No Willie Horton

Remember Willie Horton? The Massachusetts murderer who committed assault and rape while out of prison on an extremely ill-advised weekend furlough program? His case was used by (the evil and thankfully dead of brain cancer – hello, karma!) Lee Atwater, head of the presidential campaign of Bush Sr., to bury their rival, ex-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, under charges of being soft on crime. Never mind that Dukakis was only continuing a program brought about during the administration of his Republican predecessor. Never mind that he was not remotely involved in the exceedingly bone-headed decision to furlough a man who had been sentenced to life without parole. He was the guy in charge when it all went down, and was therefore responsible.

Imagine if we applied that same standard to Giuliani?

Also, I just have to mention that William “Willie” Horton never went by the name “Willie.” The nickname was Atwater’s idea, presumably so that even the blind, who couldn’t see the mug shot used in the commercial, would understand that Horton was black-ity-black-black.

Atwater, and then-media consultant Roger Ailes (why yes, it is the same Roger Ailes who’s now president of Fox News) vowed to make Horton a household name, and they succeeded. Famously unrepentant about stirring up racial tension in the campaign, Ailes remarked "the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."

Hey, what’s with the subtleties, guys? How about a knife in one hand, and a watermelon in the other?

In the ensuing years, the Horton commercial has become infamous in the annals of campaign dirty tricks. And now, Mike Huckabee would have us believe that he has become the latest victim of a Horton-style smear.

The perp’s name was Wayne DuMond. He was one of several men whose sentence was commuted by Huckabee at the urging of the perp’s pastor.

DuMond was a bad guy with a history of sexual assault and other crimes. But he was in prison for raping a third cousin of then-governor Bill Clinton, and that made him somewhat a cause célèbre for the rabid Clinton-haters, who said, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that DuMond was framed.

Huckabee had a bad habit of freeing criminals over the objections of the parole board and seemingly based solely on recommendations of right-wing pastors with whom he was personally acquainted. Apparently, all you had to do to get out of prison in Arkansas during Huckabee’s tenure was to buddy up to one of those gullible Christian crackpots.

Predictably, after his release, DuMond wasted little time in returning to his former ways, and within a month of moving to Missouri he had raped and murdered the first of two women.

So much for the “Dumond is an innocent victim of the evil Clinton empire” theorists.

Although Huckabee has been benefitting from a lot of “aw shucks”-type press coverage, I have been suspicious of his motivations from afar for many years.

Why? Because during his entire tenure as governor, he turned a deaf ear to the overwhelmingly obvious innocence of the West Memphis Three.

Has there ever, in the history of American justice, been a more grievous example of railroading than in the case of these three young men? I doubt it. These kids were accused and convicted basically because they were Goths and loners in a town spooked by the gruesome murders of three young boys. But because the so-called “ringleader,” of the three, Damien Echols, is not Christian, Huckabee couldn’t be bothered with him, and that makes him just as bad as the ignorant, malevolent, incompetent bigots who put Damien on death row.

So unlike the frustratingly hapless Dukakis, Huckabee’s current scandal is entirely of his own making, and is further proof that the former preacher would be, as president, more inclined to favor one kind of American over another.

P.S. For more on the West Memphis Three, watch the two excellent documentaries that have been made about them.

This is a serious post about John Edwards, and not just an excuse to show this totally hot college football pic

Oh, my lord.

Is it any wonder that our presidential campaigns are, in terms of integrity, like a notch below reality TV? Man, look at what the press is writing about. The Washington Post, THE FREAKING WASHINGTON POST, is doing these really silly little “profiles” of the candidates.

What that really means is that they assign one reporter to make fun of the way the candidate speaks, one to make fun of the way they dress, one to come up with bitchy little “Facts you didn’t know” and so on.

Tuesday’s target was John Edwards. And yes, don’t you worry, there are hair jokes aplenty.

Readers, I can’t even bear to discuss with you the column wherein a Robin Givhan cracks wise about Edwards’s wardrobe. Check it out only if you have a strong stomach and an even stronger will to survive, because after only a couple of sentences, the temptation to kill yourself will be powerful.

Here, I’ll give you just a teeny tiny little taste of its heinousness, but seriously, do not read the following if you have entertained thoughts of suicide in the last six months, or have experienced a depression lasting more than one day: “He pairs his faded jeans with sport jackets in that baby-boomer way, rather than a metrosexual way.”

Yeah. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But, like I said, there’s really very little point in criticizing tripe like that, even if it is appearing in a newspaper generally respected around the world.

Hey readers, even I get tired of shooting fish in a barrel.

On the other hand, when a famous columnist like Dana Milbank takes aim at Edwards, one is forced to sort of pay attention. Because, well, other people sort of do as well.

In case you haven’t figured out what the RNC-dictated media script is on Edwards this campaign, he’s “the millionaire who pretends to care about poor people.”

Yeah, it kinds sounds like the script against Kerry in ’04, but hey, if it ain’t broke, right?

But let’s get to the Milbank version of the script:

"What America needs right now is America needs a fighter," says the candidate, who was a trial lawyer and a Democratic senator from North Carolina. "Let me tell you why we need a fighter. There's a wall around Washington, and we need to take that wall down. The American people are on the outside, and on the other side -- on the inside -- are the powerful, the well-connected and the very wealthy."

Sounds like a bit of class warfare -- coming from a man with a 28,000-square-foot house, $30 million in assets and a $400 haircut.

"This is not class warfare," he continues. "This is the truth."

Okay, a couple of points:

1. RE: the haircut. He was in LOS ANGELES. You cannot get a stylist to come to your hotel room and cut your hair for less than $400, people. But take a look at Dana Milbank and tell me whether you think this man has ever paid more than 20 bucks for a haircut in his life.

2. Re-read the quote from Edwards he uses at the beginning. Is there ONE SINGLE WORD OF IT that is not true, and more importantly, is not desperately in need of saying?

3. Should we not commend a man who has amassed some personal wealth (about 1/10 the wealth Mitt Romney has amassed, BTW) and who has centered his campaign for president around the plight of the poor and those others who are getting screwed by the Beltway?

4. What the fuck is wrong with class warfare? This is charge frequently leveled at Democrats by Republicans (and soon thereafter, the media) and yet no one really ever explains what is so horrifying about admitting the fucking truth about this country, which is that MONEY WINS. THE END.

Milbank:

Still, we know that Edwards means what he says. We know this because he says everything loudly, shouting from beginning to end as he denounces the "rigged" system in Washington.

Although I understand, Dana, that you are probably directly quoting Edwards when you use the word “rigged,” I also understand that there is a definite hint of air-quote-y-ness going on as well. You’re being sarcastic, and I’m not sure why that is, because isn’t the system in Washington rigged? With no air quotes? Isn’t it rigged? I think it is rigged, Dana. And I think you know it’s rigged. And so I’m not sure what your fucking sarcastic little point is when you say that a rich man cares that it’s rigged in favor of people like him.

Milbank:

For further evidence of sincerity, he swaps his trademark smile for a pained squint when he speaks about the "disappointment" of the parents who have no money for their children's college, and he shakes his fist when he demands removal of the "wall."

Wow. I wonder if Edwards also closes his eyes when he “sleeps,” and opens his mouth to “eat.” What a phony.

Look, readers, I can’t even stand to go over the rest of it with you. Go check it out if you want, or, better yet, don’t. I’ll be here, waiting for some coverage of Edwards that isn’t a complete load of disingenuous bullshit.

Because Edwards is a serious candidate. And he would make a good president. A better president, I think, than either Obama or Clinton. Joe Biden would be a good president, too. So would Chris Dodd, for that matter.

There. I said it.

Dear organizers of Movies Rock®,

Fire the producers. Fire the director. Please, please, fire the choreographer. Fire the set designer, the lighting designer, the sound designer, and by all means the costume designer. Fire the dancers. Fire the casting people and the talent coordinator. Fire the composer who did the arrangement. Fire the orchestra who performed it. Fire the freakin stage manager if that's what you have to do to get the stank of Fergie off of your ridiculous excuse for product promotion little crappy-ass shindig.




(Link from Scanner)

And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under Canada

So yesterday Romney, the dog-torturing Mormon, took his shot at a JFK moment.

I was expecting him to be evasive about the kookier side of Mormonism, and he did not disappoint on that count. He said, no doubt in response to those people who have been asking him “You think Jesus actually lived in America? WTF, dude?” that he does not want to be subjected to a “religious test,” and that “no candidate should be the spokesman for his faith.”

Especially if your faith is…ah…how shall we say…oh, yeah. Crazy.

Okay, okay, I’m not saying he shouldn’t be free to practice his religion. He absolutely should be, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And he’s right to point out that religious freedom is without a doubt one of the greatest things about this country.

However.

I am free to evaluate and judge the mental acumen of anyone running for public office. And of course I have made peace with the fact that every four years I have to vote for a world leader who believes that, if you screw up this world, you get a second chance in the next. But you know what I cannot make peace with? Anyone who believes that a woman cannot enter that next world without a man. It’s like the Mormons think that heaven is some kind of nightclub, and without that man on the inside to tell St. Peter that you’re cool, a woman would have to stand behind the velvet rope for all eternity.

So why should I respect a religion that regards me as the Tara Reid of the afterlife?

Maybe the Mittmeister has some answers:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Oh, really?

Freedom requires religion? Why not just buy the founding fathers some skeleton-sized rotisseries, Mittski, so that they can spin in their graves unencumbered?

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter -- on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.

Because if you’re not religious, you have no convictions, or if you do, they don’t count. Not because they’re not the same convictions that religious people have, but because YOU’RE not religious. The problem is you, get it?

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion.

Okay, so he’s doing good so far with this argument, but I sense a bomb about to explode…

But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Jesus Christ on a crutch, Mitt, WHO THE FUCK IS “THEY”?

Talk about a fucking time bomb. Kids, you have just glimpsed the future - if Romney becomes the nominee, and, “God” forbid, president. You have just gazed into the crystal ball and seen 8 more years of crazy, Jesus-infused paranoia, and fear, and politics that must divide in order to succeed. I’m not one easily given to phrases like “mark my words,” but MARK MY FUCKING WORDS.

And in case you’re not yet convinced, kids:

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders -- in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.

Well, I’m sure everyone who has fought to maintain religious freedom in this country really appreciates you reducing their arguments to nativity scenes and menorahs on the court house lawn. Way to take the high road, Mittski.

Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from "the God who gave us liberty."

