Happy New Year to All from the Uke Man !!!
Saturday, December 31, 2005
One more look at 2005
Well Folks,
I can't say I'm sad to see it go.
Below find a report on what the author calls "bizarre." I guess he's right, but it doesn't hold a candle to Bush & Co.!!
- Uke Man
2005 Offers Fresh Tales of the Bizarre
By PATRICK CASEY
(a ukethanks to Sondra)
The Easter Bunny was hopping mad but kept his cool after being socked by a boy, a Wal-Mart greeter was sacked for showing a lot more than customers cared to see and a prep football coach was reprimanded for some eccentric licking.
2005 offered fresh tales of bizarre lust, quirky cuisine, multiple marriages and other foibles of human existence.
SAY WHAT TO ME, DUDE?
Like most everybody, LaChania Govan of Chicago got bounced around when she called her cable company to complain. She made dozens of calls and was even transferred to a person who spoke Spanish - a language she doesn't understand. But when she got her August bill from Comcast she had no trouble understanding she'd made somebody mad. It was addressed to "Bitch Dog." "I was like you got to be freaking kidding me," said Govan, 25, of her reaction when she saw the bill. "I was so mad I couldn't even cuss." Two employees were fired after company officials went through records and identified them as being involved in the incident.
JUST WHAT WAS IN THAT RECIPE?
How about the Idaho high school boy who fed a batch of semen-frosted brownies to a fellow student and his friends? It seems the teenager was more than a bit ticked when his classmate put peanut butter in his cheese sandwich days before. As a police report said, the prankster, who has since agreed to admit to three counts of disturbing the peace, "hated peanut butter and it made him more mad than he could explain."
GAVE A LICKING AND KEPT ON TICKING
An Oregon education board reprimanded a Central Linn High School football coach for licking the wounds of several student athletes. Coach Scott Reed admitted licking blood from the knee of one student and the arm of another. It was not clear why he did it. Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright called the licking "bizarre" but not criminal because contact wasn't forced. Three students said it appeared the coach was "just joking around."
SO EASY. EVEN A CHILD CAN DO IT
An Anderson County, S.C., sheriff's deputy was temporarily sidelined by his boss after the officer's pistol went off during a gun safety class at a middle school. It seems the weapon discharged when a student pulled the trigger as the deputy was showing the kids how hard it was to take a gun from an officer's holster. The bullet fired into the floor, and debris cut two students.
ONE WIFE AT A TIME
Another South Carolina deputy had a lapse of judgment, too, but his was of the matrimonial variety. Sumter County sheriff's deputy Jay Follin was fired for being married to two women at the same time. Follin, 27, was separated from his first wife when he married his second, according to a department investigation. His second wife, the investigation revealed, was already married to another man at the time. Everything became known when the husband of Follin's second wife filed a complaint with the sheriff's department. The couple was separated at the time.
PSST! TRADE YA SOME GOAT FOR A ROCK
Four Connellsville, Pa., men ended up behind bars after they allegedly stole and butchered a goat so they could trade it for crack cocaine. Two of the men, police said, stole and killed the 4-year-old pygmy goat and then took it to another residence where two more men skinned and butchered the animal.
40 GOATS FOR CHELSEA CLINTON. DO I HEAR 50?
Kenyan councilman Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage five years ago. He's still awaiting an answer.
HEY! WHATCHA LOOKING AT?
A Pittston, Maine, man arrested after he was found peering at a teenage girl from the business end of a New Hampshire rest-stop privy has pleaded no contest to criminal trespass. Gary J. Moody was given a 30-day sentence that will be suspended if he maintains good behavior for two years. The judge cited Moody's public humiliation from the ensuing publicity in not jailing him.
HOOD? WHAT HOOD? WE DON'T SEE NOTHING
Two Cedar Rapids, Iowa, men landed in jail after they continued driving on Interstate 380 when the hood of their car popped open and covered their windshield. Instead of stopping to fix the problem, the men stuck their heads out the windows so they could see and kept going. Two Linn County deputies took note and pulled them over.
ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SMOKING
A man riding in a car on Arkansas 234 near the Oklahoma border didn't go to jail following a long night of drinking. But he did go to a hospital after jumping from the vehicle in an effort to retrieve his lit cigarette. Jeff Foran was recovering after leaping from the car and landing hard on the roadway in a failed bid to grab the butt, state police said. "If anything could make him stop smoking, this should be it," said Trooper Jamie Graver.
MAMA MIA! ALL SHE WANTED WAS SOME PIZZA
An 86-year-old Charlotte, N.C., woman spent two nights in the city lockup after police said she called 911 dispatchers 20 times in a little more than 30 minutes to complain about service at a pizza parlor. Dorothy Densmore told dispatchers the shop refused to deliver a pie to her apartment. Densmore wanted the workers arrested. Instead, police arrested her.
NEVER WHEN MARRIED
Authorities in Wisconsin pinched a 63-year-old man who allegedly had a fondness for calves.
Harold G. Hart, of Neillsville, reportedly told police he stopped at a Greenwood farm "at least 50 times" to have sex with calves there. The man, however, told police he never had sex with animals while maintaining a relationship with a girlfriend or his wife.
HONEY, I'M HOT FOR YOU
A 38-year-old Oregon man wearing a gasoline-soaked cape set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his longtime girlfriend to marry him. About 100 people gathered to watch Todd Grannis perform the flaming stunt for Malissa Kusiek, who said "yes."
SHOOT. HE WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY
In Muscatine, Iowa, Dean L. Wooten was fired for greeting Wal-Mart customers with a computer-generated photo in which he appeared to be naked - except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag. Wooten reportedly told customers the store was cutting costs and the bag was the company's new uniform. A supervisor told him to stop showing the photo after customers complained. He was canned when he displayed the photo again.
AIN'T FUNNY TO THIS BUNNY
The Easter Bunny wasn't laughing this year. Bryan Johnson, who portrayed the holiday rabbit at a mall in Bay City, Mich., says he was pummeled in an unprovoked attack by a 12-year-old boy.
"He just started hitting," Johnson said. Johnson suffered a bloody nose but kept his cool because he figured it was inappropriate for the Easter Bunny to battle back.
I can't say I'm sad to see it go.
Below find a report on what the author calls "bizarre." I guess he's right, but it doesn't hold a candle to Bush & Co.!!
- Uke Man
2005 Offers Fresh Tales of the Bizarre
By PATRICK CASEY
(a ukethanks to Sondra)
The Easter Bunny was hopping mad but kept his cool after being socked by a boy, a Wal-Mart greeter was sacked for showing a lot more than customers cared to see and a prep football coach was reprimanded for some eccentric licking.
2005 offered fresh tales of bizarre lust, quirky cuisine, multiple marriages and other foibles of human existence.
SAY WHAT TO ME, DUDE?
Like most everybody, LaChania Govan of Chicago got bounced around when she called her cable company to complain. She made dozens of calls and was even transferred to a person who spoke Spanish - a language she doesn't understand. But when she got her August bill from Comcast she had no trouble understanding she'd made somebody mad. It was addressed to "Bitch Dog." "I was like you got to be freaking kidding me," said Govan, 25, of her reaction when she saw the bill. "I was so mad I couldn't even cuss." Two employees were fired after company officials went through records and identified them as being involved in the incident.
JUST WHAT WAS IN THAT RECIPE?
How about the Idaho high school boy who fed a batch of semen-frosted brownies to a fellow student and his friends? It seems the teenager was more than a bit ticked when his classmate put peanut butter in his cheese sandwich days before. As a police report said, the prankster, who has since agreed to admit to three counts of disturbing the peace, "hated peanut butter and it made him more mad than he could explain."
GAVE A LICKING AND KEPT ON TICKING
An Oregon education board reprimanded a Central Linn High School football coach for licking the wounds of several student athletes. Coach Scott Reed admitted licking blood from the knee of one student and the arm of another. It was not clear why he did it. Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright called the licking "bizarre" but not criminal because contact wasn't forced. Three students said it appeared the coach was "just joking around."
SO EASY. EVEN A CHILD CAN DO IT
An Anderson County, S.C., sheriff's deputy was temporarily sidelined by his boss after the officer's pistol went off during a gun safety class at a middle school. It seems the weapon discharged when a student pulled the trigger as the deputy was showing the kids how hard it was to take a gun from an officer's holster. The bullet fired into the floor, and debris cut two students.
ONE WIFE AT A TIME
Another South Carolina deputy had a lapse of judgment, too, but his was of the matrimonial variety. Sumter County sheriff's deputy Jay Follin was fired for being married to two women at the same time. Follin, 27, was separated from his first wife when he married his second, according to a department investigation. His second wife, the investigation revealed, was already married to another man at the time. Everything became known when the husband of Follin's second wife filed a complaint with the sheriff's department. The couple was separated at the time.
PSST! TRADE YA SOME GOAT FOR A ROCK
Four Connellsville, Pa., men ended up behind bars after they allegedly stole and butchered a goat so they could trade it for crack cocaine. Two of the men, police said, stole and killed the 4-year-old pygmy goat and then took it to another residence where two more men skinned and butchered the animal.
40 GOATS FOR CHELSEA CLINTON. DO I HEAR 50?
Kenyan councilman Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage five years ago. He's still awaiting an answer.
HEY! WHATCHA LOOKING AT?
A Pittston, Maine, man arrested after he was found peering at a teenage girl from the business end of a New Hampshire rest-stop privy has pleaded no contest to criminal trespass. Gary J. Moody was given a 30-day sentence that will be suspended if he maintains good behavior for two years. The judge cited Moody's public humiliation from the ensuing publicity in not jailing him.
HOOD? WHAT HOOD? WE DON'T SEE NOTHING
Two Cedar Rapids, Iowa, men landed in jail after they continued driving on Interstate 380 when the hood of their car popped open and covered their windshield. Instead of stopping to fix the problem, the men stuck their heads out the windows so they could see and kept going. Two Linn County deputies took note and pulled them over.
ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SMOKING
A man riding in a car on Arkansas 234 near the Oklahoma border didn't go to jail following a long night of drinking. But he did go to a hospital after jumping from the vehicle in an effort to retrieve his lit cigarette. Jeff Foran was recovering after leaping from the car and landing hard on the roadway in a failed bid to grab the butt, state police said. "If anything could make him stop smoking, this should be it," said Trooper Jamie Graver.
MAMA MIA! ALL SHE WANTED WAS SOME PIZZA
An 86-year-old Charlotte, N.C., woman spent two nights in the city lockup after police said she called 911 dispatchers 20 times in a little more than 30 minutes to complain about service at a pizza parlor. Dorothy Densmore told dispatchers the shop refused to deliver a pie to her apartment. Densmore wanted the workers arrested. Instead, police arrested her.
NEVER WHEN MARRIED
Authorities in Wisconsin pinched a 63-year-old man who allegedly had a fondness for calves.
Harold G. Hart, of Neillsville, reportedly told police he stopped at a Greenwood farm "at least 50 times" to have sex with calves there. The man, however, told police he never had sex with animals while maintaining a relationship with a girlfriend or his wife.
HONEY, I'M HOT FOR YOU
A 38-year-old Oregon man wearing a gasoline-soaked cape set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his longtime girlfriend to marry him. About 100 people gathered to watch Todd Grannis perform the flaming stunt for Malissa Kusiek, who said "yes."
SHOOT. HE WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FRIENDLY
In Muscatine, Iowa, Dean L. Wooten was fired for greeting Wal-Mart customers with a computer-generated photo in which he appeared to be naked - except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag. Wooten reportedly told customers the store was cutting costs and the bag was the company's new uniform. A supervisor told him to stop showing the photo after customers complained. He was canned when he displayed the photo again.
AIN'T FUNNY TO THIS BUNNY
The Easter Bunny wasn't laughing this year. Bryan Johnson, who portrayed the holiday rabbit at a mall in Bay City, Mich., says he was pummeled in an unprovoked attack by a 12-year-old boy.
"He just started hitting," Johnson said. Johnson suffered a bloody nose but kept his cool because he figured it was inappropriate for the Easter Bunny to battle back.
Friday, December 30, 2005
the Parker Pot calling the Harker Kettle black
Hey Folks,
Ms. Kathlene Parker is at it again, naively letting her bourgeoisie prejudices show again. Here are some excerpts from a recent column followed by my view:
Beware the host of babbling bloggers
Thursday, December 29, 2005
KATHLEEN PARKER
Of all the stories leading America’s annual greatest-hits list, the one that subsumes the rest is the evolution of information in the Age of Blogging.
. . .
There’s something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the blogosphere – the "electroniverse" where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day. As I write, the number of blogs (Web logs) and bloggers (those who blog) is estimated in the tens of millions worldwide.
Although I’ve been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new "citizen journalist," I’m also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability.
. . .
Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents.
Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups. These effete and often clever baby "bloggies" are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision.
Spoiled and undisciplined, they have seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I’ll say you’re important if you’ll say I’m important") and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.
Each time I wander into blogdom, I’m reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.
What Golding demonstrated and what we’re witnessing as the blogosphere’s offspring multiply is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves. Likewise, many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement. When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding’s children did the fly-covered head of a butchered sow.
. . .
We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake and the integrity of information by which we all live or die, we can and should ignore them.
Kathleen Parker writes for The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.
kparker@kparker.com
Folks,
It seems to me that one reason blogging HAS exploded is because so many people’s views HAVE BEEN ignored by “mainstream” journalists who ARE “tempered by restraint and accountability” from addressing the bloggers’ concerns. Parker’s suggestion to ignore the bloggers just adds fuel to the fire.
The “mainstream” press IS tempered, restrained, and held accountable but by POWERFUL people and by economic considerations – which also are the province of wealthy, powerful people. Regular folks be damned.
I’ve seen it happen first hand in my small town of Circleville and in Columbus at the statehouse. The “New York Times” slogan “All the news that’s fit to print” gives a clue. SOMEBODY is determining what’s fit to print, and you can bet that the “somebody” answers to the powerful, not to regular folks.
Hence, what ISN’T fit to print (according to the wealthy lords of politics and commerce) appears on blogs or alternative radio (where it exists), or disappears.
Now, bloggers have and do put out trash, but so do the White House and the “mainstream” media Parker praises as being “adult.” Perhaps Parker is worried that if the public becomes discerning enough to separate the gold from the garbage within blogs, they might be able to do the same thing with the “mainstream” press instead of blindly swallowing everything shoveled its way.
As for the analogy to Golding’s novel, it has been many years since I read it, but my memory suggests that she overlooked a major point the author made.
It might seem that by using children to act out the plot, Golding suggests naive children, “in the absence of a civilizing structure,” and without “adult supervision,” might “organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians.”
Actually, the story's surviving children are rescued in the end by adult sailors from a ship of war actively engaged in a war that itself caused the children to be evacuated and eventually trapped on the island in the first place. These mature, “civilized,” humble, disciplined, experienced adults who are supposedly tempered by restraint and accountability are engaged in the same sort of savage, mindless behavior from which they have just rescued the children.
Golding’s point is: Who will rescue the adults? And I doubt that he would discount the tragedy of these adults’ misuse of power on the basis that “they had earned it” through experience, maturity, discipline, restraint, or by having been supervised by adults.
Parker would save us from the bloggers, but - as Golding would ask - who will save us from Parker and the mainstream press?
- Uke Man
Ms. Kathlene Parker is at it again, naively letting her bourgeoisie prejudices show again. Here are some excerpts from a recent column followed by my view:
Beware the host of babbling bloggers
Thursday, December 29, 2005
KATHLEEN PARKER
Of all the stories leading America’s annual greatest-hits list, the one that subsumes the rest is the evolution of information in the Age of Blogging.
. . .
There’s something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the blogosphere – the "electroniverse" where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day. As I write, the number of blogs (Web logs) and bloggers (those who blog) is estimated in the tens of millions worldwide.
Although I’ve been a blog fan since the beginning, and have written favorably about the value added to journalism and public knowledge thanks to the new "citizen journalist," I’m also wary of power untempered by restraint and accountability.
. . .
Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality, though most would have little to occupy their time were the mainstream media to disappear tomorrow. Some bloggers do their own reporting, but most rely on mainstream reporters to do the heavy lifting. Some bloggers also offer superb commentary, but most buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents.
Even so, they hold the same megaphone as the adults and enjoy perceived credibility owing to membership in the larger world of blog grown-ups. These effete and often clever baby "bloggies" are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision.
Spoiled and undisciplined, they have seized the stage, a privilege granted not by years in the trenches, but by virtue of a three-pronged plug and the miracle of WiFi. They play tag team with hyperlinks ("I’ll say you’re important if you’ll say I’m important") and shriek "Gotcha!" when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight. Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose.
Each time I wander into blogdom, I’m reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure.
What Golding demonstrated and what we’re witnessing as the blogosphere’s offspring multiply is that people tend to abuse power when it is unearned and will bring down others to enhance themselves. Likewise, many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement. When a mainstream journalist stumbles, they pile on like so many savages, hoisting his or her head on a bloody stick as Golding’s children did the fly-covered head of a butchered sow.
. . .
We can’t silence them, but for civilization’s sake and the integrity of information by which we all live or die, we can and should ignore them.
Kathleen Parker writes for The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel.
kparker@kparker.com
Folks,
It seems to me that one reason blogging HAS exploded is because so many people’s views HAVE BEEN ignored by “mainstream” journalists who ARE “tempered by restraint and accountability” from addressing the bloggers’ concerns. Parker’s suggestion to ignore the bloggers just adds fuel to the fire.
The “mainstream” press IS tempered, restrained, and held accountable but by POWERFUL people and by economic considerations – which also are the province of wealthy, powerful people. Regular folks be damned.
I’ve seen it happen first hand in my small town of Circleville and in Columbus at the statehouse. The “New York Times” slogan “All the news that’s fit to print” gives a clue. SOMEBODY is determining what’s fit to print, and you can bet that the “somebody” answers to the powerful, not to regular folks.
Hence, what ISN’T fit to print (according to the wealthy lords of politics and commerce) appears on blogs or alternative radio (where it exists), or disappears.
Now, bloggers have and do put out trash, but so do the White House and the “mainstream” media Parker praises as being “adult.” Perhaps Parker is worried that if the public becomes discerning enough to separate the gold from the garbage within blogs, they might be able to do the same thing with the “mainstream” press instead of blindly swallowing everything shoveled its way.
As for the analogy to Golding’s novel, it has been many years since I read it, but my memory suggests that she overlooked a major point the author made.
It might seem that by using children to act out the plot, Golding suggests naive children, “in the absence of a civilizing structure,” and without “adult supervision,” might “organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians.”
Actually, the story's surviving children are rescued in the end by adult sailors from a ship of war actively engaged in a war that itself caused the children to be evacuated and eventually trapped on the island in the first place. These mature, “civilized,” humble, disciplined, experienced adults who are supposedly tempered by restraint and accountability are engaged in the same sort of savage, mindless behavior from which they have just rescued the children.
Golding’s point is: Who will rescue the adults? And I doubt that he would discount the tragedy of these adults’ misuse of power on the basis that “they had earned it” through experience, maturity, discipline, restraint, or by having been supervised by adults.
Parker would save us from the bloggers, but - as Golding would ask - who will save us from Parker and the mainstream press?
- Uke Man
Dowd on the surveillance crowd
December 21, 2005
The Squires of Surveillance
By MAUREEN DOWD
(and a ukethanks to Phyll)
Dick and Rummy are holed up in the den of Rummy's
Chesapeake Bay retreat, Mount
Misery, pawing through sheafs of transcripts of
wiretapped telephone
conversations, hunting for inside dope.
Chinook helicopters patrol the skies above the
red-brick waterfront mansion.
Rummy loves the take-no-prisoners lineage of his $1.5
million getaway, built in
the 19th century by Edward Covey, an evil slave owner.
Winter weekends by a crackling fire are cozy and
conspiratorial, now that the
two men have nearby spreads in St. Michaels, Md.
These squires of surveillance while away their
evenings sipping from goblets of
Glenlivet and perusing the illegally bugged phone
conversations of any American
they please. Getting in the holiday spirit, they're
mining data to revise their
naughty and nice lists.
"Check this one out, Dick," Rummy says excitedly.
"I've been reading Jennifer
Aniston's conversations for the last six months now,
and I gotta say, I don't
get what she sees in this guy Vince Vaughn. 'Wedding
Crashers' was funny. They
shot that here in this village, you know. But I don't
trust the guy. No way he's
going to give up lap dancers and be true. I just don't
want to see Jen get hurt
again."
Dick grunts. He's deeply absorbed in the classified
reports on the F.B.I.
infiltration of a Vegan Community Project and a People
for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals protest against llama fur. He's ruminating
over a naked picture of
Pamela Anderson emblazoned with the PETA slogan, "I'd
rather go naked than wear
fur."
"Porter Goss tells me that Pam was shacking up with
Mark McGrath - you know, he
used to be with that band, Sugar Ray?" Rummy says.
"Listen, Dick, we need to
jawbone about this flapdoodle about our stateside
spying operation that
developed while you were on your whirlwind tour of
American torture chambers in
Iraq and Afghanistan."
Dick interrupts, "More torture."
"Some pansies are making unwarranted claims that we
should have gotten
warrants," Rummy continues. "But we can't worry about
the Constitution's fine
print during war. Besides, it's fun to secretly blow
off the super-secret court.
Sure, warrants would have been no problem - the court
has turned down only five
government requests since 1979. Why the dickens
shouldn't we go in and eavesdrop
on whoever we want? Who says we can't do sneak and
peak searches whenever we
dadburn please?
"Junior can try to model himself after Reagan, but you
can't beat our old boss
Nixon when it came to channeling paranoia in a
productive way. Nixon and J.
Edgar Hoover had it right: dark times call for dark
measures. We're thinking too
small, really. Let's sic the I.R.S. on Murtha, McCain
and Feingold. Let's bug
Condi and Lieberman - those back-stabbing sons-of-guns
want our jobs. Condi has
no clue who she's dealing with, right, Dick? I
perfected the black art of
infighting before Condi was born. And while we're at
it, let's tap Risen's
phone. His story in The Times about our wiretaps was
an outrageous invasion of
our privacy and an assault on our monarchy's - I mean,
our executive branch's
absolute power. We'll smoke out the rat who leaked
that story."
Dick takes a sip of Scotch and nods. "More snooping,"
he says.
"Karl's new game plan of pretending to admit that we
made some mistakes in Iraq
seems to be working," Rummy muses. "The Kid's approval
ratings are picking up.
But I hope Georgie's not falling for that contrition
guff he's peddling. We
don't want him to go wobbly on us. We have a long way
to go in Iraq. The Iraqi
security forces are still curled in a fetal position.
Oh, by the way, Chalabi
called today. He thinks Iran did a better job trucking
in stuffed ballot boxes
for the Shiites than we did for the Sunnis." He adds
slyly, "You'd think we'd be
better by now at stealing elections."
"More fraud," Dick rumbles. "More rigged elections."
Dick points at the flat-screen TV over the roaring
fireplace. It's time for
their favorite Sunday night program.
"It isn't on yet, big guy," Rummy sighs. "The Kid is
yakking again to the
nation. He's so desperate he's pre-empting 'Desperate
Housewives.' The gals
won't be on for 20 minutes."
Dick glowers, sinking deep into his leather chair.
"Hey, I've got a great idea!" Rummy grins. "You wanna
read a phone transcript of
a big cat fight between Teri Hatcher and Nicollette
Sheridan? Mueller just sent
it over. Hot stuff!"
Dick perks up. Half his mouth inclines, indicating
extreme joy. "More Nicollette
Sheridan," he nods.
The Squires of Surveillance
By MAUREEN DOWD
(and a ukethanks to Phyll)
Dick and Rummy are holed up in the den of Rummy's
Chesapeake Bay retreat, Mount
Misery, pawing through sheafs of transcripts of
wiretapped telephone
conversations, hunting for inside dope.
Chinook helicopters patrol the skies above the
red-brick waterfront mansion.
Rummy loves the take-no-prisoners lineage of his $1.5
million getaway, built in
the 19th century by Edward Covey, an evil slave owner.
Winter weekends by a crackling fire are cozy and
conspiratorial, now that the
two men have nearby spreads in St. Michaels, Md.
These squires of surveillance while away their
evenings sipping from goblets of
Glenlivet and perusing the illegally bugged phone
conversations of any American
they please. Getting in the holiday spirit, they're
mining data to revise their
naughty and nice lists.
"Check this one out, Dick," Rummy says excitedly.
"I've been reading Jennifer
Aniston's conversations for the last six months now,
and I gotta say, I don't
get what she sees in this guy Vince Vaughn. 'Wedding
Crashers' was funny. They
shot that here in this village, you know. But I don't
trust the guy. No way he's
going to give up lap dancers and be true. I just don't
want to see Jen get hurt
again."
Dick grunts. He's deeply absorbed in the classified
reports on the F.B.I.
infiltration of a Vegan Community Project and a People
for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals protest against llama fur. He's ruminating
over a naked picture of
Pamela Anderson emblazoned with the PETA slogan, "I'd
rather go naked than wear
fur."
"Porter Goss tells me that Pam was shacking up with
Mark McGrath - you know, he
used to be with that band, Sugar Ray?" Rummy says.
"Listen, Dick, we need to
jawbone about this flapdoodle about our stateside
spying operation that
developed while you were on your whirlwind tour of
American torture chambers in
Iraq and Afghanistan."
Dick interrupts, "More torture."
"Some pansies are making unwarranted claims that we
should have gotten
warrants," Rummy continues. "But we can't worry about
the Constitution's fine
print during war. Besides, it's fun to secretly blow
off the super-secret court.
Sure, warrants would have been no problem - the court
has turned down only five
government requests since 1979. Why the dickens
shouldn't we go in and eavesdrop
on whoever we want? Who says we can't do sneak and
peak searches whenever we
dadburn please?
"Junior can try to model himself after Reagan, but you
can't beat our old boss
Nixon when it came to channeling paranoia in a
productive way. Nixon and J.
Edgar Hoover had it right: dark times call for dark
measures. We're thinking too
small, really. Let's sic the I.R.S. on Murtha, McCain
and Feingold. Let's bug
Condi and Lieberman - those back-stabbing sons-of-guns
want our jobs. Condi has
no clue who she's dealing with, right, Dick? I
perfected the black art of
infighting before Condi was born. And while we're at
it, let's tap Risen's
phone. His story in The Times about our wiretaps was
an outrageous invasion of
our privacy and an assault on our monarchy's - I mean,
our executive branch's
absolute power. We'll smoke out the rat who leaked
that story."
Dick takes a sip of Scotch and nods. "More snooping,"
he says.
"Karl's new game plan of pretending to admit that we
made some mistakes in Iraq
seems to be working," Rummy muses. "The Kid's approval
ratings are picking up.
But I hope Georgie's not falling for that contrition
guff he's peddling. We
don't want him to go wobbly on us. We have a long way
to go in Iraq. The Iraqi
security forces are still curled in a fetal position.
Oh, by the way, Chalabi
called today. He thinks Iran did a better job trucking
in stuffed ballot boxes
for the Shiites than we did for the Sunnis." He adds
slyly, "You'd think we'd be
better by now at stealing elections."
"More fraud," Dick rumbles. "More rigged elections."
Dick points at the flat-screen TV over the roaring
fireplace. It's time for
their favorite Sunday night program.
"It isn't on yet, big guy," Rummy sighs. "The Kid is
yakking again to the
nation. He's so desperate he's pre-empting 'Desperate
Housewives.' The gals
won't be on for 20 minutes."
Dick glowers, sinking deep into his leather chair.
"Hey, I've got a great idea!" Rummy grins. "You wanna
read a phone transcript of
a big cat fight between Teri Hatcher and Nicollette
Sheridan? Mueller just sent
it over. Hot stuff!"
Dick perks up. Half his mouth inclines, indicating
extreme joy. "More Nicollette
Sheridan," he nods.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Hey Folks,
Today is my birthday, and I am sixty-ONE year old.
I can’t think of a better way to share the celebration with you than the video of the birthday party I threw for Midnight Ukulele Disco (see: www.sonicuke.com) when it, too, turned one year old !!
Click here: http://www.ukuleledisco.com/birthday to see Jason Tagg’s & my handiwork!
Enjoy!!
-Uke Man
p.s. I’m not getting older! I’m getting childish!! (Damn it!)
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday . . .
Today is my birthday, and I am sixty-ONE year old.
I can’t think of a better way to share the celebration with you than the video of the birthday party I threw for Midnight Ukulele Disco (see: www.sonicuke.com) when it, too, turned one year old !!
Click here: http://www.ukuleledisco.com/birthday to see Jason Tagg’s & my handiwork!
Enjoy!!
-Uke Man
p.s. I’m not getting older! I’m getting childish!! (Damn it!)
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday . . .
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Twain - on class and the Civil War South
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 14th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 30 – The Yankee and the King come upon a burning Manor house and a mob of peasants busy chasing down and hanging other peasants suspected of having killed the oppressive lord and burning his manor.
The painful thing observable about all this business was the alacrity with which this oppressed community had turned their cruel hands against their own class in the interest of the common oppressor. This man and woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel between a person of their own class and his lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful thing for that poor devil’s whole caste to side with the master and fight his battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire into the rights or wrongs of the matter. This man had been out helping to hang his neighbors, and had done his work with zeal, and yet was aware that there was nothing against them but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describable as evidence; still neither he nor his wife seemed to see anything horrible about it.
This was depressing – to a man with the dream of a republic in his head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the “poor whites” of our South who were always despised, and frequently insulted, by the slave lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 14th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 30 – The Yankee and the King come upon a burning Manor house and a mob of peasants busy chasing down and hanging other peasants suspected of having killed the oppressive lord and burning his manor.
The painful thing observable about all this business was the alacrity with which this oppressed community had turned their cruel hands against their own class in the interest of the common oppressor. This man and woman seemed to feel that in a quarrel between a person of their own class and his lord, it was the natural and proper and rightful thing for that poor devil’s whole caste to side with the master and fight his battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire into the rights or wrongs of the matter. This man had been out helping to hang his neighbors, and had done his work with zeal, and yet was aware that there was nothing against them but a mere suspicion, with nothing back of it describable as evidence; still neither he nor his wife seemed to see anything horrible about it.
This was depressing – to a man with the dream of a republic in his head. It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the “poor whites” of our South who were always despised, and frequently insulted, by the slave lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Uke Man Musings on "the World Can't Wait"
Hey Folks,
Back in October, I took the call "The World Can't Wait; Drive Out the Bush Regime" metaphorically. Personally, I didn't think anything we did would actually result in the abrupt departure of the moron now serving in the Whitehouse.
I believed it was possible, but not likely. At the same time, I had no doubt that together we COULD resist, attack, and - within a reasonable time period – have a significant effect.
A lot has changed since then; a lot of people’s eyes have been opened, a lot of corruption and innumerable lies have become more difficult to deny; cracks are showing in Bush’s façade.
Because of this, I am much more hopeful about our chances of driving him out! It still might not happen, but it’s much closer to happening; and even if he manages to finish his term, our efforts can have a tremendous effect on the PB (Post Bush) years.
To do that we must first change our mind set. The way to drive Bush out is by RESISTING! And resisting now – the PEOPLE resisting – not looking for a “savior” among the Democrats or third parties and then waiting and hoping that we have not been snookered again – but the PEOPLE resisting NOW – telling Bush to step down NOW & take his program with him!!
"Resisting" is different from the alternative we know best: i.e. selective support of candidates/selective pressure on D'sand R's seeking election/pressuring their supporters/expanding liberal media – essentially, pressuring the system (its R’s & D’s) – whether by e-mail or donations or civil disobedience – to get THEM to ADDRESS our concerns.
All of that is fine and can go on as always – IN ADDITION to the people’s INDEPENDENT actions. In fact, those presently pursuing the traditional approach will be aided by the people’s effort.
What we do will harm the radical Republicans presently raping the nation and the world and will also send a message to Democrats, something like: “Look! We’re tired of waiting for you to grow a spine; we’re going after Bush, and then we’ll come back and check out your posture – if you want our support, you’d better be standing up straight and strong!”
The World Can’t Wait offers a real chance both to pull apart the Bush juggernaut and simultaneously put the Democrats on notice that their timid Republican-lite bullshit had better end.
Because of the reality of this broad approach, everyone who sees Bush as a disaster can find it easy to participate; and when enough of us get together to make the people’s demands, we can’t be ignored. We might not be reported well, but we know that they are watching and that they are concerned (see: http://rwor.org/a/028/who-hated-bush-ad.htm ).
The next opportunity for mass action will be January 31. As a member of Columbus NION, I’m kicking around some ideas with other members as how best we can organize to get as many people as possible to help with the call from the World Can’t Wait (below).
I’ll keep you up to date.
- Uke Man
BUSH: STEP DOWN And Take Your Program With You!
1. Jan. 31, on The Night of President Bush’s State of the Union Address:
Bring the Noise!
Drown Out Bush’s Lies!
In large cities and small towns all across the country, join in rallies one hour before Bush’s address as we make our determination to “Drive Out the Bush Regime” the political message of the day.
At 9:00 PM EST, just as Bush starts to speak, everywhere we will BRING THE NOISE. In a cacophony of sound, we will drown out his address with music: from drums to violins, from hip hop and classical; and with noise: banging pots and ringing church bells, sound car horns and lifting our voices.
2. DEMONSTRATE on SATURDAY, FEB. 4
(following the State of the Union)
Washington D.C.
The Saturday after the State of the Union address, massive numbers will protest at the seat of government. Prominent voices of conscience will help deliver the people’s verdict on Bush’s criminal regime with our demand: Bush Step Down And Take Your Program with You!
Start Organizing Now!
Back in October, I took the call "The World Can't Wait; Drive Out the Bush Regime" metaphorically. Personally, I didn't think anything we did would actually result in the abrupt departure of the moron now serving in the Whitehouse.
I believed it was possible, but not likely. At the same time, I had no doubt that together we COULD resist, attack, and - within a reasonable time period – have a significant effect.
A lot has changed since then; a lot of people’s eyes have been opened, a lot of corruption and innumerable lies have become more difficult to deny; cracks are showing in Bush’s façade.
Because of this, I am much more hopeful about our chances of driving him out! It still might not happen, but it’s much closer to happening; and even if he manages to finish his term, our efforts can have a tremendous effect on the PB (Post Bush) years.
To do that we must first change our mind set. The way to drive Bush out is by RESISTING! And resisting now – the PEOPLE resisting – not looking for a “savior” among the Democrats or third parties and then waiting and hoping that we have not been snookered again – but the PEOPLE resisting NOW – telling Bush to step down NOW & take his program with him!!
"Resisting" is different from the alternative we know best: i.e. selective support of candidates/selective pressure on D'sand R's seeking election/pressuring their supporters/expanding liberal media – essentially, pressuring the system (its R’s & D’s) – whether by e-mail or donations or civil disobedience – to get THEM to ADDRESS our concerns.
All of that is fine and can go on as always – IN ADDITION to the people’s INDEPENDENT actions. In fact, those presently pursuing the traditional approach will be aided by the people’s effort.
What we do will harm the radical Republicans presently raping the nation and the world and will also send a message to Democrats, something like: “Look! We’re tired of waiting for you to grow a spine; we’re going after Bush, and then we’ll come back and check out your posture – if you want our support, you’d better be standing up straight and strong!”
The World Can’t Wait offers a real chance both to pull apart the Bush juggernaut and simultaneously put the Democrats on notice that their timid Republican-lite bullshit had better end.
Because of the reality of this broad approach, everyone who sees Bush as a disaster can find it easy to participate; and when enough of us get together to make the people’s demands, we can’t be ignored. We might not be reported well, but we know that they are watching and that they are concerned (see: http://rwor.org/a/028/who-hated-bush-ad.htm ).
The next opportunity for mass action will be January 31. As a member of Columbus NION, I’m kicking around some ideas with other members as how best we can organize to get as many people as possible to help with the call from the World Can’t Wait (below).
I’ll keep you up to date.
- Uke Man
BUSH: STEP DOWN And Take Your Program With You!
1. Jan. 31, on The Night of President Bush’s State of the Union Address:
Bring the Noise!
Drown Out Bush’s Lies!
In large cities and small towns all across the country, join in rallies one hour before Bush’s address as we make our determination to “Drive Out the Bush Regime” the political message of the day.
At 9:00 PM EST, just as Bush starts to speak, everywhere we will BRING THE NOISE. In a cacophony of sound, we will drown out his address with music: from drums to violins, from hip hop and classical; and with noise: banging pots and ringing church bells, sound car horns and lifting our voices.
2. DEMONSTRATE on SATURDAY, FEB. 4
(following the State of the Union)
Washington D.C.
The Saturday after the State of the Union address, massive numbers will protest at the seat of government. Prominent voices of conscience will help deliver the people’s verdict on Bush’s criminal regime with our demand: Bush Step Down And Take Your Program with You!
Start Organizing Now!
Monday, December 26, 2005
The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime
Hey Folks,
Here are a few bare-bones bits of info from The World Can't Wait's website ( http://www.worldcantwait.net/ ). If you are unacquainted with "The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime!", this may seem complicated or confusing to you - as far as "how" and "what" - not "why." I'll try to write up something to help in that regard.
- Uke Man
The Mission of World Can't Wait (from the website)
World Can't Wait is organizing people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration. We seek to create a political situation where the Bush administration's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking U.S. society is reversed.
We seek to mobilize millions to express their outrage, to speak the truth, to act with urgency and form an organized political resistance. We welcome any individuals and groups who agree that the Bush Regime should be driven out, whatever their political party affiliation or lack thereof. We reach out to people who have been fooled by Bush, and to those who have been most seriously affected by the outrages inflicted by the Bush Regime.
We drew our inspiration from...The Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience which we encourage you to read ( http://www.nion.us/NSOC/NION2wsigninfo.htm ), add your name to, and distribute broadly.
Excerpts: "No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason."
"It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively."
BUSH: STEP DOWN And Take Your Program With You!
1. Jan. 31, on The Night of President Bush’s State of the Union Address:
Bring the Noise!
Drown Out Bush’s Lies!
In large cities and small towns all across the country, join in rallies one hour before Bush’s address as we make our determination to “Drive Out the Bush Regime” the political message of the day.
At 9:00 PM EST, just as Bush starts to speak, everywhere we will BRING THE NOISE. In a cacophony of sound, we will drown out his address with music: from drums to violins, from hip hop and classical; and with noise: banging pots and ringing church bells, sound car horns and lifting our voices.
2. DEMONSTRATE on SATURDAY, FEB. 4
(following the State of the Union)
Washington D.C.
The Saturday after the State of the Union address, massive numbers will protest at the seat of government. Prominent voices of conscience will help deliver the people’s verdict on Bush’s criminal regime with our demand: Bush Step Down And Take Your Program with You!
Four immediate objectives for late December:
1) Raise money to run the protest plans for the State of the Union and the Call for The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime in major newspapers, as well as radio ads on Air America. [donate now]
2) Get students and professors prepared for when campus gets back in session to moblize the campuses for the State of the Union. [click here]
3) Saturate communities and schools with materials announcing this, and take out ads specifically calling for this State of the Union manifestation. Flier a movie on 12/25. High school students - spend your winter break selling t-shirts and posters from WCW to holiday shoppers. Contact the national office and local chapters for more info. [download flier]
4) Reach out to organized professional and social justice organizations and bring them solidly in this movement - librarians, neighborhood associations, religious institutions — getting not just endorsements but resolutions that BUSH STEP DOWN and taking action during the State of the Union.
Here are a few bare-bones bits of info from The World Can't Wait's website ( http://www.worldcantwait.net/ ). If you are unacquainted with "The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime!", this may seem complicated or confusing to you - as far as "how" and "what" - not "why." I'll try to write up something to help in that regard.
- Uke Man
The Mission of World Can't Wait (from the website)
World Can't Wait is organizing people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration. We seek to create a political situation where the Bush administration's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking U.S. society is reversed.
We seek to mobilize millions to express their outrage, to speak the truth, to act with urgency and form an organized political resistance. We welcome any individuals and groups who agree that the Bush Regime should be driven out, whatever their political party affiliation or lack thereof. We reach out to people who have been fooled by Bush, and to those who have been most seriously affected by the outrages inflicted by the Bush Regime.
We drew our inspiration from...The Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience which we encourage you to read ( http://www.nion.us/NSOC/NION2wsigninfo.htm ), add your name to, and distribute broadly.
Excerpts: "No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason."
"It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively."
BUSH: STEP DOWN And Take Your Program With You!
1. Jan. 31, on The Night of President Bush’s State of the Union Address:
Bring the Noise!
Drown Out Bush’s Lies!
In large cities and small towns all across the country, join in rallies one hour before Bush’s address as we make our determination to “Drive Out the Bush Regime” the political message of the day.
At 9:00 PM EST, just as Bush starts to speak, everywhere we will BRING THE NOISE. In a cacophony of sound, we will drown out his address with music: from drums to violins, from hip hop and classical; and with noise: banging pots and ringing church bells, sound car horns and lifting our voices.
2. DEMONSTRATE on SATURDAY, FEB. 4
(following the State of the Union)
Washington D.C.
The Saturday after the State of the Union address, massive numbers will protest at the seat of government. Prominent voices of conscience will help deliver the people’s verdict on Bush’s criminal regime with our demand: Bush Step Down And Take Your Program with You!
Four immediate objectives for late December:
1) Raise money to run the protest plans for the State of the Union and the Call for The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime in major newspapers, as well as radio ads on Air America. [donate now]
2) Get students and professors prepared for when campus gets back in session to moblize the campuses for the State of the Union. [click here]
3) Saturate communities and schools with materials announcing this, and take out ads specifically calling for this State of the Union manifestation. Flier a movie on 12/25. High school students - spend your winter break selling t-shirts and posters from WCW to holiday shoppers. Contact the national office and local chapters for more info. [download flier]
4) Reach out to organized professional and social justice organizations and bring them solidly in this movement - librarians, neighborhood associations, religious institutions — getting not just endorsements but resolutions that BUSH STEP DOWN and taking action during the State of the Union.
Dick, Head Man
Folks!!
We need to take the call from "The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime" VERY seriously!! I'll post something about it soon.
- Uke Man
December 23, 2005
New York Times Editorial
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency
George W. Bush has quipped several times during his
political career that it would be so much easier to
govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his
vice president that this was a joke.
Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr.
Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has
spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers
of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind
closed doors with oil executives to abrogating
longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a
pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions
and spy on American citizens.
It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming
about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching
events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and
the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the
presidency had become too powerful, secretive and
dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and
fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough,
and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for
accountability.
The president "needs to have his constitutional powers
unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of
national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week
as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic
spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11
attacks.
Before 9/11, Mr. Cheney was trying to undermine the
institutional and legal structure of multilateral
foreign policy: he championed the abrogation of the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to
build an antimissile shield that doesn't work but
makes military contactors rich. Early in his tenure,
Mr. Cheney, who quit as chief executive of Halliburton
to run with Mr. Bush in 2000, gathered his energy
industry cronies at secret meetings in Washington to
rewrite energy policy to their specifications. Mr.
Cheney offered the usual excuses about the need to get
candid advice on important matters, and the courts,
sadly, bought it. But the task force was not an
exercise in diverse views. Mr. Cheney gathered people
who agreed with him, and allowed them to write
national policy for an industry in which he had
recently amassed a fortune.
The effort to expand presidential power accelerated
after 9/11, taking advantage of a national consensus
that the president should have additional powers to
use judiciously against terrorists.
Mr. Cheney started agitating for an attack on Iraq
immediately, pushing the intelligence community to
come up with evidence about a link between Iraq and Al
Qaeda that never existed. His team was central to
writing the legal briefs justifying the abuse and
torture of prisoners, the idea that the president can
designate people to be "unlawful enemy combatants" and
detain them indefinitely, and a secret program
allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on
American citizens without warrants. And when Senator
John McCain introduced a measure to reinstate the rule
of law at American military prisons, Mr. Cheney not
only led the effort to stop the amendment, but also
tried to revise it to actually legalize torture at
C.I.A. prisons.
There are finally signs that the democratic system is
trying to rein in the imperial presidency. Republicans
in the Senate and House forced Mr. Bush to back the
McCain amendment, and Mr. Cheney's plan to legalize
torture by intelligence agents was rebuffed. Congress
also agreed to extend the Patriot Act for five weeks
rather than doing the administration's bidding and
rushing to make it permanent.
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to allow
the administration to transfer Jose Padilla, an
American citizen who has been held by the military for
more than three years on suspicion of plotting
terrorist attacks, from military to civilian custody.
After winning the same court's approval in September
to hold Mr. Padilla as an unlawful combatant, the
administration abruptly reversed course in November
and charged him with civil crimes unrelated to his
arrest. That decision was an obvious attempt to avoid
having the Supreme Court review the legality of the
detention powers that Mr. Bush gave himself, and the
appeals judges refused to go along.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have insisted that the secret
eavesdropping program is legal, but The Washington
Post reported yesterday that the court created to
supervise this sort of activity is not so sure. It
said the presiding judge was arranging a classified
briefing for her fellow judges and that several judges
on the court wanted to know why the administration
believed eavesdropping on American citizens without
warrants was legal when the law specifically requires
such warrants.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are tenacious. They still
control both houses of Congress and are determined to
pack the judiciary with like-minded ideologues. Still,
the recent developments are encouraging, especially
since the court ruling on Mr. Padilla was written by a
staunch conservative considered by President Bush for
the Supreme Court.
We need to take the call from "The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime" VERY seriously!! I'll post something about it soon.
- Uke Man
December 23, 2005
New York Times Editorial
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency
George W. Bush has quipped several times during his
political career that it would be so much easier to
govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his
vice president that this was a joke.
Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr.
Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has
spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers
of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind
closed doors with oil executives to abrogating
longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a
pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions
and spy on American citizens.
It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming
about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching
events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and
the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the
presidency had become too powerful, secretive and
dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and
fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough,
and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for
accountability.
The president "needs to have his constitutional powers
unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of
national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week
as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic
spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11
attacks.
Before 9/11, Mr. Cheney was trying to undermine the
institutional and legal structure of multilateral
foreign policy: he championed the abrogation of the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow in order to
build an antimissile shield that doesn't work but
makes military contactors rich. Early in his tenure,
Mr. Cheney, who quit as chief executive of Halliburton
to run with Mr. Bush in 2000, gathered his energy
industry cronies at secret meetings in Washington to
rewrite energy policy to their specifications. Mr.
Cheney offered the usual excuses about the need to get
candid advice on important matters, and the courts,
sadly, bought it. But the task force was not an
exercise in diverse views. Mr. Cheney gathered people
who agreed with him, and allowed them to write
national policy for an industry in which he had
recently amassed a fortune.
The effort to expand presidential power accelerated
after 9/11, taking advantage of a national consensus
that the president should have additional powers to
use judiciously against terrorists.
Mr. Cheney started agitating for an attack on Iraq
immediately, pushing the intelligence community to
come up with evidence about a link between Iraq and Al
Qaeda that never existed. His team was central to
writing the legal briefs justifying the abuse and
torture of prisoners, the idea that the president can
designate people to be "unlawful enemy combatants" and
detain them indefinitely, and a secret program
allowing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on
American citizens without warrants. And when Senator
John McCain introduced a measure to reinstate the rule
of law at American military prisons, Mr. Cheney not
only led the effort to stop the amendment, but also
tried to revise it to actually legalize torture at
C.I.A. prisons.
There are finally signs that the democratic system is
trying to rein in the imperial presidency. Republicans
in the Senate and House forced Mr. Bush to back the
McCain amendment, and Mr. Cheney's plan to legalize
torture by intelligence agents was rebuffed. Congress
also agreed to extend the Patriot Act for five weeks
rather than doing the administration's bidding and
rushing to make it permanent.
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to allow
the administration to transfer Jose Padilla, an
American citizen who has been held by the military for
more than three years on suspicion of plotting
terrorist attacks, from military to civilian custody.
After winning the same court's approval in September
to hold Mr. Padilla as an unlawful combatant, the
administration abruptly reversed course in November
and charged him with civil crimes unrelated to his
arrest. That decision was an obvious attempt to avoid
having the Supreme Court review the legality of the
detention powers that Mr. Bush gave himself, and the
appeals judges refused to go along.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have insisted that the secret
eavesdropping program is legal, but The Washington
Post reported yesterday that the court created to
supervise this sort of activity is not so sure. It
said the presiding judge was arranging a classified
briefing for her fellow judges and that several judges
on the court wanted to know why the administration
believed eavesdropping on American citizens without
warrants was legal when the law specifically requires
such warrants.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are tenacious. They still
control both houses of Congress and are determined to
pack the judiciary with like-minded ideologues. Still,
the recent developments are encouraging, especially
since the court ruling on Mr. Padilla was written by a
staunch conservative considered by President Bush for
the Supreme Court.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
The Great Satan
Now Folks !!
Below are the words of an ECONOMIST!! He says exactly what the Uke Man has been saying for some time – much of it here and available in the archives!!!
The rabid dogs running this country are worse than "Scrooge,"worse than “zombies” - which Krugman calls them. I don’t believe in Satan, and humanity doesn’t need Satan; but human devils are practicing their craft here on the earth. You can find them in Washington and in the board rooms of pharmaceutical, oil, agricultural, defense, media, and other corporations.
They are insatiable! THEY are the beasts that need to be starved!!
All I want for Christmas is for someone to drag Grover Norquist to his own bathroom and drown the mother-fucker in the tub!
- Uke Man
December 23, 2005
The Tax-Cut Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
If you want someone to play Scrooge just before
Christmas, Dick Cheney is your man. On Wednesday Mr.
Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, cast the
tie-breaking vote in favor of legislation that
increases the fees charged to Medicaid recipients,
lets states cut Medicaid benefits, reduces enforcement
funds for child support, and more.
For all its cruelty, however, the legislation will
make only a tiny dent in the budget deficit: the cuts
total about $8 billion a year, or one-third of 1
percent of total federal spending.
So ended 2005, the year that killed any remaining
rationale for continuing tax cuts. But the hunger for
tax cuts refuses to die.
Since the 1970's, conservatives have used two theories
to justify cutting taxes. One theory, supply-side
economics, has always been hokum for the yokels.
Conservative insiders adopted the supply-siders as
mascots because they were useful to the cause, but
never took them seriously.
The insiders' theory - what we might call the true
tax-cut theory - was memorably described by David
Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, as
"starving the beast." Proponents of this theory argue
that conservatives should seek tax cuts not because
they won't create budget deficits, but because they
will. Starve-the-beasters believe that budget deficits
will lead to spending cuts that will eventually
achieve their true aim: shrinking the government's
role back to what it was under Calvin Coolidge.
True to form, the insiders aren't buying the
supply-siders' claim that a partial recovery in
federal tax receipts from their plunge between 2000
and 2003 shows that all's well on the fiscal front.
(Revenue remains lower, and the federal budget deeper
in deficit, than anyone expected a few years ago.)
Instead, conservative heavyweights are using the
budget deficit to call for cuts in key government
programs.
For example, in 2001 Alan Greenspan urged Congress to
cut taxes to avoid running an excessively large budget
surplus. Now he issues dire warnings about "fiscal
instability." But rather than urging Congress to
reverse the tax cuts he helped sell, he talks of the
need to cut future Social Security and Medicare
benefits.
Yet at this point starve-the-beast theory looks as
silly as supply-side economics. Although a disciplined
conservative movement has controlled Congress and the
White House for five years - and presided over record
deficits - public opposition has prevented any
significant cuts in the big social-insurance programs
that dominate domestic spending.
In fact, two years ago the Bush administration
actually pushed through a major expansion in Medicare.
True, the prescription drug bill clearly wasn't
written by liberals. To a significant extent it's a
giveaway to drug companies rather than a benefit for
retirees. But all that corporate welfare makes the
program more expensive, not less.
Conservative intellectuals had high hopes that this
year President Bush would make up for this betrayal of
their doctrine by dealing a death blow to Social
Security as we know it. Indeed, he tried. His proposed
"reform" would, over time, have essentially phased out
the program. And he seemed to have everything going
for him: momentum from an election victory, control of
Congress and a highly sympathetic punditocracy. Yet
the drive for privatization quickly degenerated from a
juggernaut into a farce.
Medicaid, whose recipients are less likely to vote
than the average person getting Social Security or
Medicare, is the softest target among major federal
social-insurance programs. But even members of
Congress, it seems, have consciences. (Well, some of
them.) It took intense arm-twisting from the
Republican leadership, and that tie-breaking vote by
Mr. Cheney, to ram through even modest cuts in aid to
the neediest.
In other words, the starve-the-beast theory - like
missile defense - has been tested under the most
favorable possible circumstances, and failed. So there
is no longer any coherent justification for further
tax cuts.
Yet the cuts go on. In fact, even as Congressional
leaders struggled to pass a tiny package of
mean-spirited spending cuts, they pushed forward with
a much larger package of tax cuts. The benefits of
those cuts, as always, will go disproportionately to
the wealthy.
Here's how I see it: Republicans have turned into
tax-cut zombies. They can't remember why they
originally wanted to cut taxes, they can't explain how
they plan to make up for the lost revenue, and they
don't care. Instead, they just keep shambling forward,
always hungry for more.
Below are the words of an ECONOMIST!! He says exactly what the Uke Man has been saying for some time – much of it here and available in the archives!!!
The rabid dogs running this country are worse than "Scrooge,"worse than “zombies” - which Krugman calls them. I don’t believe in Satan, and humanity doesn’t need Satan; but human devils are practicing their craft here on the earth. You can find them in Washington and in the board rooms of pharmaceutical, oil, agricultural, defense, media, and other corporations.
They are insatiable! THEY are the beasts that need to be starved!!
All I want for Christmas is for someone to drag Grover Norquist to his own bathroom and drown the mother-fucker in the tub!
- Uke Man
December 23, 2005
The Tax-Cut Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
If you want someone to play Scrooge just before
Christmas, Dick Cheney is your man. On Wednesday Mr.
Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, cast the
tie-breaking vote in favor of legislation that
increases the fees charged to Medicaid recipients,
lets states cut Medicaid benefits, reduces enforcement
funds for child support, and more.
For all its cruelty, however, the legislation will
make only a tiny dent in the budget deficit: the cuts
total about $8 billion a year, or one-third of 1
percent of total federal spending.
So ended 2005, the year that killed any remaining
rationale for continuing tax cuts. But the hunger for
tax cuts refuses to die.
Since the 1970's, conservatives have used two theories
to justify cutting taxes. One theory, supply-side
economics, has always been hokum for the yokels.
Conservative insiders adopted the supply-siders as
mascots because they were useful to the cause, but
never took them seriously.
The insiders' theory - what we might call the true
tax-cut theory - was memorably described by David
Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, as
"starving the beast." Proponents of this theory argue
that conservatives should seek tax cuts not because
they won't create budget deficits, but because they
will. Starve-the-beasters believe that budget deficits
will lead to spending cuts that will eventually
achieve their true aim: shrinking the government's
role back to what it was under Calvin Coolidge.
True to form, the insiders aren't buying the
supply-siders' claim that a partial recovery in
federal tax receipts from their plunge between 2000
and 2003 shows that all's well on the fiscal front.
(Revenue remains lower, and the federal budget deeper
in deficit, than anyone expected a few years ago.)
Instead, conservative heavyweights are using the
budget deficit to call for cuts in key government
programs.
For example, in 2001 Alan Greenspan urged Congress to
cut taxes to avoid running an excessively large budget
surplus. Now he issues dire warnings about "fiscal
instability." But rather than urging Congress to
reverse the tax cuts he helped sell, he talks of the
need to cut future Social Security and Medicare
benefits.
Yet at this point starve-the-beast theory looks as
silly as supply-side economics. Although a disciplined
conservative movement has controlled Congress and the
White House for five years - and presided over record
deficits - public opposition has prevented any
significant cuts in the big social-insurance programs
that dominate domestic spending.
In fact, two years ago the Bush administration
actually pushed through a major expansion in Medicare.
True, the prescription drug bill clearly wasn't
written by liberals. To a significant extent it's a
giveaway to drug companies rather than a benefit for
retirees. But all that corporate welfare makes the
program more expensive, not less.
Conservative intellectuals had high hopes that this
year President Bush would make up for this betrayal of
their doctrine by dealing a death blow to Social
Security as we know it. Indeed, he tried. His proposed
"reform" would, over time, have essentially phased out
the program. And he seemed to have everything going
for him: momentum from an election victory, control of
Congress and a highly sympathetic punditocracy. Yet
the drive for privatization quickly degenerated from a
juggernaut into a farce.
Medicaid, whose recipients are less likely to vote
than the average person getting Social Security or
Medicare, is the softest target among major federal
social-insurance programs. But even members of
Congress, it seems, have consciences. (Well, some of
them.) It took intense arm-twisting from the
Republican leadership, and that tie-breaking vote by
Mr. Cheney, to ram through even modest cuts in aid to
the neediest.
In other words, the starve-the-beast theory - like
missile defense - has been tested under the most
favorable possible circumstances, and failed. So there
is no longer any coherent justification for further
tax cuts.
Yet the cuts go on. In fact, even as Congressional
leaders struggled to pass a tiny package of
mean-spirited spending cuts, they pushed forward with
a much larger package of tax cuts. The benefits of
those cuts, as always, will go disproportionately to
the wealthy.
Here's how I see it: Republicans have turned into
tax-cut zombies. They can't remember why they
originally wanted to cut taxes, they can't explain how
they plan to make up for the lost revenue, and they
don't care. Instead, they just keep shambling forward,
always hungry for more.
Had too much sugary, maudlin Christmas fun? Try this
Hey Folks,
Here's the antidote.
http://www.illwillpress.com/xmas.html
Have a fun day!
- Uke Man
( a ukethanks to John )
Here's the antidote.
http://www.illwillpress.com/xmas.html
Have a fun day!
- Uke Man
( a ukethanks to John )
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Happy Holidays to One & All !!!
Hey Folks,
The Uke Man is not a big holiday fan, and I haven’t had a drink in almost a month (trying to diet – not dry out); so, I’m NOT feeling particularly festive.
But, I DO care about YOU, and I hope YOU have a very festive Holiday!!!
To help in that regard, let me share the best little net-card/site/thingamajig I’ve ever come across (sorry it’s only Christian - but if it helps, I’m an atheist ukulele player – it’s the arrangement I liked).
Enjoy!! And have a wonderful time in your life whatever you believe or don’t believe.
Just click on this:
http://www.reuters.hu/card_dom/index_content.html
- Uke Man
(a ukethanks to John)
The Uke Man is not a big holiday fan, and I haven’t had a drink in almost a month (trying to diet – not dry out); so, I’m NOT feeling particularly festive.
But, I DO care about YOU, and I hope YOU have a very festive Holiday!!!
To help in that regard, let me share the best little net-card/site/thingamajig I’ve ever come across (sorry it’s only Christian - but if it helps, I’m an atheist ukulele player – it’s the arrangement I liked).
Enjoy!! And have a wonderful time in your life whatever you believe or don’t believe.
Just click on this:
http://www.reuters.hu/card_dom/index_content.html
- Uke Man
(a ukethanks to John)
Scotts Miracle-Gro[an] Revisited
To the Editor (Columbus Dispatch),
Lynn Boydelatour’s letter regarding Scotts Miracle-Gro’s policy of firing workers who refuse to quit smoking off the job * was not unexpected. There are many good-hearted Puritans out there who can’t help themselves. They must be about, “bettering” lesser folks.
Boydelatour applauds Scotts, saying, “These are the kind of self-sacrificing individuals I’d rather cast my lot with.” Well, Scotts’ CEO flatly admitted that the policy was to save the company money. The only ones who would be sacrificing are those who are fired, about whom Boydelatour says “Scotts need not worry.”
Boydelatour is correct that Captain Cook’s sailors might not have gotten their healthful fruit juice without the threat of being flogged, and, for that matter, God’s people might not have avoided trichinosis if Moses had simply told them pork was hazardous to their health.
What Puritans fail to recognize is that this is a FREE country. When businessmen are granted the powers of God or even of the sailing ship captains of yesteryear, we may or may not be healthier, but we most certainly will not be free.
Yours - Tom Harker
* For more information, I have re-posted an earlier posting directly below this one.
Hey Folks,
Above is a letter to the Dispatch in answer to one of today’s letters.
No matter what the issue, there will always be SOMEONE, some half-assed fool, who will pompously address an issue based on his personal feelings or on some narrow factual point that makes no sense in the larger context.
In this instance, the writer clearly expresses concern over workers becoming ill from smoking, but in the end suggests Scotts not worry over families whose breadwinner is suddenly unemployed – not a very healthful situation.
Likewise, his analogy to Captain Cook and other sea captains runs counter to his point. Captains such as Cook had life and death control over their employees, and could control every aspect of their lives. Moreover, they could do so in ways that best served their personal careers and the investments of their backers. In regard to forced ingestion of citrus juice to prevent scurvy, this happened also to serve the sailors’ longevity as well – as those Scotts workers who are able to quit on command would also be served.
But Scotts’ CEO is not endowed by our constitution with life and death control over his workers, regardless of how the corporation-owned government interprets the law.
The analogy breaks down further when the writer relates that many captains refused to follow a maritime law requiring the stowing of citrus on voyages in order to cut costs. So much for the letter-writer’s characterization of the captains – and by analogy, the Scotts CEO – as “self-sacrificing” individuals.
Finally the writer presents the classical, cavalier attitude of the “let them eat cake” crowd of wannabe aristocrats, those that by income-level or attitude find it easy to move lesser souls around the board of life without regard to their welfare. To him, if it helps the company and is no skin off his nose and gets a few people to stop smoking (a legal, if unhealthy, practice), then to hell with the rest and to hell with “A man’s home is his castle.” He apparently believes that, just as the farmer has a vested interest in keeping the animals he owns healthy until they are slaughtered, the entremanure has an interest in keeping up the health of the workers he owns – at least until they no longer work for him.
- Uke Man
Lynn Boydelatour’s letter regarding Scotts Miracle-Gro’s policy of firing workers who refuse to quit smoking off the job * was not unexpected. There are many good-hearted Puritans out there who can’t help themselves. They must be about, “bettering” lesser folks.
Boydelatour applauds Scotts, saying, “These are the kind of self-sacrificing individuals I’d rather cast my lot with.” Well, Scotts’ CEO flatly admitted that the policy was to save the company money. The only ones who would be sacrificing are those who are fired, about whom Boydelatour says “Scotts need not worry.”
Boydelatour is correct that Captain Cook’s sailors might not have gotten their healthful fruit juice without the threat of being flogged, and, for that matter, God’s people might not have avoided trichinosis if Moses had simply told them pork was hazardous to their health.
What Puritans fail to recognize is that this is a FREE country. When businessmen are granted the powers of God or even of the sailing ship captains of yesteryear, we may or may not be healthier, but we most certainly will not be free.
