Author: swanksalot

Always good to have a second user look at things

Running While Black

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Welcome to the Dark Side

Welcome to the Dark Side


Bob Herbert is wise to the John McCain strategy – campaign not on ideas, but on insinuations and falsehoods. A typical Karl Rove disciple, in other words.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown

[From Bob Herbert- Running While Black – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

and

John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

…

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

Of course, political campaigns are blood sports, nonetheless McCain is just slime of the worst Republican variety.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXYsw_ZDXg

664 N Michigan

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Alderman Brendan Reilly emails:

664 N. Michigan Avenue-Farwell Building

Emergency repair work at the Farwell Building has necessitated closure of adjoining sidewalks on Michigan Avenue and Erie Street. The sidewalks will be closed on the west side of Michigan Avenue between Erie and Huron and on the north side of Erie between Michigan Avenue and Rush Street. The duration of the closure has yet to be determined.

What the heck is that all about?

The 11-story Farwell Building represents one of the few remaining buildings left on Michigan Avenue from the 1920’s, the period that transformed sleepy residential Pine Street into “The Magnificent Mile.” This French inspired design, highlighted with both Art Deco and Classical Revival details, exemplified the work of architect Philip Maher. Clad in limestone, the building features ornamental cast stone panels and a slate mansard roof. Its delicate scale elegantly anchors the prominent corner of Erie Street and Michigan Avenue. In addition, Maher designed 5 other buildings on the boulevard including the Women’s Athletic Club, which is also a city landmark. These remaining buildings reflect the aesthetic of the 1909 Burnham Plan, which was an attempt to turn our gritty industrial town into the “Paris by the Lake”.

and I wonder if the emergency construction is related to this:

A line in the sand has been drawn between preservationists and developers. That line is represented by the historic Farwell Building, located in the heart of the Magnificient Mile, where the Prism Development Company plans to skin the building’s historic façade, demolish the entire building, and then reapply it to a parking garage.

IndyMac Plans Chapter 7 Filing

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More news about the holder of our mortgage: a Chapter 7 liquidation sale. I guess our re-finance plans are to be delayed (and our appraisal becomes worthless too)

Soon after the FDIC seized the company, it was disclosed that the firm was under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible mortgage fraud.

The Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulated IndyMac, said “the immediate cause” of the failure of the bank was statements made by New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer.

Sen. Schumer, who publicly raised concerns about the bank’s solvency in late June, said he may have caused some depositors to withdraw their money but said he wasn’t responsible for the bank’s downfall. He said IndyMac’s lending practices and lax federal regulation are to blame for the failure of the thrift.

[From IndyMac Plans Chapter 7 Filing – WSJ.com]

links for 2008-08-01 [delicious.com]

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  • Call Me Fishmeal.: “The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing
    Microsoft has managed to prove that if you have a friendly expert on a controlled machine (with Vista pre-installed) showing a carefully selected subset of Vista features to an ignorant XP user for a few minutes, the XP user will often say he finds Vista acceptable. Wow.

    This so-called experiment of Microsoft’s is an insult to science, and to our intelligence. And I am dying to see the out-takes from their shoot. I mean, how many people do you suppose like being told, “Hey, this giant, unpopular monopolistic software company just made an ass out of you! Ha ha! Our leading scienticians just PROVED that you LOVE VISTA and WANT TO MARRY IT. You are TOTALLY GAY for Vista! Haaaaaaa HAAAAAAA!”

    (tags: Microsoft Windows_sucks Advertising)
  • Delicious.com Relaunches with 1,000-Character Notes Fields | 43 Folders
    New Delicious.com page, yayy. And double yayy for longer notes field. The question will be whether my daily links post will accommodate the longer field. Probably, but I’m rambling on here to test the limits. Probably my main complaint with the delicious service was the short notes field – I use delicious as a blog post builder for posts that don’t quite merit a full entry, but that I still want to keep track of. I still have nearly 600 characters left, and I doubt I’ll use them all in any case. Thanks, Yahoo!
    (tags: del.icio.us blogging)

Kaufman’s alter ego Tony Clifton is back

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The Return of Tony Clifton and his Orchestra

Tony Clifton may well be the rudest, crudest, most musically talentless lounge lizard ever to stalk a stage. But for those of a certain age and/or sensibility, he is an entertainer nonpareil.

As part of a national tour, his performing prowess will be showcased starting Thursday at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Accompanied by the Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra, the bellicose balladeer will croon from a vast repertoire of Sinatra, Lynyrd Skynyrd and even Led Zeppelin to raise funds for Gulf Coast artists who were hit by the hurricane.

“This is an amazing, amazing showman,” says Clifton’s longtime pal Dennis Hof, who owns the Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel in Carson City, Nev., where Clifton is said to be a frequent guest and winter boarder. “And he’s the last of his kind.”

Hof met Clifton a few decades back, when the late hooker-loving comedian Andy Kaufman would swing by the cathouse (which then bore a different name) with his Chicago-born friend Bob Zmuda, who now runs the charity Comic Relief.

In those “crazy” times, Hof says, Andy wasn’t always himself.

“I remember one time, Andy partied with 18 girls in two days,” he remembers. “And sometimes it was Tony.”

[Click to read more of Kaufman’s alter ego Tony Clifton is all trick and no treat :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Entertainment]

Chopin Theater

Democracy and Blue Dogs

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Glenn Greenwald brings out the sarcasm whip, and flails Ed Kilgore a bit about the face and hands

Here’s what I learned today about democracy and ideology as a result of my debate with Ed Kilgore and having read the comments to the piece I wrote about targeting Blue Dogs

  • If you believe in the Fourth Amendment, an end to the Iraq War, the rule of law for government and corporate criminals, a ban on torture, Congressional approval before the President can attack Iran, and the preservation of habeas corpus rights, then you’re a fringe, dogmatic Far Leftist ideologue, the kind who ruined the Democratic Party in 1968 and wants to d so again.

  • Even though the country is overwhelmingly against the Iraq War and intensely dislikes George Bush, it’s necessary for Congressional Democrats to support the Iraq War and accommodate George Bush’s demands so that they can remain popular and be re-elected.

  • If you oppose politicians who support laws that you think are destructive and wrong, then you’re an intolerant purist who hates dissent and doesn’t believe in democracy.

  • If you try to defeat in elections those politicians who support the things you don’t believe in, then you’re similar to — basically the same as — Nazis and Stalinists, because targeting politicians for electoral defeat who espouse views that you think are wrong is comparable to murdering political dissidents and requiring purity of thought.

  • …

  • Being a Good Democrat means embracing, welcoming and supporting members of Congress who support unnecessary wars, the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment, the abolition of habeas corpus, the use of torture, and protections for lawbreakers — as long as they place a “D” after their name when voting for those things.

  • Blind, uncritical allegiance to one’s Party — and to all of its officials — is the defining attribute of a tolerant, enlightened, and savvy progressive, and is the very heart of a healthy democracy. Those who diverge from absolute Party loyalty are Stalinists.

  • Congressional incumbents in the U.S. are re-elected at rates that even Brezhnev-era Politburo officials would envy

[From Things I learned today about democracy – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com]

There’s much more in this vein, worth a glance. The sad part is that these talking points are often voiced on television by various so-called liberal commentators, even though when examined closely, the points are ridiculous. My belief is that politicians serve their constituents, so should reflect their beliefs. If they don’t, the politician should be voted out of office.

links for 2008-07-29

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Steve Jobs Health off the record

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Joe Nocera steers close to the edge of propriety while discussing Steve Jobs health, ostensibly wrapping his tattle tale with discussion of Apple’s keen interest in secrecy.

Under its chief executive and founder Steven P. Jobs, Apple has created a culture of secrecy that has served it well in many ways — from new products to the health of Mr. Jobs.

…Mr. Jobs first discovered he had an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor — which is both rarer and less deadly than other forms of pancreatic cancer — in October 2003. This was a full nine months before he had the surgery to remove it. Why did he wait so long? Because, according to a Fortune magazine article published in May, Mr. Jobs was hoping to beat the cancer with a special diet.

The Apple directors who knew the gravity of the situation urged him to undergo surgery, according to the Fortune article. But it was only when Mr. Jobs realized that the tumor was growing that he finally agreed. And only after the surgery was successful did he inform employees that he had been sick, in an e-mail message in which he declared himself “cured.” That’s how Apple’s shareholders found out, too. The company has never spoken about his illness, citing his “privacy” concerns.

I bring this up because of what transpired on Monday afternoon, during Apple’s third-quarter conference call. In June, rumors began swirling that Steve Jobs was sick again. They had started during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where Mr. Jobs looked unusually thin and haggard.

[From Talking Business: Apple’s Culture of Secrecy]

And nothing you ever say to anyone is ever really “off the record”, even if you are Steve Jobs

On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I’d gotten my final “Steve’s health is a private matter” — and much to my amazement — Mr. Jobs called me. “This is Steve Jobs,” he began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive1 ] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.” After that rather arresting opening, he went on to say that he would give me some details about his recent health problems, but only if I would agree to keep them off the record. I tried to argue him out of it, but he said he wouldn’t talk if I insisted on an on-the-record conversation. So I agreed.

Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn’t hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than “a common bug,” they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer. After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money.

You would think he’d want them to know before me. But apparently not.

Footnotes:
  1. asshole, probably, or motherfucker, possibly [↩]

links for 2008-07-25

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