Bad American

What did you call her again?

Previous post on the C-word issue here

HuffPo

Holy Moley! This guy is a BAPTIST MINISTER and he just flat out asked McCain the question:

Q: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?

McCain: Now, now. You don’t want to… Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.

Now here’s the REALLY DISTURBING PART of this story:

Clive businessman Marty Parrish was escorted from Sen. John McCain’s town hall meeting by Des Moines police and members of the Secret Service after asking McCain if he had called his wife Cindy an expletive in 1992.

Free country anyone? Just for asking a question? The SS and the cops?

First of all let’s get this out of the way:

JOHN MC CAIN IS A COWARD. Answer the damn question John: yes or no. Did you call your wife a cunt?

After all the damn Republicans are all in a dither most of the time on the CHARACTER issue when it comes down to Democrats and ‘lib’ruls’ but they always give their guy a pass, eh?

Not surprising.

Second, if we live in a country where a Baptist minister can’t stand at a public meeting and ask a question that is in the public record, then, folks, we no longer live in a free country. Tell me, what was the harm to McCain other than embarrassment? What physical threat did Marty Parrish pose to the “War Hero?”

Hmmm?

From Keith Dinsmore’s take in HuffPo:

“This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a cunt?”

The room fell silent for several seconds while McCain adjusted his mike and started to answer: “Now, now. You don’t want to …Um, you know, that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t …. There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.”

As Parrish expected, a young male staffer began striding toward him, followed by a Des Moines police officer. They escorted Parrish out of the room and into the hallway, where a Secret Service agent questioned him for about 30 minutes, wanting assurance that Parrish had no intention of physically harming the Republican presidential nominee in the next room.

(You’ve GOT to be kidding me?!?! Of course this is intended to intimidate ANY other such questioner. This is the way people lose their jobs in this country - “oh, YOU were the one who asked that question and had to answer to the SS? I don’t want your kind in my employ.” So this REALLY is a act of BRAVERY unlike the coward McCain who won’t answer the question which goes to the heart of his character).

Parrish assured the agent that he had once worked on Capitol Hill and had received several security clearances. “I wanted them to know that I was acting out of a genuine concern for my country and my belief that a man whose temper often gets the best of him should be disqualified for the presidency,” Parrish said Thursday evening.

Schecter, the author who reported the McCain slur against his wife, saluted Parrish for “asking [McCain] to answer for his behavior.” He credited Parrish for ending McCain’s “media holiday on this subject” and praised the “audacious” Parrish for taking democracy into his own hands. The incident, Schecter says, has inspired him to start a series tracking McCain at the political blog firedoglake, where he reported on Parrish and the events in Des Moines.

And then this:

“The Secret Service agent made me promise not to show up at any McCain campaign events in the future,” said Parrish. “I told him that wouldn’t be a problem - I’d forgotten how boring Republican events are,” he added. “McCain had about 300 really old people today. When Obama campaigns here in the fall, there’ll probably be 15,000 people of all ages and backgrounds, cheering him on.”

It’s too bad he didn’t tell the SS man to go fuck himself but I suppose one could land up in Guantanamo Bay for that sort of thing nowadays in the so-called “land of the free.”

We get what we deserve I guess.

Where it began. . . I can’t begin to knowin’

(Oh man, the UPS guy just caught me listening to “If You Know What I Mean” and I find out HE’S a big fan too - we’re all coming out now!)

Some good news today if you’re a Sirius radio subscriber and you like Neil Diamond. And even more good news if you live in Cleveland.

Starting at noon today on Sirius channel 3 - Neil Diamond Radio!

And Monday morning tickets for Neil Diamond’s one night only Cleveland performance August 3 go on sale.

New CD out as well.

Tickets? Yikes! - not cheap. Tickets start at $55 and go to the stratosphere from there.

OK, I don’t know if this OK to admit now but I was a fan when it wasn’t cool for someone at my age to be a fan. What critics hated about Diamond I always liked - his overwrought, emotional, bombastic style (of the 70s I should add) which showed up in albums like “September Morn,” “Beautiful Noise,” “Serenade,” and the ever-reviled “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

I loved them all. It’s a schizophrenic thing to be such a hard ass realist on one hand and have such a sappy romantic musical side on the other. Perhaps it’s the hope side in me, I don’t know. If I ever need cheering up, I know who to listen to.

I last saw Neil Diamond at the old Richfield Coliseum back in 1984. Great show, especially the wonderfully bombastic “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.”

I know some of you are shaking your heads in disbelief right now - HE likes THAT? Yeah. I guess it’s the wonderful thing about being 45. You don’t have to worry about being cool anymore.

One of my earliest radio memories was hearing “Cracklin’ Rosie” on my dad’s transistor while waiting to go to school one morning back in 1970 on the old WKYC Radio 1100. And the vacation to Florida in 1972 hearing Song Sung Blue about fifty times.

And at old Municipal Stadium they’d play “The Good Lord Loves You” among other pre-game selections.

Eighth grade - Beautiful Noise; freshman year in high school - September Morn, a favorite of Larry Morrow in the morning on the old 3WE. And on and on. “Cherry, Cherry:” one of the quintessential songs of the sixties. And Neil Diamond wrote “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone” and “I’m A Believer” for the Monkees, in case you didn’t know.

I spent about the same amount of money to see Bruce Springsteen. Neil Diamond is one of my few ‘bucket list’ artists and I guess I’ll take my shot Monday morning.

In the meantime, one hour to Neil Diamond Radio.

William Blum in ICH

I could have wrote the first two sentences:

01/05/08 “ICH” – - “More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” — Woody Allen

Food riots, in dozens of countries, in the 21st century. Is this what we envisioned during the post-World War Two, moon-landing 20th century as humankind’s glorious future? It’s not the end of the world, but you can almost see it from here.

American writer Henry Miller (1891-1980) once asserted that the role of the artist was to “inoculate the world with disillusionment”. So just in case you — for whatever weird reason — cling to the belief/hope that the United States can be a positive force in ending or slowing down the new jump in world hunger, here are some disillusioning facts of life.

On December 14, 1981 a resolution was proposed in the United Nations General Assembly which declared that “education, work, health care, proper nourishment, national development are human rights”. Notice the “proper nourishment”. The resolution was approved by a vote of 135-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.

A year later, December 18, 1982, an identical resolution was proposed in the General Assembly. It was approved by a vote of 131-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.

The following year, December 16, 1983, the resolution was again put forth, a common practice at the United Nations. This time it was approved by a vote of 132-1. There’s no need to tell you who cast the sole “No” vote.

These votes took place under the Reagan administration.

Under the Clinton administration, in 1996, a United Nations-sponsored World Food Summit affirmed the “right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food”. The United States took issue with this, insisting that it does not recognize a “right to food”. Washington instead championed free trade as the key to ending the poverty at the root of hunger, and expressed fears that recognition of a “right to food” could lead to lawsuits from poor nations seeking aid and special trade provisions.[1]

The situation of course did not improve under the administration of George W. Bush. In 2002, in Rome, world leaders at another U.N.-sponsored World Food Summit again approved a declaration that everyone had the right to “safe and nutritious food”. The United States continued to oppose the clause, again fearing it would leave them open to future legal claims by famine-stricken countries.[2]