Harry Kalas is gone...

There are some people whom, though you may never have met them in your life, their loss nevertheless fills you with profound sadness. Today Harry Kalas, known to Phillies fans as "Harry the K" died. Growing up in the seventies and watching the Phillies, I remember that voice so well. Hearing it to the present day it always stirred memories of watching games with my father. Mr. Kalas' voice was an incredible gift, and it always gave games added emotion and drama. Listening to Harry, you felt as though each home run or strikeout was another play in a competition taking place on Olympus. When watching with my dad our emotions would reach great heights whenever "Michael Jack Schmidt" (Harry always included his middle name" ) hit a home run, and the emotional of those moments helped bond us, despite the disagreements and arguments that would plague us in later years. With my father's passing, it seemed when I would hear Harry the K's voice broadcasting the Phillies, there was still a ghost of my father still in the room, and I was still a kid watching, looking up to my father for his take on the game, both of us filled with simple happiness at the joys one gets from watching baseball. Now that he has gone, it seems one more link in the chain of memories connecting me to my father has been lost. So rest in peace in Harry. Whatever game they play in heaven, they just found an announcer for it.

Sadism, the fright wing, and the "Other".

I came across this by Glenn Greenwald from a few months back that I missed. Sums things up all too well.

The Media Double Standard

Andrew Sullivan points out the double standard in today's media. Under Bush they failed utterly in their job as government watchdogs. They were instead lapdogs for Bush and rolled over anytime the administration complained. If I hear one more time about the "liberal media"-especially in light of the fact that so far they have been harder on Obama than they ever were on Bush (and I consider that a good thing, believe it or not), I think I will commit hari-kari.

Battlestar Galactica: Post-immersion thereapy for a 9/11 world

I've become quite a fan of the show, though it wasn't until between the second and third seasons; I rented the DVD's and became quite an addict. One of the reasons is because the show addresses so many issues, and not from a bombastic, preachy point of view. Rather it leaves a lot of ambiguity and for the viewer to decide many of these issues for themselves (treating viewers like adults, what a concept). This recent article sums up the show's appeal very well.

Wall Street is decadent and depraved

The awesome Matt Taibbi breaks it all down for us. Our country has become a plutocracy right under our noses, and if you aren't a Wall Street money man (or woman) you are the modern version of a slave in Mississippi circa 1850. The system is truly broken, and sadly Obama is not going to be the man to fix it-at least not now. Maybe he might wake up at some point and smell the coffee burning, and realize that Geithner, Summers, and the rest of the bozos that he has brought in to manage this mess are simply the same men with different names who got us into this mess in the first place. But I doubt it. Not that McCain would have done better. In fact he would have been worse, because he and his crew would have insisted less regulation is the way to go and would have put into power the odorous Phil Gramm, even worse than Geithner or Summers. But this just underscores my point: Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter. The rich literally own and run this country now, and the rest of us are not only along for the ride, but we have to pay to fix the damn roller coaster when it breaks down, not the ones who invented it in the first place.

The Decline and Fall of the Republican Party

Many Republicans are turning against the Limbaugh led idiots that claim to be the "conservative" party. If this keeps up not only do they risk being insignificant to today's political debate, they might actually splinter into separate factions.

Gaza

The animator of Waltz with Bahir has created an animated short about the plight of Gaza's civilians. One of his goals, he says, was to show that not all Israelis want war with the Palestinians.

Today's Republican Party

This sums it all up, better than any words can.

An argument for national health care

Nicolas Kristof, who I'm not always a fan of, has an excellent column on what this country desperately needs, a national health care system. Obama might be the man to get us at least closer to that promised land.

Liberal Media Bias: The myth revealed

There have been plenty of studies in the past that demonstrate how false the idea of "Liberal media bias" really is. Here is a new one.

Right wing doublethink

Good column about the fright wing's attempts to discredit the New Deal. Down the memory hole it goes. A perfect example of Orwell's slogan "He who controls the past, controls the present".

Stay classy, rightwingers...

In case you haven't heard, the Murdoch owned New York Post published a cartoon comparing the raging chimpanzee to Obama. Along with things like "Barack, the Magic Negro", the Republicans are determined to take us back to antebellum days, it would seem.

Infantile humor time

OK, couldn't resist posting this. So sue me.

Tax cheats

Looks like the Democrats aren't the only ones skipping on their taxes. Joe the Plumber was reported on previously, but now Sarah "Hockey Mom" Palin also owes.

Addendum: I forgot the link, silly me.

Wall Street Taliban

Dennis Blair, the new Director of Intelligence, says we have more to fear from Wall Street than Islamic terrorists. I don't always go for doomsday scenarios, but there is no doubt that periods of economic distress in history have resulted in great upheavals. Look at the Great Depression and the rise in both fascism and communism. If the forecasts are as dark as many predict, we might be in for a stormy ride these next few years. Time to batten down the hatches and barricade the home fortress from the barbarians at the gate. Who as it turns out live on our own Wall Street.

Republican Jihad

Good piece by Andrew Sullivan about the Republican tactics. Can you imagine if the Democrats said "We're going to use the tactics of the Taliban" in fighting Bush? It would be 24/7 Republican talking heads on the media until an apology was issued. When a Republican issues it, barely a peep from the mainstream media. The Republican Party doesn't care a whit about this country's troubles, they only care that Obama doesn't succeed.

The Obstructionists, Part Deux

As another example of obstructionism, I give you the Minnesota Senate fight. You can be damn sure if this was the reverse that Republicans would be screaming like stuck pigs and scaring the news media into covering 24/7 how the Democrats are thwarting the will of the people, etc. Just like we heard in Florida 2000. Somehow it's different when a Democratic candidate comes out on top.

Delusional

To hear some Republicans this past week, they scored a tactical defeat over Obama with their opposition to the stimulus bill; supposedly they got their message across and mucked up the shine on the new president. Guffaw. Obama's ratings with the public are sky high. Even the Democrats in Congress are out polling Republicans, 48% to 31%. If the Republicans think playing obstructionists is going to get them out of the political wilderness they are delusional. The majority of the public supports the stimulus bill (with the exception of one Rasmussen poll, which the Republicans insist on hanging their hats on) and the Republicans look like the party of sour grapes. There is certainly a place for a "loyal opposition" party but at this point the Republicans don't look like that party concerned with the suffering of the American people and trying to craft a compromise bill that addresses their concerns. Instead they look like petty spoiled brats, not unlike the girl at the prom who out of jealousy spills a drink on the homecoming queen. Keep this up and they will be even more marginalized.

Look, I'm a left leaning individual. The Democrats, while not perfect, hew closer to the image I have of how things should be. But I truly believe this country works best when there are 2 strong parties reflecting the 2 traditional viewpoints of conservatism and liberalism. When these 2 strong traditions debate, good ideas are often brought to the table. But the Republicans of today have no good ideas. They simply follow in lockstep behind the rants of talk radio and are content to try and tear Obama down, country be damned. They offer no ideas. They offer no solutions. And we as a country pay for it.

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was the 200th birthday of not one but two people in history I admire a great deal. One got more of the press, that being Abraham Lincoln, the man who saved the Union and emancipated the slaves, ending our long national disgrace of forced servitude (though the scars of slavery are with us to this day). The other was Charles Darwin, who forever changed our understanding of the world around us. Happy Birthday to both of you, and hopefully a future Darwin or Lincoln was born somewhere in the world yesterday.

Howard Hughes is alive and well

Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman last night. I'm not sure whether to laugh, feel bad for him, or fear for his own safety.

Misery as a commodity

While I don't agree with the author 100%, I do feel there is much food for thought in this article. Specifically how we view mental disease as an individual disorder instead of perhaps a reaction to all that is dysfunctional in our society. In other words when a person is depressed, lonely, anxious, etc. the problem is not what in society provokes this-our society apparently is perfect-but with the person himself. This is the type of thing that Orwell railed against in 1984. Add to this the entire industry that has cropped up around mental health, and the need to keep a person in that industry in order to keep it going. The number of "mentally ill" people in our society far surpasses most third world countries, despite the billions we spend on mental health. I have been to therapists before, and I think they can be useful in the short term. But they all, without exception, seemed to have no interest in letting me go once I was in their system, no matter my progress. Once you check in, you don't check out.

Alabama, meet Iran

Alabama and Iran have about the same degree of religious belief. And there is almost a direct inverse relationship between religious belief and standard of living.

Getting high is natural

As the late, great Bill Hicks once said: "Did it ever strike you that making it illegal to take substances that grow in nature as being a bit, um, unnatural?" I think the War on Drugs is one of the biggest wastes of resources and more importantly human lives in history. No matter the culture or the time in history, human beings have gotten high and for various reasons; the War on Drugs is ultimately a war on our own nature. And here are examples of other species besides our own getting high.

Damn Socialists

The Canadians-so ridiculed by free market purists and loathed by Republicans for their national health care system-has the healthiest banking system in the world right now, while ours is near the bottom. Radical "free market" (I say that, like free lunches, there is no such thing as a free market) changes to our economic system-such as more tax cuts-are not the answer.

History 101

The Republicans are fond of saying Democrats have no grasp of history. After seeing this guy, maybe they should rethink that idea.

Not all Republicans follow the Borg directives

Arlen Specter today got testy on air with Laura Ingraham. There are some Republicans worth my respect after all.

The Cult of Reagantology

On Attytood today, Will Bunch has a post about the pressure High Priest Grover Norquist and the Reagan Legacy Project are putting on states to recognize "Reagan Legacy Day". Makes me damn proud to live in a state that hasn't recognized it, and I despise these cultists trying to force Reagan down our throats. I came of age in the eighties and I can tell you, Reagan was a terrible president and a majority of Americans weren't too keen on him when he left office either. These history revisionists who one suspects previously worked at the Church of Scientology are nothing but brainwashed Kool-Aid drinkers.

P.S. I highly recommend Will Bunch's latest book on Reagan, called Tear down this Myth.

There's gonna be a reckoning...

Frank Rich's column today captures the rage that is coursing through everyday America. Politicians ignore this at their peril; though it seems Washington is living in its usual bubble, free from the realities confronting the rest of America. Both parties I think underestimate the genuine anger and fear that is washing over this country, though I think the Democrats are closer to understanding than the Republicans. I mean seriously, more tax cuts-the kind that helped get us in this pickle in the first place-is the only thing you have to offer? Most Americans don't have capital gains taxes to cut, and any potential benefit-highly doubtful in my opinion-won't be noticed for some time. Everyday people are hurting now and want help now. Obama gets this. The Republicans, led by Rush Limbaugh, don't.

Treason!

I'm sure everyone now has heard both Rush Limbaugh's comments wishing President Obama will fail and Dick Cheney's comments stirring up the fear card and undermining President Obama's presidency. If these things were done by a Democratic politician or anyone on the left you can be sure of two things. 1) The right wing would be literally calling for the death penalty and accusations of treason would fly everywhere. 2) Our national media, following the din of the right wing media echo chamber, would be making these 24/7 issues for several weeks until the politician resigned or a public mea culpa was issued.

I don't want to hear another word from the right about how the media and Democratic Party fought to undermine the Bush presidency. Here we have, just over two weeks into his presidency, abject proof of undermining the Obama presidency, and far worse than anything from the left beyond the extremes.

The right is now a bankrupt movement, whose ideology has been shown to be a miserable failure and is left with ad hominem attacks on the opposition as its only raison d'etre. Its economic policies are what drove us into the current crisis and all they have left is trying to sink the President-and the United States with him. I am tired of trying to be diplomatic with them, of trying to not be insulting, of giving them some benefit of the doubt. But fuck them. The stakes are now so high that there is no room for President Obama to fail. His failure means the United States is finished: economically, as a world power, as a world leader. We can shuffle off to stage right and allow Russia, China, and India to have the spotlight now.

I'm back

After a horrendously tragic year for me, I am going to try and resurrect this blog. Those who know me personally understand what I have been through and the emotional scars I have been left with. There can be no doubt that I look at the world through different eyes, the eyes of one who has been transformed-not by choice. I do not want to discuss what has happened in this post. As time goes by I imagine that I will share more of my experiences of the past year.

There has been a lot to discuss in recent news, with the recent swearing in of our new president. And not a moment too soon: the past 8 years have been exhausting and utterly draining of optimism; they have been ones in which the only correct emotional response should be rage at those who have utterly driven this country into the abyss. I am reminded of an essay Hunter S. Thompson wrote years ago-which I hope to find and post here-about John Wayne and the forces of the extreme right meeting their just desserts in Vietnam. In it he wrote, and I am paraphrasing from memory, that in a just world, the architects of Vietnam deserved to go to hell. Not necessarily for what they did there, but because they did it in the name of a dream. That dream being one of democracy and freedom for humanity, when in fact these words were nothing more than part of a PR campaign to gain public support for the war. Ditto Bush and all the sociopathic greedheads in his administration. They claim to have done everything to keep America safe, But in fact it has all been to take advantage of our fear to construct an America to suit their vision, an America that resembles the capitalist utopia of the late nineteenth century that exists only in the myths they have created in their minds. We are truly fucked, and it will take a long time to walk this one off.