Sunday Funnies & Arts

Whew! What a great week for cartoonists! As always, click to enlarge...

Shutter Island. D: Martin Scorsese. Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Michelle Williams, Ted Levene. Much ado about very little. A famous director and a talented cast of thousands lumber through an atmospheric, overwritten thriller that lacks credibility, pacing, and -- for that matter -- much suspense. Scorsese has constructed a gaudy train of manicured hospital grounds disguising brutal prison cells and barbarous medical practices, but it's continually derailed by distracting ruminations on atrocity, medical ethics, memory and reality, and paranoia. All fit subjects for a film, but Scorsese continually halts the narrative so that characters can debate these issues: In terms of Show v. Tell, he excels at telling but winds up showing very little. The result is a disjointed film that struggles at critical points to attain the suspension of disbelief so critical to a successful thriller.

Shutter Island starts promisingly enough. In the days following World War II, federal marshals DiCaprio and Ruffalo ferry across Boston Harbor and out to sea on their way to Shutter Island, the home of a hospital for the criminally insane. Battling seasickness, Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) makes his way from the head through a cabin outfitted with enough dangling handcuffs to be a set in an X-rated film about a bondage orgy. Emerging on deck, he reviews the mission with new partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo): Once at Shutter Island, they are to recapturing an escaped prisoner who drowned her three children. Why two federal marshals are dispatched to capture a escaped state prisoner on an island is not explained.

Once on the island, the pair are forced to surrender their weapons. They meet with uncooperative chief psychiatrist Dr. Cawley (a somewhat bored Kingsley) who offers little in the way of help. After some token and fruitless searching, they decide to leave Shutter Island and let someone else worry about the escapee. At that point, a hurricane -- which no one seems to have known was coming -- a hurricane strikes, stranding them on the island. With nothing better to do, they intensify the search and discover that all is not well on Shutter Island.

For one thing, who is prisoner 67? And what about the mysterious Cell Block #3, a cold, gray building peering down on the rest of the complex? When Dr. Naehring (von Sydow), an unrepentant Nazi who looks like a cartoon version of a mad scientist, hovers ominously defending the practice of lobotomizing prisoners who won't respond to other treatments, we suddenly have a good idea of who is in #3. Then, Daniels discovers evidence of the presence of a prisoner that he thought had released and slowly comes to believe that the escaped woman might not exist at all. Moreover, images of his late wife continually interrupt him. This might all be fine were it not for all of the ethical chatter and irrelevant scenes, including a concentration camp flashback that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

A word about Leonardo DiCaprio. He has emerged from the vicissitudes of promising child stardom and teeny-bopper adulation to become a fine adult actor. His turn in The Departed was brilliant, the tension written on his face was so palpable that one thought he was wired to explode like a suicide bomber. He was solid in the well-meaning Blood Diamond and fine in The Aviator (one of the weirdest, most pointless films made by a major director). But with the exception of The Departed, the adult DiCaprio is invariably better than the film he is in. Let's hope that he gets better vehicles in the future.

Well, if you didn't mind that digression, maybe you'll like Shutter Island better than I did. And the movie isn't bad: In addition to DiCaprio's performance, Clarkson, Haley, and Levine all deliver fine cameos. Scorsese creates a claustrophobic atmosphere, there are many good separate scenes, and the flashbacks with Daniel's late wife (Williams) are for the most part compelling. But no matter how well made it might be, Shutter Island can't escape its talkiness, length, narrative flaws, and the feeling that an awful lot of talent and ability has gone into the creation of a bauble. It's a beautiful train that can't get up a head of steam and winds up stopping at a ghost town...

St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, 631 State Street. Scroll down for more terrific NOLA snapshots...

God save the human cannonball (1925). Extra points to anyone who get that reference!...

People are strange, and some of the strangest shop at Wal-Mart. This one must be a Seattle elementary school teacher on her way home from work, or at least would be if yesterday's letter writer had her way...

Bob Dylan sings Johnny Cash's "Train of Love" (thanks, S&C):

Bob Dylan-Train of Love
by rappa1

Just Do It

The time has come. Democrats have gone too far to turn back. Their Congressional leaders must choose from among two options obtain approval from the House for the Senate bill as it is, then return it to the Senate for approval via the reconciliation process. While I would like a reconciliation bill to include a robust public option (and have written both of my senators urging them to support this), long-time public option champion Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) believes that this is simply not realistic at this time. The West Virginia Democrat has been a reliable progressive for years, so his view merits more serious consideration than that of a hack like Ben Nelson ("D"-NE) or Holy Joe Lieberman (I for Idiot-CN).

Republicans will howl about reconciliation as an abuse of process, but that's only because it will foil their own Satanic plans. They'll claim that reconciliation was never intended for something like health care reform, as if they've never applied the rules creatively themselves. And when it comes to abuse, they've abused the filibuster relentlessly, applying it in record numbers to even uncontroversial mid-level appointments. If reconciliation is abuse -- and I don't see how it can be when the bill has already passed the Senate with 60 votes -- well, it's past time to fight fire with fire.

