Archive for September, 2009
RIP Lucy "in the sky with diamonds" Vodden, dead at 46
This is truly sad, the end to a story we loved in the music world.
Lucy “O’Donnel” Vodden was a lifelong friend of Julien Lennon. One day at school, Julien and Lucy were painting and Julien made a picture of her flying in the sky surrounded by diamond stars. When his father John Lennon came to pick him up from school, he showed his dad the picture and told him it was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”.
The rest is music history.
Unlike the perversion that is “Sweet Caroline”, where Neil Diamond wrote a rather disturbing song about a preteen HRH Princess Caroline, this is a very sweet story…about a song that in reality has nothing to do with LSD as some believe. And, mercifully, it’s not about a middle-aged perv jonesing for the former president’s young daughter (not good, not good, not good).
Lucy Vodden had an unexpected encounter with immortality in that song…one that will be around long after the rest of us are long gone. By all accounts, she was a wonderful woman…one who suffered from Lupus…and died still dear friends with Julien.
Sweet lady.
Sweet story.
So sad, so sad, so sad.
Tuesday Open Thread: September 29th 2009
What’s on your mind this Tuesday?
This kind of sums up where we’re thinking, in all things Olympics related:
Can you just imagine how SPECTACULAR a Rio Olympics opening ceremony would be?
Great Merciful Zeus, it would be FAN-FRIGGING-TASTIC. Befeathered showgirls. Hot guys, shirtless, oiled up and ready to samba. Wild animals and tropical flowers. It would be like a night in Rahm Emanuel’s basement, minus the “ick factor” and gratuitous sodomy.
Everyone would be singing…when my baby, when my baby smiles at me I go to Rio…De Janiero. Cue dancing studs and Hugh Jackman in pornographically tight pants N-to the-O-to the -W!
And somehow, we’re sure we can work in Jake Gyllenhaal in his little Santa hat and G-string from Jarhead, because dammit if that’s not the dream Carnivale for us nine days of the week. Nothing to do with Rio. Nothing to do with Brazil. Just caliente, baby. Or however the heck you say that in Portuguese.
Our whole argument about saving Chicago from Olympics-induced financial ruin aside, it honestly is criminal that South America’s never landed the Games…and that a country as GORGEOUS and ENCHANTING as Brazil has never hosted the Olympics.
Rio’s time has come.
The 2016 Games can be magical, so please, PLEASE, hope and pray and tell the IOC they need to make the right choice and send the Games down to South America.
Just think about how much fun we, the world, can collectively have in 2016…instead of wasting all that money on Mayor Daley’s cronies.
AND imagine how great a Brazilian Olympics mascot could be…like some fun, sassy, parrot…like this one Disney created in the 40s as a friend of Donald Duck to further the US “Good Neighbor Policy” and strengthen relations with South America.
All the money Chicago's wasted on the Olympics bid could have gone towards making schools safer.
PLEASE click this link and watch this video – it’s all too typical and familiar a scene here in Chicago, where our public schools are some of the worst in the known universe. Arne Duncan, who is now our Secretary of Education, is largely responsible for how terrible these schools are — because he is, to put it as nicely as we can, a delusional and bumbling fool with no appreciation for how dangerous things really were in the fiefdom he used to lord over (which makes him fit in so well with all the other Cabinet Members, like Energy Secretary Steven Chu and H&HS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who also have no idea whatsoever what they are doing).
The current head of Chicago’s public schools is Mayor Daley’s golden boy, Ron Huberman (an openly gay Israeli immigrant who Daley has anointed as his successor, when Daley finally gives up his throne). Besides being known as an especially bitchy showtunes queen on Monday nights at Sidetracks (where he very rudely refuses to speak to anyone, even when they are polite in their bothering of him), Huberman was also the man who knew nothing about running a transportation system but was given control of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Then, he didn’t know anything about education, and was never a teacher himself, but was made head of the Chicago Public Schools. Huberman’s a former cop who many people think is black (he’s 100% Israeli, but with olive skin and plenty of Mystic tanning that fools just about everyone), so that too lends itself to place him above any sort of criticism.
In Chicago, you can’t question any of the decisions Daley or his loyalists make, certainly not his chosen successor, our future Mayor Huberman.
You also can’t question how much money Chicago’s already wasted on the Olympics bid…but we wonder if all those millions could have been better spent making the public schools in this city safer. SURELY a million here and there could have done something to discourage such unspeakable violence at a public high school.
Isn’t the safety of children more important than Mayor Daley’s fantasy Olympics project?
And yet, the same fools who are pushing Chicago for the Olympics by repeating over and over again that “Rio’s too dangerous” have no idea what’s really going on EVERY DAY in Chicago’s Southside…which is a more dangerous place to live, go to school, and work than THUNDERDOME.
Future President Cheney? Just not the one you first think.
Liz Cheney (far right), with her mom, dad, and sister Mary.
Liz Cheney is someone we’re keeping our eyes on closely.
Great Merciful Zeus, she is what Republicans need. In every state. In every congressional district. In every Senate race. Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin, Michael Steele…clone these people and get them in front of every independent out there and see just how interesting 2010 and 2012 can get.
Thus far, Liz Cheney has expressed no interest in holding elected office…we hope that changes soon.
As Democrats who used to call her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, we always must disclose how wrong we were about that man — and how grateful we are to him for almost singlehandedly keeping America safe the last eight years. Dick Cheney is a G-damn national hero in our book. Yes, he shot his friend in the face. Yes, we do think it’s still funny when Hillary Clinton famously said in 2007, when she was in the Senate, “You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President’s motorcade pulls into the Capitol and Darth Vader emerges”.
That’s funny because it’s totally true: Dick Cheney was as determined, skilled, strategic, and awe-inspiring as Darth Vader. If memory serves, Cheney himself laughed when he was told about the remark.
Darth Vader is what we need in a Vice President…and not, say, a bumbling ice-cream stealing bozo who literally makes up most of the things he hits the trail to say. That’s the VP we have now, Botox Joe, bane of Baskin Robbins.
Absolutely no one in the world is afraid of Joe Biden (except maybe Ben and/or Jerry). People barely even recognize him when he’s out in public (which works marvelously for him, since if they did, he’d have more trouble stealing their ice cream…delicious, mildly nutritious, nom nom nom, chilly and spectacular ice cream). Just look at how well Biden’s done as “the policeman of the stimulus”. Wasn’t Biden supposed to be out there making sure no stimulus money was wasted on idiotic pork projects that create no new jobs while just draining the Treasury. How’s that going, Joe? Oh, can’t answer ’cause your mouth is stuffed full of ice cream again? Welcome to the Golden Age of Hope and Change.
We have no doubt in our minds that Darth Cheney would kick ass and take names if he was “Sherriff of the Stimulus”. Sure, Halliburton would make an absolute fortune somehow, but the rest of the crooks out there would be hard-pressed whenever they too were paid a visit by the Vice President’s motorcade.
Cheney got stuff DONE.
And Liz Cheney appears every day to be very much her father’s daughter.
We don’t know what the future holds for her, or what she wants to do, but we hope she runs for office and follows in her dad’s footsteps. PARTICULARLY if she holds Dick Cheney’s view on gay rights…which are the most progressive and supportive of ANY Vice President in American history…more progressive than any president we’ve ever had…more progressive than Hillary Clinton…and, most surprising of all, even more progressive THAN us here in Boystown, as bizarre as that truly is.
Dick Cheney in many ways is an enigma wrapped in riddles sprinkled with surprises. And we just have to love that…and him, with our whole heart, it seems.
Feel free to go all moonbat crazy over that, but it’s true.
And we think Liz Cheney’s destined for great things…maybe even greater than her dad…which will be a true feat because her dad is a great, great man.
"Going Rogue" will be a monumental best seller. Go, Sarah, Go!
Ooooooh, this is going to be GREAT.
Sarah Palin has completed her memoir, set for publication November 17th.
We. Can’t. Wait.
If she can send liberals running and throw Dr. Utopia’s administration into total disarray by just posting 1,200 words at a time on Facebook, just imagine what she’ll stir up when her BOOK drops.
We continue to watch everything Palin does with great interest. She, essentially alone in the Republican party, is making every correct move needed to position her self effectively for 2012 and give Dr. Utopia a real run for his money.
We continue to hope she’s so successful in all she does that Dr. Utopia’s defeat becomes assured…and Democrats are forced to shake up their own race and grant Hillary Clinton the nomination she should have had in 2008. If it’s Dr. Utopia vs. Palin, we side with Palin. It if’s Clinton vs. Palin, we fight for our own champ Hillary, but would relish the election and cheer for whichever of these great women won in the end.
It really seems the fate of a certain effeminate black man to constantly be up against strong, unique, one-of-a-kind white women.
Go, Sarah, Go!
Why did the current president run to the defense of notorious race-baiter Henry Gates, but throws the Governor of New York under the bus?
We all owe David Paterson a lot for helping Princess Caroline make herself look so very stupid.
Waaaaah! Waaaaah! RAAACISM! And, yet, there's a black cop right there supervising the arrest, Henry Gates.
Here’s a very interesting piece on BVBlackspin.com with something we’re hearing being asked in the black community in Chicago: why did Dr. Utopia race headlong into a ludicrious defense of the childish antics of notorious race-baiter Henry Gates, before the president had any idea what was really going on in the case, except that he thought police are “stupid”, when he deliberately throws the Governor of New York under the bus and effectively cripples him politically for the remainder of his term (and sabotages his 2010 campaign before it even launches)?
We think that’s a very good question.
The Blackspin article argues effectively that Dr. Utopia lost a large amount of political capital by defending diaper baby Gates and calling hardworking police officers stupid. If anything’s stupid, it was this boneheaded move on the part of a politician the MSM likes to claim is so smooth, polished, and masterful in all that he does.
The article further goes on to note that New York is in real trouble, and Paterson really is doing the best he can with the bad hand that he was dealt. David Paterson never asked to be Governor and didn’t expect Eliott Spitzer to self-destruct so spectacularly and elevate him to the post. Paterson makes a lot of mistakes and says a great many things we find unacceptable and ridiculous — at times, he’s almost as bad a race-baiter as Henry Gates or the president himself.
But, Paterson really stuck it to HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy last December. He absolutely humiliated that spoiled dilletante when she demanded Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat (and threw one mighty tantrum in the silk chemise aisle at Bergdorf’s when her assistant’s personal assistant’s valet informed her cook and butler that Kirsten Gillibrand, and not a Kennedy, would be the new junior Senator from New York). No matter how much ridiculous race-baiting Paterson gets up to in life, he will always have a special place in our hearts for that. At last, someone stood up to the Kennedys and taught those vile spiders a lesson. In large part we all have Paterson to thank for the simple fact that no Kennedy is running for Senate in Illinois or Massachusetts currently, with no Kennedy in the Senate itself for the first time in generations. Princess Caroline, meanwhile, is somewhere in her Manhattan manse, staring up at one of her many chandeliers, dazzled by its sparkliness until her entourage pulls her away from “Sparkle Time” for more adventures on Fifth Avenue (“Shopping helps the economy. My father was president, and everyone loved my mother, except when she married that nasty Greek, so I like to help. I look prettier when helping”).
The article in BlackSpin thinks the White House should support the two black governors (New York and Massachusetts) in all they do, and not stoop to embarassing and undermining the one with the higher approval ratings (which is true…as much as Paterson is maligned, he still ranks higher with New Yorkers than Deval Patrick does with the voters of Massachusetts…and yet the White House is not calling for Patrick to step aside when he’s hovering at 19% approval….verrrrrrry interesting).
We think race should be taken out of it and the president should stay the Hell out of state politics PERIOD and not undermine ANY sitting Governor.
Democrat or Republican.
How does that serve the best interests of this nation when the chief federal executive works against and weakens the chief executive of ANY state?
This country is only as strong as the collective sum of its constituent states. The president needs to support all Governors, not malign and weaken them for his own agenda…which, it’s clear, is to replace as many Democrats as possible in 2010 and 2012 with Dr. Utopia’s personal loyalists. David Paterson is no puppet of Dr. Utopia’s, or anyone else’s for that matter. Mistakes and all, maybe that makes him the right man for the job in many ways people overlook.
Because anyone who defies the Kennedys and drags America’s self-declared royal family into reality every now and then is someone we give the benefit of the doubt to…someone who does not belong under the bus.
Monday Open Thread: September 28th 2009
What’s on your mind this Monday?
We’re wondering what Dr. Utopia’s trip to Copenhagen to make Chicago’s Olympics presentation really means. We personally believe he intended to go all along, and this was just a lame song and dance number of “Oh, he’s not going”, “Maybe he’s going”, “Surprise! He’s going!”…the way singers in concert leave the stage and then, miraculously, return after the fans scream and yell for them to give an encore. If you don’t realize they’re going to come back and do that one last song no matter what, you’re just plain stupid. That’s pretty much how we feel about Dr. Utopia going to Denmark…he was always going to go, so we wonder what all the games and stagecraft was for. Are his followers THAT stupid to fall for this crap…oh, wait.
We do, wonder, however, what the IOC would do if it really did award the Games to Chicago.
How does the IOC justify snubbing South America AGAIN. Rio’s bid is valid and they’ll do a great job with the Games. The IOC has concluded Rio’s crime and transportation problems are not insurmountable — we don’t believe that to be the case, but the IOC clearly said it does. Rio’s funding situation is a LOT better than Chicago’s. Enthusiasm for donating to the first South American Olympics will be high in the Latin world…putting on the 9th US Olympics will not generate that sort of enthusiasm. We have absolutely no doubt the Rio Games will be financed successfully and don’t believe for a minute the Games WON’T bankrupt Chicago.
So, it is very curious Dr. Utopia’s headed to Denmark.
If the IOC doesn’t give the Games to Chicago, it will look like a major failure for this White House since it’s now so invested in this. Does Dr. Utopia know the IOC’s in the bag for Chicago, so that’s why he’s going, so he can claim he “won this thing”?
Or, does Chicago worry Rio’s got this in the bag and Dr. Utopia’s handlers are forcing him to go in a last ditch effort to turn things around?
There’s no South American city competing for the 2018 Winter Games…so if the IOC denies Rio its win, South America would have to wait until 2020 at the earliest to see an Olympics.
How can the IOC justify that?
We honestly don’t have a good answer for that and wonder what you think.
