Title notwithstanding, naturally I’d seen nine of the ten videos here — never much bothered to look for Prescott Bush and don’t see that he adds much.  I gather Vanity Fair should have just cut to the chase and ran “Top 10 Nixon videos” — limit “Nixon tape” material to, oh, three perhaps?

The lyrics, as I listen to this, to a 1972 campaign jingle.  Study  them.  There will be a test at the end.

Reaching Out
To Find the Way
To Make Tomorrow
A Brighter Day
Making Dreams
Reality
More Than Ever Nixon Now For You and Me
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
He’s Made the Differerence
He’s Shown Us How
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
More than Ever
Nixon Now
Mister America, Nixon Now
Lead You Now
Across the Sea
Making Friends where Foes Used to Be
Giving ALL to Humanity
More than Ever Nixon Now for You and Me
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
He’s made the difference
He’s shown us how.
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
More than ever Nixon Now
Mister America, Nixon Now
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
He’s made the difference
He’s Shown Us How
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
More than ever, Nixon Now
Nixon Now
Nixon Now
Mister America, Nixon Now.

TEST:

Question #1:  What phrase am I least certain about in terms of accuracy?
Question #2:  According to the song, how has Richard Nixon “made the difference”?
Question #3:  How much of himself did Nixon give to humanity?
Question #4:  Does the fact that Nixon stuck in a campaign ad montage image of him smiling with Brezhnev complement or undermind Newt Gingrich’s attack on Obama meeting Hugo Chavez that American presidents never “smiled” when greeting Russian dictators?  (Likewise, how does Newt Gingrich’s line square with the line in the jingle: “Making Friends where Foes Used to Be“?)
Question #5:  What song did you immediately look up to on youtube to clear “Nixon Now” out of your head?

In case you missed it, Georte Will wrote an editorial where he excoriated blue jeans (and denim), and video games.  I do not believe I have much to add that other people who are actually read have not said.  George ill’s politics can be best be described as a mix of “Tory Conservative” and “Baseball Fetishism”.  The Toryism leads him to a rigid class structure where he is upset about the upper classes slumming it down to what should be worn exclusively by laborers, and he sees Barbarians at the gate sneaking denim into golf courses.  The Baseball Fetishism would have Will, if pressed, arguring that this is the worst sight since the advent of the Designated Hitter.

I would think his conservatism would allow for jeans.  It’s sturdy and long-lasting, a good thing for a wasteful government to keep in mind, right?  It also is something that “has its place” and thus neatly separates tasks — rules of order, his Toryism ought to love that.  All this being said, apparently George Will doesn’t want the government to enforce his desired dress code — he just wants societal shaming.  I don’t know who will be joining in his distanced “tsk tsk”ing snobbery — I am pretty sure even if I wore what conformed to his standards (granting that I somehow escape his viewing of me as a ‘commoner’), I’d still be too uncouth for his tastes.

In the same article bemoaning the denim Barbarians at the Gates, he goes on to a broadside against video game players.  Time for someone to write “George Will Hates My Hobby, but at least my Cat Still Loves Me.”

Seventy-five percent of American “gamers” — people who play video games — are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote.

Interesting to note that our nation’s engineers and computer programmers (and, hell, internationally as well) herald out of this bunch of “Adult-o-lescents”.  They strike me as a fairly conservative lot — though they tend to hold true to the dictates of “Global Warming”.  Still, I suppose the electricity they use increases our “carbon footprint”, which might make them amenable to Will’s Climate Change Skepticism.

Well…

It is probably a mistake to make too much of the commentary of Michael Savage.  To get a good guage of a follower of Republican talking points, the best radio host to turn to is Sean Hannity — the impossibly blandest and most notably unnotable of the lot.  To get a possible writer of Republican talking points, the name is Rush Limbaugh.

Of course, that is why Savage and, in the current era of Obama Mr. Glen Beck, are the most pervsely entertaining and listenable of this bunch.  This might be an indictment of what I can take, and perhaps I should lay off all such junk.

I have always meant to engage in a “Hannity Project”.  Tune in for a random single minute for one week and report what he says.  The point of the “Hannity Project” is shown in the manner that the last two times I flicked past him and held for several seconds, I heard roughly the same thing — and, bizarrely enough, the two names of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were interjected into roughly the same run-on sentence about how Obama is governing from the far left, turning the nation socialism, and betraying his moderate presidential campaign.

Regarding Mr. Savage — and with this particular item of invective I have a theory that this item goes more or less across the board.  The man Savage was in a tizzy about the Department of Homeland Security’s report on the threat of violence from “Right Wing Extremism”.  It is a sign of an emerging gestapo from the Obama Administration.  It was timed specifically to intimidate the Tea-Partiers.  Governor Napolitano is emerging as a new Janet Reno, and a new Waco is just around the corner.

The reason I can single out Mr. Savage for hypocrisy is I can recall right off the top of my mind an item of vitrol he spewed against Quakers.  As you may recall in the previous administration, there was a report that Quaker and Vegan groups were being monitored.  Savage’s response was a sort of predictable ranting about how Left-wing Extremists hide behind Quaker and Vegan groups, and such organizations are not spiffy clean.

It’s also pretty damned clear that these definers of “Movement Conservative” opinion are not much bothered by, say, the NSA’s monitoring of a member of congress.  (And behold the incoherence of the free republic posters.  To add my own possible incoherence: they won’t care unless it turns out to be Bachman.)  I may well mention that looking at an old conservative magazine from 1956 (as I am want to do), I saw a survey of dream presidential wishes which was topped off with Jay Edgar Hoover.

There probably shouldn’t be a “Department of Homeland Security” — such a department came into being because the public demanded some action and this manuevering of boxes was the easiest salvo.  As it were, it is charged with spitting out administrative documents about the possibility of right-wing extremist violence on one hand and left-wing extremist violence on the other.  The clearest example of domestic right-wing violence through the past two decades is Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, and the report on right-wing extremism largely copies his profile.  The result is probably a bit dumb, though it is where they can draw the conclusion of “recruit from former military ranks”, an item which is especially grating to various people.  I actually can’t think of what constitutes domestic left-wing terrorism (apparently, as that columnist states, some property damage inflicted by extremist Earth Liberation Fronters, and a few items of computer hacking).  I am amenable to the categorization of Ted Kaczynski as a left-wing nutcase.  Given him as idiosyncratic more than anything else, such that we conjure up more threatening possibilities from a re-emerged Militia Movement than hermits living in the woods, the Report on Left Wing Extremism looks like it is stuck bouncing about the “Black Blocks” of your average mass war protest — “Re-create ’68”?  Really?  Though, to be sure, I guess such report has to mention Something, and if you paint a picture of a politically motivated act of violence from the left, I guess it would come from an “Anarchist”.  There was a bizarre protest movement which sought a nostalgic rush toward a riotous Democratic convention.  Interesting movement, that.

Well, at least they’re more threatening than the Quaker bake sale movement.

Incidentally, Pat Robertson called the writer of the report “gay.”  Really!

It has since been calculated, quite believably, that of twenty-one staff members and frequent contributors to the magazine when I was there, eleven have become “enemies of the people,” or the equivalent in party invective; one was killed in Spain, a gentle and dedicated youth named Arnold Ried; and seven couldn’t be tracked down.  Only two were still faithful, or hooked, in the postwar era.  I started to turn “enemy of the people” in my second or third month of the New Masses, for reasons I will come to in a moment, achieved the distinction of being attacked by name in the Daily Worker while still on the magazine, and was out in the bourgeois cold ten months later, in the spring of 1937. […]

In the second or third month of my tenure the Moscow Trials Trials took their initial toll, leaving me, among millions of others, aghast and bewildered.  Unable to understand how men like Zinoviec and Kamenev, who I had just gotten around to learn were heroes of the Russian Revolution, were really “cannibals” and “mad dog assassins” in ideological disguise, I went to Joe Freeman, the editor who had hired me and a warm, sympathetic, and eloquent man if ever there was one.  I could understand, I said, how a few of the dozens of accused heroes might be “cannibals” of sorts, but I couldn’t begin to see why at least one or two of them didn’t stand up and say, “It’s a lie, I didn’t do it” even if they had, or “Yes, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.”  Why did they all grovel and damn themselves and beg to be shot as a service to the Socialist Fatherland and a boon beyond their poor deserts?”  “You have to read Dostoevsky,” Joe advised me, “to understand the Russian soul.”  So when word came from Moscow a month or so later of a second  batch of trials, at which Piatakov, Redek, and others were to be charged with operating an “Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Terrorist Centre,” I impiously captioned our editorial comment “Dostevsky Rides Again,” knowing I could change it when the proof came back from the printer.

A special editorial meeting followed, at which it was made plain to me that such frivolity was roughly equivalent to tripping up a bishop at High Mass.  Nor was my status improved when I pinned up over my desk a cartoon from the Daily Worker which depicted Trotsky as the usual mad dog, with bulging eyes and dripping fangs, crounched and ready to spring at his innocent victim.  The caption over this horror merely said, “Thoroughly Discredited,” an understatement that stuck me as so droll  that I had to be warned again about the consequences of misplaced levity.
[…]

Schachtman and his supporters broke away on the Finnish question, but by this time the Trotsky followers had already suffered the numerous divisions that come inevitably to amoebas and minority political parties alike.  First a faction headed by Comrades Ohler and Stamm went its way, soon to separate again into Ohlerites and Stammites.  Somewhere along the way the immediate family of one George Marln left to become Marlenites, and a Mr. and Ms. Wisbord had a League for the Class Struggle all to themselves until divorce separated their rank from their file.  The Fieldites, another group of limited range, were said to have come a cropper when picket signs were borne past their headquarters proclaiming: “Mr. and Mrs. Field are No Longer Fieldites.”  The deadly seriousness with which all this fantasy could be taken by its dreamers was illustrated at the stormy climax of the evening, so the story goes, Cannon stepped to the rostrum, leveled a finger at his rival, and issued the memorable warning: “Very well, Comrade Schachtman, we will seize power without you!”

–  Robert Bendiner, Just Around the Corner, 97-100, published 1967

An Oklahoma businessman bought the Seattle Sonics and moved it to Oklahoma City.  The Seahawks had a miserable season last year and look likely to have another one next year.  The Mariners are off to a good start — we’ll see how long it lasts — after a string of bad seasons, though here at least Mariners fans can relive some nostalgia glory with Griffey back in the line-up.  Also notable is that the state’s two major college football teams wound their way to the state rivalry game with the question of who would get a single conference victory for the season on the line.  Apparently soccer is doing well, such as that is — well enough to convince Portland’s crappy city government to chase the thing down and hand money over to some schmuck named Paulson, son of another Paulson you may have heard about.

Not good for Seattle sports fan.  But, from all this gloom here is something.  The city of Seattle is about to get a new sports team.

This is embarrassing on various levels, and particularly troubling on one.

The Lingerie League began as a television programming gimmick by a Hollywood production company, Horizon Productions, in 2004 as a pay-per-view rival to the halftime show at the Superbowl, the championship final of American football.

It now has ten teams, most run as franchises, with names such as Chicago Bliss, Atlanta Steam, Dallas Desire, Phoenix Scorch and San Diego Seduction. The league will make its professional debut next spring, with players earning starting salaries in the region of $40,000 ( and match schedules that mirror those of the mainstream National Football League.

Trials for prospective players in Seattle last week attracted scores of scantily clad candidates – and a number of enthusiastic workers from a building site.

“They’ve been on a two-hour lunch break since 10am,” observed Christine Merklinghaus, who was at the trials.

When asked by a television reporter what she thought the allure would be for spectators, one girl said: “Probably half-naked women playing football.”

All press conference to this thing runs about like that.  I generically want to ask any woman participating in this a sort of “What are you doing?” and any man watching it the same thing.  (You know, the Internet is full of hot and cold running porn, right?)  It is enough of a joke that I’m almost tempted to follow it as a stats geek, and report which player has the best qb rating, etc.

But all that is besides the point.  The real problem with this thing comes right about here.  I’d hope this is something of a ruse:

“These girls take it very seriously. They aren’t going to be just skipping round the field worrying about breaking their fingernails, they’re going to be worrying about breaking their necks,” Kyle Bolin, spokesman for the Lingerie League, said.

Google this, and you’ll see what they’re wearing while “seriously” playing football.  Or, you know — you can take a look through the Victoria’s Secret catalouge.  It would be better if this were essentially fake, and if the real thrill were something along the lines of the woman posing their chests upward every chance they could.  The problem is that if they’re actually playing full contact football, the injury rate would have to be roughly 100 percent, wouldn’t it?

I saw this man wearing a red t-shirt emblazened with the words “BEAT LA”.  This shirt is an item of absurdity.  It is either getting too far ahead of oneself, or not going far enough.  Round One of the playoffs is Against Houston.  Round two is against LA.  The Finals (Round 4) would probably be against Cleveland.  The shirt ought to either read “Beat Houston” or “Beat Cleveland.”

If you were watching the NBA on Monday from the vantage point of a Portland Trailblazers fan, you had your eye on four games matching the teams in the standing about where your team sat against three bad teams and one okay team.  So Houston throttled the okay team of New Orleans.  The Portland Trailblazers’ victory over Oklahoma City demonstrated the underlying truth of the Onion parody — score at half-time: 62 to 31.  I think that columnist who wrote that Oklahoma City’s future was brighter than the Blazers gave the Blazers a chip on their shoulders toward a team that, whatever the future may herald, is at the moment not good.

Sacramento, the team with the worst record in the league, teased it out before Denver finally pulled ahead to nab the division title.  It was wishful thinking to hope that Sacramento could pull that one out.  Meanwhile, a moment of exasperation came with the Warriors versus the Spurs: with one second left in the game, the Spurs hit the game winning three point.  Which would be alright, except that the shot clock had expired.  The consolation for the irritated Blazers fan, eyeing the home court magic number: the Spurs would have probably won in overtime anyway.

With those games settled, Wednesday came around and there was three games Blazer fan had reason to watch.  The opimum outcome would have been that the Spurs lost to the Hornets and the Rockets lost to the Mavericks, ensuring that a Blazers victory get the team a three-seed against the Hornets.  The worst outcome was the Rockets losing and the Spurs winning — ensuing a match-up with the Rockets, who present match-up problems for the Blazers.  Which is what happened.  And how did that scenario happen?

Hornets up by 3.  And Damned if James Posey for the Hornets didn’t miss his 2 free throws.  Make either, and the game is over — Blazers to play Portland to move up the seedings to play the Hornets and avoid Houston.  Posey missed both.  Spurs threw in 3 pointer, won in overtime.  So, off of one missed free throw (either one), Hornets cost the Blazers a play off seeding — and pushed the road into LA up a round. Damned Hornets.  Then again, that was a demonstration of why they would have wanted to play the Hornets in the playoffs in the first place.  Also, perhaps it might have worked out well for the Hornets — if they thought they had a better shot against Denver than the Blazers.  (Probably a 50 – 50 proposition: the Blazers probably have both more up-side and more down-side on this one.)

But, hey.  Compare them to the 1977 Championship team, and they may have the perfect route to improve as the playoffs continue.  Emerge from the series against Houston, and you’ll come out a better team for it.  Then comes the Lakers.  Reading between the lines, the Blazers finally have the Lakers’ attention.  You can’t really call it a “rivalry” as of yet, sure — the Blazers fans chant “BEAT LA!” (parochial: small city versus big city.  See shirt at the top of this blog entry.  Suppose the Blazers do make it to the Finals against Cleveland, or even merely beat the Lakers.  Will there be a “Beat Denver”, “Beat San Antonio”, or “Beat Cleveland” or “Beat Boston”?), and they always defeat the Lakers win they play in Portland.  But that’s been the equivalent of a buzzing mosquito.  It’s finally mattering enough for the Lakers to pay any attention.  Hence, Phil Jackson doesn’t bother coming to Portland that last game, cites a re-play on the Jumbo Tron of the hard foul from the last game with “Portland is like that”, and explains the losing streak in Portland as coming because it’s a dreary place with a lot of sad people in the stands.  And hence a quick search through the LA Times shows up — well, look it up yourself… it’s kind of interesting.

If I had to guess, the Blazers win the series against the Rockets.  The home court is everything here.  And the Lakers defeat the Blazers in six games.  Do the math, and you’ll find that means the Lakers do indeed win in Portland, finally.  I suppose this is slightly disappointing in the realm of “optics”, both for ending a good streak of home victories and because the post-season record between Portland and LA is not too good:  Clyde Drexler dribbles away a victory in the early 1990s, and that seventh game fourth quarter meltdown of 2000.  Then again, these things have to switch over –unexpectedly — at some point, and Mr. “ZenMaster” seems to be concentrating his “Zen” tricks on the Blazers.  In a dozen years, it is hoped that the Blazers will be roughly where the Spurs are right now: probably ending their spell as an elite team, but standing there with four championships in the past decade.

Bear in mind, I am a complete Homer and will cease to have any interest in the NBA playoffs once the Blazers fall out of the playoffs, as the nation awaits that inevitable Lebron Cleveland versus Kobe LA match-up.  If that sounds both parochial and absurd, I’ll state for the record:  Spectator sports is ridiculous anyways.

The Fur Protesters — the same Animal Liberation Fronters and perhaps a PETA member or two that tangeantly pulled the plug on Schumacher’s dying business, have been protesting in front of another business for a while now — Ungar Furs, I guess is the name.

There is an Indian Restaurant Cart across the street, in a parking lot.  They have posted up a clarifying message.  “Thanks For Your Support.  100 Percent Vegetarian”.  It’s a clarifying message — the protesters are not protesting them — also, maybe, the protesters should patronize this business, maybe?