Clipping blog

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• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Don’t Fire Hoses Work Anymore Edition
• I Got 99 Problems But A Gig Ain’t One
• Happy Belated, Franz Liszt (Or, You Know More Classical Music Than You Think)
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Look Who’s Back, Babies!
• The Delivery Presents – Hippies, Hockey, and How to Do a Zombie Show

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Don’t Fire Hoses Work Anymore Edition Posted: 02 Nov 2011 06:10 AM PDT The officers of the Oakland Police Department are confused tonight, and for good reason. Their Mayor is a miserable failure who has given them and the citizens of the city horribly mixed messages about whether she will do her job or capitulate to the demands of the violent mob that calls itself Occupy Oakland. She is not the only political leader who has taken a deliberate decision to play silly political games rather than attend to the satefy and welfare of those who elected them to office. In city after city, the Occupy Whatever movement has become a place where women are raped, working people prevented from earning a living, and assaults and thefts are epidemic. The bridge has collapsed. It’s about time our politicians did their jobs and took our cities back from the barbarians. And now, links! As of this year, the state of California is paying pensions of more than $100,000 a year to over 12,000 employees. The state added 3,000 to that number in just this past year, including 3 pensions of over $200,000 a year. That strikes me as more than just a tiny bit insane. If you were wondering what, exactly, cause the housing crisis, you might want to look toward a bogus study and the government policies that came from it. Those policies, by the way, are still in place. I wonder how many cable network executives will be in the unemployment line once the powers that be learn that their shows are getting pounded in the ratings by a 3 A.M. comedy show on Fox News. The MSM doesn’t care that Herman Cain is black; they care that he is a Republican. In fact, to most progressives, Herman Cain can not be black because he is a Republican. Speaking of Cain, my friend Matthew at Old Line Elephant has about had it with Herman Cain’s campaign. I’m not very far behind him and I’ll likely have more to say about that later in the week. It’s a shame our First Lady doesn’t believe America is a land of opportunity. It sure has given her a lot without asking for much effort from her at all. I read part of this Jonathan Alter column on The Delivery last night, but I’m still amazed that it’s not satire. Seriously, I’m not sure how you get back the title without bursting into laughter. Income inequality? Still not seeing it.

I Got 99 Problems But A Gig Ain’t One Posted: 01 Nov 2011 04:27 PM PDT My former editor at News Real Blog, David Swindle, was recently hired by Pajamas Media and he has launched a brand-new section over there called PJM Culture. It looks to be a mash-up of politics and pop culture, sort of like what might happen if they blended the PJ Tatler and PJ Lifestyle blogs (Note: I occasionally contribute to the latter). He’s built the section around seven writers, each of whom will contribute a weekly column. That seems like a clever enough idea and I’ll be interested to see how it plays out over the next few weeks. I wish David and his PJM Culture writers all the success in the world. If you visited the site, you might have noticed I am not one of the seven writers, which does bother me. It probably shouldn’t. Envy, and that honestly is what I feel this evening, is not seemly and I dislike that I feel it. I’ll spare you a long harangue about how I’m not exactly an unknown on the conservative side of the internet. That would do anyone any good, I don’t imagine, and it would likely ruffle far more feathers than I really want to ruffle. I’ll simply say this. I want to write professionally, more even than I am for Ending Spending, and I’ve not exactly been shy about saying so. I am available. I have a track record: tens of thousands of posts, more than two years of weekly podcasts, guest appearances on other podcasts, public panel discussions, and a Twitter account with coming up on 5,500 followers. My writing and broadcast work are solid. I almost wrote “My work speaks for itself” but that’s not really true. One day it will be, but today isn’t that day. One day, though, it will be. If I didn’t believe that, I would have packed it all in a while ago. I missed another opportunity this week, but they won’t all pass by. Right?

Happy Belated, Franz Liszt (Or, You Know More Classical Music Than You Think) Posted: 01 Nov 2011 01:30 PM PDT While I was on my blogging break, I missed the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. You may not think you know who he is, but you’ve heard his work. I have liked Liszt’s music since I was a kid. My parents had a smallish collection of classical music albums and 8-track tapes and I used to listen to them on the stereo in our basement while wearing my Dad’s very nice headphones. Then, I would turn to face the mirror on the other side of the room and air-conduct to the pieces. I’m pretty sure I memorized three or four Beethoven Symphonies, the Grand Canyon Suite, the William Tell Overture, and a number of other pieces (including a couple of Liszt’s) just from listening to them over and over again. Most people don’t really get into classical music the way I have over the years but that doesn’t mean they, and you, didn’t get a healthy dose of it through other means. Liszt, who was probably the foremost piano virtuoso of his day, wrote several pieces that worked their way into American popular culture through cartoons. You’ve probably heard his most famous piano piece, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-Minor, even though you didn’t know what it was called. Here is it in an Academy Award-winning Tom and Jerry cartoon called “The Cat Concerto”. Warner Brothers also released a Bugs Bunny cartoon in the same year that used the same piece called “Rhapsody Rabbit”. Oddly enough, it featured a mouse, too but it didn’t win an Oscar. Not long after, Warner Brothers used an orchestral version of the piece in one of its best non-”character” cartoons called “Rhapsody in Rivets” and Walter Lantz brought it back for a 1956 Woody Woodpecker cartoon called “Convict Concerto”. Warner Brothers and MGM weren’t the first to use Liszt’s Rhapsody, though. Disney used a lot of it (along with a piano piece by Rachmaninoff and the “Habernera” from George Bizet’s opera “Carmen”) in a 1929 Mickey Mouse cartoon called “The Opry House”. Yep, folks, Liszt was the man and you know more about his music than you thought you did! Isn’t classical music fun?

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Look Who’s Back, Babies! Posted: 01 Nov 2011 12:39 PM PDT I’m back, babies, and I’m badder and bloggier than ever! Thank you for bearing with me while I took a few days off from The Shack. I did get some rest, aligned my chakras (wait…what?), and re-thought my approach to how I want to do all the things online I really want to do. I can’t say I’ve perfected my game, but I’m a lot closer to where I want to be than I was a few days ago and that wil work just fine for now. I have a few posts in the pipeline, including one on my Monster Media Day on Saturday that I believe you’ll enjoy. Also, don’t forget that Tuesday is The Delivery day. Set your browsers to “Awesome” and join the #Deliverati tonight at 9:30 PM ET in the live chatroom. And now, links! You can expect Rick Perry’s campaign to be a lot more active against Herman Cain over the next few days. That’s not just because Perry’s once-promising campaign is not doing very well but also because according to a recent poll, Cain is beating Perry among likely Republican voters in Texas. Speaking of Cain, he had a pretty rough day yesterday. He spent most of Monday dealing with an oppo-research hit piece that any decent communications staff would have been able to put to bed in a few hours. He compounded that with an early visit to the American Enterprise Institute (via protein wisdom) that didn’t go as well as he might have wanted, though he did finish strong at the National Press Club. His communications problems are pushing people away right now who might otherwise get behind him and he is going to have to get much better if he wants to be in the hunt in a few months. Of course regulations hurt employment. That’s just common sense, but it’s good to see the details spelled out. Income inequality? Yeah, not so much. When the President says “We can’t wait”, he really means he can’t wait to get his fill of that sweet, sweet executive power. Maybe instead of mainlining the totalitarianism, he could brush up on the definition of “best”. How is it that the administrator of the EPA directed college students to shut down power stations and remains the administrator of the EPA? This is the best post I’ve seen on the much-lamented Netflix price increase. Call me crass, but when Duane Lester says “Let me tell you about the time I set myself on fire”, I’m going to pull up a chair. Don’t miss the latest edition of his very good All American Radio either. Pumpkin Smoothies? Easy to make pumpkin smoothies? Yes, please! Do you know what crepuscular rays are? Sure you do! You see them all the time, but you probably didn’t know what they were called. Now, you do!

The Delivery Presents – Hippies, Hockey, and How to Do a Zombie Show Posted: 01 Nov 2011 11:43 AM PDT I honestly didn’t plan to let the hippies take over Episode 118, but the insanity of Occupy Whatever just won’t stop! It has gotten so bad that only a special guest appearance by a certain beloved sock puppet could help put things right. I can’t say that the subject of whiny hippies who are discovering the evolution of modern government in fast-motion won’t come up again, but I hope the insanity will recede a bit for a couple months. The second half contains hockey and zombies, though not together. Short post this week. The show is good, packed full of all the stuff you like and shorn of the stuff you don’t. Be sure to vote on the polls in this post right here so I know your desires for the future of The Delivery. The Delivery - Episode 118 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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