Book Report and Must See TV
Not much to post today, have been very busy with two major occurrences. The first is that I went to see Dwight Yoakam in concert last night, and he was fantastic. He was playing to a huge crowd despite the fact that is was nearly triple digit temperatures in an outdoor pavilion in Charlottesville, Virginia in August.
I have it on good authority that the performance in C'ville was much better than the Habitat for Humanity concert the night before in Asheville. Mostly due to the fact that it seemed like more people at the Asheville gig went to see and hear the patriotic song stylings of Charlie Daniels and his band (who opened for Dwight) than the headliner, but there you go. The opener in Charlottesville was Jim Waive. He was almost as good as Dwight.
At any rate, the concert was great, the band was great, Dwight was great, and if you have a chance to see him live, you really should. Because he's great.
The other thing occupying my attention is that my car died, and now, so has my lawn mower. I blame Pat Robertson. I'm planning to blame Pat Robertson for pretty much everything bad that happens to me from now on, and therefore, I have to theorize that in spite of Pat Robertson's prayers to stop me, God thought that denying me the chance to see Dwight Yoakam live in concert was more punishment than my Liberalism warranted.
And Pat's vengeance for my alliance with the Enemy which struck my lawn mower is only going to aggravate my Republican neighbors, because I'm more than happy to have the excuse to sit in my overgrown front lawn and sip a cocktail. I'm telling myself that God heard Pat, considered the evils in my neighborhood, and decided to reward me with some down time and punish my neighbors using my mower as an instrument of His infinite justice.
Due to my automobile imposed shut in status and mower induced leisure time, I have managed to catch up on some of my reading. I want to recommend Weapons of Mass Deception, by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber. It is a very detailed analysis of the propaganda machine which propelled us into the war. I'd been meaning to read it for a long time, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. If you're in the same boat, read it now.
Also, don't forget to watch CNN tonight at 8PM EST. They are doing a show called Dead Wrong: Inside an Intelligence Meltdown It will re-air at 11:00. You all should watch, it will be the talk of AM Radio on Monday, I'm sure. I'm equally sure there won't be anything on the show that readers of this blog didn't know already, but it will be nice to hear them on TV...Though why they couldn't have aired most of this info a year or two ago, that's the real mystery.
I'm going to add some new links to the right side of the blog, including a suggested reading bookshelf and a few more new links to good blogs I've found. Keep checking back. I'm also going to try to keep true to my promise to Rhonda to try to make more frequent posts, even if the post isn't a work of editorial genius...Just to let people know Pat Robertson hasn't gotten God to smite me down yet.
All the books listed in the Books of Note section I've actually read, so you can ask me about them if you want. I'm slogging my way through the 9-11 Commission report, but it gives me bad dreams. The books on the list are in the order I've read them, near as I can remember, and not ranked in any order of preference. I think you should read both the Bob Woodward books right away, though, if you haven't read them yet. The John Dean book is a must read, and so is the one by Mark Crispin Miller.
The one by Stephen Mansfield might surprise people. I want you to know I don't just read Lefty Endorsed Official Books of the Ant-Bush Blame America First crowd. I figured that since this was a book the Right Wing Theocrats endorsed, I'd better have a look through it. It is scariest because of the insight into the real forces shaping this nation today.
Well, that and the bad writing.
I'll add more books as I finish them. Feel free to suggest some! We can have a book club! Maybe I'll start getting payola! That'd be swell. I need the money to thwart Pat Robertson and get my car fixed.
I have it on good authority that the performance in C'ville was much better than the Habitat for Humanity concert the night before in Asheville. Mostly due to the fact that it seemed like more people at the Asheville gig went to see and hear the patriotic song stylings of Charlie Daniels and his band (who opened for Dwight) than the headliner, but there you go. The opener in Charlottesville was Jim Waive. He was almost as good as Dwight.
At any rate, the concert was great, the band was great, Dwight was great, and if you have a chance to see him live, you really should. Because he's great.
The other thing occupying my attention is that my car died, and now, so has my lawn mower. I blame Pat Robertson. I'm planning to blame Pat Robertson for pretty much everything bad that happens to me from now on, and therefore, I have to theorize that in spite of Pat Robertson's prayers to stop me, God thought that denying me the chance to see Dwight Yoakam live in concert was more punishment than my Liberalism warranted.
And Pat's vengeance for my alliance with the Enemy which struck my lawn mower is only going to aggravate my Republican neighbors, because I'm more than happy to have the excuse to sit in my overgrown front lawn and sip a cocktail. I'm telling myself that God heard Pat, considered the evils in my neighborhood, and decided to reward me with some down time and punish my neighbors using my mower as an instrument of His infinite justice.
Due to my automobile imposed shut in status and mower induced leisure time, I have managed to catch up on some of my reading. I want to recommend Weapons of Mass Deception, by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber. It is a very detailed analysis of the propaganda machine which propelled us into the war. I'd been meaning to read it for a long time, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. If you're in the same boat, read it now.
Also, don't forget to watch CNN tonight at 8PM EST. They are doing a show called Dead Wrong: Inside an Intelligence Meltdown It will re-air at 11:00. You all should watch, it will be the talk of AM Radio on Monday, I'm sure. I'm equally sure there won't be anything on the show that readers of this blog didn't know already, but it will be nice to hear them on TV...Though why they couldn't have aired most of this info a year or two ago, that's the real mystery.
I'm going to add some new links to the right side of the blog, including a suggested reading bookshelf and a few more new links to good blogs I've found. Keep checking back. I'm also going to try to keep true to my promise to Rhonda to try to make more frequent posts, even if the post isn't a work of editorial genius...Just to let people know Pat Robertson hasn't gotten God to smite me down yet.
All the books listed in the Books of Note section I've actually read, so you can ask me about them if you want. I'm slogging my way through the 9-11 Commission report, but it gives me bad dreams. The books on the list are in the order I've read them, near as I can remember, and not ranked in any order of preference. I think you should read both the Bob Woodward books right away, though, if you haven't read them yet. The John Dean book is a must read, and so is the one by Mark Crispin Miller.
The one by Stephen Mansfield might surprise people. I want you to know I don't just read Lefty Endorsed Official Books of the Ant-Bush Blame America First crowd. I figured that since this was a book the Right Wing Theocrats endorsed, I'd better have a look through it. It is scariest because of the insight into the real forces shaping this nation today.
Well, that and the bad writing.
I'll add more books as I finish them. Feel free to suggest some! We can have a book club! Maybe I'll start getting payola! That'd be swell. I need the money to thwart Pat Robertson and get my car fixed.
posted by Archie Levine at 3:42 PM
1 Comments:
I was pretty disappointed in the CNN show, because they had the CIA guys saying how the CIA was the traditional whipping boy for Presidential Adventures gone bad, and then ended the show by kicking the CIA themselves.
Clip after clip of the highest ranking officials in this Administration, inlcuding the President outright lying to the American public to sell this war and they don't hammer that as the story, they hammer the dangers of faulty intelligence?
Seemed to me the intelligence was pretty good but the Administration chose to ignore it, opting instead for ginning up support for their war aims by adding the weight of repitition where the weight of fact was lacking.
Bastards, but what can you do? I just don't see how people continue to believe in the myth of the liberal media.
Who cares about George Tenet? He's not the evil mastermind who rushed to take this country to war. He works for somebody, doesn't he? I hate that we have to choose between seeing our Pesident as an evil genius on an Orwellian scale or an inept puppet who can be manipulated by his underlings.
And that either one could get re-elected.
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