GOING CRAZY WITH GLENN BECK

"I was a dirtbag and liar, but I'm not now!"

Glenn Beck has problems. After screaming, weeping, and ranting that Obama was a racist who hated whites and white culture, several sponsors dropped his show--but that's not what I mean. What I mean is Beck is nuts. Whacko, crazy, off his rocker, cuckoo for Coco Puffs. Watch him give this weirdly disoriented self-serving rant that verges on evangelical testifying. He sounds like a character in "Idiocracy," a comedy set in the not too distant future where idiots rule, and the population has been dumbed down to a manageable level.

How bad could it be? He's on the cover of Time Magazine, though probably not under the best of circumstances. Read Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America? at Time.

According to Beck, he quit the booze and bad behavior and saw the light. According to Harper's, he shares plenty of characteristics with patients in Katherine van Wormer’s Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective, a book that "summarizes the professional literature with respect to dry drunks by identifying a number of recurrent traits, including an exaggerated self-importance or pomposity; grandiose behavior; a rigid, judgmental outlook; impatience; regressive infantile behavior; irresponsible behavior; irrational rationalization; projection; and overreaction."

Sounds about right.

(Read this story on Beck in Harper's, and another here.)


Recently, Salon ran a feature called "The Making of Glenn Beck." Evidently, he lied about his history of trouble and redemption, the cornerstone of the Beck myth. He fudged some facts, you could say. Loud and obnoxious from the start, he worked his way through the annoying world of morning drive-time--"zoo radio culture"--zig-zagging through drink and drugs and a nicely fictionalized biography as he barked and cried his way to becoming a leading conservative pundit on Fox News. Read the article at Salon.

Here's another clip (courtesy of The Young Turks) in which Beck goes nuts on a caller about health care. Clearly, Beck is not well. Looks like he could use some health care himself--more specifically, mental health care. I'm sure he can afford it.

RESCUE ON THE HIGH SEAS

Acting with President Obama's authorization, Navy SEALs rescued Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates holding him for ransom. Efforts to negotiate had gone nowhere, and by the end of the fifth day it appeared that Captain Phillips would be be shot. The Navy sharpshooters had secretly parachuted to the fantail of the U.S.S. Bainbridge, where they waited for an opportunity, and when a pirate leveled his AK-47 at Captain Phillips they fired upon the pirates, killing three instantly. A fourth surrendered and was taken into custody.


THE CAPTAIN

Captain Richard Phillips, rescued

Captain Phillips, who was resting comfortably, shrugged off the hero label. “The real heroes are the Navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home.” He spoke to his wife, Andrea, and two college-aged children in Underhill, Vermont.

“I share the country’s admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “His courage is a model for all Americans.”


THE PIRATES

Reuters reports that the Somali pirates were quick to vow revenge over the shooting of their comrades, as well as a French military assault to rescue a yacht on Friday.

"The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.




Piracy is nothing new. In a world where the ranks of the desperately poor grow by the day and the wealth of a few is astronomical, we may be in for more of this terrorism on the high seas. Poverty doesn't excuse it, obviously, but it might help to remember the root cause isn't simply "evil." So far, we've mostly been spared the siege mentality that is commonplace is certain parts of the world. In some countries, the wealthy must live behind barbed wire fences, in patrolled "green zones" and walled neighborhoods, constantly on guard against kidnappers.

Even though this rescue turned out well, pirates plague many nations around the world. At this time, pirates are holding a dozen ships with more than 200 crew members, according to the Malaysia-based International Maritime Bureau.

Somali pirates vow revenge


THE SEALS

The Navy is a force of 330,000--and out of that only 2000 are SEALs. The SEALs--short for U.S. Navy SEa, Air and Land forces--are an elite fighting group trained in unconventional warfare, special operations--everything from sea rescue to parachuting to demolition. Assignment to BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seals) is conditional on passing the Diver/SEAL Physical Screening Test (PST) which is extremely difficult, and then it just gets harder. BUD/S consists of a three-week 'Indoctrination Course', known as INDOC, followed by three phases, covering physical conditioning (seven weeks), diving (eight weeks), and land warfare (nine weeks) respectively.

The following documentary follows a group training to be SEALs:



Part 2 of SEALS documentary here.
Part 3 is here.
Part 4 is here.
Part 5 is here.

BLACK FRIDAY

I read the news today, oh boy...

Trouble, man. You wake up the day after Thanksgiving with a food and drink hangover. You can't make a fist, but you somehow manage to make coffee. Everything's too bright, too loud. You stagger to your chair with a cup of joe, and your head feels like a blimp from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that has torn loose from its guy-lines and bashed into a few skyscrapers.

You sit down and open the morning newpaper. Shit oh dear! The world is going to hell in a gravy boat. The headlines scream bloody murder. Maybe this is just a bad dream. Maybe Scrooge was right--the senses are cheats; a slight disorder of the stomach affects them. You pray these headlines are just an undigested bit of turkey, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of pecan pie.

MUMBAI

Members of the Indian security forces taking up firing positions between fire trucks and ambulances on the grounds of the Taj Hotel on Friday. (Ruth Fremson/ The New York Times )

I know you've been following the news from Mumbai. More than 150 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks Wednesday. By Friday, nine gunmen had been killed by Indian commandos. Hostages were found dead. The fighting continues, and they say it's down to one luxury hotel, the Oberoi Trident.

In this clip, a CNN anchor Sara Sidner is threatened by an angry mob outside the Taj Mahal.




BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING DEATHS
So far, only three people were killed in shopping accidents: A Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by eager shoppers in Valley Stream, New York, and two people were shot to death in a crowded Toy 'R' Us in Palm Desert, California.

Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times

According to the LA Times, "the [Toys 'R' Us] shooting, apparently sparked by a personal dispute between two groups of shoppers, occurred on Black Friday, traditionally one of the year's busiest shopping days, and when the store was crowded with families and children."

To hear "Black Friday" by Steely Dan, please click button:


When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul

YESTERDAY'S PAPERS:

A shout out to the rabble-rousers in the TDA who occupied the Trojan nuclear plant 31 years ago in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. Read a "trespasser's notebook" here.