No, I have not come here to bury Bill (though he is ambitious! :), I have come to praise him-
Oh! The things I know (about Bill, parenthetically);
He's a hell of a writer;
He's a very gracious guest;
A wonderful, educated, witty and sarcastic dinner companion;
Partners with a really cool frood (Hi Michael!);
Co-dad to a very nice pootie and woozle (Hi Molly and Fantom!);
An inspiration to us all to deal with the slings and arrows of life with humor rather than the pitchforks and torches we might prefer to use (Yeah, I'm looking at you LePage. Got something to say about it?);
A good friend who is always willing to reach out when someone is in a time of great stress (Thank you sir!);
Fiercely loyal to his friends and allies;
A good man who we need to keep around (and fully supplied with the Rum and the Coke :)
Hit the linkies, folks ->
One time contribution: click here.
$5 monthly contribution: click here
$10 monthly contribution: click here
$20 monthly contribution: click here
To send a check via snail mail, the address is: Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
More on the flip side:
The Great Bill-A-Thon Remaining Schedule:
Saturday Sept 15
morning- You Are Here.
afternoon-post around 1pm-commonmass
afternoon-post around 4 pm-MsSpentyouth
evening-Nautical Knots
Sunday Sept 16
morning-blue jersey mom
afternoon- post around 1pm -Moody Loner
afternoon--post around 4pm-Debbie in ME
evening-triciawyse
Cheers And Jeers:
Cheers to Douglas Adams, one of the only reasons that I survived high school at what we affectionately called 'Calvatraz'. His summation of the excellence of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is an amazingly apt description of the current Republican platform:
"It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of [their products] by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."
In a similar vein, Jeers to Apple- you make some amazing products; could you please use some of that ingenuity to get your powercords out of the 50's? They tangle up quicker than the first table reading of 'Soapdish';
Jeers to Rience Priebus- a man whose name sounds like a restaurant job done in the wrong order. Nice job on the angry drunk impression at the RNC;
Cheers to Tammy Duckworth: She damn near ripped my heart out with her speech at the DNC! I went through half a box of Kleenex on her speech alone;
Cheers (Everlasting!) to Molly Ivins:
"There's never been a law yet that didn't have a ridiculous consequence in some unusual situation; there's probably never been a government program that didn't accidentally benefit someone it wasn't intended to. Most people who work in government understand that what you do about it is fix the problem -- you don't just attack the whole government."
"In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the [governor's] office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose."
"The problem with those who choose received Authority over fact and logic is how they choose which part of Authority to obey. The Bible famously contradicts itself at many points (I have never understood why any Christian would choose the Old Testament over the New), and the Koran can be read as a wonderfully compassionate and humanistic document. Which suggests that the problem of fundamentalism lies not with authority, but with ourselves."
"One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it's not that bad yet -- but it's getting that bad."
And my personal favorite: "I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle."
And finally, Cheers to NASA and our amazing rovers on Mars (Hi Curiosity!):
The Spirit of Exploration by Stuart Atkinson
THE SPIRIT OF EXPLORATION
(for the Mars rover, "Spirit")
I am tired. So tired.
Scratching, biting dried-blood dust
Coats and smothers me,
Eating at me, into me,
Planting itches I can never scratch.
I am lame. Where once
I used to dash across this ruddy, rocky land
I can now only crawl; limping
Like a dusty crone
From weathered stone to weathered stone.
Once I scaled a mountain:
High above this boulder-cluttered land stood I,
A martian Queen, triumphant!
But now the hills laugh cruelly
As I drag my useless wheel. Exhausted.
Half a thousand frozen sols
Ago I knew no fear!
Laughing, I scorned the shrunken Sun,
Mocking its meagre, half-hearted heat;
Now I long for its waning warmth.
As dervish dust devils dance giddily past,
Mocking me, scorning my crawling quest
For that same Sun's precious touch
My blood is ice, I feel it crack
As I haul myself onwards, onwards,
But if I die here, They will find me
One day, after travelling from the Evening Star.
Warm arms will surround me, wrap around me,
Lift me out of my rusted, dusty grave
And brush me clean once more.
One day I'll stand behind walls of glass,
Warm again, clean again;
Honoured and worshipped by wide-eyed
Martian children not yet born on the day I died.
Their Columbus.
© Stuart Atkinson 2006
Puppy Pic Of The Day: They see me rollin', they hatin:
By the numbers:
33 days until: 78th Annual Pensacola Interstate Fair Oct. 18-28
14 days until: Austin, TX Hairy Man Festival September 29
21 days until: Mississippi Blues Fest Oct 6, 2012 Civic Center - Greenwood Leflore County Civic Center
Days left in this blogathon: One and a smidge;
Thank you all for being patient and reading- I have tried to quote the master as closely as I could for my first diary. Lets hear it for Bill! Hip Hip Kachingg!!
-Nhox42