Hotter than July

Tying up some loose ends at the end of July... this is stuff I was gonna post on separately, and just decided to do it ALL AT ONCE. Most include some fancy graphics!

~*~

My supervisor is changing jobs, and I am heartbroken. She has been my lifeline for four years now. So, I'm going through a lot emotionally. (I believe they call it "abandonment issues"?) As Stevie told us, it's hotter than July, but when you're moving in the positive/Your destination is the brightest star.

I wish her all the best, and I know she needs to ADVANCE in her profession, but I still want her to be with ME every day. :(

~*~

First my personality-type, which is ENFP. This is the third time I've done one of these, and I always get the same, so that is interesting.

General: ENFPs are both "idea"-people and "people"-people, who see everyone and everything as part of an often bizarre cosmic whole. They want to both help (at least, their own definition of "help") and be liked and admired by other people, on both an individual and a humanitarian level. They are interested in new ideas on principle, but ultimately discard most of them for one reason or another.

Social/Personal Relationships: ENFPs have a great deal of zany charm, which can ingratiate them to the more stodgy types in spite of their unconventionality. They are outgoing, fun, and genuinely like people. As SOs/mates they are warm, affectionate (lots of PDA), and disconcertingly spontaneous. However, attention span in relationships can be short; ENFPs are easily intrigued and distracted by new friends and acquaintances, forgetting about the older ones for long stretches at a time. Less mature ENFPs may need to feel they are the center of attention all the time, to reassure them that everyone thinks they're a wonderful and fascinating person.

ENFPs often have strong, if unconventional, convictions on various issues related to their Cosmic View. They usually try to use their social skills and contacts to persuade people gently of the rightness of these views; this sometimes results in their neglecting their nearest and dearest while flitting around trying to save the world.

Work Environment: ENFPs are pleasant, easygoing, and usually fun to work with. They come up with great ideas, and are a major asset in brainstorming sessions. Followthrough tends to be a problem, however; they tend to get bored quickly, especially if a newer, more interesting project comes along. They also tend to be procrastinators, both about meeting hard deadlines and about performing any small, uninteresting tasks that they've been assigned. ENFPs are at their most useful when working in a group with a J or two to take up the slack.

ENFPs hate bureaucracy, both in principle and in practice; they will always make a point of launching one of their crusades against some aspect of it.

First of all, there is nothing BIZARRE about the Cosmic Whole, it's a pretty serious matter.

And: ZANY CHARM! If my blog wasn't already named DEAD AIR, I might go for that one. Speaking of blogs, mine has just been rated:

Created by OnePlusYou - Online Dating Site

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* dead (34x)
* sex (6x)
* dick (5x)
* suicide (3x)
* torture (2x)
* bitch (1x)

Okay, why is DEAD a dirty word?

~*~

YES! Kim gave me a BLOG AWARD, which you can never have too many of.

Rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

Very easily done! So many great blogs! I hereby pass this award along to Maitri, Bamboo Blitz, Rosa, Mikeb302000 (who really needs to come up with a far-catchier name for his blog!), the always-amusing White Rabbit (who sounds so proper and British when he's being interviewed! Wooo!), brand new southerner Thene, and Mista Jaycee!

~*~

From Yo! Redux, I discovered Simon's Cat:



~*~

And finally... he really needs no introduction!

Stevie Wonder - Master Blaster (Jammin')

[via FoxyTunes / Stevie Wonder]

Wordless Wednesdays: Super Dog Saver Boy

Super Dog Saver Boy at BeleChere, this past weekend. He represented Brother Wolf's Canine Rescue. (Below: Front and back!)

BELE CHERE!!!!!!!

I used up my Flickr account for the month, bah. Thus, I labor onward with Picasa.

I do not enjoy how Picasa doesn't let you copy and paste the photographic alignment. Or rather, there is probably a way to do this, but my puttering and muttering can not unlock the key to the magic GRAPHIC DESIGN GENIE that will impart this arcane knowledge to me. Harumph! And so, apologies for the horizontal (and decidedly uncool) layout below.

More photos available on my Flickr page.

~*~

I love Bele Chere with a passion!!!! This is Asheville, North Carolina's 30-year-old street fair, which (yes, I realize!) has been corporatized, blah blah blah, unlike Comfest, the similar street festival I grew up with in Columbus, Ohio. There are people passing out dog food samples and Sensodyne and trying to sell you cell phones. I try to ignore the annoying capitalism, hawking wares everywhere. The wonderful part of Bele Chere is seeing the People Like Us come out of the woodwork, the offices, the mountains, the cities, wherever we are. The invasion of flower children and hippies is something to behold. I want to kiss everyone I see.

And speaking personally, I love seeing a profusion of older white women with LONG HAIR, a rare and exotic species to which I belong. (Cultural note: Older Latino and Asian women are obviously allowed long hair, but I first started getting harassed to cut my hair and "do something with it" when I was about 20 years old. PS: I have done something with it, and this is it!) It is GREAT to see so many transgressive, menopausal women who have similarly dug in their heels. I LOVE YOU, DEAREST LONG HAIRED LADIES!!!!!!! And their equivalent, the old guys with ZZ Top beards and braids in the back. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Asheville, like Austin, is fabulous, liberal and tolerant. They recycle with a vengeance, and I am NOT the only vegetarian on the block. The bad news? Rich people want to live there, thus intrinsically changing the basic nature of the place. Authentic hippies can't afford it anymore and have moved over to West Asheville. There is a brawl taking place over the center of town, and like Greenville, the infestation of MILLIONAIRE CONDOS is imminent (see below*). Let's hope they don't turn the place into a hippie-theme park, but that is the fear many locals have.

Meanwhile, I loved it, as I always do. I partied and danced in the streets with everyone else.



First, we drive up the Blue Ridge Mountains to get to Asheville. It's beautiful and calming, like a pilgrimage.















*As noted above, the condo developers are at the gate. The Mountain Voices Alliance collects signatures of folks opposing the downtown Parkside project.
















The Lee Boys kick out the jams!













Beautiful women dance to the Lee Boys.














Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, as close as I could get.







And the crowd, from a distance, rocking to the Booty Band.









And now, a word from our sponsor!










The Grascals, bluegrass band.















A beautiful, graceful mime.


























Menage, or two of them, anyway, at the Mountain Xpress folkie stage.















Butterfly mural















There is always one unhappy person. He proudly posed for the picture, and then (very politely, calling me ma'am) supplied me with a Jack Chick comic! Nothing but the best for Bele Chere! (The music, people and food are all top-notch, so the Jesus-tracts are similarly at the forefront of excellence.)












Your humble narrator

Having a Wild Weekend!

I've always wanted to name a post that, but figured if I was gonna steal from John Boorman, I'd better include a trailer, so I have included it below.

~*~

Random notes for this Friday:

HOPING that the weather holds up, with no sudden nasty summer storms. If the weather remains tolerable, I WILL have a wild weekend! (Or as wild as my weekends get these days, anyway.)

Wild or not, I'll cover it here--so stay tuned, sports fans!

~*~

While swimming in my hallway yesterday, I got a bunch of unexpected blog hits--right after Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, gave his speech in Berlin. And guess what the search terms were? Yup: IS BARACK OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST? Apparently, Germany sets them off bigtime.

I previously reported that my "antichrist" post had fallen to the second or third Google page, but now I am back up to the fifth hit on Google, although you have to phrase it exactly! (((preens)))

I don't think the page gives them what they are looking for, since they don't stick around too long. [Waves at fundamentalists!]

Trinity writes about a Philadelphia-area doctor who temporarily tattooed a woman without her permission, ostensibly to "lift her spirits," if you can believe it. He's done it to other patients, too. (Let's hope he asks their religion first!) She is suing him, and various people believe she is over-reacting. All I can say is (speaking of fundamentalism), he better not try that shit down south, or the by-the-book-Baptists will OWN his practice.

You might want to gaze upon Renegade Evolution's lovely, tan, toned and very buff behind! Yes, we try to bring you edifying, politically correct images here at DEAD AIR! Which brings me to...

The Sixth Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy is over at Aishwarya's. My apologies for overlooking this earlier in the week!

~*~

Having a Wild Weekend was the original (UK) title. Here in the USA, the movie was titled Catch Us If You Can, the same title as the Dave Clark 5's monster-hit.

Movie trailer:



And here is the monster hit, all by itself. Infectious as the bloody dickens, as they might say over there:



HAVE A WILD WEEKEND!

Odds and Sods - soaked hallway and closet edition

Left: Our Lady of Mercy (stained glass) from St Mary's, Greenville, SC. I have begun fervent petitions to the Blessed Mother, and let's hope the rest of our apartment escapes the deluge.

~*~

There is water coming from somewhere into my hallway and bedroom closet. A huge box of books placed against the closet wall tricked me into thinking the closet might escape the creeping-water, but this morning I realized the bottom of the box was soaked. This enormous box was filled to the brim with Mr Daisy's geeky paperbacks, and I haven't told him yet. I just know for sure that Robert Silverberg's The Feast of St. Dionysius has been trashed. Now that we are older, we realize how difficult it is to replace such books, which are usually out of print (like that one). I am afraid to look at the rest of them.

I haven't told him yet.

It doesn't look like a good day. I am home from work, awaiting the maintenance crew, or somebody, O Jesus, Mary and Joseph, to help me. I have used up all my towels in the wet hallway.

(((prays Hail Marys)))


~*~

Please check out A MOTHER'S STORY: Elke Kennedy, Out in Asheville's profile of the mother of Sean Kennedy, victim of a gay-bashing murder here in Greenville.

As covered here previously, his murderer, Stephen Andrew Moller, will only serve 10 months:

While many of us in the LGBTQ community were hoping for justice, the judge in this case proved that justice for Sean Kennedy's murder would never be had. Moller received a three year sentence. But, it is very clear that Moller is likely to spend only 10 months in prison, after which he is entitled to parole. If granted parole, he will be on probation for three years. He was also sentenced to 30 days community service and ordered to take anger management classes and enter alcohol and drug counseling. In a sad message to the LGBTQ community, and parents of LGBTQ youth, South Carolina has once again made it clear that even those born in its bosom are not afforded justice or protection.

Where do such mothers find the strength to go on, without being eaten up with fury? I can't imagine such a thing. Kennedy had duly prepared herself for the trial's probable outcome, and knew there would not be justice for Sean, she says, "because I knew what the laws were and I knew that [Moller] had not been charged correctly in the grand jury hearing. The laws are not good laws. When you can charge a violent murderer and you can make it involuntary manslaughter and the maximum the judge can give him is five years, there is a serious problem."

Yes, there certainly is.

Left: Sean Kennedy, age 20, murdered May 2007 here in Greenville County, SC.


On a somewhat happier note, Elke Kennedy has received condolences from wonderful people all over the state and the nation, some of whom just pick up the phone to call her and check on her:

Elke will continue to grieve and work towards equality as a mother who lost a gay son because he was gay. Calling herself a mother on a mission, Elke said, “I am determined to help all the other Seans out there. Not just murder victims, but victims of beatings, people who commit suicide – the people no one talks about. It’s for all those people who have a mother who can’t do what I do, or won’t do what I do. It’s for those unspoken deaths, beatings, assaults and suicides that never get told.”

Elke chooses to focus on South Carolina, not only because it was the site of Sean’s murder, but because it is somewhere she moved because she thought she could safely and happily raise a child there. She wants to change South Carolina because “South Carolina has a long way to go before they can say that they are embracing people.”

~*~

I first saw Dr. Michael J. Rosner on ABC's 20/20 TV show back in March 2000. Even so, I remember the show well (can't locate a transcript; my apologies). I was extremely skeptical concerning various medical claims to be able to "help" Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia by shaving off some skeletal bones near the skull. You say what!?!?

My first question: How can you "help" something we don't even know the causes of? (Are the two conditions possibly the same thing, simply assigned different diagnoses, as I often suspect?)

No way I would let this guy near my spine or my brain, I thought. But what if I was desperate and had not left my house for years? I'd probably do anything.

Rosner had already performed about 50 of the procedures at the time of the 20/20 show, and with the free half-hour prime-time commercial, went on to do a parcel more. However, in 2002, his license was suspended. His frequent diagnosis in such cases, Chiari Malformation, has allegedly been overused/abused. Mountain Xpress reports:

Rosner wasn’t allowed to reapply for his license for six months, and when he did, his application was denied. Rosner appealed. Following a June 2004 hearing, the medical board did reinstate his license—but with certain conditions.

As for Rosner’s patients, some have reported improvement that’s little short of miraculous; others say the treatment made only a minor difference, and still others report worsening conditions. But Rosner has also been sued at least 48 times in the past six years by people alleging unnecessary surgery. Fifteen of those suits have been dismissed, he says, and eight more have been withdrawn. According to Henderson County [NC] court records, however, 32 lawsuits against Rosner remain unresolved.

Rosner maintains that over his entire career, only one malpractice claim has been paid on his behalf: a $50,000 settlement in 1987 for operating on the wrong level of a patient’s back. Rosner also contends that the medical board’s actions may actually have encouraged some suits. Four months after the suspension of his license, he notes, a single law firm filed eight cases.

A confident man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, Rosner seems unbowed by the controversy that continues to dog him. He’s still seeing patients, most of whom are referred to him either by other doctors who believe in his work, or by passionate supporters who network via the Internet.

In Rosner’s eyes, the real question is how long it will take to change what he believes is faulty science.

Faulty science? Well, okay, but why not come out and make some concrete medical claims for your surgery, in that case?

Left: Dr. Michael Rosner, photo from Mountain Xpress.


See, I am profoundly uncomfortable with the way the good doctor hedges his bets, claiming as a legal dodge (which I immediately noticed when I saw the 20/20 show in 2000), that his surgery doesn't claim to "cure" CFS or fibromyalgia, but merely "treats the malformation"--which may or may not cure these conditions. Hmmm.

Indignant herbalist note: When the alternative medicine companies try something like this, say, about supplements such as Coenzyme-Q10 ("may lower cholesterol and blood pressure")--they are literally nailed to the wall by the powers-that-be. I could name a dozen companies off the top of my head that have been forced to change their labeling for HEDGING... so why are mainstream doctors allowed to hedge their bets and tell patients something MIGHT work, but we aren't? Harumph.

Rosner, as the article claims, isn't worried:

Rosner and other proponents of the surgery believe that many of the patients they see suffer from one of two conditions: a skull that’s too small for the brain, or a compressed spinal column. Sometimes they have both.

In medical terminology, “hypoplastic posterior fossa,” also known as a “Chiari I malformation,” essentially means that the back of the skull and upper spinal column are too small to contain the lower part of the brain and the upper spinal cord. This condition has long been known to cause some neurological difficulties—such as tremors, sleep apnea, headaches and poor coordination—in some sufferers.

Rosner wants to be clear: He’s not operating to treat fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue. Rather, he’s using surgery to correct what he calls a “neurological deficit” in his patients. He also emphasizes some fundamental differences in the way he examines patients and determines a course of treatment.

In his small office next to Park Ridge Hospital in Fletcher [North Carolina], Rosner says he sees two to four new patients a week and generally performs surgery at the hospital one day a week. Patients come to him from across the country, often after wrestling with their medical problems for years.

Uh-huh. Italics mine. Read the whole thing, courtesy of Mountain Xpress. The comments, in particular, are illuminating. Many are diehard supporters of Dr Rosner and claim that he helped them.

~*~

Left: attempting to salvage Mr Daisy's paperbacks, and in so doing, saved a first edition! I feel like I'm doing something important for Western Civ, saving all of this antique paper verbiage. The wife of an obsessive book-collector: a difficult gig.

The fix-it guys are currently working on the problem, as I survey the damage and debate whether this deserves a claim with State Farm.

~*~

New to my blogroll:

A Choice of Weapons, featuring the fun Mista Jaycee.

Quaker Pagan Reflections, in particular, the series titled CAT'S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, which I stayed up all night reading last weekend.

Faking It, by Jennifer and Womanist Musings, by Renee. Both great reading!

Check em out!

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Listening to: Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightnin'
via FoxyTunes

Wordless Wednesdays: Foxglove

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Listening to: Frank Sinatra - Stardust
via FoxyTunes

Michael Savage: Swine of the month

Left: Michael Savage's book, THE SAVAGE NATION, which I have no intention of reading, or even touching.

~*~

Conservative talk-radio pit-bull Michael Savage is a very interesting person. He used to be a heavy in MY profession, if you can believe it. Yes! Michael Savage, as Michael Weiner, was a flaky lefty herbalist and nutritionist, the author of several well-known homeopathic books. I was stunned when I discovered Weiner was actually Savage. In addition, he used to hang with famous Beats and GAY people (a minority group he now openly despises) like Allen Ginsberg.

He was once a decent person, apparently, or maybe he was just a groupie. Wikipedia informs us:

Savage introduced himself to certain writers in the North Beach area of San Francisco in the early 1970s. He befriended and traveled with Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Stephen Schwartz, also an acquaintance of Savage from this time, reported Savage possessed a photograph of himself and Ginsberg swimming naked in Hawaii and used the photograph as sort of a "calling card." Savage maintained a correspondence with Ginsberg consisting of ten letters and a trio of postcards across four years, which is maintained with Ginsberg's papers at Stanford University. One letter asked for Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti to come do a poetry reading, so others could "hear and see and know why I adore your public image." One postcard mentions his desire to photograph Ginsberg in a provocative way, though Savage states that this correspondence is actually a forgery created by gay detractors.

As I said, interesting. In his 1980 book Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine, he unequivocally stated marijuana had medical benefits, but as a reborn conservative android, dutifully renounced this position, as he has also robotically and predictably turned into a rabid, crazed homophobe.

And now, he hates autistic children, too. 99% of autism is simply SPOILED BRATS, Savage proclaims. Newsday's Carol Polsky reports:

Conservative radio talk show jock Michael Savage used his nationally syndicated show Monday to defend his controversial remarks on autism, even as outraged parents protested outside the Manhattan offices of his broadcaster, calling for his firing.

"My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label too many children or adults as 'autistic,' Savage wrote on his Web site and read on his broadcast Monday. "Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an "illness" which may not exist in all cases. ... Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free."

The original remarks that stirred the backlash aired on the July 16 broadcast of his show "The Savage Nation," which typically targets the likes of liberals, undocumented immigrants and feminists and has more than 8 million listeners.

On his broadcast, Savage called autism "a fraud, a racket ... In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. ... They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. ... Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

His controversial remarks drove several dozen parents and advocates Monday to protest outside the WOR-710 in Manhattan.

"That isn't just freedom of speech, it is hateful speech when you say 99 percent of children with autism are brats," said Evelyn Ain, whose 8-year-old son has been diagnosed with autism and who organized the demonstration. "I'll tell you, I wish I had a brat."

I hope they tar and feather his right-wing, hateful ass.

Moral of the story: hate and prejudice never stop with just one group. It always, always, always extends to others. If it's okay to hate people for some arbitrary characteristic, then it's okay to hate them all.

Even children. And yes, even those unfortunate kids who don't/can't say anything to anyone.

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Listening to: Foo Fighters - Erase/Replace
via FoxyTunes

A Gallon of Gas

It is 6:23pm and 98 degrees. It's way too hot to blog. However, it's NOT too hot to complain about gas prices. In fact, it just makes it worse: air conditioning in the car, also uses up gas.

Here in South Carolina, a tourism-state, we've really noticed the drop-off in drivers this summer.

And so, once again, I bring you the Kinks!

~*~

I've been waiting for years to buy a brand new cadillac
But now that I've got one, I want to send it right back
I can't afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine
But even if I had the dough
no one's got no gasoline

I went to my local dealer to see if he could set me straight
He said there's a little gas going, but I'd have to wait
But he offered some red hot speed and some really high grade hash
But a gallon of gas cant be purchased anywhere
for any amount of cash

I can score you some coke and some grade-one grass
But I can't get a gallon of gas
I've got some downers, some speed
all the drugs that you need
But I can't get a gallon of gas
There's no more left to buy or sell
There's no more oil left in the well
A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere
For any amount of cash

I love your body-work, but you're really no use
How can I drive you when I got no juice?
Because it's stuck in neutral and my engines got no speed
And the highways are deserted
And the air smells unnaturally clean.

It's got power-assisted overdrive and carpets on the floor,
But it's parked out front just like a dead dinosaur.
And I'll be paying off the bank for 45 years or more.
It should go 100 miles an hour,
But it's never moved away from my door.

Who needs a car and a seven-forty-seven
When you can't buy a gallon of gas
Who needs a highway, an airport or a jet
When you can't get a gallon of gas
There's no more left to buy or sell
There's no more oil left in the well
A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere
For any amount of cash

You can't buy a gallon of gas

~*~

The Kinks - A Gallon Of Gas

[via FoxyTunes / The Kinks]

Dead Air Church - Skip A Rope

This Sunday, it's time for some classic country!

I've wanted to blog Henson Cargill's SKIP A ROPE for a long time. However, I knew if I did, yall would expect an explanation and I didn't know if I was ready for that.

The short version: This was my grandfather's favorite song.

