Five Before Chaos

Unfortunately, even with the Sky Fairy gracing us with the death of Overlord Falwell, the ignorant zombies of irrationality and intolerance continue their mind-feast unabated. (yak!) How’s that for a pompous intro? Now to the story.

You probably know that Mary Cheney, daughter of Darth Cheney, has recently given birth to a baby boy. You probably also know that *gasp!* that Ms. Cheney is in a committed relationship with another woman (and no, I’m not digressing into the whole idiocy of her working for a party whose certain factions would lynch her if they could). Yep, a lesbian. Anyways, it seems like some heads are exploding in the far right hate-group, The Concerned Women for America, who were the topic of last month’s CFIWU!

See, the rapture-ready’s panties are all in a wad because there was a picture on Cheney’s White House page showing him and his wife (you know, the lesbian-erotica-in-the-old-west author) holding their new grandson. More specifically the caption is what raised the ire:

… His parents are the Cheney’s daughter Mary, and her partner, Heather Poe.

Continue reading

Here’s some more classic Earth, Wind & Fire, from ’72, way before they got too slick. I’m not sure of the song, but it’s great stuff, lotsa jamming. Enjoy.

Well, that was unusual.. The hosting server was down for a few hours, but now everything’s back to normal. I’d be blogging right now but got a heavy workload and a killer stomachache, to boot. Not to worry, I’ll be tip-top tomorrow.

Also, I added some simple HTML buttons to the comments, so you can bold/italic etc when you comment.

As our thoughts turn not only to to those soldiers who have died but to those now alive that sadly, will have to be remembered next and subsequent Memorial Days thanks to Bush’s war of choice, it is important that even as we pay respects, we need to keep the truth at the forefront of out hearts and minds. I read this op-ed in the Chattanoogan today, and it said something that needs to be screamed from the rooftops, as it should have been a few years ago when the propaganda was in full swing  (emphasis mine):

The only way to truly honor our war dead and those that have fought in our wars would be to tell the truth about why they died and why they fought and why there must come a day – in honor of them – when we must put a stop to needless war and the killing and maiming, the ruining of lives and the heartbreak and suffering that comes from it.

The last time an American soldier died or fought for our freedom was World War II. That is the plain fact and the plain truth. To say that any soldier since World War II fought or gave up his life in order that we might enjoy our freedom is a horrible mistake in reasoning.

It is a horrible mistake because it is not just a mistake but a mistake that perpetuates and promotes our insatiable appetite for needless war and needless death and suffering under the guise that it was all for the cause of freedom.

No, it wasn’t. Every soldier that has died or fought under the American flag since World War II has done it because of the immoral and wrong-headed policies of our presidents and government leaders, backed by the ignorant and phony patriotism of the masses…those same masses that still believe even to this day that each one of our war dead gave up their lives for our freedom.

Other than reiterating how important and obvious the above statement should be to anyone with half a brain stem, there’s nothing else to say except as you remember those who have died, remember that many of them didn’t have to, and we should be never be afraid of reminding those who feel otherwise about that fact.

I’ve never been a fan of the actor John Wayne. His macho bravado, both on screen and off, always rubbed him me the wrong way. My dad loved him. That also made me suspect, considering how Wayne’s macho bullshit had some influence on the choices my dad made as a young man (as in going into the USMC and doing 2 tours of ‘Nam instead of going to college). And he hated what Sergio Leone did to the western film genre, so that’s another black mark, as far as I’m concerned..

Anyways, there’s a great article over at Truthdig about Wayne. Today would have been his 100th birthday (he died in ’76 of cancer). The article, called Memorializing the Deadly Myth of John Wayne, reveals a rather unkind portrait of the man whose films glorified the military, often to the point of propaganda (as the Green Berets film was, in part financed by the Pentagon). And get this – like most of the GOP actors in Hollywood today, he never served in the military. What’s more, he was an all out draft-dodger:

Wayne was not only missing in action during the 1940s’ liberation of the Philippines and Europe, he wasn’t a cavalry officer, a Vietnam commando or a Leatherneck-flying or otherwise-for he was never in the military.

According to Gary Wills’ book “John Wayne’s America,” the man who portrayed the archetypal, battle-hardened Marine, Sgt. Stryker, in 1949′s “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” actually avoided the draft during WWII. Wills contends that the Duke did not reply to letters from the Selective Service system, and applied for deferments.

And Wayne was somewhat of a racist, although he did marry Hispanic women. Gotta love this:

Wayne was a vocal conservative, and his critics contend that the onscreen “Injun killer” was racist off-screen. In an infamous 1971 Playboy magazine interview, the Duke made insensitive comments about blacks and said this about America’s indigenous people: “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

Those selfish Indians, how dare they! Anyways, to me John Wayne signified so much of what is not right with America, and is the stereotype of the “macho American” that is so responsible for America’s standing in the world today. Have a read, you’ll know what I mean.

Ok, as I’ve mentioned before, the spaghetti western genre is well-known for taking the character’s name of a successful film, and using it ad nauseum on subsequent film titles, most of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the original film, and often, don’t even have a character in the film with the name. The most obvious case is the Django films. After the success of Sergio Corbucci’s Django in 1966, there were over 35 other titles with the name Django in the title, such as Django the Bastard, Django Kill!, Son of Django, even Nude Django. They were almost always far inferior to the originals.

Anyways, another film character that went through the treatment was Sartana, with not less than 18 titles with Sartana in the title. Towards the end of the western trend there was even “Django Challenges Sartana” and a few others.

Gianni Garko stars as Sartana. Don’t piss him off.

Last night I watched the one that started it all, hearing a lot of good things about it. Its official title was “If You Meet Sartana, Pray for Your Death” (1968), directed by Gianfranco Parolini, under the pseudonym “Frank Kramer” (this was often done for American releases). Gianni Garko stars as Sartana. Continue reading

FBC 2.0 is finally complete. I put the archives and categories in dropdowns to reduce clutter, and I finally have the blogroll in the order I want it (FBC read & VT at the top) – special thanks to Andrew at GeekyWeekly for help on that.

Now that this is done, I’m cramming web design something fierce. I’m hoping to have “A Fistful of Pasta”, a site devoted to spaghetti westerns, up and running within the month. Then I have to design a site for Jenni’s flower farm business. I’ll still put some reviews on here (it does bring in a good deal of traffic) but most of them will end up there. I’ll letcha all know when it’s up and running.

Yeah, I’m still stewing over this. Some of the justifications I’ve read are, well, for lack of a better word, retarded. How many ways can one spin the phrase “lack of political courage”? Here’s some of the latest commentary:

The best one so far: Dave Sirota, with What the Democratic Blank Check on Iraq Means:

To sum up – every time a Democrat claims they can’t stop the war, they make themselves look stupid. Additionally, every time a Democrat says they are doing everything in their power to stop the war while refusing to use the powers they have they make themselves look like liars. As just one example, the next time you hear a Senator (and in particular, a Senator running for president) say they are using every resource at their disposal to end the war, you ask yourself why you don’t see them on the Senate floor right at that moment reading the names of the troops who have been killed and then reading names out of a phone book in an effort to use Old School filibuster tactics to bring Congress to a screeching halt.

Paul at Alien & Sedition thinks that if you believe that Repubs are going to jump ship on Iraq after this, you’re deluded.

Think Progress on why the Dems should reject the supplemental. And then a TP guest blogger’s nonsesnical, logic – defying dissent on why they should pass it.

Olbermann lets loose.

Truthout has Sen. Russ Feingold’s reaction to the Dem bendover.

GMD’s KagroX over at the big evil orange with The Forgotten Reality in Reality-Based Politics.

And two good ones over at Smirking Chimp: Four Senators with Balls and Congratulations Democrats, you’ve just purchased yourself a war!

Good. Philip at VDB has more.

The NYT photo of Reid says it all. At least Pelosi’s not jumping on board with this one.

And Aravosis has a good spin on what needs to happen, and why he’s not buying into Reid’s argument:

When you need to pass affirmative legislation in order for the war to continue, the veto is meaningless. Bush can’t veto nothing, and nothing is all that is needed to stop the war (i.e., don’t pass any more funding bills, and the war stops). I don’t necessarily think the Dems can get away politically with stopping all funding for the war – the public just isn’t there yet – nor do I think an immediate 100% stop is militarily wise. But the point is that Bush’s veto threat has nothing to do with who has the power to stop this war. The power is in the hands of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The public handed it to them last November. The only question, the only issue, is whether the public, and the Democrats, are ready and willing to have this war come to a close.

There’s a second reason the “veto override” argument is a red herring. You don’t need the votes to override a veto if you’re willing to send the same legislation back to the president again and again and again. Bush was willing to risk cutting off funding by continually vetoing the funding bills. If the Democrats are correct, and risking shutting down funding for the troops is a third-rail of political death, then why do the Democrats not believe that it’s a third-rail of political death for Bush as well? We gave the troops their money, Bush took it away. We chickened out, he didn’t.

Exactly. It’s not that hard to turn this around on Bush. It just takes a little bit of clever thinking. The man is about as popular as explosive diarrhea. Are they really that worried about the 28% bottom-feeders at this point? Time to go on the offensive, hard. Am I not getting something here?

Also, for my VT readers, I called Congressman Welch’s office this morning, no position as of yet on this. Call  (888) 605-7270 (in VT) or (202)225-4115 (in DC) and give him a nudge in the right direction.