"No ties ... and no tie-dyes," is how the Dead dressed for a meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, according to a source at the White House on Monday evening.
Obama thanked the Grateful Dead last year:
The meeting (not on the president's official schedule), was arranged by a Deadhead in the White House (lots of fans there, and in Washington including Senators Al Franken and Patrick Leahy, two other Senators, The Gores, etc). The current lineup of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti and some of their wives, met with Obama for about 15 minutes.
Then it was on to a much longer visit with senior staff. While the president has never been to a Dead show, the officials they met with next -- senior advisers David Axelrod and Pete Rouse and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina -- are said to be big fans who had plans to attend last night's Verizon Center show. "They talked about a lot of different issues."
When Jerry Garcia visited the White House, he wore sweat pants. This time they wore jackets.
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Friday, April 17, 2009
Don't let the bedbugs bite!
Click to enlarge
You can buy these bedspreads (aka duvets), with the couple, or the man or woman, individually, here.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
***Editorial - Pablo Fanque*** A Fish Rots From The Head Down - Obama's Gay Marriage Problem
"favors civil unions"
Editorial by Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor
I hear people continually excoriate the religious right, Rick Warren, Rush Limbaugh and others for opposing gay marriage. But what about El Jefe? Barack Obama is part of the opposition too. . .every bit as much as Rick Warren. I became, fairly late in the race, an Obama supporter. As President, he has surprised me. He's doing a great job. But, in my booklet, his Achilles' Heel is his policy on gay marriage; we should have known, and remembered that. He told us during the election.
Although Barack Obama "supports civil unions," he is against gay marriage. I have come to see this "supports civil unions" as a smarmy dodge that people all across the spectrum employ. Obama's luke-warm support does no favors to anyone at all. In the end, really, how different is this from George Bush? Rush Limbaugh [1], or Louisiana Gov. Jindal? They, too, oppose gay marriage.
In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."
Barack Obama did vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.
click to enlarge the BFFs
From the White House Web site: "President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights."
Click to enlarge - "I love you, man"
And yet. . .and yet, I have been spammed with emails, and petitions, asking me to come out against Rick Warren, and other conservatives publicly opposed to gay marriage. What about the guy at the top? "A fish rots from the head down," as Michael Dukakis noted about President Reagan. Nothing has changed. We just like the fish better. Mister President. . .it's time to set aside your cultural predispositions and do what's right. Sure, you'll take some heat, but let's face it--you will never be in a stronger position to expend some of your hard-earned political capital.
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[1] Rush recently delivered this shocking bombshell: "…let’s say we discover the gene that says the kid’s gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don’t know but let’s say half of them said, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna do that to a kid.” [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you’ve ever seen. … They’d be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies.”
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***Editorial - Jack Brummet*** Tear Down The Wall, Mister President: Hasn't Cuba Suffered Enough?
An Editorial by Jack Brummet
All This Is That poetry, arts, and persiflage editor
It's editorial day on All This Is That. Pablo snagged gay marriage and Jack got the Cuban Blockade. . .
click the former President to enlarge - art by Jack Brummet
President Barack Obama's announcement of a U.S. policy shift toward Cuba makes no mention of the "harshest of measures" we imposed on the island, as former Cuban leader Fidel Castro pointed out today. And he's right.
BHO's removal this week of limits on travel by Cuban Americans to their homeland and how much money they can send to relatives falls fall short of being the relief we need to deliver. Does our President really want to continue the punitive and retrograde measures of his predecessors?
Castro promised his country would "not beg," for an end to the US embargo, which he characterised as a genocidal policy.
“Cuba has resisted and it will continue to resist; it will never beg for alms . . . not a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade,” Mr Castro said in a response posted on the internet and published by state-run media just hours after the news broke in Washington.
Obama’s executive order on Monday also did away with some restrictions for US telecommunications companies, allowing them to provide mobile phone and internet services, a big complaint of Cuba’s in the past.
Mister President, it's about 20 years late, but we need to do more, and we need to do it now. End the blockade, let Cuba have access to modern medicines, and our [relatively] cheap food and consumer goods. If you're worried about taming the Communists, remember that we have seen many other examples where free trade with America helped open the floodgates of free speech, and yes, even democracy.
And finally, why not give their flagging economy a boost? They've been seriously in the hole since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of subsidies to Cuba. Let's allow them to freely trade (like they do, for example, with our good friends to the north in Canada). Let us help them out by buying their top-notch rum, cigars, excellent music, poetry, art, fiction, and movies. We need to embrace our neighbors, just as we do Canada and Mexico.
President Obama, it's time.
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All This Is That poetry, arts, and persiflage editor
It's editorial day on All This Is That. Pablo snagged gay marriage and Jack got the Cuban Blockade. . .
click the former President to enlarge - art by Jack Brummet
President Barack Obama's announcement of a U.S. policy shift toward Cuba makes no mention of the "harshest of measures" we imposed on the island, as former Cuban leader Fidel Castro pointed out today. And he's right.
BHO's removal this week of limits on travel by Cuban Americans to their homeland and how much money they can send to relatives falls fall short of being the relief we need to deliver. Does our President really want to continue the punitive and retrograde measures of his predecessors?
Fidel Castro, in his message, said Obama can use his "talents" in creating a constructive policy that would end the embargo that "has failed for almost half a century."
Castro promised his country would "not beg," for an end to the US embargo, which he characterised as a genocidal policy.
“Cuba has resisted and it will continue to resist; it will never beg for alms . . . not a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade,” Mr Castro said in a response posted on the internet and published by state-run media just hours after the news broke in Washington.
Obama’s executive order on Monday also did away with some restrictions for US telecommunications companies, allowing them to provide mobile phone and internet services, a big complaint of Cuba’s in the past.
Mister President, it's about 20 years late, but we need to do more, and we need to do it now. End the blockade, let Cuba have access to modern medicines, and our [relatively] cheap food and consumer goods. If you're worried about taming the Communists, remember that we have seen many other examples where free trade with America helped open the floodgates of free speech, and yes, even democracy.
And finally, why not give their flagging economy a boost? They've been seriously in the hole since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of subsidies to Cuba. Let's allow them to freely trade (like they do, for example, with our good friends to the north in Canada). Let us help them out by buying their top-notch rum, cigars, excellent music, poetry, art, fiction, and movies. We need to embrace our neighbors, just as we do Canada and Mexico.
President Obama, it's time.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Fresh pornography: Not The Cosbys XXX (with photos and video)
In the vein of the Brady Bunch porn movie, (See All This Is That's article here), a new spoof is in the works based on Bill Cosby's long-running sit-com, called Not The Cosbys XXX.
Poem: In Transit
We're like bars of soap,
Imperceptibly eroding day by day.
We fade away that slowly, and some of us
Slip away before
Anyone notices we were here at all.
We are all in transit. Some of us make the journey
On foot and some of us
Jump into the express lane
To avoid our plodding, terrestrial locomotion,
As if there is nothing
To be seen, felt, and heard
Between the beginning and the end.
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The Beatles perform Hello, Goodbye (with lyrics)
The Beatles perform Hello, Goodbye, in full psychedlic regalia. . .
Hello Goodbye
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Why, why, why, why, why, why
Do you say good bye
Goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello
Hello
Hela, heba helloa
Hela, heba helloa
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Hello Goodbye
by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Why, why, why, why, why, why
Do you say good bye
Goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello
Hello
Hela, heba helloa
Hela, heba helloa
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Some videos by and around The Monkees
Someone on YouTube used Maya or another animation tool to create a short movie based on The Monkee's spoken word piece, Zilch.
The song Words, from an episode (The Monkey's Paw) of their TV show:
A Little Bit me, A Little Bit You (from another episode):
Finally (there would be more, but not a lot of videos are out there..surprising, since The Monkees performed songs on their show every week), here is a Slideo of Jimi Hendrix and The Monkees. Yes, on one tour, The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for The Monkees.
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The song Words, from an episode (The Monkey's Paw) of their TV show:
A Little Bit me, A Little Bit You (from another episode):
Finally (there would be more, but not a lot of videos are out there..surprising, since The Monkees performed songs on their show every week), here is a Slideo of Jimi Hendrix and The Monkees. Yes, on one tour, The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for The Monkees.
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Sunday, April 12, 2009
It was 64 years ago today that FDR died in office and Harry S. Truman became Presidenrt
On this day in 1845, following the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, the vice president, succeeded to the presidency. Truman's presidency saw a number of major events in world affairs:-- we "won" the war in Europe, and Japan, the UN came alive, the Truman Doctrine--an attempt to contain Communusm--led to the Cold War, NATO was born, and the Korean War began. Needless to say, we also became the first (and, thankfully, last [for now]) country to drop an atomic bomb on fellow humans.
click to enlarge - Harry got into hot water with First Lady Bess over this photo of Betty Bacall perched on his piano, showing some serious gams and eyes...
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