August 31, 2010 - Creativity and Cancer Survivorship

Today I run across this little gem, an edited-down version of a talk by Monty Python member John Cleese on the subject of creativity:



Cleese may sound like an odd choice, at first, to give this sort of talk, but in fact - alongside the brilliant loopiness of his television and film projects - he’s long had interests in being a serious academic. For a while he was Rector of the University of St. Andrews, where I did my Ph.D. (alas, just before my time there, so I never met him). He transformed the Rectorship - until then, a largely honorific, student-chosen position - into one that engaged with the University administration on a number of issues of importance to students.

The advice Cleese gives here is down-to-earth and practical: especially what he says about the importance of “sleeping on” a problem, and also of constructing boundaries of space and time for regular, serious reflection.

Running his remarks through my theological filters, I’m struck by how many times he dances right up to the line of saying something spiritual, but never quite steps over it. (No surprise there, because he doesn't believe in God.) For example, when he attributes creative breakthroughs to the work of “the unconscious,” he could have said “the Holy Spirit” - but doesn’t. When he’s talking about the need to carve out time for focused pondering, he could have said “quiet time for prayer and contemplation” - but doesn’t. Certain parts of the Christian spiritual tradition, such as monasticism, insist on a daily schedule (the liturgical hours) that’s meant to nurture precisely the sort of creative engagement Cleese is calling for, and have produced some wonderfully creative people (ranging from Thomas Merton to Dan Berrigan to Sister Wendy of the art-appreciation videos). We Protestants may be a bit behind the curve on that one, but even we have traditions of spiritual practices that foster creativity and holy insight.

So, what does all this have to do with cancer survivorship? Cleese doesn't mention any connection, but I was led to reflect on something many of us survivors have experienced: how the enforced down-time of a chemotherapy regimen crashed into our otherwise busy, over-committed lives and forced us to spend time reflecting on things we’d otherwise never have thought about (or perhaps not until some long-postponed retirement - and maybe not even then, judging from what I’ve heard from some retired people who report being busier now than when they were working).

It was during the enforced down-time of my chemotherapy, for example, that this blog was born. Since having that experience, I haven’t even needed to try to schedule time for creative reflection. I’ve simply done it (at times to the detriment of some of my more routine obligations, but what’s a credit-card late fee or two, if you’re staying more spiritually grounded as a result of obsessing less over the small stuff?).

Whatever stage of the survivorship journey we’re in - whether in treatment, in remission, in relapse, or in that blessed land some are bold to call “cancer-free” - it helps to let go of the urgent worries from time to time and put them to rest for a while, even if only for the few hours of a good night’s sleep (if that’s possible, health-wise). It also helps to set up those boundaries Cleese is talking about, so we can grab a little time for ourselves, away from the frenetic rounds travel to one medical establishment to another, and trying to respond to some of the demands of our normal lives when we’re not doing that.

Stephen Covey, in a memorable illustration I’ve referred to earlier in this blog, called it “sharpening the saw.” If you don’t stop your ceaseless sawing - back and forth, back and forth - from time to time, and pause to sharpen the saw-blade, you’re doomed to steadily decreasing effectiveness.

So, let’s hear it for self-care, on the cancer-survivorship journey! A major part of self-care is refreshing ourselves at those creative wells, where our spirit is free to engage with the Spirit of the Lord.

Headlines - Tuesday August 31

"Afghanistan Bomb Attacks Kill Twenty-One US

Soldiers in 48 Hours:" why will we never see this

story on the Military Channel, the Military History

Channel, or the Pentagon Channel?

 

 

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Now just WHO is it that's aiding and abetting terrorists?

 

ThinkProgress citing Newsweek: Taliban says mosque controversey is helping them recruit terrorists.

 

Mission accomplished, assholes.

Nation, meet cliff.

 

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The Teabaggers must be thrilled with the big showing of violence. And yes, the arson and gun shots should be considered terrorism.

We've spent years hearing Evangelical Christians whining about being oppressed, simply because others want a few rights (like the right to get married). If someone hung out after a tent revival and harassed Real Americans, the place would be crawling with cops in no time. But somebody needs to get hurt before Terrorist Muslins get the same level of response.

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Lawsuit challenges Obama's power to kill citizens without due process'

 

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Smaller government!

It looks like it's time to cut taxes for the rich again, that will solve this small problem.

SAN DIEGO — Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to "rolling brownouts" in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.

Philadelphia began rolling brownouts this month, joining cities from Baltimore to Sacramento that now shut some units every day. San Jose, Calif., laid off 49 firefighters last month. And Lawrence, Mass., north of Boston, has laid off firefighters and shut down half of its six firehouses, forcing the city to rely on help from neighboring departments each time a fire goes to a second alarm

We can't afford protection against fires, but by God we can spend billions to bail out the "free market" banksters and that my friends is what really, really counts. God bless America, and the Teabagger party for which it stands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I was reading a story about a production of Hamlet that will be performed in Klingon. The funniest thing, though, was a response to a comment:

js_edit wrote:
lipschitzantwon wrote:
Could some of this energy be put into finding a cure for cancer?
8/27/2010 2:17:21 PM
-----------------------
Yes, because the work of linguists and actors is vital in the field of medical research.
8/29/2010 1:32:06 PM

That is some fine snark.

 

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I'm buying two if these.

 

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Bending over

Another episode of what Digby said

The bottom line is this: the Democrats are afraid of the Republicans. They – all of them,
from Obama on down – are afraid of Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann and you name it.
You hear Democratic operatives talk strategy, and there's always a "logical" reason why this or
that aggressive attack might not work. But it's nothing to do with logic. They're just afraid.
Bat-Shit Bachmann, who wants the government out of everything, is a good case in point.
It's been revealed that her family farm has received $250,000 in federal subsidies. If she
were a Democrat, the Republicans would make sure the entire country knew it.

But the Democrats won't do things like that. If they had for the past 20 months, Americans
would be talking about a president who, all things considered, is doing his best against
quasi-insane and hypocritical opposition. But they're telling each other a different story.
And the Democrats will go on not learning the lesson of the price of their fear."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Got frustration?

Krugman predicts the near future:

I'm finding it hard to read about politics these days. I still don't think people in the administration understand the magnitude of the catastrophe their excessive caution has created. I keep waiting for Obama to do something, something, to shake things up; but it never seems to happen." And maybe he really does believe that the administration doesn't grasp that they are destroying America's economy and it's chances of recovery, but I think he may be forgetting that all his friends are from the Chicago school, and they think that disaster would be a good thing. But he says, the important thing is that all signs are that the next few years will be a combination of economic stagnation and political witch-hunt. This is going to be almost inconceivably ugly.

Sigh.....I hear that.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You can avoid being poisoned by our contaminated eggs, but only if you cook the shit out of them, and if you don't, it's your damn fault"

That, believe it or not, is the message of the egg industry:

"Consumers that were sickened reportedly all ate eggs that were not properly or thoroughly cooked. Eggs need to be cooked so that the whites and yolks are firm (not runny), which should kill any bacteria," says Mitch Head, spokesman for the United Egg Producers.

Right. Eggs are now "poisonous little bombs of death" because the United Egg Producers think it costs too damn much money to not cram hens into such close confinement.

Fuck it. I know of places where I can buy local eggs from truly free-range chickens, not from factory farms. I don't eat that many eggs that the cost difference will be that significant.

The "our eggs are poisonous" crap started with Wright Country Eggs, located in Galt, Iowa. So I gather now that "going Galt" means "shipping out eggs loaded with toxic bacteria because it is too costly to run a sanitary operation."

Federal inspections of the two Iowa egg farms at the heart of a nationwide recall and salmonella outbreak found widespread safety problems, including barns infested with flies, maggot and rodents, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday.

So some fucker decides that he can make more money by running filthy farms and now it is our fault?

Hey, you folks at the United Egg Producers? Go fuck yourselves.

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On restoring honor.

 

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We're winning!

As we keep digging.

Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001

Fun fact: There are more Americans in Afghanistan than there were at Beckapaloooza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Iraqi Citizens Angry After U.S. Combat Troop Withdrawal: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100831/wl_time/08599201444600?utm_source=LeatherneckNews&utm_medium=twitter

 

Iraq is a ruined country, and the ruining was done by the United States. And it takes a hell of a lot more than a farcical rally to restore a country's honor after something like that.

 

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It makes me ill, but I agree with Orrin on this one

 

Of course, a life-long Mormon who knows his own history understands religious liberty and tolerance, so we are not surprised that Orrin Hatch is the only republican making sense on the whole Park51/Cordoba House fiasco "While virtually every Republican and conservative leader has come out strongly against the construction of the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strongly defended the organizers' right to build the center today, saying, "what made this country great is we have religious freedom." In an interview with Fox 13 News in Salt Lake City, Hatch - who has long been a proponent of religious liberty - said it shouldn't "make a difference" that the majority of Americans don't support the center's construction, because religious freedom is too important, and noted that the proposed site is actually "a few blocks away" from Ground Zero. ... And countering those on the right who have implicated Islam in terrorism, or who have tried to paint it as anything less than a legitimate religion, Hatch said that "there are Muslims killed on 9/11 too," and said, "we know [Islam is] a great religion.""

 

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You knew I was a scorpion

 

This is what happens when you listen to Rahm Emanuel instead of us fucking retards, Mr. President.

Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama's biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign.

A registered Democrat, Mr. Loeb has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats. Less than a year ago, he was considered to be among the Wall Street elite still close enough to the White House to be invited to a speech in Lower Manhattan, where President Obama outlined the need for a financial regulatory overhaul.

So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.

"As every student of American history knows, this country's core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination," he wrote. "Washington has taken actions over the past months, like the Goldman suit that seem designed to fracture the populace by pulling capital and power from the hands of some and putting it in the hands of others."

Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb's jeremiad illustrates how some of the president's former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington.

I was disappointed when the President cozied up to the Wall Street assholes in the first place. I wanted him to not merely channel FDR and "welcome their hatred" - I wanted him to beat them to the punch, hate them first and never stop, and I feel like a golden opportunity may have been lost when he didn't.

But everyone hates Wall Street, so there is still a sterling silver opportunity to start hating thexselfish, venal bastards. I hope he takes it and brings it down on their heads like Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Every hour of every day for the next eight weeks.  

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Just a reminder...This is what Glenn Beck really thinks of the people in this country. Now, just for a moment, try to imagine what he really thinks of the gullible saps who literally buy his (blatantly ripped off from a 50-year-old movie)schtick.

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Consistency isn't their long suit, is it? If it was, there would be howls of outrage over the religious demagoguery around 9/11. "A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero" a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday, but so far the project hasn't drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the "ground zero mosque." ... Pastor Bill Keller of Florida said today he will begin preaching Sunday at the Marriott at 85 West Street (see proximity to ground zero here). A weekly service is planned at the hotel until the $8 million 9/11 Christian Center finds a permanent space. (Fundraising is going well, Keller told Salon today.) ... To get a sense of where Keller is coming from, consider his project's website, which calls Islam a religion of "hate and death" whose adherents will go to hell. It also says: "Islam is a wonderful religion... for PEDOPHILES!""

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Matt Taibbi has a great piece on the current teabagger insanity, which ends with this plea:

I'm beginning to wonder why effective boycotts against these hate-media channels, and particularly Fox, haven't been organized yet. Why not just pick out one Fox advertiser at random and make an example out of it? How about Subaru and their unintentionally comic "Love" slogan? I actually like their cars, but what the fuck? How about Pep Boys and that annoying logo of theirs? Just to prove that it can be done, I'd like to see at least one firm get blown out of business as a consequence of financially supporting the network that is telling America that its black president wants to kill white babies. Isn't that at least the first move here? It's beginning to strike me that sitting by and doing nothing about this madness is not a terribly responsible way to behave.

I never watch Fox, so I don't know who sponsors them. Subaru works for me, although I don't think many people are buying new cars these days anyway. Anybody got it in for Pep Boys or another Fox sponsor? I'm game, whoever it is.

UPDATE: How about that? Democrats.com is already on it.  Theirs is not the focus-on-just-one-and-destroy-it suggested by Taibbi, and it's so lame it doesn't even include a list of Fox sponsors, but it's something.

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Invisible Hand Builds Eight-Feet-Tall Piles of

Chicken Manure in Iowa Hen Houses

 

 

 

Headlines - Monday August 30

While the teabaggers are getting ready to vote for a Senator from Alaska who believes that unemployment insurance and Social Security are unconstitutional and people delude themselves that these people are ONLY concerned about the national debt, it's funny how we've heard NOTHING from any of these teabaggers and their candidates about the billions squandered in rebuilding Iraq:

A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets.

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, ......

 

And this doesn't even include the $9 billion that mysteriously disappeared in that country during the war.

 

Meanwhile, in the other war ...

 

It's a good thing the U.S. is spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars and thousands of American lives to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. Wait .... "The bodies of five people working for a female candidate in Afghanistan's parliamentary election have been found in western Herat province. They were among a group of 10 people kidnapped by armed men on Wednesday. Five were later released, say reports. The Taliban later said they carried out the abductions. No group has said it carried out the killings. The staff were working for Fauzia Galani, who is seeking re-election to parliament in September's polls. Police chief Nisar Ahmad Popal said the bodies had been found dumped on a mountainside in Adrskan district. Reports say their hands had been bound and they had been shot in the head. Taliban insurgents opposed to the elections in general - and female candidates in particular - have been blamed for the murder of a number of candidates."

 

And in that vein: Another Afghan candidate assassinated The murder of Haji Abdul Manan by two unidentified gunmen on a motorbike who rolled up on him as he walked to his mosque for evening prayers on Friday brought the number of candidates killed in advance of the September 18 elections to four.  The United Nations also reports widespread intimidation of female candidates. On Thursday, ten campaign workers and relatives of one female candidate, Fawzia Gilani, were reported missing in Herat. It is unknown yet whether they were nabbed by the Taliban or a political rival. About 2500 candidates are vying for 249 seats in the Parliament. Of those 249 seats, 65 are set aside for women, and 385 (exceedingly brave) women are running. (For the record, we love it when we both get a part of a larger story.)

 

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Frank Rich has a magnificent column on their billionaires, the ones who fund the Hard Right (and fund it and fund it and fund it)

 

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What We Saw at the Glenn Beck Rally in DC (Whitestock).

 

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Religious rights only apply to Christians or possibly Mormons. CBS News:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said

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Symbol of Fear: Glenn Beck Wore a Bulletproof Vest at Restoring Honor Rally

 

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In case you thought it was only about proximity to Ground Zero

Apparently even Tennessee is too close to Ground Zero to build a mosque:

 

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

These people see no irony in their fear of shari'a law while calling this a Christian nation. And in case you're inclined to think this kind of thing is justified, substitute the word "synagogue" for mosque, and then tell me that this is in no way, shape, or form similar to Germany circa 1935.

There has been no spectacular attack. Even when the "underwear bomber" episode took place by someone who WAS a radical Muslim, we didn't see this kind of response. So why do we see it now?

Why? Because it's an election year. Because Republicans sense that many Americans have a deep mistrust of Islam that lies right under the surface, and they can exploit it for political gain by reminding them of the mysterious guy in the White House with the funny name. The problem is that when you whip people into a frenzy of fear, it's hard to control what happens. Of course, the Republicans are sitting there, popcorn in hand, waiting for it to all blow up, certain that when it does, it won't be in THEIR faces.

 

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This ought to distract Pakistan from the continuing and horrific floods: a cricket scandal. "Three Pakistan cricket players have been questioned by police over claims they were involved in a betting scam, the team manager has said. Yawar Saeed said cricket was not "institutionally corrupt" in Pakistan, and the claims were unproven. The News of the World claims it paid a middleman for details of three no-balls later bowled by Pakistan as predicted. A man arrested on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers has been bailed without charge. Scotland Yard said Mazhar Majeed, 35, was bailed to appear before police at a future date."

 

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Those pesky environmental stories that don't get to the front pages...and if they do, they fall below the fold.

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The last American "combat brigade" may have left Iraq, but this is far, far, far from over.

 

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Glenn Beck: American fascist.

 

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Barack Obama so bored of peoplke calling him Muslim

Glenn Beck gathered 90,000 of his saddest friends from the senior center to have a picnic lunch on MLK's grave Saturday, which was just a way for Glenn Beck to say to Obama, "When I called you a 'racist,' what I meant was some kind of vague crap about how you are not as Christian as I am, because I am some kind of 'Mormon Convert,' whatever that is." Obama ignored this entirely, and instead told a secular teevee news host that it just doesn't matter if some people who already hate black people prefer to just call the president a "Muslim" instead. But why do the Muslims all love Obama so much? It's not like he quit bombing Afghanistan all the time! It's not like he closed the American Torture Prison at Guantanamo Bay! So maybe Obama really is a secret half-muslin, because what else could explain his sky-high approval ratings with the very people he tortures and bombs, daily, for America? A shocking 78% of American Muslims approve of this guy, even though his very rare visits to church were, in fact, to a "Church of Christ" in Chicago. That doesn't sound like a very good mosque name, "Church of Christ." [Business Week/Chicago Tribune]

 

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The End of America: Last Glance At Glenn Beck's Horror Picnic

 

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Ladies and gentlemen, the "id" of your typical Beckhead unleashed.

 

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Honest to Christ, how do you combat this level of willful stupidity?

Connie Lowe is 47, a homemaker from Parrish, N.Y., who has never voted but plans to do so this fall, moved by a new energy in the country she can't quite explain.

"It's the economy today," she said. " I want my son" -- 8-year-old Alexander -- "to grow up and be able to get a degree and get a job."

She has struggled to find work -- in a factory or day care, but jobs are scarce. She is being supported by her boyfriend, a Vietmam War veteran who has a heating and cooling business.

Her dislike over where the country is going motivated her to climb aboard one of 23 buses that came from the Albany area. "I want to fight back, get involved in what's going on," she said.

And President Obama? "Don't get me started," she said. "It's like he doesn't care. He's always off playing golf or on vacation or something. He has no idea what's going on with our boys in Iraq. He never served a day in his life."

Did Connie manage to SLEEP through 2001 - 2008?

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Beck and cashing in on god

Beck's got this shtick down pat.

In what resembled more a revival than a political rally, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck urged the large crowds at his "Restoring Honor" event Saturday to "turn back to God" and return America to the values on which it was founded.

"Something beyond imagination is happening," he told participants who packed the National Mall in Washington. "America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness."

"Look forward. Look West. Look to the heavens. Look to God and make your choice," he said. "Do we no longer believe in the power of the individual? Do we no longer believe in dreams?"

Well I don't know about anyone else but as Dana Milbank points out, Beck certainly believes in his dream.

There is a telling anecdote in Glenn Beck's 2003 memoir about how the cable news host was influenced by the great fantasist Orson Welles. To travel between performances in Manhattan, Beck recounts, Welles hired an ambulance, sirens blaring, to ferry him around town — not because Welles was ill but because he wanted to avoid traffic.

Most of us would regard this as dishonest, a ploy by the self-confessed charlatan that Welles was. Beck saw it as a model to be emulated. "Welles," he writes, "inspired me to believe that I can create anything that I can see or imagine."

And so he has.  Beck has created a fictional world of good versus evil where he, anointed by God no less, plays the pivotal role of savior for the huddled masses who face oppression and tyranny at the hands of an oligarchy controlled by progressives.  And if along the way Beck cashes in a few hundred million, so be it.  The Beckster will tell you it is all part of God's master plan.

 

Headlines - Sunday August 29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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BBC: Belgian Cardinal encouraged rape victim to remain silent. These people are beyond reproach.

 

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It wasn't that long ago when talking about even one meteorite was controversial. BBC:

The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests.

Previously, scientists had identified a huge impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the event that spelled doom for the dinosaurs.

Now evidence for a second impact in the Ukraine has been uncovered.

This raises the possibility that the Earth may have been bombarded by a whole shower of meteorites

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BP's 'missing' oil found in Florida, more arriving in Louisiana

Sounds like the miracle disappearing act didn't quite work out as advertised. MotherJones:

 

Well, some cleanup workers in Pensacola, Florida—which is not anywhere near as wrecked as any of the shores in Louisiana—are determined to ruin everyone's fairy-tale ending by talking about how they picked up 4,000 pounds of oil the other night (h/t @LibrlSandlapper). Nevertheless, their crews are being massively scaled down, which should definitely take care of this sort of thing being reported in the future.

Big cleanup cutbacks have also happened in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Sounds like the crisis there is over! Although Drew Wheelan of the American Birding Association sent me these pictures he's taken there over the last 10 days. What a jerk.

Stay tuned for more photos like that: This morning a contractor told me BP has informed cleanup supervisors that a 200-foot-by-2-mile swath of oil is going to make landfall on Grand Isle in the next couple of days.

 

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I find the notion that the Glenn Beck teabaggers somehow are carrying on the King legacy so repulsive, disgusting, preposterous, and obscene, that this will be my only discussion of the matter.

It's enough to make you vomit. The balls on these people.

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It was Colonial Williamsburg staff day at Glenn Beck's GlennBeckPalooza! Show up in your work uniform and get a 60-pack of Hot Wings for just $4.99! Guess who didn't remember his work costume? Wonkette's new drive-time "shock jock" Riley Waggaman! Are you ready for lots more pictures of the Honor which was Restored by, uh, a weeping lunatic self-promoter from Fox News and amoral snowbilly grifter Sarah Palin? The answer, of course, is "I Haz a Dream!" Let's take a look at the rest of Wonkabout Arielle Fleisher's photo album from America's Worst Summer Festival! http://wonkette.com/417786/417786#more-417786

 

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I have a scheme

The right-wing blogosphere reports that 500,000 people showed up to Beck's MLK-appropriation rally. The mainstream media has a slightly different count. But don't let facts fool you – obviously the only numbers that matter are the ones that we make up out of thin air.

Besides, 87,000 people is actually pretty good for a rally organized by a radio talking head turned Fox news messiah. Really, it's quite sizable compared to many other cults.

Beck may yet come down as one of the great grifters of our time. The question is – if the people at this rally knew how badly he was scamming them – in it for fame and fortune and not for some higher vision – would they care? Would they even admit to themselves that they'd been suckered? Even if evidence of his insincerity were to surface? Would it matter so long as he served his purpose?

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And right about then was when the Alien popped

out of Glenn Beck's chest.

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Jill: 87,000 does not a majority make.

And another one from Jill: Hey Barack Obama...aren't you glad you sold out health care to the insurance companies?

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Afghanistan: Time to go

I do not disagree with the premise that the Taliban are a bunch of mean f**kers. But consider, for a moment, the fact that the clown that we chose to run the country is running, with eyes open, one of the most corrupt and detested governments on the planet:

KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the country's most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai's government.

Bribery. Extorting kickbacks. Colluding with the enemy. Kidnapping. Murder. Drug trafficking. These are among the crimes committed by officials in the Karzai regime, crimes of which Karzai is equally guilty of for protecting the criminals.

Karzai is nothing more than Thieu in Pashto.

April of 1975 is coming for this war.

 

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"Not political"? Horseshit. Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece was there - the one that the rest of the family has disowned, she is such a fringe lunatic - and she railed about gay marriage (it's genocide...yeah, we haven't figured that out either) abortion (it's a womb-war - which has BG checking her ovaries for armaments) and prayer in public schools (when did they stop giving math tests?) - but the rally that railed on these three planks from the republican party platform "wasn't political." In other news, the sun rose in the west this morning, lambs and lions are frolicking in the meadow, John Boehner woke up this morning and was a normal, non-orange color and most telling of all that Beck got the miracle he demanded:  Sarah Palin spoke in clear, coherent sentences. (And since none of that happened, the freakin' rally was political.)

