|
|
|
Testify, Brother John!
"I don't view these people as conservatives. I actually view them as extreme, and I think their policies have been extreme, and that extends all the way to Iraq, where this president, in my judgment, diverted the real war on terror -- which was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida -- and almost obsessively moved to deal with Iraq in a way that weakened our nation, overextended our armed forces, cost us $200 billion and created a breach in our oldest alliances." -- John Kerry, 9-23-2004
Couldn't have put it better myself.
This new John Kerry spot is terrific. Give it a look, and then pass the URL on to every swing voter you know (and what the heck -- send it to Kool-Aid drinkers, too. Why leave their delusions undisturbed?)
I took in an evening of Vitaphone shorts last night at Film Forum and had a great time. These shorts all came from the years 1927-29, and all but one included some musical content, though two or three were primarily comedy routines straight out of vaudeville.
It's often easy to think of old-time entertainment as tame and saccharine, but every single one of these shorts belied that notion. They were saucy, sassy, and very, very entertaining -- even the supposedly straight musical ensembles threw in a great many humorous touches to liven things up. Almost nothing was played straight.
First up was Bernardo De Pace, a mandolin player. Dressed in a Pagliacci clown outfit (and sporting an oddly gleaming wig that appeared to be made of cellophane), he alternated between clowning and shredding. He was the first of many acts on the evening to remind me of Chico Marx, in that he clearly was a master of his instrument but devoted much of his time to tricks and tomfoolery.
Several of his descendents, who financed the restoration of this film, were on hand for the show, so the audience was particularly enthusiastic about this opening short.
Next up, the Police Quartette, four LA cops who offered acapella singing somewhere between barbershop and early Mills Brothers. Great fun.
The third short, The Night Court, had something of a plot. Cops raid a night club, and the performers mount their defense in night court by performing for the judge. William Demarest played the defense attorney.
Shaw and Lee, the stars of the fourth short, were a deadpan comedy team who had the house howling. Their material was a mixture of puns, wisecracks, and absurdist non sequiters, and they mixed in a couple of songs, too, one of them entitled "Don't Forget to Breathe or Else You'll Die."
Dick Rich and his Melodious Monarchs, the stars of the fifth short, were the first of several jazz orchestras to be featured on the night. It was interesting to note the makeup of these combos as compared to the swing bands of the late 1930s and '40s. Almost all had three saxes and three or four brass instruments, but more than one included a banjo player and all had string players (two violinists at a minimum), too.
Rich was a portly fellow who mixed in lots of humor with the music. A Cherie Rich (his wife? Not sure.) provided vocals, and he drew laughs by making faces behind her back. Rich and his orchestra were apparently quite the rage on the West Coast in the twenties.
Sol Violinsky, the star of the sixth short, was a fast, adept piano player who mixed in some Chico-esque wisecracks between songs (he also added comic lyrics to his version of The March of the Wooden Soldiers), but the highlight of his set was when he strapped an extra-long bow to his thigh and played the violin (which he held under his chin) and the piano simultaneously.
In the seventh short, the Larry Ceballos Revue offered a recreation of a roof garden revue. It featured lots of leggy dames doing oddball line dances to peppy accompaniment provided by a jazz orchestra. Fun stuff.
Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats were the stars of the eighth short. They were a popular jazz band of the day and featured close harmony vocals on several songs. Very peppy, very tight, very fun.
In the ninth short, Sinclair and La Marr delivered a thick slice of vaudeville, playing "two wisecracking ladies loafing through a vacation at the beach." It was ten or twelve minutes of set-ups and punchlines, and if one joke didn't suit you, there was another right behind it that probably would. This was, I think, the only short that featured no music at all.
Earl Burtnett and His Biltmore Hotel Orchestra were the stars of the tenth short, and they were perhaps the least jazzy of the bunch. But it was still pretty entertaining stuff. One of the instrumentalists stepped forward to croon a sappy version of "The Melody Lingers On," but the set was redeemed by a quartet singing a nicely syncopated rendition of "The Tiger Rag."
Mayer and Evans were just great in the night's eleventh short. He was a novelty (but genuinely talented) piano (or, as he called it, the "boxcar zither") player who performed in cowboy gear and mixed in lots of humor with the music, and she was a undistinctive but pleasant enough vocalist who played straight woman to many of his humor bits. They were very, very entertaining and probably got the loudest applause of the night.
Abe Lyman and His Orchestra were the stars of the night's final short. He was a drummer (though not a terribly interesting one, I have to say), and his orchestra played some sweet tunes and some uptempo ones (including "The Varsity Rag").
Overall, it was a very entertaining set of shorts. There was scarcely an earnest moment in the entire evening -- all the performers brought a winking, wry quality to their performances that was very winning.
It felt very much as if we'd time-traveled back to the 1920s, and an entertaining excursion it was.
From today's edition of The Daily Mis-Lead:
Iraqi Prime Minister parrots dishonest Bush talking pointsToday, speaking before a joint session of Congress, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi parroted the Bush administration's talking points: "We are succeeding in Iraq."[1] The facts on the ground, however, suggest otherwise.
Over the last year the number of insurgents in Iraq has quadrupled. [2] Attacks on U.S. troops are up 100% since last winter.[3] Major Iraqi cities such as Fullujah have become havens for insurgents and are completely inaccessible to U.S. troops. [4] Security situations have stalled reconstruction -- Iraq still has less electricity than they did before the war. [5] Even some Bush administration officials have acknowledged that elections planned for January may have to be delayed.[6]
Remember, Allawi hadn't lived in Iraq for three decades before he was appointed Dubya's chief puppet. He has zero credibility and no loyalty from the Iraqi people.
The mainstream media would rather blather about Rather, and Lord knows the president doesn't want you thinking about Iraq, but it's important to remember that our brave men and women are still dying over there, fighting in a war that was launched on false pretenses and lies:
The current count of American dead? 1041. Ten of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died, too, of course. More than 7000 Americans have been wounded, as have untold numbers of Iraqi civilians.
We must not forget these victims of Bush, Inc., arrogance, ineptitude, and dissembling. They keep tossing out other shiny objects, trying to redirect our focus, but we must not allow ourselves to be distracted.
Innocent men and woman are dying daily, and Iraq is descending into utter chaos. And it's all uncessary.
This comes from the Sojourners website:
Jimmy Swaggart tells congregation he'd kill gays
by David BatstoneLast Sunday Christian evangelist Jimmy Swaggart shared a shocking confession to his congregation during a worship service that is broadcast to a global audience. In the middle of his sermon, Swaggart proclaimed that he would "kill" a man that looked at him with romantic intent.
Swaggart's sermon is so outrageous that I want to give you his exact words:
"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry."
(shouts, applause)
"And I'm gonna be blunt and plain, if one ever looks at me like that I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."
(laughter, applause)
"In case anybody doesn't know God calls it an abomination. It's an abomination! It's an abomination!"
(applause)
..."I'm not knocking the poor homosexual. I'm not. They need salvation just like anybody else.... I'm knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers. And I thank God that President Bush has stated we need a constitutional amendment that states that marriage is between a man and a woman."
(applause)
These are the "men of faith" with whom our "devout" Dubya associates. This is the way they distort and twist the teachings of Jesus Christ as found in the New Testament.
It brings to mind a bumper sticker I've seen here and there:
The Christian Right is neither.
I espied Tim Robbins this evening at Film Forum. He was alone, and I think (but am not certain) he was taking in a new documentary called The Take.
He stopped at the concession stand for a bottle of water and somehow expected it to be two dollars or less. At least, that's what he offered the counter attendant.
"Er, that's $2.60," she pointed out politely, forcing Robbins to dig up the difference.
He's taller than I thought, somehow.
You might want to sit down for this.
An anchorman on a national news broadcast called our unduly appointed leader on the carpet regarding one of his multitudinous misstatements.
I know, I know -- it's hard to believe one of these guys was paying enough attention or had cojones enough to call Dubya on his duplicity, but Peter Jennings has apparently grown a pair in recent days.
Dubya claimed that John Kerry "said that the world is better off with Saddam in power."
He did nothing of the kind, of course. And Jennings follows the clip of Bush with Kerry's words, revealing Bush's dissembling spin for what it is.
It ought not to be a breakthrough development for a prominent member of the mainstream media to call Dubya on his lies, but sadly, it is. Here's hoping this is just the beginning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this righteous rant from Garrison Keillor, and I think you might, too:
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison KeillorSomething has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned -- and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy....
