Paul Mooney -- American Rakugo

I loved rakugo, Japanese comedy monologuing making ample use of facial expressions, practiced by comics celebrating their quirks. Big ears. Long face. And such. And yet, some of those comics are very handsome but know how to use their faces to create thousands of Kabuki masks... Their faces add many dimensions to their comedy. I thought Paul Mooney did that. Along with excellent writing. Loved the portraits I saw.

It's All About the Hunting, this Recycle Shopping

I've hunted up hundreds of fabulous jewels, and suits, and books and textiles and household goods that others have given away. I think I'm recycling, but are we enabling by giving goods a second life? Second and third, I recycle the recycled as well.

But I mean that the sport of recycled shopping is all about the hunt. Never sure whether you'll find exactly what you need, so you adapt to that which you find and find more that is ever so charming or useful or quirky and humorous somehow.

For this Escaped Nun, the objects are the dear friends. Those who created these things and floated them around in their circle before taking the treasures down to the local thrift shops. And the shopping itself is something of a sport. The custom is to pat oneself on the back when a treasure is found-- so if I'm low, it's a quick hit. Good consumer. Well done. Great selection. Those are the operative phrases, employed on TV shopping to boot. I find the TV items second hand on eBay. Don't know if scanning would be considered a sport -- guess that would be a kind of video game.

The Boutiques of Bohemians, our thrift stores are. I see my fellow hunters in their unorthodox enchanting attire here and there on our bus routes. Boho shops for older generations. We take our chances and have accumulated more inventory.

There's much more to say in this category. Will augment in time.

Virtual Remote Control Conversations in Multiple Universes

I've been over at the other one, you see. Can't keep up the simultaneous virtual chatter it seems. Diving in here or hopping about over there. Here we are to review how the new experiences unfold. How these new worlds of self disclosure feel as I unravel within them.

I'm still slow at dashing off opinions in a repartee. While I'm thinking of how best to word a particular response, the thread has proceeded several stages hence. I drop my line and dash away and return minutes later to check for replies to reply to. I think the 1000+ posters rattle the text out there and may keep a few threads going on different browser tabs.

I've almost reached 500 posts over there. Snuck a lot of them into existing threads. That made me feel safer but I still agonized over this wording or that. Even though I'd be tucking a comment into a thread that would slink beneath the horizon. Limited self disclosure under an assumed name making me quake like that. Must seem odd to the I.M. kids.

Say I.M. to me and the next word is Pei -- you must mean the architect.

But really they've probably got a couple of IM windows flashing even as they toss comments into the pool on one blogsite and the next.

Mudslinging in a Virtual City I Love

I had decried the HRC team's race baiting in a virtual city I love and gradually became aware of another kind of slur being slathered about -- anti-Appalachian snickering and classist slander, showing pictures of poor people, laughing at their attire and lack of teeth. A tad creepy to have the perfect healthy lovely ones slandering the chronically depressed. So I slipped some comments into the site and a fellow denizen quoted my words beneath a brazen thread title of their own. And said they hoped I didn't mind. Here's my reply.

Actually I was sort of shocked by the headline you used. I get afraid that our internal squabbles will be picked up by unfriendly sites. So calling out the controversy with such a bold headline would not have been my choice. I'll tuck my critiques into ongoing discussions. Because I'm embarrassed to see fellow democrats slinging stereotypes at one another. Tried not to notice that before. Sorry to learn it's an ongoing trend. Hope it's just a temporary aberration. Hope we can shake it off. Si se puedes !

I thought we were at least trying not to insult one another as people, but to debate various means of reaching our shared ideals. I thought more of us Democrats would have read or heard the stories collected by Studs Terkel of great American characters and heroes from all across our country. They'd know there are Democrats in all kinds of terrain and communities that share our aspirations. That we have a lot of in common that we want to get on with -- we share the need to address environmental and public health care emergencies and to shape more efficient self-defense services, less privatized, more accountable to the people, and more actively respected for their service. And we all want funding for the arts – each community has its own musical heritage to cherish. We know we’ve all got to wise up quickly together to address major problems we ourselves have created and to fashion less destructive ways of being.

Joking about other cultures is an art it takes comedians years to perfect -- and that usually happens after they've learned to love certain aspects of each culture they mock. It's almost self-deprecating then, because they've listened enough to empathize with the group they're teasing. I saw Robin Williams live recently and that's what he had managed to do. Brilliantly teasing many cultures yet showing threads of admiration for each throughout his routines. Shimmering.

Careless callous bullying is no fun at all. I want to say -- Cut it out guys. There are people all over who are quite wonderful. Yes, there are the opposite. But we need friends all over. Let's look for them. Much more fun! Si se puedes.

Five Funny Females-- Fun and Fab Friday night

Susan Alexander put together a fabulous show of at the Purple Onion Friday Night. I saw the 8pm show. Hard to read the names of the comics on the teeny ticket. She really assembled a wonderfully diverse group -- great mix of styles ! I'll look them up and update this post.
Susan Alexander, MC was first. Then pint-sized Lilibeth Helson, joking about her height and cross cultural issues as part Japanese-Filipina-African American. She did some great impressions of her mom, too. Then tall, slim, very pale Caitlin Gill did a great low key self deprecating yet empowering routine. Then plus sized rosy white Millenial Chris Burns joked about being a recovering anorexic, who had done social work here and in Africa. Then Dhaya jumped onto the stage in her boys' dept. jeans and joked about being a pint sized egghead Indian American, and their image among US minority groups. I didn't realize Engelbert Humperdink was Indian; she asked us to imagine how embarassed to be Indian he had to be to hide out with that name. Then the brassy and totally fun Dana Lovecchio joked about a whole range of topics, including being Italian American. She did the longest set, as the one with the most experience, I think.

My Elite are Better Than Your Elite

Republicans want elite to mean -- YOU TALK PERTY.
GWB from Kennybunkport, legacy admission to Yale, moved to Texas, threw on a cowboy hat and talked regler and folks wanted to have a beer with him. So he wasn't a damn elite. Got it? He was guvner but that's cuz people liked him. Just don't show your college and you'll do okay

What makes someone elite? Apparently not your circumstances, like GWB of Kennebunkport.
Throw on a cowboy hat and talk kinda reglar like and you're there. The Beer Guy !! Talk nice with lots of syllables and you're a damn elite !

Is Alito an Elito ?

How elite do you have to be to call your opponents The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism? Elite denizen William Safire gave the phrase to Spiro Agnew to say. Those were the old Republican days. The new days came along with Grandpa RayGun promising wealth would trickle down if revenue were transferred to the SuperRich. When nothing trickled down and jobs were shipped out and some big unions were busted, the new anti-elite movement was born. Got resentments? The elite did it. Their damn programs for the damn poor. Gotta cut those programs to fund the attacks on those elitist liberation theologists in Central and South America. Gotta get the Polish Pope to condemn those liberation theology proponents-- too elite for the peasants? (And the Pope did it by the way.)

Think tanks were created to encourage attacks on intellectuals and to promote miraculous thinking. Life is broken somehow-- pray for a miracle. Defund government then curse its inefficiency as an affliction foisted upon the regular people by the damn elite. Too cool !!

And don't forget how Newt Gingrich taught modern Republicans to use language and distributed word lists for their use. (Here's an excerpt. Find the FULL STORY with the famous word lists at : http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1276)

In fact, the new speaker of the House--who once described his goal as "reshaping the entire nation through the news media" (New York Times, 12/14/94)--has given a great deal of thought to the media and how to manipulate them. One Newtonian axiom is "fights make news." (Boston Globe, 11/20/94) Another skill he has taught to Republican candidates through his political organization, GOPAC, is how to create a "shield issue" to deflect criticism:

"A shield issue is just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion," a GOPAC training tape advises. "You better find a good compassion issue where, you know, you show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center, and all you're trying to do is shield yourself from the inevitable attack."

But the clearest expression of Gingrich's philosophy of media came in a GOPAC memo entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control." Distributed to GOP candidates across the country, the memo's list of words for Democrats and words for Republicans was endorsed by Gingrich in a cover letter: "The words in that paper are tested language from a recent series of focus groups where we actually tested ideas and language." Next time you hear Gingrich complain about media focusing on the negative, refer back to these lists.

McCainy is Not McSame -- McShame Perhaps

What McCute or McCursed Name shall we use?

• I've been trying to push McCainy, to echo the sound of Cheney, but it doesn't seem to be catching on. Maybe too many people know the VPs name is really pronounced Cheeneey?
• McSame is used to promote the understanding that he will bring four more years of war profiteering and wealth transfer to the top.
  
• But McSame is no longer the same old McMaverick, as we progressive news seekers know. We've swapped clips of him saying "A" today and "Z" last week. But the Big 5 Media Corporations wish to retain that old branding, so if we use McSame, are we not furthering their wish that he be perceived as remaining aboard the same Straight Talk Express? (Love Obama's regular use of references to that train's deraililng. That definitely needs repeating. Off the track, off the track, off the track... )
• What do you suggest? John InSane? John McBane?
  

>>>>>>> COMMENTS IN THE McLAME ARENA <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

McCainy is DEFINITELY NOT McSame as He Was Before. The corporate news media are clinging to the Y2K edition of McCainy-- the maverick opposed to GWB. THey'd better check out the upgrade-- it is very different. He has changed his tune in many profound ways and the country does not have time to proceed on the destructive course the new McCainy supports.

Arianna Huffington has listed many of the changes in position McCain has made since his "maverick" days in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/what-j...

He flatly denies making certain statements that we actually have on video tape. He's a Win At All Coster too.

Someone said Dems would have to rely on ageist slurs to attack McCain and I replied: Too silly-- there's lots more bad material to use against him. He has flip flopped against a lot of what he declared to be his main principles. Yes, the consolidation of media ownership has made it harder to cut through the biased TV news reporters who still promote the false "maverick" image, but we can do it. While McCainy's age will be a factor -- is that why he can't remember which is Suni vs. Shiite? -- The flip side of "same old same old" is a bright new future. We can't hang on to the old ways-- we need immediate creative solutions to very pressing international problems. The chameleon candidate who denies he made statements we have on tape and admits he doesn't understand the economy is the same guy who belonged to the notorious Keating Five. So we have ample material about a lot more than McCainy's age that will diminish his appeal.

No More Obliteration Ever Again Please

I joined the discussions of Senator Clinton's recent comments about being ready to "obliterate" Iran.

Are American students ever shown the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, up close and personal? American students probably only see the abstract mushroom cloud photos of nuclear weapons. If all students had to understand what their nation had done to the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would know on a deeper level how horrible Clinton's statement was. I believe German students are taught about the horrors the Nazi regime committed. And Japanese students learn about the Manchurian Massacre and other horrors committed by the Japanese imperial army, and they have had to fight against revisionist historians trying to "correct" their textbooks. But are our children shown the actual photos and given material to read from eyewitnesses to the devastation wrought when our government dropped "little" nuclear weapons that killed 100,000 civilians in two Japanese cities? Many students around the world have seen that destruction. Our students should see and understand what citizens of other countries know about what our nation has done. Just be aware of how intense such "obliterating" can be. Quite nightmarish.
>>> And another commentator reminded me that No, in fact, PBS ombudsman criticized journalist Moyers for not attacking Wright's criticism of the US attack on Hiroshima. AND Smithsonian (Gov't Museum institution) was forced to CANCEL an exhibit of the Enola Gay 50th anniversary at the Air and Space Museum because veterans groups and Congress threatened to fire all the curators for being anti-nuke. (They wanted to display the photos you mention and were silenced.)

Someone in another discussion reminded us that some countries have vowed to annihilate others. I reminded them that only the USA has ever done so and U.S. students should be shown clear photographic evidence of the effects of the little bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Those effects are not abstract to the Japanese people, or any international citizens who have looked over the photographs and read the accounts of witnesses to those little nuclear weapons the USA tested on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That knowledge should be a part of every American student's education. It may just be that the Iranians have seen the actual gore that resulted from previous nuclear use by the USA. Those bombs killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians-- incinerating some and melting the flesh from the bones of others and serving up birth defects for subsequent generations. Here are some photos taken at the time http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/smalloy/atomic_tragedy/phot... .. Not an abstract awesome mushroom cloud photo from a nuclear test in the desert. The results of bombs dropped on urban centers that melted or incinerated the flesh of hundreds of thousands of people. The USA has done that. Over there. On those Japanese people. If a prominent US politician threatened your country with nukes and had already invaded a neighboring country under false pretenses, how would you feel?

I seem to recall minutes of silence on August 6th of every year, in which people came together to renew a shared commitment to be sure that there is No More Hi-ro-shi-ma, No More Na-ga-sa-ki... I am hearing that phrase repeated, as it is chanted in demonstrations here and in Japan. I remember moments of silence for that in San Francisco, too. Missed them recently. And I do remember the Enola Gay exhibitions being canceled at the Air & Space Museum. And I have encountered lots of Americans who seem to think those horrifying bombings should be irrelevant when considering what might be "the best goddamn country" in the world.

Pent Up Punditry Unleashed In a Little Urban Broadband Forest

Working at a dreamy ranch up north last week, I was away from my talky media-- my progressive radio, news and junk TV, so commentary pent up . Thus this week, amid frolicking with 3 old friends who passed through town, I had to share my spins with friends in a favorite urban forest of democratic chat. Mini-blogging, if you will. Doh-see-doh, don'cha see? Misc topics-- reply and fly. Have yet to start my own thread... Thus showing my age perhaps... Still shy... Not realizing the fabric has a very dense thread count when seen from a stepped back or up the branches. So one little reply will swim right by and not become the talk of the town, posted in the village square. My bon mots are static, man. Well, shimmering static, if you want a touch of glamour.

So, do I roll the topics out within this thread on the blog? Or add the snippets by topic-- that seems more logical. And may make friends' commenting easier, when I dare to share, and break that barrier. Restraint of self disclosure was once a necessary tool, then became overwrought when imbued with emotional mystery it really didn't need. Reasons for silence. To merely listen because thoughts change and to say something one later did not mean would be tantamount to treason? My goodness aren't our little thoughts just way too precious, then? Done shriveled on a velvet pillow? Withered in the damn lock-box, would you say? Do declare ! Or would ya probably not? And there you are being the perfect astrological sign to be torn by the tug of the illusive absolute truth and the joy of comedic banter with the world. Though dualistic tendencies are surely a part of our very DNA -- so much yin and yang out there.