Sunday avoidance therapy: the good, the bad, and the utterly gobsmacking

Sorry seems to be the weariest word: Tiger Woods' apology x 10ⁿ.
For embarrassing all those squeaky-clean sponsors, I guess.
(photo via Gawker)

Let's see...gazillionaire golfer/Alpha male has extramarital affairs = fourteen-minutes of internationally-televised apology.

Former Justice Department lawyer issues legal advice to Bush administration that okayed the wanton massacre of civilians; at first faces disbarment for "violating professional standards", then has infraction downgraded to school report-card-like comment: "(used) poor judgment" = hours and hours of... *crickets*

The OPR report included an exchange between an OPR investigator and Yoo regarding what he referred to as the "bad things opinion," what Yoo felt the President could do in wartime.

"What about ordering a village of [resistance] to be massacred?" an OPR investigator asked Yoo. "Is that a power that the president could legally—"

"Yeah," Yoo said.

"To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?" the questioner replied.

"Sure," Yoo said.

But Margolis, who suggested Yoo and Bybee's flawed legal work was due to efforts to prevent another 9/11, dropped OPR's "misconduct" conclusions.

***

It's not all depressing and disheartening news on the legal front, however. I'm pleased to report that in Saudi Arabia, matters are inching toward equality for women. To western sensibilities, this might seem a small step, but I've a feeling that Saudi women are of the mind that any and all movement in this direction is a very good thing:

Saudi Arabia is planning to bring in a new law to allow women lawyers to argue cases in court for the first time.

Justice Minister Mohammed al-Eissa said the law was part of King Abdullah's plan to develop the legal system.

The law - to be issued "in the coming days" - would allow women to appear in court on family-related cases, including divorce and child custody.

At the moment, they can only work behind the scenes in government and court offices.

The new legislation will also allow Saudi women to complete certain procedures without the presence of a witness.

***

Walking tall with heavy hearts and even heavier shoes: British models mourn the passing of Alexander McQueen and stand up for Haiti, raising £1 million for relief efforts in a single evening while showing off pieces from the brilliant and troubled designer's final collection.

***

Did you really need a scientific excuse for grabbing your favorite blanket and curling up by the fire for spell? I didn't think so. But here's one anyway:

A nap during the day doesn't just beat tiredness, but actually improves the brain's ability to absorb new information, claim US scientists.

Volunteers who slept for 90 minutes during the day did better at cognitive tests than those who were kept awake.

The results were presented at a conference in California.

A UK-based expert said it was hard to separate the pure "memory boosting" effects of sleep from those of simply being less tired.

The wealth of study into the science of sleep in recent years has so far failed to come up with conclusive evidence as to the value of a quick "siesta" during the day.

The latest study, from the University of California at Berkeley, suggests that the brain may need sleep to process short-term memories, creating "space" for new facts to be learned.

"Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness, but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap," said Dr Matthew Walker, UC Berkeley.

Study, schmudy--next time, just ask a cat.
It's not for nothing I'm called the King of the Jungle.

-- Marley Salvatore Tornello

The revolution of revolution, and the rewriting of its violent and tragic symphony

"The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it."

-- Sergey Nechayev, nihilist from The Other St. Petersburg, in his 1869 tome Catechism of a Revolutionary. Nechayev--and his deeply fascinating and frightening story--represent the earliest record of a non-state-directed individual or group encouraging, and engaging in, terrorism* as the word is currently defined.

***

"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted to breathe smoke."

-- The Narrator in Fight Club (played by Edward Norton), which 1999 movie was based on Chuck Palahniuk's similarly-titled novel, itself a catechism of a revolutionary.

***

"Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn't so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing at, and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."

-- Joe Stack, software engineer, in an online suicide note. On February 18, 2010, Stack is alleged to have intentionally crashed a plane into an Austin, Texas building that housed the local offices of the Internal Revenue Service.

***

* ter·ror·ism
Pronunciation: 'ter-&r-"i-z&m
Function: noun
1 : the unlawful use, or threat, of violence, especially against the state or the public, as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion (from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996)


We can't live in fear. Certainly most of us can't, not every minute of every day; the angels and warriors among us, well, they simply refuse to live that way at all. For the rest of us, though, it's a feeling we know well, even as we also live with those omnipresent and self-imposed reminders that there are things we need to get done. At some point, in short, you have to commute to work and wash the dinner dishes and carry out whatever quotidian tasks you need to carry out in order to maintain the reasonably smooth rhythm of being alive. The time for heeding those noisy demons will be later, when you're under the covers--after the children are soothed to slumber and before the camomile tea or Xanax has kicked in.

Despite the numbing agents and the partial deafness of sleep, the drumbeats of fear are always there, aren't they? Sometimes, for some people, they're too loud to ignore. The drums will mingle with the cacophony of Righteous Anger's string section; then, Helplessness and Despair will add their insistent percussion. And all the while, Media and Culture take turns conducting: there they are, standing at the fore and waving their arms, keeping the strange and horrible symphony going (and going and going).

Terrorism is not the act of a single religion or race or ideology. I submit it is a form of mental illness, an inability to drown out the unbearable; an insufficient supply of Reason's calming balm; an injured or incapacitated frontal cortex; a twist of mind wherein a murderous or destructive impulse overrules the survival instinct so vital to man and species alike.

Restoring harmony--achieving it in the first place, really--will require hard, detail-intensive work on the part of every player.

But first and foremost, we must hold accountable the ones who conduct these violent symphonies-in-situ from their vast electronic podiums; we must point to the men and women with the flailing batons and say, J'acuse. We must fire or replace them; or else, ignore them. After all, they need us more than we need them.

And then, we must do the work. We must address the music in front of each of us, and study its past and present, paying close attention to the clues and tiny directions scribbled in history's margins, and strive to learn--to make, and to make better. We must shun the opportunists and instead share our insights with one another, ever mindful of improving everything for everyone, not just a politically powerful few. And despite rancor and discord and walkouts and tantrums--despite the impulse to destroy that ingnites and often burns away relentlessly in the soul of every creative being when he fails--we must resolve to try, try again.

