(O)CT(O)PUS IS PISSED!

Notice this poster that equates Holocaust victims with national healthcare reform. Protestors displayed this poster today at a rally near the Capital steps, an event sponsored and organized by House Republicans. More than tasteless hyperbole, it goes far beyond all boundaries of civility and decorum. It is obscene to exploit the Holocaust to score a political point, and it offends me to the core! There are times when a non-violent Octopus would like to smack a tea bagger, and this is the time!

Here are the names of House Republicans sponsoring this insult:

Minority Leader John Boehner (OH), Minority Whip Eric Cantor (VA), Roy Blunt (MO), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michele Bachmann (MN) -- a key organizer of the event, Virginia Foxx (NC), Ginny Brown-Waite (FL), Jean Schmidt (OH), Sue Myrick (NC), among others.

One would think Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the U.S. Congress, would have shown better judgment than to associate with such shameful imagery. Noo! How do you spell s.c.h.m.u.c.k ? If any of these reprobates appear on our beach, drown them at once!

Dick the Impaler

We seem to have forgotten about torture. Comedians and far right shamans still make jokes about how those still left in the cages at Guantanamo are the "worst of the worst." People are heavily against giving them any amenities like flu shots and some have the audacity to say we treat them too well, even though so many of them have never had any case proved against them or have been cleared: so many are guilty of little more than being Muslim or accused of something by an enemy.

That Dick Cheney, the once and in his own mind future Führer pokes fun at the idea that we ever engaged in torturing prisoners and although he's not well liked by any but the most extreme subhumans, he has never suffered any consequences for having directed and promoted things we used to hang people for when I was a boy: kidnapping, torture and murder. Republicans prefer to believe him, many of the rest of us believe so much in our essential virtue that we just don't want to hear any more of it.

It's not that there is no evidence of the Bush Administration's capital crimes, not at all. We have imprisoned and tortured many people with essentially no evidence against them, but there has been a constant flow of increasingly horrible information about kidnapping and the kind of torture even Limbaugh or Dick the Impaler himself couldn't pass off as a frat-boy prank. Crain Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan now tells us, says Raw Story, that the people the CIA sent to secret dungeons there were raped with broken bottles and/or boiled alive until they "admitted" to being affiliated with Al Qaida. Some were forced to watch their children being tortured and all so that the Bush administration could justify destroying Iraq to the eager war lovers back home.

"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles,"

he said at a lecture in October that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network.

"I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm ashamed of my country. I'm ashamed not so much by the monsters and tyrants and murderers of children some of us still revere as heroes and patriots, but by the way we still support what they did, still can't accept the horror, don't want to be told about it, still want to continue crimes as hideous as any ever committed, because after all, these people are "suspects." These people are "the worst of the worst" whether guilty or not and most of all they aren't Christian, like us. It's not really important anyway, not like gay marriage or insurance company profits or ACORN or tax breaks for Cheney and Bush.

I Want My MSNBC

My local cable monopoly has decided to move MSNBC to a premium level so only the wealthy can afford to watch Maddow dissect right-wing narratives. I've written doggerel for the occasion, set to this tune:

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the race card on the Fox TV
That is workin' that's the way we do it
Teabaggers marchin' on Fox TV
Now that is workin' that's the way we do it
Local rednecks, them guys are dumb
Beck can do the wacky on your little wingers
Bill-O gets em twisted up and numb

We gotta install fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's

See the little maggot with the wiring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That bigger maggot wants his own pro ball team
And Rupert Murdoch is a billionaire

We gotta instill fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's

Ailes has learned how to play the race card
Hannity's learned to beat the drums
Look at that blah blah, we got it comin out the camera
Man this is a lotta fun
And he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
Bangin' public option like a chimpanzee
Call him liar that's the way we do it
Money for nothin' but controversy

We gotta instill fear of the other
Custom lobby derivatives
We gotta lose these equivocators
We gotta own their colour TV's, Lord

Now that ain't workin' that's the way we do it
They call our bullshit on MSNBC
That ain't workin' that's the way we do it
Call up Comcast and move it to pay feed
Money for nothin' but controversy

I want my
I want my
Em-e's-en-bee-cee

Those Swedes!

A few months ago I was watching a travel show on the Travel Channel and they were exploring the food of Sweden. During the course one dinner the host and his guests had a conversation exploring a particular Swedish word: Lagom.

Lagom is a Swedish word with no direct English equivalent, meaning "just the right amount".
The Lexin Swedish-English dictionary defines lagom as "enough, sufficient, adequate, just right". Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation", "in balance", "optimal", "suitable", and "average".

Of course to most English speaking Americans we really have no way to grasp a concept such as ‘Lagom”. How could anything, that is enough, sufficient, or adequate, be also in balance, suitable, average, or lord forbid, optimal?

To Americans, the concept of “adequate,” ‘sufficient,” or such signifies abstinence, scarcity, or failure. We are a society that is for BIGNESS, DOMINANCE, OVER THE TOP, and WINNER TAKE ALL.

Where we value “more is better” the Swedes obviously value “just enough”: Which probably explains, in a very paradoxical way, why the Swedes and most of the other Nordic countries score so much higher on the various happiness indexes and prosperity indexes.

We get pumped up when someone says, “Drill, Baby Drill” while Lagom would favor a more sustainable alternative. How many cars, televisions, phones, and all the other consumer items would one really need if one appreciated the concept of Lagom?

It isn’t that we have no intellectual history of a concept of balance: Aristotle and his concept of the “golden mean”; where the most desirable path is the one between two extremes because the reality of extremes is that one is of excess and the other is of deficiency.

While we view beauty as an extreme the Greeks believed there to be three 'ingredients' to beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

Plastic surgery, drugs, cosmetics, and coaching represent our concept of beauty, just watch the Miss America contest; nothing natural there!

In Chinese philosophy, a similar concept, Doctrine of the Mean, was propounded by Confucius.
We do not want to just exist, or prosper, or be successful but rather as Americans we want to dominate! Secretly we actually glorify that some of us do without because it gives us a sense of superiority.

We have no problem with the fact that our CEO’s pay is hundreds of times more than the lowest paid employee of the same firm. We see nothing wrong with the fact some companies are “Too big to fail” while others are failing on a daily basis. We glorify in the accomplishments of our healthcare system yet we do not find it odd that we have never figured out how to equalize access to these accomplishments.

We suffered more and incurred greater long term damage to our economic system due to the financial meltdown than any other country and we did because our society exhibits the greatest amount of imbalances in just about everything.

On one hand we want to bemoan the growth of government and yet the same people who protest government dominance over their lives are also the ones promoting dominance in every other area of our society: especially in regards to economic and military affairs.
If you find yourself losing your personal freedoms in one area of your life you can pretty much bet that you have lost it in others areas also.

We love our banks big, our Wal-Mart Super Centers, our sports heroes on steroids, our beauty queens with implants, and our aircraft carriers…why not our government?

I also can’t fail to wonder if this is the reason this country is so dependent on anti-depression drugs….because obviously we are lacking balance in everything.

Tales of Hoffman

It's hard to know what to make of Doug Hoffman's defeat last night. After the foam-flecked Glennbeckery, after Sarah's transfusion of roguery by proxy and a million bucks from the Club for Growth, the voters clubbed him with the first Democratic victory in his backwoods Republican bailiwick since the U.S. Grant administration. He had everything going for him but the votes writes Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post.

Everyone seems to want to make yesterday's elections seem like a precursor, an omen and a bad one for Democrats -- at least everyone who gets paid to make a ratings-generating ruckus. I'm not sure what it proves other than that third party candidates have little credibility, have no coat tails to ride on and don't benefit from party loyalty even when the party's big guns are saluting him.

"I believe America is turning the page to a new dawn"

said Hoffman. It's easy to say his metaphors are mixed and I think almost as easy to believe the chances of the Freakazoid Right for a comeback are too.

THE FEMALE PARADOX

This week’s session of the series, “Women on the Evolutionary Edge” continues the discussion with this week’s guest speaker was Zen teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton. She has an impressive list of accomplishments as do all the slated speakers. The topic was about the adaption of women from the more “masculine” aggressive model of the recent past back to a more feminine model. The goal is to create a unique power base embracing both feminine and masculine qualities.

We women are being called to “mother” the earth like we “mother” our children and families. But this is not about stepping away from all we have accomplished but rather to be powerful and active agents of change, moving toward our highest potential while discovering how to be comfortable with our feminine side.

Women need to strive toward a true collaboration with men, fostering a deep mutual respect for our similarities and our differences, allowing for positive advancement.

And while there is a lot of positive energy in these sessions, there is also a need to explore some of the negative aspects that have affected women over the years. Without addressing our failings we cannot hope to move forward into more influential positions worldwide.

And so we must own our reluctance to take full responsibility for our past positions. By allowing men to “take care of” us, we relinquished our ability to move up the ladder of corporate and political success.
And as the feminist movement took hold and women began to push against those glass ceilings, we did not always support and encourage each other. In fact, it has been common for women to compete and behave aggressively toward each other.

We are entering a new era where many of our young women have no personal knowledge of gender bias. They are free to pursue whatever interests them without the stigma of having to consider if they are trying to do “men’s” work instead of “women’s work.” In order for both genders to work together to improve the world we live in, we must leave behind outdated labels and unproductive rivalries.

Women taking responsibility not only aids in advancing women’s equality but it also removes some of the burden from men who no longer have to be in the lead to define their masculinity and there would be much less stress for everyone if we work side by side, sharing the responsibility.

What a wonderful world THAT would be!

Peace & Love, Rocky

UPDATE!

My friend, Dan at Through The Woods blog is doing a series of posts of quotes from people with November birthdays and he has a really terrific post on Sojourner Truth that seemed fitting to this post so, with his permission, I have lifted an excerpt:

"Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."

Going Rouge

Oddly enough, before the Newsweek staff announced this project my dear friend Marc Mitchell had already written two chapters of his own parody, titled Going Rouge: an American Life.

Chapter 1.

To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born. I can prove it. Birth certificates, particularly long-form birth certificates, are a handy thing to have, and I have one. It says plainly, that I was most definitely born in Sandpoint, Idaho, to Sarah (my mother) and Charles (my father) Heath (their last name, which I proudly took). All of my relatives are American. We were all born in the US, so I am an American, and this is my American life.

You know, people who aren’t born American are unfortunate souls. In my travels, and when looking out of my kitchen window at the land beyond, I can see into the eyes of the foreign people, and there’s nothing in those eyes but sadness and yearning. When I speak to people in other countries, they hang on my every word, waiting for me to tell them how wonderful they are, perhaps, or that everything is okay even though they’re not from Alaska. Or Idaho. Or any of the states comprising real America.

I recently went to Taiwan, I think, and was struck by the despair of the Chinese people who want desperately to be American, but can’t be because their government is Chinese. I said to the people, “It’s okay. Not all of us can be as lucky as me. America needs you to make our stuff. You serve a purpose.” A timid young man in the third row raised his hand and spoke in the native tongue--the Chinese have a beautiful language! It’s so full of vowels!--which the interpreter interpreted for me: “But lovely Sarah, if we can’t be American, we at least want to have you as our leader.”

Click here to read the rest

Deep in the Cornyn hole of Texas

I got an e-mail from Texas Senator John Cornyn this morning. Somehow I had the urge to take another shower. In the relentless crusade to mock, rebuke, deride, insult, sneer at and taunt the "opposition"Cornyn is an endless cornucopia of crepuscular reasoning and shady opinions, such as his assertion that the "delays" in supplying Texas and the United States with hundreds of millions of H1N1 vaccinations argue against the public option in health care reform.

"These delays and limited access make me question whether the government, which cannot run existing public health programs competently, should be trusted with even more responsibility – such as running a new government health plan. " [italics mine]

Of course Cornyn doesn't give examples of how the government can't run health care, either from Medicare, the Veteran's Administration or indeed from the Government health careCornyn and his cronies enjoy. Of course he doesn't have to, he's preaching to Republicans -- a faith-based group who never seem to question thetenebrous tenets of that faith. The Government just can't do anything right: Reagan said so and the Republicans are hell bent for leather to make sure it's self-fulfilling.

