Perry hangs up his guns

Posted on January 19, 2012 by oddmanout215

Do you remember when Rick Perry seemed like a formidable presidential candidate, awash in PAC money, waving a pistol? That was before he opened his mouth. Dubya is dumb, but Perry is dumber than one of Dubya’s fence posts. And he’s a nasty son of a bitch.

From Paul Begala today:

Let us not allow Rick Perry to exit stage right—far right—without a final word or two. What can be said about a man who burst onto the national scene by toying with secession, as if 600,000 dead in the Civil War weren’t enough?

Rick Perry appealed to the darkest angels of our nature. In his final debate appearance, standing in the metaphorical shadow of Fort Sumter, he said the state of South Carolina “is at war” with the federal government—and he said it with approval. Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and “a monstrous lie.” He attacked the constitutionality of Medicare. He openly and dishonestly called our president a socialist. He said he would reinvade Iraq. He almost certainly executed an innocent man.

Right. Paul Krugman has a theory about Republican candidates:

I view the primary race through the lens of the FOF theory – that’s for “fools and frauds”. It goes as follows: to be a good Republican right now, you have to affirm your belief in things that any halfway intelligent politician can see are plainly false. This leaves room for only two kinds of candidates: those who just aren’t smart and/or rational enough to understand the problem, and those who are completely cynical, willing to say anything to get ahead…

… So what you have are fairly dim types like Perry, on the one side, and the utterly cynical Romney, on the other. (Gingrich manages to be both a fool and a fraud). Maybe, just maybe, the GOP could have found someone able to achieve Romney-level cynicism while coming across as sincere; but political talent on that level is quite rare. I mean, the various non-crazy-non-Romneys who were supposed to have a shot all turned out to be duds, e.g. Pawlenty.

Krugman’s piece makes sense, but it raises questions that he probably would rather dodge. Such as, what does his FOF theory say about the reasoning powers of Republican voters, and of Democrats who choose to vote for the likes of George W. Bush?

Posted in mainstream media, Mitt Romney, Politics | Tagged , | 2 Comments

‘Yes He Can,’ but will he?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by oddmanout215

Has Barack Obama ever acknowledged Robert Reich’s steady stream of criticism regarding Obama’s apparent lack of interest in putting the real economy back on track? He seems to have shunned the former Secretary of Labor, and to have ignored anyone urging accountability for Wall Street crooks.

Regardless, the accountability issues will be raised again today at “Yes He Can” events around the country, good opportunities to ask Obamabots why their man has shirked his responsibilities.

Footnote: In Philadelphia, MoveOn.org has arranged a protest at noon, at the Bank of America’s 16th Street and JFK Boulevard branch, followed by a march to Obama headquarters at 15th and Chestnut streets to deliver petitions demanding an investigation of the role played by banksters in the crash of the housing market.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Obama, Philadelphia, The New Depression, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Wolcott: Tea Party’s brew is tepid

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

The “dreadful inevitability” of Mitt Romney’s candidacy has led James Wolcott to conclude that the wing-nut right, despite its blustering, packs a feeble punch:

…The right blogosphere ain’t squat. It’s a hornet’s nest up in the attic whose noise can be safely ignored. No top-tier candidate was more unbeloved by rightwing bloggers than Mitt Romney…

…The Tea Party is all peckered out. It isn’t just that Romney is the least favorite Tea Party favor (apart from the now-gone Huntsman) but that his recent surge gives lie to the Tea Party’s populist fervor. The attacks on Romney’s record as a venture capitalist (“vulture capitalist,” in Rick Perry’s nice phrase) at Bain in the Super-Pac documentary “King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town”–visually, a punk collage crossed with a fragmentation grenade–seems to have strengthened his hold on the top spot, and not solely because angry bladders like Rush Limbaugh have rallied to the defense of poor, little, frail turbo-capitalism. It’s because the controversy tapped into the dirty little non-secret of Tea Party activists…

The secret, of course, is that Tea Party activists and so-called moderate Republicans are not so different and will end up on the same page. The only X factor is Ron Paul.

Posted in mainstream media, mid-term elections, Mitt Romney, Politics | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Whatsa matta, you no like-a SOPA?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

In case you didn’t notice, some large websites shut down today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act that was being sneaked through Congress until President Obama voiced opposition to it. Which doesn’t mean Obama won’t sign the bill if revisions are made and Congress approves it.

From Open Culture via Suburban Guerrilla:

Backed by the Motion Picture Association of America, SOPA is designed to debilitate and effectively shut down foreign-based websites that sell pirated movies, music and other goods. That all sounds fine on the face of things. But the legislation, if enacted, would carry with it a series of unexpected consequences that could change the internet as we know it. Among other things, the law could be used to shut down American sites that unwittingly host or link to illegal content — and without giving the sites due process, a real day in court. Big sites like YouTube and Twitter could fall under pressure, and so could countless small sites. Needless to say, that could have a serious chilling effect on the openness of the web and free speech…

Posted in Congress, mainstream media, movies, Obama, Politics, pop music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Piggy bank empty? Don’t resort to plastic.

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

It's worse than not being able to buy new toys. Photo by TONY WOOD

So why have relatively few formerly middle-class Americans become actively outraged by Wall Street frauds and job-destroying corporate raiders such as Mitt Romney? One answer is that many of us, despite lost jobs or lowered wages, have managed to maintain fairly good living standards, thanks to savings and other monetary cushions. But piggy banks across the country are close to tapped out:

From Reuters via Truthdig:

More than four years after the United States fell into recession, many Americans have resorted to raiding their savings to get them through the stop-start economic recovery. In an ominous sign for America’s economic growth prospects, workers are paring back contributions to college funds and growing numbers are borrowing from their retirement accounts.

