Life hasn't been great in this dumpy apartment complex I've been living in for three years but it's been tolerable and even peaceful considering the drug deals going down, a crazy neighbor who used to walk out of his apartment and fall flat in a drunken stupor, another guy who liked to stand outside my window and watch me work, and a new neighbor who runs around squawking like a mother hen and who hates Blacks, Hispanics and Southerners.
My apartment manager has always been decent, friendly and fair and square. Then she hired Brunhilde who lives here and who began her weekend job as assistant with gusto. A real matron of the prison farm school. Even when she's not on duty she's on duty. "That's against the rules." "You're not allowed to do that." She's about as popular as a bucket of road apples.
The manager has always been tolerant of my 14-year-old 110 pound lab mix getting lose or simply lying out in front of my apartment and rolling in the grass. Unfortunately I live right across from the office. Nobody has ever complained about Lucky or me or any other dog who isn't on a leash. That is, until Brunhilde stormed in.
The Brun hates animals and is petrified of them. So why didn't she move into a pet-free apartment complex you ask? Who in hell knows.
For three weeks I've watched her eyes bulge every time Lucky went within 50 yards of her. "It's against the rules." "It's for safety." "Hasn't anyone complained?" No. But I knew the day would come when Brun would turn the screws in my back. Today the apartment manager told me to put him on a leash. There's a couple of Pit Bulls here and a Chiguagua that are bigger threats than my 110 pound wuss. I'd be delighted if they did me the favor of putting teeth marks in her ass.
Yes, yes I know there are major tragedies that are far more severe and devastating than the one I'm facing. The Gulf Oil Spill exceeds any man made disaster this country has ever experienced. The destruction of the marine life, the birds, the wetlands, the beaches, the fishing industry and other industries that are dependant on the Gulf for survival and the entire way of life of the region is being destroyed day by day, minute by minute for thousands of miles.
And polls are showing that people are blaming the government for not acting fast enough. Translated, that means our black president. You see, it's much easier to cast blame than to look a little deeper and to consider the realities of the problem. This is a tragedy that should bring the nation together, not rip it apart with dumb, petty, spiteful, ignorant as-hell politics.
The idiots at FoxNews aren't the only media outlets criticizing the government. But their irresponsibility is driven by ignorance and downright mean spiritedness. The Main Stream Media doesn't even have a decent excuse for their know-nothing, superficial coverage . Reporters have become lazy, cowardly, and slaves to the corporations and they can't be bothered with research or looking below the surface.
Then there's the Texas State Board of Education which passed textbook guidelines that practically annihilates American history.
To the West is Arizona which has passed a law making it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to apply for a job or to solicit work publicly. But it's a-okay if an employer hires illegals. This is followed up with Ethnic Studies being banned in public schools. And Arizona Governor Jan Brewer hysterically claiming the state is under "terrorist attack." Arizona state treasurer Dean Martin has called for tent cities to house illegal immigrants, no doubt copying the idea from Maricopa County's notorious sheriff Joe Arpaio - and maybe because he might earn a few more votes in his run for governor.
Let's don't forget Republican Representative from South Carolina, Joe "you lie" Wilson or S.C. state senator Jake "raghead" Knotts, or his twin over in Mississippi Gov. Haley "Oil? What oil?" Barbour.
And then there's that adorable Sarah Palin, whose lies are only superseded by her ignorance of American history, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, who doesn't read, who's an international whiz-kid because she can see Russia out her back window. I'm sure she'd fit right in as a Texas School Board member.
I can't finish without mentioning SCOTUS and it's rape of Miranda, its personalization of corporations and its ruling blocking Arizona from subsidizing state candidates facing privately funded foes.
So, between Brunhilde, the Neanderthals who are elected to uphold the laws of the land but don't, and the MSM which doesn't investigate but should, I have smoke coming out of my ears, I'm steaming and I'm swearing up a storm. In more succinct terms, I'm p****d as hell.
tnlib,
ReplyDeleteLucky sound like a great dog. I can't have a dog in my apartment, so I make friends with the ones whose owners walk them in the Prado [that's Paul Revere Park].
I'm the neighborhood doggie aunt.
Yes. A lot of things suck toad toes these days, and I'm just as discouraged as you.
Let's try to escape from the political fevers we all suffer from day to day and distract ourselves with pleasant things.
I don't want to step on your toes and put up another post just now, but we should make a point of posting photos of art, music vids, poems, and funny stories as well as these cri de coeurs.
Otherwise, I fear, we'll all be jumping off our roofs.
I can only write in the third person about one-sixteenth of the time; the rest of the time, I'm me having questions and powerful feelings about the national stuff going down. So I like this post's approach to the issues: there they are and I follow them closely, but the Brun is after my big ol' baby and I'm fed up with that, too!
ReplyDeleteThere's this Neanderthal thing just waiting for a working theory. How long before somebody decides they can see certain traits of Neanderthal DNA in, say, reactionary conservatives, or ...well, you get my drift. We can have fun with that one, so why wait for somebody else to pave the way?
In many ways, I like dogs much better than people. They are certainly nicer and the world would be a much better if more people behaved like dogs...except maybe for the butt-smelling part.
ReplyDeleteThere's some actress or comedian on Bill Maher's show once in a while whom I've heard make something like this argument about conservatives and she seems serious about it. I keep expecting her to quote Cesare Lombroso about the shape of her opponents' heads, but I haven't heard her go quite that far.... (Lombroso's C19 book L'uomo delinquente or Criminal Man is a real shocker, by the way. A lot of people once believed that phrenology stuff was gospel truth, you know.)
ReplyDeleteOf course, I can't be caught going for that theory since the righties would take one look at me and promptly commence snarking it up about how "those Democrats are a bunch of big foolish dinosaurs." And then where would I be? I'd have no comeback for that, would I!
Seriously, the bad stuff is coming on fast and furious, isn't it? First the economic meltdown, then the advent of reactionary political crazies, and now this monstrous event in the Gulf. Now that they've put on the funnel or cap or sombrero or whatever the hell it is, we get jaw-dropping new estimates of just how much oil is really streaming out of the ruined pipe. Worse and much worse.
I'm not much of a blogger/commenter these days, but your mention of a menacing biped being nasty to a 14-year-old harmless canine makes me want to growl. Down with Brunhilde!
ReplyDeleteNot that I want anyone to get upset even more, but if you can manage, read The Spill, The Scandal and the President from Rolling Stone. (Pour yourself a stiff and preferably oil-free drink first.)
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that Alan Grayson likened the conservative insurrection to Neanderthal knuckle dragging. If I were Neanderthal, I would probably regard that remark as a racist slur and start a boycott against Geico.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, Neanderthals, the giant sloth, wholly mammoths (large and small), dodo birds, the Ais Indians who once inhabited these shores … all vanished due to the intervention Cro-Magnon creatures, which usurped their habitats and hastened their extinction.
Cro-Magnons and their descendents are an invasive species. They violate Nature, overstep all boundaries, and refuse to accept a more humble niche in the grand scheme of things.
Perhaps in a million years from now, when cephalopod archaeologists of the future are sifting through the rubble of Cro-Magnon civilization, they will find mountains of garbage, aluminum cans, beer bottles, rusted Hummers, spaghetti piles of monofilament and computer cable, old Barbie dolls twisted into pornographic positions, and crumpled McCain-Palin posters … all encased in Gulf oil crud.
Then these cephalopod archaeologists of the future will say: “Let that be a lesson to all arrogant and greedy upstarts that transgress their proper place in the world.”