What we cannot do--what we must not do--is live in fear. And we cannot expect anything good to come from fear's never-ending deployment by the morally bankrupt, the despairing, and the despotic.

Sunday avoidance therapy: On Love, Tina Fey, Frank Zappa, and the First Amendment

Happy Sunday, and Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

In Escondido (Spanish for "hidden"), love (and chocolate) is in the air. And in Lincoln, MA, love is in the garden:

Two Big Black Hearts, by Jim Dine (American, b. 1935)
at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA

-----

Presidents, senators, governors, and half-governors have long been parodied by the talented comedians of Saturday Night Live, none of whom has attracted voluminous quantities of hate mail and threats like actor, writer, and producer Tina Fey, famous for her spot-on portrayal of the ex-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Ironically (which is part of the problem with Palin's fans, right there), Fey would often only recite, verbatim, the very words Palin herself uttered. So this part of the interview with Fey for the upcoming issue of American Vogue was disheartening to read (H/T Bree):

[...] She also bought a "little house" in the country, but she won't say where, because "I don't want anyone to come there and try to kill me." Ever since her devastatingly funny Sarah Palin impressions, she has for the first time in her life attracted unwanted attention—and hate mail. "People started projecting politics onto me," she says. "There are people who hate me now because of that." Fey's parents are Republicans, and she herself is an Independent. "The partisan nature of politics continues to appall me. I'm almost paralyzed by my inability to see things in black-and-white. I encountered a lot of hard-core Democrats who are just as rabid and hateful, and I found that just as shocking. It was scary to be in that world of politics. I felt uncomfortable to be in that discussion. The weird thing is, when Darrell Hammond or Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey did an impersonation of a president, no one assumed it was personal, but because Sarah Palin and I are both women and people think women are meaner to each other, everyone assumed it was personal."

-----

I originally posted these at Ezra Klein's blog, back in the day, and given all the recent hullabaloo about doing away with certain perfectly good English words because someone, somewhere might get offended, I thought it might inspire readers--especially new ones who missed this the first time around and who might not be aware of the late Frank Zappa's profound interest in politics and First Amendment issues--to see our hero FZ pointing out the then-nascent rightwing trends ("toward a fascist theocracy", as he aptly described it).

What you're about to see is a video clip--in three parts--of Maestro Zappa appearing on the CNN program Crossfire. Also appearing are On the left! Tom Braden, On the right! Robert Novak, and along with Mr. Zappa--In the crossfire!--is Washington Times columnist John Lofton. Enjoy!

Analyst points out facts to Bush flunkie who accused Obama of inviting terror attacks; Joe Scarborough:We're going to break right now...

O'Donnell: Isn't it true that the president YOU worked for invited the first attack? You just admitted, "We didn't know who hit us", yet you were TOLD who--before we were hit on 9/11--and YOUR administration invited the first attack, for Which. You. Should. Live. In. Shame.

Fresh off the MSNBC video press is an amazing exchange I witnessed live this morning when Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, author of a newly-published book charmingly entitled Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack (the Amazon page of which I would not link to if you paid me all the chocolate in Switzerland) appeared on Morning Joe to promote his bullshit premise.

Rather than do the usual media-tiptoe around All Things Bushian and allow Thiessen to spew his lies unchallenged, MSNBC senior political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell pinned him down. Throughout the exchange, Thiessen smiled the smug smile of a practiced liar; meanwhile, Scarborough, as usual, attempted to talk over O'Donnell, saying Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence! over and over, and eventually cut his mic. At which point, to my surprise and delight, O'Donnell shouted his questions sans mic, and the show then cut to a commercial.

When they returned, O'Donnell was still on air (hey, Son One worried they might have whisked him off to some CIA black site!), his mic restored. Scarborough admonished O'Donnell to "stay in the corner" and sort-of completed the interview, and amazingly, O'Donnell piped up again and asked--after pointing out that Thiessen hails from the wealthiest ZIP codes in America, that he attended a private boarding school with its own golf course and then Vassar, and that he never served a day in the military--what, exactly, did he (Thiessen) know about torture?

Whoa.

It was must-see teevee and then some. More like this, please, MSNBC.

(If you would like to send a note to the network in praise of O'Donnell's all-too-rare line of questioning, please go here.)

Winter Wonderfood: litbrit's Turkey and Bean Chili

My boys--including the (sort-of) grown-up one--absolutely love this dish, and I'm happy to make it for them, as it's delicious and warming; it's adaptable to different palates (we like it hot); and nutritionally speaking, it packs a nice wallop of lean protein and fiber while keeping fat and calories to a minimum.

If you're going to keep things healthy, I'd recommend using low-fat (not fat-free, yuck) sour cream and low-fat sharp cheddar as toppings. This will serve about eight adults; if you're cooking for a roomful, as I was during the Superbowl, you can easily double the quantities, too (and leftovers are wonderful for breakfast when added to scrambled eggs in tortilla wraps). Cornbread is the classic accompaniment, whether you make it from scratch, use a pre-fab mix, or send someone to the supermarket bakery.

I want to say I adapted this from one of Martha Stewart's recipes; I'm about 99% certain I found the original version in one of her magazines several years ago. Given the chilly outlook, so to speak, this seems to be the perfect thing to kick off a home-bound weekend. So...let's cook!

You'll need a big, heavy-bottomed stock pot, a sharp knife, a long-handled wooden spoon, and a cutting board.

Ingredients:

* 3 pounds ground (or finely-minced leftover) turkey (if using already-cooked leftovers, I like to use a mix of dark and light turkey; otherwise, buy the fresh ground turkey that's about 7% fat, as the fat-free kind will be too dry.)
* olive oil
* 1/2 sweet onion (i.e. Vidalia or Maui), finely chopped
* 1 head of garlic, peeled and finely minced (note, that says head, not one measly clove! Hey, you need lots of garlic in your life if you're going to ward off heart disease and vampires; besides, garlic is delicious and it sweetens when you cook it.)
* 3-4 large fresh jalapeño chiles, ribs and seeds removed for less heat, minced (wash your hands well before you touch your face or anyone else's, okay?)
* red pepper flakes to taste (we like a lot; start with a pinch or two if you're not sure)
* 3 tablespoons chili powder
* 3 generous rounded tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (very important!)
* 4 teaspoons ground cumin
* 2 cans (28 ounces each) whole tomatoes in puree (I use the Cento brand)
* 2 tablespoons unsulfured molasses (it might sound counter-intuitive to use something so sweet in chili, but trust me, it all works)
* Coarse salt
* 3 cans (15 1/2 ounces each) best-quality pinto beans, organic if you can find them, drained and rinsed
* 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

Method:

1. Pour a little oil--a tablespoon or two--into your stock pot or Dutch oven and place over medium heat; roll the pan around to coat bottom as the metal warms. Add onions and jalapeños, lower the flame a little, and cook until the onions are beginning to turn translucent; then add the minced garlic and red pepper flakes (again, go easy at first; you can add more toward the end if you want serious fire), and cook until everything is soft, stirring occasionally. Add the ground turkey and break it up with a wooden spoon, cooking and stirring until no longer pink, about 8 to 10 minutes (if using already-cooked leftovers, much less time is needed, obviously; just warm through).

2. Stir in chili powder, cocoa powder, and cumin; cook, stirring, until fragrant, 1 minute. Things will start smelling really good now, and you may notice children, neighbors, cats, and dogs wandering into your kitchen.

3. Break up tomatoes with a spoon or your hands, and stir them in along with the puree. Add molasses, 1 cup water, and 2 teaspoons salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer; cook, partially covered, 30 minutes.

4. Add beans and continue cooking, uncovered, until turkey and beans are very tender, and chili is thick, about 30 minutes more. Stir in the cilantro. Serve in your favorite ceramic bowls, with some shredded cheese, sour cream, and corn bread on the side.

Enjoy! Stay warm--and stay off the roads.

XXX
D.

Rachel Maddow on the GOP's stunning hypocrisy: Trash the stimulus, vote "No", then claim credit for the beneficial effect in their districts

Going through the matter fact by fact--and exposing legislator after slimy, two-faced, hypocritical Republican legislator--Rachel Maddow demonstrates how the Party of No is utterly full of shit and how its members don't care about constituents or country, but rather, seek only one thing: to try to break President Obama.

Quoth Rachel: "Grow up, Democrats: face the music; do it alone; you're the majority".

Yes.

Teabagger Watch, Part Two: The shining puppet (with crib notes)

They paid her over $100K for some teabagging, but all they got was a lousy hand job.*

"These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the stock exchange---immortal, dreaming,hopeless asses, who surrender their reason to a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their lives in his purse."

-- Stephen Crane, American author and poet

*Cf.

Teabagger Watch, Part One: Rahm apologizes

Hear, hear.

President Obama quotes Roy Edroso

President Obama, speaking today at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Issues Conference:

"Those problems haven't gone away. It's still our responsibility to address them. All that's changed in the last two weeks is that our party has gone from having the largest Senate majority in a generation to the second largest Senate majority in a generation. And we've got to remember that. There was apparently a headline after the Massachusetts election; the Village Voice announced that Republicans win a 41-59 majority. (Laughter.) It's worth thinking about. We still have to lead."

He's referring to this piece, by Roy Edroso of The Village Voice and Alicublog, both of which are daily reads at this desk.



I'm going to take a wild (but, I suspect, accurate) guess that Roy is too modest (or too cool, or both) to brag.

So I will.*

Hey everyone--how awesome is this?!

Imagine, if you will, that you're a liberal political writer whose fighting spirit somehow survived the Bush years, and on the morning after the fall of yet another disappointing Democrat, which in turn set off a party-wide crisis of confidence, you write a column. The ironic truth of the matter compels you once again to call it like it is, and you go to your keyboard and do just that, with characteristically pithy brilliance. And days later, the President the United States, a witty man himself, quotes your writing in a speech that's broadcast live around the world and posted on the White House website shortly thereafter.

Bravo, Roy! Bravissimo!

*Fomenting embarrassment is all part of growing up and being British. It's people like me what cause unrest.

Today in fortuitously appropriate radio

Rage Against The Machine: Bulls On Parade*
Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium

It happens frequently enough as to be something I've come to fully expect: I'll be obsessing about one current events narrative or another and lo and behold, the perfect soundtrack for said reverie will flow (or blast) from the car radio.

*cf

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library
Line up to the mind cemetery now

What we don't know keeps the contracts alive an movin'
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
They rally round the family
With a pocket full of shells

They rally round the family
With a pocket full of shells...

Bulls on parade
Bulls on parade
Bulls on parade
Bulls on parade
Bulls on parade.

Pee-wee gets an iPad

Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman

Back in the day--which is to say, before the Tornellini were born and our Saturday mornings were a bit more laid-back--Robert and I never missed an episode of the Playhouse. We've really missed him, and we continue to be inspired by his interior design prowess. Great to see you back, Pee-wee!

(As a Mac fan, I'm definitely looking forward to checking out the unfortunately-named iPad, though I'm admittedly a bit less excited than I was before learning of its limitations and, oh yeah, there's that puzzlingly steep price.)

(H/T Andrew Sullivan)

Because litbrit needs cheering up today, damn it: Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev; Swan Lake, 1966

Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic
is that it is inexplicable. -- Margot Fonteyn

Thanks to our beloved Internet, we've got so many gorgeous (if sometimes too brief) modes of escape right at our fingertips these days, haven't we? When even the relentless and dark evening drizzle can't compete with the inside of my head for sheer despondency-value, I often turn to YouTube and poke around until I find something lovely, something transporting. It never takes me long.

