Stewart Lee: "Political Correctness Has Gone Mad!":

The quest for the accurate naming of dead women.
I like this fellow's demeanor....

Somebody, Please, Debunk The Reagan Mythology

Woody was not the first to notice that Raygun was the very first, official, "figure-head," public relations, corpoRat/statist sock-puppet pseudo-President. Raygun's cabal set in motion EVERY ill that besets the country to this day.

Ronnie's "legacy" is a fictional narrative created in retrospect by the media the corpoRat consolidation of which his regime deregulated and encouraged.

Barbara Sizemore Talks "Turkey" (In 4 Parts)

A Rep. Who Endured One Schools Some Male/Pig Puke On Abortion

Woody always wonders if the women, who are somehow attached to men who accuse all women of thoughtlessly, or carelessly, or frivolously having abortions, know--do they actually comprehend, in the front of their brains--the utter, unspeakable contemptwith which their men regard them, to be able to accuse ALL women of such irresponsibilities.

He doubts it, somehow.

And wonders if the delivery of such news to the home/spouse, somehow, might induce changes in "domestic" policies. For example, I wonder if Mrs. Mr. Smith from New Jersey knows her ever-loving hubby regards her as a potential, mindless, serial killer?

The "Beeb" Speaks! Bieber Reveals "Thoughts"

Well he DID. (How's that Hed for "Google-Bait?")

Still, Woody fails to understand why opinions on matters of substance and importance (abortion, politics) should be solicited from, and reported about, people whose opinions are so supremely irrelevant to any possible debate about such matters as those of the Beeb, or Miley Cyrus, or any 16-year-old middle-school drop-out/nail-polish pimp??

Bieber Lets His Pro-Life and Pro-Canada Freak Flags Fly

Justin Bieber, mop-topped wunderkind of the wooded north, fell into a political booby trap at the hands of Rolling Stone, declaring himself pro-life and pro-Canada: "You guys are evil. Canada's the best country in the world." Uh oh.

On Political Parties:

"I'm not sure about the parties. But whatever they have in Korea, that's bad." [Ed: So, no tour of North Korea?]

On American vs. Canadian Health Care:

You guys are evil. Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home.

On Abortion:

"I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?" How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

It's almost unfair to ask these questions to a kid who dropped out of middle school to be a full-time tween heartbreaker and nail polish pimp. "Whatever they have in Korea, that's bad" isn't really a political opinion (Is he aware there are two Korean nations?) and he doesn't seem to understand what abortion even is. If anything, this interview is a document of the woeful deficits of child stars' minds, much like the revelation that Jessica Simpson spent her entire childhood thinking Chicken of the Sea was poultry.

Kudos to Grigoriadis, though, for finding the one topic Bieber has never before been asked about: His opinion on things that actually matter. [Rolling Stone]

Send an email to Maureen O'Connor, the author of this post, at maureen@gawker.com.

Meta-Cogitating About Meta-Cognition

For some reason, in no small part stemming from conversations with my gal in NYC, Trish, of Menopausal Stoners and other venues, from her nest in the Upper West Side, from whither she ventures out to teach neo-nates how to begin to navigate this sordid, tawdry existence, Meta-cognition has been on my mind a bit lately. Meta-cognition is that function of the Mind of the learner which knows itself as a knowing self. Operational awareness, and practical manipulation, of this capacity is a crucial accomplishment for successful learning: Knowing that you can learn--are learning--is essential to actually learning. It is not a trivial competence.

Which reminded me of Howard Gardner's "varieties" of intelligence.

Gardner has derived a non-hierarchical taxonomy by which he characterizes what we now regard often as mere "talents" as actually consisting of discrete kinds of intelligence, including complex strategic capabilities and abilities for successfully inhabiting and navigating the life-world. That is what ANY 'intelligence' is: a collection of skills, abilities, predispositions, and competences which enable us to survive and thrive in our worlds.

Gardner started with seven, and has since expanded it to eight, and is allegedly weighing data for one or two more. The Original Seven were:

• Literary/textual,
• Mathematico-deductive,
• Kinesthetic,
• Plastic/spatial ('artistic/sculptural'),
• Musical,
• Meditative/contemplative, and
• Personally interactive.

He added 'naturalistic,' later.

Gardner theorized that in everyone, there were latent capacities for operating in any of these universes--that we all had some of all those capacities--but that in all of us, one predominated.

In me it is the literal/textual. I have little mathematico-deductive (linear) aptitude; I dont think that way. I was never an accomplished athlete, but I could perform in almost any physical activity I wanted to learn. I fenced, surfed, skied, played tennis and racquetball, along with the basic three American "Ball-sports." I am no kinda artist, but I sing pretty not badly, for being untrained. I am reflective, but not meditative; and I know how to work a room pretty good,.

That each "kind" of intelligence indeed creates its own life world becomes totally clearly when one interacts with others whose skills (and this is where we get back to meta-cognition) the person is intimately aware of possessing and learning from. I was a sort of academic coach for some guys on the LSU track team in the late 80s, and I had a chance to talk about learning with their bodies with Olympic-class athletes, and I can assure you, they know the world on VERY different terms than does a middle-aged profesor. You know someone who has "musical" intelligence if that person ALWAYS has song or a tune in their heads or on their fingers. And THEY know the world in uniquely "musical ways."

We 'privilege' the literary/textual (the domain of metaphor, interestingly) and the mathematico-deductive because those are the two facets upon which commerce and business depend. School caters to those, because school serves to sort, first, and then to train workers for fodder for the Elite machinery. The others kinds are often regarded as extraneous or expendable by the CorpoRats and paper-pushers, acceptable only as adjuncts which might turn a marginal profit someday, somewhere.

"He Is The Very Model Of A Modern US President..."

"Although he's black, Joe Biden says he's clean and quite articulate..."

You Might Be A Geezer IF (YMBAGI) You Remember This

...how you crawled under your desk and pulled a thick book over your head and wondered if you were going to die, when you heard the civil defense warning; or

• you remember reciting the Pledge without God in it;
• you BOUGHT 20 cent/gallon gasoline and cigarets for a quarter/pack;
• you rode on a steam-propelled, interstate passenger train;
• you listened to Sputnik, and felt bad for Laika;
• you do remember exactly where you were Nov. 22, 1963;
• you watched the Black Power salute from the Olympics (and were flabbergasted by Bob Beamon's leap) on tv;

Feel free to add your own...

How "Marxist-like" In Belief In "Democracy" Are We Murkins, Really??

Woody doesn't see what this fucktard is complaining about.
It is PRECISELY that "Absolute Faith In Democracy" (lately largely misplaced)which permits the likes of the GOP to hijack popular discontent to fuel their ideological attacks on citizens' civil liberties, the corpoRat despoliation of shared commons, and the corrupting of the liberal values upon which the Constitution is founded, the oligarchic tendencies of the founders notwithstanding.

Cunt-Hair Clancy Thomas: Impeach, Indict, Imprison, Impale? DILLIGAF?

Clarence ("Cunt-hair Clancy") Thomas has been lately prominent in the news in consequence of the revelations that his wife is now and has for several years been in the pay of lobbying and business interests which had business before the Court. He and his "mentor" and mouth-piece/puppeteer, Antonin ("Uncle Vafanculo") Scalia (who tails around his own trail of sticky, viscous, criminal slime from his excta-curricular associations with the Busheviks) have been active participants and propaganda centerpieces in Right-wing conferences, workshops, and other events of highly partisan and ideological nature. This is purest Tihadist shit, not your average Federalist Society corruption.

All of which suggests that Ol' Curly Clarence has overstepped the normal bounds of judicial temperance and gone over to the "darker" side. And some of this has been noticed by various Congresscritters, in particular the vocal and voluble Rep. Anthony Weiner (D.-NY), who is making early, gentle noises about perhaps, just maybe, POSSIBLY holding "C-h Clancy" to the judicial standards which apply to the REST of the judiciary. (Oh, NO, you gasp! I know. His temerity stunned me too.)

Now, (Yr'Ob'd'tC's'p't) didn't just lately topple off the turnip truck, so he KNOWS it's NAGAHAPUN but, in any system in which the "Rule of Law" actually was a meaningful utterance, every decision in which Clancy ("Short & Curly") Thomas has been part of a 5-4 majority opinion, at LEAST since Bush V. Gore, should be vacated and the case re-argued withOUT being ol' Cunt-Hair being permitted to vote again.

But recusal is, for me, to mild a remedy for corruption THIS concentrated, this corrosive, this contemptible. I want MORE. I want the "dream team" of the (mocha) President and the (beige) AG to get together, using all the resources that, for instance Karl Rove would have marshalled and, using ALL the power of the State, drive tht lurking, lurching, dour, dreary dunce from the Bench, entirely.

Impeachment must begin in the HoR, which is (conveniently) recently fallen back into the hands of Cunt-hair Clancy's natural constituency, the conservotard/fucktard/Wackloon right, to whom Ol' Curly's feculent spouse has sold her services--all unnoticed, apparently--for at LEAST the last decade. So it is extremely UNlikely that impeachment proceedings will begin anytime soon.

So this is where the "Justice" department should enter the picture, by bringing CRIMINAL proceedings against the drooling, leering dunce. Neither O'Bama nor Holder need feel the least hesitance to prosecute the "black" justice. They owe him NOTHING in consideration of their shared rcial heritage. Cunt-hair Clancy was ONLY chosen for his position by GHWBush as a calculated insult to the memory of Thurgood Marshall and to the social activists who regarded Marshall's seat as a talisman. It was as though Poppy Bush thought: "Well, these skeevy Negroes demand a Black Justice? Okay. Here's Cunt-hair Clancy, the dumbest, meanest, most self-loathing, lowest, shittiest crappiest fucking Oreo/jurist in the whole GOP. Suck on THIS, Jesse Fucking Jackson."

So there is NO reason for the "first Black President" or his "First BLack" Attorney General to cut the Cunt-hair any slack. Indict him. Then run him the fuck outta town.

To repeat: Every decision in which Clancy Cunt-hair has been in the majority SHOULD be vacated and re-heard, after Curly Clarence has been arrested, indicted, convicted, imprisoned and most importantly REPLACED.

A Letter To The President

To: Hon. Barack H. Obama, J.D., President, United States of America
From: Woody P Konopelli, Ph.D., Citizen, United States of America

Sir:
I and many of my friends, correspondents, and colleagues agree: During the campaign, we all heard you say, at various times and in various ways, words to the effect that you were OPPOSED to, and would would "DO SOMETHING" about the PATRIOT ACT, the worst legislative outrage ever perpetrated by the State upon its People, their liberties and freedoms (the Alien & Sedition Act notwithstanding).

Little did we know, and less could we then imagine, standing hopefully on the brink of change, that by "doing something," what you meant was strengthening and extending it, not once but already twice.

Haha. I guess the joke's on us, pretty good. huh? Haha.

But you know the old saying: "Fool me once...?
Well, that was it; that was the "once." I know you now.

Sincerely,

Woody

Robert Parry/Consortium News: Reagan Was "Atrocious!"

My bucket-list is excremental. I want to take a copious, runny shit on Reagan's grave and in George W. Bush's mouth. I shall die a fulfilled and happy man if I should manage EITHER:

When you’re listening to the many tributes to President Ronald Reagan, often for his talent making Americans feel better about themselves, you might want to spend a minute thinking about the many atrocities in Latin America and elsewhere that Reagan aided, covered up or shrugged off in his inimitable "aw shucks" manner.

"...even as the United States celebrates Reagan’s centennial birthday and lavishes praise on his supposed accomplishments, very little time has been spent reflecting on the unnecessary bloodbaths that Reagan enabled in many parts of the world.

Those grisly deaths and ugly tortures get whisked away as if they were just small necessities in Reagan’s larger success “winning the Cold War” – even though the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was already winding down before Reagan arrived on the national scene. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Reagan’s ‘Tear Down This Wall’ Myth.”]

Yet, Reagan’s Cold War obsessions helped unleash right-wing “death squads” and murderous militaries on the common people in many parts of the Third World, but nowhere worse than in Latin America.

The blood of several hundred THOUSAND Central Americans--in Nicaragua, Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras--drips from Reagan's dead fingers and taints us all with murderous guilt.

O'Bama's Last Chance With Me: Indict "Cunt-hair" Clarence Thomas

To me, there is now, finally, a way for O'Bama to redeem his bona fides with the Left, and that is to hound Justice Clancy "Cunt-Hair on a Can Lid" Thomas OFF the Court.

Then appoint even a CorpoRat/Centrist like Kagan, and break the grip of the Opus Deists.

He's the only one who could; and there is ammunition, if not for impeachment, then for indictment for high, judicial misdemeanors.

A "White" president couldn't move to impeach or indict "Pubes-On-The-Can-Lid" Clarence, no matter WHAT he'd done.

And Clancy already played the lynching card at his confirmation; so there is no doubt he'd play it again if he were attacked for his crimes and misdemeanors.

But the "first BLACK President" could move a criminal indictment through the Justice Department (impeachment would have to start in the GOPuke House). There is plenty of suggestion, at least, of serious improprieties if not out-right crimes involving conflicts of interest, financial shenanigans involving his wife and her political activities, and his 'availability' to provide advice to interests with causes which would appear before him on the Court. Ol' "Cunt-hair" Clancy is DEEEEEEPLY corrupt.

So, "Si, se puedes!"

If Prez. Shamwow had ANY fucking spine at all...

ADDENDUM:

Let's not forget that Thomas's nomination was GHWBush's slap in the face to every civil rights group, every constituency of color or need in the country.
"Oh," sez Poppy, "you wanna NOTHER "black" Justice?
"Okay! Here's Cunt-hair Clancy, the dumbest fucking Oreo we could find.
"Suck on it..."

"Come Sit By Me..."

If you cannot say anything nice about the "Austrian" school of economics...

The irrepressible economist, Max Keiser, and co-host, Stacy Herbert (RT), talk about French President Nicolas Sarkozy going postal on JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and about (how) the US Drug Enforcement Agency goes Village People with their big lipped rubber ducky for sale. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Sandeep Jaitly of Bullionbasis.com about a gold standard, backwardization and the Austrian school of economics.

This Would Be a "Shaggy Fart" Story.

My elder sister, whose sense of humor is usually dry, albeit a bit prudish, sent this. It's funny:

When I bought my Blackberry I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and ev ery other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot."

The Purpose of School

The following is the text of a FaceBook exchange earlier today which encapsulates in precis my view of the current state and status of the Academy:

Forest Taber (the son of a friend of mine in meat-space):
College .. as needlessly expensive as it is complicated. What a racket..
26 minutes ago via Android · Like · Comment

Kenneth Gervais (a friend of Forest): Amen.
23 minutes ago · Like

Woody Wiqiliques Konopak (Me): It's the consequence of the commodification of knowledge and the credentialization (they call it "professionalization," but that's bullshit) of employment. It amounts to the creation of artificial stratifications after the "natural" ones--race and gender, mainly--broke down...
9 minutes ago · Like

Forest Taber: And this coming from a Dr .. Man, the world sure seems broken to me
8 minutes ago · Like

Woody Wiqiliques Konopak: I'm as disgusted about it as you are...
There is of course, the other side of the coin, which is that, overwhelmingly (in my 15 years teaching in university), students come there looking for nothing resembling 'education,' but rather (only!) to have their prejudices ratified and their tickets to the middle-class stamped.

It is extremely difficult, unto impossible, to stress--to impress-- upon them that they are not at the University to GET an education; they are there to learn how to MAKE their education.

School doesn't--is not SUPPOSED to--teach you WHAT to know.
School IS supposed to teach you how to LEARN what you NEED to know.

Fandom, Marketing, and the History of Politics

Did O'Bama's New Jobs Czar Boost GE Profits By Off-Shoring USer Jobs?

I "understand" at a certain level that this is, after all, what I've accused it of being for 30 years: A kabuki performance. Still, you'd wish they were still at least trying a LITTLE bit to disguise it. Or is this primitive level of performance enough to "satisfy" the current demands of th audience for "political theater?"

Via HuffPost:

Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. tapped (--without any apparent irony at all~~W) by President Barack Obama as his next top outside economic adviser, will be asked to guide the White House as it attempts to (appear to care about actually doing anything to~~) jump-start lackluster job creation and spur a muddled recovery.

Immelt's firm stands as Exhibit A of a successful and profitable corporate America standing at the forefront of the recovery. It also represents the archetypal company that's (taken its successes from the hides of itw workers while~~W) hoarding cash, sending jobs overseas, relying on taxpayer bailouts and paying less taxes than envisioned.

The move is the latest salvo in the White House's continued aggressive and very public outreach ("outreach" = obvious cave-in, capitulation to, and fellation of ~~W)to corporate America. Earlier this month, Obama appointed a top (notoriously CorpoRat/corrupt Chicago fixer and former~~W) executive at JPMorgan Chase as his chief of staff, and this week he granted a longtime wish of business interests by (ass-fucking the environment, consumers, and the rest of the citizenry by~~W) promising to review federal regulations perceived as onerous.

Immelt's appointment raises fresh questions (they're not fucking fresh to me~~W) about Obama's courtship and future policy proposals. (People like Immelt who have spoken for~~W) Firms like GE say good jobs will come from lower taxes and less regulation. Immelt told analysts Friday that he'll focus on tax policy and regulation, among other topics.

"A clear problem in the recovery is that it's been a much stronger recovery for business in terms of their profit and earnings than for those folks who work and earn a living in the U.S.," said Gary Burtless, a former Labor Department economist and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy organization in Washington.

Burtless said Immelt was likely hired to reassure corporate America. Political opponents have cast the Obama administration as unfriendly to business interests, and the administration has had difficulty rebutting that theme. Immelt's hiring was yet another step in that direction.

Follow the link to the rest. It's depressing. Another case of O'Bama bending over to the Bosses and Massas...

Reynolds Price: "You'll ONLY Regret Your Economies"

RIP, a truly wise man (dec. Jan 20, 2011, age 78)

Dept. of Getting All UP In Their Grille: Health Care Hypocrisy Division

The GOPigs in the House "symbolically" voted to repeal the very modest, inadequate, stop-gap reforms universally now known as Obama-care, yesterday. Digby, and some others in the left/lib B'osphere are getting together some resources to slip a knife into the GOPocrits who voted to undo even the tiny advances that O'care portended for the mass of folks while selfishly, and often self-righteously, claiming their own tax-payer-funded medical insurance/care to be exempt.

If you gotta buck, send it to' em (me? hah.)