Michaelangelo's Artistic License Bible Project

I kept thinking about this Python sketch while I was reading Stephen's great post about the uncompromisingly stupid--not to mention patently blasphemous--Conservative Bible Project. Which risible undertaking, if you haven't yet heard, represents an effort to re-write the Bible in a way that removes and/or reworks those elements conservatives say unfairly imbue the Holy Book with a bias that's simultaneously liberal, feminist, and unflattering-to-Masters-of-the-Universe (other than the actual Master of the Universe, one presumes, since let's face it, He tends to be cast in a rather nice light across all the biblical versions).

At the End of the Times, though, any God who saw fit to grace this sorry world with the likes of John Cleese--ah, all the Pythons, really--is fine by me.

Oh, and wingnuts? Jesus said to love your neighbor, care for the sick, and help out the poor. So you might want to work on slimming down those camel-fat portfolios--from what I hear, your science-denying ways have led to warming effects extending far beyond this mortal globe. In other words, the Alternative Afterlife Destination to which you're clearly heading has been posting some record high temperatures lately.

More Grayson goodness

Because I'm guessing we could all use some encouragement and inspiration as we head into the weekend, here's Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) on CNN's The Situation Room, standing a head and shoulders--literally and figuratively--above Repbulican healthcare-naysayers and the Villagers who love them.



Via Driftglass, who notes:

Thirty years ago, there were Seven Words you could never say on teevee.

Now there are five.

They are:

Conservatives.
Are.
Worse.
Than.
Liberals.

[...]

And there they are in all their glory; a clown-car full of Serious Journalists reacting in absolute incredulity-bordering-on-horror at the sight of some guy telling the truth about Republicans.

Villagers: Isn't saying mean things about Republicans exactly as bad as Joe Wilson screaming "Liar" at the President in front of 40 million people?

No.

Villagers: Why? Why why why why?!

Because I am telling the truth and can back it up, and Joe Wilson was lying.

Again, Bravissimo! More like this, please. And more Congressmen like this one would be a wonderful thing, too.

Also at Cogitamus.

What a spine looks like

Meet Alan Grayson (D-FL) (yes, Florida!) aka Deborah's New Favorite Person on the Planet.

Yesterday, Grayson pointed out that the Republican solution to the health-care crisis faced by increasing numbers of Americans unable to afford care was this: Don't get sick. And if you do happen to get sick, he said, their next solution was: Die quickly.

House Republicans were not amused; many said that Speaker Pelosi should "rein him in" and others demanded that Grayson apologize. Watch today's video of Grayson on the floor and see him do just that. Apologize. Ha!

As you may remember, just last week, Grayson declared that as long as Congress was busily defunding ACORN following allegations of wrongdoing, matters of Constitutionality required that it also defund all the other organizations currently receiving tax dollars who were not only suspected of wrongdoing, but who were actually found guilty of, ahem, significant fraud. And, quelle surprise, a preliminary probe alone found that some of those organizations included the defense industry's heaviest hitters, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman, with 20 fraud cases between them.

Bravo, Congressman Grayson. Make that, BRAVISSIMO!

(H/T David aka TRex)

Today in Things that make me feel sick

It must be said, and I will be the one to say it: rape is not a case of morals. Rape is a crime of violence and domination, and it is illegal--punishable by imprisonment for varying lengths of time (and even, potentially and technically, prior to the Supreme Court's decision last year in Louisiana vs. Kennedy, by death*)--in every one of our United States.

Yet the language of the unforgivable rape-apologia screed, aka the now-famous Leave Roman Polanski Alooooone! Petition--signed, you'll note, by score after score of utterly idiotic Hollywood types--reads thus:

We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski's arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

A case of morals. Not a case in which a wealthy, powerful forty-something director forced himself onto and into the body of a thirteen-year-old girl, both vaginally and anally, and refused to cease his raping of her despite her cries of No and Stop. Which action, by the way, is textbook and prima facie rape right there and then--forcible penetration without consent--and that's before you consider that Polanski first plied the girl with illegal drugs (Quaaludes) and alcohol, and ah yes, before you factor in the detail of the girl's minor status: she was thirteen years old.

And not a criminal case which wound up with Polanski's attorneys pleading it down to statutory rape--itself a felony--and then, with Polanski fleeing the country before fully serving even that slap-on-the-wrist punishment. (Remember: he forcibly raped and sodomized a child after giving her illegal drugs and alcohol.)

No, no. According to some actors, filmmakers, and others in The Business, this was merely a case of morals.

As friends, family, and long-time readers will recall, I am a serious Martin Amis fan--have been for many, many years. Amis interviewed Polanski back in 1979, shortly after Polanski fled the States and just as he was to embark on a life of luxury living and prolific art-making while in exile. Lo and behold, a friend reminded me of said interview, originally published in Amis' interview anthology Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and now revisited by the Telegraph yesterday; this Polanski quote leaps horrifically and unrepentantly from the page:

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

A case of morals. In response to the aforementioned petition by the artistes, then, I'd like to use my small (but earnest and well-intentioned) virtual soapbox to make the following statement of my own:

To all actors, directors, and filmmaking sorts who felt compelled to sign on to the pathetic rape apologia in re: the Roman Polanski case, and who, in so doing, have given liberals like me a bad name: You have done immeasurable harm to the shared causes of women, children, liberalism, actual artists, and truly moral human beings. You stupid, vacuous, morally bereft morons.

Also at Cogitamus.

*Edited to reflect the 2008 Supreme Court decision ruling as unconstitutional the use of the death penalty in non-homicide aggravated rape cases.

Yes, it's racist

Our national discussion these days would seem to focus, to a large (and, I'd argue, important) degree, on racism and the scope to which it is undermining the debate over President Obama's policy proposals. Most salient among these--of late--is the president's ambitious and Herculean effort to reform America's healthcare system.

At both the national and local levels, and among left-leaning bloggers, even, we're seeing an awful lot of denial. In the Tampa area, for example, we have Creative Loafing blogger Catherine positing that that Not everyone who disagrees with President Obama is “racist”.

Now, on its face, this statement is true. In fact, you could expand that to an even broader observation: Not everyone who disagrees with Person X (where X="whichever sex, color, faith, or sexual orientation is pertinent to the discussion") is prejudiced against X. For example, I disagree with my own husband on a number of issues, but the last thing of which anyone could or would accuse me is being anti-Italian (and regular readers know this to be true, ahem).

But Catherine's next point--in the form of a question--indicates that she, like so many on the left (including President Clinton), is leaving the all-important issue of historical context out of the equation. Catherine writes:

What if white, country-boy Kanye West had interrupted African-American, R&B singer Taylor Swift? Would this switcheroo have changed public sentiment after their now-infamous interaction at the VMAs?

Switching the race of the interruptor and interruptee--without also noting the very different histories of the behavior of each race toward the other--renders this point kind of, well, pointless. For the sake of argument, let's simplify the comparison thus: as it actually transpired, a member of a historically oppressed class interrupted, and thus upstaged, a member of the oppressor class. If the scenario had instead involved a member of the oppressor class interrupting, and thus upstaging, a member of the oppressed class, could it have been interpreted as a racially-motivated act?

And the answer to that question is, yes. And it would be a justifiable yes. Not because of any knee-jerk reaction by people who, as Catherine puts it, "...cry racism, anti-Semitism, or some other form of hate-ism, take our ball, and go home", but rather, because it is impossible to disentangle hundreds of years of oppression from the equation, simply because we're all so damned open-minded and egalitarian these days, we white folks.

Listen, I disagree--vigorously--with President Obama about several policy matters, including his ongoing stance on upholding telecom immunity, for one thing. About not going after the war criminals responsible for, firstly, lying the nation into a war of choice and secondly, engaging in violation after violation of international law, particularly those conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war. But I am not a racist by dint of my disagreeing with him, even if, given the chance, I would politely express my sentiments to the President himself (although I'd never, ever--not in a million years!--shout them out while he was speaking, much less while he was addressing a joint session of Congress in front of the world's cameras, for Heaven's sake, which restraint and good manners are all part of growing up and being British, and, as I've witnessed, generally considered part of being a good American citizen, too.)

But so much of the vitriol aimed at President Obama is laced through and through with the toxic sap of racism. And saying we "have come a long way" is little more than patting ourselves on the back. Because we haven't. Not really.

Not when a Congressman shouts You lie...! (with the unspoken suffix "...boy" implied; otherwise, he'd have simply said "You're lying" or "That's a lie"), and that Congressman happens to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group which, in the last decade, has been led by radical neo-Confederate secessionists who defend slavery as "a benign institution"; and further, when that Congressman happens to have been one of only seven Republicans to go against his own party and vote to keep the Dixie Rebel flag flying over the South Carolina capitol.

Not when a conservative activist--someone who of course disagrees with President Obama, but is also a Florida neurosurgeon serving as a member of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates; an energetic opponent of health-care reform; and the founder of the anti-reform group Doctors For Patient Freedom--sends out an e-mail, to an entire mailing list, which contains a photoshopped picture of the President as a tribal witch doctor (complete with horns through the nostrils), along with the comment "Funny stuff".

And no, we haven't actually come very far at all in this whole getting-beyond-racism effort when a Republican mayor in California created, this spring, a similarly widely-disseminated e-mail in which there is a picture of the White House lawn covered with watermelons and vines and bearing the legend "No Easter egg hunt this year."

History--ancient and recent alike. Context. They matter.

But as is so often the case, the darling Stephen Colbert says it best:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Blackwashing
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Also at Cogitamus.

Florida Congressman's action may defund fraud-besieged defense contractors; now how about child-molesting faith-based groups? Also.

I daresay you'll be as happy as I am to learn that when it comes to Congress defunding organizations who've broken laws, the ACORN won't have fallen far from the artillery (emphasis mine):

Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

Awesome.

But wait--there is more, so much more. Who else has received tax dollars and broken laws? Well, as The Rude Pundit pointed out recently:

Some things are easy to put in perspective: We have a case in Albany, NY, where Catholic Charities funds were used as part of a settlement on a case of molestation by clergy. In Cleveland in 2002, at a Catholic Charities-supported child care center, five workers were arrested on charges of sexual abuse of children. The number of cases of molestation by workers, of the cloth or not, at Catholic Charities-run or -owned facilities could go on and on and on, as the abuse did for years.

In August of this year, Catholic Charities received a federal government contract for $100 million over five years to work with victims of natural disasters.

And the outrage is...where exactly?

Think about the poor, reviled insurance executives, people!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Fantastic. Please feel free to circulate.

(And yes, that's Mad Men's Jon Hamm--*swoon*--along with Olivia Wilde, Will Ferrell, and friends, all making the important point that if healthcare reform includes a public option, the poor insurance corporations will have to actually compete, which will, in turn, affect all those executives who currently enjoy such perks as owning five luxury homes apiece, having private zoos in their back gardens, going on lavish vacations, raking in enormous bonuses, getting doughnuts and prostitutes on demand, etcetera, etcetera.)

Friday Saturday Frank: Guitar Solo from Hotplate Heaven at the Green Hotel; Vienna, Austria; 1988

Dedicated to Roberto, who regularly redeems himself by bringing me armloads of orchids and lilies and whose marinara sauce gives new meaning to the phrase hotplate heaven.

Bon Weekend, everyone.

Lifestyles of the White & Suggestible

By the brilliant Max Blumenthal, whose book Republican Gomorrah just debuted at number #15 on the New York Times Bestsellers list.

As for this video of the 9/12 Teabaggers' Extravaganza, aka The 2-Million Loon March The Unintentionally Hilarious But Nonetheless Scary Tantrum of the Seventy-thousand Seriously Deranged, well, there's a phrase in Spanish that sums it up neatly: sin palabras. No words.

Well, there are a few words on display here, but as you'll see, most of them are risibly misspelled.

I'mma let you finish

I'm going to file this site under Sweet Jeebus, I love the Intertubes. You can click on the archive to see them all, or choose the random generator. Either way, you simply must hear the audio (on the Home page) wherein our president refers to stage-crashing Kanye as a "jackass".

(Yes, I am fourteen years old. Sometimes.)

More like this pls., President O--now how about letting loose on the far-more-significant-and-worrisome Blue Jackasses who are buggering up healthcare reform?

What's inside the mind of Mark Foley?

Why, only sugar and spice and all things nice--I'm sure of it.

Chew on this: disgraced ex-congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) is getting his own radio talk show. Yes, that Mark Foley. A radio talk show, on Palm Beach-area AM station WSVU, which also features programming from CBS radio, "adult standards" tunes, and the thoughtful musings of Don Imus, among others.

According to ABC News, WSVU spokesman Joseph Raineri is looking forward to having Foley on board having Foley join his team hearing what's on Foley's mind. In fact, the show is actually entitled Inside the mind of Mark Foley. Said Ranieri:

"With everything that's going on with healthcare and everybody questioning what's happening in Washington, DC, we thought who better to explain what's going on than Mark Foley."

Well, speaking as a Florida resident, I'll happily admit that when I find myself feeling, you know, confused about what's happening in Washington DC and wishing with all my questioning little heart that there was someone I could turn to for explanations about healthcare reform and the like, the first person who comes to mind is almost always a hypocritical wingnut predator whose primary claim to fame is having propositioned teenage boys the same age as my son before being quietly disappeared to a rehab clinic somewhere.

WSVU's spokesman:

"You're going to be amazed!"

We already are, Mr. Ranieri. We already are.

(H/T Michael at Pushing Rope)

Town hall meetings in the time of King Arthur

Ah, plus ça change...

Higher Life Forms for Rob Miller (aka the Dem. opponent of the guy who yelled You Lie during President Obama's address)

Readers, I've created an ActBlue account for those who, like me, wish to support Rob Miller, the gentleman who'll run against Joe Wilson (R-SC), that rude, miserable, badly-raised creature who's now famous for shouting out You Lie! during President Obama's address last night.

The fundraising page is called Higher Life Forms for Rob Miller.

Click here if you're interested in throwing a few bucks his way--your donation will go into the larger overall fund for Mr. Miller, which, as of this writing, has grown has grown to over $100,000 $260,000 since last night!

Thanks, everyone.

UPDATE: a late-night e-mail from Rob Miller's office confirms the ActBlue 1-day effort has raised more than $600,000. This means the ex-Marine Democratic contender is well on his way to running a fantastic campaign and taking over yet another House seat next November.

What Dr. Krugman said

With all due respect to the estimable Blogfather of our Cogitamus gang, I have to agree with Paul Krugman on this (emphasis mine):

But what is one to make of the practical, political argument from the likes of Ezra Klein, who argue that any public plan actually included in legislation probably wouldn’t make that much difference, and that reform is worth having even without such a plan?

There are three reasons to be suspicious of that argument.

The first is that I suspect that Ezra and others understate the extent to which even a public plan with limited bargaining power will help hold down overall costs. Private insurers do pay providers more than Medicare does — but that’s only part of the reason Medicare has lower costs. There’s also the huge overhead of the private insurers, much of which involves marketing and attempts to cherry-pick clients — and even with community rating, some of that will still go on. A public plan would probably be able to attract clients with much less of that.

Second, a public plan would probably provide the only real competition in many markets.

Third — and this is where I am getting a very bad feeling about the idea of throwing in the towel on the public option — is the politics. Remember, to make reform work we have to have an individual mandate. And everything I see says that there will be a major backlash against the idea of forcing people to buy insurance from the existing companies. That backlash was part of what got Obama the nomination! Having the public option offers a defense against that backlash.

What worries me is not so much that the backlash would stop reform from passing, as that it would store up trouble for the not-too-distant future. Imagine that reform passes, but that premiums shoot up (or even keep rising at the rates of the past decade.) Then you could all too easily have many people blaming Obama et al for forcing them into this increasingly unaffordable system. A trigger might fix this — but the funny thing about such triggers is that they almost never get pulled.

UPDATE:

Simon Owens of Bloggasm writes to alert us to a group effort--on the part of numerous progressive blogs and Firedoglake--to raise money for their campaign to demand a strong public option. Go here for more information and to donate, if you possibly can; they're aiming for $50,000 and have already passed the $21,000 mark.

If housepets were libertarians

Perfection.

Click to (slightly) embiggen.

Published with permission from Lefty Cartoons (thanks, Barry!)

And if Alas, a blog isn't already one of your regular stops, what are you waiting for? There's comedy gold in them thar posts.

Love Rescue Me: by U2 and performed by the Omagh Community Youth Choir

Beautiful song; beautiful children; beautiful message.

And a beautiful dream for our heartbreakingly divided people.

(H/T jacqueline)

The big backoff: No, you weren't imagining the sudden downplaying of the public option

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Heal or No Heal - Medicine Brawl
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

In response to a pair of condescending and dishonest comments denying that the White House, earlier this week, appeard to be backing off from and downplaying the importance of a government-funded public option in the health care reform bill, I can think of no better or more succinct reply than the above clip from Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In it, President Obama is shown in Colorado last weekend, when he stated:

"All I'm saying is though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform."

Contrast this with previous statements--just weeks earlier--by White House officials and the President himself:

WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on July 17, 2009:

"Increased choice and competition drives down the prices for other insurance--that's why a strong public option is necessary."

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius on July 21, 2009:

"What we need is a level playing field, but a public plan, side-by-side with private plans to make sure costs come down."

President Barack Obama on July 20th, 2009:

"I've been very clear about the fact that we should have a public plan."

Subsequently, as you saw in the Daily Show clip, all three officials, on or around August 15, did what can only be termed a group-floating of trial balloons to see how people would respond if the insurance companies got their dearest wish and the public option were taken off the table. So no, readers, you weren't imagining things, and for once, this wasn't a media-created meme. The White House actually did start to back down on the one remaining cornerstone to real health-care reform: a government-funded public plan. And the reactions around the blogosphere (and even among those interviewed by the traditional media)--as expected, and gratifyingly en masse--ranged from bitter disappointment to disgust and outrage, with many accusing the White House of giving in to the opposition, plain and simple.

Which charge is entirely justified, I think. If America is truly led by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as opposed to one that's of, by, and for the corporations--in this case, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries--the President cannot possibly countenance this shameless capitulation to the opposition. And nor can we.

UPDATE: kathy a. points to this USA Today piece in which Robert Gibbs calls all of this a "media overreaction" and says the public option is still on the table.

Good.

Greetings from Netroots: Big Dawg turns on the five-alarm charm

President Bill Clinton firing up the Netroots crowd in Pittsburgh last night; litbrit's camera stops wobbling just long enough to capture the excitement.

We had to sit through a seemingly interminable series of opening acts--some of whom were more compelling than others--but our patience was rewarded when President Clinton took the stage and, after apologizing for the gruffness of his voice and blaming it on the extensive airplane travel he'd been doing lately, delivered a wonderful address, covering everything from health care reform to gay rights to the possibility of a long-term progressive reign.

Of course, Yours Truly is not a very patient girl, and if you make me wait (and wait and wait) for things I've been looking forward to, I am going to be forced to amuse myself by doing things like making origami animals out of the Very Serious Political Pamphlets people leave on tables, surely intended for purposes other than being turned into origami animals; traipsing back and forth to the well-stocked bar for, er, refreshments (Sir C, Stephen, and Nick Beaudrot are Jack Daniels guys, Minstrel Boy did the mature thing and stuck with ginger ale, and I represented my home state by drinking Cuba Libres with extra lime); rummaging through the bag of "goodies" we'd been handed at registration (at this convention, "goodies" = one t-shirt, an assortment of buttons, a couple of booklets I haven't yet read so I can't tell you what they're about, and a packet of non-GMO corn chips. Really, Netroots organizers--whither Cheetos?); and eventually, having fully assimilated the aforementioned refreshments, offering up the odd Cogitamus-style riposte to lines that, let's face it, ranged from stating-the-bleeding-obvious ("Reforming health care policy has been a long process, but we can't give up now!") to downright stupid. To wit:

Penultimate (or was it the seventh-to-last?) Speaker: "Bipartisanship still matters; now is not the time to turn our backs on the opposition."

Litbrit (allegro con molto brio): "YES IT IS!"

Guess whose line got the louder cheers in our quadrant of the auditorium?

Also at Cogitamus.

The responsibility for Death Panels should remain where it is right now: with the private insurance companies

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter - Obama Death Panel Debate
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

This is simply brilliant. (Note to Comedy Central: more Samantha Bee, please.)

Bring back "free speech zones" for teabaggers and townhall violence-inciters

AstraZeneca will happily supply Breast Cancer Cupcakes to go with all that fenced-in teabagging, as long as they won't get cited for HIPPA violations.

While commenting at Stephen's post lamenting the escalating violence at healthcare reform townhall meetings, I had a great idea: Free Speech Zones!

I wrote:

Why not have FREE SPEECH ZONES for the loud, violence-inciting assholes who seem to be there to shriek about everything BUT healthcare reform? I mean, that's what Bush did. Let's fence off an area nearby, but separate from, the townhall itself, where people who want to ask actual questions and engage in on-topic, reasoned discussion can do so. Meanwhile, the Obama-Wants-to-Kill-Your-Mama folks can wave their signs and make good use of their freebie BlueCross/BlueShield bath-towels and AstraZeneca hand lotion when they're jerking off to Rick Scott videos to their hearts' content.

We can even re-use the same chain-link fencing and razor wire.

Make that Occam's razor wire: simple, obvious, effective. Problem solved, proving once again that Mama knows best.

Weekend Horizons: Belgium and Sweden

As promised.

Let's start with Mathilde by Belgian legend Jaques Brel, as suggested by Minstrel Boy.



Now on to Sweden--meet The Movits, who come with MR Bill's fond recommendation, as well as that of his son; this piece is called Äppelknyckarjazz.



More musical travels soon, barring the eruption of any boy incidents.

Bon Weekend, everyone!

Para Sonia, La Suprema

We follow our shreds of fame into an ambush.
Then (as while the stars herd to the great trough
the blind, in the always-only-outward of their dismantled
archways, awake at the smell of warmed stone
or the sound of reeds, lifting from the dim
into the segment of green dawn) always
our enemy is our foe at home, more
certainly than through spoken words or from grief-
twisted writing on paper, unblotted by tears
the thought came:
There is no physic
for the world's ill, nor surgery; it must
(hot smell of tar on wet salt air)
burn in fever forever, an incense pierced
with arrows, whose name is Love and another name
Rebellion (the twinge, the gulf, split seconds,
the very raindrops, render, and instancy
of Love).
All Poetry to this not-to-be-looked-upon sun
of Passion is the moon's cupped light; all
Politics to this moon, a moon's reflected
cupped light, like the moon of Rome, after
the deep well of Grecian light sank low;
always the enemy is the foe at home.
But these three are friends whose arms twine
without words; as, in still air,
the great grove leans to wind, past and to come.

-- from Train Ride, by Frederico García Lorca

EXPOSED! Marley is not a Real American

King Marley Tornello of Cogitamus, born in Kenya (apparently)

All this time, we'd assumed that Marley's birth on the floor of my closet in Saint Petersburg, Florida--along with his five pom-pom-sized siblings--meant he was a native-born American. I mean, what better example of American soil could there possibly be than the floor of my closet? (Trust me on this one.)

Mais non! It turns out there's a Kenyan birth certificate floating around that proves otherwise. King Marley was actually born in Saint Petersburg, Kenya. Yes, indeed. The Internets have confirmed it, and now we're just waiting for the Librul Media to report the truth. Look:

(click to embiggen)

You too can come up with hard evidence of someone's Kenyan birth!

Via Wonkette.

Saturday Frank: Montana; 1973

Movin' to Montana Soon...

Shall we expect a bumper crop of Palin Dental Floss* to hit the stores by Christmas?

* cf.

Weekend horizons: via Pakistan; Awaz; Mr. Fraudiay, 1996

At the recommendation of reader Prup, let's explore the beautiful sounds of Pakistan today, specifically, mid-90's Pakistan and the reggae-inflected sounds of Awaz. From the album Shola, here is Mr. Fraudiay. Enjoy!

I encourage readers to share their favorite tunes from afar with fellow travelers (ahem) and either leave me a link in comments or shoot me an e-mail (litbrit at gmail dot com, as ever). What say you we make this horizon-broadening thing a semi-regular exercise?

Friday Funk: Johnny Guitar Watson; A Real Mother For Ya

For my money, this is one of the best bass lines ever. I dare you to try to sit completely still, ha!

Bon Weekend, everyone.

XXX
D.

Wednesday Grace: Steve Vai; I Know You're Here; Denver, 2003

Beautiful guitar music for a summer night's musing. Spiritual Steve looks so grown-up compared to his protégé days of playing alongside Frank Zappa (who called him the "Little Italian Virtuoso") while wearing leopard-print t-shirts and wowing the girls. I love (and relate to!) the glasses, too--apparently even rock-'n-rollers get around to needing them sooner or later.

Health Care Reform's Public Enemy #1: Rick Scott

Please watch this important film short; feel free to share it far and wide.

Via Collateral News.

Walter Cronkite with Dennis Kucinich: For a Department of Peace

In September 2005, the late, great Walter Cronkite sat down with Rep. Dennis Kucinich to discuss a novel and, as yet, heartbreakingly little-explored approach to making our world a better place: create a Department of Peace. Watch and be inspired.

Sadly, the idea makes far too much sense to be a plausible goal for our violence-addicted culture, especially when you consider that many of our leaders have track records of slavish devotion to the makers of Things That Go Bang in the Night. And that said leaders themselves are, all too often, wealthy white male draft-dodgers with pneumatic Caymans accounts in need of constant feeding. But you never know--perhaps we can get Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, et alia, interested in the dove-breeding and butter-distributing business?

(H/T commenter atheist over at Roy Edroso's place.)

Beautifully Said

Actress Rita Hayworth points out that she donated her car’s steel bumpers to the war effort; note Hayworth's crisp outfit, jaunty brooch, and prettily-curled hair.
(Photo from the National Archives.)

She's probably too modest to mention this herself, so I'm going to tell you about Cogblog contributor Lisa Simeone's winning column/blog, Glamor Girl, over at Baltimore STYLE Magazine. In today's piece, Lisa discusses the importance, now more than ever, of creating and appreciating beauty--including gorgeous fashion. I encourage you to go read the whole thing and show her some comment love:

Asking, “what’s the point of fashion?” betrays a profound ignorance. What’s the point of music? Of art? Of literature? With so many more “serious” concerns in an often brutal world, why waste time on anything as trivial or as frivolous as creativity? What’s the point of beauty? Of joy? Of aesthetics?

