Glenn Beck, meet Bruce Springsteen

Glenn Beck got hold of the lyrics to Born in the USA and, like other conservatives before him, was chagrined.  It happens over and over and demonstrates what must be obvious to everyone by now. Conservatives don't listen. Or read. Most albums used to come with lyric sheets. Springsteen is, of course, one of the most consistent, outspoken progressives in rock music. But then, who can a conservative rely on, musically speaking? Well, there's always good  Ted Nugent. They've got Ted on their side all right. There are a few others in the world of rock music but not a whole lot of the important ones. The conservative will find greener pastures in the world of country music, but it's certainly not monolithic so even there, they'll need to listen to the words to be sure.

Conservatives need to give it up and chill with some nice Lawrence Welk. Rock music is inherently free-thinking and it was the idealogical forebears of Glenn Beck who saw that in early rock and roll and tried to kill it in its cradle. To put in high school terms -  which seems appropriate - rock music is the always alluring Rebel and the Glenn Becks of the world are the Hall Monitor. And the Hall Monitor was pretty much beneath contempt.

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And That's The Way It Is

It's not so much that Walter Conkrite will be missed. It's more that he's been so much missed since he's been gone from our living rooms on a daily basis. RIP, Mr. Cronkite

Passings

Image via Wikipedia

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. That's a lot for one day. I walked in from work just a few minutes before TMZ announced that Michael Jackson had died. That was several hours ago. They're still covering the story on all the cable news channels. I know this is big, but once the LA coroner confirmed that he'd died there wasn't really anything more to cover, other than his brother's brief statement.

There have been numerous phone interviews with people in Jacko's life from which you could get the definite impression that Michael's world was full of people pretty much as whacked as he was. Al Sharpton managed to make the death of Jackson into an opportunity to get some camera time even though he's in New York and doesn't seem to have anything particularly to do with the current situation.

Good Lord, now they're showing the helicopter carring his body landing on a heliport on the way to the coroner's office. Isn't this just a little creepy? Now they're following the van that's taking the body to the coroner, ala OJ's SUV. Papparazzi to the bitter end.

It's getting harder to think of things to talk about and even Keith Olbermann is beginning to lapse into babble occasionally. One thing no one's talking about is Farrah Fawcett. That was so earlier today. We've forgotten about poor Farrah now. There is talk about whether or not Michael Jackson found the life he wanted. The consensus was, "No". Probably a fair bet.

Now they're talking about how we're all going to die and that gives us something in common with Michael Jackson. Presumably we have that in common with such folks as Aristotle and Attila the Hun as well.

Now there's that lunatic lawyer who Keith spoke to over the phone. He's out there talking on camera now. He looks just like he sounded on the phone. Oh, I looked away for a moment and now Reverend Al has thrown on a suit and tie and gotten his ass to the MSNBC New York studios. The man is alert. You have to give him that.

I'm sorry. All due respect to the berieved and the news guys who are just doing their best to do their jobs, but it's time to let this rest in peace at least until the autopsy or toxicology reports come out because it's turning into a parody of a celebrity death. Michael Jackson is still dead.

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Can We Learn Anything From George Tiller’s Murder?

When I read about the murder a few hours ago, I was going to post something to the effect that the apologists should be making statements shortly. There was always a script for it. Pro-life groups would condemn the act and after about 24 hours or so there’d be  a“but” attached to the condemnation. It’s always something to the effect that the victim of the murder was, after all, someone who took innocent life, but killing is never, ever acceptable. Well, things are moving a lot faster these days and not everyone is quite so delicate about it.Statements have been pouring out from pro-life groups, abortion rights groups and everyone else who will make a statement.  Randall Terry, for one, does not seem to feel constrained to express any condemnation other than to regret that Dr. Tiller was not afforded time to meet his Maker.

Grandpa Eddie reminds us of that report that had some right wing panties in a bunch. The one that referred to home grown terrorists. Sounds like it was right on to me. He also provides a retrospective of violent acts of terrorism targeting abortion providers.

Fitness for the Occasion makes the very simple, but insightful, point that things like this are the problem with calling abortion murder.

So, there are lessons about domestic terrorism, lessons about rhetoric and how not to use it, and I’d hope there is a lesson about thinking hard about how a public message might affect persons who have serious mental health issues.

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Been Memed

Agi  has a meme and was kind enough to tag me. This one is not going to be stellar, but I’ll do my best. It’s about your movie rental history or, if you don’t have one of those, then whatever the last ten movies you’ve rented or watched. I’m headed for Epic Fail here because I’m about two decades behind on my movie watching. What makes it even worse is that when I do get around to seeing one it’s likely not going to be anything I’m terribly proud of.

First let me say that Mr.Yenta is in charge of media acquisition around here. If I want to see something I let him know and he’ll see to getting it. He doesn’t rent. He usually buys on eBay. Then he either keeps it if he likes it enough or else sells it back on eBay. Frequently a movie comes out that I think I’d like to see when it’s available on DVD, but by the time it is, I’ve entirely forgotten. So, my recent movie history goes like this:

The two Queen Elizabeth movies. I’m a sucker for historical drama and books, too. Novels and actual biographies. I prefer more pre-Renaissance stuff, but I’ll watch what’s available.

Hancock. Was fun.

Lakeview Terrace. Well, we started it, but neither Mr. Yenta or I was having fun watching it so we decided we didn’t have to finish it if we didn’t want to.

We bought Slumdog Millionaire last week, but haven’t remembered to actually watch it.

Also, bits of whatever inexecrable thing Mr. Yenta is watching on Sci-Fi or Chiller. They often involve giant snakes or other reptiles.

Consider yourselves all tagged if you want to be. You know who you are.

The Goode Family

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The Goode Family premier tonight was pretty funny. Because liberals can laugh at themselves - or at least at their friends. We enjoyed it.

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The Not Necessarily Final Frontier

Image by Las Valley 702 via Flickr

We went to see the new Star Trek movie tonight. If you have the least little bit of trekkie in you, you should see it. Whether it stands up entirely on its own, I couldn’t really say. I do know that the audience applauded at the end, and no one was in costume. Not even a set of Vulcan ears that I noticed.

There was a plot. It involved  timeline confusion and a lot of disaster of apocalyptic proportions and lots and lots of heroism. The usual stuff. I was pretty impressed with the visuals, but I would guess that fantastic effects are par for the course with today’s technology. The acting was just fine all around. Zachary Quinto did a bang-up job of evolving from not quite Spock to a damned good Spock as as the film went on. Chris Pine – hotter than William Shatner ever was. I’m just saying. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Shatner as Kirk and I like him as the Priceline guy today, but I never really got what the big intergalactic attraction was. It was Spock who was the real sex god in the original series. In this movie, when you find a green girl wrapped around Kirk it’s much easier to see why. This guy would appeal to any species, I’m sure. 

What really impressed me most were the costume designers and the make-up artists. They should win something for blending the Sixties vibe and a futuristic look so successfully. The men were relatively simple. They mostly wore original series Star Fleet threads, although in his pre-Star Fleet days they did a James Dean thing with Kirk that definitely worked.  What was kind of amazing is how they managed to modernize the women’s looks while keeping them in the absurd miniskirts and make-up – including Cleopatra eyeliner and false eyelashes – that they wore in the original series.  They toned it all down and sleeked it all up and it worked, assuming that you’re suspending disbelief anyway. Even the hair was just right. Kind of sixties, but nothing bouffant. A triumph of art and science.

The film cries out for a sequel. Or…what would you call a sequel to the prequel? I don’t know. But I’d go to see it.

ADDENDUM: How could I forget to mention the Romulans. They looked fabulous. These Romulans didn’t just look like Vulcans only less so. They had their own outlaw villain thing going on. Tattooed heads, black duster looking garments and their own special ears. Very effective.

