Full time non-management workers don’t make that much. Part-timers make so little they can’t afford health insurance and often are on state aid. Unions are hated so virulently that Walmart has a history of doing anything to avoid them, even destroying departments at every store when one store voted to unionize. There’s even a WikiPedia article on criticisms of Walmart with a section on employees and labor relations. The attitude also affects Walmart’s vendors since the only way that many of them see to meet Walmart’s demands on them for price cutting is to send jobs overseas and it seems that adequately policing their suppliers costs too much in money and effort.

But Walmart isn’t alone. The New York Times had a piece about the history of the rise of temporary employment. Those who have their own vested interests in the temporary placement of workers speak glowingly of how it can lead to full time employment. Of course the problem with that argument is that if it really was growing because of its use to help vet permanent workers the absolute numbers of temp workers wouldn’t be growing at the rate it is even as permanent full time employment is barely budging. Remember that when you see the unemployment headlines you are seeing what the BLS calls U3. The really important number in terms of gauging what’s happening to the American work force, though, is U6.

Consider this table from the BLS web site. It shows that in February even as U3 dropped to 7.7%, U6 was at 14.3%. The definition of U3 is
Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)
U6 is defined as
Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
with this note.
NOTE: Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Those are just the economic costs to people in the work force, though. There is also the issue of safety. In an earlier post I pointed to an article on Salon that tells the story of a temporary worker who was not adequately trained for the work he was doing and not provided with the appropriate clothing or safety gear. The result of this negligence was a painful death. The Huffington Post had an article concerning a study that also linked the growth in contingent workers with increasing danger in the work place.

What does all of this say about the attitude that at least some business management holds towards their employees? The most charitable interpretation is that they are viewed solely as a cost of doing business. And when a human being is abstracted into an entry on a spreadsheet that subtracts from profits it becomes all too easy to ignore the costs that relentless labor cost cutting has to them as individuals and to us as a society, rationalizing it as something that has to be done for the sake of the company while not recognizing that it’s bad for the company too.

The Republicans are ready to pull the plug on South Carolina congressional candidate Mark Sanford after his ex-wife accused him of trespassing, violating their divorce agreement.

According to the AP, Jenny Sanford’s attorney filed a lawsuit on Feb. 4 alleging that she confronted Mark Sanford at her home the previous day, where he had been using his cellphone as a light. Trespassing would violate the terms of their divorce settlement, which said that neither would be able to be at the other’s home without explicit permission.

A court hearing is slated for May 9, according to the report – two days after Sanford competes in a closely watched special election.

NRCC has decided, like Todd Akin, Mark Sanford has no clear path to victory and has has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

“It’s such a cowardly act, whoever did this,” said Romney, the oldest son of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “Then you see the warmth of the first responders, and the people around who rushed to the scene. Such a contrast to their bravery. It just really is a family event. And it’s the best of Boston. It’s wonderful to see how people have been responding and how people are pulling together.”

[...]

“They’re going to come together,” he continued. “They messed with the wrong people. There’s going to be a period of grief, I’m sure there will be some anger. And we’re going to want to figure out how to keep this from happening again. Not just here but all over the country.” Source: CNN

Tagg Romney and his kids were watching the Boston Red Sox and had left before the twin bombings occurred. I would tend to agree with him that the perpetrator(s) messed with the wrong people. It is my hope that t his person is caught alive so they can be brought to justice.

Boston Police Commissioner says no suspects are in custody, but multiple news sources are saying a Saudi national, who is a ‘person of interest,’ was being guarded at a Boston hospital.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant

It may cost less in monetary terms to go to war than not, depending on how you calculate it, according to Daniel Altman, who looks at it from multiple points of view, and comes to the conclusion that, arguably, it may well be much less costly to go to war with them in the near future than it is to continue with the status quo and wait for them to start it themselves.

My main problem with his analysis is he assumes both the South Korean government and the US government are rational actors looking at this economically. From my own point of view, he also forgets to calculation the opportunity cost of a non-free versus a free (or at least free-er) North Korea, which I wouldn’t know how to calculate but is probably a significant factor that also ought to be put into this sort of calculation–which would be a cold way of looking at the cost of the unimaginable suffering and oppression of the North Korean people caused by the existence of that vile regime.

But as I said, that assumes those with the decision-making power on war are rational actors who are taking things like this into consideration. I no longer believe they do. As a good old-fashioned neocon (you know, back when that word actually had a specific meaning: “a liberal with hawkish foreign policy views”) I have fundamentally soured on much advocacy for more than extremely limited military action, because I believe most or all democracies, except in unusual circumstances, work under the “war is the most unthinkably horrible thing you can ever do unless you’re directly attacked and have absolutely no other choice” line of thinking. Mass torture, mass mutilation, genocide, democide, these are nowhere near as bad as war–so many people have come to believe anyway. Thus it is nearly impossible to summon sustained effort for any long-term military conduct–although I will grant that with a Democrat in the White House, support for such an effort would likely be greater than with a Republican there.

Personally, even outside the economic costs, I believe the humane thing is, and has been for some time now, to launch an unannounced pre-emptive strike in which we precision bomb every known artillery, missile launcher, and communication facility, take out Kim and the leadership, then start aerial runs of food and medical supply drops with messages that the war is over and people are now free to come to South Korea if they want, while also broadcasting that same message via speaker and on all radio and TV signals currently used by the North Korean government in order to make sure it’s all heard.

It may sound audacious, but I really don’t think the North Koreans would under those circumstances be able to pose a credible threat, and the far greater likelihood is that their military more or less disintegrates and people just start wandering over to South Korea.

But see, that requires the belief that the initiation of force is not always and in all ways immoral, and that standing by and passively watching people be put through what North Koreans are put through is morally preferable to swift and decisive action. And most people just don’t think like I do. Most people either figure war is too awful to contemplate, or shrug and think “not our problem.” We’re not our brothers’ keeper, right?

It almost seems like pointless speculation; it’s pretty much a given in my view that nothing is going to happen here until Kim launches an actual nuclear strike. He’ll be able to continue to do anything he wants otherwise, and this will drag on for decades more.

All I can say to the North Korean people is, I’m sorry that my country, and that the world’s democracies, failed you. I know that’ll be cold comfort as you contemplate your starved and dead children and your mutilated and enslaved loved ones, but it’s the best I have to offer; not enough people in my country, which has the power to end the Kim regime in days any time it wants to, has the will to do it. To our shame.

by Dr. Kevin Purcell

One of my favorite reads in the last decade has been Don Miguel Ruiz’s “Four Agreements”. I wish I had read it when I was a kid. But it’s never too late, and my young adult kids have benefited.

In the book, Ruiz suggests how to avoid self-limiting train of thought. These easy to understand suggestions are one path to remaining kind and fair to oneself, and the same to others.

An overview of this short but powerful book:

There are hundreds if not thousands of agreements you have made with others and with yourself. The ones made with yourself are most important. They make up your personality. Some of our agreements make us suffer and give us fear. To break them, the author suggests we use four new agreements that will override the old and harmful ones.

1) Be impeccable in your word — never go against yourself. Take responsibility for your actions but do not judge or blame yourself. Have integrity, honesty and be consistent. Your word is the power you have to create. What you feel and what you really are will be shaped by your word — your language. It creates all events in your life.

2) Don’t take anything personally — whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally. You will only take it personally if you agree with what others have said. Nothing other people do is because of you. When you take something personally you are assuming they know what goes on in your world — and you may be trying to impose your world on them. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for predators as you do not want to disappoint them. I know who I am and I don’t have the need to be accepted.

3) Don’t make assumptions — the problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We swear they are real. We assume we know what others are doing or thinking — we take it personally — then blame them or ourselves with our words. *All the sadness and drama in our lives is rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally. It is always better to ask questions than to make assumptions because assumptions set you up for suffering. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them.

4) Always do your best — this agreement allows the others to be ingrained over time. We will fail in the first three. So we get up and start again; always doing our best — no more, no less. Keep in mind your best will always be different from one day to another. Sometimes your best will be high quality and other times it will not be as good. When you are refreshed and energized from a good night’s sleep your best will be better than if you are tired. Your best will change over time. Your best will become better than it used to be. If you do your best, there is no way anyone can judge you. And if you judge yourself you will never suffer from guilt.

Erin Pizzey, founder of the international battered women’s movement and the world’s first internationally recognized Women’s Refuge, early member of the women’s movement on the 1970s, friend to feminist icons such as Betty Friedan and Susan Brownmiller, bestselling author of numerous books on domestic violence as well as several bestselling novels, Men’s Human Rights Advocate, and Editor-At-Large for A Voice for Men, was featured in a groundbreaking interview here on The Moderate Voice, will be doing an “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit on Sunday, April 14th at 11am Eastern Time here in the US. (That would be tomorrow, as of this writing.)

Here is a promotional video for the event:

Please spread word to anyone who is interested in domestic violence, child abuse, men’s issues, women’s issues, and so on, for this rare historic opportunity to ask anything you want of the pioneer of the anti-domestic violence movement, this early member of the women’s movement of the 1970s, and supporter of the modern Men’s Human Rights Movement any questions you want. Make your questions light and fun, or as tough and hard-hitting as you want. The one thing we ask is that you be polite and respectful and not engage in arguments with others; this conversation is with Erin, and not any petty squabbles with others asking questions.

We expect the event to run about 3 hours, however Erin says she’ll do it as long as she can and may be back for followup questions in the following days if there’s time. All are welcome, let’s give her as much support for her life and work as we can!

The thread will appear on Reddit’s Ask Me Anything section 30-60 minutes before the event begins, so just look for her name and she’ll be there, with a friend (yours truly) to help her with typing. We hope everyone from The Moderate Voice can attend!

*Urgent Update*: The original version of this article linked to the wrong part of Reddit, make sure if you already bookmarked it or announced it elsewhere to tell people it is going to be at http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA and not the earlier link that just ended in “/AMA”. My mistake, sorry gang!

Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle

Michael Totten ponders:

Kim almost certainly isn’t serious, but what if he is? How would we know? His attention-seeking theatrics are identical to the behavior of a lunatic hell-bent on blowing the region apart. If war breaks out next month, everyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention to the Korean Peninsula will slap their forehead and see, with the clarity of hindsight, that every warning we could possibly need, want, and expect was right there in front of us.