Republicans will also claim that the health care bill is "too big" to not be returned to the Senate, where they will not give it the up or down vote that they held so sacred back when George Bush attempted to change the nature of American jurisprudence by appointing right-wing judges to every court vacancy. If that deserved an up or down vote, than so does health care reform. But since the Republicans will use Senate rules (and, as I said, it's fine and dandy when they abuse the rules) to prevent a majority vote, Democrats have little choice but to turn to reconciliation. Besides, as Paul Krugman points out here, the Bush tax cuts went through reconciliation and they were twice the cost of the health care bill...

This is a terrible, tragic story. Pathetically, it will engender more foolish noisemaking like this, from someone who wants to turn our schools into armed camps:

An article in The Times seems to imply that Sen. Pam Roach made an outrageous statement by saying that there would be fewer school shootings if teachers were allowed to carry concealed weapons [“State Sen. Pam Roach is anything but boring,” page one. Feb. 21].

But Pam is right! She deserves much credit for clear, honest reasoning. Think back to the Columbine teacher who was killed while trying to shield students with his own body. The outcome of that encounter would most likely have been much different had he been armed and therefore able to stop the shooters quickly, before they had a chance to kill so many helpless kids.

We all know — or should know — that criminals don’t care if they break the law and that they will bring firearms into schools any time they want to do so. On the other hand, reputable people obey the law. We therefore leave our children completely unprotected when we ban firearms in schools. They and their teachers are victims-in-waiting — no matter how fast the police arrive. Arm our teachers — those who have the courage and willingness to protect the children in their care.

Sigh.

Just walkin' in the rain, so alone and blue...

OK, the Allman Brothers Band:

You Can't Say He Didn't Try

Who "won" yesterday's health care summit depends on your politics. Having said that, the shot of Pompous John Boner looking like someone had stuffed a habanero pepper up his rear end said something about President Obama's performance.

Once again, I was impressed with the president's ability to dominate a room and control a debate with aplomb, reasonableness, and a calm command of the facts. He, with help from Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, dismantled Republican claims about their "plan" with the ease of Roger Federer putting away a slam. Obama pointed out the flaws in standalone legislation to allow the unregulated sale of health insurance across state lines, convincingly making the argument that it would be a race to the bottom, where the bottom is outrageous rate increases. With Sebelius, he explained the problems with high risk pools (see yesterday's post); Illinois Senator Dick Durbin was especially eloquent showing why tort reform as the Republicans envision takes a justice-denying chainsaw to an issue that requires a scalpel. And time and again, the president exposed out the central weakness of the Republican plan: It really wouldn't cover anybody.

More to the point, though, Republican intransigence was on full display. In a feat of political ju jitsu, Obama used their weight against them. In his closing remarks, he made two key points:

1. Although there were areas of agreement, the disagreements were such that the gap couldn't be crossed.
2. Obama expressed it diplomatically, but made it clear that Democrats simply didn't trust Republicans to actually work in good faith on a new bipartisan bill.

Many Democratic politicians have complained about Obama's leadership. Well, he did the heavy lifting yesterday and established the political cover necessary for them to put this bill through the reconciliation process. Now it's up to them...

If the bill is going to go through the reconciliation process, why not add a robust public option and tell Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, Holy Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson to take a hike? They've caused more damage to the cause of health care reform than the Republicans, and their votes won't be needed. Join me in writing to your representative and senators...

Right wing blog commentors are beside themselves talking about Obama's "arrogance." He really gets under their skin. It's quite gratifying...

God damn it: Tryin' to make it real compared to what?!



One misses Benny Bailey's explosive trumpet solo from the original recording, but this is a fine performance nonetheless. Les McCann's Swiss Movement, which featured this famous track, was my first jazz album. I bought it way back when I was in high school, much too long ago...

What Are The Republicans For, Anyway?

Pompous John Boehner drives me absolutely nuts. He's incapable of speaking beyond Republican talking points and is an incurable fearmonger. Listening to Pompous John is like hearing fingernails dragged slowly down a blackboard (remember those?). It's beyond me how Obama manages to keep a civil tongue when talking to the man...

Sen. Lamar Alexander put forth the Republican case for health care reform:

• medical malpractice reform
• high-risk insurance pools
• a way for Americans to shop out-of-state for insurance plans
• expansion of health savings accounts

The problem is that implementing all of these will provide insurance to few if any people who don't have it (the CBO estimate is 3,000,ooo people, which isn't very many) and won't make a dent in the costs of health care.

Essentially, it's a nod to the interest groups that fund Republicans. They've long supported malpractice reform as if meaningless lawsuits were clogging the courts and making it impossible for doctors to practice. The problem is that malpractice lawsuit settlements comprise a miniscule amount of the dollars spent on health care, and that wherever it's been tried (Texas, for example), it hasn't had much of an impact other than denying a full measure of justice to some people.

