Tuesday Tidbits

 Saturday Night Live nails it. Damned depressing.

John Ensign as The Professor? Maven, say it isn’t so! 

Ya know, I think I  have to echo Violet’s observations about males in positions of power.  

I’m never going to write about politics again. I won’t have time. The Dicks Gone Wild news is all-consuming. We got incest, we got rape, we got pedophilia, and now we got David Letterman screwing around with his employees and being blackmailed for it. Jesus.

And I know I’m late to this party, having been preoccupied with other matters over the last week or so, but what Anglachel said:

Repeat after me:

Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old child.

 

I’m not ignoring you

It’s eleven days until the Race for the Cure and as the race database chair I’ve got my hands full entering scads of offline registrations. Between that, my job, my family, and the critters, there is barely time to blow my nose, let alone catch up on the news and comment on it.

I understand that Obama’s gonna make another speech and get all hard-ass on the U.N.

Egalia has a great quote from the author of The Clinton Tapes.

It was almost like a credential for old liberals to look down on Clinton, because if you looked down on Clinton, you could say, “He’s betrayed liberalism,” but you didn’t have to uphold anything yourself. All you had to do was talk about what a shit he was or what a sellout he was and you could get this cheap credential.

The Red Queen and the Kid have moved and are in hot environs, but surrounded by family and love.

I’m walking around with a heart monitor for the next three weeks. Got a weird rhythm going on, so my cardio is trying to get to the bottom of it.

That’s all for now…off to the shower.

 

Checking In

If I hold true to form, this week of thin posting will be followed by a weekend binge. I’ve got stuff on my mind and have had no time this to put it into prose. In the meantime here are some links you may enjoy.

Nica Lalli, author of Nothing: Something to Believe In

Her interview with D.J. Grothe on the Point of Inquiry podcast

Joe Bageant: Obama’s Fight For Reform

Almost a year after the Great Giddy Swarming of the Obamians last November, some of the revelers are waking up with one booger of a hangover. And they are asking themselves, “What were we thinking when we had that tenth drink of Democratic Party Kool-Aid?” It was a clear cut case of seduction and date rape. The spike in the drink was, of course, hope. Poor pathetic American liberals. Forever doomed to be naive freshmen at the senior beer bash.

What the hell has happened to Naomi Wolf? I mean her orgasm over Obama was one thing,  but WTF? Stateofdisbelief at The Confluence writes:

So while Naomi is waxing poetic about the sensual bridal dances and the power a Muslim woman possesses in the act of taking off the veil and chador in the privacy of her home, she fails to mention that the these same women can now legally be starved to death by their husbands for declining his sexual advances. While women wearing this veil are stoned to death for the crime of being raped, she sees the good in keeping a woman’s sexual and physical existence under wraps and preserved for the marital bed.  The ties of religion and patriarchal oppression to this tradition cannot be severed by wistful romanticism.

I’m never going to be able to eat an egg again. Seriously. I had no idea. (Not for the faint of heart)

 

Sunday Morning Stuff

A Facebook friend pointed me to this.  It must be seen to be believed.

Pacific John gives a history of the FDR-era Pecora Commission and makes mention of something you probably didn’t hear on the news:

Hundreds of Democrats went to Tea Party’s, not to protest taxing or necessarily spending, but to demand a “Pecora” Commission.  

garychapelhill at Electric Blues calls out the left’s use of the term “tea-baggers” and exposes their hypocrisy and insult to women and gays.

You see, “teabagging” is a reference to a sexual act. It is almost always used to describe women, and particularly gay men, in a derogatory manner. The implication is that only a “slut” or a “fag” would do something so degrading (from their point of view). Of course these hypocrites would probably say that they are just having fun with a little word play, and that the term in no way is specifically meant to degrade women or gays. That is bullshit. Take a look at the examples of the cultural use of the term, from wikipedia:

Joe Conason asks a very good question.

If Obama and Holder honestly want to undo the damage done by the program, here is a simple question: Why is the government still holding a criminal indictment over the head of the former Justice Department official who dared to expose its existence?

egalia on Susan Boyle: It’s Not Susan Boyle Who Needs a Make-Over. Be sure to click on the YouTube link and listen to her 1999 version of “Cry Me a River.”  May I also join the ranks of those who want Susan to stay Exactly As She Is.

Violet chimes in on the Susan Boyle Phenomenon and What It All Means:

Well, I’m going to take a wild swing here and say that it means our civilization is shallow and superficial and crap. It’s also sexist. Abrams asks, “when did looks and age become the bar by which we are each judged?” which of course is a rhetorical question, unless Abrams has just arrived here as an exchange student from the Andromeda Galaxy. Looks and age have always been the bar by which women are judged, at least in male-dominated societies. The only thing that’s changed in my lifetime is that the bar has gotten higher. The pornification of our culture means that we are surrounded by a nonstop effluvient of plasticized fembot imagery, beside which any normal human being looks like Gollum. No wonder real live women are having their parts changed out for artificial bits; they’re just trying to look more like what’s on the Spice Channel.

theungracefulone ponders discussing seizures with her nephew who is heading off to the neurologist for the first time. I wish she could talk to my daughter too.

I wish I could be there with him when they make him take his EEG. They still frighten me a bit, even as late as 18 months ago when I had my last one and damn sure at 15, when I had my first one. The induced hyperventilation sucks probably the worst.

I don’t even know what to say.

It’s Sci-Q Sunday on the The Science Channel (8:00 – 11:00 pm).

 

Clicking into the unknown

I just noticed the little WordPress arrow in the upper right corner of the blog. Being a curious sort I clicked on it and it took me here. And the latest post is on “trust.”

Trusting is a way of allowing the mind to be free to do things either important or not because trust has been extended in the hopes that a particular matter or matters won’t have to be dealt with. When someone doesn’t trust someone, they take on their own responsibilities with the notion they have to take on someone else’s responsibility as well. Not only does a lack of trust place extra pressure on the distrustful person, but the habit of not trusting anyone can be debilitating in building new relationships. A new friend may be offended by a lack of trust, and judge the person to be not worth the effort. Not being able to trust can lead to a warped view of the world, with perpetuating, subconscious feelings of shame fueling emotions of vindictiveness and isolation.

[...]

What I see is a world where some people have no problem trusting, and when the floor falls through, they don’t say things like, “I knew it!” Instead, they say things like, “Well, we’ll just have to pay closer attention next time.” For someone accustomed to being distrustful, trusting is probably the most frightening avenue of horror imaginable, because the thought of being fooled again is so painful. But is the process of insulating the heart with cement and barbed wire and burying it at the bottom of the sea really worth the loss of happiness that comes from openly trusting someone who is so worth it?

Quite serendipitous that I would stumble upon this today.

 

Late night blog-roundup

Anna Belle muses on choice as the end all and be all, and how it distracts us from the bigger picture.

By focusing on choice above such important issues as fair pay, equal opportunity in education and employment, as well as parity in political office, modern women are doing two things. [bluelyon: Go read to find out what!]

mavenandmeddler posts a heartfelt letter from a small business owner pleading for a loan:

I am the face of small business, Nevada and America – and you can trust me to act responsibly, with wisdom and heart. I will do what is right for America because we are the same person. I am the face of America, and I will make the difference and be the change we need in the world. Loan to me. Stop the banks from hording the money – tell them America needs that money to get back to work.

myiq2xu on being nominated the next president of NOW. It’s brilliant.

My first act as president will be to change the name of the organization to “LATER” which stands for “Ladies After True Equal Rights.”

Say what?!? (Corrente)

Joe Cannon (disturbing video at link)

They have been driven insane by the realization that the Palestinians are the rightful owners of that land. They will never admit this plain fact, but they all know it in their hearts. Hence the bloodlust. Their mania is founded on a secret guilt. They must scream for blood, louder and louder, in order to drown out the small, persistent voice that says: “You know full well that you’re in the wrong.”

When the Nazis destroyed the Warsaw ghetto, did German Americans dance in the street?

 

 

Blogroll addition

I received an email from Cynthia Ryan (Reno!  As in: Nevada!) to check out her blog, maven&meddler. It’s quite dandy, doncha know. She has several sections, and all are worth your time. Start with her FAQ to get a heads up on who she is and then proceed.  Sweetie will be intrigued that she’s a pilot and involved in Civil Air Patrol. I, on the other hand, love that she embraces being a meddler. Whee!

 May I recommend her latest Resolutions: Invariably Made Too Soon

Challenge all your assumptions – or as Dr. Phil would say: “how’s that working for you?”

I’ll forgive her for quoting Dr. Phil, because even self-righteous blowhards can dispense wisdom on occasion.  Her resolution to “challenge all your assumptions” is one worth endorsing and adopting, and something I’ve made a seriously conscious effort to do in recent years.

Happily added to my blogroll.

 

Found a new (to me) blog today

I was nosing around Google Images today for a winter solstice image and found this image.

Cool, huh?  And it’s from a blog called Reflections from Thailand. Go check it out. I think you’ll like it!

 

Around the blogs…

Anglachel posts some great guidelines for aid to homeowners facing foreclosure.  And borrowing her title from Virginia Woolf Anglachel muses on what happens to a woman when home is not a safe place and there is no place for her to go.

Nope. Not funny to me. (The Confluence)

Biden calls people who won’t vote for Obama racist. (Lambert at Corrente)

Joe Cannon on Obama’s mistaken ideas about the Reagan years and addresses other mainstream misperceptions.

 

Okay, I’ve got work and grocery shopping to do but…

I’ve got some links for you.

Mary Ellen at Bad Habit brings us Eddy Izzard and Armageddon via Computer. Hilarious!

madamab at Oooh! Nuance! has A Play in One Ironic Act

The WordPress dashboard is fabulous and often points me to blogs I might not otherwise see. Today I caught sight of this post: You’re the one with the problem. The blogger is a Christian who makes a very sane point. The comments are great too. Snippet:

Let’s step it up a notch, to the Christian man who is protesting outside an abortion clinic.  He holds a sign of a mutilated fetus and he yells.  He is enraged.  Ask him and he would say it is the women walking by who have the problem, it is their fault for making the choice that they are.

But who has the problem?  Is it really the girl, the girl who is likely brokenhearted, the girl who just wants all of her pain and her troubles to dissapear?  Or is it the man, the man who is raging instead of helping, the man who is yelling instead of listening, the man who has forgotten one of the greatest lessons that Jesus taught?

And lastly, something fun.