"Boys,i'ss not so bahd bungling a var. I, for example, got to date Jill St. John."
posted by Ukulele Man at 6:12 PM
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Bushie Tantrums
Hey Folks -
This is from a while back, but it still rings true. Darth Cheney will be bullshitting Larry King tonight; so I think this works.
- Uke Man
July 1, 2007
Tears on My Pillow
By MAUREEN DOWD
“I miss Albania!” W. wails. “They know how to treat a president there. Women were kissing me and men rubbed my hair. The crowd kept yelling, ‘Bushie!,’ and they almost grabbed the watch right off my wrist trying to get at me.”
The concerned group huddling outside the president’s closed-bedroom door in Kennebunkport can barely hear him. His voice is muffled because he has his face buried in his feather pillow, which the Secret Service has carefully transported from Washington to Maine for the weekend, knowing that it would be needed. They guard it so conscientiously that they have even given it a code name. Since the president’s Secret Service name is Tumbler, his agents christened his beloved pillow Slumber.
“Son, I know how you feel,” Poppy calls in to him, trying to sound positive. “Riding high in 2002, shot down in 2007. That’s life, as Sinatra says. You were a puppet and a pawn to King Dick and it screwed up your presidency and our party and the Middle East and the Atlantic alliance and the family legacy and Jeb’s future, not to mention the fate of the planet.
But you can’t just roll yourself up in a big ball and die, George. Your friend Vlad the Impaler is here, and I think you should come out and talk to him. You invited him and he came all the way from Russia, and you don’t want to be rude.
“I’ve already taken him to Mabel’s Lobster Claw and out on the boat. He scared all the fish away. I don’t know what else to do with him, George.He brained the Filipino manservant, the little brown one, with a horseshoe.”
Putin steps forward. “Let me try,” he tells Poppy.
“George, hey, it’s me, Ostrich Legs, Pooty Poot. Remember when you gave me those nicknames? Come out, and I show you my real soul. Dark, dark, dark. I put the Putin back in Rasputin.
Listen, Albania stinks. Maine much nicer. I saw Moose and Squirrel in the woods. Let’s throw horseshoes at them! I love this American sport.”
Tumbler burrows into Slumber. “Why doesn’t anybody like me anymore,Daddy?” he keens. “Man, I miss Tony. My Iraq
poodle left me with a porcupine. And I can’t believe my own Republicans crossed me on the immigration bill. Now my Mexican buddies from Midland are saying, ‘Adiós, Jorge.’ Vice doesn’t even want to be in the same branch of government as me. Where is Dick, by the way?”
His mother steps briskly up to the door. “Now listen, Georgie,” Barbara says. “We didn’t invite Dick. He’s not our kind. He has utterly ruined your presidency. There’s a Washington Post series I want you to read. I’ve put it in the kitchen by your bowl of Cookie Crisps. It explains all about how Dick played you for a fool on everything from Iraq to capital gains.
He set up the West Wing paper flow in a way that undermined your goals and advanced his. He let you act like you were the Decider, dear, when you were really just the Dupe.”
W. howls, “Dick promised me I would never be a wimp and now I’m a wimp!”
Putin intervenes. “No, George, don’t blame Dick,” he says. “Dick good man. Shoots friend in face. But Dick too soft. Friend lived. He needs put more people in your Gitmo gulag, shut down newspapers, kill more critics. I’ll send you some of my special polonium-210 pellets. They just like Altoids, curiously strong.”
Clarence Thomas rushes up to the door, black robes flapping. “I got here as fast as I could,” he assures Poppy, before yelling in to W.: “I’m sorry about the Guantánamo decision. I don’t know what my brethren were thinking, applying the Constitution to Cuba. What’s law got to do with it? I should have fought harder. I was a little distracted by our decision to stop race from being a factor in making schools racially diverse. I needed to make sure that black children all over America would have none of the advantages I had.”
Henry Kissinger oils his way across the floor. “Mr. President,” he rumblesthrough the door, “it’s not so bad bungling a war. I got to date Jill St.John.”
Condi joins the group, and wrinkles her nose at Putin. He puts his arm around her and gives her head a noogie. “When I said U.S. aggression is like Third Reich,” he tells her, with his most charming K.G.B. smile, “I meant it in a good way.”
Condi ignores him and coos to W.: “There’s bad news and good news, sir. Or maybe it’s Vice versa. Cheney’s going to pardon Scooter. And the Albanians have agreed to put your presidential library in Tirana.”
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:12 PM
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Monday, July 30, 2007
Intellect v. Emotion
Marx v. Tammy Faye
posted by Ukulele Man at 4:15 PM
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Intellect v Emotion
Hey Folks -
Below, columnist Robym Blumner discusses the Democrats' "problem" getting people to support them. Based upon the work of a university psychology professor, she says:
"Democrats have been appealing to the dispassionate, rational, fact-sensitive voter, a being, apparently, who doesn't exist."
I guess you gotta get emotional if you want support. Americans, she says, keep supporting the Republicans even though " In most polls, Americans are demonstrably more supportive of the Democratic agenda."
What does this say about Americans ?
It says that a large minority of us (those supporters of the Republican agenda) are stupid enough or slimy enough or selfish enough to actually favor and enjoy poor-bashing, gay-bashing, union-bashing, science-bashing, constitution-trashing, ad nauseum.
But worse, it says that a majority of us are smart enough to see that the Democrats' agenda - as puny as it may be - is superior to the Republicans'; but we are too weak emotionally to support what we intellectually know is superior.
That's pretty damned pathetic, but - in my experience - it is true. It's the only thing I've been able to find that explains why people tend to behave irrationally in so many instances where it is completely obvious - on an intellectual level - that they should act differently.
Many aspects of society are completely or partially irrational; for example, many notions within "Intelligent Design," multiple religions' claiming to be the ONE true religion, racism, sexism, homophobia, faith in political parties; the need to be thin, tan, young, and beautiful; the glory of sports, celebrities, etc., etc., etc.
Much of society is irrational on its face, such as the claim "we are a nation of laws, not men" while quite clearly the "justice" system regularly treats celebrities, wealthy people, and the President's gophers better than the rest of us (especially the poor and minorities among us).
But beyond that, these irrationalities are multiplied immensely by their interaction among themselves. For example, Christianity as practiced by most people is full of irrational contradictions, but these are multiplied when many self-identified Christians claim also to be capitalists, good Americans, tax-resisters, capital punishment proponents, or war supporters - to name a few.
Whatever irrational conflicts exist within his or her personal Christianity, a Christian cannot RATIONALLY justify support for "buyer beware," capital punishment, or the Iraq war. A Christian who demands Christian prayer in public school cannot RATIONALLY claim to be supporting America's Constitution. A Christian cannot RATIONALLY justify withholding Caesar's taxes from Caesar.
Yet, they do; they do all of this and more; and they do it on an emotional basis - in the face of perfectly obvious and overwhelming objective evidence to the contrary; and all the while they move blithely along, cushioned from the factual, objective, scientific reality by an inpenetrable hedge of interlocking emotional fabrications.
Pretty damned pathetic.
- Uke Man
Robyn Blumner: Democrats should shed the gloves
Monday, July 23, 2007
By Robyn Blumner
Democrats finally have a prophet who can lead them to the promised land of winning national elections.
In one exceptionally clear 400-page volume, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, lays out everything that Democrats have been doing wrong. He explains it in neuroscientific terms according to what regions of the brain control political decision-making, but it comes down to this: Democrats have been appealing to the dispassionate, rational, fact-sensitive voter, a being, apparently, who doesn't exist.
According to Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, winning elections is all about influencing feelings and emotions. Westen says bringing more passion into politics requires storytelling narratives and other emotional cues that powerfully engage those circuits of the brain that recruit and reinforce beliefs.
Democrats keep losing presidential campaigns, not because the issues they stand for are unappealing, but because they tend to structure their campaigns to engage the brain's reasoning centers. The results speak for themselves. In most polls, Americans are demonstrably more supportive of the Democratic agenda, yet Republicans keep winning.
The most blatant example of an emotionally dead campaign was that moment during the 1988 presidential debates when moderator Bernard Shaw asked Michael Dukakis whether he would favor the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife.
"No, I don't, Bernard," Dukakis said. "I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more-effective ways to deal with violent crime."
As Westen writes, Dukakis answered in the language of "rational utility," describing his concerns for the death penalty's deterrent value. But the average listener heard a different question: "Are you a man?" The answer was no.
Democrats insist on taking the high road and focusing on policy, fact and expertise, while Republicans willingly use unconscious emotional cues such as race baiting (Willie Horton, states' rights, etc.) to win by any means.
Westen says Democrats should not dip into such unethical waters, but they should not shy away from negative campaigning. He says that positive and negative associations engage different parts of the brain, and no campaign should cede half this neurological territory.
During a presidential debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Bush whether there were character differences between himself and Gore. Bush raised the specter of fund-raising improprieties by Gore at a Buddhist temple and suggesting that the Lincoln bedroom was offered as a prize to big donors while Gore was vice president. (Westen says Lincoln bedroom also allowed Bush to draw unconscious associations with sexual improprieties in the White House.)
Gore's response: "I think we ought to attack our country's problems, not attack each other. I want to spend my time making this country even better than it is, not trying to make you out to be a bad person."
Westen says that Gore demonstrated a weakness that resonated particularly with Southern men, who more aggressively respond to any slight of honor. (Physiological tests prove it.) Gore didn't carry a single state of the former Confederacy, not even his own.
Here is Westen's proposed rejoinder: "Governor, you have attacked my honor and integrity in front of my family, the people of my home state of Tennessee, and millions of my fellow Americans. So I think it's time to teach you a few old-fashioned lessons about character.
"When I enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War, you were talkin' real tough about Vietnam. But when you got the call, you called your daddy and begged him to pull some strings so you wouldn't have to go to war. So instead of defending your country with honor, you put some poor Texas mill worker's kid on the front line in your place to get shot at.
"Where I come from, we call that a coward."
I'm guessing that Southern men might have perked up.
Voting is emotional, not cognitive, Westen says.
Yes, this is distressing to hear. But it is a fact that Democrats need to fully appreciate and start acting on, if they want a fighting chance for the presidency.
Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com
Below, columnist Robym Blumner discusses the Democrats' "problem" getting people to support them. Based upon the work of a university psychology professor, she says:
"Democrats have been appealing to the dispassionate, rational, fact-sensitive voter, a being, apparently, who doesn't exist."
I guess you gotta get emotional if you want support. Americans, she says, keep supporting the Republicans even though " In most polls, Americans are demonstrably more supportive of the Democratic agenda."
What does this say about Americans ?
It says that a large minority of us (those supporters of the Republican agenda) are stupid enough or slimy enough or selfish enough to actually favor and enjoy poor-bashing, gay-bashing, union-bashing, science-bashing, constitution-trashing, ad nauseum.
But worse, it says that a majority of us are smart enough to see that the Democrats' agenda - as puny as it may be - is superior to the Republicans'; but we are too weak emotionally to support what we intellectually know is superior.
That's pretty damned pathetic, but - in my experience - it is true. It's the only thing I've been able to find that explains why people tend to behave irrationally in so many instances where it is completely obvious - on an intellectual level - that they should act differently.
Many aspects of society are completely or partially irrational; for example, many notions within "Intelligent Design," multiple religions' claiming to be the ONE true religion, racism, sexism, homophobia, faith in political parties; the need to be thin, tan, young, and beautiful; the glory of sports, celebrities, etc., etc., etc.
Much of society is irrational on its face, such as the claim "we are a nation of laws, not men" while quite clearly the "justice" system regularly treats celebrities, wealthy people, and the President's gophers better than the rest of us (especially the poor and minorities among us).
But beyond that, these irrationalities are multiplied immensely by their interaction among themselves. For example, Christianity as practiced by most people is full of irrational contradictions, but these are multiplied when many self-identified Christians claim also to be capitalists, good Americans, tax-resisters, capital punishment proponents, or war supporters - to name a few.
Whatever irrational conflicts exist within his or her personal Christianity, a Christian cannot RATIONALLY justify support for "buyer beware," capital punishment, or the Iraq war. A Christian who demands Christian prayer in public school cannot RATIONALLY claim to be supporting America's Constitution. A Christian cannot RATIONALLY justify withholding Caesar's taxes from Caesar.
Yet, they do; they do all of this and more; and they do it on an emotional basis - in the face of perfectly obvious and overwhelming objective evidence to the contrary; and all the while they move blithely along, cushioned from the factual, objective, scientific reality by an inpenetrable hedge of interlocking emotional fabrications.
Pretty damned pathetic.
- Uke Man
Robyn Blumner: Democrats should shed the gloves
Monday, July 23, 2007
By Robyn Blumner
Democrats finally have a prophet who can lead them to the promised land of winning national elections.
In one exceptionally clear 400-page volume, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, lays out everything that Democrats have been doing wrong. He explains it in neuroscientific terms according to what regions of the brain control political decision-making, but it comes down to this: Democrats have been appealing to the dispassionate, rational, fact-sensitive voter, a being, apparently, who doesn't exist.
According to Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, winning elections is all about influencing feelings and emotions. Westen says bringing more passion into politics requires storytelling narratives and other emotional cues that powerfully engage those circuits of the brain that recruit and reinforce beliefs.
Democrats keep losing presidential campaigns, not because the issues they stand for are unappealing, but because they tend to structure their campaigns to engage the brain's reasoning centers. The results speak for themselves. In most polls, Americans are demonstrably more supportive of the Democratic agenda, yet Republicans keep winning.
The most blatant example of an emotionally dead campaign was that moment during the 1988 presidential debates when moderator Bernard Shaw asked Michael Dukakis whether he would favor the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife.
"No, I don't, Bernard," Dukakis said. "I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more-effective ways to deal with violent crime."
As Westen writes, Dukakis answered in the language of "rational utility," describing his concerns for the death penalty's deterrent value. But the average listener heard a different question: "Are you a man?" The answer was no.
Democrats insist on taking the high road and focusing on policy, fact and expertise, while Republicans willingly use unconscious emotional cues such as race baiting (Willie Horton, states' rights, etc.) to win by any means.
Westen says Democrats should not dip into such unethical waters, but they should not shy away from negative campaigning. He says that positive and negative associations engage different parts of the brain, and no campaign should cede half this neurological territory.
During a presidential debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Bush whether there were character differences between himself and Gore. Bush raised the specter of fund-raising improprieties by Gore at a Buddhist temple and suggesting that the Lincoln bedroom was offered as a prize to big donors while Gore was vice president. (Westen says Lincoln bedroom also allowed Bush to draw unconscious associations with sexual improprieties in the White House.)
Gore's response: "I think we ought to attack our country's problems, not attack each other. I want to spend my time making this country even better than it is, not trying to make you out to be a bad person."
Westen says that Gore demonstrated a weakness that resonated particularly with Southern men, who more aggressively respond to any slight of honor. (Physiological tests prove it.) Gore didn't carry a single state of the former Confederacy, not even his own.
Here is Westen's proposed rejoinder: "Governor, you have attacked my honor and integrity in front of my family, the people of my home state of Tennessee, and millions of my fellow Americans. So I think it's time to teach you a few old-fashioned lessons about character.
"When I enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War, you were talkin' real tough about Vietnam. But when you got the call, you called your daddy and begged him to pull some strings so you wouldn't have to go to war. So instead of defending your country with honor, you put some poor Texas mill worker's kid on the front line in your place to get shot at.
"Where I come from, we call that a coward."
I'm guessing that Southern men might have perked up.
Voting is emotional, not cognitive, Westen says.
Yes, this is distressing to hear. But it is a fact that Democrats need to fully appreciate and start acting on, if they want a fighting chance for the presidency.
Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com
posted by Ukulele Man at 3:41 PM
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Sunday, July 29, 2007
The "Good Ol' Days"
Before the "socialists" and "communists" on the Supreme Court and in Congress had their way
posted by Ukulele Man at 9:58 PM
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The answer is RACISM and CLASSISM
Hey Folks -
It sometimes amazes me what the Dispatch (my local newspaper) will publish under the heading "Letters to the Editor." Below is one you can almost smell as well as read. According to its editors (speaking on a local radio program), the paper is a "moderately conservative" paper and on its editorial page presents equal numbers of commentary by lefty pundits and righty pundits, going "right down the middle."
Unfortunately, they went on to identify Thomas Friedman as the lefty balancing out George Will, the righty. Sort of makes the "middle" somewhere to the right of the middle, don't you think?
Read the letter below (I think it's [maybe] to the right); then I'll have a bit more to say. I've inserted a few comments in blue.
Court working to right some wrongs
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
I respond to the July 3 Dispatch Forum column by Eugene Robinson, "High court's school ruling means many more steps backward." Robinson has it wrong.
It has taken the court 53 years to right the wrongs committed by leftist members of the U.S. Supreme Court (He's talking about 1954 and the Brown v. Board of Education case. Obviously, he thinks "separate but equal" is just fine). If anything, President Bush's legacy of turning the court around and heading it back toward adhering to the U.S. Constitution, getting away from legislating from the bench and quitting its social engineering will be an accomplishment long overdue. Can this be interpreted as anything other than hoping for a "long overdue" return to segregation and "Jim Crow"?
Robinson played the race card all through his column (whatever that means, Robinson was still NOT a racist). He can't face failure.
He continued to talk about diversity. Only socialists and communists use the term. (And, for the most part, racists are the ones who call advocates of "diversity" "socialists and communists.") It is a dismal failure.
Our forced busing to accomplish integrated schools, and integrated schools after 53 years are also a failure (The reasons are racism and classism). If diversity is so wonderful, ask yourself, why did "white flight"occur? (Because of racism and classism) Why have school boards in major cities, including Columbus, gone under black control? (Because of racism and classism) Why have standards fallen? (Because of racism and classism) Why have the percentage of high-school graduates fallen? (Because of racism and classism) Grade averages? (Because of racism and classism)
On what standard are they based?
Why are students in the 12th grade unable to pass a ninth-grade evaluation test? (Because of racism and classism) Why is an all-black high school allowed to exist? (Because of racism and classism) When will an all-white high school be instituted? They already exist.
In conclusion, when the court continues to act and respond like a Supreme Court should, would it be too much to expect our Congress to again be legislators and statesmen, instead of political hacks, continually campaigning, raising money for campaigns and voting themselves raises? Yeah, let's return to pre-1954 when everything was nearly perfect - in the schools, on the busses, at the pools, in the diners, and even at the water fountains.
DALE E. LAUFFER
Columbus
Now aside from the sadly ignorant, possibly demented racism of this letter, doesn't it put the Dispatch in a difficult position? What is the "opposite" view that will keep the letters page ballanced right down the middle?
Would it be a letter demanding whites be sent back to Europe? Does someone need to demand that 12% of the states be set aside for Black Americans only? Or does the Dispatch see something more humane - like Rodney King's "Why can't we all just get along" - as radical enough to ballance Lauffer's sick and hateful rant?
Sort of puts the "middle" somewhere to the right of the middle, don't you think?
- Uke Man
It sometimes amazes me what the Dispatch (my local newspaper) will publish under the heading "Letters to the Editor." Below is one you can almost smell as well as read. According to its editors (speaking on a local radio program), the paper is a "moderately conservative" paper and on its editorial page presents equal numbers of commentary by lefty pundits and righty pundits, going "right down the middle."
Unfortunately, they went on to identify Thomas Friedman as the lefty balancing out George Will, the righty. Sort of makes the "middle" somewhere to the right of the middle, don't you think?
Read the letter below (I think it's [maybe] to the right); then I'll have a bit more to say. I've inserted a few comments in blue.
Court working to right some wrongs
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
I respond to the July 3 Dispatch Forum column by Eugene Robinson, "High court's school ruling means many more steps backward." Robinson has it wrong.
It has taken the court 53 years to right the wrongs committed by leftist members of the U.S. Supreme Court (He's talking about 1954 and the Brown v. Board of Education case. Obviously, he thinks "separate but equal" is just fine). If anything, President Bush's legacy of turning the court around and heading it back toward adhering to the U.S. Constitution, getting away from legislating from the bench and quitting its social engineering will be an accomplishment long overdue. Can this be interpreted as anything other than hoping for a "long overdue" return to segregation and "Jim Crow"?
Robinson played the race card all through his column (whatever that means, Robinson was still NOT a racist). He can't face failure.
He continued to talk about diversity. Only socialists and communists use the term. (And, for the most part, racists are the ones who call advocates of "diversity" "socialists and communists.") It is a dismal failure.
Our forced busing to accomplish integrated schools, and integrated schools after 53 years are also a failure (The reasons are racism and classism). If diversity is so wonderful, ask yourself, why did "white flight"occur? (Because of racism and classism) Why have school boards in major cities, including Columbus, gone under black control? (Because of racism and classism) Why have standards fallen? (Because of racism and classism) Why have the percentage of high-school graduates fallen? (Because of racism and classism) Grade averages? (Because of racism and classism)
On what standard are they based?
Why are students in the 12th grade unable to pass a ninth-grade evaluation test? (Because of racism and classism) Why is an all-black high school allowed to exist? (Because of racism and classism) When will an all-white high school be instituted? They already exist.
In conclusion, when the court continues to act and respond like a Supreme Court should, would it be too much to expect our Congress to again be legislators and statesmen, instead of political hacks, continually campaigning, raising money for campaigns and voting themselves raises? Yeah, let's return to pre-1954 when everything was nearly perfect - in the schools, on the busses, at the pools, in the diners, and even at the water fountains.
DALE E. LAUFFER
Columbus
Now aside from the sadly ignorant, possibly demented racism of this letter, doesn't it put the Dispatch in a difficult position? What is the "opposite" view that will keep the letters page ballanced right down the middle?
Would it be a letter demanding whites be sent back to Europe? Does someone need to demand that 12% of the states be set aside for Black Americans only? Or does the Dispatch see something more humane - like Rodney King's "Why can't we all just get along" - as radical enough to ballance Lauffer's sick and hateful rant?
Sort of puts the "middle" somewhere to the right of the middle, don't you think?
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 9:19 PM
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
"If I only had a heart !!"
"If I only had a brain!!"
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:41 PM
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Is Prayer Efficacious ???
Hey Folks –
Have you heard: Dick Cheney got his mechanical heart operated on today. I heard that he survived the procedure – proving beyond a doubt that prayer is fruitless.
Has anyone heard? Before he went under the knife did he pass the power of the Presidency on to the Bush kid?
If so, has he taken it back yet? Or is it being held in an undisclosed location?
Just wondering.
- Uke Man
Have you heard: Dick Cheney got his mechanical heart operated on today. I heard that he survived the procedure – proving beyond a doubt that prayer is fruitless.
Has anyone heard? Before he went under the knife did he pass the power of the Presidency on to the Bush kid?
If so, has he taken it back yet? Or is it being held in an undisclosed location?
Just wondering.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:25 PM
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Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
An interesting film - review and clips from NPR
Hey Folks -
Here's what looks to me like an interesting movie: "This Is England."
Get the lowdown at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12225611
Here's a bit of what you can read or hear (and be sure to find the "Watch 'England' Clips" section down the page a ways):
Maggie Thatcher's England, 1983, just after the Falklands war: In a town where there are no jobs, men who want to support their families head off to become cannon fodder, leaving their children behind. Shaun is a smart 12-year-old, who lost his father in the war, and who therefore, in the merciless logic of the schoolyard, gets picked on constantly. So his eyes are blurred with tears as he blunders into what looks like trouble: a gang of skinheads lounging beneath an overpass.
- Uke Man
Here's what looks to me like an interesting movie: "This Is England."
Get the lowdown at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12225611
Here's a bit of what you can read or hear (and be sure to find the "Watch 'England' Clips" section down the page a ways):
Maggie Thatcher's England, 1983, just after the Falklands war: In a town where there are no jobs, men who want to support their families head off to become cannon fodder, leaving their children behind. Shaun is a smart 12-year-old, who lost his father in the war, and who therefore, in the merciless logic of the schoolyard, gets picked on constantly. So his eyes are blurred with tears as he blunders into what looks like trouble: a gang of skinheads lounging beneath an overpass.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 6:05 PM
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
It's no accident that every "grass" contains an "ass"!!
Grass as green as money, thick as thieves, a glorious horizontal tapestry to quiet self-doubt and the scum who call you "shallow"!! Cheaper than Prozac, more effective than therapy
posted by Ukulele Man at 4:30 PM
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Now here's a god I could believe in !!
Hey Folks -
Michael Coleman is a Black Democrat and the mayor of Columbus, Ohio. Long ago early in his tenure a local, weekly newspaper ran a story on him that destroyed all the hopes I had foolishly projected onto his victory.
I should have gotten a clue from the fact that the local, conservative newspaper's editorial board didn't find him too objectionable; but it was the story on the mayor's lawn that sent me into depression.
As it turns out, the mayor (of the URBAN metropolis) obsesses about his lawn!! So much so, that he won't even let his son mow it because he might not do it right!! Our urban mayor is a closeted suburbanite!!
Since then I've bragged to outlanders that Mr. Coleman is the first white Black Mayor of Columbus.
To get a feel for what god might think, read on.
- Uke Man
YARD WORK - AS VIEWED FROM HEAVEN
(overheard in a conversation between God and St. Francis)
(a ukethanks to Sondra)
God: Francis, you know all about gardens and nature; what in theworld is going on down there in the U.S.? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see are patches of green.
St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. They are called the Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers"weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
God: Grass? But it is so boring, it's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?
St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it....sometimes two times a week.
God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?
St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and putit in bags.
God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw itaway.
God: Now let me get this straight...they fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
St. Francis: Yes, sir.God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
St. Francis: You aren't going to believe this Lord, but when the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees.That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.
St. Francis: You'd better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
St Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buysomething called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
God: And where do they get this mulch?
St. Francis: They cut down the trees and grind them up to makemulch.
God: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore.Saint Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber," Lord. It's a really stupid movie about....
God: Never mind--I think I just heard the whole story from SaintFrancis!
Michael Coleman is a Black Democrat and the mayor of Columbus, Ohio. Long ago early in his tenure a local, weekly newspaper ran a story on him that destroyed all the hopes I had foolishly projected onto his victory.
I should have gotten a clue from the fact that the local, conservative newspaper's editorial board didn't find him too objectionable; but it was the story on the mayor's lawn that sent me into depression.
As it turns out, the mayor (of the URBAN metropolis) obsesses about his lawn!! So much so, that he won't even let his son mow it because he might not do it right!! Our urban mayor is a closeted suburbanite!!
Since then I've bragged to outlanders that Mr. Coleman is the first white Black Mayor of Columbus.
To get a feel for what god might think, read on.
- Uke Man
YARD WORK - AS VIEWED FROM HEAVEN
(overheard in a conversation between God and St. Francis)
(a ukethanks to Sondra)
God: Francis, you know all about gardens and nature; what in theworld is going on down there in the U.S.? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see are patches of green.
St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. They are called the Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers"weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
God: Grass? But it is so boring, it's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?
St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it....sometimes two times a week.
God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?
St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and putit in bags.
God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw itaway.
God: Now let me get this straight...they fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
St. Francis: Yes, sir.God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
St. Francis: You aren't going to believe this Lord, but when the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees.That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.
St. Francis: You'd better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
St Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buysomething called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
God: And where do they get this mulch?
St. Francis: They cut down the trees and grind them up to makemulch.
God: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore.Saint Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber," Lord. It's a really stupid movie about....
God: Never mind--I think I just heard the whole story from SaintFrancis!
posted by Ukulele Man at 3:40 PM
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007
David Brooks is nuts again
Hey Folks -
Here's what Eugene Robinson thinks about the cheery little chipmunk in the White House.
- Uke Man
Bush's view of war effort is disturbing
Monday, July 23, 2007
By Eugene Robinson
One hopes the leader of the free world hasn't really, truly lost touch with objective reality. But one does have to wonder.
Last week, President Bush invited nine conservative pundits to the White House for what amounted to a pep talk, with the president providing all the pep. Somehow I was left off the list -- must have been an oversight. But some columnists who attended have been writing about the meeting or describing it to colleagues, and their accounts are downright scary.
National Review's Kate O'Beirne, who joined the presidential chat in the Roosevelt Room, told me that the most striking thing was the president's incongruously sunny demeanor. Bush's approval ratings are well below freezing, the nation is sooooo finished with his foolish and tragic war, many of his remaining allies in Congress have given notice that come September they plan to leave the Decider alone in his private Alamo -- and the president remains optimistic and upbeat.
Bush was "not at all weary or anguished" and in fact "very energized," wrote Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report. He was "as confident and upbeat as ever," observed Rich Lowry of National Review. "Far from being beleaguered, Bush was assertive and good-humored," according to David Brooks of The New York Times.
Excuse me? I guess now he must be in an even better mood, since the feckless Iraqi government announced its decision to take the whole month of August off while U.S. troops continue fighting and dying in Baghdad's 130-degree summer heat.
It's almost as if Bush were trying to apply the principles of cognitive therapy, the system developed by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s. Beck found that getting patients to banish negative thoughts and develop patterns of positive thinking was helpful in pulling them out of depression. However, Beck was trying to get the patients to see themselves and the world realistically, whereas Bush has left realism far behind.
"He says the most useful argument to make in support of his policy is to show what failure would mean," Barone wrote of the president and Iraq. "It would mean an ascendant radicalism, among both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and it would embolden sponsors of terrorism such as Iran. Al-Qaida would be emboldened and would be able to recruit forces."
Excuse me again? This is what Bush believes would happen? Hasn't he noticed that these catastrophes have already befallen us? And that they are the direct consequence of his decision to invade and occupy Iraq?
Someone had tried to point this out at a news conference earlier this month. Bush replied with such a bizarre version of history that I hope he was being cynical and doesn't really believe what he said: "Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically. That's why I went to the United Nations and worked with the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. That was the message, the clear message to Saddam Hussein. He chose the course. . . . It was his decision to make."
Let's see, we have learned that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. That means Bush is claiming that Saddam Hussein "chose" the invasion -- and, ultimately, his own death -- by not showing us what he didn't have.
"Bush gives the impression that he is more steadfast on the war than many in his own administration and that, if need be, he'll be the last hawk standing," wrote Lowry. The president says the results of his recent troop escalation will be evaluated by Gen. David Petraeus, wrote Barone, and not by "the polls."
Translation: Everybody's out of step but me.
One of the more unnerving reports out of the president's seminar with the pundits came from Brooks, who quoted Bush as saying: "It's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn't exist."
It's bad enough that Osama bin Laden is still out there plotting bloody new acts of terrorism, convinced that God wants him to slay the infidels. Now we know that the president of the United States believes God has chosen him to bring freedom to the world, that he refuses to acknowledge setbacks in his crusade and that he flat-out doesn't care what "the polls" -- meaning the American people -- might think. I'm having trouble seeing the bright side. I think I need cognitive therapy.
Eugene Robinson writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
Here's what Eugene Robinson thinks about the cheery little chipmunk in the White House.
- Uke Man
Bush's view of war effort is disturbing
Monday, July 23, 2007
By Eugene Robinson
One hopes the leader of the free world hasn't really, truly lost touch with objective reality. But one does have to wonder.
Last week, President Bush invited nine conservative pundits to the White House for what amounted to a pep talk, with the president providing all the pep. Somehow I was left off the list -- must have been an oversight. But some columnists who attended have been writing about the meeting or describing it to colleagues, and their accounts are downright scary.
National Review's Kate O'Beirne, who joined the presidential chat in the Roosevelt Room, told me that the most striking thing was the president's incongruously sunny demeanor. Bush's approval ratings are well below freezing, the nation is sooooo finished with his foolish and tragic war, many of his remaining allies in Congress have given notice that come September they plan to leave the Decider alone in his private Alamo -- and the president remains optimistic and upbeat.
Bush was "not at all weary or anguished" and in fact "very energized," wrote Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report. He was "as confident and upbeat as ever," observed Rich Lowry of National Review. "Far from being beleaguered, Bush was assertive and good-humored," according to David Brooks of The New York Times.
Excuse me? I guess now he must be in an even better mood, since the feckless Iraqi government announced its decision to take the whole month of August off while U.S. troops continue fighting and dying in Baghdad's 130-degree summer heat.
It's almost as if Bush were trying to apply the principles of cognitive therapy, the system developed by psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s. Beck found that getting patients to banish negative thoughts and develop patterns of positive thinking was helpful in pulling them out of depression. However, Beck was trying to get the patients to see themselves and the world realistically, whereas Bush has left realism far behind.
"He says the most useful argument to make in support of his policy is to show what failure would mean," Barone wrote of the president and Iraq. "It would mean an ascendant radicalism, among both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and it would embolden sponsors of terrorism such as Iran. Al-Qaida would be emboldened and would be able to recruit forces."
Excuse me again? This is what Bush believes would happen? Hasn't he noticed that these catastrophes have already befallen us? And that they are the direct consequence of his decision to invade and occupy Iraq?
Someone had tried to point this out at a news conference earlier this month. Bush replied with such a bizarre version of history that I hope he was being cynical and doesn't really believe what he said: "Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically. That's why I went to the United Nations and worked with the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. That was the message, the clear message to Saddam Hussein. He chose the course. . . . It was his decision to make."
Let's see, we have learned that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. That means Bush is claiming that Saddam Hussein "chose" the invasion -- and, ultimately, his own death -- by not showing us what he didn't have.
"Bush gives the impression that he is more steadfast on the war than many in his own administration and that, if need be, he'll be the last hawk standing," wrote Lowry. The president says the results of his recent troop escalation will be evaluated by Gen. David Petraeus, wrote Barone, and not by "the polls."
Translation: Everybody's out of step but me.
One of the more unnerving reports out of the president's seminar with the pundits came from Brooks, who quoted Bush as saying: "It's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn't exist."
It's bad enough that Osama bin Laden is still out there plotting bloody new acts of terrorism, convinced that God wants him to slay the infidels. Now we know that the president of the United States believes God has chosen him to bring freedom to the world, that he refuses to acknowledge setbacks in his crusade and that he flat-out doesn't care what "the polls" -- meaning the American people -- might think. I'm having trouble seeing the bright side. I think I need cognitive therapy.
Eugene Robinson writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
posted by Ukulele Man at 9:31 PM
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Monday, July 23, 2007
"Nuts!! Yum, nuts!!!"
He said assertively and with good humor, as if on a mission from Dog.
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:03 PM
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David Brooks is nuts !!!
Hey Folks -
David Brooks recently wrote a column about how senators' views of Iraq "ranged from despondency to despair," but Bush was "assertive and good humored," "unshakably committed," a man who "feels no need to compromise," and who "seems empowered." Brooks proposes that Bush's "self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency." He talks about Bush's "unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea"; he quotes Bush describing his agenda, "It's more of a theological perspective." And it's apparent that Brooks finds all of this reassuring.
Brooks is an idiot!! See below what Paul Krugman thinks.
- Uke Man
July 20, 2007
All the President’s Enablers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.
What I don’t understand is why we’re supposed to consider Mr. Bush’s continuing confidence a good thing.
Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.
Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush’s poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.
Sorry, but that’s not reassuring; it’s terrifying. It doesn’t demonstrate Mr. Bush’s strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality.
Actually, it’s not clear that he ever was in touch with reality. I wrote about the Bush administration’s “infallibility complex,” its inability to admit mistakes or face up to real problems it didn’t want to deal with, in June 2002. Around the same time Ron Suskind, the investigative journalist, had a conversation with a senior Bush adviser who mocked the “reality-based community,” asserting that “when we act, we create our own reality.”
People who worried that the administration was living in a fantasy world used to be dismissed as victims of “Bush derangement syndrome,” liberals driven mad by Mr. Bush’s success. Now, however, it’s a syndrome that has spread even to former loyal Bushies.
Yet while Mr. Bush no longer has many true believers, he still has plenty of enablers — people who understand the folly of his actions, but refuse to do anything to stop him.
This week’s prime example is Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who made headlines a few weeks ago with a speech declaring that “our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests.” Mr. Lugar is a smart, sensible man. He once acted courageously to head off another foreign policy disaster, persuading a reluctant Ronald Reagan to stop supporting Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt leader of the Philippines, after a stolen election.
Yet that political courage was nowhere in evidence when Senate Democrats tried to get a vote on a measure that would have forced a course change in Iraq, and Republicans responded by threatening a filibuster. Mr. Lugar, along with several other Republicans who have expressed doubts about the war, voted against cutting off debate, thereby helping ensure that the folly he described so accurately in his Iraq speech will go on.
Thanks to that vote, nothing will happen until Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, delivers his report in September. But don’t expect too much even then. I hope he proves me wrong, but the general’s history suggests that he’s another smart, sensible enabler.
I don’t know why the op-ed article that General Petraeus published in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2004, hasn’t gotten more attention. After all, it puts to rest any notion that the general stands above politics: I don’t think it’s standard practice for serving military officers to publish opinion pieces that are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks before a national election.
In the article, General Petraeus told us that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously.” And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders “are displaying courage and resilience” and “momentum has gathered in recent months.”
In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he’ll do the same thing three years later.
You know, at this point I think we need to stop blaming Mr. Bush for the mess we’re in. He is what he always was, and everyone except a hard core of equally delusional loyalists knows it.
Yet Mr. Bush keeps doing damage because many people who understand how his folly is endangering the nation’s security still refuse, out of political caution and careerism, to do anything about it.
posted by Ukulele Man at 9:16 AM
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
"There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it."
Hey Folks -
Watch this video; then say "I support George W. Bush" three times, and your head will explode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ
- Uke Man
p.s. Georgie claims to talk with god (the one in the Bible). Isn't "Thou shalt not lie" one of that god's 10 commandments?
Watch this video; then say "I support George W. Bush" three times, and your head will explode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ
- Uke Man
p.s. Georgie claims to talk with god (the one in the Bible). Isn't "Thou shalt not lie" one of that god's 10 commandments?
posted by Ukulele Man at 7:09 PM
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Saturday, July 21, 2007
"Things are lookin' good !!"
"Yeah, for us !!!"
posted by Ukulele Man at 7:57 PM
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The Chickens are coming home to roost !!
Hey Folks -
H.L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Well, if Froma Harrop is correct below, the American public may be waking up, but it's not clear whether any of the Bush criminals will go broke as a result of it.
More likely, when the sleeping slugs finally stir, it will be discovered that they are the ones who are broke.
- Uke Man
Anxiety in the Empire
by Froma Harrop
Now and then, a conservative columnist wonders why Americans have grown so sour about the country's future. After all, unemployment is low and stocks are rising. Sure, there's anger over the Iraq war and immigration, but things can't be that bad with the economy humming happily in the background. The implication: There's little troubling you that a trip to Circuit City couldn't fix.
Alas, retail therapy will not cure what's depressing most people — which is the growing sense that America is rapidly losing its national greatness. Up ahead, the public sees enormous challenges and huge threats, and a national leadership that doesn't care a fig about the communal big picture. They're witnessing this end-of-empire spectacle, where the powerful grabs as much loot as they can before the bottom falls out — all the while diverting the public's attention with flag-waving and noisy expressions of religiosity.
People are feeling conned as well as poorly led, which is not a pleasant sensation. Small wonder that 70 percent tell pollsters that the country is on the wrong track.
Americans do like to make money and spend it, but they also subscribe to some high ideals. In crises, they volunteer in droves. They risk their lives for strangers. While Americans prize individualism, they clearly value being part of a unique national story.
Thus, they feel vaguely insulted when their political establishment hangs low prices and tax cuts so high on the national altar. The American experience can't be all about consuming. Am I alone in regarding Cinderella's Castle in Disney World an undignified setting to swear in new citizens?
Americans see millions of working-class people slipping into poverty, as the super-rich amass astounding fortunes. Globalization deserves much of the blame for these trends, but then why widen the wealth gap — and federal budget deficits — with huge tax cuts for the wealthiest sliver?
The national debt is rising at shocking rates. Federal debt was less than 40 percent of gross domestic product in 2000. Under current tax and spending policies, it will reach 231 percent of GDP by 2050, according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of government numbers.
Personal borrowing is also worrisome and to some extent reflects desperate efforts to keep up appearances as real earnings slip. The median amount of credit-card debt carried by Americans is now $6,600. We are falling behind on servicing our consumer loans at the highest rate since 2001, according to a new report from the American Bankers Association.
America grew strong on Yankee ingenuity and scientific progress. Yet three Republican candidates for president question the theory of evolution, a building block of modern biology. The Bush administration's hostility to embryonic stem cell research is disappointing, but its efforts to talk down its potential are a disgrace. Add to that its public doubting of the science on global warming, then half-hearted measures to address the threat. Something has changed since America put men on the moon.
The Bush administration will occupy its own place of ignominy for several things — first, for trying to wage an unnecessary war on the cheap. At the same time, it left the national cash register open and unattended for well-connected corporate interests, be they oil companies, drug makers or defense contractors.
And so Americans may be pardoned for not celebrating the economic indicators. A country that doesn't pay its bills, that squanders its blood and prestige on military mistakes, that regards its working people as just another input in the global labor market doesn't sound like a country with a promising future. Americans sense they are losing what made them great, and that's why they're in a rotten mood.
H.L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Well, if Froma Harrop is correct below, the American public may be waking up, but it's not clear whether any of the Bush criminals will go broke as a result of it.
More likely, when the sleeping slugs finally stir, it will be discovered that they are the ones who are broke.
- Uke Man
Anxiety in the Empire
by Froma Harrop
Now and then, a conservative columnist wonders why Americans have grown so sour about the country's future. After all, unemployment is low and stocks are rising. Sure, there's anger over the Iraq war and immigration, but things can't be that bad with the economy humming happily in the background. The implication: There's little troubling you that a trip to Circuit City couldn't fix.
Alas, retail therapy will not cure what's depressing most people — which is the growing sense that America is rapidly losing its national greatness. Up ahead, the public sees enormous challenges and huge threats, and a national leadership that doesn't care a fig about the communal big picture. They're witnessing this end-of-empire spectacle, where the powerful grabs as much loot as they can before the bottom falls out — all the while diverting the public's attention with flag-waving and noisy expressions of religiosity.
People are feeling conned as well as poorly led, which is not a pleasant sensation. Small wonder that 70 percent tell pollsters that the country is on the wrong track.
Americans do like to make money and spend it, but they also subscribe to some high ideals. In crises, they volunteer in droves. They risk their lives for strangers. While Americans prize individualism, they clearly value being part of a unique national story.
Thus, they feel vaguely insulted when their political establishment hangs low prices and tax cuts so high on the national altar. The American experience can't be all about consuming. Am I alone in regarding Cinderella's Castle in Disney World an undignified setting to swear in new citizens?
Americans see millions of working-class people slipping into poverty, as the super-rich amass astounding fortunes. Globalization deserves much of the blame for these trends, but then why widen the wealth gap — and federal budget deficits — with huge tax cuts for the wealthiest sliver?
The national debt is rising at shocking rates. Federal debt was less than 40 percent of gross domestic product in 2000. Under current tax and spending policies, it will reach 231 percent of GDP by 2050, according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of government numbers.
Personal borrowing is also worrisome and to some extent reflects desperate efforts to keep up appearances as real earnings slip. The median amount of credit-card debt carried by Americans is now $6,600. We are falling behind on servicing our consumer loans at the highest rate since 2001, according to a new report from the American Bankers Association.
America grew strong on Yankee ingenuity and scientific progress. Yet three Republican candidates for president question the theory of evolution, a building block of modern biology. The Bush administration's hostility to embryonic stem cell research is disappointing, but its efforts to talk down its potential are a disgrace. Add to that its public doubting of the science on global warming, then half-hearted measures to address the threat. Something has changed since America put men on the moon.
The Bush administration will occupy its own place of ignominy for several things — first, for trying to wage an unnecessary war on the cheap. At the same time, it left the national cash register open and unattended for well-connected corporate interests, be they oil companies, drug makers or defense contractors.
And so Americans may be pardoned for not celebrating the economic indicators. A country that doesn't pay its bills, that squanders its blood and prestige on military mistakes, that regards its working people as just another input in the global labor market doesn't sound like a country with a promising future. Americans sense they are losing what made them great, and that's why they're in a rotten mood.
posted by Ukulele Man at 7:14 PM
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Friday, July 20, 2007
Ice Cream and Coffee can be Dangerous !!
Hey Folks –
This morning I read about a man who had recently bought a laptop computer and had started using his lunch hour to sit in his car outside a coffee house checking his email via the webwaves emanating from the coffee establishment. After about a week of this he was accosted by policemen asking him who he was “spying” on. He was arrested and fined (as I remember) $400.00.
Later today I had a few minutes to kill before heading to my friend Pete’s for some recording; so, I stopped at the Dairy Queen for a Sunday (yum, yum: chocolate sauce, marshmallow, and crushed peanuts!!! What, when I was a kid, we called a “Jack & Jill”).
Anyway, I had been listening to the local public radio show interviewing a Brit living here and discussing the effort to contact extra-terrestrials. When the nice young Dairy Queen girl asked, “Is that for here or to go?” I thought, "I’ll take it to the car and listen to more of the space-talk." So, I said, "To go."
Well, there I was, sitting in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen eating my “Jack & Jill,” when it suddenly dawns on me that I could be arrested!! I had screwed the state out of its 15 cents of sales tax, and the gendarmes could appear at any moment!!!
I scooted down in the seat, nonchalantly started the car, and got the hell out of there!!
Thank god Columbus’s finest were too overworked harassing Mexicans (it was the West Side) to notice my skullduggery. Next time I’ll either stay inside the Queen or drive to the Steak ’n’ Shake parking lot next door to enjoy my treat.
- Uke Man
This morning I read about a man who had recently bought a laptop computer and had started using his lunch hour to sit in his car outside a coffee house checking his email via the webwaves emanating from the coffee establishment. After about a week of this he was accosted by policemen asking him who he was “spying” on. He was arrested and fined (as I remember) $400.00.
Later today I had a few minutes to kill before heading to my friend Pete’s for some recording; so, I stopped at the Dairy Queen for a Sunday (yum, yum: chocolate sauce, marshmallow, and crushed peanuts!!! What, when I was a kid, we called a “Jack & Jill”).
Anyway, I had been listening to the local public radio show interviewing a Brit living here and discussing the effort to contact extra-terrestrials. When the nice young Dairy Queen girl asked, “Is that for here or to go?” I thought, "I’ll take it to the car and listen to more of the space-talk." So, I said, "To go."
Well, there I was, sitting in the parking lot of the Dairy Queen eating my “Jack & Jill,” when it suddenly dawns on me that I could be arrested!! I had screwed the state out of its 15 cents of sales tax, and the gendarmes could appear at any moment!!!
I scooted down in the seat, nonchalantly started the car, and got the hell out of there!!
Thank god Columbus’s finest were too overworked harassing Mexicans (it was the West Side) to notice my skullduggery. Next time I’ll either stay inside the Queen or drive to the Steak ’n’ Shake parking lot next door to enjoy my treat.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 7:33 PM
1 comments
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
How Smart Are We ??
Hey Folks -
Remember that old saying "Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them"?
Well, check out this cartoon, and see how smart we've been over the years. Then ask yourself: "How smart are we now????"
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/amnesty.html
- Uke Man
Remember that old saying "Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them"?
Well, check out this cartoon, and see how smart we've been over the years. Then ask yourself: "How smart are we now????"
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/amnesty.html
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:41 PM
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A short (hopefully interesting) discussion
Hey Folks -
Below is part of a discussion taking place via an email group. I thought it might be of interest. If it continues and seems worth sharing, I'll share more in the future.
- Uke Man
Hi,
I've just started a book "Consumed" by Benjamin Barber. His thesis casts an ominous shadow on the problems you discussed.
He suggests that whereas Capitalism once produced products that people needed, for some time now it has been inventing "needs." Apparently, capital enterprises must constantly expand, but with the great disparity in wealth (the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe make up 11.5% of world population but do 60% of the consumer spending; sub-Saharan Africa has 11% of the world's population and does 1.2% of the spending), all the REAL needs of the well-off are easily addressed WITHOUT their purchasing/consuming enough to keep the expansion going. The REAL needs of the poor cannot be met because they don't have the income to pay for even the basics (nor does the system care to address problems that have no direct "return" on the "investment").
As a result, capital has to create among the well-off more and more need for unnecessary things, while ignoring the real needs of the other 80%. Clearly, that is a road to ruin, but I don't think those who benefit via that thoroughfare are listening or care.
Yours - Tom
Peter responded:
The history of human civilization starts when human imagination and excess time allowed things like art, culture, social specialization, heirarchies. Did cave men "need" cave art, jewelry, funerals? Once you have a warm fur coat, does it "need" to be stylish. If the food keeps you alive, does it "need" to be tasty?
Read up on Maslow's Heirarchy of needs.
I look at this from bottom up, not top down. Greedy corporations suceed or fail by how well they trigger the inherant desires of the consumers; once they have filled the basic desires, there is still an infinite craving in the human mind, heart and soul for more; not only material things but pleasure, novelty, status, self-actualization, love. Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this - if anything, blame the individuals for allowing their human desires to be manipulated into shallow grasping for status, coolness, driving the "right" car, wearing the "right" clothes, supporting the "right" cause, etc.
Many "poor" now have a standard of living that would be envied by kings, emperors, etc of even the recent past. There are massive cases of social injustice, persecution, and handicaps of all kinds in the world; but I believe a lot of poverty is due to social and cultural beliefs and personal behavior.
Peter
Hi all [me, again],
Peter asks,” Did cave men "need" cave art, jewelry, funerals?” The answer is, “Yes.” They needed these things to assuage their natural fears; cave art to influence the hunt; jewelry for magic (potency and fertility); funerals (even Neanderthals had them) to address the reality of death (a concept beyond the conscious awareness of the animals they hunted). And these are real needs, stimulated by the natural environment.
Peter also asks, “If the food keeps you alive, does it "need" to be tasty?” Obviously, to stay alive food need not be tasty; starving people eat their shoes and make “cakes” from mud; but because of our biology certain things do taste better than others (and this varies from person to person in real ways). So, while food to stay alive may be a greater need than French cuisine, both are actual, real needs – and I think Maslow would agree with that.
The point I was trying to make was that there IS a difference between addressing real needs and inventing “needs” so that products can be sold to meet them. For example, using Maslow’s “Security,” it is the difference between a leader taking a country to war to protect it from an actual threat (thus addressing “Security”) and inventing a threat (causing insecurity) so that some hidden agenda can be advanced under the guise of meeting the people’s need for Security.
There is a difference.
Peter suggests, “once they have filled the basic desires [corporations], there is still an infinite craving in the human mind, heart and soul for more; not only material things but pleasure, novelty, status, self-actualization, love.
I think this is, at the least, an overstatement. The Amish, for one group, obviously don’t fit this description; and - while we may be a minority – many of us “English” don’t fit it either. It seems to me that this “infinite craving” for more is a cultural invention. Everyone needs food to survive; everyone confronts the reality of death; everyone does not have an “infinite craving” for more, more, more.
Those who do, it seems to me, are acting – as Peter suggests - under the influence of “social and cultural beliefs” which have invented such a need (the Amish apparently have been influenced by a different social/cultural foundation). And this challenges the suggestion, ”Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this.”
It seems obvious to me that poor people living in this culture (no matter how well their standard of living stacks up with that of William the Conqueror or Napoleon) cannot be said to be leading the course of powerful corporations. Does anyone seriously believe that corporations provide $200.00 sneakers because poor black boys demand them (more, more) – or is it because corporations spend millions of dollars advertising the “need” for Air Jordan ’s.
It also seems obvious to me that suggesting: “Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this - if anything, blame the individuals for allowing their human desires to be manipulated into shallow grasping for status, coolness, driving the "right" car, wearing the "right" clothes, supporting the "right" cause, etc.” is clearly wrong.
It’s the old “Buyer Beware” argument (“I sold you a lemon, a car I knew had been under water? That’s your problem. You shouldn’t be so stupid). It’s the conman’s excuse (“Hey ! You believed me. That’s your problem). It’s the rapist’s alibi (“She was asking for it. She shouldn’t have worn that sweater).
The corporations essentially own the media and the government. Laws and practices exist to serve the needs of the large and powerful (and those are the large and powerful capitalistic corporations). Blaming the little folks for being manipulated by the media/political barrage that constitutes growing up poor, working class, or middle class in America , makes no sense.
In any case, if the thesis of “Consumed” turns out to be correct, things will eventually have to change sometime in the future, or capitalism will collapse. And as B.F. Skinner used to say, “That’s an experimental question.”
Yours – Tom Harker
Below is part of a discussion taking place via an email group. I thought it might be of interest. If it continues and seems worth sharing, I'll share more in the future.
- Uke Man
Hi,
I've just started a book "Consumed" by Benjamin Barber. His thesis casts an ominous shadow on the problems you discussed.
He suggests that whereas Capitalism once produced products that people needed, for some time now it has been inventing "needs." Apparently, capital enterprises must constantly expand, but with the great disparity in wealth (the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe make up 11.5% of world population but do 60% of the consumer spending; sub-Saharan Africa has 11% of the world's population and does 1.2% of the spending), all the REAL needs of the well-off are easily addressed WITHOUT their purchasing/consuming enough to keep the expansion going. The REAL needs of the poor cannot be met because they don't have the income to pay for even the basics (nor does the system care to address problems that have no direct "return" on the "investment").
As a result, capital has to create among the well-off more and more need for unnecessary things, while ignoring the real needs of the other 80%. Clearly, that is a road to ruin, but I don't think those who benefit via that thoroughfare are listening or care.
Yours - Tom
Peter responded:
The history of human civilization starts when human imagination and excess time allowed things like art, culture, social specialization, heirarchies. Did cave men "need" cave art, jewelry, funerals? Once you have a warm fur coat, does it "need" to be stylish. If the food keeps you alive, does it "need" to be tasty?
Read up on Maslow's Heirarchy of needs.
I look at this from bottom up, not top down. Greedy corporations suceed or fail by how well they trigger the inherant desires of the consumers; once they have filled the basic desires, there is still an infinite craving in the human mind, heart and soul for more; not only material things but pleasure, novelty, status, self-actualization, love. Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this - if anything, blame the individuals for allowing their human desires to be manipulated into shallow grasping for status, coolness, driving the "right" car, wearing the "right" clothes, supporting the "right" cause, etc.
Many "poor" now have a standard of living that would be envied by kings, emperors, etc of even the recent past. There are massive cases of social injustice, persecution, and handicaps of all kinds in the world; but I believe a lot of poverty is due to social and cultural beliefs and personal behavior.
Peter
Hi all [me, again],
Peter asks,” Did cave men "need" cave art, jewelry, funerals?” The answer is, “Yes.” They needed these things to assuage their natural fears; cave art to influence the hunt; jewelry for magic (potency and fertility); funerals (even Neanderthals had them) to address the reality of death (a concept beyond the conscious awareness of the animals they hunted). And these are real needs, stimulated by the natural environment.
Peter also asks, “If the food keeps you alive, does it "need" to be tasty?” Obviously, to stay alive food need not be tasty; starving people eat their shoes and make “cakes” from mud; but because of our biology certain things do taste better than others (and this varies from person to person in real ways). So, while food to stay alive may be a greater need than French cuisine, both are actual, real needs – and I think Maslow would agree with that.
The point I was trying to make was that there IS a difference between addressing real needs and inventing “needs” so that products can be sold to meet them. For example, using Maslow’s “Security,” it is the difference between a leader taking a country to war to protect it from an actual threat (thus addressing “Security”) and inventing a threat (causing insecurity) so that some hidden agenda can be advanced under the guise of meeting the people’s need for Security.
There is a difference.
Peter suggests, “once they have filled the basic desires [corporations], there is still an infinite craving in the human mind, heart and soul for more; not only material things but pleasure, novelty, status, self-actualization, love.
I think this is, at the least, an overstatement. The Amish, for one group, obviously don’t fit this description; and - while we may be a minority – many of us “English” don’t fit it either. It seems to me that this “infinite craving” for more is a cultural invention. Everyone needs food to survive; everyone confronts the reality of death; everyone does not have an “infinite craving” for more, more, more.
Those who do, it seems to me, are acting – as Peter suggests - under the influence of “social and cultural beliefs” which have invented such a need (the Amish apparently have been influenced by a different social/cultural foundation). And this challenges the suggestion, ”Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this.”
It seems obvious to me that poor people living in this culture (no matter how well their standard of living stacks up with that of William the Conqueror or Napoleon) cannot be said to be leading the course of powerful corporations. Does anyone seriously believe that corporations provide $200.00 sneakers because poor black boys demand them (more, more) – or is it because corporations spend millions of dollars advertising the “need” for Air Jordan ’s.
It also seems obvious to me that suggesting: “Don't blame capitalists for "forcing" this - if anything, blame the individuals for allowing their human desires to be manipulated into shallow grasping for status, coolness, driving the "right" car, wearing the "right" clothes, supporting the "right" cause, etc.” is clearly wrong.
It’s the old “Buyer Beware” argument (“I sold you a lemon, a car I knew had been under water? That’s your problem. You shouldn’t be so stupid). It’s the conman’s excuse (“Hey ! You believed me. That’s your problem). It’s the rapist’s alibi (“She was asking for it. She shouldn’t have worn that sweater).
The corporations essentially own the media and the government. Laws and practices exist to serve the needs of the large and powerful (and those are the large and powerful capitalistic corporations). Blaming the little folks for being manipulated by the media/political barrage that constitutes growing up poor, working class, or middle class in America , makes no sense.
In any case, if the thesis of “Consumed” turns out to be correct, things will eventually have to change sometime in the future, or capitalism will collapse. And as B.F. Skinner used to say, “That’s an experimental question.”
Yours – Tom Harker
posted by Ukulele Man at 12:26 AM
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Friday, July 13, 2007
Hi, atus!!
Hey Folks -
Sorry, but I'll be away from the computer for a few days.
Love you. Check back on Wednesday.
- Uke Man
Sorry, but I'll be away from the computer for a few days.
Love you. Check back on Wednesday.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 11:19 PM
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So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood a while in uffish thought
Georgie, our beamish boy !!! Galumphing through life.
posted by Ukulele Man at 11:18 PM
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Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe
Hey Folks -
Are we REALLY so stupid that we put up with a moron running this country?
If so, how smart are we?????
- Uke Man
July 11, 2007
History as an Alibi
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
On Friday, Condi Rice played hooky and spent the afternoon at the Tiger Woods golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in suburban Maryland.
She had lunch at the clubhouse with Tiger, who had dedicated the contest to American servicemen. She followed Phil Mickelson and Brad Faxon for a bit, after having them over to the White House on the Fourth to watch the fireworks. She gave interviews about her newfound affection for golf, laughing about her errant drives and “wicked hook.”
Like W. going out boating and fishing in Kennebunkport as Britain and its new prime minister, Gordon Brown, reeled from terrorist attacks, Condi acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world. And why on earth should she?
The homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, has a gut feeling that a Qaeda cell might be coming or already be here. “Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” he said, sounding more like a meteorologist than the man charged with keeping us safe.
With 30 mortars hitting the Green Zone yesterday and Army recruiting wilting, some Bush advisers are at long last coming around to the Baker-Hamilton report recommendation that they should engage in intense diplomacy with the countries around Iraq.
Someone might tell Condi — who said in one of her golf interviews that her zest for sports is so all-encompassing that “I love anything with a score at the end” — that she’d better get to work or America’s score in Iraq will be zero.
The Iraq war she helped sell has turned into Grendel, devouring everything in sight and making it uninhabitable. It has ravaged Iraq, Bush’s presidency, the federal budget, the Republican majority, American invincibility and integrity, and now, John McCain’s chance to be president.
And there’s no Beowulf in sight. Just a bunch of spectacularly wrong hawks stubbornly continuing to be spectacularly wrong at what an alarmed Republican Senator John Warner calls “a time in our history unlike any I have ever witnessed before.”
Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.
With Republicans in revolt over the surge and losing patience, and Bushies worried, as one put it to The Washington Post, that “July has become the new September,” the president decided to do a p.r. surge to sound as if he’s acquainted with reality.
But in a speech in Cleveland yesterday, the president was still repeating his deranged generalities. Making a tiny concession, he said we would be able to pull back troops “in a while,” whatever that means, but asked Congress to wait for Gen. David Petraeus to debrief on the surge in September — rather than focus on the report due this week that says the ineffectual Iraq government has failed to meet benchmarks set by America.
It was ironic that his strongest supporter to the bitter end was the Republican who was once his bitter rival. There was speculation that Mr. McCain would come back from his visit to Iraq and revise his bullish support of the war to save his imploding campaign. But the opposite happened.
As his top advisers were purged, Mr. McCain went to the floor of the Senate to reassert his warped view that “there appears to be overall movement in the right direction.”
Like W., Senator McCain values the advice of Henry Kissinger and said, “We can find wisdom in several suggestions put forward recently by Henry Kissinger.”
Why they continue to seek counsel from the man who kept the Vietnam War going for years just to protect Richard Nixon’s electoral chances is beyond mystifying. But Mr. Kissinger holds their attention with all his warnings of “American impotence” emboldening radical Islam and Iran. Can’t W. and Mr. McCain see that American muscularity, stupidly thrown around, has already emboldened radical Islam and Iran?
The president mentioned in his speech yesterday that he was reading history, and he has been summoning historians and theologians to the White House for discussions on the fate of Iraq and the nature of good and evil.
W. thinks history will be his alibi. When presidents have screwed up and want to console themselves, they think history will give them a second chance. It’s the historical equivalent of a presidential pardon.
But there are other things — morality, strategy and security — that are more pressing than history. History is just the fanciest way possible of wanting to deny or distract attention from what’s happening now.
Are we REALLY so stupid that we put up with a moron running this country?
If so, how smart are we?????
- Uke Man
July 11, 2007
History as an Alibi
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
On Friday, Condi Rice played hooky and spent the afternoon at the Tiger Woods golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in suburban Maryland.
She had lunch at the clubhouse with Tiger, who had dedicated the contest to American servicemen. She followed Phil Mickelson and Brad Faxon for a bit, after having them over to the White House on the Fourth to watch the fireworks. She gave interviews about her newfound affection for golf, laughing about her errant drives and “wicked hook.”
Like W. going out boating and fishing in Kennebunkport as Britain and its new prime minister, Gordon Brown, reeled from terrorist attacks, Condi acted as if she didn’t have a care in the world. And why on earth should she?
The homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, has a gut feeling that a Qaeda cell might be coming or already be here. “Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” he said, sounding more like a meteorologist than the man charged with keeping us safe.
With 30 mortars hitting the Green Zone yesterday and Army recruiting wilting, some Bush advisers are at long last coming around to the Baker-Hamilton report recommendation that they should engage in intense diplomacy with the countries around Iraq.
Someone might tell Condi — who said in one of her golf interviews that her zest for sports is so all-encompassing that “I love anything with a score at the end” — that she’d better get to work or America’s score in Iraq will be zero.
The Iraq war she helped sell has turned into Grendel, devouring everything in sight and making it uninhabitable. It has ravaged Iraq, Bush’s presidency, the federal budget, the Republican majority, American invincibility and integrity, and now, John McCain’s chance to be president.
And there’s no Beowulf in sight. Just a bunch of spectacularly wrong hawks stubbornly continuing to be spectacularly wrong at what an alarmed Republican Senator John Warner calls “a time in our history unlike any I have ever witnessed before.”
Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.
With Republicans in revolt over the surge and losing patience, and Bushies worried, as one put it to The Washington Post, that “July has become the new September,” the president decided to do a p.r. surge to sound as if he’s acquainted with reality.
But in a speech in Cleveland yesterday, the president was still repeating his deranged generalities. Making a tiny concession, he said we would be able to pull back troops “in a while,” whatever that means, but asked Congress to wait for Gen. David Petraeus to debrief on the surge in September — rather than focus on the report due this week that says the ineffectual Iraq government has failed to meet benchmarks set by America.
It was ironic that his strongest supporter to the bitter end was the Republican who was once his bitter rival. There was speculation that Mr. McCain would come back from his visit to Iraq and revise his bullish support of the war to save his imploding campaign. But the opposite happened.
As his top advisers were purged, Mr. McCain went to the floor of the Senate to reassert his warped view that “there appears to be overall movement in the right direction.”
Like W., Senator McCain values the advice of Henry Kissinger and said, “We can find wisdom in several suggestions put forward recently by Henry Kissinger.”
Why they continue to seek counsel from the man who kept the Vietnam War going for years just to protect Richard Nixon’s electoral chances is beyond mystifying. But Mr. Kissinger holds their attention with all his warnings of “American impotence” emboldening radical Islam and Iran. Can’t W. and Mr. McCain see that American muscularity, stupidly thrown around, has already emboldened radical Islam and Iran?
The president mentioned in his speech yesterday that he was reading history, and he has been summoning historians and theologians to the White House for discussions on the fate of Iraq and the nature of good and evil.
W. thinks history will be his alibi. When presidents have screwed up and want to console themselves, they think history will give them a second chance. It’s the historical equivalent of a presidential pardon.
But there are other things — morality, strategy and security — that are more pressing than history. History is just the fanciest way possible of wanting to deny or distract attention from what’s happening now.
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:23 AM
0 comments
links to this post
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Racism lives. Forever????
Hey Folks -
Bob Herbert is one of the few national columnist who says it like it is regarding race in this "Christian" country. As he says, "some of the biggest issues confronting blacks — the spread of AIDS, chronic joblessness and racial discrimination, for example— are not considered mainstream issues" by those who control our attention.
We need another Malcolm X to get consumers' and grubby capitalists' attention off their personal possessions and wealth and back onto their fellow man. They won't do it for God or country; but they might try to avoid "whatever means necessary" being applied to the side of their heads.
- Uke Man
June 30, 2007
When Is Enough Enough?
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Chances are you didn’t hear it, but on Thursday night Senator HillaryClinton said, “If H.I.V./AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.”
Her comment came on the same day that a malevolent majority on the U.S.Supreme Court threw a brick through the window of voluntary school integration efforts.
There comes a time when people are supposed to get angry. The rights and interests of black people in the U.S. have been under assault for the longest time, and in the absence of an effective counter force, that assault has only grown more brutal.
Have you looked at the public schools lately? Have you looked at the prisons? Have you looked at the legions of unemployed blacks roaming the neighborhoods of big cities across the country? These jobless African-Americans, so many of them men, are so marginal in the view of the wider society, so insignificant, so invisible, they aren’t even counted in the government’s official jobless statistics.And now this new majority on the Supreme Court seems committed to a legal trajectory that would hurl blacks back to the bad old days of the Jim Crow era.
Where’s the outcry? Where’s the line in the sand that the prejudiced portion of the population is not allowed to cross? Mrs. Clinton’s comment was made at a forum of Democratic presidential candidates at Howard University that was put together by Tavis Smiley, the radio and television personality, and broadcast nationally by PBS. The idea was to focus on issues of particular concern to African-Americans.
It’s discouraging that some of the biggest issues confronting blacks — the spread of AIDS, chronic joblessness and racial discrimination, for example— are not considered mainstream issues.
Senator John Edwards offered a disturbingly bleak but accurate picture of the lives of many young blacks: “When you have young African-American men who are completely convinced that they’re either going to die or go to prison and see absolutely no hope in their lives; when they live in an environment where the people around them don’t earn a decent wage; when they go to schools that are second-class schools compared to the wealthy suburban areas — they don’t see anything getting better.”
The difficult lives and often tragic fates of such young men are not much on the minds of so-called mainstream Americans, or the political and corporate elites who run the country. More noise needs to be made. There’ssomething very wrong with a passive acceptance of the degraded state in which so many African-Americans continue to live. Mr. Smiley is also organizing a forum of Republican candidates to be held in September. I wholeheartedly applaud his efforts. But if black people were more angry, and if they could channel that anger into political activism — first and foremost by voting as though their lives and the lives of their children depended on it — there would not be a need to have separate political forums to address their concerns.
If black people could find a way to come together in sky-high turnouts on Election Day, if they showed up at polling booths in numbers close to the maximum possible turnout, if they could set the example for all otherAmericans about the importance of exercising the franchise, the politicians would not dare to ignore their concerns.For black people, especially, the current composition of the Supreme Court should be the ultimate lesson in the importance of voting in a presidential election. No branch of the government has been more crucial than the judiciary in securing the rights and improving the lives of blacks over the past five or six decades.
George W. Bush, in a little more than six years, has tilted the court so radically that it is now, like the administration itself, relentlessly hostile to the interests of black people. That never would have happened if blacks had managed significantly more muscular turnouts in the 2000 and 2004 elections. (The war in Iraq would not have happened, either.)
There are, of course, many people, black and white, who are working on a vast array of important issues. But much, much more needs to be done. And blacks, in particular, need to intervene more directly in the public policy matters that concern them.In the 1960s, there were radicals running around screaming about blackpower. But the real power in this country has always been the power of the vote. Black Americans have not come close to maximizing that power. It’s not too late.
Bob Herbert is one of the few national columnist who says it like it is regarding race in this "Christian" country. As he says, "some of the biggest issues confronting blacks — the spread of AIDS, chronic joblessness and racial discrimination, for example— are not considered mainstream issues" by those who control our attention.
We need another Malcolm X to get consumers' and grubby capitalists' attention off their personal possessions and wealth and back onto their fellow man. They won't do it for God or country; but they might try to avoid "whatever means necessary" being applied to the side of their heads.
- Uke Man
June 30, 2007
When Is Enough Enough?
By BOB HERBERT
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Chances are you didn’t hear it, but on Thursday night Senator HillaryClinton said, “If H.I.V./AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.”
Her comment came on the same day that a malevolent majority on the U.S.Supreme Court threw a brick through the window of voluntary school integration efforts.
There comes a time when people are supposed to get angry. The rights and interests of black people in the U.S. have been under assault for the longest time, and in the absence of an effective counter force, that assault has only grown more brutal.
Have you looked at the public schools lately? Have you looked at the prisons? Have you looked at the legions of unemployed blacks roaming the neighborhoods of big cities across the country? These jobless African-Americans, so many of them men, are so marginal in the view of the wider society, so insignificant, so invisible, they aren’t even counted in the government’s official jobless statistics.And now this new majority on the Supreme Court seems committed to a legal trajectory that would hurl blacks back to the bad old days of the Jim Crow era.
Where’s the outcry? Where’s the line in the sand that the prejudiced portion of the population is not allowed to cross? Mrs. Clinton’s comment was made at a forum of Democratic presidential candidates at Howard University that was put together by Tavis Smiley, the radio and television personality, and broadcast nationally by PBS. The idea was to focus on issues of particular concern to African-Americans.
It’s discouraging that some of the biggest issues confronting blacks — the spread of AIDS, chronic joblessness and racial discrimination, for example— are not considered mainstream issues.
Senator John Edwards offered a disturbingly bleak but accurate picture of the lives of many young blacks: “When you have young African-American men who are completely convinced that they’re either going to die or go to prison and see absolutely no hope in their lives; when they live in an environment where the people around them don’t earn a decent wage; when they go to schools that are second-class schools compared to the wealthy suburban areas — they don’t see anything getting better.”
The difficult lives and often tragic fates of such young men are not much on the minds of so-called mainstream Americans, or the political and corporate elites who run the country. More noise needs to be made. There’ssomething very wrong with a passive acceptance of the degraded state in which so many African-Americans continue to live. Mr. Smiley is also organizing a forum of Republican candidates to be held in September. I wholeheartedly applaud his efforts. But if black people were more angry, and if they could channel that anger into political activism — first and foremost by voting as though their lives and the lives of their children depended on it — there would not be a need to have separate political forums to address their concerns.
If black people could find a way to come together in sky-high turnouts on Election Day, if they showed up at polling booths in numbers close to the maximum possible turnout, if they could set the example for all otherAmericans about the importance of exercising the franchise, the politicians would not dare to ignore their concerns.For black people, especially, the current composition of the Supreme Court should be the ultimate lesson in the importance of voting in a presidential election. No branch of the government has been more crucial than the judiciary in securing the rights and improving the lives of blacks over the past five or six decades.
George W. Bush, in a little more than six years, has tilted the court so radically that it is now, like the administration itself, relentlessly hostile to the interests of black people. That never would have happened if blacks had managed significantly more muscular turnouts in the 2000 and 2004 elections. (The war in Iraq would not have happened, either.)
There are, of course, many people, black and white, who are working on a vast array of important issues. But much, much more needs to be done. And blacks, in particular, need to intervene more directly in the public policy matters that concern them.In the 1960s, there were radicals running around screaming about blackpower. But the real power in this country has always been the power of the vote. Black Americans have not come close to maximizing that power. It’s not too late.
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:19 PM
0 comments
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
"Fuck with th' Pope?? Forget about it !!"
"Next I'll get the trains running on time."
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:45 PM
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Pope "Eggs" Benedict is at it again !!
AP news report on this issue available at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/pope_other_christians;_ylt=AgURoqTZ0qkYJzn1QlF0_VvkeO0A
Hey Folks –
Well, the Pope is at it again trying to break his arm patting himself on the back, trying to make his funny hats fit tighter by swelling his head. “I am the greatest!! You're all dumb!! I’ve got the inside track to the infinite!!” What a dork.
I was raised Catholic and attended parochial schools through 8th grade; so I’ve heard this stuff before. It didn’t make sense then (when I was just a kid), and it doesn’t make sense now either.
Yep, there’s just ONE TRUE CHURCH, the Pope’s church, and everyone else is fucked – all other so-called Christians, as well as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, atheists, etc. are fucked.
Who says so?? Well, the Pope says so, and a major reason he’s down on Protestants is that they don’t want to curtsey and kiss his ring. Unlike Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, atheists, and that ilk; protestants could wiggle into eternal bliss if they would just wise up and listen to the Man from the Vatican.
Since this isn’t happening in large numbers, Benedict probably figured it was time to turn up the heat (so to speak) threatening hell for anyone who won’t shape up and get in line.
He also gave the usual lame “reasons” – the same ones the nuns gave us 1st graders: the Catholic church supposedly has “apostolic succession” — the ability to trace its bishops back to Christ's original apostles, and other churches supposedly do not — and, therefore, only Catholic ordination of priests is valid, and only Catholic (and Orthodox) churches are really churches.
It’s sort of like the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR): if you can’t trace your ancestors back to the Mayflower, you just don’t measure up. Who says? The DAR says !!
Yeah, but (you say), the DAR isn’t infallible. Well, that’s what YOU say. Some of those stiff-necked biddies presiding as the Daughters’ hierarchy might disagree. In any case, the Pope is only as infallible as claiming infallibility can make him. That is, the Pope is infallible because he SAYS he is. I get emails all the time from nice folks who SAY they want to share millions of dollars with me – me, a total stranger to them. Should I not believe them, but believe his Holiness?
Besides, Benedict doesn’t have “apostolic succession” on this one. Popes weren’t infallible until the First Vatican Council of 1870 when fallible men who could not trace their line back to the apostles decided to declare the Pope infallible. Pretty lame – but still a good gig if your audience buys the press releases and doesn’t know any better.
This is just a marketing ploy to freeze in place those considering abandoning ship, to reassert unquestioned Papal & Church authority to do as they wish, and to pet the hardliners. Reinstating the Latin mass supports this view.
The mass was in Latin when I was a boy, and most – if not all (including the many Italians I attended mass with) couldn’t tell you what the hell the priest was saying – although many could mouth the inscrutable words right along with the priest. It was like a Rorschach test, beautiful but undefined; it could “mean” whatever anyone wanted it to mean. When meaning was attached via the vernacular, a backlash was to be expected – especially from those least enlightened or conscious of what they had been doing all those years ("Uncle Pauley" from The Sopranos comes to mind).
I remember attending a vernacular Catholic wedding years after I had “fallen away.” At one point all the young friends of the bride and groom started twittering in their high, sweet voices, “Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love. Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love. Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love.” Over and over and over during the wedding ceremony! It was creepy.
Nevertheless, kissing up to the potential Mel Gibson heretics with the “real” language of the mass (Jesus spoke Latin, didn’t he?) is a good holding action. Having an unintelligible liturgy enhances the “magical” quality of otherwise mundane or ironic utterances (e.g. Priest:“ Go, the mass is over.” Congregation: “Thanks be to God!”).
Most importantly for an institution the continued existence of which depends on blind acceptance of authority, pushing one’s weight around via arbitrary and unexpected fiats that ignore precedent, that degrade other groups (all non Catholics), and that are seen by some as seriously threatening (Jews) is a good move. It isn’t very Christ-like, but it makes a lot of sense on a worldly, political level.
- Uke Man
Hey Folks –
Well, the Pope is at it again trying to break his arm patting himself on the back, trying to make his funny hats fit tighter by swelling his head. “I am the greatest!! You're all dumb!! I’ve got the inside track to the infinite!!” What a dork.
I was raised Catholic and attended parochial schools through 8th grade; so I’ve heard this stuff before. It didn’t make sense then (when I was just a kid), and it doesn’t make sense now either.
Yep, there’s just ONE TRUE CHURCH, the Pope’s church, and everyone else is fucked – all other so-called Christians, as well as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, atheists, etc. are fucked.
Who says so?? Well, the Pope says so, and a major reason he’s down on Protestants is that they don’t want to curtsey and kiss his ring. Unlike Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, atheists, and that ilk; protestants could wiggle into eternal bliss if they would just wise up and listen to the Man from the Vatican.
Since this isn’t happening in large numbers, Benedict probably figured it was time to turn up the heat (so to speak) threatening hell for anyone who won’t shape up and get in line.
He also gave the usual lame “reasons” – the same ones the nuns gave us 1st graders: the Catholic church supposedly has “apostolic succession” — the ability to trace its bishops back to Christ's original apostles, and other churches supposedly do not — and, therefore, only Catholic ordination of priests is valid, and only Catholic (and Orthodox) churches are really churches.
It’s sort of like the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR): if you can’t trace your ancestors back to the Mayflower, you just don’t measure up. Who says? The DAR says !!