Our constitution rests on a foundation of faith? Really? Because the constitution says, and (unlike you) I quote: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Seems pretty clear cut to me, Mittens. But perhaps my mind has been clouded by rational, non-magical thinking. In any event, I’ll give you the last word:

Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government.

Okay, I take it back. I get the last word. Look, Mittenator, you can believe that liberty springs from the head of Zeus, or is sprinkled upon us by an omniscient Tom Cruise in a tu-tu for all I care. But don’t play word games with me and hint that those who are not religious believe that liberty is an “indulgence of government.” Believe it or not, you fucking hypocritical piece of shit, an oath is a serious thing to me, and the one overriding purpose of our government is to keep our people free, and the most serious oath in this world or the next is the oath that a public servant takes to dedicate themselves to upholding the purpose of this government.

Something tells me you are not the man for that job.

Guest blogger: Bro

Some of you might remember my adventure on the 101 a few months ago as my brother investigated the scene of a freeway accident. Now he is back as a guest blogger, telling one of his many amazing stories from his days as an EMT.

I'm not going to give this story a big intro, as it surely speaks for itself, but I will say that after reading it, I went home and gave my Spooney an extra big squeeze. I take too many things for granted, I think. And I'm probably not the only one.

Bro:

I replayed a moment today… one and a half seconds from 14 years ago. Then like a television show flashback I ran the tape from beginning to the end surrounding that 1.5 seconds.

I was an EMT, getting into the burnout phase, I was now a squad Captain and didn’t do much hands-on patient care, mostly dealt with the big picture; the scene, the crew, the patient, and anything that would hurt us. You also kept a list of variables in your head: how far out were paramedics, what the flight time to the trauma center was, how many rescue trucks would be needed and just which direction actually lead to the nearest hospital.

On this night I arrived on scene in the command car just as 3683 (ambulance, “83”) announced their arrival over the radio, I keyed right after announcing 3685 (my vehicle, “85”) with 3680 (me) on scene. I saw the pole, I saw the wires, the vehicle torn almost in half, the one headlight already half dim but eerily still lit. The car was white, the patient was a woman and she was half out of the car with what looked like a bystander attending her.

The crew got the stretcher, board, collars, and other paraphernalia with their normal efficiency; someone touching a patient was unusual enough (and potentially hazardous to the patient) that I went pretty much straight to the patient rather than standing back as an IC (Incident Commander) typically does. The person that was bracing the patient’s head looked up and announced he was a doctor, I waited to see whether this doctor understood what was going on and about to happen, I have had optometrists, general practitioners, dentists and gynecologists tell me they were doctors and get oh so close to assuming patient care. (a bad thing unless they are a doc that understands emergency care and is going to make the trip to the hospital as a doc cannot turn over care to a lesser trained person once they start treatment)

He briefly reported: unconscious on arrival, definite head trauma and he was maintaining an airway. I looked down and he was doing the right thing, something called a modified jaw thrust which is how you hold the airway open for someone with possible neck and head injuries. He immediately handed over care as an EMT took stabilization and didn’t try to say more. I believe he understood that no matter what he said, we had to check for ourselves, we are trained to get facts firsthand, too much at stake for hearsay.

The Lieutenant was now standing beside me. I had watched her check the scene as I had done myself, I have been known to grab the back of this Lt’s helmet to rock her head back and the eyes up to whatever the wires are doing overhead. After once or twice it had become an automatic reaction with her and the memory also helped me to not forget to look myself.

The Lt. was Cathy, a young woman that played the giggling blond co-ed part to a tee, and was very competent… you could count on her to not lose a bump of composure, though she sometimes forgot her helmet. She stepped forward to take control of the patient and the EMT’s. I stepped back to watch. I had good training; I was trained to train, to not always be the one in the front so that others can learn while there is a margin of safety.

I stepped to her side: “what’s missing?” as the EMT’s were just starting to do a simultaneous evaluate and package. “Airway…” she started to reply and turn and see me offering one. I kept certain things in my turnout coat and a medium sized Oro-Pharyngeal airway was one of them. It’s automatic to assume that if someone was working a patient that they would have put one in if they had one, which the bystander did not.

I stepped back again. We would be on the road before the medics would arrive; the patient was definitely a “head” and also had massive blunt trauma to the midsection. She was dying.

In less than 5-8 minutes the rig was readying to pull out; there was a sense of movement with vehicles being put into drive with feet still on brake pedals, and the swaths of light started to shut off; first the take-downs on the side of the rig, then the middle doors close and finally one door then the other in the back, pulling the light back within as they shut.

The shadow outlines of the crew moving around within the rig testified to the continued activity as now the scene became just a wrecked car… now hard to distinguish in the dark with red lights playing off every surface in sight. I started a final walk-around and approached the other vehicle that had been near the scene, though not part of it. A bearded young man sat in the middle sliding door of a panel van crying.

I approached and looked at him.

“She’s pregnant” was all he said.

It was this next one and a half seconds that I played back in my head today, and it was from the “I wonder what he saw as he looked at me” point of view. He would have seen someone fix their gaze on him, a moment of complete concentration with otherwise no expression as I evaluated him, his state of mind, his physical condition/surroundings and whether he would really know this. I ran the equation; Yes? No? Truth? Would more information make a difference in treatment over the next 10 minutes?

In answer to this moment in time I keyed the mike in my hand and in a quiet voice stated “83… bystander states patient is pregnant”.

