"If they object so passionately to “socialized health,” why don’t they block their 911 service to socialized police and fire services, disconnect themselves from socialized sewers and avoid socialized interstate highways?"
I touched on Ted Kennedy's human fallibility last week in the wake of his death, and suggested that true Christians -- those who don't let their politics get in their way of their "faith" -- would forgive the man in death for his human failings while on Earth.
Well, it turns out the Senator was thinking along those lines, too, by way of a letter to the Pope seeking forgiveness, which was hand-delivered by his President.
Wearing my talk radio hat, I was lucky enough to shake hands with Ted Kennedy a few years ago, just before he got sick. (No pictures, alas.) Digesting the media obituaries regarding the late, great Senior Senator from Massachusetts, I am consistently amazed at the editorial choices which were made while covering the great man's life:
How many personal demons would you possess if you'd suffered the family tragedies that he did, all while under the gaze of the public eye, much of which was directed at himbecause of those tragedies?
How easy is it for people to take one tragedy out of a man's life -- now, almost forty years gone -- and demonize that person for it? I'm looking at you, Christian conservatives, who seemingly would never forgive Kennedy for anything -- but was it for his actions, or just leverage for their hating his politics? Must be politics, because their memories and lack of forgiveness regarding similar acts do seem party-sensitive.
Amidst all the thousands of hours of wasting television "news" coverage of OJ, the Buttafucos, John and Kate and all such similarly inane crap, why did we never know Kennedy was such good friends with Republicans, like Orrin Hatch? All sorts of talking heads know enough to speak glowingly of it, but why wasn't that personal behavior covered over the years decades that our politics have become so polarized? Why couldn't that be role modeling for kids to observe on TV, instead of types like the Gosselins and the Hiltons?
Finally, Joe Scarborough keeps suggesting this one particular 1990 GQ takeout story on Kennedy as being a turning point in his life. Perhaps, but, Joe, was that the only magazine article you've ever read?
And, now, what a wonderful (totally memorized) coda to a great life:
In a politically divided country, this is all quite tricky and potentially sticky, looking to criminalize the actions of CIA agents when under the management of a bunch of malicious doofuses will only be further divisive.
I still think going the truth and reconciliation commission route would be the best for all concerned. Facing the truth with no political gain on the line -- even if only perceived -- would truly be Change to believe in.
The Today Show's opening this morning teased a piece about "the topless model hosting Michelle Obama around Italy," as if the two are BFFs. And then, at 7:49 -- after holding the perverted voyeuristic interested audience for all four quarter-hours -- they finally got around to the piece.
The host for the current G8 summit is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who, for a number of reasons ranging from pathetic to entertaining, is in the midst of a divorce. So, he needed a hostess for all the wives, or as our U.K. friends call them, WAGs, and picked former Italian showgirl Mara Carfagna, who he appointed to be the country's equal opportunities minister, to show the WAGs around.
The young lady apparently has modeled in various states of undress. Whoop-de-doo. Others in the political discourse, whether intentional or accidental, have done the same. As long as she does her job well, y'know?
But, ooooh, the word "topless" on morning television. How racy.
Look, dude, I don't care if you hooked up with a llama when you were in Argentina, as long as you are competent in your position and you aren't a raging hypocrite about it.
When you once upon a time said this about a fellow sinner:
You then should check out this piece about this extremely interesting graphic that indicates Red Staters "sin" (as they would define it) more than Blue Staters.
I enjoy Esquire magazine, especially its "What I've Learned" feature. Going through the magazine pile, I caught up with ex-Disney chief Michael Eisner's take in the April 2009 edition, wherein he opined:
--- snip ---
The auto industry situation is incredibly complex, and it would be a little silly of me to try to reduce it. But you could say it was like the entertainment business. They didn't make movies that people wanted to see. They had the infrastructure, they had the technology, they had the manpower. They just didn't make vehicles that enough people wanted to buy. They ended up trying to protect their existing business and not concentrating on the future.
