All over again

I was walking down the corridor of the place where I work today when I was hit with a powerful sense of the ole déjà vu. I stopped for a moment, as I always do, to see if I could muster forth a premonition of what would happen next, but I was unsuccessful, as usual. I admit that it’s a fairly childish piece of behavior on my part, a bit like crossing my fingers and making a wish whenever I see a white horse, which I still also do, despite my abysmal success record in that area as well. Although you never know. Someday I might still marry David Cassidy.

I read a really interesting explanation for déjà vu somewhere. Basically, it postulated that the feeling could be chalked up to a small, momentary brain malfunction; that a neural misfire could cause a new experience to be routed through the brain on a pathway normally reserved for memory, thus making the present “feel” like the past.

I like that explanation. Now it makes sense to me to that feelings of déjà vu never come at significant moments, but always come at the most mundane of times, e.g., when I am pulling a long string of cheese off a piece of pizza and dropping it into my mouth, or sitting at the interminable red arrow traffic light near my house, or lounging in my backyard on a summer’s eve, plotting the violent death of the Freecreditreport.com guy.

Amazingly, I don’t believe I have ever experienced an episode of déjà vu while learning that some right wing ideologue is actually a miserable lying hypocrite, which just seems like a stupendous defying of the odds, doesn’t it? I mean, I don’t know about you, but it seems like, if I were to estimate the time I spend each day learning of the real-life hypocrisies of the holier-than-thou, it would have to be about 9 waking hours, plus also about 40 minutes of sleep time a day during which I am hitting the snooze button on the clock radio whilst subconsciously absorbing news from our nation’s capital delivered by the soothing tones of Morning Edition’s Renee Montagne. So…call it 10 hours of hypocrite revelations a day, give or take.

So, no, when I hear that another one of the congressmen who stood at our nation’s seat of government and condemned President Clinton to the damnation of eternal hellfire for cheating on his wife, has in fact actually cheated on his wife, I don’t think “Wow. Déjà vu.” I maybe think, “Another brick in the wall, huh?” or “What a huge fucking surprise,” or sometimes even “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT FROM THESE PEOPLE? HONESTY? INTEGRITY? THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THOSE WORDS MEAN.”

Similarly, when I find out that the $1.9 million (she referred to it as “millions,” but we’ll let that one pass) that Sarah Palin’s office estimated the state of Alaska has spent on defending her against scandals, was comprised mainly of the salaried hours of state attorneys who would’ve had to draw a paycheck anyway, and did not, as she so emphatically assured us, divert money from state troopers or education, I do not feel a sense of déjà vu, even though it is yet another Sarah Palin convenient lie in a veritable avalanche of convenient lies from Ms. Alaska. What did divert money from education was Palin herself, as it turns out. Also, just for the record, she didn’t sell the jet on eBay, she did campaign for the “bridge to nowhere,” she and Todd actually did have health insurance during that time that she said they didn’t even though it was pointed out to her by Todd himself that they did, they were involved in the Alaska separatist group, she did fire that librarian and that police chief, she never met with Russian trade officials, her teleprompter did not break, the Branchflower Report did state unethical activity, holy fucking Christ on a cross I could go on, y’all, but I think probably the recitation of Palin’s prevarications have already caused enough of you to drift away from this post and onto less predictable fare.

The thing is, with Palin and Sanford and Ensign and loonies like Bachman and Santorum and all the others is, they know that they can sell their fucked-up agendas to a certain portion of the public. They know that there are people out there who, for reasons past all sensible understanding, think that their wages are shitty because of Mexicans, and not because of Wall Street, and that gay people are disgusting sinners who do not deserve to live like “normal” people, and that the world was a better place before blacks got all uppity, and that if the government offered them health insurance, then our health care system would be in worse shape than it is now, as if that were possible, readers. As it that were even remotely fucking possible. And they sell themselves to those people as champions of their misguided ideals, and they repeat those ideals, and they tell them that those are the only real ideals, the only truly American ideals, and they enable those people, who, by the way, know in their heart of hearts that they are bitter, and they do embrace guns and religion as a way to comfort their own powerlessness; they enable the ignorance of the people who support them, and those people continue to support them, and it all goes on and on as a part of the huge cyclone of shit that American politics ever has been and probably ever will be, amen.

No, there’s no déjà vu here, folks, because that would suggest that the exposure of right-wing hypocrites is some kind of aberration, some kind of fluke, or trick of the mind. No, there is no such luck for us – as long as politicians make their living selling lies, there will be those who eventually become exposed as liars. What frustrates me is that generally, no one yet seems willing to infer that maybe, maybe they’re all liars.

Well, let me put forth, then, that if you are selling a lie, you’re a liar. And let me suggest to CNN and MSNBC and NBC and CBS and ABC and even Fox – let me suggest that if you pretend to us that you believe that the way to present an issue is to balance every truth with a lie, and let the viewers figure it out, then you’re liars as well. Every time you bring out an Ann Coulter or a Michelle Malkin or Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity to represent “the other side,” you’re a big, fat, stinking, soul-stealing, will-to-live-crushing liar, and if there is a punishment meted out after this mortal life to those who sin against humanity, then yours will surely be colossal, but, hey, there’s nothing new about that.

No time is a good time for goodbyes

Well, readers, I’ve spent the weekend trying to make sense of Governor Palin’s resignation speech, which wasn’t easy considering the only thing more fucked up than the content was the delivery. Is this something they teach you in the beauty pageant world, to talk like your speech is written on the bodies of thousands of tiny bats flying around inside your skull?

First of all, I think that her usual M.O. of making her family stand up next to her was an excellent choice to make for a speech complaining about how the media exploits her children. It’s irony so thick and meaty you’ll be tempted to eat it with a fork – but use a spoon, of course, readers, to get every drop.

Drops such as the one in which she asserts that deserting the governor’s office while Alaska descends into perhaps unprecedented economic hard times is what’s best for Alaska. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more, but I had no idea that Palin and I would be on the same page on that issue. Hunter S. Thompson once said that when the going gets tough, the tough turn pro. No doubt Palin will come to appreciate that thought as she struggles to deliver on her 11 million book advance from Rupert Murdoch.

Another drop: Palin compared her decision to the inspiration she found when recently visiting American troops in Kosovo and Germany. And what did she find inspiring about the troops there, you may ask? They “don’t give up.”

Palin also went out of her way to crow about how the Supreme Court had reversed their favorite whipping boy, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, on two recent decisions in which the state of Alaska was defending what Palin describes as “states’ rights.” One decision ruled that a mining company does indeed have the right to deposit slag into an otherwise clean, freshwater lake. The other ruled that the state has the right to deny a defendant access to crime scene DNA to test against their own, even if the defendant pays for the tests.

Hey, way to go, Alaska. Now there’s some rights worth fighting for. No wonder your former governor is so proud. Freedom ain't, as country stars and bumper stickers are so found of reminding us, free.

Palin also quite rightly pointed out that part of the reason she was quitting was because she was, by virtue of the announcement that she would not seek re-election that she had just made 30 seconds ago, now a lame duck governor, and lame duck governors do not get anything done, so she had just as well quit in the middle of her first term anyways. I can’t help but wonder if any of the governor’s aides had pointed out that such reasoning was not very sound, since she could’ve easily not announced that she wasn’t running for a second term, and therefore not given away her lame duck status, if that status was so meaningful that she was using it to justify walking away from the office that the voters of the state of Alaska had elected her to. But I’m nitpicky like that.

And not to get into uncomfortable subjects, but did she really say that the world needed more retarded children? Because, Sarah, darling, no matter how much you love your retarded child, and lord knows I believe you do – the world does not need more retarded children. Nor does it need more blind children or deaf children or children born with bodies that do not allow them to run and play. No one thinks things like that. Jesus Christ, think about what you’re saying once in a while, will you?

Some people will no doubt point out that she didn’t really say the world needed more retarded children. She said, in the context of complaining that people were making fun of her son, that “the world needs more ‘Trigs’, not fewer.” And yes, she did put her child’s name in quotes in the official text of the speech. I CANNOT DEAL WITH HER GRAMMATICAL SHORTCOMINGS, PEOPLE. WE DO NOT HAVE TIME.

So what does “Trig” mean, if not a retarded child? A child people make fun of? The world needs more of those? That can’t be right. Maybe she meant a child used as a political prop, but could never be referred to in that way by anyone else but her?

I bet that’s it.

And here’s the last drop: after an entire speech spent denigrating the “REAL climate change” (ho ho!) that occurred in Alaskan politics, and painting the situation there as one completely unworthy of her considerable attentions and talents, she then went on to state that the dude taking over for her was going to be really good at governing it, and she didn’t want to discourage young people from going into politics. Because it’s so worth it! But not for her. And you can change government for the better! If it were even worth changing, which it isn’t. Public service, people! It’s for losers! Or not!

Overall, I think I was somewhat stunned that the entire speech was delivered in a manner so stammering, halting, and disjointed, and with such poor skill and technique that it was hard to believe that the woman stood on the floor of the RNC last year in front of twenty thousand people and lied her ass off with a straight face and wink. If McCain had won, she would’ve been one cantankerous septuagenarian’s heartbeat away from being president! President! Of the United States! I mean, sure, we’ve succeeded in lowering the bar to a stupefying level over the last eight years, but still. Even George W. at his most mind-bogglingly obtuse would’ve had trouble coming up with this:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.

In other words, only quitters keep trying. Only lazy people continue to work.

OMG, readers, it almost came to be. Remember that, every time you hear McCain prattle on about teaching Iran a lesson or you hear that stupid, bullying, coward of a moron whining on and on about how hard it is for her to stay awesome. Remember. It almost came to be.

Bells On wonders...

I think the only sector of the market that Ed Hardy has not penetrated is women's hygiene products. Is that because an Ed Hardy douchebag would be redundant?

Don't be callin out mercy

I have to admit I am a little relieved Michael Jackson is dead. He was messed up beyond all measure, but he was too famous and powerful to ever be helped by anyone. He only ever made the news when he did something appalling, and come on, he was never actually going to make that comeback or make another good piece of music, so all the "how ironic that he died just as he was about to reclaim his status" stuff is bullshit, and we all know it.

He was the quintessential imploding star, yes, although he took that paradigm to a stupefying level. He was incapable of distinguishing reality from the narrative that he paid people to perpetuate. Whatever it was that had scarred him, he was so frightened of it that he retreated from the responsibilities of adulthood entirely, and that's beyond sad. It's sickening.

He was used by everyone around him, from his parents, to his siblings, to his stunt wife Lisa Marie, who I think took off as soon as she figured out she couldn't secure a nice paycheck for Scientology. The failures of those who purported to care about him were colossal.

I find it hard to even be sad for his devoted fans, because they seem so deluded. He wasn't "innocent," he's not "the prince" anymore, and he only seemed to care about his fans to the extent that they reinforced his self-aggrandizing and self-damaging world view.

When I watch one of his old videos, back before he Frankensteined himself, I just feel sad. What a waste of talent. What a waste of a fortune. What a big fucking waste.

Never did far away charge so close

You know, I find it really touching that the Republicans care so much about the stolen election in Iran. I mean, they care enough that they are demanding that President Obama issue threats against the government of Iran, even though those threats could very well escalate hostilities between us, and cause their government to clamp down on protesters even more. That is a hell of a lot of caring. Good for them. I’m impressed.