Such as it is, this dreary February day.

But here is some Monday grace, and I hope even a few ballet newbies will watch and enjoy it: the incomparable and legendary duo, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, dance a pas de deux from Swan Lake at the Vienna Opera. Music, of course, is by P.I. Tchaikovsky.

I promise--any tears you shed will be the good sort, the ones that flow upon experiencing pure beauty and truth, upon being lifted into a moment and held there, weightless, until you remember how good it actually is to be alive.*

-----

* Both legends have since left this earth, and much too soon: Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, who'd spent her final years in Panama, caring for her husband--who'd been left quadriplegic after being shot during a coup attempt--died of cancer in 1991 at the age of 71. And Rudolf Nuryev, living in Paris by then, succumbed to AIDS just two years later at 54, but not before shaking up the dance world with his expressive and passionate style; he completely--and forever--changed the landscape for male ballet dancers, who'd previously only served as supporters and partners to the ballerinas. It has been said many times that despite their differences in age, and obviously in their nationalities and respective styles of dance schooling, Fonteyn and Nureyev seemed as though they had been born to dance together, so perfectly, lyrically, and artistically matched were they.

Sunday Avoidance Therapy: The Inaugural Session

Eddie Izzard's delicious Cake or Death bit--via Lego animation.

This morning, Mr. Litbrit was thoroughly engrossed in watching the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona--only seven more hours worth of exhausted drivers trying to stay awake and manage their seriously compromised race-cars while going in circles with the odd engine fire just to keep things interesting!--and I was puttering around the place in my Not-from-Wal-mart pajamas, indulging in the customary vat of coffee and gathering up stray tea-plates and buttered toast crusts. Mostly I was trying to stay away from any manifestation whatsoever of the dread Sunday news--the shows and the periodicals--all the while amusing myself (and horrifying the children) by singing:

Mother doesn't go out anymore--
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes;
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside.

If you wanna know about the bishop and the actress;
If you wanna know how to be a star;
If you wanna know about the stains on the mattress--
You can read it in the Sunday papers, Sunday papers...

Suddenly it occurred to me: there are probably quite a few of us out here doing likewise--that is, engaging in one form or another of this very behavior. And thus a recurring blog bit was born: Sunday Avoidance Therapy. If you're interested in escaping the frustrating political domain for a blessed hour or two--or simply looking for a bit of time-suckage so you can put off doing the laundry while simultaneously convincing yourself that broadening the mind and having a laugh or two are more important than having clean socks--this post's for you.

In the spirit of camaraderie, then, I'll share a few of the bits and pieces I found while taking a Sunday spin around the 'Tubes, only one of which is (tangentially) related to politics and the mainstream media, but hey, it is by Matt Taibbi--here you go--who rips David Brooks a well-deserved new one, which, come to think of it, begs the question as to exactly how many new ones a single human can endure having ripped before he becomes more orifice than substance and thus simply evaporates?

So then...let's go: First, to sunny Barbados, land of my grammar-school years, where Prince Harry--the irreverent, naughty prince, and definitely the one with whom I'd want to be stranded on a desert island--told the audience at a recent Haiti fundraiser that if they were able to raise BBD$5,000 (about USD$2,500) in the next 25 minutes, he would get up and dance for them. They did, and he did. See? We're not all stiff-upper-lip sorts.

Next, we'll go back in time a few months, to Hallowe'en, and alight in England just in time to see Christopher Walken's reading of Lady Gaga's Poker Face for the Jonathan Ross show on BBC1 (if you haven't seen this yet, and you're as big a Walken fan as I, be sure to click through.)

Onward to yesterday's time plane, where yet more Lady Gaga action was taking place back in America, land of Miss America (and what I wouldn't give to see a contestant sing the theme song to Team America, World Police in the talent portion, but I digress). As you may have heard, one of the celebrity judges for this year's pageant was Rush Limbaugh. As you may not have heard, Rush got up and danced. And shook his groove thing and pumped his fist, kinda-sorta in time with the music, so help me.

You're welcome.

And now, here's some real rhythm-making goodness: check out Terry Bozzio's roadies setting up what is easily the biggest drum kit I've ever seen.

Finally, in the interests of science, we'll wind things up in Ecuador, where field researchers continue to discover new species; my personal favorite, the adorably tiny scaly-eyed gecko, is shown perching his half-inch-long bad self on the tip of a pencil-eraser.

Got any fabulous and fascinating links you'd like to share? Mi comment section es su comment section, estimados amigos.

It's Friday evening; you know what that means: Montrachet Time. B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton & Jimmy Vaughan play Rock Me, Baby

Okay, so they're not sporting six-packs and sprayed-on leather jeans. Nor are they leaping around the stage or dodging airborne panties. So what. That's a whole lot of legend sitting on those chairs up there, passing sweet and well-seasoned blues licks back and forth like a plateful of the best Southeastern barbecue.

I've been fortunate to see all but Eric Clapton in live performance. And I recently watched Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy play together in the HBO Hall of Fame special, which in turn led me to dream of an evening wherein Beck and Eric Sardinas joined forces with Guy, King, Clapton, Vaughan, and friend of this blog Minstrel Boy to put on a once-in-a-lifetime (but intimate!) show at one of St. Petersburg's many small and very fabulous nightclubs.

Should that awesomeness ever come to be, I'll let you know--and I'll be sure to save us all a big table up front.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

We shall miss their voices, even as their words live on

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame
of killing innocent people. -- Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection,
and on his own terms, not anyone else's. -- J. D. Salinger, 1919-2010

For President Obama: This mother's words

Good evening, President Obama:

If, by some infinitesimally tiny chance, the blogs Cogitamus or litbrit are on someone's feed--and that someone happens to be nearby as you prepare to speak--I want you to know something:

I've supported your candidacy for President since you were a twinkle in Harry Reid's eye. Before that, probably--a friend gave me Dreams From My Father well before the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and she said, simply: Watch this guy. He's something special. I read; I agreed. I still agree.

