Oh No She Di’nt. Oh Yes She Did

Tags

children, Entertainment, Individual Rights, Media, sex, violence

One thing you cannot call me is a prude. I grew up in the 60’s where it was sex, drugs and rock and roll for goodness sakes. We reveled in turning on and tuning out. We dabbled on the edges, at least most of us, and a few sadly jumped off the mountain and died young.

So, don’t say, oh go back to your knitting old woman, this is the new generation. We were all the new generation at one time, and the roaring twenties had nothing kiddies to do with lions.

But even I have to come up short once in a while, and ask. . . . “Really? Haven’t you gone just a bit too far here?”

And I’m not even talking about the occasional “over the top” display of boobs, vaginas, or exploding heads with sprays of blood in every direction. I can even buy that some of this is “necessary” to convey the true horror of the event, time, or business as usual attitude.

I’m talking about the constant one-up-man-ship that seems increasingly necessary in order to capture and keep the attention of the average person.

The danger is never that one single act of viewing will so warp the mind that it will forever impact the life of the viewer. It is so much more than that. It is numbing if the mind to the point that we are becoming more and more desensitized. What used to shock no longer does.

And it happens rapidly.

Just last evening I was bemoaning once again that we have started to watch Breaking Bad when it first started and then for some reason, bailed after a couple of episodes. The Contrarian gently reminded me that the reason was “the violence”. Wow. We had stopped watching Breaking Bad for the same reason we ceased watching the Sopranos?

Yet here we were watching Hell on Wheels and Copper, and The Following. We had avoided Dexter, but were watching  The Bridge which treated us to bodies sawed in half and side nudity and some good simulated sex to say nothing of the same in Copper.

We had, in a word, become desensitized.

And we are technically now “old people”. We have some ability, one would assume, to separate real from simulated, and reality from fantasy. How does one attribute such abilities to tweens?

When three young fellows decide to kill a person because “they are bored”, we have probably reached the point where reality is no longer recognized as much different from the latest edition of Grand Theft Auto.

I will be the first to admit that the jury seems still out on how much all this has to do with changing the minds of our youth. Reasonable psychologists do disagree, but it cannot be a good thing that we treat violence and the ugliness of exploding bodies a good thing. It cannot make us a kinder, gentler people. Certainly we can agree on that.

It seems to me one thing to blow up star ships even though we ignore that they are filled with hundreds of living beings, and quite another to blow off two-thirds of the face of a man as they recently did in an episode of The Bridge. The fact that it’s not “real” is hardly comforting to young minds. Hell it’s not comforting to me.

It’s now the norm in my household to avert one’s eyes, yelp in shock, and yell out, “they could have warned me!” at the gore that is de rigueur for most cable shows these days. Have you learned to turn away as the crazy person raises the gun to their own head yet? We sure have.

Now, you can argue that we are just watching lousy crap, and that may be true enough. Still, some of these shows are compelling in showing us a bad side of our own history. Hell on Wheels may be often too too graphic in its portrayal of blood and gore, but we do learn that how freed slaves were treated in the real world in the Old West, and how women used their bodies to make a living, and how everybody used and abused the Native people as needed. The were alternatively “saved” and massacred as time allowed.

Which all brings us to Miley Cyrus and her “act” at the MTV Awards the other night. First I did not watch it, but I have seen the video. Anybody who breathes has heard of it no doubt and the jury is split into “what a slut” and “who the hell cares?”

Women seem to care more than men, since it’s still true that women bear the major burden of raising children, and this shit scares them. Little girls, sadly, love these pop stars, want to dress like them and act like them.  Anybody who has seen Toddlers and Tiaras, knows only too well of what I speak.

One can speculate about Ms. Cyrus’s upbringing, her mental state,  and a host of other psychologically related issues regarding her and her idea of what is appropriate to do in front of cameras, but most of us would rather not have our children witness this behavior as something to emulate. Much as Ms. Cyrus may disagree, this is not the way you “prove you’ve grown up”. Rather it proves that you have a very very long way to go to reach that destination.

