The Transformer Tried.

"29-Dec 1970 Governor Winthrop Rockefeller commuted to life sentences all 15 men on death row."  From Smith's Alternative Arkansas History 
They don't seem to be making Republicans like this anymore.  It's ironic that the very type that he fought ended up controlling the Republican Party that he helped birth.

This is the 2nd Anniversary of Barbara & Jim's 25th

I tried to get Jim to sing at least the chorus of Hard Dog, as he used to sing it to her:

"I give you my love and I give you my money

but you've got the feelings of a fence post honey.

I don't hold a grudge I just carry a torch.

You're a hard dog to keep under the porch."

He won't let me record it but Gail Davies does a pretty fair job. 

A Celebration of Life by The Sultry Sirens of Sin.

Arkansasyers and Those from Off-Properly Pronouncing Arkansas is Not Only The Right Thing to Do. It's the Law.

Arkansas Code 1-4-105. Pronunciation of state name. Whereas, confusion of practice has arisen in the pronunciation of the name of our state and it is deemed important that the true pronunciation should be determined for use in oral official proceedings. And, whereas, the matter has been thoroughly investigated by the State Historical Society and the Eclectic Society of Little Rock, which have agreed upon the correct pronunciation as derived from history and the early usage of the American immigrants. Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final "s" silent, the "a" in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable with the sound of "a" in "man" and the sounding of the terminal "s" is an innovation to be discouraged. Concurrent Resolution No. 4, Acts 1881, p. 216 "

Thanks to Dr. Stephen Smith for his "Smith's Alternative Arkansas History" including the post for December 21st which included inter alia: 

21-Dec 1940 William Roberts and Bill Griffith arrested for distributing religious magazines Watchtower and Consolation without a city license or occupational tax under Hot Springs Ordinance 559. 

21-Dec 1944 Little Rock City Council demands to know why an indecent "hootchy-kootchy" show was allowed to operate at 114 W. Markham St. for several months before finally was closed by police.  

21-Dec 1984 Arkansas Supreme Court affirms jury award of $20,850 against Wal-Mart for false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress of Katherine Yarbrough. 

21-Dec 1998 Arkansas Supreme Court rules that Attorney General Winston Bryant has standing under the Freedom of Information Act to request withheld records of Governor Mike Huckabee's hokey complaint hotline." Thanks also to Gale Wingate who asked Dr. Steve if there was “a law about pronouncing Arkansas as anything other than Arkansaw not Arkanasan" and again to the good doctor for providing the answer.

Perspective

Many have made fun of Kim Jong Il in the last few days.  Many others feel profound sorrow at his passing.  Why is there such a difference?  Racism is always a possibility.  Political differences also play a role.  I fear, however, that the big difference is because of the information we do or do not receive.    North Koreans hear or read only what the government allows.  Most of that was propaganda praising Kim Jong Il.
We have freedom of the press guaranteed by our constitution, but so does North Korea.  Are we better informed than they?  I think so.  We get more than one side of things.  I fear though that the cowardly nature of much of our main stream media dooms us to merely hear propaganda from the several sides.  See, Gross Failure of the Media by Cenk Uygur
Our commercial media don’t want to offend advertisers.   They, therefore,  merely parrot what each side is saying.  This practice can cause our decision making to be based on platitudes, and sound bites made by partisan talking heads.  As a result, we often vote against the best interests of ourselves and our country.

Putting Christ Back In Christmas.

Thanks to Bob.

Thanks for Your Insight and Indignation Christopher.

Christopher Hitchens made us think and made some of us plumb mad.   Here are two representative views:

 "Christopher Hitchens died yesterday at M D Anderson in Houston. Now, is there anyone left to tell us the truth.  Some have said he forever raised our level of indignation about the autocratic belief systems of the world.  I sadly suspect  Nikki Giovanni (my favorite poet) is correct when she says 'willful ignorance will overpower indignation every time.'” Young Art

“Jesus has finally killed Christopher Hitchens. The delay resulted, not from lack of provocation, but from chronic absentmindedness.” Mrs. Betty Bowers

We May Become Slim, But You'll Still Be an Ass.

Merry Christmas to Cowboys & Cowgirls.

Lynn, Dena, Sheila, Martha, Le Ann, Annie, Jane, Myra Belle, Sissy, Delores, Bonanza, Debbie, Heather, Shelby, Gloria, Dale, Mike, Lefty, Roy, Gene, Rowdy, Gil, Augustus, Woodrow, Butch, Sundance, Jack, Wylie, Slim and Tex are some of the best.

Did Santa Claus Kill Jesus?

Christ is in large part out of Christmas.  That may be better than tarnishing the message by associating it with a holiday which is too often one celebrating consumerism & greed.  Take it away Kinky . . .

Prorsus Man Still Lives

There are two different species of human on the planet. People like these, who understand reality and the human adventure it implies and the rest of humanity, self absorbed and insistent upon living in a world of mythology and dogmatic beliefs. Prorsus man has been pulling humanity forward, while ignarus man, while hanging on for such benefits as are forth coming, does so with heels dug in all the way.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/science/tantalizing-hints-but-no-direct-proof-in-search-for-higgs-boson.html?_r=1&src=tp&smid=fb-share

America - A tyranny of ignorance manipulated by money

I think it is terribly interesting how our current political state has come about, in which one party has become completely addicted to manipulating the insanity referenced in the humors quiz below, bringing the nation to a state of policy paralysis through political polarlization. This has come to pass not as the result of premeditated intent, but merely incidental to the process of money seeking its own interest in the political arena – Adam Smith’s invisible hand of greed at work, only delivering political perspectives rather than goods and services. 

A two generation Cold War struggle against “godless communism” laid the indoctrinal groundwork for the transformation. Though long since discredited as a realistic economic concept, laissez faire economics is the polar opposite of central planning. The commies were atheistic central planners.  America was blessed by God and believed in "the free market". In this way free market economics became a form of religious dogma in the minds of a certain demographic, a divine revelation presumed to be inherently flawless and beyond human improvement. That America had not ascended on laissez faire economics, that totally free markets hardly ever exist in reality, or the fact that total central planning does not work does not mean that none is desirable, have, under the incessant propaganda of moneyed interest exploiting this cold war artifact, been lost over the heads of those most offended by the secular aspirations of communism. The upshot, laissez faire economic theory has effectively been married with a populous pseudo American christianity to form a mindset ignorant of the inherent contradictions.

For this demographic, the flag is not a political symbol but a religious icon. America has overtly become the new promised land and Americans (at least white ones) the new chosen people. America’s military, supported by her indomitable free market economy, is the righteous hand of the lord. Her empire the cross she must bear as part of our divinely ordained destiny to suppress the unbelievers and support Israel until the apocalypse comes. God has made some men wealthy to provide the rest of us with work, we must not tax them unduly. The state has taken our children’s prayers away, provided schools that defy our bible, condemned our prejudices through its courts, seeks to marry our children into homosexual relationships, and otherwise lends itself as a tool of evil liberalism/humanism, which are just relabeled socialism and not so far from communism. Intellectuals are the carriers for all this evil and therefore can't be trusted.  


In its core form this strange theocratic construct that construes enlightment to be evil, is held only by a few. However, as the sun’s influence extends vastly beyond its physical self, so to does this nonsense taint a larger demographic. To the extent that we act as if this state of affairs is natural, and inevitable we perpetuate it. Sarcasm, is one useful tool for its condemnation. Whoever put this together is doing great works.

One can only hope that as America stumbles around in its current darkness it will come across the torch of the enlightenment that it carried for humanity to such great effect for its first two hundred years and upon that rediscovery will come to realize that ignorance itself, in alliance with and empowered by the interests of money itself, are what has been pulling it down; the same forces that have held most of humanity down for most of human history, forces uniquely rejected by the founders as evidenced by the quotations in this little piece and inherent in the constitutional prohibition regarding church and state. 

This alliance of greed and ignorance has brought a tyranny upon the nation, it is the road block to the future. Forgive me if I render too serious something so light but there is often humor in tragedy, enjoy: http://www.bettybowers.com/founding.html

Labor is the superior of capital

Alan Grayson scores yet again!

"What Lincoln Said, 150 Years Ago Today."

During my two years in Congress, I heard an awful lot of speeches. Some of them were delivered by some of the finest public speakers in America today – like Barack Obama, Neil Abercrombie, John Lewis, Anthony Weiner and Alcee Hastings. But none of them was as profound and poignant as the one that I’m about to share with you. It was delivered to a Joint Session of Congress by President Abraham Lincoln, exactly 150 years ago today. The focus of the President’s speech was, of course, the Civil War. But President Lincoln took a short detour, and with a few bare sentences, he summed up an issue that remains with us to this day.

This is what President Lincoln said to Congress, to America, and to us:

"It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

“Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights."

If I were still in Congress, I would have repeated President Lincoln’s speech on the Floor of the House this week, in the same spot where he rendered it 150 years ago. “Labor is the superior of capital.” And we must not “place capital . . . above labor in the structure of government.” Thank you, Mr. Lincoln. If I had to sum up my job as a Congressman in 25 words or less, that would do it.

I realize that for a statement as profound as this one, it is “far beyond [my] poor power to add or detract” (as Lincoln himself said, two years later, at Gettysburg). But I’ll try anyway, recognizing that “the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say.

I find it startling to read something like this, and realize how timeless these battles are. As the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” (“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”) In fact, you can hear echoes of Lincoln’s words in what Elizabeth Warren said just ten weeks ago: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.”

Now, admittedly, capital is wealthier, better organized, and far more powerful today than it was in Lincoln’s time. Capital gorges on Republican tax cuts for the rich, on bailouts, on government contracts and corporate welfare, on free money from the Fed, and on monopoly profit. Capital treats politicians and whole political parties like puppets. Capital creates and perpetuates a system where Labor is unemployed, where Labor is in debt up to its eyeballs, where Labor cannot see a doctor when ill, where Labor is pitted against Labor. There probably are plenty of well-meaning people who realize this, throw up their hands, and say, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

And then there are us. People with a head, and a heart. People who want to occupy Wall Street, occupy K Street, and occupy America with the simple concept of justice for all. People who understand that the very fact that this fight has been going on for 150 years or more, and will continue after you and I are gone – that very fact – makes this a fight that is worth fighting for.

And gradually, things do get better. I know, I know -- two steps forward, one step back. But then two more steps forward.

Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming.

When Lincoln spoke, 150 years ago today, his time was the twilight’s last gleaming. And today, you can see the dawn’s early light.

Can you see it?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Paid for and Authorized by the Committee to Elect Alan Grayson

8419 Oak Park Road, Orlando, FL 32819

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It Don't Get Any Bettern This.

This culinary delight was Thanksgiving dinner for Kim & Cecil.  For dessert, the Pokes won 20-19 on a last second field goal.