Adrift in the Home of the Free Part Deux

I'm not a major fan of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now program. While on the one hand it always seems to me they do good work, and they have a history of paying attention to the things that matter, they also come off amateurish, overwrought and ineffective.

NEVERTHELESS... Amy Goodman and the folks that work with her serve a VERY important purpose in the ongoing reportage of incidents, material, and secrets that would not otherwise see the light of day (even if the daylight they see is extremely limited). In the midst of their reporting they regularly enter the fray of the controversies and protests that they are covering (as far back as 26 years ago, Pacifica reporters were broadcasting from jail when I was arrested with several thousand other protesters at Lawrence Livermore Labs).

Yesterday two producers from Democracy Now, and later Amy Goodman - who was working to get them released - was arrested as well. The above video shows her personal citizen/authority interaction.

This is the general nature of police forces under such circumstances, and particularly the case under present circumstances, present legal convolutions, and the present administration.

As of this writing, Amy, et al have been released, but are still under indictment.

This is not America!

Short Attention Span Theater

The Republican's are already getting all self-congratulatory over how they've handled the catastrophe of Gustav three years after Bush and McCain served up birthday cake while New Orleans drowned.

Everybody's breathing a sigh or relief and patting each other on the back for doing a better job this time around (so far...) as if that excuses them from the travesty of Katrina three years ago and the ongoing incompetence, callousness and irresponsibility that has continued to plague relief efforts to this day.

This time George, who likely was looking for a way to get out of a disastrous speech to close out his horror of an administration anyway, got served up a reprieve. Instead he wound up in Texas looking as bored and dull-witted as he did when he attended Kermit Ruffins concert at the White House and reminded him to "...make sure you pick up the trash when it's over.".

So far, the best thing about Gustav is that we won't have to suffer through Dick Cheney's speech, while the "Maverick" tries to make us forget that gargoyle of a Vice President by soft-peddling us Little Mary Sunshine. McCain and Ms. Lightweight headed off to Mississippi to make sure they were seen looking concerned about storm damage rather than shoving pieces of birthday cake into each other's mouths like fawning teenage newlyweds.

SPEAKING OF WHICH... Mama Palin and her family offered us up an interesting thought on the office when she acknowledged that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. I seem to remember a moment in Barack's speech the other night when he said "...regardless of whether or not we agree on abortion we can all agree on the need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies." I'm guessing this isn't going to be a major focus of the McCain/Palin campaign over the next two months.

And the beat goes on... Happy Labor Day!

Just Too F&!#'n Funny

On a lighter note... This is the kind of thing I was just talking about... THIS is what happens to you when you watch too much You Tube (though I actually found this in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone).

In honor of the 10th Anniversary of The Greatest Story Ever Told, here's 2 minutes of Fantastically Funny Freaking Filmwork.

To quote The Cowboy (and a number of my personal friends)... "Do you have to use so many cuss words?"

[Note: Not for family (or office) consumption.]

Adrift In The Home Of The Free

I was checking on the Gustav blogs that Enigma4ever has at Watergate Summer and found a link to a really beautiful version of Randy Newman's Louisiana 1927, a song that always made me cry BEFORE Katrina, but which now days I can barely make it through without breaking down into sobs. In that sense it's alot like an Anders Osborne song (sung here by Jesse Moore) that really has come to be the Katrina anthem to me, and a lot of others.

All of that is actually by way of saying that the song above has nothing to do with that (well even that's not really true, but you'll have to watch the video to see what I mean). I found the song above in one of the You Tube synapses that almost always happens when you go to You Tube for one thing and emerge four hours later, glassy eyed and confused.

In any case... with Gustav bearing down on The Crescent City, and The Republican Convention bearing down on The Twin Cities (at the opposite end of the country), I offer the above video as honor, memory, and wistful longing for an America that might have been (and with ANY luck at all, might yet still be).

You're Kidding... Right?

So John McCain has decided that the way to go after a dream ticket like Obama/Biden is to pretend like Sarah Palin is somehow the equivalent of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

To quote a line from Firesign Theater, "It's an interesting approach... but it isn't us."

On Wednesday night Senator Clinton brought her historic campaign to a close when she came to the floor of the Democratic Convention, took her name out of nomination and asked that the delegates nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. It was an amazing political moment, a classy act, and shrewd politics. It was the act of someone who knows what she's doing and has been doing it for most of her life.

To the contrary, John McCain has just chosen a woman whose entire political career consists of being the mayor of a town of less than 10,000 and being Governor, for all of eighteen months, of Alaska, a state with a population (670,000) smaller than most large cities in the U.S. THIS is her entire experience, and THIS is who John McCain puts up as some sort of equivalent to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

There are plenty of people who I am sure will fall for this ruse, but please, let us not fall into the stupid argument that there's anything about Sarah Palin that makes her the political equal of anyone on the Democratic ticket. The campaign that has been ranting about Barack's inexperience to govern has just provided us with a candidate for Vice President who could not be LESS suited to high office. It's too bad that John couldn't have tapped the small though significant list of far more qualified Republican women... But those women likely would have been too much for him.

Nice try John... and it IS indeed nice to see the Republicans nominate a woman for the nation's second highest office.

Next time, could you maybe nominate someone actually CAPABLE of holding it?