Episode 59 of The Erickson Report - takes A Longer Look at the "Inflation Reduction Act," including some of what's in it, the real cause for Joe Manchin's about-face, and the disastrous "side-deal" that secured it; - presents two Clown Awards; - has RIPs for Bill Russell and Vin Scully; and - reminds us something that must never be forgotten.
The Erickson Report is produced and presented by Larry Erickson, a long-time political activist and proud member of "the woke mob." It is what's known as "advocacy journalism," dealing in facts and logic while never denying it has a point of view.
047 The Erickson Report for February 3 to 16, Page 4: RIP
With only the time to do this quickly:
Meat Loaf died on January 20 at the age of 74. A cause of death was not released.
Howard Hesseman, probably best known as Dr. Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati," died on January 29 from complications from surgery for colon cancer. He was 81.
Finally, the one that affected me the most personally, Thích Nhất Hạnh died from complications from an earlier stroke. He was 95. And if you don't know who he was, you owe it to yourself to find out.
045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 6: RIP Desmond Tutu
Okay, I've got just a couple of minutes so let me run through three things very quickly.
First, we have an RIP. Desmond Tutu, aptly described by Reuters as "The anti-apartheid hero who never stopped fighting for 'Rainbow Nation'," died in Cape Town, South Africa on December 26. He was 90.
The best reaction in my mind was that of Rev. William Barber of the Poor People's Campaign: "
Let we who believe in freedom and justice be his legacy always.
Next up, we turn to an occasional feature, Noted in Passing, which is where we run through a few things quickly to make sure they get mentioned without spending a whole lot of time on any of them.
First up, the picture below is of Eric Zemmour, a rabble-rousing television pundit in France who is finding fervent audiences for his anti-Islam, anti-immigration invective and may run for president.
The sickening similarities to Tweetie-pie aside, what I wanted to point to was his for lack of a better term smile. Does it ever strike you that all of these reactionary bigots, no matter who they are, no matter where, all seem to have the same sort of supercilious, self-satisfied smirk, that creepy haughty expression that looks like Hannibal Lecter after a good meal?
Seriously. Watch for it.
=
Here's something to cheer you up - not.
It seems that in a closed-door meeting on October 26, Democratic leadership advised House progressives that even as Build Back Better was on the verge of "being gutted beyond recognition" they better start acting like they are getting a major win whatever shreds of tattered cloth finally emerge.
"If we don't act like we are winning, the American people won't believe it either," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. So progressives should, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "Embrace this and have a narrative of success."
Eric Zemmour
In other words, instead of campaigning against the lobbyists, the grifters, the corporations, and their enablers :cough: Manchin Sinema :cough: just lie and proclaim "there's an awful lot good in this package" even though you'd be hard put to find anything that impacts the corporations or the rich, that is, anything that they didn't want there.
That is, we can have whatever small gains or incremental improvements we want so long as the interests of our overlords continue to get priority.
It can be really depressing.
=
Quickly noted because it's a topic that requires and deserves a fuller treatment, but I wanted to note that during oral arguments at the Supreme Court on that insane Texas anti-choice law - you know, the one that says you can't sue the state to stop it because the state isn't the one enforcing it, it's a vast sea of potential plaintiffs suing anyone in any way connected with an abortion so you'd have to deal with them one at a time - a couple of the justices who voted in September to allow it to go into effect appeared to be having second thoughts.
Brett Accused Rapist Kavanaugh and Amy Bugs Bunny Barrett both had skeptical questions for the lawyer for Texas - and with John Roberts, who I still think looks at cases with an idea of how the Roberts Court will look to history having in September voted to block the law while appeals continued, a switch by either of those Trumpite wackos would block it.
That wouldn't be the end of it since there's no time frame for a ruling and who knows how many lives will be ruined in that time - but at least it should put a damper on other states such as Ohio already considering their own version of a "ha ha can't touch us" ban.
=
Finally, we have an RIP.
Mort Sahl
Mort Sahl, a trailblazing political satirist with a biting wit whose rapid-fire monologues earned him the nickname “Rebel Without a Pause” died October 26 in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 94.
In 2011, his live 1955 recording “Mort Sahl at Sunset” was cited as the first standup comedy album and was named by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry.
Unhappily by the 1970s, Sahl had been labeled a conspiracy kook and had lost most of his audience, particularly after he worked for New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, whose claims about a wide-ranging conspiracy among anti-Castro activists and the CIA to assassinate John Kennedy eventually came down to a single indictment against a businessman named Claw Shaw, who was acquitted in less than one hour. Sahl didn't return to Broadway until a one-man show in 1985 - but he remained defiantly contrarian until the end of his life.
A favorite quote from Mort Sahl: “Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.”
The Erickson Report for November 11 to 24, Page 6: RIP
We have a quick RIP here.
Alex Trebek, host of "Jeopardy" for over 30 years, died on November 1, losing a battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
Trebek revealed his condition in March 2019, but was determined to keep working as long as he could.
During a second round of chemotherapy in October, Trebek joked that “One thing they’re not going to say at my funeral, as a part of a eulogy, is, ‘He was taken from us too soon.’”
The Erickson Report for November 11-24 This time: Heroes and Villains Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and
Outrages Five Things Noted in Passing Some post-election commentary A very brief RIP for Alex Trebek
Terry Jones, a founding member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, died of a rare form of dementia at home at home in Highgate, London, on January 21. He was 77.
And LA Lakers legend Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on January 26. He was 41.
The Erickson Report, Page 1: RIP MAD magazine We start this time on a sad note. I have to take a moment out for a quick RIP as another part of my youth slips away.
After just two more issues, MAD magazine, home to Alfred E. Neuman and "What, me worry?" originator of the fold-in and popularizer of the word furshlugginer, is ceasing publication of original material.
After those issues, MAD will disappear from the newsstands and be available only by subscription and the issues will consist of what were described as "vintage pieces and new covers.'
MAD published for 67 years and spawned a spinoff spinoff sketch comedy series and a number of imitators - "Cracked" is the one I remember - but none of them reached the level of what was called in every issue "the usual gang of idiots" that produced MAD.
[An apology for this being late. I fell during the recording of the show, breaking my nose in the process, which pushed production past the July 4 weekend and necessitated updating the show's contents.]
We have an RIP this week I really meant to do it, I should have done it, last week but the truth is I just forget. Not this time.
On October 24, Antoine "Fats" Domino, the man whose combination of rhythm and blues and a boogie-woogie piano style helped to create rock'n'roll, died at the age of 89.
He died at home in his beloved New Orleans, surrounded by family.
Oddly, a lot of people have forgotten him or never heard of him, but in the 1950s he had a run of more than three dozen top 40 hits and the only person who sold more records over that time was Elvis Presley. Ultimately, he charted 63 times on Billboard and 59 times on the R+B chart. His song "The Fat Man," release in 1949 is regarded by many as the very first rock'n'roll record and was undoubtedly the first rock record to sell a million copies.
Antoine "Fats" Domino
His biggest hit was "Blueberry Hill," but the one I remember the most, the one I associate with him because it was one of the very first rock'n'roll songs I knew, was "Ain't That a Shame."
Let me wrap this up with two quick asides:
One is that the nickname "Fats" did not arise from his physical size but because his piano style reminded others of that of Fats Waller.
The other is that at the very start of the '60s a certain young performer signing with a record company needed a stage name. Someone said he looked like a "little Fats Domino" - which he sort of did - so they called him Chubby Checker.
And with that, I guess there's nothing else to say except thanks for the music, Fats, and RIP.
What's Left
for the week of November 10 - 16, 2017
This week:
Hero Award: Brennon Jones and Sean Johnson
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/6/1713224/-Barber-who-has-been-giving-free-haircuts-to-homeless-is-gifted-barbershop-by-stranger
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/01/stranger-gifts-barbershop-to-man-behind-haircuts-for-homeless.html
Clown Award: unnamed man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber
https://splinternews.com/louisiana-supreme-court-rules-that-a-man-who-asked-for-1820085946
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/357985-roy-moore-impeach-judge-blocking-transgender-military-ban
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/the-lawlessness-of-roy-moore/541467/
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-arrests-man-who-dressed-as-suicide-bomber-for-halloween-9384492
Question: why has the left dropped military spending as an issue?
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/house-senate-negotiators-land-on-700-billion-deal-for-pentagon/
http://fair.org/home/outlets-that-scolded-sanders-over-deficits-uniformly-silent-on-700b-pentagon-handout/
http://www.pogoarchives.org/straus/dm/defense_monitor_jan_may_2017.pdf
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1190216/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2018-budget-proposal/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/opinion/americas-forever-wars.html
We Are Not Alone: Malaysia, Vietnam, India
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-to-roll-out-more-than-us-1b-worth-of-flood-mitigation-9378508
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/7-killed-10000-evacuated-penang-and-kedah-floods-worsen
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/malaysia-to-roll-out-more-than-us-1b-worth-of-flood-mitigation-9378508
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2017/11/299593/penang-floods-meteorological-dept-explains-what-triggered-heavy-rainfall
http://news.iafrica.com/worldnews/1056471.html
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2017/11/07/death-toll-from-vietnam-typhoon-rises-to-69/
http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Blanketed-in-toxic-haze-New-Delhi-has-become-12338697.php
http://abcnews.go.com/International/severe-air-pollution-declared-public-health-emergency-delhi/story?id=50987745
Outrage of the Week: sexism, the cause of sexual harassment and assault
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/10/22/women-of-the-senate-share-their-metoo-stories-of-harassment/23251721/
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/one-common-denominator-all-sexual-harassers-seem-share
https://hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-at-work
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/03/gender-pay-gap-facts/
https://womenintheworkplace.com/
This week, we have an RIP for someone of who, unless you were a dedicated political activist, you very likely have never heard.
Gilbert Baker
His name was Gilbert Baker, and he was found dead in his New York apartment on March 31. He died of heart disease. He was 65.
After being in the Army as a medic and nurse, he taught himself to sew - which is relevant because of the reason his passing is worth noting:
In 1978, Gilbert Baker created the rainbow flag, the flag which has become the internationally-recognizable symbol of LGBTQ pride and LGBTQ rights. So much so that four days after the historic Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right of same-sex couples to marry, the White House was lit up in rainbow colors - and no one needed to ask why.
Good News: Alabama limits power to impose death penalty http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alabama-judicial-override-ends_us_58c83063e4b09cd957673398?
Footnote: Arkansas to create "assembly line of death" http://www.salon.com/2017/04/04/assembly-line-of-death-arkansas-is-going-to-execute-8-people-over-an-11-day-stretch/ https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/jurisdictions-no-recent-executions https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRalpha https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty
Good News: celebrating resistance http://www.alternet.org/activism/diverse-protest-groups-unite-majority-aiming-large-scale-demonstrations-may-1st http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourview/mc-martin-luther-king-vietnam-speech-50th-anniversary-lang-yv-0403-20170402-story.html
Good News: Appeals Court supports rights of transgender people https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/04/us-civil-rights-law-protects-lgbt-workers-from-workplace-bias/22026101/
Good News/Not Good News: Virginia repeals part of HB2 http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/30/522009335/north-carolina-lawmakers-governor-announce-compromise-to-repeal-bathroom-bill https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/10/poll-americans-oppose-bathroom-laws-limiting-transgender-rights/21879293/ http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Steven-Petrow-You-can-t-compromise-on-civil-11043391.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/NCAA-NC-back-in-running-to-host-events-after-law-11048783.php
For the Record: a brief comment on the gas attack in Syria http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/04/days-after-tillerson-mouths-russian-line-on-syria-assad-uses-gas.html https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/05/an-infantile-argument-experts-pour-cold-water-on-russias-fanciful-explanation-syrian-gas-attack/22027154/ https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/04/white-house-blames-obama-administration-assad-regime-chemical-attack-syria/22025672/ http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/politics/tillerson-haley-syria-assad-turkey
Footnote: mudslides in Colombia kill hundreds http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39469033 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39478189 http://colombiareports.com/farc-caused-south-colombia-flooding-disaster-opposition-senator/
Clown Award: Pennsylvania state Senator Scott Wagner http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-warming-report-sunday-shows_us_5884ca53e4b070d8cad322b3 http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/scott-pruitt-global-warming-human/ https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/03/28/wagner-keynotes-for-natural-gas-advocates-in-harrisburg/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17228-why-is-the-earth-moving-away-from-the-sun/ http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/89424/how-much-does-increased-world-population-contribute-to-global-warming
Outrage of the Week: new illegal Israeli settlement http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/11/yasser-arafat.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/10/and-this-is-why-in-lot-of-ways-it-wont.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/07/peas-in-pod.html http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-settlement-idUSKBN1711K6 http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/middleeast/israel-approves-new-settlement/
And another RIP and I think a lot of you will not remember this guy in which case you missed out.
Irwin Corey, Prof. Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost Authority," has died at the ripe old age of 102.
Irwin Corey was a stand-up comic and actor in a tailed dinner jacket, white sneakers, a string tie that often went down to his knees, and Bernie Sanders hair whose absent-minded professor persona would ad-lib streams of superficially coherent but actually nonsensical non-sequiturs that brilliantly satirized pomposity.
It was a delight to watch him work. If you've never seen him, check out this video of his only appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.
Another case of thanks for the smiles. RIP, Irwin Corey.
The first is for Mary Tyler Moore, who has died at the age of 80. The immediate cause of death was heart failure, although she had suffered for years from type 1 diabetes.
Like most people, I expect I first became aware of her on the Dick Van Dyke Show, although I learned later I had seen her legs in the show Richard Diamond. If you don't get that, it's an age thing. Let it go.
What I remember most was the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I used to think of as a guilty pleasure - it was, after all, one of a bazillion sitcoms of varying quality and I never saw anything odd about a single working woman. So it was only later that I recognized how groundbreaking the show actually way.
Anyway - thanks for the smiles. RIP, Mary Tyler Moore.
Good News: Boy Scouts accepting transgender boys
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/01/30/boy-scouts-of-america-to-begin-accepting-transgender-boys/21703534/
Good News: NCAA will extend ban on games in NC if HB2 is not repealed
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/search?q=HB2
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/luke-decock/article131008644.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/02/06/ncaa-reportedly-is-on-the-verge-of-blackballing-north-carolina-for-years-over-bathroom-bill/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.4f2c0a2e6dbd
Good News: Andrew Puzder out
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/15/trump-labor-secretary-nominee-andrew-puzder-withdraws/21714888/
http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2017/02/food-workers-puzzled-over-andrew-puzder-secretary-labor
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-real-reason-why-andy-puzder-wont-become-labor-secretary/
RIP: Mary Tyler Moore
http://www.sfgate.com/tv/article/Mary-Tyler-Moore-who-turned-the-world-on-with-a-10883884.php
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/mary-tyler-moore-dead-age-80-article-1.2955361?cache=snyfr%2525252525252525253fq%2525252525252525253dxs%2F
Why the resistance cannot be limited to targeting GOPpers
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/02/just-for-record.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumps-russia-detente-collides-with-foreign-policy-reality-in-leaked-call-with-putin/2017/02/10/4dedd4fa-ef7c-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?utm_term=.5610d38c25e6&wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/01/97-footnote-russian-hacking.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/14/donald-trump-campaign-russia-intelligence-contact
Next, we're going to run through the RIPs we did this year. We don't do a lot of them; usually it's for someone with who I feel some sort of connection, even if it's just a 60s generational one. Be that as it may, these are the folks whose passing we noted during 2016:
John Trudell, Native American activist, poet, and author. It's a shame he didn't get to see the movement at Standing Rock.
The artist David Bowie, who I call "the artist" because it seems much too limiting to call him a musician or a singer.
Alan Rickman, a fine actor who I think was generally underappreciated for most of his career.
Paul Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and later Jefferson Starship.
Signe Toly Anderson died the same day as Paul Kantner. That's someone you likely do not know. She was the original lead singer of Jefferson Airplane but quit the business because she didn't want to take her infant child on the road to tour. She was replaced by Grace Slick.
I also did an RIP not for a person but for an organization. Al-Jazeera America closed its doors in 2016. Al-Jazeera is an internationally-respected news organization that thought that in addition to news with an American slant or maybe a European slant, Americans might be interested in news with an Arab slant, a view of how the world looks when looking from the Middle East rather than at the Middle East. It was probably a foolish enterprise from the start.
Another RIP this year was for Keith Emerson. If you don’t know the name,
think Emerson, Lake & Palmer. If you still don’t know, look him up on YouTube because you are missing something. He was one of the finest keyboardists of his generation.
Another loss was that of Ben Bagdikian. Again a name you might not know
but if you were in journalism, you would. He was perhaps best known to most as author of The Media Monopoly, a book about how a small number of corporations controlled the majority of US print and broadcast media. In the first edition, in 1983, there were 50 such corporations. By the time of the last edition in 2004, the number had shrunk to five.
Patty Duke, who I assume needs no identification, died last year.
We also lost Dan Berrigan. Priest, poet, playwright, philosopher, but
best known as protester, he and his younger brother Phil were perhaps the most - and surely among the most - notorious antiwar protesters of the 1960s.
I had another RIP that was not for a person. This one was for a career
as Vin Scully announced his retirement after 60 years of broadcasting baseball. Since I grew up listening to him do Brooklyn Dodgers games in the 1950s, I had to note the ending.
