Monday, October 19, 2009

Forgetting to stick to the script


In Fresno, Calif., a pro-choicer forgets the "violent pro-lifers are really scaring us poor defenseless victims, oh please help us somebody" script and unshackles her inner Rambo.

I forget . . . who's the victim here again?

"Fascist piece of s***, hates women's rights. F*** you! F*** you! F*** you!"
AH . . . if only Bob Dylan had had such a muse as this in the early '60s. It wouldn't quite have been akin to the Beatific Vision, but -- f*** me -- to the righteous' ears, it would f***ing be as if we f***ing gazed upon the chimes of f***ing freedom flashing.

Louisiana's real problem


To the world, it seems as if Louisiana has a justice of the peace problem -- the Tangipahoa Parish official who refuses to marry interracial couples.

Indeed, that's the problem the state's elected officials want people to think they're trying to address. Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu have condemned the practices of Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell and want his resignation . . . or his removal by a judicial commission.

But the problem the press reports and the problem Louisiana pols addressed isn't the real problem in the sad case of some bumpkin JP suffering from a case of arrested moral and legal development. As I said on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, the problem is that Louisiana tolerates the likes of Keith Bardwell.

Citizens of Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward have tolerated Bardwell for 34 years -- he has run unopposed every election.

Interracial couples whom Bardwell has refused to marry -- he says he's declined to officiate four mixed-race ceremonies over the years -- have tolerated illegal discrimination against them, going quietly elsewhere to be married by another justice.

Other justices of the peace -- who well knew the score in Robert, La. -- never made a stink about blatant violations of state law and the U.S. Constitution.

AT LEAST one past Louisiana attorney general (according to Bardwell himself) knew, too. According to the Hammond (La.) Daily Star:

Bardwell said a justice of the peace is not required to conduct a marriage ceremony and is at liberty to recuse himself “from a marriage or anything else.”

He said the state attorney general told him years ago that he would eventually get into trouble for not performing interracial marriages.

“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell said. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

THE OFFICIAL charged with enforcing the state's laws (and I'd love to know which attorney general it was) told the racist JP he'd eventually get in trouble. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

But the AG -- like every other Louisiana official who knew what Bardwell was up to (or, rather, not up to) -- couldn't be bothered to report the errant official's discriminatory ways to the state's judicial board . . . or to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Dat's Louisiana for you.

See, in Louisiana, you have priorities -- good food, strong coffee, juke joints, hunting and fishing, getting your bass boat in the water, beer, Mardi Gras, graft and LSU football. Then, way down on the list, you have justice and other silly crap.

And that's the problem -- Louisiana's bass-ackwards priorities and its tolerance of the kind of social and moral retardation that makes the Western world go "HUH???"

The Constitution of the United States -- as amended by Congress, ratified by the states and interpreted by the Supreme Court -- is pretty clear about some things. And since 1967 and Loving v. Virginia, the right of Americans to miscegenate in wedded bliss has been the law of the land.

Even in backwoods Louisiana.

WE KNOW a minor cog in the stripped gears of the Louisiana judiciary has a problem with that. And we also know, from reading the comments on various news stories, that other Louisianians do, too:

Brian B
You hand wringers are so pathetic. Boo hoo for the poor couple. Well, if their parent's had raised them right this wouldn't even be an issue because they wouldn't be together in the first place. If you bleeding hearts don't like the values of us "backwards racists" then feel free to pack your crap and leave. I55 is a direct route out of here as is I12. Amtrak comes by every day and they can haul you too.

Klansman
Where is the Klan when you need 'em? Time to drive the membership upward again and reclaim our country!

Bill
The races should be separate but equal. Negro men should leave the white women alone and stick to their own race. No mulatto children should be happening. It's the browning of America. I stand by Mr. Bardwell's decision.

