Rick Perry v Wendy Davis: Davis's Life Argues For Life, That Every Life Matters

Rick Perry, who probably should not be President, but has proven to be one of the most effective governors in the history of the US, will reconvene the Texas legislature and pass the bill Wendy Davis and a few hundred hysterical grad students from UT filibustered last week.

His comment on the situation summarized Mzzzzzz Davis's paradox completely:

"Who are we to say that children born in the worst of circumstances can't grow to live successful lives? In fact, even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of a single woman. She was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate. It is just unfortunate that she hasn't learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters."


Bull's-eye. Full marks.

A CNN apologist demands Perry apologize.

Really?

For what?

Telling the truth?

Every. Life. Matters.

One Man's Crisis Is Another Man's Opportunity: Rick Perry Visits Colt Manufacturing In Connecticut

This spring, the idiot mainstream press breathlessly reported and applauded as the Connecticut legislature passed even more restrictions on gun ownership in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Oh, the humanity, oh how noble a legislature, this we say this will fix things, by golly!

What was not well-reported were the some 400 employees of Colt who appeared at the state capitol to ask for cooler heads to prevail, all to no avail.

This week, Rick Perry came to visit, to invite Colt to relocate to Texas, a state that will never ever ever piss on them like Connecticut did.

The president of West Hartford-based Colt Manufacturing said Friday he will be pleased to host a visit by Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a state he called a loyal supporter of the gun maker.

Perry is traveling to Connecticut on Sunday for a Northeast job-poaching tour that will also take him to New York.

A number of gun makers in Connecticut have said they are looking into leaving after the state passed some of the toughest gun laws in the country, a response to last year's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in which 20 children and six educators were gunned down.

Colt president Dennis Veilleux said he welcomes Perry's visit Monday morning. 

He was careful to speak in code:

"While we have been proud to call Connecticut home for 175 years, as we look to future growth we have a responsibility to consider all options that ensure we remain competitive and meet the needs and expectations of our customers," Veilleux said.

The translation being: 'We're outta here.'

The plant leaves. The workers leave, highly trained people whose families have worked for the firm for decades and more. Their families leave, and their children never come back. The suppliers to Colt also leave, and their workers and families. The costs of maintaining roads and running schools don't go down, but the tax revenue certainly does.

And as for the firms recruited to take Colt's place? Question #1 is: 'If you will do this to Colt, what will you do to us? Besides, we've been talking to Texas, and Alabama, and Tennessee...They've got better weather, better food, lower taxes, and fewer Democrats.'

OS believes in our Federal system, with most power flowing to the states and the people. It allows a Texas to profit from the idiocy of Connecticut, and serves thereby to restrain their folly. The best reforms arrive dressed as competition.

Please, Rick Perry, Go Back To Texas And Leave Us Alone

OS has played the night owl tonight--too much coffee, too much writing and the mind still buzzes. CNN is carrying the debate from Las Vegas.

Rick Perry has no business outside of Texas. Shrill, arrogant, angry, insufferable, bickering, alternately going for the jugular and running for cover, taking his venom out on Romney, mainly.

In other words, a horse's ass. Not anyone who should be allowed near the White House.

Go home, Rick.

Stay home.

Take Michelle Bachmann with you...holy cow...

Language, Image, Film Technique, Message, And OS's Sense Of Disquiet: The New Rick Perry Ad

Here's the new ad:



It's really quite something, not the least for the amount of money and time necessarily burned to create it. This isn't Darryl-Bob living in his momma's basement with all his worldly goods tied up in his Mac gear. It takes a real studio that can edit and flow together all those images (from all those sources) and sounds (from all those sources), including a clever piece of scoring. It takes a real film-maker to put this together. There aren't that many good ones out there (lotsa wannabees, to be sure), and they don't come cheap. It takes a good deal of expensive time to create this, a lot of thought and planning. Video runs at 30 frames per-second, and can be edited within frames. Not one half-frame of this piece was not thought through carefully, and this probably is the twentieth rendition of the piece--the one released to the public.

It's obvious the famous LBJ campaign ad that so effectively hung the prospect of nuclear war around the neck of Goldwater was studied closely.

This piece intended to scare the living daylights out of the viewer, and OS must say, it does the job--in the second half, where the 'reveal' of Rick Perry as the solution to our national ills takes place. The words he speaks are lifted almost verbatim from Reagan; if you must crib from someone, the Gipper is a good place to visit. He speaks in a Texas accent, in a voice just a few tones deeper (bass-baritone vs. tenor) than George W. Bush, that same direct style and blunt use of short phrases of English. (That was chilling by itself, as we found out in early 2005 that Dubyah didn't really believe in most of what he was saying in 2004. It was really a downhill journey from there.)

In short, the whole thing is what we who work with copyrights call a 'derivative work', like Alan Sherman's comic lyrical treatments of classical tunes, or Wierd Al Yankovic's send-ups of pop tunes. It is work that draws its life by its references to other, earlier, creations. Nothing inherently immoral about it, happens all the time, but there is the moral hazard implicit that both creator and listener forget to remember the sources, and then we're off to the races in a fog of uncertainty. There are people of my generation who hear the famous 'Dance of the Hours' (by Ponchielli) and begin singing 'Hello, Muddah/ Hello, Fadduh/ Here I am in Camp Granada...', thinking Alan Sherman wrote the entire piece.

So, OS is left with the question after the ad: Is Rick Perry as incapable of original thought as the present occupant of the White House? Does he operate in images or language as he goes about his daily rounds? Can he clearly articulate in PlainEnglish what he thinks, and intends, and communicate that?

Or are we supposed to embrace Governor Perry as a Messianic hero coming to ride to our rescue?

Just like so many embraced the present occupant of the White House...remember 2008, anyone?

We need grownups who can do math, manage people, mentally operate and communicate in PlainEnglish, not images and emotion. Someone who can make rational decisions, and stand up to a world replete with mass murderers in charge of nations.

That's why this video scares the bejeezuz out of OS, and why Herman Cain continues to hold OS's interest.

James Kwak On Why Social Security Is Not A Ponzi Scheme

Kwak is a bright man, and this is (on the whole) a reasoned discussion.

OS lost his temper in the comments. Ignore that bit, at least the temper part.

Worth reading and considering, especially with the rise of the Rick Perry phenomenon.