Reader Tips

Reader Tips 49 Comments

Welcome to SDA Late Night Radio. Tonight, as we roll on without rebranding, I’d like to thank Vitruvius for his years of exemplary service here at SDA. I was unable to join everyone else in thanking him during his last show because my internet connection was disrupted by wet *snow and ice*, so I just want to say: Vitruvius, you’re a real character, and you will be sorely missed for the duration of your absence.
To get this inaugural Vit-less Reader Tips underway, here’s a clip, from Canadian documentary filmmaker Harry Rasky’s 1980 film Song of Leonard Cohen, that alternates between footage of Cohen in a Montreal apartment playing a recording of a new song for his friend Irving Layton and footage of the live performance at which the recording was made. It’s touching to see Layton’s reaction to the achingly beautiful, almost numinous song. In the live performance itself, I love the passionate, gypsy-style violin that marries joy, sadness, love, and mortality with such great expressiveness. Here it is, then, for your Sunday evening pleasure: Leonard Cohen performing The Window.
The thread is open for your Reader Tips.

49 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Nick Cohen looks at one of the problems with having certain left-leaning Liberal Democrat politicians in Britain’s recent coalition government:

    “What is giving (the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition) its popularity, what is making it seem like an alliance of sensible men and women willing to put aside petty differences, is the presence of the Lib Dems, a party which seemingly embodies moderation, compromise and a loathing of fanaticism.

    “But the contented intelligentsia, the happy Tory centrists, worried Thatcherites and all who think we are in a new era of stability and compromise are wrong about the Lib Dems. They are not always moderate. In crucial respects, they are far closer to the caricature of neo-fascist Tories than the Tories are themselves. They will go along with the most bloodstained conspiracy theories and endorse medieval hatreds without a thought for how their actions damage the cause of democratic liberalism.”

    He points to Lib Democrat Jenny Tongue as a case in point:

    “In Tonge’s discourse, tropes of thousands of years of loathing are repeated as if they occurred to her only yesterday. The all-powerful Jewish conspiracy controls everything, of course, even, somewhat implausibly, the Lib Dems. ‘The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips,’ she declared in 2006. ‘I think they’ve probably got a grip on our party.'”

    Cohen notes that when “word went out (all over the internet) that Jewish relief workers (In Haiti) were not sincerely helping the needy but harvesting the organs of the gentiles,” Tonge said “the accusations were sufficiently credible to warrant an inquiry.” When criticized for his seeming support of Tongue, Nick Clegg, now the deputy prime minister, portrayed the criticism as an insult to his honour, while Lord Wallace, the Lib Demn’s Foreign Affairs spokesman “said the worst he could say about the baroness was that she was ‘over emotional.’ His lordship, however, explained: ‘The reason why we resist expelling her from the party is that we do sadly find the current Likud Party very intolerant of all criticism.”

    “(Lord Wallace’s) thinking ran thus: racist ideologies are not the products of repellent minds, but merely the result of an excess of emotion. Those who oppose them do not do so honestly because they know what horrors anti-Semitism brings. On the contrary, they rather than the baroness are the truly disreputable people, who are only raising this minor matter because they are the allies of the Likud. The Lib Dems are tolerant. It’s Tonge’s critics, not Tonge herself, who are intolerant and show their prejudice by insisting on standing up to those who say that a Jewish conspiracy pulls all strings and that Jews are murdering gentile children.”

    Read the whole thing here.
    (h/t transmontanus)

  2. Great song Vitruvius. I’d really like to see Cohen live before I die.
    (Sorry EBD, couldn’t resist; congrats on your “promotion”.)

  4. A high-ranking CUPE/CLC member and Vice President of the Canadian Arab Federation who is taking part in a public protest on a public street against Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Toronto menaces Blazingcatfur:
    “Who gave you the permission to take a picture? And you claim that you’re a big tough guy? I didn’t give you the permission! Go!”

