How a story’s narrative is flipped, when the picture framing the story is changed.

It really is a small world. As folks who frequent my blog here (and elsewhere) know, I live in Hyde Park, a few blocks away from President Obama. Because Chicago is a “city of neighborhoods,” each comes equipped with its own cast of characters.

In Hyde Park we have Miss Joyce our blessed gospel singing wanderer; the intrepid 24 hour a day walker; the former steel worker who entreats passerby’s for donations at Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap; know it all U of C undergrads who talk loudly on the bus about Strauss, Friedman, Ayn Rand, and others whose work they barely comprehend; and of course the old school players who “holla” at women passing outside the Starbucks on 53rd street.

In short, I like my ‘hood.

One of our other neighborhood fixtures is the gentleman featured in the above photo from Reuters. He begs. He pleads. Good folk occasionally buy him a sandwich and a soda. And as of today, we now know that said 53rd street denizen does indeed reach for the stars (and 5 minutes of fame) as he begs for alms from The President of the United States.

There is no partisan humor to be had here (as I know some on the other side of the ideological divide will find in said tragic photo). Yet, I also cannot help but to think that there is no better symbol for the malaise of the Great Recession, a struggling middle class, and Barack Obama and the Democrats’ impending day of doom on Election Tuesday if the pundit classes are to be believed.

A story is indeed worth a thousand words, is it not?

Chicago

Looking more like a seasoned Maurice Chevalier or elder statesman than Bathrobe Erectus, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner received a standing ovation at the Gene Siskel Film Center at the screening of Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel this weekend.

The movie, directed by Brigitte Berman, is the latest to chronicle Chicago history at the Art Institute’s new film center. Earlier this year, Disturbing the Universe about Chicago 8 lawyer extraordinaire William Kunstler was shown and last year Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger was screened, attended by Chicago’s second most famous son, David Axelrod.

Anyone who grew up before Reagan, in Chicago or both will delight at the forgotten cultural icons director Brigitte Berman revives: Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr., William F. Buckley, Dick Cavett, David Steinberg and many more.

TV clips from “hifi, party record and hootenanny” days on Playboy’s Penthouse and Playboy After Dark feature folk singers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez.

Who knew Playboy sponsored one of the biggest jazz festivals in history? Who knew it sent the Playboy jet to retrieve Vietnam orphans who bunnies, out of costume, nurtured back to health? Who knew Playboy supported Children of the Night, a group that helps runaways evade prostitution or that Hef went to Northwestern?

But halfway through the movie, a creep factor sets in. Maybe it is the parade of dead talking heads presented as if they were alive — Alex Haley, Robert Culp, Tony Curtis — or the fact that Hef wannabe Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione just died.

Maybe it was the ubiquity of Kiss’ Gene Simmons — so sexually and psychiatrically unbalanced that an NPR interview in which he tells interviewer Terry Gross to “open your legs” went viral — or the appearance of a leering James Caan who was linked to Hollywood prostitute broker Heidi Fleiss. (At the film’s end, Simmons who pontificates about male sexual parts being aroused by clothing while women’s are hidden away, removes the sunglasses he wears during the film in a gesture of grandiosity and symbolic exhibitionism. Ick.)

But the straw dog enemies of lust director Berman sets up — Pat Boone, Jerry Falwell, Charles Keating — are not nearly as creepy as those who are agnostic on, or supporters of,  Hef style lust.

What is, for example, the Rev. Malcolm Boyd, author of Are Your Running With Me Jesus, doing at an establishment where half the sky, as Nicholas Kristof puts, is deemed worthy of wearing animal tails? Where have Dick Cavett and David Steinberg been for the last 30 years to not notice that Oprah, Chelsea Handler and the women on the View have retired them?  And what is up with Bill Maher’s appearance?

In fact Hef’s pride in liberating African-American men to enjoy cottontail service at the segregated New Orleans Playboy Club and the movie’s discussion of his fight against “oppression” and “sexual McCarthyism” is so Denial it brings to mind a scene in Sacha Baron Cohen Bruno last year. Cohen invites the singer Paula Abdul, who has arrived for an interview, to use a Mexican gardener on his hands and knees as a chair — and she does!

Everything is fine if you ignore the furniture.

An admitted sex, Dex, Pepsi and work addict, Hefner has the self-centeredness, grandiosity and resentments sometimes called King Baby. He deserved seven girlfriends because he had been monogamous for eight years. The death of playmate Dorothy Stratten gave him his stroke — it was a “miracle” he got through –  and the suicide of bunny Bobbie Arnstein was caused by drug officials and hurt the brand.

