From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Wheeee!!! Another Trip Around the Sun.
46 today and I've decided to make August 5, 2010 the official start of my slow, tragic, self-imposed descent into madness. Earlier this morning I kicked things off by crawling around on the floor eating bugs for breakfast: Thhhhhhoop! [Urp.] 'Scuse me.
I guess I've gotten used to inhabiting this old bag 'o bones that I share with my roommates, Dr. Sciatica and Mr. Reflux. I'm rolling with all the changes my ancestors warned me would arrive sooner or later. I'm cool with the fact that my hair doesn’t grow normally anymore, it just sprouts from wherever it feels like. That my skin isn’t skin anymore, it's leather. That I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. That in my mind the "fierce urgency of NOW" no longer refers to an Obama slogan but to my bladder. Then again, I'm the one who outwitted all the millions of other wrigglers back in November, 1963 and was crowned the winner of Survivor: Nookie nine months later. (Full disclosure: I switched the arrow signs at the fork in the tube, which sent the rest of the gang off to try and fertilize my mom's liver. I feel guilty about it. Ha! No I don't!)
And when did I become so obsessed with the lint screen? I spent fifteen minutes last week lecturing the new college-age downstairs tenants on how IMPORTANT it is to ALWAYS clean the lint screen BEFORE using the dryer in the basement so it DOESN'T catch FIRE! I actually caught myself starting to form the words, "Now see here, young lady..."
Looking back, I've lived through a wild chunk of American history, and there's plenty of good stuff to crow about: Medicare, Obamacare and civil rights laws were passed, we did the moon shot (Neil Armstrong's birthday is also today---his 80th) and launched a fleet of Space Shuttles. We broke all kinds of racial, gender, sexual, religious and athletic barriers. We invented Pong, the internet, the iPod/iPad, the You Tube, the Pet Rock, the Facebook, and the Twitter. We made huge strides in medicine and science and the arts. We elected an African-American president. Ted Olson and David Boies just kicked NOM's ass. We're still the land of sex, drugs, rock & roll, mindless entertainment and dick pills, and most of the world still looks at us with all our faults and says, "I want me some 'o that."
I've also seen plenty of crapola. Stupid wars, oil addiction, anything-for-a-buck'ism, my-shit-don't-stink'ism, religious zealotry, workaholism, erosion of civil liberties, the notion that being smart is undesirable because it makes you "elite," climate-change denial, corporate pillaging, overreacting to minor threats and underreacting to major threats, Fox News, Sarah Palin worship, the birthers, and waiting too damn long to do the damn things we damn well know we should damn well be doing.
And where's my bullet train? I want mah goddam bullet train...with Pullman cars and a caboose and a minimum speed of 500mph. (Passengers won’t climb aboard, they'll be beamed aboard.)
Oh, well. I'm patient. Everything will be sorted out by next year, I'm sure. Now c'mere and pull mah finger---I'll toot God Bless America for ya.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 5, 2010
Note: No! You cannot have this magnificent quilt by SaraR and wrap yourself in the warm embrace of two hundred cuddly Kossacks every night when you go to bed. You cannot you cannot you cannot and, I say again, you can not have it!!! No No No No No!!! And by "No" I of course mean "Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes you can have it if you click here now and enter the drawing and win...plus today only you can also win an original Robyn Serven graphic in the Thursday mini-drawing." That's what I mean, of course.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the 2012 Summer Olympic games in London: 722
Days `til the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival in Burlington, Vermont: 7
Average age of a sitting U.S. senator: 63
Average age of a senator in 1959, 1909 and 1789: 58, 58, 47
(Source: Harper's Index)
Percent of U.S. exterminators who have gotten calls to get rid of bedbugs in the last year: 95%
Percent who got bedbug calls in 2000: 20%
(Source: Time)
Number of registered Kossacks as of yesterday morning: 257,765
(Source: Jotter)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Clinton never gets credit for anything, so let me bravely swim against the entire Washington press corps and point out that Bill Clinton, faced for the past eleven months with the most hostile, nasty, relentlessly partisan Congress we have ever seen, has behaved like a real grown-up. ...
Newt Gingrich, who appears to have no sense of restraint whatsoever, has blamed Susan Smith's drowning her two children in South Carolina on the Democrats. He has blamed the death of a three-year-old in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on New Dealism, and he has Called Democrats "morally bankrupt" while he himself has been embroiled in a series of ethical imbroglios, less than half of which were enough to drive Jim Wright from the same office.
---November, 1995
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Yes, yes, I do understand that this is Rainbow Bridge, but what you don't seem to understand is that the car missed me! By a fricking mile! [sigh] Obviously you're not gonna budge. I demand to speak to your supervisor..."
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CHEERS to the summer of love. In California, yesterday, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8---the citizen-passed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage---is itself unconstitutional. And believe you me, he understood the gravity of the moment. Having carefully weighed the evidence for Prop. 8 (weak stuff) and against Prop 8 (strong stuff), Walker set out to make his decision as clear and decisive as possible to ensure his ruling doesn't get overturned on appeal. (As the New York Times says this morning in its lead editorial, "Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.") Walker's words will not live in infamy. They will, however, live in You-Go-Girl'famy:
The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples. The campaign relied heavily on negative stereotypes about gays and lesbians and focused on protecting children from inchoate threats vaguely associated with gays and lesbians. ...
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
Especially interesting are the 80-some "findings of fact" in Walker's decision. Little things like affirming that, yes, this is a civil rights issue and, yes, gay parents raise children who are just as happy and well-adjusted as kids raised by straight parents and, no, procreation is not required for a marriage to be deemed "official." So what now? Appeals---first to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then the Supremes. In the meantime, no resumption of gay marriages...yet. But one thing you can do is face Salt Lake City and give the Mormon leadership that funded the Prop. 8 stupidity an old-fashioned middle-finger salute. Extend it like ya mean it.
JEERS to the noble opposition. Zzzzzzzz... Huh? What? Oh, sorry about that, I dozed off while I was reading the response to Judge Walker's Prop. 8 ruling by Director of Being On the Wrong Side of History Robert Knight. I'll summarize what arrived in our spam folder yesterday from the right-wing Christian crusader who drafted DOMA:
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision today to strike down blah blah blah blah blah shocking line of judicial abuses blah blah blah blah contempt for the rule of law and a constitutionally guaranteed self-governing republic blah blah blah blah we are seeing the criminalization of not only Christianity but blah blah bah the foundational values of civilization itself blah blah blah blah blah Americans need to pray that the judges diligently seek wisdom before ruling blah blah blah blah. stop the judicial wrecking ball from further damaging blah blah blah blah blah blah God’s oldest human institution---marriage. Blah blah blah send me money so I can buy a new Mercedes.
Try reading that out loud while you're on a metro bus. Even the passengers having a running dialogue with their invisible friends will look at ya like you're crazy.
CHEERS to smart war management. 149 years ago today, in 1861, President Lincoln signed into law the first federal income tax. He felt it was fiscally responsible because we were in the middle of a civil war. How twisted is it that today's Republican party would brand the man a tax-and-spend liberal?
CHEERS to irrational exuberance. Okay, okay... [Pops half a dozen caffeine pills] I'll give this a whirl: Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! The oil's gone! The oil's gone! The pipe is plugged! The pipe is plugged! Everything is awesome!!!! Wheeeeee!!!" Okay, that was oddly unsatisfying and half the furniture in our house is now broken. I'll ditch the tap shoes and try again.
JEERS to charting new territory in utter blithering idiotness. Guess what percentage of Americans have no doubts---none---that President Obama was born in America and is a United States citizen. Ready to pick your jaw up off the floor? Less than half. 42 percent, to be exact. And if you really want to give yourself a reason to do a face-palm: 36 percent of Democrats aren’t sure he was born here, either. We have met the birthers and they is...us???
JEERS to stupid white men. On August 5, 1994, Kenneth Starr, solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, was named as independent prosecutor investigating Whitewater. His final report said virtually nothing about that non-scandal. But it did mention the word "sex" over 500 times. Are there any Republicans who aren't perverts?
JEERS to going through the motions. I got a lovely birthday email from the dealership that sold us our new car in April:
Dear William,
Wishing you a wonderful birthday!
Sure, we’d all like to turn the "the [sic] miles" back---but to us, it just means another year of wisdom and grace for the road ahead.
Sincerely,
[The Guy's Name]
Nissan Sales Associate
I'm not sure what's worse: the typo, the puns, the fact that we bought a Honda, not a Nissan, or that the car dealer who tried to fleece us is imparting lessons on "wisdom and grace." If they were honest, the email would read: "Hey, you're havin' another birthday. Yeah, okay, whatever. Have a good time. But don’t get behind on your payments or we'll break your legs. No disrespect, of course, seein' as it's your birthday and all. But we will break your legs. Yours respectfully and etcetera. The car guy." I'd actually appreciate the candor.
CHEERS to the thrill of victory. On August 5, 1923, Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim the English Channel. The feat occurred moments after someone put a plate of haggis in front of him.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 5, 2005
JEERS to green in...green out. Americans saved zero dollars in June. But, golly gee, that set of gold-plated garden furniture sure looks swell next to the Hummer.
JEERS to what Rove hath wrought. In case it hasn't sunk in yet, Karl...
If someone like Karl Rove had betrayed my station chief while I was undercover in the Soviet Union, I would have been imprisoned or shot and my identity denied by our government. Rove's betrayal of [Joseph] Wilson's wife is a despicable act of treason. Every contact she had is now in danger. Rove deserves imprisonment at best and no compassion or mercy for endangering the lives of our agents abroad. The intelligence business is a dangerous game and has no place for political hacks seeking revenge against someone who doesn't toe the party line.
Name Withheld---Letter to Newsweek
Rove: Resign.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to my August 5 birthday posse. Neil Armstrong. Director John Huston. Loni Anderson. Patrick Ewing. The Elephant Man. Kossacks "Simple," "dmb0857," "stlsophos" and "LeoDaLion." After we swarm Denny's for our birthday discount (46 percent for me, so make it two Grand Slams!), we intend to spend time stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. And since then the poor will be rich, we'll do it all over again in reverse. But only up until our 10am tee time.
P.S. Also on this date Marilyn Monroe, Carmen Miranda, Alec Guinness and Richard Burton died. On second thought I think I'll just go back to bed.
Enjoy your Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"If you allow Bill in Portland Maine to pee on the sidewalks, next he's snatching purses."
---Gov. Tim Pawlenty
8/2/10.
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