A Uke Man Rant Video

Hey Folks -

Pogo the Possum said it. The Uke Man's rant fleshes it out:

Obama and the "A" Word

Hey Folks -

While I'd considered the possibility that the establishment might resort to violence should Obama actually attempt to, as he's intimated, bring the powerful to heel, the realityt hadn't dawned on me as to what any Black man running for President surely must face from nutcase racists simply because he is Black and dares aspire to the presidency.

It is laid out quite well below.

- Uke Man

From the Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/23/224630/771/5/521718


Sharpshooters on the roof, Updated
by teresahill


Fri May 23, 2008 at 08:18:54 PM PDT
Obama came to Clemson University sometime before the South Carolina primary, and my son went to hear him speak.


His first and most-lasting impression? The sharpshooters on the rooftops that he spotted around the area where Obama was speaking.


This is a kid who's probably never seen weapons like that in person. His nearest reference to that kind of firepower is from video games. And he was amazed to see those guns panning the crowd at his school.


Which gave me the opportunity to explain to my son: Merely standing before us and offering himself to us as a Presidential candidate is an act of courage on behalf of Barack Obama every day he's on the campaign trail.


Death threats came early, we know, judging by how early the Secret Service stepped in to try to protect him. I suspect, the death threats come in greater numbers for him than any Presidential candidate before him.


And yet, he still stands before us. He stands before us with his wife and with his daughters by his side. Think about that.


Think about what it would take for any of us here to believe so strongly in the need to change our country that we could handle constant death threats. That we could handle the danger inherent in our campaign not just to our spouse, but to our children?


Think about Wing-Nut radio show hosts who feel free to joke about the possibility of him being assassinated. Didn't a Fox News person make some kind of reference to assassination, too?


And the good Rev. Mike Huckabee? How funny. That sound? Someone shooting at Obama. That was within the last week, right?


Apparently, it's still OK in this country to many people to joke about shooting and killing a black politician.


And yet, Obama stands before us, offering himself to us.


Think about the stadiums, 15,000, 30,000, 50,000, 75,000 people. And how many in Oregon this week?


There's no way to get them all through metal detectors. We've seen reports of the Secret Service getting a certain percentage of people close to the stage through screening with metal detectors, but no way they can get everybody through.


And yet, Obama stands before us, a humbling act of courage day after day.


He was standing before crowds of people today when Hillary Clinton added her two cents about the possibility of his assassination, and he'll stand before even more crowds of people tomorrow and he next day and the next. With his family.


To take jokes from Republicans and wing-nut radio hosts is one thing, but to take it from a Democrat is something else. And to take it from a person claiming to be fit to be President, is something else entirely.


A woman who is also a mother, who knows what it's like to try to raise and protect a child in the White House, to have a husband who I'm sure got a lot of death threats of his own, who stood before huge crowds and generated horrific amounts of irrational hatred from the Republicans...



Think about that?


She knows what it's like to need the kind of protection Obama has. For her daughter to need it and her husband to need it, and it has to be even worse for Obama, a black man who dares to think he can break through hundreds of years of racism in this country and be President.


She has a better idea of that fear than most any of us could have, and yet she said it anyway.
Oddly enough, my 16-year-old daughter and I were talking politics one night this week, and she said in her honors English class, they got onto the subject of Obama one day, and a girl in her class said, "There's no sense in voting for him. They'll just kill him anyway."


And the girl was black. A teenager.


The idea is out there in a big way. I've heard a few African Americans interviewed who say they don't want to vote for Obama because they don't want him to be killed. They don't want to help put him into a position to be shot.


The fear is everywhere, and it's huge.


His courage to stand before us, day after day, despite the fear is amazing and humbling.
We should all honor his courage, and if we don't, shame on us.


Shame on you, Hillary. I am ashamed to call you a Democrat today, to have people know you're a Democrat. I'm ashamed as a woman to have a female candidate acting this way. I expect better from women candidates than men. I expect a more human approach. Shame on you as a mother and as the wife of a former President.


And know that I did not start out angry at you or being ashamed of you. I voted for your husband twice. I love the idea of a woman President, one I could be proud of. I always thought you were a brilliant, disciplined, careful woman until some point in this campaign when it became obvious to me that you're not.


You've made my impression of you worse with nearly everything you've done since... the South Carolina Primary, I guess, when Bill started in with his "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice..." Especially when someone brought up the fact that after the whole Monica Lewinsky news broke, which had to be one of your husband's darkest hours, Jesse Jackson came to the White House to talk to him and try to help him through it. What kind of person turns on a friend who helped him through his darkest hour?


I am ashamed of you. I'm angry at you. I just want you to go away and be quiet for a long time, and I am not alone.


To me, Barack Obama seems to be everything you are not.

Consider

Memorial Day Considerations (reposted from 2006)

Well Folks,

Monday is Memorial Day.

According to Wikipedia :

"Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May. It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who died in military service for their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it expanded to include those who died in any war or military action. One of the longest standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis 500."

It seems to me that this day should give us pause to ACTUALLY consider those “U.S. men and women who died in military service for their country.”

What I see on TV and read in the papers may “commemorate,” but does not “consider” them. What I have observed is closer to cheerleading for war. As the encyclopedia entry says, the holiday was created in the wake of the Civil War but was later expanded to include EVERY war or military action.

Now, people can disagree over which wars were “good” or “bad,” but only an idiot would say they were all good. So, it behooves us to consider WAR itself as we consider those men and women who served and survived, those who survived but were maimed in the process, and those who were killed in wars.

It is not enough to trot out celebrities and musical acts before the capitol steps to extol patriotism. Waving the flag may be more important in some quarters than the lives and health of altruistic and impressionable young people who willingly go off to kill and be killed; but I can’t believe that patriotism trumps the love we have for our children.

Patriotism plays a role in every death-dealing conflict – on BOTH sides- and so do our children; but while both sides swear that THEIR side (as opposed to the “enemy”) has God, honor, truth, and justice (and sometimes “democracy”) on its side; both sides clearly do have fathers and mothers with children in jeopardy, who were put there by “patriotic” leaders.

It seems to me that Fathers and Mothers who fail to consider the nature of the war in which their children are entangled also fail their children – and future generations as well.

It pains me to say it, but parents who have lost children in ill-advised, unnecessary wars; in wars waged for ignoble or stupid reasons; who nevertheless insist on praising the black-hearted beasts responsible for their child’s suffering or death, are fools. Worse, they are enablers for the deaths of other people’s children as well.

Under these circumstances, comments such as “We support our leader because to do otherwise would mean our child died in vain” are understandable but despicable just the same. A leader should be supported for being right – not to salve the consciences of politically complicit parents by getting even more young men and women killed for nothing.

And this applies universally. The insane parents of suicide bombers have the same mentality. They, too, listen to their leaders and send off their children to kill and be killed – with God on their side.

So, on this Memorial Day let us truly consider War – and THIS war particularly - along with the consideration of the “men and women who died in military service for their country.”

If you love your children, you will.

If you love your country, you will.

Nothing short of that will EVER slow the numbers of those who truly do die in vain.

- Uke Man

Looks fine to the Uke Man

Yeah, we want Civility!! None of that uppity stuff - Martin Luther King Jr. was a Teddy Bear

Hey Folks -

Pretty soon we'll be celebrating "Independence Day" in honor of "The War of Independence."

Isn't that nice!! Not a word of "revolution."

We don't mention that!! Don't want to stir anything up. Concentrate on hot dogs and fireworks, parades and barbecues. Don't mention overthrowing governments that oppress the people - too threatening to our apple pie civility.

So let it be with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - we don't have a "race problem" in the good ol' USA - we don't need some commie Chinese Mao-sculptor carving an uppity statue of Dr. King !!! - don't need to threaten civility on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

King was just a big Teddy Bear - let's not have a memorial that could make people think he was hated, despised, demonised, jailed, threatened, and murdered because he dared demand - confrontationally - that "American values" include ALL Americans . That could mar civility.

The radio story below deals with the D.C. Memorial controversy. It's clear to me that what is important to the power ginks is keeping everything warm and fuzzy - avoiding the truth to maintain order - the social order - the pecking order.

- Uke Man

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=90348208&m=90359645

in case the link doesn't work, here's the transcript:

Commission Calls for MLK Statue's Redesign
by Elizabeth Blair

All Things Considered, May 11, 2008 ·

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial is going to be big. The site for it is a four-acre plot on the Tidal Basin, not far from the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Water, stone and trees are the primary elements in a design inspired by a line in the Rev. King's "I Have A Dream" speech:

"With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope."
In the original design for the MLK memorial, a bust of King emerges almost organically out of the side of the Stone of Hope. To get to the stone, a visitor would walk through two rocks symbolizing the Mountain of Despair. That design won the competition set up by the U.S. Fine Arts Commission, the federal agency that approves anything that gets built on the National Mall.

But in the new model for the statue, King is much bigger. His arms are crossed defiantly and he has a solemn look on his face.

In a letter calling for revisions to the statue, Thomas Luebke, who heads the commission, said King's character had gone from "meditative" to "confrontational."

"It looks more like the Stone of Hope is just background. There's now a more full body sculpture of Dr. King. It's a much more rigid, symmetrical stance," Luebke said.

The architects of the memorial are considering what modifications they'll make to meet the commission's request. But Harry Johnson, president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Foundation, likes the idea of King standing tall.

He says he agrees King's facial expression needs softening, but he wants the statue to be an expression of strength.

"The bottom line is, do you want an African-American man not standing tall?" Johnson says. "The Dr. King we want to see is a warrior of peace, not a warrior of wars."

The new design for the statue was carved by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin. And any controversy about his work is fodder for the people who opposed the decision to hire him in the first place.

The MLK National Memorial Foundation was criticized for not hiring an American artist. Lei has carved many Chinese officials over the years, including Communist leader Mao Zedong.

"Now go forth and multiply the GNP !!"

Gay Marriage - Financial Bonanza !! Disaster for Homophobe Republicans

Hey Folks -

This is GREAT!!! You GOTTA listen (only 3 minutes 46 seconds) !!!!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90590325

The folks who think "God hates fags!!" or who think gays are a threat to America are the same ones most likely to be Republicans and worship the sacred Market. Well, are they screwed!!!

Once the inevitable economic explosion resulting from legalized gay marriage becomes clear, straight Republican businessmen may start trying to "pass" in order to gain marketing advantage.

Won't that be nice!!

Straight Republican men attracting bucks by pretending to be gay. Why not !! They think it's just a "choice," and they choose making money over everything else.

Hell, before long Foxxx News will be ranting about narrow-minded fundamentalists and celebrating all the Republican elected officials who've suddenly come out of the closet!!!

Click on the link above and enjoy!!

- Uke Man

Albert being Uncivil !!

The Problem with a call for "Civility"

Hey Folks -

In the preceding post I said I would share my response to the editor's column. It's directly below.

Unsurprisingly, I have not heard back from him. People in a relatively superior power-position (or those who make a comfortable living working for them) seldom see (or admit) that they are perceived as oppressive by the "inferiors" whom they cause suffering (e.g. Europeans invented "the White Man's Burden" which almost demanded colonialism and the slave trade - all for the good of the "savages"- and a slave had better keep a "civil" tongue in his mouth when addressing his benefactors).

In any case here is what I said (you can review his column in the posting directly below this one).

- Uke Man


Dear Mr. Marrison,

On April 27, 2008 you wrote a column titled “Civility War” about e-mails the paper receives that show little civility. Since that day I have been considering responding and finally have decided to make the effort.

On the one hand I sympathize with you; I have received anonymous diatribes myself and have experienced their hurtful and frustrating effects. Likewise, I share your prejudice for civil, thoughtful, fact-based debate.

On the other hand, however, I don’t believe your situation is as simple as you describe it.

The Dispatch receives irrational e-mails, in part, because it prints irrational letters. On the editorial page the paper regularly prints letters from unhinged readers who, while expressing their opinions, fall far short of “civil, thoughtful, fact-based debate.” They don’t have their facts straight; they call others derogatory names; they make gross generalizations; indeed, they sound very much like the very ones who could go even further via e-mail. The Dispatch, by printing these folks, gives its benediction to their irrational, uncivil ranting and, as a result, encourages more of the same.

Having read the paper for over fifty years, it has been my experience that the majority of these letters come from angry right-wingers, hard-core Republicans, and religious zealots. That may be the result of having so many of these good folks living in your distribution area, but I can’t help suspecting that more of them get printed because they play into the paper’s editorial agenda (are you going to argue that the Dispatch doesn’t have a Republican/business/ conservative/status-quo agenda?? I’ve already heard Dispatch folks on talk shows claim that the opinion columns selected are equally distributed among lefties and righties, but an honest appraisal shows the center of this “balance” framed to the right of center – you do not regularly publish columnist on the left ideologically comparable to Goldberg, Sowell, Will, Krauthammer, and Novak. And the argument that zealous right-wingers call you “Liberal” is equally misleading; those folks call Voinovich a Liberal ).

So, in part, the nasty e-mail you get from angry right-wingers is the paper’s own doing. It may not be YOUR doing, but aren’t you responsible for projecting the editorial board’s agenda?

Left-wing zealots have even more reason to pull their hair and shoot off an insulting message. They don’t get equal time for their irrational, uncivil, rants. They are as unhinged as their right-wing counterparts, but are stung doubly: the paper not only prints their opinions parsimoniously but also overwhelmingly presents editorials, letters, and articles inveighing against their view.

I agree that life would be more pleasant for you were this not the case, but you certainly can’t be surprised by the reality you endure or your partial responsibility for it.

Echoing your displeasure with anonymity, for some years I have wondered about the faceless, nameless folks on the Dispatch editorial board who decide so many things that affect me and other central Ohioans, and do so without any checks or balances – save from the wealthy owners of the paper. They have no need of shouting, incivility, venom, or vitriol; they have power and can make decisions in cold blood that reflect little moral concern for the harm they might be doing to large numbers of people.

It seems to me that the weak who react angrily to mistreatment by the powerful are less culpable than their calm, thoughtful tormentors. The insults you receive via e-mail are conventional insults; everyone recognizes them as such. The editorial board, however, is blind to the insults they hurl.

The insults you receive are empty angry words. The insults that the Dispatch agenda generates are not conventional insults but, nevertheless, do insult people’s standard of living, their ability to provide for their families, and their self-respect far more concretely than the angry words e-mailed to the paper harm the owner, the board, or its employees. But that’s “just business”; that’s “just the way it is”; it’s “nothing personal.” At least that’s what the privileged, seeking to maintain their advantage, like to say.

And I don’t think that people write nasty personal attacks to the paper because they don’t take time to think about what they are doing. Nor do I think that the editorial board takes the positions it does because it has taken time to think about it. The editorial board is not directed by rationality but by the interests of the paper’s owners, and they are civil because they are powerful. If an e-mail had power, its author would be civil too.

Which brings me to my closing comment and perhaps the best argument for my position.

I think you will agree that this e-mail has been civil and thoughtful, the rational antithesis of the e-mails about which you wrote; and I’ve included my name below as well. Nevertheless, it won’t make any difference. It won’t change a thing. The Dispatch doesn’t do what it does on the basis of civility, rationality, or thoughtfulness. As I’ve said, the Dispatch acts in the interests of its owners.

The only difference between my civil letter and an e-mail filled with expletives is that my letter can be more easily forgotten.

Yours - Tom Harker

Civility War - My Response in the next posting

Hey Folks -

Maxine, the crusty old cartoon lady with the rapier insights, once said:

"Did you ever notice that the folks who tell you to settle down are the ones who get you stirred up in the first place?"

Well, it happens regularly that rich, powerful, and influential folks are moved to demand "civility" from folks they have been exploiting. Of course, they are oblivious to their own responsibility in the matter.

They suffer from an updated "Social Darwinism" following from which they believe - since they are rich, powerful, and influential - that they are benignly doing God's work (or the Market's) and are illegitimate targets for the people they step upon.

Circumstances have anointed them as dominant, and the least the dominated can do is be civil about it.

I wrote the author of the piece below a letter explaining this in more detail. The letter will be my next posting.

- Uke Man


The Inside Story
Too often, e-mail boils with hatred
Sunday, April 27, 2008
By Benjamin J. Marrison

The e-mails come from around the country. They are faceless, usually nameless and typically without a modicum of civility.


"No wonder your industry is going belly-up," a man wrote recently after finding one of my columns on the Internet. "You are a class of people who have completely lost any sense of duty, morality or decency toward your fellow citizens. Have fun managing that McDonald's, buddy.

You'll at least be working around a better class of people."

I did some research and learned that the e-mail came from a vice president of an association based in Arlington, Va.


I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. Yet he was completely willing to impugn my integrity and hurl insults (I haven't included the most offensive of his comments).

It makes you wonder what kind of e-mail the Rev. Jesse Jackson receives, or what might have gone to Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.


"They would be tarred," said Prabu David, associate professor of communication at Ohio State University, who has studied Internet communication.

The increasing level of hostility and incivility in our discourse is disturbing and, I would argue, counterproductive. Just as few will listen to someone shouting at them, few will reply to people who use venom and vitriol as a substitute for thoughtful, fact-based debate.


If the e-mails and letters we receive are any indication, electronic correspondence is far more vicious than that written by hand and sent through snail mail. While I'm cautious about blaming the Internet, there is danger in the lightning speed of the technology. It seems we all need a "pause-and-reflect" button that holds an e-mail long enough for us to reconsider it. If we had one, it's a good bet that many e-mails would be erased rather than sent.

Letters mailed by readers usually are far more thoughtful and civil. People who take the time to dig out a sheet of paper and an envelope, and pay 41 cents to speak their mind, appear to be more inclined to put some thought into it. Perhaps they have more time to think about their comments. Or maybe some of them, after venting privately on paper and pausing to reflect, consider the harm their words might do.


"The thing about the Internet," David said, "is that there are no checks and balances. It's a free-for-all, and people take advantage of it. It's anonymous. They figure, 'I don't know them and they don't know me, so I can say anything I want.' It's given voice to the people on the fringe and, at the same time, it's led to more vitriol."

Without question, people have many reasons to be angry.


When it comes to the newspaper, they may disagree with our news judgment, the views of our columnists or the opinions expressed on our editorial page.

It's apparent that some of those who write are just angry in general. They are frustrated with government and the economy, with the rising costs of gasoline, bread and a college education for their children. They are worried about their future and their children's future. They can't control most things in life.


We who work in newsrooms share some of those frustrations.

But because of what we do for a living, we expect that any e-mail we send could be made public. We try to anticipate how e-mails might be read in the court of public opinion, and we try to use the same care and discretion in those words as in those we print in The Dispatch.


If everyone believed his e-mails would be read by his parents or employers, or published in the paper -- with names attached -- the discourse might be more thoughtful, civil and beneficial to all.

Benjamin J. Marrison is editor of The Dispatch. You can read his blog at dispatch.com/blogs.
bmarrison@dispatch.com

"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Hey Folks -

My friend James in the UK alerted me to the BBC story below about "Free Tibet" flags being manufactured in and shipped from China.

I wrote bacl:

Lenin said: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

China is now capitalist, and while Tibet is neither communist nor likely to "hang" China, I think something like this is what Lenin had in mind.

- Uke Man

'Free Tibet' flags made in China - BBC

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.

Tibet independence


The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.
Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.

Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.

The authorities have now stepped up the inspection of cars heading to the Shenzen Special Economic Zone and onwards to Hong Kong.


The Olympic torch is due to tour Hong Kong on Friday. It will then travel to a series of cities in mainland China before reaching Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games in August.
Its progress around the world has been marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations in several cities - including Paris, London and San Francisco.

Rallies began in the main Tibetan city of Lhasa on 10 March, led by Buddhist monks.
Over the following week protests spread and became violent - particularly in Lhasa, where ethnic Chinese were targeted and shops were burnt down.

Beijing cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.

But it has since agreed to resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

Red States, REPENT!!!!

God hates Republicans !!!

Hey Folks –

You know!! with all the tornadoes we’ve been having lately, I've started giving more thought to the weather.

Rev. Pat Robertson demonstrated years ago the connection between hurricanes and God. In 1989 when a hurricane threatened his headquarters, Robertson prayed to God to steer Gloria away from his companies' Virginia Beach, Virginia, headquarters. His prayers steered the storm past his area, which escaped the billions of dollars of destruction God visited on many other areas along the U.S. east coast. He made a similar successful intercession during Hurricane Felix, in 1995. But pay no attention to Hurricane Isabel; musta been some queers sneaked into the Virginia Beach compound in 2003 - or it woulda worked again !

We know too – Thanks to Rev. Robertson and Rev. Jerry Falwell - that terrorist attacks are connected to God’s anger with gays, feminists, Liberals, the ACLU, et al.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-CAcdta_8I

More recently, John McCain endorser, Rev. John Hagee, has added his voice to the argument that sinful gays have caused terrible hurricane retribution. See the first part of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDI7pt9KGs4

Now with all that in mind, it didn’t take much for me to notice something profound:

All the tornados are attacking RED States!!!!!

Isn’t it obvious???

God hates Republicans!!!!

I know!! It’s hard to believe, but it’s TRUE!!! Think about it!!

The increase in terribly deadly and destructive weather is caused by global warming, and WHO doesn’t believe in global warming????

REPUBLICANS !!!

Think about it !!!

How many times have Rush, Sean, Jonah, Bill, and all their Republican pals stomped, smashed, vilified, and generally denigrated the whole notion of climate change?

God is pissed off!!! He made this planet and he doesn’t want it sodomized by ignorant media whores. These damned tornadoes are just going to get worse and worse until we get rid of Republicans.

Say, “Amen!!!”


- Uke Man

Alan Drogin - Erik Satie's "Dessicated Embryos"

Hey Folks -

Here's the work of my friend Alan Drogin doing Erik Satie's "Dessicated Embryos," an impressionist composition. Accompanying text read by Jason Maniscalco.

Performed April 4, 2008, second night of the Ukulele Caravan, at the Bowery Poetry Club.

- Uke Man

"One Can Never Be Too Thin Or Shallow"

The French take up the fight against Adipophobia

Hey Folks,

Far below is a recent news item reporting on France's is attempt to slow down the notion of "Emaciated Is Beautiful." Good luck.

The item reminded me of a 2006 Uke Man posting (directly below). I think it gives a little idea of what the French are up against. Perhaps they should team up with “Fatties United Conscientiously at Kentucky University.”

- Uke Man

In the May 18, 2006 Columbus Dispatch was an article, based on a Yale survey, titled “What would you give up to be thin?”

It seems that people would do almost ANYTHING to be thin, at least the ones surveyed by Yale (home of “Skull & Bones” [what could be thinner?].

Besides the severe and lengthy suffering integral to a myriad of fad and “serious” diets, the survey-ees reportedly were willing to trade decades of their lives for skinniness. They would trade an arm or a leg to avoid poundage. Some would rather be blind.

The article goes on: “Thirty per cent of respondents said they would rather be divorced than obese; 25 per cent said they would prefer not being able to have children; 15 per cent said they would rather be severely depressed. Slightly fewer said they would rather be an alcoholic (14 per cent).

But it wasn't simply personal sacrifices that people said they would be willing to make; 10 per cent said they would rather have an anorexic child than an obese one. Eight per cent said they would prefer their child to have learning disability.”

I was amazed !! It was hard to believe; so, I surfed the net for possible illumination. By chance, I came across (and have included below) an article from “The Adipose Quarterly,” the collegiate periodical of “Fatties United Conscientiously at Kentucky University” (FUC-KU), which I hope sheds some light on the matter.

- Uke Man


. . . The Follow-Up Survey

Fellow Phatties,

I’m sure you have been made aware of the recent Yale survey : “What would you give up to be thin?”

Well, the leadership here at FUC-KU have not been idle !! In fact, we have completed a follow-up survey of the same skinny people polled by Yale, using questions left off the original inquiry. The results are below.

The Majority of respondents claimed:

1. They would consider Zen gardening only if Buddha slimmed down.

2. Peter Paul Rubens is either a candy bar or Pee Wee Herman.

3. Tooth-whitening does NOT ameliorate obesity.

4. The new Pope should consider selective liposuction.

5. Money DOES ameliorate obesity.

6. John Belushi and Chris Farley weren't fat.

7. Renoir and R. Crumb don’t know “sexy.”

8. They would rather be uglier than fat.

9. Karen Carpenter was a Goddess.

10. They don't think the joke: “Want t’lose 10 lbs. of ugly fat? Cut off your head!!" is a funny rejoinder.

11. They loved Britney before she got fat.

12 Tom Cruise and Scientology rule !!

As you can see, the majority of respondents were extremely faithful to their mantra: “One can never be too thin or shallow.”

There were only a few departures from their solid front:

Seven out of ten would NOT give up their cell phones to avoid poundage. Nine out of ten would rather be fat than have Jay Leno’s chin!

Finally, in the “Comments” section, the most frequent entry was:
“Do these pants make my ass look big?”

. . .

Well, Phatties, that's it! Until the next issue of Adipose Quarterly, don’t take any shit from emaciated Yalies or other adipophobes.

Just give ‘em the “Fatties United Conscientiously – KU” cheer.



French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin

By DOREEN CARVAJAL
April 16, 2008


PARIS — In the capital of high fashion and ultrathin models, conservative French legislators adopted a pioneering law on Tuesday aimed at stifling a proliferation of Web sites that promote eating disorders with “thinspiration” and starvation tips.


The bill, approved by the lower house of Parliament, faces a Senate vote. If passed, it would take aim at any means of mass communication — including magazines and Web sites — that promote eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia with punishments of up to three years in prison and more than $70,000 in fines.


