Sunday Night Music Club VI

Yes, it's time for another chapter in these all-too-infrequent music posts!

This one is extra special, because it puts a brand new spin on a classic MTV music video from the 1980s.

The Norwegian New Wave band a-ha released "Take On Me" in 1984, but the song gained huge international play with the video in 1985. The video of the song, a pop-techno number, won several awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.

Dust Films took the video and re-dubbed it, with a sound-alike singer who sings the literal interpretation of what you see in the video. Here's their version of Take On Me. Give it some time until the lyrics kick in, and if you watched as much MTV as I did when I was younger, you'll get a kick out of this:



For more "literal music videos", visit the Dust Films website. They have a good version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge".

UPDATE: some cock-knocker complained about the video apparently, because it's no longer available. There's always some dick who has to spoil everyone's fun. You can still see the video at the Dust Films website linked above.

Open Health Care Forum wrap-up

Spazeboy (aka Beau Anderson) has a good account and several (longish) videos of last night's event, which featured Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Katie Robbins (from Healthcare-NOW!) among several other notable attendees.

Go over to Spazeboy.net to read his article and watch the videos!

Senate Vacancy Bill passes Senate

Sen. Gayle Slossberg (Christine Stuart file photo)
Christine Stuart from CT News Junkie reports from the State Capitol that the Senate Vacancy Bill was approved by the Senate 21-12. The bill, which provides for a special election rather than a direct appointment by the Governor in the event of a Senate vacancy, was divided along strict party lines.

Apparently, if you're a Connecticut Republican, it means you have to be against the voters of the state having the power to select a replacement senator, and instead you want a single person to make that decision.

Based on the Illinois governor's Senate replacement debacle, we all know how well THAT works! Not to mention that our LAST governor right here in the Nutmeg State did a stretch in PRISON because of his corruption!

The lines are clearly drawn in Connecticut, with the Democrats in favor of free and open elections, and the Republicans in favor of keeping their Senate hopes pinned on the blouse of one person, and one person only: Gov. Rowland Rell!

TNR fails at basic research

Apparently it's very difficult to find competent "reporter-researchers" these days.

In an article in The New Republic, the author takes an extremely condescending tone when referring to Sen. Chris Dodd's enlightened use of the internet in reaching out to his constituents.

Supposed high-brow publications love to make fun of the name "My Left Nutmeg", and they typically use that as a reason to disregard anything written there as nonsensical drivel. The New York Times actually refused to refer to the website by name back in 2006 (mustn't offend the reader's delicate sensibilities!), a policy that they eventually overcame.

So casual is TNR's dismissal of the community website that the author fails to do even the simplest search to back up her ridiculous claim.

Matt Browner-Hamlin discusses the situation is his blog Hold Fast:

Suzy Khimm is listed by The New Republic as a “reporter-researcher.” I haven’t yet waded through her three page article on Chris Dodd and his coming perilous reelection campaign to judge her overall ability as a reporter, but by the second paragraph it’s pretty easy to see that she’s not a researcher. Khimm writes:

Today, Dodd–five-term senator, established Washington powerbroker, the man whose “magnificent handshake,” The New York Times gushed two years ago, is “the grip of a pro, a … political pro, which he is”–has been reduced to shoring up his liberal bona fides by railing against credit card companies on a blog called My Left Nutmeg (motto: “Where Connecticut Dems Scratch That Progressive Itch”).

Senator Dodd’s first diary on My Left Nutmeg was on March 7, 2007, over two years ago. I know because at the time I was a front-page contributor and administrator of the site. I bumped his post from the diary section to the front page.

Read the rest of the article at Matt's blog.

Wow Suzy, you're quite the lousy researcher there! I can't really say much for the reporter part, either.

Obviously, Sen. Dodd hasn't be "reduced" to posting on MLN; rather, he's effectively used the medium of the internet to reach out to his constituents and his base, and we greatly appreciate that fact.

Maybe Suzy can ask Sen. Lieberman when he's going to get out of the stone age and reach out to those people in Connecticut whom he successfully railroaded into giving him a bonus six years in the greatest club in the world.

You up for it, Suze?

"The New Republic's average paid circulation for 2007 was 59,779 copies per issue, a decline of 41 percent since 2000."

- Source: State of the Media

Q-Poll results depend on the spin

5/28 UPDATE BELOW!

OK, so I just visited the Connecticut Post website (above) to get some info on the latest Quinnipiac Poll on the 2010 Connecticut Senate race.

And I saw there were two stories about the same poll that contains headlines which seemed to be at odds with each other (detail below).

This first one, with the prominent headline, is Ken Dixon's article entitled:

"Poll finds Dodd still trailing potential challengers."

Kind of scary, right? "ChallengerS" with an "S"...like, there's a whole slew of giant killers lined up to take a whack at the Senator. It kind of looks hopeless for Chris, just from the headline.

Then, just a little below that, is the Associated Press headline that accompanied the story over the national news wire:

"Poll shows Dodd gaining on Simmons"

Depending which of those two headlines you saw, what conclusions would you likely draw from each of them?

Additionally, there were two different quotes pulled for the two articles from Doug Schwartz, the perennial goblin of doom from the Q-Poll who rarely seems to say anything positive about candidates I like. The quote in Dixon's report reads like this:

"Sen. Christopher Dodd's numbers are getting better but they are still lousy," Schwartz said. "He still has high negatives: About half of the voters don't trust Dodd and disapprove of the job he is doing. And he is still behind Simmons in a general election match up." (all emphasis, and a sense of bewildered incredulity, is mine)

In the Associated Press story, this much more upbeat quote is displayed:

Pollster Doug Schwartz says Dodd, criticized for his involvement in the AIG bonus controversy and other issues, appears to have stopped the bleeding." (emphasis mine)

Hmmm...I dunno, but if I was a voter (well, I am actually) and I happened to read just the first article, I'd kind of assume that Dodd is toast.

But if the same hypothetical version of me only perused the SECOND article, I'd probably feel that good ol' Sen. Dodd was well on the way to regaining his popularity (especially in the wake of the successful credit card legislation signed into law), and I'd think that the Senator was going to make a strong campaign comeback.

Hmmmm...verrrrrry interesting.

Hey, I'm not saying that there's any kind of agenda or anything like that going on here, but still...

5/28 UPDATE: The headline on Ken Dixon's story about the Q-poll has been changed to "Dodd sees gains in recent poll" for this morning's online edition. I don't know what it says in the dead tree edition because, quite frankly, I prefer the New Haven Register, and that only on weekends, mostly for the flyers and the sports section (it's where I found Joyce's new kayak on sale).

So, today's headline more accurately represents the results of the poll, at least according to the consensus of other local news organizations.

Health Care panel at Wesleyan on Thursday

May 28th at Wesleyan University’s Exley Science Center (6:30 PM), Middletown, CT

You are invited to a town hall-style health care forum to voice your concerns and hopes regarding health care reform. The panel will be discussing options for reform, particularly the benefits of a single payer system. Single payer health care is when health care (doctors, hospital expenses, etc.) is paid from a single fund. You choose your own doctors, since no provider is ever considered “out of network.”

Confirmed for the panel are Katie Robbins, the assistant national coordinator for Healthcare-NOW!; Donna Smith, featured in Michael Moore's movie Sicko, who is a legislative associate and community organizer for the California Nurses Association; and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who introduced HR 676, the current Federal legislation for a Medicare-for-all style health care system. Also invited for the panel are a local community doctor and a local professor of economics. Many CT legislators are being invited, including Rep. DeLauro, Rep. Murphy, Rep. Courtney, and Sen. Dodd.

Don’t miss this valuable opportunity for our legislators to hear from their constituents on this vital topic.

Over 40 years ago, at the Riverside Church in New York, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Of all the forms of injustice, inequality in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

What can you do about it? Mark your calendar now for May 28th, 6:30 PM at Wesleyan University’s Exley Science Center.

