TakeYourMedicine

Letters I Ought to Finish Someday

2012-01-31T10:16:00.006-05:00

Dear Rick Santorum,

Is it by chance or design that your chosen name is one p shy of a prick? Your equation of homosexuality and bestiality were especially obnoxious, and if you go on long enough, your constituents are going to imagine nuns doing more outrageous things than ruler-rapping your knuckles…

Dear President Obama,

Although my disappointments in you are many, I am trying to take responsibility for my own expectations and the naiveté with which I listened to you during the campaign. What about alpha males and political manipulation did I not understand?

I have been most bitterly concerned, however, with your positively Dickensian slashing of the heating oil program for the poor. In this abandonment of Democratic principles your advisers do not serve you well. ..

Dear Postal Service,

For God’s sake, stop apologizing for being a quasi-governmental enterprise. You’re a Constitutional provision, for crying out loud. Stop genuflecting to free market ideology and do what you have to do.

And by the way, the next time you send out some management type to break the bad news, please observe the following cautions:

Only mediocre managers entirely lacking in vision use the expression go forward in reference to implementing really bad decisions.

Lose the video. A media presentation on the loss of jobs only enrages the audience, unless you’re playing to a packed house of Republicans. Employees concerned about their futures see it as just another expense.

Further reducing the standard of service is not the way to turn around a situation of massive loss.

There is no reason that the post office should be forced to make a profit.

What’s the relationship between Darrell Issa and FedEx, and what’s he doing in what is an obvious conflict of interest situation? He should go forward—right off the committee overseeing the problems of the postal service. Have you considered Bernie Sanders as an abler replacement for that bastard?

Dear Newt,

For a so-called brilliant man, you seem to rely on the ignorance of the voters. The ignorant, the uninformed—they are your base.

I like your moon stuff. Perhaps your base could be used as the ultimate fat farm. Perhaps you could be the first colonist. I don’t think that Callista would miss you much. Clearly she’s in it for the bling. Be sure to leave your charge cards behind.

Got to run. There's never enough time, is there?

With disdain,
Lulu

It's Almost Over, Iowa...

2012-01-02T20:01:00.010-05:00

The circus is about to leave town, Iowa... will you miss all the clowns?

They have, at least, eaten a lot, titillating, if not stimulating, the local economy and pretending to be very, very concerned with the well-being of the heartland. Nothing says Regular Guy (or Gal) like gagging down a corn dog.

I miss Herman Cain. I'll bet he'd have emerged with the Pizza Ranch Chicken's endorsement. Nobody can talk pizza like Herman Cain.

From Iowa I guess it's on to our next-door neighbor New Hampshire. Eek. It was one thing to be inundated by Democratic hopefuls last time around, and it is something else to have the circus come to town in the misery of winter. The big top is cold.

I wonder if Lamar Alexander has had a garage sale for getting rid of his flannel shirts. Will we see them on Mitt? Newt could buy a couple and have them made into the Buffet King size.

We don't have TV at our house, so we'll miss all those swell commercials. We listen only to public radio, so that takes care of those airwaves. That leaves the newspapers, and our local rag has endorsed poor Jon Huntsman, who lags behind, probably because he wasn't caught in flagrante delicto with any corn dogs.

But I digress. It's nearly over, O Hawkeye State. Did the candidates scold you about gay marriage? Did they burn any books in Ames? Are you wheezing from the diesel of all those campaign buses?

May you rest in comparative peace.

Love and Prayers to Etta James

2011-12-22T19:43:00.005-05:00

The first rip-it-up record I ever bought as a kid was by Etta James. It was "Something's Got a Hold on Me," and it still makes me move, through not only 45 rpm, but a CD of her essential music, these 50 years later.

Now, as we all dash through the tasks that consume our days, through the background of my discontent I know that this great lady is about to pass. And I'm furious that I can't slow down more and give this lady the sustained respect she deserves.

Etta's doctor says all we can do for Etta now is pray. It's a long way down through dementia and leukemia and kidney failure and any other kindling they can heap on the bonfire of her passing. Soon we will have her no more.

Words usually come so easily to me, but Miss Etta, I am dumb when it comes to paying you tribute. So I put on "Let's Roll" again.

With love,
Lulu

Obama Administration Mulls Perry Ambassadorship to Republic of Solyndra

2011-12-13T17:19:00.006-05:00

In a conciliatory gesture across the aisle, advisers to President Obama are considering an appointment of one of the Republican candidates to the embassy in Solyndra.

Rick Perry, who called attention to the administration's unfortunate loan to the Lone Republic in a recent debate, has been contacted by representatives of the administration, who say that Perry's expertise on the small republic could prove invaluable.

Queen for a Day

2011-12-08T20:43:00.003-05:00

While it's painfully apparent that Gov. Rick Perry lacks the preparation for the Presidency of the United States, he needn't feel that there's no future glory in store for him after his Texas term expires.

The Queen for a Day post is still a possibility, even if the show hasn't aired for more than 40 years.

Rick would be a great contestant, and his very shortcomings could prove to be assets in getting him crowned.

For those of you who missed it, Queen for a Day featured women who came to the show with a request and a story. Three contestants vied for their particular prize but were also given lots of other swell stuff, mostly of interest to housewives--Amana freezers, Hotpoint washers and dryers, that sort of thing.

What made a Queen for a Day rather than a mere runner-up for a day was pathos. Sobbing into a wad of Kleenex while heaping up one instance of misery after another really jacked up the Applause-O-Meter when emcee Jack Bailey held his halo-hand over the head of each contestant.

Rick Perry hasn't suffered a great deal, but perhaps he could use all the pleas for clemency that he rejected as he sent prisoner after prisoner to death row.

Or he could go for another sort of Queen-hood: those persistent rumors as to his gaited-ness, as it were. Go ahead: Google Rick Perry and see what immediate associations are tacked on to his name. Go on!

These alpha males! They have to stop thinking that the presidency is their due, especially when all sorts of other honors languish for lack of interest.

Why OWS Needs to Move Indoors

2011-11-19T17:09:00.005-05:00

Soooo... since I don't write much anymore, it isn't reasonable to expect any visits from readers, save the odd accidental drop-by that comes from fiddling with the Next Blog arrow.

Still, I wonder. Isn't it time for the Occupy Wall Street people to come indoors, away from the billy clubs and pepper sprays, the better to organize?

You can only talk about the One Per Cent for so long without needing to get very, very specific about what needs to happen.

The world has kissed the ass (and more--see below) of free market economics for long enough. The free market has had virtues projected onto it that people used to assign the Deity. No need to worry about extremes, since the market is self-correcting, right? Somehow it will know just when to swing in the other direction... right?

You bet.

We live in such an interesting time. Corporations post record profits while people vie for the few jobs left here. I don't see much happening with stocks, especially mine, so I can only assume that the big-ass bonuses delivered to CEOs and their cheesy minions have gobbled up what investors might have hoped to recoup.

At the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement, journalists played dumb, as if they couldn't divine just what it was that protestors wanted. I guess it didn't occur to them that people who were available to staff encampments day after day were doing so because there weren't jobs to go to.

Even offshore jobs have been moved to new, cheaper offshore locations, lest a middle class expand in one of the developing countries. The target, having been hit once or twice, has started to swing back and forth again, and we learn that even former Democratic ethics junkie Nancy Pelosi (along with John Kerry) has had access to insider IPOs and such.

I guess I'm supposed to be happy for her, and him, and them.

I'm not.

There are no good deals for the little people. There are only lottery tickets and a hundred-million-to-one odds.

D Students Form Palin PAC

2011-06-08T13:37:00.003-04:00

The parking lot at the Wasilla Tastee Freez was abuzz yesterday as a group of Sarah Palin’s former neighbors met to form a new Political Action Committee to advance her campaign for the presidency.

After several Tastee burgers and an untold number of vanilla shakes, the group named itself D Students for Palin and launched plans to propel her all the way to the Whyt (sic) House.

Some members of the group first proposed the name Slackers for Palin, citing the confidentiality of report cards as “what this countries' (sic) all about,” but they were shouted down by others who proudly claimed their lackluster grades.

“Under tremendous pressure from are parents and peers we resisted the attempts of the liberal members of the NEA and AFT to lie to us on the proud traditions of God’s chosen nation. We stood up to the lefties who said bad things about us and the Indians, we have rejected Satan’s attempts to undermine God’s Holy Word in science class, and now we embrace the courage in our personal histories,” declared Danetta Dweeb, spokesperson for the group.

“Sarah knows more about Paul Revere than my AP history teacher,” asserted Don Hamble, who said that he’d crossed over from the Tea Party to get D Students off to a good start. “Well, it wasn’t my AP history teacher, but she taught AP to the stuck-up kids in my school. Anyway, I never went to whatever I was enrolled in. I’ve learned more history from Sarah Palin than I ever learned in school. If we'd have went to school together, I'll bet she'd let me copy her test. I bet she stood up to the stuck-ups in her own school. She's just that kind of nice person."

Among the first demonstrations planned by D Students for Palin is a burning of "incorrect" U.S. history books and a re-enactment of Paul Revere's famous ride, "just like he really did it."

It's Not that I Miss Him...but

2011-05-04T20:05:00.005-04:00

... but what about this execution-style killing?

I ran into a friend at the library today who asked me, "Why would anyone tell the truth about anything anymore?"

I ventured a guess. "Um... because it feels better and you don't have to remember what you said?"

First Osama went down shooting. Then he used a woman (his wife?) as a shield.

Then he wasn't armed, after all. And who knows about the woman, who turned out most likely to be the wife of the trusted courier. Dead. Not dead. Shot in the leg.

And a mansion? Please. It looked like a Motel 6 going to waste in the elements.

USA! USA! Don't ask me to join a celebration. It's one more sordid detail of an already dirty, sweaty tale. And who knows where the truth really lies.

I don't know what the so-called rules of war are. Osama B. lived by the sword and therefore died by it, just a fact of there being a direct correlation between how you mostly spend your life and the means of your death. Law of averages.

But an execution, gang-land style, assigned respectability by ordering in Navy SEALS?

Now what I joked about in my last post has taken on a life of its own, not because I predicted it, but because the world is that nuts.

This gets weirder by the week.

Don't you just want everybody to shut the fuck up?

Birthers Launch Deathers Unit, Say Bin Laden is Alive

2011-05-02T07:45:00.010-04:00

Exhibiting the resilience that has made her a party favorite, Republican representative Michelle Bachmann challenged President Obama's report that Al Queda mastermind Osama Bin Laden had been killed by Navy SEALS in Pakistan.

"Burial at sea!" she huffed, when asked for a statement on the death of America's most wanted terrorist. "Show me the body, and then I'll believe. This is nothing more than an attempt by the president to boost his sagging approval ratings."

Bachmann appeared at a Birther conference in Detroit, to bolster the spirits of her admirers there and to assure them that Obama's recently released birth certificate was 'a forgery of epic proportions, and an affront to the truth-loving living God.'

Her audience responded with enthusiasm, chanting, "Show me the body! Show me the body!"

Bachmann further boosted birther morale when she offered an explanation of what happened to Bin Laden during the reputed raid: "They got him out and took him to a compound in Obama's birthplace in Kenya, where he is now living in luxury."

The crowd went wild.

Fox News, torn between Bachmann's new spin and Sarah Palin's attempt to claim that her son Tripp had been the leader of the patron that killed Bin Laden, reported both stories without further comment.

There's always the Peace Dividend...

2011-04-13T20:58:00.005-04:00

Let's see if I understand this right.

1. They give us a tax cut in the form of less withholding taken from the pay check.
2. We're supposed to go out and Buy Stuff.
3. Buying Stuff, the official job of every patriotic American, will kick up the economy.
4. Jobs, jobs, jobs! Look at all those jobs!
5. What jobs? I don't see any jobs.
5.a. That's because you are too stuck up to make french fries.
5.b. Now get out there and fill out that application.
5.c. You're about to ship out to Hamburger U!
6. Shouldn't I use that money to pay off my bills?
7. You heard me: shop. Here's some stuff for your cart.
8. Whoops, it's time to get those taxes done. You know all the money we didn't take out of your check? We want it back. Now.
7. What about my tax cut? What about my stuff?
8. You're such a sap. No wonder you aren't a billionaire.
9. Now shut up and have some toast.
10. It is God's will that you have some toast, but not too much.
11. At least it isn't Communism!

Can't We Slow It All Down?

2011-03-15T21:52:00.007-04:00

Can't crises take turns, like the rest of us? Learn to wait in line?

I'm dizzy with the Breaking News all the time.

No wonder our blogs are slipping to the meaningless and trivial. Overwhelmed by your impotence regarding the plight of the Japanese? Charlie Sheen is a natural distraction, a tsunami implanted in a TV star.

Horrified by what's starting to look like a major slaughter of Libyans by Omar Q., there's always a hot photo of Kim Kardashian in a bikini to ease the pain.

It will ease the pain, won't it?

If all bargaining rights are taken from private- and public- sector employees, can we still get a nice pin-ups of our favorite stars to take the place of our Social Security checks?

In the meantime, Baby Doc has probably dipped into Haiti's relief funds while everybody's distracted.

Leave me alone. It's time for my favorite shows.

Just What Haiti Needs

2011-01-18T16:11:00.007-05:00

First the earthquake, then flooding and cholera, and now the return of Baby Doc.

How much must Haitians endure?

The papers report the 'mysterious' return of the once-chubby offspring of Papa Doc Duvalier. Tain't mysterious at all.

Recently I read that much of the financial aid donated to Haiti after its catastrophes has yet to be spent. Little of the reconstruction has been completed. The medical crisis created by the cholera outbreak has put lots of projects on the back burner. There are lives to be saved.

A great time for the return of Baby Doc.

You may remember him in his previous incarnation, the chubby one who fled his homeland 25 years ago with a sizable portion of Haitian assets in his overstuffed little pockets. The image above shows us that he's slimmed (slimed?) down, perhaps having run through the generous allowance to which he helped himself all those years before.

An unspent fortune? A miserable and impoverished people distracted by an epidemic?

Baby Doc is here to help, more with the first than the second. But hey, 50 per cent ain't bad.

Some Haitians want him jailed and prosecuted for him crimes against humanity. Others are crowding together and waving enthusiastically... just in case you thought that Americans were the only people with a historical memory the size of a gnat's.

It's only appropriate that they'd push against fences that look a lot like a jail cell. Let this predator back in, elevate him to power, and watch the rebuilding and filling of Haitian prisons.

Gawd. Bust 'im quick!

A Walk on the Wacked Side

2011-01-11T19:32:00.007-05:00

When I read a column by David Brooks in the NY Times that Jared Loughner's videos were easily available on youtube, I headed over to see what he'd done. Pathological Power Point, a loaded-with-symbolism Flag burning, to peruse a couple.

This Power Point flick is supposed to be a series of syllogisms for a class he took in logic.

It's strange to step into the void of youtube. On my way to Jared's "My Final Thoughts," I happened across a film by a guy who calls himself humans4targets2 and who reviews guns in his videos. I felt as though I'd stumbled into a really scary neighborhood. Nearby was somebody putting a cat into a vise, either a demonstration against animal abuse or a direct example of it. I couldn't tell, since I couldn't bear to watch it, free speech or no damn free speech.

Jared's films themselves draw responses, some of which are only slightly less crazy than the videos' contents. Some respondents try [unsuccessfully] to make sense out of his assertions, while others just dive into the water and try to speak the language.

I'm bemused by the clinicians' analyses of the attacks as 'non-political.' It may be that Jared was obsessed with his 'new language' and 'new currencies' topics and was frustrated by Gabrielle Giffords' response to his propositions. Reviving the gold standard is a sort of political issue. If the word 'political' can be traced through its etymology to a definition involving the exercise of power, and Loughner trips out on control, then there may be at least echoes of the political in his ramblings.

Jared Loughner aside, it's worth noting that a gun manufacturer has decided to honor loony pol Joe Wilson with his own gun component. Named "You Lie!" the line of assault rifles includes his fabled outburst etched on its components.

Talk about hunting down a market niche. That's Yankee ingenuity for you.

Whether Jared was an actual political animal lapping up every creamy drip of Mama Bear metaphor or simply a lost soul deep in a schizophrenic whirlpool, my little walking tour tells me that there are actually business opportunities created by our current national insanity. Candidates for president of the Republican National Committee were asked how many guns they owned, right after Michael Steele recited the opening line from A Tale of Two Cities, which illustrated why he found War and Peace so relevant today(?). Steele didn't own any guns, but a lady at the end of the candidate table (the far right, actually) said that she owned 16--an interview coup, to be sure.

Are these the mad ramblings of an Empire in decline?

Bloody likely.

Play It Like You Really Mean It

2011-01-06T18:22:00.002-05:00

While surfing about for guitar tutorials, I came across this media sensation. Enjoy!

This Year's Fun Couple

2011-01-05T09:22:00.008-05:00

Try to show a little compassion, for God's sake.

While it is true that John Boehner tends to be teary, he is plumb exhausted by his pursuit of the American Dream, for himself and everybody else: lobbyists, billionaires, fetuses.

The man could use a little fun outside the tanning booth.

Perfect match: Snooki.

Snooki values a good tan as much as John. She knows how to party. She doesn't lug around a lot of baggage, and she lives in the moment.

Boehner's only in-the-moment experiences are his policies, which would bloat the deficit and fry the planet.

Clearly, he needs some distractions.

The Jersey Shore isn't far from DC. Snooki could hop a train down, and Boehner could slip away just as easily. I could see him learning to twist the night away in her care.

Let's hope we see a shot like this in the Enquirer soon.

Just in Time for the New Year

2010-12-31T07:31:00.002-05:00

Skip the beauty parlor. Never mind the freshly pressed pinafore. We know what it's all about.

Order yours now!

