GIL SCOTT-HERON 1949-2011

Gil Scott-Heron, the influential spoken word artist, poet, musician, and author - considered to be "the Godfather of Hip Hop" - died friday in New York at age 62.

from CNN:

It was not immediately known what killed Scott-Heron, who was best known for the 1970 song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," a politically and socially charged song that examined the African American condition in America at the time. The song was banned by some radio stations.

Born in 1949, Scott-Heron first gained fame for his poetry and spoken word performances in the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, he had published two books of poetry and recorded four albums, including "Small Talk At 125th & Lenox."

His early albums, "Pieces of a Man" and "Winter in America," have been credited with influencing other musical genres, such as hip hop. But it was the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" that put Scott-Heron on the musical map.

His music has been sampled by everyone from Kanye West, who sampled "Comment #1" for his 2010 song "Who Will Save America," to Common's sample of "No Knock" on his 2008 hit "Universal Mind Control."

In a 2008 interview with New York magazine, Scott-Heron revealed he had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, after years of batting drug and alcohol addictions. In 2001 and 2007, he was jailed on drug charges.

one of his more wonderfully barbed pieces was inspired by the blanket pardon received by disgraced, resigned warmonger president Richard Nixon for any crimes he might have committed in the White House.

Nixon was granted this unusual pardon by then president Ford ("Oatmeal Man").

"We Beg Your Pardon, America" actually got some airplay on white rock station WNEW-FM at the time.

as with any great poet, his words from 1975 have a spooky relevance today. his scathing but eloquent (and highly entertaining) narrative about the disparate notions of crime and punishment resonates too much for a rap from 36 years ago.

my favorite line has to do with a leg condition Nixon had, which was cited as a factor in the pardon. the condition is called phlebitis...

UNION-BUSTING LAW TOAST

that Wisconsin law - the one that stripped firefighters, nurses, and teachers' rights and pensions - the one Governor Scotty Boy Walker (left) pushed through while the capital was under siege?

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi has struck it down!

good on you, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi!

from legalnewsline.com:

In a 33-page decision Thursday, Sumi ruled that the March 9 meeting of the state Legislature's Joint Committee of Conference violated Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law and that the budget bill "consequently has no force or effect."

The governor's bill, Wisconsin Act 10, has been a source of controversy for months now, eliminating nearly all collective bargaining rights for those public employee union members. Walker, a Republican, had proposed the measure in response to state budget deficits.

However, the law could not go into effect because of a temporary restraining order put in place in March by Sumi.

Sumi, in her ruling March 18, would not allow Secretary of State Doug La Follette to publish the law. At the time, she said a legislative committee violated the Open Meetings Law when it approved a new version of the governor's budget bill during the March 9 meeting.

Sumi reaffirmed her ruling in her decision Thursday.

DON'T THEY KNOW?

dvtv live broadcast 5.12.11: A WAR NEITHER DESIGNED - NOR INTENDED - TO BE WON

click HERE for video

they said: let’s become drug dealers – we’ll make a lots of money so then we can buy guns and grenades – with those guns and grenades that we bought with all our drug-dealing money we can attack synagogues – and then we can blow up the Empire State Building!
kind of reminds me of a plan i hatched when i was twelve years old – i would become a famous rock star – make gazllions of dollars – then i could fund my own films and become a famous director – never panned out.
one year ago Faisal Shahzad attempted to bomb Times Square. he failed to ignite the propane tanks in his SUV. i think perhaps he would have known how to ignite a propane tank if only he had attended high school in suburban America – instead of Pakistan.
how bout that underwear bomber who couldn’t set off the bomb in his underwear – and the shoe bomber who couldn’t ignite his shoe – and the pizza guys in New Jersey who were plotting to take over Fort Dix Army Base armed with pepperonis or something – hey: do you see a pattern here?
kids – if you aspire to be a terrorist – for Allah’s sake - please do it right.
enlist in the U.S. Army. Timothy McVeigh didn’t mess around with propane tanks or underwear bombs - Timothy McVeigh learnt from the big green machine how to blow up buildings real good!
we have spent trillions of dollars fighting the War on Terror – a war neither designed - nor intended - to be won. we have been told for ten years that terrorists are out there – a worldwide network of freedom-hating Muslims lurking in sleeper cells and operating as lone wolves.
if they are out there – how come our buildings are still standing? how come our planes still fly? how come our water supply isn’t poisoned? how come the White House isn’t a dirty-bombed radioactive hulk? how come we are not all dead? and how come - after ten years of fear mongering by two presidents – how come we are still falling for this shit?

NUCLEAR MELTDOWN? TRY POLYESTER!

now that the Fukushima Daiichi nuke disaster has reached a meltdown state, Tokyo Electric Power Co. will protect the world from nuclear apocalypse - with PolYESter!
as something like concrete will likely take years to build, this 55 meter tall TENT (that's 180 feet, fellow 'mericans) will: "help contain the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, the plant operator said Friday."
and this radioactive shield "tent" should be ready by 2012!
so we can all breathe easier...well we can all like, breathe, next year.
feel safer now?

dvtv live broadcast 5.5.11: WITH THE FISHES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

while America celebrates a well-deserved assassination - a fair question arises of what it all means.

does it make any difference at all if Osama bin Laden is at the bottom of the sea? the answer is probably no – unless your name is Barack Obama and you're facing an election sometime soon.

bin Laden is dead – do you feel any safer?

the way we - the Unites States - built up his ego over the last nine years - bin Laden must have felt enormous personal satisfaction in the collapse of the economy – Osama must have felt enormous personal pride when Americans at airports were forced to surrender their shoes – then their genitals – to homeland security clerks – he probably took full credit for every breach of the constitution committed after september eleventh.

is it bin Laden’s fault we gave up our beloved constitution? is it bin Laden’s fault we let the president lead us into a trillion dollar war against someone who wasn’t bin Laden? is it his fault – or ours – that we accept torture and other tactics once considered un-American. torture and wiretapping were something that happened in China or the Soviet Union – not in america. times change – bin Laden’s fault?

if all of this is bin Laden’s fault – he must be laughing at us from hell right now – he’s laughing so hard he just pissed his caftan.

we got him. we shot him. he sleeps with the fishes at the bottom of the sea. trouble is that after nine years - the damage is already done. his death is - irrelevant. al-Queada may be irrelevant. what we allow ourselves to accept is all that matters now.

THE STUPID HURTS

just saw the mayor of L.A. on MSNBC telling us to report suspicious activity - such as if you see someone taking pictures of "critical assets"...
oh you mean critical assets like Grand Central Station? the Space Shuttle? the 6 Train? (i like railroad metaphors.) the Freedom Tower? LAX?
note to self - less MSNBC, more RT.

WHO KNEW

turns out some in congress knew since January about imminent raid to nail Bin Laden.
the gaggle on MSNBC seems surprised that this information hadn't leaked before Sunday.
that's because in January, after being briefed on said imminent raid, those congress members reacted as one (and reacted with the only known double-positive-makes-a-negative in the English language):
"YEAH, RIGHT."

DEAD DONKEY DROPPED

i took down the two snarky posts from last night. but here we are:
they got him.
they shot him.
they dumped his body in the sea.
so does this mean the wars are over? not a bit of it.
it actually means very little except this:

unlike all the conspiracy theorists, i only deal with facts that are not in dispute.
on the morning of september 11th, 2001 i was watching Fox News while getting my clothes on - this was before i went to 6th Street and watched the towers burn.
i left the house around 9:30am - but not before i heard a strange claim on Fox News.
the on-air voice said that the U.S. knew who was responsible, and that person was Osama Bin Laden.
immediately i was reminded of what happens after a high profile murder or rape hits the front page of the tabloids: the police scramble to get a suspect, any suspect, to parade before the cameras.
the same exact thing had just happened with a terror attack on New York - before anybody knew what was going on, before the twin towers fell, before the Pentagon was hit, before Bush had even gone into hiding - the government had a suspect - within 45 minutes of the first plane hitting the south tower.
incredible - which means not at all credible.
nine years later Obama pulls a rabbit out of his hat, shoots it in the left eye, and dumps it in a 'secret location' in the sea before he announces the feat. case closed.
(but rest assured - we got DNA and grisly photos.)
many credible people believed that Bin Laden died long ago of kidney disease.
i'm not sure what to believe, but the story that Barack Obama told last night - and the claim that Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes at the bottom of the sea - sounds mighty fishy to me.