Congressman Alan Grayson calls for a vote on the Public Option now

By Mark | March 10, 2010

It’s worth noting that the House healthcare bill already incorporates a public health insurance plan. The issue has always been in the Senate, where we’d need at least 50 votes under reconciliation, with the Vice President casting the deciding vote. Fortunately, we seem to be making progress there as well. As of today, we’ve got 41 Senators who support the passage of a public option via reconciliation. If your Senator isn’t on the list, please make a call. I know it’s a long shot at this stage of the game, but quitters never win. We need to keep right on swinging until the bell rings.

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Mad about Barbie

By Mark | March 10, 2010

I hate Barbie. I really do. I won’t allow them in my house. And, yes, I know, they’re not as whorish as they once were. I hear they’ve even got an astronaut Barbie now. Of course, she’s still got those signature triple-D breasts, the make-up of an aging Russian prostitute, and a neon pink space suit. They can make superficial changes around the periphery (”Hey, let’s have her be a blond, big-breasted computer technician this holiday season”), but the central message is still the same. Women are commodities to be painted, dressed up and sold. And it’s not a message I want anywhere near my not-so-blond, still-confident daughter. Anyway, with all that said, I think the folks at Mattel did something interesting today, when they announced that they would be issuing a limited edition series of Mad Men Barbies.

Here’s a clip from Media Bistro:

…The New York Times reports that there will be 7,000 to 10,000 copies made of each $75 doll, which together are part of Mattel’s premium-price collector’s series called Barbie Fashion Model Collection. While the Mad Men figures won’t come with the usual accoutrements like cigarettes, ashtrays or martini glasses, it’s still baffling how this grown-folks show has become so embraced by kid-focused brands…

When I first heard the news, to be honest, I was kind of impressed. I guess the business part of my brain appreciated the beauty of bringing these two complimentary, yet very different, brands together in order to separate more people from their cash. But, the more I thought about it, and discussed it with Linette, the more I realized that, at least for me, it started to make me dislike Mad Men more. It’s as though the Barbie deal kind of validated the worst elements of the show.

Mad Men has always had sexism at its core, but it was a laughable kind of sexism. And the show was able to redeem itself by showing women that were bright, quick witted, and, in most cases, able to accomplish their goals in spite of the men, who were circling them like sharks. Boiling the characters down to plastic icons, kind of puts things in perspective, though. It strips away the veneer of clever writing, and acknowledges the underlying premise that women are little more than sex objects to be pursued… It’s as though the battle of the sexes has been fought, between the early 1960’s of Mad Men and today, and Barbie has won out.

madmendolls1-1

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R.I.P. Corey Haim

By Mark | March 10, 2010

I wasn’t a huge Corey Haim fan, but I feel as though it’s worth remembering, on this, the day that he was found dead of an apparent overdose in Los Angeles, that there was a time before he was a two-dimensional, drug addicted d-list celebrity preyed upon by the bottom feeders of the entertainment industry. There was a time when he actually showed promise as an actor. The following quote comes from Roger Ebert’s 1986 review of the film Lucas:

…The film centers on the character of Lucas, a skinny kid with glasses and a shock of unruly hair and a gift for trying to talk himself into situations where he doesn’t belong. Lucas is played by Corey Haim, who was Sally Field’s son in “Murphy’s Romance,” and he does not give one of those cute little boy performances that get on your nerves. He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good…

Here, if you haven’t seen Lucas, is a quick, four-second clip:

And I don’t mean to indict Haim’s parents when I say this - for all I know, they might be very nice people - but, in my opinion, if you really love your child, you don’t put them into an industry with a well-earned reputation for ruining lives and cutting them short… Those looking for more information on the entertainment industry and what it does to kids, check out the non-profit organization A Minor Consideration.

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Putting aside the insanity for a little optimism for a change

By Mark | March 8, 2010

I’m struggling with what to write about tonight, as I’ve just been made aware of two equally good stories. On one hand we’ve got Glenn Beck, who, determined to push the insanity throttle even further into the red, recently encouraged his followers to leave their churches if they didn’t immediately abandon the mission of “social justice”. And, on the other, we’ve got Sarah Palin, who, if you can believe it, shared with an audience yesterday that she and her family would cross over into Canada to take advantage of their healthcare system when she was growing up in Alaska… How can I be expected to choose between those two extremely fertile veins of insanity?

Here’s a clip from the story about Beck:

…On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice…

That’s right - the history books don’t tell this - but feeding the poor and hungry is what the Nazis - especially those pesky Communist Nazis - were really all about. Hitler, if I’m not mistaken, would even wash the feet of the homeless in his bunker, between his Meals on Wheels runs into the ghetto.

And isn’t it amazing that Palin survived through her childhood, what with being subjected to the indignities of socialized medicine? How dare her father not keep his family here in the U.S., where the free market could have dictated their care.

OK, now that it’s mostly out of my system, here’s something good for a change - a video of MIT professor Dan Nocera, who believes that he’s found the holy grail of alternative energy - a way to break the hydrogen-oxygen bonds in water efficiently with solar energy, producing a clean source of power with no residual pollution. (Presently, as I understand it, we can break the hydrogen-oxygen bond in water, but it takes more energy to break the molecule than is produced in the process.)

Those evil scientist witches may save our asses yet.

Dan Nocera: Personalized Energy from PopTech on Vimeo.

Posted in Alternative Energy, Environment, Health, Politics, Science, energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Ypsilanti’s prestigious Full Nelson University

By Mark | March 7, 2010

Maybe it’s just that I loved Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, but I’m intrigued by these flyers that have been floating around town as of late, advertising one-on-one professional wrestling classes for what could be either $5 or $5,000 per session. With my spine problems, sadly, it’s a profession that I’ll never have the opportunity to explore, but, if classes are only $5 a session, I think this might be my default birthday gift to friends under 40 from now on.

fullnelson

So, does anyone out there know this fellow, Bash Boulder? If you’ve taken a class at Full Nelson University, I’d love to hear about it.

And, speaking of Mickey Rourke, which story do you think is more believable - that he once had sex with 14 women in one day, or that terrible, yet attractive actress Megan Fox has only had sex with two men in her entire life?

Posted in Art and Culture, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

More anti-government violence

By Mark | March 7, 2010

A week or so ago, in the wake of the one-man attack on the IRS in Austin, we had a discussion here about the whether or not the increased anti-government rhetoric on the right might be encouraging such behavior. Several people indicated, if I remember correctly, that, given the current political climate, they wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more violence in the near future. And that’s exactly what happened a few days ago.

On Thursday, a California man by the name of John Patrick Bedell, was killed at the Pentagon after shooting two police officers. It seems as though, Bedell, who suffered from what is being described as severe “anti-government anger,” had crossed the country with two semiautomatic weapons, intent on making a stand in DC… Following is a clip from the Associated Press:

…Hints of a deep-seated mistrust of government emerged in Internet postings linked to Bedell. A blog connected to his LinkedIn profile contained a two-part treatise on big government, including its vulnerability to being controlled by a criminal organization.

“This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens, in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control,” the blog post read…

Coincidentally, the Southern Poverty Law Center just issued a report on anti-government extremism… Here’s a clip from the report’s accompanying press release:

…The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Antigovernment “Patriot” groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009…

While I don’t believe there’s evidence of this most recent shooter having ties to any particular group, I don’t suspect the recent, paranoid anti-government ravings by the likes of Glenn Beck, who loves to talk about the secret military that Obama is building, the conspiracy theories of the tea bagging set, or the proliferation of signs about Obama’s gas chambers, helped.

Those interested in reading the Southern Poverty Law Center report, click here, or watch this video featuring the report’s author, Mark Potok.

Posted in Observations, Other, Politics, Predictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 73 Comments

Google interprets Mark

By Mark | March 5, 2010

mmtranslate

My friend Eric, the guy who put me in the Hitler downfall meme a week or so ago, has struck again. This time he’s taken an innocent little video that I posted of myself to Youtube, and run it through Google’s new translation tool. The results, as you can see, are interesting.

And, no, that’s not a cock ring that I’ve got in the palm of my hand in the first image, as Eric has suggested.

Posted in Mark's Life, Other | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Random thoughts on a Thursday night alone

By Mark | March 4, 2010

I was all excited to write about this rumor going around today that Chief Justice John Roberts was preparing to step down from the Supreme Court for “personal reasons,” but, sadly, it looks like it’s not true. I hate when stuff like that happens, and I get my hopes all up about something, only to have them dashed. Now, all I can think about is the fact that he’s only 55 years old, and we’re likely to have him on the court for another 40 years… Speaking of which, I know I’ve said this before, but, ladies, if I were you, I’d get my abortions now, while you can.

Oh, it’s not related, but a reader calling himself Captain Clark just sent in a link to a great appearance by New York Congressman Anthony Weiner on the FOX morning show. If you watch anything today, watch this. It’s breathtaking. Weiner takes on three well-programmed conservative news-bots, defending the public option, and proceeds to beat them into smoldering heaps of goo with their own arguments. His positioning of the subject is brilliant. He makes it all about cost containment and the free market. Here it is. Watch it:

Oh, and if you’re still in the mood to watch videos when you’re done with that, check out this news story about an anti-gay rights California State Senator who was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay bar last night. And, it’s probably worth noting that there was another man in his car at the time of the arrest. His identity has yet to be disclosed, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that maybe it has something to do with the rumor earlier today that John Roberts was stepping down for “personal reasons.”

And I know I should be happy for my friend Jeff, who was just asked by Chevrolet to wave out the window of a green Camaro during Scranton’s big St. Patrick’s Day parade, like he’s an astronaut or something, but all I feel is the white-hot, searing pain of jealousy. Sure, I’ve got a puppet and a TV show, but I want to live in a state where bloggers are real parade-worthy celebrities. I want to hang drunkenly out the window of a slow-moving Camaro, with a plastic crown on my head, hoisting a giant, one-gallon mug of Yuengling as ugly ladies with big hair cackle and slingshot their filthy unmentionables in my direction.

OK, on that note, I’m going to move the party on over to Facebook.

Goodnight, my invisible friends.

Posted in Mark's Life, Observations, Other, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Fighting for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency till our teeth are smashed out

By Mark | March 3, 2010

As we’ve discussed here in the past, if we’re to avoid financial disasters in the future, it’s absolutely essential that the banking reform bill presently being discussed within the Senate Banking Committee establish a strong, independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Unfortunately, it looks as though some Democrats might be willing to trade it away in the name of bipartisanship. Here’s a clip from tomorrow’s LA Times:

…Creating a powerful and independent consumer agency, which is strongly opposed by the financial industry and Republicans, has been the major roadblock in drafting a bill that could pass in the Senate. Desperate to surmount that hurdle as this year’s legislative clock winds down, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) floated the idea this week of putting the new agency in the Federal Reserve…

Where, I should point out, it would essentially be answerable to Wall Street. Here, on that subject, is more from the LA Times:

…Dodd himself and other supporters of the consumer agency have criticized the Fed’s previous inaction as a main reason for creating such an entity, noting that the central bank took 14 years before enacting rules in 2008 to protect consumers from unscrupulous mortgage lending…

Fortunately for us, Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout, isn’t sitting quietly on the sidelines. No, the 60 year old Harvard Law professor is urging Democrats to fight, even if it means getting some teeth shattered and losing some blood. Here’s a clip from the Huffington Post, where Warren was interviewed today:

…”My first choice is a strong consumer agency,” the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. “My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor.”

There’s been a steady leak of Senate proposals to fix the dysfunctional way federal regulators protect consumers from abusive lenders. One was an independent unit housed within the Treasury Department; another was a new entity, housed in the Federal Reserve, with little independence or power.

The Senate shouldn’t waste its time, asserts Warren, explaining that current proposals fail to address some of her key priorities such as arming the proposed agency with independent rule-making authority, without interference by bank regulators.

“My 99th choice is some mouthful of mush that doesn’t get the job done,” Warren said…

I like Elizabeth Warren, and hope that her message is getting through to members of the Senate Banking Committee. (To contact your Senators, just click here.)

I can understand why the Wall Street firms would fight tooth and nail to undermine the creation of an independent watchdog organization, but I don’t get why the Republicans are so anxious to shoot down the idea. I mean, I know that they’re dependent on the support of these firms, and beholden to their lobbyists, but it seems to me that it would be a difficult vote to explain to one’s constituents. Sure, they may be inclined to think the establishment of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency is “anti-business” or, worse yet, “a step toward Socialism,” but I’ve got to think that they’d be willing to put those concerns aside if they understood that this entity would ensure that their credit card companies couldn’t jack their finance rates up 30% with no notice. But maybe I’m giving them too much credit. I suppose it’s possible, in some places, that people love Capitalism so damn much that they don’t mind being fucked by corporations.

And, on that happy note, here’s a little documentary video footage shot last night in White House… It seems as though our last six Presidents - even the dead ones - want a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

[note: This post violates my No Chevy Chase rule. I'm sincerely sorry about that.]

Posted in Art and Culture, Economics, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Republicans realize that climate change can’t be fought forever

By Mark | March 2, 2010

It took about 25 years, but reality finally caught up to the right.

In 1987, I was in the audience for a debate on global warming held in Washington, DC. Reagan was our President at the time, and it was my first exposure to the subject. I’m cannot recall who was on the panel. Al Gore, who joined the Senate in 1985, could have been there. All I really remember is that one of the Republicans on the panel, after stating repeatedly that there was no such thing as global warming, and implying that liberal academics were just looking to increase their federal research funding, said that, even if there was, it wouldn’t matter. He said - and I remember this very distinctly - we’d just make bigger, better air conditioning units. The free market, in other words, would solve everything. That was the level of debate in 1986, and it’s been a long, hard slog since then. It seems as though, we’re finally making some headway, though. Today I read the following quote from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina:

“I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value… When you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax, and are wacky people, you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.”

I’d argue that the same thing holds for gay marriage and gays in the military. According to polls, the right has already lost those fights. Young people just don’t care. On one hand, it’s depressing as hell that it takes decades or more to turn this enormous ship of state that we’re all on, but at least we know that it can be done. We know that the effort is worth it, and that reality eventually wins out over fear, superstition and prejudice. That, I think, is something to be happy about.

Posted in Environment, Politics | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments