Gary, Indiana...Cesspool

I grew up in Northwest Indiana, and went to high school on the outskirts of Gary.

Gary doesn't hold a place in my memory as a particularly fun place to hang out in general...although I know that the decent people outnumber the bad and there actually are some livable areas near the lakeshore.

Somehow, I stumbled across a mention of Gary today and started reading up on what's changed in the years since I've left. I ended up kind of slumped back on my chair, here, shaking my head in pity for the people there.

Through some odd sequence of events, they ended up with a charlatan of a mayor named Rudy Clay and nothing good can possibly come of this.
I was able to dig up articles of the shady way he took office and his monkeyshines since being in office, including driving around with a security posse of his cronies (one of whom is named "The General") in a Hummer.

But, I figured, there's always going to be naysayers. Anyone can find a few signs of excess or eccentricity to poke fun at.

So I read the mayor's biography on his website. I don't think we'd tolerate this kind of disorganized writing from a grade school student! Certainly someone who takes such little care (or displays such incompetence) in the way he presents himself to the world has no business running a city.

"But Dan," you might say, "your posts here are often filled with grammatical errors, run-on sentences, non sequiturs and countless other flavors of literary skid marks!"

If you did say that to me, you'd be right. However, this site provides me an occasional creative outlet and chance to vent on things that irk me. Further, for my readers who are family members and personal friends, it provides a sort of ongoing casual conversation place for us.

But for anyone else who happens upon our conversation here, I'm basically anonymous. I don't use my last name and have never mentioned the name of the company I work for. If I were representing anyone publicly, I would take a great deal more care in the thoughts expressed here.

I'm not quite sure how I got so fired up just by reading about this mayor, but it blows my mind how a city can accept the same crap over and over again...and the only thing someone seems to have to do is throw a few "...marched with Dr. King" items in the resume.

Selah.

Tonight, at Chuckles

Woof Woof

There's no deep thought behind my posting a favorite, somewhat-less-often-played Beatles tune, Hey Bulldog, except that I just heard it on WXRT and thought it was cool. We used to go see a Dead coverband in Chicago, Uncle John's Band, who usually worked this into their sets.

Incidentally, one of two of the guys from UJB ended up being part of the backbone of Dark Star Orchestra...easily the premier Dead coverband in the country.

Okay, this is getting to be a bit too much like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Enjoy this cut from the Yellow Submarine album.

Is This Year Next Year?

Our beloved losers won the N.L. Central Division last night, moving them into the playoffs for the first time in a while.

With the Tribe also having won their division, it's at least mathematically possible that we have a most-unusual World Series match up this year.

But I'm not holding my breath.

A Movie I'll Have to See

Wes Anderson's new movie, The Darjeeling Limited, opens the New York Film Festival today.

As someone who totally digs what this cat is up to, I have been anxiously awaiting this release and can't wait till it makes it out here to the rust belt.

Anderson creates this neat little world in his movies that kind of straddles the real and fantasy worlds. One theme that seems to always carry through in his movies is the fall from grace. He pays such meticulous attention to costumes, set coloring and music that you can watch the movies over and over again, always picking up something you didn't see the first time.

I won't carry on and on about him, but will link up a very favorable review from this morning's Times.

Update>> I pulled down a copy of the trailer and also watched the short film, Hotel Chevalier, over at iTunes, which is apparently a prelude to the full movie.

Boy, Are the Catholics Mad About This

This weekend brings the annual Folsom Street Fair to San Francisco.

This is their promotional poster this year.

And, as hard as I tried to not think of a wisecrack, the caption "eat me" just came to mind...

The Great Dictator

I taught a class today at my job...something I do a handful of times a year, but this was on a different data warehouse than I'd worked on before, so I'm pretty mentally and emotionally drained...so please forgive me the rather obvious posting tonight.

When I was watching that "leader" at the UN yesterday, I could only think of one of the great sequences of all time...Chaplin in the globe scene from The Great Dictator.

Energy level should be back up tomorrow and I'm betting I'll be pissed enough about something to post.

