Three major states of being: Alive, Dead & — in Hollywood — UnDead

Michael Jackson has been dead for months now.  Or has he?

He is coming out with a new movie. 

So, Michael is in that fashionable Hollywood state of the “Undead”. 

The Undead can do what living people do — make movies, have digitally produced voice-overs, sell your clothes to the highest bidder, be immortalized in rare and just-discovered footage.  In order to stay undead, there must be mystery and intrigue and controversy swirling around the person, enough to keep conspiracy theorists thriving. 

And that means more coverage on the newsertainment channels, like CNN, which brings the Undead back to life for years at a time.

The 24 hour news REcycle can take a small story national

The kid with the balloon.  It won the hearts and minds of schnewscasters and newsertainers all over 24 hour “news”.

Then it was a hoax.  Now it is a national disaster, a mark on our national pride.  More time was spent on the kid in the balloon story than on health care reform, gay march on Washington, even the 9/12ers for Goodness Sakes.  The only thing that got more coverage was the three week “Breaking News” headlines that Michael Jackson was dead.

If newscasters dig any deeper, all they will do is create a BIG latrine.

Where news people choose to dig deeper shows a lot about the news person, the news organization and the effect of ratings and the entertainment factor in the news reporting.

What passes for news is really news-ertainment.  Or, shmews (like schmooze, only with an air something important).  I love the “digging deeper” segments.  Stuff you never needed to know about people you don’t know and now you have that knowledge crowding your brain and visuals that could blind a person.

The shnews legitimizes Jerry Springer’s exploitation of the stupid and the ultra stupid.

And between CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, people are digging some serious shit holes but not reporting news.  (Mind you, my political leanings are toward MSNBC, but I realize that most of it is editorializing, just as Fox does.  CNN, just asks everyone to be an iReporter and tell them what we think is important on twitter.)

Generalissimo Francisco Franco and Michael Jackson

In the last few days, the news outlets keep listing as “BREAKING NEWS” that Michael Jackon’s death is ruled a homicide.  I keep hitting the refresh button, thinking that my computer is stuck in a time warp. Reminds me of the “Weekend Update” skits on Saturday Night Live with the original Not Ready For Primetime Players, when Chevy Chase would announce as a news item “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”

Jon Cronkite Stewart

Someone wrote somewhere: push the panic button when Obama loses Jon Stewart.  LBJ knew he lost the confidence of this nation to fight the Vietnam War when Walter Cronkite essentially called it an unwinnable quagmire.

Jon Stewart wondered aloud whether Obama is ten steps ahead of us or if health care is kicking his butt.

According to random and anecdotal polls, Jon Stewart is today’s most trusted name in news.  (Psssst, CNN: stop claiming that honor — you are a weak also-ran at best.)

Here is the crazy part:  wait for it, wait for it, here it comes . . .

He does fake news for Comedy Central. 

That should tell us and the politicians that we are living and thinking in an alternate universe.  The jokesters are the prophets and the leaders are their very own caricatures.

Jon Stewart is just a comedian, but the times make a person.  For now, the times demand that he keeps politicians and talking heads honest within a corrupted system (but only if he is funny, because otherwise no one will watch).

He should get the Presidential Medal of Honesty and Comedy (a quasi military honor known in the military argot as PRE-MED-HAC, which Stewart probably was before he failed Organic Chemistry).

But he should get this high honor only on a president’s last day in office, so it doesn’t interfere with his lampooning.

Welcome home, Euna Lee and Laura Ling

I cannot begin to imagine what these last months have been like for these two reporters and their families.  And I hope I never understand.  They are home and I, a complete stranger, was overjoyed for them and proud of our government.

Let the pundits criticize.  Here is how I see it.  We are currently engaged in a zero sum chess game with North Korea about nuclear disarmament.  Two reporters became pawns in that game.  Over the course of these months, other than some pointed words by the Secretary of State, there was no swagger or threats from the White House (as would have been the case in the Bush Administration).  There was behind the scenes diplomacy to get these two women home and, more importantly for our national interests, keep them off the nuclear chessboard.  President Obama used his “arsenal” — an incredibly popular former president, the Swiss and the UN.

President Obama made comments only after the women landed safely on American soil and were re-united with their families.  And, he didn’t self-serving take credit for their safe return.  The President got two Americans home for the price of a photo-op with Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il’s opportunity to say whatever he wants to his people about his visit with Mr. Clinton — something Kim Jong Il does anyway. 

Quietly and effectively, Obama got the job done and may have opened the door a crack to restart negotiations with North Korea.

Thank you, Mr. President and Team Obama.

And the Republicans are swiftboating, just as Nero played his lyre as Rome burned.

Usually, I roll my eyes at Republican tactics.  I didn’t even focus on the viciousness of the swiftboating of Sen. Kerry. 

Why am I so riled and appalled now?

Because just a few months ago, our economy was about to fall off a precipice.  And whither the economy goes, so goes the social fabric that binds us.  And so go the dreams and aspirations and our children’s childhoods.  Now we are a few steps back from the edge of the precipice, but we are not yet safe in our beds.

I was a hard-working and productive worker.  Now, I sit in my office and wonder when I will lose my job or get a further, steeper pay cut.  I wonder whether my practice will ever come back.  I wonder whether I can give to my child all the opportunities I had.  We are at a crossroads.  We need to make the right choice after vigorous debate on the issues.  Fair and honest debate toward a common goal of restarting our economy, our dreams, and optimism.

And the Republicans are swiftboating, just as Nero played his lyre as Rome burned. 

Loudly, some Kansans reject Guantanamo detainees

Let the Guantanamo detainees come to Sing Sing prison in New York.  A few jihadist won’t survive a day in a New York State prison.

If all of these Law-and-Order GOPs don’t have faith in our maximum security prisons where we hold people who have committed heinous crimes involving grotesque torture, then let’s ship every domestic prisoner to Guantanamo Bay and clean out our prisons.  We can renovate them into luxury apartments with state of the art security and open views and make a mint (ok, not until the real estate boom boomerangs back).
That’s like being an anti-abortion political activist but, when push comes to shove, sending your pregnant 17 year-old to Europe to have the procedure done.
Do we have faith in our ability to control prisoners in our jails or no?  If our legislators think our prison system is too broken for these suspects, then we have bigger problems than we thought.
See the below article.

Sen. Brownback, what are you made of?

By Carey Gillam Carey Gillam Mon Aug 3, 4:16 pm ET

LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (Reuters) – Not in my backyard! Not in my state! Not in my country!

That was the response from politicians and business leaders in Kansas on Monday to moves by President Barack Obama to transfer terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to facilities in the United States, perhaps including Kansas.

“This is a patently bad idea,” Republican Senator Sam Brownback told reporters in the northeast Kansas riverside community of Leavenworth near the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base, which was cited this weekend as a possible new home for the Guantanamo prisoners.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that a government task force was considering as possible sites Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a 604-bed maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan, that is scheduled to be closed.

An Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed on Monday that those sites were being looked at but said there were “many, many options” under consideration.

“No final decisions of any sort have been made,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Administration officials reportedly have been considering building a court facility within a prison site to avoid the need to transfer defendants between sites within the United States.

Obama has pledged to close the prison at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo by the end of the year but faces strong opposition from fellow Democrats and Republicans in Congress to transferring the remaining 240 prisoners to U.S. soil for detention and trial.

Harsh interrogations that some see as torture and the detention of suspected Islamic militants without trial at Guantanamo, opened for prisoners in President George W. Bush’s war against terrorism, have seriously damaged the United States’ international reputation.

Brownback said the inmates should stay at Guantanamo and vowed to work with other members of Congress to prohibit any funds from being used to move the prisoners to American soil.

He and other opponents say moving to a U.S. site would make the community a target for terrorist attacks and note that Leavenworth is close to rail lines and the heavily trafficked Missouri River.

They say no move is needed at all as the detainees are already being held “appropriately and safely” at the prison in Cuba, where there are also court facilities.

“NO” TO DETAINEES

“This community has spoken loud and clear. They don’t want the detainees here,” Republican U.S. Representative Jerry Moran told Monday’s news conference.

But the Obama administration counters that the U.S. court and prison systems have handled terrorism cases in the past and could deal with Guantanamo detainees. A number of convicted militants are already being held in U.S. prisons.

Congress has set strict limits on moving detainees until certain conditions are met, including informing lawmakers first and spelling out any threats prisoners could pose or how they were mitigated.

The 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth is already a hardened high-security facility that could be further protected by the surrounding military base.

Business leaders in Leavenworth, about 40 miles from the Kansas City metropolitan area, say locating detainees near their community will depress property values, discourage new business development and put the residents at risk.

“We are not afraid of the prisoners breaking out,” said Leavenworth-Lansin Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Tim Holverson. “We are more concerned with their friends trying to break them out. We don’t want to be a target.”

(Reporting by Carey Gillam, additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by David Storey)

Sen. Paul Stanley, R-Tennessee, Mr. Family Values

Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok.  Lemme get this straight.

Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana, Sen. John Ensign, Nevada, Gov. Mark Sanford, S. Carolina — what do these gentlemen and Sen. Stanley have in common?  They are sanctimonious, self-satisfied “family-values” politicians who were hoisted on their own petards. 

Worse, Sen. Stanley, who took lewd pictures of his 22-year old intern during the time of their affair, blames her.  He is 47 and she is 22.  He has a family and presumably of suitable age, discretion and intelligence to represent the State of Tennessee. 

He isn’t hiding behind a 22 year-old, is he?  Nah.  Can’t be.  Only someone gutless and unprincipled would do that.   So, it can’t be.  WAIT.  I think Pauly IS a gutless, unprincipled loser.  And he is angry that he has to resign.  As if he did nothing to bring about this morality play. 

I get it: she let herself into his apartment.  She put the camera in his hand.  She put his . . . .  Wow, now I get it.  It is a lily-livered lefty lemming conspiracy (thank you, Lou Dobbs for that phrase) to expose GOP hypocrisy.

Where is the outrage?  Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?  Bueller?

Lou Dobbs

Dear Lou:

As one of the limp-minded, lily-livered lefty lemmings who thinks you’ve gone off the rails, I did have a moment of compassion for you:   Ann Coulter criticized you.  You must have gone so far off the reservation that a limp-minded, lily-livered RIGHTY lemming wouldn’t follow you into the abyss.

Wow.  

P.S.:  Lily-colored liver: (a) is not possible, (b) doesn’t matter anyway, (c) shows a ridiculous attempt at nonsense consonance, or (d) all of the above.   I give you the facts; you decide.