I’m Going As Fast as I Can!

Tags

Iraq war, life in the foothills, women's rights

Really I am. Actually, I’m traveling at lightening speed.

For example:

Yesterday I got up, cleaned house until 6:50 a.m., walked Diego two miles, finished cleaning the house, went to the grocery store, returned home, put away groceries, searched through all the papers in the file cabinet, finding 90% of what was necessary for the accountant tomorrow and the taxes, drove the Contrarian to the Eyemart with his new prescription, picked out frames, and stopped for *gasp* fast food for lunch, and arrived home, all before 1 p.m. At 3:00 p.m, I returned to Eyemart and picked up his glasses. The(Two more weeks and I can have chocolate again!)

Today, I cleaned house until 6:50 a.m, (finished by the way!), walked Diego two miles, and returned to make the basic parts of a Shepherd’s Boy casserole, which is now waiting to go in the oven. And *gasp* it’s only 9 a.m. and I have 50 minutes of leisure before we head off to get the taxes done.

Tomorrow, I get to go to the pool, and get my hair cut. We are determined to get all our “stuff” done this month. We have to hit the Veterans Affairs office to turn in our property tax exemptions yet, and something else that needs filling out, which I no longer remember.

I keep waiting for that blessed week when there are no “things” to attend to. I never used to be this busy. I really never used to be. The more retired I get, the busier I get. I know there is something important I should be ingesting from that realization, but I’m either not aware of what it is, or I’m scared to discover what it is.

I once upon a time said that virtually everything I dreamed about moving down here came true, but for a couple. The Catholic churches basically suck here (which I never would have imagined), and there is no pool within two blocks of where I live. Well guess what? One just got a good deal closer.

It turns out that one of the parks and rec outdoor pools is only about four miles from me. A darn sight closer than the approximately thirteen mile one that I go to now. It doesn’t open until Memorial day, but I have been told that almost nobody goes there, so I can enjoy myself in solitary bliss probably. Why they wait so long I have no clue–it’s in the mid-seventies every day now, and often in the low to mid-80’s.  Go figure.

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It’s been ten years since the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. Where are all the celebrations? Were we not greeted as “liberators”?  Yeah, I guess not. It’s really hard to make an argument that awful as he was, the Iraqi people are not really any better off than they were before we “saved” them. I suspect they are much worse. And nobody worth a damn went to jail for that crime.

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The GOP screams like a stuck pig that they have “no war on women”. Well, yeah they do. But it’s only a huge segment of a much bigger picture in which a lot more people (mostly men, but not all) are implicated. Cases in point.

• Remember the dude at the CPAC who wanted to know why Frederick Douglass sent a letter forgiving his slave master? After all, the North Carolinian “white demographic” pointed out, he got “food and shelter” after all. He pointed out it would be a damn sight better if we still had segregation, and that Black folk could do all the voting they wanted in Africa. Well it turns out that as that meeting broke up, a woman approached and proceeded to give him a thing or two about his overt racism. Said White Male, retorted, as I am told, “so is this the new rebranded version of the GOP where women confront and tell off men in public?” or words to that effect.
• You all no doubt heard or read about the Steubenville case where at least two young men of high school age took advantage of an inebriated fellow teen girl, and raped her. The coverage has been, to say the least, extremely sexist in its presentation. The reporters and their networks cannot get over how sad it’s been for the boys, who had “promising football careers” and were so altogether nice in every way. They never missed a chance to remind us that the girl was so drunk she passed out. Oh and they ALL “inadvertently” dropped her name in their video reports even though she is a minor.

Forgive me if I still bluster about the need of women to continue the fight for full and complete rights in this still patriarchal world we live in. We put on the trappings of equality, and people do the “politically correct thing” and underneath it all, well, men will be men and boys will be boys, and women? Well women just keep taking it.

Read the link. It’s an important commentary on how we still operate in this country.

And well, it’s time to be off to the tax accountant. Sigh…you know I just love this!

