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BLOG'a'Boulder
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Dispatches from Boulder the Damned
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Monday, March 08, 2010
 This photo, from channel 9, is from the opposite direction of the one on the cover and is of I-70, a major west-east passage of the nation, and the road is blocked for a long time, mandating a 200 mile runaround on inferior roads. This had to have scared the hell out of travelers who, it seems, had been stopped because of a traffic accident anyway, no place to run had a vehicle been beneath.
So, the season of highway horrors begins in Colorado as our steep mountain roads adjust and the steep canyons seek new angles of repose. When I first moved to Colorado, car conversations always vectored in on this aspect, as in 'gee, you wonder what's holding those rocks up' which would be followed by the Wise Native explaining that 'every once in a while' a rock would tumble, generally during the Spring runoff. Okay. Good odds. Rare.
But either because of increased traffic vibrations, our all season runoffs, or our warming planet loosening ice grips long held previously, it seems every year brings either a terrifying photo of what could have been disaster or, these days and in increasing frequency, an actual disaster. At the very least, a major public works project to solidify these terrains is awaiting.
This is the beach where I spent much of my childhood. It's Nonquitt, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. This particular pier and bathhouse are from an era decades before my birth, and both were destroyed in the 1938 hurricane, and their replacements in the 1954 hurricanes Carol and Edna that came close together, and probably others since.
What amazes me is the beach is the same, seemingly unchanged despite what is built, despite what storm damage accrues elsewhere. It was a great spot for kids, with safe pools for herding crabs and playing and sand castles and being in the sun and learning to swim. I taught swimming there for a while when I was older. Other, er, memories as well till I left by the end of the 60's. Photos today show much the same, even though Nonquitt, I'm told, is now a gated community and Madonna once had a summer rental there. I can believe it. Some beautiful houses there.
Here in Boulder the Damned, another crisis has arisen. Yes, and the Daily Camera is on it.
You see, there are two groups, bicyclists and motorists, who don't see eye to eye on certain issues, and the Camera and community applaud a survey on how these two, utterly separate groups can live together and breath the same air. No bike owner has a car, nor a car owner a bike. It would be beyond the pale to even consider that the genuine assholes who drive cars become, in turn, complete assholes when on a bike, by which is meant the road and world should be subservient to them.
I'd imagine that far and away the majority of people on bikes and in cars get along fine, because they aren't gaping sphincters in real life. Somehow, this hasn't caught traction. There are two groups. And Road Rage is actually a Syndrome, now. Rather than just asshole-dom presenting as such.
The Washington Note has a reasonable summary of the Iraq elections and the Obama consistencies that have mostly made it possible.
He says:
Iraq has a long way to go, and the outcome of the elections for Iraqi and American policy are far from clear. But it is heartening not only to see the determination of the Iraqi people to resist violence in order to make their voices heard, but also the steadfastness of President Obama in refusing outside pressure to change our timeline for withdrawal.
Fair enough.
I can remember in early English classes teachers extolling the importance of exact meanings in words, which is the basis for people as they get older resenting slang. It's not because its offensive, it's because the meanings are still malleable. It's not just awkward, it's offensive. Worse, it's very dangerous.
And here we are with just the results old folks have feared for centuries. The Armenians want the mass murder of their numbers under Ataturk held to be 'genocide', which was a word initially coined to indicate that which was worse than mass murder. To date, only the Jewish holocaust, but that flensed distinction is of no nevermind to those who think that genocide grants them perpetual favor and guilt inducing power, which they unfairly ascribe to Jews and the its supposed cabal to rule the world with, eh, Crusaders and Jesuits and Wiccans and the Tri-lateral commission. Fill in the blanks with your own fears.
In any case, the Turks surely did line up Armenians and kill them without mercy, but it was for land and riches and sordid boring stuff like that. There were no plans to eventually tramp the earth and kill them all. The Nazis had that all going on, and its a big difference.
But, the US Congress passed a sort of genocide admission into a non-binding committee resolution that forced the Turks to get hysterical and the Turks to recall its American ambassador. That serious.
If the Turks had to admit to mass murder alone, and this one hundred years ago, things might - might not - go better, but the Armenians demand the term 'genocide.' Bear in mind the Irish use the term against the British and the Native Americans against us, although in the former their population went through the roof, and the increasing wealth of the Native Americans has lessened their animosity somewhat. Not totally, nor should it, but some.
I managed to avoid the Oscars, last night. I haven't been able to stand these award shows for decades, now, although I do rather care who gets best acting and picture awards. You can't be surprised that James Cameron, whose all time most popular movie Avatar showed the end of acting as we know it to a horrified Academy, was given the stiff arm except for the remarkable technical effects he produced. He'd already won an Oscar or two, anyway. And it was good to see a woman get Best Director and Best Picture for the Hurt Locker. As always, it can be argued which movie was 'better' than another, but it was not a mistake as others have been, and especially impressive given that it isn't a huge success monetarily, which will now change. She's been good for years, but her flicks aren't huge money makers. That may change now, as well, although precedent is iffy on that score.
Avatar operated outside the criteria of normal movies. It really was the creation of a different world, although holding to Tolkien's recipe for success: subcreation. And the script could have been written by an earnest teenager, and there was cliche after cliche and I left the theater exhilerated. It really was exciting and a surprise and really did make you feel good. Surely, that is a gift, and surely the point of movies, of art, is mostly if not entirely met within those confines.
What many should recall from yesterday, if photos are accurate, was the woman with George Clooney. When I saw this photo today, I thought her about the loveliest woman I have ever seen, which will come as a blow to Paz Vega, my previous goal til she got married. The hussy. In any event, I looked her up and she is Elizabet Canalis, and there were one or two photos of her on the web. Apparently she is a big deal in Italy, where Clooney lives, and has a television show.
I hate George Clooney now. Really, hate is too mild a word.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Well, that didn't take long. I suppose after dramatic media coverage of cold fusion and various medical breakthroughs that are not, we shouldn't feign surprise over this, a rather shameless and obvious attempt to cash in on the Terry Schiavo ignorances. Not surprisingly, it involved a facilitator whose dramatic Vulcan mind melds were able to communicate with the comatose, who always seem to advocate the paid presence of the facilitator, who is a crook if not mentally deranged herself.
I called it. And I want this crap stopped. These people take advantage of the bereaved and desperate, not unlike the bastard who convinced the parents of autistics that it was - coincidently, of course - the deepest pockets involved who were to blame. The heroic doctor, who 'fooled' peers at The Lancet and other publications, has equally unsurprisingly found a home with other quacks under the guise of religion, which provides a degree of safety.
Sharks, tornadoes, and earthquakes are the three horrors I've managed to avoid in life. Never seen any, that I know of, in the flesh. Have arrived in areas recently hit by same, and may have seen a shark and not known it, but as far as I can tell, that's true.
Earthquakes hold a real fear for me, because I get seasick easy, and whatever the grim realities of gastric distress attached to the illness, it's bigger than that. While we know, academically, that we are nothing in the universe, and that all of earth land is a floating, wet, leaf on a lake of boiling rock, it's one thing to know and reflect and another, I'd imagine, to confront and endure. With luck, endure, anyway.
Today's nightmare concerns the busload of aged Chileans who followed all precautions and did the right things but missed the chance to escape the tsunami and were swept out to sea, surely as terrifying as it gets.
Should also point out that this comes from the AP, but as printed in the Himilayan Times. Whatever else the internet is and does, it allows us to see what others are reading and how they respond. Try some of the Arab papers in English and Al-jareera. I cannot know if these bear any resemblance to what they print in Arabic, but I read it is pretty close, and only rarely a cover for racist rants and nonsense. Also, not sure how influential the papers are, but still. Some of the editorials are written in far better English than our own and reflect far deeper thought. Not that I always agree.
Here in Colorado, a car chase has ended in true TV fashion with a crash and a fire, and finally a guy in handcuffs. Police were involved with a shooting with the idiot previously. Per usual, the same anonymous pro and anti-cop dwarves are on the website, posting away.
Also, our Governor came to a sudden stop against another biker, which led to broken ribs. He's on his way into retirement, so he's jellin'.
Unremarked with the hysteria over Toyota is GM's callback of vehicles yesterday for safety reasons. I'd still like to see the number of complaints for EACH car maker for comparable periods and what the media said for each and which supposed scandals actually were scandals and not statistical anomalies. Don't forget the faked NBC scandal of some decades back, either.
I'm irritated with Toyota because if this is as big a deal as suspected, and they knew and did nothing, they willingly cast away the future of the industrial car maker that led their peers world wide. Car for car, Toyota was both a better buy, safer, more reliable, and longer lasting than any other auto. It is fitting that the year they switched their advertising from boring statistical soft sell to supposedly funny and cool American commercials, the product fell apart. No direct connection except in mindset. But when a car maker starts stroking aging males, their day is over. I don't see Cadillac lasting long for that reason. Aside from being hideous. I'm curious as to how Mercedes s-400 hybrid will do, and if it's as good as claimed. It gets up to 29 mpg according to more or less objective trials.
Just when you think the debate cannot get more hypocritical, children get hurt in homes growing legal marijuana. Not defending it, but reading this exchange of idiocy makes me want to punch everyone.
If people were actually serious, and we're not, they'd take jurisdictional bids for the fame of growing medical marijuana and imprison those growing pot for their own use, which I'd wager 99% of it is anyway. Whatever damage pot has done to 'youth' for four generations and to the national fiber and to whatever moral pit you wish to call it, it ain't nothing compared to what the idiotic prohibition laws have done to respect for law in general (without which the United States is nothing), corruption of police and soon the military, and kept the Mafia and related thugs in dough forever. I don't smoke, but it doesn't bother me and at the very least people doped up aren't physical and violent. For God's sake, legalize it and pull the rug out from this grotesque national hypocrisy.
Also, we need the cash.
I've long been wary of the Armstrong claim that he never used drugs or chemical or biological illegalities in his biking career. And, given I have no shred of evidence to the contrary and wouldn't know it if I actually had it, I can't argue with those to whom Armstrong can do no wrong. But the thing is, you see, that he lost a testicle to cancer, and the regimen he was put on are much like what athletes do to increase stamina and all that. Hormones, among other things. And he'd have quite the opportunity to take advantage of knowledge others, like everyone, would not have. Maybe. But in any case, I've taken flack for that, saying I don't have sufficient respect for his dedication. Yet, I do, and since I think everyone in the top tier of bike racing does it, he's still the best. By far, actually.
But now comes word that many Winter Olympic athletes have asthma. How many? About half. And is there anything in an inhaler that might mask or legally contain those without that dreaded disease use? Why yes, there is.
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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Today is the day when the last shards of bipartisanship will be made, again by Obama, to get the GOP onboard to do something constructive. Won't work, at which point I hope they have their ducks in formation to ram through something in the way of reform. It will be a shadow of what it should be, but get the momentum going for chronic updating each year. Wars are not, it turns out, won by decisive battles anymore, and in fact history suggests that was rarely true. It's the long slog, which rubs some wrong. They want the movie moments. They cannot have them here, and we shouldn't waste time on it.
Keith Obermann last night gave a moving tribute to his father, and his father's various agonies awaiting death. Many go through this, and the clear message to take away is that having discussions about end of life decisions is not a 'death panel' but - granted, hokey - a life panel. I advise reading the Gawker intro as well, since it's not from a devotee of the guy. I rather am; I think he's been right and brave far more than anyone else through the years, and he's a good, good writer. That's important. You can read his scripts and the punctuation is all the stage direction anyone needs. He's good.
And I agree with most everything he says here.
If pushed to decide, I would be hard put to say if I were more nauseated by the Olympic Coverage or reading the tempests on the continuing agonies of being gay and unable to become married. I'm actually against marriage absent children, and don't think the state has any standing in romance, and people should put more thought into choosing a mate than they do. The old adage: hard to get married, easy to get divorced should do it.
That said, if some can get married with different - if stupid and unwarranted - tax benefits and legal protections, so should others. So, in that way I'm 'for' gay marriage. But I think it stupid.
Further, I'd like whoever is under the impression that the contents of beauty pageant winner's skulls are to be considered of value. We have far too many examples of pure air and bone untenanted by the weakest of neural synapse. Like this:
“The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, ‘If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.’ The Bible is pretty black and white. I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that’s a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life." That could seem wise and literate if you haven't read the Bible, which is everyone. You can't read ancient Amaraic or Hebrew or Greek, can you? No....you've only read censored translations. But that didn't stop Lauren Ashley, Miss Beverly Hills 2010, to Fox News, unsurprisingly.
She added, "I have a lot of friends that are gay." If once, not any more. In the event, abomination just means unclean, like eating pork, much like not impregnating your brother's widow, or mixing different threads in a garment, or working on the Sabbath, which is the seventh day, Saturday. If we take Leviticus seriously, let's focus on what it says about women plucking their brows, oh Beauty Queen.
Now to the Olympics. One female skier has expressed annoyance that another on her team, the US (naturally) is getting all the attention, which meant the adored skier (Lindsey Vonn, from Vail) had to remark about how she supports everyone on the team and so why can't her teammate and rival, Julia Mancuso. By template: catfight!
But, the fact is Mancuso has a point. Vonn is blonde with big backers, and a bruised shin was treated with the same solemn alarm a presidential fainting spell might be. They, Vonn fell on a run with Mancuso behind her, meaning Mancuso - who holds the record in that event - had to stop and do it again later. She came in 18th. Vonn hurt her little finger, but lay on the snow for a while, probably with reason, but surely someone could have cleared the course in time. Stuff like that annoys, surely, especially when the story is about Vonn being hurt and not Mancuso getting screwed.
So, what gave you the first clue that having killer whales in shallow tubs might be dangerous? Especially THAT killer whale?
I used to live outside Orlando back in the days when men were men, and we used to go to some park or other with dolphins, trained to do things. A guy in our group (we were all rather tipsy) started ragging on the dolphin about something or other (we were a performing group, and this dolphin wasn't union and took our job....something) and although standing in tightly clumped bunch of people around the pool, the dolphin with a swish of the tale managed to hit only our loud friend. Twice. I'm big on thinking they're smarter than I am and most dogs, and I have no doubt that a frustrated and huge killer whale might just get carried away or be sharp enough to hate his handlers.
Christ. Gays, Olympics, and potheads: sick of it all. Congressman Polis has decided it's safe in Boulder to be for medical marijuana, by which is meant for legalizing it, and this kabuki theater continues as people lose more and more respect for a judicial system and laws in general because there are so many outdated and/or stupid laws that affect our lives more than good ones. Good ones are those that seem right, are right, and there isn't much argument about. Pot laws - virtually ALL drug laws - are stupid and, far more important, unenforceable. It's irritating to watch those addicted - and many are - to pot try to grace themselves with humanitarian concern. It's expensive and stupid.
It's just gotten to the point where potheads and pot dealers are now, somehow, heroic. Not if you know them, they're not.
Here in Boulder the Damned, the Daily Camera's editorial page got a shot in the slats for its apparent support of Payday Lending, which is loansharking. Colorado Pols does a good job of shaking the shit from that, and good on them. This is predatory lending to those both least likely to pay it back and able to afford it.
