Weekend Update - July 24th

(Welcome back. I know it's been a while since the last posting and I have little to report except random house painting, garden tending, and lemonade stand tending. Remember lemonade stands? I opened one up one summer in front of our house when I was probably the boy's age. Mom made up a batch of her special lemonade, called for boiling lemons for hours, I think. I water-colored a couple of signs and sat out by the street for several hours and ended up with a small fortune of probably $2. Times haven't changed much in the lemonade stand business in 50 years. Jonathan and his friend Mason threw a stand up on our corner and sat in 90 degree heat for almost an hour before one of the neighbor ladies took pity on them and came over and bought 2 cupfuls. The pity factor is always good for a sale or two. She gave them $4 and told them to keep the change, and after she left they promptly closed up shop and high-tailed it to the corner market on a candy and pop run. My son, the Capitalist. But I digress ...)

• We knew it all along: Dick (we-call-him-Dick) Cheney has no pulse! And Mark Morford wants us to take a test. "Former Vice President Dick Cheney disclosed Wednesday that he has undergone surgery to install a small pump to help his heart work, as the 69-year-old enters a new phase of what he called 'increasing congestive heart failure.'" -- Associated Press. The first knee-jerk response to the Great Dick Cheney Empathy Test (GDCET) is, of course, the easiest, and the most obvious, the most available to your giddy puppydog consciousness, and my guess is it shot through you like a fast and wonderful lightning bolt of OH MY SWEET JESUS YES the instant you read the story above. Read more.


• From Arthur: "Wow. Poor, poor Sarah Palin just got blindsided by her own daughter, who says she believes her pending marriage was derailed by her Mom's run for Vice President. I can readily believe that, politics is lethal for the family members. I will be happy to take odds that the next thing to happen will be that Todd will leave Sarah for a particularly perky waitress in the Wasilla Diner. How do I know? Because all who become Republicans are cursed to do stupid things. It is simply a law of nature. Think about it. Eerie how true that is, isn't it?"


• Now here's a little story that originally appeared in Mother Jones and it's titled "Strippers, Booze and Race Riots: BP’s Cleanup Workers Run Amok in Grand Isle." I'd comment on it, but after reading it I'm practically speechless. Read it yourself, if you dare.


• They claim to be able to raise the dead and cause miracles, such as the multiplication of Thanksgiving turkey dinners. They burn "witchcraft items" and "idols." They hold mass exorcisms to cast out alleged evil spirits they say cause lust, pornography, addiction, homosexuality, bisexuality, and perversion. They claim to be able to heal HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, Glaucoma, and cancer, and to break "generational curses" and "witchcraft curses." Who are they? None other than the radical, right-wing charismatic evangelical movement, that's who. And they're taking over entire states. Be afraid, be very afraid.


• By now you've all heard the story about Shirley Sherrod. But you know you must be doing all right if people like Willie Nelson, yes THE Willie Nelson, jump up to defend you.


• William Rivers Pitt writes a great column on the Tea Party Idiots: It is all too tempting to dismiss the far-right Teabagger legions and their idiot media allies as nothing more than a band of brain-addled yahoos who regularly make solar flare-sized fools of themselves in ways undreamed of by the Founders. I've mocked them a time or three myself; it's almost impossible not to. When a Tea Party web forum goes into paroxysms of fear and loathing about an Obama-led fascist takeover of America because they read a 2007 satirical article from the Onion and thought it was real, all you can do is put your head in your hands and thank God for showing us His sublime sense of humor. Click here to read more.

Weekend Update - July 10th

(The Boy played his final KidSport baseball game Thursday evening. The Lancers, as they were called, failed to win a game this season, including this one played in just shy of 100 degree heat. But the boys one and all played with heart and determination and a certain 11 year old bravado that seemed to be judged by how dirty they could get their uniforms. They were, of course, disappointed by finishing in the cellar, but only mildly so. Jonathan mentioned earlier that he was considering not playing again next year, but thanks to KidSport policy, he changed his mind. Apparently all participants in this summer adventure end up with an individual trophy, complete with etched name. I'm sure the winners of this thing got larger trophies, but each of the sweating, dirty, sunburned Lancers got their own foot tall trophy to take home, along with a team photograph. Oh, and near the last inning of the final game, Jonathan scored a run. It was his finest moment, and as he trotted back to the Lancer dugout slapping high-fives with his teammates, all I could see was an enormous grin. That night he went to bed early, exhausted, scrubbed clean in the shower under strict orders of his mother. I went in later to turn out his light and kiss him goodnight, but he was already asleep, the shiny baseball trophy clenched tightly in his hand. It was one of those untaken pictures I will save forever. But I digress ...)

• Okay, let's start off with something really interesting here. You know how we "guys" have the option of taking the little blue pill, this Viagra thing, for our lack of sexual drive, or whatever? Well, what if, I mean, what if we take this magic pill and get all ready, you know, and our "gal" isn't interested. Why don't they have a "female Viagra?" what? They're working on it? BUT, you do not rise up from the watery depths too rapidly, lest you go quickly insane. You do not drink five cups of coffee and three shots of absinthe and then attempt delicate brain surgery, blindfolded. You do not drill for oil a mile down in the pristine seas and have no reliable backup systems should something go horribly, horribly wrong. You do not mock Mother Nature. But above all else, for absolute certain, one thing you really, really do not do: You do not mess around with the female sexual response. At least that's according to Mark Morford.


• Have you watched any of the World Cup? We call it soccer, they call it football, or futbal, and it's sometimes exciting to watch when there's absolutely nothing else on, including the farm channel, and would undoubtedly be a hell of lot more popular in the United States if it wasn't for those damn horns. You know them if you've watched the Cup this year, the horns, the vuvuzela as they're called. These horns have to be one of the most irritating musical instruments in the world. Some people even object to them being called "musical instruments." But those people haven't seen THIS.


• Even George Will has called for President Obama to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. But all we seems to get out of the Obama Administration is Bush-Orwell-style "Newspeak." What the hell's going on? Here's a fascinating and highly important excerpt from The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's by Tom Engelhardt. Click HERE. Oh, and speaking of depressing, General George Casey, the Chief of Staff of the Army, said today the United States could face another "decade or so" of persistent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've been there for nine years already. Are you ready for another 10 "or so?"


• "Whoa boy, easy big fella ..." Want to buy a horse? Want to buy a famous horse? Want to buy a famous stuffed horse? While this may only interest Roy Roger's fans who have a couple hundred thousand dollars they need to get rid of in a hurry, this little news item made the little buckaroo in me crawl back under the bed. They're gonna auction off Trigger! And what's worse, it's in New York City!

Robert Byrd and the Surprises of Change

(We're catching up here at Bad Hat Headquarters, and here's a comment by Arthur In Marin County on the recent demise of Senator Robert Byrd, and he adds a gentle diss of our fair city for which he shall have to pay.)


I had not known much about Byrd's earlier beliefs, except through allusions that he belonged to the Klan for a period of time. Eugene Robinson does a good job of tracing his career. It should be noted that there was a period during the teen and twenties when I had heard that the local Klan used to burn crosses on Skinner's Butte. It gives a rather different context to the lighted cross we grew up with, doesn't it? I doubt that the citizens of that bygone Eugene would recognize the one of today, just as the Robert Byrd toward the end of his long career hardly seems like the same man he was in his earlier life. He was, by the way, also an accomplished fiddle player and bluegrass musician. Again, who knew?

Here is a paper someone wrote on Oregon's checkered history of racial attitudes, which seemed to rely upon keeping African-Americans out of the state, whenever possible. I had never heard about blacks being excluded from living in Eugene until quite recently. Can that be true? It raises another question; when one was so unwelcome, why on earth would they have wanted to live in Eugene?

Arthur

Some Facts for a Change

By Arthur In Marin County

There has been a lot of hand-wringing over taxes and "takings" and the terrible profligate spending of the current administration. Helpfully, someone took the trouble to sit down and make a useful chart that shows where our deficit is coming from. And where it isn't. It turns out (surprise, surprise) that Bush did it, again. And again.

The main culprit appears to be his unfunded tax cut to the very wealthy, those he referred to as "his base". Things have gone well for them, less well for the economy. It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to just roll back the key tax and spending policies of the Bush era. Powerful forces like things just as they are, thanks anyhow. Deficits? Pesky things. The demise of the middle class. Tsk, tsk, they were nice, those "small people", weren't they?

Ah well, time marches on, doesn't it? Nations rise, nations fall, but the truly wealthy tend to muddle through somehow.

I like that the current administration is talking about cutting back on the Defense budget. There are a lot of vested interests who are in the habit of feeding regularly at the trough of the Defense budget, often for cutting edge projects that spiral into huge cost-overruns and delays, all of which are bad for the budget and great for corporate income. This is not to say that there are not very real challenges out there in the big bad world, but that blowing things up is not always the most economical solution.

Arthur

Weekend Update - Apocalypse Edition

(There are legends and then there are legends. Eugene is a legendary town, what with your Grateful Dead types and your Ken Kesey types and your jeans-wearing Governors telling tourists to visit but don't stay, Oregon, and especially Eugene, is, well, mygod you gotta love this place. People can become legendary here, but they really really have to work at it. You can't just walk around downtown with a funny hat and expect to be treated like a legend. Not in this town. We demand more. With that in mind, and with the authority granted me by a young hippy girl with no top on at the Oregon Country Fair in 1981, I would like to declare someone legendary. His name is Brewster, and he and his bicycle-with-trailer apparently have been banned from riding any of the local buses, and Brewster, in his mid 40's, who has taken the art of holding a grudge to a completely new level, rides daily by the main LTD bus stations in our area. Suddenly he'll shoot a couple blasts from his boat-type air horn and then shout at the top of his lungs "L...T...D can lick my hairy, sweaty nut sack!" He's been doing this most every day, rain or shine, for over 2 years. During football season he'll preface his mantra with "Go Ducks!" Add this: a couple times a year our legendary town holds what is called a "naked bike ride" to protest something, can't remember what at this point. Participants in various stages of undress ride in a group around town during the evening hours. All harmless fun I suppose, until earlier this month when our boy Brewster decided to join in. I didn't see this myself, but the report is that when the group approached the LTD bus station downtown, Brewster was seen in the middle of pack, stark naked, honking his horn and yelling his legendary phrase. To everyone's dismay, it's also reported that our boy Brewster was quite erect at the time. Therefore, I officially declare that from this day forward, John Brewster is a Eugene Legend. But I digress ...)

• The oily disaster that is the BP Gulf Oil Spill Clusterf**k continues unabated. Mark Morford is beginning to believe this all is the sign of the coming apocalypse. He offers us two Worst Case Scenerios and then this grand finale: A new survey says that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans -- 40 percent, to be exact -- actually believe Jesus will return by 2050, likely riding on the back of a flaming asteroid (30 percent think one will hit us by then), waving a cowboy hat and yodeling as he careens toward our hapless blue dot of inequity, pain and lousy AT&T reception. This one calls for a trip to the liquor store.
• We generally love and agree with Frank Rich, a senior editorialist for the New York Times. Here he discusses President Obama's response to the disaster in the Gulf, and it's well worth the read. Click here.
• Arthur in Marin County writes: "Drill baby drill! I had forgotten what an absurd mantra of the 2008 campaign that cry had become, lead of course by Sarah Palin." Also, "In the whole discussion over the Gulf Oil spill there are some things I did not know. For example, all of the deep water drilling only started on Bush II's watch and it is now a major part of the oil production in the Gulf. No wonder people are fighting to keep the right to continue to do it. Money."
• Apparently our economy isn't in all that bad of a shape. Our beloved government is spending $517 Million to develop a blimp! to spy on Afghanistans. Cool! "This opportunity leverages our longstanding leadership positions in developing innovative unmanned air vehicles, C4ISR weapon systems, and leading edge systems integration, and moves Northrop Grumman into this rapidly emerging market space of airships for the military and homeland defense arenas," said Gary Ervin, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems sector. It's shit like this that makes me so proud to pay my taxes on time. (Sorry, that trip to the liquor store is getting to me...)
• Someone explain this one to me. Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot has been bragging about receiving a deluge of attention from women since confessing to the murder of Stephany Flores. Apparently murderers in prison get all kinds of letters filled with offers of marriage and whatever from lonely women. What? Oh, it's a fetish? Oh brother. That calls for another drink. I'm outta here. Get out there and mow that lawn.

Weekend Update - Father's Day Edition

(Endless make-up baseball games. The Kid is playing baseball, complete with uniform and cup! to protect those precious family jewels, and because of this terrible Oregon spring, the weather hasn't cooperated one little bit. So whenever there's a break in the rain they play make-up games. He's pretty good, actually. He's not afraid to slide, he's got a pretty good arm for an 11 year-old, and he's always ready to crowd the base and take one for the team. That last part I wish he'd stop doing, but what the hey. It's Father's Day, and I'm certainly the proud father in this picture. It's the middle of June fer crissakes, and we have yet to have an 80 degree day. Can we blame this on BP? But I digress ...)

• Let's start with some wonderfully good news, my friends. For those of you who insist on believing in god, I'm here to tell you he seems to have a really good sense of humor. Why else would he decide to send a lightening bolt down and totally destroy a 6-story statue of Jesus? Apparently god is just a regular guy. You ever have that fine, epiphanic moment when you realize an eyesore's an eyesore and it's time for some, you know, housecleaning? And what better way to rid yourself of some of the more hideous crap laying about than maybe tossing it into a nice bonfire? By the highway? In Ohio? God has those moments, too. Something about this story I just love. Mark Morford reports.
• If you have to be crazy to run for office, consider if you will Rick Barber, a "tea party" candidate for congress, who seems to be avocating the voilent overthrow of the government. Click Here.
• And speaking of idiots, here's an evangelist who believes homosexuality, headaches, and dandruff are all caused by demons - gay demons, headache demons, and demons of dandruff. And it seems that Bishop Harry Jackson was mad because the Obama White House invited the Secular Student Alliance to a meeting of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Shame, shame.
• In yachting news this week, BP chief executive Tony Hayward took a day off Saturday to see his 52-foot yacht "Bob" compete in a glitzy race off England's shore, a leisure trip that further infuriated residents of the oil-stained Gulf Coast. Well gosh, Tony hasn't had a day off ever since his oil rig exploded. What concerns me is the imagination it took for a multi-millionaire oil executive to name his yacht "Bob."
• It's called the "Active Denial System," and apparently it's some sort of high-tech microwave "pain ray" that makes whoever it's used against feel like they're on fire. And guess what? It's being "tested" right now in Afghanistan. Now if that isn't called "winning the hearts and minds," I don't know what is. God bless America.
• Check out this book review: The Overton Window is, quite simply, a failure as a piece of fiction. The book is billed as a "thriller," but it is mind-numbingly boring, with pages upon pages spent rehashing long-winded, anti-big government sermonizing thinly disguised as "dialogue." It is filled with plot holes, inexplicable character motivations, tired clichés, characters who are introduced out of left field only to conveniently advance the inane plot, other characters that exist for no apparent reason, and characters we are supposed to like who say things like "don't tease the panther." Hardly good enough for a door stop. The author? Our very own whipping boy-idiot Glenn Beck.

Weekend Update - Waiting for Spring

(I'm up very early this morning. Something woke me with a kind of foreboding feeling, like something was about to happen, or perhaps the feeling animals have minutes before an earthquake. It was quiet. That was the problem. There was no water dripping in the downspout outside the bedroom window. Must have stopped raining for a moment, I thought to myself, and turned over to catch a few more winks. And then it happened. From under the very bottom of the curtain a shaft of intensely golden light appeared on the floor. Suddenly the cat and the dog both appeared and threw themselves on the floor in the light, tummies up. "Mother!" I yelled to my wife, "wake up! It's THE SUN! THE SUN!" My heart pounding with anticipation, I yanked clumsily at the shades, pulling one side completely off its hanger. With both hands I ripped open the curtain, just as the light disappeared back into the heavy layer of grayness. But for a fleeting moment, just one wonderful moment, I saw the sun. Thank you Jesus. 50% chance of showers this afternoon. But I digress ...)

• The apocalyptic disaster that is the BP Oil Spill is one of the most depressing things I've ever seen on television news, right up there with the Katrina fiasco, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wondered if Louisiana and surrounding states are somehow cursed. I'm sure Pat Robertson thinks so, those oily, dying pelicans are probably gay. But our friend Mark Morford has found a sort of savage grace, a tragic and terrible beauty to it all. He writes "Behold, Our Dark, Magnificent Horror."


• Some things in America, no matter how hard we try, will ever change. Like racism, for example. The election of Barak Obama to the office of President of the United States has apparently brought some very ugly white people out of their dirty little closets. Ladies and gentlemen I give you this disturbing little story from the weird state called Arizona: Click Here


• Here's a fascinating-yet-very-disturbing Media Matters column by Ben Dimiero that once again finds Glenn Beck winning the Bad Hat Idiot of the Week Award. "The Glenn Beck Conundrum."


• You just know this one is going to be oodles of fun. The corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is finally getting under way, and right off the bat the judge appears to be just as batty as our beloved Blago. U.S. District Judge James Zagel did most of the questioning of potential jurors, a role he seemed to enjoy as he sometimes strayed from the relevant issues of jury service. He questioned 29 potential jurors on the first day of the selection process, joking with some and ripping into one whose flippancy had irked him. Watch this space.


• George W. Bush was quoted recently as he commented on the role of religion in his life, "I prayed a lot. I really did. I prayed before every major speech. I prayed before debates. It was a very important experience." Well he might want to give up a little prayer that he isn't indicted for torture. Seems he also freely admitted he had Khalid Sheik Mohammed waterboarded, and even proudly added, "and I'd do it again ..." The only thing he didn't say was "So what are you gonna do about it?"