Ignorant Racist Dolt Follow-Up

You may recall, back in early July, there was a jarring news report of a suburban Philadelphia, all-white, private club that made a deal with a local camp (which the camp paid some big moola), to allow their day campers to use the private clubs' swimming pool.



We had it here with "Instant Racist Ignorant Dolts - The Valley Swim Club"

Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change the Complexion" ... Campers sent packing after first visit to swim club

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

But, wait, it gets worse ...

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

There has been some action in this case;

State rules Montco pool discriminated by banning campers

A state investigation found that a Montgomery County swim club racially discriminated against 56 African-American and Hispanic children in June when it revoked an agreement to allow a Northeast Philadelphia day camp to use its pool after the children' first visit.

"The racial animus . . . and the racially-coded comments" by club members at the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley were the reasons the club revoked Creative Steps Inc.'s contract, according to a 33-page report by the Human Relations Commission and released tonight by an attorney who represents four of the campers.

The Human Relations Commission report examined Valley Club leaders' actions, including members' e-mails, both before and after the Creative Steps trip to the pool.

Of course, the club says everything has been blown out-of-proportion, and will appeal the finding, and $50,000 fine.

But wait, there's more!

Additionally, the report noted that when Valley Club tried in 2009 to expand its membership by recruiting in areas outside its township - Lower Moreland, which has a 0.8 percent black population - mailouts were "mainly directed at areas with overwhelmingly Caucasian populations" including Rhawnhurst, Fox Chase and Churchville.

The more-diverse townships of Cheltenham and Abington, like other nearby areas with "significant African-American populations," the report says, were passed over.

And, there's this gem in the report

When the children were at the pool, one child recognized member Michelle Flynn, who is a teacher at Laura H. Carnell Elementary School, and reported that she said, "What are all of these black kids doing here?"

After the campers left, the report said that one club member threatened to rethink his membership and that e-mails circulated about the matter.

We'll have to update the plaque in our Ignorant Dolt's wing, to include the teacher.

Editor's Note ... Homefront, Again

Good Morning Garlic Fans

A note as to the lack of posting yesterday.

Another homefront situation pulled us away from the computer.

So, were putting up two posts written early yesterday morning (more were planned), and it is undetermined if we can get anything else up today.

So, check back and, as always, mucho thanks for visiting and reading The Garlic.


Herbie Hancock - Jazz Fusion Cantelope Island

This Date ... On The Garlic

24 September 2008... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things John McCain Will Do Friday Evening, Instead of Debating Barack Obama

"I'll Try To Find You Some, and Bring'em To Ya ..."

Palin PBS Poll Being Stacked

Wall Street Chieftains ... Watch Your Back!


24 September 2007... On The Garlic

Breaking News! Confusion, As Ahmadinejad Claims He's Enrolling In Columbia, Wants "Campus Life Experience"; State Department Says No Defection Or Asylum Requested; Levi's and Girls Gone Wild Videos Factor In Iranian President Decision


24 September 2006... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

Mr. Powell? ... Ms. Coulter is here to see you ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll


24 September 2005... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

This Date ... On The Garlic

23 September 2008... On The Garlic

Some More Heads To Be Pulled Out of Asses


23 September 2007... On The Garlic

Retro Garlic ... The Wheels On The Bicycle Go Round and Round ... Round and Round ... Round and Round ...


23 September 2005... On The Garlic

White House In Disarray; Bush Torn Between Visiting Texas or New Orleans; Aides Arguing; VP Suggests To Pack Guitar and Head Again To San Diego; Rove Pushing 'Pro-Active' Disaster Appearances

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Bill Frist Sold His HCA Stock Before It Tanked

Autumn Leaves

Happy Autumn!



We didn't need the calendar to know the season is changing, based on the cooler weather sweeping in (especially, at night), and having to slosh through fallen leaves, and crunch the squirrels discarded acorn shells, as we walk down the street.

Wikipedia tell us that;

Autumn (also known as Fall in North American English) is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, usually in late March (southern hemisphere) or late September (northern hemisphere) when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier.

n theory, astronomically, the equinoxes ought to be the middle of the respective seasons, but temperature lag (caused by the thermal latency of the ground and sea) means that seasons appear later than dates calculated from a purely astronomical perspective. The actual lag varies with region, so some cultures regard the autumnal equinox as "mid-autumn" whilst others treat it as the start of autumn (as shown in the above table).

Autumn starts on or around 15 September and ends on about 20 December in solar term.

And of course, darkness comes much earlier (not quite as bad as Monty Python had it - ""I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed")

You can also check thing out with Equinox

Or Joan Morris, at Mercury News, and her "Autumn bliss: 10 things we love about the fall"

So, as you tool around on this First Day of Autumn, here's a soundtrack to rustle some leaves with;

Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley - Autumn Leaves



For a little international flair;

Edith Piaf - Autumn Leaves (Les Feuilles Mortes)

And two favorite artists we could listen to all day;

Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves

Barney Kessel - Autumn Leaves (1979)

This Date ... On The Garlic

22 September 2008... On The Garlic

A Night At The Wall Street Meltdown

Happy Autumn!


22 September 2007... On The Garlic

Bill O'Reilly Exclusive! Black People Go To Restaurants ... And They Eat!


22 September 2006... On The Garlic

Garlictorial: Cut ... Print ... That’s A Wrap...With Compromise Scene In The Can, Midterms On The Horizon, It’s On To The Next Fabricated Crisis


22 September 2005... On The Garlic

Talk Host Hannity Starts Blame Game On Jet Blue Incident; Lambastes Nagin and Blanco; Cites Stranded Passengers; "Where Are The Buses!"

Top Ten Cloves: Signs That It Is The First Day of Autumn In The White House

Irving Kristol, Godfather of Nepotism

I suppose that Irving Kristol cashing out during the Obama Presidency was just bad timing.

Had he passed during The Bush Grindhouse days, where they adopted the Neonitwism Papa Kristol drew up (expanded and bastardized by his son, Little Billy Kristol), they likely would have given him a State Funeral, complete with a 21-Country Invasion-and-Occupation salute.



Papa Kristol died last Friday, and you could have found numerous posts heralding him as a "thinker", and "intellectual".

Perhaps, or just he created the space, with a few tablets from the mountains, that spawned the Right Wing Freak Show, giving birth to the Flying Monkeys of today.

Then, again, reading Steve Clemons' "Irving Kristol Dies: How Will the Neocon Church Now Divide?" has me thinking that, forget neoconservatism, Papa Kristol was the Mother Monster of ''Alien', as he writes about Neoconservative scholar and author Francis Fukuyama, who he says learned "at the knee of Irving Kristol" but was embroiled in a food fight with the newer, younger neonitwits, like Charles Krauthammer.

Fukuyama said, as I recall, that he didn't need lessons from Krauthammer on what neoconservatism was all about. In fact, Fukuyama felt that what Krauthammer and some others were writing and speaking about Iraq contradicted neoconservative perspectives. He said that he and other neocons used to criticize government's hubris for thinking it could change school test scores in Anacostia -- and now some of these same people were arguing that America could easily generate social outcomes in Baghdad.

In other words, Fukuyama was intimating that the Iraq escapade was a violation of everything Irving Kristol taught him and stood for.

This vignette is important because I think that a number of leading neoconservatives -- including Fukuyama and David Frum as well as others like Kenneth Adelman -- never really left neoconservatism as much as the modern variant left them.

This leads me to suspect that in the wake of Irving Kristol's passing, there may be an effort to redefine an alternative version of neoconservative thinking and perspective than that which Bill Kristol and his close ally, Robert Kagan, have fashioned.

The church split with Fukuyama, but the neoconservative church may split yet again, and again.

What, Kristol's death is just going to give us a parade of bigger, louder, more dangerous, neonitwits?

And, leave it to The Washington Post to offer in its' tribute, Turd Blossom as the first voice they quote;

Karl Rove, a Republican strategist who advised President George W. Bush, called Mr. Kristol an "intellectual entrepreneur who helped energize several generations of public policy thinkers."

Through editing, writing and speaking, Mr. Kristol "made it a moral imperative to rouse conservatism from mainstream Chamber of Commerce boosterism to a deep immersion in ideas," Rove said. He also said that Mr. Kristol helped create a synthesis of Cold War Democrats and Ronald Reagan White House anticommunist hawks that influenced foreign and military policy in the 1980s.

"Influenced foreign and military policy?"

How's about hijacking it, stealing an election and installing The Commander Guy and his Shadow President to bring to life all the neonitwit wet dreams of invasion and occupation, illegal spying and wiretapping, and, of course, boner-inducing torture.

Neocirclejerks, is what they should be labeled.

The gem of remembrances, though, comes from TBogg, over on Firedoglake, tagging a piece by Paul Campos, of the Rocky Mountain News, back in January;

I once heard a recording of a BBC broadcast announcing the birth of Queen Elizabeth II of England's son. The announcer intoned, "Her Majesty has given birth to . . . a prince."

This struck me as a particularly stark illustration of how one's place in the world can be determined by the accident of birth. At least, I thought, I live in a country where it's never announced that someone has given birth to an electrical engineer or a pastry chef or an under secretary for East Asian affairs.

[snip]

On the other hand, you have the career of William Kristol. Kristol, the son of neo-conservative doyen Irving Kristol, was just fired by The New York Times, for which he had been cranking out an opinion column since last January (technically, his contract wasn't renewed).

A few months ago, my blogging colleague Robert Farley pointed out that "in the modern configuration of the conservative media machine, Kristol occupies an unparalleled central position of power . . . Right-wing journalism and punditry is absurdly nepotistic; everything depends on relationships, (and) Kristol always seems to be" at the center of these relationships.

[snip]

Which brings me to this charming vignette, courtesy of blog commenter Harry Hopkins:

"I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.

"The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.

"With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. 'I oppose it,' Irving replied. 'It subverts meritocracy.' "

Who knew he was a Guinness commercial in-waiting!

"Neoconservatism" was just a new label for nepotism?

Brilliant!


Bonus Papa Kristol Dirt Nap Riffs

Wonkette: Irving Kristol Dies

PBS: From Memoirs of a Trotskyist by Irving Kristol

Bruce Bartlett: Remembering Irving Kristol

Michael J.W. Stickings: Irving Kristol (1920-2009)

Ignorant Dolt of The Day: Ross Douthat

I was surprised, to some extent, that there wasn't a big roll out.

You know, trumpets blaring, long, ego-pumping press release.

But, no, nothing.

Only his column announced that NYT columnist Russ Douthat had jumped aboard the Bush Legacy Team, earning him a spot on the ever-growing roster of The Garlic's, Ignorant Dolts.



It was a doozy today, going well beyond the "when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade" kind-of-thing.

Douthat actually praises The Commander Guy for the disasters he created, in short, for the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Bush aces it because he escalated the war, and as to the Nightmare On Wall Street, The Ek-A-Lec-Tic Reading Guy decided to let Heistin' Hank Paulson turn over the U.S. Treasury to his old cronies, bailing them out from their own greed.

Here's some gems from Douthat's "The Self-Correcting Presidency";

But if Bush is destined to go down as a failed president, come what may, he looks increasingly like an unusual sort of failure.

America has had its share of disastrous chief executives. But few have gone as far as Bush did in trying to repair their worst mistakes. Those mistakes were the Iraq war — both the decision to invade and the conduct of the occupation — and the irrational exuberance that stoked the housing bubble. The repairs were the surge, undertaken at a time when the political class was ready to abandon Iraq to the furies, and last fall’s unprecedented economic bailout.

Both fixes remain controversial. But for the moment, both look like the sort of disaster-averting interventions for which presidents get canonized. It’s just that in Bush’s case, the disasters he averted were created on his watch.

[snip]

It’s true that Bush didn’t personally formulate the surge, or craft the bailout. But he was, well, the decider, and if he takes the blame — rightly — for what Donald Rumsfeld wrought, then he should get credit for Gen. David Petraeus’s successes in Iraq, and for blessing the sweeping decisions that Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke made in last September’s desperate weeks.

And if we give Bush credit on these fronts, it’s worth reassessing one of the major critiques of his presidency — that it was fatally insulated, by ideology and personality, from both the wisdom of the Washington elite and the desires of the broader public.

[snip]

And perhaps his best decisions, on the surge and the bailout, were made from the bunker of a seemingly-ruined presidency — when his approval ratings had bottomed out, his credibility was exhausted and his allies had abandoned him.

This is not a blueprint that future presidents will want to follow. But the next time an Oval Office occupant sees his popularity dissolve and his ambitions turn to dust, he can take comfort from Bush’s example. It suggests that it’s possible to become a good president even — or especially — when you can no longer hope to be a great one.

You would have thought some editor at the NYT would have walked the copy back to Douthat, reminding him, that "Hey, no way, Worst-President-Ever!", and give him the choice of rewriting it, or having some advertisement run in his column space.

And, if you think The Garlic is being tough on him, that Douthat isn't deserving of the IDOTD ...

From Blue Texan, over on Firedoglake;

I never thought I'd write this, but I'm starting to miss Bill Kristol.

Put another way, if I get totally wasted on smack, pass out on the couch with a lit cigarette and set the house on fire, but am shaken out of my drug-induced stupor by the billowing smoke in time for me to pull one of my children out of the conflagration -- that makes me a "good" parent not a "great" one.

Some sliding scale! And I thought conservatives opposed affirmative action.

Brad, at Sadly No;

Yeah, OK, so Bush fucked up everything he touched, but at least he had the good sense to scramble around at the very last minute while spending lots of lives and money to avert a complete zombies-roaming-the-streets type of disaster. In conclusion, Bush was a good president.

Even Glenn Greenwald, on his Twitter, weighed in;

Ross Douthat, every week: I'll explicitly renounce right-wing myths to prove I'm reasonable, then spend the whole column justifying them

Yeah, Douthat, we know that the NYT brought you in to replace Little Billy Kristol, that you are one of the young tigers of the Right Wing Freak Show (the non-screaming division), but Jesus, were you in a coma for the past 8+ years?

One thing if you playing around with this idea, over cocktails (you could always blow it off that you were drunk).

But, to run this Bush Legacy Package as your column?

Only an Ignorant Dolt would do such, and you, Ross Douthat, are today's Ignorant Dolt.

This Date ... On The Garlic

21 September 2008... On The Garlic

Handstands, Falling, and Frozen Strawberries ... A Respite


21 September 2006... On The Garlic

Good Post Alert: How George Bush became the new Saddam

Okay Decider Guy, Play or Pass?


21 September 2005... On The Garlic

NYC Braces For Moss Storm; Due To Hit Within 48 Hrs.; Bloomberg Calls For Voluntary Evacuation; FEMA Notified, Will "Do What We Can"

Top Ten Cloves; What Kim Jong il Really Wants For North Korea To Dismantle Nuclear Program

This Date ... On The Garlic

20 September 2008... On The Garlic

A Tune For The Times ...


20 September 2007... On The Garlic

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment: ‘Your hypocrisy is so vast’

Hypocrites, The Bunch of Them!


20 September 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News! Pontiff In Major Spread, Popemobile Giveaway; Oprah Lands Pope Benedict XVI For Huge Tell-All Over Muslim Flap; Either Apology or Conversion To Islam Promised In Teasers; Pontiff Turned Down By CBS News Free Speech

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Spinach Industry Plans To Overcome E. Coli Setback


20 September 2005... On The Garlic

President Accepting Blame For New Storm In Advance; Says "Not Waiting For FEMA To Screw Up"; Lights, Generators Packed For Another PrimeTime Speech

Zellweger Says Bad Salutation Caused Break-Up; Chesney's Greetings A Turn-Off; "He Didn't Get Me At Hello"

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard During The Afghanistan Voting

Must Read: Why I threw the shoe

Remember when The Commander Guy was over in Iraq, giving some kind of press conference, and the Iraqi journalist who stood up, likely knowing his fate for the act he was going to commit, threw his shoes at the War Criminal Court-Appointed President?



Muntazer al-Zaidi is his name, and he has a post up on the Guardian UK, a tremendous read, from the heart, from the perspective we have had too little of, from our own, warmongering, cheerleading Corporate media.

Why I threw the shoe - I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com

We covered it here, on The Garlic;

"Son of A Dog!"

Leave it to The Commander Guy, to go off on a "Mission Accomplished" victory lap and be greeted, as The Bush Grindhouse long propagandized, like a "liberator".

It would be fitting, especially with the Court-Appointed-President's party attempting to kill off unions, to stand by and watch Detroit sink (reprising their positions of Katrina-battered New Orleans), if the UAW workers, as well as all American, sent their old shoes to Dubya, in a symbolic gesture of supporting the sentiments of the Iraqi journalist, Muntathar al Zaidi

[snip]

I'll be waiting, watching, to see how soon The Worst President Ever makes another one of those mocking videos, ducking shoes, much like he pretended to look for WMDs under his desk.

For all the lies, the deception, the careless disregard for all things good, the White House should have turned into a veritable shoe warehouse.

Instead, our media all but got on their hands-and-knees, and fit them with velvet slippers.

With all the troops still stationed in Iraq, and the call for more troops to be rushed into Flintstonesville (aka Afghanistan), perhaps we should emulate Muntazer al-Zaidi, or, at least, in spirit, start practice whipping off the shoes and flinging them.

(H/T to Jeremy Scahill, for his Twitter post on this)

Facebook'em Danno!

I have to admit, when I checked the byline for this story, I was somewhat disappointed that it didn't originate in Oklahoma.

At least, then, it would be understandable.

This guy gets an automatic pass for an Ignorant Dolt award;

Burglar leaves his Facebook page on victim’s computer

MARTINSBURG - The popular online social networking site Facebook helped lead to an alleged burglar's arrest after he stopped check his account on the victim's computer, but forgot to log out before leaving the home with two diamond rings.

Yikes!

The dimmest of dimwits.

If this cat is lucky, he'll get this kind of jury.


Bonus Links

Facebook burglar adds insult to injury

Burglars search Facebook, Twitter for targets; Social network users post information about big ticket purchases, vacations

This Date ... On The Garlic

19 September 2008... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Names Considered To Rename Wall Street

Good Post Alert - McCain’s Bush Problem, Laid Bare ... And Bush's Third Term


19 September 2007... On The Garlic

New Garlic Song: Everything's Coming Up Iraq!

Top Ten Cloves: Ways The Iraqi Government Can Get Blackwater USA Out of The Country


19 September 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard, if President Bush and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Happen To Get On The Same U.N Elevator

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment - Bush Owes Us An Apology


19 September 2005... On The Garlic

Cheney Slated For Surgery; Halliburton Gets No Bid Contract; $26M For Operating Room Clean-up; "Can't have VP's DNA Floating Around" Says White House

New Saturday WSJ Causes Mass Confusion and Panic; Thousands Show Up At Locked Offices; Lower Manhattan Gridlocked

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard at the Emmy Award Last Night

Yeeow! Ayipioeeay! ...You're Not Doin' Fine, Oklahoma!

If they ever get around to doing that sequel for 'Idiocracy', it could be suggested to the producers to set up a casting call in our 46th state, the Sooner State, Oklahoma.



75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.

Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.

The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.

[snip]

"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.

[snip]

About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.

Holy empty schoolbags, Batman!

How can this be?

It's almost as if they have intentionally, with great purpose, avoided anything - books, magazines, television, radio, the Internet - that would remotely, incidentally, educate themselves.

I mean, even the Scottish students, in not doing well in exams, winged it;

WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland's falling exam pass rates.

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately misleading information before passing it off as their own work.

The group singled out online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows entries to be logged or updated by anyone and is not verified by researchers, as the main source of information

I might be tempted to suggest that, "Hey, Oklahoma students, get a glove, get in the game!", but I fear that may cause distress, as they get stumped on what part of the anatomy to put the glove on.

If they did bring 'Idiocracy' to Oklahoma, they would have to import Miss Teen USA from South Carolina, to take lead role, played by Luke Wilson.

On the upside of this, could be a windfall for the state, in having the most Stella, or Darwin, Award winners, for years to come.

You can go here to read more of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs Study.

This Date ... On The Garlic

18 September 2008... On The Garlic

"From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish ..."


18 September 2007... On The Garlic

Media Lobbies Vegas Court To Delay OJ Proceedings Until November Sweeps; Amicus Brief Filed; Media Caught "Flat-Footed", Need Time To Ramp Up For Doc Blocs and Cooper's Emotions

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Problems With Suing God


18 September, 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News! With DisneyBaghdad, Bush Says “Nobody Wins Hearts and Minds Better Than Disney; Disney, With Secret Contract, Working With White House, Military On Building Baghdad Moats; ‘Pirates of the Caliphate’, Other Attractions To Mask Security Measures; State Dept. Touts “DisneyBaghdad Will Pay For Itself”

Top Ten Cloves: Other Ways John Yoo Thinks Presidency Has Regained Its Balance and Is Reinvigorated

Instant Ignorant Dolts - Rick Stengel and Time Magazine

We haven't done much with Glenn Beck, here on The Garlic.

It's already satire, as soon as he opens his mouth, and we don't want to get into the daily "Look what Beck Said Now" circus.

His prodigious lunacy, long ago, granted him being grandfathered into The Garlic's "Ignorant Dolt" roster.



It would be one thing, like a major news periodical, say, Time Magazine, decided to look into the smegma that is Glen Beck, the lies, the racism, the fomenting of anarchy, and report on that, even acknowledging that the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show eat it up like happy soup.

But no.

Editor Rick Stengel has decided to do a puff, cheerleading, piece, that gives credibility to Beck's ranting lunacy by using the 'straw man" argument that the liberal left is just as bad.

Funny, I don't remember the Liberal Left foaming at the mouth that The Commander Guy wasn't a U.S. Citizen, or continually depicting him in offensive racial caricatures.

If someone has a tape of "The Cheeseburger That Sweats" (aka Rush Limbaugh - (H/T Barry Crimmins)), singing "Bush, The Hapless Honkey", get it posted asap.

Time's cover story this week, written by David Von Drehle, is "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?"

You can go read it, and it take some time, as you will have to gather yourself up off the floor, having fallen down laughing so many times, you may end up with some bruises.

Or, you can read Greg Mitchell's deconstruction of it;

New TIME Cover on Glenn Beck Ignores Facts, and Worse

I have no quarrel with TIME magazine devoting a cover to Glenn Beck -- so long as the accompanying story sticks to hard facts and harsh truths. The issue coming tomorrow, online today, sadly fails to do so in an apparent effort to woo the rightwing with a ludicrously "balanced" treatment of equally dangerous and wacko "ranting" coming from left and right.

It starts right away with a first paragraph that claims that only "liberal sources" estimated the protest crowd in D.C. last weekend as about 70,000, while conservatives say up to a million or more. Actually, virtually all mainstream media sources, along with nonpartisan factchecking organizations such as PolitiFact, cite the lower number.

[snip]

There's a scattering of extreme Beck quotes lost in many paragraphs on the money deals. And groups like Media Matters are accused of "cherry picking" the bad ones. But then, they are just part of the "rant industry" on the left. There's a long, long graf quoting Beck on 9/11 and the Freedom Towers but no mention of his attack on the 9/11 widows. It notes his assault on the Obama "czars" and "he has some radical-sounding sound bites to back it up."

Ignorance and possible racism are never raised, despite polls showing that frightening numbers of conservatives believe that Obama was born in Kenya or may, in fact, be the "anti-Christ."

There's more that Mitchell has, and, also Glen Greenwald, taking Stengel, and Time, to task in his "Time Magazine: the liberal bias of facts"

It is also rather odd that Stengel would opt to puff up Beck in this weeks' 'Time', considering, just yesterday, Salon ran with an excellent expose on Beck - "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life: Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him."

Beck is idolizing, and preaching the word of, a man who both the Republican Conservatives AND the Mormons booted out, not wanting any part of him.

If you can't cut it with either of those two, man, you gotta be so far off-the-planet, the Hubbell Telescope couldn't find you.

Mitchell offers an Update in his post;

Just got the print edition. In editor's note, Richard Stengel actually writes, "One of our jobs as journalists is to be the referee, the honest broker who sorts through the accusations and says, This is fact, and this is fantasy." Then explains that's why they put Von Drehle on Beck.

I guess Stengel hasn't gotten around to reading the Salon piece, or anything much else on Beck, and just ran with "the fantasy" stuff.

Rick, how's about being that "honest broker" next week, and place on your cover The Garlic awarding you the Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre.

You, Rick Stengel, are today's' Instant Ignorant Dolt.


Bonus Links

Jamison Foser: How Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies

John Cook: Leftist 'Terrorizer' of Children Is Now Glenn Beck's Official Portraitist

David Weigel: Time Magazine Disputes Time Magazine’s Reporting

Steve Krakauer: MSNBC Forced To Talk About Glenn Beck

Will Bunch: UPDATED: Where Glenn Beck gets his ideas

One Grey Day It Happened ... RIP Mary Travers

Somewhere, maybe in Honah Lee, or down Cherry Lane, perhaps, in grief, hiding out in the sea, Puff The Magic Dragon is shedding a torrent of green scales.

I had been working on a another post, when a NYT News Alert dropped in;

Mary Travers, a Member of Peter, Paul and Mary, Has Died at 72

An otherwise good mood turned to sadness.

Rather than continue finishing writing, I spent the next hour+ out on YouTube, listening to Mary Travers, and Peter, Paul and Mary, marveling at how iconic they were, how timeless their music is.

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72

Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died on Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and lived in Redding, Conn.

The cause was complications from chemotherapy associated with a bone-marrow transplant she had several years ago after developing leukemia, said Heather Lylis, a spokeswoman.

[snip]

The group’s interpretations of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” translated his raw vocal style into a smooth, more commercially acceptable sound. The singers also scored big hits with pleasing songs like the whimsical “Puff the Magic Dragon” and John Denver’s plaintive “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

Their sound may have been commercial and safe, but early on their politics were somewhat risky for a group courting a mass audience. Like Mr. Yarrow and Mr. Stookey, Ms. Travers was outspoken in her support for the civil-rights and antiwar movements, in sharp contrast to clean-cut folk groups like the Kingston Trio, which avoided making political statements.

Peter, Paul and Mary went on to perform at the 1963 March on Washington and joined the voting-rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965.

Peter, Paul and Mary Website

Mary Travers on Wikipedia


Leaving On A Jet Plane - Peter, Paul and Mary




Peter, Paul and Mary -Puff The Magic Dragon




Peter Paul & Mary - Blowin in the wind

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Computer Purgatory

Well there, Garlic Fans, we have to, once again, stand before you, head bowed, a bit, murmuring into our shoes, about the trials-and-tribulations we've experienced, leaving The Garlic barren of any new material.

In a phrase, Computer Purgatory.



Last Tuesday, as we were settling in, rolling up our sleeves to start pounding the keyboard, a little icon popped up, indicating that "You're computer is not fully protected".

Clicking on the small McAfee icon did nothing.

Hmmm ...

So we clicked on the larger, shortcut McAfee icon, and, again, nothing.

Went into the Program Menu, clicked the McAfee icon and - wait, you know this answer - yes, nothing ...

So that prompted about 5-6-hours of running malware and spyware scans, which turned up ... nothing.

Shutting down and rebooting - nothing

Completely turning off the computer and restarting it - nothing.

So Tuesday evening, we make the call to Comcast, batter through their evil voice-mechanized telephone system, get a live person, get transferred to the Internet Department, and then, once problem is stated, transferred to the Comcast-McAfee Department (CMD for short, going forward).

First CMD person encountered, reeking of being in a country not the United States starts running me through her script, with all the ebullience she could muster, yet you could, if you listened closely, hear the "Insert Customer Name Here", and plowing through, despite my requests to allow me to just tell her what the trouble is.

When we get to that point, I am told the problem rests with Internet Explorer (which I don't use), and I was given instructions to remove IE 8, and then (and this is the part I really liked), call the Microsoft Hotline (she provided the number, once I calmed down and ceased ranting), to get instructions on how (and where to find) downloading IE 7 (or IE 6), which she confidently exclaimed was compatible with McAfee.

On Wednesday AM, I did such, and said Microsoft Hotline person exerted themselves with Herculean muscle, pointing me to their website.

So, IE 8 removed, IE 7 downloaded and installed, reboot and, once everything is back up, click on the McAfee icons ...

Drumroll, please

Nothing!

So, back to calling Comcast (see above), live person, another transfer, and we land with CMD Person #2, also located in a country not the United States.

This CMD Person #2 wants to show me how smart he is, telling me to forget all that stuff about Internet Explorer and to read him all of the programs loaded on my computer.

A HA!

CMD Person #2 pulls the needle out of the haystack and says I have to remove Malawarebytes Anti-Malaware and SuperAnti-Spyware, as they are the culprits.

I reply that they have been the most helpful programs, removing, with ease, any trojans and other garbage ... CMD Person #2 confidently boasts the McAfee will do that ... I retort that I had McAfee and got a trojan, which prompted me to use either, or both, of those programs to remove said trojan, the one McAfee didn't get.

CMD Person #2, feeling trumped, perhaps, decides to get snide, and blames my troubles on the "Third Party Software" I use, meaning the McAfee program provided by Comcast as standard service ... I shoot back that, doesn't McAfee stand behind its' product?, prompting some verbal stumbling by CMD Person #2, and the additional instructions to also remove "Windows Live One-Time Safety Scanner" and, wait, you're gonna like this, call the Microsoft Hotline (Hey, I already have that number!) to get instructions, once removed, of cleaning up any pieces of it that may lay behind in my Registry, or other locations.

Were into Thursday now, do the removals and call Microsoft Hotline, transferred to Live Care Department, and a good souled person advised all that was needed was to go to the Add/Remove Program and remove it.

Complete that, reboot, start-up and still no McAfee, and dreading calling the Comcast-McAfee Department again, fearing further instruction from them will leave my computer looking like it went through a Looney Tunes repair shop.

So, on Friday, bolstered by a few cups of coffee, we make the call and CMD Person #3 (yes, not in the USA) gets on the line, and before he can do anything, I recount for him the above, and he's not going to shine me on.

[Note - I was remiss, in the above, on adding, that with each step, I also had to remove the McAfee program, and then, after performing the the various steps, go back out to the Comcast website and redownload McAfee]

CMD Person #3 was quite emphatic, and I thought I heard a mumble of WTF!, as I retold him the previous steps.

I was advised to reload Malaware and AntiSpyware, remove McAfee once again, run those programs, reload McAfee again and all should be fine.

That was Friday night and Saturday morning (sure enough, there were hundreds of shit files now on the computer) and once everything was done, clicking on the McAfee icon opened up McAfee

Hooray!

While we did, through all this, sneak on each day, to post the "On This Day" posts (and, the special Sept 11th one), we stayed off the computer, so as not to further contaminate the computer, so we have been terribly behind in our reading.

Additionally, we have a few things percolating on the homefront, and still under siege of allergies, therefore, we couldn't muster up the creative energy to get back on-track this weekend.

Hopefully, we can still salvage September from this sad-sack beginning and get back to business.

So, once again, thanks for visiting (remarkably, traffic has remained steady, if not slightly better) and reading The Garlic