Friday today is

A not famous Factoid

The Pledge of Allegiance, the one we all recited as school children (although mine most assuredly did not include under God* in the early grades) and still do at public events, was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. It started out as part of a marketing plan to offer flags to schools that subscribed to The Youth’s Companion, but quickly became a sincere patriotic effort. We all know how successful it was.

And Mr. Bellamy? Well.

Bellamy was a Christian Socialist^[3] who “championed ‘the rights of working people and the equal distribution of economic resources, which he believed was inherent in the teachings of Jesus.'”^[2] In 1891, Bellamy was forced from his Boston pulpit for his socialist sermons, and eventually stopped attending church altogether after moving to Florida, reportedly because of the racism he witnessed there.^[4]

* The words Under God were added in 1954 to protect us from godless Communism – by our feckless Congress Critters who, in matters sacred (like American uteri), were just as vigilant then as they are now.

(h/t Crazycrawfish for the info.)

The debates just got more interesting

Romney seems to have found his voice. A really fine speech.

Well, Marco, aren’t you just the altar boy!

Senator Rubio of my own enlightened State is  clearly a rising star. He’s definitely got it. Which is why he’s been given the official rising star slot tonight, introducing Romney. And right now, he’s speaking.

And my oh my but isn’t he the pious one – he just offered the requisite boilerplate and utterly unoriginal statement of belief that we’re one ole nation ‘under God’.  And he took it just a step further and nearly pledged us to the service of, what I believe he called, ‘almighty God’.

Check the transcript. It was over the line.

The script is getting soooo old

Everyone with a microphone knows what Mitt Romney ‘needs to do’ with his speech tonight. They are agreed, they are certain. He must show his human side. He must ‘tell his story’.

I think they are wrong. We already know who he is, and it is not the guy you’d like to have a beer with. He’s a technocrat, a strategizer, an analyst and he’s been very very successful where those qualities have mattered.

He shouldn’t hide from it. He should acknowledge – publicly – who he isn’t. It would be refreshing in a Christie kind of way.

But whichever way he goes, he’ll still be a weak candidate unless he actually presents a vision that goes beyond the bumper sticker talking points.

Don’t misconstrue this as a case for Romney. I won’t be voting for him, not least because that would put you-know-who a heartbeat away. Obama is my choice.

The Yanks are comin’, the Yanks are comin’, the drums are drumming everywhere!

John McCain is now listing the wars he wishes we’d had. And he’s doing it without Mr. Lieberman and Miss Graham at his side.

Georgia. Iran. Syria. At least.

Actually, I don’t think he has any eyelids

Mitch McConnell: worst. speaker. ever.

Excuse me?

So, here comes a somewhat ordinary political story – Obama has chosen very poorly by naming Cardinal James Dolan, the Archbishop of New York to give the closing prayer at the DNC Convention (and why the hell is there a prayer anyway!). The choice is not going down well in the LGBT community, a key Democratic constituency. Dolan is a heavyweight and plays a big role in the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay rights (otherwise a not-bad guy by all reports). So, all the ingredients for a good solid and typical political story.

But then there’s this:

Dolan . . . is also slated to give the closing prayer at this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Both conventions? Both?

Hey, let’s just invite him to join the Cabinet – whoever’s Cabinet it ends up being since he’s already seated at the table.

Now this is a perfect example of an Emperor in the buff

Something happened in the “offstage” hours yesterday at the RNC Convention that should put the lie to that transparently contrived parade of Hispanics onstage. Since it happened in the afternoon though – that part of any convention destined for the memory hole – it’s not likely to get much attention beyond newsjunkiedom.

Jack Hitt of The Atlantic was there reporting, alongside Italian and Puerto Rican correspondents. There’s video at the link (UPDATE: I’m putting up the video after all – it’s really shocking.]

[Paulites were mid-chant (about delegate counts] when a Puerto Rican party functionary—Zoraida Fonalledas, the chairwoman of the Committee on Permanent Organization—took her turn at the main-stage lectern. As she began speaking in her accented English, some in the crowd started shouting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

The chanting carried on for nearly a minute while most of the other delegates and the media stood by in stunned silence. The Puerto Rican correspondent turned to me and asked, “Is this happening?” I said I honestly didn’t know what was happening—it was astonishing to see all the brittle work of narrative construction that is a modern political convention suddenly crack before our eyes. None of us could quite believe what we were seeing: A sea of twentysomething bowties and cowboy hats morphing into frat bros apparently shrieking over (or at) a Latina. RNC chairman Reince Priebus quickly stepped up and asked for order and respect for the speaker, suggesting that, yeah, what we had just seen might well have been an ugly outburst of nativism.¹

 

There was this too

PBS coverage ended so I’m over at MSNBC for the first time (this is the fun part). Mathews called Christie’s speech ‘almost Churchillian’. And he meant it. He clearly admired the speech.

Tom Brokaw however, just had the most interesting observation: in all these hours, with all these speakers, there was not one single mention of the two longest wars in America’s history.

How ’bout that.  Enough. Off to bed.

 

Chris Christie . . .

. . . is one hell of a speaker.

UPDATE: Although . . . some of his rhetoric – two thirds of the way in – about ‘what Democrats have done to the economy’ is getting half hearted applause.

Cool. Help is at hand.

I just learned from Ann Romney that Medicare isn’t the only thing the Republicans are going to save from those black-hearted Democrats. Thank Elvis, they’re gonna save the women too! The GOP has our back girls!

Yeah Mitt!

(IN FAIRNESS: The woman is a terrific speaker.)

Who knew?

Almost four hours into the PBS coverage of the RNC Convention (yes, I’ve watched almost everything since six o’clock) and I’m getting worried for my Republican friends. They’ve got two more days of this to go and are, I fear, about to run out of women and Hispanics (their black guy comes later on).

You know what’s not HUGE? Donald Trump. You know what is HUGE? This.

This is not a suggestion. This will happen. Full story here.

The Obama administration announced strict new fuel-efficiency vehicle standards Tuesday, requiring the U.S. auto fleet to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, an uncontroversial move that, unlike other administration energy policies, was endorsed by industry and environmentalists alike.

[will] expand on existing standards requiring American-made cars and light trucks to average 34.5 mpg by 2016. They will significantly cut U.S. oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by the time they are fully implemented, according to EPA.

Dear Elvis, don’t let it be Trump

Please. Please, please, please, please.

As entertaining as it would be, Mr. “it will be HUGE” doesn’t need any more feeding. So please . . . (from NRO):

The Wall Street Journal gives us something to talk about for the next three days:

Republican convention planners appear to have a surprise planned for those tuning in Thursday night.

Buried deep in the convention schedule released Monday is a vague reference to a mystery speaker scheduled for the event’s final evening. “To Be Announced” has a prime speaking slot late in the Thursday program.

And so it went

The terror is ended.

Rush is running out of material . . .

. . . might we hope that his listeners run out of patience? His latest:

Rush Limbaugh, while repeatedly insisting he is “not alleging a conspiracy,” suggested Monday that the National Hurricane Center’s forecast models for  Tropical Storm Isaac were altered to help President Barack Obama and “cast a  pall” over the Republican National Convention.

“I’m not alleging conspiracies here. The Hurricane Center is the regime; the  Hurricane Center is the Commerce Department,” Limbaugh said on his talk show. “It’s the government. It’s Obama.”

Lucky iz us, but God still has it in for New Orleans

Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes. We were spared here, but Mother Nature appears not to be done with New Orleans. That sucks and  it’s not fair.

If there’s an upside to being a target, it’s this: whenever anything even vaguely Tropical  threatens, the process of ‘battening down’ the house leads to some productive weeding. Everything under 30 pounds has to be moved inside away from the wind,  which means it is actually noticed and handled, and consequently a lot of what’s noticed (out of sight, out of mind ya’ know) doesn’t make it back, but goes instead into the Goodwill boxes. And that is ‘a good thing’.

Just sayin’

NBC makes up a word

Dear NBC, I’m sure you meant to say “Hurricane threatens”. Impending is an adverb. Really.

 

Oldies videos still disappearing

Ive been doing a little blog housekeeping today and see that youtube is again taking down more oldies videos, and instead of replacing them with the ‘video no longer available’ message, they’re replacing them with other videos. ‘Short Shorts’ and some Jackie Wilson stuff now appear over and over here.

I’ve tried to keep up and fix things by using different versions of the original songs . . . but it’s too much. So be it.

I just want y’all to know that Who Wears Short Shorts is not my favorite song.

And another. You’re on a roll ladies!

More from Little Green Footballs:

 

Oh dear, another constituency down. Well done GOP

from Little Green Footballs

Now, if only the storm were called Imogene instead of Isaac

Thanks to friend Ed . . . from David Letterman last night:

A hurricane headed directly for the Republicans, more proof that … God is a woman.

Friday night oldie

Choice is about more than abortion and let’s stop pretending it isn’t

In spite of the legions of sincere people who support pro-life policies, the impetus for the movement itself is the never-ending assault on women by those who deeply resent the counter movement toward gender equality. The forces propelling the likes of Todd Akins only pretend a tolerance for equality. They want their sovereignty back.

In a comment thread below, Patsouthward pointed me to an article on CNN by  a rape victim who had her child, now being sued by her rapist:

It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states — 31 — men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child. . . . I know it because I lived it. I went to law school to learn how to stop it.

This looks to me just like the campaign to deny women the right to abortion, where men – and the state – have sovereignty over a  woman. It’s the exact same thing.

A ‘scolds bridle’ used to silence wives and legal up to the 19th century

The kerfuffle of the day is not just about Todd Akin and his knuckle-dragging (to quote the Speaker of the House) cohorts who claim to be Christian but adhere to the Old Testament . . . it’s about attempts to restore the millennial old definition of women as property.

That was a concept in law right into the 19th century, not ancient history but from the  ‘modern era’. Here are a few examples (first photo and quote from tumblr, here) :

The “curb-plate” was frequently studded with spikes, so that if the tongue moved, it inflicted pain and made speaking impossible. Many men sustained in this “husband’s right” to “handle his wife”, and to use salutary restraints in any case of “misbehavior” without the intervention of what some court records of 1824 referred to as “vexatious prosecutions.” Generally a husband would need only to accuse his wife of disagreeing with his decisions, at which the Branks could be applied. The woman would then be paraded through the streets, or chained to the market cross where she was exposed to public ridicule. Wives that were seen as witches, shrews, gossips, nags and scolds, were forced to wear a brank’s bridle, which had been locked on the head of the woman and sometimes had a ring and chain attached to it as a leash so her husband could parade her around town and the town’s people could scold her and treat her with contempt; at times smearing excrement on her and beating her, sometimes to death.

No divorce for you!

Here’s another one – from England – just before our Civil War (here):

Once married, it was extremely difficult for a woman to obtain a divorce. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 gave men the right to divorce their wives on the grounds of adultery. However, married women were not able to obtain a divorce if they discovered that their husbands had been unfaithful. Once divorced, the children became the man’s property and the mother could be prevented from seeing her children.

It’s a wondeful day in the neighborhood

A few snapshots from Memorandum at 11:21pm.

and one more, just for fun

Dear CNN: bite me

Now this is going to be useful! YouTube has launched an Elections Hub channel for 2012 and I think I’m going to like it. It’s here. From their own announcement, it will be:

. . . .a one-stop channel for key  political moments from now through the upcoming U.S. election day on November 6. You can watch all of the live speeches from the floor of the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions, see Google+ Hangouts with power brokers behind the scenes, and watch a live stream of the official Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. You won’t need to go anywhere else for the must-watch moments of this election cycle . . .  videos from politicians and parties, plus a diverse range of news organizations—both established names in media and sought-after new voices—are sharing their coverage . . . from the conventions to the debates to election night.

They’ll offer live and on-demand stuff from ABC, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Univsion . . .

Sarah Palin does not disappoint

The ‘half-governor’ and now national joke offers one of her signature word-salads on Todd Akin. Here’s an exquisitely twisted bit of grammar (my favorite part is in bold). Just splendid.

Todd Akin has said he’s not going to drop out, and bless his heart, I don’t want to pile on Todd Akin, because in some respects I understand what he was trying to say here, in standing on principle that he doesn’t want to be perceived as a quitter, but you gotta know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Believe me, I’ve walked before, and I know when you have to hold that mantle and then hand it someone else in order to progress a positive agenda. That’s what I had to do in Alaska.

Ladies, how about this?

We can’t all whip out clever youtube videos, so how about painting the town in bras? Get your old bras, buy a bunch more at Goodwill . . .then drop those babies around town, drape them on parking meters, mailboxes, doorknobs on government offices, Republican HQ (let’s double down on that one) churches (certain ones anyway) . . . Picture it: bras everywhere!!! We could make it rain bras! It would bring our American Taliban to their knees, I tell you . . . to their knees! (pssssttt, tell your facebook friends to do it too.)