Oklahoma Revisited

Wolverine Sings

   Although I generally dislike musicals of any kind, but especially films (except those of Bob Fosse, who actually worked the music and dancing into his films in a realistic manner (except for the first song in “Sweet Charity,” I guess, but the adorableness of Shirley McClain as Charity Hope Valentine makes up for it), where the actors don’t just break out into song and choreographed dance numbers every time the mood strikes them, which rarely happens in real life (except here in Skid Row)), I do like the song “Oklahoma,” composed by Richard  Rodgers and lyrics provided by Oscar Hammerstein, the title song from, and the finale to, their first Broadway musical collaboration, which also happened to be titled, “Oklahoma!”

   The song has some zip to it (which is a form of energy... like dark matter), is memorable, meaning it will stick in your head if you let it, displays authentic examples of frontier gibberish, and is peppy. 

   I dearly wish California had such a song. All we’ve got is “California Dreaming,” by the Mamas and the Papas, which is nice but melancholy, and “California Girls,” from the Beach Boys, which is nice but objectifying (the same goes for Katy Perry’s “California Gurls." Ha, ha, poor Katy don’t even know how to spell).   

   We’ve also got "All of California and Everyone Who Lives There Stinks," by the The World/Inferno Friendship Society, “California,” by that French girl, Mylène Farmer, which isn’t even in English (she could be saying anything about us and we wouldn’t know), “California Here I Come,” by my favorite American contemporary singer/songwriter, Sophie B Hawkins, and “California, Here I Come,” by Al Jolson.

   There’s “Californication,” by the Red Hot Chile Peppers, which is kind of nice, but has no anthem quality to it, and who wants a state song sung by four guys who can’t even afford T-shirts? I certainly don’t.

   We have “Fuck You, I'm From California,” by Ester Drang. “Going to California,” by my favorite rock band, Zed Zeppelin, which is a great song, and I sing it all of the time, so much so that my neighbors hate me, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with California at all, being more about Joni Mitchell, who Robert Plant and Jimmy Page had a crush on, poor bastards. 

   We also have the Eagle’s "Hotel California," which the band’s members have described as their “interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles,” so it’s not really about freaking California now is it? It’s about getting strung out in L.A., which I don’t need a song to do!

   Our official state song is “I Love You, California.” The lyrics were written by Francis Bernard Silverwood in 1913, a Los Angeles clothier, and the words were subsequently put to music by Abraham Franklin Frankenstein, the conductor of the Orpheum Theatre Orchestra. 

   Frankenstein.

   Have you ever heard this song, or knew that it existed until this very moment? Neither did I. Listen to it at the above link and you’l probably figure out why. 

   “I love you, California, you're the greatest state of all.

     I love you in the winter, summer, spring and in the fall.

     I love your fertile valleys; your dear mountains I adore.

     I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore.”

   Jeeez.

   The powers that be designated it the state song in 1951, and in 1987 it became the official state song by law. 

   Need I say the Governors of the state during those two years were Republicans (Earl Warren and George Deukmejian).

   Hey, at least it was played on the first ship to go through the Panama Canal in 1914, at least it’s got that going for it.

   Still, I think we sorely need an upgrade.

   We don’t even have a good gold rush song.

   Know what the official state song of Oklahoma is? It’s Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma,” of course. They knew they had a good thing going:

   “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain,

And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet

When the wind comes right behind the rain.

Oklahoma, ev'ry night my honey lamb and I

Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin' lazy circles in the sky.

We know we belong to the land

And the land we belong to is grand!

And when we say--Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!

We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma--O.K.”

      Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!

   But I digress...

   I was going through my E-mail the other day as I often do, and came across this article on the Daily Kos, written by someone who calls themselves “Bink.” The article is entitled “More on Why Oklahoma Will Always be a Poor State,” and it starts out like this: “Oklahoma ranks at the bottom of every measure. It's dirt poor. It's people have poor rates of education. Their incomes are low. It's a bad place to live.”

   Well, how rude. Here's a rebuttal.

   A lot of people live there, 3,850,568.3 as of last July, making it the 28th most populous state of the union (California has the most people, with 38,332,521.8), so it must have something going for it besides the song.

   It’s got tornados and severe thunderstorms!  It has a nice continental climate! It has 50 state parks, six national parks or protected regions, and two national protected forests or grasslands! The state is home to populations of white-tailed deer, mule deer, antelope, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, elk, and birds such as quail, doves, cardinals, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, and pheasants. American bison (as opposed to the Asian gaur and wild water buffalo), greater prairie chickens, badgers, and armadillo are common, and some of the nation's largest prairie dog towns inhabit shortgrass prairie in the state's panhandle! 

   Prairie dog towns.

   The name Oklahoma means “red people” in Choctaw!

   American Airlines likes it there. Tulsa is home to the largest airline maintenance base in the world, which serves as the global maintenance and engineering headquarters for the airline.

   The state is the top manufacturer of tires in North America, which is very important for cars and trucks and things,  and contains one of the fastest growing biotechnology industries in the nation, which means Oklahoma will most likely be the focal point of the upcoming GMO zombie apocalypse! 

   Oklahoma is the nation's third-largest producer of natural gas, fifth-largest producer of crude oil, has the second-greatest number of active drilling rigs, and ranks fifth in crude oil reserves. 

   While the state ranked eighth for installed wind energy capacity in 2011, it is at the bottom of states in usage of renewable energy, which we’ll get too in a minute, with 94 percent of its electricity being generated by non-renewable sources in 2009.

    Employees of Oklahoma oil-related companies earn an average of twice the state's typical yearly income so a lot of money can be made while polluting the planet’s atmosphere and contributing to global warming!

   Oklahoma City is the home to the largest private oil-related companies in the nation, like Devon Energy Corporation, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, and Sand Ridge Energy Corporation!

   Oklahoma is one of the birth places of Koch Industries, which is the second largest privately held company in the United States (after Cargill), with an annual revenue of $115 billion, and owned by Charles and David Koch, who are each worth about $50 billion now, allowing them to buy the United States (they keep doing these anti-Obama things, like trying to get Obamacare repealed, and backing Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, even though they’re making just oodles of money with Obama in office, which is driving poor Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s “All In” (Look for "Why the Rich Never Stop Complaining") just crazy)! (“The most anti-business president in history” says Mitch McConnell about Barack Obama. Corporate leaders agree. “He’s a socialist,” they say. But corporate profits under Obama have surged to the highest share of the U.S. economy in history, and CEO pay has never been higher. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other right-wing billionaires are pouring tens of millions of dollars into Senate and House races to elect Republicans. But their fortunes have grown faster under Obama and the Democratic Senate than at any time since the 1920s. Wall Street CEOs say new regulations are stifling them but bank profits and CEO pay have soared to record levels, especially now that the banks are too big to fail. The barons of the oil and gas industry complain about “excessive” regulation but oil and gas has never done as well (including their $7 billion a year in tax subsidies).

So why are they complaining? I think it’s a smokescreen designed to hide from the rest of America the reality that more income and wealth are going to the top than ever before, and corporate welfare is out of control. What’s your explanation? -Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary for Bill Clinton)

   As of last week 48 fracking related earthquakes larger than the magnitude of 2.5 have struck in Oklahoma. In the past month, there have been 157 quakes larger than magnitude 2.5!

   You can save on electrical expenses by lighting your kitchen with the flames from your tap water if you live in Oklahoma!

   They have cable!

   Yet despite all of this, Bink persists.

   “There is no real reason that Oklahoma should not compete with neighboring states for jobs, security and standard of living.

   Except that the political system there is determined to keep its people down.

   Oklahoma is just one of those places ...

   It doesn't provide for its residents.

   It doesn't invest in an infrastructure for jobs.

   It doesn't help its people get training for the jobs of the future.

   It doesn't ... do anything.

   It's a place where government thinks its duty is to punish people, rather than cultivate prosperity. And that is why it will always, always be poor.”

   Wow! This Bink certainly has it out for Oklahoma, or at least it’s government officials. 

   We’ve visited Oklahoma once before, hence the title of this post. Let me see... oh yes, here it is. 

   As stated I once drove through Oklahoma while escaping from Texas and into Kansas. I’ve seen the majestic Oklahoma City skyline. We spent exactly as much time as it takes to drive through the state south to north (230 miles). I don’t think we even stopped for gas.

   And while in the navy I knew a very nice man who came from Oklahoma. Not surprisingly he was a Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class, but nice as hell. He even invited me into his home one evening for dinner with his lovely wife.

   Very nice man. 

   During those two times I witnessed no malfeasance on the part of Oklahoman government officials. 

   However, as we indicated in the first post, some Oklahoman officials are trying to sneak creationism into their public school system, and further, usurp the entire public school system of the nation, and others are trying to make it very difficult for the ladies of the state to either aquire safe birth control products, or receive abortion services. It seems that for these officials the role of Oklahoman women is to stay pregnant as often and as long as possible. That’s their only viable role in the world, these people believe.  Women are worse off with contraception because it suppresses and disables who they are, a politically active constituent said.

   "Part of their identity is the potential to be a mother," Pedulla said. "They are being asked to suppress and radically contradict part of their own identity, and if that wasn't bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies."

   By extension, part of a man’s identity, I suppose, is to be a father, so it must be okay for said men to go around and screw as many women as possible, thus maximizing there reproductive chances of fatherhood, which is their divine destiny.

   It’s also rather self serving and reminiscent of some attitudes toward the roles of the sexes found in the Muslim world.

   Be that as it may... maybe since the publication of “Oklahoma and the Crusades,” back in February of last year things have changed for the better, for the better for the people who live and work there that is. Let’s take a look at some recent news reports to find out, shall we?

   First of all, the Governor of the Sooner State is one Mary Fallin, a Republican. She’s also the current Chairperson of the National Governors Association, which is kind of a big deal if you’re a governor.

   Doesn’t she have a nice smile in that picture above.

   The Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma is also a Republican. 

   Both Houses of the State Legislature are controlled by Republicans.

   Both Senators, James Mountain Inhofe and Thomas Coburn are both Republican... 

   What could possibly go wrong?

   The two Senators have nice smiles too (I guess Coburn’s trying real hard to turn a snarl into a smile up there). 

   Okay, let’s see... oh yes, it seems Governor Fallin’s been in the news recently for signing into law a bill that bars all of the states various cities from setting mandatory minimum wage, vacation or sick-day requirements.

    Huummm.

   Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. If I’m an employer, let’s say in Tulsa, and I want to set the wage of my new hourly employees at $7.50 a hour, which is 25 cents above the state’s and federal minimum wage, I could now go to jail.

   That’s not too invasive, is it? I mean this is right in line with the Republican philosophy of small government and a free market. 

   Not to mention it’s a pretty crappy deal for the state’s workers.

   Who, it must be said, voted these... people into office. 

   So logic dictates that the people of Oklahoma are perfectly content to be stuck into low paying, poverty scale wages. Their votes say so.

