Chipotle Hiring Illegals? Really?

Okay, well, here I go on my illegal immigration kick.

Chipotle, you know, the burrito place, is the current subject of the U.S. immigration enforcement guys, ICE. Seriously? Who did Chipotle piss off?

When I first moved to Atlanta it was like, "Wow! Look at all the illegals!" I even called the police when a group of them was hanging out in front of my apartment with a TV plugged into a car cigarette lighter having a little fiesta. I was told they couldn't do anything about it.

Yeah, I was pretty naive at the time. I didn't know that we were all supposed to be looking the other way while illegals took jobs that are typically filled by our poorest and least educated.

It's rampant in Atlanta though. The closest WalMart to my apartment was like a little Guatemala City. It was in poor taste to mention it.

I remember not long ago when a person could make a decent living cutting yards and doing construction work. I grew up with a series of black housekeepers and yeah, I know how that sounds but I did grow up in a wealthy family.

All of those jobs now are being filled by illegals. And not just those but jobs at fast food joints too. McDonald's is notorious for it and they created Chipotle or at least turned it into what it is before divesting.

The problem is that these little kerfluffles about hiring practices are so few and far between that nobody cares. Hell, you could go to any meat packing plant in the Midwest and round up thousands. Instead they round up a few hundred every other year to make it look like they're doing something.

Now, this is where I don't like MSNBC. I'm an ardent viewer and agree on many things. However, recently, there's been a promo bit featuring commentator Lawrence O'Donnell talking about how the history of America is written by immigrants and all that. Oh, and while it looks like he's sitting on an overstuffed leather couch in some exclusive New York gentleman's club.

Yeah, true statement. America was founded by immigrants, yadda yadda. Things are different now in a couple of ways. One is that we have a dearth of available labor in this country for good paying jobs like construction and manufacturing. That wasn't the case in the Ellis Island days. Every illegal that works construction or cuts a yard is taking a job from an American because some jackass doesn't want to pay social security taxes. And number two, the new wave of immigrants from Latin America, for the most part, has no desire to assimilate. They live in insular little communities, don't learn English, and send most of their money to families back home.

Actually I love Lawrence O'Donnell. It would just do him and others on the media left a bit of good to actually get out on the streets and see what's really going on for the poor Americans they talk about on their show so much.

It's just a way for big companies to bust unions easier and for builders to get by on the cheap. In fact, the abundance of new homes built in the past ten years was partly due to the new wave of cheap construction costs due to illegal labor.

As long as business interests run Washington, we'll keep getting little dog and pony shows like this deal with Chipotle. It will make it look like our government is really cracking down and otherwise it will be business as usual. Twenty million illegal immigrants and they bust like a thousand a year. Yeah, right, I'm an idiot.

Please don't get me wrong. I have no problem with immigrants with a desire to assimilate. Just like if I moved to France I'd learn to speak French and take part in French cultural activities. I wouldn't expect anybody to speak English and I wouldn't move there if I didn't know enough French to get around.

So before any stones are thrown, I've had plenty of immigrant friends from all over the freaking place who got here the right way. Kudos to them.

Obama 1, Osama 0 - Bin Laden Finally Gone

Like so many Americans, I remember the morning of 9/11 so vividly it's like it just happened. I was working for my local FOX TV affiliate in Mobile so there were TVs everywhere. Somebody called out from their office the breaking news that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings and, well, you know the rest of that story.

Even in Mobile, Alabama that morning it was an unseasonably cool, clear, and bright day. Not a cloud in the sky and then you noticed no airplanes either as all air traffic ceased. Nobody knew what had happened, if it was over, who had done it. Like many I thought it might be domestic terrorism in the Timothy McVeigh vein.

I remember telling my boss I had a dental appointment that morning so I could go for a job interview elsewhere as I had grown tired of my job. I remember driving to the interview and seeing a Muslim gentleman with long beard and head covering in a car next to me; me looking at him with anger and him looking back with fear. I'm not proud of that moment.

I remember walking out of the interview and saying "Fuck this!" just not being in the frame of mind to deal with it.

I remember driving by a local restaurant run by a guy I knew and him standing outside on the curb passing out little American flags on sticks.

I remember being all patriotic and full of piss and vinegar and going back to work with a vengeance.

I remember being totally behind our president, our troops, going into Afghanistan.

Then it went all stupid.

Then it was Iraq, spending of political capital to kill Social Security, etc.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the whole 9/11 strike, was as elusive as a snipe.

And finally, May 1, 2011, nine and a half years after the fact, bin Laden is finally dead. Our guys just went in and took him out. Just like that. Nine and a half years later.

I don't know that bin Laden was much more than a figurehead at the time of his death and I think this stroke by our military may simply mean more aggression from terrorists around the world. I'm sure many retributive strikes are in the works.

But, as trite as it sounds, this does feel like a moment of closure.

I hope President Obama doesn't try too hard to turn this into his own political capital, but you can damned well bet that he'll be re-elected in 2012 on the back of this.

Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, will be biting their tongues or crediting the Bush administration but, at any rate, this event is a game changer.

Obama finally sent in our military, to Pakistan, where we've all known bin Laden to be all this time, hidden behind our delicate relationship with that country. Finally somebody said "What the fuck!?! Let's take him out!"

It's about freaking time! Job well done!

American Idol Results - April 28, 2011 - Goodbye Casey Abrams

What the hell? I've predicted the demise of Jacob Lusk for like three weeks in a row now and he just keeps hanging in there. I guess I misjudged the power of the black and gay voting blocks out there. Surely this is his last week?

Alas, however, we had to say goodbye to Casey Abrams last night. Well, it's about time for that. Casey had been a breath of fresh air at points but his song choices were just getting too erratic and he was beginning to growl all the time. I guess America got tired of it too.

Casey started off being somebody I thought would go a little more in that Landon Pigg, Ryan Adams, Mumford and Sons vein and instead became a self-described disciple of blues and jazz ready to bring them to prominence in a world in need of a music history lesson. Boring. There are plenty of people out there carrying that banner already.

The irony with Casey is that, after several bad song choices in a row, he would have killed it if he had been around for next week.

Next week's show is a "now and then" theme where each contestant will perform twice doing a current song and one from the '60s. Supposedly Casey was going to do either the Santana/Rob Thomas song "Smooth" or a Blink 182 song for the current and "Eleanor Rigby" for the '60s tune. Well, depending on how he would have approached them he could have killed it. But I think Casey was losing sight of what this competition is all about.

You repeatedly hear contestants say crap like "I just went out there and had fun!" Well, you can have fun going to a bar and singing karaoke. You need to have fun enjoying what you're doing in light of American Idol being a HUGE deal that could determine your future as a musician. If you're just going out there and having fun then you probably need to be having fun in a different profession.

I don't know if I'll try to make any song recommendations for next week since the choices are far too numerous.

It's going to come down to either Jacob or Haley going home at any rate.

I'd like to note that I think it's cool that Bruno Mars can actually write a piece of crap song. I've been pretty amazed by him for a little while but his performance last night of some new song that sounded like a Jason Mraz toss off was refreshing. I'm sure it's going to be or already is a current hit but it shouldn't be.

Crystal Bowersox was boring as hell too.

It has come to light today that Iggy Pop was considered as a possible judge for Idol this season and I have to say that would have been a hell of a lot of fun. As boring as Steven Tyler has turned out to be I have to add.

Also, there is supposed to be something in the works to give the judges more of an opportunity to vote next season so we don't get any more of those save Casey then see Pia go home scenarios and a good singer will win the competition.

In other words, apologies to fans of Taylor Hicks, Kris Allen, or Lee DeWyze but is anybody seriously awaiting their next release? This is the crap you get when you leave it all up to phone in voting.

Fortunately, we won't have that problem this year but you get the point. I really believe that Scotty, Lauren, and James Durbin will all have big careers post-Idol but that outcome has been so infrequent that the show producers have felt the need to do something about it and it's about time.

Trump Jumps the Shark - The End of F-Bomb Diplomacy

Well, that was quick! Donald Trump, last night in Las Vegas, dropped a series of f-bombs during a speech he was giving to potential supporters and has surely eliminated himself for serious consideration for 2012.

If you're not politically astute or very smart you might think that Trump is a "plain-speaking intellectual". Let's be clear; Donald Trump is a moron. As I've said before, if you have money and no conscience it's easy to get to Trump's level of wealth. Trump has grown his empire on greed and inertia. No trick there.

The problem with Trump is that he believes his own hype. He thinks he's some sort of genius businessman whose opinions should count more than the next guy. Unfortunately, his opinions are ridiculous.

He has made the claim that, since we went in and "liberated" Iraq, we should have control of their oil. I guess like the America of our forefathers? Like how we went in and liberated Paris from the Nazis and now our French colony is a bastion of free market brilliance? Or like the 52nd and 53rd states, Belgium and The Netherlands? What the hell is Trump talking about? The United States back in the 1800s that took land from Mexico and Spain? Is that what America is supposed to be about? Creating a greater American empire?

Holy crap! Really? It's like Trump missed the last hundred years of American history. Supposedly this country is about doing the right thing as misguided as those efforts have frequently been. We're not about the practice of going out and conquering sovereign nations. That's why we've supposedly fought wars, to stop those who would do that.

Of course that type of talk appeals to the "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" crowd. And they'll be voting Republican regardless of who the candidate is. But that small crew of jugheads is a pretty small fraction of our populace.

In his Thursday night speech, Trump went on to get into a sort of mafia mode. He suggested that the U.S. military, under his control, would only help out nations if they paid for our help. You know, protection money. Like telling the grocer that if he pays you $500 a month it's less likely that his building might get burned down.

Trump really has an eighteen year-old redneck's view of global politics. It's like discussing international affairs in a high school locker room. It's like he doesn't understand that North Korea's military build-up has been in response to our backing South Korea.

Our troops that have been in Germany since the end of WWII were there because of our issues with the Soviet Union, not because Germany needed protection. Our military went in to Afghanistan because of a threat to the U.S., not because the Afghans wanted or needed our help.

Don't get me wrong. I understand all the nuances related to the scenarios I've mentioned. I don't think Trump knows what nuance is. He's just been out there spitting out conservative buzz words and catch phrases until last night though.

I don't know if all the f-bombs were written into his speech or if Trump was ad-libbing but last night finally did it. If Trump runs for president, this is the speech that will be replayed ad nauseum in the lead up. Americans will seriously have to ask themselves if they want a president who will actually go to the Chinese and say "Hey, look you fuckers, you're gonna do things my way, see?" Like some kind of foul-mouthed, Jimmy Cagney type tough guy.

Yeah, that's great if you're trying to get a guy to not date your sister.

The whole thing makes me feel a little confused. I'd love to have a President Trump in the hopes that some right-wingers would finally have to examine their own beliefs. Should we really nuke the towel heads? Should we literally kill all the faggots? Should we really ship them all back to Africa? That sort of thing.

But, I've begun to realize that reality doesn't really play a big part in the thinking of these people. The high school locker room mentality will be with them forever, like they're frozen in time and mindset.

So, as fun as it would be to make fun of a President Trump for four or eight years, I don't think I wish the repercussions on my country. I think it would be devastating.

Fortunately Trump took care of that himself last night. Most Americans are decent people. They'll shy away from Trump's brand of f-bomb diplomacy much less his multiple trophy wives and shady business deals.

Lastly, we've only had one president in recent history who has totally bucked the system in Washington and that was Jimmy Carter. He went against his own party and the entire political establishment and was run out of town on a rail. The same thing would happen to Trump if he actually were to try the things he says he would. Might be a different story if we lived in a dictatorship but the president is beholden to many and doesn't control this country by himself. So, I guess the good news is that, should Trump win, none of his lunacy would ever go into effect.

Just a little history lesson but if you've heard the term "jump the shark" and don't know what that means, it refers to the two-part episode of the TV show Happy Days in which leather jacket clad Fonzie water ski jumps a shark. That episode was singled out as the one that led to the demise of the show. So now, the term refers to an instance where a person or TV series makes the fatal mistake, maybe reaches just too far, and it's all downhill after that. Or uphill as Zach Galifianakis' character says in the movie Due Date since it's harder going uphill.

American Idol Top 6 Predictions - April 27, 2011

Okay, so nobody took my advice on song selection, overall, decent night.

With a songwriter the caliber of Carole King and her massive collection of songs from which to choose, there were some very odd song choices.

I'll start with the good: James and Scotty.

Again, I'm not a big country music fan but Scotty's voice is just so pure and perfect for the genre I've got to tip my hat to him. But the Idol judges are a little more critical due to what I've said in the past; he's been playing it safe. Week to week.

Tonight he took "You've Got a Friend" and totally wasted it. Knocked it out of the park. That version needs to be on his first album. Seriously, it was a show-stopper, but the judges, although complimentary, were underwhelmed it seemed. Sure, it could have been more powerful or whatever, but playing in his genre, it was just perfect.

James Durbin's intimate intro and mild take on ”Will You Still Love Me?” was an awesome take by him. We've seen James slow it down before and he does it well. Only problem is that he tries to shoehorn the signature scream in frequently where it's unnecessary just to make it more "rock". But Randy gave James the biggest plug of the evening saying he's a possible winner. I don't know if that's true but I don't see this any other way than coming down to a Scotty vs. James slugfest. In a pure singing competition James would win hands down but Scotty is such an amazing young country talent that it could easily go either way. I think Scotty has a lot more pure commercial potential and he'll be around forever. Not so sure about what James Durbin will do post-Idol.

Lauren Alaina took on the King song "Where You Lead" which I thought was a rather odd choice. Don't get me wrong, she slayed it and she's such a natural at only sixteen that it's plain scary but, come on. Of all the brilliant songs Carole King's written was this really the best choice? Anyway, it was good enough and good enough is okay this week.

Your bottom three, I predict, will be Jacob Lusk joined by lovebirds Casey and Haley.

Finally, this was Jacob's last dance. ”Oh No Not My Baby” was a silly song choice on a week where Jacob needed to take it all to a totally bigger place. His performance came off as camp and old-timey. Top that off with the fact that he opened the show and it's bye bye Jacob. Again, don't get me wrong, that kid's got vocal talent and showmanship to spare. This week, however, he needed to take a song and make it into a MOMENT and it wasn't even close.

Haley is in the bottom three just because there's no room left with the top three being so solid. This girl is amazing and sexy as hell and has a huge career ahead of her but the season ten line-up just doesn't give her anywhere to go. ”Beautiful” was a decent song selection but she needed to go Carole King number one not Carole King top forty.

Casey Abrams, sorry to say, is starting to bore me. Yeah, his performances are generally off the Idol radar, but, Casey always sounds the same. And with the catalog of Carole King with which to work, did he really need to dig out her twelve bar blues song? I mean, really, the song could have been written by Muddy Waters. ”Hi-De-Ho” is one of those songs a writer writes to take a stab at a certain kind of traditional songwriting and Casey's performance, for all the work that went into staging it, fell flat for me. When you're presented with a list of songs with amazing melody and lyrical twists you pick the standard blues song? Dud. I really could have used a quiet moment from Casey this week to show some dynamic.

New to the show this week was duets on performance night. Horrible idea. I guess it gives the Idol folks more material to make money on iTunes but god it was rough. I'm sure it's a distraction for the performers and it was a definite distraction from the show. Hopefully it won't last.

For Donald Trump and the Birthers: Time to STFU

The debate over whether or not Barack Obama is a natural born U.S. citizen has been stoked and prodded along for three years or so now and, finally today, the Obama administration has released a copy of the president's long-form birth certificate from Hawaii.

Will this put all the hardcore, fringe rumors to rest? Absolutely not! This will become just another part of the conspiracy. But that small number of believers is so small that we're now at a point where the media and political figures who have been beating this drum are going to have to stop for fear of isolating themselves from the more normal types out here.

Of course, Donald Trump is taking full responsibility for bringing this moment about. At a press conference in New Hampshire today, you know, New Hampshire where they have a major primary every four years in the run for president, Trump crowed like he had just fought Goliath and slingshotted him with a boulder.

I guess you could spin it that way.

The way I see it, the Obama administration showed today what a bunch of morons these birthers have been all along. In order to buy into the whole birther scenario you had to be willing to believe that Obama was trying to mislead every voter in this country in order to attain the level he's reached and that it had to be part of a grand conspiracy, from his birth, to make him eligible for the position.

Just sayin'. That's kinda crazy talk.

One thing that really irks me about the whole thing we've endured these past three years is that the media has played along to a great extent. I haven't really cared to get into all the details about Hawaii birth certificates and all that conspiracy stuff because it's just silly on its face. I don't like the things Obama is doing in the White House but I'm not a lunatic, racist, douchebag either.

Apparently, when a baby is born in Hawaii, that state releases what they call a "short-form" birth certificate. This is what Obama's people have been showing the craven right wingers all this time and just throwing gas on the fire because it doesn't look legit.

In order to get Hawaii's "long-form" birth certificate which offers more information like the name of a hospital, you have to go through a bunch of red tape. It's just not something everybody born in Hawaii is going to have.

I didn't fully understand this until today. Maybe I've heard this before on the news and didn't really pay attention because it didn't matter to me but the point should have been driven home daily by the media. That didn't happen. The U.S. media has such a reputation for not fully reporting the news these days and giving news slanted left or right politically that their under-reporting of the full story just gave it more credence.

So, anyway, the long-form certificate is out there now but the debate will continue on the fringes. The sad thing is that, to be a birther, you have to want to believe that there's a conspiracy. That says much about those people and the politicians who've been feeding off of them.

Now, the new Trump-driven conspiracy story is that Obama was actually not a very good student in college and maybe shouldn't have gotten into an Ivy League school. Apparently there's a whole little cottage industry out there of people trying to create dirt about Obama. I guess it's not surprising when you're like me and you remember the Clinton years vividly. The far right just loves this kind of thing. There were actually rumors during the '90s that Hillary Clinton was a witch and had covens in the Oval Office. So the Obama conspiracies are pretty minor by comparison.

So the debate about whether Obama deserved an Ivy League education, or the other one that's still out there, that he's Muslim rather than Christian, will continue apace. Just a reminder that some very undeserving people have received Ivy League educations in the past (George W. Bush).

Rev. Franklin Graham has begun to stump for Trump in the past week I guess since Trump's such a vision of modern Christian indulgence? But Graham has also kinda, sorta, alluded to the fact that Obama might be a Muslim. Well, not directly, but he's said that it's not possible to truly know what's in a man's heart. So he's been coy to the point where he's saying that, yes, Obama may well be a Muslim.

Anyway, all of that is a topic for another blog about Christianity on the far right, again.

One final note is that I sincerely hope somebody in the media will grow a pair when interviewing Donald Trump. So far, that pompous, windbag, piece of crap has been allowed to spout what he will with little challenge. The worst debate tactic is to out-talk your opponent and that's what Trump does. He wins the argument with loudness and abundance of words.

Maybe he's exactly what America needs as I've said though. It's certainly time for America to look in the mirror and ask itself if the way it picks its leaders is valid. Trump is nothing but a loud joke. He's everything that's bad about this country and he'd be the perfect president to highlight our misguided media, political system, economic system, etc. By 2014, President Trump would bring about a lot of much needed soul searching in the American populace.

And here's what should be the last nail in the birther coffin but it's not likely. Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. Tah Dah!!!!!!!!

American Idol Top Six Song Recommendations - Carole King Week - 10x6

So I missed last week and Stefano left us before Jacob Lusk. I got the bottom three but not much of a challenge there. I'd love to know how the voting went to allow Jacob to pull it out.

The good news is that the top six show will be songs by Carole King. Finally. This week will get the kids out of their comfort zones and force them to take a creative approach. I think Haley Reinhart will be the only idol in her comfort zone for this one and she has an excellent chance to change her fortunes.

Carole King is an amazing story. First writing songs for some of the biggest acts of the '60s and even performing on some of the recordings, notably singing back up vocals on the song "Locomotion". She was a huge factor in the national music scene before she ever put out any solo work and then she really blew up.

I'll start with Casey this week. It's so interesting digging in to a songwriter like Carole King because I always find out little nuggets I never knew. To whit, the song "Don't Bring Me Down" which was a big hit for The Animals, with its huge vocal range is perfect for Casey. Bring out the upright, growl away, I'd love to see it. I had no idea Carole King wrote this one.

For Lauren I'd like to hear "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman". I know it's been done to death on Idol and there's plenty of room for comparisons but Lauren would nail this one. We haven't had a chance to hear her range in a while since she's been playing it safe and this is a great opportunity for her to blow us away.

Like it was written for Jacob Lusk's voice, Freddie Scott's "Hey Girl", this one gives me chills. Maybe with a bit of an updated arrangement but it gives Jacob a real chance to shine when he's really going to need it this week. It would be tough to be convincing with the "girl" theme but vocally this one could be a scorcher.

What the hell is James Durbin going to do this week? Could be a train wreck, could be amazing. It's all going to depend on what the song choice is. I loved James doing "Still My Guitar Gently Weeps" so I know he can do it intimately. After his take on Muse last week he can't go bigger so he'll need to bring it back. I'd love to hear him do something like "So Far Away" and maybe turn it into a big power ballad with an intimate beginning. Could be a true show stopper in the Adam Lambert mode but Durbin could go so many directions with this one. I just want him to dial it back a touch and show off his voice this week.

Haley has the opportunity to really dig in to the Duffy/Adele mode this time. I have a sneaky feeling that she's going to do "I Feel the Earth Move" and that would be an excellent showcase for where Haley's headed long-term. Also would be cool to hear Haley take something like "It's Too Late" and give it a contemporary feel but "I Feel the Earth Move" seems like a really obvious choice here.

Finally, Scotty, at last, will have to go outside the box. Well, maybe. If I was Scotty I'd take something like "Go Away Little Girl" and sing it like the song was written for every little girl out there voting for me. It will be tricky to find Scotty's range on any of King's songs but "Go Away Little Girl" is the smart choice. What I'd like to hear Scotty do is take The Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and turn it into a honky tonk song. Take it down some steps and make the guitar intro into a baritone guitar riff and give it the Dwight Yoakam treatment. It's going to be very refreshing to see Scotty having to take a risk.

So your bottom three this week is going to be a hard one. It'll start getting more and more shocking each week from here on out. Jacob and Haley are probably locks but who's the third? Probably either Lauren or Casey. Has Casey's sympathy vote started to cool off? I think it's going to be him. Lauren's got to be pulling in the girl power vote at this point so let's make the bottom three Jacob, Haley, and Casey with Jacob finally going home.

Donald Trump 2012 - Yes Please!

Ah, the glorious imperfection that is democracy, where a jury can release O.J. and Pia Toscano can get voted off American Idol. Democracy, it seems, is the system where those who are easily duped can also vote somebody in to power who will continue to dupe them.

I'm at a point right now where, having voted for Obama and gotten nothing for it in return, I'm sympathetic to those I deride as being sheep. I voted for the tough-talking Obama who would hold the Bush administration up to the light, take on the powers that be, fight for the little man, and got Bush Part 2 in return.

So, I find myself at one of those moments where I really feel it doesn't matter. Apparently, whoever we vote into office in America will simply continue to help the country's financial and business interests whether or not those interests work for the good of this country.

I figure, why not Donald Trump? Why not bring a little levity to the proceedings? Don't get me wrong, I hate Donald Trump. Trump is a freaking joke. He's a glaring example of what's wrong with our capitalist system. He's become enormously wealthy by taking his daddy's money and being absolutely ruthless with it. He's a charlatan, a huckster.

The lesson of Trump is that if you have unbridled greed, a little seed money, and no morals at all, you get wealthy. Oh, and along the way, the system will help you if you have enough money to warrant it.

A good deal of Trump's wealth has come from insider deals in real estate and multiple instances of working our bankruptcy system to his favor. Whatever the fine line is between smart and devious, Trump crosses it constantly.

Oh, and he's a loudmouth douchebag who casts off wives as they get too old to fit the trophy wife mold. He's got a horrendous fake tan and hair that looks so silly it's distracting. In short, he's just plain funny. He's a caricature. Right up the average conservative's alley.

He's been on TV constantly over the past few months as he plays the media while mulling over whether he will or won't run for president in 2012. Easy to do if the media lets you.

He's come out strongly on the side of the nut job birther community, questioning Obama's birth certificate at every opportunity. Supposedly he is paying an army of investigators to find out the "truth" about our president's "real" origins.

He's talking tough on dealing with OPEC and the Chinese. Well, he hasn't actually offered anything solid in regard to these things but he has said that he will "look them in the eye" and tell them to straighten up or ....... or he will ...... uh .... hm. Apparently the Saudis and the Chinese government will just wilt when he squints his eyes and talks a little growly.

Seriously, Trump's a moron. But, it's just plain fun to watch. It's nice to think that a tough-talking U.S. president could just manhandle the Chinese and make things right or just tell the Saudis they'd better shape up or else. I honestly don't think Trump believes his own hype in these regards.

I do, however, think that Donald Trump is such a megalomaniac that he will try to become our next president just for the challenge of it. Pretty scary. I think he has a good chance of winning as well. I really have such little faith in the intelligence of the American voter that I can easily envision him in the White House.

What I think will happen then is ... nothing. I think we'll have more of the same that we've had with Obama and Bush and Clinton and everybody back to Jimmy Carter who was the last person to stand up for his country. Every president since has served the business community at the expense of this nation.

On the Obama front, he's finally talking about raising taxes on the wealthy. Now that he has lost control of Congress and there's zero chance of any sort of tax increase getting approved, he brings this up. Now that it's time to rally the base for his run in 2012 he's pounding that drum. Don't worry you rich folks of America, you're safe. He's just tending the sheep so they keep the shepherd in power. If he wins re-election you won't hear another word about your taxes so, take an Ambien, curl up in your pillow-top king size in your mcmansion and rest easy. All is well.

American Idol Top Seven Predictions - Bottom Three and Who's Leaving - April 20, 2011

I'll spare the suspense here and go ahead and say goodbye to Jacob Lusk. If the average American Idol voter was a 45-65 year old black woman, Jacob would be in this week's top three but, seriously, Luther? Really? What better way to make yourself irrelevant in this competition than to make your song selection from an artist currently better known for the sandwich named after him.

In case you didn't know, the Luther is delicious. It's a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut cut in half and put cut sides down on a buttered grill. The doughnut then becomes the bun for a bacon cheeseburger. Believe me. Word.

But for 95% of the American Idol voting public Luther Vandross is simply a name that gets brought up all the time when describing Jacob Lusk. I'm not a slow jam guy so I don't really care that the name is lost on everybody. I just think it's a shame that Jacob had to go there. Any chance he had of saving himself this week was in a different direction. If he plans on making a career out of being the next Luther then you won't be hearing much about Jacob after the competition either.

And just to reinforce the belief that Jacob is probably gay, every other contestant agreed that he's the "diva" of the show. Just sayin'. I don't think Adam Lambert was even ever called a diva.

So rounding out the bottom three this week will be Haley and Stefano. Neither will be in the bottom three due to lack of talent but it's just at that point in the competition.

Stefano's take on Ne-Yo was a total sleeper but probably a good direction for him. He'll just need to learn how to do some choreographed stuff at some point. Sorry, amazing vocal talent but the boy is just boring.

Haley made a good selection this week with a current Adele hit. She could have gone too far in the Adele direction and brought direct comparisons but she played it smart and gave it the Haley treatment. Randy Jackson wisely pointed out that the Adele route is probably a good bet for Haley's future and she'll have one or two more weeks to emphasize that.

The country kids, Lauren and Scotty, totally phoned it in this week. Neither took any risk and were simply warming themselves up for their first tour together post-Idol. Again, it's going to be very important in the future for the Idol producers to try to push things in a little more interesting direction. The kids know where the votes are coming from and they're just waiting for the finals.

Scotty is still a boring lock to win the whole thing, so much so that he did a cover of a cover of a song from the '80s. I feel they stretched the rules a little bit in allowing that but it really doesn't matter.

Lauren just gave us some average performance of some average pop country crap and I've already forgotten it. Fortunately for her though, that's her future and she's got a bright one doing it.

The risks this week came from the risk takers: Casey and James.

I hated Casey's song choice and had recommended Maroon 5 for Stefano instead. Casey's strong suit is in taking a track and Caseyfying it and he went the rock direction rather than the indie/pop/jazz thing he does so well but he'll be safe this week nonetheless. He still brings a spark to the competition and with Scotty and Lauren playing it safe it's still refreshing.

This week's over the top moment came from James Durbin. When they said he'd be doing Muse I was hoping it would be "Starlight" but his take on "Uprising" was as close to a barn-burner as we were going to get this week. On second listen, the times James went up an octave, apparently based on a personal challenge from Muse vocalist Matthew Bellamy, were horribly shrill. Still, it was nice to have a little something something in an otherwise boring as hell hour and a half.

So, to recap, bottom three are Jacob, Haley, and Stefano and Jacob will be packing up for his future as a closeted, slow jam superstar.

American Idol Top Seven Song Recommendations - April 20, 2011 Show

This week our idols will be making their selections from songs of the 21st century. Again, a very broad, probably too broad, range, but I'd like to make my recommendations based on what I personally feel would be good choices for the artists and try to predict which direction they might go.

I'll start with what I feel may be the best choice for Haley Reinhart: Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful". I think this would be an excellent opportunity for Haley to take a quiet moment in the show. She could use one after last week's falter on the Blondie song and "Beautiful", maybe done with a string quartet or just piano or acoustic guitar would give her an excellent opportunity to shine. She'll make another misstep if she tries to go over the top again. This one needs to be intimate.

Stefano Langone's high tenor is maybe his Achilles' heel in this competition. As I've noted, it's really more suited for a boy band set up and not so much for solo work. He's certainly well-suited though for something in the Maroon 5 or Coldplay zone. I think he needs to go a little high energy this week to stand out so I'll recommend Maroon 5's "This Love". I have a sneaky feeling he'll go slow again though. His biggest blunder would be to go directly at a song where he can be directly compared to the original and maybe try to do a sound alike performance. Maybe he could take "This Love" and jazz it up a bit with some horns or something.

I'd really like to see Lauren Alaina step out of the box this week and maybe give something a little outside her comfort zone a shot. After all, she's solidly in the top three with little chance of going home anytime soon so it wouldn't really be a risk. But I think she and Scotty are just going to keep playing to their target demos and playing it safe. The logical choice would be something like Colbie Caillat's "Bubbly" if Lauren wants to keep playing to her fans or maybe something on the country side like Taylor Swift's "Our Song", "White Horse" or "Love Story". As cheesy a choice as it is, I think "Love Story" would be Lauren's best bet.

Now that Scotty McCreery looks like the odds on favorite to win this thing this year, I'd really, really love to see him take something not country and turn it into his style of country crooner song. I think he'd absolutely nail something like an acoustic version of Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" but I think the odds of him taking a risk like that are pretty slim. Scotty will probably do something like George Strait's "Give it Away" and Randy will say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

James Durbin came in at number two in last week's show despite picking a horrible song so it seems he can pretty much do anything he wants at this stage of the show. He's another one who, I think, would benefit greatly from going outside of the box and maybe doing something a little mid-tempo and outside his genre. I'd enjoy hearing him do something like Foo Fighter's "Learn to Fly". This week could really trip James up on song choice though. He is definitely a classic rock kid. Maybe a down-tempo song like Staind's "It's Been a While", though finding a good key for his voice might be tricky, would be a strong choice. At any rate, he'll be doing himself a disservice if he goes for something on the obscure side again this week.

This is going to be a really tough week for Jacob Lusk. He's been hovering around the bottom recently as amazing as his voice is. Of course, this is all due to the racial and age demographic of the average Idol voter out there. As I've said, his glaring gayness doesn't help the situation as he's not really poster material for the wall of the average Idol voter's bedroom wall. This one could really be his undoing. Jacob is strongest when he recalls Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson and that's not going to be available to him this week. So Jacob can go two directions that would be smart for his career as this could well be his swan song on Idol. One choice would be to got totally R&B with something like Mario's "Let Me Love You" although I don't think Lusk's future is in the R&B vein. The other direction is Bubleville which is probably where he'll land long-term. Something like "Hold On" could be career defining and a good bet for Jacob. Again, it's a real shame that it is what it is with this kid. He might be the best singer to ever have appeared on Idol.

I had to save Casey Abrams for last because he can go in several different directions this week. I feel Casey's strong suit and probably where he'll go in the future is that kind of jazzy/indie pop thing he did last week with "Nature Boy". His only real failure to date has been his rather straight reading of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" which was a huge dud and almost did him in. Maybe it should have. Anyway, I'd love to see Casey do his jazzy treatment on a song like Train's "Drops of Jupiter" or Coldplay's "Fix You" or "The Scientist". If Casey really takes himself seriously as some sort of jazz messiah on a mission to educate the masses this week he'll be in the bottom three. He needs to take something familiar and make it his not try to take something obscure and do it justice.

So, just my recommendations and I think this week's bottom three will be Jacob, Haley, and Stefano with a toss-up as to who could go home. They all have legitimate chances to work some magic and save themselves with good song selections but we know that rarely happens. They'll all need some very strong and honest mentoring from Jimmy Iovine and will.i.am.

American Idol Results - Adios Paul McDonald

Well, America, I should have given you a little more credit. You got it right this week and voted off Paul McDonald. I got the bottom three right and I guess the clincher was Paul taking the show lead off position. Seems to be the worst place to be. It was time for Paul to go anyway.

My freak out moment came when the quartet of James Durbin, Paul McDonald, Stefano Langone, and Jacob Lusk did the song I wish Scotty had done last night, "The Sound of Silence" as I mentioned in my last blog. But he's not going to take any risks. He's going to hold fast to Randy Jackson's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" advice.

I really wish the show would try to steer these singers a little more on song choice. "Old Time Rock and Roll" was such a horrible choice for Paul. He needs quiet music, no backup singers, etc. What was movie gold in Risky Business was just dreadful on the Idol stage and did nothing to showcase Paul's mellow voice. I'd hate to think he was the one who chose that one but I really don't know how the selections are made. Whatever the case, I'm still not sure why the judges loved him so much last night and panned Haley. "Not a singer's song" was what they said about Haley's "Call Me". "Old Time Rock and Roll" is literally like six notes vocally and all in the same octave and all with the same vocal dynamic. Nothing to see there; move along.

That being said, Haley will need to step it up next week to stay out of the bottom three. She can and she absolutely must pull out a barn burner performance. Like I said in the last blog, had she done a slow rendition of "Call Me" with sparse accompaniment Jacob Lusk would have been in the bottom rather than her.

Apparently, from what has leaked to the Hollywood press, you can go ahead and pencil in Scotty and Lauren for the final and hopefully I'm still awake for that.

I'll keep predicting Stefano to be the next to go.

More American Idol Gripes and Predictions

Last night's show, April 13, really made it sink in why Idol is starting to bore me. When Adam Lambert was on the show, when David Cook was on the show, you were anxious to see what they would do. They were kings of taking a song, any genre, male, female vocals, whatever, reworking it and making it their own. There was a tension, a surprise factor.

This season it seems like everybody is simply playing to their strengths and aiming for whatever they hope their future demographic will be.

I've felt it for the past couple of shows but it's seriously time for Paul McDonald to go. He's so out of his element in this competition that it's getting hard to watch. Don't get me wrong. McDonald's Nashville-based band, Grand Magnolias, is pretty much right up my alley. In fact, I have one of their songs lying around here somewhere on a Paste Magazine CD sampler. They're even working with a guy I used to know very well, Ken Coomer, former Uncle Tupelo and Wilco drummer and now producer. I played shows in Nashville with his former band, Clockhammer, and we lived in the same building.

So I want to like Paul McDonald. Hell, he's even an Alabama boy like me. But his voice is very much suited for a certain type of music and a certain type of song. Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" is not one of those songs and it was painful to watch him strut through the five note vocal range on that one. Yet the judges loved it. I guess he's getting the outsider vote. Maybe he's getting the vote of the girls who like his smile or the older folks who like him for doing Johnny Cash last week. Whatever the case, Idol is not the proper vehicle for his talents. We've come a long way from where he was playing to his strengths on earlier shows and now he's trying to evolve into an arena rocking superstar. It's embarrassing that he's still around and Pia Toscano isn't. Add in that he led off the show and he's in tonight's bottom three.

Lauren Alaina went straight for her target audience of tweener and teen girls with Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" and nailed it of course. It's so insane that this girl is only sixteen. Only thing I don't like about Lauren is her mother who looks like the pageant moms you see on shows like Toddlers and Tiaras. The big, two-toned hair and god awful french manicure nails and whitened teeth. She looks like an adult version of the little girls at the glitz pageants. But Lauren is so funny with her aw shucks mannerisms. It was hilarious to watch her act so surprised when Jimmy Iovine told her she had a better voice than Miley Cyrus. Obviously Lauren doesn't yet understand what happens in a studio to make singers like Miley and Taylor Swift sound like they do. It was tasteless of Jimmy Iovine to suggest that Lauren should be concerned with stealing votes from former Pia supporters. That shouldn't have been put on air. But Lauren is safe.

The one contestant who is really pissing me off is Scotty McCreery. If you didn't already know, this kid is going to be around forever. He's already a legitimate country mega-star. He'll be the male equivalent of Carrie Underwood, make millions, sell millions, etc. He will be huge. My problem with Scotty is that it's just boring watching what he does on Idol.

He could easily be doing some of those David Cook/Adam Lambert knock it out of the park performances like taking a song like "Sound of Silence" from The Graduate and making it into a country song. But he's just doing country karaoke. Even on Elton John week, he took the one, totally obscure Elton John country song he could find to do. Where he could have done an awesome country version of something like "Levon" or "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" he just played it safe. When it sounded like he was going to do the theme from Midnight Cowboy last night I actually got excited and then he backed out of it to do another easy country cover. Good for him, bad for the show.

Stefano Langone did another gooey soul song. I know this kid can sing but he's boring as hell. He's better suited to be one of five in a boy band but there aren't any boy bands out there any more. He needs to try to find a more contemporary voice or his career is over before it starts. He'll be in your bottom three.

Casey Abrams is legit. He's the one sure bet for surprises this season and he delivered in spades Wednesday night. Taking the Nat King Cole song "Nature Boy" and doing an Esparanza Spalding thing with it. Except for his little grimace/growl/sneer thing he seems to do every song, it was a show-stopper. The night's theme was songs from movies and I guess Casey was going with the David Bowie version from Moulin Rouge. At any rate, it was the first moment of the evening where I got that feeling that Idol is worth watching. I also totally dug the way Casey was dressed. He was kind of working this Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate meets Andy Kaufman look that was just cool as hell. Kudos to Casey for keeping it interesting.

Haley Reinhart is just sexy. Awesome voice and sexy as can be, she took on Blondie's "Call Me". I don't know why somebody felt she had to have a guitar player on stage with her pulling off a bunch of out of place rock riffs but it didn't work. This could have been one of those awesome moments where she took this song and redid it with just piano or just acoustic guitar and she could have really given it some dynamic vocally. Instead it just seemed like bachelorette party karaoke. The judges ripped her for it but I couldn't help thinking that the same critique they gave her was perfectly suited for Paul McDonald's performance as well. Idol's producers really need to take some steps to get these kids outside the box to keep the show more interesting.

It's amazing to me with the mentors and Interscope producers doing the arranging on the songs this season that we can still end up with stuff that sounds like a kid singing into a hairbrush to a song on the radio. Haley's got pipes to spare and sizzle for days. Her outfit was jaw-dropping hot and she has amazing stage presence and the end result last night was a snooze. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but she'll be in the bottom three due to lazy mentoring so shame on those guys.

I apparently got a lot of hits on my blog for my last post about Jacob Lusk being gay. I've seen posts out there about him being married and having three kids so he can't be. Just a reminder that there are plenty of gay and married men out there. Just look up the term "beard" on urbandictionary.com and that will explain it. Gay guys do not burst into flame if they have sex with a woman. Just sayin'.

All that aside, and it really doesn't matter to me, Jacob ripped another one doing "Bridge Over Troubled Water", one of the greatest songs ever. He made it soar and did the whole Jacob thing with it. I still think he's too gay and black to win this thing but he's got the world in front of him when he's voted off. The only problem I noticed with Jacob last night is that he apparently doesn't have the ability to control the tempo of his vibrato. That's easily fixed with training and he can do everything else vocally; I just don't think he's aware of it. He only has one speed, a too fast one, on his and it felt odd in the slow and gentle opening of this song. I think he's safe but not for long.

The show closed out with James Durbin doing the god awful Sammy Hagar song "Heavy Metal" from the movie of the same name. Loved the movie and it was iconic but the song was a weak link in the movie and a horrible choice for Idol. Yeah, I get it, carrying the metal banner and Zakk Wylde and all that. Again, here was a chance to do something transcendent. Well, for example, what Guns 'n Roses did with the theme from the Bond movie Live and Let Die. Of all the movies out there and I'm not sure if the choices were limited to movies from FOX or not but the opportunity was there for Durbin to take a non-metal song, make it metal, and blow our socks off. Instead, we got a rote version of a crappy song done well. Remember back to David Cook doing "Eleanor Rigby" or "Billy Jean" and you know what I mean.

Granted, on this one, Jimmy Iovine wisely tried to talk him out of the Hagar choice. I mean, seriously, what about a metal version of "Don't You Forget About Me" from The Breakfast Club? My God! There were so many opportunities to do something great with this opportunity. James Durbin will still be safe but last night's performance was utterly forgettable.

So, I've got your bottom three as Paul McDonald, Stefano Langone, and Haley Reinhart with Stefano going home. I would have picked Haley and it should be Paul but Jennifer Lopez put out the calling all girls to vote for Haley thing and Paul's still got the teeth and the dance so .... Adieu, Stefano. Now sashay away. Sorry, RuPaul reference there.

Lastly, Steven Tyler is just boring the ever-loving crap out of me. "You're just beautiful", "that was just great", "you're just amazing", etc. There is nothing at all insightful or helpful coming out of that man's mouth. It's like he's hanging out, watching a show, and keeps forgetting that he's on there to give the show some industry cred. People actually want something useful from him and he's just consistently phoning it in, show after show. I desperately miss Simon Cowell.

The Resurgence of Ayn Rand and Tax Lies Redux

Thanks to the Tea Party loonies and a lot of gullible sheep out there, Ayn Rand has really come back into vogue in the last few years. Her book, The Fountainhead, was made into a movie starring Gary Cooper back in 1949 but her other opus, Atlas Shrugged, has long been considered too long and complicated to make into a movie.

Until now that is. The long awaited project is being released in two parts with part one scheduled to open in theaters April 15.

For those unfamiliar with Rand's writings, I highly encourage you to check them out at least to know what informs the beliefs of the far right fringe out there. The writing is bloated, the characters are black and white, two dimensional tools which the author uses to prove her mythology.

In short, the world of Ayn Rand is one in which there are "prime movers", those who make humanity move forward, and their antagonists who are people shot through with schadenfreude; what would be called in contemporary culture "player haters".

Atlas Shrugged is a thousand plus page work laying out Rand's world view and the philosophy of objectivism. Basically the belief that complete and utterly unfettered free market capitalism is the highest moral good there can be and those who question the belief are something akin to the Lucifer of the Bible.

There's a story in there somewhere between long-winded monologues which serve to prove Rand's point but you can easily skip past huge chunks of reading without missing a beat. Ayn Rand had no ability to self-edit in other words. She felt as if every word and every concept in her books had to be flogged to death and this makes for a very taxing reading experience.

My personal hero, Upton Sinclair, wrote in a similar style with very 2D characters. The good guy vs. the bad. But he did it in 500 pages or less typically and was much more prolific.

At any rate, Rand's style of writing basically works like this: in the land of Lala, people hated the capitalists, the capitalists went on strike, the world fell apart, they came back and saved it. So, you see, capitalism is the only viable system out there.

So, I could write a book and say in the land of Lala, the socialists took power from the capitalists and the world was saved. See? Socialism works! I just proved it.

It really is that cut and dried in Rand's works. There is little or no actual proof offered in anything. She just makes a case that completely unregulated capitalism is the only viable way to Utopia.

Of course we have seen historically what happens when business is not regulated or is under-regulated. Rand's prime movers don't care about humanity. That's not the point. They just go about the business of making things and making money and everybody else benefits from their drive and zeal. It's the ultimate trickle down theory.

It's a shame that reality has to pop in to cloud the image. Those of us who aren't stupid know that deregulation or lack of regulation is what has led to things like slavery, forced child labor, sweat shops, weapons dealers, blood diamonds, workplace deaths, etc.

In capitalism the cream doesn't always come to the top. Frequently you get scenarios like a good product like the Flip camera coming out. A company like Cisco buys that company for $500 million and two years later kills it. Or somebody like Facebook buys out an awesome company like drop.io and shelves it so nobody can use it anymore.

Yes, capitalism can be a force for innovation but it can also be a humbling destructive force with a massive dark side.

And let's not forget that such innovations as space flight, the Internet, hell, just about anything dealing with technology, has come out of government funded initiatives. The Soviet Union, not the capitalist one, put the first satellite into orbit with technology developed by Nazi Germany.

Atomic energy was created by the U.S. government due to its desire to kill a bunch of Japanese civilians. Most of the quantum leaps society has made in past centuries have been the result of government sponsored projects by kings, emperors, presidents, tyrants, etc.

None of this is admitted in Rand's books. Government is the enemy of innovation at every turn. It's a tool used by the haters to hold back those who could truly help us out.

In other words, it's just utter nonsense. There is nothing about Rand's ideas that has been borne out in reality. But, it gives the far right something to blame for the failures they experience. When Regan's trickle down, deregulation, supply side projects produced higher unemployment and massive deficits it was because there was still too much regulation.

All you have to do is read a little history, the real stuff, not the Glenn Beck stuff, study the early 1900s and see what happens when the gloves are off for big business. You get something that looks a lot like a fiefdom from the middle ages. You get the environment Upton Sinclair addressed in his book The Jungle.

Unfortunately, the followers of the Rand cult will only be appeased when we've gone back to that environment so that they can actually see how much it doesn't work. They're typically not likely to believe history since it's all been written by the liberal media elite.

I just want to ask people out there to think while you're reading. When you just take something at face value and eliminate context, you're just making yourself into a victim. Don't be sheep. Do some research for Christ's sake!

Also, today, Obama finally brought eliminating Bush era tax cuts to an end for the wealthiest Americans and closing some tax loopholes American businesses currently enjoy to the table. You know, like GE who paid NO TAXES last year.

The Tea Party jackasses are quick to remind you that the super rich and corporations pay something like 70% of American taxes. Just to be clear, this is a lie. Not true. They're using the math of x + y = z which tells you that based on a person making a million dollars and being taxed at 25% they pay $250,000 in taxes. Of course, that's not taking anything else into account. Not mentioning tax shelters, write-offs, etc. They're not talking about what is actually paid in taxes. They're only talking about what would be paid if there was no such thing as unscrupulous accountants and a rigged tax system.

The middle class and the poor in America shoulder the tax burden. If you believe otherwise, bah bah to you. You're a sheep. Don't be a sucker.

What's Wrong With American Idol and Why I Watch Anyway

Spoiler alert if you record the show like I do. And, yeah, American Idol is one of my many guilty pleasures along with Ru Paul's Drag Race and Top Chef. Tonight, nine contestants were up for elimination and one of the obvious potential finalists, Pia Toscano, got sent packing.

So, once again, the flaws in the show are glaring. When you allow the American public to vote in a competition like this you can almost bet on a bad choice.

Pia Toscano, granted, was one of those diva-style singers I detest. Well, that style at least. Like rap, I was hoping America was done with that stuff back in the '90s, and maybe this result is final notice for divadom; but, that aside, the girl could REALLY sing. After all, American Idol is a singing competition despite the chosen genre of the singer.

Whatever happens after this though, Pia Toscano will have a huge recording career. I'm sure there are plenty of people talking to her right now who are thankful that she won't be bound by any contracts with Idol other than their summer tour.

I think what happened tonight is that the vast majority of people voting on Idol are young, white girls. Period. The other two hopefuls in the bottom three were a black male and a kinda Latino, ethnicy looking male. The highest vote getters, your top six, are all white.

You can further add into the mix that the other two in the bottom, Jacob Lusk and Stefano Langone, set my gaydar off like nobody's business. Not totally sure about Stefano but Jacob is so obviously gay and in denial that it's just silly. There was an awkward little clip on this evening's show where he flirted with a rather large black girl in the TMZ studios that was as uncomfortable as going back and watching old movies where Rock Hudson kisses Hollywood's most famous leading ladies.

Maybe you remember Adam Lambert and that whole scene with him being gay. America caught on to that late in the season as if it wasn't obvious from day one and I think America is getting a little more sophisticated with their advance gay warning systems.

Just a side note, I stopped watching last season after my favorite, Siobhan Magnus, got sent home way too early and the god awful and talentless Lee Dewyze ended up winning so I'm glad I stopped in time.

The big deal though is that Idol does get careers launched and gets people discovered. Sure, they usually end up in the kind of trajectory where people are writing made for radio pablum for them to fill our ears with but still ... I enjoy that there is that kind of opportunity for talented people who want that sort of path to be able to pursue it. Good for them.

But to think that an elimination by voting system is going to get you the best is just way off base. I'll just keep saying George W. Bush every time the benefits of a democratic system are mentioned.

I'd like to add a little comment about a remark Jacob Lusk made on the show. The performances this week were taken from anything from an artist in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To say that the term "rock and roll" is used loosely here is an understatement. Jacob Lusk was at first going to perform rock and roller Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" but backed out over moral concerns. And yes, he's that much in denial.

So, he went with rock and roller Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". Being asked about the choice to change songs he said that if he was in the bottom three this week it would be due to America's inability to look in the mirror at themselves. Let me just say that, if I was gay, I'd be the loudest, proudest queer on this planet. And I think it's high time Jacob Lusk took a look in his mirror and started being real about himself and encourage other gay kids who watch Idol that you don't have to live that kind of closeted life just because of your religion and your family.

He needs to do himself and his future wife/beard a favor and man up and grow a pair. Don't get me wrong, the kid is a mind-blowingly phenomenal talent. Maybe the best singer who has ever been on Idol. It just sets gay people and especially gay teens back years when guys like him are afraid to face the man in their mirror.

In other news this week, great movie came out on DVD, "I Love You Phillip Morris" starring Jim Carey and Ewan McGregor. It's got a pretty good bit of graphic guy on guy sex stuff in it and I'm already getting the anticipated Bible Belt feedback at my work.

For all the gay people out there who have to deal with straight folk douchebags on a daily basis, please let me apologize. I know that you know that we're not all like that but I'm sure it's easy to forget from time to time.

Bob Parsons - Douchebag of the Month (For March at Least)

Recently, GoDaddy.com founder, Bob Parsons, caused a stir with a video he posted on his own blog of him on a visit to Zimbabwe. The video is of him with an elephant he has killed and then feeding villagers, wearing GoDaddy caps, with the carcass.

Parsons has explained the killing as a humanitarian effort. The elephant was trashing the crops of the villagers and by killing the elephant and using it as food he has saved several of these villagers from starvation.

So, let's be clear; Bob Parsons is one of those self-made men you occasionally run across in our wonderful, capitalist system. He came up having nothing, according to him, and, simply through the will to be successful, has made millions. He's driven by intense greed and the need to constantly prove himself. I guess he's what Ayn Rand would call a prime mover.

In the case of Bob Parsons, however, he's made his money off of reinventing what's already out there. First, making and selling home accounting software, then taking domain name registration and turning it into the sex and testosterone driven thing that is GoDaddy.

I guess that if I had the seed money, and the greed, and lack of scruples I could take something like a library, advertise it with sex, make the librarians look like Hooters girls and make a fortune.

Anyway, regardless of how Bob Parsons got to where he is, the primary thing is that guys like him strive constantly to prove themselves to themselves. They have to continually press the point home that they are something extra.

Killing elephants is right up the alley of guys like this, like Ted Nugent stuff. "I'm a self-made man, and yeah, I'm killing a beautiful and smart creature, get over it!" That sort of thing. "Nobody tells me how to live; I'm a self-made man!" It's what I like to call douchebaggery.

Bob Parsons has gone to lengths to justify killing elephants after backlash from groups like PETA who nobody pays any attention to anymore. PETA has become so extreme that it's easy for anybody to discount them. They just give Bob Parsons the opportunity to look good to other conservative douchebags out there. Well, I feel pretty safe in assuming that Bob Parsons is a conservative. Smells like one.

At any rate, if it were about the villagers, Bob Parsons could easily take the money he spends on weapons, guides, planes, etc. on a trip to Zimbabwe, and give them enough protein to last a year rather than the week's worth of meat they get from an elephant. He could erect barriers to keep the elephants away from the crops, arm the villagers with elephant guns, all that.

Bob Parsons just wants to kill an elephant because killing a beautiful and powerful creature makes him feel powerful.

What kind of sick fuck just wants to kill an elephant? What kind of sick fuck would then try to justify it as a humanitarian effort? Well, the same kind of sick fuck who would sell internet domain name registration by using implied lesbian sex in Super Bowl ads. The kind of sick fuck who must constantly seek to prove himself to himself. My guess is that penis enlargement surgery wasn't an option for Bob Parsons and he has to seek other ways to prove his manliness.

I agree with PETA that we should boycott GoDaddy but, as always, that just feeds the need. Any PETA protest just cements the deal for all the other douchebags out there who equate domain name registration with hot lesbian sex. That category would be poorly endowed, conservative, American males, aka, Tea Party folks.

Runner up: Charlie Sheen. No need to go into that.

Christianity vs. American Christianity - Will the Real Church Please Stand Up?

I've blogged in the past about what I perceive to be the horrible aberration that is Prosperity Christianity in America and was thinking recently about one of my favorite parts of the Bible.

I started thinking about it while in discussion with this kid I work with occasionally who is kind of half "real" Christian and half Messianic Jew. He wears some of the trappings of a conservative Jew but has the Catholic Chi Rho tattooed on his arm. He's a really nice kid, easy to talk to, and very open to opposing beliefs. He doesn't own a car, is usually barefoot, and dumpster dives for a lot of his meals, not because he has to, but because the New Testament tells that followers of God will be provided for, lilies of the field and all that. Pretty interesting.

So we were talking about modern, American Christianity and the new belief that you will be rewarded as a Christian with an abundance of stuff.

Anyway, my favorite verse from the Bible is when some kids are making fun of the prophet Elisha for being bald and God got mad and had them ripped to shred by some bears. Forty-two little kids. Ripped to shreds. WTF?!?!

Second favorite and perhaps less quoted is the part of the Acts of the Apostles where the followers of the apostles begin a sort of communal existence in forming the fledgling Church. The followers are selling off ALL of their belongings, throwing the money in a big communal pot, and living as equals. One husband and wife come to sign in and give their money but it turns out they've actually held back a little in case things don't work out or whatever. So, in the book of Acts they are rewarded for their greed by being struck down by God. Seriously. Killed for their greed.

Here's the passage from the New International Version:

4:32 The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. 4:33 With great power, the apostles gave their testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Great grace was on them all. 4:34 For neither was there among them any who lacked, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 4:35 and laid them at the apostles’ feet, and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need. 4:36 Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, Son of Encouragement), a Levite, a man of Cyprus by race, 4:37 having a field, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, 5:2 and kept back part of the price, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 5:3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? 5:4 While you kept it, didn’t it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn’t it in your power? How is it that you have conceived this thing in your heart? You haven’t lied to men, but to God.”

5:5 Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and died. Great fear came on all who heard these things. 5:6 The young men arose and wrapped him up, and they carried him out and buried him. 5:7 About three hours later, his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in. 5:8 Peter answered her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.”

She said, “Yes, for so much.”

5:9 But Peter asked her, “How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

5:10 She fell down immediately at his feet, and died. The young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband.

Holy crap!!!! If you missed it, perhaps you should go back to the part that sounds suspiciously like from each according to his ability to each according to his need. But that was Karl Marx talking, not Jesus.

Just to be clear here, this is the formation of the first Christian Church based on what we would consider to be modern communist principles.

I don't want to go into a diatribe on what's wrong with Prosperity theology again. I just wanted to bring this little passage to the attention of anybody who might have missed it and cares to know what's actually in the Bible. I've read leaflets written by groups who are very anti-communist Christians talking about the evils of Liberation theology and how the followers of that movement have attempted to create a "false communist Jesus".

One of my favorite things is reading the leaflets put out by Chick Publications, a Canadian, right-wing nutjob bunch of folks who are big on Prosperity and hate the Catholic Church with a venom that is just freaking spooky. You can read a bunch of fun stuff and look at all their super cool comic books and tracts at chick.com if you like to be freaked out.

Here's a little blurb from one of their posts dealing with Liberation theology in Mexico:

Many Mexican priests are fervent supporters of "liberation theology," a noxious hybrid of Catholicism and Marxism. The Economist noted that Mexican bishops and other Catholic higher-ups also "disliked the free market (though they rarely specify what would be better)."

I won't even bother to go in to the wrongness involved in quoting The Economist rather than the Bible to make your arguments but that's the fun kind of stuff you'll find on that website.

My thoughts for the evening. In closing I'd like to share something from one of my favorite bands, Belle and Sebastian. From their Life Pursuit album, Act of the Apostle I and Act of the Apostle II, the reprise. Nothing to do with the topic of the blog but well ....

The Friendly Japanese - Why They Don't Suck and Black Americans Do

Following the recent disaster in Japan, I first worried about my friend Kazuya who lives in Tokyo and then following the potential nuclear disaster unfolding over there, I've been dismayed at one of the usual byproducts of the modern news cycle.

There always seems to be a side story that sneaks in with little to no relevance to the actual story but that gains traction and grows into a story in its own right.

This time it goes something like this: during the course of the tragedy in Japan there has been a notable lack of rioting, looting, civil unrest, etc.

The subtext of the story, as was also the subtext when the same story line came about following flooding in Nashville last year, is that American Black people suck and they will loot your stuff from you in a heartbeat because they are basically little more than animals.

I'm pretty sure the racial angle got traction in both instances from FOX News and specifically from Glenn Beck's show but I'm not going to bother looking that up. That's where I heard it first in both instances and then the broader news media picked up on it without looking into the validity of the statement too much.

I'm not like that. I like to actually understand a story rather than take it on face value. I know that there are cultural differences with the Japanese. I'm Buddhist after all. I've done quite a bit of study on Japanese and Zen culture. Ascribing the orderliness of the Japanese to religion doesn't explain anything. Reverence for parents? Manners? I've even seen one source say that the lack of looting might have something to do with how awesome the Yakuza is. Seriously.

So, here's what I actually think it is and why I think the racial subtext making it's way around America in typical fashion is such BS.

Japan is a monolithic culture for starters. Japan is Japanese. Outsiders are welcome to visit but it's really hard, and I mean REALLY hard, for outsiders to get residency there. Yeah, they love Western culture, but, if you're not Japanese you're going to be on the outside looking in. Not that I have a problem with that. But, aside from a massive, shared cultural identity, there is also a massive social welfare system in Japan, governmental and private, pensions, health care for everybody, etc.

All of this fosters an intense sense of national pride and neighborliness. The people in Japan know that they will be taken care of. There's very little poverty or crime as a result. This is the sort of system I want in America and why I'm a socialist. Funny to me that Glenn Beck skips over this aspect of Japanese culture.

Now, in America, you have a system where we are a nation of immigrants, melting pot, all that. For those of you who have forgotten, almost all of the Black people in our country are the descendants of people who were brought here as slaves to do forced labor. Many of the Hispanics in this country are here because they've been brought in by American business interests to work for sub-standard wages.

Unfortunately, in America, the best bet for a young Black man to make good money since he's not eligible for the good old boys' network, is to sell drugs. I don't think non-Blacks can ever truly appreciate what it must be like to be Black in America. I think many of them, even those who like to think of themselves as "enlightened" think all of the ills in the Black community in America are just the result of laziness. Not that they would say this out loud or even admit to it; they just do things like point out how awesome the Japanese are.

These people were FORCED to come into this country and, then, following the U.S. Civil War, were just cut loose to fend for themselves. They didn't come from the old country with any belongings, savings, inherited jewelry, or knowledge of a trade, or family, or friends.

I'd venture to say that most people who are critical of what happened in the aftermath of Katrina have either little or no knowledge of what life is like for the average Black person in New Orleans. Many live in abject poverty because their living in poverty keeps the wheels of commerce moving in New Orleans. It keeps the tourist industry well-staffed and keeps goods flowing in and out of the port. Your coffee, your bananas, your jeans, etc. remain cheap because of the cheap labor that brings them to you.

The social safety net that was once part of American life has been eroded to the point where it's no longer even part of the story.

Blacks in New Orleans, and indeed in many U.S. cities, are marginalized and kept on the sidelines when there are economic good times. People still want their cheap goods and services.

Additionally, millions of Latinos have been brought in by American businesses to directly compete with the American Blacks for these low-paying jobs.

I don't know how many of you have visited Nashville but I lived there. It's the whitest city I've ever lived in. I'm not even sure where the Black people in Nashville live but I know there are a few there because I saw it on COPS.

The parts of Nashville hit by the flooding last year were in some pretty well-to-do parts of town. I'm not sure that I've ever seen wealthy White people doing any looting. Well, except for when they gouge prices and make laws that help them rip off everybody else. And yet the sub-story unfolded last year. Hey, look, flooding in Nashville, just like in New Orleans, but look at how nice and orderly the White people are. Not like those bad Black people.

So, the bottom line is that, if you know you'll be taken care of, you're less likely to be a looter. The situation in New Orleans following Katrina was certainly nothing like that. Nashville is a city that sits atop what is known as the Cumberland Plateau, high ground. I'm not even sure how it flooded in the first place but the water drained off very quickly. Not so in New Orleans that lies below sea level. And, once again for those of you who don't understand how ports work, it has to be where it is so you can get your coffee, sugar, bananas and jeans. The high ground in New Orleans is occupied by wealthy White people and has been since the early 1700s.

Anyway, while all the veiled attacks are levied against American Blacks under the guise of praising the Japanese, I'd really hope that there would be some Americans out there who might be interested in doing some thinking about what the Black American experience is, how they got here, how they're treated, what it's like to grow up Black and poor, etc.

Let me just say that I'm something of a racist. I freely admit it. But I'm also capable of thinking for myself and I actually go out of my way to be empathetic. I don't want to criticize anybody without first trying to understand where they're coming from.

I guess America would be a better place, if you think the Japanese are so admirable, if our country was nothing but White people with a great healthcare system available to everybody and government funded pension plans which were consistently honored and maintained. Where retirees were treated with respect and taken care of. That's not what we've got. We've got a melting pot of different races and cultures and huge economic disparity.

You get what you pay for.

James O'Keefe, Jingoism, and the Piss Christ

National Public Radio president and CEO Vivian Schiller resigned today amid the newest right wing terror campaign of one of untalented right-wing sociopath, James O'Keefe.

Schiller's stepping down is the latest in a string of victories for the right. Well, at least in that they firm up their base, not that it makes any difference to the general public at all.

O'Keefe is one of the types of people I've grown all too familiar with over the years. For some reason, they just become full of joyless venom. They become so obsessed with their own viewpoint and agenda that the only thing they can do is seek the destruction of others.

Of course, O'Keefe is probably well-funded by people like the Koch brothers in their headlong quest to quash everything on the left.

O'Keefe came to the attention of the media during the 2008 presidential campaign when he almost single-handedly brought down ACORN. Dressed in garb I guess he considered to be de rigueur for the average white, twenty-something, preppy pimp, he caught some ACORN employees saying some compromising things on hidden camera.

The thing is that O'Keefe is obviously so out of touch with what real pimps and prostitutes are actually like, the statements from the ACORN employees could be nothing less than people just playing along with the joke. No matter though. Through editing and the aid of Drudge, FOX "News", etc. it caused ACORN's demise.

This time he and his buddies were trying to pass themselves off as some kind of pro-Muslim group in order to get PBS and NPR people to show their true colors as the anti-American voice of the left that all good conservatives know them to be.

The problem was that the PBS and NPR people weren't biting on the group's validity but were still caught on camera dissing the idiots in the Tea Party and everybody knows you can't call an idiot an idiot and still be considered fair and balanced.

Everything about the right wing these days is about killing the messenger and ignoring the message. We're in the middle of a war of dirty tricks and character assassination the likes of which this country has never seen. Seriously, even in the days of the Ken Starr investigations of the Clintons, the tactics were nothing like this.

On the right, since apparently they're in total disarray now having to battle the fringe in their own midst and being incapable of getting anything done in Washington, they're putting out talking points, circling the wagons, and trying to figure out what the hell they're going to do about 2012.

They're having to rely on shock troops like O'Keefe to work Machiavellian magic behind the scenes in order to bring Obama and the left down since they are finding it impossible to bring themselves up.

PBS and NPR are the latest paper tigers for the right. You might remember several years back that it was the National Endowment for the Arts and Andres Sorrano's "Piss Christ".

For the right, there's always some sort of smoke and mirrors campaign going on. In the battle to destroy the unions in Wisconsin the new Republican talking points are all about "freedom". Every Republican I've seen discussing the matter in the past week has used that term to describe their efforts to destroy collective bargaining and castrate public sector unions. Seriously, freedom.

Of course the dolts on the right suck that up. They're like (speaking in robot/zombie voice of someone under hypnosis) "Yes, I like freedom. Union bad. Union don't like freedom." As if freedom were being held hostage by people seeking honest wages and retirement benefits.

There was an amazing poem by e.e. cummings, one of my favorite poets, in which he coined the term jingoism. Jingoism is a term you rarely hear these days, I would suspect because most journalists aren't educated enough to have heard of it. It has applied to the right for several years now, going back to the days of Reagan. The term means political speech devoid of substance that is all about wrapping yourself in the flag and hitting a few hot button terms here and there.

Nowhere has the jingoism of the right been more prominently displayed than at recent public events in the lead up to somebody actually throwing their hat in the ring for the 2012 Republican presidential bid.

It's all been about the rights of the unborn, the dastardly unions and their anti-American Muslim friends, the communists who control public media, etc.

And, in the meantime, they're relying on a hack like James O'Keefe to do their dirty work.

The problem is that they're losing in the court of public opinion. Still. After all the money from the Koch brothers and all the dirty tricks, they just can't bring their numbers up.

People are becoming more sympathetic to the unions and Republicans like Wisconsin governor Scott Walker are getting caught up in the same type of O'Keefian smear campaigns they love so much and are coming out looking like villains.

I think that, ultimately, the majority of Americans will realize that their best interests aren't served by people like the Koch brothers and all of this money being spent to destroy the left will have the opposite effect. Now, if Obama would only grow a pair and take advantage of that, I might rest a little easier.

I'd like to include here the poem, "next to of course god america i", by e.e. cummings in which the word jingo first appeared and also "Piss Christ" which is still a beautiful piece of work.

“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Still ♥ Huckabee? - Playing the Right Like a Fiddle

Quick blog today due to work schedule but I just wanted to address the story of Mike Huckabee that's been buzzing in the media since some comments he made Tuesday on a right wing talk radio show.

On the Steve Malzberg show, Mike Huckabee was addressing something about Obama removing a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Apparently the bust was removed because Obama's people were making it so that all the busts in the office were of Americans. I'm not sure if that's actually the reason but that's not important.

Huckabee made a statement that the removal of the bust was due to Obama being raised in Kenya which was a British colony for quite some time. Here's Huckabee's statement:

“If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

In fact, Obama's grandfather was arrested by the British and detained for a period. This isn't the fun stuff though.

In response to the media pointing out that Obama was in fact not raised in Kenya, Huckabee came out with this statement:

"I simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in 'Kenya' and meant to say Indonesia."

Well, except for the fact that there was not a Mau Mau Revolution in Indonesia and Obama's grandfather didn't live there and Indonesia was not a British colony.

What happened here is that Huckabee got caught pandering to the far right. I've seen Huckabee on MSNBC where he comes off as a real gentleman and almost, dare I say it, kinda middle of the road politically. On networks like MSNBC, Huckabee is confident of Obama's American birth.

What's happening these days though is that politicians like Huckabee, lest we forget, he's an ordained Southern Baptist minister, play to whatever audience they're addressing.

When conservative politicians go on shows like Malzberg's they frequently get put into positions where correcting lies and propaganda can be political suicide. Yet, they have to put themselves out there to pander. They can't win without that lunatic fringe that makes up the conservative base.

There are only two ways Huckabee's statements could have gone down. Either he actually thought Obama grew up in Kenya or he simply lied. The fact is that Obama never visited Kenya until he was an adult.

But then Huckabee followed up with a statement claiming he simply used the word Kenya rather than Indonesia as he intended. Obviously a lie since he elaborated on it being Kenya.

So, you're busted playing to the right and lying to them so what's next? You blame the whole thing on the left wing media! Here's the statement on his website about that:

"I'm not surprised the NY Times chose to sensationalize this story. In fact, the New York Times, the AP, and other news organizations ran with the "sensationalized story" despite being specifically told by Steve Malzberg himself that they were incorrect in their assessment of the sound bite. You just can't help but laugh when my simple slip of the tongue, becomes a huge story - and a certain Presidential candidate claiming to visit all 57 states, gets widely ignored."

Well, except that Obama saying 57 states is an obvious speaking mistake. He didn't go on to elaborate how the additional seven states were incorporated into the union. The whole point of Huckabee's Malzberg interview debacle was that Kenya was the point of the story.

You can find many examples of right wing media and bloggers out there right now defending Huckabee and making him the victim of a left wing media smear campaign and I'm sure the majority of right wingers are taking that bait.

Fact is that they're getting played and, since they don't typically get actual news thrown in to their daily mix, they'll keep getting played like this.

Baptist minister, obviously a liar, no biggie.

To me though, the funniest thing about this whole story is that Huckabee says something about Obama being raised to believe the Brits "were a bunch of imperialists". As in, how could somebody believe anything like that about those nice British folk? All they were trying to do is help!

I'll save the blog on the British and their colonial period for later. A history lesson on the Mau Mau Revolt is good background though. Here's the link to the Wiki on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Revolt

Self-Slaughtering Sheep, History Lessons, Bah Bah Bah

Aside from the fireworks in the Middle East and North Africa in the past weeks, the media in America has been focusing on the fun in Madison, Wisconsin. The new Republican governor of that state, Scott Walker, and the majority Republican congress in that state began work on pushing through a bill that would make state workers have to pay more into their own pension plans, pay more for their own health care plans, and basically lose the right as unions to engage in collective bargaining.

Union members, teachers, auto workers, etc. have been rallying outside the state house since last week pitted against smaller numbers of Tea Party, uh, patriots?

Let me say that I understand that there are some problems with modern unions in that they frequently demand too much. I do totally get that. They have to learn to meet in the middle on some issues when local, state, and federal budgets are strapped as they currently are.

What I'd like to discuss here though is those citizens who are aligning themselves against the unions: the far-right and Tea Party folks.

I'm talking about those people who are middle to low income workers and follow right-wing media for all of their "information". I discuss these people frequently because it's such an amazing dynamic. I don't know if they are so stupid that they think wealthy people are really concerned with their welfare or if they are so patriotic that tey think that labor unions are communist and anti-American.

These people make me imagine a herd of sheep. Somehow these sheep have been given the right to vote. There's a wolf at one end of their pasture and a shepherd at the other end. The shepherd tells the sheep he needs them to give him some money to fix their fence and keep the wolf out. The wolf tells them he's a vegetarian now and he'll let them keep their money if they let him kill the shepherd.

Well, history tells us that a wolf will not be a vegetarian for long if he ever actually was and common sense tells us he just wants to eat the sheep. But, because he's told him they can keep their money some of the sheep vote in favor of the wolf. After all, the shepherd's wearing a new coat and how did he pay for that? Why didn't that money go to fix the fence.

I'm currently watching season three of The Tudors which is focusing on the life of Henry VIII and what I watched last night was so timely I had to include it.

First you need to know that Gov. Walker in Wisconsin is firmly in the pocket of the Koch brothers. That's pronounced like coke if you're not familiar with them. They are billionaire industrialists, some of the wealthiest people in America, and they pour millions into right-wing political causes including Gov. Walker's election campaign. They are basically the heart and soul of many "grass roots" political movements in America right now.

A hilarious incident happened yesterday in which a liberal blogger got Gov. Walker on the phone posing as one of the Koch brothers and talked to him for twenty minutes, recorded it all, and put it out on the internet.

I must add that, in an attempt to delay passage of the bill in Wisconsin, Democrat law-makers have left the state so that no quorum can be reached and the bill in question can't be passed for now.

In the phone call Gov. Walker says he and his people have discussed telling the Democrats that he is willing to negotiate with them, having them come back to the state house, and, once they are in the building and a quorum is reached, quickly putting the bill on the floor and passing it. Like a trap. Hah! Got ya!

So back to Henry VIII. In 1536 Henry had passed all sorts of laws abolishing the Catholic Church in England, confiscating Papal lands, abbeys, churches, all their loot, etc. The people in the North of England, under the leadership of a lawyer named Robert Aske, started a rebellion and, with a fair sized army, set out for London on foot in order to bring their grievances before the king. This march came to be known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

Henry got very concerned about the size of the group and sent mediators to talk with them. He promised them clemency if they disbanded, promised to hold a special parliament to hear their claims, and basically allowed them to think all would be cool and he would work things out with them.

Sound familiar? These trusting souls (sheep) took him at his word and, after they disbanded their army and went back home, Robert Aske was tortured and hung and hundreds of peasants, men, women, and children were taken from their fields and hung as an example to others.

These are the kinds of "Oh, I've seen something like this before!" realizations you get all the time if you know history. There are always examples of sheep exposing their necks to the butcher's knife and thanking him for taking care of them.

The labor movement in America was a reaction to abuses of a medieval magnitude. Workers in this country have not always been well treated. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were great pockets of workers who were treated like chattel. Child labor, sure, eighty hour work week, check, no overtime, check, safety?, sorry. It was literally a war with many casualties that led to the rise of unions in this country and they forced companies to begin to treat labor with dignity and decency. The American prosperity of the 1950s through the 1980s was defined by these people, many who gave their lives for it, killed by scabs and Pinkertons who were the Blackwater contractors of that time.

The jackasses in Wisconsin, the commoners fighting against the unions, know nothing of the history of labor in this country. They view labor as an outside force trying to take their money and wanting to live the high life for doing no work. Their perception of the situation is so far out of whack that it freaks me out.

I would love to kidnap some of these folks and give them a history lesson. Make them watch the movie Maitwan, show them photos of union workers getting clubbed to death or shot with machine guns. The irony that the struggle of those early union members closely resembles that of the original Tea Partiers back in the 18th century isn't lost on me.

The fight in Wisconsin is against union members who are public sector employees: teachers, police, firemen, garbage workers, etc.

I think it's probably pretty important to gain some perspective on why these people are in unions to begin with.

Let's take teachers as an example. Public workers are maybe the one sector of our economy where, well in the case of teachers, public defenders, etc., you have to have a college degree and your earnings cap out at a ridiculously low level compared to similar levels of education in the private sector. These people are doing a job that must be done at economic disadvantage to themselves. The lack of salary is hopefully made up for in pension money and healthcare. Without these incentives we lose these people to the private sector.

Of course, this is what union busters want. They want it all to be privatized. BFI and Waste Management handling all trash collection, private security force rather than police, fire protection provided like a privately owned ambulance service, all that.

Many on the right have drunk the Kool-Aid and think this is the best and most cost-effective and "American" way to do things. It's the free market! Unfortunately these people have a total lack of knowledge of the way things worked when this was the norm, when all these things were handled by the private sector.

You think police unions are bad? I'd like to imagine a Blackwater run police force. Oh but they changed their name, hang on, they are now Xe Services. So if you can't pronounce the name you can't speak evil of them. (Xe is pronounced like zee if you have something bad to say)

Imagine having to call your child's teacher and speaking with a call center in India instead.

I could go on all day with scenarios like this but the bottom line is that we need to maintain a public sector and, in lieu of salary, these people deserve their benefits.

I don't think personally that a VP with Koch Enterprises should make a hundred times more money than a policeman who actually risks his life protecting his community every day.

I think people like that VP from Koch should share a huge tax burden to keep the public sector afloat.

Current poster child for this country's Right, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, says these people already meet far more than their fair share of the tax burden in his fight against the unions. Something like they are responsible for 40% of New Jersey's tax income.

Of course, this is that same argument you keep hearing from these people. They do the simple math that if I make x dollars and the tax rate is 30% then I've paid into the state and federal coffers by this equation: x x .30 = y and y is what they've paid in taxes.

This is just simply not the case. Business tax breaks, subsidies, loopholes, off-shoring of accounts, etc. are all discounted in this argument and it's just nonsense.

Until the sheep on the political right begin to understand that wolves aren't going to look out for their best interests, we can expect to see a lot more of this union busting in America. Welcome to the 1800s!