Apparently a "Saturday Night Live" cast member by the name of Jenny Slate uttered the f-bomb during one of the skits this past weekend. (Considering that the word "freakin' " was used excessively throughout the sketch, one had to figure that a different f-word might easily pop out of a performers mouth.) I have to admit I had the program on tv but I wasn't paying attention to it. The sketch in question was one of the many on this show that are in general too awful to watch, so I started reading the newspaper (yes, I'm one of the few left who do that).
The really amazing thing about "Saturday Night Live," other than it's longevity (it's entering it's 35th year), is that in the course of one evening you can go from a bit that's really funny, as the "Weekend Updates" usually are, to a whole slew of bits that just stink so badly I have to turn away.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The New Rod the Mod
A unique spin on the typical Rod Blagojevich (D-Land of Corruption) interview, brought to us by WGN radio talk show host John Williams.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Dog Fighting and Day Care
The ignorant and violent nature of mankind should have ceased to amaze me long ago, but here I am being amazed again.
Cook County, Illinois Sheriff's Police raided a home in Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, and broke up a dog fighting ring.
This same home was also used as a day care facility.
Dog fighting and day care.
It's bad enough to run a dog fighting operation. It's a sick, twisted "sport" for those who get their hard-on's from inflicting cruelty and suffering on animals. It just heaps more garbage on the dung heap to have a day care in the same building where animals are tortured. This is a perfect example of the ignorance and cruelty of adults being taught to children.
(Are these alleged humans from the same human race that also gave us the Beatles and van Gogh and Martin Luther King, Jr? What is it about us that we humans can produce such drastically diverse creatures as Adolph Hitler and Mother Teresa, dog fighters and animal shelter operators?)
So, what to do with these Don King's of the dog world? You might not want to ask me. In my world, if I were king, litterbugs would be subject to the death penalty, so I may perhaps judge on the harsh side. Good thing for these dog fighters I'm not king.
Cook County, Illinois Sheriff's Police raided a home in Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, and broke up a dog fighting ring.
This same home was also used as a day care facility.
Dog fighting and day care.
It's bad enough to run a dog fighting operation. It's a sick, twisted "sport" for those who get their hard-on's from inflicting cruelty and suffering on animals. It just heaps more garbage on the dung heap to have a day care in the same building where animals are tortured. This is a perfect example of the ignorance and cruelty of adults being taught to children.
(Are these alleged humans from the same human race that also gave us the Beatles and van Gogh and Martin Luther King, Jr? What is it about us that we humans can produce such drastically diverse creatures as Adolph Hitler and Mother Teresa, dog fighters and animal shelter operators?)
So, what to do with these Don King's of the dog world? You might not want to ask me. In my world, if I were king, litterbugs would be subject to the death penalty, so I may perhaps judge on the harsh side. Good thing for these dog fighters I'm not king.
Friday, September 18, 2009
World Gone Crazy: Bill O'Reilly Supports Public Option
Apparently, Bill O'Reilly is a human. Who knew? Who knew there could be an ounce of compassion in this occasionally deranged tv show host? Finding out that the bombastically conservative O'Reilly supports the public option is like finding out the grinch has a heart. Now, if Bill O'Reilly supports a public option, can we just get President Obama to support one too?
The Bauchus health care bill, the one without a public option and no means of decreasing insurance costs, but with a fine for those who choose to remain uninsured, is actually worse than having no health care bill at all. The average, uninsured American would not be able to afford this bill, if it passes in it's current state.
The Bauchus health care bill, the one without a public option and no means of decreasing insurance costs, but with a fine for those who choose to remain uninsured, is actually worse than having no health care bill at all. The average, uninsured American would not be able to afford this bill, if it passes in it's current state.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Chalk One Up for Fox
So, this is what it has come down to: the hate filled white men at Fox News Network get something right. In a big way. Fox sent a couple of skinny white kids to Acorn offices to see how Acorn workers would react to say, helping the youngsters set up a house of prostitution. Well, not only did the Acorn people not have a problem with prostitution, they didn't seem to have a problem with child prostitutes either when it was mentioned that the "pimp" would be bringing underage Latin American girls to work for him.
