Song Dedications (Political)

The following song is dedicated to either George Zimmerman or the family of Trayvon Martin, whichever makes more sense to you. (And to the one commenter who I already know is going to tell me that it doesn't make sense either way... Hell with you, you don't get a vote.)




"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace, and criticize all fears... Take the rag away from your face, for now ain't the time for your fears."

That was 1964, BTW. Shame how relevant it is half a century later. If there is any justice in the world, I will not one day be re-posting this, with the caption clanged to the final chorus.

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The following is dedicated to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan - particularly the last two verses, to the last two Republicans respectively:




My hero: Harry Chapin, 1975.  Apologies for the poor quality of the audio, but this is a hard one to find.  This and She Is Always Seventeen were an additional tracks on the Live Album that were only on the 8-Track and Vinyl and were never released on the CD of that Album, or any other that I am aware of.

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Here's Seventeen:
(Admittedly it's a bit funky, but it's still damned GOOD.)




This might resonate more with my... *a-hem* older readers, so I guess this one's for them. (I have no memory even of the events that didn't happen before I was born, so... yeah.)

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Finally... One more from Harry...  This is called The Shortest Story.  And though Harry meant it to be about WOLRD hunger, I'm dedicating this to Stuart Varney of Fox "News", who recently asked of the Food Stamps program: "Can we afford this? We've got a trillion dollar deficit every year as far as the eye can see. But we want to reach out and give people food." 

No, Stuart, fuck 'em: Let 'em starve, I guess. Even as hunger and poverty levels are elevated and continue to rise in this country - my country - this guy is more concerned about the deficit, and maintaining unsustainable tax breaks for the wealthy than helping poor people.  But then that's always been the Rigth Wing trope, hasn't it? If you can't profit from a problem, just deny it exsists. Sad that it's no different from the kind of denial, ingoranc eand apathy that Harry fought against for most of his career, when he's been dead since 1981!



BTW... Putting aside any feelings you may have about our domestic issues of hunger and poverty, if you don't find this song and video heart-wrenching, then you simply aren't human.

Glenn Beck is amazing!

In the Quentin Tarantino-written movie, True Romance,  Don Vincenzo (played by Christopher Walken) explains to the soon-to-be-tortured-and-executed  Clifford Whorley (played by the late Dennis Hopper) that “Sicilians are great liars,” and that “[his] father was the world heavy weight champion of Sicilian liars.”  That may have been true in the Tarantino-verse, but I’m betting that his Don Vincenzo’s father couldn’t hold a CANDLE to the new heavyweight champion of American, Right Wing Liars: GLENN “BOOM-BOOM” BECK.

Consider this. As of earlier today, Media Matters has 4,424 items from this oracle of obfuscation, dating back to January 17^th of 2006, when CNN first hired him.  That’s exactly 1,781 days ago.  Which means that Glenn Beck has lied an average of two and half (2.48) times a day*, every day, for the past FIVE YEARS! And that doesn’t even account for the time he was off the air between his ouster at CNN and when Fox picked him up.  Now… one might say that maybe he’s not “lying,” per se, because he actually believes this stuff, or that he’s not “lying,” just really bad at research, journalism, etc…  But I’m not willing to give him the benefit of that doubt here.  Because when you rake in over $30 Million Dollars a year to talk about current events, you really should GET IT RIGHT occasionally.  If you’re paid that much, and screw up two and half times a day for five years?  You’re a paid liar, and you know it.

This past week however, Glenn Beck has truly outdone himself, both with the number of lies, the diversity of subject matter, and the absolute, utter absurdity of the claims being made.  The following are just SOME of the items from MMFA, just in past couple of days:

Here’s Beck, making things up about the Food Safety Bill,

Making things up about Health Care Reform,

Making things up about the Smithsonian,

Making things up about the Federal Reserve,

Making things up about Wikipedia,

And finally, making things up about Net Neutrality.

That last one is particularly artful/egregious, as it manages to conflate the RW distortion of the Fairness Doctrine, which was taken off the books almost 10 years before the Internet was even a thing, and their idiotic opposition to Net Neutrality which (usually) amounts to little more than “It’s a violation of their freedom of speech to prohibit them from censoring you. ”  It’s also truly amazing, when you consider the long established RW opposition to Net Neutrality, that he could seriously manage to screw up the basic premise of the issue that badly.

But then… He’s Glenn Beck.  A very good candidate to become MMFA’s very first TWO-TIME Misinformer of the year!  (He’s definitely got MY vote!)

(And no, I don’t get a vote.)

*As a point of comparison, Rush Limbaugh had only 2,953 items, dating back to 1/6/06, for an average of just 1.65 lies a day. And Rush has his own section on the website! And yet Glenn Beck is still about 50% more dishonest – by just under a lie a day, over five years – than Rush Limbaugh!  Who have thought that was possible?

The SECOND biggest problem with this country

This is related to a thread on MMFA this morning.  Was anyone ELSE having trouble with multiple posts today? It seems everthing I posted went up three times!

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A few years ago, I received one of those RW emails “proving” how stupid, un-American, etc… liberals are. It was chock full of the typical RW distortions and bullshit, to the point that few of them were even remotely memorable. But there was one that struck me, because it was something that I hadn’t ever even considered: Liberals hate McDonald’s because it succeeded where communism failed: Feeding billions of people both cheaply and profitably.


Now… I’m sure I don’t have to point out the first absurdity here: That American Liberals / Progressives are NOT, by and large, “Communists.” Nor Marxists, Socialists, etc... Also, while there are plenty of legitimate reasons to CRITICISE McDonalds, “hate” in this case would seem to be a particularly egregious exaggeration. I’m sure on most liberals’ outrage-o-meter, Micky-D’s scores somewhere between the Barbie Doll and the derogatory nature of the term, “Mexican Standoff.”

And since we’re NOT and NEVER HAVE BEEN advocating for any form of actual communism, the fact that McDonald’s (and the fast-food industry) HAS undeniably played a roll in ending hunger in this country and in many others is a reason for Liberals to PRAISE and CREDIT them! The problem here is that, as usual, conservatives have no sense of moderation; no sense of balance. They think that if “cheap food” is GOOD, then MORE food, even CHEAPER, must therefore, always, be better.

Goodbye, widespread hunger. Hello, obesity epidemic.

And so here’s my second entry in the “What’s wrong with this country” category:

You can get a 7-Layer Burrito at Taco Bell for $0.99.

The 7-Layer Burrito has:
510 Calories (over 25% of the daily allowance for a 200 Pound male.)
68 Grams of (mostly refined) Carbohydrates (50% of your day’s supply normally, 340% if you’re on a low-carb, weight loss plan, as I am.)
6 grams of Saturated Fat (30% of the recommended daily allowance)
1420 Milligrams of Sodium (60% of the recommended daily allowance)

…all that yummy goodness for only ONE DOLLAR. Not bad… if you’re otherwise broke and starving to death, but any objective look at the numbers will find that, if anything, we’re well into the opposite problem by now.

Meanwhile, 5 Red Bell Peppers, which contain more Vitamin C per Calorie that an Orange will cost you around $9.00. Think about that: One single pepper, good for you yes, but hardly a meal, will cost you almost TWICE what Taco Bell’s “saturated fat, wrapped in refined carbs” does. Another example: One English cucumber costs about $2.00. And granted, I can buy a regular cucumber instead (bleh) but think about that for a moment… How can one, single vegetable cost more than a PREPARED “meal?” That’s a victory for industrialized snacking perhaps, but it’s no wonder why so many Americans (certainly myself very much included) need to eat more fruits and vegetables!

The free market might not let us starve to death, but when we’re all getting triple bypasses we can’t afford, we might well advised to spend some of our recuperation time rethinking what a wonderful fix-all the free-market REALLY is.

PS: I really don’t have the answer to this problem. There’s no simple solution that I am aware of. I’m merely observing that when slowly killing yourself costs ONE dollars, and eating healthy costs TWO (just for the Peppers and Cucumbers, mind you: we’re nowhere near a MEAL yet!) something has gone seriously awry.