Saturday tunes: The Official p3 Frank Sinatra Halloween Playlist

New rule: People who don't understand the Internet aren't allowed to make up rules about how it can and can't be used

From this week's news:

Exhibit A:

Brit business secretary promises to punish accused file-sharers' families with Internet disconnection by 2011

Lord Mandelson, Britain's business secretary, has promised to create a system of collective punishment without judicial review for people accused -- but not convicted -- of illegal file-sharing. Under Mandelson's proposal, anyone living in the same house as someone who has been accused of three acts of infringement will be denied access to the Internet (at the expense of their education, employment, and access to government, health information, distant relatives, etc) even though no judge has reviewed any evidence or wrongdoing, let alone entering a judgement.

Exhibit B;

John McCain — ‘Tech Troglodyte’ And Top Recipient Of Telecom Cash — Unveils Bill To Block Net Neutrality

On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party’s lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don’t create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a "government takeover of the Internet." […]

Of course, the GOP point man on technology issues is someone who, just last year, called himself a computer “illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.” In July 2008, he said he has “never felt the particular need to e-mail.” As former FCC chairman Reed Hundt has explained, “Basically, John is a technological troglodyte, and proud of it”[.]

(Acknowledgment to Bill Maher.)

The unforgiving minute

Today's topic: Units of measurement:

Liebersecond (sec_L): 1.0 Liebersecond is defined as the interval of time separating the announcement of a possible legislative victory for Congressional Democrats and the moment when Sen. Joe Lieberman steps in front of the cameras to simultaneously sell out the caucus and grab for publicity by threatening to derail it.

The Dems were smart to let him keep his rank and committee gavel, since he only disagrees with them about the war.

Minute's up.

A pleasant surprise

I have to say, while there are still a number of hoops to be jumped through (most of which could not be said to be large, or low-to-the-ground, or not on fire), I'm actually sort of amazed to see health care reform even made it this far:

(Nice remarks by Reid about "moderate Republicans" at about the 8:30 mark.)

First-out-of-the-gate comments and analysis by Sen. Jeff Merkley on Huffington Post, Josh Marshall at TPM, TJ at Loaded Orygun, Jane Hamsher at FDL.

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and gamely tackled by Thom Hartmann (sitting in for Carl Wolfson and Christine Alexander) and Paul Pimentel on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.

Thom seemed a little baffled at first by the whole limerick thing, but got through it like the trouper he is.

In the process, though, p3's Literary R & D department overbudgeted, producing an extra limerick that didn't make it on the air. So here's your chance once again to play along at home. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news, about something that shouldn't be happening in Oregon:

If your job situation is naught-ery,
Your options might be diddly-squat-ery.
Break your leg? Catch the flu?
Then the best you can do
Might be hope for health care through a ______________.

(The answer can be found in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

NewsCorp and TimeWarner to Hulu viewers: Melon-ballers cost money, you know.

Here's how Hulu rolled last winter:

Here's how Hulu will roll this time next year:

Hulu, at the behest of its co-parent News Corp, is going to start charging for content in 2010. […]

This is extra-extra-foreboding next to last week's statements about a paid Hulu from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, highlighted by TVBizwire: "That's not an if," he said "that's a when."

Now, Americans are no dummies: It's one thing to ask them to voluntarily have their brains gelatinized and scooped out for free. There's plenty of evidence they'll go along with something like that.

But surely they're way too smart to actually pay for the privilege of getting gelatinized and scooped.

. . . or are they?

Sunday morning toons: Special "Toon Market Report by the Exchange Telegraph" edition

Toon trading was crisp at the end of the week, with some brisk business on the floor. Health care was queasy. Afghanistan dug in and Windows 7 crashed. Abstinence rose dramatically during the week but faded by Friday at happy hour. Balloon Boy sank after an early gain. Fox News was rampant, while Rush Limbaugh remained flaccid. (Half-hearted apologies--I mean, honestly, after 40 years, they must have seen this sort of thing coming--to Monty Python.)

Let's kick it off, as always, with Daryl Cagle's toon round-up for this week.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, John Trever, Monte Wolverton, Adam Zyglis, John Cole, Jeff Stahler, Ed Stein, Nate Beeler, Cameron Cardow, and Joe Heller.

p3 Best of Show: Bill Day.

p3 Legion of Merit: John Darkow,

p3 "Old Joke, New Context" Citation: Mike Keefe.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), and Stephane Peray (Thailand).


Ann Telnaes looks at some signs of the times.

(And here's a little lagniappe.)


Feeling a little run-down? Tom Tomorrow just might know the reason why.


Democracy in Afghanistan? Portland homeboy Jack Ohman has his doubts.


Relinquish me, you foul, gibbering feline, you! Last week, in our run-up to Halloween, we presented "Claws for Alarm," the second of the Chuck Jones horror-themed Porky and Sylvester trilogy. ("Scaredy Cat" was the first.) This week we finish up our tribute with the third, and probably best-known--and definitely the funniest--of the set: "Jumpin' Jupiter," from 1955. No sinister glinty-eyed mice in this one!

p3 Bonus Toon: Always remember Jesse Springer's First Rule: It can always get worse.

And remember to bookmark Slate's political cartoon for today.

Saturday tunes: Vangelis, "Mythodea"

Written in 1993, this choral symphony by Vangelis was performed live at the Temple of Zeus in Athens in 2001, celebrating the NASA Mars Odyssey project (the Odyssey spacecraft entered Mars orbit 8 years ago yesterday).

From Wikipedia:

The spectacle involved 224 musicians on stage, the same involved in the recording: Vangelis, two harpists, the 75-person London Metropolitan Orchestra, the 120-person chorus of the Greek National Opera, plus newcomers Greek percussion ensembles Seistron and Typana, that provided 24 timpani. In the back, a projection screen measuring 180 m in length and 24 m in height showed images of Mars supplied by NASA, combined with elements of ancient Greek mythology.

This performance features Vangelis, seated inside the circular console of keyboards and synthesizers, and sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. "Mythodea" has an introduction plus 10 movements; this is "Movement 9:"

Separated at birth

Ripped from today's headlines: The scary figure representing a criminal empire whose ambition is to enslave the world . . . and Frau Farbissina.




(Images: Karen Ignagni, President of the insurance industry trade group AHIP; and Dr. Evil's henchwoman Frau Farbissina.

"A pie has to hit you and explode into a thousand pieces"

Words of professional advice from the master, Milton "Soupy Sales" Supman, who took an estimated 25,000 pies in the face over the course of his career in slapstick television comedy. Sales died this week at age 83.

Like most live television of that era, the "Soupy Sales Show" occasionally had an "oh hell, let's just go with it" flavor that you could love or hate, but you'll never see again.

During the "dance craze" years of the early '60s, Soupy jumped on the hully-gully/frug/watusi/mashed potato bandwagon with his own contribution: "The Mouse," which enjoyed a modest amount of attention at the time and was reborn during the disco era a decade later as the "White Man's Overbite," from which all subsequent popular dance moves have been proven to derive.

The unforgiving minute

Republican "bipartisanship" is like a rare subatomic particle: It's never found under ordinary circumstances, it's extremely difficult and expensive to produce artificially, and it has a half-life that can be measured with an egg timer.


Yesterday:

After Health Vote, Democrats Like Snowe Better Than Republicans

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee to vote for its health care reform legislation, now gets significantly higher job approval marks from Democrats than she does from members of her own party, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Oct. 16-19

This afternoon:

Snowe says she'll vote against public option

When it comes time to pass a final healthcare reform bill, Senate Democrats may need help from Maine's Olympia Snowe, the only Republican senator thus far to vote for a Democratic proposal. And if they do, that could spell doom for the public option.

Snowe was asked Thursday whether she'd vote for cloture -- that is, to end a filibuster -- on a bill that includes a provision for a government-run insurer. "I'd say I'm against a public option, so yes," she replied. Pressed further, "But would [the public option] be enough for you to say, 'I'm not going to proceed to this bill," Snowe reportedly nodded as she walked away.

Every minute and every drop of political capital that the White House spends on the chimera of bipartisan health care reform is wasted.

Minute's up.

Beta-test your Halloween Costume at Portland Drinking Liberally, tonight at the Lucky Lab NW (plus special A-B/CoC news!)

Working on politically-themed ideas for your Halloween costume for next week? (The raw material is certainly there. And there. And there. Or there. Of course, the Halloween traditionalists among you might simply want to go as Death.) Bust it out tonight at DL,

Portland Drinking Liberally meets at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby (map), tonight at 7pm.

(DL-PDX meets the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of every month. To get on their email list, go here. To find the DL chapter near you--there are over 300 hundred of them nationwide--go here.)

No photos exist, I'm sorry to say, of the Clarence Thomas costume I put together for Halloween in 1991 (and the prop Coke can with a yarn pubic hair attached was thrown out the next morning). Nor is there any documentary record of the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule costume I made for a 1983 Halloween party.

Costumes are not required tonight, but they're certainly welcome.

And now, here's another chance for DL'ers to do well by doing good:

First, thanks to all of you who've sent a complaint to Diageo (maker of Guinness, Johnny Walker, and Bailey's) asking them to stop opposing health care reform--for which the SIEU has pledged to donate $1 per signature.

Now. not-evil network provider CREDO is partnering with Living LIberally for a similar project:

As you probably know, several large corporations, including Nike, PG&E and Apple, have severed ties with the board of the US Chamber of Commerce because of that group's high-profile denial global warming. CREDO has asked Living Liberally to help bring pressure on another big corporation to cut their ties with the C of C and its radical politics--and this one's right up Drinking Liberally's alley: Anheuser-Busch.

