The Fall Season

Hi kids. Uncle Randy checking in once again. Happy Fall to all. Fall always reminds me of fresh starts and new beginnings. This rapid weather change, however, makes me believe that we are going to pay for that reasonably mild summer we experienced in Memphis. Which reminds me, I hope everyone gets their flu shot this year, that is, if you don't believe that the vaccine is a secret government conspiracy to make you sick enough to wish you had health insurance. In that case, you're in luck. Obamacare is due to kick-in on October 1st, and as I predicted in these pages, we are already seeing the formerly infallible insurance companies running competing advertisements for affordable policies. That's different already. For someone like me, who went without health insurance for a decade because of the dreaded "pre-existing condition," the Affordable Care Act is a long awaited remedy. For a person who receives all their information from Fox News and right-wing websites, it's the worst thing to hit America since the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.

With only days before the law takes effect, the Republicans are scrambling around like cockroaches, attempting anything and everything to derail or delay Obamacare. The Tea Party led House Republicans passed a bill to alot money to run the government, without funding Obamacare, technically a violation of the law. If the Tea Party began telling the American people to stop paying their income taxes, or to ignore the speed limit, wouldn't they be aiding and abetting the commission of a crime? The Koch brothers have been running television ads that show a creepy looking Uncle Sam with a wicked smile preparing to perform a gynecological exam on an unsuspecting young woman. The grotesquery is supposed to convince younger people to opt-out of Obamacare. This is where you younger folks come in. I understand that the Affordable Care Act is unpopular and that the right-wing hysteria has had its effect, but all the bill does is deliver thirty million new customers to the health insurance industry. The problem isn't Obamacare, it's the health insurance scam that the medical/pharmaceutical complex forced upon us in the first place. Now that we're all in this together, the first step out of this trap is to at least make health insurance affordable and available to everyone.

The health care act allows a young person to remain on their parents' insurance until age twenty-six. I know you're feeling great now, but when you start getting close to thirty, things begin to happen. You may be fit enough to play on a Park Commission basketball team, until you're diving for a loose ball and get your teeth knocked out, which actually happened to a friend of mine. Another friend was a teammate in a softball league until he tore out his knee sliding into home. You'll be happy you have health care on these occasions, not to mention actual illnesses that require a doctor's care. So, young people's participation is necessary to make the law effective, despite the Koch brothers' efforts to convince them otherwise. Obamacare is the settled law of the land, yet the House bill to defund the  act allows the "loyal opposition" to kick their forty-second attempt at killing the law over to the Senate, where it stands no chance of passing, but every chance of becoming the partisan, political spectacle of the fall season. All eyes will be on the man Sarah Palin refers to as "Tea Party Ted,"- Texas Senator Tom, I mean Ted Cruz. The first term senator, whose naked presidential ambitions are embarrassing, has vowed to do "everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare," including a promise to filibuster any spending bill that does not defund the health care law. Majority Leader Harry Reid, doing his Don Corleone impression, responded, "Any bill that defunds Obamacare is dead. Dead."

Ted Cruz is living proof that a degree from Harvard ain't what it used to be. He may possess a rich intellect, but he displays poor judgement. That leftist rag Wall Street Journal called Cruz's idea of using the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare as "crazy." Sen. John McCain said it was a "bad idea." Before "Tea Party Ted" was to appear on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace said he was "stunned" to receive opposition research on the Senator, "from other Republicans." Cruz, the neo-Joe McCarthy, has labelled Social Security a "ponzi scheme," and said that "Sharia law is an enormous problem in this country." Oh yeah, he voted against the Violence Against Women Act too. Even his fellow conservatives despise him. Outspoken Rep. Peter King of New York said, "He should stay in the Senate, keep quiet. If he can deliver on this, fine. If he can't, he should keep quiet from now on and we shouldn't listen to him." Harry Reid will merely strip any language about defunding Obamacare from the spending bill and send it back to the House. Then it's up to "Crying John" Boehner to either find the votes to pass the Senate bill and prevent a government shutdown, or stand with the Tea Party and go down with the ship. If you recall, the last government shutdown was a disaster which led to the fellating of President Clinton. The deadline is September 30, and if you think this is exciting, just wait until next month's self-inflicted crisis over the damned debt ceiling, when the Tea Party lunatics attempt to delay the implementation of Obamacare for another year. I'm not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of television. Isn't this legal grounds for obstruction of justice?

 

Bombing For Peace

That clever Barack Obama with his Kenyan, colonialist, socialist tactics. I see what he's doing. He's using an old cold-war Manchurian mind-control trick he learned in an Indonesian madrassa when he was in training to take over the world. Obama is using the ancient technique of turning someones greatest desires against them, in this case the back-bench Republicans, who would love nothing more than to see the election of 2008 declared unconstitutional and Obama deported. Like using reverse psychology on a child, the Svengali president is using the irrational, frothing hatred of the Tea Party Republicans against the very idea of a Barack Obama in order to obtain his genuine goals. Look at the record. This man distinguished himself in the Illinois Senate by declaring against the Bush Iraq War resolution when other Democrats were too timid. He came into office vowing to end that same Iraq War, and he has. Troops in Afghanistan are loading up the trucks for a trip back down the old Khyber Pass, getting the hell out of hell. Obama doesn't want war in Syria. He's a pacifist who pals around with people like William Ayers, the peace terrorist. This whole "getting congressional approval for a military strike" is a sham. Obama's a peacenick. He even won the Nobel Peace Prize. If he tells this Congress he wants health, they'll vote for sickness. If he says he wants war, they'll give him peace.

It's not as if President Assad is the first lunatic to use chemical weapons. I can still hear echos of George W. Bush sputtering in exasperation, "but he gassed the Kurds," in reference to Saddam Hussein. That wasn't a sufficient reason to invade Iraq then, and it's not reason enough to invade Syria now. The President has assured us that no such thing would ever take place- no "boots on the ground," in the current politspeak. The problem is that the trust factor of the American people in their elected leaders has been so eroded by the Bush lies, they are hesitant to provide that trust to anyone again. Obama cites Bill Clinton's successes in Bosnia and Kosovo, where a bombing campaign ended a brutal dictator's reign and stopped a genocidal Serb forces' terror. Folks that can still remember that far back may also recall Mr. Clinton's response to the Al Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa. When Clinton lobbed a couple of Cruise missiles into terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in the Sudan, he was in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and his opponents claimed the strikes were just a diversion from the ongoing testimony of the sordid details from his sex life- "Wag the Dog," they called it, after the popular Dustin Hoffman movie.

Bashar al Assad was hoped to be a more enlightened leader than his dad, Hafez al Assad, who ruled Syria by violently suppressing dissent. Bashar is an Opthamologist who lived in London for awhile and even once made a statement praising democracy, yet he's just proven himself to be a more efficient killer than his father. The pictures coming out of Syria of victims of chemical attacks are undeniably heartbreaking and are deserving of a response. Where's the Muslim Brotherhood when you need them? Syria is surrounded by states capable of attacking their weapons cache, so why does the U.S. have to do it? In 2007, Israel made a secretive air strike against a partially constructed nuclear reactor deep within the Syrian desert. Because the operation was subject to a news blackout, tensions in the region remained unchanged- and what was the ferocious Syrian retaliation? Syria complained that Israeli jets had violated their airspace. If Israel felt threatened by Syria's chemical weapons today, would they not act again? There are atrocities committed around the world every day. Although the U.S. claims the moral authority, we no longer have the wherewithal to be the international dispenser of justice. I can still recall DuPont manufactured chemical weapons called Agent Orange and Napalm that were used on civilian populations in Vietnam. They were classified as defoliants, but they killed just the same. Which, among the angry nations of the world, should have decided what our punishment would have been, and who would have delivered it?

