Death Dance


From the Danish Dances of Death [Døde-Dans] by Thomas Larsen Borup, 1762

Death to Pope-I'm not allowed to spare your Holiness.You shall travel the same path as your predecessors.

Pope to Death-Then my glory in Peter's chair shall end,And this soul-nest in the world no longer be known. Alas Death! how terribly your arrival is to me.

Image: DodeDans.com
- posted by Sean @ 6:13 PM 0 comments  

 
Wendy's Finger


Still no guiding moral word from political Washington regarding the human finger found in a cup of Wendy’s chili by a San Jose, California customer on March 22nd.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com:

Initial examination…revealed an odd texture consistent with exposure to high heat -- such as cooking…the fingernail, found separated from the finger but in the same cup of chili, was in "pristine" condition, while the fingertip itself was mangled and punctured but still an inch and a half long and easily identifiable.

National conservative politicians, the media and the far right fringe, due to their familiarity with fingers and inert masses of human flesh, are expected to insert themselves into this simmering chili controversy.

Image: Google, ThomasLockeHobbs.com
- posted by Sean @ 12:19 PM 0 comments  

 

In Iowa, the President, again, finds himself seated next to a poorly groomed Republican woman.

Still battling another reoccurrence of this year’s stubbornly persistent flu, I haven’t had the energy or the heart to even glance at mainstream media political stories.
This morning, while confirming my prediction that the domestic US corporate media would ignore yesterday’s shirtless Daily Mail photo of a sagging, elderly Arnold Schwarzenegger, I skimmed a few news accounts of the President’s Wednesday visit to Iowa.
It is astonishing to reread supposedly straight news accounts or even headlines that attempt to recast the President’s hackneyed catchphrases or his heavily formatted and preselected “Town Hall Meetings” as fresh news.
While the President’s drooping poll numbers and the public’s widespread distrust of Mr. Bush’s “vague” Social Security “outline”, in a sop to traditional journalism and reality, are given a glancing mention, most national press reports stress the President’s gosh darned positivity as they manufacture or massage those ubiquitously pesky details.
This morning’s worst offender award goes to a Los Angeles Times story headlined Bush Invites Critics to Show, Tell.
The curious headline implies that a freewheeling debate took place on the Kirkwood Community College campus and laughably attempts to portray Iowa’s Republican Senator, Bush supporter and Finance Committee Chairmen Charles Grassley as a critic because of an accurate evaluation of the Bush outline’s political viability:

Grassley, who has expressed doubts about the prospects of passing restructuring legislation this year…supported the president's personal account plan but still thought that the prospects of passing it this year were no better than 50-50. "But remember, I would have been more pessimistic two months ago.”

I’m guessing Grassley was admitted into our impish President’s hypersensitive bubble because he did not have his accurate political evaluation displayed as a button, tee shirt or bumper sticker.
The LA Times, also, fails to notice protesters who, according to the Des Moines Register must have been hard to miss gathered as they were around the entrance to the Community College:

Bush's visit prompted objections and demonstrations by those who oppose private accounts…About 100 demonstrators…gathered at the entrance to the college, some holding signs such as one that read "Don't privatize."

As the President’s bubble lifts from the Iowa cornfields and wafts its blinkered way back toward a divided Oz the traveling corporate press can return to their comfy perches until duty, the White House political office or the promise of a shirtless Arnold press conference calls them eagerly forth.

Image: Des Moines Register
- posted by Sean @ 8:20 AM 0 comments  

 
Time and tide wait for no man.



Leave it to the British tabloids to snap a shockingly unglamorous paparazzi photo of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger while vacationing with his toothsome wife and kiddies in Hawaii.
Should I have put two and two together over these last several years of excessive man tan usage and amateurishly dyed hair?
According to the Daily Mail:

Friends say the Austrianborn former strongman has never fully recovered his once-startling physique since an operation to repair faulty heart valves in 1997.
Critics blame the cardiac problems on his admitted use of steroids while bulking up for bodybuilding contests 20 years ago.

I seriously doubt this story will be republished by the corporate press in thier role as America's guardians of Republican mythology.
The photo is just too unsettling and conclusive proof that Arnie's physique won't be back.
I'm reminded of Jack Lalanne.
If Arnie still wants to prove his nongirly manliness, might I suggest a stunt from the Lalanne handbook?
Yup, the Governor should handcuff himself and swim across some large body of water.
Until that time it might be wise for the Governor to reconsider his popular stump speech Girly Man putdown.

Image: BigPicturesPhotos.com
- posted by Sean @ 12:30 PM 0 comments  

 
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near...



Don't you dare pull the plug on me.
--Rev Jerry Falwell, March 27th

Modified Image: Google, amici-inc.com
- posted by Sean @ 7:03 PM 0 comments  

 
Dangerously out of touch or


Long before President Bush and Barney scampered out of Air Force One to wave a doggie paw at the media pool this afternoon, infamous corporate press whore Elizabeth Bumiller penned her latest hagiographic attempt to depict the President's recent unusual behavior as benign.
Ms. Bumiller, like CNN who assured America this afternoon that Mr. Bush's Terri Schiavo intervention was completely non political, sees the President as a sly, sheepish and "frisky" jokester rather than a dangerously out of touch president with plummeting poll numbers:

The frisky president people are seeing in public is simply the one he has kept private for the last four years..."He's an impishly fun, very clever guy," said Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education.

Bumiller casually mentions for the first time in the mainstream US media Mr. Bush's flirtation with a Belgiun TV interviewer last month:

Bush blurted out to the young woman that she had "great eyes," glanced away slyly and then a little sheepishly.

Burmiller neglects to mention that this sheepish flirtation was captured on videotape when the then Gannon-beset President supposedly believed the cameras had stopped recording and caused Mr. Bush to be the butt of wide spread ugly American European media mockery as he started his barely successful fence-mending EU tour.
Remember everyone, Elizabeth is only to thoughtlessly repeat what she has been told by highly placed Bush retainer sources.
Doug Ireland reported the Bush flirt in a February 18th post:

Tonight's edition of Belgian public television's main news program broadcast an exclusive White House interview with Bush in advance of the president's arrival in Brussels that contains another embarassing Bush moment. Asked whether differences on Iraq would cloud his visit with the Belgian government, Bush launched into an anecdote about his trip to a chocoloate merchant on his last Belgian excursion. Then, as his attractive female interviewer thanked him and stood up to leave, Bush--apparently thinking the cameras were already off--muttered with a sly look and salacious grin, "You have beautiful eyes!" This on-air flirt, which could be seen Stateside where I caught it, on the international francophone channel TV 5 (of which Belgian TV is a co-sponsor), is being replayed on European television.

I linked to Ireland's page on February 20th.
It is interesting to note the difference between Ireland and Bumiller's intrepretation of Bush's flirtation.

Trouser Colossus


I have been wanting a reason the republish this photo which appeared in a Wisconsin newspaper last year as Vice President Cheney enjoyed ice cream during a campaign stop.
After publication it was reported that readers called the newspaper office to ask if anyone noticed the snugness of the VP's trousers prior to publication.
The newspaper, with bulging eyes no doubt, noticed and tried its best to hinder the graphic photo's disemination.
I grabbed my copy when Wonkette published it just prior to the election.
Today, the Weekly News Of The World, the UFO and Bat Boy tabloid of record, reports that a buff and youthful Vice President Cheney dabbled in nude modeling:

"Oh sure, I remember him. He modeled for me for nearly two years," recalls retired sculptor Lorraine Feinbaum. "Of course, back then he went by the name 'Big Dick Cheney,' as he was rather, um, well-endowed -- which put him in great demand."

While political Washington knew the VP carried a big stick few, I imagine, suspected its true WMD proportions.

Images: Reuters, wonkette.com
- posted by Sean @ 5:48 PM 0 comments  

 

Image: J. Scott Applewhite-AP, displaycostume.com

- posted by Sean @ 8:22 AM 0 comments