There is always oodles of great reading around the intertubes, and Twitter has just made it worse--or better, depending upon your point of view. You can go there any time of the day or night, and people are exchanging boffo reading material.
The real problem is extricating yourself from Twitter, as I have recently discovered!
Stuff you oughtta read:
Atlasien tweeted this fascinating story from Jezebel about the newest chic accessory for upscale moms: a Tibetan nanny! They are more spiritually centered, doncha know, and just so much better for your children.
As some of you may recall, I am a member of the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty. (The death penalty is fully operational here in South Carolina). Renee made me cry with this one: Last words that are not famous: The Sounds of Death Row. The Texas Department of Corrections recorded the last words of executed prisoners and she shares some of them with us.
Young woman rejects HPV vaccine and loses path to citizenship:
[Gardasil was] added to the list of required vaccines for people seeking to adjust their immigration statuses.
Numerous immigration groups came out in opposition to this requirement, stating that it posed a unfair financial barrier to immigrant women, who already take on a lengthy and costly process to become citizens.
[Simone Davis is] one of the first reported cases of a young woman losing her path to citizenship because of Gardasil.
A great piece on Salon about the early career of the always-fascinating demagogue-of-the-moment, Glenn Beck:"Glenn was a talented young preppy kid with a bit of an attitude," remembers Meryl Uranga, a program and music director at KZFM. "I had never smelled clove cigarettes before I met him. Hanging out with Beck was also the first time I ever saw certain drugs. He partied a lot."Thanks to tweet from Belledame.
I recently made a prediction on Twitter that I will repeat here, to make it official. Glenn Beck is a public AA member who has shot his mouth off a few too many times. Anonymity in AA is not about protecting oneself, it is about protecting the 12 Steps, the Principles and Traditions. Simply put, if an alcoholic in need of recovery sees that Beck is in AA, they may go "Ewww!" and decline to join (and who could blame them)? Beck could become the "face of recovery"--and that is never a good thing. This is the major reason for the rule that Beck loves to break. It should not surprise us that Beck shows so little respect for the organization that he credits with saving his life. After all, it's really ALL ABOUT HIM, isn't it? AA Traditions? Glenn Beck don't need no stinking traditions!
The 12th tradition of AA states: Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. And Beck is in violation of that tradition. Conventional AA wisdom is that once your pride has bubbled up to this level, you're in serious trouble. (I refer to my post about Mel Gibson, for details. You will note the religious extremism/conversion is also a feature of Beck's personality.)
I predict a flame-out of near-Biblical proportions. I am unsure if the catalyst will be money, drugs, booze, gambling, religion or women ... but it will be one of those. Can't wait.
In the meantime, the Salon piece is a real gem:
"He was amazing to watch when he was doing his cast of voices," remembers Kathi Lincoln, Beck's former newsreader [at WRKA in Louisville]. "Sometimes he'd prerecord different voices and talk back to the tape, or turn his head side to side while speaking them live on the air. He used to do a funny 'black guy' character, really over-the-top."[...]
"Black guy" impersonations were just one sign of the young Beck's racial hang-ups.
Beck's real broadcasting innovation during his stay in Kentucky came in the realm of vicious personal assaults on fellow radio hosts. A frequent target of Beck's in Louisville was Liz Curtis, obese host of an afternoon advice show on WHAS, a local AM news-talk station. It was no secret in Louisville that Curtis, whom Beck had never met and with whom he did not compete for ratings, was overweight. And Beck never let anyone forget it. For two years, he used "the big blonde" as fodder for drive-time fat jokes, often employing Godzilla sound effects to simulate Curtis walking across the city or crushing a rocking chair. Days before Curtis' marriage, Beck penned a skit featuring a stolen menu card for the wedding reception. "The caterer says that instead of throwing rice after the ceremony, they are going to throw hot, buttered popcorn," explains Beck's fictional spy.[...]
Louisville is where Beck began experimenting with another streak that would become more pronounced in later years: militaristic patriotism and calls for the bombing of Muslims.And it just gets better. Read it all!
The birth of Glenn Beck as Radio Super Patriot can be traced to the morning of April 15, 1986. This was the morning after Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. warplanes to bomb Moammar Gadhafi's Tripoli palace in response to the bombing of a Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen. Beck sounded stoned during the show -- and given his later claim to have smoked pot every day for 15 years, might have been -- but even then his politics were anything but tie-dyed. After opening the show with a prayer and Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," Beck played patriotic music through the morning. The only track receiving multiple plays was a New Wave-ish spoof titled "Qaddafi Sucks." The song was a huge hit with listeners, dozens of whom called Beck to tell him how inspired they were by his patriotism. Caller after caller applauded him for "standing up for America." When someone argued that Reagan should have dropped more bombs, Beck agreed. "I personally don't think we did enough," he says. "We should've went over there [sic] and bombed the hell out of 'em."
Speaking of Glenn, check out this Salon piece about his guru, a famous right-wing crackpot named Cleon Skousen. I was shocked to learn of Beck's ideological connection to the author of the John Birch Society classic The Naked Communist, which one could find in NRA-member bookshelves throughout the Midwest when I was growing up, right next to the Readers Digest Condensed Books. (It's rather unnerving to find the direct Bircher connection, right there for everyone to see.) Thanks to Matttbastard for his ever-vigilant Tweeting!
La Lubu is guest-blogging at Feministe, which is always great news. She mentioned a DailyKos diary-piece titled How I lost my health insurance at the hairstylist's-- one of the most harrowing insurance-stories I've ever heard, and I've heard more than my share. For folks who wonder how an employed person loses health insurance after a serious and/or prolonged illness, this is the account to read. She explains, step by step, exactly how it happens. And it can happen to anyone, as it did to her.
~*~
I figured if I used my photo of the Lizard King sign, I should find something suitable to go with it. Snooping around, I found the most amazing video featuring home movies of Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson. Before you all yell at me, yes, I know he tried to kill her, etc....but I also found their relationship complex and interesting. Their weird symbiosis is evident in this offbeat collection of images.
Love Street - The Doors
