An inspiring woman on many levels. I met her once...
It was September of 1979, and I was on my one and only East Coast Grateful Dead tour. In a week's time, I saw shows in Glens Falls, N.Y., Rochester, N.Y., Augusta, ME., and then 3 nights at Madison Square Garden. (Ah, youth!)
My friends and I had just seen the final MSG concert. We had been staying with a deadhead friend in Manhattan. He wanted to drag us California kids to Greenwich Village for our first egg cream. We happily complied, and were soon chattering excitedly at a busy joint in the village. It had been lots of fun for all in the big apple, but we were ready to go home. As we verbalized our homesick thoughts, a woman in the booth next to us turned around and with the most beautiful smile said: "Oooh, I love San Francisco!" We then all conversed about the many things we loved about that city by the bay.
There were introductions at some point... And when she said her name was Maya Angelou, I was electrified-and not just because I had just seen my favorite psychedelic band kick ass at the Garden!
Being a big reader and wannabe poet, I immediately recognized her name. Not so sure whether the deadhead dudes I was with understood my giddiness or the prowess of this woman. I most certainly did! I've never forgotten her warm smile and kindred words. Thanks for inspiring, always, Ms. Angelou.
More than a decade later, I was at home in La Selva Beach with my 7-month old daughter, watching the inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton on t.v. It was a celebratory time. I had worked for his campaign in my precinct, and life felt pretty damned hopeful. As I sat with my nursing daughter, watching Maya Angelou read her now-famous innaugural poem, tears of joy streamed down my face and onto my brand-new child. I will never forget that memory. The poem was published in small paperback form and I promptly purchased one for myself and one for my father, who also loved words and was hopeful about our newly-elected president. I still have mine, of course. Hoping to read the poem aloud to Glen later, when he is home from work. (He was forewarned, HA!)
Maya Angelou shares this date with my father. Today marks two years since he departed, leaving an emotional crevasse I am just beginning to understand. I mourn what was... And even more so, what was not.
I joined Instagram recently, and am enjoying the all-images format. We'll see how it goes. Like Facebook, my children use it, so that is my excuse for opting in.
My friend arrives from Polynesia in a few days. Looking forward to sharing my little world with her. The seasons are changing here. We now get less than 12 hours of daylight, not 13. The mandarin orange tree is producing like mad , and our navel orange and lime trees are as well. Looking forward to another round of Surinam cherries, and still picking tomatoes and green beans.
We are now into the second season of Breaking Bad. Yeah, it is definitely deep and dark at times. I think they do a brilliant job of revealing what speed does to everyone it sinks it's rotten teeth into. Since I watched a dear friend succumb to it's ravages before he even reached 40 years of age, I know only too well. I will stick with ganja, thank you. We do break from the intensity with comedies, cartoons, and even the original Dragnet series. (Which we also consider to be great comedy!) Tonight's comedic feature: This Is The End, a movie that was just released on Netflix, and recommended by my offspring. We love to laugh!
I am disgusted with politics and most of the news. I still read plenty online, but am SO appreciating that we don't have television access to any of it right now. I'd be throwing heavy objects at the screen if we did.
One may gather, based on my recent viewing habits, that a show about the madness of crystal meth is preferable to what passes for news reporting these days. Which would be a correct assumption.
In keeping with the topic of former hippies-turned-right wing-kooks...
Yesterday morning, we drove north about 17 miles to procure propane and groceries.
We always get our propane at the same little place, and are friends with the woman who manages the business. They sell lots of solar power necessities too. There is even a little kiosk onthe property where ONO smoked ahi is sold. The man has lately been selling small bags of this tasty treat at the farmers market. He doesn't make much on it, but it is a great locally made product.
Anyway, the dude that owns this little fish company isn't a friend, but we've seen him at a couple of get togethers and he seems like an alright person. Low key, older, has fished all of his life. I think he may be a former Californian. We picked up more of his fish for the market and chatted with fish man briefly. He almost immediately began ranting about Washington scandals and all of Obama's "Chicago friends." He even brought up Waco. We stifled, but that batshit crazy right wing talk radio message came through loud and clear.
The ride home was one of quiet disgust.
It's truly so sad, watching some of our peers let fear take over their thought process. Echoing the crazies on Fox News. No original thoughts or ideas, tossing out those adorable code words. Truly cringe worthy. We still like the fish.
(Photo of my hand-painted wine goblet, given to me by the youngest child about 13 years ago. The letters on it's base say "Queen Annie, Love Quinn and inside, she painted "Peek-A-Boo" at the bottom of the goblet's bowl.)
This is one of those rare times when the world and life in general have rendered me semi-mute. (Don't laugh!)
No specific reason for it. All is "fine." I'm in an excellent place, physically and mentally. Transform or die, right?
Time is creeping up on the one year anniversary of my father's demise. Grief has taken me on quite a ride these last 12 months. I'm adapting to the emotional sinkhole that exists in his absence. Oh sure, he stepped on my heart many times in the 54 years I knew him. No pedestal required. Still, I miss that keen insight and wicked wit. He was SO smart. About most things. I look forward to having some sort of ritual for my father when a daughter arrives next month. Maybe we will paddle a kayak out into Hilo Bay and toss some of his ashes and lots of fragrant Hawaiian flowers. Or plant a new fruit tree here and scatter them around it. The surprising thing about his death is that I felt like I was prepared for it. He was sick for 4 years. I guess you can't prepare for what you haven't experienced before.
Over the course of the last decade, I've noticed a trend I could not possibly have predicted and yet it now feels eerily inevitable.
The trend involves friends-- or more accurately friends from another time. Folks I saw lots of music with. Mostly one particular band, which strikes me as frighteningly myopic at this point. Good old hindsight. Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't change it and I don't have buyer's remorse. (Well, maybe a little.)
The majority of us former deadheads have parted ways, or communicate very little. I still have a handful of longtime friends that I met that way, and we have seen each other through the decades. One of them arrives for a visit in a few weeks, but she is a rarity. All of them began as friendships based on the unswerving love of that particular music. When the music stopped, I began to find I had little or nothing in common with people I always figured I would know for a long time.
Some who resisted any type of lifestyle change are either dead or invisible now. Then there are those who swung to the right in ways that scare the shit out of me. Especially when one considers where their heads were 30-plus years ago. Or where I assumed their heads were. Every once in a while, one of those folks from the old days pops up somewhere and I am often floored by their tightly-closed minds.
Maybe we got different things from our days of youthful abandon. I don't know, but I have been wondering what the hell happened to almost everyone.
The Iraq War turns ten today. The heaviness of that sentence does not escape me. I never supported it.
Ten years ago, I lived on the Mendocino Coast with the man and my two then school-age daughters. My memories of that phase of our lives are fairly bleak. The man was struggling with some mid-life issues, mostly with his family of origin. He was depressed and I felt helpless to help him. I wondered whether our relationship would survive those harsh days. Thankfully, it did. He went through his own personal hell, and came out of it stronger and much wiser. His issues with his family were worked out, and he enjoyed a renewed relationship with his dad. Which I am so grateful for, since his father died just six years or so later.
We both worked full-time--he at the local brewery, me at the local coffee company. We lived next to the harbor, where we could smell the sea and hear sea lions barking. That region is one of the last bastions of raw, rugged beauty left in California, and we were thrilled to have moved there from the central Sierras about a year and a half earlier. My daughters were 10 and 16, had good friends, and a supportive, loving family.
The man and I were still disgusted that Bush II had slithered into office, and was now beating the drums of war. Because, he told us, we had to keep America safe from more attacks like on 9/11.
Even though Saddam and Iraq were not responsible for that day, nor did they possess the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, which we were led to believe. And which many DID believe, blindly.
