Guest Comment « BartBlog

June 30, 2011

Captain Queeg in the Oval Office?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Budget crises, Impeachment, President Obama, Resignation, VP Biden — Bob Patterson @ 12:26 pm

Here are the elements, which would indicate that all the ingredients for America’s worst political nightmare, are now simultaneously, in play:
1. Congress has twice in recent weeks gone on record saying that President Obama exceeded his authority and committed a violation of the War Powers Act.
2. President Obama has already delivered evidence that his much vaunted political negotiation skills are overvalued and may be inconsequential at best.
3. The Republicans would not hesitate to use the threat of Impeachment proceedings as a bargaining chip in the budget crises negotiations.

The Republicans have delivered circumstantial evidence that they are all in accord regarding a reevaluation of values for the tax structure, Medicare, the Social Security Program, the President’s power to pick and choose America’s wars, the mission of the United States Supreme Court, and union busting (to name just a few). Asking if they are unscrupulous enough to initiate political blackmail to further their agenda seems to be an unnecessary diversion into an irrelevant debating point. Wouldn’t the harshest critics of the Republican Party concede that the disciples of Ayn S. Rand would cheerfully be willing to do anything to achieve their goals?

If President Obama is vulnerable to political blackmail in the form of Republican threats to immediately initiate Impeachment proceedings for violations of the War Powers Act, then his effectiveness as a President is crippled and rendered useless.

If the Congress has twice voted to endorse the idea that he exceeded his authority with his military actions against Libya (which they have) then, at any moment of the Republican leadership’s choosing, they can use the threat of immediate impeachment proceedings as a bargaining chip during any closed door negotiating sessions for other issues (such as the debt ceiling).

When that threat was delivered, the President would then have an extremely difficult decision to make: He could remove the Republican advantage by immediately resigning or he could put his selfish instincts for political survival ahead of his patriotic instincts and blithely ignore his own vulnerability to manipulation via extortion and blackmail threats and quietly give in. Using his past negotiating record as the basis for any “tells,” how well do you think he would be able to stand up against any such hypothetical coercion?

At any moment, the debt limit negotiations may turn into a variation of the “Let’s Play Master and Slave” game.

If President Obama chooses to ignore the implications of complete ineffectiveness for his party (and the country); then the Democrats will have a very difficult choice to make. They can either make the impeachment threat themselves “Resign tonight or we will make the move to start impeachment proceedings in the morning” or they can let Obama undertake a kamikaze reelection campaign which will reek of self-destructive hubris.

If the Republicans want to impeach President Obama and have the grounds to do so available today, why would they hold off on making their dream come true? The Sadistic appeal of getting every possible negotiation concession first and then impeaching him should be rather obvious.

An ineffective negotiator who wishes to sell his meager accomplishments as his credentials for reelection might remind some cynical critics of the ridiculous spectacle of an extremely old woman walking down the street in a scanty showgirl’s costume.

The Democratic Party option of using political blackmail to force one of their own to resign from the Presidency may be repugnant but it would give them a slim chance of starting an immediate reorganization effort and a valiant effort to hold onto the Presidency for their Party.

If Obama resigns or is impeached out of office, Joseph Biden would have the monumental challenge of simultaneously contending with the challenges of an administration transition, budget decisions for this and the following year, and (if he chooses) a reelection campaign with about a year until the 2012 Elections would be held.

If Obama does not resign immediately, then the Republicans could use the extortion ploy to gain every possible concession from Obama, then they could cripple his reelection bid with a delayed Impeachment Proceedings for a violation of the War Powers Act.

Early in President Obama’s term in office, columnist Ted Rall called for Obama to resign. Rall may have been a tad premature, but as time goes on it is becoming clearer and clearer to partisan pundits that Rall may have been exceedingly accurate in his assessment.

The conservative partisan pundits will delight in a prolonged period of tormenting the President and his supporters. It would be variation of the concept of a Sadist’s Valhalla.

The progressive pundits will be prone to encouraging a rapid transition and reinvigorating the efforts to produce a larger voter turnout in the fall of 2012.

Columnists who perceive that their mission is to produce a constant stream of disapproval of the status quo will have an abundance of available topics in the next few weeks, no matter what happens.

Have any of the nation’s elite political pundits done a critical evaluation of this year’s football season from the point of view that it might be a part of a coordinated Republican union busting agenda?

Will any of the partisan progressive pundits ask if the air strikes against Libya are being conducted by the Condor Legion?

Will any Democratic Party toady propagandist say when the “not days or weeks” air campaign against Libya becomes an event of longer duration than the Battle of Britain?

Is news in America skewed? How many updates have you seen or heard about the meltdowns in Japan?

Portrayals of the Palin vs. Bachman rivalry as a cat fight between harpies may have great entertainment value, but it also carries the subliminal message that the Republican Party has women (plural) who are qualified to seek the nomination and that, for the men in the liberal media, means it is business as usual to ridicule the women. The implication is that the Republicans are more prone to taking women seriously and they expect women voters to vote accordingly.

Is having a negotiator in the budget talks who has been compromised, better than having no negotiator at all? To some cynical columnists President Obama’s chances of using negotiations to avoid an impending disaster, based on his past negotiating track record, are nil and none.

One more thing before we do the closing quote: The commentators are all noticing the strange Republican behavior. Could their seemingly irrational, arrogant, reckless, and belligerent attitude be explained (by those pesky conspiracy theory nuts) by the idea that they are relying on the electronic voting machines to protect them from any possibility November 2012 Election revenge that any disgruntled voters might wish to inflict on them?

In the book “The American Home Front 1941 – 1942” (Grove Press paperback copyright 2006 on page 3), Alistair Cooke wrote: “It has become the habit of historical narrative in our day to assume that history is an inveterate believer in dramatic irony and throws out to sensitive people, and to journalists with a flair for the dramatic, hints and early symptoms of impending glory or disaster.”

Now the disk jockey will play “Tom Dooley,” “Marie Leveau” and “I surrender, dear.” We have to go watch a fireworks display. Have an “If not now, when?” type week.

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June 26, 2011

A hard-boiled choice for a school kid

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Ernie Pyle, Patsy Cline, Rudyard Kipling, Walter Winchell — Bob Patterson @ 5:28 pm

The new special collectors edition cigarette packs with photos on them came out recently, but since the World’s Laziest Journalist doesn’t smoke, we are not going to be buying them. Their debut did remind us of how a long ago opportunity to get started on the cigarette addiction boiled down to an odd choice: a free pack of cigarettes or a trip to Paris.

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a young Ernie Pyle wannabe who was attending parochial school. After the lunch hour break, the classes would line up outside the schoolhouse and march in at the sound of the start bell.

On one particular day (was it during seventh grade or eighth? In all the intervening years we kinda lost track of the exact number), a group of adults approached and began handing out small sample packs of cigarettes. Some of the more sophisticated students (the boys were required to wear a suit coat and tie and the red jacket, white t-shirt, blue jeans uniform of the rebels was strictly verboten) snatched up the items with enthusiasm and then turned to the ones who seemed perplexed with the windfall and asked “You gonna use ‘em? If not; can I have yours?”

The columnist aspirant had been exposed to smokes many years previously. When he, at the age of seven, asked his mom about cigarettes; she pulled one out from her pack, told him to put it in his mouth and lit it up. She coached him through a few drags and a vehement coughing spell and continued the lesson in existentialism: “You can learn to overcome that taste and the negative reaction and learn to enjoy it if you so choose.” She added: “In the future your friends may start to try smoking in secret. If you want to smoke, come see me for your next lesson. Don’t let them goad you into sneaking them. You have permission to try again if you want another attempt to learn to like it.”

The free sample packs held no allure of the forbidden for the young Walter Winchell fan. He did, however, venture to ask his aunt why a company would give away a product that they usually sold. She responded with a lesson in marketing saying the product was habit forming and that if they could give away samples and get a customer for life in return it would be cost effective. (She may not have used that exact terminology.) Then she prompted the lad to see if he could use mathematics to figure out what one of his classmates could expect to spend for a life time supply of smokes.

At a quarter a day and seven days a week with 52 weeks in a year, it worked out to $91 a year. Since the US had not become embroiled in Vietnam, it was logical to assume that all his classmates would live to retirement age. (As it turned out some didn’t make it to their 25th birthday.) That would bring the expected cost up to $4,823.00. Then the aunt introduced the concept of inflation and added expected rises in price to the formula.

Can you believe that some conspiracy theory nuts in the fifties thought that a package of cigarettes would eventually go to a dollar a pack?

Five grand would surely cover a deluxe two week vacation in Paris. It was just about then that some guy named Papa Hemingstein coined the marketing slogan “Moveable Feast” for use in reference to trips to the City of Light. (Did he write for Clipper, which was Pan Am’s inflight magazine?) An opinion poll survey at the time said that a majority of high school students listed a trip to Paris as one of their lifetime goals.

Paris was considered the new destination of choice for young folks who yeaned to go on the road.

At one time in his career, wasn’t that Hemingway guy also a columnist? If columnists like Paris, it must be good.

The young non smoker finally made it to Paris much later in life. The first night in Paris, he didn’t expect that a trip on the Subway (to Cactus Charley’s place) would become a memorable part of the vacation. [In Paris they call the subway “le metro;” but what do they call a “Big Mac”?] In New York the subway to New Jersey goes under the Hudson River, but in Paris the subway comes up from under ground and goes over the Sein to get to the other side. When it emerged from below ground and came to a stop, between the rows of buildings adjacent to the subway station he could see a bit further away, a tower that was such an eyeful they actually call it the Eiffel Tower. He thought “Holy cow, batman, we’ve finally made it! We are in Paris!” It was a “lump in the throat” moment. It was time to scratch “Get to Paris” off his bucket list. Who’dda thunk that a subway trip could be such an emotional experience?

Sometime later, when a coworker complained to the boss that the nonsmoker, who was getting paid less than the complainer, could afford a two week vacation in Paris and he couldn’t, the columnist used math to explain why life isn’t fair.

The fellow (Let’s call him “Jim”) smoked a pack a day (which by the late Eighties had broken the buck a pack cost barrier). Jim usually drank a six pack a day. Jim went out to one of Santa Monica’s many fine coffee shops (Alas Zucky’s, the Broken Drum, and the former drive-in at Wilshire and Harvard [?] are history) for lunch, which would chew up (pun alert?) at least five dollars a day with more if he left a tip. The economical minded fellow (Let’s call him WLJ) had made sandwiches and did the brownbag lunch routine during the work week. The extra cost for the cigs, brewskis, and eat-out chow computed out to be almost exactly what it had cost the cheapskate to get to Paris and back.

Some fine minds are paid very well to come up with strong anti-smoking Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) for use on Television. You never see any of them use the “It’s the economy, stupid” approach. Who did the old comedy routine about telling kids they can do anything they want to do except they must not put beans into their ears? Isn’t telling them they could get cancer a lot like saying “we dare you to . . .”?

What would happen if someone did a PSA reductio ad absurdum ad offering kids a free (smaller than normal) sample pack of “coffin nails” or a trip to Paris and included a cost comparison?

Speaking of cigarettes, is it true that CBS radio is looking for a fearless journalist to do a series of live reports titled: “Tripoli calling!”?

Bartlett’s reminds us that it was Rudyard Kipling who wrote: “And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.”

Now the disk jockey will play “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room,” Smokey Robinson (and the Miracles)’s album “I’ll Try Something New,” and Patsy Cline’s song “Three cigarettes in an ash tray.” We have to go see where we can buy a pack of the Fatima brand of smokes. Have a “memories of the Times Square billboard” type week.

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June 13, 2011

Trend spotting in the Art World

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Broke, Euro, Slap Art, Sticker bombing — Bob Patterson @ 12:25 pm

dscn9882_5524sfplbsjune82011-euro-art

If the assignment editor for the Features Department of the New York Times newspaper just happens to read this column he may be very glad that he did if he gets a “heads-up” about an art story that he can assign, but what about everybody else in the world with access to the Internets? Is it possible that a citizen-columnist might be the first writer to notice a story that is that good? Or is it more likely that people will be very amused by the opportunity of seeing a self-deluded fool in action? Isn’t that the very same reason why the news coverage (such as it is) of the Republican efforts to get their party’s 2012 Presidential Nomination is so fascinating? Don’t those folks realize that JEB has a lock on it?

Columnists, much like journalists, are trained to turn on their cultural radar the moment they wake up and keep it scanning the contemporary scene until they drift off to sleep that night.

Were the college kids on KALX the first to play a trend setting song of the future on this morning’s program? Did a local Berkeley CA web site break a story that will resonate with all the young people staying at the Sydney Central Backpackers Hostel? Would it be worth the effort to buy a brand new book at Moe’s Bookstore, read it, and then review it for the entire world?

Is it possible that a columnist could visit the used bookstore run by friends of the Berkeley Public Library and find some new (and shocking?) information about the Bush Junta in a book by Laura Flanders (Bushwomen Vero hardback) that was published outside the United States (in the American colony called London?) in 2004? Isn’t Bush-bashing out of date? Isn’t it too early now to be of relevance to the next installment in the saga of the Bush Dynasty?

Suppose that a columnist notices what seems to be a local trend in graffiti?

Artists in California have tended in the past to be at the vanguard of new national fads in many areas of contemporary American culturd. Aren’t most of the journalists in Cali, who work for a nationally known media headquartered in Manhattan, especially keen to find a trend-spotting story? (and thus get an “attaboy” from the home office?)

After purchasing a Nikon Coolpix digital camera, about a year ago, we were anxious to try out the close up setting and so we began to notice small examples of graffiti in the form of stickers affixed to inconspicuous locations around Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. Since this columnist isn’t well versed in botany, and since flowers tend to vibrate in the wind, and since stickers don’t; we began to concentrate more on collecting images of the stickers.

Some seemed to be mug shots of John Wayne Gaycie. Was that a subtle political statement? Are capitalists eating the poor? Is it a call to action? Is it an expression of a bit of sarcasm?

One day, we noticed one particular example of this subcategory of graffiti that had been created on what had been a post office address label that was (in haste?) rather poorly stuck on an abandoned newspaper dispenser box. We carefully removed the fresh example of folk art and took it back to the World’s Laziest Journalist news organization headquarters. If these labels are hard to scrape off their location, does that mean that original examples are desirable collectables? Who collects them? How do they acquire them?

We went to Fantastic Comics, in Berkeley CA, and 1 AM art gallery in San Francisco in an effort to track down more facts about this art trend. The more we learned, the bigger the topic seemed to become. While we were out and about trying to tack down the story, we were missing time when we could have been dispensing opinions online about some recent high profile celebrity sexual escapades such as the Ricky Nixon and St. Kilda schoolgirl scandal. (Do a search on Google News for that exoteric bit of Australian celebrity gossip.)

We learned that the use of quickly applied pre-made examples of graffiti is called “slap art” or “sticker bombing.”

Painting a mural sized graffiti painting takes time; slapping a label on a hard surface, doesn’t.

Using spray paint cans to create graffiti can mean some sever problems if the artists are caught en flagrante delicto and their artistic efforts are construed as constituting vandalism. There can be major problems with any offense involving the spray can school of graffiti art. The legal penalties for putting up slap art are not (we are told) as stringent.
You do the math.

Several more time consuming attempts to gather more information, such as trying to get contact information about the leading practitioners of slap art, only produced enough of a feint trail to indicate that it would take a lot more work to get an interview with either Broke or Euro. (You want to talk to Banksy? Fergedaboudit.) Since graffiti artist don’t often seek publicity in the pages of People magazine, that reluctance is precisely what would make a story in the Sunday editon of the New York Times so appealing to the aforementioned assignment editor.

Obviously being out in the sunshine and fresh air (what ever happened to the news coverage of the readings for nuclear fall-out downwind from the disaster in Japan?) is preferable to sitting in a dingy writer’s hovel at a computer pounding out some sarcastic snarky remarks about the teabaggers’ (wet) dream ticket of Palin-Bachman for the Republicans in 2012 (where would the lefties be with regard to gender equality and that pair?).

[Would it be shameless bragging to repeat the anecdote about the time the guy who would become Time magazine’s White House correspondent entered my apartment in Marina del Rey and exclaimed: “My god, Bob, it is a hovel!”?]

Isn’t a unique individual initiative story with some trend spotting in Art, much more commendable than an anemic example of me too-ism wolf-pack punditry?

What if an online columnist combined into one story all this information: Congress is considering giving the President the power to declare war, a recent article by Semour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine suggesting that some intelligence agencies are cherry picking information that will indicate that Iran’s nuclar program is a threat to the USA, and Brad Friedman’s continuing efforts to undermine his audience’s confidence in the reliability of the electronic voting machines?

What if such a hypothetical endeavor ultimately became a remarkably accurate forecast about JEB’s role in the Story of the Bush Dynasty in American History? If that happened, wouldn’t the lone but perceptive pundit ultimately get many main stream media employment offers?

Berkeley CA has a large much respected school of journalism, so it isn’t surprising to find a wide assortment of used books for sale that offer an insider’s close up look at the collapse of America’s free press. How could there be that many books offering that idea while America is lulled into a false sense of being well informed by a tsunami of Fox Political Propaganda?

Has Journalism disintegrated into a farce where obedience to the political policy of the corporate masters is more important than “truth, Justice and the American way”? Don’t the corporate owners prefer an obedient worker who will unquestioningly follow orders rather than a high maintenance rogue who gets it right? Ostracism to the Internets’ Siberia is its own reward? What does that mean?

Andy Rooney, who is best known for his commentary on CBS TV’s Sixty Minutes program, has been quoted (Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller Simon & Schuster hardback page 121) as saying: “the worst kind of censorship has always been the kind that newspaper people impose on themselves.”

Now, the disk jockey will play “Stuck on you,” the Drop-kick Murphy hit “Fuck you – I’m drunk” (did that get a lot of airplay?) and the unreleased music project known as the Rolling Stones’ contractual obligation album.

We have to go do some fact finding about the rumor that Banksy is teaching economics classes at a well known institution of higher learning in the San Francisco bay area. Have a “know when to run, know when to freeze” type week.

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June 10, 2011

The Torch is passed (again)

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: JFK, Pollyanna, Vietnam, Wonderland by Night — Bob Patterson @ 12:22 pm

People who graduated from high school fifty years ago this month may want to indulge in a bit of nostalgia by exhuming a transcript of their commencement speech and having their lawyer take a closer look at it. Were all of that year’s inspiring words more of a variation of the “campaign promises” concept or did those inspirational words come with an implied guarantee? If so, it might be time to adhere to one of the basic principles established in the Constitution, by America’s founding fathers: “Sue the bastards!”

Would it be an example of poignancy if a kid who got a brand new car as a high school graduation present in June of 1961 were still driving that same car today? In the Spring of 1961, the last B-52 rolled off the Boeing production line and many of them are still in use to this very day.

What else hasn’t changed since the class of 1961 was promised a better world?

Before turning the keys to the White House over to Jack Kennedy, the departing president (a general from WWII), had warned folks not to let the military industrial complex become America’s guiding light (at the end of the tunnel?). It didn’t take long for the new young President to send American troops, as advisors, abroad doing the political version of what “location scouts” do for movie making.

Radio soap operas were transitioning into TV series, but when that class had started high school in the Fall of 1957, many of them were still available on radio. The radio audience had wondered, like Helen Trent, could a woman, after her 35th birthday, find romance? It would be well into the 70’s before that question would become relevant to the class of 1961.

What ever happened to “Our Gal Sunday”? She was, as listeners were informed at the start of each broadcast, someone “from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado,” and she had “in young womanhood married England’s most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope.” How did that work out for her?

What ever happened to: “Aunt Jenny,” “Young Doctor Malone,” “Just Plain Bill,” “Ma Perkins,” and/or “Nora Drake”?

The members of the graduation class of 1961 are sure to be retired and collecting their Social Security checks by now and so they will have plenty of leisure time to look up the fate of those fictional characters on the Internets.

Was it a remarkable co-inky-dink or symbolism that one high school in Scranton Pa, for their class trip, went to New York City and saw “Pollyanna” at the Radio City Music Hall”?

For the class of 1961, it was just like Bill Graham would put it a bit later in time: “Ladies and gentlemen; it’s all about to happen!” Back then, the Nostalgia craze wouldn’t start until Susan Suntag’s essay “Notes on Camp” got published.

By the time the class of 1961 would celebrate the tenth anniversary of their graduation, America would make numerous cultural changes. The Beatles would erase Duane Eddy from the position of favorite guitarist. The Ford Motor Company would produce the first Mustang (and Carol Shelby would work his magic on them). Folks would also learn the geography lesson that answered the question: “Where the hell is Vietnam?”

When the class of 1961 entered high school in the Fall of 1957, one of the Dorsey brothers would release the last Big Band hit, “So Rare.” By the time they graduated, “On the Road” had been reprinted in a paperback edition and coffee house poetry was all the rage. The adults were very alarmed that the beatnik lifestyle seemed to have a hypnotic appeal to the youngsters who wanted to be “hep.” Hep became hip and that generation embraced all sorts of aberrant behavior that didn’t sit well with true Americans such as those who lived in Muskogee.

In the Fall of 1963, Capital Records, in Hollywood, handed out 3,000 layoff notices to the folks in Scranton working at the record pressing plant because record sales were in a slump. The layoffs were to take effect the day after Thanksgiving. While the nation mourned the assassination of its young President, the layoff notices were rescinded on the Monday before Thanksgiving because of a music phenomenon that was spreading like a highly contagious disease. It was called “Beatlemania.”

Rock and Roll was battling to replace the folk songs that dominated the pop music charts. Eventually, Rock got it very own separate chart and Fats Domino shared it with newer, younger musicians.

Tail fins on cars had reached their high water mark with the 1959 Cadillac. At one point the J. C. Whitney catalogue offered champagne glasses made from the distinctively shaped ’59 Caddy bullet style tail lights.

While getting America from the Marshall Program to the Bush Doctrine, patriots would come to realize that charity is permissible only if it also functions as a bribe or is part of an extortion plan.

If a person graduated from high school in 1961 and proceeded directly on to a four year college, he would graduate just in time to see President Johnson, in June of 1965, send several (was it six or eight?) Marine Divisions to Vietnam to straighten out that mess (it was well understood that they would be home in time for Christmas).

In 1961, all was well. The World’s Laziest Journalist knows of one member of the class of 1961, who joined the Navy, was assigned to a destroyer that circled the globe, came back home to Scranton and declined all additional opportunities to travel. “I’ve been around the world. I like Scranton. Why would I want to leave?”

Soldiers from Scranton, in the 28th Division’s 109th Regiment, had fought at the battle of the bulge and so America was determined to make sure that those war atrocities, such as the ones that Germany had committed during World War II, would never again be permitted in the world that was beckoning to the eager and enthusiastic members of the class of 1961.

The world in 1961 wasn’t perfect. The designers at Chevrolet were trying to develop a coupe model for the popular Corvette roadster. America didn’t need a Desoto car. TV would be better in “living color.” Pan Am, Eastern Airlines (“The wings of man”) and TWA stood ready to fly America’s youth to places where they could face the “Europe on $5 a day” challenge.

Americans didn’t have to buy a WMCA t-shirt to know that they were one of a special breed. Who didn’t want a T-shirt that proclaimed that the wearer was a “Good Guy”?

Wasn’t “The Ugly American” a Commie propaganda ruse? Didn’t the East German authorities have to build a wall to hold back their young people with curiosity about freedom?

The graduates who got married and started having kids didn’t have to worry about the draft. The guys who went on to college did. Did the lamestream media do feature stories about the last guy to be drafted? Who was it? Lord knows the lamestream sure did cover the story when Elvis got drafted and when Cascius Clay turned down his draft board’s invitation. When Elvis left the Army, there was a TV special on which Frank Sinatra welcomed Elvis back home.

There was one TV special (was it part of Ford’s 50th anniversary celebration?) that featured the best science based predictions for the future. As we recall it, that program predicted that newspapers would deliver their stories directly into homes via a machine that was a combination of calculator, telephone, TV set, and printing press.

Back in 1961 the icon of the American Dream was expressed in visual terms by a home with a white picket fence around it. That house has been seized by the foreclosure process. The lefties who are losing their homes think that Sarah Palin is dumb. How did they come to that conclusion? On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural address, said: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

The disk jockey went to the Flying Dutchman’s web site for a list of the hits from 1961. He culled out: “Big Bad John,” “Wonderland by Night,” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

We have to go put some dead flowers on a friend’s grave. Have a “The torch is passed to a new generation” type week.

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June 6, 2011

Should Dems let an impeachable offense slide?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Ayn Rand, Don Quixote, George W. Bush, Impeachment — Bob Patterson @ 12:13 pm

President Obama’s propensity for inept bungling has delivered a no-win choice of profound importance to the Democratic Party’s doorstep. After delivering a rebuke to Obama on Friday for his aggressive policy towards Libya, the Democrats can either take it to the next logical level by impeaching Obama or they can ignore the President’s failure to abide by the War Powers Act and thereby affirm the Bush Administration policy that the Constitution had become obsolete and irrelevant to America.

Has President Obama become the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to be subject to arrest in The Hague for war crimes? We dare him to go there and prove us wrong.

President Obama’s rash decision to oust Col. Qaddafi may have provided the Republicans with an opportunity to make their dream scenario of Impeaching America’s first President of Pan-african heritage come true.

If President Bush’s invasion of Iraq was an impeachable offense, the Democrats can now either move to impeach Obama for ignoring the War Powers Act or they can, by letting a second blatant violation of the law slide past, scrap that inconvenient part of the Constitution.

If Obama failed to get the Congressional approval necessary for the attempt to intervene in Libya’s internal affairs, then it would seem logical that he must be impeached for such a flagrant violation of his oath of office. If the Bush program of using Presidential authority to violate the Constitution and order troops into battle has replaced the method specifically established in the Constitution, then the question of immediate concern becomes: When will the Republicans make the determination of what other parts of the Constitution have also become outdated?

The Republicans, to participate in a move to impeach Obama, would have to completely ignore the fact that George W. Bush set the precedence with the invasion of Iraq and, like a woman with an “A” brand on her forehead giving a speech urging chastity, blithely make the case for the immediate impeachment of the President who has ignored the Constitution and the law of the land.

Such a brazen move would seem to be a bit hypocritical, but, in the past, the Republicans have never let a trivial matter such as blatant hypocrisy inhibit their efforts, so why should they suddenly let scruples hinder their program now?

Lefties and Progressives have always asserted that the Republicans were sanctimonious hypocrites so why should the party of “don’t do as I do; do as I say” stop inches short of the goal line just because of the threat of a bit of name-calling? Didn’t their mothers teach them the axiom about sticks and stones?

The World’s Laziest Journalist has speculated during the George W. Bush “lame duck” period about how long it would take the Republicans to find a basis for moving to impeach the (then) President-elect. Expecting Republicans to let a chance to make their dreams come true pass as a show of good sportsmanship may be a tad overly optimistic.

If the Republicans moved at a slow deliberate pace, they could spend all summer besmirching the President, and then make their move in the Fall.

If they were successful, my former classmate (in first and second grade), Joe Biden, would be sworn in and immediately have to contend with rebuilding the Democratic Party brand while (presumably) running his own reelection campaign and competing in the various primary elections in early 2012, while simultaneously conducting the business of day to day politics as usual.

If they failed to get Obama impeached, he would then have to fight to improve his image of being a Bush family clone, while raising funds for his own reelection, and contending with the various primary elections, which usually are not a high priority activity for a sitting President.

His critics on the Fox Network would be relentless in their unfair and biased condemnation of him for doing what George W. Bush had previously done. Obviously such heavy-handed punditry would generate some “sympathy backlash,” which would benefit Obama, but since most folks are reluctant (especially if they are not of Irish heritage) to assert an unpopular opinion, the majority of the country would be in a mood to treat the President very harshly.

The word temerity (which has the ironical meaning of being “ballsy”) would be bandied about recklessly if the Republicans did try to impeach Obama for doing that which George W. Bush had previously done, but that would be countered by the folk axiom that “Nature favors the brave.” Foreigner Rupert Murdock would make damn sure that Americans were continually assaulted by “pro-impeachment” partisan punditry.

Democrats who feared being tainted by an association with a President facing both reelection and immanent impeachment, would get very tired of hearing Fox talking heads tell the joke in which the Lone Ranger says to Tonto: “Look at all those Indians, Tonto, we’re in a very untenable strategic position!” (or words to that effect.)

Will Uncle Rushbo (will both he and Mike Malloy read this column?) be reluctant to gush about the vulnerability of Obama for impeachment proceedings or will he perceive it as an opportunity to be a leader of the de facto lynch mob?

Progressive bloggers will be reluctant to mention Obama’s vulnerability because they will not want to take the chance that they have inadvertently opened Republican eyes to a gambit they had not already noted. (Karl Rove enthusiastically encourages all underestimations of his cunning and shrewdness. [You don’t believe that? Just ask him if the World’s Laziest Journalist has him pegged with complete accuracy. Go ahead. We dare you to ask him. {He will probably deny knowing me.}])

Cynical columnists, who delight in venturing into taboo territory, might write a spoiler column about this opening for a possible Republican strategy. Any such renegade pundit would probably get more Democratic appreciation if they just inject obscure and esoteric cultural minutiae into their efforts. Such as?

Up until Thursday, June 2, 2011, this columnist had never heard of the writer from Dublin named Charles Lever. On that day we betook ourselves to the location in Berkeley CA which is our secret source of pop cultural delights and bought four books:
Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara,” H. G. Wells’ “Tono-Bungay,” Hesketh Pearson’s “Oscar Wilde His Life and Wit,” and Robert L. Heilbroner’s “ The Worldly Philosophers.” We purchase all four for less than a quarter of a dollar.

Two of the books, Pearson’s and Shaw’s, mentioned the Irish writer named Charles Lever. We consulted “The Penguin Companion to English Literature,” edited by David Daiches, and learned about the existence of a 34 volume collection of his work or a 37 volume collection edited by Lever’s daughter.

The four books contained enough raw materials for about a thousand columns in the Life-Arts field.

However, on Friday June 3, 2011, a friend lent us a copy of Douglas Brinkley’s “The Majic Bus,” and since we are very enthusiastic about road books we will have to read that one.

Then we went for a walk and stumbled across a bargain bin copy of Donald L. Miller’s “Masters of the Air,” and since we have a mystical connection to B-17 bombers from WWII, we will have to read every word of that book before writing a review.

That night we finished watching a VHS tape of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and realized there was enough new material in that old film for several columns. The year 1939 is considered by some critics to have been Hollywood’s Halcyon Year and Mr. Smith was nominated for 11 Oscars™. The theme of an honest man fighting a political machine backed by media ownership, might have some relevance for non Fox-addicted political thinkers. The idea that patriotic idealism is preferable to greed and bribery might be worth a column.

Form follows function as any fan of architecture knows so it’s obvious why today’s bloggers are flocking to the “thee dot journalism” style of column writing.

In Atlas shrugged, Ayn S. Rand wrote: “You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island – it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim . . . that a rock is a home . . . reality will wipe him out . . . .” Slyly injecting a problem in semantics into a discussion about morality might fool some Democrats (in an Irish pub?) but teabaggers won’t let such a blatant verbal equivalent of thee card Monty chicanery slid by unchallenged.

Perhaps we should do a column about Ms. Rand’s use of poor logic to confuse the audience? Maybe we could slip some references to James Norman Hall’s novel, “Lost Island,” into the discussion of morality on remote Pacific atolls? Maybe we could couch this debate in a column about the Tiki sub-culture in America? Then again applying the rules of logic to the words of Ayn S. Rand would, as far as her fanatical supporters are concerned, be as futile as trying to pick the fly’s excrement out of the salad. Why didn’t she use “Triumph of the Will” as the title for her book about John Gault?

Didn’t Ms. Rand use her middle name of Sally while performing a bawdy Vaudeville act before her first book was published?

We have just exceeded our self imposed “three e-takes” limit and so we will call the disk jockey in from the bullpen and he will play Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” “It’s All the Same” (from “Man of La Mancha”), and Lynn Anderson’s “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” (Making promises in the Rose Garden isn’t the same thing?)

We have to go buy some more bargain used books. Have an “I, Don Quixote” type week.

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June 3, 2011

That’s how extortionists roll

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Budget cuts, Extortion, Fred C. Dobbs, Gone with the Wind — Bob Patterson @ 12:33 pm

The American Heritage Dictionary says that one meaning for the word extortion is “the criminal offense of using one’s official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage to which one is not entitled.” It can also mean “the exaction of an exorbitant price.” No nationally known and respected political pundits are using that word to describe the political maneuvering that the Republicans are using to get the Democrats to agree to some harsh budget cuts. One or two radical bloggers who are jealous of the media attention given to the nobility of journalism, such as Bart the Bright, might bandy that word about recklessly in the hopes of landing a guest expert gig on a fair and balanced political TV debate program, but such rogues would also be prone to be card carrying members of the Associated Secret Society of Konspiracy Investigation Scholars and Students (You figure out their acronym) and the transparency of their grandstanding attempt would be apparent.

The National Lampoon magazine cover that depicted a cowering dog with a gun aimed at his head had the headline: “Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot the dog!” That was a funny example of extortion but to use that word with regard to what the Republicans are doing is reprehensible.

Is it extortion if the threat of reprisals is only implied? At this point, the Democrats have to ask themselves one more question: “Do I feel lucky?”

Is the military action against Libya listed as an active “war”? In all the excitement of the Arab Spring, we’ve kinda lost track of the exact count. Is it two or thee active wars?

The Scientists have learned how to manipulate the media to their own advantage by using polar bears (Ursis Maritimus) to extort alarmist reactions from the journalists and now they are doubling down with a crazy story about cell phones causing sterility in human males. Really? “Don’t worry, baby, we won’t need a condom because we are protected by my constant cell phone use!”?

Recently Karl Rove was a guest on Shaun Hannity’s radio program and when he was asked to evaluate all the Republicans trying to become their party’s next Presidential candidate, he forgot JEB Bush. Rove has worked for the Bush family since 1973 and he forgot JEB. How come journalists think Rove is a master of political strategy if he can forget JEB? . . . Say, you don’t think that was what the real political pundits call a “ploy,” do ya?

As the 2011 anniversary of D-Day approaches, the USA’s population of homeless is growing even as the number of empty homes that have been foreclosed increases rapidly.

When President Obama said that the bombing of Libya to protect its citizens from a ruthless leader wouldn’t last for days or weeks, was he trying to say that he knew then that it would take months?

If the part of the Constitution that says that Congress must vote to approve any new wars is obsolete, what other parts of that document are no longer viable?

What ever happened to the news reports from the folks who started releasing information about radiation levels in the USA following the nuclear disaster in Japan? Would it be accurate to make a snide reference to “Gone With The Wind,” if the prevailing weather patterns might actually be increasing the amount of atomic fallout?

Speaking of the all time greatest movies, has any political pundit pointed out the window of opportunity for a sequel to “The Blob”? The monster is flown to the artic and put in a de facto state of suspended animation. The victims agree that they will have no worries “as long as the Artic stays cold.” This columnist has been told that there is at least one palm tree living (in retirement?) in Paris (France, not Texas).

The residual good will generated by the American led efforts to liberate Europe in WWII, is rapidly diminishing. Could it be compared to a melting snowman?

Are America’s claims to being “the Good Guys” perceived in The Hague much like the spectacle of an old woman traipsing down Main Street in scanty attire?

Wouldn’t being a paid staff member of an American news organization stationed in The Hague be an example of a sinecure? (Note: being a lazy journalist requires doing some work; doing none at all disqualifies a person from competing in any lazy journalism competition.) Was using a story that warned an American that he would be arrested if he showed up in Switzerland for a speaking engagement an example of journalism or a tip-off? What is President Obama’s status as far as a visit to The Hague is concerned? If you don’t know, then we rest our case.

Speaking of Freedom of the Press and the Normandy Invasion, did you know that there was one printing plant that transitioned from printing Wehrmacht to producing the Paris edition of YANK? We culled that tidbit of information from the Introduction to “The Best from YANK the Army Weekly” (E. P. Dutton & Co. hardback 1945)

The American TV program “Boston Legal” used to feature some eloquent oratory that questioned the wisdom of America’s invasion of Iraq. What ever happened to that program? We liked the traditional “balcony time” closing sequences.

On Memorial Day, the morning shift DJ on KALX threw an excerpt from President St. Ronald Reagan’s first Inaugural Address into the mix. He thoroughly denounced deficit spending before he started doing just that. The Republicans made fun of Senator John Kerry for “flip-flopping.” It’s only bad when a Democrat does it. Double standards can be so convenient. Life is so much easier when your theology is extrapolated from the novels of Ayn S. Rand.

On Thursday, June 2, 2011, liberal talk show host Mike Malloy was aghast at the fact that folks from the Food Not Bombs organization had been arrested in Orland Florida for feeding the homeless. To him, there was a massive amount of irony involved in compassionate conservative Christians passing the law that was broken.

Malloy has made references to George Orwell’s novel, 1984, but he has obviously failed to master the basic concept of double think. Mike, baby, when ya going to learn? If thine enemy strikes thee, turn the other cheek . . . then commit war crimes!

Ayn S. Rand, in Atlas Shrugged (was Atlas a nihilist?), wrote: “Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.” Didn’t Capt. Queeg use logic to prove conclusively that there was another key?

If you don’t think that arresting people who think they are Jesus doing the loaves and fishes routine isn’t a rational move to protect the public interest, then there’s no hope for you. Hunger is eternal. Is there a final solution to the problem of hungry homeless people? Isn’t removing the symptoms (from view) the same as curing the disease?

Now the disk jockey will play: “Faithful Forever,” “I Poured My Heart into a Song,” “Over the Rainbow,” and “Wishing” (all of which were nominated for the Best Song Oscar™ in 1939). We have to go use the time machine to buy some Tono-Bungay. Have a “Fred C. Dobbs don’t say nothin’ he don’t mean” type week.

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May 31, 2011

Say “Goodbye!” to the Social Security Program?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Genghis Khan, George W. Bush, Howard Hughes, John Wayne — Bob Patterson @ 12:42 pm

People who have been fleeced by swindlers often had soaring moments of euphoria, based on expectations of “easy money,” right before they experienced the OMG “The Money’s gone!” revelation that “things aren’t what they seem.” The Sixties philosophy of “Don’t harsh my bliss” might be used to avoid any mention this week of the potential for future dangers of the results from the electronic voting machines because good manners would require most conspiracy theory lunatics to let the Democrats revel in their moment of ecstasy. [Wasn’t there a Roman politician who while he rode to his coronation, had a fellow reminding him that “this too shall pass!”?] That would be rude and we won’t touch that topic . . . the hell we won’t !

It might not be very polite to point out that if the results of the New York 26th Congressional District’s special election cause the Democrats to bet everything on that issue in the 2012 elections; it will be too late to object if the results, which can not be contested, produce what appears to be a massive nationwide repudiation of health care (and by extension the Social Security program itself).

Did acting rashly get Gen. Custer into trouble? Should the Democrats read up on the philosophy of an ambush before going “all in” on Medicare?

Brad Friedman has worked relentlessly to bring the issue of the reliability of the electronic voting machines to the attention of the voters who belong to the Democratic Party and if America gets hustled into a humiliating “winner take all” contest in 2012, the “I tried to warn you” bragging rights will be of little consolation to him and other sincere partisan political pundits if he gets the rights to express that sentiment.

The World’s Laziest Journalist will, if the Democrats get skinned alive by the 2012 election results, will have his reaction measured on the Nihilism Meter (which measures from one to ten shrugs of the shoulders) and turn his attention to other topics.

Has Banksy been active in the Berkeley CA area recently?

In his book “Profoundly Disturbing Shocking Movies that Changed History!,” Joe Bob Brigs reports that the film “Ilsa She Wolf of the SS” the lead character, Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne), was based on the real life historical figure of a woman named Ilsa Kohler Koch. Is she related to some Americans who have been dabbling in philanthropy and political causes recently?

John Wayne teamed up with actress Marlene Dietrich for three movies in the early Forties. One of them, “Seven Sinners,” was a tale of life in the South Pacific and we are desperately seeking a chance to see that movie. Is it on VHS? Would that be one of the films shown as part of the Forbidden Island Monthly Monday Night Cult Movies series in Alameda?

Speaking of John Wayne, we’ve watched a number of Western movies on Video tape recently, and have noted that they almost always feature a speech with a hero elaborating on America’s principals of honesty, fair play, and a code of conduct using the principle of chivalry for the treatment of captured enemy soldiers.

We are waiting for some politician to give a stirring speech in Congress reminding America that the country holds itself to a higher level of principles than those exemplified by the Inquisition, Genghis Kahn (of “Citizen Kahn” fame?), and the Gestapo. We have abandoned hope for such a Frank Capra moment to occur in Washington D. C.

The World’s Laziest Journalist isn’t being paid to shill for the Democratic Party and so we feel free to continue our criticism of the Bush war crimes even if they are being embraced by his Democratic Party successor.

Advocating human rights for people suspected of conducting terrorist activities is as outdated and antediluvian as it would be to suggest that the Hayes code be reinstated.

In the 1940 movie “Dark Command,” directed by Raoul Walsh starring John Wayne, the script writer just had to inject some political propaganda and have a character assert that the Civil War was about cheap labor and not over the South’s campaign to continue the efforts of America’s founding fathers to administer the Constitution’s establishment of state’s rights. Is it any wonder that soon after that Congress had to hold hearings to reveal to the voters how communists were infiltrating America’s pop culture to sway their thinking?

Partisan political commentators must always follow the party line but curmudgeonly columnist critics of contemporary culture don’t have to be so boringly predictable. They can, if they choose, vacillate between liberal and conservative from one paragraph to the next. If the net result is to make readers stop and think about what the columnist is trying to say; that may be a clever way to lure readers into starting to think for themselves and not letting Fucks News do it for them.

When George W. Bush first announced his intention of using combat soldiers to bring democracy to Iraq, did any of the critics on the Left think that by 2012 the Democratic Party would be adhering to most of the aspects of the Bush administration methodology such as an attack on Libya without any Congressional approval (or debate even) or torture or attempts to straighten out the Social Security “mess”? Are we there yet?

If the Democrats go “all in” with the Medicare Issue and the results are a Republican landslide, will FDR’s New Deal then be as much of a quaint anachronism as is Howard Hughes’ movie “The Outlaw”? Will the Democrats then still consider critics of the electronic voting machines as conspiracy theory lunatics . . . or prophets?

According to Steven Bach, in his book “Marlene Dietrich Life and Legend,” (page 292) the actress during a radio broadcast to boost troop morale for the Allies, suddenly adlibbed this line: “Jungs! Opfert euch nicht! Der krieg ist doch Scheisse, Hitler ist ein Idiot!” It took Americans a short time to realize that reducing the German’s morale level was as desirable a goal as was boosting the spirits of the American soldiers.

Now the disk jockey will play “See What the Boys in the Backroom Are Having,” “Please, Mr. Custer,” and John Wayne’s version (from “The Quiet Man”) of “Wild Colonial Boy.” We have to go see if we can locate a VHS copy of “Destry Rides Again.” Have a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (Didn’t he get fired at the 1940 Oscar™ Awards?) type week.

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May 17, 2011

Obituary for planet earth?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Harold Holt, Osama bin Laden, Schadenfreude, St. Ronald Reagan — Bob Patterson @ 1:28 pm

It was a dismal cold day in May and the clocks had just sounded 0800 hours. The view from the Victory Mansions nestled high in the hills above Berkeley provided a reinforcement of the previous evening’s weather guess with a tableau of pewter skies and soggy ground. Uncle Rushbo was scheduled to read out a list of figures which have something to do with the production of safe atomic energy.

Adhering to the journalistic tradition of writing a column about the end of the world a few days in advance of when the catastrophe was expected, by many devout conservative Christians, to occur seemed imperative to the World’s Laziest Journalist, but the cynical curmudgeonly columnist couldn’t provide himself with the logical motivation for undertaking (did you have to use that word?) of such an existentialist errand.

If the World really was going to end on Saturday, why bother to do the keystrokes necessary for an obituary for use on Sunday? Why bother?

Heck, if the United States can continue the War in Afghanistan for no discernable reason, why couldn’t the columnist bang out a few more snide remarks, bits of esoteric information, and political predictions that seemed to be a bit too liberal even by Berkeley’s standards? Why not? The alternative was to get the umbrella and go for a cold wet walk to the usual destinations.

Would the tree-huggers appreciate the humor if the world did end on Saturday? Such a catastrophe would mean that the human race became extinct in a photo finish with the end of the polar bear (Ursis Maritimus) species, which had been predicted extensively since long before the first “End of the World” billboard had been unveiled.

What about a bit of irony for the optimists who assume they’ll get docked if they are late for work next Monday morning? Because, we believe, there will still be “miles to go” on Monday Morning.

In the film “Point Break,” the surfer/bank robber, Bhodi (Patrick Swayze) advises the Establishment, in the form of FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), to “think it through.”

Have the banksters used the “think it through” method to assess the long term effects of the wave of home repossessions?

What will happen if the new masses of homeless Americans have a morphic resonance style collective epiphany moment and find that they have learned the Zen and the Art of Being “On the Road” lesson?

Isn’t literature rife with variations of a story about a traveling wise man who preaches to the people that they can be happy without a storage unit full of superfluous material possessions?

Wouldn’t it be dangerous for capitalists to face a mass movement of the Zen philosophy of renouncing extraneous material possessions? Isn’t America built on the concept that “Greed is good” and that if the Jones family next door has a flat screen TV (don’t they wear out more quickly? [“Mommy, is ‘planned obsolescence’ a Zen concept?”]) your family needs a bigger one?

Here is a hypothetical example: if you are traveling around Australia with a suitcase and you find some amusing tchotchke that would be a perfect gift for someone 12,000 miles away, should you buy it and lug it around with you for the rest of the trip or should you pay the postage and send it on its way? (Isn’t it ironic if the postage fee will be more than the cost of the book you want to send?)

If you are always on the move, you tend to only buy those things you know you need such as a very light battery powered alarm clock and a flashlight. (Kids will tell you that a cell phone is a flashlight.) Even a dedicated life long sloppy (and slovenly?) person will quickly learn the advantages of knowing precisely where things are in the suitcase, so that they can be located quickly in the dark without the need to empty the entire contents of the suitcase on the hostel bunk, just to find the elusive item. Suppose the item you need is the flashlight? If you dump the suitcase on the bed, you would need the flashlight to sort through the contents to find the flashlight. Hence even a slob will come to adopt the “a place for everything and everything in its place” philosophy while being “on the road.”

Wouldn’t it be very dangerous for the recovery, if massive numbers of people who have been made homeless via foreclosure suddenly learn and begin to preach the advantages of renouncing material possessions?

The German concept of Schadenfreude explains why TV interviews with people, who have just lost their home by tornado, flood, or foreclosure, attract large audiences, but what would happen if, instead of a crying victim, the interview produced an interviewee with the happy-go-lucky attitude who shrugs and says: “I learned I didn’t need it”?

The happy wanderer such as Chang Kai Kane, the guys on Route 66, the Fugitive, Sal Paradise (symbolism?), the Lone Ranger, Dr. Gonzo, etc. is amusing and entertaining but true patriotic Americans must never forget that such cultural rebels are the antitheses of American values and must not be permitted to weave their web of subtle philosophy heresy that repudiates American ideas and culture.

Back in the sixties there was a main stream media report (urban legend?) that some hippies used to stand in the middle of Highway 1 in the Big Sur area and extend both hands in the hitchhiker’s thumb a ride style and take the first ride they were offered.

That kind of ambivalent approach to life might have worked back then, but it doesn’t work. Sure, most folks in the Sixties could name several famous counter-culture personalities but sorry to say, the Sixties are over! Can you name one prominent counter-culture personality alive and thriving today?

Will the World really end this Saturday? The World’s Laziest Journalist has received reassurances from a reliable source, that the “fixeroo” is “in” and that it ain’t gonna happen.

Do not, whatever you do, do not tell your boss on Friday to do something that is physically impossible because you are going to need your job on Monday morning to be able to make those every growing monthly mortgage payments and perhaps, if your credit card isn’t maxed out, buy some new designer label threads to arouse some good old fashioned envy in your neighbor’s heart.

It’s just like St. Ronald Reagan used to say on the sign-off for a weekly TV show: “At GE, progress is our most important product.”

Now the disk jockey will play “This old house,” “Come On-A My,” and “Home on the Range.” We have to go buy a fondue maker and also give a shout out to the folks who will be having the Saturday evening barbecue on the roof of the Sydney Backpackers’ Hostel just about the time that the world is supposed to end. If it does happen, mates, you’ll have a marvelous view of the spectacle. Have a “Chill out, dude!” type week.

Afterward: Personal message for MM and KM in the area that hosted Sherman’s famous 1865 “March to the Sea” Tour: You should work out a quid pro quo agreement with “Blue.” See if you can get an offer to use his home as a short term crash pad so that you might learn the “No worries, mate” attitude (you will love Australia; it’s like America without war crimes) and, in return, let him have a night (or week?) serving as your vacation substitute host. Ask Blue if Harold Holt was “Osama-ed” for his opposition to the Vietnam War.

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May 16, 2011

“Forgive us our press passes . . .”

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Bobby Darren, End of the World, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger — Bob Patterson @ 3:52 pm

Over the weekend, CBS radio news ran an item about the fact that President Obama had declared that the operations against Libya were “open ended.” The liberal mainstream media, which were so very sarcastic and critical when George W. Bush was in charge of the Endless War on Terrorism, seemed content to let the change in status of the Libya aspect of the war slide past without comment.

On Friday the 13th, Associated Press reported that the Medicare and Social Security programs were in peril economically. On his radio program that same night, Mike Malloy reported that he had read a report that stated that the Social Security program was solvent and had a cash surplus. Malloy seems to think that news should be based on facts and not consensus opinion dictated by the media owners and publishers.

On that same day, the University of California at Berkeley held a commencement for this year’s graduating class at the Law School, and a demonstration by folks who oppose America’s use of torture to gain information crucial for self defense held a protest at the entrance to the event. They based their objections on moral and humanitarian reasons while conveniently ignoring the fact that “the Great White Holy Father” in the Vatican, gave his imprimatur to torture about five hundred years ago. Apparently the anti-torture folks consider themselves to be better theologians than five centuries of Popes and the College of Cardinals have been.

Ironically, the Great White Father in Washington D.C. had gotten his legal advice about the permissibility of torture from a fellow who is on the faculty of the very school that held Friday’s graduation ceremony. Apparently the anti-torture folks are better legal scholars than President George W. Bush’s team of advisors on such matters.

Everyone who becomes embroiled in the debate over America’s use of torture conveniently forgets that previously in World History, Germany faced the same question and the Great White Father in Berlin reached the same legal conclusions that the Bush team would more than a half a century later. Apparently the anti-torture folks didn’t get good grades in World History class.

House speaker John Boehner was criticized recently by about five dozen professors at various Catholic colleges for a lack of Christ-like compassion for the poor. How would those teachers like it if, instead of immunity via the tenure tradition, they had to be reelected to the faculty by student and alumni voters? How about granting a tenure status to Congressional representatives who have served five terms, so that they would subsequently be immune from the riggers of continual reelection campaigns starting with their sixth term in office?

Speaking of world history and infallibility for theologians, that brings up the fact that Oakland based theologian Harold Camping has stated that the world will end next weekend.

The World’s Laziest Journalist, who is an ordained minister, has to frequently interrupt his efforts to say the prayers which will deliver a stay of execution for the doomed world, to conduct a debate with Ilsa she-wolf of the WLJ Accounting Department, about existentialist philosophy. She contends that allegations that the world will end next weekend are insufficient grounds for a weeklong profligate binge of expensive, self indulgence to go into eternity with flourish. The columnist thinks that a moderate bit of budget-busting extravagance might be permitted before the weekend rendezvous with destiny. Ilsa says that is an example of selfish thinking rationalization.

One project will be postponed until after next weekend. If the world doesn’t end, we will attempt to contact Jonathan Kay, author of the just published “Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground,” to give him a chance to give us a quote on the possibility that there is a secret government plot to foil plans to establish a Conspiracy Theory Hall of Fame (in Las Vegas?).

Speaking of quotes from an expert source, have you noticed that while almost everyone has been asked to comment on the shooting of Osama bin Laden, no well known journalist, had a quote on the death from either Mick Jagger or Keith Richards? Do you think that there is more to this “inadvertent” omission than meets the eye?

The news that one of the atomic reactors in Japan has gone into the dreaded “meltdown” level of malfunctioning hasn’t been widely disseminated. In the United States, the amount of tornado and flood damage this spring has been statistically much higher than normal. Was all this predicted in the Book of Revelations?

This columnist tries to sporadically produce copy that contains short items that are amusing, informative, and entertaining in the three dot journalism method from the past that should be suited to the “give it a quick skim reading” style that the modern Internet audience tends to use. We intentionally inject obscure, arcane, and esoteric cultural references in the hopes that such a style will attract an enduring number of regular readers and that such a base will provide a rational for management to excuse occasional attempts by the columnist to get “edgy.” Whatever happened to the idea that “edgy” would become a major ingredient for content on the Internets? Is it obsolete and has pandering to the lowest common denominator (celebrity gossip) become the standard of excellence?

This columnist, this week, may spend a few bucks for a few “why not?” treats and may devote some time to offering Rev. Dan of the Music for Nimrods program on KXLU in Los Angeles, some suggestions for this week’s playlist. Rev. Dan often uses a unifying theme for his show, so he may need some clever suggestions for appropriate music on the installment scheduled to coincide with “The End of the World.” If playing Elvis’ song, “Old Shep,” will emotionally upset the listeners, who cares if the World is about to end?

We will also try to have a few bucks in our wallet so that on Sunday morning, we can buy a “hot off the press” copy of the Sunday New York Times to read while we have a cup of coffee. Maybe we’ll find a topic that inspires us to write and post a new column.

If the world does end this coming Saturday, what will happen to the frequent flyer miles we accumulated on Pan Am?

The World’s Laziest Journalist fully expects that his dire warnings that “they” will use the electronic voting machines to rig yet another Presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate (JEB is my best guess) and that when that comes to pass we will be totally baffled by the fact that an accurate prediction on our part will receive no notice in the mainstream media, while a ridiculous “the World will end this Saturday” prediction became a part of the American culture in May of the year 2011.

The most relevant ending quote for a column on the topic of the End of the World might be a bit of folk wisdom (graffiti?) left over from the Sixties: “The World can’t end today, because it’s already tomorrow in China.”

Now the disk jockey will trifle with our tendency to be typical Irish and get sentimental when certain songs are played and play:
“As time goes by”
“Ghost riders in the sky”
“Great balls of fire”
“Rebel Rouser”
“Get off my cloud”
“Running Scared”
“Age of Aquarius”
“A boy named Sue”
“Le vie en rose”
And Judy Collins’ version of “Amazing Grace.” (Is it true that her version of that song can bring even a Vulcan to the verge of tears?)

The disk jockey will close out with his own selection of Jimmy Darren’s “Goodbye Cruel World.”

We have to go get a speck of dust out of our eye.

Have a “tune in again next week” type week.

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May 13, 2011

UCB Law School Graduation

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Graduating class of 2011, John Yoo, Law School, UCB — Bob Patterson @ 3:13 pm

dscn8832_4474yoo-ucb-may2011-prisoner

On Friday May 13, 2011, people who oppose torture expressed their point of view at the entryway for the University of California at Berkeley’s Law School commencement ceremonies because John Yoo is a member of that institution’s faculty.

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May 12, 2011

Is “Peace” obsolete?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Expanded War Authority Act, John and Yoko, Osama bin Laden, Peace — Bob Patterson @ 12:30 pm

The nostalgia laden icon, known as “the Peace symbol” is ubiquitous in Berkeley CA. The prolific bit of graphics could provide an industrious photo student with a potential theme for a project which could furnish enough raw material for a photo book.

The idea that the commercial exploitation of the Northern California city’s altruistic sentiment would be an ironic example of the crass basis for all capitalistic endeavor might be perceived by cynical columnists as an example of oxymoron thinking, but the unfortunate truth is that making a profit on idealism is a more realistic effort than is the lofty goal of the people who display the graphics which may or may not express the political move for nuclear disarmament by presenting the letters “N” and “D” in semaphore signals style. Apparently they think that nuclear disarmament is the first necessary step towards achieving a perpetual world-wide Peace.

Did the hippie trend of using the two finger “V” hand signal (popularized by Winston Churchill in WWII) to express the “Peace” sentiment originate in Berkeley during the Sixties? Dunno.

Ironically, the city that is almost a synonym for anti-war sentiment is also the location for a weapons laboratory think tank.

Sadly, the events of the first half of this year may put the altruistic goal of “Peace” so far out of reach that it can realistically be considered “Mission Impossible.”

The industrious family men who provide mainstream media with commentary would loose their precious paychecks for pointing this out, but a rogue (gonzo?) blogger can churn out such a column knowing that, in a culture dominated by clever conservative propaganda, his effort, even if it is a “spot-on” evaluation of a bleak truth, at best it will just provide a curious footnote for future historians scrutinizing the detritus from that year’s pop culture.

What evidence is there to back the deduction that Peace is now an unattainable goal?

For one example, examine the quagmire in Afghanistan. Now that Osama bin Laden has been sent to his eternal reward (which may be an inappropriate cliché phrase) the American military operation in Afghanistan may seem to be unnecessary. The fact that there will be no withdrawal of troops and no rational explanation for the American military’s continued presence in that country will be a subtle preview of the “perpetual war” reality that American voters will slowly comprehend.

Greater analytical minds than the one that this columnist possesses will have to make an evaluation for this possibility: “Could it be that President Obama was “played” into making a rash move when he ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden because the short term surge in his popularity ratings will later be eclipsed when the military industrial complex forbids Obama from adding to his reelection potential by evacuating the American military presence from Afghanistan?”

Obviously the gangland style treatment of Obama was a crowd pleaser, but if (for whatever reasons) the American President fails to remove troops from that theater of operations and concurrently fails to provide the voters with a rational explanation for that failure to make the logical move, then his popularity rating will suffer.

Here’s a doggy treat for the conspiracy-theory-lunatic crowd: Suppose that some dastardly advisors, who are secretly committed to Ayn S. Rand style conservative goals of perpetual profits for privatized military support firms, lured President Obama into ordering the rub-out of Osama, knowing that the long-term payoff would not be beneficial to a Democratic party incumbent candidate in the 2012 Presidential Election. Could it be that Obama is getting tainted advice from moles committed to the Republican agenda?

If al Qaeda responds to Osama’s death, as they have promised, with a devastating example of terrorism in the form of a nuclear explosion and if that happens before the next Presidential election is held, that might have a negative effect on Obama’s popularity ratings and vote totals. If they hold off until after the 2012 elections, then it will be a matter of either: Obama won’t care because he can’t have a third term, or a Republican winner would easily blame such a retaliation on the fact that it was Obama who ordered the hit on Osama. Either way they will have to respond in kind.

The US has participated in the NATO air strikes in support of the Libyan rebels. Col. Qaddafi has shown patience and perseverance in the past when he chose to send terrorists to deliver his retaliation answer to the USA. Qaddafi shows little potential for a St. Paul moment decision to adopt the “turn the other cheek” religious philosophy. Hence, it can be assumed that Qaddafi will veto any “Peace” sentiments.

What about Iraq? Since revenge is an integral part of Muslim culture, it seems that for a generation or two there will be a large contingent of Iraqi citizens who are relatives of people declared “unintended collateral damage” fatal casualties, and who will consider it their duty to remind Americans of the Biblical axiom about justice demanding “an eye for an eye.” They would not feel obligated to be bound by any peace deal with America by (to use a George W. Bush phrase) a “scrap of paper.”

Recent events in Egypt may remind foreign policy wonks of the old FDR assessment of a dictator. His succinct assessment could well apply to recently deposed Hasni Mubarak: “He may be an S.O.B., but he is our S.O.B.”

A zoo in the New York City region recently had to contend with a cobra snake who got out of her cage. Well, the American Mid East policy wonks may have an analogous problem developing in Egypt.

Do you think that North Korea’s leadership enthusiastically hold an annual celebration for the birth of “the Prince of Peace”? Me neither too.

What about Iran? If the 2012 election delivers Republican majorities back to the House and Senate, will a President from either major American political party be prone to ignore dire assessments from the CIA?

The new CIA director will be a fellow with the “Green Machine” mentality. Would he be tempted to tailor make intelligence about Iran’s nuclear development program for the fellow sitting in the Oval Office after the January 2013 Inauguration ceremony?

If the Expanded War Authority Act, which is now being voted on by the Congress and Senate, passes, the next President would be empowered to order a bombing strike on the Iranian nuclear development facility without the seeking prior permission from Congress. Anyone who has noted the long stream of news items about Republicans urging such a preemptive strike wouldn’t need to consult a fortune teller to predict what will eventually happen if the Expanded War Authority Act passes and is signed into law. (Hat tip to the Mike Malloy radio program for directing our attention to that obscure bit of legislative news just as this column was being written.)

There are other pockets of animosity that portend of additional troubles for America. Such as? Somalia, Yemen, the India – Pakistan border disputes, and America’s porous borders to name some.

Some immature Americans reacted to the news of Osama’s death as if they had just witnessed a walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning of the seventh game of a World Series. Guess again. Folks in Berkeley who reacted by dusting off various examples of their Peace symbols might be more realistic if they made plans to revive efforts to provide draft counseling advice for students.

Omar Bradley is quoted in Barlett’s for saying: “In war there is no second price for the runner-up.”

Now the disk jockey will play John and Yoko’s “Give Peace a chance,” the Doors’ “War is Over,” and Berkeley’s own Fogerty Brothers (their band is called CCR) playing “Who will stop the rain?” Now we have to go see how the latest hunger strike on campus is going. Have a “it ain’t over ‘til its over” type week.

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May 10, 2011

Revisiting the Ox-Bow Incident

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: "How many fingers?", Mike Malloy, Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark — Bob Patterson @ 3:55 pm

If (subjunctive mood) a country of wild warriors used the concept of spreading “freedom of speech” as a red herring for wars of aggression disguised as altruistic wars for humanitarian reasons and the dissemination of democracy in despotic lands, would anyone be surprised if a fellow, who believed the “tell it like it is” meme, was soundly condemned for providing an opposing point of view?

Progressive talk radio host Mike Malloy has become embroiled in such an oxymoron situation because he mused (on air) about the possibility that George W. Bush ordering of some military action which precipitated a massive amount of collateral damage in the form of civilian death and injury augmented by a massive amount of damage to the host country’s infrastructure might have an amazing degree of similarity to Hitler’s methodology, which is often exemplified by the unfortunate and regrettable bombing of Rotterdam. The authorities in Rotterdam had sent word to the German military that Rotterdam was to be accorded “open city” status. Regrettably that bit of intelligence was not relayed in a timely manner to the troops and Rotterdam was reduced to rubble.

Freedom of Speech was one of the four Freedoms for which the United States fought in World War II. Therefore the thought that some über-patriotic members of the Teabag branch of the Republican Party would not apply the old “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” philosophy to some freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness dialogue is an incomprehensible contradiction, but like the WMD’s, the word that Rotterdam was an open city, and the science fiction stories about polar bears facing extinction because folks are running their vacuum cleaners too often, a miscommunication occurred and people have challenged Malloy not for the fact-checking reasons but because they wanted to apply the Archie Bunker rule: “Stifle!”

Inadvertently, Malloy’s efforts to point out the philosophical oxymoron have only goaded his critics into some overzealous examples of their own subjunctive mood speculation that comes perilously close to being un-Christian threats against the health of him and his family. Obviously this situation is not the time for Malloy to echo the “Bring it on!” Bush style swagger.

Is there a teabagger who hasn’t read Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s classic novel, “The Ox-Bow Incident”? Shouldn’t Malloy calmly and rationally use that example of American pop culture to subtly point out the error of their aggressive rebuttals? Isn’t it über-ironic that they should be attacking him for exorcizing one of the rights they are prepared to die for to defend?

Perhaps, Malloy’s lapse in logic is his assumption that the “We’re just good patriotic Americans” crowd is castigating him for using his right to freedom of speech?

This may sound a tad “conspiracy-theory-nut”-ish, but could it (that pesky subjunctive mood rears its ugly head again) be that the folks who are sending him the acerbic missives are radical Muslims disguising themselves as teabaggers to carry out a fatwa against Malloy ordered by some mullah? Don’t all mullah’s look alike in their turbans and robes?

Don’t death threats sound more Sharia law-ish than something that patriotic Americans would advocate as a response to the opposing point of view?

Aren’t the real members of the teabag movement sending e-mails to their fellow travelers urging them to do a bit of stealth Malloy monitoring as a way to prove conclusively that the are reluctantly endorsing “freedom of speech”? Did Hitler encourage Germans to listen to foreign broadcasts to experience first hand their political propaganda? Heck no! The German authorities authorized to carry ammunition (Schutz-Saffel) feared that any such contact with the Allied Forces would produce a St. Paul’s moment. Did the Germans have freedom of speech or second amendment rights to carry arms?

So if the Germans were against those rights, doesn’t that mean that Teabaggers would automatically take the opposing point of view if some nefarious group tried to silence free speech in the USA? Of course! Hence the people trying to silence Malloy must be people who hate Malloy’s expression of freedom? Who did George W. Bush say hated Americans and attacked the World Trade Center because of their freedoms? Didn’t he say that America’s freedoms were precisely the reason for that attack?

Well, then, is it not obviously logical to conclude that the people who want to censure Malloy for using his inalienable (always blame it on aliens, eh?) rights must be foreigners and possible Mullah directed automatons carrying out a fatwa sanctioned by Sharia Law?

The fact that the phrase “Christian fatwa” is an oxymoron only serves to add a bit of redundant proof that the folks condemning Malloy’s use of American freedoms must be un-American.

Any minute now the posse of lefty pundits will arrive and say: “Back off! Malloy was just saying: ‘In a perfect world, unintended collateral damage has consequences.’” It’s not like Malloy was delivering a blanket condemnation of vigilante justice for Osama. He was just using sarcasm to draw attention to the numerous parallels between Bush’s agenda and that of the fellows who were convicted at Nuremberg. Does Dick Cheney have a world famous art collection?

The other Liberal talk show hosts aren’t going to hang Malloy out to dry, are they? That would be like in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” when Luke (Paul Newman) turns to Dragline (George Kennedy) for some moral support and gets a shrug and “Don’t look at me, mother” reply.

Heck, if Bush had done something wrong, wouldn’t the World Court send some law enforcement guys to Texas (or would the Texas Rangers provide some “interline courtesy” and make the collar for them?) and drag him back to their country for a new war crimes trial? They haven’t, so everything must be copasetic.

Younger Americans should be encouraged to tune into Malloy and listen in a non judgmental mode because years from now, Malloy may well be considered a noteworthy example of the radio personality in American culture.

What young American wouldn’t appreciate the hypothetical opportunity to turn on a radio tonight and tune into XERB and listen to Wolfman Jack? Does Serious Radio have a Wolfman channel? Could listening to Malloy be compared to hearing Jean Sheppard’s radio program? Are today’s disk jockey couples trying to walk a mile in the moccasins of Tex and Jinx Faulkinberg?

Whatever.

If, as a renowned clergyman from Oakland is predicting, the world is going to end later this month, [Note: the World’s Laziest Journalist, an ordained minister, is trying to intercede and get a stay of execution order issued via prayers and supplications.] shouldn’t folks be loading their memory banks up with “once in a lifetime” experiences to replay in Heaven rather than disputing Mike Malloy’s idea that Americans are not entitled to a “Get out of Jail” card for war crimes?

In “Cool Hand Luke,” the captain said: “What we have here is . . . failure to communicate.”

Now the disk jockey will play the Doors song “Soft Parade,” “the ballad of Ruben Carter,” and Ernie Ford’s “Shotgun boogie.” We have to go bail a friend out of jail. Have a “How many fingers, Winston?” type week.

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May 9, 2011

“Go ahead – shoot me!”

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Arlen Specter, Ennio Morricone, Gavrilo Princip, Osama bin Laden — Bob Patterson @ 5:15 pm

The assertion that statistically the most common quote attributed to people who had been murdered via shooting was “Go ahead – shoot me!” made this columnist wonder how the number scientists had come up with that conclusion. Then we leaped to the assumption that they must have asked people being accused of doing the deed; “What did the victim say?”

The recent news stories about a Wikileaks revelation that al Qaeda have warned Americas that if Osama got whacked, rubbed out, or off-ed, their preferred form of retaliation would be in the form of a nuclear device.

In all the commotion in recent history over terrorism, we’ve lost count of the exact number of actual terrorist attacks aimed against the United States. Some of the more paranoid members of the lunatic conspiracy theory community have alleged that the Oklahoma City bombing had stealth links to foreign terrorists. A different branch (dividians?) of loons thinks that TWA flight 800 was struck by a surface to air missile.

Should the events of September 11, 2001 be counted as one coordinated attack or several separate attacks?

Some of the fellows wearing “9-11 was an inside job” T-shirts don’t think that the attacks on the World Trade Center should be counted as the work of terrorists.

Whatever the exact number is; it’s obvious that America’s leaders either don’t think that a nuclear response to the hit on bin Laden is possible, or, if it is, it won’t matter in the overall assessment by future historians studying George W. Bush’s “Forever War.”

America will, alone if necessary, stride forward [like Marshal Will Kane (Garry Cooper) in the movie “High Noon”] to face the bad guys with stoical determination.

In literary circles, there is an urban legend that Owen Wister (not Whistler like the guy who painted his mother) offered $100 (a considerable amount of money at that time) for any fact checker who could provide a contemporary newspaper account of a movie style “drawdown” example of gunplay. No one ever collect the money.

The shootout at the OK corral was more like a horse era drive by shooting than anything staged and choreographed by George Stevens and his cinematographer.

In “The Man who shot Liberty Valance,” a mild mannered lawyer is perceived to be a hero who shot a bad guy in self defense and parlays that into a lifetime series of political triumphs. The man who actually did shoot Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) remains anonymous. Since some pundits have asserted that the Osama hit will provide President Obama with a surge in popularity that will propel him to a second term, there might be an opportunity to add some contemporary political commentary to a nostalgic column reassessing that almost forgotten John Ford classic film.

Could a clever writer produce a column about the shootout at the bin Laden compound corral and make it sound like a parody of Ernst Hemingway’s short story titled “The Killers”?

In the 1940 film “The Bank Dick,” W. C. Fields, under the scriptwriting pseudonym of Mahatma Kane Jeeves, included a bit that permitted the comedian to spoof the concept of using a gun under his coat for a fast-draw emergency situation.

Didn’t famed film critic (and one time Berkeley CA resident?) Pauline Kael succinctly express Hollywood’s love affair with gunplay in a collection of her movie reviews titled: “Kiss, kiss, bang, bang”?

The opening sequence in “Lord of War” (an underappreciated classic) portrayed the life of a single bullet.

Wasn’t “the single bullet theory” invented by Arlen Specter?

Which brings us to: “Back and to the left!”

What ever happened to the plans to film the story of Giuseppei Zangara and his fast tracked appointment with death?

Isn’t using a President for target practice a sure fire (pun?) way to vault to fame and a prominent place in the Contemporary American Culture Hall of Fame? Just ask Leon Czolgosz and/or Charles Julius Guiteau.

American cultural imperialism is based on the films from Hollywood and isn’t gunplay an integral part of that form of entertainment? Wasn’t one of the first films about a train robbery?

Didn’t movie script writers mine the field of murder with a gun to great advantage?

Where would Hollywood be today if they didn’t tell the stories of the gunslingers and their victims? Who doesn’t know about Harry K. Thaw, Sacco and Vanzetti, Al Capone, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Charlie Starkweather, and Gavrilo Princip, the man whose bullets cause several million deaths? Didn’t someone once say that Guns are as American as apple pie?

Since, for their own protection, the identities of the Seals who did the shooting in the bin Laden compound must remain secret, that means that the story will be in the public domain and not sold as part of a “life story” deal for anyone of the men who were there. What Hollywood producer doesn’t love material (ripe for fictionalization) that doesn’t require the use of a large “rights” payment? How many film versions of the bin Laden caper will be made? Will it be five or six? In all the excitement, even the Hollywood Reporter might loose track of the exact number. Which version will catch the public’s fancy? Now, potential producers have to ask themselves one more question. “Do I feel lucky?”

Did any of the accounts of the termination of bin Laden’s command (with extreme prejudice) report what his last words were? Did he say “Top of the world, ma!” or did he say “The Horror! The Horror!”

How many liberal Californians decorated their hippie pads with the poster that showed California Governor (and former actor) Ronald Reagan in a cowboy costume with a drawn six-shooter and the dialogue balloon that read: “Thanks for the votes, suckers!”?

Some folks wonder why the Conservative Christians in the Teabag Party embrace guns.

Teabaggers are not given proper credit for promoting the sentiment of: “Shoot if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag.”

Mao Tse-tung has said: “Every Communist must grasp the truth: ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Amen!

The disk jockey has lost count of all the good “shoot-em-up” songs and so he’ll play these classic American songs:
“Theme from ‘High Noon’” by Frankie Lane
“Stagger Lee”
“Frankie and Johnny”
Gene Pitney’s “(The Man who shot) Liberty Valance?”
“Bang Bang” by Cher
“The Long Black Veil” by Johnny Cash
The Johnny Cash song with the “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” line
What was the name of that Johnny Cash song about a gun fighter with dementia who wanders into modern day automobile traffic thinking he is going to face an outlaw and former member of Quantrill’s Raiders?
The theme from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
Loren Green’s song “Ringo”
“I Hate Mondays”
“Guns, guns, guns” by the Guess Who (that’s the band’s name and not a challenge) and, of course, a bunch of Ennio Morricone film scores.

We have to go to the shooting range and hone our self-defense skills.

Have a “never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way” type week.

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May 6, 2011

On the road to the Beat Museum?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Beat Museum, Jack Kerouac, Killing Osama, Litquake — Bob Patterson @ 12:50 pm

dscn1230-beat-long-shot

The idea that certain bath salts can be used in a pipe as a substitute for hash or crack is slowly trickling upwards from the drug culture underground to the mainstream media and that story will soon be getting the attention of the assignment editors at the various evening news broadcasts and that, in turn, means that the chess match clock will soon be measuring the conservative reaction time. Once conservatives realize (by doing a Google news search for “smoking bath salts”?) that it is a legitimate current events problem topic, Uncle Rushbo and his wannabe imitators will be (like a pit crew changing all four tires) expected to instantaneously produce irrefutable Republican talking points asserting that the new outlaw fad proves that the Democrat in the Oval Office has performed poorly.

Objecting to too much government is one thing, but letting bath salts be sold without legal guidelines is incomprehensible. Write to your Senators and congressional representatives and demand action now! Or better yet, show up at a townhall meeting and, when you are sure the TV cameras are rolling, ask what will be done about the bath salts problem. One Congresswoman in Florida is ready to take action. Why are other states lagging behind?

Does that make it sound like the Summer of ’68 isn’t really over yet? Well put this in your Magritte style pipe and smoke it: some imaginative scoundrels have discovered that if they go through the paperwork to be accredited as a patient in pain with a legitimate need for medical marijuana, they can turn around and sell their “medicine” at a slight profit to some people who may not want pesky paperwork in existence linking them to the “devil weed.” (Would it be a “cop out” for us to fail to provide an example of people who might prefer to remain “off the books” as far as being a legitimate registered pot head is concerned?)

Older nostalgia prone assignment desks might like that flashback topic, too. Think any one of them would be too embarrassed to steal an idea from “the World’s Laziest Journalist”? Me neither too.

The concept of being a topic rustler brings us to another flashback topic: At the Berkeley 7 flashback film series, we saw for the first time last night, the classic film “Scarface” starring Al Pacino. All the gangster activities called “rub-out,” “whack,” or “hit” at various times in the annals of the gangster genre movies reminded us that the President seems to be imitating the gangster mentality with his foreign policy. Col. Qaddafi is becoming an annoyance? Bomb the snot out of his living compound. Send “the boys” over to bin Laden’s place and have them rub him out.

Will Qaddafi’s and bin Laden’s gang be able to tell the ref: “I know where I am. I know what round it is. Don’t stop the fight!” or will they get a TKO?

Can’t you just picture President Obama telling his posse: “Everything north of State Street is O’Banion’s; we got Afghanistan and now Libya.”? Were bin Laden’s last words: “Mother of God, is this the end of Ricco?” Or did he snarl: “Top of the world, ma!”? Did the Seals yell: “Osama, say hello to my little friend!”?

For over ten year, the World’s Laziest Journalist has been motivated to write political punditry for various online sites by a “Man of La Mancha” delusion that it was worth while to get up at 6 a.m. pound out some words such as a column that ridiculed the contention that some dumb aluminum tube was irrefutable evidence that the invasion of some country was imperative and then make the effort to get online and post it. There was always the hope that the next column would (somehow) hit a nerve and cause all of America to question the Bush junta’s sanity.

Now that George W. Bush’s successor from the opposition Party has endorsed the Bush war policy, writing critical political commentary is an unnecessary foolish self deception and is an example of inefficient use of time. Rather than continuing the futile railing, long neglected book length projects can be reconsidered and perhaps revived with renewed enthusiasm.

What’s not to like about sleeping in until 7:30 a.m., doing the same amount of writing, and then, instead of hustling off to get a turn on a Berkeley Public Library computer connected to the Internets, taking a long leisurely stroll (and perhaps having a serendipitous encounter with a bargain bin priced intriguing used book), and stopping off at Pepe’s Pizza to indulge in their Pizza buffet for lunch?

Obviously, a timely topic, such as the wide spread notion that the world will end on May 22, can be a compelling occasion for a column chock full of cynical skepticism. After that date has passed, perhaps the World’s Laziest Journalist can parlay the fact that he, as an ordained minister, prayed that God would stay his hand and delay Judgment Day for a good long while, into a selling point to gain some lucrative speaking engagements?

Perhaps we could get an immediate start on participating in this year’s San Francisco Litquake festival by sending a query letter to the Beat Museum? We would note that we had not only interceded and prevented the End of the World, but that as a well read Kerouac wannabe who has not yet completed his memoirs manuscript, we would not selfishly use the occasion for self promotion of a new book we had written, but would, instead, be able to speak knowledgeably (on the pseudo intellectual level) about many of the books by other writers that are for sale in the gift and bookstore section of that venue.

Would San Francisco’s literati find “An Evening with the World’s Laziest Journalist” a refreshing change of pace from the usual “I’m begging you to buy this book” type of disguised boorish sales pitch? What would be the best way to find the answer to that question?

Heck, by the time this year’s Litquake gets started, if we have interceded and convinced God to postpone the End of the World for a little while isn’t that worth something? Is a speaking engagement at the Beat Museum too much to ask?

Allen Ginsberg (at a poetry reading in San Francisco, long before the first Litquake) said: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for a fix . . . .” All they had to do was buy some bath salts. Who knew?

Now the disk jockey will fix us up with a chance to listen to “Harlem Nocturne,” the soundtrack album for “Kiss Me Deadly,” and “Night Train.” We have to go find some new tidbits of news that will make it worth while for the aforementioned assignment desk editors to “tune in again next time.” Have a “fa-a-a-r out!” type week.

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May 3, 2011

We’re All “Good Bushies” now! ? ! ?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: George W. Bush, Obama, Osama, Perpetual war — Bob Patterson @ 7:31 pm

President Obama has just given America’s complete and unconditional endorsement to the Middle East tradition of using a perpetual cycle of violence to conduct a philosophical debate. Thomas E. (AKA T. E.) Lawrence, in his book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” informed readers that revenge is an integral part of the Muslim culture. When American political pundits say that the death of Osama bin Laden gives closure to the attack on the World Trade Center, that is about as astute as hearing a rookie sportscaster saying that a three run rally in the top of the first inning erases the necessity for playing the next eight and a half innings.

When the images of the attack on the World Trade Center were shown, crowds in the Middle East were reported to be holding spontaneous joyous celebrations in the streets of various cities in their countries. Americans were outraged and considered such a reaction inappropriate.

Sunday, after Americans were told that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Navy Seals, Americans responded with jubilant crowds expressing approval at various diverse locations mostly the sites of sporting events.

Presidential candidate Obama promised that he would deliver change. Apparently he has delivered on that promise. America has embraced the methods and conduct they once considered barbaric and unacceptable.

The fact that Americans at sporting events participated in spontaneous displays of euphoria when they received the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, will only goad Al Qaeda into a much firmer resolve to deal out a brutal payback attack. Does a bull attack the matador’s cape? The lower echelon of al Qaeda’s cadre has just been dealt an insulting challenge which they won’t ignore.

T. E. Lawrence informed his readers that the Muslim culture is also noted for its patience regarding a response so that if they don’t send a suicide bomber into action on Wednesday, that doesn’t mean that they won’t ever strike back; it just means they will pick the time and place and proceed at their leisure.

The irony for Democrats is that by fully and unreservedly endorsing the violent assassination of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has committed members of his political party to Bush’s Eternal War on Terrorism.

Initially some Democrats (and a few rogue online columnists) objected to Bush’s use of invasion, torture, and excessive collateral civilian damage but now with the Obama move to commit his Party to the Bush agenda, he has made any efforts to promote antiwar sentiment become a despicable example of disloyal cowardice.

Shifting the Democrats into the cycle of perpetual retaliatory events is an irreversible move of the “you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube” type. The Peacenik point of view will become as relevant to the contemporary political arena as are the beliefs of the flat earth society.

Al Qaeda is now compelled to retaliate and when they do, the average American (who was seen rejoicing in the news at Sunday night sporting events) will demand a bigger and more horrific response to the al Qaeda answer to Osama’s assassination. At that point history will take on the hall of mirrors look and there won’t be any turning back.

The fact that one of Col. Qaddafi’s sons was killed in a recent NATO airstrike will mean that as he has previously (when his step daughter was killed) the Libyan leader will unleash his own subsidized violent retaliation.

Any new terrorism activity that is unleashed inside the United States will have at least two potential sources in the Muslim world. If something happens, bloodthirsty Americans will demand a quick act of generic revenge and not a comprehensive investigation to determine the specific group that did the deed.

America’s security forces have been rather successful using entrapment gambits for ensnaring young gullible guys, but from here on, things are going to get progressively rougher and meaner.

Was the old movie comedy routine about two guys engaging in a slapping contest based on a real life macho contest? If so, that example of slowly increasing hostility could become a valid metaphor for a series of increasingly violent retaliation moves.

Any speculation about what could possibly have been done to avoid the now inevitable eternal cycle of increasingly bloody retaliator moves is totally irrelevant.

Alternate fiction history can be interesting and entertaining but it is an exorcise in futility. What would have happened if the Seal team had shot Osama with a paintball gun and then said: “We could have killed you just now, but we want to break the pattern of the eternal cycle of violent retribution killing.” But they didn’t. They shot him dead.

Whatever infinitesimally small chance that might have had to work is irrelevant. Osama was assassinated and the United States will be seen as accepting the ground rules for a never ending series of alternating retaliations.

Punditry about “closure” will only serve to increase the level righteous indignation in America when (not “if”) al Qaeda retaliates for the assassination of Osama or Col. Qaddafi seeks revenge for the killing of his son. That, in turn, will only compel America’s subsequent answer to be an absolute requirement for any President of either party.

At that point George W. Bush’s assertion that he had started an “Eternal” war and that it has been fully endorsed by the Democrats courtesy of President Obama will be irrefutable. Attempting political commentary that runs counter to both the Republican and Democratic Presidents’ agendas would be completely idiotic and an example of wasted effort. Consequently subsequent columns written by the World’s Laziest Journalist may be about irrelevant, inconsequential, and perhaps even innocuous topics.

A segment of the lyrics to one of Waylon Jennings’ songs seems to be appropriate for the closing quote: “ . . . waiting for something to happen – hope it doesn’t happen to me . . .”

Now the disk jockey will play the Zombies song “How We Were Before,” CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” and Dick Dale and the Deltones 1963 release “We’ll Never Hear the End of It.”

We have to go attend a “More war; Less social services” rally. Have a “Revenge is sweet” type week.

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April 28, 2011

“Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: Home Front Memories, National Park, Richmond CA, Rosie the Riveter — Bob Patterson @ 12:25 pm

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Say the words “National Park” in front of a New York City resident and he (or she) will have a Rorschach reaction and immediately conjure up images of grouchy grizzly bears, surly rattlesnakes, and insatiable bloodthirsty mosquitoes lurking in vast patches of poison ivy.

There is, however, a slim hope that they can be weaned away from their natural aversion to any location perceived by them as harboring a vast array of examples of photosynthesis at work and that ultimately they can be convinced to visit a countervailing example which can be found in Richmond California where the Department of the Interior has established the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park to commemorate the effort civilian workers provided for America’s participation in the FDR era defense of the Four Freedoms.

Visitors to this unique tourist attraction won’t need to lug along a bird-spotting guidebook nor a botanist’s knowledge of poison oak and/or ivy. The only plant they will see is a facility for making Ford automobiles that was converted into a segment of the Kaiser Shipbuilding assembly line that was located in the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay.

Park visitors should bring a curiosity about history and a vivid imagination, which is tempered by accurate period information. Those visitors who augment their tourist experience by conjuring up Busby Berkeley-ish images of a beehive of homogenous and harmonious workers toiling in synchronized hall of mirrors type images, will have their illusions shattered by park ranger Betty Reid Soskin. She will tell visitors about the animosity and rancor that was rampant during the period of unified purpose. She should know; she can provide a vivid “what it was really like” description of the WWII events because she was part of it. That last sentence may raise the hackles of even the most amateurish fact finder, but you read it right.

If anyone had attended the 20th birthday party for Betty Reid Soskin, they might have faced a wall of incredulity if they had (accurately) predicted that almost seventy years later, she, as the oldest National Park Ranger in America, would be blogging about her work and the preparations for receiving her doctoral degree at an institute of higher learning because, in November of 1941, she would, in the next four years, have to contend with problems of race and gender discrimination, minimum wages, inflation and cost of living raises, and seven day work weeks.

According to our recollections of some serendipity reading of back issues of Time and Newsweek, dated soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, some politicians advanced the idea that the (relatively) recent laws, enacting overtime pay after 40 hours of work within one week, should be suspended for the duration of the war in order for workers not to be guilty of war profiteering. Ironically, later in World War II, workers had to call wildcat strikes because their regular wages were not keeping pace with the War Time rate of inflation.

Dealing with capitalists on wage issues brings to mind a Laurel and Hardy comedy routine in which a coin would be flipped to make a decision. Laurel (or was it the other one) would toss the coin and the conditions of the call (Heads – I win; tails – you loose!) would be given to the other guy while the coin was flipping through the air.

Many years ago, there was an Oped piece in the New York Times that related an insidious example of discrimination in America at work during World War II. A roadwork gang in Kansas was doing a very commendable day’s work and came upon an isolated rural café. The officer in charge of the German prisoners of war and their guards decided that everyone had earned a break. The café owner permitted the German prisoners to come in and eat, but refused to let the Negro American guards come inside his establishment.

[When Republicans take their oath for a political office don’t they have the option of inserting this additional wording: “I solemnly swear to uphold the rights of the rich and protect and defend them from the insatiable greedy demands of the loathsome and reprehensible workers, so help me God!”? What true fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers football team would object to that codicil?]

Would Ayn S. Rand condone the use of World War II as a lever for increasing a capitalists’ profit margin? Are wild bears Catholic?

The expression “Rosie the Riveter” was popularized during the war by a Norman Rockwell painting used as a cove for the May 29, 1943 edition of the Saturday Evening Post magazine and by the “Rosie the Riveter” song performed by the Four Vagabonds.

During World War II, 747 ships were built by the Richmond shipyards.

The park is seeking stories bout life on the home front during WWII, as well as any memorabilia. Information about the park is available online at:

http://www.nps.gov/rori/index.htm

The shipyards in Richmond launched the Liberty Ship, the SS Robert E. Peary, in 1942. It was constructed in the record time of 4 days, 15 hours, and 23 minutes.

Kaiser’s industrial miracle was augmented by innovations in housing, medical care for the workers and child care.

Now, are the readers in Manhattan beginning to see how and why they would feel comfortably “at home” in this National Park on the Western side of the USA?

Visitors to this unique tourist attraction can choose to customize their National Park experience from a list of components to Richmond’s checkerboard patterned park map. They can pick from a list that includes some “do not disturb the occupants” type war era facilities still in use as well as the walk around and take a bunch of picture locations. They can choose from: the Rosie the Riveter Memorial, the SS Red Oak Victory (example of ships built there), the Whirley Crane (this columnist knows of one former co-worker who is a connoisseur of cranes), the Ford Assembly Plant Building, and Atchison Village (to name some but not all). A Park Visitors’ Center is nearing the time for its dedication ceremony.

PBS did a documentary about the home front during WWII and a book titled “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” are suggested resources for any of this column’s readers who want more information on the topic.

On October 30, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” Construction of Shipyard No. 1, in Richmond, began on January 14, 1941.

Now the disk jockey will play Louis Jordan’s version of “G. I. Jive,” Guy Lombardo’s “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose in Ireland,” and Vaughn Monroe’s “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World.” (Hey, pal, you got a problem with his choices?) We have to go buy some War Bonds. Have a “someday this war will be over” type week.

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