Uncle Dick on John King

For those of you lucky enough to miss Uncle Dick on John King’s “State of the Union” Sunday, I’m posting links to the YouTube uploads.

One of the prize moments, though you’ll have to suffer through all the segments, because I don’t remember when exactly the praise started, is when Uncle Dick talks about the great and wonderful Uncle Rush.

Enlightening.

This first segment is particularly rich for anyone with half a wit, but each segment offers its own “insights”:

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Rush The Tragic White Boy

I try to steer clear of the obvious, and I give few of my life minutes to people like Limbaugh and his ilk.

But Timothy Egan’s piece in the Times today warrants this short entry. Mr. Egan makes excellent points that go beyond the usual diatribes against Limbaugh, and his column today is insightful and well written.

Link: Fears Of A Clown.

Two points which struck me, impressively written by Mr. Egan:

As someone who spends a lot of time on the road, I used to find Limbaugh to be an obnoxious but entertaining companion, his eruptions more reliable than Old Faithful. But now that Limbaugh has become something else — the face of the Republican Party, by a White House that has played him brilliantly — he has been transformed into car-wreck-quality spectacle, at once scary and sad.

(bold face added)

We again see why Barack Obama is the man for this job at this time: we need leadership skilled enough to deflate those self-aggrandizing toxic hot air balloons that have floated too long over the land.

And it was this paragraph which I thought brilliantly summarized our current economic state of affairs, and crystallized reality as few have to date:

But therein lies the main tactic of Limbaugh, an old demagogue technique: create a straw man, then tear it down. The latest example was Saturday, when Limbaugh presented himself as the defender of capitalism, liberty and unfettered free markets. Obama, he has said since, is waging a “war on capitalism.”

There is a war, all right. We are witnessing the worst debacle of unfettered capitalism in our lifetime brought on by — you got it, capitalism at its worst. It cannibalized itself. Government, sad to say, had nothing to do with it — except for criminal neglect of oversight.

Now that government has been forced to the rescue, just who is insisting on taxpayer bailouts? Who is in line for handouts? Who is saying that only government can save capitalism? The very leaders of unregulated markets who injected this poison into the economy, the very plutocrats that Limbaugh celebrates.

(bold face added)

Capitalism cannibalizing itself. Perhaps the most succinct summary of the global economic meltdown yet articulated.

The corrective will be a cannibal like swing to government regulation and nationalization, until the equilibrium is restored.

It’s the world’s way.

Hero Of The Week: Got Milk?

A few years ago, I remember falling to my knees and kissing the living room rug when I heard on a pseudo-news broadcast that Selma Hayek had said during an interview, “I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do.“

You see, I’ve been saying the same thing, almost word for word, for too many years.

I would look at myself in the mirror, while applying my mascara and making sure the blush was applied with a light hand, and think, “good grief, the trash that comes out of your mouth . . . but it is true, I keep waiting to meet a man with balls as big as mine.”

The ambivalence between my words and how I wanted to see myself rankled me.

In an instant, the drop dead gorgeous Ms. Hayek, as voluptuous and feminine as any stereotype driven male dominated aesthetic could ask for, validated me.

I wasn’t just an angry, ball busting woman. I spoke my truth, and Ms. Hayek knew that truth as well.

Anger, feminism, traditional roles, gender bending, had nothing to do with it. It was my reality: I want to meet a man who has the unmitigated gall and foolish, in your face courage that I have.

Worth noting, this is a truth for many women. As scientific data is showing more and more, men are far more driven than women by “what is appropriate,” despite mythologies to the contrary.

Men more so than women fall back into comfortable norms, the fear of change being more threatening to them than the ever adaptable female psyche.

Women are more prone to enjoy breaking the mold, getting rid of the old and creating change.

Every since that day I fell to my knees, kissed the ground, and said, “Thank you, Selma,” I’ve kept an eye on Ms. Hayek’s impressive career.

The odds were against her. No actor who begins in Mexican soap operas ever reaches, dare I write it, professional gravitas in Hollywood. The rise to the top in tinsel town is difficult, but add to that a thick Hispanic accent and the baggage of a C.V. reading “Mexican soap opera,” and the odds were overwhelmingly against her.

She overcame the odds, and the impressive mammary glands were no doubt a big help.

Ms. Hayek astutely used her beauty to make inroads in her industry. And then she jumped headlong into a project of important story telling, bringing to life on film a character whose story needed to be told, Frida Kahlo. She stripped herself of pretense and in portraying an artist, emerged as one.

Not just a set of a mammary glands. The real deal.

In The Gaurdian today, I found this article on the front page, though it looks to be most everywhere now: Selma Hayak Breastfeeds African Baby.

There is an edited YouTube video on the Gaurdian article that I recommend watching, if you’re inclined. The only other available versions have inane commentaries attached to them, or I would have posted a YouTube video for this entry.

I thought Ms. Hayek’s gesture epitomized a woman’s love, unconditional nurturing, beauty, and warmth. And Ms. Hayek also promoted a long standing personal agenda: she’s been an advocate for raising international awareness, especially among developing nations, on the importance of breastfeeding.

Selma Hayek’s impromptu advocacy and courageous kindness are exactly what you’d expect from a woman with a huge and impressive set of . . .

cojones.

Selma Hayek. My hero of the week.

Time article on Selma Breastfeeding to Raise Public Awareness

We The People

Frank Rich gives a superlative Op-Ed in Sunday’s New York Times.

I’m pleased to write that his column “No Time For Poetry” coincides with my entry this past week “Give The Devils Their Due.”

It goes without saying that Mr. Rich is more nuanced and thorough than yours truly. And, of course, he eschews the “creative phraseology” that I relied on.

But in The Times you don’t get a Nina Simone YouTube audio, an incomparable treasure.

His must read essay persuasively defends President Obama’s less than enthusiastically embraced Inaugural address. In so doing, he portrays a Republic in need of psychic repair as much as economic recovery.

Frank Rich: No Time For Poetry.

***************

On the subject of defending the Inaugural address, Stanley Fish’s column this week adroitly examines Obama’s rhetoric in Barack Obama’s Prose Style. Another good read, informative and engaging.

Never Doubt It: The Enduring Double Standard

I am not a Sarah Palin fan.

Her race baiting and nasty mud slinging are the worst of American politics.

But I knew that the ensuing trashing of Palin would take place. If racism sells well in American politics, misogyny is the most valuable commodity on the market.

After the most intelligent, disciplined, and forward thinking campaign in American history, the big news this week on the MSM was that women didn’t like Michelle Obama’s choice of of Narciso Rodriguez’s dress for her husband’s acceptance speech.

And please note, if you Google “Michelle Obama,” as of 8 November 2008, the “related search” options given at the top of the page are: “michelle obama dress michelle obama fashion.” That’s right, America’s most well educated First Lady in history is now the premier fashionista for the next four years. Michelle is the one who will set the trends and dictate fashion, with her every appearance on People and Style covers. Princeton undergraduate and Harvard law to become our foremost style icon–no education required. The rest will have to take place quietly behind the scenes. I trust her to do so. Just make a note of it.

So I applaud Ms. Palin on the following, which I found on the BBC: click here. (The snippet inspiring this post, Sarah Palin speaking on women, clothes, and politics has been removed in a matter of hours. What a shocker.)

You may think that Palin is the worst thing since . . . . McDonald’s, high fructose corn syrup, and George W. Bush, but on this she nails it, in all her oblique and awkward glory. And she should know. She was picked for all the wrong reasons, and expected to successfully sell her femme maverick status, amid the sequestering and despite her many political shortcomings.

The Republicans will hang her out to dry, in her pretty black dress and well coiffed veep hairdo, all of which were as deliberately displayed the 7 American flags and conglomerate of economic advisers decorating Obama’s first press conference, because misogyny is alive and thriving in America.

Even though McCain has presumably asked that the swiping between Palin and his campaign adivisers (read: white, male Republican strategists) to stop, the Republicans will blame her. She will do most what men would do, defend herself with stridency. (Is Bill Clinton’s despicable, “I did not have sex with that woman,” so long ago?) But she’s not a man, and since her ambition exceeds her abilities, an admirable trait for those born without fallopian tubes, she will come off in the worst light possible.

Meanwhile, McCain will return to the comforts of the Senate, and to his blond haired, blue eyed, eerily Barbie-doll-esque wife, the one he acquired after the first one went lame.

Market value goes down on damaged goods.

Never doubt it; the double standard requires a desirable commodity package. Because until there is a tide change, American women must market themselves to the testosterone and unexamined lusts of America’s men, and the women who devotedly follow their lead. In order to garner power, the package must be a commodity, nothing more, nothing less.  This power must pander to men’s desires while showing other women how to “do it,” how to make the game work for themselves.

But don’t blame men; women find this transaction the easiest way to break the chains which bind us.

Conversely, you can’t blame us. Misogyny is the toughest gig around.

Now, let’s all all bump and grind to the sound of real female power right here in the good old U.S.A. (while we all are emotionally awash of Obama’s victory, and the almost certain glaringly homogeneous cabinet which will no doubt come to pass in the not too distant future):

Love. The quintessential capitalist commodity. Only for women with the goods to sell.

YouTube Find Of The Week

I ran across this Kennedy Presidential campaign song on YouTube this evening, and I thought it was too good a find not to share.

I find it fascinating that Kennedy had a schtick, “cast your vote for Kennedy and the change that’s overdue.”

Sound familiar?

Vote For The Maverick!

Tonight, Barack Obama sealed the deal in his 30 minute infomercial.

It was a brilliant production, and it captured both the specifics that his administration would implement, and the message of hope which catapulted him to the national stage.

Tonight, he showed who is this campaign’s real political maverick:

maverick |ˈmav(ə)rik|
noun
1 an unorthodox or independent-minded person.

By refusing to accept public financing, Obama has run the most stellar and impressive campaign in modern history; not only did he raise a record breaking campaign chest, his community service work invaluably informed the grassroots approach characterizing the ground campaign, the voter registration push, and the get out the vote movement. Most important, it was not a campaign funded and fueled by big business (nod to George Bush), but one driven by committed people on the ground.

America’s politics has changed this election. We’ve reclaimed our character, our hope, and our dedication to our better angels.

Obama’s appeal tonight to vote in six days was extraordinary, emotional, and full of an optimism we haven’t seen in decades. And it conspicuously lacked the arrogance which we’ve come to expect from those running for President.

Just a few minutes after Obama asked America to vote for change, McCain ran an ominous ad, a dark sepia photo of Obama, with foreboding music dancing around the voice over, “Obama’s not ready to be President.” It was the politics of fear mongering, a politics we’ve been living with for eight years.

America has had enough. This country was not founded on fear, nor are we a fearful people.

Obama has outmaneuvered McCain with a rare intelligence and quality of character we’ve not seen in ages, and McCain’s desperate accusations show his disconnect from the American spirit and a sorry reliance on political pablum.

November 4th, cast your vote for the candidate who is this election’s maverick, the one with independent thought, vision, and creative problem solving skills:

Postscript: McCain’s response to the 4-5 million dollar advertisement, which will probably sway at least two percentage points of undecided voters, was “I will never interrupt the World Series for an infomercial” (loose quote). His comments showed how much he has underestimated his opponent, and how he misjudged this watershed moment. (Ross Perot ran such an ad, but not with the production values we saw this evening.)

I’m guessing that we’ll never again see a Presidential election without these thirty minute seal-the-deal productions.

Kathleen Parker Calls It Again

Kathleen Parker, the conservative writer who recently broke ranks in denouncing McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, has done it again.

Kudos to her for articulating the obvious.  For sometime, among friends, I’ve been referring to Ms. Palin as “Trophy Veep”; some of my male friends have flat out said, “she’s hot.”

Testosterone is lethal.

Many thanks to my friend Zacca for sending this one on to me: Kathleen Parker: Maverick’s Tragic Flaw.

Supreme Court Clears Way For Troy Davis Execution

Today the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution of Troy Davis by declining to hear his case, after almost two weeks of deliberation. The Court’s behavior teeters on cruel and unusual punishment, having stayed the execution just hours before Mr. Davis was to be put to death on 23 September.

The court was divided on its decision, even though seven witnesses have recanted their testimony against Mr. Davis. There is no physical evidence linking Mr. Davis to the crime, no murder weapon has been found, and three witnesses have stated that another man has confessed to the crime. Mr. Davis’ case reads like a modern variation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” though Mr. Davis is charged with the murder of a white man, not the rape of a white woman. Mr. Davis stands as a weary, real life Tom Robinson, and Amnesty International plays the part of Atticus Finch. Other figures to question the fairness of the conviction are Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict the XVI.

The court’s decision almost certainly means that Mr. Davis will be speedily executed, though the evidence against him is appalling flimsy–a travesty of justice beyond words in 21st century America. The primary issue argued before the court was the execution of an innocent man: “Mr. Davis’s lawyers had asked the court to determine whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of the innocent. They wrote in a petition in July that the case ‘allows this court an opportunity to determine what it has only before assumed: that the execution of an innocent man is constitutionally abhorrent’” (New York Times).

Rather than tackle Mr. Davis’ innocence or guilt, the court took a conclusive leap in “the decades-long, law-and-order-fueled trend toward restricting appellate avenues in criminal cases may be reaching its gruesome but inevitable conclusion in the case of Troy Davis, a death row inmate who apparently will be executed soon despite a series of post-trial revelations about his lack of culpability that ought to shock the conscience of even the most ardent supports of capital punishment,” writes Andrew Cohen. Cohen concludes his essay by stating, “why the Justices turned away from a case they had sniffed at last month may forever remain a mystery. But what is perfectly clear is that Georgia has now created a virtually unassailable bar to criminal defendants whose shaky convictions are later subverted through the discovery of new evidence or the dissolution of the accuracy, reliability and credibility of important trial evidence. After decades of success, subtle and otherwise, the anti-appeal movement has just now reached its crescendo or, depending upon your point of view, its nadir.” ( A link to the entire article can be found below.)

So why is an innocent man condemned to death, while Wall Street’s greed goes unpunished? While we are collectively wrapped up in all things fiscal, the promise of equality and justice goes ignored.

One more human life taken, until the day we are all “free at last.”

Free of ignorance.  Free of hate.  Free of greed.

New York Times update on the Davis ruling.

Troy Davis website, with links to other information.

The Washington Post article on the Supreme Court’s decision offers a good summary of the case, on the second page.

Andrew Cohen offers a useful and informative analysis, both on the case and its legal ramifications. If you read no other article on the case, read this one. Cohen shows what was at stake in the Davis decision, and why we all should be shaking our heads.

The juxtaposition between Troy Davis’ almost certain execution, and the excitement among so many in Barack Obama’s nomination should give us pause. This election, which offers so many symbols of hope in a world of critical challenges, shouldn’t leave us satisfied, but wanting more.

Senator Obama’s [presumptive] election to the President’s position is racially symbolic, but brings with it the possibility of complacency.

The great danger may be a mass delusion that we have transcended racism, and thus so many of our -isms, because a black man has risen to the highest office of the land.

Meanwhile, our “justice system” is stuffed with disproportionate numbers of black men, and men like Troy have their lives stripped from them with an all too easy ease.

Let’s not be satisfied.

“I Have A Dream,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, transcript, audio, and video, here at American Rhetoric, Top 100 Speeches

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Richard Fuld, Jr.: Time the Pay the Piper

Richard S. Fuld, Jr. appeared before Congress this morning, and, to put it delicately, fell all over himself. His appearance coincided with the Dow’s 800 plus point dip this morning, the first day that the market fell below 10,000 in four years.

Fuld, some of you may remember, was awarded the “Michael Eisner Award for corporate rapacity and poor corporate governance” by Nicholas Kristof in his column Need A Job? $17,000 an Hour, No Success Required.

I wrote elsewhere last week, that I think Fuld and others should be rounded up and corralled in a pen somewhere on Wall Street, and let the masses have at them. Well, I am advocate of non-violent action, and I doubt that will happen, but there is still a need for accountability and a semblance of justice. I suggested rotten eggs and overripe tomatoes to obtain a kind of national catharsis–but in light of today’s testimony that’s a bit optimistic.

The parading of Wall Street greed over the next months will not yield “justice,” but as I also wrote, I think these individuals might be well served by changing their identities ASAP. On second thought, the American public may simply be placated by the televised blame and shame.

If so, that is bad for America.

The more things change, the more they stay the same: