Beautiful Horizons

A Sensible Proposal

What James Wimberly said here.

Back tomorrow.

A Loss in Blogtopia

Hilzoy, you will be missed. Clearly one of the best voices in blogging is packing it in. Best wishes.

Some Suggestions On Delaying With Clowns in the Military

You've probably heard about this. Here's what I hope happens:

• That his wingnut "lawyer" gets slammed with stiff sanctions by the court so that this nonsense ends.
• That the major gets busted down to PFC (primarily so that he can't command anyone) and sent to the worst place in Afghanistan.

Enough already,

The Company They Keep

Here's how the golpistas in Honduras operate:

• The racist foreign minister apologizes for making a racist comment about President Obama and comments that his racist remark "in no way had any offensive intent." What is his punishment after beng relieved of his role as foreign minister? He's made  minister of justice and government.
• The Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, who believes that Jews control the media, apparently needs someone to remind what the Eighth Commandment is. Wonder if he has any Chilean relatives named Monica . . .

These are the people with whom you are making common cause, Senator DeMint, Congressmen Rohrbacher, Burton, Mack and Fortenberry.

What lovely company you keep.

The Fish Stinks From the Head

When I asked some time ago what was the matter with Rafa Marquez after he had been ejected for a nasty foul against Tim Howard in a US-Mexico world cup qualifier, I never knew the answer was up a bit higher.

Here's Mexico's hotheaded coach, Javier Aguirre:





He should get a very lengthy suspension, assuming he even keeps his job,

Annals of Beltway Weirdness

(skip to about 4:40)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Palin's incoherence

Dahlia Lithwick nails it:

"When America is finally ready to reckon with the phenomenon that was Sarah Palin, I suspect we will discover that whatever she represents actually had less to do with her gender, class, or ideology than we now believe. It's easy to look at the soon-to-be-former governor of Alaska as an iconic feminist, a path-breaking working mother, or noble rabble-rousing populist. But when the dust settles, the lesson may be that she was simply a woman who made no sense...

"(T)he strangest part of the Sarah Palin saga will always be her loathing of the media. She never failed to remind us that she didn't like being 'filtered.' She only wanted to talk directly to us, her listeners. Yet the reason Sarah Palin continues to have any kind of political force at all in this country is because of the media 'filter.'  The media helped refine and define her Dada statements and arguments into something that briefly sounded like a coherent worldview."

Ezra Klein adds this note:

"(Palin) only matters as long as the media continues to give her a lot more coverage than it gives other Republican governors with similar ambitions and less checkered records. Palin hurt McCain in the election and collapsed after she returned to Alaska. Her story is not profound. It is a farce. The politician who loathes, but is completely dependent upon, the media. If Sarah Palin didn't exist, Christopher Buckley would have to invent her."

Oguchi Onyewu Going to AC Milan

While I detest and despise pretty much everything associated with Silvio Berlusconi, except Italy itself, I'm glad to see an American football player like Oguchi Onyewu get a chance to play for a major side like AC Milan. Well done!

The City of Brotherly Love?

I don't think so . . .

Thank goodness there is a happy ending.

Honduras - The Latest

I agree with Boz. Oscar Arias is the best choice to negotiate a solution to the crisis in Honduras. He's sagacious, credible and has an excellent reputation.

Greg Weeks fillets the  Honduras Supreme Court's rationale for taking the actions they did.

How I Wish You Were Here

Not a day goes by when I don't think of you, Dad. You would have been 80 today. How blessed I was to call you Dad; how sad I remain that you're not here with us.

I'd much rather celebrate the day you arrived than the day you left. How I wish you were still here.

Dog Bites Man IV

Elizabeth Hasselbeck is arguably one of the stupidest people on the planet. Fortunately, Jesse Ventura schools her:



Dick Cheney is a pathological liar, but he gets fact checked here by someone who has actually interrogated terrorists without using torture.

Dear God

Apparently the stupidity and incoherence of Sarah Palin infests her staff:

For the sake of our discourse can we please stop using asinine sports metaphors such as the one that shows up around minute four in the video above.

Just for the record, Ms. Stapleton, yes, a point guard will pass the ball to someone else, but they don't often pass the bill then vacate the court, leaving their team to play four against five.

What utter idiocy.

The Real Issue With the Honduran Coup

Regardless of how one feels about Manuel Zelaya, the idea, after all Latin America has been through over the centuries, that political differences are to be settled by calling in the military to peremptorily remove the president and exile - in violation of the law - should horrify anyone who supports democracy in Latin America.

The right-wing as exemplified by the reliably clueless Mary Anastasia O'Grady, and the silly-assed Alvaro Vargas Llosa applaud the fact that the coup leaders simply took the easy way out: instead of meeting and attempting to negotiate and iron out their differences, they rely on the military to solve the problem. So while O'Grady and the hijo of Mario Vargas Llosa applaud this move, what would they say if a similar act took place against their beloved Alvaro Uribe who is also seeking to extend his mandate? I have no doubt that they would be screaming about the injustice and calling on the OAS to act. So would I, and that is probably the major difference between us.

The side they support, by the way, appears to be openly racist towards our president. This is the company the likes of O'Grady and company are keeping.

Have a Safe Fourth

Unlike these folks:

Mom, You Were Wrong

According to the Honduran military, two wrongs do, in fact, make a right.

Necrophilia

This is a scene from the 74th and Roosevelt Avenue subway station in Jackson Heights, the stop where I get on an off every day. It was taken this afternoon and it has been the same scene every afternoon this week:

They are watching ancient Michael Jackson videos being broadcast by a record store in the station.

Enough already. Read a book, hug somebody, get a life, do something productive.

By the way, I'm glad to see this article by the brilliant Kelefa Sanneh. If you were alive in the 1970's you knew Soul Makossa. Say whatever you want about Michael  Jackson in this instance he was hardly an original. The fact that Manu Dibango had to pursue MJ to protect his rights as MJ used his material without crediting him (Rihanna apparently may have done the same) is inexcusable. We all know what the word to describe someone who uses someone else's property is. Manu Dibango is a classy guy.

Can we also get rid of the "sampling" euphemism, please? If someone else created something and you used it without crediting it, you're copying, or to be more accurate, plagiarizing.

Funny

HT:TPM

The Real Tragedy Here

I have assiduously avoided commenting on Michael Jackson as I could really care less.

There are scores of far more talented musicians who died far too long before their time through no fault of their own. I feel far more inclined to mourn the early passings of Clifford Brown, Michael Brecker, Lee Morgan, Charles Mingus, Gary McFarland and Bill Evans. But of course they never have gotten the attention of a Michael Jackson.

One of the sweeter benefits of living in New York are the museums. Although the major museums in the city such as MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Natural History and the Whitney Museum, among others are in Manhattan, many more are scattered around the city.

In my neighborhood less than a mile away is the Louis Armstrong House Museum. About a week ago Mercia and I were looking for the exact location of this museum during a bicycle ride. We knew we were on the right block and asked several  people in the neighborhood, none of whom seemed to know, Finally, I asked an African-American man and he looked at me strangely and said "How am I supposed to know where he lives? I don't even know him!"

Rather than explain I just turned away. With the endless coverage of the death of MJ, I still believe the real tragedy is that a young man had no idea who one of the greatest entertainers in the history of music was.

Just when you thought Michael Jackson commentary must have bottomed out...

...in the annals of rank stupidity, Limbaugh weighs in: