The
first thing I did upon arriving at John Fogerty’s home was promptly get
lost. The ranch-style estate in Thousand Oaks where the Creedence
Clearwater Revival singer-songwriter lives is large enough for visitors
to inadvertently show up on the wrong side — a mistake I realized I made
just as a large dog began barking urgently at me. But this was no guard
dog, and Creedence, as she’s named, shifted promptly to tail wagging.
She was a friendly golden retriever, still damp from her recent dip in
the sprawling pool I would soon see in the backyard.
And then there's this garbage:
Creedence
had nine Top 10 songs and two No. 1 albums in the span of just a couple
of years, giving them a sleeper case for the title of biggest American
band in the late ’60s/early ’70s.
I'm really tired of the racism.
One
group springs to mind: The Temptations. From 1968 through 1973, they
had ten top ten hits (pop chart) including two number ones -- CCR never
had a number one hit and that's one more in the top ten than CCR had.
And top forty pop? 21 songs by The Temptations hit the top forty pop
chart during this time. They had ten -- 10! -- albums hit BILLBOARD's
top forty on the album chart -- eight of those albums went gold.
21 songs in the top forty. How about CCR? 12.
Quit
lying. And don't get me started on how they sold in real time and the
racist impact that goes into what gets stocked in stores and what
doesn't.
The racism just
hangs over this nonsense. And there's a reason. I've noted this
repeatedly online. As late as 1986, Fogerty thought it was fine to use
the n-word publicly and his applying that word to Tina Turner (because
she 'stole' his song)? He needs to be drummed out, not celebrated.
He was always a joke but people need to realize he's a racist joke.
And
maybe instead of celebrating a racist, LAT could find some act worthy.
I'd start with The Temptations before moving on to Sly & The Family
Stone or The Rolling Stones.
Thursday, October 5, 2023. Barbara Lee may be popular in the offices of
JACOBIN but she's not in the state of California (check the numbers),
THE VANGUARD finds time to give voice to the neglected White male (that
was sarcasm), destroying ROE was just the beginning for the crazies on
the right who hate everyone but hate democracy most of all, and much
more.
As Stevie Nicks sings in "Wild Heart," "You say don't even know/How to start, how to start."
Let's
start with the new fact-free group. It's on the left or at least the faux left. They're called
Whiners For Elderly Barbara Lee. If you missed it, for the JACOBIN
fakes, the worst thing in the world was that California Governor Gavin
Newsom didn't pick Barbara Lee to fill Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat.
Why would he? She's useless and California doesn't want her.
Oh,
I'm sorry, did liar John Nichols not tell you that in his wordy column
yesterday? Time for all those baseless whines but no room for facts? Marcia called Nichols out in "John Nichols, shut up already." The only thing I'll add to
that is that Barbara Lee is not popular within the state of California.
Gavin (who
I've known for years and consider a friend) did not back Barbara Lee for
the Senate spot. In other words, pay attention here, Gavin didn't back
the candidate that most of the left in California refuses to back. As the start of
last month, Sarah Fortenski (THE HILL) noted:
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.)
lead a new poll measuring voter preferences ahead of the 2024 U.S.
Senate race in California, but a plurality of likely primary voters in
the state are still undecided.
In a Berkeley IGS poll released Thursday, Schiff led with 20 percent support among likely voters, Porter followed with 17 percent support, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)
had 7 percent support and Democratic tech executive Lexie Reese had 1
percent support. Among Republican candidates, James Bradley received 10
percent support and Eric Early received 7 percent support.
Do
you get that? It's too damn hard for John Nichols to understand -- or
he pretends it is. Three Democrats are declared -- three are seeking
the seat that Dianne Feinstein occupied (no "puddles" jokes, please).
Of the three, Barbara Lee trails badly behind the other two. Not only
do Schiff and Porter have double the support that Barbara does, Adam has
almost three times as much support. She single digit. No one wants
her. She can't win a statewide race because she is so disliked.
B-B-But, she's our great left hope!
Yes, you deluded idiots who read John Nichols can believe that.
But
those of us in California are fully aware that she is a do-nothing who
accomplishes zilch. Nationally, the 'independent' media has created
this fantasy about her and possibly if you don't live in California it's
easier to be foolwed about reality. But, again, when she wants to talk
her 'big' 'success'
she has to go back to a vote from 22 years ago. You've all bought her
mythology -- which includes a lot of lies including about her birth.
She's not impressive. She's a fake ass. She has no leadership skills and never has.
Most important, she's elderly.
The US government needs another elderly person serving in it?
No.
As Marcia made clear:
Equally
true, she's too damn old. Let me repeat for the old girl, "YOU'RE TOO
DAMN OLD!" She's 77 right now. She'd be running in 2024 when she's
78. Her first year on the job, 2025, she's be 79. It's a six year term
meaning she'd be 85 if she lived that long. She's too damn old. And
her crusty face is cracking, get that loser out of here.
Barbara, you're a loser. John Nichols can lie all he wants (like he usually does) but nobody wants you.
She's
a loser. The Democrats in the state don't want her. (Redistricting
ensures she can remain in the House until she dies. She just can't get elected outside that House district.) And she's too damn
old. In fact, she needs to apologize to the country for even wasting
her time pursuing the seat. 78 when she would be sworn in? Oh, hell no.
Dianne refused to step down and she was too old. We don't need a 78
year old filling Dianne's seat. (The puddles will never dry!!! Okay,
one puddles joke.)
And
back to liar and hack John Nichols. Am I weighing in on who should run
for the Senate from Wisconsin? No, I'm not. Why are you butting into
the politics of my state? If you idiots and liars hadn't done so back
in 2018, Dianne might not have run in which case she wouldn't have died
in office and might not have lived such a pathetic and embarrassing
life. She could have used the last five years to try to give her life
some real meaning.
On Tuesday, all Democrats and eight Republicans voted to remove Kevin
McCarthy as House Speaker in a historic 216-210 vote. This is the first
time something like this has ever happened, leaving the House in
disarray and confusion.
Though
an interim speaker was named, the fact that Republicans joined in with
their opposition to take down McCarthy reiterates a strong underlying
message:
The right remains downright messy as hell.
No
clear successor yet some deluded fools thought they (finally) had an
answer. And did someone say "messy"? Marjorie Taylor Greene, step on
down, and bring those flabby upper arms with you. Yesterday, Rachel Sharp (INDEPENDENT) noted:
The Georgia congresswoman and MAGA Republican
took to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday night to claim that the former
president is the “only candidate” she will back to take the gavel.
While
Trump would be eligible to become speaker since House rules do not
require the position to be filled by a member, he has previously indicated that he is not interested in the role.
If
the former president were to accept his nomination and managed to
become the next speaker, it would represent an extraordinary turn of
events as he campaigns to regain the presidency in 2024.
But critics poured cold water on the idea. Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP legal defense fund, warned that electing Trump speaker would "accelerate the 14th amendment Sec 3 showdown"
because "Trump returning to the House - the literal scene of the
insurrection - to try & serve as Speaker might be an even more
grotesque Section 3 violation than trying to be President." Rep. Sean
Casten, D-Ill., pointed to a GOP conference rule requiring leaders to step down if they are indicted for certain felonies.
But
even if Trump had full Republican support in the House, Rule 26 of the
GOP Conference states, "A member of the Republican Leadership shall step
aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more
years imprisonment may be imposed." The conference's rules are voted on
by all members in the November before each congressional session.
Trump
has been indicted four times in the past six months. He is facing
charges in two federal cases—one related to the classified documents
held at his Mar-a-Lago estate and the other in connection to his
election interference efforts, culminating in the January 6, 2021,
Capitol riot.
He
has also been indicted in Manhattan in connection with a hush money
payment to an adult film star and in Georgia in a case involving efforts
to overturn the 2020 presidential election results there. In total,
he's been charged with 91 felony counts, many of which carry sentences
greater than two years of imprisonment.
A fan of THE VANGUARD e-mailed that this is the must stream video and "so important."
I
don't see anything important about it. Nice tat they finally realized
Bri-Bri is a bit of a con artist and that she's not as smart as they've
made her out to be. If that's what you're talking about, they seem to
tip-toe around it. And if that's what the person who wrongly --
wrongly! -- gave them ten dollars was talking about, he was right.
The
ten dollars? That's reason enough to sour me. You're on air begging
for money, someone gives you ten dollars and you give a lecture about
how they're wrong and about how they should try watching the show more.
You
begged for money. Someone was nice enough to give you ten dollars and
all you can do is insult him? That's pretty much gqrbge behavior and I
can't imagine most parents raise their children to take money from
others and then to insult the people who hand over money.
And then David Griscom.
Never heard of him before and why the hell should I care now?
That's
their guest. Friday, they'll have Ryan Grim. Monday, people will
pretend like they don't always bring on White males as their guests.
I
don't know how they think they come off. They love to toss the name of
some dead African-American activist out there in conversations. They
just don't seem to like to bring guests of color who might speak for
themselves.
I don't know who David is, never
saw him before the segment. After watching? He's a White man with a
bad speaking voice. He's not particularly attractive so I kept waiting
for him to share some deep insight. It never came. At the end of the
segment, the only reason to bring him on appeared to be he was another
White man in their White Man Circle Jerk.
Do
Zac and Gavin not realize that the two of them are already presenting
the White male perspective and that a third man doing so only makes it
more superfluous (and vapid)?
Apparently the
way White YOUTUBE likes people of color is dead so that they can tell
you what they would have said (even when the YOUTUBER gets it wrong) and
what they would have done (ibid) if they were alive. In other words,
the only people of color that White YOUTUBE likes are the people of
color who can't comment back. How very Norman Finkelstein of them.
And on that, we get to work our way back to note (again) one of the best segments on YOUTUBE this week.
Also check out the discussion
about the above in the episode below of THE REMIX MORNING SHOW
(approximately 40 minutes in). It's a perspective of Norman you don't
get when White YOUTUBE fawns over him (see especially the nonsense of
Chris Hedges and Katie Halper).
Over
the last year, according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the
association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, what has been most
striking is the pivot of censorship advocates from books in school
libraries to books in public libraries.
"Last
year, about 16% of demands to remove books involved public libraries,"
Caldwell-Stone says. "This year, to date, it's 49%."
That's
a sea change, she told me, because "public libraries are the places
that we've created for freewheeling inquiry, for the marketplace of
ideas. Demands to remove books because they don't comport with someone's
beliefs or their political or religious agenda are attacks on the very
thought of a library as a place that protects 1st amendment rights to
access a wide variety of views."
These amount to demands that "the government tell us what to read, what to think, what to believe," she says.
Town by town is taking you to Agawam, Springfield and Chicopee.
It’s
day two of banned book week at the Agawam Public Library with displays
of challenged and banned books over the past 50-plus years.
“Let
Freedom Read” is the official 2023 campaign from the American library
association and the Agawam Library is encouraging visitors to learn
about banned books and what it means to have the freedom to read.
Let
Freedom Read events are taking place around the country. Moms For
Bigotr? They don't believe in freedom so they won't be celebrating Let
Freedom Read. They will be scolding and nagging and doing whatever else
the sexually frustrated do in order to give their pathetic lives
meaning. When Ronald DeSantis started his "Don't Say Gay" policy in
Florida, he stood beside Kyle Lukoff's book CALL ME MAX. The book
offended Ronald because Max identifies as a boy.
This
was upsetting to Ronald DeSantis because he's never been able to
identify as male at any point in his life -- to this day. So he attacks others and
wants them to be just as miserable as he is.
Kyle
Lukoff, the author of “Call Me Max” and the Newbery Honor book “Too
Bright to See,” among others, said the national publicity did little to
nothing to improve sales of “Max.” Instead, it introduced his work to
people who want to remove it from bookshelves in their local schools and
libraries.
“I’ve
had this said to me many times — ‘I wish my book would get banned
because that’s the best way to get it on the best-seller list,’” Lukoff
said in a phone interview. “That certainly never happened for me.”
Lukoff
hasn’t yet earned royalties from “Call Me Max” or the other two books
in its series, he said. His advances were $2,500 per book, and he won’t
earn those royalties until all of them earn the money back.
Lukoff’s
experience — and the experiences of hundreds of authors whose books
have been banned in the last school year — contradicts a common refrain
among some authors and anti-censorship proponents that banning a book
results in a sales surge.
“When
books get banned, even when authors do see a spike in sales, it is much
more devastating for careers in the long run,” Lukoff said. “If your
book is kept out of libraries and schools in entire states — that does
translate to a long-term consistent drop in sales.”
Phil
Bildner, a children’s book author and advocate for fellow writers, said
that “having a book banned is not a badge of honor.”
“I
still don’t think most people grasp just how financially devastating
this book banning era is to queer authors and authors from marginalized
communities,” said Bildner, who runs the Author Village, a group that
represents authors and illustrators for school visits. “And I know most
people don’t grasp the emotional toll it’s having on the authors in the
crosshairs.”
Up
until recently, a list of banned books was a blend of the usual
suspects — “The Catcher in the Rye,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The
Bluest Eye” — and newer favorites like “The Hate U Give” and “Thirteen
Reasons Why.”
But
book bans have surged in the last year. PEN America, an organization
that supports and protects First Amendment rights for writers,
journalists and other communicators, reported that
more than 3,300 books were banned in the 2022-2023 school year, a 33%
increase from the previous school year. These bans “overwhelmingly”
target books about race and racism, as well as books with LGBTQ
characters, PEN America said in its September study on school book bans.
There
are concentrated efforts from groups like Moms for Liberty and LaVerna
in the Library, an offshoot of Utah Parents United, to ban dozens of
books at once. These groups compile comprehensive lists of books that
contain what these groups point to as objectionable material. Websites
like Rated Books and BookLooks grade books based on their content and
highlight potentially objectionable paragraphs on their sites, posting
entire pages out of context.
Vocal individuals have also had immense power in banning books: The Washington Post reported in May that 60% of book challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from just 11 people.
It’s been three years since Caste, by
Isabel Wilkerson, was published, and in the intervening years,
political, cultural, and racial divisions have intensified. According to
a report by PEN America,
from 2021 to 2022, more than 1,600 books were banned in school
districts across the nation. The impact on children, the educational
system, and culture will reverberate for years to come.
Oprah Daily spoke to Isabel Wilkerson about book bans, including that of Caste, which has been removed from some libraries. A film version of Caste, titled Origin and directed by Ava DuVernay, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month.
How did you find out that your book was banned?
My name came up in social media when The Washington Post ran a piece last spring about a library system in Texas that shut down all its libraries, and when the libraries reopened, Caste had “mysteriously vanished.”
How did it make you feel? What did you do? Is there anything you can do?
I
was saddened but not surprised. These bans only affirm the forewarnings
in the book. We’re in a period of backlash and retrenchment, which the
book attests to and foreshadows. The only thing I can do is to keep
pressing forward in my work, knowing that we can’t run from history and
that the truth will win out in the end.
Putting aside your own work, what do you think of the situation overall?
In writing Caste,
I had to do a tremendous amount of research into India and Germany
during the Nazi era. The Nazis studied the United States’ Jim Crow laws
in creating the Nuremberg laws. We are coming perilously close to the
spirit of what they were doing in another century with the banning of
books. It’s revisiting a past that we should never want to experience
again.
This
is coming at the worst possible time for us as a nation. We have an
existential crisis in our demographics, politics, policing, and women’s
reproductive rights. We’re a country on parallel tracks, and from
responses to my books (The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste),
I can see that some people are hungry and thirsty to understand the
history of how we got here and what we can do. Then you have another
segment that’s closing the door as quickly as others are pushing it
open. It becomes yet another symbol of how deeply divided we remain and
how these enduring divisions have managed to intrude upon us in this
century. As we’re looking back at previous centuries to understand this
one, we are, at the same time, replicating much of what we thought was
in the past.
I
was in shock when I read the 2023 list of banned books. I have to be
honest in saying I have not been paying close attention with the news
and conversation around band books. I guess, since I am an older person
it didn’t really apply to me. But then I thought about my young nieces
and nephews along with other children who might have challenges reading
some of the classics and best sellers I’ve enjoyed reading.
[. . .]
One of my favorite readers, LeVar Burton is the Honorary Chair of Banned Books Week. I listen faithfully to his podcast where
he reads a short story. Some years ago, I had the privilege of hearing
him live doing a wonderful reading from a local author. He is a reading
advocate, writer, and television and film star
Now,
for the main event-the list of banned books. Some of the books I have
read and enjoyed. As I said before, I was in shock and even saddened
because I don’t think these books should be banned. I will list mine
here but to get the whole list visit the American Library Association’s website.
For my blind and low vision readers the Perkins School for the Blind listed them too along with their availability in braille, large print and audio.
My Books on the List
1. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Challenged for depiction of sexual abuse, EDI content, claimed to be sexually explicit
2. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Banned due to themes of death and the fact that the main characters are talking animals.
3. Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
Banned
mostly in regard to passages that were considered “sexually offensive,”
as well as for the tragic nature of the book, which some felt might be
“depressing” for young readers. The passages in question regarded Anne
describing her anatomy, sexual feelings, and homosexual descriptions of
her friend.
[. . .]
After
you read the list, make a plan. Find a way to get involved. You can
sound the alarm. You can read these books to know why they are banned in
the first place. You can participate in events like Library Card Sign
Up Month. You can start a banned book club. For more suggestions check
out the ALA website or talk to your local librarian for help.
The list continues beyond the books above, use the link to read in full.
That's how it starts, we said we'd come back to it. THE NEW YORKER published David D. Kirkpatrick's "The Next Targets for the Group That Overturned Roe"
earlier this week. I keep trying to work it into a snapshot but so far
no luck. ROE was destroyed and it was from years of planning. The
same groups have plans for further destruction.
They've
invented jargon that you need to listen for so you will know if it's
friend or foe. They know that they can't continue beating up on
lesbians and gays so they're trying to hide it as 'concern for children'
and pretending that they're going after pornography. It's smoke and
mirrors.
You should pair Kirkpatrick's article with Bethany Carlson's for WHOWHATWHY where she documents
a specific case of how they twist language to try to destroy a library
-- a historic one at that -- how it's about their hatred of LGBTQ+
people and of reproductive rights and how they'll cheat and lie and
whore to destroy our liberties.
