Dishing out spicy liberal social commentary and critical thinking news analysis on America, world politics, the news, fun political humor, cartoons - and a little poetry by Independent journalist blogger Denny Lyon.
From Denny: Former VP Cheney, aka the Despicable Valdamort, cannot seem to keep his mouth shut for the love of spreading lies. He's like a snake oil salesman that won't take "No!" for an answer.
When current VP Biden heard Cheney was hitting the Sunday talk show circuit he ponied up to the bar and said, "I'm in for the fun!" Biden ate Cheney's lunch. Just when the Democrats need a reason to get motivated good ol' Cheney gives them one. Hmmm... maybe Cheney is useful after all. Whatever works to light a fire under the Dems to get things done!
*** For the excerpted transcript and Cheney's comments that Biden is reacting to here, go to the longer version of the post over at Dennys Global Politics, go here.
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Political Cats!From Denny: Some of the cheekiest - most irreverent or most odd - quotes were uttered in the year of 2009 in America. There are times when I wonder if there are regions of the country with lead in the water, sounding as bizarre as ancient Rome did right before they destroyed their empire. The ancient Romans poisoned themselves with lead in their wine, unknowingly, that also sterilized them, dropping the population of the ruling aristocracy. Their increasing bizarre behavior is well documented historically and, of course, Hollywood celebrated it with many a movie. After all, villains are great story grist! :)
I knew there was a verbal bridge somewhere in here... more like a teetering wood suspension bridge in the Amazon... 2009 has been a very bizarre year for quotes from politicians in particular and a few celebrities too. Notice that Tiger Woods is noticeably silent. Maybe he's saving his quotes for 2010. Stay tuned...
Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty
1. "Do ya think?" he's: Holding Back
"He deserves my silence."
— George W. Bush, former President, refusing to criticize President Barack Obama during a speech in March, his first address since leaving office. Yet the Republicans didn't waste any time later in the year, propelling Bush out in front to take the fire for complaining about Obama's job performance and handling of terrorism issues.
Hmmmm... yes, Obama still deserves his silence. The man was a hack in the Presidency so what real advice could he offer? The majority of the time he never watched nor read the news, depending upon filtered information from jealous coveting-the-power aides like Rove.
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."
— Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, rambling all over the place on her Facebook page, whiner lying about a provision of the proposed health care bill that called for Medicare to reimburse doctors for counseling patients on end-of-life-care issues such as living wills and hospice availability. Somehow, she had reading comprehension problems and started screaming death panels are in the bill when clearly they are not.
3. Perilously Close on the Heels of Republican Retreads
"I'm happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested, and they have failed. And that's what part of the election in November was all about."
— President Obama, during his first official press conference, on 9 Feb 2009. What's annoying is when you follow such a disastrous act like Bush and Cheney who basically broke several world governments, is that you are forced to continue some of the same policies until you can stabilize a region, beginning new policies to repair all the damage.
So it goes in American politics for decades: Republicans like to blow up the world and Democrats come in behind them to clean up their mess. Then the public gets angry it takes too long to clean up the mess and choose Republicans again, thinking the economy will pick up. There is a real disconnect of the American voter with an understanding of just how long it takes to repair a mess and then gin up the economy.
4. The Commies Are Coming! The Commies Are Coming! Stay safe; hide under your school desk when the nukes hit. (Now there's a plan.)
"I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country. My question for you is, What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created according to the Constitution?"
— Katy Abram, a Pennsylvania mother, speaking at a health care town hall moderated by Senator Arlen Specter in August in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. If this woman knew what she was talking about, understood economics, international diplomacy and common sense, and actually cared if women got equal pay for the same job, well, she would never have voted Republican in the first place. These guys are the ones who sent our country careening out of control financially for decades starting with President Reagan and his paranoid Star Wars concept.
5. Sad Prescient Epitaph of The King of Pop
" 'This Is It' really means this is it."
— Michael Jackson, pop star, in March as he announced his plans for a series of "final curtain call" concerts in London, slated for July. These performances would have been his first major live performances in 12 years, his parting gift to his loyal fans.
I remember seeing that news clip and had an inkling something odd was coming. Isn't it something how you can say or do something that later on people go, "Wow! I thought there was something about that!"
6. Straight from the heartless: Let Them Eat Tiramisu!
"They should see it like a weekend of camping."
— Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister, on the thousands of people left homeless by an April 6 earthquake that killed more than 300. This businessman billionaire is an embarrassment to the people of Italy. There are photos of him trying to hump a meter maid as she is giving a car a ticket, his wife is fed up with the mistresses and public humiliation and now he treats his countrymen with a cavalier dismissive wave of his royal hand of those who were suddenly left homeless and destitute.
7. Hillary not Bill is Secretary of State
"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not Secretary of State."
— Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, during an August press conference in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to a student who asked her, "What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?" According to State Department officials, the student approached Clinton afterward and said he had meant to ask what "Mr. Obama" thought.
The Republican press gave Hillary a difficult time with this one. Well, she should have been insulted that everyone thinks she is channeling her husband's brain. She has always been her own woman. Come on.
A close friend of mine had an interesting conversation with a former Secret Service agent who protected the Clintons in house. She was known for throwing laundry baskets and other large objects at Bill whenever she found out about the latest sexual gaffe she was so frustrated with his personal lack of discipline. There were a lot of holes in the walls to be repaired in the residential wing. You go, girl! You think a woman with this kind of passion would actually be so meek as to offer up her husband's opinions? What are you smoking?
8. Confessions of a Late Show Fool: Letterman
"The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is, yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would, especially for the women."
— David Letterman, Late Show host, who admited on air, Oct. 1, to being fool enough to have affairs with female staffers. He chose to go public after revealing he was being blackmailed by CBS producer Robert Halderman. Now get this: Halderman actually thought he could blackmail a guy who is cheap? Come on; a cheap guy will take public humiliation any day over emptying his wallet. Bad call, Halderman, you lose!
Photo by Reuters
9. Screaming in the Silence
"I was shouting, but no one could hear me."
— Rom Houben is a Belgian man who was paralyzed in a car accident. His doctors presumed him to be in a coma - for 23 years! Recently, in a July journal article new evidence was revealed to doctors to the contrary. There are new scanning techniques that discovered Houben had normal brain function! The article details doctors realized this back in 2006. Houben, who cannot speak, now communicates using a special keyboard.
What a horror that must have been for him all these years. I wonder why it took three years to go public with the good news? Too much medical community embarrassment? Well, at least Houben is now getting what he needs to feel more plugged into the world. Considering the computer age now, he has considerably more mental and communicative mobility than was available to others in his situation in decades past. It does make you wonder how many other Houbens there are out there yet to be freed.
Bernie Madoff, scam artist who bilked billions from investors in a Ponzi scheme, photo by Mario Tama/Getty
10. Con Man Remorse?
"I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago."
— Bernie Madoff, Ponzi schemer extraordinaire, taking the con to new heights, in an SEC interview, finally released in October. This quote came from part of an SEC investigation into its failure to flush out Madoff's scam for 16 years - even though there was information sent to them to prove the scam.
This has to be one of the audacious quotes of the year. Now we are supposed to feel sorry for him that he felt oh, so burdened he had fleeced so many people and charitable organizations? Too weird for my world.
*** Feel free to use the graphics as they are free for your blog or site!
*** A reader needs your help to document a quotation by Logan Pearsall-Smith: "All our lives we are putting pennies - our most golden pennies - into penny-in-the-slot machines that are almost always empty." Do any of you know the title of the work? Email me: warriorspearl@gmail.com and I'll pass it on.
*** Those funny slips of the tongue that come out weird and ridiculous!
From Denny: OK, we have all done it at one time or another. The key to good communication and understanding with others is to, well, avoid those slips of the tongue – or brain – whichever the case may be and speak something that comes out as absolutely weird and ridiculous nonsense.
What’s a malapropism? It’s one of those Freudian nuisances that have long plagued humanity – and politicians. We will get to that in a moment. A malapropism is really the unintentional use of a wrong word or strings of words into a phrase (compounding the problem) that causes confusion with the listeners as to what you truly meant to utter.
OK, so it’s unintentional and a humorous misuse or distortion of the word or phrase. A malapropism is especially effective because though it sounds a lot like the intended word so that it ends up ludicrously wrong in the context! What’s worse is if you make a habit of talking like this.
It often happens to those former CEOs turned politicians who fried their brains on cocaine, meth or soaked it in too much alcohol like former President George W. Bush and his fellow alcoholic druggie VP Dick Cheney. With all the conflicting drugs Cheney takes - that overwhelms his liver - it's no surprise as to why he's so mean-spirited toward others. Too many drugs can make you cranky and negative like the Darth Vadar character to which he is compared every Halloween. It was frightening to realize these two guys who couldn't think straight, for a variety of reasons, had their fingers on nuclear weapons. It's also comforting to know they are out of office.
Often words that sound similar are substituted for the correct word choice and then you are off and running into the arena of the ridiculous. Comedy writers have leaned heavily on this speech/brain mistake for laughs, especially in TV writing. It takes a lot of writing talent to use the technique properly but we won’t get into that today. Today we are showing funny quotes and funny video.
During the Bush years, when an international audience had to endure some really awful speeches and choppy weird informal talks from Bush, his spin team tried to convince people this was some kind of genetic condition. They also tried to convince us he fell off his bike to explain his facial lacerations. And who could forget the pretzel choking incident? The more they said the worse the perception became. It probably won’t be long, in this down economy when people are desperate for jobs and to avoid home foreclosure, before we start getting books from “insiders” who start ratting out what was really happening behind the scenes.
...Which leads us into the popular culture’s term for malapropisms: Bushisms! Here are a few of the all time favorites uttered by our former President:
Oftentimes, we live in a processed world, you know, people focus on the process and not results.
The law I sign today directs new funds... to the task of collecting vital intelligence... on weapons of mass production.
We are making steadfast progress.
Natural gas is hemispheric... because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.
I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.
We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.
It will take time to restore chaos and order.
They have miscalculated me as a leader.
Some typographer having fun: I Shot the Serif ---- sheriff
A quick bit of history trivia for you on the origin of the word malapropism… OK, all you show-offs quit waving your hands because you already know the answer. Malapropism came into our language a few centuries ago from the pen of writer Richard Sheridan. His character, Mrs. Malaprop, was known for these speech antics in his 1775 play named The Rivals.
Here are some of her fun malapropisms and the correct word follows. If want to study how to write malapropisms this is a great example of how to write them:
"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory." -------------- obliterate
"O, he will dissolve my mystery!" ------- resolve
"He is the very pine-apple of politeness!" ------- pinnacle
"I have since laid Sir Anthony's preposition before her;" ------- proposition
"Oh! it gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree." -------- hysterics
"I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible." ------- eligible
"...she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying." ------- comprehend
"...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile." ------- alligator
"I am sorry to say, Sir Anthony, that my affluence over my niece is very small." ------- influence
"Why, murder's the matter! slaughter's the matter! killing's the matter! - but he can tell you the perpendiculars." ------- particulars
"Nay, no delusions to the past - Lydia is convinced;" ------- allusions
"...behold, this very day, I have interceded another letter from the fellow;" ------- intercepted
"I thought she had persisted from corresponding with him;" ------- desisted
"His physiognomy so grammatical!" ------- phraseology
"I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded the affair;" ------- exposed
"I am sorry to say, she seems resolved to decline every particle that I enjoin her." ------- article
"...if ever you betray what you are entrusted with... you forfeit my malevolence for ever..." ------- benevolence
"Your being Sir Anthony's son, captain, would itself be a sufficient accommodation;" ------- recommendation
"Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" -------- reprehend/apprehend, oracular/vernacular, derangement/arrangement, epitaphs/epithets
President Bush is not alone as he has plenty of company. Other famous people like Yogi Berra and Murray Walker also committed speech heresy. In Britain, their term for a malapropism is a Colemanball. It’s derived from BBC sports commentator David Coleman who is also prone to speech slips so the Private Eye Magazine coined the term that seems to have stuck.
Here are some more funny malapropisms and the correct word follows (English is often a confusing language even for native speakers):
He had to use a fire distinguisher. ------ extinguisher
Dad says the monster is just a pigment of my imagination. ------- figment
Isn't that an expensive pendulum round that man's neck? -------- pendant
Good punctuation means not to be late. -------- punctuality
He's a wolf in cheap clothing. ------ sheep
Michelangelo painted the Sixteenth Chapel. -------- Cistine
My sister has extra-century perception. ------- extrasensory
"Don't" is a contraption. ------- contraction
In case you want to write malapropism dialogue just take a look at real life and former President George Bush in action at his Malapropism Best:
In case the video does not display here's the link where you can get a larger versus smaller player, go here.
*** Fun and intriguing informative science articles written in my usual cheeky voice:
From Denny: This was quite the "anniversary" for the Afghanistan War, marked by plenty of statistics like America paying out over $5 billion a month, clips from the Bush years and the fact it's been eight years now. Something has to change; "fish or cut bait" as they say in the Amerian South!
Political Cats!
