Sunday, January 20, 2008

Be still my heaving stomach- A memo to Ms. Clinton, Rev. Huckabee, and all other preachers and politicians

I tried very hard to find a video clip of this... the words and setting and blatent mixing of church and state are bad enough, but her phony affected delivery of these lines was just stunning in its audacity!

At a historic African American church in Harlem she said
Faith without works is dead - But works without faith is just too hard.”
To read more about this, go to this AP story, from which I also linked the picture.





A bit of historical background for the next phase of this rant. You've heard the Press referred to as the 4th Estate, and might have wondered what the other three were? The Wiki Article on the 4th Estate describes the situation aptly and succintly:
Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made this observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estate General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'"

Therefor, I would put forth this modest proposal... to be adopted unilaterally and universally because I say so, I'm right, and I'm royally sick of politicians preaching and preachers politicking!

Let it be resolved that effective immediately, Monday January 21st at 12:32 AM Greenwich Mean Time in the year 2008 AD and forever henceforth that...

  1. The first estate (clergy) shall lie about God
  2. The second estate (nobles... extended to government officials and elected officials) shall lie about government
  3. The third estate (commoners- ie, us) shall lie about our weight, age, and sexual practices and other matters personal and really no business of anyone else anyway
  4. The forth estate (the press) shall lie about everything.

OK, can we keep that straight now

people? Sheesh!

9 comments:

SnarkAngel said...

Pass the pepto . . .

Listig said...

I've been known to chug it... especially back in my imbibing days. In fact, my favorite "morning after" hair of the dog was something I called a "pink Russian" - vodka and PB.

BTW, that pix of me has the famous leather collar with chain and 3 rings. It snaps at the back, but I doubt anyone looks close enough to notice. Its the single most eye catching thing I wear, and that's no small thing! I don't think I got as many stares when I went out on Halloween as an authentic belly dancer one year or french maid another as I do anytime I wear that collar to Dominick's! *grin*

Obviously now my hair is black, but otherwise, that's a pretty good idea of what I look like when I hear Hillary trying to be funny, act and talk southern or Baptist or what ever... she's at her best when she's least scripted, least handled, least preprogrammed. But I think she's a control freak, and her husband is a power hungry egomaniac, so between the two, she almost never goes out without something canned to say [poorly, woodenly, and inauthentically.]

SnarkAngel said...

That pic of you is priceless, as is the ringed collar . . . how "Divine" of you to wear it walking through Dominics! LOL

Listig said...

Oh yeh, I wear it most places, except when I go to class, especially in this weather... it actually serves as a fine neck warmer!

I have other more subtle but no less intense, masculine, dark side gothy "collars" and necklaces I wear when I am not interested in drawing quite so much attention. The wifey got me two really nice ones from IM for Christmas, I have lots of chains etc., so... I can always accessorize according to my moods and the needs of the situation.

This morning it's still witch's mammary cold, so I'll definitely be wearing it when I take the doggies for walkies.

Right Mike said...

Oh, shit the evil bitch is trying to take over the world again. Pink Floyd actually mentioned her in a line of Pig(three different ones) because even back then, she was a bitch to big for her britches.

SnarkAngel said...

Ohhhhhhhh, THANKS, Mike! I FOREVAH HAAAAAAAAAAAANG on the word of Pink Floyd when it comes to my politics! LOL

And trust me, if Hills gets the Dem nom, she'll more than likely, at this point, get my vote. Not because I worship the ground she walks on, but because SHE might very well be the LESSER of ALL THE EVILS currently running for prez.

Listig said...

Pink Floyd is as often mis-exegeted as the Bible. All this "Oz... Dark size" nonsense, and that particular track in particular. "Whitehouse" does not refer to the official residence of the US President, but to a "Tipper Gore" type moral crusader in England.

From the Wiki article on her...
Mary Whitehouse CBE (13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British campaigner for the values of morality and decency in which she believed, that were derived from her Christian religious beliefs. She focused her efforts on the broadcast media, which she regarded as highly influential, but where she felt these values were particularly lacking, and she also made notable interventions in theatrical productions of which she disapproved, becoming involved in litigation. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.

-and-
She's also mentioned by name in the song "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" on the 1977 Pink Floyd album Animals, described as an uptight "house-proud town mouse" who is "trying to keep our feelings off the street" and mocked with the recurring phrase "ha-ha, charade you are". In the Monty Python's Flying Circus election-night satire, John Cleese says "Mary Whitehouse has taken Umbrage—no surprise there."
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Good taste in music there RM, but I was a Floyd fan before you were a gamete. I saw them in concert during their last regular tour in 1994.
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I could not vote for Hilary Clinton because I do see her doing more pandering, factioning off, identity politics than Obama, and I consider that to be turning of us against each other to be the greatest national evil we're facing. Even though I disagree with B.O. point for point on most issues, were it him vs. Rev. Huck, I'd either vote for Obama, or write in Teddy Roosevelt, even though when Huck gets off his "values" trip I tend to track with his positions. I will not support in any way anyone who appeals to our baser instincts and works to make the "unum" into a "pluribus" like she and her husband do.

But, at the end of the day, we are too often faced with holding our noses and deciding which form of sh!t we can best swallow. Sure would be nice if the constitution required an absolute majority of the popular vote to be elected, not a plurality, and zum teufel with the electoral college... that should have gone out with the 3/5ths rule!

Right Mike said...

Yes, I know much about the line and Mary Whitehouse. Mary Whitehouse went after Floyd and Python many times. Roger actually stuck slight moaning noises in the song to show how her interest was actually in what she so much crusaded against. The Animals album as a whole is an anti-capitalistic album partially inspired by Orsen's Animal Farm but made to be the complete opposite (with Orsen's book being anti-communism). Hillary actually once had mistaken the Whitehouse line as referring to the Presidency. And yes the Dark side of the Rainbow or Oz or whatever they call it is a load of garbage, I tried it once and got bored within the first five minutes.
But As for Floyd as a whole they are my favorite band even though I'm born about 15 years after there prime, and living about 30. I'm currently reading Nick Mason's book about them. Animals is my favorite album despite what it's about. David Gilmour is one of the most talented guitarists out there. You're lucky with the way things are going, I'm never going to get to See Floyd live. Now Water's lip syncs half his concerts. Gilmour barely tours. I hate living in a time where almost all the music being written sucks. There's almost no talents anymore. There's no more people coming out that can play like Clapton, or Hendrix, no one writes like Syd Barrett or Jim Morrison it's really sad.

Listig said...

Mike- you're right about Gilmour, he's greviously underrated. To see him playing the slide guitar on "One of these days"... just that was worth the price of admission!

I don't know about Animals' message... Roger was entirely too captivated with his own cleverness (said the pot about the kettle) and did often layer meaning upon meaning in a similar way to the way the Floyd layered sound upon sound. You're right about the meaning of the original book, and we would still do well to heed his warnings in it and 1984!

My favorite album is probably Meddle, which came out just before DSOTM. Echoes is awesome too. For all its commercial success, The Wall is the least Floydian of them all, though Gilmour does do some killer guitar work on it.

Yeh, I lucked out... I had to play hooky from my internship to go see them, and almost failed it as a result. (We worked out a deal at the last minute.)

And again agreed... I don't see any guitar greats like the ones of previous years. Nor do I see anyone writing insightful commentary like Zappa. Its as if Bubblegum has taken over... but then what do I know, I stopped caring about new releases once my hair started turning gray several years ago. You'd be in a better position to assess the current "talent" than I.