According to MSNBC News, Colin Powell will not be attending the Republican National Convention at the end of August.
What will he be doing instead?
-Washing his hair.
-Organizing Top Secret Files either in chronological order or from “best to worst” depending on his mood.
-Spending a little ‘me time.’
-Four words: “Calgon, take me away!”
-Scowling.
-Crying, interrupted by scowling, then more crying.
-Calling friends in ‘old Europe’ and apologizing.
-Working on his Monster.com resume.
-Baking pies, mostly apple, but some cherry.
-Practicing guitar: He’s almost got the first half of “Wooly-Booly” down.
-Scowling. Did we mention scowling?
Category: Grave
The new and improved Woolworth’s sit-in lunch counter
In today’s New York Times, writer Shaila K. Dewan examines a newfound impetus among white southerners to begrudgingly reflect on their communities’ roles in the civil rights movement which occurred many decades earlier. Is this due to a changing of the guard? An effort by younger generations to atone for the sins of their parents? Nah, come on, you’re entertaining some pretty feeble guesses there…the correct incentive is, of course, greed.
It has not been easy for communities to embrace a past laced with shame and violence. “Tourism has been forced on these places,” said Jim Carrier, a writer from Montgomery, Ala., whose “Traveler’s Guide to the Civil Rights Movement” was published by Harcourt in January. “It’s not like they put out a sign one day and said, ‘Come on down and see our civil rights history.’ It’s in response to people coming down here, lugging big history books, looking for these places.”
The lure of tourism money has helped overcome the shame.
As a result, a handful of various groups in these areas have been putting forth initiatives for museums, monuments, and such that pay tribute to the era’s struggles and, oftentimes, to specific landmarks that played a prominent role in the movement, such as the bus stop where Rosa Parks famously held her ground.
Museum gift shops bring in a good business, of course, so we’re not knocking their ambitions in that regard, but think of the piles upon piles of cash that could be brought in by a goddamned Six Flags Civil Rights Memorial Park!
Included in this hypothetical RFP for a Six Flags-themed entertainment and water park spectacular:
Special “sit-in”-themed lunch counters, where you can dine on the finest in period-correct malts, shakes, and fries, so long as you drink from the properly-labeled “Colored Only” fountains
I Have a Dreamland, modeled after Disney’s giant EPCOT globe, wherein visitors are taken on a guided tour of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s notable exploits, culminating in a thrilling assassination outside a mock hotel
Ride the ‘Back of the Bus’-coaster, the wild up and down ride to freedom! And remember, they say with roller coasters, the biggest thrills are always in the back!
Experience the exploits of actual walking and talking Animatronic White Racists…for the first time ever, you, too, can feel what it’s like to be called a n*gger, or to have this term impolitely muttered under robotic breaths as you enter or leave the room
Oh, and don’t forget the water park:
Enjoy our climate controlled wave pool for the Brown vs. the Surf Board Experience!
And don’t forget to leave before getting your very own Fire Hose Blast! What a thrill!
Presidential candidate John Kerry, who renounced his Vietnam war medals in the early 1970s.
General George S. Patton Jr., as played by actor George C. Scott, who renounced his metal Oscar in the early 1970s.
Categories
Gloria Emerson, 1929-2004
Gloria Emerson
Speaking of the fall of Saigon…
If female journalists were as lionized as their male counterparts, Gloria Emerson would’ve already gotten the full All The President’s Men treatment by now. I see a young Ali MacGraw or Diane Keaton circa Looking For Mr. Goodbar, or, if it were made today, Parker Posey as the compassionate, fearless Vietnam war reporter for The New York Times who died this week.
Of course, we’ll probably never see such a movie, since female journalists only get the biopic treatment if they’re martyred or the “based on a true story” treatment if they’re beautiful and tragic. Meanwhile, this asshole has a film about him, and this schmuck is about to, despite the fact that neither of them has half the talent, bravery, or impact as Emerson had.
Unlike those pishers, Emerson actually reported her stories, even going so far as to risk her life in war-zones like Vietnam and Gaza. But while Emerson’s male colleagues seem to have had a jones for the danger, the rugged manhood and camaraderie in the theater of war, Emerson brought uncommon compassion to her reporting. As Craig R. Whitney’s Times obit pointed out:
War as she wrote about it was not ennobling but debasing, a misery that inflicted physical suffering and psychic damage on civilians, children and soldiers on both sides.
Emerson wasn’t merely the war’s reporter, she was its conscience. She probably wouldn’t say that about herself, but she almost did when she said:
Vietnam is just a confirmation of everything we feared might happen in life. And it has happened. You know, a lot of people in Vietnam—and I might be one of them—could be mourners as a profession. Morticians and mourners.
She was such an important figure of that era, Richard Avedon gave her the full icon treatment with one of his myth-making portraits, which caught her mid-word, mid-thought, and mid-smoke, looking very much the model of forthright intelligence and intense focus.
As it turns out, there sort of is a movie about Gloria Emerson, or, at the very least, a movie that features her in her prime. In the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon, Emerson pops up in a hilariously confrontational interview with the ex-Beatle who was then embarking on his anti-war “give peace a chance”/bed-in phase. Emerson chastises Lennon for his attention-grabbing antics and his Rolls Royce, repeatedly calling him “my dear boy,” and cutting him off again and again. Lennon, knowing he’s up against his rhetorical better, can only roll his chewing gum in his hand, make jokes about “the moptops” and act like a petulant child.
The only other person who got up in John and Yoko’s shit more in that film was cartoonist Al Capp, but he came off like a crotchety oldster, Bob Dylan’s out-of-touch Mr. Jones, whereas Emerson came off like someone who told it like she saw it, and knew exactly whereof she spoke. She stole the scene in John Lennon’s very own film. I guess she got her movie after all.
Gloria Emerson was 75.
Categories
Don’t Abandon the Mission
Curious Kerry photo op in Grandview, Iowa, via Reuters and AFP
Oh, no! Kerry’s having a Fall of Saigon flashback!
Categories
Dick Cheney, I See You!
Boo!
Related (?): Is Cheney standing in a grassy knoll?
Bush and Carl Anderson: We do chicken right (wing).
With restrictions on campaign ‘soft-money’ contributions, Bush and Cheney turn to crispy money—extra crispy if you prefer.
Can a cabinet post for this guy be far behind? No? What about this guy?
Appearing in the August 4, 2004 edition of the New York Times, as part of their sly, witty, and oh-so-blunt coverage of the trial of the soldiers responsible for the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison last year:
“Woman With Leash Appears in Court on Abu Ghraib Abuse Charges”
Couldn’t they have phrased this in some other fashion? Really, you know, just bump around a few clauses….it’s that simple.