Selling Jack

I recently inherited a new PC at work- one that runs on an 'operating system' known as 'electricity' . The old one used a system of springs, gears and wires and was 'booted-up' by turning a hand-crank for several tedious minutes each morning. This is how automobiles were started back in my childhood years, but shouldn't something as futuristic as a computer have an internal, electronic 'ignition' mechanism?
Like a button you could press or something?

Here is how a car was started back in my day, except instead of a smiling maiden doing the cranking, it would be me; standing barefoot in cold, ankle-deep mud:

Look at the date: Sept. 1911. By 1911 , advertisers were already using sex to sell cars - a technique apparently discovered before the invention of the automobile battery and 'hot-wiring'.
There is nothing accidental in the erotic composition of this picture, but please don't make me explain it.
I'm already distracted enough.

Check out what Crank Babe is wearing- in 1911 America had some really bizarre standards of dress for women- a repressive puritanical desire to cover everything.
Not unlike current Islamic standards, really:



Hmm...a little ankle , but no sash to emphasize the waist and I like the white gloves on the American lass better...
I have a crush on the model from that ad. I wonder what she's doing today?
Here she is in another ad.
This 1911 advertisement starts off by insulting the reader:

"Are You Lazy ?" it screams at them in the text.

If that ad were produced today , it wouldn't ask that question. It wouldn't have to.

Today, we are all lazy and we all know it, so why should we waste what little energy we have answering rhetorical questions?

Today the text would promise to help you lose weight or to overcome depression.
It would sell.

Again, there's nothing accidental in this picture.

Anus in the Morning

Don Imus is a raging asshole?
Who knew?

I think I was the last person in the world to hear about his remarks about the Rutger's Women's Basketball team- I heard a lot of angry responses and from the tone of the rebuttals and condemnation I thought he must have said the 'N-word' since nobody was repeating his words on TV.
So I Googled it. He didn't use the N-word.

What he said was worse. It even offended me and I'm from the South...I'm accustomed to loudmouthed racist assholes, but sometimes someone just fucks up so badly that there can't be any further explanation or apology.

Once you have referred to a group of women- including a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy who plays classical piano by ear- as "nappy-headed ho's" you really don't need to say anything else. You have made yourself very clear.

The words define the man with immutable clarity.
His explanations of "context and comedy" mean nothing.

Holy shit.
I just heard Imus try to explain that it was OK for him to disparage and insult Black women because Black men do the same thing all the time.
Wow. That's one of the worst "apologies" I've ever heard.
Who coached him- Mike Richards?
Anyone who doesn't understand how incredibly racist the attitude expressed by that particular "explanation" is needs to do some serious soul-searching.

I mean, you know you've fucked-up bigtime when you have to apologize to Al Sharpton.

But. And this is a big but...

We have a First Amendment. I don't respect Mr. Imus or his personal and political beliefs. I don't respect the man, period.
But I respect his right to say whatever he wants.

We get the entertainers we deserve because we keep paying attention to persons who are beneath contempt and unworthy of notice.
This incident is preventing me from giving proper attention to the breaking Anna Nicole news...you see what I mean? Why do we even care?

There is no law saying that I have to listen to him, so I don't, but there are enough people who do listen that he still has a career- maybe.

I don't think he should be fired. Not right away.

If what he said carries the weight that it should, then his audience will leave him and his sagging ratings will lead to his early retirement. That is what should happen, but it might not.

If there are enough people who are willing to listen to anything that this loathsome slug utters to keep him employed- and I'm guessing that there are- then he should keep his job.

And every time some sheltered white person tells me that we've moved past reactionary racism and sexism in this country, I will be able to point out that Don Imus called the some of the brightest young women in the country "nappy headed ho's" and he still has an audience.

Ford Pinto

It's somehow appropriate that the bagpiper playing "Amazing Grace" for Gerald Ford's pallbearers hit so many wretched, discordant notes that he actually had no alternative but to stop and start over during the procession, which I am currently watching on TV.

Some Ford notes:

Mostly, all anyone on TV says is "he was a nice guy".
Great.
Maybe he'd have been an awesome neighbor or bowling buddy, but "nice guy" isn't even on the list of traits I find desirable in a President.

Of primary importance, the President must always place the needs of his country above his own needs. Sound pretty simple right?

The image of a crippled FDR comes to mind- leading America- and indeed, the world, through some of history's darkest days- being the man we needed even though he himself was dying...not merely troubled...the man was fucking dying and he put his country first, protected us.

Think, if you will, what might have happened if Dubya Bush, not JFK, had been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Think about that and look at the leaders the two(one) party system are offering us now.
Do any of them have what it takes to be a hero?
Because, no joke, what we fucking need right now is an honest-to-god hero that can be bigger than the job that needs doing and we need to stop worrying if so-and-so would be fun to have a beer with or who they diddled and how they diddled them and instead ask:

Do they have what it takes to be a goddamn hero?

I have yet to see that quality in a politician of my generation.

That sort of Presidental courage is long out of style, it seems.

I think Bobby had it, but he never got the chance.

Bill Clinton, who I generally respect and greatly miss, failed that very simple test of country first- if he'd just said "yeah, I did her, it's none of your damn business", he'd have saved us a lot of stupid national grief
( honestly, I don't care if my Prez fucks around, it's hard to start a bloody war when someone's going down on you-or at least it should be)

---------

Ford?
The best thing I can say about him is he wasn't Spiro Agnew.

He only got the job because Agnew got busted for tax fraud , bribe-taking and general bad behavior- damn, imagine if Agnew had become Prez- that's a scary thought, but it coulda happened.

First, Ford pardoned Nixon's thugs, just as intended; decades later, he had the chance to use his Presidential Voice to warn against Bush's Warmongering Hegemony and chose -for his own reasons- not to use the powerful platform that history had given him.
A great many so-called leaders knew that this war was wrong from the very beginning and they were afraid to speak up.

There is a word for that and the word is not "hero."

Jesus, I just learned Henry Kissinger spoke at Ford's ceremony.

Man, I don't like Ford, but no one deserves that sort of abuse.

I can't think of anything that would be more debasing, insulting or disgraceful than having Henry the K speak at one's funeral, so I'll ease up on Gerry now.
Feel kinda bad now, actually.

Rest in Peace Mr. President.