Quote of the Day

"The Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried negotiations. We’re tried elections. Nothing has worked."

-- Mitch McConnell this morning, talking about a draconian balanced-budget, anti-tax amendment to the Constitution

And there it is: modern conservatism summed up in one perfect little quote. It's got the hypocrisy we've come to expect (the Constitution is a flawless document except when we say that it isn't and we hate government except when we can use it to our benefit) and a flat-out public admission that if the American people disagree with the Republican view of the world they should simply be bypassed (screw those elections, our way is the only way and we'll use governmental authority to force it on everyone).

It's basically an attempt to hijack democracy. Of course coming from McConnell and the conservatives these days, that's not at all surprising.

Dog Down Afternoon

I'm going to make this really quick.

If you're a faithful internet denizen then there's a pretty good chance that by now you've actually seen the video of -- or are at least aware of -- a cop in Hawthorne, California shooting a dog four times and killing it during the arrest of its owner. Is it shocking? Yes. Is it tragic? Certainly.

Was it a good shoot? Was it a justified use of deadly force? Absolutely.

If you can handle it, watch the video from start to finish. 52-year-old Leon Rosby is walking his 80-pound rottweiler past a police scene when he starts videotaping it, which is no big deal. When he starts yelling at the cops, though -- antagonizing them -- that's a different story. There could very well be a racial element to this story, potentially one no more specific than the history of friction between the police and the black community here in Southern California, and that deserves to be taken into consideration.

However, once the two cops on the scene walk over and start to ostensibly arrest Rosby, the dog comes after them. I get that this is the standard reaction of a really great dog to a threat on its owner, but it's still a very angry 80-pound rottweiler we're talking about. One cop tries to grab the dog's leash, which to be honest if I'm dealing with a dog like that would be way beyond the call of duty -- though it's an understandable reaction because nobody wants to see a dog hurt -- but once it lunges, that's it. All bets are off.

If I'm that cop, and it's me or a very big dog that's about to rip me to shreds, that dog's gotta be stopped, no matter what it takes. If I don't have a taser drawn or a beanbag round in a shotgun nearby, I'm shooting it. Simple as that.

A lot of cops are serious pricks, no doubt. But just as many are good men and women under unbelievable stress in a job where if they hesitate they get killed and if they don't they get publicly crucified. They do a job I wouldn't want in a million years, which is why I tend to cut them some slack until they've proven that they don't fucking deserve it. Shooting a rottweiler that's coming after you just doesn't seem all that controversial to me.

The New York Daily News: Graphic Video as Police Shoot Dog/7.2.13

Snowden Blower

Well, this is pretty much the most insane thing you'll see today: a five-minute film apparently thrown together quickly by a couple of Hong Kong filmmakers detailing the events that made Edward Snowden into, well, whatever he is these days. It's already received upwards of 100-thousand hits on YouTube with the comments on it, as you can imagine, ranging from thoughtful to barely legible due to what has to be the problem of trying to keep the tin-foil hat from falling over your face while you're typing.

The acting is laughable -- with an American-born English teacher living in Hong Kong stepping up to play Snowden -- and the overbearing soundtrack music sounds like Hans Zimmer being beaten to death with a foghorn. Since this isn't Michael Bay, Paul Greengrass or even John Woo we're talking about here, it doesn't end with a lot of action -- just an audio clip from the actual first interview Snowden gave to Glenn Greenwald, back before we knew for sure that he was a staggeringly naive political nihilist destined to collapse under the weight of his own relentless sense of self-importance.

The movie is called Verax.

If you can figure out why it exists, please let me know.

Listening Post

I always loved the original version of this song and Amanda Palmer's live cover of it is equally terrific.

Here she is doing Yaz's In My Room.

Feast Your Eyes...

The Huffington Post put this up and is calling it the "worst news graphic ever."

I beg to differ. This is, in fact, the best news graphic ever.

See, this is what you lose out on when you consolidate news graphic generation at a central hub: the joy of just letting the perpetually high, barely-out-of-college kids in the pre-pro animation department run wild.

This Is the "N"

I have to give credit to CNN's Don Lemon because when it comes to being who he is and stating his views, he really doesn't screw around or suffer fools lightly. He's out of the closet as a gay man and he has some very strong opinions on race relations and the way they should be covered by CNN and other news outlets. Personally, I agree with many of his beliefs and think that as a journalist with a wide forum he can be an invaluably powerful voice when it comes to challenging and changing the way racial issues are discussed by the media.

Tonight on CNN at 7pm ET, Lemon will be hosting a special called "The N-Word," which will supposedly debate the use of racial slurs like "nigger" and discuss whether slurs aimed at white people -- words like "cracker" and "honky" -- are comparable. To his credit, Lemon thinks that journalists or those referencing the word itself, minus any emotion or emphasis on using it to attack and demean, should be able to say the actual word "nigger" without having to self-censor. I think he's absolutely right. Way back in 2006, when Michael Richards had hell rain down on him -- fairly, I'd say, given the context of his rant, which happened as the result of his completely losing control of the audience at a comedy show and lashing out -- I wrote a lengthy piece on the dangers of not ever being willing to say out loud what we're talking about and instead trying to cheat in the name of glossing over the harshness of reality.

Here was the salient quote:

"The word 'nigger' holds an unparalleled level of ascendancy in our society. There's no better testament to the truth of this statement than the fact that otherwise educated, intelligent people -- the type who normally would rather step on a live land mine than be taken for an idiot -- will gladly allow themselves to be reduced to spouting the vernacular of a four-year-old to avoid speaking it.

No matter the alternative's power to offend and instigate, is there anything -- anything -- more painfully ridiculous than a grown man or woman saying, 'The N-word?' It's an absurd verbal tip-toe that not only proves that there is apparently no safe context in which the actual word can be uttered, but also that there exists an unspoken implication that those whom one would expect to be angered by the use of such a word are so stupid that they can't discern between the desire to dehumanize and subjugate and the need to openly discuss, and therefore should be protected from hearing the word altogether -- for the good of everyone. This latter possibility -- an indictment of an entire culture, whether out of condescension or outright fear -- is infinitely more offensive than the utterance of any one word."

I get that I'm a white guy talking about the use of an incredibly hurtful and derogatory term and I obviously haven't had to be on the receiving end of that word for decades upon decades. But when it comes to being willing to say "nigger" in a discussion instead of sanitizing it and, as Louie CK brilliantly said, forcing the other person to construct the ugly reality in his or her mind, I think we're basically being a bunch of chicken shits.

Don Lemon is trying to push an envelope that really shouldn't need to be pushed because, regardless of how offensive and oppressive a single word can be, we're all adults and I would hope can come to an agreement that there's a difference between discussion and dehumanization. No, I'm not looking for an excuse to say a "forbidden" word; I don't spend my day walking around being frustrated that the one thing somebody has asked me not to do as a white guy is an insurmountable personal crisis. I'm just not so sure we -- any of us -- should be talking like children in the name of submitting to language and a cultural reality that scares us.

Listening Post

It doesn't even matter that this isn't a video in the traditional sense. This isn't even a "lyrics" video. It's just the great Mavis Staples, covering Funkadelic, as produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy.

Here's Can You Get To That.