Yours - Tom Harker
* For more information, I have re-posted an earlier posting directly below this one.
Hey Folks,
Above is a letter to the Dispatch in answer to one of today’s letters.
No matter what the issue, there will always be SOMEONE, some half-assed fool, who will pompously address an issue based on his personal feelings or on some narrow factual point that makes no sense in the larger context.
In this instance, the writer clearly expresses concern over workers becoming ill from smoking, but in the end suggests Scotts not worry over families whose breadwinner is suddenly unemployed – not a very healthful situation.
Likewise, his analogy to Captain Cook and other sea captains runs counter to his point. Captains such as Cook had life and death control over their employees, and could control every aspect of their lives. Moreover, they could do so in ways that best served their personal careers and the investments of their backers. In regard to forced ingestion of citrus juice to prevent scurvy, this happened also to serve the sailors’ longevity as well – as those Scotts workers who are able to quit on command would also be served.
But Scotts’ CEO is not endowed by our constitution with life and death control over his workers, regardless of how the corporation-owned government interprets the law.
The analogy breaks down further when the writer relates that many captains refused to follow a maritime law requiring the stowing of citrus on voyages in order to cut costs. So much for the letter-writer’s characterization of the captains – and by analogy, the Scotts CEO – as “self-sacrificing” individuals.
Finally the writer presents the classical, cavalier attitude of the “let them eat cake” crowd of wannabe aristocrats, those that by income-level or attitude find it easy to move lesser souls around the board of life without regard to their welfare. To him, if it helps the company and is no skin off his nose and gets a few people to stop smoking (a legal, if unhealthy, practice), then to hell with the rest and to hell with “A man’s home is his castle.” He apparently believes that, just as the farmer has a vested interest in keeping the animals he owns healthy until they are slaughtered, the entremanure has an interest in keeping up the health of the workers he owns – at least until they no longer work for him.
- Uke Man
Scotts' Miracle-Gro fertilizer is Shit!
The newspaper reported today that a national corporation headquartered in Marysville, Ohio – Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. - is taking an “in your face” approach to “cut costs.” The approach includes firing anyone who smokes – not just on the job, but at home as well – anyone who smokes – period!
In addition it requires employees to complete a “health assessment," have it evaluated by medical professionals and then follow recommendations to improve their health.” Slackers will pay higher health premiums in 2006, and ever higher (each month) in 2007.
The Scotts Fuehrer says, “We’re being as aggressive as the law will allow us, to keep our costs under control.”
Well, fuck them! And fuck the law, too!
Now, Folks, I don’t smoke, and I’m retired (don’t need a job), and I know that smoking “can be hazardous to your health,” but fuck Scotts anyway!! Fuck corporations! Fuck business! And fuck capitalism too! and the invisible hand of the Market it rode in on!
We are living in the United Corporations of America, operating under the constitutionally guaranteed right of one-dollar/one-vote! Money is the measure of all things. The rich fuckers OWN the government, and the masses are little better than slaves to the corporate interests. Government of the Corporation, by the Corporation, and for the Corporation.
Most workers on the USA Plantation can be fired for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason. Often - without warning - they are told to leave, given five minutes to gather any personal belongings, and escorted off the premises. Then, in many cases, the company tries to fuck the worker out of unemployment compensation.
Now they are fucking people out of their pensions – fucking them out of Social Security is temporarily in remission, but is being tended to by Drs. Alan Greedspan, Groovy Norquist, Dubya, et.al.
Talk about treating human labor as a commodity! Well, it’s just business; gotta compete; gotta keep Wall Street happy: headquarter offshore, outsource to China, “subcontract” to a sweatshop, use prison labor, work Granny ‘til she drops, throw the long-term/higher cost employees in the trash, ignore “archaic” labor laws, hire “part time” and “temp,” reduce or eliminate health benefits, work ‘em “off the clock,” hire illegals and lock ‘em in at night, require welfare recipients to work in Tyson’s chicken hell-holes, ignore child labor laws, use sympathetic courts and “bankruptcy to break unions, lay ‘em off from living wage jobs (and if they won’t work for Sam [Walton or Uncle Warmonger], let ‘em starve).
And if treating workers like use-and-discard parts of the Money Machine, suitable for degradation and abuse on the job is not enough, NOW the shining stars of the “American Dream,” the “best and brightest” of this stinking city on the hill (to paraphrase the beloved Gyp-er – may dogs piss on his grave) are sticking their condescending blue noses into the worker’s "free time" and his so-called “castle,” his home.
Well, someone needs to break off their snotty blue noses and feed 'em to the pigs! We are NOT their fucking chattel!!
- Uke Man
In addition it requires employees to complete a “health assessment," have it evaluated by medical professionals and then follow recommendations to improve their health.” Slackers will pay higher health premiums in 2006, and ever higher (each month) in 2007.
The Scotts Fuehrer says, “We’re being as aggressive as the law will allow us, to keep our costs under control.”
Well, fuck them! And fuck the law, too!
Now, Folks, I don’t smoke, and I’m retired (don’t need a job), and I know that smoking “can be hazardous to your health,” but fuck Scotts anyway!! Fuck corporations! Fuck business! And fuck capitalism too! and the invisible hand of the Market it rode in on!
We are living in the United Corporations of America, operating under the constitutionally guaranteed right of one-dollar/one-vote! Money is the measure of all things. The rich fuckers OWN the government, and the masses are little better than slaves to the corporate interests. Government of the Corporation, by the Corporation, and for the Corporation.
Most workers on the USA Plantation can be fired for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason. Often - without warning - they are told to leave, given five minutes to gather any personal belongings, and escorted off the premises. Then, in many cases, the company tries to fuck the worker out of unemployment compensation.
Now they are fucking people out of their pensions – fucking them out of Social Security is temporarily in remission, but is being tended to by Drs. Alan Greedspan, Groovy Norquist, Dubya, et.al.
Talk about treating human labor as a commodity! Well, it’s just business; gotta compete; gotta keep Wall Street happy: headquarter offshore, outsource to China, “subcontract” to a sweatshop, use prison labor, work Granny ‘til she drops, throw the long-term/higher cost employees in the trash, ignore “archaic” labor laws, hire “part time” and “temp,” reduce or eliminate health benefits, work ‘em “off the clock,” hire illegals and lock ‘em in at night, require welfare recipients to work in Tyson’s chicken hell-holes, ignore child labor laws, use sympathetic courts and “bankruptcy to break unions, lay ‘em off from living wage jobs (and if they won’t work for Sam [Walton or Uncle Warmonger], let ‘em starve).
And if treating workers like use-and-discard parts of the Money Machine, suitable for degradation and abuse on the job is not enough, NOW the shining stars of the “American Dream,” the “best and brightest” of this stinking city on the hill (to paraphrase the beloved Gyp-er – may dogs piss on his grave) are sticking their condescending blue noses into the worker’s "free time" and his so-called “castle,” his home.
Well, someone needs to break off their snotty blue noses and feed 'em to the pigs! We are NOT their fucking chattel!!
- Uke Man
Twain - The Nature of Work
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 13th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 28 – The Yankee discusses the nature of work
There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about “the working classes,” and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day’s manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the other. But I know all about both; and as far as I am concerned, there isn’t money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down – and I will be satisfied, too. Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him – why certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair – but there it is, and nothing can change it; the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it’s also the very law of those transparent swindles, transmissible nobility and kingship [and the aristocracy of inherited wealth – Uke Man].
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 13th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 28 – The Yankee discusses the nature of work
There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about “the working classes,” and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day’s manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the other. But I know all about both; and as far as I am concerned, there isn’t money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down – and I will be satisfied, too. Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him – why certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it’s a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair – but there it is, and nothing can change it; the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it’s also the very law of those transparent swindles, transmissible nobility and kingship [and the aristocracy of inherited wealth – Uke Man].
Friday, December 23, 2005
Leonard Peltier
Hey Folks,
If you haven’t heard of Leonard Peltier before, you should now.
Check out my earlier posting and the sites below for more information:
http://www.freepeltier.org/
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/
Directly below is a statement by Leonard Peltier reporting on his transfer (at last) to a less oppressive prison situation.
- Uke Man
LEONARD HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO USP LEWISBURG
August 15, 2005
Aho My Relations,
On August 15, 2005 I was transferred to USP Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. Life has been extra difficult for me since I was transferred from Leavenworth. This system is designed to make one feel very powerless, and what they are doing with me now is definitely aimed to erode my body and spirit even more. My loved ones, and all of you, my friends and allies who continue to support me, keep me sane and hopeful.
They say that it is in times of crisis that one can really see who your real allies are. Those of you who have contacted the Terre Haute Prison and the Bureau of Prisons on my behalf, keep me in your prayers, and are supporting my Defense Committee, have made an enormous difference in my situation. I humbly thank each and every one of you, and firmly believe that your actions most certainly saved my life and prevented me from living in an institution that is well known for its extremely high crime and violence. Also, health problems continue to plague me and the conditions I was subjected to exacerbated them. I know deep within my heart, that if there had not been such an outpouring of support, concern and overall outcry regarding my arbitrary detention, I would have probably stayed in solitary confinement for an indefinite length of time, or worse I would not have survived in the general prisoner population. Although I have been forced to endure many hardships, I will never surrender, even if all that is left of me is my spirit. Your love and support inspire me to overcome everything.
I hope that here at Lewisburg I will be able to resume living in the general population, practicing the traditional ways and continuing with my artwork. My defense team is preparing to go through some major milestones. They need your support more than ever to re-establish our office and prepare for upcoming reviews and legal battles. Since Russ Redner, Paula Ostrovsky, and Toni Zeidan do not want to accept any salaries or remuneration of any kind, all of your donations will go directly to the office transfer and upcoming campaign.
I again want to express my sincere appreciation and tell you once more that without you I am not sure I could have survived this last month. Every day I think about and pray for a time when I will be among you, shoulder to shoulder, fighting for justice for my people and our Mother Earth.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Leonard Peltier
NOTE FROM THE LPDC:
Please contact USP Lewisburg to make sure Leonard regains all his hard earned prisoner rights, especially his religious rights, visitations, regular phone calls and ability to paint. Be polite and courteous, but let them know that a lot of us all over the world are concerned about Leonard’s well-being.
Warden
USP LEWISBURGU.S. PENITENTIARY2400 ROBERT F. MILLER DRIVELEWISBURG, PA 17837
Phone: 570- 523-1251Fax: 570- 522-7745E-mail address: LEW/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV
Also please continue writing to Leonard but be mindful of his situation and respectful of his personal affairs.
Leonard Peltier # 89637-132USP LEWISBURGU.S. PENITENTIARYP.O. BOX 1000 LEWISBURG, PA 17837
If you haven’t heard of Leonard Peltier before, you should now.
Check out my earlier posting and the sites below for more information:
http://www.freepeltier.org/
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/
Directly below is a statement by Leonard Peltier reporting on his transfer (at last) to a less oppressive prison situation.
- Uke Man
LEONARD HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO USP LEWISBURG
August 15, 2005
Aho My Relations,
On August 15, 2005 I was transferred to USP Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. Life has been extra difficult for me since I was transferred from Leavenworth. This system is designed to make one feel very powerless, and what they are doing with me now is definitely aimed to erode my body and spirit even more. My loved ones, and all of you, my friends and allies who continue to support me, keep me sane and hopeful.
They say that it is in times of crisis that one can really see who your real allies are. Those of you who have contacted the Terre Haute Prison and the Bureau of Prisons on my behalf, keep me in your prayers, and are supporting my Defense Committee, have made an enormous difference in my situation. I humbly thank each and every one of you, and firmly believe that your actions most certainly saved my life and prevented me from living in an institution that is well known for its extremely high crime and violence. Also, health problems continue to plague me and the conditions I was subjected to exacerbated them. I know deep within my heart, that if there had not been such an outpouring of support, concern and overall outcry regarding my arbitrary detention, I would have probably stayed in solitary confinement for an indefinite length of time, or worse I would not have survived in the general prisoner population. Although I have been forced to endure many hardships, I will never surrender, even if all that is left of me is my spirit. Your love and support inspire me to overcome everything.
I hope that here at Lewisburg I will be able to resume living in the general population, practicing the traditional ways and continuing with my artwork. My defense team is preparing to go through some major milestones. They need your support more than ever to re-establish our office and prepare for upcoming reviews and legal battles. Since Russ Redner, Paula Ostrovsky, and Toni Zeidan do not want to accept any salaries or remuneration of any kind, all of your donations will go directly to the office transfer and upcoming campaign.
I again want to express my sincere appreciation and tell you once more that without you I am not sure I could have survived this last month. Every day I think about and pray for a time when I will be among you, shoulder to shoulder, fighting for justice for my people and our Mother Earth.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Leonard Peltier
NOTE FROM THE LPDC:
Please contact USP Lewisburg to make sure Leonard regains all his hard earned prisoner rights, especially his religious rights, visitations, regular phone calls and ability to paint. Be polite and courteous, but let them know that a lot of us all over the world are concerned about Leonard’s well-being.
Warden
USP LEWISBURGU.S. PENITENTIARY2400 ROBERT F. MILLER DRIVELEWISBURG, PA 17837
Phone: 570- 523-1251Fax: 570- 522-7745E-mail address: LEW/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV
Also please continue writing to Leonard but be mindful of his situation and respectful of his personal affairs.
Leonard Peltier # 89637-132USP LEWISBURGU.S. PENITENTIARYP.O. BOX 1000 LEWISBURG, PA 17837
A Chilling Consideration
Hey Folks,
I heard an Air America host say something like, “Either he’s [Bush] an idiot or the Neo Con agenda is to create a new Evil Empire – the Muslim world. It’s good for business.”
I don’t know whether you noticed, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, the right wing psychos – while celebrating wildly and demanding that “the Gypper” be carved on Rushmore – seemed to lose some of their focus.
All my life we had been kept in line by the boogey man, godless communism. Suddenly the threat was gone. What WOULD the reactionaries do? How WOULD they keep the great unwashed masses in line slaving away to make money for their betters?
I noticed right away, perhaps because I was teaching. Not long after the fall, the vampires started in on public schools. There wasn’t a day that some attack didn't fall upon the public school system.
It was a pain in the ass to anybody teaching school, but we were a pale imitation of the communist boogey man. After all, a first grader can hide under his desk to escape a nuclear attack, but hiding under the desk won’t fool the teacher.
It struck me that the fuckers who run this country were desperate to recreate the “foreign threat”; it works; they’re comfortable with it; and it’s good for business. Bush got elected/selected, in part, because of the Arabic boogey man.
It isn’t too far out to wonder if this whole fiasco is designed not to create client states in the Middle East – states that will lick our boots – so that we can control the flow of oil to our benefit rather than to the benefit of our competitors; but, rather, to create a new boogey man.
Personally, I believe it started out as the former. The chilling part is that now, with the original plan falling apart like cheap asphalt in a spring thaw, the “boogey” plan offers the Neo Coneheads an equally appealing alternative to “(subservient) nation building.”
A “Win-Win” situation for the crud that is Bush & Co. will NOT make for a Happy New Year.
- Uke Man
I heard an Air America host say something like, “Either he’s [Bush] an idiot or the Neo Con agenda is to create a new Evil Empire – the Muslim world. It’s good for business.”
I don’t know whether you noticed, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, the right wing psychos – while celebrating wildly and demanding that “the Gypper” be carved on Rushmore – seemed to lose some of their focus.
All my life we had been kept in line by the boogey man, godless communism. Suddenly the threat was gone. What WOULD the reactionaries do? How WOULD they keep the great unwashed masses in line slaving away to make money for their betters?
I noticed right away, perhaps because I was teaching. Not long after the fall, the vampires started in on public schools. There wasn’t a day that some attack didn't fall upon the public school system.
It was a pain in the ass to anybody teaching school, but we were a pale imitation of the communist boogey man. After all, a first grader can hide under his desk to escape a nuclear attack, but hiding under the desk won’t fool the teacher.
It struck me that the fuckers who run this country were desperate to recreate the “foreign threat”; it works; they’re comfortable with it; and it’s good for business. Bush got elected/selected, in part, because of the Arabic boogey man.
It isn’t too far out to wonder if this whole fiasco is designed not to create client states in the Middle East – states that will lick our boots – so that we can control the flow of oil to our benefit rather than to the benefit of our competitors; but, rather, to create a new boogey man.
Personally, I believe it started out as the former. The chilling part is that now, with the original plan falling apart like cheap asphalt in a spring thaw, the “boogey” plan offers the Neo Coneheads an equally appealing alternative to “(subservient) nation building.”
A “Win-Win” situation for the crud that is Bush & Co. will NOT make for a Happy New Year.
- Uke Man
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Transit Strike report from the union
Hey Folks,
I received this letter Thursday. It gives some facts and perspective you might not have gotten from the print or boob-tube media.
- Uke Man
Dear Working America member,
Just two days ago, 37,200 transit
workers went on strike on behalf of all workers whose wages, retirement security and jobs are under attack by their employers.The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is operating with a $1 billion surplus and is using disinformation, smears and pressure tactics to pit current workers against future employees who would be required to pay 4 percent more toward their pensions than current employees. The strikers made it clear to the MTA that if they took the increase in pension payments for future employees off the table, they would negotiate. The MTA refused, leaving the transit workers with no alternative.
With a $1 billion surplus, the MTA does not need cuts. Don't let the MTA lower the standards for middle-class workers and pit future employees against existing ones.
While pundits in the news media debate the legitimacy of the strike, our peers on the front lines have shown great courage and sacrifice. We need to show them our full support. You can make a difference by making a donation now.We will keep you updated as events unfold in New York City.Sincerely,
Working America, AFL-CIODec. 22, 2005
I received this letter Thursday. It gives some facts and perspective you might not have gotten from the print or boob-tube media.
- Uke Man
Dear Working America member,
Just two days ago, 37,200 transit
workers went on strike on behalf of all workers whose wages, retirement security and jobs are under attack by their employers.The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is operating with a $1 billion surplus and is using disinformation, smears and pressure tactics to pit current workers against future employees who would be required to pay 4 percent more toward their pensions than current employees. The strikers made it clear to the MTA that if they took the increase in pension payments for future employees off the table, they would negotiate. The MTA refused, leaving the transit workers with no alternative.
With a $1 billion surplus, the MTA does not need cuts. Don't let the MTA lower the standards for middle-class workers and pit future employees against existing ones.
While pundits in the news media debate the legitimacy of the strike, our peers on the front lines have shown great courage and sacrifice. We need to show them our full support. You can make a difference by making a donation now.We will keep you updated as events unfold in New York City.Sincerely,
Working America, AFL-CIODec. 22, 2005
Elvis-a-Thon January 7 - Little Brothers
Hey Folks,
An early warning: January 7 at Little Brothers:
The Elvis-a-Thon, A January Tradition
Come see and hear the King (mostly hear).
The Uke Man will be doing three songs for your gratification!
Thank you! Thank you very much!!
- Uke Man
An early warning: January 7 at Little Brothers:
The Elvis-a-Thon, A January Tradition
Come see and hear the King (mostly hear).
The Uke Man will be doing three songs for your gratification!
Thank you! Thank you very much!!
- Uke Man
More on Saint Bill (keep him away from your kids)
(a ukethanks to Phyll - enjoy! - Uke Man)
December 18, 2005
**************A Challenge for Bill O'Reilly
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Let us all pray for Bill O'Reilly. Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will understand that theChristmas spirit isn't about hectoring people to say"Merry Christmas," rather than "Happy Holidays," butabout helping the needy.
Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will use his hugeaudience and considerable media savvy to save livesand fight genocide, instead of to vilify those hedisagrees with. Let him find inspiration in Jesus,rather than in the Assyrians.
Finally, let's pray that Mr. O'Reilly and othermoney-changers in the temple will donate the fundsthey raise exploiting Christmas - covering thenonexistent "War on Christmas" rakes in viewers andadvertising - to feed the hungry and house thehomeless.
Amen.
Alas, not all prayers can be answered. Fox NewsChannel's crusade against infidels who prefer genericexpressions like "Happy Holidays" included 58 separatesegments in just a five-day period.
After I suggested in last Sunday's column that abetter way to honor the season might be to stand up togenocide in Darfur (a calamity that Mr. O'Reilly hasignored), Mr. O'Reilly denounced me on his show as a"left-wing ideologue." Bless you, Mr. O'Reilly, andMerry Christmas to you, too!
Later in the show, Mr. O'Reilly described us printjournalists in general as "a bunch of viciousS.O.B.'s." Bless you again, Mr. O'Reilly; I'll prayharder for the Christmas spirit to soften yourpugnacious soul.
Look, I put up a "Christmas tree," rather than a"holiday tree," and I'm sure Mr. O'Reilly is rightthat political correctness leads to absurd contortionsthis time of year. But when you've seen what real wardoes, you don't lightly use the word to describedisagreements about Christmas greetings. And does itreally make sense to offer 58 segments on politicalcorrectness and zero on genocide?
Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to religioushypocrites because I've spent a chunk of time abroadwatching Muslim versions of Mr. O'Reilly - demagogictable-thumpers who exploit public religiosity as acynical ploy to gain attention and money. And I alwaystell moderate Muslims that they need to stand up toblustery blowhards - so today, I'm taking my ownadvice.
Like the fundamentalist Islamic preachers, Mr.O'Reilly is a talented showman, and my sense is thathis ranting is a calculated performance. The couple oftimes I've been on his show, he was mild mannered andamiable until the camera light went on - and then heburst into aggrieved indignation, because he knew itmade good theater.
If Mr. O'Reilly wants to find a Christmas cause, heshould invite guests from Catholic Relief Services,World Vision or the National Association ofEvangelicals - among the many faith-basedorganizations that are doing heroic work battlingeverything from river blindness to sex trafficking.Indeed, the real victims of Mr. O'Reilly are theauthentic religious conservatives, because someviewers falsely assume that ill-informed bombastcharacterizes the entire religious right.
(I'm tempted to think that Mr. O'Reilly is actually aliberal plant, meant to discredit conservatives. Thinkabout it. Who would be a better plant than aself-righteous bully in the style of Father Coughlinor Joe McCarthy? What better way to caricature theright than by having Mr. O'Reilly urge on air that thestaff of Air America be imprisoned: "Dissent, fine;undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all thoseclowns over at the liberal radio network, we couldincarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done,please? Send over the F.B.I. and just put them inchains, because they, you know, they're underminingeverything.")
Some authentic religious conservatives are embarrassedby television phonies. Cal Thomas, the conservativeChristian columnist, warned: "The effort by some cableTV hosts and ministers to force commercialestablishments into wishing everyone a 'MerryChristmas' might be more objectionable to the One whois the reason for the season than the 'Happy Holidays'mantra required by some store managers."
So I have a challenge for Mr. O'Reilly: If you reallywant to defend traditional values, then come with meon a trip to Darfur. I'll introduce you to mothers whohave had their babies clubbed to death in front ofthem, to teenage girls who have been gang-raped andthen mutilated - and to the government-armed thugs whodo these things.
You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'llencounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll bescared. If you try to bully some of the goons inDarfur, they'll just hack your head off. But you'llalso meet some genuine conservative Christians - aidworkers who live the Gospel instead of sputteringabout it - and you'll finally be using your talentsfor an important cause.
So, Bill, what'll it be? Will you dare travel to areal war against Christmas values, in which thevictims aren't offended shoppers but terrifiedchildren thrown on bonfires? I'm waiting to hear.
December 18, 2005
**************A Challenge for Bill O'Reilly
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Let us all pray for Bill O'Reilly. Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will understand that theChristmas spirit isn't about hectoring people to say"Merry Christmas," rather than "Happy Holidays," butabout helping the needy.
Let us pray that Mr. O'Reilly will use his hugeaudience and considerable media savvy to save livesand fight genocide, instead of to vilify those hedisagrees with. Let him find inspiration in Jesus,rather than in the Assyrians.
Finally, let's pray that Mr. O'Reilly and othermoney-changers in the temple will donate the fundsthey raise exploiting Christmas - covering thenonexistent "War on Christmas" rakes in viewers andadvertising - to feed the hungry and house thehomeless.
Amen.
Alas, not all prayers can be answered. Fox NewsChannel's crusade against infidels who prefer genericexpressions like "Happy Holidays" included 58 separatesegments in just a five-day period.
After I suggested in last Sunday's column that abetter way to honor the season might be to stand up togenocide in Darfur (a calamity that Mr. O'Reilly hasignored), Mr. O'Reilly denounced me on his show as a"left-wing ideologue." Bless you, Mr. O'Reilly, andMerry Christmas to you, too!
Later in the show, Mr. O'Reilly described us printjournalists in general as "a bunch of viciousS.O.B.'s." Bless you again, Mr. O'Reilly; I'll prayharder for the Christmas spirit to soften yourpugnacious soul.
Look, I put up a "Christmas tree," rather than a"holiday tree," and I'm sure Mr. O'Reilly is rightthat political correctness leads to absurd contortionsthis time of year. But when you've seen what real wardoes, you don't lightly use the word to describedisagreements about Christmas greetings. And does itreally make sense to offer 58 segments on politicalcorrectness and zero on genocide?
Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to religioushypocrites because I've spent a chunk of time abroadwatching Muslim versions of Mr. O'Reilly - demagogictable-thumpers who exploit public religiosity as acynical ploy to gain attention and money. And I alwaystell moderate Muslims that they need to stand up toblustery blowhards - so today, I'm taking my ownadvice.
Like the fundamentalist Islamic preachers, Mr.O'Reilly is a talented showman, and my sense is thathis ranting is a calculated performance. The couple oftimes I've been on his show, he was mild mannered andamiable until the camera light went on - and then heburst into aggrieved indignation, because he knew itmade good theater.
If Mr. O'Reilly wants to find a Christmas cause, heshould invite guests from Catholic Relief Services,World Vision or the National Association ofEvangelicals - among the many faith-basedorganizations that are doing heroic work battlingeverything from river blindness to sex trafficking.Indeed, the real victims of Mr. O'Reilly are theauthentic religious conservatives, because someviewers falsely assume that ill-informed bombastcharacterizes the entire religious right.
(I'm tempted to think that Mr. O'Reilly is actually aliberal plant, meant to discredit conservatives. Thinkabout it. Who would be a better plant than aself-righteous bully in the style of Father Coughlinor Joe McCarthy? What better way to caricature theright than by having Mr. O'Reilly urge on air that thestaff of Air America be imprisoned: "Dissent, fine;undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all thoseclowns over at the liberal radio network, we couldincarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done,please? Send over the F.B.I. and just put them inchains, because they, you know, they're underminingeverything.")
Some authentic religious conservatives are embarrassedby television phonies. Cal Thomas, the conservativeChristian columnist, warned: "The effort by some cableTV hosts and ministers to force commercialestablishments into wishing everyone a 'MerryChristmas' might be more objectionable to the One whois the reason for the season than the 'Happy Holidays'mantra required by some store managers."
So I have a challenge for Mr. O'Reilly: If you reallywant to defend traditional values, then come with meon a trip to Darfur. I'll introduce you to mothers whohave had their babies clubbed to death in front ofthem, to teenage girls who have been gang-raped andthen mutilated - and to the government-armed thugs whodo these things.
You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'llencounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll bescared. If you try to bully some of the goons inDarfur, they'll just hack your head off. But you'llalso meet some genuine conservative Christians - aidworkers who live the Gospel instead of sputteringabout it - and you'll finally be using your talentsfor an important cause.
So, Bill, what'll it be? Will you dare travel to areal war against Christmas values, in which thevictims aren't offended shoppers but terrifiedchildren thrown on bonfires? I'm waiting to hear.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
The Rant from Saturday's "Circus of Cool" !
***Intelligent Design, My Ass!!***
I'm tired of God. Enough of Him! Him & his crap!
Yeah! It was good ol’ God when I was small -
I’d fall asleep - sitting on his lap
But after the nap, it was “Up against the Wall!!”
Yeah! and He strutted around all holier than thou
(as if He really knew thou then
As if he even knows thou NOW) !
* * *
Yeah, with God all things are possible!!!
But not in Ohio!! Not on the earth!!
Not while you’re ALIVE !! Not after your BIRTH, but after you’re DEATH !!
That’s when you’re WITH god!!!
After you’re DEAD!!
First MAN must DIE and THEN get ahead!
But you say GOD’s with you now!!!?? Well send him up here! Let the deity speak; and I’ll buy him a beer!
Hey! Let’s hear it for GOD!! Let’s give him a hand!!!
Hey bartender! a beer! And strike up the band.
* * *
What?! Oh, he’s caught in traffic somewhere in the land.
The Omnipotent’s caught up in a Grand traffic Jam ??
as Intelligently Designed in his Grand Master Plan ??
Predestined, I guess, from before the first days –
To show off his might in ever new ways.
But alas, THAT old question is answered, to wit:
CAN he make a heavy stone he cannot lift?
The answer’s “Yes!” since He ISN’T here!
(and, don’t hold your breath!
and forget about the beer)
A stone so heavy he cannot lift it;
Traffic so snarled he cannot exit.
See! Even God can’t do everything right
Not in Ohio - at least not tonight!
But all is not lost; we can still trust the Boss
In God We still Trust. Isn’t that right?
The Federal Bureau of Graven Images
vouches for him – and always will.
They say so in writing - on the dollar bill,
and if you don’t trust the Dollar; well, who the hell will?
But it’s not the same for ‘telligent Design !
Unless the Almighty is out of his mind.
Ebola, AIDS, avian flu, malaria, cholera, and TB too –
Does any of that sound smart to you?
He made man in His image
How wise was that?
If I look like God!
Then He’s old, bald, and fat;
And the people around us throughout all our days
Reflect on God too - in unflattering ways.
He’s stupid and jealous and spiteful and mean
Writes “YAWEH” in the snow when he vents his spleen.
He sends us to Hell and won’t let us leave,
This creator of DEATH who tries to blame Eve -
But he made HER, and he made the TREE!
And He made Cain and you and me!
Well, he fucked up, didn’t he!!
He fucked up, yes sir-eee!
After all, WE’re the “ZENITH of his creation”
The “culmination of Intelligent Design”
Especially the citizens of THIS great nation
Pristine and pure and noble and kind. * * *
Who believes THAT ???????
The deaf, dumb, and blind !!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember, Man, that thou art dust and to dust
Thou shalt return.
No, we ain’t that much, not worth the fuss
And neither is God.
I’m tired of God
And he’s damned tired of us.
Ah! Humanity!! God’s little toy!!
His guilty pleasure; His most treasured joy!
Five days of plotting to prepare us a place
Five days of practice and wiping his face
(and guzzling coffee) to
(what could it hurt?)
To breathe life in a man he’d made out of DIRT !
What could it hurt to make Man out of dirt?
What could it hurt to make Man out of dirt?
So, He made us up to be just like Him
Filled with dirt all the way to the brim
And, no, not by chance, but by clear design,
To give us a copy of His own filthy mind.
Yeah, five days of plotting to prepare us a place
Five days of practice and wiping his face
Practice, practice, practice makes a most perfect race.
And it’s all by design
And everything’s fine
We’re the Top of the Line
So, don’t worry your mind!
What could it HURT !!
What could it hurt
To make man out of DIRT !
What could it hurt?
What COULD it hurt ?!?!
I'm tired of God. Enough of Him! Him & his crap!
Yeah! It was good ol’ God when I was small -
I’d fall asleep - sitting on his lap
But after the nap, it was “Up against the Wall!!”
Yeah! and He strutted around all holier than thou
(as if He really knew thou then
As if he even knows thou NOW) !
* * *
Yeah, with God all things are possible!!!
But not in Ohio!! Not on the earth!!
Not while you’re ALIVE !! Not after your BIRTH, but after you’re DEATH !!
That’s when you’re WITH god!!!
After you’re DEAD!!
First MAN must DIE and THEN get ahead!
But you say GOD’s with you now!!!?? Well send him up here! Let the deity speak; and I’ll buy him a beer!
Hey! Let’s hear it for GOD!! Let’s give him a hand!!!
Hey bartender! a beer! And strike up the band.
* * *
What?! Oh, he’s caught in traffic somewhere in the land.
The Omnipotent’s caught up in a Grand traffic Jam ??
as Intelligently Designed in his Grand Master Plan ??
Predestined, I guess, from before the first days –
To show off his might in ever new ways.
But alas, THAT old question is answered, to wit:
CAN he make a heavy stone he cannot lift?
The answer’s “Yes!” since He ISN’T here!
(and, don’t hold your breath!
and forget about the beer)
A stone so heavy he cannot lift it;
Traffic so snarled he cannot exit.
See! Even God can’t do everything right
Not in Ohio - at least not tonight!
But all is not lost; we can still trust the Boss
In God We still Trust. Isn’t that right?
The Federal Bureau of Graven Images
vouches for him – and always will.
They say so in writing - on the dollar bill,
and if you don’t trust the Dollar; well, who the hell will?
But it’s not the same for ‘telligent Design !
Unless the Almighty is out of his mind.
Ebola, AIDS, avian flu, malaria, cholera, and TB too –
Does any of that sound smart to you?
He made man in His image
How wise was that?
If I look like God!
Then He’s old, bald, and fat;
And the people around us throughout all our days
Reflect on God too - in unflattering ways.
He’s stupid and jealous and spiteful and mean
Writes “YAWEH” in the snow when he vents his spleen.
He sends us to Hell and won’t let us leave,
This creator of DEATH who tries to blame Eve -
But he made HER, and he made the TREE!
And He made Cain and you and me!
Well, he fucked up, didn’t he!!
He fucked up, yes sir-eee!
After all, WE’re the “ZENITH of his creation”
The “culmination of Intelligent Design”
Especially the citizens of THIS great nation
Pristine and pure and noble and kind. * * *
Who believes THAT ???????
The deaf, dumb, and blind !!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember, Man, that thou art dust and to dust
Thou shalt return.
No, we ain’t that much, not worth the fuss
And neither is God.
I’m tired of God
And he’s damned tired of us.
Ah! Humanity!! God’s little toy!!
His guilty pleasure; His most treasured joy!
Five days of plotting to prepare us a place
Five days of practice and wiping his face
(and guzzling coffee) to
(what could it hurt?)
To breathe life in a man he’d made out of DIRT !
What could it hurt to make Man out of dirt?
What could it hurt to make Man out of dirt?
So, He made us up to be just like Him
Filled with dirt all the way to the brim
And, no, not by chance, but by clear design,
To give us a copy of His own filthy mind.
Yeah, five days of plotting to prepare us a place
Five days of practice and wiping his face
Practice, practice, practice makes a most perfect race.
And it’s all by design
And everything’s fine
We’re the Top of the Line
So, don’t worry your mind!
What could it HURT !!
What could it hurt
To make man out of DIRT !
What could it hurt?
What COULD it hurt ?!?!
Capitalism's Outlook - with Bush at the front of the line
Hey Folks,
You know, we shouldn’t be surprised that those who run things are screwing the people back to the Stone Age – it’s a Capitalist country, isn’t it? What else would you expect?
Capitalism is based on “competition”; winners win and losers lose; and the goal is to be the ONE winner, with all the losers slaving for YOU. It’s reflected in sports.
When I was a kid, we were told: “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.” It was okay to lose if you’d “done your darndest”; ties were even allowed in some sports (back then, those who had sisters must not have found it repulsive to kiss them).
Athletics were said to “build character,” “teach teamwork,” and foster discipline; we were all expected to grow up to be as wholesome as professional athletes (with the possible exception of professional “wrestlers”).
You don’t hear any of that malarkey nowadays. Winning is everything. Ties are outlawed; and even traditional bowl games aren’t enough for the competition crowd; gotta have a “National Championship” – computer/voting crap be-damned. We GOTTA have ONE winner – can’t have two or three losers strutting around impersonating the real “Winner”!
Today, players cut every corner, cheat, and build their bodies via illegal drugs. Coaches cut corners, cheat, even provide hookers. Winning and all the money that it brings is all that matters. So much for “character,” “teamwork,” and role models.
The goal of the capitalist (like that of pirates and dragons) is the accumulation of personal wealth, and as someone said, “You can’t make any money working for someone else.” The key is forcing OTHERS to slave for YOU – not only workers, but other capitalist who “can’t compete” and drop back into the labor pool. The more people you control, the more wealth you can suck out of them for your own hoard.
Before WW I the European nations “competed” with one another in exploiting the other nations of the world. They made out well – until there were no easy plums left to pick and then started “competing” with one another for foreign riches. As with the sports analogy, they wanted a playoff, one big winner, or at least fewer winners and more loot for their own nation. The playoff was World Wars I and II, the second being a continuation of the first.
Many upstanding, red-blooded American capitalists saw Adolph Hitler as an exemplary leader. Some plotted a coup against Roosevelt. Nothing that stood in the way of their growing wealth was sacred. It isn’t even enough to make a good profit. They will send the Work to China, bust unions, cut benefits, reduce wages, eliminate pensions, whatever it takes to make a higher profit. The degradation of humanity is an unimportant consideration.
We shouldn’t be surprised. When the slogan of capitalism and its sacred Market is: “Caveat emptor,” “Buyer Beware,” what would you expect? Mother Theresa?
And Bush, among his many other sins, is working overtime to squeeze more wealth for himself and his pals out of not just Arabs but Americans too. They screwed the poor in the Senate today. Soon they’ll come back and work on more tax cuts for the rich.
We need to drive out the Bush regime! We CAN do it. January 31 is W’s State of the Union address; The World Can’t Wait is organizing a protest in Washington and perhaps locally the Saturday following the address.
( see: http://www.worldcantwait.net/ )
Let’s do it
- Uke Man
You know, we shouldn’t be surprised that those who run things are screwing the people back to the Stone Age – it’s a Capitalist country, isn’t it? What else would you expect?
Capitalism is based on “competition”; winners win and losers lose; and the goal is to be the ONE winner, with all the losers slaving for YOU. It’s reflected in sports.
When I was a kid, we were told: “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.” It was okay to lose if you’d “done your darndest”; ties were even allowed in some sports (back then, those who had sisters must not have found it repulsive to kiss them).
Athletics were said to “build character,” “teach teamwork,” and foster discipline; we were all expected to grow up to be as wholesome as professional athletes (with the possible exception of professional “wrestlers”).
You don’t hear any of that malarkey nowadays. Winning is everything. Ties are outlawed; and even traditional bowl games aren’t enough for the competition crowd; gotta have a “National Championship” – computer/voting crap be-damned. We GOTTA have ONE winner – can’t have two or three losers strutting around impersonating the real “Winner”!
Today, players cut every corner, cheat, and build their bodies via illegal drugs. Coaches cut corners, cheat, even provide hookers. Winning and all the money that it brings is all that matters. So much for “character,” “teamwork,” and role models.
The goal of the capitalist (like that of pirates and dragons) is the accumulation of personal wealth, and as someone said, “You can’t make any money working for someone else.” The key is forcing OTHERS to slave for YOU – not only workers, but other capitalist who “can’t compete” and drop back into the labor pool. The more people you control, the more wealth you can suck out of them for your own hoard.
Before WW I the European nations “competed” with one another in exploiting the other nations of the world. They made out well – until there were no easy plums left to pick and then started “competing” with one another for foreign riches. As with the sports analogy, they wanted a playoff, one big winner, or at least fewer winners and more loot for their own nation. The playoff was World Wars I and II, the second being a continuation of the first.
Many upstanding, red-blooded American capitalists saw Adolph Hitler as an exemplary leader. Some plotted a coup against Roosevelt. Nothing that stood in the way of their growing wealth was sacred. It isn’t even enough to make a good profit. They will send the Work to China, bust unions, cut benefits, reduce wages, eliminate pensions, whatever it takes to make a higher profit. The degradation of humanity is an unimportant consideration.
We shouldn’t be surprised. When the slogan of capitalism and its sacred Market is: “Caveat emptor,” “Buyer Beware,” what would you expect? Mother Theresa?
And Bush, among his many other sins, is working overtime to squeeze more wealth for himself and his pals out of not just Arabs but Americans too. They screwed the poor in the Senate today. Soon they’ll come back and work on more tax cuts for the rich.
We need to drive out the Bush regime! We CAN do it. January 31 is W’s State of the Union address; The World Can’t Wait is organizing a protest in Washington and perhaps locally the Saturday following the address.
( see: http://www.worldcantwait.net/ )
Let’s do it
- Uke Man
Mark Twain - The Yankee's frugality
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 12th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 26 – Long ago the Kings “touched” the sick to heal them (as TV evangelists do today). Part of the operation involved giving each afflicted soul a small coin (evangelists have the coin going in the opposite direction). The Yankee replaces the worn and irregularly shaped gold bit currently the practice with a less-valuable nickel he had minted especially for this purpose.
I judged that a sharp, bright new nickel, with a first-rate likeness of the king on one side of it and Guenever on the other, and a blooming pious motto, would take the tuck out of scrofula [a lymph disorder, the predominant malady that day– Uke Man] as handy as a nobler coin and please the scroulous fancy more; and I was right. This batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked to a charm. The saving in expense was a notable economy.
. . . In making this substitution I had drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source - the wisdom of my boyhood . . . in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies, and contributed buttons to the foreign missionary cause. The buttons would answer the ignorant savage as well as the coin, the coin would answer me better than the buttons; all hands were happy, and nobody hurt.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 12th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
- Uke Man
Chapter 26 – Long ago the Kings “touched” the sick to heal them (as TV evangelists do today). Part of the operation involved giving each afflicted soul a small coin (evangelists have the coin going in the opposite direction). The Yankee replaces the worn and irregularly shaped gold bit currently the practice with a less-valuable nickel he had minted especially for this purpose.
I judged that a sharp, bright new nickel, with a first-rate likeness of the king on one side of it and Guenever on the other, and a blooming pious motto, would take the tuck out of scrofula [a lymph disorder, the predominant malady that day– Uke Man] as handy as a nobler coin and please the scroulous fancy more; and I was right. This batch was the first it was tried on, and it worked to a charm. The saving in expense was a notable economy.
. . . In making this substitution I had drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source - the wisdom of my boyhood . . . in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies, and contributed buttons to the foreign missionary cause. The buttons would answer the ignorant savage as well as the coin, the coin would answer me better than the buttons; all hands were happy, and nobody hurt.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Good Heavens
Hey Folks,
Some woman on TV just said she died on the operating table, got a glimpse of Heaven, and came back to life.
I've heard that story before - a million times; and so have you!!!
What I want to know is: How come nobody ever comes back to life on the operating table and says they caught a glimpse of Hell?
- Uke Man
Some woman on TV just said she died on the operating table, got a glimpse of Heaven, and came back to life.
I've heard that story before - a million times; and so have you!!!
What I want to know is: How come nobody ever comes back to life on the operating table and says they caught a glimpse of Hell?
- Uke Man
Leonard Peltier
Hey Folks,
If you haven’t heard of Leonard Peltier before, you should learn about him now.
Check out the sites below for more information:
http://www.freepeltier.org/
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/
Directly below is a statement by Leonard Peltier. At a later time I will post a report on his transfer (at last) to a less oppressive prison situation.
- Uke Man
Released on November 25th, 2005
Aho my relations,
I again write to you on this day of mourning as I approach the end of 3O-years of deprived freedom. I am here to appease a vengeful government that has come onto our lands, committed genocide and continues to robus of our history and culture while giving away our land, murdering, and torturing our people. I am held here because of the corruption of two countries (Canada and the United States) which illegally extraditedme, and which led to an illegal conviction and imprisonment. Despite the incessant claims of this being a country of laws and an example to the world of justice, freedom, and democracy, it is obvious that this Government protects whoever it wants, and imprisons and kills whoever it wants. My imprisonment is one key example of what lengths this
Government will go to in order to achieve its goal of repressing indigenous dissent.
The United States Government continually seeks to imprison all indigenous peoples on our land. The US Government has been increasing its oppressive and tyrannical tactics. All peoples rights are being eroded and fears are heightened as a tool to keep the war machine alive and increase thedestruction of Mother Earth. Innocent people are dying, not only in this country, but all over the world in the name of democracy and freedom.
My elders before me said, and I tell you now, The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. And I want to say, this earth belongsto Tunkashala, the creator of all that is. There has already started atime of great cleansing upon the earth and this Government has begun to crumble. The fabric of the constitution is soiled and torn.
We as human beings can give thanks or mourn, but if all that happensis no more than lip service, very little will happen to correct things. Inthe traditions of my native people we barely had words of thanks. It wassomething that was shown by action of giving or doing. We all breaththe same air, are made of the same earth, and drink of the same water. Weare all more relative than we sometimes acknowledge. We need to do morethan just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong.It is time we all unite to stop the madness threatening the whole planet,and stand together with those who go beyond words and deliver on thepromise of freedom and justice, and against those guided by greed,arrogance, and prejudice.
Stay true, work in unity, confront the traitors, don't be afraid, and don't let
our struggle die.
And finally, I mourn the loss of so many of our relatives over the past year and especially my brother Steve Robideau. I appreciate you each and every one. Now, please organize and set out to correct the wrongs so that this day of mourning will become a relic of the past.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
Mitakuye Oyasin
If you haven’t heard of Leonard Peltier before, you should learn about him now.
Check out the sites below for more information:
http://www.freepeltier.org/
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/
Directly below is a statement by Leonard Peltier. At a later time I will post a report on his transfer (at last) to a less oppressive prison situation.
- Uke Man
Released on November 25th, 2005
Aho my relations,
I again write to you on this day of mourning as I approach the end of 3O-years of deprived freedom. I am here to appease a vengeful government that has come onto our lands, committed genocide and continues to robus of our history and culture while giving away our land, murdering, and torturing our people. I am held here because of the corruption of two countries (Canada and the United States) which illegally extraditedme, and which led to an illegal conviction and imprisonment. Despite the incessant claims of this being a country of laws and an example to the world of justice, freedom, and democracy, it is obvious that this Government protects whoever it wants, and imprisons and kills whoever it wants. My imprisonment is one key example of what lengths this
Government will go to in order to achieve its goal of repressing indigenous dissent.
The United States Government continually seeks to imprison all indigenous peoples on our land. The US Government has been increasing its oppressive and tyrannical tactics. All peoples rights are being eroded and fears are heightened as a tool to keep the war machine alive and increase thedestruction of Mother Earth. Innocent people are dying, not only in this country, but all over the world in the name of democracy and freedom.
My elders before me said, and I tell you now, The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. And I want to say, this earth belongsto Tunkashala, the creator of all that is. There has already started atime of great cleansing upon the earth and this Government has begun to crumble. The fabric of the constitution is soiled and torn.
We as human beings can give thanks or mourn, but if all that happensis no more than lip service, very little will happen to correct things. Inthe traditions of my native people we barely had words of thanks. It wassomething that was shown by action of giving or doing. We all breaththe same air, are made of the same earth, and drink of the same water. Weare all more relative than we sometimes acknowledge. We need to do morethan just what is right. We need to join together and right what is wrong.It is time we all unite to stop the madness threatening the whole planet,and stand together with those who go beyond words and deliver on thepromise of freedom and justice, and against those guided by greed,arrogance, and prejudice.
Stay true, work in unity, confront the traitors, don't be afraid, and don't let
our struggle die.
And finally, I mourn the loss of so many of our relatives over the past year and especially my brother Steve Robideau. I appreciate you each and every one. Now, please organize and set out to correct the wrongs so that this day of mourning will become a relic of the past.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
Mitakuye Oyasin
Purchasing at WAL-MART can be hazardous to yor health
Hey Folks!!
Circleville has a WAL-FART !! We actually have two of them; one an empty, abandoned shell facing the new and improved brothel they built acroos the street.
Ain’t life grand!!
But that’s not all!! We have another empty, abandoned shell right next to the new, improved Little Whorehouse on the Pasture (formerly Crites Farm). It once was a manufacturing plant producing TV picture tubes and paying a living wage to hundreds of good ol’, red-blooded American workers; but now it’s empty, thanks to WAL-MART.
You see, the Walnut Family demanded that the tubes be made at such a low cost (or else the gargantuan whoresaler wouldn’t buy them) that the company packed up and sent the work to China.
Now hundreds of people who once made a living wage and could afford to buy higher-priced TV’s can try to “get on” at WALly-World and sell TV’s at lower prices that, unfortunately, are now higher than they can afford.
But it helps our booming economy, don’t it. It’s just bidness – comp’tition – gotta compete – them folks just need to get re-eddicated. Just ask W.
The moving finger points and then moves on. Yes sir, the invisible hand of the market has pointed its finger!!
. . . and we know which finger and at whom it is pointed!
- Uke Man
Circleville has a WAL-FART !! We actually have two of them; one an empty, abandoned shell facing the new and improved brothel they built acroos the street.
Ain’t life grand!!
But that’s not all!! We have another empty, abandoned shell right next to the new, improved Little Whorehouse on the Pasture (formerly Crites Farm). It once was a manufacturing plant producing TV picture tubes and paying a living wage to hundreds of good ol’, red-blooded American workers; but now it’s empty, thanks to WAL-MART.
You see, the Walnut Family demanded that the tubes be made at such a low cost (or else the gargantuan whoresaler wouldn’t buy them) that the company packed up and sent the work to China.
Now hundreds of people who once made a living wage and could afford to buy higher-priced TV’s can try to “get on” at WALly-World and sell TV’s at lower prices that, unfortunately, are now higher than they can afford.
But it helps our booming economy, don’t it. It’s just bidness – comp’tition – gotta compete – them folks just need to get re-eddicated. Just ask W.
The moving finger points and then moves on. Yes sir, the invisible hand of the market has pointed its finger!!
. . . and we know which finger and at whom it is pointed!
- Uke Man
If only "Compound W" could remove WAL-MART?
December 12, 2005
Big Box Balderdash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I think I've just seen the worst economic argument of 2005. Given what the Bush administration tried to put over on us during its unsuccessful sales pitch for Social Security privatization, that's saying a lot.
The argument came in the course of the latest exchange between Wal-Mart and its critics. A union-supported group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, has released a TV ad accusing Wal-Mart of violating religious values, backed by a letter from religious leaders attacking the retail giant for paying low wages and offering poor benefits. The letter declares that "Jesus would not embrace Wal-Mart's values of greed and profits at any cost."
You may think that this particular campaign - which has, inevitably, been dubbed "Where would Jesus shop?" - is a bit over the top. But it's clear why those concerned about the state of American workers focus their criticism on Wal-Mart. The company isn't just America's largest private employer. It's also a symbol of the state of our economy, which delivers rising G.D.P. but stagnant or falling living standards for working Americans. For Wal-Mart is a huge and hugely profitable company that pays badly and offers minimal benefits.
Attacks on Wal-Mart have hurt its image, and perhaps even its business. The company has set up a campaign-style war room to devise responses. So how did Wal-Mart respond to this latest critique?
Wal-Mart can claim, with considerable justice, that its business practices make America as a whole richer. The fact is that Wal-Mart sells many products more cheaply than traditional stores, and that its low prices aren't solely or even mainly the result of the low wages it pays. Wal-Mart has been able to reduce prices largely because it has brought genuine technological and organizational innovation to the retail business.
It's harder for Wal-Mart to defend its pay and benefits policies. Still, the company could try to argue that despite its awesome size and market dominance it cannot defy the iron laws of supply and demand, which force it to pay low wages. (I disagree, but that's a subject for another column.)
But instead of resting its case on these honest or at least defensible answers to criticism, Wal-Mart has decided to insult our intelligence by claiming to be, of all things, an engine of job creation. Judging from its press release in response to the religious values campaign, the assertion that Wal-Mart "creates 100,000 jobs a year" is now the core of the company's public relations strategy.
It's true, of course, that the company is getting bigger every year. But adding 100,000 people to Wal-Mart's work force doesn't mean adding 100,000 jobs to the economy. On the contrary, there's every reason to believe that as Wal-Mart expands, it destroys at least as many jobs as it creates, and drives down workers' wages in the process.
Think about what happens when Wal-Mart opens a store in a previously untouched city or county. The new store takes sales away from stores that are already in the area; these stores lay off workers or even go out of business. Because Wal-Mart's big-box stores employ fewer workers per dollar of sales than the smaller stores they replace, overall retail employment surely goes down, not up, when Wal-Mart comes to town. And if the jobs lost come from employers who pay more generously than Wal-Mart does, overall wages will fall when Wal-Mart moves in.
This isn't just speculation on my part. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas.
The authors find that retail employment did, indeed, fall when Wal-Mart arrived in a new county. It's not clear in their data whether overall employment in a county rose or fell when a Wal-Mart store opened. But it's clear that average wages fell: "residents of local labor markets," the study reports, "earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores."
So Wal-Mart has chosen to defend itself with a really poor argument. If that's the best the company can come up with, it's going to keep losing the public relations war with its critics. Maybe it should consider an alternative strategy, such as paying higher wages.
Big Box Balderdash
By PAUL KRUGMAN
I think I've just seen the worst economic argument of 2005. Given what the Bush administration tried to put over on us during its unsuccessful sales pitch for Social Security privatization, that's saying a lot.
The argument came in the course of the latest exchange between Wal-Mart and its critics. A union-supported group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, has released a TV ad accusing Wal-Mart of violating religious values, backed by a letter from religious leaders attacking the retail giant for paying low wages and offering poor benefits. The letter declares that "Jesus would not embrace Wal-Mart's values of greed and profits at any cost."
You may think that this particular campaign - which has, inevitably, been dubbed "Where would Jesus shop?" - is a bit over the top. But it's clear why those concerned about the state of American workers focus their criticism on Wal-Mart. The company isn't just America's largest private employer. It's also a symbol of the state of our economy, which delivers rising G.D.P. but stagnant or falling living standards for working Americans. For Wal-Mart is a huge and hugely profitable company that pays badly and offers minimal benefits.
Attacks on Wal-Mart have hurt its image, and perhaps even its business. The company has set up a campaign-style war room to devise responses. So how did Wal-Mart respond to this latest critique?
Wal-Mart can claim, with considerable justice, that its business practices make America as a whole richer. The fact is that Wal-Mart sells many products more cheaply than traditional stores, and that its low prices aren't solely or even mainly the result of the low wages it pays. Wal-Mart has been able to reduce prices largely because it has brought genuine technological and organizational innovation to the retail business.
It's harder for Wal-Mart to defend its pay and benefits policies. Still, the company could try to argue that despite its awesome size and market dominance it cannot defy the iron laws of supply and demand, which force it to pay low wages. (I disagree, but that's a subject for another column.)
But instead of resting its case on these honest or at least defensible answers to criticism, Wal-Mart has decided to insult our intelligence by claiming to be, of all things, an engine of job creation. Judging from its press release in response to the religious values campaign, the assertion that Wal-Mart "creates 100,000 jobs a year" is now the core of the company's public relations strategy.
It's true, of course, that the company is getting bigger every year. But adding 100,000 people to Wal-Mart's work force doesn't mean adding 100,000 jobs to the economy. On the contrary, there's every reason to believe that as Wal-Mart expands, it destroys at least as many jobs as it creates, and drives down workers' wages in the process.
Think about what happens when Wal-Mart opens a store in a previously untouched city or county. The new store takes sales away from stores that are already in the area; these stores lay off workers or even go out of business. Because Wal-Mart's big-box stores employ fewer workers per dollar of sales than the smaller stores they replace, overall retail employment surely goes down, not up, when Wal-Mart comes to town. And if the jobs lost come from employers who pay more generously than Wal-Mart does, overall wages will fall when Wal-Mart moves in.
This isn't just speculation on my part. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas.
The authors find that retail employment did, indeed, fall when Wal-Mart arrived in a new county. It's not clear in their data whether overall employment in a county rose or fell when a Wal-Mart store opened. But it's clear that average wages fell: "residents of local labor markets," the study reports, "earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores."
So Wal-Mart has chosen to defend itself with a really poor argument. If that's the best the company can come up with, it's going to keep losing the public relations war with its critics. Maybe it should consider an alternative strategy, such as paying higher wages.
Monday, December 19, 2005
"I'll decide what the flag and the constitution represent! I'm the Commander-in-Chief! They're just a rag and a piece of paper!" - G.W. Bush
Encouraging News from Bob Herbert
December 19, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Dangerous Territory
By BOB HERBERT
(A ukethanks to Phyll)
There has been some encouraging news lately for those
who cherish freedom,
democracy and the rule of law.
No, I'm not talking about last week's election in
Iraq. I mean the recent
developments here at home, in the United States.
President Bush, who bloodied John McCain in the brutal
Republican primary in
South Carolina in 2000, had to cry uncle last Thursday
and accept Senator
McCain's demand that the U.S. ban cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment of
prisoners in American custody.
It was an embarrassing defeat for the Bush
administration, which, in its
high-handed approach to governing, has shown no qualms
about trampling the
fundamental tenets of a free, open and democratic
society.
But worse was to come for the president. On Thursday
night, The New York Times
disclosed that Mr. Bush had secretly authorized the
National Security Agency to
eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United
States to search for
terrorist activity "without the court-approved
warrants ordinarily required for
domestic spying."
Warrants? Why bother with warrants?
The Times article reminded me of the famous scene from
"The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre" in which the character played by
Humphrey Bogart asks to see the
badges of a group of Mexican bandits posing as
government officials.
Incredulous, one of the bandits says: "We don't need
no badges. I don't have to
show you any stinking badges."
Mr. Bush apparently feels the same way about warrants.
He said over the weekend
that he had no intention of changing his eavesdropping
policy.
Stubbornness is a well-known trait of this president.
But increasing numbers of
Americans are objecting to the administration's
contemptuous attitude toward
liberty and the law. On Friday, the Senate blocked
reauthorization of the
Patriot Act because of its dangerous intrusions on
privacy and threats to civil
liberties.
The domestic eavesdropping authorized by President
Bush was an important and at
times emotional part of the floor debate over the
Patriot Act. "You want to talk
about abuses?" said Senator Russell Feingold, a
Wisconsin Democrat. "I can't
imagine a more shocking example of an abuse of power,
to eavesdrop on American
citizens without first getting a court order based on
some evidence that they
are possibly criminals, terrorists or spies."
Mr. Feingold worried that we were playing into the
hands of terrorists by giving
up such quintessentially American values as "freedom,
justice and privacy."
The Bush version of American values, as least with
regard to the so-called war
on terror, has been a throwback to the Middle Ages.
Detainees were herded like
animals into the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where
many were abused and
denied the right to challenge - or even hear - the
charges against them. Whether
they were innocent or guilty made no difference. How's
that for an American
value?
Others were swept up in that peculiar form of justice
called extraordinary
rendition. That's when someone is abducted by
Americans and sent off to a regime
skilled in the art of torture. I spent a little time
in Ottawa with Maher Arar,
a family man from Canada who was kidnapped at Kennedy
Airport and taken to
Syria.
He wasn't a terrorist and he hadn't done anything
wrong, but that was no defense
against the sweeping madness of the Bush antiterror
policies.
"It was so scary," Mr. Arar told me. "After a while I
became like an animal."
Another blow to America's self- proclaimed standing as
a pillar of moral values
was the revelation that the C.I.A. has been operating
a super-secret network of
prisons overseas, presumably for terror suspects. If
someone who is innocent
gets caught in that particular hell, too bad. The
inmates have been deprived of
all rights.
This is dangerous territory, indeed. Nightmarish
territory. These secret prisons
are the dungeons of the 21st century.
The voices against the serial outrages of the Bush
administration are growing
steadily louder, and that's good news. It's widely
understood now that the Bush
crowd has gone much too far. When Americans cover
their hearts and pledge
allegiance, this is not the kind of behavior from
their government they usually
have in mind. This is not what the American flag is
supposed to represent.
Op-Ed Columnist
Dangerous Territory
By BOB HERBERT
(A ukethanks to Phyll)
There has been some encouraging news lately for those
who cherish freedom,
democracy and the rule of law.
No, I'm not talking about last week's election in
Iraq. I mean the recent
developments here at home, in the United States.
President Bush, who bloodied John McCain in the brutal
Republican primary in
South Carolina in 2000, had to cry uncle last Thursday
and accept Senator
McCain's demand that the U.S. ban cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment of
prisoners in American custody.
It was an embarrassing defeat for the Bush
administration, which, in its
high-handed approach to governing, has shown no qualms
about trampling the
fundamental tenets of a free, open and democratic
society.
But worse was to come for the president. On Thursday
night, The New York Times
disclosed that Mr. Bush had secretly authorized the
National Security Agency to
eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United
States to search for
terrorist activity "without the court-approved
warrants ordinarily required for
domestic spying."
Warrants? Why bother with warrants?
The Times article reminded me of the famous scene from
"The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre" in which the character played by
Humphrey Bogart asks to see the
badges of a group of Mexican bandits posing as
government officials.
Incredulous, one of the bandits says: "We don't need
no badges. I don't have to
show you any stinking badges."
Mr. Bush apparently feels the same way about warrants.
He said over the weekend
that he had no intention of changing his eavesdropping
policy.
Stubbornness is a well-known trait of this president.
But increasing numbers of
Americans are objecting to the administration's
contemptuous attitude toward
liberty and the law. On Friday, the Senate blocked
reauthorization of the
Patriot Act because of its dangerous intrusions on
privacy and threats to civil
liberties.
The domestic eavesdropping authorized by President
Bush was an important and at
times emotional part of the floor debate over the
Patriot Act. "You want to talk
about abuses?" said Senator Russell Feingold, a
Wisconsin Democrat. "I can't
imagine a more shocking example of an abuse of power,
to eavesdrop on American
citizens without first getting a court order based on
some evidence that they
are possibly criminals, terrorists or spies."
Mr. Feingold worried that we were playing into the
hands of terrorists by giving
up such quintessentially American values as "freedom,
justice and privacy."
The Bush version of American values, as least with
regard to the so-called war
on terror, has been a throwback to the Middle Ages.
Detainees were herded like
animals into the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where
many were abused and
denied the right to challenge - or even hear - the
charges against them. Whether
they were innocent or guilty made no difference. How's
that for an American
value?
Others were swept up in that peculiar form of justice
called extraordinary
rendition. That's when someone is abducted by
Americans and sent off to a regime
skilled in the art of torture. I spent a little time
in Ottawa with Maher Arar,
a family man from Canada who was kidnapped at Kennedy
Airport and taken to
Syria.
He wasn't a terrorist and he hadn't done anything
wrong, but that was no defense
against the sweeping madness of the Bush antiterror
policies.
"It was so scary," Mr. Arar told me. "After a while I
became like an animal."
Another blow to America's self- proclaimed standing as
a pillar of moral values
was the revelation that the C.I.A. has been operating
a super-secret network of
prisons overseas, presumably for terror suspects. If
someone who is innocent
gets caught in that particular hell, too bad. The
inmates have been deprived of
all rights.
This is dangerous territory, indeed. Nightmarish
territory. These secret prisons
are the dungeons of the 21st century.
The voices against the serial outrages of the Bush
administration are growing
steadily louder, and that's good news. It's widely
understood now that the Bush
crowd has gone much too far. When Americans cover
their hearts and pledge
allegiance, this is not the kind of behavior from
their government they usually
have in mind. This is not what the American flag is
supposed to represent.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Report on "Via Colori" Celebration
Hey Folks!!!
I had a GREAT time at the Monkeys Retreat celebration of Via Colori!! Great pictures in a great venue (I LOVE Monkeys Retreat!!!).
I got to play my songs to an appreciative audience, got to hear the Mendelsonics, and (finally) got started on my holiday shopping.
When it gets warm, keep your eye out for the next, great Via Colori – or stop by Monkeys for more info.
Pictures below.
- Uke Man
I had a GREAT time at the Monkeys Retreat celebration of Via Colori!! Great pictures in a great venue (I LOVE Monkeys Retreat!!!).
I got to play my songs to an appreciative audience, got to hear the Mendelsonics, and (finally) got started on my holiday shopping.
When it gets warm, keep your eye out for the next, great Via Colori – or stop by Monkeys for more info.
Pictures below.
- Uke Man
Report on "Circus of Cool"!
Hey Folks!!!
I had a GREAT time at Circus of Cool!! It’s always good to hear JAZZ!! It’s always good to hear POETRY! It’s always good to see Krista!! And I always feel good when I get to rant!!
See the pictures below.
- Uke Man
p.s. Hey T.J., where were you !?!?
- Uke Man
I had a GREAT time at Circus of Cool!! It’s always good to hear JAZZ!! It’s always good to hear POETRY! It’s always good to see Krista!! And I always feel good when I get to rant!!
See the pictures below.
- Uke Man
p.s. Hey T.J., where were you !?!?
- Uke Man
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Dispatch editorial on schools & Ohio Supreme Court reflect the King's Justice (see posting directly below)
Hey Folks,
Below is a letter I sent to a few editors at the Dispatch in response to an outrageously self-serving editorial about the DeRolph school-funding case and its involvement with today's Charter School public-funding case (for the editorial, see fine print below).
I think it fits quite well with the Twain posting (next one down).
- Uke Man
To whom it may concern,
Your December 12 editorial on charter schools and the Supreme Court is surreal. While overflowing with sophistries, the pot accuses the kettle of same.
The editorial board can’t get it through its collective head that one, very important aspect of the judicial system is to determine the constitutionality of laws promulgated by the legislative branch. At least it can’t comprehend that IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR CASE!
You don’t have an editorial hemorrhage EVERY time a court determines constitutionality – only when the court decides in some way you don’t like. In this case since the court didn’t decide in a “common sense” way (according to you), they are “dictating,” “making policy,” legislating from the bench (in THIS instance – not necessarily in others – e.g. Brown v. Board of Ed).
You write (a sophistry): “The legislature declined to meet the court’s mandate and, lacking any recourse, the court ultimately reiterated its demands, then declared the DeRolph case closed.”
Actually, the legislature chose to be IN CONTEMPT of court, and the court was NOT without recourse; they could have ordered the arrest of the legislature; or simply charged them with contempt and ordered them into court, arresting them one at a time if they refused to appear. The Supremes just didn’t have the balls and blinked.
The Dispatch could as easily have taken the legislature to task for its failure to follow a legal order by a duly elected court!
You put forth another sophistry: “Though the Ohio Constitution calls on the legislature to create a "thorough and efficient" system of public schools, it is silent on the meaning of thorough and efficient. The most logical explanation for this is that the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate.”
Did it escape you that when one writes words that WORDS have meaning; “thorough and efficient" HAS meaning in itself. If, however, you and I and the legislature have a disagreement over the full meaning of words in the constitution; from almost the start of this country, it has been the role of the courts to settle that dispute.
Your plan (“the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate”) is faulty. If the U.S. Supreme Court had left it up to the South to vote out “inadequate,” racist legislators, we’d still have “separate but equal”schools; moreover, what the Ohio Supreme Court was addressing in its DeRolph decisions was a CLASSIST “separate but equal” school system – one you support and which will continue forever if the courts don’t do their job.
Another sophistry: “Pfeifer’s comments are troubling for two reasons. First is the suggestion that a justice might allow his unhappiness with the outcome of the DeRolph case to influence his decision in the charter-school case.”
First of all, Pfeifer isn’t unhappy with the “outcome” of the case. He is unhappy that the legislature showed blatant disregard and contempt for a reasonable order issued by elected judges sitting on the highest bench in the state. The LEGISLATURE (and you) were “unhappy” with the outcome.
Secondly, it seems to me that any judge who has had a recalcitrant, arrogant, loud defendant before his court FOUR times, and that defendant still has stubbornly refused to serve the sentence of the court; it seems to me that such a judge should not be criticized for being leery of the character of that defendant.
Essentially what you are saying is that if the legislature gives the court the finger, the court should pretend it didn’t see it.
Another sophistry: “So the district’s expenses are reduced at the same time that its income is reduced.” That’s like saying that if the “Dispatch” loses a subscriber, it saves money because it needs to print one less paper. Think how much money you could save if you lost half your subscribers!!
It IS true that any given community, if its public school population decreased significantly, COULD, as you say, “save money by closing buildings and reducing staff," but you go on to utter another sophistry- the most hypocritical one of the bunch: “School districts often lack the political will to do this, but that is not the fault of charter schools or of the legislature.”
Well, folks, school districts are reluctant to close and sell off buildings because the community has strong attachments to the buildings where many of them, their parents, and grandparents, as well as their children learned to read and write, do algebra, put on shows, play sports, date, dream, salute the flag, etc.
They are reluctant because closing down these buildings - many of them "neighborhood" elementary schools - will piss off the community, and the school system is dependant on the community for funding – predominantly from property taxes; which takes us back to DeRolph which determined that over-reliance upon local property taxes to fund schools is unconstitutional because it enforces a classist “separate but equal” system of public schools!
I’ve wondered for many years as to the motivation of those who make assertions such as those in your editorial. Is it the result of callous selfishness, or politics, or ignorance, or some sort of moral blindness? In re-reading Mark Twain’s “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” I’ve come across a passage regarding “the King’s Justice” that may apply. I’ve included the pertinent passage below.
Yours - Tom Harker
The Editorial:
********************Innovation on trial
Ohio Supreme Court should avoid overreaching in charter-school challenge
In taking on a case challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s system of charter schools, the Ohio Supreme Court once again may be tempted to dictate education policy, as it did in the DeRolph school-funding case.
Though the Ohio Constitution calls on the legislature to create a "thorough and efficient" system of public schools, it is silent on the meaning of thorough and efficient. The most logical explanation for this is that the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate.
But instead of taking this commonsense approach in the DeRolph case, the court went beyond its constitutional charge by trying to dictate to lawmakers how they should tax and spend for education.
The legislature declined to meet the court’s mandate and, lacking any recourse, the court ultimately reiterated its demands, then declared the DeRolph case closed.
Since the charter-school case hangs largely on the same thorough-and-efficient provision of the constitution, the court should beware of making the DeRolph mistake again.
The makeup of the court today is substantially different from the one that issued four DeRolph rulings, and the current panel may be less inclined to delve into policy-making.
But in oral arguments before the court on Nov. 29, the DeRolph case still loomed large, at least to Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who participated in all four DeRolph decisions.
In comments to those defending charter schools, Pfeifer asserted that the state is "standing in a deep hole from which it has not yet extricated itself," because of its failure to overhaul school funding in the way prescribed by the court.
He said charter schools compound the school-funding problem because the legislature is taking $422 million from conventional public schools and giving it to charter schools, increasing the financial distress of conventional districts.
Pfeifer’s comments are troubling for two reasons. First is the suggestion that a justice might allow his unhappiness with the outcome of the DeRolph case to influence his decision in the charter-school case.
Second is that Pfeifer is repeating a half-truth about the funding of charter schools. When a student opts to leave a conventional public school and enroll in a charter school, the conventional school district loses the state support it received to educate that student.
But the other half of the equation is that the conventional school also no longer incurs the expense of educating that student. So the district’s expenses are reduced at the same time that its income is reduced.
This point is especially valid when a conventional district loses not just a handful of students, but thousands of them, to charters, creating the opportunity to save money by closing buildings and reducing staff.
School districts often lack the political will to do this, but that is not the fault of charter schools or of the legislature.
To put it another way, if those departing students simply were moving to another school district, their original district would lose the state funding for them, just as if they had gone to a charter school. But in such a case the original district never would bring a lawsuit claiming that the neighboring school district was causing the original district’s financial distress.
So the argument that charters cause financial distress is sophistry.
In considering the meaning of thorough and efficient, the court should consider whether the framers intended future generations of Ohioans to be locked forever into a rigid and unvarying system of public instruction or if they expected lawmakers to adjust public education as circumstances change.
To find the charter-school experiment unconstitutional would put a damper on all innovative attempts to reform or challenge conventional public education, a system whose manifest shortcomings already have driven more than 60,000 students and their parents to try charter schools.
Below is a letter I sent to a few editors at the Dispatch in response to an outrageously self-serving editorial about the DeRolph school-funding case and its involvement with today's Charter School public-funding case (for the editorial, see fine print below).
I think it fits quite well with the Twain posting (next one down).
- Uke Man
To whom it may concern,
Your December 12 editorial on charter schools and the Supreme Court is surreal. While overflowing with sophistries, the pot accuses the kettle of same.
The editorial board can’t get it through its collective head that one, very important aspect of the judicial system is to determine the constitutionality of laws promulgated by the legislative branch. At least it can’t comprehend that IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR CASE!
You don’t have an editorial hemorrhage EVERY time a court determines constitutionality – only when the court decides in some way you don’t like. In this case since the court didn’t decide in a “common sense” way (according to you), they are “dictating,” “making policy,” legislating from the bench (in THIS instance – not necessarily in others – e.g. Brown v. Board of Ed).
You write (a sophistry): “The legislature declined to meet the court’s mandate and, lacking any recourse, the court ultimately reiterated its demands, then declared the DeRolph case closed.”
Actually, the legislature chose to be IN CONTEMPT of court, and the court was NOT without recourse; they could have ordered the arrest of the legislature; or simply charged them with contempt and ordered them into court, arresting them one at a time if they refused to appear. The Supremes just didn’t have the balls and blinked.
The Dispatch could as easily have taken the legislature to task for its failure to follow a legal order by a duly elected court!
You put forth another sophistry: “Though the Ohio Constitution calls on the legislature to create a "thorough and efficient" system of public schools, it is silent on the meaning of thorough and efficient. The most logical explanation for this is that the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate.”
Did it escape you that when one writes words that WORDS have meaning; “thorough and efficient" HAS meaning in itself. If, however, you and I and the legislature have a disagreement over the full meaning of words in the constitution; from almost the start of this country, it has been the role of the courts to settle that dispute.
Your plan (“the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate”) is faulty. If the U.S. Supreme Court had left it up to the South to vote out “inadequate,” racist legislators, we’d still have “separate but equal”schools; moreover, what the Ohio Supreme Court was addressing in its DeRolph decisions was a CLASSIST “separate but equal” school system – one you support and which will continue forever if the courts don’t do their job.
Another sophistry: “Pfeifer’s comments are troubling for two reasons. First is the suggestion that a justice might allow his unhappiness with the outcome of the DeRolph case to influence his decision in the charter-school case.”
First of all, Pfeifer isn’t unhappy with the “outcome” of the case. He is unhappy that the legislature showed blatant disregard and contempt for a reasonable order issued by elected judges sitting on the highest bench in the state. The LEGISLATURE (and you) were “unhappy” with the outcome.
Secondly, it seems to me that any judge who has had a recalcitrant, arrogant, loud defendant before his court FOUR times, and that defendant still has stubbornly refused to serve the sentence of the court; it seems to me that such a judge should not be criticized for being leery of the character of that defendant.
Essentially what you are saying is that if the legislature gives the court the finger, the court should pretend it didn’t see it.
Another sophistry: “So the district’s expenses are reduced at the same time that its income is reduced.” That’s like saying that if the “Dispatch” loses a subscriber, it saves money because it needs to print one less paper. Think how much money you could save if you lost half your subscribers!!
It IS true that any given community, if its public school population decreased significantly, COULD, as you say, “save money by closing buildings and reducing staff," but you go on to utter another sophistry- the most hypocritical one of the bunch: “School districts often lack the political will to do this, but that is not the fault of charter schools or of the legislature.”
Well, folks, school districts are reluctant to close and sell off buildings because the community has strong attachments to the buildings where many of them, their parents, and grandparents, as well as their children learned to read and write, do algebra, put on shows, play sports, date, dream, salute the flag, etc.
They are reluctant because closing down these buildings - many of them "neighborhood" elementary schools - will piss off the community, and the school system is dependant on the community for funding – predominantly from property taxes; which takes us back to DeRolph which determined that over-reliance upon local property taxes to fund schools is unconstitutional because it enforces a classist “separate but equal” system of public schools!
I’ve wondered for many years as to the motivation of those who make assertions such as those in your editorial. Is it the result of callous selfishness, or politics, or ignorance, or some sort of moral blindness? In re-reading Mark Twain’s “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” I’ve come across a passage regarding “the King’s Justice” that may apply. I’ve included the pertinent passage below.
Yours - Tom Harker
The Editorial:
********************Innovation on trial
Ohio Supreme Court should avoid overreaching in charter-school challenge
In taking on a case challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s system of charter schools, the Ohio Supreme Court once again may be tempted to dictate education policy, as it did in the DeRolph school-funding case.
Though the Ohio Constitution calls on the legislature to create a "thorough and efficient" system of public schools, it is silent on the meaning of thorough and efficient. The most logical explanation for this is that the framers intended each legislature to decide what is thorough and efficient, with voters capable of changing the legislature if lawmakers’ efforts are inadequate.
But instead of taking this commonsense approach in the DeRolph case, the court went beyond its constitutional charge by trying to dictate to lawmakers how they should tax and spend for education.
The legislature declined to meet the court’s mandate and, lacking any recourse, the court ultimately reiterated its demands, then declared the DeRolph case closed.
Since the charter-school case hangs largely on the same thorough-and-efficient provision of the constitution, the court should beware of making the DeRolph mistake again.
The makeup of the court today is substantially different from the one that issued four DeRolph rulings, and the current panel may be less inclined to delve into policy-making.
But in oral arguments before the court on Nov. 29, the DeRolph case still loomed large, at least to Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, who participated in all four DeRolph decisions.
In comments to those defending charter schools, Pfeifer asserted that the state is "standing in a deep hole from which it has not yet extricated itself," because of its failure to overhaul school funding in the way prescribed by the court.
He said charter schools compound the school-funding problem because the legislature is taking $422 million from conventional public schools and giving it to charter schools, increasing the financial distress of conventional districts.
Pfeifer’s comments are troubling for two reasons. First is the suggestion that a justice might allow his unhappiness with the outcome of the DeRolph case to influence his decision in the charter-school case.
Second is that Pfeifer is repeating a half-truth about the funding of charter schools. When a student opts to leave a conventional public school and enroll in a charter school, the conventional school district loses the state support it received to educate that student.
But the other half of the equation is that the conventional school also no longer incurs the expense of educating that student. So the district’s expenses are reduced at the same time that its income is reduced.
This point is especially valid when a conventional district loses not just a handful of students, but thousands of them, to charters, creating the opportunity to save money by closing buildings and reducing staff.
School districts often lack the political will to do this, but that is not the fault of charter schools or of the legislature.
To put it another way, if those departing students simply were moving to another school district, their original district would lose the state funding for them, just as if they had gone to a charter school. But in such a case the original district never would bring a lawsuit claiming that the neighboring school district was causing the original district’s financial distress.
So the argument that charters cause financial distress is sophistry.
In considering the meaning of thorough and efficient, the court should consider whether the framers intended future generations of Ohioans to be locked forever into a rigid and unvarying system of public instruction or if they expected lawmakers to adjust public education as circumstances change.
To find the charter-school experiment unconstitutional would put a damper on all innovative attempts to reform or challenge conventional public education, a system whose manifest shortcomings already have driven more than 60,000 students and their parents to try charter schools.
Twain - the King's Justice
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 11th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter (see the post directly above for proof of that).
Chapter 25 – The Yankee explains the King’s justice (sounds familiar).
And although this expedition was strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept some of his business functions going, just the same. He touched for the evil as usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried causes, for he was himself Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.
He shone very well in this latter office. He was a wise and humane judge, and he clearly did his honest best and fairest, - according to his lights. Yes, according to his lights. That is a large reservation. His lights – I mean his rearing – often colored his decisions. Whenever there was a dispute between a noble or gentleman, and a person of lower degree, the king’s leanings and sympathies were for the former class always, whether he suspected it or not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise. The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world over, and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name. This has a harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any – to even the noble himself – unless the fact itself be an offence; for the statement simply formulates a fact. The repulsive feature of slavery is the THING, not its name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to recognize – and in but indifferently modified measure – the very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these are the slaveholder’s spirit, the slaveholder’s blunted feeling. They are the result of the same cause, in both cases; the possessor’s old and inbred custom of regarding himself as a superior being. The king’s judgments wrought frequent injustices, but it was merely the fault of his training, his natural and unalterable sympathies. He was as unfitted for a judgeship as would be the average mother for the position of milk-distributor to starving children in famine-time; her own children would fare a shade better than the rest.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 11th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter (see the post directly above for proof of that).
Chapter 25 – The Yankee explains the King’s justice (sounds familiar).
And although this expedition was strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept some of his business functions going, just the same. He touched for the evil as usual; he held court in the gate at sunrise and tried causes, for he was himself Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.
He shone very well in this latter office. He was a wise and humane judge, and he clearly did his honest best and fairest, - according to his lights. Yes, according to his lights. That is a large reservation. His lights – I mean his rearing – often colored his decisions. Whenever there was a dispute between a noble or gentleman, and a person of lower degree, the king’s leanings and sympathies were for the former class always, whether he suspected it or not. It was impossible that this should be otherwise. The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded, the world over, and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name. This has a harsh sound, and yet should not be offensive to any – to even the noble himself – unless the fact itself be an offence; for the statement simply formulates a fact. The repulsive feature of slavery is the THING, not its name. One needs but to hear an aristocrat speak of the classes that are below him to recognize – and in but indifferently modified measure – the very air and tone of the actual slaveholder; and behind these are the slaveholder’s spirit, the slaveholder’s blunted feeling. They are the result of the same cause, in both cases; the possessor’s old and inbred custom of regarding himself as a superior being. The king’s judgments wrought frequent injustices, but it was merely the fault of his training, his natural and unalterable sympathies. He was as unfitted for a judgeship as would be the average mother for the position of milk-distributor to starving children in famine-time; her own children would fare a shade better than the rest.
Friday, December 16, 2005
a Found Rant
Hey Folks,
A friend sent me this rant. It's not his, but was found at:
http://www.fuckchristmas.org/
This dude is pumped!!
- Uke Man
Oh man, fuck Christmas.
Seriously – are you kidding me with this “There’s a war on Christmas” bullshit? FOX News wasn’t raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill ‘em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?
John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.
Bill O’Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker’s embedded assignment reads “Up Karl Rove’s ass.”
What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don’t vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would “blow up Paris,” but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.
And really? That’s just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got “elected” rather than, I don’t know, count them? “Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?” That right there is why sometimes it’s useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.
And now he’s all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It’s a national fucking holiday and we’re spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all “But they call them Holiday trees!” Here’s a clue: no, they fucking don’t. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I’m Kris fucking Kringle.
And guess who’s stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on — guess. “A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians — not just Jewish people.” (Emphasis mine. Pure, unadulterated anti-semitism, his.) A cabal? Are you fucking kidding me? Could we try to be a little more fucking original with our Jew-hating?
Speaking of Jew-hating, Pat Buchanan has joined the hype-a-thon of the supposed Attack on Christmas, too. Or, as he put it, “What we’re witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity.” Sorry? We’re not so hot on paying for an inflatable camel for your goddamn nativity scene and suddenly we’re Slobodan fucking Milosevic? Fuck you. Get some goddamn perspective, you little prick. When they start hunting Christians in the streets, it’ll be time to start yelling “Hate crime.” And no, it won’t count when they start chasing you with the torches. That’ll be called “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
And Bill O’Reilly, Gibson’s cellmate in the silly shack, is doing his part to save Christmas, too. He’s been going after New York’s Mayor Bloomberg (that Commie) because he says the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center has been renamed a “Holiday Tree,” and “No Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools.” The only problem? Neither of those things is even remotely fucking true.
It takes some super-sized balls for O’Reilly to get all lathered up about sinners and their fictional anti-Christian crusade. Every fucking person on the planet has hard and fast evidence that Bill is a world-class pervert, but still he feels totally justified lecturing the rest of us on our moral inferiority.
How fucked up is Bill O’Reilly? Pretty fucked up. Everyone got so crazyfaced about him confusing a sponge and a Middle Eastern snackcake (pretty fucking funny, mind you), that they missed the scary bit: what he meant to say. Old Bill wanted to get all funky on his intern like this: (you’ll excuse my foul language, I’m quoting an award-winning newscaster here) “I’d take the other hand with the [loofah] thing and put it on your pussy.”
loofah (lū’fə) noun. A natural exfoliating sponge.
exfoliate (ĕks-fō’lē-āt’) verb. To remove (a layer of bark or skin, for example) in flakes or scales; peel.
That’s right. Bill O’Reilly, fount of morals, is super familiar with the female anatomy. So much so, that he knows how good it feels to have one’s pussy exfoliated. We’re talking h – o – t, Hot. That’s exactly who I’m going to for my life lessons.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yeah, fuck Christmas.
Can we back up just a couple steps here? At what point did a basic understanding of the separation of church and state become a fucking war on religion? And how did we get to the point where you can call an organization set up to defend our civil liberties “Terrorists” on national television and no one fires your ass? Enough. Fuck all of you lying little shitheads who wish the world was out to get you so you could play the poor oppressed victims. Wake up assholes — you’re the cowboys, not the fucking Indians.
“But we want to display our Christmas tree on city property!” You can, go right ahead. “They’re stopping us from praying in school!” They’re not, so fuck off. “We’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore!” Are you fucking kidding me? Knock yourself out. Say it at work, scream it in your high school lunch room, hell, tattoo it on your fucking forehead for all we care. Guess who’s gonna be there defending your right to do every one of those things? The fucking ACLU. One of these days you bastards are going to drive those fuckers out of business, and then you’ll see some actual attacks on your religious liberties. I thought conservatives were supposed to be all proud and independent? When did they turn into a bunch of fucking crybabies?
Let’s back up even fucking further, shall we? Can anyone tell me how old Christmas is? Anyone? Two thousand years, give or take, right? Gee, who’s been reading their No Child Left Behind History Textbooks? Try fucking four thousand years. Huh. Twice as fucking long as your little baby king has been around. How could that possibly be, unless. . . waitaminute. . .
Christmas isn’t fucking Christian. Ok, now we’re talking.
That’s right, that Yuletide cheer you’re spreading? What exactly do you think Yule is? It's the fucking Pagan celebration of solstice. And those “Christmas” traditions? They’re not just like Pagan rituals, they fucking are Pagan rituals. Way before your Jesus got all magical with the bread and fishes, the Romans were celebrating the birth of Mithra on . . . guess? Go on – guess. December fucking twenty fifth. What a weird coincidence. Practically the whole thing is ripped off from the fucking Druids and the Romans. Twelve days? Check. Exchanging gifts? Check. Mistletoe? Check. And you’d better fucking believe that those decorated trees that Gibson and Co. are so bent out of shape over are as Pagan as the Rune and Crystal Shack at Pentagramfest 2005. You might as well be building miniature fucking Stonehenges in your den.
And don’t you read your own goddamn Bibles? Jesus was born when? In the middle of winter? Lot of Shepherds out watching their flocks around that time of year in Bethlehem? No, because they’d be freezing their fucking asses off. Tell you what – y’all go figure out which one of the different Bible stories about the birth of Baby Jesus® you want to believe, and then we’ll argue about whether it fucking happened like that or not.
Christians just stole a bunch of traditions from other cultures, slapped them together, stuck a fucking tinfoil star on top and called it the Most Important Holiday of the Year. Modern American Christmas makes Michael Jackson look positively organic.
But you boys at FOX still freak out every year about how everyone's out to get your special trees. This is really the most important thing you have to talk about? Whether Target says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? Here’s a brainstorm: there’s a fucking war on. Our soldiers are out there dying while you guys do your 14th live feed of the day from WalMart to show us what good little consumers we are. What Would Jesus Do? He’d jump over that newsdesk and kick your ass for that shit. Are you sure you want to hang your journalism credentials on a story about what some guy calls a tree?
Well we’ve fucking had it. You want to play bullshit games and scream about how God’s fucking judgment is gonna come raining down on us if we don't start watching our vocabulary? Go right the fuck ahead. But let me clue you in on something: fire and brimstone ain’t no deterrent for us. We’re not going to hell, assholes, we’re fucking in hell. We live with you.
And fuck Easter too, you fertility–rite–celebrating, whiny, self-righteous, don’t–know–the– history–of–your–own–religion assholes. Fuck off.
A friend sent me this rant. It's not his, but was found at:
http://www.fuckchristmas.org/
This dude is pumped!!
- Uke Man
Oh man, fuck Christmas.
Seriously – are you kidding me with this “There’s a war on Christmas” bullshit? FOX News wasn’t raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill ‘em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?
John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.
Bill O’Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker’s embedded assignment reads “Up Karl Rove’s ass.”
What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don’t vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would “blow up Paris,” but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.
And really? That’s just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got “elected” rather than, I don’t know, count them? “Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?” That right there is why sometimes it’s useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.
And now he’s all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It’s a national fucking holiday and we’re spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all “But they call them Holiday trees!” Here’s a clue: no, they fucking don’t. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I’m Kris fucking Kringle.
And guess who’s stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on — guess. “A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians — not just Jewish people.” (Emphasis mine. Pure, unadulterated anti-semitism, his.) A cabal? Are you fucking kidding me? Could we try to be a little more fucking original with our Jew-hating?
Speaking of Jew-hating, Pat Buchanan has joined the hype-a-thon of the supposed Attack on Christmas, too. Or, as he put it, “What we’re witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity.” Sorry? We’re not so hot on paying for an inflatable camel for your goddamn nativity scene and suddenly we’re Slobodan fucking Milosevic? Fuck you. Get some goddamn perspective, you little prick. When they start hunting Christians in the streets, it’ll be time to start yelling “Hate crime.” And no, it won’t count when they start chasing you with the torches. That’ll be called “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
And Bill O’Reilly, Gibson’s cellmate in the silly shack, is doing his part to save Christmas, too. He’s been going after New York’s Mayor Bloomberg (that Commie) because he says the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center has been renamed a “Holiday Tree,” and “No Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools.” The only problem? Neither of those things is even remotely fucking true.
It takes some super-sized balls for O’Reilly to get all lathered up about sinners and their fictional anti-Christian crusade. Every fucking person on the planet has hard and fast evidence that Bill is a world-class pervert, but still he feels totally justified lecturing the rest of us on our moral inferiority.
How fucked up is Bill O’Reilly? Pretty fucked up. Everyone got so crazyfaced about him confusing a sponge and a Middle Eastern snackcake (pretty fucking funny, mind you), that they missed the scary bit: what he meant to say. Old Bill wanted to get all funky on his intern like this: (you’ll excuse my foul language, I’m quoting an award-winning newscaster here) “I’d take the other hand with the [loofah] thing and put it on your pussy.”
loofah (lū’fə) noun. A natural exfoliating sponge.
exfoliate (ĕks-fō’lē-āt’) verb. To remove (a layer of bark or skin, for example) in flakes or scales; peel.
That’s right. Bill O’Reilly, fount of morals, is super familiar with the female anatomy. So much so, that he knows how good it feels to have one’s pussy exfoliated. We’re talking h – o – t, Hot. That’s exactly who I’m going to for my life lessons.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yeah, fuck Christmas.
Can we back up just a couple steps here? At what point did a basic understanding of the separation of church and state become a fucking war on religion? And how did we get to the point where you can call an organization set up to defend our civil liberties “Terrorists” on national television and no one fires your ass? Enough. Fuck all of you lying little shitheads who wish the world was out to get you so you could play the poor oppressed victims. Wake up assholes — you’re the cowboys, not the fucking Indians.
“But we want to display our Christmas tree on city property!” You can, go right ahead. “They’re stopping us from praying in school!” They’re not, so fuck off. “We’re not allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore!” Are you fucking kidding me? Knock yourself out. Say it at work, scream it in your high school lunch room, hell, tattoo it on your fucking forehead for all we care. Guess who’s gonna be there defending your right to do every one of those things? The fucking ACLU. One of these days you bastards are going to drive those fuckers out of business, and then you’ll see some actual attacks on your religious liberties. I thought conservatives were supposed to be all proud and independent? When did they turn into a bunch of fucking crybabies?
Let’s back up even fucking further, shall we? Can anyone tell me how old Christmas is? Anyone? Two thousand years, give or take, right? Gee, who’s been reading their No Child Left Behind History Textbooks? Try fucking four thousand years. Huh. Twice as fucking long as your little baby king has been around. How could that possibly be, unless. . . waitaminute. . .
Christmas isn’t fucking Christian. Ok, now we’re talking.
That’s right, that Yuletide cheer you’re spreading? What exactly do you think Yule is? It's the fucking Pagan celebration of solstice. And those “Christmas” traditions? They’re not just like Pagan rituals, they fucking are Pagan rituals. Way before your Jesus got all magical with the bread and fishes, the Romans were celebrating the birth of Mithra on . . . guess? Go on – guess. December fucking twenty fifth. What a weird coincidence. Practically the whole thing is ripped off from the fucking Druids and the Romans. Twelve days? Check. Exchanging gifts? Check. Mistletoe? Check. And you’d better fucking believe that those decorated trees that Gibson and Co. are so bent out of shape over are as Pagan as the Rune and Crystal Shack at Pentagramfest 2005. You might as well be building miniature fucking Stonehenges in your den.
And don’t you read your own goddamn Bibles? Jesus was born when? In the middle of winter? Lot of Shepherds out watching their flocks around that time of year in Bethlehem? No, because they’d be freezing their fucking asses off. Tell you what – y’all go figure out which one of the different Bible stories about the birth of Baby Jesus® you want to believe, and then we’ll argue about whether it fucking happened like that or not.
Christians just stole a bunch of traditions from other cultures, slapped them together, stuck a fucking tinfoil star on top and called it the Most Important Holiday of the Year. Modern American Christmas makes Michael Jackson look positively organic.
But you boys at FOX still freak out every year about how everyone's out to get your special trees. This is really the most important thing you have to talk about? Whether Target says Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas? Here’s a brainstorm: there’s a fucking war on. Our soldiers are out there dying while you guys do your 14th live feed of the day from WalMart to show us what good little consumers we are. What Would Jesus Do? He’d jump over that newsdesk and kick your ass for that shit. Are you sure you want to hang your journalism credentials on a story about what some guy calls a tree?
Well we’ve fucking had it. You want to play bullshit games and scream about how God’s fucking judgment is gonna come raining down on us if we don't start watching our vocabulary? Go right the fuck ahead. But let me clue you in on something: fire and brimstone ain’t no deterrent for us. We’re not going to hell, assholes, we’re fucking in hell. We live with you.
And fuck Easter too, you fertility–rite–celebrating, whiny, self-righteous, don’t–know–the– history–of–your–own–religion assholes. Fuck off.
Jib-Jab Jabber
If you haven't seen the latest Jib-Jab, here it is:
http://www.jibjab.com/Home.aspx
I'm not sure yet whether I really like it - it's well-done, but the politics are a little opaque.
- Uke Man
http://www.jibjab.com/Home.aspx
I'm not sure yet whether I really like it - it's well-done, but the politics are a little opaque.
- Uke Man
Uke Man Rants Saturday - "Circus of Cool" @ Dick's Den
Hey Folks,
Saturday I'll be at Dick’s Den* (2417 N. High) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
I’ve got a brand new rant for this latest “Circus of Cool,” called:“Intelligent Design My Ass.” Below is another blast from the past !
See you at the Den Saturday!(and/or at Monkeys Retreat between 6:00 and 9:00 the same day for the Via Colori photo exhibition)
*Dick’s Den - Sat., Dec. 17 – “Circus of Cool” - 10:00 - ??????? - 2417 N. High St. -(614) 268-9573
Monkeys Retreat – Sat,. Dec 17 – “Via Colori” Celebration – 6:00-9:00 – 1202 N. High St. - (614) 294-9511
* * * *
Giants and Worms Among Men
The Giants are great and slovenly and walk upon us, but they are the Giants, and it doesn’t matter to them that they squash us. At most, our bones provide but small shock to the callused gravity of their feet.
It is nothing to them. They are the Giants, oblivious, and even if (somehow) they could be shaken into consciousness, the Worms that whisper in their ears would eat their nascent thoughts and pass them on as wormy excrement .
We adapt, do the best we can, curse the Giants, curse the Worms, curse one another, curse our own “worms” for cursing us for our cursing. But nothing changes. We are the victims of the Giants and the Worms, and have been - ever since the first words of man were scratched on rocks. There was a time, some say, before the Giants and the Worms . . . when we were free.
I would like to be free . . . I think. But it is difficult to imagine life without our masters. And, it is possible that things were not so good even before the Giants.
Whatever it was like, we are not supposed to speak of it or even think of it.
Still, many of us do, and that is why our own little, self-important man-worms rail at us, demanding that the ancient laws be followed - to appease the gods, to keep us safe, to maintain what they call our prosperity.
They preach new laws too, derived (they say) from the old laws, but it is a strange prosperity that we enjoy under all these Holy laws.
It is said that we - here - who “respect the law and honor our betters” - are particularly fortunate and are less frequently trod upon by the Great Ones (men in other lands, we know for a certainty, are eaten by their Giants).
Old Marbo claims that she has seen our Giants eating people too, but it is possible they were only evildoers brought here from another land.
I do not know.
* * *
“Work saves us,” says Da’miller, our man-worm overseer. If that is true, then why do I not know it? I have known enough of work to have been saved long ago.
“ Work is salvation.” What Wormshit!!
* * *
There is something wrong with these men, these worms who would be Worms. They can never be Worms; they can only be pale, slimy imitations of the great, ugly beasts who whisper in the Giants’ ears. Yet they slobber and bow in the presence of an actual Worm, transported by the orgasmic desire to kiss and lick its body, to eat its excrement, digest it, and produce it anew for us to wallow in as if it were their own.
Oh yes, we men wallow in it, to be sure. Many of us even take pride in it, and those who don’t are guaranteed to feel the wrath of those who do. These would-be Worms stand there, dripping shit and marketing their odor as an aphrodisiac, denigrating all who are not stained with subservience.
Oh supreme irony! They - basking in their Holiness - are the supreme sinners of mankind, the craven cowards who are not content with ending their human lives, but must end ours as well. Worms within worms within worms within worms - eating their putrid selves and demanding that we praise them for it - demanding that we emulate their ecstatic living death and so assuage the terrible guilt they feel but cannot face.
So be it. Let them eat themselves. Let them eat their masters’ shit and smear it upon themselves as a badge of honor. Let them parade before us smirking with pride in their utter degradation.
. . . but I will not be moved..
Saturday I'll be at Dick’s Den* (2417 N. High) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
I’ve got a brand new rant for this latest “Circus of Cool,” called:“Intelligent Design My Ass.” Below is another blast from the past !
See you at the Den Saturday!(and/or at Monkeys Retreat between 6:00 and 9:00 the same day for the Via Colori photo exhibition)
*Dick’s Den - Sat., Dec. 17 – “Circus of Cool” - 10:00 - ??????? - 2417 N. High St. -(614) 268-9573
Monkeys Retreat – Sat,. Dec 17 – “Via Colori” Celebration – 6:00-9:00 – 1202 N. High St. - (614) 294-9511
* * * *
Giants and Worms Among Men
The Giants are great and slovenly and walk upon us, but they are the Giants, and it doesn’t matter to them that they squash us. At most, our bones provide but small shock to the callused gravity of their feet.
It is nothing to them. They are the Giants, oblivious, and even if (somehow) they could be shaken into consciousness, the Worms that whisper in their ears would eat their nascent thoughts and pass them on as wormy excrement .
We adapt, do the best we can, curse the Giants, curse the Worms, curse one another, curse our own “worms” for cursing us for our cursing. But nothing changes. We are the victims of the Giants and the Worms, and have been - ever since the first words of man were scratched on rocks. There was a time, some say, before the Giants and the Worms . . . when we were free.
I would like to be free . . . I think. But it is difficult to imagine life without our masters. And, it is possible that things were not so good even before the Giants.
Whatever it was like, we are not supposed to speak of it or even think of it.
Still, many of us do, and that is why our own little, self-important man-worms rail at us, demanding that the ancient laws be followed - to appease the gods, to keep us safe, to maintain what they call our prosperity.
They preach new laws too, derived (they say) from the old laws, but it is a strange prosperity that we enjoy under all these Holy laws.
It is said that we - here - who “respect the law and honor our betters” - are particularly fortunate and are less frequently trod upon by the Great Ones (men in other lands, we know for a certainty, are eaten by their Giants).
Old Marbo claims that she has seen our Giants eating people too, but it is possible they were only evildoers brought here from another land.
I do not know.
* * *
“Work saves us,” says Da’miller, our man-worm overseer. If that is true, then why do I not know it? I have known enough of work to have been saved long ago.
“ Work is salvation.” What Wormshit!!
* * *
There is something wrong with these men, these worms who would be Worms. They can never be Worms; they can only be pale, slimy imitations of the great, ugly beasts who whisper in the Giants’ ears. Yet they slobber and bow in the presence of an actual Worm, transported by the orgasmic desire to kiss and lick its body, to eat its excrement, digest it, and produce it anew for us to wallow in as if it were their own.
Oh yes, we men wallow in it, to be sure. Many of us even take pride in it, and those who don’t are guaranteed to feel the wrath of those who do. These would-be Worms stand there, dripping shit and marketing their odor as an aphrodisiac, denigrating all who are not stained with subservience.
Oh supreme irony! They - basking in their Holiness - are the supreme sinners of mankind, the craven cowards who are not content with ending their human lives, but must end ours as well. Worms within worms within worms within worms - eating their putrid selves and demanding that we praise them for it - demanding that we emulate their ecstatic living death and so assuage the terrible guilt they feel but cannot face.
So be it. Let them eat themselves. Let them eat their masters’ shit and smear it upon themselves as a badge of honor. Let them parade before us smirking with pride in their utter degradation.
. . . but I will not be moved..
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Open Mic with John Locke & Stagecoach BBQ
Hey Folks!
I spent this evening (Thurs.) at the Stagecoach BBQ & Blues in S. Bloomfield ( http://www.stagecoachbbq.com/ ) listening to and playing a few songs at the regular, Thursday Night open mic (6:00-9:00), hosted by my good friend John Locke ( http://www.anenglishmanabroad.com ).
I did three songs but I’m not in the pictures (I was behind the camera). Below are some shots of the excellent artists performing tonight- two shots are from an earlier Thursday.
If you like live music, or if you are alive and play music, you ought to stop in sometime. The music and people are fun, and the Stagecoach BBQ food is outtasight!!!
You can contact John Locke, the gremlin behind all this, at:
john@AnEnglishmanAbroad.com 614-846-9049
- Uke Man
I spent this evening (Thurs.) at the Stagecoach BBQ & Blues in S. Bloomfield ( http://www.stagecoachbbq.com/ ) listening to and playing a few songs at the regular, Thursday Night open mic (6:00-9:00), hosted by my good friend John Locke ( http://www.anenglishmanabroad.com ).
I did three songs but I’m not in the pictures (I was behind the camera). Below are some shots of the excellent artists performing tonight- two shots are from an earlier Thursday.
If you like live music, or if you are alive and play music, you ought to stop in sometime. The music and people are fun, and the Stagecoach BBQ food is outtasight!!!
You can contact John Locke, the gremlin behind all this, at:
john@AnEnglishmanAbroad.com 614-846-9049
- Uke Man
Twain on Human Nature
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 10th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 22 - The Yankee comments on human nature at the occasion of the miraculous fountain’s ceasing to flow.
The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn’t do as horses or cats or angleworms would probably have done - turned back and get at something profitable - no, anxious as they had before been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. There is no accounting for human beings.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 10th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 22 - The Yankee comments on human nature at the occasion of the miraculous fountain’s ceasing to flow.
The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn’t do as horses or cats or angleworms would probably have done - turned back and get at something profitable - no, anxious as they had before been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. There is no accounting for human beings.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
In case you missed it
Excerpt from:
Capitol Hill Blue
The Rant - Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W.Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
Didn't he take an oath to uphold it? - Uke Man
Capitol Hill Blue
The Rant - Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W.Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
Didn't he take an oath to uphold it? - Uke Man
Mark Twain on Stuff that Happens
Hey Folks,I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 9th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 21 - The Yankee learns the history of the desolate Valley of Holiness and of the “loving labors” (think about it) of the monks and nuns.
“And so upon a time, after a year and a day, the good Abbot made humble surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure.”
“Then I take it nobody has washed since.”
“He that would essay it could have his halter free; yea, and swiftly would he need it, too.”
“The community has prospered since?”
“Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms
and took them in. And nuns came also; and more again, and yet more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery. And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving labors together and together they built a fair great foundling asylum midway of the valley between.”
- (think about it) - Uke Man
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 21 - The Yankee learns the history of the desolate Valley of Holiness and of the “loving labors” (think about it) of the monks and nuns.
“And so upon a time, after a year and a day, the good Abbot made humble surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure.”
“Then I take it nobody has washed since.”
“He that would essay it could have his halter free; yea, and swiftly would he need it, too.”
“The community has prospered since?”
“Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms
and took them in. And nuns came also; and more again, and yet more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery. And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving labors together and together they built a fair great foundling asylum midway of the valley between.”
- (think about it) - Uke Man
Uke Man Rants Saturday - "Circus of Cool" @ Dick's Den
Hey Folks,
Saturday I'll be at Dick’s Den* (2417 N. High) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
Crazy folks (like the Uke Man) get up in front of a damned good jazz band and do their spoken word (hiply and cooly) in collusion with the music.
Earlier, I posted “Pogo Shtick,” a past effort performed at the "Circus." Directly below is another, "Down on the Farm." (I’ve got a new one for THIS “Circus of Cool,” called:“Intelligent Design My Ass.”
See you at the Den Saturday!
(and/or at Monkeys Retreat between 6:00 and 9:00 the same day for the Via Colori photo exhibition)
*Dick’s Den - Sat., Dec. 17 – “Circus of Cool” - 10:00 - ??????? - 2417 N. High St. -
(614) 268-9573
Down On the Farm
Chewing our cuds, rolling our eyes, lolling beneath cardboard, empty blue skies - indolent Holsteins! No shades of gray! We’re all black and white, baking cow pies all day; spewing volumes of methane - with no words to say.
And they milk us and breed us until one fine day when it’s time for the knacker to take us away, and then we are sausage and fed to their dogs, middle-class Holsteins (better off than the hogs who are slaughtered much sooner and eaten with pride by the fork-wielding Man who has Dog on his side).
Sure, they milk us and skin us and grind us up well, but forever that truth is forbidden to tell. Deny it, suppress it, hide it with stealth. Tell it to no one not even yourself.
. . . . . . . .
On rain-glazed white chickens so much can depend when the wheelbarrow red revolves once again, and hatches a prophet who demands that we speak, and sings out that courage is what we must seek! And prods us on to-it with the strength of his beak! Inherit the wind – not the earth – if you’re meek.
. . . . . . . . . .
Bovinish beatitudes, dairy farm platitudes - but Mr. Jones’ attitudes have Dog on their side.
Productivity’s up, supply and demand; “Supply more with less!” is Jones’s command. The Cow Jones Industrials and the Nazduck are grand; so shut up and kneel and give Dog a hand.
Pork bellies are up and Capital gains - while the manor-born feed on our bodies and brains. And Dog preaches on in his saccharine tones, speaking down to us from his pulpit of bones of the sweet, blessed oil that’s squeezed from our blood, as we “Moooo” our “Amen’s” and plod on through the mud.
We are the hollow cows, guts filled with straw! Cowardly lions eating collard greens - raw! Self-blinded fools marching into the maw of Dog and country and the Rule of Law. “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead; salute the flag or you too could be dead.” See not what they did; just hear what they said. Yeah, the blood’s on their hands, but the cost’s on our heads!
. . . . . . .
On rain-glazed white chickens so much can depend when the wheelbarrow red comes round once again, and hatches a prophet who demands that we speak, and sings out that courage is what we must seek! And prods us on to-it with the strength of his beak!
So stand up and curse and – finally – speak! Spit out your cud; awake from the dream; banish the nightmare; and stand up an scream!
Banish the nightmare.
Awake from the dream.
Saturday I'll be at Dick’s Den* (2417 N. High) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
Crazy folks (like the Uke Man) get up in front of a damned good jazz band and do their spoken word (hiply and cooly) in collusion with the music.
Earlier, I posted “Pogo Shtick,” a past effort performed at the "Circus." Directly below is another, "Down on the Farm." (I’ve got a new one for THIS “Circus of Cool,” called:“Intelligent Design My Ass.”
See you at the Den Saturday!
(and/or at Monkeys Retreat between 6:00 and 9:00 the same day for the Via Colori photo exhibition)
*Dick’s Den - Sat., Dec. 17 – “Circus of Cool” - 10:00 - ??????? - 2417 N. High St. -
(614) 268-9573
Down On the Farm
Chewing our cuds, rolling our eyes, lolling beneath cardboard, empty blue skies - indolent Holsteins! No shades of gray! We’re all black and white, baking cow pies all day; spewing volumes of methane - with no words to say.
And they milk us and breed us until one fine day when it’s time for the knacker to take us away, and then we are sausage and fed to their dogs, middle-class Holsteins (better off than the hogs who are slaughtered much sooner and eaten with pride by the fork-wielding Man who has Dog on his side).
Sure, they milk us and skin us and grind us up well, but forever that truth is forbidden to tell. Deny it, suppress it, hide it with stealth. Tell it to no one not even yourself.
. . . . . . . .
On rain-glazed white chickens so much can depend when the wheelbarrow red revolves once again, and hatches a prophet who demands that we speak, and sings out that courage is what we must seek! And prods us on to-it with the strength of his beak! Inherit the wind – not the earth – if you’re meek.
. . . . . . . . . .
Bovinish beatitudes, dairy farm platitudes - but Mr. Jones’ attitudes have Dog on their side.
Productivity’s up, supply and demand; “Supply more with less!” is Jones’s command. The Cow Jones Industrials and the Nazduck are grand; so shut up and kneel and give Dog a hand.
Pork bellies are up and Capital gains - while the manor-born feed on our bodies and brains. And Dog preaches on in his saccharine tones, speaking down to us from his pulpit of bones of the sweet, blessed oil that’s squeezed from our blood, as we “Moooo” our “Amen’s” and plod on through the mud.
We are the hollow cows, guts filled with straw! Cowardly lions eating collard greens - raw! Self-blinded fools marching into the maw of Dog and country and the Rule of Law. “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead; salute the flag or you too could be dead.” See not what they did; just hear what they said. Yeah, the blood’s on their hands, but the cost’s on our heads!
. . . . . . .
On rain-glazed white chickens so much can depend when the wheelbarrow red comes round once again, and hatches a prophet who demands that we speak, and sings out that courage is what we must seek! And prods us on to-it with the strength of his beak!
So stand up and curse and – finally – speak! Spit out your cud; awake from the dream; banish the nightmare; and stand up an scream!
Banish the nightmare.
Awake from the dream.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
I'm not the only one down on Scotts' Miracle-Gro(ping)
Hey Folks,
Below (Dec. 9) I showed my ire for the recent Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.'s nazi brutality toward its employees (and, indirectly, toward all who work for a living).
Today Mike Harden of the Columbus Dispatch did the same:
Scotts’ policy a smoke screen for its own airborne issues
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
MIKE HARDEN
If life were a Charles Dickens Christmas allegory, a long procession of Jacob Marley wraiths — trailing a plume of lung-choking vermiculite dust — would be rapping on the bedroom door of James Hagedorn, chairman and chief executive of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.
Hagedorn would be hypocritical not to answer the knock of those whose deaths likely were hastened by working in a Scotts Marysville operation that one former employee described as a "dust bowl." After all, Hagedorn recently declared, essentially, that what Scotts’ employees do on their own time and in the privacy of their own homes is his business.
Scotts plans to begin firing employees who smoke, even at home.
Were Scotts an untainted, environmental nonprofit agency concerned about a healthful breathing environment for all, the action might not seem such a bald-faced example of corporate amnesia.
Four years ago, an investigative series by The Dispatch revealed that vermiculite contaminated with tremolite, a rare form of asbestos, contributed to the deaths of at least five Scotts workers. They inhaled the asbestos fibers while handling the vermiculite, an ore Scotts used in the production of potting soil and fertilizer.
After the problem surfaced, Scotts urged 100 current and former employees who had worked with the substance to undergo annual lung X-rays. More than a dozen of that hundred filed asbestos-related claims for workers’ compensation.
The Dispatch also pointed out that records from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency showed that alarming levels of pesticides and herbicides had been oozing from Scotts’ landfills and waste lagoons into a creek that carried the contaminants to the Scioto River, a source of Columbus drinking water.
The Ohio EPA has a fat file on Scotts that tracks everything from DDT and chlordane allegations to contentions that one company landfill contained two weed killers that are part of the ingredients for Agent Orange, which was used to strip plants of leaves in the jungles of Vietnam and has been linked to cancer in some of the troops who fought there. DDT and chlordane, both pesticides, have been banned in the United States.
Dispatch reader Patricia Baumgardner, though a self-described nonsmoker, was sufficiently incensed about Scotts’ new policy to write Hagedorn.
"Isn’t it hypocritical," the Worthington woman asked, "for a company that produces chemicals that pollute the environment to be concerned about the fact that their employees smoke in their own homes?
"What’s next? Will you fire people that eat bacon, drink alcohol or have frequent sexual partners? After all, those behaviors can also lead to serious and expensive illnesses. What about people who eat too much? Will you send the Scotts Company police into their homes to monitor their activities?"
Baumgardner said yesterday of Hagedorn, "If he was talking about fighting for the health and well-being of his employees, I would have no problem. But he is talking about the health and wellbeing of the company’s bottom line."
She also objected to Hagedorn’s slinging of military hash in proclaiming that he would take his crusade to the "forward edge of the battle area."
It might be that Hagedorn has seen Top Gun too many times.
"It’s definitely in-your-face," he boasted of his policy.
What concerns defenders of individual freedom and personal privacy is not so much that it is in their faces as under their beds.
Mike Harden is a Dispatch Metro columnist . He can be reached at 614-461-5215 or by e - mail
mharden@dispatch.com
Below (Dec. 9) I showed my ire for the recent Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.'s nazi brutality toward its employees (and, indirectly, toward all who work for a living).
Today Mike Harden of the Columbus Dispatch did the same:
Scotts’ policy a smoke screen for its own airborne issues
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
MIKE HARDEN
If life were a Charles Dickens Christmas allegory, a long procession of Jacob Marley wraiths — trailing a plume of lung-choking vermiculite dust — would be rapping on the bedroom door of James Hagedorn, chairman and chief executive of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.
Hagedorn would be hypocritical not to answer the knock of those whose deaths likely were hastened by working in a Scotts Marysville operation that one former employee described as a "dust bowl." After all, Hagedorn recently declared, essentially, that what Scotts’ employees do on their own time and in the privacy of their own homes is his business.
Scotts plans to begin firing employees who smoke, even at home.
Were Scotts an untainted, environmental nonprofit agency concerned about a healthful breathing environment for all, the action might not seem such a bald-faced example of corporate amnesia.
Four years ago, an investigative series by The Dispatch revealed that vermiculite contaminated with tremolite, a rare form of asbestos, contributed to the deaths of at least five Scotts workers. They inhaled the asbestos fibers while handling the vermiculite, an ore Scotts used in the production of potting soil and fertilizer.
After the problem surfaced, Scotts urged 100 current and former employees who had worked with the substance to undergo annual lung X-rays. More than a dozen of that hundred filed asbestos-related claims for workers’ compensation.
The Dispatch also pointed out that records from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency showed that alarming levels of pesticides and herbicides had been oozing from Scotts’ landfills and waste lagoons into a creek that carried the contaminants to the Scioto River, a source of Columbus drinking water.
The Ohio EPA has a fat file on Scotts that tracks everything from DDT and chlordane allegations to contentions that one company landfill contained two weed killers that are part of the ingredients for Agent Orange, which was used to strip plants of leaves in the jungles of Vietnam and has been linked to cancer in some of the troops who fought there. DDT and chlordane, both pesticides, have been banned in the United States.
Dispatch reader Patricia Baumgardner, though a self-described nonsmoker, was sufficiently incensed about Scotts’ new policy to write Hagedorn.
"Isn’t it hypocritical," the Worthington woman asked, "for a company that produces chemicals that pollute the environment to be concerned about the fact that their employees smoke in their own homes?
"What’s next? Will you fire people that eat bacon, drink alcohol or have frequent sexual partners? After all, those behaviors can also lead to serious and expensive illnesses. What about people who eat too much? Will you send the Scotts Company police into their homes to monitor their activities?"
Baumgardner said yesterday of Hagedorn, "If he was talking about fighting for the health and well-being of his employees, I would have no problem. But he is talking about the health and wellbeing of the company’s bottom line."
She also objected to Hagedorn’s slinging of military hash in proclaiming that he would take his crusade to the "forward edge of the battle area."
It might be that Hagedorn has seen Top Gun too many times.
"It’s definitely in-your-face," he boasted of his policy.
What concerns defenders of individual freedom and personal privacy is not so much that it is in their faces as under their beds.
Mike Harden is a Dispatch Metro columnist . He can be reached at 614-461-5215 or by e - mail
mharden@dispatch.com
Monday, December 12, 2005
Uke Man @ Monkeys Retreat .... Sat., Dec. 17
The Art of Via Colori
The Chalk Has Washed Away . . . . . . . . . . . . But The Images Remain !
Monkeys Retreat* is proud to be hosting
“A Gallery of Photographs”
Chalk Art created by Local Artists
for Via Colori 2005
Along with the Music of both:
The Mendelsonics
and
Ukulele Man
(afterwards, head up High Street to Dick's Den. Uke Man will be ranting to a jazz band at "Circus of Cool" - 10:00 'til ?)
* Monkeys Retreat
1227 N. High Street
Saturday, December 17
6:00 – 9:00+
614-294-9511
The Chalk Has Washed Away . . . . . . . . . . . . But The Images Remain !
Monkeys Retreat* is proud to be hosting
“A Gallery of Photographs”
Chalk Art created by Local Artists
for Via Colori 2005
Along with the Music of both:
The Mendelsonics
and
Ukulele Man
(afterwards, head up High Street to Dick's Den. Uke Man will be ranting to a jazz band at "Circus of Cool" - 10:00 'til ?)
* Monkeys Retreat
1227 N. High Street
Saturday, December 17
6:00 – 9:00+
614-294-9511
". . . but don't call me a racist" - Dubya
Yeah, Dubya said today:
"You can call me anything you want, but don't call me a racist!"
OK. Here goes:
Dubya, you are one uneducated, moronic, rednecked, double-dealing, self-serving, ignorant, lying, putrid, hypocritical, incompetent excuse for a human being.
How's that?
And claiming you're not a racist simply because you mistreat ALL poor and working class people regardless of color or national origin is, as you would say in your pidgen English, "disassembling."
- Uke Man
"You can call me anything you want, but don't call me a racist!"
OK. Here goes:
Dubya, you are one uneducated, moronic, rednecked, double-dealing, self-serving, ignorant, lying, putrid, hypocritical, incompetent excuse for a human being.
How's that?
And claiming you're not a racist simply because you mistreat ALL poor and working class people regardless of color or national origin is, as you would say in your pidgen English, "disassembling."
- Uke Man
Here's what I've been saying about "Christians" (in quotation marks)
Hey Folks,
Today a letter of mine appeared in The Dispatch. It was in response to a “Christian” lady’s criticism of a Miami Herald columnist, Leonard Pitts, a Pulitzer Prize-winner.
All three items are presented below in the order of their chronology.
I wrote my letter before I was able to find and review Pitts’ column and had to rely on memory. Since then I have obtained it and now realize I should have been even harsher in criticizing the complaining “Christian.”
Clearly, Pitts’ column relates behavior by “Christian” Pat Robertson which is much more severely in conflict with the critic’s ideals than anything the columnist did.
Finally, I’m sure that there are thousands of “Christians out there – if not more – who don’t have a clue as to the meaning of what I've just said. No, instead, they’d claim persecution by the fork-footed Uke Man (in league with Pitts and Satan).
If “With God, All Things Are Possible,” then he ought to help some of his followers get their heads on straight.
- Uke Man
Monday, November 14
IN MY OPINION
Rev. Ridiculous - Pat Robertson rises up again
BY LEONARD PITTS JR. mail to: JR.lpitts@herald.com
And the Lord did look with discontent upon the town of Dover in the province of Pennsylvania. For Dover was a wicked and prideful place and had turned its back on God. Its people had voted out school board members who tried to introduce intelligent design into schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
``And the Lord was wrathful and said, I will smite them with burning coals from the sky. Their fields I will make barren, their rivers I will cause to rise in flood, their football teams will lose, their sewers will back up, no one who lives there shall hit the Powerball. And I will help them not.''
OK, so that's not in my Bible, either. But apparently, it's in the Rev. Pat Robertson's. Incensed at Dover voters for insisting that science classes teach science, he issued a dire warning to the town last week on his TV show, The 700 Club.'
'If there is a disaster in your area,'' he said, ``don't turn to God -- you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. ... [D]on't ask for His help because He might not be there.''
`IT'S PAT'
Ah, Pat. Pat, Pat. Thank you, Pat. Whenever there's a slow news day, we can always count on you to liven things up with your special wisdom.
I mean, wasn't it just a few months ago that Rev. Ridiculous put out a hit on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez? Two years ago that he asked viewers to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court? Four years ago that he linked the Sept. 11 attacks to the fact that organized prayer is not allowed in schools? Seven years ago that he warned Orlando of ''terrorist bombs ... earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor'' for allowing a gay pride event?
He also said that Mouse Town could get hit by a hurricane, which was a really gutsy prediction, if you ask me. I mean, a hurricane, hitting Florida? What are the odds?
So this latest nonsense is right in line with what we've come to expect from our friend Pat. The only thing you can do is laugh -- and try not to think about how many people lump you in with this fellow when you profess to be a Christian.
SCIENCE VERSUS FAITH
Point being, I believe there was a Designer. I also believe that's a matter for the pulpit, the class in comparative religion or the class in philosophy. It doesn't belong in science class because it's not science. It's faith.
And please spare me the thousand word-for-word emails arguing with eerie, Stepford Wife uniformity, that ``the Theory of Evolution is just that, a theory.''
Your humble correspondent was only a ''C'' science student, but even I get the fact that scientific theory involves a bit more rigorous reasoning than my personal theory that I can make my team win by wearing my lucky shirt and yelling at the television. Scientific theory requires conclusions based on observable, replicable and predictable phenomena.
To put it another way: gravity once was ''just'' a theory, but I don't hear anyone arguing with Isaac Newton. Or suggesting students be taught the ''alternative'' theory that we are held to earth by invisible strips of Velcro.
Not that I want to give Kansas any ideas. At the same time voters in Dover were standing up for common sense, the Kansas State Board of Education was voting to adopt standards undermining the teaching of Darwin's theory. This is the latest step in the state's long, hard-fought campaign to turn out stupid kids.
See, the Pennsylvanians get what the Kansans do not: Teaching religion masked as science devalues both and ensures that children will be that much less prepared for college and the world beyond. I can't believe God requires ignorance, that He gave us brains he doesn't want us to use, or that intelligence and faith are mutually exclusive.
Of course, I'm forced to reconsider that position every time Rev. Ridiculous opens his mouth.
--------------------------- * * * -----------------------------
To the Editor,
Columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. gushed too much sarcasm in his Nov. 15 Forum column, “Robertson offers another of his follies.” He mocked the Bible and disparaged a forefront Christian leader.
Pitts verbally pummeled Pat Robertson, author and host of a Christian TV show. He glibly called Robertson “the Rev. Ridiculous” and “our friend Pat.”
Pitts also swung at conservative Christians and the beliefs we cherish, such as the sanctity of God’s word. He wrote a mock Bible passage, ridiculing Robertson’s message to a city that had opposed the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom.
And Pitts slipped in a punch at intelligent design adherents when he called the Kansas State Board ofEducation’s support of intelligent design part of a campaign to turn out stupid kids.
Pitts overstepped appropriate bounds of wit and humor. Name-calling and belief-bashing harms all involved. Such violence lowers societal standards,opening opportunities for further disrespect. Let’s raise the standards Pitts and other disrespectful people have knocked down by showing healthy respect for everyone - conservative Christians, too.
Rachel Martindale
Pomeroy
------------------------ * * * ---------------------------
To the Editor,
Rachel Martindale's letter about Leonard Pitts was the pits.
The poor woman must never have heard Pat Robertson's vitriol regarding gays, feminists, liberals, and many other groups he despises. She worries about lower standards in regard to name-calling leading to violence. Obviously, she is either ignorant of Robertson's call for the assassination of a South American head of state; or she suffers from a serious case of double standards.
Yours,
Tom Harker
Circleville
Today a letter of mine appeared in The Dispatch. It was in response to a “Christian” lady’s criticism of a Miami Herald columnist, Leonard Pitts, a Pulitzer Prize-winner.
All three items are presented below in the order of their chronology.
I wrote my letter before I was able to find and review Pitts’ column and had to rely on memory. Since then I have obtained it and now realize I should have been even harsher in criticizing the complaining “Christian.”
Clearly, Pitts’ column relates behavior by “Christian” Pat Robertson which is much more severely in conflict with the critic’s ideals than anything the columnist did.
Finally, I’m sure that there are thousands of “Christians out there – if not more – who don’t have a clue as to the meaning of what I've just said. No, instead, they’d claim persecution by the fork-footed Uke Man (in league with Pitts and Satan).
If “With God, All Things Are Possible,” then he ought to help some of his followers get their heads on straight.
- Uke Man
Monday, November 14
IN MY OPINION
Rev. Ridiculous - Pat Robertson rises up again
BY LEONARD PITTS JR. mail to: JR.lpitts@herald.com
And the Lord did look with discontent upon the town of Dover in the province of Pennsylvania. For Dover was a wicked and prideful place and had turned its back on God. Its people had voted out school board members who tried to introduce intelligent design into schools as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
``And the Lord was wrathful and said, I will smite them with burning coals from the sky. Their fields I will make barren, their rivers I will cause to rise in flood, their football teams will lose, their sewers will back up, no one who lives there shall hit the Powerball. And I will help them not.''
OK, so that's not in my Bible, either. But apparently, it's in the Rev. Pat Robertson's. Incensed at Dover voters for insisting that science classes teach science, he issued a dire warning to the town last week on his TV show, The 700 Club.'
'If there is a disaster in your area,'' he said, ``don't turn to God -- you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. ... [D]on't ask for His help because He might not be there.''
`IT'S PAT'
Ah, Pat. Pat, Pat. Thank you, Pat. Whenever there's a slow news day, we can always count on you to liven things up with your special wisdom.
I mean, wasn't it just a few months ago that Rev. Ridiculous put out a hit on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez? Two years ago that he asked viewers to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court? Four years ago that he linked the Sept. 11 attacks to the fact that organized prayer is not allowed in schools? Seven years ago that he warned Orlando of ''terrorist bombs ... earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor'' for allowing a gay pride event?
He also said that Mouse Town could get hit by a hurricane, which was a really gutsy prediction, if you ask me. I mean, a hurricane, hitting Florida? What are the odds?
So this latest nonsense is right in line with what we've come to expect from our friend Pat. The only thing you can do is laugh -- and try not to think about how many people lump you in with this fellow when you profess to be a Christian.
SCIENCE VERSUS FAITH
Point being, I believe there was a Designer. I also believe that's a matter for the pulpit, the class in comparative religion or the class in philosophy. It doesn't belong in science class because it's not science. It's faith.
And please spare me the thousand word-for-word emails arguing with eerie, Stepford Wife uniformity, that ``the Theory of Evolution is just that, a theory.''
Your humble correspondent was only a ''C'' science student, but even I get the fact that scientific theory involves a bit more rigorous reasoning than my personal theory that I can make my team win by wearing my lucky shirt and yelling at the television. Scientific theory requires conclusions based on observable, replicable and predictable phenomena.
To put it another way: gravity once was ''just'' a theory, but I don't hear anyone arguing with Isaac Newton. Or suggesting students be taught the ''alternative'' theory that we are held to earth by invisible strips of Velcro.
Not that I want to give Kansas any ideas. At the same time voters in Dover were standing up for common sense, the Kansas State Board of Education was voting to adopt standards undermining the teaching of Darwin's theory. This is the latest step in the state's long, hard-fought campaign to turn out stupid kids.
See, the Pennsylvanians get what the Kansans do not: Teaching religion masked as science devalues both and ensures that children will be that much less prepared for college and the world beyond. I can't believe God requires ignorance, that He gave us brains he doesn't want us to use, or that intelligence and faith are mutually exclusive.
Of course, I'm forced to reconsider that position every time Rev. Ridiculous opens his mouth.
--------------------------- * * * -----------------------------
To the Editor,
Columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. gushed too much sarcasm in his Nov. 15 Forum column, “Robertson offers another of his follies.” He mocked the Bible and disparaged a forefront Christian leader.
Pitts verbally pummeled Pat Robertson, author and host of a Christian TV show. He glibly called Robertson “the Rev. Ridiculous” and “our friend Pat.”
Pitts also swung at conservative Christians and the beliefs we cherish, such as the sanctity of God’s word. He wrote a mock Bible passage, ridiculing Robertson’s message to a city that had opposed the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom.
And Pitts slipped in a punch at intelligent design adherents when he called the Kansas State Board ofEducation’s support of intelligent design part of a campaign to turn out stupid kids.
Pitts overstepped appropriate bounds of wit and humor. Name-calling and belief-bashing harms all involved. Such violence lowers societal standards,opening opportunities for further disrespect. Let’s raise the standards Pitts and other disrespectful people have knocked down by showing healthy respect for everyone - conservative Christians, too.
Rachel Martindale
Pomeroy
------------------------ * * * ---------------------------
To the Editor,
Rachel Martindale's letter about Leonard Pitts was the pits.
The poor woman must never have heard Pat Robertson's vitriol regarding gays, feminists, liberals, and many other groups he despises. She worries about lower standards in regard to name-calling leading to violence. Obviously, she is either ignorant of Robertson's call for the assassination of a South American head of state; or she suffers from a serious case of double standards.
Yours,
Tom Harker
Circleville
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Lying W - dishonest Action Figure!!
Hey Folks!
For some fun, go to:
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/dishonestdubya/
This is an old W-bashing toy/game/passtime address I came upon while cleaning out my ancient e-mails. It still works! If you haven't seen it, it's worth a quick visit.
Dishonest W – Lying action figure
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/dishonestdubya/
- Uke Man
For some fun, go to:
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/dishonestdubya/
This is an old W-bashing toy/game/passtime address I came upon while cleaning out my ancient e-mails. It still works! If you haven't seen it, it's worth a quick visit.
Dishonest W – Lying action figure
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/dishonestdubya/
- Uke Man
Double-Venue/Double-Shows - Double Uke Man/Double-Trouble (fire burn and cauldron bubble)
Hey folks!!
This coming Saturday evening (Dec. 17) the Uke Man will be doing double-duty.
The evening starts out at the inimitable and atmospheric Monkeys Retreat with Ukey performing solo in celebration of Via Colori ( http://shortnorth.org/via_colori/ ). I’ll put the full details up as to what-and-why-and-when as soon as I get them officially tied down (see basics below).
Then, I’ll mosey up the street a bit to the equally atmospheric and character-imbued Dick’s Den (see below) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
Crazy folks (like the Uke Man) get up in front of a damned good jazz band and do their spoken word (hiply and cooly) in collusion with the music.
I LOVE it!! You will too!!
The rant posted directly below (“Pogo Shtick”) was an earlier Uke Man effort (I’ll post some others this week as we near the Circus’s center ring.
AND!! I’ve got a new one in its final, polishing stages, especially for THIS “Circus of Cool.” It’s called:
“Intelligent Design My Ass.” You'll have to be in the Den Saturday to hear it!
Check out the art and music at Monkeys and then get mellow (& cool) at Dick’s!
- Uke Man
Monkeys Retreat
Saturday, December 17 – “Via Colori Celebration” 6:00 to 9:00
1202 N. High Street – Columbus (614) 294-9511
Dick’s Den
Same Night (Sat., Dec. 17) – “Circus of Cool”
10:00 - ???????
2417 N. High St. (614) 268-9573
This coming Saturday evening (Dec. 17) the Uke Man will be doing double-duty.
The evening starts out at the inimitable and atmospheric Monkeys Retreat with Ukey performing solo in celebration of Via Colori ( http://shortnorth.org/via_colori/ ). I’ll put the full details up as to what-and-why-and-when as soon as I get them officially tied down (see basics below).
Then, I’ll mosey up the street a bit to the equally atmospheric and character-imbued Dick’s Den (see below) for "Circus of Cool," the hip, beat, jazz/poetry happening conceived by the late Don “the Pope” Pavelcik and carried on by the lovely Krista Williams!
Crazy folks (like the Uke Man) get up in front of a damned good jazz band and do their spoken word (hiply and cooly) in collusion with the music.
I LOVE it!! You will too!!
The rant posted directly below (“Pogo Shtick”) was an earlier Uke Man effort (I’ll post some others this week as we near the Circus’s center ring.
AND!! I’ve got a new one in its final, polishing stages, especially for THIS “Circus of Cool.” It’s called:
“Intelligent Design My Ass.” You'll have to be in the Den Saturday to hear it!
Check out the art and music at Monkeys and then get mellow (& cool) at Dick’s!
- Uke Man
Monkeys Retreat
Saturday, December 17 – “Via Colori Celebration” 6:00 to 9:00
1202 N. High Street – Columbus (614) 294-9511
Dick’s Den
Same Night (Sat., Dec. 17) – “Circus of Cool”
10:00 - ???????
2417 N. High St. (614) 268-9573
a Uke Man Rant from the archives
Pogo Shtick
I know these people.
I‘ve known them all my life.
Kiss-ups: self-serving sycophants, knee-padded beggars entreating crumbs in exchange for their honor, cowards taking the “safe” route, disgusting vermin.
I know these people.
Posers: paradigms of prodigious emptiness, icons of Warholian temporality, revered May Fly Royalty quickly caught under foot and swept away, winners at musical chairs, sad little bullet heads.
You know these people too.
You’ve known them all your life.
Snobs who say: “How do you like my new dress?” And “What are YOU doing here?” And “Well, I must be going now.”
They say, “We run this town.” And “MY son is going to PRIVATE school.” And “See you at Rotary?” (do you think they wear beanies with plastic propellers there?)
You know snobs:
To the manor born, stainless steel spoon in their mouths, careful parents protecting their precious ones from the “undesirable” element, on the school board so Junior can take the LOSING jump shot, class-conscious warriors in the classless Homeland Defense against “class warfare,” puffed up pontificators of their own inescapable worthiness, inexhaustible exhibitionists of self-stimulation, demigods of consumption, tin pot aristocrats with streets named after them, polishing their putters and their silverware, gross toads in tiny cellars.
We know these people.
Lip-twisted Jesus-lovers spewing their racist vomit, their sexist, homophobic, parochial, creationist, censorial bile across the landscape. Moaning “persecution!” at the slightest hindrance of their self-righteous pogrom. Well-healed healers crippling their crippled sheep during the shearing - and in turn – the carnivorous sheep, transmogrified raptors - healed and born again - return the favor to their brethren. Rendering unto Caesar. Rendering the carcass of humanity to grease the wheels of commerce. Burn the witch! Burn the Jew! Pass the plate and the ammunition too!!!
And the bullies! Pushing ahead in line, eating your lunch, establishing the pecking order (enforcers for the long term), attack dogs of the virtual reality, teacher’s pets, quarterbacks, coaches, principals, cops, mayors, editors, clear-channel mouth organs, cable “news” vampires; offal, officially elected; statesmen, patriarchs, the smirking half-wit president of the US of A!!!
We know the bullies.
Home on the hill, sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-suburbanites, gated communitarians. Upper crust bluebloods, thoroughbreds. Orthodontia, acrylic nails, hair transplants, fancy pants; plastic surgeons, eggs of sturgeons; Gucci-Gucci-Gucci.
We know the bullies.
Playgrounders who steal the ball if they can’t win. Self-perpetuating slackers, self-aggrandizing losers, cardboard cutouts, ostrich-eyed/bird- brained incompetents who leave their droppings where they may and delegate the clean-up.
Exploiters who bring good things to life. Engineers and oligarchs; saviors, heroes, icons; holy men and businessers, suits and CEO’s.
Politicians preying and praying (with an “e”-ing and an “a”-ing). War-mongers abandoning vets - who forgive and forget (from their sick bed or their barstool) just BEFORE the next war.
And we know the cowards, you and I. We know them all already, know them all!!
The willow reeds bending with the wind, chameleons blending in, willing wallflowers, self-deceivers, band-wagoners; toadies, informers, collaborationists, company men; narks, snitches, good soldiers, good Germans, apologists; wearers of rose-colored glasses, takers of the easy path.
Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not to me!
Windup parrots squawking of god and country, reciting the provided script, premeditatedly oblivious to hypocrisy and lies and the obvious degradation
They say, “It is our duty.” “We must support our leader.” “It is the white (and red and blue) man’s burden!
Disgusting slugs sliming the world in their spineless, paralyzed rush to avoid being stepped upon themselves. Oh, what a well-deserved iridescent mess THAT would be, and how luminescently appropriate!
The possum warned us of these ersatz Ishmaels, riding the coffins of others to save themselves for one more day of self-delusion - these “survivors” - wrapped in the armor of self-righteous nonsense, spouting judgmental distractions, propagating emotional calluses, lips eternally puckered, shadow soldiers of the living dead struggling inch by perverted inch down the Primrose Path to the tables down at Morey’s where they pass and are forgotten with the rest.
I know these people.
I‘ve known them all my life.
Kiss-ups: self-serving sycophants, knee-padded beggars entreating crumbs in exchange for their honor, cowards taking the “safe” route, disgusting vermin.
I know these people.
Posers: paradigms of prodigious emptiness, icons of Warholian temporality, revered May Fly Royalty quickly caught under foot and swept away, winners at musical chairs, sad little bullet heads.
You know these people too.
You’ve known them all your life.
Snobs who say: “How do you like my new dress?” And “What are YOU doing here?” And “Well, I must be going now.”
They say, “We run this town.” And “MY son is going to PRIVATE school.” And “See you at Rotary?” (do you think they wear beanies with plastic propellers there?)
You know snobs:
To the manor born, stainless steel spoon in their mouths, careful parents protecting their precious ones from the “undesirable” element, on the school board so Junior can take the LOSING jump shot, class-conscious warriors in the classless Homeland Defense against “class warfare,” puffed up pontificators of their own inescapable worthiness, inexhaustible exhibitionists of self-stimulation, demigods of consumption, tin pot aristocrats with streets named after them, polishing their putters and their silverware, gross toads in tiny cellars.
We know these people.
Lip-twisted Jesus-lovers spewing their racist vomit, their sexist, homophobic, parochial, creationist, censorial bile across the landscape. Moaning “persecution!” at the slightest hindrance of their self-righteous pogrom. Well-healed healers crippling their crippled sheep during the shearing - and in turn – the carnivorous sheep, transmogrified raptors - healed and born again - return the favor to their brethren. Rendering unto Caesar. Rendering the carcass of humanity to grease the wheels of commerce. Burn the witch! Burn the Jew! Pass the plate and the ammunition too!!!
And the bullies! Pushing ahead in line, eating your lunch, establishing the pecking order (enforcers for the long term), attack dogs of the virtual reality, teacher’s pets, quarterbacks, coaches, principals, cops, mayors, editors, clear-channel mouth organs, cable “news” vampires; offal, officially elected; statesmen, patriarchs, the smirking half-wit president of the US of A!!!
We know the bullies.
Home on the hill, sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-suburbanites, gated communitarians. Upper crust bluebloods, thoroughbreds. Orthodontia, acrylic nails, hair transplants, fancy pants; plastic surgeons, eggs of sturgeons; Gucci-Gucci-Gucci.
We know the bullies.
Playgrounders who steal the ball if they can’t win. Self-perpetuating slackers, self-aggrandizing losers, cardboard cutouts, ostrich-eyed/bird- brained incompetents who leave their droppings where they may and delegate the clean-up.
Exploiters who bring good things to life. Engineers and oligarchs; saviors, heroes, icons; holy men and businessers, suits and CEO’s.
Politicians preying and praying (with an “e”-ing and an “a”-ing). War-mongers abandoning vets - who forgive and forget (from their sick bed or their barstool) just BEFORE the next war.
And we know the cowards, you and I. We know them all already, know them all!!
The willow reeds bending with the wind, chameleons blending in, willing wallflowers, self-deceivers, band-wagoners; toadies, informers, collaborationists, company men; narks, snitches, good soldiers, good Germans, apologists; wearers of rose-colored glasses, takers of the easy path.
Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not to me!
Windup parrots squawking of god and country, reciting the provided script, premeditatedly oblivious to hypocrisy and lies and the obvious degradation
They say, “It is our duty.” “We must support our leader.” “It is the white (and red and blue) man’s burden!
Disgusting slugs sliming the world in their spineless, paralyzed rush to avoid being stepped upon themselves. Oh, what a well-deserved iridescent mess THAT would be, and how luminescently appropriate!
The possum warned us of these ersatz Ishmaels, riding the coffins of others to save themselves for one more day of self-delusion - these “survivors” - wrapped in the armor of self-righteous nonsense, spouting judgmental distractions, propagating emotional calluses, lips eternally puckered, shadow soldiers of the living dead struggling inch by perverted inch down the Primrose Path to the tables down at Morey’s where they pass and are forgotten with the rest.
Friday, December 09, 2005
A Circleville Candy Tradition - Chocolate, not Pumpkin
Hey Folks,
Some of the best chocolate confections in the world can be found right here in Circleville, Ohio at Wittich’s Home-Made Candy.
It’s just a little, family-run business that’s been a going concern since 1840. The candy is marvelous, dahling! And they have an old-fashioned soda fountain besides.
You’ll find it on W. High Street, just off N. Court Street in beautiful downtown Circleville, Ohio. Stop by and enjoy some sweets if you ever wander into my medieval village.
- Uke Man
p.s. I don’t get a kick-back for this. I just love their candy; and writing about it, although less satisfying than eating it, is also less fattening – I’m on another diet!
Some of the best chocolate confections in the world can be found right here in Circleville, Ohio at Wittich’s Home-Made Candy.
It’s just a little, family-run business that’s been a going concern since 1840. The candy is marvelous, dahling! And they have an old-fashioned soda fountain besides.
You’ll find it on W. High Street, just off N. Court Street in beautiful downtown Circleville, Ohio. Stop by and enjoy some sweets if you ever wander into my medieval village.
- Uke Man
p.s. I don’t get a kick-back for this. I just love their candy; and writing about it, although less satisfying than eating it, is also less fattening – I’m on another diet!
Thursday, December 08, 2005
More Twain on oppression and revolution
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 8th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 20 – The Yankee observes the oppressed and comments upon their needs.
It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that account that I have made room for it here, but on account of a thing which seemed to me still more curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter brought from these down-trodden people no outburst of rage against their oppressors. They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but a kindness. Yes, here was a curious revelation indeed, of the deapth to which this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower deep for him.
I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the ungetaroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must BEGIN in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history teaches anything, it teaches that. What this folk needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I was the wrong man for them.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 8th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 20 – The Yankee observes the oppressed and comments upon their needs.
It was a curious situation; yet it is not on that account that I have made room for it here, but on account of a thing which seemed to me still more curious. To wit, that this dreadful matter brought from these down-trodden people no outburst of rage against their oppressors. They had been heritors and subjects of cruelty and outrage so long that nothing could have startled them but a kindness. Yes, here was a curious revelation indeed, of the deapth to which this people had been sunk in slavery. Their entire being was reduced to a monotonous dead level of patience, resignation, dumb uncomplaining acceptance of whatever might befall them in this life. Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man, he has struck bottom, I reckon; there is no lower deep for him.
I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the ungetaroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing to the contrary notwithstanding, no people in this world ever did achieve their freedom by goody-goody talk and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will succeed, must BEGIN in blood, whatever may answer afterward. If history teaches anything, it teaches that. What this folk needed, then, was a Reign of Terror and a guillotine, and I was the wrong man for them.
My Mystical History with the Ukulele
The Early Years
I used to be smaller – like when I was born in 1944. Even then, I was bigger than a ukulele (maybe not as sweet).Any way, as I kept getting bigger, at least my Mom thought I was sweet; so, in 9th grade Dad took me to "Uncle Somebody’s" pawn shop and bought me a cheap baritone uke.
The man said it was "just right" for me (maybe it was my glasses).As you can probably tell, I never got any "formal training." So, graaaadually, I became – by my college years – what the musically impaired call "pretty good" - playing zany and profound three-chord "folk-revival" ditties (three-chord punk hadn’t been invented yet).
The hope was to be "good" enough to impress the girls on "Spring Break"!! But fate intervened.
On our first night in Ft. Lauderdale, while exiting a blatantly orange-tinted hamburger establishment, we were – without provocation (other than Mac’s "Beatle" haircut) – attacked by local toughs!!
Needless to say, their beer bottles were no match for my ukulele (I’d taken "Fencing 101" freshman year), but it was a bittersweet victory, all-the-same. The uke was a mangled tangle of shellac, splinters, and string. Refusing all efforts toward resuscitation, it never spoke again and was buried at sea. I like to think of it as sailing on through the warm Caribbean, a moss-draped ghost uke, in search of Arthur Godfrey.
Thus began the dark period of my life, ukeless and forced back upon the second-hand "Gene Autry" guitar I had bought from my friend Ham for $35.00.
The Middle Years: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .
Sometime Much Later
In my "middle age" the stars aligned, compelling a colleague to sell me his Kay soprano ukulele ($5.00). Obviously neglected, the uke came out of the closet, demanded attention, inhabited my hands, colonized my mind! Time had flown – Gene Autry was dead - folk and punk had had their day, and it was time to build a bridge to the 21st Century!! The uke and the Ukulele Man were just the ones to do it!!
In a frenzy we started - the uke, the muse, and I.
The rest is history.
Influences
Dad, Big Billy Goat Gruff, Mom, Horton, "Hippity Hop Bunny," Captain Video, Howdy Doody, Pinky Lee, Captain Kangaroo, Scrooge McDuck, Sister Ann Mary, Alfred E. Newman, Mark Twain, Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Uncle Vern, Turok Son of Stone, Aunt Sis, Laurel & Hardy, Hank, Sally Flowers, Soupy Sales, The Kingston Trio, The Mouseketeers, Pete Seeger, Little Richard, Ed Sullivan, Elvis, Sherlock Holmes, Chuck Berry, the Plymouth, Honorable Ball Peen Man, Woody Guthrie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Beatles, Edgar Allen Poe, Dylan, "Brown Eyed Girl," Inherit The Wind, Herman’s Hermits, Herman Melville, the DeSoto, the Temple of Psychic Prophecy, The Monkees, the "Jones-Lawrence Memorial Award," Don Quixote, Indian Ike, Twilight Zone, MLK, "The Conqueror Worm," Star Trek, Malcolm X, Robert Frost, Dr. Strangelove, Venice, The Rolling Stones, Fellini, "Ozymandias," Don McLean, Edvard Munch, Animal Farm, Al Crapp, the TR3, Emily Dickinson, Kung Fu, T.S. Elliot, The Crucible, e.e. cummings, Leaves of Grass, Jung, Steven Crane, the Bug, Joe Cocker, Brave New World, Carlos Castenada, "Eldorado," Bob & George, New Orleans, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Kenny Sparky Mona and Ray, John Lennon, Café Du Monde, San Francisco, "The X-Files," Waiting for Godot, Oscar Wilde, the Redwoods, The Simpsons, Manhattan, the Eldorado.
Where I’ve Been & Where I Am
Hey Folks,
I was a good boy. I was a Boy Scout, for god’s sake – an Eagle Scout!!! I loved nature, America, and service to my community, state, and nation. I said the pledge every day at school, saluted the flag, went to church on Sunday, received First Communion, celebrated the July 4 revolution (learned how to "grill"), read "Dear Abbey," heard Paul Harvey, mowed the grass, got good grades, went to college, voted, sang the national anthem and the alma mater at every football game, got a job, got married, had children, put my nose to the grindstone.
Sharing this with me were Joe McCarthy, the civil rights movement, assassinations, Viet Nam, Richard Nixon, John Lennon (assassination), and – oh, yeah - Ronnie and George the First.
At some point I woke up.
Maybe it was because I learned enough to see through Paul Harvey (& later Rush), and tired of Abbey’s telling idiots the obvious. Maybe it was recognizing that a "caring" organization like the Scouts could hate homosexuals and atheists. Maybe it was that "good grass," good burgers, good grades, and good boys seemed over-rated.
Maybe it was the hypocrisy of the church hierarchy, or the obvious reality that "communion" at the altar didn’t correlate with communion in other ways (whether Catholic or Protestant – I tried both). Maybe it was that the state legislature ordered me to lead the Pledge every day (something I had already been doing), or that the same politicians ordered me to teach how wonderful they were (something I hadn’t been doing).
Maybe it was because I got tired of hearing hours and hours and hours and hours of talk – personally and in the media – about "Sports!!" - but almost no discussion of reality – just fricking sports!
Maybe it was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Maybe it was because when I tried to join the air force, I was declared legally blind, but the army tried to draft me anyway. Maybe it was because I was told in the 60’s that if we lost in Viet Nam, Communists hordes would stream into the US through Mexico (I’m still waiting – dominoes set up on the table). Maybe it was because businessmen in the 60’s and 70’s said, "America, love it or leave it," and at some point they started taking their own advice.
Maybe it was because Ronnie loved the unions in Poland and busted the unions here. Maybe it was because they wounded Reagan and killed Lennon. Maybe it was because the FBI screwed Leonard Peltier. Maybe it was because Mumia Abu-Jamal was railroaded in Philadelphia. Maybe it was because I read "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Maybe it was because reactionary interests have so efficiently and effectively crushed the American spirit I was taught and loved as a child. Or maybe it's just because I got cable.In any case, folks, I’m awake now!! You can count on that!
Take the red pill!
- Uke Man
I used to be smaller – like when I was born in 1944. Even then, I was bigger than a ukulele (maybe not as sweet).Any way, as I kept getting bigger, at least my Mom thought I was sweet; so, in 9th grade Dad took me to "Uncle Somebody’s" pawn shop and bought me a cheap baritone uke.
The man said it was "just right" for me (maybe it was my glasses).As you can probably tell, I never got any "formal training." So, graaaadually, I became – by my college years – what the musically impaired call "pretty good" - playing zany and profound three-chord "folk-revival" ditties (three-chord punk hadn’t been invented yet).
The hope was to be "good" enough to impress the girls on "Spring Break"!! But fate intervened.
On our first night in Ft. Lauderdale, while exiting a blatantly orange-tinted hamburger establishment, we were – without provocation (other than Mac’s "Beatle" haircut) – attacked by local toughs!!
Needless to say, their beer bottles were no match for my ukulele (I’d taken "Fencing 101" freshman year), but it was a bittersweet victory, all-the-same. The uke was a mangled tangle of shellac, splinters, and string. Refusing all efforts toward resuscitation, it never spoke again and was buried at sea. I like to think of it as sailing on through the warm Caribbean, a moss-draped ghost uke, in search of Arthur Godfrey.
Thus began the dark period of my life, ukeless and forced back upon the second-hand "Gene Autry" guitar I had bought from my friend Ham for $35.00.
The Middle Years: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .
Sometime Much Later
In my "middle age" the stars aligned, compelling a colleague to sell me his Kay soprano ukulele ($5.00). Obviously neglected, the uke came out of the closet, demanded attention, inhabited my hands, colonized my mind! Time had flown – Gene Autry was dead - folk and punk had had their day, and it was time to build a bridge to the 21st Century!! The uke and the Ukulele Man were just the ones to do it!!
In a frenzy we started - the uke, the muse, and I.
The rest is history.
Influences
Dad, Big Billy Goat Gruff, Mom, Horton, "Hippity Hop Bunny," Captain Video, Howdy Doody, Pinky Lee, Captain Kangaroo, Scrooge McDuck, Sister Ann Mary, Alfred E. Newman, Mark Twain, Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Uncle Vern, Turok Son of Stone, Aunt Sis, Laurel & Hardy, Hank, Sally Flowers, Soupy Sales, The Kingston Trio, The Mouseketeers, Pete Seeger, Little Richard, Ed Sullivan, Elvis, Sherlock Holmes, Chuck Berry, the Plymouth, Honorable Ball Peen Man, Woody Guthrie, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Beatles, Edgar Allen Poe, Dylan, "Brown Eyed Girl," Inherit The Wind, Herman’s Hermits, Herman Melville, the DeSoto, the Temple of Psychic Prophecy, The Monkees, the "Jones-Lawrence Memorial Award," Don Quixote, Indian Ike, Twilight Zone, MLK, "The Conqueror Worm," Star Trek, Malcolm X, Robert Frost, Dr. Strangelove, Venice, The Rolling Stones, Fellini, "Ozymandias," Don McLean, Edvard Munch, Animal Farm, Al Crapp, the TR3, Emily Dickinson, Kung Fu, T.S. Elliot, The Crucible, e.e. cummings, Leaves of Grass, Jung, Steven Crane, the Bug, Joe Cocker, Brave New World, Carlos Castenada, "Eldorado," Bob & George, New Orleans, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Kenny Sparky Mona and Ray, John Lennon, Café Du Monde, San Francisco, "The X-Files," Waiting for Godot, Oscar Wilde, the Redwoods, The Simpsons, Manhattan, the Eldorado.
Where I’ve Been & Where I Am
Hey Folks,
I was a good boy. I was a Boy Scout, for god’s sake – an Eagle Scout!!! I loved nature, America, and service to my community, state, and nation. I said the pledge every day at school, saluted the flag, went to church on Sunday, received First Communion, celebrated the July 4 revolution (learned how to "grill"), read "Dear Abbey," heard Paul Harvey, mowed the grass, got good grades, went to college, voted, sang the national anthem and the alma mater at every football game, got a job, got married, had children, put my nose to the grindstone.
Sharing this with me were Joe McCarthy, the civil rights movement, assassinations, Viet Nam, Richard Nixon, John Lennon (assassination), and – oh, yeah - Ronnie and George the First.
At some point I woke up.
Maybe it was because I learned enough to see through Paul Harvey (& later Rush), and tired of Abbey’s telling idiots the obvious. Maybe it was recognizing that a "caring" organization like the Scouts could hate homosexuals and atheists. Maybe it was that "good grass," good burgers, good grades, and good boys seemed over-rated.
Maybe it was the hypocrisy of the church hierarchy, or the obvious reality that "communion" at the altar didn’t correlate with communion in other ways (whether Catholic or Protestant – I tried both). Maybe it was that the state legislature ordered me to lead the Pledge every day (something I had already been doing), or that the same politicians ordered me to teach how wonderful they were (something I hadn’t been doing).
Maybe it was because I got tired of hearing hours and hours and hours and hours of talk – personally and in the media – about "Sports!!" - but almost no discussion of reality – just fricking sports!
Maybe it was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Maybe it was because when I tried to join the air force, I was declared legally blind, but the army tried to draft me anyway. Maybe it was because I was told in the 60’s that if we lost in Viet Nam, Communists hordes would stream into the US through Mexico (I’m still waiting – dominoes set up on the table). Maybe it was because businessmen in the 60’s and 70’s said, "America, love it or leave it," and at some point they started taking their own advice.
Maybe it was because Ronnie loved the unions in Poland and busted the unions here. Maybe it was because they wounded Reagan and killed Lennon. Maybe it was because the FBI screwed Leonard Peltier. Maybe it was because Mumia Abu-Jamal was railroaded in Philadelphia. Maybe it was because I read "A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Maybe it was because reactionary interests have so efficiently and effectively crushed the American spirit I was taught and loved as a child. Or maybe it's just because I got cable.In any case, folks, I’m awake now!! You can count on that!
Take the red pill!
- Uke Man
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Capital Punishment & Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist and writes for The Orlando [Fla.] Sentinel. Her columns have appeared regularly for some time in the Columbus Dispatch. Based on those columns, I would characterize her perspective as that of a middle class, suburban, conservative Republican, sympathetic to authority, and fond of the conventional wisdom.
Needless to say, I was overjoyed by her new, anti-capital-punishment position. Below is the letter I sent her and an essay posted here in April of 2005; first, here are some excerpts from her column (it can be read in its entirety at: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-parker0405dec04,0,4116392.column ) :
“I’m a relatively recent convert from the slow-gas-leak solution to Death Row crowding to a reluctant capital-punishment opponent. I oppose the death penalty for one reason: The state makes mistakes, and one innocent murdered by the state is too many.”
* * *
“The painful part of this position is that we who oppose capital punishment on these grounds have to breathe the same air as the celebrities, political panderers and other hankie-twisters who materialize every time a person such as Williams runs out of options and faces a far more humane death than that which he delivered to others.”
* * *
Dear Ms. Parker,
I’d like to thank you for your public stand on the death penalty. I could not agree more that “The state makes mistakes, and one innocent murdered by the state is too many.”
There ARE those who try to argue that no innocent ever was or ever will be executed – I don’t know how they could possibly believe that, but that’s what they say. Then, I have also read and heard the position that accepting the execution of an occasional innocent is necessary to protect everyone else – which conveniently overlooks the option of “life without parole” – not to mention that it seems heartless and cruel to many of us.
So, again, thank you.
If I may, I’d like to suggest another reason for opposing the death penalty. A very good argument can be made that the death penalty, far from suppressing murder and violence, actually enables it.
Some time ago I wrote an essay that expresses this idea. It can be found below. I hope you find it sensible and reinforcing of your recent conversion.