Mulling a Christmas Whine, Singing Instead

2010-12-25T11:58:00.017-05:00

I bought the book pictured here for a four-year-old in my life. It's a great book, and I knew that his mama would enjoy it as much as he would. When you are very small, the gifts come in bright paper and are parked under a glittering tree. You must feel that you are being loved as much as your rival, your sibling, with the materialistic attesting to that. Whew!

There isn't a lot of holiday drama at our house. This year we have resisted the regular Christmas preparations, save the few gifts to our faraway near and dear. We don't have a tree; our aging dog now has two beds in the living room to accommodate the fluctuations in her bodily aches and pains. There simply isn't room for anything else, unless we block access to the bird feeder. In Vermont it gets cold, and I'm of the mind that we're all in this together, so no blocking the way to replenishing the bird feeder. It's always well stocked.

I am about to go upstairs and finish the shirt I've made for Spousie. We haven't done much about gifts this year, and it's fine. We did splurge on a Jesus toaster for our best friends here, two theologians, who can appreciate the gifts of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Toast. We dined with them last night, then went off to the church I joined this year for a carol-filled service. Lovely! They are the friends I have longed for here--it took over a decade to find friends we could cherish as we do these.

This afternoon Spousie and I will initiate ourselves into a tradition clearly Mexican: we will learn to make tamales. We love to cook together and haven't done enough of it lately, so this initiative makes great sense.

In church last night I found myself contemplating the Christmas story with my usual skepticism. I could visualize Mary, approached by an angel about the sacred honor bestowed upon her saying, "Yeah, right" when told how she would conceive without 'knowing' a man. I could wonder how all the fuss made by the heavenly hosts the night of the dear savior's birth could be followed by... well, nothing more than a little adolescent rebellion... for about 30 years before the story would pick up and intensify again.

It didn't matter, really. What has always mattered to me are the teachings of Jesus and little, if any, of the folderol surrounding him and embraced and distorted by Republicans and other sanctified scoundrels. What has mattered to me is the pulsing of those teachings into our slow-growing consciousnesses, something called hope that defies the despair of any given moment, something that persists, irrationally, bringing us to a better version of ourselves than the one before. Reinhold Niebuhr, Jimmy Carter's favorite theologian, puts it this way:

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”

So from our tree-less home, I offer you the gratitude I have come to know, extend the blessings bestowed on me to you.

Merry Christmas from Vermont.

Taking the Holy Out of War

2010-12-14T17:09:00.006-05:00

Uh, guys... got a minute?

I don't mean to bust up a good demonstration. I'm in the mood for one myself. Still, there seems to be a misunderstanding here, and I'd feel negligent if I didn't offer a national confession, infidel though I may be.

While Americans may not really 'get' Islam, your faith isn't the problem. Oh, your current behavior is pretty unnerving when you decide to blow yourself up among the clueless. It isn't a great strategy for getting your message out. It only makes you seem weirder. But as I said, your actual faith isn't the problem.

You see, Americans simply want your stuff. And in this case, your stuff is your natural resources.

It isn't personal, either. Americans want your stuff, no matter what your race, religion, and creed. We want to exploit the tropics, plunder the minerals, make off with the lucre, regardless of its description and location. We want to stake our fortunes on ripping you off by taking your stuff at the absolute bottom dollar.

Here I am describing the Ultimate Americans--the ones with the most money. They're running around buying up all the cocoa beans in order to drive up the price of chocolate. They're making sure that the gas prices are rising again (damn that cartel! they sigh, casting their eyes heavenward). They're racing into other countries and convincing them to buy up our crappier, more obsolete arms and driving them into debt.

It's wrong, wrong, wrong, but it really isn't about Islam. Insulting your faith is a cynical ploy to provide photo-ops like the one above, the better to conceal what the conflict is really about--money.

My dear fellow children of God/Allah/the Light, please understand that you are being manipulated. Nothing creeps out the people who are paying attention like Behead those who insult Islam. The problem is, I'm just not sure who's paying attention. Certainly not your real oppressors. And you do have real oppressors. You've just done a lousy job of identifying them.

Don't blow yourself up among the clueless shoppers who crowd the mall or surround whatever holiday tree. They're lost lambs who are as manipulated as you are. They're being led down the lane of lies by a bunch of jerks from Fox News who would love to wage generations of war, paid for by the sacrifices of you and yours and our good-hearted but less affluent kids who think they're protecting Freedom.

Freedom!

Like you, they're showing up because some spokesman has convinced them it's important. But big boys in the economic stratospheres has deemed you both disposable, simply moving parts in the machines of their making.

So calm down about the insults to Islam. Looking at belief traditions from the outside is a little bit like taking lovemaking out of context. You can't help but think that the strange, the foreign is weird. But we're all pawns in somebody else's game, and unless I'm mistaken, we'd all be better off fighting our real enemies. They're too rich and isolated from the rest of us to do any more than send their personal shoppers to malls. Tune into one of their mouthpieces and listen to their disdain for the 9/11 families or even the vets, who are returning with traumas that we can't dream of in our worst nightmares. Don't expect anything better for yourselves.

It isn't about Islam. It's not even about Israel. It's about the Big Boys and their lust for your Stuff.

He's Our Guy

2010-12-11T09:40:00.005-05:00

Don't believe the New York Times on this one.

Bernie didn't 'rail' about the Bush tax cuts for hours. He did attempt to re-educate the American public on the cynical sub-text of the Republicans' latest strategy to deprive Obama of a backbone, and he did use the filibuster for this purpose.

He pointed out that the so-called 'compromise' that Obama had come to wasn't a compromise at all. There were no starting principles that Obama compromised on. That the so-called payroll tax 'relief' was a way of turning off the tap into Social Security, a system still solvent in spite of Republican attempts to feed it into what is surely a private enterprise system run by unrepentant Wall Street fat cats, the better to balloon future bonuses in the name of that false god, the free market. And so much more. He started at 10:30 in the morning and was still at it when we finally turned to other things at dinnertime.

These are my name-calling summations, not Bernie's. He didn't resort to the sort of name-calling I employ here. He was every bit the statesman we need him to be. He simply poured his heart and soul into excellent rational discourse and served it up for the education of a distracted and misled American public.

Bernie was first our Congressman, our 'lone' Representative, as it's usually put, since Vermont has only one. I-Vermont, as it says on whatever TV screen, since he is a Social Democrat, an up-front Socialist, seated on the bland Democratic side of the aisle.

Now he's a lone Senator, standing up for working families and other disenfranchised Americans all across the country, not because Vermont doesn't have two.

Nobody showed up to help him.

Born-Again Biebers

2010-11-23T20:39:00.023-05:00

I can see that Kim Jong-Il has been feeling his oats this week as he launches attacks on a little old South Korean island and shows off his new uranium enrichment facilities and missile silos, must-haves for every tyrant with a small penis.

OK, Dear Leader, I say, but for God's sake, do something about your Look.

Shedding the old N. Korean jumpsuit was a good first step, as you can see here, but then there was the matter of the Do.

No problem, D.L., I say. Justin Bieber has just emerged from the American Music Awards with four nice trophies. Go with a winner! I'm sure he'll see imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. Nobody is more generous, more expansive, than a teenager who's just won a passel of awards. So here's Dear Leader, still as pristine as God or Kim Senior created him. Feel free to slip a clean chuck under his hindquarters.

While we're at it, let's get a few more autocrats into the Beiber bangs. I'm certainly tired of the cow-pie that's sat atop La Palin's parietal lobe since McCain had the bad taste to bring her aboard the Straight Talk Express. (Oops--sorry--wrong campaign.) If only Sparkle Pony had taken her on, counseled her, advised her, helped her sort out her options. Timing is everything. He's moved on, as today's post shows, and we who care must make other arrangements.

Perhaps some of Bieber's looks can enhance her outdoorsy activities on her TV show. I can see her standing in Alaska's mighty rivers, blasting away at spawning salmon with an M-16, wearing this ensemble--

There are others who might well flourish with a new look as well. Sad Clarence Thomas comes to mind. (Does Ginny beat him?) Maybe he would actually say something. And smug John Roberts. Maybe it would shut him up, as he waited for the rave reviews to pour in.

I guess it's too late for Dick Cheney--saw him on Sparkle Pony's blog the other day as he lifted a shovel for Dubya's Library of Lies and he seemed on the outer edges of arrhythmia. If you're only as old as you feel, Cheney must be around nine hundred. He might not make it through a styling session. Still, a new 'do can be transformative...

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I offer these pretty fixes across the aisle.

Miss Manners, Meet Your New Assistant

2010-08-29T21:52:00.002-04:00

Getting Out the Vote

2010-05-18T21:54:00.010-04:00

It's a big day in American politics, or so we're told.

When I've had the bad taste to turn on the radio, I've been reminded that this round of primaries is all about a referendum on incumbents.

Great.

The New York Times even said a couple of weeks back that the Tea Baggers are better educated.

Than whom? I want to ask. Are we talking times tables or critical thinking? Multiple choice or word problems?

Dolly here has has decided to Go Rogue. What does she look for in a candidate? Someone who is white and really, really mad, she confides. If I didn't have to pay such high taxes, she says, I could buy better shoes.

I guess it's all about who takes the time and trouble to vote during the primaries. We have a local bidnessman who has decided to run for Congress (for the third time), and what sets him apart from his competition is the number of blood vessels a-poppin' on his public skin.

When last he ran against Sen. Patrick Leahy, he claimed that Leahy wasn't progressive enough. Now he's running as a Republican, and he is mad, mad, mad. Furthermore, he isn't a politician. Politicians 'made up' global warming.

His wife says that he is For The Little Guy.

Much of this anger may be traced to the use of taxpayer money to bail out a bunch of clowns who couldn't balance their own books, and who cynically founded a system for betting against the very people who took their financial advice.

Caveat emptor, my ass.

Do we know where we're going or what we're doing? Not a chance.

The more deluded we are, the more likely we are to show up at the polls to vent our ignorant rage.

God Bless America.

Drill, My Ass

2010-03-31T22:58:00.010-04:00

Dear Prez,

First, congratulations on getting health care reform launched. Much remains to be done, but we have begun.

I will not personally benefit from reform, but I've been lucky in that regard. The benefit I will have will derive from knowing that many more people will have access to health care than before. As a former schoolmarm, I've known too well that many kids had no more than the school nurse to see to their illnesses and injuries. In Vermont Howard Dean and a bunch of good legislators pushed through our Dr. Dinosaur program to provide health care for children. Now you all have called the insurance companies on much of their bullshit, and --who knows?-- maybe adults can have health care, too.

So bravo on that one. And good for you on the student loan funding, too. We retired schoolmarms like to see that sort of thing.

But what has driven me to the insulting Photoshop image above is the offshore drilling on the East coast. Good God, Mister President. What are you thinking??

Oh, some people say. He's just being a realist. A pragmatist.

Bullshit, I say. I think that you are blowing off your environmental responsibilities.

Sorry, Boss, but you need to take to the classroom again. It's time to instruct America on the need for alternative energy sources and provide programs for their research and development. We have seen a few tax credits waggled our way, but we have not seen the full-tilt-boogie promotion of the refinement of these technologies.

Silver-tongued rascal that you are, you need to get out front on this one. Opening up drilling on the East coast is a tacit admission of either ignorance or defeat. You want your administration to have lots of solar installations in the Southeast and Southwest to show for its time in the White House. You want to have pushed legislation through for other emergent technologies.

What your legacy should NOT be is one of oil spills up and down what is already a fragile, compromised coast.

And leave the other one alone, too.

Over the weekend I was listening to a public radio show that I admire, and everyone was talking about the northwest passage that would be opening up, thanks to global warming. They were discussing it as if it were no big thing.

They seemed to be overlooking the fact that those ice caps help to cool even the temperatures in even some of the hottest parts of our planet. Lose those safeguards, and how are our fellow world citizens supposed to survive in equatorial zones?

When I hear about half-ass policies like that, I get into the I've-got-mine thinking that I so despise. I think, I probably won't live to witness this.

But my nieces and nephews will. And their children. And all those kooks with the hots for The Rapture.

Come on, Mr. President. Do you really want Sasha and Melia to live in a world of drought, of famine and panic? Some of your own relatives and their descendants will be taken down.

And then there are the polar bears. Don't you care about the polar bears?

God. When I think about all this, I'm glad we all die.

When I die, a few people will be sad and say that I was a nice person, and a few more might say that I was a fool, but that's where I end. My legacy ends with the people I taught and those to whom I imparted a few of the basic kindnesses.

But you, Big Guy, will be remembered for so much more. You'll be the guy who broke through on health care reform. But if you aren't careful, you will be remembered as the guy who dropped the ball on the environment, who made it impossible for health care to take care of all the new afflictions that will result from a more heated up and polluted world.

Back off on the drilling and get bold about the development of alternative energy sources. We are significantly behind other nations. China! Israel! India! Hit the road and see what other countries are doing, then come back energized and show our citizens what good new things are possible.

Sincerely yers,
Lulu

Calling All Dopes: the GOP Needs and Wants You

2010-03-28T17:20:00.013-04:00

Now is the time for all really stupid people to come to the aid of their party.

No sweat--the GOP has embraced its tacky little base; some folks actually thought that Republican candidates would forsake the support the Teabaggers. Nonsense--they are the increasing base. Never reject a vote.

What does it take to be a Republican? Either lots and lots of money or a severe case of A.D.D., accompanied by an affinity for Fox News (this last a capacity for tolerating the endless repetition of the day's no-substance talking points) and a disinclination to question authority.

Being hypocritically horny helps, too.

Take the latest item about Michael Steele's foray into Voyeur, a bondage-themed club in West Hollywood. Jonathan Strong reports:

...FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex...

Praise the Lord! How 'bout them family values?

How will Faux News spin this one?

On a Don't-Want-To-Know Basis

2010-03-22T23:18:00.012-04:00

If there's anything Glenn Beck represents, it's the resistance of white America to know any negative views that black Americans have of them, especially those based on fact and experience. Black folks have long known that the sharing of their actual perceptions of white folks were nothing but trouble. There's a long tradition of silence in the black community.

When the black power movement split off from the more civil Civil Rights movement, we white folks had a bitter taste of what our history of racial relations had wrought. I remember reading the Muhammad Speaks paper in the late 60s and wondered just how I'd gotten so Devilish in my limited history, but I had to acknowledge the abuses and exploitations recorded by Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Countee Cullen, Billie Holliday, Nina Simone,and others as I combed the literature for more documentation of what had gone wrong.

I read what black Americans finally had to say about us. I'd read enough in the white press to know that every time a black person had been arrested for a crime, I'd seen him identified by his race. I'd been the watcher of many a cartoon invested with black stereotypes, whether Bosco and Baby or Disney crows. I'd even giggled as my seventh grade boyfriend drew monstrous lips on his caricature of Nina Simone when "I Loves You Porgy" climbed the top 40 charts in 1960.

As a gay person, I know what lack of exposure to oppressed minorities can do to the silent-but-deadly (like a fart) majority. There's nothing better than lack of exposure, either to the people or to their realities, to maintain the status quo.

While the members of the s-b-d majority still holds the floor (and its days are numbered, if you pay any attention to demographic projects), they can articulate their cluelessness to their fellows. They can utter their fear-phrases and trigger the formation of more militia groups and identify those whom they think should be silenced for their honesty.

White liberals may have had their moments with w.l. guilt, but in a sense, they paid their dues and came to understand that there were lots of Americans that didn't enjoy the same level of privilege that they did.

Now we have a president who dares not fill us in on his own experiences. You want the experiences, you read the book. He's the president of all the American people, now, and he can ill afford to remind us of what his experiences are. There are lots of the unbalanced awaiting the call of the extreme right to do what their icky media counterparts suggest.

In the meantime the Republicans have ordered a thousand cases of Pink Pearl erasers and a gross of buckets of White-Out for the undoing of the one show of strength that the Democrats have mustered in the recent health care reform effort. By God, they're gonna pay.

After all, the people who don't want any frank opinions from African-Americans on institutionalized racism aren't hot to hear about what life without health care is like, either.

They're just more inconvenient truths.

I Oughta Be in Pictures

2010-03-11T08:56:00.000-05:00

Tea Partiers: Corporate Dupes

2010-03-06T13:13:00.017-05:00

What fun the fat cats are having as the wee folk of the Tea Party movement take to the streets.

After all, they're off the hook, these Inglorious Basterds who wrecked the economy, and the government is standing in on punching bag duty.

Not that the gub-mint doesn't deserve a couple of major whacks for its bedtime romps with these scumbags. If the Tea Partiers are pissed about that, and the misuse of stimulus dollars for Wall Street bonuses, then allow me to brew up my own pot. I'm also somewhat fussy about how my tax dollars are spent: enough with the wars and the fat cats, and let's get going on eco-friendly technologies and getting people back to work.

But what seems to have happened is that the Tea Party movement has turned out to be a grab-bag for every ignoramus with no idea of who's pulling what strings.

The trouble with people who get their news from Faux News is of course that there is no news issuing forth from that Rupert-Rag. All that's to be had is not-so-righteous indignation that assumes the form of the Phrase of the Day. Over and over we hear their various non-journalists in near lip-synch. (And who gives a damn if Obama does use a teleprompter? Yet it's become another phrase to be dropped into every Republican reference to the president. Thanks a bunch, Roger Ailes, for your utter dedication to the insubstantial.)

We Americans are a proud-but-loud lot to begin with, so there's no problem getting a variety of the Terminally Sincere But Not Terribly Informed to join your parade. And in these hideous times, what better activity for those hours of unemployment than to raise your voice in execration? (So close to excretion!)

The trouble is, we have to be up to snuff on who really does pull the strings. And those folks don't exactly want to be identified.

If you'd like a global perspective on these rascals, I do recommend John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man. It's his memoir regarding the role that the U.S. has played in securing contracts for its corporations on public works projects that foreign countries can ill afford. Or check out the film Arms for the Poor, and see how our defense industries sell of old materiel to disputing factions in foreign lands. They might also enjoy The Global Banquet: the Politics of Food. Then maybe we can have a conversation about who's really in charge.

The Donald Endures a Snowstorm, Calls for Revocation of Gore's Peace Prize

2010-02-18T20:58:00.007-05:00

Flashing a little of the scientific acumen for which he is well known, Donald Trump called for the revoking of Al Gore's Nobel Prize after New York City's recent snow storm.

Obviously a bad head/bad brain day.

Clearly, the Donald needs to stay away from nature as much as he can--it's a threat to the Comb-Over.

How that man must hate Mother Nature. No wonder he spends all his time in meeting rooms. Imagine all that hired labor being undone by a stiff breeze.

When Tom Tomorrow drew this panel, I wonder if he knew that The Donald was among these dignitaries...

Palin: Ambassador of Karaoke to the Philippines

2010-02-08T08:47:00.011-05:00

"I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country," said Sarah Palin, when pressed for details on a probable run for the White House.

What a patriot!

Now, thanks to an item in the New York Times, I think I've found the greatest contribution that La Palin can make: Karaoke star. In the Philippines.

This is one of those Hands-Across-the-Water assignments. What brings people together more than the power of shared music-making?

Of course, Sarah needs a song that embodies her personal mission. May I nominate "My Way"?

It's a song that says it all: ask her a question, and she'll give you the answer to the question she wished you'd ask. Elect her to office, and she serves the term she wants to serve, not the one those Elitists put in the state constitution.

According to the Times, in the Philippines, "The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

What greater act of courage than to restore American domain over this Sinatra/Anka (the writer--also the master who penned the masterpiece taken to its heart by the so-called Pro-Life movement, "You're Having My Baby.") She could sing that one too before the Big Finish, although it might be a little confusing to a bunch of Joe Six-Packs into their eighth round.

If she were to join the sad statistics of those who had gone before her, (she said in Nashville that she was willing "to die for the American people") she would have at least had the opportunity to articulate her basic political stance in the final moments of her gilded life. And of course, she'd be a patriot-martyr, which she has claimed to be all along.

A Perfect Storm

2010-02-05T17:53:00.008-05:00

Sarah Palin is the new Oakland. As Gertrude Stein once said of her native city, There is no there there. She's about as real as a mansion on a movie studio's back lot, not that it matters.

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that a corporation has the same rights as a person on the First Amendment front, we're set up for centuries-long Republicanism.

Along with the corporate money that never needs to stanch its flow, we can expect to have no need of political leaders who possess any knowledge or skill, aside from a saucy wink. A figurehead will be more than satisfactory, since s/he won't have much to do with governance, anyway. Those strings will be pulled behind the scenes by whatever generation of Cheneys is up to the job. That gosh-darn patriotism of hers can be propped up by the fiscal prestidigitation that we came to know under the new millennium's first administration.The economy? Now you see it; now you don't!

As the years with Dubya taught us, political skills have less to do with substance than with style, and should the current anti-intellectualism of Americans continue to prevail, that style will handsomely be served by Alaska's Grifter-in-Chief, who will address the teabaggers this weekend. After wearing down the American people with a blockbuster series of corporate political advertising, she and her party can usher in the New American Era.

Perhaps Richard Shelby, still flush from blocking all potential Obama appointees till he gets his local pork, will be Attorney General. And Tom Tancredo can be Secretary of the State, or better yet, Attorney General. Talk about a dream team!

I was skimming the library's new copy of Game Change today, reviewing one of the sections on Palin's preparation for the debates. She actually regretted having accepted McCain's running mate invitation. But that was before the roar of the crowd damaged what little brain power she had. Her attempts to reduce American law and foreign policy to a wad of index cards was truly touching. It was as if the debates were just another SAT, which was probably another disaster for this flirty lass.

No matter. The floodgates have been opened, and all La Palin has to do is wink at enough CEOs to get her chance to redecorate the White House.

Thanks, JD

2010-01-29T10:54:00.007-05:00

Much is being written about the passing of the author of the Catcher in the Rye. When I was in high school and wanted to do a book report on it, I had to get a note from Mom, saying that it was OK with her. It was that controversial.

Now it's required reading in many a high school English curriculum.

I loved that novel. But like any true author-fan, I loped right along to Salinger's other books, Nine Stories, Franny & Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters, and Seymour, an Introduction. It was Franny and Zooey that sealed my lifelong connection to his writing.

I loved Salinger's wit, the verbal stunt-pilot that he was. The beaverboard full of quotations in Zooey turned me on to everybody from Ring Lardner to Kafka to Epictetus to Issa. I faithfully tracked down Zen koans and the Bhagavad-Gita on Salinger's say-so. I even nicknamed my mother Bessie after Bessie Glass, the chicken-soup serving matriarch of the Glass Family.

When I moved to Vermont, I learned that I lived about 15 minutes from Salinger's home, the exact whereabouts of which were carefully guarded by his fellow residents in Cornish, New Hampshire. Much has been made of his reclusive nature, as if he'd morphed into a literary Howard Hughes--paranoid, miserly, and wizened, with long and filthy fingernails.

Not true. He simply didn't want to strut around like the literary lion he could have been. He lived in harmony with his neighbors, went to local church suppers, and married a very nice lady who taught quilting at the senior center till JD became quite old and needed more of her care. His fellow townspeople enjoyed helping him with his need for privacy and sent people seeking an audience with The Great Man at his home on many a wild goose chase. He continued to write, but not for publication... simply for the joy of writing itself.

So here's to you, JD. Thanks for introducing me to the wisdom of the East, the intersection between philosophy and humor, and the joys of living authentically in the self. You saved my adolescent bacon and prepared me for further reading as an adult.

Not a bad legacy... if you want to know the truth.

p.s. Lillian Ross, a good friend of his for 50 years, remembers him in the latest New Yorker.

Obama's Fallen in Among Thieves: How He Can Extricate Himself

2010-01-24T11:06:00.016-05:00

Let's face it. Obama's fallen in with the Wrong Crowd.

I wasn't surprised when he began to address the unfinished business in Afghanistan that was so rudely interrupted by Dubya's rush to war in Iraq. He had said as much during the campaign, and as the father of daughters, I had hoped that much of his motivation sprang from a desire to advocate for girls whose very futures, safety, and sense of selves remain vulnerable to the resuscitation of the Taliban.

Unfortunately, Obama's answer is a military solution in the wake of the first term of a corrupt Karzai administration, now extended by an even more farcical election. All this American military power, like the drone attacks in Pakistan, do nothing more than to show that American hasn't any ideas that don't involve the use of force. Worse, that America will prop up a sleaze like Karzai. To villagers in the path of bombs, might can't possibly make right. We are simply the true terrorists with bigger budgets.

I can understand the President consulting with military advisors. It would be foolish, even dangerous to do otherwise. But military advisors exist to provide military solutions. The exclusive use of them for approaching the problems of Afghanistan created a truly cringe-worthy Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, not to mention a ghastly, premature assignment of the prize to the new head of state. The prize committee was clearly star-struck, and to no one's advantage, not even Obama's.

The Prez needs to widen his circle. It's taken him no time at all to set up shop in the bubble that he castigated during the campaign. Like many CEOs who don't understand economics --and I'm sure that he doesn't, despite his good-boy embrace of the free market in The Audacity of Hope, he's come to rely on the very authors of the economy's destruction. Similarly, in Afghanistan, Obama seeks to employ a single tool.

When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Once he gets his head out of his ass on the economic mess, Obama should spend a weekend at Camp David with Greg Mortenson. If you haven't stumbled upon him before, he's the man who has been setting up schools in Afghanistan, one at a time. He's the Pennies for Peace guy. Two books have been written about his untiring campaign for peace through the people's philanthropy: Three Cups of Tea and more recently, Stones Into Schools. To defend the schools he's set up, Mortenson has learned a lot about working with the local warlords. Once he's gotten them to send their daughters to his schools, they become vigilant about defending them from attacks by the Taliban--and they have the tools and personnel to do that job.

After decrying the Same Old Politics in the campaign, Obama relied on the Same Old Politicians and to help him get the job done, albeit the ones across the aisle. They greeted his overtures with all the graciousness of a piranha.

Obama possesses incredible tools for teaching, and still he manages to avoid their use. He needs some new inspiration. If he fears using populist anger to any great degree, he is at his best in an motivational mode. Let him avail himself of the opportunity for that refreshment of the spirit.

Let him tap into the inspirational qualities of those who do that work, and communicate the lessons learned to the American people. Let him show the Good Offense of people like Mortenson which trumps the lousy, missile-based Defense of crumb-bums like Karzai.

And let him remind us why we elected him in the first place: that activism for the perpetuation of the projects that could save us and the principles that uplift us are the raw materials of hope.

Know-Nothings Redux

2010-01-18T09:07:00.012-05:00

The elevation of Miss Sarah to analyst at Faux News has me thinking about the old Know-Nothing party of the 19th Century. An anti-immigrant, nativist movement, it raised questions about who was (the descendants of English immigrants) and wasn't (Irish and German immigrants) a Real American.

Such movements play best to the most ignorant Americans. Identify them as the real thing, cast aspersions on everybody else, and you have the worst of the grass roots movements.

Faux News has been created on the mass consumption model, the Twinkie version of the truth. You remember Twinkies: they were used as the keystone of the defense of the late San Francisco supervisor Dan White, who murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in the late 70s. White had been consuming vast amounts of junk food, and therefore was not responsible for his actions when he gunned the two down in City Hall. He got off with involuntary manslaughter, only to commit suicide after getting out of prison, since his problems weren't eliminated with the death of his rivals.

So junk food and the culture it symbolizes functions in the political arena today, and Faux News is its greatest disseminator. Masked as a news organization, its Fair and Balanced: You Decide motto (you could never accurately call it a mission statement) dishes up vast amounts of untruth by showmen and bimbos masked as analysts who work under the adage, say something often enough and it becomes the truth.

The satanic spawn of Karl Rove.

As a retired schoolmarm, I can't help but wish that education were the answer to Faux News. There are many states that don't require knowledge of the Constitution as a high school graduation requirement. That's why it's so easy for LaSarah to pretend that her Rogue campaign is in its defense. I've seen Sarah-fans mouth their enthusiasm for her in terms of Getting Back to the Constitution, and I know full well that they haven't the faintest idea of what's in that venerable document. And I know that even some of the students who did squeak through a civics class didn't emerge with a strong foundation in the daily ins and outs of what the Constitution means.

One of my frustrations with the current political scene is that the liars seem to be the only ones who have adopted an education function, or in their case, a mis-education role. What Democrats need to do is to stop cowering in the halls of Congress and to get out and work with the young who were so inspired by Obama's candidacy. They showed up to vote; now they need to be given information and access to the ideals for which their candidate stood.

I could criticize Obama for not stepping further into his professorial role, but his plate does seem full, both with what Bush&Co. left behind and what he has both wisely and foolishly appropriated for himself.

Till somebody hears the call and picks up the task, the Twinkie-Winkies have the floor.

Palin Battles Stewart for Fake News Dominance

2010-01-13T16:12:00.008-05:00

Sarah on Fox! Fair and balanced!

Ewww.

I can only hope that she'll settle for being filthy rich, accent on the filthy.

Too bad she can't tell the difference between fake news, which has great Photoshops and a punchline, and Faux News, which is simply lies.

I am more grateful than ever not to have cable.

Meditation at Ten Below

2009-12-29T20:23:00.007-05:00

As I read Dave Barry's 2009 wrap-up today, (which turned hiking the Appalachian Trail into a pornographic activity), I found myself wondering, Does Yo-Yo Ma chase pussy when he's on the Silk Road?

A non-sequitur, I know, but let me explain how I got there. Tiger Woods' promiscuity should be no great revelation. I read long ago that he'd bonded with several NBA superstars, who'd mentored him in his meteoric rise to dominate the world of golf.

Basketball players, as Magic Johnson and Wilt Chamberlin told us long ago, used their accountants more for totaling up their conquests than for handling their finances.Their adoption of the Tiger-cub could only lead to an ethos of over-consumption of ladies and luxury boats.

So all we've really learned is that yet another sport ranks high on Tiger's lists of wanna-dos, and that he seems to have been given the physical requirements for performance in its games.

So fine, I thought... focusing on one sport can certainly lead to a desire to play another, as we saw when Michael Jordan had took a lackluster stab at baseball. Motor intelligence is motor intelligence.

But then I found myself pondering the alpha male aspect of the whole thing, which brings in Yo-Yo, also a veteran of road tours, some of them silk. Tiger's own Vietnamese heritage has always offered a sort of inscrutable vibe when it comes to hucksters tying their quests for excellence to his own. I suddenly found myself wondering whether Yo-Yo's drive to become the premier cellist of his time is accompanied by, well, other drives. Inscrutability be damned; these guys who are always on the road have their groupies, whether they are top athletes or over-the-top agronomists. Power and performance are sexy. Even Henry Kissinger scored in his heyday, though it disgusted me to think of it then as it does now.

Then I wonder if sex drive and celebrity endorsements are linked. I'm sure that I've seen Yo-Yo sporting an obscenely expensive watch on some magazine's back cover or another. Does he pitch for any other teams? If his wife loses it and pops him one, will a raft of raunchettes arise with detailed descriptions of his private parts?

Would anybody care? I ask myself if I would, and I can't answer. Of course, Yo-Yo's always been about the music. I only know that he is married by having Googled him at some point. He certainly doesn't present himself as husband and father of the year.

I find myself concluding that I don't care, quite. It's just this, Yo-Yo: don't tell me, or anybody else, a goddam thing. And for God's sake, stay away from sexting and texting.

Papal Bowling on the Rise, Trend Experts Say

2009-12-24T18:38:00.005-05:00

A successful 'strike' by a woman in a red dress at St. Peter's Basilica has trend spotters talking about the rise of papal bowling in the past year and a half.

The sport, launched last year, may prove to the a blessing for the world's ailing economy, experts say.

"I can see a whole new line of athletic gear," confided a nun who asked not to be identified. "Gloves, shoes, shirts--they're all going to be on the cutting edge to accommodate this nuance of the game. I can only hope that we'll be as fortunate as Billabong and Quiksilver."

The Pope, who recovered his balance after being temporary unbalanced by an unbalanced worshiper, cautioned his congregants to be "vigilant" in his Christmas homily.

A Chip Off the Ol' Turd, and Farewell

2009-07-23T20:54:00.007-04:00

The beat goes on, I guess...

It just isn't a rhythm I want to tap out any more.

First The Dick, then The Dotter.

It's all too crazy. Time to hang it up.

Spousie can barely stand to read the news anymore, and I'm starting to see why. Who wants to think about Sarah Palin's Next Step, or even know who the so-called Birthers are?

I'm thinking about when I used to backpack in the high country out of Yosemite. It was fine, trudging mile after mile, but not glamorous or anything. At night we'd take off our hats and see whose hairdo was the worst. We'd identify wildflowers and construct elaborate lines for hanging food away from the bears. Then it'd be one foot before the other, day after day.

That's all incidental to the way we'd feel when we'd come out of the wilderness some days later. Back to Yosemite, we'd be among all the tourist noise again. Cars would whiz around. Vending machines dropped candy bars. Gas flowed from pumps, sending vapors into the air. It was jarring.

As is this particular news cycle. It's more than significant that Walter Cronkite is no longer among us. The news isn't the news anymore. I'm fine with Jon Stewart being our most trusted news source in this mad-tumbling time. His is the only show with anything like institutional memory. The rest are, as Stephen Colbert told the DC Press Club, stenographers, duty-bound to Represent The Ideas of the latest wing-nuts. Then the rest of us can hop in and talk about the tin-foil hats. It's old.

Fact is, though, I'm in no position to do anything better. I can only riff on what other people occasionally uncover, and that seems pretty third-hand to me. Other people do it better.

I want to find what it is that I can do. I have no idea what I mean by that. I do know that the act of discovery has to be the new assignment.

So thanks for stopping by. Perhaps we'll meet in some other context. In the meantime, as Walter used to say, That's the way it is.

Adios.

Tuesday Rant

2009-07-07T18:48:00.004-04:00

...But can she be impartial? So Sonia Sotomayor is, according to the ABA, supremely qualified to be a Supreme. Now the assholes on the Other Side of the Aisle wonder if she, as a non-white, non-male can "understand America," can be "impartial." I guess the role model is supposed to be Clarence "Clarabelle" Thomas. Yikes. This after the appointment of Dubya's two ideologues who make no effort to be impartial at all.

So she changed her clothes on the plane. So shut up, already. Why, oh why does the press get so excited when Michelle gets on Air Force One in one ensemble, only to be in another when she deplanes? Are they fantasizing her in her undies or something? The woman just wants to get off fresh, you idiots. She doesn't want to greet foreign dignitaries with deep creases, dummies. I have lost all respect for the HuffPo (if I had any left) for even linking to this.

Rest in peace, Michael. Your antics with children made me crazy, but long ago you were a fresh lesson in overinvolving my ordinary self with the lives of celebrities. F. Scott said it best: the rich are very different from you and me. I don't know whether you were innocent or guilty of the charges against you, and I disagree with my pal Zippie's emotional assessment, but you were a hell of an entertainer, and it's time to let you be. I sure don't envy your children, even if you were a peachy dad. You have left them.

I do wish the following people would disappear permanently (after making better arrangements for their offspring than Michael did): Jon and Kate and Sarah Palin.

Our Own Beer Garden!

2009-07-02T20:51:00.008-04:00

Oh, how gay the summer months are here!

Ask a Real Vermonter about summer, and s/he replies, "In Vermont summer comes every year. If it comes on a Sunday, we take a picnic." A-har!

