Steinski.com

Glenn Beck cries in satire video

steinski — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:46:42 +0000

The current King Of The Schmucks on Fox News: skewered cleverly in this Onion-worthy video.

Pogo; an appreciation

steinski — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:36:54 +0000

When I was around 7 or 8, my then-Uncle Irwin slipped me a book of animal cartoons called “Pogo.” I read and enjoyed all of it (and understood some 0f it), and Uncle Irwin kept giving me more books about Pogo, and I discovered that there was a FULL PAGE of it in the Sunday funnies (in color), and luckily, Pogo (and Walt Kelly’s sense of humor and language) became a permanent part of my life, and thank you Uncle Irwin.

I bring this up because I’ve been doing a slow peruse of one of the old books (The Incompleat Pogo), and I found a little bit of business that I regard as exceptional.

To set the stage:

We see a practice session of the Okeefenokee Swamp beanbag team, preparing to play the squad from Igloo U. Albert the Alligator (dressed in a middy blouse) is the quarterback of the team. He passes to his receivers, three bats (in derbies) named Bewitched, Bebothered, and Bemildred.

To my mind, this action and dialogue deserves comparison to the Marx Brothers. Non compass Memphis, indeed. U can’t ptouch this.

Annotations:

Mr. Crump, a politician made famous in the lyrics of W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ptah, after whom Alice Coltrane named a killer song:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Non compos mentis? There ain’t no sanity clause.

Are corporations people? Lessig responds.

steinski — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:49:25 +0000

The latest.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A political post that doesn’t count as ranting and raving because it ends on a sane note

steinski — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:14:52 +0000

A short explanation: when I began blogging, during the second of George W. Bush’s terms as “president,” I wrote because I needed to vent my considerable anger and frustration. My style (a generous term) evolved since I’d noticed something about the various Republican regimes that had ruled since Reagan – they always had a few (or more than few) raving nutcases that they kept around to make the rest of their lunatics seem sane. In Reagan’s cabinet, for instance, there was James Watt, a Secretary Of The Interior who wanted to sell all of the country’s natural resources, privatize the national parks, and cut down all the trees, because “Jesus might be coming any day,” and what was the use of a few birds and squirrels?

Daddy Bush had his share of assholes like that, and W had more of these people in every department than you would have thought existed outside of the slow classs in grade school. They became a key part of Republican negotiating tactics: “You see that guy over there? Well, he thinks that Jews, blacks, and women are actually only 3/5 citizens, and the only people that should be able to vote are white male born-agains. He wants to cut down every tree in the continental U.S. because the bible told him to. You want to deal with him? Of course not. So you’d better deal with me; I only want to cut down half the trees in the country.” The logic being, of course, that a plain, everyday murderer looks good compared to a serial killer.

I decided I wantd to be one of those people for the Left. And I wasn’t acting; I meant every word I wrote.

Now, for my own sanity, I evetuallly had to stop reading the papers and being so aware-every-day about health-care reform and the other issues of Obama’s first term. I was becoming so incensed that it was distracting me from work, and all I did was walk around fuming and mumbling, which bothered my wife and scared the cat.

But I did catch wind of that insane Supreme Court decision about Citizens United vs the FEC.

My reaction was (and is): lynch them. Kill them without a fair trial. Hang all 5 Supreme Court Justices, leave their bloody bodies in front of the Capitol, and teach the Republicans and the corporate whores a real lesson.

Now, you don’t want to deal with me, do you? I’m crazy.

Lucky for all of us, one of the best thinkers of our generation, Lawrence Lessig, is on the case to protect you from people like me AND the Supreme Court.

Visit Fix Congress First, and support Lessig in his efforts to call a convention to amend the constitution so that the corrupt congress – The Best Government Money Can Buy ®©™ – can be transformed into something more closely resembling representative government.

Why a constitutional convention? You certainly can’t trust Congress to pass a law doing anything about this; that’s like asking the Mafia to give everything back and leave quietly.

From Fix Congress First:

Click here to view the embedded video.

More political fuming coming down the pike, but first, these words…

steinski — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:01:22 +0000

Bang bang, with a feeling.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joe Cuba and cuchifritos; that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Watch as Republican Rep. Dan Lungren sells his fat ass (video) to the highest bidders

steinski — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:05:38 +0000

Oh, how he hates raising money.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The only reason this isn’t called corruption is semantics.

Lawrence Lessig explains the corrosive effects of private campaign financing to a conservative think tank, in terms even they can understand

steinski — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:23:09 +0000

On the evening of Obama’s State Of The Union speech, Lessig visited the Cato Institute to make the case for public campaign financing. Besides being brilliant and well-spoken, Lessig is also incredibly brave.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The People Yes (Howard Zinn R.I.P.)

steinski — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:09:10 +0000

Damn.

This pretty much sums it up

steinski — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:55:45 +0000

Chris Hedges puts the situation into perspective with his essay “Democracy In America Is A Useful Fiction.” Oh, how those Harvard divinity students with 20 years of NY Times foreign-reporting experience carry on.

Thanks to Mr. Jam, cause jelly don’t shake like

That gurgle you hear is democracy’s death rattle. (Updated)

steinski — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:36:14 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court just struck down the law prohibiting corporations from massive, unlimited donations in the name of “free speech.” Welcome to government of the people by the corporation, for the corporation. “The chair recognizes the Senator from Wal-Mart and Citibank.”

Lawrence Lessig is one of the only sane voices on the issue:

And Change Congress is the organization he founded to restore sanity and balance to the electoral process. Sign up, hey.

Update:

The day after the decision, Lessig comments in The Huffington Post.