From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Billo Sees the Light?
I gotta hand it to old ferret face. America's most famous guttersnipe pinhead may have finally come to his senses.
Tuesday night, while lamenting the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans (now 23 percent of the population, up seven points in less than a decade), the #1-rated Fox News host put his finger on What's Wrong With America These Days. He reflexively pointed at ragtime music Elvis Presley's gyrating hips metal bands rap music and the generic "the media," of course. But then he said this:
"The prevailing wisdom, especially among young Americans, is whatever is good for me is good, period---the overall good be damned. … Any student of history knows that when a nation turns inward toward the pursuit of individual gratification, the nation is in trouble."
I couldn’t agree more, Bill. When a political party promotes the notion that selfishness and greed and…oh, let's call it rugged individualism…is more important than the collective good, the nation is indeed in trouble. When followers of a certain ideology put the "me" over the "we," it diminishes the enormous public good that comes from pooling our resources to solve problems, improve our quality of life, have each other's backs, and ensure that future generations have it better than we do.
I never thought I'd say this, but…welcome to democratic socialism, Bill O'Reilly. It's a pretty sweet way to live. And to honor you for seeing the liberal light, I'm giving another thirty-five bucks in YOUR name to the presidential campaign of Team Bernie Sanders. And to think I was this close to giving up on you.
Call me, Bill. We'll do a phone hug.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, May 14, 2015
Note: Today's date is 5-14-15. It's a palindrome. The media have been alerted.
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of the Memorial Day weekend:
8
Days 'til the 2nd annual
Crawfish Festival in Garner, North Carolina:
2
Rank of San Francisco, Madison, WI and LaCrosse WI on AARP's list of most livable large, medium and small places, respectively, for 50+ers:
#1
Number of oil-tanker cars a train can pull and still be exempt from new DOT safety standards:
Up to 34
(Source: AP)
Increase in U.S. household debt during the first quarter of 2015:
0.2%
Years US Airways, which will be folded into American Airlines and cease to exist sometime in October, has been around:
75
Date of the first Republican debate (in Cleveland), the same day as Jon Stewart's last
Daily Show:
8/6/15
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Here in Newt's America, we all know that government regulation is bad, bad, bad. If I had a nickel for every speech I've listened to by every public official talking about the evils of government regulation, I'd be richer than H. Ross. We're hell-bent on downsizing government here in the Republican Revolution, where marketplace mysticism is the faith of the day. Deregulation, free-market fundamentalism, unleash capitalism, greed-is-good, cut taxes, cut spending, cut welfare and make the poor folks read Milton Friedman. And then some plane in the deregulated airline industry crashes in the Everglades, and there's hell to pay because the Federal Aviation Administration didn't prevent the accident.
God forbid that anyone should suggest that the FAA needs a lot more money, more inspectors and more training. This is the Republican Revolution, and the only thing we want more of is profits.
---May, 1996
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Pegasus grows up…
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CHEERS to new BFFs. The Vatican says it has completed a treaty that formally recognizes the Palestinian State. Here's the text of the document:
Hey!
You're the Palestinian State, right? Yeah, I thought I recognized you! We must've passed each other a thousand times in the hallway and never put two and two together.
How are you? I am fine. Let's stay in touch. Have a great day!
Francis
P.S. A quick reminder that membership in the Catholic church is always free, although donations are appreciated. Stop by sometime and we'll take a selfie!
Responded Israel's new extreme-right government: "Get a room, you two." Ha ha. They're cute when they're bitter.
Not our strong suit.
JEERS to getting off track. When I lived in Germany as a kid, rail transportation was (and still is) ubiquitous and nobody got hurt. Trains and trams didn’t derail, people didn’t jump in front of them, and drivers knew how to keep their vehicles off the tracks when a locomotive was bearing down on an intersection. But not in America…nooooo. Up here in Maine, our Amtrak Downeaster has jumped the tracks and smashed into a number of vehicles and human beings---and this happens all across the country with regularity. We have an epidemic of oil train ("bomb train" as Rachel Maddow calls them) disasters and passenger train derailments, although (thankfully) rarely on the scale of
Tuesday night's in Philadelphia. I've come to the sad conclusion that, for whatever reason(s), Americans just don’t know how to do trains anymore. I don't who or what can change that. But one thing we can rule out:
Congress.
CHEERS to getting outside in the fresh air---back when we had fresh air. On May 14, 1804, Lewis and Clark set off from their camp in Illinois to go explore just what the hell kind of territory we'd acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Their first words when they got back: "Somebody needs to invent GPS, and somebody needs to invent GPS now!" Added the welcome committee: "And deodorant."
CHEERS to today's reminder that we're all just microscopic specs of dander on the universe's butt. Pics from space bring on two simultaneous yet diametrically opposed emotions: smug superiority at being able to develop the technology to see things billions of light years away with crystal clarity…and mind-numbing inferiority because our cosmic neighborhood is so awesomely huge and yet the farthest we've ever been able to personally venture is our own moon. So, with that in mind, bask in a pic from the supergeeks at NASA, whose web site is the the most Zen place on the tubes:
NGC 1566, a beautiful galaxy located 40 million
light-years away in the constellation of Dorado.
I call dibs on the 87th planet from the left---the one with the chocolate crust and the cream center.
P.S. NASA tells us that a giant asteroid is going to turn earth into a fine powder, destroying everything but cockroaches, spent nuclear fuel rods and Twinkies. But not today.
CHEERS to broads on bills. I think it's beyond time we yanked Andrew Jackson's angry mug from the twenty-dollar bill and replaced him with a female American icon. Over at Women on 20s, the voting is closed and the winner is the late great…
'bout time.
…Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave whose ingenuity and courage led other captives to freedom. Tubman narrowly edged Eleanor Roosevelt, finishing with 118,328 votes to Roosevelt's 111,227.
We'll note that Tubman's appearance on the $20 bill would have a special historical resonance: That's the same amount she eventually received from the U.S. government as her monthly pension for her service as a nurse, scout, cook and spy during the Civil War, as well as for her status as the widow of a veteran. … Tubman's victory comes two years after the centennial of her death in 1913.
And in keeping with the actual pay that working woman get for every dollar the menfolk get, the new Tubman twenty will be worth $15.40.
CHEERS to yet another Jeb fuckup. Seriously. How bad of a not-yet-a-candidate do you have to be to clumsily wreck your future grand entrance:
"Mama always said life was
like a box of trust funds."
Republican Jeb Bush appears to have unintentionally announced his candidacy for president in 2016 in a conversation with reporters on Wednesday that was caught on video. Speaking in Nevada, the former Florida governor seemed to acknowledge he was a candidate but right afterward indicated he had not made up his mind. "I'm running for president in 2016, and the focus is going to be about how we, if I run, how do you create high sustained economic growth," Jeb Bush said.
I imagine the folks who count his beans nearly choked on their Altoids when they heard that, since the feds attach themselves to candidates' balance sheets like a remora on a shark once they officially jump in. So to recap thus far: Jeb Bush marked "Hispanic" on his voter registration, is for immigration reform before he's against it before he's sorta in the middle on it, would invade Iraq again "knowing what we know now," and is not, is, and is not a candidate for president. Wow. That sound you hear is the guy who wrote the book on "Bushisms" licking his chops over the sequel.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 14, 2005
JEERS to circling the block. The New Republic reports that there are 230 million registered vehicles in America...but only 105 million parking spaces. "Taxi!" [5/14/15 Update: "Uber!"]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the original Jedi Master. George Lucas turns 71 today---I believe that's 446 in Yoda years. Yes, I wish he hadn't messed around with the first three movies years later. And, yes, I wish the second trilogy had been better. But, good lord, he also gave us Indiana Jones, American Graffiti, and the creepy classic "dystopian future" thriller THX 1138. Plus today he's poking NIMBY zillinaires in his neighborhood in the eye by financing a 224-unit affordable housing complex. Besides all that, the Imperial Walkers in the Battle of Hoth are still the coolest things I've seen in any movie ever, and they still top my wish list for Santa so I can finally help the rebel alliance win the War on Christmas:
My gift to George: about half of my lifetime earnings in movie tickets, action figures, trading cards, DVDs and comic books since 1977. His gift to us: turning directing duties for the new "old-school"-style Star Wars movies over to J.J. Abrams. May the Force be with him in 218 days. (I believe that's 722 in wookie days.)
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“I don’t think you’d notice if Cheers and Jeers was gone tomorrow.”
---Rand Paul
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