In Case You Didn't See It

Here's Fox News on a serious song written quite successfully in the "genre" of "HeeHaw."



I'm not sure what one would think the guy attacking Carrey and the song/video is talking about. Certainly he isn't addressing Carrey's tweet, which begins the video and the Fox segment. Tossing Heston's long past support of the Civil Rights Movement into the mix is something of a misdirection, and obviously if one's past triumphs were a carte blanche into the club of privilege, Fox would have been beating Rush Limbaugh about the head and shoulders for some decades for Limbaugh's incessant ridicule of Jesse Jackson.

The gun debate is a simple thing. America is suffering horrors as an obvious consequence of the fact that America is awash with firearms, including firearms designed to kill humans by the score in a matter of seconds--and that's a literal description of what large magazines offer as a capability. Last December twenty little children were slaughtered in less than 5 minutes. Large majorities of Americans, including American voters, are appalled. They want alterations made in the system of how guns are distributed among us.

The NRA has offered a patent absurdity as a "solution." It is, simply: "we need more guns." This absurdity is actually being accepted by many in government, at both the state and federal levels. In NC today, for example, our Governor has formed a committee to study whether schools need more armed personnel. At least they're "studying" it. In Congress, meanwhile, five of the most "conservative" Republican Senators (where we might perhaps read "conservative" as a synonym for "bought and paid for by the weapons industry") have now said they will attempt to filibuster any legislation aiming to address the obvious problem. Moreover, the legislation that most obviously addresses the problem we have--legislation restoring the assault weapons ban and strengthening it by crafting a more inclusive definition of "assault weapon," and legislation outlawing large magazines--is not even in the proposed bill that the "conservatives" promise to filibuster. The weapons legislation currently being considered, as I understand it, has now been reduced to a broadening of background checks. That's it.

The NRA, and it's paid subsidiary Fox News, clearly feels that any effort to deal with the endless slaughter is a threat to their unfettered market. Instead of addressing what is now as plain as day, they strive to press the divisions in the country, the fears that go bump in the night, the George Zimmerman point of view. And if someone with the wit of a Jim Carrey crafts a spoof song that gets to the heart of the matter, well he's going to pay. At least on Fox.

Here's the lyrics to "Cold Dead Hand."




Cold Dead Hand (c) Jim Carrey, 2013

Some folks ride like the wind
With the whispering pines to guide them
And the burning light inside them
Keeps them warm in the snow

Others fear the sounds they hear
Make bandito's out of mole-hills
Fill their hearts with porcupine quills
They’re dead and buried long before they go

Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand
His immortal soul my lay forever in the sand
The angels wouldn’t take him up to heaven like he planned
‘Cause they couldn’t pry that gun from his cold dead hand

It takes a cold dead hand to decide to pull the trigger
It takes a cold dead heart and as near as I can figure
With your cold dead aim you’re trying to prove your dick is bigger
But we know your chariot may not be swinging low

Cold dead hand - cold dead hand
Cold dead hand - cold dead hand
You’re a big big man with an little bitty gland
So you need something bigger just to fill
Your cold dead hand

Imagine if the lord were here
And he knew what you’ve been thinkin’
Would his sacred heart be sinkin’
Into the canyon of dismay

And on the ones who sell the guns
He’d sick the vultures and coyotes
Only the devil’s true devotees
Could profiteer from pain and fear

Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand
His immortal soul my lay forever in the sand
The angels wouldn’t take him up to heaven like he planned
‘Cause they couldn’t pry that gun from his cold dead hand

It takes a cold dead hand to decide to pull the trigger
It takes a cold dead heart and as near as I can figure
With your cold dead aim you’re trying to prove your junk is bigger
But we know your chariot may not be swinging low

Cold dead hand - cold dead hand
Cold dead hand - cold dead hand
Cold dead hand - cold dead hand
You’re a big big man with an little bitty gland
So you need something bigger with a hair-pin trigger
You don’t want to get caught with your trousers down
When the psycho killer comes around
So you make your home like a thunderdome
And you’re always packin’ everywhere you roam
But the psycho’s win no matter what you do
‘Cause they’re gonna buy way more guns than you

And while you’re stumbling out of bed
They put five rounds in the back of your head
Or you get depressed ‘cause the money runs out
Then you put your own shotgun in your mouth
And your kids walk in and they find you there
Like a headless stump in your underwear
And they move the gun and it kills them too
And your wife just doesn’t know what to do
But she takes a hand grenade from her shoe
And she pulls the pin...

