Hello, how are you? It’s good to be here. I’m Cliff Yablon, but some of you may already know me from Bob Kincaid’s show as Reverbo, Critic-At-Large. No, that’s not an old photo of me. That’s President Rufus T. Firefly from Duck Soup, who when asked by the Ambassador of Sylvania if war could be prevented, remarked “It’s too late. I’ve already paid a month’s rent on the battlefield.” The humor there is a bit tempered by the fact that the previous president of our own country basically did just that and worse in Iraq. As leader of the bankrupt nation of Freedonia, Firefly also reduced workers’ hours by shortening their lunch breaks, something George Jr. and his handlers were no doubt considering.

In Horse Feathers, Groucho sings “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It.” Sound familiar?

So is everything just an endless movie or is this real life? Anymore, it’s hard to tell. As Twain once said, “Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

But, back to my intro. As much fun as I have listening to Bob, and emailing and calling his show for two years, why not see if this works in print, and hopefully adds to the already high level of thoughtful and entertaining discourse. In short, I’ve been invited to be a columnist on the HORN blog. My literary arena is not that of journalism, but of commentary and satire, and I hope you come along, too. Sound like fun? I’ll say. As Critic-At-Large, just about everything is fair game, and while I try to do my homework, what I may sometimes lack in the erudition department I believe I can make up for in the comedy sector. Somewhere I remember reading someone a lot smarter than I who suggested that arguably every human act is shaped in some form by politics, that in fact, our entire lives and the choices we make have some political framework. As Richard K. Morgan said in Altered Carbon, “The personal is political.” There. I’ve just given us a pass to go anywhere we want.

Anyway, the airheads and fools of the world deserve all the ridicule intelligent people can dish out, and most of them ask for it. And those who promote reason, dignity and honor deserve our praise.

So what do we mean by comedy? It’s subjective, to be sure, but for me the best kind demonstrates consistency. One way to find out it is to apply a simple test to an idea, event, or even a word, and ask yourself, does this at least stay as funny, if not actually get funnier, the more you think about it? Here’s a concept: hindquarters. Does that meet the funny test? See what I mean?

Try the test with this headline: Spotlight on South Carolina. Or this idea:  Embracing your inner moron. Passes with flying colors, I think. High jinks and monkeyshines await.

Let’s talk more about me. I like, not necessarily in this order: Kurt Vonnegut, The Onion, Dr. Strangelove, Claudia Cardinale, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Salvador Dali, surf instrumentals, and private-eye jazz themes from late 50s television. As a matter of fact, I wish there was a way to have that Mancini-styled crime jazz playing in the background every time I spoke. I like vegetables and fruits but I have made peace with carrots: I don’t like them, and that’s that. I think in italics. I’m in love with those gorgeous French astro-physicists from the Go-Go 60s – you know the ones – and I have finally discovered my spiritual community. I realized I’m a Humanist. I don’t suffer for any gods and they don’t suffer for me. Most of us have our hands full dealing with our own lives, not to mention other human beings, and the last thing we need is to throw some supernatural creatures into the mix. I dig Joe Biden; that guy is one smooth V.P. And I can summarize Arlen Spector’s political career in four words: single brain cell theory.

I grew up in the East, then spent most of my life in Colorado, presently live in the South (my astrological sign is the possum), and will soon head north again to Maryland. At one time I thought I was a conservative Republican, but the only way to describe what happened to that party is madness. I share the ideals of progressives, whatever their stripe, and my appreciation of art and culture transcends party lines. My search for a Nelson Rockefeller Pez dispenser goes on. (That vice-presidential Pez series? Impossible to find a complete set.)

I’m fine with capitalism, I just don’t appreciate the reckless kind. When you put profits over people you’ve stepped over the line, and even the shitbrains ought to grasp that. Democracy doesn’t work everywhere–you wonder how well it’s still working here– so I don’t condone dropping it on people, unsolicited, from 10,000 feet. I hate those who conflate patriotism with loyalty, the truth is never a matter of opinion, and I dislike bamboozlery of any kind. There’s another one. Try saying the word bamboozle without grinning.

Are you still with me? This is what happens all too often. Some of you know exactly how this works. One thought leads to another and before you know it, you’ve been on the air with Bob for half an hour. I also realize this will be tough sledding if the pessimism level stays too high, but though I’ve been politically aware since the 60s, never before have I been so cognizant and awed– and infuriated– by the power of the forces against us, and how readily our elected officials will whore for them. It is definitively clear to me there is a vibrant third party in american politics– the Corporate Party– that’s enjoyed great success by sponsoring the two other parties that actually appear on our ballots. With few exceptions, the United States Senate is basically a club of fat, dysfunctional aristocrats. That’s dismaying; there’s no doubt about it. These people are supposed to be working for us.

A friend of mine once remarked that the world as we knew it ended on December 31, 1969, and it’s hard to dispute that. It’s 2010, folks, and we’re still arguing about the same things – the economy, poverty, the environment, education, taxes, energy, security, et al. Isn’t it about time we figured out the role of government and got it rollin’ for everybody? We can’t just set things on cruise control anymore; that’s long gone. Is anyone going to step up and actually fix anything while I’m still around? It’s still the People against the Establishment.  With apologies to the Ramones, Southern Culture on the Skids, and surf music’s Third Wave, you can argue rock ‘n’ roll basically had it’s last hurrah at Woodstock and then Altamont. The passionate idealism and alternative directions of the 60s and the voices who championed that collapsed in apathy or were silenced by assassination. Meanwhile, Honeywell released the first under $10,000 16-bit mini-computer, the H316 (designed for the kitchen, no less), the middle class was peaking, and The New Frontier culminated that summer when three Americans actually made it to the freaking moon, and the Commies couldn’t even make a decent car. The 1960s was the ultimate manifestation of the United States.

I haven’t forgotten about Vietnam and never can. Though I didn’t serve in it, that would have been my war. For many of us, The Great Society was far from great. To be sure, the 60s, like today, was a time of unbelievable extremes, but nevertheless – and unlike now – we were poised to realize and flourish in our incredible potential. About all we can do now is put up signs on each coast that say “Closed For Repairs.” I think it could take a generation – possibly less if certain people either pitch in and help or sit down and shut up – but so far there’s no evidence of that happening anytime soon. And whatever the outcome, it will never be the same here again.

At any rate, some say it was essentially over forty-one years ago, that the whole thing came to an end on the last day of 1969 just like the final twenty second crescendo of the Beatles’ A Day In The Life. That we were right there– as close as we’ve ever come– in the midst of a glorious, triumphant run. Instead of the floor pie-eating Homer Simpson we had the trim, space-age Jetsons, and Martha and The Vandellas asked, “Are we ready for a brand new beat?” It felt like we were on the verge of something we’ve never quite re-captured. Has it really been all downhill from there? Or have we always existed, as Joe Bageant says, inside an elaborately constructed hologram of America, our values and feelings– in fact, our decisions– already selected and programmed for us? Then we are not only faced with taking back our government and our country, but our minds. When I visualize again the all-too-recent image of that smirking weasel we got for eight years at the beginning of the 21st century it’s hard not to be nostalgic for a brighter time.

Well, we might have come close, but darkness returned with Nixon, Watergate, and then more madness with Reagan, Iran-Contra, the Bushes, the Second Great Depression – we all know what happened. (Vonnegut was always on to it, too. At the end of his 1982 novel Deadeye Dick, he wrote: “You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages—they haven’t ended yet.”) It’s tempting to speculate how different things would have been had both Kennedys lived to serve their terms. But they didn’t. And as much as I think the 1960s was the most creative, energetic and intense decade in which to grow up, the fact is, that’s my generation and we didn’t get it done either.  

Our moon adventure reminded me of that scene in Vacation, when the Griswolds visit the Grand Canyon on their way to Wally World. Chevy looks over the rim at that breathtaking vista for all of five seconds and announces “Well, we’re outta here.” Hell, all we had was a cup of coffee up there, and then it was “Buzz? Neil. Where are you? All right, I see you. Listen Buzz, Houston really wants you to stop jumping around out there now, and get back to the ship, okay? We gotta go.”  What happened to the moon bases? Where are those futuristic helium-filled pants I ordered forty-five years ago? We let our future become hijacked, plain and simple. Instead of Tomorrowland, we ended up with Greedyland, our hands still grimy with oil and the earth still pockmarked with bomb craters, and all but a connected few of us broke and disillusioned. Or downright crazy. And deadly. Look out for the Angry White American With A Gun. He’s polluted with right-wing hate, he’s armed and activated, and he may be coming to a town near you. Or, flying into one, as happened in our latest domestic attack on February 18, by the terrorist Andrew Stack III.

I know Bob Kincaid and the HORN community gets it. It’s clear Bob and his listeners understand that we really are all downstream, that the actions of people and nature are undeniably connected.  And so he and the network keep pushing ahead–pressing on–heading on, but what we do is up to us. Blatantly, our adversaries refuse to get it, and the worst of them have the arrogance to believe they not only live upstream, but that it’s their stream to piss in. With the mass media awash in deranged idiots, and Fox sticking a mic and a camera into the face of every nutcase around, it’s seems like a bozo explosion everywhere you turn. At times you’d think we were back in the 14th century. The only way you can tell it’s not is because those new high-def plasma TVs make the brain-damaged Michele Bachmann seem so lifelike.

Groucho was almost so surreal at times that the other actors often didn’t get his jokes. Some readers may not always get mine. I know Homer doesn’t. He claims he does, though. “I get jokes…I get stuff.” Yeah. Homer Simpson, Atomic Dad. The icon for our time. In any case, while I’ve read and listened to many, most of my thoughts and words are mine. Whether you write by nature or profession, the key is, through a combination of invention and synthesis, to find your own voice and then hope it’s a perceptive and engaging one. And always be open to constructive criticism. By the way, if anyone’s nodded off next to you, please tell them I’m sure my pieces won’t all be this long, but I wanted my opening night to be a strong one.

That about does it for now. I better save some copy for my next installments if this ends up working out. What have I forgotten? The most important part. The HORN could be on the cusp of breaking out right now. This may be their time. I think the internet is an excellent vehicle for progressive radio; that’s where broadcasting is headed and where there’s room to establish new and alternative markets. The HORN was out front on that and has been chugging along for a while now, building an impressive foundation and reputation. The landscape has changed and this network could be in position to really make something happen. With enough support we can increase our efforts, magnify our message, and be a leading liberal voice into the next phase of exposure and attention.

I’m pleased to be associated with everyone on the HORN and glad for the opportunity to contribute to the cause. Hopefully I’ve opened up an entertaining and stimulating dialog and a range of topics. Your thoughts, comments and feedback are welcomed and appreciated. That’s the idea.

Reverbo

Critic-At-Large

As reported by Jon Fox filling in for Bob Kincaid last night, eight people were killed in Virginia yesterday, when a white American man went on a shooting spree. The question was posed – “Would he ever be called a ‘terrorist?’” Hell, we can’t even get the media to cover the story! It’s just another white guy killing people. Nothing to see here.

Suspect Surrenders in Virginia Killing of 8 People

A man suspected of shooting and killing eight people on Tuesday near a thickly wooded area of south-central Virginia surrendered Wednesday morning, a state police official said.

The police reassured the public after an all-night stand in which over a hundred officers surrounded the man, who the police said on Tuesday shot at several officers and hit a police helicopter, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

“The community can now know that they are safe,” said Sgt. Thomas Molnar, a spokesman for the Virginia State Police

Late Tuesday, Sergeant Molnar identified the man as Christopher B. Speight, 39, who was surrounded in the woods near his home.

The authorities said three bodies were found in a house possibly belonging to Mr. Speight, four bodies were found outside the house and an eighth victim was found by the side of the road and died on the way to the hospital.

A State Police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said two of the victims were thought to be the wife and the son of Mr. Speight. He would not give other details.

You can read the rest of this article at the New York Times. At least some of the print media is covering it!

YouTube Link

Will Durst is one of my favorite political writers. He once said something to the effect that he would declare Democrats were afraid of their own shadow, but he wasn’t sure they even cast one. After 2009, it’s a safe bet to say they don’t.

What was left of the Democratic Party’s spine in 2009 died. It’s gone. Bury it. It was a victim of the adage “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.” Had the Democratic Party bothered to exercise its spine even just a couple of times over the past year, it would have been spared from withering away to nothingness. And what the Democrats’ ego thought was the weight of the world causing their back pain, was actually their spine going through the process of atrophy.

Oh, sure, it’s very easy to agree while pointing to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or President Obama, and claim that 2009 would have been the year we turned this ship around if not for their failed leadership, but I’m not even talking about them. I’m talking about the Democratic/Liberal/Progressive base that acted every bit as whipped as our representatives in DC. Now, here’s where some of you will get all huffy and offended. That’s good. It’s exercise for your spine. It’ll likely be the most exercise some of your spines have gotten, since your last tirade about how the minority republican party is holding this country hostage.

It all boils down to an issue of respect – who gets respect, who earns and deserves the respect they get, and who isn’t worthy of the respect they have heaped upon them. You see, respect is like trust. It can be won, and lost, and won again. It can never be demanded. Expecting someone to offer their respect to someone that means to do real harm to others is absurd, yet the Democratic/Liberal/Progressive base expects us to do exactly that. How many times have we heard those on the left this year promulgate that while talking to the teabaggers, or the birthers, tenthers, and all the other factions of the minority republican party base,  that we need to be “polite” and “respectful.” “Don’t be insulting.” Yeah, sure. How’s that working out of us? Maybe we should do a little year-end inventory. (For the remainder of this entry, I shall refer to all of the teabaggers, birthers, tenthers, republicans, their cohorts, and any of the other maggots they attract as neocons.)

So, after a year of treating the neocons with the utmost respect, regardless of what bullshit baseless stunt they’ve pulled, not a single American child cried their self to sleep last night because they were hungry, right? I mean, all of our placating finally made the neocons realize the importance of food stamps, and the need to expand the program to help our own citizens that don’t have enough to eat, right? It hasn’t?? Oh. But, you still want me to give my respect to, and make the person who would rather let the child starve feel more comfortable than the child itself, right? Ohhh.

After a year of treating the neocons with the utmost respect, regardless of what asinine lies they’ve told, every American has equal access to the health care they need, right? I mean, a whole year of neocon ass-kissing fawning has surely made them aware of how important a healthy society is, right? It hasn’t ?! Hmmm. But, you still want me to give my respect to, and make the person who would rather let people drop dead where they stand than pay for a freaking office visit, feel more comfortable, right?? Hmmm.

After a year of treating the neocons with the utmost respect, regardless of what shitty shifty tricks they’ve pulled, our nation is well on its way to energy independence, and is dedicated to eliminating oil spills, blasting apart mountains for coal, and making Wall Street speculators rich off the back of a 19th century fuel, right? I mean, surely a year of explaining to them that the environmental impact man has made on the Earth will be with us forever, has made them change their mind about destroying it all, right? Wait a minute. What the hell do you mean “NO.” But… you still want me to… give my respect to… people who would rather see my friends and family in West Virginia die of coal mining poisons or… let mass quantities of wildlife die in the next oil spill… right?? Ahem, of course.

After a year of treating the neocons with the utmost respect, regardless of how abhorrently they behaved, the tax breaks for the rich that have bankrupted this country, the warrantless wiretapping, the Geneva Conventions abuses, the flagrant law-breaking of the previous administration, the illegal occupations by our military, the rebuilding of the Gulf coast, our civil rights that were stripped away, the right of people to join a labor union, extending hate crime protections to gay people, expanding the ability to get a decent education – that’s all been taken care of right? And we did it by being respectful and courteous to the people who generally don’t give a damn for anyone but themselves, right? RIGHT?!

So, there you go. You can do the math yourself, but it won’t change the results. Being respectful to the neocons yields a great big honkin’ zero. It gets us nowhere. It extends suffering. It extends the denial of rights. It extends the neocons’ moxie and encourages them to continue behaving as they are. And, quite frankly, I am sick and tired of the left’s base expecting me to take a knife in the back during the course of a conversation, just so they can pat themselves on the back for living up to some imaginary standard of decorum.

Let’s say you’re a parent with two kids, both boys. They’re both sitting at a table, with a pile of rusty stick pins in front of them that they need to make their Superman capes. The 1st boy is trying to clean the pins up, and the 2nd boy is taking pins and breaking them off inside the other boy’s arm. Each time the 1st boy has another pin shoved in his arm, he shouts at the 2nd boy “Knock it off, a$$hole!” What do you do? Do you tell the 1st boy that he needs to stop insulting the 2nd boy? If you answered yes, please, do me a favor, and stay the f-ck away from me. I want absolutely nothing to do with you.

It’s time Democrats/Liberals/Progressives had a reality check. You can live by the idiom of “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”, but as sure as you’re reading this, someone else will die by it. The neocon fly will not be caught, and the longer you live in your Kumbaya Shangri-la, the more idiotic you look. The HORN community is great, because nobody here buys into the “if we just hold hands, things will work out” delusion. In fact most HORN regulars, who are probably the most politically active group on the entire web, are likely quite bored with this post, so I’ll wrap it up.

It used to be that the only people I “hated” were the neocons, but it’s to the point where I’m beginning to hate some of the people on my own side of the aisle. Demanding that I be respectful to some freakish neocon, who would rather let a hungry child cry than pay one penny more in taxes, is enabling that neocon’s behavior. If you think for one minute that I need to be polite to scum like that in a conversation, then you better by god make sure that it’s yours, and ONLY your child that is crying because they are hungry, or sick, or any of the other problems that still exist one year later.

There are people with real needs in this country, who need our help urgently. If you want to play pattycake with the party that helped shoved these people into such dire straights, and worked overtime at making sure they stayed there, then go sign up and rally with them. You’re as dead to me as the Democratic Party’s spine.

-Sue and the Ranting Keyboard

HYANNIS, Massachusetts (Reuters) – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who emerged from a powerful male-dominated political family to found the Special Olympics and become a leading advocate of the mentally disabled, died on Tuesday at the age of 88.

Shriver, the sister of former President John F. Kennedy, died about 2 a.m./0600 GMT at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, the Massachusetts town on Cape Cod synonymous with the Kennedy dynasty.

“Her work transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe and they in turn are her living legacy,” her family said in a statement.

You can read the rest of her obituary here. Thank you for everything, Eunice!

YouTube Link

This is hilarious! You can just hear the mouth-breathing homophobes asking these. LOL!

The Nevada Senate has voted to override Gov. Jim Gibbon’s veto of a measure that would give domestic partners, whether gay or straight, many of the rights and benefits that Nevada offers to married couples.

The bill provides that domestic partners have the same rights as married couples in matters like community property and responsibility for debts.

More from The New York Times/AP Story.

George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death on Sunday as he attended church, city officials in Wichita said.

Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered.

He had also been the subject of many efforts at prosecution, including a citizen-initiated grand jury investigation. In the latest such effort, in March, Dr. Tiller was acquitted of charges that he had performed late-term abortions that violated state law.

Article is continued at The New York Times.

Courtesy Open Salon:

The city of Nashville, Tennessee today underwent one of its grandest social experiments since it merged with Davidson County to form the first major metropolitan government (Metro Nashville) in the USA back in 1963. Eric Crafton, a Metro councilman, pushed a bill through that sent voters to the polls to mandate a change to the Metro charter that would, in essence, forbid city officials to conduct business in any language other than English.

The amendment reads: “English is the official language of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Official actions which bind or commit the government shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English. No person shall have a right to government services in any other language. All meetings of the Metro Council, Boards, and Commissions of the Metropolitan Government shall be conducted in English. The Metro Council may make specific exceptions to protect public health and safety. Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law.”

Crafton, who claims to be a world citizen because he has spent some time in Japan, is a demagogue and serial embellisher who has consistently exploited the rampant anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant Metro Council into passing bills that would make it illegal for city government officials to translate written materials into other languages to use interpreters for people who don’t understand English well.

This is his third attempt to have English declared Metro Nashville’s official tongue, the last having been vetoed by then-mayor Bill Purcell. Nashville’s current mayor, Karl Dean, has been a vocal opponent of Crafton’s measure, as has Governor Phil Bredesen, and a host of local religious and business leaders. The bill would make it illegal for police officers to take statements from crime suspects via interpreters. It would make it unlawful for economic development officers to negotiate in foreign languages when recruiting overseas corporations. It would mean that important public outreach documents about issues such as 911 and immunization could not be printed in Spanish, Kurdish, Laotian, Somali, French or any other minority language of the city. Crafton’s bill has been viewed by detractors as xenophobic and small-minded.

As one such detractor, I will add that it was also a colossal waste of money, since it was mandated as a special election just a scant two months after the 2008 presidential election, and cost city taxpayers about half a million dollars: approximately what the city spends on interpreters in five years.

-Article continues @ Sourced Site.

(CNN) – Estimates for the amount of thick sludge that gushed from a Tennessee coal plant last week have tripled to more than a billion gallons, as cleanup crews try to remove the goop from homes and railroads and halt its oozing into an adjacent river

The sludge, a byproduct of the ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville. The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, according to the TVA.

TVA’s initial estimate for the spill was 1.8 million cubic yards or more than 360 million gallons of sludge. By Friday, the estimate reached 5.4 million cubic yards or more than 1 billion gallons — enough to fill 1,660 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Environmental advocates say the ash contains concentrated levels of mercury and arsenic.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River. At least 300 acres of land has been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

A spokesman for TVA, a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power company, said the agency has never experienced a spill of this magnitude.

“There’s a lot of ash there,” spokesman John Moulton said Friday. “We are taking this very seriously. It is a big cleanup project, and we’re focused on it 24 hours a day.”

Initial TVA estimates put the cleanup timeline at four to six weeks, but Moulton said the agency will no longer say how long it expects the effort to take. Environmentalists say it could take months or even years to clean up the mess.

Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area. An estimated 78,000 cubic yards, or 15.7 million gallons, of sludge covered local railroad tracks and Swan Pond Road.

-Article Continued @ Sourced Site.