Oh the Hypocrisy of It All

Tags

Humor, hypocrisy, racism, right wing nuts, satire

H Y P O C R I S Y !

A sweet sounding word. Like a crispy hippo maybe?

Oh, sorry, words do that to me sometimes. Just love the little buggers.

Back to hypocrisy, which as you know is not a good thing to be. Hypocritical that is. Or to be: a hypocrite.

Defined as:  a person who claims to have certain beliefs and/or values, but does not actually live by them.

Street definition: asshole.

The world is full of ’em. And to go by what I see, most of ’em don’t seem to know that they are such. Which leads me to the conclusion that people who are hypocrites are not very good at thinking.

See, the reason most of us aren’t hypocrites is that we rather immediately see that our beliefs and actions aren’t lining up, and we work pretty fast to correct that, lest we be called a . . . .wait for it . . . . H Y P O C R I T E !

We have talked many a time about the religious right, the fundamentalist, who proclaims Jesus as their savior in a very earnest voice (God bless!), shaking a tattered bible in one hand while doing so. One would wonder if the tattering came not from reading but from all that shaking of it, given that said fundamentalists mostly do not practice what they preach.

You see, it flies in the face of their emotional attachment to themselves and their desires. So the Good Book is twisted and mangled until to them at least it says that the poor should get off their lazy butts and get a job, that gays should give up sex because it’s nasty “their” way as God sees it, that the rich are people whom God obviously loves since a free market is right in Luke, if you just read that parable about the landowner paying different wages to his workers. God loves him some weaponry too, as Jesus said, assault rifles with big clips are part of everyone’s attire to go shopping at the Wal-Mart. And let’s not forget dear Sarah the Bible hugger herself, who just a few days ago reminded us that to a “real” Christian like herself, why waterboarding was just baptism for Muslims! Can I hear an Amen?  The list goes on, but you get the picture.

Why we have the fine example of one Cliven Bundy who it seems figures that he should be able to graze his cattle free of charge on government land. Said hypocrite then went on to ‘splain to all of us stupid people about them “negroes”, and what ails them. It seems that those “negroes” sit around on cement porches all the while they wimmin’ are abortin’ them young chillen, and they be sending their young men to prison. All cuz, they have no DIE-RECTION in life, which is cuz the feds are givin’ them those SUB-SITIES.

See that’s how Cliven sees things, and Cliven sits atop a horse so he can see a far piece.

All the while, Cliven of course don’t think that he is getting any SUB-SITY all the while grazing his cattle on someone else’s land for FREE for TWENTY FREAKIN’ YEARS.

See that is whatcha call hypocrisy.

Now the Rightie-Tighties were all in favor of Cliven at first. It was just wrong for the Government to OVER -REACH as Sean Hannity told us. I mean forget that it was RONALD REAGAN who signed that EXECUTIVE ORDER way back that was the source of Cliven’s pain. (can I get two hypocrisies?). Forget that. It was wrong, Sean said for the big bad government shouldn’t show up with guns to take the cattle. I mean, it’s only grass for God’s sake, and who should care? I mean Cliven is just cheatin’ the gov’mint out of a little bit of taxes. Ya know.

But then Cliven opened his pie-hole and forgot to use those racial code words but just spoke out the truth as God made known to Cliven, and well, all those rightie-tighties started backin’ off.

Sorry Cliven, you aren’t a very good person, but the idea was still worth supporting, however you might be.

And some said it was REALLY about the dang government havin’ that land in the first place. All that eminent domain stuff. I mean seriously. Just another instance of the gov’mint having stuff it don’t need unless it wants to run your life.

Yeah.

Cliven could have that land iffin’ the gov’mint weren’t grabbing it all, to “protect” it and stuff, from lawful use by say, yer gas and oil interests. Yeah, just another example (eminent domain) of gov’mint messing with capitalism. Next step: socialism, which we are already nearly there so, safe bet you can say C O M M U N I S M !

Oh, nuts, did you hear any of them rightie-tighties talking about the evils of eminent domain when it came to the Keystone Pipeline? You don’t really think that thing is going only through land owned by the gov’mint did ya?

Guess they forgot.

Can I get a H Y P O C R I T E ?

There there is Donald Sterling, a man with a name that in no way describes his character I tell ya.

Donald is an old fart, I mean old. And like a lot of old farts, he has hisself a young mistress, cause he could afford to buy one. And she is exotic, meaning that she has a heritage that would be called “mixed”. She claims she is part African-American and part Hispanic. Donald don’t mind, cuz only the Hispanic part seems to show much, and that is still okay among his white old fart friends.

But this cute little thing is pissin’ Donald off, cuz she’s “hanging around with black people” in public, sorta like “pallin’ around with terrorists” I suppose. That makes Donald look bad with his white old fart friends.

So he told her to knock it off. She can bring ’em home, f**k ’em, feed ’em, and do anything else with THEM, but NOT IN PUBLIC. A bit of decorum you NOT WHITE TRAMP PLEASE!

All the while Donald owns the Clippers, which is coached by an African-American and whose players are mostly African-American, and their SUCCESS reaps him tons of money. Hard to figure how that can happen when Cliven ‘splained that they just sit on porches all day. Guess Donald was given them plenty of DIE-RECTION or somethin’.

Yes, it’s time to shout H Y P O C R I S Y ! again.

And I bet ya, I just bet ya, though I am just speculatin’ that if you check on his right ass cheek, you will find GOP emblazoned there.

I just betcha.

 

 

 

Bring on the Christianists!

Tags

Christianists, religion

There is a troubling amount of evidence that even at the highest levels of elitism within the Republican party, there exists a strain of what can only be described as Christianistism.

That’s a mouthful. Christianist: a person who professes to be a follower of the Christian faith but fails to actually follow the tenets of Jesus, using the appellation of “Christian” to mask their own personally held beliefs while claiming that such beliefs are Christian.

Got that?

Of course all too many of our teabagger friends profess to be Christians, yet fall into the odd category of those who are against feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and tending the sick. They support GOP efforts to reduce food stamp allotments, unemployment insurance payments, blocking health care to the uninsured, discrimination against the LGBT community, and the reduction of women’s autonomy from state regulation, to name just a few.

But their “leaders” also have this dangerously intellectually indefensible attitude as well. One never things of the Kochs as men who are Christian necessarily. They support public TV for instance, especially science shows, recognizing that their “base” the teabaggers, are probably fairly unaware of this fact since the Tea People are not known for their penchant for education or higher-brow television fare. But the Kochs are an exception I think.

George W. Bush came on the scene spouting “compassionate conservatism” and certainly made known his deeply held Christian beliefs. Yet, he sent men and women into war, resulting in American deaths numbering over 4,000 and Iraqi deaths nearing now, possibly some 1.4 million persons. One would expect a Christian to use violence as a last resort and not the first. Nobody today is unaware that there was at bet highly questionable “evidence” and even less reason to invade that country.

Upon completion of his two terms, Bush, unlike his Democratic predecessors, did not seek some manner to work for the betterment of society and the world at large. Instead he engaged in a self-absorbed dedication to being a painter, exhibiting as at least one expert pointed out, a sort of charming childish ability. Some would argue that same childish charm was his main offering as President.

Mike Huckabee, once upon a time, an actual pastor, seems to be nothing more than a Christianist. He has at various times indicated a belief that the President of the United States was born in Kenya, made impassioned pleas to send money to his group designed to “end Obamacare” while telling lies aplenty about the program. His television ad claimed the ACA was “rammed down the throats of the American public” and done in “back rooms”.  Today he is spouting that living in America is no better than living in North Korea.

I may be wrong, but I have always thought that being a good Christian starts with being a person who tells the truth. It certainly doesn’t mean being a person who lies for one’s own benefit, to further one’s own career.

Charles Keating passed away a few days ago. You remember him don’t you? Keating is most remembered for his eye-balls deep involvement in the savings and loan scandals of the 1980’s. Certainly his Catholicism didn’t prevent him from playing fast and loose with the laws regarding making money. Yet he used his “Christian” beliefs as the fulcrum upon which he pushed his social agenda regarding pornography. His Citizens for Decent Literature provided the framework for future conservative social agenda forays into the public sphere.

At one point in time, Keating, in his pursuit of purity, put out a documentary that gave all sorts of statistics about the influence of pornography on the society. Years later, he admitted that he had made them up. Another liar.

Ted Cruz has exploded onto the stage as the savior of the extreme Right.

He spouts a brand of anti-immigrationism, anti-health care, and just plain anti-progressivism that is both stunning and audacious.

 

Yet Ted also draws the mantle of Christianity around his shoulders. He has it on good authority. His father is a preacher, a preacher of such vile hate and vitriol that many wonder that Ted does not shush him up for fear he will so inflame the sensible middle as to make Ted’s future Presidency utterly untenable.

But Ted not only doesn’t stop the old man, he embraces the theology that his father espouses. That theology is nothing less than what is known as Dominionism, the belief that certain people (Ted included) but all Christians who think as they do at least, are destined to be the kings of the world, ruling in the name of their very strange notion of Jesus.  People who don’t believe as Ted does are those to be ruled.

And the earth? Oh the earth and all it contains, are theirs to  rule over as well. Dominated in fact. Ted’s Christianist army is the wrestle control and subdue the earth. That means exploiting all it’s resources as if they are unlimited. For as this brand of Christianist believe (so very conveniently) God will never let the supplies end, or will give us something better when they do. There is no possibility that we will ruin our own planet with these people. They have twisted the Good Book to assure themselves that that can’t happen.

Imagine, we are all at the mercy of their admittedly uneducated, self-serving conclusions of a copy of a copy of a copy, of a copy of dozens of independently written documents over the span of 1,000 plus years, which was argued over and voted upon by other humans tossing in some documents and tossing out others, and then translated again and again by mostly unknown other humans for various purposes and reasons. They would have us believe that their personal opinion about the meaning of obscure phrases and words, means that we don’t have to do a thing about climate change, or much of anything actually, except get ready for the big fight in Israel where the final battle will take place.

This is not Christianity, this is opportunism.

And the fear is that far too many sadly uneducated, gullible, trusting, needy souls are buying into this rhetoric and will prevent those of us who are rational, thinking, caring and compassionate people from doing what needs to be done to actually if not in the name of Jesus, at least in His spirit, do what is morally right:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

As Gandhi said,

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Gandhi was wrong. These are not Christians but Christianists. And there is a difference.

The South Has Fallen Way Off the Edge of Stupid

Tags

GOP, How stupid are you?, Merika, right wing, teabaggers

Gather round children, it’s time to hear a story.

It’s a story about a land called Merika.

It was once a jolly place living in the delusion of self-congratulatory goodness.

Yes, these Merikans believed themselves not only special, but specially good.

They stood for apple pie, Mom, and freedoms which were countless in number, as many as stars in the sky.

People from all over Gaia did whatever necessary to get to the land of Merika and we welcomed the poor, and tired, although why they were tired from sitting on a boat is a question seldom asked.

Course, the People who lived in Merika (who never named it just calling it home) were not nearly so impressed with these new Merikans and their ways. Their “ways” including pretty much telling the People to go jump in the Pacific, for they needed the Merika for a thing called “capitalism”, which sounded capital but turned out to be just another scam for the rich to inherit the earth.

They stole some folks and made them work for no wages, which gave a pretty unusual cast to capitalism and gave new meaning to the concept of “good people”.

They then got nosy in other people’s business in other places not Merika by explaining with bombs and such that they too should be like Merika (as best they could, given they were not special).

Anyways, Merikans prospered (at least most and as long as most is more than other countries, it was accounted perfect), but the thing about this capitalism is that some very few Merikans got filthy filthy wealthy, and they didn’t share with nobody. They bought houses and visited them a couple of weeks a year, and maybe not even every year. They traveled to other lands, always remarking that these other lands were not as nice as Merika, but they bought stuff that reminded them of these inferior places anyway. They boat boats too, and sailed the oceans blue.

Meanwhile, lots of Merikans got dirt poor. So the rich grew a bit scared. “What if they blame us for taking all the money?”

So the rich invented stuff like “Protestant work ethic, and pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps” and explained that rich people work really hard.

