Renaming the Super Bowl

All college football bowl games these days have commercial sponsors. Why not "Professional" football?

(It's really not professional in the sense of talent and ability, but professional in the commercial sense. All participants are paid help, however amateurish their skills. )

And so I suggest that CBS and the NFL recognize and acknowledge this by renaming the Super Bowl the 'Focus On The Family Evangelical, Witnessing and Proselytizing Super Bowl'. Call a spade a spade, and propaganda, propaganda.

With my TiVo I regularly record my game of choice and delay watching it long enough so that when commercials come on I can fast forward past them. You can't do that if you watch a game in real time. It only takes about five minutes of delay to arrange this.

Next Sunday I will give myself this option. Truth be told I do want to experience one episode of the 'Tim Tebow Thirty Seconds of Sharing' show, if only to be able to discuss it honestly if necessary sometime.

BTW, I read somewhere recently that the law of the land where his mother was pregnant with him made abortion illegal. If so she had no choice in the matter unless she was willing to break the law. And if she had had a legal choice she would have made her decision not to abort within a Pro Choice philosophical or religious belief/conviction system.

Hmmm.

Lighthouse Keeper

My Kind of Cleric

Here's an ode to Howard Zinn which I found moving.

I do hope that the Rabbi's idea comes to fruition this July 4th.

Lighthouse Keeper

The Headline Says It All

Here's a most revealing headline. "Can Palin raise enough money to win in 2012?"

The implication is clear: enough money will buy you anything; experience, values, talent, honesty, integrity be damned.

I'm reminded of the old joke, 'Everything I have is for sale except my wife and my dog, and I'm not so sure about my wife'.

Geesh, what a world.

Lighthouse Keeper

Matt Taibbi; Today's Must Read

Here's a terrific piece by Matt Taibbi on David Brooks' hypocrisy.

He's to be thanked for drilling beneath Brooks' writing about populism
and exposing it for the bull shit it really is.

Lighthouse Keeper

Schadenfreude Lives

You just have to read this piece by Roger Cohen in today's Times.

He mocks up events in 2040, when China has replaced the US, and the US has exited stage right and left.

Fantasy? Perhaps not, if you believe as I do that people don't change; only the labels change.

I smiled as I realized that I was enjoying a schadenfreude moment.

Lighthouse Keeper

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, David Brooks Style

As I was reading through David Brooks' column in today's Times I almost began to believe that he was speaking real truth to power, but I also began to be on the lookout for his usual disguised wolf's teeth hidden somewhere in the sheep's clothing.

Sure enough, after talking sense to lure in the progressives and the independents, he showed those fangs, if only in a brief and fleeting expression.

Look for it toward the end where he asks Obama if he, as the second coming of Ross Perot speaking truth to the country, is willing to offer a tax increase on the lower 98%. Shameful, deceitful hypocrisy David Brooks style.

Lighthouse Keeper

The Party of No

Here's a TPM piece about a strict party line vote on fiscal discipline. Guess which party voted for it. If you said the GOP you'd be wrong.

The GOPhers rant daily about deficit spending, blaming all of it on the Democrats. Then all forty GOPher senators voted against a pay as you go bill.

The GOPhers are only interested in blocking anything the Democrats want done. Screw the voters. Screw the country. It's politics only baby.

Any questions?

Lighthouse Keeper

Over-Educated? How Stupid Is That?

Here's a great example of terrible journalism, if you could even call it journalism.

I don't know anything about Sam Stein except for this really stupid, ignorant, class clashing claim.

Who qualifies to be among the over-educated? Clearly Stein need not worry about being included if that label has anything to do with intelligence.

Geesh.

Lighthouse Keeper

We Go Forth on the Feet of Heretics

Here's an obituary for Howard Zinn who passed away today at age 87. He didn't leave much on the table.

Lighthouse Keeper

Bob Herbert Gets It Right

Start of rant.

This column in the NYTimes by Bob Herbert says it all. He speaks for me.

I've often said that GOPhers fall in line and Dems fall all over themselves.

But the real message in Herbert's column is that Obama hasn't really changed anything that much.
He's being rolled by the Pentagon and Neocons, he's being rolled by the drug and health insurance companies, he's being rolled by his own Congress on several issues, he's continuing Bush secrecy policies, etc.. Change, what change? Some way it would have been worse had McCain won. How much worse? I don't know.

GOPhers only position is to take a position opposite Obama, regardless of the issues. Obstruct! And they make no bones about it. Par example: Jud Gregg's comments, threats, about reconciliation.

End of rant.

Lighthouse Keeper

Frank Rich Gets It Right

Here's a column by Frank Rich in today's NYTimes.

I think it is today's Must Read.

If Obama, unlike W, reads the papers I sure hope he reads this piece.

Lighthouse Keeper

Mental Health Break

Here's a charming, tongue in cheek, wishful thinking piece which tells a truth.

That truth is "---we all want a wife", even wives.

Enjoy.

Lighthouse Keeper

Is Main Street Now Totally Screwed?

According to this summary of the state of the union by Andrew Sullivan on his Daily Dish blog for Atlantic Magazine it seems so.

I appreciate his getting all this shit together. It's a powerful list of just what has screwed us.

Lighthouse Keeper

Anniversary

This cartoon says it all.

Lighthouse Keeper

Finally Paul Volcker Gets Obama's Attention

Here's some encouraging news. Paul Volcker who has been able to be objective about big banks, even though he has known the major players for years, is starting to influence Obama that there need to be regulations which reign in high risk taking on the part of the banking industry.

Geithner and Summers are too chummy with the big fish in the big pond.

Lighthouse Keeper

I Don't Get It. Clearly I'm Out of Touch.

I am really at at loss to account for how and why Martha Coakley was defeated in her bid to succeed Ted Kennedy in the US Senate.

Please enlighten me.

It's not lost on me that though I sign my posts as Lighthouse Keeper, there exist those who do their best to hide themselves from the light, which they know and fear will expose them for who and what they truly are.

Lighthouse Keeper.

The French, Hugo Chavez and Haiti

Here's a report of a government minister of an assumed ally, the French, claiming that the US efforts to help Haiti are all about occupying Haiti. Seems our guys, who are trying to make the best use of a damaged airport, waved off a French plane, which landed safely the next day.

In a recent post where I exposed my concern about this possibility I wrote that I expected those who hate us and our elected officials for whatever reason, be they terrorists or GOPhers, would make this kind of accusation.

I really didn't expect to read that the French had taken such a cheap shot.

They now have earned the dubious distinction of being lumped together with Hugo Chavez for claiming that the US is using token and grossly insufficient numbers of aid workers as cover for occupying Haiti.

Lighthouse Keeper

The Multi-Level Tragedy That Is Haiti

The most obvious level of tragedy in Haiti is the reality of the huge death toll, the injured not being able to get help, the potentially huge numbers of people buried alive who will not be found in time, and of course the lack of potable water, food and medical supplies.



Those food, water and medical supplies apparently have arrived, but mob rule is a huge problem preventing those who want to help the individuals who make up the mob from being able to do so.



Emerson wrote: "The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast".



It's tragic that marshal law is likely the only way to stop mob violence, meaning that those upholding marshal law can shoot to kill the beast if necessary.



Who should instigate marshal law? Since the Haitian government seems to have ceased to exist itwould have to be another state taking over. I hope a state other than the US takes charge. If we were to do it those who detest our government, terrorists and the GOP, would use it as evidence that our government is a super power bully, and is trying to take advantage of a helpless people for nefarious reasons. It doesn't have to make sense, just repeat it over and over again until it becomes a fact to the most dim witted of people everywhere, who seem to outnumber those who see through the propaganda and spin.


A catch twenty-two situation to be sure.



Lighthouse Keeper

Finally, Obama Gets His Back Up. Is It Genuine?

Finally, President Obama has gotten his back up and called out the heads of the financial institutions, often known simply as Wall Street, whose greed has known no bounds, and who have had no regard for the financial plight of the element of our society often known simply as Main Street.

Genuine or political posturing? I wish I could be certain that it's genuine, but I also understand and accept that it might be needed political posturing?

Obama made his populist declaration today with members of his economic advisers flanking him (I wonder to what extent they are actually "at his side"), including Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. Summers' facial expression was pretty much implacable. Geithner's however resembled a deer in the headlights. Both should be fired, based on conflict of interest and flagrant hypocrisy.

The most conspicuous in his absence was Paul Volcker. He speaks truth to power. Perhaps that's why he was absent in the photo op and his experience, skills and wisdom are absent from what Obama is hearing from his economic advisers who, clearly, are incapable of objectivity in the discharge of their assignments.

Unlike Summers and Geithner, Paul Volcker's years of experience in dealing with people like Blankfein, Dimond, Lewis, etc. seem not to have jaded him in his evaluation of right and wrong.

Question: Why has Obama marginalized, as in publicly excluding Paul Volcker, and has essentially ignored, if not actually dismissed, Volcker's advice and counsel? Tell what you think.

Lighthouse Keeper

There'll Be A Change In The Weather and a Change in The Sea,

Here's a short piece on right wingers using cold spells to dispel rumors that climate change is real.

I draw your attention to only the first part of this piece, the one about the difference between weather and climate.

I haven't read the other parts of the piece, so I can't speak to them.

This piece makes the crucial point that changes in the weather do not correlate with changes in the climate. So when and if you encounter someone who mocks climatologists' claims of global warming you are on solid ground, not thin ice, if you refute their position with this truism.

It's the change in the sea, a sea change, which is crucial.

Lighthouse Keeper