Labels: music

As my longtime readers know, I adore polar bears. Maybe it's that I have a white cat, and the Cute Factor of soft white fluffiness is through the roof. But I just love watching programs about polar bears. Last year, I followed the story of Knut, the hand-raised polar bear at the Berlin Zoo, with only slightly less fervor than those who posted comments every day on the blog that the zoo set up for him.

Much ink has been spilled that Knut is suffering the setbacks of any aging child star, and that the attention of suckers for Teh Cute is now directed at Flocke, the latest hand-reared polar bear cub, who is at the Nuremburg zoo. Not for nothing is Steiff a German company, for they do love their bears.

Well, I still think Knut is cute, but I'm also aware that this is a wild animal and a predator, as are most people. So when I see screaming articles like this, that ZOMG KNUT IS MURDERING FISH, I want to stick an icepick in my forehead. Excuse me? He's a freakin' POLAR BEAR! It's WHAT THEY DO (warning: graphic predatory polar bear behavior at this link).

(h/t...and Melina is going to love this one...ChickenGirl.net)

Labels: hack journalism, idiocy, Knut

Because after all, what is a collapsing economy, a vanishing job base, an intractable war, and an upcoming energy crisis when you have the national threat of a guy who drinks orange juice instead of coffee:

SHUSTER: As for Barack Obama, he campaigned today in northern Indiana, shaking hands and chatting with people at a diner near South Bend. Then Obama headed to Gary, Indiana, where he spoke in front of a raucous crowd at Roosevelt High School. Obama's theme was the economy. He sharply criticized John McCain's support for extending the Bush tax cuts. And Obama said, McCain's housing plan, announced today, does not go far enough.

[...]

SHUSTER: Well, look, Chris, seriously, though, keep an eye on these college towns in Indiana, because I was just talking a few minutes ago, there are -- in a close primary, especially in a conservative state --

MATTHEWS: Right.

SHUSTER: -- you have a lot of people in -- who may be Democrats in a place like Indiana. Watch turnout in places like Bloomington, Terre Haute --

MATTHEWS: So you think the college crowd can beat the regular people there, if it comes down to that, in terms of Hillary's support?

SHUSTER: In a state like Indiana, if Obama can turn out the large crowds in the college towns --

MATTHEWS: Did you see him there?

SHUSTER: -- but that's --

MATTHEWS: He's not that good at that -- handshaking in a diner.

SHUSTER: No --

MATTHEWS: Barack doesn't seem to know how to do that right.

SHUSTER: -- he doesn't do that well. But then you see him in front of 15,000 people in some of these college towns, and that's why, Chris, we've seen Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton in Bloomington and South Bend and Terre Haute. I mean --

MATTHEWS: What's so hard about doing a diner? I don't get it. Why doesn't he go in there and say, "Did you see the papers today? What do you think about that team? How did we do last night?" Just some regular connection?

SHUSTER: Well, here's the other thing that we saw on the tape, Chris, is that, when Obama went in, he was offered coffee, and he said, "I'll have orange juice."

MATTHEWS: No.

SHUSTER: He did.

And it's just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the owner of the diner says, "Here, have some coffee," you say, "Yes, thank you," and, "Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition to this?" You don't just say, "No, I'll take orange juice," and then turn away and start shaking hands. That's what happens [unintelligible] --

MATTHEWS: You don't ask for a substitute on the menu.

SHUSTER: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: David, what a regular guy. You could do this. Anyway, thank you, David Shuster. I mean, go to the diners.

Here you have a guy that can do it. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is out on campaign. He campaigned all throughout the state lately for Barack Obama.

Isn't that interesting, Senator Casey, that Barack Obama, your candidate, can walk before 15,000 people with complete calm and assurance, but he seems a little out of place in A) a bowling alley and B) a diner? What is the problem with your guy?

CASEY: Chris, he was fine in the bowling alley. His score was a little low. But I was able -- it was the only thing I was able to beat him at during our bus tour. But he had a great response.

Oh My Freaking God. He can't bowl and he doesn't need caffeine. What kind of pussy IS this guy Barack Obama anyway? Doesn't he know that Real Men Drink Coffee....BLACK coffee (no pun intended, but if the shoe fits...). And they bowl and they like to shoot squirrels off the back porch. And here comes this fancy Negro (sic) with his fancy suits and his hifalutin' language and he thinks he's better than us good ol' boys of the Washington Press Corps?

How DARE he?

/snark (in case you thought I was serious.)

Labels: Chris Matthews, David Shuster, hack journalism, idiocy

So last night a Mets pickup off the scrap heap, a former team draft pick named Nelson Figueroa, who was released by the Seattle Mariners last year after spring training and ended up playing in Mexico and Taiwan all year, pitched 4-1/3 perfect innings before surrendering a walk in the fifth.

The Mets are now 48 years old, and to this day, no Mets pitcher has ever thrown a no-hitter.

At least not while with the Mets.

Nolan Ryan was traded for Jim Fucking Fregosi in 1971 and went on to throw two no-hitters in 1973, and one each in 1974, 1975, 1981, 1990, and 1991.

Tom Seaver was traded away in 1977 and threw a no-hitter the next year.

Mike "Scuffy" Scott was traded away in 1982 and threw one in 1986.

Dwight Gooden threw one for the Fucking Yankees (/Gilliard) in 1996, two years after leaving the Mets in 1994.

David Cone left the Mets after five years in 1992 and threw one for the Fucking Yankees seven years after that in 1999.

Hideo Fucking NOMO even threw one in 2001, after leaving the Mets after one year in 1998.

I remember Bobby Ojeda throwing 6 no-hit innings at a game Mr. Brilliant and I went to once.

I have stayed riveted to a chair, unable to do so much as take a pee, lest I jinx the pitcher, more times than I can count.

And the Mets still don't have one.

It isn't that I expected Nelson Figueroa to throw a no-no last night. But in the annals of baseball poetry, the stars looked to be aligned for one. Here you had a kid who grew up as a Mets fan, who was drafted by the Mets in 1995 but traded in 1995, along with the aging Bernard Gilkey, for what was essentially a batboy, a box of balls, and a pack of Doublemint. He's bounced around baseball for thirteen years before finally coming home and getting the start last night because Pedro's injury necessitated another starter. His family, headed by his adorable father, who looks and sounds like one of those colorful guys they interview in documentary films about Great Baseball Moments, was there in Billy Wagner's donated suite; seemingly dozens of them, looking as if they were any other group out for a ball game instead of the family of the starting pitcher.

But because this is the Mets, it was just not to be.

But this is just one reason why baseball is poetry. It's one reason why, despite the steroids and the greed and the money and the TV networks and all the crap that has over the years done its best to destroy this game, every now and then a kid from Coney Island, plucked off the scrap heap of the majors; a kid who only ever in his life wanted one thing -- to pitch for the Mets -- got his chance last night and came within a half-game of making history.

And there's more. Figueroa is no dumb jock. He's a Latino guy who went to a Jewish college (Brandeis University) and got a degree in American Studies. He's also an electronics whiz and an artist who designed T-shirts for Major League baseball to sell after the 9/11 attacks to raise money for the families of firefighters and police officers killed that day.

Figueroa's story last nighIt's the kind of thing that makes people like Metsgrrl, who for my money ought to be the poet laureate of Flushing, Queens, write stuff like this:

I think it had all started to dawn on us what might be happening when one of the twins behind us says something that causes TBF to yell through clenched teeth, “But WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT,” and then it dawns on everyone, and we all start briskly discussing the Yankees vs. the Red Sox and the moronic hordes of Yankee fans at Shea tonight, and how are Miriam and Julia’s parents, and anything except the thing that we’re all not going to talk about or otherwise acknowledge. My own superstitions get the best of me and I rule out even thinking about what we’re not talking about.

And then we got to the fifth inning.

After that first hit, we stood. We applauded heartily. We tried to get the people who were doing the whole OMG IT IS FRIDAY AND I AM AT A BASEBALL GAME DRINKING BEER! WOOO! to stand up and cheer with us but now they are not interested. They weren’t completely hopeless, because the next inning they started a “FIG-UR-O-A clap-clap-clap-clap-clap” chant, for which we like them.

At this point it feels a little bit like the bizarro world. The cloud and the half-empty stadium make it seem like we could be anywhere, because there are no identifying landscape features in the distance, since they are all obscured by the fog. And I start to think about how almost every night of the week, there is a baseball game playing somewhere, and there are people who go almost every night and people who go as often as they can, and there are places that get crowds like the one we have right now even on a weekend, especially if the team isn’t very good or is losing or isn’t very popular. But it doesn’t matter how many people show up, the game still goes on. The groundscrew takes care of the field, they rake the infield and the warning track, they chalk the lines. There are 9 men on the field and the game has the same rules. I could go to a baseball game anywhere in the world and mostly know what was going on, even if I didn’t speak the language.

This is what I think about sitting up in my cloud, watching Aaron Heilman be mighty and Joe Smith be okay and Billy Wagner kick serious ass. And then “Taking Care of Business” plays and I am sorry I did not watch the handshaking on the field more closely, after I came home and watched that fifth inning and then that 9th inning and the Kevin Burkhardt interviews with Nelson and his family and his father and hearing Ronnie’s voice crack in empathy and identification just a little.

And I resolve to remember this all the next time I think I’m too tired to go to the game.

Labels: New York Mets

I adore John Oliver. In fact, I'd say he's the best Daily Show "correspondent" since Stephen Colbert went out on his own. What's great about Oliver is that he combines perfect deadpan with the speech cadences and snarky sensibility (and even voice) of Eric Idle.

And this week he outdid himself in the Best. Daily. Show. Sketch. Ever:

Labels: The Daily Show

Well, they ran Al Qaeda in Iraq up the flagpole for a long time, and nobody saluted. So now they've decided that Iran is the primary threat to Iraq:

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.

During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.

With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."

Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.

President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment.

But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."

And I am Marie of Rumania. He also said he had no desire to go to war with Iraq, either.

You watch....the bombs will be falling by the November election, but not too far in advance. The destruction we rain upon another sovereign nation can't have enough time to turn into the kind of horrorshow that might prevent John McCain from being elected.

Labels: Bush Administration, insanity, Iran

Picture yourself in the same room as this:

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

[snip]

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

[snip]

In his interview with ABC News, Bush said the ABC report about the Principals' involvement was not so "startling." The president had earlier confirmed the existence of the interrogation program run by the CIA in a speech in 2006. But before Wednesday's report, the extraordinary level of involvement by the most senior advisers in repeatedly approving specific interrogation plans -- down to the number of times the CIA could use a certain tactic on a specific al Qaeda prisoner -- had never been disclosed.

Think about it -- a president who used to shove firecrackers up the asses of frogs and light them to watch the frogs explode. A vice-president who shot a friend in the face. A female Secretary of State in fuck-me boots who gets off on torture. An attorney general who's afraid of calico cats, offended by a statue's breasts, and anoints himself with vegetable oil. And he's the SANE one, the one who was troubled by the whole proceeding.

The picture of this bunch of perverts and psychopaths talking intricately about methods of torture sort of reminds you of the mactors and implantresses of Survivor Micronesia talking about pizza, doesn't it? Or of that scene from Fatso in which Dom DeLuise talks about sucking the jelly out of a jelly donut and filling it full of -- I forget what -- and baking it again. Or of these guys talking about sex:



I don't know about you, just thinking about that conversation in the White House Situation Room gives me the willies. Whoever occupies the White House next had better fumigate it.

Labels: Bush Administration, sociopathy, torture

Keith Olbermann opened breathlessly tonight with the "breaking news" about remarks Barack Obama made about Pennsylvanians.

I was busy watching Nelson Figueroa working on a no-hitter that ended up being broken up in the 5th inning, combined with more than a bit of politics fatigue after being exhausted by the campaign, the Air America foofarah, and general spring fever.

But it seems that Barack Obama has simply pointed out the obvious:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

And this is a shandeh -- why?

I see this as a statement of fact, except it isn't limited to Pennsylvania. For nearly two decades, Americans, particularly in blue-collar areas, have seen their standard of living drop. They've seen the jobs that gave them a comfortable life dissappear. They've seen their incomes drop. They've watched as their children joined the military because it was either that or work at Wal-Mart. Politicians have played on their fears of the future by pointing these Americans' attention away from the corporate CEOs making hundreds of millions of dollars a year by sending their factories overseas, and from Senators and Congresspeople who have sided with corporations time after time. They've sold these Americans "trickle-down economics", which told them that if they just sit tight while the rich shovel cash into their pockets, sooner those rich people will piss a few bucks down upon them. They've played on their fears, first of black people (Willie Horton and the Jesse Helms "White Hands" ad), then of terrorists, then of Latino immigrants. They've succeeded by saying, "Look at the guy below you....HE'S your problem, not the guys who talked you into buying a house you couldn't afford, then bundled your mortgage into bogus investments sold by Bear Stearns, whose executives pocketed millions of dollars before the whole scheme went bust, leaving you with a house you can't pay for and can't sell. That guy below you on the ladder is the REAL problem, not a president sho cut taxes to give more cash to his rich friends and who allowed speculators to drive the price of gasoline to $3.25/gallon and heating oil to nearly $4."

It's worked for Republicans for decades.

When Howard Dean talked about "God, guns, and gays" in 2004, this is precisely what he was talking about. Guns give people a sense of control over their lives when everything around them is going to shit. Turning to religion gives them a framework in which to try to make sense of it all -- and make them think that there has to be a reason why their economic lives and emotional well-being are falling apart. Demonizing other groups -- black people, Latinos, gays, women, anyone different from them -- helps them feel not quite so downtrodden.

It's funny how people who have benefitted from the cozy relationship between corporations and Washington -- people like John McCain and Hillary Clinton -- find it so easy, when someone dares to speak the truth about how American working people are getting fucked over by their own public servants, to shout about "elitism." After all, anyone who dares to point out how Americans have been duped by their own desire to believe that their government serves them, that America is inherently good and that hard work really does bring rewards, might upset the status quo. And we can't have that, now can we. Because then people might ask questions.

Here's Obama fighting back against the McCain/Clinton attacks:



Barack Obama speaks the truth. And I guess to corporatist hacks like McCain and Clinton, the truth hurts. The only question is whether the media will succeed into whipping people into such a frenzy that they vote against their own interests yet again.

UPDATE (via Joe Sudbay): Astoundingly, at least part of the MSM isn't jumping on the "Obama is an Elitist" bandwagon. Watch this CNN panel point this righteous indignation out for the utter horseshit it is:

Labels: Barack Obama, corporatism, hack journalism, Hillary Clinton, John McCain

There's really not much I can add to Melina's excellent post from last night detailing the Air America situation and her spot-on recommendations for finally undoing the damage of three years of criminally inept mismanagement. But what Air America has meant to me, and to people like me, over the past four years, is something that I don't think the parade of ants in suits who have marched through its offices during that time have ever really understood.

Back in the days before George Bush invaded Iraq, I used to listen to Richard Bey and Steve Malzberg, who had the WABC drive-time gig in New York. Bey is a sort of moderate, perhaps slightly left-of-center, calm presence who offset the screeching of the crazed wingnut Malzberg, who saw everything through the prism of Israel. In terms of AM talk radio, Bey was then the closest thing we had to a progressive voice in New York, except for the odd hours when you'd find Lynn Samuels ranting in her stuck-in-1969-Pacifica way. Oh, sure, I would listen to Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy and Neil Rogers on ieAmerica or any of the other various online streaming outlets that were available to me before my employer got Websense and blocked all streaming audio. I remember Neil Rogers taking calls from Florida voters reporting strange occurrences during the midterm elections in 2002. But until there is ubiquitous Wi-fi, and an internet radio becomes what an AM radio used to be, streaming lacks the "turn it on and it's there" ease of AM radio.

Like it or not, the AM (and to a lesser extent, the FM) dial is where radio still lives.

But while the idea for Air America had been kicking around for a while, it wasn't until the network had a start date and a lineup that I started believing it would happen. Mr. Brilliant was off from work that week, and he was right there when Al Franken signed on at noon on March 31, 2004, on the new flagship station of Air America, WLIB.

It's hard to describe what it felt like the next morning, when I turned on WLIB and heard the snippet from "Can't Stop" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers that to this day and forevermore I associate with Morning Sedition. I had no idea who Marc Maron was at that point, but I knew that the play on NPR's staid morning show meant that something new and snarky was about to happen from 6-9 AM.

In those early days, Air America had a kind of "Hey, kids, let's put on a radio network!" feel to it as the various shows fumbled their way towards some kind of cohesiveness. Morning Sedition jettisoned Sue Elicott, which while it added to the unfettered testosterone of the show, allowed Maron and the staff of ferociously talented writers room to breathe and create a kind of morning zoo for snarky liberal intellectuals. Al Franken fared better with his female sidekick, Katherine Lanpher, who was the perfectly and effortly disciplined foil for Franken's tendency to ramble and whose glorious laugh fed his better efforts. But even the shows that I didn't think worked all that well, such as Unfiltered, in which Chuck D couldn't manage most days to get out of bed in time to even show up, Lizz Winstead was less funny than she was in her Daily Show days, and Rachel Maddow wasn't the relaxed, funny pro we see today, but instead was the kind of progressive utopian with no sense of humor that Marc Maron would go on to ridicule, managed to find their loyal followers.

With an on-air stable of talent that included few people with any actual radio experience, we were able to listen to their on-the-job training. This was not everyone's cup of tea, as it often resulted in things like listening to Janeane Garofalo screeching or playing out her issues with her conservative father Carmine on our time. But it was new, and it was fresh, and it was different, and damn it, it finally spoke to US -- after a decade that saw mindless grinning mouthbreathers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Neal Boortz and Mark Levin suck up all the AM frequencies.

Because Arbitron never takes into account web streaming and podcasting, it's impossible to know how many people were actually listening, but it was a lot more than the conventional meme of "Progressive Radio Fails Because No One Wants It" would have you believe.

This morning I heard Mike Doughty's song 27 Jennifers on the radio and it reminded me of the time I went into the city at 5:30 AM to catch a live broadcast of Morning Sedition at City Bakery. Doughty was the musical guest that day. It was June 2005 and the show was in a perfect groove, with Mark Riley playing the perfect Margaret Dumont to Maron's Groucho-Marx-on-Meth; Jim Earl embodying the various Milfingtons, and Kent Jones' southern dittohead Lawton Smalls bit having been honed to its perfectly and exactingly disciplined structure that always somehow felt ad-libbed. Catching Morning Sedition live was like watching the best jazz concert you've ever seen, in which everyone is in a perfect groove, they know what they want to play, but they're so together that when one member goes off into an improvisation, the other band members go off similarly, and it just magically works.

That day I saw Doug Kreeger and Jon Sinton walking around observing the crowd, and it was so clear that they GOT IT. They understood what Morning Sedition was about. They understood that while Maron can be the biggest, highest-maintenance pain in the ass in the known universe, he had clearly tapped into the collective consciousness of a sizable group of people. They knew what they had was magic. What they didn't have was the job of programming director. And when that job went to Danny Goldberg, he went about dismantling everything that people loved about Air America. The first show to go was Unfiltered, which he replaced with Jerry Springer, who paid for air time. Now I'm not one of those people who hated Springer's show. I thought that because Springer appealed to the uninformed idiots who watch trash television, having him as a progressive radio host gave him a unique opportunity to reach them. But it was a sign of things to come, because Goldberg's next move was to cancel Morning Sedition in December of 2005.

Air America has been plagued by bad management since day one, and it's the company's employees, the on-air talent, and the audience that have paid the price. What far too few of the incarnations of Air America management have understood is what a life preserver the network has been to those of us who have had our eyes open through the horror that has been the Bush years. I realize that for the suits in the executive suite, it's about delivering eardrums to advertisers, but these nimrods that have marched through this company over the past four years, stuck in an era when it's all about the AM ears, have never realized that Air America's audience has been just as much about streaming and podcasts as AM radio. They have never understood that the audience was not only far larger than they realized, but also ferociously loyal; but loyal not to "the corporation" but to the bigger concept of progressive talk radio, and to the on-air talent that brought the news, the perspective, and the funny to our ears.

This blog may have given a disproportionate amount of attention to Marc Maron and Sam Seder over the past few years, but it's rare that radio personalities make themselves as accessible to listeners as these two men have. Randi Rhodes may have always said "I love you more" to her listeners, but aside from gay men, you never really believed it. But in very different ways, Sam and Marc have crossed the 4th wall between on-air personality and listener.

Marc Maron has done it, as he has throughout his standup career, by using comedy and his radio riffs as a kind of personal therapy. When he intersperses his unique take on political issues with riffs on his anger management problems, his volatile marriage, his past drug use, his cats, his issues about weight, he's opened himself up to the people he calls his "stalkers" in a way even most of our own friends don't. Of course Maron, whose self-loathing puts your garden variety sufferer from low self-esteem to shame, seems to want no part of any club that would have him as a member, and so he has often greeted the die-hards such as Melina and I, Kristapea and her gift packages, Gypsy and her recipes, Sean the intellectual truck driver, and Brian the would-be songwriter from Everett, Washington, with a sizable dollop of fear and loathing along with the gratitude and appreciation.

But Sam Seder is another story entirely. Here is a man, a comedy writer and sometime actor previously best known as the guy who didn't swallow his food in a Sex and the City episode, who found himself playing the rational foil to an increasingly unhinged Janeane Garofalo in Air America's early days. But unlike Garofalo, who never really adapted well to radio, Seder worked hard, improved his delivery, did his homework, and created his own style and his own following via his web site. No one can ever say that Sam Seder hasn't played well with others. When they cancelled The Majority Report, he moved seamlessly to the morning slot. When David Bernstein decided that a screechy-voiced Latino libertarian from New York who was his friend should have that slot, Seder kept his mouth shut, moved to his Sunday wasteland, and took his community with him. Over the last year, SamSederShow.com has become an online community in its own right, and on Tuesdays Seder and Marc Maron do a VODcast that provides a single hour of sanity for those of us who wake up every goddamn day wishing the old Air America was still around. Sam Seder is a good and decent man who has done nothing but bleed Air America blue for the last four years. He fills in when he's asked to, often at a moment's notice. He hasn't once complained. When he had to find out via Instant Messenger that his employer had once again kicked him in the teeth by choosing someone else to keep the 3-6 PM slot warm next week, you never heard him complain on the air.

I realize that it's the corporate way to defecate on one's employees and to think that all employees are interchangeable, but the way the suits may change but the crap stays the same just shows that it doesn't matter who sits in the executive suite at Air America anymore -- they still don't get it. The guys that did, like Kreeger and Sinton, were kicked to the curb. That dilettante hack Mark Green, whose rich brother bought him a radio network, continued to dismantle the network by turning it into Air Hillary. Charlie Kireker seemed to have promise, and even has an endorsement page on Barack Obama's site, but he too is all about the Benjamins. None of these guys get that progressive talk radio cannot simply be about getting people to buy John Cammuta's latest get rich quick scheme or some cream to make your dick bigger or some other cream that's guaranteed to get rid of the bags under your eyes if you just give them your credit card number so they can charge you every month.

No, it's about the community. It's about the unique bond that these radio novices created with those who listen to them. It's a bond that makes P.J. Sauter maintain the Morning Seditionists blog and set up online chat rooms where "Maronites" (I hate to call it "fans") can get together when Maron sits in for a vacationing Mike Malloy on NovaM Radio. It's a bond that led to Melina and I, a couple of iconoclastic middle-aged chicks sitting in a hotel lobby in Chicago last summer blogging like madwomen. It's a bond that has Brian from Everett, who sounds far more coherent these days than he did when he used Air America's voice mail to compose his wacky songs, still calling when Marc Maron is on. It's a bond that has "Fernando" helping Sam Seder out with technical issues with the VODCast. It's not about money, it's about people. It's about sustaining a community in an alienated world.

It's just that when the voices of this community are silenced on radio, the community is that much harder to sustain. And as James Wolcott said when Morning Sedition was cancelled, "a world without Sammy the Stem Cell is a world that might as well stop revolving."

Morning Sedition has been gone for over two years, and I miss it every single day. Sam Seder's show often doesn't make it to the podcast till two days later. Now Randi is gone, and if there's any justice in the world, Rachel Maddow will take over for David Gregory in the MSNBC 6 PM slot. And then everyone who made Air America something exciting and special will be gone.

In the recent stories about the lawsuit against the particle accelerator to be deployed in Switzerland this summer, the doomsayers talked about the possibility of "a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a 'strangelet' that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called strange matter.'"

Air America, which was once vibrant and dynamic and entertaining, has turned into just that kind of shrunken, dense, dead lump.

Labels: Air America

The rumors that Condoleeza Rice is lobbying hard to be John McCain's running mate have been flying fast and furiously in the past few days, her denials notwithstanding. Rice would be a compelling choice; after all, the Democrats are now limited to either a black person OR a woman, whereas Rice would raise the ante for the Republicans to both. And for some strange reason known only to that fetid morass that is the conservative brain, Republicans adore her. I suspect it has more to do with Republican male fantasies about Condi in her dominatrix attire than about her competence. After all, we're talking about THIS woman:



And this one:

On June 21, the US Central Command, which controls American military forces in the Persian Gulf, went to "delta" alert - its highest level - for American troops in six countries in the region. The American embassy in Yemen was closed for part of the summer; other embassies in the Middle East closed for shorter periods.

But what had Rice done at the NSC? If the NSC files were complete, the commission's historian Warren Bass and the others could see, she had asked Clarke to conduct inter- agency meetings at the White House with domestic agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI, to keep them alert to the possibility of a domestic terrorist strike.

She had not attended the meetings herself. She had asked that the then attorney-general, John Ashcroft, receive a special briefing at the Justice Department about al-Qaeda threats. But she did not talk with Ashcroft herself in any sort of detail about the intelligence. Nor did she have any conversations of significance on the issue with the FBI director, Louis Freeh, nor with his temporary successor that summer, the acting director Tom Pickard.

There is no record to show that Rice made any special effort to discuss terrorist threats with Bush. The record suggested, instead, that it was not a matter of special interest to either of them that summer.

Maybe she's an expert on a country that no longer exists (the Soviet Union), but she's dumb as a box of rocks in terms of her ability to add two and two and get four when it comes to terrorism.

Now it turns out that those fuck-me boots may not just be about Republican male fantasies after all -- the woman really is a masty piece of work:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Can you imagine a more cynical move than a guy who spent five years being tortured in a Hanoi prison choosing a strong advocate of torture as his running mate as a means of upping the "groundbreaking" ante?

Labels: Condoleeza Rice, cynicism, John McCain

(Pic courtesy of Alicia at Hooterville.)

When the time is right for the invasion of another Muslim nation on false pretenses but inconvenient facts like the NIE ring the doorbell… (ding dong!)

…there’s CYAlis.

Developed by right wing political scientists to combat electile dysfunction, CYAlis restores the worst of legacies by facilitating blood flow in innocent Muslims, ensuring that one can still respond to the demands of the CFI, Bilderburg Group and PNAC even after seven years.

(Side effects may include xerophthalmia or the inability to produce tears, hardening of the arteries and the heart and some atrophy of the soul. Do not use in the company of liberals or in conjunction with any other major military engagement or inconvenient National Intelligence Estimates.)

CYAlis. Because covering your ass is always more important than doing the right thing.

Sometimes I get a nostalgic feeling for Air America Radio and how it appeared with its cool quirky hosts at a time when things were low in my life, very bad in the government, and no one was supposed to talk about things lest they be viewed as somehow unAmerican. Because I'm a fool, as my grandfather might say as he dragged his ancient self up the hill in front of the house to pull down the IMPEACH War Criminals sign, to prevent the fire bombers from coming, I was, at the time really itching to find out the truth. I was also interested in what could possibly be in the minds of people who lack empathy for others and I wanted to look hard at the truth of cognitive dissonance up close and personal, as I was seeing it all over the place. It was such a relief to hear these new voices find their ways in their new jobs and to hear a fresh message that was researched and carefully backed up as true.

Well, its been a long 4 years and most of the stand-out original voices have long ago fallen away in one way or another, mostly by foolish management decisions, and the changing face of who owns the network and their personal proclivities. And, honestly, its been painful to watch this thing get disassembled in bits and chunks like a toy, and as if it wasn't at one point, a long time ago, a vital part of information dissemination of the sort that we had when the fairness doctrine was in effect.
What started as a utopian dream; a great experiment, as I've called it before, has been dying a slow spiraling death for far too long.

So, it came as little surprise when last week Randi Rhodes was suspended for a stand up routine in which she used the word whore to describe Hillary Clinton and Geri Ferraro. It was during a show that she put on at an AAR affiliate in San Francisco and a few days later the AAR brass caught wind of it via a YouTube video, and they suspended her. What I found disconcerting about that was that the speech matched the venue and the crowd; its wasn't out of place for Randi to say something like that, and I don't know if rules had been set forth for her that she disregarded, but if they didn't want this sort of show, why would they book her? It seems that she was on the company clock and knew that the newest AAR owners were Hillary supporters, but it is just unlike the spirit of the Air America brand to try to shut down that sort of speech. Of course. its time to realize that the brand has changed; its now in a sport shirt and it visits Florida or the tanning booth; Its got a mean temper and is personally not well liked in political circles.

Yes, it seems that they Greens are still the public face of AAR, even though there is a new owner. The only major change so far is that the web site, which under the care of Sam Seder, is all new and fancy...its much better.
The rest? Well, Lionel is untenable, Thom Hartmann is more than a little slow and boring for daytime, and Randi has been on edge, seeming very unhappy, and ranting on and on as usual. Rachel Maddow has one foot at MSNBC, and I can't imagine that her future wont be in the visual media. I have to think hard to remember who else there even is out there, but I do love Ring of Fire, vanity project that it is at this point, and I adore Sam Seder and his Sunday show plus all his jumping around filling in.

And its there that I found myself today, after a hard week of trying to get medical care for a child who has crappy insurance (not y child even, but mine has crappy insurance too,) and stranger than fiction goings on around this homestead, listening to Sam filling in for the suspended Randi. I was heartbroken to see his surprise and outrage when he found out, on the air, that the brass had booked Richard Belzer for the slot next week. They hadn't told him before they leaked it to Huffington Post, and the whole thing sorta smacked of the sort of disrespect that they have shown not only to Sam all along, but to departed talent Kent Jones, Mike Malloy, and Marc Maron. It seems that no matter who the management is at this place, they lack the ability to treat their talent right.

In the old days, actors and announcers and the like were viewed as a commodity to be owned, and treated as so much disposable puppetry. But that is a very old fashioned idea, and the people who were originally recruited for this startup roller coaster ride are of a different ilk. It seems like it should be taken into account that the path that was forged by this group, and the hard work, threats, and unstable work conditions, were not nothing. Some of the original hosts relocated to New York leaving behind family, to work in a new medium that required alot of research and knowledge, besides just becoming comfortable in broadcasting. And for that, they got treated with something less than respect, and in some cases, with total disregard.

So, I'd like to see a little something come out of the new management of the new AAR. Start with Sam Seder and give him a regular weekday show. He is, without a doubt, the best talent that you have left there, and he only gets better. Thousands of fans will attest that he should be on weekdays over any star turn by Richard Belzer or anyone that you can rope into the position. next, Get Marc Maron back on a regular show immediately. Try a signing bonus in Marc's case, and a raise and bonus for Sam while you're at it. I would also strongly suggest that you start to give Rachel a little more budget. She not only is better with some sort of co-host, but she should be able to have Kent Jones with her (and he is, in so many ways, the signature versatile voice of AAR.) get rid of Lionel right away. He doesn't represent Air America Radio or progressives. Its hard to tell what he represents, and its even harder to figure out how he ever got on air with that voice!

I can understand that every new set of owners wants to put their mark on the station. I know that you have your program managers and specialists on board trying to figure out how best to put the interactive mode of AAR into effect and to make big announcements, but listen, you are best served by rolling the thing back and building on the initial foundations that were there before the shuffle began. The hosts never had the time that they deserved to move the numbers properly...and to expect a profit from a media outlet that was started from scratch, and one that has endured so much shuffling of lineup, is insane. Anyone who invests into an outlet like this expecting a return right away, or even in a couple of years, is dreaming. Where are the rich liberals who want to finance this thing because its sorely needed in this country? Why was this sold to the Green brothers in a questionable deal that allowed it to go for a fraction of the agreed upon price in cash, and then a payback to only certain debtors, while throwing the workers and talent under the bus? And now that the new owner, Charlie Kireker, is in place with additional money and suits, why are the Green brothers still on board?

If Kireker is there to infuse money into the business, then I hope to see some positive announcements very soon. If Sam Seder quits or is relegated to some secondary role again, I am just moving into a place where I further don't give a shit...I'm already there more or less...but I'm ready to move it over to NovaM, spend money there, and seek out podcasts that are produced in a way that doesn't hurt anyone (or do animal testing.)


For those reasons alone you would think that any one of the originals would deserve some higher level of respect. But, for some reason, each variation of management seems to lack basic skills in treatment of others...especially those who are on the air and having to juggle callers and concepts, timing and a ton of information. Its an incredibly hard job on many levels, and not the least of it is that its easy to get burned out in this atmosphere of bad government getting worse and having to roll with the punches in an industry that is historically rough.

For the life story of AAR check out Left of the Dial, available on my coolio roundabout widget over on the right side of RIPCoco, and also at any outlet you might prefer. Its such a great documentary, even if you're not a huge fan of this network...and it speaks volumes about lost opportunity and the kind of talent that the following management teams squandered.


Breaking: Randi Rhodes just appeared with Larry King Live and according to her statement, when the new owners were looking at the company and making their deal, they had a problem with the terms of her contract, in that they didn't have the power to fire her without cause. She refused to alter her contract and in the ensuing months they decided to send her on these stand up sort of appearances, and then suddenly found this instance of what they viewed as cause. They would not let her back on the air unless she agreed to amend her contract as they had originally wanted, and she refused. Since under her contract they do not have the power to fire her, she was to remain in limbo. But somehow she has a job beginning on Monday at NovaM radio, so she either had a standing offer, had been considering leaving, or she hustled and found a soft landing. Good for her! I am again happy that someone else got out alive, as I was with Maron (which doesn't stop me from hoping that these guys will prove me wrong and fix things,) and I continue to worry about Sam, who really deserves better treatment and more job security.

Good Luck to you all!

Bounce yer Boobies!


c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Air America, Marc Maron, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder

TRex is reporting (via Green960) that Randi Rhodes has been fired. Nothing from Air America yet, but that's what we hear.

If that's the case, I have just one thing to say:



UPDATE: Press release from Air America. Yeah. "Exciting new talent." Last time they used that line they replaced Sam Seder with "Lionel". I'm not kidding, AAR....you give Sam that PM drive time slot or refund my premium subscription money.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wow...would that every unemployed person in America who was shafted by an employer could land someplace else that quickly.

Press release from NovaM Radio:

The Nova M Radio Network is thrilled to announce the addition of “The Randi Rhodes Show” to its nationally syndicated talent offerings beginning this Monday, April 14, 2008.

Randi Rhodes is the #1 rated progressive talk radio host in the nation.

Nova M CEO John Manzo says, “I just can’t stop smiling - Randi is simply the biggest and the best. Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy under one roof – talk about TALENT!”

Randi Rhodes adds, “With Manzo at helm of Nova M, I am truly going to work for the best of the best. He is radio elite…and I am too . I’m home, I’m home, I’m home!”

“The Randi Rhodes Show” will air live Mon-Fri from 3-6pm Eastern on The Nova M Radio Network.

I finally joined NovaM as a founding member this morning. At least they're trying.

Labels: Air America, lolcats, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder

It's been a while since I did one of these. I desperately need a weekend, having plunged right from my Great Skybus Adventure into a Day o'Laundry and then back to work.

But this week we have nine (count 'em) nine glorious hours of Marc Maron subbing for Mike Malloy on NovaM/KPHX Phoenix, which when combined with Sam Seder subbing for the still-banished Randi Rhodes, makes progressive talk radio almost worth listening to again. It's amazing how Maron can be away from radio for six months and still get back into a studio, bereft of all of his old Morning Sedition sidekicks, and just start riffing as if he'd never left. And when old Seditionisti like Gypsy and Kristapea and Brian from Everett call in, it's enough to make one grab a Kleenex for what once was and will never be again.

So my lovely new HP Pavilion tx2000, the one with the tablet conversion that I got for $500 off and is pretty much loaded to the gills and has an 8-cell battery for hours and hours of blogging in a hotel lobby in Austin, Texas this summer without feeling like a Luddite compared to the awesome gadgetry that Melina ports around, arrived this week, and THEN I find out about this.

But there are still blogs to read, and alas I've fallen down on the job of reading many of my favorites, so let's catch up on a few of them (along with some ephemera), shall we?

The funniest post you will read today has got to be this one, in which ModFab meets Paolo Szot, currently starring in South Pacific in the current revival -- and his life is forever changed.

Skippy has a tale of yet another wingnut with a fake sense of victimization who, when she wasn't persecuted the way she'd expected to, simply made shit up. The kicker? She's only 13. Learned well, young Skywalker has.

From the Fish Rots From The Head Department: Michael Stickings on a devastating ABC News report revealing that torture as an interrogation method in violation of the Geneva Conventions was approved at the very top levels of the Bush Administration.

Sara Robinson has an advance copy of Cliff Schecter's new book on John McCain, and projects how McCain's squishiness on race is likely to prevent him from doing anything about the dogs of race war that are going to be unleashed (this was only the beginning) when Barack Obama wraps up this Democratic nomination.

Cernig asks the obvious question: If the surge is such a success, why not continue the drawdown?
If you aren't at home to watch Senate hearings, or if you get zero radio reception like I do, you simply must check out Joe Biden's masterful smackdown of General Petoady and Ambassador Ryan Crockoshit.

Dancing about architecture: PhysioProf has some things to say about MIT's Stata Center -- Frank Gehry's latest effort to prove that art really IS whatever you can get away with.

I wonder how Tata, a woman so effortlessly fabulous that she can carry a Hello Kitty lunchbox as a handbag and get away with it, has a friend who's a George W. Bush fan?

Kevin Hayden has found a way out of the Gordian knot of "Which is worse: sexism or racism?".

Joe Sudbay admonishes Barack Obama to NOT make ANY kind of deal with a campaign finance criminal like John McCain.

And finally, if you've never been to Shea Stadium, and you never plan on going, Metsgrrl captures the magic that is Flushing's Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Dump.

Labels: bloggers

If you're an American corporation, you no longer have to worry about trials for wrongdoing. Under Michael Mukasey's justice department, justice is an admonition, a wink, and a handshake:

In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years.

Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret.

Deferred prosecutions have become a favorite tool of the Bush administration. But some legal experts now wonder if the policy shift has led companies, in particular financial institutions now under investigation for their roles in the subprime mortgage debacle, to test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.

Firms have readily agreed to the deferred prosecutions, said Vikramaditya S. Khanna, a law professor at the University of Michigan who has studied their use, because “clearly it avoids a bigger headache for them.”

Some lawyers suggest that companies may be willing to take more risks because they know that, if they are caught, the chances of getting a deferred prosecution are good. “Some companies may bear the risk” of legally questionable business practices if they believe they can cut a deal to defer their prosecution indefinitely, Mr. Khanna said.

Legal experts say the tactic may have sent the wrong signal to corporations — the promise, in effect, of a get-out-of-jail-free card. The growing use of deferred prosecutions also suggests one road map the Justice Department might follow in the subprime mortgage investigations.

Gee, ya think?

It's interesting how you haven't heard Republicans run on the "tough on crime" platform in a long time. You may see "Willie Horton"-type ads today, but instead of fearmongering about criminals, they're more likely to take the form of casting doubt on That Scary Dark-Skinned Candidate Who May Be A Muslim And Even If He Isn't His Pastor Is a Very Mean Guy. Fear of terrorism has been effective for them, as has fear and loathing of immigrants. But you haven't seen them connect either of their boogeymen of choice to murders and rapes and property crimes. They haven't had to, when they can connect them to the toppling of buildings and "taking your job."

But it's understandable that they'd be cautious about playing the crime card, because when you have this stern Republican history of "actions have consequences", combined with the special exemptions for corporations and other Friends of Republicans, pointing out this discrepancy might cause people to ask questions. And you can't have that.

Labels: corporatism, Justice Department

As Herbert Hoover watched the Great Depression decimate the economic lives of Americans, he said:

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves.

In other words, "Go shopping", which was George W. Bush's admonition to Americans after 9/11, and it's his admonition these days as well. Where Bush differs from Hoover is that the 24 x 7 media cycle required him to do SOMETHING, hence his signing the legislation that is going to put this country further into debt and give Americans a few hundred bucks that most of them will use to pay off debt.

But in one respect, he's exactly like Hoover, and that is in his insistence that "prosperity is just around the corner", even as every indication is that our economic condition has only begun to swirl around the bowl before being completely devoured by the crapper:

one of the things that's going to happen with this pro-growth package is that not only is it going to affect small businesses like it's affected folks here, but 130 million families are going to get some money, their own money. And of course, the purpose of that is to help boost consumption. We're in a rough time right now; I'm confident we're going to come out of it. And when we do we're going to be a stronger -- stronger and better country.

Congress, of course, is contemplating different measures. And my only advice to them is, one, make sure you give the pro-growth package that was passed overwhelmingly a chance to work, see what the effects are. Secondly, anything they do should not hurt the economy. And thirdly, I, you know, I think we ought to, in terms of pro-growth packages, I think we ought to, again I repeat, give this one a chance to kick in. The experts tell me that this pro-growth package is going to add some -- you know, a percent, percent-and-a-half to the economy here in the latter part of this year. If that's the case, it's going to be an important part of recovering.

Not if they're going to bank it for when they lose their jobs or use it to help pay off credit card debt it won't:

The government's efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy by doling out checks to workers could backfire, according to two surveys asking consumers what they will do with their checks.

Nearly three-quarters of those asked on both surveys said they will either pay down debt or save any money sent to them as part of an economic stimulus package. The remaining quarter indicated they would spend the money, which is the goal of the program.

"Don't expect a big bang from the tax rebate if only about a quarter of that gets actually spent," said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, which commissioned a survey by Opinion Research.

"That's $25 billion, not $100 billion, and it's not clear how quickly it will be spent," he said. What's more, money that is directed toward lenders, be it to pay off mortgages or credit-card bills, is money that's already been spent. In other words, it's already done its job in helping the economy.
ICSC found that 46% of respondents said they would mostly pay off debt with the checks while another 28% said they would save the money. Twenty-six percent indicated they would spend it.

A separate survey from CCH Complete Tax, an online tax-preparation service, found that 47% would pay off debt with any rebate while 32% would save it. Only 21% would spend it.

Of course if you're one of those who has profited handsomely from seven years of Bushonomics and five years of war profiteering and the accompanying oil speculation, you're still sleeping well at night.

Labels: cluelessness, George W. Bush, recession

Keith Olbermann systematically and devastatingly eviscerates John McCain's delusions about Iraq:



Doesn't it seem just a bit that McCain may be missing some of his faculties here? I'm not asking to be snarky. We've already had one president in the early throes of Alzheimer's while people around him ran amok; do we really want another one?

Labels: delusion, Iraq, John McCain

When you look at the state of the world today, do we really want a president who flies into psychotic rages every time someone looks at him the wrong way?

Cliff Schecter has a new book out that sheds a very different light on Saint John of Maverick than the one that Chris Matthews and McCain's other media groupies have been painting for the last seven years. And if you click the Amazon.com link in the left-hand sidebar and buy it, I get a few pennies too. [/shameless begging] Given that the same media which give McCain the kind of free pass that they have given George W. Bush for the past seven years has learned nothing, and promises to give the Democratic nominee a scrutiny they refuse to give McCain, this may be your only chance to find out just who this guy is. And I would hope that the Hillary Grrlz who are talking about voting for McCain if Their Girl doesn't get the nomination read this excerpt from Schecter's book before making their decision:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “you’re getting a little bit thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “at least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it has been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

Now, if you're a pretty young thing like Cindy McCain was in 1992, and you're married to an aging politician like John McCain, said aging politician is going to be a bit touchy about his age. After all, if he weren't, he wouldn't have zeroed in on you in the first place. But when you're a trophy wife, your job is to keep him young, and the way to do it is NOT to point out his thinning hair. For that matter, even if you're NOT a trophy wife, it's not something you want to do unless you want him to point out your thickening middle and sags. But if this pretty young thing also comes fully equipped with $100 million dollars, as Cindy McCain did, you might want to think about unleashing this kind of torrent of invective at her.

And this is not the only incident in the life of Saint John of Maverick that shows a dangerous propensity towards disproportionate rages. Johann Hari wrote in January in the U.K. Independent:

Right up to his twenties, he remained a strikingly violent man, "ready to fight at the drop of a hat", according to his biographer Robert Timberg. This rage seems to be at the core of his personality: describing his own childhood, McCain has written: "At the smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked out."

And in 1999, an article in WaPo indicated it might be an issue in that campaign:

In a front page article and separate editorial Sunday, The Arizona Republic said it wanted the nation to know about the "volcanic" temper McCain has unleashed on several top state officials.

Those who have been on the receiving end of a McCain uproar include Republican Gov. Jane Hull, former Republican Gov. Rose Mofford and former Democratic Mayor Paul Johnson of Phoenix.

Mrs. Hull, a supporter of GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush, has acknowledged that her relationship with McCain has been cool and told an interviewer recently McCain "has to keep control" of his temper.

A Hull spokesman, Francie Noyes, said Sunday the governor had no further comment on the matter of McCain's temperament and that "she wants to move on to other things."

But the Arizona Republic, which endorsed McCain for each of his five congressional races but has not yet made an endorsement in the presidential race, was direct.

It declared in an editorial:

"If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is also reason to seriously question whether he has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States."

McCain spokesman Dan Schnur said the criticism reflects McCain's emergence as a serious contender, resulting media scrutiny, and the fact that the former Vietnam POW "is a fighter and has always been a fighter."

"When a candidate moves up in the polls as quickly as John McCain has there's bound to be closer media scrutiny," Schnur said. "Show me a politician who's never offended anyone and I'll show you a politician who's pretty useless to his constituents."

Earlier in the week, McCain blamed the Bush campaign for helping plant recent temper stories and said the "hothead" portrayal was inaccurate.

"Do I insult anybody or fly off the handle or anything like that? No, I don't," insisted McCain.

When I see a history of this kind of disproportionate rage, dating back to childhood, I think of three big words: borderline personality disorder:

Anger is often one of the most obvious traits of borderline personality disorder (BPD), as so often the anger seems explode without warning and can be extremely intense.

The anger of the BP is hard to miss, as it is often an attack, meant to hurt back, and meant to defend. It seems to come from nowhere, a suddenly explosive rage. The BP may not even understand why she feels so angry, just that she feels this way.

Anger In Place Of Other Feelings

It is important to remember that anger, even the explosive anger often so evident in borderline personality disorder, is nothing more than an expression of feelings. Although the anger can seem out of synch to an observer, for the BP the anger is an honest reaction to hurts and fears. It is real.

For the BP, feelings of anger are very strong and often have a lot of old “baggage” behind them. It is not always clear to the BP, or those witnessing the anger, how the “baggage” is tied to the current target or event that triggered to interaction. However, for the BP, the old feelings, or baggage, were triggered and the current reaction is an honest display of her feelings. A display meant to protect, or defend, and to communicate.

Borderline Personality Disorder is usually seen in people who have survived some kind of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse in childhood. That can be anything from outright abuse to a lack of nurturing. In the latter case, BPD arises as a self-protective mechanism, and the rages are a way of communicating "I'll reject you before you can reject me."

When I read about McCain having rages in childhood so severe that he blacked out (which could be his way of describing the dissociation that often takes place during a borderline rage), I have to wonder about his childhood, particularly his relationship with his father, who as a military man, was probably not the most emotionally available man on the face of the earth.

I know that a tradition of military service exists in many families, with the sons following the paths of the fathers. John McCain's own son is continuing this tradition. But reading about McCain's temper, which seems to me to be consistent with BPD, makes me want to find out more about his formative years.

At any rate, I do know this much: You do NOT want someone with BPD holding the fate of the world in his hands.

Labels: borderline personality disorder, John McCain

Ted Westhusing, was a champion basketball player at Jenks High School in Tulsa Oklahoma. A driven kid with a strong work ethic, he would show up at the gym at 7AM to throw 100 practice shots before school. He was driven academically too, becoming a National Merritt Scholarship finalist. His career through West Point and straight into overseas service was sterling, and by 2000 he had enrolled in Emory University to earn his doctorate in Philosophy. His dissertation was on honor and the ethics of war, with the opening containing the following passage: "Born to be a warrior, I desire these answers not just for philosophical reasons, but for self-knowledge." Would that all military commanders took such an interest in the study of ethics and morality and what our conduct in times of war says about our development as human beings. Would that any educational system in this country taught ethics, decision making, or even political science that's not part of an advanced degree anymore.

Ted Westhusing, the soldier, philosopher and ethicist, was given a guaranteed lifetime teaching position and West Point by the time he had finished with his service and his education. he felt like he could do more for his country by trying to shape the minds coming out of the academy that were the ones that would be military commanders. He had settled into that life with his wife and kids, when in 2004 he volunteered for active duty in Iraq, feeling like the experience would help his teaching. He had missed combat in his active duty and it seemed like an important piece for someone who not only philosophized about war, but who was also preparing the military's future leaders.



But more than that, he was sure that the Iraq mission was a just one; he supported the cause and he bought the information that was put in front of him. Considering that vials of powder were being tossed around hearings by the highest level of military commanders how could he not? This was a man who was so steeped in the patriotism of idealistic military fervor that he barely could fit in regular society. His whole being was dedicated to this path, and he was proud to serve his country.

Once in Iraq, he found himself straddling the fence between a questioning philosopher and an unquestioning soldier. Westhusing had thought he was freeing a country in bondage, keeping America safe from a horrible threat, and spreading democracy to a grateful people. But the reality of what was happening in this out of control war was too much for him. His mission was to oversee one of the most important tasks left from the war; retraining the Iraqi military by overseeing the private contractors that had been put in charge of it.

As the assignment went on he found that everywhere he looked he was seeing corrupt contractors doing shoddy work, abusing people, and stealing from the government. These contractors were being paid to do many of the jobs that would normally be done by a regulated military, and they bore out the worst fears of those who don’t believe in outsourcing such vital work. He responded to the corruption that he saw by reporting the problems up the line, but the response from his commanding officers was disappointing. He had, for much of his career, idolized military commanders, and in that assignment he found himself with some of the military's most famous faces, doing the most important job, but he was terribly disappointed and alarmed to realize that they were greedy and corrupt themselves.

The wall of silence about this was impenetrable and the reality of the situation turned his entire belief system upside down, making him question everything that was going on, and his role in it. Having envisioned the top military commanders to be the most honorable that America has to offer, he was crushed to find out that ascending to power in this military could be more due to cronyism than expertise and that these men who he had aspired to be like were greedy and corrupt themselves. Upon reporting to his commanding officers, he realized that not only did the problems stretch to the level above him, but that they were systemic.
To these commanders the only real problem was the fact that they had a deeply honorable soldier in their command that was likely to rock the cash cow. Westhusing was so bereft at the realization of his part in this breakdown in the military's code of conduct, and the atrocities carried out in America's name, that he became despondent and finally in June, 2005, he shot himself. It was called a suicide, though there have been some questions raised about it.

He’s not the first Iraq suicide, though he was, at the time of his death, the highest ranking one. He was an oddity; a thinking soldier in a war that requires blind obedience, and unwavering dedication. The black and white world of Bush's military doesn't allow much for the grays that come into the picture when one is, at heart, a philosopher...and even in the face of seeing the reality of war, how can anyone come to terms with the revelation of corruption on this scale? More crushing was the realization that the leaders that he idolized, and the honor that he held as being the very foundation of his entire world as a military officer, were all a lie, and stories told to cadets at West Point that didn’t bear out in reality. The leaders in this war didn't care, and many were, as he outlined in his 4 page suicide letter, that was addressed to General's Fil and Petraeus, his direct commanders, only out for their own selfish enrichment.

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]—You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. [sic] Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

What troubled Westhusing was not just the death and destruction all around him, the obvious looting of the country, and the human rights abuses, but the seeming lack of attention to the problem by his two of commanding officers, General Joseph Fil, and General David Petraeus. Yes, that David Petraeus. So focused was he on the destructive role of these two, that his suicide note was written to them. Westhusing's widow said that her husband's death should serve to bring out the truth of the corruption that her husband saw. Author and journalist, Robert Bryce was recently able to get documentation of interviews with Westhusing's wife and many other bits of correspondence and Investigation documents through the freedom of information act. They leave more questions open than they answer, especially in light of the media's blackout on information about Petraeus' part in this...even during a week that he is center stage at hearings being conducted on the war.

The book Blood Money, by T. Christian Miller, relates in depth, the deep convictions of Westhusing, and his drive towards a sort of noble honor and how that ended with his death. His favorite saying was by Socrates from Plato's Phaedo: "Those philosophizing rightly are practicing to die." It’s more than a little disconcerting to find that he had acted detached and despondent for days or weeks before he committed suicide, often standing around looking at his gun closely and lost in thought, not paying attention to what was happening. In a war where there are a record number of cases of suicide and PTSD, is there no awareness training of the trouble signs going on? He exhibited all of the signs of depression and despondency, and it’s a mystery why no one stepped up and tried to help him. But this is the culture of the military, and this is probably what worked out better for his commanding officers, who were no doubt looking at a loose canon who was raining on their good deal out there in the desert. Was there more to Westhusing's death? There is quite a lot of speculation out there that something was amiss at the death scene, and about who found him, (a contractor who reportedly tampered with the scene,) and that things don’t add up exactly.

General Petraeus is appearing before congress this week to try to defend his "surge" and to stop any further troop withdrawals. He is also making the case for an additional 100 billion dollars.
The surge is not working, no matter how it’s spun. If we keep combat troops in Iraq there could arguably be a reduction of violence, depending on many factors, but if its actually "working," as in helping Iraq to be more self sufficient and to end our participation in the problems there?...well, that depends on your definition of "working."

The fact that Petraeus has a long history of being wrong in his assessments of Iraq, and the fact that when directly questioned about current violence, he tends to defer blame to Iran, aside, at some point you have to question how much Petraeus' risen star and earning potential is tied to this war and its continuation. To say that this administration is in any way even a little translucent is laughable. Never has there been such an almost psychotic grab for all encompassing power with no body overseeing the actions of a few in power. Never has there been an attitude that the executive is above the law and the need to somehow document that for some sort of long range plan.

At some point the level of spending and loss of funds is so incredible that we must be compelled look at management, even if it’s unseemly in a time of war. At some point the American people have to demand an accounting. You would think that America had never run a war before. Surely it must be embarrassing when the top military officer has to get up in front of congress and try to explain some very small incremental improvement at such a huge cost. These improvements can also be easily explained away by so many factors, such as payments to a certain faction to stand down, ethnic cleansing having actually worked, and just the fact that more troops might put off the inevitable civil war that will happen now or in 20 years once the US security forces are pulled out. None of that speaks to a lasting improvement or even a partial repair of what we’ve done there.

A lot of this is common sense, and the fact that all Americans want so badly to feel like we've won, or that this was a just cause and not just some construct of Imperialism and the oil wars...much less, plans that happened in some conference rooms above the rule of law and our governmental checks and balances...well, we may be just caught in a nightmare here and waking up is not an option for those in power. We must realize that at some point we're doing more harm than good, and that may involve admitting that we are not necessarily on the side of right. But that's the rub here, and that's where we get back to Westhusing; any action in life comes with the possibility of a later realization that what you were positive about at one point could have been wrong.

Real strength of character involves being able to admit to wrong, even if that realization is terrible. In some societies the idea of having made mistakes brings dishonor on entire families. In our society the military culture is such that honor is everything; or it was. This administration has pulled the heart and guts out of any such code of honor in favor of allegiance to their plan for domination and their version of "right." But that too depends on your definition of "right."

The fact that much of what they espouse has to do with their Christian religion, and that a new culture of religious intolerance and pressure has grown up in the military academies of America, is no secret. When the love of country and honor...ideas, decision making, and weighing things... is replaced with allegiance to an ideology represented by a very powerful minority, ruling with fear rather than strengthening our collective will by reminding us what our American values are, we are no longer the America of the founders. Westhusing subscribed wholeheartedly to the credo of Honor or Death. He embraced the ideals of this country to the point that they were woven into his being. The realization that so many representatives of our country, of us, were not only corrupt, but committing atrocities, and the realization that the commanders had no intention of doing the honorable thing and stopping these abuses, was too much for him.

Was Westhusing murdered? Well, conspiracy theorists out there have some information and I suppose that one could make a case for further investigation. But one thing is for sure; He was a man of honor, he was despondent over corruption involving his direct commanders and said as much in a suicide letter addressed to them, and regardless of who pulled the trigger, he got the information out. I will leave the energy for trying to convict a lesser employee of a subcontractor to others who like to dig these things out. No direct connection will ever be found to Petraeus. It just doesn't work that way.



The implication is there, but the bigger implication is about the man whose finger will never be physically placed on the trigger; David Petraeus. This is the man who would immediately stop the very slow withdrawals that Bush began last year. This is the man who would continue to pour good money after bad into a situation that cannot even be basically stabilized after so many years. Today, All Spin Zone covers the hearings and asks that if Petraeus were a CEO or any top management in any business, wouldn't he be fired for this poor performance? What does someone have to do to get fired in this administration? At some point, aren't we going to question the implications and accusations floating around this man? At some point doesn't he lose all credibility as someone implicated in so many failed plans? Where is the honor in this leadership and where is the honor in this war?

RIP Ted Westhusing, and everyone else who has given their lives in this farce...RIP.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: corruption, General Petraeus, Iran, Iraq War, mental illness, PTSD

That's what I get for trying to save some money.

When I found that it would be about $300 to fly Continental or American to Raleigh-Durham out of Newark, and that renting an economy car was going to cost over $50/day out of that airport, I had decided to see what was going out of Stewart Airport in Newburgh, and that's how I found Skybus, flying into Greensboro, where rental cars were also less expensive. I'm a fearful flyer at best, so flying God-Knows-What Airlines was a real leap of faith, so that it got me there in one piece was cause for celebration, and then I was able to appreciate the overall zaniness of the concept.

I haven't yet totalled the additional costs I incurred getting home, from the $269 for a one-way fare from Raleigh-Durham to having Mr. Brilliant drive me up to Stewart Airport yesterday to pick up the car and the associated tolls and such, and the additional day of parking at Stewart. But I'd guess that I ended up spending more than I would have if I'd just taken the airport shuttle to Newark, flown American Airlines, and rented the car at RDU.

And I'm one of the lucky ones. Imagine the people stranded in Hawaii after Aloha Airlines went bust just a few days before Skybus did.

When I first wrote the post, I originally referred to Skybus as feeling like the Air America of airlines, in regard to that (pardon the expression) "flying by the seat of their pants" feeling, as if this were a giant experiement and let's see if it works. In retrospect, and especially after reading more about the airline's origins, there was definitely something dot-com-ish about the whole thing, from the T-shirt uniforms to the egalitarian first-name basis of the cockpit crew, to the airborne shopping mall, to the $10 ticket gimmick, to buying brand new planes for a startup, when most low-cost airline startups (such as the old People's Express) buy older planes from other airlines.

The only thing missing was the foosball table.

Skybus' CEO, Bill Diffenderfer, seemed to be the kind of Cool Guy who would run a company differently from the Jack Welches and the Bill Gateses and the other ruthless corporate titans we've come to associate with corporate America. Even Google, with its "Don't be evil" motto, is suspect now, given the bazillions of gigabytes of data on just about everyone housed on its servers. But Diffenderfer is a guy who wrote a book called The Samurai Leader: Winning Business Battles With the Wisdom, Honor and Courage of the Samurai Code as part of his OTHER career, to which he said he was returning when he "resigned" (=ahem=) on March 24.

Of course the samurai were also warriors who killed people, but that doesn't make as good copy as a corporate titan who believes in honor, courage, and the arts. It's no wonder that flight attendants were willing to work for $9.50/hour plus tips and commissions on what they sell.

But when your CEO is a guy who sees running an airline as a stepping stone but what he really wants to do is write books, and your business model is based on $62/barrel oil, was was that of Skybus, and oil goes to $104/barrel, it's difficult to make a go of things. How anyone could have not anticipated speculative increases in the price of oil, given the situation in the Middle East and profiteering by petroleum traders is another indication of the kind of pie-in-the-sky thinking that gave rise in the 1990's to companies like Kosmo.com. And when an already-caught-with-its-pants-down credit card industry that has parcelled out credit limits for just about anyone with a pulse, stops paying you until passengers have actually flown, it's hard to book your revenue to keep going.

I don't know if in an era of increasing fuel prices, it's possible for any startup airline, let alone one based on low ticket prices and scrambling for revenue via other means, from selling advertising blurbs on the safety lecture to selling chocolates and TSA-approved luggage locks on your planes. But when I think about the 450 Skybus employees who were unceremoniously dumped by their "code of honor" employer last weekend with no notice, and I think about how patient the flight attendants on my flight were with an elderly woman who needed practically a piggyback ride on an attendant half her size to get to her seat, who had obviously had a stroke and couldn't speak intelligibly and was deaf as a post; when I remember how they tried to give her the safety spiel in a way she could comprehend, and I think about them doing this for $9.50/hour, only to be left virtually on the tarmac with nothing but their Skybus T-shirts, my experience wasn't so bad.

I just hope that some other airline hires these people quickly. Because you don't do what these people did and take this kind of leap of faith unless you love what you do.

Especially now, when people hate airlines more than ever before.

Labels: airline industry