Politics Archives - Page 23 of 31

February Rambling about comic book issues, and music

The first Cajun song ever recorded

Local judge removes 5-year-old from grandparents to live with mom and known child abuser. “Local” being in Michigan, with the child being moved to Utah with a mother who had never been part of her life. This particular case involves Troy, the grandfather in question, who’s contributed to the ABC Wednesday team. He’s not thrilled with the way the actual story came out – I’ve seldom liked stories I’ve appeared in myself – but the “justice system” is SO wrongheaded in this case, which, as I’ve linked to before, is not an isolated incident.

KunstlerCast #215: Nicole Foss Interview. Economic contraction and the fate of the nation.

Mad props for Anita Hill.

Blogger Alvin McEwen has published a booklet called How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America, which deftly exposes the most common anti-gay propaganda. Also, conservatives file amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court; they are supporting the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s anti-gay marriage referendum.

How Joe E. Ross (of Car 54) is NOT like Donald Trump or Michele Bachmann.

I mentioned Melanie LAST month; I COULD mention her weekly. This month, she talks about 17 years of defying death and fulfilling longed-for dreams, and for futures that are better than what we have known.

Jaquandor: On Snark and his eleven years (!) in Blogistan. Not only that, he answered some of my questions!

Amy’s 600th post is about Frickin’ Frackers.

Euthanizing gay dogs for Jesus.

Arthur remembers C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, “an unlikely ally in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

Shooting Parrots, on juries: “Has it come to the point where a group of citizens have failed to grasp the basics of the legal system or even a working understanding of the English language?”

Roger Ebert “took after” his aunt Martha.

Recovered suitcases from an insane asylum; this is a Kickstarter project I backed.

Why does bottled water have an expiration date? We HAVE some 2007 water in our emergency kit. Hmm.

I want THESE people to move my stuff; too bad they are in Japan.

One of many reasons why people hate Disney: Disney Refuses To Allow Epilogue To Appear In The Don Rosa Collection. You may not know the name, but if you ever read the Disney ducks, you’ve probably seen his work. The publisher Egmont has agreed to publish a link to career-end.donrosa.de in the final volume, which leads to the now unpublished text, a scathing indictment of compensation practices. (Mark Evanier clarifies this, but does not dispute, in Rosa’s case.)

A fine letter to DC Comics objecting to the hiring of hatemonger Orson Scott Card to write some Superman comics.

Eddie Campbell’s Rules of Comic Book Comprehension.

Colleen Doran, comic artist, says: Fandom, You Deserve Better Friends.

Library prof bops doc who K.O.’d comic book industry.

You can NOW hear my buddy, comic book artist Steve Bissette blather [his word] with Robin at Inkstuds: PART 1 and PART 2. Steve also noted on Facebook: “Note to self: NEVER FORGET this tweet from “Neil Gaiman @neilhimself My #gatewaycomic was Alan Moore & @SRBissette’s Swamp Thing in 1984. I had stopped reading comics. They hooked me back.” Sunday, Feb. 10, 12:23 PM.”

In 1896 William George Crush created the second-largest ‘city’ in Texas, only to deliberately demolish it overnight in a publicity stunt that went catastrophically wrong.

Internet Explorer usage and the US murder rate.

Sesame Street takes on Downton Abbey.

uJigsawArt Jigsaw Puzzle iPhone App & iPad App, designed by Deborah, my friend since 1977.

Must note that Tim O’Toole, my choir buddy, has two books in the Amazon.com pipeline, on Kindle. Two paperbacks are available at their Create Space subsidiary: THE AMERICAN POPE and SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. Haven’t read them yet, but I will, probably the pope book first.

An archeological history of the Beatles?

A BUNCH O’ MUSIC

Dustbury remembers Shadow Morton.

Allons à Lafayette is the first Cajun song ever recorded.

I Heard The Voice Of A Pork Chop – JIM JACKSON (1927). Ragtime Blues Guitar.

Chuck Miller’s The Ease of Vocalese and musical references to chess.

George Gershwin plays a piano version of “Rhapsody in Blue”.

Young@Heart Chorus performs I Put a Spell on You by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

The theme song to the Road Runner cartoon show, in Korean.

Adam Warrock songs. I especially like the Doctor Who song. The store I worked at for many years carried the novels, but I never read them and have only seen one entire episode.

The Arthurian election reform article

What IS the solution to a fairer voting process?

After the 2012 Presidential election – thank every deity it is over – you may recall that only a handful of states were crucial to the decision – Ohio! Florida! Virginia! The Democratic “blue” states – New York, California – were not in play, nor were the Republican “red” states such as Texas. Candidates didn’t campaign in those because of most states’ “winner-take-all” mechanism when it came to the Electoral College. All the electoral votes of a state would go to one candidate. (The upside is that I missed the vast majority of the political ads.)

So the recent Republican plan to change states from winner-takes-all, the way every state, except Maine and Nebraska, does it, to awarding electoral votes by Congressional District, seems to be fairer. And it would be if Congressional boundary lines were drawn equitably.

But as Arthur@AmeriNZ noted a few weeks ago, “Republicans… worked hard, and spent large amounts of money, to win control of state legislatures in 2010 precisely so that they could write the congressional district maps to ensure Republican victories — they now even admit that was their plan all along. This gerrymandering by Republicans is the reason that they control the US House of Representatives even though they received fewer votes than Democrats did. Now, they want to do the same thing in presidential elections.

“Were it not for gerrymandering, the Republican plan would be closer to a proportional system for electing a president than the current winner-take-all approach allows for.” That’s why I had originally thought of such a solution, which seemed obvious at the time, years ago. “However,” and I also noted this at the time, “because of gerrymandering, it instead cynically twists that goal to ensure Republicans win the presidency even if they lose the popular vote—something that could very well happen every election under the Republican plan. So, what we’d end up with is something far less democratic than what we have now.” Which is not very democratic at all.

“If the US were to pass a Constitutional Amendment requiring all states to use truly non-partisan commissions to draw the boundaries of Congressional Districts based solely on population—and forbidding them from taking party voting history of areas into account—then it might be possible to make the Republican plan credible.” This, of course, will NEVER happen. In New York, there were lost promises of having nonpartisan boundaries drawn. “However, most state legislatures would never give up their power to draw the maps, and Republicans aren’t about to walk away from the one thing that could ensure their minority party retains power for at least the next decade…

“The best possible solution would be direct popular election of the president — abolish the Electoral College altogether.” That would be true in the abstract. But the sad fact is that in the real world, I don’t know if I want my vote in New York State, in a close national election, compromised by voter suppression in Pennsylvania, incompetence in Florida, or outright fraud in Ohio.

Arthur noted that, in the current system, “small states are overrepresented,” and of course, that is accurate, but also intentional. A state such as Wyoming has one member of the House of Representatives, so three electoral college votes for the one House seat, plus the two Senate seats. New York has 27 members of the House, so 29 electoral votes. Wyoming has in fact about 3% of the population as New York; changing it to direct vote would, in fact, make the folks THERE less likely to cast a ballot. No small state would pass a Constitutional amendment to make their voters have less impact.

What IS the solution to a fairer voting process? Failing the suggestions put forth, such as fair reapportionment, which simply won’t happen, I have no idea.

My ambivance about Ed Koch

Ed Koch also didn’t endear himself to upstate voters when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York State in 1982, again against Mario Cuomo.

Edward I. Koch died recently. He was the brash, outspoken mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. You should watch this interview conducted in 2007, where he “reflected on his life and political career, and talked of how he would like to be remembered.” I would agree that he brought some fiscal stability to a city on the brink of bankruptcy, “turning a $1 billion budget deficit into a $500 million surplus in five years. He restored the city’s credit, doubled the annual budget to $26 billion and oversaw $19 billion in capital improvements.”

The year 1977 was tough for both NYCNY and me. The city had a blackout that led to widespread looting. A guy dubbed Son of Sam was going around shooting people. I had graduated from college the year before and was underemployed in my college town in the autumn of 1976. In desperation, I lived with my parents in Charlotte, NC for the first four months of 1977; not my favorite place at the time. Then, after a brief trip to Binghamton, NY, I ended up living in the apartment of my sister and her husband at the time. Much of the time, they were in Boston, though they were present some of the time, and he and I did not get along that well.

I had a 30 hour per week telephone job from 6 pm until midnight. I spent most of my time hanging out in Greenwich Village with a co-worker named Michael, who pursued an ill-fated romance with a young woman. I’ve long since lost track of him, but have remained friends with the woman to this day.

So I wasn’t all that engaged with the politics that was going on. It seemed that there were a half dozen folks running for mayor. Ed Koch had been a reform-minded member of Congress, but his pro-death penalty position troubled me greatly. I ended up rooting for Mario Cuomo, who was the state’s Secretary of State.

Despite living there, I was totally unaware of signs that were apparently all over the city saying “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.” Mario Cuomo has continually denied being behind these signs, and though Cuomo and Koch appeared together from time to time subsequently, Koch never forgave either Mario, or his son Andrew, the current New York State governor. (I tend to believe Mario, but wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew were involved; he was a very nasty guy.)

He also didn’t endear himself to upstate voters when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York State in 1982, again against Mario Cuomo. Koch described his run as hubris. He was hurt by an interview with Playboy magazine, where he was insulting to upstaters, describing rural life as “a joke,” for instance.

Amid his accomplishments, and they were many, it was thought by many that he was lousy on race relations with blacks, and extremely slow in responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

After his time as mayor, he worked as a partner in a law firm, did radio commentary, wrote newspaper columns, and even movie reviews. talk-show guest. his support of the war in Iraq peeved me, especially since he had opposed the Vietnam war as a Congressman. More recently, he tried, unsuccessfully, to get nonpartisan reapportionment done, which I support.

The writer Pete Hamill said in 2005 that he was “some mad combination of a Lindy’s waiter, Coney Island barker, Catskills comedian, irritated school principal and eccentric uncle.” This was meant as a compliment, and it’s pretty accurate. The praise he received was no doubt warranted, but somehow, I was not his biggest fan.
***
Artists Against Fracking is a video postcard from Yoko Ono to Andrew Cuomo

From the 1977 Sacred Songs album, NYCNY by Daryl Hall, which rather sounds like NYC, NY of 1977

The second Obama term

The Republicans decided to go to clown school.

That first Barack Obama Presidential campaign had that whole “HOPE” thing going. The impression that most impressed me from four years ago was that even before he was actually inaugurated, how busy he was dealing with an economic disaster far greater than he possibly could have anticipated.

I should have known, though, that the honeymoon would be short-lived. Less than a week after he had officially become President, he was criticized, on FOX News, of course, that he hadn’t done enough for the economy. Then when he came out with the “bailout”, it was considered too large. (I remain convinced that it wasn’t large enough.) The Republicans, for the most part, became intractable in coming up with any solution that didn’t harm the poor and middle class.

I began to tire of the term “job creators.” The “job creators” can’t create jobs because the taxes are too high. But jobs were created in the US for generations with far high rates.

These “spontaneous” tea party folks started coming out of the woodwork fairly early on, screaming at their Congresspeople at public meetings, and having rallies, covered as though they were news events, rather than staged propaganda, by FOX News.

It took almost no effort to find references to the President as a Muslim – “his name is Barack HUSSEIN Obama!” Or a socialist/communist/fascist, by people who seem to have zero grasp of what those words mean. Here is almost every Obama conspiracy theory ever.

The term was an uphill climb. A lot of political capital was used on Obamacare, a term that was initially used derisively, but which is now the recognized nomenclature. Worse, the health care bill didn’t pass until 2010, with no GOP support. If it was a triumph, far less than the universal coverage some of us were seeking – that got thrown under the bus quite early in the negotiations – it was a muted win.

After the Democratic “shellacking” (Obama’s word) in the midterm elections, it was often suggested that Obama would be a one-term President.

The killing of Osama bin Laden muted some critics of the President for about five, maybe even ten minutes. Still, with an anemic economic recovery, it seemed that the Republicans should be in the White House this week.

Fortunately for Obama, the Republicans decided to go to clown school. There was actual talk about whether birther darling Donald Trump would enter the race. Buffoons such as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Texas Governor Rick “what agencies WOULD I cut” Perry, and pizza man Herman “9-9-9” Cain all were frontrunners in the race at some point. Near the end, former senator Rick “don’t Google his last name” Santorum became a credible threat to what the Republican establishment thought was the inevitable nomination of Willard Mitt Romney.

While the administration was already the most progressive in terms of gay rights through 2011, after a hint by VP Joe Biden on a Sunday morning, President Obama came out in support of marriage equality. (It was 2012 was a very good year, in general.) I appreciated that the President took a principled stand on something.

In his first Presidential race, Barack Obama was dubbed as “no-drama Obama.” I believe that he spent his early years figuring out that he didn’t want to be perceived as an “Angry Black Man.” I remain convinced that his perceived anemic performance in the first debate with Romney was a function of that. His more aggressive demeanor in debate #2 generated the ABM charge in some circle.

Frankly, I was unsurprised about the difficulty of agreeing on federal tax rates and expenditures, and the debt ceiling, variations on the so-called “fiscal cliff.” Will the next four years be as frustrating as the last four? Will there be legislation passed on immigration, gun control, or any number of other issues?

2012 Revisited

My daughter has started playing the clarinet. My wife has been playing with her.

One of those year-in-review quizzes from Jaquandor.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Maybe I’ll make some this year. This past year felt as though, if I could keep my head above water, it was good.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not that I can recall.

Did anyone close to you die?

Three SBDC counselors died. Steve Amell of Binghamton I didn’t know well but liked (and he was 49 and died of ALS); Mike Heftka from Buffalo, a swell guy who I’d know for a long time, another youngish guy, who’d been battling cancer for quite a while; and Don Dods out of Kingston, who I’d known for years, who was a great counselor and a tremendous guy.

Joe Morehead, one of my library school professors. Sweet guy, and very bright. Learned a lot about government sources of data. I remember running into him at a tennis match in Schenectady after I had graduated, and I could speak with him as person to person, rather than as student to teacher.

Nate Erlbaum was this guy I would see at these NYS Data Center Affiliates meetings and he would drive me crazy, mostly because I had no idea what he was talking about. As I grew to know him better, though, I recognized how important getting the data correctly and with accessibility was so important. Any time he could help me, he would; he was a font of knowledge. He retired from the NYS Department of Transportation on April 23, having been diagnosed 15 months earlier with lung cancer, and had been receiving chemotherapy, though lots of people working alongside him didn’t even know. He died about a week later at the age of 61. I did mention him here.

Mary Durkot, mom of a friend of mine, was 91. I wrote about her extensively here.

Albert Wood, 57, was in my church choir. He also knew my wife separately, from where she used to work. While I mentioned him somewhat on this blog, I wrote about him more extensively here.

Finally, Avery Cahn, who was 20 months old. I wrote about him here. But the story gets worse. While the babysitter initially stated he accidentally suffocated the child, later he admitted to killing the toddler “because the child would not stop crying.” On the front page of the local section of the paper, we got to see the smothered baby’s relatives tell the court of their devastation, particularly Avery’s mother, who is a member of my church. As I noted earlier, I also feel for the paternal grandmother, who is a good friend of mine.

What countries did you visit?

I’m a real nowhere man. Didn’t even leave New York State, except for the spring trip to Rhode Island and Connecticut.

What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

More optimism.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Denise Nesbitt gave me ABC Wednesday to run for this round, and I didn’t totally derail it.

What was your biggest failure?

Failing to get out of my own way.

What was the best thing you bought?

Nothing is coming to mind.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

Nate Silver, and anyone else who did math, or recognized the validity of science. Also, the voters who turned out those idiot legislators who talked about women who experienced “legitimate rape” who couldn’t get pregnant.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The good news is that Donald Trump no longer annoys me; he’s so jumped the shark with his rants. But all of those other people after the election who talked about secession and revolution. Also, those climate change deniers – has Hurricane Sandy changed your mind? And political pundits, who go with their “gut feelings”; remember President Romney, Dick Morris?

Where did most of your money go?

The house. Even though the mortgage is paid, there are always repairs for an old residence.

What did you get really excited about?

My daughter has started playing the clarinet. My wife has been playing with her; I hadn’t heard her play in years, and in fact practically forgot that she even had her instrument.

What song will always remind you of 2012?

I hear so few new ones that stay with me. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen was unavoidable. Especially when my daughter would dance to it while watching Dancing With the Stars, over and over and over…

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Sadder. The body politic has worn me down.

Thinner or fatter?

Very slightly thinner, less than five pounds.

Richer or poorer?

Mixed bag. The mortgage is gone, but I had some dental bills at the end of the year that ate up those savings.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Going to movies, always.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Thinking. Melancholy. Insomnia.

How did you spend Christmas?

Went to church, doing the gift thing.

Did you fall in love in 2012?

Yes, and it was the clarinet – her doing her art.

How many one-night stands?

As many as last year.

What was your favorite TV program?

CBS Sunday Morning, The Daily Show, Grey’s Anatomy (to my surprise).

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, but willfully ignorant people continue to amaze me with their “skills.”

What was the best book you read?

11/22/63 by Stephen King.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

The music from Wicked.

What did you want and get?

I wanted music, both singing and buying recordings.

What did you want and not get?

Some dedicated time to blog. It’s still catch as catch can.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Argo.

What did you do on your birthday?

Well, I didn’t work; I probably ate Indian food.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

“Fashion” is silly. Function over form.

What kept you sane?

Writing; singing; listening to music; learning new stuff; and then I suddenly realized that the question ASSUMES that I AM sane, which may or may not be the case.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jon Stewart; Nate Silver; the CBS News, which is the closest to a real news network left of the Big 3.

What political issue stirred you the most?

The search for real truth, not spin, or lies.

Who did you miss?

I miss my parents.

Who was the best new person you met?

I “met” one or two interesting folks online this year.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:

I LOVE my answering machine and caller ID, and my DVR. The numbers of political calls and ads I missed, even in this reliably “blue” state, were astonishing.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

There’s an Elvis Costello song called 20% Amnesia [LISTEN]. I started making up new lyrics to it and calling it 21st Century Romnesia:

Mitt’s positions are like Etch-A-Sketch. (21st Century Romnesia)
What he really means, I just can’t catch. (21st Century Romnesia)

He bashes the 47 percent. (21st Century Romnesia)
Then says that’s not really what he meant. (21st Century Romnesia)

He comes up with a misleading auto ad. (21st Century Romnesia)
His misrepresentation makes me so mad. (21st Century Romnesia)

To try to win, he’ll even lie. (21st Century Romnesia)
I must say that it makes me want to cry. (21st Century Romnesia)

I wrote about a half dozen other verses that I’ve lost, but you get the idea. Every time I heard a Romney/Ryan “misrepresentation”, I’d sing to myself, “21st century Romnesia.”