tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42585957505134049322024-03-12T17:19:43.129-07:00Or So It SeemsA potpourri of stories, comments, videos and excerpts related to the writings of Paul Steven Stone, author of "Or So It Seems" and"How To Train A Rock", both available on Amazon.com. For more info, see: PaulStevenStone.com, OrSoItSeems.info or HowToTrainARock.com.Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-1980675547864172972013-01-29T15:13:00.003-08:002013-01-29T15:13:44.980-08:00Moving To A New LocationTo My Valued Readers and Subscribers:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8DHXtHk2AJtynU8ODRIxccNRucIvfm5kNaJsUuw2rfaVwBw7sJRF8XSCy5xQgCiY2ViNlf_fegrXfdBmhgwBNRoMVBDgWsVBmuT5KQwxYB5gNkODl5-v_Kg6QreoQHyZuiadbm3IXakr/s1600/Paul1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8DHXtHk2AJtynU8ODRIxccNRucIvfm5kNaJsUuw2rfaVwBw7sJRF8XSCy5xQgCiY2ViNlf_fegrXfdBmhgwBNRoMVBDgWsVBmuT5KQwxYB5gNkODl5-v_Kg6QreoQHyZuiadbm3IXakr/s200/Paul1.JPG" width="200" /></a>As part of my professional evolution, I've left my full-time position at W.B. Mason to head out into untraveled regions as an independent advertising consultant. Pursuant to that, I've created a new website (at my old address of PaulStevenStone.com) in which I've embedded my blog and renamed it "A Stone's Throw." Many of you may recall that that was the name of my old newspaper column for over 25 years.<br />
<br />
Your subscription to this blog will unfortunately lapse as I begin posting new commentaries at the new site. I invite you to to sign up as a subscriber at <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=AStonesThrow-DamnGoodBlog&loc=en_US" style="color: purple; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=AStonesThrow-DamnGoodBlog&loc=en_US</a> or just go to PaulStonesThrow.com and fill in your email address.<br />
<br />
All that's left to say is…thank you. Thank you for sticking with me. And thank you for caring.<br />
<br />
Warmly,<br />
<br />
Paul Steven Stone<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-27794497447277900232013-01-12T00:53:00.002-08:002013-01-14T06:39:21.942-08:00Housing, Yes—Towers, No!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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When the Cambridge Square Advisory Committee
(CSAC) was first convened to make recommendations for the future of Central
Square, its members were enjoined to be bold. Now that we've seen the
recommendations coming out of their year-long study, it's clear they chose
instead to be reckless. <span style="color: #303030;">Their recommendations
would bring truly Bold and perhaps Dangerous changes in zoning that would upset
both the rhythm of life in our neighborhood and the unique personality of
Central Square. If accepted by the Planning Board and City Council they would bring
14- to 18-story towers to the Central Square area on streets now populated by
mostly two- and three-story buildings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Forgive me if I get some of this
wrong, but the recommendations are highly complex; easily obfuscating the bare
facts.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The Cambridge Square Advisory
Committee (CSAC), whose 21-person membership featured 9 non-Cambridge
residents, is recommending a new overlay district for the Central Square area
that would dramatically raise height restrictions to 140 feet and 160 feet.
Ordinarily that could result in 14- and 16-story buildings, but the CSAC and
CDD added a little more gravy to the developer's pot by facilitating
transferable development rights. This little twist confuses me, I admit, but
essentially it allows developers to add an additional 20 feet to their 140- or
160-foot tower if they own property elsewhere. Simple math says we are now
looking at the potential for 16- and 18-story towers, each of which would have
15-20-foot structures on top to accommodate heating, cooling and elevator
systems.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">If you look at the photo above you can see what two 18-story towers look like. Suffice it to say these look a
lot different than the watercolor smudges the CDD added to their Cambridge
cityscapes when they first began selling the idea of replacing our city-owned
parking lots and garage with new developments.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">As a member of the Cambridge
Residents Alliance, I reiterate our concern about the pending Tsunami of
mindless and planning-less citywide development even though there have been
efforts to discredit our integrity. Understandably, especially in light of the
CDD-led abandonment of zoning protections in Central Square, we renew and
hopefully reinvigorate our call for a one-year citywide moratorium on all up
zoning.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Not a moratorium on development,
but on up zoning. On developer giveaways. One year for the city to take a hard
look at its future and start planning for it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">We also invite anyone who cares
about the future of our city and the quality of life it affords us to join the
CRA in resisting the lure of easy money and the CDD's flawed arguments about
inclusionary zoning offsetting the loss of families and low-income households that
are driven out by the rising rents these Towers For The Affluent historically
breed. The Alliance of Cambridge Tenants (ACT) has joined us in this effort
precisely because it knows this kind of towering development is detrimental to
low- and middle-income tenants and families, and has seen no future for those
parties in the recommendations the CSAC and CDD are making.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">To those with eyes to see, there
is little in those recommendations that brings anything but congestion and long
shadows to the future of Central Square and Cambridge.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I conclude with what should be an
anthem for the citizens who value the texture and quality of life in our city…</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">HOUSING, YES—TOWERS, NO! </span><br />
<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">DENSITY,
YES—CONGESTION, NO!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #303030; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Interested parties can get more
information at <a href="http://cambridgeresidentsalliance.org/"><span style="color: #2b52ff; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">CambridgeResidentsAlliance.org</span></a>.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">__._,_.___<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">__._,_.___<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-71722392844856366262013-01-07T05:23:00.001-08:002013-01-07T12:51:30.903-08:00Pretty White Gloves<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q8Utok0CPh2pQKFOGUogRc0xFctOj0L1lycVeYAPIZK4cKSlWy73ddDA9Qe1e6qv91jfrKMtRakn4_xCLGdIzzeH2SC0dqQ8gcocpmAXp6onMl12KpjXzjRv-arKjC9aVCbeRaCl4Q3C/s1600/the+major-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q8Utok0CPh2pQKFOGUogRc0xFctOj0L1lycVeYAPIZK4cKSlWy73ddDA9Qe1e6qv91jfrKMtRakn4_xCLGdIzzeH2SC0dqQ8gcocpmAXp6onMl12KpjXzjRv-arKjC9aVCbeRaCl4Q3C/s1600/the+major-1.jpeg" /></a></div>
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He sits on a folded-over cardboard box, slightly off-balance
and without any visible sign of support other than the granite wall of the bank
behind him and the few coins in the paper cup he occasionally shakes at passersby.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does he realize it’s 4 degrees above zero, or minus 25
degrees if you factor in the wind that blows through the city and his bones
with little concern for statistics? Does he notice the thick cumulous lifeforms
that escape from his mouth in shapes that shift and evanesce like the
opportunities that once populated his life? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Can he even distinguish the usual numbing effect of the
cheap alcohol from the cruel and indifferent caress of this biting alien
chill?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Too many questions, he would tell you, if he cared to say
anything. But his tongue sits in silence behind crusted chapped lips and
chattering teeth while half-shut eyes follow pedestrians fleeing from the
bitter cold and his outstretched cup.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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His gaze falls upon the hand holding the cup as if it were
some foreign element in his personal inventory. Surprised at first to find it
uncovered and exposed, especially in weather this frigid, he now recalls that
someone at the shelter had stolen his gloves and left in their place the only
option he still has in much abundance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Acquiescence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Examining the hand, and the exposed fingers encircling the
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"White gloves." <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lifting his hand for closer inspection, he adds,
"Pretty white gloves."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An image of his daughter . . . Elissa, he thinks her name
was . Yes, Elissa!, he recalls. An image of Elissa rises up in his mind, from a
photograph taken when she was ten and beautifully adorned in a new Easter outfit:
black shoes, frilly lavender dress and hat and, yes, pretty white gloves. The
photo once sat on a table in his living room, but he couldn't tell you what
happened to it, nor to the table or the living room, for that matter. They were
just gone. Swept away in the same tide that pulled out all the moorings from
his life, and everything else that had been tethered to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The last time he'd seen Elissa she was crying, though he no
longer remembers why. Must have been something he'd done or said; that much he
knows.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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"Pretty white gloves," he repeats, staring at his
hand.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He recalls the white gloves from his Marine dress uniform.
At most he wore them five times: at his graduation from officer's training school,
at an armed services ball in Trenton, New Jersey, and for three military
funerals. There was never a need for dress gloves in Viet Nam. They would have
never stayed white anyway; not with all the blood that stained his hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Out of the corner of his eye he can see a policeman walking
towards him and instinctively hides his cup, some vestige of half-remembered
pride causing him to avert his gaze from the man's eyes at the same time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"We need to get you inside, buddy," the officer
says. "You'll die of cold, you stay out here."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moments later, a second police officer, this one a woman,
steps up to join them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"That's the Major," she tells her colleague. To
the seated figure she offers a smile.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You coming with us, Major?" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Go away," he answers, looking up as he leans
further against the cold granite wall. "Don't need you. Don't need no
one."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Can't leave you out here," the first officer
says. "We've got orders to bring you and everyone else in."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Leave me alone!" the seated man shouts, gesturing
with his hands as if he could push them both away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Oh shit," the female officer says under her
billowing breath. To her partner she whispers, "His hands. Look at his
hands."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Quickly recognizing the waxy whiteness for what it is, the
officer shrugs, "Guess we're a little late."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To the man on the sidewalk, he offers, "That's frost
bite, buddy."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"No," the seated man protests. He holds up both
hands, numb and strange as they now feel and offers a knowing smile of
explanation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just like the marine officer he once was, just like the
sweet innocent daughter he once knew, just like the young man grown suddenly
old on a frozen sidewalk, his hands are beautiful and special in a way these
strangers will never understand.<o:p></o:p></div>
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"White gloves," he insists proudly. <o:p></o:p></div>
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"Pretty white gloves."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<span style="background-color: #f1f2f6; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><i>"Pretty White Gloves" is a story I wrote years ago, and published in my book "How To Train A Rock". I thought of it again last week when it was five degrees outside; no weather in which to be homeless. The Major was based on a man I once met, a military man, who was just beginning the slide into alcoholism and homelessness. Heaven only knows where he is today.</i></span></div>
<div class="service-links" style="background-color: #f5f6f0; color: #505050; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-41660718159311372422012-12-28T11:20:00.001-08:002012-12-29T08:25:03.559-08:00GOP Initiative: LET GLOBAL WARMING HEAT UP YOUR CAREER!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlUC-eTUrm2Y7Rr7EisQIPskYT-38qnnqPNDWQVXJKQKei4vLDkXDeVb9XSPuk8BiXcSZuQ02NUz_rozeDDTcwRZ4sJLfyt_KCmTBYV0_Y3Ver-LT5yS_1kF120ybpa3mmk2anHEaC_i0/s1600/repubs.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYlUC-eTUrm2Y7Rr7EisQIPskYT-38qnnqPNDWQVXJKQKei4vLDkXDeVb9XSPuk8BiXcSZuQ02NUz_rozeDDTcwRZ4sJLfyt_KCmTBYV0_Y3Ver-LT5yS_1kF120ybpa3mmk2anHEaC_i0/s1600/repubs.jpeg" /></a>Who says our national leaders won’t act on global warming!<br />
<br />
The Republican Party, still stinging from its major national rebuke way back in 2012, has announced a nationwide initiative to combat the economic impact of global warming. Unlike leaders from industrial nations that have created laws regulating the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the Republican Party has decided to attack the side effects of climate change head-on.<br />
<br />
That’s why they’re asking the youth of America, and anyone whose job might be threatened by environmental disaster, to answer these three critical questions:<br />
<br />
Are you ready for a ground-floor career in the world’s next major growth industry?<br />
<br />
Are you fed up with gloomy scientists predicting climate change, melting ice caps, rising seas and sunken coastal cities while nobody seems to do anything about it?<br />
<br />
More to the point, are you ready to do something about it yourself?<br />
<br />
If you are, then the career specialists at the Grand Old Party can show you how to turn the planet’s continuing series of cataclysms to your profitable advantage.<br />
<br />
No longer deniers of reality, we Republicans now see there is much to be gained by reaping the winds of Climate Change, so to speak. Sign up with us today, by tomorrow you’ll be preparing for a rewarding job in one of the world’s hottest emerging employment specialties—Global Warming Cleanup.<br />
<br />
As the polar ice caps melt, sending oceans to new heights and water temperatures soaring—spawning catastrophic hurricanes and tornadoes—you’ll be sitting pretty. While others scramble to survive, you’ll be enjoying the high paying rewards that come with providing disaster services everybody is screaming for.<br />
<br />
Even as you read this, thousands of new careers are being fostered by America’s steadfast refusal to reduce its rampant and filthy consumption of the world’s finite energy resources.<br />
<br />
Let America’s intransigence be your greatest opportunity. No other civilized nation can match the Good Old USA in creating the rising need for these hot emerging specialties:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Flood Rescue<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Skyscraper Salvage and Demolition<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Underwater Funeral and Cremation Services<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Missing Persons Investigations<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Corpse Identification and Shipment Services<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Rooftop Residential Construction<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Extinct Species Cataloguing<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• Displaced Persons Management and Control<br />
<br />
In the Republican Party we believe Global Warming is a tragic occurrence of the highest order, but we also believe every depleted ozone layer has it silver lining. Take Rooftop Residential Construction, for example. Only developed after the City of Boston washed away in last year’s Great Storm, the Republican Party Career Institute is trying to inject a little more sanity and predictability into the work marketplace, even during time of Global Warning. One of the most promising technologies to come out of all the catastrophic storms—Katrina, Rita, Irene Sandy and The Great Storm, of course—Rooftop Residential Construction by itself has been responsible for creating thousands of new jobs in storm-ravaged communities.<br />
<br />
Out Of Destruction,” our Republican motto says, “Comes Construction!”<br />
<br />
Developed in joint participation with the Paul Steven Stone Career Institute, under the watchful eye of political appointees and the usual party hacks, our new GOP Global Warming Career Center just might be the fresh start you, and the rest of the country, has been waiting for.<br />
<br />
So, sign up today, because…who knows what tomorrow may bring?<br />
<br />
Please note, according to Republican preferences, these Global Warming career opportunities are not available to undocumented immigrants unless nobody else wants them.Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-34774199330891520522012-12-20T06:47:00.002-08:002012-12-20T06:47:23.773-08:00On This Island In Space
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I believe we have much to be hopeful about as we enter 2013,
though on the surface of things it may appear otherwise.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I believe more and more of us are learning to look beyond
the surface of things, however, and what we see is more meaningful to the life
of our global community than today’s news, tonight’s sports scores or
tomorrow’s weather.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzam44JwR9XTGp7nAVdadezLzDEYbHBM3F7VUiCEbocODUSwlkxqr4ZhNejjyT8DSfgp_GLGqdqGHeBAFS5omTDZWvzHu7cBSd7l8XGnvTA_woI5Wu2c1ytNdT8dCJsyBsIt4K7OpmFi7/s1600/earth.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzam44JwR9XTGp7nAVdadezLzDEYbHBM3F7VUiCEbocODUSwlkxqr4ZhNejjyT8DSfgp_GLGqdqGHeBAFS5omTDZWvzHu7cBSd7l8XGnvTA_woI5Wu2c1ytNdT8dCJsyBsIt4K7OpmFi7/s1600/earth.jpeg" /></a>I believe we have been brought here—to this lifetime, this
moment in time, this island in space—to accomplish something. Each of us on our
own separate mission that somehow relates, through the unfathomable meshing of
the Universe’s gears, to the greater purposes of life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe we are singers in a chorus whose combined song has
the power to lift darkness from the face of the land, if we would only awaken
to the true song within each of us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe we are all journeying on the same road, leading up
the same mountain, to the same summit. The only difference is some of us have
been traveling longer and have learned to avoid obstacles that delay and
ensnare travelers with less experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe suffering and pain have purpose in our lives,
often forcing us to grow into stronger, better human beings and to explore
horizons that would never have called to us otherwise. I have seen parents who
have lost children find meaning in their lives by dedicating themselves to
protecting and enriching the lives of other people’s children. I have seen
victims use their victimhood to alert and save others from the same tragedies. Such
is the serendipitous alchemy of disaster and despair.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe the greatest obstacles to happiness are those
inner demons that keep us isolated from each other, whether they be hunger or
avarice, fear of our neighbors, envy or rank malice. Once we allow ourselves to
separate from the rest of mankind, we act like creatures deafened by the volume
of own petty desires. No longer able to hear the cries of others. No longer
affected by the tides of calamity or misery that uproot those around us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe we live in a world where noise and movement too
easily overwhelm thoughtfulness and purpose. From the earliest age we are
taught to fill the spaces in our lives with sound, activity or moving images,
as if a quiet home or a quiet mind were unwelcome oddities. As we progress on our
life’s journey, I believe we will learn to welcome these spaces rather than
fill them, to drink from them rather than run from them, to make room for them
in our lives as we would any healing or sustaining nourishment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe we are learning to overcome superficial
differences between ourselves and others, no longer allowing diversity to
automatically breed fear and distrust. I can’t say if we’ve become more
tolerant because the global media web has shrunken our planet, or because fear,
lies and ignorance inevitably shrivel under the constant glare of media
attention. Whatever the reason, the veils and superstitions that have fueled
intolerance across millennia, sending countless soldiers off to countless wars,
are now being lifted. The arc of the universe, I believe, is bending towards
justice and brotherhood as more and more travelers make their way up the
mountain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe we have been brought here—to this lifetime, this
moment in time, this island in space—to accomplish something. Each of us on our
own separate mission that somehow relates, through the unfathomable meshing of
the Universe’s gears, to the greater purposes of life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe one of the reasons I am here—in this lifetime, on
this island in space—is to open my heart and reveal what I find there through
my writing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I believe this was written for you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I came across this
essay written seven years ago and felt it’s message was not only timeless but
somehow impeccably timed for today, given recent events. It’s message of hope,
I felt, was no less strident or believable in light of those events, but
perhaps more urgently needed. And so, after a few minor edits, I decided to
share it with you.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>PSS<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-14556342350797221532012-12-16T14:37:00.001-08:002012-12-17T07:08:13.912-08:00RIPPLES IN THE PONDTragedy comes in all sizes and weights. We who
count ourselves lucky when we hear of someone else’s misfortune pretend the
distance between their world and ours is far enough to keep us safe. But we are
fooling ourselves. We can’t cut our boat adrift so easily. We can ignore
the smaller ripples, but there are some of such magnitude we occasionally find
ourselves holding onto the gunwales with feverish intensity.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidmlqDm8WuBpVQrY-U284y0W2DdUGfO2MkPLvGZEaPJ8VpGFibpJD2k7GhBM9nZ7NH6ZlNdW3jbCZA_8ds2Ap3YHpu0sjX7OafIC1YE0VWWcQoibXou2O3aWlgBewObMhqtz-x4HuXPubm/s1600/ripples.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidmlqDm8WuBpVQrY-U284y0W2DdUGfO2MkPLvGZEaPJ8VpGFibpJD2k7GhBM9nZ7NH6ZlNdW3jbCZA_8ds2Ap3YHpu0sjX7OafIC1YE0VWWcQoibXou2O3aWlgBewObMhqtz-x4HuXPubm/s320/ripples.jpeg" width="320" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such a tragedy occurred days ago in a Connecticut town that
could have easily been any of dozens here in Massachusetts. It was a tragedy
that knocked on every door, and louder on those behind which a child could be
found. A child thankfully alive, aware perhaps of the looming presence of the holidays
but of little else. Behind those same doors you would also find parents
stricken by their own form of grief; a grief ironically tied to treasures they
still possessed, which now seemed so at risk. Parents now painfully attuned to the
vagaries of Fate that could so cruelly—and so quickly—take precious children
from their lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All of us share the grief of the families, witnesses and survivors, and of the broken lives left behind in the wreckage of one young man’s unfathomable
expression of rage. And if there was anything we could do to lighten their
burden, we would do it in a flash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Newtown shootings was a tragedy of boat rocking
proportions. It reminded us—as Sandy did in a much less personal way—how
vulnerable we are, and how dependent we are on one another to make this world a
better place in which to live and raise our children. But ripples travel both
ways on the surface of the pond. Who can say, but perhaps this tragedy might
have been averted, had one human being scaled the shooter’s walls, touching his
life with ripples of love and healing vibrations. Offering him a better role
model than the kill-crazy heroes in video games. Offering him love and kindness to offset the hate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All that we do—all that we are—send out ripples in the
pond. Tragedies send out their own ripples; and there is no way we
can avoid being touched by them, nor should we want to. All we can do is steer a true course, and
keep our eyes focused on those who rightfully share the waters in
which we live. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, yes, keep sending out ripples of love and kindness.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-53783498851431162222012-12-14T07:30:00.000-08:002012-12-14T12:47:58.864-08:00The Secret Life of the American Leaf<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i>NOTE: The following is
an excerpt from Paul Steven Stone’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in
Occult Home Sciences.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Honored Dignitaries and Members of the Swedish Academy:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much has been written about the drop pattern of the American
Leaf (see Stern’s “Up To My Sternum in Autumn,” Windblown Press, 2003) but prior
to my research it was firmly believed <i>Leafus
Americanus</i> fell but once a season.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgGCQ-mTfTGhSfKDwof3VR-dqB1jpAFBGeeqGubcngrGiiogN4x96bXOPvcN1fJhomNmEliLhsq0slRBcTbrgn1mNb9myGBEe2r10SGUaVNEHoSM6ahyphenhyphenwsdxatLYWCefaaQLZ7p8pjNiH/s1600/leaf.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgGCQ-mTfTGhSfKDwof3VR-dqB1jpAFBGeeqGubcngrGiiogN4x96bXOPvcN1fJhomNmEliLhsq0slRBcTbrgn1mNb9myGBEe2r10SGUaVNEHoSM6ahyphenhyphenwsdxatLYWCefaaQLZ7p8pjNiH/s1600/leaf.jpeg" /></a>Tdoay of course, we know each leaf falls not once but on
many occasions. Ironically, it was a casual remark by my lovely lab assistant and
wife at the time that ultimately led to my breakthrough discovery. She was
lying on the living room couch, if I recall rightly, examining oval
blisters on both her lovely palms. Upon my suggestion that she return to our
yard and continue raking leaves, she replied, “You should live so long. I’ll
wait till after they refall.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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“Refall?” I said to myself. “Refall?” The word echoed and
re-echoed through my mind. “Was it possible?” I asked myself. “Could leaves
actually fall more than once?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Within minutes I organized a press gang of laboratory
assistants (my three children) and together we began the torturous process of
marking all the remaining leaves in our yard with my name. Afterwards, leaving
my assistants to dispose of the test specimens in the woods behind our house, I
went inside to pursue a parallel investigation I’d been conducting on the
National Football League.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first returns on our efforts were quite dispiriting.
