Here are some things going on in the world that pleasantly surprise me or are otherwise noteworthy.

1. Billo gains momentary grasp on reality regarding public option

2. Pavement reunites for Summerstage concert in 2010. Insane. Brittany reminded me that one of our dear friends (I need not mention any names, Potus…) said that if Pavement ever reunited he would smoke crack at the concert. I am in no way encouraging of that idea..but I do understand the sentiment. Anyway, tickets go on sale at 10am.

3. Picklebacks are really delicious. A shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice. FAN FUCKING TASTIC. But honestly, I’m not surprised. I love whiskey and i love pickles. I used to take picklebacks as a kid. But without the whiskey. Just straight up pickle juice all the time. Mmm.

4. Mary Travers died. Not a pleasant surprise, or a surprise at all really. But here she is, singing about dying.

If you’re a regular to phartman.com you may not have ever seen this. So enjoy!

Christians in AA may not see it this way, but they are in agreement with a belief system that lifts up strange gods. (Amos 3:3) In Alcoholics Anonymous all gods are called the “higher power,” thus relegating Christ our King to commonality, as if He were simply one nameless deity among many.

“I am the Lord, that is My name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to idols.” (Isaiah 42:8)

In 1941, Jack Alexander of the Saturday Evening Post wrote the article that provided AA its first national publicity. Describing AA’s “higher power,” Alexander noted the alcoholic “may choose to think of his Inner Self, the miracle of growth, a tree, man’s wonderment at the physical universe, the structure of the atom, or mere mathematical infinity. Whatever form is visualized, the neophyte is taught that he must rely on it and, in his own way, to pray to the Power for strength.”[2]

Nearly seventy years later this salad bar approach—make your own god—has seemingly become a cultural norm. “Spiritual” is in. “Religion” is out. Many Americans now refer to their god as “higher power.” Bill O’Reilly uses the term frequently on his show. This is simply to say that AA’s 12 Step program has made its mark (?) on the culture.

Bondage to alcohol is miserable. Entire families can be ruined. Yet there has been a solution all along, not that you ever hear this in AA:

“Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6: 9-11)

Many have been delivered through the power and love of Jesus Christ. Still, like the world, too many Christians believe only AA can help an alcoholic. Everything has been turned upside down: Alcoholics Anonymous can supposedly help everyone, but experiencing Jesus in church without the 12 Steps can supposedly help no one. What, really, is a pastor saying when he tells an alcoholic he needs to join a 12 Step program? When all is said and done, AA attendance serves to subtly condition Christians to worship with non-believers; perhaps this has been the point all along.

It is written: “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? …Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 6: 14-17)

But we are not separating. Christians participate in AA’s Christless corporate prayers every day all across the country. For decades AA has been referred to as a “spiritual program,” a harmless adjunct to one’s own religious belief system. Because of this misrepresentation, most Christians in AA are sincerely unaware they have joined a pantheistic religion.

On November 15, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that AA is indeed religious in nature. An AA meeting is essentially a devotional service. The “higher power” receives worship; confession is heard; testimony is given; the group invokes the Serenity Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer. The 12^th Step instructs AA members to go forth and Spread the Word.

For entire article: http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/3477/Brannon-Howse/John-Lanagan

A.A. cofounder gets 12 Steps from spooky place:http://mywordlikefire.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/seances-spirits-and-12-steps/

While KO’s hyperbole can be tiresome (I often find myself wanting to rephrase his sentences), hyperbole itself is only forgivable when the facts are on one’s side.

To say Billo and FoxNews were “complicit” is legally problematic, from what I understand. Morally, however, the way I have been thinking about it is to simply invert things a bit, asking something like, “Does it seem like Bill O’Reilly WAS NOT trying to get the guy killed?”

Abortion providers get killed by extremists. It happens. It’s not unheard of. So I ask myself, if Dr. Tiller were my brother, my father, my husband, and some shithead talk show blowhard continuously goes on television saying those things about him, using that kind of rhetoric–what would my immediate reaction be? I’ve concluded that it would not be, “Well, that’s journalism–free society, etc.” No. MY immediate reaction would be something more like, “What!–are you trying to get my brother/father/husband KILLED? What’s the matter with you? Have you not noticed doctors are often slain by extremists, and that your (what I call) ‘rhetoric of retribution’ is stoking those very flames of extremism?”

That’s what I’d be saying to myself. So for O’Reilly to act as if he played no role in the societal drama (eventually a tragedy) that centered upon Dr. Tiller for decades–is ridiculous, not to mention counter to the standard Billo sets for all other media figures besides himself. He’ll tell you Ludacris and 50 Cent are responsible for your home boy being shot, or your neighborhood being filled with thugs–but the “rhymes” he selling? Oh no, no sir–that has nothing–nothing–to do with Dr. Tiller’s death.

KO is 110% right. I don’t think O’Reilly is responsible, in the strict sense, for Tiller’s murder–just as I don’t think N.W.A or Ice-T were responsible for the L.A. riots in the 80’s, cops being killed, etc.–BUT, I don’t think that doesn’t mean he (or Ice-T, etc.) shouldn’t take any responsibility for poisoning the discourse–the discourse out of which such extremists take things into their own hands. At least show some contrition. All Billo could talk about on his program were the “60,000 [mostly deformed] babies slaughtered” by Tiller, which was a de facto, polite way of celebrating/justifying the man’s death.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

UPDATE

The wonderful, FireDogLake: http://firedoglake.com/2009/06/02/right-wing-bloggers-relieved-to-find-shooting-they-can-politicize/

First and foremost, I will state that Bill-O’s hailed top prime-time news ratings are the cause of simple transitive property. Most people on Earth are assholes, most people watch Bill-O, therefore, most of the people who watch Bill-O are assholes. Sure, your ratings are through the roof, but if you met half of the people who watch your show, you would realize that there are a whole hell of a lot of right wing loons. Take for example yourself Bill. You know what, ill break paragraph and my point to describe exactly why I loath you.

