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April 28th, 2007

The Jackass Chronicles…(continued)

Well now we know who’s to blame for all those darkies swarming over our borders…

Utah Republican Blames ‘The Devil’ For Immigration

If you really want to blame someone for trying to destroy the United States, point the finger at… Satan?

The devil, Lucifer… whatever you want to call it, one Utah Republican says it is he who is trying to bring the USA down.

And Satan’s apparent weapon of choice: Allowing illegal immigrants to cross the border.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah County District 65 Chairman Don Larsen has submitted a formal resolution to oppose the devil’s plan to destroy the country — to be discussed this weekend at the Utah County Republican Convention.

“In order for Satan to establish his ‘New World Order’ and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.,” Larsen’s resolution states. “[It is] insidious for its stealth and innocuousness.”

Larsen’s proposal to defeat Satan? Close the borders to illegal immigrants to “prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion.”

Somebody wake me back up when the voters start electing grownups again…

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 23rd, 2007

And Now, A Message From A Concerned Citizen…

Quick…Someone Get Michael Crichton On The Phone…

Daylight exacerbates warming

You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN / Hot Springs

Damn those wicked liberals and their evil plots!

by Bruce | Link | React! (1)

April 20th, 2007

In Other News, Eddie Izzard Will Be Signing Autographs Today At The Oakland Mall

Owww…The Stupid…It Hurts….!

Man in wig, skirt spurs Cranbrook lockdown

Only a day after students at Virginia Tech were locked in classrooms as a gunman killed 32 of their classmates, Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills went into lockdown Monday morning after parents reported seeing a suspicious man dressed as a woman near a campus bus stop.

Police described a white male about 6 feet tall, wearing a gray or blond wig, lipstick, a flowered skirt, a dark coat and high heels.

Parents first spotted the man standing near the Kingswood School parking lot around 7:50 a.m., school officials said.

"He was walking up the lot toward Kingswood School," said Lt. Paul Myszenski with the Bloomfield Hills Department of Public Safety.

While he was not observed doing anything illegal, authorities decided to lock down schools after 8 a.m. Students were told to sit in their classrooms with lights off as police did a room-byroom search.

Pam Friedman, a parent from West Bloomfield Township, was attending a mothers’ council meeting with Robin Rosenbaum and Elaine Robins, also of West Bloomfield, when the building they were in – the Institute of Science – was also locked down.

Friedman was able to speak with her son, Jake, a 17-year-old junior, by cellphone, who informed his mother he was OK.

"I wasn’t nervous at all after I talked with him," Friedman said.

DeAnn Ervin of Birmingham – whose 12-year-old daughter, Noa, attends Kingswood School – learned of the lockdown when other mothers began calling her.

Lockdowns aren’t that unusual, she said. The school practices at least twice a year.

Ervin was confident the school would protect her daughter. "They communicate a lot with us," she said. "I was more worried about her emotional health than physical."

Cranbrook’s department of public safety took part in the room-by-room search at Kingswood. No one was arrested.

Officials also checked the grounds "where people can hide," said Thomas Sias, the school’s director of public safety, but were unable to find the man.

"The problem is you have seconds to react," Sias said. "It’s a rather daunting task to check it all."

Sias praised the students who were locked in classrooms for about 30 minutes. "When we were walking the halls, you could hear a pin drop," he said.

At 9:20 a.m., the lockdown was lifted, and by 9:30 a.m., buses packed with students were rolling through the campus.

In other news, schools all across Lower Fuckingnuts County were in a state of lockdown after a woman with a crew cut was seen wearing a leather jacket and driving a Harley-Davidson low rider down Main Street…

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 18th, 2007

Life In The Gutter

Via Wonkette, aka Ana Marie Cox, over at Swampland…   John Derbyshire farts on the dead at VA Tech

Spirit of Self-Defense [John Derbyshire]

As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

The other was a nine millimeter Glock.  Yes, in fact you Can hose down a place with a semi automatic handgun.  Ask me how I know.  And according to news accounts, he had a lot of ammo with him.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him.

You’re a kid sitting peacefully in class and then someone bursts in and starts shooting.  Never mind you have not clue one at that point what kind of gun it is, let alone how many rounds it can hold.  Never mind the blast of even a small caliber handgun inside a closed space can be positively disorienting.  Never mind that with practice you can drop the clip on that Glock and have another in it and a round chambered faster then someone could probably rush you unless you were practically standing right over them.  Just fucking for once in your life try to put yourself in someone else’s place you drooling soulless right wing babbling moron.  You’re a kid…you are in class peacefully going on about your school day and then suddenly you and your classmates are being shot at.  By the time the first few shots are fired your thoughts are a frightened scrambled mess.  Count?  Count?  Grow a fucking brain Derbyshire, you pathetic warrior male wannabe.

Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat.

Why is that not surprising.  I shoot mine all the time too John, and I figure I’m not all that exceptional at hitting what I’m shooting at, because most of the other folks at the range there with me usually do too.  But you probably think the gun adds several inches to your dick and that’s why you’re not really working it.  You think just holding it in your hand makes you something.  No.  It doesn’t.  It’s just a damn gun and you’re still the sorry brain dead soulless asshole you were before you picked it up.

Yes, yes, I know it’s easy to say these things: but didn’t the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything?

Moron!   Asswipe!  The people on Flight 93 were grown Adults dealing with a situation that allowed them the means to find out what was happening to them (via their cell phones) and time to get themselves organized and together.  And their attackers didn’t have guns, only crude knifes.  The passengers of flight 93 had a chance the kids at VA Tech never did.

Point of fact, I read of at least one adult, a professor, who seems to have actually tried to save as many of his kids as he could, by staying behind and trying to block the doorway as his kids jumped out the classroom windows.  Apparently the killer managed to get in anyway because that professor was one of the dead.  But he stayed behind to try and save some of his kids.  There’s a hero.

by Bruce | Link | React!


Another Reason Why Public Education In America Is Under Attack…

No…not because the religious right doesn’t want anybody to learn any science that contradicts the bible.  Not because right wing republicans don’t want an educated public going to the polls.  Yes…it’s all that…but it’s also this: a lot of American adults have bad memories of their treatment at the hands of teachers, administrators, principals.  Not quite as extreme as this kid’s…but similar in kind…

Time stands still for Hempfield teen in lockup

A Hempfield Area High School sophomore spent 12 days in juvenile detention after authorities in Westmoreland County mistakenly charged him with making a March 11 bomb threat, in part because the district had not changed its clocks to reflect daylight-saving time.

Cody Webb, 15, of Hempfield, was arrested March 12 and charged with a felony count of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction and misdemeanor counts of making false alarms to public entities, reckless endangerment, disorderly conduct and making terrorist threats.

Webb, an honors student involved in student council, tennis and the Japanese Club, was immediately taken to the county’s juvenile detention center.

"Cody never even had a (school) detention," said his mother, Linda Webb. "It was a nightmare."

Cody called the school’s automated delay announcement system.  An hour later someone called in a bomb threat.  But the time stamp was off by an hour because of the new start of daylight savings time this year. 

Now…the school officials also had, by the time they dragged Cody into the Principal’s office, a recording of the threat, but…well…like I said…there are a lot of Americans who know by now, how this story is going to go…

"Mrs. Charlton asked me if I had a cell phone. I said, ‘Yeah,’ and she said, ‘What’s the number?’ I told her, and she started saying, ‘We got him. We got him.’ I was completely oblivious to what they were talking about," he said.

In the Principal’s office, administrators demanded that Webb admit to calling in the bomb threat, he said.

"I wasn’t going to admit to something I didn’t do," he said. "Me and God know I didn’t do it."

Webb’s parents, Linda and Budd Webb, arrived at the school and listened to the recorded bomb threat. Linda Webb told administrators it wasn’t her son.

"They kept saying that it was his voice. They didn’t even know him," she said.

After a state trooper arrived, Charlton told the teen he was being arrested, and the trooper read Webb his Miranda rights.

"I was in shock," Webb said.

They had their man and nothing was going to change their minds about it…let alone the facts.   Yes…it gets better.  But you probably knew that…

The next day, Webb had a detention hearing and was held for court. After 10 more days in detention, Webb was back in court for his case to be heard. He was released to his parents’ custody that day after Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge John Driscoll continued the hearing when the state police failed to appear.

The kid, an honor roll student, has now been held in a juvenile detention center for 12 days and the police can’t be bothered to show up for his hearing because…why…?  Well…

Trooper Jeanne Martin, spokeswoman for state police at Greensburg, said the time change was an issue. Driscoll dismissed the charges March 27.

The teen said he did call the school’s delay hot line early Sunday, March 11. But that was an hour before the bomb threat was phoned in, said the family’s attorney, Tim Andrews. After Webb’s parents obtained his cell phone records, Andrews found the call times did not match.

"I found out the district had not changed their clocks to reflect daylight-saving time," Andrews said. "They were changed Monday morning."

Somebody else besides the kid’s attorney was also looking at the evidence…

"The district attorney subpoenaed the cell phone records, and it didn’t take more than a minute to see the times didn’t match," Andrews said.

Whoops!  Of course…the school considers itself blameless…

Hempfield solicitor Dennis Slyman said law enforcement did not question administrators about the school’s clocks.

"The authorities never, never asked us anything about the clocks and daylight-saving time," Slyman said. "Whatever they did was with their own investigation and outside the auspices of the school district."

It’s their fault they arrested a kid we told them had made a bomb threat, and threw him in jail…

Yes…it gets better…  You knew it did…

Budd Webb wept as he described learning that his son would be cleared.

"I got a callfrom our attorney that said he had paperwork signed by Judge Driscoll dropping the felony and misdemeanor charges against my son," he said.

County juvenile detention officials wanted to keep Webb in custody, Andrews said. "They wanted him to have a mental health evaluation because he wouldn’t admit to making the call."

(emphasis mine).  They had the wrong person, but since they couldn’t make him admit to making a bomb threat that he had not made, they felt that was evidence of a mental problem. 

And of course…they’re blameless too… 

County officials said Tuesday that Webb was in custody no longer than the law requires.

"Legally, we were OK. We didn’t step on this kid’s rights," said Mike Sturnick, supervisor for the juvenile probation office.

Well thank goodness they only kept an innocent kid in jail no longer then the law allows. 

Now…at this point…if you haven’t attended public school in America, or you had a much, Much better experience with teachers and school officials during your childhood then most people, that tape recording of the bomb threat may still be nagging at you.  How could they sit a kid and his mother down and play a recording of that does not sound like that kid making a bomb threat, and still insist that it was that kid making that threat…you may be wondering.  I see you’ve never been accused by a teacher or a principal of something doing something that you didn’t do… 

Webb gave an insight into the school’s impressive investigative techniques, saying that he was ushered in to see the principal, Kathy Charlton. She asked him what his phone number was, and , according to Webb, when he replied ‘she started waving her hands in the air and saying “we got him, we got him.”’

‘They just started flipping out, saying I made a bomb threat to the school,’ he told local television station KDKA. After he protested his innocence, Webb says that the principal said: ‘Well, why should we believe you? You’re a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.’ 

Upon further reflection, you can see how the whole republican right wing attack on public education, even, how their attack on our system of justice, plays on a deeply felt resentment a lot of Americans have toward their childhood experiences at the hands of ignorant kid hating louts who only became teachers because they couldn’t master the art of flipping hamburgers at McDonalds.

Home schooling…it isn’t just for religious fanatics anymore…

Webb’s mother arranged home-schooling for him until he decides where to continue his education. He doesn’t want to return to Hempfield.

The kid was an honors student.  He had an active academic life.  Was in the school council.  And in an instant, a jackass principal taught him a lesson about life, hard work, academic excellence and achievement he’ll never fucking forget.  And lesson about the public schools.  Somewhere, Pat Robertson is smiling.

Oh…and… 

Martin said the state police investigation into the bomb threat remains open.

No shit Sherlock.  Gotta love those awesome police investigative skills you folks there have.  When someone at the station complains their computer isn’t working, how long before someone checks to see if it’s plugged in…?  Just curious…

by Bruce | Link | React! (1)

April 17th, 2007

Notice Who Isn’t At The Table?

So you have to figure that gay Episcopalians woke up the other day and saw this news item staring them in the face

Anglican meeting set on gay issue

The spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans said Monday he has agreed to an urgent request for a meeting with U.S. church leaders as the Anglican fellowship nears a split over the Bible and sexuality.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, visiting Canada for a spiritual retreat with the country’s Anglican bishops, said he would meet with U.S. Episcopal leaders in the fall.

"My aim is to try and keep people around the table for as long as possible on this, to understand one another," Williams said at a news conference at the Anglican Church of Canada headquarters.

Well…let us know what you’ve decided about us…

Understanding. 

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 13th, 2007

Think Of The Children

So…Andrew Sullivan would like us to know that Don Imus isn’t really all that bad…inexcusable though his bigotry is…

The Imus Ranch

It does amazing things for some very sick and needy children. It does not excuse Imus’ bigotry, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. It’s more than I’ve ever done for sick kids. And probably more than you have either.

That’s really swell Andrew.  Yes…let’s think of the children.  How many gay kids you suppose have had their faces slammed into their lockers after one of their peers spent the morning bellylaughing at the fag jokes on Imus In The Morning

When Imus appeared on Sharpton’s radio show, he talked about how he helps “restore the self-esteem and dignity” of children with cancer and other medical conditions through a boot-camp-style program at his ranch in New Mexico. But that’s not what Nobile heard about the ranch when he tuned into a March 1999 show:

VOICE IMITATING GENERAL GEORGE PATTON: … and what is the stated Imus ranch mission? You in the back.
PRIVATE: To give sick kids hands-on experiences of the great American cowboy from the rough and rugged all West.
VOICE IMITATING GENERAL GEORGE PATTON: And that is defined as?
PRIVATE: Sir, that’s defined as where men were men and sheep were sheep and Billy the Kid knew with whom to sleep.
VOICE IMITATING GENERAL GEORGE PATTON: Precisely, and that sleeping, boys, was not accomplished with the help of a damn down-filled, double-stitched, quilted, puffed-up, panty-waist, tofu-sucking sleeping bag you’d find rolled up in the back of Martha Stewart’s Land Rover tucked in beside the damned Nordstrom picnic basket. Boys, when we go out to that ranch we will give the troop that cowboy experience. Whether Corporal Imus knows it or not, even though we’ll be bivouacked in the vicinity of Santa Fe, we will not be conducting experiments in the lifestyles of the gay caballero. Gear we employ will not originate at L.L. Bean. It will be obtained from the quartermaster of our beloved United States Army. OD in color, standard regulation issue. Do I make myself clear?
PRIVATE: Sir, yes sir, sir. No Judy Garland gear, sir.
VOICE IMITATING GENERAL GEORGE PATTON: I can’t hear you.
PRIVATE: [louder] Sir, no Judy Garland gear, sir.
VOICE IMITATING GENERAL GEORGE PATTON: Sound off like you had a pair, maggot.
PRIVATE: [shouting] Sir, all steers, no queers, sir.

Right.  Self-esteem and dignity.  Bought the usual way those things are bought among Don Imus’ kind…by stripping the self-esteem and dignity away from someone else.  I’m sure many gay kids have had a simply wonderful time in the closets at the Imus Ranch.  You know how it is…play along to get along?  Self-esteem.  Dignity.  Kids.  Needy Kids.

by Bruce | Link | React!


What Digby Said…

What Digby said…  See…what you need to paying attention to in the story about Imus…isn’t what Imus did…

As the media elite and various political insiders continue to behave as if they’ve just been hit over the head with a cudgel on this Imus matter, perhaps they should wake up and recognize that there have been people out there noticing the raw hypocrisy among this Imus Elite for years. And this does not just come from the more recent bloviating by scruffy bloggers in their deplorable "efficiency" apartments…

Hey man…don’t fuck with Vinny…

There have always been a handful of columnists and journalists who got it. And no one got it better than the late Lars Erik Nelson:

. . . 

Washington Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) came to the Senate floor with a look of sad concern on his face. He was deeply troubled, he said, at the vulgar, morally repugnant content of the new TV season. "We are lowering the standards of what is acceptable in our society and we are sending a message to our children," he said. He denounced an "acceptance of rude language, foul imagery and gross behavior in the entertainment mainstream."

Then, warning parents who might be watching on C-SPAN to move their little children away from the TV sets, Lieberman cited a few of the outrages: On ABC’s "Wilde Again," a character asks to be called "Daddy’s little whore." Another ABC program showed an upraised middle finger. CBS’ "Bless This House" used the phrase "little hooters" in reference to a girl’s breasts. "Profoundly disturbing," Lieberman intoned. "Sophomoric."

Funny thing: The previous morning, Lieberman had been a guest, as is his regular custom, on the Don Imus radio show on WFAN…

And as it turns out, there were a lot of other self righteous congressional scolds stopping by the Imus show back then.  Democrats and republicans, chasing the vote in Imus’ young white male demographic.  And did our mainstream news media ever bother to point out the hypocrisy of politicians bellyaching about the decay of television entertainment while appearing regularly on one of talk radio’s biggest cesspools?  Oh grow up.

There’s a phrase you hear now and then in political campaigning…Dog Whistle Politics.  It’s the art of using certain words and catch phrases that a specifically targeted audience will hear and respond to, while going over the heads of most of the rest of the audience as a whole.  The republicans, and in particular the Bush team, are masters of the dog whistle.  A good example of it was when Bush said that the Iraq war would "look just like a comma" to future historians.  It raised a lot of hackles that Bush would trivialize a war that had killed so many, wounded so many and was still killing and wounding.  But as Ian Welsh pointed out in The Agonist, it was a dog whistle to his hard core religious right base, recalling the proverb "Never put a period where God has put a comma."

It may be hard to think of Imus as a kind of dog whistle, but bear with me.  The audience that Lieberman and all the others were trying to appeal to when they went on their crusade for TV decency wouldn’t be caught dead tuning into Don Imus cesspool, even out of curiosity.  That kind of thing just disgusts the hell out of them.  So all the voters who would have been nodding their heads approvingly while Lieberman and other politicians were puffing themselves up condemning all the tits and ass on prime time TV, wouldn’t be regular listeners to Imus anyway.  The only people who would have known the extent of their hypocrisy, because they’d seen it with their own two eyes, were the news media talking heads who were also Imus regulars…and they kept their mouths shut too because they had books to sell on his show.  So the politicians get to troll Imus for votes among that hard to reach resentful young white male demographic at the same time they’re trolling for votes among the shocked middle class soccer mom demographic.

And now the lot of them are all looking like they’ve just been caught in a police raid on a whorehouse. 

By all means, Lieberman, Bradley, Dole and the rest should go on Imus. But if they do, spare us the sanctimonious sermons about the vulgarity of modern broadcasting.

They never stopped. in fact three years later Lieberman took to the floor of the Senate and "helped" Bill Clinton by saying to the whole world that he was immoral. All of these moral scolds, but most especially Lieberman, are rank hypocrites.

I do not want to hear another word from these people about civility, rudeness and the decline of the discourse. And I certainly don’t want to hear any more BS about blogging ethics and good manners on the internet from any of them. For more than a decade we had to endure lectures from many of these people about "values" and more recently we’ve had to listen to them call for the smelling salts over the degradation of the public square from the barbaric polloi. Yet throughout they loved to hang around with that overgrown adolescent and let him sell their books for him when he wasn’t cruelly disparaging everything in his sights, including them. If those are the decent values Joe Lieberman has been braying about incessantly for the last decade, he certainly got what what he was looking for.

This has been another edition of What Digby Said… 

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 12th, 2007

Achievement…Bush Family Style

Florida Legislature Forces University To Idolize Jeb Bush

Two weeks ago, the University of Florida voted to deny Jeb Bush an honorary degree. By a 38-28 vote, the faculty Senate rejected the former governor’s nomination, citing concerns about some of Bush’s education initiatives, including his dismantling of affirmative action programs in the state:

In higher education circles, Bush’s greatest criticism came over his “One Florida” plan, which ended race-based admissions in state universities. Black enrollment dropped at UF and statewide after the change took effect, as critics predicted.

Bush’s policies of “rewarding and punishing schools according to students’ standardized test results and using vouchers to send certain students to private schools at public expense” also contributed to the rejection of his nomination.

Upset by this lack of Jeb Bush adoration, the conservative-controlled House Schools & Learning Council voted yesterday to force the university to rename its education school the “Jeb Bush College of Education.”

Over the faculty’s opposition, the school will now have “to erect ‘suitable markers‘ noting the college’s new name and include the revised name in all university documents, including catalogues and brochures.” The lawmakers acknowledge they “came up with the idea as an answer” to the faculty’s denial of Bush’s honorary degree.

I’m surprised they didn’t make them give Jeb a few more college degrees while they were at it…maybe a PhD in Advanced Physics or Computer Science or something.  This may all seem like the same old, same old and yes it is, but look at it: a group of conservative lawmakers decided to force an institute of higher education to give someone recognition in the field of education that they had not earned from that institution.  Yes, yes…often that only amounts to giving them piles of money…but at least the giving of money to a college or university makes it possible for that institution to continue to do its job.  Jeb acted to deny minority students an education and drain the public schools of money they desperately need to educate kids, our nation’s future…voted to in other words, make the world poorer then it was before he took office, and he and his Conservative cronies expected that institution to give him accolades anyway.  And when they didn’t, they forced them to.  Next time you hear a conservative yap, yap, yapping about how people have to earn their place in this world, and that liberals are always giving people stuff they haven’t earned and don’t deserve…laugh in their face.

by Bruce | Link | React!


A Talking Head’s Life Is Oh So Hard…

You’re going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I’m up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years
Brian Williams, anchor of the NBC Nightly News, speaking before New York University journalism students.

Hey man, don’t fuck with Vinny…

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 11th, 2007

Solidarity Tom…Solidarity…

From No More Mister Nice Blog…

IMUS AND "THE BLACK BEATLES"

I don’t know when this aired, and I’ve never seen it on any list of Imus’s racist bits, but it’s pretty awful.

You can listen to it at the link here, and also here and here.

Transcript:

IMUS: Some of you may know, who listen to the Imus in the Morning program on a regular basis, there is a new group being formed called the Black Beatles.

BLACK BEATLES MEMBER (in a stereotypical black accent): That’s right, Don. My name is Tyrone McCartney…

IMUS: Uh-huh.

TYRONE McCARTNEY: … bass player for the fabulous Black Beatles, and me and my friends Leroy Lennon, George Jellybean Darnell Rashad Mustafa Muhammad Harrison, and Bingo Starr, we have a new album out of our very famous #1 hits called Beat the Meatles.

IMUS: What’s that?

TYRONE McCARTNEY: Beat the Meatles. We wanted y’all to get it ’cause it’s got some of our famous #1 hits, like this one: (singing) "When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary come to me and speak those woids of wisdom, ‘What it be.’"

And how ’bout this one? (singing) "I shoulda known better with a bitch like you." "Jo Jo was a man who only had three inches, but he knew it wouldn’t last, Jo Jo never had much luck with all the bitches, but I said, ‘Hey, Jo, get black. Get black, get black, get black and watch your johnson grow.’" "Lucy in the sky with a lot of jewelry on." "Strawberry-flavored malt liquor." "Here come my son, he play football. Here come my son, and I say, ‘He bad.’" "I’m back on the old FDR." "Yesterday, my parole came through just yesterday." "Hey dude, lend me a dollar." "I can play center, I can play forward, I be six foot four."

And, of course, my personal favorite: (singing) "We all live in a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville. And my friends is all aboard, many more of them is in the trunk, vinyl tires with wire wheels, in my yellow Coupe de Ville."

Swell.  Just swell.

IMUS: A lot of friends of mine called, but I didn’t want to put up — put anybody on this morning who wasn’t scheduled, because I can make my own case, and it is what it is.

OLIPHANT: But to me, that only means that those of us who, through an accident, were scheduled, who know better, have a moral obligation to stand up and say to you, "Solidarity forever, pal."

Right Tom.  "We all live in a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville. 

by Bruce | Link | React!


Solidarity With What Mr. Oliphant…?

Via Brad DeLong…  Here’s one another black female target of Imus’ good ‘ol boy humor has to say

Trash Talk Radio – New York Times: LET’S say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather. The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.

The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before. I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton. Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program. It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me. It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well. So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field. Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

I’m old enough to remember when it was merely taken for granted that white males had the right to piss on everyone who wasn’t white and male.  That was in addition to having the right to piss on everyone who Was white and male and below them on the economic ladder.  Ever wonder why poor whites consistently vote republican against their better economic interests, especially in certain parts of this country?  It’s because racism gives them status, even over well-off people of color.  Without racism they’re just another face on the bottom of the pile.  The resentment these people feel, and have felt ever since the black civil rights movement began tearing down the walls of race segregation in America, are enormous and run very, very deep.  They feel as though they’ve lost their place, their status, Their Manhood, in a country that was once theirs…them and the rich white men holding them and everyone else down on the economic ladder.  Rich white men like Don Imus…but more to the point, his producers…the people that make his radio and TV platform possible with their money, and their radio and TV networks.

They give Imus his platform to play his Good ‘Ol Boy shtick, knowing full well who it plays to, knowing full well it allows that audience to imagine itself as part of the same privileged class as the rich white guys who own the airwaves.  They’d be escorted quickly to the door by well dressed butlers wearing gloves so as not to get their hands dirty if they ever showed up in any of the exclusive clubs and playgrounds the people who pay for Imus’ broadcasts enjoy.  But for a few moments listening to him going through his crude, racist, bigoted Good ‘Ol Boy patter routine, they can imagine that they’re all comrades in arms, all sharing the same bitter resentments toward the uppity darkies, women, and faggots who used to know their place.

So it’s spectacularly unsurprising to see the simple, straightforward reflex of Imus and his crew to spit in the faces of a group of young black girls who had succeeded where nobody thought they would.  That’s What They’re On The Radio For.  This gutter crawling racism on Imus’ part isn’t anything new…nor is it anything particularly out of place on Talk Radio.  That’s why talk radio has the large audience it does.

And that large audience, is why Talk Radio’s big names are held in high regard by the guardians of mainstream media opinion…why Rush Limbaugh and Imus and others of their kind can command the respect of the mainstream news media and its pundocracy, even as that pundocracy wags, wags, wags its finger at bloggers…well…progressive bloggers anyway…for being such an uncouth, uncivilized rabble.  There’s no double standard here.  No hypocrisy.  The moral standard is, as always, money.  How many of copies of our books can you sell? 

Thus we have the squeaky clean mild mannered Wally Cox of the pundocracy, Tom Oliphant, rising his fist in solidarity with comrade Imus

OLIPHANT: What I thought would be instructive for people is to go back on the tape to a minute or so before this happens and see if you can see it developing. Now, believe me, as you well know, I don’t know beans about hip-hop culture or trash-talking, or what do you call those things where you run on forever? Riffs, or whatever.

But even I could see the beginning of what appeared to me to be a riff. And the train went off the tracks, which, you know, can happen to anybody. And, of course, what counts when the train goes off the tracks is what you then do. And that’s why I, you know, didn’t have a moment’s hesitation talking to this guy from The New York Times yesterday. Of course I didn’t think about reacting like that because I saw the whole episode in context, including your statements about it.

No Tom…the train didn’t go off the tracks.  It arrived at it’s destination on time, and on schedule.  And…oh look…you’re heading for that same destination too, aren’t you..?  

IMUS: A lot of friends of mine called, but I didn’t want to put up — put anybody on this morning who wasn’t scheduled, because I can make my own case, and it is what it is.

OLIPHANT: But to me, that only means that those of us who, through an accident, were scheduled, who know better, have a moral obligation to stand up and say to you, "Solidarity forever, pal."

Solidarity Forever…

IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between — a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women’s final.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night — seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and —

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

Solidarity Forever…

IMUS: That’s some nappy-headed hos there. I’m gonna tell you that now, man, that’s some — woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like — kinda like — I don’t know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

Solidarity Forever…

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes — that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough —

McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Solidarity Forever…

IMUS: I don’t know if I’d have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

IMUS: Well, I guess, yeah.

RUFFINO: Only tougher.

McGUIRK: The [Memphis] Grizzlies would be more appropriate.

Solidarity Forever…

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

Welcome to the gutter Tom.  I hear book sales are pretty brisk once you get that initial sale of your soul taken care of…

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 10th, 2007

What Digby Said

I’m going to steal this shtick from Atrios, but I don’t think he’ll mind…

So I make myself some coffee and open my dead tree version of the NY Times this morning only to see a call for blogger ethics on the front page. How interesting. Another call for "managed civil speech" (which is claimed to be "freer" than unfettered free speech.) There was no word on who would be the managers of such speech, but I think we can count on those who call for it to be the ones who feel they are most qualified to define and enforce it. (Apparently, this will all be done "voluntarily" and will be dealt with through purges and link boycotts and the novel concept of moderated comment sections. Or something.)

Meanwhile, on the media page is a story about the execrable Don Imus and the fact that he routinely makes racist, misogynistic and eliminationist jokes on his show while half the Washington press corps spends time there kissing his ring. For some reason that kind of "incivility" doesn’t upset the journalistic prima donnas half as much as the uncivil blogosphere does.

So what’s up with this? The blogosphere is admittedly an uncivil place. Nobody disputes that. But it is comprised of a bunch of disparate individuals who are arguing amongst themselves with varying degress of seriousness and talent as part of the national (and international) dialog. There is a corner of it that is despicable and revolting, as the misogyny that set off this latest debate clearly demonstrates. But for inexplicable reasons it’s the liberal blogosphere that is being particularly attacked for our alleged incivility by the mainstream media. (I suspect it’s the fact that we drop the "F" bomb too much, which is simply shocking in American life)

However, for almost two decades now, talk radio has been spewing vile racist, misogynistic and eliminationst spew — and their stars have been feted and petted for it among the highest levels of the capital cognoscenti. I don’t know for sure why that would be, but I have my suspicions.

Go Read the whole thing…  

This has been another edition of What Digby Said… 

by Bruce | Link | React!


The News Media And The American Gutter

Via Atrios…via Digby…  Okay…Now I understand why that gutter crawling bigot Don Imus is so popular among the Washington Beltway glitterati.  I was always puzzled by that, always kept wondering how many times that babbling bar stool bigot would have to go over the line before someone finally booted his ass off the radio.  Yet every time I look in his direction I see that he’s just gotten bigger, and Even More respected.  What the fuck was it about this low-life crank’s power to attract big names onto his show?  Now I know.  His blessing on their books directly translates into book sales…

I can’t help but be reminded of the Imus profile of a year ago in Vanity Fair (not online, unfortunately) in which his psychotic freakshow was fully revealed. I’m sure all these disgusting sycophants read it. After all, it featured them in starring roles — being insulted by Don Imus:

"They don’t make good decisions," he says of MSNBC and its programming. "You can’t make idiotic decisions like (hiring hosts) Tucker Carlson and Ron Reagan." Of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, he says: "He’s a twit. He’s a pussy." This is in the same spirit as an earlier comment on Senate majority leader Bill Frist ("a fucking criminal"). Similarly, when he looks up from his circular desk at a television monitor during a commercial break and sees Chris Matthews, the host of Hardball, silently nattering away, he says, "There’s that idiot," to no one in particular.