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Outliving the Bastards

Image by earmuffboy via Flickr

I was going to write something about Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, even though I was sadly absent from the concert but got kind of absorbed in the situation described iin the post below. Now the first thing in the morning there’s this interesting take on the show on TPM.  It’s about how the audience cheered every time the President’s name was mentioned and that there was a letter from President Obama, saluting Pete. And it’s about how unusual this kind of thing is at a concert, let alone a leftie concert.

Best of all was this:

Springsteen said that he never saw Seeger more happy than at Obama's inauguration, noting that Seeger saw Obama's ascendancy as proof that he, Seeger, had "outlived the bastards."

My favorite place to see Pete Seeger is right near New York City because the old commies come. And I mean old. You can tell who they are because they fly their old style commie flag high in the form of headgear.  Fiddler’s caps for the men and berets for the women. And they’re about a hundred years old and have been going to see Pete for many decades, since he performed with Woody Guthrie and so many others. They come out for Arlo, too, if he’s right in the city. And now they get to feel they’ve outlived the bastards. They deserve it. May it be true.

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind

Image via Wikipedia

Trouble ahead, lady in red,
Take my advice you’d be better off dead.

Chris from Paris  at Americablog laid some hate on The Grateful Dead and the people who love them last night. Overall, not well received. Last I looked there were 84 replies – mostly suggesting that Chris knew not whereof he wrote, or as more than one commenter explained, “Fuck You!”  It was fairly entertaining. Happily, Joelle showed Chris the error of his ways and while he might not exactly be ready to shine his love light on the Dead he’s at least admitting he just might have come off like an arrogant ass. I didn’t care for the original post either, but I have to admire anyone who’ll admit to such an error. A couple more trips to YouTube and he’ll be on Dead tour. OK, maybe not, but stranger things have happened.

You know, even if you never, ever get the music, any blogging, internet type should be giving credit where it’s due. Dead.net was bringing its own netroots together years before almost anyone. Macs were hippies before they were hipsters. And long before that the Dead was laying down the pre-digital foundation for viral marketing and allowed their live music to be freely shared. Encouraged it, in fact.

I doubt I’ll be going to any shows on this tour, but not because it wouldn’t be a great time. It surely would.

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La, La, La, I Can’t Hear You (Getting Gay Married)

  We’re all familiar with the argument that same-sex marriage is somehow going to change the nature of heterosexual marriage as well. This makes no sense whatever to me, but it’s a compelling argument when compared to the one put forth in The Gay Marriage Fantasy by William Murchison. He seems to be saying that even as gays and lesbians get the right to marry, it’s not real somehow.

You really can't have "gay marriage," you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say.

You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to shake out its pockets.

Such is the supposed effect of the Iowa Supreme Court's declaration last week that gays and heterosexuals enjoy equal rights to marital bliss. Nope. They don't and won't, even if liberal Vermont follows Iowa's lead.

The human race -- sorry ladies, sorry gents -- understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and projection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.

Here’s the thing -  that’s crazy talk. What Mr. Murchison is saying that gay marriage won’t be real to him. He can’t accept it. OK, he doesn’t have to. For a long time I didn’t really believe in Wyoming because I’d never met anyone who’d even been there. I mean it was the only one! The fact that Dick Cheney was supposed to come from there only served to convince me it didn’t really exist. Well, now I’ve met credible people who’ve been to Wyoming and even lived there and I’ve come around to accepting that I was wrong. So it is with gay marriage. Pretending it isn’t real is what’s fantasy.

St. Jing-Tao-Wow Day Special Feature – Interview With Nate Peele

It’s St. Jing-Tao-Wow Eve and I wanted to do something very special to commemorate the occasion. As it stands, it looks like I’ll be absent from Blogtopia for much of the day. It’s all good, though, because a major champion of this holiday, Nate Peele of That’s Right Nate,  very kindly agreed to do an interview for this blog. This is an opportunity for us to reach out to a rather exotic ethnic group to Long Islanders – a White Anglo Saxon Protestant. There are WASPs living here, but they’re few and far between and located in North Shore communities where the roads are named after their ancestors. Mostly, you don’t run into them. On the local level, I know more people from Nigeria (4) or Bangladesh (lots) than I do White Anglo Saxon Protestants. So, it seemed like a good idea to learn about this group of Americans before they’re all gone. Here, then, is our interview:

Q.First of all, I'd like to thank you for virtually sitting down with
me today, Nate. Here on Long Island you don't meet so many WASPs. It's my hope that this opportunity to learn about your culture and your people will help us all to understand each other a little better.

A. No blog has done more than Thatsrightnate.com to try and bridge understanding between WASPs and non-WASPs.  I think we have a lot more in common that you'd think.  If you could ever be admitted into our clubs and organizations I think you'd see that.

Q.Now, as well as being a WASP, you're a male, so are you angry? Very angry? Do you currently own any assault weapons or explosives?

A. LOL, no I've barely even begun researching my manifesto.  I think a lot of the whole white male anger thing is overblown by the media.  A lot of this is because WASPs are very quickly disappearing from local media markets.  You have two anchors and one of them needs to be a woman and one needs to be a minority.  Most television stations go with the black male and white female anchor team so you don't hear our viewpoints much. 

Q.Thank you for clearing that up. Now, about St. Jing-Tao-Wow Day -This is a new holiday, suggested by Lou Dobbs and promoted by you, correct? And all that had something to do with ethnic holidays and the St. Patrick's Day parade. There are quite a few ethnic parades in New York now, especially if you count the Gay Pride parade, but no WASP parade as far as I know.  I see you come from Illinois. There have been some WASP parades there, particularly in Skokie if I recall correctly. Did you attend or participate in those? How do WASP parades differ from, say, the Puerto Rican Day parade, if at all?

A. Wow, there are a lot of questions that you're asking there.  There are no WASP parades.  The problem is we hate walking.  That's why when we build a new suburb or subdivision we don't bother putting in sidewalks.  We also hate bumper to bumper traffic.  We're not really a parade people.   We do picnics though and we quite enjoy them.

Q. What kind of food is your people's soul food? If we wanted to go
out for some WASP, what sort of  restaurant or fast food place should we look for?

A. It’s funny because most WASP foods are white.  We're big consumers of marshmallow fluff, mayonnaise, white bread, and mashed potato flakes.  We also love Fresca, but its hard to get anymore.  As a culture I would say that our main contribution to food though is that we are able to take from other cultures and adapt them.  Olive Garden, Panda Express, and Taco Bell are great examples of ethnic cuisine that we've transformed.

Q. Is there one particular person that you'd say is the epitome of a
WASP cultural icon? African-Americans have MLK, Jr. and now, President Obama, Irish-Americans still have John F. Kennedy plates on their walls, Jews have Paul Newman (he was a nice looking man with a social conscience who stayed married for about a hundred years to a woman who wasn't a pretty as he was) and Italians have Frank Sinatra. So who is absolutely IT for White Anglo Saxon Protestants?

A. Wow, I had no idea Paul Newman was Jewish.  In entertainment we have a few that really stand out.  Pat Boone did a lot to make black culture accessible to us without frightening.  As actors go, I've really been fond of Jack Webb who was also quite a musician in his own right.  In terms of a social figure like Martin Luther King, I'd have to hold up Henry Ford who united the car manufacturers against the workers.

Q. This comes from someone else. She wants to know if you have any native dances. I said that according to my research that would be line dancing, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. We're here to learn.

A. Line dancing is a good answer, but it does have ethnic moves in it.  The dance form that I think is purely ours is called the overbite.  It is actually a dance used by WASP males to court our females.  We also do it at a lot of weddings.  The nice thing is it is a versatile dance that can be done to most popular music.

Q. How do you feel about having a president who is not one of your
people? That's only happened one other time, I believe, and at least
JFK was pale. Do you think your best days are over?

A. Not at all.  One of the things that we have come to believe in is that minorities and women should be allowed into our most exclusive organizations.  The key is limiting their membership.  My hope is that my grandchildren will never have to listen to anybody say that all the Presidents have been white males because he can just point to Obama's picture and remind people we had a black President too.  I hope that in the next 40 or so years we will even have a woman President.

Q. Is there anything you'd like to tell us about the experience and
struggles of being a White Anglo Saxon Protestant in America?
Something that you'd like the rest of us to understand.

A. First, we are the largest minority group in this country.  We're not going anywhere either.  Without us there wouldn't be dinner theatre, golf pants, lawn ornaments, or jazzercise.  I really think we need a WASP history month.  Last year on my blog I tried to designate white males of distinction who had done something  to truly stand out.  You'd be surprised how few students even study the lives of people like Robert C. Baker who in my mind was the Thomas Edison of poultry.   He not only invented turkey ham, but also the chicken nugget.  Our textbooks and liberal teachers would rather spend their time on Pocahontas or George Washington Carver, but I think if you asked most people they'd rather have chicken nuggets than a peanut butter sandwich any day of the week and you also have what the nugget did for the whole honey mustard industry.

Q. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

A. I'd definitely be an ash.  Thanks for interviewing me.  Have a joyous Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Day!  I'm going to take my daughter out to Olive Garden to celebrate.

I’d just like to thank Nate again, for helping us out. I feel like I learned quite a lot from that and I hope others did as well.  I’d also like to wish all of you a happy, safe and healthy St. Jing-Tao-Wow Day. I look forward to getting back here tomorrow night and learning about the different ways that people have celebrated.

St. Jing-Tao-Wow Day

Nate’s at it again. He’s been watching Lou Dobbs go off on his annual anti-St. Patrick’s Day rant and Nate is taking a sarcastic suggestion on Dobbs’ part and running with it. He’s pushing for a new holiday. Nate is starting a movement to make March 31st Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Day. It seems, according to Nate, that Saint Jing-Tao-Wow is the patron saint of ethnic and racial stereotyping. Personally, I wouldn’t swear to that, but then, I’m no theologian. He thinks we should be as stereotypical as possible on the 31st. I’m working on it. I’m Irish-Italian-Jewish myself. Since the first thing I think of when you say “ethnic” is food, all I could come up with at first was pizza bagels and Guinness. Problem is, while I love pizza and I’m partial enough to a nice everything bagel with a schmear and on special occasions, like Christmas morning, some lox, I don’t like pizza and bagels as one food. And as far as Guinness goes, I like a nice diet cola. So I’ll have to give the whole thing a little more thought. Nate has provided a video, to watch and/or post, promoting his great idea.

Apart from the issue of illegal immigration, which seems to be his personal white whale, I don’t really get what Lou Dobbs finds so troublesome about diverse cultural influences. Where I was born, in New York City, even in the Leave It To Beaver fifties a normal day’s errands involved encountering people from at least three different continents with all kinds of different accents. Some spoke English, others were just learning. It all seemed perfectly natural. That was a long time ago. There’ve been changes, as there always are, in which groups of people are arriving here. What doesn’t change is that each ethnic group finds its way to fit in and adds something new to our culture. So, I don’t know about stereotypes, but there might be something in the idea of having one day to celebrate our different heritages.  Best case scenario – a day off. At the very least, though, there should be great food and maybe some sales.

They Say That On St. Patrick's Day, We're All Irish

On St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. It seems to be true.

They’re Irish in Tokyo

A vertically challenged Irish Setter for a day

Can’t forget one for the kittehs if I want to be able to live here.

Have a safe and Happy St. Paddy’s Day, everyone!

Let Them Eat Landlines

Once again, conservatives show that they can’t get out of the 20th century. And that’s when they’re being cutting edge.

First Andrew Malcolm writes this blog post  about the First Lady, Michelle Obama going to volunteer at a soup kitchen in D.C. She even brought some food. It was actually a great use of the celebrity that has accrued to the Obama family. Soup kitchens, as well as food pantries, need volunteers and donations. When times are tough both of those just get harder to come by. Just by showing up, she’s demonstrating a way that the most ordinary citizen can help. There are quite a lot of good folks who’d like to lend their fellow humans a hand but really don’t know where to start. So, nice gesture Mrs. Obama, and a constructive one, at that, right?

Not so fast. Let’s not focus on that. Let’s look at the photo. Let’s focus on the unidentified man in the photo who’s taking a picture of Michelle Obama with his - 0MFG - cell phone. This one photo, out of a number that were taken, spoils the whole vibe according to Mr. Malcolm. This, of course, let loose the rightwingnuts, who never like to miss an opportunity to advance their meme that America’s poor are actually rich. Alex Koppelman at Salon has the rundown and links to them. No need to repeat them here.

Never mind whether or not we know anything about the man in the photo. What I’d like to know is when was the last time anyone questioned the legitimacy of a low income person maintaining a landline? The early to mid-twentieth century maybe? Like back when, if you didn’t have a phone, there’d be some candy store or something in the neighborhood that might allow you to give out their payphone number in case of emergency or to prospective employers? Back when there were functional payphones everywhere and using them cost a dime?

The thing is, it’s the twenty-first century now and people have cell phones. To Malcolm and Malkin and the rest of the angry mob, I guess cell phones are something you have in addition to your landline. A small luxury. It is, however, very possible to have just the cell. Yeh, really. That’s been going on for quite some time now. Hell, even old farts like Mr. Yenta and I have given up the landline. Money was an issue – no need to pay for both. There’s also the fact that, not having our own secretaries, we actually find it more convenient to just have the one phone each.

Poor people, especially younger ones, just have the cell phones and they are no more a luxury than a landline ever was. They are much more practical than landlines if you are homeless or under the threat of same. If you can’t be reached by phone, good luck on ever being anything else but destitute. Over here, in 2009, not only does everyone need a phone, but you’re going to need internet access, too. Fortunately libraries are often able to provide that.

Blago Gets Booked Bigtime

Former Governor Blagojevich has got himself a 2 million dollar book deal. Condi’s got a book deal. Laura has a book deal. I don’t know if Barney has one, but I’m 100% sure he could get one if he wanted, as long as he agreed not to bite the ghostwriter too hard. Everyone and his mother has a book deal but nobody wants to hear from W.

Red State Sinners

First we learned that red states have more divorces than blue states.  And it seems they tend to to have more  teen pregnancies. And now it turns out they download more porn per broadband connection. Seeing a pattern here? Yeah, me, too. And these are the people who are worried about our morality? Maybe they should try out ours for a while. See how it works.

I'm not entirely surprised.  I'm not all that conversant with the red state culture, it's true. I've lived all my life either in New York City or some fifty miles away from it.  We haven't gotten around much due to time,  money and the fact that when we can go somewhere we tend to head to Western Massachusetts because couldn't possibly be a lot of better places to be in the world. 

The closest we normally get to deep red is when we visit my mother-in-law in the Ocala area of purple Florida. The roadside billboards make fascinating reading for the uninitiated such as ourselves. Besides the ones touting tourist attractions the most ubiquitous by turns were huge ads for all manner of ultra-conservative Christian churches and Adult XXX diversions of one sort or another. That kind of says it all.

I think that you have to consider that one reason that red state social conservatives are the way they are is that they like it fine that way. The constant tension between sin and slavation can make every life a piece of epic poetry in a tortured sort of way. Can it be a coincidence that so much of the best American literature comes from the South? It could be all of a piece. 

Tags: Red States, Sex, Sin, Porn, Conservatism

Happy Presidents' Day

Image via Wikipedia

Today is the day that I think of as George Washington's Birthday, even though it's not. That would be February 22nd. At some point Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's got conflated into Presidents' Day and met on the Monday closest to the middle or something, but it's not so easy to make these adjustments after a certain age. Plus, at my office, Lincoln's birthday is a floating holiday, resulting in a four day weekend for me!

According to C-SPAN's Survey of Presidential Leadership, Lincoln and Washington are still Number 1 and 2, respectively. That makes sense. They both got quite a bit done. In retrospect, of course, we have some criticisms. More with Washington than with Lincoln. While there is endless debate about just how much of a priority freeing the slaves was to Lincoln, nonetheless, he did it and did it unambiguously. In the end there wasn't any nonesense about providing slaves with "access to freedom" or a "path to freedom" or any of the blather we have to listen to these days.

Washington, on the other hand, owned slaves. And so did Jefferson. Let's face it, founding fathers from what became slave states tended to own other human beings. This is a distasteful fact that every school child has to digest and try to place into the context of history. It's one of our early lessons in living with cognitive dissonance, which turns out to be a damned handy skill.

Now, as if owning people and all the evils that entails weren't enough, I recently learved via Barking Up the Bodhi Tree (Best blog name ever? Could very well be.) that both Washington and Jefferson killed the dogs belonging to their slaves. They were concerned that slaves were using the dogs to steal their sheep. Don't try to think that one over too deeply. It hurts the 21st century brain.

Because, ever since last November, I've become a veritable Pollyanna, I think that what I'm going to take away from that piece of information is that despite what appears to be evidence to the contrary, society does progress. The open and common practices of men who were respected enough to forge an entire new nation and make it work would not only prevent them from founding a nation today; that stuff would get them arrested. If they were here now instead of there then they would probably agree that neither keeping slaves nor mass dog murder should be in the realm of acceptable - or legal - human behavior.

There was a time when raping, pillaging, burning villages and killing every man, woman and child in them was just a way to make a living. Now we frown upon that. We have international laws against those things, even. It's not that we don't violate the laws that try to govern our behavior. Some do and some probably always will. What shows progress is man's inhumanity to man and other species becomes more and more unacceptable as we go through time. Might as well be encouraged by that. It's what we've got.

Technorati Tags: Presidents Day, Washington, Lincoln, dogs

Fineman Wins Battle with the Bottle

We were all relieved to see our favorite Howard overcome. Ever since - oh, right around the election - he's been letting his gray hair grow out. It's not such an easy thing to do all at once like that if you're just a private citizen who has to show up at work each day. Imagine how it must be if your head is on television night after night. Not even all of you. Just your big old head.

Change we can believe in

At first, as he grayed literally before our eyes we thought that covering the campaign season had just been exceptionally hard on ol' Howard. Or maybe he had been worried that McCain might really win. But no, it gradually became clear that he was going natural. That's change we can believe in. A new transparency, as it were. But change isn't easy. There are bumps along the way. While things started out well enough, as in the photo above, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Things got a little ugly for a while. Fineman's nadir came this past week when he made his usual media appearances with his pate in what I can only call disarray. His hair was mostly a nice silver color but there was still a hugish patch of oxidized brown, kind of in the middle of his forehead. You just wanted to take a scissors to it. Didn't look good, but it just goes to show that it really is darkest right before dawn.

A Brand New Day

Today, Mr. Fineman appeared on Chris Matthews with his head held high. He was freshly coiffed and the brown patch gone. He looked dignified and all elder statesmanish. He looked together again. He had prevailed against whatever temptation there might have been to just say. "Screw it" and go back to the bottle. What he just said was, "no". We congratulate him on his victory. It can't have been easy, but the results are worth it. And gray hair hasn't hurt Keith Olbermann any, not to mention David Gregory. I doubt he'd have gotten MTP at his tender age without that hair to give him a look of authority.

Now, can anyone think of any females with silver locks in who are in the media a lot? Donna Brazile comes to mind. Any others? I'm thinking of keeping track. It's a personal decision and people should do what they like about their grayness, baldness or any other "ness" that comes up, but I do think it would be nice if persons of both genders could continue to be considered relevant throughout without being required to masquerade as someone much younger. Also, after a while that just doesn't work so well.

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Happy Valentine's Day

Courtesy of xkcd

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Top Dog is a Senior Citizen

Ten is the new five in the canine set. An elderdog who goes by the name of Stump just won Best in Show at Westminster. The Sussex Spaniel has already survived a serious health crisis and came back to show the young whippersnappers how it's done. He even sat up on his hindquarters upon winning, looking a lot like he thought a snack should be forthcoming. Immediately after that he appeared to be taking a victory nap.

Congratulations to Stump and his family. Way to represent for the older folks of all species!