Perhaps John can explain what the failure of the oil industry that supports him to end oil shortages and give us 29 cents a gallon gasoline again argues for or against, or why we shouldn't say that Exxon can't run anything properly, including keeping tanker captains sober. One offensively stupid argument deserves another, I should think, and the argument that the Government can't do anything and so shouldn't be allowed to do anything is a stupid argument and an annoying one coming from someone who is part of the government and is stalling, obfuscating and sabotaging health care reform -- right after having supported Bush's massive increases of unaccountable executive power and failed wars for 8 years.

No, A public option for health care is a

"Trojan horse that will ultimately lead to a government takeover of our health care system. "

says John Cornyn: another way of invoking the slippery slope fallacy. If we allow A we'll allow A+B and if we allow A+B, we'll allow A+B+C. . . Of course any truth to this is no more than accidental because none of these steps compel the other, That's why we call it a fallacy, but again, he's arguing to Republicans and Lone Star Republicans at that, not exactly a constellation bright enough to light up the sky. Funny that he didn't argue that an invasion of Iraq would lead to a "government takeover" of the world or that warrantless surveillance and the end of Habeas Corpus would lead to a police state.

No, we're not on a slippery slope toward invading Ireland, the US Postal Service isn't going to take over DHL or UPS or FedEx and none of those could handle a minute fraction of the envelopes, post cards, advertising fliers or periodicals the USPS delivers. No, the public schools aren't going to take over the private schools and the Social Security Administration isn't going to take over your pension. The County Hospital or the VA hospital isn't going to take over the private hospitals. It isn't the "Government" producing the vaccines and if we had to depend on the profitability of doing that to induce the pharmaceutical industry to do it, we'd have far greater shortages and tens of millions who wouldn't get any and couldn't afford it and would help the disease spread because of it. Of course I'm sure Tex Cornyn will get his vaccination, one way or another. He'll get it for free. He gets all his health care for free, so why should he give a Texas damn about you?

WHO LURKS BEHIND THE MASK?

Welcome to our annual Swash Zone Halloween Bash. There is a card below for everyone:


Q: What do birds and bloggers give out on Halloween? A: Tweets.


What do sea monsters eat for lunch? Fish and ships.


As a general rule, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.


Don't fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you're sure you know what you are doing. Even then, don't do it.


Q: What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? A: Pumpkin pi.


Why do ghosts have so much trouble dating? Women can see right through them.


What happens if you default on payments to your exorcist? You get repossessed.


Why did the Cyclops have to close his school? He only had one pupil.


What do you do with a green monster? Wait until it ripens.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

It's a cream puff!

Would you buy a used car from this man? That used to be a popular phrase back in the Nixon years when we were asked to buy his "secret plan to win the war." The secret was that there was no plan, but never mind, there was nothing to win and we didn't win it.

It's the first thing that comes to mind listening to the last ditch effort by Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who is still telling us the public option will kill us all, although you can see he's having a hard time keeping his face straight while doing it. It's a prodigious effort of course, since he and his henchmen all have government health care just like the French and the Norwegians and the Germans and everyone else and all too many of them live to really ripe old ages because of it.

"I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you're going to be stuck with it and it will lead us in the direction of the European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system, and those systems are known for delays, denial of care and, you know, if your particular malady doesn't fit the government regulation, you don't get the medication. And it may cost you your life. I mean, we don't want to go down that path."

Yes, we do want to go down that path -- the majority of us anyway -- and it's an argument dependent on American ignorance of what the rest of the modern world enjoys and benefits from and chooses to have. There is no slope here, it's only his logic and his grasp of truth that's slippery. The problem with our health care cartel system is exactly the problem he tells us we will have if we abandon it and the coverage we have to buy now isn't even available to millions and millions. It may cost you your life and it's cost millions of lives already.

No, I wouldn't buy a load of fertilizer from this man and that's what he's selling and no matter how many times the truth is flung back at him, he'll continue. He's paid handsomely to continue and he's got a great health care plan as well which isn't known for denial, delay or enormous annual price increases like the one we have if we're lucky, young, in a good job and haven't ever been sick.

It's the old Republican song he's singing -- the corporate song, the best money can buy: I've got mine and screw you.