documents which were filed in the midst of the gubernatorial race.

It just goes to show, don't trust opportunistic politicians who switch parties just to suck up and get a cushy government job, regardless of which party they start out in.

It never works out well.

~*~

Last year, I tried to get a job at JC Penneys, and didn't make the cut. Therefore, I experienced some rather unsavory Schadenfreude in reading about their recent financial woes.

Ha ha! 23% loss in the last quarter! They had their chance to hire me and make it right... unfortunately, the Dreaded Yippie Curse is now on their heads. Too late for you, JC Penneys!

Penney’s January pricing-shift confused customers who already had everyday low prices from Wal-Mart, monthly specials from competitors like Kohl’s, and clearance prices like, well, every other single retailer on the planet! So Penney’s made other pricing changes. And then cancelled advertising while they rethought strategy. Now, they’re making permanent cuts throughout the store and is jettisoning the month-long bursts of sales in what Mr. Johnson has characterized as simplifying pricing, which kind of makes you wonder what the ‘fair-and-square’ stuff was all about to begin with, beyond funny commercials

Anyway, [CEO Ron] Johnson had a call with analysts, where he was quoted as saying, ”early response to these efforts have been very encouraging.” But one can only suppose that’s true if you define “encouraging” as same-store sales not being down 30%!

Cheapie price-hunters, saddle up! You know what THIS means!

The prices should be bargain-basement level by the end of the month, especially for overstock from the summer. Bathing suits, shorts, all of that. Prepare to descend on the place. The 3rd Quarter will end in September, and the last week of September will therefore be the prime shopping time for markdowns, says Daisy the Retail Fairy.

GO GALS GO! Take all that inventory off their hands, and get some stuff at 75% off while you're there. Win-win all round.

Meanwhile, almost-employee Daisy has high hopes that JC Penneys goes under. (I know, that isn't nice, but I've never taken rejection well.)

~*~

I am sick over the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate. Mostly because this means we will have to listen to his worthless, Randian-groupie ass NON-STOP during the rest of the campaign. (screams)

Some interesting links: Ten reasons why Ryan is right for Romney (Salon)

The Washington Post Spews Paul Ryan Fan Faction (AlterNet)

Vice president nominee Paul Ryan’s love-hate with Ayn Rand (Politico)

Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the Political Contradiction of Christianity (Daily Kos)

~*~

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of Catholic nuns, is under attack from the Vatican for their feminist positions.

As I have heard approximately five thousand times: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. (And they say that with considerable pride, not shame.)

Uh-huh, we know. From last week's Washington Post:

Many, many Catholic eyes are on St. Louis as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, by far the largest representative body of U.S. nuns, has their annual meeting. On the agenda for the Silver Spring, Md.-based organization: Whether the group should remain an official arm of Rome, or become independent.

This is their first meeting since April, when the Vatican’s doctrine-guarding arm issued a report saying the Conference isn’t focusing enough on abortion and traditional marriage and is dabbling dangerously in “radical feminist” ideas such as whether women could be priests. The report said the group needs to be “reformed” and is calling for essentially a takeover and monitoring of the Conference, whose members represent about 80 percent of the country’s sisters.

You may be forgiven for scratching your head at this theological juncture. Baptists and Pentecostals, not exactly known for radical feminism, have women ministers and pastors, but women priests? Dangerously dabbling in "radical feminism"!

The conference ended with the nuns staying under the authority of the Holy See. (Daisy pouts) But I do understand why.

As Willie Sutton famously said, that's where the money is.

American nuns on Friday backed away from a direct confrontation with the Vatican, saying they want a respectful “open dialogue” with Rome about disputes over gender, human sexuality and authority.

The decision by the Silver Spring-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of American nuns, came at the end of an intense annual conference in St. Louis this week, where about 900 women met to decide how to respond to an April report by the Vatican saying the group had strayed dangerously far from orthodoxy and the pope and needs to be “reformed.”

The women considered generally accepting the report, rejecting it and becoming an independent Catholic organization (rather than an actual office of Rome), or finding some middle ground.

In a statement Friday, the women said that members want to pursue dialogue with the three-bishop team appointed by the Vatican to approve their conference speakers, literature and training programs.

Can this marriage be saved?

~*~

Every time I pass this sign, I think about how Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency was judged to be a complete disaster.

We had NO IDEA what awaited us, did we?