The long version: When I first heard it, I was 10 years old and living in his house. I was the child skipping the rope. I was the one under his bedroom window with my friends, singing our jump-rope rhymes. For this reason, the song scared me. It seemed to be about us, and our games: Ain't it kinda funny what the children say?

It meant adults could figure out things about you, that you couldn't figure out yourself. It meant they'd paid attention when you thought they weren't.

It also meant that, yes, things were as bad as I thought they were. Daddy hates mommy, mommy hates dad/Last night you shoulda heard the fight they had. I certainly didn't like hearing our sordid domestic truths right out loud like that. We were trying to keep it all a secret. But someone had written a song about it! (How did they know?--I remember thinking.)

When I recently heard the song, I was overcome with emotion, remembering my wise and quiet grandfather (deceased 22 years now), who endured so very much in his life. And I was also overcome with love for the song; this modest old country tune that told the simple truth. I realize now, how much the song was like him: understated, plain-spoken, humble, yet somehow wistful for how things could be, if we'd just rise above the general chaos and banality. But we don't, do we?

What was that they said about the golden rule?

~*~

Enjoy, and have a thoughtful, truth-telling sabbath.


Henson Cargill - Skip A Rope

I like this one better!

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

Here is some excellent commentary from Alas, on the original New Yorker cover that inspired this comic response. (I won't be running the original cover here, except in this version.)

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Listening to: The Black Crowes - Sometimes Salvation
via FoxyTunes

Still fighting over THAT flag...

Left: Yes, you know what it is. (Image from The Palmetto Scoop.)

~*~

For foreign readers (and Americans who didn't memorize their history lessons): South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860. Largely for this reason, Union forces fired on Fort Sumter, which is considered the official beginning of the Civil War. Yes, it all started here!!!!

How to honor such history respectfully, is the question.

It seems we still can't agree on that.

Although the CSA battle flag is on South Carolina statehouse grounds, it is no longer in the front and is displayed as part of a memorial to the deceased CSA soldiers. No one objects to the memorial itself (that I know of); it's the flag that raises objections and gets everyone all stirred up.

From the Greenville News today:

Confederate group plans response to flag flap

Organization denies comments about flying more flags to counter NAACP

By Tim Smith • CAPITAL BUREAU • July 17, 2008

COLUMBIA -- The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans a response to the NAACP's push to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds but denied Wednesday one of its officers' statements that it would fly flags around the state in reaction.

Meanwhile, in response to questions by The Greenville News on Wednesday about whether he supported moving the flag, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain said the issue of the flag has already been resolved.

"Sen. McCain has said repeatedly that he could not be more proud of the overwhelming majority of the people of South Carolina who have come together to resolve the issue," said Mario Diaz, a spokesman for the campaign.

A spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama couldn't be reached for comment.

State NAACP President Lonnie Randolph said Tuesday the national organization had asked actors and movie studio representatives to observe the NAACP's economic sanctions against the state until the flag is moved off Statehouse grounds. He said the civil rights organization had received "very positive" responses.

The battle flag flies behind the Confederate soldiers' monument near a busy Columbia intersection, the result of a legislative compromise in 2000 to bring the flag off the Statehouse dome.

Randy Burbage, who leads South Carolina members in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the group's officials will consider proposed responses to the NAACP actions when they meet in two weeks.

"We're weighing different options," he said. "We always respond to attacks on our heritage, and we feel like that's what this is."

He said he was "not at liberty" to describe what was being considered, but he denied the comments of another officer earlier in the day who said the organization planned to raise flags across the state in response to the NAACP's latest campaign to remove the flag.

"That's not true," he said. "He misspoke on that. There's no plan to do that. I'm puzzled as to why he even said that. He's not the spokesman for the organization. I've already spoken to him today, and he admitted that he misspoke on that."

Burbage said it was also untrue that the organization planned to raise a flag each time the NAACP complained or that the organization was negotiating with a landowner to raise a giant flag near a Midlands interstate, just as supporters have raised such flags in Florida.

"I don't know how I can put these fires out at this point," he said. "That's him speaking for himself, not this organization."

My observation? It never ends.

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Listening to: Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad
via FoxyTunes

Zombie Meme

Tagged by both Ren and Natalia!


You are in the mall when the zombies attack, you have


1: One Weapon: blowtorch

2: One Song Blasting on the Radio: Sad but True by Metallica.

3: One Famous Person to help you: Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica)



Tagging whoever wants to do it! (more hippie memes for your pleasure!)

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Listening to: Rancid - Lock, Step & Gone
via FoxyTunes

Women guilty, but boys will be boys...

I came across these stories on a right-wing British blog. Thus, I won't be linking. They were slut-shaming the women, what-is-the-world-coming-to, British girls used to be raised with proper manners, tsk tsk. (etc)

What is really interesting about these two stories is the fact that the women are charged with various crimes, but the men involved were not charged, or were charged with different crimes:

Briton faces jail for sex on Dubai beach

By Terri Judd and Nikolina Sajn
Thursday, 10 July 2008
UK Independent

A British businesswoman is facing six years in an Arab jail after apparently being caught having drunken sex on a beach in Dubai.

Michelle Palmer, 30, was allegedly found in a compromising position on Jumeirah beach with a British holidaymaker, named only as Vince, whom she had met that morning at a champagne brunch with her work colleagues. A police officer apparently spotted the couple having sex on the beach and cautioned them, only to return later to find they had ignored his warning.

