Snake handlers, finger surgery eve, and talk radio updates

You never know what you'll see in downtown Greenville. This past Sunday, in what used to be called Bergamo Plaza (apparently they are in the process of naming it something else, to go with the fancy new ONE building) I saw this snake-handling lady. She didn't mind me taking her picture.

Just another day in the neighborhood.

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Well peeps, as mentioned previously, the surgery on my ganglion cyst is tomorrow morning. I confess to being a nervous wreck. Not really about the surgery itself, but about the anesthesia-shots (administered with a BIG ASS needle) I'm getting on either side of my finger. I've already had one shot--right in the cyst--and it wasn't fun. This promises to be far worse. Argh.

And the idea of my index-finger-joint being (aiyeee) scraped, is just SUCH AN UNPLEASANT CONCEPT. (Can't they use some other word?)

I hope I can type, but probably won't be able to for a couple of days, so this is the official SURGERY EVE update.

Luckily, I can still run my mouth, you lucky folks. I will be broadcasting as usual. Hopefully, I won't be on so many drugs that I make no sense... but when has THAT ever stopped me?

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This week's OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE shows--

Monday: The Zimmerman verdict, with local activists Traci Fant and Efia Nwangaza.

Tuesday: Zimmerman trial juror #B37's interview with Anderson Cooper, excerpts and analysis. Much fulminating from your humble narrator, echoing the points in my last blog post (and even quoting some of the comments).

Wednesday: Stevie Wonder boycotts Florida, and an interview with Green Shadow Cabinet member Ben Manski, author of a popular statement about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden titled, Liberty is hunted around the globe: What Snowden taught us about American freedom.

Going on in a half-hour, and we'll be talking about one of the best rightwingnuts available for sheer comedy relief, TED NUGENT! (Shooting fish in a barrel, my friends!)

Check us out, yall; if you wanna join us LIVE AT FIVE, here is the WOLI-AM livestream link. Have a listen! Also, podcasts available at the website.

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Hope all is well with you, have a great weekend... and take care of your joints!

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UPDATE/EDIT 7/21: Surgery postponed until Thursday... so I can obsess and worry for another whole week. Argh.

Volkswagen sucks

Volkswagen is using Ted Nugent's misogynist "Stranglehold" in a commercial. The major controversy online seems to be why the Motor City Madman (as he is known), would endorse a German car, which is some major Detroit heresy. Nobody cares about the woman-killing in the song.

This isn't the first time the song has been used in ads (the instrumental parts of the song are great), but it IS the first time the lyrics, "I got you in a stranglehold, babbehhhh!" have been included.

It makes me furious enough never to buy a VW for as long as I live, and yes, I AM poor and I WAS considering it, so your loss, Volkswagen!!!

Time for some pertinent questions to all the 'men's rights' folks (anti-feminists, mostly) I have currently been arguing with online:

When is the last time a woman's song about strangling a man was in a TV commercial? For a major world corporation?

Further, when did any woman even RECORD one?

Has a woman ever strangled a man in the history of the WORLD, who wasn't safely drugged or ASLEEP? (The song is obviously about the sheer delight of violent struggle; if she was asleep, he never would have written it, too boring.)

If a woman did indeed write and record such a song, would it be a big million-selling heavy-metal album? Would the woman who recorded it be accepted as a rich Republican donor in good standing (as Nugent is) and given a steady gig at the Washington Times (as Nugent is), or would she be considered a major loony-tune man-killer?

Totally laughable, isn't it?

There simply isn't any equivalent, and that is why I use the word PATRIARCHY: because we live in one.

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Blogger is currently all screwed up and has been for about a month now. It will not allow me (and lots of other bloggers) to update the blog-links list. So if you think your blog belongs on it, and it's not, you are probably right.

Blogs I have tried to add to my illustrious list:

Cheap Signals (Hi Gretchen!)

Shuffle (Carolina's indie music scene)

The Good Men Project (sometimes I can post there, and sometimes I can't, for mysterious reasons)

ClarenceGrad72 (Hi Becky!)

Consider this a consolation prize for not being able to update my link list.

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A little fun on the website titled your past life diagnosis. Here is mine:

I don't know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere in the territory of modern USA South-West around the year 800. Your profession was that of a map maker, astrologer, astronomer.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:

Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, which waited until this life to be liberated. Sometimes your environment considered you strange.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:

Your main task is to make the world more beautiful. Physical and spiritual deserts are just waiting for your touch. Keep smiling!

Do you remember now?

Well, okay, that is a random computer program and relatively dopey... but... do you remember my Groundhog Day post here and how I described feeling unaccountably drawn to Chaco Canyon? That would be the place and time-frame described above, the time of the Anasazi, and now I am a bit spooked. (I love maps AND astrology.)

Probably just a coincidence, she muttered, reaching for her Tarot.