Congratulations, soon-to-be Grandma, Sarah Palin!

Sarah "not Hillary" Palin, expected to be the second woman in history to lose an election as candidate for the vice presidency, announced that her 17 year old daughter Bristol "the Pistol" Palin is 5 months pregnant.


And now the lucky dad, whoever he is, will have to marry her.



As ABC News informs us:

Gov. Palin is a strong proponent of teaching abstinence-only sex education to teenagers.

It gives a whole new meaning to "no child left behind," doesn't it? Let's just hope she doesn't give the kid an embarrassing name.



Anyway...

You might not remember this singer from the 80s, but my best friend still loves her and the story the song tells is kind of relevant here.

When the Pen Is Not Mightier...

So. You thought you'd get through this election season without me blogging about it, didn't you?

Well, think again, Chester! Never let it be said that the4thpip stood idly by as ruthless politicians mistreated grammar.

Yes: I said grammar. And yes, this is about John McCain. But it is not about the fact that all of his sentences have the structure verb/noun/P.O.W.


It's about this pen, available from his official campaign store (thanks to Infra-Man for posting this out to me at YABS):

I guess that's what you get when you have your merchandise produced on the cheap in Asia. Or maybe it is to imply that learning impaired students support McCain?

Anyway, it seems horribly unpatriotic to mistreat your native language with unnecessary apostrophes. I hope we soon will get to see a Democratic ad that ends with the lines: "John McCain. Wrong on Grammar. Wrong for America."

I am the4thpip and I approve and proof-read this message.

Also, as John McCain has a lot to learn in spite of being 200 years old, here is somebody whose drinking has probably made Cindy McCain a nice bundle of money over the past few years - Amy Winehouse, with "Teach me Tonight."

Update: It seems somebody at the campaign read this and fixed the spelling on the image posted at the online store. Of course, if they already have 300 boxes in stock, that won't help them much.

Summer Reruns: Ted Haggard All Done with Rehab... Again?

Haven't I blogged about this twice already?
Penis chewing, meth smoking pastor Ted "Pastor Meth" Haggard is all done with the rehab program that would turn him back into the upstanding, Jesus worshiping penis chewer and meth smoker that he'll always be.

I'm having a serious case of déjà vu. So here is a Dionne Warwick, who has a cousin with a bit of a drug problem herself, with the song of the same title. "Déjà Vu" that is, not "Penis Chew."

Dale Eaglesham wins coveted Shuster Award

There is no higher honor for Canadian comic book artists than being named "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist" at the Shuster Awards, named of course after Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. This year's deserved winner is Dale Eaglesham for his work on Justice Society of America. And he was up against some stiff competition: Tom Grummett, Pia Guerra, Stuart Immonen, Karl Kerschl, Thierry Labrosse, Jacques Lamontagne.

I hope DC Comics will give Dale a raise now... The weak US Dollar can't be easy on Canadian creators working for US companies!

Here is a panel from Dale's earlier work on Villains United:

Who's gonna be Obama's Veep? I heard something on the grapevine.

So everybody's speculating whom McCain and Obama are going to pick as their running mates.

For McCain, who is already falling behind in the polls, there are basically two strategies: He could pick a woman to get some of Hillary's voters who are still upset that she did not get a nomination. Or face the fact that he is quite unpopular in his own party and pick one of his former opponents from the primaries: Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson.

Which is why I think Barrack Obama should pick Gladys Knight as his vice president. She is a woman like Hillary, a triple divorcée like Rudy, a Southerner like Huckabee, a Mormon like Romney and a TV actor like Thompson. She is the Super-Adaptoid weapon to counter every possible Veep McCain could pick!

And to prove that she performs well as part of a team, here she is with Marvin Gaye doing "I heard it through the Grapevine" with cabinet members The Pips in the background.

Raising Her Voice a Little Higher: The Pain of Linda Jones

CDs with warning labels are nothing new, as one can find the "Explicit Lyrics" sticker on albums by artists as different as gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg and the early blues diva Bessie Smith.

But a good decade or so ago I pulled a CD from a "marked down to next to nothing" bin that had a warning label of kind that I had never before encountered:

The music contained herein exudes an intensity rarely evident in popular stylings, and even infrequent within the "deep soul" idiom, and if you are not that familiar with Linda's output, I would genuinely recommend that you sample this CD in smaller doses.

I had never heard of Ms Jones at that point, but how could I not put down my 2 bucks and change for a CD that came with that kind of caveat?

Linda was signed to Loma records in the 1960s, but never achieved the kind of success that her stable mates Lorraine Ellison or Ike and Tina Turner were blessed with. The excellent double CD "The Best Of Loma Records: The Rise And Fall Of A 1960's Soul Label" contains no less than five songs by Linda, including her almost-hit "Hypnotized". She later signed to Sylvia Robinson's Turbo Records in the early 70s, and unfortunately most of the recordings from that era sound somewhat distorted whenever the technical equipment of the era was outdone by Linda's unique vocal range (which was basically all the time).

The first thing that will hit you - hard - about Linda Jones is that she never held back. Her rare joyous songs are ecstatic jubilations, while the majority of her tunes convey a sadness and drama that make you fear Linda has already put the razor blade next to her bath tub. Linda was a bit like Patti Labelle in so far that she did not seem to know any moderation, though her voice is very different from Ms Patti's.

If you compare Linda's recording of "I can't Make it Alone" with Dusty Springfield's version, you can't help but notice how much more Linda "got" the lyric. As incomparable and talented as Dusty was, as brilliantly produced as the "Dusty in Memphis" album is, I doubt you'll ever be able to enjoy Dusty's understated reading of the song again once you have sampled Linda's agonized, driven masterpiece interpretation of the King/Goffin composition. When she yells "Help me!" you just want to reach through your speakers and hold on to her for her own, dear life.

Linda suffered from health problems, including diabetes, and died at the very young age of 28. The pain in her voice was clearly driven by pain in her life, and maybe she explains her singing style best herself in her spoken, rambling ad libs in the middle of her knock-you-to-your socks cover of Jerry Butler's early hit, For Your Precious Love. If this version of the song sounds remotely familiar to you, that is probably due to the cloned version that Truth Hurts recorded for the soundtrack of the Will Smith movie Ali a few years ago. Personally, I would have preferred if they'd remastered Linda's recording to use it on the soundtrack to introduce more people to this forgotten diva. Anyway, here is what Linda said in that song, and if you click on the clip below, lord have mercy, you can hear her explain herself better than I ever could.

You know something ladies? And especially you ladies, I'd like to speak to you.
Cause you know something, ladies? If you got a man, I don't care what kind of man you got he'll want you to get down on your knees sometimes and kind of crawl a little.
But you know what? I got a man that's somewhere out there that I don't mind crawling to.
Sometimes I wake up in the midnight hour with tears rolling down my face.
And when I look around for my man, I can't find him.
Hell, I fall a little lower, look a little higher
Kind of pray to the Lord.
Because I always believed the Lord can help me if nobody else could
Well sometimes I think he don't even hear me!
So I have to fall a little lower on my knees, look a little higher,
Kind of raise my voice a little higher
And this is what I sing when I call to my man
And I especially want you ladies to listen to me
Because maybe you can try this
It might help you once in a while
This is what you sing...

It's International Day Against Homophobia

Today, May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia.

If you don't know what Homophobia means: it's not fear of humans, as the linguists among you might wrongly deduce. The word is a tad confusing because the behavior it describes, at least on the surface, is not fear, but hatred. Hatred of homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendereds.

Sometimes I feel like calling it a phobia is almost trying to excuse inexcusable behavior. Did the people who murdered Matthew Shepard really do so out of fear of something that they did not understand, or were their hearts just cold and spiteful organs pumping bile instead of blood?

I won't try and claim that I can figure out the root of a kind of hatred that unfortunately is found in so many cultures around the world. But I believe in my soul that education is a key, and that governments have a responsibility to signal that gays and lesbians are of equal value to society as everybody else. In that sense, I applaud the California Supreme Court for not only allowing many Cali lovers to finally tie the knot, but to hopefully also help us drive back homophobia in the long run.

Here is another very nice remix of Carl Bean's "Born this Way." Why does it seem that the music industry has been taking steps back since the 70s, if THE African-American label of the day, Motown, could release a rousing gay disco-gospel anthem back then, but nothing like that seems to be out there today?
If I were you, I'd sit down and consider what you're doin'!

Look in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a Ham!

It's an interview with my buddy Dale Eaglesham over at Talk the Geek!

When Mommy and Daddy (and conservatives) Don't Know Best

This week, health experts told the US congress something that should have been common knowledge for years now: "Abstinence only" sex education does not work.

Armed with scientific studies showing that not only is the "just keep your pants zipped" approach less effective than comprehensive curricula, it can actually be worse than no sex ed at all!