Last night, Ms Palmer's employer, ITP Publishing, confirmed that she had been dismissed after being accused of "a number of serious public order offences", including having sex outside marriage, indecent behaviour in public and assaulting a police officer.

A spokesman said: "ITP... expects its staff to behave in a manner consistent with the moral and cultural values of the society in which we all live and work. To this end the company gives its staff clear guidance regarding what is and what is not acceptable in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] when they join.

"Following an internal review of this incident, the company has dismissed Ms Palmer."

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that consular assistance was being offered to two British nationals who had been arrested on Saturday. He said the case was being investigated by the Dubai authorities but no formal charges had been brought.

In a blog entry she apparently posted last night, Ms Palmer spoke of her fear at what might happen to her. "We have all made silly regretful mistakes in life, of which some pay all too dearly ... The fear I feel each time I close my eyes fills my heart with dread ... Please imagine if it were you, this is punishment enough."

According to The Sun, Ms Palmer was said to have launched a tirade at the police officer who arrested her and threatened him with one of her high heels.

"Because this is known everywhere they're going to make an example of us and we're going to get a higher sentence. We are in so much trouble and my family and everybody are affected," she told the newspaper. "Until someone is in this situation they could never know what it's like. It's bad – it's so, so bad. They are being pushed into a corner to make an example of us. I'm panicking – my mum is on antidepressants."

While the embassy of the UAE in London had no comment to make yesterday, one insider insisted that it was not a "fundamentalist state". "If somebody was doing this in Hyde Park, I wonder what the British police would do? You have to conduct yourself with decorum."

In recent years Dubai has become an increasingly popular tourist destination. Each year about a million UK visitors travel to the UAE, while 100,000 expatriate Brits live there. Sex outside marriage is illegal in the UAE, as is cohabitation, adultery and homosexual behaviour. Visitors are warned that public displays of affection are frowned upon, and there have been several arrests for kissing in public.

In the following incident, the women are charged with outright prostitution, while the men have been charged with "encouraging obscene behaviour"--say what?

Brit Tourists In Sex Game Disgrace

Sky News, 1:03pm UK, Monday July 14, 2008

Nine British women who took part in an oral sex competition while on holiday on the Greek island of Zakynthos are facing charges of prostitution.

Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged over the incident, which took place at Laganas beach in the south of the island.

The women had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

The men were charged with encouraging obscene behaviour.

In recent years, Laganas has established itself as one of Greece's most popular destinations for twenty-something holidaymakers and is known for its alcohol-fuelled nightlife.

Tour operators say the resort offers "non-stop partying" and "wild entertainment well into the night".

Around 15m people - a fifth of them British - visit the eastern Mediterranean country each year, drawn by its soaring summer temperatures, clear waters and sandy beaches.

Zakynthos, also known as Zante, is one of the Greek Ionian islands that is most popular with tourists.

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Listening to: Dinosaur Jr. - Repulsion
via FoxyTunes

Freedom from Fear excerpts

This week, Dead Air Library features excerpts from the Pulitzer-Prize winning Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, by David M. Kennedy:



But if the United States could do little for the Jews inside Germany [in 1933], could it not open its doors to those trying to leave? After the announcement of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935, New York governor Herbert Lehman, a prominent Jewish leader and usually a close political ally of Roosevelt's, proposed doubling the number of German Jews annually admitted to the United States, from twenty-five hundred to five-thousand--"almost a negligible number," Lehman noted. Roosevelt responded sympathetically that consular officials had been instructed to offer "the most considerate attention and the most generous and favorable treatment possible under the laws of the country." The numbers of German-Jewish immigrants grew modestly but nevertheless stayed "negligible." Immigrants of whatever faith from Germany totaled some six thousand in 1936 and eleven thousand in 1937.

Why did the potential refugee flood remain such a trickle? The explanation lay partly in the intersection of Nazi policy with those "laws of the country" about which Roosevelt reminded Lehman. Nazi regulations severely restricted the sum of money that a departing Jew could take out of Germany. As early as 1934 the amount had been reduced to the equivalent of four dollars, essentially pauperizing any Jew who tried to leave the country. In the United States, immigration statutes forbade issuing visas to persons "likely to become a public charge." Herbert Hoover in 1930 had ordered consular officials to apply that clause strictly, as the American unemployment crisis worsened. Under the circumstances, few systematically impoverished German Jews could qualify for visas.

~*~

Before long frontline Japanese troops [on Guadalcanal] were on one-sixth rations. Rear-echelon personnel made do with one-tenth. Of six thousand men in one Japanese division, only 250 were judged fit for combat by mid-December [1942]. One Japanese officer calculated a grim formula for predicting the mortality of his troops:

Those who can stand - 30 days
Those who can sit up - 3 weeks
Those who can not sit up - 1 week
Those who urinate lying down - 3 days
Those who have stopped speaking - 2 days
Those who have stopped blinking - tomorrow

~*~

In Roosevelt's mind, China would serve as a counterweight to Britain and the other European powers in postwar Asia, thus helping to secure permanent decolonization. A strong China would also help protect against a resurgent Japan and would check Soviet ambitions in the region as well. Churchill considered Roosevelt's concept of China as an eventual great power nothing less than ludicrous. "To the President, China means four hundred million people who are going to count in the world of tomorrow," Churchill's physician noted in his diary, "But Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin; it is when he talks of India or China that you remember he is a Victorian."

