May 12, 2011
May 7, 2011
April 17, 2011
March 2, 2011
February 22, 2011
February 19, 2011
February 18, 2011
Unions in peril in Wisconsin
Whether Obama realizes it or not, his political legacy will be at stake in Wisconsin next week because if a rookie Republican governor can cripple the union movement in his state, that will encourage other Republicans to make a similar effort to dismantle one of the last vestiges of the New Deal but if he manages to stop the Wisconsin facet of the continuing attack on his own political agenda that could provide him with a rallying cry for urging the Democrats to regain the political initiative in a way that might be compared to a key pass interception in a football game.
Sports announcers like to talk about the momentum in a football game and how one particular play in football can be (in retrospect) called pivotal. Since the President’s State of the Union Speech, the Republicans have continued their criticism of Obama’s health care bill, called attention in a negative fashion to the President’s response to the Crises in Egypt and will use any Republican success in Wisconsin as an indication that their dreams of completely dismantling the New Deal are attainable.
The fact that the Democratic strategy of hiding, which was also used by the Democrats in Texas some time ago, brings to mind the Schwarzenegger term “girly-men” isn’t very reassuring.
If a sports announcer were as continually biased as is the lineup of standup comedians at the entity called Faux News, the audience would feel duped. They would use the traditional lament: “Are you blind?” Conversely if things are not playing out as the Obama advisors had planned, then any harsh assessment would not be welcome in a group that craves enthusiastic liberal journalism. If the majority of Democrats prefer to avoid harsh analysis, perhaps future historians will see it as an attempt to avoid confronting reality and say that marked the point where the Party started to slip into dementia.
If Obama makes a speech and encourages the people of Wisconsin (and union member guests from other states?) to stand together and block the effort (a goal line defense for four consecutive downs?) future historians might well pick that as the moment when Obama “turned the game around” for the 2012 local, state, and national elections.
If the Republicans eventually “put points on the scoreboard” via the Wisconsin confrontation that will make Obama seem like a Democratic Party version of Vidkun Quisling or Marshal Philippe Pétain, which will delight the Republicans immensely.
Obama likes to portray himself as someone who goes the extra mile to extend the hand of bipartisan friendship to the Republicans. In war, executing civilians in retribution for the killing of troops is verboten. Lately Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Republicans has seemed like appeasement or perhaps a metaphorical attempt to negotiate the number of civilians who must be killed in retribution.
Political strategists think that in dire times, a strong candidate has the most voter appeal.
It makes things interesting if both candidates try to out-do each other on the macho appeal scale. (Did that bit of psychology work against Meg Witman?) How would a woman who shoots wolves from an airplane match up against a guy with (hypothetically) a PETA endorsement?
There is folk wisdom that advises the fastest and strongest don’t always win a competition but some smart-alecky guy added the codicil saying: “but that’s the way the smart betting usually goes.”
What would the next election be like if (hypothetically) next week Obama urges voters in Wisconsin to hold a “general strike” and additionally says that independent truckers should come to Madison and cause gridlock as a show of support?
What does it mean when a pro-union guy holding a baseball bat asks: “Which hand do you use when you urinate?” If they are really mean don’t they leave you with both hands in casts so that someone else would have to help you?
Pro-union people risked life and limb to get to their goal. Watching Obama piss away their efforts is a bit disappointing.
Back in the day, when a family member was killed in a mining accident, the company representatives who would leave the dead body on the front porch would often leave a note saying that their was a job opening and that the next oldest unemployed son should come to work the morning. It’s doubtful that Obama heard stories about that kind of exploitation when he was growing up. They just don’t mention things like that at Yale.
There is a story told by the people speaking at Horror Writers events about one of them, lady, who was traveling on a rural side road in Wisconsin (perhaps one of the major bridges had been washed out in a sever storm?) and got lost. She walked into a small general store and asked the man, who was busy stocking the shelves, for directions. A rather scary looking man turned around and advised her: “Run far, run fast.”
News from Wisconsin tends to have a difficult time getting onto the National News pages in newspapers published elsewhere, so we haven’t heard about what happened to Ed Gein’s farm after it was put on the real-estate market. Perhaps a New York Times reporter covering the union busing in Wisconsin next week, will try to impress his assignment editor by turning in an update on the fate of the Gein farm?