Obama's caution is understandable. When he ordered missile strikes against Libyan air defenses for murdering anti-Gaddafi protesters in March 2011, his objective was achieved, but it led to Benghazi. If he's looking for a precedent, all he need do is look to the Republican hero, John Wayne- I mean Ronald Reagan. In 1986, in response to a bombing in West Berlin by a terrorist group based in Libya, Reagan ordered the strafing of Muammar Gaddafi's personal residence. The result was the expulsion of the terrorists from Libyan soil. There's never been a war that the Republicans weren't willing to join, yet suddenly, usually hawkish conservatives are sounding like John Lennon. Tea Party heroes like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have led the opposition to any proposed action, while old guard Republicans like John McCain and John Boehner favor strikes. Obama stepped into his own trap with this "red-line" stuff, and it was wise to leave it up to a Congress that would refuse him ice water in the desert. Rand Paul said, "No on wants to go into Syria," despite the president's assurances that we were not "going in" anywhere. Yet there are always those unintended consequences.

As of this writing, the president has not yet addressed the nation, but it's beginning to look like public, as well as congressional, sentiment is turning against him. And as we grow closer to hostilities, the Tea Party is accusing Obama of "wagging the dog," to detract from their singular pursuit of the Fox News created Benghazi scandal, and for taking up precious time that could be spent attempting to disassemble Obamacare. The chemical attacks in the Damascus suburbs are an outrage to humanity- just the sort of thing for which the United Nations was formed to address. If they refuse to act, the fleet's already there. We're the nation that killed the whole Hussein family, what's another missile or two between murderous tyrants? The president could accept an alliance with France just to drive critics like Donald Rumsfeld nuts. But Obama doesn't want to go to war. If he wanted to end the massacre of civilians in Syria, he could fire a targeted Cruise or Tomahawk, or whatever missile is the latest thing, and send it right up Bashar's Assad. Problem solved- or as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson put it, "It's better to apologise than to ask permission."

 

 

 

Rebel Hell

It's worth noting that in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that took a wrecking ball to one of the pillars of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, new voter identification laws have spread throughout the south like kudzu. Certain states whose past actions indicated voter suppression, and were thus obliged to pre-clear any changes in election laws with the federal government, were freed to harness-up the old partisan mules and plow that rotted field. The surge in states voting to make major changes in voting laws looks like a map of the old Confederacy, including the recent additions of  Alabama, Virginia, and North Carolina. Every week, another rebel state makes a symbolic secession from the union, in defiance of the federal government's desire to uphold the right to vote. Only hours after the court's decision. Gov. Rick Perry announced that the strictest Voter ID law in the country, which had been previously blocked by the government, would become effective "immediately." In turn, last week the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas. Attorney General Eric Holder stated, "We will not allow the Supreme Court's recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights."

So, you may ask, "What's the big deal? You need a photo ID to do everything from cashing a check to buying cigarettes. Besides, I've always presented my identification at the polls." The facts are that before the 2006 mid-term elections, no state ever required a voter to produce a government issued photo ID as a condition of voting. In the past, a driver's license, a student ID, a utility bill, or any other proof of address was sufficient. The new Voter ID laws sweeping the south require that voters obtain a special photo ID, given either for free or with a fee to recipients by the government to combat "voter fraud." Critics say the laws disproportionately affect minorities, the elderly, and lower-income groups because it's a hassle to get. Obtaining the new, official, Flash Gordon, state-approved voter ID card can be a costly burden to those without transportation. Even free, state-issued ID requires a birth certificate, which costs twenty-five dollars per copy and is often difficult for the elderly to locate. Many states eliminate the right of college students to vote on their own campuses, forcing a trip home to see Mom and Pop in order to exercise their franchise. For the poor and minority voters, it's the return of the poll tax, plain and simple.

A New York Times study, done in 2007, found that in the previous five years, there were a total of eighty six convictions of voter fraud. The new, state ID is an antidote looking for an illness. Voter fraud today isn't committed by some ward hack trying to register the dead, it's done by voting machine irregularities and tampering by election officials. We've all seen it. In previous presidential elections dating back to Clinton, there have been proven incidences of the miscounting of absentee ballots or the wholesale discarding of provisional votes, not to mention a little thing called Bush v. Gore, the Superbowl of vote tampering. Do you remember way back to the last election when a state legislator in Pennsylvania bragged on camera that the Commonwealth's new Voter ID law would deliver the state to what's-his-name Romney? Minority voters turned out in droves. Out of the thirty states recently enacting changes in Voter ID laws, all of them, with the exception of Rhode Island, have been introduced by Republican-led state legislatures. That includes the distinguished statesmen in the Tennessee House as well- the same ones who thought it was a good idea to allow guns in bars. If you don't believe the intention of these laws is voter suppression, just watch the zeal of the GOP officials announcing the changes. And it's not just Voter ID laws that have been altered. States under Republican control face cuts in early voting days, and the elimination of Sunday voting, the day that African-American church-goers traditionally go to the polls.

The Tea Party sticklers for fiscal responsibility conveniently discard that philosophy when it comes to disenfranchising black voters and resurrecting a new type of Jim Crow. In their favor, a huge, new government bureaucracy dealing with the creation and distribution of state approved voter ID cards would certainly be a job creator, and a stimulus of sorts. Of the estimated twenty-one million citizens without any government issued ID, the great majority are Hispanics, African-Americans, and the poor. That's enough to alter an election. In 2012, a Federal Court found Texas' Voter ID law and redistricting plans to be discriminatory against particular racial and language groups- in other words, Democrats. After the recent Supreme Court decisions, the rulings of the Federal Court were thrown out. So, now Texas Republicans are free at last. Recalling the long lines of people determined to cast their votes in the last election, regardless of restrictions, the foolish, Limbaugh-listening fundamentalists facing extinction who are attempting to hold on to their dwindling political power by rigging the game will probably ignore the warnings of Colin Powell. The former Secretary said, "These kind of procedures (which) make it likely that fewer Hispanics and African-Americans might vote...are going to backfire." There just aren't enough angry white men to go around anymore. Of course, the Supreme Court's decision leaves it up to the legislative branch to determine which states are to be covered by the Voting Rights Act in the future. Considering the current, do-nothing Congress, any bets on who makes the list?


 

Elvis Week 2013

I love Elvis. There, I've said it. Sure, over the years I've made some sardonic remarks, often over a microphone from the bandstand. But that was in my capacity as an entertainer, a role I've enjoyed for several decades. Truth be told, if there were no Elvis, there would be no me. I never would have picked up a guitar, or formed a band, or have been signed to Sun Records and produced by Sam Phillips: one of my life's proudest accomplishments. Like a million other children of the fifties, I went Elvis crazy as soon as I heard him on the radio. The difference was that I was at ground zero of the Elvis explosion. As soon as my fingers were strong enough to press the strings down on a guitar neck, I started playing. I didn't just want to be like Elvis, I wanted to be Elvis. Those who became Elvis fans after his death, or even after he returned from the army, will never know the joyous exuberance that accompanied the emergence of the "Hillbilly Cat," or the line of demarcation Elvis created between the Mouseketeer generation and their parents, who loathed him. After Elvis, nothing was the same. Like James Brown in the sixties, or the Beatles in their time, when it came to outshining his peers on the radio; there was Elvis, and then there was everything else.

I wish I were precocious enough to say I heard Elvis' Sun records on the radio, but I was only seven at the time. I do, however, distinctly remember the night in 1956 that Dewey Phillips introduced "Heartbreak Hotel" on his radio show. I listened to "Red, Hot, and Blue" every night, even if it meant putting the radio right next to my ear so my parents couldn't hear. I loved the voice before I saw the singer. The flip side, "I Was the One," sounded so different that I thought it was another of Dewey's favorite Doo Wop groups from the northeast until he proclaimed that it was Memphis' own Elvis Presley. Elvis' photograph appeared in the morning paper with his shirt collar up in the back and his hair formed into a shiny, immaculate pompadour. I had to inform my big sister that Elvis was a greaser. One night, my sister came home from a teenage party at the Hotel Chisca in a state of euphoric bliss. Elvis had been to the WHBQ radio studios visiting Dewey, and when asked by an enthusiastic chaperon, he strolled into the party of giggling girls just to say hello. Photographs were printed with my sister and a tousled Elvis. Years later, when I asked her about the photo, she said there were never any pictures taken. I was adamant that I had seen it. My sister had her hair in a tight curl and Elvis was standing next to her, looking cool and draping an arm loosely over her shoulder. Only then did I realize that the picture I had seen and carried with me had been developed in the darkroom of my imagination for my scrapbook of Elvis memories.

