THERSday!

Thers!

thers sent me email that he is driving home and should be online shortly.

THERSday!

Bravo, sir, bravo! I do not understand for the life of me why anyone would pay any attention to Breitbart now after the ACORN fraud was revealed. The man is the worst kind of partisan hack and a flaming racist.

Nice work, Thers. This may be among your best that I’ve read.

Indeed.

Frankly it reminded me more quite strongly of Atticus Finch’s famous courtroom speech in Mockingbird, in its quiet, pained, dignified analysis of how systematic, soulless injustice crushes vulnerable individuals.

wow it sure does thers

Bravo – and more to the point, as Glenzilla pointed out,

UPDATE II: Here’s Sherrod this morning explaining why she won’t go on Fox News and what that “news outlet” is really up to. They really picked the wrong victim this time.

they fucked with the wrong woman.

Slainte, Shirley!

“Breitbarbarism” is a pretty good word for such a morally bankrupt piece of human jetsam…as well as for his co-smear merchants at Faux Nooz. At long last, people, have you no decency at all?

Good for her. I’m sure the Faux degenerates will have some kind of spin on this, but it really isn’t worth our attention.

At long last, people, have you no decency at all?

Ummm, no and they never have had any.

Faux degenerates will have some kind of spin on this

They really do live in an alternate universe and one I have no desire to even visit.

Well-written, as always. I’m waiting for a real-life Atticus Finch to stand up to these thugs and call them out for what they are. I may be waiting for a long time, but at least we are getting the discussion started.

TKAM is sooo quaint.

fox is now blaming the white house for listening to fox’s hype of the story … without, of course, accepting responsibility for said hyping…

I had suggested a panel to discuss fighting the right wing media. It was rejected by NetRoots nation. Too bad considering the current Breitbart fiasco. The Right Wing Media will keep coming, they are like the Terminator that way. No doubt all sorts of organizations will be using him to raise money to …. do what? Stand up against Breitbart? With strong letters and petitions? Ohhh scary.

To take down Breitbart you do two things. Find his funding sources and see what will stop them and, counter intuitively, get him MORE coverage. Breitbart is a manic depressive paranoid. He may have a drug problem and I’ll bet he also has bizarre financial or sexual shenanigans in his closet. He needs to be on the News Hour talking with someone he disagrees with like Joan Walsh, Eric Boehlert, or Joe Conason. He will lose his mind and everyone will see it. That is the strategy, and I know it is right because you see how Fox and others are dropping him out of the story. The more plugged into the story he is the worse it is for the right wing media.

If someone hired me I would start doing PR to get him booked on the most serious mainstream media shows opposite serious journalists or people who think they are serious journalists and/or an ethics person, but nobody thinks the way I do because they don’t really want him gone. The “ignore them” strategy is a failure. The “wait until they act” strategy is a failure.

Well I’m going to stop whining about why nobody wants to do anything about it and use someone who knows what to do. They don’t want him gone, everyone uses him for their own purposes,even if it is to raise money for ineffective actions.

By the way, my condolences to Ms. Lee on having to share a stage with racist, brutal, vicious ignoramus George W. Bush.

Of course they are. You know full well that they are never responsible for what they say and how other people might take it.

Oh, fuck Fox sideways.

I like “Blightfart.” An ill wind that leaves devastation in its wake.

And OFD wins the internets!

And the Fox/Breitbart Industrial Complex will do it again. And again.

And Second Amendment Remedies will happen again. It’s Radio Rwanda coming here.

Yep. I have been saying it for going on two years now.

the d’s fall for it every fucking time

Yep.

Shirley Sherrod represents a large segment of our American Liberal roots. We liberals and progressives have quite a proud history to drink inspiration from. Even, as you and the novel notes Thers;

the novel’s insistence that it takes a certain degree of courage to confront barbarity.

I can never express the depth of my gratitude for having lived in the deep south working among and serving so many of those brave souls. (It almost makes up for my current plight)

Where is the passion?

Shirley Sherrod still has it and I am so inspired by how many in the public arena seem to be moved by it. It reminds me of the passion I saw in many of the performers at the Pete Seeger birthday celebration.

So it’s there and recognizable.

But we are I think going to need all we can muster as I see a nastiness in the current right wing racism and classicsm that reminds me of turbulent times. I thought Rachel did a good job this evening describing it.

The only thing missing from this current mess is that it was Shirley Sherrod not Shar’ah Shabbaz. Otherwise they would have had a 3-fer.

So remarkably different from our “leaders” who seem afraid of their own shadows and shy away from any possible confrontation.

Maybe we have to put the cynicism aside and lead them.

hehe

I have never seen such cowards in public life. They have no decency or courage.

the discourse on cable is sophmoric,Keith and Rachel and Dylan excluded

Someone will photoshop a turban on her. Probably the same people who did it to Kagan.

We can but try.

Evening all — sorry I’m tardy, got home to confront wakey-wakey toddlers

iirc that was the washington times that did that to kagan. twice.

Don’t be so narrow minded. Virtually all of our public discourse is sophomoric.

hey thers — wakey-wakey is better than ralphy-ralphy

my 1/2 blind dog has bigger balls

The joys of family life. One of the reasons that i am glad mine is 37 and his wife’s problem.

Rachel consistently amazes me. She is by far head and shoulders ahead of any other pundit in my opinion. YMMV. Every time I watch her, learn something. Not so much elsewhere.

its tiresome…my kingdom for a horse

Danke, amigo.

(I’m being multicultural.)

Heh.

To be honest I haven’t actually got them to bed, just gave up. What the hell, it’s summer.

I’d like to see Shirley Sharrod and Tom Vilsack trade places. Shirley as Ag Secretary, Tom unemployed.

Truthfully, I wouldn’t mind is she traded places with O, or Rahm at the very least. Axelrod, well, anybody in the West Wing.

I suppose there is some risk that having an honest person in the corridors of power might rip the space/time continuum. I’m willing to take that chance.

Oh please! My spayed female cat has a bigger set.

Keith was awesome tonight,likening this dust up to the Dreyfus affair… ill send my usual candygrahm…….i loves his big set…………swoon

No problem. Congrats again on the thought-provoking post.

And here I was proud of “Breitbarbarianism.”

I think of that whole clueless FOX crew as nothing more than people you see on the street in big cities…you know those people, talking to the sky, wildly gesturing? Those people, you don’t even make eye contact with them, you cross the fucking street. You do NOT listen to them.

spot on ratty

Imagine writing one book only, and have it be this book, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thank you, Harper Lee.

(((Bazzie!)))

true,they are hormone-less

So does Hillary. Oh well, can’t be looking back or Dumbya would be in jail.

Bob…i was thinking about the wonderous world of our feathered friends today…they are fantastico

I emailed Obama yesterday and sad that he needed to reinstate Sherrod with a full public apology and fire Vilsack. Doubt i will hear back on that (why would it be any different than the hundred others?).

Yep, given a choice between having that or Catcher in the Rye as my legacy, I’d rather it be To Kill A Mockingbird.

I was reading something about her recently and an acquaintance said she never quit writing, she just stopped publishing.

My Lord, just read this at Will Bunch’s place. Shirley Sharrod’s father was murdered by a white farmer who got away with it because of exactly the kind of courtroom justice depicted in Mockingbird.

holy moly thers

Vilsack,and almost all BHO appointees are so verrrrrrrry mediocre…………..blahhhhhhhhhhh

I saw that somewhere else yesterday. Pretty fucking remarkable for her to say what she did in that video given that history and just raises my estimation of her through the roof.

It is first class wordsmithying indeed, however, it lends a bit of machismo to one who grabs his navel by accident when he goes wee wee. Perhaps he should be more associated with the butt-scoot stank that he is most associated with.

Either way, he’s a shitwhistle.

you need to listen to her speech at Naacp………..heart breaking…formidable woman

Well the navel is easier to find, being much larger.

Wow.

off to watch…………..Miss Marple…..take good care all you gootahs

I love birds and all critters. I hate the idea of keeping them in prison cages, which is why Bob was a rescue. The breeders are scum. I’d like to see sale of exotic birds prohibited but I suppose it would just create a (larger) black market. Lots more birds in captivity than good homes, alas.

BTW, Bob spends most of the day out of his cage.

g’nite sadly

Night!

Er, I actually did write a book on her novel… there’s no evidence that she has ever continued writing, nor any that she hasn’t. She wrote a lot of material for a true-crime book in the 80s, put out a slim work on Southern literary history, and most recently a short essay in Oprah’s magazine.

My suspicion is that she hasn’t really been writing. TKaM was really an ordeal from her, and would never have been finished without her editor, who as an editor is one of the unsung geniuses of American fiction, Theresa Von Hohoff. Don’t get me wrong, Lee wrote the book, but it would never have been what it is without Von Hohoff.

I’m persuaded by the argument in Shields’ biography of Lee (which is pretty good) that Lee needed/needs a strong support system of people she trusts in composing, and when those people fell away (illness, death) she just… stopped.

They’ll never reply to the content of your messages but you’ll probably hear from them when it’s campaign time, soliciting donations.

Heh. Already got one of those today.

Yes. When she speaks of forgiveness and redemption. It is big forgiveness and it was/is demanded of every African American civil rights worker.

MLK said the white oppressors had to be loved back in order to save them. That is the core of non-violence.

I’m going to wander off too. Be excellent to each other.

Night, EDP. I am starting to fade, so it is time for me to toddle off as well. Take care all.

g’nite edp

I suspect if anything, she has probably kept journals. Might not contain anything publishable but of course would still be of intense interest to scholars. I also would not be surprised if she has arranged for her personal writings (if they exist) to be withheld in perpetuity.

g’nite dr dick

Incidentally, for anyone interested, at my own place I have an ongoing series this summer on various aspects of Mockingbird & its anniversary, drop by, if you like.

g’nite sadlyyes, DrPuma, DrDick and anyyone I may have missed.

i’ve been following it thers. some mighty fine writing about some mighty fine writing

She surely has at least reams of letters.

I wouldn’t be surprised either if we never see those letters, or journals. She’s intensely private.

But there are also a number of letters she has written to others which have already appeared. These tend to suggest, unsurprisingly, that she is a kind & dignified Southern lady who hasn’t lost her sense of humor.

Oh, and, of course, she kind of did co-write In Cold Blood…

Does he write in cursive? I simply can’t abide lots of swearing…

see for yourself

The Dreyfus comparison was laughable. It was Keith at his very worst.

nice update to the post thers

Didn’t she maintain a long running correspondence with Truman (Capote), among others? If so, those letters alone could represent quite a treasure trove.

Hopefully they would be a little more circumspect than the book of William S. Burroughs’ letters to Alan Ginsberg that I read. It was fascinating but a little hard to take at times.

Hee hee.

I actually tone it down a bit for these posts, in deference.

Though, true fact, Lee was kinda/sorta kicked out of the Southern religious college she went to for swearing and smoking… (she didn’t like it there much anyhow).

T’anks mang

Thanks, bookmarked for later. Too bleary eyed to tackle at the moment. Should probably put the orbs to bed. Thanks Thers, splendid evening to all.

g’nite rat

Yes, and a lot of that is available; Capote was the opposite of “private.”

Capote & she grew up together — he is Dill, of course.

One of the reasons she is so private is that she recoiled at what happened to Capote, & what he did to himself.

Much of their correspondence regarding In Cold Blood is extant, as are her notes (which is how we know how much of the book is “hers,” at least the first third or so).

Thanks for the info. I hadn’t known of her involvement with In Cold Blood and no, I didn’t know Truman was Dill… wow! Was their a real life inspiration for Boo Radley?

Here is an interesting take on To Kill a Mockingbird from the New Yorker.
It casts Atticus Finch in a different light than is generally accepted.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell

Thers, since you are one for narrative, how about this:

Hasn’t anyone noticed that the effect of the Sherrod story was to knock the Obama signs unemployment extension off the lead story, replacing it with an Obama creates unemployment for Shirley Sherrod story? Breitbart had this story for months and acted on it now, why? Just to slap the NAACP for calling out the Tea Party? Or because this is an event designed to shape the political discussion away from an area that the Republicans are vulnerable?

(crossposted from MercRising)

I’m as much a sucker for a heartwarming story from the halcyon days of civil rights (I was there) as anyone, but I really doubt that Roger Ailes cares anything about who they are trashing as long as it elects Republicans.

Yeah, there was a model for Boo — he couldn’t have been entirely invented, after all.

Actually the real life Radleys came close to suing when the book first came out, but there were enough differences to make the case impossible. But this was a Southern small town, everyone there “knew.”

Matter of fact, very little in TKaM is completely made up. The court case has long been believed to have been inspired by the Scottsboro Boys case, but it’s pretty clear it was actually based on a far more local case Lee’s father — “Atticus” — was involved in.

“This is a continuing human drama of slaughter
and uncontrollable bloodlust and we’re still here, engaged in
our running defense; praying for balance, peace and justice; and
trying to make some sense of it all. Perhaps, in the face of such
a menace, the most important thing we can do is remember. So teach
your children. Pass this knowledge. Don’t forget. Not ever.”

http://derekmarkham.com/statement-from-leonard-peltier-dont-forget-no

Yeah, I know.

But it’s Late Night, and a long view is not always a bad thing.

Politico wants to “win the day.” Well, fuck them. I want a bit more than that, you know?

Has the Josef Goebbels of the new racist Digital Brownshirts, Andrew Breitbart, attacked any other African-Americans today.

Breitbart is the master of the high tech lynching.

Did I mention that Andrew Breitbart is a racist seething with hatred for African-Americans?

Thanks. One of the fascinating things about the book is how it evokes a sense of nostalgia and yearning for life in a small town in simpler times (for some), while telling the woeful tale of a man wrongly convicted and brutally murdered. In some respects the setting reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine.

I confess it has probably been over 30 years since I last read either, so if the above statement seems like complete crap, I will readily concede the point.

I think we always have more than winning the day. As we know (all too well from the 2008 election), this movement thing doesn’t stop on election day. It’s not even about converting people on issues. It’s about changing the human heart. It took many score generations to erode the hardness that was slavery, the hardness that was the legal status of women and children as property. And so we have more than winning the day: we have our life’s work.

Anyway, nice essay on Shirley Sherrod and To Kill a Mockingbird. You have the touch.

Thers, have you read “The Help”? I enjoyed it…and it got right down into “having a conversation” about race.

Thers,
How do you feel about the movie Capote?

Ok, sorry alls, blinking tired. Niters…

Oh, danke

Greg, that is ironic considering that Breitbart, who is Jewish, should-at least in theory, have MORE sensitivity to those who are subjected to prejudice. I remember a time when Jewish and black folks banded together for civil rights.

WHAT happened? Here is an interesting excerpt from an exceptionally interesting website:

7.22.2010
Is Andrew Breitbart Jewish?
Yes, Andrew Breitbart is a Jew. The conservative pundit says he “grew up in Brentwood (i.e., Los Angeles, California) a secular liberal Jew” who celebrated his bar mitzvah and “has the tape to prove it.” How funny and clever.

As far as we can tell, Breitbart is a gotcha politician who has not brought a single drop of value to the world. He epitomizes all that is wrong with the right.

Tzeevee’s Talmudic Blog

Tzvee’s Talmudic BlogTzvee’s Talmudic Blog. trenchant talmudic analysis and liberal opinions with insight, irony, satire, humor and moral indignation, covering religion, jews, …
tzvee.blogspot.com/ – Cached – Similar

g’nite thers

It’s not bad — better than Infamous, which covers the same territory. Seymour Hoffman is brilliant.

Thers this is your best to date from my view. We need compassion and morality reminders. Without books and movies like this and “Something of Value” Robbert Ruark, we would not have a civil rights act. Inspiring post, thank you Thers.

I thought so about Seymour Hoffman as well. Brilliant.

Thanks for presenting your title as you did.

If nothing else, the “Tedium of Breitbarbarism” will be forever recorded in the world of teh great Google.

Mockingbird is one of those rare books that are worth rereading. (The one my uncle reread whenever he was sick in bed for a few days was Treasure Island, but that’s another story.)

Mockingbird is an easy read. It envelopes you slowly, like a summer nightfall; it doesn’t jolt you with techno-whiz or pace or testosterone like a modern airport best seller. Set in the Depression era American South, the atmosphere is placeless and timeless; it could be many places and times, but it’s just distant enough not to be ours. The story unfolds through the freshly opening eyes of a child, but its luster and depth come by way of a mature woman’s remembrance of that childhood.

Injustice – to Tom Robinson, to “Boo” Radley, to the white farmer unable to release his entailed farm, to the whole town owing to the Depression – permeates the story. What dominates it, though, is a sense of warmth and wonder, frankness and quiet courage, self-sacrifice, a dignity so rare it makes us stand in mute thanks, and a child’s love for an impossibly wonderful father. We want to live in the world Harper Lee remembers and invents, or make ours a little more like it than it was when we came here.

Thankfully, the 1962 film version was rendered faithfully by Horton Foote (screenplay), Robert Mulligan (director) and Gregory Peck (his career best performance).

Ms. Sherrod might well study the works of retired Wellesley Honored Emeritus Professor, Tony Martin, on matters of race in the USA.

Prof. Martin has some powerful lectures on youtube.

EOH, that is pure poetry..and humbling to those of us who do not have your singular talent for self expression.

After this latest race-baiting episode involving the gracious Shirley Sherrod, I think I understand President Obama a little better.

You see, there’s actually an ongoing struggle/tension inside President Obama between his black side and white side, the side that used to be barred from whites-only country clubs and the side that wants to join the country club. Of course, this latter will never happen fully because the members of the whites-only country club set look at President Obama and see a black man, no matter his mixed, bridging-the-divide heritage…but this doesn’t stop President Obama from keep trying.

Thus, his reaching across the aisle constantly to the primarily whites-only Republican Party and its conservative benefactors, compromising when he should be standing firm for liberal, progressive, non-racist ideals and policies, recess appointing qualified, competent people to government service when their nomination, each time it happens, gets blocked by the primarily whites-only Republicans, and using the White House bully pulpit daily to call the Republicans to task.

For instance, I’d like to see President Obama invite Shirley Sherrod and the Spooners to the White House, rolling out the presidential red carpet for them, sitting down with them and giving each one of them a medal, because in this latest Breitbart/FOX-spawned fiasco, these three American citizens are the true heroes, showing more courage and grace than most, but definitely more than the sniveling cowards at Fox News or Breitbart.

And a presidential gesture on the part of President Obama like this would help him balance out his black side with his white side, and vice versa, as well as set a good example for the entire country. Of course, Fox News wouldn’t cover it because a gesture like this would blow their entire hate-filled racist talking point agenda to smithereens, and neither Roger Ailes nor Rupert Murdoch can allow that to happen.

BTW, during the Bush/Cheney administration the Republicans after 9/11 used to their political advantage a multi-colored terrorist threat chart to pump up the fear in American citizens.

Since Bush and Cheney left office in disgrace and since President Obama was sworn in, some Republicans, especially some of those in the Tea Party, but especially those Republicans at Fox News, have unveiled a new threat chart, this one having only two colors, black and brown, but still used to pump up the fear among their most loyal followers.

I love it when you walk us through your analysis. You have my support if you choose to take action.

I like the idea, especially if he could organize it without any prior public notice and then claim it was for them. Pool reporters could take pics from across the yard and the guests could be interviewed after and tell nice stories about their conversations.

Every time we have a clash of race connected to the Obama administration, Barry can start the healing.

He really does need to get a win to counter the meme that the Obama Admin gives US citizens a reason to be concerned about anti-white racism (aka reparation)u becuase the GOP has been making hay with that since before the election.

What a beautiful description! thx earl

Thers,

need for justice and humanity to prevail over racism, brutality, and vicious ignorance

I’d like to borrow iwht attribution your words and take them to the next MassCann meeting. We’re planning some pubic discussions and i’d like to use these words as the summation of our present marijuana laws. If we can show the electorate that our laws are a travesty that we must repudiate, we may get somewhere in this effort.

I think the outrage over this, and the theme of Mockingbird, could turn into a mighty stream. God knows we could use a turning point, and this is worthy.