 

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Still getting worse. "Officials in southern Pakistan are battling to save the town of Thatta, where the raging Indus river has breached more of its levees. Tens of thousands of people have fled the town in the past few days and some outlying districts were reported to already be under water. A local official said it could take up to three days to repair the breaches. The massive floods in Pakistan have lasted for more than a month, leaving 8m people in need of emergency relief. As the waters start to recede in the north of the country, the full extent of the damage has begun to emerge. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the Indus river in the south has swollen to 40 times its usual capacity. More than seven million people have now been displaced in southern Sindh province - one million in the past few days alone. Out of the 23 districts in the province, 19 have so far been badly affected by the floods. Across the country, some 17 million people have been affected."

 

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Five years later, Bush efforts to block Medicaid relief have a lasting impact on the Gulf Coast.

This

Headlines - Saturday August 28

47 years ago, Martin Luther King gave his iconic "I have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Today, Glenn Beck will be there to spew his message about dividing America.

 

Stupid, ignorant overweight disabled people who think the laid-off are parasites and who get a Social Security check and Medicare are already arriving to decry "socialism."

 

 

And they're making last-minute signs:

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Fidel Castro says al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is a bought-and-paid-for CIA agent who always popped up when former President George W. Bush needed to scare the world, arguing that documents recently posted on the Internet prove it.

 

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Muslims ask to share Cathedral/great Mosque of Cordoba - Bishop prefers division and refuses. 

 

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"If you were smarter, Michael, you would have put

your anti-Muslim rants on a blog, and today you

might be as famous as Pamela Geller."

 

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Wake up kitty.

 

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Katrina update!

IN NEW ORLEANS The massive government effort to repair the damage from Hurricane Katrina is fostering a stark divide as the state governments in Louisiana and Mississippi structured the rebuilding programs in ways that often offered the most help to the most affluent residents.

The result, advocates say, has been an uneven recovery, with whites and middle-class people more likely than blacks and low-income people to have rebuilt their lives in the five years since the horrific storm.

Gee, you mean in America, the cards are stacked in favor of the Rich? whodathunkit?

(WaPo)

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Here's a fun Internet adventure: type "mosk" into Openbook, which shows you status updates of people who are too dumb to put any privacy setting on their Facebook account. EVIL LIBRULS have caught on to this, because quite a few of the results of this are now people saying, "Hey, go on this site and put in 'mosk'," but in between, predictably, there are quite a few gems.

 

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The jobs creators bullshit

If the George W. Bush tax cuts for rich people are working, why the hell have we been LOSING jobs since the cuts have been in effect and why is our economy still tanking? One would think that our country could use the extra $36 BILLION we'd get from letting the tax cuts expire.

Poor people don't provide jobs is a crock of shit. If people can't afford to buy things, then things aren't being sold, ergo no need to make more things, ergo no jobs.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp, for Christsake.

One more thing to chew on: If giving money to the poor is socialism, why does it not count when you're giving it to the rich? Or the Banksters?

Aaaarrrrrghghghgh!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

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Jim Inhofe's Jesus Secret
He knows the real reason Jesus died Link

     "Screw the poor."

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Russell Mokhiber: Factory Farms Make You Sick. Let Us Count the Ways

 

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"BTW he personally told the Muslims that he IS a Muslim. Read his lips." - RNC committee woman Kim Lehman, (R-Lying Whore) Link
 

"I'm a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims." - What Obama really said to "those Muslims" Link

 

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Perkel: Message to christians about stem cell research. 

 

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A man who was performing ritual proxy baptisms of the dead for the Mormon Church is now suing the LDS for repetitive motion injuries. Apparently you need a living human stand-in when Magic Underpantsing a dead person against the wishes of their descendants.

 

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Dems consider extending tax cuts for the rich -  (sigh)

This blog is filled with examples of everything that is wrong with Republicans.  Well, here is what's wrong with Democrats.

With the economy rapidly weakening, some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation's wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year.

[...] a growing cadre of Democrats – alarmed by evidence that the recovery is losing steam and fearful of wounding conservative Democrats in a tough election year – are advocating a plan that would permanently extend tax cuts benefiting the middle class while renewing breaks for the wealthy through 2011, senior Democratic aides said.

Is there no issue out there which Democrats are not willing to water down or backtrack from?  They have a strong argument for letting the tax cuts for the rich expire – namely that keeping the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% increases the debt by billions.  And when did this chart stop being true?

I understand that politics is a cruel game of compromise where one cannot enact change unless they're holding power.  But where does one draw the line?  At what point does standing up for what is right and fiscally responsible win out over political expediency?

You can't be wimps all the time and expect to gain anyone's respect.  You either stand for something or you don't and right now it's hard to determine what it is Dems do stand for.

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Drowning government in a bathtub

Excellent news:

Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to "rolling brownouts" in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.

Philadelphia began rolling brownouts this month, joining cities from Baltimore to Sacramento that now shut some units every day. San Jose, Calif., laid off 49 firefighters last month. And Lawrence, Mass., north of Boston, has laid off firefighters and shut down half of its six firehouses, forcing the city to rely on help from neighboring departments each time a fire goes to a second alarm.

I bet most of them are just union members sucking at the government teat.

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Levi Johnston takes back his apology to Palin

 

August 27, 2010: Cancer-Fighting's New Cocktail Party

An article in Business Week, "Cocktails Are Next For Cancer-Drug Makers," highlights what its author calls a new development in cancer treatment. Comparing newly-developed cancer drug combinations to the drug cocktails that have been successful in treating HIV/AIDS, the author says:

"For more than a decade, cancer researchers have been crafting drugs to disrupt the precise cellular processes that fuel cancer, creating a $51 billion market in 2009. So far, the survival benefits have been measured in months, not years. That's because cancer, like the virus that causes AIDS, evolves rapidly to evade a single treatment. Rather than mixing and matching approved drugs, researchers are developing new, targeted combinations that work in tandem to block cancer.

'We're looking to see a radical change in terms of stopping the disease in its tracks,' says Tal Zaks, head of global oncology drug development at Sanofi in Paris. 'The return on investment here is not going to be just evolutionary; it has the potential to be revolutionary.'"

I don't get it. What's so new about chemo cocktails? I got R-CHOP (Rituximab, Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine and Prednisone) five years ago. Isn't that a targeted drug cocktail?

R-CHOP is concocted of three chemo agents and a steroid, linked up with Rituximab, a monoclonal antibody that does the targeting.

How is this different from what the Business Week article is talking about? Can anyone enlighten me?

Headlines - Friday August 27

Let the Islamophobia continue apace ...

Jesus Christ, now we have copycat drunks?

If it's not a drunken man allegedly stabbing a cabbie because he's Muslim, then it's a drunken man entering a Queens mosque and urinating on its prayer rugs. Last night, at the Al-Iman Mosque on Steinway Street, an apparently intoxicated man stormed in and "shouted anti-Muslim slurs as he urinated on prayer rugs," the Post reports. Naturally, that interrupted the evening prayers.

According to witnesses, Omar Rivera was shouting slurs and calling the worshippers "terrorists." One told the Post, "He stuck up his middle finger and cursed at everyone... No one can pray now because the rugs are completely soiled. It was disgusting... He calls us terrorists, yet he comes into our mosque and terrorizes other people... This is a true hate crime."

That's it, I'm moving to a cave somewhere in the Northwest Territories and waiting out this latest wave of media-sponsored hate.

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I would like to know what was playing on the TV screen in the bar where Michael Enright was getting drunk for four hours before stabbing a Muslim cab driver the other night.

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BBC News: Former US President Jimmy Carter has secured the release of an American citizen detained in North Korea (and he also got North Korea to commit to return to the peace table to discuss halting their nuclear weapons program).

I can't help but laugh at the morons on the right who, just days ago, pegged Jimmy Carter, in their fevered little cranial voids, the worst American ever.

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Taibbi on the summer of their discontent.

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Oops. From CBO's letter: GOP plan to repeal health care reform would add $455 billion to the deficit.

 

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"So who are you today, Glenn? Jesus Christ

or Martin Luther King, Jr.?"

 

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Good op-ed on the Park51 right-wing spew by Eugene Robinson.

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Roger Ebert's post on the Park 51 project is a must-read, but this bit about Sarah Palin was especially good:

6. Somewhere on the Right is an anonymous genius at creating memes. Sarah Palin floats a suspicious number of them: Death Panels, Ground Zero Mosque, 9/11 Mosque, Terror Babies. Her tweets are mine fields of coded words; for her, "patriot" is defined as, "those who agree with me." When she says "Americans," it is not inclusive. These two must have been carefully composed in advance to be tweeted within 60 seconds of each other:

By using the evocative word "shackles" she associates Dr. Laura's use of the N-word with the suffering of slaves. By implying Dr. Laura was silenced by "Constitutional obstructionists," she employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." She uses the trigger word "reload" to evoke her support of Second Amendment activists while attacking "activists" for evoking the First.

She really does represent everything that is wrong with conservatism in this country. Nationalistic, hawkish, vapid, and above all dishonest. Quite the avatar for a dying movement. (Well, perhaps not quite dead yet…we'll see what the upcoming elections hold. Still – any gains will be short-lived. There is no long-term sustainability to this movement. Obstructionism does not lead to good governance.)