I would argue that it’s precisely because the world can be such a cruel, barbaric place that we need beauty, we need pleasure, we need self-expression. We need the dreams and fantasies of designers made incarnate.

And it’s not all just a Madison Avenue conspiracy, another inane theory floating around out there. Maasai teenagers in Kenya don’t primp and preen in front of car mirrors in the bush, comparing their red shukas and trying to one-up each other in adornments, because they’re being pressured by ruthless advertisers. Their sisters and mothers don’t spend hours and days fabricating intricate beaded jewelry because some corporate titan came along and urged them to do it.

Oh, and my favorite—the pseudo-feminist argument that fashion is a method of oppressing women. As a proud loudmouthed feminist, I’m particularly rankled by that one. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian women had for the first time in their lives the chance to buy beautiful, lacy, feminine bras. Yes, bras. Middle-class and blue-collar women would save up for months, forgoing other needs, just to buy one beautiful bra. Why? Because Western capitalists were trying to oppress them? No, because they craved beauty.

I couldn't agree more--Hooray for beauty, hooray for creativity, and down with wanton destruction and violence, I say. Go read!

Leave Sarah ALOOOOOOONE!

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Half Baked Alaska
www.thedailyshow.com
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In case you missed last night's Daily Show, here is the fabulous Samantha Bee explaining Sarah Palin's resignation to Jon Stewart. Priceless!

(Very well, I promise this is the last thing litbrit will post about Sarah Palin.*)

* Until and unless she sets forth any heretofore unexploited comedy gold, in which case it would irresponsible not to mockulate.

Sarah Palin's personal magnetism: It is what it is

One of various inspirational refrigerator magnets
scattered around the litbrit desk

In her now-infamous resignation "speech" last Friday, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, having exhausted the deciphering skills of supporters and reporters alike with a seemingly never-ending stream of nonsensical explanations for quitting her office mid-term, spun around and denounced the very need for explanations in the first place:

I think of the saying on my parents’ refrigerator that says “Don’t explain: your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”

Refrigerator magnet wisdom! Well, that explains everything. Not that you really need an explanation, mind you.

We are a nation of slogan-lapper-uppers, aren't we? Just Do It. It's the Real Thing. I'm Lovin' It.

So perhaps Governor Palin is just following a grand Madison Avenue tradition here, using the vague and universal pronoun "it" in such a way as to allow the audience themselves to fill in the begged question of "it", drawing on their own deeply-submerged wants and needs. After all, when Nike says Just Do It, the "it" is supposed to mean exercise, but the more profound message is that one should engage in whatever "it" is that strikes one's fancy, no second-guessing, no excuses. When Coca-Cola told us that "it" was the real thing, they were, at first blush, referring to the beverage in the curvy glass bottle in the print ad, but they could just as easily have been referencing the curvy model's main asset. I'm Lovin'...what exactly? The reliable sameness of the burger or the burger itself? Which is "it"?

And so "it" goes with Sarah Palin's ridiculous non-explanation explanation. The following examples of Palin invoking the usefully vague "it" are quoted directly from the governor's Website, where she's proudly posted the entire text, as it were, of her resignation speech as it appeared on the Teleprompter (and yes, you read that right: Sarah Palin actually wrote that speech ahead of time and read it to you).

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.

It’s not what is best for Alaska.

it’s no more “politics as usual”

I cannot believe that there are people in this country--hell, people who supposedly went to journalism school, an endeavor that used to require basic competency in English--who seriously think such a person is capable of being the president of the United States.

This is due, in large part, to the fact that we are a nation of superficial, looks-obsessed, slogan-lapper-uppers.

Is that not it? It is.

Also at Cogitamus.

BREAKING: Exiled President Zelaya en route to Honduras

At or around 3:50 pm EST today, President Zelaya boarded a Venezuelan jet bound for Tegucigalpa. The Honduran capital appears to be in an extremely volatile state as an apparent showdown draws near; I worry that innocent, unarmed people are going to be hurt and killed, simply for protesting. I suppose it's naïve of me to hope that all this goes productively and without incident, but here's wishing for that, nonetheless:

Honduras' exiled president took off for home in a Venezuelan jet in a high-stakes attempt to return to power, even as the interim government told its military to turn away the plane.

Zelaya won wide international support after his ouster a week ago by the military, but the only prominent escort aboard his plane was the U.N. General Assembly president after Latin American leaders backed out, citing security concerns. Honduras' civil aviation director said Zelaya's plane was being redirected to El Salvador.

Several other planes carrying Latin American presidents, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States and journalists were leaving Washington separately, trailing Zelaya to see what happens in the skies over Honduras before deciding where to land.

Thousands of protesters descended on the airport in the Honduran capital in anticipation of the showdown. Police helicopters hovered overhead. Commercial flights were canceled, and outside the airport about 200 soldiers with riot shields formed a line in front of the protesters.

''The government of President (Roberto) Micheletti has ordered the armed forces and the police not to allow the entrance of any plane bringing the former leader,'' the foreign minister of the interim government, Enrique Ortez, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Flying with Zelaya were close advisers and staff, two journalists from the Venezuela-based network Telesur, and U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister who personally condemned Zelaya's ouster as a coup d'etat.

Speaking live from the plane through Telesur, Zelaya called on the Honduran military to leave the airport free for him to land.

Honduras: As you are me and we are all together--Coup, coup, k'joob

Today in Teguc (emphasis mine):

One day after the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.

The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. “We’re defending our president,” said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”

Leaders across the hemisphere joined in condemning the coup. Mr. Zelaya, who touched down Sunday in Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, insisted, “I am the president of Honduras.”

As you may have noticed in comments about the Honduran coup at Cogitamus, a number of opposition party supporters have deluged my post, as well as writings at other US blogs and newspapers, with bold assertions about the Honduran army having "protected democracy" and "upheld the rule of law". Numerous allegations about President Zelaya's various transgressions are scattered throughout the thread, but not a single one is supported with linked documentation; I have not been able to verify them independently, outside of what the international media are reporting, and what they are reporting--namely, that the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations, and the European Union, unanimously and unequivocally, condemn the illegal arrest and kidnapping of President Zelaya--flies in the face of that which our new Honduran rightwing friends are saying, and saying with gusto, sometimes in ALL CAPS, and often in Spanish, with a few insults aimed at CNN for good measure.

Having only read portions of the Honduran constitution (and arrgh, if you think legalese in English makes for tricky reading...), I cannot say for certain that it does not have a special amendment tucked into it somewhere that legally authorizes the congress to order soldiers to invade the president's bedroom, kidnap him at gunpoint, fly him out of the country in darkness, falsify a letter of resignation from him and forge his signature on same, and install a brand-new president within hours. But I'm reasonably sure there are no provisions of that nature. If, however, there is such an article, subsection, or amendment that I may have missed, Estimados Lectores con abilidad de leer en Español e interpretar la ley Hondureña para nosotros Gringos, favor de avisarme.*

[*Dear Readers with the ability to read in Spanish and interpret Honduran law for us Gringos, please let me know.]

Mr. Zelaya, 56, a rancher who often appears in cowboy boots and a western hat, has the support of labor unions and the poor. But he is a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and the middle class and the wealthy business community fear he wants to introduce Mr. Chávez’s brand of socialist populism into the country, one of Latin America’s poorest. His term was to end in January. [...]

The military also appeared to be moving against Mr. Zelaya’s allies. Local news outlets reported Sunday that Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas and the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city, had been detained at military bases.

The government television station and another station that supports the president were taken off the air. Television and radio stations broadcast no news. Electricity was cut off for much of the day in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, in what local reports suggested was on military orders. Only wealthy Hondurans with access to the Internet and cable television were able to follow the day’s events.

The Congress met in an emergency session on Sunday afternoon and voted to accept what was said to be a letter of resignation from the president. Mr. Zelaya later assured reporters that he had written no such letter.

Interesting, don't you think? Grassroots movements cannot possibly spread when they're trampled by combat boots day in and day out; contrarily, Astroturf will grow like a bloody weed when its opponents can't access any means of electronic communication. And as you'd imagine, the poorest citizens of the Americas' poorest nation are not exactly weighed down with Apple products and satellite dishes.

Also at Cogitamus.

Heads Up: Honduras in political crisis after apparent coup

UPDATE II

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemns Zelaya's arrest.

Countries and leaders of all political persuasions, and across the Western Hemisphere, are united in their opposition to the Honduran coup.

A Honduran resident, commenting at the NYT (emphasis mine):

I want to report that all national and international news networks were pulled out from the cable system as the Coup unfolded. Now at noon only the Televicentro Network, owned by Rafael Ferrari, and main critic of Manuel Zelaya Administration along with OPSA (owned by Jorge Cahanhuati) is back on air along with others that favored the Coup (Maya TV). The rest of newtorks that leaned towards Zelaya remain off the air along with international networks. Even CNN HD was pulled out shortly after John King reported President Obama's comments on the issue.

The Congress has received a resignation letter from President Zelaya and has accepted it. Mr Zelaya has denied he signed the letter on CNN en Español.

Hope The Times do something to verify my version and denounce this limitation of freedom of speech.

UPDATE

From President Obama's statement: “I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic charter,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

From Tegucigalpa:

Later on Sunday, the Honduran Congress voted Mr. Zelaya out of office, replacing him with the president of congress, Roberto Micheletti. [...]

Political tensions have increased as Mr. Zelaya pressed ahead with plans for a nonbinding referendum that opponents said would open the way for him to rewrite the constitution to run for re-election despite a one-term limit. In the weeks leading up to the referendum, supporters and opponents of the president held competing demonstrations.

Last week, the Supreme Court and Congress both declared the referendum unconstitutional. But on Thursday, the president led a group of protesters to an air force installation and seized the ballots, which the prosecutor’s office and the electoral tribunal had ordered confiscated.

After the armed forces commander, Romeo Vazquez, said that the military would not participate in the referendum, Mr. Zelaya fired him. But the Supreme Court declared the firing illegal.

Honduran soldiers guard streets around the residence
of just-exiled President Zelaya.

Early today, presumably in the wee hours of the morning, Honduran soldiers burst into the bedroom of President Manuel Zelaya, firing shots; according to his wife Xiomara de Zelaya, they then beat the president and dragged him away.

Troops moved through the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and surrounded the presidential palace and other government buildings. The state television network was off the air as hundreds of angry Honduran citizens poured into the streets and shouted support for Zelaya. "The fact is, this is a coup d'etat and the president of Honduras has been kidnapped and beaten up," Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, told CNN's Spanish-language network.

Janina del Veccio, minister of security for Costa Rica, confirmed that Zelaya was in her country. She told CNN that the president said he had been kidnapped from his bedroom and bundled into an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica. He was scheduled to speak to the press later this morning, she said.

The military action followed days of unrest ahead of a referendum over constitutional reforms scheduled for today. The vote was to ask Hondurans whether they wanted another referendum to change the constitution in a number of ways, including allowing re-election of the president.

Army leaders opposed the vote, which they, Congress and election officials said was illegal. In response, Zelaya last week fired the top military commander and then ignored a Supreme Court order to reinstate him.

I confess that despite my higher-than-average level of interest in Honduran current events (I lived in Tegucigalpa during my middle school years), I was caught completely unaware this time, and sort of stumbled upon the news of the coup via the BBC website, which led me to search around for more information.

But I predict we'll all be hearing more about this as the days pass. So here's at a bit of background on what has precipitated the current crisis, along with my memories of the bloodless (thank goodness) coup that took place back in 1974, when my family and I lived there.

Essentially, the current president-now-in-exile, Presidente Manuel Zelaya of the Partido Liberal de Honduras (the Liberal Party of Honduras or PLH), was chosen by the people in yet another controversy-wracked election in late November, 2005. The results were hotly contested and challenged by the runner-up and his party; Zelaya was declared the winner in early December '05, and ballot counts confirming his victory were released later that month. He took office in January 2006.

Zelaya's term, however, has been characterized by infighting, controversy, and severe disagreements with Honduras' military leaders, to put it mildly. The most volatile of these disputes centered around Zelaya's efforts to put to the vote a referendum that would have modified the Honduran constitution, including allowing a president to serve a second 4-year term if the voters so chose:

Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, has found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of Sunday's planned referendum. It would ask voters to place a measure on November's ballot allowing the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation's charter to allow the president to run for another term.

His four-year term ends in January 2010, and he cannot run for re-election under current law.

The Honduras Supreme Court had ruled the poll illegal, and Congress and the top military brass agreed, but Zelaya had remained steadfast.

In the end, it appeared the opposition to Zelaya was too great.

The military confiscated the ballots from the presidential residence, in effect canceling the disputed vote.

Honduras is no stranger to military overthrows of the government; indeed, the election of the PLH's Roberto Suazo Cordova in 1981 was the first time in over a century that the country had a civilian government. Nor is she a stranger to what I will charitably call "American guidance". At the bilingual school I attended in Tegucigalpa in the early 1970's, most of my classmates were the children of American and British diplomats, US Army and Air Force personnel and officers, agents of The Company, or--like my father--employees of American or British businesses operating in Honduras. As an eleven-year-old, it didn't occur to me to wonder why a small and terribly poor country--over 80% of Hondurans live in poverty--would attract so many Yanquis, nor did I question the purpose of building an enormous US-Honduran air base--Palmerola (now known as Soto Cano Air Base)--in nearby Comayagua. But years later, with my political conscience (and guilt-levels) appropriately raised, I figured it out.

Honduras is not an especially resource-rich country, but it is located right next door to Nicaragua, home of a then-brewing Marxist revolution movement--the Sandinistas--that grew out of disgust and disaffection with the corrupt, brutal reign of the Somoza family. The situation was obviously being carefully monitored by Uncle Sam et. al., and this was years before President Reagan upped the ante:

Upon assuming office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining with Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador. His administration authorized the CIA to have their paramilitary officers from their elite Special Activities Division begin financing, arming and training rebels, some of whom were the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded "counter-revolutionary" by leftists (contrarrevolucionarios in Spanish).

So, I watch today's developments with interest, with a heavy heart, and with no small number of memories awakened and rattling around in my head: turning on the radio one school-day morning and realizing that instead of the usual American Top Ten fare my friends and I enjoyed, it was now playing military marching music.

My mother telling us there was no school that day, and just to be on the safe side, let's all stay indoors. Soldiers, soldiers everywhere, even on the country's two television stations (which annoyed us housebound kids to no end--believe me, ancient re-runs of Popeye or Fractured Fairytales, all in black and white and dubbed in Spanish, are better than nothing, and certainly better than endless loops of soldiers marching!) Gunshot/guerilla drills when school did re-open (mainly, you're supposed to hit the deck immediately). Shortages of various food staples like sugar and flour, advance news of which had led my practical, smart Mum to stock our basement bodega, which dark and somewhat spooky storeroom, we were instructed, would also be the go-to hiding place for us children should our parents be away for some reason and soldiers came to the door (thankfully this didn't happen, but my arms bristle with goosebumps as I type this; my own boys just ran into the room, and once again I marvel at, and am grateful for, my mother's amazing calm and ability to somehow impart survival lessons to us without terrifying us to the point of paralysis).

I don't know the extent to which America is or will be involved in this latest development, but the fact that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has condemned the Honduran military's early-morning actions, and called for President Obama to do likewise, probably speaks volumes. My thoughts are with the warm and generous Honduran people, the poorest and least powerful of whom have been used as pawns, manipulated, stolen from, brutalized, and abused for as long as I can remember.

Photo via Reuters.

Also at Cogitamus.