I’m the first to admit here that I have no answers to any of this. As you know by now, I don’t specialize in answers so much. I prefer to rant about what is wrong. You find the answer. I’m busy rooting out the problems. And this is a growing one it seems to me.

The business of simulated sex is just not necessary it seem to me. I find it impossible to almost ever conclude that it is “necessary” to a faithful honest portrayal of the character of incident. We can all figure it out without all the grunts and groans and the “yeah baby, now” crap.

The violence? That has a better argument in some cases. I do think it’s important to see the ugliness of our history. Saying that people owned slaves didn’t have much effect until Roots showed us (graphically for its time) what it was to be a slave. The same for things like Amistad. As I have said, Hell on Wheels insofar as it shows the misery of life in the West while building a railroad, gives us a new appreciation for those that built this country. Not the Rockefellers and Carnegies, but the average people who lived out short mean lives doing the business of building.

But where to draw the line? Oh gosh, I don’t know where to begin to set the standards. And perhaps that is the reason we have so little in the way of standards. Where is free speech, art, and individual freedom in all this? All I know is that we have gone too far it seems to me.

Related articles

• Not Just a Whorehouse: Female Representation in Hell On Wheels (rookerville.com)
• Miley Cyrus: White Trash Never Looked This Bad (thoughtcatalog.com)
• Breaking Bad is brilliant (catherinecrilly.wordpress.com)
• Breaking Bad Contest: The First Three to Die? (thomaspluck.com)
• Top 10 most bad ass TV characters (angelomedici.com)

 

It’s Good News Thursday!

Tags

Entertainment, gay rights, Good News, Humor, psychology, sociology, women's rights

Don’t worry, be happy. I’m just oodly happy today. Don’t know why, no good reason. Just breathing in and saying hey, lungs fill up with this OX-y-Jin!

No, I’m not on pain killers nor other mind-altering substances. I’m just finding the news particularly upbeat today.

First, let me tootle my own horn just a tiny bit. I finished Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, and you can read my review here. It’s a humbling book I gotta tell you. Being smart and well-educated doesn’t necessarily make you any more open-minded. What it may do, as I surmise is make you more aware of just how much we intuit our  beliefs and then come up with “evidence” to substantiate it. Knowing that, we can, I hope, be more vigilant in being open, if you get my drift.

Secondly, I found out that neither rich, poor, religious or not, we all mostly look out for Number One, we can all be altruistic to our “tribe”, we all cheat if we can get away with it to a greater or lesser degree (the rich the most), and we all worry about what others think of us (the conservative more-so than liberals). At least those were big take-aways for me. And it suggested to me that the claim that conservatives give more of their money and time to charitable concerns may be the result of inflated self-reporting than anything else. I do admit that that conclusion is the result of (1) a desire on my part that it be so, (2) the knowledge that conservatives worry excessively about their reputations, and (3) anecdotal evidence that the only people who ever tell me about their charitable largess or right wingers. So it’s my extrapolation and may not be accurate. Do tell what your experience has been.

Anyway, my bottom line? Professor Haidt’s revelations are perhaps as anger provoking to liberals as they are to conservatives. And that means it’s probably important to read and understand. I am fairly convinced that he makes some good points about what liberals miss and what some conservatives bring to the table. I would argue that nothing much good comes from the tea Idiots however, but that again is my elephant in full control. (read the book and you will get the reference).

So, the other good news for me at least is this:

I adore Glee. I say that with a certain degree of embarrassment because we didn’t watch it for a couple of years. Thought it was for kids. But kept hearing all the raves about it. So tuned it one evening and we’ve been hooked ever since. Silly as all get out. Nobody ever in life went to a high school like this, but we all should have. And it’s great fun. And it sends a very important message about being WHO YOU ARE, and about being accepted for WHO YOU ARE, even when that can be just down right a horse’s ass. The most important point they make, and you have to watch for a while to get it, is that seemingly mean people have soft undersides, and very nice people have dark hearts. And we all have to make allowances for each other, and support each other just because we are all really freakin’ human and being human is freakin’ hard a lot of the time.

So anyway, the good news is that my darling boy Adam Lambert is joining the cast this fall. Adam, is drop-dead boy toy gorgeous if you didn’t know.

And he’s so young that for me to get excited means I’m a sick woman. So I only from a distance say, damn that is one fine lookin’ child, and no more.

And if you listen to him, he’s not dumb either, which is something that seems to often unfairly attach or not to people who are that good-looking.

Johnny Depp is another exception, being fabulously gorgeous, closer to my own age, and not dumb as a rock either.

So, I can hardly wait until fall. And I know I shouldn’t be that way, because at my age, wishing time to pass is surely not a good thing.

Speaking of gay.

Oh, yes we were!

All kinds of crappy shit is going on in Pennsylvania these days but here is some good news.

The AG for PA, (has a snappy sound no?) has apparently said that she has no intention of defending against the lawsuit filed by a gay couple challenging the ban on gay-marriage statute in that state.  So says Joe.My.God, who so says the Washington Post.

It appears that the thing about gay marriage has turned a corner, or as we science-oriented types like to say, passed over the event horizon, meaning nothing in the known universe can turn back the procession to full equality for our friends who are other-oriented than me. I for one couldn’t be more happy. It seems that the latest polling in PA suggests that well more than half of the population in that state now favors marriage equality, which is why the AG perhaps decided what she did.

Anyway, hurrah, hurrah.

Those of you in the know, know that Scott Walker, Guv from Wisconsin has been a real pain in the rear for women. He pushed through a repeal of women’s right to equal pay, has essentially defunded PPH, and has signed a number of bills making abortion rights much much harder for women to exercise. Sarah Silverman, comedienne, tweeted: “I’d very much like to anally probe @govwalker each time he needs to make an “informed decision” “.

The Right-wing has gone bonkers over this, accusing Ms. Silverman of wanting to “rape” the governor. Breitbart was suitably chagrined.   (read the comments which quickly degenerate to Hitler’s death camps I promise you). Anyway, pissing off the right just makes me joyful. It’s my great happiness to know they are turning purple in the face. It makes me happy, and this IS happy day.

Taken by a British Photographer (Austin?)

Related articles

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion ~ Jonathan Haidt [updated May 28, 2013] (planetizen1network.wordpress.com)
• Adam Lambert Joins ‘Glee’ Season 5 (aceshowbiz.com)

 

Just Hit That Woman With a Stupid Stick Or Honoring Fools on April Fools Day

Tags

Entertainment, gay rights, GOP, marriage, media crazies, teabaggers

Their back!!! Actually they never left.

The extremists in the GOP just can’t stop blabbering about all things sexual. In their expertise, we learn so much, so much it makes you want to run to the nearest cliff and throw yourself off.

The Chair of the Georgia GOP has some thoughts about legalizing marriage between same-sex persons. Seems, in the ranging meanderings of her tiny pimple of a brain, she’s come up with the REAL reason it should be forbidden–not all that religious stuff (although she points out, it is surely “unnatural” to be sure), but on good old Republican principles: FRAUD.

Yes that which strikes at the very heart of any Republican (the pocketbook) is why we should prevent this awful thing from happening.

Her reasoning? Well let me give you her version:

You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Ya see the logic there? Sure you do.

I betcha Ms. Sue Everhart first got that notion from hearing about men and women doing the same darn thing to get those benefits. I bet she did. No gay person ever married a straight person for that reason. Nope, logically? Nope.

HIT THAT WOMAN WITH A STUPID STICK

Ô

Yes it’s another Republican. Funny how all these stories end up being about the whacked Right.

North Carolina seems well on the way of figuring out how to support marriage. You are asking for the answer right?

The answer seems obvious when you think about it. Just outlaw divorce. State Senator Austin Allran (R) wants to amend the Healthy Marriage Act to make divorce even more difficult to obtain, raising the wait time from one year to two. AND couples must attend classes hoping to ‘splain to the  parties how to communicate better. And you can’t live together during that time, and apparently it would change current law that says that isolated incidents of “doing the nasty” don’t toll the waiting time.

Austin who is never to be confused with Austin Powers and well powers of mental acuity, doesn’t have a good answer for spouses seeking divorce from abusive spouses. He apparently hasn’t thought through the possible up tick in spousal homicide either.

HIT THAT MAN WITH A STUPID STICK

Ô

Chris Brown is 23 years old.

Chris Brown had 52 weeks of counseling.

Chris Brown now assures us that he FINALLY learned it was absolutely wrong to beat women.

HIT THAT MAN WITH A STUPID STICK (TWICE JUST TO BE SURE)

Ô

Remember our dear friends (NOT) Todd Akins (women who are legitimately raped?) and Allen West (I shoulda been court martialed)? Remember among all their nonsense, they were always railing about government waste, and those terrible spending Democrats? Remember them?

Well, lawdy lawdy, we don’t always do as we say others should now do we? The two who were always for cutting funding to every program that had to do with helping the poor–what did they get caught doing?

Just giving huge bonuses (at taxpayer expense of course) to their staffs as a parting goodbye when both LOST their election bids. Of the top 10 most gifting of congress persons, 9 were Republican and of the top 20, 14 were among those ousted by the electorate.

Let’s all get together and ask them to spell H Y P O C R I T E shall we?

HIT BOTH THOSE MEN WITH A STUPID STICK–IN FACT LEAVE IT EMBEDDED IN THEIR BACKSIDES

Ô

The Outraged Right, is often willfully ignorant. Now I know a thing or two about that, since I have FB “friends” who are determined to be just that, and they think I’m calling them stupid, which is proof enough eh?

Well, if you noticed, Google on its search engine did its usual holiday google doodle and instead of honoring the risen Lord, they chose to honor Cesar Chavez whose 86th birthday it would have been and for which March 31 is set aside to honor him.

Well, the Right went mad indeed, claiming that this was all intentional and of course “organized by the White House” who hates Christians if ya were not already aware.

Well, to gum it up, Michelle Malkin, thought Cesar was Hugo and well, that really really pissed them off.

Even when people said, hey Michelle, you confused Cesar with Hugo, well it made them no difference. It was still awful. And they are all moving to Bing, which showed Easter eggs on its search engine, which as everyone knows is properly reminiscent of Jesus (they had deviled eggs at the last supper I’m told with a hint of horseradish).

Well, as you can see, it signals the demise of Christianity in America. Google has tipped the boulder, and it is now careening down the slippery slope into Muslim/Atheism/Secular/Fascism/JimmineyCricketspantsareonfire/hellanddamnation.

HIT THE ENTIRE RIGHTWING RELIGIOSITY IN NAME NOT IN GAME GROUP WITH THE STUPID STICK.

And all of you have a blessed, or cursed April Fools Day.

Related articles

• GOP Rebranding update: All ‘Chavez’s’ look alike (dailykos.com)
• Conservatives freak out after Google honors Cesar Chavez on Easter (rawstory.com)
• Conservatives Outraged by Cesar Chevaz Google Doodle on Easter (truthdig.com)
• North Carolina lawmaker wants to impose a two-year waiting period for divorce (salon.com)

The Madness Astounds a Normal Human

Tags

2nd Amendment, cartoons, Congress, Entertainment, GOP, gun control, Humor, Lance Armstrong, NRA, Sports

Yeah, it’s true, people like lice and cockroaches better than Congress.

And you know what?

The GOP actually is INTENTIONALLY responsible for your low opinion of them.

Ya see, way back in the day, when the Newtie Patootie Ging(notsorichthen)rich first came to Congress, he bemoaned the fact that the Democrats had controlled Congress for some 24 years. How to gain power?

Well, obstruct, and call Democrats everything from low down skunk fookers for starts. So they did, upon the theory that the worst Congress became in the people’s estimation, the more they might be willing to finally vote the bastards out, and Newt and his crew would have a ready slate of Restuplican turds ready to step in and run against the incumbent business-as-usual Democrats. And it pretty much worked. And that’s pretty much what they have been up to since 2008. It got them the House in 2o1o. That seems to be McConnell’s plan now, in the hopes of making some gains in 2014. Course, if your GOP candidate is a drooler, and can’t open his mouth without shoving 36 feet in it at once, then all bets are off, i.e. Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin, and so forth.