Another name you won’t know is John Zacherley, or Zacherley, or Zach, as
he was known. He was “the cool ghoul,” and he essentially invented the sort of TV program showing old scifi or horror movies hosted by a zombie or a vampire or an alien or whatever who would do some sort of shtick through the show. Everyone from Elvira to the Crypt Keeper in Tales from the Crypt to the gang at Mystery Science Theater 3000 to all the local cable access hosts doing such shows around the country, all of them can to at least some degree trace their roots to John Zacherley.
Finally there was singer/songwriter/composer Leonard Cohen.
There were two other people who died last year but for some reason I missed doing doing the RIPs I should have done for them, so I wanted to mention them here quickly. Muhammad Ali died in 2016, as did Arnold Palmer.
Good News: support for the death penalty continues to decline
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/28/u-s-ends-year-with-fewest-executions-since-1991/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/29/support-for-death-penalty-lowest-in-more-than-four-decades/
Good News: Americans support tougher environmental laws http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/14/most-americans-favor-stricter-environmental-laws-and-regulations/
Good News: public support for transgender rights http://www.pewforum.org/2016/09/28/3-public-split-over-bathroom-use-by-transgender-people/
Good News: Obama signs law to include non-believers in protections against religious persecution http://www.snopes.com/2016/12/21/obama-signs-law-protecting-atheists/ https://americanhumanist.org/ https://americanhumanist.org/featured/international-religious-freedom-bill-heads-president-includes-language-protect-humanists-nontheists/
Good News: 120 million acres of federal waters protected from fossil fuel exploration http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/12/20/obama-bans-new-oil-gas-drilling-off-alaska-part-of-atlantic-co/21632127/
Good News of the Year, 2016: peace settlement in Colombia
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2341-good-news-potential-breakthrough.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/02/2361-good-news-progress-on-cure-for.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2342-good-news-parasitic-disease-on.html http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-the-last-days-of-guinea-worm/ http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/11/32-good-news-tpp-is-dead.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/12/51-good-news-victory-at-standing-rock.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/12/44-outrage-of-week-standing-rock.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/08/2587-colombia-and-farc-sign-peace-deal.html https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/no-wins-colombians-narrowly-rejects-peace-accord-with-farc/14639 http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/12/53-good-news-peace-settlement-in.html http://colombiareports.com/peace-vote-delayed-farc-demobilization-colombias-peace-commissioner/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/29/colombia-approves-amnesty-deal-for-thousands-of-farc-rebels http://colombiareports.com/colombia-congress-approves-amnesty-law-3-days-farc-demobilization-deadline/ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35929399 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37677853 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38486897 https://www.yahoo.com/news/colombias-war-traumas-leave-deep-mental-scars-060028256.html
Clown of the Year Award 2016, Basic Stupid Category: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2336-clown-award-right-wing-troll.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/03/2056-clown-award-immigration-judge-jack.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/12/57-clown-award-christina-alesci-of-cnn.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/04/2435-clown-award-idaho-gov-butch-otter.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2354-clown-award-sc-gov-nikki-haley.html
Clown of the Year Award 2016, Total Jackassery Category: GOPper Rep. Steve King
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/03/2395-clown-award-right-wing-attorney.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/04/2445-clown-award-florida-gov-rick-scott.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/01/2344-clown-award-clown-award-new.html http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/07/2544-clown-award-rep-steve-king.html
"He writes with sensitivity, passion, intelligence and with an eye to the common good."
"[He is] clearly one of those silly people who believes in 'civilization,' probably along with the Tooth Fairy and justice."
"He lives in a magical fantasy world."
"Powerfully spoken."
"A balanced and sensible view concerning the crazy ideas that often prevail regarding war and freedom."
"You do good work."
"Our political differences are vast and irreconcilable but he earnestly believes what he wants is best for the country; he’s firmly committed to it, makes no apologies for it and won’t settle for less."
"God bless you!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP."
About Lotus
Lotus has been at various times the newsletter of a local peace group, a column in a different group's newsletter, a stand-alone monthly, and now a blog. Posts appear bi-weekly; posts are drawn from my weekly cable-TV show "The Erickson Report," which can be found here.
Comments either here or by email are encouraged. Comments here must be reasonably relevant and reasonably civil. Spam, trolls, and comments that are merely personal slams on me or another commenter will be deleted without hesitation, warning, or regret.
Note well: Anonymous comments that do not make clear and explicit reference to the post in question will be assumed to be spam.
Our lives are not our own, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. - author David Mitchell
Posts