There's much more here.
John Kerry gave a great speech the other day at New York University.
It's not received half the coverage of the silly Dan Rather debacle, of course, but that's the nature of our news media today. We can no longer depend upon them to tell us what we need to know.
Here is a key passage from Kerry's speech, one that is especially salient this week as George Bush continues to try to sugarcoat the quagmire he created in Iraq:
This month, we passed a cruel milestone: more than 1,000 Americans lost in Iraq. Their sacrifice reminds us that Iraq remains, overwhelmingly, an American burden. Nearly 90 percent of the troops – and nearly 90 percent of the casualties – are American. Despite the President’s claims, this is not a grand coalition.Our troops have served with extraordinary bravery, skill and resolve. Their service humbles all of us. When I speak to them… when I look into the eyes of their families, I know this: we owe them the truth about what we have asked them to do… and what is still to be done.
In June, the President declared, “The Iraqi people have their country back.” Just last week, he told us: “This country is headed toward democracy… Freedom is on the march.”
But the administration’s own official intelligence estimate, given to the President last July, tells a very different story.
According to press reports, the intelligence estimate totally contradicts what the President is saying to the American people.
So do the facts on the ground.
Security is deteriorating, for us and for the Iraqis.
42 Americans died in Iraq in June -- the month before the handover. But 54 died in July…66 in August… and already 54 halfway through September.
And more than 1,100 Americans were wounded in August – more than in any other month since the invasion.
We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever widening war-zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. In August, they attacked 2,700 times – a 400% increase.
Falluja…Ramadi… Samarra … even parts of Baghdad – are now “no go zones”… breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers. The radical Shi’a cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, who’s accused of complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in the suburbs of Baghdad.
Violence against Iraqis… from bombings to kidnappings to intimidation … is on the rise.
Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.
Residents of Baghdad are suffering electricity blackouts lasting up to 14 hours a day.
Raw sewage fills the streets, rising above the hubcaps of our Humvees. Children wade through garbage on their way to school.
Unemployment is over 50 percent. Insurgents are able to find plenty of people willing to take $150 for tossing grenades at passing U.S. convoys.
Yes, there has been some progress, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Schools, shops and hospitals have been opened. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails.
But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they’re sitting on the fence… instead of siding with us against the insurgents.
That is the truth. The truth that the Commander in Chief owes to our troops and the American people.
It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it’s essential if we want to correct our course and do what’s right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do.
You can (and should, if you haven't already) read the entire speech. And while you're there, throw the DNC a few bucks.
I firmly believe this is the most important election of our lives and, quite possibly, our nation's history. If Bush, Inc., is given four more years to run roughshod over our nation and the world, we may no longer recognize the country we were born in....
If you've ever found the accounts of Dubya's Nattional Guard service (or lack thereof) confusing, you can thank Bush, Inc. That lack of clarity comes as a result of months, even years, of obfuscation on their part, and that sort of denial, muddling, and even lies requires a lot of hard work. But they are nothing if not dedicated to the job of keep Americans under-, ill-, and misinformed.
Now, the upstarts at Salon have the nerve to spell it out all for us. I've pulled the blow-by-blow account of Dubya's TANG misadventures, but you really should read the whole story. (If you're not a subscriber, use the free Day Pass they offer -- but you really should be a Salon subscriber. They do a great job of covering stories the lame, limp mainstream media never get around to.)
(Note that statements below that certain documents do not exist, or that Bush failed to obtain proper authorization, are based on the White House's repeated insistence that all relevant Bush military documents have been made public. Some of these documents, of course, may yet turn up.)Bush flew for the last time on April 16, 1972. Upon entering the Guard, Bush agreed to fly for 60 months. After his training was complete, he owed 53 months of flying. But he flew for only 22 of those 53 months.
Upon being accepted for pilot training, Bush promised to serve with his parent (Texas) Guard unit for five years once he completed his pilot training. But Bush served as a pilot with his parent unit for just two years.
In May 1972 Bush left the Houston Guard base for Alabama. According to Air Force regulations, Bush was supposed to obtain prior authorization before leaving Texas to join a new Guard unit in Alabama. But Bush failed to get the authorization.
In requesting a permanent transfer to a nonflying unit in Alabama in 1972, Bush was supposed to sign an acknowledgment that he received relocation counseling. But no such document exists.
He was supposed to receive a certification of satisfactory participation from his unit. But Bush did not.
He was supposed to sign and give a letter of resignation to his Texas unit commander. But Bush did not.
He was supposed to receive discharge orders from the Texas Air National Guard adjutant general. But Bush did not.
He was supposed to receive new assignment orders for the Air Force Reserves. But Bush did not.
On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his "permanent address." But he wrote down a post office box number for the campaign he was working for on a temporary basis.
On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his Air Force specialty code. But Bush, an F-102 pilot, erroneously wrote the code for an F-89 or F-94 pilot. Both planes had been retired from service at the time. Bush, an officer, made this mistake more than once on the same form.
On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, commander of the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was, and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining two years of flight obligation. But Bush pressed on with his transfer request nonetheless.
Bush's transfer request to the 9921st was eventually denied by the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, which meant he was still obligated to attend training sessions one weekend a month with his Texas unit in Houston. But Bush failed to attend weekend drills in May, June, July, August and September. He also failed to request permission to make up those days at the time.
According to Air Force regulations, "[a] member whose attendance record is poor must be closely monitored. When the unexcused absences reach one less than the maximum permitted [sic] he must be counseled and a record made of the counseling. If the member is unavailable he must be advised by personal letter." But there is no record that Bush ever received such counseling, despite the fact that he missed drills for months on end.
Bush's unit was obligated to report in writing to the Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base whenever a monthly review of records showed unsatisfactory participation for an officer. But his unit never reported Bush's absenteeism to Randolph Air Force Base.
In July 1972 Bush failed to take a mandatory Guard physical exam, which is a serious offense for a Guard pilot. The move should have prompted the formation of a Flying Evaluation Board to investigation the circumstances surrounding Bush's failure. But no such FEB was convened.
Once Bush was grounded for failing to take a physical, his commanders could have filed a report on why the suspension should be lifted. But Bush's commanders made no such request.
On Sept. 15, 1972, Bush was ordered to report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, the deputy commander of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Ala., to participate in training on the weekends of Oct. 7-8 and Nov. 4-5, 1972. But there's no evidence Bush ever showed up on those dates. In 2000, Turnipseed told the Boston Globe that Bush did not report for duty. (A self-professed Bush supporter, Turnipseed has since backed off from his categorical claim.)
However, according to the White House-released pay records, which are unsigned, Bush was credited for serving in Montgomery on Oct. 28-29 and Nov. 11-14, 1972. Those makeup dates should have produced a paper trail, including Bush's formal request as well as authorization and supervision documents. But no such documents exist, and the dates he was credited for do not match the dates when the Montgomery unit assembled for drills.
When Guardsmen miss monthly drills, or "unit training assemblies" (UTAs), they are allowed to make them up through substitute service and earn crucial points toward their service record. Drills are worth one point on a weekday and two points on each weekend day. For Bush's substitute service on Nov. 13-14, 1972, he was awarded four points, two for each day. But Nov. 13 and 14 were both weekdays. He should have been awarded two points.
Bush earned six points for service on Jan. 4-6, 1973 -- a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But he should have earned four points, one each for Thursday and Friday, two for Saturday.
Weekday training was the exception in the Guard. For example, from May 1968 to May 1972, when Bush was in good standing, he was not credited with attending a single weekday UTA. But after 1972, when Bush's absenteeism accelerated, nearly half of his credited UTAs were for weekdays.
To maintain unit cohesiveness, the parameters for substitute service are tightly controlled; drills must be made up within 15 days immediately before, or 30 days immediately after, the originally scheduled drill, according to Guard regulations at the time. But more than half of the substitute service credits Bush received fell outside that clear time frame. In one case, he made up a drill nine weeks in advance.
On Sept. 29, 1972, Bush was formally grounded for failing to take a flight physical. The letter, written by Maj. Gen. Francis Greenlief, chief of the National Guard Bureau, ordered Bush to acknowledge in writing that he had received word of his grounding. But no such written acknowledgment exists. In 2000, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Boston Globe that Bush couldn't remember if he'd ever been grounded.
Bartlett also told the Boston Globe that Bush didn't undergo a physical while in Alabama because his family doctor was in Houston. But only Air Force flight surgeons can give flight physicals to pilots.
Guard members are required to take a physical exam every 12 months. But Bush's last Guard physical was in May 1971. Bush was formally discharged from the service in November 1974, which means he went without a required physical for 42 months.
Bush's unsatisfactory participation in the fall of 1972 should have prompted the Texas Air National Guard to write to his local draft board and inform the board that Bush had become eligible for the draft. Guard units across the country contacted draft boards every Sept. 15 to update them on the status of local Guard members. Bush's absenteeism should have prompted what's known as a DD Form 44, "Record of Military Status of Registrant." But there is no record of any such document having been sent to Bush's draft board in Houston.
Records released by the White House note that Bush received a military dental exam in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973. But Bush's request to serve in Alabama covered only September, October and November 1972. Why he would still be serving in Alabama months after that remains unclear.
Each of Bush's numerous substitute service requests should have formed a lengthy paper trail consisting of AF Form 40a's, with the name of the officer who authorized the training in advance, the signature of the officer who supervised the training and Bush's own signature. But no such documents exist.
During his last year with the Texas Air National Guard, Bush missed nearly two-thirds of his mandatory UTAs and made up some of them with substitute service. Guard regulations allowed substitute service only in circumstances that are "beyond the control" of the Guard member. But neither Bush nor the Texas Air National Guard has ever explained what the uncontrollable circumstances were that forced him to miss the majority of his assigned drills in his last year.
Bush supposedly returned to his Houston unit in April 1973 and served two days. But at the end of April, when Bush's Texas commanders had to rate him for their annual report, they wrote that they could not do so: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report."
On June 29, 1973, the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver instructed Bush's commanders to get additional information from his Alabama unit, where he had supposedly been training, in order to better evaluate Bush's duty. The ARPC gave Texas a deadline of Aug. 6 to get the information. But Bush's commanders ignored the request.
Bush was credited for attending four days of UTAs with his Texas unit July 16-19, 1973. That was good for eight crucial points. But that's not possible. Guard units hold only two UTAs each month -- one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday. Although Bush may well have made up four days, they should not all have been counted as UTAs, since they occur just twice a month. The other days are known as "Appropriate Duty," or APDY.
On July 30, 1973, Bush, preparing to attend Harvard Business School, signed a statement acknowledging it was his responsibility to find another unit in which to serve out the remaining nine months of his commitment. But Bush never contacted another unit in Massachusetts in which to fulfill his obligation.
Despite the laundry list of Guard discrepancies, Bush, when asked about his service this weekend, insisted, "I did everything [my superiors] asked me to do."
This is the man who's asking for your vote again, Mr. and Ms. Swing Voter. This is the fellow who had his henchmen smear John Kerry -- the same John Kerry who a) volunteered to serve, b) who asked to go to Vietnam, and c) who requested some of the most hazardous duty there was once he got there. And while John Kerry was taking those heroic actions, Dubya was having Daddy's friends pull strings to keep him stateside and later, it appears, to gain an honorable discharge he did not deserve.
Wow, we had a thrilling outburst of frankness from the Republicans over the weekend:
From the Voice of America:
Appearing on the CBS television program "Face the Nation" Sunday, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel was asked if he thought the United States is winning the battle to bring a peaceful democratic future to Iraq. Mr. Hegel, who sits on both the Senate Foreign Relations and Select Intelligence committees, was blunt in his response.
"No, I do not think we are winning. To say that we just must stay the course and any of you who are questioning [U.S. efforts in Iraq] are just hand-wringers [excessive worriers] is not very responsible. The fact is, we are in deep trouble in Iraq," he said.
Meanwhile, on "FOX News Sunday," Arizona Senator John McCain was asked if he thought President Bush was being "straight" -- or honest -- with the American people concerning the difficulties and challenges in Iraq. "Perhaps not as straight as we would like to see...."
From the San Jose Mercury News:The chairman [of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee], Sen. Richard Lugar, noted that Congress appropriated $18.4 billion a year ago this week for reconstruction. No more than $1 billion has been spent. "This is the incompetence in the administration," Lugar, R-Ind., said on ABC's "This Week."
Forthright and frank responses from Republicans? Must be getting mighty chilly down Hades way.