American Leftist posts on the ongoing struggle over tuition hikes in the University of California system. (As previously covered on Dangerous Minds here.)

Last November, I posted about the protests that erupted within the UC system over registration fee increases of 30%. Police struck students with batons and tasered them during protests during the regents meeting in Los Angeles where the fee increase was approved on a bipartisan basis. Students thereafter barricaded themselves within buildings at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis. As students occupied Wheeler Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley for approximately 15 hours, a large crowd of students, UC staff and the public generally rallied in their support, and prevented their forcible, potentially violent arrest, by UC police.

The protesters positioned themselves within the social framework of opposition to the imposition of neoliberal policies within California, policies that result in incomprehensible increases in salary and benefits for people like UC President Mark Yudof and the newly hired Chancellor of UC Davis, Linda Katehi, while classes are cut, class sizes increased and students required to pay substantial increases in fees during one of the worst recessions in US history. Meanwhile, rank and file state workers experience 15% pay cuts, while judges complain about the closure of the courtrooms one day a week. In California, the more you make in the public sector, the more immune you are from participating in the sacrifice being imposed by the Governor and the Legislature.

Now, the students are back… having performed significant outreach into the community, especially in the East Bay. Not surprisingly, the faculty at UC Berkeley, as it was during the occupation of Wheeler Hall, is scared the protesters will take control of the movement away from enlightened minds like them.

(American Leftist: Fear of an Anarchist Planet)

 
A prank phone call made by British author and comedian Robert Popper apparently fooled a few of the British dailies, including The Telegraph, The Sun and (sort of) The Financial Times. Popper, who makes crank calls and puts them on his website, called talk radio station LBC and pretended to be a woman who had seen Gordon Brown throw a tangerine into a laminating machine during a temper tantrum. The hoax was reported as true in The Telegraph and The Sun. The Financial Times also published a blog post on their website, stating that the call was probably a hoax and have since issued a follow-up confirming this.

Here’s an abridged version of what happened, written by Popper himself on the BBC Comedy blog:

Last Monday I decided to do one of my silly and—admittedly—childish phone calls under the guise of my Timewaster Letters character, Robin Cooper.

So I switched on LBC (a London talk radio station) where the topic was Gordon Brown’s alleged bad temper. I called up and got through almost instantly. “What do you want to talk about?” asked the LBC operator. Without time to think I replied, “Gordon Brown visited my place of work and lost his temper right in front of me.” Very soon I was on air, explaining how Gordon Brown had toured my workshop - a “lamination factory”—and thrown a tangerine into one of the machines, breaking it, before calling a member of staff a “citric idiot.”  It was all I could think of at the time. A load of nonsense. But I was quite proud of the phrase, “citric idiot.”

Anyway, skip forward to Friday night. It’s midnight. I’m lying in bed when I get a message on twitter that the tangerine story had been mentioned on BBC Two’s The Bubble. I clicked on iPlayer and fourteen minutes in, I see the brilliant David Mitchell telling his guests that Gordon Brown had allegedly thrown a tangerine into a lamination machine. 

What?! I immediately stuck my phone call up on my site (I’d animated it with my crap drawings), mentioning how it had been picked up on The Bubble. Very soon someone tweeted saying that they’d read about the tangerine incident in the Financial Times. And there was a link! Within seconds, someone else added that it had been in The Telegraph, with the headline: “Gordon Brown accused of throwing a tangerine.” The article went on to say, “One of the factory workers told The Sun Mr. Brown became angry and threw a tangerine he was holding into a laminating machine.”

But my favorite part was when a Hong Kong news agency, which had previously, and bizarrely, animated various incidents of the Brown bullying story, animated my story as well. There it was in black and orange: a sort of man throwing a tangerine into a machine. I laughed so hard, I almost puked my lungs onto my legs. To think that 6000 miles away, a news director in a Hong Kong office had actually instructed one of his animators to show the British Prime Minister throwing a tangerine into a lamination machine. Did the animator have to google ‘lamination machines’ for reference? Actually, the tangerine and the machine looked pretty good, but the factory resembled a sort of over-sized torture chamber.

Popper goes on to write that only the Financial Times was suspicious of the prank, but added “[...] to The Sun and The Telegraph, I just want to let you know that I have another amazing story of the time David Cameron visited the very same factory, and threw a carton of milk into the very same machine, before calling the very same factory worker a “lactic imbecile.”
 

 
Via Xeni Jardin/Boing Boing; cross posting this from Brand X

I’m not sure I can properly parse this bit of news from Arthur.

Apparently Dick Cheney took the stage at CPAC to the tune of Howlin’ Rain’s song “Dancers at the End of Time,” a tribute, of course, to the Michael Moorcock book of the same name.

What in the… well, I suppose he’s laughing at all of us, isn’t he? SOMEBODY is. SOMEWHERE.

(Arthur: Dick Cheney, Dancer at the End of Time)

(The Dancers at the End of Time (S.F.Masterworks))

 
Imagine how hard it would be to get out of bed in the morning if you knew that over half of the people who knew you thought you were an embarrassment? Imagine now that you are a politician with that kind of affection out there for you. Would you bury your head in shame like a normal person? If you’re Rep. Michelle Bachmann, probably the stupidest person to currently hold elected office in America today—and that’s really saying something—you double down!

A new survey of Minnesotans shows that a majority of residents — 56 percent — are embarrassed by Rep. Michele Bachmann. The release of the survey, commissioned by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and Credo Action, follows recent high-profile statements by Bachmann that she believes President Barack Obama wants to “annihilate” conservatives, that the U.S. faces a “curse” – and extinction — if it fails to support Israel, and that government must “wean” Americans off of social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The Bachmann survey results, released exclusively to the Minnesota Independent, measure responses to the question, “Do you think Congresswoman Michele Bachmann does Minnesota proud in Congress or embarrasses Minnesota?” While 56 percent of respondents statewide said they were embarrassed by Bachmann, 29 percent answered that they were “proud” of the Sixth Congressional District Republican, and 15 percent were “not sure.”

Predictably, 87 percent of Democrats polled said they were embarrassed, while only 12 percent of Republicans agreed (58 pecent of Republican respondents said they were proud of Bachmann).

Poll: Majority of Minnesotans ‘embarrassed’ by Bachmann (The Minnesota Independent)

“Hey guys, what’s happening? No more manned space fights. Hope you’re cool with that. K thx bye.”

Astronauts flying in space are used to VIP phone calls that don’t always go as scripted, but Wednesday’s conversation was probably one of the most awkward.

President Barack Obama used his chat with the crews of the space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station to declare that he sees space exploration as “so important.”

“My commitment to NASA is unwavering,” Obama said. He emphasized “how proud we are of you ... and how committed we are to continuing human space exploration in the future.”

A few weeks ago, the White House unveiled a plan to cancel NASA’s new spaceship, its two new rockets and the NASA program, now five years in the making, to return astronauts to the moon. Though Obama also wants to add an extra $6 billion to NASA’s budget over the next five years, his proposal has thrown much of the space agency into turmoil.

None of the 11 astronauts was rash enough to bring up the outrage felt by many of their colleagues, but they were more candid during media interviews they gave earlier in their mission.

(NYT: Obama’s Awkward Call)

 
“Impeach Obama: America’s Small Businesses Are Failing; Help Us Spread The Message.”  And the billboard shenanigans continue.  The above Wisconsin road sign will stay there for 6 months at the cost of $1,000 per month, and was paid for by a “company supported by number of area businessmen concerned about tax and spend politics.”  Tom Wroblewski, a lawyer for the company (whose identity he naturally wishes to protect), is quick to point out that, “the billboard is not meant to allege any impeachable offense has been committed, it’s nothing personal.”

Bonus recipe for despair: read sign, contemplate this, repeat. 

(via Alternet)

Author Howard Bloom on giving America a vision transplant now that our old one has crashed.

The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 could be a turning point in history. It could be the event that shocks us into a new vision of ourselves, our past, our future, our mission, and our destiny. Or it could be the prelude to a long decline. Will that turning point be for better or for worse? Will it be a new beginning, a new opportunity to see what we’ve achieve with brand new eyes and to build on our foundations brilliantly? Or will it be the end? The beginning of the Chinese Century?

The answer depends on something that may sound totally irrelevant. Our perceptions. Our view of things. Without a vision a people will perish, says Proverbs. Why? Because a vision of a goal, a destination, a promised land, a view of a destiny that can uplift all of human kind, opens a vast reserve of energies. Not the energies that come from solar panels, wind farms, nuclear plants, coal, or oil. The energies of the human spirit. The energies of your spirit and mine.

Energies? Surely that’s just an idle metaphor, sloppy motivational rhetoric, fluffy feel-good poetry. Right? Wrong. The energies I’m talking about are a matter of biology.

(Howard Bloom: Giving America a Vision Implant)

(The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism)

 
Newsweek’s Daniel Stone weighs in on Sarah Palin’s potential as a presidential candidate in 2012 after this weekend’s Tea party convention speech. I certainly hope he’s right:

But business is business and politics is politics. Was tonight’s speech helpful to building her appeal as a candidate? Hundreds who adore her streamed out of the ballroom with giggles, convinced that Sarah would be their gal in 2012. But the U.S. electorate, stubborn as it is, would disagree. Elections are won and lost in the middle, not on the extremes. Palin’s fiery rebuke of Washington certainly firmed her base, but it did little to widen her appeal to moderates and independents, two groups without which she’d have a real tough time passing the threshold of electoral votes. (At one point, she even mocked the majority of voters who voted for President Obama, asking them “How’s that hopey changey thing was working for you now?”)