While Hefner is admired as much for his business acumen as lifestyle, he fails to see that laddie magazines on the one hand and cable and cyber porn on the other retired his brand and still blames Former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan Edwin Meese for casting Playboy as obscene and its circulation nosedive. (Hef went hard core in 2001 over the objections of daughter Christie, CEO of Playboy Enterprises, who told the Daily Telegraph as a “feminist” she would not take the magazine hard core.)

Of course the half the sky who became doctors, judges, senators, astronauts, scientists, secretaries of state and magazine publishers also helped retire the brand along and a backlash against commodification capitalism and mindless consumerism.

In fact when asked flat out about Playboy treating women as sexual objects and animals, Hef at 84, stands by the brand and say it is because they are. And the Playboy brand stands as a White Boy’s Club that decided to left men from other races in.

This post originally appeared at No More Mister Nice Blog.

Peter Baker’s article in today’s New York Times Week in Review section is headlined “Elitism: The Charge Obama Can’t Shake.” Baker seems to accept the notion that Obama has brought this problem on himself, though he can’t quite seem to explain how — something about Obama’s “cerebral confidence,” or perhaps it happened because of one remark Obama made earlier this month about voters rejecting Democrats because they’re not quite grasping the facts. (But, um, that was earlier this month. Why has the charge stuck for so long? Baker can’t say.) Elsewhere, Maureen Dowd gets a little closer to reality — she thinks Obama’s been a poor salesman for his own ideas and deeds (which I think is true), though she also hits the elitism button (she says Obama seems “sniffy,” which is a word I might have used to describe George W. Bush at times during his presidency, including times when he was very popular).

But the notion that Jes’ Regular Folks are rebelling against a pinky-extending millionaire president is undermined somewhat by a Matt Bai article that focuses on a tea party leader in Utah: READ FULL POST

Even by the perverse standards set by the opinion-shapers in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, David Broder’s offering today stands out as a unique blend of moral depravity and intellectual laziness.

Broder:

I know that Democrats have fallen into a peck of trouble and may lose control of Congress. But even if they do, Obama can still storm back to win a second term in 2012. He is that much better than the competition.

[...]

But if Obama cannot spur that growth by 2012, he is unlikely to be reelected. The lingering effects of the recession that accompanied him to the White House will probably doom him.

Can Obama harness the forces that might spur new growth? This is the key question for the next two years. READ FULL POST

To those who put a lot of weight on the opinion of the pundit class, this report from CNN may come as a surprise:

Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of how President Barack Obama is handling his job as president, while 45 percent disapprove of his job performance, according to a CNN Poll of Polls compiled and released on Friday. This Poll of Polls suggests that for the first time this election season, more Americans approve of how Obama is managing his duties in the White House. READ FULL POST

All through the George W. Bush administration, Americans were fed a steady diet of fear, strategically orchestrated by Bush and Cheney to promote their political agenda. Americans were scared into supporting war. They were frightened into buying masking tape. They were jolted by elevated color codes. They were unnerved about flying on planes. And much much more…

For eight long years Bush and Cheney were masters of mania, preying on a nervous nation through well-timed machinations. What coincidence that terrorist threats would arise before elections and critical legislation. Even Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri would broadcast messages that helped push G.W.’s platform.

Using unjustified fear is an abuse of governance. Sadly for Los Angeles, Lee Baca, its Sheriff of twelve years who is running unopposed in this election, is employing the same fear tactics as George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Mere days before California’s November 2nd election, whose ballot includes Proposition 19, which if passed, would regulate, control and tax marijuana, Sheriff Baca is using free broadcast media to strike fear in voters against the Proposition he vehemently opposes.

As Baca’s luck would have it, Halloween arrives just two days before the November 2nd election. To frighten voters against Prop 19, Baca ordered his sheriffs to confiscate marijuana edibles from legal dispensaries and remove them from circulation so they’re not distributed to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Baca then used the confiscated edibles as part of his free anti-Prop 19 broadcast media blitz.

Are Baca’s actions ethical – or even legal? Is it legal and ethical to confiscate vendor’s merchandise and then use it as a vehicle for free media air time to push a political agenda – an obvious political agenda the Sheriff refuses to admit?

Here’s one of the videos showing the confiscated edibles and fear tactics Baca is using:

Ten days ago there was an incident of three boys in Huntington Beach, California, who were admitted to the hospital after ingesting marijuana cookies. The ingestion was accidental after a parent failed to put the cookies away. Of course that was a serious oversight, and thankfully the boys are okay.

But let’s get real here. Every home has dangers. Homes can contain medications, alcoholic beverages, toxic cleaning agents, sharp cutlery, swimming pools, balconies, staircases, bunk beds, bathtubs, hot stoves, storage bins, razors, sharp tools, lethal weapons like rifles and handguns, and tragically, abusive adults. Left unattended and unmonitored, myriad calamities can happen. Edible pot may come in attractive packages, but as long as it’s properly stored, there’s no more danger than that which already exists in most homes. And truthfully, there is still not a single reported case of anyone dying from pot.

California is broke. It needs revenue. And it needs to move into the 21st century with legitimate legislation. If Sheriff Lee Baca and Dianne Feinstein and the others who oppose Prop 19 want to keep California from moving forward, they do significantly more harm to the state than legalizing marijuana. America is sliding backward in every area. We’re a laughing stock to the world for sacrificing progression for regression. Not legalizing marijuana is as absurd as not using every available resource to push forward a clean, green economy.

If Baca doesn’t want to smoke pot, he doesn’t have to. If Baca doesn’t want to eat edibles, he doesn’t have to. But that’s no reason to use underhanded tactics to prevent wise legislation from passing – legislation that will generate income California desperately needs.

Baca, himself, with an annual salary of $284,183, doesn’t suffer from lack of income. He suffers from lack of wisdom.

Halloween is upon us–it is the season of ghouls, ghosts, goblins, and monsters–and this is before the Tea Party infused elections on Tuesday. With horror in the air, I am eagerly awaiting the debut of The Walking Dead television series on AMC tomorrow night. I have resisted all impulses to watch it online or to read any reviews. And as a long-time fan of Robert Kirkman’s opus (since day 1 folks) I am excited beyond all reason to see what Frank Darabont of Shawshank Redemption fame will do with The Walking Dead. Who knows what will be the same, and what will be different? As long as we get to see Michonne get her revenge on The Governor I am good to go.

The premiere of The Walking Dead got me to thinking about the relationship between zombies, popular culture, and politics in Great Recession, an empire in decline, early 21st century America. Thus, a question for those of you brave and intrepid enough to confront the undead:

If President Barack Obama were a zombie who would he eat first and why?

Editor’s note: For a different take, check out Mark Ames’ piece, which argues that the “Rally to Restore Sanity” merely served as a means for liberals to demonstrate that they are smarter than the Tea Partiers.

The aerial photos are in, settling any dispute between who was the best draw of protesters to the National Mall, Glenn Beck or Jon Stewart. The Comedy Central host won hands down over the Fox News Channel host, bringing hundreds of thousands — most of whom likely identify as liberal — to the nation’s capital for his Rally to Restore Sanity, which, in its naming, at least, was a repudiation of Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, held at the opposite end of the Mall two months ago.

But those who hoped to hear from Stewart and his colleague, Stephen Colbert, an outright condemnation of the Tea Party movement, at whom his call for “sanity” appeared to be aimed, were destined for disappointment. Stewart instead took aim at Congress the television news media — particularly cable talk shows in both the liberal and conservative camps. At times, Stewart strained, in a presumed attempt at balance, to present a pox-on-both-their houses argument.

READ FULL POST

As shown in video from the event, in November 2009 Hawaii Republican candidate for United States Senate Cam Cavasso, currently running against Democratic US Senator Daniel Inouye, attended a ceremony (Cavasso’s attendance at the ITN conference has been confirmed by his campaign office) held at the International Transformation Network’s 2009 Hawaii conference, near Honolulu, at which evangelist Pat Francis declared, from onstage, before would-be senator Cavasso,

“We put our foot on Hawaii. And you said every place we put our foot, we will rule.  So we are the Kingdom, the Kingdom is here.”

In the ceremony, introduced by International Transformation Network CEO Ed Silvoso, evangelist Francis sought to drive out “false gods” from Hawaii, banish “generational curses” and “witchcraft,” and give evangelical Christians divine authority over the state.

Video from the disturbingly triumphalist ceremony also shows Hawaii Republican candidates Shaun Kawakami (candidate for State House of Representatives, District 38), and Beth Fukumoto (candidate for State House of Representatives, District 37) in attendance.

Apostle Ed Silvoso began the warfare prayer,

“We release the battle. We are poised for battle.  We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. We are standing on the scriptures and we say to Hawaii, Hawaii you are God’s Hawaii. Hawaii, you are the vortex of transformation…

Silvoso turned the microphone over to Apostle Pat Francis who capped her speech at the ITN conference, advertised as a “keynote” address, by leading the participants in the prayer ceremony,

…We break generational curses, we break generational curses, we break generational curses, and we plead the blood of Jesus over every altar of demon, over every altar of ancestral spirit, over every altar of false religion, and in Jesus name we declare that you are the King of Hawaii, you are the Lord of Hawaii. We dispossess the gods of Hawaii, and we lift up the one and true God, Jesus Christ.

And we are charged, standing guard, and we put our foot on Hawaii. And you said every place we put our foot, we will rule.  So we are the Kingdom, the Kingdom is here.

Therefore in Jesus name, the King of Kings, so rule in Hawaii, and the people of Hawaii are blessed.  We break the power of poverty in the name of Jesus, we break the power of poverty in the name of Jesus, we break the power of poverty in the name of Jesus, we break the power of witchcraft power, every witchcraft power we drive you out, in the name of Jesus.”

In a speech he gave at a ceremony that opened the November 2009 ITN conference, Republican gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona told hundreds of delegates (”from all habitable continents,” noted the Hawaii Lt. Governor) assembled at the ITN’s Christian supremacist event near Honolulu, “We’re all here to disciple the nations, here in Hawaii and everywhere else, I want you all to know that.”

Following his speech, Aiona was blessed onstage by top ITN leaders, in an event reminiscent of a coronation.

CEO of the entity sponsoring the ITN Hawaii conference, Ed Silvoso, wrote in a 2007 book that “discipling” was what Lenin and his Bolsheviks did to Russia and what Ayatollah Khomeini did to Iran but, judging by the words of  speaker Pat Francis, “discipling” appears similar to Rand Paul campaign member Tim Proffit’s “curbing” assault on Moveon.com member Lauren Valle.

Last week, a minor Hawaii media storm erupted concerning a video I compiled which featured footage of Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona attesting, in 2008, to being a part of “Transformation Hawaii” but denying, in 2010, to being in the organization.

As the Associated Press described,

The video was produced by Bruce Wilson, who co-founded a blog about religion and politics. It includes clips of [Duke] Aiona at a 2009 meeting in Hawaii of the International Transformation Network, an evangelical Christian group, and its local arm, Transformation Hawaii.

Other clips are of ITN’s 2008 meeting in Argentina in which a pastor calls on followers to collect idolatrous objects to be burned, and of Aiona urging viewers to attend a 2005 ITN meeting in Hawaii.

In May 2010, Hawaii environmental activist and AM radio show host Carrol Cox filed an ethics complaint (also see Aiona-friendly Hawaii KITV coverage) with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission concerning Lt. Governor Duke Aiona’s acceptance of cash gifts of over $7,000, most of that given to Aiona by International Transformation Network and Transformation Hawaii leaders.

As discussed in an interview I did with Cox, the complaint was inexplicably dismissed with no public notice and no explanation whatsoever, by the Ethics Commission – which is in under the authority of the gubernatorial administration of Duke Aiona and Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle. Cox alleges a “whitewash” of the investigation.

Lt. Governor Duke Aiona’s involvement in the ITN’s aggressive form of evangelical Christianity, fast spreading in Hawaii, has been on the media radar screen since late 2004, when Aiona led an ITN-sponsored public ceremony dedicating Hawaii and its public schools to Jesus. Aiona has contributed a chapter to an ITN book about the “transformation” of Hawaii and attended at least five separate major ITN conference and events, including a 2006 ITN event in Argentina at which Aiona was filmed praying together with Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda

International Transformation leaders and speakers including Ed Silvoso and evangelist Cindy Jacobs (also shown in ITN 2008 footage attempting to exorcise “homosexual spirits”) have advocated and celebrated the destruction of native art and at an October 2008 ITN conference in Argentina, ITN CEO Ed Silvoso and Transformation Hawaii officer Suzanne Mulcahy likened their political opponents to rats.

Transformation Hawaii is an official chapter of the International Transformation Network, which has “transformation” projects ongoing across the world, including in Uganda, Argentina, the Philippines, Mexico, South Africa, Jacksonville, Florida, and Hawaii.

Initially, when I published my two-part extended report Transforming Hawaii in April 2010, I believed the involvement of Hawaii politicians in Transformation Hawaii and the ITN was far more limited than I now know it to be. Indications are that multiple Hawaii politicians, at every level of politics, have attended ITN conferences.

The implications are profound – during one of the most heavily covered American mid-term elections in history, a wave of politicians associated with a nakedly supremacist evangelical ministry whose leaders make statements ideologically reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades, were been filmed, less than a year ago, at a major conference held by that ministry at a well-known convention center. That footage has been, for the last year, freely available online.

The revolution was indeed televised. Nobody was watching.

In the final weeks of the 2010 mid-term election, video footage from the 2009 ITN conference, attended by Aiona, Cavasso, and other Hawaii candidates, disappeared from Ed Silvoso’s Transform Our World website.

[note: Hawaii activist and AM radio show host Carroll Cox, who confirmed the attendance of Republican candidates at the November 2009 conference discussed below, sent out a press release, concerning the shocking footage and the attendance of multiple Republican candidates, to Hawaii media outlets yesterday October 29, 2010, at 3:30PM IST.

As researcher Rachel Tabachnick explains, the International Transformation Network discussed in this story is part of a global evangelical movement that seeks to eradicate all philosophical and religious pluralism, which is tied to the growing antigay movement in Uganda.]