Month: May 2011

Lazy Memorial Day Weekend Pasta

by tristero

As many of you know, I’ve taken up cooking in a big way – I enjoy it so much that it’s difficult to remember that it has political and cultural implications. With those squarely not in mind (grin), I offer the following recipe for a very simple pasta dish I made up last night and which I think you might like. The recipe is informal: I initially wrote it up for a cooking friend of mine. Anyone with even rudimentary cooking skills should be able to follow it.

It has some interesting techniques, a combo of stuff inspired by Bon Appetit’s amazing cacio e pepe and something I saw Giada do on tv – don’t laugh, she’s a damn good cook. Anyway, have fun and if you’re so inclined, post critiques, variations, etc.

Perciatelli with garlic, cherry tomatoes, pecorino, and Parmigiano

30 minutes max start to finish.

Get a box of Perciatelli, which is a thick, round, hollow pasta. The advantage is that it has a long al dente window, so if you’re off by a minute or two – a disaster with spaghetti – it doesn’t matter.

Dice up some garlic, 2 or 3 cloves (or more), using a microplane, grate about a 1/2 cup pecorino and a 1/2 cup parmigiano (it’s not as much as it sounds; use 1/3 cup of each if using a normal grater), and wash a couple of handfuls, say 8 to 10, of ripe cherry tomatoes but don’t split them.

Put on some water to boil for the pasta. At the same time, heat a skillet on medium. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add the garlic and lower the heat so it cooks slowly and doesn’t burn. When it starts to brown add the cherry tomatoes, whole. Turn heat up to medium or so. Cook the tomatoes/garlic, stirring occasionally.

Now, the pasta pot should be up to a boil. When it is, add more salt than you can stand (literally, a small handful) to the water and bring up to a boil again.Then toss in about 1/2 a box of the perciatelli (8 oz). Set a timer for 3 minutes below the recommended cook time (ie, if the package says to cook for 11 minutes, set the timer for 8 minutes).

While the pasta cooks, have merry fun squishing the tomatoes open with a spatula. They should literally pop apart from the heat and the pressure (don’t we all). Stir tomatoes and juices with garlic, season with lotsa pepper and maybe a little salt (maybe not) and maybe some crushed red pepper.

When the timer goes off, scoop up a cup or so of starchy, salty pasta water and pour about half of it into the pan. Reserve the rest. Turn the heat on the sauce pan up to high. Drain the pasta (don’t wash or cool) and drop about 1/2 to 2/3rds into the sauce pan. Or put as much as you like of it into the sauce, so it balances nicely. Add the pecorino and at least a tablespoon of cold butter (straight from fridge). Toss it all together with tongs and get the sauce a’boiling. Keep tossing.

After about 2 to 3 minutes, most of the pasta water should have boiled off.  Check that the pasta is al dente, then take the pan off the heat, add the parmigiano and 1 more tablespoon cold butter. Toss with tongs until butter melts. If the sauce is a bit thick, add a touch more pasta water to loosen it. Don’t add too much, though: it should be viscous, not thin.

Serve immediately. You will die happy.

(But if you’re still alive, the left-over pasta will make a nice frittata in the morning. Just scramble 1 egg, add the pasta so it gets coated lightly with egg. Fry up with a little oil, salt, pepper, and maybe garlic).

Week-end Read

by digby

If you only have time to read one thing this week-end, this is the piece: How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory.

In the fable Ailes tells about his own life, he made a clean break with his dirty political past long before 1996, when he joined forces with Murdoch to launch Fox News. “I quit politics,” he has claimed, “because I hated it.” But an examination of his career reveals that Ailes has used Fox News to pioneer a new form of political campaign – one that enables the GOP to bypass skeptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion. The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.

The result is one of the most powerful political machines in American history. One that plays a leading role in defining Republican talking points and advancing the agenda of the far right. Fox News tilted the electoral balance to George W. Bush in 2000, prematurely declaring him president in a move that prompted every other network to follow suit. It helped create the Tea Party, transforming it from the butt of late-night jokes into a nationwide insurgency capable of electing U.S. senators. Fox News turbocharged the Republican takeover of the House last fall, and even helped elect former Fox News host John Kasich as the union-busting governor of Ohio – with the help of $1.26 million in campaign contributions from News Corp. And by incubating a host of potential GOP contenders on the Fox News payroll– including Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – Ailes seems determined to add a fifth presidential notch to his belt in 2012. “Everything Roger wanted to do when he started out in politics, he’s now doing 24/7 with his network,” says a former News Corp. executive. “It’s come full circle.”

Take it from Rush Limbaugh, a “dear friend” of Ailes. “One man has established a culture for 1,700 people who believe in it, who follow it, who execute it,” Limbaugh once declared. “Roger Ailes is not on the air. Roger Ailes does not ever show up on camera. And yet everybody who does is a reflection of him.”

This is the most in-depth article I’ve read on Ailes and it contains quite a bit of information I’ve never head before. For instance, did you know that he’s deathly afraid that gays are trying to kill him? Oh, and Al Qaeda. Too.

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More tasers for everyone!

by digby

You all will recall the Sand Francisco transit officer who “accidentally” executed a citizen when he allegedly grabbed his gun instead of his taser, right? Well, evidently, the transit authority has decided the problem is that there just aren’t enough tasers around:

The issue of officers’ training and familiarity with Tasers was raised by lawyers for former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last year for fatally shooting unarmed passenger Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009. Mehserle admitted that he shot and killed Grant after responding to a report of a fight on a train but claimed that he had meant to use his Taser.

Mehserle’s lawyers said Mehserle hadn’t been properly trained to use a Taser. They said that since Mehserle didn’t have his own Taser — the one he was carrying was borrowed — he wasn’t very familiar the stun guns.

BART staff members stated in their report that Tasers “are an important less-lethal-force option that officers can use when lethal force is not required.” BART spokesman Linton Johnson said the transit agency will get the new Tasers before the current fiscal year ends on June 30.

Johnson said BART previously had a voluntary policy under which officers could choose whether to carry Tasers, but now all officers will be required to carry Tasers once they get proper training on the devices.

No word on whether or not they will be trained not to use guns or tasers on people who are handcuffed and in custody as Mehserle’s victim was. Somehow, I have a feeling that’s not going to be addressed. Tasers, after all, are harmless devices that don’t leave any marks so how could there be anything wrong with using them whenever a police officer wants to?

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Pro-life = Pro-torture

by digby

Gosh I’m so glad the culture wars are finally over and we can all relax and finally deal with the important stuff. Kate Sheppard spells out how great it all is:

According to the Guttmacher Institute, more than 900 anti-abortion measures have been introduced this year alone in state legislatures across the country. At the federal level, House Republicans have advanced legislation that attempted to redefine the meaning of rape for the purposes or abortion law and sought to whittle down the already-narrow exceptions in which federal funds can be used to pay for the procedure.

The good news is that most of them haven’t taken effect yet. The bad news is that this is what we can expect:

So far, only Nebraska’s fetal-pain law, which passed in 2010, has taken effect. The others are expected to be implemented next year. But already women have been affected. Thirty-four-year-old Danielle Deaver of Grand Isle, Nebraska, told The Des Moines Register the painful tale of how, at 22 weeks, her water broke prematurely. The fetus, she and her husband learned, wouldn’t be able to develop lungs and would die at birth. But because of Nebraska’s new law, Deaver’s doctor would not perform an abortion. Instead, she had to wait to give birth, then watch for 15 agonizing minutes as her underdeveloped baby slowly slipped away—an experience Deaver described as “torture.”

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Smell Test

by digby

Palin pretty much took over the Rolling Thunder tour this morning and said “I love this smell! I love the smell of these emissions!”

She looks cute. Naturally, half the guys who were interviewed said “she can ride my Harley anytime.” The women were more impressed about her deep commitment to Veterans.

Fox is covering it obsessively.
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The Blight of the Roundtable

by digby

As I’m watching all the conservatives on Meet the Press this morning (and so far the only one who might not be called one is Chuck Shumer — the rest are Mitch McConnell, Alex Castellanos, David Brooks, Harold Ford and Ruth Marcus, vacuous Villager of the year) I would think that all elderly people should probably be extremely worried that they will be barred from going to the hospital next week because Medicare has gone belly up.

But we’ve heard this all before. Thanks to Think Progress tweeting this week-end, I was directed to this post at Health Beat:

You may have seen the headline: “DIRE FORECAST SPARKS NEW MEDICARE DEBATE TRUSTEES’ REPORT USED AS FODDER FOR POLITICAL SALVOS BY BOTH SIDES,” but the date may come as a surprise: June 6, 1996.

At the time, the Chicago Tribune warned its readers: “Medicare trustees reported Wednesday that the program’s financial outlook is getting worse, touching off a new round of debate over the future of the federal health insurance system for the elderly and disabled. According to the trustees, who give the program a fiscal checkup every year, the fund that pays Medicare hospital bills dipped into the red last year and will go broke in early 2001. That’s a year earlier than they predicted in 1995.”

Sound familiar? How about these warnings:

Chicago Tribune July 2, 1969: “The Medicare hospital trust fund faces bankruptcy by 1976 and taxes must either be raised or benefits reduced the senate finance committee was told today.”

Washington Post, April 1, 1986: “The Medicare hospital insurance program faces bankruptcy by 1996, two years earlier than projected last year.”

New York Times, January 20, 1985: In the last few years, when it appeared that the Medicare trust fund would run out of money in 1987-89… But the need seemed less urgent after the Congressional Budget Office issued new estimates last September indicating that the Medicare trust fund would not go bankrupt until 1994.

(Hat tip to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn who culled eighteen stories from the Tribune, the Washington Post and the New York Times over a period of four decades, each predicting that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Fund was teetering on the brink of disaster.)

But of course Medicare didn’t “run out of money” in 1994, and it won’t go belly-up now, in large part thanks to health care reform legislation. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) raises and saves over $950 billion. (Below, I spell out how the legislation generates those dollars). In the process, as the Medicare Trustees’ Report 2011 points out, the ACA reduces Medicare spending “by 25 percent”—without cutting health benefits, or shifting costs to seniors.

More changes will be needed, but Zorn is relatively optimistic. After citing the many times we have been told that Medicare is careening toward bankruptcy, he recalls the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Zorn acknowledges that “just because officials and politicians have been predicting Medicare’s imminent bankruptcy for more than 40 years doesn’t mean that one day they won’t be right, but, more likely,” he suggests, “we will turn the knobs and twiddle the dials in order to keep the overwhelmingly popular program solvent, but not so solvent that, between five and 12 years from now, another set of politicians won’t grimly inform us that it’s going under in between five and 12 years.”

The good news is that nobody was watching this vapid, braindead Meet The Press this morning about the immediate deficit catastrophe because I don’t think I’ve ever had the misfortune to see a bigger load of pompous Villager pap and GOP propaganda in one place.

I don’t think I’ve never seen one this bad, seriously:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sample of the verbal compost:

Gregory: So, Ruth Marcus, what wins here, bold leadership on Medicare and the argument that the Democrats won’t do something courageous or the Democrats who say, hey, those guys want to take away my medicare?

Marcus: I regret to inform you that I think it’s the latter. And I think when you were asking Senator Mcconnell if medicare was the new third rail of American politics, I think the question was wrong in a sense, because it’s the old third rail of American politics.

This play has been run time after time. If you go back and look at the quotes from president Clinton, back when he needed to win re-election, they sound a lot like the quotes from Democrats today about don’t let those republicans take away your Medicare. The difference is that the debt is bigger, the deficit is bigger, the gap is bigger, and the situation is more dire. but i think that, sadly, the lesson of New York 26 is Mediscare works.

Gregory: The question, David Brooks, is whether there is going to be a deal before they raise the debt ceiling on medicare and what that looks like. Senator McConnell wouldn’t say it, but he’s certainly not backing the Ryan plan. he’s not going to go to the map. if you don’t whip up the vote in the senate, that’s not going to the mat. it’s letting your members vote. it would be something different than what Ryan is talking about.

Brooks: Right. If you ask Americans, should we cut Medicare to help end and reduce the deficit, 70% say no. So that’s pretty strong. That’s what happened in New York 26.

