DeRosaWorld

The Fat Lady Sings

Eileen Farrell sings the aria 'Un bel di' from Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly for Senator Hillary Clinton.

Thanks, Hillary! 

Dear Jim,

I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you.

On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.

When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.

I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.

I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you.

In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness.

I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you.

Sincerely,

Saturday Musings

- Sandra Day O’Connor has joined the ranks of Republican women raising their voices for Alzheimer’s disease research. Her fellow Republican stalwart and care-giver, Nancy Reagan also has pleaded the case for the proper funding of the proper research. I guess God doesn’t want Republican men to be haunted by their memories in old age.

- Invading countries and hanging their leaders is a new global benchmark for justifiable invasion. (See Iraq). It is being debating concerning Myanmar.

- The A-list progressive blogosphere has a new strategy for their Presidential hopeful, Senator Barack Hussein Obama. Ignore the fact that he has not secured the nomination and run stories and headlines that treat him like the candidate and ignore Senator Hillary Clinton…ignore at your own risk.

- Listen up fellow liberals. A progressive agenda the likes we haven’t seen since LBJ’s Great Society and FDR’s New Deal could be yours if the Senator from New York lands the Senate Majority Leader’s job. And if we have a veto-proof Congress, the President will be inconsequential….well he can go to parties and dignitary functions where he can drink and do the least harm.

Maybe the reign of the Imperial American Presidency is at an end. Bush, Jr. proved no one deserves the power. A new balance of power for a new American century.

- It is interesting watching Bush, Jr. trying to pull the gas pump out of his ass.

- Dick Cheney, anyone? Anyone seen Dick?

- I’m stumped. I can’t imagine who Senator Obama is going to pick for his Veep candidate. I don’t know enough about him to guess. I will make a crazy suggestion: Patrick Murphy, the young Congressman from Pennsylvania. (he’ll be 35 by election day) Hope and Change!

McCain will go with Joe Lieberman (I hope). And Senator Clinton, (yes, she still is in the damn race so we have to include her.) can go with Wes Clark. (John Edwards and Bill Richardson are out of the running for a Clinton II Administration) This should be interesting.

-Two words for Appeasers: Prescott Bush.

Oh, For Christ's Sake

"Rudy Giuliani should not have received Holy Communion during the pope's visit because the former presidential candidate supports abortion rights, New York Cardinal Edward Egan said Monday.

Egan says he had "an understanding" with Giuliani that he is not to receive the Eucharist. The Catholic Church teaches "that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God," Egan said.

The cardinal said Monday that Giuliani broke that understanding when he received the Eucharist during Pope Benedict XVI's visit earlier this month. He received Communion during the April 19 service from one of the many clergymen who offered the sacrament.

Egan says he will be seeking a meeting with Giuliani "to insist that he abide by our understanding."

Giuliani's spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, said Monday that he is willing to meet with the cardinal but added that his faith "is a deeply personal matter and should remain confidential."

Egan's statement does not address the fact that Giuliani is on his third marriage. Catholics who divorce and remarry without getting an annulment from the church cannot receive Communion."

Far be it from me to come to the defense of America's Former Mayor, but the current Pope and the current Cardinal covered for their priests when they were sticking their thumbs up children's asses.

The hypocrisy is sickening.

Sunday Morning Music

I Don't Know How To Love Him from the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Saturday Musings

- After almost 8 years of squatting in the White House, President Bush, Jr. finally has an economic plan. In order to stop another American revolution, he is going to send regular folks a check to buy gasoline.

- Some car manufacturers are making theft-proof gas cap doors, anticipating Americans stealing from each other. When all we have to do is elect Hillary Clinton President. I remember paying 89 cents a gallon at one point during Bill Clinton's Administration.

- So, Pennsylvania... It took a while to see because there was a lull in primaries, but Senator Obama's campaign came to a crashing halt. Now all Hillary has to do is win a few more and get to the convention. Obama has no support left among the Democratic Party power brokers. So Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell and Wes Clark and Gerry Ferraro and the like are going to be working the coat rooms and hallways. You gotta love American politics. I can smell the whiskey and cigar smoke.

- As for the Philadelphia debate on ABC leading into the PA primary. Senator Clinton swats media "gotcha" questions like flies. If the Senator from Illinois can't handle a hostile Press, then he needs to concede the nomination to someone who can.

- As for Obama's big moment in front of General Petraeus...there wasn't one.

- Okay, on to the Republican. John McCain is visiting impoverished regions and bringing nothing but a photo-op. The Press loves him though!

- Out here in California, rumors abound of Governor Schwarzenegger switching Party affiliation...He may become Green!

- Pipelines and US Soldiers got blown up in Iraq this week.

- Afghanistan is so fucked up the media doesn't know how to report on it. So they don't.

- John Adams is dead. After two Yale death scenes Abigail (Laura Linney) and John Adams (Paul Giamatti) passed once again into history on HBO's miniseries John Adams. I enjoyed the show mainly for the time it took to debate the issues surrounding independence in America and the Revolution. I also admired their lack of hero worship and how they portrayed American Presidential politics being corrupt from the first three Presidents on. It helped me put the election of 2000 into perspective.

- Now it's time to get the real dirt. I picked up Gore Vidal's Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson. America's Suetonius ought to fill in the blanks nicely.

- And the hand wringing and research is over. I put my money down on Babylon 5: The Complete Series. I read every comparison I could find, I asked my geek friends and sci-fi fans...It was either B5 or Deep Space Nine. Harlan Ellison won the day.

- On that same multiple-versions-insanely-opinionated-fans vein, I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar (The Original Studio Recording) this week again after about 30 years. Overall, it got on my nerves before the end, but Heaven On Their Minds, Everything's Alright, I Don't Know How To Love Him and Superstar brought back memories of my Catholic Grade School days and the debate between the lay teachers and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart over this music being sinful or respectful. Respectful won the day and we were played the music in our classrooms as if it were a Church sponsored event and a victory for Vatican II.

- The weekend is here. It is a perfect Southern California day. I just launched the results of four months worth of hard work. I have a new bottle of Campari and a box of Stella D'Oro assorted cookies. Life is sweet.

Saturday Musings

- Even the media and the progressive blogosphere had trouble covering for Senator Obama on his remarks about those stubborn Archie Bunker voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere across the United States who are not supporting him for some godforsaken reason. They just don’t want hope.

- Hillary pounced of course.

- McCain made poopy in his Depends.

- Is McCain really this stupid or is the senile old man routine some Rovian game plan to keep the White House under Republican siege. What happened to the ‘maverick’, the guy who was thinking of switching Party affiliation?

- Bush, Jr. War score:
Iraq…fucked up and getting worse.
Afghanistan…ignored by press...FUBAR.
Iran…boy are they asking for it.
America…Supply lines running out of gas, food, water, cash and credit.
Generic ‘on terror’…Al Qaeda!

- George Jr. is going to make one hell of an ex-President. Every post Presidential interview is going to produce gems. How are the Republicans and his media apologist going to keep his stupid mouth shut. He basically admitted to treason this week when asked about his involvement in his Administration’s interrogation techniques. He doesn’t understand the concept of plausible deniability.

- Dick Cheney’s sunglasses…did you ever see that movie Jeepers Creepers?

- A Newseum opened in Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the US Capitol. Every word is a lie including ‘and’ and ‘the’.

- The beginning of the end: April 12, 1945. FDR dies in office and Harry Truman becomes President, as does the Military Industrial Complex.

- The beginning of the beginning: April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth in the space ship, Vostok 1.

- The French are fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia. What century is it?

- Lock up your jungen, or at least the boys. Pope Benedict XVI
(God’s rottweiler) is coming to America this week and he’s hungry.

- Because of HBO's John Adams mini-series, I'm reading John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel. We don't make 'em like we used to folks. JQA and Andrew Jackson make Bush vs. Gore look like a 'cripple-fight'. Americans never vote for the smart guy.

Saturday Musings

-The gruesome body count of US soldiers is on in Iraq as we approach the magic number 4,000 killed. Then we will forget again until 5,000. No judgments from the media. No condemnation. No protest. Dick Cheney fishes and parties with his freaky billionaire friends in the Middle East. The President is stupid and says mean, hurtful and foolish things.

-Barack Obama spoke this week in Philadelphia. It wasn’t quite the second coming or an Elvis encore, but the pundits liked it. We were told that history was spoken that day. My impression was that the Senator needs a psychiatrist.

-John McCain spoke this week, too. The stupid, old-man ramblings over Iran and the war in Iraq. Man, he seems old. President Reagan never gave off the impression of an old man. McCain oozes it. They say The Gipper’s mind was slipping during the second term. McCain seems to have lost his already.

-Senator Clinton seems poised to win big in Pennsylvania. This thing is a street fight. She spoke this week on Iraq, too. Her sensible moderation may be too little, to late. She seems to be the only person left standing who understands Iraq, but her words are no longer echoing.

