brainrow

Elton John has it all figured out:

Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and other forms of bias, pop star Elton John said in an interview published Saturday.

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people,” John said in the Observer newspaper’s Music Monthly Magazine. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”

“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion,” he said. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

Yes, if history has taught us anything, it’s that the only way to fight intolerance is with more intolerance. That’s the sure cure!

Political junkies: feeling lost and forlorn now that the election is over, and the airwaves are no longer glutted with political messages? Do not despair! Via O’Reillynet: Apple’s iTunes online music store comes to your rescue with a collection of free political podcasts.

Ain’t technology wonderful? It’s like election season all year round!

It ain’t over:

Outspoken pop country artists the Dixie Chicks continue to stir up political controversy, with two TV networks refusing to air a commercial for a new film documenting the uproar that ensued after singer Natalie Maines spoke critically of President Bush during an overseas concert.

NBC … said it rejected the commercial for “Shut Up and Sing,” which debuted last week in New York and Los Angeles and opens nationwide Nov. 10. The network cited a policy against ads dealing with “public controversy.”

…

Directed by Cecilia Peck and Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, “Shut Up and Sing” examines the sometimes vicious backlash that resulted from Maines’ comment. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Cumulus Broadcasting, the Atlanta-based owner of 262 radio stations nationwide, ordered all of its 42 country outlets to stop playing Dixie Chicks music. At a Cumulus-sponsored pro-war rally in Shreveport, La., a bulldozer crushed a pile of the band’s CDs. Many of the 1,225 radio stations owned by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications also banned the group’s songs.

Some country stations even refused to run ads for the Dixie Chicks’ current tour, leading the band to cancel some dates in the South and Midwest.

Ed Bradley, R.I.P.

Ed Bradley, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent whose probing questions and deceptively relaxed interviewing manner graced some of that show’s most notable reports, has died. He was 65.

From an old interview excerpted on the NewsHour:

If I arrived at the pearly gates and St. Peter said “What have you done to deserve entry?” I’d just say, “Did you see my Lena Horne story?”

From The Daily Show on Wednesday:

Jon Stewart: What was the plan? What did it for the Democrats?

Howard Dean: Well, we were helped, of course, by the president.

This will be remembered as George W. Bush’s finest hour.

By doing such a horrible job, Bush made it possible for the Democrats to win majorities in both the House and the Senate. That was a crucial turning point in the nation’s history, because only the Democrats have shown the slightest interest in preventing Bush from screwing up the country and the world even worse than he’s already screwed them up.

Okay, admittedly, as finest hours go, this is pretty dismal stuff. But let’s face it — this is as good as Bush is ever likely to get.

Via Hetty Litjens, a group called West Point Graduates Against the War has some provocative quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower.

From a 1953 press conference:

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

From a 1954 speech:

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels — men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

In a 1949 speech, he seemed to foresee the choices we would be asked to make today:

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.

Looking for verification of these quotes, I found others that seem appropriate to the present day.

As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence.

The current administration has never been very good with the ancient truths. Bush and Rumsfeld should have heeded this warning before invading Iraq:

When you appeal to force, there’s one thing you must never do — lose.

No, I don’t think he’s saying you keep pouring lives and money into a hopeless situation. Rather, it is the too-ready appeal to force that creates hopeless situations.

As the neocons try to pin all the blame on Iraq on incompetent execution, even while they spin out new war fantasies, maybe they should listen to this homespun wisdom:

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.

With Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, DeLay, Foley, Hastert, Haggard and many other GOP heavyweights disgraced and discredited, the Republican Party could use some better role models. I respectfully nominate Mr. Eisenhower.

Via Atrios, who says “This is barely satire,” this post-election report from The Onion:

Republican officials are blaming tonight’s GOP losses on Democrats, who they claim have engaged in a wide variety of “aggressive, premeditated, anti-Republican campaigns” over the past six-to-18 months. “We have evidence of a well-organized, well-funded series of operations designed specifically to undermine our message, depict our past performance in a negative light, and drive Republicans out of office,” said Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who accused an organization called the Democratic National Committee of spearheading the nationwide effort. “There are reports of television spots, print ads, even volunteers going door-to-door encouraging citizens to vote against us.” Acknowledging that the “damage has already been done,” Mehlman is seeking a promise from Democrats to never again engage in similar practices.

Yes, it’s a joke.

From CNN:

Paul Mauriat, a French conductor whose arrangement of “Love is Blue” topped U.S. charts in the 1960s and who garnered a large following in Japan, has died. He was 81.

Mauriat’s recording of the song was a big hit in 1968. It was an off-beat hit for the days of guitar bands, starting with the harpsichord and strings intro.

Oh, happy day…

There’s another version of this song here.

Oh, yay…

I would really like to celebrate right now. I really would. I got a two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and a big ol’ bag of potato chips (Snyder’s of Berlin, the best) just for the victory celebration, but I’m not celebrating.

Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives. Yippee.

But somehow, horrible, horrible Jean Schmidt held onto her seat from Ohio’s second Congressional district. The district is alongside the Ohio River — is there something in the water down there?

I can’t take comfort from the fact that I live in Columbus, far from the Ohio River. I’m right next to the 12th district, where rubber-stamp Republican Pat Tiberi just beat the estimable Bob Shamansky, and I live in the 15th district, where Deb Pryce, a member of the Republican leadership in this abominable 109th Congress, has defeated Mary Jo Kilroy. I feel kinda sick.

As I write this, the Democrats might take the majority in the Senate, too. Whee.

It depends on two races that are still too close to call: Democrat James Webb vs. Republican incumbent George Allen in Virginia, and Democrat Jon Tester vs. Republican Conrad Burns in Montana. At the moment Webb leads by a slim margin in Virginia. In Montana, there are still a lot of precincts that haven’t reported, and Tester’s lead is too small to feel safe.

Perhaps I should feel positively giddy — most commentators thought the Senate was out of reach for the Democrats. But after a few months paying attention to Allen and Burns, I have to ask — why are these races close? Both of these Republican candidates are despicable, and should have been laughed off the stage months ago.

What have we gained? The Democrats in Congress next year aren’t going to be able to get any legislation past a Bush veto, that’s for sure. If they join with some rogue Republicans and somehow force something through, Bush will simply tack on a “signing statement” and ignore the law.

Lame duck or not, one of the talking heads on CNN said, Bush will still control the agenda for the next two years.

I’m not so sure.

One thing the Democrats can do now, whether Bush likes it or not, is hold hearings. Exercise oversight. Pull back the curtain and reveal to the American people just what the rubber-stamp Republicans were so desperate to keep hidden.

Imagine two years with a steady drip, drip, drip of truth being exposed every day on the evening news. That might play a role in setting the agenda, don’t you think?

And if the Democrats manage to take the Senate, Bush will have more trouble getting extremist judges onto the federal courts.

Also, with a Democratic majority in the House, maybe we can block any new efforts to dismantle Social Security.

Okay, I feel a little better now.

Via Bob Geiger:

All we have to do now
Is take these lies
And make them true somehow

(Warning: video contains some disturbing images.)

Think Progress has 109 Reasons To Dump the 109th Congress.

A Top Ten list just doesn’t do them justice.

Hey, this guy’s good! Bill Clinton on voter suppression:

They’re saying to these people, “It’s okay with us if you have a job and then you have to pay taxes. It’s okay with us if your kids put on the uniform and go to Iraq or Afghanistan and fight — maybe get wounded, maybe get killed. But if you’re not going to vote the way we tell you, well, we’re going to try to keep you home, no matter what we took from you, no matter what you gave to this country.”

On Congressional oversight:

This Congress spent eight times as many hours holding hearings on my Christmas list as on the no-bid contracts and the missing nine billion dollars in Iraq.

Now we’re laughing. I like to laugh. You know, it enables you to listen. But it ain’t funny.

On inadequately equipped soldiers in Iraq:

There’s a woman that my wife represents on Long Island who lost her son … she lost her son in Iraq, and she spent $7,000 on her credit card sending basic medical supplies to her unit, because the kids didn’t have it.

Video at Crooks and Liars. It’s long, but it’s worth watching.

Today is Election Day.

I don’t know what will happen today. I’ve been disappointed too many times to believe it will end in victory. What I do know is that, win or lose, this is not the end of the fight.

A few days after the 2004 election, I posted this quote from Harriet Tubman, who risked her life and her freedom to help slaves escape on the Underground Railroad:

Children, if you’re tired, keep going. If you’re hungry, keep going. If you’re scared, keep going. If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

There’s work to be done.

Vote.

Does this remind you of anybody?