It makes you wonder why they continue to appear on his show and are making complete fools of themselves today assuring everyone that Imus is a "good man."This might explain it:

I can feel the high of becoming part of his incestuous circle of regulars-the media elite who have entree with the I-Man and have never seemed troubled, at least publicly troubled as far as I can tell, by the show’s forays over the years into homophobia and crudeness and sexism. I like this idea of being right in there with columnists Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich of The New York Times and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory and Tim Russert (husband of Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth), all Imus regulars. I wonder if there’s some secret media-elite handshake I need to learn, just so I can hear the jubilant sound of the cash register ringing when it comes time to sell my next book, because nobody (with the clear exception of Oprah) sells a book better than Imus.

He likes that power, enjoys going on Amazon to see just how much he can boost a book. During the week I’m there, he has Larry the Cable Guy on as a guest-Larry has just written a book called Git-r-Done. Before the show, according to Imus, the book was about 1,800 on the Amazon list. But when he checks on the Internet just after the show, it’s No. 122.

I wonder if the media elite’s failure to seriously take Imus to task for anything is due to a fear that their book-promotion pipeline will be cut off if they rub him the wrong way. In a 1998 New Yorker piece, Ken Auletta drew up a list, confirmed by Imus, of more than a dozen high-profile journalists who made contributions to the Imus Ranch. It’s hard to quibble with donations to a worthy cause. As George Stephanopoulos said on the air to Imus in 1998, with his book on the White House still in the works, "I’m not too proud to suck up for a good cause. So count me in for $5,000 on the ranch!"

I wonder what I would have done, had I been an Imus regular with a book to sell, when the previous sports announcer for the show, Sid Rosenberg, said on the air last May of a female entertainer who had been diagnosed with breast cancer, "Ain’t gonna be so beautiful when the bitch got a bald head and one titty." I wonder how I would have reacted to the cackling of various members of Imus’s ensemble over the next minute or so to Rosenberg’s remarks, as well as Imus’s own hardly outraged response: "There’s a reason I fire you about every six weeks." He did get fired from the show, and Imus distanced himself from what Rosenberg had said. He says the remarks were "horrible," but there seemed to be something disingenuous about Imus’s repudiation-complete bullshit, as he might put it-given that Rosenberg had already distinguished himself on the show in 2001 by calling tennis player Venus Williams an "animal" and noting that she and her sister, Serena, had a better chance of posing nude for National Geographic than Playboy. I wonder what I would have done had I been in the audience the night Imus made his crude and unfunny remarks about President Clinton and his wife. Would I have said, That’s it, never again. Or would I have been like Cokie Roberts of ABC television, who called Imus’s remarks "profoundly rude," vowed never to go back on the show, and then did several years later when the opportunity arose to push her new book, We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters.

It’s as if they believe we can’t read or are too stupid to figure out what they are doing. I read Vanity Fair. I hear his disgusting show and hear them on it, kissing up to him like he’s some sort of oracle instead of a spoiled, petulant bully with an incoherent worldview. And I also listen to their complaints about the vituperation on the internet, how the bloggers — especially the "angry left" — are horrible people who treat them disrespectfully. And I have to laugh because I know that Don Imus can call them and their colleagues twits and pussies in Vanity Fair and they come back licking his boots, begging for more. And we know why.

They have earned their reputation — even some of the good ones, the ones who write things I like. When you sell your personal integrity for money to a racist scumbag like Don Imus, you have to expect that people are not going to treat you with a lot of respect.

Well that about sums up the history of the mainstream news media ever since Reagan, doesn’t it?  They followed the big money into the gutter.  They followed the big money into the gutter.  And they’ve been busy trying to drag their country into the gutter along with them ever since, so they won’t have to know that they’re not living on main street anymore, but in the gutter.

by Bruce | Link | React!

April 9th, 2007

I Got Just One Life…

Another good song, for those days when old friends tell you to go back into the closet. This is The Travelling Wilburys version…

I’ve discovered that YouTube is a pretty good place to find all those good songs that iTunes still isn’t selling. I wonder how long That’s going to last…

Well I know whats right, I got just one life…In a world that keeps on pushin me around…But Ill stand my ground and I wont back down

by Bruce | Link | React!

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