Do Re Mi Redux ¡O Si!

To everybody with a brain who flees the newly seceded Deluded States Of Dumbfuckistan who might head our way - Bienvenidos, amigos, and take the hint about what you're headed into from this highly unusual version of Woody Guthrie's cautionary song to refugees from the Dust Bowl by SoCal homeboy Ry Cooder. A song whose time has come again, perhaps.

Ry Cooder and the Chicken Skin Band play 'Do Re Mi' (written by Woody Guthrie) live at Shepherd's Bush Television Theatre, London in 1977.

Band Lineup: Guitar, Vocals - Ry Cooder, Alto Saxophone - Pat Rizzo, Drums - Isaac Garcia, Bass - Henry 'Big Red' Ojeda, Bajo Sexto - Jesse Poncé, Accordion - Flaco Jimenez, Vocals - Eldridge King, Terry Evans, Bobby King

Thanks to Honeyboy Walter, UK.

Hell On The Highway

Edgar Allen “Tow” Stratton chains up his ‘03 379 Peterbilt during a March 28 snow event while Jonathan Berman catches every move. Stratton's company Dependable Tow will be featured in National Geographic's documentary “Hell on the Highway,” airing Wednesday nights.

I just threw the photo in because I've known Edgar for 30 years.

"Hell On The Highway" is the somewhat overblown title of a new TV show on NatGeo TV on Wednesday nights. Story in our local fishwrapper, the Sierra Sun from yesterday.

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Winter rages across Donner Summit, 100 mph wind gusts blow Pacific storms of blinding snow that ravage the 7,240-foot pass on Interstate 80 above Donner Lake. The brutal storm systems dump an average snow accumulation of 415 inches yearly — the 2010-11 winter a massive 700-plus inches, with 250 inches still piled high on May 23, 2011.

Who better to capture the trials and triumphs of keeping the pass open for travel and commerce than National Geographic, airing the 10-part documentary “Hell on the Highway” Wednesdays at 10 p.m.?

“We are telling the story of the men and women in tow trucks, Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol who fight the snow every winter to keep Donner Pass and I-80 open,” said Conal O'Herlihy, line producer with America's Star Media, an outfit that creates award-winning documentaries, such as “Deadliest Warrior.”

“An element to the story is how vital I-80 is, not just to California, but to the nation. WalMart sends 250 trucks over the pass each day,” O'Herlihy added.

Swell. Not to mention the rest of the nation's commerce, the Chinese gambling tour buses, anybody and everybody who has business or pleasure east of Northern California, most of whom can't drive a lick on snowy roads. That includes a lot of truckers. One big rig on its side up there can stop the whole fucking nation! Heh.

Caltrans Superintendent Bryan Carlson, who worked in South Lake Tahoe for 29 years and now manages the Kingvale station, gave the camera crews a taste of local snow removal life. “I put them in the seats with operators — snow blowers, graders, sanders — to give them an overview of what we do,” said Carlson. He joked about the public perception that Caltrans doesn't “do anything.” If you got a look at the substation, you would be impressed with what goes on October through May. A 90-room dorm accommodates a 24/7 staff, with kitchens for crews pulling 12-hour shifts and a staggering 200-plus employee payroll. It's a nerve center of operations evaluating and staying ahead of winter storms.

Episode descriptions here. Check your local listings.

We live here and have better sense than to go over Donner Summit under bad storm conditions, so this is an interesting show for us.

By the way, there's a difference between Donner Summit and Donner Pass. Donner Summit is a geographical area of several square miles. I-80 passes through it. Donner Pass is just that, a pass through the mountains. It lies along old U.S. 40 and also passes through Donner Summit. The terms are often used interchangeably. You can get stuck in the snow there whatever you call it.

Cpl. Aaron Mankin: "Our Story"

I was a Marine Corporal too, but this young man has me outranked and outclassed by a mile. He speaks with passion and good humor. This made me mist up.

Cpl. Aaron Mankin spoke at IAVA's Sixth Annual Heroes Gala on Tuesday, November 13th in New York City. Aaron, IAVA's 2011 Veteran Leadership Honoree, is an Iraq Veteran and spokesman for UCLA's Operation Mend. Visit IAVA.org to learn more about how you can support vets like Aaron: http://iava.org

Thanks to IAVAVids.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

An old favorite.

Thanks to JasonKT.

Fantasyland

Things to do this morning. I'll be back later. In the meantime go read Daddy Frank's latest feature article. Teaser:

[...] Such is the conservative version of history that when the website Right Wing News surveyed 43 popular conservative bloggers to determine the “worst figures in American history” two years ago, Jimmy Carter, Obama, and FDR led the tally, all well ahead of Benedict Arnold, Timothy McVeigh, and John Wilkes Booth.

Headline of the Day

Liquid alert!

White House scrubs petition to ‘punch Grover Norquist in the dick’

Heh.

Quote of the Day

From a Rude post entitled "Republicans Are Some Sour Grape-Sucking Sons of Bitches" which you should go read for some more of the fun we've earned by having to listen to that twit and legions of other Repug dickheads:

We didn't just dodge a bullet by denying the presidency to this preening ass, this mock Thurston Howell, we dodged a fucking missile.

Word.

Update:

TPM

The Republican critics of Mitt Romney have had enough of their party’s failed presidential nominee.

My God, after 30+ years of disagreeing with those bastards on everything, something we agree on! Mind boggling...

Their reasons are different from ours so I doubt if we'll be giving each other wet kisses and sharing warm showers with them anytime soon.

Headline of the Day

Barbour: We’ve got to give Republicans ‘a very serious proctology exam’

Heh. With a telephone pole. Mind your head or pull it out first, GOP!

Shopping Day

See yas later.

The Confederacy of Takers

Dana Milbank brings up the best reason to let the whiny-ass Red states form the world's newest third-world nation.

President Obama’s opponents have unwittingly come up with a brilliant plan to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” They want to secede from the union.

If Obama were serious about being a good steward of the nation’s finances, he’d let them.
...

Red states receive, on average, far more from the federal government in expenditures than they pay in taxes. The balance is the opposite in blue states. The secession petitions, therefore, give the opportunity to create what would be, in a fiscal sense, a far more perfect union.
...

Yet would-be rebels from the red states should keep in mind during the coming budget battle that those who are most ardent about cutting government spending tend to come from parts of the country that most rely on it.

Unfortunately, we'll be here when you come crawling back, bitches.

Twilight of the old white guys

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on 21st Century America.

Is it not the most astonishing thing? The country is not getting any whiter, older white bigoted people are helpfully dying off, and we now have a messy and nearly incomprehensible Catherine wheel of assorted nonwhite minorities (and women) all spinning, dancing and surging into the limelight – not to mention the cross-breeds, the already mixed, the racially unidentifiable who are, say, a quarter black, a quarter Chinese, a quarter Indian, a third polyamorous and a tenth Cuban kinky hipster lesbian schoolteacher, with a no-religious-affiliation kicker. Sweet.

This is your new American majority, each and every one of whom terrifies the old guard, the rich white guys, Ted Nugent, Bill O’Reilly, and the way it used to be. And this is why the Republican party threw every repulsive weapon it had at Obama to try and avert the inevitable; deep down, they sensed their own imminent obsolescence, even if they didn’t quite believe it was possible.

And oh, they tried everything. Racism. Birtherism. Sexism. Abortion, birth control, “legitimate rape” and irresponsible “sluts.” Religious intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, Socialism, Communism, Nazis, Kenya, monkeys, Big Bird, gun rights, tax laws, welfare, elitism, oil shortages, health care reform that would secretly herd up and kill the elderly. Just for starters.

Nothing worked. Check that: It all worked. Just not as well as it used to. As one distraught fundamentalist Christian activist said, “It wasn’t that our message didn’t get out. We got the message out. But our message was rejected.”

Only because your message sucks wet monkey ass and folks finally got sick and tired of it.

Read the rest of this. Good one, young Mark.

And by the way, not all of us old white men are scared of The Other. They're here, they're black and brown and queer. We're all children of whatever gods there are or aren't. Enjoy it or live in misery and rightly so. Your call.

Clowns laugh neo-Nazis outta the joint

Kos. Go see this. My take on one part of it:

Hate was on the agenda the day the Neo-Nazis came to town. They came to Charlotte, NC from Detroit & joined with the National Socialist Movement to drum up support for the creation of an alternative third party based on its platform of white supremacy.

I think that's a great idea! When they have their convention we can get 'em all with one round.

They've Lost Their Fucking Minds Again (Limbaugh Edition)

The Rude One. Will no one put this wounded walrus out of its misery? That would help my happiness quotient too.

Think of radio host Rush Limbaugh at this point as an old, wounded walrus, lying half on the rocks of an Alaskan island, half in the water, bellowing sadly into the Arctic night, waiting to be finished off by either a polar bear or a killer whale, its blubber being enough to keep other beasts warm for the entire approaching winter
...

"When Democrats lose elections, do they ever say, 'You know what? We may have to give up this gay marriage position of ours and sort of abandon that. We may need to stand up for traditional marriage.' Do the Democrats ever say that when they lose elections? No. After the Democrats lose elections, do they ever say, 'You know, I think we've got to abandon this effort to shut down Second Amendment. We're gonna have to understand it. We're really out of touch. We're alienating our voters who love guns. We're gonna have to become big advocates of the Second Amendment'? Do Democrats ever say that when they lose elections? Do the Democrats, after they lose elections, all run to the media and start agonizing over where they're going wrong?"

Limbaugh went on like that yesterday, asking if Democrats ever think they need to cut taxes when they lose, or if Democrats ever think about toning down their "rhetoric," or, horror of horrors, "Do Democrats, when they are losing elections, ever blame their media?"
...

This is going to be one strain of Republican reaction: don't abandon the program - it is good and right - just sell it better. That's like saying that you didn't get syphilis because you like to bang whores without a condom, but because you chose the wrong whorehouse. Oh, hey, let's try fucking across the street and see how that works out. Not only does it not occur to you to use protection, but you can't see that perhaps you shouldn't be banging whores at all.

Here is the message you need again and again: it is what you believe. And it is how you relate to the world. Democrats went right in the 1980s and 1990s. Republicans went further right to differentiate themselves, so far that they went out the door.

And now a few conservatives are saying, "Perhaps we've gone too far." And a fat, decrepit bastard whose ability to pay alimony depends on whipping up more and more hatred is demanding that the reflection end before it begins.

Enjoy the war, GOP. You've earned it.

Fuckin' A they have. I don't know if they're going to enjoy it, but I sure as shit will.

No comment...

...other than snicker, snort, and chuckle. Heh. With video.

Raw Story

Oh, the irony...

Better late than never. Ironic Times.

Some in Congress Not Worried About Fiscal Cliff
Jan. 1, 2013 “eleven days after Mayan apocalypse,” says one.

Washington, Colorado Legalize Marijuana
Sara Lee stock soars, Coors calls it quits.

Post Mortem: Republicans Blame Loss on Vicious Name-Calling, Demonizing
“I can't believe Americans chose a foreign-born Muslim with a Communist agenda over a real American who tells the truth,” says one.

Romney Victory Website Accidentally Goes Online After Election
Some supporters book flights to attend inaugural.

Heh. They're gonna wonder who the colored kid in the warm-up act is.

This is so much fun to watch!

Right wingers careen into craziness to explain Obama's victory

President Obama’s reelection has caused right-wingers to become completely unhinged. They are purple-faced and apoplectic, convinced that an ignorant horde of government-dependent social leeches has destroyed traditional America and banished God from the country.

Not a huge step. Their hinges were kinda squeaky and loose to begin with. Heh.

All the usual suspects. Enjoy yourself. Go read.

This is a necessary self-deception. Otherwise, conservative crazies would have to face an inconvenient truth: On election day, a majority of real Americans rejected them.

The crux of the biscuit. I hope they choke on their fuckin' snake oil.

Headline of the Day

Texas Republican Wants State To Leave U.S. Over Obama Win

¡Adios, pendejos! Don't hitcherself in the culo with the puerta on the way out.

Fat fuckin' chance. More wackadoodle sour grapes. Heh.

The Blame Game

I suppose I'll get over it but right now I'm purely enjoying the shit outta all this! Remember, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.

Thanks to YubaNet.

They haven't quite figured out yet that they lost because:

A) Their whole fucking message sucked wet monkey ass and not enough voters over the Dead End Quarter, who'll fall for anything that satisfies their prejudices, were stupid enough to fall for it .

B) An extremely poor candidate. Better than the rest of their primary lops, who were enough to keep a few Repugs out who could have won.

C) Demographic arrogance. Grumpy old white men ain't enough anymore.

I doubt if they'll figure it out. They're not very good at looking in the mirror. Too much reality in reflection. I kinda hope they double down until none of them are left.

Rove's Last Ride

From my Facebook page via Teabonics.

From "comments":

"It's not the frog march I was hoping for, but it'll do."

Yes, yes it will. Heh.

The "inside baseball" war is getting underway. Excellent! From Politico:

Richard Viguerie, a pioneering direct-mail consultant, called for Republicans to purge from their ranks Rove and Ed Gillespie — who helped found Crossroads and later moved over to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign — as well as Romney advisers Stuart Stevens and Neil Newhouse. “In any logical universe,” he argued, “no one would give a dime to their ineffective super PACs, such as American Crossroads.”

I love the smell of sour grapes in the morning!

Is the conservative media killing conservatives?

Hopefully. Salon. Barf alert!

Liberals like me have spent a lot of time in recent years mocking conservatives for the silliness of their media, wherein Steve Doocy is a star, Sean Hannity is an insightful analyst, and Rush Limbaugh is a brave crusader for truth. Beyond the jokes, we’ve talked a lot about the pathologies produced by the self-reinforcing worldviews propagated in the conservative media ether. One of the key features of those media, and what differentiates them from partisan left media, is the way they talk about the rest of the media. Liberals may like to watch MSNBC, but if you watch MSNBC you won’t be reminded ten times an hour that everything you see in your newspaper or on another television station is a vicious lie concocted by conservatives to deceive you as part of their plan to destroy the country you love.

But that is what you’ll get if you watch Fox, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or consume many other kinds of conservative media. It’s not just a diet of information congenial to your beliefs; it’s also a message of distrust of any other source of information that isn’t explicitly conservative. Which is why it’s not in the least bit surprising that many conservatives were so shocked by the results of Tuesday’s election; if you’re soaking in that rhetoric, the idea that a majority of American voters could voluntarily choose to give Barack Obama—the socialist, the foreigner, the apologist, the black nationalist—another term in office makes no sense whatsoever. It cannot be.

Yeah, oh the horror! Heh. Suck it, bitchez.

[...] But perhaps it’s time to look at the conservative media as a weakness, even the right’s Achilles’ Heel.
...

The next four years will be boom times for conservative media; it’s always good for business when your enemies are in power. They will continue to infuriate liberals. But the next time you see Fox propagating some absurd fantasy of Barack Obama’s perfidy, or see Limbaugh and Carlson ramping up another episode of race-baiting, remind yourself that they’re probably doing the most harm to their own side.

And that, folks, is a good thing.

The Weight

I saw this on ACL last night. It was a tribute to Levon Helm. Terrific. Article here.

Saving the best for last, the episode ends with an emotional “supergroup” performance of “The Weight.” The song may be familiar, but the lineup is pretty rare, featuring Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar, Larry Campbell on acoustic, Booker T. on keys, and a handful of powerhouse singers — including Emmylou Harris, Amy Helm, Brittany Howard, Teresa Williams, and the Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard — on vocals. It’s a moving tribute to the late Levon Helm, and you can watch it here, two days before it hits TV.

Well, not here you can't. Heh.