Wisconsin: More Than Personal

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Saturday February 19, 2011 · 11:15 AM PST

2011/02/19 · 11:15

I have never had to think about my party affiliation: I'm a before-I-was-born Democrat, enlisted when my mother was a child. I'm a Democrat, here in this world watching the pale full moon set in the west at dawn only because my party made it possible for me to be here at all.

The Wisconsin fight to preserve collective bargaining rights is more than personal for me; it is existential, a right to life.

This is how it was, before:

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Oh Baby! McCain Ends Week Holding Hands With Dalai Lama!

prewitt

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Friday July 25, 2008 · 4:51 PM PDT

2008/07/25 · 16:51

Oh Man, this is the best! Get the pictures up, you guys! McCain tottering through the woods holding hands with the Dalai Lama. "What the fuck am I doing here?" is written all over him. In his hand a large sheet of paper. One can not help knowing, in one's heart, that whatever is written on that paper is in HUGE LETTERS.

I'm seeing the clip on David Gregory's MSNBC show, and it is a classic. It sums up McCain's Worst Week Ever.

What could top the Golf Cart Moment with Pappy Bush, the collapsing apple sauce, the nasty snark in front of the dairy case, the photo op outside the Fudge Haus, the aborted press conference on the oil rig (cancelled by an Angry God as fuel oil surged down the Mississippi and hurricane winds blasted Texas,} and the rewriting of history on CBS. Oh, and sausage time Happy Hour while Obama was knocking 'em dead in Berlin.

This could: McCain staggers hand in hand with a cute little old guy in a sheet and Lindsey Graham, looking like he wants to gnaw something.

My Grandmother on Race. Her Daughter. Me.

prewitt

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Thursday March 20, 2008 · 2:29 PM PDT

2008/03/20 · 14:29

It was the early 1950s. I was a child visiting my mother's family in a sleepy riverside town on the Mississippi. That summer evening I was in Gram's little apartment on Broadway Street, above a store. Her boyfriend was a good old boy named Alvin, a funny guy who came by for supper and sat around afterwards drinking Griesidieck Brothers beer from a brown longneck bottle in the fan breeze that made the stuffy little room and kitchenette a bit less sticky. He told humorous real life stories in the good old cracker barrel tradition. He was a local salesman and they were his stock in trade, the grease that made the little wheels of commerce go round in the town.

He had an infectious giggling laugh. His unbuttoned shirt showed a scrawny white chest whose concavity fasciinated me, but it wasn't quite repellent. He was good to Gram, and took us out to the fish camp to set trot lines for catfish, drove us hours down the river in his Plymouth sedan with the sailing ship hood ornament to the big city to see the animal shows at the zoo. Gram was a quiet slender woman who tolerated his endless stories with a soft smile and would sit for hours listening to him talk. He was the man she had, and she appreciated his kindness to me.

Until that night.

prewitt

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Tuesday March 04, 2008 · 2:40 PM PST

2008/03/04 · 14:40

Words have power. Define the terms of discourse and you make the rules of the game. A name evokes an emotional response, and right wing propagandists are trying to hang the negative connotations of "Osama" and "Hussein" on Obama.

Fight fear mongering with humor. We can have a lot of fun with the words "Barack," "Hussein," and "Obama" and in the process mock the Repuglies, who are incapable of fun, and/or bad taste on purpose, i.e., irony.

Take a break from primary coverage and pick the one you like/hate best/most. Think of your own.

Poll

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What is the best/most horrible Obamapun?

77 votes Vote Now!

What is the best/most horrible Obamapun?

Orbital Obama supporters: Obamanauts

3 votes

Obama campaign: The Obamanon (Evan Smith, NY Times)

3 votes

Johah Goldberg's next book title: "Liberal Obamacism"

1 vote

Slogan: This Is Obamarama

0 votes

Enthusiastic Obama supporter: Obamanatic

1 vote

Song: "Moon Shines on Al Obama"

2 votes

Horror film title: "Attack Of The Obamanoids"

4 votes

If Schwarzenegger supported Obama: Obamanik Arnold

0 votes

Party line Obama supporter: Obamacrat

3 votes

Gender slur: Obamamama

6 votes

Postelection USA: The United States of Obamastan

5 votes

Psychological diagnosis: Clinically Hussein

4 votes

Song: "Barack Around The Clock"

13 votes

Republican fear in the Bible: The Obamanation of Desolation

1 vote

Support group: Barackaholics Obamanonymous

31 votes

At The Eagle's Nest Snack Bar

prewitt

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Friday February 29, 2008 · 11:44 AM PST

2008/02/29 · 11:44

It was 1980. I was hanging out at at the Eagle's Nest in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden. It is a mountaintop chalet Martin Bormann built for Hitler in 1939, a birthday present. I got up there in a brass-plated elevator whose shaft Bormann had driven through the heart of Kehlstein peak at a cost of millions of marks and twelve lives. At Salzburg, just a few alps north in Austria, the Waffen SS was having a reunion that day.

The chalet is a tourist attraction, but no tourists that morning. I was in the deserted snack bar talking with the Waiter. He was a stocky, gregarious German in his 60s, bluff, hearty, and likable. He had excellent English. I asked why the German people had allowed Hitler to kill six million innocent people during the Third Reich. The Waiter shook his head. A man in his position had to be ready for that sort of question, and he had a good line.

"Trains at night... afraid to speak... we knew nothing... couldn't do anything... children hostage... just ordinary... didn't know... couldn't know...," he stopped. He looked at me with a just-between-us smirk and leaned closer. "You have to admit, though," he said, "Hitler was right about the Russians."

prewitt

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Monday February 25, 2008 · 1:18 PM PST

2008/02/25 · 13:18

This is not a poll. We are not dealing with opinions here, but facts. Your mastery of the facts will determine your grade and your standing in the class. Remember, with modern computer technology, your grades will be available for the rest of your life to every educational institution to which you apply, to every employer from whom you seek even the meanest minimum wage job with scant or no bennies, to every law enforcement agency that takes an interest in you, and to every prospective sexual partner you approach for a bit of the old in-and-out.

So relax, have fun, and good luck! Pencils up!

This is an open book test. Use a #2 pencil. Do not write on your computer screen.
Warning: Do not use either end of pencil to clean ears or nose.
You will be graded by a Caterpillar® Model 140M. And... Begin!

prewitt

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Saturday February 23, 2008 · 2:36 PM PST

2008/02/23 · 14:36

I have a friend, a brilliant corporate lawyer, retired from a high-pressure career and now an officer in an important humanitarian foundation. He's a real high-level guy, active throughout his life in the power stratosphere. He's one of the most decent men I have ever known. I feel for him today.

A Republican of the old school, he always, I think, considered me, if not naive, at least a non-serious person politically. After a family dinner in 1980 the TV came on, a speech by Candidate Reagan. My friend and the older members of the family watched, approving.

I stood in the back of the room, aghast as the Old Ham rolled out the shtick that had served him so well as the host of Death Valley Days in 1952. The horrifying thing was it was exactly the same! He didn't look much older, hadn't become wise or acquired any gravitas. It was a gig, and he did it well enough to get by, just like he always had. If JFK, as Norman Mailer put it, was America's Leading Man, Reagan was America's TV Host.

prewitt

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday February 22, 2008 · 12:21 PM PST

2008/02/22 · 12:21

I'm a long time Lurker, a daily reader of Daily Kos for many years, and this is my first diary: I don't want to see the Repuglies defeated; I want to see them pounded into grease spots and set on fire. Hillary was my choice in the CA primary. She is a warrior with horns and hooves, ruthless enough to take on the filthy mob infesting America, and I hadn't yet seen Obama's steel. Now I have. This guy is not only a beautiful prophet, he is a very polite stone killer. He can win big.

We are choosing a war leader in a battle for the soul of our nation. Last night the torch was passed, gracefully, from the out-generaled Old Guard to the passionate Young Turks. Internecine struggles will go on, but the endgame was firmly established as Hillary at last acknowledged the better angels of her nature and showed us what it can be: two brilliant bloodied fighters falling into each other's arms with relief and mutual respect.

Obama once again gallantly pulled out her chair. He clasped her hand, touched her arm, and whispered into her ear. She beamed at him. Come November, we are going to kick the crap out of the Republicans all across this mad, gorgeous land.

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