The Post-Abdominal Surgery Comedy Rating Scale

"Ow! Don't make me laugh!"New York Federal Art Project, 1939
Library of Congress WPA poster archive

Yes, I do relate to the mask on the right, at the moment...

Post-op laughing is to be avoided: it causes awful stomach pain, as I knew from Clever Sister's previous multiple surgeries. Those started when she was in her teens; the technology then made hers more ghastly experiences than what I'm having, since laparoscopic procedures a few days ago.

I spent the first couple nights at CS' place, where she went all out to nurse me. Her effort to keep me distracted included some comedy DVDs—fortunately, not all that hilarious.

As I realized I do need to avoid laughing, I remembered one of CS' previous gruesome surgeries. She was on her way home from some days in a California hospital on November 5, 1994. A big part of the history was that CS had been forced to live through many years of severe pain, with no medical acknowledgement of the problem—until the first dire emergency had landed her in an operating room.

It was 6 PM that November day. I waited to speak to my brother-in-law and, unable to focus on anything, I switched on the tube; it happened, just as evening news began. Lead story: the public announcement that Reagan had Alzheimer's.

Despite CS' having to suffer the ride over potholed roads of already decaying infrastructure—just as I did, almost twenty years of public disinvestment later—they got home safely, and the call came.

I had to tell brother-in-law, "I don't want to make CS laugh, but: I just had the news on, the big story was Reagan has Alzheimer's—and CS thinks it took her a long time to be diagnosed!"

He laughed and repeated it to CS. I could hear her in the background: "Ha, ha! Ouch! Don't make me laugh! Ha,ha! Ouch!..."

Brother-in-law added: having lived in CA when Reagan was governor, he saw plenty of signs then.

For me, in November 2011: post-surgery smiling, unlike laughing, does no harm. When I could manage to check, there was at least some news to smile about—election results from Ohio and elsewhere; from Mississippi, somewhat.

Trying to keep the patient distracted, CS picked up a copy of The Onion, which had been very funny the last couple of weeks. The pre-Halloween issue's Record Year For Abortion Restrictions, and terrifying tales of the economy, told by dead-itorial writer, Paul "Bearer" Krugman, had me laughing out loud. As did the following week's Remains Of Ancient Race Of Job Creators Found In Rust Belt.

Mercifully, under my circumstances, this week's material wasn't that good.

Though, just as I was about to put the thing down, I spotted this, to bring on the post-op pain.

And this.

N(ice) P(olite) R(epublicans)

The revolution will not be, etc.—NPR, home of Cokie and the like, axes this host, for the wrong kind of political activity—

The problem, says Simeone, is, "I'm not an NPR journalist. I am not paid by NPR. I don't do news. I don't do analysis. And I have never talked about the occupation movement on the air. I do this entirely in my free time."

...

"I've never hid my views and my opinions have never leeched into what I do on NPR. People can listen to all my shows. When I was talking about 'Tosca,' I could have talked about the relevance today of Cavaradossi, the tenor who is a political prisoner and who is tortured. I didn't mention it. It's a show about opera, for God's sake."

And a freelance web producer of a WNYC show gets the same treatment.

Yes, NPR's coverage continues to comfort the comfortable.

And there are credulous fans who fall for the branding.

Nevertheless, I caught a couple of Morning Edition segments this week where I almost enjoyed the lameness of pandering, considering the way reality is being leaked by other means, these days.

One was from the always irritating Eleanor Beardsley. I've heard her in the past when, her voice full of disdain, she "reports" on stories like a French transit workers' strike that not only shut down Paris—the déclassé unionists temporarily deprived her of her nanny's services!

This week, it was a Wednesday segment about Sarkozy's reaction to the Greek referendum. In her patrician, looking down the nose manner—

...opposition figures in France seemed delighted by news of the referendum, calling it a victory for the people. Desperate to beat Sarkozy in the presidential election next May, they hailed Greek resistance to its European managers.

"They've only been thinking about taking care of the euro and not the Greek people — so they're getting what they paid for," said Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of a coalition of far-left parties.

The far right also spun the news to fit its views.

I don't know the background of the "coalition of far-left parties," but it's is the usual hack punditry that attributes any position to "just politics," while presenting left and right as equally cynical.

On Thursday, there was this: "Harvard Economics Students Protest Perceived Bias." Students walked out on poor Greg Mankiw, former Bush advisor, now advising Romney...

I don't think I imagined an ill-concealed panic in Mankiw's voice, as he raced through his academic name-dropping and his talking points. The latter included the usual "we haven't been producing enough educated people to keep up with the increasing demand for high skilled workers."

So, what are all those unemployed indebted advanced degree holders posting "I am the 99 percent" photos, and camping around the country—chopped liver?

Mankiw claims, amusingly, that "some of the evidence that we've seen suggest that incomes at the top have fallen disproportionately relative to the middle."

Also, that "rising inequality is really a long-term...like a 40-year trend since the 1970s." [Trans: Jimmy Carter's to blame.]

If victories are possible over those who fund the blathering mouthpieces of academia and media, those will be hard-won.

But I think this from Thomas Ferguson, speaking at Occupy Boston, is on the mark—

You are powerfully influencing American politics just by directing attention to the 1% and big money's hold on American politics. It is a message that makes the establishments of both political parties and the mass media tremble, lest it transmit to the rest the citizenry, which is well aware that something is rotten, but not always sure exactly what is causing it.

...in its short existence, Occupy Wall Street has highlighted the problems of money and politics in a way no other force in American society has. You have put your finger on the pivotal issue of our time, which is whether democracy in America can survive.

The Reagan Movie: Leading Lady

That Reagan Girl; quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

3/19 [1983] "Let me tell you a true story about a boy we'll call Charlie. He was only 14 and he was burned out on marijuana.... One day, when his little sister wouldn't steal some money for him to go and buy some more drugs, he brutally beat her. The real truth is there's no such thing as soft drugs or hard drugs. All drugs are dumb.... Don't end up another Charlie."
—Nancy Reagan—image fully transformed from vapid society dame to caring anti-drug crusader—appearing as herself on NBC's Diff'rent Strokes

9/9 [1985] Nancy Reagan tapes her first rock video, singing a chorus of an anti-drug song called "Stop the Madness."

8/9 [1986] President Reagan sets a statesman-like example by submitting a sample of his urine for drug testing. George Bush, oddly enough, does the same.

8/13 The parents of 13-year-old Deanna Young of Orange County, California, are arrested after the girl shows up at the police station with a bag of marijuana, pills and cocaine from their home. Says Nancy Reagan, must have loved her parents a great deal. I hope they realize just how much she loves them."
The story becomes the subject of a bidding war in Hollywood.
•
Nancy Reagan's friend Mary Martin suggests that perhaps the First Lady should avoid seeing her current play, Legends, since it contains a hash brownie scene. Sure enough, it is announced the next day that a "scheduling conflict" will prevent the Reagans from attending the show.

9/4 "When the chapter on how America won the war on drugs is written, the Reagans' speech is sure to be viewed as a turning point."
—White House announcement of an upcoming anti-drug speech amusingly billed as the Reagans' first "joint address"

9/14 Sitting on a couch in the White House living quarters, the Reagans urge a "national crusade" against the "cancer of drugs." Afterward, the President—who will cut funding for drug programs as soon as the election is over—squeezes his wife's hand reassuringly.

1/13 [1987] "It wasn't a sustaining issue. It was the epitome of the fad issue, a classic really. It came and went in three weeks, max."
—GOP consultant Lee Atwater on the Reagans' anti-drug campaign

November 1981: Cats Out Of Bags

A few bits of business during one month in the first Reagan administration, from Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor—

11/10 President Reagan elicits hoots of laughter at his fifth press conference when he says of his constantly feuding aides, "There is no bickering or backstabbing going on. We're a very happy group."

As he leaves, Lesley Stahl holds up a copy of the just-out Atlantic Monthly featuring William Greider's article "The Education of David Stockman," in which the chatty Budget Director:

• Admits, "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers"
• Acknowledges that supply-side economics "was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate"
• Says of the Reagan tax bill, "Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront? The hogs were really feeding."

Is the President aware of this article? He is not.

11/12 "My visit to the Oval Office for lunch with the President was more in the nature of a visit to the woodshed after supper.... He was not happy about the way this has developed—and properly so."
—David Stockman describing his crow-eating lunch with President Reagan, who blames the whole flap on the media

11/13 "This house belongs to all Americans, and I want it to be something of which they can be proud."
—Nancy Reagan showing off her $1 million White House redecoration—funded by tax-deductible donations—to Architectural Digest, which is then forbidden to release any of its photos to the general news media

11/18 President Reagan receives the annual White House turkey, which upstages him by squawking and flapping its wings madly. Not to be outdone , the President recalls a Thanksgiving long ago: he was carving a turkey, noticed what seemed to be blood oozing from it, assumed the bird was undercooked then realized he had sliced open his thumb. Everyone laughs.

11/23 President Reagan vetoes a stopgap spending bill, thus forcing the federal government—for the first time in history—to temporarily shut down. Says House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "He knows less about the budget than any president in my lifetime. He can't even carry on a conversation about the budget. It's an absolute and utter disgrace."

Class-War Zones

Then—Washington, DC, 1932: Bonus Army marchers' shacks burn after attack by military.

October 25, 2011: violent pre-dawn police raid on Occupy Oakland camp.
photo: Jay Finneburgh/Reuters
caption: Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen, a former U.S. Marine and Iraq war veteran, is carried away after being injured during a demonstration in Oakland, California October 25, 2011.
Bag News Notes

This was a vet who had survived two tours in Iraq that sustained head injury from a police projectile. (Scott Olsen's condition has since been upgraded, from "critical" to "fair.")

A Majority Report listener called the 26th, to share her own experience—

"Woman arrested in OccupyOakland: tear gas came first, cop withheld medicine."

Medicine to treat her MS, that is.

Interesting that a major rationale for breaking up the encampment was concern over "sanitation": this slide show reveals the debris created by police on the site, which occupiers had been maintaining by their own organizational effort.

New arrests around the country, this weekend.

And weather happens: NYC occupiers camp out in snow, after having their power generators confiscated.

No matter how things play out with occupations themselves, the movement has been brilliant in forcing attention—and in highlighting the 99 Percent theme.

Majority Report has been invaluable at covering events, with Sam Seder's trips to Zuccotti Park, reports from listeners, and daily interviews. Weeks ago Sam's take was that this is a real turning point: a movement where participants' sense of having nothing to lose is so strong that they would commit to living outdoors, without basics of survival.

And the ingenuity with which the movement has developed strategies outside the official media is something Sam continues to cover extensively. And spotlighting the creativity of responses to the occupations' themes, have been interviews like one with "Fake Fox News Guy," artist Chris Cobb.

The word has been getting out, to more and more of the 99 Percent.

And there was a stunning performance in Congress.

Not by Congress—or it's execrable Super Committee.

But hearings before the latter were interrupted by a citizen, calmly and brilliantly speaking truth.

1983—October; Surprise?

Quotes from Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor—

10/19 [press conference question] ... what about the safety of the US Marines in Beirut?

"We're looking at everything that can be done to try and make their position safer," [Reagan] says. "We're not sitting idly by."

10/23 A truck bomb at the US barracks in Beirut kills 241 Marines.

10/25 Claiming that US medical students there are in grave danger, President Reagan diverts attention from the Beirut fiasco by launching an invasion of Grenada. Lest there be any doubt about presidential involvement in this decision, photographs are released showing a pajama-clad Reagan—up at 5:15 A.M.!—being briefed on the situation.

Curiously, reporters are prevented from covering the event.

10/26 American medical students from Grenada kiss the tarmac upon landing in South Carolina. Scoffs school bursar Gary Solin, "Our safety was never in danger. We were used by this government as an excuse to invade Grenada." President Reagan says US troops "got there just in time" to prevent a Cuban takeover.

A Testimonial

Well, well: in the news today, someone was honored for an anniversary.

Tony and the gang should have adjourned somewhere appropriate; for example, the Palermo Club—


—for a fitting testimonial.