September 2009
“Someone with those kinds of misconceptions about gay people usually has misconceptions about straight people and particularly women…”
— Dan Savage
Listen
SONG OF THE DAY
My favorite Weezer song
“Susanne”
from the soundtrack to the 1995 film Mallrats
Senate panel rejects public healthcare option - Reuters →
reuters.com
Of course they did. We didn’t elect a democratic majority to the Senate in 2006 and 2008 to change things, we wanted watered-down versions of things proven to work in other countries to taken out of bills so we can have this horseshit.
Well, at least the Republicans aren’t in power because then all we’d have is a jerk off bill for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Hey, wait a second…
Ink Spots by Steve Coll →
newyorker.com
It’s almost like this whole Afghanistan thing could be trickier than we think…
Quotation Of The Day
We may be slow learners, but the rest of the industrial world has figured it out: Universal, single-payer or national health care systems. That’s the reason why all those other countries cover everyone, have better patient outcomes, cause no one to declare bankruptcy or lose their homes because of medical bills, and spend less than half per capita on health care than we do.
We could do it too, by reducing the starting age for Medicare from 65 to 0.
- Rose Ann DeMoro and Michael Moore
It's Still Not Too Late To Greet Us As Liberators - The Onion →
theonion.com
I guess some people just weren’t raised to say “thank you” for kind gestures.
Listen
SONG OF THE DAY
My favorite Beastie Boys song
“Sure Shot”
1994
"The Empire Of Boredom" →
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
I want our politics to be boring…sigh.
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“Let me just say that I’m always suspicious when I see articles about the motivations of journalists. I think they often reflect a misunderstanding of what journalism is all about. Journalists are supposed to be assholes. The system does not work, in fact, if society’s journalists are all nice, kind, friendly, rational people.
You want a good percentage of them to be inconsolably crazy. You want them to be jealous of everything and everyone and to have heaps of personal hangups and flaws. That way they will always be motivated to punch holes in things.”
” — Matt Taibbi
A Tale Of Two Countries By Andrew Sullivan →
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
An excerpt:
“Westerwelle is now the world’s leading non-leftist gay leader. His politics are eclectic: for example, he favors removing the last American nuclear weapons from Germany. He came out formally five years ago. The Germans paid no mind.
Meanwhile, in America, there are almost no openly gay politicians, and one major party seeks to marginalize and disenfranchise gay people, stripping them of all relationship rights, and running ad campaigns focused on the “threat” that openly gay couples pose to schoolkids.
The other party, while offering lip service to gay equality and being disproportionately financed by gay donors, enforces the federal ban on gay soldiers, refuses to repeal the law that requires the federal government to treat gay couples as strangers to one another, and has no openly gay people in any but minor roles in government.”
Listen
SONG OF THE DAY
My favorite Joy Division song
“Warsaw”
from the 1978 EP An Ideal For Living
“Transferring from a sleek, quick, quiet, smooth light rail train to a dirty, slow, smelly, herky-jerky bus was a good reminder why buses are the preferred mass transit option for people who don’t ride and don’t intend to ride mass transit. Trains are fixed and they’re more expensive, but they incentivize leaving your car at home—or forgoing a $50 cab ride—by providing smoother rides and faster trip times than smelly, claustrophobic, stuck-in-traffic buses. On the train you can actually relax and enjoy your trip in a way you just can’t when you’re hurtling along in traffic in a private car or crawling through traffic in an airless bus.”
— Dan Savage
Listen
SONG OF THE DAY
My favorite Beach Boys song
“God Only Knows”
1966
Film Of The Day
Soldiers Of Conscience
2008
directed by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg
A description from PBS:
“Made with official permission of the U.S. Army, this film transcends politics to explore the tension between spiritual values and military orders. In telling the stories of both conscientious objectors and their critics, the clash of views reveals a surprising common ground: all soldiers are “soldiers of conscience,” torn between the demands of duty and the call of conscience.”
Click here to watch the whole thing.
“There’s no higher exertion of your freedom than to follow your conscious” - Camilo Mejia, one of the veterans profiled in the film.