For every signature on this online petition sent to Annheuser-Busch, asking them to leave the Chamber of Commerce, CREDO will donate $1 to Living Liberally.

It's a win-win: Increased pressure on the Chamber of Commerce to end their support for environmentally senseless policies, and increased support for our organization.

(Craft-beer purists: Climb down--this isn't an endorsement for Budweiser. It's an effort to get Bud's makers to stop supporting one of the largest global-warming deniers on the planet!)

Another way to show your appreciation for Living Liberally, as it promotes progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--is to send them a tip via the Tipping Liberally jar.

So wherever you are--and whatever you're wearing--join the Drinking Liberally gang for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

"This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

In the beginning, the sixth book of the five-book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" was commissioned. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Actually, I have no evidence at all of it making a lot of people angry, but loyal fans can be fiercely protective of the object of their loyalty, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of fans of Douglas Adams, who died in 2001, are outraged by the notion that the rights for a new book in the "Hitchhiker" series have been licensed.

And, of course, I could hardly be expected to let an opportunity to rip off one of Adams' classic opening lines slip by.

But there is at least one expert on the Adams literary oeuvre who doesn't mind the idea of a newcomer picking up the pen (or, more aptly, seating himself before the Mac):

Jane Belson, Adams's widow, was cheerfully blunt when asked if her late husband would have wanted anyone tampering with, say, Marvin the Paranoid Android.

"I have no idea," she said, "he's not here."

She paused, then gave a good-natured laugh. "He hated writing books, but he loved having written them. . . . I'm not sure how he would have reacted to someone doing it for him. But it seemed like a good idea."

Also to be learned from this article: The organization that administers the rights to A. A. Milne's works is called the Pooh Properties Trust.

Zero

Sen. Al Franken discusses medical bankruptcy numbers with a health care reform opponent Diana Furchtgott-Roth from the Hudson Institute.

The setting, which is important to understanding why this went so badly from Furchtgott-Roth's point of view, was a Senate Judiciary sub-committee hearing on bankruptcies driven by catastrophic medical expenses--not the HELP or Finance Committee where the reform bill was drawn up.

Franken's squirm-inducing pauses, and his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone, makes this almost as uncomfortable to watch as it must have been for Furchtgott-Roth herself, even though the target of Franken's quiet anger arguably gets off easy, given what she's complicit in.

By the second question she could clearly see what was being done to her. By the third question she began experimenting with passive-aggressive subject-changing as an escape mechanism--to no avail.

But it's important to notice that Franken appeared to have finished his questioning when Furchtgott-Roth fired her question back at him. It was a tactical blunder for which she paid an additional price. She could have kept quiet, taken her lumps, and been out of there--but instead she chose to lob in a hoary anti-reform talking point, hoping for a Pyrrhic victory and expecting the junior Senator from Minnesota not to have done his homework.

I suppose that, if you work for a conservative think tank, occasionally getting skewered in Senate testimony for advancing cherry-picked data and false analogies in the defense of unpopular and unworkable policy positions is just part of a day's work. The consolations are that you're well paid for your suffering, and it's on C-SPAN so most of America will never see it happen.

And, of course, that the Hudson Institute probably has a great health care plan.

(H/t to Blue Texan at Firedoglake.com.)

Dispatches: Accountability at the Fed, H1N1 virus, condors, mushrooms, and more

Items from the p3 inbox:

• CREDO, the progressive mobile network, is partnering with Living Liberally to get Anheuser-Busch to cut its ties with the US Chamber of Commerce, and will donate $1 to Living Liberally for every signature on the petition to A-B. (Living Liberally)



• In violation of its contract with the UFCW, the Hillsboro Fred Meyer had three union representatives arrested when they came to the store to talk to their members about current contract negotiations. (Oregon AFL-CIO)



• Senate Banking Committee members Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced legislation that will require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs , and not a moment too soon. (Sen. Jeff Merkley)



• State Sen. Mark Hass and State Reps. Jeff Barker and Tobias Read will lead information clinic on the on the H1N1 virus, featuring Dr. Mel Kohn, Oregon’s acting Public Health Director and Kathleen O’Leary, Washington County HHS Director, Wednesday, October 21st, 7pm, at the Beaverton Public Library. (Sen. Mark Hass)



• Oregon Wild is sponsoring two Wild Wednesday events tomorrow night, Wednesday October 21st: Mushroom Madness, 6:00-7:30 pm at Davis' Restaurant, 94 W. Broadway, in Eugene, and Comeback for the Condors, 6:00-7:30pm at Roots Organic Brewery, 1520 SE 7th Avenue, in Portland. (Oregon Wild, via Facebook)

Reading the aura

Interesting:

In his blog today, Paul Krugman says he thinks the "aura of inevitability" (if not the fact of it) seems to be settling on health care reform--that a psychological shift in the discourse now assumes that some kind of reform will actually happen.

And last night Newt Gingrich was on Fox News talking about health care reform---but not about defeating it this session. Instead he's now saying that "the number one campaign issue in 2010 and 2012 is going to be repeal the [health care reform] bill."

Shifting "aura," indeed.

I'm still an agnostic on whether health care reform (including a robust public option) will actually pass or not. And any opinion advanced by Gingrich (who, in twenty years, has only said one genuinely smart thing that I'm aware of) certainly isn't going to make me rethink that.

But it does seem striking that Gingrich sounds like he's suddenly retrenching in anticipation of something called "health care reform" passing this session. It's not so much the possibility that he might be right (i.e., the fact), but simply the idea that he'd publicly admit the possibility (i.e., the aura).

The unforgiving minute

[Updated below.]


Digby makes a very important (and unsettling) point:

[I]magine if the Republicans had subpoena power.

Actually, come to think about it, one of them already does, and he's taking his marching orders from Glenn Beck.

Minute's up.

[Update: Actually, I'm not sure if the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has subpoena power, although he can certainly convene political show-hearings--something he never bothered to do during the previous administration.]

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered (usually) by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.

And once again p3's Literary R & D department ended up with an extra limerick that didn't make it on the air, so you can play along at home. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news:

First, sea creatures were there--then they weren't.
Because nutrients, once there, now eren't.
There's a place off the coast
Where marine life is toast--
Due to shifts in the earth's _____________ .

(The answer can be found in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

Sunday morning toons: Special "Must it always be about you?" edition

Questions, questions, and more questions:

• Senator Olympia Snowe: Most important person in the world? Or self-promoting obstructionist?


• The "public option:" Dead as a doornail? Or clinging to life?


• Nobel Peace Laureate Obama: Escalating in Afghanistan? Or giving that whole "peace" thing a chance?


• Swine flu: Threat? Or menace?


• Dow 10,000: Corporate triumph? Or labor disaster?


• Limbaugh's failed bid for the Rams: Rejection of racist track record? Or merely a branding issue?


• Halloween: Trick? Or Treat?

For the answer to these questions--and others--from the week's news, let's start with Daryl Cagle's toon round-up.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckavich, Nate Beeler, Mike Keefe, Monte Wolverton, Jimmy Margulies, Michael Ramirez, Steve Sack, Joe Heller, Steve Breen, and Ed Stein.

p3 Best of Show: John Cole.

p3 "Never Look at Bush's Nose the Same Way Again" Award: Daryl Cagle.

p3 "Best Adaptation from Another Medium" Award: Adam Zyglis.

p3 "No Class Struggle Here" Prize: Mike Luckovich,

p3 World Toon Review: Michael Kountouris (Greece), Stephane Peray (Thailand), Cameron Cardow, (Canada) and Petar Pismestrovic (Austria).


What's black, white, and red all over? Ann Telnaes says it's not what you think.

Telnaes two-fer: Is it back from the dead, and just in time for Halloween??


Toon envy: Ted Turner, who sold his media empire to Time-Warner simply to make sure that Rupert Murdoch couldn't get his hands on it, misses sitting in the big chair:

When Liu asks him if there are any media mergers he'd like to see happen, Turner responds: "I'd like to see me running Time Warner." He says later, "I'd like CNN to report to me, and the Cartoon Network."

. . . hang on a minute--he wants to run the Cartoon Network?

As for Cartoon Network, Turner tells anchor Betty Liu, "If I had control of it, I'd put 'Captain Planet' on at a top time period so that kids would see the environmental superhero instead of just Superman."

Perhaps Turner, who's dedicated much of his post-TNT energies to environmental causes, has forgotten the story of Poochie? Earnestness only gets you so far on Cartoon Network (especially after 11pm).


You keep using that word "bill"--but Portland homeboy Jack Ohman does not think it means what you think it means.


The Minnesota bloggers at the "dump Michelle Bachmann" blog--which they've given the no-nonsense name Dump Michelle Bachmann--have released the second Michelle Bachmann comic. (Read about the first comic here.) Talking Points Memo gives it a tepid review, especially compared to issue #1, in large part because the creators rely heavily (too heavily, says TPM) on Bachmann's actual words for her comic dialog. You may recall that SNL faced the same problem last year with their otherwise-spot-on Tina Fey skits lampooning Sarah Palin. When they experimented with simply giving Fey actual Palin quotes verbatim, the humor didn't die out completely--for those who thought Palin was a joke and were sufficiently well-read, it was easy to get a laugh by simply quoting her directly--but the wonkish irony of that never matched what good satire writers could have had coming out of her mouth.


Building up to Halloween: Last week we featured the first of three horror-themed Porky and Sylvester team-ups, directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Here's the second, "Claws for Alarm," from 1954.

p3 Bonus Toon: Furlough days for state employees--not much of a loss to anyone who thinks government can't do anything useful anyway. But Jesse Springer reminds us that some Oregonians still count on the government:




And finally, remember to check out Slate's political cartoon for today.

The unforgiving minute (2008 retro edition)

From the p3 archives one year ago tonight:

Right-wing talking head Glenn Beck had several dinners recently with Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News.

At these dinners, says Beck, he and Ailes discussed how "there's got to be a better way to do what we do and not divide people."

Minute's up.

Saturday tunes: "She said there is no reason"

Not quite forty years after its formation, and with more personnel changes than Spinal Tap had drummers, Procol Harum made a concert DVD from its most recent tour. By that time Gary Brooker (piano and vocals) and Matthew Fisher (Hammond organ) were the last thread of continuity with the band that formed in 1967 (often said to have been named after a friend's Burmese cat).

Here's the full wind-it-out version of one of progressive rock's founding texts, featuring the two verses you know, plus the two you never hear.

I blinked, and the balloon boy was gone

Jeez. I was only off line for a few hours yesterday, but in that time the whole "balloon boy" story spawned, went viral, got blogged and tweeted around the world a dozen times, and then fizzled out.

By the time I heard about it, people were already referring to it in the past tense. Gawker had even done a retrospective.

I feel like I missed one of those rare chances to be a part of something big--like watching that white Bronco driving down the interstate.

I'll just have to wait until the 5-year-anniversary "where are they now?" articles to come out.

The unspoken assumption on health care debate

As David Waldman at Congress Matters reminds us, in a full Senate, Republicans must have 41 votes to sustain a filibuster, not 40. There are only 40 Republican Senators--which, in some parallel universe where the Senate majority leader and the President (both Democrats) enforced party unity, would mean Senate Republicans could never prevent the cloture vote that would end a filibuster.

Therefore--and it's a small but not-inconsequential point--any talk abut a Republican filibuster on health care reform begins by assuming as a given that there will be Democratic defections on the cloture vote.

As Kos writes this wrote yesterday morning:

Bill Frist never had 60 votes. Bill Frist never cared. Republicans ran the Senate as if they owned the place, even when enjoying razor-thin majorities.

Project Censored releases top 25 under-reported stories this year

Every October, Project Censored released their list of the top 25 stories that should have made the news--but didn't, because it would have been inconvenient for some connected person, group, or organization.

Here's the on the list:

1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate

The full list, with links to background stories, is available at the link above.

From Project Censored's statement of purpose :

On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

In our view, the only valid justification for declining a news story is that in a medium limited by time and space, another news story was simply more important to the people of the community, whether local, national or international. While admittedly a subjective process, it is nonetheless, a process to be undertaken by the news people themselves (the investigative journalists and editors), NOT by the managers and CEOs of their “parent company.” No professional journalist or researcher should ever have to face the destruction of his or her career (or life) simply because they wanted to tell the truth.

Portland Metro-West Drinking Liberally tonight, guest: Democratic 1st Congressional District candidate David Robinson

The Portland Metro-West chapter of Drinking Liberally has its regular meeting tonight, 7pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St. (just east of Hall Blvd.), in Beaverton.

(Metro-West meets the second Wednesday of each month.)

Tonight's guest will be David Robinson, Democratic candidate for the 1st Congressional District.

(To find the DL chapter near you--there are over 300 hundred of them--go here.)

Living Liberally--the parent organization of Drinking Liberally--promotes progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running. If you like that, consider dropping a couple of bucks in the tip jar via Tipping Liberally.

Join the Drinking Liberally gang, and guest David Robinson, tonight at Ringo's.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered (usually) by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM morning show, are posted at LO.

The mark of a radio team that has found its groove is when they can both blurt out the word Fresno??, in the same appalled tone, at the same moment. You'll see.

And don't miss Carl's story of going into a Visalia, California, McDonald's with Marsha Warfield.

Meanwhile, as more-or-less usual, we over-budgeted and ended up with an extra limerick that didn't make it on the air. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news:

Jobless workers were hardly abashed--
To obtain their extensions they dashed.
But State Unemployment
Found little enjoyment
When their phones and computers all _________ .

(The answer can be found in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

The unforgiving minute

Tom Friedman needs to get a grip immediately:

The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize. As he himself acknowledged, he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award — and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way.

Apparently the Mustached One (refresh my memory: why is he so important, again?) slept through 1973.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Give Peace (Prize) a Chance" edition

This week, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and conservative concern-trolls say the right thing for him to do is give it back. Does that mean that, if the IOC had awarded the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, conservatives would have wanted Obama to give that back too?

Confusing, isn't it?

No matter. Clear your heads--it's an especially good week for toons, beginning with Daryl Cagle's toon round-up.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Jimmy Margulies, Michael Ramirez, Steve Sack, Joe Heller, Steve Breen, Rob Rogers, J. D. Crowe, Nate Beeler, abd Robert Ariail.

p3 Best in Show: R. J. Matson.

p3 "Afghanistan's Got Talent" Award: Jerry Holbert.

p3Nobel Prize for "Nobel Prize Toons:" Pat Bagley.

p3 World Toon Review: Pavel Constantin (Romania), Frederick Deligne (France), Cameron Cardow, (Canada). Damien Glez (Burkina Faso), Oguz Gurel (Turkey), Rainer Hachfeld (Germany), and Manny Aenll Francisco (Philippines).


Ann Telnaes detects a pattern,

Bonus Telnaes: Waist-deep in the Big Muddy,


It's a strange time: Once the heart of a multimedia empire, Playboy is trying to dig itself out of the hole the magazine industry finds itself in; and meanwhile, European fashion magazines are moving away from the phylogenetically impossible "Size 0" Photoshopped models that traditionally grace their covers. The result of these converging trends is here. Am I wrong, or does her skin look sort of . . . fleshy, rather than a bright, cheerful yellow?


Update: Last winter, p3 Sunday toons noted the controversy surrounding a New York Post editorial cartoon that combined a reference to Obama's beleaguered stimulus package with a NYC-area story about cops shooting an escaped zoo chimpanzee--with unfortunate but predictable results. Now, the story has taken the next, also unfortunately predictable turn:

A New York Post editor who spoke out against a controversial cartoon the paper ran comparing the author of the president's stimulus package to a dead chimpanzee has been fired from her job, the paper confirmed.

Sandra Guzman was quietly dismissed from her position as associate editor last week for reasons that are being hotly debated by personnel inside the company. An official statement from the New York Post, provided to the Huffington Post, said that her job was terminated once the paper ended the section she was editing.

"Sandra is no longer with The Post because the monthly in-paper insert, Tempo, of which she was the editor, has been discontinued."

Employees at the paper -- which is one of media mogul's Rupert Murdoch's crown jewels -- said the firing, which took place last Tuesday, seemed retributive.

Guzman was the most high-profile Post employee to publicly speak out against a cartoon that likened the author of the stimulus bill (whom nearly everyone associated with President Barack Obama) with a rabid primate. Drawn by famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, the illustration pictured two befuddled policeman -- having just shot the chimp twice in the chest -- saying: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

"I neither commissioned or approved it," Guzman wrote to a list of journalist colleagues shortly thereafter. "I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management."

The remark from Guzman was a rare instance of dissension within the halls of the paper making its way into the public domain. And sources at the Post now say it cost her a job.

And the firing of Guzman, the only woman of color on the Post's editorial staff and the editor of the discontinued Hispanic-interest insert Tempo, occurred during Hispanic Heritage Month. Nice touch, Rupert.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman has good news and bad news: Obama might be getting the message, but the message might be: "Reply Hazy--Ask Again in 2012,


October is Halloween month: Starting off the p3 run-up to Halloween, we proudly bring you "Scaredy Cat," the 1948 Chuck Jones toon from Warner Bros. in which the previously unnamed Sylvester the cat gets his name. Jones worked the same gimmick--a terrified (and dialogue-free) Sylvester freaks out over a spooky menace while an oblivious Porky goes blithely ahead--in two more shorts over the next several years. (The bit where Sylvester is lowered through the kitchen floor only to return hours later, white-furred and bug-eyed, from an off-screen experience we can only imagine, is almost David Lynchian.) Some of the mayhem--most notably the pistol sequences--was edited out of TV versions for years.

(The back-story to the final line of the film is here.)


p3 Bonus Toon: As Jesse Springer notes, timing is everything:



Have you bookmarked Slate's political cartoon for today? Why not?

Saturday tunes: "But I don't see you wavin' now"

Sometime after Arthur Murray Dance Party, "Shindig," and "Hullabaloo"--but before "Midnight Special"--many rock 'n' rollers setting out to lip-sync their latest single on TV often appeared on Dick Clark-produced "Where the Action Is," which aired on ABC from 1965 to 1967. ("WTAI's" unofficial house band was Paul Revere and the Raiders, featuring Portland's Mark Lindsay.)

Here, performing the 1965 Ur-punk classic that put them at #210 on the Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time," are ? and the Mysterians.

Long before The Artist Formerly Known as Prince changed his name to that unpronounceable glyph, the story was that the Mysterians front singer known as ? had actually legally changed his name to the famous interrogative punctuation mark. Other fun ? facts to know and trade: ?'s actual name has been tracked down through the Library of Congress, but he has refused to acknowledge that it is indeed his name. He also claims he is from Mars and lived with dinosaurs, and--although he's almost certainly old enough to qualify for Medicare (but the band's official web site describes him as defying age--never appears in public without the sunglasses.

Does anyone know where Dana Carvey was at 8am Oslo time?

