In commemoration of this year’s summer solstice, tonight’s featured music comes in the form of a thoroughly summer-drenched song by American musician Jonathan Richman.
You can almost smell the lawn as he sings. Richman’s earnest, almost child-like narrative stands him in stark contrast to the prevalent faux-countercultural ‘tude that grasps for credibility through attachment to large-scale political concerns and the appropriation of the corporeal suffering of others. Richman’s unapologetic invocation of life as it was actually lived, by people who were neither impoverished nor troubled, approaches the level of poetry; when he recalls the salad days of this window in time, it’s an incantation, a palpable, almost limbic recreation of a feeling that is familiar to anyone who grew up in the suburbs in the post-war era.
The song is a celebration of the sights, sounds, and smells of summers past; even when he sounds a note of warning in the bridges that these memories of lost youthful freedom will become mildly tormenting with the passage of time, it only serves to redouble the bittersweet pleasures he conjures up. From the 1992 album I, Jonathan, here’s Massachusetts native Jonathan Richman summoning up That Summer Feeling.
Happy summer solstice, everybody!
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My apologies if this has been posted before, but this one is…kinda strange. Aviel Schneider, in “Israel Today”:
“‘The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim,’ said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV.
“That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term ‘Islamic extremism’ no longer be used in official government documents and statements. Furthermore, the US is now accusing Israel of harming American interests in the Middle East.”
Here’s another statement on the same matter by Avi Lipkin:
“…during the week of 14-18th of January 2010, just on the eve of my winter tour to the US, (my wife) picked up a Nile TV broadcast in which Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit said on the ‘Round Table Show’ that he had had a one on one meeting with Obama who swore to him that he was a Moslem, the son of a Moslem father and step-son of Moslem step-father, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Moslems, and that he was loyal to the Moslem agenda. He asked that the Moslem world show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic American problems (Healthcare), that he would show the Moslem world what he would do with Israel.”
Oops – forgot to add that both those links are via Atlas Shrugs.
I should like to add to our solstice celebrations, EBD: Art Pepper on sax, Russ Freeman on piano, Ben Tucker on bass, and Chuck Flores on drums, as The Art Pepper Quartet, performing George Gershwin‘s aria Summertime ¤ §, in 1957 (7:18).
Howie Carr at the Boston Globe:
“Criticizing Bush – the highest form of patriotism. Criticizing Obama – hate speech. Who caused Bush’s problems? – Bush. Who causes Obama’s problems? – Bush.”
“When Bush mispronounced a word (like nuclear) – more proof he is a complete cowboy moron. When Obama mispronounces a word (like corpsman) – how dare you even bring this up, racist?!”
“Cindy Sheehan under Bush – a future recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Sheehan under Obama – give it up already, you old bag.”
“Media reviews of Bush’s handling of Katrina – he hates black people. Media reviews of Obama’s handling of the oil spill – Halliburton did it.”
The rest here.
(h/t Betsy’s Page)
Sublime song choice, EBD.
The British are beginning to get the picture that Obama does not like them – an exert from the article – link below
…”Yet Obama has been insistent that it is ‘British Petroleum’ that is at fault and British Petroleum’s ass that, in his now notorious phrase, ‘he wants to kick’.
And kick it he has, with BP’s shares – in which one in every six pounds of British retirement funds is placed – plummeting as a result. The kick has had an effect, but it has also caused a rebound….”
…”Reaction to the President’s remarks in Britain has been one of sheer horror…
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/british-insults-/2010/06/21/id/362630
EBD @10:08 PM-
So much for his faux piety pronouncements of what his being a Christian means to him, (for domestic consumption), and this apparent deliberate (or inadvertant) subterfuge.
Wonder if his doctors have noticed the scales, the forked tongue, the slithering nature….. and prescribed Scurf-Be-Gone in order to cloak the reptilian nature of this creature?
Sadly, looks to be still working.
Obama and the War against Israel
If President Obama had been trying to undermine Israel’s security — and ours — he could hardly have done a better job.
By David Horowitz & Jacob Laksin
http://article.nationalreview.com/436460/obama-and-the-war-against-israel/david-horowitz-jacob-laksin
Not Richman’s polk salad days, I hope.
The sources for Obama’s supposed Moslem identity are not independent and strain credulity. Lipkin also thinks that “this president is ineligible to be president of the US because he was born in Kenya, not the US”, and claims that a U.S. sailor was given a loyalty test asking him, “What would you do if you were captain of this ship and ordered by Washington, DC to launch a nuclear strike at Tel-Aviv?”
Even if Gheit did make this claim, he also impeached his own credibility, because he would have violated the president’s confidence.
This is fun, fun, fun to watch on You Tube:
And He’ll Have Fun, Fun, Fun Until 2012 When We Take It All Away
The golf clips were from Martha’s Vineyard. The Connecticut women’s basketball team played with BHO. Surprise… He won! And the song is from the Beach Boys 🙂
What’s that saying, Ramon, that “circular arguments are effective because circular arguments are effective because cir…”?
