Congressional candidate Bruce Braley must be "crazy" too, as he also didn't like what John Kerry said. He's pulled the welcome mat from under Kerry's feet:
A Democratic Congressional candidate from Iowa is canceling a campaign event later this week with Senator John Kerry.
Bruce Braley says Kerry's recent comments about the Iraq war were inappropriate.Braley is running against Republican Mike Whalen in Iowa's First District congressional race. It's a contest considered to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.
Braley's decision to distance himself from Kerry came as a furor grew from comments Kerry made about the Iraq War during a campaign stop in California on Monday.
Via Hot Air and Town Hall, Kerry's lying doggo tomorrow, with all campaign functions canceled. (Confirmed.)
UPDATE:
There's some interesting reading in the comment section of the John Kerry's blog if you'd care to peruse.
UPDATE II:
Liberal Larry makes it "crystal clear":
Thrice wounded on the battlefields of Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry would never dream of insulting the intelligence of our babykilling, genital-shocking, cattle razing, women-and-children-terrorizing troops. If they had any brains, they’d know that.
Stoned out of his mind, Laqwan misunderstood when his friend mentioned that he'd once gotten high off of licking toads.
Gates of Vienna is covering the Georgia female genital mutilation trial in-depth for those of you wanting more than just a snippet.
For shooting himself in the foot. He's the talk of the town today for telling college students they'd get stuck in Iraq if they didn't study hard. This isn't the first time he's smeared the troops. I'm beginning to think he looks down on them.
Having gone in enlisted with two Masters, I'll say that my five years in the Army were spent surrounded by the highest concentration of clever people I've ever encountered in my life. Everybody had to learn Russian before they could even begin to do their job. Their wattage was pretty amazing. Once I was home again among the general populace, I was forced to renew my acquaintance with the dim bulb.
I'll chalk up Kerry's statement to his ongoing struggle with hoof-in-mouth disease. Considering how poorly he himself did in school, it's a wonder he's lecturing a college crowd about keeping up their grades.
It was an ignorant statement, but don't expect an apology from a guy who says, "I don't fall down."
Barbra Streisand got a chilly reception in Sunrise:
Barbra Streisand's politics didn't find a wholly agreeable crowd during her Monday concert at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise.As Babs traded political barbs with a George W. Bush imitator, a fan of the songstress who apparently disagreed with her politics pelted her with a beverage. And as her anti-GOP riff ended, another man in the crowd found himself being escorted out of the center as he shouted at Streisand.
Some people say she should just sing and make the audience happy, but really it's her politics that keeps them coming back for more.
Thanks to Rep. Curtis Richardson (D-Tallahassee), paternity fraud victims in Florida are finally seeing justice:
Florida's so-called ''paternity fraud'' law took effect in July. It gives a man up to 18 years from a child's birth to challenge a paternity judgment when genetic evidence shows that he is not the biological father and other conditions are met.If he prevails, his obligation to pay child support ends.
Men's-rights groups say the law is a small step in correcting a system that has penalized innocent men for the lies and mistakes of others.
The next step: recouping past payments.
Predictably, the usual suspects are weeping about the loss of revenue from suckers being let off the hook. It doesn't matter to them if the wrong man is paying, just as long as somebody is. Except them, of course.
(Herald login/pswd=crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice.)
The legal defense of battered ex-wife syndrome. Be afraid, gentlemen. Be very afraid:
A 50-year-old woman on Monday pleaded guilty to a lesser murder charge for the death of her ex-husband in 2002.Gloria Fierro agreed to a guilty plea of second-degree murder with a firearm, reduced from first-degree murder, in the death of attorney Henry Fierro, who was found shot to death in his home in July 2002.
Police said Gloria Fierro confessed to killing her ex-husband. Defense attorneys claimed she suffered from battered wife syndrome.
She'd originally denied going to her ex-husband's house and shooting him in the head while he slept. Her story changed, however, when a bird vendor remembered her buying a white pigeon from him and saying she was going over to her ex-husband's house to "perform a ritual." It was a bad night for both man and pigeon.
Voting machines only as good as the people who program and use them? No wonder we're already having problems here in Florida.
Hanging chads are looking pretty good right now.
(Herald login/pswd=crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice.)
Bangor, Maine: certified fear-mongering-free zone:
The general manager of two TV stations in Maine has ordered his news department to stop covering global warming until "Bar Harbor is underwater."Michael Palmer told the joint news staff of WVII and WFVX in an e-mail that global warming stories are like "'the killer African bee scare' from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when everyone's computer was going to self-destruct."
Don't make us have heart attacks before we get a chance to try to survive the end of the world.
UPDATE:
Consensus!
Chicago just found out. About ten people showed up in Miami.
In San Francisco, protest capital of America, not more than a thousand mustered:
Some protesters were disappointed with the turnout and the general state of the left wing."It's disheartening," said Howard Keylor of a group called International Bolshevik Tendency. "I'm 80 years old and some decades back the Republicans were further left than the Democrats are today. Our position has largely been one of retreat."
Others were concerned that the peace movement has been split by pro- and anti-Israel factions.
"A lot of us used to march with ANSWER because we're against the war, but ANSWER has become a group that's radicalized militant Islam," said Karl Goldman of San Francisco Voice for Israel. "They have a romantic view of resistance -- just because someone picks up a gun doesn't make him a revolutionary."
It's a positive that at least some have cottoned onto the tenets of ANSWER.
Congrats to Marc of With Cheese for his continued survival in the most dangerous city in America! He does Snake Plissken proud.
Nobody cooks like mom. If you're Gale Bear, nobody cooks but mom:
It was one of those strange, anonymous urban deaths that you read about from time to time. This time it happened in Lancaster, in the 900 block of Union Street.Gale Bear, age 55, lived with his mother, Suie, who turned 90 in June. Suie had dementia, said Lancaster city police, and her son, who never married, took care of her. The son, a family member said, had always lived with his parents.
Sometime over the course of the summer, Suie died. No one knows exactly when, because the son never reported it. Indeed, Gale Bear continued to live in the house with his dead mother, who lay on the floor of her bedroom, covered with a blanket, her head propped up by a pillow, for about three months.Officials discovered her body — which they say was mummified — on Oct. 21, after receiving a call from a friend of Gale Bear’s. The friend contacted Gale periodically to check up on him, said Detective Thomas Kiss of the Lancaster Bureau of Police, but when a “planned contact” was missed, the friend stopped by the Bear home to check things out.
...
Police and the coroner came, but their first job was getting an emaciated Gale Bear to the hospital.
...
Kiss said that when police arrived at the Bear home, they found Gale Bear physically wasted, with open, infected sores on his legs. He couldn’t walk — neighbor Lori Wanner said she saw police take him out on a stretcher — and he “had no idea what was going on,” said Kiss.Kiss said it didn’t appear that he had eaten in quite some time.
“A couple of items of canned food had been opened,” Kiss said. But that may have been the extent of his food intake for three months.
I think the best sad stories are the ones that makes me laugh really hard. The next time I'm in the kitchen, I'll raise a can of niblets in Mr. Bear's honor.
The chemical compound with the street name "Barry Bonds" is heading for the open market. Will the Giants cough up big money to keep their favorite asterisk?
Spiritually tethered to the voting booth and fascinated by the letter "D," kind supervisors of elections need to help the dead move on.
From an investigation by the Poughkeepsie Journal:
The new statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls, and as many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis.The Journal's analysis is the first to examine the potential for errors and fraud in New York's three-month-old database. It matched names, dates of birth and ZIP codes in the state's database of 11.7 million voter registration records against the same information in the Social Security Administration's "Death Master File," a database of 77 million records of deaths dating to 1937.
...
Among the Journal's findings:# The Journal identified dead people on the voter rolls in all 62 counties and people in as many as 45 counties who had votes recorded after they had died.
# One address in the Bronx was listed as the home for as many as 191 registered voters who had died. The address is 5901 Palisade Ave., site of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
# Democrats who cast votes after they died outnumbered Republicans by more than a 4-to-1 margin. The reason: Most of them came from Democrat-dominated New York City, where higher population produced more matches.
Meanwhile in a Miami Herald letter to the editor from put-upon early voter Rick Kendle:
I decided to try early voting at the Miami Beach City Hall. It was a horrible experience. I felt like a common criminal. In addition to providing my voter-registration card, I had to swipe my driver's license in a machine, then sign a screen on the machine.They didn't like my signature, so they asked me to sign again and to make it look identical to the signature on my registration card.
It made me think of how African-American citizens were treated in the 1950s when they tried to vote.
That's funny, it made me think of the 1997 Miami mayoral election that got tossed for fraud, including extreme absentee-voting by the dead. Congrats to the Miami Beach officials who are determined to run a clean election despite drama queens among the public like Rick Kendle.
Voter fraud does more than just effect local elections; it undermines democracy itself. If to prevent that it means voting officials have to be at least as careful as a cashier taking a check for a haircut, I'm sure we can stand it.
Though many men choose to snuggle with skin, bones, and a hank of hair, one Australian runner is rethinking his options this evening:
A MISSING runner who tried to keep warm by cuddling his greyhound has been found by a police sniffer dog.Police say the 31-year-old man was found in bushland at Muskvale, near Daylesford, north-west of Melbourne, around midnight (AEST).
He had gone for a run about 6pm but took a wrong turn and night fell, bringing freezing temperatures, before he was able to find the track home.
"The runner had tried to keep warm by holding on to his dog," Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said today.
"(The) eight-month-old greyhound ... was a little on the light side and lacking in fur to be suited to the task of keeping him warm."
There's a reason the dogs Aborigines snuggled up with on a cold night weren't greyhounds: a frigid "three-dog night" would have had to become a cumbersome "27-greyhound night." With a counting system that doesn't go that high, the whole dog/cold-night rating system would have become frustrating and unworkable.
Some birthdays are better than others.
The Cracker hordes are making their way across Alligator Alley today in honor of my turning 29. Everybody have a great Saturday.
If you haven't seen the video of Katie Couric's in-depth interview with Michael J. Fox, it's here. I was glad to see it wasn't a puff piece -- she asked a lot of questions I had, pressed him at times, and didn't stamp him with a seal of either approval or disapproval.
He was very well-spoken, and presented a logical argument instead of an emotional appeal. If the topic of embryonic stem cell research interests you, it's well worth a watch.
UPDATE:
Another interview, this one regarding the Missouri cloning/stem cell amendment and the fact that he hasn't read it. It makes things awkward for those who have complained that the anti-Amendment 2 video is a direct insult to him.
Movie-star good looks keep the ladies in a tizzy.
(Via Wuzzadem.)
With the Florida midterms as exciting as a jar of Gerber carrots, I'll close my eyes and let George Allen and James Webb carry me back to Old Virginny, where of a morning I can listen to the sounds of the macaca chattering in the trees as, far away in the fields, greetings of the day are exchanged betwixt fathers and their small, naked sons.
The closest thing to a hit Barbra Streisand's had in decades: the STFU remix.
(NSFW).
(Via Fark.)
British tax dollars hard at work: the BBC's David Loyn embeds with the Taliban, and can't say enough good about them.
Talk about having a voice like an angel, listen to a woman sing their praises here. She can really hit the high notes too.
If you've wondered what Jim Caviezel is saying in that Michael J. Fox stem-cell rebuttal ad, wonder no longer:
The actor who played Jesus in "The Passion of the Christ" is drawing on his knowledge of that film's Aramaic language and his image as Christ for his latest role -- using Jesus' words to ask Missouri voters to oppose a stem-cell research measure on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Actor Jim Caviezel opens the political ad with a brief statement in Aramaic, the common tongue of biblical-era Palestine and the language of Mel Gibson's blockbuster movie, saying: "Le-bar nash be-neshak."
Bill Fulco, the Loyola Marymount professor who translated Mr. Gibson's script for "Passion" and coached the actors on the ancient language, told The Washington Times yesterday the phrase means: "You betray the Son of Man with a kiss," a reference to Judas' betraying Christ and a phrase used in the Greek of Luke's Gospel.
Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a spokeswoman for Missourians Against Human Cloning, which produced the ad, said the group had Mr. Caviezel say the Aramaic phrase in a contemporary setting but without subtitles "to make the ad a little more intriguing."
When presented with Mr. Fulco's translation, which was confirmed by several other Aramaic scholars, the group agreed to release the exact translation exclusively to The Times.
"It means 'You betray me with a kiss,' which means Amendment Two is a betrayal because it is deceptive," Ms. Ruse said. "It promises one thing and delivers another."
Clever ruse, Miss Cleaver Ruse.
I enjoyed the ad very much, but was a little distracted by Kurt Warner's seemingly having to film his segment while in lock-up. Watch it and you'll see what I mean.
I love Kurt and would be willing to bake him a little hacksaw into a cake if he needs it. Let me know, Kurt!
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
The folks at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard love their Twain:
When the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was slated for closure last year, it was Rep. Jeb Bradley who delivered to President Bush a petition and 400 letters from local residents asking for reconsideration. Bradley was an energetic and outspoken advocate for the shipyard, and he deserves partial credit for getting it off the base closure list.What thanks does he get? On Monday the shipyard's largest union endorsed Bradley's opponent, Carol Shea-Porter.
Paul O'Connor, president of the shipyard's Metal Trades Council, said it was all about support of "working people." Bradley, he charged, does not support working people.
Right. Except for fighting to save their jobs.
I'd have loved to hear from the rank and file on this. The interviews could have been conducted during their lunchbreaks, and they could explain, in between bites of thick cornbeef sandwiches, why this guy hadn't earned their support.
Catmeat fever! Is Australia's Sheik Hilali right that unveiled women are catmeat for predators, or is it time for him to go to the vet and get tutored?
Hold off on that Parisian vacation.
How appropriate for protesters to sing Kumbaya at serial killer Danny Rolling's execution. They did the verses where's someone's sleeping, crying, and praying, which makes sense because Rolling attacked his many victims in their sleep; but they left off the verses where someone's getting raped, decapitated, and having her head displayed on a bookcase.
I'm an environmentalist at heart, and consider my tears to be a precious natural resource. Don't expect me to waste them on guys like Rolling.
(Herald login/pswd=crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice.)
The fat was in the fire big time at this Salt Lake City crematory:
A dead man had one final earthly act before moving on.Fire officials said the six-hundred pound man was in being cremated when his body fluids were too much for the oven.
The body fluids seeped out onto the floor and ignited causing a fire at the Garner Funeral Home in Salt Lake City.
"Those fluids can be very flammable," said Scott Freitag of the Salt Lake City fire department. "Sort of like a grease fire."
They'll be contacting the relatives to assure them their loved one wasn't "harmed" during the process of his becoming a flaming cauldron of adiposity.
(Via Fark.)
In the home of the world's sloppiest nuclear laboratory, absquatulated classified documents could pop their heads up just about anywhere:
A drug bust at a trailer park in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, authorities said Tuesday.Local police found the documents while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home, said Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos, N.M., Municipal Police Department. The documents were discovered during a search of the man's records for evidence of his drug business, Ney said.
The police there pick one day each week to cruise the pawn shops for nuclear secrets.
Portrait of the artist as a young legend.
Wail on, Skydog!
I've been perusing the website of one Galen R. Frysinger of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He's gone all over the world taking pictures of fascinating people and places, and has put them together nicely on his site, often with commentary. Go have a look; he's been to so many obscure and unique places, you're bound to find something to interest you.
A brand new birth-control pill will make periods optional:
If a new brand of birth control gets approved early next year, that time of the month could become the time of, like, the decade. Lybrel, a birth-control pill made by Wyeth, would be the first oral contraceptive to deliver an uninterrupted supply of hormones. Seventy percent of women who took it for six months were period-free, according to a preliminary study by the company.
You could skip it for your entire 20's if you want. Any takers? Husbands, put your hands down.
What I would find optimum is the way it was done in the Old Testament and by the Indians, where you're considered unclean and have to go live alone in a tent at the edge of the village for a week. That sounds like a nice rest right when you need it. Throw in a bottle of Motrin and it's perfect.
You don't really need a plastic surgeon to make your face less attractive; you can do that all by yourself:
A young woman from Chongqing sought plastic surgery to make her face less attractive recently, after being crossed in love.The 23-year-old woman's sweetheart left her weeks ago to stay with another woman. Although the two had been in love for six years, her ex-boyfriend feared that her too-beautiful face might lure many other men and thus he didn't feel safe staying with her.
She came to hate all men after being courted by many others, prompting her desire for the surgery. But the doctors refused to co-operate, saying she had a mental disorder and needed to seek help from psychotherapists.
If the boyfriend wasn't Chinese, and therefore inscrutable to me, I'd say he was blowing smoke up her ass. It's a good break-up line with a fuse long enough for a clean getaway before she realizes it was BS.
I didn't have time to develop a standard break-up line as, being a tasty bag of groceries, I was snapped almost immediately after going on the market. I've hence decided that "I want you to be happy" sounds pretty good.
Anybody have a fave that they used on someone, or that someone used on them?
(Via Fark.)
What a nice 'Toys and Games' page the British company Tesco has set up. Leapfrog, dolls, Play-Doh, and Legos. It's clicking on the sub-menu 'Arcade and Gadgets' where things get really interesting, though. Hey, have you ever wondered if your little girl wants to be a pole dancer?:
Tesco has been accused of 'destroying children's innocence' for selling a pole-dancing kit in the toys and games section of its website.The Tesco Direct site advertises the kit with the words, 'Unleash the sex kitten inside..simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!
'Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars'.
Some parents are flinging themselves at the customer complaint department in a not terribly seductive manner. Reorganizing the online catalog might be Tesco's best course of action. If the parents sue, it's unlikely they'll be willing to be payed off in Peekaboo Dance Dollars.
UPDATE:
In a fast turnaround from Tesco, both the pole dancing kit and the kiddie strip poker game ("Played with a unique pack of Peekaboo Boy and Girl playing cards, the aim of the game is to win as many Peekaboo chips as possible and turn them into outrageously naughty fun.") have been removed.
The boy that peace activist and "human shield" Christiaan Briggs punched into a coma is on his fourth brain operation.
Briggs has just received an eight-month sentence for the crime. With a little prison time, he'll be claiming spiritual kinship with Mandela:
A smirking peace activist who left a rising rock star fighting for his life after a row over his girlfriend was jailed for eight months today.Christiaan Briggs, 30, attacked 19-year-old singer Billy Leeson and left him in a coma, after Mr Leeson asked him to stop staring at his girlfriend on a late night number 29 bus.
After punching the teenager Briggs, who went to Iraq as a peace activist in 2003, walked away "smirking".
Mr Leeson fell into a coma when he hit his head in the pavement and the judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court said: "It was obviously a miracle that he lived."
(Via Tim Blair.)
*Liberal Larry looks at Bush's October Surprise.
*The Church's Chicken chain gets a new owner and takes bacon off the menu. Not too surprising considering it's now owned by the Islamic Bank of Bahrain, and they can in no way deviate from Sharia law for the American consumer.
*Is Prince Philip a god? He is on the island of Tanna.
Bonus points to the Daily Mail for putting "civilized" in quotes when referring to the world outside the island. The folks at the Mail aren't ones to pass judgement on the penis-sheath-wearing, Prince-Philip-worshipping islanders.
More on the fascinating cargo cults here and here.
(Via Brea Canyon.)
*I thought this video was interesting and sad. At a small computer company, a video records a young Amish remodeler asking questions about objects in the workroom.
*"The Inquisition goes after heretics, not run of the mill sinners." Eco-friendly punishment for global warming deniers.
*Wuzzadem bowls a strike.
What a tacky candidate for such a high-profile race:
Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly - and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery."You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days.
"I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month.
Stream-of-consciousness dialogue from a fool sitting next to a reporter. Candidates talk about issues, not looks. The schoolyard taunts are for the rest of us.
Camera-shy Cindy Sheehan has announced her plans to create a third political party. I can't wait for her to come up with a name for it. Will they be the Social Malcontents United To Hate Israel (also known as "the Smoothies"), the Bull Craps, the Whigged-Outs, or the Don't-Know-Jacks? The possibilities are endless.
She also added that "This nation was founded on rule by a few rich white males." Indeed it was -- those would be those rich white males who took on the British Empire, and would have been stripped of all their money and property before being sent to prison the gallows had they lost. Not exactly cafe revolutionaries, that bunch, and evidently not so worthy of her respect as Castro and Chavez are.
(Via FR.)
UPDATE:
Sorry, but my earlier "fate" link contained elements of both truth and fiction. Reader Chris was kind enough to send a cut & paste for a Snopes link that's not loading. Thank you, Chris. It concludes with:
What should we take from all of this? The signers of the Declaration of Independence did take a huge risk in daring to put their names on a document that repudiated their government, and they had every reason to believe at the time that they might well be hanged for having done so. That was a courageous act we should indeed remember and honor on the Fourth of July amidst our "beer, picnics, and baseball games." But we should also not lose sight of the fact that many men (and women) other than the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence — some famous and most not — risked and sacrificed much (including their lives) to support the revolutionary cause. The hardships and losses endured by many Americans during the struggle for independence were not visited upon the signers alone, nor were they any less ruinous for having befallen people whose names are not immortalized on a piece of parchment.
A notable example of that is the man who financed the revolution, Haym Solomon. If you ever come across "Sons of Liberty" with Claude Rains, you'll see his story. Also, a boy-soldier from the Carolinas who was taken prisoner and had his head split open with the flat of a sword for refusing to polish an English officer's boots. He lost his whole family because of the war. At the Battle of New Orleans he took his revenge.
Had we lost, those "rich white males" who had so stuck their necks out so conspicuously would have found them stretched, and their fortunes lost.
What do you know? Plopping a toddler down in front of the TV while his brain is still working out its wiring might be bad for him:
Autism may be linked to children watching television when very young, according to researchers.Scientists investigating the dramatic increase in the number of autistic children have said the rise coincided with the use of cable television and videos. Autism is at record levels in the UK, where one in 110 people - more than half a million - has the condition, according to the National Autistic Society.
Researchers investigating autism in the US said that, as recently as 30 years ago, it was thought one in 2,500 people had the condition. Today the figure is one in 166, a 15-fold increase.
This won't do. In this scenario there's no government to blame, only bad parents.
Another species wiped out:
The pink plastic flamingo, a Florida-inspired icon that has been reviled as kitschy bad taste and revered as retro cool, is dead at age 49.The pop culture symbol met its demise after its manufacturer, Union Products, of Leominster, Mass., was socked with a triple economic threat -- increases in costs of electricity and plastic resin combined with loss of financing. Production ended in June, and the plant is scheduled to close Nov. 1, according to president and CEO Dennis Plante. Union Products made 250,000 of its patented plastic pink flamingos a year in addition to other garden products.
Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, paid tribute to the infamous bird that has been immortalized everywhere -- from the John Waters' movie Pink Flamingos, to bachelor parties and lawns across America.
"Let's face it," he said. "As iconic emblems of kitsch, there are two pillars of cheesy, campiness in the American pantheon. One is the velvet Elvis. The other is the pink flamingo."
The birth of the plastic pink flamingo in 1957 coincided with the booming interest in Florida, Thompson said, making it possible for those in other parts of the country to have a little piece of the Sunshine State's mystique in their yard.
I've seen more of these on the covers of books about Florida than I've seen in Florida. It must be a Northern thing.
Union Products' stranglehold on the pink plastic flamingo industry has ultimately brought about their extinction. We can only be thankful that there will always be individual artisans able to craft a fine velvet Elvis.
Arklahomboy installing some 'ming'rs in Kuwait.
That and more hype-busting in an interesting interview with Michael Pollan, author of "Omnivore's Dilemna":
“Whole Foods is very cleverly designed, but it’s based on illusions. If you go to the farm depicted on those labels, you find that in fact, things look a little bit different.”
The side-order of fantasy will cost you extra.
Updating an earlier story: After seeing how stupid it looked in print, the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services has reconsidered its plan to attempt to nail the Amish's feet to the floor and shove food stamps down their throats.
I wonder what kind of trouble Tim Taylor and Dan Jackson, the complaining food stamp managers for Holmes and Geauga counties in Ohio, will get into for making their bosses look like the fools they truly are.
Top Republican Party supporters yesterday accused fellow conservatives of "whining" in response to complaints from activists worried that grass-roots Republican voters are disillusioned and will stay home on Nov. 7.Grover Norquist, a close associate of White House political strategist Karl Rove, dismissed concerns about voter turnout as empty threats.
"There are always in every election cycle self-appointed conservative leaders who announce, 'You haven't done enough for me, so my troops are staying home,' " Mr. Norquist said.
I'd never cut off my nose to spite my face by not voting, but Grover Norquist, job designation unknown, needs to shut his pie-hole. Most people may not be able to pay $15 grand for a weekend of face-time with their legislators, but that doesn't mean they're the kitchen help.
If anyone can parse this line, let me know. It has me stumped:
The finger-pointing among conservatives is an ill omen, said Republican media consultant Craig Shirley.
"You know things are bad when the members of the leper colony start fighting with each other," Mr. Shirley said.
If your sofa's on fire, you might want to tuck a baby in each arm before heading over to the neighbor's for a fire extinguisher. Fires have been known to be fiery, burney and even a bit smokey; and the laws of combustion probably aren't suspended on your couch:
Colena Gallagher, a cousin of Jessica Pitts, lives in another apartment in the building.She said Jessica Pitts came to her door and asked if she had a fire extinguisher. She said Pitts told her a sofa was on fire.
The two took an extinguisher to Pitts' apartment, where they found the door had collapsed. They tried to break a window to get to the children, but could not.
They'll no doubt be taking a hard look at this girl to try to determine if this was a case of tragic idiocy or something more malevolent.
I'm glad they rained on this fool's parade:
A pastor who wants to promote his anti-abortion campaign won't be able to do it in York’s annual Halloween parade.For the past several years pastor Jim Grove has entered a float displaying graphic pictures of aborted fetuses and other pro-life messages. The YWCA took over the parade from the City of York this year. That means the private organization doesn’t have to protect Grove's first amendment rights. It rejected grove's application for his float. The parade guidelines say displays must fit into the event's family-friendly theme.
I'd really like people who are old enough to know better to bug out of Halloween. Just pass the candy out at the door like grown-ups and leave the holiday to the children to whom it belongs. The other day I clicked a Yahoo article on the top 5 costumes, and they were all for grown-ups. I know the Boomers are determined to go from baby rattle to death rattle in a state of perpeptual immaturity, but there's no reason post-generations have to follow suit. Halloweeing women need to find another night of the year on which to fulfill their desperate need to expose themselves in public as a slutty French maid, slutty corpse bride, slutty serving wench, or slutty Cat Woman.
Groundhog Day's open -- go shake a titty for Punxsutawney Phil.
The New York Daily News, on Karl Rove's winning campaign for student senate president. It did not include Harriet Miers:
Alumni of Olympus High, outside Salt Lake City, say the man now known as "Bush's Brain" showed his political cunning way back in 1968."He had every social disadvantage imaginable," recalls Brian Moench, then Olympus' student body president. "Physically immature, no athletic ability, wasn't good with the girls, nothing."
A non-Mormon in a mostly Mormon town, the bespectacled nerd carried a briefcase and wore three-piece suits everywhere, even to football games, classmates tell James Ross Gardner in November's GQ. What's more, he was up against John Sorensen, who'd been class president during his soph and junior years.
But Rove "had a way of intimidating his opponents," says classmate Carey Jones. While most debaters would bring a few note cards, he brought thousands.
Grooming his public image, he posed for a yearbook photo holding hands with Kathy Wagstaff-Emery, the senior class president's girlfriend. "I found Karl endearing, but he was too flippin' geeky," she recalls. "The truth is, Karl grabbed my hand just before the photo was taken."
Then came the day he was due to take on the incumbent in a gymnasium debate. Sorenson had just finished his speech, when Rove arrived sitting on the back of a VW Bug convertible with two of the school's cutest girls.
The audience jumped to its feet as Rove and his adoring Rovettes made a lap around the gym, Gardner reports.
Think how different his life would have turned out if Superman hadn't made him go bald.
In a further sign of global warminization, sting rays all over the world are rising up to murder Gaia's foul tormenters:
An 81-year-old man is undergoing surgery this afternoon after he was stabbed in the chest by a stingray that leaped onto his boat while he was sailing on the Intracoastal Waterway, according to Lighthouse Point police.
That's just one species. Without Kyoto, I'm afraid one night I'll wake up with the very bellwether of ecological harmony's clammy pads on my throat.
UPDATE:
While Tree-Hugging Sister's Truth-Ray photo only skims the surface of this conflict, I'll link it in order to avoid her barbs.
Even bureaucrats have trouble dealing with bureaucracy. Tim Taylor and Dan Jackson, food stamp managers for Holmes and Geauga counties in Ohio, are beating their heads against the wall in frustration: they're under orders from the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services to lift their counties' dismal food-stamp participation rates among a particular segment of the local population. Seems their counties are chock-full of hand-out declining Amish:
Taylor and his Holmes counterpart, Dan Jackson, called the mandate a waste of tax dollars, time and resources.In their eyes, the directive is government bureaucracy that ignores the obvious in setting an unrealistic goal.
"No matter how much we do, the Amish won't sign up," Taylor said
Taylor and Jackson's requests that the state reconsider the mandate have so far fallen on deaf ears, and they have no choice but to move forward with a marketing campaign:
Meanwhile, the two counties will continue required efforts to market food stamps. Taylor and Jackson promised to keep the promotions low-key. They said that they feel uncomfortable pushing the program on a community that has made its opinion clear."We have a job to do," Jackson said. "But it's not to harass people to accept a service they've chosen not to."
This boy scout understands their frustration:
At a book-signing today, amidst hosannas and tossings of laurel crowns, Cindy Sheehan announced that she's a finalist for the new Seven Wonders of the World.
Think the surrounding crowd knew this guy would be counted as one of the greatest guitarists of all time?
Wail on, Skydog!
Football sure has changed in the years since I've watched it. In this video, neither the action on the field nor the commentary is as I remember it, especially the part where the police play.
Turn up the sound for Lamar Thomas's analysis.
Off enjoying the change in weather.
Picture Hillary Clinton, in a pink pantsuit, emerging from the gingerbread house while gnawing John Kerry's skull:
Sen. John Kerry says he deserves a second chance if he decides to take another crack at becoming president.
...
If Kerry runs, he would have to overcome other Democratic presidential hopefuls such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Biden of Delaware, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
Nice bunch of potential candidates there; not one of them can win the South. Had he not dropped out, Mark Warner had a nice shot at it. Anyone suggesting John Edwards could be a subsitute for Warner is deluded -- Edwards is the airiest of souffles.
Perhaps we're witnessing the birth of a new sport (to be known as the UKathalon), wherein Ramadan-insensitive sporting authorities race to apologize, reschedule, then apologize again:
The 2012 London Olympics have been plunged into controversy by the discovery that the Games will clash with Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islamic calendar.
Mild-mannered reporters pay their respects in Amish country:
The woman wore a brown dress and carried an apple crisp.The first day of the funerals, Oct. 5, she walked along Route 896 near Georgetown when she came to a roadblock manned by Witmer Fire Co. volunteers, running security for the event.
I’m Amish, she told them. Just dropping off apple crisp, on the way to the funerals of the girls killed by Charles Carl Roberts IV Oct. 2.
Firefighters smelled something fishy, and it wasn’t the dessert. They asked her for identification; she had none. They grilled her some more, and finally got it out of her: Media. Trying to sneak in.
Another funeral-crasher wore a pink floral dress.
A fascinating digitization project on the Depression-era freakshow that was the Dionne quintuplets. Step right up.
How secure are we? Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta draws us a picture: If someone can ride an elephant across the border accompanied by a mariachi band without the Border Patrol noticing, probably not very.
(Via reader Gmac.)
After all the touting it got from the New York Times, Air America files for bankruptcy.
The on-the-ball folks at The Smoking Gun have the filing.
I'll consider the death of this urban, liberal network my personal revenge for CBS's Great Rural Purge of 1971.
In a surprising move, the Nobel Committee gave the Peace Prize to an entirely-deserving person:
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.Through Yunus's efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.
"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty," the Nobel Committee said in its citation. "Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights."
This man has done more to benefit the lot of women than a thousand Gloria Steinems. Almost 96% of the pioneering microloans to the "pre-bankable" his bank has given out have been to women to start small businesses and raise their status. Who knows, maybe one loan was for a bicycle so the woman could transport her fish to market.
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Previous posting:
Ignoble Ignorance
Congress is sending waves of negative energy towards FEMA's $22.6 million-dollar Florida puppet show program. Expressions like "How does something this stupid happen?" and "FEMA needs to get out of the business of trying to prop up the self-esteem of anybody who was in the path of a hurricane," might just push us over the edge. Words wound.
I can't believe someone actually said he doesn't care about our self-esteem.
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Previous postings:
Windy Biggie Blows Money Around
Cindy Sheehan, a Nobel Peace Prize "finalist"? That's nice, but there's no such thing. She is a nominee, as was Stalin, and she may win it, as didn't Gandhi.
(Via Drudge.)
What do Australian authorities do when Muslim cabbies illegally refuse transport to the dog-assisted blind? Fine them? Revoke their hack license? If you're the Victorian Taxi Directorate, responsible for regulating the taxi and hire car industries in the state of Victoria, you pay a call on the mufti:
Earlier this week it was revealed that at least 20 dog-aided blind people had lodged discrimination complaints with the Victorian Taxi Directorate, while dozens of others had voiced their anger with the regulatory body.In the wake of that report, Victorian Taxi Association spokesman Neil Sach said the mufti of Melbourne had been approached in a bid to give religious approval for Islamic cab drivers to carry the dogs, seen as unclean in Islamic law.
The comment section for this article is interesting. Hot tip: buy stock in the tapping stick industry.
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Previous postings:
Blind Justice
Wuzzadem pays a visit to 9-11 conspiracists distraught over an upcoming South Park episode on them, and Hot Air has the video on why they had every reason to worry.
In a closet with a can of silver spray paint:
A North Fort Myers resident was surprised when she came home to find her daughter’s ex-boyfriend in her daughter’s closet, particularly since she filed a report against him a month earlier for trespassing.When Lee County Sheriff1s deputies arrived, they found the man -- identified as Lynn D. Lamb -- inside a bathroom near the garage, silver paint smeared on his face, according to arrest reports.
“In other words, he was sniffing some spray paint,” said Lee County Sheriff’s spokesman Angelo Vaughn.
Reports said deputies also found a Wal-Mart bag with fresh silver spray paint.
I guess everybody has a different color they like to huff.
Experimental pathos protocol fails:
Reporter:
For kids with cancer, surviving the disease is only half the battle.As the first generation of patients to survive pediatric cancer nears middle-age, a new study finds that more than 73% of patients cured of pediatric cancer will develop a chronic illness within 30 years of diagnosis.
Adult childhood-cancer survivor:
"Late effects are a luxury that only long-term survivors get to deal with."
Eminent eminent domain abuser Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom removed by Governor Bush after his arrest for five felonies: who would have imagined he was a big old crook?
It was a pleasure to see one of the robber barons who spent two years trying to steal the Mach family's property getting booked at the jail. Sometimes local politics can be so satisfying.
Other people I'd like to see get their comeuppance: John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Some pigs sniff for truffles, this dog sniffed up a baby:
He looks the picture of health... pink and cuddly and wrapped in clean clothes.But only hours before, rescuers thought this newborn baby boy was dead after he was buried alive by his distraught mother just after she gave birth, police said.
Neighbours brought the little boy back from the dead when they found him buried with his placenta when a dog started digging and whining around some freshly-dug soil.
Some dogs are more humane than humans.
Hopefully it was a case of poor flying, and not of Osama-akbaring.
A small plane crashed into a high-rise on the Upper East Side, setting off a fire and startling New Yorkers, police said.Fire Department spokeswoman Emily Rahimi said an aircraft struck struck the 20th floor of a building on East 72nd Street. Witnesses said the crash caused a loud noise, and burning and falling debris was seen. Flames were seen shooting out of the windows. Video from the scene showed at least three apartments in the high rise fully engulfed in flames.
There was no immediate word on any deaths or injuries.
It was not immediately known if it was a terrorist act
UPDATE:
Damn Yankees.
Tim Blair has an update on the Twin Cities airport officials' decision to accomodate Muslim cabbies refusing to transport passengers with alcohol in their luggage, and Daniel Pipes takes religious accomodation for transport-providers to its logical conclusion.
(Via reader Gmac.)
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Previous postings:
Blind Justice
Taxi!
Childish San Francisco Chronicle blog-writer Mark Morford tries his hand at being a radical imam and stir up the jihadis against Apple.
Next week he'll post pics from a French hog-calling contest and say it's people making fun of Mohammed.
(Via Tim Blair.)
Duane on a crowded stage in Memphis
Wail on, Skydog!
This week we have an interview with Duane Allman biographer Randy Poe, author of the new book Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. My thanks to Randy and all of you who submitted questions.
From YO:
In terms of interviews, who gave the best, most entertaining, and factual information?
The best interview was probably Bobby Whitlock of Derek & the Dominos. Bobby knew Duane not only from the “Layla” sessions, but also from his days with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. Bobby has a great memory for things that happened over 35 years ago, and he was very close to Duane. He helped me to understand Duane, the person, as much as anybody I talked to.
The most entertaining was Joel Dorn. Joel produced one track from the “Idlewild South” album – “Please Call Home.” But, like Bobby, Joel knew Duane and hung out with him when Duane would come to NYC. Joel’s a jazz cat, as was Duane to a great extent, so it was great fun interviewing a guy who still talks like somebody who wears a beret and a goatee (although I doubt if Joel ever did either).
The best interviewee for factual information – at least as far as the lesser-known, early years are concerned – was probably Michael Johnstone. He was a classmate of Duane’s and Gregg’s at Castle Heights Military Academy. Michael described the dorm rooms, the uniforms, what the cadets were allowed to have in their dorms, etc. But it was his description of the way Duane practiced his guitar – and what a strong work ethic Duane had when it came to honing his skill as a player – that really helped me to capture who Duane was.
Were there any subjects who were totally uncooperative, gave useless info, etc.?
I was really lucky because I didn’t come across very much of that during the course of writing the book. There were certainly some who had a tendency to make themselves the centerpiece of a lot of the stories they told. But I was lucky enough to be able – for the most part – to figure out (from others telling me about the same events) what was closer to the truth and what was simply an amusing anecdote that leaned more towards, shall we say, myth.
Although we all accept that Duane was human and had his problems, you always hear about him remembered fondly. Did he interview or come into contact with anyone who plain flat out disliked Duane Allman?
You know, I didn’t interview a single person who had flat-out negative things to say about Duane. Everyone was open about his drug problems, his constant flirts with disaster, his flagrant disdain for authority figures of any type – that sort of thing. But no one I talked to told me they didn’t like him as a person.
During my research, I read an interview in a guitar magazine with (if I’m remembering correctly) Pat Metheny. Metheny said Duane was the most overrated guitar player of all time – that his slide playing was constantly out of tune, etc. I was really surprised by that because it was the only time I had come across any of his peers talking negatively about Duane, the musician. And, obviously, I would strongly disagree. Duane worked within the genres of blues and jazz a lot. He intentionally flattened notes in many cases. Maybe Metheny just didn’t get what Duane was doing as a guitarist.
Did you censor yourself and/or exclude any negative/less than flattering info on Duane or the Allman Brothers?
Well, if you get a chance to read the book, you’ll see that I didn’t hold hardly anything back. Duane wasn’t a saint, and I made that clear by showing that he made an ass of himself on more than one occasion.
As far as the band itself is concerned, they had their moments of “immaturity” for lack of a better word, so I laid out their “bad” side as well as their good. I did jump to their defense when writing about the horrendous article written about them by Grover Lewis for Rolling Stone magazine. He called them “Dixie greasers,” had all of them saying “I reckon” at the end of every sentence, created what was clearly fictitious dialog among the band members and roadies, etc. As a Southerner myself, I wasn’t at all amused, and I think I make that pretty clear in the book.
I was told one story by one source having to do with Duane’s personal life that I chose not to follow up on. I don’t regret having not gone down that road. Duane’s daughter, Galadrielle, has told me that she, too, is planning on writing a book about her father. I have the feeling she’ll cover the topic if she so desires. Otherwise, it will remain untold. If I were writing one of those Albert Goldman-type bios, I would’ve run with the story. But that wasn’t the point of the book I was writing. Nor did I feel it moved the story along, so I chose not to chase it down. And, if I had, I might’ve found it not to be true in the first place. I covered very little ground in the book that I got from a single source. Everything factual had to be confirmed by several sources before it became part of the text.
Was there anything that you found out or heard about Duane that totally surprised you or maybe even changed your previously held conception of the kind of man he was?
Excellent question. In truth, by the time I started doing interviews specifically for the book with those who knew him, it would’ve been pretty hard for anybody to come up with anything that would’ve been a big shock to me.
I guess the thing I really wasn’t aware of was how incredibly hard he worked at his craft. He had some natural talent, but he wasn’t like, say, Derek Trucks. Derek was a child prodigy. Duane worked literally around the clock to become the great guitarist he became. Many of the people I interviewed told me that Duane ALWAYS had his guitar strapped around his neck. He would fall asleep wearing his guitar, go to the bathroom wearing his guitar, make his morning coffee with his guitar on, etc. Until source after source repeated that same info to me, I had thought that much of what he did came naturally to him. But clearly, that wasn’t the case.
There were tiny things that I hadn’t heard before – such as his tendency to play with knives. But that just goes back to his living life on the edge. I mean, what could be more dangerous for a guitar player to do than play with knives?!
Although it's been discussed to some extent of the Duane boards, particularly concerning one Johnny Wyker, how did you filter out the bullshit or exaggerated from the real, cold-hard facts?
Mainly, I found people who corroborated the basic facts in the book. I probably got taken in by Johnny one on occasion – but even if what he said about one particular session didn’t take place exactly as he described it (specifically, Duane snorting coke while playing dobro on Cowboy’s “Please Be With Me”), the fact remains that Duane did show up in the studio on more than one occasion in less than stellar shape, if you know what I mean.
One of my favorite quotes (which I had to save for the acknowledgements because there was no other place to put it) was when Reese Wynans warned me that I would be getting “35 year old stories being told by musicians of various repute.” I kept that in mind throughout the writing of the book.
From Owen:
Do you think Duane was an 'alone' person, or a 'always with people' person?
I think there were at least two Duanes. His father died when he was very young, so he found himself having to become an authority figure to Gregg from an early age. This led to him becoming a natural leader – primarily the leader of the various bands he put together in his lifetime.
I think being a self-appointed leader causes a person to have to be strong, forceful, and willing to not be liked at all times. At the same time, Duane seemed to always be trying to create a family with everything he did. Even his ultimate achievement, the Allman Brothers Band, made use of the word “brothers” in a figurative as well as a literal sense.
But even after the ABB was created, Duane was constantly on the road alone, going from Macon to Muscle Shoals to NYC to Miami, playing on other people’s sessions. By the nature of his job he spent an awful lot of time being alone. And, of course, there was the alone-ness of his aforementioned practicing. You don’t get to learn to play guitar the way he did by hanging out with a bunch of pals. It’s a very solitary environment – something I could really relate to as I sat alone at a computer writing the book for over two years.
Did you feel like Duane was an open book, or was he an introverted person?
I think he was a very complex guy. As Van Harrison, bass player for the Escorts said, Duane would have dark moments. The band would rehearse like crazy for an important gig, and then Duane wouldn’t show up.
Duane was clearly a very bright guy. It shows up in little things like the extent of his vocabulary in interviews. But I think, in his teen years, he felt trapped in a small town, wanting to be “out there” doing something important.
I’m not quite answering the question, but I think the answer is that it probably depended on the situation. He had to be open and outgoing to be the leader of the band – to be the main guy on stage. In the interviews with Duane that I read and listened to, he projected the personality of being pretty extroverted.
But we’re also talking about a high school dropout – and all of the high school dropouts that I ever knew were pretty introverted souls.
How/Why/What got Duane to pick up a slide, and who were he copying when he learned?? Or did the Devil give him a deal down in that cabin in Muscle Shoals?
Hey, I grew up in Muscle Shoals! But to answer your question, he heard Jesse Ed Davis III playing slide guitar with Taj Mahal at the Golden Bear here in the L.A. area during Duane’s years with the Hour Glass. When Duane heard Jesse Ed playing slide on Taj Mahal’s version of “Statesboro Blues,” he realized that he’d found the kind of music he wanted to learn to play.
As Paul Hornsby (also in the Hour Glass) told me, there was nothing worse than listening to Duane trying to learn to play slide guitar – unless it was listening to somebody trying to learn how to play the fiddle.
From Suzy:
Tell me about Duane's relationship to the roadies, and in particular, was it he who decided to put them on the back cover of Fillmore East?
According to roadie Red Dog Campbell, when Phil Walden of Capricorn Records called for a band meeting, Duane always insisted that the roadies be included at the meetings.
And, according to Gregg, it was Duane’s idea to put the roadies on the back cover of “At Fillmore East.”
And also: for Poe, however, as author, I'd be interested in hearing him discuss how he approached this book, organized his research for it, and how long it took him to write it (as with the whole process, start to finish, how much time he devoted to it, including research leading up to writing the book).
Okay, this could take a while. I was lucky enough to have been in Muscle Shoals in the 60s and 70s when the recording scene down there was still very much alive. I wrote an article for Guitar Player magazine about studio guitarist Pete Carr – who happened to have been a member of the Hour Glass and a lifelong friend of Duane’s. He told me a lot of Duane stories. This led to me interviewing a host of the studio guys down there. In every interview, I always asked about Duane. This was long before the thought of writing a book about him ever entered my mind. Call it purely accidental forethought.
In January of 2004, it was suggested that I should write a book about the ABB. I immediately turned the idea down because I didn’t think it would be possible to write a book about a still active band. I also didn’t want to tread where Scott Freeman had already gone. Gregg had been kind enough to write a beautiful quote for the back of my previous book, “Squeeze My Lemon,” and I wasn’t looking to end up in the same camp with Freeman (i.e. ostracized for all time). Of course, that might still end up being the case after Gregg reads “Skydog,” but I hope not.
Anyway, the same day the ABB book idea came up, I realized that there had never been a book written about Duane. I also knew, sadly, that his story had a beginning, middle, and an end. I also knew I already had a ton of transcribed interviews with the Muscle Shoals guys who had told me an awful lot about Duane.
So, once the book deal was in place, I began the serious research. I went to my friends at Hittin’ the Note magazine and acquired copies of every single issue. I started calling on the people I already knew who had known Duane. And from them I got names and phone numbers of others who had known him. The folks at Guitar Player magazine gave me copies of every article ever written about Duane, the ABB, Taj Mahal, slide guitar players, etc. etc.
I began writing right away, starting with the two things I knew the most about – Muscle Shoals and the “Layla” sessions. From there I created a time line, and then moved forward and backward over the course of the next couple of years until all of the blanks started getting filled in.
The most grueling part was writing the book while still presiding over a large music publishing company (and, miraculously, I still have that day job). The manuscript ended up being over 15,000 words more than the book publisher wanted it to be, so I had to do a lot of fine-tuning to get it down to the size it became.
The entire book was written between midnight and 4 a.m. from early ’04 to the middle of ‘06, which might explain the slightly eerie writing style. I don’t recommend this to anyone. And, of course, in the middle of writing “Skydog,” the publisher of my first book asked me to revise and expand that book (a book on music publishing I have to update every few years) – and to do it in about 4 months. So, I had to set the Duane book aside, do all the revisions and additions to the other book – and then go back and start on the Duane book again as if nothing had happened. It was really tough to return to the writing style I was using for “Skydog” after 4 months of revising what is, essentially, a textbook.
And then there were other facets to the book, like putting together the discography, the guitar appendix, finding the photos, etc. I have no idea how I did it in the timeframe I did it in, and I hope to never have to go through the process again – at least not without a slightly most realistic deadline.
From Peter:
I do have two things I'd like Randy to shed some light on, although I don't know if he went into Duane's life this deeply. One is: was there any indication in early life that he was special? So far I haven't read anything that suggests that; at the same time I find it hard to imagine there wasn't.
You know, I think Duane realized that he was special, and that’s all that really mattered. EVERYBODY I interviewed used the word “driven.” He was driven to make the music he wanted to make. He wasn’t looking to become a “rock star.” He wanted to be the best there was at what he did. But I don’t think “special” is a word that would’ve described the young Duane Allman. As I said earlier, he was a high school dropout; he wasn’t a natural musician who just picked up a guitar one day and discovered he could play it. But he believed in himself even though he didn’t give too many outward signs that there were a lot of reasons early on for others to believe in him the way he did.
The other thing, in a way connected with that: Duane was the indisputable leader of the ABB and earlier bands. How did he do it? I mean, he was not a bully, not an official leader. What was it in his personality that marked him as a leader?
I think there were a number of things: first of all, as I said earlier, his father died when he was very young. He was the oldest male in the family. That would’ve certainly forced him to develop at least a bit of leadership instinct. Gregg told me about Duane being in charge of him from the time they were quite small.
Secondly, he spent several years going to military school. He would’ve had little choice in that environment. He had to be either a leader or a follower, and he just wasn’t the “follower” type.
Thirdly, at a young age, music became his life. He was going to succeed as a musician, and in that particular era that meant having a band. And if he was going to have a band, he was going to have to put it together and run it. He did it from the time he was very young (the Escorts, the Allman Joys), through his early adult years (the Hour Glass), and finally – brief though it was – the Allman Brothers Band.
From Willard:
I would like to know if any contact was made with Clapton concerning Duane's life and death. I always thought it curious that Duane spoke so highly of E C yet I've never seen or heard any comments from Clapton himself.
I made every effort to get in touch with Eric Clapton – through his U.S. PR person, through his UK management office, etc. I kept being told that his people would be getting back to me, but apparently his people were very busy.
I saw this as a golden opportunity for Eric to finally say whatever he wanted to say about Duane. I’m not going to make any judgments here about why he chose not to participate in the book. I do think, however, that it’s a shame Eric remains so quiet about the man who contributed more to his career than anyone before or since.
Luckily, several years ago there was a young man named Sam Hare who somehow got Clapton’s home phone number and just called him up one day to talk about Duane. I don’t remember if it was for a school newspaper or what, but he did manage to get Clapton to open up a little bit. The transcribed phone conversation appeared in “Hittin’ the Note” # 26 under the heading “Slowhand Remembers Skydog – Eric Clapton Comments on Duane Allman.”
In related news, I bumped into my foreword writer, Billy F Gibbons today. We were having lunch at the same hamburger joint. Only in L.A. can these things happen. Anyway, he said in that lovely "La Grange" growl of his, "Lemme give ya my new card." His new business card reads "GIBBONS - Friend of Eric Clapton." Now that's funny!
From Carl:
What was their favorite regular venue/audience?
Without question, the Fillmores, East and West. Gregg has frequently said he loves the Beacon because it’s the closest venue to the Fillmores he’s ever found.
How did they characterize their own sound? Did they have a name for it?
Well, they certainly didn’t call it Southern Rock. Duane loved Clapton and B.B. King and Miles Davis and Coltrane. I think if they called it anything, they probably considered it blues-rock, with a hint of jazz.
These days everybody tends to toss them into the jam band category. Gregg always says, “We’re not a jam band. We’re a band that jams.”
Who had the idea to use two drummers? Was that a new thing at the time?
According to Jaimoe, Duane wanted to have two drummers because Otis Redding had two drummers and James Brown had two drummers. The funny thing about that is Otis and James never used both drummers at the same time.
I think the famous jam session on March 23, 1969 helped seal the deal. When Butch and Jaimoe jammed together that day with Duane, Dickey, Berry, and Reese Wynans, it just worked. It probably shouldn’t have, but there’s something totally unique about Butch and Jaimoe’s playing together that always meshes. Butch is a rock drummer; Jaimoe’s a jazz drummer. They manage to compliment each other and stay out of each other’s way at the same time.
But it wasn’t a completely new idea. The Grateful Dead already had two drummers by that time, didn’t they?
Which song or performance did DA consider to be his best (his 'masterpiece'?)
Great question. My honest answer would have to be I have no idea. I think his work on “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” stands out. But I’m sure he was also proud of the stuff he played on the Herbie Mann album. And as simple as it was, I’m sure he was pretty pleased with his own composition, “Little Martha.” And I suspect he liked what he did on Pickett’s recording of “Hey Jude.” His decision to rip into that incredible solo over the coda is what caught the attention of Rick Hall, Jerry Wexler, Phil Walden, Tom Dowd, and many others. That single solo at the end of “Hey Jude” led to everything that came later.
Who was DA's best friend?
According to Gregg and others, that would’ve been John Hammond, Jr.
Who was DA's best friend in the band?
Berry Oakley. There was a unique bond between them that I don’t think existed with any of the others. (And I’m excluding Gregg since Gregg was his brother – a different type of relationship, obviously.)
What's your favorite quote or comment about DA?
Oh, I see. Save the hardest question until last! Okay, there are so many to choose from, but I loved it when Bobby Whitlock got on a roll, telling me about Duane, the musician and leader:
“Duane, he was a bandleader, man. He was the one that was ‘on’ about everything. He organized everything – kept everybody in line. I mean those guys [the ABB] walked a tight line when Duane was around. It was a no nonsense deal.
“It was all business when it came to playing, man, it was all business. There wasn’t no bullshit coming down with Duane Allman. When it came down to laying it down, he was your man.
“When he walked in, he was solid serious about what he was doing. It wasn’t no playtime. He could back it up. It wasn’t just a bunch of talk. He could back it up all day long – and night. For real!”
But I think I’ll wrap this up with something Scott Boyer told me. I don’t think most of this even made it into the book, but it probably captures Duane as well as anything anybody said:
“He was just a magical spirit. He was driven – one of the most active people I’ve ever met. But he was also so supportive of everybody and everything around him. I rarely heard him have a bad word to say about anybody. As a matter of fact, he sort of lived that ‘If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all’ life. Really, really gave me a lot of confidence in my ability as a musician and a songwriter, and as a singer.
“He was always telling me how good he thought I was. That really helps when you hear somebody that you think has really got the shit, if they start telling you that they really like what you’re doing, you’re more inclined to believe it from somebody like that than from some ‘yahoo.’
“I just think he was a magical guy. One of the people that makes me believe that there’s more to life than random chance, you know what I mean? He was just magic. Good things happened when he was around. I don’t want to get too weird here. I’m really not that way, but when it comes to Duane, he was just an amazing personality as well as being an incredible guitar player. He’s just one of those guys, if somebody asked me the question, ‘In your entire life, who are you really glad you got to meet?’ he’d be the first guy on the list. I just feel like I was very lucky to know him. I’m not making this up. I really mean that. He was an amazing guy.”
Thanks to all of you for your interest in the book, and for your interest in Duane. The main point of writing the book for me was to try to keep Duane’s spirit alive. It’s great to know there are so many others who feel the same way.
***
Thanks again to author Randy Poe for his participation here at Florida Cracker. If you don't use Amazon, many other stores are also carrying the book, so be sure to drop by Randy's website and order yourself a copy.
Denied a promotion that went to a less-experienced jihadist, an al-Qaeda defector complains "I made my bones while he was still wearing exploding diapers."
Good stuff from The Nose on Your Face.
From Release the Hounds, blatant PC-nonsense from the NCAA:
The Irish are beneath contempt. Or so it seems, at least if you are the NCAA. The University of North Dakota has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA over the latter’s mandate that the school drop its team logo and nickname, “The Fighting Sioux”, or face sanctions and fines in post-season play. This is all part of a larger NCAA ban on American-Indian based nicknames and logos in postseason tournaments.Why, you may ask? Because these nicknames are considered “hostile to Native Americans.” So, what do the Irish have to do with this? Well, there is a fairly well known college football team out of Indiana whose nickname is “The Fighting Irish” and last I heard the NCAA wasn’t particulary concerned over hostility towards our friends from the Emerald Isle.
Also, the unmentionable Asians: the minority you mentally insert into news articles that decry the obvious racism that keeps minorities from achieving in education. You have to mentally insert them -- you usually can't find a trace of them in the ink spilled writing about minorities. If only they'd stop being such high-achievers...
Well, I liked it.
Anyone who was surprised it was over the top obviously hadn't watched any Abrahams & Zucker movies.
UPDATE:
Since some dolt flagged the video as "inappropriate," I've linked to a fresh copy.
An update to the instruction manual: As conditions change, turn off navigation system and engage brain:
AN 80-year-old German motorist has obediently followed his navigation system all the way into a huge pile of sand, abrubtly bringing his trip to an end.
The motorist ignored a motorway "closed for construction" sign and crashed his Mercedes into a pile of sand further down the road, police have said."The driver was following the orders from his navigation system and even though there was a sufficient number of warnings and barricades, he continued his journey into the construction site," a police spokeswoman has said.
"His trip finally ended when he wound up crashing into a pile of sand," she added.
Lucky it was a soft sandpile he plowed into, or he might have gotten the blue screen of death.
Spinach, lettuce: people are getting very sick from eating healthy. But it's not industrial agriculture's leafy greens that are making munchers fall ill; it's the manure-laden organically-grown varieties that are sending folks to the hospital:
"Organic foods may be fresh, but they're also fresh from the manure fields."Earthbound Farms, one of the biggest organic farms in North America, is also the source of the contaminated spinach that is suspected in three deaths and hospitalized at least 29 other people with kidney failure. In total, the poison spinach sickened nearly 200, in 23 states and Canada.
And now lettuce has been added to the potential E. coli contamination list.
Earthbound fertilizes its leafy vegetables with cow manure.
"Most conventional farmers fertilize their food crops with "chemical" fertilizer, and put their livestock manure on feed crops like corn," Hudson's Center for Global Food Issues Dennis T. Avery and Alex A. Avery wrote in canadafreepress.com on Oct. 3. "Organic farmers reject chemical fertilizer. Instead, they compost raw cattle manure for some weeks, hoping that will kill any dangerous organisms that could contaminate the food. Sometimes it doesn't.
"In the old days, when organic produce came from a few little farms, an occasional sick customer was no big deal. Often, the victim refused to believe organic food could cause the illness. But so many people now believe the organic hype that organic farms have gotten big and corporate and the manure-related consumer epidemics make national news."
As of 2004, while being only one percent of the American diet, organic foods already made up eight percent of all E. coli cases. With the popularity of organic food rising since, and the recent nation-wide outbreaks of organic-foodborne E. coli illness, those numbers are set to change very much for the worse.
Sydney Morning Herald writer Hamish McDonald goes inside the mind of Kim Jong-il:
KIM JONG-IL seems to have timed his nuclear test for maximum embarrassment in Washington, before the congressional mid-term elections next month.
The test may be unverified as of yet, but the mind-meld's a success. Nobody's ever accused Kim of being politically astute, though, and probably no one's going to be genuflecting to McDonald's acumen either. Security threats the world over make people rally round the flag. In fact, I'm waiting for an article that questions the timing for the benefit of the Bush administration.
I am fond of his theory (and other's) that Kim did it to get Jodie Foster's attention:
Along the way, Pyongyang has been offering to give it all up, as long as it gets diplomatic recognition, security guarantees and economic aid. It seemed desperate to talk directly to the Americans.
Zipping back into Kim's noggin:
Any hint of nuclear material sales to terrorists would bring military intervention by the West, and Kim is probably wise enough to see that.His main worry, meanwhile, would be the development of a Chinese perception that he is pushing Japan to go nuclear, or that his intransigence is leading America to punish Beijing by freeing Taiwan.
His main worry is probably when his next sushi shipment is coming in. He's a flake, not Bismarck.
Meanwhile, what the majority party has to worry about is alienating its base. If President Bush doesn't sign the fence bill that we thought he signed last week, a clear lesson about alienating the party's core audience is in the offing, and it's definitely going to be nuclear.
