Jim Ogonowski, a potential GOP candidate for the US Senate this fall jumps the gun a bit with a commercial decrying John Kerry's "lack of local roots".
Waaa-al ah swan...but up in Arlington we can't seem to get away from Senator Kerry, I swear he has a crash pad on the DL up on Mount Gilboa.
Citizen Ogonowski's website also makes the following claim: He (JK) has passed "no bills of his own that became law."
Hum!
Strange statement...in the past seven days Senator Kerry has leaned on the VA to allow hospitalized veterans to vote, sponsored legislation to get Nelson Mandela off the terrorism watch list, called for Robert Mugabe to step down and introduced a bill extending industrial development bonds to high tech industries. And that is just a cursory reading of all Kerry's activities legislative and otherwise since April 29th or so.
A full reading thereof would be overkill and like Dr. Kissinger, I'm a fervent believer in proportional response.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Howie Carr can yet dwell in hope...
because from what I can tell, Don Imus' new show is the dullest most inane radio offering since the glory days of Cardinal O'Connell groaning the rosary into the mike down at the old WHDH.
The I-Man has a real life African American in his crew to help ward off any of his racist tendencies and if that isn't bulwark enough against controversy there is Don's predilection for fawning over "daddy memoirs" from TV sportscasters. In all it's a snooze-fest in extremis...I can't believe WTKK gets any ratings off this dross at all.
So maybe Howie Carr can hope anew to crack morning drive time...unless of course the internet, satellite radio and I-Pods don't beat talk radio once and for all like the proverbial red-headed step-child.
The I-Man has a real life African American in his crew to help ward off any of his racist tendencies and if that isn't bulwark enough against controversy there is Don's predilection for fawning over "daddy memoirs" from TV sportscasters. In all it's a snooze-fest in extremis...I can't believe WTKK gets any ratings off this dross at all.
So maybe Howie Carr can hope anew to crack morning drive time...unless of course the internet, satellite radio and I-Pods don't beat talk radio once and for all like the proverbial red-headed step-child.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Well...
this is good news.
I mean just how much more do the rest of us have to pay at the pump til Jeff Jacoby and Jonah Goldberg and all the rest finally feel all tuff and studly inside?
For that fact $120 a barrel is just a drop in the proverbial crude oil bucket, imagine the price spike when the USA starts bombing suspected Iranian nuclear sites.
Booo-oy yer gonna wanna own stock in Exxon on that day and yer gonna wanna get the dividends in Euros as well.
All this just so John McCain can preside over the wreckage of the American Experiment....sort of embarrassing really.
I mean just how much more do the rest of us have to pay at the pump til Jeff Jacoby and Jonah Goldberg and all the rest finally feel all tuff and studly inside?
For that fact $120 a barrel is just a drop in the proverbial crude oil bucket, imagine the price spike when the USA starts bombing suspected Iranian nuclear sites.
Booo-oy yer gonna wanna own stock in Exxon on that day and yer gonna wanna get the dividends in Euros as well.
All this just so John McCain can preside over the wreckage of the American Experiment....sort of embarrassing really.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Remember "The Titicut Follies"?
Frederick Wiseman's controversial documentary about the doin's at the Bridgewater State Mental Hospital circa 1966?
Well the gag order was rescinded in 1990 so the coast was clear to screen it this weekend at the MFA.
A brief review can be seen here.
Well the gag order was rescinded in 1990 so the coast was clear to screen it this weekend at the MFA.
A brief review can be seen here.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Stark Raving...
Last week we were treated t a perfect example of "guilt by association" from Boston Globe columnist, Jeff Jacoby.
This week we are blessed with a text book case of "guilt via fantasization"from the Boston Phoenix' political columnist Steve Stark.
This week's issue contains the following gem:
"...Obama may be the harbinger not only of a biracial but a "feminizing" trend brought on by the huge gender shifts in American life"
To quote the olde Misanthrope "What Rubbish!"
If Steve Stark wants to call Senator Obama a pussy he should just come out and say it and skip all the tedious halfwitted psycho-babble. Never mind the fact that Stark offers no evidence to support his thesis other that the vague notion that us Americans like our presidents to be tuff -n- manly acting.
Nope...a cartoonish fixation on manliness politics seems to be a regular Steve Starkian theme, one he loves to project onto the electorate with the least provocation.
However it is as with so many other aspects of his writing, nothing new. I can recall with the simplest nostalgia that Steve was writing the same dross about the feminizing trend fostered by Bill Clinton way back in 1993.
With Steve Stark, the names change but the obsessions remain the same.
This week we are blessed with a text book case of "guilt via fantasization"from the Boston Phoenix' political columnist Steve Stark.
This week's issue contains the following gem:
"...Obama may be the harbinger not only of a biracial but a "feminizing" trend brought on by the huge gender shifts in American life"
To quote the olde Misanthrope "What Rubbish!"
If Steve Stark wants to call Senator Obama a pussy he should just come out and say it and skip all the tedious halfwitted psycho-babble. Never mind the fact that Stark offers no evidence to support his thesis other that the vague notion that us Americans like our presidents to be tuff -n- manly acting.
Nope...a cartoonish fixation on manliness politics seems to be a regular Steve Starkian theme, one he loves to project onto the electorate with the least provocation.
However it is as with so many other aspects of his writing, nothing new. I can recall with the simplest nostalgia that Steve was writing the same dross about the feminizing trend fostered by Bill Clinton way back in 1993.
With Steve Stark, the names change but the obsessions remain the same.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Eighteen Years Ago...
the Massachusetts GOP bestrode this Commonwealth like a Colossus....now look at them!
Permit me to indulge some Friday morning quarterbacking and note the Massachusetts GOP's main problem can be summarized in two words, "Mitt Romney".
Yup, desperate to hold onto office they made a bad bargain with a outside contractor who admittedly won in '02 and then with the assurance of a rank amateur spent four years alienating the very suburban independents who once defected to him in droves.
In retrospect, a defection to the democrats was inevitable given Romney's foolish move to the right during and after the '04 election.
Romney's inability to attract new blood at the local level or hold onto the independents meant the base shrank without electoral compensation from other cohorts.
And in fact, Romney himself as a politician was a bad recruitment tool, cold aloof opportunistic he was everyone's hated boss. Mitt's idea of a fresh new candidate for state senate involved importing some yap from Wall Street.
The fact that the independent rolls keep expanding out in suburbia doesn't necessary foreshadow good news for the state GOP either, it just raises the electoral bar at the time when candidate recruitment and fundraising are both difficult. It shrinks the base and imperils what few safe seats they have in the state legislature.
The state GOP can still fundraise and they can bang the tocsin on the subject of public spending...so the potential is there...I was them I'd set my sights on grabbing off the state auditor's sinecure or some lesser statewide office. DeNucci has been in a long time and supplanting him with a republican would highlight their traditional self image as the watchdog for the predominant state democrats.
baring any accidents though, the are faced with some lean years...ah but the trouble is of their own invention.
Permit me to indulge some Friday morning quarterbacking and note the Massachusetts GOP's main problem can be summarized in two words, "Mitt Romney".
Yup, desperate to hold onto office they made a bad bargain with a outside contractor who admittedly won in '02 and then with the assurance of a rank amateur spent four years alienating the very suburban independents who once defected to him in droves.
In retrospect, a defection to the democrats was inevitable given Romney's foolish move to the right during and after the '04 election.
Romney's inability to attract new blood at the local level or hold onto the independents meant the base shrank without electoral compensation from other cohorts.
And in fact, Romney himself as a politician was a bad recruitment tool, cold aloof opportunistic he was everyone's hated boss. Mitt's idea of a fresh new candidate for state senate involved importing some yap from Wall Street.
The fact that the independent rolls keep expanding out in suburbia doesn't necessary foreshadow good news for the state GOP either, it just raises the electoral bar at the time when candidate recruitment and fundraising are both difficult. It shrinks the base and imperils what few safe seats they have in the state legislature.
The state GOP can still fundraise and they can bang the tocsin on the subject of public spending...so the potential is there...I was them I'd set my sights on grabbing off the state auditor's sinecure or some lesser statewide office. DeNucci has been in a long time and supplanting him with a republican would highlight their traditional self image as the watchdog for the predominant state democrats.
baring any accidents though, the are faced with some lean years...ah but the trouble is of their own invention.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Rest of the Nation Wallows in Recession...
Massachusetts however, soldier's on.
Part of this is the fact we now have active leadership in the State House. Perhaps Governor Patrick hasn't yet ushered in a new golden age, but at least he has an active cortex and declines to treat the Commonwealth with the disdain associated with an absentee landlord.
***
Meanwhile, I jump ugly on the Boston Globe two or three times a week, but in the area of investigative reporting, they still have good chops.
***
I think there must be more to the DiMasi story than we are getting because Joanie Vennochi has abruptly dropped the House Speaker like a hot potato.
Hell I wonder who will take her calls now?
Part of this is the fact we now have active leadership in the State House. Perhaps Governor Patrick hasn't yet ushered in a new golden age, but at least he has an active cortex and declines to treat the Commonwealth with the disdain associated with an absentee landlord.
***
Meanwhile, I jump ugly on the Boston Globe two or three times a week, but in the area of investigative reporting, they still have good chops.
***
I think there must be more to the DiMasi story than we are getting because Joanie Vennochi has abruptly dropped the House Speaker like a hot potato.
Hell I wonder who will take her calls now?
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