Weekend Update - Falling Edition

• (Fall has definitely descended upon the Willamette Valley, chilly nights, gray foggy mornings, and the occasional light rain shower. But the majority of the flowers are stoically hanging on, pretending to enjoy it all, and bracing themselves for the inevitable. I love Autumn in Oregon. It makes you melancholy and slightly stupid. You find yourself leafing longingly through L.L. Bean catalogs and saying idiotic things like "I swear if you stare at a tree long enough you can see the leaves change color," while exhaling heavy sighs of bourbon tinted breath, and writing sentences that should have ended 30 words ago. The huge veil of morning glories covering up the old ugly heating oil tank in the back is still alive with happy little flowers of purple, red, and white, and I'm compelled to stand out in the rain and take them all in, to take them into my very soul to be remembered in the harsh realities of dark winter months. Someone please get me another drink and lead me back inside. But I digress ... )
  The date was May 4, 1970. I was 25 years old and it was my first day of work at the bus company, driving little green converted school buses through the neighborhoods of Eugene, Oregon. I was probably slightly stoned, having just recently been introduced to marijuana that year by a sweet little waitress named Susie. It was also the day of a horrific shooting at Kent State University, in Ohio. And now Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has opened a probe into those events, requesting key documents from the FBI in a letter delivered Saturday morning, following the revelation that an FBI informant may have opened fire just before the 1970 massacre of four anti-war students by members of the US National Guard.



• Mr. Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, apparently favors dressing up in his nazi SS uniform and parading around with other like-minded individuals. Okay, first, I'm not making this up, and it's people like Mr. Rich Iott who makes writing this blog fun. Read all about it here.

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back. This whole thing reminds me of a Marx movie I saw once. Groucho played a FBI detective.

• Imagine being a typical New Yorker hurrying home during the busy evening rush hour last Friday when suddenly right in the middle of Grand Central Terminal hundreds of gay people suddenly fell down and played dead on the platform. The nerve of those gays! Always wanting equal rights. The nerve.
• And finally this God-fearin', I-Know-My-Rights item: Bob R. of Eaton Township, Ohio was filling a birdfeeder near the pond on his 12-acre property when he was shot in the leg. The bullet was fired by his neighbors who were shooting at logs on their property. Now ain't THAT America?

Weekend Update - Paranoia Edition

(How 'bout them Ducks, eh? Beat Stanford yesterday and they're undefeated for the season. Who woulda thought? It's already smelling like Roses, and this year we're not even afraid to say it. Are you ready? All together now, GO DUCKS!)

• Continuing with our blatant admiration for Christine O'Donnell, we give you this delightful Frank Rich column. "... those laughing now may not have the last laugh in November. O’Donnell’s timely ascent in the election season’s final lap may well prove a godsend for the G.O.P."


• When the subject turns, as it usually does, to President Obama, Glenn Beck sees lessons from history. In particular, he has seized upon two individuals who he believes provide excellent historical parallels to the 44th commander in chief: Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler. And one day, he rhetorically asked his Fox News viewers: "Why did we buy Alaska in the 1950s?" A good question -- because "we" purchased Alaska in 1867. Dana Milbank explores the idiocy of Glenn Beck.


• "Dead or alive" Osama bin Laden issued yet another in a series of press releases recently, indicating, at the very least, he's not dead yet, contrary to what you might have heard. Anyone know what Dubya's been up to lately? Anyone?


• Haven't had anything new to worry about this last week? Well here's something for you: News that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about "feds radiating Americans." Click here and get paranoid.


• From Michael Moore: "The election is one month from tomorrow and, yes, it looks hopeless. November 2nd -- the day the Dems are expected to crash and burn. Sadly, it's a situation the Democrats have brought upon themselves -- even though the majority of them didn't create the mess we're in. But they've had over a year and a half to start getting the job done to fix it. Instead, they've run scared ever since they took power. To many, the shellacking they're about to receive is one they deserve." And then he offers us Five Ways the Democrats Can Avoid a Catastrophe and Pull Off the Mother of All Upsets.


• We love Pete. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) is turning the tables on a political group launching attack ads against him in an attempt to bring its shadowy practices to light. On Friday, he went to the Capitol Hill headquarters of the Concerned Taxpayers of America to deliver a letter and speak with members of the organization about making its donors public. But the person who answered the door misrepresented himself and lied, saying he had never heard of Concerned Taxpayers, even though subsequent information shows that he is affiliated with the group. Watch the video here.

Weekend Update - Light of Day Edition

(The tunnel was terribly dark, and incredibly long, but that light we saw several weeks ago has indeed turned out to be the light of day. We have emerged stronger than ever, literally, and have renewed this marriage thing. There are many interesting and scary details about this ordeal that I will wisely spare you, as most of it sounds like something out of a Dean Kootz novel. However, here's one interesting observation of my own. I've always considered myself a bit of an expert on marriage, what with being married four times. I could dispense advice with the best of counselors. But during our own counseling sessions something occurred to me that changed me. I actually was an expert at failed marriages. I had very little knowledge how to make a marriage actually work. So now we're both working hard on it. And I think I like this marriage thing. Thank you all for your kind concerns in the past several weeks, without friends we are no more than burnt toast. And thank you for your patience here at Bad Hat. Hopefully we can now get back to normal. But I digress ...)

• It's a fine American tradition, hating. Communists. Arabs. The Japanese. Blacks. Native Americans. Hippies. Gays. "Gooks." Immigrants. Chinamen. The poor. Women. Teenagers. Vegans. Science. What's the problem with this nation? What's really eating at our soul and threatening our honest love of an angry God, apple pie and giant homoerotic firearms? It ain't us. It's them. They're trying to mess with our heads, steal our freedom, impregnate our virgins, poison the water supply. Damn them to hell, and where's my shotgun? Mark Morford rants on.


• Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week is Sarah Palin look-alike Christine O'Donnell, winner of the Republican Senate primary in Delaware, who claims lust is adultery, and you can't masturbate without lust, therefore ... oh, you know. Also, check out this wonderful piece written by Alexander Cockburn, "Masturbating on the Edge of the Apocalypse." Gawdhelpus.


• You gotta love Stephen Colbert. This guy's got more chutzpah than anyone in the world. He even testified to congress the other day about migrant workers. Amongst other things he told the assembled lawmakers was that his gastroenterologist had explained to him that fruits and vegetables are an important source of “roughage” and said that he “would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into The Congressional Record.”


• The Republicans unveiled their "Pledge To America" last Thursday, and it's a doozy. Gene Robinson writes, amongst other things, "The Republicans were doing pretty well for themselves as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?"


• And if you're having a bad day, think of this: 2,300 ft. (700 m) below Chile's Atacama Desert, 33 miners have been trapped since Aug. 5 and face up to four more months of confinement before they're freed. That's underground. In the dark. With no link to a cold Corona with a slice of lime. Now, don't you feel better?

Weekend Update - Disgruntled Edition

(Well, you have problems. We all have have them from time to time. Your house can burn down. Your car can explode. A chunk of frozen excrement from a passing airliner can strike your house. Hey, you've seen the bumper sticker, shit happens. The older you get, the more you expect it. When things are going smoothly, it's like the old line from a Gothic novel: "It was quiet. It was too quiet." With me this time it was the wife moving out. Just got up out of bed in the middle of the night and announced she was leaving me. And then did. Well hell, I'm a pretty astute person, I think, and I sensed something was wrong right away. I'll spare you the intimate details of the rest of the story, but after about 3 weeks she's moved back in and we're attending weekly counseling sessions with a very sincere family counseling specialist in a very sincere family counseling office. At this point, I think we'll be okay - if we can get all of her (the wife's) emotional problems out in the open where they can be dealt with in a professional manner, and I can suppress my disgruntledness about the entire episode. And so how have all of you been? But I digress ... )

• The Idiot Glenn Beck shouted down at the multitudes gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear him and Sister Sarah pontificate on the evils of black people leading the country and allowing godallmighty Himself speak through them, and using Fox News math announced that attendance was 300,000 to 5000,000 people! Actual count, 87,000.


• Did you hear? Did you see the blazing headlines, the parades, the TV crews lining up in a rabid media frenzy on the White House lawn? Did you attend a rally, a march, a flag-wavin' gun-tootin' victory party, or perhaps gather around the TV at the local saloon, waving a tiny American flag and cheering wildly? Finally after thousand of young soldiers lay dead, and billions of dollars wasted, the War in Iraq is finally over! Why don't we feel like celebrating? Mark Morford reports.


• Gotta love Ellen Goodman. Did someone slip Mel Gibson an overdose of testosterone? He's the unanimous winner of our Raging Hormonal Imbalance Award after starring in an eight-minute audiotaped rant telling his ex-girlfriend that she needs a "bat to the side of the head" and threatening to put her in a "f---ing rose garden." We send him a curtain. Coming down. The "Equal Rites Awards."


• Vive la révolution! This Tea Party movement is interesting in many ways. But one of the most interesting is just who in hell is bankrolling it? Is it Fox News itself? Not really, although they're a part of it. The big money is coming from a very select group of billionaires who have an interesting stake in all of it. Like we've always said "follow the money." Follow it with Frank Rich, and it'll all make sense.


• Remember back a thousand years ago when George W. Bush was president? Remember how whenever he had a public speaking engagement people were hand-cuffed and taken away for having anti-Bush bumper stickers on their cars, or for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts? In West Virginia, Jeff and Nicole Rank were handcuffed and taken away from a July 4, 2004, rally on the state Capitol grounds shortly before the president arrived. They had tickets to the event, but wore homemade T-shirts with a line crossing out the word "Bush." The government later paid $80,000 to settle their lawsuit. But those who have taken their cases before judges have not fared as well. Read more.

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