Ebert also notes that on a 55,000 square foot retail mall is going to be built on Ground Zero – like some grotesque monument to the gods of consumerism, an epilogue to the infamous "don't let the terrorists keep you from shopping" plea from George W. Bush. His (Ebert's) alternative is much better (from a piece he wrote on September 12 2001):

If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with the world.Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the springtime, and a pond where children can skate in the winter.

Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell.

Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field. Every living thing that is planted here will show faith in the future.

Let students from all lands take a sunny corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions. Let the harvest show that life prevails over death, and let the sharing show that we love our neighbors.

Do not build again on this place. No building can stand here. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of the earth, to remind us that we share it.

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Leonard Pitts Jr.: This is who `we' really is, Glenn

 

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This is what 4,416 American soldiers gave their lives for

 

I want an apology from every fucking wingnut who insisted we were not in Iraq for oil and to line Dick Cheney's pockets:

Further to our report last week Halliburton has confirmed that it has been awarded a letter of intent by Shell Iraq Petroleum Development B.V. for the development of the Majnoon field in Southern Iraq.

Dow Jones suggests the contract for the 15 wells could be worth $150m.

The giant Majnoon field is one of the world's largest oilfields. The letter of intent provides that Halliburton will serve as project manager for the development work, in affiliation with Nabors Drilling and Iraq Drilling Company (IDC). The contract is still subject to final approval by the appropriate Iraqi authorities.

Shell is lead operator and holds a 45 percent share, partner Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) holds 30 percent and the Iraqi state holds 25 percent of the participating interests in all licenses. Shell has announced that the consortium intends to increase production from the current ~45,000 barrels of oil per day to a targeted production plateau of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day.

"Halliburton has made a sizeable investment in Iraq and we look forward to providing services to Shell and the consortium in order to increase production at this historic oil field," said Dave Lesar, Halliburton's Chairman, President and CEO. "We have in place the technology, equipment and personnel to ensure that we deliver the solutions that will help our customers in this region to meet their production goals."

Halliburton has been active in the Middle East since 1946. Currently, Halliburton has more than 4,000 employees in the Middle East, and construction on phase I of Halliburton's 400-man base in Burjisia, Iraq is complete.

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Perspective

 

Since 2001 (including that year), nearly 300,000 Americans have been killed in traffic accidents.

Since 2001, 130,000 Americans have been killed in falls. 30,000 have drowned.

Since 2001, roughly 3,000 Americans have died in terrorist attacks (most on one day).[1]

But guess which one of those causes of death have resulted in a huge Federal and state bureaucracies and guess which one has resulted in unprecedented governmental infringement on liberties.

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Barack Obama was cold shoppin' for seafood and minding his own Martha's-Vineyard-business when a reporter ambushed him for no reason with insensitive questions about Iraq. Obama responded with the old "We're Buying [Popcorn] Shrimp, Guys. Come On." [Daily Intel]

 

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Glenn Beck Says Obama's Not a Muslin But a Perverted-Christian Whatever

 

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Rep. John Fleming Says November a Choice Between Atheist Or Christian Nations, Forgets To Say 'Muslim'

How embarrassing! Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana was having his diaper changed by David Vitter in front of the "Republican Women of Bossier" when he implied that all Democrats are atheists and thus it is impossible to have bipartisanship. "We have two competing world views here and there is no way that we can reach across the aisle — one is going to have to win," he said. Oh boy, somebody forgot the talking point about how the GZ MOSQUE is literally a knife (thanks Sarah Palin!) that Muslins are stabbing into white people's necks. Democrats are not atheists, they're Muslins, ya doofus! More here.

Don't you love it when complex issues are framed and simplified into clean black and white terms? Your choice has come down to voting Democratic and perpetuating a godless, socialist society or voting Republican and returning to a time of milk, honey and Christian faith.

It's a clear cut choice.  I hope those pesky Muslims and gay folks are listening.

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Wisco: Lighting a very short fuse.

 

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Mike Rogers on Ken Mehlman:

"All I ask are three simple things. First he should spend time with the parents of a child who killed himself after 2004, after that horrible election. I think that he needs to take the fabulous $3M condo he bought in Manhattan and donate that back to the cause that he worked so hard against. And most important, he needs to put up a heartfelt apology, up on YouTube or somwhere on the web, where he actually looks at the American people and says 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did and I'm going to work in the future to make it better.' But he has NO desire to apologize. He has no regrets, he says."

Watch this.

 

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The dog and dolphin.

 

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We all bite our tongues when we find Fox blaring its lies to the world in the airport, the doctor's office, the gym and everywhere else. We don't want to start a fight, but we are being assaulted and should make it stop. The great thing about this campaign is it actually gives you the tools you need to do it effectively.