Some policymakers worry that a recent spike in credit card usage could mean that people, many of whom are struggling on incomes that have lagged inflation, are taking out new debt just to meet the costs of day-to-day living. American households “have been spending recently in a way that did not seem in line with income growth. So somehow they’ve been doing that through perhaps additional credit card usage,” Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Friday.

“If they saw future income and employment increasing strongly then that would be reasonable. But I don’t see that. So I’ve been puzzled by this,” he said…

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Mitt Romney, Politics, The New Depression | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

From Bryan Ferry’s ‘Dylanesque’

Posted on January 18, 2012 by oddmanout215

The line it is drawn/The curse it is cast/The slow one now/Will later be fast/As the present now/Will later be past/The order is rapidly fadin’/And the first one now will later be last/For the times they are a-changin…

Dylan recorded this one before he “went electric” and pushed his songwriting skills into a new dimension, where oddball sophisticates such as Brian Ferry would thrive. Not an easy task, but Ferry, in his understated way, breathes new life into the song, and his rhythm section rumbles like not-so-distant thunder.

Posted in arts, pop music | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Vote for a genuine outsider

Posted on January 17, 2012 by oddmanout215

This one goes out to South Carolina Republicans who are still on the fence concerning the upcoming primary. Are Mittens and Newt and Rick too insider-ish? Well, how about Herman Cain?

The super PAC of comedian Stephen Colbert, which has been legally transferred to humor sensei Jon Stewart, is urging voters in South Carolina to choose former candidate Herman Cain in the January 21 Republican presidential primary.

The ad notes that the Palmetto state primary is less than a week away, and South Carolinians are “frustrated” because “there is still no candidate for us. Plus, the economy.”

“Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow believes a vote for Herman Cain is a vote for America,” the ad says, using the PAC’s official name. Pictures of Colbert are shown throughout the ad and Cain is never seen.

“He’s not a career politician. He’s such a Washington outsider he’s not even running for president,” the ad intones…

Posted in campaign finance reform, humor, Politics | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

‘Shore Leave’

Posted on January 16, 2012 by oddmanout215

From Waits’ 1983 album, Swordfishtrombones:

…and so I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
and shot billards with a midget
until the rain stopped
and I bought a long sleeved shirt
with horses on the front
and some gum and a lighter and a knife
and a new deck of cards (with girls on the back)
and I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife…

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

MLK the ‘moral revolutionary’

Posted on January 16, 2012 by oddmanout215

From a 1982 book review in which Garry Wills noted that Martin Luther King, Jr. knew he “would have to accept his own death” if he were to play a leading role in the civil rights movement:

…He did not do it all at once; he hoped to slip away from the appointment he had made. But it was soon clear to him, as to others around him, that one could not challenge the entire moral basis of a society’s racial arrangements without being jailed, beaten, and (finally) killed. Going to jail meant risking death from inmates as well as guards, and he went to jail nineteen times…

…By 1962 a northern editor was instructing his reporter, “Go where the Mahatma goes, he might get killed.” By 1968 the Federal Bureau of Investigation had followed up on fifty death threats. He was stabbed; his home was bombed; his church was bombed. His time was running out…

Wills concluded that “[King’s] insistence on a moral assessment of our country’s use of its power and wealth becomes more important, not less, as time passes.”

Thirty years later, who would dispute Wills’ statement? Unfortunately, many people would, but the persistence of human folly does nothing to diminish King’s courage and vision.

Here’s Paul Krugman on those who have no interest in understanding the scope of King’s efforts:

…Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in “quiet rooms.” There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.

Posted in history, mainstream media | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

What is a ‘word’? (Vanity Fair tweaks NYT)

Posted on January 15, 2012 by oddmanout215

A recent Vanity Fair piece spoofs the shockingly stupid editor’s column in the NYT that asked readers to decide whether newspapers should report facts. Many VF readers apparently didn’t get VF‘s joke. Read the VF piece below and then the reader responses to it to see what I mean:

Just as New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane is concerned whether his newspaper is printing lies or the truth, we here at V.F. are looking for reader input on whether and when Vanity Fair should spell “words” correctly in the stories we publish.

One example: the word “maintenance” seems like it should only have one “a” in it. It should be “maintenence,” right? But it’s not. So is it our job as reporters and editors to spell it correctly?

Another example: who decides “Michele Bachmann” should be spelled with one “l” in “Michele” and two “n”s in “Bachmann”? I’ve never seen it spelled like that in any other circumstance, so should we print it just because that’s how she spells it? I don’t know.

As one reader recently wrote in a message to the spelling editor:

“My question is what role the magazine’s news coverage should play with regard to stupidly spelled words. In general, Vanity Fair spells stuff correctly, but sometimes words just look wrong. ‘Broccoli,’ for instance, looks dumb. If a magazine’s overarching goal is to be correct, but something makes you do a double-take because it just looks so bad, should Vanity Fair just let these oddities stand?”

Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can Vanity Fair do this in a way that is objective and fair? Whose job is it to decide what words look strange and what words just look fancy? And at what point does an exotic extra consonant become distracting?

One respondent to the VF piece wrote: “Small changes, like the spelling of broccoli, shouldn’t be decided by one or two editors. But an interesting thought nonetheless!”

It’s amazing how many people are irony-deficient. Too bad you can’t buy the stuff in supplement form at the GNC.

Posted in humor, mainstream media, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment