First Draft

Suffering is Always Virtuous When It's Someone Else's Suffering

David Brooks, kids:

After an explosion of debt over the past few decades, Americans are now reacting strongly against the debt culture. According to the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll, three-quarters of Americans said they’d be better off if they carried no debt whatsoever. Not long ago, most people saw debt as a useful tool for consumption and enjoyment. Now they see it as a seduction and an obstacle.

By choice or necessity, eight million Americans have stopped using bank-issued credit cards, according to The National Journal. The average credit card balance has fallen 10 percent this year from 2010. Banks, households and businesses are all reducing their debt levels.

And this is proof that America is great again! Because we're all scared blind that the ground is going to drop out from under us tomorrow, we're not spending on anything we don't have to, and that proves we have rededicated ourselves to acting like a Norman Rockwell painting! 

No word, in this entire column, about whether David Brooks is spending less. About whether he is rededicating himself to the American value of burying all his wealth in a coffee can in the yard, or squirrelling money in various drawers throughout the house lest putting it all in one place tempt him to spend it on, you know, groceries, or maybe something frivolous like a book. This turning inward, to the great American value of realizing how fucked you are, that's for the little folks.

Which is SO GROSS. I was saying this last night to my mom in a conversation about something else, that nobody ever talks about their pain being beneficial or necessary or good until that pain is over. Nobody, mid-field amputation, is like, "I'm really glad you're cutting off my leg without anesthesia because this, right now, is leading me to a deeper understanding of my life and the universe's plan for me." Years later, you can talk about how this was just a bump in the road that led you to your spectacular good fortune at present, but while it's happening that doesn't mean shit.

Pierce does his usual fantastic job of vivisecting this nonsense:

Anyone who meekly suggested that, maybe, he'd like to put in 20 years at his job and collect a pension at the end of it that he could live on, was dismissed as a whiny relic of a past age, or as a state employee. And, in any case, part of the miracle of Wall Street was devising new and complicated financial instruments by which private pension plans could be pillaged for private profit. If David Brooks was concerned about this prior to 2008, when the people who go to dinner with him and who pay his honoraria nearly blew up the world, he kept devilishly quiet about it.

The generational hating is, as per usual, rage-inducing, because no matter what is going on (Brooks's lead references the 1960s, the only decade American political columnists remember in any way) it proves that the Young Folk are Finally Listening to Their Elders. When what's actually happening is that young people, trying to figure out what the fuck to do, looked at the righteous screwing their parents got from the world and said, you know what? Let's not do that anymore.

A.

Summing Up Chicago

Driftglass:

Whatever is happening on the 5th floor of City Hall and whatever gloss a drive-by steno like Friedman wants to put on it, the fact is that below decks thing are a mess.

Rahm's budget is shot because Daley hocked everything he could lay his hands to prop himself up for his final three years in office. This he did with the full support of the Chicago Machine wnd with the City Council acting as his willing accomplice.

Rahm's line workers are shot because for the last several years those who weren't clout-protected were driven like rented mules to make good on one special Mayoral imitative after another, while random layoffs dropped like bombs all around them.

THIS. Go read the whole thing, and drop your spare change in the fundraiser bucket while you're over there, so we can keep reading more sense amid all the Friedmanisms.

A.

Tuesday Night Music: Tiny Arrows

Today on Adrastos' obsession with the Jayhawks:

Tiny Arrows is one of the centerpieces of their new album, Mockingbird Time. It's a stone gorgeous tune with the Louris and Olson harmonies that many of us pined for lo these many years. Sheesh, how fanboyish is that?

 

The Fight's Not Over

November 8 is going to be a very big day in Ohio:

LIMA — Off-duty firefighters and police officers walked door-to-door Saturday, urging Lima residents to vote “no” in next month's ballot fight over the state's collective-bargaining overhaul.

About 40 cops and firefighters took part in the canvassing, organized as Protect Ohio's Protectors, part of the We Are Ohio coalition opposing the collective-bargaining law known as Senate Bill 5. We Are Ohio is the union-backed coalition that spearheaded efforts to get the referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot and continues pushing for S.B. 5's defeat.

“It's a safety issue, not just for the firefighters, but it translates to safety for the citizens of Lima,” said Sean Carpenter, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 334 and one of the canvass volunteers. “One thing they're going to take away from us is the ability to sit down at the negotiating table and determine manning factors, determine the type of equipment that we have.”

Via Dan on Twitter.

A.

A Gentle Reminder

Jokes are funny.

If something isn't funny, it's not a joke.

And no, this doesn't depend on your point of view, and all humor isn't inherently hateful, and political correctness is not ruining anyone's ability to be hilarious.

It's Monday, and I thought maybe we could all use a little refresher.

A.

People Don't Want Stupid, Trivial News

Shocking:

But gradually, the interest from readers began to eclipse the interest from other journalists and a subtle shift began to take place in our newsroom priorities. A good example was our coverage of the UK government's health reforms, which many readers felt didn't do justice to the worrying revolution facing one of Britain's national treasures. We initially responded by ramping up our live coverage of the two-day NHS debate in the House of Lords - attracting over 1,000 comments. But we also asked our health reporter to do a bit of digging and list today an upcoming story on how cuts have already begun to hit services.

I'm tired of watching newspapers and news organization justify their downward spirals into triviality and TMZ-style celebrity crap by saying that's what readers want, when they often have no more data than a "most e-mailed" stat from their cluttered, ugly web sites.

A.

Herman Cain meets John Lennon

Herman Cain is one of the zaniest semi-major Presidential candidates ever. He's a laugh a minute jokester: didja hear the one about the 'lectrical fence that'll fry Meskins? It was a sidebuster I tell ya. My innards are still burnin' from laughin' my ass off...

Cain's latest weirdo moment is an oldie but goodie. I learned today via Dave Weigel that Herman is a poet and he knows it. Well, maybe not a poet but he's a parody lyricist, ladies and gentleman, I give you the Lennon-Cain composition, Imagine There's No Pizza. Cain's intro appears at 2:01 and he belts out his ode to peace-n-pizza at the 3:50 mark. Imagine that:

 

I have a confession: I have no idea if Cain himself wrote these ridiculous lyrics but it was funnier to imagine that he had done so. I have yet another confession: Imagine is perhaps my least favorite John Lennon numbah so I kinda enjoy seeing its bubble popped by Cain who sounds a bit like a low rent Billy Ecsktine.

I'd like to thank Dave Weigel for digging up this wacky nugget as well as posting the lyrics, which were probably written by one of Cain's flacks or one of the Keebler Elves:

Imagine there's no pizza
I couldn't if I tried
Eating only tacos
Or Kentucky Fried
Imagine only burgers
It's frightening and sad

You're lucky you have pizza
To feed for kids for you
Only frosting or cookies
And no dishes you must do
Imagine eating pizza
Each and every day

You may say that it's junk food
But to me it's so much more
It gives my life its meaning
And it makes a lot of dough

Imagine mozzarella
Anchovies on the side
And maybe, pepperoni
Rounds out your pizza pie
Imagine getting pizza
Delivered to your door

You don't have to give up now
On my skateboard I will go
I'll be back in 30 minutes
I just bought Dominoes

All I am saying
Is give pizza a chance
All I am saying
Give pizza a chance
All I am saying
Is give pizza a chance
All I am saying
You've got to, got to give pizza a chance

Go Fuck Yourself, Bill Keller, You Solipsistic Jackass

I wish I had something more civil and acceptable to say, but honestly, when I talk about why newspapers are currently sucking donkey sack, this is basically the sort of thing I mean:

Bored by the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street? Fed up (Fed Up!) with the presidential Race to the Bottom? Depressed by the warning signs of the next Depression?

I bring relief. Like Nurse Jackie scavenging in the medicine chest for stray painkillers, I have assembled some capsules of hope from places you probably haven’t noticed lately, because the dominant news is so disheartening you can’t bear to proceed beyond the front page.

Hee hee, protesting is silly and boring and none of those people matter and nobody's opinion is really important compared to My View of Big World Events, which will not affect my paycheck no matter how wrong it is. Also, reality is depressing. Depressing is bad. Depressing is something I should combat in my columns! Get happy, everybody, Europe's about to fuck over its middle class almost as bad as we do right here!

Also, a reference to a Showtime program makes me relevant. Hipness! Young people!

I especially love how his implicit suggestion to readers is that if the news is bothering them, they should seek out good news or feel free, with the editor's express permission, to tune out and claim some kind of burnout caused by reading the fucking paper. As if that's just like patrolling Fallujah or something. As if that is an excuse you even GET, when the earth is caving in. You're tired of reading bad news?

Imagine living it, you rich horsefuckers.

You know what an alternate way to go would be? To politely suggest to readers that if they find unregulated capitalism stifling, to get off their asses and change it. To nudge readers toward action in regards to a Republican presidential field that is a mix of mildly stupid and full-on evil, such that perhaps they would demand different candidates. To point out that a coming second Depression is entirely a creature animated by political will, and that no matter how much money corporations pour into elections if everybody voted instead of about half of us, those corporate bagmunchers wouldn't be able to control SHIT.

All that stuff requires passion for one's community, a drive to improve the lives of readers and the ability to not give a fuck about the ragaholic conservative message groups that will be screaming bloody blue murder about the liberal New York Times. I don't see Bill Keller, of all people, having the stones to actually make any of that stick. Besides, what the fuck difference does it make to him? He's not missing a meal no matter how many protesters get maced outside his building.

If you want to know why newspapers are dying, don't look at the Internet. Don't look at conservative versus liberal bias. Look at the endlessly reinforced message that nothing MATTERS anymore, that nothing should matter, and that mattering is passé and probably Communist. You keep telling people not to give a shit, eventually they're going to listen to you.

A.

Quote of the day

It comes from Sean Penn during an appearance on Piers Morgan's CNN chat show:

"You have what I call the 'Get the N-word out of the White House party', the Tea Party," he said. "This kind of sensibility, which is much more of a distraction."

I bet the teabaggers liked him better when he was Spicoli...

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - DFHs edition

Good morning, gentle people - time for another trip into Freeperville.

Let's get those iso suits on and hit that airlock door, shall we?

Well - the Freeperati have been aching for a full-on police-thug beatdown, and Zucotti Park looked like the best venue to get their vicarious (because none of them have the guts to try it themselves) beatdown of the DFHs.

Premature ejection was what they were hoping for - what they got was:

Occupy Wall Street park cleaning postponed, averts showdown
CNN ^ | 7:35 AM EST, Fri October 14, 2011 | By the CNN Wire Staff

Posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:13:55 AM by lwd

New York (CNN) -- A cleaning planned for the Manhattan park where "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have camped out for weeks has been postponed, a move that averts a showdown between demonstrators and police.

The New York mayor's office said Brookfield Properties, the owners of Zuccotti Park, told the city late Thursday the scheduled cleaning is off for now and "for the time being" they are "withdrawing their request" made earlier in the week for police assistance during the cleaning operation.

"Our position has been consistent throughout: the City's role is to protect public health and safety, to enforce the law, and guarantee the rights of all New Yorkers. Brookfield believes they can work out an arrangement with the protesters that will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use and that the situation is respectful of residents and businesses downtown, and we will continue to monitor the situation," Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said

1 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:13:58 AM by lwd

 

To: lwd

Cleaning? The libs I’ve seen at these protests react to shampoo and to soap like vampires with garlic or a cross. They’d rather sleep or sit on the little “presents” that their friends leave on the grass (and occasionally on police cars) than experience cleanliness.

I on the other hand, hve just experienxed brainlessness.

You know, there aren't any showers in public parks, asswipe, so people leave to clean up and rest, then return, in an unending cycle.

You, however, can never scrub off the stink of stupid no matter how hard you might try.

.

Here ya go.

Bubble up.

3 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:17:46 AM by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)

I dunno - they look pretty clean to me.

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Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street from Steven Greenstreet on Vimeo.

 

To: lwd

Bloomingidiot cowers—next for New York—dysentery and the Black Plague.

5 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:18:26 AM by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)

I had no idea the 2012 RNC was going to be in New York. Nobody tells me anything.

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To: WKUHilltopper

Rudy would have run their asses out with the nightstick.

7 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:23:08 AM by Matt Hatter

Guiliani's nightstick has gotten him in too much trouble already,

.

Besides -

.

Just sayin'

To: Truth29

Maybe we can smuggle a rabbid raccoon in there. That should make it fun.

10 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:28:34 AM by New Jersey Realist (America: home of the free because of the brave)

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To: roaddog727

Spineless Jellyfish

True enough. But the longer this goes on, the worse it looks for everyone for whom that matters.

ORLY?

As Bonaparte once said, "Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake."

14 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:32:36 AM by Noumenon (The only 'NO' a liberal understands is the one that arrives at muzzle velocity.)

I couldn't agree more.

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To: lwd

Well they are really gonna fire-up now because they’ve just faced down the City of New York and the NYPD.

As far as I can tell two things happened:

- the Teamsters showed up in Zuccotti Park today around 6AM

- the property owners withdrew their request for police assistance (and I’d bet my next paycheck that Obama had just promised them another $100 mil in green energy grants)

Was dumb of Bloomberg to try this at 7AM on a weekday in the middle of all the morning TV news shows. You do stuff like this at 5:30AM on a Sunday when nobody is looking.

21 posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 7:48:03 AM by Buckeye McFrog

 

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I guess he didn't get the memo, because a lot of people were looking.  A lot.

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Some putrid potpourri after the you-know-what.

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Jindal blows a gaping hole in Perry's waterline even wider

 

All right - excuse me for getting out of my box, but I don't see this anywhere else on the interwebz. It made me choke on my ham, onion, and jalapeno omelette.

The MTP bobbleheads had the surrogates for Romney and Perry on this morning, and the subject turned to the M-word:

(Gregory) There’s this issue of”Governor Romney is a Mormon”, this has become an issue in the campaign, pastor Robery Jeffress introduced Rick Perry and said the following:

 (clip runs)

(Jefferson) “So we want a candidate who s a good, moral person? Or do we want a candidate who is a born-again follower of the lord Jesus Christ? Mitt Romney is a good, moral person – but he is not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity, yet it’s always been considered historically to be a cult by evangelical Christians,”

(clip ends)

 (Gregory) Has Governor Perry satisfactorily distanced himself from this pastor in Governor Romney’s mind?

 (Pawlenty) Well, in my view, David, it’s disappointing that Governor Perry and others who didn’t denounce pastor Jeffress and those comments more directly, We have a country where we don’t have prohibitions on a particular church attendance for public office. In fact, it’s prohibited in the U.S. Constitution.

 (Gregory) Governor Jindal, are you disappointed in Governor Perry? Have you told him he should more formally denounce…

 (Jindal) I don’t think it’s for any of us to judge somebody else’s religious views, their relationship with God. The Bible is very clear, that’s up to God, not us. (…) It’s not for any of us to judge somebody’s faith, relationship to God, I think that would be inappropriate. The Bible is very clear, that’s not our role.

OK.

Pawlenty says that religious tests are against the Constitution, and Jindal says the answers are RIGHT THERE IN THE BIBLE!!!

Even Perry has to be doing a facepalm over this one.

Sunday Morning Video: Howard Hawks

This is an excerpt from Richard Schickel's marvelous documentary series, The Men Who Made The Movies. Howard Hawks directed a score of classic films: Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday and two he discusses in the clip, To Have To Have Not and The Big Sleep. Hawks was not always a reliable storyteller in real life but he was always an interesting one. I'm uncertain, however, if he was ever stung by a dead bee..

 

Les Miles meets Elvis

Not really but the number one LSU Tigers kicked some more ass today, which means it was time for Les to do his happy dance. Hey, it beats the hell outta eating grass:

Weekend Question Thread

What book have you tried to finish, but just can't?

I get five or six pages into One Hundred Years of Solitude every time, and cannot get any farther.

A.

Malakas Of The Week: Hollywood Hacks

I hate remakes. There was never any reason to remake, say, Sabrina. When it came out I said: Who can top Bogie, Audrey and Holden? They didn't and it also laid an egg at the box office.At the time they claimed they did it because the original was in black and white. The original was not only a classic but boffo at the box office. Billy Wilder was alive at the time it came out and, while he didn't like the remake, he didn't object to being paid a second time for his script.

The latest unnecessary remake is of Footloose. Not a particular favorite of mine but it was a pretty good flick and also a big hit. It was in color so the other lame excuse doesn't apply. Not only that but it's essentially a recreation. Here's how Roger Ebert led his review:

There's one thing to be said for a remake of a 1984 movie that uses the original's screenplay. This 2011 version is so similar — sometimes song for song and line for line — that I was wickedly tempted to reprint my 1984 review, word for word. But That Would be Wrong. I think I could have gotten away with it, though. The movies differ in such tiny details (the hero now moves to Tennessee from Massachusetts, not Chicago) that few would have noticed.

Was there then, or is there now, a town in Tennessee or any other state in which the city council has passed a law against "dancing in public"? There may have been a brief period, soon after Elvis first began grinding his pelvis, and preachers denounced rock 'n' roll as "the devil's music." But for most young moviegoers, this plot point is going to seem so unlikely as to be bizarre.

I can't top that, y'all, other than pointing you to Matt Zoller Seitz's list of the worst remakes of all time. Remember this: behind every movie remake there's lassitude *and* malakatude.

Don't even get me started about teevee shows remade as movies...

Shorter LAT: Sit down, Cheeseheads, because we said so

The Los Angeles Times has taken time out of its busy schedule to let the folks in our fair flyover state know that they know better than we do when it comes to recall elections.

In an opinion run this week, the paper notes that the 2003 recall in California that sent Gray Davis home and the Governator out of the maid’s pants and into the state house was a bad outcome. They also note that: 

Recalls make it nearly impossible for state leaders to get anything done because they go into campaign mode rather than legislating mode. They worsen partisanship and, Davis' recall notwithstanding, they are usually a waste of time and money.

SNIP

Elections have consequences, and sometimes your side loses. Recalls are a useful tool when a politician commits misconduct, but that's not the case in Wisconsin. Democrats should accept that and move on.

 

In other words, from a sample of one, the folks in L.A. have determined that recalls are a bad idea and that Wisconsin should just let Governor Deadeyes do as he sees fit. Move along, Democrats. Nothing to see here. Please disperse.

Allow me to retort.

Yes, elections have consequences and we know that. It doesn’t take the Almighty Gods of Journalism ™ to tell us that. We’re dealing with the consequences of an election right now. Thanks for reminding us.

And the line about recalls making it impossible for state leaders to get anything done is really stupid. When someone is doing something that does nothing but create damage, you probably want to stop him. Or are you the type of folks who let your kid jump out of a moving car or shove a firecracker in a cat’s ass because you don’t want to curtail his sense of self-expression?

It’s also refreshing to know that the L.A. Times views the only area in which a recall should be used is during the case of misconduct. I wonder where the editorial board draws that line. Is it fucking the maid? Is it being an alcoholic? Is it dropping the “N” word on someone? Seems like these are the things that draw the most attention from the media when someone in some position of authority does them.

Or is it malfeasance of an epic level? Is it an attempt to plow under the other political party through actions that are so egregious that they merit lawsuits and massive protests? Is crushing public workers as you pad the pockets of the rich? Is it pulling off the election version of bait-and-switch, in which you appear to stand for vanilla politics to win and then decide to go all rocky road on our asses? Seems to me these things are precisely what a recall should be used for. It also seems to me these things fit Scott Walker to a T.

Just because you fucked up and elected an action movie hero with ZERO political experience as backlash against an OMG MEEEN TAXY DEM AND HIS CAR TAX, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recall this nub-head. That your piece fails use sources or research to provide a deep argument smacks of an arrogance bred from a paternal sense of massive egotism. In other words, “We know better. We did that once.”

It is offensive that the Times felt it necessary to “set us straight.”

But it is not nearly as offensive as Scott Walker has been to the state of Wisconsin.

The Right Honourable Gentleman From The Tweeter Tube

The British House of Commons has joined the 21st Century and will allow hand held electronic devices on the floor. A few Tory MP's got huffy about it; probably because they're afraid someone in their party will tweet something really stupid but it passed easily. I wonder if the Posh Boy will live tweet Prime Minister's Questions. Probably not, he's far too grand: he'll have Jeeves do it for him...

Hear, hear. Tweet, tweet.

Friday Ferretblogging

Packing peanuts are fun to play in, but they're also fun to curl up in, as insulation on a chilly autumn morning.

A.

Friday Catblogging: Groomathon

Yeah, I know: it looks like a lip lock but Oscar is a vigorous groomer. Just how Della likes it:

Thursday Night Music: She Will Have Her Way

For 8 years, Neil Finn was one of the best pop-rock songwriters ever. He's kind of settled into a middle aged mid-tempo rut but at his best, he can still bring it, as he did with this tune:

 

Reading Comprehension: You Haz It

This was predictable.

In response to our video of Jan Schakowsky claiming the parade of lunatics she lead last night was “patriotic,” despite not having one American flag present, Chicagoist.com author Chuck Sudo suggests, that burning the stars and stripes would be just as patriotic as not having one at the march.

Emphasis mine, because: predictably wrong.

Of course.

A.

Still in Recovery

 G Bitch on trauma and surviving it: 

And that’s been hard for some of us. Some are still stuck in anger. Others have passed through but to a new round of social withdrawal and/or numbing. Some of us have been lucky enough to find a little peace even if the door is opened with a bottle of Abita. Trauma is not simple. First you must establish some sense of safety. Then it is possible to remember, have someone bear witness to your pain and humanity, and begin reconnecting with the world and its people.

 

There's no such thing as getting over, Grandma would say. There's just getting on.

 

(God, lately I would sell everything I owned to have an hour with that woman again. Every single thing. I love you all, but I would kill and eat you, no kidding.)

 

When something traumatic happens people counsel to "take some time" and "talk to someone" and it just always sounds to me like the most infuriating crap. Take some time to do what? Sit on my bed and think about how awful everything is? Talk to someone, so that two of us can walk around with this in our heads?

 

When I'm very angry or very happy talking to someone is exactly what I want. When my chest feels crushed by hopelessness and I can't move because I'm such an utter failure at life, the last thing I want is somebody noticing how badly fucked up I am. I need to get an A in everything. I don't need you telling me the F isn't really that bad and I can retake the course. I know that. And I know that that isn't going to make a damn bit of difference until a couple of days from now, when the crushed feeling has become normalized, and I start thinking maybe I can live like this, bent over under it.

 

This isn't to say friends never help, but mostly when things are caving in and they ask, "What can I do?" the answer is "come over and eat food so that I have to get my ass out of bed and clean my house and make the food." So that I have to get on, when I can't get over. My best friends keep me out of my head, until such time as I can put one foot in front of the other without needing to write down directions first.

 

A.

Number 9, Number 9, Number 9

The political world has gone stark raving mad, bonkers, looney tunes or whatever your favorite word for crazy is. Herman Cain is the current temporary GOP frontrunner, which is the latest signal that Mitt Romney reminds women of their first husband or dull first boyfriend and men of the boring rich kid who was elected class President because nobody else wanted the hassle. In short, Mitt Haircut is a grind.

We've been here before in 1988 and with both parties. Ann Richards was the one who tagged Poppy Bush with the first hubby label. Bob Dole was like the grownup version of the schoolyard bully and eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was the grind. The minor and/or unelectable candidates were the fun ones: Jesse Jackson was the temporary frontrunner for the Dems after Gary Hart's zipper problem led to his, uh, premature withdrawal from the race. Hart returned but wasn't taken seriously.

Herman Cain is looking more and more like a weirdo mashup of Jesse Jackson and 1996 candidate Steve (Flat Tax) Forbes. Cain's 999 tax "reform" plan is breathtakingly simple and totally impractical, which makes it irresistible to GOP primary voters. Hell, it's a way the so-called 47% will have to pay taxes; what an awesome idea according to the Erick Erickson's of the world. It's not: sales taxes are the most regressive form of taxation, which is why Goopers love it so much. I live in a high sales tax state: in Orleans Parish it's 9% and that means that it would be 18% if Cain passed his plan. Mercifully, that won't happen.

Herman Cain is clearly one of the more entertaining candidates this time around and Mitt Haircut is robotic and dull BUT this election is depressingly winnable for the GOP. They've flirted with Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Chris Christie and now Herman Cain but I still expect a shotgun wedding between Republican voters and Romney. They're not quite ready to consumate the marriage but unless Rick Perry figures out how to run a national campaign, they'll have to "lie back and think of England" as the old saw goes.

Finally, the worst thing about Cain's 999 plan is that Revolution 9 is stuck in my head and it's the only Beatles track I hate. Damn you, pizza man:

 

Aggie Rhodes Scholar

From Album4

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children the governor of Texas learning."

Evidently not.

You know you're in trouble when the bad lip reading version is an improvement.

 

Today In Wisconsin Republican Heroics

Republican legislative consultant (file photo)

In their continuing quest to right all of the wrongs in the state, the Wisconsin Republicans have made a great leap forward.

Assemblyman Joel Kleefisch (R-Newgate) woke up recently, opened the lid of his coffin, and said to himself "You know who has it too easy around here?  Ex-cons.  Blah blah!" (Note--this is only a partial transcript.)  So the good Representative took it upon himself to do something to rectify this grave injustice. 

He thought and he thought, and he puzzled some more, and it finally came to him.  "Aha!" he said.  "I'll make it so that bosses, the most downtrodden group in this society, can refuse to hire people (or fire them) based on prior felony convictions!  This will restore balance to the world, and give those poor bosses a break they so sorely deserve."

So he drafted up a bill with the aid of the Captain up there, and presented it to his fellow freedom-defenders in the legislature today.  You see, Wisconsin law already allows employers to consider convictions in relevant fields when hiring, but it's not enough that a forger be kept away from banks and financial institutions.  What about poor Wal-Mart?  Who will stand up for them when a former embezzler is looking for a minimum-wage job?  Joel Kleefisch, that's who.  I mean, if those felons had wanted to reintegrate themselves into society, they should've thought of that before they committed their crimes, right?  It's only right that someone who was once in possession of one gram of cocaine should never be able to secure employment again.  Same for someone who gets into a bar fight and gets busted for felony assault. 

Thank Jesus for brave patriots like Joel Kleefisch.  I know there's no one who would be more approving of harsh penalties for criminals that Christ Himself. 

And the best part of this all?  There are no possible ill effects!  Fine, upstanding employers get to have ever-more control over the workforce, criminals won't be taking jobs from reg'lar folk, and everyone lives happily ever after.

 

 

In all seriousness, it's this kind of motherfuckery that makes me cheer for that goddamn meteor.  I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet that Rep. Kleefisch has ties to the for-profit prison "industry."  By making a class of people permanently unemployable, where do you think they're gonna be headed?  And, of course, there's the racial aspect to all of this; Black people make up about 6% of the population of the state, yet over 60% of the people sent to prison here are African-American.  That's a crying goddamn shame, and it's a stain on the state.  So who's disproportionately hurt by this?  The poor, and (especially) Black. Finally, since one of the stipulations of the bill is that counties and municipalities cannot pass more lenient laws, I guess we can finally put that "Republicans believe in greater local control of government" bullshit to rest, right?

Will this pass the legislature, get signed, and become law?  I don't know.  But in any event, this is some Class-A Motherfuckery, Joel Kleefisch. 

Frank Kameny, big damn hero

In Washington, DC yesterday, a man named Frank Kameny died quietly at home. He was 86. Fittingly enough, Kameny's death happened on National Coming Out Day, something we've been celebrating since 1988, when it was created to commemorate the great 1987 March on Washington, that October day when a quarter-million LGBT citizens came to their nation's capitol to remind the rest of the country that they too were Americans and wouldn't accept being treated as anything less. That such an event took place at all, that we still celebrate it nearly a quarter of a century later, that more people than ever before are out, that DADT is history now, that same-sex marriage is a reality—none of these things could have happened if pioneers like Frank Kameny hadn't paved the way for us.

"Hero" doesn't  seem big enough somehow to describe what Kameny was, what he accomplished, what he risked, but he was a hero and much more. He was out, proud, and fighting for his civil rights during times when it was truly dangerous, when doing so could get you fired, jailed, publicly shamed. All that and more happened to Kameny but he chose not to accept it.

That 1987 march was actually the second GLBT march on Washington, but decades before either, years before even the Stonewall Riots, Frank Kameny started fighting back. His career as an activist began in 1957, after he was fired for being gay.