And it’s all on you
And your cold dead hand

performance link:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey?playlist=featured_videos

Pretty goddam on the money I'd say. Carrey's brief response to the Fox tirade is nice too. You can find it here:

http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2013/03/jim-carrey-blasts-fox-news-for-irresponsible-buffoonery-and-being-a-media-colostomy-bag.html

Hat tip to Digby for the post that initially caught my eye.

In the Meantime

I watched "Winter's Bone" last night. I might work up a review on it, as it is a very fine film, plus it has appearances by the wonderful musicians Jim and Kim Lansford, who live more or less where the story happens. However, this morning I ran into this piece, via Digby. I thought I should put this link up--it should be as available as possible:

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2013/03/double-failure.html

It has been a good thing, this 10th Anniversary of our Iraq Adventure. I've put up some excellent links in pieces below. We should all read the Juan Cole link, and more than once. All of Charles Pierce's commentary last week was wonderful to read. Perhaps the most worrisome thing to contemplate in the long, terrible string of decisions which led the United States to attack another country for essentially reasons of propaganda and possibly private venality, is this: the United States is quite obviously vulnerable to being "flipped" like a tiddlywink by actions which should never have such a capability.

An asteroid did not hit New York City on 9/11/01. The power did not go off. A gigantic blizzard did not freeze the oceans. But 19 guys with box cutters and improvised weapons at hand did manage to get two wars started, one of which still continues. The whole path of the United States was altered. People said, seriously, that the world had changed fundamentally. Because they were powerful people, it did, even if not in the way they imagined at the time.

If the press is going to rethink what its role was and is in such events, it really ought to start with the in-depth questions. The reason why response to 9/11 should have been a police action was fundamentally that such a response is what is appropriate to a vandalism. Our actual response elevated everything. 9/11 became Pearl Harbor II. But in fact, 9/11 exposed our vulnerabilities, and our response exposed them even further, and our current political insanities, yet again and further still.

If there are any serious geopolitical dangers at the moment, we should be very concerned indeed for the fate of our country and our democracy.

Saturday Update. This is how "news" comes to all of us sometimes. Day after Libby and I watched "Winter's Bone," and before I'd gotten a chance to drop Jim and Kin Lansford an email about how happy I was for them to have gotten that bit of recognition in a celebrated movie, the "Old Time Herald" magazine arrives in my mail box and informs me that Jim passed away last October, from cancer. In the rooms the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Spring arrives, and the beeches, which dot my woods, still grip their last years leaves, now a pale tan-gold, and the last reminder of the old year. Next week there will be green shoots, and red bud, and the maples will bring forth their buds high in the canopy.

Quite a long time back now, I wrote a dumb review in the Herald of Jim and Kim's first CD. He wrote me a very gracious letter about it, and I apologized, and later we became friends sharing a week at the Augusta Workshops up in Elkins, WV. Jim and Kim made a number of very strong CDs, which feature excellent pickin' and real good harmony singing. Kim's got a great voice. Jim could play all the traditional instruments, and well. Here they are, just two years ago:



The two of them ran a farm in southwest Missouri, near Galena. They raised sheep I think it was. They made the hard effort to live by their lights, and succeeded, as I hope Kim is continuing to do, dealing with her grief. They made a sweet couple, and Libby and I will always be sorry we didn't get out there to their farm for a visit. If you want to buy some of their excellent music, here's a good way to do it:

http://www.kimandjim.com/music.htm

You might want to go find Gary Snyder's "Dodger Point Lookout" and give it a read too.

My Senior Class President

(Where Jim and I went to high school--I was the editor of the "Latipac", which is "Capital" spelled backwards, and a stroke of '30s genius no doubt by some callow youth of the depression era. Jim was class president, and the late Bill Weems was President of the Student Body.)

I've written here:

http://fiddlerbill.blogspot.com/2012/12/dix-hill-jesse-helms-zombie.html

about the efforts to turn an ancient insane asylum's grounds in Raleigh to new use, as in part a city park in an area rapidly losing the possibility of such an entity. Our last governor, Beverly Perdue, actually set up a lease with the City of Raleigh to develop this property as a park, over the next several decades. The lease was viewed as public spirited and having a long view--something which is usually a complement.

As soon as Governor McCrory arrived, along with an all Republican majority legislature, the new "public servants" set about doing what they could to change things. Much like developments in Wisconsin over the past few years, every day here in NC brings a new surprise. Most of them appalling.

More recently the Republican majority has chosen to bring to the general assembly a vote to void the lease signed by North Carolina and various Raleigh entities only a few months ago. My Senior Class President, Needham Broughton High School, '61, Mr. Jim Goodmon, appeared before the appropriate Senate body yesterday to have a say. I should say, by the way, that Mr. Goodmon is president of WRAL-TV (Capital Broadcasting), which was Jesse Helms' home base back in the '60s, before he became a national figure. Generally, Mr. Goodmon has spent his life supporting very sensible projects which reflect well on the Research Triangle area. But he is I'm pretty sure a life-long Republican, and holds views about capitalism and business which are far to the right of this writer's.

Whatever. His remarks yesterday are absolutely correct, and should be a wake up call to any remaining Republicans who are not in the thrall of the anarchist nonsense which has mostly taken over the GOP and threatens to wreck the United States. I offer you the account, as I found it, on the WRAL website:

http://www.wral.com/dix-bill-debate-angers-apodaca/12252260/

Mr. Apodaca's immediate resort to faux victimhood is a tell of the depths to which Republicanism has lately fallen. I really don't know who the hell elects these people. Cudos to Mr. Goodmon. Onwards and upwards. Dare I suggest that your Grand Old Party has left you and intelligent people of any persuasion quite far, far behind.

Here's the idea behind the proposed park:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/12/22/2560084/the-way-they-lived-on-dix-hill.html

Shocking, simply shocking I know. The implication is, there is such a thing as "general good." These Randians say "balderdash" to such notions. After they quash the Dix Hill Park, it's on to drilling for oil and gas off the Outer Banks. I'm actually surprised that they don't cut to the chase and sell off the National Seashore--most of the Outer Banks is a National Park, and another shining example of what, for Republicans these days, is a chimera--"a public good." No doubt Mr. Romney and others of his "class" can afford to build impermeable mansions out along the banks, and who more deserving than the "job creators" to enjoy the cavalcade of seasons as expressed in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Meanwhile, as Mr. Goodmom correctly pointed out to Mr. Apodaca, it used to be that Republicans valued the principle of standing by one's word, as in a contract. It was the radicals, the Hugo Chavezes, the Castros, the Lenins, who tore up signed agreements with magnates, corporations, and other governments when the mood suited. North Carolina signed a lease. Now, under "new management," they tear it up. Why then, would any business choose to work again with North Carolina? If this isn't a Republican principle, what is? Mr. Apodaca's response,"Hey look, pants on fire," speaks legion.

I guess here in NC, as in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and other places, we'll soon find out what the new regime intends. Maybe they'll work on a principle of odd/even days.

Damn Straight, Mr. Pierce

All week Charles Pierce has written post after post concerning the vile people who started a war on a misbegotten theory back in 2003. Here's his post of today, but they're all worth remembering, passing around, reading over again, etc. Thank you Mr. Pierce.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/More_Sorry_People

Mr Yoo's analysis, captured therein. Wow, just wow. The legal mind.

Here, in contrast to Mr. Yoo, is some boots on the ground perspective:

http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/continue-because-sheemary.html

Mr. Pierce's remarks on Richard Perle and the rest of the apologists-sans-apology are perhaps too kind. It's more like Henry Adams said about R. E. Lee. "We should have hung him." It says a lot about where we are that such a proposal didn't even come up.