Opera Glasses and Popcorn
La Louche… on the lam.
What wretched escapades we are up to, looking over the news. Nothing but bloodletting.
How soon do we acquire Jamaica? Will we offer a Prime USDA Choice Viceroy position to a favored son of Jamaica, Colin Powell?
Seems as likely as anything else…
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An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
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on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
…’deeed ..it …do……..
hmm I read he has not held an actual scheduled East Room type of Press Conference since JULY last year.
On two occasions since has taken a smatter of questions.
NTIM………….
I say someone should sew a diamond encrusted crown to hsi ass.
The administration in search of an active verb. Or two.
Of course the most important thing is that the story, whatever it is or is not, holds for the day… BP gets a stock surge and Obby gets a “positive” day.
Business Insider/Clusterstock boys:
BUT!!!!
The flow is over. Or it’s not. Or it could break… or it won’t. And there is the cement stage… Or… Or… Or….
But……………………. it’s over.
Just keep the headlines coming.
Oh noes. That was fast:
Hold the horses. Hold everything!
Apparently a BP executive is expected to take the Fifth today, in testimony before congress.
Sounds like a mob member to me!
Oh they’re desperate…
Kudos to Helen Thomas for asking Obamalama about getting out of Afghanistan and telling him not to use “Bushisms” like we have to get them over there so they don’t get us here…. Go Helen.
hey against all expectations, Jackie Calmes scores too…
Which Q was that? About the firing/resignation?
And what about all of those unused land leases? He seems to have forgotten about those when he insists that they have to drill offshore.
I agree with Gergen on CNN who said that he seemed uncomfortable. He seemed to fumble around a lot.
yeah that one… esp because he fumbled…
he really is deflated. it’s hard out there for a pretzel.
YAY ME!!! Er, I am done with my student teaching assignment and have been recommended for certification! Yippie!
Now all I have to do is finish all of the coursework, study for and pass various and sundry exams (at $120 a pop), put together various hoop jumping type paperworky things, work 2 (or more?) jobs, take care of kidlets (out of school starting next Wed.), and come up with the remaning $1600 for the program….oh! and look for a job (like for after the certification takes place kind of thing…)
OOOOH, and have I mentioned that I have not turned on the AC yet?! At first it was ’cause I couldn’t really afford it, then when kid the elder was sick as a dog last weekend, it was becaue all it blew was hot air…..
Yes, I AM babbling. Thanks for listening…I’ll get back to all the rest of my “to do” after I have spent the rest of this particular day congratulating myself! 8)
hugs to all!
Wow. What a mixed bag. Congrats and hang in there.
congrats, and hugs back!
hi dear………
Niiice, Brinn!
I joke about “portfolio”- and hope it’s obviously the joke that it is –
so I know well the series of one thing after another.
I’ve come to live by a few rules..
1. Take those ups when you get em. Jeezis. In this system?
2. Don’t let the bastards get ya down.
and
3. Mostly, they’re ALL BASTARDS.
(I’m trying to sell it as a sunny self improvement series but I can’t get the backing)
congrats!
yup, …it’s “over” allrighty …….
APNewsBreak: New, Giant Sea Oil Plume Seen in Gulf
APNewsBreak: Scientists discover new, giant deep sea oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico
A crow family in the neighborhood just lost their perches when some trees they favored had to be taken down, and they seem to be taking up temporary residence in the near vicinity of my bedroom window…..
This morning I think I witnessed the Caw, vocalizing lessen. Baby, was sounding kind of like a duck, and every time baby sounded off, Ma, or perhaps Pa, appeared to be patiently influencing with the, no dear, it’s CAW, response ……
So Pa’s with the Navy?
thanks for that news hon, hadn’t been aware of that ugly one
and, like you, I most certainly do believe that evil does exist, how many more examples do we really need?
oh that is so great…
..it was a very sweet moment that I really loved …
Crows are great. And they seem to have quite a versatile language. Several weeks ago when we here in northern NH had a spell of nice warm weather, everything was merrily blooming, and we thought spring was pretty much under way, I was awakened early in the morning by one of our neighborhood crows repeatedly uttering a strange call that can only be described as both mournful and outraged. I looked out the window to see what was up, and saw that the countryside was covered with more than an inch of snow. I guess it was Crow language for “WTF!! You have GOT to be kidding me!!”
badassss indeed ….will get back on that one, cuz I gotta run ……….
I have a wonderful old National Geographic bird book which has a great chapter on the Corvidae family, which includes Crows, Ravens, Jays. It notes that they’re amazingly smart, and excellent mimics, the crows and the ravens being even better than the jays at it. There’s a priceless picture of a pet crow , waking up the little boy who took care of it by lifting the sheet off of him while he was asleep in bed, the crow had learned to call out the boy’s name.
As a child I remember a gas station we stopped at on a trip in Illinois, and the family that owned it, kept an enormous Raven that they’d taught to speak, and more recently at an old apartment, I started mimicking a Scrub Jay out of my apartment window, and we made a habit out of back and forthing on a frequent basis (haven’t a clue how badly I was screwing up the corvid language, but the Jay was quite sweet in obliging my gibberish).
I had a white dove, a banded bird that maybe was someone’s pet, come knock on my window when I lived on Russian Hill… I heard tapping on my bedroom window… which in a stretch someone could have gotten to the little roof over the main entrance and then the little roof being right outside my window… so with my mother on the phone I gingerly pulled back the drapes… to see this white dove using her beak to rap on the window… She came for months and I bought seed and would sprinkle it out on the now quite handy little roof… enough so it sprouted and I had little tufts of grassy stuff poking up thru the tiles…
I finally made ti all the way thru the local documetnary on The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill… I always shut it off when he has to move off the hill…
Of course in LIBERAL San Francisco, ti is now ILLEGAL to feed the wild parrots.
What a wonderful experience. I love to listen to the cooing of the Mourning Doves so common here.
Last year I met a fellow in Connecticut who raised a baby crow when he was a kid. When she was an adult he let her back into the wild. She didn’t want to go at first but then finally did. Later on, she came back to his house to visit, bringing young birds that must have been her new family. Lovely story!
KGO, the local talk radio here, spending an hour on the presser (just about to start, 3:05 – 4 PM) and first up is the flub on Birnbaum departure.
Gah.
I am just catching up to the news, Lehrer is on… apparently Birnbaum testified yesterday before congress… and pouf! Overnight, gone.
But not noticed by pretzel.
have to love it.
….. speaking of which, can you recommend any hardcopy biography’s on Lehrer, hon, if there are any?
no I can’t… I can’t imagine plowing thru a bio on Lehrer… frankly. He strikes me as one more long term propaganda mouth put in place so long ago.
Basically he is an old marine, which they downplay on pBS, or did before we re-entered the world of decades long wars.
yeah hon, …thought so, ………YET, …he has been near a sole resounding HOST….for …”PROGRESSIVES” …..for what seems like FOREVER …….now.
(along with the statuesque BROOKS, ….and that …..squat fuck DEFENDER OF PROGRESSIVES …who’s NAME, I NEVER COULD REMEMBER …….(fancy that……?))
(with his beady, mean, and angry appearing, peepers …which seem to be glued open ….for eternity)
not nary a wink ………….ever ……
Well McNeil left… I think it’s an easy gig for Lehrer, he’ll be doing it years after he actually dies.
yuppers ………
Lehrer does write humorous novels, which is good. The world needs more of them. I read one a few years ago – forget the title, and the content (maybe something to do with a bus?). But while I was reading it, it was mildly enjoyable.
I once read a novel by Macneil, too. That one was entitled “Breaking News” and appeared to be a roman a clef. It was rather fun trying to guess whom the various characters were intended to portray – the cutthroat network exec, the dedicated but aging journalist being pushed out by the ambitious young bimbo, and so forth. But other than that, it was stilted and oddly pretentious. And not an ounce of humor in it.
That was one thing I admired about Wm. F. Buckley: he wrote a few decent trashy spy novels which didn’t take themselves too seriously.
MacNeil was/is a big opera buff….
I ahve seen interior shots of the house Lehrer has in WV, which tho not my taste is very beautiful, of the colonial era…
Birnbaum who? /Barry>
Uh oh a diary critical ofCHEVRON on DK
Reporting on activists use of proxies to stir things up at the shareholder meeting…
Amazing, only one dick so far coming in with the mudpack.
LOL. MARKOS prolly called the cops..
That Fraud Moulitsas, AND that faux lib new media con, “Blogads”, taking all that dirty ad money for all those years. By which, of course, I mean ~ the DNC, Chucks DSCC and Rahm’s DCCC. LOL.
Oh yeh , I almost forgot – AND CHEVRON.
They took BP money too, IIRC.
I’m out…
Just up at Wapo, fwiw
well… as long as they TRIIIED, it’s all good.
The report also says Birnbaum was to testify again Thursday.
Oh well…
A caller to KGo who’s been going down to the Gulf as a volunteer every year since Katrina, mentioned this Anderson Cooper show of yesterday.
Transcript.
jindal, Nungasser – president of Plaquemines parish, Carville…
I think one thing that will haunt Obby is that he fell in with BP, he did not facilitate access for SCIENTISTS… this comes out over and over… and early on, days ago, Carville called him out for not calling in Scripps scientists, Woods Hole people, etc.
Hope Obby was not counting on votes from the Gulf.
re the transcript, love that preface:
…..the cleanup effort that only seems to be going on where the cameras are rolling. That’s what people here tell us they are witnessing. It’s what we saw today, cleanup photo- ops and off-camera neglect, or worse…..
Carville still at it… bet Obby would like to take a “junk shot” at Carville
On with Campbell Brown:
Her Name Was Aiyana Jones
The Media and the Murder of Aiyanna Jones
not sure this will work … footage from ABC News in the gulf w/ Cousteau’s grandson, in SCUBA hazmat suits:
nope, link didn’t work. Here:
‘This is a nightmare’
oh thank you fro that… someone was on a segment about 3 weeks ago screaming for Cousteau to be brought in with his equipment.
And it was great that ABC sent scuba divers down a few days ago, I noticed scientists sat up, they had some real imaging for a change… like when BP finally did put the break on a stream, suddenly scientists knew a LOT more.
[hope Obby was not planning on Gulf votes]
oh I see ti is ABC, the first set they sent down were sort of “no name” divers (with cameras), so maybe they sent Cousteau down next… thanks again…
the footage is pretty stunning.
I’ll take a look… as perhaps I had a little blow out preventer fail in the brain, I may have completely blanked on hearing the name Cousteau when I caught the ABC scuba film… and i have seen it several times….
How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built
Speaking of Carville and crows, Chuck Todd was crowing like a blooming idiot on Tweety’s show about how he hoped Obama’s presser moment about his daughter would “calm” Carville down because he was actually showing his non-geek emotional side. Clearly, Todd was almost in tears. Kind of funny but when I’ve seen Carville & Matalin on CNN – HE is tougher on Obamalama than she is most times. And she can be such a nasty, nasty person when she wants to be.
Oh – and the firing wasn’t the only thing Obamalama didn’t know about during the press conference – BP has paused the top kill operation for hours by the time Obamalama showed his face but O acted like everything was on course when he was speaking. Not a word about that. He clearly doesn’t know WTF is going on.
The other thing I heard mentioned – and I can’t remember by who tonite – was a reminder that O and Biden went to the memorial for the dead miners but didn’t bother to show up for the dead rig workers.
Where is Biden anyway? Hiding out on Cheney’s bunker?
I am wondering if Obby even sent anyone to the service for the rig workers.
He really is a putz.
too busy shaving and taking q and a with first daughter [one of them anyway]
From the Department of Good Luck With That: U.N. Official Set to Ask U.S. to End C.I.A. Drone Strikes
And another thing I caught during the press conference:
You have BP saying they’ll pay whatever it costs and you have Obama worried about the budget? What’s wrong with this picture?
I ahve seen so many excuses used for delaying, ignoring the whole idea of sand berms or any sort of breakwater building. BUILD THEM! I have read that a couple of small land bridges got built at the mouths of estuaries, to try to keep oil oout…
One magazine that takes money from BP tried to say (as others did and i think this excuse got used officially as well) that for environmental reasons it could not be done.
I see that as just using an excuse adn blaming/hiding behind genuine environmental concerns (as Audubon magazine did… ) for not building them.
gnu
LINK
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