Yeah, but (you say), the DAR isn’t infallible. Well, that’s what YOU say. Some of those stiff-necked biddies presiding as the Daughters’ hierarchy might disagree. In any case, the Pope is only as infallible as claiming infallibility can make him. That is, the Pope is infallible because he SAYS he is. I get emails all the time from nice folks who SAY they want to share millions of dollars with me – me, a total stranger to them. Should I not believe them, but believe his Holiness?
Besides, Benedict doesn’t have “apostolic succession” on this one. Popes weren’t infallible until the First Vatican Council of 1870 when fallible men who could not trace their line back to the apostles decided to declare the Pope infallible. Pretty lame – but still a good gig if your audience buys the press releases and doesn’t know any better.
This is just a marketing ploy to freeze in place those considering abandoning ship, to reassert unquestioned Papal & Church authority to do as they wish, and to pet the hardliners. Reinstating the Latin mass supports this view.
The mass was in Latin when I was a boy, and most – if not all (including the many Italians I attended mass with) couldn’t tell you what the hell the priest was saying – although many could mouth the inscrutable words right along with the priest. It was like a Rorschach test, beautiful but undefined; it could “mean” whatever anyone wanted it to mean. When meaning was attached via the vernacular, a backlash was to be expected – especially from those least enlightened or conscious of what they had been doing all those years ("Uncle Pauley" from The Sopranos comes to mind).
I remember attending a vernacular Catholic wedding years after I had “fallen away.” At one point all the young friends of the bride and groom started twittering in their high, sweet voices, “Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love. Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love. Eat his body, drink his blood, and we’ll sing a song of love.” Over and over and over during the wedding ceremony! It was creepy.
Nevertheless, kissing up to the potential Mel Gibson heretics with the “real” language of the mass (Jesus spoke Latin, didn’t he?) is a good holding action. Having an unintelligible liturgy enhances the “magical” quality of otherwise mundane or ironic utterances (e.g. Priest:“ Go, the mass is over.” Congregation: “Thanks be to God!”).
Most importantly for an institution the continued existence of which depends on blind acceptance of authority, pushing one’s weight around via arbitrary and unexpected fiats that ignore precedent, that degrade other groups (all non Catholics), and that are seen by some as seriously threatening (Jews) is a good move. It isn’t very Christ-like, but it makes a lot of sense on a worldly, political level.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:13 PM
2 comments
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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
See "You Don't Know Dick" as seen on The Daily Show
Hey Folks -
John tells it like it is!!
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1116311038&fr=yfp-t-501
- Uke Man
p.s. The Vice President IS a Dick !!
John tells it like it is!!
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1116311038&fr=yfp-t-501
- Uke Man
p.s. The Vice President IS a Dick !!
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:35 PM
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Monday, July 09, 2007
"They'll trust you. They don't know Dick !!"
posted by Ukulele Man at 6:49 PM
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Words of Wisdom - v - Deaf Ears
Hey Folks -
Do you think anyone could read all the quotations below and still support George Bush, be a conservative or Libertarian, think we actually have a democracy (in its dictionary meaning) or a "free" media or an "informed electorate" or free speech? Could anyone doubt the danger of militarism or the military-industrial complex or American foreign policy? Could anyone believe that our government tells us the truth?
If anyone does, they have a difficult position - at least if they want to defend it rationally.
- Uke Man
"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
-----------David Barsamian, journalist and publisher"Patriotism, like religion, meets people's need for something greater to which their individual lives can be anchored ... America's state religion,[is] patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that"treason" is morally worse than murder or rape "
-----------William Blum, author of Killing Hope
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."
-----------Michael Parenti, political scientist and author
" The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises inmoral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
-----------John Kenneth Galbraith , economist and author
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. "
-----------Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. "
-----------Noam Chomsky, American linguist, author, US media and foreign policy critic
"The great masses of people. . .will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
-----------Adolph Hitler
"Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. "
-----------George Orwell, author "1984"
"If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not beconcerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue? "
-----------Martin Luther King, Jr.
"To provide its happy people with perpetual fun is now the deepest purpose of Western civilization."
-----------Jeremy Seabrook, Third World Network
" ... the airwaves belong to the people. "
-----------from the 1934 Communications Act
" The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic."
----------John Dewey , Americanphilosopher and educator, 1859-1952
"Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane."
----------Howard Zinn, historian and author
"Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest. "
----------Martin Luther King, Jr.
" When I visited Auschwitz I was horrified. And when I visited Iraq, I thought to myself, 'What will we tell our children in fifty years when they ask what we did when the people in Iraq were dying.'"
----------Mairead McGuire , 1976Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Northern Ireland
"One of the great attractions of patriotism -- it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous."
----------Aldous Huxley , English author, 1894-1963
"Does it sound outrageous to you that military spending for fiscal year 2000 will be almost $290 billion and all other domestic discretionary spending, such as education, job training, housing, Amtrak, medical research, environment, Head Start and many other worthwhile programs will total $246 billion, thebiggest disparity in modern times ? "
----------Dale Bumpers , former US Senator and present Director of the Center for Defense Information
" It is no longer a question of controlling a military-industrial complex, but rather, of keeping the United States from becoming a totally military culture. "
----------Jerome Wiesner, president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
" In the councils of government, we must guard against unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
----------President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address, 1961
" Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own."
----------William Greider ,journalist and author
"The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them."
----------Harold Pinter, English dramatist, Nobel Prize winner
"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody,dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own....And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the"haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
----------General David Sharp, former US Marine Commandant,1966
" In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli."
----------Howard Zinn , historian and author
" Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn. "
----------John Stockwell , former CIA official and author
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ..."
----------General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
" Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. "
----------Martin Luther King, Jr.
"My country is the world and my religion is to do good."
----------Thomas Paine
"I never would believe that Providence has sent a few rich men into theworld, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden."
----------Richard Rumbold: Statement on scaffold before being hanged for rebellion, 1685
"We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount . . . . The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living."
----------General Omar N. Bradley, Chief of Staff, United States Army, Boston,November 10th, 1948
"Every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and takesome action to help stop this war. Raise some hell."
----------Molly Ivins
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:38 PM
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Sunday, July 08, 2007
I do believe in spooks, I do believe, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks !!
posted by Ukulele Man at 8:21 PM
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Sorry Folks
Hey !!
I just followed my link in the posting below, and the video has been REMOVED by U-Tube !!!!
Bummer, bummer, bummer !!
So, I guess I have to tell you what it was about:
These two New Zealand guys reviewed "The Secret," the new gimmick to make money off the gullible. They showed bits of the actual "Secret" DVD, which told the three steps to get whatever you wanted EVERY TIME: (1) ask (demand from the universe), (2) believe, and (3) receive.
What crap, but a lot of poor souls believe it, put their "faith" in it, spend their money to make the con-men and women wealthy, and when it doesn't work they get to blame themselves for not demanding and believing enough. What crap.
Anyway, these two guys try it out. They stare in a window at jewelry - just like in the "Secret" DVD. It doesn't work.
They ask to get a date with some hot New Zealand model; they concentrate, cut out pictures, draw pictures of her, and "believe"; and, by golly, at some awards ceremony they managed to get their picture taken with the hottie (they were aparently both at the ceremony, and it probably was taken before they ever started this bit).
This was based on the part of the "Secret" DVD where a little boy asks the universe for a bike, then cuts out pictures of the bike, draws pictures of the bike ("believing"), and then - as the guys in the video say - receives the bike from the old pedophile.
Next, our heroes go to a clothing store, walk in with their index fingers on their temples (concentrating & believing), take clothes off the rack, say "thanks" and walk out. The owner stops them. The boys explain, but she doesn't "get" it.
This is repeated in a department store and a carry-out. For some reason, it doesn't seem to work.
So, as demonstrated in the DVD, they decide to use the "Secret" to get a parking place. They concentrate, but crash into another car already in the space they demanded.
Another part of the "Secret" DVD shows a man who took his bank statement and whited out the actual numbers for his account balance and, with a felt-tip, added six or seven zeroes after the original amount (he said that in only a week thing really started to change!!).
The boys try to hire this guy offering him a ten dollar bill with ",000" added, with a felt tip, after the "10." They haven't heard from him yet. Maybe they didn't ask & believe hard enough.
Well, I'm really sorry that the video I linked to in the post directly below was "removed" by some wanker. Maybe if we all wish real hard, Pee Wee will come back, and the missing video will be delivered to each of our PC's by the universe.
I do believe, I do believe, I do believe in spooks !!!
- Uke Man
I just followed my link in the posting below, and the video has been REMOVED by U-Tube !!!!
Bummer, bummer, bummer !!
So, I guess I have to tell you what it was about:
These two New Zealand guys reviewed "The Secret," the new gimmick to make money off the gullible. They showed bits of the actual "Secret" DVD, which told the three steps to get whatever you wanted EVERY TIME: (1) ask (demand from the universe), (2) believe, and (3) receive.
What crap, but a lot of poor souls believe it, put their "faith" in it, spend their money to make the con-men and women wealthy, and when it doesn't work they get to blame themselves for not demanding and believing enough. What crap.
Anyway, these two guys try it out. They stare in a window at jewelry - just like in the "Secret" DVD. It doesn't work.
They ask to get a date with some hot New Zealand model; they concentrate, cut out pictures, draw pictures of her, and "believe"; and, by golly, at some awards ceremony they managed to get their picture taken with the hottie (they were aparently both at the ceremony, and it probably was taken before they ever started this bit).
This was based on the part of the "Secret" DVD where a little boy asks the universe for a bike, then cuts out pictures of the bike, draws pictures of the bike ("believing"), and then - as the guys in the video say - receives the bike from the old pedophile.
Next, our heroes go to a clothing store, walk in with their index fingers on their temples (concentrating & believing), take clothes off the rack, say "thanks" and walk out. The owner stops them. The boys explain, but she doesn't "get" it.
This is repeated in a department store and a carry-out. For some reason, it doesn't seem to work.
So, as demonstrated in the DVD, they decide to use the "Secret" to get a parking place. They concentrate, but crash into another car already in the space they demanded.
Another part of the "Secret" DVD shows a man who took his bank statement and whited out the actual numbers for his account balance and, with a felt-tip, added six or seven zeroes after the original amount (he said that in only a week thing really started to change!!).
The boys try to hire this guy offering him a ten dollar bill with ",000" added, with a felt tip, after the "10." They haven't heard from him yet. Maybe they didn't ask & believe hard enough.
Well, I'm really sorry that the video I linked to in the post directly below was "removed" by some wanker. Maybe if we all wish real hard, Pee Wee will come back, and the missing video will be delivered to each of our PC's by the universe.
I do believe, I do believe, I do believe in spooks !!!
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 8:15 PM
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Magic is real !! Ask! Believe !! Receive !!
Yeah, right . . . uh huh . . .
posted by Ukulele Man at 6:33 PM
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Blind faith? No secret !!! And it's TRUE!!!
Hey Folks,
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a "Law of Attraction" and all we had to do was "think of the things we want ... focus with all of our attention," and then "the Law of Attraction would give us what we want - every time"??
Wow!!!
I say, "Let's believe that !!!" I mean, it's really true; I have faith in it; it must be true. Sure, there are some liberal college professors who criticize "The Secret," but they don't support our troops, and many of them are atheists. Millions of us know that we can (1) "ask - make a command to the universe," (2) "believe," and then (3) "receive"!!! (see video below)
What atheist college professor can do that??
- Uke Man
Short "Secret" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q__fc7NKwlY
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a "Law of Attraction" and all we had to do was "think of the things we want ... focus with all of our attention," and then "the Law of Attraction would give us what we want - every time"??
Wow!!!
I say, "Let's believe that !!!" I mean, it's really true; I have faith in it; it must be true. Sure, there are some liberal college professors who criticize "The Secret," but they don't support our troops, and many of them are atheists. Millions of us know that we can (1) "ask - make a command to the universe," (2) "believe," and then (3) "receive"!!! (see video below)
What atheist college professor can do that??
- Uke Man
Short "Secret" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q__fc7NKwlY
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:46 PM
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Saturday, July 07, 2007
"What goes up MUST come down!!" ... "Vell, not exactly."
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:44 PM
0 comments
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Response to Tim's Comments
Hey Folks -
A while back, I received two comments from Tim. They are posted below, followed by my response.
- Uke Man
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/06/twisted-media.html ) :
There were a lot of poor people in Cuba under Batista. But there were a lot more under Castro. Likewise, the standard of living for rural Chinese fell even further under Mao, many even starving to death. And again, Russia's poor got even poorer after the Communist revolution.
Similar arguments were made to justify each of these situations.
So many people don't believe that Chavez, who embraces the same policies, will help the poor either: we believe he will make their lot even worse, just as the people he follows did.
So it doesn't look to us like Chavez is trading liberty for decreased poverty, but rather than he's bringing the Venezuelan people the worst of both worlds.
1:20 PM
*****************
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/07/democracy-whats-that.html ) :
"... if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion [that American democracy is distasteful to others] could not exist."
Of course it could. During the cold war, huge numbers of Western Intellectuals thought Stalin's USSR was far more moral than the US. We had racism, they only had mass starvation... and racism.
In the 1970s, students all over the US (and the world) embraced Mao. Yet, for all our faults, Mao was far, far worse: he'd starved millions of his own people to death, and supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru.
World opinion often supports the worst of two options; it holds a few nations to what are sometimes impossibly high standards, and yet gives a pass (or even laudatory praise) to genuinely awful actors.
While criticisms of all the folks you negatively characterize can be made, criticism of the American system (throughout history) can also be made. These criticisms (both left & right) must be as objective as possible if they are to be anything more than partisan faith-based propaganda (sometimes described as "a pissing contest")..
You make a lot of claims about people starving under leftist Bogeymen. Part of what precipitated the Russian Revolution, however, was bread riots under the Tsar. Droughts caused starving in large parts of China in Mao’s day. People are starving all around the world right now, and most of them are in capitalist countries. So, Mao is accused of killing people who starved because of a drought. Insurance companies call droughts “acts of God.”
On what do you base your belief that peasants’ standard of living dropped under Mao? I doubt that; likewise I doubt your claim about Russia’s poor. Russia was the last European nation to end serfdom.
As for Cuba, go back and view the Godfather movie when the Mafia boys are in Batista’s Havana watching a woman have sex with a donkey. Look into the nature of health care and education for the poor BEFORE the revolution. Check out that evil Michael Moore’s latest flick regarding health care in Cuba today.
I don’t think your numbers are right regarding Cuba’s pre and post revolution poverty, either. In any case, the pre-Castro numbers in poverty existed with the blessing of our “Christian” nation, and after Castro they were helped into poverty by our “Christian” country’s economic embargo. And, by the way, how many homeless people are there in Cuba today?
You suggest that “intellectuals” were wrong in their view of Stalin and that “we” were much better – we had racism, but he had racism AND starvation. I bet that was great solace to African Americans.
Your comments that Mao was “far, far worse” than America and its faults and that Mao “supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru” expose your one-sided view. The list of thugs “we” have supported goes on and on and on. The “thug-ery” our “Christian” nation has perpetrated all over the world - here upon the Native Americans and people of color and as far away as the Philippines and Viet Nam – can’t just be swept under the rug.
This sort of thing is why I write so much about how the press blindly repeats and endorses the self-serving propaganda of imperial American interests. We are not “a shining city on the hill.” We have not been “sent on a mission by God.” We are NOT “very, very” different from the rest of the world.
It doesn’t help America or the world to think we are. Idolizing ourselves and demonizing everyone else is not just wrong; it’s not just delusional; it’s not only harmful to the rest of the world; it’s destructive of America and the ideals we all were taught and, supposedly, are expected to believe and live by.
Lying to ourselves about how good we are compared to everyone else is prideful blindness, something a Christian country would have no problem recognizing and no reluctance resisting.
The point (and the reason I write) is to find the truth – whatever it may be – NOT to pick a “truth” and then defend it by whatever means necessary. Doubt is real, honorable, and defensible; certainty is artificial, cowardly, and demented.
Certainty is much more comforting than doubt, hence religion; but the certainty provided by religion is based only on faith, and how can one know which "certainty" among the many offered is worthy of faith? Hence the phrase "leap of faith."
If ten different religions claim to be the only true religion, at least nine of them have to be wrong; but somebody signs on with each of them. At that point, they can quit thinking and start defending their particular "certainty" and demonizing all its competitors. This isn't designed or likely to reveal much truth, but it can often give peace of mind.
Most people seem to take this path, but it IS, nevertheless, artificial (the result of a blind leap), cowardly ( "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."--Benjamin Franklin), and demented (i.e. away from the mind - using one's feelings rather than one's mind).
- Uke Man
A while back, I received two comments from Tim. They are posted below, followed by my response.
- Uke Man
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/06/twisted-media.html ) :
There were a lot of poor people in Cuba under Batista. But there were a lot more under Castro. Likewise, the standard of living for rural Chinese fell even further under Mao, many even starving to death. And again, Russia's poor got even poorer after the Communist revolution.
Similar arguments were made to justify each of these situations.
So many people don't believe that Chavez, who embraces the same policies, will help the poor either: we believe he will make their lot even worse, just as the people he follows did.
So it doesn't look to us like Chavez is trading liberty for decreased poverty, but rather than he's bringing the Venezuelan people the worst of both worlds.
1:20 PM
*****************
Tim said (in response to: http://www.ukuleleman.net/2007/07/democracy-whats-that.html ) :
"... if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion [that American democracy is distasteful to others] could not exist."
Of course it could. During the cold war, huge numbers of Western Intellectuals thought Stalin's USSR was far more moral than the US. We had racism, they only had mass starvation... and racism.
In the 1970s, students all over the US (and the world) embraced Mao. Yet, for all our faults, Mao was far, far worse: he'd starved millions of his own people to death, and supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru.
World opinion often supports the worst of two options; it holds a few nations to what are sometimes impossibly high standards, and yet gives a pass (or even laudatory praise) to genuinely awful actors.
********************
Tim,
You are welcome to your views; they are probably very reassuring. Unfortunately - in varying degrees - they are inaccurate, over-simplified, exclusive of important facts and considerations, and clearly driven by one-sided patriotic faith rather than an open-minded consideration of material reality.While criticisms of all the folks you negatively characterize can be made, criticism of the American system (throughout history) can also be made. These criticisms (both left & right) must be as objective as possible if they are to be anything more than partisan faith-based propaganda (sometimes described as "a pissing contest")..
You make a lot of claims about people starving under leftist Bogeymen. Part of what precipitated the Russian Revolution, however, was bread riots under the Tsar. Droughts caused starving in large parts of China in Mao’s day. People are starving all around the world right now, and most of them are in capitalist countries. So, Mao is accused of killing people who starved because of a drought. Insurance companies call droughts “acts of God.”
On what do you base your belief that peasants’ standard of living dropped under Mao? I doubt that; likewise I doubt your claim about Russia’s poor. Russia was the last European nation to end serfdom.
As for Cuba, go back and view the Godfather movie when the Mafia boys are in Batista’s Havana watching a woman have sex with a donkey. Look into the nature of health care and education for the poor BEFORE the revolution. Check out that evil Michael Moore’s latest flick regarding health care in Cuba today.
I don’t think your numbers are right regarding Cuba’s pre and post revolution poverty, either. In any case, the pre-Castro numbers in poverty existed with the blessing of our “Christian” nation, and after Castro they were helped into poverty by our “Christian” country’s economic embargo. And, by the way, how many homeless people are there in Cuba today?
You suggest that “intellectuals” were wrong in their view of Stalin and that “we” were much better – we had racism, but he had racism AND starvation. I bet that was great solace to African Americans.
Your comments that Mao was “far, far worse” than America and its faults and that Mao “supported violent thugs in countries as far away as Peru” expose your one-sided view. The list of thugs “we” have supported goes on and on and on. The “thug-ery” our “Christian” nation has perpetrated all over the world - here upon the Native Americans and people of color and as far away as the Philippines and Viet Nam – can’t just be swept under the rug.
This sort of thing is why I write so much about how the press blindly repeats and endorses the self-serving propaganda of imperial American interests. We are not “a shining city on the hill.” We have not been “sent on a mission by God.” We are NOT “very, very” different from the rest of the world.
It doesn’t help America or the world to think we are. Idolizing ourselves and demonizing everyone else is not just wrong; it’s not just delusional; it’s not only harmful to the rest of the world; it’s destructive of America and the ideals we all were taught and, supposedly, are expected to believe and live by.
Lying to ourselves about how good we are compared to everyone else is prideful blindness, something a Christian country would have no problem recognizing and no reluctance resisting.
The point (and the reason I write) is to find the truth – whatever it may be – NOT to pick a “truth” and then defend it by whatever means necessary. Doubt is real, honorable, and defensible; certainty is artificial, cowardly, and demented.
Certainty is much more comforting than doubt, hence religion; but the certainty provided by religion is based only on faith, and how can one know which "certainty" among the many offered is worthy of faith? Hence the phrase "leap of faith."
If ten different religions claim to be the only true religion, at least nine of them have to be wrong; but somebody signs on with each of them. At that point, they can quit thinking and start defending their particular "certainty" and demonizing all its competitors. This isn't designed or likely to reveal much truth, but it can often give peace of mind.
Most people seem to take this path, but it IS, nevertheless, artificial (the result of a blind leap), cowardly ( "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."--Benjamin Franklin), and demented (i.e. away from the mind - using one's feelings rather than one's mind).
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:19 PM
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Friday, July 06, 2007
The American Aristocracy
Hey Folks -
I don't know if Leona Helmsley said it first, but she said, "Taxes are for the little people." For some time I've expanded on that,"Taxes, ethics, morality, and the law are for the little people," and neither Leona nor I was talking about midgets or dwarfs.
I think Duhbya continues to surprise us by the depths of his arrogant crudity because we are human. Those who weild power at the aristocratic Bush Family level are inhuman. They place themselves above humanity; we are like ants to them. Remember Longshank's comments about his Irish soldiers in "Braveheart" and Bruce's father's comments about "Family"? Remember Tony Soprano?
No leader (annointed by the "aristocracy" will ever "save" us. Only if the people stand up can the people save themselves - and that doesn't look likely.
- Uke Man
July 6, 2007
Sacrifice Is for Suckers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
On this Fourth of July, President Bush compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and called for “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” Unfortunately, it seems that nobody asked the obvious question: “What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?”
On second thought, there would be no point in asking that question. In Mr. Bush’s world, only the little people make sacrifices.
You see, the Iraq war, although Mr. Bush insists that it’s part of a Global War on Terror™, a fight to the death between good and evil, isn’t like America’s other great wars — wars in which the wealthy shared the financial burden through higher taxes and many members of the elite fought for their country.
This time around, Mr. Bush celebrated Mission Accomplished by cutting tax rates on dividends and capital gains, while handing out huge no-bid contracts to politically connected corporations. And in the four years since, as the insurgency Mr. Bush initially taunted with the cry of “Bring them on” has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and left thousands more grievously wounded, the children of the elite — especially the Republican elite — have been conspicuously absent from the battlefield.
The Bushies, it seems, like starting fights, but they don’t believe in paying any of the cost of those fights or bearing any of the risks. Above all, they don’t believe that they or their friends should face any personal or professional penalties for trivial sins like distorting intelligence to get America into an unnecessary war, or totally botching that war’s execution.
The Web site Think Progress has a summary of what happened to the men behind the war after we didn’t find W.M.D., and weren’t welcomed as liberators: “The architects of war: Where are they now?” To read that summary is to be awed by the comprehensiveness and generosity of the neocon welfare system. Even Paul Wolfowitz, who managed the rare feat of messing up not one but two high-level jobs, has found refuge at the American Enterprise Institute.
Which brings us to the case of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr.
The hysteria of the neocons over the prospect that Mr. Libby might actually do time for committing perjury was a sight to behold. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “Fallen Soldier,” Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University cited the soldier’s creed: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” He went on to declare that “Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq.”
Ah, yes. Shuffling papers in an air-conditioned Washington office is exactly like putting your life on the line in Anbar or Baghdad. Spending 30 months in a minimum-security prison, with a comfortable think-tank job waiting at the other end, is exactly like having half your face or both your legs blown off by an I.E.D.
What lay behind the hysteria, of course, was the prospect that for the very first time one of the people who tricked America into war, then endangered national security yet again in the effort to cover their tracks, might pay some price. But Mr. Ajami needn’t have worried.
Back when the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity began, Mr. Bush insisted that if anyone in his administration had violated the law, “that person will be taken care of.” Now we know what he meant. Mr. Bush hasn’t challenged the verdict in the Libby case, and other people convicted of similar offenses have spent substantial periods of time in prison. But Mr. Libby goes free.
Oh, and don’t fret about the fact that Mr. Libby still had to pay a fine. Does anyone doubt that his friends will find a way to pick up the tab?
Mr. Bush says that Mr. Libby’s punishment remains “harsh” because his reputation is “forever damaged.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bush employs, as a deputy national security adviser, none other than Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Abrams was one of six Iran-contra defendants pardoned by Mr. Bush’s father, who was himself a subject of the special prosecutor’s investigation of the scandal.
In other words, obstruction of justice when it gets too close to home is a family tradition. And being a loyal Bushie means never having to say you’re sorry.
I don't know if Leona Helmsley said it first, but she said, "Taxes are for the little people." For some time I've expanded on that,"Taxes, ethics, morality, and the law are for the little people," and neither Leona nor I was talking about midgets or dwarfs.
I think Duhbya continues to surprise us by the depths of his arrogant crudity because we are human. Those who weild power at the aristocratic Bush Family level are inhuman. They place themselves above humanity; we are like ants to them. Remember Longshank's comments about his Irish soldiers in "Braveheart" and Bruce's father's comments about "Family"? Remember Tony Soprano?
No leader (annointed by the "aristocracy" will ever "save" us. Only if the people stand up can the people save themselves - and that doesn't look likely.
- Uke Man
July 6, 2007
Sacrifice Is for Suckers
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
On this Fourth of July, President Bush compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and called for “more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.” Unfortunately, it seems that nobody asked the obvious question: “What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?”
On second thought, there would be no point in asking that question. In Mr. Bush’s world, only the little people make sacrifices.
You see, the Iraq war, although Mr. Bush insists that it’s part of a Global War on Terror™, a fight to the death between good and evil, isn’t like America’s other great wars — wars in which the wealthy shared the financial burden through higher taxes and many members of the elite fought for their country.
This time around, Mr. Bush celebrated Mission Accomplished by cutting tax rates on dividends and capital gains, while handing out huge no-bid contracts to politically connected corporations. And in the four years since, as the insurgency Mr. Bush initially taunted with the cry of “Bring them on” has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and left thousands more grievously wounded, the children of the elite — especially the Republican elite — have been conspicuously absent from the battlefield.
The Bushies, it seems, like starting fights, but they don’t believe in paying any of the cost of those fights or bearing any of the risks. Above all, they don’t believe that they or their friends should face any personal or professional penalties for trivial sins like distorting intelligence to get America into an unnecessary war, or totally botching that war’s execution.
The Web site Think Progress has a summary of what happened to the men behind the war after we didn’t find W.M.D., and weren’t welcomed as liberators: “The architects of war: Where are they now?” To read that summary is to be awed by the comprehensiveness and generosity of the neocon welfare system. Even Paul Wolfowitz, who managed the rare feat of messing up not one but two high-level jobs, has found refuge at the American Enterprise Institute.
Which brings us to the case of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr.
The hysteria of the neocons over the prospect that Mr. Libby might actually do time for committing perjury was a sight to behold. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “Fallen Soldier,” Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University cited the soldier’s creed: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” He went on to declare that “Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq.”
Ah, yes. Shuffling papers in an air-conditioned Washington office is exactly like putting your life on the line in Anbar or Baghdad. Spending 30 months in a minimum-security prison, with a comfortable think-tank job waiting at the other end, is exactly like having half your face or both your legs blown off by an I.E.D.
What lay behind the hysteria, of course, was the prospect that for the very first time one of the people who tricked America into war, then endangered national security yet again in the effort to cover their tracks, might pay some price. But Mr. Ajami needn’t have worried.
Back when the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity began, Mr. Bush insisted that if anyone in his administration had violated the law, “that person will be taken care of.” Now we know what he meant. Mr. Bush hasn’t challenged the verdict in the Libby case, and other people convicted of similar offenses have spent substantial periods of time in prison. But Mr. Libby goes free.
Oh, and don’t fret about the fact that Mr. Libby still had to pay a fine. Does anyone doubt that his friends will find a way to pick up the tab?
Mr. Bush says that Mr. Libby’s punishment remains “harsh” because his reputation is “forever damaged.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bush employs, as a deputy national security adviser, none other than Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Abrams was one of six Iran-contra defendants pardoned by Mr. Bush’s father, who was himself a subject of the special prosecutor’s investigation of the scandal.
In other words, obstruction of justice when it gets too close to home is a family tradition. And being a loyal Bushie means never having to say you’re sorry.
posted by Ukulele Man at 8:25 PM
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Thursday, July 05, 2007
Little Brother's
Hey Folks -
It was a sad night Tuesday, but I'm glad I was there and particularly touched that I was able to play a few songs.
I can't express my sense of loss. If you knew and loved Stache's and Little Brother's, you know what I feel. If you don't know, it's too late now.
- Uke Man
It was a sad night Tuesday, but I'm glad I was there and particularly touched that I was able to play a few songs.
I can't express my sense of loss. If you knew and loved Stache's and Little Brother's, you know what I feel. If you don't know, it's too late now.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:49 PM
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Little Brother's
A Fond Farewell . . .
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:38 PM
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In our hearts: Dancing forever at Little Brothers
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:17 PM
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Wednesday, July 04, 2007
He says what needs to be said!!
Hey Folks -
Here on the 4th of July, we don't have much to celebrate. We have George & Dick to thank for that!!
Give a look and listen to Keith Olbermann:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/
- Uke Man
Here on the 4th of July, we don't have much to celebrate. We have George & Dick to thank for that!!
Give a look and listen to Keith Olbermann:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 1:50 PM
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Monday, July 02, 2007
Chavez and the Media
Hey Folks -
Most of my life I believed that the goal of journalism was to seek out the truth, to direct light into the darkness so that the people could discover the truth. Maybe that was because in my youth one of the local newspapers was owned by Scripps-Howard whose logo was a lighthouse above - as I remember - a slogan about shedding light on the world.
I don't believe that any more. I doubt that journalism EVER was that. Instead, the logo for all mainstream media should be a projector above the slogan: "Presenting what you're supposed to think." The idea isn't to emulate science, using our senses to discover reality so as to better deal with the world. Rather, it is to emulate religion, dulling our senses to facilitate faith in authority so as to better protect the status quo from reality.
The article below demonstrates this reality. It isn't too lopsided, but it clearly reflects a prejudice against Hugo Chavez. Some of the "negative" reporting involves behavior demonstrated quite often in this country, but here it's ignored, downplayed, or strongly rationalized. Protesters here are seldom interviewed and their grievances aren't given much attention; in the AP article seven paragraphs focus solely on the protest/grievance side of the equasion; five paragraphs (four of which are one sentence long) give opposing views. Two paragraphs address both sides, and one is arguably neutral.
Now, you may be thinking, "That's not too bad - a little lopsided numerically, but not too bad."
