Sanford and the Son

Mark Sanford: OK, I'm not going to say, I don't know what the big deal is, because I know it IS a big deal. Cheating is wrong, darn wrong. I let my wife down, I let my adorable children down, I let the employees of the state of South Carolina down, the voters, even the reporters who heard about the emails but were forced to behave as if they didn't know where I was. I let all of you down, and I'm sorry.

Narita Barnswell(AP): Governor, how do to intend to show the people that your no-good South American hussy meant nothing to you, and you mean to move on?

Governor Mark: Narita, I'm not going to say that, because I still love Maria. I don't want to be a hypocrite.

Bing Mathers(Fox News): Governor, are you saying you don't care what the South Carolina voters or even Fox News viewers think, that you are going to choose love over propriety and your miserable career? Is that what you're saying?

Jesus(suddenly appearing): Bing, I think the governor has spoken from the heart. Like me, he values love, and understands its transcendent quality. Mark, I love you, and if you really love your antipodean floozie, I want you to know I support you, as long as your heart is true and your kids don't have a problem with it. Have you asked them?

Gov. Mark: huh?

Jesus: I've noticed that kids from wealthy, loveless families often figure out pretty quickly if mom and dad don't love each other, and if they're good kids the hypocrisy usually gets to them. Or they grow up to have problems with booze and prescription drugs, or maybe betting on the horses. It's a toss-up.

Lori-Ann Santoro(CNBC): Jesus, if that's really you, are you saying the republican party should stick by the governor?

Jesus: Honestly Lori-Ann, I couldn't care less what the republicans do. They're mostly a bunch of soulless weasels, just like the democrats. I'm just here to support Mark, because I believe in love. Does anybody have any pertinent questions?

Dennis Perrin(suspicious character): Hi Jesus. Dennis Perrin here. My question is: will the Lions ever have a decent team again?

Jesus: Man, I don't know. They really ticked the Big Guy off when they refused to trade Barry Sanders, and I don't mind telling you He was hoping for a chance to see Barry play in the Super Bowl, just once. There was a time, they could have gotten an entire defensive line for him, but they decided they'd rather hold him back and sell tickets.

Gov. Mark: Wait a minute. Jesus, are you saying you couldn't care less about my career?

Jesus: Yes. Don't you already have enough money, and didn't you say this Maria is your "soul-mate"?

Gov. Mark: I'm sorry, but I'm confused. I'm doing the right thing, by sticking with my marriage. It's what the voters want.

Jesus: Oh, me. It's what this crowd of moralizing drunkards wants, because they want to scold you on the television and feel powerful when you subsequently toe the line. As far as I can see your marriage ended a long time ago, when you and the missus stopped loving each other. You don't even know or care what the voters want. Maybe you don't even care about what you want. I remember whispering in George Junior's ear a few years ago, about how he needed to take that wad of money his parents gave him and go open a video store in Houston where he could spend the rest of his days harmlessly ogling Rice co-eds renting R-rated movies, instead of running for congress. Because I knew his thwarted desire would keep screwing itself tighter and tighter, and maybe someday he'd kill thousands of people. But he didn't listen either.

Look. Some people in this world have a buffet of choices and others don't, but you seem to think you deserve some kind of credit for pretending you belong in the latter group. A waitress at the Waffle House who's boyfriend is in jail and can't get help raising her kid falls in the no choice category. You don't. Maybe you were so deliberately clumsy about ducking out of the country because you wanted to be caught, you wanted your hand forced so you could come clean and stop being a hypocrite. If that's the case, why are you back-tracking now?

Gov. Mark: I want to do what's right.

Bing Mathers: Jesus, doesn't the governor deserve credit for trying to set right his life, even under such intense media scrutiny?

Jesus: Even under-- do you hear yourself? Bing, neither you nor any of these other characters give a damn about the governor's life, let alone the well-being of his soul. You're just peeved because Fox wouldn't fly you to L.A. to cover Michael Jackson's death.


Helen Thomas(important old lady): Jesus, if we could back up just a bit please. Are you saying weasels don't have souls? What about otters?

Jesus: Hey, Helen. No,I'm not saying that, I just didn't want to call them a bunch of soulless jerkwads, because it doesn't sound like something I'd say. So I tried to put it in terms most of you could relate to. Weasels are OK, and so are otters. Anyway guys, I got other stuff to do. Let he who is without sin, etcetera etcetera. I'm outta here. (Jesus leaves.)

Gov. Mark: What about me?

(a far away clap of thunder is heard. The reporters all go "ooh" and move to the windows of the conference room to look. It starts to rain.)

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

not a twitter revolution

from the Real News.

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Michael Jackson/Billie Jean/Sungha Jung

You and I and billions of others already know that Michael Jackson died Thursday, aged 50. But before today I hadn't heard of young guitar phenom Sungha Jung, who recorded this performance back in February(via Oyster).

losing coverage

via Christy Hardin Smith, and Avedon Carol, who writes:

It's not just the uninsured; it's the outrageous fraud that people who think they have health insurance are faced with: companies that take your money knowing they will do their damnedest not to give you what you think you are paying for.

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

not to be confused with-- oh, you know...

via Abdusalaam al-Hindi, who hasn't posted for a while.

The Real News talks to UAW retirees

Retired Auto Workers have their say, pt 1.

Part two is here;
Part three,
Part four, and
Part five.

Is TV news one-sidedly in support of Israel?

from The Real News:Is TV news one-sidedly in support of Israel?

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Iran, continued

This recent al Jazeera video (via Juan Cole) seems to partially confirm what I wrote earlier this week about Ahmedinejad's support among rural voters.

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Painted green

Green may be the current cool color in Western pop culture, but it seems the Mousavi-ites dubbed their movement the green revolution because green is the color is of Islam(!). Or maybe that's just an explanation for global public consumption, so that we don't get too suspicious of all those Iranian young people holding up signs in English. Members of the Anglo press are always flattered when people in foreign countries wave signs in English that speak of freedom, even those TV-types who until very recently had been advocating bombing the crap out of Iran, as Glenn Greenwald has recently pointed out.

(Perhaps especially the ones who had been calling for bombing you.) We don't care about you, just what you stand for, so be a dear and stand for something we understand...

To be honest, I find it awfully difficult to evaluate the current goings-on in Iran. Was the election stolen? I no longer assume that the talking heads on TV care about telling me the unvarnished truth, and given how many decades US elites have invested in meddling in the middle east, it's hard not to be skeptical. On one hand we're told that opposition candidate Mousavi held a narrow lead in Iranian election polling just before the vote. On the other hand, it's hard to know how reliable polling methods are in Iran, and the gap in access to technology between country and rural folk may be substantial. Remember the famous story of how the Literary Digest predicted that FDR would lose reelection in '36 because they relied on polls of persons with telephones, which skewed their results to the republicans? On the other, other hand, as it were, just because a phenomenon plays out the way foreign elites(with a history of meddling in Iran's internal affairs) might have desired, doesn't mean it's bogus.

I note that Xymphora is suspicious that Israel and the US have interfered with the events in Iran, spurring the protests on. Even though Xymphora is prone to see a Zionist conspiracy behind every bush, this strikes me as plausible.

We're getting lots of images of rioting, but in a country of 70 plus million, about 20 million of whom live in the Tehran metro area, the only images we're getting are from the capitol, as opposed to from where the other 50 million live. Pepe Escobar has recently noted [video link]that Ahmedinejad's strongest constituency has always been among the rural poor, i.e., people who are less likely to have internet access. Call them, pace Nixon, Ahmedinejad's "silent majority."

Obviously we don't really know if their election was stolen, and we don't know if it wasn't. Apparently the Iranian government will do a recount of some disputed votes, but one assumes this is more about preserving order and shoring up its legitimacy than intrinsic concern.

I'll admit I wonder, as Xymphora and others do, if outside forces are egging on the disorder. But I also wonder if Americans could be moved to stand up for their rights in a similarly bold way without it being borne out of manipulation by elites.(I suppose I'm over-using that word at this point.)

Maybe, in our post McLuhan, insufferably postmodern, SMS/RSS/Social networking age, it's both easier for authentic grassroots phenomena to catch fire-- and easier than ever to manufacture them. Good luck Iran, even when the West has lost interest in your green revolution, so-called or otherwise, and moved on.

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Scientology on trial in France- BBC

a reminder:when abortion was illegal

Watch When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold Stories in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I saw this at the internet archive(here), but I find their embed protocol is a bit buggy when you re-write the html to prevent it from going into auto-play, so here it is via Veoh instead. Then again it may just be my html skills are the problem.

Anyway, the disgusting murder of George Tiller (while attending church) barely two weeks ago reminded me that I've been meaning to post this.

[cross-posted at Dead Horse.]

Big Town Mall-Mesquite,Tx

photo courtesy Dead Malls dot com. According to Wikipedia, Big Town Mall was the first fully-enclosed air-conditioned mall to be built west of the Mississippi when it opened in 1959. It was mostly torn down in 2006.