What Must It Be Like. . . .

Tags

editorial, gay rights, immigration, Latino rights, Muslims, racism

I’m a 61-year-old white woman. When I applied for law school, law schools were actively soliciting female applicants, so I had a leg up. I benefited from women before me who had to fight tooth and nail to even attend a law school, let alone practice law. And most could never hope to gain a partnership in a major firm.

As a female high-school graduate, certain “professions” were closed to me. At that time, women were not allowed to “work the streets” as cops. Women couldn’t fly fighter planes in the Air Force, women’s roles in the military were severely limited. Women didn’t fly commercial airplanes with the major carriers.

Women are still underpaid vis-a-vis their male counterparts.

We still deal with our Phyllis Schafly’s who would advise us that God prefers us to stick pretty close to either the kitchen or the bedroom. A whole host of male ministers would tell us that we are to be subservient to our “head” –meaning our husbands.

So I know a little bit about being a second-class person. But only a little. I can’t say that I have been denied much of anything I really wanted. I had whiteness to thank for that.

As a white person, I had the American Dream pretty much intact for the asking. It’s a birthright we receive just by being. Pretty nifty when you think of it. It’s like being 30 yards ahead in a 100 yard dash when the gun goes off. It’s like being born in America. It’s just a big head start.

I am a Christian, which generally speaking, whatever all the hoopla one hears about “being discriminated against”, is a safety net of sorts. Nobody calls me names except those who risk being called more names: non-believers. In a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, it’s the “right” faith.

So, my life and my world is defined by all this entitlement. I take it as normal. I take it as the way things are. It is the natural environment through which I move, not thinking about it any more than thinking about the air that I breathe that makes my life possible.

Yet, a host of folks in this country are not so privileged. They are gay, black, brown, Muslim. Oddly, Asian has not yet become suspect–at least as to Asian Americans. But given the economic up-turn going on in Asia, it seems likely to in the future.

If you are at all like me, (and most of you are smart, thinking folks), then you are reading a lot on the Internet. You are watching the news, reading papers and magazines, and listening to the radio. And tons of the stuff every day, involves all these “others” among us.

Bryan Fischer and those of his ilk, remind us daily how awful it is to be gay. To choose to be gay, as they claim. They engender fear in some of us about the safety of our children. They warn of God’s wrath. They assure us that civilization itself is on the precipice of destruction should we ever allow “marriage” between other than A man and A woman.

Race has taken on a new twist in this “post-Obama” era. Race had become the quiet, but still insidious disease of our country. The election of Obama and the need for racists to find a way to attack him without “looking racist” became paramount.

So we discovered to our shock that he was a “socialist” “communist” “fascist” “dictator” “Muslim” “member of the Muslim Brotherhood” “activator of the New World Order, “anti-Christ” and “Kenyan citizen”.

We learned that if you find three sycophant house negroes to champion your position of Obama hatred, gay hatred, Muslim and immigration hatred, you could be absolved of that charge, and in fact call liberals racist and the other 99% of all black people racists. Not a bad trade-off.

Stoked by  the right-wing media machine which captures its audience by a mixture of fear and pointing the finger at all NOT WHITE, NOT CHRISTIAN elements in the country, Muslims were the next target. Because a few deluded idealogues financed by a few more rich deluded ideologues chose to cause great hurt and destruction upon US soil, all Muslims are now suspect. Best they just go away. And it is most of all best that they all be looked upon with great suspicion.

Don’t have a job? Taking a pay cut? Losing your benefits? Or just stuck in a dead-end job with no real hope of moving up that ladder to the “good life?” Why that same Foxy media and its traveling fellowship will explain to you that it’s because of this country being flooded with “illegals” who are “taking your jobs.”

I remember a time when we had a lot of sympathy for Mexicans in this country. We knew that many of them were migrant workers. And we knew they were underpaid and often poorly used by their employers. We worked to better their lives.

No more.

They take our jobs, use our emergency wards, don’t pay taxes, get free schooling for their kids, and have the nasty habit of dropping “anchor babies” to attach themselves to this country and it’s wealth.

No matter than nearly all of this is untrue. It fits the needs of both the offerers: (the right-wing power and media) and the offerees: (those who are hurtin’ and wanna blame somebody).

And while we are at it, let’s blame all the smarty-pants folks who got educated and tell us we are wrong. We aren’t, they are just “elitists”.

This is America today. And I stop and think sometimes. What must it be like to be gay? Or Black? Or Brown? or Muslim? What is it like to be talked about as if you are something bad? Something dangerous? SomeTHING as opposed to someONE?

What must it be like to be fearful that those eyes that look upon you at Wal-Mart and look so mean might be ready and willing to do more than give you that dirty look? What must it be like to endure those barely under the breath remarks? What must it be like to be asked to step out of line and be singled out for a “more thorough” search? What must it be like to have to “prove” one’s right to be on the highway?

I try to imagine. I cannot. But it hurts to think that others suffer because they ARE.

The closest I can come is this. Have you ever been accused of something that you did not do, but could not prove other than by your word? Remember the frustration and anger you felt, at being unfairly accused. Is it anything like this?

What must it be like?

 

Lassie, Lassie, Go Save Timmy!

Tags

Election 2012, Fox News, GOP, Herman Cain, Media, Sarah Palin, teabaggers, Tim Pawlenty, Women's issues

I mean, there can be no sadder soul (besides the ever griftin’ Sarah) than our dear boy Timmy. Or T-Paw to us political junkies.

Never was there a man who was so inept in judging the future. First of all, he puts all his chips into one state, where he could not hope to out-spend  Michele, the wild-eyed Mina-SO-tan.

It doesn’t help that T-Paw has all the charisma of a deer tick at a Deep Woods Off convention.

I mean T-Paw looks in a mirror each morning and wonders why he should bother.

He shouldn’t.

So after prematurely ejaculating his presidential hopes after losing the “straw” counting summer fun in Iowa, T-Paw looked around to see who he might bore next.

Weeks later, good old slipper T, realized his faux pax as one after another of the presidential beggars, soared in the polls.

“I coulda been a contenda'” he moaned.

And lord knows it would have done ever so much for his book sales, which is why most of them (save perennial presidential wannabe Mittens) entered the race in the first place.

So then T-Paw moved inexorably down the fatal path of destruction. As if led by a gaggle of evil spirits, he is unable to grasp the right brass ring, coming up again and again with iron.

He decides to back the front-runner, Mittens. He thought that was a sure thing.

He failed to estimate the degree to which the conservative Gollums of the GOP HATE Mittens.

Now it looks like Mittens may fail in his second bid to be king of the mountain, and with it, T-Paws hopes of a continuing paycheck, as Secretary of something-or-other. Such a sad story.

♦

Meanwhile, back at the political party at the end of the universe: the GOP.

What is 15: 7?

The number of available girl-pals (wives or otherwise) spread among the seven male candidates. We left Michele out of this, though goodness knows she might have had a dalliance or 27 given Marcus’ swishy ways.

The winner of course is our very own Hermie who now faces allegations of a 13-year affair to go with the claims of harassment by 4 other women. Hermie says, “here we go again”. It’s not clear if he is referring to the continuing female pop-ups, or to if this is his rally cry to women in bed.

For the record Herm says it’s “all a lie”. He says he will not get out of the race “as long as his wife is behind me.” Dude, that is the problem. She needs to be in front of you, and between you and anything with girl parts.

And Herm’s wife sees the lightbulb go on and realizes finally why she has been plagued by vaginal infections for years.

Duh.

♦

Proof that a little knowledge is no knowledge at all?

Fairleigh Dickenson University did some polling among New Jerseyans and found that the Sunday talk shows do most to inform people. And then there is Fox. Those who watch Fox are less informed than those who watching NOTHING. Asking a broad range of questions about Syria and Egypt, the poll discovered that reading of national newspapers and listening to NPR also pushed up the numbers of those who were “knowledgable”. When it came to OWS, John Stewart watchers knew more, and oddly MSNBC watchers thought the protesters were Republicans!

♦

Quote of the day:

Half of them think like Michelle Bachmann and the other half are afraid of being primaried by someone who thinks like Michele Bachmann. — Barney Frank, on Congressional Republicans

♦

Stolen from Hysterical Raisins:

Pretty darn cute huh? Pretty darn accurate.

