The Site Formerly Known As TheRickGreene.com

I've moved this thing to Blogger, but you can still get there via therickgreene.com. All new posts will be at the new site. I don't really have anything at the new site yet, save for a disaster-themed banner I made, but in the meantime, here's Ray Price:

Here's more from Salon.com on the campaign of misinformation against Barack Obama. As I've speculated before, the writer points to an organized propaganda effort that employs mass emails and talk radio to "sow the seeds of doubt" in the mind of the incurious voter. One poll mentioned in the above-linked article, for example, found that 7 out of 12 independent Virginia voters believe that Obama is Muslim. A very effective rumor in some parts of the country; I've heard several people state that as if it were fact.

The Obama campaign has its own website devoted debunking these rumors. You can also find a page on Snopes.com that investigates frequent Obama email rumors.

To summarize:

Not Muslim

Not sworn in on Quran

Wife did not call anyone "whitey"

Will say pledge

Will salute flag

Not anti-Christ

I wish that I could claim credit for this clever subject heading, but props for this witty bit of word play goes to Jon Stewart (or one of his writers). Stewart defines "Baracknophobia" as "the irrational fear of hope" based on rumor "...in the form of the only email your grandmother has ever been able to successfully forward." Sound familiar?

My inbox has been inundated over the last few months with so much bullshit about Obama and other related themes, all in the name of derailing some sort of actual PROGRESS in this country. I think that I get targeted for these things by people who think that they're going to change my mind and help them stop what they perceive as the inevitable wave of BLACKNESS that would follow an Obama victory. I'm not kidding, either; racism in East Tennessee is as popular as ever. I've heard it coming from people who would never dare utter "the N word" and consider themselves "open-minded," but live in fear of becoming marginalized by what they perceive as a pro-black, pro-Muslim and anti-whitey agenda. Of course such a notion is utter tripe, brought to you by the same fear mongers that gave us Iraq and the Patriot Act, but even if such a person were to get elected, his or her radical agenda would never get past Congress and the Supreme Court. Haven't you figured out yet that the only radical ideas that make it to law come from the right?

I got one such email this morning railing against Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for allegedly supporting windfall taxes on stock market and retirement income. Not only was the email completely false, but it was also at least two years old. No surprise that the originator of said email was a wealthy family member nearing retirement age who regularly partakes in the mega-church loving, mega-car driving, mega-bomb dropping and mega-mistake making Kool-Aid of the fading Neocon vision.


Figure 1-A: The Neocon vision
So please, people, stop sending this crap! If your voting decision is based even partly on Internet dis-information, then do us all a favor and stay home this November! If you're looking to verify an email rumor, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Boortz, et. al. ARE NOT reliable sources! The same people that start these false rumors work closely with all of these supposed "news" sources to assure that you hear it from several places, henceforth creating the illusion of verification. The Snopes.com website debunks most email rumors, but please don't stop there. Anyone going into this election thinking that the 3-second sound bites they hear on television while flipping channels during American Idol commercials will provide them with enough information to make an informed decision is gravely mistaken. Put down that Hardee's Thick Burger and educate yourselves, folks - anything less is downright UN-AMERICAN!

A few places with minimal spin (there is no true objectivity in journalism - just those that are more clever about cloaking their biases):

Public Agenda Online

Mother Jones Magazine

The Washington Spectator

Citizen Joe

God I miss the Replacements! I haven't really listened to them much in years, but I need to. They were one of my absolute favorites from 10th grade on, and I even caught them live twice. I was in a band in the late '80s that wanted to be as drunk as the Replacements, but we quickly discovered that extreme states of intoxication, though quite enjoyable, were not particularly conducive to maintaining an audience.

I particularly love the original lineup with Bob Stinson on guitar, as evidenced here in the first video, a 1986 live performance on a popular television show I shouldn't mention because they are prone to yanking shit off the Net. I believe they remain the only band to be permanently banned from appearing on the show. What an unholy drunken terror these guys were!



