See Yahoo! News, Michael Jackson mourned by Taylor, other celebs,

     …A vivid orange moon, a mark of the devastating wildfire about 10 miles distant, hung over the cemetery. …

     “Thriller, in the night…”

     Less successful than Obama, perhaps, in negotiating the treacherous currents of race, self-image, stardom, etc. And not much older than Obama, either.
     RIP MJ.

     You couldn’t make it up: see NYT on Dick the Trick, Tapes Reveal Nixon’s View of Abortion,

     On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.
     Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies.
     “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.” …
     The tapes also reveal that in February 1973, after Israel shot down a Libyan civilian passenger jet, killing 113 people, Nixon talked about his views of anti-Semitism in America in a phone conversation with the evangelist Billy Graham.
     Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders had denounced efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade, and Nixon and Graham agreed that the Jewish leaders risked bringing anti-Jewish sentiment to the surface.
     “What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said. At another point he said, “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.” …

     Lucky that Nixon wasn’t around to abort Obama!!

     See the Daily Mail, Putin’s poster girl: Pin-up politician who hates the West… but loves Thatcher,

     At only 24 she is already tipped to become a minister, and perhaps achieve her goal of ruling Russia. Happy to exploit her glamorous looks, Maria Sergeyeva has emerged seemingly from nowhere to become a leading propagandist for her hero, Vladimir Putin, her country’s ‘Iron Man’ Prime Minister. …
     She is a leading light of the Young Guards, a youthful and growing band of zealots dedicated to resisting any efforts to stop Putin’s inexorable Russian revolution. …
     …the Young Guards….have become more influential by harnessing the power of the internet to spread their message.
     They recently raised their profile by highlighting the ‘immigration crisis’ and helping police to identify illegal immigrants. With more than 100,000 members, many see membership as essential to their career development.
     Although Sergeyeva claims that she holds no official position in the Young Guards, she is suddenly ubiquitous in Russian society - writing newspaper articles, attending political rallies (which, unlike so many others, don’t get banned) and pontificating via the internet. One recent speech that was made available online had 140,000 hits, crashing the political website hosting it.
     Her nationalist rhetoric is blunt, if not outright incendiary. At a time when racist attacks in her country are at unprecedented levels, she recently told immigrants to leave.
     ‘They grab our work,’ she said. ‘Immigrants should work in places where Russians don’t want to, or they should go back home.’ …
     According to her internet postings, one of her current assignments is to promote training sessions for loyalist bloggers-under the acronym KGB. Kursy Gosudarstvennykh Bloggerov stands for Courses For State Bloggers, and its purpose appears to be to teach loyal cyber-warriors how to hack into opposition blogs and find the addresses and telephone numbers of those behind them - all apparently sponsored by the Russian taxpayer.
     In return, the loyal bloggers are given a membership card, Putin’s book on ideology, a CD of Medvedev’s video blog and their own badges and uniforms. …
     Sergeyeva, the great-granddaughter of a Stalinist NKVD secret service officer who died in the siege of Leningrad, has come a long way since being expelled ‘for laziness’ from an elite Moscow academy. …

     This sounds like a bad parody, but truth is stranger than fic… Is there a word “blogrom”? Like pogrom with a blog? Well, there is now.

     Before we talk about STIMULUS-type stuff, let’s riff off our last post on reproductive issues; see AOL News, Obama’s Nonbeliever Nod Unsettles Some, (link is finicky, so be patient, thanks),

     …By mentioning, for the first time in an inaugural address, the 16.1 percent of Americans who check “no”’ when asked about religion, Obama turned it into the most controversial line in his speech — praised by The New York Times editorial board and cited by some Christians as evidence that he is a heretic, and in his well-spoken way, a serious threat.
     With that one line, the president “seems to be trying to redefine American culture, which is distinctively Christian,” said’ Bishop E.W. Jackson of the Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Va. “The overwhelming majority of Americans identify as Christians, and what disturbs me is that he seems to be trying to redefine who we are.’”
     Earlier this week, Jackson was a guest on the popular conservative Christian radio show ‘Janet Parshall’s America,’ where a succession of callers, many of whom identified themselves as African-American, said they shared the concern, and were perplexed and put off by the president’s shout-out to nonbelievers. …
     With all the focus on Obama as the first African-American president, the succession of black callers to Janet Parshall’s show was a reminder that the “community”’ is not a monolith, and that many socially conservative black Americans are at odds with Obama’s views, particularly on abortion and gay rights. Nor do they all define civil rights in the same way.
    The Rev. Cecil Blye, pastor of More Grace Ministries Church in Louisville, Ky., said the president’s reference to nonbelievers also set off major alarm bells for him. “It’s important to understand the heritage of our country, and it’s a Judeo-Christian tradition,”’ period.
     But his even bigger beef with the president, he said, is that a disproportionate number of “black kids are dying each day through abortion. President Obama is supportive of abortion, and that’s a genocide on black folks. Nobody wants to talk about that as a civil rights issue.”

     Interesting that members of a minority group themselves are so ready to attack other minority groups (both religious and anti-religious). The issue of aborting African Americans in the womb is one we have already noted, though, and is something to think about.

     “Some readers” will scream, probably, “Race has nothing to do with this.” Maybe. Then again, I didn’t say WHY Ehud O enjoyed dragging Condoleeza Rice through the mud in public, just that he did, while I also noticed some aspects of her identity.
     –Does anyone remember the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson “N-pplegate” flap? Does anyone also remember how JJ got blamed for it almost entirely, even though JT, as I remember, was the one who ripped something off and exposed her? Why doesn’t he ever get the flak for that that he should?
     –So, do you think Olmie

1) has just gone crazy

2) is trying to send Obama a subtle message, “Do not mess with me or my successor, Mr. African American, look what we did to a sister of yours”

3) is trying to prove he has worse manners than Solomon (who treated the Queen of Sheba pretty respectfully, as I recall)?

     Anyway, as I slip in my frequent exhortation to get Bush and Cheney censured by contacting a “Fein senator” through his chief of staff, Mary Irvine, by clicking Mary_Irvine@Feingold.senate.gov, or calling her at (202) 224-5323, thus or so,

[e-mail subject line: "Censure Bush/Cheney, finish the job Russ"]
Dear Mary Irvine:

     I’m a Democratic voter and would like Russ Feingold to lead the Senate to censure George W. Bush and Dick Cheney before they leave office. Torture, Iraq, and wiretapping are only some of the many reasons to condemn the administration in the strongest terms possible. Thank you,

Sincerely,
[your name]

,

and possibly sending (amended) copies to your own congresspeople too, and/or to Harry Reid via chief of staff Gary Myrick, at Gary_Myrick@Reid.senate.gov,

     …I note that Bush actually deserves some criticism, too, not just Olmert. Should he have flip-flopped on his close friend Condi? Should he have been, and continue to be, more supportive to someone who has sacrificed her years–and her reputation–for him? And is there really a “dissable/discardable person/people of color” theme in all this, or is that categorically impossible?
     Let us know. (And make sure to send a censure message too! Olmert don’t work for you, but Bushney do…)

     At least I think many people would find it offensive. Chip Saltsman seems to think, as we know, that “Barack the Magic Negro” is a hoot of a song (and also the Latino-insulting song “Star Spanglish Banner”). And if one can’t write an offensive song about Chip, how dare he approve one about somebody else. Boy, what a great leader “”Chip”"”" must be.
     –Actually, Chip seems to be a practicing Catholic, and not necessarily Jewish, despite a last name which might be thought so as “O’McMurphy” might be thought for the Irish; but if someone were bigoted enough to write a song called “Chip the Magic Hebrew”, I’m not sure they’d bother to check if the target were an actual “Hebrew” anyway. Haters often don’t care much about the truth anyway.

     Boy those Republicans can be a problem. So what to do?

     Riffing off Harry Reid claiming that Bush is the worst Presi ever on Press the Meat, you can tell him to do something about it through his chief of staff, Gary Myrick, at Gary_Myrick@reid.senate.gov, with a sample script something like this (or leave a phone message at 202-224-3542),

[subject: If Bush Is So Bad, Censure Him]
Dear Gary Myrick:

     It’s great to see that Harry Reid said on Meet the Press that Bush is the worst President. So why doesn’t he do something about it?
     Reid supported censure of Bill Clinton: why can’t he do the same for Bush? If he can’t, it’s time for “Half-Hearted Harry” to be primaried out of power before he embarrasses Democrats any further.
     Thank you,

                         Sincerely, a Democrat,
                                                              [your name]

     You could send a copy to Saltsman, but I don’t think that would help. It would probably rile him up if Bush got censured, though, which might be funny. And after the censure, you can write a song “Bush the Magic Loser” and put it on YouTube, which should really annoy both Chip and Chimp Chump our beloved President.