Although a voluminous colony of leaves did reappear on my property, and the
trees above remained as starkly bare of their leaves as before, none of the new
arrivals bore any of our test markings. Chagrined, I went into the woods and
measured the piles of our marked specimens, surprisingly discovering they had
diminished quite dramatically in height.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here then was a double mystery. Not only could I not account
for the new leaves on my lawn, I was at a loss to explain the apparent
disappearance of many of my test subjects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A week later both mysteries were solved with a single phone
call, the first of many I would later receive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You Paul S. Stone?” the caller asked; he appeared to be
breathing heavily and short of breath at the same time, which produced a most
ominous sounding intake and release of air. Assured that I was indeed Paul S.
Stone, he began displaying a limited vocabulary of expletives, most of which he
was forced to repeat once or twice in the length of that brief phone call. He
ended the call with terse suggestions as to what I might do with all the leaves
I had dumped upon his property.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At last the breakthrough I had been seeking! And it was more
startling than I could ever have hoped. For not only had my leaves fallen again,
as my wife suggested they might, but they had actually travelled two and a half
miles to do so. Later phone calls confirmed the discovery, revealing migratory
patterns that ranged as far away as six miles from the test site. The threats
and foul language I endured from my callers, however, were far more limited in
their range, a sad testimony I fear to the failings of our educational system.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You’ll be pleased to hear my research continues, and before
long I expect to publish preliminary findings that will cause all of us to
reassess our beliefs about the sex life of <i>Leafus
Americanus.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All I can say at present is that the little fellow is
surprisingly promiscuous.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-30391514158956746532012-12-06T12:28:00.001-08:002012-12-08T08:28:46.275-08:00They Do The Hokey-Pokey<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Will somebody please show John Boehner how to negotiate in good faith! If I have to look at that flap-mouth crybaby accuse President Obama of not playing fairly one more time, I’m out of here. Perhaps to Russia or the Middle East where leaders really know how to kick ass and take names.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSjeuGHvrXtccQk1cHFAKG8awm8dHNQIs7XMXowtLmC7SetHEQDKpTJg20Xj0worn9Sk93nOBAkq3TzLtFXctKKSxj_T6ZxYN8dIwnbxORUAS6wFm7QmrmHlZr5v4sEVexeYfNWWK_KF5L/s1600/HP1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSjeuGHvrXtccQk1cHFAKG8awm8dHNQIs7XMXowtLmC7SetHEQDKpTJg20Xj0worn9Sk93nOBAkq3TzLtFXctKKSxj_T6ZxYN8dIwnbxORUAS6wFm7QmrmHlZr5v4sEVexeYfNWWK_KF5L/s1600/HP1.jpeg" /></a>John, it’s just like that kid’s dance, The Hokey-Pokey; first you put your right hand in…but, what…? Yes, John, you snatch it back in the song, that’s true, but we’re negotiating here, not really dancing. Okay, now put that right hand back in again. And tell yourself, “I can do this. I can compromise.” Okay, John, now you shake it all about! Only instead of just shaking your right hand you shake someone else’s right hand. Come on, John, really shake it! As if you were out fundraising, rattling upside-down millionaires for the change in their pockets.<br />
<br />
Almost there, John. All that’s left is to say, “Yes, I agree,” and look like you mean it.<br />
<br />
And now you get to sing, “That’s what it’s all about!”<br />
<br />
Enough with the shaking, John. Perhaps if you moved closer to the bargaining table you might actually be able to reach someone else’s hand. You just have to accept the fact Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan really did lose the election and that taxes will definitely have to go up for all your rich friends.<br />
<br />
Sorry, John. Yes, the Koch Brothers may need to shut down one of their many soup kitchens, or reduce their annual contributions to the Sierra Club and PBS once they starting paying those additional few million in taxes.<br />
<br />
Good thing this is finally happening, John. If we wait any longer we might have to start killing off the poor, the elderly, the infirm. Which I guess is just the Grand Old Party's way of doing the Hokey-Pokey. Now, instead, you get to reach out and grab yourself a chunk of responsibility for doing what’s right, John, and what’s obviously been right for a long time. Talk about turning yourself around!<br />
<br />
If you don't mind my saying it, John<i>—That’s what it’s all about!</i></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-48090344163175259672012-11-25T05:52:00.000-08:002012-11-25T05:52:46.076-08:00MADE IN AMERICAWe’ve just gone through an election where the discussion was
centered exactly where the voices of greed and anger wanted it to be, on their
crybaby need to shrink the size of American government. To methodically eviscerate,
program-by-program, its power and its mission till ultimately our government would
no longer be capable of caring for its people or governing responsibly. And if it turned out it was also incapable of
regulating and inhibiting bad behavior by predatory oil companies and billionaires,
so much the better!<br />
<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_T-ebKBACjEeVrBHZ81k3ZxUnK9JX9fYBPHyRTraWe6SNazy3cuglqN0azXMmlc7BEpbS7UokG09SWTC6zUtJOiTEpGsMml3R4F2yPr7RxNAxyYL-3jVC2pSjFNOVxjnnmlWqYz6K98pY/s1600/eagle+2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_T-ebKBACjEeVrBHZ81k3ZxUnK9JX9fYBPHyRTraWe6SNazy3cuglqN0azXMmlc7BEpbS7UokG09SWTC6zUtJOiTEpGsMml3R4F2yPr7RxNAxyYL-3jVC2pSjFNOVxjnnmlWqYz6K98pY/s1600/eagle+2.jpeg" /></a>Who gave the rich and powerful, not to mention angry
conservatives, the right to set both the agenda and the topic of discussion for
America’s civil intercourse? And who decided they were allowed to purchase
outright the entire American political process, as they attempted to do this
last election? Happily, there were a lot of votes they couldn’t buy. And a lot
of discerning voters they couldn’t instruct on what to believe. But they made
such a racket clamoring for their negative agenda, the media seemed unable to
hear or discern the quieter voices engaged in the process. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, as one of those quieter voices, let me give a rousing
cheer for a government large enough to care for its citizens and maintain a
safety net under their feet. A government that will help pick them up when they
fall, and give them a hand when they need it—without resentment or harsh judgments.
Obviously a government can’t do everything for its people, nor should it even
try. But there’s so much it can accomplish—so much that <i>needs </i>to be accomplished—we never have to worry about running out
of things for it to do. We could clean up our air, free students from lifelong
debt, bring illegal aliens in from the cold, salvage more homes from the
clutches of the banks, care for our seniors, fix our broken health care system,
protect consumers, repair storm ravaged communities and make college more accessible.
We could do all that if we didn’t have the Republican party, guided by the selfishness
and obscene wealth of its prime supporters and fueled by the zealotry of its Tea
Party fanatics, standing in front of progress like a brick wall straddling a train
track. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Which government would you prefer? One that Republicans and their wealthy
backers would have us strip down to bare essentials, or one that is worthy of
the ideals voiced by our founders and our greatest leaders? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of all, we need a government as big as our idea of
America. If our vision is guided by those who are small-minded, petty and
grasping, we will forge a government that reflects their mediocrity of spirit.
If we see ourselves having a moral obligation to share our prosperity and watch
over others, we become big enough to rescue Europe from the Nazis and powerful
enough to rescue a single mother and her children from the spiraling grip of
poverty. <o:p></o:p></div>
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America has always been bigger than the people who lead her,
though there are many now who seek to dampen her grandiosity, reduce her
generosity, and deny her moral obligation to care for those less fortunate. Any
student of history knows a government so painfully insignificant and uninspired
was never intended for an America as great as the one we were given as our
birthright. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not only does America need a big government, she needs a
government strong enough to stand up to this raucous horde of complainers who deny
anything they don’t agree with: global warming, the physical consequences of
rape, the theory of evolution, the equality of women, the need for the wealthy
to pay taxes. They deny everything except the dangers of living in a big scary
world. Which is why we spend more than half the country’s wealth on our
military machine, sucking the lifeblood from budgets that would otherwise go to
educate our children, operate our trains, build our cities, run our parks, and
care for our veterans.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Republicans and the right-wing fanatics have kept us
trapped in time like flies in amber. We’re fated to forever re-negotiate gains
made fifty years ago. That’s why, today, we’re still fighting for racial
equality, the right to vote, the separation of state and church, and a woman’s
right to choose. And, if we allow these self-righteous
misanthropes to continue their obstruction, the same thing will happen with
Obamacare, leaving us to spend the next fifty years fighting for its survival.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, here’s my vote for an American government big enough to
help create and protect opportunity for all, and to ensure no one segment of
the population gets more than its fair share. A government unapologetically magnanimous
in meeting the needs of its citizens. A government as well intentioned and
self-sacrificing as those World War Two soldiers who made up the greatest
generation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anything less…well, just wouldn’t be American.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-23713866429285818822012-11-19T10:00:00.000-08:002012-12-17T04:34:45.063-08:00A TALE OF TWO CAMBRIDGES<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It is a city comfortably settled, it is a city ripe for development, it is
city in need of housing for families and those with low incomes, it is a
city that hopes to lower rents and create housing by building
towers for the wealthy, it is a city dedicated to improving the lives of its
current residents, it is a city committed to bringing in new people and new
revenue streams at the expense of current residents, it is a city whose roads
and T-stations are already overcrowded, it is a city that wants to believe more
capacity remains, it is a city that needs a citywide study to determine the
city’s future, it is a city that wants to blindly step on the gas to keep
things moving. It is a city still liveable, it is a city whose liveability is
on the selling block.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekWmJSa1VXWiOiyYiOwzbqfOE-_NMwYGK1Iz-9eYa607JiLDHVE67K34aRx1HwTNPpjgZrh7D_JUqnq49DMO7-Z3uPVs1PmCo5P0R9Bc-al3TZ0toFpIt2hNfWuua4o1byI8GdMjEBiYd/s1600/sign.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhekWmJSa1VXWiOiyYiOwzbqfOE-_NMwYGK1Iz-9eYa607JiLDHVE67K34aRx1HwTNPpjgZrh7D_JUqnq49DMO7-Z3uPVs1PmCo5P0R9Bc-al3TZ0toFpIt2hNfWuua4o1byI8GdMjEBiYd/s200/sign.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Whatever you believe about the City of
Cambridge: believe this…it is on the cusp of change. Big change. The kind of
change that comes when you add over 18 million square feet of NEW development
to a city already densely populated. That’s 18 million square feet of new labs,
offices and residences, ADDITIONAL to what’s here today! Which will generate
over 100,000 ADDITIONAL car and transit trips a day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">If the Community Development Department
hadn’t spent most of its time and psychic energy trying to bring in more
development, rather than helping us prepare for the future, we in the community who care about such things might actually be
engaged in a sensible discussion on what the City of Cambridge should be doing
to prepare for this virtual tsunami on the horizon. We might be studying
possible impacts on our schools, on our air quality, on our city streets, on
city services, and on dozens of other aspects of our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But instead, rather than study and
anticipate the impacts of all this developmental activity, our civic leaders
appear to be caught up in a dance that has them pandering to it, inviting more
in, treating developers as the solution rather than just more of the same
problem. And the Community Development Department, our agents of change and
preservation, often appears to be working more for the interests of <i>development</i> than the <i>community</i>, as if maximizing developer profits was the only way to gain
concessions for the city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">There’s an interesting parallel you can
draw between what’s happening here in Cambridge and the effort nationally of
rich and powerful interests to control the debate as they maximize their
profits (or tax advantages). Isn’t this the same as their trickle-down economic
theory—that we’ll award some lucky millionaire the rights to build 15 story
apartment towers with 130 apartments, and thus help him earn many extra millions of
dollars, as long as he doles out 15-20 of those apartments for our poorer
citizens? Isn’t that another way of saying we should live off the largess of
our job creators, eating whatever crumbs trickle down to us, and in
return we tax them less than we tax their secretaries?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But fear not! We’ll not spend a second
of time pondering the fate of our schools or the congestion of our roads,
rather we’ll argue and plead our case against the gradual diminishment of
Cambridge one zoning petition at a time, one preliminary set of recommendations
at a time, one City Council hearing at a time, one Oped at a time. All in the interest of the destiny and long-term well-being of this city we love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">There were two meetings last week that
reflected this tale of two Cambridges in the flesh. Meeting Number One was held
by the Central Square Advisory Committee, overseen and guided by the Community Development
Department </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 21px;">(CDD).</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> In which the committee publically reviewed their final draft of
recommendations for the rezoning of Central Square. Meeting Number Two, held by
the Cambridge Residents Alliance, was a community-led forum on transportation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In Meeting Number One, The Community
Development Department offered a long involved presentation with slides, but
the ugly truth could not be hidden. They were recommending building heights of
140 feet in a Central Square neighborhood that had long served as a buffer zone
between the square and the neighborhood. Now they were zoning for 14 or
15 or 16-story apartment towers in an overlay district that essentially expanded the
Central Square footprint to include the two streets that run parallel to Mass Ave. on
either side. This overlay district was designed so that city-owned land, a
series of parking lots and a two-story garage, could now be sold off to
developers and, possibly, used for residential projects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">So what, you might ask, is the big deal? There must be tradeoffs for having such out-of-scale buildings casting shadows on our
neighborhood… Of course there is, the community gets back a set percentage
of the units, usually 11-15%, to be set aside for low- or middle-income folks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What if the neighborhood doesn’t want
the shadows, or the noise, or the congestion, or the added newcomers further
crowding an already crowded T-ride? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And what if the neighbors actually </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 21px;">do</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 21px;"> </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16pt;">want the low- and middle-income units that come with the towers?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #141414; font-size: 16pt;">Let’s build
them ourselves! Only not as towers. Once we let go of satisfying the gluttony
of developers we can actually look at building structures appropriate to the
site and to the neighborhood. We can be just as resourceful as the developers,
since we'll be building small and efficient instead of big and expensive. “We”
being the City of Cambridge, of course—with PCA funds, or by digging up all possible
sources of funding before we’d ever think of defacing the neighborhood with
sky-blocking towers. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In the other meeting, Meeting Number
two, late Saturday afternoon, men and women who not surprisingly support the
city building its own small-scale affordable housing communities, were gathering to present a forum on the grim future realities of real estate and transportation in
Cambridge. Hoping that by presenting the facts, they might also help shape the
city’s future. Right now, the millions
of dollars that come with development are driving both the discussion and the city’s
actions, they're certainly not driven by the needs of the city or its residents. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In Meeting Number One, Cambridge was served up as a side of beef to be chopped up into its different cuts. 140 feet of height in one district, 160 feet of height in the next. Or should we call them Rib Cut and Pork Chop? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In Meeting Number Two, Cambridge was seen as a gem whose facets can be easily scratched, and thus need protection. It's our very diversity and </span><span style="font-size: 21px;">liveability, now at risk from over-development, that makes us</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> so attractive to those who would come in to share our city, all the more reason for not allowing market realities to dominate our thinking or treat us roughly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Meeting Number One continued to ignore the fact that 18 million new square
feet of development is coming to Cambridge. Bringing more cars, bicyclists,
T-riders and bus passengers than the present systems can handle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Meeting Number Two attempted to
thwart the misguided lurch towards weakening our zoning protections, that was coming out of Meeting Number One .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Meeting Number Two envisioned a Cambridge
whose delicate intertwining of races, economic groups—blue collar and white—is a rare and beautiful thing that needs to be protected, while Meeting Number
One saw a Cambridge whose liveability, liberality and academic propinquity were
merely happy underpinnings of its highly sexy, and highly priced, real estate
market. </span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16pt;">And too much of a good thing can't be all bad, can it? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In the end, of course, one vision will
win out. Whether it’s the Voice of Money finally convincing us to let the investors and
big developers make more money off our city so that a few of us can eke out better
lives. Or if it’s the Voice of Reason asking us to be good stewards of this
city we have been handed down. A voice that believes the abiding principle in
steering Cambridge towards the future must be borrowed from the Hippocratic
oath, “First, Do No Harm!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">There were two meetings last week that
were sharply focused on where we see Cambridge evolving. They were also sharply
divided, one calling for expanding higher-rise development, the other calling
for a temporary halt to all up-zoning, so we can study and prepare for what the future is sending our way.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Which meeting spoke to you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Cambridge is Two Cities<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It is a city comfortably settled, it is a city ripe for development, it is
city in need of housing. It is a city that hopes to create housing by building
towers for the wealthy, it is a city dedicated to improving the lives of its
current residents, it is a city committed to bringing in new people and new
revenue streams at the expense of current residents, it is a city whose roads
and T-stations are already overcrowded, it is a city that wants to believe more
capacity remains, it is a city that badly needs a citywide study, it is a city
that wants to blindly keep things moving. It is a city still liveable, it is a
city whose liveability is on the selling block. It is a city some of us love, it is a
city some would love to develop.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-45008346876638728222012-11-14T13:47:00.005-08:002012-11-17T10:42:51.172-08:00OUTSOURCE THE ELEPHANT!One of the chief political lessons of this new millennium is
that Republicans have taken up residence in an alternative universe. You only
have to watch them conduct the nation’s business, or hawk their unattractive
political ideology, to realize how dark and angry and bereft of joy their
alternate world truly is.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6z69GfW1X6us2eLj2YWO9_Vuziz_lel8f0dKv_d-mUGVxrV1RlWuikjsWIUzU5KBpAt61MoOqvs31cyX1TRGsZrdkiQpiL0MAdsgBG5BcL-2cW-ZXuOnV1EjYFbzfI8IzOQEe7bTdpXjZ/s1600/reps.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6z69GfW1X6us2eLj2YWO9_Vuziz_lel8f0dKv_d-mUGVxrV1RlWuikjsWIUzU5KBpAt61MoOqvs31cyX1TRGsZrdkiQpiL0MAdsgBG5BcL-2cW-ZXuOnV1EjYFbzfI8IzOQEe7bTdpXjZ/s320/reps.jpeg" width="232" /></a>Strangely enough, for all the wealth their supporters possess,
Republicans live in a world of shortage and insufficiency. For them, there
will never be enough to go around. For them, the danger is clearly represented
in the hordes of poor and struggling masses who, they worriedly suspect, would rise up to
seize and redistribute their mountains of riches and possessions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be, as they mostly fear, a marriage of the French
and Bolshevik revolutions…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Off with their wallets!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Contrary to popular belief, women are allowed into this
alternate Republican universe—as long as they mind their manners and their
sexual organs, leave their opinions at the door, stop enticing men to rape
them, and desist complaining about men getting more money and the best jobs.
Hispanics, too, have their place in this ersatz America, as long as they’re
willing to work for next to nothing. And promise not to bring any of their
family over.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, hey, I haven’t done a good deed all day. How about you and
I rescuing the elephant from his dark unfriendly world, bringing in light, air,
and the happy chatter of over one billion people… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, let’s outsource Republicans to India!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How appropriate for the party whose presidential candidate was
a proud “pioneer” of outsourcing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But this is supposed to be a good deed, extracting the
elephant from the dark place he inhabits, where gloom and fear of mob rule
casts a heavy pall. How much sunnier, and more pungent a refuge India would be.
Besides, India knows what to do with elephants. They put them to work, they venerate
them, they even have an elephant diety named Ganesha. Whereas here, at least
47% of the population would shoot the elephant, were someone to hand out
elephant guns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know, you’re worried about the impact. Can’t say I blame
you, since Republicans have totally gummed up the works in Congress for the
last four years. But India will do very well by insourcing the elephant—there’s
all the extra money Republican billionaires will pump into the local elections.
And it won’t even matter who wins. Republican billionaires love to throw their
money away. Most of it will be spent spreading villainous lies, since that’s
mostly what they know, but it’s time those masala-makers on the Indian sub-continent learned life isn’t
really a Bollywood movie. It only seems like
one because they don’t have enough Republicans to bring the music to a stop. The
elephant being the ultimate buzz-killer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
MESSAGE ALERT: here comes the serious recommendation.<br />
<br />
I
would like to suggest we say “bye-bye” to the elephant and give a real ‘hello’
to the Greenies. Send Republicans overseas and bring the Green Party in from
the cold. We wouldn’t lose our two-party system. But for once both our parties
would actually give a damn about the struggles of the middle class. And neither's ranks would be filled with obnoxious, whiny and self-righteous A-Holes who bitch
about everything except the gluttony of their billionaire masters. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of us haven’t forgotten how the elephant went rogue during
the Bush years. Committing acts of torture, ignoring global warming, jamming
religious creational crap into children’s textbooks, looting the treasury for
two wars and a financial crisis, hanging out with Jim Crow, tapping on men’s toilets;
it’s sickening how long the list goes on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a time the elephant represented both the interests
of business and the needs of the people. Today, the elephant has become a born-again
convert to fiscal restraint even as we’re still digging ourselves out from the
ditch they drove the economy into.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Enough! I say enough is enough! Let’s not waste another moment; let's outsource the elephant as soon as we can get it shipped overseas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then all the elephant shit will be India’s problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-38492183525901954252012-11-08T06:51:00.002-08:002012-12-01T05:48:26.141-08:00SPLENDOR IN THE GAFFES<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know
about you, but I’m going to move to the other side of the electoral bed and
light up a cigarette. Anyone have a match?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnML7u4jS5sGqiYgWPTlc-5N9Sxgr9mD156lC2nVkSiugvZdF189YdIBJnP60opJCDzfSdmA0ALk_JxGm5RX53xWodhfHRketwCQ9sN0ewSg1ijTrMpmloRHCDk-H-eruOLsktvoZIwYJv/s1600/smoke+ring.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnML7u4jS5sGqiYgWPTlc-5N9Sxgr9mD156lC2nVkSiugvZdF189YdIBJnP60opJCDzfSdmA0ALk_JxGm5RX53xWodhfHRketwCQ9sN0ewSg1ijTrMpmloRHCDk-H-eruOLsktvoZIwYJv/s200/smoke+ring.jpeg" width="200" /></a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And how sweet it
is!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Please, if only
till the last ash is flicked, let me just lie here and savor the moment. I'm not used to such extended foreplay, or such a rich sense of satisfaction and afterglow.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me
contemplate Karl Rove handing out T-shirts that proclaim, “I spent $400 million
on the Goddamn 2012 election and all I got is this lousy T-shirt!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me picture
Eddie Haskell’s twin, Paul Ryan dragging his 87-year-old mother onto the stage
repeatedly, as if they were both trapped in a nightmare that wouldn’t go away, to
prove to blue-haired and highly-wrinkled audiences everywhere his heretofore-hidden
concern for the elderly. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Best of all, as
I suck in the aromatic smoke from this symbolic-but-delicious cigarette, I see
Willard Mitt Romney himself, foot in mouth, shape-shifting and position-changing
like some creature from a 1950’s William Castle horror flick. Think “The
Tingler” or “The House on Haunted Hill,” made over by dint of Mitt’s millions
into “The Shapeshifter” and “The Creature From The Hollow Core.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Step right up,
folks!” the narrator calls, “Watch the man on the screen change from pro-choice to pro-life, from advocate of universal health care to advocate of universal emergency rooms,
from moderate Republican to conservative ideologue. Don’t be afraid,
children, it’s only a movie.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, Mitt,
as most fairy tales go, you were saved from an eternity of shape-shifting by
the kiss of the handsome dark prince.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can’t see you
in the dark of the room, boys, but I can hear your heavy breathing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me take a lungful of smoke as I savor the thought of Karl explaining
to his billionaire friends how hard he worked, and how difficult it can be,
to create hundreds of totally discreditable TV commercials that could chase
people out of their living rooms faster than an air raid siren.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just imagine, Karl, if
you had only had another $100 million and one more year to work with…The
Democrats might have recaptured the House!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And one more smiling drag on the butt to recall Paul Ryan balancing on the razor-thin edge of fatuous logic, explaining how he and Mitt were the ones looking out for the interests of the poor and
the elderly and how especially he—his house budgets aside—had not come to
bury Medicare but to save it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, the ash
grows longer, boys, the time grows fleeting. One last drag, Mitt, to accompany
these sleepy memories of all the glorious gaffes you blundered through. How you
managed to insult the British and the Palestinians on your whirlwind foreign
affairs tour. How you inelegantly managed to insult 47% of the entire
population at your chummy millionaires' fundraising dinner. How you inhumanely,
and ill-politically, tied your faithful dog Seamus’ carrier to the top of your
station wagon for the 12-hour trip from Massachusetts to Canada.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good grief, if I
start recalling all your gaffes here in bed, Mitt, I’ll smoke so many
cigarettes I’ll ruin my lungs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Better to crush
out the butt and forget how badly you and your friends tried to screw America.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No hard
feelings, Mitt, we only flirted with you for a few cheap thrills ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Could you pass
over the ashtray?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-53299954899065518162012-11-04T06:04:00.000-08:002012-11-04T06:07:39.647-08:00YOU'RE SO DUMB<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLVML_1NBGY6YKtAvO0LMoWd5U7Kb7Lkle48nMZE4d_kca6H7uDlJQZZtJPDs33GsxRUy4Z4Wcn8m8DJqOiQkgSXpW7rJZWHqSywjbcjB5EOJzGpjb2embk0GR7Bjdt_6YPQvn_Hc-fbUa/s1600/mitt+mex.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLVML_1NBGY6YKtAvO0LMoWd5U7Kb7Lkle48nMZE4d_kca6H7uDlJQZZtJPDs33GsxRUy4Z4Wcn8m8DJqOiQkgSXpW7rJZWHqSywjbcjB5EOJzGpjb2embk0GR7Bjdt_6YPQvn_Hc-fbUa/s320/mitt+mex.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(sung to the tune of “You’re so Vain" by Carly Simon)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Dedicated to Millard Mitt Romney</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-39401687986713684292012-11-02T10:43:00.001-07:002012-11-04T06:05:13.547-08:00THE SWIFTBOATING OF ELIZABETH WARREN<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Scott Brown either has no moral character or no political record
he can stand on. On Tuesday the voters of Massachusetts will offer their own opinion
on that critical question.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-Mc4NcHWbbpsm06gDk7jlNFgRqB0MX6ibhVFvsodX7xF13fjNU8ruFbocRiaVJtWquwlUgm9sQl2POG670KMFmYNj4-sFKqyoLHl5Db1VF8nUgnELMIHP79tZAGhm3rUK8oPPvunbff2/s1600/brown-warren.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-Mc4NcHWbbpsm06gDk7jlNFgRqB0MX6ibhVFvsodX7xF13fjNU8ruFbocRiaVJtWquwlUgm9sQl2POG670KMFmYNj4-sFKqyoLHl5Db1VF8nUgnELMIHP79tZAGhm3rUK8oPPvunbff2/s1600/brown-warren.jpeg" /></a>As a member of the party that elevated swiftboating to an
art form defending bad behavior and questionable representation of the people’s
interests, Scott Brown has clearly decided Elizabeth Warren’s proven record of
defending the interests of the middle class will trump his own record of
defending the rights, the wealth and the power of the privileged class. His
cynical pretense to be a fair-minded voice for sanity and compromise in the
U.S. Senate is as shallow as his record in sponsoring meaningful legislation or
rebalancing the wholly lopsided aggregation of our nation’s wealth by the
shamelessly piggish 1%. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Swiftboating, as anyone living in our modern era can
tell you, is the aiming of LIES at an
opponent’s strongest qualifications. George W. Bush’s campaign used
swiftboating to undermine John Kerry’s record as a highly decorated swiftboat
captain in VietNam (hence the term ‘swiftboating’), Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan
are attempting to swiftboat Barack Obama’s rescue of the auto industry, and
Scott Brown is pathetically attempting to swiftboat Elizabeth Warren’s record as
a fierce consumer advocate. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If Scott Brown had done more to represent the majority of
his constituents he wouldn’t be forced to attack Elizabeth Warren with lies,
innuendoes and fantasy assessment’s of Mrs. Warren’s past record. Or to cling
like a drowning man to the irrelevant question of Elizabeth Warren’s Native
American heritage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As I’ve written elsewhere, Scott Brown has a history of
waiting until issues are decided before casting his vote. In most cases voting
against his fellow swiftboaters when the vote no longer matters and he can use it to highlight his sham willingness to work across the aisle. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The truth is Scott Brown has aligned himself with a gang of
thugs who will trample a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body
or to earn equal pay for equal work. A gang that, pumped up by corporate greed
and billionaire donations, would bring us back to an era when Malthusian
economics decreed we should allow America’s poor, elderly, and sickest citizens to live or die
on their own without any help from the government. A gang that would virtually wipe
out all the social, humanitarian and egalitarian progress we’ve made as a
country since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first introduced Social Security as a
citizen right back in the 1930’s.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A corporate and billionaire-funded gang of political hacks that denies global warming, sees the American
government as its enemy, and is intent on taking food from school children’s
lunches to support further expansion of an unnecessarily bloated military
machine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So when I read a mailer from Scott Brown declaring that
“Elizabeth Warren is not who she says she is” I can see how desperate he is to
avoid the real truth…that Scott Brown, unlike what his yard signs proclaim, is
definitely NOT who he says he is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And certainly not someone worthy of my vote. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-53969416517385081082012-10-29T15:49:00.000-07:002012-12-08T08:31:17.396-08:00WELCOME TO THE REPUBLICAN STATES OF AMERICA<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9Dj-L3Bucihz7VksNMtGzPUdRqzeSxfP2ZzD15DU76WXdhU6QNZnc3vshz_yykKiamdCu_6wREP-EZj_Lg1iUCKySjdESK_HKrvoWXDqhiEtmIo5WCNoo9eUIiBU9tIit13CKtF45dSD/s1600/millionaire.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB9Dj-L3Bucihz7VksNMtGzPUdRqzeSxfP2ZzD15DU76WXdhU6QNZnc3vshz_yykKiamdCu_6wREP-EZj_Lg1iUCKySjdESK_HKrvoWXDqhiEtmIo5WCNoo9eUIiBU9tIit13CKtF45dSD/s1600/millionaire.jpeg" /></a></div>
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Hello folks, come on in. And welcome to the Republican
States of America (RSA). I’ve been authorized by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers and
billionaires everywhere to invite you in for a visit. But not to stay.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You can only stay here in the RSA if you are a declared
heterosexual, American-born—possessing two birth certificates if you’re black
and running for the presidency—fully observant of the moral dictates of
women-subjugating religions or right-minded politicians, and committed to
enshrining selfishness into the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While you are visiting with us in the RSA feel free to wear
your gun to the movies, abuse your undocumented Latino servants and drop off
your grandparents at the local emergency room, should they have health problems.
In the RSA anyone struggling to earn a living wage is responsible for his or
her own difficulties and is requested never to ask for assistance, especially
if they’re poor, elderly, recently out of work, living in a single parent
household, or in ill health. Take note that women in the RSA are not allowed to
be raped or have abortions in cases of rape. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Also be aware that your unborn children are of greater
importance to us than those noisy, filthy and irritating children poor people
seem to breed as if they were sex-starved rabbits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Please take note that as of January 2013, membership in a
public or private employees union will be considered contrary to the public
welfare, punishable by extended stays in Arizona or Wisconsin. In the interest
of fairness, every citizen will pay the same percentage of his or her income in
taxes, regardless of how rich or poor they may be, except in cases where a
minimum level of assets qualifies you for the Oil, Gas and Millionaires tax loopholes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Republican States of America it is understood we may declare
preemptive war against a weak third-world nation anytime we deem it necessary
to use up, and thus upgrade and re-manufacture at great cost, our store of aging armaments.
If we de-stabilize a region, we take no responsibility and will blame it on the
mainstream media.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Republican States of America it is perfectly
acceptable to declare war on another country in the interests of spreading
democracy, even while here at home we combat voter fraud by denying voting rights to minorities, students and other
left-leaning elements of the population. To that regard, it is also permissible
to steal elections in swing states.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Welcome to the Republican States of America. Please
remember, we don’t do torture, and we’ll waterboard anyone who says
different. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-60064771543991168432012-10-18T07:15:00.001-07:002012-10-18T16:19:18.085-07:00SCOTT BROWN DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR VOTE<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9X__PmtY7r4Ud8eqIrzE8RVryjm7CSb583G8a9AJqReQxLCQB-JMiu-HFuc3lwgabUcSSvtWL59HGefTGw1di4GK00XLeFc2eRipgRygKZsv70tzZxTXi4VN-o7C2OF3XFJooHQ3vyPmM/s1600/Brown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9X__PmtY7r4Ud8eqIrzE8RVryjm7CSb583G8a9AJqReQxLCQB-JMiu-HFuc3lwgabUcSSvtWL59HGefTGw1di4GK00XLeFc2eRipgRygKZsv70tzZxTXi4VN-o7C2OF3XFJooHQ3vyPmM/s1600/Brown.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p>If I sound harsh, forgive me. It’s only because the stakes
are too high for us to make a mistake voting for Senator next month.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Senator Scott Brown is a nice guy. We can all agree on that.
As far as his vision goes as a politician, we only really know two things about
him. At some level he supports Republican doctrine enough to belong to the
party. Secondly, he’s running for reelection based on the fact he plays nicely
with others.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ask Scott Brown why any of us should vote for him and he
immediately points to his bi-partisan voting record, which by the way has
him voting for core Republican positions almost <i>every</i> time, and alongside Democrats on the really tough political
fights, like naming post offices or codifying rules of behavior for National
Parks. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The nation’s two most important economic issues don’t seem
particularly interesting to Mr. Brown. On the widening gap between rich and
poor, he’s shown a surprising bent for siding with the wealthy and the
powerful. On the destruction of the middle class, he mouths platitudes, but
does little or nothing to help.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does Scott Brown stand for, besides getting himself
re-elected? Can you think of one issue meaningful to our lives that he has
articulated or even slated for political action?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Elizabeth Warren has risen to challenge Brown exactly
because she does stand for something. She’s a fighter for the middle class and,
more important, she’s a defender of our rights against the very same entrenched
interests Scott Brown and the Republican Party represent.</div>
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If you observe Scott Brown’s behavior in the Senate you’ll
notice he’s very calculating about taking his “bi-partisan” votes. Most times
he will only vote after the outcome is decided. Thus giving himself maximum
time to see which way the wind is blowing, but also to devise a plausible
reason to explain his vote. When Brown votes with Democrats it’s almost always
on issues where his vote is next to meaningless and has little impact on our
lives. I admit, he did vote for Dodd-Frank Financial Reform, but almost
immediately tried to weaken its provisions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Mr. Brown always has a plausible explanation (read
‘excuse’) for his lock-step Republican votes. He’s never without a reasonable
explanation for abandoning the middle class. On voting against cutting the Bush
tax breaks for the wealthy, he rotely explains now is not the time to tax the
‘job-creators’. On voting against fair-pay for women, he argues the bill had
too many unintended legal consequences. On protecting tax loopholes worth
billions to the oil companies, he claims eliminating tax loopholes would only
result in higher prices at the pump.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All reasonable, plausible explanations! But forgive me, I don’t
think they pass the smell test. Rather than honest explanations they seem like
thinly veiled political shields meant to hide a voting record that favors the high and
mighty at the expense of the poor and unprivileged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what makes Scott Brown immensely regrettable is his
taking up a space in the Senate that can mean so much to the lives of everyday
Americans. Not every Senator can be a Teddy Kennedy or a Daniel Webster. But
those are the footsteps in which Scott Brown walks, and it’s time he proved
himself worthy of being there. It’s not enough for Scott Brown to rest on his
laurels as a make-believe liaison between Democrats in the center and the
crazies on the right. Nor can he expect to coast to a victory by defaming an
opponent who has already accomplished more on a national level than he could
ever hope to achieve.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scott Brown makes a lot of claims in explaining a short
Senate career filled with meager accomplishment. He claims that kings and other
royalty confer with him regularly. He claims his 2-week summer rotation in
Afghanistan qualifies as “doing combat duty in Afghanistan.” He claims Elizabeth Warren lied about being part-Indian and then spends half a debate regretting he has
to bring the issue up.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Worst of all, Scott Brown claims to be protecting our
interests while all the while giving cover to the whackos and billionaires who assault
our interests every day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scott Brown may be a nice guy, but as our Senator from
Massachusetts he doesn't deserve your vote; he deserves to be an ex-Senator.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>NOTE: The original title of this essay was "Scott Brown Is A Total Waste Of Space." Upon serious reflection, I decided that statement was far too harsh and personal, so I changed the title. I apologise if anyone was offended by my previous title, or confused by the current one. PSS</i></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-89161391930483493652012-10-15T06:36:00.007-07:002012-10-16T10:02:15.858-07:00Eddie Haskell Goes To Washington<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilTFQw8w-QXQ-Lr5DzVsz7_4sL-gqIT2ZzKiuagSfYETnOmb0ne1WXfYxErb-sBltCkuV_nOg2xtlT5RtkmrJDivTs3UhfhJV3sZ_37dIvb1aFQpoNukPyyMq9oW3AyZ7LFjawTltijNQn/s1600/E.Haskell.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilTFQw8w-QXQ-Lr5DzVsz7_4sL-gqIT2ZzKiuagSfYETnOmb0ne1WXfYxErb-sBltCkuV_nOg2xtlT5RtkmrJDivTs3UhfhJV3sZ_37dIvb1aFQpoNukPyyMq9oW3AyZ7LFjawTltijNQn/s1600/E.Haskell.jpeg" /></a>“Hello, Mrs.
Cleaver, can Wallace come over and help me stack the Supreme Court with
anti-abortion judges?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“You know, Mr.
Cleaver. When I grow up I’m going to smoke a pipe just like you, sir. And also,
I plan to kill health care reform!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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For the last few
weeks I’ve been watching the political debates. Have you? More particularly,
have you noticed all the Republican candidates are channeling the spirit
and, sometimes, the smarmy personality of Eddie Haskell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Eddie Haskell? Could this be intentional? Or just an amazing coincidence?</div>
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Eddie Haskell,
if you don’t recall, was an American TV character, but a cultural icon all the
same. One of Wally’s friends on “Leave It To Beaver,” Eddie was the one you
couldn’t trust, the smiling, backstabbing boy who was always manipulating
people, sucking up to the adults, telling them what he thought they wanted to
hear. Very often, stirring up the plot just to make trouble. But Eddie’s fatal
flaw was you could always see through him, see the wheels turning, the eyes
calculating, the sham arising.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, I’m watching
the debate, and there’s Scott Brown smiling at the audience while Eddie Haskell says,
“Gee, Professor Warren, I’m truly sorry I mentioned you're being a pretend
Cherokee warrior. I’d stop talking about it 'cept no one will let me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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Or there’s Paul
Ryan as Eddie Haskell proclaiming, “Dismantle Medicare? Me? I never suggested such a thing. I
was just taking my beloved mother—who is much given to charitable works—down to
the Medicare office so she'll always have the best medical care a
son, or a country, could provide.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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But the best
Eddie Haskell, the one impersonation so smooth and successful it’ll take weeks
till you realize you’ve been fooled, was the Mittster’s!<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Ah, shucks,
Mrs. Cleaver, I never intended my tax program to give all that money back to my
billionaire and millionaire friends. And Wallace knows I have secret plans to
replace Obamacare with something better. I can’t tell you what those secret
plans are, Mrs.Cleaver—I would have to kill you, if I did, haha. You’ll just
have to trust me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mitt was just
too good. He out-Eddied Eddie! And we were all so busy figuring out who put the knockout powder
in Obama’s Gatorade we never stopped to question all the silken lies the
viewers were swallowing, one after the other, as Mitt spewed them out with full
Eddie Haskell temerity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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“Gee, Mr.
Cleaver, if you like my new and improved Caring and Kind Persona, perhaps you’d
like to hear how I’m going to help all those undocumented Mexicans and South Americans
happily self-deport themselves. Or why my slow emasculation of Medicare will actually be
good for older Americans. Or how the destruction of America’s social safety net
will actually reduce poverty. Or why…”<o:p></o:p></div>
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It's funny to realize Eddie Haskell hasn’t disappeared from my life, or from the
American culture. <o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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For some strange reason he's joined
the Republican Party.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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And Eddie being Eddie, he's still
trying to cause trouble.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-56053291597917506472012-10-05T06:30:00.001-07:002012-10-05T07:37:42.610-07:00NO JOY IN MUDVILLE<br />
<br />
<br />
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<i>Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i>The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i>And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i>But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Obama has struck out.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Stolen from “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">No Joy In Mudville<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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“What happened?” they cry in disbelief, “What
did I just witness?” Unwilling even to process, much less believe what their
eyes had just seen. That the President, mister POTUS himself, much storied
debater of constitutional law, with a silver tongue and a steel-trap mind for
details and insights had just fallen on his spear in a debate with his
Republican opponent..<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, the mighty Obama had struck out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And their eyes had seen what their hearts
can’t accept. That their president, the last man standing as a bulwark against the
hordes of right-wing, pseudo-Christian, tea-partying, homophobic fanatics threatening
everything they believe in had fallen asleep on guard duty. So emboldening his
opponent as to completely undo the advantage he previously held in the race.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As stink bombs go, this was a real
stinker!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ahh, the lies Obama allowed to go
unchallenged, the weapons he refused, or forgot, to employ. Weapons like
women’s rights, Medicare, or Romney’s “47%” comments. But worst of the bunch
was Obama’s inability to stand up for himself. He stood there smiling at
Romney’s lies like he was afraid to embarrass his opponent by remarking on inaccuracies or mistruths. Where was the Obama who debated Hillary four years
ago? That Obama was too hungry to let his opponent get away with anything. This
Obama was like a sixth grader called in to pinch hit for David Ortiz.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next time, we want David Ortiz.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And never more was a hit needed. It
didn’t need to be a home run; a double would have done just as well. But to let
Romney hit one out of the park…!<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Fraud!” cried the maddened throngs of
supporters. “This is not the Obama we knew!” Nor was it a Romney they recognized either.
This Romney pretended to care about them, their futures, their aspirations.
Pell grants for all!, double Medicare if they need it!, and tax cuts for
everyone! </div>
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And our mighty Obama, rather than calling
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“Oh well!” the fans cry, “There’s always
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But will the Mighty Obama even show up?”
they worry. “How can we be sure it won’t be the sixth grader all over again?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> </span>Yes indeed, how can they be sure?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
Oh,
somewhere in this troubled land the sun is shining bright. Millionaires taking over, shifting to the right. And somewhere men are laughing, and
somewhere children shout. But there’ll be no joy in Mudville—till dreaded
Romney is struck out!<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-45736677193671469662012-10-01T19:29:00.001-07:002012-10-02T04:10:16.925-07:00ROMNEY AGONISTES<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Who is this figure that trudges across the empty stage in
the dark, flinging invocations and invectives as if they were darts? But wait,
it is Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney, and as he steps from the shadows into the downcast
light we may, if we wish, bear silent witness to the Republican Presidential Nominee
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Darn you! Gosh darn you!” he rails at an adversary as yet
unseen on the stage. “How can I be trailing you by 8 points in Ohio? And 6
points in Florida! Doesn’t anybody believe me when I tell them what a disaster you’ve
been? Just wait till I get you on this stage. We’ll see how good you are playing one-on-one when you don’t have Bill Clinton or the presidential seal
to hide behind. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“Step back!” he suddenly cries, as if his enemy were within
striking distance. “You have had your moment in the sun, Barack, and now it is
my turn. Mine, do you hear? I’ve earned it, by dint of my massive, relentless effort,
not to mention my millions of barely-taxed dollars. And you, you imposter, you
poseur—with your easy smile and glib tongue—will not keep me from my destiny. I
will not let you. I will scratch out your eyes, tear down your reputation, question your birthplace, repudiate your policies—yes, even when they mimic mine, as they did with your copycat
health care reform!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Health Care Reform, now there’s the rub! It was mine before
it was yours. If only those tea party fanatics weren’t so crazed by the concept,
I could have held onto it, claimed it as my own true child, and used it to prove
to all those lazy bums and victims—whose gruel bowls are always left empty—how much
I care what happens to them in their pathetically small and
uninteresting lives! How dare you take what was mine and make it yours? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Like so many others, you have misjudged me, mislabeled and
maligned me. I was never inconsistent, Barack. I never shifted my position. How
can you waver from an established stance when your only position is to do and
say whatever seems necessary to win the presidency? That is my True North, and if
I have to act like the town fool singing in a barbershop quartet to win the job,
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But I warn you, Barack, I’m coming back to take ownership of
Health Care Reform. Strangely enough, Health
Care Reform has become very acceptable to a majority of the electorate, if not
downright popular, and I’m going to embrace it as proof that I care about
100% of the people. Heck, I might even take back my comments about forcing
immigrants to self-deport, if it’ll help me gain traction in Florida.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Oh why,” he questions longingly, “why wasn’t I given the
advantages of a deprived childhood and a struggling middle class upbringing?
Or, failing that, why wasn’t I born to Mexican parents? Cruel is the fate to be
born with a silver spoon in my mouth! How much harder it is to be a truly
self-made millionaire when your parents have millions. But does anyone
appreciate my difficulty? Or even care?<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But wait till they see me up on the stage. Standing next to
you, you unworthy jackanapes. There I’ll be, friend of the working class, a millionaire who cares, so
humorous in my barbs, so humble in my demeanor, so quick with one-liners that
score point after point against you, my unworthy jive-talking opponent. And finally the
American public will see me for who I am. The one man—the only living politician—
who can keep a straight face while talking about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
as if they didn’t screw America blind. Then leave you to clean up the mess!<o:p></o:p></div>
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"I'm coming for you, Barack. And I'm bringing Paul Ryan with me!"</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-44313037357246665342012-09-18T15:14:00.000-07:002012-09-18T15:17:17.165-07:00PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbBCKXf9JZVYsbyHC6w1mVCWny0-PWUbAZQwi-h2tkRQzivhNMO9ZtD6VMgE-vfWTwJRoalQhNcD5TToUauartt-uReNCi7bVu4PU3e90G-_HZamlF1rg_L3mYx2BTbzMkt606xXWNuMd/s1600/oz.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbBCKXf9JZVYsbyHC6w1mVCWny0-PWUbAZQwi-h2tkRQzivhNMO9ZtD6VMgE-vfWTwJRoalQhNcD5TToUauartt-uReNCi7bVu4PU3e90G-_HZamlF1rg_L3mYx2BTbzMkt606xXWNuMd/s1600/oz.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b> </b>Mitt Romney certainly isn’t the Wizard
of Oz, but like the bumbling character revealed behind the Wizard’s curtain, he
turned out to be just as human and flawed and plutocratic as we always
suspected.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suddenly through
the lens and microphone of a hidden camera, we get to experience a Mitt Romney
who sounds more real, more comfortable in his skin and, not surprisingly, more
like the spoiled, pampered millionaire’s son who attended expensive prep
schools and enjoyed a privileged upbringing, than the automaton candidate who
repeatedly shifts his position to suit prevailing political winds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thanks to the
wonders of micro video technology we’ve been given a glimpse of a Romney we’ve
never seen before—Romney in the raw—the Romney who lets down his hair and
loosens his tongue when he’s with other millionaires and CEO’s.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wizard-behind-the-curtain-Romney is the
real Romney—exactly what you’ll get if you’re foolish or wealthy enough to
justify voting for him. This is the Romney who’s been hiding behind the
curtain. This Romney has nothing but disdain for Americans unfortunate enough
to be out of work, or those too poor to pay taxes. This Romney believes America
has a moocher class made up of 47% of the nation’s population who regularly
turn their backs on good jobs so they can live off the largesse of our government.
More to the point, to live off the largesse of multi-billionaires like himself
who pay millions in taxes—when they’re not offshoring their income to avoid
taxes—only to have you and I sucking the cream from the top of the milk bottle.
<i>You,</i> because you probably used a Pell
grant to help pursue your college education, <i>me</i> because I’m old enough to collect social security and qualify
for medicare. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Up till now,
when asked to list my profession on some form, I usually put down “writer.” But
going forward I intend to identify myself as an American parasite. Or maybe
I’ll just enigmatically jot down “47” and let some overpaid government
employee figure it out.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, here he is
America, on video and clearly superior and richer than 99% of you—Mitt Romney,
Republican nominee for President of the United States. The fact that he’s
deriding half the American population shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed
Republican politics. They’ve done their best to hobble any Obama initiative to
help middle class Americans find jobs or free themselves from dependency on
government assistance. As for what Mitt
and crew hope to do to some of our most important entitlement programs…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s just say,
you might want to cash your social security check sooner rather than later.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-41018211921217938292012-09-15T13:07:00.003-07:002012-11-01T06:53:46.343-07:00REMEMBER THE GULF OIL SPILL!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GyjhdPBzF-2juMBLyOULi5ncp9DzM6zt5hFvWAW3QTD0xWcPlCsGz4-07xH4wdZv29tBReASc9BSfPUmnE31tuDf1rj_d8GX8rKn8Nh2qWnIcEN9JqeSw3IPyYx3ra1Hlrb4fuH68Q51/s1600/obama.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3GyjhdPBzF-2juMBLyOULi5ncp9DzM6zt5hFvWAW3QTD0xWcPlCsGz4-07xH4wdZv29tBReASc9BSfPUmnE31tuDf1rj_d8GX8rKn8Nh2qWnIcEN9JqeSw3IPyYx3ra1Hlrb4fuH68Q51/s1600/obama.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
About two days after the Democratic
Convention I was feeling pretty good about the upcoming presidential election. Americans,
I realized, had many good reasons for putting their support behind Barack
Obama.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">After all, when you came to think
about Obama’s accomplishments, in light of the Republicans controlling the
House of Representatives for the second half of his term, they were pretty
impressive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Health Care Reform, to repeat Joe
Biden’s trenchant description, was a “Big f**king deal!” More so when you
realized that presidents going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt had attempted
to provide health care protection for Americans without any success, every one
of them finding the impediments too large, the battle too politically
exhausting. <i>Every one until Obama!</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Sure, it was an imperfect bill that
became a goody bag for far too many vested interests, but at the end of the
day, or more accurately by the end of its implementation delay, 30 million Americans—many
of them minorities, most of them poor—would be guaranteed decent affordable
health care for the first time in American history. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It was a big f**king deal!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Name one comparable accomplishment
by the last Republican Administration, my inner voice challenged potential naysayers. What would you list? “No
Child Left Behind,” an education initiative proven woefully ineffective? “The
War In Iraq,” which drained America’s wealth and dangerously distracted us from
properly pursuing the War in Afghanistan? “The Bush Tax Cuts,” which in light
of two ongoing wars, helped break the bank and left us in deepest doo-doo, not
to mention deeply in debt to China?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But Health Care Reform was only the
first of many accomplishments, some of them of massive import by themselves.
And then, like an army platoon hurrying into formation, Obama’s achievements
started to assemble in my mind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Front and center <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">was Obama’s heroic prevention of America’s Second Great Depression. Make no mistake, we were headed for the cliff when Obama pushed past John McCain and Sarah Palin to grab hold of the wheel and bring our economic freefall to a stop. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Next in formation,<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> the rescue of the American automobile industry. Something like a million jobs and America’s self-esteem had been at stake when Obama stepped in and propped up General Motors and Chrysler. On top of that, even though many ridiculed “Cash for Clunkers” as an unnecessary giveaway, the program had the desired effect of clearing out Detroit’s unmovable inventory and kickstarting its recovery.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Romney, of course, had something to say about the auto industry crisis, as was headlined in the NY Daily News: “Mitt To Detroit: Drop Dead!”</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Then there was Obama’s tenacious
pursuit of the War on Terror, the means of which honorable people can argue
about, but which chased down and destroyed much of Al Quaeda’s leadership,
including Osama Bin Laden.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The rest of Obama’s major accomplishments
rattled themselves off in my mind like recruits answering their drill sergeant,
“Student Loan Reform—put in place, sir!”, “Equal Pay for Equal Work Act—signed and ready for action, sir!”, “Consumer Protection Bureau—in place and
ready to protect consumers, sir!”, “Wall Street Reform—enacted, sir!”
“American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—put in place, sir!” “Pell Grants—expanded for more students, sir!” “Deferred Action—already protecting
immigrant students, sir!” “NATO action against Libya—regime change effected,
sir!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Suddenly there was a mob scene in
my head, with a crowded chorus declaring all the executive actions and
presidential decisions Obama made to help protect our planet, tighten oversight
of banks, ensure quality care for wounded vets, reduce middle class taxes,
offer relief for those struggling with unaffordable mortgages, and many many
more.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Yes, I thought, compared to any American president,
but especially to his Republican predecessor whose illegal and unconstitutional
use of torture Obama ended on his first day in office, Barack Obama has
a record that should easily catapult him into a second term as President of the
United States.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
After considering all that, I felt confident
that Mitt Romney had a hard row to hoe if he hoped to effectively belittle
Obama’s record. But still something nagged at me, something I had misplaced, or
forgot, or had meant to include in the list above.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
And then it hit me, <i>the Gulf Oil Spill!</i> Holy Hannah, I had forgotten the
oil rig fire in the Gulf of Mexico and the resulting unstoppable plumes of oil
spewing out for three and a half months. All those millions of gallons of crude
BP oil gushing out into the Gulf waters and wetlands while Barack Obama, America’s
new president barely in his second year on the job, stood his watch, putting
his science-wonk Energy Secretary in charge of the crisis team, squeezing $20
billion out of BP to ensure the availability of crisis funds for those who
lived and worked in the Gulf, repeatedly visiting the region and monitoring the
crisis up until the containment cap was set and black crude no longer leaked voluminously
into the gulf waters.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Thinking back to the DNC convention
it seemed remarkable that the Gulf Oil Spill hadn’t been mentioned by anyone
that I could recall. If ever there was a proven example of Obama’s executive
leadership, there it was!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For some reason, perhaps a
right-wing conspiracy of unimaginable sophistication and effectiveness, America
had totally forgotten The Gulf Oil Spill. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I could picture Joe Biden at the
podium of the Charlotte convention center proclaiming, “Osama Bin Laden is dead and
General Motors is alive!” as testament to all that the Obama administration had
achieved in their four years at the helm. And I wanted to shout to him across
the chasm of passing time, above the din of the Republican mud-slinging
apparatus, out to all those Americans who, like me, had forgotten one of our nation’s gravest threats of the last few years, almost Katrina-like in its
potential for devastation…and cry out, <i>“Remember
The Gulf Oil Spill!”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It made me wonder what else we’ve
forgotten.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-48528720317422276572012-09-10T19:12:00.001-07:002012-09-10T19:12:55.407-07:00Republican Job Plan: Put Jim Crow To Work
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgKHLuzDoY9QNQyTp3wVhrfQ6EIjyeAsTRZRtCpshTJ4-kazsK8uZYXkBIjhddpw1TKNjavmbJ-zopDl8XUYWrI3l_JA7OM-kRGFxVvSvhhLZQi4GA1SZIz_ggs4n_0cjabN0Q7OUoBKy/s1600/perry.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCgKHLuzDoY9QNQyTp3wVhrfQ6EIjyeAsTRZRtCpshTJ4-kazsK8uZYXkBIjhddpw1TKNjavmbJ-zopDl8XUYWrI3l_JA7OM-kRGFxVvSvhhLZQi4GA1SZIz_ggs4n_0cjabN0Q7OUoBKy/s1600/perry.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> <i>Shame on you.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> You
no longer deserve to be a major political party in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> You
no longer deserve to wear the mantle of moral legitimacy that comes with being
“The Party of Abraham Lincoln.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> I’ll
say it again, just in case you’re as stone deaf to my words as you are to the
values of democracy, fair play and decency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> <i>Shame on you.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> And
shame on your totally transparent, thoroughly dishonorable and unforgivably crude
attempt to steal the votes of millions of Americans, most of them poor, most of
them black or hispanic, many of them students, but all of them more likely to vote
for Democrats than for members of your amoral and illegitimate party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Yes,
amoral and <i>illegitimate!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Illegitimate
because after all your efforts to disenfranchise the poor and the marginalized there
isn’t an outcome in your party’s favor that any sensible citizen would trust to
be valid and untainted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Illegitimate
because your party members repeatedly lie to defend these corrupt practices.
They lie to the courts, to their constituents, to the voting public. Maybe even
to themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Illegitimate
because by dressing up voter suppression in the cloak of fraud prevention, you
not only perpetrate a lie, you show equal disdain for both the democratic
system and the people you pretend to serve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Illegitimate
because you teamed up with a president, whose legitimacy will always be in
doubt, to spend hundreds of billions of dollars bringing American-type
democracy to Iraq. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Is
this how you see American democracy working? By purging eligible voters from
the voter rolls? By requiring photo ID’s so that people unlikely to have
driver’s licenses, like old people or the poor, will be turned away? By making
it so difficult to register to vote that students or the elderly will
eventually give up? Or by sending thugs out to intimidate voter registration
drives? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> And
how stupid you must be to think we’re so blind we can’t see what you’re doing? Or
recognize the cynicism behind your protestations? Even if you spend all of the Koch
brothers’ billions of dollars you can’t buy enough bleach to remove this
indelible stain upon your party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> There
are banana republics where democracy gets a fairer shake than in some
Republican controlled states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> <i>Shame on you.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> Shame
on your being so weak that you rely on Jim Crow rather than your policies or
politicians to win elections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> You
remember Jim Crow. He used to live in the Old South. He’s the guy that
instituted a poll tax to keep black people from voting, the guy who used police
clubs and fire hoses to keep blacks in their place, the guy who lynched blacks
and forced them to ride in the back of buses and to drink from separate water
fountains.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> And
now he works for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 14.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-21109697931162931102012-09-06T06:59:00.001-07:002012-09-06T06:59:20.914-07:00Rip Van Winkle In the 21st Century (or waking up at the Republican convention)
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDiGo5sQ2kJZ_DrTHyYV2j3G7quoUPFWsakmO2nSrSdbD1YEMHagrSN5B9yXXIkKQ6CYXLGTT2nTNIFnyfTaW_Lg1PJR5Xm4AUOCpb5ErAtOVCuVrfAKS8RC_M8LVxIll9jOIBbY7kK_Id/s1600/Rip+Van.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDiGo5sQ2kJZ_DrTHyYV2j3G7quoUPFWsakmO2nSrSdbD1YEMHagrSN5B9yXXIkKQ6CYXLGTT2nTNIFnyfTaW_Lg1PJR5Xm4AUOCpb5ErAtOVCuVrfAKS8RC_M8LVxIll9jOIBbY7kK_Id/s320/Rip+Van.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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When I met Rip Van Winkle he was
coming out of an Apple store with the newest iPhone. He held up the phone and
explained, “Just trying to catch up. When you’ve been asleep for twelve years
you tend to miss out on things.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He looked at me and smiled, “I
don’t know what was in that beer I had at the bowling alley last night, but I
woke up this morning feeling like I was wearing a swimming cap two sizes too small.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
“And that was just the start of the
strangeness. Walking back to my home on Brattle Street I noticed things seemed familiar
yet very different. The few people I passed were wearing strange clothes, which
for Cambridge isn’t all that unusual. But the cars on the street looked
futuristic and alien, more like armored vehicles than the friendly boxlike
structures I fondly recalled.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“But the
strangest changes were the ones that had overtaken this country during my 12
year siesta. In my unrelenting grogginess, I made the mistake of turning on the
TV to watch the Republican National Convention. Once I got my bearings and saw
the forces now at play in America, I was in shock. It seemed like I had woken up
in a foreign land. How could I fall asleep one night in a country that prided
itself as the land of the brave and the free? And wake up a dozen years later in
a country ruled by barbarous impulses and totally selfish compulsions? America’s
bravery, I soon discovered, was now defined by unprovoked wars on weaker
nations and acts of torture against helpless prisoners. Its cherished freedoms now
seemingly reserved for those who could financially afford them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“To my shock I
discovered America had become a nation that no longer gave any thought or care to
the environment—or the planet—she’d be leaving for future generations; not if
it would inconvenience business interests or negatively affect their profits.
Even when scientists shouted dire warnings about the consequences of Americans’
selfish and self-enriching lifestyle, an entire segment of our population chose
to doubt the science rather than adjust the behavior. The way Republicans
scoffed at protecting the environment for future generations you might have
thought FDR created the EPA rather than Richard M. Nixon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But the worst
thing I witnessed was all the hate and resentment. With little concern for its
weakest citizens, America’s angriest and most selfish political party was
rising up in fanatical revolt against the passage of universal healthcare. And
conservative political demagogues, under the guise of strengthening the
country’s safety net, were attacking and threatening the social contract that
for 70 years had stood like a shield, protecting the nation’s poor, elderly and
infirm.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What was going
on?” I wondered, half in shock, half in anxiety that I had somehow lost hold on
my sanity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Strangest of
all, my country—the richest nation on Earth—was now broke! When I sipped that last beer in the bowling
alley, America was heading into a new millennium with a budgetary surplus. Bill
Clinton might have been a sorry philanderer but he’d also been a good steward
of the country’s pocketbook. We not only had money in the bank, we had lots of
it! Now I awoke to discover the little money we possess is dedicated to programs
we can no longer afford or, truth be told, owed outright to the People’s
Republic of China! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Hey, where’d
all the money go!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You can imagine
how appalling this all seemed, waking up in an America where people were losing
their homes to the predatory banks that had suckered them into unaffordable
mortgages. An America where the government had thrown money at those same
predatory banks to keep them afloat, who had then refused to loan anything—not
a penny!—to anybody! For fear it might interfere with the outsized bonuses they
felt obligated to pay their highest and most incompetent executives and managers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I kept waiting
for someone to talk about whoever was responsible for America’s sudden slide into
mediocrity, pennilessness, and criminal behavior. But no one ever mentioned the
man who was president for the first eight of my 12 lost years. Nor his
accomplices, none of whom will ever be charged for all the lives they ruined,
the deaths they caused, or the tragedy they fecklessly made of the American
Dream.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Also, before I
fell asleep for 12 years, America had been a democracy that believed in
democracy, believed in spreading democracy. That was before I slept through two
presidential elections that had been stolen by that same unmentionable
Republican president. And before I woke to find this latest batch of Republicans
doing their damnedest to deprive blacks, students, Hispanics, prisoners—anyone
from the bottom of the economic ladder—their voting rights.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Jim Crow wasn’t
dead, I discovered, he had merely joined the Republican party!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“And, strangest
of all, rather than protect the rights of these marginalized American citizens,
the courts were complicit in this outrage, deaf to any arguments about the real
motivation behind voter fraud regulations in Republican-controlled states. Even
though everyone knew, and vote-suppressing politicians freely admitted, there
was never any voter fraud to prevent. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“To think of the
party of Lincoln actively working to deny voting rights to blacks, as well as the
poor and the marginalized! It was enough to send me back to the bowling alley
for one more beer. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“And, hopefully,
a dozen years more sleep.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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"Well just wait," I told Rip Van Winkle, "With any luck, you'll wake up to find this was all a dream."</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-2124061988623551332012-09-01T05:45:00.001-07:002012-09-01T05:46:52.386-07:00IN CASES OF LEGITIMATE RAPE…<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; font-family: Geneva;"></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdj5mCh2BPZqrdA2zNSMfyKAnV6nw35C8u7y22PyW3Zfo_d0eA9AcaI9LVyHI_FHDTUQlDELGFcKVI7-BThrCvws_EMvC9ncxylaVo-Z5satxHhQDZsIpHbneT6TfAbd7H6pDut40rQ2h/s1600/rape.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdj5mCh2BPZqrdA2zNSMfyKAnV6nw35C8u7y22PyW3Zfo_d0eA9AcaI9LVyHI_FHDTUQlDELGFcKVI7-BThrCvws_EMvC9ncxylaVo-Z5satxHhQDZsIpHbneT6TfAbd7H6pDut40rQ2h/s1600/rape.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me and the boys on the platform committee of the RNC were sitting around the convention center talking about you girls and all your nit-picking responses to Republican policies and priorities. After all the hullabaloo you gals kicked up about poor Todd Akin’s comments out in Missouri we decided to seek out a middle ground on this issue of abortion in cases where a woman has been legitimately raped.</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I believe you’ll find our solution more than adequately answers your concerns as women, yet clearly holds the line against permitting abortions for any reason whatsoever.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Go down to page 24, paragraph 3 of our 2012 Republican National Platform and you’ll read, “Abortion shall not be permitted in the United States without exception, even in cases of rape or incest. To eliminate the need for abortion in cases of legitimate rape, we the men of the Republican Party promise to never use force in the rape of a woman, or to have unprotected sex with our sisters or our mothers. Additionally, it is the stated position of the Republican Party that all rapists must wear condoms during a legitimate act of rape.”</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Pretty cool, eh? Believe me, it wasn’t easy working out that position or the language in which it was stated. Some of the boys on the committee wanted to require the police to use that invasive vaginal probe they like so much in Virginia whenever a woman claimed to be the victim of legitimate rape. Thinking, of course, that by doing so we might seriously reduce the number of reported legitimate rapes, which has its merits. See no evil, hear no evil,</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>report</i></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">no evil, if you know what I mean. </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">In the end, we just decided to outlaw unprotected legitimate rape and leave it at that. We didn’t put it in the platform, but the consensus of the committee was that things would be a whole lot better if you women didn’t let yourself get raped—legitimately or otherwise, if you know what I mean.</span></div>
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Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4258595750513404932.post-17458760688555034812012-08-31T04:30:00.000-07:002012-09-01T04:14:23.927-07:00LET THESE PEOPLE GO!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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When Romney was in Tampa land,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lied so much, they gave him a hand,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Go ‘way, Romney,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Way down in Liar’s Land<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tell Obama <o:p></o:p></div>
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To let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No more shall they in bondage toil<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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To billionaires and big crude oil,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Go ‘way, Ryan,<o:p></o:p></div>
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You can't kill our medicare<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tell Obama <o:p></o:p></div>
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To let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Oh, let us all from Republicans flee<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let these people go<o:p></o:p></div>
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And let our safety nets be free<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let these people go<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Go ‘way, Romney,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pay your taxes like we do<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tell Obama <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Mitt need not always change his views<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sooner or later he’ll get the news<o:p></o:p></div>
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And let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Go ‘way, Bro-boys,<o:p></o:p></div>
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We've had enough complaining,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tell Obama <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To let these people go!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Or So It Seemshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00555446768992147219noreply@blogger.com2