If You Want to Know the Future: READ ON!

Tags

Humor, life in New Mexico, life in the foothills

The big old beginning of forever starts tomorrow.

And since I have a proven record of predicting the future (I was one of the first to encourage the President to select Biden as his VP candidate, if you recall), I’ve decided to peer into the ball of bombastic busyness, the orb of OH MY GOD, and tell ya what the future is gonna be like.

Similar to all those futuristic predictions of yore–flying cars, remember?–I’m sure most all of them will come true, somewhere, to someone, on some planet, in some galaxy, in some universe (should there be more than one naturally).

So let’s get started:

1. Let’s get the simple stuff out of the way. MSU will win the Rose Bowl, the Packers will be Super Bowl Champs.
2. Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame will get caught exiting an old-style “bathhouse” in San Francisco, and will make the usual tearful, “I have sinned against my God” all with appropriate tears and pleas to “let the family alone”. Fans will forgive Phil, but not until he gives them all the details of his “Night of Orgy”. Phil will shave, and become a televangelist preacher, declaring himself “saved but again” and “cured”.  He will kiss his wife full on the lips at the end of each sermon for emphasis.
3. Looking at the demographics, Survivor producers conclude that the only way to make a buck off this reality show is to do “Survivor Nursing Home” wherein a bevy of octogenarians race in wheelchairs for a  dog-eared copy of Playboy, while the lady contestants race to put on a full complement of makeup without their bifocals–judging will be who can stay inside the lines. The winner won’t receive a million bucks because, hey they could never live long enough to spend it. But they will get a room with a better view.
4. The hard-core Tea Party leadership buys land in upstate Montana and lives together in a commune-style religious house. Ted and Sarah are the king and queen, while Gohmert vies with Steve King for court jester. (oh that is reality now isn’t it…except for the land in Montana.) Jim Inhofe is the science teacher, and Rick Perry is the gynecologist, and is never seen to be smiling, since he discovered that old vaginas are about as cute and fluffy as his withered old dick.
5. Johnny Depp promises yet another Jack Sparrow movie, except this one will include characters such as the Mad Hatter, Ichabod Crane, Rango, Tonto, Barnabas Collins, Sweeny Todd,  and Edward Scissorhands, all played by Depp. In fact there will be no other actors except for the obligatory Helena Bonham Carter, who will recreate all her roles as well. The two-person tour-de-force will be so successful, that Hollywood will shut its doors having achieved all that is humanly possible on this earth and directing people who want entertainment to  Penn and Teller.
6. A new and successful weight-loss solution will be unveiled, called “extreme shaving” wherein, people can opt for shaving depths of 1/16 to 1/4 inch to “shave that weight away”. Blood transfusions optional, but they will negate some weight loss achieved. Marketers suggest that one can return as soon as the scabs have fallen away for more treatments. The GOP searches for marketing avenues for the discarded flesh, claiming that a soylent green-like idea for food stamp users, is “just the thing” to prove that there is “no free lunch” and that working is better than being a taker.
7. A whole bunch of Republicans and Democrats get caught having sex with people they are not authorized to do the nasty with. The various scandals will involve prostitutes, gay liaisons, transsexuals, and at least one involving  a potted dieffenbachia plant. A few will get caught doing drugs, and a few telling the truth about something, but nobody cared.
8. A new planet has been found hiding behind Saturn, called the Veiled Slingo. Since the information was released by one of the known-truth tellers in the Democratic party, nobody cared.  Exxon-Mobile is trying to secure drilling rights.
9. Tim Tebow‘s career as a football player ends about as quickly as it began, proving once again that God doesn’t like violent sports, or at least is not a Denver or NY fan. Green Bay fans grumpily insist that God has always loved violent sports–“who do you think Vince Lombardi was you idiot?” Da Bears, just cry on.
10. Paula Deen’s food continues to taste like crap. Sarah Palin continues to be surprised at the words that come out of her own mouth, Anthony Weiner continues to selfie his shlong, and Alabama continues to be a state in the Union, although three national votes overwhelmingly called for its ouster. The government, continues to send federal money to Alabama for the purpose of fostering secessionist sentiment.
11. The planet earth, sick and tired of all the pollutants it labors under, lets out a tremendous fart and turns the moon literally to green cheese. After a short bout of hic-ups, all is well. The GOP thinks it was a terrorist plot to induce us to buy more Maalox, and in characteristic fashion, vow to repeal it and return the environment to its dirty past.
12. Jesus returns and nobody notices. He turned out not to be what the evangelical Right expected, and so therefore, not biblically authentic. The search continues for the blue-eyed blond white guy, who as we all know, would be Jesus.
13. A new breakthrough in glasses occurs, with eyeballs painted on the lens so that it appears you are paying attention to others while actually you are watching reruns of Breaking Bad on your eyeglass viewer. The eyeballs blink occasionally to look realistic. It is not recommended to wear them while driving, except a golf cart, because watching golf cart crashes is by everyone’s admission funny as hell.
14. I will find a lottery ticket in the parking lot, and find out that it is the sole winner of the jackpot of “all the spare cash in the world” amounting to $0.75. While the money is inconsequential, I’ll be asked to appear on virtually every show on TV and cable, and will meet Johnny Depp and he will say, “hey old gal, wanna take a turn on my jolly roger?”
15. President Obama will call me and tell me that he’s been reading my blog for years, and just had to tell me, that it was my advice that he choose Biden as his running mate that made the difference. He will send me a copy of his real birth certificate too. And his college transcripts, and his secret Muslim hand signal.

And there ya have it, folks. Take it all to the bank. Bet the house on it. It’s a winner all the way. These things are sure bets for the upcoming year. Have a great, and careful New Year’s celebration!

I Resolve To. . . .

Tags

Humor, life in New Mexico, me, New years resolutions

It’s that time of year again!

Oh, you’re not nearly as excited as I thought you would be.

Okay, sure, for some, it surely has been a lousy year. And for them, they are hoping next year is better.

For some its been a great year, and they are wondering can magic strike twice?

For some I guess its fraught with “the unknown” and some don’t handle that well.

But let’s face it, New Years is the seminal icon of “starting over” “starting anew”, and another chance to get it right.

So, turn the page on that three-ring notebook, or better yet, get a spankin’ new one, and listen up.

First:

DO NOT MAKE A LIST OF CRAP THAT YOU ARE GONNA DO AND WILL NEVER DO.

Nobody, except the most anally rigid EVER actually complete their New Year’s resolutions. In fact most people don’t even manage to get one done. So stop inflicting a wound today that will only fester and grow until gangrene sets in, and they have to lop off some part of your anatomy that you have grown fond of.

Which is not to say that this time of the year is not useful for ruminating within the old brain case and assessing the year’s achievements/failures and good starts and getting some idea of what direction one should move in next year. Orient yourself to the sun I say! (I have no clue why I said that, but my fingers have a mind of their own sometimes.)

Such meditations although sometimes painful do help you stop banging your head against the wall in the hopes that you can finally prove that atoms really are far apart in actuality and that sooner or later you can pass through the wall and see the face of whatever deity you envision as Godly in nature (*gasp! Christopher Hitchens? Really?*) Trust me, I’ve tried. I no longer bang my head against much of anything and I find that I feel lots better for that.

So I decided, having not made a resolution in several human years, and more than a millennium in dog years (if you keep track that way), I decided to make one. I said ONE and if you don’t see that that doesn’t violate the rule I just announced, well you are just plain unable to grasp incongruity in its essence. It’s a challenge!

I intend to write a journal. Do a journal. Engage in a journal. Keep a journal. However best you might term that.

And not for the usual reasons, i.e., to plumb the deep recesses of my synaptic symphony. No, I am not after murky “meaning” in why I switched back from honey in my coffee to plain sugar (albeit a variety less “processed” meaning it is slightly brown in color, and makes me feel, healthier somehow). No not for that reason, or even to discover the real reason I love Art Deco and hate Julie Andrews, although there is no relationship between those two things.

No, not for any of those reasons.

I’m old.

I forget things.

I get to the damn end of a year, and boy, it doesn’t seem like a lot has been accomplished. Well, actually it does, but sitting there going through it all and THINKING that hard to remember all that stuff, is HARD.

So I’m making it easy.

A very private little journal to note down those things that I may want to remember after the eclipse of another year. Or that I may need for my defense in court on a charge of fraud, should that happen. And I have no reason to think it will or should, but heck, like any good scout, one needs to be prepared.

And so, I can then read those notes, scribbled down (how one scribbles on the keyboard is something I haven’t figured out yet), and say, whoa girl, you sure beaded a lot of bracelets! Or you sure got your hair cut a lot. Or, damn, you made twelve cakes last year, and qualify for the Twelve Days of Christmas contest! And somehow I figure that I can then see the path behind me in all its weird twists, and thus design a gooder, better, straighter? path for the future? Or something like that. At least I won’t be so surprised at one of those “end of the year” shows when I learn that I forgot that somebody died that I had clean forgotten had died. That makes the shock twice as bad you know. AND makes you feel really really unsympathetic to boot–meaning those people didn’t mean very much to you if you FORGOT they had died after all.

So I am.

Making, doing, writing, keeping, a journal.

And I am planning on opening an Etsy shop.

I know what you are saying now.

Wow, you actually might know an entrepreneur or something. Like Bill Gates old preteen friends tell people now, “Bill Gates was a friend of mine”. I might become jewelry maker to like Lady GaGa or maybe Madeleine Albright or somebody you don’t even know!

(I’ve got the beading bug at the moment. Check with me in six months when it’s Japanese paper cutting–whatever they call that.)

Second:

I resolve to always tell ya what I think. I know, I know, that will be a hard one for me I know.

In the meantime, this is what I think of Justice Scalia:

“. . .one of the finest judicial minds of the 15th century.”

I have a lot more I could say, but I’m working on being succinct too. 😛

Stay tuned. As you know, this blog goes in 6,495 directions, and usually at the same time. You just never know what I’m thinking about, and neither do I most of the time.

PS: ideas for the name of my Etsy shop are wanted. Something New Mexico-ish would be super.

Exactly How DO You Manage to Walk and Chew Gum at the Same Time?

Tags

1st Amendment, free speech, religious freedom

The Extremist Right has its panties in a twist once again.

Just once I wish they would actually think through their objections and place them side by side their other objections and make sure all that shit lines up. Cuz it never does you see, for the Extreme Right have brains that are rather odd. Cognitive Dissonance is well, their best friend.

See in the Extreme Right mind, beliefs and ideas are fairly free-floating. They may bump into each other, but they are like tea cozy meetings–a blind teapot meeting a blind tea-pot. They politely say “S’cuse me” and careen off to bump into another idea, unaware that these two ideas are in grave conflict and by rights they should throw off the cozies and fight it out. And this would be a war to the death, since both cannot co-exist in the same mind without craziness creepin’ into the skull and reducing the occupied persona to a pile of whimpering snot.

Since having some thirty million or so folks collapse into whimpering piles of snot would be messy, unattractive and a huge drain on the psychiatric community, happily such realizations do not often happen to the Extreme Right brain. Lucky for them. Unlucky for the rest of us folks who have to contend with people WHO MAKE NO FREAKIN’ SENSE.

Case in point.

The Duck Dynasty. I won’t bore you with the history. Suffice it to say there are four relatives of some sort or other, who designed a duck caller that swept the nation and resulted in them becoming millionaires. Never heard of it? Well in fairness, it seemed to have only swept those establishments that cater to duck hunters. How that could give rise to anyone being a millionaire is beyond my comprehension, but apparently there are more nasty quacker shooters that I thought.

Any the ways, one of the relatives, the so-called patriarch of the family (such things being amusingly relevant to these types of folk), one Phil Robertson, was interviewed by GQ, a magazine you wouldn’t immediately think of when you think of duck hunters to be sure. But they did. And Phil talked his little sad brain off. And he talked about things having zero to do with duck callin’ which was a sure mistake if he had the brains to think of it.

But he talked about things he has no familiarity with, by his own admission: gay folks and Black folks. And well, he said things like this:

When asked what he thought was sinful, Robertson replied: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”

But homosexuals aren’t alone, Robertson said. “Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once,” he told GQ. “Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field. … They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word!

“Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues,” GQ quoted Robertson as saying.

Now, A & E, the network that shows Duck Dynasty, replied by puttin’ old Phil “on leave”, claiming that Phil’s remarks are not at all in line with A & E’s corporate morality.

Well the old Extremist Right blew a teabag, screechin’ at the top of Sarah perky lungs: How DARE they do that. Why they are discriminating against Phil’s religious rights and that free speech thing too!

“Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us, . . .”

So, what we have here is a dilemma, at least to this brain of mine which regularly alerts me when two of my ideas collide in a nuclear explosion of contradiction.

Let me put it this way.

Ms. Palin and others of her ilk deny the right of the corporation A & E to register its moral shock at an employee of theirs by placing him on suspension, whereas the corporation Hobby Lobby is perfectly within its right to register its moral shock at employees of their by imposing a financial burden upon them. In both cases, the corporation has moral views dissimilar to the employee.

But Ms. Palin and other Extremist Right think it just terrible that corporations like Hobby Lobby should be forced to allow their insurance carrier to do what it wishes (cover contraceptive care) and demands it be stripped out of the policies because Hobby Lobby is offended by this for religious reasons.

According to the Extreme Right, the corporate sensibilities of A & E do not count, while those of Hobby Lobby do.

I can but scratch my head in confusion.

Now, that is not to say that I agree with A & E here. And that should make even the most hardened of Extreme Right folk pass out from the vapors. I’m not alone in claiming that A & E are wrong.

Phil has every right to spout his odious ideas publicly and GQ has every right to print them.  However, the proper (IMO) way for A & E to respond is to put out a statement that Mr. Robertson’s beliefs and opinions are not reflective of A & E, and in fact are contrary to their moral position. However, A & E recognizes the right of people to believe what they choose, and they will be motivated by their customers desires in watching the show or not in determining future contractual obligations with the Duck folk.

In the same vein, Hobby Lobby “corporate feelings” can be whatever they are, but they are not allowed to force them on their employees. They do not extend making their employees live under their religious strictures.

That’s the way I see it.

And you?

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A Lunch Tray and A Broom

Tags

GOP, government assistance, tea party, teabaggers, the poor, work

Well, they are at it again. At least weekly, often more, some addle-brained Tea Party lovin’ crazy GOPer opens his pie hole and spews forth something that other members of the GOP must hasten to “straighten out”.

Today’s numbskull is none other than Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who explained to members of a local Chamber of Commerce, that those poor kids who are receiving free lunches ought to be made to sweep floors in the school, just to remind them that work is good, and nothing should be free.

“Moderate” Republicans were quick to explain that what Kingston was referring to was in fact laudable, being that the GOP has always touted the value of work, but that his delivery was a bit, shall we say, “insensitive.”

Really?

Didn’t Newt the Toot say something similar when he was trying to convince the GOP electorate to make his the candidate to go against Obama? As I recall, he talked about making little kids “junior” janitors. All in the hopes of teaching the lil chillin’ the importance of work.

And you see, that IS the point for these tone-deaf, living on another planet Republicans: they really do think that poor people don’t have a clue about the amazing joy of work. I mean, all of us who worked for 25-35 years do don’t we? Wasn’t that the most joyous time of your life? Didn’t you feel special and accomplished as you pushed widget A down the throat of widget B, or for the thousandth time, regurgitated the litany of “rights” one was giving up in coping the proverbial plea to a lessor offense? I know I went home every evening proclaiming that I only wished I could do that stuff for another hundred years, God willing.

But I do not mean to denigrate the world of work, for work is important, and we do feel like real normal people when we engage in it and not people so ignorant and incapable that we can’t do the simplest of “flipping” motions to turn a burger.

What I demean is the assumption that the poor do not understand this and don’t yearn for it as naturally as the smart-alecky rich kid whose idea of a job is really to “intern” at some fancy corporate headquarters arranged by daddy, wherein said “worker” will go out and get the lattes and mocha-lites with appropriate croissants, stopping to pick up the bosses phone-purchased little trinket for the wife’s birthday on the way. Said rich-shit will call this work, dutifully add it to his resume as “experience in the hedge-fund industry” and snicker over such nonsense with roommates over Sam Adams at the local pub in Boston near Harvard.

Meanwhile in the real world, the poor kid will flip the burgers and be too poor to move out of his mother’s flat until somebody entices him to do a “little something” for a lot bigger profit. And he will be a minority, since most of those poor kids will just do the best they can trying to making it on $7.54 a hour with a baby on the way.

But said Kingston’s of the world don’t get this, because see, really really really what they think? Is that these poor kids will never get work as long as the government gives them just enough to survive on.

Which begs the question raised by someone I read last week: Why do they argue that the rich need tax cuts so they will have more money, because as we all know, more money means more investment and more jobs, and the poor need more taxes and less government money because they just waste it on frivolities. The rich need more money to use it “right” and the poor need less, cause they use it “wrong”.

For that IS the assumption isn’t it? For the poor are just DIFFERENT.

That’s what the GOP really really really means, and it’s what they believe. Seriously.

How they got to believe that is anybody’s guess, but I’m pretty sure that the rich who seem to own the GOP had something to do with it. And that’s why we better remember this stuff when it comes to voting, because they REALLY do want to kill health insurance for the poor and average person. And they REALLY do want to kill off Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security–because THEY REALLY BELIEVE IT BREEDS LAZINESS.

See Mitt the Twit meant it when he talked about the 47% who are expecting the government to take care of them. Paul Ryan paraded across the country during the campaign referring to all of us as “takers”, not “makers”. Ayn Rand is their Goddess.

And the Waltons who own as much as the bottom 42% of ALL THE ENTIRE AMERICAN POPULATION, control 1/4 of all the food moved and eaten in this country. And if left to their own devices they surely wish to control ALL of the food moving across America. And when they do, if it just happens to coincide with one of them deciding that they know better than you WHAT YOU SHOULD EAT, well then hold on to your boots kiddies, because change will be coming to America then won’t it?

When so-called Moderates within the party suggest that King or Bachmann or Stockman, or Gohmert and any of a hundred other nitwits “spoke poorly” well what they mean is that they spoke too DIRECTLY and STRAIGHTFORWARDLY is all. The masters of the obfuscation don’t like that.

For God’s sake Kingston don’t tell them what we really plan on doing!

But hey, Wal-Mart will sell you your broom at a good price, made by those fine little kids in Bangladesh. Now that’s what a labor force ought to be like, I tell ya.

Oh yeah…here’s how the poor actually spend their money.

Related articles

• Everything You Ever Needed to Know About the Minimum Wage (theatlantic.com)
• #NNTS: Rep. Kingston: Force poor kids to ‘sweep the floors’ to get school lunches (newslo.com)
• GOP Rep from Georgia wants poor kids to sweep the floors for their school lunches (deathandtaxesmag.com)
• Georgia lawmaker: Force poor kids to ‘sweep the floors’ to get school lunches (rawstory.com)
• Georgia Republican Jack Kingston Says Kids Should Sweep Cafeteria Floors for Food (politicususa.com)
• Suffer the children to come unto me and I will hand them a broom and a dustpan (rawstory.com)
• Georgia Congressman: Kids Who Get Subsidized School Lunches Should Be Forced To Work (outsidethebeltway.com)
• With enough urchins you can have a heckuva musical (firedoglake.com)

War

Tags

editorial, gun issues, War

It’s been a year since Sandy Hook. It’s been a frustrating year for the most part for those of us who see the proliferation of guns in our society as so obviously insane that it begs the question that we are still having these conversations at all.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics. If you want to see what has transpired in terms of our response to the horror of Sandy Hook and Aurora and all the hundreds of children and adults who have died from gun violence, go here. It ain’t pretty. More loosening of gun regulations, the NRA with more money, fewer people having guns but more guns in a growing minority of very frightening and frightened people.

No, today I want to talk about war. After all, much of the argument around guns stems from our ideas of war doesn’t it? Was not the 2nd Amendment formulated so that states could call up their citizens in the face of invaders of one nature or another? How that all got bollixed into some personal freedom to carry a high-powered rifle to shopping malls is beyond my comprehension, but that’s not the issue either today.