~*~

As all dedicated news-hounds and political junkies have undoubtedly heard by now, Fareed Zakaria is in hot water for plagiarism, and his popular Sunday-morning CNN show, "GPS", has been suspended. The question now is whether the suspension will be temporary or permanent:

Zakaria was suspended from both CNN and Time magazine after using several paragraphs written by another author in his Time column and a blog post on CNN’s website, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Zakaria issued an apology on Friday, saying in a statement that the incident was his fault and that it was “a terrible mistake,” The Journal reported.

Zakaria was suspended for a month at Time, pending a review. CNN pulled the blog post from its website and suspended his Sunday talk show, filling the time slot with other CNN programming. CNN is also conducting a review of the incident.

“Fareed Zakaria is a smart journalist who did a dumb thing, by his own admission,” said Howard Kurtz, a veteran media reporter, on his CNN show, Reliable Sources, on Sunday.

“I've seen a number of plagiarizing cases far more extensive than this one, but that misses the point,” he said. “Borrowing someone's words without credit is a journalistic sin, which is why Fareed did the right thing, which is quickly owning up to his mistake.”

Well, that's nice. But seriously, someone of this stature and importance?

And this isn't the first time, according to the Huffington Post:

This is not the first time Zakaria has come under ethical fire. Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg accused him of lifting quotes without attribution in 2009. He also caused controversy for his series of off-the-record conversations with President Obama, though he said they were no different than those the president held with any other journalist.

A peon like your humble narrator (or, say, a reporter at a relatively low-level outfit such as the Greenville News) certainly couldn't get by with this, offering a simple ooops! It would destroy their journalistic reputation and career. But Fareed? He will recover nicely and go on to rake in more speaking fees at a staggering $75,000-a-pop.

As Eric Zuesse, another HuffPo commentator, carefully reminds us:

When Fareed Zakaria was suspended on Friday from Time and CNN, for plagiarism, this wasn't merely justice, it was poetic justice: it rhymed.

What it rhymed with was his own lifelong devotion to the global economic star system that he, as a born aristocrat in India, who has always been loyal to the aristocracy, inherited and has always helped to advance, at the expense of the public in every nation.

He was suspended because, as a born aristocrat, who is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, and many other of the global aristocracy's primary organizations, he is so well-connected that his writing-commissions are more than any one person can possibly handle, and he consequently cannot possibly actually write all that is attributed to him. He certainly cannot research it all.

Like many "writing" stars, he has a staff perform much of the research and maybe even actual writing for him, and many in his situation are actually more editors than they are writers; but, regardless, he cannot let the public know that this is the way things are, because this is simply the way that the star system works in the "writing" fields, and because the public is supposed to think that these stars in the writing fields are writers, more than editors.

And, it's a very profitable system for such stars. As Paul Starobin said, headlining "Money Talks," in the March 2012 Columbia Journalism Review, Zakaria's speaking fee is $75,000, and "he has been retained for speeches by numerous financial firms, including Baker Capital, Catterton Partners, Dreihaus Capital Management, ING, Merrill Lynch, Oak Investment Partners, Charles Schwab, and T. Rowe Price."

So, he's clearly a very busy man, with a considerable staff; he can't possibly do everything himself.

But he needs to appear as if he does. He needs to present everything "he" does, as "his."

Most of the top-paid people in the media are "writers" whom the public are deceived to believe do all the researching and writing of "their" material. The actual writers (usually called "research assistants," or sometimes just "interns"), unlike these bosses, lack the connections to be able to succeed "on their own," and are therefore obscure workers for these aristocrats -- the writing-stars who make the big incomes. If one of these workers bows down sufficiently to his boss so as to be plucked by him to become a star "on his own," then that lucky acolyte will almost certainly share the existing hierarchical values of his boss, and so may become a new aristocrat in the full sense, and go on to produce his own reputation, and perhaps even dynasty. But the others will never win the connections and thus the money.

This is the world Fareed Zakaria has actually lived in all of his adult life, and even before that -- it was the world he saw around him when his father was a politician with the Indian National Congress, and his mother was the editor of the Sunday Times of India. He knew how corruption works, because he was surrounded by it, all the time.

Fareed Zakaria knows the way it works. So, he cannot afford to admit when he is being credited with the work of his employees. Far less damaging to him is to admit that he has done plagiarism himself, as he has admitted in this particular case -- regardless whether it's true.

If Zakaria didn't actually do this plagiarism, could he very well announce to the world "I didn't do it; I didn't even research or write the article"? No. Romney and the Republicans say that the "job creators" at the top are the engine of the economy, and the aristocracy need to maintain this myth. It's very important to them -- that they are the stars, and that the people who might be the actual creators who work for them are not.

Zakaria wouldn't want to burst the bubble atop which he is floating. To people in his situation, it's a bubble of money, and it's theirs. They don't want to share it any more than they absolutely have to. (They despise labor unions for that very reason.) And their employees are very dependent upon them, so no one will talk about it -- not the stars, not their workers.

Although I enjoyed his show, I have no illusions that we couldn't get the same thing from someone else. Maybe better.

I heartily recommend my old friend, classmate, and former co-star in two class plays (we were fantastic!), Joe Johns, now seriously under-utilized at CNN.

Long before anyone ever heard of "nontraditional casting," African-American Joe played my father in a Junior High school play... totally shocking the 1972 Midwestern audience. Our radical drama teacher thought we had the best auditions, by God, and we were going to be the leads, race be damned. She would not be deterred.

It was supposed to be a comedy, God help us, but our first few jokes met utter silence. I still remember how we bugged our eyes out at each other.... our expressions conveying some version of: OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!

We soldiered on through the mostly-silent First Act. Finally, during the Second Act, there was a titter, then a few giggles, and then ... (like a comforting wave) a roar of laughter at the best jokes, which were delivered by Joe--crossing his arms and sternly addressing me as "young lady!"--like a stereotypical TV dad. We had crossed over into borderline-camp, but it worked.

We ended with thunderous applause. It was nice.

I still remember the triumphant smile we shared, tempered with relief: whewwww.

Chant with me: WE WANT JOE! WE WANT JOE!

~*~

As promised, the source of our blog post title for today... it stops at around five minutes, since it probably went on for a good half hour! ;)

Deal - Grateful Dead




I been gambling hereabouts
for ten good solid years
If I told you all that went down
it would burn off both your ears

It goes to show
you don't ever know
Watch each card you play
and play it slow
Wait until your deal come round
Don't you let that deal go down

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Greetings from Redneck Nation

Finding politically-correct targets for the trendinistas to hate, is getting more and more difficult.

How can they prove they are the cool trendies unless somebody is the inferior rube? And the usual suspects (the darker peoples, the disabled, the foreigners who dress funny)... well, all of that prejudice is starting to look really BACKWARD and ignorant, even to the trendies. Who'd a thunk it? This seems to have touched off a crisis in confidence. They can't even use a well-seasonsed, drive-by insult like "mouth-breathers" anymore, without somebody getting irate. It's getting harder and harder for them to find people beneath them to safely ridicule. WHERE ARE MY INFERIORS?--howl the trendies, starved to recognize their innate superiority.

Ah, yes. Of course. Their inferiors, as always, are south of the Mason-Dixon line. What Robin Williams once amusingly called the Manson-Nixon line, even though one of those men was born in OHIO (which is ABOVE the Mason-Dixon line, last time I checked) and one was born in California. But that's quibbling... let's not let the facts interfere with good anti-southern insults!

On my show tomorrow (which I taped yesterday in scenic Simpsonville, SC), we have a first-rate, top-notch, Daisy-rant in store! This was occasioned by the newest affront perpetrated against Redneck Nation, an unbelievable Reality TV show on The Learning Channel (!) titled, HERE COMES HONEY BOO-BOO. I didn't watch too much of it. Needed drugs after only five minutes.

This mocking, derisive show manages to combine hatred of southern rednecks (the only form of overt classism now openly celebrated in the USA) with hatred of fat people, exploitation of children and early-sexualization of girls, all in one happy little package. You can almost see the TV-executives, triumphantly tallying up all of these factors on their nasty fingers: heyyyyy, we got KIDS, we got a BABY BEAUTY-QUEEN, we got a FAT FAMILY of DUMB REDNECKS! (high fives all-round) Whoever thought up this show, got himself a raise and probably a promotion.

Already, the trendies are stampeding forth to "defend" the show against... well, against who? Do they understand that they like it because it was MADE FOR THEM? Apparently not. (The irony, it burns.)

I started thinking about the cultural geneaology of Ms Boo Boo and where she came from. Brainstorming with my ever-astute radio co-hosts (Consiglieri Gregg Jocoy and Occupy Greenville Mentor Double A Battery), we came up with a noxious stew of the murdered JonBenét Ramsey, the rise of awful Toddlers and Tiaras (where Ms Boo Boo was "discovered"), Dance Moms and other such shows, as well as Little Miss Sunshine. We then segued into Larry the Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy. Nobody is safe, once we start naming names!

To make matters worse, there is also a constantly-replayed show titled World's Dumbest Hillbillies. After thinking really hard, we could not come up with single other group of people that would rate such a TV show named after them, try as we might. (Any takers?)

I invite you to listen. Saturday at 9am, WFIS-AM, 1600 AM/94.9 FM on your local upstate radio dial... or on our radio blog.

~*~

Taking a short break for the neighboring Peach State.

Trivia time: there was once a minor-league baseball team actually known as The Atlanta Crackers. This came from the pejorative term, Georgia Cracker. (staying on topic!) My father-in-law saw the Atlanta Crackers play several times, and the first time I ever heard him comment about that, I was momentarily confused. (You say what?)

There was also a Negro-league team called the Atlanta Black Crackers, which is an even weirder team name.

See you when I get back. Keep the faith, redneck brothers and sisters.

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Tuesday Tunes: Mind of the South edition

Mary Huff, calling up the ghost of my mother (right down to the hair and the bass), sings "Nitty Gritty"--yeah!

Nitty Gritty - Southern Culture on the Skids



~*~

Mary's bouffant hairdo made me think of Kate Pierson's.

In case you didn't know, there is also a pretty good movie named after this song, titled My Own Private Idaho, starring Keanu Reeves. It's based on Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V. Really.

I love Fred's canary-yellow pants.

Private Idaho - B-52s



(Did you catch the Twilight Zone theme?)

The lyrics also contain some excellent advice, as well as an important historic workers-reference (see link):

You're living in your own Private Idaho
Living in your own Private Idaho
Underground like a wild potato

Don't go on the patio
Beware of the pool
Blue bottomless pool
It leads you straight
Right through the gate
That opens on the pool

You're living in your own Private Idaho
You're living in your own Private Idaho

Keep off the path, beware the gate
Watch out for signs that say "Hidden Driveways"
Don't let the chlorine in your eyes
Blind you to the awful surprise
That's a-waitin' for you at the bottom
Of the bottomless blue, blue, blue pool

You're livin in your own Private Idaho
Idaho
You're out of control, the rivers that roll
You fell into the water and down to Idaho
Get out of that state
Get out of that state you're in
You better beware

You're living in your own Private Idaho.
You're living in your own Private Idaho.

Keep off the patio
Keep off the path
The lawn may be green
But you better not be seen
Walkin' through the gate that leads you down
Down to a pool fraught with danger
It's a pool full of strangers

You're living in your own Private Idaho
Where do I go from here to a better state than this?
Well, don't be blind to the big surprise
Swimming 'round and 'round like the deadly hands
Of a radium clock at the bottom of the pool

I-I-I-daho
I-I-I-daho
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Get out of that state
Get out of that state
You're living in your own Private Idaho
Livin' in your own Private Idaho

Who could argue?

~*~

I know I've played this one before. This is my favorite song by Pylon, the best Athens band you never heard of... the band who didn't get famous, while all their friends did.

And they should have. :(

Danger - Pylon



Silent film footage is from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

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The Empire Strikes Back

Graphic courtesy of the Feminist Majority Foundation blog.

Millions of poor chickens have to die en masse, all to prove that Christians hate gay marriage. I am one of the minority of folks who worries about the innocent chickens in this whole fiasco. (waves to fellow vegetarians)



As you are undoubtedly aware, the Chick Fil-A hoopla continues, as everyone in the world continues to brawl on Facebook, Twitter, Blogdonia and beyond. (The pro-gay kiss-in protest was held today, in various areas of the country.) The gay marriage debate has now reached every corner of the USA. People are being defriended right and left.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered, hard-working Christians who head up the nation's soup kitchens and homeless shelters, wonder why they can't get even one-eightieth of these Christians to assist them, when they put out their constant pleas for help.

Maybe its the food? The soup kitchen fare is no match for fried-fowl sandwiches, apparently.

Or maybe it's easier to grandstand, pose in a fast-food line for TV cameras, then eat and run. POOF, you are a devout Christian! No caring for the poor, no mopping floors, no boring bake-sales, no ladling out soup for dirty junkies who have been sleeping out in the used-car lot. No work necessary. No need to leave your comfy suburb and associate with filthy lowlifes, publicans and sinners. In fact, you do not even need to leave your air-conditioned vehicle if you decide to go to the drive-thru. Its much easier, quicker, AND you get to be on TV! All your friends will see you! You can take a photo of yourself and put it on Facebook so your parents, preacher and other buddies can see what a good Christian you are! Mike Huckabee will sing your praises on Fox News!

Serving the poor and such, as Jesus actually advised his followers to do? The Franciscans have been doing this since forever, and as we know, nobody puts them on Facebook or TV. They are boring, poorly-attired and do not understand good PR, as Dan Cathy obviously does.

Too bad we can't get these Christians to care about the poor and homeless as much as they care about hating gays. Society might actually change for the GOOD, and we certainly can't have THAT!

More on this topic tomorrow, on my radio show. I taped it today, ranted and raved, and even shouted once. (What, me worry?) It's entertaining and lots more fun than Mike Huckabee.

Tune in tomorrow!

And speaking of Mike Huckabee, what happened to his concerns about weight, wholesome foods and health? He goes from talk of healthy eating, to exhorting us all to eat fried garbage? Huh?

He used to talk about the importance of Americans eating good food, but I guess he can't now that he has his Fox News marching orders. I mean, he's under contract, you know.

Locally, here in Bob Jones University land, we actually had a PROTESTOR! More on the show tomorrow. In the meantime, eat HERE instead of nasty Chick Fil-A. (check out the show for the reasons why)

~*~

A few other links:

[] South Carolina Boy wrote about his tarot reading... I love it when people write cool stuff about me. :)

My best wishes are with him at this time, as always.

[] Private prisons spend $45 million on lobbying, rake in $5.1 billion for immigrant detention alone.

[] And finally, Harry Reid decides to go after Romney in a big way:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is unabashed as he makes a serious, unsubstantiated claim about Mitt Romney: that the Republican candidate for president did not pay any taxes for 10 years. That, the Nevada senator says, is why Mr. Romney will not release tax returns beyond those he has already made public, his 2010 return and an estimate for 2011.

Senator Reid, in fact, is so certain he’s doing the right thing that he repeated his charge on the floor of the Senate Thursday night, and put it out in a statement.

(giggle)

Let the games begin!

~*~

And did you all see THE DARK KNIGHT RISES yet? Did you notice the trashing of Occupy Wall Street?

I did find it very interesting that Bruce Wayne has now lost his money... do filmmakers think a rich hero is no longer sympathetic? As one of my friends also said, the tumultuous economy means we find this new plot-development totally believable, if alarming: Good Lord, even BRUCE WAYNE IS POOR NOW? Is nothing sacred?

The director, Christopher Nolan (whom I have admired ever since his wonderful movie-masterpiece MEMENTO) said in his Rolling Stone interview:

We put a lot of interesting questions in the air, but that's simply a backdrop for the story. What we're really trying to do is show the cracks of society, show the conflicts that somebody would try to wedge open. We're going to get wildly different interpretations of what the film is supporting and not supporting, but it's not doing any of those things. It's just telling a story. If you're saying, “Have you made a film that's supposed to be criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement?” – well, obviously, that's not true.

For the record, I don't think its "obviously" not true at all... someone is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Meanwhile, the new game Call of Duty is also taking direct aim at Occupy. And the two have something in common, it turns out. From SALON:

Reporting on the upcoming new edition of the game “Call of Duty” and the imminent release of the film “The Dark Knight Rises,” Gameranx.com reports:

The game’s main villain is Raul Menendez, described as the “idolized Messiah of the 99%” – a Julian Assange-like character who’s old, experienced, and hell bent on starting a global insurrection against the status quo…

The character, as with the rest of the story, is the creation of David S. Goyer. Goyer is the co-writer of “The Dark Knight Rises,” which also shares a similar story featuring Bane as Batman’s primary antagonist, who starts a class war aimed against the rich and privileged of Gotham City with the backing of the common man.

In 1988, a Konami executive said pop culture industries were looking to “take anything remotely in the news and make it a game.” Obviously, this move to put the headline-grabbing “99 percent” concept into video games and movies shows what that enduring strategy looks like in practice — and it doesn’t look very good.

It has also been pointed out to me that the new villain in the next James Bond movie, Skyfall, (named "Silva" and played by Javier Bardem) has whitish-blond, Julian Assange-ish hair. No kidding?

As Ryan Gilbey of the UK Guardian wrote:

One unwritten rule of the series is that 007's opponents tend to personify the perceived threats or preoccupations of the era which spawns them. We can discern from the plot titbits present in the Skyfall trailer that the security of British spies is compromised when a disc containing information about their identities is lost. So we have a potentially hazardous leak of top-secret data, presided over perhaps by this bright-haired man named Silva. As if Julian Assange hasn't got enough to worry about, he won't even be able to pop to the local multiplex in October without seeing a menacing supervillain modelled on him.

The Empire Strikes Back.

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Gore Vidal 1925-2012

You will be greatly missed.

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