Hello Everyone. I'm recently back from my politics hiatus, stay-cation and a visit from my brother and his beautiful wife. I was starting to get really burned out on politics and had been in desperate need of a break. This was my opportunity and I took it. Well, mostly. Bless my dear sweet brother and my sister-in-law, they are not the most politically informed people to come down the pike. Even though I really wanted a complete break from politics, these folks needed some facts introduced into their sphere. Since no one else was around, it was left to us.
But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos.
Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content.
Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
|
Their first day with us was designed to be a chillaxing feast with great wines followed up by a beautiful fire in the fire pit. It was while we were sitting around the fire that my brother brought up the sad state of our political affairs. Now mind you, both of them are from blue Illinois and are politically aligned with Democrats most of the time, even if they don't know it. You see, neither one of them votes. My brother got himself into a bit of trouble with too much toot back in the late 80's and spent a year overpaying his debt to society. He still hasn't bothered getting his voting rights reestablished. His wife simply has never registered to vote.
They do vaguely pay attention to politics. They were both fired up four years ago about Obama. They liked his message and were feeling the real-life implications of the failed Bush presidency just like the rest of us. Fast forward to this past week. My brother began lamenting all of the things that Obama promised to fix that are still broken. He was parroting the same tired GOP talking points that the traditional media has gleefully perpetuated without so much as a journalistic fact check. I had promised myself that I was taking my break from politics so I remained quiet. After sleeping on everything I heard, I knew that I had to lift my moratorium and answer his charges.
On our drive down to spend two days in San Francisco that morning, I gently brought up some of the concerns he had presented the night before. Thanks largely to Daily Kos, I was completely prepared to debunk a lot of the "facts" they thought they understood. I dove in head first beginning with the ACA. We went through every well worn GOP lie about what it was designed to do and who it would help. Later that night and the next morning I was able to fire up my laptop and point him to places where he could read the facts himself. By the time we left San Francisco, his concerns about quitting his job to start his own business in a couple of years were substantially alleviated.
Brian carrying his loot
On Wednesday we drove them to the wine country. This was where I took the opportunity to explain why our marriage two years ago was so important and why we are fighting so hard for everyone to have equal rights. My family supported our decision to marry because they love us. But it wasn't until I explained the tangible benefits we had long been denied and were finally able to participate in that they both finally got it.
The next day was a visit to Muir Woods and Sausalito. I walked with my sister-in-law while my brother and Brian strolled further ahead. I didn't know it at the time, but Brian was discussing our atheism to my quasi-religious brother. My sister-in-law was explaining to me that she has always wanted to vote but felt her vote would never count so why bother. This one was easy to counter. I merely had to explain thoroughly what took place in Florida in 2000. She got it.
Obviously we talked about a lot of things other than politics during our priceless time together. We laughed over great family stories, had a few tears reminiscing about mom. We drank like lords and ate like kings. But of all the things we did together, as much as I didn't want to talk politics, doing just that yielded a major reward. Their last day here, on the drive to visit the Jelly Belly factory, they both told me they were registering to vote in time for the November election. Yay.
TOP COMMENTS
September 2, 2012
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From Angie in WA State:
This comment by bink in aaraujo's (must read) diary, Must Read LTE: Angry Old White Men.
For bringing us, finally, a reason to hang all the OWM (old whyte man) anger in the Conservative Republican Party on...
"Unearned privilege is the single biggest defining factor in the life of most white men. We will guard it to our deaths because, unlike privileges that we earn, once it is lost, we will never get it back."
Unearned privilege. No wonder most of us missed it, unless you are one of the 1% at birth, you simply don't expect unearned privilege to ever come your way.
From Just Bob:
Just Bob submitted this poignant comment from prodigal. Found in Mark Sumner's Abbreviated Pundit Round-up diary.
From Land of Enchantment:
"Armando was inspired to say "Ha!" instead of "Heh." He musta thought JML9999 had an excellent comment. I think so, too."
Found in Armando's Daily Kos Radio at the Democratic National Convention diary.
From lineatus:
From Hammerhand's diary President Obama "Still an Eastwood fan". You can't shake this dude, Bring more on's comment earned a spot here tonight.
From klnb1019:
MBNYC came up with a priceless one in Armando's diary Mitt's Dangerous French Adventure.
And from your diarist, Steveningen:
In BoiseBlue's outstanding diary Dear Bigot, I get it. You hate me. Now get on with your life., GenXangster takes the time to give us this beautiful comment.
|
TOP MOJO
September 1, 2012
(excluding Tip Jars and first comments)
Got mik!
1) Oh, please gods and goddesses and by Onomastic — 171
2) Romney's Business Plan for America... by Flint — 162
3) Yup. Man on fire. by Ex Real Republican — 155
4) I honestly scrolled down by gchaucer2 — 153
5) He's Feeling the Reality by JekyllnHyde — 140
6) AMEN, Vyan by cassandracarolina — 137
7) That D'Sleeza guy is weird. by Anne Elk — 134
8) I will forgive Clint when Romney goes down by FishOutofWater — 129
9) Well, blow me down. It was a crappy convention by revbludge — 124
10) The Revenge Factor by JekyllnHyde — 116
11) dig is more about Hoverround... by Dood Abides — 105
12) New PPP Poll, post convention, by pollbuster — 101
13) It can take a lifetime to by Vita Brevis — 100
14) I could not agree more. There was an interesting by voracious — 97
15) Someone with dementia, by ivorybill — 96
16) Good advice! by zenbassoon — 95
17) You're right by Dallasdoc — 93
18) I don't place a lot of stock in the opinions of by theKgirls — 91
19) And that 3 am phone call? by Diogenes2008 — 88
20) One of the things by BroadwayBaby1 — 88
21) Cool beans! by DamselleFly — 86
22) What could Romney have done? by mmacdDE — 86
23) The Romney campaign is a joke by Texdude50 — 85
24) What he's showing is the stupidity of this by nailbender — 79
25) he's a LOT more dangerous than Palin by exlrrp — 78
26) Your taste may differ on a Thursday night, however by Pluto — 77
27) Aghast by Angela Quattrano — 72
28) If you want to be really motivated by MBNYC — 72
29) Yeah, I checked with Google by AnnetteK — 72
30) reuters has obama back on top by glutz78 — 71
31) dead to me as well, that was what I thought by Gorette — 71
32) luckyguyjoe by gchaucer2 — 71
|
TOP PHOTOS
September 1, 2012
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
|