I agree with Ruth’s analysis on that. So, what do Republicans like Mitch McConnell do? They can do a couple things. one of the things that would be useful is to cut a deal that includes Medicare, to have dramatic fingerprints on a Medicare reduction plan, which would be good for the country.

And by getting the Democrats involved, then that would reduce that as an issue. Then what they have to offer is tax increases on the rich. now, would the Democrats take that up? I’m not sure. and frankly, I don’t think it’s likely, but that’s what the Republicans need. [oy vey…]

I think it’s much more likely that we’ll have really a fudge deal on the debt ceiling, a deal of a government shutdown problem this year and a very large chance of some sort of fiscal crack-up within the next couple years.

I was up on Wall Street this week. I know more about political risk than they do. They are vastly underestimating the source of political risk here. We could have a major problem, I think, either this summer or the next couple of years, and I’d be worried about investing too much in the market. That’s my financial advice.

Marcus: Luckily, the market’s closed.

Gregory: Harold, what about the issue of timidity? It’s ironic that what Newt Gingrich said out loud on this program about right-wing social engineering and don’t do the Ryan plan is what a lot of republicans were saying privately, of course. then here’s Bill Clinton giving ammunition to the Republicans by saying to the Democrats, don’t be timid here. Don’t go to the old, you know, Mediscare tactics. Do something courageous. Is that going to happen?

Ford: I hope. The efforts under way by Joe Biden, by the great vice president, defined some compromise.Oi’m a believer after watching President Clinton in the last few days that perhaps if they get close to a deal, President Obama might ask President Clinton to come back in and convince some of the Democrats that this is the right thing to do. I was most encouraged, though, by McConnell this morning. He backed away from standing so firm and steadfast with Ryan, suggesting strongly that he’s ready for a deal, and even listening to Chuck Schumer this morning. He talked with more specificity about where they would go. So, it’s obvious we’re moving in a direction where Democrats a few weeks ago said no Medicare.

The Village consensus is that Medicare must be cut and that Democrats are using the same old “scare tactics” by telling their constituents that such cuts will affect their lives. (None of the people in that roundtable need to worry about such things themselves, of course. They are all wealthy celebrities who will be just fine.)

Meanwhile, Wall Street doesn’t understand what’s really happening and doesn’t realize that Armageddon is around the corner and will KILL US ALL IN OUR BEDS — TAKE YOUR MONEY AND RUN! (Presumably, Brooks is “advising” all of his rich friends to buy gold now, just like Glenn Beck.)

These people are demented. Medicare must be slashed and anybody who doesn’t agree is a coward and a fool. But we are supposed to believe that the Corporate Parties of America are prepared to bring down the global economy out of a surfeit of fiscal rectitude and the corporate and financial elites who own them are too silly to understand it (unlike the very, very savvy Mr Brooks) and are completely without resources to stop it. This is considered to be a serious position.

Update: Do watch the whole show if you can stomach it. It’s all shockingly bad.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

SIFFting through cinema, Pt. 2

By Dennis Hartley

The Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing, so over the next several weeks I will be bringing you highlights. Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. SIFF is presenting 441 films over 25 days. That’s great for independently wealthy types, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s tough to find the time and energy that it would take to catch 17.6 films a day (yes-I did the math). I do take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality offerings (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for films most likely to be up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.) Hopefully, some of these will be coming soon to a theater near you. So-let’s go SIFFting!

Another Earth is a “sci-fi” film mostly in the academic sense; don’t expect to see CGI aliens in 3-D. Orbiting somewhere in proximity of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, its concerns are more metaphysical than astrophysical. And not unlike a Tarkovsky film, it demands your full and undivided attention. Writer-director Mike Cahill’s auspicious narrative feature debut concerns an M.I.T.-bound young woman (co-scripter Brit Marling) who makes a fateful decision to get behind the wheel after a few belts. The resultant tragedy kills two people, and leaves the life of the survivor, a music composer (William Mapother) in shambles. After serving prison time, the guilt-wracked young woman, determined to do penance, ingratiates herself into the widower’s life (he doesn’t realize who she is). Complications ensue. Oh-the “sci-fi” part? On the night of the accident, a duplicate Earth was discovered (doppelgangers!). Assuming “they” discovered “us” (or vice-versa) simultaneously, scientists postulate that synchronicity was broken at that instant. Kind of leaves the door open for second chances-or does it? I’m not telling. See it yourself (it opens in August)-and prepare to have your mind blown.

