Deadly Rhetoric

Via Mock Paper Scissors:

(tengrain asks for citations to back up the claims of "propaganda", but of course, "conservatives" just get really upset when you press for things like evidence, so yeah - good luck widdat)

“We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police. The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don’t lead to violence, a lot of them lead to violence, all of them lead to a conclusion: The police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong.” --Mr 9/11, Rudy Giuliani

But even if I grant the assertion of "4 months of propaganda", how could that come anywhere close to the years of toxic anti-government slagging coming from the Radical Right?

"Government's not the solution, government's the problem."

"...drown it in a bathtub."

and on

and on

and on

And that's nuthin' compared with the deafening silence coming from the Ammosexuals at the moment.

Wanna talk about all those cuts in funding for Mental Health now?

Then this from TMZ:

I'm getting one of my lousy feelings that the Press Poodles will spend most of their time and energy spinning this into another episode of "Both Sides".  They'll report the controversy as if all things are equal, and we'll end up staying paralyzed in the middle.

Big fuckin' problems.  But the really big one boils down to this:  We can't go on being further and further isolated from our government when we were set up to be self-governing.  It astounds me to think of how much we bitch about "nobody taking responsibility for anything" when we sit on our thumbs and do nothing but bitch about how shitty everything is.

The Trouble With Bryan

Bryan Fischer (affectionately dubbed Reverend Fishsticks at Mock Paper Scissors), has decided that the homosexual agenda represents the greatest single threat to religious liberty we have ever seen in the history of our existence as a nation."

As usual, the "conservative" has shown some true colors here.  It's not a conservative value to deny people their rights.  Which should make it really clear that Bryan Fisher is as radical as they come.

Forget the usual bullshit about stirring up fear of the big bad homos - that shit does keep working surprisingly well on an awful lotta rubes, but by now shouldn't it be about as frightening as the Haunted House that the PTA puts on at the local middle school that's the same fucking thing every fucking year?

It's a pretty simple premise - the best way for me to ensure my own right's is by ensuring everybody else's rights.  

As we progress a little further towards Equal Rights, the only thing Bryan Fisher "loses" is what he believes (in his carbon-black little heart) to be his birthright as a white middle-class Christian American; his anointment by the almighty to have dominion over everything; to dictate to us what his imaginary friend tells him we must do to please him.  I can't think of anything more arrogantly and quaintly out-of-step with everything we've learned about self government over the last 2 1/2 centuries.

Entitlement much, muthuhfuckuh?

Stop This Shit Right Now

Two cops are dead because we don't do the Rational Thinking thing much any more.

And this doesn't help:

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe anyone connected to law enforcement is surprised this happened,” said Gary McLhinney, a former Baltimore police union president and former chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority police, who is now a labor negotiator for police unions. “Political rhetoric and lies have consequences. When our leaders make statements that encourage lawlessness and demean an entire profession, this is the result.”

First, I have to indulge myself with a tiny bit of Media Criticism - what “Political rhetoric and lies..." are we referring to here, Gary?  Wingnut Media have tried hard to paint Obama and Holder as "anti-cop" because they've been critical of the way some departments have seen fit to fund themselves by operating a shakedown racket primarily aimed at "the black community", but there's nothing in the WaPo story to indicate where that bit came from.  So it falls outa this guy's yap and just sits there - no challenge; no followup; no context.  Nuthin'.

Anyway, let the record show that "The Legion of Race Baiters" have all, or pretty much all, stepped up and condemned the cop killer in no uncertain terms. 

(source = Politico)

Obama: “I unconditionally condemn today’s murder of two police officers in New York City,” the president said in a statement released just after midnight on Sunday morning. “Two brave men won’t be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification.  The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day — and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day. I ask people to reject violence and words that harm, and turn to words that heal — prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen.”

Holder: (labeled the killings an) “assassination” and “an unspeakable act of barbarism.”

He said the attack underscores the dangers police officers face each day in their jobs and that “we must not forget this as we discuss the events of the recent past.”

Holder called for communities and their police departments to forge closer bonds, “so that public safety is not a cause that is served by a courageous few, but a promise that’s fulfilled by police officials and citizens working side by side.”

Al Sharpton: “Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases,” the statement said. “We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown… The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”

But none of that matters anymore.  The Authoritarians have a coupla more very timely and  convenient martyrs now.  We've already begun seeing what looks like a push on social media to turn every cop into a saintly figure with the purest of intentions faced with the lawless brutality of the unwashed hordes of the ghetto blah blah über alles blah.

The use of violence by an authoritarian government is intended to elicit a violent response from the governed in order for the government to gain sufficient rationale to use violence against the governed.  

And round and round we go.  Thanks for playing.

We're supposed to have set ourselves up to be the exception, because we were supposed to have recognized that we deserve better than to be perpetually stuck in the kind of cycle of violence that had been going on for a thousand centuries before us.

Maybe we figure it out and maybe we don't, but if history is any guide at all, we know we'll prob'ly be dealing with some even heavier shit before we get to the good stuff.

Here's to hopin' on the shortest darkest day of the year.

Solstice Tunes

An oldie - can't believe I have this (an original) on vinyl.

December --George Winston

Happy Solstice

Saturday Groove (fixed)

Many The Miles --Sara Bareilles

oops - try it now



Come On Home --Joan Armatrading





I Don't Miss You At All --Nora Jones





I'd Rather Be Happy Than Right --Michael Franks





For You And I --10cc





Over The Rainbow --Melody Gardot

Yeah, OK - But Is It Art?

Grover Washington

I dunno why, but I have a weird link between Grover and Christmas.  So here's a little light seasonal funk to lift that (hopefully) light seasonal funk on a random Friday in December.

Winelight --Grover Washington

Love Yourself

Hoping she can stick it out and become the "next Sara Bareilles" (as she mentions in one interview I heard)

All About That Bass (Accoustic) --Meghan Trainor

Today's Question

It seems we have a problem in this country with radicalized cops.  

So I'm wondering - where are the moderate cops, and why aren't they standing up in protest against the extremists in their midst?

Connecting Dots

When we stop caring for each other, it's not long before we stop caring about each other.

From truthout:

There is more at stake here than manufactured ignorance and an unconscionable flight from the truth. There is also a dangerous escape from justice, morality and the most basic principles central to a democratic society. The celebration of brutality, spectacles of violence and the affirmation of torture suggests that in a market-driven society with its unchecked individualism, sheer Darwinism and refusal to think about social costs or, for that matter, any notion of the public good, the addiction to cruelty, violence and torture becomes less difficult and almost too easy. In the age of disposability and despicable gaps in wealth, income and power, modern terror becomes normalized and points to the onslaught of a mode of totalitarianism that is more than an ephemeral moment in history. Violence is no longer marginal to American life; it is the foundation that now drives it.

Winter Song

Winter Song / White Winter Hymnal --Sil'Hooettes and The Virginia Gentlemen (UVa)

Today's Tune

My Traveling Star --James Taylor

Today's Pix

Part And Parcel

You're a woman who did a coupla shots with me at the bar, and you flirted with me and you  were dressed in a sexy-time way - which forced me to rape you.

You're a random brown person who committed a minor civil offense and then you disrespected my authority as a police officer - which forced me to kill you.

You're a herdsman living in Afghanistan; you're a Muslim, and you got sold to the CIA in 2002 for about $1000 because your goats got into your neighbor's garden one day in 1995 and you never really fessed up, and he'd held a grudge against you that whole time; but we'll disregard everything after the part about you being an Afghani Muslim - which forced me to torture you.

You're just a regular somebody who can't see his way clear to buy into a religion that requires blind unreasoning obedience to a lord - which forces that lord to condemn you to torment and suffering for a thousand eternities.

You've got nobody to blame but yourself.  You had it comin'.  You shouldn't have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  You sent yourself to hell.

It's more than a little weird that the people who're constantly demanding that everybody take personal responsibility for everything that goes on in own their lives are the same people who can't quite think their way thru to the point where they have to own their responsibility for having raped or murdered or tortured somebody.

If I can get you to believe absurdities, I can get you to commit atrocities.

The Lites (fixed)

Where's The Plan, Stan?

The More Things Change

I was all for NAFTA back in the day because I was all for Bill Clinton, because Clinton was my kinda Republican, and he was doin' it right for the right reasons, and blah bah blah.

I was a fuckin' idiot for it.



(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Ya think Crime-nibus was bad?  Ya think Defense Authorization was bad?  Ya think any of it was good?  Hold on to your hats.

Now maybe I'm just being paranoid (I hope so, actually), but because we've heard for the last few years about how the number of American manufacturing jobs has been going up (aka: Happy Talk; aka: Smoke Up Yer Skirt; aka: Bullshit), plus the fact that we're gearing up for this Trans-Pacific Partnership thingie; I think there's room to speculate on some possible connections.

Obama can strong-arm Wall Street a little by telling them he'll stop defending them against the obvious fact popular sentiment that they're all crooks, ie: "you guys have to make a good show of it by putting up some jobs in key places and key sectors; then we can invite the inference that NAFTA wasn't all that bad, and we can link the not-so-bad canard to TPP; we can leave certain sections of the tax codes unenforced; and then once TPP is approved, you can hit the tax-goodies-buffet again by writing off all the costs of those USA jobs, and get another break when you outsource those jobs to Vietnam.  It's a pretty good deal, and all you need to do is funnel enough Campaign 'Donations' in to the right races so we can make it look close and interesting so the Press Poodles can keep talking about it in breathless tones of anticipation and drama, which makes for some very good Advertising Revenue, which makes for a nice kickback scheme for more nice fat campaign contributions; all of which we must perpetuate so we can go on pretending we live in a democracy".  And that ain't all - not by half.

BTW - the Bureau of Labor Statistics (beginning Feb 2015) will start parsing out Jobs-For-Asians numbers and Jobs-For-Latinos numbers in its monthly report.  I wonder if there's any potential for shenanigans in that(?)

I really do hope I'm wrong here, but I'll be adding a goodly amount of Olestra to my diet just so I'm greased up and ready for the reaming we're about to get.

Like the man said - Pessimism is the best default position because you're always either proved right or pleasantly surprised.

Skeptical Poe

Guns Kill People

Saying otherwise is just dishonest - or straight up deliberately ignorant.



Two things really got to me:  First was Gus's mom being totally unable to reconcile her thoughts to the title of my post.  She insists on carrying the guilt with her forever because (imo) she can't help but blame herself for "improper handling of a firearm".  If only she had pointed the muzzle to the ground; if only she'd made sure Gus had stayed on the horse; if only etc etc etc

Second is Gus's dad saying he's fearful of government involvement in product liability issues because (paraphrasing) "they'll make the gun so safe it won't work".

A string of cynical calculations plus the fear and the careerism on the parts of company employees made it inevitable for these "accidents" to happen, and certainly Mrs Barber shoulda been more careful, but it was a gun that killed Gus.

Un-Togetherness

Yanking the enforcement teeth out of Dodd-Frank: "...Prohibition Against Federal Government Bailouts of Swap Entities..."  That's part of what the Crime-nibus bill is about.

Senator Warren:



Another part?  It allows rich people (and don't forget corporations are people, my friend) to buy even bigger pieces of Coin-Operated Politicians. 

And all of that shit happening in the Wall-Street-n-Washington-Circle-Jerk is very much part and parcel with this:

...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ... Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Riots, uprisings, revolts and full-blown revolutions happen when it becomes clear that in spite of hearing the voice of the populace, a government chooses to ignore it.

It seems just too weird (even for me) to think about it, but we may actually be a lot closer than we think we are to the point where The Dirty Fucking Hippies and the Knuckle-Dragging TeaBaggers have to stop just flapping their gums about bi-partisanship and start figuring out how to make common cause.

I wonder what happens next, cuz I get one of my truly lousy feelings that there are some very powerful forces working very hard to keep us separated from one another, and I'm not convinced that a Gandhi or a Mandela is even possible now.

Today's Winner

This one (Democratic Underground) wins the intertoobz for today:

Bitch In Charge

Pardons

I spent a lot of time in the 70s feeling more than a little worried and frustrated because  Ford issued a blanket pardon for Tricky Dick Nixon.

And now that Obama might be doing the same for The Shrubster and his VP (Snidely Whips-n-Chainsey) et al, it struck me as an ah-fuck-not-this-shit-again kinda moment.

But Ol' Doc Maddow has some purty decent 'splainin' goin' on.  This is the only good clip I can find that's also easy to embed here in my little blog:



Find more at Rachel's show archives at MSNBC.com.

Charlie Gets It

It starts with what seems like an unrelated event in Georgia, but Charlie knows there's no such thing as unrelated event.

Mr Charles Pierce at Esquire:

Somewhere in itself, and not very far from the surface, either, this country has gone mad with fear and rage. As a result, it is finding sustenance in the acts of official violence, and doing so in more different ways than the republic has seen since we had lynching, union busting, and Red Scares at the same time, back when the 19th century was turning into the 20th. Anyone who can't see the political and sociological tissue connecting the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the revelations of a decade's worth of CIA brutality, and the execution of Robert Holsey isn't looking hard enough. In the country's untrammelled fear and rage, it is exercising the only function of self-government it can recall as its mad brain turns to red fire -- to encourage the exercise of the state's power to wound and kill all the right people. In this madness, race and class are mere diagnostic categories. In this madness, the politics of right and left, of Republicans and Democrats, of conservatives and liberals, of red and blue, are pathetically inadequate to assess the situation. In this madness, the choices are not made within the easy and obvious contexts . This is a choice between barbarism and not, between savagery and not. This is a choice between the national soul and the national Id. This is a choice of whether to take inchoate and weaponized vengeance against the living representations of the monsters in our paranoid dreams. That's the last vestige of self-government that we have allowed ourselves. The right to demand that the institutions of government kill what we fear. By any means necessary, as someone once said. 

Today's Pix

About That Torture Thing

Our politicians and Press Poodles and everybody else showing off a talent for farting thru their mouths have all been telling us for quite a while that they don't want those rotten terrorists at Gitmo to be brought into this country because they'll stink up the joint - or some such nonsense.

Here's the thing.  I think we know now why we can't just close Gitmo and bring 'em here - it's because we tortured them.  If we put these guys into the regular channels of either our civilian justice system or the military justice system, we lose 'em.

Nothing we have against them can be used in court now because we fucking tortured them.

We completely lost our shit after 9/11. We went more than a little looney, and we did all these really lousy things to people.  

BTW - not to put us on the couch too much here, but we made the transition from Andy Hardy to Vlad The Impaler in one big fuckin' hurry; fast enough to make me think maybe we weren't really making this huge change so much as we were just kinda coming out of the closet(?).

So anyway, when we began to understand just how fucked up it was that we were doing all this really bad shit, we went into the standard CYA mode that happens every god dammed time we allow too few people to hold too much power, and let 'em do their thing without any way to keep an eye on 'em.

And the kicker - we knew it was wrong.  All of us.  We knew it.  It's wrong to torture people. And it was wrong to change the law in order to help us pretend we were still the good guys just trying to protect our sweet innocent little ol' American selves.  We knew it was wrong and we did it anyway.

Can we stop pretending now?

Leave It To Charlie

Charlie Pierce at Esquire:

Today, with the release of the executive summary of the congressional investigation into the American torture program, we have lost forever the right to moral leadership that we claimed at Nuremberg, and at the tribunals that investigated the actions of the Japanese in the Pacific. Those proceedings were based in two fundamental beliefs: a) that there are some activities that are beyond the law, even in wartime, and b) that the people responsible for those activities, even the worst of them, deserve a fair trial, and a trial that is open to the world, not only because the world needed to see the savagery of which humans are capable, but also because the trial would demonstrate to the world that there is a better way to resolve the issues raised by the native savagery of which people and nations are capable than the masturbatory exercise of blind vengeance. Justice Robert Jackson, in his eloquent summation for the prosecution in the trial of the Nazi warlords, saw all of this with coruscating clarity.

Dunno about losing it "forever".  I guess we can only hope the republic lasts long enough to get some of it back.

Whoa - George

In the next post down from here, I go all I-Told-Ya-So, but here's a bit of a pre-quel to it that's kinda interesting (in a feel-a-little-embarrassed-for-him-but-not-really-the-prick-should-be-in-fucking-prison kinda way).  Anybody else notice this guy's really lost his game?



Le Shrub was always about as sharp as a bagful 'o wet yarn, but he knew how to deflect and pivot a shitload better'n that.  Dang.

Squandered

What His Shrub-i-ness said back then was bullshit.




Some knew it was bullshit back then - and they said so out loud - and they were either ignored or fucked over because they said it out loud.

Olbermann knew how to put it in terms of having to deal with our shit before we get to move on to anything else.




And he said it a lot.



(Search YouTube = Olbermann Torture)


"But they would not listen. 
They're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will."

Purple

If we want Congress to work the way it's supposed to work, then we have to figure out how to unfuck all the "safe" voting districts that the parties have Gerrymandered to the point of being inherited feifdoms.

With Apologies To Mr Wrigley

In the course of my everyday herky-jerky travels thru my corner of paradise, I've been thru some variations of my own existence, not the least of which has to do with my flavor(s) of politics.

I won't recount the details right now because I'm not convinced it's of any interest to anybody, and if I try to write it all down we'll be here all fuckin' day, and we all have some shit that needs to get done.  Besides, it has little to do with anything real -  'specially as regards something as unreal as whatever the fuck it is that passes for politics here in USAmerica, Inc.

Anyway, after all this time, I'm kinda back to a starting point.  

I think I understand now that if you listen, you learn. But also too, that no matter who it is you're listening to - DumFux News, Limbaugh, NPR, MSNBC, the big 3 networks, or your crazy Uncle Billy - if you never disagree with any of it, then you can count on any or all of these 3 things:

• you're not really listening 
• you're not doing your own thinking
• you're totally unnecessary to the process.

Get necessary, dammit.

It Got Me Thinkin'

Which is always a little dangerous, but anyway - here's a little bit of a thing:



'Conservatives' are always yammerin' about how they want Gubmint to run more like a Bidness.

My contention is that's pretty much exactly what we've been seeing for 20 or more years, and here's why I think it:  Congress Critters are privy to lots and lots of information that's either not known to the rest of us, or that they get to know about way before we get to know  about it; AND, they get to make rules and regulations that can easily tilt the money chute a little (or a lot) in the general direction of their own bank accounts and portfolios.  So while we have managed to put certain safeguards in place to make it harder for them to give themselves raises in their salaries, we've done practically nothing to keep them from creating a very slick and lucrative money-laundering apparatus that funnels shitloads of cash into their pockets, even if it does happen behind a thick veil of toxic fog.

Meanwhile, Corporate Bosses get to do this in a slightly more open way - but it's still pretty fucked up.  CEOs and Directors and Senior Execs get paid a lot, but the way they make the real money is by putting policy decisions in place that benefit them greatly at the expense (often) of everybody else.

Ask a simple question: why are so many companies spending so much (~$2.4 TRILLION) buying their own stock?

Then ask: what's the Comp Plan look like for those Bosses?  

I'm betting dollars to dingleberries that those guys are gonna make more than a few bucks over and above their salaries if the company stock performs well, and what better way to boost the value of a share of your stock than to make it look like it's a hot property because "somebody's snapping it up like crazy"?

And when you're in bed with the politicians who conveniently vote against close enforcement of the rules you've already gotten them to weaken, then collusion and cronyism and outright bribery become the orders of the day, and simply the usual and customary way of doing business.

It gets really complex and convoluted, and I'm not pretending to know what all is wrong or what all needs to be done.  But I think it points back to the need for Separation-Of-Powers solutions; we have to rebuild the firewalls - the ones that keep Businesses and Governments and individuals from becoming too big and too powerful.

Cuz always remember - a business is not a democracy.

Snarky Jab Du Jour

Just A Tho't

"A mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam." --Carl Sagan



hat tip = Facebook friend VWE

So, Earth is all we've got.  It's home and there's literally nowhere else to go.

And then there's a guy like Charles Koch (just an example), who seems to be going to great lengths to fuck up the joint, making life in our little corner of the universe less and less likely to continue.

If some nutball ammosexual suddenly got all tree-hugger-y and walked up to Ol' Chuckles and poked 5 or 6 holes in Mr Koch's torso with a Glock .40, do ya think the shooter's lawyer'd have a chance to get him off by claiming it was justifiable under the Stand Your Ground statutes?

Just wonderin'.



(No - seriously, you knuckleheads - don't be out there pullin' shit, OK?)

Almost In Passing

I've been trying to think my way through all this Mike Brown / Eric Garner stuff; crashing around in my head looking for some boiled-down guiding principle to apply that might help me sort it out.

And then: The law must be a shield, not a sword.

For a good 2,000 - 10,000 generations, The Law was used and abused as a way to rationalize Might-Makes-Right.  As long as I had some reasonable expectation of being able to take you in a fist fight, I could jack your shit; and fuck you if you don't like it cuz fuck you, that's why. All the big guys did it cuz that's just what a big guy could do.  And it worked - Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, Britain, etc etc etc - you get the idea.

Unfortunately, saying it that way makes it sound like we'd have to look way far back to find good examples, and that makes me think we're feeling a little too comfortable about ignoring the need to examine our motives and our reasoning, and our willingness to shrug it all off like a buncha fuckin' Eloi.

But gosh, it seems we don't have to look back very far to find some examples of people doing some pretty fucked up things because they had the juice to make the law do whatever they wanted it to do in order to pad their bank accounts or act out their domination fantasies or whatever their issues were at the time.

--slavery in America was lawful; and so was Jim Crow after that.

-- the genocide committed by Nazi Germany was mostly lawful under German law, and according to most written international law in effect at the time.

-- apartheid in South Africa was established by law.

-- Saddam Hussein claimed at his trial in Baghdad in 2006 that his order mandating the execution of 148 persons in response to an attempted assassination of him was lawful.

-- the Israeli military justified their heavy use of cluster bombs during the 2006 war by stating that “[a]ll the weapons and munitions used by the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] are legal under international law and their use conforms with international standards” (Shadid 2006, A01).

-- the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq was lawful according to American interpretation of law.

The law has to be a shield.  It has to be there to protect us from overbearing, over-reaching, evermore ambitious and power-craving despots.  When the law instead protects the police (eg) from being held to the same standards of justice as apply to everybody else, then the law has become a sword against the people, and it will be changed by the people one way or another.  It has to be changed because it's become a contradiction.  And while contradictions exist, they can't prevail.
(all you 'conserva-tarians' might recognize that one from the Sacred Texts of Our Lady Ayn of Rand)

For my own self, I kinda like The American Exceptionalism way, and I'll keep trying to do it that way.  But if it has to be changed the old-fashioned way, then I'll be sadly watching from the bench, unsurprised.

I just really hope we can get back to being that exception.

I Hope Not

These 2 movies are not bad.  Some decent values statements, and some really good Movie Moments.

I only wish I could shake the creepy feeling that they're really just 2-hour ads for companies with piles of money so ridiculously gigundous that they can produce feature-length infomercials, and get us to pay twelve bucks a head for the privilege of absorbing their Corporate Branding Messages.

Today's Olbermann

Since he got back on the air, it seems like ESPN has been doing its best to hide him from us by bouncing his show time all over the damned place.

As of last night: ESPN2 at 5pm, and repeating once or twice a day at odd hours on other of the ESPN channels - like I said, ya gotta hunt for it.

Anyway, the guy can be a little bombastic and a bit precious on occasion, but there's no better truth-teller anywhere on TV.

Friday Music

Arms Of A Woman --Amos Lee





Gimme One Reason --Tracy Chapman





I Will --Beatles





For No One (cover) --Emmylou Harris





And So Begins The Task --Stephen Stills





Laughing --David Crosby

In Case You Missed It (updated)

...or in case you've forgotten what real journalism actually looks like:

BY ROLLING STONE | December 5, 2014

To Our Readers:
Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university's failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school's troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the way the school responds to sexual assault allegations.

Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone's editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie's credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie's account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn't confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence. 

In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.

Will Dana
Managing Editor

It's something of a big deal because when you get it wrong you have to own it, and you have to stand up, and you have to say you got it wrong.  Which is something that happens once in a while, but which is something that seems never to happen in a certain segment of "the media" where they get it wrong a lot and never say so.  

But this development does nothing to lessen the rather dire state of affairs on- and off-campus. We have a problem here and we're not gonna get any nearer to finding the solutions we need unless everybody's willing to stand up and speak the truth as they see it - even when the truth is that they kinda blew the report by not properly vetting the fucking source - which just gives all the wrong people all the perfect excuses to do exactly what RS seems suddenly to be doing, which is to blame the fucking victim.

FUCK ME FUCKLESS WHAT THE FUCK!?!  ISN'T THAT PARTA THE FUCKING PROBLEM IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE!?!

Ahem - sorry - channeling Charlie Skinner there for a minute.

The thing that does change right now tho' is that all the usual Smarmroaches will probably come scurrying out to start chanting "Death to The Demon Liberal Media", and the rubes can go back to feeling smugly comfortable sitting and waiting for the Daddy State to tell them what to misunderstand about the next episode of All My Phony Outrage.

hat tip = Facebook friend HH