Former Kansas Insurance Commissioner and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius pointed out that many states already have high-risk pools. What happens, Sebelius said, is that the pools herd the very ill into one place where the insurance rates are so high that they place a great burden on the state providing the pool.

Allowing Americans to purchase insurance out-of-state sounds great. Won't it offer great choice and competition that will push rates down? It turns out that what it will do is allow insurance providers to sell their policies from states that don't regulate insurance, meaning that they can raise rates at will while limiting coverage to their hearts content. You know that 39% rate increase requested by a California health insurance company? Let insurers sell across state lines and that will be just the beginning. Boehner claims that this legislation won't require federal regulation, that the "American people" can take care of themselves.

As for the expansion of health savings accounts, I know of no one who opposes it. I also know that we've had them for over six years and that the number of uninsured has gone up...

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) just finished lambasting tort reform with passion and eloquence. I hope someone puts it up on YouTube soon. He's now tearing into the double standard caused by politicians who would deny the same coverage they have to the uninsured...

Obama just made the key point: The Republican plan, whatever its merits, will cover 3,000,000 people. The Democratic plan will cover 30,000,000. Do we as a society, he asked, think it's important to cover all of our people as does every Western nation? If we do, then we have to pay for it...

Who is the Republican idiot blathering about Etch-A-Sketch?...

Same idiot raised the welfare specter. Obama neatly traps him by pointing that the very poor are covered through Medicaid, that it's working people who don't have health insurance. Not that poor people don't work. Jesse Jackson put it far better than I ever could:

Most poor children are neither black nor brown, they're white and they're female. Most poor people are not on welfare, they work every day. They work in fast-food restaurants, they clean hotels, they drive cabs, they do their labor in the dark, they're aides and orderlies in hospitals, they're cooks and janitors at schools, they keep other people's children, and ultimately cannot afford to take care of their own. Often they work in the football and basketball stadiums, selling the soft drinks and refreshments. But they are without health insurance. And they get sick too...

Extreme right-wing Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) claims that tort reform has worked in Texas, the state with the highest number of uninsured and home of the second-most expensive health care market in the country...

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) makes the correct point that incremental reform will not work because by its nature it can't possibly broaden the pool of insured. At some point, he says, we have to take a big step...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just argued for scrapping the bill and starting over. Mitch, here's the problem with that: (1) You and your crew will never agree to anything that falls outside of your narrow right-wing ideological limits; (2) I don't believe you. That's right: You and John Boehner and Eric Cantor and every other Republican are lying when you say you'll start over. You are not making the assertion in good faith. If for no other reason, that's why I'm for reconciliation...

Doctor and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) says that the key goal is to realign purchase with payment. Now there's a campaign slogan...

Health Care Summit Notes

I started watching toward the end of the morning session, so I can't comment on the first part. Notes from what I did see:

• Obama has an excellent command of the issue and caustic sense of humor ("Let me guess: That's the 2400-page bill.").
• I'm so glad that John McCain isn't president.
• How did Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) rise so high in the Republican party? He's barely coherent
• Kathleen Sebelius is sharp.
• Obama keeps using the summit as an opportunity for education. He's good at explaining the nuances, but does anybody want to hear?
• Republican plaints that they want health care reform but not mandates might not make sense but it could be good politics.
• Cantor keeps arguing that the government shouldn't define what standard health care benefits are. Unfortunately, the response has been technical rather rhetorical, meaning that someone ought to point out that right now it's the insurance companies that define benefits.
• Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, commenting on MSBC, just took Obama to task for not negotiating with Republicans. But they're the ones who have said at every turn this morning that the philosophical differences are too far apart to negotiate. Pence repeated the Republican mantra that the current bill must be scrapped and the process started anew (which of course they are too disingenuous to admit means killing health care reform). Pence also claimed that Obama didn't show Republicans respect, as if they've shown him any.
  
• Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) made an impassioned case for legislation that makes it illegal to not offer coverage because of preexisting conditions. Everyone, including Republicans, agree, but what the R's won't admit is that this requires a general mandate...

Texas Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), commenting on MSNBC, just accused the president of making a secret deal with "Pharma." Cornyn has received over $800,000.00 in campaign contributions from "Health Professionals," which is essentially the American Medical Association. Whatever they're paying Cornyn to support, you can bet that it isn't health care reform. He has consistently opposed expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a woman's right to choose, and -- with votes that must please "Pharma" -- negotiation of bulkmdrug purchases by Medicare. Cornyn even opposed legislation to combat AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, a bill that passed the Senate by an 80-16 vote. He has, however, supported so-called tort reform at every turn...

Commentator Chris Matthews says that it's up to the Democratic party to pass health care reform, noting that with the odd exception of Richard Nixon, Republicans historically have had no interest in health care expansion...