The North Korean military is nothing like Saddam Hussein’s or Moammar Qaddafi’s. Pyongyang has such an enormous array of artillery batteries targeting South Korea (the capital, Seoul, is only 30 or so miles away from the border) that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed over the weekend. North Korea would eventually lose at the hands of South Korea and the United States. It would be finished forever as a state. But the cost in lives would be unspeakable.

He has more to say right here, and I recommend reading the whole thing, but I will say this: we probably have a very good idea whether he’s serious, because we are almost certainly listening in on almost all the regime’s communications. It is plausible I suppose that the Obama administration is receiving warnings from people at the listening posts and is just not listening, but unlike those with Presidential Deranagement Syndrome (my new term for people with an unhinged hatred for whoever happens to be President at the moment, as there appears to always be a subset of such people in American politics no matter what) I am not inclined to think that even the slightly dovish Obama is likely to just ignore warnings that a lunatic is about to launch an all-out attack.

Of course I’ve made plain for some time now what I think the solution is to this; it is pretty much a given in my estimation that our intelligence services know with pinpoint precision where most of the North Korean artillery and missile launchers are and we probably have the ability to take most of it out very very quickly, and furthermore, we will probably be able to hear any communications they have making any such plans. I suppose we could get caught with our pants down but probably not, and frankly, as bloody-minded as it may make me sound, I honestly hope Kim III really is that insane and really does try it; something and someone needs to destroy that regime, and I’d like an excuse to see it done in my lifetime. Mass jamming their communications and taking out most of their weaponry capable of hitting Seoul, then just sitting on the border and waiting and inviting them to come over peacefully any time they want seems like the best option to me. But I remain cynical that anything like it will really happen.

The new track, entitled “Open Letter,” makes references and mocks those attacks as well as highlighting the couple’s connections to the Obama administration. That will surely irk the right wing.

“I done turned Havana into Atlanta,” Jay-Z raps in “Open Letter,” which he released Thursday. “[…] Boy from the hood, I got White House clearance… Politicians never did s—- for me except lie to me, distort history… They wanna give me jail time and a fine. Fine, let me commit a real crime.”

He later raps: “Hear the freedom in my speech… Obama said, ‘Chill you gonna get me impeached. You don’t need this s—- anyway, chill with me on the beach.’”

“I’m in Cuba, I love Cubans. This communist talk is so confusing,” Jay-Z raps on the track, which is produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz and goes on to reference the Bob Dylan song “Idiot Wind.” “[…] ‘Idiot Wind,’ the Bob Dylan of rap music. You’re an idiot, baby, you should’ve become a student. Oh, you gonna learn today.” Source

Personally, I don’t care about Jay-Z and Beyonce going to Cuba, but the right wing freak-out highlights their hypocrisy. I can’t recall hearing a similar freak-out over people going to China. I do recognize that the trip may have sent the wrong message to many, but they were granted a license from the Treasury Department, so they didn’t break any laws. Still, Jay-Z is thumbing his nose at his critics over the trip, but why bring President Obama into this dogfight? It’s childish.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

Glenn Greenwald makes an important point:

Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette
Glenn Greenwald / Guardian

The dictate that one ‘not speak ill of the dead’ is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures  —  News of Margaret Thatcher’s death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her.

Which is to say, all those photos of her with Ronnie Ray-Gun oughtn’t give the mindless warm and fuzzies.

But it goes a little deeper than that:

The fact that Thatcher (allegedly) had a clitoris ought NOT be a reason for any woman to mindlessly praise her. Please take a moment to digest this before praising THAT [emphasis added]:

Why Margaret Thatcher Is No Feminist Icon
by Jenny Anderson
huffingtonpost  uk

Every time I hear Margaret Thatcher called a feminist, a little bit of feminism inside of me dies. Margaret Thatcher detested feminism. I know this because she told us, “The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.” How can you possibly be credited as being a part of and moreover a role model for something that you so publically hate? You aren’t a feminist by default; it’s a mindset, a way of thinking. Thatcher was incredibly successful in what is still a predominantly male world but just because she is a woman and achieved great things in her career does not make her a feminist. During her 11 years in office Margaret Thatcher had just ONE woman in her cabinet, Baroness Young. She ignored the plight of women in politics and society as a whole. Of course according to Thatcher, “There is no such thing as society.”

[...]

This is important, since so many seemingly good-thinking feminists seem to have fallen into the “anatomy = politics” idiocy that would promote an enemy of our very principles purely based on the presence of lady parts.

Good grief.

Margaret Thatcher was to feminism as Clarence Thomas is to civil rights.

Once said she was more proud of being the first scientist
to be prime minister than the first woman. 

(Or “I got mine, Jack!”)

Margaret Thatcher and Annette Funicello died today. One was a role model to millions, a decent and responsible spokesperson for good causes everywhere. And the other one was Margaret Thatcher.

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Margaret Thatcher will receive a full ceremonial funeral, according to the BBC. That is not the same as a state funeral, but will be very similar to the funeral for the Queen Mother. Mrs. Thatcher will not lie in state. The union flag is flying at half mast at 10 Downing Street.

Before Margaret Thatcher became PM, Great Britain was reduced to three-day work weeks, garbage piled up in the street, there were power outages and the industries were nationalized. The country was in a state of economic collapse. Margaret Thatcher presided over the greatest turn-around in her country’s history. Of course there are still problems, but she left an indelible mark, though she will be viewed by some as a divisive figure.

A Guardian interactive about the key moments from Lady Thatcher’s life.

Reaction from Twitter:

“It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great Prime Minister and a great Briton”

— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) April 8, 2013

Here’s Margaret Thatcher’s obituary from Chris Moncrieff:

Margaret Thatcher was the woman who, virtually single-handed and in the space of one tumultuous decade, transformed a nation.
In the view of her many admirers, she thrust a strike-infested half-pace Britain back among the front-runners in the commanding peaks of the industrial nations of the world.

Her detractors, many of them just as vociferous, saw her as the personification of an uncaring new political philosophy known by both sides as Thatcherism.

Tireless, fearless, unshakeable and always in command, she was Britain’s first woman Prime Minister – and the first leader to win three General Elections in a row.

Mrs Thatcher, who became Baroness Thatcher, resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 after a year in which her fortunes plummeted.
It was a year in which she faced a series of damaging resignations from the Cabinet, her own political judgments were publicly denounced by her own colleagues, catastrophic by-election humiliations, internal party strife, and a sense in the country that people had had enough of her after 11 years in power.

But history will almost certainly proclaim her as one of the greatest British peacetime leaders. Her supporters believe she put the drive back into the British people.

And as she transformed the nation – attempting to release the grip of the state on massive industries and public services alike – she strode the earth as one of the most influential, talked-about, listened-to and dominant statesmen of the Western world.
When Argentina invaded the Falklands, she dispatched a task force to the South Atlantic which drove the enemy off the islands in an incomparable military operation 8,000 miles from home.

She successfully defied Arthur Scargill’s nationwide and year-long miners’ strike, which threatened to cripple Britain’s entire economic base.
Her triumphant achievement of power in May 1979 signaled the end of the era when trade union leaders trooped in and out of 10, Downing Street, haggling and bargaining with her Labour predecessors.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

A majority of Americans now support the legalization of marijuana.

What’s interesting to me is just how effective the whole “JUST SAY NO/WAR ON DRUGS propaganda war was. Look at the minimum tolerance year on the graph. (And I think it’s insulting to call the post World War II generation the “silent.” )

Majority Now Supports Legalizing Marijuana
Numbers / Pew Research Center for the People

OVERVIEW  —  For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, a majority of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana.  A national survey finds that 52% say that the use of marijuana should be made legal while 45% say it should not.

But look at the graph more closely …

Majority support in the USA

When you think about it, and look at how  generation by generation — with the standard “the older y0u are the more afraid of change you become”  declining levels of support BY generations — the track of opinion is EXACTLY the same. Except that you can see how effective the PROPAGANDA for the war on drugs was, even though the war on drugs has been a complete disaster ON EVERY LEVEL: more addiction, more drugs, longer sentences, the largest prison population on the planet, incredible waste of policing resources to chase plants and voluntary use when murder, theft, etc. are UNDERPOLICED, etc. etc. etc.

We waste billions of dollars and base a HUGE part of our foreign policy and diplomacy just on the Drug War, and it has all but destroyed the governments and civil liberties of the Western hemisphere, Canada perhaps excluded.

But just look how effective the PROPAGANDA was on shaping public opinion … until Reagan/Ailes leaves office.  From 1986 —  when the “War on Drugs” and “Just Say No!” are launched as a national crusade to help the GOP win Ronnie’s last off-year congressional elections* — to 1990 — when George H.W. Bush faced his only off-year election — public disapproval of marijuana (treated as exactly the same as heroin, crack, etc.) was at its absolute rock bottom.

Propaganda from the ’80s

[* The "Drug War" was a political failure from the get go (Wikipedia, emphasis added):

Democratic gains

In this Senate election, the Democrats gained a net of eight seats, and recaptured control of the Senate from the Republicans with a 55 - 45 majority. Robert Dole (R-Kansas) and Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) exchanged positions as the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader.
This was the last election — up through the present — in which the Democrats in this Class of Senators (1/3 of the Senate) amassed a gain in seats (not including special elections held in off-years in some states to fill the seats that had been vacated by Senators due to death, resignation, or otherwise*).

(* WTF??!? sic)

Republican gain

The only win by the Republican Party was for one "open seat" in Missouri. On the other hand, the Democratic Party won the "open seats" in Maryland and Nevada, and the Democrats also defeated seven incumbent Republican Senators, six of them who were first-term senators who had been elected in 1980.

And the "War on Drugs"? Prohibition should have tipped us off. Of course, Vietnam should have tipped us off, too, but we invaded Iraq anyway.]

Since 1991, public approval of ALL generations has risen steeply and steadily.

Which just goes to show how effective propaganda can be.