I guess we leave it up to the racists to see if she can pull this out. Her strength is the economy, or lack of economy, right now. I think people are voting their pocket book when they vote for her, not their racial prejudices.

-Speaking of racism and economics. In Philadelphia, there was a plan to make the entire city WI-FI friendly. Internet for everyone, rich and poor…then the companies did the math and there was no profit to be made in the poorer, mostly black neighborhoods, so they are changing their minds. Something similar happened in the 1980s in Philadelphia when cable TV was being introduced across the country. No company wanted to lay cable in the poor neighborhoods where the population was mostly black. Philadelphia became one of the last major cities to have cable TV. So maybe the Archie Bunkers aren’t just living in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. They are also in the penthouse suites of communication corporations including some Gen-X and Gen-Y favorites.

-Arthur C. Clarke died this week. Kids today will have no idea what they have missed if they do not seek out his works. His fiction inspired reality in young scientists’ minds. Your cell phones and satellite technology for example.

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Go for it! It’s the 21st century!

-Anne Garrels is a senior foreign correspondent for NPR's foreign desk. She has spent the past four years in Iraq. She did a retrospective series of reports this past week. What caught my ear at one point was a harrowing story in which her transport came under attack, but she said” Al-Qaeda was firing on our vehicle!” I thought, how did she know who was firing on her vehicle? Suddenly her story started to smell of propaganda. I just don’t trust NPR. I wish I could. Sorry Anne.

-Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsed Senator Obama for President. He worked for President Clinton as Ambassador to the United Nations, and as the Secretary of Energy and it was expected he would throw his support behind Senator Clinton's candidacy.  Richardson said that Obama has ‘something special’.

No endorsement yet from John Edwards. No word from Al Gore either. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gore did not endorse anyone. Why should he? No one endorsed him after he won the election in 2000.

It should have been John Edwards this year. If Big Al didn’t want it, Edwards was the guy. Democrats have made an historic mistake, here I think.

-Wow, I actually saw a skull appear over hot Dana Perino’s face during her press briefing this week. It was just like the ending of the movie PSYCHO. She was stuttering and spitting trying to roll back Bush, Jr.’s lies and stupidity. It was really cool. They really are devils!

-Made Fallenmok’s Spaghetti Punttanesca last night and it was delicious. Some folks aren’t used to the olive, caper, garlic combination. Sometimes that taste clashes with red wine. But if you follow his recipe, I think you will be hooked. (Just ask the whores of Naples)

-Stop everything! Buy Gnarles Barkley’s The Odd Couple. For the kids today who don’t know what TSOP is. Check this out and then go download The Stylistics, The Three Degrees, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and The O’Jay’s.

iTunes has Stacey Keach reading The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. The drawback to this collection is the stories are not listed individually as tracks. It is one big track, so getting to a specific story is impossible. But Keach is the right person to read these stories. Hemingway's stories are very clear when read aloud.

Saturday Musings

If  I Can Make It There, I’d Make It Anywhere. It’s Up To You,  New York, New York.

-New Yorkers in the news:

-The Greatest President who never was, Mario Cuomo, has a solution for the Democratic Primary. Instead of CNN and MSNBC debates, make the candidates answer long, substantial questions on the issues facing America today. Sorry, Mario, Not in our life time. It is all about the sound-bite. Besides, would the average American understand the answers?

Ok, that’s being cynical, but come on, we just had two terms of a retard as President, and we really don’t seem to mind. We also pay $4.00 for gas and don’t seem to mind. We also went to war on an admitted lie, and don’t seem to mind. Jr. got in on a stolen election and we don’t seem to mind….on an on and on.

In a nation where the answer to Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? is 'No', substantive policy talk is not going to help people decide who should be the next President. It is not a standard we ever held to Republican Presidents. Jr. has yet to form a complete sentence while in office. We mocked Bill Clinton and Al Gore for being policy wonks.

All politics are local and it’s the economy stupid work pretty well as a voting guide.

-Eliot Spitzer…WTF? You have a wife and three daughters.

-Geraldine Ferraro is not a racist. Neither is Ed Rendell or Bill Clinton. Josh Marshall and The HuffObama Post need to take a look in the mirror. Americans are not evil because they don’t necessarily support Senator Obama in the Democratic Primary. Americans are evil when they shout and point and scream like brats when they don’t get their way, like Rush Limbaugh and FOX News and the Republican Congress…not very good company, I’d say.