'Night...

BillO....Mr. Multicultural

Apparently, Bill never took a flight with the jive turkeys from Airplane!

This is from his radio show the other day...I guess this is old news to hipsters like Cody, but I fell out of the loop temporarily.

And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

Bill O'Reilly...A Man for All Seasons

A Funny Picture Before Bed

thanks, Ryno...

More of Hillary's Disturbingly Fake Laugh Routine

Hillary was on all the Sunday shows this morning. Her calculated laughing routine, which she's ramped up over the course of the summer, had been grating on my nerves for some time.

I'm not the only one who finds this curious...here's a compilation of her three laugh track hits on Fox News Sunday, compiled by our amigos at HuffPo.

The Dan Rather Lawsuit Against CBS

This made me giggle...

by Jimmy Margulies

Justice Breyer...Coppin' a Feel!

This is the cover of this morning's NYT Book Review...very interesting graphic.

Billary

Hillary has learned her lessons well. She slipped in a nice little nuance in her answer to Russert's question about getting out of Iraq early on in the beginning of another Clinton presidency.

"...I will end our involvement at the levels we've seen."

This leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.

More Good Stuff

Sick of the Clinton-fest on the Sunday shows, I came across this, uh, gem.

New Feature

In a desperate attempt to double my readership up to a dozen unique visitors ;-) I'm going to dink around with something new here that interests me.

I'll occasionally put up music clips that I find interesting and cool, but am now going to make an effort to link up similarly interesting/cool/influential political speeches that I can find out there.

Most of the reason I get off on politics so much, I think, is not because of some great sense of patriotism or civic responsibility, but rather how people use their gift of persuasion to influence public opinion.

I'll include formal political speeches as well as other times when they were on camera. One that I hope to dig up is when George H.W. Bush got Dan Rather to walk off the set when he turned the tables on him.

As the first installment, I'll throw up something that I can still remember Mr. Klora teaching us about all those years back in US History, 1945-Present in high school....Veep Candidate Nixon's Checkers Speech.

Given on this date back in 1952, it predated HD-quality video by a few weeks, but it was a great leap, in some direction, when it came to the use of television in moving public opinion.

This is Why America is Doomed

This dimwitted Star Jones replacement, Sherri Shepherd, believes that the Bible is the literal word of God.

Okay, fine. I don't have a categorical problem with people of faith and other fairy tale believers.

Whoopie Goldberg, who I find myself in the unfamiliar position of defending, asked her if the world was flat. Shepherd said that she didn't know, that she'd never really thought about it, and that if her child ever asked her, they would have to make a trip to the library to investigate this cutting-edge scientific dilemma.

The issue comes in when I realize that her fat bottom is on that show for a reason...she appeals to a wide swath of the American public.

This sort of vapid approach to life, where the, "well, Whoopie, what I have thought about is how to feed my family" excuse is accepted as a catch-all rationale for not having taken the time in your life to think of any thoughts beyond how to put food in your belly is pretty disturbing.

I suppose it's nothing new, but when this sort of person is presented up there not as an entertainer to make us laugh, but as someone espousing a legitimate Viewpoint, I get scared to walk the streets...

Show Him the City

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (yes, I had to paste that in) is headed to New York this weekend, for stints at the U.N and Columbia University.

There's the predictable dust-up going on there about how much energy we should devote to securing him during his visit.

It's mostly blow-hard nonsense from the right, in this case. We choose to maintain the United Nations in New York City knowing that it comes with the price of having to act as temporary guardians to a few a$ holes now and then.

I have to say, though, if I were Nurse Bloomberg, I would take a page right out of one of my predecessor's playbooks.

In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Mayor Laguardia sent a clear message to the German consulate, which was having security concerns.

He beefed up their police protection...with a bunch of Jewish volunteers.

Any Christian who would vote for Rudy Giuliani needs to check out his or her salvation.

So says a radio/religious nut that I'd never heard of till I saw this story linked.

Bless you, my children, on this Day of Atonement.

I Couldn't Resist Posting This

While it violates just about everything that we used to think was decent, I guess it is pretty harmless...there's a new movie coming out as well as a new book, both based on the Brady Bunch.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

...Before we had the theatrical trailer for OJ's Eleven.

Good Prez Campaign Blog-ish Site

I've been a fan of National Review's Corner blog for several years and they've consistently been a site that's tried to keep up with maintaining a relevant online presence.

They don't do a whole bunch of flashy non-sense, but they seem to be constantly adding depth to their site and not letting their variety of blogs fall stale due to non-posting.

The latest one I've started to nose around on is the Campaign Spot. While Buckley's rag won't exactly be giving you the Code Pink viewpoint, they're nowhere near vitriolic.

But check out their other content offerings if you get a chance.

Daniels, Charlie That Is

I don't quite recall how Charlie Daniels came up in talking with my friend MC the other day, but it did and I was shocked that he wasn't familiar with the Ballad of the Uneasy Rider.

So I just had to post up a great, funny song from the 70s...

Happy Saturday.

The O's 0-Factor

There's some new polling out from the folks at Pew suggesting that Oprah's endorsement of Obama will have no net effect....

According to their research, while he could get a 15% lift from her, she'd have the same amount of drag on other voters.

I don't know what to make of it (probably nothing!) but I thought I throw it up on a Friday that is creeping along too slowly. I need sleep....

The Moveon Ad

Well, my Cubs hat is tipped to Moveon.org.

They've accomplished what they wanted in their on-the-cheap ad in the Times last week, playing on the name of General Petraus.

They have inspired the US Senate to perform one of its best circle jerks in some time.

This, of course, is like Michael Jordon out-doing himself in the dunking realm...or Andy Dick doing something really creepy, even for him.

Here's what happened:

John Cornyn (R-TX) brought up a bill condemning the ad that The Decider called "disgusting."

Since they were apparently now in the business of offering unsolicited commentary on private sector advertising, Barbie Box-uh (D-CA) decided to throw on an amendment saying that they were also pissed at how John Kerry was swiftboated and Max Cleland's devotion to this country was pushed into ambiguity.

The Texan accused Boxer of changing the subject, to which she said, 'I know you are, but what am I?'

The Boxer amendment failed, but the larger bill passed.

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world"

That's what Rudy Giuliani told reporters during his trip to London this week to get some cash, press and street cred in the international diplomacy world.

Give or take a few dozen others, he's pretty close to right. He's in the upper echelon, no doubt.

And this seems like a distinguished sort of thing to say about oneself, but it's not necessarily a sign of virtue.

Off the top of my head, I came up with a few other honors I might not want:

• McDonalds is among foods America is best known for
• Colombia's most notorious export got Robert Downey Jr. in a fair share of trouble
• Minnesota's best-known governor was also a former professional wrestler
• The face of Cuba is not universally loved
• The Soviet Union's most famous leaders were not exactly choir boys
• Would you want your daughter to date the person most-associated with Waco, TX in the 1990s?

I get where you're going with it, Rudy, but you open yourself up for some other comparisons when you let your ego run your mouth.

NBC Takes Baby Steps

After the fallout, a few weeks ago, between NBC and iTunes over pricing schemes, the Peacock made another move around the electronic availability of their television shows.

Starting this fall, viewers will be able to download shows from NBC within a week of their initial broadcast for free. Sounds cool except the files become unusable after a week and are not transferable to other machines. Further, they will contain commercials that cannot be FF'd through.

Presumably, future iterations will contain more convenience, but will surely not come for free.

I'm not a big enough fan of any of NBC's shows (spare Meet the Press, I guess?) to get myself hyped up over this. I suppose it will be interesting to see how they do once the Apple umbilical cord is cut, though.

Some analysts are not so optimistic about the model of having to shop for my shows straight from the network...

“It’s not just a shift from a supermarket to a mom-and-pop story, it’s a shift to one store that only sells bread, another store that only sells dairy products. The consumers have decided they want to get their content from iTunes.”

Chris Crotty, analyst for iSuppli

I Hate Illinois Nazis

The New York Times and other outlets are running stories about a new exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington of how the Nazis in Auschwitz spent their time...you know when they weren't killing Jews, Poles, gays and everyone else they didn't like.

It kind of speaks for itself and I don't think I can offer much to it.

Here's a link to an audio slideshow.

U2 Performs Dylan's "Maggie's Farm"

I'm in the mood for another (what I think is) interesting music pick tonight, so I dug up U2 performing Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" back in 1986 when they, too, were a little more of a conventional protest band than they may be today.

The song itself is Dylan's backlash against what he found to be a rather oppressive folk power structure at the time that booed him when he played electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (now sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts!).

"I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them"

The song's been rattling around in my head all day after listening to a neat RatDog performance of the song last summer in Columbus, but I couldn't find anything linkable. That said, I really like U2's interpretation, and I hope you do, too.

Wow, Has Marcia Clark Changed!

Hard to believe that the same woman who was not able to convict The Juice back in 1995 now looks like this...reporting for Entertainment Tonight!

“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena"

No, that's not me talking about and misspelling the name of of the President's daughter, but Jesse Jackson overstating the obvious again.

He's talking about a racial incident I posted here about a week or so ago that took place in Jena, Louisiana.

It's quite obvious that what happened down there is hideous and worth talking about.

It's even more obvious, however, that if he were a candidate, you're damned right Jesse Jackson would find a way to exploit it for his own political gain!

1000 Words

The New York Times ran a different picture, probably taken right around the same time, on its front page this morning of Palestinian girls during a gunfight and I just find it quite haunting. George Azar, Bloomberg News

Clown of the Day...Dr. Cornel West

Princeton's Cornel West is at it again.

Now he's irked at the leading GOP candidates who are ignoring the upcoming Tavis Smiley-hosted Presidential debate.

His brief comments on HuffPo are either shamefully naive or similarly cynical.

The GOP candidates gain no more, electorally, showing up there than Dennis Kucinich would showing up at an NRA or Federalist Society meeting.

The difference here is that the latter two organizations are comfortable enough in their own skin, and not wrapped up in their victimhood mentality, to scold candidates who don't come. They simply don't support folks who don't vote in line with their interests.

For some reason, the West crowd folks who would make a stink about the debate no-shows will both choose not to vote for right-leaning candidates as well as feign surprise about it.

"Is there gambling going on in this establishment?"

"I'm a Minnesota Guy"

That's how Jim Ramstad summed up his decision today to leave the US House after his 9th term runs up. Ramstad is 'one of the good Republicans' according to frequent keep-Dan-honest poster, Cody, and I can't agree more.

While I won't push myself off as a student of his House career, I know that one of his signature issues since coming to the House is health care for those afflicted with mental and addiction disorders. The recovering drinker hopes to make a little more of a dent in this before leaving the Beltway.

He worked on this fervently with the late Senator Paul Wellstone (who I would call one of the 'good Democrats' :-) ) on this issue. Wellstone had a family connection to mental illness.

But to go back to the horse race interpretation, this does not bode well for the GOP, as The Hotline notes, since he's the latest in a line of Republicans to just walk away from Washington, perhaps getting out of the way of a party implosion in November 2008.

Hank Williams Followup

I wasn't able to find a good copy of the Dead doing "You Win Again" but did find this absolutely delightful version by the two masters, Dylan and Willie from Los Angeles in 2004.

This looks to be some sort of commercial taping and I just love Dylan's twangy homage to Williams!

A true gem.

I'm Not a Psychiatrist, and I Don't Even Play One on TV

...but this morning I looked up Wiki's definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder:

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by an individual's common disregard for social rules, norms, and cultural codes, as well as impulsive behavior, and indifference to the rights and feelings of others. Antisocial personality disorder is terminology used by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, while the World Health Organization's ICD-10 refers to Dissocial personality disorder. People diagnosed with this disorder are typically called Sociopaths.

Makes you think, eh?