The Hackenblog

“Obama may have caught a glimpse of what a general election campaign might bring during a recent debate on ABC TV. Badgered by anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos about arcane (yet predictable) trivia such as U.S. flag pins and his relationship with former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers (who hosted his first political fund-raiser in 1995), Obama came across as startlingly unprepared.

“‘Playing gotcha with Democrats and patty-cake with Republicans,’ Joe Conason explained on salon. com, ‘will remain basic operating procedure for the mainstream media this year, no different from the past half-dozen presidential campaigns…. [T]he same fuzzy but obsessive focus on “character” that plagues Bill and Hillary Clinton will be turned on him with equal or greater ferocity by those who once claimed to admire him. He is now subject to the ‘Clinton rules,’ which have long permitted pundits, editorialists and reporters to indict the former president and first lady for sins that other politicians, mostly Republican, may commit with impunity.’

“Conason compared the hullabaloo over Hillary Clinton’s exaggerated account of her landing in Bosnia to the free pass that Ronald Reagan was granted for his purely imaginary account of liberating Nazi concentration camps, and President Bush for his unexplained ‘lost years’ in the Texas Air National Guard.

“Obama’s inexperience left him vulnerable. If he didn’t want to talk about flag pins, he ought never have explained why he doesn’t wear one. (False patriotism, basically.) Dumb symbolic issues have a way of looming large in November. Obama ought to have purged himself of potentially embarrassing Chicago figures long ago, i.e., Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Ayers and political fixer Tony Rezko. That he hasn’t suggests a certain softness Republican smear artists are sure to exploit mercilessly.”
Superdelegates shouldn’t ignore the odds, Gene Lyons, April 23, 2008

An entire generation of the MSM might have to die out before we get decent press again. Too bad I won’t live to see it. Oh well.

This is a tough choice. I like Hill’s feisty savvy, but I think Obama would get us out of Iraq quicker. But, as I have always said, I’ll vote for whoever gets the nomination.

(and because I’m a bad person, heeeeere’s… (more…)

Share This

Which one is less strange?

Although I think I like the vocal on the Wayne’s World cover better.

Share This

I remember hearing this on Dr. Demento’s show about a week after it was released. I think he said he was glad a rock song could be under three minutes again. Or something odd like that. Then he played “Seafood Mama.” It was a weird segue even by Demento standards.

Share This

“What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit. The Norman Podhoretz of our gender. That this woman is actually taken seriously as a thinker in New York intellectual circles is a clear sign of decadence, decay, and hopeless pinheadedness. Has no one in the nation’s intellectual capital the background and ability to see through a web of categorical assertions? One fashionable line of response to Paglia is to claim that even though she may be fundamentally off-base, she has ‘flashes of brilliance.’ If so, I missed them in her oceans of swill.”
Impolitic, by Molly Ivins, sometime in 1991 in Mother Jones

If God really cared, we could go back and swap Paglia for Molly. Damn, I miss Molly.

Share This

“It’s a bit of an understatement that [X (Amanda Marcotte)] doesn’t exactly have the best record on race issues. The sort of feminist issues that you’ll see covered at Brownfemipower’s essentially never see the light of day at Pandagon, and she’s been called out more than a few times over the years for dismissing and silencing women of colour when they’ve called her out about offensive comments that she’s made.

“So, Brownfemipower makes a brilliant speech about immigrant abuses being a feminist issue at the WAM conference a few days ago, at which [X] was in attendance. Days later, [X] writes an Alternet article which is pretty clearly cribbed from it - surprise surprise, without due credit. Bravo.”

~snip~

“It’s bad enough that [X] has a long history of ignoring or dismissing women of colour as a feminist ‘big blogger’, but resorting to stealing the stuff of others - the WoC bloggers who tackle this stuff day in and day out, no less, is an all new low. So I’d like to add my voice to that cry: just stop it. Give credit where credit is due.”
Stealing other people’s stuff is not cool, Burning Words, April 9, 2008

By the time this posts to the Hackenblog it will be old news, but I use this blog as a record for myself most of the time. So if you want current events, read Cursor.org.

So why did BrownFemmePower take her entire site down over this? Hmmmmm.

I think I’ll start reading Burning Words on a regular basis.

BrownFemiPower responds to…something.

Skippy, where I left a comment, links to PhysioProf on Amanda.

Twisty.

Jesus, even I’m sick of this subject.

I guess I’m not sick of the subject.

I Guess It’s a Jungle in Here Too, Huh

Breaking up with Pandagon

There’s a saying in Hollywood Amanda might want to know about: Be nice to everyone on your way up because you’ll meet them again on your way down.

I wonder what Jesse and Pam S are thinking about this mess.

Share This

April 19 - Finally, photographic proof I was in Texas.

April 14 - I’m back, it was great, and I’m very tired. I’ll post a link when the video of the whole show is up. I was very pleased with everything they did. It was amazing. Also, Texas bbq is fabulous.

To see a theatrical interpretation of “Darkness at Sunset and Vine.”

I’d like to thank the fabulous Dr. Kelly S. Taylor for bringing my angry novella to the wider world and Arkansas, where, I am told, it was a big fucking hit.

Also of interest: The production concept and the Darkness at Sunset and Vine Trilogy (Kelly’s only doing part I, but doing it extremely well) if you run out of things to read while I’m gone.

Share This

Of course I was mere child when this aired but I kind of remember this.

Share This

“‘Charlton Heston is an axiom. He constitutes a tragedy in himself, his presence in any film being enough to instill beauty. The pent-up violence expressed by the somber phosphoresence of his eyes, his eagle’s profile, the imperious arch of his eyebrows, the hard, bitter curve of his lips, the stupendous strength of his torso — that is what he has been give, and what not even the worst of directors can debase. It is in this sense that one can say that Charlton Heston, by his very existence and regardless of the film he is in, provides a more accurate definition of the cinema than films like Hiroshima Mon Amour or Citizen Kane, films whose aesthetic either ignores or repudiates Charlton Heston.’

“So goes the most notorious passage of one of the most controversial piece of film criticism ever written, ‘In Defense of Violence’ by Michel Mourlet, published in Cahiers du Cinema #107,m May 1960. One cannot but recall this signal work by the MacMahonist High Priest now that Moses, Ben-Hur, Michelangelo, El Cid, NRA president et.al. has bought the farm.”

~snip~

“Back in 1941 he had little to offer but his babe-a-liciousness in Peer Gynt, an exceedingly low-budget rendition of Ibsen in which director David Bradley (soon-to-be auteur of the ineffable They Save Hitler’s Brain) decided that the best thing to do was have Chuck wear as little as possible (hubba-hubba.)” Hear hear!

~snip~

Re: slashy backstory in Ben Hur

“No surprise there. And no surprise that he agreed to go along because ‘anything is better than what we’ve got.’ And so Boyd was told about his motivation, but not Heston. For Wyler cautioned ‘Don’t ever tell Chuck what it’s all about, or he’ll fall apart.’ One can only wonder why Heston, who began his acting career under the direction of David Bradley, and continued the better part of it running around half-naked, would ‘fall apart’ over the notion of an off-screen, backstory love affair with Stephen Boyd. But then how could the man who marched with the embodiment of non-violent protest Martin Luther King turn around and head the NRA?

“Perhaps clues can be found in the last act of Heston’s film career which is climaxed by Planet of the Apes, in which not only his heroric demeanor but physical self is brought low, and continues with the dystopian horror of Soylent Green.”
Death of an Axiom, Fablog, April 6, 2008 (The only Heston obit you’ll ever need!)

I can’t help it, Charlton Heston was sex on legs in “Ben Hur” and I love the whole galley slave rescuing the Roman admiral and making him row scenes. Woof. Subtext anyone?

Yeah, Gary Cooper was also a rightwingnut, and I like him, too. What is it with these beautiful men? Does it go to their heads? (Hey, write your own jokes.)

Share This

“2. Issa Weeps Over Premature Withdrawal from Gubernatorial Race

“In the film, A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks proclaims, “there’s no crying in baseball.” If that same standard applied to American politics, Darrell Issa’s career would have ended long ago.

“In 2003, Issa led the effort to recall California Governor Gray Davis. (Davis was undone by the energy crisis which crippled the Golden State thanks in large part to market manipulation by Enron.) But part two of the Issa plan - to capture the Governor’s office himself - abruptly ran aground when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to get in the race.

“On August 7, 2003, Issa shocked supporters and announced he would not continue his candidacy. Comically claiming, “It had nothing to do with Schwarzenegger’s decision,” Issa at times wept uncontrollably as he made his premature withdrawal. (This video shows Issa’s pathetic performance as he concluded his gubernatorial ambitions had been terminated. The water works start around the 7:30 mark.)”
op 10 Darrell Issa Hall of Shame Moments, Perrspectives, April 4, 2008 (via)

Having bought the recall for himself and then having it whipped out from under him, I tried to make the word Issa synonymous with sucker, alas, it never got much traction.

Share This

Enjoy!

Clark’s Picks (mmmmm, I sure like this guy’s taste in music)

The Real vs The Spiel

The Velvet Grindstone

Cartoon Brew

Share This

“With 10 states and territories left to vote, Clinton can definitely pull ahead. Never mind all the ‘Who shot John?’ arguments over the DNC’s screwball decision to penalize those two crucial swing states for moving their primaries up (although New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina were permitted to do so ). The fairest solution would have been a re-vote, but Obama supporters have prevented that from happening. Tell me again what a ‘transformative figure’ he is, because on this score the politician Obama most resembles is George W. Bush. Wilentz also points out that if the Democrats used the state-by-state, winner-take-all standard used in Republican primaries and the general election, Clinton would now have approximately 500 more delegates than Obama and have the nomination locked up. That’s because she’s won almost all the big, Democratic and swing states necessary to prevail in November. Finally, there’s this puzzler: Evidently, it’s hunky-dory for Massachusetts superdelegates like Sens. John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Gov. Deval Patrick to pledge their votes to Obama, even though Clinton won the state’s primary decisively. How, then, can Obamaphiles call it an anti-democratic outrage for other superdelegates to support Clinton, even if she wins their states, too? See what I mean? Let the voters speak, then decide.”
Let Obama-Clinton contest play itself out, by Gene Lyons, April 9, 2008

I don’t care who wins, just Get. Us. Out. Of. Iraq. Now.

Share This

“Now, as all things must, it has shown up on ebay. Someone has found twelve original negatives to the English dubbed version in the vaults of Los Angeles’s KCOP-13 and is selling them on ebay for $24,000. Close up images of these negs can be viewed here. Note that one is marked for use by New York’s TV station WPIX (where I saw it as a kid).”
Tezuka’s Amazing Three, Cartoon Brew, April 4, 2008

Ah ha! I watched this on Channel 13 in LA as a kid, but no one on earth seemed to know what I was talking about when I described a Japanese cartoon with aliens disguised as barnyard animals, so I figured I dreamed it. Nice to know I didn’t. Although I seem to remember it in color, but, um, maybe I dreamed that part, I dunno…

Share This

Share This

“1. Sense of humor. There is not one guy I know of that doesn’t appreciate a who girl laughs at his dumb jokes simply out of a sensitive humorous bone.When a woman laughs, there is always a beam of light that comes across a guy’s face, and if the laughter is, say from a woman across the room, it has the power to make a man jealous, wanting that laughter to be for him. Humor is child-like energy and is like a billboard mounted to a woman’s forehead that says “Open Heart!” Men feel it on a gut level, it’s in the nature of polarity to men and women. I’m not talking about faking a sense of humor, because that kind of inauthenticity will throw red flags. You can always tell a person who is trying to laugh to gain some sort of approval. I’m saying a woman sensitive to humor is a great find for a man.”
12 Things a Woman Does That Men Find Irresistible, Yintegrity, March 29, 2008

I really should get out more.

Share This