Weekend Update - Dead Poet's Edition

• Sorry to start out this week with something so sad, but Howard Zinn, lifelong dissident and peace activist and historian, who joined many of the struggles for social justice over the past fifty years, died suddenly Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of eighty-seven. Uncle Bob and I had the pleasure of attending his lecture in Eugene several years ago.



• What happened to my bonus? What happened to my job? What happened to my country? Why can't it all go the way it's supposed to go? Mark Morford ponders why it is that everything's so awfully disappointing.



• Many Americans were more eagerly anticipating Steve Jobs’s address in San Francisco on Wednesday morning than the president’s that night because they have far more confidence in Apple than Washington to produce concrete change. Or so says Frank Rich in "The State of the Union Is Comatose."



• Maybe The Onion ultimately said it best: In this big dramatic production that didn't do anyone any good (and was pretty embarrassing, really, if you think about it), thousands upon thousands of phonies across the country mourned the death of author J.D. Salinger, who was 91 years old for crying out loud. "He had a real impact on the literary world and on millions of readers," said hot-shot English professor David Clarke, who is just like the rest of them, and even works at one of those crumby schools that rich people send their kids to so they don't have to look at them for four years. "There will never be another voice like his." Which is exactly the lousy kind of goddamn thing that people say, because really it could mean lots of things, or nothing at all even, and it's just a perfect example of why you should never tell anybody anything.



• Here's another one, probably only of interest to us local older folk. Ed Ragozzino died yesterday at age 79. Ed was, amongst other things, a very talented drama teacher at South Eugene High School in the early 60's and managed to bring out the inner actor in many of us, if for only a brief shining moment. For many of us, he was one of the most inspiring people in our lives.



• In one of the most fascinating pieces of political theater we've seen in a long while, President Obama spoke to House Republicans at their annual policy retreat last week, and made most of them look like whiney little kids. Click here. And just for fun, here's the take on all this from DailyKos.



• Glenn Beck states bravely "don't know much about history," or economics, it turns out, or anything else for that matter, but it sure doesn't stop him from vomiting misinformation all over his listeners. For example...



• Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week Award goes to James O'Keefe, that conservative "filmmaker" who posed as a pimp to target the liberal activist group ACORN. Seems he got arrested with the son of a federal prosecutor and two other men and accused of plotting to tamper with the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. Oops. Guess he's not going to be the righties equivalent of Michael Moore after all. Tsk tsk.

Weekend Update - Hangin' In There Edition

• Except in the case of Harry Reid and the U.S. Census questionnaire, use of the word Negro to describe a black person has largely fallen out of polite conversation. On the questionnaire, under "What is this person's race?" is an option that reads, "Black, African Am., or Negro." That has raised the ire of certain black activists and politicians as the Census Bureau gears up to mail out its once-a-decade questionnaires. TIME reports.


• We received the news recently of the untimely death of Air America Network. Damn shame. The Right Wing people are wetting themselves over their "victory" but it was ultimately typical liberal mismanagement that brought it all down. It was just a radio network, after all. What Righties never have understood is that we Lefties normally don't spend our time glued to our radios drooling and nodding in agreement with everything we're told by our "Ministry of Truth." Think about it. Why do they call them "Dittoheads?"


• It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006. It was not a harbinger of a resurgent G.O.P., whose numbers remain in the toilet. Brown had the good sense not to identify himself as a Republican in either his campaign advertising or his victory speech. And yet... Frank Rich comments on "After the Massachusetts Massacre."


• Overall, Armageddon has one hell of an irresistible appeal. Sexy, dirty, dangerous, liberating, stripped to the raw, bare-bones morality of it all. Total bonus: You get to eat whatever you want, because there isn't much food left, and anything you can find/pillage/kill is yours to munch, unless the scary inbred hill/sewer people get to it first. Mark Morford tells us "What To Wear to the Apocalypse."


• I told you he'd be back: Right Wing talk show host-drug addict-rascist windbag-all around asshole and Badhat Idiot of the Week Rush Limbaugh played the Jewish hate race card this week. Damn, you gotta love this guy.


• President Obama took aim at the Supreme Court on Saturday, saying the justices had “handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists” with last week’s 5-to-4 decision to lift restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions. I gotta tell ya folks, we consider this one of the finest signs of the coming apocalypse as we've seen so far. The Supreme Court has apparently taken sides with special interests and big business and overturned a major portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Corporations now have the same rights as a citizen. But would you want one marrying your daughter? Candidates can now actually be sponsored by CitiBank. I could go on here, but I'm starting to weep for my country.


• I leave you with this: A memorial service for George and Betty Jean Weltch of Springfield, Oregon will be held Friday, January 29, 2010. George passed away Monday, November 30, 2009, and Betty Jean passed away December 27, 2009. Both died in their home in Springfield. George was 83, Betty Jean was 79. The memorial service on January 29th was have been the couple's 62nd wedding anniversary. Among a clan of people, they left 30 great-granchildren. I read this notice in the newspaper this morning, and while I didn't know or ever meet either of them, I wish I had. These two knew what it's really all about.

Terrible Suffering and Our Responses To It

The author (Click HERE, The New Yorker Magazine) uses the term "theoidocy", which he defines as the justification of the ways of God in the face of evil. The concept is an intriguing one that bears looking into. If something terrible happens, is it always deserved? If so, wouldn't an act of murder be doing the "will of God"? Surely there must be an obvious flaw in that hypothesis, but right off hand I can't see it.

What strikes me so forcefully is that the earthquake in Haiti seems to have slaughtered more human beings than any international disaster in a great many years, in fact perhaps as much as all of the other high- profile disasters in the last decade. When one says that, sadly we must exclude the deaths from starvation in places like Somalia and Ethiopia. Is it that the death of populations that appear so "other" are of far less concern to us as Americans? perhaps because those dying live lives so foreign to our own that we cannot wrap our heads around their problems and their horrifying suffering? Are we suffering from a form of "third world fatigue"? Rush Limbaugh appears to be, if compassion was ever a part of his nature. Pat Robertson? He remains nuttier than a leftover fruitcake and roughly twice as unappealing.

(Also from Arthur) Head of the GOP?

I think there are parts of this (click HERE) that are worth paying attention to. I think the suggestion that it is less about conviction than making money has a lot of validity. What is also worth remembering is that the Murdock kids, likely heirs to the Fox News empire, trend strongly liberal. Despite his daily drinking of virgin's blood, Rupert Murdock surely can't live forever.

Which reminds me, did you know that there was an Indian Prime Minister who used to drink a cup of his own urine every morning for health reasons? When he was elected he announced that he had stopped, so as to not make foreign guests nervous, but many assumed that was no more than a statement for public consumption (no pun intended).

And yes, the world is a good deal weirder than any of us could imagine. The current vogue in parts of Africa for medicines made from albinos is one example.

I hope the New Year finds you well?

Arthur

Weekend Update - Idiots of the Week

• Let's start with this religious note: With 200,000 people dead after a devastating earthquake in Haiti, Bad Hat Idiot of the Week Pat Robertson blames it all on the Haitians for making a deal with the Devil. Pat Robertson should know about all this, of course, because he IS the Devil. Click here for more on this story, from the French point of view.


• By the way, Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week Runner Up is former Clinton Administration Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. Ritter, who angered neocons in Washington years ago by stating flatly that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and thus became a bit of a hero of the anti-war crowd, allegedly got caught with his pants down while attempting to seduce a 15 year-old on the internet. And apparently this isn't the first time.


• Our friend Mark Morford is having a hard time deciding which story struck him harder, Haiti or the multiple murders in Mexico.


• Rush Limbaugh didn't make the running for Idiot of the Week because there were just too many others who deserved it, and besides, Rush could win it every week if we let him. But Roger Ebert has written an open letter to El Rushit that sums it all up.


• Republican Party Chairman and rodeo clown Michael Steele has demanded that Harry Reid resign for calling President Obama a "negro." Frank Rich comments on "The Great Tea Party Rip-Off."


• Now here's some good news: In a remarkable rebound from the depths of the financial crisis, JPMorgan earned $11.7 billion last year, more than double its profit in 2008, and generated record revenue. The bank earned $3.3 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Those cheery figures were accompanied by news that JPMorgan had earmarked $26.9 billion to compensate its workers, much of which will be paid out as bonuses. That is up about 18 percent, with employees, on average, earning about $129,000. And how did YOU do last year?

Tuesday Update

• Will it be drugs? Will it be gays? Will it be an unwieldy sex scandal featuring seedy hotels, bad cologne and grossly detailed text messages you never want to read? How about another "family values"' congressman busted for cruising gay chat rooms or hitting on young male pages in the congressional bathroom? That's always heartwarming. Of one thing you can be absolutely certain: whenever self-righteous Christians make the news, it's going to be... embarrassing. Sad. Sickening. Disingenuous. A little dangerous. A lot pitiable. What is this? Just Mark Morford reporting on what's happening in Uganda.


• Rudy Giuliani once recalled that awful day in 2001 and how stunned he was as he watched someone jump from the burning north tower. Spontaneously, he said, he grabbed the arm of a man standing beside him and said, “Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president.” But something happened to Rudy since then. Something sinister and strange.


• Sarah Palin has just signed a multi-year deal with FOX News to be a commentator. I'd have a joke for that, but I'm not that funny.


• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid added his name to the wish-I-hadn't-said-that group the other day. In Harry's defense Brent Budowsky offers this: Click Here.


• Having a black President seems to bring the best out in a lot of people. Former Governor Rod Blagojevich called himself "stupid" 16 times in a few minutes while explaining to the press that he was not "blacker than President Obama." (Sigh)


• You want frys with that? A study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology revealed there is actual fecal matter lurking in fast food soda. Mother Jones reports.


• For Fox News, religion is easy: Christianity is right and good and must be defended from its relentless persecutors, and other faiths are dangerous, inadequate, or funny. For example, last weekend Fox News analyst and putative paragon of "straight news" Brit Hume counseled Tiger Woods to ditch Buddhism in favor of Christianity as his best hope for a "total recovery" from the scandal surrounding his marital infidelities. Oh Brother.

Weekend Update - New Year's Edition

(As you may have heard, The Ducks lost the Rose Bowl this time around. But we'd like to thank The Ducks for a wonderfully exciting season. And before you get all gloomy consider this: Most of this year's starters will be back next season. Rose Bowl again? Sure. But how about the BCS Championship ...? Hey, we're Ducks, we can dream.)

• A group of British journalists were asked to make predictions and wish-lists for the coming year. Interesting to read a group of them at the same time, to see some clear themes emerge. But a big political comeback by Imelda Marcos? Oh spare us.


• Did you feel it? Did you reach up and lick the full, pregnant, bursting blue moon on New Year's Eve? Did you howl and wail and stomp your feet and raise your glass high and say oh my God let us now move and dance and shimmy and finally, finally get this nasty nefarious monkey of a doomed decade off our collective backs once and for all? Mark Morford hopes you did.


• In what has to be the first sign of the coming Apocalypse a recent very strange gallup poll lists Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as "most admired" contenders. Maybe this 2012 doomsday thing isn't as far-fetched as we originally thought.


• Bad Hat Idiot of the Month for December is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to ignite his exploding underwear on board an airplane on Christmas Eve. Apparently the only thing he accomplished was to destroy his ability to produce any little terrorists in the future, and caused the TSA to comtemplate forcing passengers to drop trow on command. I think I'll take the bus, thanks.


• Earlier last week, Glenn Beck's Daddy Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital in Hawaii after he complained of chest pains and had reportedly been taken from his hotel “in serious condition." Thankfully for thousands of DittoHeads nation-wide, El Rushbo is okay, and now he's praising the American health care system as the best in the world. So there.


• "Bring 'em on." Remember Dubya's unfortunate quote about the bad guys? Well, it made the list of the decade's top 10 quotations.


• Bad Hat starts our third year as a Blog, and we thank all of you for your support and continued interest. Junior has started his own Blog, Oregon Duck themed, of course. He calls it "Duck Lips," and there's a link to it posted at the bottom left of this page. He says he's going to keep up with it, and fill it with sports for the rest of year. We'll see. Check it out, and give him some encouragement.