Kameny, a WWII veteran, earned a PhD in astronomy from Harvard, taught for a year, then became a federal employee in 1957, working for the U.S. Army Map Service in DC. Not only was he fired within a year for being gay, he was (as was customary at the time) banned from from future federal employment. He appealed his termination all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

In 1965, Kameny was an organizer of the first-ever gay and lesbian protest at the White House to draw attention to government discrimination against homosexuals. Another LGBT pioneer, Jack Nichols, describes the event.

As we marched, I looked about at our well-dressed little band. Kameny had insisted that we seven men must wear suits and ties, and the women, dresses and heels. New Yorkers later complained that we Washingtonians looked like a convention of undertakers, but given the temper of the times, Kameny's insistence was apropos. "If you're asking for equal employment rights," he intoned, "look employable!" In the staid nation's capital, dressing for the occasion was, in spite of New York critics, proper.

We paraded in a small circle. Behind lampposts stood unknown persons photographing us. Were they government agents? Perrin and Otto wore sunglasses so absolute identification would be difficult should they fall prey to security investigations. We walked for an hour that passed, as I'd predicted, without incident. A few tourists gawked and there were one or two snickers, more from confusion than from prejudice.

We'd hoped for more publicity than we got. Only The Afro-American carried a small item about what we'd done. But we'd done it, and that was what mattered. We'd stood up against the power structure, putting our bodies on the line. Nothing had happened except that we'd been galvanized, and, to a certain extent, immunized against fear."

 Forty-four years later, Kameny was present in the Oval Office as President Obama signed a memorandum extending (limited) federal benefits to partners of gay federal employees.

 

Quote of the day

Former Saints Tight End Jeremy Shockey is now with Carolina and faced his former teammates last Sunday. He trash talked them during the game and didn't shake anyone's hand afterwards, which is poor form since Saints players and coaches have said nothing but nice things about him.

Shockey's tackiness inspired the normally mild-mannered voice of the Saints, Jim Henderson, to  lambaste him:

“I never liked Jeremy Shockey, I didn’t like him as a Giant.  I didn’t like him as a Saint.  I didn’t think he fit in with this team in the locker room.  And the Saints to their credit said all the right things about him.  You know, ‘He was a great teammate.  He was a mentor to Jimmy Graham.’  I think that’s bull.  I think deep down inside, I think they thought he was a jerk, too.”

Fuck Yeah, Robin Hood!

My city wins everything forever today.

A.

Recall Walker Effort to Begin Nov. 15th

 
(photo via Facebook)

Let the Recall Effort Begin!

From the Wisconsin Democratic Party Website:

This is it. This is history.

After weeks of discussion and positive collaboration with grassroots activists like you, today comes an historic announcement. In collaboration with United Wisconsin, the grassroots effort to recall Scott Walker will begin Nov. 15th.

It has become clearer than ever that the people of Wisconsin - the traditions and institutions of our great state - cannot endure any more of Scott Walker's abuses. To preserve Wisconsin, we must begin the recall of Walker as soon as possible.

This means that we only have a month to organize, train and fund an army of volunteers who will need to collect more than 540,206 valid recall signatures.

There are many ways that you will be able to help, but right now, as we announce this extraordinary undertaking, we need you to sign up to volunteer your time or make a donation.

Shorter Seattle Mayor: Come to Butthead

Now the strategy seems to be "annoy the protesters until they go away:"

However, that same SLOG piece reports that the Seattle Police Department are telling protesters they can't stand under awnings, use tarps nor sit down under an umbrellas ("you can't have an umbrella open unless you're standing and holding it," one policeman is quoted as saying).

Umbrellas. Really?

In other words, the mayor and the police department are attempting to break up the protesters by making it really inconvenient for them. It's a strategy, can't argue with that, even if it is exceedingly pedestrian and petty.

We're sure these moves are endearing him to somebody (or at least he seems to think so), but we are having a hard time imagining who they would be.

Most likely vague racists and fraidy-cats in the richest neighborhoods and farthest-flung suburbs, who like to talk about how they go into downtown "all the time" by which they mean a play and dinner once a year, after which they spend two weeks bitching about how a young/black/Hispanic/pink-haired person looked right at them with their eyeballs.

That's usually what makes up the crowd of voters who delight the most in pissing off liberals.

A.