Yeah, they really like it when you are disgusted with them. They just are trying to make sure you blame the Democrats. Course, common sense might dictate that we don’t.

See the thing about Lance, is not that he used the drugs to win. As we understand it, most of the cyclists do. It’s rife from top to bottom and in between with sleazy people, including the people who run the cycling organizations.

What makes people shiver in disgust when they see Lance, is that this apology is all for show. He can’t even manage to look or sound sincere in his apology, because it’s clear that inside, Lance don’t feel a good goddamn thing. It bothers him not one iota that he destroyed others lives. That’s just, well, life.

He is pissed he got caught. Pissed he can’t cover it up. Pissed he’s going to lose a ton of money, and is going through the lawyer-directed apology tour in our to stave off the worst of the financial penalties to say nothing of possible jail time for fraud.

He’s a sociopath. So listen up. HE SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO PURCHASE A GUN.

Yeah, old Wayne is being kept under wraps, but the message of the NRA remains unapologetically hard-nosed and well, sociopathic. loves

What is pathetic, sad, and all too understandable is that the brain-defective supporters of the NRA are so deep in the depths of their fantasy of armed insurrection to get rid of the Kenyan Marxist, Fascist President, that they agree with this stance of NO controls of any kind on the right to acquire any weapon of choice.

The position is indefensible from any perspective. There is no historical precedent for it, there is no logical precedent for it.

The NRA loves guns-involved tragedies because it gives them the opportunity to gin up the base that their “freedoms” are about to be taken from them. They did it all through the election cycle. They will bully their congresspeople to vote NO for anything, no matter how benign it is to the average gun owner.

I thought I had this cold thing beat. But it’s jumped down my throat with a vengeance today. My head feels ready to explode and I can’t breathe! I’m sucking down some cold medicine even as we speak, and have a big old pot of chili simmering on the stove. I’m going burn that cold out of me come dinner time!

So be careful out there and excuse me if I sneeze.

Related articles

• The NRA Just Doesn’t Know When to Quit (motherjones.com)
• What’s the NRA Really Packing? (theatlanticwire.com)

Do You Like Sport?

Tags

Entertainment, philosophy, sociology, Sports

Are we getting it yet?

Are you still enthralled with your favorite hero? Is it Clay Matthews or LeBron James? Is it Wayne Gretzky or Miguel Cabrera? You do realize they are humans and they are flawed don’t you?

Lance Armstrong is so flawed he deserves to be in his own hall of fame of worst possible human being in the entire 20th and 21st century. I mean, he stands back and admits to all the things he’s been accused of for years, without batting an eye, oblivious EMOTIONALLY to all the pain he has caused others. He’s a sociopath, and in another life would be a mass murderer. Instead he’s just a mass cheater, liar, and life wrecker.

Manti Ta’o? The kid from Notre Dame with the strange story about the girlfriend he had never met and may never have existed? Oh, I have no clue if Manti was in on the hoax or a victim of it. Having spend more hours than I wish to admit to on the old IRC back in the day, I know so many stories like this that I’m inclined to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. I knew people who feel deeply in love with personas that were not even close to truth. I knew men who fell in love with men who thought they were women. Truly it happens. Or it did.  .  .  . back in the day at least.

Never happened to me. Back before the Contrarian, I met a lot of men via the Internet, and physically met close to a half dozen. They were all who they purported to be. I was lucky I guess. I met the Contrarian via the Internet, and in a display of utter dumbness, or incredibly acute intuition, gave up my apartment and hired a moving company before I had laid eyes on the man. But we are now into thirteen years of marriage, and a happy one at that. Don’t use me as measure however of the safety of this medium of communication. I am quite sure if you x-ray my skull, you will find the alien implant that suggests I’m just on loan from Planet Glix for an earthly experiment. I think my real occupation, when not being a test subject (think 2 years government service equivalency), is as an online psychic charlatan on the run from three known law suits, and three hybrid brides who were left at the altar.

See, that stuff floats through my head, and just must be when the old implant goes into a defib mode for a few seconds.

Anyway, either Manti or Lance serve once again to remind us that we should never place our adoration at the foot of most any human, for they are just always going to disappoint you in the end by being ALL TOO HUMAN. Or maybe less human in the case of Lance.

Which begs the question, where does one lay one’s adoration? Some find elegance in the medium of mathematics, and indeed I can appreciate the elegance of that. Or the universe itself which has a majesty that is enough for 3,000 lifetimes. One can find enough to adore in the soft breathing of a newborn, a new-born of any species actually. Awe is part of adoration after all, and life awes.

I find a single dandelion growing through the crack in an old sidewalk worthy of adoration. After all, talk about tenacity. Tenacity seems worthy of adoration.

So symmetry,  the miracle of life, and tenacity are in the mix. How about longevity?

There is much to be admired in a face like this. A worn face, a face that has worked, loved, cried, laughed, and somehow continued on.

Eyes that hold a library full of stories.

Hands that have caressed a woman’s cheek and then tightened around a wrench and heaved loose a nut.

Shall we trip the light fantastic and delve into the realm of mystery? Shall we glimpse the ineffable, the transcendent? Are we not in the place of adoration?

Shall we imagine the temperatures and pressures that brought into being the pebble that you walk upon? That came from the rock, that came from the mountain, long broken and sunk back into the landscape? Adore it?

Did all this start in a giggle of a thought about Mitt Romney and his reference to liking “sport” instead of “sports?”

Can we adore the mind that can move across such distance of space and subject,  and still remain stable enough to shop for groceries and watch 30Rock?

You tell me.

The War On Women Continues

Tags

Entertainment, GOP, Mitch McConnell, Planned Parenthood, teabaggers, women's rights

Republican continue to demean the value of women. The latest? Oh that would be Oklahoma that bastion of women’s rights.

There, the Tulsa Planned Parenthood facility is being forced to close because the Oklahoma Department of Health has decided to cut off its funding. It did this by cancelling its contract with WIC, a federal program. The Oklahoma government claims it is purely a “business decision, but of course it follows similar moves in Texas and Arizona, also known for their vehement attacks on the organization that devotes 3% of its services to abortion.

This follows a number of strategies to starve the group out of existence in the past few years. In some states laws are passed that concern building maintenance that are so onerous and unrealistic that PPH cannot afford the renovations (extra mop closets for instance).

What makes this all so obvious, is that the Tulsa office does not perform abortions at all. One hundred percent of its, and ALL the affiliates in Oklahoma are devoted to preventive care and family planning.

We are talking about cervical cancer screenings, mammograms, contraceptive care here people.

The outrage continues as white men continue to exert their control over the bodies of women, white and of color.

…

Better news? Oh the GOP continues to feast upon its own flesh. Yeah, grotesque analogy to be sure, but they are into cannibalism.

Latest victim?

Why good old Turtle man Mitch McConnell. Seems he’s aroused the ire of your average Tea People group in Kentucky. They found his fiscal cliff negotiations and agreement, well, just totally totally unacceptable. All those rich Kentucky hill folks (rich in the fables they tell themselves about how riches will be theirs if we only listen to rich folks) are not up with the tax on the rich that old Mitch agreed to. So Mitch wants to withdraw into his shell and avoid the folks who want to make him into some savory turtle soup.

The group “For America” plans on running their ads against Mitch in the usual places. (For America–those people are sure talented when it comes to catchy names ain’t they?)

…

Just saw the Oscar nominations. As is so predictable, Lincoln leads the field. This is going to be a sad one. Hugh Jackman is nominated for best actor and should surely win for an outstanding performance, but of course he cannot win against the equally grand performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. They should give out two this year I say. Let my make a guess that in consolation, Anne Hathaway will win best supporting over our always beloved Sally Fields. Just guesses, I’ve seen nothing but trailers so far. I like to give opinions about things I know nothing about. You already know that.

…

Sorry, out of time today. The Contrarian has an eye appointment at the VA in El Paso this afternoon and we are heading down a bit early to eat before we hit the base. It’s a beautiful day here, hope it is where you are.

