Author: skippybkroo

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

last night skippy enjoyed the company of some of the finest bloggers in southern california at the quarterly drinking liberally get-together at the famous cock and bull pub in santa monica.

the event was coordinated by skippy’s buddy d-day, who is working closely w/the calitics team to promote end of the quarter fund-raising (tho readers of this space know how skippy feels about giving money to dems).

economic agendas aside, however, it was a fine night of fellowship and interpersonal real-time physical space blogging, which used to be called “conversation” in the old school.
among the many friends there that skippy was happy to see: our good buddy steveaudio and his lovely wife pam; john of crooks&liars (tho skippy was disappointed that nicole belle of same was not in attendance); our old co-blogger rj eskow (actually, he’s not that old, at least, not any older than skippy); and the prolific thereisnospoon and hekebolos.

but the queen of the ball was none other than the guest of honor, digby herself. since “coming out” as the premiere blogger who no longer needs pseudonymity, digby has been making personal appearances more than donald trump, or so it seems.

it was delightful to finally meet digby, as digby and skippy have been supporting each other’s blogging efforts since the old days, back before anyone even knew what the word “blog” was. skippy remarked that while they weren’t pioneers, they were early settlers, and digby said her husband would call them “early adapters,” a silicone valley reference.

many new faces were also present, and it was a testament to the liberal cause of democracy, and to a lesser extent, alcoholism. a great time was had by all.

on a personal note, skippy personally thanked john amato for starting the tradition of nightly music on blogs, which skippy unabashedly stole from c&l. but john said it’s ok.

addendum:  d-day has some pics of the event up over at calitics.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

it’s refreshing that several democratic candidates have pledged to boycott the fox noise debate next september.  not only has john “crossing over” edwards vowed to avoid it, but also barak “to the future” obama and hillary “not necessarily the sopranos” clinton, as well.

one reason (well, the only reason, actually:  e.g., fox’s bias; but one example of that reason) was fox’s insistance that obama studied muslim extremism as a 6 year old child, without anything to back up such an assertion.

so at least some dems show some spine and refuse to attend the congressional black caucus institute-sponsored debate on fox noise next fall.

but some in the multi-millionaire media just can’t see the logic in this.  scott collins, writing in the latimes, says the dems should just buck up and show up:

so it needs to be said: the democrats are dead wrong not to debate on fox news. and it’s hypocritical for the supposedly nonpartisan media to stand by and do nothing while a tv network — even one with an obvious rightward tilt whose fairness and balance deserve every bit of the scrutiny they’re getting — is trashed by mega-million-dollar political campaigns in the heat of a white house primary battle. when politicians, one of whom may very well be the next president of the united states, start using their platforms to lob missiles at news-gathering organizations they don’t like, it’s hard to see how that’s much different than president nixon’s infamous “enemies list.”

well, here’s the difference, scott:  nixon’s list were people whose careers he, as president, wanted destroyed…boycotting fox news is a representation of the free market system.  if candidates thinks they won’t get a fair shake from somebody, and that somebody has been proven to be biased and subjective, why should those candidates validate that somebody as fair and objective?  let’s start calling them as we see them, shall we?

fox is unfair and unbalanced.  think progress points out (as does c&l, as well as booman) that last night on hannity and colmes, both hannity and guest annthrax coulter did another one of their famous hit jobs on obama:

coulter remarked, “anyone named b. hussein obama should not use the words `hijack’ and `religion’ in the same sentence.” host sean hannity added that obama’s remarks were part of a “black separatist agenda.”

the timing was not lost on us, so we wrote a letter to the latimes:

sirs and madams:

it is deliciously ironic that the same day the l.a. times presents scott collins chastizing the democrats for boycotting presidential debates on fox news, ann coulter and sean hannity make the democrats’ case for them.

on the hannity & colmes show on june 25, coulter accused sen. barak obama once again of being a terrorist, while sean hannity accused him of having a “black separatist agenda.”

and yet scott collins would have the democratic candidates overlook such slurs and bigoted vitriol and lend credence to fox news as an “objective” journalistic organ.

scott collins’ premise is completely wrong.  fox news is not a “news-gathering organization” that just happens to tilt one way or the other.  it is a platform for right wing innuendo, smears and agenda that just happens to report a news item now and then.

we would hope that the entire democratic party would refrain from appearing on that very subjective channel.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

the skippy’s have just returned from seeing marion cotillard’s amazing performance as edith piaf in la vie en rose.

cotillard portrays piaf from ages 19 to her death at age 47 (and in piaf years, that’s about 80, because of things like violent deaths of her lovers; drug addictions; childhood poverty, blindness and sickness as well as abandonment by her mother and then her father; a debilatating car crash; and alcoholism).

tho the film in is french (with subtitles), and jumps back and forth thru time more than billy pilgrim in slaughter house 5, as well as skipping little things like world war ii (and piaf’s role in the french resistance), the movie is a fascinating portrait of the tortured artist who devotes a life to performing because there is no alternative.
piaf’s story was one of ecstatic highs and tragic lows; such extreme lows that the globe and mail says that her life “makes judy garland’s tortured existence look like a day at the holt renfrew spa.”  but music was not only her salvation, but her whole reason d’etre.

like jamie fox in ray of a few years ago, marion cotillard’s star turn is riveting; but like fox, cotillard lip-synchs (as opposed to the amazing singing interpretations of joachim phoenix and reese witherspoon in walk the line).  however, perhaps because cotillard is less known to american audiences than fox is, hearing piaf’s voice (sometimes sung by sound-alike jil aigrot) come out of her mouth seemed quite natural and not jarring at all.

the supporting cast is incredible;  it’s always a pleasure to see gerard depardieu, in this case playing the impressario slash mobster that took young edith from singing on street corners and established her as a cabaret singer (and his lover); also of note are marie-armelle deguy as marguerite deguy, piaf’s long-time composer/collaborator, and jean-pierre martins as marcel cerdan, the married boxer that was the love of piaf’s life.

both depardieu’s and martins’ characters die violent deaths, tearing piaf apart.  one of the most incredible scenes in the film comes when piaf awakes to find her married lover in in her bed, presumably coming from the flight from orly airport to her waiting arms.  the camera follows piaf’s joy searching thru her apartment for the gift of a watch she wants to give him; as she searches she berates her staff for looking sad and disturbed.  finally, she asks what’s wrong, and she’s told that the plane had crashed.  she runs back into the bedroom to find it empty.  this is all done in long tracking shot, during which cotillard spirals from joy to despair, and then stands and walks down a hallway, past parted curtains onto a stage to begin to sing in front of a waiting audience.

it’s an amazing bit of theatrics that could have spilled over into melodrama, but writer/director olivier dahan’s deft hand keeps the soap-operatic tone to a subtle minimum, making the film seem larger than life only because the subject herself was.

marion cotillard certainly deserves an oscar nomination if not the award itself;  it will be difficult to find a performance more on point, subtle, and wide-ranging this year, from either an actor or actress.

if you are at all interested in popular music of the last century, french culture, performing and theatre, or just good old fashioned tear-jerking biopics, plop down the $10 and see this on the big screen.

but before hand, play the youtube above for the real edith piaf singing non, je ne regrette rien, the song that ends the film in a resounding finale.

in our effort to stop the enabling of democrats to get elected and not listen to the constituency that actually voted for them, we struck a few nerves amongst the denizens of blogtopia and yes, we coined that phrase.

most significantly, roger issued this challenge, or at least this observation, in our comments section:

i’d guess that progressives refusing to donate to democrats is a great way to get repulicans elected.

i’m just sayin’.

to that we reply:

yes.  actually, yes.

and the difference would be — ???

now, please don’t take us literally.  we know there would be a difference.  without the dems in office in congress, there wouldn’t have almost been a vote to decide whether or note to vote no confidence against gonzo’s justice department.  there wouldn’t be scads of congressional investigations into the reading first program.  there wouldn’t be anybody to suggest that a congressional investigation into secret prisons might be needed in the next few months.  there wouldn’t be anybody to ignore the governors who call for an investigation into soaring gas prices.

but most importantly, there wouldn’t be anybody to water down the ethics bill which would have severly limited lobbyists’ ability to slip cash into the pockets of our elected officials.

but that’s not our concern.  our concern is that the democrats rode into office last fall specifically on a promise to change direction in this country, particularly when it came to iraq.

our concern is that we, and several of our peers (yes, we do have them!) are still receiving emails and snail mails soliciting money for dems.  that in itself is not a problem.  the problem is the people who aren’t receiving those requests.

people like sgt. dariek e. dehn, 32, from spangle,washington; pvt. scott a. miller, 20, of casper, wyo.; sgt. cory m. endlich, 23, of massillon, ohio; and staff sgt. brian m. long, 32, of burns, wyo.

people like 23-year-old army infantry sgt. cory endlich, and air force airman 1st class eric barnes, both of ohio.

people like senior airman william n. newman, 23, of kingston springs, tenn.

people like these service personnel who will never receive anything ever again, because they were killed in iraq. and that’s just a cursory sweep of this month’s casualties on google.

the dems not only didn’t follow thru on their promise to change course;  they once again meekly sat with their heads down when it came time to speak out about funding the war.  

fine.  if that’s the way they want to play it.  good.  then do it without our money.  do it without our support.  if you want to be repubbblicans, so be it.  but don’t come asking us for cash, because the atm machine has shut down, folks.  

we will no longer be your enablers.  

steven d, writing here at booman last week, expressed some sentiments that have been roiling in our minds as of late:

half my spam these days comes from democratic politicians requesting my credit card number, or my check, preferably in an amount larger than $100. true, it does get worse during an election year, but since 2008 is the “big one” with the presidency up for grabs, the calls for cash have started earlier and earlier…

no, we are the free money people. our emails receive automated replies, not personal ones. our phone calls get stuck in easily deleted voice mail caches, or if we’re lucky, half listened to by some young staffer who probably thinks what we have to say is a big fat waste of his or her time. and the reason is because we can’t contribute enough money in our pay to play political system to earn us any real access…

the single biggest reason democrats won control of the house and senate was their pledge to change the direction of the war in iraq. well, they didn’t change it, bush did with his “surge” plan which is now killing more american soldiers each month even as there is no let up (so far as we can tell from censored media reports) in the levels of death and destruction which the iraqi people are continuing to endure.

the democrats gleefully took our money. they gladly accepted our volunteer efforts. and they rejoiced in our votes which gave them control of both houses of congress for the first time in over a decade. then they slapped us in the face, told us to shut up, and tried to make lemonade out of the bags of stale urine they dumped on our heads after they voted to give bush every damn thing he wanted without a single relevant concession on his part.

okay, that’s fine. nobody said politics wasn’t a dirty game. but no one said we have to keep paying for being mistreated and abused by the party that putatively represents our interests, either. so here’s my recommendation to you:

stop sending dems your money!

i mean it. stop all contributions. and after you do, send them emails or call them on the phone and tell them you will no longer contribute to any democrat or democratic organization or political action committee, ad nauseam, until they stop funding the iraq war. that’s what i am going to do with respect to the democratic national committee, the only democratic organization i contribute to on a regular (i.e., monthly basis). i send them a monthly amount via my credit card every month. but no more.

look, i understand that democrats can’t get much of their agenda, if anything, passed so long as george bush can veto their legislation. they can’t pas universal health care, for example, or a bill to start limiting our use of fossil fuels by putting caps on carbon emissions. they don’t have the votes to override a veto by bush. so i won’t hold them accountable for not passing much needed progressive legislation.

but funding the iraq war doesn’t require passing legislation. all it requires is not passing a bill to fund the war in iraq. or keep sending the same bill back to bush which mandates a withdrawal of us troops and make him blink first. but they couldn’t do that, despite the fact that 70% of americans disapprove of both bush and his handling of the iraq war.

so let them drink tea and eat cake without my hard earned dollars paying for their privileges. and without yours, and yours, and yours … etc. because maybe then they’ll finally take us seriously and pay attention when we tell them to:

support the troops — bring them home. now!

period. end of discussion.

we totally agree. and we have already begun to implement this policy.

both mr. and mrs. skippy have donated extensively (at least, for middle class people) to various dem candidates and organizations in the past. they have donated enough to be on several lists of suckers that give money which other organizations use to call and solicit funds.

just yesterday skippy received a call from the “democratic finance committee.” once the caller identified whom he was representing, skippy told him in no uncertain terms, “you guys really screwed up on the iraq funding withdrawl vote. i’m not giving you guys another cent until you get that right.”

and he hung up.

we strongly urge everyone to do the same. not only stop giving money to dem pols, like so many enablers spotting the drunk on the corner a dollar for “food,” but also let the candidates and organizations know exactly why the teat of free currency has dried up.

who’s with us?

ps. if you’d like the nifty “no $$ for dems” logo for your own blog, email skippy and he’ll send you the code!

blue girl of blue girl, red state, has helped to file a petition w/the federal court in dc in the scooter libby case:

just a few minutes ago, an amicus brief was filed in federal district court in washington d.c. petitioning for the public release of the pre-sentencing letters that were submitted to the court for consideration in the sentencing of i. lewis “scooter” libby. for once, the blogs are pushing back after being singled out by libby’s attorney for scorn and ridicule. two of the principals from right here at watching those we chose are proud and honored to be the named parties in this formal legal brief filed with the court, not just on behalf of ourselves, but more importantly, for all of the blogosphere.

bloggers across the spectrum did an incredible job covering and analyzing the libby trial. led by the groundbreaking work of firedoglake, with marcy wheeler and jane hamsher live blogging the trial in real time from the e. barrett prettyman courthouse, bloggers provided a level of coverage, opinion commentary and legal analysis that simply was not available anywhere else in the media, mainstream or otherwise.

bloggers clearly provided something the public craved as well, because the traffic at sites working the libby trial was off the charts during the trial. the efforts of bloggers were widely praised nearly everywhere, but are still clearly feared by the power brokers like libby and his enablers. it was important to fight back against the slurs of libby and his ilk, and we have.

bloggers are here to stay, and we here at watching those we chose are excited to be a part of this important effort.

always knew i would be a party to a federal case before i shuffled off this mortal coil – but i was thoroughly convinced i would be a defendant…

update: here is a link to the brief. sorry for the delay. (adobe difficulties…h/t to no quarter for posting that link as part of their post.)

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

by now everyone should be over their initial depression of the democrats selling out to awol’s war earlier this week.

tho we ourselves had high hopes that the dems had grown spines (indeed, there had been some reports of such skeletal formations spotted in the last few months), we were not at all surprised when the very people that were elected to stop the war in iraq pulled down their pants, bent over and said “thank you sir, may i have another?”

the majority of americans think things are going badly in iraq; the majority of americans think we never should have gone into iraq; the majority of americans support a timetable for withdrawl from iraq.

and yet, the democrats that america voted into office last fall gave up their fight to acknowledge and appease such majority views.

thanks, democrats. oh, and thanks, markos, for convincing us to vote for those democrats.
the brooklyn rail, reviewing crashing the gates last year, pointed out markos’ platform vis-a-vis progressives:

kos has repeatedly called for progressives to approach the party as a “big tent,” with room for positions that deviate from the ostensible party line on abortion, gun control, the death penalty, the environment–or the legion of “social” issues that the pundits argue have made it a pariah in many states.

and so we voted for anyone who had a big “d” next to their name…whether or not he or she actually believed in, not only what we believed in, but also in what he or she actually said he or she believed in.

in his quest to become the “not leader” of liberal blogs, markos banned jews, palestinians, feminists, and everybody who posts at my left wing.

yes, mid-ameirca can now read the daily kos without seeING the “f” word in the titles of diaries. and the right-of-center can rest easy that nobody will raise the ugly spector of issues like abortion or what really happened on 9/11.

but as a wiser man than we once said, “those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.” sure, there are numbers of great quantity in the middle, but the fire is along the edges of american politics.

bob fertik says today said last march [upon edit: sorry, we saw the word “march” on the screen, we accidentally read the word “may”] in his piece at democrats.com:

kos the impeachment koward just kondemned one of my favorite progressive bloggers, poputonian:

digby defends the iraq supplemental bill out of the house. this, on the other hand, is utter horseshit. there’s little worse in progressive politics than “holier than thou” purity trolls. they are just as destructive to the progressive movement as dlc trolls.

what did poputonian write to get kos so enraged?

poputonian quoted david swanson’s criticism of democratic house leaders for blocking a vote on the lee amendment, and swanson’s criticism of moveon for aiding and abetting that vote denial through their dishonest member “poll”…

so apparently if you agree with any of these points, kos believes you are a “holier than thou” purity troll who is just as destructive to the progressive movement as [a] dlc troll.

it seems that those of us fought to the end for the lee amendment have touched a very sensitive nerve by objecting to the manner in which it was killed by house democratic leaders and their allies in the “progressive” movement, most conspicuously moveon.

if moveon, sirota, and kos were mere spectators in that effort, their lies and vicious attacks wouldn’t make much sense.

could it be that some of our “progressive” allies were working with house democratic leaders in the runup to the supplemental to help them kill the lee amendment?

maybe poputonian unwittingly hit the nail on the head when (s)he wrote america: still an insider’s game?

and markos has tried like hell to become one of those insiders in that past months.

congratulations, markos.  you’ve made it.  the stephanie herseths, the jim webers, the john testers owe you a big, big debt of thanks for helping get them elected.

those are the guys who voted for the stripped down iraq funding bill, right?

now, we don’t think markos is to blame for the dems’ caving on the iraq funding bill (he is, however, obvioulsy responsible for the virginia tech massacre).

but we do think that his pointed efforts to “play to the middle” at the expense of actual convictions, plus his obvious work for getting anyone elected that claimed to be a democrat, is indicative of the core problems with the entire party.

the repubbblicans, for all their wrong-headedness, bigotry, selfishness and fantasy-world beliefs, at least have some beleifs.  we often (and lately especially) have come to think that the only thing elected democrats believe in is getting elected.

as to those who say the dems are acting just like the repubbbs, we ask:  does the name ralph nader ring a bell?

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

hillary.com wants us to vote for hillary’s theme song.  they’ve provided a list of suggestions to choose from.

we think it’s more appropriate to suggest our own nominations.  some examples after the jump:
for instance, sammy davis, jr:

or some elton john:

or ace of base:

and you knew this one was coming…bruce springsteen doing some mitch ryder and the detroit wheels:

any other suggestions?

ed. addendum: the editors at skippy have decided to make this a contest! the winner who suggests the best song for hillary’s campaign will receive a beautiful skippy the bush kangaroo tee shirt, size large, because that’s the size we’ve got left in the warehouse!

so put on your thinking caps and get snarky!

rush’s brownshirts swarmed to action yesterday, when sacramento station cbs13 dared to ask the question, is rush’s song “barak the magic negro racist?”

it only took a few words from the cbs13.com morning show cast to bring heated criticism from nationally syndicated radio host rush limbaugh. what brought it on? a question posed about a parody song that had been on the rush limbaugh show for the past month and a half.

…before today’s show, chris burrous, cbs13 anchor, says he read an article in a newspaper about a group who found obama’s song racist. after he read the article, he says he immediately went to his computer to listen to the song, but says he hesitated and felt like he should turn down the song because of a black co-worker nearby. this prompted him to pose the question to viewers of whether viewers thought it was racist. he asked the question on air and also posted a poll on the website asking the same thing. hours later, the poll was the focus of rush limbaugh’s show.

rush extolled his flying monkeys to stack the deck on the station’s website feedback page, and they simply asked “how high” when he said “jump.”

watch cbs13’s video about the story here.

if you can stomach, see for yourself. and why not add your own comment that says, “yes, he’s a jerk and racist!”??

remember, we have a partial list of rush’s advertisers w/contact info here for you to call and let them know if you think it’s a racist song or not.

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

we are tickled pink to blog about this important literary find, because the lucky writer involved is actually a personal friend of the skippy’s.  la daily news:

writer joel eisenberg was poring over some crumbling manuscripts at 3 a.m. when the bombshell hit.

he realized that the handwritten scrawl swimming before his eyes was none other than the missing draft of sweet thursday by nobel prize-winning author john steinbeck…

the cardboard box, found in the effects of the late “guys and dolls” producer ernest h. martin, contained the 188-page draft of sweet thursday, the lighthearted sequel to cannery row.

on crumbling sepia-toned pages, it also contained the unfinished draft of “the bear flag cafe,” an unperformed musical comedy collaboration with martin and partner cy feuer from which the novel emerged.

as if that weren’t enough, there were carbon copies of 13 steinbeck letters dated from 1953, the manuscript of the log from the sea of cortez, and a never-published short story, “if this be treason,” which described the mccarthy-era firing of a tv star investigated by the notorious house un-american activities committee.

the steinbeck trove, sorted and preserved by eisenberg, will be auctioned may 24 in san francisco. sellers expect the sale, auctioned in two lots, to fetch more than $500,000.

“i would say it might well be the steinbeck sale of the century,” said bruce macmakin, senior vice president of pacific book auction gallery, which is handling the sale on behalf of the producer’s widow, twila martin.

it couldn’t happen to a nicer, or more deserving, guy.  the skippy’s have had many a double date with the eisenbergs, as well as having attended their wedding, and have watched joel struggle (as all show biz hopefuls do) to make a name for himself.  he actually has written and produced several low budget features as well as published not one but two how-to show biz books (and is working on a third, for which skippy was interviewed).

we are big fans of literature, and of history, but we are especially big fans of skippy’s good buddy joel.  we offer him, and all steinbeck scholars and fans, a hearty congratulations!

remember, where ever they’s a large metropolitan paper dissing bloggers, we’ll be there!  where ever they’s gop meme oppressing the truth, we’ll be there!  we’ll be in the way watertiger writes her snark and we’ll be in the way dave niewert eviscerates bigotry…and when our folks have freedom for everyone and not just the select rich elite and we all can share in america…why, we’ll be there!