insights from the digital future
One of the greatest comedians of all time passed away today at the age of 65.
Richard Pryor will be missed, but lives on in the ethos of comedy and can be remembered by the millions of comics who in some way, shape, or form, emulate his legendary style and attitude.
Liberal Avenger has tracked down a couple .mp3’s two a couple of my fave Pryor bits, the links to which are below.
“Hillbillies” (.mp3).
“Cocaine” (.mp3).
Visit “A Tribute to my Daddy,” at his daughter Rain Pryor’s website.
Dana Milbank wrote: “Ex-neocon hawk Paul Wolfowitz now touts peace
World Bank chief tries to distance himself from Bush.”
Can you hear Chicken(hawk) Little cry: “the sky is falling?”
Earlier this week the U.S. walked out of the meeting in Montreal of the world’s leading nations to discuss climate change and the Kyoto accord.
But on Friday, former President Bill Clinton paid a visit and called the United States’ approach “flat wrong.”
The BBC reports Saturday morning:
After Mr Clinton’s remarks – which were warmly received – the official US team appeared to shift its position…. They appeared ready to accept that new talks should begin on cutting greenhouse gases beyond Kyoto targets – provided they were non-binding.
Not taking Kyoto seriously has turned the U.S. into a model of laughable carelessness to humanity and society in the eyes of the world.
Outgoing Canadian PM Paul Martin infuriated the White House this scathing, albeit rational speech, leading to the walk out:
“To the reticent nations, including the U.S., I’d say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience and now is the time to listen to it.”
Potentially, this could mark the beginning of a return to compassion in American politics. Assuming I wake up and this isn’t all just a dream, tomorrow may be the day that suddenly, there is help for the long-neglected (forgotten)? victims of the gulf coast hurricanes, and – who knows – abolition of the unheard-of-in-modern-democracies death penalty?
From Drum’s Political Animal blog @ Washington Monthly:
FLIGHT 924 UPDATE….Mark Schlueb of the Orlando Sentinel follows up today on the question I asked yesterday: what did Rigoberto Alpizar really say as he was running off Flight 924 on Wednesday?
A Miami-Dade police spokeswoman said Thursday that multiple witnesses reported that the 44-year-old was yelling that he had a bomb as he made his way down the aisle with a backpack slung across his chest. Later, the agency’s chief of investigations insisted that Alpizar was yelling about a bomb but declined to say whether he was on the plane at the time.
Seven passengers interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel ? seated in both the front and rear of the main passenger cabin ? said Alpizar was silent as he ran past them on his way to the exit. One thought he had taken the wrong flight. Another thought he was going to throw up.
“I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane. He never called out he had a bomb,” said Orlando architect Jorge A. Borrelli, who helped comfort Alpizar’s wife after the gunfire. “He never said a word from the point he passed me at Row 9….He did not say a word to anybody.”
Two teens seated in Row 26 agreed. So did Jorge Figueroa, a power-plant operator from Lakeland seated a few rows behind first class.
“He wasn’t saying anything; he was just running,” Figueroa said. “I said to myself, ‘It is probably a person who took the wrong plane.’ “
And Drum concludes:
To be clear: the air marshals who shot Alpizar may have reacted properly. Maybe he started yelling about a bomb after he got onto the jetway. But they don’t do their own case any good when they seemingly decline to tell us the straight truth about exactly what happened and why Alpizar was being pursued in the first place.
The first law of crisis PR is: talk to the press and tell the truth. If you don’t, people will concoct stories far worse than anything you can imagine. I think the Federal Air Marshal Service needs some lessons in this.