First let me be the nine thousandth person to reference the 1980s band Quiet Riot in reference to Barack Obama’s speech about brewing black quiet riots.

I do not know what created the blip a month ago.

What is a Black Quiet Riot? Is that a novelty politically-incorrect cover band, on par with the “midget Queen” bands? Perhaps with more… urban… inflections. The hippety and hoppety the kids are into these days, what with their… beat boxing. (As opposed to these spandex clad mullet-headed whiteys.)

Or Is it Quiet Riot … in black face?

I suppose the other idea is that a new band has come onto the scene (which scene, I would not know) who the critics feel compelled, or is being marketed as… “sort of a Black Quiet Riot”.
CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE?

Ugh.

Anyway, slightly more substantively, hearing Barack Obama’s speech on Quiet Riots, I couldn’t help but thinking of the outraged reaction from any number of people sitting on the couch, the type of people who thought that the LAPD were justified in beating up Rodney King, the type of person who have given Mark Fuhrman a talk radio show in Spokane. This amuses me. Discord!

( Go to “Randy Gets into Some Trouble on Wheel of Fortune”.)

This week the Willamette Week ran a cover story about strippers.  The cover featuring two long naked sets of legs pushes the product out of those boxes, I suppose.

I stalled at one paragraph, early on in the article, thinking it was missing a public disclosure:

While the local sex industry includes street prostitution, scores of escorts advertising on websites such as [blahdeblahdeblah.portland.com], and massage parlors known as “jack shacks,” the public face of the industry is most certainly the strip club. The metro area is home to at least 40 such venues, arguably more per capita than in any other city in the world. In fact, strip clubs are so common here that Portland doesn’t even boast a designated “red light” district—just about every neighborhood offers up access to “live, nude girls.” 

Scores of escorts advertising on websites such as…

Scores of escorts advertising on websites such as…

Scores of escorts advertising on websites such as…

Who does the Willamette Week think they’re fooling?  Is there any other place of note that scores of escorts are advertising?  Initials “WW”?

Ugh. An official Larouche organization — post-Larouche, with attempted contacts to individuals who quit long time ago — and perhaps any number of unofficial out of Larouche shadow organizations. The unofficial one:

I am hearing this advertisement from “Freedomworks” on KPOJ, Portland’s home for the bakrupt Air America network and some other liberal talk show broadcasting.  We could also refer to it as “Thom Hartmann Radio” based on its 6 hour Thom Hartmann spot of 6 am to noon.
This ad opens with the spokesperson describing himself as a right-winger, but “You wouldn’t believe what we have in common.”  And we go on to define a piece of legislation we all need to oppose because it will gut Oregons initiative process, and the Democrats and Republicans are opposing it to snuff the People.

And he provides names of the liberal lions that the typical KPOJ listener is supposed to sympathize with, the strange bedfellows in the room for this cause.  Two names that will nothing to you unless you either have Oregon ties or you run in the very distinctly defined political circles: Lloyd Marbot and Dan Meekes.  Fair enough.  I don’t know if they were properly contacted for this advertisement, or if they were added as a matter of course, but it makes sense.

But then our friendly “right-winger” adds “Even Ralph Nader” with the entreaty to remember how the Oregon politicians went out of their way to keep off the ballot, suggesting shenanigans upon shenanigans.

Ralph Nader is the star attraction of this appeal to the liberals.  By reminding the liberals listening of a cause that the liberals listening here were by and large complicit in: keeping Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2004.

There’s something a little off in the Freedomworks’ appeal, something to do with the disappearing vote total for Nader from 2000 to 2004, something to do with the evolution of the pro-Nader group “Billionaires for Bush and Gore” of 2000 to the anti-Nader group “Billionaires for Bush” of 2004, something to do with the odd opinion liberals have of Ralph Nader.

Well.  Good luck to it.

I was having trouble breezing my eyes through the Democratic debate to find the totality of Mike Gravel’s comments regarding Oil. I first stumbled upon this analysis from a professional pundit:

My vote for the least politically savvy statement from last night’s debate goes to former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who offered a tough-love approach for America’s pain at the pump: “There’s nothing I would do as president to lower the price of gasoline right now. We Americans have to grow up.”

Pandering is clearly not Gravel’s strong suit.

“Political Saavy” my asphalt. We have found the reason that the debates, 17 months out from the actual Election, need the Mike Gravels of the world. To keep at least one meaningful statement into the equation, meaningless equating to political saavy.

The rest of Mike Gravel’s statement to that question of what he would do about high gas prices — the answer is “nothing” — and more importantly, the hidden price of gasoline:

If we want to get off of the dependency in the Middle East, we have to own up to the problem. These things cost money. They’re controlling our society.

And the sooner we stop fighting these wars — here, stop and think. You only see $3. Just watch those wheels turn. There’s another $4, which is what we spend to keep American troops around the world to keep the price.

So you’re paying more than seven dollars a gallon; you just don’t know it.

I am reminded of an answer Eugene McCarthy gave to a question during his 1968 bid for the White House.  As written by Tom Wicker in a preface to a Eugene McCarthy book released in 1975, this passage comes to the old refrain about a gaffe being the telling of unwanted truths:

On the eve of the Democratic convention, when McCarthy still might have had a chance to be nominated, the Warsaw Pact powers invaded Czechoslovakia and put an end to the “Prague Spring”.  It chanced that McCarthy had a Washington news conference scheduled for the next day, and when it commenced, the reporters demanded to know what, as president, he would have done about events in Eastern Europe.

Nothing, McCarthy replied, in a few unexcited words to that effect.

Astounded, the reporters demanded to know why he would have done nothing, against every tradition of the Imperial Presidency.

Because,  McCarthy replied candidly, there’s nothing I could have done.  He went on to suggest that the lights that had burned late in the White House the night before, the agitated comings and goings of LBJ and his cohorts were mostly window dressing.  Johnson was not going to do anything either, could do nothing, but was making a great show of doing something anyway — managing the crisis, firing off cables, phoning up bureaucrats, solemnly briefing Senators.  When all that was finished, McCarthy observed, the Prague Spring still would be over and the Warsaw Pact in charge of Czechoslovakia — as they were, a subsequent fact which failed to dispel the outrage and disdain of reporters used to imperial bluster from every president back to Harry S Truman.

AMC was originally a premium cable channel that aired classic movies during the afternoons and early evenings, largely pre-1950s, in a commercial-free, generally unedited format. It was not uncommon for the channel to host a Marx Brothers marathon, or show such classics as the original Phantom of the Opera. In the early 1990’s, the channel shifted to a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week format.

The network has since dramatically changed its programming, shifting from premium to basic cable, emphasizing more recent movies, adding a new logo, with a lowercase a (seen above at right) and using a new slogan: “TV For Movie People.” With competitors such as Turner Classic Movies and Fox Movie Channel, AMC changed its format from a classic movie network to a broader movie network, airing movies from the 1970’s onwards.

That is what wikipedia has to say.  Jarring enough is this shift in definition of “classic”, but so far you can get away with it.  We no longer have a good outlet for, say, Joan Crawford movies, but there is something a bit interesting about, say, Smokey and the Bandit and the Blues Brothers — they are and have become “standards” and they fit a spry and lucrative demographic niche which older movies seem to be fading away from mass appeal as time goes on.
But the thing is…

Okay.  I watched the first hour or thereabouts of…

Catwoman…

On American Movie Classics.

Again with the Wikipedia:

Catwoman was poorly received, both critically and at the box office. The film appeared on the list of Roger Ebert’s most hated films. He criticized the filmakers for giving little thought to providing Berry “with a strong character, story, supporting characters or action sequences.”, but his primary criticism came from the failure of the film to give the audience a sense of what her character experienced as she was transformed into Catwoman.

MSN Movies ranks Catwoman as the third worst superhero movie to date, behind Batman & Robin and Daredevil.

You watch it in that ironic mocking manner, which is all good and well.  I am pretty sure that your thoughts when watching the movie will be nearly identical with my thoughts, as it seems created to throw softballs at your inner Tom Servo.
I check out the American Movie Classics website and see that, as I type this, they are airing Home Alone 3.  I actually did see Home Alone 3– under interesting circumstances (some Turks showed it — dubbed in in Russian — in Krasnoyarsk).  I bet you didn’t even know there was a Home Alone 3!  Maybe you can justify Home Alone or even Home Alone 2 (perhaps better still Home Alone 2, as its New York ambiance reportedly allows it to hold up pretty well), but I don’t know if you can do so for Home Alone 3.
So.  AMC.  What the “C” stand for?

I was thinking about something I saw at the National Journal rankings of who’s up, who’s down, who’s sideways for the Democratic party candidates.  (It, along with Dailykos’s, is an embarrassing guilty pleasure I seem to have decided to return to over and over again.)  Their description for Dennis Kucinich.  Regretfully they have updated their page, as per their 14 page cycle, which means I have to dig it out of google’s cache.  But here it is:

He’s been on an Iraq-oil kick, and it must frustrate him that no one is listening all that much. And it’s safe to say that Rep. Obey is endorsing someone else.

Coming a day after the fact — May 24 posting, This was in reference, in part, to what I guess I will call a stunt that Dennis Kucinich pulled, where on May 23 he… well, let his press release speak for itself:

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will invoke a rarely used House procedure today to discuss the privatization of Iraqi oil on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Kucinich plans to invoke a point of personal privilege under House Rule IX to respond to published remarks regarding efforts he has made to inform the House Democratic Caucus of the details of the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Act.
Kucinich will have one hour of time on the House floor in which he plans to explain why Congress’ insistence on benchmarks in the supplemental, which includes passage of the Iraqi hydrocarbon act, demands that Iraqis privatize their oil.

An important matter, that.  I half wonder if the Iraqi Parliament’s famed Vacation was in part to avoid being stuffed with the matter of tossing their oil forever and a day to the multinationals.  But nobody bothered to notice Dennis Kucinich.  Not least of which MSNBC, which is the host website for that National Journal rankings which reported on how nobody was paying much attention.

What came out of the debate yesterday?  Well, Mike Gravel said some things about the hidden price of gas that I sort of internalized back in high school which I used to get a couple of my teachers to roll their eyes in current event discussions on rising gas prices, back when the price of gas was rolling all the way up to a buck and a half a gallon.(*)  Ergo, on that basis alone, Mike Gravel won the debate.  With all of those five and a half minutes he received to speak.

Actually I probably ought not comment on these matters.  I haven’t had a chance to do my usual reading of the debate transcript.  I suppose I may better yet catch the redux CNN has scheduled for today, wherein they invite Clinton, Obama, and Edwards to do it the way they want it to be done: without those pesky others to placate.
Back to Kucinich and this strange situation where he is mostly ignored.  Another interesting matter are those there Iraqi Military Bases.  We have had a strange couple of weeks in terms of the sort of nauseating official discussion on the future of the Iraq War and future American plans therein.  Read back through the White House to news outlet stenography (ie: the slightly rewritten press releases that make up a type of news story that CNN, Fox News, and the rest always have their full share of), and you will see announcements that we may be pulling out right in the forseeable future.  They are Stepping up; We are stepping down.

And we are leaving humongous already irretractable military bases.  For…

We are going to treat Iraq as we do Korea.  The exact same situation is extent in both Korea and Iraq, apparently.  Entrance Strategy, remember, not Exit Strategy.

I mention Kucinich here because I am just going to have to hold my breath for Clinton, Obama, and Edwards — the proscribed Only Candidates that Matter — to mention such things.  Kucinich, I believe has and will.

(*) Actually my favorite game, and really I was treating it as a sort of cynically apathetic game, was two-fold:  pointing out the price of gasoline in most European countries,  And the costs of gasoline emissions which land into our health care system.  The military costs did not enter into my equation.