The Deciderer's last 1000 days

298: O beautiful for spacious skies

2008-03-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

America
Paul Simon, 1968

"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag"
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And walked off to look for America

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've come to look for America

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera"

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

Listen to America here,
performed by Simon & Garfunkel,
(Bookends album, 1968)

M'08

2008-03-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

I love it! From Fubar at Needlenose:

333: Separated at Birth?

2008-02-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

356: My response to the DCCC

2008-01-28T22:10:00.000-08:00

Neither the national Democratic Party nor any re-election committee will see another dime from me until party leaders and their groupies stop acting like such cowards.

Any political donations I make will go directly to candidates who show conviction and courage, who will stand up for traditional Democratic ideals (and practical new ones), who have respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, and who understand that the Republican establishment has been getting exactly what it wants for years and is still getting exactly what it wants (and what it wants is harming our nation and the world more each day.)

With a guaranteed national audience, Governor Sebelius’ SOTU response was truly pathetic.

I AM A DEMOCRAT, but at best, I am ashamed of my party and afraid for our nation.

Randy Gold
Sherman Oaks, CA

411: Ron Paul, George & Gringo

2007-12-05T10:56:00.001-08:00

Tancredo: "....pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives"

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

412: Republican math

2007-12-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

509: What's Jeb Bush been up to lately?

2007-08-29T18:04:00.000-07:00

The pay's not great, but there's always all-you-can-eat cookies in the break out room! (Hmmmmmm.... is he wondering whether the name "Bush" will still be toxic come 2012.)

515: Viet Raq

2007-08-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

546: How the modern day Republican Party spells relief

2007-07-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

Their favorite sport: pissing on Americans.

Thanks to Wiley Miller for the original drawing that he drew for me at a political cartoonists meeting in 1998.

552: Iraqi Raccoon

2007-07-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

558. Casablanca (i.e. White House)

2007-07-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

566: Living in the Twilight Zone

2007-07-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

T.Z.

579. The Law & Order ticket

2007-06-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Oh, darn! It appears that Sam Waterston is a Democrat.... But that's OK, since Thompson clearly doesn't care much about law and order anyway.

UPDATE: Oops! I just noticed that I misspelled Waterston on the button. Oh well... back to the PhotoShop board.

581. It was 40 years ago today...

2007-06-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

No, not Sgt. Pepper or anything Beatles. On June 17, 1967, Janis Ian's "Society's Child" debuted on the Billboard Top 40 chart, eventually reaching #14. This song told of an ill-fated interracial romance that family, peers and American society as a whole could not and would not tolerate. Radio stations around the country banned it from their playlists.

While we've undoubtedly come a long way in race relations since the mid-1960's, it's all too obvious that the fight for social justice continues. Let's never lose sight of the important and difficult battles that so many brave others have already won on this front as we prepare for the battles ahead of us.

Originally written by 14-year-old Janis Ian in 1965, she performs the song here on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in November, 1967. Not surprisingly, this performance was censored in several U.S. television markets. (Note that she's singing live over the musical track used on the record.) I still get a lump in my throat whenever I hear this song, especially so watching this performance.

Society's Child
Janis Ian

Come to my door, baby
Face is clean and shining black as night
My mother went to answer
You know that you looked so fine
Now I could understand your tears & your shame
She called you "boy" instead of your name
When she wouldn't let you inside
When she turned and said
"But honey, he's not our kind"

She says I can't see you any more, baby
Can't see you any more

Walk me down to school, baby
Everybody's acting deaf and blind
Until they turn and say
"Why don't you stick to your own kind"
My teachers all laugh, their smirking stares
Cutting deep down in our affairs
Preachers of equality
Think they believe it
Then why won't they just let us be?

They say I can't see you any more baby
Can't see you any more

One of these days I'm gonna stop my listening
Gonna raise my head up high
One of these days I'm gonna raise up
My glistening wings and fly
But that day will have to wait for a while
Baby, I'm only society's child
When we're older, things may change
But for now this is the way they must remain

I say I can't see you any more, baby
Can't see you any more
No, I don't want to see you any more, baby

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Society's Child" was originally recorded for Atlantic Records, who paid for the session; after they heard it, they quietly returned the master, saying they could not release it. Years later Jerry Wexler (president of Atlantic at the time) apologized publicly to Janis for this, saying "If any company should have released Society's Child, it was us".

In 2001 "Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I had the pleasure of seeing Janis perform live a few years ago at McCabe's in Santa Monica, California, a guitar shop by day magically transformed into a wonderfully intimate performance "hall" (100 seats) by night.... the kind of place where the performers never fail to come out into the front shop area right after the show to schmooze with the fans. Janis is currently writing her autobiography, so isn't touring much these days. But when she gets back on the road, treat yourself if she comes to your town.

587. I'd like to buy a vowel, Mitt.

2007-06-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Mitt for Brains Peter Tomarken

All these Republican talking heads blathering on about Mitt Romney's "presidential good looks." To me, I think he looks and acts more like a game show host.

Actually, he does look like a game show host: Remember Peter Tomarken, probably best known for hosting "Press Your Luck"??

663. Stay out of the kitchen

2007-03-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

National Post (Canada): Hell 'exists and is eternal,' Pope warns

As the penitential season of Lent draws to a close, Pope Benedict XVI has been reminding the faithful of some key beliefs of their faith, including the fact hell is a place where sinners burn in an everlasting fire.
God's mercy and love are great, but those who reject him should know that hell "exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more," the pontiff said, according to reports by the Catholic News Service and the London Times.
Benedict made the comments while celebrating Mass on Passion Sunday at St. Felicity & Martyred Sons in northern Rome.

OK, but please note....

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26,

"Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."

Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7 x 7 (=49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all.
The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation.

Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300°K), gives H as 798°K (=525°C).
The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed. However, Revelation 21:8 says

"But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

A lake of molten brimstone [sulphur] means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 445°C.

We have, then, that Heaven, at 525°C is hotter than Hell at 445°C.

Just thought you'd like to know.

700: Silent

2007-02-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

7 O'clock News/Silent Night
(P. Simon)

This is the early evening edition of the news.
The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill.
Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the measure without the votes of their strongest supporters.
President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start and everyone in Congress knew it.
A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee.
In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdoes of narcotics.
Bruce was 42 years old.
Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero.
Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out if it is held.
King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.
In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment.
The nurses were found stabbed and strangled in their Chicago apartment.
In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti-Vietnam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Vietnam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York,
Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.

Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Simon & Garfunkel "7 O'clock News/Silent Night"

709. A crook by any other name....

2007-02-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

Jack Nicholson's character Frank Costello, in The Departed:

"When I was your age they used to say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying to you is this... When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?"

David Oliver, the former Director of Management and Budget for the Coalition Provisional Authority (Iraq), explaining to a House oversight committee a remark he had made previously about $9 billion dollars in Iraqi funds that went missing on the CPA's watch.

"I have no idea, I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it is important," Oliver said. "Billions of dollars of their money disappeared, yes I understand, I'm saying what difference does it make?"

Video of testimony at Alternet

711. Vinyl

2007-02-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

From The Bushles Discography

"Libby Rove", 2005

718. The winter of our discontent

2007-02-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made ne'er glorious by this son of privilege;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep wounds of a nation buried.

732. Excuse me, Mr. Gonzales

2007-01-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

Article 1, Section 9, United States Constitution:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

At the U.S. Senate, today:

Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

733. Season premiere

2007-01-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

734. The deciderer decides to decide (once again)

2007-01-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

In his "60 Minutes" interview, Dubya used the word "decision" 24 times in less than 9 minutes. (Nick Douglas @ The Huffington Post)

738. Four, four, four wars in one

2007-01-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

TPM:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like his infamously inconstant predecessor, still won't admit that Iraq is in a state of civil war, but that non-civil war is apparently, one of four ongoing wars in Iraq.

From today's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

There are four wars going on in Iraq right now, simultaneously: Shia on Shia conflict in the south; sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, but also in Diyala and a couple of other provinces; an insurgency; and Al Qaeda.

739. Duet

2007-01-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

I had a dream, a dream about you, baby.
It's gonna come true, baby.
They think that we're through, but baby,

You'll be swell! You'll be great!
Gonna have the whole world on the plate!
Starting here, starting now,
Honey, everything's coming up roses!

Clear the decks! Clear the tracks!
You've got nothing to do but relax.
Blow a kiss. Take a bow.
Honey, everything's coming up roses!

Now's your inning. Stand the world on it's ear!
Set it spinning! That'll be just the beginning!
Curtain up! Light the lights!
You got nothing to hit but the heights!
You'll be swell. You'll be great.
I can tell. Just you wait.
That lucky star I talk about is due!
Honey, everything's coming up roses for me and for you!

You can do it, all you need is a hand.
We can do it, Dubya is gonna see to it!
Curtain up! Light the lights!
We got nothing to hit but the heights!
I can tell, wait and see.
There's the bell! Follow me!
And nothing's gonna stop us 'til we're through!
Honey, everything's coming up roses and daffodils!
Everything's coming up sunshine and Santa Claus!
Everything's gonna be bright lights and lollipops!
Everything's coming up roses for me and for you!