From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Happy Birthday, ER!
Today is Eleanor Roosevelt's 132nd birthday. Like Hillary, she didn't confine herself to picking out White House china patterns, especially when it came to women's rights:
She held the first women-only press conference at the White House in 1933.
Her 6-day a week syndicated column, My Day, encouraged women to "become more conscious of themselves as women and of their ability to function as a group. At the same time they must try to wipe from men's consciousness the need to consider them as a group or as women in their everyday activities, especially as workers in industry or the professions." And in 1939, when black singer Marian Andersen was denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the Revolution, Eleanor resigned from the group and helped arrange a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
Enjoy some vintage Eleanor:
If I were young enough, I would rather be a nurse in the Army or Navy, for they are allowed to share more nearly the men's existence. They know that there will be no attitude on the part of the boys which says "Oh yes, you have come in to wear a uniform, but you don't really mean ever to do a job which will inconvenience you or change the ease we men are expected to provide for our women." Life in the armed services is hard and uncomfortable, but I think women can stand up under that type of living just as well as men.
---1943 "My Day" column
Whereas freedom and equality are essential to human development and whereas woman is as much a human being as man and therefore entitled to share with him; We believe that the well-being and progress of society depend on the extent to which both men and women are able to develop their full personality and are cognizant of their responsibilities to themselves and to others, and we believe that woman has thus a definite role to play in the building of a fine, healthy, prosperous and moral society and that she can fulfill this obligation only as a free and responsible member. Therefore, be it resolved that the purpose of the subcommission is to raise the status of women to equality with men in all fields of human endeavor.
---1946 participant in a discussion of the proposed Statement of Purpose of the U.N. Subcommittee on the Status of Women.
And on a larger scale:
“Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home---so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world.
Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
---1958, on the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In the end, Roosevelt---whose image will soon grace the revamped $5 bill---marveled that "I became more of a feminist than I ever imagined." The world is a better place for it. Pay your respects here. In her honor, today everything in the C&J cafeteria will be slathered in Good Luck Margarine.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Note: Only 11 days until the next New England Kossack Fall Meetup---October 22 starting at noon. We're going back to the great place we went last January---The Farm Bar And Grille at 57 State Street in Kittery. (It's right across the Maine/New Hampshire border. (To get through the tollbooth, just slip the attendant a few bucks and use the secret password "Thanks.") To RSVP or get more info, email Kossack nhox42 at nhox42 [at] gmail.com. Come…we must break bread!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the final debate: 8
Days 'til the Krewe of Boo parade in New Orleans: 11
Percent of voters who trust Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively, to make smarter Supreme Court picks, according to PPP: 52%, 37%
Number of jobs created in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 156,000
Average number of jobs gained monthly so far this year: 178,000
Number of U.S.S. Arizona (sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941) crew members who are still alive following the death of 94-year-old Raymond Haerry last month: 5
Number of sentences of non-violent offenders president Obama commuted last week, bring his total to 774 according to AP: 102
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
A fly briefly landed on Hillary Clinton during Sunday night's debate. Naturally, the End Times-obsessed commenters at World Net Daily know exactly what it means:
"Demon-rats are uncircumcised Philistines worshipin' tha flies on tha dung heap."
"I agree that it is a sign. Name me any candidates or politicians ever, who have had a fly or flies land on them or around them. They attract things that are of the same chemical make-up they are, nasty things. Yes not only has had fly problems but rodent problems before speaking. Rodents running across in front of the podium and when in Africa something ran in front and hit the camera and they yelled out demon. So hey I believe in signs."
"It seems that the devil knows his own!"
"Must have been attracted to that legion of demons trapped inside Hellary of the flies."
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: If all goes according to schedule, tomorrow's the big day…
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CHEERS to the final sprint to the finish line. As of today there are exactly four weeks until the votes are counted, and here's where things stand. Democrats are working their ground game and executing their research-based marketing strategy with cutting-edge efficiency as Hillary Clinton and her deep bench of beloved surrogates fan out to spread the message of equality, security and economic parity. The libertarians are still trying to figure out what "world leaders" are. Jill Stein continues to draw crowds in the tens. As for congressional Republicans running for re-election, they're having issues:
"I support and endorse Trump!"
"I support Trump but I'm not endorsing him."
"I endorsed Trump but now I'm un-endorsing him but still supporting him."
"I endorsed Trump but then I un-endorsed him but now I'm re-endorsing him but I’m canceling all my campaign appearances with him."
"I support Republicans but this election is too important to leave in the hands of Donald Trump. I’m voting for Hillary even though I’m not endorsing or supporting her."
"I'd love to explain my position but the elevator doors are closi…"
Suffice it to say, the GOP is melting down faster than a lily-liver-scented candle under a blowtorch fueled by the hot air of the deplorables. The presidency is gone. The Senate is mostly gone. The House is more in play than anyone would’ve guessed. And the Supreme Court is just months away from losing its wrecking-ball conservative majority for a generation. Gee, who would’ve thought that the care and feeding of hate groups would be a bad idea as a major party’s primary mission? Doh!
JEERS to the silence of the slot machines. Don’t get me wrong, I'd shut down casinos as fast as I could if it were up to me. But, like the industry or not, gambling gives a lot of people their jollies and also puts a small army of blue-collar Americans to work. And in Atlantic City, the Trump Taj Mahal---where "the house always wins"---closed its doors yesterday morning because the house lost its shirt. It's the last remnant of the mighty Trump empire there, which was really never mighty nor an empire, really, but if you have enough flashing lights and ding-ding-ding'ing you can make people believe anything. Sad…
The Taj Mahal becomes the fifth Atlantic City casino to go out of business since 2014, when four others shut their doors.
But this shutdown is different: it involves a casino built by the Republican candidate for president, who took time out from the campaign trail to lament its demise. “I felt they should have been able to make a deal,” Trump told The Associated Press in a recent interview. […]
"Everybody has their Popeye moment: ‘That’s all I can stands; I can’t stands no more,'" [Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union] said. "The workers made a choice that they weren’t going to accept benefits and terms of employment worse than everyone else's. I applaud them: For the first time in 30 years, workers stood up to [billionaire owner] Carl Icahn and made him throw in the towel."
That's why you should never play Trump-style roulette. No matter how you spin the wheel, the little ball always ends up in the red.
JEERS to the gullible gaggle. This week marks the 14th year since Congress perpetrated a self-inflicted "date which will live in infamy" on us. It was October 10, 2002 when the House of Representatives---admittedly minus 126 reality-based Democrats and 5 Republicans---said "Okely Dokely!" by a 297-133 margin to let President Bush go to war with Iraq without actually, y'know, "declaring" war. (The resolution has been exploited by President Obama as authorization to go to "war" with ISIS, and Congress appears to have no stomach to weigh in on the matter, despite wanting to crawl over broken glass to investigate every other damn thing he does.) The Senate would follow suit 9 days later. But there were a few notable dissenters as the stupid unfolded:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "It is fear which leads us to war. It is fear which leads us to believe that we must kill or be killed. Fear which leads us to attack those who have not attacked us."
Senator Robert Byrd: "This is the Tonkin Gulf resolution all over again. Let us stop, look and listen. Let us not give this president or any president unchecked power. Remember the Constitution."
Yeah! Remember the...whatzytution, again?
CHEERS and JEERS to this year's #1 peacemaker. The Nobel prize's most prestigious award was handed out Friday, and it was….a bit awkward:
The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end his country's long-running civil war with FARC rebels.
The Nobel committee made the announcement in Oslo on Friday, five days after voters in Colombia narrowly rejected a peace deal that Santos' government had spent years negotiating.
In its citation, the committee said it had awarded Santos the prize for "his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people."
This year's medal looks a little different from previous ones. Instead of a group of three men forming a fraternal bond with an inscription reading Pro pace et fraternitate gentium, it's just a guy facepalming with the inscription reading A For Effort.
CHEERS to the sanctity of marriage. Happy 41st anniversary to former President and future First Husband Bill and future President and former First Lady Hillary Clinton! According to the Texas School Board-approved Big Pop-up Book of American History, they got hitched on October 11, 1975 while running from the Feds during a string of bank robberies, after which they bribed and murdered their way to the Arkansas governor's mansion, where they participated in masked spouse-swapping parties while dipping their enemies in slopgrease and feeding them to the hogs out in the back yard next to their bribe cash vault. What can we say? That's amore!
CHEERS to today's screen test. See if you can meet this little challenge from NASA…
If you're like me, you failed miserably because instead of two moons, you saw over a hundred, and all but two turned out to be flecks of Oreos, ice cream or Dorito crumbs stuck to the monitor from bouts of yelling at the screen while reading about the latest political outrage. Pass the shammy. By which I mean pass the sandblaster.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 11, 2006
GOOD LUCK, BUDDY to Ban Ki-moon He's the South Korean foreign minister who just became the new U.N. Secretary. Let's check his To-Do list for the coming week, shall we? Oh, lets…
1) Introduce self to new staff
2) Unpack things in new office
3) Give John Bolton a swirlie
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And just one more…
CHEERS to busting down closet doors. Today is the 28th National Coming Out Day, an annual event designed "to promote a safe world for LGBT individuals to live truthfully and openly."
I officially swung my closet door open on Saturday, December 14th, 1991, 17 years after I became aware of physical attraction to another person---a crush on a fifth-grade classmate at East Elementary School in Mount Vernon, Ohio who was (spoiler alert) a dude. Like every other human being I know, straight or gay, those feelings (aka orientation) just happened---thank you, hormones and brain wiring. If you ever want to flummox a right-winger in a "nature vs. nurture" debate, just ask 'em when they chose to be straight. Watching them go temporarily catatonic as they contemplate that is always good fun. (It's also one of the best times to engage in the practice of "human tipping"---they go down with the slightest push with your index finger.)
All things considered, witnessing the steady advancement of the LGBT movement has been gratifying to watch, and it's mainly because of some simple math: the more we come out, the more society at large---including the Daily Kos community, ya big lovable lugs---recognizes us, supports us, and advocates on our behalf towards the less-elusive-than-ever goal of full equality. (And we appreciate it more than you'll ever know.) Nobody said it better than good old Harvey Milk:
"Gay brothers and sisters, you must come out. Come out to your parents ... Come out to your relatives. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers, to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake."
...and, of course, for your free toaster oven.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
There are two kinds of people in this world: people who know that Bill in Portland Maine is gross, and fucking psychopaths.
---Kat Angus, Buzzfeed
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