From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
And by sunset, it was all over
It started innocently enough, with a video pep talk by the President of the United States on what was the first day of school for most American children. It was the usual "strive, seek, work, think" blah blah blah that previous students in the same classrooms had heard a thousand times before by the likes of Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, et al.:
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
But some parents, sensing something was amiss, kept their children away from this president and his "innocent message" on that day. No, they hadn't bothered to read his words. They didn’t have to. They were protecting their brood out of raw animal instinct; the way a mother sea turtle gathers its younglings under her shell and pre-emptively sets up a mortar emplacement when she senses danger.
Despite the mockery towards them---the taunts and eye-rolls and grocery baggers deliberately putting gallon milk jugs on top of their egg cartons at Piggly Wiggly---these moms and dads stuck to their guns and kept their children home. And they turned out to be wise indeed. For the president did have a nefarious trick up his sleeve, which he revealed suddenly and without warning at the end of his speech:
So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Now, when I snap my fingers, you will immediately begin operation America Belongs To Kenya Now, Beeyotch. Activation code: six six niner delta roger omega fluffy tango niner eighter later gator. [SNAP!] Go! Go!! Go!!!
Here in New England, we have an old saying: "Red skies at morning, sailors take warning; red skies at night, sailor’s delight." But we're not so inclined to repeat it anymore. Because on that awful night of September 8, in the year of Our Lord 2009, the skies were indeed red. Red with blood from the brutal Obama Schoolchildren's Rebellion.
There were survivors. You and me and the professor and Mary Ann and the rest. We live on. To hope, to dream, to fight. And with Chuck Norris and "The General" Huckabee leading the way, we shall rise again and take our country back. But for now, pass me some 'o them beans and jerky. And then let's get us some shuteye. Our journey is long...and just beginning.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Note: Did you know the peace sign is based on the semaphore positions for the letters ND, which stand for Nuclear Disarmament? It's a good thing to know for historic purposes, but also practical purposes, like if someone on the next mountain peak needs to know the postal code for North Dakota. It might be an emergency!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2010: 115
Days `til Open Lighthouse Day along the Maine coast: 4
Projected percentage change in worldwide electricity usage this year: -3.5%
Number of years since recordkeeping began in 1945 that usage declined: 0
(Source: Harper's Index)
Number of CEOs who collected over $100 million in compensation in 2008: 7
(CNN via The Week)
Number of summer movies that made at least $400 million: 1 (Transformers II)
Number of Twinkies I can stuff in my mouth at one time: "Shishkeen!"
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
The lefties I knew in college all harbored deep, deep resentments against the jocks and the rich kids and all the parties they imagined they missed out on.
---"Gregory of Ydale" at Gateway Pundit, apparently forgetting that it is the "lefties" who are the rich elitist partiers, according to The Complete Idiot Republican's Guide to Framing Democrats
All together now: One...two...three... Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Don’t show the birthers this or they'll start saying the president was really born a Labrador retriever in England.
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CHEERS to the silly season. Oh, la-de-frickin'-da...Congress is back in session today, half of its members still nursing the bite marks on their asses from the August town hall astroturfer riots. Democrats will immediately start pointing fingers at each other over health care, while Republicans will follow tradition and draw straws to determine who gets to be the first to say something so crude and outlandish that it causes Keith Olbermann to take the secret "Olbervator" down to his lair to crank out a Special Comment. (We should know the winner by noon.) On behalf of those of us who make a living pointing and laughing at fools, welcome back!
JEERS to fulfilling our expectations. Speaking of fools (what a segue!), after a year of chin-stroking and number-crunching that kept his committee up until the wee hours (5pm Monday thru Friday, 6pm Tuesdays and Thursdays), the towering Democratic champion of middle-class values, the Big Guy who's always looking out for the little guy, "Mighty Max of Montana" came out with his Magical Mystery Insurance Bill yesterday. Jane Hamsher and the Healthcare Justice Action League at FDL have given it a once-over, and deemed it DOA:
[It forces] low- to middle-income [Americans] to buy "junk" insurance they can't afford to use to earn Republican support, which amounts to a giant transfer of wealth to the insurance industry.
Republicans won’t support it, anyway, and sane Democrats won’t touch it with a ten-foot rectal thermometer. Tomorrow: Obama gets his turn. I'm cautiously optimistic. Because I thrive on danger.
CHEERS to going lax on slacks. Sent this morning via homing pootie:
Dear Sudan,
Thank you for not flogging that woman just because she wore pants. That was nice of you.
The $200 fine is still pretty lame, though. But I guess ya gotta put your pants on one leg at a time, eh? Ha ha. Make sure you tell that one to the judge, he'll get a kick out of it.
Sincerely,
BiPM
JEERS to free passes. Thirty five years ago today, President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to Richard "I am not a crook except Monday through Sunday from 6am 'til 5:59am" Nixon. C&J acknowledges it perhaps maybe kinda sorta served as medicine to heal the country (whatever the hell that means) after Watergate. But seeing Tricky Dick behind bars would've been mighty therapeutic.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Josh Marshall asks: Am I the only one who thinks that if the Dems pass a bill with mandates and subsidies for poor and moderate income people to purchase it but no public option or competition with the insurers, that it will be pretty much a catastrophe for the Democrats in political terms?
No.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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HUZZAH to the secession squisher. Happy 181st birthday to General Joshua Chamberlain. He held Little Round Top against overwhelming odds during the battle of Gettysburg, helping save the north from being ruled by George Allen. Then he came back home to be our governor for four years (winning his third one-year term in 1868 with 72 percent of the vote). Today we consider him our state's #1 hero. Assuming, of course, you don’t count the Mainer who invented earmuffs. Pay your respects here.
CHEERS to independence. In exciting business news, Cadbury is resisting a 16.7-billion-dollar takeover by Kraft. Said the Cadbury spokesbunny in a brief statement: "Balk balk balk balk balk balk balk balk balk baaaaaalk!"
CHEERS to watching idiot logic go up in smoke. On Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a rather shocking piece on the wildfires megafires out west. It ended with a hot blast of reality for folks who think it's just nature taking its natural course:
"Wait a minute. Did you just say that there's a reasonable chance we could lose half of the forests in the West?" Pelley asks. "Yes, within some decades to a century, as warming continues, and we continue to get large scale fires," [Tom Swetnam, one of the world's leading fire ecologists] replies. ...
"You know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change," Pelley remarks. "You won't find them on the fire line in the American West anymore," [Chief of fire operations for the federal government] Tom Boatner says. "'Cause we've had climate change beat into us over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what we’re seeing, and we're dealing with a period of climate---in terms of temperature and humidity and drought---that's different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes."
Meanwhile, firefighters are making headway against the blazes around Los Angeles. Unlike the climate-change deniers, who continue to flame away.
CHEERS to sticky situations. On September 8, 1930, Richard Drew created Scotch tape. Here are just a few of the uses for it. But remember: Yes, it's fine for everyday use during peacetime, but when we go up to terror alert Orange, only duct tape can save your hide.
P.S. ScotchWOW!
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Five years ago in C&J: September 8, 2004
JEERS to #1000. No parade. No happy homecoming. Just a flag-draped pine box and a free ride home on a cargo plane for the 1,000th American soldier to die in Iraq. Bush says the killers must be brought to justice. Yes, indeed...we hope he and Cheney are. Soon.
JEERS to business as usual. Congress reconvenes, and what is the most pressing concern in the House? The deficit? The 1,000th death in Iraq? Global warming? No, silly...a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage! And we thought they might disappoint us.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to the final frontier. For the last few months I've been watching two original Star Trek TV episodes every weekend (I was deprived as a child), and basking in their cheesy, kitschy, shoestring-budget goodness. On September 8, 1966 the first episode of Gene Rodenberry's galactic creation aired on NBC. The series was regularly beaten in its time slot, and its high-water mark was 52nd among all shows that year. But for all its phaser'ing and photon-torpedoing, it was decidedly anti-war:
Kirk: Well, there it is...war. We didn’t want it, but we've got it.
Spock: Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.
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Spock: You Earth people glorified organized violence for forty centuries---but you imprison those who employ it privately.
Yeah. We're just fickle that way.
Okay, back to the grind. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"In addition to apple picking, autumn in New England is wonderful for Bill in Portland Maine-peeping."
---Todd Hultquist, U.S. Apple Association
9/4/09
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