And it will be pathetic. “We want to ask the American people what their hopes and dreams are”? Spoken like a guy wanting to get in a girl’s pants, but then again they are certainly out to fuck us.
Look at the list of losers that will be leading this effort and taking the GOP show to the people. It’s the same pack of narcissistic jagoffs that have been running the GOP in Congress for the last 5 years. Why would anyone think they are capable of new ideas and new thinking? They are like GM in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s–”OK, so what you are telling me is that Buick is a piece of shit? Great feedback. Now, what if we painted it blue?”
There was a piece on the radio show “The World” today about Sitara Achakzai, a woman born in Kandahar and relocated to Canada, a refugee of the Soviet war. During her early years, she grew up in a very different Afghanistan, one more like the first few chapters of The Kite Runner than the war-torn poppy producer of today’s headlines. She was encouraged to go to school and to walk into town without a viel by her father who taught her that “Rights are not given – they must be taken.” That seems universally and historically true – in our country we have honored that truth with a revolution, a bill of rights, myriad amendments to the law of our land, treaties and movements that have culminated in new laws.
Sitara Achakzai - Afghan champion of women's rights
Sitara continued to fight for the rights of Afghan women, moving back to Afghanistan in 2004 to become a provincial councillor. She spoke up for women and spoke out against such laws as the legalization of rape within marriage.
At the risk of sounding trite (which is not my intention), I would love to hear Ms. Achakszai’s opinion on gay marriage. Unfortunately that won’t be possible, as she was gunned down in cold blood in Kandahar this month.
Personnally, I shall seek advice from wise minds that have gone before as I think about the cruelty of her death. Alfred Lord Tennyson would have seen the good fight continue in spite of the loss of “The Warrior.”
To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should’st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
“What is it makes me beat so low?”
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken’d eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
“Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.”
I recently learned on the NPR show “A Way With Words” that there is a term for someone whose name matches their profession: Aprtonym or Aptonym. So I was prepared to be impressed by an interview this morning with the Director of the California Water Resources Department who was discussing the inevitable rationing that will take place this summer due to the on-going drought. His name? Les Snow. Though to be fair he probably always goes by Lester.
Sometimes stuff just builds up and I have to unload it somewhere. The following has been percolating for a few days.
“St. Obama” started in conservative circles as a snarky dig at the adoration given by some of his most ardent supporters. Funny thing is, this is true of most new presidents, except that this one actually seems to be more admirable, both professionally and as a person, than any recent predecessors. It also really doesn’t capture his personality.
I get the chuckles at every new criticism of him for being polite to foreign leaders or not rising to their bait. This is like some over the top kung fu movie come to life. They swing at him; he doesn’t take a step but seems to gracefully lean out of the way with no effort at all, making them look foolish. I thought his response to the Ortega rant was great. He let Ortega have his rant, knowing that Ortega was speaking for home-consumption of Ortega’s political base, didn’t make a big deal about it by walking out in a huff and dismissed it by saying “it was 50 minutes long.” I got what he meant, but it would have been a bit more effective and easier for the small minds on the right to understand if he had said “it was too long by 49 minutes”.
Similarly, why create a diplomatic broo-ha-ha by putting down Chavez by refusing to accept the book. Hey, you dimbulb nutwingers (sorry, that is repetitive), the title was in SPANISH, which Obama doesn’t read or write. The graceful thing to do was accept the gift and consider whether or not you want to read it later. Besides, if the cover was in Spanish, I’d guess the insides were, too. Thus, it probably ends up with all the other nick-nacks foreign leaders give President all the time. This is not a big deal and those who say it is are simply grasping at straws because they haven’t had a new idea policy-wise in 30 years.
Lastly, the English translation of the title of the book is “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” Guess what, bozos, our country has only been around for 233 years! We didn’t even get involved with Mexico too much until the 1830s, let alone the rest of Latin America Thus, over half the book clearly has nothing to do with the United States, but rather the colonial exploitation of native peoples. No sane person denies what happened. That said, I’m not sorry for colonization. I wouldn’t be here if the Brits hadn’t colonized what is now the East Coast, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the immoral things many colonizers have done over the centuries. The screaming bloody murder over this little thing makes it appear it isn’t liberals who have “white guilt.” Unless, that is, you care to go on record explaining how your version of Christian morals justifies the behavior of the colonizers.
Go ahead, I dare you.
–Pennsylvania is clearly now a blue state, and the moderate Republican (by the current to-the-left-of-Jefferson-Davis standard) presidential candidate John McCain lost to Barack Obama by 10 points last November despite McCain and moose hunter VP Candidate Sarah Palin basically living there the last month of the campaign
–right-wing butt boy Rick Santorum got absolutely hammered in 2006 and lost by 18 points despite being the incumbent, and Toomey is to the right of Santorum somehow.
–any Democrat worth his salt can beat a Republican these days in Pennsylvania or most anyplace else in the Northeast, because the holy-roller anti-government Southern redneck image of the GOP scares the !@#$ out of people everywhere else in the country. And Pennsylvanians are old, right after Florida on the old scale, and that’s saying something. So you have a state of old people too poor to move to Florida who need services.
Absolutely asinine. A good opportunity for the Dems, because Toomey may well win the primary as all the former moderate Republicans around Philadelphia have fled the party in recent years. And he will get killed in a general election, probably by 25+ points.
Added bonus: one of the sweetest images I ever saw, politically, was Rick Santorum giving his concession speech in 2006, and his strangely dressed daughter (I hate the prosti-tot look as much as anyone, but this girl looks like a 12-year-old Mormon-cult third wife) bawling next to him. And I remember thinking, hon, your father equated homosexuals with people who f*** dogs. Someday, you will look back and realize your father is a dick.
Okay, I don’t know anything about beauty contests, and the only difference between Miss USA and Miss America that I can determine is the latter includes a talent contest of dubious value and somehow involves Donald Trump. But a Wilmington girl has won the former, and unlike Miss California she’s not a bigot (as far as we know, anyway), and…whatever, here’s the swimsuit shot:
Pieces like this (plus the accompanying article should be the goal of news organizations with a web presence. Both pieces (on an ambushed American platoon in Afghanistan) complement each other perfectly, with the narrated photo essay helping immerse you in the actual situation and the article providing the background. My heart goes out to the family of Pfc. Richard A. Dewater.
I really seem to be moving away from beer these days, and towards liquor and wine. Perhaps it’s the opportunity to start again from the bottom, I’ve always been addicted to the beginnings of a learning curve and God knows I’m a terrible beer snob.
Slate has an interactive graphic tracking job losses over the past few years. Blue dots track job growth, red dots track job losses. Watching the red grow looks like something out of a crime show.
