Un-FAZ-ed

I am listening to Defazio on the floor of the house explaining his No vote on the Stimulus....

All the money for schools out, bridges out...tax cuts in...

I wondered when the "left" was going to be heard on this issue....

As glenn points out:

The major problem now is that these entities -- the ones that ought to be applying pressure on Obama from the Left and opposing him when he moves too far Right -- are now completely boxed in. They've lost -- or, more accurately, voluntarily relinquished -- their independence. They know that criticizing -- let alone opposing -- Obama will mean that all those new readers they won last year will leave; that all those new dues-paying members will go join some other, more Obama-supportive organization; that they will prompt intense backlash and anger among the very people -- their members, supporters and readers -- on whom they have come to rely as the source of their support, strength, and numbers.

As a result, there is very little political or media structure to Obama's Left that can or will criticize him, even when he moves far to what the Beltway calls the "center" or even the Right (i.e., when he adopts large chunks of the GOP position). That situation is extremely bad -- both for the Left and for Obama. It makes impossible what very well might be the apocryphal though still illuminating FDR anecdote:

FDR was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

IMO, labor, and other progressives should begin to make demands of the new admin, not expecting to get everything, but to help "move the goalposts", and "work the refs"

TGIF

My cats and I are back in the pad after our West Coast swing. As much as I enjoy seeing the fellas, nothing beats sleeping in your own sheets, making your own waffles, and using your own toothbrush again.

If we met last week, the pleasure was all mine. If we didn't, we should. Maybe we can play some Fight Night on the PS2. This is the song my guy Solid "the Fatman" Citizen walks into the ring to. It always gets me pumped for a night on the town, which is where I am headed in a matter of moments.

Short-Form Art Horn

Nat Hentoff
Meet Nat Hentoff, guy who wrote liners for Miles and so many others, and...... member of the Cato Institute? I hope he writes shit like this in all the big libertarian magazines: "The fearsome blues advance of Cecil Mcbee has captivated European audiences and the hippest bop bandleaders for more than a decade now."

Hardcore for Nerds: Reasons to be Emo #200 / Hoover - The Lurid Traversal of Route 7
(This should probably go without saying.)

AN OPEN LETTER TO: Ryan Adams on Blurt Online
Congratulations on being engaged to the Actress/Chanteuse Mandy Moore, Ryan. Now go retire.

CD Review: "Willie and the Wheel" - washingtonpost.com
That's right, Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel've made an alb ensemble. This collaboration makes a lot more sense than the Wynton collaboration, for sure...but that's all I am prepared to say. (Inspired by SolidCitizen's big splash entry, apparently I cannot help but wanna make a name for our blog by giving Willie Nelson a sustained hard time? How long can this go on? Not long.)

Labor roots roaring

Apparently, the Solis' nomination is on the move...to the floor of the Senate...

Just read this over at the nation

A determined campaign by labor unions, women's rights groups, Latinos and progressives -- and a timely intervention by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy -- has renewed the confirmation prospects of President Obama's choice to serve as Secretary of Labor, California Congresswoman Hilda Solis...
An objection to the involvement of the pro-labor congresswoman with pro-labor groups was acknowledged even by some Republicans as laughable.

And progressive activists -- angered not just with reactionary Republicans but with cautious Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill -- began to put serious pressure on Congress to get this nomination going. Even the Associated Press noted that Republican delaying tactics had "prompted unions, women's and Hispanic groups to flood lawmakers' offices with calls and letters urging them to confirm her."

Holy shit is PETA stupid

Seriously. They're really fucking stupid.

When you turn thirty

Lex, me, and, if you're lucky, my two cats.

Let's do it.

All in, we're gonna win.




...the next day, I have to admit that I was drunk enough on said liquor to very much not remember posting this.

For Gabba, because we really love him

xoxoxoxo,

solid lex

She was there, too

When Solid and Lex made sweet love.

Memo to an Asshole

Do you want to know why I got served my coffee before you, even though you ordered before me? Of course you want to know, you threw a grown-up man fit there in the coffee shop, so you definitely want to know. Either that or you just enjoy berating minimum-wage workers at seven in the morning. I got my coffee before you did because you ordered a jag-off triple mocha skinny latte foamy with a shot of vanilla, while I ordered a cup of coffee. So the dude took your order, took my order, got me my coffee and then went about debasing himself by making your piece of shit. That you yelled at him while he did it means that you, my friend, are an asshole.

Bob Schieffer is crap

I was reminded why I don't watch the Sunday shows when I caught the lest few minutes of Face the Nation wherein Bob Schieffer called for both Democrats and Republicans to put aside partisan political games. I am tempted to imply that Schieffer is suffering from some age-related mental deficiency, but that would be wrong. His mental deficiencies probably have nothing to do with his age. He suffers from the affliction so many of our mediacrats suffer from, the stupid, stupid, stupid belief that being "neutral" equals being "fair" and this means that we call on both parties to put aside the petty games, even is only one party is currently participating in petty childishness.

In the entire stimulus debate, has any Republican said anything that even remotely sounds like they have the slightest interest in what might be good for the economy or the country? I mean if any of these fuckers actually believes that the solution to this crisis is reduced spending and more tax cuts, then Bob Schieffer et al in our so-called free press need to have the cajones to call these people out on it. They've had their time, it proved an abject failure.

The original stimulus bill was probably too small to do what is necessary. It was larded up with a bunch of tax breaks for the Chamber. For fuck sake, in a time when the vast majority of economists and financial people are saying that we need massive government spending in order to avoid another great depression, we are going to make sure that the government does not collect $350 billion dollars that it would collect after eight years of a tax-cutting orgy. We are cutting motherfucking taxes. I struggle to comprehend it.

Then we get the Republicans demanding more tax cuts or they won't vote for the bill. They get their motherfucking tax cuts. They refuse to vote for the bill. They lie about programs. They exaggerate. They make breath-taking leaps of logic (like ACORN is getting $10 billion in aid because there is $10 billion for community programs and ACORN is a community program) that should get them banned from ever being quoted again in anything other than a monologue. They get Dems to slash very necessary spending and dd more very harmful tax cuts and then still don't vote for the bill. These people are playing political games and do not care about the county. This is apparent to anyone paying the least bit of attention.

Unfortunately, those we pay to pay attention for us are more concerned about being "neutral" than they are about telling the nation what is happening. This is why I don't watch this shit.

Deal or No Deal?

call me a skeptic, but whatever Snowe, Nelson, Lieberman and Spector came up with has got to suck...
whatever the senate passes, the "joint" committee will be where it's at....

Grammar and punctuation are ever evolving rubrics, as well

A lot of the legislative agenda is driven by assumptions that have reached the level of given facts. Science is an ever changing rubric and even such core principles as gravity have been modified over the years as more information has become available. As we enter into a debate on our various courses of action, I think it is important to examine the base line to see if there is enough “real” science to warrant the direction we are taking. To that end my next few newsletters will deal with Oregon’s environmental agenda.

If you ask any climatologist (who has not bought into a political agenda) if the planet is getting warmer the answer will be; “we don’t know”.

TGIF

If you really love me, you'll find this t-shirt and buy it for me

h/t Pam

Because no one has accused the labor movement of being communist in the last week, we'll do this

Lex asks some important questions that no one responded to, so I will take a shot at getting some laboring questions answered.

First, let me say that a labor merger under the terms being discussed horrifies me. Let me grab a coupla quotes from that article:

There was general agreement that any future federation should focus on political and legislative matters, while also serving to encourage individual unions to do more to organize workers.

and

But many officials oppose a rotating presidency, saying the parent federation needs a strong, visible president who, by dint of serving for several years, is recognized by Congress and the news media as the undisputed voice for labor.

Several presidents have also called for creating a strong executive director’s position, partly in the hope that the parent federation would have two strong voices rather than one.

In other words, the AFL-CIO would become strictly a lobbying organization. Yay! I've always wanted to belong to a lobbying organization! Let the motherfucking revolution begin.

I do think we need a strong, strong president. Someone who can speak for "labor." Someone who is independent, answerable to no one. Someone who can demand unwavering support from everyone around him. Someone who can act decisively. Someone who has a lifetime position. Preferably someone willing to eliminate all enemies to labor, even those within the movement. I cannot see any problem with this at all.

But for fuck's sake, lets make sure this powerful man has a woman/minority assistant so that the workers can have someone to adore. Someone who looks like them. Some one who cares. Bam! Look out 21st century, here we come.

"The Leopards" is the most brilliant thing to come 0ut of Lex's mouth in some time.

Crap.

The Kingsmill Smackdown

Obama spoke at a Demo "retreat" tonight, and apparently left the prepared remarks and dropped some smackdown on the rethug obstructionism....
I am glad to see the new tone....
Digby added her two cents:
She recalled a Skocpol essay from a couple weeks ago:

The idea that "elites" will "get serious about repairing the safety net" if they are FIRST given billions of dollars of payoffs to shareholders who made bad decisions is the height of naivete. There are no corporatist institutions in U.S. politics that can enforce this kind of bargain, that can corral all the interests and get them to carry through on mutual promises. That is why Obama and the Democrats will get for the people in general exactly what they push through right now and will squander opportunities if they give money and leverage to "elites" first!

This is what Ira Magaziner imagined with health care back in 1992 -- that he could get up front understandings with powerful interests by giving them concessions in the Health Security proposals, and they would let it get through Congress later. (I remember sitting in his office as I took notes for BOOMERANG and having him complain to me that he could not understand why the business roundtable types "lied" to him about what they would do!) Of course, they turned on him the moment Congress got ahold of things. Same thing will happen here.

digby added:

I noticed in passing that David Gergen is nearly in tears that Obama has betrayed the promise of bipartisanship tonight. He's heartbroken that Obama decided that it was more important to save the economy than kiss GOP hems and bow and scrape before the villagers. No word on the parade of GOP jackasses who've been all over TV laying down the law that the only stimulus they can possibly sign on to is one that would have been written by Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich. It's not as if they've been acting in good faith. (In fact, Huckleberry Graham's multiple tirades today were pretty much a throwdown to Obama's manhood, which is quite a spectacle coming from him.)

At least the spell is broken and the white house will be suffering no further delusions that the Republicans are going to play nice. If they sell out to them, it's because they have decided to do so on the merits. (Now all we have to worry about is the administration playing some kind of equally delusional byzantine inside game with the Blue Dogs...)

What do you think about Obama's Stimulation Package?

Crap/Not Crap: US Labor "Getting the Band Back Together"

for reference purposes, please see Labor Calls for Unity After Years of Division - NYTimes.com

The union presidents issued their joint call after the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama signaled that it would prefer dealing with a united movement, rather than a fractured one that often had two competing voices.

David E. Bonior, a member of Mr. Obama’s economic transition team who withdrew from consideration as labor secretary, helped arrange and oversee a meeting of the union presidents on Wednesday in Washington.

The leaders are hoping, by April 15, to approve a plan to reunify, one union official said. But some officials said they might fail to reach agreement.

Mr. Bonior, a former House majority whip, said he would organize meetings with labor leaders over the next few weeks in the hope of hammering out details about what form a reunified labor federation would take.

BHO saying it'd be easier to work with a united labor movement, and potentially using EFCA as a quid-pro-quo to consolidate his base/our movement? Not crap. Bonior as master of reconciliation ceremonies? Not crap. But then comes tougher questions:

1. Is this "rotating two-year presidency" idea even more flaccid and in-efficacious than the UN-... I mean, the AFL-CIO's situation?
   