Didn’t one of the Boston based major league baseball teams move to Wisconsin about a half century ago?
On Thursday night, February 17, 2011, the ABC network evening news program used the plight of Wisconsin labor unions for its lead story.
If the events in Madison become the dominant story of the day (with the concomitant media circus presence), that will only increase the stakes for the workers and the President. Gee, if there’s a new chance to make the President seem weak and incompetent, won’t Rupert Murdock send his anchor man there for some “on the scene” broadcasts? They don’t do that do they? They just sit in New York City and do their impression of Jubba the Hut and send lesser personalities to do the remote reports.
Jimmy Hoffa has been quoted as saying: “I may have many faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them.”
Now the disk jockey will play Jerry Lee Lewis’s song “What made Milwaukee famous,” the Rolling (will their new tour ever get off the ground?) Stones’ “Rip this joint,” and Woodrow Guthrie’s “I’m stickin’ to the union.” We have to go check and see if Uncle Rushbo has to pay AFTRA dues. Have a “winner takes all” type week.
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February 17, 2011
The Tattlesnake – Post-It Notes From the Underground Part One Edition
Watch out, he’s petting his peeves again!
Messages scribbled on Post-It Notes that were giving me a brain-ache until I wrote them down.
Note to Abraham Lincoln, wherever he is now:
It’s just as well you’re not around today. The idea that Haley “Yazoo City” Barbour and Rick “Secesh” Perry are Republicans would no doubt give you severe apoplexy followed by a fatal stroke anyway.
Note to George Washington, wherever he is now:
Good thing you’re not around, either, to see this 21st century bobblehead-doll America where a good portion of the politicians and electorate, abetted by the dumbed-down corporate media, have forgotten how to read, especially where the Constitution and the Bible are concerned.
Note to Arianna Huffington:
A quote from Balzac seems appropriate: “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.” Take a couple of million from the $315 mil you got from AOL and throw a few bucks at all the people who worked for free to make your website worth selling. BTW, I can’t find even one person who thinks your AOL merger is a good idea or cares to read your website again. Prediction: the AOL-Huff Post is toast.
Note to Clarence Thomas:
What would you think is a conflict of interest for a judge — a defendant handing you an envelope stuffed with cash right before you voted on his case? (Or has that already happened?) Don’t ask Scalia what your opinion should be on this one — he doesn’t know what a conflict of interest is, either.
Note to Rupert Murdoch:
I guess we should thank you for hiring the mentally-challenged to work in your media empire. I mean, where else would certifiable meatheads like Steve Doocy and Glenn Beck find jobs?
Note to Allstate Insurance:
Stop abusing the English language by claiming you ‘protect’ your customers from mayhem. All of the things depicted in your TV ads would still happen, even with Allstate insurance. The only thing you can do is promptly pay to repair the damage after the ‘mayhem,’ but you can’t ‘protect’ against it occurring in the first place.
Note to Glenn Beck’s Goldline Coins:
If gold is such a great investment, far superior to paper money, why are you selling your gold in exchange for cash money that will, according to your pitchmen, inevitably go down in value? Why not just keep the gold?
Note to the Republican Party:
Okay, the more realistic among you know very well you are a minority party beholden to talk show hosts and a fringe nutcase base, and you can’t win national elections with that 20-25 percent of the American electorate. If this were a parliamentary system, you’d be three separate parties: the Corporate Libertarians; the Christian Theocrats, and the Dixie Racists, none of whom would be able to dominate the nation’s politics. You also have no credible candidates that could beat Obama. If I were a Republican (and thank Jebas I’m not), I’d be shaking in my tasseled loafers.
Note to the Teabaggers:
Although I have great fun lampooning you, I was gratified that some of you in Congress voted against your party and tried to kill that unconstitutional PATRIOT Act. Good for you!
Note to Tea Party Volunteers:
Sophisticated grifters at the national level are scamming you local tea party volunteers. According to this report, the Washington-based national leaders of Tea Party Patriots, for example, are paying themselves fat salaries and none of the money they collect is going back to the local groups. Isn’t this the kind of corruption you said you were against?
Note to Herman Cain (founder of Godfather Pizza and CPAC speaker):
Your political views are as unappetizing as your tasteless cardboard-crust pizza. Stop being a selfish cyclops only thinking about your tax cuts now that you’ve made some money and consider the impact of your lowered taxes on the poor bastards who buy your lousy food.
© 2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
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February 16, 2011
February 14, 2011
The Tattlesnake – New Definitions from the Askewed Dictionary Edition
Glimpses Behind the Curtain of Our Blutocracy
“Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!”
– Sen. John “Bluto” Blutarsky, from the film “Animal House” (1978).
BACHMANNALIA: 1. The sound wild-eyed gibberish makes in a rubber room. 2. An election-year holiday celebrating the unity of corporate money and gullible voters with sensibilities as squishy as wet teabags. 3. A sexless outdoor orgy in Minnesota in mid-winter, the quintessential Republican idea of how the public should be treated.
BACHMANNLINESS: 1. Putting on your ‘man pants’ backwards, while staring at the wrong camera. 2. Having the balls to misquote the Constitution on national television.
BLUTOCRACY: 1. A plutocracy as operated by Sen. John Blutarsky, the fictional ‘Bluto’ character from the film “Animal House,” and those who are likeminded. 2. The USA today, and not the newspaper. 3. Wall Street week.
BOEHNALITY: 1. Crocodile tears shed by one who is only half-crocked. 2. Pretending you’re in control of something you plainly are not, such as a bus when the steering wheel has come off in your hand. 3. The illusion that you stand for anything beyond your own personal gain and your next putt.
CALIPHATE: 1. In a ten-gallon hat, combine eleven-gallons horse manure with equal parts leftover Cold War fear and carbonated Holy Water; add a hefty scoop of Islamophobia, smother with nuts, and top with a lemon slice carved into the shape of a swastika and a cherry carved into the shape of a star. Strain through Fox News and serve at the temperature at which blood boils.
CONAGRA: 1. What polite Southern Republicans call the only conservative black guy in the county after he’s left the room.
CRAPITALISM: 1. An unregulated form of capitalism practiced by well-dressed carnival pitchmen that turns everything it touches to pure shit, commonly ruining the lives of a few million civilians in the process. 2. The hypotheses adhered to by many of the financial elite that the light at the end of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public’s tunnel must always be a privately-owned oncoming train in order for them to prosper. 3. The theory that enough taxpayer money, filtered through a nation’s banks and large corporations, can persuade the political class and the media to do anything, and that much of that money must then be used to prolong the ignorance of the taxpayers from realizing they are financing the scheme.
FOX FIRE: 1. An event that never occurs at Fox News, no matter how inaccurate or disturbed the opinion expressed, unless the speaker happens to slip and tell the truth.
THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS: 1. The assortment of adjectives, verbs and adverbs Jonah Goldberg uses to, without irony, accuse liberals of fascism and blame them for all of the misery visited on the public in the past 30 years by those who think like Jonah Goldberg.
KOCHAINE: 1. Money secretly doled out by the wealthy to influence public opinion in their favor, opinions which are usually contrary to the public interest or even common sense. 2. The primary addiction of Washington lobbyists and prominent politicians of both parties, causing them to lie, cheat and commit desperate degenerate acts to continue their dependence, that is strangely not included on the DEA’s list of dangerous drugs deserving long prison terms, but certainly should be.
LUNTZTITUTION: 1. The creation of government policy or public outrage based on buzzwords or catch phrases invented by Frank Luntz that have little or no relationship to the reality of the subject; e.g.: describing an orange as a ‘bad apple,’ or a grapefruit as a ‘cancerous lemon,’ or smog as ‘clean air.’ 2. Any doomed political party or corporation that believes such linguistic concoctions are anything more than a thin disguise for its true purpose of picking the public’s pocket or skinning the yokels to the bone.
POLYPSYCHOTIC: 1. Capable of jabbering delirium in more than one medium. 2. The conservative media endlessly parroting the same right-wing talking points.
PROLESSIVISM: 1. “Two For Me and None For You.” A game played by the US Chamber of Congress – excuse me, ‘Commerce’ – their financial backers and various politicians, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The point of the game is to convince voters that balancing budgets and lowering taxes for the over-privileged is more important than their jobs, pensions, homes, or eating regular meals. It is akin to the “Sure I’m Jobless and Broke, But at Least I Don’t Have Worry About Bank Overdraft Fees Anymore” game indulged in by millions of less fortunate Americans every day, except much more profitable for the major players.
SOLIPSIMPSONISM: 1. The belief that the best way to clean the ears is by passing a handkerchief through the head while wearing a blindfold and a shoe in one’s mouth. 2. The conviction that unworkable remedies that cause public suffering will resolve budget ills if inartfully expressed at length. From Solipsimpson: A dried-up old boob with 300 million nipples.
“My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.”
– Sen. John “Bluto” Blutarsky, from the film “Animal House” (1978).
© 2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
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Who are you callin’ “pseudologia fantastica”?
At first, the possibility that the latest hacking story might add another bit of evidence for use by the liberals to make the assertion that the Conservatives have gone completely mad, seemed to be just another routine incident indicating that the Conservatives had done something else that was vile and reprehensible; but then we took a closer look at it our blood ran cold. Not just very afraid like the moment when you realize that the car you are driving is going to do a roll-over and you are probably going to die, but the “scared silly” reaction a person would get when he realizes that he is dealing with a cold-blooded murderer who makes “Rudy the Red” seem like someone who engaged in frat-boy pranks.
We don’t mean intriguing like when AP in Reno asked if we could pull a head shot out of the negative used for a group photo that “ran a few weeks ago” because one of the people in the shot had been indicted for murder.
We don’t mean the “he really means it” moment when one of the guys, who was a high school classmate, threatens to arrest another member of the class on the family’s front porch because the new lawman doesn’t appreciate something that was just said.
We mean the “this guy your are being introduced to is subject to arrest in a foreign country for war crimes” type of moment.
The psychological implications of this new “e-mails reveal” scandal are truly of the “bone chilling” level if they are examined closely.
On Thursday, February 10, 2011, we scurried back to our writer’s hovel to hear the first hour of the Mike Malloy radio show because we wanted to hear what the substitute (Brad of the Brad Blog) host would say about the plight of the Teamsters. When he started to detail the facts for the United States Chamber of Commerce Dirty Tricks story, we thought that the basic modus operandi for the caper sounded amazingly similar to what the defenders of Dan Rather said when he was discredited. We only got to hear one hour because the San Francisco station cut away at 7 p.m. PST for a sports broadcast. (Could there be a conservative plot to buy air time on Green Radio for UCB women’s basketball games and thereby shut down the best liberal talk show for two hours or is that just another example of this columnist’s usual lunatic conspiracy theories way of thinking?)
According to Brad and other sources found online on Friday, the basic conservative strategy being employed now is to feed a liberal doctored evidence for a potential scandal that would have embarrassing consequences for the conservatives, and then, after the story is published, to reveal that the cooked up story was phony and the shocking revelation that the story is bogus thereby discredits the reporter, his publication, show, or web site in particular and journalism in general.
What if, we asked ourselves, the psychological phenomenon known as “projection” is in play here? Projection means that a person projects his personality onto everyone else. Thus if a person were a pathological liar he would assume that everyone else in the world was one too.
There is a disturbing stealth warning at work in the new revelations. If someone, who is a pathological liar manipulates a reporter into a vulnerable position and rigs the fact checking process to help the sting operation achieve its goal and relies on gullibility for “proof” that another person is dishonest; then why isn’t the conniving nature of the deception self evident to a person thinking rationally?
If the pathological liar is so thoroughly committed to the sting operation that he doesn’t see the basic dishonesty inherent in his ploy, he will fool himself and only paid teabag operatives will “act” as if they have been convinced by the charade. When it becomes obvious that they are fooling themselves, one has to ask what the successful self-deception reveals about their inner psychology. Have they completely lost touch with reality and, if so, what can be done to “treat the patient”?
[Note: How does a pathological liar differ from a compulsive liar? Hypothetical case: a young lady leaves the dirty dishes in the sink and goes out for an afternoon of shopping. When she returns the dishes have been cleaned and put in the drying rack. She asks her boyfriend, who has been there all the while, if he washed the dishes.
A compulsive liar will say “No.” and any questions about the illogical response will be ignored. A pathological liar, such as the husband portrayed in the movie “Gaslight” would say: “You did them! Don’t you remember that you did them just before you went shopping?” A compulsive liar lies because he has to tell fibs. A pathological liar uses lies to achieve an ultimate goal.]
Liberal victims will, like O. J. at a pretrial press conference, look like a poor example of amateur theatrics in their righteous indignation regarding the shoddy kindergarten level shenanigans. (If the glove doesn’t fit; you must acquit! Do you think that maybe the goddamn thing had shrunk while it was improperly stored in the evidence locker?) The histrionics will be denounced as a pathetic example of the manifestation of a desperate conspiracy nut seeking group acceptance.
Isn’t the “conspiracy theory!” rebuttal a variation of the “I’m not lying; you are!” line of reasoning? Doesn’t the conspiracy theory rebuttal work just as well as Monty Python’s debating tactic of contradicting everything?
What is the mental health of someone who will prey on gullibility to foster the perception that the prank’s victim is actually the liar? If they have convinced only themselves of the validity of their frat boy joke, doesn’t that indicate that they have completely lost touch with reality? Isn’t that another way of saying that they have gone TFI (i.e. gone totally bonkers) as in: “I’d like you to meet my friend who lives with his “family” out on the Spawn ranch. Say ‘how do you do?’ to Charlie Manson!”
Didn’t we see a news story asserting that Karl Rove is engineering the effort to “get” Julian Assange? Isn’t every man, woman, and child in Amereica supposed to think that Assange is a lying, cheatin’ double dealin’ guy who isn’t really entitled to a freedom of the press defense? Isn’t that the “I’m not lying; you are!” argument in action?
Where will this string of discredited journalist stings end? Isn’t the snide response of “at the Cathedral of Light ceremony” yet another example of the “you are a conspiracy nut, lying SOB if you suspect recent events are from a hypothetical Rove playbook for engineering a 2012 win for JEB” way lefties think?
Would Dr. Hannibal Lecter hesitate to weave a web of lies just to play an “April Fool” joke on Edward R. Murrow? Might that effort have to be a very elaborate sting? “Look in Raspail’s car” obscure clues in return for . . . a few innocuous jail house privileges?
Is it worth a journalist’s time to quibble over these “done deal” issues?
The definition of the word “rape”?
The problem with the Social Security Program?
The simultaneous belief that life is sacred and that abortion is murder and simultaneously advocate that death panels will become a proper “budget cutting” strategy because they would eliminate futile expenses for a sick people who will die soon anyway?
Is double think here or are teabaggers starting to emulate my friend who proclaims that the voices in his head have the “call waiting” feature?
If tax cuts for the rich didn’t produce new jobs during the eight years of the Bush Reign of Terror, then how can they be expected to produce jobs if Obama extends those tax breaks for two more years?
Did IBM really replace all those old “Think” signs with new ones that say: “Obey!”?
Did George W. Bush go AWAL?
Can teabaggers comprehend a column – chock full of obscure arcane and esoteric cultural references – that mocks their heroes? For that matter, can any of the Journalism professors at UCB?
Did poppy Bush deserve a court martial hearing for bailing out of his Avenger bomber?
Last, and certainly not least, what can be done to convince Republicans that Superman doesn’t maintain his John Boener type hair style by going to the barber regularly for a hair cut?
How can any discredited journalist be taken seriously when they address the Republican agenda?
If Republicans are guilty of being pathological liars (AKA pseudologia fantastica), then isn’t it quite logical to conclude that the comedians are correct when they say that to correctly understand what a Republican is saying, just assume that the truth is the exact opposite of what is being said.
Wasn’t the Republican mindset revealed when George W. Bush said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . . won’t get fooled again!” Republicans are people who are fully convinced that they are compassionate, conservative Christians who can not (by Divine Commandment) lie. They can only be victims of disingenuous journalists. Would a compassionate conservative Christian cancel school nutrition programs for economic reasons?
Now the disk jockey will play Johnny Cash’s “The Long Black Veil,” the Rolling Stones’ notorious never released “contractual obligation” album (available only in bootleg editions) with the naughty title, and (speaking of getting fooled) “Sweet Transvestite” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. We have to go and meet a secret source who has promised to give the World’s Laziest Journalist a clandestine copy of a coroner’s report that might provide valuable clues for the mystery surrounding the suicide of Geli Raubal. (How could she kill herself using a pistol that was always in the possession of her uncle?) Have a “psst, wanna have an exclusive on some secret material that will break a new scandal” type week.
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February 2, 2011
January 31, 2011
Time Travel for fun and political points?
On the morning of Saturday, January 29, 2011, my columnist colleagues seemed to have the political punditry situation regarding events in Egypt well under control and so we felt free to go in San Francisco and see a double bill consisting of “Blind Alley” and “Secret beyond the Door.” Because those two movies would be considered to be in the genre known as film noir and since we had a similar experience the previous weekend and had written a column about it, we proposed that the expenditures incurred on the venture at hand might qualify as legitimate funding for a fact finding safari to gather relevant material for the topic of time travel.
The Republicans lately seem to be obsessed with efforts to get the entire USA to return to an earlier time period with a style of politics that had been envisioned by the founding fathers who are currently being promoted for advancement to the beatification stage on the long and arduous road to sainthood. What red blooded patriotic American military veteran would not want to see the USA take the necessary steps to return to the era when this country was a Republic as it is still called in both the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag?
The founding fathers, in their omnipotent wisdom, established a Republic. Only men who owned land were eligible to vote and they came up with superheroes that included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Then along came the Democrats and they soon got voting rights for women, and workers. They freed the slaves and gave them votes. Next thing ya know, along come Presidents like Jimmy Carter, Bill “Bubba” Clinton and the fellow who didn’t even have an America father.
Republicans would be sure to be very enthusiastic about a trip back to the a past when there was no tax on income. The good old days, of the Republic when land owning men being the only people eligible to vote, would be an appealing destination for the Republicans who are constantly calling the USA a Republic. Time travel and déjà vu go together like ham and eggs. We were quite confidant that we had a handle on the next column as we put some money from an ATM in our pockets and headed for the trolly car stop in downtown San Francisco.
As we approached the area, we noticed some folks who looked like they were dressed for a visit to the World Fair. Not the 1939 Fair held on Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay; they looked like they needed directions to the World Fair held in Saint Louis in 1896.
The time travelers, known as Steampunks are planning a World’s Fair of their own that is scheduled to take place in the Somerset – Piscataway area of New Jersey on May 20 to 22 of this year (that’s 2011 for those who may be lost in time.)
Their spokesman informed this columnist that his group was composed of fiends of H. G. Wells and that he had used the famous writer’s time machine to help them achieve a one day installment of time travel tourism so that they could take a look around Frisco and see how marvelous things would be on the last Saturday in January of 2011.
Ohhhhh Kayyyy! We took some photos of them to prove to our friends that we hadn’t imagined this encounter. Someday in the future, we may even learn how to insert those images into one of our columns.
One of the ground rules for time travel is that the time tourist can not change the past. Thus, if some of the people who believe in time travel were to travel back to Honolulu on Saturday December 6, 1941, (we are still working on the column about snapshot collecting and might have some nifty photos to run with that column), they could not go to Pearl Harbor and warn them about what will happen the next morning.
There does not seem to be a great deal of information about the practical application of time travel for contemporary espionage purposes. What if, hypothetically, an American were able to travel back in time a week or two and while cloaked in invisibility this spy were able to look and listen in on a meeting of Hosni Mubarak and his advisors? Would that modern Mata Hare be able to come back to his mission handlers and tell them what was being said, so that the future could be anticipated and the proper strategy devised?
Some writers assert that Democrats prefer science fiction and that conservatives are the main audience for mysteries. The Democrats, they say, are not afraid to envision alternative futures. Filled with extensive licentious debauchery? The Conservatives find reassurance (and a “softer side moment”?) in the world of hardboiled detectives where truth, justice and the American way will (always or usually?) prevail. This columnist doesn’t have any scientific evidence to back those contentions, but what good is it to use scientific studies for fact finding? Those kooks believe in global warming and (sniff snivel and tears?) the immanent demise of the polar bears (Ursus Maritimus).
Reality is so boring. George W. Bush envisioned a wave of democracy sweeping over the Middle East and now that his successor has a chance to bring Egypt into the Democracy tent, it looks like the current U. S. President is going to urge the Egyptian leader to reach out to the other side. Yeah, he’ll reach out and give them a back hand slap just as cavalierly as if he were a P. I. (private investigator) who was dealing out a business card.
Could it be that hard fisted conservatives in one U. S. intelligence agency are urging on the Egyptian rebels while the “let’s talk this out” American President is backing the dictator? Has Egypt become the chess board where two diverse American political factions are locked in a high stakes squabble about the philosophy for the course of domestic American security?
Speaking of tourism, isn’t it a wonder that the American Teabaggers aren’t flocking to Cairo to see how low maintenance government works when it is put into play?
Herbert George Wells wrote: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” What do you think that dope thought about the scientists’ fairy tale about global warming?
Now the disk jockey will play “Thanks for the Memory,” “Change Partners,” and “The Cowboy and the Lady” (all three were nominated for the 1938 Best Song Oscar). We have to go check the listings for the time for this Thursday’s showing of “Back to the Future” as part of the Berkeley 7 Flashback film series. Have a “’tis a far, far better thing I do” type week.
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January 29, 2011
December 29, 2010
The Tattlesnake – East Coast Blizzard Buries Snow-Job Political Futures Edition
Your Tattler remembers well the Chicago blizzard of 1979 that buried the city under several feet of the stuff, along with the political future of Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic. Days after the snow stopped, the side streets were still not plowed, main arteries were narrow two-lane ruts in the snow, and parking was a matter of driving into a snow bank and digging your car out the next day. If that was not aggravating enough, Bilandic had the chutzpah to go on TV and assure Chicagoans all was well and that things had been plowed – including designated public parking areas – that were not. The anger of city-dwellers reached the boiling point over those jaw-dropping pronouncements and, in one of those incredible political miracles, Daley Machine inheritor Bilandic lost his sure-thing nomination to Jane Byrne in the Democratic primary, and Byrne went on to become Chicago’s first woman mayor.
New York City’s independent ‘No Labels’ Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently forgot the lesson of Bilandic, if he ever learned it. Yes, voters often have short memories, but not when it comes to the tangible physical and mental stress engendered by a massive snowstorm. Seeing your expensively-attired billionaire mayor, appearing dry and comfortable on TV, braying that everything is fine, all that can be done is being done, and to stop complaining, is not the message snow-besieged proles want to hear. I think this stunt finishes Bloomberg’s future in politics, just as NYC Mayor John V. Lindsay’s presidential ambitions were plowed under by his failure to adequately respond to a Big Apple blizzard 41 years ago.
Next door, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the GOP’s emerging Golden Boy already declining in popularity back home from his managerial incompetence – he lost $400 million in federal aid for state public education due to bumbled paperwork, for one – and obsessive Republican addiction to cutting any program, including state pensions, that benefits the ‘little guy’ while protecting his wealthy benefactors from economic pain, will likewise see his political future melting like a Newark snowball in June, as the clueless Guv has remained on vacation in warm and sunny Disney World in the aftermath of the crippling storm. Christie has, as yet, made no public announcement or curtailed his vacation in order to deal with his state’s weather crisis – perhaps an acknowledgement that his blustery Tony Soprano style of governing may intimidate some, but not Mother Nature.
Massive blizzards demonstrate the need for full-capacity city and state services during a time of crisis, the very things manic cost-cutters like Bloomberg and Christie have put on the chopping block; and the need for leadership that understands what’s happening on the ground, even when that ground is covered with snow; something these conservative budget-balancers forget, to their political peril.
President Bloomberg? President Christie? Fuhgedabouit!
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
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The Tattlesnake – Top Ten Neocon Republican Hits Edition
These top ten lists get tedious, and this one’s no different.
1. “This Land Ain’t Your Land, This Land Is MY Land”
Scotty and the Koch Brothers
2. “America The Profitable”
Moe Greenback and the Wall Streeters
3. “Take Your Job And Shove It”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
4. “Dead Man’s Curve”
Chris Christie and the Budget Cutters
5. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”
The Palin Family Choir
6. “Viva Low Wages!”
Wal Mart and the New Peasants
7. “It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To”
Long John Boehner and the Wailers
8. “Liar, Liar (Pants On Fire)”
Mike Huckabee and the Birthers
9. “He Got The Gold Mine And I Got the Shaft”
Glenn Beck’s Suckers
10. “(Here It Comes Your) 19th Nervous Breakdown”
Michele Bachmann and her Teabaggers
©2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.