Monday Reads: The Beat Goes On
Posted: December 23, 2013 Filed under: morning reads 65 Comments
Good Morning!
I’m going to continue with my own whims and fancies since this time of year always creates one big cultural, political, and historical vacuum. I use my winter break to renew myself and to tickle my fancy. The first man I really fell head over heels in love with introduced me to Jack Kerouac during my freshman year of university. He broke my heart but Kerouac became a muse. Then, came my husband who got me deep into Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Dizzy. I left him but that bebop jazz stayed right in my heart and under my fingers. The closer we got to those awful 80s, the more some of us craved that old time bohemian rebellion that started with the beat generation and lead to the hippies. I feel like that now. Can we please get a new groovy, snap worthy, punk generation to rebel against the republican status quo so I don’t have to wax nostalgic?
I’m going to start off with this article from The Guardian: “Greenwich Village: what remains of New York’s beat generation haunts?” This culture made me want to drop everything and move to New York like my cousin. Oh, Mary Bracken I am so sorry I didn’t follow you there when you offered to get me situated after high school graduation I could’ve lived the remnants of this as well as the birth of CBGB.
A few landmarks of those bygone bohemian days – most recently portrayed in the Coen brothers‘ film Inside Llewyn Davis, out on 24 January – still exist. The inspiration for the movie’s fictional anti-hero, Davis, was Brooklyn-born Dave Van Ronk, a real- life blues and folk singer with no small talent, who worked with performers such as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, but remained rooted in the village until he died in 2002, declining to leave it for any length of time and refusing to fly for many years. Van Ronk’s posthumously published memoir, the Mayor of MacDougal Street, takes its name from the street that was home to the Gaslight Cafe, and other early 60s folk clubs.
The Village stretches from the Hudson River Park east as far as Broadway, and from West Houston Street in the south up to West 14th Street.
Lots of folks want to save landmarks ethereal. Every one needs a place to go to get away from the pressures and the ugliness of modern 
corporate instigated culture. Why shouldn’t we save the places where elves and gnomes are said to live? Why shouldn’t we protect the “hidden folk” and their environs?
Elf advocates have joined forces with environmentalists to urge the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission and local authorities to abandon a highway project building a direct route from the Alftanes peninsula, where the president has a home, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer. They fear disturbing elf habitat and claim the area is particularly important because it contains an elf church.
The project has been halted until the Supreme Court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental and the cultural impact — including the impact on elves — of the road project. The group has regularly brought hundreds of people out to block the bulldozers.
And it’s not the first time issues about “Huldufolk,” Icelandic for “hidden folk,” have affected planning decisions.
They occur so often that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries, which states that “issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on.”
Scandinavian folklore is full of elves, trolls and other mythological characters. Most people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden haven’t taken them seriously since the 19th century, but elves are no joke to many in Iceland, population 320,000.
A survey conducted by the University of Iceland in 2007 found that 62 percent of the 1,000 respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist.
Today’s world brings on so many things that make you want to shake your head and slap folks right in the face. Why shouldn’t we indulge in a little fancy when these kinds of things pop up in today’s headlines? Women are not be incubators. But yet, the state of Texas, says yes they are!
On Nov. 26, Erick Munoz woke to the sound of his year-old son crying and found his 14-weeks-pregnant wife, Marlise, lying on the kitchen floor, blue in the face and without a pulse. A firefighter and paramedic, Munoz called 911 and performed CPR, to no avail. When they arrived at the John Peter Smith Hospital (JPS) in Fort Worth, Texas, he thought he would have to make an agonizing decision: refuse life support even though that meant losing both his wife and his future child. Munoz said in a WFAA News report that four years ago, when Marlise’s brother was killed in an accident, she told him that she would never want to be on life support — something they had discussed many times since.
A month later, against his requests, she is still on a ventilator. Not only does Munoz want to honor his wife’s wishes, but also he believes that the fetus she is carrying has been seriously harmed. “I don’t know how long she was there prior to me finding her,” he said. Munoz, who could not be reached for comment, wrote on WFAA’s Facebook page, “All I know is that she was without oxygen long enough for her to have massive brain swelling. I unfortunately know what that type of damage could do to a child during crucial developmental time.” Doctors say it’s likely that Munoz’s wife suffered a pulmonary embolism, and no longer has brain activity.
When Munoz first arrived at the hospital, he discovered that, according to Texas law, life-sustaining procedures may not be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant woman, — even if she has an advance health care directive (also called a living will) stipulating that she does not want to be kept alive on a machine. There are conflicting reports about whether Marlise Munoz had an official DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order), and the family could not be reached for comment. But according to them Center for Women Policy Studies, as of 2012, Texas and 11 other states have automatically invalidated pregnant women’s advance directives to refrain from using extraordinary measures to keep them alive, and others have slightly less restrictive but similar laws. A spokesperson from the hospital told Yahoo Shine, “Our responsibility is to be a good corporate citizen while also providing quality care for our patients. At all times, JPS will follow the law as it applies to healthcare in the state of Texas.”
Marlise Munoz’s mother and father say they support their son-in-law’s request to take their daughter off life support. “She absolutely DID NOT EVER want to be connected to Life Support,” her mother, Lynne Machado, wrote on WFAA’s Facebook page. “This issue is not about Pro Choice/Pro Life. Our intent is purely one of education about how this [statute] null and voids any woman’s DNR [if she is] pregnant. We know our daughter well enough, after numerous discussions about DNR, that she would NEVER EVER consent to being hooked up to Life Support.” While the family’s tragic situation hits a nerve in a state where abortion debates rage, Munoz also said he doesn’t want to participate in arguments
over right-to-life verses pro-choice issues, but instead wishes to honor his wife and inform the public about a little-known law. Marlise Munoz, at approximately 18 weeks pregnant, remains unresponsive and her husband describes her as “simply a shell.” Doctors check the fetal heartbeat daily, but Munoz doesn’t think the testing is sufficient to measure the fetus’s viability. “Its hard to reach the point where you would wish your wife’s body would stop,” he said.
Yes, there are many things that horrify about the way the right wing and religionists treats women.
We’ve compiled a few of the worst things said about women by TEApublicans in 2013 in the list below:
Rape exceptions for abortions aren’t necessary because pregnancies resulting from rape are rare.
Arizona GOP Rep. Trent Franks was the “brains” behind what was probably the most high-profile abortion restriction this year: a bill to ban all abortions in the U.S. at 20 weeks after conception. “The incidence of pregnancy resulting from rape are very low,” he claimed.
The ‘masturbating fetus.’
Yes, this really happened. While defending Franks’ 20-week abortion ban, Texas GOP-er Michael Burgess used a rather bizarre argument to claim that fetuses could feel pain at 20 weeks after conception, despite medical evidence to the contrary. “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he said. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. They feel pleasure. Why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?”
Having an abortion after rape is tampering with criminal evidence.
New Mexico GOP Rep. Cathrynn Brown caused a stir when she introduced a bill that defined aborting a pregnancy that resulted from rape as criminal evidence tampering — that should result in a 3-year prison sentence. The bill said that “procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”
Rape of an underage victim is understandable if a woman seems more mature than her age.
Montana Judge G. Todd Baugh received a huge backlash when he sentenced 54 year-old teacher Stacey Rambold to only 30 days in prison — after he was convicted of raping his 14-year-old student, Cherise Moralez. Justifying his sentence, Baugh said that the victim was “as much in control of the situation” because she was “older than her chronological age.” Moralez committed suicide during Rambold’s trial.
Transvaginal ultrasounds before abortions are a good idea.
Anti-abortion politicians in the Indiana Legislature pushed a bill that would force women who wanted to use an abortion pill to undergo two medically unnecessary ultrasounds — one before taking the pill, and one after. Responding to the backlash, Indiana Right to Life’s Sue Swayze said, “I got pregnant vaginally. Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me. So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”
One disgusting term: Rape insurance.
We saw a lot of bills that banned Obamacare from covering abortions this year. Nearly half of all statehouses pushed through some type of measure forcing women to purchase abortion coverage as a separate abortion-only policy, called a “rider.” Some of these laws did not include exceptions allowing insurance to cover abortions in the cases of rape or incest. Michigan’s Right to Life’s Barbara Listing didn’t see any problem with this: “It’s simply, like, nobody plans to have an accident in a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded. You have to buy extra insurance for those.”
It’s easier to believe in elves than to believe most of the things spewed by republicans and their right wing base. Still the media villagers take them seriously and report their lies as just another opinion.
Of all the falsehoods told about PresidentBarack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.
As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”
Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.
Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.
But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.
Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.
Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:
• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.
• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.
• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.
• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.
• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
So, my winter break starts and I want to celebrate rebellion, creativity, and wanton. I can’t wait for 12th night because that signals the end of Crass Consumerism and the pleasure of hedonism and the carnival season. I just want to give up all this sit com fantasy and grab on to something real for a change.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Kept “alive” as an incubator. (Shudder) And fetal heartbeat won’t tell you much about fetal brain activity. Let’s hope that unfortunate man isn’t presented with a brain-dead infant when his late wife “delivers.” These laws are truly cruel.
I wouldn’t want to be of child bearing age in one of these states. One of the reasons dr daughter didn’t want to practice in one either.
It would be horrible to be a clinician in a case like this. Several healthcare institutions in the area are now affiliated with a Catholic medical system. Once in a while a job comes up that looks interesting at one of their clinics, but then I realize the limits I’d have to practice under, and nope, no way do I want to work there.
I know that was a concern of my daughter when she was interviewing at Skagit … supposedly the state is making them keep their religion to themselves.
One of her partners is a gay man in a long term committed relationship with children. He left a hospital in Nashville to move up there to avoid a lot of the restrictions. He said the hospital there had a surgery room set aside for procedures the church frowned on and he used to call it the room god couldn’t see. He wanted to move some where his family would be recognized too. I think we should withhold government funds from facilities that don’t offer full services.
Yep. Our state’s attorney general came out with a written opinion that the public hospitals couldn’t start denying care after they “affiliated” with a religious health system.
Luna. Congratulations for having a sane attorney general. I’m green with envy.
That is the cruelest thing I’ve read/heard in a long time. These bassackward red states and their laws that defy reason are creating a heartbreaking and impossible circumstance for the husband and likely the baby, even if it survives.
When I was in grade school, many scores ago :-), my friends mother, who already had 3 children, had an Ectopic pregnancy and was admitted to the local Catholic hospital hemorrhaging. The hospital refused to do anything and her husband refused to transfer her to a hospital that might have intervened. Obviously she bled to death and of course their was no baby to save, but this is the direction these crazy asses want to take us.
Can you imagine the horror of being told that your mother was forced to give birth to you after she was brain dead?
Some states give pregnant women the same rights as other human beings, but a large number go the incubator route. You can read about state policies here: http://humanwithuterus.wordpress.com/2013/12/24/the-unprivileged-body-living-wills-are-not-for-incubators/
Thanks for that info.
I’m so glad I live in a blue state!
That is an awfully large list and a damned shame.
Reindeer eyes change color with the seasons!
That is really Kewl.
Andras Schiff on the radical right in his native Hungary, and the magic of playing great music:
More fun science trivia:
Magnificent finding.
Fox News is basically worse than the National Enquirer:
Top Ten Things Fox Decided Will Lead To The “Wussification of America” In 2013
Yoga in the schools! A disturbing plot! Bwahahahaha!
roflmao
Watching Fox is a disease!
Yesterday’s Astronomy Pic of the Day (which I am just checking today) is a composite photo which shows the sun’s positions throughout the year: a lovely figure-eight infinity symbol.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131222.html
Heh. Joe Fitzgibbon is the State congresscritter from my district, and the one who tweeted that Arizona is a “racist wasteland.” Apparently lots of people see nothing wrong with stopping and arresting people for driving while brown and related acts, and reacted with outrage to him. He’s since deleted his tweet and apologized.
Well, he was a tad petty in his over-reaction to a football game loss. But I’m proud to be represented by someone who’s so aware of Arizona’s bad record on civil rights and immigration issues. I’m going to email him a compliment.
You are lucky. My critter is liberal but never says or does much of anything.
Well, we are on the Left Coast 😉 Glad that your critter is at least a liberal.
I am in a district that they gerrymandered as a black district. That means we’re basically on our own in terms of the rest of the state.
It always pisses me off when liberals apologize for telling the truth, no matter if the language is a bit rough. Apologizing doesn’t help, it just makes you appear wrong and thus Cons never do it.
Agree, Ralph! And I’m pretty sure Joe’s going to get re-elected with a comfortable margin here.
Media in the US is the absolute worst! We’d be better off with Pravda.
Cheer up! They’re talking about replacing Dancing Dave and MTP with a sunday version of morning JOE with Joe … (ugh!!!) Hopefully, they just get rid of Dancing Dave and let Maddow take MTP
Dave is totally pathetic and has basically destroyed what I consider an American institution. They need to replace him with someone who takes the time to know the issues, inside and out. Dave does not. He’s totally unprepared and his guests constantly tell bare face lies with total impunity while Dave twiddles his whatever.
Rachel would devote her every waking hour to MTP and to the issues of the day.,No one would slide a lie or a misrepresentation past her, but they’ll never pick Rachel, she’s not the sort of host they want (man).
Frankly, I don’t think Dave is much worse than Tim Russert. He was a complete joke.
He sure was. A bad joke at that!
Maddow on MTP is too much to ask for I’m afraid.
This judge is just asking for further litigation and I’ll bet he gets it 🙂
Federal Judge: Ohio Must Recognize Gay Marriage On Death Certificates
The homophobes up the volume this weekend.
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/23/phil_robertson_and_mike_huckabee_double_down_on_homophobia/
The problem with the arguments from the right is how they’re trying to frame Robertson’s words as religious belief when there’s no way to take his words as anything other then what they are, hate speech. What he said to GQ about the Jim Crow south and L/G’s was bad enough, but what he said from the pulpit in 2010 concerning how gays “invent ways to do evil” is totally despicable, certainly not Christ-like and should be repugnant and rejected by anyone who calls themselves Christian or anyone who believes in truth.
But the good news is these rednecks are losing the culture wars, They lost AGAIN Today in Utah, tomorrow WHO KNOWS where they’ll lose.I promise, with the rapidly changing demographics of this country, these people are reaching the end of their influence and that why their so hysterical over Robertson. When I hear their gnashing of teeth and wailing as they lose one culture battle after another I’m reminded of this line by Sidney Poitier from “Guess who’s coming to dinner” as he tried to explain to his father his love for and decision to marry a white woman.
“You don’t know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight of you be off our backs!”
Goddam, where’s that rapture they keep waiting on?
That was excellent. I’ve used those scriptures many times over the years to make a case concerning “which do you obey and expect me to obey, and which do you ignore?” The truth is they always ignore those things that relate to their lifestyle and the absurd admonitions against shellfish, pork, clothing blends, planting, hats, clothes, hair, work, sacrifices, etc. Then there are the stories they pick & chose from concerning multiple wives, adultery, fornication, divorce, incest, etc. It’s amazing how many of those biblical hero’s were having sex with their daughters.
The bible from my perspective is filled with contradictions and for the most part a fairy tale, created by men to control men and women and to manipulate their behavior in a way that the behavior was financially lucrative to the hierarchy. Duh!!!!!
Those are hilarious! Sometimes I also use the shalls and shall nots in the bible to point out to hater-Xians how inconsistent they are with Teh Word of Gawd. If they’re not following some of these rules, doesn’t that open the door to the question of just how appropriate the rest of them are? They really hate it when you quote their own scripture back at them.
However, I’ve never yet had a discussion with a Rwingnutter where logic worked.
I’ve gotten email, telling me that God loves gays, but HATES the sin. Christians have all gathered in condemning the gays, and praising Phil Robertson.
Lev. 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it’s an abomination”
Lev. 20:13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their BLOODGUILTNESS is upon them”
1Cor.6:9-10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither, fornicators, nor idolaters, not adulterers, not effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves , nor the covetous, nor druckards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the Kingdom of God
Rom 1:26-28 “For this reason God gave them over to degradings passions, ……etc.
Don’t forget, we have friends and family who are gay, and we don’t hate them must be Cheney’s) we don’t make fun of the, we love them because that’s what God says. But we don’t like their lifestyles and the SIN. You are not a child of God, unless you have asked Phil for forgiveness (un.huh says Fannie). He’s coming, and I will keep praying for you. Just don’t you spread it, like we are the ones wrong.
This from the sister of Baptist Church down in Mississippi town
I had to remind those people about the Good old Rev. Edgar Ray Killen, when people shut up for 40 years and said nothing, afraid family names would come out, and it did. The old preacher man is sitting in a jail house, and I bet he cheering old stinky Phil Robertson on. And Huckaberry too.
They killed those civil rights workers, and probably plenty more blacks that we’ll never find out about. They burned down the churches, they killed those baby girls in the church in Alabama too. Does Phil Robertson, and my friends and family think we ought not talk about Philadelphia, Mississippi. And all the damn lynching done in the name of the Bible.
So when they voice their support of Phil, they also support Edgar Ray Killen who not only preached it, he took action, and encourage the entire damn community to do so. The church needs to stop protecting those who hate and call for destruction.
Fannie. This drives me nuts. The selective use of obscure bible verses is appalling. Tell her you better not catch her eating shellfish, pork, or wearing mixed blend clothes.
Okay, I think that that whole duck dynasty thing (as far as the comments about the blacks being happy and singing) I realized he was quoting from Blazing Saddles:
You got it JJ.
Roy Edroso in The Village Voice: Rightbloggers Prove They’re No Sissies By Supporting Duck Dynasty, Beating Up Pajama Boy
Look, what does Rand Paul think he is doing? Rand Paul Airs His Anti-DC Grievances in Honor of Festivus | Mediaite
closet atheist? hmmmm?
Girl Reports Rape, Gets Expelled http://thebea.st/JZIRmH #cheatsheet
I read the original NBC story and it’s even worse than it sounds. And it happened in Texas of course!
Well, that’ll solve the problem of rapes at that institution.
Sadistic brutes. My heart goes out to that girl for being so courageous to report the crime in the first place.
Dean Baker swats MTP hard. 🙂
Meet the Press Is Incredibly Painful
US schools attempted to ban 49 books in 2013 http://ift.tt/J9ziRy
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Christmas_In_Two_Nations_Part_One?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_36541895
We’ve been two nations for an awfully long time. Maybe someday enough of us will get together and fix that.
I didn’t know David Gregory was Jewish. Technically, he’s not. Apparently his father was Jewish but his mother wasn’t. But he was raised in his father’s religion.
I always like that part about Judaism — that you could be Jewish with only one Jewish parent, as long as that parent was your mother.
Guess they know who really counts 😉
Luna,
Did you see my replies to you on yesterday’s thread–about Ketamine addiction?
No, let me go catch up…..
And I am late catching up again as it is, apologies.
No problem. I posted really late.
According to the Great Orange Satan today, the actual number of people covered by the ACA is around 8 million to date.
– 3.9 million covered by the Medicaid expansion (would likely be double that but for dumb GOP governors).
– 3.1 million young adults added as covered dependents on their parents’ policies.
– 1 million plus who have signed up for new policies.
Nitpicking, that’s not even close to accurate. The number of people covered is closer to 350M, since the ACA is about more than a website.
– Every American is covered by the ban on lifetime caps.
– Every American is covered by the ban on pre-existing conditions.
– Every American is covered by the loss ratio.
That’s more like it.
I love the elf story, Dak!!!
Me too!
http://www.upworthy.com/a-dude-trying-to-ban-abortions-is-asked-a-question-he-never-considered-its-so-obvious-it-hurts-8?c=ufb1
Unbelievable … interview by AJ but this quick clip comes from Maddow