I don't want to harsh anyone's Nobel Peace Prize buzz; I just want to make sure:

You probably remember when, a few days before the election last November, a couple of Montreal pranksters called up Gov. Sarah Palin and convinced her she was talking to French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Well, after listening to the audio clip of selection committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland, played several times on KPOJ this morning, I'm a little concerned. Here's Jagland explaining why Obama was chosen to receive the Peace prize:

Am I really the only person who thinks that sounds suspiciously like Dana Carvey's "Hans the body-builder" character?

All I'm saying is, did anyone at the White House make a call to Oslo to confirm that the phone call really did come from the Nobel Committee, just to make sure they hadn't been punk'd?

Portland Drinking Liberally tonight at the Lucky Lab NW

Portland Drinking Liberally meets at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby (map), tonight at 7pm. (DL-PDX meets the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of every month.)


And here's the October schedule for other DL chapters in Oregon and southwest WA (click the link to join their email list):

Portland Metro-West:

Second Wednesday of every month, 7:00pm at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd).


Salem:

Third Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm, at Browns Towne Lounge, 189 Liberty St NE # 112 (Old Sportstop next to Read Opera House)


St. Helens:

Second Wednesday of each month, 6:30 pm, at the Klondike Restaurant PATIO, 71 Cowlitz Street (We'll meet IN the restaurant if too cold outside.)


Corvallis:

Currently on summer hiatus.


Vancouver:

Second and fourth Tuesdays, 7pm, at the Back Alley Bar and Grill
6503 E. Mill Plain Blvd.(West of Andresen, in a strip mall 1/2 block west of Safeway on the south side of Mill Plain. It's deep in the lot.)

(To find the DL chapter near you--there are over 300 hundred of them--go here.)

Update: A month ago, I passed along the news about Diageo (makers of Guinness, Johnny Walker, and Bailey's), who are throwing in with opponents of health care reform. Living Liberally, along with the SEIU, encourages DL'ers to sign this petition asking them to stop opposing reform. For every letter that gets sent from that link, SEIU will donate a dollar to Living Liberally. I'm still not sure Diageo is necessarily the corporate neighbor you'd want next door, but it turns out that they can be moved by public pressure: They're one of the 19 corporations who withdrew their ads from Glenn Beck's show following consumer protests. So there's reason to think they can be pushed into doing the right thing on health care reform.

(Whether sparking an advertisers' revolt on Beck will be successful is another matter.)

And speaking of donating to LL: if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--you can always send them a little money yourself, via Tipping Liberally.

So join the Drinking Liberally folks tonight for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

"Chow time" and biting the hand

Here's the reason that Fox-style political humor fails: It's incapable of doing the right-wing equivalent of this.

Comedians have made no bones about their frustration with President Obama of late. Bill Maher, referring to the health care debate, pleaded with the president to "stand up for the 70% of Americans who aren't crazy." SNL ran a skit Saturday saying Obama has done "nothing, nada" since taking office. And Jon Stewart has taken on the president for not staying on message, and failing to get a public option passed.

Stewart continued on this trend tonight, taking on Obama and his administration for not repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell," despite many promises to do so on the campaign trail. The president and his team have said he still plans to do so, but that he has too much on his plate. Stewart's response? "It's f**king chow time, brother."

The unforgiving minute

Thought for the day:

It's 2009. Anyone who says we should be <air quotes>thinking outside the box</air quotes> isn't.

Minute's up.

A modest (digital) proposal

I Photoshopped this image to go with the story about the U of O selling off the "Made in Oregon" sign in Old Town since they couldn't get approval to change it to "University of Oregon," which I'd planned to feature before the jump over at Loaded Orygun yesterday.

Then I decided to lead with a different story and the image got buried after the jump. But I still thought it was kind of amusing, so I decided it needed to see some daylight again.

Without further ado, here's my modest suggestion for the 'Made in Oregon' sign:





Now that I look at it, I think I got the new letters just a smidge out of line with the originals. Rats.

Sandra Day O'Connor is "a little bit disappointed" today

How sad for her.

From USA Today:

O'Connor, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, was a moderate conservative who often brokered compromises among justices and across ideological lines.

Since she retired in 2006, the court has become more conservative and retreated from some rulings in which she crafted consensus, including on abortion rights, campaign finance and government race-based policies.

The truly heart-wrenching part:

Asked how she felt about the fact that the current court had undone some of her rulings, the nation's first woman justice responded, "What would you feel? I'd be a little bit disappointed. If you think you've been helpful, and then it's dismantled, you think, 'Oh, dear.' But life goes on.

Yes, life does go on for brave little Sandra. And the important thing here is that she got her wish: She got to retire during a Republican presidential administration.

In fact, she made certain of it.

Odd that she doesn't mention her swing vote on Bush v Gore as one of her moments of helpfulness.

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered (usually) by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.

Carl, channeling the bit of college lore advising us, when in doubt on a multiple-choice test, always to choose "C," experimented with giving "salmon" as the answer to every limerick. Unfortunately, it turns out that "salmon" wasn't the correct answer even for the limerick that was about salmon. Fortunately Christine had his back, as you'll hear.

And, like pasta leftovers that are better the second time around, we ended up once again with an extra limerick that didn't make it on the air, so here's your chance to play along at home. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news:

For months we've been caught in between
Public health and a virus unseen,
But the outlook's less bleak,
For beginning this week
We can finally get ___________.

(The answer can be found in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

Sunday morning toons: Special "Nothing But Good News!" Edition

It has come to our editorial attention that some readers feel the occasionally-cynical tone at p3 has been edging toward an unfashionable nihilism lately. They hint that our once vibrant skepticism is slowly moldering into lack of faith in anything. They tut-tut that there is no silver lining for which we can't locate the dark cloud.

Well, let's put an end to that kind of talk right now. The theme of the week is Good News!

Good news: The recession's over (for some of us).

Good news: The public option is good to go (with just one final bit of paperwork).

Good news: China is celebrating the 60th anniversary (of secret police and re-education camps).

Good news: Afghanistan is due to pay off (any minute now. Seriously.).

Good news: Apple has released a new iPhone app (that deploys on impact).

Good news: Roman Polanski is finally facing the music (after over three decades of very comfortable exile in France).

There. That wasn't so hard, was it?

You can see it all at Daryl Cagle's toon round-up for this week, which is where we're starting out.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Daryl Cagle, Pat Bagley, Mike Keefe, Larry Wright, John Trever, John Darkow, Michael Ramirez, Rob Roberts, and Brian Fairrington.

p3 Best of Show: Steve Sack.

p3 Award for Innovation: Jeff Stahler.

p3 "Doesn't Take a Weather Man to Know Which Way the Wind Blows" Award: Steve Breen,

p3 World Toon Review: Stephane Peray (Thailand), Cameron Cardow (Canada), Dario Castillejos (Mexico), and Dens Hage (Denmark).


Ann Telnaes notes that "Little Nino" Scalia and his boys just blew into town: "That's a nice Tenth Amendment you've got there--it'd be a shame if anything happened to it."


It's good to be "the King:" A month ago, the Sunday Toons noted that Disney bought up the whole Marvel Comics enchillada for $4 billion. The next shoe has now officially dropped: The children of legendary artist/writer Jack "King" Kirby have announced their intention reclaim the rights to many of the characters that Kirby, along with Marvel empire front-man Stan "The Man" Lee, created in the 1960s: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and The Mighty Thor. (In those days, everyone at Marvel got a thesaurus and a nickname instead of a raise.)

The way the law works: After 56 years, the original copyright owners (or their heirs) can go after the rights of property they've signed away, and can file notice of intent up to 10 years before that deadline. Doing some quick back-of-the envelope addition, that means the Kirby family could claim the rights to the Fantastic Four, Hulk, and X-Men in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. For Disney, whose basic business plan for generations has been to own the rights to everything forever, this is not great news but could have an upside: (See? Upside! It's the new p3, I tell you!) Right now the movie rights to Marvel characters are scattered around Hollywood: Sony has Spider-Man, and Fox has the Fantastic Four. Consolidating ownership of those characters in one place--the Kirby heirs--would probably make it easier for Disney then to acquire the movie rights to the whole Marvel catalog of characters.


Oop! Ack! Pfft! Lending some support to his claim that he became a cartoonist without ever bothering to learn much about the history or fundamentals of the form, Berke Breathed (creator of the flightless water fowl who remains much-missed around p3) used the occasion of the Long Beach Comic Con, where he's promoting an omnibus collection of his "Bloom County" strips from the 1980s, to explain to the LA Times that he considers himself "a fraud and a cheat."


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman considers a real-life death panel.


More good news: The return of Cecil the Turtle! By the time Warner Bros got around to doing a sequel to the 1941 "Tortoise Beats Hare," director Tex Avery had departed for MGM. The 1943 sequel, "Tortoise Wins By a Hare," was left to Robert Clampett. Bugs' look had been somewhat redesigned in the intervening two years, most noticeably the voice and the mouth. (For television, the final gunshot gag was almost always removed.)

p3 Bonus Toon: And finally, via Jesse Springer, good news for the Klamath river salmon, although they may have to hang on until 2020 to enjoy it:




And have you bookmarked Slate's political cartoon for today?

Saturday tunes: "Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep"

James Taylor wrote this lullaby shortly after the birth of his nephew--also named James.

Conservatives and the media: The lonely burden of being right

And I was right; although it was so easy I probably shouldn't brag.

Here's the first of "four rules of American politics to which all sides (Republicans, Democrats, and media) apparently agree," which I posted two weeks ago:

1. Anything that a Democrat says about a Republican that is true is automatic ground to demand an apology from the Democrat.

And here are the solemn, even shocked scribes of CNN proving me absolutely right last night:

Except, of course, that Grayson apparently didn't get the memo.

Go figure.