I guess they have finally learned their lesson from 2000 - that stolen elections and illegitimate leaders mean dire consequences for the country that allows such crimes to take place. I mean, I'm grateful that they finally have learned, but I just wish they had let us know before BushCo ransacked the fucking country for 8 years, but, you know, whatever. Kudos.

Who'll stop the rain?

I always tend to feel a bit like Goldilocks when I’m away from home. All the different beds. Some too soft. Some too hard. Sometimes, the elusive “just right.”

Spooney and I started out our tour of the East Coast having a pretty good time. Sure, United demonstrated that they really don’t understand the “confirmed” part of confirmed seat assignments, and they seem to be of the opinion that eight rows away is really close enough to sit to my boyfriend on a six hour flight, but we managed a trade and the flight attendant skated us some free drinks and an apology. I love the flight attendants and the cockpit personnel on United. Everyone else who works for that airline can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned, especially those completely useless twats on their reservation line. United used to have great phone reps, but they’ve recently outsourced to someplace where poorly enunciated English, and the ability to read words off a screen, seem to be their only marketable skills.

So it was great seeing relatives in New Jersey, and my dear friend Kate in NYC, but once we got to Boston, the wheels started to come off. Yes, we had some great dinners with old friends at first, and everything seemed to be going swell, but then we hit a real losing streak near the end. First, due to my own dumb error, we showed up one night too late for our much-anticipated Red Sox game, and then, after I shelled out additional dollars to a scalper for 2 more tickets, the game got rained out after five crappily played innings.

Then, the seas were so stormy and rough during our whale watch that not only did we not see any whales, but half the passengers were freely spewing chunks. It was a five hour lesson in endurance and self-control. Forget waterboarding, man, if you want to torture a detainee, put them on the Boston Aquarium Whale Watch Cruise with six foot swells and a poop deck full of barfing schoolchildren.

On the morning of our 6 a.m. flight home, we got lost trying to find the car rental return. And then, just to up the anxiety ante, we got pulled over by a cop in Revere, because at 3 a.m., it is apparently difficult to distinguish the way lost people drive from the way drunk people drive. The cop berated us for our infraction, wondered aloud (and definitely rhetorically) as to whether we might be humans of the moron variety, gave us some very rapidly and impatiently delivered directions to our destination, and then walked away without saying a word of farewell, shaking his head in disgust.

And then United lost my luggage.

I was so relieved to be home at that point that I didn’t mind the thought of going to work the next day with my au naturale curly poodle bangs. What I did mind, is that I knew I would have to spend the day telling people that they no longer had a job.

Yeah, I found out right before I left what I was going to be doing the day I got back. And I’m ashamed to admit that it hung over me like a thundercloud the entire time I was gone. No matter how many times I told Spooney that I was definitely not thinking about it the whole time…I was definitely thinking about it the whole time. I was lying awake nights and stewing, constantly stewing and fretting.

I’m even more ashamed to admit that after a day of laying off talented and dedicated employees, I feel sorry for myself, and it’s not because I know that the clock has started ticking on my own job. It’s because it shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be here, doing this bullshit thing. This incredible company, with its brilliant technology, should survive. It’s the new economy! So why does it feel so much like the 1980s?

Actually, now that I think about it, it feels like Carter’s first term. If you were alive and coherent in the ‘70s, you might remember that Carter tried to turn this country around during the fuel crisis. He proposed a plan for energy independence, practically invented industry and consumer conservation, funded alternative power sources, and even put solar panels on the White House.

Then came Reagan, who proceeded to, in one of his first acts as president, very publicly remove those solar panels. His second act was to take all the money for solar and other fuel technologies, and give it to the oil companies so that they could find more freakin oil. They did, they got richer, the price of gas went down, and Americans promptly forgot why they cared about fuel efficiency in the first place. They decided that Saint Ronnie knew best, and if he told us that the man standing behind us with his cock in our ass was Big Government, and not Big Oil, then by god that was good enough for us.

What kills me, is that if we had followed through on Carter’s plan, we’d be energy independent today. Yes, it would’ve been a major expenditure. Solar power is expensive, but you know what? It goddamn works. So does wind power. Think about it - we’d be off the Mideast grid by now, motherfuckers. I mean, can you imagine where we’d be right now, if we didn’t need OPEC? 5000 American veterans and millions of civilians from both Gulf Wars would be alive. There’d be less oil money to support Islamic terrorism all over the world. Also, with no need for a U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, we’d miss being branded as the Great Satan by Osama bin Laden. 3000 people get to go home to their families at the end of the day on September 11, 2001. The war in Afghanistan never happens, but it’s okay because without the US meddling in the Mideast, the USSR never invades Afghanistan, the US never funds the Afghani warlords, and the Taliban never takes hold. So the next time someone is droning on and on about what a terrible president Jimmy Carter was, shove that in their pipe and tell them to fucking choke on it.

And while you’re at it, tell them to shut the fuck up about socialism and the stimulus bill and their fucking goddamn tea parties. In case you haven’t noticed, American capitalist ingenuity ain’t shit right now, people. The profit for the technologies that will save our lives will always be too far away for those greedy fucks and their stupid, stupid short-sighted goddamn Wall Street crybaby investors. The only place where real innovation is taking place around the world is in places where the government is biting the bullet and funding it. Wake the fuck up. Wake the fuck up, people, and join me. Because I tell you, lately, I cannot sleep at all.

Hang on

Sorry. I've been gone, and I've been real gone.

Events developing. Issues mulling.

xoxox
v

Bizarro Jerry

Holy cow, readers, what kind of bizarro world are we living in these days, anyways?

Darth Cheney is supporting gay marriage.

President Obama is refusing to release detainee photos

Michael Moore is a millionaire. GM is bankrupt.

Eminem has a sense of humor. (Seriously, I mean, wow, who’s next? Sean Penn?)

And white men are the victims of racist Latina women.

You know, I remember when the CTA finally put wheelchair lifts on the city buses in Chicago. At the same time, they also tore out several rows of seats in order to make a sort of wheelchair cubby – they’re everywhere now so you know what I’m talking about. But I remember, many years ago now, the first time I saw the new arrangement put to use. Many other riders that day were transfixed by the sight of the man being lifted in his chair by what I must admit was a very slow mechanism. Everyone was kind of staring. And this middle-aged businesswoman standing beside me made a point of looking at me and rolling her eyes. “I don’t understand why they can’t have their own buses like before,” she said. “They slow everyone else down, and if they hadn’t torn out all those seats for them, then we could be sitting down right now.” She paused, and then narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t you think so?” she said, rather aggressively.

“I think,” I said “we should get down on our knees and thank our lucky fucking stars that we can walk onto this bus on our perfectly functioning legs.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t really say that. Maybe I’ve only spent the last twenty years formulating the ultimate trepverte response. Maybe at the time I only glared back in a sullen twenty-something way. But even back in my sneering, snotty, black-clad, self-absorbed salad days, readers, I knew she was an asshole. Even I knew that.

And I feel similarly about the LEGIONS of white dudes who are complaining about the “racism” of SCOTUS nominee Sonya Sotomayor. It’s just so unseemly. It’s just…so fucking obscene that a white man, or a white woman for that matter, would hear the following quote:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

and would have the gall, the unmitigated fucking gall, to call it “racism,” instead of – hey, I’ll say it – instead of…truth.

Because isn’t it true? Isn’t it?

If you’re having trouble with her statement, perhaps it might help if you consider that she might very well have had someone like our current chief justice, John Roberts, in mind when she spoke about that nameless white male. Jeffrey Toobin recently wrote in The New Yorker:

“In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.”

Yes, it’s quite a record. No doubt influenced by his background and his heritage as a proud white male Bush campaign supporter and general legal toady for the right. That kind of influence is apparently okay, however, the influence of an upbringing that takes you from the Bronx projects to the Ivy League to the federal bench – fuckin’ Latina fuckin’ racist, y’all.

And if you buy that, then I got a La-Raza-is-the-Hispanic-KKK to sell you, cheap.

Also, I would just like to state once and for all, for the record, that no matter how many times the yammering idiots on TV say otherwise, you cannot substitute “white” for “Latina” or “black” and prove racism. It just don’t work that way. There are, as I noted previously, LEGIONS of bitter white dudes out there who desperately, desperately want it to work that way. But it don’t. It ain’t so black & white, white dudes. “It’s a white thing, you wouldn’t understand” is not okay. “White power” is not okay. The National Association for the Advancement of White People is not okay. And if there were one, and you called it “The Race” (La Raza), it would be SO not okay that I’m pretty sure the Feds would be knocking down your fortress walls and blasting your compound with Jay-Z (with special guest Ciara) in order to make you and your similarly brainwashed comrades come out with your hands behind your heads, you fucking redneck racist AK-7 totin' motherfuckers.

Deal with it. And while you’re at it, get down on your knees and thank your lucky fucking stars that you were born white and male in a time and place where it remains, by far, the easiest thing to be.

If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it - UPDATED

Don’t let anyone fool ya, it is still plenty tough for a woman up in this USA mug.

Sure, we’ve gotten into some pretty high places, but the climb’s still a rough one. Plus, once we get there, it’s as likely as not that there’s going to be some guy there to take our crown away and organize a club around making sure that as few of us as possible get through the next time. Plus, I don’t know if you gals out there know this, but marriage only exists to limit access to our hoo-hahs. Although if that’s true, then I don’t know why two lesbians wouldn’t be okay with all them marriage Nazis, because then you would have twice as much coochie guarding going on, right? Lesbian readers, feel free to chime in with any coochie guarding tips you might have. Being a straight gal, I have no clue how to limit access to my lady parts, and maybe a lot of that went on during my two marriages, but that’s not really what I remember. I mostly remember the fantasy football.

Being female is awesome (although I am still waiting for red flowers to grow in the crotch of my underwear like that film strip in 5^th grade said would happen). Except sometimes, it sucks. For example, in my life, I oversee quite a few construction contractors. Every once in a while, I will call over a male colleague to confer with me in the presence of the contractor on user-specific issues. And you know, it makes no difference that I am the one that called the contractors in, the one that approved the estimate, and the one that oversees their work, issues the change orders, and asks them all the questions – if there is a man standing next to me, they will talk to the man. I ask a question, and the contractor tells the answer to the guy standing next to me. It would be kind of hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.

Ok, perhaps they’re not used to reporting to someone who steps over circular saws in a pencil skirt and adorable 3 inch strappy sandals, but hey, to whom is it not obvious yet that the world is changing every minute, baby? Either get on and strap in, or get the fuck off and shut the fuck up.

And from the GTFO&STFU category, we have the myriad of Sotomayor critics on the right, who are throwing out more red herrings than Gus Van Sant imitating Brian DePalma imitating Alfred Hitchcock. If one were to listen to these right-wingers, and I must warn you beforehand that I am not making any of these things up, we would be enlightened by the following arguments.

Sotomayor:

1.) Is being unreasonable about the pronunciation of her name. Americans want to put the emphasis on the first syllable (SO-to-my-yer) instead of the last, (so-to-my-YOR). So she should let them stress the first syllable and stop insisting on the correct pronunciation, because it’s annoying. After reading this unbelievably juvenile diatribe, I was struck by a couple of things, the first one being that the author’s name is Krikorian, (emphasis second syllable) and he probably would not be too keen on being called “Cry-Korean!”

The second thing is that he also tries to pick a fight with Latino/Latino sticklers, saying that “English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?”

Oh, okay, I’ll try to remember that the next time an actress or a comedienne or an aviatrix or a seamstress or a heroine or a waitress or a chairwoman or a landlady come by, trying to give me shit about where are all my extra letters at, bitch?

2.) Is claiming that her extra special rulings are food-inspired. Yes, again, please to remember that I am not kidding. The incredible stretch of logic goes like this: Sotomayor says that Puerto Rican food is an important part of her heritage. Sotomayor also says that her heritage is an important part of her rulings, ERGO, pig’s feet with beans = illegal Mexican abortionists running wild in the streets. Never mind that W. appointee Justice Alito went on and on and on during his confirmation hearings about his family’s immigrant background and his, ahem, empathy for others in similar immigrant-y type situations.

3.) Is a stupid bitch. In spite of graduating summa cum laude from Princeton and graduating from Yale Law School as an editor of the Yale Law Journal, she is apparently “not that smart” according to an anonymous former clerk whose words have been repeated in perpetuity throughout the dumbiverse. Also, when she is not busy basing rulings on how she feels about things (Duh! She’s a woman! Probably also on her period!), she’s too clinical. Also a bully. Except when she’s too feminine.

Is your head reeling yet? Mine is, but that’s probably because I’m a girl.

Also, just as warning to all my single ladies, I don’t know if you know this, but it turns out that conservatives have a much more highly developed sense of disgust than liberals do. I know! The anal sex obsession/revulsion, the poor-people-living-in-squalor-hating, it all makes so much more sense now, doesn’t it? So, you marriage-minded gals, you know, if you’re looking for someone to help with the diaper changing, or the bathroom cleaning, or the sex-during-that-time-of-the-month having, maybe a Republican spouse is not such a good idea after all. Just sayin.

---------------------------------

UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE

--------------------------------

Yesterday on his radio show, the deliciously thick-skulled Republican show poodle G. Gordon Liddy (does EVERYONE on the right get a radio show?) said, regarding SCOTUS nominee Sotomayor, "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating."

I got 3 reactions to this.

1. "Conferences?" Do you mean the oral argument sessions? Who calls them conferences? You'd think someone who's been eaten up and shat out by the legal system would have a little better handle on the terminology.

2. Fucking bring it, assholes. You'll only make it easier for Sotomayor to get through. And for the next one to get through as well. You're only making it easier for people to stop calling themselves Republican. You're only making it easier for me, not more difficult. So flail, motherfuckers, flail. Mmmm...I love it. It smells like fresh, newly-mown victory, deep fried and dipped in a side of cool, creamy vindication, motherfuckers.

3. At 54, Sotomayor is a few years past the average age for the onset of menopause, so the whole "on the rag" joke is just a bit off the mark. Not that I would expect Liddy to know at what age women are likely to be menopausal. In fact, I seem to recall a few similar jokes made by other men on the right regarding Hillary Clinton and even Nancy Pelosi, who are 61 and 69, respectively.

So the question is, if you've got yourself a menopausal-age woman that you want to ridicule, why go for the menses? I mean, it's kind of like teasing a 30-year-old man for having pubes. Why not go for the hot flash joke? It seems like kind of an equivalent slam to me, so why do those types never do it?

The answer is, only women make jokes about hot flashes and menopause. Men don't joke about it because they don't know what it is. They have no idea what menopause even means. Because by the time women have reached the age of menopause, men have long since stopped paying any attention to them. No wonder women like Sotomayor and Pelosi and Clinton confound those old washed-up pants-pissing fear monkeys. Unless they're making them a sandwich or washing their laundry, those old fucks have no idea that women even live past the age of 40.

Well, I can clearly see you're nuts

Hey, you know what’s fun for the holiday weekend?

Making fun of idiots on the right. Right?

So get a load of this chick, sent to me originally by astute reader Marshall. More than one cyberfriend has indicated to me that they have received this from a Republican with the implication that it IS possible to recover from liberalism, ha ha ha.

To which I say physician, heal thyself. It’s not liberalism that’s been proven to be a mental defect, ho ho ho.

Also, the magazine itself is pretty lame. I mean, check out the satire in which some douchebag theorizes that the key to economic recovery is – get this! - to let everyone print their own money! Hilarious!

But so anyway, as usual, here's this jagoff who purports to have been recently “deprogrammed” from her liberal upbringing:

When I was in high school in the early 70's in New York, I wrote impassioned essays on civil rights and on feminism. In college, in the days before universities became indoctrination factories, I searched for politically left classes, and took every one I could find. I spent years in consciousness raising groups lambasting male oppression with other angry feminists, and yelled "Two Four Six Eight, Pornography is Woman Hate," at numerous marches.

Wow. Anti-pornography feminism is hard core feminism. I’ll give her that. When I gave up on Andrea Dworkin and anti-pornography feminism, however, I did so because I believed that her central thesis was flawed, and I came to that conclusion because I used my eyes to see things and my brain to think about them. Something tells me that that is not the method this chick embraced.

Plus, if this chick is half a decade older than me, then I can tell you exactly why she’s “seeing the light” and becoming a conservative. She’s got classic old fucker syndrome. You know, those people that spend their whole lives being Democrats, until they reach a certain age, and then they decide that they’d rather spend the rest of their short time left on earth cowering in fear of Mexicans and hiding their money inside hollowed-out copies of all those Ayn Rand books they’re always talking about but have never read?

