Baron Dave Romm
Sarah Palin
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
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Initial Enthusiasm for "the Palin Pick"
I talked to a lot of delegates and other Republicans at the RNC. Universally, they were enthusiastic. She is so far to the right that she's not merely out of the mainstream,she's out of the Republican party; certainly too far for McCain circa 2006. No, really, only two things matter to many of the Republicans: She is politically correct and says all the soundbites, no matter how shameful and no matter how big a lie they've been proven. And she's anti-abortion. Not Pro-Life; that's the PC term. Avowedly anti-abortion. No choice for women, except for her own family, of course. The Taliban wing of the GOP went wild.
Buyer's Remorse
As it turns out, most of what they were enthusiastic about was a lie. She has virtually no experience, and what experience she has is terrible. She snaps a good line, but she can't hold her own in a debate and is terrible in interviews. Her administration (and her family) is rife with corruption.
Notice the weasel words in her speech: She "auctioned" her plane on eBay. She didn't actually "sell" the plane on eBay. That failed. She wasted time and possibly a better sale price by trying to be funny. No, the plane was sold through more conventional means, and not by her. She out and out lied about refusing the Bridge To Nowhere. In fact, she was in favor of it and the reason it was never built was that Congress changed what the earmark money was for. In fact, the Road to Nowhere, leading up to where the bridge would have been, cost taxpayers $25 million.
She's a liar, a very bad budget manager, and her husband's refusal to answer a subpoena makes her corrupt administration look sleazy and smacks of Bush's intransigence. "Our family knows" how to secede from the US, it seems.
The GOP "base" that she "speaks to" doesn't have the values that we Americans admire.
Country Second
The GOP has mercilessly tried to make the college associations of Hillary a major political point. That turned out to be a lie. The truth about Sarah Palin is far more interesting. She was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. Or maybe wasn't a "member", now claims the party. But she actively courted the AIP and later admitted she recorded an address for their convention in 2008 and her precise affiliation may be squirrelly, but her loyalty to "Alaska First" is not in doubt.
Her husband refused to comply with a subpoena in the Troopergate scandal partly because he doesn't recognize the state legislature's authority in the matter. Once again, Republicans are soft on crime when it's theirs.
The Two things we have learned from the Bush/Cheney administration:
Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Conservatives don't believe in America.
This is why the selection of Sarah Palin was initially greeted with such enthusiasm by Republicans, and why the "base" of extremists is slowly being whittled away by a harsh dose of reality.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
The Weekly Poll
'Informed Voter' Edition...
On August 25th The Democratic National Convention released the official platform.
Click here: 2008 Democratic Party Platform - (WARNING: pdf format)
This week's poll is...
What changes, if any, would you make to this platform?
A.) None. It is fine as it is...
B.) I would include __________...
C.) I would not have included __________...
D.) I would alter this particular position __________...
Remember Pollfans, an informed voter, is a happy voter!
BadtotheBoneBob
Send your response to BadtotheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Results Tomorrow
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
MICHAEL KINSLEY: Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics (time.com)
Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. ... But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.
Helen Thomas: Palin + McCain Equals More Bush
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has awesome self-confidence. Chosen by fellow Republicans to be Sen. John McCain's running mate, she told an interviewer: "I'm ready." That confidence reflects her naivete about her role that puts her one heartbeat away from the presidency.
Garrison Keillor: The 'bums' try for an end run
So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves. And former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is an advocate for small-town America. Bravo.
Ted Rall: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE EDITOR (uexpress.com)
Why Political Cartoons Matter More Than Ever.
Froma Harrop: Golfing Gets Stuck in the Sand (creators.com)
Golf is a contemplative game. It is a sail through a quiet afternoon - mild exercise in the fresh air. The National Golf Foundation reports that 17 million fewer rounds were played in 2006 than in 2000. The big reasons: Golf costs too much money and takes too much time.
Susan Estrich: Remembering Charlie Whitebread (creators.com)
He filled the room with laughter and learning. A light went on when he came in. He taught thousands and thousands of students each year: law students at USC Law; undergrads who filled his class on Law and Society; and legions of would-be lawyers on the bar review circuit, where he was a living legend.
Otis R. Taylor Jr.: Hootie's Darius Rucker not just a rocker gone country (McClatchy Newspapers)
COLUMBIA, S.C. - He could have been the punch line, but instead he's in on the joke.
David Hiltbrand: Aussie actress Anna Torv is busy keeping secrets on 'Fringe' (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Anna Torv has just returned to her Manhattan apartment from another demanding shoot on the set of Fox's new suspense series, "Fringe" (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. EDT). But her workday is not done.
'I wish people didn't see me like that' (guardian.co.uk)
Everyone loves to laugh at Ben Stiller - except himself. He tells Xan Brooks how his 'trial-and-error career' made him an unwitting funnyman.
Steven Rea: Being John Malkovich brings many movie roles (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
John Malkovich is, well, being John Malkovich, although no portals affording entry to his mind seem to be in operation here at the Four Seasons Hotel. The actor, who starred as himself, of course, in the trippy 1999 Spike Jonze classic "Being John Malkovich," is just cradling a cup of coffee, early in the morning, happy to talk about working in his very first Coen Brothers' production, the madcap spy caper/midlife-crisis comedy/sex farce called "Burn After Reading."
Mark Caro: Neil LaBute: Making films without apology (Chicago Tribune)
When playwright Neil LaBute broke through in the film world with his 1997 low-budget hit "In the Company of Men," here's how the business worked: Studios sought out new talent and would work these filmmakers into their plans. Now, as LaBute noted recently over lunch downtown, the process is reversed: The filmmaker is the one trying to conform to the ever-dwindling distributors' agendas.
Kevin C. Johnson: Tyler Perry says he didn't use white actors to appeal to a different audience (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Unlikely movie mogul Tyler Perry created his own industry with flicks such as "Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman," "Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion" and "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Succinct Economic Bailout
Tales From The Last Frontier
Vic & Bad Company
Being an old crippled woofie I have been depending more and more on my awesome assistant producer and co-host Stephanie'Morgan-Morgue' White and BOY did it pay off yesterday! While I was tied up planning a Howleen party I had Ole Steffers go to a meet and greet being held by the 'Rage City Rollergirls' Alaska's new roller derby queens, not only did she get to meet them, they enthusiastically agreed to an interview and want to be on the Howleen special, they also said they want yours truly as their team mascot ...Arroooohh! After the high of hearing that she goaded this old goat into going out in costume to a couple local watering holes to hand out show fliers, as she was in her costume all ready I complied (she's TOUGH and Persuasive)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and cool.
Here's a complete listing of Emmy Winners - 2008
Comments Made
Emmys
Heard at the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards:
"I'm living proof, kids at home watching, that anybody can play the president."
• Paul Giamatti, accepting award for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie, for playing the second president in "John Adams."
___
"It's hard for me to stay silent, when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there is nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action."
• Tommy Smothers as he accepted his honorary Emmy.
___
"I really look forward to the next administration whoever it is. I have nothing to follow that up with. I'm just saying I really look forward to the next administration whoever it is."
• Jon Stewart, who won for best variety, music or comedy series for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."
Emmys
Back On Chart After 29 Years
Joan Baez
It's been 29 years since Joan Baez last appeared on the U.S. pop album chart, but her long hiatus ended this week when the folk singer's first album in five years debuted at No. 128.
"Day After Tomorrow" (Razor & Tie Entertainment) is the 26th Baez album to chart on the Billboard 200, and is her first since "Honest Lullaby" went to No. 113 in the summer of 1979.
Baez's highest-charting set to date is "Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2," which peaked at No. 7 in 1964.
She first appeared on the chart in November 1961 with "Joan Baez, Vol. 2," giving her a chart span of almost 47 years. And if you're wondering why she made her debut with an album that had "Vol. 2" in the title, her earlier "Joan Baez" album was released first, but charted after "Vol. 2."
Joan Baez
Rare Return To Iwo Jima
Tsuruji Akikusa
The tunnels of Iwo Jima snake deep beneath the volcanic rock and soil, their entrances camouflaged by a dense tangle of vines and tall grasses.
In their stifling heat, Tsuruji Akikusa suffered months of hunger and thirst. The bodies of dead comrades lay around him. His closest buddy blew himself up with a grenade rather than surrender.
In May 1945, he says, U.S. troops found him wounded, unconscious and dehydrated. Out of 21,000 Japanese defenders of Iwo Jima, only about 1,000 had survived.
Akikusa, now 81, relived those horrors this month when he stepped foot for the first time since the war on Iwo's black volcanic beaches, flown to the island for a U.S. Army-produced documentary on his life.
Tsuruji Akikusa
Naples Hails
Saint Gennaro
Thousands of Neapolitans crowded into the city's cathedral on Friday to witness the miracle of Saint Gennaro -- whose dried blood is said to liquefy twice a year, 17 centuries after his death.
Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, archbishop of Naples, announced the blood turned to liquid at 9:45 a.m. (8:45 a.m.) and the glass phial was paraded to crowds outside, who set off fireworks in celebration.
Legend has it that when Gennaro was beheaded by pagan Romans in 305 A.D., a Neapolitan woman soaked up his blood with a sponge and preserved it in a glass phial.
The substance usually turns to liquid twice a year - on September 19, the saint's feast day, and on the first Saturday in May.
Saint Gennaro
Gallows Humor
Chinese
Fed up with an almost constant diet of bad news about quality and safety problems, some Chinese are taking out their frustrations with biting jokes on the Internet about the seemingly never-ending scandals.
One joke, entitled "The lucky day of a Chinese", takes a look at all the dangerous or unsanitary goods the average Zhou could run into on a daily basis.
"Get up early, clean your teeth with carcinogenic toothpaste, and drink a glass of expired milk with excess levels of iodine and contaminated with melamine," it starts, melamine being the compound found tainting the baby milk powder.
Other delicacies it suggests eating during the course of the day are eggs tinted with banned food colorant Sudan Red, eels fed on contraceptives, and cabbage washed with DDT -- all references to previous health scandals in China.
Chinese
Affair With Barbara Stanwyck
Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner's long-awaited autobiography "Pieces of My Heart," written with Scott Eyman, is officially in book stores Tuesday. It's a terrific read: classy like Wagner and full of interesting showbiz stories and insights.
Like the Sondheim song says, he's been through it all -- from the era of Hollywood's contract system to today's Mike Myers movies -- and he's definitely still here. Few could spin stories with the star power that's been a part of Wagner's world: Tracy, Astaire and Frank Sinatra rank particularly high with him; director Ronald Neame and a few others less so.
He also discusses for the first time the drowning death of wife Natalie Wood in 1981 and reveals something that has long been an R.J. secret: a romantic relationship with Barbara Stanwyck, who was 23 years his senior and his co-star in the 1953 Fox biggie "Titanic."
Robert Wagner
Algae Bloom
Lake Erie
Giant floating fields of algae are back in strength this year on Lake Erie and scientists are trying to figure out why.
The blooms of the pea-soup colored algae - so big they've been showing on satellite photos - are toxic to fish and small animals and irritating to humans. The lake once notorious for its pollution is cleaner than ever, yet the algae continues to thrive.
Nine of 11 samples taken Sept. 3 from near West Sister Island, northeast of Toledo, were more toxic than guidelines set by the World Health Organization, said Geoffrey Horst, a Michigan State University graduate student who studies the algae. It won't kill people, but at minimum it's going to give swimmers a rash.
Researchers suggest the algae might be blooming because it's fed by abundant phosphorus, which is running into the lake from increased suburban development.
Lake Erie
Compound Raided
Tony Alamo
Federal authorities conducting a child-porn investigation raided the headquarters Saturday of a ministry run by a convicted tax evader once labeled by prosecutors as a polygamist who preys on girls and women.
The raid, conducted by state and federal authorities, started an hour before sunset at the complex in tiny Fouke, in southwestern Arkansas. Armed guards regularly patrol the headquarters, but there was no resistance as agents moved in, state police said.
No one was arrested, but U.S. Attorney Bob Balfe said before the raid that he expected an arrest warrant for Alamo to be issued later. The federal investigation centered on the production of child pornography, while state police were looking into allegations of other child abuse, he said.
Alamo and his wife Susan were street preachers along Hollywood's Sunset Strip in 1966 before forming a commune near Saugus, Calif. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982 and Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed.
Tony Alamo
Lost Capital Found?
Khazars
A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture.
Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital.
By law Khazars could use flamed bricks only in the capital, Vasilyev said. The general location of the city on the Silk Road was confirmed in medieval chronicles by Arab, Jewish and European authors.
Khazars
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