Searching for the Gem

Tags

estate sales, gay marriage, GOP, government, Health care, lifestyle, sequester, teabaggers

Are you a junkie?

“Psst, come over here so we can whisper.”

Does your heart go pit-a-pat at the idea of buying other people’s stuff at bargain prices?

Yeah, I know. It’s just too good to pass up.

I like estate sales way more than auctions. I hate to wait for hours for “my” item to come up and then the bidding starts about a kazillion more than I could ever pay in the first place.

Estate sales are neat and tidy. Everything is already marked.

We went yesterday to a great one. Chock full of lawn and garden this and thats. I mean stuffed with planters and statues, chairs and tables. Just stuffed. We bought a bear carved from a log with a welcome sign. That went at the front door, hoping to distract from the lovely? piece of patio stone with the words “The Payton” carefully painted on it, a gift from our handyman. Of course it’s Peyton and not Payton and it should have an ‘s at the end. We must of course show it. We would not be rude.

We also got “Juanita” a two-foot terra-cotta Indian woman with long braids and an ample girth. She’s in the living room hopefully giving off good vibes. Then I splurged on a copper sculpture that is a series of rings mounted on a disk. I guess I should take a picture, but anyway it’s a piece of authentic art produced by a sculptor here in Las Cruces. I also picked up a glorious leather purse on the cheap which is the perfect size.

We are going back today when things are “half price” an ultimately “best offer” to gather up some garden urns and perhaps some wall artwork.

I am so freakin’ tired of the word, and all it entails.

I am so tired of idiots.

Boehner looks more and more the boob as one-trick pony. If he says, “it’s time to get serious about spending cuts,” I may hire a thug to go to DC and beat him to a pulp.

It’s time to get serious about kicking your ass to the curb.

It’s time to get serious about kicking the Tea Bibbers to the curb, permanently.

It’s time to require a basic test to anyone who wants to run for a government office. Prove that you can read. Prove that you can think. Prove that you can count to 100. I don’t know, something. I’ve heard more stupid from people who got people to actually vote for them for some office than I care to remember.

Seriously, my dog could do the job. Seriously, I think he could.

I really think this is gonna happen.

I mean I really do.

I think the Supreme Court will overturn California’s anti-gay marriage legislation.

About 30 other states have similar ones. They should fall too.

If the Court does invalidate it, hopefully it will be on a denial of equal protection under the law, a constitutional precept. Us constitutional law trumps and any state law or constitutional provision.

Game over.

Then perhaps we can get on with other issues rather than continuing our relentless attempts to punish people who aren’t like us.

The same will probably not be said for the Voting Rights Act and section five. That is probably going to fall. And that is a shame. Instead it ought to be upheld and broadened to cover the entire country. And it ought to prohibit any attempt that tries to disenfranchise any group of people, be their students, the elderly, or ethnic minorities. Voting is our most precious right. We should bend over backwards to make sure than everyone who wants to can. And maybe we should mandate that everyone does.

The GOP assured us that they would NEVER go willingly into the land of Obamacare.

They would kick and scream, they would throw themselves upon grenades if need be.

No never!

But political realities have a way of changing stubborn minds. Fearing that his time in office is limited, Governor Scott of Florida has had a change of heart. Chris Christie saw the logic of the situation as well.

Bobby Jindal has not. Which is a pity, since he counseled that the GOP must stop being the party of stupid. He’s the one of stupid for continuing his hold out. I mean who wants to be in the same camp as Ricky Perry from the grand old state of delusion, Texas? I mean Bobby, you still have New Orleans! You are not in Mississippi or Alabama, fighting for your very IQ life. I mean really Bobby.

Well it just ain’t about Obamacare though.

It’s about everything these days.

It’s about immigration, and gay rights. It’s about women’s rights. It’s about taxes, and loopholes.

How to rid themselves of TEA! When all the respectable Republicans (assuming they exist) just want a cuppa joe.

Boehner looks sad most of the time.

He must weep a lot at night.

The Tea Bibbers on the other hand, are all gleeful. They are too stupid to know any better.

I tell ya, it is so unfair to elephants to have them embarrassed this way in association with jackasses. I mean is that an irony or what?

We’re hitting around 70 degrees here today. I mean that is enough to make a heart sing is it not?

Related articles

• GOP Congressman Introduces Constitutional Amendment To Permanently Ban Obamacare (thinkprogress.org)
• GOP Search for Black or Latino Messiah (atthetable.newsvine.com)
• Conservative justices wary of Voting Rights Act (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court (consortiumnews.com)
• Voting Rights Act Supporters See Glimmers Of Hope In Anthony Kennedy (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Obama To Urge Supreme Court To Overturn California Gay Marriage Ban (sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)

Kicking the Can

Tags

atheist blogging, blogging, financial meltdown, gay marriage, Greece, immigration reform, Iowa, Jindal, John McCain, Lousiana, Merlin Bartz, Obama, oil spill, teabaggers

It’s Friday (shivery all over if you are a workin’ stiff, but I’m not so it’s no big deal), and typically for reasons that are beyond comprehension, tons of my readers are BUSY. Like getting ready for the barbecue tonight, or the concert, or well, any number of THINGS. So readership always goes down. And stays down until Monday rolls around.

Sometimes I figure, I’m read by mostly bored automatons sitting in cubicles across Merika, hoping the boss don’t waltz by while they are surfin’.

Anyway, it means it’s a good day to just dump all the odds and ends cramping my head space. Which is not to say that what follows isn’t R E A D A B L E , cuz it most certainly is. But I’m a tad lazy, and its rainy, and more importantly COLD and like your average amphibian, I’m  S L O W.
***

Okay, so the teabaggers are all in a huff cuz they claim that Obama has violated his place nice directive by using the term “teabagger” which everyone now knows refers to some sexual behavior that we will not even describe here, let alone picture! But that’s a lie. Turns out the silly teabaggers themselves actually coined the phrase.

Yep, before, undoubtedly they knew the actual meaning. They had placards that said “tea bag the Dems before they tea bag you.” Enough said, move on please.

***

Jindal, as in Louisiana Jindal is demanding federal funds to war against the oil coming ashore. I don’t mind that, but wasn’t he the same fella that was harping that he was not gonna take stimulus money because he was not in favor of the feds messin’ in his state? Seems a lot of Repooplicans suffer from dry rot of the brain in not REMEMBERING what they said last week! Just sayin’.

***

Got our own brand of wacko wizardry here in Iowa. Some nut, Merlin Bartz (R-Grafton, IA) and state senator is calling for a law banning gay married couples from being declared “families” for purposes of getting a tent site at state camp grounds. Don’t that beat all? He says that the gay marriage ruling is gonna effect all kinds of terrible changes in Iowa. And course, he intends to manufacture just as many of them as he can.

***

I know that I have barely had this “theme” up a month, but I’m changing it again. WordPress has gone bonkers on making new themes, like four in the last two weeks, and I just fell in love with one. So, you will be seeing it sometime today, or so. Lots of little tweaking to do, and I love that sort of thing when I have the time. I spend more time with the theme than you do, so I get bored with it faster.

***

I read a couple of days ago that Obama had indicated that he wanted to open immigration reform before the end of this year. It’s gonna be a sticky wicket for both parties, but more so for the Restuplicans. I have a different take. Now, McCain lost the election and Obama trusted I suppose that the Mav would return to his senses and be a Mav again. Not so, the crotchety old fart decided to moan and groan forever, and has become a farcical right wing nut case in an attempt to hold onto his smelly seat.

So, I figure, Obama thinks, what a way to pay back old John. This will hurt the old geezer as much as possible. Something like, “John, how bout you resurrect your fine bill you wanted to introduce back before the election?” That should get the elder unprincipled one to just about choke on his spittle. Yeah, I’m likin’ the scenario a lot.

***

Plenty of folks would agree that the beginning of Western Civilization started in Greece. Funny if it all ended there too. Just sayin’.

***

Oh I’ve been having a private little war with John Loftus over at Debunking Christianity. John doesn’t post my comments, which are usually critical of his manner, claiming they aren’t “on point” with the post. That’s a crock, but I really can’t recommend his blog any longer. He’s spends about 90 percent of his blogging time,  touting  a book he edited (and wrote a couple of chapters in), and vilifying unfavorable reviews, (one of which he took down, after calling the reviewer an idiot and worse) all the while whining for his followers to tell him he’s really right. Take a break from blogging John, and work on those self-esteem issues a bit why doncha?

Which all raises a point about atheist bloggers in general, but that’s another post at some time when I can bother with their blather. Not all mind you, some are actually very good and raise some good points, but most are just pretenders. They attack all of Christianity, when their only real target is the fundie.

***

nuf said.

It’s the Caffeination, Stupid!

Tags

60's, cabbage, caffeine, Casseroles, divorce, Entertainment, gay marriage, incest, Mackenzie Phillips, Mamas and Papas, Music, Recipes, sausage, slow cooker, Steven King

“Boy, you sure made the coffee strong this morning, dear.” This as I yawn and peer through lidded eyes at GMA. “I don’t know that it’s any different that usual,” the great one replies.

“Well it was falling out of the grinder when I lifted off the top, so I knew it was gonna be strong,” smiling weakly. I saw a look of “oops” fall across his face. “Ummm, perhaps that was mine.” Mine being the caffeinated stuff, which I have long since abandoned as making me too wired, and upsetting my delicate digestive mechanism.

An hour later, I have completed my walk in record time, and am deeply ensconced in Genesis, trying to see the myriad differences between creation story one and creation story two. My mind is flying, reeling really among the possibilities, and now, I’m really not sure at all what “made in the image of” means.

I have the urge to write, yet know, I’m not nearly ready to tackle THAT topic. I start in the Google reader, skimming the stories, vaguely aware that I am looking for a few in particular, stories I want to consider. I make the mistake to visit Randal’s L’ennui melodieux. Not knowing French, I still have no idea what that means, though the word l-ennui is vaguely familiar. In any case, I don’t recommend that site when in a full-blown caffeine mania. I actually understood his post “Naked in front of the Computer.”

You see, I almost never understand Randal’s posts, which takes nothing away from the fact that mostly they are brilliant. He is writing as art personified. Like Justice Black, I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

With that post, I realized that my mind, going off in several directions at the same time, could not focus on one issue long enough to write a post about. Thus you get the hodgepodge of trivial and snappy snapshots of reality. At least my reality. The human brain is exceptional in it’s ability to hold, simultaneously, several thoughts at once, some of them in direct and obvious logical opposition (witness the fundamentalist mind –if you can call it that–which is required to do that 24/7–but no we are NOT going there again. I’m looking for a treatment for THAT addiction as well.)

Moving right along, switching gears, about facing, and other metaphors that come to mind. I always obsess happily about our utterly infamous and undoubted resident wing nut Stephen King, R-IA, (may God forgive us our sins). He is always good for a profoundly stupid remark. Yesterday he was quoted as saying that the best vote he ever made in the House was his nearly singular opposition to Katrina aid. Imagine that. Today he is quoted as saying that gays marriage is a “purely socialist concept.” No even, I with my high-speed brain cells this morning, don’t care to get into the ugly morass of a mind that could concoct such bull-crap. Be my guest. Read more here.

***

Meanwhile, spinning on a dime, and managing quite well, thank you, not to fall. . . over, I present a recipe. This time of year one’s thoughts turn to slow cookers and comfort food, and this is definitely that.

One can imagine doing all sorts of outdoorsy things, like planting fall mums, raking leaves, (yeah right) and coming inside for cocoa (yeah right) and taking in the wafts of yummy meaty goodness slowly melding together in the crock pot.

If such thoughts are yours too, and no doubt they are, then let your fingers do the walking over to Baking Delights and pick up the recipe for Slow Cooker Red Cabbage and Sausage.

***

With all due and I do mean due, respect to our tinfoily friends on the extreeeemmmme right, one of their oft cited, but never explained objections to gay marriage is that it will “destroy the sanctity of marriage.”

Well, yes, but, exactly what do that mean Mable? Nothing much it seems, but dang it sounds good. Words can, it seems, be put together in nice sounding ways that appear to point to deep thought, when in fact they bespeak no sense at all.

In other words, ya can’t destroy what don’t exist! And according to recent statistics,Die vorce is alive and well and on the climb and not, repeat NOT in the states that allow same sexers to marry.

Of deeper concern, since I live here, is a recent poll, (saw it I swear but have dumped the site already) in Iowa, that showed that something like 92% of Iowans don’t feel,  so far, threatened in their marriage because of Iowa’s new marriage decree that allows same sex wedding bliss. I can testify as well, that so far, I’ve not been hounded by lesbians wanted to “hook up” nor has the Contrarian been solicited by hoards of men wanting to cuddle behind the tractor. Nope, hasn’t happened. Course this will do nothing to stem the gasps and horror among the “bible told me so” folk.

***

And the winner in the category “gag me with a spoon” is. . . . Mackenzie Phillips and her revelations that “Dad and me were lovers!”

Now, it’s hard to know who to blame for all this. I’m inclined to blame the druggin’, which I understand was beyond the pale, over and above, topped out, even the Stones can’t come close to these folks in over indulgence.

The Contrarian recalls reading where Cass showed up in the Caribbean somewhere with a quart jar of acid one vacation time. These are seriously f**ked up people.

One could of course simply blame dad for all this, but really, Mack admits she was nineteen, yes you heard that right, at the time of the first incestuous meeting, and AND it continued for a record ELEVEN years. I’d say she is somewhat complicit? This doesn’t make any of it other than sordid, wrong, abusive, and a host of other things, but lordly, it sure taints any desire to hear “California Dreamin’ ” any time soon don’t it?

***

Yeah, I know, you wish I would go on and never stop, but hey, I can’t feed your addiction all day long ya know. I hear one of the big pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer perhaps is working on a drug to wean ya off me. If I can get a cut of the that action, I’ll gladly add my opposition to the Democratic health care reform movement. Greed does trump the common good. I can be bought! But you knew that already. Blessings, and well, I’m off to rain caffeine craziness upon the rest of my household.

Just Do It! Pleeez!

Tags

charity, Dick Cheney, food banks, gay marriage, gay rights, GOP, Karl Rove, OneIowa

Sorry I missed you all yesterday. I was gone the better part of the day working at our church library. We’re culling our collection and preparing for a nice gift from a former pastor who left us a sizable portion of his personal library. After working at that for several hours I met with my “soul partner” for a light lunch and some conversation.

Our church has paired up people who desire to delve deeper into their spiritual lives and figure that two heads together can be a real help. Our first meeting was lovely, and we both look forward to sharing more in upcoming weeks.

Tomorrow, the Contrarian and I are off to Iowa City for his appointment at the VA. It’s always something we don’t look forward to, but never takes long, but I’ll probably not get a chance to post. I need to stop off at the store on my way home for some charity ideas I’m trying to promote. Speaking of which. . . .

It’s beginning to sound like a broken record. “I was watching GMA this morning when I got this idea. . . .”

Well, I did. So listen up, and see what you think. Everybody is talking about how food pantries across the land are suffering in this economic black hole we are all suffering through. GMA has been hitting up big food companies and they bring their truck filled with whatever down, and say they are donating it to such and such food bank in such and such a state.

Nice, but look at the free advertising and good press they are getting. Well, I thought, gosh, most everybody who can afford a few cans a month would be happy to do the same. Problem is, lots of folks don’t know where the pantry is in their town or city, lots don’t “have the time” to run over to deliver, and well, you get the idea. People have lots of excuses why they can’t help.

The trick is to make it easy. I figured lots more folks will help out if you make it simple. So I thought, what if the grocery stores set aside a bit of space and put in a box where shoppers could drop in purchased cans and boxes as they left the store. The store would make the delivery once a week or so, as needed?

Well I called our local HyVee and Fareway stores. Both are localized operations so I thought they would be the better choice. I got reasonably good responses from both, though Fareway asked me to stop in “to discuss it further.” HyVee was all smiles and wow, great idea, but didn’t ask for my phone number or anything. They do tend to be very upbeat and then not do anything, at least that has been my experience in the past. The woman I talked to did say, “Well, I hope in the near future you’ll see a box in our store.” I’ll follow up I promise.

So, I’m calling on all you bloggers to consider doing the same thing where you live. It can’t hurt, it may help. Who knows. A phone call or a check with the manager next time you are in is easy enough.

***

While I’m on my bully pulpit, let me ask you to consider a donation to OneIowa. I follow them on Twitter. They have been working tirelessly to fight off the religious right’s attempt to undo the Iowa Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage in Iowa.

Recently, as many of you know, NOM, (National Organization for Marriage) has been running a commercial trying to scare people that same-sex marriage will be the end of the world. OneIowa has been able to do it’s own commercial. Funds are needed to keep it on air. 

The link will link you to the donation site. If we can hold the line in Iowa, I think we will have gone a long way to break the back of the opposition. Oddly I ran into a short explanation of how marriage came to be the province of the Christian church. It seems that marriage always was a civil issue and the early church wasn’t even particularly keen on blessing them. Only after the collapse of the Roman Empire did the church get involved. They were among the few who could actually read and write, and thus record the contractual arrangements.

***

Okay, it started with Limbaugh and Hannity and O’Reilly being the spokesmen for the GOP. That was bad enough. But no one really took that seriously. These are but guys who know what side of bread is buttered.

Then there was Michael Steele, but he proved to be just nutzy and could be shoved aside and left to his “message to da hood” silliness.

Newt reared his head, and started to bellow, and, well again, one can make allowances. The dude wants his own shot at the White house. I mean if Sarah can be held up as an icon of Republican virtue, then truly anybody has a shot.

But then we started to hear again and again from Cheney and Rove.  Rove, the architect of the GOP demise has found a new home at Foxy NO-News where he can attempt to resurrect his defunct reputation for singularly destroying the GOP product in but four short years. He doesn’t seem to be running for anything, and trying to recapture rep creds seems his only motivation.

What of Cheney? Well one could argue he is doing the same, but given his supreme arrogance, this seems unlikely. To a guy who responds with “so what” when asked how do you feel about 75% of the American electorate disagreeing with your policies, his reputation is well, not his concern. After all, he assumes that anyone who questions his reputation is just some minor bit of fluff the duster missed.

So what is he babbling around town about how Obama is such a disaster? Clearly he ignores protocol since it is unseemly for the outgoing administration to criticize the new one. Bush even got that, though Daddy probably had to sit him down in his jammies and splain it to him.

I think the rationale is quite simple. Cheney, in the rarefied world he lives in, quite simply believes that the world cannot go on without his fine hand at the tiller, or wheel, or whatever steering mechanism you care to use. I think he’s so full of self-importance he really, actually, truly, honestly, categorically, believes that he is the savior of America. He’s convinced that somehow he is still pulling strings and behind the scenes directing traffic around the Beltway. Worse, he believes it is essential that he continue to do so.

And if that don’t make you a wee bit skeered, you are mighty mighty brave!

***