What their propaganda did to your brain

Hell: there are some significant number of Americans who don’t believe that the President of the United States was born in the United States and are so dumb that they don’t know it doesn’t matter, since his MOTHER was an American citizen and where she goes, America goes.

Hail Columbia!

Courage.
====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Film critic Roger Ebert has died.

As someone who came of age in the 1980s in the Chicago area, I remember him and Gene Siskel being the first regular movie critics I ever watched on television. To be honest I more often disagreed with Ebert than I did his late cohost Siskel, and sometimes I felt Ebert let his politics intrude too deeply into his views of various movies–but at least he was honest and straightforward about this most of the time, which was a plus. In any case his criticisms were generally thoughtful and often funny, and he had a deep impact on me as a young man who wanted to understand and think about movies rather than just watch and enjoy them.

It’s a funny thing when we hit middle age (I’ll be 47 this year) and we start to see icons from our youth pass away; it reminds you of your own mortality and it feels like parts of your past are slipping away, even when it’s people you have never met and never expected to.

I’m not sure we’ll ever see a film critic of the impact of Roger Ebert again, if only because the media landscape has changed so much; when he first hit the airwaves, cable TV was a rarity and most of the time there was only handful of TV stations to choose from. Thus the ability of one person to be known by practically everybody was much greater than today. Although I don’t think of Ebert as a “great” intellectual per se, he was an intellectual, who brought that intellect to the movies and shared it with the audience, so whether you agreed with him or not you almost always knew where he was coming from. Even if you disagreed with him, you wanted to argue with him rather than just say he was wrong. He challenged his readers that way, and I appreciated that about him. Today, everybody’s a critic, and between hundreds of TV channels and millions of YouTube channels, I don’t think you’ll ever see a critic of that kind of stature again. And in any case, he was by all accounts a good man, and he taught me a lot about what I liked and disliked in movies. He will be missed.

“Well, we are so sophisticated, we think we’ve got everything figured out, we know about evolution, we know about Darwin, we know about all these things that says God isn’t real, we know about all this stuff,” Robertson lamented, “in many schools, in the most advanced schools, we have been inundated with skepticism and secularism.”

Unlike these too-educated Americans, “overseas they are simple and humble” and are more ready to accept miracles. Source

This was cross-posted from the Hinterland Gazette.

“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

Everhart said while she respects all people, if same sex marriage is legalized across the country, there will be fraud.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Everhart said if she had a young child, she wouldn’t want them to have gay parents who would influence that child’s sexual orientation.

“You’re creating with this child that it’s a lifestyle, don’t go out and marry someone else of a different sex because this is natural,” Everhart said. “But if I had a next door neighbor who was in a gay relationship, I could be just as friendly to them as I could be to you and your wife or anybody else. I’m not saying that we ostracize them or anything like that. I’m just saying I’m against marriage because once you get the gay marriage you get everything else.”

Um, so would Sue Everhart had made the same argument about heterosexuals who marry? Couldn’t they be guilty of the same fraud? The ignorance of the Republican Party defies logic. This is the same type of dangerous rhetoric over women’s rights that led to Todd Akin losing his Senate bid against Claire McCaskill — legitimate rape. Same thing for Richard Mourdock — pregnancy from rape is a gift from God. Please, keep talking. This will only keep a Democrat in the White House for the foreseeable future.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

Dr. Benjamin Carson drama continues as students at Johns Hopkins University are circulating a petition to replace the Republican darling as commencement speaker after he linked gay marriage to pedophilia and bestiality in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. 

The petition, which was posted on a Facebook page for the student-run Health and Human Rights Student Group, describes Carson as “a world-class neurosurgeon and passionate advocate for education,” but concludes that his “expressed values are incongruous with the values of Johns Hopkins and deeply offensive to a large proportion our student body.”

Carson, who is set to retire this year as the university’s director of pediatric neurosurgery, told Hannity on Tuesday that opposite-sex marriage is “a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” Source

There’s nothing wrong with Dr. Benjamin Carson voicing his on policy issues, but to start insulting others on the basis of their sexual orientation, religion or creed is wrong. It diminishes him as a person on so many levels. He is spewing the same vitriol as right wing evangelical wingnuts. Imagine if he were really running for the GOP presidential nomination? He would be one very divisive candidate.

Here’s the full letter posted on Facebook:

We are writing to express concern about the selection of Dr. Ben Carson as the commencement speaker for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Class of 2013.

At the time of his nomination, Dr. Carson was known to most of us as a world-class neurosurgeon and passionate advocate for education. Many of us had read his books and looked up to him as a role model in our careers.

Since then, however, several public events have cast serious doubt on the appropriateness of having Dr. Carson speak at our graduation.

On March 26, on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, Dr. Carson compared gay relationships with pedophilia and bestiality: “Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition. “

On February 7, Dr. Carson used the National Prayer Breakfast speech— which, like our commencement ceremony, is an historically nonpartisan event — to deride Obamacare, advocate lower taxes for the wealthy, and suggest that Christianity requires supporting Republican policies.

Dr. Carson has also used his platform as a famous neurosurgeon to promote the rejection of evolution: “Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory,” he said, in a statement that would apply to the majority of students and faculty at Johns Hopkins, “you dismiss ethics, you don’t have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires.” This belief of Dr. Carson’s was unknown to many of us at the time of his nomination.

We retain the highest respect for Dr. Carson’s achievements and value his right to publicly voice political views. Nevertheless, we feel that these expressed values are incongruous with the values of Johns Hopkins and deeply offensive to a large proportion our student body.

As a result, we believe he is an inappropriate choice of speaker at a ceremony intended to celebrate the achievements of our class. We hope the administration of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine will select an alternative speaker that better represents the values of our student body and of our great University.

If you support the selection of another speaker, please sign this petition.

Watch Dr. Benjamin Carson denigrate the LGBT community on Fox News:

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

Philip K. Dick Fan Site
Paul Williams Died Last Night

… After many years of thinking of Paul Williams as mainly the Philip K. Dick Estate’s executor, I looked into what he had also accomplished in his life and I was amazed at what he had started, especially in Rock journalism (Crawdaddy!) and where he had been and what he’d seen. Things that I’d read about and he was there in person. I also saw that he wrote many books and after reading about his most famous ones on his site http://www.paulwilliams.com/, I purchased from ebay a used copy of Das Energi and read it in a few short hours but I was enthralled with the simplicity and the genius in that book about how to live a more happy and fulfilled life….

Paul Williams: at the birth of Rock n Roll journalism

His wife, Cindy Lee Berryhill posted this on Facebook four hours ago:

Cindy Lee Berryhill Rock-writer Paul S Williams, author and creator of CRAWDADDY magazine, (and my husband), passed away last night 10:30pm PST while his oldest son was holding his hand and by his side. It was a gentle and peaceful passing.

I was not close to Paul Williams (no relation), but I knew him, and, even more importantly, I knew OF him. So let me write this in the only way I know how.

I finally met Paul at the wedding of Theodore Sturgeon’s son Robin, in Berkeley,  California in the mid-1990s. This was before he married Cindy Lee, and fathered a young son, who survives him. It was also before his 1995 bicycle accident (about which more, later). But I had known OF Paul Williams for many years, and, arguably, he showed up at a critical time in my development as a writer — when I was deciding to develop AS a writer.

And here is where I have to try and turn the pig iron of experience into the steel of remembrance. Just last Sunday, a ‘celebration’ was held for Paul, who was unable to attend, for reasons that will become apparent.

Boo-Hooray is in New York. Paul died in San Diego.

So, let’s start here, in the standard American pica typewriter and mimeograph magazine of science fiction fandom, the APAs [emphasis added]:

crawdaddy #1 masthead  (click to enlarge)

Crawdaddy Vol. 1, no. 1, page 1
February 7th, 1966

You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music. … Crawdaddy believes that someone in the United States might be interested in what others have to say about the music they like.

… This is not a service [e.g. trade/industry] magazine. We fully expect and intend to be of great use to the trade: by pushing new 45′s that might have otherwise been overlooked … but we are not a service magazine. The aim of this magazine is readability. We are trying to appeal to people interested in rock and roll, both professionally and casually. If we could predict the exact amount of sales of each record we heard, it would not interest us to do so. If we could somehow pat every single pop artist on the back in a manner calculated to please him and his fans, we would not bother. What we do want to do is write reviews and articles that you will not want to put down, and produce a magazine that you will read thoroughly each week. And we think we can do it.

Crawdaddy #4

That was probably the crucial moment. Everything that came before and came after that in Paul Williams’ life was a result of his taking a science fiction fanzine sensibility into rock and roll. From that, arguably, comes Rolling Stone, came Phonograph Record Magazine (the first free paper), came Creem, and, ironically, came Crawdaddy, the slick newsstand magazine that was made of the title Paul had sold, which was, when I was in college and about to “meet” Paul the first time in Rolling Stone, the best magazine in America. But a completely DIFFERENT America than Crawdaddy had begun in at Swarthmore College in 1966.

In fact, in 1978 — back when I really THOUGHT I was going to be a rock journalist — I had just turned in a batch of reviews that had been sent back to rewrite as “not so nice” when Crawdaddy turned into FEATURE, and then vanished without a trace.

1978: My subscription informed me that Crawdaddy 
was now “Feature.” Feature folded after a couple
issues and I think I got several issues of a science
magazine to fulfill the subscription.
My reviews vanished with Crawdaddy.

But before it all got out of control, let’s hear what the LA WEEKLY has to say about that little ‘zine launched in a dorm room:

Early readers sensed what Williams was trying to accomplish. Paul Simon called him in his freshman dorm about the review he wrote of Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence LP. He said it was the first intelligent thing that had been written about the duo’s music to date. Simon was an ambitious artist who’d spent too many years as a contract songwriter. He recognized that the attention of critics like Williams could help carve a niche for music that aspired to more than the Billboard charts.

Soon after the third issue of Crawdaddy!, Williams dropped out of Swarthmore to devote all his time to his new venture; at the end of the magazine’s first year, he moved to New York. Within two years, its circulation had risen to 45,000 copies. He was on to something….

Ah.  Cultural events. This is not to praise or condemn “rock journalism,” but to note its genesis. Prior to Crawdaddy, “rock” coverage had been confined to PR, industry sales buzz and TigerBeat-style manufactured teen idol magazines.

Yes. We realize that this is somewhat
anachronistic to a 1966 time frame.
Shut up. 

It is my contention that most rock journalism is exactly what you’d expect when you unloose a generation of stoned English lit majors onto a generation of really bad lyric poetry (rhyming, almost exclusively) set to primal rock instrumentation. I will make no further comment on the genre, except to say that if Lester Bangs REALLY REALLY hated it, I generally took that as a recommendation to buy it, and I was seldom disappointed.

But that was the critical moment of young Paul’s life. Crawdaddy galvanized an unspoken desire for a deeper discussion of rock and roll, and, given that the Beatles were about to record Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (and yes, obscurantists, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds was also in the works) the timing was extremely serendipitous.

1967′s Sgt. Pepper (click to enlarge)

The LA WEEKLY notes:

A staggering cast of characters began their careers at Crawdaddy!Paul McCartney’s future wife, Linda Eastman, was the magazine’s first staff photographer. Peter Guralnick, Elvis Presley’s biographer and perhaps the best-known writer on 20th-century American popular music, published his first music criticism in Crawdaddy! No. 7. During a May 1967 visit to San Francisco, Williams met with a young journalist thinking of starting a biweekly rock paper. That was Jann Wenner, who soon founded Rolling Stone. Jon Landau began writing critical essays for Crawdaddy! at age 19, but Wenner quickly stole him away and made him one of the first editors at his magazine. Landau went on to even greater success as the manager and producer credited with making Bruce Springsteen a star. Williams’ path, however, didn’t resemble that of the bands he chronicled or the staff he assembled.

Be it a lack of interest or ability, he was not the type to manage a business. “I was a hippie in the 1960s,” he says, “and fairly neurotic or nervous about becoming part of the establishment, or somehow having my values changed or compromised in that way.” The dropout ethic began to exert its pull. Proximity to drugs and “hip” culture’s other vices didn’t help. Besides, Crawdaddy! was no longer a lone voice. Even The New York Times was covering rock. Williams saw little reason to continue.

“I’m getting a little bored, at times, pretending to tell you about music,” he wrote in issue No. 18, “and I’d like very much to advance toward the stage where we all sort of tell each other.” After the magazine’s 19th issue, in October 1968, Williams left New York to join a commune in Northern California’s Mendocino County. He was only 20 years old. Though Crawdaddy! continued to publish under various owners until 1979, the rest of its run was essentially a long goodbye….

I include long draughts of this swill because I have never been able to stomach it, since I wrote Press Kit interviews for A&M Records in Charlie Chaplin’s old studios on La Brea, which were easy walking distance from my apartment across the street from Samuel Goldwyn Studios on Santa Monica in Hollywood.

Turn it all into a narrative. A story. Pretend a false familiarity with people you do not know, and events you don’t know a lot about. I am trying to stick with what I know here. There is quite a good living to be made from constantly REPORTING on the famous, rather than being famous one’s self, and, as any talk show host, movie critic of stature and guy on TV with a microphone can tell y0u, celebrity rubs off, which is an entire industry running parallel to and deeply enmeshed INTO the entertainment industry.

Entertainment as opiate of the masses

Instantaneous minting of legendary status, famous names, astounding times.  And, to his credit, Paul did NOT fall into that morass, although Crawdaddy did. Feature was, essentially, Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, or People Magazine, light on the “people” and heavy on the entertainment industry. It was not the world Crawdaddy was born into, and it was not a world Crawdaddy was fit for. Perhaps Paul understood that.

But he still had a life to live. It is one thing to be the nexus of a pivotal moment of social change, or satori, but quite another to completely understand, accept, and move on FROM that moment. I do not know whether Paul fully did, but he moved forward.

Ironically, his love of science fiction never waned. Which brings me back to that confluence.

In 1975, Paul wrote a long profile of Philip K. Dick in Rolling Stone that changed Dick’s life, vis a vis the general public.

Now, it’s ironic that he wrote it for Rolling Stone, which was then a competitor with long-lost Crawdaddy and ultimate victor in the “which rock and roll magazine will survive into our Golden Years” sweepstakes. And it’s also, in its way, the second pivotal moment in Paul’s career.

Paul Williams’ November 1975 cover story
read it at the official Philip K. Dick estate website

I was a Rolling Stone subscriber and got that issue of the magazine. I read Paul’s cover story avidly, and then went out and bought all seven titles that the TCU bookstore had in stock. The one I most remember for its cover and title and least for its story was Clans of the Alphane Moon. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Game Players of Titan were also there. Loved both. All made the journey to H0llywood with me in 1976.

That’s odd. This cover looks familiar …

I slowly picked up as many of Dick’s other books as I could, including, a couple of years later the reprint of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, which featured an “ornithopter” painting from one of the original Dune paperback covers.

There’s a lot of cheap bastards out there

(In other words, it had NOTHING to do with Dick’s novel, which Paul Williams exalted as the greatest of Dick’s oeuvre in the Rolling Stone story.)

This may even be that paperback. Seriously.

I even found a copy (in a musty Hollywood bookstore for 50 cents) of the impossible-to-find first printing paperback of The Man in the High Castle, for which Philip K. Dick won the Hugo Award for best novel, and it NOT one of his best novels.

This is not an actual cover, but a parody
of the Dickian penchant for really dreadful
titles of an addle-pated poesy, like, say,
Galactic Pot Healer, or Our Friends From Frolix 8

In 1986, I sold my collection to James Avalon for a good price, hoping the collection would go to a good home and not be broken up by antiquarian greedos.

The paperback on the stands when Paul’s
Rolling Stone story came out

A decade later, Ridley Scott and Warner Brothers would option, produce and film Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at Burbank (Warner) studios and my wife and I used to brown bag lunch on the Blade Runner set (which no one shot on during the day).

I was there the day that Philip K. Dick visited the set, but our paths in no wise coincided. Ironically, that same month, I ran into Britt Eklund in the Burbank Studios Commissary on a day we DIDN’T brown bag our lunch, and her skin texture in real life was the exact same as if you’d soaked those brown paper bags in water and then left them out in the sun to dry.

Paul Williams

Philip K. Dick died between the time he visited the set and the time the movie came out, by which time I had a DIFFERENT wife, and was able to forgive Scott turning it into an entirely different story than Dick’s novel (which I still like much better).

And Paul Williams became his literary executor. One could easily say that Paul Williams is responsible for making Philip K. Dick a household word. What I have not mentioned here is that Dick was very isolated as a writer in a very isolated genre.

Philip K Dick, Paul Williams, mysterious child. 1970s.

A classic little gag at Westercons for many years was for the M.C. to launch into a long shaggy dog story about “he said he wasn’t going to be here, but he was able to break a couple of appointments to attend. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a big round of applause for Philip K. Dick!”

At which point, the late William Rotsler, who bore a vague superficial resemblance to Dick in body type and beard, would rise and soberly accept the kudos of the clueless.

Rolling Stone illustration with heavy dose of paranoia

All laugh. But that’s how he was received in the science fiction world, generally. SF saw him as paranoid, and that was considered a negative. Paul introduced him to a rock and roll audience, to which paranoia was quite the opposite of a negative, and the rest, as they say, is history. From the Paul Williams website:

The Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter

The Society was active from 1983 to 1992, during which time 30 issues of the Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter were published. I was among the young acolytes who helped stuff, stamp and label envelopes, and then sort the results as required for ‘bulk mail’ – my glimpse of Paul Williams and his preferred system for changing the world. During these unforgettable sessions Paul would keep his volunteers enthralled with stories of conversations with Dick, and with bootleg Dylan cassette tapes he’d brought along for entertainment on his drives down from Sonoma.

Eventually Paul expanded the Rolling Stone article substantially into a short, irreplaceable book about Dick, called Only Apparently Real.

— Jonathan Lethem

Paul, Alex, Cindy

————————-

Only Apparently Real (1986)

This biography of Philip K. Dick, the great science fiction writer who died of a stroke in 1982 at the age of 53, is by one of his friends also his literary executor and founder of the PKD Society, a kind of fan club. Williams skillfully interweaves memoir with transcripts of interviews and conversations to give a portrait of the artist as friend, husband, father, genius, seeker after truth, paranoid and perpetually indigent writer. Tracing Dick’s life from his Berkeley childhood through an apprenticeship under editor Anthony Boucher, his early novel sales to Donald Wollheim at Ace, his five marriages, Williams maintains that Dick engaged in an essentially religious quest the stripping away of the “only apparently real” to get to the real. The author has done a good job making this complex and unusual man understandable and sympathetic.
— Publisher’s Weekly 

“Only Apparently Real successfully captures the Phil Dick I knew so long ago in California:  a writer who was funny, audacious, sometimes outrageous and a little scary.”
— Ron Goulart

“Only Apparently Real is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the PKD phenomenon or simply to find out what all the fuss is about.”
— Michael Bishop

My old PKD paperback collection, more or less. Click to enlarge

At the time of his accident, he was working on doing the same for Theodore Sturgeon, about whom Paul ALSO wrote an article much like the Rolling Stone PKD article. But not so widely received. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t received AT ALL. Written in 1976 (less than a year  after the Rolling Stone PKD piece) it was never published:

Paul Williams

THEODORE STURGEON, STORYTELLER
© Copyright 1976; 1997 by Paul Williams.

This essay was written in 1976 but is published here for the first time.

---

I. The best short story writer in America lives on a hill on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He works on TV scripts, gives lectures, teaches a class, writes book reviews and does introductions to other people’s books. That’s all. He’s sold four new short stories in the last four years. Of the 23 books he’s written in the course of his career, only three are still in print in the United States. His old masterpieces are not being read; and his new ones are not being written.

And he has no one to blame for this state of affairs but himself.

* * *Theodore Sturgeon.

I’m 28 years old (or will be when this is published) and the man I’m writing about is more than twice my age. And when I was just half this age, 14, it occurs to me now, I was at a party on the 14th floor of the Pick-Congress Hotel in Chicago at about five in the morning, the last night of my first science fiction convention, and Judith Merril, famed anthologist and author/editor of some of my favorite books, turned to me and asked — just about everyone but me had consumed a fair quantity of alcohol by this time –”Doesn’t it bother you to see that your heroes have feet of clay?” And I said, “They couldn’t be heroes if they didn’t,” or some such clever 14-year-old remark. Then the sun came up over Lake Michigan while the drunk science fiction writers told stories and sang folk songs, and I was indeed filled with quiet awe — not at the great names made flesh around me, but at whatever miracles had brought me, at age 14, to this inner sanctum, this place of dreams.

Theodore Sturgeon was Guest of Honor at that particular science fiction convention (Labor Day Weekend, 1962), and I shook his hand but didn’t actually talk with him. He had his wife and his children with him, and was very much the center of attention wherever he went in the convention hall, and anyway I had nothing to say; I loved the man and I loved his stories and there was no way I could tell him that.

Fourteen years later I visit his home, we talk about anything and everything, I enjoy his hospitality and see his feet of clay — we’ve been friends of a sort for two or three years now — and each time I read a story of his he is again my favorite writer, a worker of miracles; but in between times he’s just a friend, attractive and annoying and as blind as the rest of us…… To write this story I need a hero, because this is a story of great achievements. But even after months of careful research, the man slips away from me, he’s too human — I know him and his life so well but I still can’t understand where his miracles come from…. [MORE]

Paul was editing the complete short stories of Theodore Sturgeon when the effects of the accident began to kick in. It had been a herculean task, to go through the complete papers (all now more or less collected at the Spencer Library, Special Collections, University of Kansas) and publish, in order, the complete short story output of Theodore Sturgeon which would eventually come to thirteen volumes. Paul’s remaining years were taken up with that task. 

Eerily prescient: Paul reading during a quiet moment in the
wedding of Robin Sturgeon, Ted’s oldest son. His daughter, Noël,
who would finish the Complete stories, has chair marked, bottom.

Sturgeon’s daughter Noël completed the last volume. By that time, Paul Williams, in most essential functions, had ceased to be. From his official website biography:

In 1995, while living with his future wife, the singer Cindy Lee Berryhill, in Encinitas, California, Paul suffered a traumatic brain injury in a spill from his bicycle, and was never completely able to resume his full activities as a writer. The injury likely triggered an early onset of Alzheimer’s disease; some symptoms were immediate, while others revealed themselves in tragic slow motion: fading powers of memory, then of comprehension and speech. In 2008, unable to continue caring for Paul while also taking care of their eight-year-old son, Cindy began to arrange for Paul to live in managed care outside the home. Like so many freelancers, Paul lived without any structure of institutional support. The burden on Cindy and their 7 year-old son has been immense.

I wrote about this in 2009 (and again in 2012):

He is no longer either

Sturgeon is Neither Alive nor Well
1 DECEMBER 2009

… Hugely influential without ever becoming famous* (in the PEOPLE magazine sense of media celebrity), Paul Williams had set out to see to it that Sturgeon was appreciated as his fans — other writers — appreciated a writers’ writer. (As opposed to a “writer’s writer,” which would be a ghostwriter, with the first “writer” being understood to mean “celebrity.”)

[* The ambiguity of this sentence works both ways, note.]

But now, after a lifetime of work, Paul Williams is laid low, in an irreversible state of increasing dementia with more and more infrequent moments of lucidity. (Read his wife, Cindy Lee Berryhill’s blog, Beloved Stranger, to get a feeling for what’s going on.)

He made the mistake of living in the only nation in the industrial world without any form of societal healthcare, because a bunch of selfish, greedy and/or ignorant fellow-society members believe that lassaiz faire greed and the haggling of the bazaar ought to be the engine that drives the “health care industry.”

Er, did you mean “medicine”? The healing of the sick, and easing of human suffering?

An entire generation of artists, musicians, actors and writers is now facing a cruel death for never having been as successful an artist as Paris Hilton, and Paul Williams is only a poster child. You can help him by going to www.paulwilliams.com.

In the end, there are two things that stand out about Paul Williams:

First, he was a WRITER. A freelancer. A journeyman. A quick perusal on his website of the titles published, republished or out of print should tell you pretty much what you need to know about how Paul Williams spent his life. Dylan biographer.  Rock journalist and chronicler. Philip K. Dick and Theodore Sturgeon fan and critic, added to a measureless well of curiosity. Paul seems to have been, as someone of my acquaintance called it so perfectly: “a natural.”

A writer who writes. Writes because he lives, just the same way that one breathes because one is alive.  I think that Paul Williams was a natural writer,  someone  who could not NOT write, anymore than any of us can decide to NOT breathe as a career choice.

This may explain the angry opening to the Sturgeon piece (as open most pieces on Sturgeon of that era: few writers have been as chivied, harassed and vilified as intensely for NOT writing as Ted, and few writers have had so much literary scorn tossed in their direction for what they DID write, after all).

A writer who writes cannot conceive how a writer who does not write doesn’t write. It frustrates and angers said writer.

The point being this: the writer is the marathon runner of the species. If we do our job and do it well, our thoughts will be read in decades, in centuries, in millennia.

And today, as Paul Williams has added the final period to his life’s work, that new clock begins ticking, its verdict probably not rendered within our lifetimes.

I will just tell this story, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Paul Williams c. 1970s

Back  in 1996 , when I reviewed KILLDOZER! The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Vol. III (edited by Paul Williams, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg; North Atlantic Press, 367 pp., $25.) for my column in the Santa Fe Sun (also RIP),  I realized that Kurt Vonnegut modeling Kilgore Trout after Theodore Sturgeon wasn’t really nailed down in the historical record. And I e-mailed Paul, to make my  case that before Kurt left us, he needed to Vonnegut to do an introduction to one of the volumes. I did this because I knew that if there was anyone in the universe who would understand why it was important and, more importantly, could get it done, it was Paul Williams. 

Volume VII came out a couple years later, with an introduction by …. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Paul made it happen.

And now they are all gone: Ted. Kurt. Paul.

And we are the poorer for it.

renoun

Because what my impression of Paul was  the first time that I met him has been borne out by several articles I’ve consulted pulling this together.

Let me use a rock critic metaphor:

A critic once told me that the day he started getting free (review) albums was the day that his enjoyment of music went away.

Paul and youngest son, from CLB’s bl0g
(click to go there)

You see, Paul was, first and foremost a fan. He was enthusiastic and passionate about the things he liked, and preserved that childlike sense of wonder that is necessary in the apperception of so much of life’s beauty. He did not harden his psychic shell with a thick horny hide of rhinocerous cynicism or armadillo paranoia.

He was, to the end, willing to play the wise fool, and still love the things he loved. The fact that he was a science fiction fan and a fan of Theodore Sturgeon at fourteen and was still working with a fan’s joy on a collection of Sturgeon’s stories at the END of his life is testament to protecting his inner child against all the cynicism and disillusionment of a rough Age.

My nephew, Hart Sturgeon-Reed, negotiates the return of his
assigned chair from Paul Williams at Robin’s wedding. Hart is
much older now, and no longer packs heat at weddings.
(click photo to enlarge)

He received as many free records as anybody in the game, but he never stopped being delighted by music.

Rolling Stone reports:

The illustration Rolling Stone picked
Kind crappy of ‘em, cropping Kurt out like that

Paul Williams, Rock Criticism Pioneer, Dead at 64
‘Rolling Stone’ writer and founder of ‘Crawdaddy!’ magazine suffered brain injury in 1995

[...]

After leaving the publication in 1968, he went on to a prolific writing career, authoring over 25 books and notably penning  Rolling Stone‘s 1975 feature on the now-legendary sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. Williams’ most well-known books include 1969′s  Outlaw Blues: A Book of Rock Music, 1973′s Das Energi, and his multiple works on Bob Dylan. His three-part series Bob Dylan: Performing Artist is considered a defining work on the singer-songwriter.

Rockers Unite for Benefit Supporting ‘Crawdaddy!’ Founder Paul Williams

Williams returned to Crawdaddy! in time, running a revival of the magazine from 1993 to 2003. However, in 1995, he suffered a brain injury after a bicycle accident, which brought on early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. In 2009, Williams reached out to the music community for help, and X’s John Doe and former Dead Kennedys leader Jello Biafra led a special benefit show for him in San Francisco.

Berryhill noted in a Facebook post that Williams died with his oldest son, Kenta, by his side. There have been no announcements yet regarding a memorial service. Williams’ original run of Crawdaddy! is available online for free at Wolfgang’s Vault.

Hey, when they questionably claim credit for you, it means you done good. Paul done good.

Requiescat in Pace, Paul.

And his wife, Cindy Lee Berryhill answered eloquently the age question posed by Mr. McCartney on the second cut of side two of the old vinyl of Sgt. Pepper.

Keep her and her young son, in your thoughts.

Crawdaddy takes its name from the first club the Rolling Stones played.

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Which of course they are. The harder you make it for people to get your content, the more incentive you give them to pirate. Despite all the futile condemning and attempts at shaming, the fact is that this Cartoon by The Oatmeal still illustrates why making it harder to get content hurts businesses. Scream all you want about how piracy is theft, or people who indulge in it are just entitled whiny losers/scum/whatever: most people will never listen to you because they know damn well it’s not the same thing, and never will view it as the same thing no matter how much you browbeat them and insist that they see it your way. Content distributors should be finding more ways to work with things like the Torrent universe to make a profit off of people who just want to see stuff, rather than futilely setting up barriers that merely frustrate but do not stop people.

Or, you know, you can keep screaming that copying intellectual property is exactly the same thing as stealing money out of someone’s wallet, and most people will continue to think you’re batty. That’s up to you I guess. As someone who owns intellectual property himself and thinks it’s an important concept, I can still see how futile screaming about it is, always has been, and always will be.

by Dr. Kevin Purcell

The picture above is part of a bike ride we did the length of New Zealand’s south island.

In my last article I shared my views about how each of us can improve our health, energy and well-being by focusing on some relatively simple steps. In this piece I will get more specific and share some of those steps relative to nutrition. Simple? Yes, they are simple but not easy for most. Let me explain.

It’s amazing how much better our bodies perform when we fully understand what they need to excel and how to go about making the changes. When I’m with patients/clients in office or at camps or clinics I tell them about the “Big Rocks”–the very few, most important things that must be done to improve health. And I do mean “few.” There really aren’t that many things one must do to turn the corner on health, brain strength and body composition. The key is knowing what the Big Rocks are and incorporating them.

The little rocks, and even the sand particles become increasingly important as the absolute level of health improves. At the highest level, everything is a Big Rock. There’s no room for anything to be done even somewhat haphazardly in our quest for world class health. But it isn’t that way for the rest of us “normal” people.

Most of us overestimate what we can do in three months and underestimate what we can do in three years of top shelf focus on health. I urge you to find your potential. I altered my blood pressure from 165/110 to 110/65 without medicine; my total cholesterol went from 290 to 145 through nutritional choices.

The Big Rocks:

If it grows out the ground or if it swims, flies, or runs, you can eat it. It is essential that you consume plenty of good fats like seeds, some nuts (almonds and walnuts), avocado, olive oil, coconut oil, etc. I also allow myself nonfat dairy like cottage cheese and yogurt (both usually with fruit). Think of your foods as palate of color. You want plentiful colors of all types.

Eating healthfully is not complicated but you’ll need to break some old habits. To the extent you do, you will get healthy and see an improvement in health and body composition. Your goal should be to get as healthy as possible. You shouldn’t rush changes, they will happen in time as you maintain healthy habits.

Avoid focusing on specific calorie deprivation or weight. I never count calories. Eat when you are hungry and stop before you are full. Eat 6-8 small meals a day rather than three large ones.

Avoid holding back too many calories when exercising. The biggest mistake made by people focusing on health and body composition is disrupting the quality of workouts and recovery by depleting calories. If you ever choose to withhold calories and have some back ground noise of hunger, do it by not eating after 6:00pm. KEY: have a larger breakfast and a smaller dinner!

Recall, consistency is KEY in everything we do. Any program that is a bit too aggressive sets you up for self-sabotage. Control, control, control.

What to eat ==> fruits, veggies, lean protein and good fats.

Good fats are olive oil and MCTs. I supplement four tablespoons of Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs) each day. MCTs are found in coconut oil and palm kernel oil. These fats are rapidly metabolized in the liver, increase energy expenditure (thermogenic), decrease fat storage and preserve lean body tissue. MCTs are _great_ brain food.

What to avoid ==> processed foods, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, sodas, alcohol, sugars and other high glycemic load foods.

I eat about .7 to 1.0 grams of lean protein per pound of lean body mass per day. Lean protein can be found in fish, chicken, turkey, non-fat cottage cheese, eggs, quinoa and a small piece of red meat every few weeks.

If food comes in a box or wrapper don’t eat it. No fast food.

Drink 64 to 128 ozs of plain water a day. Even slight dehydration is often mistaken as hunger. Cut out sodas and most juices as they are mostly sugar.

Eating mostly fruit, veggies, lean protein and good fats will make you edgy/grumpy for about two to three weeks. Then, you’ll get over your sugar and high glycemic CHO addiction and feel more energy than you have ever had. Not only that, you will become extremely healthy over time. Be prepared to lose some aches and pains, allergies, malaise and brain fatigueas a result of nutritional excellence.

Get some!

Dr. P.

Doin’ the Faux Nooz phony scandal

It’s about making noise and hurting people, without ever attempting to understand what the “journalist” is supposedly reporting. Listen [emphasis added]:

Taxpayer money finances IRS “Star Trek” parody
Sharyl Attkisson / CBS News

PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO … Thus begins a six-minute “Star Trek” parody starring IRS employees and paid for with your tax dollars.  It’s not likely to go over well with some Americans and members of Congress, especially since federal agencies have been complaining that it’s difficult to find trims under forced sequestration….

Yeah. It got the Usual Suspects. And nobody will ever remark on Atkisson’s sleazy reporting because news is ALWAYS about living at a junior high school level of cognition.

Now, I’m going to actually DEFEND the IRS here, and you’re going to act shocked, because you’re used to acting like a sixth grader, and not as a functioning adult. Strap in. You may be in for a bumpy ride.

Let’s start out where Sharyl Attkisson never did: with LOGIC. Since it is impossible for the video in question to have been produced UNDER sequestration, the statement in the lede paragraph is a SLUR, a SLANDER, an intentional FALSEHOOD to create a FALSE IMPRESSION. I don’t know about you, kiddies, but where I come from that’s not called “reporting.”

 especially since federal agencies have been complaining that it’s difficult to find trims under forced sequestration….

OK? We’re ALREADY on incredibly shaky ground. And that is what I hate about so-called “journalism”: it’s about sensationalization. It’s about making SURE that your “report” is THE MOST IMPORTANT SCANDAL EVER SCANDALIZED, about the IMPACT OF YOUR SCANDALOUS SCANDAL, about SELLING your “news” story right inside the “news” story. If you go and look at the Pulitzer Prizes over the past couple of decades, you’ll see they’re not given for reporting. They’re given for SENSATION! If your report isn’t complete crap AND everybody picks up on it, YOU might be a Pulitzer Prize Winner!

Award-winning ‘journalism’ from CBS

Listen as Attkisson then slimes her way around the report by a combination of innuendo AND willful ignorance to create the appearance of scandal (picking up right where we ended):

… CBS News filed a Freedom of Information request asking for the video after the IRS earlier refused to turn over a copy to the congressional committee that oversees tax issues: House Ways and Means. According to committee Chairman Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-LA), the video was produced in the IRS’s own television studio in New Carrollton, MD. The studio may have cost taxpayers more than $4 million dollars last year alone.

According to a statement from the IRS, the “Star Trek” video (see above) was created to open a 2010 IRS training and leadership conference.

“Back in Russia, I dreamed someday I’d be rich and famous,” says one crew member in the parody.

“Me too,” agrees another. “That’s why I became a public servant.”

And the two fist bump.

A separate skit based on the television show “Gilligan’s Island” was also recorded, but the IRS did not provide that video. The IRS told Congress the cost of producing the two videos was thought to be about $60,000 dollars.

IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller said in a statement that one of the two videos was played in 400 locations and saved taxpayers $1.5 million over what it would have cost to train employees in person.

Fake reporters with fake awards for fake reporting on fake conspiracies

Let me get this straight:

1. The IRS has a video production studio (gasp! like EVERY OTHER GODDAM ORGANIZATION AND CORPORATION IN AMERICA 2013!)
2. The studio’s operating budget was $4 million dollars last year.
3. The TRAINING video in question cost some unspecified (about half) portion of TWO videos totaling $60,000.
4. The TRAINING video in question was a training video that the IRS Acting Commissioner says saved $1.5 million over sending physical training personnel. For a mere$30,000. But, this is NOT PRAISEWORTHY, and MUST be made to look like BOONDOGGLE by crap “journalist” (at least in this report) Attkisson.
5. If videos cost HIGH END about $30,000 to produce, how many videos were produced for $4 million? And, multiplying the savings figure, how many training dollars were saved by those $4 million worth of videos?

I could go on. The report is a masterwork of clueless outrage from a reporter who either KNOWS BETTER or else OUGHT to know better. She was IN POSITION to do her job, but you know, Pulitzer Prizes and ginning up fake outrage is more important.

Joseph Pulitzer, no doubt
spinning in his grave

Especially in a week in which the utter brain-dead nature of our “reporters” is being reviewed in their complicity and collaboration in shoving an illegal war of aggression and the 21st Century’s largest mass-murder of innocents thus far. (Fear not, it’s early in the Century, and Bush’s murder record of a mere six figures of innocent men, women and children won’t stand for long. But it’s still the record.)

No: this is the reason that I despise journalists and their whole “secrets” and “sources” and endless cover-ups of the truth and cheer-leading for KNOWN half-truths, as Attkisson does here.

The facts are there: they are merely suppressed by careful mis-sequencing of information to produce a false impression of public servants who no one likes only because no one likes taxation. During tax season.

Ha ha. Makes viewers happy to snort at the IRS. Makes Attkisson look like an actual reporter and not a pathetic hack. And, as it is half-baked and doesn’t stand up to a moment’s logical scrutiny, the Usual Suspects are on it like White on Rice, since misconstruing  news is what they live for:

click to go to original page

Naturally, the IRS reacted by apologizing for reasons that are understandable, which SEEMINGLY makes the whole report a slam dunk: boondoggle destroyed! Heads will roll! All hail our free press!

Bullshit.

The tale continues from where we left off:

Nonetheless, the IRS issued a statement that reads: “The space parody video from 2010 is not reflective of overall IRS video efforts, which provide critical information to taxpayers and cost-effective employee training critical to running the nation’s tax system. In addition, the IRS has instituted tough new standards for videos to prevent situations similar to the 2010 video.”

This week, Rep. Boustany called on IRS to give a full accounting of production expenditures at the television studio.

Last year, a controversial General Services Administration (GSA) video surfaced. In it, GSA employees sang and joked about wasteful government spending. It had been shown at a 2010 government convention. Several GSA officials lost their jobs over the controversy.

I guess she’s hoping for that here.

Because anything “frivolous” in a taxpayer-sponsored video is AUTOMATICALLY wasteful (even though Disney showed the War Department that training videos using cartoon characters and humor GOT THROUGH to the trainees FAR MORE EFFECTIVELY than dry dissertations).  Because the reporters have willfully abandoned reasoning for sheer sensationalism, for the notion that ON THE FACE OF IT, ANY taxpayer knows what a HORRIBLE RIPOFF this $30,000 video was!!!!!!

WWII Venereal Disease Education campaign starred Donald Duck

And the inmates continue to run the asylum.

I met Sharryl Attkisson at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, and she seemed a nice enough person, but this report seems to indicate that she never bothered learning how to actually be a reporter. Just another pretty face on the Video. No mind is evident from the reporting.

“investigative”? seriously?

And people’s lives will be destroyed, and careers ruined just to fill a couple of minutes on the weekend news. And she’s perfectly well aware of it, as the final sentence about the GSA proves.

Which is why I despise reporters. They do not care what harm their words do. They are trained to IGNORE the harm and rationalize it. (Think of Absence of Malice with Paul Newman and Sally Field).

Once upon a time, I worked at a legal secretary at the New Mexico Highway Department. This seemed odd, as a writer and journalist of a couple of decades, but I was a temporary secretary, and I knew how to run IBM System 360 Displaywrite.  Since the IBM System 360 was a mainframe, only the state and a few others needed secretaries who could also manage the computer program. It was a moment through the looking glass: a reporter behind the veil that other reporters were trying to report.

It was an odd moment, a moment touched with scandal. At first, newspapers, but, later, radio and television, since radio and television have always sucked their content from newspapers.

In Santa Fe, the New Mexico state capitol

Because a Republican (Gary Johnson) had been elected governor (a once-in-a-month-of-blue-moons event at the time), the newspapers were out to “get” him. And that extended to his appointees, including my ultimate boss, Dewey Lonsberry, a Republican from Hobbes, New Mexico, Secretary of the Department.

And the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe New Mexican got stuck in a pissing match to see WHO could find more “scandals” at the Highway Department.

You could physically SEE the toll it had taken on Lonsberry. I was told that he’d arrived a jovial, press-the-flesh appointee and was now almost a Howard Hughes type figure. Usually in, his office locked. Besieged was precisely the term and he was its definition.

Dewey had been reduced to a very sad man, and I was the only NMSHTD employee, seemingly, who would talk to him in the lunchroom (I have always been utterly catholic in my associations and am willing to give any human the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, even Republican  Secretaries of the Highway Department.)

And the papers hounded us constantly, to try and find any phony “Star Trek Video” kind of scandal, and they’d found some minor stuff.

But the sense of oppression and misery was palpable. And you could feel it hanging in the air, like a heavy fog. People who worked there were MISERABLE.

Over what?

Basically over nothing. No major scandals ever erupted, but there was a constant drum-beat of the Albuquerque Journal reporter doubling down on his initial ‘scoop’ and the New Mexican reporter shamed to have been scooped in his home town, doubling down on outdoing the Journal. It was insane. But it must’ve sold papers.

And then, one of our own, the Chief Counsel of the Legal Department, tried to do a decent, human thing.

New Mexico media at work

We regularly and ofttimes pointlessly grabbed land for highway projects. We could not lose, by state law. Eminent Public Domain, it’s called, and it is an ugly thing when it is exercised without any human sense of proportionality or decency or intention to actually perform a public service for the public good.

We took WAY too much land for an interchange. So, the Chief Counsel (a Democrat, a man with decades of public service, one of the most decent men I’ve ever worked for) got the land we DIDN’T need returned to the family for a nominal fee. It was HOMESTEADED ranch land, in the family for a century and more.

The family promptly leased a bit of their reacquired property to McDonald’s  for a restaurant at the interchange.

And the newspapers pounced: “SWEETHEART DEAL! CORRUPTION! YOUR TAX DOLLARS FOR McDONALDS!”

And that decent man, that public servant who took public service seriously, trying to do the decent thing was hounded from public service by the yowling media following in the newspapers’ wake and his career was ruined.

And NOT ONE of those bastards ever took a moment to even ASK what the Chief Counsel’s side was. Or questioned the sensationalized ”conclusion.”

A made-up Hearst story to 
sell the Spanish-American War

And while his bureaucratic execution was in limbo, he walked the halls of the legal division like a wraith, like a pallid ghost. Shellshocked and ruined, like Barry Lyndon, for doing something decent and human.

Because of “reporters” like Sharryl Attkisson.

Accursed be her genus’ name.

Courage.
====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Sen. Paul said: “Look, the last two presidents could have conceivably been put in jail for their drug use and I really think – look what would’ve happened, it would’ve ruined their lives. They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don’t get lucky and they don’t have good attorneys and they go to jail for some of these things and I think it’s a big mistake.”

Um, I think he forgot former President Bill Clinton, but as host Chris Wallace said, ”Actually, I think it would be the last three presidents, but who’s counting?”

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

But seriously, this is a cool story. They’ve found a black hole and a red dwarf sun orbiting each other at a dizzying [snerk!] speed of once every 2.4 hours. The video at the link there is obviously a computer animation not the real thing but it’s still bloody awesome that we’re finding things like this. I’m old enough to remember when black holes were still considered theoretical and how big a deal it was when someone proved the existence of just one. Now we’re regularly finding things like this.

I love, you science.

Mistakes, Excuses and Painful Lessons From the Iraq War 
Ezra Klein / Bloomberg

I supported the Iraq War, and I’m sorry.  —  I have my excuses, of course.  I was a college student, young and dumb.  I thought that if U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell and former President Bill Clinton …

On the other hand …

This was found yellowing in a pile of newspapers to be discarded.

June 19, 2003
Eugene Register-Guard
Letters in the Editor’s Mailbag

A question of war crimes

After 80 days, it’s time Americans confronted a grave question: If no weapons of mass destruction are found, then members of the Bush administration are guilty of war crimes.

The U.S.-sponsored United Nations Charter, Chapter 1, Article 2, states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.” And “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

Saddam Hussein was evil, but we had no lawful right to depose him. These are our American values.

In the 1945 Nuremberg Trials, there were four counts, and one, if not two, are applicable here. Count one: conspiracy to wage aggressive war, and count two: waging aggressive war, or “crimes against peace.” When it was argued that the court had no jurisdiction, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, lead prosecutor, rejoined, “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

Remember that in the near year of spin leading up to this war the term “regime change” was never used until 48 hours before the war began: because such a war would have been unlawful.

If war crimes have been committed (thousands are dead), those who screamed about the “rule of law” in 1999 better step up to the plate, else there is no such “rule.”

HART WILLIAMS

Courage.
====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

I am about half way through the ride and turned right from S2 onto route 78 back over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean near La Jolla, CA.

You don’t go out into 100+ degree deserts on a bike for seven hours without being prepared.

I am a lucky man. I love my work. Men and women, ages twenty-something to sixty-something and older, hire me to assist them with that level of preparedness.

I haven’t always been that healthy.

At age forty-three my internist informed me that I would likely have a massive heart attack within five to six years.

I had high blood pressure, bad cholesterol numbers and was overweight.

So I decided to make continual behavioral changes to extend expected life span.

I made an all-out effort to outlive my dad, who had died suddenly of heart attack at forty nine. At that time, I set my sight on a handful of decades beyond that.

Through four years of university education in the medical sciences, another four years of postgraduate study and thirty years of career experience, I have come to understand the diverse aspects of longevity.

I understand how much most of us can influence life span. Folks who say different are released of responsibility and in turn avoid difficult choices.

It’s true that some people have superior longevity genes; but we can close the gap by doing simple things others won’t do. Time may, or may not (!), support my current view; however, I am hoping it takes another forty years to prove my case!

In addition to added concern for my health, I started viewing risk differently. The healthier I became, the happier I found myself and the more value I placed on my life.

Ultimately, I began looking for ways to lower risk separate from health.

Back to health: At age fifty, I went through a series of tests to establish my physiological age. I knew what my chronological age was; what I wanted to know was “how things were working.” I did blood work, cardiac function test, lung capacity testing, complete physical examination, a sigmoidoscopy, and a 64-Slice CT angiography of my heart and was pleased to find out that my internist placed my physiological age at a level that made me smile (thirty something).

My message is that my story can be your story with proper focus. It does not take one hundred mile bike rides.

I am now fifty-seven years old, and over the years I have talked quite a bit with colleagues about quality of life and, by extension, death.

As information began surfacing suggesting I might be around for a while, I thought that I may want to shift focus from ‘not dying,’ to ‘preparing to live longer than I had planned’.

I am reminded by father’s early death that we cannot prepare on our deathbed. No one knows that day or hour. We are mortal, and life is a game of cards being dealt to us, and we are required to play.

Although we can’t control the dealing, we can control how we play the cards we have received.

We can play close to the chest with no risk whatsoever, hoping to avoid loss at all costs, satisfying ourselves as mere observers and missing out on the fun of the game.

Or we can be loose and daring, with all cares tossed to the winds, in which case we are at risk of losing our ante in a hurry.

Or we can play the game intelligently, betting when appropriate and holding when appropriate,

with a reasonable degree of caution spiced with some fancy footwork here and there–

leaving the greatest amount of free room for maneuvering when the risk is acceptable and perhaps even downright enjoyable.

Keep on Truckin’ …

The right wing will stop at nothing to compare President Obama to the Devil. How else would you explain people like Glenn Beck saying the Devil in the hit mini-series “The Bible” resembles President Obama? What do you think? Some viewers of Sunday evening’s episode said they noticed the remarkable resemblance to the 44th president. Is this much ado about nothing? Seems that way to me, but you never know.

The mini-series, created by Mark Burnett, has been a big hit in the ratings for the History Channel, pulling in 13.1 million viewers on Wednesday, shellacking American Idol with its 12.8 million viewers on Wednesday. The actor who plays Satan on “The Bible” is Mehdi Ouazzani. The History Channel issued a statement saying the resemblance of President Obama and the Devil wasn’t intentional.

The Hill: “HISTORY channel has the highest respect for President Obama,” the network said in a press release. “The series was produced with an international and diverse cast of respected actors. It’s unfortunate that anyone made this false connection. HISTORY’s ‘The Bible’ is meant to enlighten people on its rich stories and deep history.”

Mark Burnett and Roma Downey also blasted the controversy as “utter nonsense.” They said, “The actor who played Satan, Mehdi Ouzaani, is a highly acclaimed Moroccan actor. He has previously played parts in several Biblical epics– including Satanic characters long before Barack Obama was elected as our president.” Um, one little tidbit, Mark Burnett is behind Donald Trump’s television success and is also behind the push to teach the Bible in public schools.

Here’s the character that had Twitter abuzz Sunday night:

The History channel’s “The Bible” unleashes a progressive firestorm with an Obama look-alike depicted as Satan. twitter.com/adamsbaldwin/s…

— Nels (@debitking) March 18, 2013

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

It’s time t0 pass Moral Judgement!

If we are to be moral bastards, then let us be equally moral bastards in all directions, shall we? I might make the mistake of suggesting that we not use an event of which we have zero personal experience to blow moral exhaust past our cylinders and really blow out those pistons, but that suggestion has never been met with so much as civility, and so I bravely take up my torch to morally judge others. In this case, Traci Lords.

But heark! Listen to the hue and cry:

Candy Crowley Oozes Sympathy for Steubenville Rapists
Karoli / Crooks and Liars

 Shortly after the guilty verdict in the Steubenville rape case was announced, Candy Crowley took to the airwaves to report it and connect with their reporter on the ground for more details.  Her lead-in to the remote shot was shameful….

I make no comment except to note that the selfsame CNN had Piers Morgan interviewing Traci Lords on Friday, because, as Nora Kuzma, she grew up in Steubenville …

Here is the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here is the transcript:

I was born and raised in Ohio and I was also raped in Ohio, as was my mother. I think that there is a thickness in that city, and I was so horrified by these images and the way that this young girl was treated and I got really angry so I wrote a song called “Stupidville” which is what all the locals in Steubenville, Ohio used to call Steubenville….

Here’s the (longer, to be fair) CNN streaming video (but probably not for long).

My point is only this: being raped in Steubenville thirty years ago no more makes you an authority on Rape in Steubenville than my being bullied in Laramie, Wyoming forty years ago makes me an authority on the death of Matt Shepherd. They are all events spread over many years, anecdotal and perhaps parallel, but certainly NOT a particular judgement on either town across all time and space. That’s a ridiculous stereotype.

Lords is third from Right

Traci Lords “felt she must speak out,” and (coincidentally) has “written a song.”

Gee. I wonder when said song is going to come out?

And will anybody have anything to say about one woman making money off the rape of another?

Because that’s the Traci Lords I always knew of: it was always about her, and, seeing her chance, got former Murdoch sleazemeister, now CNN sleazemeister Piers Morgan to book her. Between Candy Crowley and Piers Morgan, we’ve just about got the entire moral universe covered, don’t we?

CNN, the most busted name in news.

Pitchforks up.

Charge.

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Carroll’s resignation was announced Wednesday, one day after she gave her resignation letter to Gov. Rick Scott. His chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworrth, said her resignation was spurred by an investigation into the Allied Veterans of the World.

Officials from that non-profit internet cafe company were recently arrested on racketeering charges. The owner was arrested Tuesday in connection to allegations that he made $290 million after supplying illegal gambling software in Florida and claiming the games’ proceeds would benefit a veterans group. Authorities also interviewed Carroll.

Carroll’s ties to the company were questioned when she was in the Legislature when she proposed a bill that would benefit Internet cafes. Source

The Florida Times Union reports the Allied Veterans investigation isn’t the only bad press Jennifer Carroll has had:

In 2011, the Times-Union reported that Carroll used falsified documents to make her firm eligible for a Jacksonville program that offers grants to minority-owned companies. Her firm was located in Clay County, but relied, in part, on falsified lease documents to appear based in Jacksonville, which was a program requirement.

Additionally, former Carroll aide Carletha Cole was arrested after being charged with giving a reporter a recording of a secret conversation between her and Carroll’s chief-of-staff.

The case has brought a lot of unwanted attention to the Scott administration. In court filings, Cole has accused Carroll of having an inappropriate relationship with another female staff member.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

Santa’s Little Helper

Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter’s pen-flipper must be tired. But the third tome in the “Makin’ Money From Politics” trilogy is now scheduled for fall/winter release from that most literate of enterprises, Rupert Murdoch’s sleaze-o-rama, in this case the tentacle identified as “HarperCollins.”

Sarah Palin tackles ‘War on Christmas’ in new book

‘Amidst the fragility of this politically correct era, it is imperative that we stand up for our beliefs before the element of faith in a glorious and traditional holiday like Christmas is marginalized and ignored,’ Palin said in a statement released through her publisher.

As of press time, no English translation was available.

Courage.
====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

by Dr. Kevin Purcell

Over the years, my mom has changed in my eyes; from being the best mom ever, to being one of the most amazing women I have ever met. In the picture above she is eighty.

Today I would invite you to take a moment and think about our families and friends as we age. It is something we all experience and share.

How we deliver a message greatly affects the level of cooperation we can expect from them; anyone.

Judith Graham from the Chicago Tribune, wrote, “Videotapes of elderly men and women showed aides helping patients bathe, brush their teeth, dress, eat and take medicines, among other things.

A frame by frame analysis of the tapes found that when nurses or aides communicated by using language that assumed a state of dependence, patients were twice as likely to resist their efforts to help. The older men and women would turn or look away, grimace, clench their teeth, groan, grab onto something, or say no. These behaviors might be viewed as indications of distress at being patronized.”

Let’s consider older people who do not suffer from dementia or physical disability. What is it like for the older men and women who work to stay healthy through diet and exercise? Too often, they feel those around them are not supportive. Some are even told these activities are negative or harmful.

During my swim this morning I was thinking about dementia and heart disease and many other physical and mental maladies that we or our families will face. It is important that we encourage older men and women to explore limits by remaining active.

We know for a fact that mental stimulation maintains plasticity in the brain. We know that learning new skills or a new language will lay down new neuropath ways. Physical activity is a proven method for keeping the brain young and even reversing signs of aging.

We know that a positive mental outlook is one of the driving forces behind maintaining overall health; especially as we age. In some cases, it appears that the loss of choice and a sense of powerlessness risks setting in motion physical decline. Confidence adds to a sense of well-being. We should be asking, “How can we encourage older men and women to stay active?”

Some people see an older athlete with degenerative joint disease and assume it is from a lifetime of running but fail to consider that the arthritis might have been present whether the athlete ran or not.

In fact, it is my opinion that a lifetime of exercise often lowers complications of the disease. Some medical experts are of the opinion that activities such as running and biking actually stimulate growth of new cartilage in those areas that are wearing out.

What does give us a peek into the future (beyond family history) is a patients past history of acute injury and subsequent rehabilitation. Trauma can lead to adhesions, inflexible scar tissue, decreased blood flow, ligament damage and aberrant motion.

Loss of normal motion and optimal circulation do seem to be predictors of wear and tear. In other words, maintaining motion and restoring normal motion and function is the key to recovery following injury/trauma and as prevention.

There is a need to have increased discussion among older adults and health care providers that explores the benefits of regular exercises (both mental and physical) as a way to maintain long term quality of life. In the last year I have witnessed the rehab of family members who are the victims of stroke or traumatic brain injury.

Once stabilized, a common variable when it comes to recovery among this community is focused exercise (mental and physical). Each of us should strongly encourage elderly family members to adopt that focus before a critical event.

Health is our most valuable asset. If we need confirmation of that, we only need just ask anyone who has lost their health.

Hugo Chavez is dead. The poor of Venezuela loved him. The rich of Venezuela despised him. Modern American media (after Chavez visited the UN and told some unc0mfortable truths about Bush the Dumber and the smell of sulfur) got the message and put the “Full Castro” treatment on him.

Chavez and his “judges” – guess which one did MORE
for their fellow citizens, by several light years …

Naturally, the haters, the sleazebuckets who claim the mantle of “patriots,” without understanding our government, the Usual Suspects, will now proceed to piss on Chavez’ grave and make witty (?) commentary about the passing of this “monster.”

HUGO CHAVEZ, FIERY VENEZUELAN LEADER, DIES AT 58
Frank Bajak / Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez, the fiery populist who declared a socialist revolution in Venezuela, crusaded against U.S. influence and championed a leftist revival across Latin America, died Tuesday at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer….

“Leftist” revival? And, after what WE did in Chile in 1973, these “journalists” have the gall to  … oh well.  ”Free press” and all that rot.

I guess I’m just Old School: his people voted overwhelmingly for him (in fair elections), and I am NOT qualified to overturn their judgment of their leader.

Clearly I lack the hubris to do so, and shall, therefore, remain silent. Requiescat in Pace, Mr. Chavez.

There is something fundamentally skewed that we want to “spread democracy” through bloodshed, but refuse to accept its practice if we do not agree with the will of their people.

I look forward to your letters.

But … just remember WHY Salvador Allende died in Chile in 1973 before pretending the USA has some great moral superiority.

Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

You can hear the whole of this amazing album right here.

Mr. 47 Percent is back and vowing not to go away. He is still clinging to his insensitive position that President Obama’s gifts helped him win reelection. Um, Mitt Romney is obviously a hard learner. He told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that the ”The president had the power of incumbency, ‘Obamacare’ was very attractive, particularly to those without insurance, and they came out in large numbers to vote. So that was part of a successful campaign.” One problem with that, demographics were never on Mitt Romney’s side — blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, LGBT — all voted for Obama in large numbers. Um, I am still waiting on my gift for voting for the black guy.

You will recall Mitt Romney shot himself in the foot during a conference call with donors after the November election when he said Obama was “very generous” in doling out “big gifts” to the “African American community, the Hispanic community and young people.” Instead of taking the high road and apologizing for saying blacks, Hispanics and young voters were bought by the Obama campaign, he dug in and now included Obamacare in the mix. He still can’t differentiate between Obamacare and Romneycare.

Romney reflected on the current sequester and the stalemate in Congress, telling Wallace that ”It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done. It’s hard.” Kills him, tickles his critics that he didn’t win.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.

“I don’t condone that. I hate the fact that he’s doing that. I didn’t talk about that. I saw people respected him, his family. He’s only 28. He’s not his dad. He’s not his grandpa. He is 28 years old. He’s very humble. He’s a very humble man. He don’t want war, that’s one thing he don’t want. He loves power. He loves control, because of his father, you know, stuff like that. But he’s just…he’s a great guy. He’s just a great guy. You sit down and talk to him,” said Rodman.

When Stephanopoulos went after Rodman on not talking about North Korean death camps he said, “We do the same things here.” A dumbfounded Stephanopoulos replied, “We have prison camps here in the United States?” Source

Did anyone think Dennis Rodman would ever be the voice of reason in a maddening situation? I think some people had set their expectations of him far too high.

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.