WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
Taking a page from one of my fellow Liberal Coalition bloggers, and also following what seems to be the current incarnation of dKos's occasional descent into meta-rantery, I'm talking about pet peeves tonight. Follow me below the fold for a few of mine.
I guess you could put at the top of my list (for the moment, anyway) the idea that this site has always been, is supposed to be, and should be, all politics, all the time. I've been here for nearly five years now, and that's never been my experience of how dKos works. I'm not sure it would be anywhere near as effective as it is if it were an all-politics, all-the-time site. If I wanted that, I could go read Politico, or the Obama site, or the DNC, or any one of dozens of others. But I don't. I come here. In part, at least, for the community. This isn't just a place where we come to find out about candidates and their positions, handicap the latest horse race, or what have you. It's also the place where we come when we're hurting and want something to cheer us up. It's where we come to lick our wounds when we're down and to celebrate when we're up. It's a place where we can almost always find the answer to just about any question, no matter how abstruse. It's a place to hang out, figuratively (and sometimes literally) with other like-minded folks. And if people are fed up with the quality of what makes it onto the reclist here, well, for crying out loud, how about making an effort to go rec up some more of the kinds of diaries you say you want to see there, instead of spending twenty minutes pissing and whining about it?
Another pet peeve of mine has to do with rude people. This one covers a lot of territory--the gits standing in the middle of the doorway prospecting for each other's tonsils; the twits who think that everybody in the neighborhood should listen to their music at 2:00 in the morning; the maroons who never seem to have heard about doorbells, turn signals, traffic laws, and the like; people who, when you ask them to stop doing something that's bugging you, act as if you're the one being rude; idiots who insist on standing in the middle of the aisle in stores, oblivious to the five other people on either side of them trying to get past; people who carry on extended cell phone conversations in restaurants, libraries, and other public places.
Another really big one is the way we're doing elections in this country. I've long thought we should be moving in the direction of the European model, and I think that even more strongly after this two-year slugfest that's about to end. We're on pace to spend more than $2 billion on deciding who's going to be our next president--which isn't going to do anything to alleviate the long trend of millionaire candidates. There's absolutely no reason that a campaign season should last even one year, much less two. Six months should be more than enough, I'd think.
Then there's the one I wrote about when Mustang Bobby asked the question: people who don't know enough to take off their hats during the playing of the national anthem, and who insist on cheering all through it and afterward.
A few more:
- The NHL, Ed Snider, and Dave Checketts, for allowing Sarah Palin to taint two hockey games with her ceremonial presence--with bad results for both home teams, so perhaps this will be a self-limiting trend.
- Republicans. And their lies. And their smugness. And their complete lack of self-referential coherence (see It's OK If You're A Republican).
- Haters. Especially of the Yes on 8 and the Fred Phelps variety.
And now, before I turn it over to the community, I'm going to mention an actual FP of mine this week. My sister had to put her beloved dog Nike (named for the patch of white fur on his neck in the shape of the Nike swoosh) to sleep this week. He'd been with her for, I think, 12 years, and she's just brokenhearted about it, even though they'd known this day was coming for a while now. Any good vibes or thoughts you can spare would, I'm sure, be much appreciated. This is Nike from a couple of years ago: