Sometimes the Left Brain (the one that controls the right side and “logical” language functions) needs to take a break. Luckily, the Right Brain (the “spatial” non-linear side that controls the left side of the body) is sometimes up to the task. Drawings by Hart Williams (in his alter- persona as Hesperion Wug) from September and early October. Horny Toad (or Horned Frog in Texas) —...

Patrick J. Buchanan's "Suicide of A Superpower," "Will America Survive to 2025?"Pat Buchanan’s latest book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” will undoubtedly irk many. We recently received an advance copy of the audio book from Macmillan Audio, read by Buchanan himself, and I must say, it’s interesting, and classic Pat Buchanan — gloom and doom — with maximum...

There’s a difference between Flo Ziegfeld’s shameless 1896 scandal publicity and the corporate machine that was MGM’s 1949 publicity, which brings us to the present day. You see, Ziegfeld was selling sex to a society that didn’t allow women’s ankles to be exposed in public, while MGM was pouring an endless glop of corny wholesomeness on the pancakes of sentimental hogwash to more...

We return to the story of Anna Held, Florenz Ziegfeld’s meal ticket from 1895 … The 1896 Broadway revival of A Parlor Match had two musical highlights – the hit song “Daisy Bell” (also known as “A Bicycle Built for Two”), and Anna Held’s performance of the playful “Won’t You Come and Play With Me?” To guarantee ongoing publicity, Ziegfeld let out...

“A pretty girl is like a malady,” quoth the poet. Celebrity and its handmaiden, Publicity, have been with us ever since P.T. Barnum perfected the art and artifice, and Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. learned how to create ticket sales for a “celebrity” who nobody’d ever heard of, Anna Held, whom he stole from the Folies Bergere in Paris: The 1896 Broadway revival of A Parlor Match had two...

Rev. Al Sharpton and a professor recently debated the “blackness” of GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain. Sharpton tore into Cain, saying “how could anyone in their right mind that grew up in the South and saw what they saw, sat up there and act like everybody that is unemployed and not rich did it to themselves.” “Start with your Mama,” Sharpton said. Tough words coming...

Dorothy Cooper, a retired domestic worker who lives in Chattanooga, Tenn., was denied a free voter ID because she did not have her marriage certificate, despite showing the clerk at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Service Center, a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate. Did I neglect to mention Dorothy Cooper is black? Well, she is. You see, the new state law...

There are two seemingly unrelated issues here, but the timing and the pun are too good to pass up, so let’s travel these twin paths and see where they meet. Yesterday, Hank Williams, Jr. managed to either stick his foot in his mouth, his head up his ass, or pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of doing BOTH simultaneously. Which brings us to Albert Einstein and the Theory of Special Relativity. Last...

Mitt Romney Throws America’s Allies Under Bus for Political Gain by David Solimini and Benjamin Lowe This week, Mitt Romney clumsily waded into the discussion of Israel and Palestine. By calling for a wholesale re-evaluation of relations with dozens of countries, he called more than his own judgment into question. Strong alliances are an essential element of American power. They are difficult to build,...

NJ Gov. Chris Christie is not ready for prime time, much less the presidency of the U.S., despite the adulation being heaped on him by the top Republicans, who want to see him challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. The word is that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is seriously considering a bid for the White House. Really? I don’t know why there’s so much interest in Christie. It’s quite...

I just finished tuning out NPR’s “Talk of Nation” listening to these educated boobs talking about the GOP horserace in the primaries. And, oddly, the actual picture came into sharp focus entirely outside the perception of the pundits, and even Mike Huckabee’s former campaign manager. And as they started getting into the weeds of presidential campaign financing, I realized that the most...

Seriously. Having somewhat rescaled the credibility cliff back to some degree of better journalism, the struggling LA Times was once more embarrassed by its most partisan hack, over the most trivial of issues, broadly hinting at anti-Semitism. Seriously. Malcolm in the muddle Here’s that “cut to the chase” moment:

President Obama scolds the Congressional Black Caucus & blacks saying “take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching boots and stop complaining, stop grumbling and stop crying and help get the jobs bill passed in Congress, but would have addressed the Jewish community, gays and Hispanics in a similar manner? President Barack Obama delivered a “fiery” sermon to his base at the Congressional...

Of course not. (To hear them tell it.) “Genuine conservative Southern belle” I refer you to the protagonist of the earlier, enthralling posting “You Don’t Have to be a Racist to be a Bigot (Although it Helps) ” [28 April 2011], Sister Toldjah (“Genuine conservative Southern belle born in the wrong era. Soundly refuting liberals online since 2000″). One assumes the right...

“Your morgauge is not my problum!” There is a point to painstakingly tracing the lie that masked Speaker Boehner’s unprecedented bit of scheduling nastiness on the President’s speech before Congress last week. It throws a harsh light onto the problem that pulls it into sharp relief. Rather than governing, the GOP strategy is to go on strike, knowing that it will tank the economy and...

I want you to try a thought experiment here. Joseph Interpreting Pharaoh’s Dream Peter von Cornelius (1817) (click pix for larger image) Think of something obvious and intimate that you use all the time: a cigarette lighter, a tube of lipstick, a shoehorn, whatever. Something convenient, even something that you’re carrying right now (not a pair of glasses you’re wearing, please). Your car...

The commemoration of the tenth anniversary has become the world’s largest blog essay contest, and, while I cannot hope to succeed in such an outpouring of virtual (and actual) ink, I will say this:

I used to think that “history is what it was” but that really isn’t true. History is what it is, and that “is” is eternally in flux. One of the most popular images of “Custer’s Last Stand” It hung in bars and saloons across Budweiser’s distribution  network Let me give you the most obvious example: when I was a kid, Col. George Armstrong Custer was a venerable...

No apologies here. There will be, of course, because a significant number of Progressives and Morlocks have no conception of the difference between thought and deed, which is THE critical differentiator in law and policy. You can IMAGINE strangling your boss all that you want. It is only when you actually TRY to strangle your boss that there is any moral or ethical problem. click to play What? I am speaking,...

So it’s Labor Day – one of those quaint, old fashioned holidays that once meant something to people but is now just another excuse for a barbecue or a ballgame. Thus will it ever be so; America changes and we slough off the old and embrace (or at least tolerate) the new. But Labor Day should be a time to call to mind the triumphs and tragedies that built the labor movement and through the efforts...

One of the nicest things about living in a world of grays, where one can change one’s mind when presented with new facts, and when one doesn’t jump to extreme and absolute conclusions based on some article of belief is the one tends to make an ass of one’s self far less often. Case in point, the “peer-reviewed” science paper jumped on by the Usual Suspects just a couple of weeks...

We Deserve Better, or Do We? by Robert Levine In our general elections, those who go to the polls are faced with stark choices the party primaries have imposed upon them. The candidates who have emerged tend to be more to the extremes of the political spectrum, reflecting the beliefs of those who selected them. This means that moderate voters are forced to pick candidates who do not represent their views and...

Now that there’s been an earthquake on the East Coast, they’re finally news. Earthquakes, I mean. And, since most of the media are scrambling to find “experts” a hilarious laff riot of absurd, ridiculous and wrongheaded “advice” and “information” is sure to follow. Since most media, government and population are still clustered on the Atlantic seaboard, it stands...

It’s August and we’re into reruns. Two, in fact. Thursday’s last Daily Show before a two-week hiatus featured a familiar graph: Recognize it? Yup, you saw it here first, on April 16, 2010 Why I even showed this chart on the overhead projector at Steve Candy’s Political Science Class where I got to debate an actual Tea-Partier last year. But it’s from “Let Them Eat Cake With Their...

Start Over by Craig Barnes On a Monday in early August, 2011, AIG (American International Group) filed claims in federal court against Bank of America alleging losses of $10 billion. The insurance giant claimed that the bank had intentionally disguised the risks of products to be insured. At the same time, Bank of America was already being sued for $82 billion in a multitude of other suits. According to...