Well, if one looks at the issue as one with two sides, yeah, okay. But that isn't a valid way to frame the issue. One side is composed of the wealthy 20% of the populace who for decades have led the good life and want to keep it that way; the other side is made up of the impoverished 80%, who have been deprived for decades and would like that to change. From that perspective, being "a little lopsided" is really being "a lot lopsided." If the class bully wants to take everyone else's lunch money, equal time for the bully's position and the class's position is not equal time (and in the article's case, more than half the time is given to the "bully's" case).
In addition, there are built-in "American" prejudices guaranteed to lobby against Chavez and his program. In this country, protesting university students are assumed to be liberal, but students in Venezuela come from the wealthy 20% and have a personal stake in maintaining the freedom to control speech in their narrow interest. One even gets the feeling that maybe their biggest objection was the loss of their favorite entertainment.
Similarly, the idea that we have free speech here is distorted and false. It supposedly is a given that we not only have it, but that we cherish it (a whole book could be written debunking that). As a result, any charge against a foreign government of restricting free speech immediately stirs up righteous indignation among trusting Americans.
There's not room enough and time for lengthy debate on that point here, but for one illustration of "free speech," give a look at the video link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00BNG4yESt4
Notice also that while the students received a lot of attention (five paragraphs), the article reports that "crowds" of students demonstrated. On the other hand, the article reports "thousands" of government supporters were in the streets; but they got one, two-sentence paragraph.
Germany, a capitaistic system "expressed concern" that a socialist government didn't allow capitalists a chance to take over the TV station's license and hints that not doing so might show a negative attitude toward free speech and pluralism. Well, I don't know Germany, but in America, the capitalist corporations that own the media aren't real big on free speech and pluralism, but I don't hear Germany or the EU expressing concern over that.
Well, I guess that's enough. It should be pretty clear that at best we are the pot calling the kettle black, and before we criticize others, we have a lot of house cleaning to do right here at home.
- Uke Man
Troops fire upon protesters in Venezuela
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ, Associated Press Writer (late May, 2007)
CARACAS, Venezuela - National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air.
University students blocked one lane of a major highway hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight and was replaced with a new state-funded channel. Chavez had refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license, accusing it of "subversive" activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him.
Two students were injured by rubber bullets and a third was hit with a tear gas canister, said Ana Teresa Yepez, an administrator at Caracas' Metropolitan University. She said about 20 protesters were treated for inhaling tear gas.
The new public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions with artists singing pro-Chavez music, then carried an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, "Now Venezuela belongs to everyone."
Crowds of students demonstrated across Caracas, saying they fear for the future of free speech.
"I plan to keep protesting because we're Venezuelans and it's our right," said Valentina Ramos, 17, a Metropolitan University student who was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and received stitches.
She said the protest was peaceful, but National Guard troops said they acted after students hurled rocks and sticks. Police said 11 officers were injured in separate protests on Sunday that were broken up with water cannon and tear gas.
Thousands of government supporters reveled in the streets as they watched the midnight changeover on large TV screens, seeing RCTV's signal go black and then be replaced by a TVES logo. Others launched fireworks and danced in the streets.
Inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.
They bowed their heads in prayer, and presenter Nelson Bustamante declared: "Long live Venezuela! We will return soon."
The socialist president says he is democratizing the airwaves by turning the network's signal over to public use.
Germany, which holds the European Union presidency, expressed concern that Venezuela let RCTV's license expire "without holding an open competition for the successor license." It said the EU expects that Venezuela will uphold freedom of speech and "support pluralism."
Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings with its talk shows, sports, soap operas and comedy programs. But Chavez accused the network of helping to incite a failed coup in 2002, violating broadcast laws and "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted capitalism. RCTV's managers deny wrongdoing.
The government promises TVES will be more diverse, buying 70 percent of its content from independent Venezuelan producers.
"We've come here to start a new television with the true face of the people, the face that was hidden, the face that they didn't allow us to show," said Roman Chalbaud, a pro-Chavez filmmaker appointed by the government to TVES' board of directors.
TVES received $4 million in startup funds from the government, but officials say it also may seek commercial advertising.
Most Venezuelan news media are in private hands, including many newspapers and radio stations that remain critical of Chavez. But the only major surviving opposition-sided TV channel is Globovision, which is not seen in all parts of the country.
Most of my life I believed that the goal of journalism was to seek out the truth, to direct light into the darkness so that the people could discover the truth. Maybe that was because in my youth one of the local newspapers was owned by Scripps-Howard whose logo was a lighthouse above - as I remember - a slogan about shedding light on the world.
I don't believe that any more. I doubt that journalism EVER was that. Instead, the logo for all mainstream media should be a projector above the slogan: "Presenting what you're supposed to think." The idea isn't to emulate science, using our senses to discover reality so as to better deal with the world. Rather, it is to emulate religion, dulling our senses to facilitate faith in authority so as to better protect the status quo from reality.
The article below demonstrates this reality. It isn't too lopsided, but it clearly reflects a prejudice against Hugo Chavez. Some of the "negative" reporting involves behavior demonstrated quite often in this country, but here it's ignored, downplayed, or strongly rationalized. Protesters here are seldom interviewed and their grievances aren't given much attention; in the AP article seven paragraphs focus solely on the protest/grievance side of the equasion; five paragraphs (four of which are one sentence long) give opposing views. Two paragraphs address both sides, and one is arguably neutral.
Now, you may be thinking, "That's not too bad - a little lopsided numerically, but not too bad."
Well, if one looks at the issue as one with two sides, yeah, okay. But that isn't a valid way to frame the issue. One side is composed of the wealthy 20% of the populace who for decades have led the good life and want to keep it that way; the other side is made up of the impoverished 80%, who have been deprived for decades and would like that to change. From that perspective, being "a little lopsided" is really being "a lot lopsided." If the class bully wants to take everyone else's lunch money, equal time for the bully's position and the class's position is not equal time (and in the article's case, more than half the time is given to the "bully's" case).
In addition, there are built-in "American" prejudices guaranteed to lobby against Chavez and his program. In this country, protesting university students are assumed to be liberal, but students in Venezuela come from the wealthy 20% and have a personal stake in maintaining the freedom to control speech in their narrow interest. One even gets the feeling that maybe their biggest objection was the loss of their favorite entertainment.
Similarly, the idea that we have free speech here is distorted and false. It supposedly is a given that we not only have it, but that we cherish it (a whole book could be written debunking that). As a result, any charge against a foreign government of restricting free speech immediately stirs up righteous indignation among trusting Americans.
There's not room enough and time for lengthy debate on that point here, but for one illustration of "free speech," give a look at the video link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00BNG4yESt4
Notice also that while the students received a lot of attention (five paragraphs), the article reports that "crowds" of students demonstrated. On the other hand, the article reports "thousands" of government supporters were in the streets; but they got one, two-sentence paragraph.
Germany, a capitaistic system "expressed concern" that a socialist government didn't allow capitalists a chance to take over the TV station's license and hints that not doing so might show a negative attitude toward free speech and pluralism. Well, I don't know Germany, but in America, the capitalist corporations that own the media aren't real big on free speech and pluralism, but I don't hear Germany or the EU expressing concern over that.
Well, I guess that's enough. It should be pretty clear that at best we are the pot calling the kettle black, and before we criticize others, we have a lot of house cleaning to do right here at home.
- Uke Man
Troops fire upon protesters in Venezuela
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ, Associated Press Writer (late May, 2007)
CARACAS, Venezuela - National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air.
University students blocked one lane of a major highway hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight and was replaced with a new state-funded channel. Chavez had refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license, accusing it of "subversive" activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him.
Two students were injured by rubber bullets and a third was hit with a tear gas canister, said Ana Teresa Yepez, an administrator at Caracas' Metropolitan University. She said about 20 protesters were treated for inhaling tear gas.
The new public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions with artists singing pro-Chavez music, then carried an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, "Now Venezuela belongs to everyone."
Crowds of students demonstrated across Caracas, saying they fear for the future of free speech.
"I plan to keep protesting because we're Venezuelans and it's our right," said Valentina Ramos, 17, a Metropolitan University student who was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and received stitches.
She said the protest was peaceful, but National Guard troops said they acted after students hurled rocks and sticks. Police said 11 officers were injured in separate protests on Sunday that were broken up with water cannon and tear gas.
Thousands of government supporters reveled in the streets as they watched the midnight changeover on large TV screens, seeing RCTV's signal go black and then be replaced by a TVES logo. Others launched fireworks and danced in the streets.
Inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.
They bowed their heads in prayer, and presenter Nelson Bustamante declared: "Long live Venezuela! We will return soon."
The socialist president says he is democratizing the airwaves by turning the network's signal over to public use.
Germany, which holds the European Union presidency, expressed concern that Venezuela let RCTV's license expire "without holding an open competition for the successor license." It said the EU expects that Venezuela will uphold freedom of speech and "support pluralism."
Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings with its talk shows, sports, soap operas and comedy programs. But Chavez accused the network of helping to incite a failed coup in 2002, violating broadcast laws and "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted capitalism. RCTV's managers deny wrongdoing.
The government promises TVES will be more diverse, buying 70 percent of its content from independent Venezuelan producers.
"We've come here to start a new television with the true face of the people, the face that was hidden, the face that they didn't allow us to show," said Roman Chalbaud, a pro-Chavez filmmaker appointed by the government to TVES' board of directors.
TVES received $4 million in startup funds from the government, but officials say it also may seek commercial advertising.
Most Venezuelan news media are in private hands, including many newspapers and radio stations that remain critical of Chavez. But the only major surviving opposition-sided TV channel is Globovision, which is not seen in all parts of the country.
posted by Ukulele Man at 9:05 PM
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Sunday, July 01, 2007
"They hate our d'mocracy an' freedom"
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:50 PM
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Democracy?? What's that??
Hey Folks -
It's no surprise that the world's view of our nation has soured some; but what surprised me in the story below - less by what it says than by the fact that it was reported at all - is the statement in red: "majorities in many countries . . . find American democracy distasteful."
That is amazing!
We have long been engaged in a senseless, destructive, mindless war; the reason for which - we have been repeatedly told (and many believe it) - is to "spread 'democracy'." Democracy is our justification, and yet our justification is distasteful to majorities in many countries.
Of course, to anyone who's been paying attention, that discrepancy has been obvious since the beginning.
Certainly, anyone who has been paying attention has had to ask themselves just what our "leaders" and the media mean by such words as "democracy" and "freedom." Whatever the authorities mean, the reality of those words (as demonstrated by practice) has left a bad taste in the mouths of millions around the world - and here as well.
Equating "our way of life" to that which we are "spreading" fails to leaven our oppressive actions in the Middle East but does successfully reveal (and increase) the coarseness of what passes for democracy and freedom here.
According to the international poll, "majorities in many countries . . . find American democracy distasteful." If we had behaved even half as well as our nation's official, self-congratulatory press releases suggest we always do; if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion could not exist.
- Uke Man
Doubt deepening, but many in global poll still like U.S.
Thursday, June 28, 2007 By Meg Bortin
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PARIS -- Distrust of the United States has intensified around the world, but overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported yesterday.
"Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened," said director Andrew Kohut of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. " ... There is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in 'New Europe' and the Far East."
Nonetheless, majorities in many countries reject the main planks of U.S. foreign policy and find American democracy distasteful, the survey found.
Respondents worldwide not only want Washington to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq "as soon as possible," but also to end the American and NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, now in its sixth year.
The poll found growing wariness toward other major powers as well. Concerns over China's economic and military might have tarnished its image in many nations, Pew found, and confidence in President Vladimir Putin of Russia has dropped sharply.
The survey, conducted in April and May, is by far the largest that Pew has carried out since 2002. It involved 47 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and assessed the opinions of more than 45,000 people.
Negative views of Iran have deepened, including in some Muslim countries, Pew found, and respondents in almost all countries surveyed were utterly opposed to its government acquiring nuclear weapons.
The survey focused closely on the world's image of the United States, which was largely positive in 2002 -- reflecting global sympathy for Americans after the Sept. 11 attack. But it has declined steeply since U.S. troops invaded Iraq.
During the past five years, favorable ratings of the United States have decreased "in 26 of the
33 countries for which trends are available," Pew said.
There is a widespread view that the United States acts unilaterally in making international policy decisions. This view is especially powerful in Europe, shared by 90 percent in Sweden, 89 percent in France and 70 percent or more in Britain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Slovakia and Spain. About 83 percent of Canadians say their neighbor ignores their interests. Middle Easterners overwhelmingly share this view, as do many Asians, including South Koreans and Japanese.
The poll also found that concern about global warming has increased dramatically in the past five years.
It's no surprise that the world's view of our nation has soured some; but what surprised me in the story below - less by what it says than by the fact that it was reported at all - is the statement in red: "majorities in many countries . . . find American democracy distasteful."
That is amazing!
We have long been engaged in a senseless, destructive, mindless war; the reason for which - we have been repeatedly told (and many believe it) - is to "spread 'democracy'." Democracy is our justification, and yet our justification is distasteful to majorities in many countries.
Of course, to anyone who's been paying attention, that discrepancy has been obvious since the beginning.
Certainly, anyone who has been paying attention has had to ask themselves just what our "leaders" and the media mean by such words as "democracy" and "freedom." Whatever the authorities mean, the reality of those words (as demonstrated by practice) has left a bad taste in the mouths of millions around the world - and here as well.
Equating "our way of life" to that which we are "spreading" fails to leaven our oppressive actions in the Middle East but does successfully reveal (and increase) the coarseness of what passes for democracy and freedom here.
According to the international poll, "majorities in many countries . . . find American democracy distasteful." If we had behaved even half as well as our nation's official, self-congratulatory press releases suggest we always do; if America were even half the shining exemplar we, as children, learned it was; such an opinion could not exist.
- Uke Man
Doubt deepening, but many in global poll still like U.S.
Thursday, June 28, 2007 By Meg Bortin
THE NEW YORK TIMES
PARIS -- Distrust of the United States has intensified around the world, but overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported yesterday.
"Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened," said director Andrew Kohut of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. " ... There is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in 'New Europe' and the Far East."
Nonetheless, majorities in many countries reject the main planks of U.S. foreign policy and find American democracy distasteful, the survey found.
Respondents worldwide not only want Washington to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq "as soon as possible," but also to end the American and NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, now in its sixth year.
The poll found growing wariness toward other major powers as well. Concerns over China's economic and military might have tarnished its image in many nations, Pew found, and confidence in President Vladimir Putin of Russia has dropped sharply.
The survey, conducted in April and May, is by far the largest that Pew has carried out since 2002. It involved 47 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and assessed the opinions of more than 45,000 people.
Negative views of Iran have deepened, including in some Muslim countries, Pew found, and respondents in almost all countries surveyed were utterly opposed to its government acquiring nuclear weapons.
The survey focused closely on the world's image of the United States, which was largely positive in 2002 -- reflecting global sympathy for Americans after the Sept. 11 attack. But it has declined steeply since U.S. troops invaded Iraq.
During the past five years, favorable ratings of the United States have decreased "in 26 of the
33 countries for which trends are available," Pew said.
There is a widespread view that the United States acts unilaterally in making international policy decisions. This view is especially powerful in Europe, shared by 90 percent in Sweden, 89 percent in France and 70 percent or more in Britain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Slovakia and Spain. About 83 percent of Canadians say their neighbor ignores their interests. Middle Easterners overwhelmingly share this view, as do many Asians, including South Koreans and Japanese.
The poll also found that concern about global warming has increased dramatically in the past five years.
posted by Ukulele Man at 10:43 PM
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Hey Folks -
Having some problems with getting comments to appear on the blog - hope it's fixed soon!!
- Uke Man
Having some problems with getting comments to appear on the blog - hope it's fixed soon!!
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 3:44 PM
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About Me
- Name: Tom Harker
- Location: Circleville, Ohio, United States
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.
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