-Congress went into a closed-door session to debate the unconstitutional acts of the Bush, Jr. Administration when it comes to warrantless wiretapping, meeting in secret so national security can be preserved. Republicans hide behind national security when they’ve really done something bad. Remember, it became the motto of the Reagan Administration where everything from his Alzheimer’s to supporting Iranian Hostages and Contra Founding Fathers became matters of national security and could not be investigated in public. And how did that work out for us?

-Bush, Jr. is trying to keep another critical report by the military out of the hands of the public. Another report on how misguided and mismanaged our war in Iraq actually is and how there is more proof that the neo-con fascists that infest Washington are playing the American people for fools. The report is already on the internet, but CNN, FOX News, MSNBC can’t seem to find it.

-Bearn Sterns needs money. The Federal Reserve is going to give it to them. Okay, but when the average American can’t make a car payment, who do we call?

-The EPA is complaining that Bush, Jr. overstepped his authority again and made the air less safe for Americans and the world. We should add up all the damage this administration has inflicted on the world and compare it to the damage terrorist evil-doers have inflicted on the world. I would like to see a grid of damage: Bush, Jr. vs. Terrorists.

-Pope Benedict XVI has created some more sins. Ecological damage and genetic manipulation. How awesome is that? Catholics all over the world can no longer pollute nor grow or eat genetically modified foods! No more bovine growth hormones. They can only eat hamburgers made from organically raised cows.  Am I misinterpreting the new rules? Genetic manipulation covers our food too, right, Father?

-I’m reading The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert Remini, not the three-volume set. I’m cheating and reading Remini’s one-volume version. I was watching television and The Wind and the Lion came on. One of those films that once I see a scene, I stay until the end. Mainly to watch Brian Keith’s performance as Theodore Roosevelt. In one scene he tells reporters that Andrew Jackson shot a man off the porch of the White House. When the movie was over I went on Amazon.com, looked up Andrew Jackson, read some reviews of his biographies, settled on Remini’s and ordered a nice used copy. Good reading.

Theodore Rex is coming soon, too.

- "I'm puttin’ on my top hat, Tyin’ up my white tie, Brushin’ off my tails." Tonight I’m getting out of the house and rubbing elbows at a concert of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy. Then off to a late dinner at a nice, local Italian restaurant. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a classical music concert. Too, long. In fact I haven’t been to one since I’ve moved to the West Coast. I’m excited.

Answering To A Higher Authority

"A leading Israeli rabbi has ruled that the anti-impotency pill Viagra can be taken by Jews on Passover, reversing a previous ban.

Viagra had been deemed not kosher since 1998 under strict dietary laws over the week-long Jewish spring holiday.

Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu said the pill can be swallowed if it is encased in a special soluble kosher capsule first.

Viagra's Israeli manufacturers said they sought an answer after receiving queries from worried religious men.

Forbidden foods : The drug was previously prohibited because its coating was considered inedible over Passover, when contact with everyday ingredients, known as hametz, is forbidden under Jewish law...

...Viagra's Israeli manufacturer, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals-Israel, said swallowing the capsule does not breach Jewish law because the Viagra would not come into direct contact with the body.

A prescription for Viagra is issued in Israel on average once every minute, the newspaper reports."

Side effects include...

St. Valentine, Patron Saint of Bee Keepers...Among Other Things

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on February 14th, half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair.

Thus in Chaucer's Parliament of Foules we read:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

Here are excerpts from the The Catholic Online biography:

"The origin of St. Valentine, and how many St. Valentines there were, remains a mystery. One opinion is that he was a Roman martyred for refusing to give up his Christian faith. Other historians hold that St. Valentine was a temple priest jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius.

Whoever he was, Valentine really existed because archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine.

In 496 AD Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

Valentine was a holy priest in Rome who assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith in effectual, commended him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year 270.

Saints are not supposed to rest in peace; they're expected to keep busy: to perform miracles, to intercede. Being in jail or dead is no excuse for non-performance of the supernatural. One legend says, while awaiting his execution, Valentinus restored the sight of his jailer's blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer's daughter, signing it, "From your Valentine."

He is the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, young people. He is represented in pictures with birds and roses.

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in a The Nuremberg Chronicle, a great illustrated book printed in 1493.

Additional evidence that Valentine was a real person: archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. Alongside a woodcut portrait of him, text states that Valentinus was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius the Goth [Claudius II].

Since he was caught marrying Christian couples and aiding any Christians who were being persecuted under Emperor Claudius in Rome, when helping them was considered a crime, Valentinus was arrested and imprisoned. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner -- until Valentinus made a strategic error: he tried to convert the Emperor -- whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't do it, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate."