Current Hallucinations
I really, really tried to take the last few days off and let the blazing Southern California desert sun blot out my rational consciousness. I swore off TV, limited Web stuff to the bare minimum, didn’t pick up a newspaper, didn’t listen to or return phone messages, put the BlackBerry on charge mode, and tried to split my time between lizard lounging and finishing off some backlogged writing.
It only partially worked. Problem is, I was still doing some driving and I couldn’t exercise enough discipline to switch off that damn XM Radio in my car. Moreover, there was just too much delicious stuff happening all around me to just ignore it.
So, if you’ve been plugged into the news for the last 72 hours, there’s probably little reason to read any deeper into this post. I have little of any substance to add to the National Chatter. Just some free-associated impressions from the fragmentary bursts of data that penetrated my porous weekend cocoon.
The Jesse Jackson Affair: In a word, cool. The Reverend is sorta way beyond his prime and his hot mike words about axing off Obama’s gonads seems a fitting bookend to his Hymietown remarks of the 1980′s. What I found most startling about this whole thing was the media’s uniform silence on Jackson’s own record as an absent father. Do y’all remember this little hiccup from seven years ago? No wonder The Rev took so much umbrage from Obama’s sermons about personal responsibility. This isn’t some abstract issue for Reverend Jackson. In his case, it has two legs, two arms and repeatedly says “Where’s my Daddy?”
The Phil Gramm Affair: Lovely. I’ve always found Phil despicable ever since I watched him fizzle as a guest speaker at a national NRA convention (Wasn’t he running for President or something?). Now, I have more reasons to despise Phil! Nothing like a fat, comfy millionaire, married to another millionaire and former Enron board member, telling the masses they are hallucinating when they look at gas prices, pink slips and past due mortgage statements. Poor Dr. Gramm (imagine, some university out there let this guy walk away with a PhD in economics no less!). And poor, poor, miserable John McCain whose campaign seems to be melting away as quickly as a bowl of M & M’s at a kiddie birthday party. Memo to Phil: Next time, make it quicker and clearer. Just say: “Let them eat cake.”
The Green Party Convention: Now, that was a whopper! Last last year I already wrote one obit for the Greens but I fear — after listening to the broadcast speeches of their newly nominated national ticket of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa “Who The Hell Am I?” Clemente– I now have to dig up the corpse and give it one last fisking. Holy cow, what a descent into madness! There was a time, about a decade ago, when here and there (and mostly there in a few odd places like Maine and New Mexico) there were a few patches of Green that seemed semi-rational, even promising. There were candidates, activists and even some low-level elected officials that seemed to reflect a forward-looking, accessible reform politics that based itself on a rejection of the big money corruption of the two major parties. At least at the local level, the Green seemed a possible option that could cut across partisan lines and embrace a rainbow of stretching from lefty liberals to cranky libertarians,
Well. those days are over, Jack! The new (barely breathing) Green Party is going down the road of the laughable and now almost extinct Peace and Freedom Party: by choosing McKinney and Clemente (a programmer at New York’s Pacifica station!) the Greens have ossified into a tiny, shrill, “revolutionary” cult. McKinney’s speech was peppered with allusions to uncovering “the truth” about 9/11 (code words for Bush Did It) and on several occasions trumpeted her renunciation of any “allegiance” to the American government. Now, that’s what I call a novel position for a presidential candidate. For her part, Vice-Presidential pick (!) Clemente evoked glorious adulation of 60′s fossils like the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, the Young Lords and, you guessed it, The Weathermen!. She then praised “political prisoners” like — of course– Mumia as icons of resistance to a criminal U.S. government. I had to look this character up on the Web and was rather shocked to read she attended (and presumably graduated) from Cornell. If that’s the case, she’s quite an actress as for someone as highly educated as she is, she’s adopted a public speaking style that makes her sound like a street hoodlum. Nice work!
My easy prediction and not mine alone: The Green Party will get a record minimum of votes this year. Hopefully, this will be the last we ever hear of it.
I think in 1998 or so I wrote like a $50 check at a Green Party fundraiser somewhere outside of Santa Fe. I want my money back!
UPDATE: One of our astute readers sent this to me. Before you click it open see if you can guess how many contributors there are to the Green Party’s congressional campaign committee.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Marc, you should have seen the list of contributors to Cynthia McKinney’s congressional campaigns. It looked like the Damascus phone book with all of her Arab support.
Phil Gramm is right that America has become a nation of whiners. The whiners are led by the Democrats, who tell them that solutions are to redistribute income and turn our nation into France.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Google: “cynthia mckinney” arab donors
July 14th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Sorry. Last one. McKinney receives favorable notice from Workers World Party
Now, everyone here will want to support her.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:20 am
re woody [ head ] …
” turn our nation into France” …!?
at least the ‘ French ‘ have HEALTH CARE FOR ALL !
have a very nice healthy day.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Walt … yeah, HCFA… Health Care For All, and when our HCFA allows thousands to die because of a heat wave what will you do then?
Jeeze, the dreamers are having nightmares!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Marc, you forgot the New Yorker cover!
Michael says:
http://michael-balter.blogspot.com/2008/07/that-awful-new-yorker-cover-is-just-so.html
July 14th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Another week passes during which McCain gets a pass from electronic news media. A good example was Meet the Press on Sunday. Brokaw (who really looks like he’d rather be in Wyoming) begins the segment: “Both Obama and McCain have been accused of flip-flopping…” This, of course, prefaced 10 minutes of discussion of Obama fund-raising and FISA positiions, with approximately 0 minutes allotted to McCain’s rather breath-taking list of switchbacks, denials and contradictions.
Is there a conscious effort to keep this race close by not examining the ship-adrift that is the McCain campaign?
On that subject, does anyone question why McCain won’t appear in public without (a) his wife; or (b/c) LindsayJoe Lieberham? Do his people not trust him in public without a second? What do you think?
July 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I hope the new people are business-minded conservatives.
LA Times Publisher David Hiller resigns
Chicago Tribune editor announces resignation The company named associate editor Gerould W. Kern to replace her.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Well, Woody, I’d rather they were not conservatives, but frankly I’ll be happy if they just continue, or, rather, resume excellent reportage and analysis.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Woody if you want “Conservative Business Priniples” in a paper may I suggest the Moonie Washington TIMES or Rupert’s NY POST – they only lose $40 million a piece each year while the LAT MAKES MONEY – just not enough to satify Sam’s ridiculous debt load – yeah, sound business practice!
July 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
rlc, people can make numbers say whatever they need them to say, especially for taxes, so I take that information with a grain of salt.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Well, of course Woody. Everyone knows that righties NEVER lie about numbers!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Shorter Phil Gramm (and Woody): “This is a nation of whiners,” he whined.
Woody: “people can make numbers say whatever they need them to say, especially for taxes” = these rightwing media institutions aren’t ridiculous losers, they’re tax cheats.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:18 am
For an inside look at Gram-O-Nomics – from the criminal to the absurd – here’s a snip from Max Blumenthal:
Enron enjoyed easy access to Gramm’s office; the senator’s wife served on Enron’s board of directors and Ken Lay was his 1992 campaign co-chair. Gramm rewarded his financial angels in 2000, slipping the “Commodity Futures Modernization Act” into a omnibus spending bill just as Congress headed off for summer vacation. His amendment instantly enabled the creation of a shadow banking system — “weapons of financial destruction” in the words of Warren Buffet — that directly contributed to the current mortgage foreclosure crisis. Millions of Americans have suffered as a result of Gramm’s machinations.
While the destruction Gramm has caused is felt across the country, little is known about the seedy business schemes that preceded his political career…Gramm was an avidly active investor in soft-core pornography movies.
Gramm’s journey into porn began in 1973, when his brother-in-law, George Caton, rushed to tell him about an exciting low-budget soft-core production called Truck Stop Women. A promo poster for the film boasted of its buxom stars: “No Rig Was Too Big For Them To Handle.” Caton, who was in charge of fundraising for the production, asked Gramm to become an investor. To entice his brother-in-law, Caton showed him scenes of Playboy Playmate of the year Claudia Jennings displaying her bare essentials (she is naked throughout much of the film).
These scenes “really got Phil titillated,” Caton told journalist John Judis in 1995. Gramm enthusiastically cut Caton a check for $15,000. Because the film was oversold, however, Caton returned his brother-in-law’s money, offering him an investment opportunity in an upcoming feature.
The following year, Gramm sent Caton a check for $15,000, this time to finance the production of Beauty Queens, a soft-core flick about pageant judges having sex with contestants. But at the last moment, the director of Beauty Queens, Mark Lester, decided to shelve his production to make the sequel to his Tricia’s Wedding, a comedy starring the drag queen troupe, The Cockettes.
Gramm contributed at least $7500 towards the sequel, a satire of the Nixon White House called White House Madness that featured the crazed president wandering around the White House in the nude. Gramm never saw that money again. Shot in ten days on a soundstage crudely modeled after the Oval Office, White House Madness tanked at the box office.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:26 am
From a legal standpoint, there is a big difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. People use legal tax strategies all the time to keep some of the money that Democrats want to take. Democrats don’t have that worry because they don’t have enough sense and ambition to earn much.
- – -
So, it’s whining to point out that you’re whining? No, I consider it instruction and telling liberals to grow up.
July 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“So, it’s whining to point out that you’re whining?”
“Whining” has become lazy thinkers’ shorthand for “expressing an opinion I don’t agree with”. Hey, maybe we can whine about illegal immigrants today! Or whine about how taxes are too high! Or whine about how the gays are ruining society!
July 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“Democrats don’t have that worry because they don’t have enough sense and ambition to earn much.” Ref. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet…
July 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Kyle, I disagree with your definition of whining as it was intended by Phil Gramm. Maybe nagging, constant complaining, and demanding is another way of putting it. Liberals are never happy and never shut up about things that they want “fixed,” and things better be fixed now and the way they want. I have better luck with my wife in discussing what color to paint the house.
Liberals remind me of that spoiled girl in “Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory”…“I want it nowww!”
July 15th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
reg, wow! You came up with two!
Obviously, you can’t see the difference between a general statement describing a group versus a statement that defines every single person in that group and with all exceptions noted. Would it offset your response if I came up with three Democrats who were totally worthless?
July 15th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Woody advises Democrats to “grow up.”
In other news, Rush Limbaugh asks for tougher sentencing for drug offenders. Larry Craig warns against sex in public bathrooms. And Sean Hannity denounces loud-mouthed morons.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Well lets see. How about Barry Diller, Felix Rohyatan, Michael Gross, Ben and Jerry, and Oprah! Fact is there are plenty of rich Dems only they got that way by entrepenurial effort – not crony capitalism like Bush and Cheney.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Anyone quoting Blumenthal ought to have their fucking head examined.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Blumenthal is just cribbing an old TNR article by John Judis.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Today is the anniversary of a famous incident involving a famous senator. There is nothing in today’s L.A. Times about it. Can anyone guess the event?
July 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Oops. I’m on the wrong thread.
January 24th, 2011 at 3:21 am
http://fishonforum.com