Click HERE for DIRECTIONS!

For more information, contact Deb Hall at (860) 302-5352, email dvhall@wesleyan.edu or Emily Langner at (518) 928-1318, email elangner@wesleyan.edu

Obama discusses his choice for SC

President Obama demonstrates his continued good utilization of the internet to reach out directly to the people in this video, where he discusses his nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Judge Sonia Sotomayer:



It's great to have a President that actually comprehends what the internet is!

Is it time for a nuclear option?

This article isn't about what you might think.

North Korea's recent nuclear test is extremely worrisome, that's for sure. Iran is ignoring international calls to stop it's nuclear program. Pakistan's shaky (nuclear-armed) government is increasingly being threatened with a fundamentalist takeover.

But that's not what I'm referring to here.

I'm talking about the threat from the GOP Senate minority against ANY Supreme Court nominee that President Obama proposes to fill the position of departing Justice David Souter, who announced he will retire at the end of the Court's session in June.

The President has interviewed two candidates as of late last week, and he also had the brazen audacity to mention this (from the AP):

"You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you," Obama said in an interview carried Saturday on C-SPAN television. "But you have to be able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living."

Obama also has said he wants someone who employs empathy, "understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," when arriving at decisions that could influence the nation for decades.

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has promised to lead a filibuster in the Senate if President Obama puts a candidate forward that shows any trace of human emotion:

Sen. Jon Kyl made clear he would use the procedural delay if Obama follows through on his pledge to nominate someone who takes into account human suffering and employs empathy from the bench.

Apparently, the only candidate that Sen. Kyl would find suitable would be someone who coldly decides cases based on simply the application of the law and not its potential impact on the people it affects.

Given the recent history of the Supreme Court and some of their decisions, I think it would be a benefit to us all to have a Justice use at least a tiny bit of empathy when making his or her decisions, rather than just mindlessly accept ideological dogma as their guide.

However, there IS one candidate who just might attain the requisite minimal level of human emotion and empathy that Sen. Kyl seeks:

(Of course, I'm talking about the character "Mr. Spock"; I don't presume to know Leonard Nimoy's personal emotional level)

Does anyone remember the famous "Gang of Fourteen", the group of senators (including our own Joe Lieberman) who worked out the compromise that effectively stripped the minority Democrats of their power to filibuster Bush's lower court nominees under the threat that the GOP majority would change the Senate rules to disallow a super-majority to defeat them and simply make it a 50% plus one majority requirement to stop a filibuster? This was known as the "nuclear option".

As a result, the nation got stuck with tons of young, ultra-conservative judges who will infect the court system for decades with their rulings. And they will likely still be there when a Republican is back in the White House, just waiting to fill spots on the Supreme Court when they become available.

Now the Republicans are preemptively threatening to use that very same filibuster they wanted to get rid of to block the first nominee a Democrat will make since Bill Clinton was president.

Maybe the Democrats should dust off the old Republican scare tactic to whip some of them into line.

UPDATE: Right after I published this article, I turned on the TV and saw this - President Obama wants federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Let the fireworks begin!

Remembrance

Memorial Day Order - 1868

I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but Posts and comrades will, in their own way, arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, Comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers sailors and Marines, who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead? We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security, is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If other eyes grow dull and other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation's gratitude—the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander in Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to call attention to this Order, and lend its friendly aid in bringing it to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use every effort to make this Order effective.

—General Orders No. 11, Grand Army of the Republic Headquarters

Obama signs Credit Card bill

In a victory for families and individuals across the nation, President Obama signed the bill into law yesterday. The new law makes it tougher for credit card issuers to raise fees and interest rates.

Sen. Chris Dodd was instrumental in getting the bill written and passed, and also on Friday Dodd said there are still two major issues that remain unfinished business: a cap on interest rates and limits on fees that merchants pay when a customer uses a credit card for a purchase. Dodd intends to continue fighting for legislation to curtail these practices.

Part One


Part Two