"Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"
So the Iowa caucusoids can't really decide between Stepford Candidate Mitt who will say anything to ingratiate and hopes you have no memory, or Ricky Santorum, the subatomic particle with less mass than a neutrino. As of this morning there is only an 8 vote difference between the two and CNN.com is portraying Santorum's loss as a victory. If there's anything interesting at all, or any inference to be drawn from this contest, it's that relatively moderate Jon Huntsman might have been better off joining another party entirely. Rarely has any contestant gone so unnoticed, lost in the glare of idiocy, mendacity and derangement.
This race seems to have nothing to do with qualifications in terms of character, experience, education or cognitive function: it's more about seducing the stupid, the ignorant and the marginal people, enraged because they are marginal. As a non-Republican, my preference in what is essentially a tie would be Santorum -- and of course any other connoisseur of circus freak shows would look forward with gleeful anticipation to watching that raving idiot contend with his Democratic opponent's measured words.
Does the Iowa Caucus really mean anything? I think it does. It means, for one thing, that the word Conservative means no more than it did when Senator Hruska tried to sell mediocrity as a virtue to get G. Harrold Carswell appointed to the Supreme Court and get us to overlook his distaste for Women's rights and his support for segregation (and perhaps the aggressive homosexual proclivities that landed him in jail and the hospital on several occasions.)
No, Romney isn't that bad and Santorum may not be either but I have to suspect that somewhere, some wax museum is missing a dummy and some circus side show is missing a freak.
the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.
-Plato-
At a New Year's Day Yacht Club brunch yesterday, I suggested to a newly thin friend worried about overeating at the bulging buffet, that we declare January 1st as a National Who Gives a Shit day. We need a break from all this fear and loathing and self flagellation.
For my part, I'm chronically worried about things far more dire than gaining a few pounds; things like a Napoleonic Republican in the White House again, the deliberate collapse of the world economy for the benefit of a few oligarchs, plutocrats and other assorted brigands -- and of course the coming Zombie Apocalypse, the Mayan Catastrophe and the end of an error prophesied on all those bumper stickers.
Of course there are many other things to be depressed about and most of them, unlike that Zombie thing, can't readily be dealt with by stockpiling ammunition. But we need a break from all the apocalyptic insanity, the hate commercials all over the TV with Mike Huckabee howling last night about how Romney's health care plan was "stuffed down our throats" ( by a large majority of voters) even though Obama was elected largely on the promise of health care reform. We need a break from having our basic fundamental liberties torn from us by small minded big mouth authoritarian radicals like Vaneta Becker, the Republican State Senator from Indiana who wants to make it illegal to sing our National Anthem "inappropriately," the constitution and all that freedom we're told isn't free, be damned -- at least in Indiana.
Oh say can you see, our boot on your face -- would that be inappropriate? Now which third world countries can we invade to protect her freedom to sanctify the trappings and rituals of Chauvinistic self worship while rebelling against any government power other than the power to crush the people?
No, I'm afraid National Who Gives a Shit Day barely made it past those chocolate truffles I couldn't resist last night and all those Happy New Year wishes have already turned to ashes with my first glimpse of today's news. It's the same old madness we had two days ago, the same inconsistent, persistent, self-negating rhetoric, the same greedy, angry, irrational revenge-seeking of the idiot mob. Who can worry about brain eating zombies or rampaging Jesus with a flame thrower or Kenyan Kommunists stuffing civilization down our throats when that great slithering thing we call the media are stuffing insanity into every orifice; howling like some Lovecraftian horror from every high place, importuning us from every telephone, billboard and car bumper that obedience is freedom and civilization is tyranny - that prosperity comes from doing what always leads to catastrophe.
For those of us not about to die, or at least not to die immediately, it's January 2nd and I give a shit. I'm fed up with being told that rational discord with marauding barbarians will lead to understanding and progress, that authoritarians will become tolerant of freedom if only we show them respect and exercise patient restraint and all the ancient evils mankind has perpetuated and treasured and nurtured will somehow wither away if we're polite and sincere.
If it is true that fighting monsters brings the risk of becoming one, it is also true that not fighting them, being quiet and polite and respectful toward mad moralizers and authoritarians and fear mongers and every snark-snarling witless witling posing as a philosopher carries the bigger risk. It's time to stop pretending we're on some fence between one reasonable place and another. We're not.
Michelle Bachmann released her official holidayChristmas greeting the other day, and I realized something. She never bothered to learn the names of her own kids.
To be honest, it's understandable: she and Marcus have five children of their own, and they've taken in 23 foster children, all girls. (They had to be girls: Marcus only has so much self-control, after all...)
However, this sounds like it leads to an interesting opportunity. If you're a homeless girl between the ages of 15 and 25, and you have the misfortune to live in Michigan, just go down to the Bachmann ranch. Slip in when nobody's looking, keep your head down and try to assimilate. How could anybody notice?
(If you're a homeless male, of course, your only choice is to join the endless stream of closed-mouthed rentboys going in the back door - so to speak - of Bachmann's clinic.)
Try to imagine growing up in Michelle Bachmann's house. If you're like me, you imagine it's all pillowfights and long, lingering hot showers; the reality, of course, would probably be more like those women's prison movies that became so popular in the 60s and 70s.
Except, of course, that as it turns out, the true reality isn't quite as it seems, either.
See, for most of us, "foster children" indicates a long-term commitment: yeah, maybe you get them in their teens, but you raise them. This myth spread by the Bachmann camp tells us what a wonderful, sharing person Michele is, opening her home so many times, to so many troubled girls. She said, in interviews, that she "raised" 23 foster children.
The truth is, Bachmann and her husband got a license to counsel girls with eating disorders. They lived in her house: some for a week, some for a year or so.
Bachmann often says she has "raised" 23 foster children. That may be a bit of a stretch. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Bachmann's license, which she had for 7 1/2 years, allowed her to care for up to three children at a time. According to Kris Harvieux, a former senior social worker in the foster care system in Bachmann's county, some placements were almost certainly short term. "Some of them you have for a week. Some of them you have for three years, some you have for six months," says Harvieux, who also served as a foster parent herself. "She makes it sound like she got them at birth and raised them to adulthood, but that's not true."
Yet Bachmann clearly had some of her foster children long enough to enroll them in local schools, and it was through them that she got involved in school politics. While she taught her own children at home before sending them to private Christian schools, state law required foster kids to go to public school. Seeing their curriculum, she became convinced that "politically correct attitudes, values, and beliefs" had supplanted objective education. She helped found a charter school but soon left the board amid allegations that she was trying to inject Christianity into the curriculum. Then, in 1999, she decided to run for the local school board.
But she keeps saying that she's "raised" 23 kids. And that's because Bachmann isn't afraid to lie to make a point.
That's what you have to keep in mind about Michele Bachmann. If she feels that she has a narrative that's important to make her point, she's more than happy to pretend that the story at the core of the narrative is true. Whether it is or not; it just has to conform to her agenda.
Like a few months ago, when, attempting to attack Rick Perry (September's GOP Flavor of the Month for the 2012 Goat RodeoRepublican Primary) for one of the only good things he ever did.
Bachmann first raised the issue during a Republican presidential debate on Monday as a swipe at Republican rival and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who issued an executive order in 2007 mandating girls get the HPV vaccine as part of a school immunization requirement. The order was later overturned.
In that forum, she questioned the state's authority to force "innocent little 12-year-old girls" to have a "government injection" that was "potentially dangerous."
Of course, when she was later pressed for details as to how a vaccine which protected girls against the single most common cause of cervical cancer might be dangerous, she said that she met a woman who said her daughter became "mentally retarded" after getting the Gardasil vaccine.
This is a standard defense for the habitual liar: when called out for an unsupported spew of easily-debunked bullshit, they'll claim that somebody told them - it isn't their fault if somebody else is mistaken, is it?
(It's also interesting that this argument was over a vaccine that is specifically controversial among right-wing fundamentalists. Like Michele Bachman. Remember what I said earlier about lies which conform to her agenda?)
This is standard practice for Ms Bachmann. The more gentle among us might say that she "has a history of making inflammatory statements." But that isn't what's going on. The woman is a liar. Need more examples? She went on the Dennis Miller radio program and claimed things about the "Obamacare" bill that were just complete and utter crap.
"On the 16th page, it says whatever health care you have now, it’s going to be gone within five years. So your current health care plan, you’re not going to have in five years. What you’re going to have is a government plan and a federal bureau is going to decide what you get or if you get anything at all."
In case anyone is curious, page 16 covered people whose healthcare plans would be grandfathered in - i.e., they'd get to keep it, not lose it.
She also claimed that 17 million illegal immigrants would start to get free healthcare under the bill. Ignoring the part that said "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
(Factcheck.org has volumes of material on this woman.)
Michele Bachmann is never afraid to lie in support of what she considers a "higher truth." Because that's how her mind works.
So Manta Claus and Santa-Pus hitched up the one seahorse open sleigh and made the rounds. I visited a friend convalescing from surgery and baked a turkey dinner for my 85-year old mother and her 97-year old boyfriend. I returned to the reef late last night.
In the spirit of the season, I want to give everyone a brief account of how Rational Nation and your intrepid Octopus made peace after years of back-and-forth backstabbing. Does this mean your intrepid Octopus has lost his touch? Turned myself into a turncoat and a traitor to the cause? Hardly! Months ago, I left this comment on Shaw’s blog (original post here):
Hyper-partisanship translates into hyper polarization. It colors how we relate to one another. It turns neighbors and normal decent folk into the “other,” the enemy, those hateful liberals or those despised conservatives. It is a function of “identity” politics whose aim is to divide persons with common economic interests into warring factions.
Hyper-partisanship colors how we think. It gives rise to ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING, where a party, a group, a person are either all black or all white with no shades of gray. Very few people in life are either all good (saints) or all evil (devils); yet hyper-partisanship demands that we think this way.
No matter what a person may achieve, the game of politics commands you to ignore the accomplishments and focus on the flaws; spin good deeds into failures or characterize all deeds as evil deeds, despite evidence to the contrary. Demonize your opponent, that is the way the game is played ... Time to break the cycle.
Wedge politics, dog-whistle politics – synonyms for what Noam Chomsky calls ‘atomization’ of the electorate – are attempts to divide large and cohesive voting blocks into fragments and render them inert. For example, an overwhelming majority of the electorate wants to preserve Medicare and Social Security - more than 82% - a majority that crosses all party lines. However, if you are a Republican political operative hell bent on dismantling the social safety net, how do you divide and conquer this huge voting bloc? By stirring social resentments that pit one group against another; by exploiting all forms of bias with appeals to racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, and anti-Hispanic hysteria. When wedge politics divides large and cohesive voting blocs, people no longer talk to each other, no longer compare notes, and no longer vote their common interests.
We are living in an era of non-stop character assassination and defamation, of political hostage taking, and legislative gridlock at a time when millions of people are suffering. There are powerful corporate interests that want us to be this way – divided – so they can cash in their chips and turn us into serfs. Unless we break this cycle and say “To hell with you, I am not buying this bullshit anymore,” then they win, and our country will wither away as dry wind-blown leaves of Autumn. Sorry folks! Either we get our act together, or we will have no future at all.
Apparently, these comments resonated with Rational Nation who paid me a complement by writing a dedicated post on his blog (original post here). In his own words:
Conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals can and should remain true to our principles, so should modern liberals to theirs. However, it is time to back away from the wedge issues that both sides of the debate have used to polarize the nation.
I admit. Bipartisan outreach has always proved difficult due to the burdens of old baggage to overcome. In the past, our community has been trolled and mocked, and our trust betrayed. What makes this outreach different? I believe RN’s motives are honest and sincere, and you gotta give him credit for patience and perseverance. I have also found that RN responds to kindness and friendship and will repay you a hundred fold, once given a chance. So RN is willing to fire the conspiracy of media pundits, hacks, operatives, K Street lobbyists, and plutocrats who connive and scheme against us. I am willing to close ranks with RN and fire them too. Shall we remain mired in a game rigged to defeat us? Or shall we take the road less traveled? To borrow lyrics from an old pop song:
These little town blues, are melting away
And I'm gonna make a brand new start of it - in old New York
And if I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere
It's up to you …
In the spirit of the holiday season, I appreciate RN's initiative. So these are my two crabs worth. Heck, I’ll even throw in a scrumptious mahi-mahi sandwich with a side of chowder. Still skeptical? How about a nice Châteauneuf du Pape to celebrate the New Year!
Dear Sister,
I read our adoption post to my mother last night. She adopts you too (but no crayons on the walls, sudsy romper rooms, or water slides on the stairwell, she says). We’ve been warned.
Wishing all Zoners and visitors Fine Holidays of whatever sort you celebrate --
Be it Christmas; Hanukkah; Day of Cephalopod Reflection; Dino Festivus (which involves prodigious feats of hunting and feasting for the more violent sort of dinos; some of us just read and reflect quietly in our lairs); or National Raccoon Day (When everyone who encounters a raccoon must call him or her adorable and hand over a tasty but healthful treat and then go away so the critter can enjoy it in peace); I and all reptiles everywhere hope it's a good one for you.
Der christliche Entschluss, die Welt hässlich und schlecht zu finden, hat die Welt hässlich und schlecht gemacht.
-Friedrich Nietzsche-
And so it happens every year -- all year actually -- but most appallingly and undisguisedly around the time of Mithra's birthday. You know, Mithra, the son of god by a virgin mother and member of a holy trinity whose cult competed with Christianity for hundreds of years and in large part was the furnished apartment the Christians moved into when they went Roman. So who can be surprised that "Liberal" CNN would trot out another snotty attack on disbelief today, embedded in an interpretation of that mawkish box-office failure It's a Wonderful Life.
The annually erupting movie is a fitting metaphor for a nation absent Christian belief, author Larry Taunton says. Those wanting to do away with the faith should be careful what they wish for. 'Doing away with the faith' of course, means dissuading the faithful from running your life; dictating according to their own set of religious laws and demanding special exemption for their actions. They're sure as hell not equating faith in Indra or Thor with their equally unsupportable beliefs.
No, faith is good when it's Christian faith even when the faithful can't agree with what that is or whether angels are part of it or whether Quakers are heretics or just who it is the god of love hates most. Any other faith is simply satanic, regardless of content, else ol' Larry here would be giving the Zoroastrians with their strict sense of morality a free pass to heaven. And he doesn't.
Yes, indeed, it would be a sad day for America if people stopped questioning the notion that democracy ( which used to be held as evidence for decline and condemned by nearly every church ) universal suffrage, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the end of slavery and a more modern sense of morality that includes frowning upon child abuse, torture, spousal abuse and the torture of animals -- all things fine and dandy in the heyday of ecclesiastical tyranny -- were signs of the end times that Christians have been awaiting for 2000 years and which will never come. Why, insinuates this obnoxious Nosferatu from his ancient grave -- we might become savages in the moral vacuum departing Christianity leaves behind: wild and murderous barbarians like the French, Danes, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, English . . .
Face it, without faith that everything is going to hell, Christianity would long since have died out or at most be another kind of Judaism, and people like Larry Taunton would be lying to the empty air and raving to the bats in some secluded cave far away. As Nietzsche said: "The Christian determination to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad"
What the movie is trying to say, is that faith in ourselves will save the day and that's hardly what this damnable deceiver in his contempt for sanity is selling. In fact it's the very opposite and they just can't get through a December without spitting in the face of human values, denying their own bloody history and claiming to be the only rightful leaders of the world and insist they're right because they've made everything worse.
Tim Minchin was supposed to be on the Jonathan Ross Show this week, and got cut by the network.
I see the reason he got cut: despite the myth of the "Liberal Media," networks are not run by liberal/conservative ideas, but by ratings (exception: parts of MSNBC and all of Fox "News") But that's a story for another show. And in the simple, uncomplicated-by-agenda media, you can't do something that will endanger those all-important ratings.
Nonetheless, I liked the song.
And if you care, Tim Minchin's reaction to getting cut from the Jonathan Ross Show is here. (And by the way, the Bonus Material after the video is actually way better than anything that came before it...)
I just finished watching Julie Taymor’s recent production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It’s received mixed reviews from the human critics, so it’s time for a walnut-brained but literate dinosaur to serve up a positive, if ignorant, opinion.
Those CNN.com Polls are hardly scientific nor do they claim to be, but when I read that 76% of participants think the payroll tax cut extension should be approved, I have to wonder at the Republican pose that insists such 'socialist' things are being stuffed down our throats by tyrannical Democrats who don't represent us as well as billionaires and multinational corporations do. Other things like medicare and Social Security and health care reform have been stuffed down our throats even though three quarters of us support them. Yes, Americans can seem like geese sometimes, but it's mostly the people eating foi gras and hating Democracy who want to run the farm.
Even my most intransigently Republican friends are risking an eternity in hell by suggesting that the GOP is deliberately sabotaging the government and the economy and the well being of our citizens for political gain and Obama's approval rating is slowly climbing as the flock of candidates chortle about sin and repealing child labor laws. So perhaps the slow shift in mood has to do with the traveling freak show from whom Republicans will be forced to choose as well as the unavoidable recognition that our definition of "smaller government" smells so much of the 19th century British colonial attitude: do nothing, have nothing done and don't allow anyone to do anything. Gandhi was able to turn it back at them. It should be easier for us. We already have the vote.