Over the course of your campaign, I donated. I call-banked. Last November, I walked around a neighborhood full of cranky retired Republicans in rainy weather and got to hear the clichéd phrase Get off my lawn! for real. Like millions of others, I was thrilled to have the privilege of being able to do my part to help elect a leader who'd put America on the right path--the path to justice; the people's path--at long last.

Yesterday, I stood on a street corner in the middle of my hometown, in Florida, and held aloft a big red sign emblazoned with the words:

PASS HEALTHCARE NOW!

The group with whom I was demonstrating--we were outside the office of our Congressman, C.W. Bill Young--was promptly set upon by some pretty nasty characters, Mr. President; some of them were wearing combat fatigues and t-shirts with your face on them. Your face and a swastika underneath it. One of these creatures carried a sign with a delightful water-color painting of Speaker Pelosi--she was depicted undressed, with exaggeratedly saggy and unattractive body parts, and the text read: Obamacare can't fix THIS!

You'd have been proud, though, because I did the Barack thing: I remained calm and just smiled my own considerably toothy smile at those charming interlopers.

And then I put my British reserve in my back pocket and shouted at the top of my lungs: Hey, hey, ho, ho, Big Insurance has got to go! as well as What do we want? HEALTHCARE! When do we want it? NOW!, and I kept it up as my friends joined in the cheers and cars beeped their horns as they passed.

I even got invited upstairs to speak with Congressman Young's aide. I expressed my wishes for my family, for my country: universal and affordable health care. Medicare for All. I don't mind what you call it or how it's branded, really I don't (and it's not often you'll hear me say that, word-wonk that I am).

Anyway, Mr. President, I know you're well aware that people are hurting. The cost of health care is destroying our citizenry at a time when people have already lost their savings, their retirement funds, and all too often, the very homes in which they've lived and built their families.

I'm only a little bit older than you are--ten months, to be exact--but I figured out long ago that the whole reaching-across-the-aisle thing was never going to work. It doesn't work in my own extended family, it doesn't work in the circles of other parents with whom I must sometimes interact--both of which groups of people, unlike you and Congress, are in a position to simply avoid talking politics--and it most certainly doesn't work in Washington. I know you get this. How could you not?

They want you to fail. They want your party disemboweled and they want you gone from Washington.

But America needs you. And tonight, when you speak to the country in your first State of the Union Address, we need you to get very, very tough, and--yes--very, very partisan. We want you to lead: it's why we all worked so hard, and gave of our lives, our time, our money, our words, and our love.

We want you to lead.

You are the President. Your detractors and political enemies are licking their chops, waiting for healthcare reform to die on the vine because they know that failure begets more failure; gridlock begets frustration and disillusion; and disillusion itself will beget a catastrophic disaster for progressive hopes come November.

As Ezra says today: you have the ball. And as I say--pardon my French--We're perilously close to Game Over, here: time to put your muscle and skill behind that motherfucker and go for the win.

Because we all know this much about the healthcare game: victory for the people will translate to megawattage on the scoreboard--and that brilliant, much-welcomed light will surely slice up the fog hanging in the air between now and this November.

Yes you bloody well can!

From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Three dreams, in color

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

A right delayed is a right denied.

President Obama--are you listening?

Satan writes to Pat Robertson

Satan apparently got wind of Pat Robertson's recent foul remarks about Haiti and was none too pleased. So he did what any good blogger/citizen journalist would do: he whipped up a terrifically scathing bit of snark. And then fired off his complaint to the letters section of a major newspaper, in this case the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.

I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best,
Satan

(With thanks to Ms. L. Coyle of Minneapolis, who somehow, er, intercepted the sulphurous transmission* and was kind enough to share it with the world.)

* Line-breaks and italics mine, as they did not appear online.

Friday forecast: Dazed and Confused

I don't know about you, but when I think about what has already happened in the first two weeks of this strange, frustrating, and deeply unsettling year, my prevailing instinct is to want to pound on things. Hard. In this video of the Led Zeppelin classic Dazed and Confused (live in Denmark, 1969) the late John Bonham, one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock 'n roll, gives thrilling shape and sound to what's going through my mind.

Verbatim.

So, readers, what music says it all for you this weekend?

(H/T Tom Hagerty)

A song for beautiful, tragic Haiti--please help

Yellow Bird, sung here by The Mills Brothers, is a traditional Haitian tune based on a French berceuse, or cradle song. The lyrics were originally a poem, written in 1883--in Creole--by legendary Haitian poet and politician Oswald Durand, who'd been imprisoned for criticizing local political leaders. (Ahem.) The song was originally titled Choucoune, the nickname of a young woman named Marie-Noël Bélizaire who'd captured Durand's imagination and could inspire him to dream of sunlight and birds and the freedom of open skies--even in his darkest hours.

Times are tough and things are bad all over the country, all over the world; I know.

Right now, though, things are extraordinarily bad for the citizens of beautiful, tragic Haiti. If you possibly can, please consider donating to relief efforts--you can visit the Red Cross, of course, who've set up an easy way to donate quickly by texting, or, if you prefer to give to smaller, more community-based aid agencies, Laura Freschi at AidWatch has compiled a helpful list of NGO's and CBO's (non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations) who are already gearing up to transport food, water, medicine, and relief workers to Haiti (via Andrew Sullivan).

And here is the donation page for Doctors Without Borders.

Thank you, as ever, dear readers.

Yellow Bird
Up high in banana tree;
Yellow Bird
You sit all alone like me.
Did your lady friend
Leave your nest again?
This is very sad--
Makes me feel so bad.
You can fly away
In the sky away;
You're more lucky than me...