The legislation was sponsored by Valérie Boyer, a conservative lawmaker from the Bouches-du-Rhône region in the south of France, and was also backed by the government’s health minister, Roselyne Bachelot. It is one of the strongest measures proposed since the 2006 death of a Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, from anorexia.


“We have noticed,” Ms. Boyer said in an interview with The Associated Press, “that the sociocultural and media environment seems to favor the emergence of troubled nutritional behavior, and that is why I think it necessary to act.”


But the proposed law was criticized by the French Federation of Couture. Didier Grumbach, the federation president, told The Associated Press that it was impossible to legislate body weight. “Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny,” he said. “That doesn’t exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France.”


With the proposed law, the French legislators are seeking to tame a murky world of some 400 sites extolling “ana” and “mia,” nicknames for anorexia and bulimia. Since 2000, such Web sites have multiplied in many languages, offering blunt tips on crash dieting, bingeing, vomiting and hiding weight loss from concerned parents.


The bill would make it illegal to “provoke a person to seek excessive weight loss by encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would have the effect of exposing them to risk of death or endangering health.”


Critics from the French Socialist Party complained that the bill was vaguely worded and rushed through the lower house by the U.M.P., the conservative party of President Nicolas Sarkozy.


Eating disorder experts also expressed doubts about whether such a law would help victims or create even more demand for the sites by publicizing them.


“Ultimately, I think it’s a mistake to ban them because I think that you’re going to be hard pressed to demonstrate in a very clear way that these sites have a direct negative affect,” said Michael Levine, a psychology professor at Kenyon College in Ohio whose specialty is eating disorders and the mass media.


As written, the proposed French law does not make it clear who would be ultimately responsible for the content of such sites — the content creator or the Internet service hosting the site.


An aide to Ms. Boyer, the lawmaker, said the U.M.P. expected the proposed law to be amended to address those questions. He added that the idea was to focus on institutions that promote eating disorders, noting that “we cannot exclude fashion shows if there is a problem of health” or the death of a model.

And that's the way it was in 1999: "Whistling Past Don Pardo"

Hey Folks -

It was in 1999. My mother was still alive, and she got a call from Aunt "Sis" to come to the hospital. Uncle Joe was not doing well.

- Uke Man

This is my Bible!! This is my gun!!

The despicable poster below shows exactly why
we need only good Christian fundamentalists in
the Army.

Young men should thump their Bibles!!
Not their guns!!

Morons for Jesus

Hey Folks -

Read it and weep.

What Robyn Blumner comments upon has been going on for some time now, and it bodes ill.

We good ol' god-fearin' 'mericans have no trouble being aghast over foreign religious fundamentalist nuts mixing church and state and God and guns. They are clearly evil-doers.

But ya just gotta support our Bible-thumpin, skin-head, fanatical, fundamentalist Christian troops (do you hate 'merica or sumpin??).

Maybe someday we'll have a Coup for Jesus and wake up with Rev. Hagee as President-for-Life with God, the commandments, and Creationism back in the schools and gays in concentration camps.

It's possible.

Praise Cheeses - Uke Man



Evangelical culture of U.S. Army is destructive
Monday, May 5, 2008 2:59 AM
By Robyn Blumner

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military.

Just ask Army Specialist Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country.


Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, earning the Combat Action Badge. He's been stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned state-side early because the Army couldn't ensure his safety.

There is something deeply amiss when we send soldiers on a mission to engender peaceful coexistence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, yet our military doesn't seem able to offer religious tolerance to its own.


Hall recounts the events that led to his marginalization in a federal lawsuit he filed in Kansas in March. He is joined by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group devoted to assisting members of the military who object to the pervasive and coercive Christian proselytizing in our armed forces.

Hall's atheism became an issue soon after it became known. On Thanksgiving 2006 while stationed outside Tikrit, Hall politely declined to join in a Christian prayer before the holiday meal. The result was a dressing down by a staff sergeant who told him that as an atheist he needed to sit somewhere else.


In another episode, after Hall's gun turret took a bullet that almost found an opening, the first thing a superior wanted to know was whether Hall believed in Jesus now, not whether he was OK.

Then, in July, while still in Iraq, Hall organized a meeting of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. According to Hall, after things began, Maj. Freddy Welborn disrupted the meeting with threats, saying he might bring charges against Hall for conduct detrimental to good order and discipline, and that Hall was disgracing the Constitution. (I think the major has that backward.) Welborn has denied the allegations, but The New York Times reports that another soldier at the meeting said that Hall's account is accurate.


Hall claims that he was denied a promotion in part because he wouldn't be able to pray with his troops. He was returned from overseas because of physical threats from fellow soldiers and superiors. Things became so bad that he was assigned a bodyguard.

This is nothing new to Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a former Air Force judge advocate general who served in the Reagan administration. Weinstein says that he has collected nearly 8,000 complaints, mostly from Christian members of the military tired of being force-fed a narrow brand of evangelical fundamentalism.


Weinstein, who co-wrote the book With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military, has documented how the ranks of our military have been infiltrated by members of the Officers' Christian Fellowship and other similar organ-izations. On its Web site, the OCF makes no secret of its mission, which is to "raise up a godly military" by enlisting "ambassadors for Christ in uniform."

Weinstein says OCF recruitment is easy in a strict command-subordinate military where the implied message is, if you don't pray the right way, your career might stall.

Beyond the mincemeat being made of church-state separation and religious liberty, it seems particularly combustible for our armed forces to be combining "end-times" Christian theology with military might. That's no way to placate Muslim populations around the world.


But there's no will for change. The military's virulent religious intolerance could be eradicated tomorrow with swift sanctions against transgressors. Instead, it's winked at, and those caught proselytizing suffer no consequence. It appears that brave men like Hall who simply wish to follow the dictates of their own conscience will be needing bodyguards for a long time to come.

Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com

Rest - temporary & eternal

Hey Folks -

Here's a poem of mine about age and mortality.

- Uke Man

The Earth is the Bedlam of the Universe

The Mad House

Hey Folks –

There’s an old joke that suggests:

“The Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”

I’m not sure it’s a joke.

If you get old enough and you’ve been paying attention, a lot of what once seemed a guarantor of sanity loses its credibility, becomes a joke, or disappears altogether.

Santa and the Tooth Fairy quit coming around – imaginary friends who go “poof” before you really get to know them!!

Too many religious leaders who seemed so strong and wise are shown to be weak and venal, tied up defending contradictory dogma for personal, political, or institutional reasons (if they are not just crackpots or shysters to begin with).

Business, the focus of all society’s love and expectation, turns out to be an ungrateful and greedy master, expecting blind fealty and gratitude from employees but feeling no lordly responsibility toward their serfs, the community, or nation; bereft of humanity except in the legal personhood granted by incorporation (see "Supremes" below).

The “City Fathers,” and the state legislature too soon reveal their utter mediocrity and craven subservience to the earlier-mentioned money interests. The governor and the courts shuffle not far behind, maintaining a system of men-not-laws, serving certain men at the cost of the people’s justice and livelihood.

And then the congress - who are just state legislators with more expensive haircuts and greater guile - are discovered fattening up the grossest financial pythons, serving up ever larger portions of the people’s interests. And all this with the blessing of the shameless Supremes dancing to the music of the ruling class.

And then there’s the President.

Apparently, 28% of Americans still think the slacker presently in the White House (see "Supremes" above) is looking out for them, but the rest of us (after almost eight years) know better. Unfortunately, most of us think – after more than 200 years – that most of the other presidents were looking after us. Which brings me to my point.

Every election is a psychological examination of the inmates, an evaluation of our mental strength and stability, a measure of our rationality, an indicator of our place in the order of creation. Unfortunately we consistently are shown to be weak, unstable, and emotional; filling a space somewhere between monkeys and cows.

Evidence? Well, as pointed out in the recent book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, we consistently vote against our own interests - at the request of those who run our Bedlam.


What's the Matter with Kansas? made a splash, but it’s nothing new. Mark Twain in his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court addressed the same issue; the Yankee describes the behavior of Southern whites regarding the interests of wealthy slave owners and the betrayal of their own:

It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the "poor whites" of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.

Presently, the contemporary equivalent of Civil War era Southern whites seem pusillanimously willing to be manipulated by fear, patriotism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and obvious lies into voting for their continued degradation.

H. L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

That's why the owners of the asylum are rich.

- Uke Man

Stagecoach BBQ - historical building - Burns - April 29, 2008

Hey Folks -

I've had an association with the Stagecoach BBQ from its first days. Unfortunately, we've probably seen its last days, too.

I drove to South Bloomfield Tuesday after I heard it had burned. Below is a piece composed of video and stills from that day, mixed with stills from a happier time

- Uke Man