Well, it was a tough weekend. We lost Richard Pryor, and Gene McCarthy. Over 100 people (including some 75 school children, aged 12 – 16, headed home for the holidays) were killed in a plane crash in Nigeria. Firecrackers set off a fire on a bus that killed at least 40 wedding guests in Pakistan. And fallen soldiers are being shipped as freight on commercial airliners, stuffed in the cargo hold with with suitcases.
Now we come to the last Monday edition of Morning Sedition. It just aint right.
Remembering Gene McCarthy, it strikes me just how different times are today – or at least how different the Republicans of today are form the Democrats of the late 60’s. Lyndon Johnson lied us into war – or at least, into escalation of war – with the Tonkin Gulf incident. Eugene McCarthy (and Bobby Kennedy) knew this was wrong. They knew the Vietnam War was bad, and that we needed to get the hell out. So, McCarthy challenged Johnson, and Johnson was forced to not seek reelection. I recall watching that speech on TV. It was a real shocker, even to a 7 year old kid. Contrast that with today’s Republicans. They back Bush, despite the fact that we all – we all – know that this is wrong. But they don’t care about right and wrong. All they care about is power.
Unfortunately, Bobby Kennedy was killed, and Nixon won the election. Nixon kept us in Vietnam to save face (or some such shit). Some 30,000 soldiers had already been killed at that point, and more than 20,000 additional US soldiers died, needlessly, before the US finally withdrew. God only knows how many Vietnamese were killed; we don’t know, any more than we know how many Iraqi’s have been killed. I guess “them people” just aren’t worth counting.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take 50,000 US Deaths in Iraq to get us to withdraw.
Just checkin’ in…
Bonzo
Good Morning. Sad week, must savor it.
Cat Litter Protest
I think I’ll save all of the used cat litter produced this week (from 7 cats – 4 at home, 3 at the office), and send it the Goldberg for Christmas.
Anybody else in on this? 😈
We have two WLIB T-Shirts (from the final live broadcast at O’Neal’s) lining the litter boxes of four cats. I can probably get the dog to chip in, too.
I cannot imagine waking up to anything other than Marc y Mark. Next week will NOT be fun.
So the Governator won’t commute Tookie. Ah, well, it was worth a shot. What a coup that would have been for anti-death penalty folks. I just hope Ahnahld doesn’t make fun of him as he’s being killed. Like the Monkey King once did to someone whose death penalty he’d failed to commute.
Maybe we’ll get best-ofs or at least MS repeats for the two week run-up to Mark and Rachel’s shows. Better than nothing, I say.
Or maybe they’ll run Springer repeats and drain what little audience will be left. I hope not… my employer frowns on it when I sleep on company time.
I like the cat litter idea, but not having any pets, I guess I’ll have to send Goldberg my own. Bring on the broccoli!
I was thinking that perhaps I’d start listening to the archives, one day at a time, and on the corresponding date. So next Monday, I’ll listen to the December 19, 2004 show, and carry on from there.
I think this Friday, at 9:00 AM eastern time, I’ll call the AAR office and tell them that I just wanted to officially tell them how much I’ll miss the show. It would be great if everybody could start calling at the end of the show, and keep calling until we get through. I’d like to see their phone system melt down.
eya gang!
Gene McCarthy had the right idea too.
run as an independant. if you had 5 senators you’d have the catbird seat.
did anyone ever archive the site into a folder?
lotta good posts the last 2 years.
I’m up for the calls – my office phone has a “camp on” function.
If someone were to send used cat litter (or, in Kevin’s case “whatever”), they might use small boxes (a chocolate gift box would be a nice touch), under one pound, so they could send them by dropping off in a post office box rather than going to the PO (less traceable). Seal the box well – the Post Office folks have to deal with enough crap this time of year . . .
Note: the author does not condone sending cat feces (or any other kind) to stupid idiotic radio executives, no matter how much they damn well deserve it. The above information is posted for educational purposes so you may identify potential incoming cat feces boxes sent to you.
Forgot: 😈
tried to use the contact form to sign up fer moderator, but could’nt get it to work…
If you’re intersted in becoming a blog author (who can do more than comment, but can also start and edit new threads)….
sure, be glad to do it!
sofrajones@telus.net
SJ
On a serious note
Not that losing MS isn’t serious verging on catastrophe, but as had been pointed out this adventure is caused a lot of serious WIA. I think in ‘Nam the KIA to WIA ratio was about 4 or 5 to one, but these messy little Iraq actions, combined with improved medical care, serious, life altering injuries are occuring at about a 10 or 15 to one ratio, so we have 20,000 to 30,000 vets who have lost limbs, serious internal injuries, etc. Since the admin is hiding the number of medical discharges, this number is hard to come be.
On the one hand, it’s great we have a lot fewer KIA’s – nobody argues that. But to imply that because our people aren’t being killed (only maimed) and therefore this thing was relatively cost free, as many bush supporters do, is a bunch of used cat litter.
😈
I just got an e-mail from AAR, promoting AAR swag as holiday gifts, and also trying to get me to become an AAR associate. I entered $0.00 for a donation amount, but got redirected to a page that said they couldn’t tkae less than $5. There was a link to “contact us,” so I clicked on it, and was able to enter a message. So, here’s what I entered:
I’ve been drowning my sorrow in work. I’ll make that phone call Friday.