It's possible that it is as they say, that lobbyists got to Erica Stutzman, the page editor. But it's not 1975, anymore, and newspapers are overworked and understaffed and I'm not about to drop kick Stutzman. She was wrong - way wrong - but it's a symptom, she's not a patsy. I doubt she actually thinks the bill a bad idea once she's brought up to speed about it as the Pols site does. Big fan of Pols, by the by.
This was sent me. Depressing, yet dead on. And old. I think I read it a while ago, now.
Who reads our newspapers?
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6.The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country, or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Minneapolis Star Tribune is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Here in Boulder the Damned, a kerfluffle from last week's City Council meeting, which is reasonably suspected to take up time again tonight. Yesterday, Boulder city councilwoman Lisa Morzel said she thinks the city violated the First Amendment rights of a longtime critic by cutting him off while he was speaking during public comment last week, and then having him arrested when he got cranky about it. Morzel wants a 'review.'
Of course, the individual had stripped to his underwear at the time. Sometimes called crazy, sometimes just ' longtime council critic', Seth Brigham has run for several offices of late, never won, and is described as bi-polar. Well, that, eh, explains something. In any case, the review, says Morzel and others, should determine who scratched on a microphone to obscure Brigham's comments and just who was responsible for having Brigham removed.
This was all brought about because Brigham wanted to make a point about the issue compressing the thighs of hysterics of late here in the City Sense Forgot: whether to over-criminalize nudity in Boulder. During his presentation during the appropriate part of the meeting, he began talking about Councilman George Karakehian's policy to keep the doors to his downtown business open in the winter and Councilwoman Suzy Ageton's campaign contributions.
Mayor Osborne twice requested no personal attacks and to get to the point, if any, actually relevant to the issue. He told the mayor that he was making his point, at which point the microphone died and the officer stationed there arrested Brigham when he refused to leave.
"I think his First Amendment rights were violated, that's my opinion," Morzel said. "I think we never want to shut out the public. They have a right to come and speak." She seemed most annoyed that he seemed to have been silenced and then arrested for criticizing elected officials. Further, she and other city officials are also pissed that someone, likely a council member, scratched on a microphone while Brigham was speaking, and turned off the audio recording as Brigham was being led out in handcuffs. So, the Council will discuss open meetings laws with the city attorney at an upcoming meeting.
Interestingly City Clerk Alisa Lewis said that she was responsible for turning off the microphones in the council chambers. She said she hit a "kill switch" for the audio system -- not because of what Brigham was saying, but out of concern that whoever was scratching on the microphone would damage the sensitive equipment. This is nonsense.
A key issue is who have the actual authority to direct city police to remove someone from a council meeting. I'd assume the Council in the person of whoever is sitting in charge of the Council at the time. Earlier this year, the Council agreed with that, but some council members said newcomer Karakehian was the one who motioned for the officer to intervene, Crystal Gray among them.
Brigham, facing municipal charges of obstructing police and trespassing, said Monday that he's hired attorneys to represent him in his criminal case, and potentially in a federal lawsuit against the city. Which is what he probably wanted.
For those actually paying attention, a creeping sense of off the radar competence has snuck back in to political discussion, and the attention given the idiot tea party crowd may have been welcome camouflage. Might not be but illusion, but Obama seems to be on the move and the GOP is palpably nervous.
In metaphor alert, Dick Cheney is in the hospital for what is probably another heart incident of some level, and there could be several reasons for it, not all physical. First, because Obama seems to be running a better, more effective War on Terror by using diplomacy and law than the Bushies did with torture and illegality. The Denver guy who was arrested last year for plotting a seventh anniversary of 9-11 explosion has apparently confessed and is talking up a storm, apparently good stuff, and all with lawyers and civil procedure. This is evidence before the public and the Bushies that they were wrong and, as suspected, were often just Chickenhawks and Country Club Tough Guys playing at being what they were not.
And while it seems the lawyers that debased their profession cannot be prosecuted for giving their opinions, or at least the opinions their bosses wanted to hear, in regards to Cheney's enthusiasm for torture, especially the water torture. But the disgust felt by the nation on our shared guilt in this is back in the news, and Cheney's defense of it is composed of air.
Second, despite carping from the left, Obama (by which I mean the administration) did what the gays were screaming he'd backed away from: Don't Ask, Don't Tell is going and the military is, in general, behind the move. The fact is that there are gays in the military whether anyone wants them there or not, and always have been. What this move gives the military is incentive to keep the brain levels high. I've never seen stats on this, because that would be illegal, but the assumption has clearly been the lack of Arab linguists and therefore first hand info in the field was due to DADT. I suspect it's correct, and I further suspect knowing someone is gay because he's said so is a lot more comforting than worrying about it in the foxhole. It's conducive to military unity to be upfront about stuff like that. Other nations have done it - among several others, Israel for those who worry that gays breed incompetence.
Third, the much anticipated vote from the former Massachusetts Kennedy seat of Scott Brown was with Democrats for a job bill in the Senate. Perhaps Brown is, like other Republicans from the Bay State, a realist and not the reactionary turd the hysterical GOP tried to portray him as. For a first vote, that took balls, although he was joined by the two female Senators from Maine and others. Some Dems, like Nelson, voted against it.