2. Trumka? He's not crap, but the "pale/stale/male" tradition he embodies is undeniably so.
   
3. Seriously, a new name? Can we call ourselves "The Leopards?"
   

Joker, smoker, midnight toker

Kathleen Parker

Making Fun of Little Children Horn

AC/DC's Big Score, by Andrew Earles :: The Memphis Flyer
Do I need to remind you that unconditional endorsee Andrew Earles is half of the force behind the Prisonship's 2008 Alb of the Year, and the engine behind m'b'loved Failed Pilot? I shouldn't have to.

Also, let me say this: for all of the babbling I do about enjoying the writing-about-rock, you'll know I'm really bought in to that venture when I abandon my too-easy-to-be-'good,' faux-Meltzer voice for a more expository (but no less writerly) one not unlike Earles'. This essay is about the (foreboding and horrible) irony of the legendary Aussie filth-mongers' team-up with WalMart. It'll be anthologized before you know it, but you should read it now. This is how you write about the social ramifications of rock records without coming off like Simon Frith or Greil Marcus of one of those munches. Why do I want to compare this essay to an Alan J. Pakula film? When I do so, I don't necessarily have this blurb in mind:

To a distant society in another part of the world, it might have looked like Americans were buying one album from one retailer for fear of electrocution by government-mandated shock-collars. Take out the shock-collar part, and you're getting warm.

What if Celebrity Nudity Database.com picked the Oscar winners? | A.V. Club
Celebrity nude database, huh? It's about damned time.

Prindle Record Reviews - Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream
Of course, the other reason I must veer away from the Coley/Meltzer vibe is that Prindle is Undisputed Reigning King of this style, and all the rest of us are just sort of historical re-enactors.

At this point in his career, Bruce just doesn't have the inspiration to write a great straightforward rock album like Born In The USA (or, for that matter, a dark acoustic masterpiece like Nebraska). As evidenced by The Rising and The Seeger Sessions -- the only two of his past five records worth buying -- he needs an overriding concept to wrap his brain around. This allows him to get into a certain mindset and craft an entire sonic and emotional experience for the listener, just as he did with The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle so many years ago. Otherwise, the result is exactly what we have here - a bunch of perfectly listenable pop-rock songs that nevertheless bring nothing new to our lives. Bruce fanatics will be happy because it's new Bruce, but casual listeners will be left wanting. Wanting and craving. With mad lustful desire.

(*sticks dick in Clarence Clemons' saxophone*)

Actually, the real problem might be that this is Bruce's fourth studio album in FIVE YEARS! I doubt that even a strong today's artist as formidable as Lenny Kravitz or Jamiroquai could pull that off with flying colons. Probably Soul Collective or Live could though; those guys are killer, and will have hit after hit for generations to come.

Of course I quite disagree with the positive appraisal of the Seeger Sessions, as I do with all positive appraisals of Pete Seeger. But Prindle's conclusion, that the alb is "just another batch of okay/not great pop-rock songs with a few stylistic surprises thrown in," rings true after my initial .95 listens.

TAD's Weird Ass Music and Books - Powered by CO.CC
Just a very, very good new site of reviews that tends towards my beloved 1970s rock. Get involved, huh?

Cluedo revamp: Jack Mustard, in the spa, with a baseball bat | Life and style | The Guardian
Movie Novelizations #2: Clue The Movie
A new version of Clue, which apparently the kids call "Cluedo" across the drink? Who knew? And also, I HAVE to own this novelization, which I believe might threaten even Hank Searls' Jaws 2 in my pantheon of righteous novelizations. For more on Jaws 2, see this review from a 29 year-old man named Jessica:

Jaws 2 ?It is a reading experience you?ll never forget. A novel of paralyzing terror that will grab you from the opening chapter?Jaws2.? Jaws2 is one of the most spine-tingling books I?ve ever read. It?s descriptive, scary, and the characters are realistic. The book by Hank Searls is descriptive; I always had a movie playing in my head when I read it. One part of the book that was descriptive was, ?A flattened, blood-red sun rose dead ahead?Twenty feet below the surface she swam dead on course for Montauk Peak?Before her, an invisible cone of fear swept the sea clean, from bottom to the surface.? I could really picture it in my head. A movie was playing in my head the whole time. It got so descriptive at times that I got scared at what I was picturing like I was watching a scary movie. Jaws 2 was scary because it explains what it is like to be attacked by a shark. My biggest fear is that exact thing. My mom said, ?When you read it it?s like you?re there inside the story, like you?re in the characters place.? That?s what I think too. Every once in a while I had to put the book down and take three big breaths for one minute. The realistic characters added some of the effect. The characters are realistic because of the way they?re described by the author; it is so real. I can picture a person perfectly from the author?s descriptions. An example of a realistic description is, ?The little attorney was burdened with all equipment money could buy. His mask was prescription- ground so that he needed no glasses. He wore a pressure equalizing vest. On the lawyers left wrist was a compass, and in his right was an underwater watch to give him below time. From his neck dangled a Nikonos underwater camera. Strapped to his left calf was a Buck diving knife, on his right was an aluminum scallop iron for their prey.? Jaws 2 is one of the most spine-tingling books I?ve ever read. You should get this book and read it right away! If you do, you?ll experience a frightening journey on the sea.

What novelizations make you twich, Rich?

Dispatches from the class war

Lucky to be alive, I tell you. Amanda Carpenter and her colleagues, using their wit, daring, and near flawless camouflage,...



... infiltrate class enemy positions and get a small taste of the bloodbath that awaits upon the advent of our Glorious Socialist Яevolution, which will occur on or just before passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Her feverish dispatch:

Throughout the event labor members blasted employers who harassed them in the workplace for supporting the liberal policy. The funny thing is, several of those same labor members openly harassed a pair of men protesting the legislation.

Good lord, that never gets old! At any rate, yes, yes! Objective observer gets the vapors over the treatment of people with whom she's in no way associated!

The [sic] dressed up as "union bosses" looking for their payback for helping Democrats in the 2008 election: passage of EFCA [sic]

They dressed up with helpful signs pointing out that they were union bosses. Which helped, because otherwise a body would've thought they were two assholes there to disrupt the rally.

Anywhere Union Bob and Union Bill went, a crowd of union members followed them and pushed them to the perimeter of the rally. Union members pushed their way in front of them to hold up signs to hide the anti-EFCA signs from the cameras.

The bastards! How dare they try to silence two assholes there to disrupt the rally union bosses looking for their payback!

Essentially, they did everything the [sic] could to make sure no media could see an alternative message.

Unions, of course, being all-pervasive and able to keep the owners and managers of capital from using their various media organs to present a perfectly reasonable argument that the Employee Free Choice Act would TAKE AWAY EVERYONES JOB EVERYWHERE! AND NO PUPPIES! Thank the jeebus cracker Amanda Carpenter was to make sure these brave assholes' union bosses' voices were heard!

When I asked them why they were doing this most of them went mute.

One woman, however, had lots to say. She's in the third video and I'll warn you, her vulgar language isn't safe for work

OMFG! Members of the Яevolutionary People's Proletarian Vanguard cuss at their rivals!



The Huns! The savage fucking barbarians! Amanda was just kind of wondering about the irony of the whole situation, and someone had to go and drop the f-bomb. Why I've never heard those exact words boldly proclaimed in any workplace I've encountered over the last 8 years - thanks for that NSFW label!

But a taste of the fury that is class war has Amanda experienced! We have plenty more insults in store to sweep aside the NAM and their lackeys as we march to our Яevolutionary destiny: an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act! On, comrades!