--- snip ---
Why, yes, that was silly. That's all easy to say from a guy in a business where new product development is a fraction of that for car companies, outsourcing animation is a bit easier than outsourcing car parts, and the health insurance legacy costs of the car industry have proven to be an ultimately debilitating quirk of post-World War II history, because our country has never realized that the U.S. and China are the only car-making countries where the government does not acknowledge that being healthy is a citizen's human right.
Talk about competitive disadvantages.
I've thought from the beginning of the auto company assistance: if the Feds had offered to take every employee and retiree the Big Detroit 3 auto companies cover with health insurance, and move them over to Medicare or a new subsidiary of it, the carmakers probably would have jumped at that, it would've been cheaper, and it would've been a good base for moving forward on long-overdue national health care.
Above: "Don't breathe too deeply. Those costumes? Cheap -- recycled asbestos. At least they're green, right?"
There is no such thing as "judicial activism," or "legislating from the bench." When judges act, they adjudicate objectively through the prisim of their personal legal philosophy, which creates a subjective result: by definition, courts must pick a winner.
On the other hand, when legislators act, they legislate. Similarly, judges' acts do, in fact, have repercussions, because they have to wade through the grey areas, or unclear language, or pandering unconstitutional provisions crafted by legislators who want to get re-elected by constituents who don't know any better than to buy into sound-bite buzzword catch phrases. And, yes, as Sonia Sotomayor said at a symposium (below), if appeals court judges do set "policy," it's because their written opinions have been followed to interpret the work of the above-described legislators since the beginning of the Republic.
I'm a bit late to the party -- for reasons to be discussed later.... always later-- but having had a friend successful in the pageant business, one thought has been nagging me about Carrie Prejean.
She has convinced herself and her new, nudity-tolerant Wingnut followers that she lost the Miss USA pageant because of the substance of her answer. But there were eleven judges other than Perez Hilton, and the one thing that struck me when the question was asked -- yes, we were watching -- was that she was horrible in how she answered the question. She looked totally unprepared for the question. For a refresher, I refer you back to my noticing a master at work -- VPILF Sarah Palin -- during the campaign.
For God's sake, you have to be in the Top 5 before the pageant even asks you to do anything other than look hot, and they do deserve re-assurance that you can handle a question in front of cameras and an audience
I sensed things were going to go bad fairly quickly, and on my Twitter in real time. Keith Olbermann had his take this week, which includes the pageant video:
Now, simply Googling "answer pageant questions" gets you this result, including these links to how-to tips here, here and here.
It's like when you fail a quiz you know that's coming, and then blame the quiz for existing.
Like I first said about her "opposite marriage" concept: oy.
How can we not look back at, and ponder, our behavior as a nation when it included acts of torture (including waterboarding) for which we prosecuted Japanese soldiers, resulting in their execution?
Also, remember the new Miss USA wasn't exactly wearing the union label inside her wedding pageant gown, when she opposed government bailouts of companies. Check out Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton, at the 2:20 mark:
She might not want to schedule Detroit on her itinerary in the near future.
It's been mentioned here and elsewhere that AP arguably has the long knives out for Dems in general and the President in particular, since their DC chief (and former classmate) Ron Fournier has been known to be John McCain's doughnut pimp. But to use the daughters' new puppy as fodder for un-sourced "conspiracy buffs" suggests that the AP is simply providing the talking points for said buffs.
The dog was a gift, for God's sake.
Perhaps the piece was tongue-in-cheek, but if so, it was too poorly written to dissuade my opinion that AP, top to bottom, is simply batshit crazy.
My apologies for not being around around lately. Much work to do (thankfully! thank you clients!), end of the semester (had to write the final), and some other projects I'm trying to get off the ground (here's a taste, it's a surprise: http://bit.ly/BDSFI). But my love for words compelled me to discuss the following with you.