Among the rising signs that scare the GOP is that 22 Senators have signed a letter by our own Senator Bennett to get a Public Option in the bill. Others have worked the phrase back into the debate, probably because every poll shows deep support for it.
But the conservatives only perform for their own kind. The kind that laughs and applauds the failed businessman who crashed his plane into an IRS office killing himself and one innocent. Congressman King empathizes. He also hoped to get coverage for his clever use of 'implode' instead of 'explode.' And he has.
The suicidal businessman's daughter, who was reasonably distraught, had reporters shoving microphones in her face and she called her father a 'hero', which given that he had set fire to his house with a wife and kids inside just before heading for the airport, might not be the case. Which she now accepts.
It revolts me that the media does this. I don't think it civilized to shove microphones into the face of the distraught at their weakest moments to get them to say something inflammatory and to incite an easy story of 'reactions' to it. It's not news, and people have had to defend some emotional imbecility for the rest of their lives because of it.
One who deserves to have to defend it is this guy, State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas who said disabled children are God's punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy last Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.
"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children," said Marshall, unsurprisingly a reactionary Republican.
"In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest."
Do we get that? Aborting the first born is a sin against God, yet it's nature who takes revenge for that by avenging itself on subsequent children. This, of course, was because part of Marshall's attempt to get Virginia officials to eliminate state funding for Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions. Marshall is part of
Virginia Christian Action. There's a petition, and this signed by a number of prominent Christian leaders, including Jonathan Falwell of Lynchburg and Pat Robertson of Virginia Beach.
There's so much to damn about this, but let's just stick to one: is it true that an aborted first pregnancy increases the chances of disabled children among the subsequent births? If so, is it due to the abortion or due to the predominance of abortion among those in classes with poor knowledge and health care anyway? I'd like to see the stats on that.
And asking for fact from Republicans can be amusing. Army vet Diggs Brown had everyone's regard on both sides of the aisle till recently, when he used a long discredited story about Nancy Pelosi to flame the ill educated group he was addressing. He said the Pentagon had budgeted a 757 for his troops in Africa when Pelosi came along and snatched it so she could fly back and forth to San Francisco. That was, and is, horseshit. And then, he digs himself a bigger hole when he apologized on his website.
"I misspoke at a recent event. Talking about Nancy Pelosi's excessive travel expenses, I included some incorrect information about the specific type of plane she uses and exactly how much taxpayer money she's been spending. She uses luxury Gulfstream jets, not the converted 757's, and she racked up $2.1 million in travel costs over two years. As you can see, the facts stand on their own as objectionable to taxpayers, and no malice was intended on my part. But my parents told me that when you screw up, you admit it. I screwed up the numbers, and for that I apologize."
As ColoradoPols points out, he doesn't apologize for inventing that the Pentagon wanted to give the Africa Command, in which Brown served, a 757 until Pelosi came in and took it. There never was a 757 in his budget, and Pelosi has flown on an Air Force 757 exactly once, according to the Pentagon, and then because no other plane was available. That's a big lie, especially given the craven impression soldiers were hurt because of it during a war. Staying classy, Brown made other slanders. From CP: Also not covered in the apology was Brown's assertion that Pelosi spent $100,000 a month "on booze" to help feed Mr. Pelosi's "drinking problem." THAT strikes me as actionable.
Another chestnut from the Vaults of Hairy Chested, Patriotic American Bull Shit Artists.No Porn Or Terrorists. Remember the NASA diver who claimed to have thwarted porn-watching Muslim hijackers on a plane in Atlanta? We've obtained more information on the incident through the Freedom of Information Act.
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Friday, February 19, 2010
There are new photos from the new telescope up there, and again, they're pretty spectacular. Although we have to put off going back to the moon for a while, I still find it fascinating to view these shots of our universe, even realizing that the photos are more colorful than the reality.
 When I heard that one Kathryn Grayson had died, I immediately thought of the song "Tom Dooley", then realized that the song referenced a mere Mr. Grayson, and then I realized I had no idea who the hell Katheryn was at all. Out of curiosity, I hit Google.
She was a huge star in her day, doing the sort of schlock musicals that I hated then and now, but as I've aged I appreciate the hard work and talent that propels people to do the things I hate, and my opinions have softened up to the point of approval for the genres involved. Being heart stoppingly beautiful helps, in truth, and Miss Grayson was all that.
Two points: she was beautiful, she was blessed with gobs of talent, and everyone - I mean, everyone - adored her and from beginning to end there was no scandal, no bad press. This was an aspirant opera singer who never got the chance to perform as such till near middle age, and she was still, according to reviews, good.
Second, she was a good, but not a great actress of her time. Beyond what happened on stage or screen, she apparently couldn't have given less of a damn about the public's interest in her. There was the job, there was her life. She's hard not to like, especially given the - let's be painfully blunt - the untalented celebritards and low grade blow job fodder that seem to populate the  talk shows and magazine covers today, who despite every gizmo in the world cannot act, sing, carry a conversation.
That Grayson was rather bland and not as charismatic as others - the proof is she was nearly entirely forgotten at her death at 88 this week - ought not to be construed as her actual personality or value. She was in some famous movies like Anchor's Away, and the film version of the Broadway hit Kiss Me Kate (1953), with Howard Keel, another forgotten icon of the era. Those two starred in the 1951 Technicolor remake of Show Boat, and a bunch of others I've read about but don't recall ever seeing. I cannot say I enjoyed those movies. My parents did.
I say she was a good but not a great actress, but good enough to receive an Emmy nomination. She replaced Julie Andrews on Broadway in Camelot, and although being on paper too old for the part (13 years older than Andrews....at least), she looked far younger was fine for it. And did good. She was, in fact, the most successful Guinevere based upon receipts at the box office.
She also was in Noises Off, which is one of the funniest plays ever - I mean, ever - that could not be made into a movie but, unfortunately, was.
She means little to me except the exercise of high professional standards in work, dignity in life, high regard from all who knew her. If either George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, or Denzel Washington outlive their popularity by decades, they, too, might be forgotten except by polite applause at the following Oscars. If their audience isn't plentiful then, those who recall might feel the need to point out a few things. I don't really recall Kathryn Grayson, but I feel the need.
Hail, ma'am.
That said, here's a show of Lauren Bacall, who is still with us and was married to Humphrey Bogart and Jason Robards. She was everything Grayson was not in her day, and filled the gossip column. But I don't care about that. I care about her legs; or, rather, the term 'leggy.' I have a chemical animosity to press releases and fluffers whose job is to make their clients more than they are, true, but I have a greater anger against the misuse of words, even relatively unimportant ones like 'leggy.'
 Leggy is used today to designate a woman who shows her bare-skinned legs, which I appreciate and all, but what it means is long-legged. It's easy to see who is long legged: if the distance from the hip bone to the floor is longer than the distance from the hip bone to the top of the skull, that person has long legs. Like Bacall. I have recently seen the term 'leggy' applied to Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton has short legs for her height. She is not leggy. She is not anything, but let's just stick to this.
Among other things, Bacall could be the mother of Jeri Ryan or the woman who plays CJ Craig on the West Wing. Man, too much coffee.
 Bernie Kerik, the strange, corrupt, incompetent that Rudi Giuliani made Police Commissioner of New York before 9-11 and whom America's Mayor tried to make head of Homeland Security, has just been sent to prison for four years. Rudi, whose competence and honesty have to be the equal of Kerik's, is not around to defend him.
But he should be, and frankly he should in the dock with him. There was a great deal of criminal ineptitude by New York on 9-11, and despite the dramatic sound bytes (and, yes, Giuliani walked the walk and did good by strong leadership in the aftermath - that can't be laughed away), a lot of the problems of communication and preparation were the fault of America's Mayor not slapping down the police and fire unions. That STILL has not happened, and it's a major flaw and issue for Democrats and Republicans alike, but Rudi brags so much he's in the crosshairs.
Even after the first attempt at destroying the WTC in the 90's, Giuliani saw no flaw in putting the public safety Emergency Center in one of the towers.
The city's emergency command center went up in flames because Giuliani wanted the facility located within walking distance of City Hall. That's how the center wound up in terrorist target No. 1 -- the World Trade Center. And that's why Giuliani (and Kerik) were famously trudging through the streets of lower Manhattan following the attack -- they had no place to go. This from Dan Collins. Isn't that near criminal ineptitude?
Worse, Rudi tried to make Kerik head of Homeland Security. What does that say about him? If he didn't know, he's incompetent. If he did know - and he did - he's an enabler at best and a crook himself at worst.
And running all through this, especially reading about the venal and canting hypocrite William F. Buckley, is the strong thread of corruption and favoritism in what is a Roman Catholic clique that permeates much of the power in that city: Mafia, church, former alter boys in government. Buckley could defy the laws regarding wearing a helmet on his motor bike because the police approved of him fighting against police review boards, something every town and city needs.
It looks like Obama is going for the Public Option. If so, great.
I don't see how they can surmount the GOP filibuster, but there are ways hidden in Roberts' Rules and Senate sneak tactics, but surely the Republicans are aware and prepared. Maybe not, though. Former Congressman Dick Armey has come out and demanded the GOP show their budget for the next year, the one with the cuts in Medicare and Social Security.
Remember Paraquat? That was the stuff they sprayed on pot fields in the 70's and 80's to poison marijuana. They couldn't get all the stuff, but the theory was they could scare off enough from trying it to destroy and market and everyone would go to church, instead. Something. Anyhoo, it did not work.
But with meth and other newer problems bubbling up again, there's more talk of the government doing this sort of thing again. Conservatives say it's just killing criminals, so who cares?
Oddly, perhaps, this was done once before by the Federal government and this during Prohibition in the 1920's, when the GOP was in power. About 10k were poisoned by this method and died. It's all in a new book, and this should resonate. Or, it would if anyone still read books.
Speaking of the corrupt and ridiculous American Catholic church, here's more. They'll bitch about gays and the sanctity of marriage - although so many are gay themselves and predators both gay and straight - but torture is an iffy issue. Andrew Sullivan, a supposed Catholic, drop kicks his religion for it.
I say again, if RICO laws are still valid, what does the Catholic church have to do to be justifiably destroyed by it? Buy radio time to confess? This is a rich and powerful institution that has admitted that 10% of its American priests were predators, that has coughed up billions to the victims that came forth, that facilitated the criminal escape of Bernard Law who hid child predators from the authorities, and that to this day has done nothing to prevent further horrors except, like others, establish routes of plausible deniability.
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Monday, February 15, 2010
 How the hell Abraham Lincoln got up in the morning remains one of nature's great mysteries. His patriarchal face and grim countenance is at odds with numerous anecdotes that he was the life of any party and could not keep from laughing and cracking jokes.
He had good teeth, white, and that was rare enough he felt secure smiling.
He was only 56 when he died, which means when he was my age he'd been dead for six years.
His wife was from a Southern family and many if not most of her relatives were sworn to kill her husband, who did not feel the same in return. He had to have been aware from an early age he was six feet smarter than just about anyone else - he was easily more than a foot taller - and in an age of physically strong, tough men he wasn't inferior to many, a true westerner who'd worked hard all his life. He looked it.
That he had within him poetry and a gift for memorable phrasing to endow splendid thoughts, policies, and goals - all graced with compassion and ability to see most sides of a question - wasn't actually understood till he was gone, and all we had left were his words. Well, that and a united nation shorn of slavery with announced intent to be forgiving and inclusive. Even dead, his stated goals blunted much vengeance, much bloodshed and debasement of legal procedure. The South never gave him his due for preclusion of the mass roundup and executions of their military men, their political leaders. The dead Lincoln was, and still is, stronger than those who'd oppose his wishes.
Jack Kennedy was deified for all the wrong reasons when not fabricated ones, and when it was widely acknowledged he was an unfaithful pill popper, his 'character' was demoted into the basement. In actuality, the truth about Kennedy makes him a far more impressive man than virtually any of his detractors: he faced serious physical pain daily, not entirely unlike FDR. He walked the walk of presidential responsibility. He just wasn't an accomplished executive.
Lincoln, who could well have been in much pain psychological as well as physical, cannot easily be categorized as someone given to spiritual optimism to rev him up every day. I don't actually understand how he'd find the energy to get out of bed. But he pursued clearly seen goals relentlessly and with little wobble. A re-united nation, released from slavery, with a strong central government to control the often puerile and sometimes demented states and the yahoos running them. He understood the states must be the brake, not the accelerator. He intuited much, primarily because he fully understood the Enlightenment and what is was fighting against, what it became, what of it needed to be preserved, and that always. His countrymen have only the foggiest ideas about any of that, because it's foreign and mostly French and we're just so terrific anyway.
America has always lucked out with the right leaders at the right time. None more so than in the case of Lincoln, who is often blamed for the Civil War and not without reason. He willed it fought, and willed it won, and nothing more constructive has ever been accomplished in the cold light of our history.
Happy Presidents' Day.
Non-entity Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe The Plumber, having come to the conclusion he's never actually known what he was talking about, has turned upon the guy who made him the sorta celebrity he is.
"I don't owe him shit," said the bald intellect and Tea Party idol to a Pennsylvania radio station. "He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it." Right. An accomplished life of such promise down the tubes because he reluctantly shoved himself in front of the camera. His whines have nothing to do with the fact that he just discovered his inner nothingness long after the public had. Embarrassed, he strikes out at those who came out of the election in far better shape. Like......
Wurzelbacher also announced he's no longer a fan of Sarah Palin, and this because she's endorsing McCain's reelection bid in Arizona. Wurzelbacher, who's become an ardent support of the tea party movement and went to Pennsylvania to endorse a conservative Republican's gubernatorial bid, told a crowd of conservatives he was upset with McCain because he's "a career politician." As opposed to when you supported him? By the way, Wurzelbacher charges a fee to campaigns for public endorsements.
"McCain was trying to use me," Wurzelbacher went on. "I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy." This is true only if Middle America is an uneducated, not too bright, grandstander. Seeing no hypocrisy, Wurzelbacher said in the interview that "it's his duty to take advantage of the platform he's been given." And charge for it, it seems.
Democratic Senator Evan Bayh has announced he won't be seeking a third term despite polling showing him very popular and way ahead of the GOP choices. This is a complete surprise, and only last week his people were pushing his campaign points and candidacy.
More: Supposition that there is scandal is hard to suppress. But Bayh isn't famously like that. From TPM:
We'll have more details on this shortly. But Bayh's timing seems to have made it all but impossible for Indiana Democrats to hold a primary for his seat. The deadline for petition filings is tomorrow. (The formal 'filing' deadline is Friday. But our understanding is that the signatures actually have to be in tomorrow -- though we're trying to get further confirmation on that point.) So that means that prospective candidates need to decide to run and collect all the necessary signatures in about 36 hours. In other words, all but an impossibility. And it's not even really clear who the potential other candidates are.
To be clear, that does not mean that no Democrat will appear on the ballot in November. It means that the party apparatus will choose a candidate, rather than have one chosen through a primary -- if in fact no filings take place in time.
Odd, what?
