Losing Michael Jackson

When Ed McMahon passed away at 86 it wasn’t too surprising considering his age. And even when Farrah Fawcet died a couple of days later it was not unexpected because of her long struggle with cancer. But having Michael Jackson die suddenly from cardiac arrest at age 50 was indeed a shock.
I wouldn’t call myself an MJ fan by any stretch, but I do feel a connection to him in that he was one of the first pop culture icons I became aware of in my youth. The Jackson 5 were a big hit in the early 70s when I was in first and second grade. Songs like “Rockin’ Robin” and “ABC” were some of the first pop tunes I can remember and I got the distinct impression back then that Michael was about my age, although he is actually six years older.
The Saturday morning cartoon show featuring the Jackson 5 had the biggest impact on me, no doubt.



Years later, Michael Jackson would retake the center spotlight by storm, taking advantage of the new music video genre and MTV to become a household name and an established pop icon. Videos for Billie Jean and Beat It ran in heavy rotation on MTV when I was in high school, but the tour-de-force was the 13-minute video short for “Thriller” that sent his popularity into orbit. I remember being at a mall somewhere and noticing a big crowd of people gathering around a storefront window where there was a TV set up. The reason? Thriller was about to air. People were tingling with excitement.
Thriller was still a big hit when I started college. And yet it would be years later before I would get around to purchasing the album for myself. In fact, I had the Wierd Al Yankovic parody long before I picked up the original. But the next year when his big follow-up album “Bad” was released I broke down and bought a copy on cassete. Wierd Al, I think, owes MJ a big debt of gratitude for all the mileage he got off of his two big parody songs - “Eat It” and “Fat.”
I also picked up the “We are the World” album around that time which Michael Jackson was instrumental in producing. I was very impressed at the time with his efforts on that front and still feel it is a large part of his legacy.
Years later, as Jackson devolved into the sad, strange shell of a man that he became, I had mixed feelings. I was never as condemning as many people were. I mostly felt sorry for him. I do believe he had some serious problems especially with regards to the issue of inappropriate contact with children. He should never have been allowed to have unsupervised contact with children after the problem first came to light, but money and power can often shield people from the kind of help they need. In the big molestation case from a couple of years ago that destroyed his image despite his eventual acquittal, I always felt that the real villians were the kid’s parents. It was well known by then that Jackson had this problem, and yet they still allowed their child to spend the night alone with him. That was a complete failure of parental responsibility. And then to turn around and file a multi-million dollar lawsuit made it seem like they were using their kid to fish for money all along. Really sad.
We still don’t know why Jackson suffered cardiac arrest at 50. He had a long history of health problems and was taking untold numbers of medications which could have contributed to his death. I suppose we will eventually find out. But in the meantime I am going to dig out my double CD of Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits.

Oscar problem resolved!

Wow! This is fantastic news!!
2010 Oscars to have 10 Best Picture nominees

One of my biggest pet peeves with the Academy Awards is that they have been ignoring popular box office hits in favor of artsy, elitist pictures that few people have ever heard of.
I’ve expressed bitter frustration about this issue and feel that it is the reason that ratings for the annual awards show are way down.
But this should fix that problem. Just like they did back in the 1930s and 40s, the Academy is going to honor 10 films with nominations and not just five. That should guarantee a spot this year for Pixar’s Up and probably a spot too for the very popular and well done Star Trek prequel.
If this rule had been in place last year, there would surely have been Academy Award nominations for Dark Knight and WALL-E and possibly Iron Man as well.