Couple things come to mind right away: If you watch the video, the young man dressed as a "pimp" couldn't be more goofy or fake looking. I mean, really, a fur coat in the middle of summer? And this fooled the nuts at Acorn? For that alone they should have been fired. Also, you have to give props to Fox News for exposing just how awful some of the people working at Acorn are. An investigation needs to happen at a Federal level before we give these people one more cent of tax payer money. Finally, I have to give a shout out to the people at the Daily Show, frequent critics of the angry old guys at Fox, for acknowledging the good that Fox did with this story.
Couple things come to mind right away: If you watch the video, the young man dressed as a "pimp" couldn't be more goofy or fake looking. I mean, really, a fur coat in the middle of summer? And this fooled the nuts at Acorn? For that alone they should have been fired. Also, you have to give props to Fox News for exposing just how awful some of the people working at Acorn are. An investigation needs to happen at a Federal level before we give these people one more cent of tax payer money. Finally, I have to give a shout out to the people at the Daily Show, frequent critics of the angry old guys at Fox, for acknowledging the good that Fox did with this story.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
After 9-11: What Could Have Been
9-11 has rolled around again, as it will every year until time rolls no longer. With this day comes the inevitable grief and sadness. We all know what happened, no American could forget that. We all live with the tragedy. There is grief and there is sadness and there is great frustration.
The mastermind behind the act is still free to roam the earth and that's because the Cowboy in charge at the time talked it, but did not walk it. He had attention deficit disorder and took his eyes off the prize, the real prize not the one they found in a spider hole.
On September 11, 2001 George W. Bush was at a crossroads in history.
Go down the path of FDR and Churchill and rally the free world to the fight against terrorism, which is truly a global problem just as the Nazis were in the dark decade before World War II. The days after 9-11-01 saw more sympathy and solidarity for the US than there ever had been before and there may never be again. Thus, the time to unite the world was then. The time to conquer the enemies of freedom and democracy and civilization itself was then, at that moment.
Had that path been taken George W. Bush would now be thought of as one of the greatest presidents ever, perhaps one of the great world leaders of history.
Instead, he choose the Cowboy path, talking tough through gritted teeth, with eyes narrowed into slits. "Fer us or agin' us." But a weak cowboy he was. He told us all to go shopping. Go to the malls, else the terrorists win. He removed a dictator from Iraq, which was a good thing, but it was a diversion, ultimately a much bigger and more distracting diversion than Bush thought it would be. It took US away from the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the creation of a world united to destroy Islamist terrorism forever.
Bush took us down the path that led to distrust of American motives and a world that tries to pretend the problem of Islamist terrorism is no real problem at all.
George W. Bush is a tale of what could have been. That's one of the greatest tragedies of 9-11. What could have been.
The mastermind behind the act is still free to roam the earth and that's because the Cowboy in charge at the time talked it, but did not walk it. He had attention deficit disorder and took his eyes off the prize, the real prize not the one they found in a spider hole.
On September 11, 2001 George W. Bush was at a crossroads in history.
Go down the path of FDR and Churchill and rally the free world to the fight against terrorism, which is truly a global problem just as the Nazis were in the dark decade before World War II. The days after 9-11-01 saw more sympathy and solidarity for the US than there ever had been before and there may never be again. Thus, the time to unite the world was then. The time to conquer the enemies of freedom and democracy and civilization itself was then, at that moment.
Had that path been taken George W. Bush would now be thought of as one of the greatest presidents ever, perhaps one of the great world leaders of history.
Instead, he choose the Cowboy path, talking tough through gritted teeth, with eyes narrowed into slits. "Fer us or agin' us." But a weak cowboy he was. He told us all to go shopping. Go to the malls, else the terrorists win. He removed a dictator from Iraq, which was a good thing, but it was a diversion, ultimately a much bigger and more distracting diversion than Bush thought it would be. It took US away from the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the creation of a world united to destroy Islamist terrorism forever.
Bush took us down the path that led to distrust of American motives and a world that tries to pretend the problem of Islamist terrorism is no real problem at all.
George W. Bush is a tale of what could have been. That's one of the greatest tragedies of 9-11. What could have been.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Not Only Was He the Walrus, but a Beauteous Lady As Well
Here I am, trying to capitalize on the new Beatlemania, a day after the release of Beatles Rock Band, a day late and a dollar short, as always. But what the heck, here's a little something different I came across on a blog dedicated to Beatles tv appearances. Here our heroes do Shakespeare, in a way that proves the English are quite daft.
Way Gone
This is a pretty funny video. The dancing is, like, really wiggy, man. This is the original version of "Gone, Gone, Gone." While Robert Plant and Alison Krauss did a nice job doing this song, the Everly Brothers were just a bit more fun.
Not Such a Grand Old Party
This is what it's come down to. A member of the Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt (Teddy), Goldwater and Eisenhower, heckling the President of the United States during a speech before a joint session of Congress. Very nice.
All politicians and political parties lust for power, but the Republicans and their epic-level pouting over their loss of power has reduced them to acting like shrill, almost insane but highly dangerous 2-year-olds in the midst of a violent tantrum. They should be ashamed. Lincoln would disown these people.
All politicians and political parties lust for power, but the Republicans and their epic-level pouting over their loss of power has reduced them to acting like shrill, almost insane but highly dangerous 2-year-olds in the midst of a violent tantrum. They should be ashamed. Lincoln would disown these people.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Chicago Way
Barack Obama has so far been a far worse president than I would have thought, and it's because of the things he hasn't done rather than the things I thought he would do. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times nicely sums up in this column just how lame the president and the Congress-controlling Democrats have been, particularly on the health care issue.
As a native Chicagoan I find it embarrassing that President Obama is thought of as one of us. No Chicagoan would put up with the treatment that this guy has tolerated. Republicans and blue dog Democrats have been kicking Obama in the nuts all summer long and he's taken it until now, tonight, when he addresses Congress, for him to react.
A true Chicagoan, at the first sight of a skirmish, would have put up his dukes and said, with a contemptuous scowl, "Bring it on," and then would have administered some good old fashioned ass whooping. "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours in the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."
Instead, Obama just took it, and didn't even appear to get the least bit angry. Perhaps he was waiting for the right time for "civil discourse" but that is not possible in this time of insanity. We need a fighting president, not a school marm.
Obama was born in Hawaii. Maybe they don't angry there, but I doubt it. I don't what planet this emotionless Obama is from, but it isn't Planet Chicago.
As a native Chicagoan I find it embarrassing that President Obama is thought of as one of us. No Chicagoan would put up with the treatment that this guy has tolerated. Republicans and blue dog Democrats have been kicking Obama in the nuts all summer long and he's taken it until now, tonight, when he addresses Congress, for him to react.
A true Chicagoan, at the first sight of a skirmish, would have put up his dukes and said, with a contemptuous scowl, "Bring it on," and then would have administered some good old fashioned ass whooping. "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours in the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."
Instead, Obama just took it, and didn't even appear to get the least bit angry. Perhaps he was waiting for the right time for "civil discourse" but that is not possible in this time of insanity. We need a fighting president, not a school marm.
Obama was born in Hawaii. Maybe they don't angry there, but I doubt it. I don't what planet this emotionless Obama is from, but it isn't Planet Chicago.
Screwed: Me and You, the Rest of America and Health Care
My plan was to do some research on health care in America, how much we spend on it in this country, how good or bad is the insurance industry, how do we compare health-wise to the rest of the industrialized world.
I'm way too lazy to do all that. And it would be boring to do, looking up all those statistics and facts and what not and then compiling them into a readable article. Impossible. Who gives a fuck about all that stuff?
Yes, I know it's important, but it's dull and people don't really want to take time for a serious look at the facts of health care in America. If they did, debate on the subject would not have been seized by loudmouths on the insurance lobby payroll who are trying to convince the dim amongst us that Uncle Sam will be chairing Death Panels that will vote to put your ailing grandma out to sea on an ice floe that just broke away from a larger ice mass that is melting because of the climate change that conservatives tell us isn't occurring. If grandma is lucky she'll freeze to death before that starving polar bear that's swimming toward her can get up on the ice and have her for dinner. But I digress.
So I'm just going to tell you what I know already without having to look anything up:
I'm screwed.
So are you.
So is the rest of America. We're all screwed. It's just a matter of the degrees of screwedness. (I just made a word up!)
It doesn't matter what kind of legislation is passed regarding health care reform, whether there is a public option or co-ops or a Health Care Fairy who will wave a magic wand from sea to shining sea to keep us all safe, we are all screwed. It's just a matter of how screwed are we going to be.
If the status quo remains, sooner rather than later the Average American who has to buy their own health insurance will have to choose between paying the ever increasing premium on that insurance or buying groceries and paying the rent or mortgage. The Average American will have insurance but will be homeless and starving.
If the Average American happens to have a job, a rare thing these days, he may get insurance through his employer. But insurance costs the employer money, and more and more frequently the cost is being shouldered by the employee. That is, until the employee is laid off as part of a cost cutting measure, one of those costs getting cut being health insurance for employees. Fewer employees, less money spent on employee insurance.
The public option of health care legislation sounds like a good thing, especially if it covers those many Average Americans who have no insurance at all, something like 40 million people. (There's one of those pesky statistics. Are you still awake? Still reading this, or have you gone off to buy The Beatles Rock Band? Pay attention! Just a couple more paragraphs. I'll make them short, I promise.)
Every American, I believe, should have access to affordable insurance for medical treatment. Anything less makes us less of a Great Nation.
The problem with insurance for Everybody is that Everybody's taxes are going to go up. There's no two ways around that, no matter what any chosen one may promise.
But I've thought about it, and I think we're screwed less, a lot less probably, with a public option than if we let things remain as they are. Bring on the Public Option!
Now we just need a Leader (I can't stress that word enough) who will force this to happen. As brilliant as Barack Obama was at running a campaign to win the presidency is how miserable a job he's done at coming up with a health plan and selling it to Americans. Worse, he can't even get a congress controlled by his own party to play along.
George W. Bush and his henchman, Dick Cheney, rammed a war and a homeland spy program through a Republican congress without a hitch. Why can't Barack Obama do this? Is it because Joe Biden is no Dick Cheney (which he is not)? Or does Obama suffer from Bill Clinton syndrome, and prefers to be liked by everyone rather than effective?
Obama needs to start playing rough with the members of his own party to get this health care with a public option, maybe even a single payer option, done. The Chosen One needs to stop acting like the Chosen One and more like the Chicago-style politician that everybody thinks he is. He isn't, or at least he hasn't been. Way too kid gloves so far, and not enough bare knuckles. If Chicago Mayor Richard Daley were president, the health care bill would have been rammed through a long time ago. Obama is no Daley. Not yet. Can he become one?
That's the only way to succeed here, for Obama to be more Daley and a lot less Clinton. Better still, he needs to be more like our former vice-president. Obama needs to go to Capitol Hill, twist some arms, and if anybody puts up a fight he should go all Dick Cheney on their asses. As for the Republicans, screw them, they're unnecessary. Health care reform can be passed without them, and then the Republicans will look even more obsolete than they look now.
The public option is too important for the future of America for Barack Obama to worry about being liked. When the president goes before Congress tonight he needs to spell out a plan for them to pass and make sure everyone knows they either need to play along or get out of the way.
I'm way too lazy to do all that. And it would be boring to do, looking up all those statistics and facts and what not and then compiling them into a readable article. Impossible. Who gives a fuck about all that stuff?
Yes, I know it's important, but it's dull and people don't really want to take time for a serious look at the facts of health care in America. If they did, debate on the subject would not have been seized by loudmouths on the insurance lobby payroll who are trying to convince the dim amongst us that Uncle Sam will be chairing Death Panels that will vote to put your ailing grandma out to sea on an ice floe that just broke away from a larger ice mass that is melting because of the climate change that conservatives tell us isn't occurring. If grandma is lucky she'll freeze to death before that starving polar bear that's swimming toward her can get up on the ice and have her for dinner. But I digress.
So I'm just going to tell you what I know already without having to look anything up:
I'm screwed.
So are you.
So is the rest of America. We're all screwed. It's just a matter of the degrees of screwedness. (I just made a word up!)
It doesn't matter what kind of legislation is passed regarding health care reform, whether there is a public option or co-ops or a Health Care Fairy who will wave a magic wand from sea to shining sea to keep us all safe, we are all screwed. It's just a matter of how screwed are we going to be.
If the status quo remains, sooner rather than later the Average American who has to buy their own health insurance will have to choose between paying the ever increasing premium on that insurance or buying groceries and paying the rent or mortgage. The Average American will have insurance but will be homeless and starving.
If the Average American happens to have a job, a rare thing these days, he may get insurance through his employer. But insurance costs the employer money, and more and more frequently the cost is being shouldered by the employee. That is, until the employee is laid off as part of a cost cutting measure, one of those costs getting cut being health insurance for employees. Fewer employees, less money spent on employee insurance.
The public option of health care legislation sounds like a good thing, especially if it covers those many Average Americans who have no insurance at all, something like 40 million people. (There's one of those pesky statistics. Are you still awake? Still reading this, or have you gone off to buy The Beatles Rock Band? Pay attention! Just a couple more paragraphs. I'll make them short, I promise.)
Every American, I believe, should have access to affordable insurance for medical treatment. Anything less makes us less of a Great Nation.
The problem with insurance for Everybody is that Everybody's taxes are going to go up. There's no two ways around that, no matter what any chosen one may promise.
But I've thought about it, and I think we're screwed less, a lot less probably, with a public option than if we let things remain as they are. Bring on the Public Option!
Now we just need a Leader (I can't stress that word enough) who will force this to happen. As brilliant as Barack Obama was at running a campaign to win the presidency is how miserable a job he's done at coming up with a health plan and selling it to Americans. Worse, he can't even get a congress controlled by his own party to play along.
George W. Bush and his henchman, Dick Cheney, rammed a war and a homeland spy program through a Republican congress without a hitch. Why can't Barack Obama do this? Is it because Joe Biden is no Dick Cheney (which he is not)? Or does Obama suffer from Bill Clinton syndrome, and prefers to be liked by everyone rather than effective?
Obama needs to start playing rough with the members of his own party to get this health care with a public option, maybe even a single payer option, done. The Chosen One needs to stop acting like the Chosen One and more like the Chicago-style politician that everybody thinks he is. He isn't, or at least he hasn't been. Way too kid gloves so far, and not enough bare knuckles. If Chicago Mayor Richard Daley were president, the health care bill would have been rammed through a long time ago. Obama is no Daley. Not yet. Can he become one?
That's the only way to succeed here, for Obama to be more Daley and a lot less Clinton. Better still, he needs to be more like our former vice-president. Obama needs to go to Capitol Hill, twist some arms, and if anybody puts up a fight he should go all Dick Cheney on their asses. As for the Republicans, screw them, they're unnecessary. Health care reform can be passed without them, and then the Republicans will look even more obsolete than they look now.
The public option is too important for the future of America for Barack Obama to worry about being liked. When the president goes before Congress tonight he needs to spell out a plan for them to pass and make sure everyone knows they either need to play along or get out of the way.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Indoctrinate This!
Today is the day. In just over an hour President Obama will attempt to indoctrinate the school children of America. Right in their own classrooms! Not only that, it will all be done on the tax payers dime. Once again, the God fearing, flag pin wearing tax payers of America will be taken for a ride.
The White House claims that President will be talking to the students about the importance of staying in school, doing your homework, and listening to one’s parents. These are all obvious code phrases, direct from the Kremlin’s Big Book o’ Propaganda, for “turn your school into a socialist organizing center,” “study the Communist Manifesto day and night” and “let me know if your parents are Republicans, and if they are don’t cry if they’re taken away suddenly in the night.”
Just moments ago I was listening to one of President Obama’s socialist propaganda tools, also known as mainstream media news radio, and, with the intention, I’m sure, of making this person sound like a crackpot, the station played a quote from an opponent of the President’s speech to the schools (frightening admission: I’m not making up this quote), “I don’t want my child growing up to be a community organizer.”
Right you are, my fellow citizen! We don’t want Obama or anyone else encouraging our children to become involved in the world around them. Community organizing? I think that’s how Stalin got his start. One day, Old Joe was driving senior citizens to the voting booth, the next day all of Eastern Europe was enslaved. It happened just that quickly. That concerned parent was right not to want his child to be a community activist. That’s just not the kind of future we want for America, where people are concerned with each other’s welfare. Welfare? That’s what the president wants us all to be on!
Parents, keep your children home if you don’t agree with President Obama and his politics. What better lesson to teach your children than to completely ignore those with a different point of view and criticize those ignorant enough not to agree with you without actually knowing what they’re going to say.
Stay strong America, stay strong.
The White House claims that President will be talking to the students about the importance of staying in school, doing your homework, and listening to one’s parents. These are all obvious code phrases, direct from the Kremlin’s Big Book o’ Propaganda, for “turn your school into a socialist organizing center,” “study the Communist Manifesto day and night” and “let me know if your parents are Republicans, and if they are don’t cry if they’re taken away suddenly in the night.”
Just moments ago I was listening to one of President Obama’s socialist propaganda tools, also known as mainstream media news radio, and, with the intention, I’m sure, of making this person sound like a crackpot, the station played a quote from an opponent of the President’s speech to the schools (frightening admission: I’m not making up this quote), “I don’t want my child growing up to be a community organizer.”
Right you are, my fellow citizen! We don’t want Obama or anyone else encouraging our children to become involved in the world around them. Community organizing? I think that’s how Stalin got his start. One day, Old Joe was driving senior citizens to the voting booth, the next day all of Eastern Europe was enslaved. It happened just that quickly. That concerned parent was right not to want his child to be a community activist. That’s just not the kind of future we want for America, where people are concerned with each other’s welfare. Welfare? That’s what the president wants us all to be on!
Parents, keep your children home if you don’t agree with President Obama and his politics. What better lesson to teach your children than to completely ignore those with a different point of view and criticize those ignorant enough not to agree with you without actually knowing what they’re going to say.
Stay strong America, stay strong.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
John Coltrane "Alabama"
I've been listening to a lot of John Coltrane lately. Don't know why, I just am. Maybe it's because it fits. The music, the sound, the feel, the depth fits the times we live in. Coltrane expresses with a saxophone the essence of life itself: Joy and Melancholy. Coltrane is a great joy to listen to, especially when he creates an almost free-form sound while retaining a melody. That is Joy. But the sound, the depth of his sound, there you find the blues, you hear Melancholy made into musical notes. Coltrane, gone since the height of the '60s, the Summer of Love, fits the times in which we live now, a time oddly similar to the 1960s with all it remarkable change; we too now live in a time of rapid change, a time of fear and loss, a time of freedom and overwhelming choice, a lot of love and a lot of hate, war and peace, great happiness, great sadness, lots of extremes and extremists. And life goes on, day after day. Joy and Melancholy.
Californian Gives Health Care the Finger
At a health care reform rally in California, one protester bit a finger off the hand of another protester. Authorities are unsure which person was pro-reform and which was anti-reform. One hopes that both the bitee and the bitten have health insurance to cover the medical costs incurred (if you bite a fellow human, don't you need rabies shots or a tetnus shot or something).
These health care rallies are really getting out of control. The protesters all need to calm down and get a grip. Which will be a bit more difficult for the newly nine-fingered amongst us.
These health care rallies are really getting out of control. The protesters all need to calm down and get a grip. Which will be a bit more difficult for the newly nine-fingered amongst us.
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