Tuesday Rant

Good tidings from Connecticut: A Quinnpiac poll shows Holy Joe Lieberman so far behind that if things don't change quickly, his 2012 reelection is a "lost cause." As if to make amends for his many transgressions, Holy Joe wants to lead the Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal bandwagon and bully for him. But any senator from Connecticut could do that without risk. Much better to dump the guy who also helped lead the Iraq war bandwagon, the McCain bandwagon, and the health care reform assassination bandwagon.

My dislike of Holy Joe goes back to this magic moment in the annals of sanctimony:



The man is a goiter, a malignant tumor on the face of the body politic. His pettiness, hypocrisy, egotism, and self-righteousness deface everything they near. Moreover, Lieberman regularly betrays his party and constituency for a few pieces of corporate silver from the defense, pharmaceutical, finance, and insurance, industries. Not unusual, perhaps, but he makes a point of explaining his votes as matters of conscience and independence as if he weren't in the back pockets of the usual suspects. 2012 can't come fast enough...

"Progressivism is the cancer in America and its eating our Constitution." So says Glen Beck, who also argues that progressivism must be "eradicated." As Jonathan Alter points out, this means that Beck believes that -- among other things -- women are second-class citizens, opposes technological advance and economic growth, and thinks that old people should eat cat food and die without complaint when they get sick. And that's just the 20th Century: Go back a few more and he'd probably come out for Jim Crow, oppose abolition, and stand tall against the American Revolution...

OK, you've starved the beast. Now what?...

Along Franklin Ave...

Give me a reason to walk the line:

Many who did not see, feel, hear and taste the blood believe it should be so easy to wrap their head around, as if we could just send in a Mythic Disaster Manager and save a little girl, your mominem's little girl, I saw laying face down in the sunrise over a bloody Holy Cross, dead and alone, floating in the water with her eyes down, during that first week of the Federal Flood...

Voices of Haiti's Homeless

Bill Quigley of Counterpunch has recorded the following testimony:

Jean Dora, 71

My name is Jean Dora. I was born in 1939. I live in a plaza in front of St. Pierre’s church in Petionville [outside of Port au Prince]. I am here with twelve members of my family. We all lost our home.

We have a sheet of green plastic to shade us from the sun. We put up some bed sheets around our space.

I have many small grandchildren living here with me. My son and daughters live with here too.

My daughter will soon have a child. She will go to the Red Cross tent when it is time for the baby to come.

I worked for the Chinese Embassy for 36 years. I cleaned their offices. I retired in 2007. Until the earthquake I lived in an apartment with my family. The building was destroyed.

At night we put a piece of carpet down on the ground. Then we lay covers down and try to sleep. When it rains, the water comes in.

We bring bottles to fill up with water. But we have very little food.

There is no toilet in the park. We must go behind the church.

My son used to work to support us. He is a good chef. He worked at a restaurant by the Hotel Montana. The restaurant was destroyed. He lost his job. There is no work.

During all my days, I have never seen anything like this. I am not in a good position to say what will happen next. I think things are not going to change. I hope things will get better. But I don’t think so.

My son has no job and he cannot help our family. If my son is working, we can all stand up. If he is not working, we are down.

The future is not clear. It looks dark for us.

More voices here...

Levees, levees everywhere...

Shay's Rebellion: The last battle of the American Revolution...

Everybody Does It in Hawaii

Check out the view from our hotel room!

During our week in Hawaii, I was struck by the paucity of contemporary literature and music. The literature part I understand: Despite the inspirational setting and rich history, the island chain is isolated and had no written language until missionary Hiram Bingham helped devise a spelling system for Hawaiian and translated a number of books of the Bible. For these and other reasons, Hawaii has never been able to jump start a literary tradition. As near as I can tell, the best novel of Hawaii remains James Jones From Here to Eternity (1951), set in the Army culture in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor.

Music is another matter. Traditional Hawaiian music is rich, atmospheric, and sets a high bar for musicians and singers. It's fair to say that the Hawaiian guitarists of the early 20th Century virtually invented steel guitar virtuosity.

Collections of Hawaiian music from the late 20s and 30s reveal a musical tradition at the top of its game, a vibrant traditional base soaking up jazz, blues, and country influences brought to the islands by soldiers and sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor and Schofield Barracks. The music of that period is so good and so invigorating that you can practically select a CD at random and be rewarded. I'm partial to Hawaiian Steel Guitar Classics: 1927-1938; History of Hawaiian Steel Guitar, which includes a wonderfully illustrated booklet; Legends of the Ukulele; King Bennie Nawahi, Hawaiian String Virtuoso: Acoustic Steel Guitar Classics from the 1920's; and Roy Smeck Plays Hawaiian Guitar, Banjo, Ukulele, and Guitar, 1926-1949.