Bruce Lee, My Brother looked (on paper, at least) like it could have been this year’s Nowhere Boy; the portrait of a pop culture icon as a young man growing up in a port town, and culminating on the eve of international fame and fortune. I realize that comparing John Lennon and Bruce Lee is sort of like apples and oranges-but I think you catch my drift (everybody has to start somewhere, and all that). Co-directors Manfred Wong (who also wrote the screenplay) and Wai Man Yip based their biopic on the memoir of Lee’s younger brother Robert (although it is interesting to note the disclaimer in the opening credits that disavows any endorsement by or participation with the Bruce Lee estate regarding this project). Not that the film necessarily dishes any dirt. In fact, it’s a relatively tame, by-the-numbers affair, recounting young Lee Jun-fan’s formative years growing up in Hong Kong (he was born in San Francisco, but his acting-troupe parents were not U.S. citizens). For a movie about someone who went on to become one of filmdom’s premier action movie superstars, there’s very little action. Still, it’s slick and entertaining (if short on insight) and leading man Aarif Rahman plays his role with verve.

Gainsbourg: a Heroic Life is another biopic that looked intriguing on paper-but I’m sorry to be a party pooper and tell you that it contains scant little to recommend it. So who was Serge Gainsbourg? He was an odd little homunculus who was a so-so painter, questionable poet and inexplicable pop music icon (well, in France). Nonetheless, he apparently had babe magnet kavorka (he bedded Bardot and wedded English supermodel Jane Birkin, with whom he co-created what I consider his Greatest Hit-the leggy and talented Charlotte Gainsbourg). His music career was largely built on the success of one tune-“Je t’aime…moi non plus”, featuring Birkin essentially feigning an orgasm at the denouement, over an organ riff suspiciously similar to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (surely paving the way for future seduction mix tape staples like “Love to Love You Baby” and “Jungle Fever”). Star Eric Elmosnino bears an uncanny resemblance and chain-smokes Gitanes with conviction, but director Joann Sfar seems more enamored with his own cinematic technique than with his subject; it’s an impressionistic study that barely makes any impression at all. I now can only pray that a Rod McKuen biopic isn’t in the works…

The Trip is the latest from eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, The Road to Guantanamo). Pared down into feature film length from the 6-episode BBC TV series of the same name, it is essentially a highlight reel of that show-which is not to denigrate it, because it is the most genuinely hilarious comedy I’ve seen in many a moon (genuinely hilarious “comedies” are such a rarity these days). The levity is due in no small part to Winterbottom’s two stars-Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, basically playing themselves in this mashup of My Dinner with Andre and Sideways. Coogan is asked by a British newspaper to take a “restaurant tour” of England’s bucolic Lake District, and review the eateries. He initially plans to take his girlfriend along, but since their relationship is going through a rocky period, he asks his pal, fellow actor Brydon, to accompany him. This simple narrative setup is basically an excuse to sit back and enjoy Coogan and Brydon’s brilliant comic riffing (much of it feels improvised) on everything from relationships to the “proper” way to do Michael Caine impressions. There’s some unexpected poignancy as well-but for the most part, it’s pure comedy gold.

Killing Bono is a darkly funny, bittersweet and thoroughly engaging rock ‘n’ roll fable from the UK, based on a true story. A cross between Anvil: The Story of Anvil and I Shot Andy Warhol, it revisits familiar territory: the trials and tribulations of the “almost famous”. Dublin-based writer/aspiring rock star Neil McCormick (Ben Barnes) co-founds a band called Yeah! Yeah! with his brother Ivan (Robert Sheehan) right about the same time that their school chum Paul Hewson puts together a quartet who call themselves The Hype. The two outfits engage in a friendly race to see who can get signed to a label first. Eventually, the Hype change their name to U2, Hewson reinvents himself as “Bono” and-well, you know. In the meantime, the McCormick brothers go nowhere fast, as the increasingly embittered and obsessed Neil plays Salieri to Bono’s Mozart. There are likely very few people on the planet who know what it feels like to be Pete Best (aside from Pete Best)-but I suspect that one of the players in this particular drama knows that feeling-and my heart goes out to him (no spoilers!). Nick Hamm directs a wonderful cast, which includes a fine swan song performance from the great Pete Postlethwaite (R.I.P.).

Trollhunter is the latest entry in the fake “found footage” genre, and if it ever catches on as a cult phenom, it could very well leave The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield in the dust (if you’re into that sort of thing). Like its predecessors, it features an unremarkable, no-name cast; but then again you don’t really require the services of an Olivier when most of the dialog is along the lines of “Where ARE you!?”, “Jesus Christ, look at the size of that fucking thing!”, “RUN!!!” or the ever popular “AieEEE!”. Seriously, though- what I like about Andre Ovredal’s film (aside from the surprisingly convincing monsters) is the way he cleverly weaves wry commentary on religion and politics into his narrative. The story concerns three Norwegian film students who initially set off to do an expose on illegal bear poaching, but become embroiled with a clandestine government program to rid Norway of some nasty trolls who have been terrorizing the remote areas of the country (you’ll have to suspend your disbelief as to how the government has been able to “cover up” 200 foot tall monsters rampaging about). The “trollhunter” himself is quite a character. And one thing to remember while hunting trolls…leave the Christians at home!

The Thief of Bagdad: Re-imagined by Shadoe Stevens with the music of E.L.O. was one of those film-going experiences where about halfway through, I was kicking myself in the ass for not having had the foresight to do a Marley-sized bong hit before leaving the house (I suspect that Mr. Stevens came up with the idea after doing a few Marley-sized bong hits himself). Since the wordy title doubles as a synopsis, all I need add is that this is the 1924 silent version, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks as the wily thief who steals the heart of a beautiful princess. Stevens (a venerable L.A. radio personality) was at the screening, and recounted several decades of tweaking to find a perfect contemporary soundtrack. So does it work? Well, I’ve never been a huge E.L.O. fan (IMHO Jeff Lynne’s a talented guy who has a tendency to “over-arrange” his songs into a sonic wash), but I’ll be damned if it ain’t a marriage made in heaven between over-produced chamber pop and overwrought silent film histrionics. I’m not sure if it’s headed your way, but in the meantime, you can always amuse yourself with the old standby. You know…watching The Wizard of Oz while listening to Dark Side of the Moon (*exhale*).

D.H.

The last poet

By Dennis Hartley

Gil Scott-Heron 1949-2011

Gil Scott-Heron passed away yesterday. He was a true artist in every sense of the word; musician, poet, social observer, provocateur. He was also a man with a troubled, troubled soul. And like a true artist, he bared that soul for all to see. He never tried to cover up the fact that he struggled with drug addiction (which I strongly suspect is what ultimately did him in); in fact as I write this I am listening to my favorite album of his, Pieces of a Man, specifically the song “Home is Where the Hatred Is”, where Scott-Heron confesses:

Home is where I live inside my white powder dreams
Home was once an empty vacuum
that’s filled now with my silent screams
Home is where the needle marks
try to heal my broken heart
And it might not be such a bad idea
if I never, if I never went home again

But the work wasn’t all about myopic self-pity and junkie laments-far from it. He made equally fearless and blunt observances concerning those things that seem perennially fucked up about America’s socio-political milieu (in this respect, he had his work cut out for him). While he could get you righteously riled up with pointed, insightful raps like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, “B-Movie”, and “Winter in America”, he could also offer beautiful, lyrical messages of hope and healing, like “I Think I’ll Call it Morning”, “Save the Children” and “Lady Day and John Coltrane”. For me personally, his most timeless song (and one that never fails to make me tear up) is the haunting title track from “Pieces of a Man”. Everything about it is so “right”; Scott-Heron’s heartbreaking vocal, Brian Jackson’s transcendent piano arrangement, the great Ron Carter’s sublime stand-up bass work, and of course, the pure poetry of the lyrics. R.I.P.

D.H.–

*technical problems required Dennis to post under my account. — digby

Switch hitters

by digby

Republican office holders don’t often switch to the Democratic party anywhere, but it’s almost unheard of in recent years in the South. Even more interesting about this one, is the issue that made him switch:

Chalk up another Democratic win this week: Alabama State Rep. Daniel Boman, who entered the legislature as a Republican in November, is switching parties to become a Democrat after he says the GOP went too far in attacking teachers in the state…From the Tuscaloosa News:

Boman, a 36-year-old lawyer from Sulligent, said Wednesday’s vote on a bill to change the state’s tenure and fair dismissal laws for educators convinced him he was in the wrong party.

Republicans are walking into a minefield with these attacks on teachers. Everyone’s had them. many of us are related to them. Most of them, at least in the lower grades, are women. Turning them into the enemy is going to turn many millions of people against their own families.

Once again, I’m struck by how the Republicans have run out of ways to Obfuscate their real agenda. People aren’t liking it much once they realize that they have finally met the enemy and apparently it is them.

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Oklahoma Crude

by digby

I have my doubts as to whether the Justice Department will actually pursue the Ensign charges. After all, they already have John Edwards to kick around and it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make a habit of this sort of case. Too many glass homes could be broken. But the main reason I doubt it will go anywhere is that it is connected to that freaky religio-political cult The Family and for reasons that have never been adequately explained, that just seems to be an off-limits topic, despite the fact that it is weird beyond weird.

Still, it might just be having an effect on the career of one particularly powerful Republican and I couldn’t be happier to see him hobbled. The illusion that he’s some sort of fair dealer is very dangerous in a system where Democrats are all too eager to latch on to anyone who can give them cover to go along with the conservative wrecking crew.

Sen. Tom Coburn roundly dismissed the bombshell ethics report involving former Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) sex scandal, which portrayed the Oklahoma Republican as an intermediary trying to negotiate a seven-figure settlement between Ensign and his mistress’s husband.

“That’s a totally inaccurate characterization of what happened,” Coburn said on a taped interview of C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers,” which is set to air Sunday. “What the story you hear is not an accurate reflection of what happened.”

[…]

Coburn and Ensign lived together at a Christian townhouse on Capitol Hill in Feb. 2008 when Doug Hampton — just two months after Ensign’s extramarital affair with his wife Cindy Hampton began — asked Coburn to help bring the relationship to an end. Coburn was unsuccessful in at least two attempts to do so.
[…]
In the C-SPAN interview, Coburn said he simply passed along the message to Ensign. He also said the Ethics Committee has not contacted him since he testified before the panel earlier this year — and he had no regrets about his role in the episode, saying he would do “exactly” the same thing again.

“We put two families back together with multiple children — both marriages are stable right now,” Coburn said. “I’m proud of what I did and the way I did it. There’s nothing unethical about what I did.”

Cindy Hampton, however, has recently filed for divorce, the ethics report said, while the Justice Department indicted Doug Hampton for breaking federal lobbying restrictions in the wake of the Ensign scandal.

One of the most bewildering questions in recent years is how Tom Coburn came to be considered some sort of wise man and statesman who can be counted upon for good advice and counsel. President Obama always talking about him as if he were some special GOP sage who had real insights to offer.

This guy:

The Republican Senate candidate in Oklahoma warns of “rampant” lesbianism in some schools in the state in a tape released Monday by his Democratic opponent. The remark by Republican Tom Coburn drew a skeptical response from state educators. “I don’t believe that,” said Keith Ballard, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. He said the group’s attorneys “haven’t said anything to me about that.” In the tape released by the campaign of Brad Carson, the Democratic candidate, Coburn says a campaign worker from Coalgate told him that “lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that’s happened to us?” Joe McCulley, school superintendent in Coalgate, chuckled when asked about Coburn’s remark. “He knows something I don’t know. We have not identified anything like that. We have not had to deal with any issues on that subject – ever,” McCulley said.

I know the standards have been drastically lowered, but this person is a full-fledged nut.

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