Here we have Mats v2.0, with Slim Dunlop replacing Bob Stinson. I remember staying glued to tube the night they appeared on the International Rock Awards in 1989, and true to form, they did not disappoint. The band must have been informed in advance that the network planned to bleep out the line "we're feeling good from the pills we took," as evidenced by a minor change in the refrain, from "it's too late to turn back" to "it's too late to take pills."



Some say U2 was the best band of the '80s, and others might argue R.E.M., but I say that in terms of pure rock and roll spirit, these guys ruled the decade.

Prince is a total tool for having his lawyers pull this video from YouTube. Thankfully there's still a few - dare I say it - "revolutionary" types like Radiohead that love giving the finger any chance they get. Prince and company really knock this one out of the park, despite what the YouTube pundits are saying.

What is it with the name "Walker" and the state of Texas? I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with oil. One thing is for sure, though: Chuck Norris has taken too many blows to the head, because his letter to Congress is one of the most misguided, misinformed attempts to get even more American money into the hands of BIG TEXAS OIL COMPANIES that I've ever seen (besides the Bush administration, that is). But here's a little secret: the "Beverly Hillbillies" was fiction; the only people in Tennessee that got rich from oil are named Haslam. Who would have guessed that Pilot Oil president Jim Haslam (father of Knoxville's mayor) has paired with up-for-re-election Tennessee Congressman John Duncan, Jr. to promote the idea of drilling the fuck out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge so by this time next year we're only paying $4.98 a gallon instead of $5. All in the name of "helping the working class," mind you. Such compassion for a multi-millionaire, wouldn't you say?

This whole ruse is really the brain-child of none other than Newt Gingrich, who has wisely employed Norris as his face man, since I'm guessing that Newt doesn't know any kick ass karate moves. So where's there's smoke, there's a fire, and where there's Gingrich, there's going to be a bunch of underhanded rich white guy shenanigans.

If you're the kind of person that requires a bit more than a celebrity endorsement to make an informed decision, how about starting with a few of those pesky fact things. I know, I know, it's un-American and all and you'll be UN-supporting the troops and hating on fetuses, and it's got numbers and graphs and all kinds of actual DATA that's not in the Bible and the guy that wrote it is probably a gay black environmentalist Muslim communist who hates whitey, but who are you going to believe? Chuck Norris? Really? What, are you missing Charlton Heston already?

Get a room, will ya?

Anyway, here's the gist of the above-linked article, just in case you can't read it right now because "The O'Reilly Factor" is coming on:

Desperate people do desperate things. As Americans become more desperate for oil, I expect that ANWR and offshore areas will be opened for oil development. It will be like burning the furniture to keep the house warm in mid-January. It will be a desperate move that won’t result in much.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that Tim Russert has died. That's really too bad; I always looked forward to "Meet the Press" on Sunday mornings, and Russert's journalistic integrity was up their with Bill Moyers, as far as I'm concerned.

I was flipping through the channels earlier and Fox News was interviewing one of their darlings (and one of the most dangerous men in the country), Bill Kristol. There is just something intrinsically wrong about a guy like Russert departing while a Bill Kristol remains alive and well, perpetuating his nefarious agenda beneath the cloak of "journalism." Reminds me of John Lennon's murder, in a way. Or maybe a Billy Joel song.

Apologies in advance to the mystery Flash Dancer if she ever stumbles upon this video; what can I say but "welcome to the 21st century!"



This clip (from the Knoxville Central High School talent show, circa 1985 or 1986) makes a compelling argument for letting the fads and fashions of the '80s remain in their rightful place: another chapter in that book called "What The Hell Were We Thinking?". Notice the spandex-clad hair metallers milling about behind the curtain. This is indeed pretty painful to watch, but maybe it will make you think twice about dusting off your parachute pants.

Bob Dylan on Barack Obama:

Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralizing. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor...But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...he's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to...you should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.

"H" is once again the big thing on the club scene. Preparation H, that is.

Apparently, image conscious club goers are slathering their bodies with the topical hemorrhoid ointment in order to appear "ripped" by shrinking blood vessels and therefore emphasizing surrounding tissue.

So hurry now to a hot new club near you and enjoy the rare opportunity to have all your senses offended simultaneously; just don't forget the H.


A man ahead of his time.