It’s war itself.

War is the admission that we have progressed not so very far from the plains of Africa and the caves of France. We are still a species who settles disputes or responds to fear with weaponry and killing. Some suggest it’s in our genes, others that it is learned behavior, a product of our environment. As I have said many a time, no war ever ended war, though the motto of one, WWI was just that: the war to end all wars. It was but twenty years later that the greatest war of all occurred. So how did that work for ya?

My views about war are and were shaped by three things mainly: a book, a book, and a TV show. Sorry right-wingers, my passivity is not the product of elite liberal universities. No my opinion, my dedication to peace was formulated from reading the Bible, a book by Norman Mailer called The Naked and the Dead, and Star Trek, episode 23, A Taste of Armageddon.

As to the Bible, who can not be moved to ponder the following:

“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. . .(MT 5:39-40)

This is Jesus, and while there are some interpretations that suggest that Jesus was in fact making it impossible for the aggressor to accomplish the second strike, the import of the words are clear. Returning force to force is not the answer. Regardless of how we might come down on the issue of faith or religion, surely Jesus and His teachings are worthy of emulation. If they are, then war is unthinkable, nothing more than returning force for force on a massive scale.

Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead about his experiences in the Philippines during WWII. He wrote it in 1948. Say what you will, it paints a picture of war in decidedly unheroic, unglamorous terms. In a word, war is truly hell. It is dehumanizing, fear is palpable, death is only a shot away. Death surrounds and envelopes the characters. It’s unbearably hot and humid, it stinks, it’s lonely and it’s boring, and death stalks. It is shudderingly realistic. It would make NO one run down and sign up.

The Star Trek episode involved a planet that has suffered from war with another planet within its system for years, so many years that they were both in dire straits. If the war did not end, both planets would be utterly destroyed. So they hit upon a solution. They agree to a computer simulation of war actions. The computer assesses the “battle” and assigns casualties. A lottery system calls up the victims on each planet to report to “disintegration” chambers to voluntarily suicide. They have been doing this for years too, while their infrastructure is undamaged and life goes on.

Kirk and company put an end to the computer and the resultant real damage brings chaos and terror. Forced to confront the realities of war, Kirk hopes that they will rush to the peace table. The lesson is all too real: remove the overt ugliness of war, and war will go on forever.

Last week was another anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a so-called infamous day, because the Japanese made a sneak attack while diplomats were engaged in discussions in Washington on how to avoid war between them. This was viewed as a violation of the “rules of war”.

Things have not changed much. It is considered a violation of the “rules of war” to bomb civilians. It is considered the same to use certain types of weapons, such as chemical or biological ones.

I have to wonder at such limitations in general. For I truly get the logic of war being so God-blessed awful, so ugly, so painful, and so damaging that we will do nearly ANYTHING to avoid it or stop it. My husband tells me that I am a student of Sun Tzu:

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live.

I take that to mean, that if you put the utter fear of death into your enemy ,  he will race to the peace table. My husband tells me that there must be rules of war, otherwise there is not path to peace. He may well be right.

I prefer to make war so ugly that no one considers it a viable option. I am a pacifist.

Left to my own devices, I would allow people the possession of paint guns to stalk and “shoot”  game. I would allow people to go to shooting ranges to shoot targets. I would allow no other weapon ownership.

I am a pacifist.

I would declare gun manufacturers and shops to be “eminent domain”, paying them a fair price for their companies and giving them free education in another line of work.

I am a pacifist.

You are free to disagree, but you will follow my rules in my kingdom. And they say that Obama is a socialist! HA!

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/suntzu402344.html#3qejOVy3lD5FFvIg.99

Laughing At What Pisses Me Off

Tags

Humor, stuff that pisses me off

See, I’m really serene these days. I can’t tell you exactly why, but I sure know that feeling of being really peaceful and happy.

I mean I grin a lot. I laugh a lot. And I’m ever so productive. It’s a bit after ten in the AM and I’ve walked the dog, done by spiritual exercises, run a load of wash and put it away, addressed the Christmas cards, and done a craft project. Pretty good huh? Well, that all leads me to think that its high time I just vented on all sorts of unconnected crap, simply because I can and it won’t irritate me too much today since I’m S E R E N E. 🙂

You can assume that I’m pissed off at most Republicans most of the time, but specifically:

First there is Billo the Clown, erstwhile school teacher and present day pain in the ass at Fox Noise. As is his usual forte, the holidays are his favorite time of year because it allows him to bring up his favorite subject “the War on Christmas”. There being no such thing of course, makes it all the richer for Billo.

When folks told Billo that they used the term Happy Holidays instead of Billo’s preferred rejoinder, “Merry Christmas”, to include the Jewish holidays as well as the Christian, why Billo allowed that. But the second the Jewish Hanukkah was over, Billo was up in arms: “Their still using HH, therefore, they are all atheistic enablers and ought to be shot at dawn!” (Okay the last part is not Billo)

Well, Billo, I’ve been using Happy Holidays since I was a kid, and it has nothing about dissing Christianity. It’s about that being the short hand for saying, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Years”. Get that Billo? It includes ALL the holidays that fall in December through January 1. See? Nothing to do with kicking the baby Jesus.

And frankly my dear Billo the Clown, the very fact that you and the outrageous RIGHT WING NUTS make this stupid argument every freakin’ year since the first tea bag was stapled to the first old white man with a tricorner hat. AND it gets worse.

Since the term “Merry Christmas” is NOW TOTALLY CONNECTED TO A BUNCH OF INSANE IGNORANT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO FORCE ME TO BELIEVE AS THEY DO, I can no longer use the term at all. For every time I do, I’m publicly announcing that I agree with BiLlO and his band of merry idiots.

Bah Humbug you egregious dolts. Or as Shakespeare would say, you lumpish, idle-headed, foot-licker!

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Second on my list of pissed offedness is a meme I ran across on Pinterest yesterday. This one leaves one with not enough places on one’s face to face palm oneself. Indeed, it leaves one speechless, given the intellectual vacancy that stares back at you from “out-to-lunch” eyes in the head of the speaker. It begs the question, how can one actually drool out such nonsense and not be certified as not-quite-human in brain texture?

It goes like this, with appropriate pictures of the patriotic princes:

“Democrats talk a lot about racism. But it takes a Republican to do something about it.” (replete with pictures of Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Martin L. King, Jr.)

Seriously? These are the same people who no longer acknowledge the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and even Ronald Reagan any more, because they are TOO liberal for them. We acknowledge that way back in Lincoln’s time, the GOP was the party of emancipation, not that the party itself espoused that philosophy but that one of it’s president’s did, after indeed much prodding and pushing from a warring South.

And given that Douglass escaped slavery and became a political force in the North, we also have no qualms with the fact that he too was a Republican.

And in the deep South of the 50’s and 60’s, the Democrats were the party of Jim Crow, and MLK was a nominal Republican as a result.

That would indeed be something to be proud about if in reality the tea-whackos of today were a welcoming inclusive group, but of course they are not. They are leading the struggle against immigration, and more importantly in favor of restrictive voting rights, all in the EXPLICIT hope of reducing the African-American/Hispanic vote in their states and districts.

They forget of course that the Democrats of the 20th century were Republicans of the previous century who had LEFT THE PARTY OF LINCOLN PRECISELY BECAUSE OF HIS POSITION ON SLAVERY. After the civil rights era of the 60’s, those SAME DEMOCRATS LEFT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND BECAME REPUBLICANS AND REMAINS SO TODAY!! you freakin’ morons.

You and Lincoln, Douglass and King have ZERO in common today, and you HATE what they stood for in most every respect. King was in favor of strong unions and the redistribution of income for God’s sake!

Drilling a hole in the top of your head and pouring in minute rice would produce a more coherent argument than you can make now.

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I’ve ranted before about the sheer incompetence of Madison Avenue. They continue to produce commercial after commercial that have such obvious mistakes about how the world operates as to dissuade me from every chancing to buy and use the product they tell me I “can’t live without”.

But it goes deeper.

Lately, I’ve discovered that for some reason known only to the Great Boob Tube Controller, I should be subjected to the same freakin’ commercial up to four times in a given hour. If I am not certain you have the talent to make what you’re selling, I’m very sure indeed that the more you tap me on the shoulder every five minutes, the MORE FREAKIN’ LIKELY I AM NEVER TO BUY IT, EVEN IF THREATENED WITH MY EYES BEING PUT OUT BY ICE PICKS.

And who ever told Michael Bolton that he could sing?

And riddle me this Bat Buffoon: I’m watching that show with Robin Williams whom I admittedly adore. And he places an Ad guy who is a recovering alcoholic. And he becomes entangled in a game of beer pong and then tells his daughter to drink for him? And then he encourages the college co-ed to do her part and guzzle her beer too when she loses?

In what universe does a man who is a recovering alcoholic, and who is thus obviously aware of the genetic component to alcohol dependence, encourage his own daughter, let alone anyone else’s to get snockered? Would any rational adult encourage a younger person to drink themselves silly?

Who writes this crap?

And I’m still smiling away. 🙂 See?

Amid All the Eulogies, a Sobering History

Tags

GOP, History, Mandela, racism, South Africa

Nelson Mandela, died a couple of days ago, and the airways have been filled with tributes and analysis of his impact on the political landscape. Indeed Mandela stands forth with a handful of others of the 20th century whom we can look up to as real fighters for freedom and justice. His name is equal to that of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, Lech Waleza in the pantheon of people we adjudge as heroes.

Mandela started as a peaceful revolutionary and democratic socialist in South Africa. The massacre at Sharpeville was said to have radicalized him and led to a more militant Mandela and a upturn violent activities. He co-founded the MK in 1961, becoming ultimately the ANC’s armed wing. He sought help from Casto and other Communist states in his struggle to help his people. After his conviction in 1964 for treason and his incarceration, he developed the present philosophy for which he is noted, and upon his release from prison in 1990.

He went on to become the president of the country in 1994, and today South Africa stands as a model of reconciliation between black and white citizens. Of course that doesn’t mean that all is well there by any means, but Mandela set the tone of forgiveness which allowed the country to move forward instead of devolving into a bloody war.

But most all of this is common knowledge. Today, the US, like countries around the world, are paying tribute to this freedom fighter. Yet it was not so very long ago that things were quite different here as regards this individual.

It is clear that there was no real desire in this country to come to Mandela and Black Africans in general initially. As was true in the 60’s as regards the Vietnam war, the impetus for change came from university campuses across the nation, as students challenged their schools financial investment in the rich industries of South Africa. Local governments in some cases followed suit.

Finally a coalition of Democrats and liberal and moderate Republicans passed a comprehensive bill called the Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986. The near-god of the Right, Ronald Reagan, promptly vetoed it. Back it went to the Congress, where people like Jessie Helms claimed that Mandela was nothing more than an ungodly communist aligned with the Soviet Union. In fact old Jessie led a filibuster against the law.

Other well-known Republicans who voted no to over-riding the presidential veto. Among them were: Phil Gramm, Joe Barton, Dick Cheney, Ralph Hall and Howard Coble and Hal Rodgers. Rodgers, Barton, and Coble  had the gall to commemorate Mandela after his death, making no mention of the fact that they had tried to stop the imposition of sanctions against South Africa to end apartheid and his very imprisonment. Present members of the senate who voted against the bill are: Thad Cochran, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley.

For the first and only time in the 20th century, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans over-rode the President’s veto and the bill became law. The rest is history.

No doubt before long, the tea party will “adopt” Mandela as one of their own, much as they have laughingly tried to do with Martin Luther King, Jr.

But we remember that the Republicans again, in very large numbers were on the wrong side of history back in 1986. Cheney of course says his vote was proper and that Mandela has “mellowed” since then.

Indeed, some Democrats were as well. Mandela was not taken off the “terrorist watch list” until 2008.

Some “modern” wannabe leaders are finding the going a bit tough in praising Nelson Mandela. Ted Cruz gave the obligatory tribute and was vilified for it by his cadre of insanely crazy followers.   It’s best we don’t forget that either.