The organisations represented at the hearing included the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the American Public Health Association, the American Psychological Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. They spoke with one voice: Sex education that does not include information on contraceptives like condoms does not lower the rates of teenage pregnancies and infections with STDs. Some of the those programs actually lead to higher rates in both cases.

Republicans in the House of Representatives were stunned and apologized for wasting $ 1.3 billion of taxpayer money on those ineffective programs since the late 90s, and for sabotaging successful HIV-prevention programs in countries like Uganda by tying financial aid to abstinence only programs.

No wait, they didn't. They don't give a damn about science and facts. As Stephen Colbert once remarked, reality has a well-known liberal bias. They want to hold on to programs that make America's youth sicker and put them in desperate situations. Family values, indeed.

My favorite idiot in this is Rep. John "John" Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, who according to Reuters said

that it seems "rather elitist" that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. "I don't think it's something we should abandon," he said of abstinence-only funding.

Yes John, they're a part of the country's elite. Because they are better educated than many, most certainly better than you. They are part of an elite that you should turn to for answers instead of trying to make "elitist" a slam the way you and your friends did with "liberal" years ago. Would you also claim that parents who raise their children on a diet of sugary sodas and cheeseburgers know better than nutritionists?

It's time to stop talking about values and actually standing for some, John. You're killing kids.

Dedicated to John Duncan, here is a pre-Thetan level Will Smith aka the Fresh Prince with DJ Jazzy Jeff and "Parents Just Don't Understand!"

DJ Jazzy Parents Just Don't Understand

When Good News Makes for Tough Choices

I know, it's been a while. But at least I brought a new look for spring!

One of the reasons I've been away from blogging has been that my volunteering for the local AIDS center has kept me busier than usual. Other than looming budget cuts we had to deal with a bit of potentially very good news for millions of people living with HIV.

EKAF, the Swiss National AIDS Commission published a report in the Schweizerische Ärztezeitung (Swiss Journal for Medical Professionals) stating that research shows that HIV positive patients whose viral load has been undetectable for more than 6 months as a result of the usual combination therapy no longer seem to be passing on the virus to their sex partners (if they are free of other STDs). You can read an unofficial translation of the article here.

To clarify things for those not overly familiar with the subject matter: The combination therapy is not a cure. Once you go off the meds, the virus comes back with a vengeance.

I am still not quite sure how I feel about that publication. On the one hand, I have friends whose partners are HIV-positive while they are not, and this must be a huge relief for each half of those relationships. Heck, most people with HIV would have a burden lifted from them.

On the other hand, I have quite a few questions.

First of all, the research seems to be mostly based on heterosexual intercourse. As anal sex has long been known to be the riskiest for transmission,how sure are we that the results can be translated to the gay population?

Secondly, a doctor working at the local Chronic Infectious Diseases clinic told me a couple of years ago that almost all new infections they see are with virus strains that already have a level of immunity against some of the drugs being used in combination therapy. That means that at some point in the chain of infections, this virus was transmitted by a person who had received anti retroviral medication for quite some time. Are we to believe that all those people showed bad compliance with their medication regimens to remain infectious? And wouldn't infection rates actually go down instead of up as they have in recent years?

And finally: How do we prevent these news from filtering down to "Condoms aren't necessary anymore" in too many heads?

I'd like to see more research into this. As usual, we should avoid the easy answers. Neither going on with the same old prevention message nor calling off the dogs is in any way advisable here. If the results from the Swiss study prove accurate, we need to get more people tested and get infected people on medications sooner. We need to fight even stronger to get those with HIV in developing countries access to medication as it would not only add years to their lives and life to their years, it would actually slow down the spread of the disease.

As for all of us individually, I'd listen to this advice that the late Mary Wells is dishing out in one of my favorite songs by her:

Crack-Smoking Celeb Leaves Rehab Early

And it's not Amy Winehouse. No, no no!

It's our old friend, Pastor Meth Haggard! Evidently, he can't tell the world often enough that he's no longer gay, no longer sucking on male escorts and no longer smoking crack.

The team appointed to oversee Ted Haggard's "spiritual restoration" after scandal forced him to end his ministry at New Life Church has agreed to his request to end their oversite of his recovery program.

New Life Church issued a statement Tuesday saying it believes the termination of the relationship is premature, but would not say why. Earlier in the process, church leaders had said they assumed that Haggard's recovery could take several years.

The Colorado Springs evangelical congregation that Haggard founded also said it remains convinced that he should not return to any church ministry.

Haggard prematurely leaves rehab, New Life Church says

Here's a little something to educate Pastor Meth: Pour Homme's cover of Carl Bean's Motown classic, Born this way.

Oh, Snap!

Hiring a graphics designer is expensive... So when 80s dance floor act Snap! needed a cover for their single "I've Got The Power" they did what many do and just stole the artwork, in this case from a page from a comic book by legendary and eccentric comic book artist, John Byrne.

When the song hit number one around the world, they quickly replaced the cover with one that was less obviously stolen.A page from Alpha Flight (volume 1) #11, art by John Byrne.

The cover of Snap's first hit single.

Snap sure liked ripping off people with the initials J.B.: The title line in the lyrics was stolen from a song by Jocelyn Brown, who got her due not much later when Incognito featured her on their first big hit, Always There:

Quote of the Day

From a fab new interview with Miss Patti Labelle:

Usually, the hard women are after me! When I got my divorce, the women jumped on me like white on rice! I said, "Look, I ain't ever did fish, I don't intend to do fish so leave me alone."

And I know just how she feels! Maybe the ladies were hoping Patti had changed her attitude a little more than she did.

80's Patti LaBelle - New Attitude

Aretha Franklin's Onion

When my brother and I were kids, my mother sometimes read us a fairy tale called "The Onion."

It was the story of an evil, selfish old lady who had done only one good deed in her life: She had given a single onion to a starving homeless beggar. After her death, she finds herself in hell - but she is told that her one good deed might be her salvation: An onion is lowered from the heavens that just might be strong enough to lift her up to the pearly gates and beyond if only she can hold on to it.

So grab the onion she did, and as she got lifted up, some other lost souls saw their chance to spend eternity in cooler climates and held on to her legs. "No!" she screamed. "It will never carry all of us. Get your own damn onion!" as she kicks them off. Of course, at that very moment, the onion falls apart and she becomes Satan's bitch for evah and evah.

Ah, I love a story where the guy gets the girl in the end. Sniff.

But anyway. I'm sure all of us know evil people who have that one redeeming moment, some may even have a few. For example, did you know that Diana Ross helped pay Mary Wells's medical bills when the latter was dying of throat cancer?

For me, Aretha Franklin's onion moment was when she handed over the Grammy she had just won for her "Young, Gifted and Black" album to fellow nominee Esther Phillips. I had always assumed that Aretha realized what I feel about the two albums in question: While "Young, Gifted and Black" is one of several phenomenal Aretha recordings, Esther's "From a Whisper to a Scream" was a musical milestone, an emotional tour de force that would stand the test of time as one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

And then I read Aretha's explanation in her autobiography, "From These Roots." Here it is, straight from the horse's ass. I mean mouth. Maybe.

Perhaps my most memorable Grammy moment, though, was when I appreciated another artist. It happened at the 1972 Grammy ceremonies.
I won for Young, Gifted and Black but gave the Grammy to Esther Phillips, who had been nominated for From a Whisper to a Scream. I liked Esther's record, although I didn't consider it better than mine. I gave her my Grammy because Esther was battling personal demons, and I felt she could use encouragement.

It was a pity Grammy!!

Go kick at Esther's soul, Aretha. See what it will get you.

I am not even gonna dedicate an Aretha clip to this entry. Here are Marvin and Tammy Terrell, with the Onion Song.

Rep. Bob Allen Found Guilty

John McCain's Florida campaign honcho and state Representative Bob Allen is not having a good week.

Seconds after he was convicted Friday of soliciting a sex act in a park bathroom, legislative leaders were discussing how to remove him from office.

"This conviction makes it impossible for Rep. Allen to represent responsibly the citizens of his district," Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio said in a statement. "Furthermore, it is my personal belief that it harms the reputation of the Florida House of Representatives. We will now take the appropriate steps."

Allen, R-Merritt Island, who did not testify in his own defense, insisted he is innocent.

"I have done nothing wrong, and my family, my God and my good constituents know that," Allen said as he left the courtroom flanked by his three attorneys. "We're going to continue to seek justice."

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, to clear his name, Bob Allen will devote his time to finding the real fellationists!
I think he might have gotten off if his lawyer had considered asking the arresting officer to drop his pants in court and going for a "if the cock don't fit, you must acquit" defense.

Cough.

Anyway, here is Gladys Knight with "Guilty."