Even the worst of the worst
There's not going to be much support for
this court ruling, but I'm willing to provide a little in this space. The Fourth District Court of Appeals has thrown out a $5 million verdict against Rev. Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS., whose members picketed at the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq. The father of the dead soldier also says he has been ordered to pay the anti-gay protesters' cost of appeal upon the reversal.
The views on homosexuality held by Phelps and the members of his church are abhorrent (for the uninitiated, the church maintains that God hates homosexuality, and that the death of U.S. soldiers in conflict, as well as terrorist attacks and most natural disasters, are God's way of punishing the country for its tolerance), yet it's their right to speak out as publicly as they see fit that allows us to see the organization and its message for all of its absurdity. Additionally, it's quite common for courts to rule that one party must pick up the costs associated with the legal action, and the First Amendment wouldn't last for long if people who hold unpopular views were constantly forced to defend their Constitutional freedoms against actions of litigation and the financial costs associated with such.
This is a court ruling that protects any of us who hold political and cultural opinions at odds with the American mainstream. The First Amendment exists specifically to protect the unpopular speech, popular expressions don't need the help.
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I don't know what to say.---
Ron Paul's son, Rand, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, is
challenging the leadership of his party with tough questions about the relationship between American security and its foreign policy.
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I'm confused, Sarah Palin didn't
already have
a reality show?
Socialists know
The recently-passed health care bill is a pretty lame example of "Socialism," despite the claims of right-wing politicos and Tea Party activists. Take it directly from
the Socialists (via
The Nation)...
We oppose this restructuring on the grounds that the mandates allow private insurers to use the coercive power of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies. It is yet another case of public money that could be used for necessary social programs being funneled towards companies that engage in practices that are abusive and detrimental to the overall society.Here's the good, though, that comes with the campaign of media misinformation: Socialist Party web traffic is up, email inquiries and media requests have multiplied, and the party is welcoming more new members over the last few months than they have in years.
Thank you, Joe the Plumber.
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FBI officials have made at least nine arrests in connection with a Christian Militia group based in Michigan. The indictment accuses the group of planning to kill a police officer and then detonate a bomb at the site of a funeral.
Now, peruse the following articles regarding the arrests, searching for the word "terrorism". (Hint: it's not in any of them.)
Associated PressCNNNew York TimesWashington Post"Terrorism" is a practice engaged in only by Muslims. There's no such thing, you see, as a Christian terrorist.
HBO returns
In celebration of my nervy decision this morning to re-order HBO through my cable service, this is a
New York Times Magazine preview of the promising David Simon series "Treme," which debuts Sunday, April 11th.
"Treme" (pronounced 'tre-MAY') is about a post-Katrina New Orleans neighborhood richly populated with musicians and artists. The show's high pedigree of talent before and behind the camera makes it as much of a can't-miss quality programming prospect as exists in the medium.
I've been without an HBO subscription for better than three years. The pay network is famously "not TV," yet their decision to cancel "Deadwood" prematurely in 2007 was a very "TV"-like thing to do. The pound of flesh owed to me had to be exacted. Now-- after 40-some months of fees withheld-- it has been, and so the penalty box swings open...
I'm doing very little writing today because you've got quite a bit of reading ahead of you. The
Times piece runs eight webpages long. Get going.
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David Simon, about the subject of his new series: "This city is capable of moments unlike any moments you’ll ever experience in life. To see an Indian come down the street in full regalia on St. Joseph’s Night on an unlit street of messed-up shotgun houses and one burned-out car, and he’s the most beautiful thing on the planet, and everything around him is falling down. It’s a glorious instant of human endeavor. It’s
duende from the Spanish, chills on the back of your neck, and then the next minute it’s gone. Lots of American places used to make things. Detroit used to make cars. Baltimore used to make steel and ships. New Orleans still makes something. It makes moments."
The last of the great Golden Age screenwriters
I'm reading a delightful book from my local library entitled "The Wicked Wit of the West." It's the autobiography of Irving Brecher (as told to Hank Rosenfeld), a Hollywood screenwriter from its so-called Golden Age and one of its all-time masters in the arena of the comic one-liners. Milton Berle gave Brecher his first job writing jokes in Vaudeville in 1931, and once said of his penman, "He's a very rare person. As a writer, he really has no equals. Superiors, yes..."
Brecher was the sole writer of two Marx Brothers films "Go West" and "At the Circus," and he wrote the screenplays for both "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "Bye Bye Birdie." He created "The Life of Riley" radio serial (which evolved into television's first sitcom), and perhaps most infamously, he was responsible at one point for "punching up" the script of "The Wizard of Oz" while on the MGM lot in the late '30s, transforming the cowardly lion, tin man, and scarecrow into comedic characters. Brecher died in 2008 at the age of 94, and the book was published posthumously in January of the following year.
The book is one hilarious anecdote after another, regarding the likes of Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Henny Youngman, Billy Wilder, Louis B. Mayer, and of course, the Marx Brothers, who were the heroes of Brecher's adolescence in New York City before he became their screen collaborator.
Sample dialogue, Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont:
"We were young, gay, reckless! That night I drank champagne from your slipper. Two quarts. It would have been more, but they were open-toed. Ah, Hildegard!"
"My name is Susannah."
When asked of the power of the quick retort by his interviewer, Brecher opines that "Apparently there's a hunger on the part of most of us to be the messenger of something funny," and in that spirit, I'm reprinting my favorite anecdote from the book. Brecher doesn't take author's credit for the story, and it begs to be apocryphal...
I respect a husband who is supportive of his wife and her career. Like the husband of Pia Zadora, who happens to be well fixed. And she's a cute little thing. She's got talent. But the movies she made were flops. And the critics didn't appreciate her acting. So finally she said to her husband, "Darling, I'm not for the movies, but I am for the stage. With a live audience, I'm a great actress."
Her husband said, "Honey, so do a play. I'll finance it."
And she did. She chose "The Diary of Anne Frank." She played Anne Frank. They tried to play out in Miami with a sympathetic Jewish audience. In the third act, when the Nazis ran in and said, "Where is she?" four hundred Jews stood up and said: "She's in the attic!"
What's the matter with Democrats?
Salon's David Sirota has perfectly summarized tonight the Democrats' agenda in trying to shove their health care bill through the Congress. While the Republicans were busy wrecking the country over eight years, the Democrats were taking careful notes. It's all about "selling giveaways to (corporate) executives as a middle-class agenda."
The sophisticated process began during the 2008 Congressional and Presidential campaigns with
a phony pledge to deliver a "public option" on health care...Sirota's colleague, Glenn Greenwald,
further suggests that Rahm Emmanuel was precise all along in his legislative strategy on health care. From the very beginning, Obama's Chief of Staff advocated a "scaled back" insurance bill friendly to conservatives and industry, knowing that liberals would automatically fall in line behind whatever measure was drawn.
Greenwald writes:
Everyone who has ever been involved in negotiations knows that those who did what most progressive DC pundits did here from the start-- namely, announce: we have certain things we'd like you to change in this bill, but we'll go along with this even if you give us nothing--
are making themselves completely irrelevant in the negotiating process. People who signal in advance that they will accept a deal even if all of their demands are rejected will always be completely impotent, for reasons too obvious to explain. The loyal, Obama-revering pundits who acted as the bill's mindless cheerleaders from the start (this is the greatest achievement since FDR walked the Earth)
were always going to be ignored; why would anyone listen to the demands of those doing nothing but waving pom-poms?Fifty-seven House Democrats signed a pledge saying they would never support a health care bill that didn't contain a public option. All 57 are now preparing to vote for this particular one, even though it has as many provisions pertaining to the rescue of Sandra Bullock's marriage as it does in implementing a government-run "option".
The larger point is this: It's not the first time their promises have proven to be empty. Eighty House Dems pledged in writing that they would stop approving war funding unless there were provisions to withdraw troops within the same legislation. Then,
58 of the 80 proceeded to betray that vow last summer. Who would ever take these lawmakers seriously again? Nobody in the party leadership does anymore, if they ever
did, but maybe still the legions of idiots who continue to pledge their political support, part with hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in campaign donations, and still steadfastly believe that their "progressive" representative in Washington would never take his or her support for granted.
As the Kucinich Turns
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich got the royal treatment from the president this week, quite literally. The lawmaker had expressed discontent with the health care legislation currently before Congress that the Obama administration believes is imperative for our nation, saying
right up until this morning that he didn't plan to vote for it.
But where conservative Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson gets wooed by his party leadership with promises of special reimbursements (and privilege) for his home state in return for his vote on health care, the White House believed-- correctly-- that it could land the support of the liberal Kucinich with just a ride on a fancy airplane. Kucinich flew with Obama on Air Force One to a rally on health care in Dennis' home district in Cleveland Monday. There, Obama proceeded to deliver a speech to a large Buckeye State audience, but one targeted specifically towards the yet-unswayed Congressman sitting in the front row. Kucinich flipped. That's all it took-- by his own admission-- nothing else, no policy concessions, no specific assurances on future legislative action, nothing.
"Courage" is what's needed to pass this health care bill, Obama said in his remarks Monday. That's rich. This bill is not single-payer, which would take actual courage. That option was never even placed on the table. There's also no public option of any kind written into the language. Obama sold us out on that one with
some fancy backroom dealing last summer even while he was lying through his teeth about it to the American people. There's no option for states to enact single-payer on their own, and no caps imposed on insurance premiums. The legislation is nothing but the
mandated purchase of the private health insurance coverage that most of the nation has already expressed that it despises, a billion-dollar giveaway, and we're getting this exact bill not because the public option doesn't have the votes, but precisely
because it does. Fifty-one votes are all that are needed in the Senate now through reconciliation, but to include this vital provision would force Obama to break his unholy agreement from last year with the insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Last summer, 57 House "progressives" also signed
a letter to the White House vowing that they would not support a health care bill of any kind that did not contain a public option. Eight months later, it appears we're about to find out, perhaps by the end of the week, that every single one of them has caved.
Each one of those 57 House members, including Kucinich, enjoys full-access to health insurance for themselves and their families. None of them will be among the 120 Americans who die every day, according to Harvard researchers, because they don't even have
access to health care. Eighty-seven House Democrats are co-sponsors of a piece of single-payer legislation in that chamber, yet they're falling over themselves to vote for a Senate bill that the whistleblowing former executive at CIGNA, Wendell Potter,
calls "an absolute joke" and "an absolute giveaway to the insurance industry," and that the lawmakers vowed nine months ago they would never support.
Quote of the day 3/16/10
Quote of the day: Jimmy Kimmel, just now as a guest on Letterman talking about his on-air impersonation of Jay Leno on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" earlier this year, "It's fun to be Jay. It's easier."
Top 5 SNL Characters
This one's pretty straight-forward, and particularly unscientific-- the greatest characters created for or ever to appear on "Saturday Night Live." The only ground rule really is that the character has to have been recurrent. I tried to lasso some clips for each one, but NBC patrols the internet for piracy violations like it's going out of business.
5) MR. SUBLIMINAL, as portrayed by Kevin Nealon (8 appearances) 1986-1991. This was a difficult decision-
not that difficult- Nealon was one of the standout SNL performers of the 1990s-
Hartman was better- and now he's the best reason to watch the Showtime series "Weeds"-
Mary Louise Parker's body. His Mr. Subliminal character was one I had in mind when I came up with the idea for this list-
lazy blog entry. Here's
a Mr. Subliminal video drawn from the 1991 Emmys telecast-
NBC bastards- I think it's really funny-
there are better- I hope you enjoy it.4) DEBBIE DOWNER, as portrayed by Rachel Dratch (7 appearances) 2004-2006. It's little wonder that Dratch and her cast mates struggled to get through this sketch without laughing. It's a terrific concept-- a group of friends out for fun constantly being reminded by their friend Debbie of the sad facts of life, such as the pandemic of Feline AIDS.
This is hilarious.
3) NICK WINTERS/SUMMERS/SPRINGS/SLAMMER, as portrayed by Bill Murray (12 appearances) 1977-1999. This character is the brilliant Murray at his most comically-insincere. This one's great because it's all style and presentation, not propped up by lazy catchphrases or the like. One gets the impression that Murray could keep this lounge singer character fresh for decades, simply updating the pop culture references in his act. A musical performance by Nick (with Paul Shaffer accompanying on piano) is a pleasure whether you're warming by the fire at a New England ski lodge or riding coach class on a New York City to Miami passenger train. Sorry there are no clips out there. Blame somebody at the network.
2) MATT FOLEY, as portrayed by Chris Farley (8 appearances) 1993-1997. Pure Farley energy, Foley was a motivational speaker to rival a dozen Tony Robinses,
selflessly steering wayward youths towards a future more promising than his own.
1) ASTRONAUT JONES, as portrayed by Tracy Morgan (5 appearances) 2002-2009. Classic misdirection bit. The perfect outline. You've seen one, you've seen 'em all-- and that's not a criticism. The brief Astronaut Jones series was like a comic rocket across the sky. The clips of this one still have me on the floor,
I can't explain why. Look out moooon!
Glenn Beck? What's up with that?
You guys are all familiar with Glenn Beck, right? He's the radio and Fox News television political commentator? Yeah, me too, but here's the thing-- I've never heard or watched him. His broadcast wasn't aired on the radio stations I used to work for. His TV show on Fox News has debuted in the time since I downgraded my television menu, first to just broadcast stations, and then to just
basic basic cable. (This also means no "Daily Show," no "Stephen Colbert"-- shows that show Fox News clips.) As I write this, I have no conception of what his voice sounds like.
If I got it in my cable lineup, I still wouldn't watch the Fox News Channel, but you know how you just happen to flip past something sometimes. It would have happened. I see Beck's photo online all the time connected to stories. I read about dumb stuff he says. I've come to understand that he sobs on the air sometimes. Sometimes the show is on at bars or restaurants, but it's always muted there. I gather his act is kind of a Rush Limbaugh update-- Rush with less Clinton-era baggage.
I have no other point here. I've just surmised that Beck is kind of a douche bag, and I thought I might make a few of you jealous of me if I told you that, to my knowledge, I've never heard the guy speak.
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An Austin, TX film buff has gone to the trouble of listing
the greatest 9,331 movies of all-time. Maybe it's just me, but I take exception with some of his rankings.
Baseball avatar?
In the mood for baseball yet this year? To warm you up, here's
a telecast of the first inning of a Cardinals/Cubs game at Wrigley Field from early last year, courtesy of YouTube, but here's the hook-- it's not an actual game. You can tell because it's 2009 and Troy Glaus is contributing offensively for the Cardinals.
I realize that I'm slow to catch up to these technological advances, but I remember when baseball video games amounted to a blinking dot moving from the pitcher's mound to home plate.
Torii Hunter's comments
Anaheim Angels outfielder Torii Hunter, an African-American, is in public relations trouble for
referring to Black-skinned Latinos as "imposters" of African-American players. Of course, as is often the case, the pivotal point of Hunter's comments are absent from the headlines, and by and large from the stories as well, that have sprung up online since his candid conversation two weeks ago with
USA Today's Bob Nightengale.
In context, Hunter had an important point to make that doesn't deserve to be lost in the media fire-- that baseball clubs routinely seek out the cheapest avenues to hold down their labor costs. Attention to this very real fact should hardly spark controversy except for Hunter's tactless truth-telling-- "It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have (agent) Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'"
Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck delivered a very recommendable movie last year called "Sugar" that draws attention to the very difficult cultural position into which Latino baseball players are placed when they come to the United States and Canada to pursue their dream of playing Major League Baseball. They're almost always well-established stars on the diamond before they've earned themselves a sturdy bargaining position for financial compensation.
Even more importantly, MLB clubs have discovered that it costs vast sums less to set up training academies and "grow" players on the Carribbean Islands and in Central America than it does to do the same in predominantly-African-American-- or for that matter, I guess, predominantly-white communities-- in the United States, though, presumably, there will always be a high demand among employers for white players to staff big league rosters. Work and safety regulations in the preferred countries are weak, if any exist at all, making the young sporting hopefuls there more ripe for exploitation. This is why Major League Baseball views Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as such
a singular threat to their Latin American enterprise, and this is why Torii Hunter, in his way, does us a great service in drawing attention to these realities. It's a terrific dialogue to be had.
The 13-year MLB vet is in a unique position to recognize this transition in baseball's labor practices. He's been actively promoting baseball in U.S. inner cities for some time through the
"Torii Hunter Project". His efforts helped to earn him the 2009 Branch Rickey Award, which honors individuals who demonstrate a deep commitment to the health and well-being of their communities. While African-American participation in Major League Baseball was up to 10.2% in 2008, its highest level since 1995, it's still well below the peak partnership years of the 1970s and '80s, and it's not a stretch by any means to connect that generational drop, among the other contributing factors, to baseball's overall lack of investment in the areas in which African-Americans, and many of their fans incidentally, mainly reside.