You want to see more of this, and you want to see it applied to politicians of both parties. I'm all for bitch slapping politicos that just chant talking points and idiocies to the nodding heads of MSM journalists. Maddow and Jon Stewart are great on tearing new ones. But frankly, I'd like them to take apart any number of liberals as well, starting with Kos and not ending with Ariana.
This is not what Fox does, which is just claim another point of view is correct without any proof and without deconstructing what people say. Maddow has a polite put up or shut up mentality that is so needed and so much appreciated, but I want her to go after everyone. You can still be a liberal and drop kick any number of 'speakers' for the faith. It's important if you believe, overall, your view is correct and the Great American Plantlife can discern fairness and attempted objectivity (nobody can be sure of objectivity, of course).
Oh, shut the - cough - fuck up, would you? Boulder has been been voted, by Gallup, as the healthiest and happiest city in the US.
They have my number. I wasn't called. Recount. Based on what, now, was this?
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Tuesday, February 09, 2010
On page 103 of a book published in 1974, NBC newsman, commentator, authority on English, and soon to be SNL host Edwin Newman relayed his story of a US Senator whom Newman was seated near on Meet the Press. This Senator had some hope of being nominated for President at the time, and he had jotted down a few notes to himself that Newman could not help but see. The notes were:
"1. Candid. Straightforward.
"2. Thoughtful.
"3. Modest
"4. Some very short answers."
Finally, if he should be asked about the political significance of the defeat of Governor Ronald Reagan's proposal to limit personal income taxes in California, the answer he suggested to himself, in case it should slip his mind, was
"5. I don't know."
There is something dispiriting in the knowledge that politicians have to remind themselves to be candid. Indeed, Edwin, but you have lived long enough to endure Sarah Palin, an actual idiot who, in the midst of blasting Obama for overusing the Teleprompter, was caught with notes on her left palm. They were “Energy,” “Tax,” “Lift American Spirits,” and “Budget cuts.” The Right immediately went to work equating this with a slam against Trig Palin, the Down Syndrome/handicapped/retarded child of the Alaskan governor who refused to finish one term as promised. The hypocrisy - and absurdity - of attacking Obama's abilities to give a speech while olde schooling the benefits of a Teleprompter, which she uses often, is pretty blatant.
But then, Palin doesn't know much and what she reads, she often gets wrong. She apparently misread a column by Patrick Buchanan - although both she and Buchanan deny it - about whether Obama will go to war against Iran only for the political benefit, in an obvious ploy of the Republican right to damn Obama even if he does what they've long jonesed for: another war in the Middle East by air. Richard Pipes has long lusted for it, and it was his column that set this off.
And Chris Matthews.....
And Jon Stewart..........
If we're going to elevate unqualified women (or men...) to power, let's at least not make it dangerous but keep it entertaining. Former Democratic Governor of New York Elliot Spitzer is faced with having his former Madam, one Kristin Davis, running for that office.
From Wonkette:
Davis is running on a “taxation as confiscation” platform and also advocates legalizing prostitution and marijuana, saying that the potential $2.6 billion in revenue could help close the budget gap.
Davis and ["aide" Roger] Stone plan to use her racy connections to get some Penthouse Pets to pound the pavement getting signatures for a petition to put her on the ballot.
Davis claims to have some prominent backers such as rapper 50 Cent who has reportedly offered some of his G-Unit rap crew to work the phones.
No, I'm not serious, but Ms. Davis sounds like she is. And further, why not? It's a lot tougher being a Madam with high end hookers in The City than mayor of Wasilla or, for that matter, Governor of New York. Few will call the police on your behalf, a lot of violence, quick face reads necessary.
The ghastly plane crash over the weekend just a few miles from this computer is big news, and the passengers and pilot of the glider that released just before the planes hit were on the Today Show, which I missed, but it got good coverage. A kid, a Mom, and the young glider pilot who with great skill brought his craft down safely at the airport under what must have been trying circumstances: he was too low and too far to willingly choose that release point. Hail to him.
I do not doubt that the crash was an accident, but I still find it hard to understand how a slow moving plane, line, and glider - which constitute a large moving entity and a lot of noise - could be entirely missed by the other plane. Once seen, they forgot? They were distracted? I don't know what the laws actually are involving this sort of thing, but as on the sea, you're responsible for scanning your environment. Certainly, by definition and precedent, the towing of gliders in the area must grant some extra vigilance to other craft.
Big fan of Michelle Obama's attack on our fat kids, but I'd like to say that spending more money on school cafeteria lunches and breakfasts and all that may be a waste of time. You can set the most nutritious meals in front of kids - and good, hearty ones - but if they are addicted to sugar, that's all they want. And sugar at home, served by obese parents who want their kids to like the same stuff they do, and hate the same stuff they do, is the problem. Along with the parents.
The sugar industry is the great addiction, and unremarked as such. I love sugar, but when I started the South Beach Diet and dropped 90% of my intake, the appetite plunged as well. It makes you want more, always. I've been surprised that in all the talk about health, obesity isn't getting enough attention and the word 'sugar' isn't mentioned at all.
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All material on this site copyright Richard L. MacLeod (Dark Cloud) 1968-2010 unless otherwise stated.
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