Rhodes Endorses Obama

A few days ago, I voiced my displeasure at Ron Howard's video depicting Sheriff Andy Taylor's endorsement for Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential race. But then it hit me. That didn’t necessarily have to be Andy Taylor. A black-and-white Andy Griffith could also be Private Will Stockdale, the Reverend Samuel Whitehead, or, even better, Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes from A Face in The Crowd. After all, if Rhodes endorsed Obama, he wouldn’t be the first “irrepressible Arkansas traveler” who’s charmed his way into America’s hearts to do so.

A Face in The Crowd was a 1957 Elia Kazan film tracing the rise and fall of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes (played to perfection by Andy Griffith), an Ozark ne’er-do-well who picks-and-grins his way to the top of the Big Rock Candy Mountain of national television stardom only to topple off when his fans and followers see the vile hillbilly brute behind the curtain of country charm.

“I know it’s not what the people want to hear ... but I know what’s best for them.”

“We've got to face it, politics have entered a new stage, television. Instead of long-winded debates, the people want slogans. ‘Time for a CHANGE!’ … Punch-lines and glamour.”

“Secretary for National Morale is a job that I was born for! In a time of crisis … who else could rabble the people … ? Who else could move the people to action … ? You are looking at America's answer to the crying need….”
-- Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes

Sit On It, Richie

Perhaps the most viral video to hit the system of tubes known as the internet last week was the one in which Ron Howard reenacts his roles as Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham in order to demonstrate "the importance of voting for Barack Obama" this year. In pursuit of a Democrat victory in the presidential race, he also recruited both Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler to revisit the roles of Sheriff Andy Taylor and Arthur Fonzarelli respectively.

None of the GOP ship-jumpings, neither that of Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, William Weld, nor even that of Colin Powell, saddened me nearly as much as Howard's momentary return to Mayberry and Milwaukee.

Growing up, I was a fan of both Happy Days and The Andy Griffith Show. I squandered quite a few Tuesday evenings watching the antics of those crazy kids down at Arnold's. Back in my son's closet still hangs my original "Fonzie" leather jacket and a "Fonz" t-shirt that my mother decided to preserve for some thirty-odd years so that I could hand them down as some sort of pop culture heirloom.

I felt an even greater bond for The Andy Griffith Show. Friends have even commented that I was Opie Cunningham growing up since I came from a small town and my father was a one of the higher-ups in local law enforcement who shared Andy Taylor's country charm, common sense, and folksey, yet firm, approach to justice. Like my dad, Andy was a gentle, loving father, yet one who made certain that his son knew where the wood-shed was located and its primary purpose in early childhood growth and development.

So one can imagine my dismay when I saw Opie and Andy down by the fishin' hole singing down-home hosannas for Barack Obama. I wasn't surprised that either supported a Democrat. After all, it is Hollywood, and I even remember reading that Andy Griffith traditionally supports Democrat candidates. Besides, my father was a lifelong Democrat as well (granted, by 1984, he was a Reagan Democrat, but a card-carrying Democrat just the same).

My disappointment came from Howard's use of these characters for politics, period. Granted, it would have been easier for me to swallow had the Taylor family been praising John McCain, but it still would have been a shame that Howard and Griffith exploited the love that those of us in fly-over country have for that show to get some politician elected. Although LBJ was President for much of the life of the show, his size 11 shit-kickers never touched the sidewalks in Mayberry, North Carolina. Floyd the Barber never talked about that handsome young man Jack Kennedy. Neither Richard Nixon or Barry Goldwater ever showed up (although folks would be right nice to them if they did). Sure, Andy had to call on Raleigh to supplement the Sheriff's Office budget every once in a while, but Washington? Washington was the Father of Our Country whose picture was hanging on the wall in Miss Helen Crump's classroom, a person, not a place.

Mayberry is rural America's Brigadoon, and by donning that red toup' and digging his striped green shirt and fishing pole out of mothballs, Ron Howard has broken that enchantment.

[ The Video ]

HOPE and CHANGE Or Else...

If anybody knows anger, it's the Ragin' Cajun himself James Carville:

James Carville, a strategist for former President Bill Clinton and advisor to his wife Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign, hinted Democrat supporters could be angry if Mr Obama lost, given his lead in the polls.

"If Obama goes in and he has a consistent five-point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there," he told CNN.

James Tate, of Detroit's police department, which dealt with violent celebrations after the Detroit Tigers won the baseball World Series in 1984, told congressional newspaper The Hill that problems could flare whichever candidate wins.

"Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations," he said. "The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement."

In Chicago, where Mr Obama will hold a rally on November 4, the police department has been meeting to discuss security plans for the night. Law enforcement departments in Philadelphia and Cincinnati are also making preparations in case of problems.

...

Hilary Shelton, director of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People's (NAACP) Washington bureau, said there could be a repeat of problems witnessed in some black inner cities in 2004, where voters waited for up to eight hours to cast their ballots.

In response to the expected high turnout among racial and ethnic minority voters, intense interest in the election and online rumours about unrest, the NAACP has written to election officials in every state asking them to try to prevent any problems that could lead to voters being "stymied" or "disenfranchised" such as too few voting machines or staff.

...

Meanwhile, in a blog posting entitled 'A McCain "Win" Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned', David Swanson, Washington director of Democrats.com and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, writes: "If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying.

"You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, DC, which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed.

"We may be there for days or weeks or months. But we must be there. We must be there by the millions. We must show each other, and the nation, and the world that we have had enough, that we will not stand for one more stolen election, that we will not give in to fear, lies, theft, and intimidation."

...

[ source : ©The Daily Telegraph, London ]

The Cryptid Who Came in From The Cold

From one of our favorite blogs, the Lair of the Evil DM, I present a rather interesting gaming idea. Aside from a brief dalliance with King of the Monsters on the old NeoGeo, I really haven't had a desire to play the part of a radioactive Asian behemoth. So when I first saw the words "GURPS Godzilla," my first thought was, "Meh," and I kept on scrolling. However, once I saw the red-and-black Adventure Team icon, a cluster of Joes, and the Mobile Support Vehicle, I had to read the fine print and follow the links. And while what I found was no Mission: Adventure!, it was enough to capture the imagination of anyone who calls himself a sixties/seventies superscience spy-fi fan.

Speaking of spy-fi, I've run across another blog that I feel compelled to add to ye olde blogrolle, The Spy Report. Based out of LiveJournal.com, it is the personal haunt of Wesley Britton who has penned a number of books on fictional espionage and has even lectured at the International Spy Museum. Right now, he has one helluvan auction at eBay. If I had two pfennigs to rub together, I'd definitely be bidding.

Getting back to strange critters, BBC News reports that palaeontologists in China have discovered "the fossil of a 'bizarre' feathered dinosaur from the era before birds evolved." Scientists believe that Epidexipteryx's feathers evolved from aesthetics rather than function. In other words, they were used to pick up chicks rather than pick up the proto-bird himself and make him airborne.

( Read more at the Beeb... )

Cops Gear Up for Hope and Change

h/t CBS News

October 22, 2008, 3:15 PM
Police Prepare For Possible Election Night Riots
Posted by Brian Montopoli


Will election night bring civil unrest?

Police departments countrywide think it's a possibility, and they're preparing for riots or other violent reactions to a McCain or Obama victory, The Hill reports.

There is particular concern that a loss by Obama, who has built a big lead in the polls, could prompt significant problems.

"Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations," The Hill writes. Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia are among the cities that plan to have extra police deployed.

“Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes,” Oakland Police Department spokesman Jeff Thomason said.

Oakland will have extra units trained to deal with riots deployed and SWAT teams on standby when the results come in. Many police departments are preparing as they might for the possibility of a championship win or loss by a local sports team.

Some believe riots could come no matter who wins.

“If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot,” Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts, told The Hill. “If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief.”

Talkin' Tall: OSC Goes All Buford Pusser on The Press

Orson Scott Card rips the press a new one for failing to hone in on Senator Obama's getting money from Fannie Mae and advice from its drummed-out-of-the-corps CEO, Senator Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank's denial that there were any mortgage lending problems, their refusal to grant Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and their pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed in spite of warnings from Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President, and the Secretary of the Treasury.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

by Orson Scott Card

October 20, 2008
An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

[ source : The Rhinoceros Times ]

Saturdays on Wednesday

h/t Chris Roberson

Anyone who has been following the keystrokes made by this particular monkey knows that I, like my first-born, am a great fan of The Secret Saturdays. Therefore, they would understand my delight when I saw an imagined The Secret Saturdays comic book cover done a la Jack Kirby (thanks to the brilliant mimickry of Juan Ortiz).

She Blinded Me With Super-science

As part of his series on "Secret Services," Chris Roberson today discussed several special organizations from comic-dom: Section Zero from Image Comics, Amalgam's "What-If" portmanteau Challengers of the Fantastic, and John Byrnes's Danger Unlimited. For anyone who enjoys superscientific spy-fi as much as I do, I highly recommend dropping by Mr. Roberson's neighborhood frequently. In that, past he has written about everything from the BPRD to the Diogenes Club, and, most recently, has commented that Section Zero inspired his own work.

Abortions Without Borders

During the Wednesday night presidential debate, in his response to a Roe v. Wade question, Barack Obama said, “Nobody’s pro-abortion.” If he believes that, he’s never met the crew of the Good Ship Aurora. Apparently disatisfied with limiting their exports to machinery, chemicals, fuels, and foodstuffs, the Dutch have added another number to their trade repetoire: abortions.

In the Spanish port of Valencia, six women boarded the Aurora, the flagship of Women on Waves, a Dutch evangelical abortion group. the Aurora took on six passengers in the Spanish port of Valencia Friday, all women with the common goal of terminating their pregnancies in international waters in order to flout Spain's anti-abortion laws.

Abortion is legal in Spain in some circumstances, including a doctor's finding that having a baby is likely to harm the mother's physical or mental health. Women who have been raped can end their pregnancies in the first trimester, while those carrying fetuses with severe defects can get abortions up to 22 weeks.

Not exactly abortion-on-demand, but it ain't exactly the Spanish Inquisition either.

In spite of opposition from groups like the Spanish Association of Catholic Doctors (FAMC) and a phalanx of quayside opposition and a flotilla of maritime protestors, the Women on Waves were able to add six to the 100,000 abortions that have occurred over the past decade under Spain's so-called draconian abortion laws.

The Women on Waves Spanish cruise is nothing new. Their tour of clinical carnage has also dropped anchor in Ireland (2001), Poland (2003), and Portugal (2004).

I remember that France had problems with some loony radicals in a boat once.







I guess the Women on Waves hope that the Spanish, Irish, Polish, and Portuguese will quit defending those pesky fetuses and worry about things that are important in Amsterdam, like making certain that no pigs are castrated before they are butchered for meat.

[ sources : Times Online, The Times of The Internet ]

Links

Obama's Abortion Extremism by Robert George

HOPE they don't CHANGE your vote

To paraphrase an overly paraphrased Forrest Gump, "I may not be a smart man, but I know what #*(^@#&! voter fraud is!"

Although Georgia has typically been a "red state" ever since the Empire State of the South has felt the need to do penance for sending our native son, Jimmy Carter, to the White House, most of our cities are Democrat strongholds.

Take for example, Albany, Georgia. It is a town full of Obamamania. Signs emblazoned with the Senator's signature Gotham font are everywhere. Everyone from S to XXXL is sporting Obama t-shirts, and community organizers are bending over backwards to register voters from the Democratic demographic.

Apparently, one local social service agency has taken it upon themselves to not only register the mentally-challenged, drive them to the polls, and help them press the touch-screen. They have also decided to press the touch-screen to choose Obama, even when their MR client wants to vote for McCain.

ALBANY, GA (WALB) - An independent investigation will look into allegations that a mentally challenged man's presidential vote was commandeered by the aide who helped him read the ballot.

( Read more... )

Justice's family tells us Wednesday aides tried to convince Jack he pushed the wrong button, but Jack says that wasn't the case. He pushed the button he was told to push and that was the button for Obama, not his choice John McCain.

[ source : WALB-TV ]

Civil Baer Patrol

On October 16, 2008, on The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS, Tavis talks with former CIA officer Robert Baer, author of The Devil We Know.

Robert Baer is one of the world's foremost authorities on the Middle East. In a 20-year CIA career, he's publicly acknowledged field assignments in India, Lebanon and Kurdish northern Iraq. Baer documented his experiences in the best seller See No Evil—the basis for the acclaimed film, Syriana. He's also presented four documentary series on the origins of suicide bombing. He writes regularly for Time.com and has contributed to various publications, including Vanity Fair. The Devil We Know is Baer's latest book.

Commentary: The CIA's Gift to Conspiracy Theorists By Robert Baer

About The Devil We Know

Mr. Baer's bio

Not-So-Fresh Ayers

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple, a Reform Jewish temple located at 1589 Peachtree Street, NE in Atlanta. Angered by Rabbi Jacob Rothschild's outspoken support of the civil rights movement and his friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the bombers detonated between forty and fifty sticks of dynamite which tore through the northern wall of the synagogue, one of Atlanta's oldest and wealthiest. Fortunately, in spite of the desecration and architectural damage, no one died or was injured in the bombing.

Shortly thereafter, United Press International received a call from a man who identified himself as "General Gordon of the Confederate Underground" who claimed responsibility for the attack. Over the next several days, GBI agents and local law enforcement combed the city in one of the most extensive dragnets in Georgia history. Their search netted five men. All were members of anti-Semitic organizations like the National States' Rights Party and the Knights of the White Camellia.

Of the five, only one stood trial: a thirty-four year old engineer and amateur inventor named George Bright, a New York native who had spent his adult years in Atlanta. Twelve years earlier, Bright had enlisted in The Columbians, a neo-Nazi organization founded by Bright's fellow New Yorker-turned-Georgian Horace Loomis, a Princeton dropout. Over the years, Bright ended up on the membership roster the one fringe group after another.

Investigators uncovered plenty of evidence of Bright's animosity toward Rothschild and his temple, such as a handwritten note in Bright's home threatening the Rabbi, a 1958 arrest for carrying anti-Semitic placards outside the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution offices, and his presence in May of that year at a speech given by the Rabbi from which Bright was forcibly ejected for heckling Rothschild..

Less than two months after the Temple bombing, Bright stood trial for the first time. Ten days later, it ended in a mistrial -- the result of a 9-3 split among the jurors. For the second trial, Bright retained the silk-suited Reuben Garland, a colorful, and, at times, contemptous attorney, who nonetheless secured his client an acquittal. The cases against his co-defendants, which all depended upon Bright's conviction, quickly fell apart and charges against them were dropped.

When Melissa Faye Greene, author of The Temple Bombing, spoke with Bright, he still maintained his innocence (for what it's worth, Greene believes him), but remained unrepentant in his extreme beliefs.

It makes me wonder how many Ayers apologists would give McCain a pass if it had been Bright and his wife who had hosted the gathering at which McCain announced his candidacy for the Arizona Senate. Would they be so willing to let by-gones be by-gones for a bombing that occurred in 1958 as opposed to one that happened in 1970 (Oh, and one that happened in 1971. Oh, wait, and then there's the one that happened in 1972)?

How's this for a defense of the Bright-McCain relationship:

If Bright is such a Awful Terrorist Threat, why did the jury acquit him?

End of story.

Would that be such an "easy shut-down" of anyone suggesting that voters think twice before casting a ballot for candidate that has a skeleton with a penchant for dynamite in his closet as Gareth-Michael Skarka suggests?

Easy shut-down to any ConservaTron who froths about so-called "terrorist" (read here: White trust-fund kid protesting against the Vietnam War) William Ayers and his "friendship" (read here -- serving on the same charitable board) with Obama:

If Ayers is such a Awful Terrorist Threat, why did the Feds drop all charges against him when he turned himself in to the authorities in 1980?

Given the reaction to a stupid statement made by Trent Lott on the occassion of Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday ("When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."), I would say, "No. It would not be an 'easy shut-down.'" By-gones are never by-gones in politics. Nevermind that Lott was only seven years old when Thurmond ran in 1948 (that's a year younger than Obama was when William Ayers bombed the NYPD HQ, two years younger than Obama was when Ayers bombed the Capitol, and three years younger than Obama was when Ayers preceded the Atta Gang in an attempt to make the Pentagon go boom).

Both parties have serious double standards. Sean Hannity and others of his ilk blasted the sexual scenes in Democrat Senator James Webb's literary work, yet they defended Scooter Libby in spite of the bestiality, pedophilia, prostitution, biastophilia, and necrophilia in his novel. But this time, it's not just some naughty parts in a novel we're talking about. It's association with a man who is an unrepentant terrorist that is being called into question.

While I don't think it is out-of-bounds to bring up Obama's middle name, I do think it is tacky and beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate. To paraphrase chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." The same goes for the whole madrasa question. I would much prefer a candidate raised in a moderate Muslim community than someone who has spent twenty years in under the religious tutelage of Trinity United Church of Christ's Jeremiah Wright. But I do think it is cricket to question Obama's association (however small it may be) with a guy who thinks as of 9/11/2001 said, "I don't regret setting bombs," and stated that he found "''a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance.'' I also think it's fair-game to question Obama's association with Mrs. Ayers (a.k.a. Bernadine Dohrn), the woman who J. Edgar Hoover called "the most dangerous woman in America," who commented on the Tate-LaBianca murders thus:

''Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''

Considering the much ado made of John Hagee's McCain endorsement, I think the Ayers-Obama question should be explored. What's good for the Goose is good for the Maverick. And vice versa.

Sources:

pbaonline: the website of public broadcasting atlanta

The Temple

New Georgia Encyclopedia: Temple Bombing

"A Church, A School" -- Ralph McGill's 10/13/1958 Editorial in response to the bombing

The Designer Monologues: The Whole Ayers Thing

No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen - New York Times

The Black Kennedy: But does anyone know the real Barack Obama? - Peter Hitchens

Penguin Paperbacks, Peterman, & Politics

National Geographic ADVENTURE announced that Penguin has released a new paperback series, appropriately titled Great Journeys. The slim paperbacks span ten adventures, everything from Herodutus in the Kingdom of Egypt to Shackleton's Escape from the Antarctica. These will definitely be added to my Amazon.com wishlist.

Speaking of adventure travel, quite some time ago I added J. Peterman's Peterman's Eye to my Google Reader. As a fan of his philosphy, clothing line, and autobiography, I was eager to see what he would blog about. Thanks in equal parts to my J. Peterman catalog subscription and to John O'Hurley's Seinfeld character, I expected to find a journal documenting washclothes in "the shimmering waters of Lake Victoria," the discovery of the Pamplona beret at the Chiang Mai river market, and the nobless oblige of the "Sultan of Oom Papa Mau Mau."

What I found is more Dead-White-Male-bashing than you can shake a J. Peterman Systems Walking Stick (Constructed of English elm and solid brass, handle and hinged cap embossed with a regimental crest. WWI vintage. 37" overall, Price: $1500) at. If I want to experience Dead-White-Male-bashing, I'll re-read Zinn's People's History of the United States or re-take World History 101 at my old college. Peterman bashes everyone from Christopher Columbus (his most recent victim) to Douglas MacArthur, and while some of his criticism is valid, it's not what I want to read in his blog. It's not just Peterman. I'll listen to old Madonna mp3s all day long while re-reading a Stephen King novel, but I don't want to hear either Maddy or Steve prattle about how [insert name of prominent conservative here] is the Devil (or at least, his "retarded little brother"). Just sing dammit! Or Write. Or sell me over-priced clothes.

Wishlist

$ecret $aturday$

Now some news culled from Market Watch. No, I'm not going to tell you how to save your 401K, whose at fault for mess at AIG, nor the best brand of matress to stuff your cash in when you yank it all from your bank. I'm here to talk about ratings.

When The Secret Saturdays premiered last Friday night serving as the Cartoon Network's lead-in for its all-new Friday night fantasy-action-adventure line-up, it proved to be quite a ratings booster, much like the Network's most hyped event for the night: the premier of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Jay Stephens's homage to the Hanna Barbera-school of action-adventure cartoons scored 35% more viewers agest 6-11 and 86% more boys of that age group than programming that appeared in that time slot last year. Likewise, The Secret Saturdays also saw a jump in children ages 2 to 11 by 47% and a jump in males of the same age group by 67%, kids 9-14 by 23% with 9-14 year-old boys increasing by 60%.

[ source: Market Watch ]

John Rozum reports that The Saturdays are making an appearance in issue 30 of the Cartoon Network Action Pack comic book" which is in stores now. Rozum wrote the story, Scott Jeralds illustrated, with the cover credits going to The Secret Saturdays creator himself, Jay Stephens.

[ source: JOHNROZUM.COM

This just in from Cryptid Saturdays:

October 7, 2008
The Saturdays on iTunes!

Our very most treasured show - The Secret Saturdays, is now available for download on iTunes. Currently, the entire hour-long first episode can be purchased for $1.99, or you can buy the season pass for $19.99 and have them automatically downloaded every week for the entire 1st season.

The episodes ARE in the correct aspect ratio (16:9 widescreen), unlike what is currently aired on the SD Cartoon Network ( the commercials are in widescreen, the the regular broadcasts aren’t? Is this just me?). So if you may, this is a great way to support the show AND get to view them in their full glory ( no sides chopped off) without a HD channel.
This just made Spectre’s iPod a whole lot happier.

[ source: Cryptid Saturdays ]

The New Cryptozoo Revue

Imagine if Doc Savage and Lara Croft spawned a kid who was a cryptozoological Beastmaster whose pets are an invisible monitor lizard, a pterosaur, and the lovechild of Ooklah the Moc and Scooby Doo, and you would get the new Cartoon Network show, The Secret Saturdays. The Saturdays are a family of scientists dedicated to tracking the world's most bizarre creatures and powerful artifacts, all the while fighting to thwart the global domination plans of V. V. Argost, the host of a t.v. show called Weird World (picture Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not's Jack Palance, only slightly less creepy).

From the little I've seen so far, I am eagerly awaiting the next episode, both as a father who wants to expose my kids to quality cartoons and as a fan of the greats of the genre: Jonny Quest, The Herculoids, Thundarr the Barbarian, and Scooby Doo. Saturdays creator Jay Stephens even credits Jonny Quest's Doug Wildey and Alex Toth as part of the inspiration for the show although he also gives props to such greats as Roy Crane, Harvey Kurtzmann, Jack Kirby, and Herge.

Following in the tradition of these luminaries, Stephens fills his show with of all of the things that made his predecessors great: rocket packs, jazzy Hoyt Curtin-style pursuit music, bad guys with Warsaw Pact accents, witty fight banter, and more weird science than you can shake a Tibetan Fire Sword at.

If there's any Secret Saturdays crew member who should be fired, it's Wardrobe. While the action, characters, and backgrounds look like something that Doug Wildey would be proud of, the Saturdays costumes are wholly yawnable "speed-suits" one would expect to see on anonymous henchmen, not on the stars of the show. With the exception of Zak's emo kit, that is. Perhaps, they could hire Rob Liefeld to re-work the costumes. He was always good at designing costumes with lots of pouches, holsters, and packs.

Aside from that minor flaw, the show looks quite brilliant, and I eagerly await the next installment.

Links

Jay Stephens's Monsterama

V. V. Argost's Weird World

Cryptids Are Real

Cryptids Are Real @ YouTube

Chris Roberson, one of my favorite bloggers, weighs in

Jay Stephens on an earlier incarnation of the show, The Cryptids

An interview with Stephens