-- Oswald Durand

Song for the New Year: Bob Marley; So Much Trouble in The World; the final recording session, Miami 1980

This rare and wonderful footage, shot at Criteria Studios in Miami Florida in the fall of 1980, reportedly depicts the last rehearsal session Bob Marley recorded. Maestro Marley appears shortly after the 2-minute point.

Some thirty years later, and four hours northwest of Miami, the sky is shadow-gray with cold; damp winds whip the Spanish moss to and fro, to and fro.

And there is indeed so much trouble in the world.

I have great hopes for this brand new year, just the same. This year of mine. This year of yours.

May our next spin around the sun be filled with creative pleasures, good company, and as many thrilling discoveries--and new challenges to dare yourself with--as you're up for.

XXX
Deborah

So much trouble in the world
So much trouble in the world

Bless my eyes this morning
Jah sun is on the rise once again
The way earthly thin's are goin'
Anything can happen.

Incommunicada

(For the time being.)

May the new December days be joyful and inspiring,
With each moment full of love and news of good things, only;
And the words you hear must be appreciative in nature:
Compliments and kindness and encouragement, forever
(Not the other sort, the ones all weighted down with judgment).
Wishing you reflection and a shining new direction
As the year winds up and time winds down (there goes perfection).
Few things really matter, no, not when it comes down to it--
Love each other and your much-flawed self, and most of all,
To that much-flawed self be true, through every storm and squall;
Hold that self aloft so she can breathe until it's calm.

-- DNT 11.29.09

Swine Flu update: did CDC's fuzzy math fuel vaccine-maker profits? And GlaxoSmithKline now warns of dangerous batch of vaccine in Canada

Above, watch CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Atkisson (a fellow UF Journalism School grad, by the way, though I doubt she'd remember me) discuss the H1N1 swine flu positive rates, data which the CDC has apparently been extremely slow to release. As it turns out, according to Atkisson's findings after her three-month-long investigation, only a small fraction of cases flagged by doctors as possible H1N1-swine flu actually tested positive for the virus, and some weren't even influenza cases at all; furthermore, the per-state rates of Americans testing positive for this so-called pandemic are surprisingly low--so low, in fact, one might, like Atkisson's guest, Alicia Mundy (reporter for the Wall Street Journal), be moved to question the media panic, not to mention the logic--and economic sense--of calling for so many school-closings and business shutdowns. Please watch and draw your own conclusion.

In related news: early this morning comes disturbing news that Big Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline has notified Canadian healthcare professionals that a batch of their vaccine may trigger life-threatening allergies. GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, AstraZeneca, CSL Limited, and Novartis are the major multinationals producing the vaccine that is currently in wide promotion and use in the US, Canada, and Europe. The US Department of Health and Human Services decided to use only non-adjuvated H1N1 vaccine at this time (a decision they argue was a good one). The corporations' non-US formulations (like GSK's) contain a controversial adjuvant and are being administered in Canada and Europe.

Vaccine adjuvants are various substances, like aluminum or water-oil mixtures, that are added to a vaccine to boost its effectiveness; in turn, they allow smaller doses to be administered and thus can stretch supplies, should they become limited. No adjuvated flu vaccine has ever been approved for use in the US. Critics argue that adjuvants are responsible for various ill effects of vaccines, including allergic reaction and death. While there is an obvious need to address the problem of vaccine demand outpacing supply, ongoing adjuvant research and development does not always turn up positive developments toward this end. If health organizations and vaccine makers aim to overcome potent anti-vaccination sentiment within the culture and win consumer confidence and trust, especially in the United States, they have no choice but to address the risks of adjuvant-related adversities, like autoimmune disorders, when they occur in trial:

The use of immunostimulatory molecules as immunopotentiators/vaccine adjuvants raises theoretical safety concerns, owing to the possibility that some might induce overproduction of inflammatory molecules, leading to overt inflammatory reactions or induction of autoimmunity. Recently, human trials with Heplisav (developed by Dynavax), which combines hepatitis B antigen with a CpG sequence (ISS 1018), a TLR9 agonist, were halted in response to a serious adverse effect report from a Phase III trial. After receiving two doses of Heplisav, one of the vaccinees was preliminarily diagnosed with Wegener's granulomatosis, an autoimmune disease involving production of antibodies against neutrophils leading to inflammation of the vasculature.

Also at Cogitamus.

Wanda Sykes: Esther loves bread and alcohol. And cheesecake.

In honor of the upcoming feast-season that many of us are kicking off this Thursday, here's wonderful Wanda, who calls her tummy-roll "Esther" and describes her hilariously futile efforts to keep Esther in line.

Wanda also riffs on "broke dick" and other middle-age woes. Did I mention how much I love this woman?!

NOT safe for work, by the way!

Today in apocalyptic omens: Kraft may take over Cadbury

Nooooooo!

In the name of all that is bittersweet, say it ain't so, Cadbury--say it ain't so. It's bad enough that Hershey bought out Scharffen Berger and proceeded to utterly ruin one of the best chocolate brands on the planet. Criminal, in fact.

Now it appears Kraft, makers of boxed macaroni and these little brown cubes of glue-like substance I'm told are caramels, is going after Cadbury. Cadbury, who in turn own the excellent brand Green & Black's, makers of the heavenly dark-chocolate-with-crystallized-ginger-pieces bar that has seen me through many a horrid plane trip, ear-splitting family argument, lonely night, lonelier weekend, depressing election, nasty marital spat, nastier still marital stressfest (complete with airborne crockery), and even the occasional marital Chernobyl incident.

Writing in the New York Times, fellow chocoholic Arthur Lubow is worried, too:

But I found it hard to care much whether Asian consumers will have an easier time procuring Planters peanut bars and Toblerone bars at their corner store. What frightened me about the proposed deal was the threat to the privileged autonomy of Green & Black’s.

Although Cadbury rejected the offer, Kraft has continued to push. Still, I began to think that maybe I was being too pessimistic. As Kraft shares dipped, its offer was diminishing in value. Cadbury might very well retain its independence.