  6. American immigrants who lived for years under communist rule take part in a Tea Party protest, and have sober warnings about the path the Obama administration is taking:
    Fellow from the former Soviet citizen: “We are on a very dangerous path right now…if we don’t stand up now, today, before it’s too late, it IS going to be too late.”
    Woman from the east bloc: “I see where Obama is leading this country, and I am scared.”
    A woman from Cuba says she saw a Che Guevera sign and “almost vomited.” “That guy was a murderer…”
    (via moonbattery.com)

  7. hey Ali ! ect… almost no surprise that the police presence at Palestine House didn’t step in… I’d hope that BCF is able to wrestle some points from this, as unlikely as that is.
    For some months now, the protegé of President Uribe has had his supports told by the meddling idiot/Chavez from Venezuela that if Santos is elected, Venezuela will cut all ties and expect war with Colombia, as well as an arrest warrant being issued by neighboring Ecuador for Santos from his days as Minister of Defense. Today was election day in Colombia, the results are in, and Santos has more than doubled the vote tally of his closest threat, the former mayor of Bogota, Antanas Mockus. A runoff between the two will be held in a month, but be wary of the pollsters that read this vote over the past 2 months as alternating slightly to the favor of Santos, then slightly to the favor of Mockus. They missed this one by +25 points and the electorate may be thinking “Hey Chavez, butt out of our business” having seen first hand the results of the Chavez revolution and the empty refrigerators.
    There are a couple of candidates that were eliminated that are seen as to the political right of Juan Manuel Santos that should have their vote passed to Santos in the runoff, virtually assuring a win for him. It appears as well that the turnout was a new record high, and that there was next to nil reports of violence, I can only venture a guess that this will change dramatically in the runoff as the favored candidate isn’t leading anymore. The Santos family does have ties to the leading newspaper in Colombia, El Tiempo in Bogota. but it doesn’t have an english version available online.
    http://www.eltiempo.com/ if one hovers the mouse over the map, you’ll get an idea of how things went…
    some links to this view of how the pollsters dropped the ball are here, mainline North American coverage will differ… http://www.caracaschronicles.com/node/2545

  8. … when I refer to “the favored candidate isn’t leading anymore”, I am referring to the leading candidate of the left/Greens, and so favored by FARC in Colombia.
    Now that the right will be seen as the leading candidate, all bets for calm are off.

  9. Paul in Calgary – where is Vit? Didn’t you hear?
    He went up to Saratoga and his horse naturally won
    He then flew his Lear up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun.
    You know he’s where he should be all the time and when he’s not he’s with – some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend.
    You know Vit – its got to be something like that.

  10. Thanks EBD and marc for the news items.
    EBD, the content of your post @ 11.24 has me concerned also. You will know by some of my comments in the past that many members of my extended family suffered and were killed by the soul mates of the Marxist scum that want to take over North America.
    Paul, read last evenings Readers Tips by Vit. He has taken on some new work.
    Seeing the the involvement of CUPE and the United Church of Canada in this rally does not surprise me, but seeing the Canadian Postal Workers Union there is a bit of a surprise. My mother always said “You will be known by the company you keep”.
    Hopefully Santos wins in a landslide.

  12. ….but seeing the Canadian Postal Workers Union there is a bit of a surprise.
    Posted by: Ken (Kulak) at May 31, 2010 12:13 AM
    ——————–
    Your suprised?
    Hell the Canadian Postal Workers Union has been a nest of filthy,evil commies for DECADES.

  15. EBD
    On a different tangent…Good on ya for stepping up, I’m sure it means a big time commitment.
    Leonard Cohen is a piece of work in the same way Johnny Cash was. Iconic, brilliant and flawed. I much prefer his wordsmithing in “The Future” to the earlier hippy dippy stuff.
    Regarding BCF and the union/hizzy crowd. Document the event and employ the largest man you can find to operate the “boom mike”.
    Problem solved.
    Syncro

  17. Kate and you bird-dog fanciers will find this interesting. A few good dog and grouse photos…
    [Quote]NSTRA Trial. Cowboy Places 1st!
    Henefer Utah. We finally got it done. A first place finish. 05/17/2008. [/Quote]
    12voltman.wordpress.com/
    Utah Region NSTRA…WWW.NSTRA.org
    Nice dogs.. nice birds.

  18. allow me to introduce tony clement. conservative minister of, ummm, largess.
    3w.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/greg_weston/2010/05/28/14177201.html
    isnt this level of gubbamint spending the thing that gets ‘leftists’ on the hot seat?
    oh how selective is SDA when it comes to leftist vs rightoid.

  19. O’Islam’s “security officers”.
    Not seen in the MSM.
    …-
    “Standoff! Nation of Islam confronts Secret Service
    NEW YORK – Secret Service agents and security officers of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam engaged in what the White House called a “standoff” near President Barack Obama’s Chicago home last night.
    Obama, who is spending the holiday weekend in Chicago, decided to pay a visit to a friend, Marty Nesbitt, for an old-fashioned barbeque.
    Nesbitt, however, is a neighbor to the controversial Farrakhan, and that is when problems began.
    According to White House press pool reports obtained by WND, a group of reporters were staking out the Obama family and were holding on a city street in front of the Farrakhan mansion.
    At one point, the Secret Service allowed reporters off the van they were traveling in to get some fresh air.
    About a dozen journalists congregated on the sidewalk in front of the Farrakhan home, which quickly prompted a visit by a so-called “polite man,” who asked the group “to stay off the grass,” though the White House pooler insisted they were on city property.
    The Farrakhan agent eventually asked the accompanying Secret Service officer to “move the van and its occupants,” an interaction that soon escalated to a contest of machismo between Nation of Islam officers and the Secret Service.”
    http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=160417

  22. O confirms its F for failure.
    O’s “government has been in charge.”
    “We have been directing BP to take important steps,”.
    It’s O’s BP.
    BP is O’s failure = F = O’s BP.
    …-
    “White House Tries to Regroup as Criticism Mounts Over Leak”
    ““This is obviously a difficult situation,” Ms. Browner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “but it’s important for people to understand that from the beginning, the government has been in charge.”
    “We have been directing BP to take important steps,” including the drilling of a second relief well, she added.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/us/31spill.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

  23. Thanks, EBD. Another deep, beautiful, and mystical song by Leonard Cohen. He marries the sacred and the profane so seamlessly.
    (But, why do the women always have to be blondes?)

  24. Google actually has a small American flag with a yellow ribbon up on its site today, with the message “In honor of the soldiers who have given their lives for our country.” smalldeadanimals and its commenters have been justifiably critical of Google for not doing this sort of thing; it’s nice to see that Google, for whatever reason, is doing the right thing today.

  25. US Trying to Deport ‘Son of Hamas’ Who Exposed Terrorism
    Your only a terrorist if Obama says you are!
    by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
    The “Son of Hamas,” whose recent book reveals his path to Christianity and exposes Hamas terrorism and his role as a secret agent for Israel, says that U.S. Homeland Security wants to deport him on charges that he is a terrorist.
    Writing on his publisher’s blog

  26. batb, don’t take it personal. I know lots of great women, dark haired and blond.
    I would like to give a Veterans Day salute to our southern neighbours that frequent this site.

  30. Time to Juxtapose . ..
    So this morning the Activists in charge of the convoy to Gaza are explaining to CBC that they refused the Israeli offer to dock at an Israeli port and then have their “Humanitarian Aid” shipped to Gaza overland.
    They said they refused because Israel won’t allow cement and water purification equipment, a major part of their cargo, in to Gaza to rebuild the society shatterd by Israel in the last battles.
    Maybe CBC should actually do some Journalism, find out what is really going on in Gaza and ask the oh so progressive spokesperson about the recently opened Olympic sized pool, luxury hotels and five star restaurants
    http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001114.html

  31. Thank-you for the wild gypsy music of Leonard Cohen and for the links EBD. A few years ago, I bought an album of Lenard Cohen’s, mainly for his song “Closing Time”; the other songs on the album were so compelling that I listened to them all over and over again. The Liberano’s were in power in Ottawa then and every song mirrored their agenda. When the Liberanos were pried off of their nice comfy furs, the feeling of dread seemed lifted; then our friends and relatives of the South elected the Demos and B. Hussain Obama. The dread is back and the album is more relevant than it was in the Dark days of the Liberano regime.
    Leonard was never a dippy hippy, he always had the formidable intellect that kept him from heady zomby strumming and wailing. Leonard’s deep, gravel voice matched his intellect and made his songs commanding rather than ‘protesting’.
    BTW, this U-tube has not been edited, EBD, those people are smoking cigarettes!! Most of the fabulous older movies have been edited to cut out all the smoking scenes, thus making them difficult to follow. PC was not a dog to flog back in the days of Freedom of expression, many good conversations were held in very smoky places and the movies reflected that reality, cutting out the smoking scenes has made them (the old movies) seem choppy, stupid and amateur as the theme often depends on the edited out smoking scenes.

  32. Please read IN FULL the link from
    GaryInWpg at May 30, 2010 11:17 PM — the full story from the Acorn lady who defected — couldn’t look away any longer.
    http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/29/obama-acorn-and-stealth-socialism-dire-domestic-threat/
    THEN:
    ET, concede
    ET sycophants, concede, esp. The Phantom.
    It’s all there. Obama is a deeply ideological, true-believing SOCIALIST. And oh, if you don’t think he’s a SOCIALIST, that’s part of the propaganda game: you’re meant to not see him as a SOCIALIST. Stealth socialism, they call it.
    Dear Peggy Noonan:
    What is gawd’s name are you referring to when you decry Obama’s lack of competence!? He is EXTREMELY COMPETENT if you understand the project. The Alinsky-Cloward-Piven destruction of US capitalism.
    The long delay in attending to the BP oil spill is also part of this special competence.

  33. I feel so special. Vίt went out of his way to nuke my farewell post in yesterdays readers tips. Even though it was only an affirmation of someone else’s readers tip comment (who wasn’t nuke). Surprise surprise

  34. Today is Memorial Day in the US – a vital, important day.
    Obama chose to ignore Arlington and go ‘on vacation’ to friends in Chicago..for barbecue and beer. He was supposed to lay a wreath at a ceremony in Chicago today. But CANCELLED due to rain.
    Unbelievable. Was D-Day cancelled due to rain? Were military actions in Korea and Vietnam cancelled due to rain? Could the soldiers take time off if it rained or did they continue on, in rain, in snow, in heat…
    It’s a disgrace. Obama ought to have insisted that whatever the weather, he would continue the ceremony. Instead – he left.

  35. me no dhimmi – for heaven’s sake, please give up! Just be yourself and stick to your own opinion. There’s no need to insist that others accept your opinion. I don’t. That’s final.
    You say that Obama is, intellectually and ideologically, a socialist.
    I say that Obama has no intellectual or ideological capacities. None.
    He IS embedded, politically, with the socialist political group – but only because this ideology sets up a political system where an elite has all the authority and rules over the masses.
    Obama, psychologically, has to control people. His need is to control – and that, politically, is possible only in a socialist infrastructure. A Republican or Conservative system empowers the individual not an elite Ruler(s).
    So, again, I reject Obama as having any intellectual or ideological content to his personality. He’s intellectually empty. But, he has a psychological content, a need to rule and control others. You ignore this aspect of him.
    Look, I can dredge up links that support my viewpoint, just as you find links that support yours. So, we are at a dead end; how about allowing each of us to have our own opinion?
    I also reject your calling people who have the same opinion as I do of Obama – as ‘sycophants’. That’s insulting. Couldn’t it be the case that these people have a similar opinion because they have arrived at it through their own reasoning capabilities and have no need whatsoever to depend on my opinion?

  36. batb @7:04 – “(But, why do the women always have to be blondes?)”
    Alfred Hitchcock would explain this in more depth, if only he weren’t dead. Perhaps it’s simply that gentlemen prefer us.
    ET @2:30 – re. Memorial Day – it never ends with this guy. Someone somewhere on the intertubes wrote something early in this presidency about how we – those of us who are not Obama’s fans – must not cultivate an equivalent of Bush Derangement Syndrome, and I still absolutely agree with that. But it has truely gotten to the point where I have a hard time looking at him. Everything he does is wrong.

  37. Batb: the blonde woman in the Montreal apartment is Irving Layton’s girlfriend, not Leonard’s.
    Going from blonde hair to thin skin, here’s an excerpt from a Peter Wehner article at Politics Daily:
    “Obama is among the most thin-skinned presidents we have had, and we see evidence of it in every possible venue imaginable, from one-on-one interviews to press conferences, from extemporaneous remarks to set speeches.
    “The president is constantly complaining about what others are saying about him. He is upset at Fox News, and conservative talk radio, and Republicans, and people carrying unflattering posters of him. He gets upset when his avalanche of faulty facts are challenged, like on health care. He gets upset when he is called on his hypocrisy, on everything from breaking his promise not to hire lobbyists in the White House to broadcasting health care meetings on C-SPAN to not curtailing earmarks to failing in his promises of transparency and bipartisanship.
    “In Obama’s eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America’s virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness.”
    The whole thing here.

  39. Ah shucks, Black Mamba, that makes us brunettes-turned-white left out. You’re right; Hitchcock could probably shed some light on why they’re all blondes.
    Ken Kulack: “batb, don’t take it personal. I know lots of great women, dark haired and blond.” EBD: “… the blonde woman in the Montreal apartment is Irving Layton’s girlfriend, not Leonard’s.”
    I know that the blonde was Layton’s girlfriend, but it seems to me that Marianne (so long, Marianne, etc.) was a blonde too.
    http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/marianne2006.html
    But, why is it that older men’s girlfriends are nearly always blonde? It’s a cliche which seems to be based on fact. (BTW, this blonde wasn’t blonde at all; you can see that her roots are dark.)

  40. Is this OT? Only sort of (Vίtruvius might not allow it); but anyway, here goes: Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits are the two greatest lyricists in modern – say, post-’40s – popular music. Or just music, really. I mean, has anybody written any great Opera books since then? And you can stuff your Bob Dylan in a sack, mister.

  41. ET:
    I’ll give it up when you give it up OR when Kate asks me to give it up. I’m only responding to your bewildering claim, and will continue to do so. I don’t expect you to change your mind. You never do. You CAN’T.
    What nonsense: He IS embedded, politically, with the socialist political group embedded within …
    That’s pure gobbledygook.
    He’s a socialist; all of his pronouncements, all of his actions, including his appointments scream this. You’re over-intellectualizing and putting too much weight on his apparent lack of a socialist intellectual track record. But, as that long post makes clear, that’s the project: stealth socialism.
    Your argument is akin to your telling me I didn’t lose my car keys, because YOU didn’t see my car keys. NO. I don’t drive a car!
    Read that long post from the ex-Acorn lady. I DARE you. You won’t!
    Now, while it’s true that he, like the ex-Acorn lady, was groomed within Acorn and the socialist alliance put him in the presidency, this does not change the fact that he is a socialist, and was one when he entered this socialist organization and remains one today. In contrast, our ex-Acorn lady was a liberal who left when she could no longer “look away”.
    You keep looking for documentary evidence but as I keep telling you, the stealth socialist enterprise requires that this evidence be suppressed. Surely, you’ve noticed that nearly all his records have been suppressed. Why?

  42. “In Obama’s eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America’s virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness.”
    Quoted by EBD at May 31, 2010 4:20 PM
    A narcissistic marxist. A messianic marxist. A class warrior. A purveyor of marxist Black Liberation Theology. A marxist angel of vengeance. But, conceding, NOT a marxist “scholar”.

  43. Hey Kate, I can’t seem to post in the comment section of:Keep Things Peaceful
    FYI

  44. me no dhimmi – hey, that’s fun. Your ‘proof’ of someone being ‘X’ is that there is no proof. It’s ‘suppressed’, the man is ‘acting by stealth’..that’s why there’s no proof.
    How about Ockham’s Law of Simplicity? There’s no proof because such evidence doesn’t exist. End. I don’t think that pointing out the lack of evidence is ‘intellectualizing’. It’s called ‘being reasonable’.
    I could equally say about you that you ‘can’t change your mind’. But, unlike you, I’m not asking you to do so. I say – fine – stick with your view. But kindly allow me to have a different opinion! OK?
    I agree with EBD about Obama – a self-absorbed, thin-skinned narcissist with a focus only and always, on himself. As Controller of You.
    Fascinating how he insists he’s in control of the oil spill – and can’t do a thing about it, and does zilch, absolutely nothing, about the clean-up. Now – the clean-up is something he COULD do; but he does nothing. Just blames BP. Oh, and Bush.
    And the weather for his being unable to lay a wreath at Lincoln cemetary. Ahh.

  45. I agree with EBD about Obama – a self-absorbed, thin-skinned narcissist with a focus only and always, on himself. As Controller of You.
    – ET.
    Again, ET, I’m TOTALLY agree with the foregoing. But again, this in no way precludes his being a socialist.
    Well, you’ve got me on the various laws and such (I’m just an everyday schmuck), but I was referring to the specific content of that long and riveting post at Hot Air about Acorn containing actual QUOTES vis-a-vis the stealth socialism operation.
    And I’ve got to say it again: I consider the fact that you don’t see him as a socialist to be an outcome of the propaganda. That probably breaks some law too, eh?
    I must say, tho’, that you are not at all alone in this blindness. I’ve noticed that even among the conservative punditocracy there’s this strange reluctance to apply the patently obvious label.
    BTW, I had an awfully good chuckle watching Beck with O’Reilly. The latter argued that Obama had “tacked LEFT”. Translation: O’Reilly isn’t quite the FACTOR he fancies himself to be and finally sorta kinda partially GOT IT.
    Obama is a hard-left ideological socialist and has been since his youth. But no scholar, I concede!

  46. From the BP live ROV cam it looks like they are starting to cut the riser off.
    They are cutting some of the smaller pipes.

  47. me no dhimmi – what propaganda? I work only from the evidence of Obama’s actions and speeches.
    I had read that Hot Air Acorn outline before you mentioned it.
    What puzzles me is why you insist that others have the same opinion as you. If they do not, you consider them ‘brainwashed’ or ‘blind’. Hmmm. Sounds a bit like Obama who considers that people who don’t agree with him need ‘education’. heh.
    Nope; I stick to my opinion. You stick to yours. Notice that I don’t say that you are brainwashed or ‘blind’. I don’t need you to agree with me.
    You know, I suspect that Obama thought that the presidency would be like a campaign – being driven from cheering crowd to cheering crowd. No decisions, no having to meet up with leaders of other Powers who deeply disagree with him. Him!
    Imagine…someone disagreeing with him! Obama would be stunned, just stunned. Having to make decisions – heck, as Krauthammer said, he’s never so much as run a candy store. Obama is so out of touch, out of his level of incompetence…that all he can do is read the pap speeches written by speechwriters…and rant about ‘it’s not my fault’.

  48. I tried to pickup a lady, on a CN train once, in 1977.She looked as good as Laytons lady friend (twin maybe).
    Alas, she was not going for it.
    I was a bit drunk in the bar-car, and when I saw her meet her boyfriend in Ottawa, I figured out why my charm was not enough.
    He was a doctor……

  49. Obama whom the media coined the Messiah – must then be triune shouldn’t he? Islam (God the Father), Socialism (word that becomes flesh-his son) and Sociopath (the flesh or his spirit)- Just a thought
    Thank goodness he shares absolutely nothing in common with the real Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ his Son, and certainly not the Holy Ghost-heaven forbid.

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