Hunter, by the way, clarified the racial element of his earlier comments today in a written statement posted on the Angels website. "What troubles me most was the word "impostors" appearing in reference to Latin American players not being black players," he wrote, "It was the wrong word choice, and it definitely doesn't accurately reflect how I feel and who I am.
"What I meant was they're not black players; they're Latin American players. There is a difference culturally. But on the field, we're all brothers, no matter where we come from, and that's something I've always taken pride in: treating everybody the same, whether he's a superstar or a young kid breaking into the game. Where he was born and raised makes no difference."
Kucinich as Nader
Is Dennis Kucinich about to become the Ralph Nader of health care reform? This is how
one political website is spinning it. A solitary progressive Congressman threatens to stand up for progressive values on health care, and he gets tagged with the Nader label. Well, the joke's on them. Some of us consider that one a badge of honor Kucinich can wear with pride. What I wouldn't give for a chamber full of Ralph Naders in the Congress.
Blue Dogs can pitch their fits over "socialized medicine," federal funding for abortions, or pork funding for their home districts, but the White House is intent on caressing and cajoling them. It's the
progressives that get labeled "fucking retards"
by the president's chief of staff, and single-payer advocates that get called "extremists"
by the president himself. Lord and Lady Progressive, this is what your Democratic party thinks of you.
Kucinich is liable to become the most dangerous man in Congress now. The liberal who threatens
not to fall in line? There's no precedent for this during President Obama's term, and the media in Washington has no idea what to do the information. The Ohio Congressman is burning down their preferred Democrat-vs.-Republican narrative structure.
What the hell do we do now that the liberals are protesting? We've been using the word "socialism" to describe a billion-dollar forced purchase of private insurance so this development is really going to confuse our news consumers. We've gotta find a way to dumb this thing.... RALPH NADER!!! That's it. Kucinich is Ralph Nader. That'll do.
The White House might now be forced to...
gasp... negotiate with Kucinich.
Compromising with a progressive Congressman who stands on the side of the majority of Americans-- it's complicated and time-consuming enough to bend over for a Republican ass-fuck on every line item of the bill and still try to maintain some public dignity. Now we've gotta worry about our base too, the people who put us in office?! It's as if some people out there are unwilling to back a health care bill-- any bill imaginable, regardless of how heinous-- just so that we can declare a political victory.
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In addition to being America's most important political reporter,
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is also a crack sports columnist. Exhibit A is
this article from
Men's Journal about the great narcissists in the athletic world. Can you think of anybody big he forgot besides Curt Schilling and Lenny Dykstra?
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That's some 'Lost'-type shit there: The earthquake that rocked Chile a week ago caused the Earth's axis to shift three inches.
People react.
A rationalist explains Iowa's weather
There's an old bon mot floating about that the state of Iowa always gets hit with a blizzard of snow just before the Girls' High School Basketball Tournament. "Seems like every year it happens," people say whenever we get measurable snow before or during the State Tournament.
Forget that the tourney, beginning to end, is six days long (and if we add in the advancing weekend, it's eight) and that the month of March averages about five inches of accumulative snowfall in Des Moines each year-- more than half of it concentrated, presumably in the earlier, more wintry part of the month. No, it has to be some sort of divine plan, a wink from our heavenly father above, if the ground turns white.
Except that when it doesn't snow that week during a given year, nobody notices. Des Moines and the state of Iowa are currently moving into their second full-week without snow. Despite cloud after cloud and snow upon snow all winter long, high temps cranked up into the 40s early this week-- the best weather to date this season-- even while teams and fans gathered downtown for some roundball action. And we're headed into the 50s tomorrow and Saturday, just in time for the championship games.
No snow. Nada. Zilch.
Make a mental note of it so you won't sound like an idiot next year.
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Before Jim Bunning was a reality-detached crank in the U.S. Senate, he was
labor pioneer in the world of Major League Baseball.
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As a teenager, when Chuck Berry was famously up in the morning and out to school, the teacher teaching the golden rule, he was attending Sumner High in North St. Louis. Now, at 83 years old,
he's headlining the school's annual Alumni Roundup.
Sumner grads also include Arthur Ashe, Grace Bumbry, Dick Gregory, Robert Guillaume, Bobby McFerrin, Tina Turner, and Tuskegee Airman Wendall Pruitt. Ring, ring goes the bell.
The waning days of the Mark McGwire Highway
The Missouri State Senate voted unanimously Monday to rename the Mark McGwire Highway, a stretch of Interstate 70 that passes through St. Louis and St. Louis County. The roadway has been designated in honor of McGwire, the Cardinals' firstbaseman who swatted 70 home runs in a single-season, since 1999.
Like the decision to
name the thoroughfare after the home run champ in the first place, the politicians know a popular cause when they see one. The name suggests steroids now, but during the historic baseball summer of 1998, lawmakers were chasing hard after that Big Mac bandwagon. In the state's gubernatorial race that year, Democrat Jay Nixon, acting in his capacity at the time as Attorney General, announced a mid-summer crackdown on con artists that were forging McGwire's signature on baseball memorabilia. This announcement required that Nixon pose for pictures standing next to the Cardinals slugger.
Nixon's Republican opponent in the race, Christopher "Kit" Bond, the first elected official to champion the McGwire name on the road, incidentally, also tried to piggyback on the Great Home Run Race of '98 by firing off an angry,
public letter to the Internal Revenue Service. One of the muckety-mucks at the IRS had just had the gall to suggest that the fan who came up with the swatted baseball as souvenir after an historic McGwire clout would have to pay a gift tax if he or she returned the sphere to McGwire. There were no photo ops available with this Bond maneuver, however, so he promoted his courageous showdown with the tax collectors again during a televised debate.
What does McGwire, the Cardinals new hitting coach, have to say about the latest name change? "If it turns out they do," he said this week, "I was honored to have it for 10 years." He called it "a cool honor" to have the highway named for him at all, but one gets the impression he never cared much one way or the other. It's got to be a kick in the pants to have an honor like that to fall back on for posterity's sake, but I doubt that John Kennedy would be racing right out to visit his airport in New York City if he came back to life today.
If the measure to rename now passes the Missouri House, the roadway will return to its previous moniker, "The Mark Twain Expressway," but something tells me Twain wouldn't give a flying fig about this either. He'd certainly find the humor in the politicians' dedication and overheated efforts toward a road that most people just refer to as "Interstate 70.". As Twain's literary alter ego, Huckleberry Finn, expressed 125 years ago, "H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority for any town." So let's just take a moment instead to taste the delicious irony of the Show-Me State's elected Moral Guardians reinstalling the honor on behalf of Twain, the most prominent atheist in Missouri history. Expect the next uproar from the state's ministers, or maybe that dust-up has faded.
Sadly, we still struggle to see people and accept them for their human limitations. We can celebrate the successes, sure--
overcelebrate them, but eventually the individual must be torn down for his or her failings. As Huck Finn also said, "Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."
Narcisse vs. Culver
Iowa Democratic Governor Chet Culver's got himself a much-needed
primary opponent for 2010. Jonathan Narcisse is well-known in the capitol city. He recently stepped down from the Des Moines School Board as its most outspoken and contentious member, a loud opponent of administrative waste and of many of his colleagues. He's also the current publisher of the Iowa Bystander, a long-running newsweekly in the city focused on African-American issues.
The great compliment that can be paid to Narcisse is that he's an independent thinker. It's going to be thrilling to have a candidate in the running so publicly opposed to corporate welfare. He's been stumping already for campaign finance reform, and has said he will refuse PAC money for his campaign. He's pro-labor, pro-education reform, and he's personally and magnificently unpopular among members of the political class-- this last attribute being perhaps his greatest of all.
On the flip side, though, Narcisse is a social conservative the likes of which I could hardly get behind. He's opposed to abortion rights and gay marriage, and he's labeled the State Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriages an example of judicial overreach. Ugh. (Of course, Governor Culver is on record against that court ruling as well.)
Anyway, this is all Democrats' business, not mine. What's invigorating though is that Narcisse has vowed to re-enter the gubernatorial race as an independent candidate if he's defeated in the party primary this summer. That pledge of defiance indicates he's got brains enough to realize the system is rigged against him inside the apparatus of our profane duopoly. More ballot choices, YES. More candidates diving into the pool of participation-- and doing so out of personal principle, not as focus-group-approved stand-ins for our corporate paymasters. We should all be able to get behind that.
