Baron Dave Romm
The Dixiepubs
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
The Dixiepubs (draft)
This is the first draft of a longer and more coherent essay, possibly more than one. I was going to present it this week, but Real Life (tm) got in the way. So Bartcop-E gets the first draft, maybe a third of the way through research and editing though I've been known to find more to talk about while digging. Any suggestions and further evidence would be appreciated. Send to me, address below.In 2008,the GOP campaign theme was "America First". Six months later, the governors of Texas and Georgia want to secede from the US and they are not alone. What the hell hapened to the Republican Pary?
McCain/Palin got nearly 60 million votes in the 2008 election. Not counting any voter suppression shenanigans or voter fraud, this is 45.7% of the vote. In head-to-head matchups, Repubicans lost ground across the board. They have less Congressional power than the Democrats have had in a century. Yet they are hardly relegated to third party status. Parties have lost elections before without completely marginalizing themselves.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s Orange Country NY, one of the most conservative areas of the country. Democrats got in on occasion, but they were the exception. Both my parents were registered Republicans, largely to be able to vote in the GOP primaries, where the action was, more than because they agreed with the party platform.
But now, the Sarah Palin "base" of the GOP is basically Strom Thurmnd's Dixicrat base from 1948. This became the George Wallace branch of the Democrats, then the Pat Buchanan branch of the GOP.
So I propose a new descriptor for the ascendent branch of Republicanism: The Dixiepubs. The rest of the former GOP is fleeing for moderate and liberal grounds. What's left is the worst part of the Southern electorate: racist, sexist, homophobes who believe lies and don't believe the truth.
After the November election, many noted the changing demographics: Whither the Republicans? (which documents the three states that are reliably Republican in the West), McConnell: GOP becoming 'regional party' Politico 1/29/09. For GOP, A Southern Exposure, Natonal Journal 5/23/0-9. I can't immediately find the nifty chart of increases in Dem/increase in GOP by district map that was in DailyKos and other places, so I'll look around.
LBJ was right about the passage of the Civil Rights acts. Congratulations, Tricky Dick. Your Southern Strategy worked for a generation. But you can't fool all the people all the time.
Compare Strom Thurmond's electoral victories in 1948 as a Dixiecrat. He, nominally a Democrat, ran as a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semetic southerner, and ran with the motto "Segretation Forever!" He took 39 electoral votes, in places where the GOP is strongest now.
Reagan increased the crazy vote from about 15% to about 20%. Perot changed the Democrats more than he changed the Republicans.
Moderate Republicans are fleeing the once proud party. The death of the moderate Republican DailyKos diary by Kos 1/14/09. GOP Losses Span Nearly All Demographic Groups, May 18, 2009. Analysis from Gallup Poll: Republicans Lose In All Demographic Groups Except Conservatives, Churchgoers and Seniors The Moderate Voice: "The groups that have held largely firm have been conservatives, churchgoers and seniors - groups already considered part of the party's base - indicating more than ever that the GOP is evolving into a group playing to itself and its base but not making the adequate inroads required to build a new politically dominant coalition or successfully win over the bulk of younger voters."
Rove's Permanent Republican Majority was a lie from the word go. He was always a 40% political hack.
More to come...
Quick Hits: Up, The Listener, The Goode Family, David Carradine on Mental
I loved UP, the latest animation from Pixar. Ignore all the ads, they mislead. Go see it without knowing anything about the movie, so I won't say much here. If at all possible, see it in 3D. While not perfect, it's very moving. On the Shockwave scale of 9 to 23, I'd give UP about a 21.
I've now seen three episodes of The Listener, a summer replacement tv show about a telepath. So far, on the down side of average. The first two episodes had similar plots, villains and endings. The plot of the third didn't really work, but tried desperately to advance the characters. It's already a B show for me, and I don't see it getting better soon. Oh well.
Somewhat to my surprise, The Goode Family is okay. The right-wing Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, etc.) is part of a team making fun of a very liberal family. Mostly, it works. After only a few shows, the characters are fairly well drawn. The show isn't a right-wing wet dream of caricatures, and manages to score some real points across the political spectrum. If you like King of the Hill, you'll probably like The Goode Family.
Often, when a person dies, a guest appearance will be pulled out of respect. The June 9th episode of Mental featured David Carradine as a famous author who was struck by lightening and remains in a catatonic state. The send off was somber and fitting. They seem to have done a bit of post-production work to make the character a bit larger than originally written, but that didn't bother me. One of Carradine's better performances, and a fitting memorial, though it was not filmed that way.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The dark side of shopping (guardian.co.uk)
Shoplifting is a huge and rising epidemic. Neal Lawson looks at the true human cost of consumer desire - and five women tell Julie Bindel their stories.
Arthur Delaney: "Debt Collectors: HuffPost Readers Report Harassment" (huffingtonpost.com)
The Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca, N.Y. just can't get a break.
Lynda Waddington: 'I came face-to-face with protesters at the Kansas clinic where I had to terminate my pregnancy' (guardian.co.uk)
Whatever I did my child would die, and, as a grisly bonus, either action could result in long-term damage to my future ability to conceive and carry a child.
YouTube and the Cinnamon Peeler
One of the richest resources on YouTube is an extraordinary channel named SpokenVerse. It offers 466 readings of great poems in English, from Shakespeare to today. Their reader is a pleasure to listen to. He makes no effort to "perform," but simply and clearly respects the poetry, with understated emotion when necessary.
Michael Russnow: "Palin Accuses Letterman of Seeking PR: Then Hypocritically Skews What He Meant All Over the Media" (huffingtonpost.com)
Are you as amazed as I am Sarah Palin is still invited on mainstream talk shows? I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh or the cable religious shows, but respected venues like CNN's Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room and to chat with NBC's Matt Lauer on The Today Show.
GINGER LIU: Be Yourself and Be Free: An Interview with Patrick Wolf (popmatters.com)
The Bachelor might be a lonely work, but family, fashion, politics, and even a little voyeurism are behind Patrick Wolf's new album.
Chuck Barney: "Hammer too legit to quit: Rap star gives America a peek at his new life" (Contra Costa Times)
MC Hammer's home in rural Tracy is certainly nothing to sneeze at, even though it pales in comparison to the spectacular Xanadu-like monstrosity he occupied in the Fremont, Calif., foothills just before his very public financial free fall. It doesn't have two swimming pools, or parking space for 17 cars, wondrous waterfalls, or even a gold-plated gate emblazoned with his name.
Roger Ebert: Shall we gather at the river?
The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.
Tirdad Derakhshani: Which 100 greatest films, AFI's or Criterion's? (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Finding Nemo" is a cute flick. It's well-made. And it's fun to watch. And, according to Time magazine, it's one of the greatest films ever made. But is Pixar's 2003 animated confection about a dotty chick fish who helps a nervous Nelly of a papa fish look for his beloved son one of the 100 greatest films of all time?
Roger Ebert: Away We Go (3 1/2 stars)
Burt and Verona are two characters rarely seen in the movies: thirtysomething, educated, healthy, self-employed, gentle, thoughtful, whimsical, not neurotic and really truly in love. Their great concern is finding the best place and way to raise their child, who is a bun still in the oven. For every character like this I've seen in the last 12 months, I've seen 20, maybe 30, mass murderers.
Why it's never too late to exercise (guardian.co.uk)
The over-65 age group is less active than any other. But, says Sam Murphy, exercise doesn't have to be difficult - and it can help you live a longer, happier life.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Murder for the Presidency?
Could this happen? Did this happen?
The Weekly Poll
The 'Talking Heads' Edition (No, not the band, ya weirdo...)
Which TV network do you view the most for national/international news?
(Feel free to cite individual programs/personalities that you particularly like)
1.) CNN
2.) MS-NBC
3.) FNC
4.) ABC
5.) CBS
6.) PBS
Send your response to
Results tomorrow
In 1975, what TV series did the Boston ABC affiliate (WCVB) refuse to air, fearing it would only add fuel to a tumultuous school busing program?
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
Re: R.J.'s "Meet the Black Squirrel"
Marty
Nice article on black squirrels. We have qrey and red squirrels that raid our bird feeder (I must confess that I buy peanuts and squirrel food for them in the winter and spring), but have never seen a black squirrel. In Brevard, North Carolina, where my cousin Charley lives, they have white squirrels. We have one lone white squirrel that comes to the feeder occasionally.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sun broke through before noon!
Gas was $3.05/gal on Friday - probably more today.
Surprises Girl Scouts
Dolly Parton
Country singer Dolly Parton delighted hundreds of Tennessee Girl Scouts when she made a surprise entrance at a ceremony to present them with a patch created in her honor.
Parton appeared on stage at the Pines Theatre in Pigeon Forge, where 400 Girl Scouts were receiving the new "Coat of Many Colors" patch. It is named for Parton and her 1971 song of the same name.
Parton is a lifetime member of the Girl Scouts. She wore her own uniform, hugged and chatted with the girls on Saturday.
The song tells the story of how schoolmates made fun of a coat Parton's mother made from rags. The patch requires Scouts to help others, then design a collage of what makes them special
Dolly Parton
Stolen, Found, Sold
Lincoln Stamp
A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from Indiana in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago has sold at auction for more than $430,000.
The buyer paid $431,250 for the 90-cent stamp, against a pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000, including the buyer's premium.
The so-called Ice House Cover with Lincoln's likeness is on an envelope mailed from Boston to an ice house in India in 1873.
The stamp vanished from its owner's safe in Indianapolis and turned up in 2006 at a home in Chicago. A collector notified police.
Lincoln Stamp
Tries Tough Love
Australia
Along the dusty red road that leads from the lonely airstrip into town, the signs flash by: "No alcohol," says one. "Petrol sniffing kills," admonishes another. "Don't bring gunja into our town," warns a third.
This town of 2,500 is the largest Aboriginal community in Australia's remote north, so isolated that it can only be reached by air for half the year when monsoonal rains flood the main road. For years, Wadeye was a drugged-up, crime-ridden wasteland and a painful reminder of Australia's tortured relationship with its oldest inhabitants - a relationship it has tried to both fix and forget.
Now this battered town is in the middle of Australia's latest attempt at a fix: a tough set of policies known as The Intervention. In the past two years, the government has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Aboriginal communities across the Northern Territory - and forced upon them strict new rules. Residents are now required to spend half their welfare checks on family essentials like food. Welfare payments are suspended if parents in some settlements don't send their kids to school. Pornography and alcohol are banned - although in Wadeye, many white people are allowed to drink in their homes.
But what is pitched as tough love has a downside. A 2008 government review of the intervention found feelings of betrayal and resistance. Many Aborigines complained of "intense hurt and anger at being isolated on the basis of race and subjected to collective measures that would never be applied to other Australians."
Australia
World's Largest Jeans
Croatia
A pair of jeans the size of six tennis courts, stitched together from thousands donated for charity, should be recognised by Guinness World Records as the biggest anywhere, organisers said on Sunday.
"We've made the world's largest pair of jeans!" the Cockta Jeans Fashion project said on its website.
The denims were put on display in Croatia's capital Zagreb on Saturday after they were assembled from 8,023 unwanted pairs and auctioned off over the last few months.
They have a leg length of 45 metres (148 feet) and a total width of 34 metres and were sewn up in a local factory.
Croatia
Seeks Apology, Compensation
Joe Coombs
An Australian World War Two veteran who was forced to work in a coal mine owned by the family of Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso will visit Tokyo next week to push his case for compensation and an apology for his treatment.
The 88-year-old former prisoner of war, Joe Coombs, is due to meet Aso Corporation officials, but hopes to also have a meeting with Aso after one with Japanese lawmakers on Thursday.
Coombs was one of about 300 POWs forced to work in Aso Mining's coal mines in 1945 after two years working in Japanese shipyards.
In January, Aso acknowledged for the first time that a family company had used POWs as mine workers during the war, and that the government had been mistaken when it denied the fact when he was foreign minister.
Coombs, who has not been back to Japan since World War Two, has been campaigning for more than 60 years for Japan to recognize its treatment of prisoners of war.
Joe Coombs
Ancient Mass Grave Found
Ridgeway Hill
An ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave dating back to Roman times, has been found under a road being built for the 2012 British Olympics.
Archaeologists, who have only just begun excavating the site, say they do not yet know who the bones might belong to.
The skulls and other bones were unearthed at a place called Ridgeway Hill, on the construction site of a new major relief road to Weymouth, on the Dorset coast in southwest England.
The grave site is close to Maiden Castle -- Europe's largest Iron Age hill fort where local tribes are said to have staged a last stand against the Roman legions after the invasion.
Ridgeway Hill
Ejects Entire Crowd
Umpire
An umpire has emptied the stands at a high school baseball game, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly.
Umpire Don Briggs said he had no problem with any of the student athletes during Thursday's game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington.
He said he had to take action because fans were being unruly, yelling and arguing.
The umpire called police as a precaution. West Burlington police officer Al Waterman says there were no arrests. He says he saw no unruliness himself.
Umpire
Bovine Beauty
Swiss Cows
Furie and Cigale eye each other warily, take a step forward and lock horns.
It's an ancient ritual, one that plays out each summer high in the Swiss Alps, as cows battle to be queen and villagers come to watch.
Judges record every fight as spectators sit on the surrounding mountainside, sipping local wines and cheering their family herd. But it is the cows who choose who to fight and who will reign supreme at the end of the season.
"They've been doing this ever since my grandparents were young, and even before that," says Marthe Vianin, once the proud owner of several fighting cows. "It's hundreds of years old."
Swiss Cows
Weekend Box Office
'Hangover'
The Warner Bros. comedy "The Hangover" hauled in $33.4 million to remain the top box-office draw for a second-straight weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Disney's latest Pixar Animation hit, the action comedy "Up," came in a close second again with $30.5 million. That lifts the acclaimed animated film's total to $187.2 million.
Debuting at No. 3 with $25 million was Sony's action remake "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3." The thriller stars Denzel Washington as a dispatcher matching wits against John Travolta as the mastermind of a subway hijacking.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Hangover," $33.4 million.
2. "Up," $30.5 million.
3. "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," $25 million.
4. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $9.6 million.
5. "Land of the Lost," $9.2 million.
6. "Imagine That," $5.7 million.
7. "Star Trek," $5.6 million.
8. "Terminator Salvation," $4.7 million.
9. "Angels & Demons," $4.2 million.
10. "Drag Me to Hell," $3.9 million.
'Hangover'
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