BartBlog

January 15, 2010

Who is America’s favorite “crazy uncle”?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 3:10 pm

Columnists of the liberal persuasion can often come up with a current events topic by listening to Uncle Rushbo’s EIB nonsense. If you tune in often you increase the odds that you will pick up some subtle points that the other liberal pundits might miss.

A trip to the Santa Monica Public Library seven years after the invasion of Iraq to do some long overdue fact checking, seemed to be a textbook perfect example of “lag time.” We found out all about Robert Jackson’s opening statement at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial and were surprised to learn that the “he didn’t know” bullshit was a red herring because the United States’ lead prosecutor had established the principle that “any invasion is a crime against peace.” Gees, that sure took the wind out of the “he didn’t know” song and dance. Or was it a case of “Don’t do as I do, do as I say!”?

Having listened to Uncle Rushbo during his Iraq War cheer leading days, we don’t have to believe what he was saying to be able to say “he sounded sincere.” Yeah, he sounded sincerely crazy, but he delivered his lines quite convincingly. Uncle Rushbo was (IMHO) playing “sane” just as well as Humphrey Bogart played “crazy” in his role as Fred C. Dobbs, in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

What would happen if you used one of those little voice stress analyzers (those thingies that conservatives urge parents to use when questioning their kids about drug use) during the EIB broadcasts?

With that preamble, our credentials for evaluating Uncle Rushbo’s tone have been established and we can proceed to the premise of this column: When Uncle Rusbho was ignoring his femme-Nazi philosophy past and heaping lavish praise on Sarah Palin as the front runner for the 2012 Presidential election, he sounded, to this listener, as if he had just survived an extended waterboarding experience.

We did a rough draft of this column and wondered how long it would take Uncle Rushbo to revert to form and start manifesting his symptoms of misogyny. We figured that he would wait out the week, at the very least. We misunderestimated him.

On Thursday, January 14, 2010, we missed his program, but Mike Malloy played Uncle Rushbo’s conversation with a young lady named April from that day’s installment of “Redneck Philosophy for Fun and Profit.”

April did a rather commendable job of debating him, but as always, when it looks like a conservative is going to loose, he started cheating. Uncle Rushbo turned it into a publicity coup by inserting “you have tampons in your ears” (the quote is in the transcript posted on Limbaugh’s web site) into the proceedings. He had cackled about how he can infuriate the Liberal Media with a minimum of effort. Did Thursday’s performance outrage Malloy? You betcha! Did it qualify Uncle Rushbo for this year’s Enfant Terrible awards? That remains to be seen, but it sure looked like he had taken an early lead in that competition.

Can’t you just picture a schoolyard scene, of yore, where some big mean guy forced the fat little future radio luminary to “take back what you just said”? Say, maybe that’s what spawned his effort to continually seek the most outrageous sentiments and spew them without any fear of ever having to recant.

It’s obvious that the Republican el jefe has never heard of, let alone read a biography of, Robert Brasillach, who learned the hard way that what you say can have consequences. He was not just a writer; he was classified as an “intellectual,” who got hizselph kilt when the Frogs conducted their collaborators trials at the end of WWII.

Uncle Rushbo has bragged that he loved being able to exasperate the Liberal Media at will. It seems quite likely that he wouldn’t appreciate being compared to a French intellectual let along one who was shot as a collaborator. Nyahhh, nyahhh. Uncle Rushbo sounds like a French intelectual! ! ! Nyah, nyah, nyah! (Wasn’t Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope taunting so audacious? Wonder what the equivalent move in the world of punditry would be.)

Earlier this week when Sarah Palin made her first and much ballyhooed appearance on Fox’s non stop marathon of Republican Propaganda, Uncle Rushbo heaved a sigh of relief that could (metaphorically?) be heard on the “Free Speech” historic site of Sproul Plaza.

Whew! He can now go back to blasting the broads and promulgating the official Republican position regarding women; “keep ‘em barefoot in winter and pregnant in summer.” He might even give his imprimatur to Sarah’s new gig by agreeing to an interview done by her which will be touted as “scathing” and “relentlessly probing,” while assiduously avoiding any reference to his past disparaging remarks about the fair sex.

It seems as if some of his adoring female fans just can’t get enough of the VA (verbal abuse) he dishes out regarding women.

Fox news continually exemplifies the old Hollywood axiom: “If you can fake sincerity, you’ll have it made.”

We just knew that Uncle Rushbo wouldn’t disappoint his fans with a long delay to the good old femme-nazi bashing days; it was just a matter of time. He didn’t waste much time did he? Wasn’t it in the movie “Mr. Arkadin” where Orson Wells told the story that ended with the punch line: “Because it’s in my nature.”?

Now that Sarah (AKA America’s Evita?) has resigned as the Republican “frontrunner for 2012,” conservatives will hold off on anointing the next “next President” until after this fall’s midterm elections. If the results (courtesy of the electronic voting machines?) produce a slew of Republican victories and a passel of restoration drama analysis, my perdition is that the (well trained) Liberal Media will set the stage, with a spate of adoring stories, touting a “groundswell” of enthusiasm for Jeb’s run for becoming “45.”

Isn’t the Voltaire quote: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it” the official motto of the EIB network?

We’ve requested that the disk jockey play the Hag’s (an affectionate nickname for Merle Haggard) song “(Are we living now, or is it) 1929”. The disk jockey has also decided to play the Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman,” Jim Reeves’ “Throw another log on the Fire,” and the new Republican old favorite titled “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” It’s time to go down to the railroad station and pick up a friend’s mother. Have the type week that earns Mr. Snerdley’s seal of approval. (I.e. “Yeah, that’s how country boys roll!”)

January 11, 2010

Giuliani “forgets” 9/11; hilarity ensues

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 2:30 pm

Liberals get so perturbed by Fox when they hear lies, half-truths, and distortions. This past weekend, when Rudy Giuliani tossed off his one-liner about the United States experiencing zero terrorist attacks on Dubya’s watch, those words aggravated, upset, and riled up (can I say “pissed off”?) the Democrats to an extreme level because there is just no way that day could have slipped his mind. So why did he say what he said?

The Democrats are getting unnecessarily discombobulated because they just don’t get it. What is happening is similar to the (very) old comedy routines that were filmed by Alan Funt who would use his “Candid Camera” to record the “hilarity ensued” aspect spawned by his adolescent boy stunts. One of his most famous segments involved the rigging of a U. S. Post Office mail box so that it seemed to talk to some of the people dropping letters into it.

Sooner or later the Democrats will (eventually) realize that Fox News is just (IMHO) just some good ole boys pulling their chain with a comedy series that portrays the antics of a bunch of patriotic hillbillies who are completely convinced that members of the Bush family can do no wrong. Did anyone ever accuse Mary Tyler Moor of telling on-air fibs because of something she said during her fictionalized TV show about television journalism?

Do you still “not get it”? Fox News is kinda like a cross between the Dukes of Hazard and George Carlin’s classic comedy routines that skewered radio. Shouldn’t the Fox News motto be one word: “Gardyloo!”?

On Fox News, no matter what happens, the Pres has to come off smelling like roses if he’s a Republican and, conversely, worthy of immediate impeachment if he’s a Democrat. The Fox reaction is totally dependent on the political affiliation of the current President. Once the liberals catch on to the running joke premise of this long running comedy series, they will be able to relax, enjoy it, and “play along at home.”

The challenge facing the good ole boys at Fox News can best be understood via the old story about the Irish cop investigating a traffic accident.

Officer O’Brien is called to the scene of a TC (traffic collision). When he arrives, he sees two cars crunched together, at a traffic light. The rear of one is tangled with the front of the second vehicle which is being driven by the monsignor at Officer O’Brien’s church, Father O’Malley. The cop runs up to the priest’s window and says: “Father, how fast was he goin’ when he backed into you?”

The cop knows that the good Irish priest can not be at fault, (thinking that it could be is like believing that if someone flaps his arms fast enough, he can fly) but there has to be an explanation for what happened. It is immediately evident to the Irish cop what happened and then all he needs to know is the speed of the jaunty sports car which (obviously) just backed into the front end of Father O’Malley’s Chevrolet Sedan.

Conservatives know that when they tune in to the comedians on Fox, they are going to get some hilarious and entertaining details about just how fast the Democrats “hot rod” was going when it backed into the Republicans’ family values black four door sedan.

Fox News does for journalism about the same thing that Edgar Bergan did for ventriloquism. Since Bergan’s lips used to move while his wooden dummy (Charlie McCarthy [W. C. Fields used to refer to Charlie as; "termite bait"]) was supposed to be talking, so Bergan (and Charlie) became a big hit on radio, where the moving lips didn’t matter. For a conservative audience insisting that “journalists” stick to the truth while smearing the Democrats, is like trying to hear Bergen’s lips move on radio while Charlie McCarthy is talking. You will only spoil the entertainment value by thinking about those minor flaws.

Aren’t both Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hanity known for their “deadpan delivery?”

Some young folks may never have heard the classic George Carlin comedy routines about the hippy-dippy weather man, life at a radio station (WOLD?) and the tagline songs about fictional Wonderful WINO radio. Pitty. If they had, they’d be hip to the shenanigans being broadcast daily on Fox News.

Didn’t the New Yorker magazine try to let the cat out of the bag when they ran the famous cartoon with the caption: “I’m not a newsman, I play one on TV.”? Isn’t the framed original sketch on display at Fox News Headquarters?

Using the reduxio ad absurdum style of argumentation, we’ll concoct a hypothetical development in the war on (oil field) terror(tory) as an example of the unappreciated creative comedy genius available to those who tune in to Fox news.

Suppose, that someday, somehow, Osama bin Laden turns up at the gates of the White House and wants to surrender and repent. Obama makes the “collar” (as they say in police circles) and the press is invited to cover the arrest and subsequent “perp walk” when the outlaw leader is led to the “Black Maria” waiting to take him away.

The pro-liberal media would be ecstatic covering the historic arrest.

For Fox, the challenge would (as always) be to portray what had just happened as a colossal blunder and a harbinger of impeding doom for the United States.

Impossible, under the circumstances, you say? Anyone saying that, has been fooled again into expecting journalism from Fox and not being hip to the creative hysterically funny improv comedy they were watching.

Think about it. How could this fictional event be manipulated into sounding like a major gaff by President Obama?

If this columnist were the Managing Editor overseeing Fox’s coverage of this imaginary event, here are three suggestions about how to spin it:
President Obama didn’t use the correct wordage while reading the suspect his Miranda rights and thus “queered” the case and insured an inevitable mistrial.
In bragging about the arrest, Obama had tainted the jury pool in the entire USA thus making a fair trial impossible.
President Obama had planted the “bloody glove” evidence in his enthusiasm to get a conviction and, subsequently, some good lawyers would make sure that Osama got a “not guilty” verdict in a fair trial.

If Fox, had covered VE day and wanted to make it look bad, how would they have reported it? “Allied troops entered Berlin today, but the troops under the command of the Democratic Commander-in-chief let Germany’s top war criminal disappear.” See how easy that was?

How would Fox have reported VJ Day? Since they can have the writers dream up facts that are going to be sure laugh-getters, they could have said: “After missing Tokyo by several hundred miles and dropping their ordinance on the wrong town, one called Hiroshima, the Democrat Party led American forces lucked out, because that close call scared the crap out of Japan’s Emperor. Unfortunately (more hypothetical alternative history here) the intelligence analysts couldn’t immediate connect the dots involved in Japan’s offer to surrender and the Democratic President approved a second atomic attack. Hey, Fox News has never promised you an unbiased report from the rose garden. Sure, they use the “fair and balanced” label, but have they ever claimed to be unbiased?

How long will it take for Democrats to figure this out? Don’t many of TV’s most famous comedy writers pick up some easy “freelance” money by submitting their best one-liners to Fox News?

Can anyone seriously contend that there will be any modicum of skepticism, on Fox, in 2012, when there is a (electronic voting machine generated) groundswell of enthusiasm for Jeb’s run for President?

Charles Foster Kane (Orson Wells) said: “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.”

Now, the disk jockey will play:
X-files theme music
Sheb Wooley’s “Purple People Eater”
Buchanan and Goodman’s “Flying Saucers” Part I and II

It’s time for us to go get beamed up.
Have a “Klaatu barada nikto” type week.

January 7, 2010

Pitty those poor, poor (doomed) polar bears

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 8:06 pm

Today (Thursday, January 07, 2010), after Yoga class, while walking around near the BART station in downtown Berkeley, I was approached by a bubbly enthusiastic young lady who was raising funds for Greenpeace.

In an effort to play devil’s advocate, I challenged her to explain why those nasty brutal beasts deserved any sympathy, let alone should inspire a donation to their organization. She resorted to the old domino theory and said that if folks let polar bears die off, other more cuddly animal species, such as the Pandas, would follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let them have North Vietnam and the next thing ya know Saigon will become Ho Chi Minh City. Blah, blah, blah.

We continued to challenge her debating skills by asking if Ansel Adams, who was well known for his love of nature and his work on behalf of the Sierra Club, had ever taken any pictures of polar bears. She couldn’t give a knowledgeable answer to my question.

Let me be perfectly clear: in an effort to help her sharpen her arguments, we continued our efforts to be a devil’s advocate and indicated that her silence was tantamount to me saying “check” in a chess game.

If the existentialists in Paris think that global warming is worth worrying about, then that might be a point in her favor. Wouldn’t Camus and company say that life is absurd and that polar bears might not want to continuing to live in a cold uncaring universe? Cold, yes, but don’t most polar bears die saying: “Rosebud”?

If global warming is a real problem, why aren’t people trying to tell the world that global warming will also kill off the penguins? When it comes to environmental issues, the polar bears have taken over. (Could that be called a putsch?) She tried to sidetrack me with the information that Greenpeace was big in Australia. Does size matter?

She then shifted her approach and told me about a new peril facing the polar bears. It seems that with the thinning out of the polar bear herds, apparently some of the frustrated young and horny members of the species have taken to mating with grizzly bears (<Ursus arctos horribilis. The resulting hybrid is called Grolar bears, as in gr(izzle + po)ar bears. Do they have their own Latin name? Have to check that online.

I gave her the old “I didn’t know that” stalling tactic. She sensed an opening and pressed her attack. The white polar bears are in big danger of losing their species purity! Who knew? She sensed that she could manipulate me by using fear. Wouldn’t it be a shame if polar bears couldn’t maintain the purity of the white bear species? I hesitated and she pressed the point with renewed fervor: “Surely, Hitler would have believed in and opposed global warming.” Would the scientists at Peenemunda have endorsed or refuted the theory of global warming? That’s something to look up on the Internet.

If what she was saying about maintaining the supremacy of white bears was true, wouldn’t some Republicans be donating heavily to her cause? Maybe the young lady in Berkeley has a new talking point worth considering?

Isn’t seeing polar bears part of the Alaska tourist industry? So, if they were in danger of becoming extinct, wouldn’t every governor of that state want to promote fighting the global warming that has put the Ursis maritimus on death row? Should we use the “set grandma adrift on a the melting ice floe” analogy? Shouldn’t liberals turn the tables and instill fear by asking: “Are polar bears going to be the first death panel casualties?”

Is condoning the grolar bear trend the same as endorsing gay marriage? Note: that new species us a Google-able topic.

Where does the most famous polar bear in the world live? Isn’t Knute the star of the Berlin Zoo? Just a co-inky-dink?

We told the young Greenpeace fund raiser that due to the “low budge = no budget” Rupert Murdock style fiscal philosophy practiced by most of the liberal web site publishers, I couldn’t actually give her some dinero, but I could dash right back to my wickiup and pound out a sympathetic column on my new (used) laptop.

Didn’t Germany save their auto industry (many moons ago) by nationalizing it? When will the new President authorize more bailout funds for the American car makers?

Who says there’s no way that you can use conservative phraseology to make a liberal point? Who doesn’t love a leprechaun? Aren’t trolls just German leprechauns? Is there a sign in the Berlin Zoo that orders visitors to refrain from teasing the animals?

Would Republicans buy “White Bear Power” T-shirts to help fight global warming? They could add a bit of typographical humor by setting two words in big type and the middle one in very small type, eh? (and use the Schwaben alt. font?)

Which one doesn’t belong (and why?): Evita, Eva Braun, Sarrah Palin?

Poor girl, she must have arthritis because when she waved good-bye, her arm was kinda stiff and her hand didn’t move much.

[Did Jonathan Swift have to put a “snark” tag on his “A Modest Proposal” essay?]

Ansel Adams has said: “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”

We nixed the disk jockey’s suggestion that he play “Knights in White Satin” and, instead, insisted that he play “The Beer Barrel Polka.” (What? You were expecting “Quinn the Mighty Eskimo” or the Eagles “Take It to the Limit”?) It’s time for us to go disappear in Argentina. Have a “brown eyed handsome man” type week.

January 4, 2010

Mission creep in the Middle East?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 3:06 pm

The chance that an online columnist (aren’t bloggers now eligible to join the National Association of Newspaper Columnists?) can find a topic that no one else had touched (a virgin topic?) is about the same as hoping to find a $100 bill on the ground. If, however, a columnist has twice in his lifetime found a C-note just waiting to be scooped (bad journalism pun – 15 yard penalty) up, then he might be justified in pounding out the keystrokes required for a column with a “Has Anyone Else Noticed . . . ?” style headline.

Such as?

Over this new decade’s first weekend, there was a story found online indicating that the United States and Great Britain were closing their embassies in Yemen. Isn’t the closing of embassies usually the last mileage signpost on the road to war? It was the lead story in some Monday morning newspapers.

Our copy of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” is several hundred miles away and so we have to use memory to work without a net, but back then, wasn’t closing down an embassy, the final diplomatic move before declaring war on the country where the embassy was being vacated? Has that rash move been demoted down to a diplomatic move in the game of mind-mess (some folks use a much more vulgar term) or do the old rules still apply?

Isn’t closing an embassy with Yemen like burning diplomatic bridges? Isn’t that equal to the Bush era assessment of “they’re askin’ for it!”? Wasn’t this weekend’s closing the subtle signal that bombs will talk louder than worn out diplomatic clichés? Isn’t closing an embassy because of the possibility of a terrorist strike going to be perceived in the Macho Muslim world as a sign of weakness and retreat?

With airport security, health care, Joe Lieberman, downsizing at newspapers, football head injuries, and Tiger Wood having a hypnotic hold on current public discourse, there hasn’t been much commentary on the impending Afghanistan surge.

Since the Republican Noise Machine has usurped the task of setting the agenda for public debate, it seems evident that if the Fox Journalism Juggernaut doesn’t use the news from Yemen for a taking point, then bringing it up is an existentialist’s exorcise in futility.

George W. Bush changed a good amount of America’s diplomatic modus operandi and so things may have changed since September of 1939.

If Americans are too distracted to weigh the pros and cons of the Afghanistan surge, then it seems futile to think that they would be interested in any historic footnotes about the fine points of diplomatic protocol.

On the morning of Sunday, December, 1941, wasn’t the Japanese Embassy staff busy burning diplomatic papers and packing suitcases?

Did you know that the New York Giants vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers (not a typo) football game in Yankee Stadium, which was played on Dec. 7, 1941, coincided with a tribute to a member of the Giants team? It was Alphonse “Tuffy” Leemans Day and the Dodgers won 21 to 7. The crowd (according to information found online) was not informed of the events happening at Pearl Harbor.

Would it be worth the effort, today, to write instead a column about the fact that Sean Hannity’s theme song (Independence Day) is actually (if you listen to the lyrics for the entire song) about a woman who kills her wife beating husband? Gees talk about promoting family values; doesn’t that song nail the Republican philosophy about women?

We’ll keep an eye on Fox News and get back to you if they upgrade the closing of the American Embassy in Yemen to a talking point that indicates a “preemptive strike” is warranted.

Rubin Blades has been quoted as saying: “I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.”

Now, the disk jockey will play Bobby Bare’s song “Don’t it make you wanna go home?” the full version of Carrie Underwood’s rendition of “Independence Day,” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.” We’ll toddle on out of here and go looking for yet another $100 bill. Have a “We won’t be back, ‘til it’s over, over there” type week.

January 2, 2010

Blame it all on Bush?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 2:17 pm

The pro-liberal media that is going into withdrawal pains because they no longer have President George W. Bush to kick around, have gone to warp-speed in their efforts to heap praise on the new movie “Crazy Heart.” It’s gone beyond the level of effusive enthusiasm and is rapidly approaching the level of promobabble. Good Christians, who are familiar with the Biblical concept of parables, may wish to assess it as a subtle example of Bush-bashing, before they rush out to see this new cultural phenomenon, which is being touted as a “sure thing” for getting actor Jeff Bridges yet another Oscar nomination.

“Crazy Heart” tells the story of a drunk from Texas who makes a mess of everything he touches.

Where have the only two Presidents to lose a war resided?

Do you have to have Roger Whatzizname explain the symbolism of this film or are most red-blooded patriotic Americans smart enough to spot Bush-bashing when intellectual liberals start to shove it down their throats?

So here we have some clever Hollywood types “entertaining” us with the saga of a Texan who’s Midas touch turns everything into an untouchable mess. (Ya better not step in it, cause it must be mud!, eh?) Gees, who could that be?

Liberal “intellectuals” are going to repeat over and over the talking point about Jeff Bridges’ effort is a leading contender for this year’s “Best Actor Oscar®” and thus lure fans of country music into the non-stop example of stealth Bush-bashing.

In the film, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) sends some sweet (if it looks like symbolism, tastes like symbolism, then it must be symbolism!) deals to Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) his former musical mentor. Do you think they should have filmed that segment at Enron Headquarters to underscore the point they were attempting to make?

Texas means good bidness, right? You don’t believe it, just ask Jet Rink, J. R. (did those initials stand for Jet Rink?) Ewing. Mebby you could ask the Lone (Texas) Ranger where he had his silver mine.

Didn’t O. Henry, the famous writer, start a magazine in Texas and call it Rolling Stone? (Not to be confused with a later effort with the same name started in San Francisco in the Sixties?)

Do the liberal media do much to tell you about macho Texans? What about those boys with the Chaparral racing cars? Are Cobra cars macho? Well, wasn’t Carroll Shelby from Texas?

How long is it going to take before the “Texas Roadhouse” people figure out that their restaurants would go over big in “the W. A. (that means Western Australia, mate)”?

When will some wild-eyed uber-enthusiastic liberal blogger report that he has seen Kenneth Lee Lay alive and well and having a burger with Elvis at a fast food joint in Kalamazoo? Would a President ever use “witness protection program” forged material to help a friend avoid jail time? Only liberals could suspect something that vile of a Republican President.

What famous person from Texas history resigned as governor at two different times in two different states? They don’t tell you about that when they’s criticizing Sarah for resigning as Governor of Alaska, now do they? Sarah ain’t no Sam Houston, and that’s a fact. (Bless her heart!)

Speaking of the governor of Texas, will Kinky Friedman ever write another mystery novel?

Waylon allas and allas said that Texans think that when they die, they’re gonna go to Willie’s House.

Did the students at Berkeley sing songs asking “Tricky Dick” how many kids did he kill today? Liberals always choose to pick on Texans.

OK maybe nobody in Beverly Hills is hill-billy enough to have their Rolls Royce sedan converted into a pickup truck (with a rifle rack for the back window) so that makes them better, right?

To hear the liberal media tell it, the perfect country song will include a verse about mama, pickup trucks, drinking, getting out of prison, rain and trains. Well, if that’s accurate then how did two Texans get to be President?

Allegedly, Jean-Paul Sartre, while he was in a German POW camp, wrote and produced a play about fascism, with the tacit approval of his Nazi captors. Gosh, didn’t they feel dumb after he pulled off that stunt?

When the dust clears and Bad Blake has finished screwing things up, he responds with a smile and a shrug. Can you honestly say liberals will see that and not think of Dubya?

Those liberals just love them some Bush-bashing parables. They are going to give that Best Actor award to Jeff Bridges. You just mark my word and wait and see, sho’nuf it’s gonna happen.

When astronauts have a problem do they call for the wisdom of a New York cabbie (“are you talkin’ to me?”) or do they go right to some good ole boys in Texas?

Is it only Texans who say: “Houston, we have a problem.”?

Now, the disk jockey is going to play Bob Wills’ classic “Waltz across Texas,” Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won),” and Waylon and Willie’s version of “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” It’s time for us to dance on outta here. Have a “lookout, Roger, I’m back in the movie review business” type week.

December 28, 2009

The Joe Namath Lesson for Political Pundits

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 2:28 pm

Back in the (Rolling) Stone Age (AKA the Sixties), the late lamented publication Editor & Publisher reported that a study had produced the fact that reporters, who are “on deadline” every day, had a more stress producing job than a jet test pilot and that may explain why newsies have the reputation for having some very enlightening conversation at a nearby gin mill, after they clock out from work.

In those days, when there was such a concept called journalistic ethics, some of the participants may have prefaced their information with the admonition: “this is off the record but . . .,” which explains why there are some things from the Sixties which this columnist still feels honor bound to disregard when it comes time to pound out a new effort.

For instance, when Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was running for President, he complained to his staff that folks perceived him as being short. After hemming and hawing, his staff found the courage to explain why that was. He was told that it was so because he had a big head. The staffer explained that if you park the Goodyear blimp on top of the Washington Monument, that would make it look short.

Sometimes journalists, after several hearty libations, may kid around and test their coworkers’ limits of credibility. When a fellow who would later become Time magazine’s White House correspondent told this columnist about the strange fans that are part of the Hollywood scene, he believed it when he was told that there was one person who had a collection of genuine authentic stars’ fescues. When we got the chance to try and validate that story with a contact at Playboy magazine who knew the fellow in question, the reaction was: “that sounds like something Doug would say.” He had never heard our mutual acquaintance utter that outrageous bit of (supposed) Hollywood lore. He added that Doug always did love putting people’s credulity to the test.

One sports writer, in the waning days of the Sixties, told a story, in a Carson City Nevada watering hole, about an argument he and another writer had, in his cub reporter days, about the legendary horse “Man of War.” The disagreement was deadlocked. The bar tender turned around and settle the dispute by giving them the answer in a very definitive and authoritative voice. Since the barkeep had actually been that famous horse’s trainer, he not only ended the bickering, he became a source for some freelance work that earned handsome monetary remunerations.

One sports editor in Pennsylvania, solemnly admonished a rookie reporter that if he were ever to work on the sports desk (sometimes sarcastically referred to as “the Toy Department”) as a reporter, he must never (as in NEVER) say that something can’t happen.

Common sense would dictate that the writer must say “very unlikely” or “a long shot possibility” but that infallible predictions were an invitation to a humiliating journalistic lesson.

After having that journalistic commandment engraved into his memory by rote, this columnist, while working at a truck company headquartered in New York City, noticed that many, many sports reporters and commentators were assuring their audiences that Joe Namath and his team could no way, no how, ever even hope to defeat the future Hall of Famer, Johnny Unitas and his (almost) invincible Baltimore Colts team.

With the “never say never” dictum in mind, an attempt to make an illegal off track wager backing the much maligned quarterback was unsuccessful. Bookies didn’t have Yellow Pages ads, so we watched the chance to cash in on the old sports editor’s advice go by without any bet being placed.

The day after Superbowl III was broadcast; the guy at the next desk over called in sick. Rumor had it that he had been a bookie who didn’t lay off bets since the outcome was a sure thing. He never came back to the office. We can never think of that curious bit of office lore without thinking of the line in a Jerry Reed song that wondered about a guy who went into the swamp and never came out.

Dang! A modest $10 wager would have produced a lucrative January bonus, but alas it was not meant to be.

A recent column by Carl Hiaasen brought these memories alive again because it seconded the assertion made in Foreign Policy magazine that Obama’s surge was futile effort.

It seems that all the commentary and stories about the fact that no one has ever successfully conducted and invasion of Afghanistan make us wonder do the casinos in Vegas let folks bet on wars? If so, perhaps, just for old times’ sake, it’s time to see if the sports editor’s wisdom also applies to politics. Who knows? Maybe Obama can make the surge seem more like the Jets’ victory moment than a bit of Vietnam déjà vu?

Since everyone seems to be discouraging any opinions in President Obama’s favor, how can folks object if a columnist just wants to make a wager backing the President of the United States?

It could be that all the pundits who are strenuously insisting that it’s never been done before, just haven’t had contact with a sports editor who would have advised them to never say: “never, can’t, won’t, or impossible” in a column that is speculating about a future turn of events.

At two a.m., the bartender at Hurley’s bar in Rockefeller Center, used to say: “It’s closing time! You don’t necessarily have to go home, but you do have to get out!”

Now, the disk jockey will play Frank Sinatra’s “Quarter to Three” and we will get out of here. Have the kind of week that sounds like it came straight out of a Bukowski novel.

December 23, 2009

Feel More Secure?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 9:18 pm

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This public pay phone in Berkeley CA, carries a reminder of the consequences of the Patriot Act.

The Case of the Sabotaged Christmas Carol

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , , — Bob Patterson @ 9:13 pm

Back in the day when Johnny Dollar was riding high on the radio waves, this columnist was there when the squealer was masquerading as a singer. Here’s how it went down: when the class of seventh graders was attempting to apply their talent to a traditional Christmas song, the nun became rather riled because somebody (the tenor terrorist?) was ruining (the nun couldn’t very well use a vulgar colloquialism to designate the deliberate efforts to mess up the melody, could she?) it by singing off key. What kind of fiend would be trying to foil the youngsters attempt to perform a Christmas carol?

We decided that in order to hear the possible perpetrator and track him (her?) down; we’d just mouth the words. The dastardly warbler disappeared. If we kept quiet things went smoothly. Could it be that our efforts to become the modern embodiment of Caruso was so misguided that it seemed likely that our most sincere efforts to croon were being misinterpreted as deliberate effort to sabotage the song?

Lately, we’ve been wondering if something similar is happening with our efforts to do some noteworthy blogging.

Recently we ran a column about what we perceived as the inherent dangers of Instant Recall Voting (IRV). Yikes, it went over like changing keys in the middle of a note while singing. Is concern about accurate vote tallies antiquated and as much in he past as the Zero decade which is about to end?

If this columnist wants to boost the number of hits on his efforts should we check out some of the top political blogs and add our voice to the topics that are hot? What if our voice cracks? Or should we stick with our efforts to track down topics that are more unique?

If a priest encourages poor parishioners to resort to shoplifting, if necessary, to feed their kids, then how should this columnist react? Should we make allusions to Jean Valjean or would a condemnation of stealing be better? What if we drew attention to the fact that the shrill reaction to that opinion by the good father’s superiors was coming from people who had no trouble ignoring questions about the morality of torturing prisoners?

Recently we wrote a column about how good causes are begging for funds to continue their work. Should we do an update and insert some we forgot to mention such as Planned Parenthood or Environment California?

After we pointed out that mixing a celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace with preparations for sending more troops into a battle (which most experts say is impossible to win) might seem inappropriate, Mike Malloy on his radio program made a similar observation.

Conservatives, who endorsed the massive deficit spending needed to fund the start of a perpetual war, are now having conniptions about spending money on health care for their own country’s citizens. Do Republicans have schadenfreude copyrighted?

Would writing a column pointing out that Tiger quit golf to spend time with his wife and family and then she left, indicate that he should return to the links and make the best of it? Could we work in a line about the siren call of the groupies being as irresistible as the attraction to the money he will win?

Who cares about polar bears? They are gigantic beasts who will not hesitate to kill humans given the chance. As long as global warming isn’t killing off the pandas, isn’t that good enough reason to keep using your SUV’s and ignore all this voodoo science stuff?

Has anyone pointed out that Glenn Beck’s efforts to get his fans to buy him a car seem inappropriate? Isn’t he supposed to be spokesman for the self made man party? Don’t Republicans value the self-reliant man? Is he a hypocrite who hopes that his political masters will not notice this abject failure of philosophy or is he just a chiseling SOB no better than the “spare change?” beggars the Republicans despise?

Maybe we should just send a letter to the all good, all knowing, all powerful Santa and ask him to send us a literary agent for this Christmas? Maybe if we put our efforts into a book length effort to wrap up incidents like the time Paul Newman asked for our autograph, we slept through a murder, the time we got our first photo lesson from a future Pulitzer Prize winner, etc., into one coherent manuscript; then maybe a literary agent could provide us with some bankable reasons for a shift in our literary endeavors?

It’s obvious that this columnist is incapable of writing something for the Internet that will precipitate events that will deliver a war crimes trial for George W. Bush, so maybe, in the holiday spirit of Peace on Earth, we can grant absolution so that the former President can sleep well at night?

A columnist who has been consistent in his disapproval of George W. Bush for his sanctioning of torture, various invasions, and failure to apprehend Osama (as promised on the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center) can’t very well switch to the role of adoring cheerleader when his successor, who picks up just where 43 left off, is a Democrat. That would smack of inconsistency and partisanship, wouldn’t it?

Wait! There’s still time! It isn’t Christmas yet! Time to wrap up this column and go buy a California Lottery Ticket!

W. C. Fields has been quoted as saying: “Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we’ll be seeing six or seven.”

Now, the disk jockey will play the Stones “Sympathy for the Devil” and two versions of songs that share the same title: “Christmas in Jail.” We gotta go buy a lottery ticket. Have a “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Man” type week.

December 19, 2009

Wanna play the shell game with your vote?

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 3:09 pm

Now that American voters have become anesthetized to the dangers of the electronic voting machines which do not leave a paper trail, it wasn’t very surprising to read Riya Bhattacharjee’s page one story in the December 10 – 16 issue of the weekly newspaper, The Berkeley Daily Planet, informing readers that Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) Machines had been <a href = http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-12-10/article/34242?headline=Instant-Runoff-Voting-Machines-Approved-for-Alameda-County>OK’d for use in Alameda County</a> because for a cynical, alarmist, conspiracy theory columnist this new topic set off internal sirens and alarm bells in a major way.   Not only was Instant Runoffs (also known as ranked voting) a new concept, there were stealth indications about the possibility that “they” had found a new way to deprive Americans of their voting rights in a sneaky, underhanded, and obscure way.  Instant runoffs seemed like a major candidate for becoming “the next big thing” in the blogisphere. 

The Daily Planet story explained how the new system would give voters the chance to list candidates in a prioritized way so that the machines could anticipate any potential runoff elections and provide enough data for that expensive election result to be avoided.

With IRV people rank their selection and the machine uses the results to compute the various mathematical permutations and potential match ups of candidates in case the voting doesn’t provide a clear statistical majority winner. 

Is it possible that the machines could skew the results in favor of some predetermined winner?  Surely, advocates of the cost cutting innovation will stoutly maintain that only conspiracy nuts will worry about that and that they have engineered the system to avoid such a (theoretical) dastardly manipulation of the sacred American ritual of casting votes and expecting honest election results.

The “they” turned out to be Sequoia Voting Systems.  Aren’t they the same ones who were instrumental in producing the machinery and technology that delivered, as promised, the Ohio electoral votes to George W. Bush in 2004? 

If folks are going to be concerned about such a remote possibility is it any wonder that patriotic Republicans see Democrats as worrywart obstructionists who are only delaying the implementation of a quick easy way to cut the costs of runoff elections?

This new voting innovation can be ready for use in next year’s midterm elections but local voting officials must act quickly to implement this cost cutting new technology.  (Gee, didn’t the “act quickly” philosophy work so well with the invasion of Iraq?)

Expediency is often an integral part of a sales pitch.  You must act now!  Sale ends Sunday.  Fear, such as the possibility that during the current economic slump (Great Depression 2.0?) precious city, county, and state funds could be spent on a runoff which could have been avoided if this magical new voting machine had been approved quickly, can also be used to motivate a fast approval.

Here’s the deal:  sometime when there are a great many candidates for a particular  office, the results will not produce a clear-cut winner and the expenses of a separate subsequent runoff election must be incurred.  With ranked voting, (advocates maintain) that expense can be eliminated and save cities, counties, and or states all the money that would have been spent for a runoff election. 

As advocates of IRV see it, the Great Depression 2.0 is going on now and the nitwits who would want to delay implementing such a cost cutting innovation must be obstructionists who would accede to their greed for power and use obfuscation to hinder and delay this remarkably efficient way to speed up the process and (did I say this before?) cut costs>

(Gee, did the possible expenses involved in a recount prevent Norm Coleman from demanding one?)

Is it possible that the IRV machines could award a win, when one Republican gets all his party votes and the Democratic vote is divided up among several candidates, to someone who didn’t get a majority of all the votes?  At this point Republican advocates of this remarkable innovation might resort to muttering the old W. C. Field’s line:  “Go away, boy, ya bother me!” 

If the IRV system is implemented quickly, could it then be used to cut down on the exorbitant costs to both parties (and campaign donors) for holding long primary campaigns to earn their parties Presidential candidacy?  Once IRV is implemented on a large national level; would it be too much to then sell the suckers (whoops, that word should be voters) to use the cost saving method for a National election? 

People have already become complacent about election results that contradict extensive and well done polls that predicted different results.  What’s not to like about the possibility that such technology could be in place by 2012?  Just imagine an upset victory by Jeb and the restoration of the Bush dynasty.  Wouldn’t the Democrats feel more comfortable bitching about a Bush in the White House than they would if they had four more years of complaining about disappointments delivered a fellow Democrat?

This columnist sent a news tip about this heretofore unheard of topic to some online sites.  Neither the one devoted to the downside of electronic voting nor another one detailing  the misdeeds by liars and crooks used the tip, as far as we could ascertain.  They didn’t even send back a suggestion that a chill pill might be advisable.  

Some groups are challenging this cost cutting way of speeding up the voting process. 

Does this new method of eliminating the costly runoffs produce a paper trail?  Who knows; who cares?

“How many votes did you get?  Was it five or six?  You know in all the excitement, I kinda lost track.  Now, you have to ask yourself another question:  ‘Do I feel lucky?’  . . . Well, do ya, Democrats?”

Could the IRV machines produce inaccurate results?  The various vague answers bring to mind the old H. G. Robinson line:  “You’ll take it and like it.  See?”  Just think of all the great columns that could be written if IRV helps put Jeb in the White House.  So if you don’t like IRV; shut up, sit down, or go read a news update about Tiger Woods. 

Philadelphia native W. C. Fields has said:  “Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”

Now, the disk jockey will play the Stones’ Street Fightin’ Man.  It’s time for us to go do some <a href = http://fgaq.blogspot.com/2009/12/omg-its-zappadan-already.html>Zappadan</a> gift shopping.  Have a “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow” type week.

December 10, 2009

Republican Philosophy

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 4:53 pm

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This window sticker seems to sum up the Republicans’ Philosophy for America.

December 9, 2009

So Many Causes, So Little Time

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , , , , — Bob Patterson @ 4:35 pm

(Berkeley CA) While visiting San Francisco, it became necessary to go to a bank branch that wasn’t the one this columnist usually uses and in the course of a conversation with the manager, he mentioned that if this customer intended to give the teller a tip, it would be better to donate to one of the charities that they suggested and then he dealt out a list of about a dozen good causes.  He caught us a bit unaware since we have never tipped a bank clerk.  Maybe the rich folks tip them like they tip the croupier when they win a big pot at Monte Carlo? 

The sheet of paper he provided was carefully tucked away so that the list could be accurately transcribed at this point in this column.  One of the disadvantages of a rolling stone existence is that things get lost and so, despite a sincere effort, no list.  The only one that comes to mind is the fog city SPCA.

A clothing store in San Franciso directed their customers to St. Jude’s Hospital (www.stjude.org) which assures donors that the organization in Memphis will never stop looking for cures for the diseases which severely affect children.

Activists on Venice Beach. Recently, were asserting that folks shouldn’t shoot sea lions (www.oceananimals.net)

While staying at the hostel in the Fort Mason National Park (spectacular scenery with a supermarket a just across Laguna St.) we encountered Padma Dorje who was collecting signatures as part of her effort to eliminate torture in the world.

Across the bay from San Francisco, the Asian Community Mental Health Services is conducting the Tiny Tickets effort.  Travelers are asked to send in their Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) tickets to help support that good cause.  (http://www.acmhs.org/bart.htm)

Fellow columnist (and occasional war correspondent) Jane Stillwater is conducting an online petition urging the reform of campaign financing.  For more about that click this link(http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/constitutional-amendment-to-stop-lobbyists)

While traveling in Australia (looks like the folks on Cottesloe beach will have to celibate Christmas without this columnist this year) activists for Greenpeace and Amnesty International seemed to be ubiquitous, but, upon reflection, they may not have been encountered in Kalgoorlie.  We assured those eager young workers that since we couldn’t afford to give money to their causes, we would urge the people who read our columns to support the altruistic efforts of both groups.   

Now that President Obama is in office and is directing his best efforts towards ending the war in Afghanistan, it will no longer be necessary for this columnist to constantly harangue his faithful readers with diatribes about the absurdity of the continued slaughter and carnage involved in the commendable American efforts to convert that county’s citizens over to advocates of democracy and free elections.  Also, this year as Christians celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, it will not be appropriate to suggest that former President Bush, who ignored the precepts of war established at the Nurmberg Trials or the rules of the Geneva Conventions, deserves a severe reprimand in the form of another War Crime Trial for himself and some of the members of his administration.  He didn’t know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (what better reason could there have been for invading Afghanistan?). 

Americans have given 43 a “Get out of Jail” card and so it will be necessary for columnists of both the conservative and progressive persuasion to find new and more compelling causes to espouse. 

We were pondering the monumental problem of deciding what crap to buy for friends for Christmas so that they could cram their closets with irrefutable evidence that they support capitalistic democracy via their effort to spend the country out of Great Depression 2.0 and not just by mouthing meaningless platitudes such as “Peace on Earth good will to men (who should be tortured to prevent new terrorist attacks),” when we realized that the Christmas scenes that depict polar bears (<I>Ursus martimus</I>) lurking in the background of the images of Santa may become anachronisms when the last polar bear drowns in an ice free Artic Ocean.

Bill O’Reilly made a pledge to America that he would protect them from pinheads in the media who disseminated faulty information.  O’Reilly is as much history as is “the Lone Ranger” program which must logically mean that the cry for Climate Justice is a legitimate concern.  He’s gone from radio and we’re still here writing columns.  Nice try, Bill!  Guess the people just didn’t buy your BS, eh?  Hence, if we write about global warning, it will now be up to Uncle Rushbo to protect the hillbillies from pro science points of view. 

Speciescide happens.  Folks who live in Berkeley know that UCB’s mascot is the California Golden Bear (<I>Ursus arctos callifornicu</I>) and many of them also know that the last one of that species was shot in Tulare county in 1922.  Therefore we will compose a column which will have the headline:  “Dead polar bear walking!” and fictionalize an interview with the plight of a unfairly convicted (that never happens in the USA, but movie fans know that some unjustified executions do occur in places such as Saddam’s Iraq) prisoner on death row.

What will happen in the future when there are summer heat waves and there are no polar bears in the local zoo to photograph?  How will the wirephoto division of AP cope with that challenge?

There are good causes and there are bad causes, but are there any uncaused causes?

Hmmm.  As an ordained minister this columnist has to wonder:  Does the Berkeley cheerleading squad need the services of a volunteer chaplain?

George Carlin has said:  “The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”  How many little boys and girls in Iraq would like to ask Santa to bring back their arms or legs?

Now, the disk jockey, who heard this song on Revolution Radio (KREV 92.7 FM in the San Francisco area), will play the new curmudgeon anthem:  “I’m beginning to drink a lot at Christmas” (will that become this year’s viral Internet fad?) and this columnist will go Christmas shopping.  Have a “ho, ho, ho in Freo” type week.

November 20, 2009

Students Protest at UC Berkeley

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 5:53 pm

 

 

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A demonstrator at University of California Berkeley shows support for the activists in Wheeler Hall, who occupied the school building as part of the strike protesting fee hikes.  The building was occupied early Friday, November 20, 2009.

November 18, 2009

Ambush Alert!

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , — Bob Patterson @ 6:40 pm

On Sunday, November 15, 2009, this columnist listened to the Mario Solis-Marich show on KTLK AM radio and was a bit alarmed to hear the host urging his listeners to help Tom Tancredo become the Republican candidate for the Governor of Colorado next year.  Isn’t that a sophomoric exorcise in political strategy?  His rational for the root for the bad guy approach was that once Tancredo gets the nomination, Latinos will unleash a massive counterattack that will leave the Republican fully repudiated, humbled, and defeated.

My objection to that political gambit was to yell at the radio about the possibility that the Republicans in Colorado might (if they weren’t gentlemen who conduct political campaigns by the Marquis of Queensbury rulebook) might use the electronic voting machines, which leave no verifable paper trail, to hand the victory to Mr. Tancredo.

At that point it would be a complete disaster for the liberals and time for the conservatives to prod the media into a tsunami of “the polls were wrong again!” rebuttals to any objections to the validity of a rigged election. 

We made an attempt to contact the host of that Sunday afternoon radio show and inquire about the possibility of political ambush via the electronic voting machines.  We sent him an e-mail that read:
Quote
I listened to your program on KTLK Sunday and you were urging folks to support Tom Tancredo for Governor. 
 
I am going to write a column about that strategy because I think you are walking into an ambush.
 
What if you support him strongly (as a joke?) and the conservatives use the electronic voting machines to give him the governor’s office?
 
At that point you will have two choices:
One   You can say you didn’t really mean what your were saying and look foolish
Two   You can assert that Tancredo used the electronic voting machines to steal the election at which point it will be like saying Bush stole the election in 2004.  So what?  The Republicans will point out that the Democrats only use the “stolen” election argument when they lose.
 
At that point, who will have the last laugh?
 
Please let me know if you think that the electronic voting machines are unreliable in all elections or only in the ones that the Democrats lose.
Unquote.

He responded:
Quote
Hi, Thanks for your interest.  Ritter will have a Repub opponent.  I believe that Tancredo is the easiest to beat.  If there are plans to use high tech ballot fraud it will occur regardless of the opponent.


Mario Solis-Marich
Unquote

Isn’t it nice that the Republicans will only have to contend with such a mellow, laid-back reaction? 

Good thing that the Republicans aren’t as nasty and unprincipled as this suspicious, paranoid columnist believes they are.

OK, I’ve had my “cry wolf!” moment.  Everyone go back to making Superbowl match up predictions, Academy Award predictions, and the continuing saga of the latest celebrity-scandal du jour.

If the Democrat wins, this columnist will have to write an “I wuz wrong” update.  If Latino voters give faux support to Tom Tancredo and he wins – oh well, such is life.  Also, this columnist will get to write an “I tried to warn ya” column. 

In “Kangaroo,” D. H. Lawrence wrote:  “A man must have <I>some</I> ideas about the the thing he’s up against, otherwise he’s a simple wash-out.

Now, the disk jockey will pay “Que sera, sera” and the forbidden songs “Speedy Gonzales” (sung by Pat Boone) and Manana (sung by Rosemary Clooney).  Now we have to vamoose.  Have a “via con dios” type week.

November 10, 2009

Memories on Remembrance Day

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , — Bob Patterson @ 9:54 pm

As this year’s Remembrance Day was approaching, folks in the Los Angeles area were noticing that radio station KGIL has a new format and is calling itself retro1260 (dot com) because they are playing pop music from the Fifties and Sixties and that, in turn, reminds this columnist of some “never to be forgotten” lessons that seem to have become as obscure as some of the songs that haven’t been heard on the radio for forty years.  What would the soldiers who died in Vietnam have to say about the very likely scenario that President Obama is about to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan?  Can an entire country get Alzheimer’s disease?

Last year, this columnist was in Sydney on Remembrance Day and was very moved by the news coverage of that day’s events in their country. 

Anyone who graduated from college in May of 1965 will surely recall that the very next month LBJ sent six divisions of U. S. Marines to South Vietnam to clean the mess up. 

In May of  1965, Ford Motor Company’s Mustangs were all “fresh out of the box” new and the really shrewd guys were buying the ones souped up by Carroll Shelby’s team.  Some really smart fellows were renting “competition ready” Mustangs from Hertz and taking them out to a nearby track and using them to compete.  Why put that kind of wear and tear on a car that you own?

The bunnies at the Playboy Club served drinks with a maneuver known as the bunny slouch so that their cups wouldn’t runneth over.

If KGIL really wants to bring back memories, why don’t they use some recordings of the classic sixties disk jockeys introducing the songs?  Who can forget the voice of Wolfman Jack which was heard “coast to coast, border to border, wall to wall and tree-top tall”?  Didn’t Don Sherwood modestly call himself the world’s greatest disk jockey?  Isn’t Cousin  Brucie heard outside of Manhattan on satellite radio these days?

Leaving Scranton to take a job in New York City meant being exposed to unorthodox ideas.  Scranton’s own 109th Infantry Regiment from the 28th Infantry Division had been among the troops capture at Bastogne and they were the loudest warning the local kids that anyone advocating less than full commitment to the Vietnam war effort was probably a Communist.  Wasn’t the proof the fact that the only people against the War in Vietnam (in 1965) were college professors and show business people?  You didn’t have to be a big fan of the House Un-American Activities Committee to know what that meant.

In 1965, FM radio was a phenomenon that (mostly) hadn’t yet happened.  In Scranton, WEJL used the feed (with station identification blurbs) from WQXR which featured classical music.  Heck this columnist had listening habits that meant he was a fan of both Johnny Cash and Wagner (and that was long before the German got such a memorable plug in the movie “Apocalypse Now.”)

Back then the expression “Bookrow of America” referred to more than just the Strand Bookstore.  The one and only Barnes and Nobel bookstore was just a short walk away. 

Does the Wannamaker store still have that bridge that carried shoppers from one building to another over the street?

Back then, a policy called “the Hayes code” mandated that any criminal portrayed in any film had to be apprehended.  Thus young people were constantly reminded that the bad guys would always get caught.  The thought that an American could commit war crimes and then get a pass was a complete contradiction.  It would never happen, so don’t waste time worrying about that.  The WWII vets backed that philosophy with very strong assertions that Americans were the good guys and would never think of torturing a prisoner. 

Who had the “good guys” T-shirts?  Were they offered by WABC or WMCA?

Scranton may not have been a candidate city for housing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but it was the home for WARMland and WICK.  It was rumored that the Sunday morning programming in the Polish language earned enough money to underwrite the rest of WICK’s programs featuring the pioneers of Rock.

Will Fox News mention the irony of the fact that this year’s observance of Remembrance Day comes at a time when a new Afghanistan strategy is about to be revealed and that example of poor timing seems to make a mockery of the “never be forgotten” oratory that abounds each year when America marks “Veterans’ Day”?  Doesn’t the word “veteran” apply only to those who survived the carnage?

When KGIL plays “My Way,” we half expect them to dedicate it to George W. Bush.  “Through it all/when there were doubts/I ate them all . . . and did it my way!” 

Folks shouldn’t say “we will never forget,” if it’s obvious that they damn well have.

Youtube offers a clip of Cousin Brucie from 42 years ago promoting an effort to send a shipment of Christmas items to the troops serving in Vietnam.  That will suffice for this column’s ending quotation.  Here’s the link to that clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxb8PD_uQPE

When the Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam played Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” that was the signal that the final evacuation of Saigon was commencing, so now, just because he’s a sentimental old fool, our disk jockey will tear himself away from KGIL long enough to play that very song.  Maybe it’s time to contact America’s “granny war correspondent” and find out how to apply for an embed in Afghanistan and get out of Cali.  Have a week full of “foonman brothers” ads (or have you forgotten that “Laugh-In” shtick?).

November 1, 2009

Return of the Generation Gap

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 9:36 pm

The Santa Monica Ice rink has opened and in Australia the citizens are getting all enthusiastic about Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup race.  It’s their version of America’s Kentucky Derby.  Many women go to work on the first Tuesday of November dress up as if they were going to the opera.  Bets are made during the day and by five minutes after three in the afternoon; it will all be over for this year.  Do Americans care about that bit of foreign culture?  Should we write about that or can we find a new take on the Bush wars?

 

In Los Angeles, the morning of November 1, 2009 was a living advertisement for the rich color saturation characteristic of Kodachrome film – or it would have been if you could still buy that type of film – because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it seems like a perfect summer day was beginning.  There were various and sundry bits of evidence that another Halloween had been celebrated and they subtly suggested that perhaps it would be a good day to write a column about ghosts such as the specter of repeating Vietnam era mistakes.

 

A quick check of the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times showed that the only topics they found worth considering were a portrait of President Obama, a tough talk piece on Iran by Doyle McManus, the possibility of fraud in the Afghanistan’s runoff election, and two assessments of economic challenge faced by the state of California.

 

Speaking of Shepard Fairey’s version of the Obama portrait do you think that someday someone will write about about the AP image just as one has been written about Alberto “Korda” Diaz Gutierrrez’ famous shot of “Che” Guevarra titled “Che’s Afterlife:  The Legend of an Image”  (written by Michael Casey)?

 

A few weeks back, while we were staying at the Hostel California, in the Venice Section of L. A., and we noticed that one of they young folks bore a striking resemblance to Ernesto “Che” Gueverra.  We asked the others if they saw the resemblance to the Cuban rebel leader and the reply was:  “Who is Che Guevarra?”

 

Luckily a laptop was nearby and a quick Google Images search produced a picture and the young travelers were delighted to see that the resemblance was quite striking, especially when the young man was shot in a way that would duplicate the famous “Guerrilero Heroico” image.   Cameras were activated and the one young lady who got the best shot promised to send a copy to this columnist.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t arrived in time to be used as an illustration for this column.

 

Just a few days ago, we were recounting that incident and when they didn’t respond to the name of the place where it happened, we gave them a clue via a line from an Eagles song:  “you can check out anytime, but you can never leave. . . .”  Some of the young folks knew who the Eagles were (no, not Perth’s West Coast Eagles), and that song in particular, but some didn’t. 

 

Hah!  Isn’t it ironic?  The peacnik hippies, who were on the young side of the Vietnam era’s “Generation Gap,” are now explaining that era’s cultural references to today’s younger generation.  Could it be that thanks to Rush Limbaugh, today’s college students are pro-war and the older hippies are still advocating Peace, Love, and Brotherhood?

 

Yikes, do the students at Berkeley, who protested budget cuts last month, know the origin of the line “the kids still respect the college dean”?

 

How can kids, who think they are in the “counter culture”on Telegraph Ave., be “hip” if they don’t know the titles of the Fugs’ biggest hits? 

 

Were the lyrics: “I used to live in New York City
Every thing there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple
With a clock that always said 12:30” about the doomsday clock? 

 

What was the name of the Susan Sontag essay that spawned the “Trivia” craze in the Sixties?  If that one stumps you follow this link

http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/prose/Susan_Sontag_-_Notes_on_Camp.html

 

Back in the Sixties every college student knew the answer to this question:  “What was Fibber McGee’s address?”

 

It’s not that there haven’t been any good bands that formed since the Sixties ended; the band calling itself “U2.” seems promising and wouldn’t Guns’n’Roses be quite good if they could just “get it together”?

 

This columnist can recall a conversation held in a bar in New York City advocating skepticism about “Tricky Dick’s” plan to win the 1968 election with a secret plan to end/win the War in Vietnam.  The older fellow chuckled when he heard the label we had pinned on Richard Nixon and informed me that was what his kids also called the Republican candidate.

 

What was so funny about a line in a New York City newscast that said:  “The Jets won and Heidi married the goat herder.”?  Huh?

 

Is it true that the Smothers brothers got tossed off network TV for not being “fair and balanced”? 

 

What does the expression “Up Creek Alley without a paddle” mean?

 

Back in the Sixties the oldies stations played Big Band music.  Now, do the oldies stations feature Sixties music?

 

Yikes!  As mortgages go upside down has the Generation Gap returned with the hippies now playing on the old fogies team?

 

Is Joey Heatherton still the hottest go-go dancer you’ll ever see?

 

Why didn’t kids say that Keith Leger was playing the role made famous by Burgess Meredith?

 

Will Harry Harrison be able to reassure me that New York City is the greatest city in the world?

 

There is one intriguing question that remains to be answered about a revival of the draft and a massive surge in Afghanistan:  If Fox News supported Bush’s efforts to start the war in Afghanistan, why will they ridicule President Obama for trying to continue it?  Won’t that indicate a contradictory attitude about the war, the current occupant in the White House, and bring up questions about the sanity of their contradictory stances on the same war as conducted by different Presidents?

 

So, if President Obama, this week, announces a surge in troop levels for the War in Afghanistan, this columnist expects to endure a massive case of déjà vu and will need to hear repeated playings of certain record albums.

 

The young people who seem oblivious to the dangers of an eternal war that can’t be won might learn something if they talked to some hippies about war and peace and how America’s latest wars got started. 

 

Che is quoted online as having said:  ““If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”  Sounds like he was a hippie.

 

Now, the disk jockey will play the Snoop-Dog and Willie Neslson duet song, titled “Superman” as well as “Eve of Destruction,” and “Fixin’ to Die Rag,” maybe even throw in Joan Baez’s “Hello in there.”  It’s time for us to go splitsville.  Have a “Hey, Hey, LBJ” type week.

 

October 28, 2009

A Halloween Column to Scare Liberals

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: — Bob Patterson @ 5:07 pm

Since this will be the weekend to contemplate scary nightmares, this column postulates the idea that Jeb Bush will win the 2012 Presidential Election and we’ll throw some “connect-the-dots” items out and let the readers have a chance to frighten themselves into a state of hysterical paralysis.

 

Most Liberals maintain that George W. Bush’s team (with Karl Rove as the captain calling the plays) stole the 2000 and 2004 elections but somehow didn’t engineer a win for Senator John McCain in 2008. 

 

The way conspiracy liberals tell it; in 2004 the electronic voting machines were used to steal the results in Ohio and that was enough to deliver the win.

 

If this is true, why didn’t they also put the fix in for John McCain?  How could they be so forgetful?

 

Perhaps, since the Republican political juggernaut was fomenting a massive amount of resentment for  wars, torture, and the handouts of bailout bonuses to the banking industry, they wanted to let the Democrats (almost) take over.  (You know like in the cartoons when the bird hands the dynamite stick with a burning fuse to the coyote?)  The conspiracy corner residents, who think that the electronic voting machines permit the Republicans to micro-manage results, might want to take note of the fact that the Democrats thanks to Joe Lieberman may not have a filibuster-proof majority after all.  Did Rove dream up an “almost, but not quite” style “majority”?

 

So, if the Republicans can sabotage the Obama program for four years, they can then run a campaign emphasizing that Bush’s successor did not accomplish anything and therefore he needs replacement.

 

If this premise is valid, won’t the electronic voting machines be used to further cripple the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, next year?

 

If, like President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama has to constantly battle a solid wall of recalcitrant Republican oppositionists, he would go into 2012 with an emaciated accomplishments list, which would set the stage for an “elect someone who will get something done” type Republican campaign against him.

 

The mainstream press has ignored the issue of the electronic voting machines’ reliability factor and so it seems likely they would greet a 2010 Republican “surge” with a shrug and a “the voters confounded the pollsters again” type of spin-cover story.

 

The possibility that the Republicans could use the kowtowing journalists in the (supposedly) liberal mainstream media to cast Jeb in a variation of a modern Restoration Drama role which would be as likely as your personal skepticism of journalism’s reliability factor would permit. 

 

With the help of a complacent press, Jeb could take the podium at the 2012 Republican Convention amid an enthusiastic partisan crowd and a “hear no evil, see no evil” press gallery would conveniently miss the zombie symbolism of the Bush family’s return to power.

 

Recently Smirking Chimp featured a story about the fact that Germany’s Supreme Court ruled that electronic voting machines were unreliable.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/24469

 

A few days earlier the Bradblog web site (which has been covering the electronic voting machines’ poor performance record in test situations) reported that a Georgia Supreme Court ruling established that electronic voting results can not be contested on grounds that voters were thereby disenfranchised.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7445

 

At this point, it becomes a personal call for each member of this column’s audience:  If you can discount the 2004 objections, the failed tests stories, the ruling of Germany’s Supreme Court and the belief that the Republicans might stoop that low, then you can accept the possibility of a Bush Family return to power in 2012 as a legitimate news story.    If you concede all these points then you have to either find a plausible reason for the Republicans not to engineer such a scary scenario or you can start to prepare yourself for the gleeful Rush Limbaugh programs that would be used to (metaphorically) rub salt into the Democrats wounds following a Jeb victory in 2012.

 

This was just an attempt to provide a speculative Halloween column as entertaining as any of the installments of the Saw movie series.  If it turns out to be a prophesy . . . we tried to warn folks about the electronic voting machines, but they didn’t listen.  If we really wanted to scare you with this column, we’d elaborate on the particulars of just how long Bush’s “Forever War” is going to last.

 

Shakespeare wrote:

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.

 

Now, the disk jockey will play the traditional Halloween carol of Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash.” (Were you expecting him to play the entire “Music to Scare the Hell Out of Your Neighbors” album?) We have to go see if our contact at Playboy can get us into this year’s party at the Mansion.  We are afraid that it ain’t gonna happen.  Have a “Don’t ever scare me like that again” type week.

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