Friday Night Irish Music Byte

Irish music week continues…

From Allmusic we learn that despite a huge hit single in the mid-’70s (“The Boys Are Back in Town”) and becoming a popular act with hard rock/heavy metal fans, Thin Lizzy are still, in the pantheon of ’70s rock bands, under-appreciated. Formed in the late ’60s by Irish singer/songwriter/bassist Phil Lynott, Lizzy, though not the first band to do so, combined romanticized working-class sentiments with their ferocious, twin-lead guitar attack. As the band’s creative force, Lynott was a more insightful and intelligent writer than many of his ilk, preferring slice-of-life working-class dramas of love and hate influenced by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and virtually all of the Irish literary tradition. Also, as a black man, Lynott was an anomaly in the nearly all-white world of hard rock, and as such imbued much of his work with a sense of alienation; he was the outsider, the romantic guy from the other side of the tracks, a self-styled poet of the lovelorn and downtrodden. His sweeping vision and writerly impulses at times gave way to pretentious songs aspiring to clichéd notions of literary significance, but Lynott’s limitless charisma made even the most misguided moments worth hearing.

Sadly, Lynott died in 1986 at the age of 35 as the result of his longtime abuse of heroin, cocaine and alcohol, but the alcohol really was not his fault inasmuch as he was, after all, Irish. The following is a videoclip of Thin Lizzy performing an amped up version of the traditional Irish song, Whiskey In The Jar on Britain’s Top Of The Pops in 1973.

Palin and Hannity, Quite the Calamity

The Fox News Network has no shortage of poorly educated pundits, and Wednesday night two of its biggest imbeciles showcased their ignorance in grand fashion before a national audience. Granted, that audience was comprised primarily of poorly educated Tea-Baggers, so they probably believed that they were being pontificated to by Rhodes scholars. In reality, Sean Hannity attended two colleges (New York University and Adelphia University) but he never graduated or earned a degree. In comparison, Sarah Palin would appear to be a genius in light of the fact that she attended 5 colleges in 6 years before finally obtaining enough credits to earn a less than impressive bachelor’s degree in journalism. Nevertheless, Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity spoon fed their audience a double dose of dimwittery last Wednesday.

The dimwitted duo’s topic du jour was their opposition to health care reform and the Democrats’ potential use of “self-executing” rules to pass the legislation. Sarah Palin said,

It’s against the will of the people, it’s undemocratic, it’s un-American, this process. I think, Sean, that in our lifetime, this is the most undemocratic, unAmerican step that we’ll have ever seen our Congress take. It’s appalling, it’s — it takes my breath away that they would think that this is OK to do. Is the Constitution not worth the paper it is written on, then?

Sean Hannity of course, agreed that the procedure is unconstitutional and assured the audience of brain dead amoebas that the procedure would be challenged in court.

Unfortunately, neither Palin nor Hannity seem to be aware of the uncontroverted fact that Republicans have used the “self-executing” procedure more than Democrats in the past. The Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars reveals,

When Republicans were in the minority, they railed against self-executing rules as being anti-deliberative because they undermined and perverted the work of committees and also prevented the House from having a separate debate and vote on the majority’s preferred changes. When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively).

Where was the outrage from Palin and Hannity when the Republicans were utilizing the self executing procedure? Either they are being hypocritical now for opposing a procedure that they failed to oppose earlier, or more likely, they have such a lack of knowledge of political history that they were not aware that their party has allegedly trampled upon the Constitution far more often than the Democrats. Anyone surprised?

In honor of the troops, please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s song parody.

Let Em In song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe990JYsbNo&feature=related

LET FOX IN

(sung to the Paul McCartney and Wings song “Let ‘Em In”)

Someone’s sniveling on the tube
Somebody’s startin’ to yell
Someone’s sportin’ new boobs
Somebody reeks of hair gel

Do me a favor,
Change the channel and let Fox in
Ooh yeah

Someone’s not “fair and balanced”
Somebody’s missing brain cells
Someone’s psyche is imbalanced
Somebody’s wearing pastels

Do me a favor,
Change the channel and let Fox in
Yeah ,yeah, yeah, let Fox in

Neil Cavuto, O’Reilly
Glenn Beck and Hannity
Huckabee and Sarah Palin
Change the channel and let Fox in
Yeah

(musical interlude)

Neil Cavuto, O’Reilly
Glenn Beck and Hannity
Huckabee and Van Susteren
Change the channel and let Fox in
Oh, yeah

Someone’s talking to Newt Gingrich
Somebody’s starting to shout
Someone called Hillary a bitch
Somebody’s starting to pout

Do me a favor,
Change the channel and let Fox in
Ooh yeah ,yeah, let Fox in, let ‘em in now

Doo doo doo doo da doo doo
Doo doo doo da doo da

Neil Cavuto, O’Reilly
Glenn Beck and Hannity
Huckabee and Sarah Palin
Change the channel and let Fox in
Oh, yeah

Someone’s sniveling on the tube
Somebody’s startin’ to yell
Someone’s sportin’ new boobs
Somebody reeks of hair gel

Do me a favor,
Change the channel and let Fox in
Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah