FIRST DRAFT

Saturday Night Music: Almost Saturday Night

It actually *is* Saturday night so I figured I'd be literal. Hope nobody is too scared by the introduction by Roseanne Barr/Arnold/Nut Rancher. I am merely shaken:

 

Weekend Question Thread

What do you do to pass the time on long car rides? 

I can't read or play games or even crochet in the car because I get violently ill. So when I was little and we took a lot of road trips we'd play license plate bingo or sing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. My dad loved that last one. 

Nowadays I engage in healthy activities known as Yelling Along With Kelly Clarkson/Fun./Lady Gaga Songs and playing "what if we won the lottery" with Mr. A. 

A. 

How do I sign up?

The NRA has an enemy's list. Any list that includes Albert Brooks and Mel Brooks, I want in on.

 

The “Get-The-Fuck-Over-It” Bowl

Over the years, we have had epic football games that have led to the greatest of nicknames. There was the Ice Bowl, the Blunder Bowl and the Miracle Bowl, just to name a few. We’ve had the Bears Super Bowl Shuffling, we’ve had the Titans coming up one yard short and we’ve had the Browns… well… uh… Hey, we will always have 1964, right?

As the length of time between the game and the end of the season has grown to a full two weeks of hype, we have seen more and more chances for the media to get excited about something stupid as hell. There was Broadway Joe’s guarantee and there was Hollywood Henderson explaining that Terry Bradshaw was so stupid, he couldn’t spell “cat” if you spotted him the C and the A.

Most of the time where we see everyone tripping over their dicks is when they have to deal with something controversial.

In the case of the most repeated and yet most likely apocryphal story ever, it was race that became the issue. Doug Williams won the MVP in Super Bowl XXII, but it was the fact he was the first black guy to start at QB in the big game that garnered the pre-game attention. Someone either asked or didn’t ask him in a news conference “So how long have you been a black quarterback?” to which Williams either did or didn’t respond, “I’ve been a quarterback since high school. I’ve been black all my life.”

This year is no exception, with Joe Flacco calling the idea of playing the Super Bowl in New Jersey next year “retarded.” This was both controversial and stupid because a) saying something is “retarded” is as socially acceptable as calling someone a “negro” and b) Flacco somehow managed to forget he plays a sport that happens in the winter and was actually played outside for generations (and in some cases, still is).

Not to be outdone, as Adrastos pointed out earlier, 49er cornerback Chris Culliver came out (pun intended) and explained that he “don’t do the gay guys” and that he “can’t be with that sweet stuff.” This immediately prompted outrage from people who have more than 15 percent of a working brain, many of those people demanding Culliver be suspended, fined or required to hang out at John Waters’ house for a few days. It also had people asking themselves a) will pro sports ever have a truly inclusive and tolerant society and b) who the fuck is Chris Culliver?

Compounding this issue, several 49er players who had done a “It Gets Better” video backpedaled faster than Culliver when asked about it. They denied being part of it, were then shown the video and came up with a “uh, isn’t that just an anti-bullying thing?” response. Right, because if you just come out against the ant-gay stuff, it’s clear you’re a nob-muncher and you’re likely to be doing gay porn films titled, “Wide Receivers and Tight Ends.”

Dan Savage pulled the video.

Making this even worse, the most important thing about the game (the commercials) has become sullied by the claims of racism.  If you haven’t seen the VW commercial featuring Minnesota Dave, the state’s official Rastafarian, well, you’re missing exactly nothing. Still, the idea that a white guy from Minnesota would be using the wrong stupid accent to sell cars has enraged the people who were looking for something to be enraged about.

(Volkswagen has been relatively quiet on this issue, relying on its long history of being founded by Nazi tradeworkers to speak for itself.)

Look, I get it. Unless you’re a fan of one of the teams, you probably don’t give a shit about the Super Bowl. Thus, if you’re going to be surrounded by Super Bowl bullshit, you need something to keep you entertained or outraged, or both in the case of people for whom there is no real distinction.

Still, can we let some of this shit go?

Column after column after column has tried to get me to be angry with Culliver for not being OK with gay people and then REALLY trying to get me to be angry about his apology. Even more people have been angry about the VW commercial, which is getting so much free media play right now, it’s likely to replace Faith Hill’s number as the intro to next year’s Sunday Night Football.

Maybe if you combined a couple of these things, I’d care more. If Joe Flacco called Culliver a “retard” while using a Jamaican accent, I could get a little more worked up, but as it stands, not so much.

Every now and again, I get behind a car that sports a “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention” bumper sticker. I guess there’s a good career in outrage, but it’s just so damned exhausting.

Even if we can’t all coexist or get along or whatever, could we at least learn to shrug more? Instead of worrying which football player might say something stupid or which media guy might ask the next “it” question, can we just kick back, relax, drink a beer and not give a fuck for a while?

Quote of the day

It comes from an obituary of former Noo Yawk Mayor, Ed Koch, who died today at the age of 88:

At age 83, Koch paid $20,000 for a burial plot at Trinity Church Cemetery, at the time the only graveyard in Manhattan that still had space.

“I don’t want to leave Manhattan, even when I’m gone,” Koch told The Associated Press. “This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me.”

An old high school friend of mine, who is a hardcore New Yorker, said on her Facebook page: "RIP, maybe not to the best mayor the city ever had, but to a quintessential New Yorker."

Yeah, you right, Emily.

Update:  Here's a link to an excellent piece about Koch's, uh, cock-up when it came to AIDS and other issues by the preternaturally awesome Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Rope a dope

I only saw excerpts but I hereby nominate Chuck Hagel for the year's worst performance at a Senate confirmation hearing. He seemed unprepared for the predictable preening and posturing of Little Lindsey, Senator Walnuts and the new malaka on the block, Ted Cruz. Surely, Hagel didn't expect relevant questions from that pack of silly billies?

It's been said before and I'll say it again. Being the high panjandrum of the Pentagon is an administrative, not a policy job. The country tried going down that road with Rummy. Does anyone other than Wolfowitz, Senor or Bolton want a revival of Rummy-ism? The time the Dems put a policy guy over there, Les Aspin, it was a disaster for all concerned including the appointee. The man couldn't administer his way out of a foot locker...

Here's hoping that Hagel isn't the guy we saw yesterday. His previous reputation was as an eloquent straight-shooting iconoclast. Yesterday, I was hoping Sheriff Barack took the bullets out of his gun ala Barney Fife. It is also possible that the administration decided it had the votes and let Hagel go into rope a dope mode, and take a beating from Obama's enemies. I sure hope so, y'all.

Slate's Dave Weigel has been all over the Hagel story. I'll let him have the last word from his brilliantly titled piece, Fluster Chuck:

Most Republican questions scored Hagel not for his views on defense spending but on his support of Israel and foreign policy in the neighborhood. “I’ve seen a number of times,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, “you’ve said you’re pro-Israel, but you don’t have to be reflexively what Israel is for.” That was the totality of Blunt’s argument—well, that and how Hagel had been saluted by University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, one of the co-authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Lindsey Graham had wanted to know who had ever been spooked by The Lobby and what stupid things they’d done out of panic. The answer was right in front of him, at the witness table.

Friday Ferretblogging: Pile of Beasties

That's Bucky in front, sticking his paw up, and Chicken-Riot in the back, and Claire using both of them as furry little electric blankets.

I envy them, on cold mornings like this. 

A. 

Friday Guest Catblogging: Dennie's last hurrah...

...for the time being. Now that Krewe du Vieux has come and gone, we'll be seeing less of our wee torti friend but Dr. A took a great snap of her last weekend, so it's Dennie the den of Muses cat time again. She is seated on an ice chest reserved for the King of the Krewe of Chewbacchus, which is a marching group consisting of uber sci-fi dorks and such. Heeere's Dennie:

Men Suck, And It's Your Fault, Ladies, Because of Babies

You know what has been missing from our discussions about ladies in the workplace? The perspective of a middle-aged white man who thinks bitches be trippin' to have menz babies: 

Look, most grown men are still 12-year-old boys inside. Most men still expect their working spouse to assume responsibility for the household chores. Most men turn immediately to their wives when their kid has the sniffles (“you don’t expect me to miss work, do you?”). Most men raise their eyebrows and give each other a nudge when a good-looking girl appears at a meeting. We check out the way they’re dressed. We’re shocked (still) when they make off-color jokes (she seemed like such a nice girl!). And most men still don’t feel comfortable golfing and drinking with their female colleagues because we can’t make jokes about sex and farting.

First of all, you're not talking about most "grown men." You're talking about the caricature of idiot man-child that the sitcoms of the 90s have tried to convince us is the true picture of most men, a caricature lots of lazy, entitled assholes use to excuse their crappy behavior instead of being grown-ups and taking responsibility for themselves. 

I keep saying this: I HATE THIS FUCKING DODGE THAT MEN ARE CHILDREN OR PETS. Men are not secretly little boys. Men are people. They are insecure, or confident, or good at stuff around the house, or bad at stuff around the house, just like women. Just like everybody. There is no goddamn two-for-one deal in the womb on a penis and a Peter Pan complex. As sick as I am of how this allows lousy shitheels to get away with treating women like dirt, I'm also sick of how it disappears the good men who don't try to make themselves out the intellectual equivalents of a bucket of KFC because herf derf According to Jim. 

(If you're not comfortable drinking and golfing with the chicks in your office, consider why they don't seem comfortable drinking and golfing with you. Possibly they can drink you under the table and don't want to embarrass the boss, and fuck golf, seriously, it's the dumbest thing ever.) 

How could this story get worse, you ask? Oh, just wait, because sometimes dumb bitches who bring themselves to the office to make men feel uncomfortable go and get themselves pregnant, apparently by magic, and men who are not fucking them are not always privy to when this will happen exactly: 

I am not embarrassed to say that when I interview a young woman, my first thought is “what happens when/if she gets pregnant?” This is a legitimate business question. Right or wrong, the fact is that men delegate mothering to women. And most women (thank God) want that job too—it’s natural. So am I wrong to ask if that smart young lady who I’m about to invest in plans to start a family anytime soon and whether she will actually come back to work in six weeks after she gives birth? Or ever? I need to make plans otherwise. Allow me to ask that question. Oh by the way, guys should face the same scrutiny about their “paternity” plans too.

But they never do, do they? Does anyone look at a young man, married or engaged, and start calculating how long he has before he knocks up that pretty girl and starts needing to get home for soccer practices? PLEASE. Men who love their children and want time to participate in those children's lives are like UNICORNS, amirite laydees? Women are just naturally made for that sort of shit, whereas men are made to drink, golf, and talk about sex and farting. 

(If only men participated in creating a pregnancy in some way. If only they had some role in the process, then they might not be so terribly inconvenienced by it all. Like, say they had an appendage, like a penis, and they could choose to use or not use it for its reprodutive purpose. And then, if they insisted on using it, if only there was some way to legally and safely prevent pregnancy, like, say, sheathing that penis in some kind of protective garb.)

If you want to ensure a woman in your employ comes back to work after maternity leave, here's a radical fucking idea: Try to make the job worth coming back to in comparison to an itty bitty human who she likes very much. Try to give her enough paid time off so that she can decide how best to arrange her life around the new person in the house and no, six weeks is not enough time. Try to value her as an employee, as if you know her and care about her well-being. 

Most of all, try not to make out like she's done you a personal wrong by reproducing, unlike a male boss of mine from a few years back, who used to act like women got pregnant to spite him. First of all, fucko was the one making the hiring decisions, and second of all, I sincerely doubt any of the female employees who did get knocked up were thinking of him in their moments of wedded bliss. Sometimes it's not all about you, boss. 

BE A GOOD BOSS, and maybe she will come back. Or she won't, in which case you've lost an employee, and the world will not end, and the earth will keep turning and we'll all get over it someday. 

But hey, maybe it's all hopeless anyway because women are so PRIVATE about this stuff: 

Most women will not become CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. The numbers already prove that. A significant reason why is that grown, responsible men are still adolescent boys at heart. But it’s not all our fault. Because while we are still prohibited from asking reasonable questions like “do you plan to start a family anytime soon and what impact will that have on my business?” there will always be discrimination in the workplace.

What does this guy think a woman who is being nattered at by an interviewer about pregnancy plans is going to say? WHY YES I PLAN TO GET PREGNANT IMMEDIATELY UPON BEING HIRED. Nobody's gonna say that. And preventing you from asking is not oppressing your freedom to do business. You are not Rosa Parks. Nobody is victimizing you with a nursing bra.

Though after reading that, I certainly wish someone would. 

A. 

'Be Courageous'

I already admired former Congreswoman Gabrielle Giffords but she is officially my new hero:

 

I don't cry very often but her guts and grace in speaking out so haltingly but eloquently made me cry a bloody river. What a broad. And her astronaut hubby is pretty awesome too.

For some odd reason, thinking about the Tucson shooting and its best known victim gave me an earworm. I know. I'm weird like that. It put Killer's Eyes by the Kinks in my head. Ray Davies was inspired to write this haunting song after seeing Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, on the news. Agca had creepy and disturbing eyes, just like Jared Loughner:

 

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Blame it on Jude

Yeah, I know that I've been doing movies recently but Jude sent this to me and it tickled my funny bone:

Mom, Apple Pie...and AK-47s

From Album4

Whenever even the most modest of restrictions or regulations of guns is discussed you see counter arguments of this kind...yet, and sorry to be a bit ugly here, Nancy Lanza owned an assault rifle, but it did not assist at all in her personal defense.

While I don't own a gun myself, I'm more than willing to let people own guns...but when they start fetishizing and fantasizing about being ultimate vigilantes...then I have a problem. Movies like Dirty Harry or Death Wish are myths. But a significant segment of the public has taken these myths to heart. And THAT'S the problem: a stubborn belief that justice has been perverted by "librul" insistence on rights, due process, rule of law (not to mention therapy for terrorists), and that only cold steel dispensing hot lead will save us. But reality is far more complicated, as we unfortunately see almost every day... 

Culliver's Travels

San Francisco 49ers player Chris Culliver is already running away from his imbecilic homophobic comments. Under pressure from his team and coaching staff, he issued an apology. One thing that struck me about his idiotic remarks was how he pretended that *he* had the power to ban gays from the Niners locker room. Who died and made you coach, asshole? Here's how the story played out at the San Francisco Chronicle's web site, SF Gate.com:

49ers coach Jim Harbaugh has, in the past, said that gay players would be welcome on his team, but a clip aired on the Artie Lange show on Tuesday night seemed to indicate that cornerback Chris Culliver doesn’t agree.

When asked by shock jock Lange at Super Bowl media day if there were any gay players on the team, Culliver answered, “No, we don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.

“Can’t be with that sweet stuff. Nah … can’t be … in the locker room man. Nah.”

Asked in November how he would react to coaching an openly gay player, Harbaugh said, “I have no discrimination in my heart. I ask all players to play through their own personality and be who they are. What you ask of a player is to be a great team player and be a good player. My expectations (of a gay player) would be the same.”

Other players asked the same question for a 49ers digital magazine story said they would also accept an openly gay player.

Here is a statement from the 49ers about Culliver’s comments:

“The San Francisco 49ers reject the comments that were made yesterday, and have addressed the matter with Chris. There is no place for discrimination within our organization at any level. We have and always will proudly support the LGBT community.”

And here is a statement released Wednesday afternoon by Culliver:

“The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel. It has taken me seeing them in print to realize that they are hurtful and ugly. Those discriminating feelings are truly not in my heart. Further, I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience.”

I did not know that about Jim Harbaugh but good on him. He *does* coach in the unofficial capitol of gay America, after all. It's just a pity that he has a Lilliputian like Culliver on his team.

'That Is How I First Came to the Senate'

Photo credit.

John Kerry, delivering a blistering, fierce, loving, rambling, inspiring farewell address to the Senate today: 

I came to the National Mall in 1971 with fellow veterans who wanted only to talk to our leaders about the war. President Nixon tried to kick us off the Mall. We knocked on door after door on Capitol Hill, but too often couldn’t get an audience with our representatives. A precious few, including Ted Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, came to where we were camped out and heard what we had to say. And I saw first-hand that our political process works only when leaders are willing to listen — to each other, but also to everyone else.

That is how I first came to the Senate — not with my vote, but with my voice.

This guy fought in the nastiest war the world had to offer at the time and, age 27, came home and took the immensely unpopular stand that this war was bullshit and had to end, and he acted on it. Nobody particularly liked that then.

Nobody particularly likes it now. Look at the way we treat the anti-war movement in this country. Look at the contempt with which we treat those who stand up to power in this country. Look at the way we justify others' suffering by using our own: I went through this, so why should you be spared it? I fought, so why shouldn't you fight? I killed, so why shouldn't you kill? I was wounded, so why shouldn't you bleed? 

How many times do we hear this? I got hurt, it toughened me up, so why are you being such a baby about it? I survived, so quit whining. I don't talk about my problems, so why should I listen to yours? You don't understand what I went through. Maybe you need to suffer some, so you do. How many times do we hear this? How many times do we say it? It poisons us day by day. 

Very, very rare is it said that I suffered, so that you shouldn't have to. I fought, not so that I could rest but so that you could. During his confirmation hearings Kerry talked about working with McCain, who had every reason to hate the Vietnamese, to normalize relations with Vietnam. He understands that the tests aren't when all things considered you could give a damn. They're when you loathe the prospect with every fiber of your being and lay down that loathing anyway. It's not a burden if it isn't heavy, but forgiveness isn't for others, it's for you, and learning that makes you a grown-up, and these men grew up together. 

Pierce today: 

We have an embassy in Vietnam right now because John Kerry (and, to be fair, John McCain) got the United States to look at Vietnam as a country, and not simply as a war. (If people had done that same thing in, say, 1965, neither Kerry nor McCain might be in the Senate right now, and millions of other people would still be alive.) 

And if we had elected him in 2004, if we had managed to be just a little bit less shit-stupid and scared, we'd have a better country now. I felt like 2004 was our chance to stop it; for all my joy in the good things Obama has done and in the prospect of further Democratic gains and more importantly progressive Democratic gains, I felt like 2004-2009 was a time when all the horrors got cemented and maybe some of them might not have been.

The late great Steve Gilliard put it best, in a piece I keep going back to whenever the "Kerry was a shitty candidate, blah blah blah" argument comes up: 

I do understand the frustration of liberals who wonder why they can't run a real liberal for the White House. Of course, these liberals miss the point that Kerry IS a liberal, a real, bona fide liberal with one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate's history to match. He's far more liberal than Bill Clinton. In fact, if a few of these people were less reflexsive and contemptuous, they might find that Kerry was to the left of Howard Dean on many issues over his career. 

I'm also tired of the lesser of two evils crap. Kerry isn't evil, he isn't a crook, he doesn't bang interns in his office. He's stood for most of what the left wing of the Democratic Party has stood for since 1972. Unlike many rich people, he didn't stick his money in his pocket and walk away. 

Now we have four years of him as Secretary of State. And after that? I still have my Kerry-Edwards sign. Just saying. 

A. 

They'll love this back in San Francisco

Niner player opens mouth, inserts foot at Super Bowl media day:

 San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver has reportedly made inflammatory comments regarding homosexuality in football just a few days before Super Bowl XLVII.

Shock jock Artie Lange revealed he had interviewed Culliver at media day Tuesday and aired a segment on his show that night, where the player insisted that any gay players would not be welcome on the team.

I don't do the gay guys man," said Culliver, whose Niners play the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. "I don't do that. No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do.

"Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can't be…in the locker room man. Nah."

When quizzed by Lange whether any homosexual athletes would need to keep their sexuality a secret in football, Culliver responded: "Yeah, come out 10 years later after that."

Yo, dude, your team has many gay fans, and the odds are that you have at least one gay team mate. I'd avoid Castro Street if I were you...

At least he's consistent

The Junior Senator from the Gret Stet of Louisiana has chimed in with his views on the current immigration debate:

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) slammed his colleague, Marco Rubio (R-FL), over his support for an immigration reform bill in a radio interview with Laura Ingraham. 

“I love and respect Marco, I think he’s just amazingly naïve on this issue," Vitter said. "This is the same old formula that we’ve dealt with before… promises of enforcement never materialize, the amnesty happens immediately the millisecond the bill is signed into the law.”

Vitter said that if Rubio, who appeared on the show defending his plan earlier the same day, believes illegal immigrants would not rapidly gain citizenship under his plan, "I think he’s nuts.”

I wonder if Bitter Vitter would change his position if the bill gave undocumented trollops and dominatrixes a path to citizenship? Probably not given this attack ad from his 2010 re-election campaign:

 

Deep NOLA Cliches Thought

The visiting sports press corps has a limited knowledge of New Orleans so they constantly resort to the kind of cliches that make me want to gouge my eyeballs out and eat them. Not really, but they are pretty darn annoying.

Anyway, Bradley Warshauer has complied an impressive list of cliches at his Tumblr thingamabob. Go over there, read them and weep.

Now where did I put my Roger Goodell voodoo doll?

Tuesday Night Music: Starfucker

Every once in awhile I have a quasi-embarrassing earworm. I found myself singing this ode to groupies, fellatio, Steve McQueen and feminine hygiene under my breath at the grocery store. I wish I could say that I was squeezing tomatoes but I did buy some pork shoulder steaks:

 

94-3

Big John Kerry confirmed as dude in charge of Foggy Bottom. Okie Inhofe and Texans Cruz and Cornyn voted nay. I think Cruz controls Cornyn since the latter is afraid of being primarried. I pronounce them man and malaka.

CNN: End Of An Error

Hey gang, CNN might be getting palatable again! I say “might” because you never know what fuckery the bean counters have in mind, but it’s hard not to see the exit of Erick Erickson, Mary Matalin, and James Carville as a good sign. 

I gave up on CNN a long, long time ago. Shit like this would piss me off to no end. 

I’d check back with them on occasion, but they always seemed to be working hard at fashioning themselves as a Fox News Lite, down to the revolving door that saw CNN anchors and hosts leave for Fox: Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Bill Hemmer (by the way, I’m sure y’all will be shocked to learn that Erickson is landing at Fox). 

So numerous were CNN’s sins against journalism that I have two pages of blog posts devoted to them. My absolute favorite, if you’ll excuse the blogwhore, was this moment in 2002 when then-CNN anchor Connie Chung berated tennis star (and U.S. citizen) Martina Navratilova for opposing the Iraq invasion. Do give it a look, it’s a shocking display of pro-war propaganda and journalistic malfeasance.

I don’t know what Jeff Zucker has planned for CNN. Will we get more up-to-the-minute breaking news bulletins of “Balloon Boy” stories? Or will CNN be the place for grown-up conversation? Time will tell. 

Triple Dip

Triple dip may sound like a tower of yummy ice cream but it refers to what's what with the British economy. They're facing a triple dip recession because of the austerity policies of the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition government. The formerly center-left Lib Dems were supposed to restrain the Tory's Thatcherite impulses but they joined hands and jumped off the cliff with them.

Why am I banging on about this? Our conservative are big on cutting and austerity and it's not gonna work viz Dean Baker in the Guardian:

The news that the UK, with negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2012, faces the prospect of a triple-dip recession, should be the final blow to the intellectual credibility of deficit hawks. You just can't get more wrong than this flat-earth bunch of economic policy-makers.

They're pretty much batting zero. They failed to foresee the collapse of housing bubbles in the US and Europe and its consequent downturn. They grossly underestimated its severity after it hit. And their policy prescription of austerity has been shown to be wrong everywhere that applied it: in the US, the eurozone and, especially, the UK.

By all rights, these folks should be laughed out of town. They should be retrained for a job more suited to their skill set – preferably, something that doesn't involve numbers, or people.

Of course, the Guardian is a left of center publication and has <drum roll> Socialists <shudder> on its staff so the GOP won't listen to them but the UK is a cautionary tale for any sane folks out there. I cannot believe that I used GOP and sane in the same sentence.

Thus far we've avoided a double dip recession thanks to President Obama and Senate Democrats but if it comes it will be topped with nuts. Wingnuts.

Here's Another Way To Fix Everything

Goody, another "fuck the poor" act: 

North Carolina lawmakers have drafted legislation that would ban welfare recipients and people in bankruptcy from buying lottery tickets in the state, according to several news reports.

The bill draft would punish vendors for selling lottery tickets to someone who they know is on welfare or in bankruptcy, according to ABC 11 in Raleigh. The lawmakers behind it believe it's counterproductive for the government to accept money from welfare recipients who are struggling to get by.

"We're giving them welfare to help them live, and yet by selling them a ticket, we're taking away their money that is there to provide them the barest of necessities," state House Majority Leader Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam (R), who is helping draft the bill, told ABC 11. Stam added that the lottery "is essentially a scam," the news outlet reported. Stam also said that some of the North Carolina lottery advertising is "just fraudulent,"according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

THEN DON'T SELL LOTTERY TICKETS TO ANYONE. Get your state out of the goddamn lottery business. Don't single out poor people and shame them for buying into a scam when you're the one running the goddamn scam. 

A. 

Republicans to Immigrants: We Love You Because We're Losing

Republicans, admitting they're for immigration reform not for the sake of reform, or immigrants, but to stay in power: 

No one better embodied the shifting politics on this issue than McCain, who led the 2007 immigration push with the late Ted Kennedy only to follow his party to the right and oppose even a bill granting a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, in 2010. Now he’s on the side of reform once again, and publicly welcoming support from former opponent President Obama, who will deliver his own remarks on immigration reform Tuesday in Nevada.

Asked why he felt he had a better chance of success this time, McCain offered a blunt response.

“Elections,” he said. “Elections. The Republican Party is losing the support of our Hispanic citizens.”

Yeah. It's not like it's the right thing to do. It's not like these are PEOPLE, with contributions to make to our society and needs we should try to mind. It's not like this is something we actually need to give a fuck about beyond the electoral college. 

It's all about us, after all. Us, the white us, the Republican us, the us that needs votes and needs to win elections. If that need happens to dovetail with your need for a job and a driver's license and not getting arrested for going to school, then hey, we're all good, but don't mistake our motivation for a new, deeper understanding of the human condition. We're just here for the votes. 

Schmucks. 

A. 

Super Bowl Blues

New Orleans has hosted a shitload of Super Bowls in the past. This time, however, the powers that be have gone bat shit crazy in allowing the NFL and the teevee people to walk over them. They have turned Jackson Square into a glorified television studio and allowed the pukes at The Talk to literally desecrate/deface/brand the statue of General/President Andrew Jackson.

To prove that I am not making this up, here's a photo posted by my facebook friend Edward Cox:

 

It's a pity that Old Hickory isn't around. He'd go Wayne LaPierre on their asses and fire when he saw the red of their eyes or something. Trust me, I'm not advocating violence even by dead duellists but this is ridiculous. As the old saw goes, if you give some people an inch they'll take a mile.

I'll be writing more about this nonsense as the week goes along. Someone will be honored for their malakatude at some point but there are so many candidates that I'm feeling indecisive. Suffice it to say, I'm nostalgic for the days when the worst thing that happened when we hosted the Super Bowl was Jim McMahon getting drunk on Bourbon Street and trash talking the city.