Anyway, let’s check back in with Grandma No Fun:

When I was 26, I parked myself in the People's Republic of Berkeley, CA, the epicenter of the far left. I came as a liberal but soon morphed into a leftist as most people here do. In Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and the outlying towns, there is no Republican Party. Literally. There are only Democrats running against other Democrats. I recall years ago going to vote at a time when there were separate lines for Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats' line was a mile long. The Republican's was free and clear. After we all stood there waiting for 45 minutes, a brave young man walked up to the Republican booth and quickly voted. I still recall the cackles and giggles as we pointed and stared at this odd, exotic bird that had come to perch for a brief while.

There’s no Republican party in Berkeley??? That’s about as shocking as their being no Democratic party in the ignorant bumfuck backwater where I grew up. And if you were to compare the two places, intelligence-wise, I wonder how my hometown would stand up against the greater San Francisco area? Hint: not well. Also, boo-hoo, the Democrats sneered over their lattes at the Republican who had the audacity to vote. How would you like to have been a liberal growing up in the town I grew up in? Hint: you wouldn’t. Because I guarantee you, when I was growing up, I would have been thrilled to have only been sneered at.

So maybe you get now how hard it was, how disorienting and destabilizing and crazy making it was, when I realized about 1 1/2 years ago that I no longer believed in liberalism. I walked around in a confused state for weeks. Being a Democrat, a liberal, a far left radical from Berkeley was a big part of my identity. So who the heck was I if I weren't a leftist?

Holy cow, I give up. Who were you? A pirate? A ballerina? A fireman?

And what in the world would I do, given that my husband, all my friends, and all my psychotherapist clients…

Whoa. Hold on. This chick is a psychotherapist?? Are you fucking kidding me?

…and all my psychotherapist clients were liberal and I would be public enemy #1 if I told anyone? Converting from Islam to Judaism, yet still hanging out in front of the old mosque in Kabul, probably would have been easier.

You know, readers, a portrait of the author of this piece is slowly assembling itself before our eyes. Notice the tendency she has to regard herself as a victim of the forces of her life, instead of an actor. Notice that despite having a husband, and friends, and a standing in the community, she feels that her new political beliefs will completely alienate her from others. Ask yourself now why would that be?

After weeks of shuffling around like a zombie, it was time to do something about it. The first step, I decided, was deprogramming myself from decades of liberal propaganda. Out went books by Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, and various 9/11 conspiracy books.

Bingo. Got it.

“Various 9/11 conspiracy books.”

Readers, come on, can I smell a pathology, or can’t I?

In came Mark Levin, Ben Stein, Ron Paul, and Ayn Rand.

Told ya.

Plus, geez, could she at least pick an intelligent conservative, like…um…

I heard something vaguely about Talk Radio, so I scanned my AM dial, and found Michael Savage. I was shocked and offended by his diatribes -- but also oddly intrigued. I found many others: Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Boortz, Medved, all of whom became my "sponsors" in recovery this last year. I found wonderfully insightful websites like American Thinker.

Hey, it never hurts to kiss the publisher’s ass. And that website’s just moronic enough to be thrilled to be in that kind of company.

To my disbelief, the more I listened and read, the more these folks made sense. For instance, at first I couldn't understand why so many conservatives expressed concern about morality issues, like gay marriage. Berkeley is Lesbian Central, and I know many good hearted gay people.

Does anyone smell a big but coming?

But the more I learned, the more I started getting the larger picture; that conservatives were not necessarily impugning the character of gay people, but they were alarmed at the breakdown of traditional values.

Nice! Classic conservative double-speak! We’re not talking smack about gays…but they are immoral, you know.

If the basic structure of society goes, e.g., traditional marriage, religion, patriotism, common language, what remains? If everything becomes fluid, what is there to hold onto? Without any moral structure and traditions, a society descends into anarchy and mob rule, as it is clearly doing today.

So, not only are there kids on her lawn, but they’re speaking Spanish!

As I educated myself, I started thinking and rethinking. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden realization that deeply held beliefs made no sense.

Jesus Christ, this woman is frightening.

Take the anti war stance of the left. Noble and sanctimonious and all that.

Yes, yes, I think it was Jesus who said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sanctimonious pricks.”

But how easy it is to sit back and preach peace when you have an army defending you;…

Right, and how easy is it to preach “thou shalt not kill,” when you have a police force to arrest people when they do it?

…to rail against the U.S. when you are protected by free speech laws;

Which….I believe you are doing right this minute, granny.

to demonize Israel, when you've never lived through the murderous pogroms of Tsarist Russia or the Holocaust.

Or the Left Bank. Or the Gaza Strip.

How hypocritical to lambast Big Business while you are making money from their stocks in your mutual fund portfolio (that is, until Obama took over).

Someone buy this woman a calendar.

And this love affair with Radical Islam -- what's up with that?

Yes, by all means, be sure to paint liberals as “in love” with radical Islam. Because liberals are known worshipers of oppressive patriarchal conservative religions.

I had previously thought of Islam as a quaint, folksy religion.

Wha – seriously? This woman is killing me. Killing!

I had been oblivious of the horrendous treatment of women: the honor killings, beheadings, genital mutilation.

So…this should be a treatise not against being liberal, but against being willfully fucking ignorant.

It now seemed like the height of naivety, if not masochism, to embrace with open arms people who want to kill you.

You know, Grandma Scaredypants, I’d say that is the most sensible thing you’ve written in this whole long tedious-ass essay. The only problem is, no one is saying otherwise, you stupid twat.

God, you bore me.

While as a liberal I was socialized to believe everyone was good, all cultures were the same, and We Are The World, We Are The Children, I began to understand that evil exists…

Alright, I’m cutting this chick off. She’s had more than enough column space here. Suffice it to say that while attempting to hammer her point about liberalism being an immature point of view, she only succeeds in further convincing the reader that she is herself an appallingly immature person, motivated primarily – big fucking surprise - by fear of the unknown.

Plus, can I just say how super wrong it is that anyone who is a practicing psychotherapist is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist? That horrifies me. I’m not expecting every therapist to be Sigmund Freud in a skirt (although that would be fun), but holy smokes, when you let your own infantile compulsions overcome your critical thinking…should you really be in charge of opening up anyone else’s brain and rooting around?

So, whee, it’s been fun in that tiresome can-you-believe-how-fucking-stupid-someone-can-be kind of way. Have a good weekend, my precious readers. I’ll be back next week.

Yeah, this one's not making me any friends.

Remember when Barack Obama almost sank his political career by aligning himself with Reverend Wright, a clergyman whose opinions were shockingly radical and hateful towards certain sectors of American society?

Well, he’s done it again.

Obama recently endorsed by his presence and by his praise a church whose leadership is just as radical as Rev. Wright. A church led by a minister who has enabled the denial of the Holocaust, and who has made statements impugning the beliefs of our most important Middle Eastern ally. This church has also accused the president of the United States of immorality, has commanded that the minority overtake the majority by force, and has recommended that our citizens engage in activities that would put our lives at risk. And like Wright before him, this church that Obama is courting for pure political gain accuses the citizens of the United States of being to blame for the recent evils that have been visited upon us, and warns us that our country is damned by God.

Yes, by appearing to speak at Notre Dame University, Obama has endorsed with his presence the Catholic Church, the Pope, and all its leadership. And just as the media hounded him to repudiate Wright, they should now hound him to disavow himself and the office he holds from the terrible and hateful positions of this radical church.

That might seem like an unlikely event, but we must not give in to the soft bigotry of low expectations. We must insist that it be done.

Shrill, baby, shrill.

Have you guys seen this thing that keeps washing up on beaches on the East Coast? There has been a lot of speculation about its origin, but given the location and the timing, I think it’s pretty plain what this bloated white thing is.

It’s the remains of the Republican Party. And frankly, it’s a lot more attractive than I expected it to be.

Poor Republican Party. Recently, they tried to equate Obama’s preference for fancy mustard to anti-Americanism, or socialism, or being just generally all Frenchified, like that America-hating Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, who must have breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he was, after all, primarily funded by mustard’s more patriotic rival, ketchup. Nevertheless, Dijongate was mocked by the liberal main-stream media and most people with IQs over forty, worldwide. Too bad, because I heard that Republicans had planned on a second wave of media blitzing, during which they would point out that Martin Luther King Jr. himself endorsed their character-assessment methodology…and then someone in the party actually read the speech and figured out that King was referring to the “content” of people’s characters, not the “condiment.”

Then they tried to slam Obama by saying that he laughed at some jokes that were made by – get this – a comedian! Yes! Outrageous! A comedian, making jokes at a comedy dinner that did not take place at the White House and was not organized by the president’s staff or anything, but still, he was there, laughing at comedy jokes made at the expense of a person who has done nothing to him - except mock him and his supporters rather viciously, and say that he would like for all of Obama’s efforts to save our economy and keep our citizens safe to fail - that’s all! And for that this person was mocked! By a comedian! In front of a comedy audience!

So, yeah, Sykesgate doesn’t appear to have legs, either.

Alas, what’s a poor Republican Party to do? They already tried, you, know, listening to people. That did not turn out so good, mostly because one of the guys doing the listening tried to point out that their current re-election strategy of nostalgia for a dead guy who left office twenty years ago was not exactly a working political platform. Especially since no one could really say why they think the dude was any good in the first place (hint: he wasn’t). And then remember that guy who got made fun of by the comedian? He said that listening is for losers, and everyone in the party was forced to say “sir, yes sir!” and scrub out his private jet with their toothbrushes or something.

So I guess it’s no wonder that no one wants to admit that they know them. And hopefully soon, everyone will fully wake up from their idiocy-induced comas and realize that the Republicans fell for one of the most badly executed bits of redirection, from one of the most amateur and transparent political magicians, ever, and allowed him to dupe this country into a death-steeped quagmire so big that when you look up “quagmire” in the dictionary, it says “How about Iraq, ya fucking idiot?”

Meanwhile, Cheney continues on his Chicken Little press junket, and glass teat boobs like Scarborough grab onto his tailfeathers, claiming that the second after Justice Roberts fumbled the last word of Obama’s oath of office, we became “less safe.” Well, claiming we are less safe is like voting against the stimulus package: it has no down side. It will never be proven to be wrong unless the worst happens, and then it will become the base from which to launch a campaign of faux-patriotic crimes against the future of humanity so big, it will make the aftermath of 9/11 seem like Hug an Arab Day at the U.N.

Perhaps someday the Republicans will collectively heave themselves, like Senator Specter has, off of their runaway train of irrelevance, get up, dust themselves off, and fashion a message that makes sense for this country. After all, there will always be those who are willing to shortchange the poor and working class in order to line their own pockets. But until they do, I have to admit that I’m all too willing to watch them hurtling towards extinction.

In fact, if I could cut their brake line, I would.

I am, and always will be, your friend.

I can’t stop thinking about Zachary Quinto.

Watching him play Spock last night (yes, I went to the opening night, and I am apparently not afraid to admit it) was like watching Nimoy on TV when I was kid.

Watching Nimoy play Spock in the movies doesn’t do the same thing to me. He’s still great at it, but Spock as a senior citizen has too much gravitas, too much surety, too much warmth for me. Give me Spock as the awkward colt, all angles and undiscovered grace. Give him to me hiding his pain under a thousand layers of reason. Give him to me as the eager know-it-all who will never, ever, ever understand how deeply unattractive it all is.

And yeah, that was me, of course. Of course that was me.

Extra points for those who have figured out that if I was a skinny young Spock, face in a book, hiding from the bullies whose scorn I did not understand, then who was my sister? My sister, running, hitting balls, driving cars fast, taking chances I would never have taken? Who could she have been?

That’s right. Isn’t it funny that we both grew up admiring one half of that famous duo, and then, in a way, grew up to be those same people?

There are more similarities in the relationship than propriety will allow me to express. We both went through a period in our youth when we could barely tolerate each other, when we each believed ourselves to be so profoundly right, that we could not stand to see the other act differently than us, and yet feel the same. We still could hardly be more different considering that we grew up alongside one another. And it's not as if we could fall back upon a familial resemblance, I mean, it used to be a family joke that strangers would look at us and not believe that we were related, much less sisters.

Suffice it to say that now, we are like war buddies. We travel well together. She asks me what I think about things when I can tell she is gathering information for a decision. She values what I think. She is too much her own person to be truly swayed by anyone, but she gives it weight, I can tell.

And she pushes me to do things I would not otherwise choose to do. She pushes me forward, and forces me to step through the invisible web of caution and reason that I weave around me. Within the comfort of our familiarity, I find that I can do extraordinary things. Surprising things. I need that. Man, I will always need that.

And I’m glad I saw that movie last night, because without all the embarrassing bloat of age and bad rugs and fallen faces, the Star Trek world became nimble again, became possible again, in a way. Look, I’m not the first one who has compared our president to the world’s most famous Vulcan, and it’s not surprising that Obama himself is a fan; a fan who gave Nimoy, when he met him face-to-face, the Vulcan salute.

I just want to believe that we can save ourselves and this world we inhabit. I just want us to think, uh, logically about things, and stop letting our revulsion at something that’s different from us stop us from doing what’s right for all us. After all, the needs of the many…they outweigh the needs of the few, right?

It’s encouraging that young people are becoming less religious. I think it’s a good sign. Not that they’re less spiritual, or even less truly religious, but that they’re giving up the church. The church has overstayed its welcome and abused its privileges. Time for the church to go, and for reason to take the day. I hope it’s not too late.

Live long and prosper, readers.

Is it safe?

So I’m sitting here trying to figure out who is the bigger tool.

There’s this guy, who is clearly so invested in believing that his psychologist colleagues who coached the military on how to torture people more effectively are not a disgrace to their Hippocratic oaths, that he has perverted that same oath beyond recognition. “First, do no harm” no longer means that your primary goal is to not harm your patient. Because your patient is really the United States of America, and if the person sitting in front of you might be thinking of harming one of us, then, well, fucking have at him I guess. Or, in his own words: "America is my client; Americans are who I care about. I have no fondness for the enemy, and I don't feel like I need to take care of their mental health needs."

Not to call forth one of those tired-ass Nazi comparisons, but, y’know…yikes. Where'd this guy learn medicine, from watching Laurence Olivier work on Dustin Hoffman's teeth?

Or there’s this “professor of law” bitch, who not only equates caterers being able to turn down a gay wedding with “religious freedom,” she doesn’t know what the phrase “flip side” means. She proposes that the “flip side” of enabling gays to marry is protecting those who object to the gays on “religious” grounds from being forced to provide them with tacky wedding cakes, and rubbery chicken dinners, and from taking poorly lit and boringly staged pictures of their ceremonies.

Yeah. And if you think that line of reasoning is circling the drain, check out the following argument, and while you do, remember that this chick is a professor of law:

What they should not do is what New Hampshire's Senate did last week: pay lip-service to religious freedom while enacting meaningless protections. New Hampshire's bill provides that "members of the clergy ... shall not be obligated ... to officiate at any particular civil marriage or religious rite of marriage in violation of their right to free exercise of religion." But this is a hollow guarantee: The 1st Amendment already provides such protection.

“The 1^st Amendment already provides such protection.”

Hm. Maybe because not having to perform religious marriage services for those who don’t adhere to your bullshit religion is the only fucking issue here! And wonder of wonders, it’s already provided for in our Constitution? Who’d a thunk it?

Oh, only everyone, you stupid fucking idiot professor of law.

Because making a wedding cake for gay people is not a violation of your religion, you only want it to be. What it is a violation of, is your sense of douchebag entitlement. Well, guess what, professor of law genius person? If I made cakes, I wouldn’t want to make them for Christian couples. Because I wouldn’t want them procreating and making more fucking pain in my ass Christians. But I would not be allowed by the government to discriminate against Christians in my little cake-baking business, because if I did, I would be in violation of the law. I would also be an asshole. You know, kind of like the assholes who used to not let Jews into country clubs, and the fairer sex into college, and colored people onto the front of the bus. See, the government has an understandable interest in making sure that everyone in the secular world is treated fairly. And cake-baking, catering, photography? All secular pursuits.

Still confused? Okay, let’s look at it this way. Is your cake-baking business untaxed because it is a religious institution? No? So you have to pay taxes to the government, and you have to have one of those business license thingies? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

What you got yourself there is a business. A business. Not a religion, but a business. And if you want to be an American business, and operate within the good ole US of A, and enjoy separating Americans from their hard-earned dollars, then you have to conform to the rules of doing business here. One of the most important rules of doing business here is that you can’t arbitrarily choose which Americans you will and will not serve. In short, gay people get to sit at your lunch counter now, and thanks to our kick-ass Constitution, soon there will not be one damn thing you can do about it.

Get it, ya fancy dumbass professor of law?

Okay, readers, who's the bigger tool? Dr. Mengele, or the nutty professor?