If you really do not know the underlying meaning of the word, you can check out the ridiculously crass (yet smartly insightful) Rude Pundit for guidance, or try to catch the inferences in the following:
I have a theory that I like to run by anti-choicers, which is: if it's God's will which ordains that no life, whatever its stage of development, be aborted, is it then not also God's will for a woman who is unable to conceive to stay that way, and contrary to His will to use artificial means to become pregnant? Though the result might be a bit harsh if an anti-choicer remains consistent, and if it is what it is, and science and medicine shouldn't mess around with the miracle of life, then, logically, it should cut both ways.
That being said, the schadenfreude on Octomom is becoming scary and unfortunate. There's all sorts of incompetent and/or psycho parents out there, and in any given neighborhood, there are probably anywhere between zero and 14 kids at risk from the stupidity of their parents. The only difference here is the density of their location and the fact that Octomom (who may well be an Angelina Jolie-ish half bubble off plum) and Octogram can't seem to stop searching for closure online before these kids' lives have really even opened.
Let's just get those kids raised well, in spite of the family.
(Above: Gee, if that's all it takes to be my doppelganger, I am bumming.)
A centuries-old saying is that "success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." Except, apparently, when Monday-morning quarterbacking the demise of a much-loved Detroit radio station. So, in very Rashomon-like fashion, various players, current and former, have taken to dissecting the rise and fall of The Fan -- Detroit's first all-sports station, WDFN-AM -- in the midst of Obama's inaugural speech last Tuesday.
=> Former PD Gregg Henson, now out of the radio business but still aware of what the deal is, has long charted the station's up and downs here;
=> Nice guy former morning drive host Jamie Samuelsen weighs in here;
=> His former partner, Greg Brady, writes a great post -- definitely not in the "60 Second Blog" ethos -- here;
=> Now former-PD Rona Danzinger provides her witnessing of the carnage, and rebuts Brady, here;
Another axiom is that you should always follow the money. The loss of The Fan stemmed directly from Clear Channel's being sold, a deal that it was conceived during a bull market, and then ended up closing during the beginnings of the credit squeeze. You can chart the ever-increasing acrimony in what finally evolved into a shotgun wedding:
=> In November 2006, corporate owner Clear Channel agreed to sell to Mitt Romney's old place here and here; some of CC's past shenanigans, like gluttonous over-consolidation and the rusulting possible anti-trust violations, are mentioned in the second link:
=> Finally, after an interminable 19-month due diligence process and lawsuits all around, the deal closed this past May, and a whole bunch of belt-tightening was on the horizon.
Now, everyone I ever met from The Fan ranged from at least cordial to downright awesome, a situation you rarely find at any broadcast outlet. Also, let us not forget that many other off-air people at Clear Channel, including friends, got the ziggy, too.
In the big picture, what Clear Channel has wrought has not been good for the industry beyond a handful of its higher-ups. Closer to home, the various takes range from entertaining to informative, and often both, and contain many of the avoidable mistakes and missed solutions which could've made the whole situation better. We forget, though, that while the soldiers on the front lines do the fighting and dying amidst the fog of war business, it stems from the directives from the generals above, playing their little game of Risk or Monopoly, but with real lives.
In the end, I think some essential truths are born out:
=> Terrestrial radio is an awesome business when you craft a product that reflects where it's broadcasting. Homoginizing stations across markets is ultimately a death wish.
=> It's apparent after the last few months, so it's no news flash, but the private sector will screw over everyone but themselves, if you let them.
=> The FCC should take begin to take a long, hard look at these licensees of the public airwaves, and if they aren't doing anything productive for a local market beyond providing syndicated national programming, those licenses should be in jeopardy, if not pulled.
As someone who adores radio and has had some ideas work in the industry, I have long held out hope that these corporate behemoths would ultimately have to divest the stations for any number of reasons, from anti-trust compliance to wanting the tax write-downs to, perhaps, ultimately suffocating from under their own weight. Then, after prices are re-set to a sane market level, local owners will once again be able to craft unique programming visions which are now being relegated to the wonderful, but limited, Internets.
Bottom line, this is yet another example of the path corporate America is now wrongly pursuing to see better days, what I call "downsizing to greatness."