UPDATE: The photo was taken by Bernie Murden.

Chuck Hagel is the New Satan

A highlight from the Kerry confirmation hearing (which was FULL OF HIGHLIGHTS for those of us who loved John Kerry which I think is just me and Hillary at this point) last week: 

Let this serve as a lesson for every other Republican out there. No matter how long you've been a Republican, or what you've done as a Republican, or how you've refrained (mostly) from pointing out that your own party is bugfuck insane and who are these people and who let them in here anyway, the minute a Democrat says something nice about you, or gives you a job such as Secretary of Something, you become HITLTER TIMES INFINITY and it is time to take you down: 

GOLD PLATED TRIPS FROM LOBBYISTS! 

(And suddenly we hate Pentagon contracts and benefits to private companies and also conflicts of interest? Suddenly this is a problem?) 

I don't love Hagel at all, think he was kind of a crap choice and wonder why we couldn't find a Democrat to deal with this job, but it is immensely amusing to watch Republicans throw somebody over the side like this. And I can't believe more people don't watch how this kind of thing happens and think twice about signing up for an outfit that treats its members like this. 

A. 

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - blinders full of women edition

Good morning, everyone!

The Freeperati have been forced lately to deal with actual women (not the cardboard caricatures that they prefer, but real ones), and the results haven't been pretty.

For starters - it's Wimmens In Da Foxholes!

(not to be confused with pumas in da cravices)

Panetta removes military ban on women in combat, opening thousands of front line positions. Associated Press ^ | January 23, 2013 | Staff

Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:39:15 PM by AnAmericanAbroad

Panetta removes military ban on women in combat, opening thousands of front line positions.

****************************************

That's the whole story so far, by the way.....a bit of breaking news, so more to follow, no doubt.

1 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:39:25 PM by AnAmericanAbroad

No doubt.

To: AnAmericanAbroad

insanity

the US military is officially over, eventually

the GOPe will never, ever undo this

2 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:40:22 PM by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)

Well, they brought back Jim Crow, so one out of two ain't bad.

To: AnAmericanAbroad

Well. I guess our days of “boots on the ground” are pretty much gone.

It's probably going to surprise you, but women combat troops are going to be wearing boots. They did a trial run with stillettos, but it didn't work out.

Women in the front lines is stupid — we’ve decided we aren’t going to fight anymore.

4 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:41:58 PM by ClearCase_guy (Nothing will change until after the war.)

If you're referring to WWI - WWII-type hand-to-hand fighting, we haven't "fought" for a very long time, nor are we likely to.  In related news, bayonet charges and trench warfare are unlikely as well.

To: GeronL

Foxholes will look much nicer with better interior decorators.

7 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:42:59 PM by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)

.

To: TurboZamboni

What the heck. Now America is going to put more of our young ladies, sisters and mothers into war? I know the Israelis are big on everyone stepping up to protect the country but does the USA really need to do this?

9 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:43:15 PM by GRRRRR (He'll NEVER be my President, FUBO! Treason is the Reason! Impeach the Kenyan)

.

To: TurboZamboni

Yup. From fudgepackers to dykes.

13 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:44:37 PM by max americana (Make the world a better place by punching a liberal in the face)

.

C'mon, Freeperati - can you please make some kind of factual arguments (either way) for women in combat?

To: AnAmericanAbroad

On the bright side, it would be great to see a bunch of badass American chicks sending scores camel-effing islamatards off to the hereafter.

Tarantinoesque, with the right soundtrack.

19 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:48:25 PM by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)

Forget I asked.

To: GeronL

It was over when they allowed gays in. It’s no coincidence that the man responsible for the greatest military security breach in US history, Bradley Manning, is gay. Talk to any shrink and they will tell you flat out

gay men have a bitchiness to them that straight men do not,

which to me makes them absolutely not qualified to serve in the military. And what was the result of that bitchiness? Flat out treason. And how did the Obama cabal respond after the arrest of Manning? By immediately overturning DADT.

The FIENDS!! I guess pardoning Manning would have been a bit much...

Just another example that if it hurts the USA  homophobic morons like me, liberals immediately want more of it.

22 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:48:56 PM by GrandJediMasterYoda (Someday our schools we will teach the difference between "lose" and "loose")

FIFY.

To: max americana

Yup. From fudgepackers to dykes.

Kiss my ass. My 18 year old daughter is going into the Marines in August and she is the farthest thing from a dyke. I hate this announcement.

25 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:49:55 PM by ParityErr (It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.)

Ask her if she hates it.  Go ahead - I'll wait right here.

At least some of the Freeperati have this in proportion:

To: max americana

Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Vasquez: No. Have you?

31 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 2:55:57 PM by ClearCase_guy (Nothing will change until after the war.)

But most of them are like this one:

To: GrandJediMasterYoda

“It was over when they allowed gays in”

You’re right, because a fag is but a man that thinks he’s a woman.

And you is but a grade-school drop-out that thinks he's a man.

How many fags wants want any part of combat. How many NORMAL women want any part of combat? I was in combat, and I damn sure never wanted to be there.

Welll then, you just answered your own questions, didn't you?

There is a reason why women are called the weaker sex. Let muslim soldiers show the US why. Hell, they are tired of raping men anyway, might as well have the real thing. Obama, first with the fudgepackers, now with the bull dykes, is absolutely destroying the military.

39 posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2013 3:01:10 PM by NKP_Vet

.

Moar bull dykes and fudgepackers after the "Oh no you didn't!"

.

Mothers and Friends

I write over at Sexy Feminist about the New Mommy War: 

Let’s grant I might have a shorter wait for a child if women were coerced to surrender babies for adoption if those women were young or unmarried or their families disapproved, as was the case once upon a time.

Let’s grant that if Roe v. Wade had gone the other way, things might be easier for me.

And then let’s wrap our heads around this, which Christina Locke seems unable to do: Sometimes it’s not all about me.

My desire for a child isn’t about those other women. My desire for a child does not convey upon them any obligation whatsoever. And their desire not to have a child isn’t about me. How dare I ask them to endure misery so that I can have happiness? How dare I take advantage of their poverty, desperation, frustration, fear? Am I inherently better than them? Do I have any right to expect anyone else’s downfall, just so I can benefit?

No. I don’t. I don’t have any right to ask anything of anyone. Their lives are theirs.

They show you the embryo, you know. They show it to you at my clinic, before what they euphemistically call "the transfer," and then they give you a picture of it. I carried that picture around after the first transfer I had, the one they were so sure was gonna take I started arguing with Mr. A about names and which grandparent would probably be the favorite. I thought it would be fun to show the kidlet someday.

That still doesn't mean any other woman has to feel the same way about an embryo, or a pregnancy. And it doesn't mean I have the right to judge her if she doesn't. It certainly doesn't mean I should write preachy posts for the Times about how much better I am than my abortion-having whore friends.

(Who the fuck DOES that? People think unkind things about their friends all the time. You go home, talk shit to your mother or your partner, and get the snark out of your system. You don't put that snark on the Internet where everyone, INCLUDING THE FRIEND YOU'RE TALKING SHIT ABOUT, can read it. Jesus.) 

There's been some truly spectacular writing this week about the terror of the childless, like this horror about how if you don't want kids, you should have them anyway just in case. No really: 

She doesn’t want to be rushed into having kids (which is why she’s still doesn’t have any) and she’s worried that she doesn’t feel ready. Or worse—what if she finally feels ready at age 46 and it’s too late? What if it’s already too late?

Sometimes Doris reminds me of my kindergartner—“What if I get sick tomorrow and can’t go to school and I never learn to read?” Sometimes Doris reminds me of my toddler twins—wanting whatever toy the other twin has.

"In case I want it later" is a reason to get an extra bag of Oreos at the supermarket. IT IS NOT A REASON TO CREATE ANOTHER HUMAN. This takedown puts it well: 

My point is that maybe Doris really doesn’t want children. Maybe she likes being a career woman, and her fears about having children are justifiable. Maybe the pressure she feels to have children comes from a culture that values mothers, but not middle-aged career women. What Doris might need is support for her feelings. It’s OK to not want children right now, yes, even in this culture where you’re not encouraged to make such a choice as a woman. I’d like to think you and Doris could make different choices and still respect one another. But I also think she needs to find a new friend. 

Jesus, yes. This isn't so much about mom versus not-mom as it is about us all needing to leave each other the fuck alone. Your abortion isn't about my desire to have a child. My job isn't about your stay-at-home motherhood. We are all just trying to get through our weeks without killing each other. We are not intentionally designing our lives to make others feel bad.

And as hard as it can be to not judge others, it's even harder to not judge yourself in comparison, and then turn that judgment outward, so that everyone who isn't you is wrong. But if you want to live in the world we have, which in our ideal imaginings would allow every woman the freedom to make the choices best for her, you have to let some of the mommy war go. Put off your armor, because there isn't a fight here, except the one you make. 

A. 

Sunday Morning Video: Zappa/Mothers on Swedish Teevee in 1973

Yumpin' yiminy, the music starts at the 1:45 mark with a stirring version of Cosmik Debris: