The Tragic Consequences of Cocaine Use Exposed

Maybe there's more to Bush Avoidence Syndrome than we thought. Watch in horror and shame as the Resident misidentifies the Congresscritter he is stumping for not once, but twice. (here)

And he's the Decider?

gHod, somebody please get him from behind the wheel before he kills again.

Seems we're not the only ones who are confused...

MEMPHIS - Would-be rescuers ended their search Friday for a manatee that strayed an unprecedented 700 miles up the Mississippi River, leaving the warm-water mammal to an uncertain fate far north of its natural range.

The manatee, which had been spotted several times since Sunday along the Memphis riverfront, eluded a rescue team that had hoped to haul it by truck to Florida.

Biologists were unsure if the animal could find its way back to warmer waters or how long it could survive so far north. (more)

New Jersey court recognizes right to same-sex unions

via CNN

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples.

But the court left it to the Legislature to determine whether the state will honor gay marriage or some other form of civil union.

Advocates on both sides of the issue believed the state posed the best chance for gay marriage to win approval since Massachusetts became the only state to do so in 2003 because the New Jersey Supreme Court has a history of extending civil rights protections.

Instead, the high court stopped short of fully approving gay marriage and gave lawmakers 180 days to rewrite marriage laws to either include gay couples or create new civil unions.

"The issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people," the court said in its 4-3 ruling.

New Jersey lawmakers voted to allow domestic partnerships in 2004, but they have been reluctant to delve into the sensitive issue of marriage.

Under domestic partnerships, gay couples have some benefits of marriage, such as the right to inherit possessions if there is no will and healthcare coverage for state workers. (more)

Finally, some sanity prevails in this country.

Jesus Christ on a Raft

War Room - Salon.com:

Rick Santorum and the 'Eye of Mordor'

In an interview with the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, embattled Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has equated the war in Iraq with J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings.' According to the paper, Santorum said that the United States has avoided terrorist attacks at home over the past five years because the 'Eye of Mordor' has been focused on Iraq instead.

'As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,' Santorum said. 'It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.'

We're sure that we wouldn't either, if only we had the slightest idea of what Santorum was saying. The Courier Times translates for those of us who are not so conversant in spooky Tolkienese: The 'Eye of Mordor,' it seems, was 'the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.'

To be fair, Santorum's interview with the editorial board wasn't all about fantasy. Well, at least not the Dungeons and Dragons kind. Santorum said that he disagreed with the notion that the United States is 'bogged down' in Iraq. As for talk of a troop withdrawal? Santorum said: 'I don't think you ask that question. I know that's the question everybody wants to ask. But I don't think anyone would ask that question in 1944, 'Gee, how long are we going to be in Europe?' We're going to be in Europe until we win.'

-- Tim Grieve

Doesn't surprise me much. I have always thought of him as the Dark Helmut of the wingnut right. Taller than Rick Moranis, but far less funny (at least by intention).

He'll have plenty of time to read his stained and well paged Gor books after the forthcoming elections.

First the War in Iraq was a comma, now it's Sauron bait.

Sigh.

Daily Show: What Exactly Is President Bush's Job?

Jon does it again. Masterful.

Asylum Street Spankers Video

Just too, too much.

Charles L Grant

A man of great wit, wielder of an impossibly huge literary talent and the possessor of a stunningly giving heart.

Someone who could make you laugh as the ghouls were sawing off your head and whose horror stories could frighten the bejeesus out of the staunchest secular humanist. 

Fan of his beloved football Giants. 

Fellow devotee of chop-sockee movies.

And a great Scot as well.

That was a bit of what Charlie brought to the world.

I had the privilege to call him my friend.

Ghod how I will miss him.

.


from Locus Online:

Writer and editor Charles L. Grant, born 1942, died yesterday, Sept. 15, 2006, shortly after returning home from a long hospital stay. Grant wrote over 100 books, mostly horror and fantasy, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, notably the "Oxrun Station" novels set in an imaginary Connecticut town. He won Nebula Awards for short story "A Crowd of Shadows" and novelette "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye", World Fantasy Awards for anthology Shadows (first in an 11-volume series), collection Nightmare Seasons, and novella "Confess the Seasons", a special British Fantasy Award in 1987, a Life Achievement Stoker Award in 2000, the World Horror Grandmaster Award in 2002, and the International Horror Guild Living Legend Award in 2003.

From International Horror Guild:

Charles L. Grant has been writing for thirty some years now, and in that time he's published over 100 books in various genres, with a number of his novels appearing on the bestseller lists of USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times. His nearly two hundred short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines worldwide. He also edited the award-winning anthology series, Shadows. Other anthologies included Gothic Ghosts (with Wendy Webb), the Gallery of Fear, and the Greystone Bay series.

In 1987 he received the British Fantasy Society's Special Award, for life achievement. In addition, he has received two Nebula Awards and three World Fantasy Awards for his writing and editing. In 2000 he was given the Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002 he was honored with the Grandmaster Award of the World Horror Convention.

A graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Grant served two years in Vietnam. He is a past officer of the Science Fiction Writers of America, served ten years on the Board of Directors of the World Fantasy Awards, and is a past president and trustee of the Horror Writers Association. He shares his Victorian home in northwestern New Jersey with his writer/editor wife, Kathryn Ptacek, five cats, and a lot of cobwebs and a few earwigs. Currently he is at work on a dark fantasy novel.

Star Trek Meets Monty Python

Via Kolchak

President Bush uses Little Richard as translator

The Simpsons vs Star Trek

A sweet sanity.....

What I did on my summer vacation

David Hartwell wins Best Editor Hugo

Best Editor: Finally!

My convention boss Scott Dennis, on behalf of the Clothiers Guild, presented David Hartwell, with this shirt, commemorating his Hugo win for Best Editor.

Take that, you mangy little curr!

Keith Olbermann does a wonderful job articulating the rage induced by Donald Rumsfeld's mendacious little paen to fascism at the American Legion meeting in Salt Lake City. Watch, oh my children, and marvel at the power of words when they are bravely spoken to power.

from Crooks and Liars:

By: Jamie Holly on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 6:22 PM - PDT

Keith had some very choice words about Rumsfeld’s "fascism" comments tonight. Watch it, save it and share it.

Video - WMV Video - QT

Olbermann delivered this commentary with fire and passion while highlighting how Rumsfeld’s comments echoes other times in our world’s history when anyone who questioned the administration was coined as a traitor, unpatriotic, communist or any other colorful term. Luckily we pulled out of those times and we will pull out of these times.

Remember - Rumsfeld did not just call the Democrats out yesterday, he called out a majority of this country. This wasn’t only a partisan attack, but more so an attack against the majority of Americans.

The transcript of Keith’s comments tonight is available below the fold.

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

We end the countdown where we began, our #1 story, with a special comment on Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday. It demands the deep analysis - and the sober contemplation - of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants - our employees - with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom;

More<

Happy Fourth Of July!

Let America be America again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Happy Birthday, Sir Paul!

from Registan: A simply lovely cover of Yesterday by Kazakhstan’s Asylbek Ensepov

Happy Birthday

Anne Frank


Never Forget.

Poem of the Day

Lightning by Mary Oliver

The oaks shone
gaunt gold
on the lip
of the storm before
the wind rose,
the shapeless mouth
opened and began
its five-hour howl;
the lights
went out fast, branches
sidled over
the pitch of the roof, bounced
into the year
that grew black
within minutes, except
for the lightening - the landscape
bulging forth like a quick
lesson in creating, then
thudding away. Inside,
as always,
it was hard to tell
fear from excitement:
how sensual
the lightning’s
poured stroke! and still,
what a fire and a risk!
As always the body
wants to hide,
wants to flow toward it - strives
to balance while
fear shouts,
excitement shouts, back
and forth - each
bolt a burning river
tearing like escape through the dark
field of the other.

Happy Birthday

Maurice Sendak

1928 -
American writer and illustrator of more than 30 children's books, including Where the Wild Things Are (1963); In the Night Kitchen (1970); Outside over There (1981); We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993); and Brundibar (2003).

Batwoman and the Teachable Moment

from kolchak

More than a few years ago, Mattel Toys tried to market a Barbie doll that came in a wheelchair. I don’t know whether it was a sincere attempt to promote diversity or a sincere attempt to separate more kids from their money. (I imagine it was a little bit of both.) In any case, the effort didn’t last long. Someone quickly discovered that the wheelchair wouldn’t go through the doorways of the various Barbie playhouses and the toy was recalled.

I think I remember this incident because I always thought that Mattel missed what some educators like to call a Teachable Moment. IMHO, the official response should have been: “Yeah, we wanted to make it as much like the real world as we could.”

All of which brings us --believe it or not--to the new Batwoman.

In late May, DC Comics announced that it was going to reintroduce Batwoman, a character who first appeared in 1956. This version of the character, though, would be substantially different from the original; she would be a lesbian, a Gotham City socialite named Kate Kane. Her first appearance is scheduled for 52 #11, due out in July. (52 is a weekly comic that will feature a variety of characters over a year-long run.)

This announcement has resulted in an unexpected amount of publicity from themainstream news media. Most of it has been positive, although some of it has just been clueless. CNN’s Jeanne Moos did a spot which started with the theme of the Batman TV series, which, in this case, is equivalent to putting on a sign that says I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Anyway, it’s ironic to see the name Batwoman associated with an attempt to make Batman more edgy and modern, because, when it was first used, the intention was probably the reverse. The original Batwoman--who was called Kathy Kane, incidentally -- was introduced along with Batgirl to make Batman and Robin look more like a standard family (And if you want to replace the phrase “standard family” with“straighter,” I’m not going to disagree with you.)

Here’s how Jeff Rovin describes the first Batwoman’s weapons in his TheEncyclopedia of Super Heroes: “a powder puff with sneezing powder, lipstick which doubles as a smoke bomb, tear-gas disguised as perfume, bracelets which are actually handcuffs and a large super-strong ‘hairnet’ to snare fleeing adversaries...”

Another point that hasn’t been made often enough is that Kate Kane isn’t the first gay costumed character. The earliest one I can find is Extrano, who was a member of a team called the New Guardians, a comic that DC published in the late 1980s. Since then, comic fans have seen Spectral, in the Strangers; Apollo and Midnighter, in the Authority, and Hulkling and Wiccan in the Young Avengers.

Gay supporting characters have become more common too. According to DC’s press releases, Kate Kane had a relationship with Renee Montoya, a gay police officer who has been part of Batman’s supporting cast for a few years now.

Ultimately, though, this all boils down to: So Batwoman’s a lesbian...and? At this point, it’s not possible to say whether she’s going to be an intriguing character ( much less a successful one.) We don’t know what her motivation is; who the people in her life are or whether she has a distinctive approach to fighting crime.

Pictures of her costume have been released and the outfit is nothing special. It seems to borrow a lot from the futuristic Batman seen in the animated show Batman Beyond. (Although one post I’ve seen has criticized Kate for wearing the “Stripper Boots of the Patriarchy.”). So, in the long run, Batwoman’s sexuality is going to be only one facet of her character. I’m just hoping that, at some point, the Powers That Be at DC will say, “Yeah, we wanted to make it as much like the real world as we could.”

That would be a Teachable Moment.

Sieg Meow!

Sorry, it's been a rough couple of weeks.

Testify, Brother Foser, Testify!

from Media Matters by Jamison Foser

The defining issue of our time is not the Iraq war. It is not the 'global war on terror.' It is not our inability (or unwillingness) to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. Nor is it immigration, outsourcing, or growing income inequity. It is not education, it is not global warming, and it is not Social Security.

The defining issue of our time is the media.

The dominant political force of our time is not Karl Rove or the Christian Right or Bill Clinton. It is not the ruthlessness or the tactical and strategic superiority of the Republicans, and it is not your favorite theory about what is wrong with the Democrats.

The dominant political force of our time is the media.

Time after time, the news media have covered progressives and conservatives in wildly different ways -- and, time after time, they do so to the benefit of conservatives.

Consider the last two presidents. Bill Clinton faced near-constant media obsession with his 'scandals,' while George W. Bush has gotten off comparatively easy.

Even many members of the media have stopped contesting this painfully obvious point, instead offering dubious justifications. Bill Clinton's 'scandals' made for better stories than George Bush's, we are told, because they were simpler and easier for readers and viewers to understand. 'Sex sells,' while George Bush's false claims about Iraq are much harder to explain.

This excuse is simply nonsense. more: