Since, we are going to take the night off, we thought, rather than throwing up a goose-egg, as to posting (there are a few, total inane, draining stories bouncing around the World Wide Web, that we just don't want to drag ourselves into this evening) we would give a shout-out, to a local (Chelsea, MA), on his 68th birthday.
Happy B'Day Chick Corea!
Corea, the pianist, keyboard player, and composer, has performed and collaborated with the best-of-the-best, and "is known for his work during the 1970s in the genre of jazz fusion. He participated in the birth of the electric fusion movement as a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, and in the 1970s formed Return to Forever.[1]".
After all, they want to "do business with people with like-minded values,", which brought them to sponsor the Morning Joke Show, so it seems that there would be the vibe for them to get behind the AMA, to trot out Operation Coffee Cup II, and rail against the evils of "socialized medicine" once again.
The operation received support from Ronald Reagan, who in 1961 produced the LP record Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine for the AMA, outlining arguments against what he called "socialized medicine". This record would be played at the coffee meetings.
As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
[snip]
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
[snip]
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
But Wait! ... That was this morning.
This afternoon, the AMA is singing a different tune
The American Medical Association is walking back from its strong opposition to the public option ...
[snip]
But now, the AMA has issued a statement saying that it is willing to accept a public plan that looks like the private option:
Today’s New York Times story creates a false impression about the AMA’s position on a public plan option in health care reform legislation. The AMA opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally-challenged Medicare program or pays Medicare rates, but the AMA is willing to consider other variations of the public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress. This includes a federally chartered co-op health plan or a level playing field option for all plans. The AMA is working to achieve meaningful health reform this year and is ready to stand behind legislation that includes coverage options that work for patients and physicians.”
No doubt, there's a whole lot more dancing to be done to this tune.
In the meantime, the AMA is probably casting about, for the new "well known actor", to record Operation Coffee Cup II.
Hmmm ... Wilford Brimley has been doing some medical commercials ...
Or, better yet, let Morning Joke and Ms. Mika Joke do it!
That way, they can plug Starbucks at the same time ...
Well, since we left them off last week (Hey Morning Joke, Cheetos Are Made By A Successful Union Company!), after Morning Joke, and his harlequin-sidekick Mika, had some yuks over dissing Unions, the news broke that the Morning Joke Show had entered into a sponsorship with one of the biggest union-deniers across the land, the caffeinated, price-gouging Starbucks.
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- This week Starbucks announced a title sponsorship of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the first such cable-news deal in decades. But the coffee retailer's chief marketer, Terry Davenport, said the news and a morning cup of coffee just go together.
[snip]
The partnership itself appears to be the result of some schmoozing. After ongoing discussions with both General Electric and NBC, Mr. Davenport said "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough casually dropped in to a recent meeting Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was having with network executives.
"He introduced himself to Howard and said he was a big fan," Mr. Davenport said. "It kind of grew from there." Incidentally, "Morning Joe" anchors have been drinking Starbucks on air for several years. Mr. Scarborough has said viewers have been asking if Starbucks was paying for that placement for quite some time.
[snip]
Starbucks is, after all, the darling of many a liberal elite. While MSNBC is generally seen as a moderate, if not liberal, network, Mr. Scarborough is a former congressman with a conservative record. Such an alliance could cut at Starbucks' core. But for some, the partnership did not seem conservative enough. A number of commenters on StarbucksGossip.com asked why Starbucks hadn't considered such a partnership with Fox News.
During an interview on the morning show, Mr. Schultz said, "You want to do business with people with like-minded values." He added that Starbucks' model of "balancing profitability with a social conscience" may have been an added inducement for MSNBC.
Like "like-minded values"?
It would seem, then, perhaps, the Morning Joke Show union-bashing was just a coincidental welcoming gift for their new sponsor.
The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly found Starbucks guilty of illegally terminating, harassing, intimidating, and discriminating against employees attempting to unionize. Late last year, a judge ruled Starbucks had committed over a dozen violations of the National Labor Relations Act at a few New York stores. Starbucks has settled five such labor disputes in the last few years in New York, Minnesota, and Michigan, spending millions on legal fees to avoid exposing their anti-worker ways.
To make matters worse, Starbucks has led the charge on a so-called Employee Free Choice Act "compromise," joining Costco and Whole Foods to form the Committee for Level Playing Field. This Orwellian-sounding group has come up with a "third way" on Employee Free Choice, which would require 70 percent of workers to sign union authorization cards instead of the far more manageable 50 percent initially proposed by this legislation.
[snip]
Like Wal-Mart, Starbucks offers its workers low wages averaging $7.75 an hour, and Starbucks also refuses to guarantee workers set hours. Instead, the company adheres to an Optimal Scheduling policy that requires baristas to make themselves available 70 percent of open store hours just to work full time in any given week. This means low-wage earning baristas often don't have time to take a second job. Moreover, it precludes tens of thousands of Starbucks employees from working the 240 hours per quarter needed to qualify for the company's health insurance.
"In the effort to reverse this lurch beyond the farthest left fringe of previous Democratic statist urges, individual Americans have a role to play. They have to say no to GM products and services until such time as the denationalization occurs," says Hugh Hewitt. He acknowledges that this is a serious step that could hurt people currently working for GM: "But there isn't any alternative, every dollar spent with GM is a dollar spent against free enterprise. Every car or truck purchased from Government Motors is one not purchased from a private car company that competes fairly against all other car companies."
Now, Hugh Hewitt is one of the bigger Flying Monkeys out there, and it was, oh so nice, to show some empathy for the GM workers, even though he's betting on screwing them.
So, it is conceivable, that some of his smaller Flying Monkeys, and the Dittoheads that listen to El Dittohead Grande, have already, if they own one, driven their GM automobiles, or trucks, to the nearest junkyard, and replaced it with a good, ol' American-made, "free enterprise" automobile ...
In 2006, a few months before the midterm elections, conservative blogger/talk-show host Hugh Hewitt published a book on the drive for a "permanent Republican majority." Soon after, Democrats won a sweeping, historic victory, and reclaimed the majority in both chambers.
In 2007, a few months before the primaries, Hewitt published a book on Mitt Romney and the prospects of a "Mormon in the White House." Soon after, Romney blew leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and withdrew from the presidential race after a surprisingly poor showing.
In 2008, Hewitt has a new idea for a book. It's called, "How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America." There's a small problem: no one wants to publish it ...
"The book obviously presumed [a McCain-Palin victory]," Mr. Yates said, "but the theory was that her impact on this election will have a lasting effect regardless—that she's not gonna go anywhere, that she's just gonna be a figure in G.O.P. politics going forward."
The title of the book, Mr. Yates said, "went through a couple of different iterations."
At one point it was How Sarah Palin Won the Election. At another point it was How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America.
"If they were to lose the election it would have just been How Sarah Palin Saved America," Mr. Yates said. "We were trying to cover our bases depending on what may happen."
Rest easy, GM workers ... You got nothin' to lose sleep over ... Well, at least from a Hugh Hewitt-led boycott.
If we follow form, sales of GM cars will skyrocket.
The U.S. economy probably will emerge from the recession by September, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said.
“I would not be surprised if the official end of the U.S. recession ends up being, in retrospect, dated sometime this summer,” he said in a lecture today at the London School of Economics. “Things seem to be getting worse more slowly. There’s some reason to think that we’re stabilizing.”
U.S. stocks erased an earlier decline after Krugman made his comments. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index was little changed at 939.14 at 4:07 p.m. in New York after slumping as much as 1.5 percent earlier, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.36 points to 8,764.49.
Krugman, a Princeton University economist, has warned recently that the U.S. government hasn’t done enough to help the country’s economy recover. Last month, at a conference in Abu Dhabi, he said the fiscal stimulus is “only enough to mitigate the slump, not induce recovery.”
[snip]
Even with a recovery, “almost surely unemployment will keep rising for a long time and there’s a lot of reason to think that the world economy is going to stay depressed for an extended period,” Krugman said.
The unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest since 1983, partly reflecting more people joining the labor force to look for work.
[snip]
The Fed’s swollen balance sheet is “a little alarming. In the long run you really don’t want the central banks to be so involved in the business of lending,” Krugman said. “But it’s arguably necessary” even if there are questions about “where does it stop?”
Dig "U.S. stocks erased an earlier decline after Krugman made his comments ..."
Hmmm ... I wonder if Secretary of the Treasury Timothy "What's that, Lassie? (Woof, woof!!) Timmy Geithner's in the well?!!"Geithner is already formulating a plan, to intravenously feed Krugman caffeine, and then have the FCC clear a channel for him to be speaking 24/7, if his comments are going to make Wall Street jump.
A good friend hipped me to the news, yesterday, that saxophonist Sam Butera, known for his long association with Louis Prima, passed away over the weekend.
Another link to Las Vegas’ storied past was cut Wednesday morning with the passing of legendary jazz saxophonist Sam Butera, sideman to another Vegas legend, Louis Prima.
Family friends said Butera died at about 6 a.m. at Sunrise Hospital, where he had been since early January suffering from the effects of Alzheimer's Disease.
Butera, who retired in 2004, would have been 82 in August.
[snip]
The music of Prima and Butera resurfaces from time to time, played in film sound tracks an commercials. A Gap commerical in the '90s, featuring “Jump, Jive and Wail” gave Butera’s career a boost.
“Louis Prima’s true ace in the hole for 21 years was Sam Butera,” Prima’s widow, Gia Maione, said during a telephone call from her home in Florida. “I don’t care what vocalists were with Louis, his true ace in the hole was Sam Butera. Side by side, Louis and Sam kicked Las Vegas’ butt for 21 years.”
[snip]
“I really do not believe over all of these years that Sam Butera got the accolades he deserved as a tenor saxophone player,” Maione, 67, said. “I defy anyone to name someone that played better tenor sax that Sam Butera.
“From the day I got the job with Louis, before every show every night, emanating from the dressing room you would hear Sam running his scales, running his fingering, making sure his mouthpiece and reed were perfect. He was a technician beyond belief with that instrument, let alone the showman that he was. And you put those two side by side, Prima and Butera, that was it.”
She says her husband didn’t get the credit he deserved, either.
“Both of them were such great showmen and they had so much fun that people overlooked the skill because they were having too much fun,” she said.
On reflection, I now realize that, completely apart from any debate over our respective rights and completely apart from our competing views on the merits of pseudonymous blogging, I have been uncharitable in my conduct towards the blogger who has used the pseudonym Publius. Earlier this evening, I sent him an e-mail setting forth my apology for my uncharitable conduct. As I stated in that e-mail, I realize that, unfortunately, it is impossible for me to undo my ill-considered disclosure of his identity. For that reason, I recognize that Publius may understandably regard my apology as inadequate.
While President Obama went off to the Middle East, for his Cairo Speech, than on to France, for D-Day events, it was on to Paris, for some playtime, and fine dining.
Chefs at a top Paris restaurant were upset when US President Barack Obama sent his personal food taster into the kitchen to test his meal.
The incident occured at the chic La Fontaine de Mars restaurant when the President was dining with wife Michelle, President Nicolas Sarkozy and French First Lady Carla Bruni.
The Secret Service agent inspected a security-conscious Mr Obama's roast lamb and seasonal vegetables, a worker at the posh eatery revealed.
Waiter Gabriel de Carvalho, who said Mrs Obama and the Sarkozys all ate fillet of beef, added: "The President arrived with someone who tastes the dishes.
"The man, who appeared to be a Secret Service protection officer, waited in the kitchen while the chef prepared the meal for Mr Obama and his wife Michelle.
"Then he took a fork and tasted a tiny part of both meals before they were sent out to the President and his wife."
He added: "It wasn't very pleasant for the cooks at first, who are obviously very proud about their cooking.
"But they soon understood that it wasn't to test the quality of the dish, but only to ensure the food had not been poisoned in any way.
"The food tester was calm and relaxed and made light of it, so as to cause minimum offence.
"Clearly the food was fine and the president appeared to thoroughly enjoy his meal. All four of them said they had a wonderful meal and President Obama easily smoothed things over by personally thanking the chef afterwards."
Restaurant owner Jacques Boudon confirmed later: "We understand President Obama needs to have someone to test his food for security reasons. The chef understands and we are honoured at at our restaurant."
The daughter of 58-year-old George Morales wants everyone to remember her handyman father in a different way, not as a decomposed body found in a van under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on Wednesday. He'd been dead a month, in a van with four parking tickets.
[snip]
Morales' daughter said her father left their apartment in Washington Heights on May 5 in a van owned by a friend. George Morales was headed for Long Island, but he just vanished.
His daughter suspects George Morales, who suffered from diabetes and heart problems, may have felt ill, and pulled off the road for a nap. A window was cracked. The odor became overpowering. After the car was ticketed each Monday for a month, a marshal, about to tow the van, noticed a body in the back seat.
I sure hope this isn't a case, of the ticket writers, be it NYPD, a meter maid, or someone from the N.Y. Traffic Dept. - particularly, from Week #2, and after - seeing (and, no doubt, smelling) the dead body and doing a "Not My Job" thing (at minimum, they could have hit a pay phone and made an anonymous call).
I mean, you gotta shake your head, and ask, how do you not notice a body, a dead body, sitting in car?
You really have to be working at it, to want it, oh, so badly, to become an Instant Ignorant Dolt on the weekend.
I mean, you have the luxury of five days, to piss all over yourself, and spread your ignorance out, and then kick back over the weekend to bask in it, or to flail away, attempting to explain, or suppress, your shining moment of dunderheadedness.
But Ed Whelan just couldn't wait ... He had to let it explode, to shoot out of the gate, like a geyser of unfettered PartyofNoican bile.
Whelan, who is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, blogs on the Flying Monkey perch of The National Review, and, also worked in the Bush Grindhouse "From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and Departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions."
Hmmm ... Advised on "difficult and sensitive legal questions."
The building of the lies for the invasion and occupation of Iraq ... The building of the Bush (Cheney) Torture Program ... Illegal wiretapping ... The exposure and outing of a covert CIA Agent ...
On Friday, publius -- Hilzoy's Obsidian Wings co-blogger and someone I've known for several years -- had a blog post criticizing something National Review's Ed Whelan wrote. As blog criticisms go, the piece was acerbic but hardly outrageous -- Whelan made an observation about judges pondering policy outcomes, and publius referenced a Volokh item that took issue with Whelan's assumptions.
Whelan, publius said, is "a smart guy with outstanding legal credentials," adding, "He just enjoys playing the role of know-nothing demagogue." The same post referenced a quote from Anonymous Liberal, describing Whelan as "essentially a legal hitman."
So, what does our Instant Ignorant Dolt Ed Whelan do?
He writes a post, outing and exposing the identity, and employer, of publius, as well as sending him a pissy email.
One bane of the Internet is the anonymous blogger who abuses his anonymity to engage in irresponsible attacks. One such blogger who has been biting at my ankles in recent months is the fellow who calls himself “publius” at the Obsidian Wings blog.
And, this is a good one, even in his hackery, his moment of Ignorant Doltness, Whelan admits "Well, I’m amused to learn that I was wrong about publius’s lack of legal education."
Then IID Whelan goes on to expose publius, where he works, and hits on him a few more times.
TBogg gets the honors for the most descriptive post on this, saying "Bitter out-of-power wingnut welfare recipient Ed Whelan fucks up explaining a joke, gets called out on it, and then goes Full Metal Asshole ..."
Whelan responded by publishing Publius' real identity on the National Review website and sending him an email saying "now who's the hitman, you coward and idiot."
Um, it's still you, Ed, but thanks for proving it.
It's really difficult to put into words just how despicable and childish this behavior is. This is a man who was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He's currently the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And he's acting like a six-year-old.
John Cole, on Balloon Juice, points out a bit of irony, noting "Shameful, but to be expected. I mean, after all, Publius was defending a racist latina! He had it coming. Good thing Whelan heads a group that deals with ethics. That kind of experience could come in handy during a situation like this."
And, publius (we'll stay honoring his nom-de-plume), also responded to IID Whelan, in his sardonic "Stay Classy Ed Whelan";
And to be clear – the proximate cause was that Whelan got mad that I criticized him in a blog post. More specifically, he’s mad that Eugene Volokh made him look rather silly – and he’s lashing out at me for pointing that out, and publishing my name.
[snip]
As I told Ed (to no avail), I have blogged under a pseudonym largely for private and professional reasons. Professionally, I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging (particularly on politics) can cause problems. And before that, I was a lawyer with real clients. I also believe that the classroom should be as nonpolitical as possible – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts. So I don’t tell them about this blog. Also, I write and research on telecom policy – and I consider blogging and academic research separate endeavors. This, frankly, is a hobby.
[snip]
All of these things I would have told Ed, if he had asked. Instead, I told him that I have family and professional reasons for not publishing under my own name, and he wrote back and called me an “idiot” and a “coward.” (I’ve posted the email exchange below).
How often have we seen this from the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freakshow?
Have a disagreement with their dogma, they don't defend their position, they personally attack the dissenter, the person with a different opinion, a different point-of-view.
Valerie Plame is, certainly, a shining example of this
However this is a post I started last week, getting set aside with the cumbersome week we had, however, as it appeared for Memorial Day, it isn't dated, thanks to the June 6th anniversary date.
While she had a sturdy career, most readers (I presume) know Donna Reed, from, ostensibly, three specific roles;
The United States military encouraged the pinup phenomenon as a way to maintain the morale of soldiers far from home. Most of the leading pinups were established stars known for their sex appeal, in particular Betty Grable, blond hair piled high, poured into a swimsuit and photographed from behind, her face turned toward the camera with a smile. There were others: images of Rita Hayworth, Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr and Dorothy Lamour also adorned lockers, barracks walls and the noses of military aircraft.
But “Donna Reed probably came closer than any other actress to being the archetypal sweetheart, wife and mother,” said Jay Fultz, author of the 1998 biography “In Search of Donna Reed.” Since she was also slightly younger, newly graduated from ingénue roles and therefore closer in age to the average fighting man, they often wrote to her as if to a sister or the girl next door, confiding moments of homesickness, loneliness, privation and anxiety.
Reed's daughter, Mary Owen, after getting picked off in the Bear Stearns meltdown, started going through her mothers' possessions, and stumbled upon the letters, from the GI's, which Reed, astoundingly, kept (341 of them).
The soldiers wrote (some gushed) to Reed;
“Donna Reed probably came closer than any other actress to being the archetypal sweetheart, wife and mother,” said Jay Fultz, author of the 1998 biography “In Search of Donna Reed.” Since she was also slightly younger, newly graduated from ingénue roles and therefore closer in age to the average fighting man, they often wrote to her as if to a sister or the girl next door, confiding moments of homesickness, loneliness, privation and anxiety.
And, for all of her apple-pie image;
Later in life, however, Ms. Reed became an ardent antiwar campaigner, serving during the Vietnam era as co-chairwoman of a 285,000-member group called Another Mother for Peace and working for Senator Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 presidential race. In his biography, Mr. Fultz quotes her as saying that “she looked forward to a time when ‘19-year-old boys will no longer be taken away to fight in old men’s battles.’ ”
We've done a few posts on the nomination of Appeals Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor (Here, Here, and Here), noting that the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show are in a tizzy, and unloading their smears on Judge Sotomayor.
The Right is throwing every little bit of ugliness they can at Sonia Sotomayor in hopes of derailing her nomination to the Supreme Court.
They've called her a racist. They've compared the National Council of La Raza to the Ku Klux Klan. They've called her a "lightweight" and "anti-white." They've suggested she lacks the right temperament, since she's just another stereotypical hot-blooded Latina. They've even suggested she's unfit to be a judge because she menstruates.
OK, we get it, fellas. The kid gloves are off.
You can visit Presente, for more information, or to sign up and be counted.
In the event anyone ever wonder, The Garlic, here, generates $0 (zero) revenue.
While at various times (not currently), we've had a decent rating, and peak readership, the consistency of such hasn't been to the point that posting the ubiquitous Google Ads (or some other packager) would start sweeping in the dollars.
I write The Garlic, for a variety of reasons, including, for the love of it, just to keep in writing shape, to exercise the creativity, take it out for a spin, while, hopefully, being readable and entertaining.
We cross-post on various other sites (including being a Contributing Editor on Michael Stickings' The Reaction), all without seeing any moohla.
We have, in the past, made money writing, working for newspapers, magazines, both staff and freelance, and writing stand-up material.
Yet, each month, almost like clockwork, some new blog, or "social media site" sends me a fawning email, raving about The Garlic's content, and that I should join them, and write on their new blog, or "social media site".
After viewing said sites, most of the time, I reply back, and inquire as to if payment, or revenue-sharing, is offered, and always, always, the reply (if one comes), is a "No", but that I will get exposure and "plenty of links".
So, we limit our cross-posting, as last time I tried, my corner store doesn't accept "links" as payment.
All this leads up to a wonderful raving, over-the-top video of Harlan Ellison, that has been out there for awhile, detailing a request he received, for use of his material, and the expectation of doing it without payment Harlan Ellison -- Pay the Writer
Ellison is an all-time great and he’s been getting paid to write — and been famous — since before I was born. So, his, um, output is worth worth than most. But the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people out there who are willing to do all kinds of writing without getting paid. Most op-eds you see in the major papers are published free or for an insultingly nominal fee. Most blogs don’t generate enough to pay for operating expenses.
There's plenty of Garlic posts (as well as three childrens books and a screenplay) to wade through (and, we are approaching our 3,000th post), so, if anyone out there wants a writer, and can pay said writer, email me, and lets talk