HAVE FUN.

In today’s obvious point of the week: Max Blumenthal finds out the history of the “War on Christmas” meme. And surprise, surprise, it started with White Supremacists worried about Jews and Immigrants diluting America’s White Christian heritage. So obviously it would picked up by a bigot like Bill-o Riley and run into the ground in a mockery of an embarrassment of a sham.

I’m definately not a Christian, and I love Christmas. But not the Jesus-y parts. The Roman parts and the Vaguely Nordic parts that everyone loves. Besides, Christmas is a Federally recognized secular holiday, and nobody wants to change that. I think Christmas stopped being Christ-mass and started being X-Mas back when Coca-Cola started using Santa as their mascot around the turn of the Century. Look at most popular Christmas songs, especially traditional ones. Apart from “Silent Night” and “The First Noël,” almost all of them are about family and gathering, not Jesus. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”? “The Christmas Song”? “Oh By Gosh By Golly”? What about the ones that don’t even mention Christmas at all? “Let It Snow”? “Sleigh Ride”? “Winter Wonderland”? Christmas is not about Christians. It hasn’t been for like, 75 years. I am so sick of this shit. Bill O’Reilly needs to smoke a joint and look at the lights and just chill, man. Because otherwise, I might jab an icepick into my face.

Anyone else follow the whole Bill-O v. Hertzberg affair I posted video of a while back? Well, now that I’m back to actually *gasp* blogging, I’d like to point out something that former speaker of the house Gingrich had to say in the original segment, and the itals are mine and not theirs:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants impose its will on the rest of us. It is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government, if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact, and frankly for that matter if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that the secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they’re the opposite of what you’re taught in Sunday school.

quoting this from Hertzberg’s insanely detailed telling of his and David Remnick’s part in all this.

What I take offense to here is the thought that a religion’s stories can be taken as, or even referred to as, history. It’s religion. It’s a series of stories. It’s one peoples view of what has happened in the past, not a consensus of what actually happened, which is what you read in most history books. I’m not saying I believe all religion to be bullshit and facetious, I just think that putting the word historic next to the word Christianity, which is obviously Newt’s true intent, is a scarily ominous precipice. A precipice that Newt, once off air, probably belly-flops off of onto a magical bed, cushioning his fall with layer upon layer of bullshit, calming the bastard down when he worries that homosexuals may one day be granted the rights to marry.

Can’t. Stop. (*cough* *cough*) Coughing.

There has to be some point at which my my throat says to itself, “Tickling dryness? What tickling dryness?” It will say that and it will feel…I don’t know whatever normal throats feel like. It’s been awhile I’ve forgotten.

I just can’t wait for my throat to stop acting like this:

In an interview with Bill-O, Hillary provided a clear insight into what our political system has devolved into: A self perpetuating engine to funnel the wealth upward and to maintain the status quo at all costs. This is perhaps the most honest thing I have ever heard her say.

Hillary Clinton ” and you know what? rich people…God Bless Us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue to the next generation.”  Meaning, that because she is now rich from her political connections, and Bill C’s 52 million in speaking engagements, she deserves to be able to pass that wealth on, unencumbered, to her children. It is her message to the wealthy Bill-O and the rest of the elite class, that she will not unduly tax their wealth or place restrictions on their abilities to gain more. She is asserting that she is in “the club” and that she has no intention of betraying it.

How does Hillary Clinton “deserve” what she has? As a previous board member of Walmart and current (at that time) stock holder (also in Wal-Mart De Mexico) she used her influence with the then president, to get NAFTA passed (as we see in the transcripts released last year). When she was pleading on the Senate floor to give the president the authority to illegally invade a country for their oil, she held stock in Big Oil companies as well as several defense department contractors who were sure to profit from the war. It is estimated (as she has not disclosed her 2007 tax reports) she and her husband turned a 5 million dollar investment into 25 million, before the GAO made her disclose the contents of that “blind trust” and she sold the stock for a nifty profit in 2007.

From an article called “The Great Silence”, found here:

“ Then, as now, hypocrisy and self-delusion were the final ingredients in this ideological brew. When it came to practical matters, neither the business elites of the first Gilded Age, nor our own “liquidators,” “terminators,” and merger and acquisition Machiavellians ever really believed in the free market or the enterprising individual. Then, as now, when push came to shove (and often way earlier), they relied on the government:for political favors, for contracts, for tax advantages, for franchises, for tariffs and subsidies, for public grants of land and natural resources, for financial bail-outs when times were tough (see Bear Stearns), and for muscular protection, including the use of armed force, against all those who might interfere with the rights of private property.”

What we have is a social elitist class, that by definition, believes they are entitled to all they have by virtue of their intellectual and moral superiority. Whether born into a family of elites, or elected, these upper-classmen of the human condition have no doubts about their need to protect the status quo, and to pass on these advantages to their off-spring.

“Diana Vreeland, style guru (as well as Nancy Reagan confidante), was stylishly blunt: “Everything is power and money and how to use them both … We mustn’t be afraid of snobbism and luxury.” 

Once this video is passed around, I am sure that it will be seized upon by many pro-Obama camps, but it is doubtful that Obama’s campaign will do much with it. Using it smacks too much of a call for class warfare, of Edwards style populist propaganda (as they liked to call it).

But hopefully the progressive movement will clamp onto this video and post it where-ever possible. It is a rare glimpse into the truer nature of American Politics and the root of what is terribly wrong with this country today.