You wrote: “The sources for Obama’s supposed Moslem identity are not independent…”
I must admit I don’t have a clue what the phrase “not independent” means, in the specific context of this story. One may certainly choose to doubt the veracity of the Egyptian Foreign Minister’s anecdote, but in the terms of the specific claim he made – for whatever it’s worth – in a televised broadcast, what does it mean to say that the source – or “sources,” as you put it, is (are) “not independent”?
Not independent of what, Ramon? The Republican party? Fox News? Did you mean that the statements Obama is alleged by the Egyptian Foreign Minister to have made in a private conversation have not been independently verified, or…(?)
George Will:
“Our Demosthenes seems to regard the rule of strategic reticence as irrelevant to him. The rule: Do not speak unless you can improve the silence. He did not do that with his Oval Office speech. In it, to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention the last 17 months, he discerned in the oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico a reason for a large and permanent increase in government taxation and supervision of American life on shore. The oil spill validates his passion for energy — or is it climate change? — legislation.
“The news about his speech is that it is no longer news that he often gives bad speeches. This one, however, was almost magnificently awful.
“The banality of his first sentence—’our nation faces a multitude of challenges’—was followed by trite war metaphors about ‘the battle’ against oil ‘assaulting’ our shores, for which ‘siege’ he has a ‘battle plan’…”
The rest here.
Sorry for being too cryptic.
Every search result that I checked eventually led back to one source: Israel Today. Avi Lipkin says that his wife heard Gheit on Nile TV say that Obama said (in confidence) that he is a Moslem.
Lipkin is inclined to collect unreliable information. The allegation seems tenuous at best.
I got ya, Ramon, thanks . The claim that the Egyptian Foreign Minister actually said that on Egyptian television hasn’t been independently verified. Fair point.
Barack Who?
Simon says: “an address given by a man who looked very much like he didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to continue. He appeared slumped and worn, as if he aged eighteen years in eighteen months. His demeanor was oddly distracted.”
O’narcissist*:
“These – the lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the constricted sense of humor, the unequal treatment and the paranoia – render the narcissist a social misfit.”
…-
“Does Barack Obama want to be president?
Ever since viewing his depressing and disconnected “energy” speech last week, I have been mulling whether Barack Obama actually wants to be president anymore. That was an address given by a man who looked very much like he didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to continue. He appeared slumped and worn, as if he aged eighteen years in eighteen months. His demeanor was oddly distracted.
I am not being metaphorical here — I am quite serious. The more I have thought about this, the more I am convinced Barack Obama no longer wishes to be president. The degree that he admits this to himself, I am not sure. But I rather suspect that in the small hours of the morning he fantasizes he were anywhere but 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And who could blame him? By almost any measure, he is doing a terrible job.
Of course, as we all know, Obama didn’t really expect to be president. This was to be a trial run. And then it took off. He ended up in the White House with virtually no experience that prepared him for the task. His superior intelligence was supposed to carry him through. Only intelligence — whatever his level — is just one component of leadership, and probably far from the largest one.
But the question here is not his qualifications. They are no longer particularly relevant. This is a beaten man, struggling to show he is not, even though everybody knows he is.
The media claque that put him in office is getting disaffected and now his party allies in Congress are beginning to disregard him, sometimes for the better. One of the early symbols of Obama’s disconnection was his remarkably unemotional reaction to the democracy demonstrators in Iran.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/06/21/does-barack-obama-want-to-be-president/
*O’narcissist:
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
Mao Stlong* ask, You wan Big Lie?
How many yuan?
…-
MSM’s Big Lie:
>>> “China’s move gives US symbolic victory
Globe and Mail”
The reality:
“MONEY MARKETS-Dollar funding costs climb as yuan bets fade Reuters”
…-
(* Hi! I’m Canadian “Liberal leader” Bob Rae’s Uncle Mo.)
Rob Anders, Conservative MP, has been vindicated*.
“Because their employer is treating them like slaves.”
“their employer” is the socialist State of Mandela.
…-
“Security Guards in South Africa
Labor Conditions Are ‘Almost Like Apartheid’
With World Cup security stewards complaining of poor working conditions and unpaid wages, a labor dispute threatens to overshadow the action on the pitch in South Africa. SPIEGEL spoke to union head Evan Abrahamse about the workers’ complaints.
SPIEGEL: Police fired a stun grenade and rubber bullets to disperse a demonstration of security stewards in Cape Town last Thursday. Why are those responsible for stadium security on strike?
Abrahamse: Because their employer is treating them like slaves. The company Stallion Security is not paying their wages in full. In some cases, they aren’t paid at all.
SPIEGEL: How much money are we talking about?
Abrahamse: Sometimes people are working more than 18 hours a day, for which they get 190 rand, about €20. They were promised much more. This is exploitation. It is almost like during apartheid.
SPIEGEL: Don’t the workers have contracts that stipulate what they are to be paid?
Abrahamse: Not explicitly. Most of the workers are day laborers who didn’t even read their contracts. Those are people who live in shacks. Almost every steward in Cape Town comes from Khayelitsha, the second largest township in the country. People here are desperately searching for work; they would have signed anything. Anything.
SPIEGEL: In Johannesburg and Durban stewards are also on strike because of appalling working conditions.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,701891,00.html
…-
*Rob Anders:
“CBC News – Canada – PM blasts MP for blocking Mandela honour *
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Should Nelson Mandela be made an honourary Canadian citizen? MP Rob Anders But it was other words later attributed to Anders that drew Chrétien’s ire.”
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2001/06/07/mandela_mp010607.html
I don’t think that Obama is ‘highly intelligent’; he has no curiosity about anything that doesn’t apply to himself as Himself; i.e., to his narcissistic need for control and his rejection of reality for a virtual realm in which he has complete control.
As for his ‘religion’ I doubt that he has one; his years with the Rev. Wright’s polemics were due to his wife’s support for that ‘church’.
Obama lives, interestingly, even though he is a narcissist, always within the protective domain of a dominant woman – whether it be his mother, grandmother or wife.
Note that he takes no decisions on his own – whether it be in foreign relations or internal domestic ones. Note also his constant reference to ‘experts’ who make these decisions for him. Once they are in place, then, he’ll say that he’s in charge but IF something goes wrong, he’s quick to blame those others and isolate himself.
That’s because his need is to control the impact of the external world on himself; one tactic is to refuse to make decisions because that suggests that he can predict the future reaction of the external world. Since he can’t do that, then Obama waits until the external world acts – and then – either ignores it or delegates the reaction to someone else.
Notice also how many people are moving away from him. It’s difficult living in two worlds! The virtual and the actual – and trying to deny the existence of the latter!
How’s that strict gun control workin’ out for you?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2415428,weekend-shooting-roundup-062110.article
O’s masque?:
…-
“Furious President Obama summons Gen. Stanley McChrystal to D.C.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38837.html
“*Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression.”
…-
*O’raging narcissist:
“The pacific mask crumbles when the narcissist has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, the prime sources of his narcissistic supply – have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, the narcissist strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. “The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)”, “they don’t really know what they are doing”, “following a rude awakening, they will revert to form”, etc.
When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail – the narcissist is injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized – is now discarded with contempt and hatred.”
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
Michaelle Jean will graduate to the next level of global elitism, courtesy of Professor Harper:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/ablle+Jean+lands+post/3186156/story.html
O&I bammed: The Harvard buddies flail/fluke.
O&I: off-key singers from the O’ily Cart Soap-Opera GlubGlub Club.
>>> Watch O’narcissist lopoff more cabbage heads in furioso tantrums.
…-
“Ignatieff promises BC oil tanker ban Vancouver Sun”
…-
“U.S. court blocks Obama ban on deepwater drilling”
“Feldman’s decision was a victory for big offshore energy producers like BP, Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell. Their operations have been hamstrung by the ban, and they are eyeing relocating their giant drilling rigs to other basins like Brazil.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/court+overturns+Obama+deepwater+drilling/3185340/story.html
Don’s Diary: Achtongue.
Sancho and Rosinante have returned from Der Tannenbaum Land.
Here is their report: Das Himmel.
…-
“Offshore Embarrassment
Shoddy Parts Trip Up Major North Sea Wind Farm
Unforeseen problems at the Alpha Ventus wind farm have lukewarm investors reevaluating the billions of euros they have invested in offshore wind energy.
Unforeseen problems at the Alpha Ventus wind farm have lukewarm investors reevaluating the billions of euros they have invested in offshore wind energy.
Germany’s first offshore wind park was dealt a blow with the failure of two turbines due to inferior materials. The rough patch has energy executives scurrying to reassure Berlin and banks scrutinizing their billions in offshore wind energy investments.
Less than two months after celebrating its opening, the Alpha Ventus test wind park in the North Sea is already running into problems. Intended to be the initial thrust in a plan that foresees dozens of new offshore wind parks off the German coast, shoddy building materials have caused two turbines to overheat and fail. An additional four turbines will need to be replaced.
Each of the struggling turbines was manufactured by the French firm Areva, which is responsible for half of the 12 turbines in the four-square-kilometer park (1.5 square miles), located about 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the island of Borkum.
Areva said Friday that overheating was unforeseen and “not sufficiently considered” from the outset. As a result, the company will invest in a facility in Bremerhaven to test its turbines under full-load capacity before sending them out to sea.
The turbines, which had only been in operation for eight months, will be replaced by late summer, according to Areva.
Major Players Concerned
The wind park’s operators, European energy giants E.on, EWE and Vattenfall, played down the incident in a hurriedly called crisis meeting at the Environment Ministry in Berlin. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, for his part, is an enthusiastic supporter of the wind park and described the opening of Alpha Ventus as the “best day” of his tenure.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,702130,00.html
EBD
Good article. Nicely researched.