Today, the passing of contemporary slack key masters like Sonny Chillingworth, Ray Kane, and Gabby Pahinui appears to be an incalculable loss. I don't claim to be an expert in Hawaiian music, but music store racks look to include a preponderance of easy listening, New Age, Jawaiian, and every Iz Kamakawiwo'ole track ever recorded. Jawaiian, an effort to blend Hawaiian vocal styles with a reggae beat, is largely a misfire: Hawaiian tenors and harmonies and laid-back lyrics simply don't mix effectively with the revolutionary rhythms of Jamaican music. It's well-intended, certainly, but nothing I've heard is interesting or memorable. Kamakawiwo'ole is an undeniable talent whose act wears as thin as he was corpulent. As for the rest, the less said the better...

I can't help falling in love with you...

Paul Krugman explains why the California death spiral awaits us all if we don't get health care right...

The great E. J. Dionne writes that Democrats better get off the defensive and soon. I have some thoughts about this that I'll be developing in future entries...

The Sunday Funnies & Arts will be back next week! In the meantime, enjoy some classic Hawaiian tunes, starting with King Bennie Nawahi and "My Girl from the South Seas" (the photographs and vintage postcards are wonderful, too):



It's Sunday and Citizen K. hasn't posted any gospel music lately. Let's make amends with the Hawaiian gospel sounds of Bob Dylan favorite Sol Hoopii:





Finally, although not traditional, but here Merle Travis leads the dogfaces of From Here to Eternity in a chorus of "Reenlistment Blues":

South Carolina Senator Supports Slavery, Opposes Women's Suffrage, and Wants to Make You Quarter Troops in Your Home

At Thursday's CPAC gathering of wingnuts, South Carolina Republican senator Jim Demented allowed that the income tax should be done away with on the legally innovative grounds that the "...Constitution, when it was signed, it did not even allow a federal income tax.”

Assuming that what is good for one amendment is good for the rest, DeMint must also favor throwing out the entire Bill of Rights, since it was not ratified until four years after the signing of the Constitution. Which means that he also opposed even the right wing's cramped definition of the right to bear arms, as that is the subject of the Second Amendment.

Similarly, he would bid a fond farewell to the protections of the First Amendment (freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition); the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery; and the Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. And how will DeMint explain to fellow reactionaries his apparent opposition to the Tenth Amendment, which states-righters would have us believe is the cornerstone of the American legal system. However, this strict, strict, strict, strict constructionist undoubtedly believes that the Three-Fifths Compromise, counted each slave as three-fifths of a person, was and is a peachy keen idea.

OK, maybe the guy got caught up in the excitement of the moment and spoke off the cuff without thinking through the implications of his remark (what a surprise that would be). Or maybe it's the media's fault -- with Republicans, it usually is. On the other hand, Jim Demint is the author of the following jewels:

A free and stable Iraq will be a shining light against the shadow of Islamic extremism.

If a person wants to be publicly gay, they should not be teaching in the public schools. [I wonder which article of the sacred pre-amended Constitution deals with gay school teachers?]

Motorists who want to save money on gas will demand and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. We should not limit their freedom with more government regulations.

Since the dawn of time, traditional marriage - the union between one man and one woman - has been the building block of civilization, and at no point in our nation's history has that foundation been under more severe attack than now.

President Bush has demonstrated tremendous courage and resolve in the past year. He has been the decisive leader these times have required.

Here, the senator from the state that lynched 156 black Americans from 1882-1968 rails against hate crime legislation as "patently offensive." In an incoherent leap of logic, DeMint connects hate crimes to "thought crimes" and warns against the imposition of an Orwellian Canadian "regime" on the United States. Really, he does.

So, were his remarks about the Constitution overheated, or was he just being Jim DeMint? You decide...

DeMint, so concerned about thought crimes, has created a committee to finance purges of politically incorrect Republicans so that voters may "have a choice of a new Republican — a real Republican" to lead them in a spirit of bold curiousity for the great adventure ahead (more, gloriously, here)...

Hawaii has employer-mandated health insurance, and guess what? It also has the lowest Medicare costs per beneficiary in the country, the second lowest premiums, the longest life expectancy, uncrowded ERs, and a much lower than average hospital admission rate. Of course, Hawaiians pay a terrible cost: Living longer and in greater security has after all cost them their freedom...

Traditional Values Are Killing Me

In this footage from a recent tea bagger meeting in Asotin, Washington, speaker Dianne Capps leads the charge for a return to traditional values by calling for the lynching of Senator Patty Murray. As a true conservative ever willing to take personal responsibility, Capps at first denied being the speaker, then fell back on the tried-and-true cowardly conservative dodge of claiming that her remarks were taken out of context by the media (except that they weren't). Signs held by crowd members included such delicate sentiments as "Geld Obama," reflecting such traditional values as, well, lynching. I couldn't tell much about the values of the speaker shown at the end of the clip because he becomes downright incoherent as his blatherdom wears on.



Did anyone else notice that most of the attendees are elderly? Just where do they think that their Social Security checks and Medicare come from? If it weren't for the federal government, they'd be living in abject poverty. Sometimes, one has to wonder just how stupid some people are...