Where I differ with some devoted Elvis aficionados is that I think his earliest recordings, like Sam Cooke's, were his greatest. I've made a personal "E" mix-disc that I listen to frequently when I'm in need of cheering up, and the pure joy that exudes from Elvis in songs like "I Don't Care If the Sun Don't Shine" works every time. All the songs, however, are from 1955-1958. He recorded great songs after that, but instead of working with genius songwriters like Otis Blackwell or Leiber and Stoller, who had written his earliest hits, the weaselly Colonel Parker hooked him into making that series of pointless, silly movies where studio hacks and friends of the Colonel got first crack at Elvis with tunes like "He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad," "Do the Clam," and "No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car." When Elvis lost his edge, I lost interest in him as a musical influence. During his spangled jumpsuit years, he never regained the infectious, gravel-throated vocal power that made him the King of Rock and Roll. Elvis had the world's greatest set list, yet in concert he would breeze through his greatest hits in a medley, often mocking the early material as if it were not consequential. The Colonel cheated us out of the best of Elvis. Rather than making musical progress with each album like the Beatles who idolized him, Elvis regressed with each half-hearted effort to fulfill his contractual obligations to his record label. It was a sad descent. It was sadder still to imagine what might have been.

My great regret was never getting to meet Elvis. I suppose I could have imposed upon someone like George Klein for an introduction, but that would have been very un-Elvis like of me. Sam Phillips might have finagled something, but I came to Sun ten years after Elvis and Sam didn't exactly pal around with him anymore. My dentist was Elvis' dentist, but I had to be satisfied with the tales of Elvis' after-hours visits. The single time I received an offer to go to Graceland was from Dewey Phillips, but Dewey was no longer on good terms with Elvis, and in an adventure that I recounted in an article for Memphis Magazine, Poor Dewey was turned away at the gate, and by proxy, so was I. Even in later years, I might have crashed Elvis' annual Christmas party by tagging along with a musical pal, but I didn't. There's one thing I always wondered, and it's total vanity on my part. When I was making records for Sun and having them played on the radio, and appearing on George Klein's Talent Party on Saturday afternoon TV, was Elvis ever aware of our little band? Probably not, but there's no one left to tell me. As an adult, I tried to write songs for Elvis, but I had no hope of reaching him. I always believed that he was one song away from recapturing the fire of his early career.

It was puzzling to me why Elvis felt it necessary to seclude himself inside Graceland. By the mid-seventies, you'd often see Jerry Lee Lewis on the town surrounded by his entourage to keep the nasty drunks away, and he seemed almost approachable. Jerry took a liking to a club in Overton Square called the Hot Air Balloon, where he could be found nights jamming after hours, and no one ever bothered him. I thought if Elvis would just get out a little, people in his own home town would give him a similar break. I retained that opinion until one day at the airport. I had come with my parents to greet the arrival of a relative back in the days when you could walk right up to the gate without being molested by strangers. Suddenly I was struck by the appearance of a man walking toward me and I was certain that he was an old friend whose name I couldn't recall. He was with a group of happy people having obviously just met an arriving passenger, and I was taken by his familiar look and unusually large facial pores. When I caught up with my mother, she asked cheerfully, "Did you see Elvis?" I immediately wheeled and sprinted the length of the terminal and through the double doors. He had just closed the passenger side door of a white Cadillac when he looked up at me. "Hey Elvis," I uttered lamely. He nodded and said, "How you doin' man?" and he was gone. I realized that if I had just chased after Elvis like a teenage girl, perhaps it was wise that he not go out in public after all. With due deference to Jerry Lee, the thousands of pilgrims who come to Memphis in August, year after year, prove that Elvis was never intended to be just one of the guys.


 

Carlos Danger: Private Dick

In the future, when you google the word "chutzpah," after the definitions of "unbelievable gall," and "crass, vulgar nerve," there will be a footnote that says, "See Anthony Weiner." This man defines public humiliation, and yet still he stands, mast to the wind. It's now public knowledge that JFK had a sexual addiction regularly satisfied with a variety of young sycophants and prostitutes, but it was kept private in a world of press discretion. If not for the internet, Weiner would be the guy walking around the schoolyard naked but for a raincoat. Kennedy might have been a conscienceless horndog, but Weiner is a pervert. Hey kids! Let me give you some advice. Nothing stays private on the web, so unless you're a twisted exhibitionist or a porn star, don't take pictures of your genitalia and post them on the internet. And stay away from the creepy man running for mayor of New York City.

When news of the former congressman's serial exhibitionism was revealed, sources claimed Weiner's lewd pics were posted on a website called "TheDirty.com." So just for journalistic integrity, I logged-on, so to speak, and sure enough, there was Anthony Weiner, clutching his schvantz. That's not exactly what I look for in a mayor. I would have said "schmuck," which literally means "penis," but that particular Yiddishism has entered the general lexicon and has come to mean something more akin to a "jerk," or "idiot," which is inadequate to describe the superhuman stupidity of this man. I'll admit to enjoying Weiner's performances on the House floor, when he was the only Democratic representative, besides Alan Grayson, who would show genuine indignant wrath at the Republican Party's iron curtain legislative strategy, but I had no idea what he was doing back in the Cloakroom. The incredible thing is that this man has no shame. So what if he resigned in 2011 over sending innapropriate photos over social media and lying about it. He seems to believe that his talents are so invaluable to the city of New York, his "hobby" will be discounted by voters. The only constituency Weiner has in the bag, however, is the flasher vote and they rarely show up at the polls.

More tawdry than Weiner's online exploits was his dragging his wife into this ungodly mess. But Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife of three years, said she had agreed to a joint press conference of her own accord. Abedin, a career Hillary Clinton staffer since 1996, said she forgave Weiner his indiscretions and supported his mayoral candidacy. I wonder what Mrs. Clinton thought about Abedin's decision to "stand by her man," since Hillary was confronted with exactly the same circumstance in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign of 1992. Pundits as varied as Maureen Dowd and Rush Limbaugh have speculated that the two women's motives for staying with their lying husbands were similar: the desire for fame and power. Although Rush added racistly, "Huma is a Muslim. In that regard, Weiner ought to be able to get away with anything." Both women's forgiveness enabled their husbands to continue their aberrant behavior as if they would never get caught; Clinton in the White House and Weiner, after he resigned from Congress. And like Monica Lewinsky, a University of Indiana coed with the porn-appropriate name of Sydney Leathers has come forward with sexually explicit text messages and pictures that she exchanged with Weiner last summer. "I thought I loved him," Leathers said when it was revealed that Weiner offered to buy her a condo in Chicago and get her a job with Politico.

The text messages are as nasty and smarmy as anything you might imagine. Read them if you must, but after I did, I felt the need to take a shower. Going by the now-famous and much mocked moniker, Carlos Danger, Weiner admitted to sexting and sending pictures of Little Elvis to up to ten women. A respected news source immediately turned up three more women who were treated to Weiner's "selfies." Over the weekend, Weiner's campaign manager, Danny Kedem, resigned over the latest batch of tasteless texts, but Weiner pledged to remain in the race because, "it's about the middle class." It's actually about the no class. "We knew this would be a tough campaign," explained Senor Danger in one of the understatements of the year. Promising that his twisted tweets were "behind him" somehow oddly made it sound worse. Weiner explained that he returned to his pet perversions, "during a rough time in our marriage," seemingly placing the blame on his spouse for his nasty conduct. But now Huma is onboard as Weiner's dinghy drops like a stone in the polls.

This walking punch-line of a person may have a strategy. If no one in the mayoral primary gets forty percent of the vote, a runoff is mandated between the top two candidates. If Weiner continues to stonewall his critics, including every major New York City newspaper, he stands the chance of getting in the runoff, where he can attempt to distract attention from his penis by attacking his opponent. I don't believe he'll last that long. The same massive ego that allowed him to believe that strange women wanted to see pictures of his schlong, will carry him until the full weight of public revulsion wears him down. Also, the longer Huma Abedin supports this degenerate fool, the worse it looks for Hillary Clinton, and 2016 is just around the corner. Abedin is supposed to be one of Hillary's closest advisers. How much can her future advice be valued if she continues to campaign for a pervert for mayor? And can you imagine the Limbaughs of the world having sport with that issue during a Clinton presidential run? The stench of Weiner's preposterous campaign is beginning to infest those around him. Carlos Danger may say he's in the race to stay, but the one person who could make him drop out in a New York minute is Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Stay Out Of My Uterus

Does anyone else see the irony in the Republican controlled North Carolina State Legislature adding severe abortion restrictions to a bill that forbids Sharia law in the Tarheel State? Legislation banning the use of Islamic law in family and custody cases was loaded down with abortion politics during the final hour and renamed the "Family, Faith, and Freedom Protection Act of 2013." Among other rules aimed at closing down the state's legal clinics is the requirement that a doctor be present for the application of any abortion-inducing medication. This means that if you wish to take the abortion pill, RU-486, in the privacy of your home, you're going to need a doctor friend to keep you company. The tone-deaf, Tea Party Republicans in North Carolina succeeded in banishing Sharia law, only to replace it with a different type of Sharia law with a distinct Christian conservative flavor. Governor Pat McCrory rebuked his fellow Republicans for attaching the abortion amendments to their silly-ass bill and threatened a veto if substantial changes were not made. So the GOP lawmakers changed a noun here and a verb there and re-introduced the abortion laws as amendments to a motorcycle safety bill.

This action followed Texas' passing of the nation's most restrictive abortion legislation. Despite the successful filibuster by Sen. Wendy Davis, presidential wannabe Rick Perry merely called a second special session for his anti-abortion agenda. Texas now requires that all abortions take place in a surgical center, and all doctors have hospital admitting privileges; exactly the same legislation that failed in Mississippi earlier this year. The bill's female sponsor, Rep. Jodi Laubenberg, claimed no exception was needed for rape because, "in the emergency room they have what they call rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out." And here I thought that "a woman can shut that all down" if it's a "legitimate rape." According to Wendy Davis, the new laws will shutter all but five of the states' forty two clinics. This year alone, seventeen states have enacted forty-three new laws that further regulate a woman's access to abortion services, and 120 new laws have been passed in the previous two years. This state-rights attempt to once again criminalize abortion is no coincidence.

In Wisconsin, recall survivor Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill requiring ultrasounds of all women seeking abortions. In Ohio, Republicans crammed abortion restrictions into the state's budget, stating that "life begins at the moment of conception," and mandating ultrasounds before any procedure. The budget/abortion bill was signed into law by Gov. John Kasich, making Ohio the only state where a doctor faces criminal charges for failing to test for a fetal heartbeat and informing the woman of the results. Similar bills have passed or are pending in Arizona, Nebraska, Georgia, and Louisiana. So where is the outrage? Forty years ago, woman staged mass protests and marches for the right to control their reproductive lives. So why aren't women and their supporters marching in the streets now? Actually, they are. The nation is so focused on Kim and Kanye's baby, however, that it's not being adequately reported. Thousands have rallied in Raleigh, NC every Monday since April to protest the GOP legislative blitzkrieg, and over 700 North Carolinians have been arrested in the last two months. Hundreds of people massed in the capitol in Columbus OH, including twenty protesters forcibly removed from the Senate chamber for yelling, "Shame on you." In Austin, thousands have protested and twelve have been arrested. Eight people were arrested in Madison, WI for attempting to deliver coat hangers to Republican politicians. So, what's really at work here?

The targeted, state-by-state, anti-abortion strategy has several supporting organizations, including the Susan B. Anthony List and the well-funded National Right To Life Committee, but the major player is the Americans United for Life, or the AUL. A team of lawyers working for the AUL have provided Republican-led state legislatures with pre-written bills, lacking only a sponsor. The AUL has collected their proposed bills in a playbook called, "Defending Life," and delivered it to every state, including Tennessee, where legislators are already working on their behalf. One of the AUL's major goals is the banning of abortion after twenty weeks. Gov. Perry said that "after twenty weeks we are not going to allow abortion in our state." The twenty week provision is based on disputed research that claims a fetus can feel pain at that point in a pregnancy. There are reasons, usually desperate and life-threatening, for late-term abortions that are beyond the comprehension of the Texas State Legislature.

The prolific poet and great twentieth century psychedelic prophet Jimi Hendrix weighed in on the abortion dispute in 1971 with the release of his song "Belly-Button Window," in which Jimi portrays a fetus peering out into the world from his mother's naval. Among other observations, Hendrix proclaimed from the womb;

So if you don't want me now, make up your mind, where or when/.  If you don't want me now, give or take, you only got two hundred days.  

Two hundred days equals, let's see...six months. That comes out to twenty-six weeks, exactly what the state of Texas allows right now. If Hendrix could figure it out, pre-Roe, then why can't Rick Perry? Here's the point. Abortion is a moral and medical decision between a woman and her doctor and should have no place on anyone's legislative agenda. The politicization of the abortion dispute has distracted us for far too long from the important work of restoring our country, and it needs to stop. I can tolerate a certain amount of government intrusion in my life, but stay the hell out of my uterus.

The Bipolar Court

It was a rough week to be a gay black man in the South. Although I imagine every week is similarly rough, the two decisions last week by the Supreme Court were enough to give a civil libertarian whiplash. The same politicized court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United has  successfully extended rights to some while depriving rights to others. On one hand, the Court ruled the Clinton Era Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional, paving the way for same-sex marriage equality under the law. On the other hand, the majority of justices kicked out the cornerstone of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, allowing states with a history of discriminatory voting practices to charge full speed ahead with the very same onerous legislative trickery that brought them under Justice Department scrutiny in the first place. After Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority on the legality of Obamacare, I thought perhaps the court might assume a more moderate tone ever since they ruled that corporations were people and money was speech, but I guess that was an aberration. Or was this an aberration? Every time the Supreme Court goes into session, I don't know whether to crawl under my desk or get out the flowers and balloons. The declaration by Justice Roberts that "our country has changed" is true enough, but it was followed by the plaintiff's attorney's astonishing remark that, "the problem to which the Voting Rights Act was addressed is solved," which made us laugh out loud at my house. We figured the lawyer didn't live around here, but the case was  brought against the Justice Department by Shelby County, Alabama. Roll Tide.

The Voting Rights Act was purchased in blood, but Justice Roberts and company seem hell-bent on destroying the last vestiges of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." People either have short memories or they choose not to remember. The Act was passed in the wake of "Bloody Sunday," in1965, when a group marching for voters' rights were attacked and beaten by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Representative John Lewis took a rock to the head that fractured his skull, while others were trampled or pummeled with nightsticks. Of the court's ruling, Congressman Lewis said, "The Supreme Court has struck a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act." A provision of the 1965 law singled out fifteen states, mostly in the Old Confederacy, with the notable exception of Tennessee, and a slew of municipalities elsewhere that had a history of voter suppression, and stated any future changes in voting laws must first be approved by the Justice Department. Even Justice Roberts, citing the Freedom Summer of 1964, when three young activists were murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi for attempting to register black people to vote, said, "There is no denying that, due to the Voting Rights Act, our nation has made great strides." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in rejoinder said, "The sad irony of today's decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective." The great strides have been made because of the VRA. The decision frees nine states, mostly in the south, to change their election laws without advance Federal approval. Clarence Thomas, as usual, said nothing, but voted with the majority.

Although some have said the VRA is dead, the courts have thrown the decision whether or not to reinstate the act back to Congress, proclaiming they can re-impose federal oversights, but they must be based on contemporary data. That sounds reasonable enough until you consider that Texas officials quickly announced that a voter ID law that was previously blocked under the VRA would go into effect immediately. Florida is now free to set early voting hours and cut down on polling places in ethnic areas. Does anyone actually believe, in our little blue corner of a red state world, that Southern states liberated from federal oversight are about to reinstate the VRA? Congress can't even pass a Farm Bill. Gov. Rick Perry must be dancing a Texas Reel in the flickering light, that he need no longer give a second thought to the legality of the redistricting maps drawn to protect Republican seats, that is--in between his crass, gooberesque critiques of Texas state Senator Wendy Davis' personal life. Speaking for the majority, Antonin Scalia, son of Italian immigrant parents, said, "Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them." Since when is the right to vote an "entitlement," especially a "racial" one? In John Lewis' words, “The literacy test may be gone, but people are using other means, other tactics and techniques," to suppress the black  vote. Instead of Jim Crow era poll taxes, Republican controlled Southern state legislatures use pesky and costly photo ID regulations and restrictions on early voting to remain in power. They quake before the shifting demographic.

Judge Scalia had a rollercoaster week. The 77 year-old Justice has been warming that bench since Ronald Reagan sat in the Oval Office, so the Court's simultaneous overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act and discarding California's Proposition 8, nearly gave the conservative Scalia apoplexy. He said angrily from the bench, “Few public controversies will ever demonstrate so vividly the beauty of what our framers gave us, a gift the court pawns today to buy its stolen moment in the spotlight: a system of government that permits us to rule ourselves.” After the official pomposity was over, Scalia claimed his allegiance to DOMA was criticized, "because it is harder to maintain the illusion of the act’s supporters as unhinged members of a wild-eyed lynch mob when one first describes their views as they see them.” Lynch mob? I thought only Judge Thomas accused his detractors of such a thing. Scalia later surmised that gay-marriage was inevitable, "when the Court declared a Constitutional right to homosexual sodomy." I don't recall reading the Sodomy Clause in the Constitution, but if Scalia said it, it must be so.

While 35 state legislatures, including Mississippi and North and South Carolina, are poised to act on voter ID laws, and other states like Alaska and Arizona are considering changing early voting laws, California has been experiencing euphoric joy over the demise of Prop. 8, which made same-sex unions illegal. It was joyous to watch the parade of weddings on Cable News, particularly the one officiated by outgoing Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa between Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, who successfully challenged Proposition 8 before the court. Isn't this what critics of the gay lifestyle always wanted? If gay people can enter into lasting unions, it eliminates the prejudicial perceptions of promiscuity and replaces it with those of loving relationships. But then there's Texas, whose governor said, "It is fairly clear about where this state stands on that issue." I'm sure all Texans don't agree with Rick Perry, but the state passed an amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2005 with a 76 percent majority, exceeded only by similar vote totals in Louisiana and Alabama. But gay weddings are coming to Texas, even if it takes a minute, and even while the state legislature fast-forwards its' attempt to gerrymander Hispanics and African-Americans out of the political equation. The Supreme Court's decisions may have far-reaching societal consequences, but for a gay, black man in the south, it was just another week.

Soul Man

A lady in the parking lot kept waving in my direction the other day. Since I had never seen her before, I assumed she was greeting someone behind me. Yet she persisted until I came into earshot.
"Tim?" she asked quizzically.
"Pardon me?" I replied.
The lady responded, "Aren't you Tim Sampson?"
I suppose she could be forgiven for mistaking me for my ranting compadre. All post-middle-aged, white, portly, bald and bespectacled men with close-cropped white beards look alike. We've even begun to dress alike, both favoring the patterned shirts that don't require tucking into the trouser waist. My concern was that after several years of alternating weeks with Tim Sampson in writing this column, we had somehow merged into the same person. After all, I have never read anything of Tim's that I disagree with and I find him a perfectly agreeable fellow. The only thing I found mildly bothersome were the number of times I found myself thinking, "Man, this guy sure does write about his gig a lot." I guess you could say I was envious. I mean, here's Tim Sampson talking about the Stax Music Academy, with all their accolades and special trips to the White House and such, and I'm sitting here with a one-way ticket to Palookaville. Who can stand to read about so much happiness? After reading Sampson's articles about talented young people achieving their dreams, I had to get out the Raymond Carver novellas just to cheer up and get my brain chemistry back in order. But the lady that mistook me for Sampson might also be forgiven because we were in the parking lot of the Stax Music Academy.

I've been a late bloomer in many areas. I graduated from college when I was 45, got married for the first time at age 54, and at a time when many of my peers are entering retirement, I've entered the  workforce. It wasn't so much a "want to" motivation as a "had to" situation. The rent never sleeps. So, I called Tim to ask if there was anything available at Soulsville for an aging musician with an encyclopedic brain filled with trivia about Soul music. Tim told me that, just by coincidence (or not, depending on your cosmic view), he had overheard the Stax Music Academy staff discussing the need for someone to teach a songwriting course for a five-week, summer music program.
"I'm your man," I yelled into the phone, and before Tim could hang up, I was pulling into the Stax parking lot. During an initial interview with some of the staff members, I told them I had written over 250 songs. After seeing they were duly impressed I added, "But only two of them are good."
I submitted a proposed syllabus and before you could say pedagogue, I was an instructor in the craft of composing songs right next to the very building where "Can Your Monkey Do the Dog," was written. My problem was, I had never faced a classroom before, so I embraced the philosophy of "fake it until you make it." But the closer we got to the opening date, the drier my throat and the tighter my stomach became. My wife dutifully packed me a lunch and sent me off to work.

I was assigned four classes with twenty students in each. During my get-acquainted lecture in my opening moments as a teacher, I asked, "Who here has either written or attempted to write a song?" and every hand in the room went up. I wanted to say, "Damn, let me sit out there and listen to you," but I had come equipped with my greatest hit, "Call the Wrecker for My Heart," by George Jones. It was an illustration of my premise that you can write a song about anything. I lectured for a week about structure and the value of co-writing then sent each class off to compose an original song. I don't know what I was expecting, but the result made my big toe shoot up in my boot. The level of musicianship was so high and the songwriting so sophisticated, it caused me to imagine that if I had half the talent of these students at such a young age, I could, dare I say, rule the world. After the second week of classes, I said in the regular staff meeting that the students had grown beyond my abilities to teach them. The next week consisted mainly of me observing the activities from a plastic chair with the occasional hover and rhyme suggestion. At one point, I was forced to quote Rufus Thomas and shout, "I just feel so unnecessary." When the course is complete, I'd like to sign several of the students to my newly created personal management company, where our motto is, "We Offer a Better Deal than Colonel Parker."

This week, the students will be in the studio recording their songs for a competition to be judged at term's end by a group of professionals, including the dynamic young man at the head of the Stax Academy, Justin Merrick. Speaking of the Academy, Justin has just been nominated for a Grammy Award by the Recording Academy in a new category called Music Education. Now I know how Tim Sampson feels when he shares his colleagues' pride in their achievements. Mr. Merrick certainly prepared and motivated the young people in my classes. If the students' recordings turn out as great as the rehearsals, and the Stax Academy is able to create a new generation of songwriters and artists, I know of a large recording studio right next door in the Stax Museum that's presently going unused except for parties and special occasions. And I'll bet no one else has copyrighted the term "Soulsville," in case anyone was looking for a name for a new label or record company. If you're going to dream, you may as well dream big. This could be the rebirth of Stax, or something similar, and the future for the graduates of this innovative musical program, well...I'm starting to rant. Let's just say good things are happening at 926 E. McLemore Ave.

If my good fortune at being on the Stax campus weren't enough, I have also begun work at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, assisting in the development of guided tours. My previous attempt at being a tour guide ended badly because I talked too much, but Stax seemed to want someone who talks too much. At the city's other attractions, guided tours are assembled to last a specified amount of time. At the Stax Museum, you can stay as long as you want. Since the Stax Museum receives grants and charitable donations they are able to offer an educational component that is more extensive than other attractions, and of course, you exit through the gift shop where the former Satellite Record Shop used to stand. Most of all, the people have been so gracious and welcoming, they make me believe they're actually happy I'm there. This makes me happy, plus, I get to see Tim Sampson every day. I was looking for one job, and suddenly I have three, if you count what you're reading. If not, It doesn't matter because I don't know you, and if you're not a fan of Soul music, I don't want to know you. My question is this: if I am teaching at the Stax Academy and working for the Stax Museum, all under the auspices of the Soulsville Foundation, does this make me a Soul Man? Play it Steve!

Stick 'Em Up

The latest batch of ricin letters to public officials came from- surprise - Texas. One tainted missive was sent to the president and two others were sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and to the office of his advocacy group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization of seven hundred mayors nationwide urging Congress to expand background checks for gun sales. The packages contained a threatening letter which read;

"You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns. Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional, God-given right and I will exercise that right till the day I die. What's in this letter is nothing compared to what I've got planned for you."

Let me ask you something Skippy, who are you going to shoot first? The mailman? The UPS driver? The pizza guy? Let's say your most paranoid delusions are correct and Obama really is coming for your guns. Do you have a grenade launcher, because, as we all know, Obama has drones. Have you acquired a bazooka? How's that assault rifle going to fend off the  M1 Abrams tank rolling up your driveway? And in which obscure scripture did you find a passage where God gave you the right to own a gun? I must have missed that class during my parochial school education. I heard things like "Love Ye one another," and "What you have done to the least of these, you have also done unto me." I never heard, "If someone slaps you on one cheek, pull out your nine millimeter and shoot them in the face." How dare some hate-infused, delusional, would-be assassin bring God into his deadly actions, and what makes him any different from an Al Qaeda terrorist? Just after these letters were intercepted, another toxin-laced letter addressed to the president was discovered sent from Spokane, WA. Do these crazy bastards believe that the president opens his own mail? The New York letter was opened in a biochemical containment box, but three officers who examined the letter suffered minor symptoms. The Center for Disease Control stated that contact with ricin causes difficulty breathing, vomiting, and redness of the skin. The brazen toxic-outlaws believe they're delivering a blow to a tyrannical government, when actually, they are making a teenage intern in the mailroom nauseous.

Last week's letters were just the latest in a string of similar incidents involving sending toxins through the mail. A Washington state man was arrested last week for mailing ricin to a federal judge and a package sent to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane was also discovered to contain the poison. Last month, a blockbuster local crime-drama broke out when ricin-laced letters addressed to the President, a federal judge, and a state senator were discovered to have been mailed from Memphis. The FBI arrested part-time Elvis impersonator Kevin Curtis, but quickly shifted their attention to his cyber-nemesis, a Tupelo karate instructor named J. Everett Dutschke. The two men had been having an online feud, mainly on Facebook, that's too convoluted to explain, but it was Dutschke who was arrested when traces of risin were found in his Taekwondo studio. And this man claims membership in Mensa. The Bloomberg letters were traced to New Boston, Texas, where the FBI arrested Nathaniel Richardson, an Army veteran employed by the Defense Department, after receiving a tip from his wife who called police after finding a Tupperware container with ricin in the refrigerator. If that weren't enough, the wife is actress Shannon Rogers Guess, best known for a part in The Blind Side, and her role as a zombie on The Walking Dead. Richardson is pointing the finger at her, claiming she bought ricin-rich Castor beans over the internet with a credit card to frame him.

These bizarre culprits are merely the dull tip of the spear when it comes to the gun-crazed freaks that live among us. The NRA has morphed from an organization that taught firearm safety and responsible gun ownership into a lobbying group for the armaments industry. Their heartless hysteria after the Newtown child slaughter caused gullible gun owners to panic that their rights were in jeopardy, especially after the NRA participated in spreading the patently false rumor that there was a government plot to buy up the civilian supply of ammunition after a media-induced run on bullets created a shortage. Unable to see through the Fox News and hate-radio propaganda that closing gun-show loopholes will lead to Blackhawk helicopters over Shreveport, these angry citizens live in fear of their own government and walk around all day with violent fantasies floating through their fevered minds. If you are told all day by right-wing media that you are at war with your government over your basic freedoms, then sending a toxin-laden letter to the chief executive doesn't make you a terrorist. In your own mind, it makes you a patriot.

On the morning of November 22, 1963, the Dallas Morning News ran an advertisement from a right-wing group featuring President John F. Kennedy on a wanted poster with the slogan "Wanted for Treason," along with a list of his fictitious misdeeds, including, "appointing anti-Christians to Federal office." I've always wondered if the newspaper regretted their bad judgement considering Kennedy died that day. Similar lies about President Obama have been accepted as fact by a large number of people who were inclined to dislike him in any case. California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly recently said on Christian radio that the unfettered possession of firearms was "absolutely essential to living the way God intended for us to live." This sort of disinformation comes from a belief that the Constitution was divinely inspired and as such, is a perfect document, much like the scriptures. So, when a person who watches the Fox News bile all day and finally goes insane with paranoia, why should it be surprising when they decide to take action against their government and its officials. When a group implies that its members need to take up arms against their government, its called treason. And any cabal of weapons peddlers who advocate the arming of citizens against their elected officials need to be classified as a terrorist organization.









A Scandal Trifecta



"I gave them a sword," Richard Nixon said of his political enemies during the infamous David Frost, post-resignation interviews, "and they twisted it with relish." Had the roles been reversed, he said, "I'd have done the same thing." So, don't look at me to defend the Obama administration over the recent trifecta of scandals infecting the government. I am an equal opportunity scorn dispenser, and when an abuse of power occurs, it matters not the affection I have for the executive, but the severity of the breach of public trust. Obama is well aware that his every utterance comes under scrutiny by those who would undermine his presidency, so the careless and stupid actions of his subordinates threatens to squander the moral high ground established during the first term. Now, regardless of the outcome, Obama's second term will be mired in hearings, depositions, and legal briefs. The sharks were already circling. They were just waiting for a little blood in the water. He gave them the sword.

The tragedy of Benghazi is like catnip to the House Republicans and their propaganda arm known as Fox News. They have been flogging this story since Ambassador Susan Rice repeated redacted talking points on all the Sunday shows. An ambassador and an aide died in the conflagration, yet the GOP's focus of inquiry has been on the reporting about the attack. Republicans accuse the administration of a "political cover-up," claiming the president's staff manipulated talking points regarding Benghazi in order to influence the 2012 election. In return, the White House released a hundred pages of emails which show the CIA was responsible for the blather, which was then edited by someone in the State Department trying to make the agency look better than it deserved. Hillary Clinton's now famous eruption of, "What difference at this point does it make," in response to questions concerning terrorist involvement in the Benghazi attack have been turned into a GOP ringtone in preparation for the 2016 elections. The remainder of her statement; "It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from happening again," was forgotten in the ensuing hysteria.

The IRS targeting of Tea Party groups requesting tax exemption is inexcusable and illegal and deserving of the "heads will roll" attitude of the administration. The IRS acting director, Steve Miller, got dumped. I expected him to sing "Take the Money and Run," upon his departure, but I'm showing my age again. As long as I am, however, I well remember the IRS being used as a political weapon by Richard Nixon and his crewe. What's galling is that these political hit squads, both left and right, are supposed to be "social welfare" organizations that help to inform the electorate about the candidates, before they get their tax exempt status. After the IRS grants that status, the groups are free from reporting on their donors or the amount they spend. Ironically, the IRS flagged smaller Tea Party organizations for scrutiny while giving the big fish a pass. Karl Rove's American Crossroads super pac spent over 100 million dollars with such tax-free status, and none of it was for "social welfare." The politicization of the IRS still reflects the fact that Democrats can be as petty and ruthless as their counterparts and more firings are in order. The harassment of right-wing groups seeking a tax exemption, however, does not rise to the level of Rep. Michele Bachmann's accusations that Obama used the IRS to steal the election.

While the media focuses its attention on the IRS screw-up, the most egregious of the scandals is the covert collection of phone records from the Associated Press. Now we're into Nixon territory, and should the Justice Department's national security concerns fail to persuade, then Eric Holder has got to go. I understand he was personally questioned in regards to the AP matter and has thus recused himself from the investigations. Holder claims his Deputy ordered the harvesting of personal records from AP phone lines. There are other ways of obtaining information than breaking the law. The surreptitious collection of AP phone records could compromise the integrity of their sources and discourage whistleblowers from coming forth in the future. Associated Press CEO, Gary Pruitt, claimed the seizure of reporters' phone records "unconstitutional," and said the organization is considering legal action against the Justice Department. I don't hold many allegiances, but my first is to journalism. Earning that degree took a good deal of study, and much of it was about the constitutional protection of free expression. I believe the trampling of the 1st Amendment right of a free press by the Justice Department deserves the resignation of the Attorney General. Whether the AG is John Mitchell, Janet Reno, or Alberto Gonzales, when they skirt the law they were sworn to uphold, they become a drag on the presidency, and a negative representation of his government.

I don't understand the Republicans. They claim to be the party of family values with a special emphasis on marriage and fidelity. This president is a wonderful father and role model, faithful to his wife, without a hint of scandal, and yet they hate him so much. The zeal with which the Republicans are attempting to prove that Obama was the Svengali that micro-managed every crisis reminds me of the GOP's inquisition of Bill Clinton. By portraying Clinton as Satan, the GOP managed to obfuscate his real transgressions and ultimately turn the tide of public opinion in his favor. Recent polling indicates that Barack Obama's popularity has remained steady despite the shitstorm of conservative abuse. These "scandals" will consume Obama's presidency only because of political posturing by the Republicans, and ultimately they won't amount to much. Watergate was a scandal. Teapot Dome was a scandal. These are merely the bumblings of bureaucratic zealots, but the poisonous wing of the Republican party is already talking impeachment. It didn't have to be this way, but Obama's legislative agenda has been hijacked by a witches' brew of controversies. What a waste of talent.

 

Call The Wrecker For My Heart

"The Possum," George Jones, finally bought the farm at age 81, at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville on April 26. To his family's eternal credit, last week's funeral was declared open to the public. Some of Country music's greatest stars, with some unusual dignitaries, gathered at the Grand Ole Opry House along with thousands of fans, some of whom began gathering before dawn, for the memorial service. For those who couldn't attend the funeral personally, the event was live-streamed on the Internet, two different cable channels covered the obsequies, and as a tribute to Jones' transformative effect on country music, all local Nashville television stations broadcast the farewell in tribute. It was a ceremony fit for the King of Country Music, but Roy Acuff already claimed that nickname, and it's no longer accurate to call George, "No-Show" Jones. He was in the middle of a nationwide tour that was to have wrapped up in November with an all-star concert in Nashville. For a man who missed all those performances earlier in his career, he sure died with his boots on.

For those few poor souls unfamiliar with the singer, let's just say he was the Elvis of Country music, and I ain't talking Costello. Sam Phillips once referred to the Nashville music bidness as "having a follower's mentality," and in a town full of imitators, George Jones, like Hank Williams before him, must have been the most imitated singers in country history. His backwoods soul, seemingly linked to a bottomless well of pain, made for classic songs like, "He Stopped Loving Her Today," sung movingly by Jones acolyte Randy Travis at the funeral. Until that one came along, Jones' signature song was a tune written by former Memphis teen-heartthrob Dickie Lee called,"She Thinks I Don't Care," or as we other jealous songwriters laughingly referred to it; "She Stinks But I Don't Care." Dickie Lee could afford to laugh. Jones made him rich. George's rowdy side was best illustrated by a famous story from his raucous marriage with Tammy Wynette. George was schnockered and wanted to drive to the liquor store so Tammy hid the car keys. A half-hour later, the police stopped Jones on the highway, driving to the package store on a riding lawnmower. Jones credited his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, with straightening him out for good. I owe her too.

During the decade I spent writing songs in Nashville, a period I refer to as my "Babylonian Exile," having George Jones record one of your songs was akin to, as I said, getting a cut by Elvis, or Jimi Hendrix, for that matter. I was a new hire at a fledgling publishing company that paid me a pittance each week for gruel, but did offer me access to the recording studio. I had been in Country Music City for a couple of years and had such rotten luck, I used to sprinkle rejection on my Corn Flakes for breakfast. Once, during a Memphis-in-May-type downpour, I parked my car and ducked quickly into an office building on Music Row for a writing appointment, but the other guy never showed up. As I stood waiting for way too long, I fixed my gaze on the parking lot below and spotted my car with the headlights still on. Soaked, I dove underneath the hood to find the battery dead and no one around in the driving rain. While waiting for a tow-truck, I started to write the lyrics to a song titled, "Call the Wrecker For My Heart." After I became quasi-employed, I presented the half-written tune to my songwriting partners, but they thought it so corny, they didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Each week, the boss held a company demo session for those writers with just a single song to record. I brought "Wrecker" to the session and everyone seemed well pleased with the result, although finding a prospective artist for a parody song was admittedly difficult. My friend and stablemate, awarded writer Eddie Burton, also had a song on the same session and took a cassette tape (remember those?) over to the house of his friends, Nancy and George Jones, to listen. George loved Eddie's song, and while they discussed it, the tape continued on to the next song, which was mine. Before they could turn it off, Nancy said, "Wait a second, I like this one, too." So they listened again. Later that month, Eddie took me aside at a staff meeting and said, simply and with a smile, "You got your Jones cut." I didn't just want to kiss him, I actually did. My song was to be on an album called, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes," and co-incidentally, it not only appeared as the track after Burton's on the LP, it was also the B-side to Burton's song. If that's confusing to younger readers, a B-side is the flip side of a 45 RPM record. If the A-side sells a million, so does mine, only 45s weren't doing so well in the mid-80s, and the record died a quick death. Still, a B-side on George Jones was, and is, my proudest accomplishment as a songwriter. It should have cemented my reputation.

The music business being the venal pit of writhing greed that it is, however, new owners bought out my employers and decided to downsize. Since I was among the lower-tier writers, in pay and reputation, I was unceremoniously hustled out the door, George Jones cut and all. Instead of my Jones song being a great beginning, it was the beginning of the end for me in Nashville. Unable to latch on elsewhere, I ultimately returned to Memphis with my country tail between my rock and roll legs. The Jones LP of which I was so proud, for whatever reason, became the single album he recorded in the eighties that did not make the elevation to Compact Disk. Thus, my song was never digitized, never played on the radio, and faded further into obscurity. I had to content myself with having written the George Jones song no one had ever heard, and when I was asked the title, folks had a good but unnerving laugh at my expense. Last I checked online, the few test CDs of the album were going for $129.20. When the funeral was over, and after everyone from Laura Bush to Kid Rock had spoken, and Barbara Mandrell called Jones "the greatest Country singer of all time," sales of George Jones albums were up a reported 1000 percent. So, I figure that after 28 years, my novelty tune might get heard after all, and I can say yet again, "Thank you, Old Possum, for recording my song when everyone around me told me that it was silly. You too, Mrs. Jones."

 

The Media Bomb

Against my better judgement, I woke up my wife, Melody, at 3:00am last week to tell her all hell had broken loose in Boston and that she probably ought to get up and watch the breaking news. We had already witnessed the terrorist bombs detonating at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and maiming 170, but the resulting manhunt was nearly as shocking. My guess was that the bombers were home-grown knuckleheads of the Tim McVeigh variety. Melody thought it was the work of Muslim extremists, so it turns out we were both right. After the release of the suspects' photographs, within three hours, the police had the two Chechen-American brothers identified and trapped, and when the city-wide lockdown was lifted, the surviving brother was located and taken alive. It was a stunning success for the Boston Police Department, the FBI, the ATF, and all the other agencies that helped track down these miscreants, but it was an extraordinary and historic failure for both print and electronic journalism.

The post-marathon manhunt made for some gripping reality television, only you couldn't change the channel. When the networks joined the cable news channels in wall-to-wall coverage, there was no escaping the unfolding saga. In fact, you could take a nap and afterwards, the same people would be speculating about the same things. It was like watching an endless episode of Dragnet, except nobody had the facts, ma'am. From CNN, to Fox News, to the Boston Globe, so many falsehoods were presented as fact and so many baseless rumors floated as the truth, it's understandable why a good sized portion of the populous doesn't trust the news "industry" anymore. The medium now has more face-men than real journalists, and a woman with an attractive cleavage is valued more highly than one with a journalism degree. For days, all the networks' top stars were based on a Beantown corner, acting like they knew something. Not to demean the seriousness of the event, but the twenty-four hour, non-stop coverage of the search for the terrorists in Boston knocked all the rest of the news off the airwaves. It would seem that if someone from Waco called a news outlet and claimed credit for the massive explosion in West, Texas for Al Qaeda, every news anchor in the business would be sitting in front of a bombed-out fertilizer factory in Texas talking about how they caught us unawares.

The Boston Journalistic Massacre began, predictably, when the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post printed a front-page picture of a Moroccan-American man, falsely accusing him of being the bomber. As in most violent events, the first lie reported was that the hunted person was a black man. The Post claimed twice in one week that the suspects were "dark-skinned males." After CNN repeated the lie, and during the subsequent media frenzy, an innocent man from Bangladesh was assaulted. Next, Fox News and the Boston Globe reported arrests were made when there were none. The network cameras focused on a man lying prostrate in the street, arms akimbo, while police officers trained their guns on him; wrong guy. They reported on a mysterious person on a rooftop overlooking the bomb site; just a bystander. And in one of the most bizarre scenes of the entire week, a man was forced to strip naked in the middle of the street and was frog-marched to a squad car, private parts pixilated for the cameras, without comment or explanation from the chattering "experts."

When the manhunt moved to Watertown, the bad information shifted into overdrive. First, someone coincidentally robbed a 7/11 while the wanted brothers happened to be in there. Then the robbery became a carjacking and, within the hour, NBC's Brian Williams was seated in front of the Town Diner. When the network cut into a local feed and an announcer was heard saying, "I don't know shit," a red-faced Williams had to apologise for the incidental profanity and remind everyone that tensions were high. At least the guy was honest. The best reporting of the night was done by a bystander named Andrew Kitzenberg who spoke with MSNBC by Skype while a gunfight was raging beneath his apartment window on Laurel Street. Kitzenberg accurately reported the shoot-out which killed one brother, and the reckless escape of the other. Misinformation poured in about explosive devises at MIT and the murder of a campus policeman who was responding to a disturbance, when actually, he was shot while sitting in his car. When the quarantine was finally lifted and the second suspect was located, it was at first by a neighbor that saw something unusual about a ladder and a boat, but it turned out to be the homeowner who went out to his backyard for a smoke. NBC stationed Rehema Ellis in front of Massachusetts General Hospital to await the fugitive's arrival, but in a rich irony, the Islamic Jihadist was taken to Beth Israel Hospital for treatment.

My intention is not to criticize the police- obviously whatever they did worked- so who's to criticise? It's just that I've never seen the total lockdown of a major city before. In the drama's denouement, when it appeared as if every law enforcement vehicle in a tri-state area had converged on the scene, it occurred to me that if I had criminal inclinations, it would be the ideal time to rob a bank. Maybe it's just me, but 9,000 law enforcement officers in pursuit of a wounded teenager seemed a bit like overkill. Someone said it was necessary to have a show of force after a terrorist act. Probably so, but there weren't that many cops out looking for Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Israelis, who deal with suicide bombers on a daily basis, merely clean up and open for business the next day. An argument could be made that, with every camera focused upon them and the entirety of the American news media reacting to their every blood-drenched move, the terrorists succeeded in their goals. One deranged fanatic managed to lock-up a million people while he ran free. Major league baseball and hockey games were cancelled. All municipal transit was halted. They got their man, but now we know what martial law looks like. And finally, the major networks can stop their "breaking news" interruptions to regular programming. What I want to know is, if a thunderstorm were approaching Memphis, would the local stations break-in to the national networks' break-ins?

Basketbrawl

Now that March Madness has ended and the recruiting season has begun, remind me not to play basketball for Rutgers. I'd prefer to reserve my efforts for someplace where my talents are  appreciated rather than abused. I need to work on my forty minute stamina and some concession for my age has to be made, but before I play for a physically or verbally abusive coach, I'll hang up the sneakers. Of course, I have the luxury of having nothing to lose, unlike the unfortunate student-athletes at Rutgers University who would put their college careers and any hope of playing professional basketball in jeopardy if they had criticized their foul-tempered bully of a head coach. They just had to grin and bear it until someone posted an online video of their practices, which tended to look more like scenes out of Fight Club. And we all know the first rule of Fight Club.

 

The now viral video, first given to the University and ESPN by a so-called whistleblower, shows ex-Coach Mike Rice shoving, kicking, brutalizing, and screaming epithets at his players, calling them fairies and faggots, while bouncing basketballs off their heads. It only proves just how much these young men have to lose, or else someone would have, and probably should have, cold-cocked him. The resulting public uproar got Rice fired even though Rutgers was aware of his abusive conduct and knew about the incriminating video at the beginning of the season. The University issued a report last December, criticizing the video for "taking many situations out of context," and absolving the coach of accusations that he "created a hostile work environment." The University's examination of the torture video resulted in a 50,000 dollar fine, a suspension for three games without pay, and an agreement that Mike Rice undergo anger-management therapy and have his behavior monitored. The resulting outrage over that petty, hand-check foul caused the resignations of the Athletic Director, the University's top in-house lawyer, and an assistant coach. University President Robert Barchi now claims he probably should have watched the video.

 

Just when it seemed college basketball could get no uglier, the whistleblower, ostensibly doing a good deed by exposing a bad coach, is now under investigation by the FBI. The Associated Press reports that Eric Murdock, former director of player development under Coach Rice, may have attempted to extort the University before the videos became public. An FBI report says that a lawyer representing Murdock requested a sum of $950,000 from the University to "settle employment issues," or face a lawsuit. Murdock has since filed suit as the good guy, claiming Rutgers dismissed him for being the whistleblower. In addition, it is unknown who originally taped the coach's deplorable conduct, but Murdock received multiple hours of just such incidences and edited the tape down to the thirty minutes currently in public circulation. It becomes difficult to tell if this is college basketball or Abu Ghraib.

 

No one with a hint of empathy for those cowed teenagers could justify such violent tactics by their coach. But over at Fox News, where groupthink is reality, everyone got the memo to turn a sports story about an ugly incident into a sociological commentary of the state of manhood in contemporary society. Sean Hannity drooled that he approved of the "old-fashioned discipline," while Michelle Malkin nodded in agreement that this was a left-wing, nanny-state condemnation of a tough coach trying to instill discipline in his wards. The most incredulous commentary of all came from a talking potato named Eric Bolling, who blathered that, "this is our culture in freefall," and "this is the wussification of American men." God, I hate that word. Hearing Mr. Bolling call for corporal punishment reminded me of the bad old days in parochial school when the teachers were permitted to beat, pound, and paddle their students. Bolling said a whack across the legs with a wooden paddle "never hurt anyone." I'm hear to tell ya', it hurt me. It turned me into a good didact, but nobody knows what that means anyway. Watching Coach Rice kick those young men recalled those sadistic coaches in high school. These days, that "old-fashioned discipline" would be called "assault."

 

Rutgers has a lot at stake here. They made the mistake of protecting the coach instead of the players.  Mike Rice's 2012 salary was $655,000 and he was only in his third year with a 44-51 record. But, as called for in his contract, Rutgers will pay Rice a $100,000 bonus for "longevity."The myopic Athletic Director will receive 1.25 million dollars in a severance pay package. Here's hoping that the next coach won't feel so much pressure to win in the Big-10 that he resorts to violence. Coach Rice's former school, Robert Morris University, is now investigating his behavior at that institution. The aforementioned Eric "whistleblower" Murdock contends that there were at least "five coaches-versus-player brawls in practice." Rutgers should look on the bright side. After Robert Morris took leave of Mike Rice, their new coach, Andy Toole, took the Colonials to this years' NIT and beat John Calipari's defending national champion Kentucky Wildcats in the first round. It doesn't get much sweeter than that, proving once again, that you can catch more flies with honey than with vitriol.