A Viking Funeral for Kayak

We like to think of longtime commenter and fellow Hollywood habitué Chris Vosburg as WO'C's own "Dutch Treat" (okay, that's actually how we like to think of Maruschka Detmers, but only because we have an active imagination and a tendency to let the mind wander while brushing our teeth), but we do consider him our resident Keeper of Low Country Musicology, and as always, he does not disappoint (even though his news will undoubtedly come as a blow to fans of dike rock).

Here's Chris:

As you pointed out, Scott, it's my job to keep you up to date on the doings of obscure netherlands-based band Kayak, and thus it is with a heavy heart that I report the death of drummer Pim Koopman in November of 2009. Yeah, I know, it's more than a year ago, but like all Kayak fans I've been holding my breath to see if the band would move on.

Pim was half of the heart of Kayak (the other half being Ton Scherpenzeel, keyboards), and his songwriting was especially interesting to me because he wrote puzzles: Never satisfied with the simple structure of here's your key, these are your chords, Pim would always modulate into other keys, taking a song, musically speaking, into a seemingly inescapable corner, and then bring it back to the tonic key with a flourish, like a magician. Ohhhhhh, I'd always say.

Pim was a producer as well, and worked in a lot of other bands, and I don't know who to compare him with. He was a bit of  legend in the netherlands, anyway, and on November 23rd of last year, the friends and bandmates of Pim, Kayak included, got together at the Paradiso in Amsterdam for a tribute concert. It isn't that big a house, and of course videos have been trickling out on youtube.

So, here's Starlight Dancer. Isn't Cindy Oudshorn something? I like to think of her as the dutch Annie Lennox.

Also, the lot wishes Pim off to Avalon from the "Merlin album" in front of an enormous pic of Pim (and his cat!). Cindy loses it and plants one on Edward Reekers, lucky Edward. Oh God I have something in my eye.

Rust in vrede, Pim.

Family Values

Scott recently introduced us to Dr. Diane Medved, the mental health professional who apparently taught Robin of Berkeley everything she knows about compassion.

Anyway, over at Dr. Diane's blog, she expressed dismay at the reception her column received.

When I posted my surprise at the number of homeless with tarp-covered mounds of stuff in Waikiki parks, many lying on the sidewalks of touristy Kalakaua Avenue, I got some nasty comments about how heartless I am. I don't want to abandon these people--I want charities or, failing that, even government to help them.

As long as Dr. Diane doesn't have to help them, because they are dirty and some of them are smelly and gross! But hey, she wants them helped because she's concerned - concerned about the loss of revenue their presence may cost the local merchants.

And anyway, we must think of the children. Think of the wealthy, high-heeled teen-aged daughters who must step over the bodies of the homeless on their way to Prada. Shouldn't we save our compassion for them?

I think the ire comes from my underlying assumption that living on the streets is unacceptable. Should the desires of a few (often) mentally ill or substance-addicted "free spirits" trump the needs of the vast majority to walk on streets unmolested, without insecurity about safety? How comfortable are you about your teen daughter, say, walking down a street at night--one lined with fine stores at that--with less-than-clean people approaching her for money, or lying in her path?

Ewww, that poor girl might get dirt on her shoes as she steps on the filthy mentally ill people! A charity should do something for her!

Should she be the one to give way for the homeless, or should keepers of public safety step in to insist the out-of-the-boxers find more suitable sleeping space?

Yes, gentle readers, should this teen-aged girl be forced to walk around these "people", or should they just be bull-dozed out of the way? YOU make the call.

What it All Means

If any opiners on the right thought that maybe the Arizona shootings should inspire some reflection and perhaps some civility on their part, they don't have to ponder that drastic action anymore, as the philosophers at American Thinker have already summed up the tragedy quite neatly: "the murders and assaults were done by a crazy guy (who was out on the streets thanks to liberals), and he was a Nazi/Commie/hippie anyway, not one of us. And since the MSM and the evil liberals are using the violence to try to take away the first amendment rights of decent, hardworking Tea Partiers by asking for moderation, the Right should actually ratchet up the rhetoric in retaliation."

