Pat Boone vs Tony Bennett

above: Tony Bennett and Howard Stern, via Youtube and The Atlantic(!)

and below: "Singer Pat Boone insists Obama born in Kenya"
By Laura Donovan - The Daily Caller





From Wikipedia's entry on the Twilight Zone:

Throughout the 1950s, Rod Serling had established himself as one of the hottest names in television, equally famous for his success in writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned the censorship frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 production The Arena, intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."

Well, that was then. Naturally we have no idea what GWB said to Tony Bennett, but the idea that he would have deliberately told him he was wrong about invading Iraq, knowing Bennett's political disposition, seems pretty plausible. It is reminiscent of the feeding of seamy scuttlebutt to J. H. Hatfield, what with his checkered past and money problems, that he would write Fortunate Son so it could be subsequently yanked and discredited, as opposed to allowing lingering questions to linger. It probably helps that Bennett's 80 plus, although he sounds pretty lucid to me.

...

Gil Scott-Heron

As you may already know, Gil Scott-Heron passed away yesterday. The virtually obligatory video link for bloggers is of course "The revolution will not be televised". Listening to it today it seems by turns both relevant and quaint. Maybe it's the implicit assumption that black Americans can't or wont be co-opted. But it still has power.

Scott-Heron composed and released it at a comparatively young age, and I can't help but wonder if he was ever frustrated that the casual music fan only knew him for "revolution", if they even did. I also wonder if he saw the parallels between Nixon's suppression of dissent and Obama's.

The BBC notes that the album he released last year was his first in 16 years; its existence may be bittersweet to many. Possibly this was in part due to various record companies deciding he was no longer commercially viable, in addition to his health difficulties. Maybe sales of his last album from 2010 will enjoy at least a brief uptick. The revolution will be monetized.

16 years. That doesn't necessarily mean his artistic production lay fallow all that time-- for one thing he kept performing, and the concept that a musician or composer has to put out an album to be deemed to be "creating" is a relatively new one, borne of technology, while people have been making music in some fashion or another for thousands of years, without recording it in the modern sense.

A postscript: No, he was not a stand up comic, but I found this brief riff(below) interesting.

18 December 2010

via Don Durito.

FIRE sale

courtesy Avedon Carol, there's this simple slide show with stick figures(see controls on the lower left corner) explaining recent events. :^)

Although Avedon recognizes the bill that didn't pass on Monday was a bad one, she nevertheless buys into the notion that

"the Republicans tripped over their own fake-out this time by trying to simultaneously support and condemn the bailout bill. Weird."[one]

Sorry, I don't buy that it was just a "fake-out"; why shouldn't the GOP rank-and-file rebel when their hidebound leadership instruct them to cut their own throats?

"...apparently the vote on the deal failed, according to Atrios, because the crybabies are back - that is, the Republicans were miffed because Pelosi hurt their feelings, and therefore they decided not to bother to "help" the country during this totally-urgent-we're-all-gonna-die emergency."[two]

Barney Frank has been trying to sell this line since Monday afternoon, which (should be) just as transparent as the GOP leadership blaming the GOP defections from the bill on Pelosi's speech beforehand. The party leadership on both sides are probably relieved that no bill passed, insofar as whatever they mean to eventually foist on us will undoubtedly be pretty noxious and they're lining up their stories so they can blame the other side for the less salutary aspects-- which I'm guessing will be pretty much every aspect of the bill that finally passes, if one passes before the election.

That doesn't change the fact that the reason Barney Frank and Atrios and others are labeling this as a "hissy fit" is to prevent people from looking more closely at the collusion of the democrats in helping to bring us to the present state of affairs, or even looking at specific reasons that the opposition may have for opposing the present bill. Whether or not a better bill actually emerges is another matter, and I'll admit I suspect it's unlikely. Nevertheless, in the short term, putting the brakes on Monday afternoon was the best result possible.

Large numbers of people freaked out when the Dow lost 778 points on Monday, partly because the people on TV told them to fear the reaper if a deal didn't get done. OK, so it didn't. But the pesky dow gained back 485 points the next day, without a bill having been passed, and some people even reported seeing the sun shine.

Even if it proves to be transitory, reality intruded, casting in sharp relief the lies of all the sumbitches who want you to suspend your skepticism, and fear what you are told to fear when they want to ram through a poison-soaked piece of legislation to "help" you. I'm reminded of

this video.

Finally, here's a guy who thinks no deal is better than anything Washington is likely to concoct: