Things We Learned on Twitter Today- GOP Scare Tactics Not Accurate

We saw this interesting tweet from Virginia state Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Hot Springs) who was easily re-elected over Charlottesville attorney T.J. Aldous on Tuesday, though since Republicans were able to brand conservative, pro-life Democrat state senate incumbent Roscoe Reynolds as a 'liberal,' his opponent Bill Stanley won the highly-contested seat in the Martinsville area and gave the state senate to Republicans by an extremely narrow margin.

In his tweet this evening, Deeds, whom I volunteered for when he ran for state attorney general in 2005 and endorsed in 2009 against his opponent Bob McDonnell, a fervent right-winger who is now governor, said the following: "Does government regulation really kill jobs? Economists say overall effect is minimal-Washington Post."

His tweet comes at a time when I saw several militant anti-Obama billboards, including two in Beckley, WVa, the heart of coal country, which said that every state from Indiana to South Carolina was in Obama's 'job-killing zones.' Interestingly, all these states, which included Virginia, were highlighted in red, the color used by the electoral college when it has voted Republican in the presidential election.

Though West Virginia was one of the eight states that selected Michael Dukakis in 1988, it has gone Republican for the last three presidential races. But, Obama won four 'Bush states' in Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina during the last cycle.

There have been a number of dubious anti-Obama billboards paid for by far-right groups. One near Orlando, Fla., actually said "Please Don't Vote Democrat" which an image of the Twin Towers from 9-11. Another one in Grand Junction, Colo., which was eventually removed, compared our president to a terrrorist. Others have shown Obama wearing a turban while another one put a Soviet Union flag beside the president. And, these shameless people assuredly call themselves patriots.

This and That- I Forgot About Joe Biden

Since I was in high school, I have been a partisan Democrat, so much so that I wanted to vote for Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan in 1984 even though I was 14 years old at the time.

But, four years later, my opportunity came, and despite pressure from my Turkish relatives in Istanbul not to 'vote for the Greek,' I did indeed vote for Michael Dukakis over George H.W. Bush, even though Reagan's veep carried Virginia and won the election easily.

The field for the 1988 Democratic nomination seemed rather flat at the time, which lead to them being dubbed 'The Seven Dwarfs,' which Eric Alterman of "The Nation" would say proves that there is really no such thing as a liberal media. Of course, Bill O'Reilly would beg to differ, but we don't really care about what he thinks.

Yesterday, I had a chance to take a quiz for the web site for "Mental Floss" magazine which usually has all sorts of interesting quizzes. I had just talked about "snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" with a friend of mine, so the chance to name the 'seven dwarfs' as in the seven Democratic candidates from 1988 seemed rather nifty to me.

But, much to my suprise, I had a lot of trouble with it. After Dukakis, I remembered that Paul Simon (not the singer) and Bruce Babbitt, both of whom have since died, were candidates. I then remembered Al Gore, who as everyone knows became Bill Clinton's veep, but I had somehow forgotten about our current vice-president Joe Biden who was also in that field! This does beg the question, if I run into him someday at a political rally, do I mention this to him or not?!

I did get a chance to see one of the other 1988 Democratic candidates Richard Gephardt speak during a rally in Georgetown, SC, as he was trying to win the 2004 nomination which went to John Kerry. In fact, I rediscovered photographs I took of that event just a few weeks ago.

Speaking of political campaigns, I was just thinking when Mitt Romney, who we can't wait to make fun of again (we called him The Republican Dukakis during the last go around), that during his kick-off speech in New Hampshire that he did sound like Clark Kent and he was trying to convince Republican voters that he would be Superman when it came to reversing the American economic downfall.

Sure enough, some artists at "The Week" magazine had the same idea as they have Romney front and center under the caption "Waiting for Superman," in reference to an accalimed documentary that came out last year. Interestingly enough, Romney said yesterday that he differs with other Republicans in that he thinks global warming is partially man-made. Ironically, Paul Guggenheim, the director of Al Gore's documentary on global warming "An Inconvenient Truth," also directed "Waiting for Superman," which is a film about education.

Lastly, we had a chance to listen to the Turkish psychedelic compilation "Turkish Freak-Out" on vinyl yesterday afternoon just after listening to a streaming of "The Turkish Music Hour" on WUVT-FM (90.7-Blacksburg, Va.), and the recording from Bouzouki Joe Records is very good.

It includes 18 tracks from the likes of Erkin Koray (who turns 70 this month), Ajda Pekkan and the late Baris Manco. I found it at All Day Records in Carrboro, NC, just outside Chapel Hill.

Also, on yesterday's WUVT broadcast, I heard a song called "Sarhos" ("Drunk") by a singer named Dario Moreno (1921-1968). I had never heard of Moreno, and I presumed he was an Italian man who happened to sing a Turkish song, but he was in fact actually from Turkey!