Just look at the American Thinker home page and see for yourself:

The Real Cause of the Arizona Killings
Bernie Reeves
Mass killers are almost always schizophrenics who should be institutionalized to protect them -- and us -- from random and murderous violence.

The Disconnect in Arizona
Drew Belsky
Correlation without causation.

Free Speech in the Crosshairs
Joe Herring
We conservatives are being backed into a media-developed trap.

Separation of Journalism and Politics
Lauri B. Regan
The mainstream media reached a new low with their coverage of the Tucson shooting spree by a deranged "left-wing pothead" (as one classmate described him).

Hanoi Jane and Jared
Jeannie DeAngelis
Jane is more focused on condemning uninvolved conservatives than she is on the maniacal murderer who slaughtered half a dozen people in cold blood in a parking lot.

The Left, Not the Right, Owns Political Violence - Michael Filozof

The Tucson Massacre Witch Hunt - Sally Zelikovsky

Murders, Lies, and Liberal Fantasies of Conservatives - Chidike Okeem

Etc.

But life just isn't long enough to respond to all this crap, so instead, let's let Town Hall's Mary ("Always an Instructor, Never a Professor") Grabar, for a column on the true essence of the tragedy (hint: it death wasn't the shootings of decent public servants or even the killing of a bright and sweet-natured child).

The Real Decay of Rhetoric: Labeling Speech in the Tucson Shooting

The media, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Democrat politicians are predictably using the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by what appears to be a mentally deranged young man to make political points and clamp down on opposing speech. Already, the signs are out there saying, "hate speech equals murder ."

And if some people out there have signs, then it means that the FBI Director and Democrat[ic] politicians are calling Mary a hater. That's just so typical of them!

I wonder, though, if the protestors would consider the email I received from "Conrad" that is also addressed to terrorist@rightwing.org as "hate" speech? His subject line reads "More blood on your hands! Congratulations on inciting violence, you fascist scumbag."

[..]

But this kind of vitriolic rhetoric has also come from a former colleague, a philosophy professor. Somehow a Facebook friend request was sent to him from my account. I don't know how it happened, but before I could get a chance to explain the error, he went on an insulting rant about not wanting to hear my political views. Facebook has an option for simply ignoring friend requests.

So, Facebook is now going behind Mary's back, trying to get her colleagues to hate her by inviting them to read her writings. And then the bitchy professor of Nietzschean philosophy didn't even say he'd be Mary's friend! That is just so sad!

I know that at this university where I taught with him I was no longer "needed" when my published views became known to those in charge.

Maybe Mary could join Dr. Mike's new lawsuit! Sure, he still has his job and is even a real professor, but his colleagues are also spiteful jerks who hate him simply because of his political views. Maybe it would lead to . . .Love, American Style!

Recently I ran into another colleague from that school who told me (now that he was retired) that they treated me "unfairly." Yet, as a tenured professor, he said nothing.

That's what happens when you give Pontius Pilate tenure.

The same thing happened last year at one of the places where I was teaching. The president of that college got wind of what I wrote and suddenly there were no more classes available for me! The previous semester I had been virtually begged to teach more classes. Enrollment was up. I had been on friendly terms with everyone. I've heard the same thing from so many other conservative professors who suddenly get the cold shoulder when their political views become apparent. Liberals, of course, freely advertise their left-wing views on campus.

And that, boys and girls, is why it's JUST NOT FAIR that FBI Director Mueller is telling wingnuts to keep the immigration talk civil, since he really should be arresting Mary's former colleagues for treason.

The casting of opinions that differ from the liberal orthodoxy as "hate speech" is the stuff of the conflict resolution, "peace," and anti-bullying programs. Students are emotionally bullied into rejecting conservative ideas.

Ideas such as "fag bashing" and "punching the crap out of smaller children."

We are their enemy, despite the talk about moderation (another Alinsky rule about the relative meaning of words). So when will our conservative political leaders call out these manipulators and say, "How dare you use this tragedy to advance your political ends? How dare you, you insensitive, hateful Alinsky-ite opportunist?" When will those in the institution where ideas and the rules for debate are being destroyed by the left speak up when they see one of their colleagues being treated "unfairly"?

Yes, that is the message that you should get out of the shootings: that if you are at a faculty meeting where the topic of discussion is "Should be rehire that crazy Mary Grabar for another semester?", you'd damn well better vote yes!

The Peach Pit Apostle

Erick (Little Cigar™) Erickson is "tired of talking about the Arizona shooting," because "[a]ll of the media handwringing over the 'tone' in the country and the 'extremist rhetoric' distracts" from the more important question of which sitting Supreme Court justice is a "goat-f*cking child molester."

But more important, all this post-massacre squeamishness over a little manly chin-music obscures the real lesson we should take from this tragedy:  Guns don't kill people.  Not paying attention to Jesus kills people.

Through it all though, well meaning people on both sides of the ideological and partisan divide are not talking about the one thing that should be talked about — a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Giffords (and possibly several other victims) was Jewish, so apparently she was targeted not only for her support of the Affordable Care Act, but because she voted for Barabbas.

Choosy Mothers Choose Lesbianism

I've been poleaxed by a lingering bug, and feeling unusually susceptible to depression, so I'm not up to reading right-bloggers' offensive defense of theodolite crosshairs and high capacity magazines, or watching mainstream media personalities distributing blame like they were passing out medals at the Special Olympics.  Fortunately, both Roy and the Hoosier Sage have already performed all the heavy flensing...

...so that leaves me to wander around in a bleary-eyed stupor and do a little desultory roadside rag-picking, like John Carradine in Satan's Cheerleaders.

Let's check in with mensnewsdaily, where non-man Denise Noe provides some timely un-news by exposing the connection between abortion and homo nups (spoiler alert: it turns out that same-sex marriage is actually just Plan B for otherwise straight men and women who can't figure out how to work a diaphragm.  Or, for that matter, Plan B™).

Gay Marriage and Abortion: The Surprising Link

Without question, the two most divisive social issues today are gay marriage and abortion. At first glance, they may seem disconnected since a gay relationship can’t lead to a pregnancy and subsequent abortion.

it can, however, (spoiler alert!) lead to the 1972 film Cabaret.

I suggest that this is precisely the link – and the reason most of those opposed to legal abortion also oppose gay marriage while legal abortion supporters often support gay marriage.

So let me get this straight...you're suggesting that people who believe women have the right to control their own bodies, also believe that gays and lesbians are entitled to the same civil rights as other Americans?  No offense, Denise, but I'd like to see the Venn Diagram.

Heterosexuality has a unique relationship with life creation, as gay marriage opponents invariably point out. However, they usually omit the corresponding truth that a unique relationship with life creation also means unique risks and even horrors.

I guess, but you might want to consider the possibility that you're doing it wrong.

No woman has ever shoved a knitting needle up herself as a result of a lesbian embrace. No woman has ever had a doctor rip a fetus out of her body because of lesbianism. No woman has ever made the wrenching decision to give up a baby that has grown in her body for nine months up for adoption due to a lesbian liaison.

I think lesbians should really emphasize the safety aspects of their orientation, with a series of OSHA-approved workplace posters.  For example...

Lesbianism:  It's Like a Hardhat For Your Uterus.

This is not to suggest that lesbian relationships are risk free. Like any romantic or sexual relationships, they are prone to conflict, jealousy and even abuse, violence and murder.

I don't know who Denise is dating right now, but whoever it is, I urge them not to be stingy when buying her Valentine's Day gift.

However, they don’t have the special, biologically based costs for women that heterosexuality does.

Heterosexual intercourse is like the Russian Roulette scene in The Deer Hunter -- and not just because of all the sweating and cursing.

The fact that lesbianism cannot lead directly to abortion might seem to indicate that those wanting to reduce abortion should applaud it. Usually they oppose it. Why is that?

Oh, wait -- I know this one!  Because opposition to reproductive rights is less about  reducing the absolute number of abortions, and more about an overall icky attitude toward sex and girl parts?

The more brutal the consequences for women are of an unplanned pregnancy, the more attractive lesbianism might be to them –

You could take a trip to the contraceptive aisle at CVS, but it's more convenient to just find another gal and settle down in a Boston Marriage.

and the greater the societal fear that they will choose sexual partners that will not lead them to replenish the species and the culture.

And yet the Catholic Church would rather women turn to lesbianism than the Pill.  Either the Vatican hierarchy doesn't care about the brutal consequences of unplanned pregnancies, or the most frequently Tivo'd show in the Lateran Palace is The L Word.

Thus, it may appear important to put in cultural incentives for women to choose the more dangerous heterosexuality because the same form of sex that leads to reproductive horrors also leads to the reproduction necessary for species and cultural survival.

Nowadays a "cultural incentive" most often means "a chance to appear on reality TV," so perhaps the few, proud women who agree to brave the dangers and horrors of heterosexuality could be rewarded with a spot on one of those Discovery Channel shows like Dirty Jobs, or Deadliest Catch.  In fact, Sarah Palin's Alaska probably would have lasted longer if it had featured the former governor giving birth in the wilderness, severing the umbilical cord with her teeth, and eating the placenta before it attracted wolves.

It is no coincidence that the stigma toward lesbianism declined during the era of the Pill, legal abortion, and the demise of the home for unwed mothers. As the consequences of heterosexuality became less devastating, the fear that women would turn to each other rather than risk sex with men automatically diminished.

And yet, you look around, and there seems to be more lesbians than ever!  Someone really needs to tell Ellen about the Pill.

While lesbianism has been stigmatized, it has not usually been as persecuted as male homosexuality. I would suggest that the reason for this is also linked to reproduction. For much of human history, overpopulation was not a concern. The concern, as noted, was with the continuation of the species. Male sperm released in homosexuality is “lost” to its reproductive mission.

Yeah, that's undoubtedly the motivation for gay-bashing: squandered sperm.

By contrast, a woman who has engaged in lesbianism is no less likely to be impregnated than a woman who has not — if she also engages in heterosexuality. Male homosexuality per se appears a threat while lesbianism becomes a threat only if it is exclusive.

So lesbians aren't exclusively attracted to women, they're just fooling around with their girlfriends until the Pizza Delivery Guy shows up to impregnate them.

But aren't men who've engaged in gay sex no less likely to impregnate a woman, or are we pretending that no one's dad was ever in the Navy?

The stigmatization of same-sex relations in both genders occurs because there is a sense that, to the extent that such relationships may be the result of choice, that choice is all-too-attractive from the individual’s viewpoint while threatening the ability of society to perpetuate itself.

Gay people:  Please help us prevent human extinction by making the less attractive choice.

In discussing the issues of gay marriage and legal abortion, it is important to realize their connections in fears about reproduction.

So anyway...Lesbianism.  It Does A Body Good.

Your Suffering Is Putting Me Off My Pu-Pu Platter

Dr. Diane Medved is another in an increasingly long line of wingnutty head-shrinkers who believes that a just God permits misery to exist in the world solely to spoil her view of Waikiki Beach.   But who, you may ask, is Dr. Diane Medved?  Well, according to her Townhall bio, she's "a clinical psychologist and best selling author," by which Dr. Medved apparently means she wrote a book in 1989 entitled The Case Against Divorce: Discover the lures, the lies, the emotional traps of divorce--plus the seven vital reasons to stay together, about which one of the two quoted reviews observes, "it lacks compassion and is almost frightening in its gloom-and-doom predictions. In addition, the statistics Medved uses appear skewed to support her argument without being remotely objective."

She's also Michael Medved's wife, according to Wikipedia, but doesn't mention this fact in her bio, for which no person with more compassion than she has would blame her.  Anyway, on to the holiday-despoiling hobos!

Homeless in Hawaii

Leave it to the homeless to dampen my enthusiasm for paradise.  

Imagine when she gets to Heaven and finds all those lepers, tax collectors, and prostitutes Jesus hung out with standing around, ruining the view and depressing the property values.  No doubt the words, "Hey!  You!  Get off of my cloud!" will be among the first to drop from her postmortem mouth.

I haven't blogged in awhile as I'm in Hawaii, the best new-empty-nesters gift my husband could have given me this winter. I'd rather have a warm downpour than a frigid one, and the overcast skies punctuated by monsoon-style cloudbursts have offered enough intermittent sunshine to allow us some beachy afternoons and great tete-a-tetes with friends to create some fabulous photos and indelible memories. 

But the tete-a-tetes were tainted when she found herself vis-a-vise with the sort of people who are tactless enough to be poor and allow themselves to be exposed to monsoon-style cloudbursts without recourse to a cabana and a banana mango smoothie.

Equally memorable were the "landed-homeless" whose blue-tarp-covered heaps of possessions pock the grass-strips between sidewalk and street, even in the most touristed areas of Waikiki.

Are there no truncheons?  Are there no water cannon or police dogs?  What kind of paradise is this?

Their tents pitched under banyans in parks and their groaning shopping carts draped with plastic bags stationed along sidewalks remind us that hospitable liberal government would rather enable freeloading on public property than business to high per-square-foot rent-paying establishments.

Here's where we see the superiority of conservative economic theory in action.  The homeless can be legally barred from private property, and if public properties, such as parks, are turned over to high rent-paying establishments, then they will have nowhere to pitch their tents.  And once the habitat of a species is destroyed, extinction usually follows.  After all, you've never had your shopping, sun-bathing, or rum-drinking disturbed by a Stellars Sea Cow, have you?

I've seen matted-haired scavengers picking through trash bins along the beach, and even right in front of Kalakaua Avenue designer shops, searching for cans to redeem for pennies.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, but at least they didn't block Ferragamo's display windows.

On a drive around the island, we saw a public elementary school lawn food distribution, long tables of comestibles seemingly offered to anyone approaching. 

Dr. Medved's skewed statistics show that children who are exposed to charitable giving at a young age are at a higher risk of contracting infantile compassion or pediatric moral compass.

On last night's walk, we saw a guy lying asleep on the Kalakaua thoroughfare sidewalk...His clothes and person were dark with dirt, in contrast to the white sidewalk. What an appealing incentive to spend big bucks in Fendi, Coach, and the other glitzy stores a few feet away. 

Just because you have to sleep on concrete doesn't mean you shouldn't do all you can to promote the Chamber of Commerce.

We've been privileged to come to Honolulu, where my husband works during our stays, many times over the years. I've never seen so many and such conspicuous homeless encampments, just plopped down in the most desirable footage on the planet. 

Government success stories are few and far between, but it seems obvious that Indian Reservations provide the best model for dealing with the homeless.  First, deport them internally to the least desirable footage on the planet, where they can wallow in unemployment and alcoholism, far from the better beaches, and higher end leather goods shops.  Then, in about a hundred years, allow them to build casinos.  Problem solved.

[Hawaiian's] "shaka" attitude of casualness goes a little too far when tourists are forced to step around some pretty disgusting inhabitants, and doesn't serve those individuals or their neighbors at all. 

Dr. Medved is the author of the forthcoming travel guide, Exterminate All The Brutes! from Kurtz & Marlowe Press.

Edrosothon

You're probably familiar with the recommendations offered by Amazon and Netflix, in which they attempt to learn and anticipate your tastes based on previous purchases and rentals.  It's occasionally helpful, but the algorithm is far from perfect, as witnessed by this recent email I received from Amazon:

"As someone who purchased DR. NO (James Bond) Blu-ray, you might like to know that MARCUS WELBY, M.D. is available."

and

"As someone who purchased CASTLE (Nathan Fillion) on DVD, you may like to know that ICE CASTLES (Robby Benson) is available."

To my mind, that's casting the net a bit too wide in quest of a sale.  Netflix, on the other hand, long ago gave me up as a reprehensible pervert with the palate of a mud-sucking catfish, thanks to the films we watched for Better Living Through Bad Movies, and now seems to be wrestling with its gag reflex as it proffers suggestions.

But while it's not a perfect system, I think I'm safe in saying that if you like World O' Crap, you probably enjoy Alicublog, so you may already be aware that Roy Edroso, who is Doghouse Riley's only serious competition as a purveyor of deft, witty, and pungent commentary, is walking a very rocky road at the moment.  He still doesn't have a PayPal button up at his place, but all-star commenter and ace relief blogger  Jay B. has set up a fund raising site, so if you can spare a little something, please visit:  Edrosothon.