Sunday night election smorgasbord

Posted in Odd, Politics, Sports with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2008 by macmystery
Sensing the campaign is sinking with 10 days before the election, the Republicans have replaced John McCain with what they hope is a superior candidate, a cardboard cutout of McCain.

Sensing the campaign is sinking with 10 days before the election, the Republicans have replaced John McCain with what they hope is a superior candidate, a cardboard cutout of McCain. When asked, the RNC responded, "Hey, it's worked with Keanu Reeves' acting career."

Since I don’t want to make 100 different posts, I figured I could bunch all of this in one big one.

First, if you buy the rhetoric from the right, it’s only natural that virtually every newspaper in the country would endorse Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That crafty, slimy, liberal mainstream media! (If there was a sarcasm font, I’d use it here)

Back to reality, it might interest most that far more papers in this country endorsed Bush than Al Gore. Oops. There goes that theory/right-wing talking point/pile of horse shit. In addition, I work at a paper that would endorse Mussolini over Jesus Christ if the Italian were a Republican and the messiah a Democrat.

But you’d think McCain and Palin might get a break from the biggest paper in Palin’s state, a Republican stronghold.

Nope.

The Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama/Biden. Just for kicks, here’s a link to the Fox News blog reporting the endorsement. As if the story isn’t interesting enough, try reading the Fox News readers comments at the end of the blog post. If the comments seem remotely rational to you, please get help as soon as possible, for your safety and others.

Next, speaking of endorsements, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, a President Bush ally-turned-enemy, endorsed Obama on D.L. Hughley’s new CNN show on Sunday night.

And sticking with endorsements, here’s one you don’t want: Al-Qaeda. More bad news for McCain. Here’s a news item and here’s a New York Times piece on why it makes sense. Take it with a grain of salt.

So Sarah Palin’s hairstylist is the highest paid person on the McCain campaign team, making twice as much as his foreign policy adviser? Haven’t they learned you get what you pay for?

Rush Limbaugh … what a piece of work … he first says that Obama really wasn’t in Hawaii visiting his ailing grandmother, but instead was on some secret mission to cover up birth certificate fraud, or something almost as absurd.

Then, in nearly the same breath, he criticizes Obama for not going to visit granny sooner. Well, Rush, if she wasn’t ill, why would he have needed to leave earlier? I wonder if Rush wears his brownshirt to bed at night, or only under his white sheet at Saturday night get togethers.

And last but not least, something fun.

Sarah Palin dropped the puck at another NHL game this week. This time in St. Louis. There were some boos, but nothing like in Philly, the armpit of classiness in America. (Not that, admittedly, I wouldn’t have booed.) For the most part, St. Louis fans were like they always are, polite and enthusiastic.

But maybe she ought to not go back to St. Louis for a while. Goalie Manny Legace caught his skate on the carpet laid on the ice for Palin and injured his ankle. He departed Friday’s game after surrendering two goals in the first period and didn’t return. The Blues fell to the L.A. Kings, 4-0.

Legrace didn’t play in Saturday’s game. The team doesn’t know how long he’ll be out.

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Congrats, Amy Poehler

Posted in TV with tags , on October 27, 2008 by macmystery
Her hotness, Amy Poehler

Her hotness, Amy Poehler

Saturday Night Live star and Weekend Update anchor Amy Poehler gave birth to 8 pound, 1 ounce Archie Arnett early Saturday evening. (Read here)

As anyone who has watched SNL in recent weeks would have to know, there was a growing concern that Poehler would either explode, or literally drop her kid out on live TV any day.

In fact, I had begun to theorize that here pregnancy was nothing more than a running SNL skit, with the conclusion yet to be determined.

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Hockey fans mixed on hockey mom

Posted in Politics, Sports with tags , , , on October 12, 2008 by macmystery

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was in Philadelphia on Saturday night to drop the ceremonial puck before the Flyers game.

When Palin and her two daughters were announced, they got the traditional Philly welcome … she was booed. Read AP’s story here.

Much like Santa Clause at an Eagles game, she got an earful. After the initial booing, there was a mixture of applause, as well. But it was clear the hockey mom persona wasn’t unanimously received in the City of Brotherly Love.

Here’s a clip of the event from YouTube:

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A sign of the times

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2008 by macmystery
How is this guy not on the list?

How is this guy not on the list?

If you’ve ever read Rolling Stone or Entertainment magazine, or a newspaper for that matter, you’ve read one of those “Top 10 (fill-in-the-blank) of all-time” lists.

Top 100 songs, albums, guitarists, movies, actors, movie quotes, sex scenes, etc. of all-time.

Well, the Los Angeles Times Music Blog has issued it’s list of the top 15 songs of all-time about being broke. Given the state and direction of the economy, that’s to be expected.

Songs on the top-15 list include:

Blind Alfred Reed, “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?”

Geto Boys, “Ain’t With Being Broke”

The Clash, “Career Opportunities”

Crystal Waters, “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)”

The Beatles, “Can’t Buy Me Love”

Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”

Dolly Parton, “Coat of Many Colors”

Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Fortunate Son”

Loretta Lynn, “Coal Miner’s Daughter”

Sham 69, “Hey Little Rich Boy”

Bob Marley, “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)”

Pulp, “Common People”

Erik B. and Rakim, “Paid In Full”

Desmond Dekker, “The Israelites”

Ruben Blades, “Adan Garcia”

The best of the rest include: Soundtrack to “Annie,” “Hard Knock Life”; Roger Miller, “King of the Road”; Townes Van Zandt, “Marie”; Stevie Wonder, “I Wish”; Ray Charles, “I’m Busted”; Randy Newman, “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)”; Merle Haggard, “Workingman Blues”; Phil Collins, “Another Day In Paradise”; The Temptations, “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”; Gwen Guthrie, “Ain’t Nothing Going On But The Rent”; Elvis Presley, “In the Ghetto”; Run DMC, “Hard Times”; Donnie Hathaway, “Little Ghetto Boy”; Clarence Carter, “Patches”; Kanye West, “Spaceship”; Jerry Reed, “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft.”

In the initial top 15, I’m very familiar with the songs by Reed, Springsteen, Marley, Parton, Lynn and CCR and understand their inclusion.

Reed’s song, recently covered by Springsteen on the Seeger Sessions, is as authentic as you get. Shortly after releasing it, his most well-known song, he died of STARVATION. I’d call that authentic.

I’m not sure the Beatles’ song fits here, and many of the others, I’m simply not familiar with.

It’s much the same for the next 16 listed … in fact, I know more songs on this list.

But just to show how these lists can be off … I think it’s virtually impossible to have a list of the best songs about being broke and not including some songs from Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. These artists chronicled the Great Depression and influenced the next generation of artists.

And how can there be so few blues artists on the list?

Just goes to show that these lists, as much as they reflect a consensus among a certain group of people, even more so they reflect the breadth, or lack thereof, of that group’s musical knowledge.

Here’s a couple songs from the list:

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Racism alive and well in S.C.

Posted in TV with tags , on October 7, 2008 by macmystery

My friend Tyrone Walker once told me, as part of a much larger discussion, “Mike, you have no idea what it’s like to be a black man in S.C. and look up and see blue lights in your rear-view mirror.”

Tyrone is a journalist, a photographer for a major daily newspaper. He’s also a sergeant in the S.C. National Guard and has done a tour of duty each in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the late 1990s, he was still AFRAID of the police.

Initially, I dismissed his comment as exaggeration. Eventually, I came to understand better where he was coming from.

But now, there’s not a doubt in my mind he’s right. What happened Friday proved it.

A S.C. State Trooper who chased a “suspect” and purposely hit him with his car was acquitted of civil rights violations unanimously by a jury Friday and will soon be reinstated. Here’s the State newspaper’s story on the acquittal. It includes links to earlier coverage of the story, as well as the trooper’s dash-cam video.

In reality, the suspect’s race shouldn’t be an issue. The fact that he struck him on purpose should be all that matters. And he did hit him on purpose. He admitted it in his own words. Here’s a quote from his dash-cam recording:

Garren: “Hey, I nailed the —- out of him. I nailed the —- out of him when he hit that —- field. He went flying up in the air.”

Deputy: “You hit him?”

Garren: “Yeah, I hit him.  I was trying to hit him.”

The trooper hitting the suspect doesn’t prove he’s racist. Just that he’s too lazy to do his job correctly and dumb enough to hit the suspect on purpose and admit it.

But what should scare the hell out of people is that 12 honest citizens sat in a room, looked at the tape and concluded he didn’t mean to hit anyone.

You take a look and let me know if he was guilty ..

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