Thursday, May 08, 2008

MEN WON’T VOTE FOR MOMMY   The failure of Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination for President proves what I believed from the get-go.   It has little to do with the stand taken by either candidate on real issues—a malevolent war, a collapsing economy, people dying for lack of a doctor’s care—all of this is beside the point. The point is: there are more misogynists than racial bigots in our country.  Men who believe that women are the “second sex,” not brainy enough, not tough enough, not aggressive enough and…well…not crafty enough to run a country as big and rich and powerful as ours did not vote for Hillary, and yet the two candidates held near-similar views.   Hillary did the best a woman could do wearing her pants suit and “playing man” without coming off as unattractively hard-nosed… or even gay. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” as Seinfeld so memorably said. But if some men won’t vote for a woman, they certainly will not vote for a gay as President of a country where so many men—even men in bespoke suits-- wear imaginary hard-hats and spit in the gutter.   I am amazed that Hillary Clinton did as well as she did.  No, astounded is the word.  It suggests that one distant day before the sun blazes out  women may achieve real equality with men.   Just as young men in a position to hire someone will pass over a qualified woman for a qualified or, perhaps, even less qualified man. Too many men don’t want to work with women as peers or near-peers.    If the female applicant is older than the man behind the desk, she is already half way out the door. Men took orders from Mommy long enough. Now they are calling the shots.   “I’ll call you again on Sunday, Mom.”                 9:49:02 AM    comment []

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Perhaps the bigots would vote for Barack Obama if he promised to serve only half a term. Perhaps the misogynists would vote for Hillary Clinton if she would, just once, show up in a pink party dress and strappy sandals. Instead of her usual pants suit by Mao's designer. 2:27:14 PM    comment []

Thursday, April 24, 2008

...We need a mechanic, not a Pied Piper.  That's why we need Hillary Clinton. She knows the machine. She is, in fact, a part of the machine. Right now, Democrats need machine politics more than uplifting eloquence. A graceful turn of a phrase, or the merest whiff of a superior intellect perceived by a white working stiff can spell doom. Yet some of us are so starved for reasoned speech, and grammar and workable altruism and complete sentences that need not be parsed in order to divine their meaning, that we will vote for words and thoughts that soar, even knowing it is risky. If you are old enough, think Adlai Stevenson; his brains were his worst enemy.      Hillary Clinton is a tried and true member of the Boy's Club, also known as American politics. She knows what buttons to push, where the fire alarm is, who the "go to guy" is. She knows what words will soften the hearts of angry, resentful young white men, who, in our last election, voted aginst their own best interests simply to have a "regular guy" in the White House      Which is not to say Hillary Clinton is not smart, and sometimes too smart for her own good. Be that as it may, we need her as our maintenance man or, if you will, a custodian to put our house in order--sweep up the place, clean out the files, find the bugs real and installed, and to throw the bums out and our bums in.      Once we have wrested our country away from the neos and their paid lackeys, we can then consider someone like Barack Obama, a deep thinker and communicator, but far too lofty for many of our  young Archie Bunkers.   11:34:56 AM    comment []

Saturday, April 19, 2008

"He's just not into you."  "Hey, it's only our first date!" 8:41:22 AM    comment []

"The Mannequins" M.Daley B.Lochner HE: "I could use a change."  SHE:"Great! what kinda change?" HE: "A sex change." 8:18:17 AM    comment []

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Mannequins, M.Daley B.Lochner 9:36:30 PM    comment []

"She literally remade the dofus, had his hair restyled. got him buffed up by her  personal trainer, new wardrobe, and how did he thank her? He came out of the closet." 9:34:50 PM    comment []

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

SPEAKING TRUTH TO IDIOTS...A REPRINT, MY 3 READERS AGREE THOUGH THEY PREFER TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.....   What Stanley Tookie Williams did was bestial.  What the State did was also bestial.   Is it too much to expect the State, or the country, to behave in a sane manner and not indulge in killing?  We are not Stanley Williams  We are supposed to be possessed of good reasoning powers…a fair, compassionate and God-fearing people, or at least that’s how we bill ourselves.   Like Stanley Williams, prisoners often wait a quarter of century with the threat of death hanging over their heads.  Oh yes, some will say. “Well, he’s the one who dragged it out with his Appeals.” The nerve of the man trying to save his own skin.  If you had killed, I’m sure that you’d ask for immediate death in return, wouldn’t you?   But stay with us, you’ll soon be rewarded with news of a 75 year old, legally blind man in a wheel chair going to his death.   We have the distinction of sharing the Death Penalty with just one other country. A bloodthirsty mideastern country, I think, Iran.   One has to remind our devout, church-going, prayerful Christians that “Vengeance is Mine,” sayeth the Lord.  Well, perhaps they will find out one day how their God feels about the vengeance they carry in their souls, and how they act it out in His name.   An aside: The new Bush has taken on the look of a preacher.  He sits with hands folded in front of him with a benign, fatherly mien, as calm and detached as the Buddha..  This man is being coached to give up the smirk and the swagger.   It hasn't worked so far.    2:08:57 PM    comment []

Monday, April 14, 2008

MY PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE CAT.   You think your cat is your friend, don't you?  You poor fool.   Every time some homeless, cute, furry, creature staggers by my door, I feed him, and my doom is sealed.   Which is why a woman of advanced age, such as myself, can be found stumbling around in the winter dark morning trying to pull herself together without the current live in suck up--whose name is Thayer-- finding out that she is on her feet.  Of course, Thayer insisted on going out in the cool, dark night, and joining his friends in their revels and killings of small moving things.  So, ever alert to his needs, I free him from the house.  About 5 A.M., he will cry at my bedroom window which is also a door.  After he's back in, I must fill his plate with Fancy Feast or Friskies, making certain to alternate flavors every day, empty his bowl of dry cat food and refill it with fresh, and throw out yesterday's bowl of water and refill it with fresh water from Arrowhead.  Water from the kitchen faucet is not acceptable.. Throughout all of his food preparation, he swirls about my feet, threatening to trip me and cause a major injury, such as the breaking of a brittle bone.  Finally, I am allowed to make coffee. After eating, he doesn't want a friendly pat, or a good morning from me.  He stalks off without a backward glance.    Being a cat, he sleeps his life away.  Which is just fine with me.  But when he hears pots clanging in the kitchen in the evening, he strolls forth, and the whole feeding ritual begins again, the letting out and the letting back in begin. I am a doorman for a cat.   However, my servitude to a cat is not over.  Now it is time for the nightly brushing and combing.  He tangos around my feet in a threatening little dance until he sees the brush and comb in my hand.  If I shut my bedroom door and go to bed without the ritual grooming, he will avoid me for several days, and throw me some dirty looks too.  That's also fine with me.   I gave this miserable little animal food and shelter.   No good deed goes unpunished.              2:21:41 PM    comment []

REPRINTED FROM TWO YEARS AGO   Al Gore won the popular vote by one half million.  So we can only hope those 500,000 Americans are ready to give it another go, even if they are in the wrong states.  Meanwhile, who is still lining up behind Mr. Bush and why?  (Added 4.14.’08: Bush is the box McCain came in.)   Young white males who think war is a masculine "rite of passage."   Young white males as much aroused by violence as by sex.   Young males of all colors who are out of work and out of patience and eager to strike out against anything and anybody.  For them, killing is "payback time" for the way life is treating them.   Desperately poor and hungry men and women who need a place to eat and lay their heads, even if it is an army cot and a government-issue blanket.   Southern rednecks who will back anyone who feeds their inner rage.   Christian cultists hoping a bonfire in the mideast will bring on Armageddon.  They will have their 15 minutes of fame--read Rapture--by God, one way or another.   Manufacturers of goods and services that profit from war.   Men and women who have scratched together a little money and, by God, no Liberal administration is going to take it away from them and give it to poor people and tree huggers.   The Power seekers and power brokers in and out of politics.   The very rich who know war can't touch them, and are not adverse to "thinning the herd."   Women who dutifully vote the way hubby wants.   Fervent Christians more interested in spreading Christianity than democracy.   People who believe that since we haven't been attacked on our soil since 9/11 that Mr. Bush, and his "staying the course" polemics have prevented it.   People who think that Iraqis and other Mid-eastern people are bloody barbarians who deserve to be destroyed. If not by us, by each other.   People who are happy that terrorists have been attracted to an ever growing far away battleground.  "Let the blood flow so long as it isn't flowing in my neighborhood," is their rallying cry.   The mentally challenged.     1:50:16 PM    comment []

REPRINT FROM WELL OVER A YEAR AGO…..   WINNING BY LOSING   Mr. Bush continues to talk about “winning” and “victory.”   “Winning what?  Victory over what?   What, in fact, were we trying to win in the first place?  What was the Victory to be all about? Finding WMD that the inspectors had missed? . Discovering that Hussein was in league with Al Queda? Finding and killing Hussein? Winning over the hearts and minds of Iraqis? Changing the power structure of a sovereign nation ages older than our own with many sectarian divisions, and only held together by the slimmest of threads—the gut fear of a dictator. What, or who made us think we were up to that?  Yes, going in was deceptively easy  just as Hussein said it would be. But he also told us that the real war would be fought in the streets. Wasn’t anybody paying attention?   What victory are we seeking? A democracy  in a country where three different factions hate each other.  What are we after? Their oil as some have suggested?   Why have we built an expensive sprawling compound--larger than the Pentagon--fortified and impenetrable if we don’t intend to stay in that country indefinitely? Why doesn’t anybody talk about it?   We were told that if civil war broke out, Americans would not be left in the middle of it. So now it is not referred to as a civil war, it’s “on the verge of” or it is  “at the tipping point.” Why can’t the men (and they are mainly men) in government and in the military speak truth to the power of the people? Are American kids dying, losing arms and legs, and eyesight, and Iraqis dying like cattle herded into the killing lot? Is this to save somebody’s face. Why is this permitted to go on?   Remember the halcyon days when Mr. Bush arrived on the aircraft carrier with a large banner unfurled behind him that announced, “Mission Accomplished?” And he was carefully costumed so we couldn't miss his manliness in the nether regions. What exactly was the mission? Does anyone know? Does anyone remember?. The  war lords, who are still in charge of this country, rely on our collective lack of memory for any event older than a week.   I guess the “mission” was to get into Baghdad. Was it the nation’s mission or George Bush’s  personal mission—aided by burnt out warriors who wanted a second chance to be heroes--to show up his father for not taking it all the way, a pullback  for which we should thank God.   Days and weeks of killings and kidnappings and blood and crying children and wailing women and still the men talk, and talk, and talk. Every day, every hour more meetings are held for more talk, all of which is repeated by more men on television,   They are blah blah blahing us to death.                 1:31:45 PM    comment []

Thursday, March 13, 2008

REPRINTED FROM OLD BLOG..WE NEVER CLOSE      …Stephen Spielberg and Mel Gibson are consummate filmmakers, both wildly talented and dedicated to their art.        That said, money must be made.  These two professionals know that violence and sex mean box office and box office means money. And they know what their core audience likes too. Men and boys 15 to 24 like sex and violence, pretty much in that order. Romance and ”happily ever after,” well, that’s fluff for girls, and these stories rarely send viewers reeling from the theatre.         In my opinion, Spielberg and Gibson choose violence because they don’t like to do sex, and yet they still are in business to make money. Where’s the sex in a Spielberg movie?  Occasional fantasy, yes, I’ll give you that. But violence prevails.(And for some, it is a substitute for sex.) In the case of “Saving Private Ryan,” a reviewer for the New York Times said the violence in the first fifteen minutes of the film approached pornography. At one point, Spielberg even invented a violent scene in which a German soldier whispers in the ear of an American as he slowly slips a knife between the man’s ribs. I heard the director was proud enough of this scene to actually brag about it.   Mel Gibson’s last two movies—The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto would have made Vlad The Impaler proud. Even Caligula would agree that Mel was no slouch when it came to exquisite agony and loads of yummy blood.  Although I am happy to read that Mel’s current appeasement of the Gods of the Movies—young males—failed to appease like the former. Of course, “The Passion of the Christ” drew Christians of all stripes as well as pubescents which contributed to box office.   The unbearable torture of Jesus Christ in Mel’s “The Passion” causes some of us to wonder about the God that Christians worship.            .   11:53:33 AM    comment []

Monday, March 10, 2008

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Sunday, March 09, 2008

DON'T THINK WE'LL BE LEAVING SOON. ....They will do anything, short of sending two plainclothesmen to my spot under the bridge to stop a photo of the new American embassy in Iraq from appearing on this subversive old lady's blog.      For the two readers left who haven't Googled the Monster in the Desert, here are some stats:  The U.S.Ambassdor's residence (or palace), housed in the compound--as a bit of an afterthought--measures 16,000 square feet. The compound intself covers 104 acres, not including palm trees, surrounding swimming pools and jogging trails. The so-called embassy is six times larger than the UN compound, larger than the Vatican, but not quite as large as the "decider" twit's ego.  And on and on.   11:40:55 AM    comment []

Sunday, March 02, 2008

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

McCain is the new Bush. 6:49:39 AM    comment []

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE MAN'S MAN        Yeah, he was our man. We had chosen well and chosen true. There he stood looking like Coop in High Noon. A man made of granite standing all alone on a dusty street in a dusty town, calm, capable hands steady in the air just above his holster, but you could feel the tension.  Yeah, our guy was ready to cut the bad guy down like a rattler and make boots out of him.. The guy looked the part all right. Ready and able to grind baddies into the dust, with shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and with a slight, “come and get me you bastard” smile on his face. Instead of guns our guy had a bullhorn and was telling ordinary folks to get the hell out of Dodge for their own sake. When he spoke, he sounded like us, made a few small errors such as mixing up words and whole sentences, but who wouldn’t under such ornery circumstances. Our guy was nothing like the other sheriff, Kerry, who used big, show-off words and even spoke French and told us boring stuff we didn’t want to hear. What we wanted to hear was from a guy who would protect us from the towel heads. Our choice had the look of a protector, small eyes that squeezed into pee holes in the snow when he was angry, a face reddened  and bleached out hair in front from the hot Texas sun. You could tell this guy whacked more Texas brush before noon than a brush fire could lick up in a week.   We didn’t know a hell of a lot about him. But we liked the cut of his custom jeans, and the way he wore plain old Tony Lamas that  nobody ever wore anymore.. We admired the way he walked out on the rubble, never looking down or stumbling on shards and body parts and he.told us that we had found a protector in him.. Fancy words don’t keep terrorists off your land he told us..You got to take it to them, and here was a guy who could do it.  Or so we thought. He didn’t turn out quite as well we expected, but he was a man’s man and that’s enough for most of us. So we just kept our fingers crossed.   Now that he’s leaving his post, what have we got? A good looking young kid with words that roll out of his mouth like honey on hot toast. He knows them all, and what’s more he got a lotta info.. It’s hot out here in the sun, and this kid is ticking off every friggin’ problem our fine country has, and we don’t want to hear about those headaches, not when the temp is 104 and we’re standing body to body in a bandstand not as big as my front porch. True, we don’t know much about him. He could be an actor for all we know. We also got ourselves a lady who wants to be president of the US, and she talks to us as if we had been hauled into the principal’s office at school. Or as if we had just learned English as a second language. And we know more about her than we want to know.     Us guys loved that man with crinkles from the sun around his eyes. And what have we got running for prez now? A man who knows so many words and has so many heavy thoughts, it makes you want to go lie down in the shade somewhere, and a woman who wishes she could send us all to our rooms.   This new guy talks about “change” just like the one we had. But “change” from what?           9:58:31 AM    comment []

Monday, February 25, 2008

No Country for Smart Women 10:28:01 AM    comment []

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

9:41:11 AM    comment []

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Friday, February 15, 2008

We Liberals have a choice between The Pied Piper and The School Principal.                                    BRING ME  AL GORE!  NOW! 12:33:18 PM    comment []

Thursday, February 14, 2008

"Did the career thing for years and years..held off having the kid....so now we wear matching diapers.  Cute?" 9:05:32 AM    comment []

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

…It is not enough to be a visionary.  Obviously one must have the ability to see ahead and correct  problems, or eliminate them before they arise, in keeping with an inward certainty not afforded ordinary people.   A visionary must also be able to see the potential in a people or  country or universe, and take steps to bring about what is innate in his or her particular sphere of influence, but again the thought or action is visionary, and is gestating in the mind of the visionary, only to be known at a certain point and  not readily apparent to others.   Einstein was a visionary. He could connect dots nobody knew even existed, much less connect them.   Paraphrasing Robert Kennedy, the candidate declared himself a  visionary when he said, in effect. “Where others see hopelessness, I see hope.”   We tend to assume that visionaries,  who have struggled mightily to understand  and break through the  "cloud of unknowing"  think clearly, and are non-delusional.    Wrong.   George W. Bush is a visionary. And not just any run-of-the-mill visionary. George Bush believes he was appointed by God to fulfill a vision that only he—and a certain so-called elect--can see, and it is called End Times.       . 2:04:19 PM    comment []

Saturday, February 09, 2008

It’s my opinion that Mr. Bush was twice elected with the help of 1.White males and 2. And of course, the Supreme Court.  Think hard about #1.          And so this is, perhaps, no time to be taking dramatic leaps of faith.  No time to be courting a woman for President. No time to be  falling in love with a young visionary who is half African-American and  half Caucasian, but who is referred to as “black” by the mainstream.media.          Election of a new President was never up for grabs. It was always the Democrats election to lose but after almost eight years of lying low, and this of course includes our ever-accommodating Democratic Congress,  which suddenly decides to take a flyer! Roll the dice. Are we men or mice? The pendulum hath swung and is still twanging from the enormity of such a flashy, look-at-us selection of candidates, one would think that we had a free pass or--like Mr. Bush--a free pass from God.          The self-assured men whose words are broadcast and published  with nauseating regularity have no idea how many women, deep down, feel about  Hillary Rodham Clinton. The only know she is a woman and, with any luck,  women will vote for her.    (Continued below) 11:04:45 AM    comment []

Some of these thinking caps with invisible propellers on top would be surprised  to learn how many women actually dislike Senator Clinton. Older women who  remember how she smuggled a huge assignment into the White House in her well-fitting trousers, --and,  yes, at the behest of her husband--and proceeded to  make hash out of it, by trying to please everyone, telling nobody anything of what she was doing in that cloistered room with her chosen few. Since when is the wife of a President, unelected to any office, And not a member of his cabinet handed carte blanche one of the  most important and urgent of national assignments. What if Mr. Bush  had done something like this on a smaller scale with Laura Bush?  We’d be hearing about it to this very day. Also women with long memories suspect that Senator Clinton voted for the war because she wanted to be known as a "toughie, a woman to be dealt with, in short, "one of the boys," so to speak. Why do you think Janet Reno let itchy trigger fingers kill all those people at Waco? Her mea culpa was that she wanted to save the children. She saved them all right, and now they are in heaven. Janet Reno was a woman new on her job, and it's entirely possible that the "one of the boys" syndrome came into play.   Many young women think “feminist” is a dirty word, and may actually not vote for Senator Clinton because they think she is one of the old out-of-it women, the very same women who made it possible for young women to have careers rather than just jobs. How quickly they forget, or perhaps they are too young to know.      America is festering with bigots—some of them so deep in the closet, behind the winter coats, that you would never guess in a million  years. A nice white male with an impeccable war record, and one who has suffered mightly as a POW could swing them away from Senators Obama or Clinton to our everlasting loss and regret.   I think Barack Obama is a true visionary. But he should wait eight years while the Democras are in charge top to bottom. Right now, we need  a white male with a big friendly grin, brains, a spotless life resume,  a  distaste for war, and honest compassion for the poor and the sick and the homeless.    “White male with big grin?” … been there, done that, got snookered. But it could still work again... for John McCain, who is tailor made for the huge voting bloc of white males                                11:01:54 AM    comment []

Sunday, January 27, 2008

SOUR GRAPES DEPARTMENT The Kennedys are lining  up behind Obama because they are not about to tolerate a Clinton dynasty. With the rest of us, they have suffered through the Bush Dynasty, and now here comes a possible Clinton Dynasty on the heels of it, while they--a deserving family of Liberals--were tragically deprived of a Kennedy Dynasty.   WRONG AGAIN. MAXINE. The endorsement of Obama comes, in the main, from Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy. But my rational for their backing still stands.. these two Kennedy's and company don't want alternating Bush and Clinton dynasties governing the country.   12:07:47 PM    comment []