Yours – Tom Harker
* * *
Natural Raised Killers
A while back some angry kids went on a killing spree at their school, and the nation went on an hysterical binge. How could children - "good," wealthy, white children for-God's-sake - go on a violent rampage? It was un-American, unthinkable!! Everyone wanted an explanation of the inexplicable. About the best they could do was to lean on the “Goths” and other "misfits" who "obviously" suffered prominence-envy in comparison with their social betters. Here and there around the country diligent up-scale school officials imposed “zero tolerance” and took advantage of the immediately available psychological profiling programs so as to identify and label the potential “killers” and, thereby, provide a sense of security, responsibility, and hope.
Well, forget that. Let's face facts. Americans kill because Americans love to kill. "Columbine" was devastating not because it involved killing, but because it broke the rules. In America proper killing, is more than acceptable; it is honorable. Some of our greatest role models are killers, directly or indirectly. They are the ones (cops, vigilantes, CIA agents, the military)who kill people that "need" to be killed and those (prosecutors, judges, legislators, governors, presidents) who put the “hit” out on those among us who “need” to be killed.
We killed the indigenous people of this continent by the rules. We killed immigrant and native-born workers - by the rules - when they tried to unionize. We killed black Americans - by the rules - whenever they "needed" lynching. Around the world we have killed and continue to kill foreigners - by the rules - whenever it is said to advance American "interests" (regardless of the foreigners' interests); and Americans still kill "criminals" - by the rules - whenever we get the chance.
Heroes? Role models? There are plenty of natural-born killers in our Pantheon. Historically, the list of honored killers is lengthy, as is the list of those who "honorably" ordered killings: the "great" explorers, "kindly" Puritans, "valiant" Indian fighters, “sturdy” pioneers, "romantic" plantation owners, Manifest Destiny politicians, Rockefeller, Carnegie, the B&O Railroad, Pinkerton agents, coal companies, and a myriad of officially "honorable" presidents, congressmen, governors, judges, and mayors - just to mention a few.
Ronald Reagan killed a baby with a missile. George Bush the Elder gratuitously annihilated helpless, fleeing Iraqi troops. Ohio's Governor James Rhodes allowed protesting students to be killed. Bill Clinton ordered bombings that killed foreign civilians. Pat Robertson publicly supported assassination of America’s “enemies.” The current president, George Bush the Younger, proudly defends his home state's record use of capital punishment. Long ago, before any talk of attacking Iraq, ABC News big-wig/bad-wig Sam Donaldson demanded on his ABC Sunday-morning “news” program that Saddam Hussein be killed.Now hardly a day goes by without some talking head calling for, promising, or congratulating the killing of someone.
None of this even raises a mainstream eyebrow because it is all “by the rules.” We are allowed to kill those who “need” killing. Moreover, it is our duty to kill them, and our stature is increased by doing so. Those few who may argue otherwise are ignored, overwhelmed, or – if necessary – silenced.
At the same time, killing outside the rules is not only illegal but “wrong.” If a foreign head of state killed an American baby (not to mention, a president’s adopted grandchild as was the case in Reagan’s Libyan adventure), it would be unspeakably “evil.” Blowing up American soldiers is called “terrorism.” If some foreign leader advocated the assassination of Pat Robertson or Sam Donaldson, there would be a moral outrage (except, perhaps, on the part of Robertson’s understudy and ABC’s advertising executives ).
One American, the president, can “justifiably” blow up any building in the foreign world, thereby killing the folks who work there and still get his pension. The man who blew up a building in Oklahoma (America), killing numerous people, has been executed.
Clearly, the question of “violence in America” suffers from the old “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. The obvious reality is that America is not against violence and killing. America sanctions killing, essentially licensing certain people, groups, organizations, and institutions to kill under certain circumstances and in accordance with various rules and procedures.
As a result, the message America sends its children (as well as its adults) is not “violence and killing are wrong,” but “killing without permission is wrong.” The message is not that human life is sacred, but that killing is commendable if the killer is sanctioned, but wrong if he is not. This is a low standard.
As a result, “unsanctioned” killers such as those at Columbine need not wrestle with the question “Is killing wrong?” ; obviously (and officially) it is not. No, the question is, “Am I, somehow, sanctioned to kill?” It seems the latter question is much more subject to rationalization than the former – especially in a nation awash with notions of individuality, self-determination, “intrusive/unresponsive” government, vigilantism, and revenge (as in “I’d pull the switch myself!”).
If America truly valued life, young people and others would have to face a real moral dilemma: breaking a taboo, but as it is, they can emulate presidents, judges, prosecutors, policemen, ministers, and TV “celebrities” by deciding for themselves who should live and die.
In his inaugural speech, George Bush the Younger said, that “no insignificant person was ever born,” but he did not address the relative significance of the 135 people he executed as governor of Texas, nor the significance of those innocent persons who most certainly have died over the years at the hands of sanctioned state executions. Talk is cheap, and cheap talk combined with “zero tolerance,” “outrage,” and “psychological profiling” will not end or even seriously reduce killing in schools, federal buildings, or anywhere else. Only a true respect for life can do that. As long as America has rules that sanction killing, many Americans, when faced with difficulties – real or imagined - will follow their own rules and kill. It’s the American way.
- Uke Man
Needless to say, I was overjoyed by her new, anti-capital-punishment position. Below is the letter I sent her and an essay posted here in April of 2005; first, here are some excerpts from her column (it can be read in its entirety at: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-parker0405dec04,0,4116392.column ) :
“I’m a relatively recent convert from the slow-gas-leak solution to Death Row crowding to a reluctant capital-punishment opponent. I oppose the death penalty for one reason: The state makes mistakes, and one innocent murdered by the state is too many.”
* * *
“The painful part of this position is that we who oppose capital punishment on these grounds have to breathe the same air as the celebrities, political panderers and other hankie-twisters who materialize every time a person such as Williams runs out of options and faces a far more humane death than that which he delivered to others.”
* * *
Dear Ms. Parker,
I’d like to thank you for your public stand on the death penalty. I could not agree more that “The state makes mistakes, and one innocent murdered by the state is too many.”
There ARE those who try to argue that no innocent ever was or ever will be executed – I don’t know how they could possibly believe that, but that’s what they say. Then, I have also read and heard the position that accepting the execution of an occasional innocent is necessary to protect everyone else – which conveniently overlooks the option of “life without parole” – not to mention that it seems heartless and cruel to many of us.
So, again, thank you.
If I may, I’d like to suggest another reason for opposing the death penalty. A very good argument can be made that the death penalty, far from suppressing murder and violence, actually enables it.
Some time ago I wrote an essay that expresses this idea. It can be found below. I hope you find it sensible and reinforcing of your recent conversion.
Yours – Tom Harker
* * *
Natural Raised Killers
A while back some angry kids went on a killing spree at their school, and the nation went on an hysterical binge. How could children - "good," wealthy, white children for-God's-sake - go on a violent rampage? It was un-American, unthinkable!! Everyone wanted an explanation of the inexplicable. About the best they could do was to lean on the “Goths” and other "misfits" who "obviously" suffered prominence-envy in comparison with their social betters. Here and there around the country diligent up-scale school officials imposed “zero tolerance” and took advantage of the immediately available psychological profiling programs so as to identify and label the potential “killers” and, thereby, provide a sense of security, responsibility, and hope.
Well, forget that. Let's face facts. Americans kill because Americans love to kill. "Columbine" was devastating not because it involved killing, but because it broke the rules. In America proper killing, is more than acceptable; it is honorable. Some of our greatest role models are killers, directly or indirectly. They are the ones (cops, vigilantes, CIA agents, the military)who kill people that "need" to be killed and those (prosecutors, judges, legislators, governors, presidents) who put the “hit” out on those among us who “need” to be killed.
We killed the indigenous people of this continent by the rules. We killed immigrant and native-born workers - by the rules - when they tried to unionize. We killed black Americans - by the rules - whenever they "needed" lynching. Around the world we have killed and continue to kill foreigners - by the rules - whenever it is said to advance American "interests" (regardless of the foreigners' interests); and Americans still kill "criminals" - by the rules - whenever we get the chance.
Heroes? Role models? There are plenty of natural-born killers in our Pantheon. Historically, the list of honored killers is lengthy, as is the list of those who "honorably" ordered killings: the "great" explorers, "kindly" Puritans, "valiant" Indian fighters, “sturdy” pioneers, "romantic" plantation owners, Manifest Destiny politicians, Rockefeller, Carnegie, the B&O Railroad, Pinkerton agents, coal companies, and a myriad of officially "honorable" presidents, congressmen, governors, judges, and mayors - just to mention a few.
Ronald Reagan killed a baby with a missile. George Bush the Elder gratuitously annihilated helpless, fleeing Iraqi troops. Ohio's Governor James Rhodes allowed protesting students to be killed. Bill Clinton ordered bombings that killed foreign civilians. Pat Robertson publicly supported assassination of America’s “enemies.” The current president, George Bush the Younger, proudly defends his home state's record use of capital punishment. Long ago, before any talk of attacking Iraq, ABC News big-wig/bad-wig Sam Donaldson demanded on his ABC Sunday-morning “news” program that Saddam Hussein be killed.Now hardly a day goes by without some talking head calling for, promising, or congratulating the killing of someone.
None of this even raises a mainstream eyebrow because it is all “by the rules.” We are allowed to kill those who “need” killing. Moreover, it is our duty to kill them, and our stature is increased by doing so. Those few who may argue otherwise are ignored, overwhelmed, or – if necessary – silenced.
At the same time, killing outside the rules is not only illegal but “wrong.” If a foreign head of state killed an American baby (not to mention, a president’s adopted grandchild as was the case in Reagan’s Libyan adventure), it would be unspeakably “evil.” Blowing up American soldiers is called “terrorism.” If some foreign leader advocated the assassination of Pat Robertson or Sam Donaldson, there would be a moral outrage (except, perhaps, on the part of Robertson’s understudy and ABC’s advertising executives ).
One American, the president, can “justifiably” blow up any building in the foreign world, thereby killing the folks who work there and still get his pension. The man who blew up a building in Oklahoma (America), killing numerous people, has been executed.
Clearly, the question of “violence in America” suffers from the old “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. The obvious reality is that America is not against violence and killing. America sanctions killing, essentially licensing certain people, groups, organizations, and institutions to kill under certain circumstances and in accordance with various rules and procedures.
As a result, the message America sends its children (as well as its adults) is not “violence and killing are wrong,” but “killing without permission is wrong.” The message is not that human life is sacred, but that killing is commendable if the killer is sanctioned, but wrong if he is not. This is a low standard.
As a result, “unsanctioned” killers such as those at Columbine need not wrestle with the question “Is killing wrong?” ; obviously (and officially) it is not. No, the question is, “Am I, somehow, sanctioned to kill?” It seems the latter question is much more subject to rationalization than the former – especially in a nation awash with notions of individuality, self-determination, “intrusive/unresponsive” government, vigilantism, and revenge (as in “I’d pull the switch myself!”).
If America truly valued life, young people and others would have to face a real moral dilemma: breaking a taboo, but as it is, they can emulate presidents, judges, prosecutors, policemen, ministers, and TV “celebrities” by deciding for themselves who should live and die.
In his inaugural speech, George Bush the Younger said, that “no insignificant person was ever born,” but he did not address the relative significance of the 135 people he executed as governor of Texas, nor the significance of those innocent persons who most certainly have died over the years at the hands of sanctioned state executions. Talk is cheap, and cheap talk combined with “zero tolerance,” “outrage,” and “psychological profiling” will not end or even seriously reduce killing in schools, federal buildings, or anywhere else. Only a true respect for life can do that. As long as America has rules that sanction killing, many Americans, when faced with difficulties – real or imagined - will follow their own rules and kill. It’s the American way.
- Uke Man
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Open Letter To Hillary "Triangulator II" Clinton
Hey Folks!
Below is a letter shared with me by my friend Jack Burgess. He expresses very well his (and my) feelings about Ms. Hillary Clinton. Will the REAL Democrats (if there is such a thing) please stand up?
- Uke Man
OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON
Dear Senator Clinton:
I am sorry to say that I cannot contribute to your campaign for the United States Senate or, should you choose to run, for the Presidency. I say "sorry" because as a feminist and an active Democrat I have believed for thirty years that women are underrepresented in our government, and that having a woman president would be one of the most valuable advances we could make politically to further gender equality. Like millions of Americans I see you as the most likely candidate to become that first woman president. And, until a couple of years ago, I saw myself as a strong supporter of you and your potential candidacy.
This is no peripheral matter to me. As a leader in my teachers' organization in Columbus, Ohio I worked hard for gender equality, establishing a Task Force on Sex Discrimination, suing the school board for discrimination in women's sports, picketing discriminatory school events, negotiating the first maternity leave policies, and working in the broader community for gender equality. I did so not just for women's rights, as important as they are, but because I believe that gender inequality is one of the major problems on our planet, hurting not only women everywhere, but to a lesser extent men as well, and contributing significantly to problems of hunger, economic retardation, and war itself.
Which brings me to my main point: There are two reasons why I cannot support you. The first was and is your support for the illegal, immoral, and counterproductive war on Iraq. I believe you to be a very well-informed and intelligent person, and as such, I believe you must have known that none of the reasons given for attacking Iraq were valid. It appears to me that your vote was intended as political cover for what would surely be an attack from the right on your perceived "softness" on terrorism. So, your vote was to aid your career, but also to send young men and women into harm's way, and to inflict untold injuries and death on the Iraqi people, to protect your career from assault from the right. If I am wrong about your motives, I apologize. But if so, and you did not understand, or failed to inform yourself about the facts in Iraq, this too would disqualify you. Twenty-one Democratic Senators and most Democrats in the House---including all of Ohio's---figured this out. I will support them, rather than those who support this war.
If any other reason were needed for not supporting your candidacy, it came yesterday, when it was announced that you were supporting a constitutional amendment to ban "desecration" of the American flag. As a civil libertarian I am greatly saddened by this move. Your support for this repressive idea---which crops up ever so often, usually when the Republicans are in trouble---may finally put it over the top. Such an amendment, forcing people to "honor" the flag, will have the opposite effect. We have enough trouble of this sort already, with the "under God" words making millions of Americans particularly uncomfortable in the pledge to the flag. You cannot coerce the American people into a false unity behind a symbol, any more than President George Bush could unite us all behind his war. People burn or otherwise protest against the flag only when they are greatly aggrieved. Usually it's about war, or discrimination, as when American Indians don't see the flag as a positive symbol, or some African Americans, or Muslim-Americans question their own treatment under the flag.
As a veteran and a patriotic American, I fly the flag regularly at my house. But as a teen I just once respectfully declined to salute the flag, though remaining seated and quiet. I wanted to see what would happen. I was sent immediately to the school office. As a teacher in the intervening years, I saw this sort of thing repeated over and over. Amending the Bill of Rights to require obeisance may force people to be more superficially respectful, but I hope not. We Americans hate to be forced to do anything. It's called freedom. It's called individuality. It's called liberty. We value these things greatly. The result of your flag amendment, should you be successful, will be more division and animosity, not less.
I am aware that you have supported some positive legislation and that you have sometimes spoken out for working people. But so have many other Democrats who do not support the war or support taking away any of our personal freedoms. I will support them instead.
Yours truly,
Jack Burgess
Teacher of American & Global Studies, Retired
Formerly, Executive Director, Columbus Education Assn., &
Labor Coordinator, Ohio Volunteers for Dean
Below is a letter shared with me by my friend Jack Burgess. He expresses very well his (and my) feelings about Ms. Hillary Clinton. Will the REAL Democrats (if there is such a thing) please stand up?
- Uke Man
OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON
Dear Senator Clinton:
I am sorry to say that I cannot contribute to your campaign for the United States Senate or, should you choose to run, for the Presidency. I say "sorry" because as a feminist and an active Democrat I have believed for thirty years that women are underrepresented in our government, and that having a woman president would be one of the most valuable advances we could make politically to further gender equality. Like millions of Americans I see you as the most likely candidate to become that first woman president. And, until a couple of years ago, I saw myself as a strong supporter of you and your potential candidacy.
This is no peripheral matter to me. As a leader in my teachers' organization in Columbus, Ohio I worked hard for gender equality, establishing a Task Force on Sex Discrimination, suing the school board for discrimination in women's sports, picketing discriminatory school events, negotiating the first maternity leave policies, and working in the broader community for gender equality. I did so not just for women's rights, as important as they are, but because I believe that gender inequality is one of the major problems on our planet, hurting not only women everywhere, but to a lesser extent men as well, and contributing significantly to problems of hunger, economic retardation, and war itself.
Which brings me to my main point: There are two reasons why I cannot support you. The first was and is your support for the illegal, immoral, and counterproductive war on Iraq. I believe you to be a very well-informed and intelligent person, and as such, I believe you must have known that none of the reasons given for attacking Iraq were valid. It appears to me that your vote was intended as political cover for what would surely be an attack from the right on your perceived "softness" on terrorism. So, your vote was to aid your career, but also to send young men and women into harm's way, and to inflict untold injuries and death on the Iraqi people, to protect your career from assault from the right. If I am wrong about your motives, I apologize. But if so, and you did not understand, or failed to inform yourself about the facts in Iraq, this too would disqualify you. Twenty-one Democratic Senators and most Democrats in the House---including all of Ohio's---figured this out. I will support them, rather than those who support this war.
If any other reason were needed for not supporting your candidacy, it came yesterday, when it was announced that you were supporting a constitutional amendment to ban "desecration" of the American flag. As a civil libertarian I am greatly saddened by this move. Your support for this repressive idea---which crops up ever so often, usually when the Republicans are in trouble---may finally put it over the top. Such an amendment, forcing people to "honor" the flag, will have the opposite effect. We have enough trouble of this sort already, with the "under God" words making millions of Americans particularly uncomfortable in the pledge to the flag. You cannot coerce the American people into a false unity behind a symbol, any more than President George Bush could unite us all behind his war. People burn or otherwise protest against the flag only when they are greatly aggrieved. Usually it's about war, or discrimination, as when American Indians don't see the flag as a positive symbol, or some African Americans, or Muslim-Americans question their own treatment under the flag.
As a veteran and a patriotic American, I fly the flag regularly at my house. But as a teen I just once respectfully declined to salute the flag, though remaining seated and quiet. I wanted to see what would happen. I was sent immediately to the school office. As a teacher in the intervening years, I saw this sort of thing repeated over and over. Amending the Bill of Rights to require obeisance may force people to be more superficially respectful, but I hope not. We Americans hate to be forced to do anything. It's called freedom. It's called individuality. It's called liberty. We value these things greatly. The result of your flag amendment, should you be successful, will be more division and animosity, not less.
I am aware that you have supported some positive legislation and that you have sometimes spoken out for working people. But so have many other Democrats who do not support the war or support taking away any of our personal freedoms. I will support them instead.
Yours truly,
Jack Burgess
Teacher of American & Global Studies, Retired
Formerly, Executive Director, Columbus Education Assn., &
Labor Coordinator, Ohio Volunteers for Dean
more Mark Twain
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 7th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 18 – the one microscopic atom in each of us that is truly us.
Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training – training is everything; training is all there is to a person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training, We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed. And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly ME: the rest may land in Sheol and welcome, for all I care.
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 7th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 18 – the one microscopic atom in each of us that is truly us.
Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training – training is everything; training is all there is to a person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training, We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed. And as for me, all that I think about in this plodding sad pilgrimage, this pathetic drift between the eternities, is to look out and humbly live a pure and high and blameless life, and save that one microscopic atom in me that is truly ME: the rest may land in Sheol and welcome, for all I care.
Monday, December 05, 2005
One potato,two potato, three potato, four! Five potato, six potato, seven potato more! . . . You're out!
Hey Folks!!
What IS a Christian?
In this country each of us can self-identify his or her “race.” Conan O’Brien can legally identify himself as Black. Whoopie Goldberg can legally identify herself as Caucasian. Anybody can legally be any race they want (even “other”).
Race, you may have heard, is an erroneous concept, a false notion, whether it seems to be “just common sense” or not. Look into it, if you want, but science has demonstrated that the concept is totally unfounded. It’s just so much bullshit.
That’s why we are allowed to identify ourselves racially - however we want; it’s meaningless.
On the other hand, if we mis-identify ourselves as a policeman, a physician, a lawyer; a citizen, or as being of driving, drinking, or voting age, we are liable to pay a price. There are certain REAL requirements, responsibilities, and rights associated with these identities.
How does it work for “Christians”?
Can ANYONE identify himself as a “Christian” ? Or are there certain REAL requirements, responsibilities, and rights associated with that identity? Is there a price to pay for “impersonating” a Christian, or is the concept so totally unfounded and erroneous as to be meaningless?
Well, there is no shortage of folks CLAIMING to be Christians, but just as there are fewer horses than horses’ asses, there seem to be fewer Christians than “Christians.” And it’s not just me making that claim. An awful lot of “Christians” themselves don’t recognize other “Christians” as “Christians,” and among those they do recognize, many are branded as misguided or just plain wrong; a threat to humanity, and the world.
They'll point out that you never hear of anyone getting fined or imprisoned for heresy anymore (it’s not like the good old days when you could burn a woman alive to save her soul or, failing that, provide an object lesson to others as to the importance of cleaving to the orthodoxy and the pecking order. No, today “Christians” are reduced to haranguing homosexuals, feminists, liberals, doctors, scientists, unions, and the public schools).
There are, of course, other Christians – like Jimmy Carter - who don’t even do that. They’re too busy addressing suffering here and around the world - and such folks call themselves Christian too.
Well, what does it mean to identify oneself as a Christian? It seems that a lot of folks think they can be "Christians," and behave however they want. Under that theology Christianity, like race, is nothing more than a meaningless concept with no particular requirements, responsibilities, or rights.
In practice, however, this wing of “Christianity” has it made. Unlike the Carter wing, they can avoid bothersome requirements and responsibilities while still claiming the authority to "speak for and with God." Crooked, but not a bad gig; and they usually get by with it.
That may explain why there are more “Christians” than Christians. It might also, at least partially, explain why there are more horses asses than horses.
- Uke Man
What IS a Christian?
In this country each of us can self-identify his or her “race.” Conan O’Brien can legally identify himself as Black. Whoopie Goldberg can legally identify herself as Caucasian. Anybody can legally be any race they want (even “other”).
Race, you may have heard, is an erroneous concept, a false notion, whether it seems to be “just common sense” or not. Look into it, if you want, but science has demonstrated that the concept is totally unfounded. It’s just so much bullshit.
That’s why we are allowed to identify ourselves racially - however we want; it’s meaningless.
On the other hand, if we mis-identify ourselves as a policeman, a physician, a lawyer; a citizen, or as being of driving, drinking, or voting age, we are liable to pay a price. There are certain REAL requirements, responsibilities, and rights associated with these identities.
How does it work for “Christians”?
Can ANYONE identify himself as a “Christian” ? Or are there certain REAL requirements, responsibilities, and rights associated with that identity? Is there a price to pay for “impersonating” a Christian, or is the concept so totally unfounded and erroneous as to be meaningless?
Well, there is no shortage of folks CLAIMING to be Christians, but just as there are fewer horses than horses’ asses, there seem to be fewer Christians than “Christians.” And it’s not just me making that claim. An awful lot of “Christians” themselves don’t recognize other “Christians” as “Christians,” and among those they do recognize, many are branded as misguided or just plain wrong; a threat to humanity, and the world.
They'll point out that you never hear of anyone getting fined or imprisoned for heresy anymore (it’s not like the good old days when you could burn a woman alive to save her soul or, failing that, provide an object lesson to others as to the importance of cleaving to the orthodoxy and the pecking order. No, today “Christians” are reduced to haranguing homosexuals, feminists, liberals, doctors, scientists, unions, and the public schools).
There are, of course, other Christians – like Jimmy Carter - who don’t even do that. They’re too busy addressing suffering here and around the world - and such folks call themselves Christian too.
Well, what does it mean to identify oneself as a Christian? It seems that a lot of folks think they can be "Christians," and behave however they want. Under that theology Christianity, like race, is nothing more than a meaningless concept with no particular requirements, responsibilities, or rights.
In practice, however, this wing of “Christianity” has it made. Unlike the Carter wing, they can avoid bothersome requirements and responsibilities while still claiming the authority to "speak for and with God." Crooked, but not a bad gig; and they usually get by with it.
That may explain why there are more “Christians” than Christians. It might also, at least partially, explain why there are more horses asses than horses.
- Uke Man
The Cheese Nazi Speaks!!!
Hey Folks,
For some time I’ve been doing investigative research on a crucial matter – the correct pronunciation of “Provolone”!
As you know, this country’s economy is overwhelmingly dependent on CONSUMERISM! As a result, we are inundated by ADVERTISING!! Buy!! Buy!! Buy!!
A while back - somewhere in that maelstrom of hypnotic assault - was an ad for a pizza or sub that promised lots of pro-voe-LONE cheese piled on top!!! pro-voe-LONE cheese!!
Now, I’m not Italian, but I grew up Catholic along with more Italians than you can see on “The Sopranos”; and “pro-voe-LONE” just didn’t sound right.
I checked around with friends – who didn’t have a clue (including some Italian friends); so, it was time to take drastic action! I headed to Wild Oats where the charming, young Amy helped put this controversy to sleep!!
Yes, sir!! She just pulled the Cheese Bible off the reference shelf, turned to the P’s, and right there it was!! Authorized by the “Cheese Nazi” himself: “pro-voe-LOW-neh” – not “pro-voe-LONE”!
Case closed! Thanks, Amy
(and a ukethanks to the photographer too!)
- Uke Man
For some time I’ve been doing investigative research on a crucial matter – the correct pronunciation of “Provolone”!
As you know, this country’s economy is overwhelmingly dependent on CONSUMERISM! As a result, we are inundated by ADVERTISING!! Buy!! Buy!! Buy!!
A while back - somewhere in that maelstrom of hypnotic assault - was an ad for a pizza or sub that promised lots of pro-voe-LONE cheese piled on top!!! pro-voe-LONE cheese!!
Now, I’m not Italian, but I grew up Catholic along with more Italians than you can see on “The Sopranos”; and “pro-voe-LONE” just didn’t sound right.
I checked around with friends – who didn’t have a clue (including some Italian friends); so, it was time to take drastic action! I headed to Wild Oats where the charming, young Amy helped put this controversy to sleep!!
Yes, sir!! She just pulled the Cheese Bible off the reference shelf, turned to the P’s, and right there it was!! Authorized by the “Cheese Nazi” himself: “pro-voe-LOW-neh” – not “pro-voe-LONE”!
Case closed! Thanks, Amy
(and a ukethanks to the photographer too!)
- Uke Man
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Friday, December 02, 2005
more Mark Twain on religion
Hey Folks,
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 6th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 17 – The Yankee observes religion among the nobility.
However, to my relief she was presently interrupted by the call to prayers. I will say this much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them from the regular and faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the Church. More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his throat; more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing and dispatching his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the body. There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the life of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint, ten centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend to that Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, in spite of me, I found myself saying, “What would this country be without the Church?”
I’ve been re-reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court and sharing pieces of Twain’s political commentary with you here (this is the 6th entry) .
His insights remain pertinent to this day. We haven’t changed much from Twain’s day – or from King Arthur’s, for that matter.
Chapter 17 – The Yankee observes religion among the nobility.
However, to my relief she was presently interrupted by the call to prayers. I will say this much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically religious. Nothing could divert them from the regular and faithful performance of the pieties enjoined by the Church. More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage, stop to pray before cutting his throat; more than once I had seen a noble, after ambushing and dispatching his enemy, retire to the nearest wayside shrine and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the body. There was to be nothing finer or sweeter in the life of even Benvenuto Cellini, that rough-hewn saint, ten centuries later. All the nobles of Britain, with their families, attended divine service morning and night daily, in their private chapels, and even the worst of them had family worship five or six times a day besides. The credit of this belonged entirely to the Church. Although I was no friend to that Church, I was obliged to admit this. And often, in spite of me, I found myself saying, “What would this country be without the Church?”
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Set List for "Folk the War" ....Friday @ Victorians
W’s Ukulele Nightmare Café
Fascist Girl
Oscar Meyer DeWine
Skinhead Arisin’
Jesus Chrysler
Uncle Sam’s Lament
Dick Armey
There’s a Monster in the Whitehouse
(if time allows)
We Gotta Build a Mountain
Bleed Blues
Fascist Girl
Oscar Meyer DeWine
Skinhead Arisin’
Jesus Chrysler
Uncle Sam’s Lament
Dick Armey
There’s a Monster in the Whitehouse
(if time allows)
We Gotta Build a Mountain
Bleed Blues
"FOLK the WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" FRIDAY NIGHT @ Victorians!!!!!!!!!! a word from Connie Harris
"Folk the War"
Friday, December 2, 6:00 p.m.- 1 a.m.
Victorian"s Midnight Cafe - 251 W 5th Ave.
Join us for an evening of Folk Music and informative talk with:
Yikes McGee (Ohio in the Dark)
Maion Person
Victoria Parks
Uke Man, Tom Harker (7:30-8:00)
Sara
Eric Nasseau
Connie Harris
Military Families Speak-Out
Bruce Duncanson
Rady Ananda
Please join us for a fun filled evening.
Come out and support "Folk the War"
Hope to see you all there!
...................................Peace, Connie Harris
Friday, December 2, 6:00 p.m.- 1 a.m.
Victorian"s Midnight Cafe - 251 W 5th Ave.
Join us for an evening of Folk Music and informative talk with:
Yikes McGee (Ohio in the Dark)
Maion Person
Victoria Parks
Uke Man, Tom Harker (7:30-8:00)
Sara
Eric Nasseau
Connie Harris
Military Families Speak-Out
Bruce Duncanson
Rady Ananda
Please join us for a fun filled evening.
Come out and support "Folk the War"
Hope to see you all there!
...................................Peace, Connie Harris
"The Autumn of Patriarchy"
November 30, 2005
MAUREEN DOWD (with a Ukethanks to Phyll )
In the vice president's new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.
He wasn't talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.
He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.
Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that's just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.
The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that embattled White House aides felt "President Bush must take the reins personally" to save his presidency.
Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.
Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam's being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.
But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.
How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that's a credential!
It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.
What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.
Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't worried. Numbers are for sissies.
Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.
He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.
Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.
Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What's so wrong with a little torture?
And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?
Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.
Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: "He's my son. It's my war. It's my country."
MAUREEN DOWD (with a Ukethanks to Phyll )
In the vice president's new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.
He wasn't talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.
He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.
Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that's just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.
The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that embattled White House aides felt "President Bush must take the reins personally" to save his presidency.
Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.
Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam's being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.
But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.
How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that's a credential!
It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.
What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.
Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't worried. Numbers are for sissies.
Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.
He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.
Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.
Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What's so wrong with a little torture?
And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?
Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.
Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: "He's my son. It's my war. It's my country."
About Me
- Name: Tom Harker
- Location: Circleville, Ohio, US
Music and Politics, Politics and Music!!! * * * Everything is political. We’re admonished, “Never discuss religion or politics.” Follow that advice, and we’ll have to quit talking altogether. * * * Well, the Uke Man speaks! * * * Keep track here of my musical shenanigans, my political ruminations, and - from time to time - some other interesting eruptions.
Previous Posts
- "Things are lookin' good !!"
- The Chicken are coming home to roost !!
- The Gateway to Crime !!
- Ice Cream and Coffee can be Dangerous !!
- Bush's Pet (scape) Goat ???
- How Smart Are We ??
- Consumed
- A short (hopefully interesting) discussion
- Hi, atus!!
- So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood a while ...
Archives
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