   The Governor rationalizes her action by stating that raising the minimum wage is not an effective way to bring people out of poverty.

   "Most minimum-wage workers are young, single people working part-time or entry-level jobs," Fallin said. "Many are high school or college students living with their parents in middle-class families."

   Republicans say that a lot when talking about rasing the minimum wage even though there’s no truth to it at all. Let me take a minute to look on the old Internet Machine I have here... I typed this into Google “average age of workers making minimum wage.” The first thing that pops up is this: “Low-wage Workers Are Older Than You Think. 88 Percent of Workers Who Would Benefit From a Higher Minimum Wage Are Older Than 20, One Third Are Over 40.”

   Now this would seem to be in direct contradiction to what Governor Fallen purports (and yes, she didn’t bother to site any evidence to support her supposition, Republicans never do, it would hurt too much when they pull these suppositions out of their asses). 

   The second item that pops up is this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: “Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 21 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.”

   That would mean that about half of those making the minimum wage are over 25 years of age, which is also in contradiction of what Governor Fallen claims. 

   The non partisan Economic Policy Institute states: “By highlighting the need to increase the federal minimum wage in his State of the Union address, President Obama breathed new life into a critically important issue. Wages for U.S. workers, particularly low-wage workers, have eroded not just in recent years, but over several decades. This erosion has contributed to the growth of income inequality, leaving the economy less vibrant than if incomes were distributed more evenly. Raising the minimum wage and incorporating a system for automatic adjustment over time is key to reversing this erosion of low-wage workers’ earnings, and would help combat growth of income inequality.”

   Even if this were not so, as the President said recently, and I paraphrase, “I don’t know what the Republicans have against helping young people.”

   Indeed, I believe that young people make up a significant part of the national economy. When these young people make more money do they stash it away like corporations and the ultra rich are doing now? I don’t think so. I was young at one time and don’t recall saving a large part of whatever income I made... I spent it (placing it back into the economy) as fast as I possibly could.

   So what is the net result of the Governor’s actions? She’s hurting her own constituents by insisting a large percentage work at poverty wages, she’s restricting the autonomy of the state’s employers, and she’s effectively depressing her own state’s economy.

   It seems there are some in Oklahoma who disagree with the Governor, and are taking steps to reverse some of her policies. Good. Might I suggest that voting her out of office be one of them.

   What else has this feisty lady been up to?

   Last Monday S.B. 1456 passed the Oklahoma state House 83-5 after no debate and the Governor is expected to sign it into law very soon. The measure creates a new class of energy customers: those who install their own distributed power generation systems like solar panels or small wind turbines on their own property and sell the excess energy back to the state’s electrical grid. This  new class of customer will now be charged a monthly fee basically for getting off of fossil fuel produced energy, and onto renewable. One might say they’re being punished, and those contemplating switching to renewable, clean energy systems, now must enter this additional cost into their deliberations, thereby creating a depression effect for renewables.

   Why would the state legislature and Governor do this, you may ask? Everybody wants a clean environment, don’t they?

   The  American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) doesn’t seem to. ALEC is  a 501(c)(3) (an American tax-exempt nonprofit) organization, whose membership primarily consists of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives.  According to its web site, ALEC "works to advance the fundamental principles of free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism at the state level through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America's state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public."

   Wikipedia tells us: “The New York Times reported that special interests have "effectively turn[ed] ALEC's lawmaker members into stealth lobbyists, providing them with talking points, signaling how they should vote and collaborating on bills affecting hundreds of issues like school vouchers and tobacco taxes." Bloomberg BusinessWeek stated, "Part of ALEC's mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work." The Guardian described ALEC as "a dating agency for Republican state legislators and big corporations, bringing them together to frame right wing legislative agendas in the form of 'model bills'." Several liberal groups, including Common Cause, have challenged its tax-exempt status.

   Well so what you say? What has ALEC got to do with anything?

   Everything. ALEC might as well have written S.B. 1456 themselves... as a matter of fact they effectively did, as they have done in many other states, including my own. ALEC and it’s members are wholeheartedly engaged in an ongoing attack on the advancement of renewable and sustainable energy to the detriment of our species. 

   There is good news. Although there were lots of legislative action, over 120 bills introduced across the country, the net effect seems to have been that the states chose to strengthen or modify their Renewable Portfolio Standards, not eliminate them in even one state.

   So Oklahoma couldn’t get away with eliminating renewable energy sources altogether, they’re just figuring out ways to slow it down at much as possible. 

   Anything else?

   This week the Mustang, Oklahoma school board voted to implement a Bible course developed by the president of Hobby Lobby, a Mr.Steve Green.

   WTF?

   I mean there’s a place for religious training, and it’s not in our public school system. The appropriate places are called churches, and what they used to call Sunday School. But who the hell is Steve Green to be introducing anything into a public school system? He owns a freaking chain store, so that means he gets to introduce his personal idealogy into our public schools?!

   In Oklahoma, and a nation that has recently been revealed to be oligarchy (a system of government ruled by a few wealthy individuals, and for their benefit) rather than a democracy we were all taught about in school, a democracy we fought and died for in world wars, a democracy we spilled our blood for in a civil war.  

   The notion of widespread income inequality tends to reinforce the oligarchy theory. And as always, the first step in correcting a problem, in getting our nation back from the Kochs, and Exxons, is that we need to be aware that the problem exists. 

   Then we’ve got to actually do something about it.

Oklahoma Postpones Execution after First is Botched.

Hobby Lobby's public school Bible class treats "moses' magic wand" as historical fact.

GOP Governor’s Ugly Bloodlust: Why Mary Fallin Should Account For State-Sanctioned Torture

Tom Coburn: Abolish minimum wage and let ‘free market’ decide how little workers make

Happy Birthday Kate Micucci!

Dear Deer

Picture Legend:

1. Ms Kate
2. Painting
3. Little, tiny skiing Kate
4. Nazareth Area High School
5. Tower of Men
6. BangBang
7. Sand Frog
8. Sand Pig
9. Giant Sand Dog, with attached children
10. Ms. Micucci
101 Scrubs
12. Students
13. During the tough early years when Kate and Riki had to share the tub
14. “Imaginary Larry”
15. Relaxing
16. Standing around
17. Swingers
18. Playing
19. The Loophole
20. Slimed
21. Saturday night in the studio
22. Princess
23. Displaying her ability to levitate (show off)
24. This is what comes up when you Google “Kate Micucci Hot.” Kate with Brandon Hardesty
25. This is from “Kate Micucci on WikiFeet”
26. This is what pops up when you Google “Kate Micucci on a bus that has been attacked by Godzilla near Capital Records.”
27. Before the attack
28. On “The Big Bang Theory”
29. Kate going on a boat
30. Artwork
31. More artwork
32. Smile

   This morning it is my great pleasure and honor to give a great big happy birthday shout out to one of my favorite actresses, comedians, performers, musicians, and half of the mega group Garfunkel and Oates (Riki Lindhome is Garfunkel, Kate is, uuhhh, let’s see... Oates), the lovely and incomparable Ms. Kate Micucci (pronounced “my - coochie”)!

   She’s so cute... and nice, just look at those pictures above (she may be a secret ax murderer for all I know, but I’m willing to bet $5 that she isn’t).

   Kate was born on this day in 1980, which makes her, uh, carry the ought, times pi, plus a Eigenvalue Problem value, minus the dividend from Walgreens, uh, 29. Like my lovely ex-case manager Erin, Kate was born at a very early age as a small female infant in New Jersey, which is one of our 50 states here in the U.S., a state where there is no political corruption or retribution, or organized crime of any kind. 

   When she was four years old Kate’s mother began teaching her how to play the piano, or the  pianoforte if you prefer, which is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, unlike the ukulele and kazoo, instruments she would become closely associated with in later years.

   It is said that she left New Jersey when she was eight, and was raised in the city of Nazareth, which is the is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Jesus Christ was raised there as well, and it was the birthplace of the Mother Mary. Today the population is made up of Arab citizens predominantly, which is rather odd, as all of my sources indicate that the name Micucci is of  Italian origen: patronymic or the plural form of a pet form of the personal name Mico, a short form of Michele, and... what’s that Herkimer? Pennsylvania? What about Pennsylvania? Oh!

   I’ve just been informed that Kate was raised in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, rather than Israel, which actually makes a bit more sense. As most of you know Nazareth, Pennsylvania is a borough in Northampton County, in the  Lehigh Valley region of the state, and approximately 8.7 miles north of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, and 81.7 miles northeast of Lancaster (where my old navy buddy Dave Cornman lives and golfs), and for some obscure reason is considered part of the New York City metropolitan area.

   Of course the whole state is now controlled by the Amish Mafia. 

   Kate liked to play in the woods as a child, where she smoked a corn cob pipe, and where her dad shot poor defenseless deers who were dating.

   In 1998 she graduated from Nazareth Area High School, along with fellow musician Jordan White. Perhaps they knew each other.

   Kate moved on to Keytstone College (a small private, competitive, liberal arts college, where they taught Kate liberal things, like painting, making puppets, and Fine Arts (Fine art, from the 17th century on, has meant art forms developed primarily for aesthetics, distinguishing them from applied arts that also have to serve some practical function. Historically, the 5 main fine arts were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, with minor arts including drama and dance. Today, the fine arts commonly include additional forms, such as film, photography, conceptual art, and printmaking. -Wikipedia)) in La Plume Township, where she earned an A.A. degree (Associate in Arts degree). 

   And like many young people first out on there own Kate briefly moved to Hawaii  in order to  water the banana and pineapple plants they have there because they were thirsty.

   And after that, around 2001 or so, she moved right across the mighty Pacific to Los Angeles, and attended  Loyola Marymount University, which is a private, co-educational university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions (“The distinctive character of Loyola Marymount is enhanced by the Jesuit and Marymount educational traditions of its founding religious orders—the Society of Jesus, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.“ How St. Joseph snuck in there I have no idea), where she earned her B.A. degree (Bachelor of Arts) in Studio Art (the making of visual art (such as painting, puppets, drawing or sculpture), contrasted to the study of art history).

   Above are some examples of Kate’s art.

   I had the pleasure recently to be interviewed for a project produced by some intrepid students from Loyola Marymount on the rooftop of the famous Charles Cobb Apartments near the corner of 5th Street and San Pedro. The beautiful Los Angeles skyline was our backdrop. I was asked questions concerning some myths and facts about homelessness, as I am recognized as a world renowned expert on that subject. 

   I told these young people that I was currently working on a piece about a former alumni of theirs, and asked them if they had ever heard of Kate. 

   “No.”

   “Nope.”

   “Who?”

   “Really,” I said. “She’s an actress and comedian. A musician. Garfunkel and Oates? Plays the ukulele?”

   “No.”

   “Nope.”

   “Who?”

   “Really? From LMU?”

   Apparently Kate kept a low profile as a student.

   “By any chance,” I asked, “have you heard of Riki Lindhome, her partner.”

   “Riki Lindhome? Yeah, sure.”

   “The blonde...”

   One of the guys said, “Oh yeah, she was in the movie... the shower scene in “Hell Baby...hot...”

   “Yes,” I said. “She was in that and many other fine films as well.”

   Another guy agreed with his fellow student. “Yes, I saw that too. And don’t forget that scene in ‘The Last House on the Left.’ I’m a big fan.” 

   “Who?”

   So Ms. Micucci, if you happen to read this, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t as I’m going to post it to your Facebook page, you know what to do. 

   You can’t let Riki get away with this unwarranted adoration. 

   Your public awaits (at least some guys from Loyola Marymount do).

   As far as we know since Kate graduated she has lived in L.A. ever since,  roaming the cities back allies in search of ex-mariachi musicians who can sing “La Bamba.” 

   In 2006 she began her long and successful acting career, and began appearing in television commercials, and guest starring on such shows as “Malcolm in the Middle,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and a recurring role on the short lived sitcom, “Four Kings” (which was one king more than the movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg).

   2007 saw her starring in the film short “Beat the Street,” and the T.V. shows “Campus Ladies,” and Disney’s “Cory in the House.”

   She started making movies in 2008, playing alongside Matthew Broderick in “Finding Amanda” (she was not Amanda), and with fellow ukulele player, William H. Macy in, “Bart got a Room” (which I just finished watching for the first time a few hours ago. Ms. Micucci was wonderful... and hot).

   At some point Kate and Rikki took some time off from the grueling production schedule in order to tape “It’s Time to get Laid,” which nobody can really argue with.

   And she appeared on the Conan O'Brien show, here and here.

   In 2009 she won a recurring role on the medical comedy  sitcom “Scrubs,” portraying ukulele playing lawyer Ted’s girlfriend, Stephanie Gooch. 

   And around this time, as legend has it, Kate met Riki at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles, where they were introduced to one another by the comic Doug Benson. They soon began to work together, and made Riki’s short film, “Imaginary Larry.”

   I’ll let them tell the story, here.

   Kate used one of Garfunkel and Oates first songs, “Fuck You,” on one episode of “Scrubs,” here, changing the lyrics a little.

   Here’s the new and improved version of “Fuck You.”

   And some more Garfunkel and Oates here, here, and here.

   They have a lot more songs and videos which you can check out (this message is especially for the students at  Loyola Marymount). Here’s a link to their website.

   And here’s a link to a two hour interview with Kevin Pollock. And here's Kate's website.

   Like Riki, Kate continued with her acting career after Garfunkel and Oates was founded and prospered. In August of 2009, she appeared in an advertising campaign for Hillshire Farms, because she likes  smoked sausage and Polska Kielbasa maybe, and for H & R Block in January 2010, because everybody likes to pay their taxes.

   Also in 2010 Kate starred in “When in Rome,” with fellow actors Kristen Bell, Anjelica Huston, Alexis Dziena, Kristen Schaal, Peggy Lipton, and the lovely and talented Danny DeVito. 

   This is a film I saw for the first time just last Friday night while experiencing a nice 5.1 earthquake. At the time I thought to myself, “Boy, Kate’s really good in this.”

   She also appeared in 12 episodes of “'Til Death,” and one of “Weeds,” that promiscuous marijuana show with Mary Louise Parker. 

   She’s been on or in lots of other things, like “Psych,” “Motorcity,” “Easy to Assemble,” “Bored to Death,” voice work on “Out There,” “Key and Peele,” the film “Rudderless,” starring and directed by that ukulele playing fool, William H Macy, and the T.V. shows “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Raising Hope.”

   Kate at one time performed a live action show, “Playing with Micucci" on the third Monday of the month at the Steve Allen Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, which happens to be in  Hollywood. I don’t think she does that anymore on a regular basis, being such a big star and all, but you can check out her website to see what it is she’s up to. 

   One last farewell song, with Garfunkel and Oates, and their friends Jill Sobule, and Marina V, about the end of the world, here.

   And here’s something interesting. The Urban Dictionary’s definition of  micucci:

“A reallly sexy thing that does not realize how truly hot it is. Makes for an excellent lover, kisses have been known to send victim into uncharted euphoric states, and has a natural unexplainable beauty that can only be described as hypnotizing. Frequently inter-fluctuates between various modes of cuteness, heavenliness, sexiness, adorableness, attractiveness, and perfectness. Despite its delectable nature, its personality flows naturally down the throat like tasteless, pure water. After hypothetical digestion, immediately causes severe cases of butterfly-stomach, perhaps due to its intimidating aura of attractive intelligence.”

Promituella:I am looking for a sexy pants that is also a sexy thong and is also a sexy bra. Can you find me one of those? 

Emmanuolazarr: Yes. It is called micucci. It is the best thing ever.”

   Well, I have no idea who Promituella and Emmanuolazarr are, but I couldn’t agree more.

   And all of us here at Joyce’s Take wish Kate and her family and friends, continued good health and fortune, and of course, a very happy birthday!

   Happy birthday Kate!

TB

Consumption

noun

1. The using up of a resource.

"industrialized countries should reduce their energy consumption"

synonyms: use, using up, utilization, expending, depletion; More

the eating, drinking, or ingesting of something.

"liquor is sold for consumption off the premises"

synonyms: eating, drinking, ingestion More an amount of something that is used up or ingested.

"a daily consumption of 15 cigarettes"

the purchase and use of goods and services by the public.

"an article for mass consumption"

the reception of information or entertainment, esp. by a mass audience.

"his confidential speech was not meant for public consumption"

2. Dated 

a wasting disease, esp. pulmonary tuberculosis. -Google

... Tuberculosis, once thought to be a disease of the past, now infects more than 8 million people each year?

... New, drug-resistant strains of the disease are emerging faster than ever?

... Passed by a cough or a sneeze, TB is the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease on the planet?

Tonight on FRONTLINE, don't miss the premiere of TB Silent Killer from filmmaker Jezza Neumann -- a special, eye-opening look at the rise of drug-resistant TB through the stories of children and families living at the epicenter of this global health crisis.

Bacteria don't discriminate between the homeless and the affluent; the contagion does not respect neighborhood boundaries. -Sandy Banks, March 8th 2013, L.A. Times

   I live near the Skid Row Area of downtown Los Angeles (roughly defined as being the area  east of Main Street, south of Third Street, west of Alameda Street, and north of Seventh Street). We enjoy a libertarian paradise of sunny days, a carefree happy go lucky lifestyle, colorful inhabitants, lively conversation, dynamic architectural structures utilizing the latest in cardboard technology, a vigorous evangelical community, abundant culinary dispensaries, unique security resources provided by the Los Angeles Police Department, 24 hour siesta breaks, vast entrepreneurial opportunities (drug dealing, panhandling, aluminum can collection, etc.) peer fellowship, and a virtual panoply of other fun and uplifting activities that are peculiar to the area. 

   We even have our own special disease, Skids Duc Tuberculum, or Skid Row Tuberculosis translated from the Latin.

   Some call it the “Skid Row Strain” (Did it come from outer space like the Andromeda Strain? No).

   Early last year public health officials swooped into the skid row area trying to contain this outbreak (speaking of “Outbreak,” the 1995 techno/drama starring Rene Russo, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey, and the lovely and talented Morgan Freeman... fortunately tuberculosis requires close and prolonged contact with an infected individual in order to acquire the disease (it is transmitted through the air when an infected person coughs, let’s say, or sneezes, or even laughs too hard and too close), and is not as infectious as the  Motaba strain depicted in the film, and will not require the use of a  fuel-air (thermobaric) bomb in order to eradicate the disease... unless federal, and state officials decided that course of action could answer the problem of homelessness in L.A. as well, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. We’re still here though, thank Zeus), and not just your average public health officials. Some of these guys came all the way from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based in Atlanta, Georgia (I don’t know why). 

   These officials say that since 2007, 11 people have died due to this outbreak, so it’s been here awhile. 78 confirmed cases have been reported and documented, 60 of these from the general homeless population. 

   Scientists linked the outbreak to a strain of tuberculosis that is unique to Los Angeles, with a few isolated cases outside the area (a single case was found in Glendale last November).

   "This is the largest outbreak in a decade," said Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. "We are really putting all of our resources into this."

   The L.A. Times reported “Health workers have identified about 4,650 people who were probably exposed and are trying to track them down for testing and treatment. Local and federal officials are particularly concerned because the cases are linked to one relatively small geographic area and one vulnerable population. But officials are concerned that the outbreak could spread beyond skid row if action isn't taken.” Anna Gorman and Andrew Blankstein, February 21st, 2013.

   But on March 6th we were assured by Los Angeles County Public Health representative Kristin Mundy, "The general public is not at risk. There is no danger to the general public."

   Tuberculosis is an infectious disease. It’s been an infectious disease for a long time, as long as I can remember at least. I don’t see how anyone could have made that statement, that assurance, with any degree of accuracy. Unless you mean by “general public” anyone who doesn’t reside on skid row. 

   But still, skid row does, or did not exist in isolation. There was no quarantine. People were free to come and go as they pleased. People who worked in the skid row area but did not live there could have been infected and spread the disease. 

   Fortunately that didn’t turn out to be the case. 

   So why did this happen in skid row (other than the conservative notion that God hates the homeless)?

   Well it could be that there are a lot of people here who are more or less concentrated into a small area, making possible infection rather easy. Life on the street for up to 5,000 people at any given time might not be as sanitary as one would like. Some folks, might be HIV positive, a higher concentration than the public at large, whose immune systems may have been compromised, making it that much easier to become infected with TB. Tuberculosis is also linked to malnutrition (which also weakens the immune system), and thus linked to poverty, yet unless some are physically unable to move around, which would be rare in skid row, people here are normally well fed, considering the number of various social service outlets that provide food on a daily, or semi-daily basis. 

   You’ll never starve in skid row (similarly with clothes. The general public often brings bags and boxes of clothing to skid row to distribute to those who live on the streets. One need never walk around naked on skid row, though many do).

   As I write this my refrigerator is chalk full of lovely split pea something with little bits of ham in it, and lots of salad, all free and courtesy of the Hippie Kitchen.

   I’m going to have some later tonight as a matter of fact.

   Maybe tomorrow too.

   “It’s a well-defined population and a relatively small geographic area with a difficult population to work with, so we’re putting a concentrated effort into making sure these individuals who are already vulnerable are getting attention,” remarks Dr. Fielding. 

   Concern about tuberculosis has been in the community long before the 2007 through 2013 outbreak. I remember being tested for it upon entering the Harbor Light facility back in December of 2001, as were all potential clients, with an emphasis placed on those working with food.

   Fortunately I didn’t have it, even though I cough a great deal (I’m allergic to smog and other people). 

   "There's a good deal of people out here who don't care whether they get [a TB test] or not and there's people who do care but take their time about caring, like putting off their doctor's appointment for later," says Fred Christopher (actual homeless person).

   Back in 2013, those public health officials issued an alert to doctors at emergency rooms, clinics and urgent care centers informing them about the investigation. Specific emphasis was placed on 300 high-risk individuals, who may have had prolonged exposure to the strain during their stay at a local homeless shelter.   

   The health department also issued new guidelines for shelters on how to screen and identify patients at risk of tuberculosis. They were urged to have dedicated staff members on the look out for clients with persistent coughs... like me.

   County officials also suggested that employees and volunteers be screened as well.

   Thankfully, that particular strain of tuberculosis was susceptible to drugs (some are not). If diagnosed in its early stages, a six to nine month regiment of antibiotics would cure the disease. 

   Apparently their strategy worked. There have been no new stories about TB outbreaks in skid row since March of last year, and no news of that outbreak significantly spreading beyond it’s boarders. 

   Good.

   However, in 2007, there were an estimated 13.7 million active cases of  chronic mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) globally, while in 2010, there were an estimated 8.8 million new cases and 1.5 million associated deaths, mostly occurring in developing countries. A disease that in 1987, the American Medical Association’s Advisory Council for the Elimination of TB projected that by 2010 would become extinct worldwide, like smallpox. Currently one third of the world's population is thought to have been infected, with new infections occurring in about 1% of the population each year. Why? New strains of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis have developed antibiotic resistance to treatment.

   The good news, the absolute number of tuberculosis cases has been decreasing since 2006, and new cases have decreased since 2002.

   Of course rates of the spread of TB vary across the planet. Stunningly, about 80% of those tested in Asian and African countries test positive in tuberculin exams, compared to 5 to 10% here in the U.S. The reason for the disparity? There are many countries in Asia and Africa that are poor compared to the United States, and developing, displaying many of the same disease prone circumstances that exist in L.A.s skid row... crowded conditions, prevalence of HIV infected individuals, true instances of malnutrition, and unsanitary conditions (and scarcity, or contamination of water. Derek Markham writes for Care2, “Almost 3 ½ million people die every year because of water and sanitation and hygiene-related causes, and almost all of them (99 percent) are in the developing world. That’s like the population of a city the size of Los Angeles being wiped out each year.” And, “More than 1 billion people still practice open defecation every day... which can not only pollute the immediate area, but can also contaminate community water supplies. Sanitation and clean water go hand in hand.”).

   Some of the infected develop active tuberculosis soon after becoming infected, before their immune system can fight off the bacteria. Other’s may get sick much later, when their immune system becomes weak for some other reason or reasons.

   Babies and young children often have weak immune systems. Others with any of these conditions: substance abuse; diabetes mellitus; silicosis; cancer of the head or neck; leukemia or Hodgkin's disease; severe kidney disease; low body weight; certain medical treatments such as corticosteroid treatment or organ transplants (which typically require the use of immunosuppressants to facilitate organ acceptance); specialized treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, or Crohn's disease are susceptible. 

   Where did this disease come from? Funny you should ask.

   The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex evolved in Africa and most probably in the Horn of Africa (a peninsula in Northeast Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent), approximately 40,000 years ago.

   Human bones from the Near East dating back five thousand years show the telltale signs of TB. Mummies from Egypt 2400 BCE (Before the Common/Current/Christian Era (a regional alternative to Before Christ, abbreviated BC) show tubercular decay in their spines. The ancient Greeks described it, too. Around 460 BCE, Hippocrates identified phthisis, or consumption, as the most widespread disease of his age. It was almost always fatal then and because of that, he advised his followers and students against treating the disease in it’s late stages, not for fear of contamination, but to avoid damage to their reputations as healers.

   The English physician and author of “A New Theory of Consumption (1720),” Benjamin Martin,  thought that TB resulted from the actions of “wonderfully minute living creatures.” Once those creatures established themselves in the body, Martin hypothesized, they would generate the characteristic symptoms of tuberculosis. He further theorized about the mode of transmission, that close contact with a infected patient, including frequent conversation so close as to “draw in part of the breath he emits from the Lungs,” was enough to transmit the disease.

   Despite Dr Martin’s theories, up until the end of our Civil War, 1865, the common thought was that tuberculosis arose spontaneously in susceptible individuals. That year, a French military doctor, Jean-Antoine Villemin, demonstrated that tuberculosis could be passed from humans to cattle, and from cattle to rabbits. That was a big deal, because he demonstrated that the disease was passed from person to person by way of a causative agent, not the wrath of God let’s say, or susceptibility. 

   In 1882, the German physician Robert Koch (no relation to Charles and David... I think),  conclusively demonstrated that a bacterial infection caused TB. Later investigations proved it was transmitted through the air.

    Tuberculosis is one of history’s great killers of people. Although not as aggressive as the bubonic plague, TB has killed more people in history than it has, and other such diseases as leprosy, or HIV. An estimated 1 billion people around the world have been killed by TB in the past two centuries alone, and the fatalities continue (influenza is still the number one killer of humans in history).

   The discovery of penicillin in 1928 was a boon to mankind, and great if you suffered from diseases like syphilis, or other gram-positive bacterial infections, but proved ineffective against TB. 

   Streptomycin, first isolated from the Streptomyces griseus on October 19th, 1943, was the drug  that tuberculosis researchers had been looking for. It combined low toxicity with high inhibitory effects, and on November 20th, 1944, the first critically ill TB patient was treated, with remarkable results (they got better).

   Several anti-TB drugs followed, and they were important because therapy with a single drug soon sparked  tuberculosis resistant strains. Multidrug therapy was used to avoid this difficult  problem.

   And many scientists concluded that like smallpox, which was labeled as being eradicated in 1979, TB would be gone as well, as in the second half of the 20th century rates of tuberculosis infection dropped throughout the developed world.

   But by 1985, for the first time, the number of new cases of TB began to rise. The World Health Organization now calls TB a “fire raging out of control” in developing nations, among the poor, in prisons, on skid rows, and in people with HIV. Worldwide, someone becomes infected with tuberculosis every second. 

   Last Tuesday night I watched “Frontline” on one of my local PBS stations, as I often do. 

   “Frontline,” as you may know, is a public affairs television program that produces and broadcasts in-depth documentaries about various subjects, usually of a social and political nature, originating out of WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts,  and distributed through the PBS network, and is owned by the infamous WGBH Educational Foundation.

   “WGBH is proud to be PBS’s single largest producer of Web and TV content (prime-time and children’s programs). Some of your favorite series — Nova, Masterpiece, Frontline, Antiques Roadshow, Curious George, Arthur, and The Victory Garden, to name a few — are produced here in our Brighton studios.” -WGBH

   The show, entitled “TB, the Silent Killer,” documented a few cases of tuberculosis infection in the tiny (it is no more than 120 miles north to south and 81 miles east to west) south African country of Swaziland, which is currently riddled with an active TB epidemic.

   Michaeleen Doucleff of NPR writes: “Two weeks ago, 12-year-old Nokubheka (picture above)'s mother died from drug-resistant tuberculosis.

   ‘I love singing and dancing to the song,’ Nokubheka says as she marches around in a hot pink skirt and sweatshirt. ‘When I'm dancing, I forget that my mother passed away.’

   Now the young girl from Swaziland has learned she has the same disease.

   Nokubheka will have to take painful injections for months to stop the infection. She'll have to move away from her family to a hospital. And she'll miss two years of school.

   The world has a new epidemic on its hands, and it's insidiously veiled as an old one.”

   I strongly suggest you follow the above link and watch this thought provoking, painful, and yet hopeful program.

   "The multidrug regimen that was developed not long after the discovery of streptomycin is effective if it is taken continually, in regular doses, for 6–8 months, and therein lies the problem. For various reasons, many patients are noncompliant. Some stop taking the drugs when they feel better—a common problem with antibiotics. Others stop because of the cost or inconvenience or because they distrust the medical establishment."

   Particularly troubling is the link between TB and HIV which have formed a new and deadly combination. The World Health Organization estimates that HIV produces 1.4 million cases of TB each year that otherwise would not appear.

   “It’s a classic story of artificial selection. The initial doses of the antibiotics kill off the susceptible microbes, leaving the resistant ones to reinfect the consumptive. It is estimated that more than half of the isolates from relapsed TB cases are resistant to at least one drug. It takes three years on average to develop a new antibiotic; it takes three months to develop a resistant bug." -Christopher S. W. Koehler 

   Our conservative friends at times rally against science when it suits them, when their perceived economic interests seem to be threatened. Prodded on by the Republican Noise Machine (media) much of the American population disclaim the fact of evolution, climate change, and cosmic history, as matters that are unsettled and very much up for debate. They are misguided. 

   We face many problems and difficulties that urgently need to be addressed. Every generation, it seems, face their own set of unique concerns that are of paramount importance to that generation. Ours happen to be a warming planet, over fishing, changing water resources, ocean acidification, deforestation, and treatment resistant diseases, and they are just some of the problems that we  face.  

   The admission that some of these issues even exist threaten certain economic concerns, so it is in their vested interest to deny that they exist, and spend whatever it takes to muster up support for their position. The oil and gas industry finances climate change deniers, and the groups they belong to. They claim a false parity with the established science which has warned us of these dangers. Is this a responsible position to take? Hardly.

   The promise of short term economic gain trumping long term environmental concerns sadly fuels powerful interests that choose not to care that their own descendents will have to live with the consequences of their actions... or they live in a fantasy world of their own creation in which they actually, and truly believe the same lies they tell others, which makes them delusional. Delusional to such a degree that they are a danger to themselves and the rest of humanity. 

   Like the hosts of “Fox and Friends.”

   In any case (unless you happen to be a Christian Scientist, who are free to chose their own fate), if we are to meet the threat of the spread of antibiotic resistant diseases head on, which we will need to do, we have a tool. An advantage over the viruses and bacteria that have always plagued mankind. 

   We have science, and the medical breakthroughs that science has provided and will continue to provide. 

   If it makes some feel better we can state the matter like this: science is God’s gift to us to help us solve the problems that Satan throws our way from time to time because he’s Satan, and that’s 

what he does (Bill Maher recently pointed out on his HBO program, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” that it is at times best to frame an issue in such a way that the majority of citizens may be amenable towards acceptance of it who otherwise would be disinclined to consider the issue. For example: instead of advocating for the harvesting of solar energy, we should say “Let’s just steal the Sun’s oil”).

   It is disingenuous to hold the position that science is okay, that it works in certain aspects, for certain problems and not for others when it’s inconvienent 

   Science is, and always will be our best bet to deal with these difficult problems that we always seem to face. 

   Yes, maybe science has caused some of these problems, like the Industrial Revolution leading to climate change, or the invention of the atomic bomb leading to nuclear proliferation.  

   But science can get us out of these difficulties too.

   If we use it.