Right Wing Nation

CNSNews:

A teenager in Ohio has sued Planned Parenthood affiliates in Cincinnati, alleging that when she sought an abortion, its employees failed to report that she was a victim of incest.

The lawsuit comes at a time Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles is fighting back against a pro-life activist who posed as a pregnant 15-year-old and recorded a clinic employee suggesting that she lie about her age to avoid filing a statutory rape report.

The suit in Ohio alleges that when the girl sought an abortion in November 2004 — she was 16 years old at the time — she told Planned Parenthood staff that her father was the baby’s father and that he had been raping her since 2000.

It alleges that the employees did not comply with Ohio law, which requires them to report suspicion of rape and incest to authorities. The suit charges that failure to report the rape led to another year and a half of abuse.

That’s what I call a big oops. I think Planned Parenthood had better drop that ludicrous lawsuit.

I had a colleague, a young’un who grew up during the 80s, who tried to tell me once that music in the 70s was “all white.” ‘Scuse me? How did he get that? The 70s was when Stevie Wonder broke out of the Motown mold and came into his own. And forget Christina Aguilerra or even Gloria Estefan. We had Santana–the original Latin rock band, and still by far the best.

Here they are in 1986, jamming Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (Abraxas, 1970). Listen to Carlos Santana’s intro solo–the man is a guitar god:

Oye Como Va–amazing:

From 1998 (there’s a video from 73, but the quality is so bad that it’s distracting), Samba Pa Ti–Carlos at his best. Does anybody even record instrumentals anymore?

When we saw Santana, we were awestruck all night. It’s amazing what beautiful sounds he can create with that guitar.

Best rockers on stage, even compared to Zeppelin (though Zeppelin comes in at a close second). From their first album, Aerosmith, released in 1973, their signature rock ballad, Dream On. It’s obviously not from the 70s. They’re older, and Tyler isn’t as energetic, but it’s still damned good stuff:

Rockin Walk This Way (from Toys in the Attic, 1975):

And Sweet Emotion (also from Toys in the Attic):

Now they’re doing theme songs for movies. Who’d'a thunk? Aerosmith was about as far from respectable back then as it got–then, who expected Steve Tyler to become a Republican? Who expected me to become a Republican?

Hands down the gods of progressive rock, Yes was the only progrock band that wasn’t a studio band (well, except for ELP), and jammed on stage. Yes was a guaranteed hot show. Laser and light show, and who needs psychedelics when you’re seeing Yes in concert? Yes was a psychotropic experience. Progressive rock died when it got too progressive, and too far away from rock, but Yes carried the torch even when the others faded away. ELP was great, but on keyboards, Keith Emerson couldn’t hold a candle to Rick Wakeman–nobody could. Pink Floyd was great too, but they were a studio band. Back then, bands didn’t lug symponies along with them (speaking of, remember the godawful Moody Blues?)

Understand, nobody did songs in concert the same way they were recorded. Bands jammed in concert. A third of what you heard was improvisation. Concerts were spontaneous. Bands went on tour to promote a new album before it came out. Bands went on tour to promote it after it came out. Bands went on tour between albums. That’s what bands did back then (no MTV, remember).

I only got to see Yes once, one of the first concerts I saw. I was in a daze for weeks afterward (and not drug-induced). Everybody always bitched about Roundabout not being one of Yes’s best songs (too commercial, they said), but they jammed the hell out of Roundabout and had everybody going nuts when I saw them. Here’s Yes doing Roundabout in concert (same era, though I don’t know where):

And Rick Wakeman, the keyboard god, solo (love the bars of Jingle Bells):

Close to the Edge is pretty long, and divided into two parts (the intro is over three minutes), so here are the links:

Part 1

and part 2.

Gather round, kids, let me tell you what life was like when I was a kid (well, high school, undergrad, that age). There were no CDs or optical technology. We had turntables and albums. There was no MTV. In fact, nobody had heard of a music video. You had two options: You could listen to the album, or go to a concert.

It was the arena rock era. There were studio bands–bands that produced most of their sound artificially in the studio–but they didn’t tour as much as the other bands (for obvious reasons). Most bands toured a lot, and if you were willing to travel, often not too far, you could see a lot of concerts.

Concerts weren’t the comparatively sedate events they are now, all sterilized and PC, with big projectors, there was no choreography (Paula Abdul would never have found a job), and singers didn’t wear headphone mikes. If Madonna had toured, people would have said, “What’s this crap?” and walked out. Smoking? Oh yeah, and much of it wasn’t tobacco. Concerts were by default festival seating, meaning there were no assigned seats, and the floor was open. You didn’t sit; you stood. Concerts then were like raves today (unless you were at a Grateful Dead concert, where everybody was so looped out on acid they kind of plopped down and said “Groovy, dude!” endlessly). And concerts were a lot cheaper. I remember being offended that Led Zeppelin was charging $8.50 a ticket (but I went).

Here, as far as I can recall (and for reasons we won’t go into here, my memory from that era is rather fuzzy), are all the bands I saw in concert.

• Beach Boys
• Jethro Tull (twice)
• Aerosmith (I remember four times and once several people insisted I attended but didn’t remember, hardly surprising, given the “state of my consciousness” at the time)
• Rolling Stones
• Santana
• Rod Stewart
• Jeff Beck
• Eric Clapton
• Led Zeppelin (twice)
• Hawkwind
• Genesis
• Yes (with Wakeman)
• J. Geils Band
• Joe Walsh
• Crosby, Stills, and Nash
• Jefferson Starship
• Black Oak Arkansas (don’t ask)
• Deep Purple
• Uriah Heep

The Beach Boys, believe it or not, put on a fun concert. It was very uncool at the time, but we had a lot of fun there. I was never much of a Tull fan, but they did put on one hell of a show–though of all the bands I’ve seen, Aerosmith put on by far the best concerts–Steve Tyler gives “rocked the house” a whole new meaning. The Stones concert was unlike those of the era and more like those today: in a huge stadium without festival seating (that is, we all had assigned seats) and we were FAR away from the stage, so it’s hard to say what the show was like. Yes, Santana, Zeppelin, and Jeff Beck tie for second-place. All three really cooked, and as far as guitarists go, it’s hard to say which was the more jaw-droppingly amazing in person: Beck, Santana, or Page (Clapton was in his lame “I shot the sheriff” period). Joe Walsh was so fried when I saw him he could barely find the guitar. Unless you’re my age, you’ve probably never heard of Hawkwind. They were a short-lived progrock band, sort of a cross between Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Genesis. And Genesis was only okay in concert. They weren’t particularly into it, and they were more of a studio band, like Pink Floyd.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash were pretty soporific. But there was no way I was going to pass up the chance.

J. Geils and the Starship both sucked out loud. They were way too bombed. I didn’t expect much from Starship. They had just released that really sucky album, Dragonfly, and if that weren’t bad enough, they were all so burned out from so many years of dropping acid I doubt they knew they were on stage half the time. J. Geils had to stop four times during the concert, and didn’t do much when they were on. Black Oak Arkansas, we’ll just zoom right past that one and pretend it’s not on the list. I’m not sure how I got talked into going to see either Deep Purple (they weren’t that bad, actually, considering how bad their material was) or Uriah Heep, but that damned organ drove me as nuts in concert as it did on the recordings. I hated Uriah Heep. It’s a mystery how I got talked into seeing them live.

I had tickets to see the Who, but we didn’t get there and missed it (it’s a long story). I had several chances to see the Grateful Dead, but I never got it. That’s heresy to others of my generation, but what was the big deal? I always felt the Dead were a great way to cure insomnia, and not good for much else. Jerry Garcia? Yawn.

I wanted to see a number of bands I never did. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. George Harrison (my favorite Beatle–you can keep McCartney and Lennon both). Heart (their first album, Dreamboat Annie, came out in 76, the same year as my last concert). I would have seen Zeppelin and Yes more often, had I had the opportunities. Zeppelin brings the house down (or did back then), and Yes was not a studio band. Close to the Edge in the concert hall, wow, that was a seriously spiritual experience. And Santana, you have to see them for yourself.

Then there were the bands I hated and gladly never saw, like the frakking Bee Gees (though they were a studio band and didn’t tour much), any of those banal, insipid, mawkish “folk” groups like Peter, Paul, and Mary (only a nine year-old could come up with lyrics as stupid, or think them profound), Fleetwood frakking Mac (the only band other than the “folk” groups I despise more than the frakking Bee Gees), Grand Funk Railroad (and how many times can you listen to “We’re an American band!” before throwing something across the room?), Kansas (twice people tried to drag me to see them), Kiss, and Peter “I love your way” frakking Frampton, with that stupid voice-pipe thing in his guitar.

I was a rock and roll man. I hated metal. Metal isn’t rock and roll. It’s crap. I hated metal as much as I hated “folk” or disco. Still do, in fact.

Interesting aside: I found this on wikipedia.

[Rick Wakeman] is a strong supporter of the UK’s Conservative Party, and performed a concert in September 2004 for the benefit of the party. The Arthur section of his King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table suite is used as the theme tune to the BBC’s Election Night Coverage since 1979 (with the exception of 2001). Wakeman’s album Fields of Green ‘97 featured the track Election ‘97/Arthur, which was used by the BBC for their coverage of the 1997 General Election. The music was further revamped for the BBC’s 2005 Election Night Coverage.

