Adrastos, Bigotry, Diary, Fog Of History, Law/Justice, Legal Docket, Music, Political Crack, Race, Supreme Court, Television

Around The Dial

It just occurred to me that I haven’t written a potpourri post in quite some time. The time is now.

I used the image from Samuel Fuller’s Underworld USA because Pulp Fiction Thursday is on vacation. I made sure it had an ample supply of pulpy crime fiction paperbacks to read at the beach.

I decided to give this post a theme song and I can’t think of a more apt one than the opening track of The Kinks most underrated album:

I haven’t been a radio person since I was a pimply teenager in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am not making that up. I wish that I was.

As a sickly middle-schooler I listened to Top 40 station KFRC. As a hippie high schooler, I listened to underground rock radio on KSAN, Jive 95 FM. I forgot to say man, man.

In 2023, when I listen to the radio, it’s WWOZ all the way. I miss two of their old school former DJs, Bob French and John Sinclair. The same John Sinclair about whom John Lennon wrote a song. This song:

Are you ready to change the dial to some Odds & Sods style segments? You have no choice, I’m the disk jockey and you’re the listener. And I don’t take requests.

We have a mixture of politics and history for your perusal today. That is, of course, not unusual:

We begin with a case filed in Federal Court in Manhattan, New York, not Kansas.

Bragg Fights Back: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg isn’t taking any shit from Gym Jordan. Bragg has filed suit against the jacketless chairman demanding he butt out of the Trump porn star payoff case. Congress does NOT have oversight authority over local prosecutors.

It’s a pity that Jordan can’t be sued for being a Trump lackey and a fast-talking cretin but that’s implicit in the suit.

I’m proud of Bragg for being a Democrat who’s willing to stand his ground and fight. The fight was knocked out of many Dems after three landslide defeats in the 1980’s. Glad to see it’s back.

Shorter Adrastos putting words in the mouth of Alvin Bragg: Gym Jordan can go fuck himself.

The DA really has:

The Return Of The Justins: The expulsion of State Reps Jones and Pearson backfired. Big time. They’ve both been reinstated by their respective city councils or whatever they call them in the Volunteer State. The vote was unanimous in both Nashville and Memphis.

The Speaker of the Tennessee house obviously only speaks to people who think like him, vote like him, and are white like him. That’s why diversity is important.

Congrats to the Justins for their return to office. They’re two promising young leaders and I hope to see great things from them.

Dig this reaction by Memphis Justin:

The Justins were disrespected by Speaker Cameron Sexton. Nashville Justin is calling for his resignation. It’s all about respect as is this classic Stax song:

The Roaring Klan: Historian Timothy Egan wrote a swell op-ed piece this week for the WaPo. His subject: the mainstreaming of the Klan in the 1920’s. The Hoosier Klan was particularly pernicious.

The Klan were so powerful that they deadlocked the 1924 Democratic Convention for 103 ballots to prevent the nomination of New York Gov. Al Smith. He was a two-time loser as far as the Klan was concerned: Irish Catholic and a wet. Wet as in opposed to prohibition. It’s just common sense but it was in short supply then as it is today.

In 2023, we have an Irish Catholic Democratic president who is a teetotaler. It’s a funny old world.

Abe Fortas has been back in the news because of the Crow-Thomas mishigas. Fortas was Lyndon Johnson’s personal lawyer and one of his closest confidants. LBJ treated Fortas as an equal and valued his advice above anyone else’s. You can see that in this picture of the two friends sharing a laugh.

Fortas continued to advise Johnson after the president put him on the Supreme Court. When Earl Warren retired as Chief Justice, he didn’t want Tricky Dick nominating his successor. He wanted LBJ to make the pick. Johnson nominated Associate Justice Fortas to become Chief. That’s when scandal swept Abe Fortas off the Court; leaving Nixon to appoint two justices. Earl Warren weeps.

For the details on the Fortas affair read:

Let’s dance our way out of this segment with David Lindley & El Rayo-X.

I still miss Mr. Dave.

Let’s turn the dial to HBO.

Succession has finally lived up to its title. I knew Logan Roy was bound to finally fuck off, but it came earlier than expected. When I heard there was a huge plot development, I knew it had to be Logan’s death. He’s said this for the last time:

I will miss the character. He was an asshole, but he was an asshole played by a swell fella, Brian Cox. Sure, he’s sarcastic but you can be simultaneously nice and sardonic. I try to be both but don’t always succeed. Oh well, what the hell.

Check out the interview Cox gave to Vulture: Brian Cox Is Happy That You Know About Logan Roy Now.

There are seven episodes left but Brian as Logan will still have the best line of the final season. It was when he said to his “adult” children Kendall, Shiv, and Roman: “You are not serious people.”

Yeah, you right, Logan. Time to fuck off and end this post.

The last word goes to John Mellencamp:

2 thoughts on “Around The Dial”

  1. Saw Brian Cox in one of the Bourne movies last night. Glad to see that he could get the work. I think that his Succession Role was a career high point. But maybe that was because even in the little screen he was a giant. His ability to delve into incomprehensible speech with his kids was a neat trick.

    1. He did most of his best work on the West End stage as a young man, He was a brilliant Hermann Goering in a teevee movie about the Nuremberg trial.

Comments are closed.