Donna
I am from Louisiana and can tell you that what Mr.Bardwell has said and done has not embarrassed me or my state. He is saying exactly what we are thinking. Even Obama, is NOT black but half white and then again,his black father and family disowned him.But then he was forced to marry a black woman,even though he was raised by whites.Very few people would condone their children marrying a part black person and bringing biracial children into this world. They Do NOT fit in or are welcome most times and that is a fact. If course it is different with movie stars and others with money and especially in CA where that is an everyday norm. Very few blacks marry each other and choose to have children out of wedlock. Why are they so focused on marrying white women?Even Mr. Bardwell makes that observation. On the other hand, according to the black women I have spoken to,they are furious when a "good" black man marries a white woman as there are so few young black men alive or not incarcerated.Having equal rights does not mean that we have to accept biracial marriages.

Guest
first of all, who contacted the news for publicity? this sounds like a stunt to yell "RACISM", this is where it is wrong. I personally think this couple just wants attention. No harm done, really,they did get married after all. If the JP did not want to marry them, he should have said so.......... thats right, he did. So what is the real problem. People are turned away by one person or the next everyday and noone says anything. This is not racism, it is sicknening. The man should not have to be asked to resign because he does not want to marry someone. If that is the case, we need to have most of the preachers, judges, attorneys and our own parents resign from their duties because they would not do what we wanted. give me a break!!!! Everytime I look at the TV there is someone yelling racism for some reason, rather it is because a store says "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason", or because someone looked at someone wrong. Things are getting out of hand with the racism cards. I am not saying the man is totally right, but he is not totally wrong either, let it go, we have enough people trying to steel the lime light. you have had your fifteen minutes of fame.

Gaynell Holmes
LEAVE THE JUSTICE ALONE! Finally we have a decent Godly human being! Someone who stands behind his beliefs. Martin Luther King stood behind his that was ok.

Bobby Jindal I DID NOT vote for you and now NEVER will. I think WE THE PEOPLE should do an online petition in the Justice's behalf. And one asking for YOUR resignation Bobby Jindal!

Gaynell Holmes
Hey I am white and I think we should stay with white. not any other as you've listed.

These white girls are traitors to their white race!

Guest
I'm sorry I think this guy had every right to deny marriage to this couple. He didn't tell them they couldn't get married, he said he wouldn't marry them & referred them to another person who would marry them. How many churches refuse to marry people because they are different religions or have previously been married or because they don't believe they are compatable after completing pre-marriage counciling? Why should this be any different. I support inter racial marriages, but I think this man should have the right to refuse marriage to any one he chooses to do so, especially when the church does it on a daily basis.

keeping it real
This day in age, marriage is a joke anyway. If God was truly at the center of any marriage, this wouldn't be an issue. Bardwell has been an elected leader for over 30 years....just maybe, he's on to something....even if it's not the most popular thing according to mainsteam America? Why penalize a man for his convictions?...oh yeah, that has become the American way!

All I gotta say to the couple is....Prove Bardwell wrong. The odds are against you.

hogatae
If the Justice of the Peace would have been African American, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and/or the couple was white and Italian, Italian and Indian racism would not be an issue. History is repeating itself, when someone gets their little feelings hurt they want to cry racism every time. Keith Bardwell has his conscience to deal with as well, even though he is an elected official. If and I say if, Mr. Bardwell broke the law then deal with that issue. Just because there is a law doesn’t mean the law is the right thing to do, after all when there is a jury convened they have the right to Jury Nullification if they think the law is a bad law and Mr. Bardwell has the same right. Seems to me if he were a racist he would not have performed ceremonies for black couples in the past nor would he have guided the couple to some one that would have performed the ceremony. That does not sound like a racist to me. Personally I think they do have the right to be married. Mosses married an Ethiopian I don’t have a problem with that.

Truth
Did it ever occur to anyone that this may all be a ruse. The New World Order controlled media likes to promote a stereotype of a "racist south" to keep us divided. Perhaps someone in the media paid off the Justice and the couple. I assume the Justice will not be charged even though he committed a crime. He will be asked to resign , which he will do. All three will be paid a hefty sum in secret and the media will have the race-baiting story they wanted.

HERE'S THE DEAL. Especially since Hurricane Katrina, Louisianians have been keen on collecting as much federal aid as Congress can be persuaded to appropriate. Something about them being Americans, too . . . yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.

Of course, being "American" presupposes one is subject to American law, shares certain "American" values, adheres to basic tenets of American democracy -- you know, all the stuff we take for granted in Places Not Louisiana.

So maybe Louisiana needs to decide. Is it American or is it not?

I mean, you know how those mixed-nationality marriages are . . . they almost never work out. And who the hell wants to waste good money on a bad marriage?

Saturday, October 17, 2009

3 Chords & the Truth: Two! Four! Six! Eight!


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Good God, it really is the '60s all over again.

Of course, when you're talking Louisiana, that can have, er . . . interesting ramifications. Really, when did you ever think miscegenation would be a legal issue again?

Can you say "biracial president"?

AND I THINK we at 3 Chords & the Truth now can answer -- musically and with full confidence -- the burning question "Will Louisiana ever stop shooting itself in the foot . . . and other interesting places?"

The answer is "no."

But anyway, since it's the '60s again, and since elected officials in the Gret Stet are still doing '60s-stupid (not to mention flat-out evil) things, I guess it's time to start the protests. Right here.

Right now.

LOUISIANA, this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth is for you. From your perspective, that is not a good thing.

For everybody else, I think you'll enjoy this week's edition of the Big Show.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The anonymity they deserve


See this?

This is the video I'm not showing you of Balloon Boy puking on the Today Show. It also is the stupid, crass and at times hateful "rap" video the obnoxious Heene boys and their flakeoid parents posted to YouTube -- and which I won't be showing you.

LIKEWISE, above are the Wife Swap clips featuring the Heenes that you don't need to see, and with which I will not bother you. Ditto the CNN clip of Falcon Heene saying -- when asked about his hiding in the attic when everyone thought he had floated away in the family flying saucer -- that "You had said that we did this for the show."

And, if you wish, imagine the black rectangle is video of what I'm sure will be a press conference by embarrassed sheriff's officials saying, no, the whole thing wasn't really a publicity stunt. They think. Maybe.

Or, you might imagine that the non-video is yet another clip of Richard Heene getting all outraged that people might think the worst of attention whores who put their kids in crass YouTube videos, post incessantly to TV "interactive" sites, subject themselves and their children to the likes of Wife Swap and otherwise spend their eccentric lives jumping up and down up and down up and down, screaming "HEY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! DON'T YOU REALLY WANT TO LOOK AT ME?!?"

In a word . . . no.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Holding the color line in Louisiana

I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten,
Oy veh!
Oy veh!
Oy veh, Dixieland!

OY VEH, indeed:

A justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week because of concern for the children who might be born of that relationship.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, also said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell said. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Beth Humphrey, 30, said she and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, intend to consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Humphrey said she called Bardwell Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She said Bardwell’s wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples.

“I simply can’t believe he can do that. That’s blatant discrimination,” Humphrey said.

The Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union and the Tangipahoa Parish Chapter of the NAACP agree.

Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Marjorie R. Esman said Bardwell’s refusal to sign the license is both “tragic and illegal.”

Pat Morris, NAACP Tangipahoa Parish chapter president, said she was shocked to hear that the choice of a spouse is still an issue in Tangipahoa Parish.
IF THE HEAD of the NAACP in Tangipahoa Parish, La., told the reporter for the Hammond (La.) Daily Star she was shocked by anti-miscegenation justices of the peace, surely she meant it in the same manner that Capt. Renault was "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on" at Rick's.

If the race-mixing bugaboo still weren't an issue in the Gret Stet, you wouldn't have had politicians trying to trump a "white-woman scandal" last year to torpedo the re-election bid of Baton Rouge's African-American mayor-president.

It didn't work, by the way. But probably because it was just too ridiculous, even by Louisiana standards -- not because there aren't any shortage of people who'd be scandalized.

Again, from the Daily Star article:

Toward the conclusion of her conversation with Bardwell’s wife, Humphrey said she was asked if this was an interracial marriage. Humphrey told her it was.

“I have no idea why she asked me that,” Humphrey said. “I suppose she asks everyone that question.”

Humphrey said the wife told her that Bardwell does not do interracial marriages.

“I don’t understand this because he is an elected official and discrimination is against the law,” Humphrey said.

Bardwell, who is handicapped, said he has been a JP for 34 years and has never had opposition, but this is his last term.

According to the Secretary of State’s elected officials database, his current term will expire Dec. 31, 2014.

Bardwell said from his experience, “99 percent of the time” the interracial couple consists of a black man and white woman.

“I find that rather confusing,” he said.

He said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. Bardwell said he came to the conclusion that most black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society.

“Yet, the children are innocent. They had nothing to do with that,” he said.

In many cases, he said, the grandparents or a relative ends up with the children.

“I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

He said if he does an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all.

“I try to treat everyone equally,” he said.
MY UNCLE TEDDY lived in Tangipahoa Parish, near Ponchatoula. And when he died -- this was when I was in high school -- I remember going to the wake at a Ponchatoula funeral home.

My old man and some uncles struck up a conversation with the mortician, during which it was determined that it, indeed, was the "white" funeral home in town. The other funeral home was the "colored" one.

This was in the late 1970s. If race-mixing was a problem for the dead then, you can pretty much bet a lot of folks down there still have a problem with it among the living.

Obviously, there's a justice of the peace in that number.

And -- in Louisiana, at least -- "Barack Obama" probably won't get you that far in arguing that being biracial isn't akin to having a dread disease and an extra arm growing out your butt for good measure.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The LipDub Revolution


The "University LipDub" phenomenon, it occurs to me, may be the perfect example of the one big thing the Internet has done -- and which traditional media do not "get."

In 1964, Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan famously said "the medium is the message," meaning that the medium by which any message is conveyed changes how the message is perceived or experienced -- that the qualities of the particular medium (whether it be print, film, radio or television) embed themselves into the message itself. Now, what we have discovered -- and what traditional media has not yet -- is that the audience is the media.

Trusts have been busted, monopolies atomized and gatekeepers cast aside. The audience is the media. The Internet is the medium. The message has gotten "off message."

AND A CHILD -- or at least bunches of enthusiastic college students -- shall lead the revolution. The University LipDub project, which started in Germany (see the above video) and is spreading around the teen- and twentysomething globe, is the concept's embodiment.

Want to see a music video? Make one. What University LipDub adds to the mix is the power of academia and a critical mass of fertile young minds.

The product, as seen above and in an earlier post, is as professional as anything done at corporate behest and on a corporate (read: $$$$$$$) scale. And it's a lot more "real."

And . . . it's a lot more infectiously joyous and entertaining, too.

LIPDUB REPRESENTS the existential dilemma for radio, television and newspapers. The conversation is two-way now, and everybody owns a press, a radio transmitter and a TV station.

Traditional media, faced with this new reality, either can join the conversation and add meaningful things to it in a compelling manner . . . or it can go away.

These are not suggestions. It's an either-or choice, and reality will enforce it strictly.

Now, let's enjoy some more LipDub, shall we?

LIKE THIS ONE, for example, from l'Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales in Brussels, Belgium:

Pyromaniac morons for Jesus


Reason No. 234,876,129 why I'm Catholic (a grumpy Catholic, but Catholic nevertheless). We pretty much got this kind of nonsense out of our system once Savonarola got his just deserts.

EVEN SO, you have to admit that a bonfire of the Bibles (and everything else) trumps a mere Bonfire of the Vanities every day of the week -- and twice on Sunday.

I'd better stop now, because I feel some Junior Samples jokes coming on. . . .

Chantons en Québec avec LipDub!





These videos done with Québecois college kids are so good, they'll make you want to emigrate. Maybe I'll start knocking 30 years of dust off my high-school and college French skills.

Really, I'm not going to be any colder in Montréal than I am this fall south of the border.

Avant le déluge. . . .


Avant le déluge, our popular culture regularly turned out beautiful songs about bittersweet affairs of the heart.

Exhibit A would be this "standard," recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Lou Rawls . . . and on and on. The beautiful version above was by the late Phyllis Hyman:


Here's That Rainy Day (1953)
Music: Jimmy Van Heusen
Lyrics: Johnny Burke

Maybe I should have saved
those left-over dreams
funny, but here's that rainy day!

Here's that rainy day
they told me about
and I laughed at the thought
that it might turn out this way!

Where is that worn-out wish
that I threw aside,
after it brought my lover near?

Funny how love becomes
a cold rainy day
funny, that rainy day is here!

Funny how love becomes
a cold rainy day
funny . . . that rainy day is here!
APRÉS LE DÉLUGE, a marginalized few turn out work as beautiful as Jimmy Van Heusen's and Johnny Burke's, but in today's popular anti-culture, the vulgar rutting of barbarians has proven much more popular.

I say this as someone who was an early adopter of the Sex Pistols back in the day. Alas, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious were George and Ira Gershwin, compared with vulgarian cretins such as Yo Gotti, who's moving up the hip-hop charts with pop-culture diarrhea such as this:

5-Star Bitch (2009)
Vile misogynistic illiteracy: Yo Gotti

If ya credit score high
And ya nails stay fly
If ya juice box wet
And ya head sumin fly
Dats a 5 star bitch
I wanna 5 star bitch
I need a 5 star bitch
I wanna 5 star bitch

I am top notch nigga
I do grade A s***
I'm a keep it 100
I wanna 5 star bitch
Talkin mouth game serious and can ride dat d***
Shawty walk like she talk like she kno dat she da s***
You dnt live witcha momma plus u moved up out da hood
Couple years on ya own and ya still doin good
You ain't fightin in da club u ain't on dat stupid s***
You ain't worried he got money you ain't on dat groupie s***
But still money make ya c**
Gotcha swagg game together
Gucci dis louie dat u gotcha bag game together
Gotta mean pump game and a sick shoe fetish
Say you left ya last nigga cause his ass was too petty

If ya baby daddy left ya
Raised ya kids on ya own
And you need a real nigga put my numba in ya phone
If you never left da city
Neva been up outta MEMPHIS
I can be dat thug genie
Give ya three lil wishes
She a stone cold freak
She can get a nigga right
She can cook she can clean
Know how to treat a nigga right
Dats a 5 star bitch
Red bone so thick
Long hair don't care
Dereon outfit
Go to church every sunday
She a teacher at da school
Ya did it big last night
I had her drunker than a fool
Say she had to call in she could'nt even go to work
Told her come and let me put a couple hundreds in her purse

You went to school to be a nurse
She's a AKA
Shawty fresh up out da hood but went to TENNESSEE STATE
And friend jus as fine swere to god I ain't lyin
She a DELTA she be throwin dat dynasty sign I
Pay for both of they tuition
Pay for both of they beautician
Coogi dis
Bb dat
And she luv tru religion
Dats a 5 star chick cause her future so bright
She gotta a cool sense of humor
And her attitude right
She go to real estate school
She do hair on da side
Went to school to practice law
I need her on my side
Dats a 5 star chick you a fool not to keep her
I'm a show u what to do if I eva get to meet her

BE STILL, my heart. Forgive me if I don't have the stomach to show you the video.

Somewhere in Chicago -- where the 'hood is descending
into real anarchy, mayhem and murder -- some hip-hop radio station likely is promoting efforts to "stop the violence," taking shout-outs to the dearly (and violently) departed and running public-service announcements about HIV testing.

They're "keepin' it real." And then it's back to the jamz, and a little (bleepified) Yo Gotti action.

Just another day on the mean streets, where the first ass to get capped was Irony's.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A brew, a burger and a side of news


I'm not positive, but I think the future of newspapers has been spotted in the Czech Republic.

And it looks a lot like this, as chronicled in The Huffington Post (which also is what the future of "newspapers" looks like):
Coffee, snacks, social media, reporting, producing a paper, online publishing?

This isn't your typical café or newsroom. It's all of the above.

It's a news café where people in Czech communities can relax, meet, down some brew, see their local paper being produced, mingle with editors, contribute to the copy and even nourish its Web presence.

The readers can go there and be in contact" with the pros, said Roman Gallo, director of media strategies at PPF, an international financial group that's invested in the project and operates in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China and Vietnam.

The editorial team is available to talk to people and is in tune with the community's problems, he added.

Almost four months since its rollout, the project is attracting many fans, readers and browsers.

The weekly newspaper called Nase Adresa (our address in Czech) is considered a revolutionary business model, and "a new frontier for the newspaper industry," according to the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers' World Editors Forum that organized a study tour of the weekly's regional newsrooms.

It seems circulation is up for the different editions, traffic on its various websites is on the rise, and the cafés that form the centerpiece of the enterprise are bubbling with activities, like live rock concerts outside the storefront newsrooms.
IMAGINE THAT . . . journalists unable to hide from the public in the bowels of an office tower, behind security guards, electronic key cards, sign-in sheets, visitor badges and secure elevators.

Imagine that . . . newspaper reporters and editors willingly mingling with their readers, and even collaborating with them in putting out the Daily Blab.

Imagine that . . . integrating alternative revenue streams like housing the newsroom inside a cafe, where readers will pay for food and drinks as they bend journalists' ears -- and provide story ideas and news tips.

Imagine that . . . the newspaper's very "office space" is one gigantic public-relations and "branding" opportunity and, by the way, nurtures a paper that truly is "of" its community. You call that building brand loyalty.

AND IMAGINE THIS . . . part of the local paper's operation is to help youngsters produce their own newspaper. That's called creating readers and growing future journalism professionals.

This is exciting stuff. And it pretty much jibes with
something I posted here a while back. In other words, saving journalism ain't brain surgery -- all you need is an imagination and a servant's heart.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Make babies responsible for their actions!

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I don't know how America's "freedom fighters" can defend capitalism when it's this stuck on stupid, but I'm sure some radio talk-show host will be happy to tell us why everyday absurdities such as "obese" babies being denied medical insurance is preferable to "socialistic Obamacare."

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Autumn wonderland


Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.


Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.


When it snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

-- Richard B. Smith

Saturday, October 10, 2009

3 Chords & the Truth: Let it snow!


Welcome to October 10 on the Great Plains.

Now that the produce is in and the wheelbarrow has gone fallow under an autumnal coating of snow, it's a good time to grab a hot cup of something, prop up your feet and enjoy another episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. After all, that's what winter's for.

Even when it comes in the middle of fall.

TODAY'S EPISODE of the Big Show is a good 'un . . . and decidedly New Wavish. What can I say? Sometimes I get in moods.

But this mood has led to some fine tunes for watching the leaves change -- or the snow fall. Just don't trip on your Snuggie (as seen on TV) if you get an urge to dance.

Consider this a consumer warning about dancing to 3 Chords & the Truth while wearing a Snuggie. I don't want none of your dang lawsuits.

So . . . there you go. The weather outside is frightful, but the music on the Revolution 21 website is delightful. Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha . . . ha . . . ha . . . CHOO!

Friday, October 09, 2009

Мы все теперь русские


The headline says "We are all Russians now."

Afghanistan did it to us. That and our failure to learn from history -- once again indulging the fatal American impulse to "nation-build" nations that don't want to be built. Especially by outsiders.

If not for Iraq, perhaps we could have taken care of our al-Qaida business and gotten the hell out -- or at least botched the whole thing much less badly -- before we turned into Russians (as the Russians 20 years ago turned into British, who turned into etcetera and so on).

BUT NO. President Obama has his hands full of George W. Bush's Afghan mess now, and there ain't no good way out. Read this story in The Times of London and note that American soldiers are saying about Afghanistan what GIs said about Vietnam . . . and what Russians said about their "Vietnam."
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.

Many feel that they are risking their lives — and that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.

“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.

“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,” said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion. “They are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said that they were speaking out because the men could not.

The base is not, it has to be said, obviously downcast, and many troops do not share the chaplains’ assessment. The soldiers are, by nature and training, upbeat, driven by a strong sense of duty, and they do their jobs as best they can. Re-enlistment rates are surprisingly good for the 2-87, though poor for the 4-25. Several men approached by The Times, however, readily admitted that their morale had slumped.

“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”

Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”

The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on the ground”. In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***”.


(snip)

The soldiers are angry that colleagues are losing their lives while trying to help a population that will not help them. “You give them all the humanitarian assistance that they want and they’re still going to lie to you. They’ll tell you there’s no Taleban anywhere in the area and as soon as you roll away, ten feet from their house, you get shot at again,” said Specialist Eric Petty, from Georgia.

Captain Rico told of the disgust of a medic who was asked to treat an insurgent shortly after pulling a colleague’s charred corpse from a bombed vehicle.

The soldiers complain that rules of engagement designed to minimise civilian casualties mean that they fight with one arm tied behind their backs. “They’re a joke,” said one. “You get shot at but can do nothing about it. You have to see the person with the weapon. It’s not enough to know which house the shooting’s coming from.”

The soldiers joke that their Isaf arm badges stand not for International Security Assistance Force but “I Suck At Fighting” or “I Support Afghan Farmers”.

To compound matters, soldiers are mainly being killed not in combat but on routine journeys, by roadside bombs planted by an invisible enemy. “That’s very demoralising,” said Captain Masengale.

The constant deployments are, meanwhile, playing havoc with the soldiers’ private lives. “They’re killing families,” he said. “Divorces are skyrocketing. PTSD is off the scale. There have been hundreds of injuries that send soldiers home and affect families for the rest of their lives.”

The chaplains said that many soldiers had lost their desire to help Afghanistan. “All they want to do is make it home alive and go back to their wives and children and visit the families who have lost husbands and fathers over here. It comes down to just surviving,” said Captain Masengale.
HERE'S WHAT the Russians were saying in 1989:


IN FACT, the American commander in Afghanistan already is borrowing heavily from the Russian playbook. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's new strategy of pulling back to "protect" Afghan population centers is pure, uncut Red Army 1980-something.

Watch and find yourself getting queasy:


LET US PRAY Barack Obama is worthy of his Nobel Peace Prize. He's going to need all the mad Nobel skillz he can muster just to keep all our heads above water.

A socialist Norwegian conspiracy, no doubt

President Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Folks didn't think he had a chance so soon after becoming president. But you know what the campaign slogan was, don't you?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is in charge of the peace prize, cited Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." I am not entirely sure, but I think this means he won for being the "anti-Bush."

FROM AN EARLY dispatch by The Associated Press:
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.
GOOD ON our president. It would be nice if we could all take satisfaction in such an honor bestowed upon an American head of state and leave it at that.

Of course, you know that's not going to happen, right?

No, instead expect lots of wild-eyed conservative paranoids to start speculating about Scandinavian socialist plots. Cringe as nutty-ass Christian-radio ranters begin speculating about whether this means Obama is the Antichrist . . . not merely the anti-Bush. It will happen because that horse named Meme already has busted out of its stall.

AND WITH the country in the state it's in -- meaning it's in a "state" -- the president ought to grab all the early plaudits he can and revel in them. They may turn out to be of some consolation during what's sure to be a rocky, rocky ride the next few years.

Harry Connick, Jr.: Mensch

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy


Harry Connick, Jr., doesn't take that s*** on an Australian TV show and does America proud. Good on him, and good on the very best of what it means to be from New Orleans.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

The military-industrial complexities of rape


Nebraska's junior U.S. senator, Mike Johanns, is all about lowering the boom on anti-poverty organizations that advise faux pimps and hos how to game the system.

But when it comes to stopping defense contractors from legally abusing female employees who have been raped by co-workers and then held against their will -- by their employer, by the way -- to keep them from yelling "rape" . . . not so much. As a matter of fact, Johanns is dead-set against requiring Pentagon contractors not to deny victims of sexual assault their day in court through terms of an employment contract.

HERE'S the amendment offered by Sen. Al Franken, which passed 68-30 Tuesday:
Sec. 8104. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any existing or new Federal contract if the contractor or a subcontractor at any tier requires that an employee or independent contractor, as a condition of employment, sign a contract that mandates that the employee or independent contractor performing work under the contract or subcontract resolve through arbitration any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.
OBVIOUSLY, SIMPLE JUSTICE must be one of those radical, pinko-commie notions the Democrats are trying to ram down the throats of God-fearing patriotic Americans. I mean, get a load of this 2007 report from ABC News on the case that inspired Franken's amendment:
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.

"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

"I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.

"We contacted the State Department first," Poe told ABCNews.com, "and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen" -- from her American employer.

Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones' camp, where they rescued her from the container.

According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally."

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones' former employer doesn't want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.

KBR has moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones' claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator would decide Jones' case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.
I'M NO constitutional scholar, but I'm fairly confident that document doesn't begin "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, do ordain and establish the right of Employers to contractually deny their Employees any of the Rights enumerated herein, especially when Employees have suffered an Offense against their Virtue."

Of course, I am not patriotic and smart like Republican senators such as Mike Johanns. I am a mere pinko, commie-lib like Al Franken, and thus cannot grasp how it is far worse to be ACORN and give legally dubious advice to pretend pimps and hos than it is to be Halliburton and cover up an actual gang rape.

And when you're unable to get your mind around something as simple as that, trying to figure out how anybody could be against the Franken amendment is doubly discombobulating.

I suppose we must just have faith that there was nothing at all remotely creepy about the Nebraska senator being on the same side of this issue as the esteemed john from Louisiana, David Vitter.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Best. Rant. Ever.


From Shepard Smith -- the Fox News Channel anchor who once said, on air, "This is America; we don't f***ing torture" -- comes the best rant ever. It's about death on a grill -- the Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburger.

I'm with Shep. This may well be a sign of the Apocalypse.

Leo Laporte explains it all


Tech-media guru Leo Laporte last week went to the Online News Association convention and laid it all out -- why traditional media is a dead business model walking (but just barely walking) and what media types must do to transition from What Was to What Will Be.

Three keys I came away with: Be nimble, target a passionate audience, build a community. Or, rather, insert yourself into the community that's already there.

I think the last point is crucial -- the linchpin of the whole thing, in fact. It's all about community. It's all about being of service to your community.

IT'S ALL ABOUT being of your community.

Newspapers, radio and television didn't start going bad because they got behind the technological/new media eight ball. Newspapers, radio and television found themselves behind the technological/new media eight ball because they decided "community" no longer fit into their cost/benefit models.

Newspapers grew remote from their readers, acting as if people would continue to give fealty to their oraclelike presence just because, well . . . "We're oracles, dammit!"

Editor:

Regarding your precipitous circulation and advertising declines, it would seem to me that 1) you're not God, and 2) you haven't even played Him on TV. Finally, 3) the real God doesn't charge me 75 cents a day to worship Him ($2.50 on Sundays).

Sincerely,

John Q. Public

JOHN Q. LISTENER would write a similar letter to his formerly favorite radio station, except that no one actually is there anymore. I guess you could send an E-mail to the computer running the automation program or controlling the satellite receiver pulling in all the syndicated fare, but it's probably running Windows, and that might cause it to lock up.

Finally, it also seems to me that what Laporte was telling the ONA audience dovetails pretty dadgum well with something I wrote a while back about our dying local papers. I won't repeat myself,
but I will link to myself.

It's how we do things in the new-media world.



HAT TIP: Buzz Machine by Jeff Jarvis.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Anybody need some peppers?


And . . . that's a wrap.

The last of the peppers from the backyard garden.

WE BARELY DODGED an icy bullet when we had a freeze the other night. Now that we're supposed to have another freeze this week and snow (!) Sunday, today probably was as good a time as any to pick the rest of the peppers.

I think I'll get out there tomorrow and dig up the chives and pot them so we can keep harvesting them all winter. And harvest the green onions and last mess of greens out of the wheelbarrow.

But with this last massive pepper haul, I'm feeling rather like Forrest Gump's Army buddy Bubba did about shrimp. You got your raw peppers for salad, you got your pickled chili peppers for hot sauce, and you got fried peppers, roasted peppers, baked stuffed peppers, diced peppers for salsa, strip-cut peppers for dipping. . . .