Mikey Likes It!: Hero of the week

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Hero of the week

Instead of focusing on the stupidity of the week -- with way too many contenders -- I thought I'd go with hero of the week.

There's really only one person who is eligible and she clearly wins: Cher.

Cher ‏@cher 3 hours ago

MAYBE FELLOW ARTISTS WILL HELP FLINT,IN ANYWAY THEY CHOOSE.BIGSMALL PPL IN"SHOWBIZ"R NOTORIOUSLY GENEROUS& TRULY CARE ABOUT THOSE IN NEED

239 retweets 728 likes

So good for Cher, she's a real hero. She donated over 100,000 bottles of water to the people in need in Flint and helped motivate others to think about giving as well.

And that lets me bring up an e-mail from Brianna who wondered why I didn't like female music artists?

Huh?

I've blogged repeatedly since I started this site back in 2004 about Janis Ian's "All Those Promises" which is just about the most perfect song ever.

I've also blogged about Carly Simon repeatedly (huge Carly fan -- I used to think she was my aunt -- she looks like my aunt and Dad had her COMING AROUND AGAIN album on the wall of his music room and I thought that was my aunt until I was about ten :D), and my dad and mom named me for Joni Mitchell's "Michael From Mountains" and I've blogged about how I love Joni's music (and blogged about FOR THE ROSES specifically not all that long ago).

I used to be a huge Anais Mitchell fan and used to blog about her. Not a big fan now.

Not because of her so much as her signing with Ani DiFranco -- racist and all (remember her effort to hold a 'retreat' on a slave plantation?).

But I love a ton of women artists.

Most are the ones I was exposed to growing up because of my parents.

So that's the women I've named mainly and Roberta Flack and Rickie Lee Jones and remember Elaine and I are together and she's a huge, huge music an.

And since we're noting Cher's heroic effort this week, let me note Cher.

It all blends for me -- the Sonny years, the early solo work, the later solo work. Because I come to Cher well after she's a huge star with a ton of hits.

But here's my top ten favorite Cher tracks:

1) "When The Money's Gone" -- nothing better captured the country's economic downturn. I love this song.

2) "Heart of Stone" -- love the video but love the song as well. Especially when she bears down on "Don't you sometimes wish you had a heart of stone."

3) "My Song (Too Far Gone)" -- I think this was the first Cher song I really knew. My sister (oldest) was in a bad break up and going through various songs about break ups and this ended up being one she focused on. "And he'll never get to know his son" -- Cher co-wrote this one. It's a ballad and appeared on the album where she's wearing a gold metal bra and horns. I remember the song and the album cover and Dad getting mad that she had it in her room for like a month. :D It was from Dad's collection and he expected all of his vinyl to stay in his music room. :D

4) "Main Man" -- track from her 80s CHER album. Don't know if this was a single ever but I always loved it -- "paid the gypsy to keep praying, I'll keep a candle lit for love" :D.

5) "Believe." Oh come on. You're a liar if you pretend you don't love that song.

6) "I Got You Babe" -- Cher with Sonny on their number one hit.

7) "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" -- I love this song "and all the men would come around and lay their money down." And how the song tracks the woman's life. And it's a lot of fun to sing "Papa would have shot him if he knew what he'd done." :D

8) "My Favorite Scars" -- from her most recent album. This is a classic song. But I agree with Kat that Cher should have recorded Steve Grand's "All American Boy" -- that power ballad is a natural fit for Cher.

9) "Just Like Jesse James" -- "Struttin' into town like you're slinging a gun, just a small town dude with a big city attitude, honey are you lookin' for some trouble tonight." :D I love that song.

10) "We All Sleep Alone" (tie) "The Sun Ain't Gonna' Shine Anymore." I have to go with both of those. I love "We All Sleep Alone" -- the musical figure that repeats, Cher's singing, all of it. And the first time I heard "The Sun Ain't Gonna' Shine Anymore," I thought it had to be a 60s recording because it's got such a 60s type sound. It's a 90s song. And one of Cher's best.

I love many other Cher songs ("If I Could Turn Back Time," "One To One," "Bang, Bang," "The Beat Goes On," "I Found Someone," "Save Up All Your Tears," "Song For The Lonely," etc) but those are my top ten.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, January 15, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, the US continues bombing Iraq, Ramadi still not fully 'liberated,' THE NATION tries to have it all ways, and much more.l

Starting with THE NATION magazine which wants credit for "Is It Time for the US to Pull Out of Iraq and Syria?" -- three different friends with the magazine lobbied for the article to be linked to.

They got their wish -- even if only one of the three realized sometimes that's not a good thing.

The piece is the sort of crap the magazine loves to do because it lets them cherry pick in ten years. "As we said a decade ago . . ."

Because the article presents four views and they can grab whichever one to make themselves look good in ten years.

Taking an actual stand?

That's too much for the rag.

Jeff Faux may offer the strongest take:

The war is already lost. None of the US governing class’ shifting war aims—stabilizing the region, defending human rights, ending terrorism, establishing democracy—can be achieved. There is no future “diplomatic” solution that justifies continuing the waste of life, treasure, and national honor.
Our ongoing intervention in the Middle East cannot succeed for the same reason that it could not succeed in Vietnam: We are foreign invaders, brutal enough to alienate the people of Iraq and Syria but not brutal enough to subjugate them. By expanding and re-escalating the war with enough US troops and bombs—and bribes to every warlord in sight—we might (with or without the Russians) degrade and perhaps even destroy, the Islamic State organization in Iraq and Syria. But it would leave the region an even more ungovernable wasteland of death and destruction and hatred of Americans.
ISIS is but one of many groups using that hatred as a ladder to power.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad speaks like an idiot -- we have to stay, we have to help, we have to -- Save the crap. The US government isn't helping anyone. As for the Yazidis, they can learn to fight. There his proof that the US is needed. Without the US, they could have been trapped on the mountain so much longer.

Those 'peaceful' Yazidis have since targeted Sunni civilians, killed them, for 'retaliation.'

Clearly, they know how to kill and murder.

And, point of fact, the rescue of the Yazidis was done by the Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.

Then there's Phyllis Bennis embarrassing herself.

Does she have a position?

We have to talk about what we owe the people of Iraq and Syria who continue to face the consequences of years or decades of horrific wars. We have an obligation to help support reconstruction, humanitarian relief, diplomacy, compensation, and much more.
But first, the United States needs to stop the airstrikes. They kill civilians and undermine the goal of ending popular support for ISIS. Bombing destroys cities, so ousting ISIS becomes a pyrrhic victory.

Yes, good to be against bomb strikes.

Sad that our discourse is so degraded and dumbed down that being opposed to dropping bombs is now considered 'radical' and/or 'peaceful.'

But the US has to this and has to that and blah blah blah?

“Pulling out” is what we do with troops, planes, bombs and drones. But crafting a serious strategy does not end with pulling them out; we also need to take the money now being spent on a failing war and redirect it to serve domestic needs and to assist the countries and peoples we’ve been bombing for so long.
.

I'd love to get behind Phyllis but . . .

December 2, 2004, we published "SHOULD THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?" which was about how this sort of 'we must' thinking just continues war and occupation.

We've also repeatedly noted that if you spill red wine on someone's white carpet, they're not wanting you to dab at it with a towel, they just want you the hell out.

If all that's too confusing for Phyllis, let's try this.

If a man is beating a woman, you get the man out. You don't say, "Let's work out the community property settlement and then we'll work on getting him out."

Phyllis is against bombing civilians.

Good.

I'm glad.

I'm sad that we're so whorish as a nation these days that we have to pat someone on the back for being against bombing civilians. I'm sorry that the 'position' is even seen as risky today.

But applause, Phyllis, applause.

Now lose the laundry list of what you want for Iraq.

Negotiating those wants is only going to continue an ongoing war.

All US troops out of Iraq now.

And, Phyllis, I'm being real easy on you and not slamming you for your silence on the IMF's take over of Iraq -- even though we both know you're silent on it and have been silent for months.

Even though the IMF will be yet another form of occupation.

So, ten years from now, THE NATION will grab one of the four positions their article presents and trumpet the one opinion as proof of the magazine's 'insight' and 'wisdom' and 'bravery.'

Even though the article is nothing but THE NATION trying to have it all ways -- not both ways, all ways.

Let's note some Tweets.

ميّ

‏@MayAlbinali

Shiat militias backed by #Iran torturing Sunnies by cutting them alive in #Iraq @nytimes @washingtonpost @AP @hrw

0:22

عمر الدليمي @omarALduleemi

مقطع مسرب للمليشيات الشيعية وهي تقطّع ظهر احد المدنين بالمشرط وتضع…

The persecution of the Sunnis in Iraq continues.

And the world begins to take notice even if the White House does not.

Since August 2014, Barack's 'plan' for Iraq has been implemented.

But the US President's plan has been short on diplomacy and short on addressing the root causes.

Barack Obama has been, however, happy to drop bombs on Iraq.

Repeatedly.

Today, the US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Hit, two strikes struck two ISIL bomb-making facilities.

-- Near Kisik, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed four ISIL fighting positions.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL vehicle, seven ISIL fighting positions, four ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL-used culvert and disabled an ISIL front end loader and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 14 ISIL fighting positions, destroyed two ISIL recoilless rifles, 12 ISIL heavy machine guns, two ISIL sniper positions and an ISIL tactical vehicle.

-- Near Sinjar, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL assembly area.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL weapons cache and five ISIL assembly areas.

-- Near Beiji, one strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL weapons caches.

-- Near Habbaniyah, one strike destroyed three ISIL fuel tankers and an ISIL command-and-control node.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.

What has been the result of Barack's 'plan'?

Civilian deaths to be sure.

A country ripped apart.

The recent Ramadi bombings have been so bad and so destructive that experts outside of Iraq are beginning to weigh whether the 'success' from bombings is worth the destruction that they inflict.

And Ramadi, despite all those bombings, despite non-stop claims of liberation, remains to be fully liberated from the Islamic State.

Heck of a job, Barry.

Magpie V ‏@i_magpie 4 hours ago

One will always be remembered for the destruction of #Iraq; the other for #Syria. Who & where will be next?!

15 retweets 7 likes