After blogging for the past two weeks' editions about the Tea Party and the Coffee Party, I decided the other day that I really needed to take a break from politics. It was time to stop talking at the TV, making phone calls, and speaking at political organizations, and use my vocals chords for personal healing.
They say laughter is the best medicine. But I still yearned for some political stimulation. So I popped into the videocassette player my favorite silly film, which also happens to be one of the best political satires that still has relevance today.
An obvious clip:
So in this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays, I'm inspired to examine some less-obvious clips from this masterpiece of cinema as they relate to our current political situation. There's something completely different below the fold...
Teabaggers love Glenn Beck in general, because he organized their 9/12 March on Washington that attracted uncounted millions, and because he's willing to diss Obama and the Democrats even more than Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.
But in particular, the locals love Roney, who emceed two of their events last year and took a lot of their calls promoting events and hating on Obama and the Democrats.
Welcome to the return of Soundpolitic. I began blogging here nearly two years ago to the day to cover Democratic politics in NY-21 and SD-46. Back then, I would pompously opine most of the time, and other times engage in what I egotistically called "citizen-advocacy journalism."
Nowadays, after a years' worth of depression "due to" unemployment in my chosen field of paralegal studies and growing and frustration for lack of professionalism in indie rock, I've got the writing bug again. Out of respect for all living beings, I refuse to swat it. I've been feeding it like a fiend.
I had big plans for my return. Summarizing the Talking Heads shows, going topical again, ect., ect., ect....but this proved to nothing more than some intangible idea to make a move back to wind-baggery. It wasn't real.
What follows below the fold certainly is: I just starting writing an e-mail to a very dear friend of my father while he generously offered use of his computer to compose a freelance piece on traditional-string-based contemporary rock. The two of us had gone to dinner last night and spoke a bit about the Big Game coming up today. Naturally, we talked more about commercials than about football.
I decided to shoot her a quick e-mail link to the famous Apple 1984 commercial on YouTube. Then I added a couple of blurbs from the web to give more information. Then I kept writing and, voila! I was blogging again, just for the love of putting words together. I blind-copied it to a bunch of friends, but then decided if I left it at that, I'd have left all of you guys out. So no fair...read on for the first installment of Soundpolitic Sundays.
I listen to too much talk radio, in part because there's no decent music radio around here (Albany, NY, and I can't get WEQX well) and mostly because I'm interested in almost any discussion of national, state or local issues.
I hardly ever call into the few local talk shows, but yesterday I did.
And it sucked, big time.
The issue for three hours on Dan Lynch's afternoon show on WGDJ-AM was health insurance reform.
I thought I had something to add, based on two bloggy things I'd read, about one reason for-profit health insurance cannot compete with any real public option -- the obscene compensation of insurance company CEOs compared to the much more modest compensation of government health insurance executives.
So I called, and was derided as "far left" and "socialist" by the allegedly moderate host.