...Speaking of which, Utah State Senator Mark Madsen (R-What Else?) has backed off a moronic proposal to save the state a few bucks by pairing a proposed holiday honoring Utah gunmaker John Browning with Martin Luther King's birthday. Blaming the media for derailing something that he clearly wanted to do, Madsen lamented not being able to first speak privately with "black leaders." I wish that he had been able to speak with them, if only to know how he could possibly have explained this one. Probably it would have gone along these lines:

I had an idea to honor an international icon and a favorite son of Utah...Both made tremendous contributions to individual freedom and individual liberty...Certainly there was a shot that killed Dr. King. [Nice of him to recognize that.] On the other hand, there's been many shots fired from Browning firearms that have saved tens of thousands -- hundreds of thousands -- of American lives. [Somehow, that apparently explains everything.]

Alas, he innocently "stumbled into racial politics" through no fault of his own and is now faced with commemorating Browning in tandem with such lesser celebrations as Labor Day, Pioneer Day ("The [LDS] Church doesn't own Pioneer Day," he helpfully explained) or Veteran's Day. So, here it is: Madsen blames a brain dead, offensive proposal that he made on the media and racial politics (read: the Utah NAACP). (This is almost as rich as the time that Texas conservatives proposed pairing MLK's birthday with Confederate Heroes Day.) What this comes down to is a desire by conservatives to diminish King's importance -- and he was arguable the great American of the 20th Century -- by diluting the observance of the memory of a man and a movement that opened the doors of political equality to every disenfranchised group in American society (undocumented immigrants excepted)...

Just Wondering Dept: How would conservatives feel about celebrating Ronald Reagan's birthday simultaneously with that of Bob Marley? I mean, they were born on the same day and Marley was an international icon who made contributions to freedom and liberty...

Let X=X...

Say what?...

Victory Fellowship...

R. I. P., Jim Bibby, a pretty fair country pitcher who tossed the Texas Rangers' first no-hitter and who was a member of the 1979 "We Are Family" World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Bibby started three games in that magical postseason to the tune of a 2.08 ERA...

I Got Big Balls

The first verse goes out to Sean Payton:

Gone to Hawaii!

Back next week!




A tour of Lahaina, with a soundtrack by the Ames Brothers:


The late, great Ray Kane sings "Ua Noho Au A Kupa":

Saints Win! Saints Win!

Jeff Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Nobody, that's who. With the Colts leading 10-6 at halftime, I told T. that I thought things lookes pretty good for the Saints even though they trailed. The Saints had made several mistakes, the Colts hadn't made any, and all the Colts had to show for it was a four point lead. Plus, the Saints had dominated the ball in the second quarter. All they had to do was batten down the hatches in the second half. Then came the onside kick to open the third quarter...All I can say is that Saints coach Sean Payton has big brass balls that clank when he walks. If the Colts recover, Peyton Manning has the ball on the New Orleans 40 and there's every reason in the world to think that the Colts will open a 17-6 lead. But the gamble worked and the rest is Super Bowl history. This may go down as the single guttiest call in the annals of the game...nola.com has complete -- and I mean complete -- coverage here...

Rasta, if the Saints can do it, so can the Bills and the Seahawks. Our day will come. In the meantime, let's let Cliff savor the moment...

Meanwhile, back in the unreal world, Sarah Palin comes out against hope, change, and law and order. Apparently, she thinks that things are fine the way they are and that people should accept their lots in life. You betcha...

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman an actual serious person, writes that the only people worried about the deficit are the ones who don't know anything about economics. It's all cynical posturing, he says, and the media has gone willingly along for the ride while

All the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there's hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price...

NPR got in hot water recently over its choice of David Horowitz to rebut Noam Chomsky's encomium of historian Howard Zinn as part of an obituary on All Things Considered. Whether one agrees with Noam Chomsky or not, he is a distinguished scholar, writer, and MIT professor with formidable reputations in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. David Horowitz is a flack whose reputation stems from self-flagellation and denunciation of the ideals of his youth. To claim that his commentary is a fair "balance" to Chomsky elevates Horowitz to Chomsky's level and lowers NPR to the level of Fox News. Couldn't they have found at least one conservative historian with actual credentials? Maybe not...

As if you needed any more evidence that the Senate is dysfunctional and that Republicans are jerks, earmark king Little Dick Shelby (R-AL) provides it here...

Sunday Funnies & Arts

As always, click to enlage...

Another one bites the dust: Austin's Cactus Cafe to close...

The Saints will finish strong...

Win or lose, New Orleans will parade for the Saints...

I have got to find the river, bergamot and vetiver...

Ten Best Picture nominees? Ten! There are home movies better than some of the films in this group. It's a capitalist plot to get people to spend more money on movies, is what it is. In 1974, one the best years in cinema history, the Academy still had to nominate Towering Inferno to round out a field of five. And I don't see anything in the 2009 list that's remotely in a class with Chinatown or The Godfather, Part II, not to mention The Conversation or Lenny...

Don't do it your way in the Philippines. And don't take any country roads in Thailand, either...

Spicy Saints Burgers + "Who Dat" Barbecue Chicken...

Third time's a charm: Mitch Landrieu is mayor of New Orleans...

The final chapter of a wonderful season...

Black-bellied whistling duck...

Photo of the week...

Photo of the week, C. 1925. You go, Aunt Helen!...

These ain't your daddy's Saints! (Thanks, Editilla)...

Is Conservatism Dumb?

One day not long after we moved to South Texas -- it must have been around 1968 -- I was out riding my Sting-Ray when I saw a bumper sticker reading "Liberalism is Anarchy." Fairly certain that I was a liberal, I mentioned what I had seen to a family friend. He had a ready response: Conservatism is dumb, he said.

By now, most of you have read about the Daily Kos poll of Republicans in which, among other things,

• 61% either agreed or were not sure that Barack Obama should be impeached
  
• 58% either believed or were not sure that Obama was born in the United States
  
• 63% think he is a socialist
  
• 57% either believe or are not sure that he "wants the terrorists to win"
  
• 76% either believe or are not sure that ACORN stole the 2008 election
  
• 86% either believe or are not sure that Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president
• 64% either believe or are not sure that Obama is a "racist who hates white people"

Some have questioned the methodology of the poll and others criticize the absence of a control group. (In other words, how would Democrats respond to similar hot button questions.) FiveThirtyEight.com had a spirited debate about the poll, with over 500 comments that eventually deteriorated into a pissing contest. Tellingly, conservative debaters danced around the questions of whether the results seemed credible and what their own positions were. (There was at least one avowed birther, and most think Obama is a socialist.) All agree that the results raise the question of whether Democrats are smarter than Republicans.

Are they? There is an always has been a yahoo, Know Nothing element in American politics. Moreover, this element is usually courted by the conservative political party of the day. Democrats are no exception: After the Civil War, they co-opted the most violent members of southern society, continued fighting the war through terror tactics, and eventually scuttled the southern Republican party. Southern Democrats disenfranchised African-Americans with Jim Crow laws and returned them to a state that many argued was no better than slavery. The media and judiciary openly supported the Democrats, and the "success" of this particular "movement" lasted for a hundred years until the Civil Rights movement eclipsed it by harnessing northern sympathy and ending the reign of Jim Crow. White southerners established the myth of Reconstruction, in which a vengeful and avaricious North brutally oppressed a beaten but noble South. This myth survived the Civil Rights movement and has only recently been challenged. So, don't think these crusades can't work.

There's no doubt in my mind that many of today's conservatives are willfully ignorant. It has always been thus; the historical antecedents are many and not hard to find. As the Reconstruction myth demonstrates, it's not hard to establish a new reality by repeating a lie often enough.

"The spark of patriotic indignation that inspired those who fought for our independence and those who marched peacefully for civil rights has ignited once again," wrote Sarah Palin of the tea baggers in USA Today. Now, this is beyond offensive. No tea bagger has put his or her life or livelihood on the line to overthrow a century of barbarous tyranny. And I'll bet that the fathers of more than one tea bagger stood on the wrong side of the bridge at Selma. And yet the leaders of these people have told themselves that they are heirs to the Civil Rights movement so often that it has become an article of faith to them. The organizations that oppose affirmative action and a woman's right to choose invoke Martin Luther King's name so readily that one barely has time to feel nauseous.

And so it goes. Barack Obama is a socialist, socialist, socialist. He's a Marxist, Marxist, Marxist. And -- just so you'll feel good about yourself -- it's him and not you who is racist, racist, racist. The Democrats are left wing, left wing, left wing. (As I told a conservative friend, would that it were so.) ACORN, ACORN, ACORN. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. These are loaded words to the yahoo contingent, and so much the better when a popular puppet like Sarah Palin delivers them. Send them out there enough times and the response will be like a recalcitrant bull goosed with a cattle prod.

Does the Daily Kos poll prove that Republicans are stupid? I don't know: I'm sure that there are plenty with high IQ's. But I don't need the KOS poll to tell me that there is a critical mass of willing minds susceptible to blunt instrument propaganda and propaganda techniques. That's no surprise, either, and extreme conservatives from time immemorial through Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh have exploited it. In short, smart conservatives are ever ready to take advantage of gullible people whose emotions, once harnessed, will in the end perpetuate the right-wing power elite.

If this movement sustains itself, the tea baggers will attend Republican precinct meetings and attempt to infiltrate the party. They might even succeed in electing a Republican president in 2012. But at the end of the day, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will still be their leaders, Sarah Palin will continue to pocket six-figure speaking fees, and corporate, pharmaceutical, and insurance interests will still control Republican policy. Same as it ever was...