~*~

The [Sicilian] campaign [in 1943] proved personally costly for [General George] Patton, too. In two separate incidents, soldiers under his command massacred seventy-three Italian and three German prisoners of war near the airfield at Biscari. Patton tried to cover the matter up--"it would make a stink in the press and also would make the civilians mad," he told a subordinate--but the facts came out, and a sergeant and a captain were charged with murder. Both pleaded that they believed themselves to be following Patton's orders in an inflammatory preinvasion speech, when he admonished his men to beware of enemy troops who might be feigning surrender in order to bait a trap. In case of doubt, Patton had said, "Kill the SOB's." The captain was acquitted, but the sergeant was sentenced to life imprisonment, later commuted.

In two further incidents, Patton verbally abused and physically struck two soldiers recovering from "battle fatigue" in field hospitals. Patton thought the men were malingerers. "You yellow son of a bitch," he yelled at one of them, brandishing one of his twin pearl-handled revolvers. "I won't have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying... You ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. In fact, I ought to shoot you myself right now, God damn you!" Patton then slapped the man repeatedly. For these actions, Eisenhower ordered Patton to apologize publicly to his troops and temporarily removed Patton from command.

~*~

As spring began to unroll its green carpet across the south of England in 1944, American GIs drilled on the softly undulating fields, staged mock attacks on the shingle beaches and in the leafing copses, rumbled in trucks and tanks along stone-hedged roads, snickered at the quaint ways of the tea-and-warm-beer-drinking British, and oiled and sighted their gleaming new weapons. Occasionally they relieved their boredom by setting fire to haystacks with tracer bullets. The teeming Yanks, arriving at a rate of 150,000 per month since late 1943, were "overpaid, oversexed and over here," the British quipped. (To which the Yanks replied that their British-comrades-in-arms were underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.)

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Listening to: Jimi Hendrix Experience - Third Stone from the Sun
via FoxyTunes

Obama readings for your perusal

Left: Deadheads for Obama logo.

Equal Pay, not abortion (Politico):

Move over, Jane Roe. Lilly Ledbetter has taken her place as the name on the tongue of Democrats courting female voters.

On June 23, Barack Obama kicked off a “discussion for working women” with a speech directed at working mothers that criticized John McCain for his support of conservative judges, decisions and legislation.

But he didn’t once mention or even allude to abortion or Roe v. Wade. Instead, he keyed in on Ledbetter, the woman whose suit against Goodyear for pay discrimination was thrown out by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision last year delivered by Justice Samuel Alito. The decision upheld a lower court’s ruling that she only had 180 days after she was hired to discover the pay disparity and file suit.

The court’s decision in the case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., had already been cited 221 times in decisions by lower federal courts as of late April, according to the Alliance for Justice. Earlier this year, the Fair Pay Restoration Act — which would have effectively undone Ledbetter by giving women more leeway to file discrimination suits and was co-sponsored by both Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — failed to pass the Senate.

“Sen. McCain thinks the Supreme Court got it right. He opposed the Fair Pay Restoration Act,” Obama said. “Lilly Ledbetter’s problem was not that she was somehow unqualified or unprepared for higher-paying positions. She most certainly was, and by all reports she was an excellent employee. Her problem was that her employer paid her less than men who were doing the exact same work.”

McCain, who skipped the vote on the Fair Pay act, told reporters that "I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems."

By shifting his focus toward pay issues and away from abortion, Obama places himself in a far less polarized environment, and steers clear of the “ick factor” that many Americans, regardless of their political views, associate with the practice of abortion.

Obama says Iraq war must end (also from Politico):

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is vowing to quickly end the war in Iraq and shift the focus of the war on terror to Afghanistan and Pakistan, declaring in an address to be delivered later today that the “single-minded and open-ended focus" on Iraq "distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize.”

“This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century,” Obama says in excerpts released by his campaign. “By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.”

Obama is delivering a major address on Iraq at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, ahead of a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan later this month.

In the remarks, Obama vows to take “the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan”: “In fact – as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain – the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was.

The constant talk of Senator Barack Obama's "arrogance" (is there such a thing as a non-arrogant national politician or presidential candidate? Examples, please?) is wearing on my last good nerve.

From Firedoglake, Attaturk's "He's bordering on arrogance"--lays it out very simply:

Those are the words of AP's new Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier about Barack Obama in March 2008. Ron, the word you were too timid to use but were thinking was "uppity".

And finally, Barack Obama's much-covered and picked-over speech to the NAACP yesterday, on YouTube:

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Bring Them Home Now!

MARCH ON THE RNC! (Thanks to Raven for poster!)

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Listening to: The Beatles - She Said She Said
via FoxyTunes

Dead Air Church - Easy to be Hard

Our hymn this sabbath comes from the musical HAIR, by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, which you may have seen. It was a huge hit on Broadway, but not at the cinema. It's still worth watching, although I agree with the critics who say the movie, directed by Milos Forman, was seriously flawed. (Rado and Ragni believe the definitive film version has yet to be made, and I agree.)

HAIR was one of the first stage productions to go "mainstream" that invited audience participation (during the famous "Let the Sunshine In" finale). There was also a brief nude scene, which made nationwide headlines in 1968. Sermons were preached against it and teachers singled it out for major moral ridicule, thus guaranteeing that the kids would go right out and buy the record.

