Kevin Marshall's America
Is it appropriate for elected officials to use government sites to promote themselves and, potentially, their long-term re-election prospects?
The introduction and prevalence of social media in politics (it was key in getting Obama elected in ’08) seems to have outpaced election laws and decorum. A politician certainly has the right to use it as a means of fundraising and/or campaigning, but in recent years the line between a politician’s social media presence and that of official government agencies has become blurred.
Various state agencies provide a link to Andrew Cuomo’s Facebook page, which blurs the line between dispensing info and outright campaigning.
The latest controversy involves the New York State Tax Department’s website, which had a link suggesting you “like” Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Facebook. Some cried foul and in response the wording of the website was changed to “like” to “connect.” It got them out of a semantic argument, but doesn’t address the murkiness of promoting a politician’s personal social media presence on the official website of a state government agency.
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I’m the guest this week on Jason William’s “The Underpaid” podcast.
From the man himself:
Click HERE!—-> @KevinMarshall is my guest! #WINNING
(Funny Guest Alert!) 2012. The end of the world. Myself and Special guest, comedian Kevin Marshall tell us why he knows it’s in April. Kevin talks me off the ledge of using (not so) timely catchphrases and mandates some New Year’s resolutions. We bond over hatred of mayonnaise and white people. I ask Kevin about podcasting on MANville, (find it on iTunes!) and we shout some dirty dirty words! Chuck E. Cheese references! I accidentily reveal that The Underpaid Podcast isn’t real. We talk about dating and how stupid dating sites are, and I read off my sexy new match.com profile! Later, Kevin talks about his belief in centuars, and we write a new book and movie for Kristen Stewart. Finally, we get into talking about what it’s like to do stand up comedy in Albany, NY and delve into the strangeness of the comedic mind. Oh, and I decide on the spot to try my hand at stand up comedy. Crap. Check Kevin out on Twitter, @KevinMarshall or his website KevinMarshallOnline.com or his MMA Website, www.marshallmma.com
Listen NOW!
The Underpaid – “Kevin Marshall’s Dandruff Resolutions”
Also, go and visit them:
website: The Underpaid
twitter: @theunderpaid
on Facebook: Facebook.com/TheUnderpaid
Oh my God, you guys, 2011 is almost over and I have RESOLUTIONS!
“But resolutions are an empty gesture meant for glad-handing in an echo chamber. Real people who want to change don’t wait for blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah.”
– Miserable Fuck on the Internet
MFI: Shut up already. Nobody’s convinced or impressed with your attempt to appear superior.
Anyways, HERE GOES:
- Get more stand-up gigs in 2012. Specifically, get down to NYC. Because folks, real talk: it ain’t gonna happen in the Capital Region, dig? I had this conversation with a comic who was complaining about how you can’t make a living around here. Well, right. You have to go to NYC, LA, and/or travel.
- Fight in an amateur kickboxing bout. This MIGHT happen in February.
- Get down to NYC more often. Obviously I need to do this for exposure and work in front of real crowds, but more than that, I need to see my little nephew Caden and his mom & dad (my brother and sister-in-law) more often, along with BFFs Brian and Marla. We did not see nearly enough of each other in 2011.
- Run in a 10k race.
- Go on more dates. Real ones.
- Learn some basic Jiu-Jitsu.
- Finish a novel.
- Write a letter to Marc Maron.
- See more concerts.
- Lose the love handles.
Annnnnnnd scene. So long, 2011, you pepper-spraying topsy-turvy false-confidence-instilling son of a bitch.
CHAPTER 1
Sandy was strong, fast, and agile. The perfect candidate for The Races, an annual gathering that centers on a violent footrace in the hills of South Dakota.
This race takes place because society has fallen into disrepair. In the second decade of the 21st Century, America lost its way. Despite cries and warnings against it, the liberal elements in government started a second Civil War when they decided to tax the rich a little bit more than they had been the previous handful of years.
This grave injustice did not go unchallenged, but ultimately the forces of evil won. Because the personal income tax was raised by a single digit percentage point on the very richest individuals, they stopped hiring people. Others saw this and gave up on their dreams. Because what’s the point of getting rich if it means you have to pay just a little bit more in taxes even though it means you’re still rich? A person’s got to have their dignity.
The result was a bloody war that ended with everybody poor, America in shambles, and a post-apocalyptic landscape where people dressed in rags and cheered people who raced to the death.
————–
CHAPTER 4
Sandy crawled into the cave and approached The Gingrich.
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Local artists collaborating on King James: Laura Glazer's depiction of Phillip Patterson
For the last four years, Phillip Patterson has been engaged in an exercise that’s pretty unusual in the 21st Century: transcribing the King James Bible, all 92,000 words of it, using pen and paper.
The Wall Street Journal has more on the project:
Intellectual curiosity, rather than religious fervor, led Patterson to the project. The idea came out of a conversation with his partner of 20 years, who died of a liver disorder in February 2010. A Muslim who owned a collection of handwritten Korans, he suggested that Patterson transcribe the Bible. The concept instantly appealed.
“I like epics,” said Patterson, a retired interior designer and artist. “I like them in my life, and in my work.”
The piece also features quotes from Laura Glazer, a local artist who has been documenting the process with the ailing Patterson. Her blog, The Serenity of Knowing, includes photos, paintings, and periodic updates on the process.
Read more over at the Wall Street Journal. The article appears in today’s (Wednesday, December 28th) print edition of the newspaper.
From Aron Heller of The Associated Press comes the story of a small child – a little girl – who is spit upon and cursed at by ultra-Orthodox Jews as she walks to school in the town of Beit Shemesh, just West of Jerusalem. (watch video)
It’s a really awful story about pathetic men who are so ghastly afraid of women and their own sexuality that they will bully, taunt, and assault a little girl. But we can’t just stop there.
Perennial nutjobs on the far Right invoke the phrase “Sharia law” like they’re pulling the fire alarm, and all of a sudden people start scrambling. It’s a ridiculous Boogie Man, this idea that the United States would or even could somehow become a country that adopts Islam as a legal system.
Yet, for all that, it’s amazing what some ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities get away with in and outside of New York City. Their clashes with bicyclists are well documented, but there are bigger and uglier problems that don’t get shared for wont of not offending. In particular the separation of the sexes, relegation of women to separate entrances, and even curtains erected on public buses to separate men from women.
Invoke these examples and in some circles you will be chastised as being anti-semitic. Yet there is an inescapable dilemma in these communities where a whole gender – women – are treated like blacks and other minorities in the first half of the twentieth century. They get a pass, sadly, because of the invocation of religious belief. Thus, a practice which should be an embarrassment to anyone with a shred of decency becomes not only permissible, but celebrated.
In these United States, we should not be tolerant of any system that seeks to subjugate, berate, or otherwise dehumanize an entire people. Nor do I think that a group should be allowed to publicly exercise wanton discrimination, bigotry, and misogyny in the name of a religious belief.
This is not to say that you cannot have your beliefs. But we cannot, in our unending quest to appear tolerant, allow ourselves to embrace intolerant exercises.
I have my issues with the sentiment and tone behind the Occupy movement, the vagueness of some of its goals, and the propensity for melodrama and grandstanding. They’re pretty well documented.
An APD mounted officer arms a can of pepper spray during the Occupy Albany eviction on Thursday, December 21st.
In recent weeks, I’ve become more and more disatisfied, disenfranchised, and cynical towards the movement. Part of it is because I’m exhausted by the rhetoric, the overstatement of its sentiment by drawing comparison to Middle Eastern protestors literally fighting for their lives in the streets and the Civil Rights movement, and the construction of elaborate scenarios where every single politician and officer is part of some secret cabal or conspiracy which misdiagnoses the ailments in our system and is self-defeating. But much of it, too, is due to supporters of the movement who hold steadfast to the movement’s claim that it is a collection of varying and differing ideologies, viewpoints, and world views. Yet if you express any hesitation about claiming solidarity with them, you are roundly chastised. And if you do what I am wont to do, which is make jokes about them, forget about it.
Still, with all my apprehension, I don’t think it’s right they should be pepper sprayed.
You can read a full recap of today’s eviction of Occupy Albany from Academy Park over at All Over Albany, complete with photos and videos. What I want to talk about, though, is the use of pepper spray by law enforcement.
The issue I have is that I feel that things like tazers and pepper spray, by their nature, should be used as a last resort; tazers because of the danger it poses to cardiac health and pepper spray because in a crowd it harms not just single targets but bystanders. In both cases, there seem to be more and more instances where the use of it is unwarranted, unnecessary, and/or excessive.
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Occupy Albany released a statement read by John Jaye outlining their demands.
Occupy Albany has made a shocking, controversial, and altogether unfathomable demand: to take money out of politics.
Ridiculous! Ludicrous! Far too specific! This would undermine everything!
Personally, I think there should be MORE money in politics. In fact, I say do away with voting entirely. Replace it, instead, with glass jars for each candidate. Whoever collects the most cash wins, and then that cash is used to run the country as those people see fit. This way we ensure our representatives are working the hardest they can for our dollars, and only the most hard-working fundraisers will be in positions of influence. Also, corporations should be represented by living, breathing cyborgs that can they also run for office.
I’m being facetious, but not because I think the notion is ridiculous. But because I don’t think it’s nearly specific enough and as a liberal myself, I take offense to the notion that the demands and regulations being alluded to in the most vague possible manner here should just be universally accepted by any and all of this “99%” people keep talking about (the use of which does more to stifle conversation than encourage it and really needs to be abolished). Particularly when I and many others might (*gasp!*) disagree with the positions they are holding as universal to the variety of ideologies they represent.
I want to run down, point by point, the specific measures and issues they are demanding to be addressed “in the short term.”
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STALK ME
