Terrified by SCOTUS

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• A new Cologne
• You say you want a revolution?
• God retires
• Much Much More!

I'm beginning to be frightened by the Supreme Court of The United States. This week while many were on vacation, especially in the broadcast media, they passed some really heavy decisions including two on free speech, an issue near and dear to my heart.

The first ruling was about Campaign Finance Reform. They struck down a portion of McCain Feingold that barred private groups from airing attack ads past a certain point in the campaign.

If you need a little back story on this: Campaign Finance laws are in effect because we don't want candidates to be beholden to particular rich backers. One way around the limits on how much an individual can contribute to a political campaign is through PACs which are private issue oriented groups that can't support a particular candidate but can attack one. So rather than donate to your candidate you simply pay to attack his or her opponent and this circumnavigates the restrictions placed on donations. Many people feel that this sort of thing corrodes the political debate in this country.

However the Supreme Court decided that the Free Speech of the Political Action Committees was more important than the potential harm it would do to society. I might argue that paying for political ads is actually expensive speech and McCain Feingold doesn't stop anyone from expressing their view on the street corner or in a blog or even in an ad on YouTube but when you tell me Free Speech trumps all, I have to back down.

The second Free Speech case was about the Bong Hits 4 Jesus kid. In this case SCOTUS ruled that it isn't impinging the kids free speech for him to be expelled from school even though he wasn't in school when he displayed his banner.

The reasoning on why Bong Hits 4 Jesus doesn't get afforded the same kind of Free Speech protection as... EVERYTHING ELSE is because it's speech that they disagree with. They feel that it advocated marijuana use which is bad and therefore it's not covered under Free Speech. I know, it sounds like I'm making that up but that's really the crux of their argument.

If in both cases they had argued that the public good was harmed by this kind of Free Speech and would be better served by limiting rights, they would've been consistent. If they had argued that in both cases the right to Free Speech trumps all other concerns, they would've been constitutionally correct. Saying Free Speech that helps their cronies is good but Free Speech they dislike doesn't deserve protection is frankly terrifying.

Of course this is the same court that said that whistle blowers in the federal government aren't allowed freedom of speech either.

Another ruling just today was that Price Fixing is now legal again. For many years decades even, it has been the prevailing thought that a free market was more fair than an unfair market. The Supreme Court feels that is limiting the rights of corporations.

The reason all of this scares me is that with all of the recent abuses of Executive Privilege where the presidents and Vice President are refusing to turn over documents about potential crimes and refusing to submit to subpoenas, and Dick Cheney's asserting that he's not in the Executive Branch but the Legislative Branch and therefore isn't subject to the same laws as the Executive; are all things that if pushed will wind up in the Supreme Court. I am shaken to the core of my being as I think about this packed Court okaying blatant constitutional violations, violations that rock the very fabric of this nation, all out of a sense of party loyalty.

This really does keep me up nights.

Talking About Talking (recap)

Shakespearemint Gum: this stupidly enough just comes from my seeing something that was spearmint and free associating. Don't try this at home, I'm criminally insane. Your mind should not work like that.

Your Mind is On Vacation and your mouth is working overtime: I know that technically this isn't talking about talking but I had so many songs about talking, I had to get some of them in.

Outtake fun: I heard these the first time on Steve Dahl's show a million years ago but when I heard the Kasey Casem bit on Distorted View Daily recently, I felt I had to share them with you. These really crack me up every time I hear them.

There is more to the Orson Welles piece. As you might be able to tell from the Pinky and the Brain bit, there was a problem where Orson had to re-record something because there was a "gonk" somewhere in the recording. If you really like this stuff, you can also find a fair number of Orson Welles video outtakes of him being too drunk to do TV commercials.

How terrible it is to have made the greatest film of all time in one's 20's and then be reduced to this crap for another four decades.

It is Maurice LaMarche not Lawrence LaMarche. I cringe every time I hear myself say that.

It kills me that they did a whole cartoon parodying something that I think most people have never heard.

Brilliant Idea and Telephone Licenses: not surprisingly both of these ideas came to me at work. I really do think that it would be nice to only let certain people use phones... especially if I'm not one and the computer really should start a few minutes early.

Cocaine: I don't remember where this idea came from but once it did, I really wanted to have the announcer interrupt the legal stuff for a much longer aside that has nothing to do with anything... I chickened out and made it too short.

Juneteenth

Coming up on this weekends show:

• Cultural Literacy of Outtakes
• Telephone Service
• Cocaine
• Much Much More

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

Also, Jun 19th is officially listed as Garfield (the cat)'s birthday. Which means that rather than being a particularly unfunny Comic Strip, Garfield may actually be a metaphor for the fate of the emancipated black man in America.

Consider: He beats the crap out of Odie who is the symbol of southern oppression being that he's not only white but a dog, like the dogs used to hunt down escaped slaves questing for their freedom. Odie drools too like the stereotype of the inbred yokel.

Consider: Nermal is the next generation coming up but he has no substance to him, he's all surface. He represents the hip hop generation that is more concerned with bling and 'stret cred' than the struggle for equality

Consider: Jon Arbuckle represents the government. He appears to be dimwitted and to cowtow to Garfield's needs but let's face it, Garfield may be emancipated but he isn't really free is he? Jon owns that cat and seems all but completely indifferent to any of Garfield's attempts to change the status quo and make his voice heard.

Fun For The Whole Family Recap

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The Cost of Doing Business

Coming up on this weekends show:

• The Presidents Council on Sexual Fitness
• Sponsorship of Gay Pride Parades
• Many Special Announcements
• Childhood memories desecrated

I have a proposition for the FCC, either define once and for all what counts as news or stop requiring broadcast stations to broadcast news in the public interest. As it stands now, the FCC is essentially mandating a daily Paris Hilton update.

For those of you who aren't up on the history of the FCC, the reason every station broadcasts news is that they have to. They've never made money broadcasting news, it's never drawn as many people as entertainment but they used to look at it as the price of doing business.

They get to use the public airwaves, that's airwaves that technically, you and I own, in a way that basically lets them print money. They're allowed to use it because we let them. We figured they're willing to buy transmitters and we want to see Jack Benny so let's allow them to use our airwaves but the FCC mandates that because they make money off of our airwaves, broadcasters should be required to contribute to the public interest by keeping us updated on what is happening.

There was a time when it was simply accepted as the cost of doing business and even though they didn't make money with news, networks found they could win awards and enhance the value of their corporate brand by having beloved newscasters and good journalism. Think of the kind of reporting that was done by Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite and then compare that to today's top "journalists" Chris Hanson from 'To Catch a Predator"? The Daily Show?

Over time broadcast companies and stations got cocky. They figured since they're making so much money and since TV is so ensconced in American life, they shouldn't have to pay the price of doing business anymore. They started cutting news budgets, stopped investing in news bureaus and started trying to make the news more like entertainment.

Now, the news is virtually nothing but entertainment anyway. We should either tighten the restrictions on what should count as news or let them use that time to do real entertainment. I feel like I can almost guarantee that once they don't have to even pretend to cover news, we'll hear a whole lot less about the Paris Hiltons or Anna Nicole Smiths of this world and maybe the remaining news sources can go back to reporting on the news.

By the way, this new thing of not wanting to pay the cost of doing business, is running rampant through our society. Every corporation these days wants a handout. It used to be that health insurance and retirement benefits were seen as a cost of doing business. No one would work without those things.

I guess we the people, have just lowered our standards to the point past which we feel we can raise them again. Ah well, democracy is as good as the people taking part, eh?

Gone on Vacation

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This weekends show will probably be posted by the time you read this blog. Because I'm leaving town here in a couple of hours, I asked the great and powerful Laurence Simon of 100 Word Stories Podcast fame to fill in for me and he has done so admirably. Coming up on this weekend's show:

• Happy Days
• Abortion
• Microwaving Babies
• Tech Support
• Much Much More

So come on along for an exciting time that is also, full of crap.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Sorry about their not being a show this week. It has been a week of massive upheaval and personal stress. Not only was this a short week because of the holiday but I moved offices this week and it took two whole days as opposed to the normal 15 minutes it normally takes to pick your shit up and walk down the hall. I'm also having something of an anxiety attack about going out of town next weekend (but that's not really any of your business) and then on top of all that, there's this whole Second Life thing.

Laurence from www.podcasting.isfullofcrap.com and the whole isfullofcrap.com empire bought himself an island this weekend in Second Life. It's called Edloe Island, and if you search for edloe you'll find your way there. In the middle of the island there is a giant clocktower and in the middle of the giant clocktower there is a Black Tie Martini Club. That's right you can go there and drink, dance and be merry without me even being there. It took a lot of time to get set up which is why I haven't done as much work on the show as I normally would have.

What does it look like? Well here's a picture of the main ballroom.


And then here's a picture of the funky lounge area above it.


There will be a grand opening type celebration probably in ten days to two weeks. It will be delayed because of my vacation that I'd rather not talk about.

So again, I'm really sorry not to have done a show this week and then next week, the aforementioned Laurence Simon will be guest hosting the Black Tie Martini Club Oddcast for me. So be kind.