Further readings on the Mess we're in

Fascinating article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

If the political events of 2016 proved anything, it’s that our [liberal profs] interventions have been toothless. The utopian clap in the cloistered air of the professional conference loses all thunder on a city street. Literature professors have affected America more by sleeping in its downtown hotels and eating in its fast-food restaurants than by telling one another where real prospects for freedom lay. Ten thousand political radicals, in town for the weekend, spend money no differently than ten thousand insurance agents.

I will be quoting that last line a few times. Excellent article and diagnosis.

~*~

The (conservative) National Review's entertainingly-rabid pit bull, Kevin D. Williamson, was hired at (liberal) The Atlantic... and when they belatedly discovered that the pit bull really meant what he said about abortion (you mean he isn't joking?)--they fired him. Within hours. Like, this must be some kind of record.

I see this ideological lockstep as more of the same problem. If you can't handle Kevin Williamson, who is pretty extreme, what is wrong with you? You should easily be able to refute his nonsense... or can you?

I think most of the liberals have forgotten how to argue since they live in an echo chamber--so when a conservative pit bull bolts forth--fascist, funny and taking no prisoners... they collectively cower, run and scream. (And fire them, after just hiring them.)

WE used to be the people who made them cower, run and scream. Remember? The Left used to be funny and extreme and posed the existential threat to Western Civ, not National Review columnists, for godsake. Now we are a bunch of finger-wagging schoolmarms who couldn't scare a fly.

Anyway. The National Review, predictably, had strong opinions. In that last piece, Ben Shapiro offered a list:

The Left is narrowing the range of acceptable discourse and persons, and there will be a backlash.

Kevin Williamson. Sam Harris. Bret Weinstein. Bari Weiss. Dave Rubin. Jason Riley. Heather Mac Donald. Jordan Peterson. Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Welcome to the coalition of unpersons.

The people above don’t have much in common. They disagree on matters large and small. Ali is a militant atheist; Williamson is a religious Christian. Peterson focuses on the metaphysical import of myths; Harris focuses on verifiable science. Rubin is a gay Jew; Riley is black. Mac Donald is a supporter of stronger policing; Weinstein was a supporter of Occupy Wall Street.

But there is one thing that everyone on this list has in common: We’ve all been unpersoned by the Left. And that Left is creeping quietly into the mainstream.

As you might know, I belong on that list too. I am no longer on tumblr due to the vicious, 'leftist' lynch mobs that never end. They are singularly uninterested in taking on the Right or Trump--everything they do is about picking the Left apart and destroying it. As you can see, they are doing a fabulous job, and helped the Right elect their president.

These regularly-scheduled "circular firing squads" of the Left have not only rattled me, they have deeply depressed me, as I see what the online Left in America has become = a total stranger. I don't recognize it.

Historically, WE were the people who believed in free speech, remember? WE were the ones who welcomed all kinds of views from all kinds of people. WE were the ones who opposed censorship. Remember? Remember?

Here are some excerpts from the dissenting view from the Atlantic, by Conor Friedersdorf, with which I concur:

Last month, The Atlantic hired Kevin Williamson, the longtime National Review staffer. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, announced the move, declaring him a writer “whose force of intellect and acuity of insight reflect our ambition.”

Immediately, critics began poring over Williamson’s substantial archive of published writing and public statements. Among the most controversial was an exchange on Twitter about abortion and the death penalty. Williamson declared that “the law should treat abortion like any other homicide.” Pushed to clarify, Williamson added, “I have hanging more in mind.” Later, he expounded, “I’m torn on capital punishment generally; but treating abortion as homicide means what it means.”

...

Do not imagine that I am any less appalled than you at the idea of hanging women who have abortions. I oppose the death penalty, full stop. I would regard any expansion of executions as barbaric and any vast expansion as authoritarian and nightmarish. Even if a politician proposed simply incarcerating women who have abortions, I would oppose the proposition in keeping with my civil libertarian convictions.

...

More specifically, I dissent from the way that Williamson was dragged, regardless of his position. That dragging would be a small matter in isolation, but it is of a piece with burgeoning, shortsighted modes of discourse that are corroding what few remaining ties bind the American center. Should that center fail to hold, anarchy will be loosed.

And I dissent from the termination that followed—a matter for which responsibility must fall on The Atlantic, not on Williamson’s critics, even those critics who most egregiously distorted his words or their prominence in his journalism.

What about the mode of Williamson’s dragging alarmed me?

Word of Williamson’s hiring was greeted by some as if by mercenary opposition researchers determined to isolate the most outlying and offensive thoughts that he ever uttered, no matter how marginal to his years of journalistic work; to gleefully amplify them, sometimes in highly distorting ways, in a manner designed to stoke maximum upset and revulsion; and to frame them as if they said everything one needed to know about his character. To render him toxic was their purpose.

That mode was poison when reserved for cabinet nominees; it is poison when applied to journalistic hires; and it will be poison if, next week or year, it comes for you.

Already has!--interjects Daisy.

Insofar as opinion journalists indulged in it, the mode is also a professional failure. The best illustration of why that is so requires reading a 2015 post by Williamson where he reflects on his “unplanned” conception by parents who chose to give him up for adoption. “It is not as though I do not sympathize with women who feel that they are not ready for a child,” he wrote. And later, he added, “It is impossible for me to know whether the woman who gave birth to me would have chosen abortion if that had been a more readily available alternative in 1972. I would not bet my life, neither the good nor the bad parts of it, on her not choosing it.”

A journalist plumbing the depths of Williamson’s personal archive with the intention of fully informing their readers would surely note that context in their renderings.

How many who dragged him noted it at all?

And then the termination: I worry that the firing was a failure of “the spirit of generosity,” a value that The Atlantic has long touted as a core value. I know that it raised thorny, unresolved questions about what exactly is verboten at the magazine. I fear that it will make it harder for the publication to contribute to the sort of public sphere where the right and the left mutually benefit from fraught engagement. And I expect that many of my colleagues will bear the burden of being dragged in ways that opportunists on the right and the left will now take to be effective.

Finally, I worry that the dragging and the firing were failures of tolerance.

That virtue is unfashionable these days. And I believe that those who minimize, dismiss, or reject it underestimate its value and the potential consequences of its atrophy, even as many who value tolerance have lost the words or the stomach to defend it.

I have not.

Read the rest, it is well worth your time.

And practice saying this with me: more speech, not less.

More, not less. MORE. NOT LESS.

No opinion or POV should ever be suppressed--it will simply return in a far more angry, unmanageable and fanatical form.

David Kulma Is Running for Congress in South Carolina!

Citizen Kane wins five primaries

Donald Trump swept the Republican primaries last night... and all I could think of was Hedley Lamarr, and the evillll for which he stands.

Yes, the Trump campaign makes me think of BLAZING SADDLES. Lots and lots of similarities.

Links:

Donald Trump Declares Himself 'Presumptive Nominee' After Tuesday Wins (NBC)

Trump sweeps GOP races (CNN)

Donald Trump completes sweep of five northeast states (USA Today)



~*~

I didn't post on this blog for quite a long time, and in the meantime, stored up a few stray links to discuss later.

And you probably know what happened, right?

About half of these are gone already, especially the tweets. Must have been some hard-hitting, gotcha tweets, for me to make a quick footnote of them. And now they are gone.

Dear Radicals, as I said two days ago, GET A GRIP! Citizen Kane and the Twilight Days of Empire await us. Stop feverishly erasing whatever it was that desperately needed to be said. STOP BEING AFRAID! Charles Foster Kane is who you need to be afraid of right now, not some damnable tweet that might have been heavy-handed, might have hurt some liberal's feelings. (Or worse, brought out the attack dogs.)

To sum up: Whoever deleted that tweet is not someone I want in my radical cell. If you are afraid of the consequences of a tweet, you are not going to be there when they start rounding people up, you will be out hiding in your shed or under your SUV. Count on it.

This is serious, people. THIS IS SERIOUS.

[Aside: See how it is? I eventually devolve into a hysterical splay of capital letters and explanation points because... what else can you say? How do we get the suburban white kids to panic? Take away all the phones?]

~*~

Other links of note:

[] Written during the 2012 election campaign, this post is now more pertinent than ever: Rethinking how we think about voting. THIS MEANS YOU!

[] Suzanne Vega found her old letter from Prince. (sigh)

[] Ted Cruz, John Kasich join forces to stop Trump. A day late and a dollar short, guys.

Speaking of old letters, I wish I had saved the nasty note I once received from Kasich, back when he was in congress and I was a born-and-bred citizen of the great state of which he is now governor. I wrote to him first and I was nasty, he replied and he was nasty right back, and we understood each other just fine.

I never dreamed he would be governor, let alone run for president.

My advice: Save those nasty letters from even the low-level politicians, kids! They could be worth something someday!

[] The diversity rally I tried to avoid, but in this town, I am spotted everywhere I go. Really.

Sometimes I wonder what life might be like in a really BIG town.

[] What you need to say to the smug atheist liberals who assure us religion is on the skids and down for the count: Not so fast.

Please understand, when they dwindle to "the remnant" -- that is exactly when they will fight like hell. And perhaps that is exactly what is happening right now.

Who among you, like me, grew up on the Christian term REMNANT? It was considered a compliment; the diehards who stay loyal until the Second Coming... and do you get it? They WANT to be The Remnant!! Looking around and deciding they are the legendary REMNANT will crank them up like nothing else you can imagine. They will REMNANTIZE the entire discourse, with Armageddon, the Rapture and the Tribulation right around the corner.

And see, here's the thing: they will MAKE Armageddon if they have to.

They will PUT US ALL through the Tribulation, my friends. (Does the term SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY mean anything to you?)

Fight them from within (as I once tried to do) or fight from without, but fight. Armageddon is an evil concept, and we must fight it that way. Accuse them of wanting to start it themselves, which I've learned, DOES make them blink and hesitate for a second.

Because I am sorry to tell you, its true. They can't wait for the endtimes war. Its behind everything they do.

~*~

Postscript/Obit

I lost a treasured friend right before Thanksgiving... in fact, right as I was getting ready to pick up this blog again, she passed away. Her death hit me hard and I once again dealt with acute writer's block.

I wrote a few words on tumblr, with photos. I always tell everyone that one of the worst aspects of aging is losing your friends, your teenage idols, your neighborhood, etc. Even though inevitable, it deeply hurts; what Buddha called "the suffering of change" (vipariṇāma-dukkha).

Tricia Earle always encouraged me and thought I was creative; she gave a generous speech/introduction for me once, and presented me with my 10-year AA chip. I realized, in reading the Facebook pages about her: not everyone knew she was in AA. After all, its supposed to be anonymous, and everybody isn't like ME, broadcasting all their innermost secrets to the world. I therefore didn't know if I should mention our friendship or not. Finally I decided, yes, I would. "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions," but it does not extend beyond death.

And what I needed to say about Tricia was also about Alcoholics Anonymous itself.

Tricia, whose last name I didn't know for years, came from an elite old-South family. And I didn't know it. ME, the ultra-class-conscious socialist who can ferret out Harvard posts online... I did NOT KNOW she came from THE EARLES (there is a street here named after her family). She did not in ANY WAY act like she was elite, and this was the power of AA. We were "all in it together"-- and just as the homeless and poor are part of that deep, blood-brotherhood fellowship, so are the rich, so are the famous. When AA works correctly, when people are working the program correctly, you shouldn't be able to tell who the rich people are.... and I couldn't tell.

This means she did it right.

This is the greatest thing I can say about her, the highest compliment I could give her.

And you know what? She would hands-down agree with me. :)

Rest in peace, dearest one.

The Margaret White award for zealous Christian witness goes to...

Yes, you know who it is.


BOB JONES UNIVERSITY!



Specifically: Stephen Pettit, head flunkie in charge.


Back when Pettit "took over" BJU (and as we see, he didn't really), I wondered aloud if this was going to be a Soviet-style puppet regime with the Jones faction still running things behind the scenes, or if Pettit might really be an improvement.

Alas, now we have our answer. (I wonder where they put the gulags? Wait, getting ahead of myself.)

First, let's have the AWARD CEREMONY.

Stephen, you have hereby been SELECTED for Dead Air's very first and highly coveted MARGARET WHITE AWARD FOR ZEALOUS CHRISTIAN WITNESS. As one not permitted to peruse popular culture (although I know you secretly do), you will undoubtedly feign ignorance and pretend you never heard of the infamous Mrs Margaret White. Well, I have a quick tutorial below. Let's just say, the Mrs Whites of the world do not waste time with politeness and southern pleasantries, they just get it done, people.

Mrs White, the famous Mrs White. The one who uttered those immortal lines, I CAN SEE YOUR DIRTY PILLOWS!

I refer to legendary actress Piper Laurie, Carrie White's mother, one of Stephen King's most amazing, enduring and (as we have learned from the Jones boys) REALISTIC inventions.



Eve was weak! Eve was weak! SAY IT!

~*~

I don't have the time or patience to delve into the theological question of whether Christianity is misogynist at base. That particular case was already made a long time ago, by Mary Daly. Is there even the possibility of respect for women in a religion that constantly reminds us EVE WAS WEAK? The Biblical literalists are among the most deeply-sexist of Christians, because after all, it IS right there in the text. They didn't make it up. Mrs White is offering the interpretation that I basically grew up with, only she's doing it with ZEAL. And hey, aren't all Christians supposed to witness with ZEAL??? Because (I wish I had a dollar for every time one of them SPAT this one out at me): IF YOU ARE LUKEWARM, HE WILL VOMIT YOU OUT OF HIS MOUTH (and ohhh how they love that verse.)

The G.R.A.C.E. report, about the treatment of sexual abuse survivors at BJU, came out late last year and laid out BJU's sins in detail. The Greenville News (finally!) excoriated them on their editorial page (its only taken 67 years!) and the internet was abuzz with accusations and counter-accusations. I deliberately took a hands-off approach, because I have tried hard not to join the nasty internet habit (that I once had) of kicking people when they are down. That ain't nice, I decided. Give peace a chance! And so I did.

About a week later, I drove past a BJU-affiliated church here in town (they got dozens of em), amusingly positioned right across the street from some "liberal" (compared to BJU) Baptist church... and the marquee on the "liberal" church just read, simply: GRACE.

I instantly recognized this as an in-your-face gesture. Obviously, these liberal Baptists didn't expect SHIT from BJU. Hm, I thought... these Baptists know the BJU-people far better than I do. And I decided this was NOT a good sign.

The liberal Baptists called it. Credit where it is due.

Stephen Pettit has finally spoken. Its mostly in the Christian vernacular, so some of you may have trouble understanding it. I will therefore translate into standard American English that you will easily understand:

FUCK YOU.

Yes, that is the gist of Pettit's speech, one long, gooey preacher-boy, grinning FUCK YOU.

I have not actually decided if this is one loooooong fuck you, which would be FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOU!!!!! -- or is it a series of small, nasty little fuck yous?

Make no mistake though. It is a big, giant, brazen, nasty, vicious FUCK YOU.

Amen.

~*~

G.R.A.C.E. stands for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.

I like the acronym and the name, because it reminds me of one of Christianity's greatest moral strengths: in humbling ourselves to admit our faults and face our mistakes, we are granted grace. Everything changes, everything is made new. It takes GRACE to admit you are wrong, GRACE to admit you need help. And in doing so, the light dawns, the clouds clear.

The old hymn AMAZING GRACE sums it up: I was blind but now I see.

In other words, preacher Pettit, you had an incredible opportunity given to you, an opportunity for what you claim to want: GOD's GRACE. This was your chance. You could have stood up, taken a deep breath and apologized. You could have. I was hopeful that this crisis might make a lasting impact. Like we used to say in Alcoholics Anonymous, you were provided with a priceless, clear MOMENT OF CLARITY. These moments, these realizations are usually regarded as GIFTS from God, in most religious traditions. This is the meaning of the acronym G.R.A.C.E., which I thought meant you might actually PAY ATTENTION this time, and do the right thing.

Ha. Dream on.

In the weeks that followed the release of the report, The Greenville News talked with one of the survivors, blogger Cathy Harris. I was so profoundly disgusted by this article, I went on the radio and announced the Margaret White award was imminent, and I would be taking nominees. "But so far," I said, "there isn't any contest."

WHAT made me decide on Margaret White?

THIS PASSAGE:

[BJU counselor Jim] Berg also asked whether [Cathy Harris] felt any pleasure during any of the [childhood sexual] abuse and, if she did, she needed to repent, she said.

During one session, she said Berg told her he wanted to do a trust exercise. He pulled a rat trap from his desk, set the hammer and put a pencil on it. The trap broke the pencil into pieces.

She said he then told her to put her finger on the trap. When she refused, he got angry and put another pencil in. The trap did not snap shut.

If she couldn't trust the people God put over her, how could she trust God? she recalls him asking.

"I kept being told how unspiritual I was," she said.

The counseling ended when he told her he couldn't help her and God couldn't help her either.

"His counseling was more harmful than the abuse," she told The News.

In his interview with GRACE, Berg acknowledged that his counseling was often hurried due to his heavy workload and that he did not have extensive training in counseling sexual abuse victims. He said he did not know until 1992 that South Carolina had a law that required certain professionals, including educators, to report abuse, despite the law having been passed in the 1970s.

Really? Because *I* knew, and I think most people know, due to LAW AND ORDER SVU reruns... which I forgot, they are not allowed to watch over there.

That finger-in-the-rat-trap game is something worthy of Carrie's mom, doncha think? (ASIDE: Cathy, if this scene ends up in a horror movie, as it surely will, you could probably sue for copyright violation and make some bucks.)

This passage, Cathy Harris' harrowing horror-movie counseling session, is like Bette Davis serving Joan Crawford a rat for dinner in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE; it is definitely in the same neighborhood as Margaret White yelling that Eve was weak! Eve was weak!

~*~

Stephen, if you ever want this done up properly, let me know. We might be able to take some donations and rustle something up, like a plaque, certificate or whatever, you know, for your wall. I am sure you are proud of this award and will want to show everyone, so I will do my best to make it pretty. I mean, you do want to impress your new right-wing politician friends, doncha?
Congratulations!

Just remember something.

The end of the film instructs us: "Carrie White burns in hell."

And whose fault was that? Will Margaret White burn there too, for driving her daughter crazy? I think that's an easy call, even for you.

Take heed and repent, Pettit.

~*~

Warnings for graphic violence, probable heresy and so on.



You knew I couldn't resist posting that... dirty pillows at 20 seconds!

~*~

NOTES

1) Please see Camille Lewis' refutation of Pettit's lies/fuck yous. As usual, Camille is the go-to on this subject, as one who knows where all the bodies are buried.

2) All photos in this post are from THE ORIGINAL Brian DePalma version of Carrie--except no substitutes, especially inferior remakes of perfect horror movies.

Unbelievably, I started writing this just as AMC decided to show CARRIE, which I take as a sign of divine intervention, just so I could get some good shots.

Ain't gonna study war no more

All my life, I have been listening to justifications for war. All my life.

Constantly, whether acted upon or not.

I realized, driving down the road today... this is not the experience of non-Americans. And I was suddenly starkly jealous of all of you. It must be nice to live in Brazil or Nepal or Paraguay or Iceland or Canada or someplace where your country's population and artillery-soaked media is not always always always talking about the need for military intervention in some area of the world most people have trouble locating on a map.

My God, I am so tired of it. I am weary. I am also SICK over the fact that innocent civilians have already lost heat, water, food, roads, medicine, the necessities of life, all because I have a cowardly president afraid to stick to his bullshit lying campaign promises. And let me tell you, with ONE exception ((waves to the peanut farmer from Georgia)), I have had that same exact damn president ALL MY LIFE. Yes, totally interchangeable presidents. We always think THIS ONE (dubbed President Hopey Changey by witty blogger Lotus) is gonna be the one to NOT act like the others. We always think THIS ONE will be better. Somehow, in some way better.

HAHAHA, yeah I was taken in, as this blog makes clear. I have considered deleting my entire blog out of sheer embarrassment, but then, that would be unfairly presenting myself as someone smarter than I was, less gullible than I was. Instead, I was someone A HALF-CENTURY OLD, yet I nonetheless believed the okey-doke, even after I had already seen decades of lying American presidents. There can be no excuse, except that yes, I was operating on HOPE. My HOPE VALVE was on automatic pilot, cruise control... I wanted so desperately to believe.

And now, I see. I see clearly.

I have talked about strategic voting many times on this blog. And with that in mind, I can't say I will never vote for Democrats again. Certainly, here in South Carolina, that would be utterly suicidal. The Republicans hate poor people and openly seek to eradicate us. I can't trust them. We are left with inferior choices in this election year, as we so often are. Why won't the good people run for office? Why do decent ordinary working people vote for politicians who openly despise them?

And why do they promise peace when they intend no such thing?

I am heartbroken and distraught. This attack on ISIS is bullshit to make Lockheed Martin and the other endless munitions makers and military contractors staggeringly rich. I don't believe anything the media tells us; I often wonder if Americans are now as cynical as the citizens of the late-stage Soviet Union were, as the stories we are given change every day, even several times a day.

Lotus, linked above, provided an amazing quote from George Orwell... as always, timely as ever:

Every war when it comes or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

Yes.

And to the media-pundit hacks like David Gergen and the others? When are you enlisting? You were not in Vietnam, you were working for RICHARD FUCKING NIXON... so tell me, WHEN ARE YOU ENLISTING FOR THIS WAR YOU SO ENTHUSIASTICALLY EXHORT US TO GET INVOLVED IN? If I hear another made-to-order Harvard/Yale "pundit" or "expert" (translation: a well-trained media toadie/lackey, who promptly reports whatever they are told to report) from the cushy white suburbs say "Right on!" about poor and already-exhausted rednecks, blacks and Latinos doing another tour of duty in the silos pushing buttons on people, I will SCREAM and SPEW... which is one reason I finally turned off the cursed television. I can't stand to hear their lying filth one more minute.

I am meditating, and I am thinking of all the other people not able to meditate, as their homes fall around them.

All I can say is: I am sorry, Syrian sisters and brothers, my fellow humans.

I was not consulted on your fate when they decided to tax my money to make bombs to destroy you. In fact, I was lied to and told that my votes might even prevent that. And I was dumb enough to believe, since I did not know what else to do.

Please forgive me.

Mistake of the year, and other talk radio revelations

Daisy listens in earnest to one of our radio callers at WOLI studios in McAlister Square, home of the redoubtable Occupy the Microphone.

Yes, pardon the cheesy Xmas mom-shirt. I was trying to deck the halls and all like that. It used to be my daughter's shirt when she was young, and her grandmother has a Christmas video of her playing the clarinet while wearing it. Christmas nostalgia! (((sheds predictable mama tears over her baby being all grown up now)))

I therefore find it impossible to get rid of, and I usually end up wearing it at least once every yule season.

~*~

I hate to admit when the Consigliere is right, but yes, he is.

Gregg thought we'd get lots better at the radio thing, by doing the show every day, and we have. Practice makes perfect, and it really has made a huge difference to do the show daily for drive-time radio (LIVE AT FIVE!). The main thing: I am no longer afraid. I am often at a loss for words (what? me?) but that's the great thing about having two co-hosts: they bail me out with regularity, and I do the same for them.

We now have time to cover all the news that isn't fit to print (and subsequently gets ignored, especially around here), and we are committed to doing it from a lefty political perspective. Although Double-A is our resident Democrat, we don't hold it against him. We are determined to make a Green Party member of him, yet!

Ours is the only left-leaning talk radio show for hundreds of miles.

I am SO PROUD of all the guests we have had on the show over this past year, both in person and as callers. Some of our guests include: Reverend Pat Jobe (who wrote a really good novel that you all should read!); journalist Alexa O'Brien (who covered the Chelsea Manning trial); Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping; Sheila Jackson of MoveOn, an official health care navigator; Jasmine Lowrance of Inspirational Wisdom; Mary Olsen of Nuclear Information and Resource Service; SC State Senator Karl Allen; Greenville City Council candidate Teresa Slack; Reverend Jack Logan of Put Down the Guns Now, Young People; the amazing Cynthia McKinney (Green Party presidential candidate, 2008); Lucia McBath (mother of Florida-SYG victim Jordan Davis); Amy Parham (mother of suspended autistic student Rhett Parham); Ralph Poynter, husband of political prisoner Lynne Stewart; Jill Stein (Green Party presidential candidate, 2012); Dr Margaret Flowers; the legendary Sylvain Sylvain (((fangirl scream))); the legendary John Sinclair (((more fangirl screams))); Amelia Pena, discussing domestic violence and outreach programs in SC (our state was recently ranked #1 for number of women killed by men per capita); Jess Bayne, one of the organizers of the local March Against Monsanto; our governor's famous ex-boyfriend and popular conservative blogger, Will Folks; local internet-pop star Brandon Hilton ... and countless others I have missed and I'm sure I will probably have to edit in later.

These folks are in addition to our regular guests, Black Talk Radio Network powerhouse Scotty Reid (our fabulous online producer), local activist Traci Fant, the terribly-centrist 'voice of reason' Eric Wood, wonderful Liz Anderson-Smith (of York County Greens) and Malcolm X Center for Self Determination's Efia Nwangaza.

Thank you to everybody who has taken the time to talk to us and our listeners! WE LOVE YOOOOOOU!!! (blows kisses)

~*~

On or around World AIDS Day, one of our guests was Tracey Leigh Jackson of Piedmont Care, which provides local resources, prevention and treatment for HIV. (HI TRACEY!) After the show, we chatted a bit and suddenly, everybody in the studio was peppering her with sex-questions, LOL. She promised to send our engineer, Jonathan, a box of fancy (did she say they were EDIBLE?) condoms. She also mentioned lube, and I asked her if she had ever heard of Liquid Silk. She had, and promised to include samples of Liquid Silk (or something very similar in quality) in our promised box of goodies.

Sometime during the next show, or possibly a few days later, I reminded Jonathan... my mistake, of course, was in saying this during one of our commercial breaks. No, I wasn't paying attention. I have a hard time remembering how long some of the breaks are (and since our commercial breaks are of unequal length, I never remember!) ... so there I am... saying hey, some of that stuff in the box is supposed to be for ME. He said, what? I answered, Liquid Silk!

"Its supposed to be for me, so don't forget to give me the samples."

"Liquid Silk?" Jonathan wrinkles his brow. The commercial was turned up a bit louder than usual. "The lube!!!!" I shouted, and yes, we were suddenly on the air, and I was not paying attention.

I was shouting over the commercial that was playing in the studio, or thought I was:

"DON'T FORGET TO GIVE ME THE LUBE! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING THE LUBE!!!"

Yes, I am afraid that DID go out over the airwaves.

The later version was edited, so luckily, it hasn't been saved for posterity.

God knows what our listeners thought of that ... or maybe we picked up a few more?

~*~

Stay tuned, as we learn on the job! And please join us during the next year. We are LIVESTREAMING HERE every weekday, LIVE AT FIVE, and we welcome callers of all political persuasions, which serves to keep things interesting.

Studio: 864-751-0115 or toll free 864-751-0116
Listen Only: 1-559-726-1300 Participant Code: 810246#

ONWARD AND UPWARD!

