10 Random Musings from 2010

Mad Bad Benny says: "Smile when
ya say 'Hitler Youth,' pardner!"

Last year Noah was inspired by the year 2009 to celebrate 12 Days of Christmas Scorn. This holiday season he's in reflective mood again, but his reflections are coming in less structured form. He begins with these 10 random musings. -- Ken

by Noah

1. If I walk into an airport now and take off all of my clothes, will I be arrested or given a boarding pass?

2. How long before Victoria’s Secret makes use of a Chertoff Porno-Scanner in one of its advertisements?

3. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoyed watching the Texas Rangers not only lose the World Series, but do it on Fox. Listening to Tim McCarver’s attempt at game commentary is always a cringe-inducing experience. There are whole websites dedicated to his pathetic lameness (see the link), but watching the Fox camera’s long, lingering, loving looks at the Bush family in the first row while McCarver blathered was too much. Years ago, Timmy had Rush and Billo on as guests in the booth for their Saturday game broadcast on consecutive weeks. I think it was at least ten years before I, a confirmed baseball junkie, could turn on Fox baseball again. It’s even sweeter that Texas lost to San Francisco. Now I’m sure that some of the SF players are Republicans, but the sight of Texas’ impotence when facing the extremely long-haired Tim Lincecum (nicknamed “The Freak”) was a joy, and knowing that so many “San Francisco librul” fans were happy about the result while so many god-fearin’ Texas nutbags were rendered miserable just warms my bleeding lefty heart.

4. This year was the year that Pope Benedict likened atheists to Nazis. This from a former member of Hitler Youth whose current criminal enterprise helped Nazis escape to Argentina. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better example of “the pot calling the kettle black.” People like El Popo count on the public not knowing history. Fox takes the same approach. Why do you think the righties are so anti-education?

5. Speaking of education and crazies: Where should we draw the line between a madrassa in Pakistan where unhinged fanatics teach hundreds of children to hate Americans and a TV mental case who goes to his blackboard every day and teaches his viewers to hate his fellow Americans? Both use twisted logic, anger, and invented history to shape impressionable minds. In one case, the pupils become bombers. In another, they go shoot police in Pittsburgh or head out to shoot up the Tides Foundation. What’s the diff?

6. More of what the right likes to dismiss as isolated incidences: Back in April, in San Francisco, a crying Gregory Giusti was charged with making threatening calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The suspect’s mother, Eleanor Giusti, said her son may have gotten worked up over the health care reform debate by watching Fox “News.” Speaking to KGO-TV, she said:

Greg frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas . . . which gets him into problems. I say Fox News, or all of those that are really radical, and he, that’s where he comes from.

Giusti’s arrest came a day after Charles Wilson was busted in Yakima, Washington, for making 16 calls in which he stated a wish for and sometimes promised a violent death for Sen. Patty Murray for her support of President Obama’s health care bill.

Isolated incidences? You decide. Who was it that said violence will be coming from the Left? Sounds more like a classic case of projection to me, Herr Beck. Especially when, just a few days before, you went to Alaska and screamed out, “Good thing Alaskans have their guns!” Will you hide from your words when somebody dies, just like your colleague did when Dr. Tiller was assassinated? Of course you will. It’s part of what you are.

7. How weird is Texas? How low has the media sunk? Here’s the confluence: The Dallas-Ft. Worth market’s CW33-TV hired the so young and lovely Anna Fermanova, all of age 24, as a part-time employee who will produce “two or three pieces each week.” Her first segment was a piece on Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. Talk about news we need! Says a station spokesbozo, “She’s not bad. She needs a little polishing.” Pardon me if I can’t help but thinking that there’s a nudge, nudge, wink, wink that goes along with that. Fermanova’s segments are called “First Take,” and her first piece was the most watched clip on the station’s website in the week following its broadcast.

Fermanova is a Latvian-born U.S. citizen. She closes her reports saying, “I’m Anna Fermanova. Some call me the sexy Russian, and that’s my take.” Ooooh, she’s sooo hot. What’s the big deal? Why am I even talking about her? Well, right before she got the job, she was arrested at JFK airport, on the way to Russia with $15,000 worth of super-sophisticated high- tech scopes designed for military combat. Way to go, CW33! Did any so-called patriotic, commie-phobic Repug Teabag types call for an investigation of the hiring? No. They were too busy spouting off about the president‘s birth certificate.

8. Will you have pills with that? I often joke about how some meals, particularly those served in chain restaurants, ought to be served with a defibrillator parked on a cart next to the table like a champagne bucket would be. Or maybe the check should just have a coupon for open-heart surgery printed on the back. Places like Ruby Tuesday’s and the like, where broccoli and even fish come with a nice layer of melted cheese-like product, scare me. These places should also have little packages of insulin next to the register along with the mints and toothpicks. But now my fantasies are inching towards reality! In August, the Guardian, my favorite British newspaper, ran an article.

9. The morning after Christine O’Donnell won the Delaware primary battle for the Republican Senate nomination, the Rovian slime machine oozed forth. Referring to O’Donnell’s “checkered background,” Rove said:

How does she make her living? Why did she mislead voters about her college education? How come it took nearly two decades to pay her college bills so she could get a degree?

Spoken like a true Republican. Personally, I can’t stomach O’Donnell, but it never occurs to most Repugs that some people can’t just write a check for their education. For many, it takes time to pay off those bills. In Rove’s cholesterol-soaked brain, O’Donnell can never be a real Republican because of this. If she ain’t rich, she ain’t qualified and she ain’t deserving. It doesn’t get any more elitist than that. Teabaggers should have taken Rove’s comments as a sign of how the Republican establishment really regarded them.

10. If only we could have a president like this, instead of what we always get. We need a Democrat that acts like a Democrat, a progressive Democrat, not a Blue Dog or Stealth Republican.



Yeah. I know, this clip is from a fictional TV show, The West Wing. But we can dream of a candidate running for president who has convictions of the fictional Matt Santos and the courage of those convictions, who doesn’t backpedal, who doesn’t say he’ll compromise before the discussion or negotiation even begins, who doesn’t worry about being liked more than he or she worries about doing what’s right, who doesn’t use Neville Chamberlain as a role model. Ah, if only there was a party that would support such a candidate! How long? How long?

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