Oh and don’t miss this:

It comes from the Blaze.

But I have no question about its authenticity.

It is a walking advertisement for the immediate passage of a constitutional amendment barring women from voting, or working in jobs higher than cashier.

These are the women who give women a bad name.

These are our secret shame:

The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute and Human Events, join forces to present “the most influential conservative women in the US.”  (drum rolls are appropriate, and do add some trumpets)

1. Sarah Palin. Whirlwind mama Wasilla gal. Long time grifter, dreamer of dreams. Role model to no one. She reduces politics and world affairs to nothing more than “gotcha” questions, offered to up-end her apple cart. She thought she had you with lipstick on a pig.
2. Michele Bachmann. Wild-eyed crazy woman, who is ordered around by pseudo-gay husband Marcus. She knows what should go on in your bedroom, your uterus, and in your school room. Hint: it’s got to do with Jesus and Armageddon. History comes straight from David Barton. Founding Father, John Quincey Adams, ya know, the one who fought against slavery.
3. Phyllis Shlafly. Has been fighting against women’s rights for decades, all the while traveling around the country, making money, and not staying home pregnant and cooking as she claims all normal women should want to be. Don’t do what I do, do what I say!
4. Ann Coulter. Keeps writing books that nobody reads. Nobody pays her any mind any more. She has to now fight for even more outlandish things to say in order to be ignored. She thinks she’s attractive, while Michelle Malkin knows she’s not.
5. Michelle Malkin. Just another outrageous pundit from the moon. Michelle never met a Democrat that was worth keeping alive. She lives in a universe when up is down, down, is up, and Michelle has the microphone. She loves being the center of attention, and is pissed  she got beat out again by Ann Coulter.
6. Bay Buchanan. Never heard of her.
7. Marji Ross. Never heard of her. (But Newty praises her, so she must be an idiot.)
8. Cleta Mitchell. Never heard of her.
9. Michelle Easton. Never heard of her (But they favor women named Michelle and this one is head of one of the co-founders of the award, so the fix was in.)
10. Star Parker. I thought this was Star Jones, and I know of her, but not this Parker gal. I think they ran out of women and just made her up.
11. (Honorary) Margaret Thatcher. Oh leave the poor woman alone. She would find all of this group an embarrassment.

Return to your regular programing.

 

To Be Or Not To Be: The GOP Asks The Folks

Tags

editorial, Election 2012, GOP, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Politics, Rick Perry, teabaggers

It’s starting to make sense finally.

The GOP, I mean.

See, all the rational candidates? They chose not to run. Rational being defined as those that have actual principles that they live or die by. Somebody just forgot to inform Michele and Ricky S of that. And of course Ron Paul, but he would never have listened anyway. He is so principled that he has no chance EVER.

But Mitt and Newt and Ricky P are naturals at this. Karma Karma Karma Chameleon. Just be what the folks want. The folks being the loud-mouthed knuckle-dragging wingbattery right, who can’t tell a  quark from a muon, but can pontificate upon economic trickle-downism at the drop of a hat, without knowing a tinker’s damn about  it. If you asked them who John Maynard Keynes was, they would vote that he was the side-kick of Dobie Gillis (go look it up).

But these are the drooling heads that the desperate types such as described above, find it useful to play to.

 Mittens does it like a over-sized puppy, crashing into his food bowl, sending kibbles flying, all the while grinning from ear to ear, “do ya still love me, huh? Pleeeeze!”

Ricky P, does it dutifully, all the while griping in the limo to his handlers, that “this ain’t none of the fun you guys promised.”

Newt does it with an effete effrontery, that borders on contempt for the very people he courts. “That ought to hold the little fuckers for a while.”

Yes, they are our little troop of mad-ators. The talking head that never held an opinion he wouldn’t change for a vote. Mittens are well documented at this point. The only new one is his recent pretense at shock and disdain for anything called amnesty. Why, only a mere five years ago, Mittens was talking about the necessity to find a means to citizenship for some of our undocumented. Course, now, he recoils in horror at the mere thought. But then, well, it sounded remarkably like what Newty is proposing.

And before you get all soft on the Grifter, let me remind you that Newt is not talking about citizenship as far as I can tell. He merely talks about giving them some paper that allows them to remain. I guess under Newt, we might be looking at creating a permanent class of non-citizens. Some might call that slavery of a sort. Some might. Yes they might.

While we are at it, I suppose we ought to drag out the first of a long list of flippy-flops that the Grifter has gone through. They are at least as long as those of Mittens. Like I said, this is the year of the Flippy-Flopper Candidate.

It is fairly unfair to include either Ricky P or Hermie C in this mix. Neither has had a principle on anything long enough to know what one is. Hermie is still not sure why being “against abortion in any form” is in opposite to “ultimately the mother must make that decision.” He is not sure why he should have to explain HOW he would have done things (any things) differently that President Obama, beyond saying he would gather his people together and “get all the information”. I mean what part of “in the end I will make a decision” don’t you get?

Ricky P just likes all the sparkles and jingles of the whole business. He likes shaking hands, and riding in limos and seein’ parts of the country he never saw before. He likes seein’ those pretty diamonds around the withered necks of old-haggy women who crush their big bosoms against his chest, smelling of Chanel and mothballs, with lipstick bleeding into the creases around their lips. He likes their money more. He figures about fifteen minutes on the way to the next debate is all the time necessary to memorize “his socialist policies” and “fire the FED.” 

 I see it this way:

Mittens has a pathological need to be president. This is some proof for him that he is “somebody”. It may come from daddy issues. He may suffer from what so many of the rich-by-proxy kids suffer from–lack of self-esteem. Who knows. I ain’t no head doctor. But the man’s insane need to attain the office makes his a loose cannon. I can honestly, all snark aside, tell you I have NO CLUE WHAT THIS MAN BELIEVES IN ABOUT ANYTHING.

Ricky is just a puppy dog who has been praised for being a good dog. He is faithful. He is ever-pleasing. As long as he gets his treat, he’s loyal and will do your bidding. He will chase down that pheasant, and bring it back to lay at your feet, and never puncture that  skin and take a taste. He trusts that you will reward him heavily if he is good. Ricky is owned by a string of high bidders, who have no interest but their own. They tell Ricky they are doing the public good, but Ricky is just a dumb dog, and so he believes it. He is dangerous like dumb Dubya was dangerous. They are led.

Hermie is a “self-made” man, who cringes at the thought that African-Americans have worked decades if not more than a century to give him the opportunity he now enjoys. He has no where else to look for his own self-worth, and he ain’t about to give it up to his people. He was too scared to march in the 60’s so he moved up the ladder of opportunity by being the House Negro. In his mind, he thinks he’s being slick, using whitey to achieve. His little wealth is a joke to the Kochs, who are the ones using him. He has outlasted his usefulness at this point, and will be thrown to the curb of “used up.”

Newt is an arrogant bully. He is proud of the fact that can make a buck without working. He’s a classic grifter, who now that he has the dough he wants, wants the power. He actually believes he’s smarter than anyone else. He blatantly discards women when they are no longer useful to him; meaning they not longer enhance his high-power persona. He changes positions as necessary to attract the rabble vote, all the while being utterly contemptuous of the “little and dirty” people. He is seriously dangerous, because he will do what the hell he wants to, legal or otherwise.

That’s the circus guys.

The only question: How many are gonna come and pay to see it?

 

From Upside Down, It All Makes Perfect Sense

Tags

GOP, Humor, Iowa, life in the meadow, Zoology

These four days are the best of the year. After hours spent slaving over a hot stove, I produced a meal that lasts for 4 freakin’ days. And I relish every day, lounging, and napping, and just hangin’ out around the TV, with a book in hand should I desire it. Sigh. . . .life should always be so good.

Speaking of life.

I hate people who use partial words, or make up new words, combining others. It is not cute. It is not accurate. It is silly.

I would ban the use of “delish” and “terrif” and vics and perps (NO self-respecting police office I have ever known–and the number runs into the hundreds–ever used those words. It’s victims and suspects or defendants, period). I hate the “word” fantastical, and stupendulous, and spectaculicious.

So stop it.

Do you have stupid homemade words that you hate?

Before we get on with funny things: a couple of links you should follow.

David Frum, who is a legitimate Republican wrote a long piece for the NYMag. I subscribe to a site called “longreads” which sends me their picks every week of five really good articles that are longer than the usual Internet fare.

Frum writes about what has gone so terribly wrong with the GOP. You probably should read it.

On a completely different note. Did you know that bulldogs are getting close to being America’s favorite dog? Not quite, but close. Did you know that they have  a lifespan of about 7 years? Did you know it’s almost exclusively due to the manner in which we have bred them for their famous traits? Do you know that they have more health issues than any other dog, and have a fairly lousy quality of life?

Well you should know. And if you go here, you will find out all about bulldogs and their plight. If you think this is an isolated case, you would also be wrong. Collies were bred for a long time for very long and flat noses. Race horses are bred for very long slender legs that make it much more likely that they suffer broken legs. We bred animals to suit our esthetics or our needs, with little or no thought as to how it will affect the animal.

Be aware, and buy accordingly.

Okay, back to some fun.

I love Calvin and Hobbes.

So much so that  we named two of our cats after them. Not that they resemble either in character and personality.

This is one of my favorite frames.

Like Star Trek, much of life can be explained through their relationship and adventures.

I miss reading the funnies every day in the paper.

Speaking of which, is your local paper this weird-looking thing now? They chopped off about 1/4 of its width. It looks silly. I don’t read it any more. It doesn’t look serious.

Michele Bachmann is going to be at Barnes and Nobles in Cedar Rapids today. The Contrarian wondered if I wanted to go. As far as I know, you can’t speak to the silly woman unless you buy her book. Who would want to do that? And you couldn’t say much anyway, before her “handlers” shuffled you aside and away.

But I could do this.

And it would be even more satisfying.

I’d like to do this a lot.

To a lot of politicians.

To a lawyer or two.

To a TV “personality” or two.

To a host of so-called celebrities.

To God on occasion, but not often.

To our pets every night at 3: a.m. when somebody has just “GOT” to go out.

And then one of them crawls into my lap, and rolls his head and peers at me with such sappy sweetness that I want to do this:

You know what I mean.

And that’s the way I like to stay most of the time.

Soft and sweet, and loving and sappy happy.

And mostly I do.

Until I get on this infernal machine.

And start to read things, and ponder.

And then I see this:

And my blood begins to boil.

And I pound the table.

And I question the existence of intelligent life on this planet.

And I want to go to my bunker.

Except that I don’t have one.

And I’m too old to make it in the outback of Alaska with nothing but a hatchet and a shotgun. (I was always too old for that).

And besides, Alaskans, by and large are too strange for me.

So, I’m going back to contemplating my navel.

If You Find Yourself Turning East to Pray, It Might be the Turkey

Tags

Beck's Nincompoops, Butterball, Humor, Islam, Islamophobia, satire, The Blaze, turkeys

In the ongoing contest to be the craziest person/group/country, Americans continue to excel.

This week, a tiny minutia of human DNA (slightly below the Neandertal level of intellectual proclivity), rose to the occasion and outdid themselves in proving that, once again, nobody puts the US in a corner when it comes to sheer batfooking insanity.

Case in point.

Somebody, for some reason, called Butterball company and asked them whether the tasty birdies they offer to us each holiday season, were Halal certified. Like Kosher certified, Halal certification simply means that the slaughter occurred in a manner compliant with religious practices.

Butterball’s answer was that indeed all whole bird turkeys are killed in an Islamically acceptable fashion, though no prayers (a part of the actual certification) are done. Similarly, no prayers are done for Kosher certification either (a rabbi must come in to do that). Butterball claims that various ethnic distributors may complete the requirements as they wish.

It should be noted that I have also read at least that the manner of killing Kosher and Halal  is exactly the same.

But of course,  facts stand in the way of hysteria with our band of nuts across America. They prefer to deal in rumor, innuendo, ad hominem ethnic hatred and vile humor. No less a certifiable wingnut that Pamela Geller is all up in craziness about this. My God, Islam is literally trying to “stuff their religion down our throats.” That’s not a quote by her, but gosh it seemed too good to not use.

The Blaze nincompoops were out in force. One can almost see them flapping their arms and racing up and down sidewalks yelling for everyone to throw out their birds, throw out your birds.

Can you just feel the love?

Doug Corrigan

Hate is a good thing. It helps you defeat your enemies. We need more ‘hate’ in America, and we need a whole lot less Pollyannaish, Goody-Two-Shoes idiocy regarding that putrid cult of murder, invented by a ‘hate’ filled camel-wacker named moohammad — that cult would, of course, be called islam.

Yes Doug, you have more than enough for all of us. Now recite the 1st Amendment again, and explain how it doesn’t apply to anyone you hate.

Taquoshi

Unfortunately, many of our don’t have that option. However, I have every intention of putting my hands on our non-Butterball turkey and praying to Lord Jesus Christ to remove any taint of any kind of ritualic prayer to idols that may have occurred. And you can bet that I’ll be praying over our other meat from now on, too!!

Allah is not an idol Sasquatch. It’s another name for God. But do us all a favor, pray non-stop, don’t even stop long enough to eat.

GetOurCountryBack

Just one more way these b*stards are creeping into our society and trying to get their agenda forced on us. As an American I don’t give a flying flip if they can find food that is okay for them to eat. Better yet, lets put a bill out that forbids this and force them to get the he!! out.

They aren’t creeping GOCB, they are coming right down your esophagus now. As a moron, you aren’t expected to know that we can’t “put a bill out”. I thought you airheads were against regulations against business?

AB5R

For Christians it is not acceptable to eat foods offered to idols. In this case the Islamic prayer to Allah (in the bible he is known as Satan) makes halal food something that has been offered as a sacrifice to an idol, a particularly evil one in this case.

I would agree that if Satan is Allah, he would be a “particularly evil” idol. But he’s not, and you’re stupid. You are exactly the reason why internet access is NOT an acceptable therapy in the Head Hospital. Stick to legos please.

MikeM1969

I don’t eat butterball, and now I never will. One step closer to sharia compliance. I will die before I comply.

Easy to say when you don’t eat it anyway hey Mike? And as to that last part, we can but wish.

Loafer4952

Well I know I won’t be buying anymore turkeys or anything that butterball has to do with it. We usually by several turkeys thru out the year. This is America and we need to be americans. It is ok to believe in your religon but when you come to America you do as Americans do. If you don’t like the way we do something then go back where you came from I am sure they will do it your way.

That’s right, and so we will have no more of that Kosher stuff any more either right? America was not settled by Jews for goodness sakes, but good old Christian Protestants. And the damn Catholics better stop saying prayers over wine and bread too. You are onto something Loafer. Or is it just your brain that loafs?

Nobama201258

 

We have bigger fish to fry people,how bout those PETA nutjobs wanting us to eat tofu instead of turkey ?

Yeah, I got my shotgun at the ready Nobama. I was thinkin’ of staking out the tofu shelf at Wal-Mart and pickin’ up those stealth buyers and then follow them home and picket their houses. The UNAMERICANness of it!

Zombee

Barack Hussein Obama (aka. The Impostor) doesn’t care whether or not you know if the food you buy is Islam-approved inhumanely Halal slaughtered! But he sure cared about whether his fellow Muslims in his home state of Illinois knew it when he served in the Illinois State Senate and sponsored the ‘Halal Food Act’ in 2001.

Now how did I know that one of your creepin’ crazies would bring the President into this. And congrats Zom, you have one fine hate blog. No advertising here though, keep your hatred at home.

Tri-OX

Catering to terrorists certainly isn’t good for the Butterball brand image.

So, triple OX (you guys self-identify so exquisitely), all Muslims are terrorists? Is that your belief? Well we are in a world of trouble if that is the case. Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. You fail basic common sense.

And so we depart. Please don’t scare the zoo animals here. They are precious to us since they remind us that we actually are superbly sane by comparison. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed your turkeys. We alas had duck, which was excellent, by the way. And stay away from those malls!

PS: If you see smoke on the horizon, not to worry. It’s just your local trailer park having a turkey burning bonfire. All hail to Ed and the crew at the Daisy Chain Tea Party Club Trailer Park, now at an all-time attendance level of SIX.

 

Related articles

• Clean Up, Meat Aisle: Talking Heads Exploding over Halal Butterballs (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
• Is Your Turkey a Secret Muslim Sharia Jihadi Al Qaeda Operative????????? (passthedoucheys.com)
• Muslim turkeys are invading America, religious right warns (seriously) (americablog.com)
• The Latest Threat To America: The Sharia Turkey (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Invasion of the Butterballah (brobrubel.wordpress.com)

Who Started This Insane Holiday Anyway?

Tags

Humor, life in the meadow, Thanksgiving

You see that woman?

With the perky pointy boobs?

In high heels?

Smiling?

She is not real. Much as you male types wish to believe otherwise, she is NOT. She is a fictional Madison Avenue creation. She is nothing but a flamboyant mental derangement with the two-fold purpose of trying to convince women that if that have that lovely stove, they too can sail through holiday cooking with nary a hair out of place, all the while providing MEN the excuse they need to sit on the couch and play tag with the remote.

There! I said it. Much as you may wish to believe otherwise, MOSTLY women drive the holiday food fare. MOSTLY women slave away in an often cramped, steamy, environ trying to juggle the creation of seventeen different food items and turn them all out in perfection on the dot of 3 p.m. when a hungry mob of family descends upon an equally perfect table (with cloth, best china, silverware, and appropriate festive decorations) to drip, drop, spill, gobble, their way through your lovely dishes of bliss.

And then, they have the audacity, the sheer chutzpah, to belch, get up and wander back to their couches leaving a train wreck on the table, a mound of dishes, pots and pans in the kitchen, and nary an offering hand to clean it all up.

That’s what most women face this two-day marathon.

And yes I did say two days. More like five. When you add in the menu divining, the list making, the shopping through multiple stores, the planning, and the execution of breads, pies, birds, sides, relishes, and more, it’s a non-stop mental gymnastics that makes sleep nearly impossible.

Yesterday I made ciabatta bread, and holiday bread. Today, I spend FOUR (did you hear me?) FOUR hours creating pie crust and pie and salad and most of the dressing and giblets, and sweet potatoes, to say nothing of drowning the bird and draining it and putting it in to dry, and re-organizing the refrigerator forty-two times to accommodate all the extra food. And who in the hell ever thought it was a good idea to have pearl onions?

I am frazzled.  I look more like this:

I have washed every dish in my kitchen four times now.

I have wrinkles in my wrinkles from dishwater hands.

I have burns under my burns. (It’s a hoot to try to upside down a boiling hot apple pie to uncover the pecan now hardening into candy brown sugar top)

I have screamed at the dog thirty-seven times to “get out of my kitchen.”

The cats are hiding under the bed.

I am done.

For today.

I think God made pearl onions as a joke.

I spent hours peeling off papery skin.

Tomorrow I get to do the bird.

That’s always fun.

Mostly I have to “finish off” recipes I started today. You know, add the topping to the sweet potatoes, and mix up the dressing ingredients.

We’re making a lot of new stuff this time. So it’s a bit of a crap shoot.

The Contrarian was ordered to “make dinner”. Making dinner = making gruel which usually includes some combination of meat, tomatoes, pasta, and shaking seasonings around it.

Did I say, that I am done?

Until the cock crows and I leap from my bed to attack the final assembly of “THE MEAL”.

And did I mention that once we sit down, it takes on average 20 minutes to consume?

Sigh.

And I still have to pick off all that meat from the neck. That is such a pain in the ass.

Let’s hear it for giblet gravy!

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Turkeys Flying Out of My Butt

Tags

Congress, economy, Egypt, GOP, Grover Norquist, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, OWS, Syria, teabaggers

The GOP can be proud of one thing. They have been successful in keeping government small in one major respect:

THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT ONE THING TO HELP ME MAINTAIN MY SANITY!!!

Oh, I know. I said it yesterday. Did we actually expect the “Super Mario Dingbats” to come up with a deal?

Hell no.

Why?

Because although Democrats continue to offer real sacrifices when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, Republicans will not consider raising any revenue. Now a few of them claim they want to, and no doubt some of them are sincere. Until.

Until John Boehner tells them that there is not a chance in HELL that he can push through even a 1 ¢ increase in taxes on the mega-rich puppeteers who control all of them. And the head puppeteer is the smarmy-grinning Grover Norquist who happily threatens anyone who dare withdraw from his “no tax pledge” that he will have them primaried.

And the beat goes on. Republicans who still retain some vestige of sanity (almost all of whom are not presently in elected positions) admit that revenue must be part of the package. They admit that Norquist, who hold no elected position has an insane amount of power and strangle-hold on the Party. A few brave souls have withdrawn from his “pledge” and will face his wrath.

It seems that the prudent thing to do, is for GOP politicos who face re-election in 2012, to do this:

• Schedule a 15-minute spot on their district or states local station.
• Lay out the reasons with expert opinions why they think it necessary to add taxes on the 1% to the mix to solve our problems.
• Invite constituents to write, phone, or e-mail their opinion.
• Indicate that you will publish the results after 60 days in the local newspapers.
• Promise to abide by the results.

In other words, actually do the will of your constituency. Norquist makes his threats based on an assumption that every voter voted on one issue only–the non-raising of taxes. I doubt seriously that this is true. And more importantly, I suspect they are thinking of their own taxes, not those of corporate America nor those of the filthy rich.

I’m tired of this nonsense.

♦

Meanwhile, . . .

While we are at it, I’m sick of Newt Gingrich and his stupidity. Now he wants to eliminate child labor laws, since “every really successful person he has ever know started working when they were 11 or 12.” Yeah. Let’s put them back in the mines Newt, you lousy excuse for a human being.

While we are at it, I’m sick of Mittens Romney. He has now lowered himself to the ranks of Sean Hannity. It’s cut and paste time for Mittens with his new ad, wherein he has Obama appear to say that “if we talk about the economy we are going to lose.” Actually what he said is “JOHN MCCAIN’S CAMPAIGN SAYS IF WE TALK ABOUT THE ECONOMY WE ARE GOING TO LOSE.” (From the 2008 campaign.)

Mittens must be feeling desperate.

♦

The majors and their police forces who have moved against the OWS folks, forcibly and with extreme measures in some cases, are likely to encourage more folks in the US to support the movement in my opinion. Some disagree, and think that people will be dissuaded from entering the movement out of fear of injury or arrest.

I think that when we see the results of unbridled police attacks against quiet, peaceful, sitting demonstrators, it actually encourages people to get involved to support them.

One has only to look at the Middle East. The more vicious the attacks on Syrians and now Egyptians, the stronger and larger the commitment to oppose brutal attacks.

How can Americans duck into their homes out of fear of pepper sprays and arrest, when people in other parts of the world are laying down their very lives to support freedom and equality within their governments?

Could we stand the shame?

Can we accept the only conclusion then that we may talk a fine game, but in the end, we have become soft and compliant in our own demise?

Can we stand the shame?

♦

Michele Bachmann suggests that if we allow marriage equality, the next thing that is sure to occur is that people will marry objects. Yeah know what? In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really care. I wish them all the happiness in the world. To grab a phrase that belongs to a certain Wasilla Mama, “that woman is an idiot.”

♦

Paul Krugman has this great line about Grifter Newt:

“he’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart man sounds like.”

h/t to Juanita Jean.

♦

One of the stunning oddities of the extreme right is their double take on the President of the United States. On the one hand, he is rather stupid, unable to formulate a sentence without a teleprompter in front of him. They also seriously question whether he ever attended either Columbia or Harvard, reminding you that “nobody remembers ever seeing him.”

On the other hand, they tell you that this stupid man, who doesn’t understand economics, foreign policy, or the American people, is at the apex of a decades-long conspiracy to destroy America and replace it with an Islamic state. And to make  it worse, things are so far along that Americans must act “immediately” lest we lose any more of our “freedoms” because  Barry, (as they call him) is about ready to suspend the Constitution and declare himself “dictator for life.”

Now both of these can’t be true.

Yet, true to the fundamentalist mind, it is true for them, since wildly in opposite conclusions are simply compartmentalized in different parts of the mind, and never allowed to confront each other.

And that’s the truth, so help me God.

♦

Got your bread drying out? Got the bird ready for a drink? Or are you feeding off a relative this Thursday?  Lucky you. Tomorrow will be brutal with a pie, dressing, a salad, and a side to get done. All for a meal that will last about 20 minutes. It is a crying shame to spend all this time! But I love it. 

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