Related articles

• Tar Heel Teabilly at CPAC: Frederick Douglass Should Have Thanked His Former Slave Master for Giving Him Food and Shelter (pensitoreview.com)
• CPAC 2013: The racism at CPAC (dailykos.com)
• CPAC ‘trump the race card’ event goes wrong (thegrio.com)
• A Low, Dishonest Decade: New Details for the Iraq War Crime Mosaic (willyloman.wordpress.com)
• 10 Years After Iraq Invasion: Continued Myths, Hundreds of Thousands Killed (intellihub.com)

I Kid You NOT!

Tags

Bush, Defense department, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq war, Secretary of Defense

You categorically cannot make this stuff up. I mean it! Just when we thought it was safe to stick our toe in the water again, we are brought back to the insane world of Bush and Co.

No doubt you have heard. It seems Donald Rumsfeld, better known to the liberal blogging community as “Rummy” has surpassed even my expectations of how crazed one administration can be. We learn that Rummy, when sending reports to the White House about the goings on of all things defensive, regularly did them up in folder form with pictures of war, each compete with an appropriate???? verse from the bible to accompany it.

Yes, friends, you heard that right. I guess in some sense it makes some sense, if you get my drift. I mean the Texas boy wonder is not fond of readin’ and writin’ and cipherin’ so, pictures are helpful in conveying a message. We hear, and you know it probably is true, it’s that screwy, that Rummy did this because he assumed said fruit off the old tree, Bushie, wouldn’t read his fine assessments. What better way to get the stamp of imprimatur than to just submit it shorthand with pics and bible verses? No need to worry the boy with actual facts and figures.

It has been reported that on occasion, the “decider” was heard to exclaim, “dang Laura, there are pictures, but nothin’ to color! I got all my crayons in my desk and I can’t wait to use the Prussian blue.”

As this no doubt places the Rummy number one in the top one of the  country’s worst ever Defense Secretaries, a sigh of relief has been heard from the lips of  Bob McNamara, who had held the honor up until now, and Reboobs, the country over are again looking for rocks to hide under. The guffawing can be heard even from here in the meadow, though it is tinged at times with sobs of despair.

This fun has interrupted the general gigglery going on as Dick “The Dick” Cheney, pontificates as a know-it-all about defense of country, assuring all within earshot that torture is good, much like Gecko said greed was. Even his girl, Liz, can be heard making the circuit of every friendly haven, claiming (Dad do you love me now?) that Obama is a terrorist since he is undoing the Daddy Darth’s  machinations.

All this has led the regulars like Rush and Sean and Glenn and Newt to fall into the shadows a bit, as the REAL players make bigger fools of themselves than they ever could. For us right wing pundit watchers, it’s been a sad day indeed. No more Billy Kristol to kick around, even Sarah looks sane in comparison. But not Michelle Bachmann, or Inhofe, or King. They are still in a wingnuttery class of their own.

Which all leads me to wonder, just how stupid are we? I mean this is devolving into a circus of “they’re coming to take me away, haha,” dimensions that frankly is getting scary. It’s one thing to say we made a mistake in 2000, and well, some how we stayed confused in 2004. We seemed to regain our sanity in 2008, but I’m beginning to wonder? Was that just dumb luck?

It looks now, that there won’t be a herd of ex-Bushites going to prison. They are more correctly heading for mental institutions. And we should all be tested as well, cuz we sure missed the signs. These folks are loonie tunes, big time. No wonder the world has been holding its collective breath since about 2003. How many times can I say this? This people are bat shit crazy.

You know how people say, “nothing would surprise me now”? Well, nothing would, and I mean that. If they catch Condi dressed up as a Dominatrix I’ll not blink an eye, but continue on and throw another can of peas in the cart.

See, we watched the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” the other night. There is a logical illogic to that, if you know what I mean. I mean the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is after all 42. That makes sense, and in that sense, this does too. A bunch of anomalies of space and time and dimension have obviously converged, and well, Bush is the ultimate 42. You see see that now, we all can.

I’m glad they got the Hubble fixed. E-T buddy, you are home. It’s me that needs the scope pointed toward Earth so I can find my way back. I’m obviously at the Restaurant at the end of the universe. And, you know it’s time to leave when you start to understand it. So, all aboard, we’re taking off soon. Bring a lunch, I hear they only serve nuts and a soft drink for the flight.