A second later a noise and an “…k..” came over the radio and I could feel the activity in the rig in that one second of radio noise as the Lt. answered.

I looked back and he and I had nothing else to say to each other based on where each of us was at that moment on that New Jersey night.

He sat and cried, I believe he knew what this was; he wasn’t chasing crazily after the ambulance as someone does when they are groping desperately for hope, he just sat and cried.

He was the father of the unborn child I had learned in that one and half seconds.

I turned back to the wreck and noticed that the headlight was just the dimmest of glows, now a dim orange glow of filament, a penetrating sadness in that thought that the life draining out of the patient was mimicked by the dying light of the headlight in a pile of twisted metal.

The tow truck pulled up as I finished some paperwork, killed the dome light and put it in gear.

“Central…3685, 3600 available” in that quiet radio voice that we practice so that we are calm even when we aren’t.

“….85…. patient is coding…” I remember hearing, again a snapshot of a siren in the background and activity over the carrier waves. I would have replied “…k…” though I don’t remember doing it. At that moment the crew would be performing CPR as the woman’s heart had stopped.

I imagined that the headlight would have gone completely dark just about that time.

What's all this fuss I keep hearing about the deaf penalty?

First of all, I would like to say that I think the WH reporters showed some balls during the press conference today. There was some actual holding of feet to the fire. That is, until they all dissolved into laughter over some remark the president made about not being able to remember whose turn it was. (I swear, if you ever really want to understand why W continues to hold the press in his sway, watch a great documentary called Journeys with George.)

Before W cracked them up, however, there came these two exchanges about a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that came to light this week. For those of you who remember the early days of Saturday Night Live, the NIE can best be compared to an old Gilda Radner’s character called Emily Litella, an elderly, hard-of-hearing lady who always got herself worked into a huge lather about some statement she misheard, like “violins on television,” and then, once corrected, would primly look into the camera and say “Never mind.”

BushCo’s imminent nuclear threat from Iran? Never mind.

From today’s transcript:

Q Mr. President, thank you. I'd like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud; then there were no WMD in Iraq. When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat? And don't you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don't want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it's not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it's real, then what does it mean? And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

Several questions later:

Q Mr. President, thank you. Just to follow, I understand what you're saying about when you were informed about the NIE. Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as "World War III" was making it into conversation, at no point nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

THE PRESIDENT: No, nobody ever told me that. Having said -- having laid that out, I still feel strongly that Iran is a danger. Nothing has changed in this NIE that says, okay, why don't we just stop worrying about it. Quite the contrary. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. My opinion hasn't changed.

Aw, geez, where does one start?

First of all, he calls a press conference to tell us about an NIE that he says is news but then says it’s had no effect on him. And he doesn’t think he is undermining his credibility, even when he admits that for four months he knew there was new intelligence on a subject that he was speaking about to the nation every day, but he didn’t ask what the new intelligence was? And Iran is just as big a threat now as they were, even though they’ve stopped doing what it was he had the problem with?

W is like that guy at your job, you know, the one that always has about a million reasons why he didn’t get done what he was supposed to, and none of the reasons really make any sense, but they’re all so contradictory and interwoven and illogical that it’s just too damn hard to try to straighten them all out?

And so you just sit there in the meeting, listening to him weave his web of bullshit, and you think “When the fuck are they going to wise up and fire this clown?”

Well, the answer is, they never will. Clown retires with full benefits 1/20/09.

I just hope we don't see no Muslims

Now listen, everyone. I am only going to explain this once:

Okay to be named Muhammad.

Not okay to be named Muhammad.

The fact that Muhammad is an extremely touchy prophet is a very important and serious and not at all laughable or ridiculous tenet of the Muslim faith, everyone. So wipe those smirks off your faces.

Last week, I heard Muhammad was in a bar hanging around with some associates. And Muhammad told this joke, see, and one of the guys remarked that Muhammad was “funny.”

Big mistake. Because, see, Muhammad totally took it the wrong way, asking why he was “funny,” and if that meant that he was like a “clown” to this associate.

So then Muhammad pulled out a jihad, and the other guy pulled out a fatwa, and…Christ, let’s just say it did not end well, okay?

And so, and in honor of the prophet of Islam, and in solidarity with him as he suffers the travail of having the insipid stuffed toys of children named after him, I have decided to rename my cooch “Muhammad.”

But just for the day. Tomorrow she goes back to being Mr. Spock.

Dear Harry & David,

Please stop sending me your catalogues.

I do not need a box of pears, and neither does anyone else I know.

Because you know why? Because I can buy pears in the grocery store. Anyone can. And even if I want individually hand-polished precious overpriced pears, which I don’t, I can go to Whole Foods and get them there. They’re in the produce department right next to the individually chakra-aligned strawberries.

Even if I lived somewhere where I didn’t have access to supermarket pears, even if I lived in a remote corner of Alaska, I don’t think, if I had my choice of things to receive via bush pilot airmail, that I would pick pears. I would probably pick tequila. And cigarettes. Oh, and sex.

You know who you remind me of, Harry & David? You remind me of my mother. And no, I don’t mean that I think you hang out at the Senior Center and sell Avon. I mean that when I was a kid, my mom would always put that giant navel orange in my Christmas stocking. She did that, even though the produce drawer in the fridge was full of navel oranges that I could pretty much help myself to whenever I wanted. That navel orange was, at first, a mystery to me. I thought that there must be something special about it, seeing as how it came from Santa and all. But when I figured out that the orange was a perennial fixture, it was no longer special, and I would unceremoniously return my Christmas orange to the produce drawer so that it would not go bad. Gradually, over the years of course I began to resent the orange. Because if the orange wasn’t there, I figured, then maybe better, rarer, and more expensive things could take its place.

I mean that, Harry & David, you seem like a product of another age, an age like one that my mother lived in the indoor plumbing-free wilds of rural America. An age when all fruit was precious, and a navel orange from Florida must have seemed like a small, fragrant, sticky Christmas miracle.

But these days, in the days of organic heirloom peaches available mere minutes from my front door all year round, getting your catalogue in the mail is pretty much like getting that giant navel orange in my stocking. It’s sweet, but it’s filler. And we all three know it.

Campaign commercials that should have been

I’m sure I’m not the only frustrated political junkie who writes campaign commercials in my head. Here’s a golden oldie I composed mentally for the 2004 Kerry campaign:

[Under: Comical music.]

Voiceover:

The Bush campaign has tried again and again to smear John Kerry by saying that he’s from “Taxachusetts,” hoping voters will think that tax rates in Kerry’s home state are somehow his fault.

Bush needs a lesson in how government works.

John Kerry has served nineteen years in the U.S. Senate, not the Massachusetts state legislature, and so has no authority to write or sign laws determining the tax rates in Massachusetts.

[Under: Ominous music.]

Voiceover (cont.)

But you know who does have the authority to determine the tax rates? The governor of Massachusetts. Because he signs all the bills into law. And do you know who the governor of “Taxachusetts” is?

Mitt Romney. Republican.

Damn. I swear I don’t know why I don’t get paid to do that.

Yes, the Republicans – and the press, can you believe it? – are strangely silent on the subject of the tax rates in Massachusetts so far this campaign season. And I’m confused by that, because I was in Boston last year, and I had to rent a car, and holy smokes! I paid almost 400 bucks, even though the rental charge itself was only about half of that. The rest, as the townie gal with the elaborate fingernails and the oiled/crispy hair behind the counter explained, shrugging, could be attributed to “Taxachusetts.”

So why haven’t taxes in MA been a huge issue for the Republicans? As governor, Romney has cut the budget deficit largely by raising all sorts of fees and taxes, as well as by closing many tax loopholes. I think if a Democratic governor of MA were running, the opposition, and the press, would’ve brought that up a time or two.

Don’t you?

White House Welcomes American Nobel Prize Winners

Bush: I don't see what the big deal is about this No Bell prize. I coulda won it, but I happen to like bells. Heh, heh. Bells are nice. Like church bells and such. See, the only person who should get excited about a No Bell prize is someone who really hates bells.

Gore: I could kill him now, and not a jury on earth would convict me.

Thanksgiving Leftovers Tacos

Ingredients:

About 1 C. mashed potatoes (regular, sweet, or yam – NOT candied though)

About 4 T. salsa verde (regular salsa is okay if you don’t have tomatillo salsa --although you really should keep some on hand)

A smidge of oil

2 soft corn tortillas (are there any other kind?)

Maybe a ¼ C. cranberry relish. If your relish isn’t made with lime juice and jalapenos, like mine is, you might have to spike it a bit.

Mix a couple of spoonfuls of salsa verde into your mashed potatoes. Make a patty out of the potatoes about the size of a corn tortilla. Fry with a little oil until brown on both sides and thoroughly heated.

While you’re at it, warm your tortillas in that pan as well.

Cut the patty in half, and place each half in one of the corn tortillas. Cover the top of the patties with a good amount of cranberry relish.

Toss some more salsa verde on top of your ingredients. Also, a little green Tabasco or hot sauce of your choice would not be remiss.

Serves two gabachos. Or one, if you’re hungry.

Jamestown, CA

I am, like just about every other American this time of year, thinking about how thankful I am for various things.

As I was walking by my company’s conference room this morning and looking in the window, I realized that I am thankful that I am not one of those guys who has to sit in a meeting where the Power Point presentation is titled “Gasket Update.”

I am also thankful I am not a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Because I don’t know how I could sleep at night, knowing that I am denying the members of the Writer’s Guild from getting even one penny* of the profits that I make on the downloads of programs that they fucking wrote.

I am thankful I am not Hillary Clinton, because if someone were to ask a question about me, in public, and that question was “How can we beat the bitch?”, I would hope that the person on the receiving end of the question, even if he were a Republican, would say, “Hey, that’s not an appropriate way to refer to Bells On blogger Vikkitikkitavi in a public forum,” and not “That’s an excellent question! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

I am also thankful I am not any of the Republican presidential candidates. Because I think it would be very difficult to appeal to both 1) the idiots who still insist that Bush is NOT dangerously incompetent and a criminal worthy of impeachment, and to 2) the other sensible Republicans who are trying to salvage their party from the moral garbage heap. I mean, how do you get BOTH of these groups to vote for you? Besides giving tax cuts to fetuses who make over $200,000 a year, that is.

I am thankful I do not drive a BMW, because, well…those people all seem to be assholes, don’t they?

I am very very thankful that I am not a rape victim in Saudi Arabia. In this country, we’re all too familiar with a legal system that “adds insult to injury,” but there, it’s more like “adding vile and shameful travesty of justice to absolutely crippling physical and emotional trauma.”

I am thankful I am an atheist, because it makes me feel self-reliant in the face of chaos, which, holy shit, prepares you for just about anything life throws at you, including cat-turd-laced dog vomit.

And I am so thankful I am not a member of the armed services in Iraq, trying to deal with the distress and danger and uncertainty of my situation while my “grateful nation” tries to screw me out of my signing bonus and charge me for hospital meals after my legs get blown off.

I am equally thankful that I am not an Iraqi citizen, trying to deal with an army of adrenaline-crazed, heavily-armed foreigners who have no idea, and usually about 1 second to decide, whether I am their enemy or their friend.

But I am not only thankful for those things I am not, you know. I am also thankful for those things I do have, including great friends, and family, and the best boyfriend in the world. Also: weekend morning sex, and farmer’s markets, and diner breakfasts, and coffee, and driving north on Highway 1, and sand dollars, and little silver charms, and 3 a.m. Star Trek reruns.

I am thankful my divorce didn’t make me less likely to love Spooney, but more so.

I am even thankful for this here blog, as juvenile and foul-mouthed and opinionated and intolerant as it may seem to be. I do, as you may have guessed by now, have a bit more love for my fellow countrymen than I let on sometimes. Have a good Thanksgiving Day holiday, all you Americans out there, wherever you find yourselves.

*link courtesy of Very Hot Jews

This is what a bad dog looks like

photo by Kate Levy

So, this weekend, Spooney and I were doing some cleaning, and as a result, we put the dirty cat box outside until we could get to changing it. Unfortunately, we also put Buster outside, completely forgetting that he has a fondness for cat-box crunchies.

Until then, Buster had been foiled in his quest for the crunchies recently, due to Spooney’s ingenious idea of putting the folding stool in front of the only access point to the litter box. Perhaps that is why, unbeknownst to us, the crunchie-deprived Buster gorges himself.

Cut to an hour later. Spooney is in the shower. I am doing yardwork. Suddenly Spooney is screaming blue murder. I run into the house.

There is cat-turd-and-litter-infused vomit EVERYWHERE. On the rug. On the chair. On the floor. More on the floor. Gallons of it. EVERYWHERE.

In between bouts of serious retching, we manage to get it cleaned up. The upholstery goes in the washer. The rug gets a vigorous cleaning with god’s gift to pet owners.

Then I go outside, and I find Buster hiding under a bush, drooling brown drool and looking extremely nauseated and scared. He even skips his dinner of tummy-settling boiled rice that night, which is a first in the history of Buster.

Maybe this will teach that dumb-ass dog a lesson, I think to myself, about the dangers of eating someone else’s shit. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Ouch! That hurts.

Oh holy cripes, readers. Mama’s tired. And not just because it’s Friday.

I was reading this story about how Newsweek has hired Karl Rove as an opinionator in order to “balance” out their earlier hiring of liberal blogger (and personal friend of Grant Miller) Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos.

Which got me thinking - remember when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire, the television program dedicated to that type of left vs. right media circus, and told them to “stop hurting America”?

Well, they’re not stopping. They’re not stopping at all. And it’s just so exhausting.

They want us all to believe that their responsibility is to merely provide us with a partisan from the left, and one from the right. Then all they have to do is shrug and say “I guess the truth lies somewhere in between, folks.”

Except it doesn’t always.

But it seems as if too often the press abdicates their responsibility to not just throw up two disparate opinions, but to actually get to the truth of the matter.

Case in point: Voter suppression vs. voter fraud.

You have to admit that the whole “rampant voter fraud” issue is a really fucking brilliantly placed red herring. The right-wing architects of this strategy really knew what they were doing. They knew the press would go for it, and they did. They so did.

Think of it this way: your future as a party depends upon being able to carry certain key districts every four years. Being able to carry certain key districts depends upon a certain amount of, how shall we say…um, keeping the non-Republicans away from the polls?

And by “non-Republicans,” I don’t mean Hollywood liberals with lotsa bucks and their lawyer’s number on their cell phone speed-dial.

I mean a different kind of Democrat. I mean poor Democrats. Democrats that, if they were to actually make the evening news with their complaint, would most likely be viewed by a certain portion of the America public with thoughts along the lines of “Those people again? What do they want now?”

I mean black Democrats.

So, how do you keep the press from crying foul when you keep the black Democrats from voting? How do you keep the press distracted from what is perhaps the most reprehensible conspiracy ever perpetrated by the Republican party?

That’s right. You counter-charge.

Thus was born the non-issue of “rampant voter fraud” in America.

Which was, of course, the issue behind the firing of all those attorneys at the Department of Justice. The guys that got fired were the guys who looked at BushCo’s “voter fraud is #1 DoJ issue” agenda and said “Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to prioritize a problem that doesn’t exist?”

And who is the DoJ mastermind behind the invention of “rampant voter fraud,”and behind the firing of those U.S. attorneys (read: fucking heroes) who refused to play ball?

Hans A. von Spakovsky.

I’m not kidding.

Formerly, he served in the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ, where he was so respected by his colleagues that they banded together to oppose his appointment to the Federal Elections Commission, calling him the “point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division's mandate to protect voting rights.”

Not that it mattered. Bush gave him one of those handy-dandy recess appointments. You know, like the one John Bolton got? Because that’s just the way he rolls, y’all.

Yes, it’s just another fox-guarding-the-hen-house appointment for BushCo.

But the recess appointment term is up, and Congress must now consider whether to allow BushCo to push through a regular 6-year term on the FEC for this, um, criminal.

Senator Obama opposes the appointment, and wrote an editorial in the Chicago Defender saying so. Good on him.

But Edward Blum at the conservative Weekly Standard contends that Obama, by opposing von Spakovsky is…get this…“playing the race card.”

I know! It’s so fucking…I don’t know…ironic and disgusting and just so completely shitty and perverse that I don’t know whether to, as my momma used to say, shit or go blind.

But the best part? The absolutely best motherfucking part of this whole sad, sick deal?

The Democrats might vote to allow von Spakovsky on the FEC, as long as they get to appoint a liberal member to “balance” him.

Yup.

Y’all must think I’m some kind of bringing-it-all-full-circle kind of god or something, but I swear on my life it’s all true, folks. It’s all too fucking true.

The Hobbit mullet

Quest in the front, revelry in the back.

Nostradamus, Schmostradamus

So some crackpot anti-choice group in Colorado has just been cleared to start collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would “define a fertilized egg as a person.”

First of all, let me just say that I used to be the kind of gal who would sign any petition, anywhere. What the hell, I used to think, let them have their day. The voters will sort it out.

No more. Voters are, for the most part, appallingly stupid and can no longer be trusted, I’ve decided, to act sensibly. Look, I’ve already got a female-film-crew-member-groping action star for a governor. Keep the crazy shit off the ballots in my new motto.

To that end, I have some questions for the proponents of this legislation, and for those Colorado residents who may find themselves tempted to sign the petitions to put this joke on the ballot:

1. Are you crazy?
2. Seriously. Are you fucking crazy?
3. How’s Crazytown? Because that’s where you live, you fucking crazy asshole.

If Colorado does put this measure on the ballot, I have a couple of predictions for their future that I would like to share.

First of all, I predict an all-out war between the north-of-Denver liberal Boulderites and the south-of-Denver conservative Colorado Springers, and the entire city of Denver will become their battlefield. At first the Springers will appear to be winning due to their superior firepower, but then the Boulderites will threaten to cut off the Springers’ Croc supply lines, and the Springers will be forced to either surrender, or wear actual non-clown shoes when they go to the Wal-Mart.

Secondly, if the measure gets on the ballot and passes, then of course abortion and stem cell research will be deemed illegal. Also, most female-controlled methods of contraception will be denounced as murder, since their effectiveness relies on preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus, and instead expelling those eggs into, I don’t know, probably the toilet. Women convicted of using those kinds of contraceptives will be forced to register with the state, notify their neighbors of their presence in the neighborhood, and wear t-shirts identifying them as “baby toilet-drowning whores.”

Also, many fertility clinics will be forced to close or move out of state, due to the considerable legal ramifications of performing in-vitro fertilization. One prominent fertility specialist will proclaim the state of Colorado a “fucking medical minefield.”

Women will be required to apply for a pre-birth certificate for every pregnancy, and if a child is not presented to the authorities within the proper time frame for birth, a criminal murder investigation will be mandated. No longer will a woman’s word be sufficient to account for a so-called “miscarriage.” Investigators will be authorized to inquire about the eating, drinking, smoking, driving, running, flying, skiing, biking, skating, sunbathing, fucking and praying habits of all expectant mothers.

Lastly, I predict the bankrupting of the state of Colorado, due to the billions of dollars owed in settlements to 20-year-olds convicted of underage drinking who contended that, counting from their fertilization date, they were actually 21.

Thank you, thank you very much

And now, a tour of "the Elvis room."

This is the spare room I stay in when I am at my mom's house.

It is located in mom's beautiful finished basement. And yes, there is simulated wood paneling and plush pile carpet, thank you for asking.

There is also Elvis memorabilia.


More Elvis memorabilia.

The only Elvis memorabilia of my mother's that is not in this room is her 1956 Elvis Presley Fan Club membership card. She gave that to me several years ago. It is one of my most prized possessions.


Hey, James Dean! Git on outta here! This here room belongs to The King of Rock-n-Roll.


You know I totally turned on the lava lamp while I played the officially merchandised Elvis Presley Hand-held Slot Machine®.

And then, the King himself serenaded me to sleep.

Corny

I am a muller. I like to mull. If you went to a movie with me, and you asked me, as we were leaving, what I thought of the movie, I would say “Hmmm…”

And then two or three hours would go by.

And then, quite suddenly, usually without prompting, I would start spewing forth on the film. Then the momentum of my opinion would be quite unstoppable. It just takes a little while to get started, is all. I guess it is the last remnant of my Hoosier reticence.

And so I’ve been thinking quite a bit these last couple of days about Nebraska, where my mom lives. I was there over the weekend with my sister. I flew into Denver, where sis lives, and then one six-hour drive with incredibly monotonous scenery later we were at my mom’s house.

You know how you know you are in the Midwest? When you ask for hot sauce at the Taco Bell off the interstate, and the girl behind the counter has to go ask where they keep it.

BECAUSE NO ONE EVER ASKS FOR HOT SAUCE.

The best part is when she looked at my sister, who had not ordered yet, and asked “Are you going to be wanting taco sauce, too?” As if something about our (decidedly non-familial) resemblance to one another, perhaps our expensive eyewear, or the studied dishevelment of our hair, marked us as exotic condiment aficionados.

Somewhere in between the famous stubbornness of Iowans, and the “show me” obstinance of Missourians are the Nebraskans, who seem to me, at least in the rural areas, to have a unique talent for ignoring their own self-interest in the most perverse and infuriating ways.

I remember sitting watching tv with my stepdad several years ago, and there was a health alert on the local news warning people not to drink water from the garden hose, on account of the dangerous chemicals that leach into the water from the hose when it sits in the sun. “That’s ridiculous!” he blurted out. “Everyone I know’s been drinking outta the hose their whole lives. Nothing ever happened to them.”

I remember the moment like it was yesterday, because at the time, my stepdad had begun to take pills so that his stomach could digest food properly. It was a medical condition I had never heard of before, and yet there were several people living in his area that were all suffering the same affliction.

I’m sure they didn’t get it from drinking from the garden hose, and yet my stepdad’s attitude was a typical one, both for him and for most residents of Nebraska farmland: governmental health and environmental groups are big over-reacting sissies out to ruin their way of life.

No agency is more hated in that part of the country than the EPA, and the EPA is seen as an invention and instrument of the Democratic party. Farmers, and the myriad of economic systems that support the farming economy, are of the opinion that a man ought to be able to do what he wants with his own land.

That sounds like a fine and patriotic sentiment, except that in order to stay afloat, farmers will put just about anything on their crops in order to bring them in with a profit sufficient to keep them going. And if, in doing that, they also, say, poison the water table that supplies the entire community, their reaction generally is to stick their collective heads in the sand. The water table’s not poisoned, you sissies. We’ve been drinking out of this water table our whole lives, and nothing’s happened to us.

Nothing except that they’re all fucked-up physically. All of them. My stepdad died still sucking on the nebulizer that had kept his respiratory system functioning for years. And if you’d asked him, I’m sure he would’ve denied that it had anything to do with any of the herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, or other crop-enabling poisons that he handled over the years.

But there has been progress. My mom told me that, so far, her community had successfully kept a feedlot from opening less than a mile from where she lived.

“Hold on,” I said. “You just told me yesterday that if everyone went vegetarian like me, that Nebraska would be ruined. That the economy was built on beef. And yet, you don’t want a feedlot anywhere near you.”

But of course she doesn’t. Because it would ruin the value of her land. Because feedlots stink. They stink for miles and miles and miles. And if you think the chemical cocktails that farmers use are bad, you should see what a couple thousand gallons of cow piss per day will do to your groundwater. So of course she’s all NIMBY on that issue, but in a state like Nebraska, NIMBYism can be considered progress. Because at least they’re admitting that there’s a problem.

I am not from Nebraska. And it makes me sad, I will admit, to see my mom, who moved back to her family home after her children were grown, growing old in such a place. I understand why Nebraskans love their land, because it is so beautiful sometimes, like when the early evening shadows fall over the dales, that it makes my heart ache in my chest. But I couldn’t live there, not just because I’m too liberal, but because rural Nebraska is changing. No young person who goes to college ever comes back. And those who are not inclined or can’t afford to go to college are lucky if there is a job opening in one of the few remaining small-time meat packaging plants in the county. Mostly they become part of the service economy. They hold two or three jobs in order to make ends meet. They struggle. They spend a lot of money on medicine.

And like those gigantic WalMarts that obliterate not only local businesses, but also acres and acres of countryside, big agribusiness is turning Nebraska into one never-ending facility. Farmers die. The heirs sell the farm to the likes of Archer Daniels Midland. The feedlots grow from 5 acres to 500 acres each, and the way of life for those remaining dies a little each day.

Like I said, it’s sad. I hope my mom’s little corner of Nebraska stays mostly beautiful until her days on the land are done, but in the meantime, I’m glad she finally bought that water filtration system.

I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky

Don’t let all those Gore-tex®-encrusted tree-hugging liberals fool you with their “look over there, is that patchouli incense?” skills of misdirection: Colorado is a red state. In fact, it’s a red state with an obnoxious Republican ruling class, which is the most exciting kind of red state to, you know, sort of live in. If you can call that living.

Yes, just like Indiana has, or at least had, the Quayles, Colorado has the Coors, supporters of the ultra-evil Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Hm. Maybe their money would've been better spent on the Rockies payroll.

Hey, I'm just sayin.

Anyhoos, I don’t like their beer, and I don’t like them. But since I believe that they run in slightly different social circles than my sister, they shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid during my visit to her new digs in Boulder.

What I won't be able to avoid in Boulder: Crocs. I believe they were "invented" there.

I’m not sure what she’s got in store for me, other than shopping, shopping, a lot of kitteh scratches on my hands and feet, and shopping.

Actually, in spite of their addiction to comfortable footwear, Boulder/Denver is a pretty fun place to hang. Plus, they have the best Japanese restaurant ever. That's a hint, sis.

Oh, yes. We will also be making a foray into Nebraska, a state so red even the Democrats are Republicans, to visit the Moms. More shopping. Feats of Strength. The Airing of Grievances. At least one trip to Red Lobster.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

See you next week.