Can I still write here? Lol!

The Subject is Sunday Talk Shows

They suck.

No, really. They suck.

Why this is a problem.

But then, there's always Bobblespeak.

"If they can't buy it, they will steal it"

Republican's cheat. Always have, always will - it's just how they roll.

Today's GOP: The Party of Rich Old White Guy Has-Beens

Clint Eastwood.   Really? Pretty sad.

Well, to be fair, Charlie Heston wasn't available......

Who is Mitt Romney

Must read. by Matt Taibbi

On Lessons Not Learned

Once again, Charlie Pierce.

See the comments also, such as:

Sadly, I think the only lesson ever learned permanently from Watergate was the journalistic hack of attaching '-gate' to the poutrage of the day.

Today's Must Read

Journalism Edition. This is another edition of How Things Got This Way.

BTW, I did go see Dark Shadows with Son#1 and his girlfriend. It's a very silly movie, with some slow parts, and typical Burton excesses, but also some terrific gags, my favorite having to do with "macrame"....

Dark Shadows

Can't wait to go see this latest Burton/Depp collaboration.

And this Andrew O'Hehir review sounds promising.  FWIW, a couple of points about that review, though. O'Hehir says:

If you’re too young to have seen the original “Dark Shadows” — which remained a daytime staple, in reruns, well into the 1980s, and is now available on DVD in (almost) its 1,245-episode entirety — or just aren’t wired that way, explaining its importance may not be possible. The main thing to point out is the immensely different cultural context in which the show emerged. Barnabas Collins predates not just “Twilight” and “True Blood,” but also Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” and the entire rise of the Goth sensibility. In the 1970s, vampires were something that only marginal weirdos who went to science-fiction bookstores and watched Hammer films like “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” knew about. People like the teenage Tim Burton, in other words. (Christopher Lee, who played Dracula in seven Hammer movies, has a cameo role here, at least his fifth performance for Burton.)

Many of us unlucky enough to be conscious during the 1970s were desperate for markers of cultural difference, and “Dark Shadows” offered a big one in the years before punk rock. If you were into that show, you probably listened to records by Alice Cooper and the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground. You read Tolkien, and Harlan Ellison. You also watched “Star Trek,” an extremely different kind of show with some odd similarities. (Each became more popular after their cancellation; each starred a Canadian Shakespeare actor — William Shatner and Jonathan Frid, respectively — who took a low-paying TV gig that would define the rest of his life.) You probably knew the guy in your town who sold Acapulco Gold and Panama Red.

I was watching the TV serial, Dark Shadows, in the years 1966-1967, when it came on after school at 4 pm, so a few years earlier than the time period that the movie parodies. Even so, the characterization of the typical viewer that O'Hehir describes above doesn't quite fit. E.g.:

1. "desperate for markers of cultural difference,"  Not me. I wasn't desperate because my "markers" were quite obvious. Furthermore, everyone I knew loved that show, including my mother who watched it with me! If anything, I would have watched it to fit in, not to be different. But I didn't - I just loved it.

2. "If you were into that show, you probably listened to records by Alice Cooper and the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground. You read Tolkien, and Harlan Ellison. "  Uh, nope. The Stones, sure - "Satisfaction" was just playing on the radio. But Alice Cooper? Ick. And I never heard of the Velvet Underground until I was in my 30's. As for reading, I was into murder mysteries, Agatha Christie being one of my favorites.

3. "You also watched “Star Trek,”" I liked it okay - but I did have a classmate who was a fanatical fan, and we all thought she was kind of weird.

4. "You probably knew the guy in your town who sold Acapulco Gold and Panama Red." Bingo! But, yeah, not until 1970....

On a lighter note today

Another Republican on the crowded Appalachian Trail.

What We've Become

This is how low we've sunk. Excerpt:

This has been probably the most chilling aspect of the new civil liberties regime over the last 12 years: it's not just what has been done in our name--that's bad enough--but that what was done has been justified so openly. It's not as if the American government hasn't since its inception done some truly awful things in its past by people who justified to themselves, like Mr. Rodriguez, that they were doing it all for flag and country. But at least in the past such people had enough shame to know they should at least keep it under wraps and classified. J. Edgar Hoover, terrible as he was, at least knew better than to proudly make public his operations.

But when torture becomes a matter of national public policy and men like Mr. Rodriguez proclaim it proudly on national television rather than from behind cell bars, we have a different order of problem entirely. And the onus for that problem lies not just with our elected officials, but with all of us as a society. After all, once it's on 60 Minutes it's not as if we can turn our heads and pretend we didn't know.

That's exactly right.

E. L. Doctorow has some related thoughts.

Don't know how much longer I'll be blogging

Blogger appears to be changing and tells me that I won't be able to update this blog unless I do something-or-other, which I've tried to do, but, well.... Anyway, should something happen and I'm no long able to write at this site, I'll probably try to do something else. Who knows! Hows that for Vague??? I never had any intention of stopping - just often find myself without much to add to the current conversation. I will keep this blog going as long as the server lets me.

The NRA rules their world - and ours

First read this, then this. We are so screwed.

I know these people

Atrios calls them Friedmanbaggers.

Wanker of the Decade via Atrios

Duncan Black has done yeoman's work assembling this list of the decade's ("Decade" defined as the last 10 years that Atrios has been blogging) wankiest wankers.

It's a great piece of work, culminating today with WANKER OF THE DECADE and should be read in its entirety.

Also, too, throw some cash love his way. He deserves it!

"Unzip him"

Ann Romney wants us to know that her husband is NOT "too stiff"!

Texas Women Do Know How To Dish It Out

Priceless.

Who will Romney choose as VP?

CW appears to be that one chooses a VP to appeal to a demographic that one is weakest with. For Romney, this would seem to be the entire Republican base, who hates his guts with the passion of a thousand suns. And, too, women. So, who should he pick? Palin (It worked so well last time!)? Bachmann (too nuts? Is that possible?)? Frothy (too disgusting? Is that possible?)? Or some fellow corporate-sponsored cyborg like Paul Ryan (too happy in his current job?)? This is fun speculation - anyone out there have an opinion?

"Disgusting"

This is not The Onion.

Winning Strategy

You know, if Mittens adopted this strategy, even I might vote for him! Okay, no. But still.

America's Barbaric Racism

Via Firedoglake, I found this amazing spot-on commentary at a site called Black Agenda Report. But what I found really interesting was the sidebar on the right, listing other essay topics, and noting how decisively anti-Obama they are. Yikes. I'm bookmarking that site for sure.