Please have this played New Orleans style at my funeral as the entrance music. I’ve loved this song almost as long as any tune I can think of.
Blogblah!
Looking for a Hero by George Oswalt
You will find me at the JRB Gallery on the Paseo tomorrow evening. I can’t wait for this opening.
Tonight, I’ll be on lower Bricktown in front of the Harkins Theater from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. watching Cami Stinson. Watch this and you’ll know why I’ll be out tonight.
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Daily Kos on Oklahoma’s 2d Congressional District election in wake of Rep. Dan Boren announcing he won’t seek re-election:
Yesterday morning, ex-Rep. Brad Carson emailed me to let me know that his plans have changed and he will not be seeking his old seat back in the wake of Dan Boren’s retirement. Fortunately, Democrats have a strong bench here despite the red hue of the district, and there are several other possible candidates, including ex-state Sen. Ken Corn (who previously said he’s “very likely” to run) and state Rep. Ben Sherrer. The Hotline also mentions state Sen. Josh Breechen as a possible GOP candidate.
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When Ezra Klein at Washington Post looked at the deficit negotiations, he found the GOP rejected their own proposals and walked out. Who’s the dick?
So when the GOP’s economic policy team sat down to make the strongest case they could for growth-inducing deficit reduction, they recommended a mix (of) 85:15 (blogblah’s note: of spending cuts to tax increases), not a 100:0 mix. And then, when the Obama administration agreed to an 83:17 mix, the Republican leadership walked out of the room and demanded that taxes be excluded from the deal altogether. How do you negotiate with that?
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Here’s a novel way to get past the debt ceiling crisis: rely on the 14th Amendment and just ignore it. According to CNN Money, it’s one of the answers to the puzzle proposed by the Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner.
The 14th Amendment states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
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The chairman of the state legislative ethics committee in Indiana may have a slight problem, according to local reports.
a very attractive 26 year old woman who has connections to a strip club in Lawrenceburg, Indiana was in the car with 59 year old Republican State Representative Robert Mechlenborg at 12:08AM when he was pulled over by the Indiana State Police and subsequently tested positive for alcohol and Viagra.
Blogblah note: enjoy the schadenfreude my droogies.
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Time magazine editor and MSNBC political analyst for the Morning Joe show Mark Halperin gets suspended and apologized for saying President Obama was “kind of a dick” during last night’s press conference. Obama should consider the source.
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If you do nothing else today, please watch THIS VIDEO. Please, please please. DO IT! It’s the most inspiring thing I’ve seen in an age. It will change your attitude.
Blogblah!
Post Script:
I haven’t really had much to say about the New York legislature passing gay marriage equality legislation because, well, I don’t know much about it. However, I couldn’t resist the video below. In it, Howard Zinn, a counter-historian (my formulation), introduces part of an oral history of the so-called Stonewall Rebellion and actor Tim Robbins reads (with such wonderful verve) the eyewitness testimony of Martin Duberman. This is just so good, it’s awesome sauce!
Tim Robbins reads Martin Duberman, “Stonewall” from Voices of a People's History on Vimeo.
All boys love fart jokes. This is wonderful. TV news anchors find themselves trying to report about an assault arrest of a DUI suspect and just can’t … quite … keep a straight face:
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The Michele Bachmann Saga continues
Ouch! Michele Bachmann’s former chief of staff says she’s not competent, prepared to be president. That’s gonna leave a mark.
I’m not sure what his beef is with his former employer because as DailyKos notes, she’s a serious and substantive person and her record makes it clear. In fact, just because she mixed up movie star John Wayne with serial killer John Wayne Gacey is only proof of the fact that she’s not always perfect. Just watch the CNN video and you’ll be convinced.
Too bad for George Stephanopolous on ABC’s Good Morning America that he had Bachmann on and asked her about some of her problems with the truth and gaffes regarding minimum wage because he just can’t accept that 9 year old John Quincy Adams was a “Founding Father”, as the Minnesota GOP U.S. Representative and leading presidential candidate asserts. (A little history lesson: JQA was, in some ways, the founder of American liberalism since he was the first to use the federal government to build infrastructure and support the arts, etc.)
Those silly people at The Washington Post just don’t get it: they fact checked her without giving her credit for being “scholarly”.
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Since not everyone enjoys fart jokes, I double dog dare you not to get a good lol out of this entry:
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I went to Monday night’s last jazz jam session at the Gold Dome. Prohibition Room is moving out of its present digs there and the jam will resume elsewhere (TBA) at a later time. It was a jam worthy of attendance and the music was absolutely wonderful. I love the ephemeral nature of the live performances and last night most of the work being performed was new work by local musicians. This has been a Monday night staple for me for some time and I have endlessly enjoyed it and I get such great service out of the staff there. I wish Richard and Donne the very best.
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Speaking of new work, I just can’t wait to see the new work of George Oswalt this Friday. I love the guy and think he’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had and I respect and admire him beyond words. That aside, I believe the guy is a genius. Really. His technique is flawless. His palette is composed of marvelous and always surprising color. His composition is always interesting and entertaining. I highly regard his dreamscape post-modern style. His subject matter is always intellectually challenging. He’s the complete package. In addition to my aesthetic admiration for his work, there’s also the matter of taste. I always look at work a second way when I ask myself if I would have the art in my own house. I’ve never seen a work by George that I didn’t want to personally own and see every day in my own house. I hope he sells every single canvas. I wish for him that he gets the same buzz and recognition that great artists deserve. I would compare him favorably to Michi Susan and DJ Lafon and just about anyone else working in Oklahoma you might bring up. If you don’t go to JRB Gallery Friday to see this work, it’s just lame.
Blogblah!
John X has a thing about midgets and I thought he was the only one. Sadly, I was wrong. He proved me wrong with the following Redd Foxx video:
I’m so sorry you had to be subjected to that.
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Michelle Bachmann more likely than you might think to win the GOP nomination, according to CNN Politics. Meanwhile, on ABC’s Political “Note”, She’s compared to Mike Huckabee. Just in case you think I’m the only one out on a limb about Bachmann’s chances to be the GOP nominee, here’s Markos Moulitas of DailyKos going out on the same limb. The White House, according to reports, is most afraid of Jon Huntsman, the former U.S. Ambassador to China, because he’s most like Obama, a centrist with reasonable points of argument. Not me, it’s the firebrand populist I fear because you’ll never go broke underestimating the American public.
Here’s her official announcement as a candidate for the presidency in Waterloo, IA,
It seems you can’t “fact check” Rep. Bachmann, or, at least, Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation Sunday didn’t have much luck.
In more Bachmann news, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked the Minnesotan if she was “a flake” and stirred up a firestorm of criticism for being rude. He apologized, but Michelle would have none of it and wouldn’t accept the apology.
Finally, my favorite Tweet re: Bachmann
@BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz
Sarah Palin must be looking at Michele Bachmann and feeling the way the Jonas Bros felt about Justin Bieber.
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In other political news, Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry is a complete wingnut. (I love love love Jim Hightower. He’s so f’n funny)
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My next non-fiction read? The Matchbox that ate a 40 ton truck by Marcus Chown.
Speaking of non-fiction reads, the readers of a blog called Open Culture have come up with a list of the 25 best non-fiction reads of all time. I’ve read quite a few, but I’ll catch up with at least some of the rest. What do you think?
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As many of you know, my friend MCARP is a blogger whose site I hit daily, despite the fact that I see him fairly often when he gets out of the VDR (very dark room). He’s had his romantic troubles in the past:
I’m 58 years old now, and I barely understand anything about love. My sense of it is that my understanding is much dimmer than that of the average person.
I’ve tried to help him out with this in the past by doing such things as posting some music selections for him, but this time I think I’ve got it. Five niche dating sites for obscure tastes.
If that doesn’t work, MCARP, here’s where you can learn to swear at me in dozens of languages from Afrikaans to Zulu.