Conservative folk music

You might remember that old Kids in the Hall routine about "Career ending moments in show business". The first of these moments involve a promising young film star who inadvertently includes Hitler in her list of people she wants to thank while accepting an Oscar, while the second involves an earnest young folk group singing a ballad in praise of "Senator Joe". Of course, there were conservatives who liked the folk music form. One of these people was Janet Greene. There doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article about her, but I think she actually exists nevertheless. Although the first title shown on this page is "Fascist Threat", most of the songs are about the communist threat. She's billed as the "Anti-Baez", and while her message is pretty straight-up propaganda, I have to concede that she's actually a pretty good singer. She actually sounds a lot like her nemesis in a lot of the songs (these can be heard on an embedded player on the site). And she does have a way with words, even if I don't particularly like what she's doing with them. The whole page is worth reading actually, particularly the interview with her (she's actually not the one-dimensional person you'd expect).

Thanks to N. Beltov in this babble thread for the link.

ETA: the link to the babble thread is dead, though the link to Conelrad's page on Greene is happily still there.

The alleged assualt on his wife by the coward Robert Ford

Toronto city Coun. Rob Ford was arrested Wednesday and charged with assaulting his wife and uttering death threats, his lawyer has confirmed.

Lawyer Dennis Morris told CBCNews.ca that his client was arrested in his Etobicoke home mid-morning after being accused of committing an assault earlier that day. Morris said Ford denies the assault ever took place and will plead not guilty.

From the Ceeb. Well, he's innocent until proven guilty, of course, as the National Post is quick to point out in their wonderfully selective fashion. Nevertheless, I think that most readers of this blog will tend to agree that regardless of the outcome of this, Mr Ford is a jerk. A few examples of his past behaviour can be found here:

In past incidents, Councillor Rob Ford:

• Lied about his drunkenness and profanity while watching a Maple Leafs game at the Air Canada Centre in the spring of 2006. He was making remarks such as, "Green Party f---ing rules" and, "Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?"

• Initially, he denied to reporters he was even at the game, claiming he was being "slandered."

• Called Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby a "low-life" and "waste of skin" and Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti "Gino-boy," an ethnic slur. He later apologized.

• Incensed city money was being used for AIDS prevention programs such as giving prostitutes condoms, said AIDS is "very preventable. If you're not doing needles and you're not gay, you won't get AIDS, probably."

• Opposed bike lanes last year, saying: "Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault."

Quite remarkable that someone like this continues to get elected. Perhaps the folks of his ward respond well to his grandstanding about fiscal responsibility, or maybe he just stands for good suburban values like racism, homophobia, poor bashing, drunken idiocy, and (maybe) domestic violence. Doesn't reflect very positively on Etobicoke, that's for sure.

Edited to add: It seems that the charge has been withdrawn. I guess he's not a wifebeater, so my apologies to Mr. Ford (but I stand by all the other mean things I said about him).

The scourge of fair taxes

Here's a clever little video put out by the good folks at CUPE on how to understand corporate tax cuts:



Via audrawilliams in the ndp LiveJournal community. Please pass this one on.