Related articles

• Planned Parenthood closing in W. Tulsa (kjrh.com)
• War on abortion targets reproductive health care for poor women (kansascity.com)
• Marsha Blackburn, Diane Black Offer Dueling Bills To Defund Planned Parenthood (huffingtonpost.com)
• Are Reproductive Rights on the Way Out? (blogs.forward.com)
• Paul Ryan signs on as cosponsor of new ‘fetal personhood’ bill (rawstory.com)

 

The Good News Is. . . .

Tags

AIG, banks, climate change, Entertainment, environment, gay rights, GOP, gun control, Lindsey Graham, NRA, right wing nuts, teabaggers

After the bad. I believe in delayed gratification. I told you that a thousand times. Take your medicine and then you can have dessert. So this is your medicine:

This is how we are going to win the war against assault weapons. Bring on this fool along with Mr. La Pee Pee Lapierre and this goose is cooked. I mean, as Commonweal suggested, THIS is all you need to argue in favor of gun control. This fool should never be allowed near a safety-pin let alone a gun.

So you have had your medicine and now you get the dessert:

1. I’m told that according to Rasmussen polling, only about 8% of people now identify with the agenda of the Tea People. That’s great news. The GOP appears screwed however since they have gerrymandered the map so badly that at least on the congressional level they will still be finding these bedbugs crawling out from under the mattress for some time to come. Which means the GOP will continue to act and sound like petulant and really stupid children who need a good paddling, if I were of the persuasion that children should be assaulted physically, which I am not. But it’s worth considering an exception here. No, just kidding. Just pat them on the head and send them to bed without supper.
2. The Washington National Cathedral, home to the diocese of the Washington Episcopal church announced it will be performing same-sex marriage. This is in keeping with the national church’s decisions as I understand it. The national church was on the verge of this I believe when I was still involved with it, a couple of years ago. This is wonderful news to all of us who believe in equality.
3. Lindsey Graham continues to dig out from under John McCain’s shadow and establish that he can be an even bigger douche on his own. Lindsey, terrified of being primaried for 2014, is just throwing tantrums left and right. His latest? He may place a hold on Brennan’s confirmation as the next director the CIA unless he gets answers on Benghazi. Do you hear? Lindsey wants answers. He’s determined to try to prove that the Obama administration changed the facts to help the election campaign, although it is still unclear how that was supposed to work. Lindsey sounds like Julia Child on drugs. And he is still determined to “shut ‘er down” if he doesn’t get some spending cuts and pronto too. This is all Lindsey is saying now, until he gets new directives from the Tea People who depend on 6th graders to transcribe their irrational thoughts onto paper.
4. Nicki Minaj has just signed with KMart to do a line of clothes. I know, I can’t wait either.
5. The military is thinking of offering yoga and meditation classes. This has Tony Perkins of Family Research Council all in a tizzy. It seems to this nut looking for shell, such things are “wacky substitutes” for that good time religion of the fundamentalist flavor.
6. You have heard of the Breitbots haven’t you? Breitbart is deceased. But his followers go on in his name. One of them has written a book. It suggests that after all this time of being so nice to liberals, they just can’t do it any more. It’s time to be uncivil they proclaim. I don’t think if we hadn’t been told we would ever have known the difference. No more compromise with those bullies they shout!
7. Winner of the “YOU DAMN FOOL” award this week goes to Congressman Steve Palazzo, who years after Katrina is still asking Congress for money for his state of Mississippi, didn’t vote for disaster relief for the victims of super storm Sandy. We understand the Congressman has suddenly realized that stupidity has consequences. He now pledges his support. Tea People–stupid is as stupid does.
8. AIG, who in concert with a few others, nearly ruined this country. They were bailed out. They were SAVED from their own stupidity. They have paid the money back. Now they are thinking of suing the US government, kinda of like saying, thanks for saving my life, but dang you tore my expensive jacket in the process–please pay for it. What a bunch of douches. (I need new words to describe these dopes) Just go to jail, and do not pass GO.
9. Move along, no gawking. Nothing going on here. Oh, yes, the US recorded the highest average temperature EVER in the history of counting. EVER. But that is got nothing to do with climate change. There is snow on the ground in the usual places. ‘Nuf said.

I know, you are plum tuckered out from all that dessert. So take a break and move into a mood swing or two.

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