The mood at home during that period was increasingly somber,
and we adults felt voiceless and powerless as we continued to express our disagreement with the now inevitable invasion of Iraq. At work, we were both surprisingly outnumbered by those who thought we had no other alternative, and the anti-war protests in our town were matched by very vocal, very redneck-ish groups of war supporters. Even my own father, a lifelong progressive democrat and pacifist, was reluctant to voice any dissent. He just wasn't sure it was wrong. Yet.
But it was wrong, and it is still wrong. Millions of people's lives have been and will continue to be impacted in countless ways, mostly of the horrific variety. We apparently have learned nothing from the Vietnam war... Which my hero, Rachel Maddow
reported on last night. It seems that some L.B.J. audio tapes have surfaced, from the Thursday before the 1968 presidential election. The year that Dick Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey by a narrow margin. President Johnson was very close to a peace treaty with Vietnam. In fact, he even made a speech to the American public that an end to the war was within reach. Days within reach, even. Tricky Dick managed to back burner the democrats plan to end the war, since that would have almost certainly spelled defeat for republicans, if the democrats stopped the war. He said that we should hold off and let him take office first, and then he could stop the Vietnam war in a more practical manner. Nixon won that year, and the war we could have ended went on for five more years. All in the name of political victory.. How many additional lives were lost or otherwise decimated during that five year span?
I'm tired of war, and war profiteering, and increasing numbers of young people coming home destroyed by this illegal war. Even if they were lucky enough to come home alive, and not lose limbs, they are too often seriously damaged... With not enough support here to recover from all manner of PTSD. These soldiers will be our police, firefighters, and school bus drivers in the near future.
Even though they could have unchecked serious emotional and mental health issues. I find that worrisome-and tragic.
So, forgive me for not patting myself on the back today. I never wanted this war or the war in Afghanistan to begin with. I believe strongly in the power of peace, still. And always will.
Blogger Eric Bergeson conveys perfectly the frustration I feel about the stimulus package and the transparently hypocritical republicans... hence the cut and paste that follows! Thanks to Eric for expressing it as he does so well.
Fiscal responsibility You know, I have had it with the sudden panic amongst Republicans that we suddenly should be fiscally restrained and that Obama is going to bankrupt us with the stimulus package, which, although I don't understand macro-economics, is favored by the bulk of economists as the best chance we have to get the economy going again.
Where were these people when George Bush pushed through the prescription drug benefit by lying to Congress about its estimated cost? He said it would cost $400 billion over ten years; the most recent estimate is that it will cost $1.2 trillion over that time span. The Comptroller General called it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation passed since the 1960s."
The whole drug benefit idea was cooked up by Karl Rove. It was pushed through, not because it was prudent or necessary--it was neither--but because it was a neat way of buying the votes of voters over 65. And it worked.
Why was there no uproar then amongst these same people? It is obvious. Welfare for white elderly people is okay, even if it busts the bank. I hear no comment on this from the same people who are whining now about spending on infrastructure.
The war in Iraq has cost upwards of one half trillion dollars. At the beginning, Rumsfeld and Cheney sold the war by saying that it would be quick, we would be welcomed as liberators and that the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil revenues. Those were either absolutely spectacular lies, or misjudgments worthy of a complete loss of reputation.
And what if Bush's plan to privatize Social Security had passed? That cockamamie scheme--one of the most idiotic and transparently corrupt proposals he made--would have enriched the same craven morons on Wall Street who got us into this banking mess. And then? It would have caused tremendous suffering when the market went down 40%.
Did Bush ever use his bully pulpit to criticize the wild excesses and stupid behavior on Wall Street? Of course not. Wall Street helped finance his campaigns. And did he heed warnings three years ago from a very few politicians, including Barack Obama, that subprime lending was a problem? Of course not.
Do we hear about these atrocious failures now from these people? No. They're digging back to the Carter years to blame Jimmy for the mess by saying he's the one who wanted everybody to own a house. Carter had his role, but Bush was asleep at the wheel.
Why is there such panic now among people who said they were conservative in the past eight years, but acceded to an increase of the deficit to one trillion dollars in a time of prosperity? Where were they? What were they thinking?
Turns out, it is all personal with them. George Bush spoke their code. He is a "good man." That's code for "he shares our religious values," which also means that once he's recognized as a member of the club, he can do no wrong and we should support whatever he wants to do, however lunatic it may be.
(Unless he were to have an affair. That would end it, of course. But a sex scandal is what it would take to disillusion the followers of a Dear Leader. Incompetence, lying, corruption...that simply is forgiven as what Big Daddy has to do to take care of business for us poor ignorant followers.)
Meanwhile, Obama's attempts to reach out to the Republicans have been rebuffed completely by a party which isn't interested in spending, however much it might now finally be needed, unless they can take full credit for the spoils.
I am agnostic on the stimulus package. But I hold the new converts to fiscal restraint in contempt. They failed their country in the past eight years by abandoning their principles in several huge, costly ways.
The Democrats failed too, by the way, who 1) ran awful candidates for president and 2) didn't oppose the unwise spending.
Despite my misgivings on the big new spending package, it is good to see a president digging into the detail. He is sincere. And I hope it works as intended. (As does anybody who loves their country.)
Okay. So. He's in, despite the fact that the Chief Justice of the United States flubbed the words to something he should have maybe taken the time to practice. Even once. (Heckuva job, 'Robby.')
How's this, naysayers... what say you allow things to run their course naturally? Is that too much to ask, after what we've endured for the last almost-decade? You certainly gave George plenty of slack.
Millions of Americans and people around the world are genuinely happy that Obama is the President. Would you mind terribly just letting us enjoy it for a few days? You know, since we 'let' your guy fuck up the planet almost to the point of no return and all of that. Thanks.
The man and I saw him live in 2003. Another high point in my life...after the gig we went up to say thanks and shake his hand. He smiled a lovely smile and thanked us. At that time, he was blogging and just starting his Air America radio show, which evolved into television. I was watching that very show when Bush 'won' in 2004, and will never forget how horribly sad Al looked when the outcome was all-too-clear. And now this Comedian/Deadhead/Limbaugh persecutor extraordinaire is almost certainly Senator Al Franken.
With all the evil shit taking place in the world right this very minute, I'm glad there's a teeny bright spot now and then.
I will be writing about the New Year's Eve adventure soon. Spare time is tough to come by lately.
A Most Unique Official Governor's Portrait Of Jerry Brown, by artist Don Bachardy
Way back in 1974, before many relocated themselves to this now-crowded and abused state, California's present Attorney General was elected Governor.His father, Pat Brown governed California for most of the 1960's.
But Jerry Brown was not your average governor. He opposed the Vietnam war, supported migrant laborers, and fought big oil before it was cool. He chose to live in an apartment near the state capitol, and never moved into the governor's mansion. He dated Linda Ronstadt, and appointed poet Gary Snyder to California's art council. Many governmental stuffed shirts found him odd, which he was. Conservatives decided that he was so odd, they labeled him "Governor Moonbeam." Jerry Brown was also the mayor of Oakland, in between being our governor and attorney general. He lost several bids for the presidency. He made some bad decisions and shady deals. In other words, typical politics.
Yesterday, I fell in love with Jerry all over again. He stepped up and stood up to Proposition 8, and seeks to overturn it! It was anticipated that he would go along with the November 4th decision, and instead he blew everyone's minds. Repeat after me: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Thanks, Moonbeam. Brown asks state's high court to overturn Prop 8
Here's my buddy at his workplace on Friday. It makes sense that he works at the Academy of Sciences. Click to see the detail. Much less gory than my daughter's look below, eh? Halloween was jumpin'. We had lots of adorable trick or treaters, now that we are 'townies' again.
I am attempting Nanowrimo for the first time. We'll see how that shakes down. The man and I saw 'Religulous' yesterday. I thought it was really well done, and I got to watch Bill smoke a joint on the big screen. Simple pleasures, I know.