Blink! Who knew?

Nay, not so, says Andrew Ferguson, and he makes a good argument. Thanks to Betsy Newmark for the link.

Rather than comment on the debate itself (Sister Toldjah has a good rundown), because it wasn’t really a debate (you can’t have a debate with that many candidates), I’ll contrast the first and second debates. The first was brought to us by MSNBC and hosted by Chris Matthews, and the second was brought to us by Fox News and hosted by Brit Hume. Let’s contrast the questions asked:

Quiz time: One of the stations corresponds to the children, and the other corresponds to the adults. Which is which? And looking at the adult questions, is there any question why Democrats are afraid to debate on the Fox News Channel?

It’s official: Ron Paul a Space Alien

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds, I saw this :

Run-in changes lawmaker’s stance
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Phillip Morris
Plain Dealer Columnist

It’s funny how a gun can in stantly change your perspec tive on things, make you wish you could rewrite history.

State Rep. Michael DeBose, a southside Cleveland Democrat, discovered this lesson the night of May 1, when he thought he was going to die. That’s the night he wished he had that gun vote back.

DeBose, who had just returned from Columbus, where he had spent the day in committee hearings, decided to take a short walk up Holly Hill, the street where he has lived with his wife for the past 27 years.

It was late, but DeBose, 51, was restless. The ordained Baptist minister knew his Lee-Harvard neighborhood was changing, but he wasn’t scared. The idle, young men who sometimes hang out on his and adjacent streets didn’t threaten him.

He is a big man and, besides, he had run the same streets before he found Jesus - and a wife. That night, he just needed a walk.

The loud muffler on a car that slowly passed as he was finishing the walk caught his attention, though. When the car stopped directly in front of his house - three houses from where he stood - he knew there was going to be a problem.

“There was a tall one and a short one,” DeBose said, sipping on a McDonald’s milkshake and recounting the experience Friday.

“The tall one reached in his pocket and pulled out a silver gun. And they both started running towards me.”

“At first I just backed up, but then I turned around and started running and screaming.”

“When I started running, the short boy stopped chasing and went back to the car. But the tall boy with the gun kept following me. I ran to the corner house and started banging on Mrs. Jones’ door.”

It was at that point that the would-be robbers realized that their prey wasn’t worth the trouble. Besides, Cheryl, DeBose’s wife, and a daughter had heard his screams and had raced out to investigate. Other porch lights began to flicker on.

The loud muffler sped off, and DeBose started rethinking his gun vote.

DeBose twice voted against a measure to allow Ohioans to carry concealed weapons. It became law in 2004.

DeBose voted his conscience. He feared that CCW permits would lead to a massive influx of new guns in the streets and a jump in gun violence. He feared that Cleveland would become the O.K. Corral, patrolled by legions of freshly minted permit holders.

“I was wrong,” he said Friday.

“I’m going to get a permit and so is my wife.

“I’ve changed my mind. You need a way to protect yourself and your family.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. But I never again want to be in the position where I’m approached by someone with a gun and I don’t have one.”

DeBose said he knows that a gun doesn’t solve Cleveland’s violence problem; it’s merely a street equalizer.

“There are too many people who are just evil and mean-spirited. They will hurt you for no reason. If more people were packing guns, it might serve as a deterrent.

“But there obviously are far deeper problems that we need to address,” he added, as he suddenly seemed to realize he sounded like a gun enthusiast.

They say the definition of a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. DeBose’s CCW application will bear some witness to that notion.

Of course, the real question is why it takes being attacked to re-activate the common sense gene.

You gotta see this.

The current school board found out that it’s not a good idea to just decide to waste 115 million dollars on an unneeded new school, do everything they can to silence the opposition, and ram it through. In perhaps the biggest upset in the county, all the incumbents lost the primary:

All the state party endorsed candidates won (too bad), and Kalmbach, the only challenger running for County Sheriff who bothered to put up a website so we could see his platform, won the GOP primary (I wrote in Denny Nau).

If you are so unfortunate as to have been reading the local rag since the last election, you’d be under the impression that the county has gone Democrat. I’ve seen at least six stories, all nothing but anecdotes, about how many people are supposedly changing their party registration from Republican to Democrat. Well, if that really did happen, all those people who changed their registration didn’t vote in the primary yesterday:

From the local rag:

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who gained national prominence by targeting illegal immigrants living in his small northeastern Pennsylvania city, cruised to the Republican nomination for a third term on Tuesday - and unexpectedly won the Democratic nomination, too.

Barletta trounced GOP challenger Dee Deakos with nearly 94 percent of the vote. And he beat former Mayor Michael Marsicano for the Democratic nomination by staging a last-minute write-in campaign, all but guaranteeing himself another term, unofficial returns showed.

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