So poor people worked really hard.

But it didn’t help. And they were getting really riled.

So rich people told them that it was because of all those freed people, and all those other-than-white people who were the cause of their misery. They were “takers” and the gov’mint was givin’ away all their hard-earned money to “those others.”

And Merkia got more and more split apart between the few haves and the enormous have-nots.

The haves decided that the best thing to do was to make it hard for the have-nots to vote.

And this reached the height of heights in a silly state called Florida which looks a lot like a flaccid penis, and when you stop to think about it, it’s a bunch of flaccid penises that promoted the new law they have. And when you add in that most of the people in Florida are really really old, then that picture of very very old wrinkly flaccid penises will sear your brain for all eternity.

Anyway, this law, says that if you go get in line to vote, you can’t have someone save your place while you go pee. They figure that given the relative age of voters in Florida, this will reduce the lines a lot.

It may of course just encourage a lot of very very old and wrinkly flaccid penises to be publicly exposed. Not to say about what it might mean to that phrase “trickle down economics.”

I don’t know how this will give the rich a boost at the polls however. Unless it means that rich people think that only they can afford Depends. I guess it depends on what you call poor.

Close by in the land of Louisiana, a land that like most in the South, spends a lot of time talking about the honored sacredness of the “Constitution”–a document that once upon a time, they sought to distance themselves from in the quest for cotton-pickers at no cost, has found time to reason together in an unreasonable way.

Seems they have decided that like having a state flower and a state bird, a state really oughta have a “state book”.  And although the CONSTITUTION suggests that the state should “make no law” that has the effect of favoring any religion, the crawdaddys there decided that that doesn’t mean what it says or say what it means, and the bible would be a fittin’ state book, because as we all know, it says what it means and means what it says.

No doubt it will be one and one only version of that book although there are hundreds, because as everyone knows, God spoke to King James and said, “go forth and translate my words and call it your version of my words” which is not exactly God’s version, but thinking any deeper than that makes my head ache.

 

And so my child, this is the story of a special land, a special people, and a special time.

And they all lived happily ever after in the land that everyone else called Stupid.

Amen, and good night.

 

Get Ready to be Jealous

Tags

Humor, life in the foothills, The Contrarian

Hello.

The picture at left means nothing.

It just popped up when I put in “my sorta better half”.

I find Google weird like that. Or perhaps not Google, but the HUMANITY THAT WOULD MAKE THIS POP UP WITH THOSE WORDS.

It just goes to show you that when you take the entire human population (or most at least) some really weird shit comes out.

It’s really the down side of the Intertubes. The Contrarian puts it thusly: Every village has it’s idiot. The trouble with the Internet is that all the idiots can get together and form their own village.

Ya see they get to think they are normal.

But this is not about that.

It’s really about the Contrarian, “my sorta better half”. Sorta, cuz well, he’s mostly my better, but not always. I have enough self-esteem ya know, thank you very much.

Like most normal and successful marriages, we have a lot of “division of labor”. Mostly it is defined as “those things I don’t wanna do, you do.” It works pretty good, as long as the other person doesn’t have “removing snakes from the toilet” as his “things I don’t wanna do” too. Not that we have ever had a snake in the toilet. Had one in the living room once, but that’s another story and deals with a cat.

Anyway, the universe blessed us with mostly not having the same “I don’t wanna” things on our respective lists, so voilà, we have a happy married life. Ya didn’t know I bet that it was that simple did ya? See all you kiddies out there. Just make a list with the prospective spouse, and if they don’t have the same stuff on them, well, you are good to go. If they do, one of ya better be dominant and the other a sniveling worm if ya have any chance in hell of making a go of it.

Okay, that was all to lead up to this: The Contrarian’s first job of MY day, is to wake me up. This requires that he haul ass out of bed before me, and he does, often with a helpful poke nudge from me. At the appropriate TIME, he is to come in and say, precisely, “Babe. . .Babe” to which I reply, “UHHH. . . .” to which he replies, “time to get up”, after which he should move away from the door lest he be hit with a flying object.

I then send the dog out the door because he is all happy, and wiggly because he wants a walk and that utterly makes me wanna cry.

Now I have talked to the Contrarian about his TONE of voice. It should be flat and dull. It should not be “happy” because there is NOTHING to be happy about when getting up means I gotta make the bed and get dressed! I mean seriously are those two things the MOST boring things imaginable the first thing in the morning?

So don’t ask me why my morning wake up was punctuated by this: “babe. . .Babe. . . .wake up, if we had moved to Florida it would be 8 a.m.”

What the freakin’ F**K is that?

This man is always a surprise.

Speaking of which, it continues to surprise me that he thinks he has hair. He has hair, plenty of it all around the sides. But on top? Only if he stands with his back to the sun can you see a bunch of wispy stalks parading across his dome. He is convinced it would “all come in thick and luxurious” if only he could be allowed to grow it out again. Like when we met, like when he had his pony tail.

Yes he had a pony tail.  It was not especially long, and quite handsome in its own way, although there was even then a thinning at the top, fewer and fewer hairs from the front were being pulled to the back and more and more from the sides were. Actually from the sides, they remained the same, since one usually doesn’t add hair as one ages except through Rogaine-ing which said Contrarian has not done (having nothing called vanity in his word dictionary).

Any the how, the Contrarian has been cutting his hairs (with much moaning and groaning) for some years now, and it’s quite a task to get him to the barber, except through threats, promises, and serious begging.

So the other night we were watching Vikings, which if you weren’t aware is a television drama that the Contrarian favors. A bit much too much blood-letting for my taste, but alas this seems the framework of most everything considered “drama” these days. The main character is one dude called Ragnar, who has an interesting style of hair –shaved on the sides and back, tattooed, and with just a wide strip on the top that is gathered and braided quite elegantly down his back. The ladies seem impressed since he has had two lovely wives so far.

So, as I was saying, the Contrarian is watching away, when suddenly he muses, “I think I might let my hair grow and braid it like Ragnar.”

I sit stunned as I usually do when confronted with another bizarre remark from his lips.

“Um, did ya notice that Ragnar has a lot of hair on the top of his head? You braid would be a might thin with only nine hairs in it,” I queried.

“Oh, I will too, once I shave the sides,” he utters confidently.

“How so,” I giggle.

“Why similar to  thinning a grove of trees of saplings, babe, it allows the other trees to reach the sun and really grow.” This is said with, I swear, a straight face.

“So you think your head is like a grove of trees?” I sputter.

“Well, not exactly, but surely without all that stress of having to grow out the sides, the hair-growin’ can put all it’s efforts into the top. I’m sure it will be plenty,” as he draws his wiggling fingers across the top of his head in a pretense of sliding through silken locks of plenty.

I stare.

He smiles softly and returns his gaze to the latest Viking war going on over the screen.

Such is life in the foothills of New Mexico.

I gotta keep that man on a short rope I tell ya, or the wimmin will be beatin’ down the door to take him away for themselves.

Yes, I gotta get a shorter rope.

 

Do You Ever Imagine What It Would Be Like?

Tags

life in the foothills, tea party, the human condition, the media game

This isn’t about sadness or depression or anything like that.

It’s about imagining how others live.

Have you ever sped down a highway in the evening, just past sundown? Noticed the shapes of houses sitting on hills and along dusty roads off in the distance?

Or have you driven through an unfamiliar small town passing house after house, each some replica of the next, although each distinct enough with its own pattern of fence, porch, color, tree ornamentation makes it semi-unique?

The lights are on in this houses.

It’s near dinner time.

And your mind begins to imagine what life is like inside that house. Who lives there? What do they do for a living? Are their children or grandparents? Are they troubled with finances or health issues? What must their life be like?

You’re not from there. You’re going from somewhere to somewhere else.

And sometimes, it looks depressing to be there. Sometimes it seems like the most gawd-awful life that must be lived there.

And you can’t imagine standing it.

And suddenly you breath deeply and you realize how darn lucky you are to “not be them”. Even though you know nothing about “them”. You just assume that their lives must be sad and awful because you find the surroundings not conducive to whatever you think of as a “good” life.

It’s too out-in-the-middle of nowhere. It’s too run down. It’s too cold, or not green enough, or to loud, or too quiet. It’s too something for YOU.

And you shudder at their mean little lives.

Except, as I say again, you don’t know.

It’s perhaps one of the saddest things I think about, when I think about humans.

I recently heard, I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson suggest that what made us special in all of evolution is that we compare stuff. That ability to “judge” or compare led us to  strive for improvements I guess. While the dinosaurs nestled into their perfect environment, grabbing each genetic mutation that made their “fit” more comfortable, we seem to be the ones who simply altered the environment to suit ourselves.

That makes us more adaptable no doubt. The dinosaurs were powerless to respond to the comet that hit their world and changed their environment drastically. The mammals, especially the burrowing sorts fared better.

But in our comparing nature, it seems that we like to compare ourselves to each other. And that may not be such a good thing.

Let’s face it, much of politics is driven by our comparisons, real or imagined. And plenty of highly priced magicians of public opinion are engaged in efforts to manipulate that comparison.

It seems that the average person can relax and feel satisfied as long as she can point to some “others” as far worse off. And of course the far worse off is arrived at by lack of whatever YOU have that makes you the relative success.

How else do we explain the relative popularity of shows like “Moonshiners”, “Swamp Hunters”, “Ax Men” with their whole slew of vaguely educated, rough men and women who live on the fringes and manage to “make do”. We love us some Honey Boo Boo, and her family of misbegots. We relish our pageant babies and their silly and sick mothers, (at least I’m a better mother than her!) We eat up this garbage because they make us feel like decent successful people by comparison.

The rich tell us that we are the salt of the earth, while they lie to us with half-truths and pieces of fact, trusting that we are so ill-informed and so incurious to tell the difference, that fact and fiction wrapped in self-satisfying ribbons of “it’s not your fault, but THEIRS” that you life feels so stinkin’ worthless. If you watch you kids not doing any better than you did, then it’s not your fault, it’s  THEIR fault. “Their’ is merely adapted to whatever group is currently available to be blamed.

A Latino man shoots some people at Ford Hood before killing himself, and I will assure that that from it the NRA will tell us we need more guns and the Tea People will inform us that our border security is to blame. Of course all that is untrue, but the quivering masses of “my life sucks” will eat it up and blame THEM.

We will feel better, because we have chosen to believe that others have it worse. Indeed others do have it worse. But it’s only by mere luck that we aren’t in their shoes and they in ours. We are not so much smarter or industrious as they. In fact they may well trump us on both those issues. We were lucky or not in having parents who could afford to support our four + glorious years in higher education finding our niche from which we could, as our personality led us, drive ourselves to financial nirvana, or be fairly lazy and still manage to make a decent living.

We got lucky in who we married perhaps, which led to unexpected riches (the family farm is worth a whole lot of dough on the market as prime farm land), or not. The family hardware store might turn out to be nothing in the face of the new Wal-Mart down the street. It’s pretty much a crap shoot ya see.

We did or did not have a kid with disabilities. We did or did not get sick; or maimed or not in theaters of war. The company upon which everybody’s job depended, did or did not belly up, or move to cheaper labor pastures.

Yet we still find it useful to compare our lives to others of which we know nothing.

It’s just easier.

It’s easier than digging through the pile of manure in our head and seeing if there is anything there worth keeping as human.

It’s easier when the bills need to be paid, and that second job may be lost, and the kid needs braces.

And the people who trade on stirring the pot of hate are happy that we are so distracted with trying to exist, that we will account ourselves good citizens if we listen vaguely for thirty-minutes every day while stirring the spaghetti, and pick up the phrases designed to resonate and be easy to remember.

BORDER SECURITY!

SHARIA LAW!

BENGHAZI!

OBAMA CARE!

2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS!

OUR FREEDOMS!

FREE MARKETS!

TAKERS!

PLAYING THE RACE CARD!

SOCIALIST!

DICTATOR!

AMNESTY!

And I watch Nebraska, and I watched Medora, and I find myself thinking, “God how depressing to live THERE.” And I am doing the evolutionary thing I guess. But I am so wrong to do so. We are so wrong to do so.