And even if Kraft does buy Cadbury, I assured myself, the American giant will see the wisdom in maintaining the quality of Green & Black’s, a brand that has no reason to exist if it does not continue to satisfy connoisseurs who can tell that a Milk Dud is really a dud. Yes, Hershey had perversely seduced a high-quality brand and then stripped away its conquest’s quality. But perhaps Kraft would be better about honoring the artisanal excellence of my 85 percent bar than Hershey had been with the lamented 82.

Last week, it was reported that Hershey is considering its own offer for Cadbury. I have started the search for my next chocolate bar.

There is news, and then there is the kind of news that has a direct effect on one's own day-to-day existence. Sarah Palin being booed by hundreds of furious, rain-soaked fans after quitting in the middle of a book signing, hopping into her airbrushed portrait-bedecked bus, and leaving them cold, wet, and sans autograph would qualify as the first sort: it's news (of sorts)--perhaps it's even amusing news--but it has no measurable impact on my life. However, Kraft's escalating bids to take over Cadbury--and the ghastlier-still notion that it might all land in the chocolate-ruining hands of the Hershey corporation--qualify as the second kind of news. That's some serious day-darkening, mood-crushing, disgust-evoking, personally affecting news right there.

In fact, concerns about family abandonment repercussions aside, I feel moved to (once again) threaten to haul my elitist, socialist, book-reading, independent-movie-loving, health-care-having, EU-belonging ass back to England, where even the tiniest supermarkets carry Black Magic and Quality Street.

Please don't yawn.

AP Fact-checks Lynn Vincent's Sarah Palin's magnum opus

Question: if a reporter sets out to fact-check a document wherein no facts in fact exist, has he still engaged in fact-checking?

Pity the hapless AP worker-bee on whose desk this assignment fell. It's not a job I'd want to take on, not unless my desk was like the one in that Quit Smoking commercial that's currently airing--in other words, well-stocked with a large vat (or three) of something strong, a selection of pretty cocktail umbrellas, and an industrial-strength blender. For starters.

And really, isn't the entire book a lie, given that it's written in the "voice" of Sarah Palin (my apologies to anyone who experienced involuntary shrinking of his masculinity upon hearing the phrase The Voice of Sarah Palin) but was in fact "written"--with written, in this case, defined as Set forth into print a series of words in an order that closely resembles understandable human language--by a hombigoted conspiracy theorist who, unlike her boss, is possessed of rudimentary grammar and spelling skills?

I'd say yes. The whole book is lie.

In this country, however, we have a longstanding tradition of giving our politicians a pass when it comes to expecting them to actually write their own stuff, as it were. I'm not talking about having speechwriters, either: I'm referring to the sorts who get book deals, and whose through-the-screen projection skills and starburst-generating notoriety translate to the kind of handsome, seven-figure advances actual writers could only envision in their wildest dreams, you know, those booze-fueled flights of fancy to which writers treat themselves every once in a while, and you can tell that's what they're dreaming about because they'll be mumbling things like, Yes, Oprah, it was painful, but in the end, it was all about the journey... as drool starts to trickle from their motionless, slightly-parted lips, at which point the whole sorry tableau shatters when the landlord comes to call and his incessant door-banging startles the writer into knocking over what was left of the Don Eduardo.

But if we're going to be broad-minded here, and do away with that particular conceit--that people who go on book tours as authors ought to be, you know, authors--there remains a body of work, just the same and regardless of who actually tapped on the keyboard, which custom, propriety, and (oh gawd) journalistic ethics dictate ought to be critically examined and fact-checked.

Which brings us back to our hapless AP reporter. Or reporters, plural, because I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the sheer volume of lies shoehorned into Going Rogue had inspired the Associated Press to summon an unprecedented number of lie detectors to the task force room, lay in a couple of crates of the aforementioned Don Eduardo--and probably an assortment of pharmaceuticals, just in case--and ask them to read Going Rogue, first as a fact-checking exercise, and later, no doubt, in the interests of upholding basic workers' rights to not be tortured, as an order to just aim for the goddamned needle-in-haystack goal and see if they could locate, within Palin's book, anything reality-based whatsoever.

Thus far, quelle surprise, the falsehoods are winning at a rate that would threaten to short circuit every bulb on the LIES side of the scoreboard.

Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush – a package she seemed to support at the time.

In the interests of not short-circuiting my own meager equipment, I won't even attempt to print out the long list of lies contained in the Vincent/Palin propaganda vehicle. (And that's what they are, folks--lies. Can we please do away with mealy-mouthed euphemisms like misrepresentations, inaccuracies, and distortions?) But if you're interested, The Huffington Post has published the AP's initial findings.

However, I can't resist sharing with you this one comment gem:

There are going to be a lot of homes in this country owning their second book very soon.

Also at Cogitamus.

Your Friday meditation--Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful: the story of Keiko Fukuda

This is an excerpt from a work-in-progress documentary telling the beautiful, powerful story of Keiko Fukuda, the highest-ranking judoka alive; the granddaughter of a Samurai; and the last living disciple of Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo. At age 93, after working toward it for her entire life, Sensei Fukuda was finally promoted to ninth dan. Via Lauredhel of Hoyden About Town, who writes:

[...] Fukuda talks about how she was ‘frozen’ at fifth dan (fifth degree black belt), for no other reason than that she was a woman. She was finally promoted to ninth dan at the age of 93. She talks, emotionally, about having had to choose between marriage and judo.

In the film, Fukuda, who at 96 still teaches in San Francisco--yet another reason to envy those lucky Northern Californians--is shown, in archive footage, demonstrating the exquisite ballet of power and grace that is known as the kata. She is also shown teaching a present-day class, getting out of her wheelchair to demonstrate an armlock; she gives her students homework, too: Go home and ponder the essence of the word "ju" for a year.

Ju, like many Japanese words, carries many layers of meaning within the shell of its lone syllable; it translates approximately as soft, gentle, flexible, adaptable.

San Francisco filmmaker Yuriko Gamo Romer of Flying Carp Productions continues to work on this documentary and is trying to raise funds in order to complete it. Please go here for information on donating.

On the dark logic of guns versus butter

Shorter Far Too Many Members of Congress:

"Health care, did you say? What the fuck is that? If it isn't on these pages, we can't afford it. Go away, you silly media outliers and you, you even sillier bloggers, go away. Isn't there a beauty queen sex tape you should be investigating, just like all the mainstream Big Boys?"

This document discloses only yesterday's awards. Of our money. To various private defense corporations who make the things--and the technology to run the things, and the vehicles to transport and deliver the things--that we use to kill brown people. Every afternoon at 5 pm, the DOD publishes another day's worth of expenditures.

Especially chilling is this line, at the end of the Northrop Grumman award of a $6,793,942 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (just one of countless such awards to that particular company over the past few years):

Work is expected to be completed July 31, 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was not competitively procured.

You were wondering how, and why, we stay in Afghanistan (and everywhere else we invade) so very long? Now you know. Ah, forgive me, you probably already knew and are (wisely) trying to not pay attention to this stuff.

But me, well, I can't help myself--following the weapons and defense markets is my own private Vertigo wherein, again and again, I gaze upon this neverending trainwreck accompanied by firestreams and high-tech thunder, all set to Tchaikovsky on a loop; meanwhile, watching from the wings, evil masterminds the likes of which Ian Fleming never imagined are stroking their calculators in eerie unison. I gaze upon them, too, and in my small, pathetic way, I pray to someone, somewhere, and ask for justice, only justice.

And again. And again.

Also at Cogitamus.

More teabagging goodness: the I'm so glad irony didn't live to see this* edition

When it comes to the epic (and terribly comic) ongoing disaster known as the Teabagging Express, this Thursday's tiny tantrum in St. Petersburg represented but the tip of the iceburg, it seems. At the Main Event in Washington, DC, a much larger pro-freedom-agenda gang managed to topple Old Glory; meanwhile, their erstwhile leaders botched the Pledge of Allegiance, and confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. A semi-sane person, had one been present, might have assessed the damage to cause and reputation alike and decided to call things off in the interests of cutting losses, etcetera, etcetera.

Had one been present, being the operative phrase. Because--surprise!--one wasn't. OH no, no sanity allowed, sorry--no no no (hey, we're the party of it!)--that evil, science-based "sanity" stuff is much too centrist and traitorous, too popular with the liberal elite, and too anti-pro-freedom for that particular crowd.

So yes, to get to the point here, the show rolled on, and there was, as you'd expect, more. So much more (emphasis mine):

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. "Join us in defeating Pelosi care!" he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher. Boehner may have been distracted as well. He told the crowd he would read from the Constitution, then read the "we hold these truths" bit from the Declaration of Independence.

[...]

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters have seen for a long time."

(H/T Shadowfax)

* this line belongs to the awesome Doghouse Riley (if memory serves.)

The view (and racket) outside my window: St. Petersburg teabaggers attend party of NO class

A couple of hours ago, a chorus of beeping horns and argumentative shouting emanating from the street below penetrated my apartment building's 80+ -year-old concrete-and-steel walls and made it difficult to concentrate on the letter I was trying to write.

Hmm...strange.

There were no emergency vehicle sirens (as there are right now).

Probably someone standing in the middle of Central, holding up traffic and ranting about the latest alien sighting or something, I thought.

Fifteen minutes passed; the noise only intensified. Boy, this guy's stubborn.

Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I went to the window, opened the blinds, and looked across the street. This is what I saw:


And as if the din of car horns and shouts--both supportive and oppositional--wasn't loud enough, the modest-sized St. Petersburg chapter of The Michelle Bachmann Invitational Teabagging FreedomChantFest put on their best off-key tavern voices and howled God Bless America, threatening the integrity of nearby glass curtain walls, traumatizing poor Marley the Cat, and leading this writer to wish that God would indeed bless at least this part of America and call forth one of those wonderfully sudden cloudbursts for which Florida is famous.

No such luck.

The sky couldn't have been bluer, and the teabaggers seemed happily oblivious to the anti-pro-freedom people of the Socialist Fascist Republic of Democrat Healthcare, responding to the odd appreciative beep with a wave of the flag or a flutter of the sign.

They're clearly ignorant about matters sociopolitical, but at least the St. Pete Teabaggers can spell. (Assuming these folks actually live in St. Pete, of course.)

Unsurprisingly, the teabaggers didn't offer any solutions--or even an idea for a solution or a brainstormed theory that might, given enough debate, turn into an idea for a solution--for the healthcare crisis and runaway costs that currently account for nearly two-thirds of the nation's bankruptcy filings. They sure were fond of one monosyllabic word, though:

воспрещаться Kein NOOOOOOOOOOOO! We are the party of it!

And then there were these senior citizens, and theirs were the signs I found to be most confusing of all: they're simultaneously insisting--nay, demanding--that government not take over their healthcare, even as government, insofar as I'm aware, continues to run (and fund) Medicare, the very, very popular health insurance program for American senior citizens that was signed into law by President Johnson in 1965; the social insurance program these gentlefolk apparently want preserved as hands off.

Okay, then.

I suppose I could've done the right thing, saved them from any further embarrassment, and, er, corrected them--after all, I can do Liberal Fortissimo Con Brio pretty impressively when the spirit moves me, and hell, they were just across the street, six floors down. But I started having visions of the old country, with Pythonesque peasant-wives screeching from upstairs windows as the cart clattered along the cobblestones, its driver repeatedly droning, Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!

Not wanting to assume a position in that disturbing (and perhaps comic) mise en scène, I closed my window and opened my laptop instead.

Also at Cogitamus.