I've been asking myself what it is about Barack Obama personally that elicits such virulent, pathological hatred from the wingnuts. The McCain campaign played the race care by trying mightily but unsuccessfully to paint Obama as an "other," but this tactic failed spectacularly. Plus, anti-Clinton acrimony was (and is) perhaps even more intense. Thinking about what the two men have in common, I realized that both were born to single mothers in modest circumstances and both rose above those circumstances to attend elite schools and embark on a career in politics that led the presidency. Far from being the other, both are uncomfortably like the people who hate them, at least in their origins. My take is that a powerful strain of resentment has combined with deeply rooted self-loathing to form an irrational animosity toward the two men...

The GOP's chief budget writer wants to -- surprise, surprise -- cut Medicare and privatize Social Security. He also wants to raise the retirement age and reduce Social Security benefits...

Don't miss Larry Blumenfeld's review of Ned Sublette's The Year Before the Flood. Blumenfeld connects the themes of Sublette's excellent book to the post-Katrina politics of the Crescent City in what amounts to a fascinating essay about the current state of New Orleans arts and culture...

Makin' a living the old hard way. Takin' and giving day by day. I dig snow and rain and bright sunshine. Draggin' the line...

Goldman Sucks Dept. Outside of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika, has any group ever been more arrogant and out of touch than the banking and finance barons?...

NOLA's Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison playing "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise":

Both Sides Now

A comment on Fivethirtyeight.com wondered why anyone would believe Republicans about anything anymore. I can help with that one:

1. Republicans have created a narrative that stresses personal and institutional responsibility. There's no evidence that they practice this themselves, but they've painted Democrats as profligate spenders with far left political and social values that are out of touch with the mainstream.
   
2. They've convinced people that so-called "big government" is a threat to the American way of life, diverting the dialogue from the greater threat of their corporate masters in Big Business. It doesn't help that too many Democrats are beholden to Wall Street money.
   
3. They've sold the fiction that taxes can be eternally cut at no cost to the services people value.
4. They've promoted the idea that they are tough on Communists and terrorists while liberals welcome both ashore.
5. They appeal to racial fears and anxieties.
6. They are now working hard on the story that Democrats and liberals are actively and knowingly attempting to subvert the country.

I followed with interest the comments on another blog in which most of those commenting described themselves poltically as middle-of-the-roaders who examined "both sides" before taking a stand or voting for a candidate. Some, not all by any means, adopted a faint tone of superiority. Fine, but consider that there wouldn't be two sides to consider if a significant number of people didn't adopt a conservative or liberal worldview, or that mainstream liberalism and conservatism are themselves tempered by their most progressive and reactionary forms. (Some might say doctrinaire forms.) There can't be a moderate or middle-of-the-road position without a left and right to weigh it against.

The bigger question has to do with the definitions of left and right versus the general perception of what those terms signify. Conservatives have succeeded in moving the terms of the debate so far to the right that the middle has moved, too. They can now accuse a moderate liberal like Barack Obama of being a leftist or a socialist without being called on it. It doesn't matter that any true leftist or socialist would scoff at the notion that Obama is one of them: the terrain of mainstream, establishment discourse -- the debate covered by the MSM -- is such that to many people Obama is a dangerous leftist. If you ask how it was that 70,000,000 Americans voted for a subversive, they'll start talking about a weak and liberal Republican candidate and a cult of personality that is only now being exposed. (This from the same group that idolizes Sarah Palin.)

Moreover, there is a such thing as an equality or inequality of ideas. For example, Sarah Palin has stated that schools should teach "both sides" of the evolution "debate" and let students make up their own minds. It sounds reasonable on the surface. But Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution by natural selection is bolstered by 160 years of scientific research that have validated and extended his original conclusions. Intelligent Design, by contrast, is less than ten years old and is supported by no research at all. Believe what you will, but one side requires a tremendous reliance on intuition and blind faith while the other offers over a century and a half of hard evidence.

Alternatively, you can debate faith v. reason, but setting them up as opposing sides assumes that they are mutually exclusive. Some proponents of either perspective will argue just that, but not all. When it comes to evolution, the Catholic Church, to name one, has long held that Darwin's theory is not inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. Sometimes there are more than two sides even when there are two sides.

Anyone who reads Citizen K. regularly knows that I drive down the left side of the road. I look at what conservatism has become -- an angry, divisive whirlwind devoid of reason -- and know that I don't want this country to be defined that way. I wouldn't have described conservatism in these terms fifteen years ago, but that's what it has become. I look at what conservatives did when they were in power for six years; they not only bent every principle they held, they ran the country into the ground in the bargain.

I also know that in the long struggle for economic and political equality for all, progressives have always been on the right side and conservatives have always been in opposition. In the end, I believe that the measure of a country is how thoroughly it expands economic and political opportunity for all and by how well it does by its most vulnerable people: The poor, the disenfranchised, minorities, gays, and women. We've come a long way; we have a long way to go. Rush Limbaugh would says that I hate America. To the contrary, I simply want us to live up to our great promise of liberty and justice for all, to be the best we can be.