Republican “Family Values”

John Ensign and Mark Sanford - two Republican idiots who will NEVER be president.
In just a matter of weeks we have seen two rising stars of the Republican Party and highly-touted future presidential candidates immolate their political careers on national television.
First, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, admitted to cheating on his wife with a campaign staffer (just like John Edwards). And now we learn that an adulterous affair was at the core of the fiasco surrounding South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s disappearing act this week. Which, of course, brings to mind former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s fling with a prostitute earlier this year.
Spitzer, a Democrat, was forced to resign.
Edwards, also a Democrat, was drummed off of the political stage.
But so far, both Ensign and Sanford are acting like they intend to hold onto their seats (as is Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose name showed up on a prostitute’s client list in Washington).
These guys weren’t just any old Senator or Governor, either.
Ensign was chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking spot in the Republican party’s leadership.
Sanford was chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association.
I think Ensign should resign. I think Sanford will be impeached if he doesn’t resign soon.

TPA Roundup 6-22

It's Monday, the day after the first day of summer, and it's time for another Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup.

President Obama, Bill White, and John Sharp are all in the same sinking DOMA boat. The Texas Cloverleaf comes off of hiatus to tell you why.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme cheers the impeachment of Judge Kent. 4 articles passed without a single nay. Lets hope the Senate is through with him by August.

BossKitty at TruthHugger finally signed up for Twitter to get updates on the Iran protests. What a day of drama and emotion it brought, Icons and Martyrs – All Day On Twitter Watching Iran. I was really meaning to highlight the regressive influences causing upheaval in personal lives, especially in Texas. Immigration Policies and Gay Rights – Contradictions

Unlike Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign, Neil at Texas Liberal makes a promise he'll keep - He'll never cheat on his wife! Also, Neil sings the Damned's Wait For The Blackout at the Houston Ship Channel.

Off the Kuff takes a look, then a second look, at the bills Governor Perry vetoed.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson knows in order to solve big problems it takes leadership, Who is willing to lead, who has enough LBJ in them?.

Castle Hills Democrats heard candidates Tom Schieffer, John Sharp, Bill White, and Neil Durrance speak at the Dual County Fish Fry in north Texas. The blogger reviews their messages--and reports on feedback from the Dems in the audience.

WhosPlayin investigated the claim by a former mayoral candidate that the city is hiring illegal aliens for its road projects because one of its contractors doesn't yet use the E-Verify program.

Teddy at Left of College Station writes about escorting at Planned Parenthood and how what happens in Kansas doesn’t stay in Kansas. Today on Left of College Station: a report from the T. Don Hutto Residential Detention Facility and the protest on Saturday (including exclusive photographs).

Big Gas wants you to believe that regulating hydraulic fracturing is a state's rights issue. The truth: Only one state in the US regulates hydraulic fracturing. TXsharon busts the Big Gas bubble again on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Citizen groups opposed to new coal plants being built in Robertson County and near Victoria were given a chance to intervene last week when two of the 12 newly proposed coal plants in Texas had preliminary hearings for their waste water permits. Check out the video over at Public Citizen's Texas Vox.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw tells us that Dumb, Self-serving Politicians Make Dumb, Self-serving Decisions. What a surprise that Governor Goodhair takes the starring role in this little drama. Check out the details.

Do you love the Real Housewives on Bravo? Were you a little less than impressed by the NJ version? So was Barfly over at McBlogger.

False equivalence

Jonathan Gurwitz is trying to deflect criticism away from conservatives over the recent spate of right-wing violence in the U.S. by making a bogus argument about false equivalency.
Even though there have been no recent instances of left-wing violence in the U.S., Gurwitz claims that both sides are equally responsible.
Last week, he argued that right-wing anti-abortion groups are not responsible for the death of Dr. George Tiller because they are “pro-life”. However, anyone who was critical of the war in Iraq is somehow responsible for the actions of an Islamic fundamentalist who shot and killed an Army recruiter in Arkansas last week.

This week, Gurwitz takes it a step further and tries to put Islamic fundamentalism squarely on the left side of the political spectrum for purposes of equivalency:

...politics is a horseshoe — the further you go from the middle, the more the extremes converge. That explains why the words of von Brunn and Wright are so similar, why the language of the Christian Identity movement is often identical to that of Islamic extremists, why David Duke was a featured speaker at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference...

How convenient that Gurwitz can assign Islamic extremists and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Left side of the spectrum so that he has something to balance against the likes of the Christian Identity movement and David Duke. The only problem is that it is total nonsense. Islamic fundamentalists, like Christian fundamentalists, occupy the far-right side of the spectrum. Their attitudes and views with respect to women’s liberation, gay rights, abortion and civil liberties are almost indistinguishable. It is the same rightwing ideology just dressed up in different cultural and religious trappings.

Fire Chancellor McKinney

I am absolutely furious over the fiasco surrounding the resignation of Elsa Murano as president of Texas A&M University.
This is a major black eye for my alma mater and I place the blame squarely on Chancellor Mike McKinney. I want his resignation. Now!
As I noted earlier, McKinney failed to give adequate explanations for his poor review of Murano’s job performance, giving her low marks on a generic assessment form and then leaving all the written parts blank. I thought that showed very poor managerial skills on the part of Chancellor McKinney. What I did not realize at the time, was that McKinney was the one who hand-picked Murano for the position of president in the first place!
Murano was not on the list of people that the executive search committee came up with after Robert Gates left to become Secretary of Defense. She was picked out of the blue by McKinney who championed her and made a big fuss as to how she was to be the first female and first Hispanic president at Texas A&M.
So how is it that just one year later McKinney is hinting to the media that he wants to throw Murano out and take over the position of president for himself? How does that work?
What kind of awful things did Murano do to merit such a sharp turnaround in McKinney’s fickle support? We are given no clue. Only that she apparently did not jump quickly enough when he would bark orders, nor would she say “How high?” on her way up. Would McKinney have made such demands of a white male serving as president? Is that why he handpicked Murano? With the expectation that she would be totally subservient and act as little more than a puppet for the chancellor’s office?
How did McKinney wind up as chancellor in the first place? A former Republican state representative who served as chief of staff for Gov. Rick Perry, he seems like a political crony who took advantage of the governor’s power to make appointments and dole out the spoils of government.
Am I not being fair? Did McKinney really have a legitimate reason for trashing Murano and forcing her to resign over the weekend? Then will someone please explain this golden parachute Murano got?

According to a transition agreement released by the A&M System offices, she will be paid her present salary, $425,000, for the sabbatical year, along with an additional payment of $295,000.
At the end of the year she will begin work as a tenured professor of nutrition and food science, at a salary of $260,000. Additionally, she will have a department budget of $100,000 a year for four years, according to the agreement.

$720,000 to do nothing for a year? And then she gets to come back to a $260,000 a year faculty position??? This is how you deal with someone who does a poor job and has to be removed from their position?
Or is there something more to this?
The next step seems clear to me. McKinney needs to resign and then we need to get a new board of regents who are not all indebted to Rick Perry or George W. Bush.

The best possible verdict

My experience as a juror was very positive, despite the fact that it was a very unpleasant court case we had to deal with. Without naming any names, I want to go over the case a bit and discuss how we came to our verdict (guilty) and sentencing (10 years probation).
The case involved indecency with a minor. The victim was a 12-year-old girl who was 9 at the time of the abuse. The defendant was her uncle by marriage, age 33. The case involved fondling, not penetration, and there was no physical evidence of abuse to back up the girl’s testimony. But we found the girl to be entirely credible and consistent in everything she said from the initial police report, to her interview with a sexual abuse investigator, to her testimony at the trial.
Furthermore, the defendant, after initially denying the allegations, admitted to the family that he had “checked” the girl’s “private parts” after she complained of it itching. Why he would do that and not tell the mother or the aunt was something he could not explain adequately other than to say “I messed up.”
During the evidentiary phase of the trial, the defense seemed to be flailing about trying to drum up doubt anyway they could. But we weren’t buying it. After two and a half days of testimony, we found the defendant guilty on three counts.
But then came the sentencing phase, and suddenly it seemed like the prosecution side was now stretching as they tried to say that the defendant was a “monster” who needed to be locked away. But the defense brought forward their best witness - a probation officer with the sexual offenders division - who explained in great detail what is involved with the community supervision program for sex offenders who get probation. Suffice to say there is a great deal of assessment testing, counseling and monitoring involved, all of which has to be paid for by the defendant.
I did not feel that prison time was warranted in this case for several reasons. First, I did not see the defendant as being a continuing threat provided he receives the counseling and supervision he needs. Second, jail time would likely have only hurt his chances of rehabilitating himself by causing him to lose his job, possibly breaking up his marriage and leaving him a broken and very likely worse individual in the end. By probating his sentence, I felt that we gave him a chance to straighten his life and remain a productive citizen rather than becoming another ward of the state.
Had he been a worse offender - caused injury to the victim, been out stalking other victims and so forth - I think we would not have hesitated to send him to prison. But because he had not yet crossed that line, we felt he could still be reformed given the opportunity.
The one complicating factor for us was that the defendant was still in denial during the sentencing phase. But the probation officer told us that it is common in 99 percent of cases for the sex offender to deny the charges at first and that it sometimes takes several months of counseling before they an accept it.
I hope that the defendant takes advantage of the opportunity that we gave him. His niece is now living out of state and he most likely will not be in a situation to cause abuse again unless he seeks it out. We heard from the defendant’s mother, father, sister and wife all testifying to his good character and promising to support him with any restrictions put on him by the court.
So I think we made the best possible decision in this case. I was proud of the people who served on the jury with me and overall the experience has renewed and reinforced my belief, trust and support for the U.S. judcial system.

Jury Duty

I got picked to be a juror so I won't be posting for the next few days.
Everyone play nice while I'm gone.

City Council Runoff

Up until today I had no idea who to vote for in the runoff for City Council District 8. The race is between Mike Berlanga, a CPA, and Reed Williams, a retired oil executive. I don't think I like either one.
On election day, I had voted for Berlanga on a whim only because one of his supporters was in the parking lot passing out literature with another guy supporting Julian Castro. The fact that they were together passing out literature made me think that maybe, just maybe Berlanga was a Democrat. And I just knew that Williams is a Republican.
But then the word came out after the general election that Berlanga is delinquent on paying his taxes. A CPA!!! And he can't pay his own taxes on time!!!
Well, that would have sealed it excpet that I really didn't want to put another Republican in office. I figure that Williams is probably like Carol Schubert who represented District 10 before challenging Phil Hardberger for mayor four years ago.
I thought, maybe if Berlanga is a Democrat I will just overlook this tax thing and vote for him anyway. But then in today's paper a story points out that both Berlanga and Williams are wealthy Republicans. Oh, joy.
So that pretty much sinks it for Berlanga. And also, the same story also said his excuse that he was protesting his taxes didn't bear out with the tax assessor's office which said that he is past the point of protesting and is just flat-out delinquent. So Berlanga is a Republican and won't pay his taxes, so screw him.
That means I'm stuck voting for Williams.
And if that wasn't bad enough, I get a phone call this evening with a message from Lyle Larson urging me to vote for Williams. Larson is the Republican who challenged my congressman Ciro Rodriguez in the last election. What are they trying to do? Rub dirt in my wound?? Do they want me to just stay home and skip this election!?! Sheesh!
Williams has also been endorsed by the Express-News which is practically the kiss of death in my book. The E-N has a policy of endorsing Republicans in almost every race.
Two years ago I had a city council representative - Art Hall - who I really liked. But then he had to step down because of our incredibly stupid term limits law and then I got stuck with Diane Cibrian who I can't stand. Fortunately, she left office early to run for mayor and lost badly.
Now I finally get to vote for somone without the moronic term limit restrictions and this is my choice. How depressing!

A&M Chancellor disses A&M President

I’m not sure what is going on with this situation but I can already tell that I don’t like it.
The Chancellor of Texas A&M University System is apparently having a nasty fight with the new Texas A&M president, who just happens to be the first female and first Hispanic to ever serve in that position.
The chancellor is former Republican State Rep. Mike McKinney, who served for several years as chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry before launching a new career as an academic administrator. The president of A&M is Elsa Murano, the former dean of Agriculture at A&M who was named president after Robert Gates left to become Secretary of Defense.
Now one year into her new job, Murano has apparently run afoul of McKinney and the Board of Regents.

Newsflash for Chancellor McKinney! If you are going to let personnel matters like this splash over into the media, you had better have more than a hand-written five-page review that looks like it was filled out at the last minute to back you up.

The five-page review - which was sent to the A&M system’s board of regents - was done by Texas A&M University System Chancellor Mike McKinney, who wrote that Murano “fails to assume responsibility for decisions” and criticized her for being “too slow” when it came to decisions.
It lacked specifics and was handwritten rather than typed. A page allowing for him to write down goals for the president, as well as a summary of her strengths and areas needing attention, was left blank...

So the part of the evaluation where he was supposed to write out and explain all the poor scores he was giving her was left blank. What is he? A moron!?!? First off, I hate those kinds of stupid evaluations where they assign arbitrary numbers between 1 and 5 in cookie-cutter categories. I hate them. But the worst is getting a low score that is not explained. If McKinney couldn’t be bothered to explain his low scores in full and complete sentences then he is not doing HIS job as a manager.

This sounds to me like the “evaluation” was thrown together at the last minute as a CYA operation by the chancellor.
Murano, meanwhile, did take the time to type up a 10-page response to the poor evaluation and she makes several salient points about the sparcity of the review and its seperation from reality.

“Given the complete disconnection between Dr. McKinney’s perception of my performance as president and all the evidence to the contrary, I can conclude that this review was not based on facts,” Murano wrote. “One need only consider that if it was an actual reflection of the job I have done as president, there would have been an incredible outcry from the entire university community.”

So what is it that Murano did or did not do to merit the wrath of the chancellor? That is not real clear. McKinney apparently scrawled a few comments on the review like
“Does good job on things she likes. Very poor on carrying out board system decisions with which she disagrees.”
So what does that mean? He doesn’t give any examples and no further explanation. Does he think the president is just supposed to roll over and acquiese to any decision by the board regardless of whether she agrees or not? Is the president just a functionary, a step-in-fetch-it for the chancellor and the regents? And when she didn’t immediately jump and say “How high” when he snapped his fingers, he is now ready to throw her out of office and absorb the position of president for himself?
I think McKinney has got some more explaining to do. Because right now I agree with the former speaker of the faculty senate:

“I’m just kind of shocked at the nature of the document,” said R. Douglas Slack, after reading the performance review. He is a former speaker of the faculty senate.
“It looked to be hastily done. It doesn’t look like something that was well thought-out. It’s a contrast to the president’s well thought-out response.”

Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien

I'm sold. I love the new show!

More rightwing filth on the radio thanks to Cox Radio

Are there any syndicated right-wing radio yakkers that do not have an outlet in San Antonio now?
Clear Channel-owned WOAI 1200 gives us daily doses of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Dennis Miller along with locally based wingnut Joe Pags.
KLUP 930, owned by Salem Communications, a company based in California which purports to be a “Christian” broadcaster, gives us a whole slew of rightwing crazies including Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt and Tom Sullivan.
KTSA 550, owned by Border Media, has a host of local rightwingers including Trey Ware, Jack Riccardi and Kevin Wall and then fills out the rest of its schedule with syndicated rightwingers Neal Boortz, Mark Levin, Jim Bohannon and Bill O’Reilly.
And now, Cox Radio has decided to jump into the mix by flipping 106.7 from a hip-hop/urban format to another right-wing talk station featuring Erich “Mancow” Muller, Neal Boortz (again), Laura Ingraham (the first and only women, you will notice) and Michael Savage, among those announced so far. I listened to just a few minutes of this new station and it was making me ill with the mindless stream of blatant lies, smears and venom being directed at our government, our public schools our public officials and anyone who doesn’t share in their selfish, greedy, vindictive, neo-fascist philosophy.
Cox Radio claimed that they made the switch to save money because it allowed them to fire their local radio talent and use an all-syndicated format.

This is truly despicable. All of these stations now spew non-stop hatred, blatant lies and mass ignorance over the airwaves everyday. It is like having an open sewer pouring out filth from your radio 24 hours a day. The contempt that these people have for America is shocking. They hate the government. They resent paying taxes for any program that benefits anyone other than themselves. They are disdainful of our schools. They promote radical conspiracy theories and delight in tearing down the weakest segments of our society.

About a year ago or so, Clear Channel made a half-hearted attempt to put up a liberal talk radio station. But they put it on a very low-frequency network which was hard to hear (I would lose the station everytime I drove into the parking garage at my work) and their lineup featured most prominently - Phil Donahue. Golly gee!! And when it didn’t fare well, they just threw up their hands and said “See, we told you that liberal talk radio wouldn’t work.”
And even having this complete monopoly of the airwaves, rightwingers still play the victims and claim that any suggestion that the public airwaves are not being used fairly is censorship.

Protestants on the Supreme Court

This is interesting. If she is confirmed, Sonia Sotomayor will be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court. She will join fellow Catholics Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
Two of the justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer - are Jewish.
So that will leave just one sitting justice who is Protestant - John Paul Stevens, who also happens to be the oldest justice on the court at 89.
I’m sure that Protestants probably dominated the court for most of its existence, so it is pretty shocking to suddenly find out that there could soon be no Protestants at all on the the court.
I suppose it is kind of ironic that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who are both Protestants, chose Jewish (Clinton’s picks) and Catholic (Bush’s picks) justices for the Supreme Court. And now we have another Protestant president adding another Catholic.
I suppose this speaks well of our religious tolerance in America today. Or maybe it’s just indifference. But whatever it is, I’m glad that this is not considered a big issue today. But just wait until someone tries to put the first atheist or agnostic on the high court and then watch the fireworks go off.

Who’s the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court?

You can’t tell me that this guy is supposed to be the first Hispanic to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Other than a Hispanic-sounding last name, there is nothing about Benjamin Nathan Cardoza that is even remotely Hispanic. The man was born and raised in New York City. His family had emigrated to the United States 100 years earlier --- from ENGLAND! Oh, but wait, you say, he has some ancestors who reportedly came from Portugal! Yes, that’s right. Portugal. That country next to Spain where they DON’T SPEAK SPANISH! That’s kind of a minimum requirement for being Hispanic, you know. Speaking Spanish. Cardoza couldn’t speak a lick of Spanish, but he did know Yiddish. You see, Cardoza’s ancestors who came from Portugal were part of a Jewish minority group that had settled there. He wasn’t even Catholic!!! Sheesh!
The final straw? If Cardoza was the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, wouldn’t there at least be a school somewhere in Texas named after him? You would think there would be, but no. There are schools named after him in New York, but none in Texas.
So in my opinion, Sonia Sotomayor will most definitely be the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, without a doubt.

American Taliban strikes again

I can’t help but feel deeply disturbed and very angry over this latest instance of domestic terrorism courtesy of the American Taliban (aka Religious Right). The assassination of Dr. George Tiller was not an isolated instance carried out by a single person, but rather the culmination of a calculated and coordianted campaign by the religious right to vilify anybody associated with abortion and put them all under the threat of death before their fanatical, half-crazed minions.
There is not a great deal of difference in mindset between the anti-abortion fanatics who demand absolute subservience to their extremist views and the followers of Islamic radicalism who support the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Ann has been all over this with some excellent links.