Later, I made mushroom bolognese sauce with fresh oyster mushrooms foraged by a work chum. Mushrooms, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, red wine, fresh thyme, and rosemary. Like that.
One more day! We await vindication, after our involuntary eight year exile.
More shameless promotion~a video clip from the sound check for the Change Rocks concert. Just a tease, but it did this old deadhead a world of good to see the boys together again.If only...
'Some folks look for answers, others look for fights Some folks up in tree tops, just looking for their kites I can tell your future, whoa just look what's in your hand I can't stop for nothing, I'm just playing in the band'
I have been receiving 'Barlow Letters' by email for about ten years now. Barlow was a songwriter for the Grateful Dead for most of the band's existence. He has led an incredible life, and is impossible to pigeon-hole. Today I received the JPEG below attached to his latest screed about last night's debate and John McCain. I proudly share it here, for your perusal. The man gets it said like nobody else.
'We'd Rather Rim Meatloaf. Seriously' (Snap!)
Ten years ago when I was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School, I was on a panel with Senator Ted Kennedy and my tragically late sidekick John Kennedy, Jr. The focus of our discussion was determining when the Internet would likely have the pivotal role in shaping a presidential campaign that television had assumed in the 1960 election of their brother and father. Oddly, for a couple of guys who were deeply suspicious of Cyberspace, they both thought this would happen much sooner than I did, possibly as early as 2000. I said it would be a decade at least. It has now been a decade. And this will now be that election.
Among the many lines of division at contest here - between the 50's and the 60's, between football and frisbee, between a high regard for education and a contempt for it, between weed and whiskey, between Monotheism and Pantheism, between love and fear, between greed and responsibility - is the contest between the highly cybergenic Obama and the apoplectic old race-bating, fraudulently heroic, tail-hook gunning, womanizing, pathologically gambling, unindicted Keating 5 co-conspirator who is literally treasonous enough to possibly entrust the American republic during its darkest hour to a woman who has great legs and cheekbones, combined SAT scores lower than either one of mine, and who, with her "First Dude" were helping lead, until recently, the Alaskan Independence Party, a powerful pro-secession movement. (Imagine Lincoln choosing Jefferson Davis as his first running mate and you get the idea.)
McCain, that disgraceful curdle-brain, that grimacing little tantrum of spoiled Naval nepotism whose greatest military accomplishment (if you don't count crashing three multi-million jets while on joyrides, and contributing to a deck fire that almost sank the Forrestal} was getting in getting shot down and breaking under torture, spent the first part of the debate whining about Obama's low blows and then informed the women and children of America that his opponent had promoted an Illinois law that now legally requires doctors to refuse medical treatment to any child who somehow survives an abortion attempt. Given the abortion methods I'm familiar with, I'm inclined to think such a child would also survive the flame-throwers they'd be using against him toward the end of the movie.
I thought George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had made me ashamed to be a Republican. But McCain and Palin have pretty well completed the job.
However, since God is merciful, McCain probably doesn't know what I'm talking about. He's watching the campaign on television where he's presented with an edit of reality that is far less damning to him and his campaign than the one I've been watching on the Internet. John McCain is blessed indeed to be spared the online version of himself.
On the Internet, he would see the "people's edits" immediately, like the YouTube condensation of all 3143 of his eye-blinks during last night's debate into a thirty second segment, or the highlighting of his reference to Obama's "eloquence" in a fashion that left no doubt that this was his painfully polite euphemism for the vile effluent one can squeeze out of an fast-talking sack of lying shit when he talks about the "health" - a word McCain enclosed in finger quotes - of the baby murdering "mother", who is unable to accept that a child is the natural punishment for her coozing around in fornication, which is pretty much all these black Muslim terrorist baby mamas do, if you know what I mean.
If he watched the much more elaborate coverage of the campaign on the Internet, even McCain would have to be in awe of the fact that Senator Obama has shown almost superhuman dignity, humor (as opposed to sarcasm), and that quality that Hemingway defined as courage, "grace under pressure" even while being carpet-bombed, first by the Clintons and now the McCain/Palin Golem, with six months of sucker punches, lies, trivialities, the guilt of distant or even non-existent associations (often involving black people behaving ungracefully), and now, finally, the direct incitement of murderous intent in crowds spiked with many people who are insane with racial hatred, well-armed, and trained by their government in the accurate use of long-range weapons.
He would have seen the look of enlightened acceptance on Obama's face tonight when McCain fiercely declared his pride in the people who attended his rallies, including, presumably, the ones who shout "kill him" and "off with his head." As he pronounced his appreciation for these unmasked Klansmen, someone like me who doesn't have an abused wife he can use as a computer interface could, with a slight enhancement of certain frequencies, make clearly audible the dry, cold wind that was whistling through McCain's dentures.
At this point, I must pause and ask any other digeratum who zoomed into the Senator's forehead pulse at such moments: Who do you want answering the phone at 3:00 am in the White House: someone with unassailable poise and courage or someone whose rage-readiness and blood pressure make him a fine candidate to pop a valve, thus creating the scenario in which the more blink-resistant President Palin returns the call at 3:45 am?
Who do you want salvaging the economy, someone who believes that if the government is going to recover what Bush's and McCain's cronies looted from the public treasury, the very rich will have to pay some taxes, or someone who believes that we can spend extravagantly on war, greed, weapon systems we don't need, and subsidies for our friends, while taxing only the middle class and the poor?
Finally, if McCain were watch this on the Internet, he would have known better than to make a certain Joe the Plumber the unanimous winner of tonight's debate. Apparently, Senator McCain caught a short network soundbyte of Senator Obama's exchange with Joe Wurzelbacher in Ohio last week. Whatever it was, it allowed McCain to think he could get away with claiming that Senator Obama would deny Joe the fruits of the American Dream, since Joe would have to give his money to Senator Obama who would then "spread the wealth around" presumably to other people of his own shiftless kind. Kind of like Washington Hussein Stalin.
However, if you click on the link I've attached to Joe Wurzelbacker's name above, you will see the full 6 minute discourse between Obama and the supposed target of his communist exploitation, as McCain characterized the hapless Joe.
In fact, what you will see will make you proud to be an American.
You will see a presidential candidate stop and take the time to explain more and in more respectful detail about his tax program to a single plumber from Ohio than McCain has ever explained anything - besides misrepresentations of Obama's resume - to the entire American public during the length of this campaign.
(Thanks to McCain, we know more about Obama's perfidious porkpie of a 3 mil planetarium projector - which McCain still thinks is an overhead slide projector - than we know about McCain's entire economic recovery plan. And certainly more that the payments and favors he took from Charles Keating to keep the regulators off Keating's Arizona S and L which, by some estimates exceeded $3 million and kept them at bay just long enough for the Lincoln Savings and Loan to eat the life savings of many retired investors before requiring the Federal Government to bail it out with $3 billion.)
But I digress. I come to praise Obama, not bury McCain (who is doing a fine job already). Anyway, If you watch the whole "Joe the Plumber" segment, you will see Mr. Wurzelbacker listening skeptically but with equal respect to Obama and providing his own knowledgeable addenda. It is the kind of conversation you can't imagine a president being willing or able to have with a citizen in public. This president will, and in so doing, he will encourage the existence the citizens as worthy of that critical role as Mr. Wurzelbacker appears to be.
Unless, of course, one of those supporters in whom Senator McCain takes such pride leaves one of those rallies just amped enough by their "tough" campaign style, a pint of Jim Beam, a terror of terrorists, and his abusive daddy's fury at all things brown that he'll haul out his "Elk-erator": that .270 Weatherby Magnum which, when he's using his own hand-loaded rounds with the 130 grain bullets and the extended casing length generates a 3200 fps muzzle velocity quite sufficient to drop a trophy bull at 400 yards, or, for that matter, to blow ol' Hussein Obama's nappy smart-ass head right off his skinny-ass Armani-wearin' body.
If that moment comes, hope will really die in America, I think, and hope for America will die in the rest of the world.
But right now hope is alive and well and winning. While fear, hate-mongering, and war-lust look moribund, querulous, profoundly mean-spirited, and almost blind with blinking.
As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in "Democracy in America," a book more timely now that when he wrote it in 1835, "America is great because she is good. If she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." This is the moment when we get to choose which she will be. Watch the whole YouTube exchange between Obama and Joe the Plumber and you will know that we are still good.
Then watch the clip on the Internet from four days ago when a Christian pastor named Arnold Conrad opened a McCain/Palin rally with this little invocation that fails to inspire a thoughtful patriot or a true Christian or anyone like me with a degree in comparative religion, but which was, nonetheless, well-received by the crowd and the principal speakers. Rev. Conrad said, "There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu [not a God], Buddha [also not a God], Allah [Arabic for God] -- that [Obama] wins for a variety of reasons. And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because, if that happens, they're going to think that their God is bigger than you." Then you see how fragile and stupid our goodness has become.
Personally, I pray to God and Allah and Atman and Jaweh and the Great Spirit and the Holy Who Knows and whatever else you want to call That For Which All Names and Assumptions Fall Short that goodness will survive this moment and that, in 30 years, we will look back on the next three weeks and know that, at a dark time, the American people, sick of fear, war, greed, bigotry, torture, wastefulness, and a diseased fixation on the past, rose up and voted for hope and love and the future. They voted for Barack Hussein Obama and Joe the Plumber's true American dream. Which started to become real for the first time.
And nobody got shot except maybe the very, very few who had it coming. Most of who are presently in the mountains of Afghanistan getting in the American heroin crop.
(Feel free to pass this on. I can't claim that it is the voice of my better angels. Fortunately, Senator Obama's seem to him so well in hand that I can be allowed a measure of anger and spite. And I swear to God, McCain has been acting like a man who really needs a little of that whup-ass he was gon' put on that Obama last night.)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
" Now that the Paulson plan is off the table, it's time to start dealing with this like grown-ups. This is a difficult situation. We are a month away from an historic election and the economy is in crisis. And we are going to see some new plans on the table over the next few days that will likely be a big improvement in the substance, but which may very well have to wait until the American people weigh in. Or not.
But if a new plan is to be presented by the Democrats, it means they are going to take ownership of the crisis and they'd better start thinking about passing it with a progressive argument. The Republicans are not going to be on board "
Another one by my wonder-son's talented girlfriend
Another art-enhanced post seemed like the way to go today. Did anyone else see Neil Young play an all-out crazy version of 'A Day in the Life' on Farm Aid yesterday? Holy Toledo!
Just attempting to hold on, and make it to November 4th. My inner foolish optimist says that the result of that election will propel (many of) us into an extended period of public celebration and general shenanigans. I struggle with this sort of naivety from time-to-time. Hey, it beats dwelling on the stark reality of the vastly misinformed voter. That is crazy-making.
'I'm beggin' please darlin' put my mind at rest'...
If you’re a minority and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a “token hire.”
If you’re a conservative and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a “game changer.”
If you live in an Urban area and you get a girl pregnant you’re a “baby daddy.”
If you’re the same in Alaska you’re a “teen father.” (Actually, according to your own MySpace page you’re an F’n redneck that don’t want any kids, but that’s too long a phrase for the evil liberal media to take out of context and flog morning noon and night).
Black teen pregnancies? A “crisis” in black America.
White teen pregnancies? A “blessed event.”
If you grow up in Hawaii you’re “exotic.”
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you’re the quintessential “American story.”
Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you’re “unpatriotic.”
Name your kid Track, you’re “colorful.”
If you’re a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fulling vetting the individual you’re “reckless.”
A Republican who doesn’t fully vet is a “maverick.”
If you say that for the “first time in my adult lifetime I’m really proud of my country” it makes you “unfit” to be First Lady.
If you are a registered member of a fringe political group that advocates secession that makes you “First Dude.”
A DUI from twenty years ago is “old news.”
A speech given without proper citation from twenty years ago is “relevant information.”
And, finally, if you’re a man and you decide to run for office despite your wife’s reoccurrence of cancer you’re a “questionable spouse.”
If you’re a woman and you decide to run for office despite having five kids including a newborn with Downs Syndrome… Well, we don’t know what that is ‘cause THAT’S NOT A FAIR QUESTION TO ASK!
Vol. 2
If you get 18 million people to vote for you in a national presidential primary, you’re a “phoney.”
Get 100,000+ people to vote you governor of the 47th most populous state in the Union, you’re “well loved.”
SoyAA says: If you are biracial and born in a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs darn near 2 years and 3 major speeches to “get to know you.”
If you’re white and from a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs 36 minutes and 38 seconds worth of an acceptance speech to know you’re “one of us.”
If you give your wife a dap on stage, it’s actually a “terrorist fist jab.”
If your daughter licks her palm so that she can slick down your youngest child’s hair on national TV it’s an “adorable moment.” (Seriously, forget about abstinence only, teach these folks some grooming skills).
DTD SAYS: If your pastor rails against inequality in the United States of America, you’re an “extremist.”
If your pastor welcomes a sermon by a member of Jews for Jesus who preaches that the killing of Jews by terrorists is a lesson to Jews that they must convert to Christianity, you’re a “fundamentalist.”
If you’re a black man and you use a scholarship to get into college, then work your way up to being the president of the Harvard Law Review, you’re “uppity.”
If you’re a conservative and your parents pay your way to Hawaii Pacific University . . . you only have four more schools to attend over the next five years before you somehow manage to graduate (it might be five more school over the next five years. No one has yet verified whether or not Palin was actually ever registered at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. But, you know how shady people are who ever attended any kind of school in Hawaii).
SeanOcali says: If you’re 18, white, and get a 16 year old girl pregnant “life happens.”
If you’re 18, black, and impregnate a 16 year old girl, you’re a “registered sex offender.”
If you spend 18 months building a campaign around the theme of “Change,” it’s just “empty rhetoric.”
If one week before your party’s national convention you SUDDENLY make your candidacy about “Change,” that’s “red meat.”
And your last lesson for the day:
If you are a Democrat, an Independent, or even a moderate Republican, if you’re female, male, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, bi-racial, multi-ethnic, or GLBT, if you’re a Jew, Gentile, Muslim, agnostic or atheist - “Yes, we can!”
If you’re a pitbull with lipstick from Alaska, “Yup, yup!”
So relieved that's over. Train wreckage gets old quick. Like many of my peers around here, I am feeling surrounded by such feeble-minded fools. How can they buy any of this? The fucking nerve of this woman! All the brilliant women out there, and she is propped up as the brightest star? I have seriously underestimated how screwed this country is. Unless we keep pushing onward with all we have in us. Fight back! I will, even though I am not sure how I will last through another two months of listening to her-or any of her counterparts. She makes my skin crawl, and I find her insulting on many levels.
*HERE is a story about Heart demanding that the RNC stop using their song, which they did without the band's permission. Shocking!
So... just viewing some of the republican convention. Wow. The crowd (and I use that term loosely) is not exactly diverse. If they are there to represent, yikes! It's a train wreck and I'm a-gawking. The contrast to last week's convention is palpable.
There aren't many wide shots, since there are a lot of empty seats. Like the whole upper section! Our first lady stayed true to her catatonic roots. Fred Thompson said 'my friends' almost as often as his candidate does. Sweet.
The Ronald Reagan promo piece reminded us all of those grand times, when he was president. (With "mommy's" help) I couldn't even watch LIEberman. And it's only Tuesday!