Among the original stage-casts in 1968 included hippies right off the street, as well as others who became well-known later: Melba Moore, Ronnie Dyson (the late, great voice that first gave us "Aquarius" before the song was re-recorded by The 5th Dimension), Paul Jabara, Diane Keaton (legendarily refusing to take her clothes off in aforementioned scene), Ben Vereen, Keith Carradine, Barry McGuire, Ted Lange, Joe Butler, Peppy Castro, Táta Vega, Dobie Gray, Ted Neeley, Meat Loaf, Philip Michael Thomas, Joe Mantegna, Jennifer Warnes and the always-unforgettable David Patrick Kelly.

There were several major hits from this musical, including the title song by the Cowsills (a song, it should be noted, that I have always tried to live by), as well as the exceedingly delightful Good Morning Starshine. According to the New York Times, "Hair was one of the last Broadway musicals to saturate the culture as shows from the golden age once regularly did."(2007 quote)

The following song has the distinction of being the first top-ten hit by Three Dog Night, which moved me as a 12-year-old entering Junior High School, as it was then called. I wasn't fitting in, and the song seemed to be speaking directly to me.

This time marked my first confusion over people's professed ideals and what they actually DO. As I heard young women talk earnestly about Jesus and Mary and then snottily snub the fat girls; as I saw so-called "holy" people who wouldn't give to the poor or who pointedly didn't care about the ongoing war; as I saw hippies who still wouldn't talk to the geeks because they were so embarrassingly unhip... yes, I saw clearly, and the song spoke directly to me.

And as I said last Sunday, I am still hurting from recent events that I still don't fully understand, and so... I realized, it still does.

This version, set to contemporary war images, is just perfect.

~*~

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend
I need a friend

How can people be so heartless
You know I'm hung up on you
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend
We all need a friend

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
Easy to be cold
Easy to say no
Easy to give in
Easy to say no
Easy to be cold
Easy to say no

Much too easy to say no

~*~

Easy to be Hard - Three Dog Night

[via FoxyTunes / Three Dog Night]

South Carolina drops out of campaign to attract gay tourists

Left: Mr Natural, by R. Crumb.

~*~

This embarrassing local issue has already been covered at Feministe and Joe.My.God. (among other blogs)... And here is the Greenville News version:

State drops out of campaign to attract gay tourists

July 11, 2008

COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s state tourism agency has dropped out of an effort to attract gay tourists.

The State newspaper of Columbia reported Friday the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department had joined a campaign tied to gay pride week celebrations in London that included ads saying “South Carolina is so gay.”

The newspaper says Atlanta, Boston and New Orleans were also part of the campaign.

The state agency said Thursday it would not pay a fee of nearly $5,000 to participate in the ad campaign.

Director Chad Prosser says an agency advertising manager had signed off on the contract proposed by the state’s London advertising coordinator.

Prosser says the agency will require more review of future overseas advertising.

Greenville Sen. David Thomas called for an audit, after learning of the matter.

AND THAT'S IT, my friends. No reporting AT ALL about WHY this advertising might prove problematic. It's just UNDERSTOOD.

It's UNDERSTOOD that Prosser and Thomas DON'T WANT GAYS TO VISIT THE STATE. Otherwise, what is the problem? We target all kinds of other groups of people for their tourism dollars, don't we? Gold Wing Road Riders Association just had their huge "Wing Ding" convention here--didn't somebody invite them?

(Is the Greenville News something, or what? Not for nothing do some call it the Green-Vile News.)

Friday Cat Blogging: do kitties grieve?

Left: Peace Cat (black and white) and the late Grand Old Man, were always together.

~*~

Since the death of my beloved Grand Old Man, my youngest cat, Peace Cat, is alone.

He started out with us over six years ago in a household of three cats, and now he is the only one left.

Peace Cat loved to sleep next to Grand Old Man and fight with him. He also pestered him terribly and chased him everywhere. I used to adopt an "old man voice" and complain, imagining how he must feel, as Grand Old Man just looked so TIRED and weary of any more fun feline-games. Peace Cat, contrary to his name, loved to jump on him and bite his ears. Grand Old Man would loudly growl and whine, as if he just couldn't even muster up the energy to swat back at him. (The noise was meant to signal ME, to break it up.)

When Grand Old Man was sick, he huddled under an end-table. I found him when I was calling for him and he was too sick to respond; Peace Cat (just like the fabled TV canine, Lassie) went under the table, as if pointing to him. He licked his ears earnestly, as if to say (simultaneously): HERE HE IS!... and "I'm sorry for all those times I bit your ears!"

Peace Cat seems sad now. Am I projecting? Do cats grieve?

I ask because he did indeed seem to love Grand Old Man, and followed him everywhere.

Yesterday, I discovered Peace Cat near the window in the spare room, where Grand Old Man used to sleep during the day. There are still wads of gray hair in the window, that I can't bear to clean up yet.

I saw Peace Cat poking on the closed curtain. Poke, poke. I realized: OMG! It's one of the feline-games! He used to poke on the curtain while Grand Old Man slept. Eventually, Grand Old Man would poke BACK (cats simply can't contain themselves for very long in such circumstances, regardless of their age) and the feline curtain-game would be ON. That's how my curtain got all torn up, too.

And Peace Cat was poking the curtain, possibly hoping his old friend would reappear, and poke back through the curtain. Or just pretending and playing anyway?

Can kitties have hope and memories?

He waits for the answering swat through the curtain, that never comes. He looks as sad as I am. Is that possible?

(I miss him, too, PC. I miss him, too.)