Daisy's Duck Dynasty rant (from Thursday's show)

Gregg and Scotty, my amazing producers, made it into a YouTube clip! :) (The whole show is at the radio blog.)

Reflections on Jack Ruby

Depending upon who you read, Jack Ruby was a petty strip-club gangster or an important mobster-friend of Sam Giancana.







NOTE: I first wrote this in 2009 and have re-posted it every November since then. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the assassination, it seems even more pertinent and poignant.

Please limit comments to current post. Thanks.



~*~


It was November 24, 1963.

I remember that I was sitting on a footstool, my nose approximately 8 inches from my family's black-and-white TV set. If I got too close, I couldn't see anything, but I was intent on getting just as close as I could. I wanted to see it all.

It was Sunday morning, and I remember well the hubbub of the adults in the kitchen. I was the only one in the small dining room that served as our TV room. I heard the TV-news announcer say that Lee Oswald was going to be transferred in an armored vehicle. I didn't know what an armored vehicle was, but it sounded awesome. And yet... that little guy? As a six-year-old, I was surprised that such a skinny little guy could be the villain of the hour. I had expected the president's assassin to look something like Brutus, the dastardly evil man of the Popeye cartoons... or at least, he should bear some resemblance to Lex Luthor. This skinny, slight, soft-spoken fellow who calmly denied being near Dealey Plaza? Well, he was just spooky, that's all. They kept calling him a Marxist and a communist, words I didn't yet understand but knew meant that he was a bad person. (I would say the word "communist" in 1963 had the similar gravitas of the word "terrorist" in 2009.) I was enthralled by the constant TV-coverage, the switching back and forth from Dallas to Washington... to our new president, Lyndon Johnson and then back to the basement of Dallas city jail. It was as dazzling as space travel.

Middle-American culture had changed utterly and completely in only two days.

For one thing, the TV had not always been on before. You turned on the TV to watch something, and when it was over, you turned it off. Sometimes you left it on, but usually not. Among the working classes, it was not unusual for some families not to own a TV at all. There were often anti-TV holdouts in these families; cantankerous, old-school types who thought TV was all rubbish and probably unchristian. But after this weekend? This archaic viewpoint was consigned to the dustbin of history. Back in my first-grade class, I would hear about parents who had rushed out to buy a TV at long last. They simply could not bear to be left out.

The TV had been turned on, and stayed on. It was on when I got home from school, dismissed early due to the tragedy, and it was on throughout the funeral. And it stayed on forever after.

And the TV was on as they transferred Lee Oswald to the armored vehicle, or attempted to. There was much talk about security because tensions were running extremely high; there was palpable fury throughout the city of Dallas. When police had forcibly taken Oswald from the theater where they had discovered him, hostile mobs surrounded the police car, and it was said he might have been torn to pieces if the crowd had been able to get their hands on him.

Listening to all this, I was riveted. I remember peering intently as they brought him out, my nose almost right on the screen: There he is!

And then, the inevitable disappointment: such a nonthreatening little dude he was.

I peered and peered and then... bang. Oswald was down.

What?

It was so quick. If not for the firecracker-noise of the gun, I would never have known.

"They shot him!" I shouted, "They shot Oswald! They shot him!"

The adults stampeded as one entity, from the kitchen to the small dining room where I was. My mother, grandparents, some other relatives I have since forgotten... possibly my cousin Charlene.

"I SAW it!" I was shouting, "I SAW IT!"

SSSSSSSssssssshhhhhhhh! Everyone was shushing me. Had I really seen that? The adults' eyes were collectively popping. I felt pretty important for being the one to see it.

"He must be really mad about the president, huh?" I asked.

Nobody answered. They kept shushing me, as obviously-shaken news-announcers talked about what they had just witnessed.

And then, the adults were all looking at each other, that way adults did when they were thinking things that they would not share with children.

Finally, my grandfather said, in what I have come to call his Christian Science Wisdom voice: "Well, that really stinks."

My mother's eyes were wide, wide, wide.

My grandfather shook his head and said "Stinks!" again, rather emphatically. My mother nodded gravely back at him.

I didn't know what he meant then.

The TV-announcers were saying his name: Jack Ruby. The man's name was Jack Ruby.

~*~

Like millions of Americans that day, I saw a murder on live television. Because the murder was widely perceived as an act of justice, nobody worried about the ill effects on all of us children who saw it. And later, many years and decades later, when we began to doubt that what we saw was justice and instead wondered if it had been the silencing of a co-conspirator... nobody worried about the erosion of our morality and the consequential development of our cynicism.

But I trace it all back to that day, the day in the basement of the Dallas city jail.

They ask us, do you remember where you were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated? But I always ask, instead: What did you think when his accused murderer was pronounced dead? Because the silencing began then, the questions asked that will forever remain unanswered. (As Norman Mailer once explained the existence of the angry kids of the 60s: They hated the authority because the authority had lied.)

My grandfather was right. It certainly did stink. And the stench covered everything.

The lies of the powerful were uncovered and exposed before us, that morning in the basement of the Dallas city jail.

Some of us never forgot.

Some pessimism

Amazing Race lays Hanoi-sized egg

If you have ever watched "The Amazing Race" TV show on CBS network, you know the protocol. A diverse collection of two-person teams race around the world at breakneck pace, stopping at various tourist traps, landmarks and special events. At these colorful pit stops, they are usually required to participate in various contests and exercises: scaling mountains and walls and ladders into the stratosphere; dancing some intricate local tribal dances or engaging in some arcane ceremony; answering questions and quizzes about the history of wherever they are, and so forth. After they perform some telegenic activity (whilst inevitably arguing with each other about who is going to do it, who is right, etc)... they pick up the sacred clue to the next location, and off they go. The last pair to arrive at each locale is eliminated, until finally, there is one pair left, who are thereby proclaimed the winners.

Needless to say, it probably isn't easy to find distinctive, cool places to send the contestants. There is a bit of a travelogue on each show, as narrators quickly explain local history and customs, and provide interesting details, such as how many feet into the air they will have to climb, or how far away they are from such-and-such or so-and-so. It all tends to run together, so the challenge is to make each new location stand out and become uniquely interesting to the viewer.

Sometimes a locale is obviously chosen strictly for its emotional or political value, to stop viewers from getting bored and picking up that deadly remote. Or to get some drama going from the contestants' reactions to such a place.

On the March 17th show, it was Hanoi. HANOI.

H.A.N.O.I.

I was somewhat dumbfounded.

As soon as I saw the smashed-up B-52, I thought, oh shit. I saw that coming like a freight train.

And then I instantly wondered... who is working for CBS? Who is working for "The Amazing Race"? Do they not associate with regular people out here in the American heartland? Do they understand the emotional reaction to a downed American B-52 from The Vietnam War? Good Lord.

Well, John McCain did, and a bunch of other veterans did, too. The shit hit the fan in short order.

From Yahoo:

Usually, it is "Amazing Race" contestants with loose lips that stir up controversy for being insensitive, offensive, or ugly Americans while dashing around the less scenic or underprivileged countries of the world on the competition reality show. But with last week's Vietnam-based episode, it was the producers and network that found themselves on the receiving end of public backlash.

Veterans, conservative newscasters, politicians like Arizona Sen. John McCain, and plenty of the show's fans were upset that the show filmed at the site of a crashed U.S. B-52 bomber, and featured a segment where players had to listen to a pro-communist anthem being sung in front of a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and then find one of the song's lyrics in a sea of propaganda posters. Vietnam War veteran and American Legion National Commander James E. Koutz sent a letter to CBS Thursday, asking that the network apologize for "its disgraceful slap-in-the face administered to American war heroes. We only wish that the network would not be so eager to broadcast anti-American propaganda."

And yes, they got their official apology.

From the National Post:

Senator John McCain is among those who have accepted CBS’ apology for a passage on The Amazing Race where contestants visited the wreckage of an American B-52 bomber in Vietnam, writing on Twitter that the “issue is closed.”

The national commander of the American Legion, James Koutz, has also accepted the apology. Commander Koutz said said he believed it was sincere and heartfelt.

The segment aired March 17 and angered many veterans, particularly those who served in the Vietnam War. As part of its scavenger hunt game, contestants on the show had to visit the site in Hanoi, which Vietnamese authorities turned into a memorial.

Before this Sunday’s edition of The Amazing Race, host Phil Keoghan read a statement apologizing to veterans and families who may have been offended.

For my part, I continue to be amazed at the mainstream media's general cluelessness about such matters. I could have easily predicted this reaction, as everyone I know could too.

As I asked, above: WHO works for these people? Didn't anybody on the show's staff speak up and say, "Hey, ya think maybe this isn't such a good idea?"

Reflections on Jack Ruby

Depending upon who you read, Jack Ruby was a petty strip-club gangster or an important mobster-friend of Sam Giancana.







NOTE: I first wrote this in 2009 and have re-posted it every November since then.

Please limit comments to current post. Thanks.


~*~


It was November 24, 1963.

I remember that I was sitting on a footstool, my nose approximately 8 inches from my family's black-and-white TV set. If I got too close, I couldn't see anything, but I was intent on getting just as close as I could. I wanted to see it all.

It was Sunday morning, and I remember well the hubbub of the adults in the kitchen. I was the only one in the small dining room that served as our TV room. I heard the TV-news announcer say that Lee Oswald was going to be transferred in an armored vehicle. I didn't know what an armored vehicle was, but it sounded awesome. And yet... that little guy? As a six-year-old, I was surprised that such a skinny little guy could be the villain of the hour. I had expected the president's assassin to look something like Brutus, the dastardly evil man of the Popeye cartoons... or at least, he should bear some resemblance to Lex Luthor. This skinny, slight, soft-spoken fellow who calmly denied being near Dealey Plaza? Well, he was just spooky, that's all. They kept calling him a Marxist and a communist, words I didn't yet understand but knew meant that he was a bad person. (I would say the word "communist" in 1963 had the similar gravitas of the word "terrorist" in 2009.) I was enthralled by the constant TV-coverage, the switching back and forth from Dallas to Washington... to our new president, Lyndon Johnson and then back to the basement of Dallas city jail. It was as dazzling as space travel.

Middle-American culture had changed utterly and completely in only two days.

For one thing, the TV had not always been on before. You turned on the TV to watch something, and when it was over, you turned it off. Sometimes you left it on, but usually not. Among the working classes, it was not unusual for some families not to own a TV at all. There were often anti-TV holdouts in these families; cantankerous, old-school types who thought TV was all rubbish and probably unchristian. But after this weekend? This archaic viewpoint was consigned to the dustbin of history. Back in my first-grade class, I would hear about parents who had rushed out to buy a TV at long last. They simply could not bear to be left out.

The TV had been turned on, and stayed on. It was on when I got home from school, dismissed early due to the tragedy, and it was on throughout the funeral. And it stayed on forever after.

And the TV was on as they transferred Lee Oswald to the armored vehicle, or attempted to. There was much talk about security because tensions were running extremely high; there was palpable fury throughout the city of Dallas. When police had forcibly taken Oswald from the theater where they had discovered him, hostile mobs surrounded the police car, and it was said he might have been torn to pieces if the crowd had been able to get their hands on him.

Listening to all this, I was riveted. I remember peering intently as they brought him out, my nose almost right on the screen: There he is!

And then, the inevitable disappointment: such a nonthreatening little dude he was.

I peered and peered and then... bang. Oswald was down.

What?

It was so quick. If not for the firecracker-noise of the gun, I would never have known.

"They shot him!" I shouted, "They shot Oswald! They shot him!"

The adults stampeded as one entity, from the kitchen to the small dining room where I was. My mother, grandparents, some other relatives I have since forgotten... possibly my cousin Charlene.

"I SAW it!" I was shouting, "I SAW IT!"

SSSSSSSssssssshhhhhhhh! Everyone was shushing me. Had I really seen that? The adults' eyes were collectively popping. I felt pretty important for being the one to see it.

"He must be really mad about the president, huh?" I asked.

Nobody answered. They kept shushing me, as obviously-shaken news-announcers talked about what they had just witnessed.

And then, the adults were all looking at each other, that way adults did when they were thinking things that they would not share with children.

Finally, my grandfather said, in what I have come to call his Christian Science Wisdom voice: "Well, that really stinks."

My mother's eyes were wide, wide, wide.

My grandfather shook his head and said "Stinks!" again, rather emphatically. My mother nodded gravely back at him.

I didn't know what he meant then.

The TV-announcers were saying his name: Jack Ruby. The man's name was Jack Ruby.

~*~

Like millions of Americans that day, I saw a murder on live television. Because the murder was widely perceived as an act of justice, nobody worried about the ill effects on all of us children who saw it. And later, many years and decades later, when we began to doubt that what we saw was justice and instead wondered if it had been the silencing of a co-conspirator... nobody worried about the erosion of our morality and the consequential development of our cynicism.

But I trace it all back to that day, the day in the basement of the Dallas city jail.

They ask us, do you remember where you were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated? But I always ask, instead: What did you think when his accused murderer was pronounced dead? Because the silencing began then, the questions asked that will forever remain unanswered. (As Norman Mailer once explained the existence of the angry kids of the 60s: They hated the authority because the authority had lied.)

My grandfather was right. It certainly did stink. And the stench covered everything.

The lies of the powerful were uncovered and exposed before us, that morning in the basement of the Dallas city jail.

Some of us never forgot.

I know exactly what she means...

Pundits are describing 4-year-old Abigael Evans as an "internet sensation"--after her mother posted her endearing cries for mercy, correctly echoing all of our deepest feelings!

Tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney



Viewed almost 12 million times, Abigael wins the DEAD AIR prize for sincerity, during this 2012 election.

The History Project - part 1

Introduction to The History Project

A couple of months ago, I posted an assortment of old leaflets, posters, propaganda, photos and other interesting paraphernalia on Facebook. People liked it and asked me if I had any more stuff.

That is an understatement.

I'm now extending my history-recovery project to Blogdonia. This will be an ongoing DEAD AIR feature! I'm hoping that people Googling old events/people/etc, will find something here that they have been searching for. I am deliberately choosing events/leaflets that seem to have been forgotten and/or have no other online history.

This historical ephemera (etc) is being posted in no particular order, just in the order I manage to find and date it. (There is TONS of stuff buried in my cedar chest, some in scrapbooks and some in folders.) If I tried to post it in chronological order, I'd NEVER get done.

You can click on any graphic to enlarge.

And don't forget, folks: POST YOUR HISTORY! Don't just wait for someone else to do it or it might not get done.



Official WELCOME to the DEAR AIR History Project! If you're visiting here for the first time, greetings! Hope you find something that interests you.

~*~

Descriptions:

1) The cover of the widely-distributed Yippie Journal, SOUR GRAPES, published in Columbus, Ohio, 1974.

2) Program for "Haven Can't Wait: A Day in the Life of Abbie Hoffman" a play based on the Yippie-founder's life, New York City, August 23, 1978.

3) Cover of Red Tide newspaper, Detroit, MI, March 1978.

4) Poster advertising Wallflower Order Dance Collective show: Wildflower Brigade, Ohio State University, November 23, 1984

5) Poster by Citizens Against Nuclear Power, Chicago, IL, announcing protest against the Zion nuclear power plant in Zion, Illinois, Sept 29-20 1979.

6) Poster for "Women in Struggle" film series, Oakland/San Francisco, August 1981.

7) Poster for Wild Women (band) show at the Artemis Society, San Francisco, March 27, 1981

8) Poster advertising Midwest Alternative Press Convention, August 23-24, 1980, Columbus, Ohio.

9) Poster announcing Kate Millett at the "Women and Power" program series, Ohio State University, May 25, 1978.

10) Campaign poster for Jerry 'Babe' Smith, Yippie-affiliated anarchist running for mayor in Dayton, Ohio, 1980. He was a member of the band The Dates.

~*~

More history to come. Stay tuned, sports fans!

Asheville Comic Expo

... was small, but mighty. Yesterday at the Asheville Civic Center, North Carolina.

Apparently, delightful Fanaticon (photos here and here) is no more, and thus, the Asheville Comic Expo was launched. Photos below, and as always, you can click to enlarge.

Special shout-out for Kitsch and Crossbones (first photo), from whom I bought the cutest skull-pin ever... also, a special hello to Cassie Hart Kelly (second photo), my favorite artist at the Con.

Enjoy!