Which is to say that electorally speaking, tonight’s speech may have been a self-inflicted wound for Palin, offering ammo to opponents to argue that she’s simply too far right and too niche to win widespread support for national office. Speeches like this make the people who love Palin love her even more, and the people who don’t ever more certain why they don’t. In other words, Palin further polarized herself to the American public.

That may have been the point. With tonight’s speech, Palin cemented her role as the de facto head of the Tea Party movement. But in a bigger sense, as the fearless warrior leading conservatives into battle in November and beyond. That might be where she’s most effective (and undoubtedly where the pay is best). Because at this point, it’s increasingly unlikely that Palin will seek national office. Until now, the Palin guessing game has focused on whether she’s running. On her current course, she simply wouldn’t be able to win.

 
Why Sarah Palin Can’t Run for President (Newsweek)

 
Charles Johnson posted this today over at Little Green Footballs, I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing it here:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said today that there is no difference in beliefs between the GOP and tea partiers.

“There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the tea party activists believe in,” Boehner said during an appearance on the conservative Mike Gallagher’s radio show.

Boehner said his advice to Republican lawmakers going into this fall’s elections has been to “prove it to the tea party activists that we really are who we say we are.”

If you take Boehner at his word, then, here are some of the things Republicans believe in.

“I’m feeling good about America.” No, not me, those are the lyrics to the jingle in this 1976 vintage Gerald Ford TV commercial. Can you imagine a major presidential campaign doing anything even remotely like this today?

Bonus clip: Pearl Bailey tries to explain, but never quite articulates, why she thinks people should vote for Gerald Ford. In the end, she settles for she likes him, so should you:

See more political TV commercials of olde at The Living Room Candidate. Thank you Timothy Stanley!

 
Sad to hear this:

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist “A People’s History of the United States” became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favourite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California, daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Massachusetts.

Howard Zinn, author of ‘People’s History’ and left-wing historian, dies at 87 in California

 
Fairly reported article on the brief history of the so-called Tea Party movement, from the New Yorker:

Consider our peculiar political situation at the end of this first decade of the new century. An African-American Democrat is elected President, following the collapse of the two great symbols of postwar prosperity, Detroit and Wall Street. Seizing on the erosion of public trust in ?ɬ

Right on the back of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brilliant plan to outsource California’s inmates to Mexico comes this field poll demonstrating that California’s citizens consider him a failure as a governor. Don’t worry, Arnold, history will remember you for your film work. Like that star turn as Mr. Freeze.

Nearly six in ten statewide voters believes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will leave the state in worse shape than when he first took office in 2003, according to the latest Field Poll. Given the Golden State’s robust unemployment and intractable budget politics, the results aren’t all that surprising.

But taken in light of Schwarzenegger’s brash, braggart campaign against then Gov. Gray Davis, the numbers comprise a huge “fail” for a man who once said he would settle the state’s debt and stop it’s deficit spending. In his first “state of the state” address, Schwarzenegger said, “Never again will government be allowed to spend money it doesn’t have. Never again will the state be allowed to borrow money to pay for its operating expenses.”

After six successive years of deficit spending much greater than that under Davis’ watch, California is facing another $20 billion budget gap for 2010, with $72 billion in debt that has has inspired the lowest credit rating of any state.

Of course, it’s not all Schwarzenegger’s fault. A Democratically controlled legislature with more sacred-cows than exist in India hasn’t really helped much. But more than that, California’s initiative process has tied the hands of leadership when it comes to huge chunks of state spending while limiting property taxes via Prop. 13. The housing crash has exacerbated the state’s cash flow problems.

At the same time, while once calling state Democrats “girly men” and pointing to the ineffectiveness of Davis, Schwarzenegger has repeatedly promised to change all that—and he has repeatedly failed.

And so, the Field Poll revealed over the weekend that the governor is enjoying a 27 percent approval rating, a tie with his previous low. At the same time, 72 percent of voters disapprove of the legislature’s performance, too.

(LA Weekly: The Schwarzenegger Experience)

 
Calling yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized the corporate bribery of politicians its most irresponsible since Dred Scott, Florida Representative Alan Grayson vented yesterday with Keith Olbermann (see below).

President Obama’s response was no less critical, calling it ?

This is good stuff. A trial in the full light of day would have shown the world their bigoted faces, but this is the next best thing. Kudos to John Ireland and team, what a brilliant idea! These people are heroes for doing this.

Patrick Range McDonald writes on the LA Weekly blog, Queer Town,

The U.S. Supreme Court probably never saw this coming.
?

 
It was a noble experiment, giving us talent like Rachel Maddow and Al Franken, but now progressive/liberal radio talker Air America has gone kaput:

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a “perfect storm” in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry’s long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.

With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies

 
Dangerous Minds pal Michael Simmons sends word of a concert in New York this weekend to benefit Tuli Kupferberg, patron saint of bohemian New York and one of The Fugs, history’s first punk band. In his way Mr. K has challenged the world, but Michael tells it much better than I can:

The Fugs were founded by poets Tuli Kupferberg, Ed Sanders, and Ken Weaver in 1965 as a logical marriage of the three Bs—Beat (poetry), (the) Beatles, and (Lenny) Bruce. Born in 1923, Tuli billed himself as “the world’s oldest rock star” at the advanced age of 42. He’d already published Beat zines Birth and Yeah, was noted by Mailer and Allen Ginsberg for outsider behavior including the levitation of the Pentagon, and beloved by we younger hippies for his unshakeable bohemianism as captured in his rooftop striptease. (It’s interesting how repressed America was back then while now everyone gets naked on the Internet. There was a time when disrobing publicly was a political act.) Tuli wrote many of the Fugs’ biggest non-hits: “I Feel Like Homemade Shit,” “Nothing” (“Monday nothing/Tuesday nothing/Wednesday Thursday nothing”), the aching ballad “Morning Morning” (beautifully covered by Richie Havens), “CIA Man” (recently heard in the Coen Brothers Burn After Reading), and “Kill For Peace,” the greatest anti-war song of all time. The latter captured Tuli’s outrageous wit in the service of his dead serious anarcho-pacifistic loathing of war and violence.

Thr Fugs broke up in 1969 and reformed in Orwell and Reagan’s 1984. They’ve continued to record and perform live, rail against the ruthless and selfish, and sing to the heavens in support of peace, fun, sharing, and love. If none of the latter four attributes have been abundant for the last 30 years, one cannot blame the Fugs. O how they’ve tried. For those who trot out the tired clich?ɬ

 
While the fallout from yesterday’s Senate race in Massachusetts sends Democrats scrambling to save health care, here’s the Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson with 6 Shocking Discoveries about yesterday’s victor, Scott Brown (beyond his above posing for Playgirl in ‘82):

The campaign against Scott Brown has effectively been 10 days long.  Ten days is not a long time, but in that time we’ve learned a lot about Brown.

1. Scott Brown suggested on television that President Obama was born out of wedlock, then tried to claim that Martha Coakley was making things up when her campaign called attention to it.

2. Scott Brown voted against aid to 9/11 recovery workers because it was too expensive, while at the same time he was trying to fund a golf course in his district and give tax subsidies to corporations.

3. Scott Brown tried to deny emergency contraception to rape victims.  When he was called on it, he tried to deny the truth, then hid behind his daughters.

4. Scott Brown claimed he didn’t know anything about any Tea Parties, even though he’d appeared at their rallies and publicized fundraisers they threw for him.

5. Scott Brown opposes a fee to get back bailout money from the biggest banks.

6. Scott Brown supports a constitutional ban on gay marriage and thinks two women raising a child is “just not normal.”

That’s a lot to take in in 10 days. Imagine if there had been a longer campaign in which these stories emerged more gradually so voters had time to absorb them fully.  Now imagine what else we’ll know about Scott Brown in 10 more days.

President Obama’s thoughts on passing health care in relation to Senator-elect Brown:

 
See also: Dazed Dems Rethink Entire Strategy

(via Alternet)

 
It’s obvious that John Edwards is reviled by a large segment of the American people and rightfully so, if you ask me. The hayseed Lothario is viewed positively by only 15% of people in his home state of North Carolina. The firm who took the survey, Public Policy Polling, say this makes Edwards the “most unpopular person we’ve polled anywhere at any time.”

He’s still seen positively by 25% of Democrats but only 9% of independents and 3% of Republicans. Interestingly despite his new image as a philanderer men have a more unfavorable opinion of him (75%) than women (68%).

The numbers are what one would expect when polling the popularity of a politician who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife while possibly fathering a child out of wedlock, all while running for the presidency of the United States. And Edwards’s horribly negative portrayal in the new 2008 campaign book, “Game Change,” certainly didn’t help matters.

And about that “horribly negative portrayal” in Game Change there is an excerpt from the book on New York magazine’s website that is well worth reading. In fact, it’s astonishing. What a fucking idiot! Edwards alone could have been the ruination of the Democratic party with his insane, reckless philandering under such intense media scrutiny. Imagine if he’d gotten the nod instead of Obama and then got caught out. McCain/Palin win the election by a landslide. McCain dies in his sleep and Sarah fucking Palin is the leader of the free world. Bing, bang, boom. THAT could have been our collective fate because of this guy! I hate John Edwards. He’s an asshole of epic proportions and his karma must be putrid. It must hurt to be the most unpopularest guy ever but Edwards earned it.

And if you want to know how I really feel…