It's been raining for the last week, with more to come, even on the 4th of July. Our beloved gardens are awash in slugs. Spousie has to soak all our lettuce (and we have had bushels of it) in buckets of salt water to dislodge all the slugs before we have the big ol' salads that dominated the dinner menu in the month of June. Everywhere I look, I see slugs.

We aren't poison-happy gardeners. I did use over a bag of Escar-go to slow down the parade. But our yard is so big and in parts so overgrown that we've had to consecrate the beer garden.

A Beer Garden! The very term summons to mind lasses in dirndls and lads in Tyrolean hats, moving merrily to the sounds of an oompah band. Here in Vermont it means no more than moving serenely to the Great Beyond in a can of beer.

We bury cans with the cheapest beer we can find near various plant-heavy parts of the garden. In the wee hours slugs emerge, head for the brewskis, and fall into one last grand frat party. What a way to go, I tell myself. Should I run into a slug during my usual garden chores, I invite him out for a tall cool one. How about a beer? I ask jovially.

Some sages tell us that we can use alcohol-free beer, but I think that is unnecessary, even cruel. No, slugs, if you are going to meet your maker in our humble yard, rest assured that you will go out in style.

Skol!

Out of Our Lives

2009-06-25T21:40:00.004-04:00

What a shock to learn of Michael Jackson's passing.

I hadn't had much good to say about Michael in recent years; his isolation and self destruction were hard to see. But what a talented performer he was, and having watched him grow from a dynamo of a child to a beautiful young man was amazing to me.

Then came the endless messing with himself: the plastic surgery, the whitening of his skin. I wondered how he could have missed how much more beautiful he was, just as he was made. How could he reject and abuse that man in the mirror?

So here's an old clip of the original Michael. Most of the videos have been disabled for embedding, which is sad, because I'd like to share his beautiful dance work, in something like "Rock You" or "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough." In these he's carefree, thoroughly enjoying the moves and the music, not yet affecting all the royal epaulets and shit. Just beautiful and young, the whole world before him.

What a loss. But it's been so long in the making.

Michael, I've been missing you for years. Rest in peace.

Betty Bowers Explains Bible-Based Marriage

2009-06-22T07:46:00.000-04:00

Time Passes Slowly, Except When It Doesn't

2009-06-04T18:27:00.021-04:00

Yesterday Spousie and I went down to the pond that's around the corner from our house and took our binoculars to do a little turtle-watching. It's something that we would find it hard to fit in if I weren't sitting around waiting for my shattered radial tip to regrow, embrace the cobalt tack that's holding things together since my surgery. I can work about two and a half hours a day, and then I'm spent. I take a lot of naps, the better to let the old body shop open up for repairs when I'm Out.

There are lots of things can't do, both at home and at work while the mending takes place. I can type, but I can't write. Sewing is out; reading is in. I can transplant little seedlings in the greenhouse, and I can water, but I can't bend over, so no digging, weeding, putting plants into the ground. Spousie's list grows as mine shrinks. She picks up what I can't do, and ours is a yard that takes two people, lost in the garden love-slave business of spring. I can't drive, but where is there to go? Spousie shleps my to my appointments, to my short shifts at work. Otherwise I gaze out at the lilacs and forget-me-nots, as if I could see them growing, chloroplast by chloroplast.

Ain't no reason to go in a wagon to town,
Ain't no reason to go to the fair.
Ain't no reason to go up, ain't no reason to go down,
Ain't no reason to go anywhere.

What else? I can still Photoshop, though my drug-addled brain is less than inventive. I surf the net, noting all the usual stupidity. Angelina has new tattoo! gushes the Huffington Post, probably via People Magazine. What is the Meaning of Michelle Obama? a newsweekly wants to know. Rush wants Sonia Sotomayor (big surprise) to fail. Conservative pundits wonder whether our new court nominee "can really understand" what America Is About, as if understanding our Constitution was the sole province of conservative and stuffy white men.

I watch the fuss about Carrie Prejean come and go, note the latest in boob job fashion as the left tries to attach some phoniness to a beauty queen's natural assets, as if it were a challenge. Some tabloid, or is it the Huffington Post again? dares me to match the celebrity with her reshaped titties. I image search and crop the empty eyes of Republican women and wonder if Meghan McCain has credibility with anybody as she tries to sell her peers on her family's Awesome Party. I learn that I can be annoyed from whatever distance, beneath whatever opioid cumulo-nimbus.

The object of the moment, as the doctors say, is to stay ahead of the pain, and I dutifully swallow the pills that keep the throb at a bearable distance. I think of all the pill abusers that used to pass through Doc's practice, back when I managed it, trying to get him to write 'scrips for backs that didn't really ache, blood that had been dropped into urine in a fake kidney attack. I am grateful that my painkillers hold no mystique for me, that I finally have come to prefer my own tacky version of consciousness.

Time passes slowly out here in the daylight,
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right-- that old Dylan song wanders through the echo chamber of my head. In three weeks I'll be in physical therapy, stretching my way back to whatever rotations the new bolt will allow. In the meantime I'll keep company with some good writers, sleep through the podcasts that pour through the earbuds, twisting and turning my dreams into writhing combinations of old baggage and new players hefting it.

Today was difficult. Mostly, though, my life seems to be a series of lessons on gratitude, and through all the pain and annoyance of these days, I don't forget it, an occasional teary outburst aside.

Like the red rose of summer that blooms in the day,
Time passes slowly, and fades away.

Tripping the Light Fantastic

2009-05-29T21:39:00.005-04:00

I loved the the film tribute to childhood and play, "Big," those many years ago. Today I read that Toys R Us just bought up FAO Schwartz, the toy store providing one of the film's most delightful moments: when Tom Hanks jumped on the floor piano for a little Chopsticks jig.

But these girls take play to new heights with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. School of Performing Arts? Julliard brats, maybe? I'm glad TRU are keeping a store with such an ultimate toy right side up.

Ever'body dance!

Toasting Alice Munro

2009-05-28T09:54:00.004-04:00

What a joy it was to read that Alice Munro was awarded the Booker International Prize for a lifetime of excellence in writing.

If you haven't heard of Alice Munro, chalk it up to readers' inclinations to novels over the short story. Alice Munro is to the short story today what Chekhov was in the 19th Century: deceptively simple, filled with rare insights into the human condition.

The next time you find yourself without a good read, check out Munro. Go to your local library (if you don't have a card, get one), and check out a copy of her collections of stories. It doesn't matter terribly which one; hers is a talent that doesn't flag. She is particularly good on women trapped in small towns, but they aren't the only focus of her vision. If you saw the movie "Away from Her" with Julie Christie, about a woman with Alzheimer's who goes into a care facility, you saw a film based on her story, "The Bear Went Over the Mountain."

My next post will no doubt return to the snarky world of all that I abhor in the world of politics. How nice it is to sit in this moment of celebration of a writer, so beautiful and complete, inside and out.

(photo of Alice Munro / copyright Derek Shapton)

how to fly with a broken wing

2009-05-16T17:47:00.008-04:00

actually, you don't fly, even if it sounds all spunky and inspirational and jonathan livingston seagull-y.

what about a busted wing don't you understand? and that red, swollen eye: it's not the best asset for taking to the skies.

if you're lucky you lie around in a snuggly place and allow yourself to be fed--
medicinal muffins or minced mousemeat-- whatever suits you. a friend brings you a helpful book, such as one-handed in a two-handed world with a special, glowing blurb by bob dole, and colleagues send a pretty hanging basket, and your spousie helps you wash your hair and makes you yummy salads, and suddenly, after having done a good deal of dashing around, you realize that you don't have to run at all:

now you can sit around and read --the abovementioned book and others. you can plan: where will the arugula go in the garden this year? did we buy too many tomato plants for the space we have alotted them? wherefore the fingerling potatoes? how green is my romaine?

you can ponder: did nancy polosi really believe the cia was't waterboarding under dubya? what was she thinking, anyway? you can remember that line from michener's hawaii: 'thou has gone whoring with a heathen' that made you giggle in high school, and you can giggle anew. nancy pelosi was whoring with a heathen! then you can read in crooks and liars that rush limbaugh thinks that nancy pelosi should resign as house speaker and wonder why anyone would care what rush l. thinks about anything... too tired for a culture war as you are...

then you can go back to your book-in-the-lap, after which you can snuggle in bed to a book on cd, and you can doze, knowing that deep sleep is the time when the body's repair shop throws open its doors and commences to take you on.

in the morning your eye is a little less red, and you say to anyone who wants to hear, yes, i'm a little better, thanks--clearly this is what i'm supposed to be doing.

Consider the Elbow

2009-05-09T10:47:00.003-04:00

My ass isn't in a sling, but my elbow is.

I took an Ugly Duckling dive off the top step
of the local co-op Thursday evening, breaking my left elbow and a couple of bones in my otherwise flawless face. Surgery is Monday, since the tip of the radius broke off and lodged ever so conveniently in the joint.

Hence the surgery.

I broke my other about arm about 20 years ago, an event which underscored the many virtues of bilateralism. I am currently mourning my involuntary break from sewing and gardening and biking.

At the hospital I had to fill out a form with really subtle questions like, do you feel safe in your hime? Spousie and I looked at each other and laughed. My boss had suggested that I have a tee shirt made up that says, She didn't do it.

I have books on CD and DVDs from the library, courtesy of a colleague and friends. I have Percocet and the wariness that goes with my recovering alkie status on succumbing to too much of it.

What I want to discover is what I can do with just my right hand. (I'm a southpaw). My left eye is pretty much swollen shut, so forgive any typos.

No masturbation jokes, please. I did manage to photoshop this X-ray into some nice colors. There must bo other right-handed pursuits for lefties.

I really liked that elbow. It's going to have a metal plate that'll set off airport alarms for the rest of my life,

Sense of humor will return tomorrow.

Gonna Miss This Guy

2009-05-01T07:25:00.010-04:00

The news of David Souter's retirement sure wasn't welcome.

He's been such a pleasant surprise. Appointed by Bush I, he nonetheless voted against stopping the count in Florida that gave us the last 8 miserable years with Bush II.

I guess Bush Senior thought that Souter would go along, pretty much on party lines, especially where Junior was concerned. Whoops.

Souter has proved to be his own person. He voted to uphold Roe v Wade. He upheld the rights of detainees to habeas corpus. Rather than be the anticipated sidekick to Anton Scalia that Clarence Thomas was to become, Souter maintained his independence. As University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone observed,

"In case after case, Souter parted company with Justices like Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas, and made for himself a truly distinguished and surprisingly "liberal" record on such issues as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, due process, search and seizure, racial and gender equality, affirmative action, the rights of gays and lesbians, executive power, cruel and unusual punishment, abortion, and the rights of persons accused of crime. A man of deep civility and understatement, his opinions are soft-spoken and gentle, but they resonate with conviction. His opinions are precise, nuanced, and carefully reasoned. There is no bombast, sarcasm or disrespect in David Souter."

Souter, while cherishing the opportunity to serve on the Court, has never liked DC and has longed to return to climbing his beloved White Mountains.

He's certainly earned the rest. Thanks, Justice Souter, and may you enjoy the sun and breezes in equal measure. Bush I --and I-- sure had you wrong.

Making Sure Everybody Counts

2009-04-27T11:13:00.005-04:00

Boy, was I relieved when Judd Gregg turned down Barack Obama on heading up Commerce.

Not only did his rejection start the spreading of the inevitable news that the Republicans weren't up to helping to change the paradigm of politics as usual, but his remarks on not wanting to implement Obama's policies on the conducting of the 2010 census actually gave me a little hope. Judd Gregg can keep his sweaty paws off my data, thank you.

One of my closest friends, restless and retired, decided to work for the census this spring. She endured several days of the worst training experience of her life in order to earn the official census worker badge and the cool little computer that she carries around her town to confirm addresses.

Since she lives in the People's Republic of Vermont, as some New Hampshire residents like to call it, it didn't take long for one of the address confirmees to ask her if there would be a place on the official census form for recording the presence of same sex couples.

Apparently not.

As half of one of those couples, I have mixed feelings. There is a certain comfort in invisibility, as those of us who still witness discrimination on a daily basis will tell you. There's a whole lot of attention I can do without.

Back in the 70s I went with friends to see Rita Mae Brown at the Women's Building in L.A. on the Fourth of July. (Remember, Zipdrive?) Those were the days when she was speaking to women, especially lesbians, about empowering themselves by revealing themselves. "If everyone came out, there would be no more prejudice, because everyone would know someone, etc. etc. etc." Yeah, many of us thought, and if everyone was Christian, or Muslim, or whatever, there would be no more religious conflict. And how about that esperanto? Time to give it a shot.

This was all before before Rita Mae got rich from writing all those smarmy kitty mystery novels became chief Poobah of the hounds at her local hunt club and then began writing smarmy hunt club mysteries. Back when she referred to the porno-violence in our culture.

But I digress. It's only now that attitudes have shifted sufficiently, at least here in the PR of VT, that I can peek out enough to contemplate matrimony. And the balance between letting the government know more about my internal workings and standing up for my rights is a tricky one. But for once I am willing to give it a try.

So Obama, in your (I hope) eight years, two terms as president, I am expecting you to grow up and understand that the marriage issue is a civil rights issue. I am hoping that you will understand that you can either do away with the tax advantages you extend to heterosexual married couples or recognize the marriages of gay couples.

Let future census forms count us all.

Sic 'em, Bo

2009-04-16T07:40:00.010-04:00

Having visited the Talking Points Memo photo gallery of yesterday's big tax protest, I realize that this was indeed a day of self-expression for some of my fellow Americans. As a self-expresser if sorts moiself, who am I to get in the way of that?

Even the tiniest emerging crabgrass was seizing its God-given, American right to express itself. Dubya was obviously behind the scenes, serving as a proofreader. It's great to help out those who would obscure the real reason for the mess we're in!

The great thing about a gathering like this is that it's a chance to make a fashion statement while expressing one's political views. A great opportunity for a lady to be complimented on her choice of hats as well. That simply doesn't happen very often these days.

Never, never pass up a chance to yank the kiddies out of school and get them out of their proximity to their Godless, liberal, no doubt fornicating and possibly sodomizing teachers. Okay, I got this cool tee shirt, but still I miss my friends. And that snake is kinda radical, but it creeps me out. I'll probably have to write a report.

Having felt out of the loop for the last eight years, I can only wish the protesters well. They were not allowed to dump all their tea in the Potomac, but I'm told they really wasted the Indiana River, evincing that environmental awareness for which their party has become so well known.

They're going to have to fine-tune their message if we're going to have a good fishing season.

Reveling in Irrelevance

2009-04-13T09:39:00.008-04:00

The Republicans, having failed at governance and at any constructive thinking on extricating the mess they were so key in creating, have reverted to what they do best: cheesy showboating.

Glenn Beck is even going on a "comedy" tour to six cities! Can you feel the populist energy and rage a-rising?? No matter that it's lobbyist backed and Fox News promoted. We're all filled with The People's Anger.

These clowns are dependent upon the ignorance and empty aspirations of the American people. While it's true that we as a nation know even less about economics than we do the contents of our Constitution and history, we can't help but read the signs of companies collapsing all around us, foreclosures multiplying like so many bunnies, and the numbers of the jobless swelling daily.

What a bunch of dorks. As if the current sunsetting of tax cuts for the wealthy were equivalent to the issue of the Original Tea Party, taxation without representation. But never mind. These idiots are absolutely dependent upon our ignorance and our tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

"Jeeves, old boy, take a tea bag from the pantry and give it to Miss Snively. Tell her to send it to the White House."

"Very good, sir. But you laid off Miss Snively last week."

"So I did. So I did. Jeeves, old boy, do take up the slack."

AIG Update: I just received my latest Bad News Current Event from AIG. Guess who's gone back to the old VALIC name I wrote about recently?? Take heed, folks, VALIC=AIG!! Whatever the name, I lost $8000 more this quarter. Now, that's performance!

Moral: You can put a tutu on a turd, but don't expect it to dance.

Two Ol' Nags Are Heading to the Hitching Post

2009-04-08T11:01:00.008-04:00

I never thought I'd be writing this post.

We'd watched the whole gay marriage debate from a kind of distance rather than as a couple yearning to wed. To be truthful, I'm not really hot for most ceremonies and rituals. Putting on a funky little gown and plighting my troth has never appealed to me. My partner has always gone bla-bla philosophical about her personal life and the state being none of one another's bidness.

Yet sometime after September 1, the day that Vermont's gay marriage law takes effect, my darlin' and I will stand up before a very select group and Speak the Unspeakable.

As the debate has gone on, the fundamental unfairness of this last vestige of the Last Respectable Prejudice has become increasingly, irritatingly clear. The arguments have never held water, of course, unless the entire planet's married couples are seething, closeted gay wanna-bes rather than the devoted couples we all hope they are. Gay marriage a threat to the institution of marriage? I don't think so.

But what has really pushed me over the edge, after witnessing all the heartfelt activism of those who have gone before, is the idea that anyone would attempt to separate loving and devoted couples in the name of Family. I think of all the partners pushed away at the hospitals from their AIDS patients because they weren't "family." I think of the parents of sick patients barring access to the partners, to their ailing children. In my own family I have a sibling who is perfectly capable of pulling that sort of rank, should I become incapacitated, keeping me from the one person who is my family, potentially wreaking havoc on the will I have written.

So for all these reasons, this history, these wonderful activists, and the very real love, friendship, delight, and wonder I hold for my partner of 19 years, we will take the plunge, tie the knot, link the pinkies. We'll take our vows in the maple grove of a wildlife refuge we've hiked together for years, gathered with a few close and special friends. The Maddie-dog will be the ring-bearer.

So wish us well and know that this law will doubtless unite many of the already united, bringing a little more order and dignity to their already loving lives.

Lulu Embraces a Domestic Art

2009-03-28T20:57:00.007-04:00

We're in a strange phase here at the Casa de Lulu y Su Esposa: glad that our guy is in the White House but impatient at the endless nattering that goes on about him. As I mentioned a post or two ago, my retirement is in the hands of the most odious of institutions, and each new mention of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers reminds me of all the other horrible sounds in the world, all hideously recorded in our conscious and unconscious aural vocabularies.

My spouse can't bear full newspapers in the house very often. I don't wanna be a consumer. What's an American to do?

I quilt.

Those of you who've never met me, say Oh, Lulu is a quilter. Those of you who've known me for years say, "You whaaaaaat?"

When I was a kid, I only took the Home Ec I was forced to take--you know, when the boys were off taking Shop. I got a D and never finished the fucking apron.

When I graduated from college, my mother gave me a sewing machine as a grad gift. I was incredulous (such a nice, grateful daughter). I was afraid that she was trying to turn me into Tricia Nixon. I never used the machine. It finally froze when its lubricants solidified.

So you see, this is all new. But then, what is life for, if not challenging stale assumptions?

It began innocently enough. We were looking for a better bed for the Maddie-dog. Last time I bought something online. The zipper to the cover broke the first time I washed it. The egg-carton foam sagged after a while. We looked around here for a bed, didn't like anything, and decided to go to the local fabric store in search of good, thick foam rubber and cloth. We'd stitch something up.

I'd bought a little sewing machine sometime around the end of my consuming period, an off the wall purchase if ever there was one. I pulled if off the bookshelf to whip up the bed.

Lo and behold, it was kind of fun. So I finished the bed and went back to the fabric store for another project. Decided that a warm cape for spouse's mama made sense, since she's in a wheelchair and sleeves are a drag. Made the cape. Here's a picture of it on her 95th birthday. She actually likes it very much. She just belongs to a very strict cult that absolutely forbids smiling for photographs. You can see that her daughter escaped the cult.

Then to the quilts. My good friend Susan and I had flirted with learning quilting last year. I've been drawn to the fellowship of women passing on this art for some time. Saw Bridget Fonda's film, The Quilters of Gee's Bend and was really touched. Somehow Susan and I got discouraged and we bagged it. This year I got some books from the library and struck out on my own and along the way bought a better sewing machine on eBay. So now I rotary cut and sew away. A friend at the library steered me to a quilting group at the senior center down the hill.

Last week I finally went down there with my many blocks (as they are called), about a dozen of which I'd sewn together. I emerged a couple of hours later with all of them separated by a seam ripper after some instruction by a very nice woman named Mary in Squaring the Block. I now must Square the Blocks before I sew them together again.

Whatever. It's fun or it's learning, right?

I will make this first project as a new bedspread. Then, after I've gotten some skills, I'll make a couple for some very long-time friends. After that, who knows? I look at quilting magazines and read quilting books and marvel at the longevity of interest and the skills that come from such an enduring relationship to the art. For me, I can't imagine. A couple of months ago I didn't even sew. Mama, I say to the heavens, I hope you can see this.

For now it's just fine. I'm all for Obama finding his feet without my constant criticism. Can we all remember that he's in his first weeks? I get all these angry emails from friends (mostly forwards) criticizing his every move and non-move.

We don't talk about that down at the Senior Center. We talk about Squaring the Block.

That's something I can be responsible for.

If Anybody Is Trash, It's Tammy Bruce

2009-03-23T18:04:00.004-04:00

Okay, okay, I'll admit that I don't know Tammy Bruce from a hole in her ass.

But she was just quoted on the Huffington Post as referring to the Obamas as "trash in the White House."

I guess she and Rush and Ann and company are just par for the course these days. After all, they have their jobs and their snotty books and their sad little attempts at humor, most of which boil down to name-calling. It's a substitute for wit.They're insulated from the current downturn, so what do they do? Take shots at the people who are trying to deal with the problems and keep the people's spirits up.

My adopted bro' is an Irishman, and as such, he spends too much time in front of the television watching jerks like Tammy Bruce and Rush Limbaugh. He likes to argue; debate is in his blood. To his credit, he balances out his argumentative streak with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow who are more in harmony with his ideas. He is only too happy to analyze everything, to take nothing for granted. He's what a good, engaged citizen should be, if a good, engaged citizen can stand all the noise around his spirit.

I can't. I had enough fury in conversations with conservative relatives in the bad old family days to last me a lifetime. I invoke my ancestors, the ones from that nation of mute Swedes. I simply withdraw. I've heard those arguments and more, when Limbaugh and Bruce were still pissing their panties.

But in my own little cave, I haul out the Photoshop and stick old Tammy Bruce right where she belongs: in her own, personal dumpster, bonding with sour milk cartons, moldy pizza boxes, and loose coffee grounds while she exercises her Second Amendment right to plug her fellow rats.

Tammy Bruce, I don't watch TV, so I'll probably never collide with you. But you are one pathetic, lying sack of shit.

Safe in the Loving Arms of AIG

2009-03-17T08:42:00.011-04:00

For the past 19 years I have lived in Vermont with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the greatest of which has been in the most recent three years, thanks to my peachy library job.

But it's clear that I am going to have to move on. It breaks my heart.

You see, like so many of my fellow educators, I invested the principal part of my retirement accounts with --dare I say it?-- AIG.

It wasn't AIG at the time; it was VALIC, or the Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company. It was like getting your auto insurance with Horace Mann: just what teachers and administrators did. That or go into real estate, at which time our most astute colleagues would check listings during their prep periods and bolt from the parking lot exactly one half hour after the end of school.

I did the VALIC thing, having a sum deducted from my paycheck before I could run off and spend it on some foolishness. I was Investing In My Future.

A few years back, AIG, which had been behind VALIC all along, dumped the V-facade and renamed our accounts in the holy name of AIG Retirement. Wasn't that a great idea?

So now you know. I will probably have to work the rest of my life: now in the library (yay), and eventually, if I don't act quickly, probably some goddam Big Box store. So I'm packing now.

I'm going to live on the palatial estate of one of those AIG executives. I can vacuum the pool and clean up the poodle poop on the acres of spacious lawn, not that I should have to do anything. mind you. I just like to keep busy.

It's the least these guys can do, feed me their beef Wellington and lobster newburg table scraps and let me bathe in their pools. They have crapped away my money, (I lost $20 grand in the last quarter alone) and spent vast sums on salaries they didn't deserve, not to mention the infamous bonuses. I can set up a little tent and invite other retired educators to join me in a cheery little city. Welcome to Liddyville! We'll buy pretty tents out of our piddly pensions: green, blue, yellow, red, and orange. Oh, it'll be so gay! In the evening we can sing Woody Guthrie songs and make school banners out of our old t-shirts. Let your colors fly!

It doesn't seem that any of the zillions allocated to AIG are meant for the likes of me, so I've decided to be a boil on the ass of one of its executives. I hope not to be alone.

Please pass this on to any similarly unfortunate retired educator. The more tents we put together, the prettier our collective canvas rainbow.

Tear-Jerk Time

2009-03-13T22:07:00.013-04:00

Michelle Obama makes me cry.

I'll rephrase that. Whenever I see Michelle Obama, I get tears in my eyes. She doesn't make me do anything. But it does happen on a regular basis.

I have to admit that my health has been the pits for the past 5 weeks. No sooner did I begin to recover from a long bout of asthmatic bronchitis than I was hit with a truly evil stomach flu. So I've been rather vulnerable and blue.

Not that my tears are sad tears. I am just so moved by this woman, who seems so authentic. Connecting with military families. Paying her loving respects to the people hardest hit by the shenanigans of the last years. Showing up to serve the homeless, to participate in service days. She's a one-woman statement of the values we need to see, and her warmth and compassion are palpable.

Her personal story includes loss, outsider experience, and hardship met with a serious work ethic. I often feel that her husband's upbeat, transformative philosophy has been as healing for her as it promises to be for the nation. There's still something vulnerable in her aspect in unguarded moments. She is taking to the First Lady role in ways that I've never glimpsed before.

She's very huggy, another big plus for me. Though it's been said a million times, it's amazing what a difference a hug can make. I have one library patron and volunteer, age 87, who shows up every Monday night to bring in the flags and collect a long, warm hug for his efforts. "That's my hug for the week!" he says after we finish our regular embrace. I'd love to turn him and Michelle loose on each other. They both understand something essential.

I'll never understand the Victorian response to her bare arms. (At least we can refer to them as arms. In the the Queen V's days, they were limbs. But that's not much progress in a hundred years, if you ask me.) She's healthy, she's in great shape, and part of her advocacy is for diet and exercise. What's the deal?

I'm sure that the pastiest parts of our nation are still in shock. I can tell by the endless reactions to her statements, her little fist bumps with the Big Guy, her dynamite body, that their first up-close look at a proud, healthy, African-American woman is going to take some internal adjusting on their parts.

As for me, I've long known that systematically shutting out the worth of people unlike ourselves is a sure-fire way to miss out on their substantial contributions. I'm thankful for this time, this lady and her husband, and all that they will teach us in the next four, and ultimately, I hope, eight years.

Now where did I put that goddam hanky?

Family Is as Family Does

2009-03-10T10:00:00.005-04:00

Is this Ken Starr in one of his Latent Moments, or have I simply failed to see the dental floss between his fingers?

No matter. As I write this he is no doubt getting ready for another big day in court as he works to divorce 18,000 California couples who rushed to be wed before the LDS church and a host of allied bigots rushed to make sure that an oppressed minority would still live under the tyranny of the majority.

What sad business this family values stuff is. I grew up in a family that was, but didn't. My mother worked her tail off to hold us together. My father wandered and rejected my brother who acted like a boy rejected by his dad. Both of them rejected me. We were well provided for materially but not emotionally.

When I was young, the saddest thing I could think about was being consigned to that model of family life. "If it was a job, I wouldn't apply for it," I used to say, full of lost bravado.

To me, happy families (and I do see them from my vantage point at the library--moms and dads taking toddlers to story time, entire broods showing up for family story night, during which time they write and illustrate their own adventures, volunteers telling me about the central place their families play in their lives) are an exotic breed. I gaze at them with the fascination of the outsider.

I remember when my mom, advanced in her Alzheimer's disease here in Vermont, took the phone to talk to my long-abusive brother in California, listened for a minute or two, then quietly placed the phone on the table and turned away. She just couldn't do it anymore, and now she had a disease that permitted her, after a lifetime of herculean efforts, to take her rest.

Sometimes I think that Mom needed that disease. She was an exceptional woman. She had a lot to forget.

In my adult life, having failed to fill in my application, I have nonetheless pulled together my familial impulses. They are hard to discard in their entirety. Here we are: two women who are each other's very best friends and life companions, a dog, three cats, a modest host of cherished friends.

How naive the Ken Starrs and those they represent are to think that they can legislate away the myriad forms that families take. They are protecting the children?? That's their excuse for this perfidy. As if you could, by eliminating a real option for people, force the straight ones among us to automatically become dedicated, functioning, creative, devoted family members. Sorry: outlawing one group does not ennoble another.

The willingness to surrender self to family isn't about sexual orientation. There are plenty of non-functioning heterosexual units, with lots of dazed children whose best hope is to get the hell out of there at the age of reason and to do their best to be authentically themselves. You can't force people to be devoted parents, doting spouses. What you can do is to create a society open enough to a variety of ways to be that we can all find ourselves in it in a positive way.

I don't know what the next steps will be, after Ken Starr's "victory" in the card game of the stacked deck, but I know that his courtroom "triumph" can't last. The thirst for justice has been awakened, and those who have come after my generation are young enough, energetic enough, to see this very real cause through. If careless couples can receive the respect of the state and all the rights conferred thereby, why can't they? Why should their unions be suspect? They are paying the dues with the everyday ups and downs of surrendering something of themselves to this stupefying idea of Us. Why shouldn't they be recognized for what they are?

Why not, indeed?

Pipsqueaks a-Go-Go

2009-02-27T11:12:00.015-05:00

You know, I've been somewhat dispirited since the departure of Bush-Cheney. You can sense my ennui in the lack of recent posts.

Ass-wise, Bush-Cheney were such a broad barn-side for my contempt. They embodied so much of what is wrong in our country. The pipsqueaks they have left behind hardly seem worth the trouble of pillorying. A lingering case of bronchitis deprives me of the snark I need to bitch-slap them into place.

Make no mistake: they do continue to annoy. The idiots who call Obama the anti-Christ or compare him to Hitler are beyond pathetic, and they are several. That's the price we pay for living in a society that includes huge numbers of people who read the Bible literally and understand history imperfectly.

Add to the Rev. Mannings of the world the buffoons who currently inhabit Congress, including Rep. Bachman and Sen.
Shelby, and elected officials look about as bad. Where do these clowns come from, and what does it say about those who cast their votes in their favor?

We have gone from the age of magnificent, Cheney-scale evil to the banality noted during the Nuremburg trials by Hannah Arendt. Now we have the petty little poops who ran up the deficit lining up to denounce the stimulus package while standing silent on the actual cost of the war, something that was never included in Bush-Cheney budgets.

After the exhilaration of the B-C departure comes a certain emotional flatness. I'm weary of petty stupidity and small-town mayors who email pictures of the White House with a watermelon patch in front. I'm tired of so-called men of God whose spiritual messages consist of racist name calling. I'm sick of the knee-jerk reaction of Americans to the word socialism, and free-market worshipers who ran our country into debt and our retirement accounts into the ground.

Bitch, bitch, bitch. I'll be back, folks, when my lungs clear and my sense of humor returns.

Seth Says It Best

2009-02-10T20:25:00.001-05:00

I almost bought a big box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes yesterday, because it still had Michael Phelps on it. But I've sworn never to buy their products again, not after what they did to the kid.

Really.

Norman Coleman Endorsed by God, Heavenly Hosts

2009-02-09T18:52:00.007-05:00

In an attempt to resolve the drawn-out recount for Minnesota's seat in the U.S. Senate, God, flanked by a Political Action Committee of Heavenly Hosts, made a rare public appearance in order to endorse Norman Coleman for the job.

'It's true--I reallyreallyreally want him to win," the Lord and Creator of the Universe said, panting a little, in an exclusive interview. He was confirming a recent statement Coleman made in which he said that he began each morning with a prayer, and he knew that God wanted him to serve.

When asked why He supported Coleman over rival Al Franken, God replied, "Norm starts every day with a prayer. He will not leave me alone. I need to get him off my back. I have a lot to do besides worry about some six-bit post for Norman Coleman. My inbox is stuffed with pressing business, and every day there is his high-priority message, all in red letters. He's driving me nuts. Sheesh--what a whiner. The sonofabitch has worn me down. He could have my job if he wasn't such a weenie. But there are other weenies in the Senate."

He then gave a downbeat to the Heavenly Hosts, who sang on command with the candidate:

Norman, Oooooooooo-ooooh-ooh
Norman, Oooooooooo-ooooh-ooh
Norman, Oooooooooo-ooooh-ooh
Norman, my Love!

Like a Virgin

2009-02-08T11:00:00.008-05:00

It's not as bad as it looks: I still am mad for Obama. I just wish he hadn't fallen in with the wrong crowd.

I have long bemoaned the culture of celebrity, America's twisted departure from royalty to a bizarre meritocracy. Suddenly, rather than living our lives to their fullest, we allow serious psychic space to the airport tantrums of Lindsey Lohan, child-rearing examples from Madonna, and sermons on green living from Brad and Angelina.

From there it's a short hop to political celebrity, and to the jerks with which the most promising president in recent history has surrounded himself. While he has yet to put Lindsey Lohan into a position of responsibility, he has gone for people who should have headed his list of People To Avoid.

This is nowhere more evident (the Daschle debacle aside) than in the selection of his team of economic advisers. First, a Secretary of the Treasury who doesn't pay his taxes and a former lobbyist as his chief of staff, then the pompous ass from Harvard who was ditched for his many people skills (who can't wait to ignore Paul Volcker, the newest addition), just to show how much he has learned about how to get along.

And where, oh where, is Paul Krugman? His credentials ought to be Good Enough... his Nobel Prize in Economics is barely unpacked from the trip to Stockholm last summer. His Conscience of a Liberal, a bold title in any season, should have space on Obama's shelf, and his voice ought to ring in the Oval Office.

We are seeing too many people who are part of the problem. It's a lot to ask them to be part of the solution, unless the Age of Responsibility has taken the form of hauling a recalcitrant Junior to his cyclone-strewn bedroom: you made the mess; you clean it up. And no dessert till you do!

I was concerned (though too emotional at the time) from inauguration day on, when I spied a picture of Rahm Emmanuel thumbing his nose at someone from the dais. He was probably taking a shot at my beloved Howard Dean, his rival in national party policy, and whom he successfully froze out of any position in the administration, even though Dean'd be great on health care policy, both as a medical doctor and former governor who greatly expanded health care coverage in Vermont. That's the sort of omission we can't afford, even though he and Emmanuel were at loggerheads about the best way to build the party and funnel contributions. (Dean's 50 state strategy is responsible for the Democratic majority we see in Congress, by the way.)

If Obama wants to replicate the Team of Rivals of Lincoln, he should give Dean good breathing space in his administration and tell Emmanuel what to do with his thumb.

I don't give a shit about coats and ties in whatever official locale. An aloha shirt and hiking shorts in the heat of summer are fine by me. A well-insulated leather jacket in February would be hot.

But I don't like the smart-ass hoodlums who are hangin' with my Prez.

You're young, you're brilliant, you're beautiful, and you've got great moves, Barack... but lose these losers.

Memo to House Cats

2009-02-03T23:12:00.006-05:00

To: Rudy, Sassafras, and Indigo
From: Mama Lulu Maude
RE: View attached video

Please review the attached and prepare a response for discussion at our upcoming family meeting.

I only wish that discourse were this civilized in our household. Those scabs on Sassafras's neck tell me that we have a long way to go.

We will discuss various win-win options and develop an Action Plan with verifiable benchmarks for 2009.

Come. Let us reason together.

Thank you,
The Management

Oh, Andrew--You're a Card!

2009-02-01T19:29:00.008-05:00

There's nothing like one of the old Bushies to tell us all how Obama ought to govern. In true Republican/Fox News style Card implies that Obama comes scratching into the Oval Office in stained sweats. What a liar.

CARD: I found that Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes treated the Oval Office with tremendous respect. They treated the Office of the Presidency with tremendous respect. And some of that respect was reflected in how they expected people to behave, how they expected them to dress when they walked into the symbol of freedom for the world, the Oval Office. And yes, I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office.
Yes, never have we seen higher expectation of a White House staff than those set by Dubya and Dickie:
The treatment of the Constitution like toilet tissue;
The use of the U.S. Treasury as petty cash for cronies in no-bid contracts;
The seizing of a country for its oil under the guise of spreading democracy;
The sale of the environment to the highest bidders;
The fostering of an anti-intellect, anti-science culture...
Yes, those were the good old days! Thanks for reminding us all, Andrew, of the Tremendous Respect in which the administration held the Oval Office.
Now, Andrew, go hang yourself with your fucking tie.

Re-Creating Ourselves

2009-01-26T19:20:00.011-05:00

You have to hand it to old Rod Blagojevich; he's really all about re-inventing himself. There he is, on a one-man media blitz to convince the American people that he shouldn't be impeached because he hasn't been found guilty, blah-blah-blah. From getting noogies on The View to trying to snow Larry King, he'll make his case in order to create that reasonable doubt, without all the strictures of a court of law, and without those incriminating audiotapes the FBI compiled. The ultimate changeling, he is Ghandi, he is Martin Luther King, he is King Kong. Most of all, he is you and me, except, of course, when he's not.

For sheer chutzpah, he's hard to beat.

Nevertheless, he will soon need all the help he can get for those legal bills, a fresh income stream, as it were, and here I offer him a chance to develop just that: He's sitting on a cash cow, or rather, a cash cow has generously pooped upon his head. What a gift! He can rent out his wiggy-wig to people with challenges of their own.

Karl Rove, for example, could use a new look. Apparently Congress is closing in on him, and he is all too recognizable in his current form. Imagine the Blago mane as an aura, as something having the power to cloud men's minds as the summons server searches in vain for his quarry.

Then there is Elliott Spitzer, former governor of New York. I know that Elliott's off writing for Slate or some other such second-best pursuit these days, but I wonder what else he's up to. With his predilection for working girls, he could probably use a little cover for his walks on the wild side. Surely Blago's prepossessing pompadour could maintain his precious provacy.

Finally, there' s old Rush. Rush could use a lot of help at the moment; he's gotten virtuous Bill Bennett mad at him for saying that he hopes Obama fails, which doubtless has him stressed out enough to be out trolling for a lot of extra Oxycontin in his spare time. Lord knows he's recognizable. What's a fat, dishonest bigot to do?

Answer: Rent a Rod-'do. You can slip around a city's mean streets undetected. Even if somebody spots you, you resemble a Democrat! What could be more satisfying than thaLLt?

Last, and by no means least, is Larry Craig, who is now out of the Senate and out and about with a great deal of time on his hands. Who knows what he'll do with all that time? But a new self, whether at home or in the stall, would certainly be such a comfort, either to Mrs. Craig or to those chance encounters that are such a rich part of life on the road. I'm sure that Rod would love to contribute to the unlucky solon's luck, perhaps crowning him with a new start.

Some of you are muttering to yourselves that I've sold out, offering aid and comfort to The Enemy. You could say that, I guess, although I have always had a soft spot for the underdog, however vile and smelly.

However, I guess my overriding conviction is my unshakable belief that everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Being the Change We've Been Waiting For

2009-01-23T10:00:00.002-05:00

The World Has Changed
A poem written for these times by Alice Walker

The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don't let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.

This 'Glorious Burden'

2009-01-21T07:34:00.006-05:00

What we've been missing for the past 8 years is gravitas: that anchor of purpose and vision that must be central in a person who would govern.

Thank God it's back. The Presidency is for big kids, not smug frat boys who think that a connection to Jesus is a free pass to arranging the world to his comfort.

Citizenship itself is a state of labor: to stay thoughtful, to stay connected and informed, to ask plenty of questions, to analyze and reflect, to participate in a meaningful way.

Check out President Obama's first proclamation:

A National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

Okay, Boss. It's time.

At Last!

2009-01-20T07:25:00.006-05:00

The end of the countdown, just hours away. This is a morning for the words of poets and the bodies of dancers. The promise of music fills the air. It is a national wedding day, and we are all the brides and grooms!

Let's join hands and say I do. Poet Suzan Lori Parks can teach us our vows:

U Being U

U Being U
Mr. President-Elect
Makes me wanna get MY stuff
correct

I feel like starting with something RADICAL
Like,
Love my Neighbor
Like share what I've got
Like think for myself
Like ask the hard questions
Like lean toward the good and help keep the peace

U being U
Makes me wanna do something new
Like Go Green, or at least try to.

You being you, Mr. President-Elect
Makes me want to look on others with respect
Makes me wanna
practice Radical Inclusion, you know,
Open my heart wide, especially in the presence of folks who
Are not like me, you know,
work to see my Brother
In the Other
You make me want to entertain all my far-out ideas
Make me wanna represent the race, as in the human race,
And know that, like You, I too am Prized.

And to those who say yr a Magic Negro,
I love them just the same
And my love helps us weave a United States.

Mr. President,
Heaven sent
Since heaven is just a place where possibility
becomes possible
And where hostility
holsters
its hostile,
I feel like picking up the trash in the park or on the beach
I think I'll teach, and learn, from all I meet
I think I'll apologize in person for all our faults
and try to make amends for our shortcomings
And also, I think,
I'll brag,
Just a little bit,
About how cool We The People are

Oh, I just had to sing you a little something
Because you,
Mr. President,
You are embarking with Us on an awesome and beautiful
And potentially perilous journey
And so I am giving you
All the Love
All the Love
All the Love
All the Love
Mr. President
That I've got
Because I believe
In the dream
And I am ready
To wake up
And live it.

Palin-Plumber in '12!!

2009-01-15T06:45:00.007-05:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one titillated by Joe the Plumber's current posting in the Holy Land. He can add yet another sterling item to his resume, after author and country singer, and of course, unlicensed plumber.

Such a profile begs for a high ranking post in the Palin Administration!

Of course, I don't really mean that he is my VP pick. That honor, of course, will have to revert to our retiring vice president, whose acumen has given us the last 8 years. He only needs to mentor another airhead who lacks gravitas to achieve similarly dazzling results as we move further into the Twenty-First Century.

By the time we reach '12, Joe will be a slam-dunk for Secretary of State. Stand aside, Hillary; here comes authenticity we can trust!

Speaking of authenticity (or its sly cousin, authentitty), wasn't Bush's final press conference a hoot? He thinks that we're mad at him because he didn't land Air Force One in the middle of Katrina! Of course, this is the number one son of the woman who offered tens of thousands of dollars to Katrina survivors, on the condition that it be spent on software developed by a company run by another of her baby boys.

We are offered no end of surrealistic parting shots of the Grand Old Party as we move into the age of Obama. Now, if the Big O can strike a balance between the new politics he advocates and knowledge of what it's going to take to restore our credibility--first, to ourselves, and then to the world, we may begin again to live up to our promise.

On the Watch for Obama Time

2009-01-10T06:53:00.006-05:00

He may have a bitch of a job before him, but already the iconography surrounding the man portends great things.

My colleague Lisa's daughter wanted only one thing for Christmas: an Obama waving watch. Unfortunately, they were all sold out. More are supposed to be ready for inauguration day, but we'll see. Lisa certainly hasn't given up on Fifi's fondest wish. I even sort of wanted one for a time, but being the old and practical bag that I am, I knew that I'd tire of the waving thing quickly... it would turn into a sort of windshield wiper on the wrist, and besides, it would probably crap out well before the end of the first term.

What does 60-plus years on the planet get you? An advanced case of consumer jaundice, that's what.

So I contemplated the novelty watch. I had a Mickey Mouse watch when I was nine. Would that ever be worth something today, had I not childishly worn it into the Pacific for some serious salt and sand damage.

I wondered: was there a George W Bush watch? Well, yes, to Google it would certainly yield lots of Image Results. However, they were mostly in the form of George W Bush watching something, usually military reviews and the like, or the media watching George W Bush, likely where he and Laura were going, whether or not there was actual hootch in that so-called non-alcoholic beer, etc.

But no watch. If anybody has one (perhaps rushed out in the wake of 9/11), it's probably stuffed into some archive, waiting for the market for such treasures to be stimulated by a stretch of historical forgetfulness, that precursor to all periods of nostalgia. I did find this dandy Mission Accomplished Bush Action Figure on eBay, though. It does feature a tiny chronometer on W's wrist, less than the size of a dime, and someone has thoughtfully inserted an electric toothbrush up his ass, no extra charge. 3 days left on this must-have auction item!

But other than Obama, whose election has spawned an entire generation of watches, the waving one being an action figure of sorts, the novelty watch seems to be more about Betty Boop than it is about Dubya.

Purists, of course, will want to move beyond mere idolatry around political figures and declare their nonpartisan passion for Jesus Christ, who among other radical political acts, changed Dubya's heart, just in time for the debate season at the turn of the millennium. Those were the days! Of course, then Dick Cheney changed it right back for him, but if he had purchased this handsome watch, he might have never lost his way.

In the meantime my best friend in California has sent me a countdown keychain... not on the number of days Bush has left in office, (which she also sent, in her time), but the number of days till Obama takes office.

Thanks to his work ethic (and the lack of same in that flaccid-bottomed lame duck, who saves it all for clearing brush), he already has.

But what the hell. As I always say, Any excuse for a party.

An Ice Floe of One's Own

2009-01-03T14:38:00.004-05:00

Clearly Vaclav Klaus needs to go on an extended field trip.

Now that the Czech Republic has stepped up to assume leadership of the European Union, they have their ol' figurehead Vaclav saying that there's no such thing as global warming.

Just to show how comparatively invisible the Czech Republic is, Klaus is president (a largely ceremonial position, but one that makes this bloke the Face of the Nation, as it were.)

Some mug.

I was pretty skeptical when Nicolas Sarcozy was elected President of France, but I've been very impressed by his hard work on developing a treaty among EU nations for reducing carbon emissions.

Now we're back to square one, with a clown who compares the EU to a communist organization, largely because treaties require participants who will uphold the goals agreed upon.

Stick that bastard on a melting ice floe and let him take polar swimming lessons from the bears.

How to Screw Up the Middle East

2008-12-30T10:07:00.010-05:00

1. Assume that the Middle East and its inhabitants belong in the butt-crack of the universal human body-mind. (Note placement of Africa, too, while you're at it... the metaphor applies to it, too.) Place the region on the world map accordingly.

2. Develop an unwholesome interest in exploiting the resources of the region In the National Interest.

3. Strike an unholy deal with the auto industry. Discourage the development of public transportation in your own country.

4. Convince U.S. citizens that the automobile is an indispensable part of The Good Life, the individual's piece of The National Interest. Assure them that cheap oil is part of their birthright. Discourage all attempts at lasting alternative energy solutions.

5. Decide that Arabs and Persians don't know what's Good for Them. Offer technical assistance. Offer to relieve them of their natural resources. Choose their leaders for them and support their dominance of their citizens.

6. Collude with Great Britain to make Palestine a British Protectorate. It'll be easier to hand over later, since the Palestinians already need "protecting."

7. Buy into the idea that any one of the world's tribes is truly God's Chosen People. Use the Bible as an instrument of foreign policy. Ignore the fact that nearly every tribe on the globe sees itself as the Chosen People.

8. Simultaneously, ignore the Holocaust till after it's had its way with 6 million-plus Jews. They're the Chosen People, but not that Chosen. After all, Jesus is Lord!

9. Now that God's Chosen People have been murdered, maimed, tortured, and enslaved, make nice. Give them a homeland, as long as it doesn't have to be your own. Let the Chosen People protect the Palestinians.

10. As part of the PR for depriving the Palestinians of their homes, farms, orchards, etc., pretend that the whole area was an undeveloped desert, that nobody lived there. Repeat often.

11. Allow the new state of Israel to have armed forces. Give them money and sell them lots of arms.

12. Forbid Palestinians any right to a military to provide for the common defense. Label any efforts to gain defense as terrorism. Attack any Palestinian claims to rights as a refusal to accept the existence of Israel.

13. Develop policies designed to force out Palestinians. They are, after all, Arabs, and as such, inferior to God's Chosen People. (See #1.) Ignore Palestinian pleas for autonomy.

14. Suggest that anyone who objects to these policies is anti-Semitic. It's all very simple, after all, even if Arabs and Israelis are all classified as Semitic people.

15. Invade Iraq. They're terrorists, too. Be sure to leave borders open after conquest. You're gonna need those terrorists to justify parking your asses in their country. After all--they need our protection.

16. Threaten to invade Iran.

17. Do not talk to anyone with whom you disagree in the name of "not negotiating with terrorists." Shrug off suggestions that you are acting like terrorists yourselves.

18. Mix thoroughly.

19. Add gasoline, fire, water, and serve.

Lulu's Faith-Based Initiative

2008-12-28T17:54:00.017-05:00

He's a very bright guy, but clearly, there are some gaps in his education. Obama, though he is probably nice as pie, still doesn't see gay rights as civil rights.

It's time for a new program for to get those hands across the water.

When Obama chooses Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, you know that we still have work to do.

In recent days I have found myself wondering, just what gay people has Obama had in his life, anyway? Aside from some silly page in the Senate with a mad crush on him, probably not any.

It seems hard to believe, but it does happen. And if Obama continues to take refuge in what I call The Last Respectable Prejudice, I can't expect much from many of my fellow citizens.

So let's widen the base. After all, most of us homoze and lezbeans are perfectly delightful, even lovable people. God knows that a bigger pack of pleasers has hardly walked the earth before us.

In that spirit I offer an exchange program, based on all those attempts to foist foreign children upon well-intentioned American families, and American kids to host families who can barely feed their own kids, never mind these little gluttons from the land of plenty. This one will feature gay folks dumped right into host households, the better to share our Customs and Lore.

I don't want to gloat, but I've already starting Piloting the Concept, as they say. Here are Ellen DeGeneres and her host family at a Meet n' Greet at the Ramada Inn. She's brought a nice little hostess gift, and you can tell she's about to win over another family for us queer folk. She and Portia have been married long enough for her to hit the road in service of The Greater Good. You go, Ellen!

And Clay Aiken's host family, consisting of a Clay-mate and her teenage daughter Daneeta, are pleased as punch to have their American Idol in their midst. After a couple of weeks they'll see that Clay's preference is no big deal--he's the same sweet guy they voted for Back When. And fatherhood has only made him better, you can bet on that!

We even sent a team to this host family: k.d.lang and Nathan Lane! Here they are, relaxing after instructing the family in the spirited lesbian folk dances of the great Canadian prairie. Later, k.d. and Nathan will prepare an authentic gay and lesbian meal for the whole gang. Fun!

Why aren't we starting at the White House, I can hear you asking. And why celebrities, rather than Just Gay Folks?

I can only say that we have to start somewhere. We're tabulating the responses of our host families and refining our idea of what activities were and were not successful. For instance, we had originally teamed k.d. with Jodie Foster, but Jodie turned out to be too uptight for the assignment. In fact, she recognized the fact before we did. So we hustled in Nathan Lane to save the show. Once he had donned the folk dance gear, we knew we had a winner.

As for the celebrity angle, we were much more likely to get host families to admit the rich and famous to their homes than some little butch who sold motorcycles. Remember also, that the Obamas are now celebrities. It only makes sense that they will be at their most comfortable with other celebrities. That way they don't have to worry about being asked for money or autographs or toenail clippings to be sold on eBay. They can all be famous together.

So I say to my fellow queer folk, Be patient. This young Obama fella is clueless on our rights, or lack of them. But throw people together for some food, some dance, and a little heart-to-heart, and wonderful things start to happen.

Santa Does Not Torture

2008-12-25T16:53:00.011-05:00

Post-celebration. We had a nice day that began and ended with pie. This indeed is living well.

First was the skillet apple pie from the latest issue of Gourmet magazine. Caramelize the apples, then add a mixture of apple cider and maple syrup. Yow! Then lay a crust across the top and bake, right in the skillet. Que vida!

That was for the large group. We (spouse, spouse's mother, and I) finished off dinner with a pumpkin pie so rich that I don't even want to disclose the ingredients.

Now the bloat has me thinking of that ol' departing dick, Cheney. It was a mark of sickness that I read half of Angler: the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney. I would have finished it if I hadn't been short of time, if the book hadn't been on hold for the next reader. It's a good read if you're into self flagellation.

Thrill to Cheney's de facto selection of the Cabinet! Chuckle knowingly as the Dickster crushes Dubya's interest in global warming and creates policy by blocking Dub's contact with other staff members while vetting every issue privately with his presidential wanna-be. Watch him read all the emails sent to Dubya by his staff, having ordered a copy of each of them to be sent to his office. Walk on the wild side as Cheney chooses the linguistic stuff sack into which he crams the administration's torture practices.

And that's just the first half! I'd read excerpts last year in the Washington Post, but clearly, it was not all there was. Cheney's manipulation of the White House staff was so deft that he makes Machiavelli seem positively spontaneous and lacking in guile. I'll probably finish it. As I said, after 8 years of these clowns I am not a well puppy.

In the meantime, friends are helping me achieve closure. One of my closest friends sent me Goodnight Bush, and what a dandy little book it is. If you have a progressive friend you have yet to see and gift in this holiday season, it's just the ticket. I won't spoil it here, but if you haven't seen it and are taking your neurosis out to the post-Christmas sales, drop by a book store and check it out. It's a lot more fun than Angler, unless you're a federal prosecutor who wants to take on somebody more challenging than Delusional Rod.

Will there ever be justice for the loss of life, the maiming of American troops and Iraqi civilians, the undermining of the Constitution, the dismantling of government function under the banner of privatization (with taxpayer money, of course)? Or will we simply stumble along into the next administration, not wanting to appear "divisive" for real crimes against the Constitution and humanity?

If there's anything to wish for in the new year, along with the success of the next president and the rest of us, it's the justice on which so many of us have given up.

Happy holidays, anyway.

The Heel Marks of Greatness

2008-12-16T18:08:00.015-05:00

I sure hope the Iraqi government doesn't mean it.

That Muntather al-Zaidi, the journalist who invested both his shoes in a display of solidarity with his people could be sentenced to 15 years in prison, that is.

Perhaps that was a sort of posturing that one makes when some asshole comes to town to admire the damage he has done one last time before he leaves office:

Museum of irreplaceable national treasures looted: check

Decimation of infrastructure: complete

Slaughter of 800,000+ Iraqi citizens: done

Reduction of citizenry to wild levels of unemployment: got it!

Ineffective tutorials on the joys of the free market economy: yes!!

Infusion of terrorists into general population: you bet!

Dismantling of Iraqi Army; blaming of Iraqis for "not taking responsibility for their own security:" check

When a fella has accomplished all this and more in less than 8 years, he can't help but want to go back, survey the results, and say to himself, "Shucks! To think I did all this!"

And what can a good Iraqi do but give him one --make that two-- of his most precious possessions, his shoes? After all, the debt is incalculable.

The Iraqi government, embarrassed by the treatment of the Guest they are Hosting, is bound to talk tough about retribution for any faux pas, even if the Guest in question came without invitation, the better to destroy the place and take it and its resources hostage. But it's all a misunderstanding, a multicultural mix-up, I'm sure.

What we have run into here are conflicting modes of celebrating the same thing. W goes over, beholds the fruit of his labors, and gloats; al-Zaidi, in his turn, expresses himself with a toss of shoes. They are observing the same accomplishments.

Al-Zaidi's form, athletically speaking, was impeccable. Look at that arm! The wrist relaxed, flexible. It's a tribute to the president's longstanding skill at ducking and dodging that he was able to evade such masterful shoe-handling.

Therefore let us re-name the NFL, from the National Football League, to the National Footwear Lobbers. Let the best of our athletes emulate this brave journalist in their celebration of all that W has done during his administration. Let W be uncomfortable at every football game he attends from now on.

Let them perform forward passes and Statue of Liberty plays with their finest Hush Puppies (which are also made of pigskin), the better to leave their mark on our outgoing Decider.

Now They Think of It...

2008-12-16T07:36:00.013-05:00

People involved with the Blagojevich case are starting to wonder if perhaps they didn't announce their intentions too soon. After all, they have him plotting, but not actually proffering. Whoops.

There's also the very real question of whether or not His Royal Pompadour-ness can get a fair trial.

It's certainly been a fun distraction. We of sufficient years have spent time contemplating the history of the male hairdo, landing pretty much smack in the 70s to locate the inspiration for his coiffure. Mike Curb! Bobby Goldsboro!

But what's sad is that we are desperate for distraction. As I write my Christmas cards with the polar bears on them, I think, nothing says global warming quite like a picture of polar bears.

And a friend is waiting for a very real axe to fall at work, having watched it sever the employment of a huge number of colleagues. Last week she received the reassuring news that she was "good for another week, anyhow." She's on her own, with a house full of ailing animals that have been abandoned by others. She has a great heart, lots of obligations, and a growing sense of desperation.

In the landscape of most of our fellow citizens and creatures, Blagojevich is all the more ridiculous because he didn't realize that he was already well off. His sense of entitlement is what repulses me most.

In the meantime, good people labor away in fear for their ability to meet the simplest, most basic needs.

Past the giggles at his presumptuousness are anger and tears, and they're certainly not about him.

Song Around the World: 'Stand by Me'

2008-12-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Have You Seen This?

2008-12-11T20:32:00.016-05:00

I just finished watching an amazing and infuriating film, Who Killed the Electric Car?

We just added it to our collection at the library. It shows General Motors creating an effective all-electric vehicle to comply with the emission standards that the State of California established in the 90s.

It then goes on to show GM suing the California Air Resource Board over those emissions mandates, then withdrawing the vehicles under the pretense of a lack of consumer interest after which it destroys the vehicles that it would only lease to consumers in the first place.

You see them being carted off to Arizona, first to be crushed, then later literally shredded to erase all signs that they ever existed. They then begin touting the hydrogen fuel cell as an alternative, one that pushes clean air technology back into the future and the oil companies back on center stage.

Why hydrogen cells? Because the oil companies can market the fuels.

This is GM's EV-1, of which only one car remains. Talk about genocide.

Other car makers also created EV models, even Toyota and Honda. They all withdrew them before they had a chance in the marketplace. Talk about the Goliath effect of the petroleum industry and the Federal Government, which for the past 8 years have been one and the same.

The film holds several groups culpable for the murder of the electric car: the automakers themselves, the oil companies, the California Air Resource Board, and the federal government (under guess who) for joining the lawsuit and promoting hydrogen fuel cells as "the (fake) future."
Here's the Ford Ranger EV, also history.

If you have felt like supporting the bailout of the Big Three in the past weeks, watch this and see what you think then. I have seen too many Michael Moore films and been a part of the labor movement for too long not to feel for our auto companies. But they are run by truly evil people who are in cahoots with other, equally malicious leaders of the petroleum industry. They must be stopped, and our only hope is an uprising that comes from the people.

Poor California--its Governor Ahnold is tooling around in a fuel cell Hummer, lying his head off to the citizens of that state.

See this film. The link in the title is to Netflix, which has it, should you not live in a community with a library that has a copy or a properly activist indie theater.

I'm jazzed about the direction we can take with our President-Elect. But don't expect anything like courage to come from Congress without one hell of a lot of public involvement.

Update yourself, then get in touch with our elected officials. Thomas Friedman's latest column, "While Detroit Slept," focuses on a new effort for the electric car, from a Palo Alto company, the Better Place, with agreements sealed with Hawaii, Australia, Israel, and Denmark. Check it out. As usual, GM snubbed the wizard who improved the technology. The big steps, Friedman points out, aren't going to be taken by US major automakers. Go to TBP's web site and sign up to become an electric car activist for your community.

It'll make you feel better after you see the movie.As for me, I'm feeling a little less murderous. But I still wanna kill somebody, and it ain't no electric car.

Just the usual suspects, I guess.

Bipartisan/BipolarLaff Riot!!

2008-12-09T20:01:00.020-05:00

I like to have died! These politicians is cards, I'll say that. First we get 8 years of this clown who sticks anybody he wants into a camp in Cuba, then he names the whole mess Camp Justice. Ain't he a caution!! I bet he was real smirky in high school! Maybe even college!

Then this guy from Illinois, the governor, I think... he wants to auction off a Senate seat! And he won't go for 8 million bucks for a children's hospital unless he gets $50K in campaign donation from some hospital administrator. Is that cojones, or what?? A kids' hospital! I'm tellin' ya. We've each got our own special style of bein' a card. I'll bet that Illinois guy stands up to the judge, makes a little gun with his index finger and his thumb and says, "Gotcha!" when asked what plea he wants to enter. Then he can laugh his ass off and offer to buy that Patrick Fitzgerald a glass of green beer. The judge, too!

These guys remind me of sixth grade. You know--hand over your lunch money. Is your refrigerator running? Better catch it! Good, clean laffs. Not a sex joke in the bunch.

And how about that good ol' American entrepreneurial spit... I mean spirit? Nothing says taking the public sector into the private quite like a little entre-nous auctioning of a Senate seat.

To all those sourpusses out there who've been bad-mouthing these two: Cancha take a joke?

Thanks A Lot

2008-12-08T08:28:00.004-05:00

The photo to the right is from the New York Times. On today's edition it adds another casualty to the recession--the recycling industry.

Along with everything else, the market for recyclables is bottoming out.

The biggest purchasers of recyclables have been foreign nations, headed by China, followed by African countries.

It's nice to see made from recycled paper on our note cards and printer paper, but the market is much bigger than that, and it's as dismal as my 401k.

Now those materials pile up, and the people in these green businesses are in trouble.

I find myself thinking of McCain/Palin's America First campaign slogan. It seems positively archaic. We are all so interdependent. The banking crisis is an international one; the manufacturing downturn, too. The systems of this earth--natural and artificial-- show how much we are interconnected.

Interdependence first! It isn't much of a slogan, but it is a reality.

Keep On Keepin' On

2008-12-04T08:01:00.005-05:00

I can remember the first song I ever heard Odetta sing. I couldn't fucking believe it.

Ain't no use to sit and cry
(Sail away, ladies, sail away)
You'll be an angel bye and bye
(Sail away, ladies, sail away)
Don't you rock 'em daddy-o,
Don't you rock 'em daddy-o

I remember her from my youth, singing for civil rights. She was everywhere, and she didn't look or sound like anybody else. A big girl with that big, big voice. That enormous guitar. Dressed in a semi-formal when everybody else was in blue jeans and turtlenecks. She was there on serious business.

Later in life she would drape herself in beautiful African garb. At the end of her career she sang from a wheelchair. But oh, how she sang.

Art confers a kind of immortality. Still, it's very, very hard to let go. It's impossible to pay the proper respects.

Sail away, Lady... sail away.

Cuthbert to the Rescue

2008-12-02T07:58:00.006-05:00

Whenever I read about Jeb Bush having been a Popular Governor, I think about the Popular Kids in high school.

You know, those vapid souls with just the right duds who manage to patronize everyone else. The ones who take no interest in you unless you start dating one of Their Own.

Jeb's Popularity casts a cloud on the inhabitants of the Sunshine State.

Now he's back, having turned over his gubanatorial chair to a closet case, and is ready to share his wisdom with us--that Republicans need to set up a Shadow Government in opposition to the Obama Administration.

How Parliamentary!

What's interesting about it is the absolute dearth of ideas coming from the Rightward side of the aisle in the crisis that consumes the nation's attention, not to mention increasing percentages of our poor old retirement accounts.

That's okay, Jeb. I'm sure that your declaration will get you some of the attention from Bomb and Dad that all middle children are said to long for.

And it's best that you stay in the shadows, since Republican ideas and policies can't stand the light of the sun.

(Photo not Photoshopped... not necessary in Jeb's case.)

Insert Your Least Favorite Substance in that Fat Mouth

2008-12-01T10:17:00.013-05:00

That Palin Persistence.

The Huffington Post reports today that everyone's favorite geo-bee loser hasn't returned to her guv's office since the election, making that sad display of welcome-back balloons documented by Princess Sparkle Pony even sadder. Dispirited little globes. Of course, we know that she did make a token appearance to be photographed with them. But still... what are the affairs of the state when compared to the Affairs of State?

Instead she's out trying to Energize The Base. What a phrase. What she's really trying to do is remind the Big Guy Upstairs of her destiny in American politics. 2012 is not so very far away, and although the Big Guy knows all and sees all, past, present, future, He seems to need a lot of nudging and reminding at the same time. Such is the down side of cosmic micromanagement.

Speaking of c.m., here's another Catholic priest, this one in Modesto, CA, who advises the faithful everywhere that a vote for Obama in the ballot box should lead to a being shriven in the confession box. I guess that's better than being excluded from the sacraments as was attempted in South Carolina. Here's the latest bully of the hour, thoughtfully Photoshopped to reveal his inner cheek walnuts. They are thoughtfully added (by Our Creator) to the visage of every male McCain voter, no extra charge. Whatever the P.S. applied, it's amazingly understated. You don't need to do all that much to Pod People.

Why churches persist in attempts to withhold Jesus from people who are too poor to raise unwanted children while extending its mega-blessings to the mega-rich is so beyond me. Oh yeah... they can donate more money.

If you want a mind-bend, just put Jesus in the same room with all the fat cats who have been exploiting his name for the past 8+ years.

Wilder than acid and 'shrooms in a cake. Farther out than Alice B. Toklas's finest hash brownies.

And speaking of drugs, Bill Kristol is toking up some nasty stuff again. He's full of advicing to his outgoing Chimpy--pardon torturers; send the Marines in to deal with Somali pirates. Doesn't he know how busy Chimpy is compromising the health of workers exposed to dangerous chemicals and gutting whatever he can of the environment remaining to us?

How about torturing Kristol and then handing HIM over to Somali pirates? He needs to broaden his life experience.

Just a thought.

Awwwww-Inspiring

2008-11-26T13:36:00.010-05:00

So our President-Elect doesn't want a "girly-dog" like Barbara Walters' terrier. He wants something more 'rambunctious.'

I'm not in a position to help him select his cabinet, but I do know a bit about rambunctious dogs. I'm not certain that Chicago folks have had the same opportunities as their more rural cousins to experience the wonder of rambunctiousness.

When I think of a puppy in the White House, I of course think of pee on the floor. The old newspaper training method seems particularly well suited to someone who is on the receiving end of constant media scrutiny. "Right over here, Fido--on the Washington Times, page 5." It's a pity that Fox News can't be included, but blowing out fuses could get pretty old and pretty expensive in short order.

Back to the puppy itself. Since Obama isn't drawn to foo-foo dogs, and I'm sure that he wants someone who'll be great with children, I'm recommending three magnificently lovable, yet frisky breeds.

Let's start with America's most popular breed, the Labrador retriever. Cuddly sweet, great with kids, labs come in three delicious flavors-- er colors, chocolate, yellow, and black. I know that we have already had a First Dog who was a lab, Bill Clinton's Buddy, who was hit by a car after he left the White House. Labs have an actual skill--they retrieve divinely, and can get their ya-yas out chasing tennis balls. (Note: don't bother with all those yuppie toys; they'll never measure up to the joy that a tennis ball can bring. I pissed away about a hundred bucks on variations on the tennis ball, only to watch them wash out to the Atlantic via the system of dams on the Connecticut River. Make that the system of damns. I didn't learn quickly, but in this time of budgetary crisis, Mr. President-Elect, save your money and go with a big bag of tennis balls.) Labs are food-driven dogs, and if not supervised to have a desire to eat their own shit, which of course will make them right at home in DC. They are eager to please and highly trainable. Just about anything else can be negotiated with a cookie. The coprophagia aside (there's a nice word for everything, isn't there?) the lab's biggest drawback in a historical mansion like the White House is his generosity with his coat. He does shed. That can be a drag.

There are a couple of choices in the no-shed zone, still reliably rambunctious. Take, for instance, the Portuguese water dog. My lab used to enjoy romping with a couple of them. As their name suggests, they're great swimmers and lovely, bouncy boys. They're good-sized, bright, and sweet. They're the natural choice for those who might otherwise be inclined to that mix rip-off, the labradoodle, the lab-poodle mix for which breeders are charging way too much. The latter are bred for the sweetness of the lab and the smarts of the poodle, but really, if you're going to go to all that trouble you might as well get a nice Portuguese water dog.

Last, consider the golden retriever. Okay, okay--they will need more brushing than the lab, but a golden bounding across the White House lawn will do much to revive the flagging spirits of Americans everywhere. They are especially attractive as they bound, and they seem more content with regular foodstuffs, less driven to ... er... alternatives than labs. Goldens are very sweet dogs, inclined to lean on their masters, a habit that can be very reassuring in times of trouble. I have close friends with three rescued goldens, each of which is sweeter than the one before.

The thing about rambunctious dogs is their absolute need for exercise. Someone, Sasha and Melia spring immediately to mind, should be consecrated to the administration of the physical fitness program. I have a neighbor who thinks that staking a puppy in the middle of the yard is acceptable exercise. He's been through three dogs, unhappy that they "tear up the house" because of his neglect. Sasha and Melia, hear me: feeding the dog is just the beginning of the responsibility part. If there isn't time in anybody's schedule for exercising puppy and the dog s/he eventually becomes, a girly-dog* is actually a better choice.

So, Mr. President-Elect, it's a darn shame you don't read this repository of wisdom, canine and otherwise. I actually just wish I could stick my neighbor's nose in what I have written here. But if you need a Canine Advisor on the White House staff, give me a call. Maddie and I would be willing to serve our country in any way we can.

*Has Obama been sneaking around with Arnold?

Congratulations and Condolences

2008-11-24T14:54:00.008-05:00

With the global economy down the toilet and every tenth person on the verge of unemployment, it's time that we bowed our heads this week and focused on what's really important.

If you think I'm about to drone on about the joys of home and family, forget it. We're talking about People Magazine's annual Sexiest Man Alive "award."

I'm relieved that Barack didn't make the list.

It's always a time of joy, sorrow, and probably embarrassment: joy for the most avid fans of this year's Sexiest, sorrow for fans of previous years' Sexiest, embarrassment (I hope) for the brighter men accorded this dubious distinction. And condolences are in order, no doubt. Is last year's Sexiest no longer alive, or no longer Sexiest?

What happened? An unfortunate meal of blowfish in a Japanese bistro? The wrong haircut or film role? There are so many ways to be dead, both to sex appeal and to life itself.

The two sort of merge when it comes to Hollywood and People Magazine, so you may want to send condolences to the families of Matt, Brad, George, and all the other no-longer-sexiest-men-no-longer-alive. It must be devastating, and I am sorry for your losses.

I guess the consolation prize is not some helpful tome like The Consolation of Philosophy by that top People columnist Boetheus, but being listed among the 129 other hot guys, the better for teeny-boppers to squeal over. There's always the hope that you may once again rise in the rankings (I think that Boethius covered that) as Brad Pitt did. If not, the Wheel of Fortune (the one before Pat Sajak) will serve as a permanent reminder that what is constant is change.

Tut-tut and pity. I must go to my closet and don black for the unsexiest dead men.

It's the least I can do... and wait for the Dubious Achievement Awards from Esquire Magazine. They ought to be something, with all the Sarah Palin we survived.

In the meantime Palin's probably up in Juneau, or getting her per diem in Wasilla, fuming that there's no Sexiest Woman Alive award for her.

Maybe there'll be one by 2012.

Scary Monster Super Creeps

2008-11-17T18:50:00.005-05:00

Note to readers in other countries:

If you are starting to think good things about the USA again, go right ahead. But don't kid yourselves: we have a long, long way to go.

I was beginning a shift at the library in the company of a volunteer who was happy to take a break with me while we smiled at the pictures of the new First Family in the latest issue of People magazine. We talked about how reluctant some of Obama's supporters here in Vermont are to take their campaign signs down. Serious Basking in the Moment here.

Then Jean told me about the article she'd seen in yesterday's local daily: threats against Obama are the highest of any against a president or president-elect. She pointed me to one instance, Oak Hill General Store, in Standish, Maine, where someone had posted an "assassination pool" on how many days it would take till Obama was killed. The sign indicated that shooting, stabbing, etc. were all acceptable means, with some drip adding at the bottom of the sign, "Here's hoping we have a winner."

A winner for losers.

Once the Secret Service apprised store owner Steve Collins of the illegality of promoting the murder of the President of the United States, he was able to take the coward's path and deny that he was aware of the existence of the sign.

Sure.

I think that a small, tasteful postcard campaign to Mr. Collins at the Oak Hill General Store, Standish, ME 04084 would be in order here. Let's adopt the style of our President-Elect. No name-calling or threats or obscenities. A simple "Shame on you" will suffice.

Remember when people booed at the mention of McCain's name at Obama rallies? He said, "You don't have to boo; you just have to vote." So some class among his followers is called for here.

I do think that a Shame On You campaign is definitely in order.

Join me!

Obama and the Down Side of Charisma

2008-11-11T22:43:00.006-05:00

Since our guy got elected, I've been a little too slap-happy, I guess.

It's a rarified environment in which I live--in Vermont, the whitest state in the union, virtually every county went for Obama. We all grin idiotically at each other since the election; we all know what we're grinning about. People don't want to take their lawn signs down. Talk about afterglow! It's like the whole region just got laid, after 8 years of being screwed.

So it was a jolt to me to bumble around on the web this morning and run into some fool of a Georgia congressman who is afraid that Obama will seize power and create a dictatorship. Remember Hitler! He trumpets. He was democratically elected, then look what happened!

Of course, much of this can be laid to the fact that McCain-Palin courted the Stupid vote. Stupids are definitely a constituency; if they weren't, Rush Limbaugh wouldn't make so much money. Say really dumb things over and over again, and you can count on Stupid voters to believe them to be true. Rush does it. Cheney and Bush did it. Fox pundits have made an industry of it.

I couldn't find the Stupid congressman's name by Googling Obama+dictator... instead I ran into a bunch of really moronic blogs and bulletin boards who were pumping this dreamy misinformation into cyberspace. I looked around at a few sites and got so annoyed I decided that I would have to live without the Honorable Joe Blow's actual name. Who needs the aggravation?

The trouble with racists is that they can't see that non-racists don't play by their rules. Obama hasn't been sitting in some bunker sharpening his knives, the better to run Whitey through at the first opportunity in order to gain revenge for all those injustices.

But it's what these assholes would do, if given the chance. They can't imagine anyone working any other way. And having failed to learn anything about Constitutional protections, schools of economic theory, and having ignored everything Obama said about a new political paradigm during the campaign, having failed to see that he called no names, launched no lies, created no false assumptions, made no attempts to arouse fear in the American people, they are ripe for all the crap that the idiots on Fox news launched as a substitute for actual news.

We will go on, here in the Northeast, enjoying the overturning of destructive executive orders by the departing president, watching Obama turn away from revenge scenarios--he isn't even interested in beating up Joe Lieberman.

And by the way, during that same Depression we elected a guy who set up government programs to give people work and dignity, the better to keep fascism at bay in this country.

Finally a uniter, and these morons are trying to paint swastikas on him and give him a weird little moustache.

Ain't that just how some folks will do?!?

Sheeut.

Bridging the Great Divide(s)

2008-11-09T12:05:00.011-05:00

About 10 years ago I wrote a grant proposal to the Apple Foundation, urging the establishment of an interracial bulletin board for high school kids. I was teaching American Studies at the time and thought that my students, mostly white, would benefit from other points of view. We're the whitest state in the nation demographically, and poked out of the way in the Northeast to boot, so the Internet seemed to offer a transcendence of geography and demography.

I didn't get the grant. I guess that the urgency was my own.

Just this morning my spouse pointed me to an excellent web site, The Root, an African American pastiche of excellent writing and diverse, if strongly black, viewpoints. They do humor brilliantly (check out 5 Obama haircuts that he should not adopt, what black and whiter voters ought not to do/say for starters). Humor is always a good sign.

The existence of The Root has energized me. Frankly, there's more to life than making fun of Sarah Palin, however broad her ol' metaphysical behind, and I was losing the energy of the Bush years, negative energy though it mostly was.

What I find so motivating about The Root is the reminder that though our guy has gotten into office, lots of questions and feelings of distrust remain. All you have to do to remember this is to follow the comments at the end of the mostly well written and succinct articles. There you'll find people yammering about Obama's blood cells black and white, his upbringing, his need to remember that he is STILL a black man in America, the argument of whether gay rights are civil rights, and so on.

What Obama has given us, more than at any other time, is an opportunity to talk to each other.

In my college days (class of '69, wink wink) I remember "befriending" Afro-American students in the dorm. Raised in Orange County, CA when it was still very white, I have always been a diversity junkie and was grateful for the chance to meet someone whose exterior differed from my own and whose style always thrilled me a little. (I have never had much style, so I gaze in wonder at those who do.) Those were the days when Black Student Unions were forming, where my dorm-mates were forsaking hot combs for afros and eventually, dropping white friends in the making of black pride. (I hadn't yet read Ralph Ellison's character's Bledsoe's remark about the necessity of telling the white man what he wants to hear.) I was a little sad, but it did seem to me that there were many things that I didn't get, and I know how comforting it is not having to be a goddam representative of anything when you are just learning to be a person. Just needing a place to be your developing self.

(This last was underscored many times for me when I became a teacher and had to put up with the Opinions of everybody on the sorry state of education, the shitty ways that schools were treating children, nieces and nephews, etc., as I was forced into the role of representative of schooling at any party I attended. Such are the burdens of Social Significance.)

In any case, it does seem that this is a great time for the races to chat each other up. It's going to take a national coalition not just to elect, but to implement. We have all sorts of issues to address, and the sooner we follow the example of Obama's respectful ways, the sooner we'll be able to address problems and assumptions that are less about race, more about some pernicious patterns that have plopped down on and distorted our national consciousness.

To survive economically and spiritually, to fulfill the idea that keeps people coming to our shores, we're going to have to become more creative than consumptive, more active than passive, more committed to solving problems than pointing fingers. This I think is what our new president is all about, and it's what I hope that we will be all about, too.

Filling a Market Niche

2008-11-06T18:30:00.010-05:00

Well, dears, I don't know about you and this economy, but let me tell you--Lulu isn't lettin' any grass grow beneath her feet. Like any whiz-bang entrepreneur, she is constantly scannin' the free market horizon, gettin' ready to make her next big score.

If my diction is gettin' a little more caz-zhool, I'm just tryin' to master the idiom of my student-to-be, the next Senator from The Great State of Alaska.

Yep, welcome to Lulu's Portable Prep School for Congressional Wanna-Be's. Since it's only a matter of time till Ted Stevens gets his eviction notice from the SOB (Senate Office Building), I'm sure that Sarah Palin will be wantin' to bone up on a few fundamentals before she's jumpin' on Todd's snowmobile and hittin' the campaign trail.

I'm lookin' forward to workin' with Sarah. Here's our first lesson. Color Malawi in red, Botswana in blue, Kenya in yellow. What are the principal products of Madagascar? Does Robert Mugabe have any principles? What's the Ivory Coast known for? Extra credit: write a report about the lima bean and its nation of origin. Put it in one of those nice covers.

You see, Sarah had a dental appointment on the day they were doin' Africa in 9th grade social studies. She was havin' her teeth sharpened, and bein' such a nice kid, a coach-teacher's pet of sorts, he didn't see anything wrong with lettin' her skip the assignment. After all, what do Alaskans need to know about Africa?

Now that it's time to spackle in a few areas of Sarah's world knowledge, I'm pretty sure I'm goin' to find a ready pupil. I'm contractin' with Ted Stevens to bring her up to speed on technology; he's agreed to let her do a special diorama of the series of tubes that is the Internet.

So doncha worry about old Lulu in this economic downturn. I figure that I'm worth about as much as the stylist who adjusted Sarah's lipliner and blush, so $22K a week should get me by. I'll be campin' out at the governor's mansion, since Sarah's per diem for workin' at home is a little too sweet to pass up. Can you blame her?

So write when you can. Just send any emails care of Ted'sTubes.net and keep me up to date on what's happenin' in the lower 48. I'll miss ya, but I've gotta follow the money, doncha know?

You betcha.

That Two-Nostril Voting Experience

2008-11-04T17:24:00.004-05:00

I can't remember a time when I was more enthusiastic about a candidate. I didn't have to hold my nose as I voted, not even a little.

These lovely people in the White House? Too good!

I can't wait for them to enrich the national consciousness with their essence and experiences.

Yes, I'm premature, but dang, this is an election that has to be about all the good things that this young man is.

The Presidency must not turn into the unhinged vet's retirement home. There is too much work to do, and somebody consecrated to the high road, as this guy has been throughout the campaign, has to take us in new directions. I really believe that he has the respect for and therefore the power to draw respect from all sorts of folks.

Good luck, darlin' Obamas. It's a matter of hours now, I do pray.

Thank You, Studs

2008-11-02T11:12:00.004-05:00

First of all, thank you for living such a long life. You had so many good things to do that your body did its best to keep up with your curiosities and causes. You were the energy of civic life and intellect.

Thanks for being a great listener. I have several of your books on my shelves, and only someone who listens respectfully and prods with gentle questions could have achieved the level of self and societal revelation that your books achieved.

Thanks especially for Working. I used that book in my senior English classes to give my students a peek at what the that world looked like in its multidimensional wonder and horror. I especially treasured your introduction, which my students were not yet ready to understand, but I understood too well:

This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence--to the spirit as well as to the body. .. It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.

Thanks for the case of autographed books you sent to us to auction off when Watsonville, CA cannery workers were involved in a crucial strike. We got together to stage a performance of your play, and I remember what you wrote in those books: "Stick together and you'll win."

Thanks also for your courageous books on Race, on Coming of Age, on Hard Times and the Second World War. Thanks for your radio show, which provided people a place for discussion and dialogue with dignity.

Thanks also for being so accessible to those who wanted to meet you. In searching for a picture of you for this blog, I found so many pictures of ecstatic young folks photographed with you, thrilled to make your acquaintance.

You were the embodiment of Chicago for me. I have yet to visit that city, but I feel that I have read the words of its best.

I am comforted that I still have you in your books, which I will dip into again and again, in the hopes that some of your wisdom will rub off on me.

May you ride in the finest Cosmic Cab.

School Children Want to Know...

2008-11-01T13:32:00.009-04:00

Daddy, am I a plumber?
Are you what?!?
A man at school told me I was a plumber. And all my school, too. Are we plumbers?
Don't be ridiculous. You're my little Princess. They're telling you this at school?
Well, they took us to this place outside, and there was a man who wants to be president and he told us we were all plumbers.Named Joe.

I can only hope that John McCain is as desperate as this little vignette suggests. As it turns out, hoping to extend the 15 minutes allotted to each of us in the USA, Joe has been out securing himself an agent and an audition for singing country music. A book deal? A political career? If only McCain's coattails were so long.

Still, I can't wait to hear him sing. Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, eat your patriotic hearts out.

McCain Campaign Confers Degree on (Doctor) Joe

2008-10-30T18:19:00.008-04:00

It was only a matter of time before the Straight Talk Express would pull off the campaign trail and into the parking lot of a diploma mill, the better to give Sam-Joe-the-Plumber the certification that he's never had.

Apparently Joe has been traveling the highways of America in McCain's wienermobile, thrilling campaign aides and perhaps the candidates themselves with his down-home Ohio wisdom.

"Ah, here comes Joe the plumber from the Straight Talk Express now," gushed Nicole Wallace, one of Sarah Palin's shoppers-in-chief as Linda Wertheimer of NPR tried to pin her down on whether or not McCain really thought Obama was a socialist. "We've been amazed with his ideas..." she said before Wertheimer cut her off.

Poor Linda W. She was just trying to get the McCain campaign to admit that Obama was not going to run around rummaging through everyone's bank accounts (or mattresses, or change jars) hunting up cash to "redistribute" to the less fortunate, or as McCain and company like to imply, lazy black n' white people. She played a clip in which McCain acknowledged Obama's capitalist credentials, only to have Nicole continue to assert Obama's "known history" of wanting to "redistribute" wealth.
McCain himself seems buoyed by the possibility that a barrage of last-minute lies will do for him what he has been unable to do for himself: convince the electorate of his worthiness for the office. He has taken yet another page from the Bush-Cheney playbook: if you say a thing often enough you can force it to be perceived as true.
When I read the letter of an as yet undecided voter, asking those excellent ladies Margaret and Helen how to make up her mind, I flipped out, knowing that there are lots of citizens out there who haven't done the homework that goes with citizenship and are looking for someone to do the impossible: make up their minds for them.

It isn't as if there is a shortage of such folks, ready to do your thinking for you. It's just that given her lack of interest in what has been a very long campaign, given the many debates and interviews that have led us to this moment, all ignored by such a voter, the crap shoot of that vote just might not be all that enlightened. In the meantime Joe the plumber revels in his 15 minutes, entertaining the job that awaits him in the McCain administration.

No wonder Europeans think we're bonkers.

Right to Marry, Right to Love

2008-10-29T23:56:00.008-04:00

By visiting some of my favorite blogs today, I've become aware that I have only a couple of minutes to throw in my two cents on the subject of the right to marry, the better to contribute to the momentum on the No On 8 campaign transpiring in my home state of California.

I have been in a great relationship for the past 18 years, and we live in a state which permits civil unions. When the subject of marriage/civil unions was before our legislature, I remember the busloads of churches who convened on the grounds of the state capital to register their protests.

As if this were a matter for majority rule. There are many times in the history of the country where the government had to protect the rights of minorities from what John Stuart Mill referred to as "the tyranny of the majority."

The right to marry is a civil right. In times past mixed race couples have needed protection from the tyranny of the majority.

Now it's time to extend protections to another classification of couples needing such protection. These folks are the target of religious groups who think that civil rights should somehow be tied to their interpretation of what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Actually, civil rights shouldn't be tied to the Bible. Civil rights are to be available to people who follow the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Adventures of Superman and Lois Lane, or the Deep Thoughts of Jack Handey, among many other spiritual options.

Civil rights should exist in the civil domain. What religious groups choose to do about their implementation within their own contexts have to be left to the lights that guide them. If churches don't want to marry gay couples, they shouldn't be forced to. Here is where the separation of church and state works to the advantage of both. If some churches support gay marriage --and some do-- then their right to bring couples together should be unimpeded.

Churches need to have the opportunity to evolve --or not-- on this issue. I have watched various congregations go through some big arguments on whether or not to be welcoming, inclusive groups. But that is their call to make.

In the meantime, gay couples who want the protection of the law for the commitments they are willing to make shouldn't have to wait while ministers and congregants dither. It is interesting that a group so reviled as gays was mentioned only twice in the Bible, once in a strange little incident in the Old Testament, and once, not by Jesus, but by Paul, who wasn't all that excited about heterosexual marriage, either. Better to marry than to burn, indeed!

But civil rights go beyond or around theology. They ensure that smooth functioning of rights that belong to couples in times of crisis--in health, wealth, and peace of mind. They ensure that ghost relatives will not arise during the most difficult times in a couple's life to impose arrangements that degrade the wishes of the people most targeted by their impact. They affirm the adult nature of the relationship.

My spouse and I have not chosen to take advantage of our state's offering of civil unions. But we have protected ourselves with wills and trusts. To us, it's no damned business of the state as to how we feel about each other. But that's our choice. For other couples, our course of action would be insufficient. I respect that.

I always thought that this right was about another 20 years away. I was wrong. Thanks to the hard work of so many activists, the time is now.

When we see marriage as a civil right, rather than a chance to duke it out with recalcitrant churches, the path becomes obvious and clear.

If you are in a position to remedy this injustice, take your place in history.

And remember: any excuse for a party!

Only Connect

2008-10-23T16:42:00.004-04:00

There's nothing like a Republican candidate feigning connection with the working class to feed your sense of irony.

McCain's new strategy is to find Joes in all walks of working class life. He can then assure them (after shaking their hands sans any eye contact) that he will protect them from any form of socialism: medical care, Social Security, unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. There is always the military, he can remind them, and he could use their skills in Iraq.

He can maintain in them the illusion that they're headed for Republican-type annual incomes and therefore underscore the obvious self-interest they have in voting for him. You're just a lotto ticket away from the Big Time, my friend. You aren't going to be in That tax bracket much longer.

And for the ladies whose hands remain unshaken after the Great Man has passed?

"They need more training."

Woof!