Due credit to Stephanie Miller

Hands down my favorite news/pundit show, be it radio or TV,  is the Stephanie Miller show.  You can read about her and her show here. 

Stephanie’s father was William Miller, the Congressman who ran as the vice presidential nominee with Barry Goldwater in 1964.  She was raised by Republicans, but has long been a progressive liberal, who by the way is a hilarious comedian.

Her show is nationally syndicated and if you pay about $54  a year you can download the shows and put them on your computer or MP3 player and listen to them while you are driving around, walking your dog, or vacuuming your floor (all of which I did today).

But Steph is no lightweight.  Because she is so genuine, smart, funny, and attractive, she gets great guests.  Some of them are recurring by day of the week and I won’t try to list them all, but on Monday you get Lee Papa (the Rude Pundit), on Tuesday you get Charlie Pierce (author of Idiot America), on Wednesday you get Hal Sparks {takes a while for this to load}  (a brilliant comedian and actor who bravely played “Michael” on “Queer as Folk” even though he is totally straight), on Thursday you get “Face the Grayson” with Congressman Alan Grayson (truth to power x 10).

She also often appears on Larry King, the Ed Show, CNN and the like. 

Anyway, I was listening to the podcast of her show today, after downloading and transferring to my MP3 player,  and in the second hour she interviewed Frank Rich, as she often does.  The segment was just perfect, giving lots of humor but allowing Frank to lay on some very profound stuff.  It was so good I wanted to share it with all of you, so I edited it out using  my recording studio programs.  Here is that interview in full.  You will hear Steph, and the other voices (besides Frank Rich) are Hal Sparks, Chris Lavoy (her producer), and Jim Ward (a voice “deity,”  who does all the voice impression on the show, which are always hilarious.)  Check it out and enjoy. 

~ Tom

Sigourney Weaver

I have always dug her immensely.  When I ran across this photo, I remembered why.

Some eye candy

I’ve always been good at quite a few things, including photography, but one thing for which I have zero talent is “fine art”  -- drawing, painting, sculpture and the like.

That is why I am constantly amazed and humbled by work such as this.  I cannot imagine myself being able to paint these scenes, let alone conjure up the brilliant, surrealistic ideas on display in the paintings. 

Enjoy…

Charles Bukowski giving an interview

Nuff said, ‘cause it pretty much says it all.

Bobbie McGee was a woman! - Songfacts

I just tripped across a really fun music web site:  Songfacts.  If you like music trivia as i do, you will love this site.  Having just found it, I have not had a chance to explore all of its myriad features, but the “Random Songfact” button is a gasser.  A great number of the random facts deal with unfamiliar (to me) groups and songs, but a plethora of great stuff pops up more often than not.  For instance, here is the result for “Me and Bobby MeGee” (sung by)  Janis Joplin.  Of course we are reminded right away that Janis did not write the song – it was Kris Kristofferson.  And, among many other fascinating facts we learn that Kris got the title (originally “Bobby McKee)  from the founder of his record label (Fred Foster) before he even started writing the song, and that the “hook” was to be that Bobby was a she.  Also, as should be obvious, Kris thought Fred had said “McGee” instead of “McKee.” 

How can you not love this stuff?

Let me know of any great “Random Songfacts” you unearth in Songfacts – I’m all ears.

~ tom

Satire only works when there is a fragment of disbelief!

This gives credence to my title to this post. 

The scary thing for me is that the polls are showing that the public is actually prepared to put such abominations in office, e.g. supremely insane Sharron Angle (and I am NOT exaggerating) is actually leading Harry Reid in the latest polls!)

Is America going insane?

Glumly,

~ tom

More on activist judiciary

A couple of posts ago I brought up the subject of the importance of the judiciary in our daily lives.  Here is a further take on the subject  by E.J. Dionne from today’s Washington post, discussing forces at play in the Kagen confirmation hearings.  I’m cheered by his thoughts – maybe we, the great unwashed public, are finally realizing who the activist judges really are, and why they must be stopped.  A cogent excerpt from E.J.’s column:

Yes, Republicans seemed to be admitting implicitly, it is conservatives who are now the judicial activists. That's why they moved on during last week's hearings to a new attack line against liberal jurists as being "results-oriented."

Let’s keep the heat on.

~ Tom