He's got bodyguards, cutting-edge healthcare, the best PR machine in the world, people are just raining money on him and he doesn't have to fly commercial...
You know, I think Obama ran for President just so he could be sure nothing would happen to him.
Showing posts with label Sixties People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sixties People. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Rape rape
My first ex-husband was a connoisseur of barbecue, and he had a theory. The best BBQ joints were the ones that had a cartoon pig on the signage. Little race-traitor cartoon pigs waving, smiling, welcoming you in; "Come on and eat me! I'm tasty!" He was right more often than not. I find myself thinking of that when I hear that Debra Winger thinks Roman Polanski shouldn't have to serve his sentence for raping a 13-year-old little girl because he's such a genius and the crime would be to rob humanity of his work. Debra Winger is still alive. Who knew? I thought Whoopi Goldberg had a regular gig on one of those daytime chat shows that are the reason why men think women are stupid. Her daughter had a kid at 15, so I can see why Mama's cool with statutory rape. Oh, and Woody Allen? You are so not helping.
Duane Chapman made his career when he snagged Andrew Luster in Mexico. Luster's from a movie family, like Polanski, and both are very wealthy. He was convicted of the same thing Polanski was, too: drugging and raping young females. Luster even filmed these encounters, just like Polanski did. Luster fled the country rather than serve his sentence, like Polanski. The difference is that it was proven that Luster did this multiple times while Polanski only incriminated himself once. Unless you count Nastassja Kinski, and why wouldn't you, she was 15. And Luster went after grown women while Polanski savaged a little girl. So why is it that Luster gets all the bad press and Polanski gets all the fawning? Luster can't hand out work for dried-up old husks like Debra and Whoopi.
If this wasn't Roman Polanski, artiste, with champagne and Quaaludes, but instead Roman Polanski, diesel mechanic, with hard lemonade and GHB would there be any question about wanting the guy buried under the jail? Even though the poor woman whose life he altered thirty years ago 'forgives' him? Forgives him. Right. Five hundred paparazzi in your front yard and the phone ringing off the hook with everyone you've ever seen on TV wanting to know why you want to torment poor Roman. For God's sake, the man won an Oscar! What have you done? Nope, no coercion there. Again.
Someone I work with said it would be funny if Polanski ended up in Corcoran State with Charlie Manson. I think it would be funnier if Phil Garrido was his celly.
Duane Chapman made his career when he snagged Andrew Luster in Mexico. Luster's from a movie family, like Polanski, and both are very wealthy. He was convicted of the same thing Polanski was, too: drugging and raping young females. Luster even filmed these encounters, just like Polanski did. Luster fled the country rather than serve his sentence, like Polanski. The difference is that it was proven that Luster did this multiple times while Polanski only incriminated himself once. Unless you count Nastassja Kinski, and why wouldn't you, she was 15. And Luster went after grown women while Polanski savaged a little girl. So why is it that Luster gets all the bad press and Polanski gets all the fawning? Luster can't hand out work for dried-up old husks like Debra and Whoopi.
If this wasn't Roman Polanski, artiste, with champagne and Quaaludes, but instead Roman Polanski, diesel mechanic, with hard lemonade and GHB would there be any question about wanting the guy buried under the jail? Even though the poor woman whose life he altered thirty years ago 'forgives' him? Forgives him. Right. Five hundred paparazzi in your front yard and the phone ringing off the hook with everyone you've ever seen on TV wanting to know why you want to torment poor Roman. For God's sake, the man won an Oscar! What have you done? Nope, no coercion there. Again.
Someone I work with said it would be funny if Polanski ended up in Corcoran State with Charlie Manson. I think it would be funnier if Phil Garrido was his celly.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
CSPAN Junkie
One huge upside of our peaceful transfer of power is the Democrats have way more televised hearings than the Republicans. Sometimes it's in spite of themselves, like the impeachment. Every time it's a festival of body language, a confluence of personalities so borderline, egos so unbounded they cannnot be contained within a single human body. A good congressional hearing emits tsunomic waves of perfumed self-importance that can be sensed right through the TV screen three timezones away. It is an art form as subtle as Noh, a sport as brutal as Muy Thai. And they are playing for all the marbles.
I'm watching Mrs. Clinton's confirmation hearing. Chelsea's there, sitting in the row behind her mom. John Kerry made a point of acknowledging her. Miss Clinton got a polite and loyal round of applause, which Sen. Schumer immediately tried to claim as his own. Now, Mom is wearing a sensible brown suit. Miss Chelsea's got on a purple sleeveless number, in DC in January. Her hair is worn loose and she upstages the hell out of her mother. Delish.
Sen. Kerry said since Chel's dad served as an intern on the FRC, they would be happy to make Chelsea an 'intern for a day' and he personally invited her up on the dias after the hearing so she could sit in the chairs and take in the view. Because our government is their toy.
I'm watching Mrs. Clinton's confirmation hearing. Chelsea's there, sitting in the row behind her mom. John Kerry made a point of acknowledging her. Miss Clinton got a polite and loyal round of applause, which Sen. Schumer immediately tried to claim as his own. Now, Mom is wearing a sensible brown suit. Miss Chelsea's got on a purple sleeveless number, in DC in January. Her hair is worn loose and she upstages the hell out of her mother. Delish.
Sen. Kerry said since Chel's dad served as an intern on the FRC, they would be happy to make Chelsea an 'intern for a day' and he personally invited her up on the dias after the hearing so she could sit in the chairs and take in the view. Because our government is their toy.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Six Degrees of Barack Obama
Barack Obama is friends with Bill Ayres. Bill says so.
Bill is friendly with Hugo Chavez. He went to Venezuela in 2006 to speak at an education conference, where he expressed his admiration for Chavez.
Hugo Chavez is friendly (like the snake is friendly with the mongoose) with Dimitry Medvedev and by extension Vladimir Putin, the hand up Medvedev's back. He probably likes Putin better, actually. How could a kung-fu fighting pet tiger owner not appeal to the Napoleon Dynamite of world politics?
Medvedev is planning a sit-down with Mr. Obama to discuss Russian-American relations. He says he's optimistic. I bet. Even if The Office of the President Elect saw fit to ask for advice, who'd he consult? Ayres, his bomb-throwing surrogate daddy, would welcome taking it all down, man, so long as he gets a dacha on Lake Michigan. His cabinet will be resuscitated Clinton staffers so we (and people we negotiate with) can mostly predict what they'll say. Biden can only be counted upon to say something stupid and unhelpful. Probably a recipe for glazed ham he swiped out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. If McCain's age was a liability, why'd we elect Grandpa Simpson as VP?
Russia sees Obama as an insecure lightweight, a grasping, overcompensating punk. They'd have to. Chavez thinks the guy is no big deal. I can't decide whether that's hilarious or insulting. And the people who elected him will be too busy trying to keep ahead of the bills to care if Obama sells out the home world.
I must say it makes me uneasy when life imitates punk.
An interesting footnote: I was looking for the NYT article I saw where Ayres came out after the election and said he was in fact all buddy-buddy with Obama. Can't find it, on two different search engines. It must never have existed...
Bill is friendly with Hugo Chavez. He went to Venezuela in 2006 to speak at an education conference, where he expressed his admiration for Chavez.
Hugo Chavez is friendly (like the snake is friendly with the mongoose) with Dimitry Medvedev and by extension Vladimir Putin, the hand up Medvedev's back. He probably likes Putin better, actually. How could a kung-fu fighting pet tiger owner not appeal to the Napoleon Dynamite of world politics?
Medvedev is planning a sit-down with Mr. Obama to discuss Russian-American relations. He says he's optimistic. I bet. Even if The Office of the President Elect saw fit to ask for advice, who'd he consult? Ayres, his bomb-throwing surrogate daddy, would welcome taking it all down, man, so long as he gets a dacha on Lake Michigan. His cabinet will be resuscitated Clinton staffers so we (and people we negotiate with) can mostly predict what they'll say. Biden can only be counted upon to say something stupid and unhelpful. Probably a recipe for glazed ham he swiped out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. If McCain's age was a liability, why'd we elect Grandpa Simpson as VP?
Russia sees Obama as an insecure lightweight, a grasping, overcompensating punk. They'd have to. Chavez thinks the guy is no big deal. I can't decide whether that's hilarious or insulting. And the people who elected him will be too busy trying to keep ahead of the bills to care if Obama sells out the home world.
I must say it makes me uneasy when life imitates punk.
An interesting footnote: I was looking for the NYT article I saw where Ayres came out after the election and said he was in fact all buddy-buddy with Obama. Can't find it, on two different search engines. It must never have existed...
Friday, September 5, 2008
Nobody Asked Me...
OK, so I'm a little late to the Palin party. I wanted to see how things were shaking out. So far I've got: She's unqualified, inexperienced, too religious, frumpy, and a bad mother. Also, she's evil. She purposefully afflicted an innocent baby -- her own baby --with a genetic disease. Your baby could be next.
Of course none of this is true. Alaska's pretty big and it borders on two foreign countries, one of whom hates us while the other merely tolerates us. You pick which one's which. People in the lower 48 ( No, really, Mr. Obama. 48. ) tend to forget about Alaska, all tucked away up there like that. It's got military installations, some that are en clair and some that aren't. I suspect she already has a working relationship with the top brass. They produce and export energy, although I don't think they have refining facilities up there, so they pay the most for the petroleum and propane they consume. More than Hawaii, even. Sucks. Because Alaska's so big it's a logistical challenge to get anything civic done statewide, like law enforcement. Mrs. Palin has to coordinate the activities of state and local authorities with the Feds, who are run from DC, the opposite of Alaska. She's had as much experience running a government as Harry Truman did when he became President. He managed.
So she's got to be on the ball to do all this and coordinate the activities of all those kids. And don't start on the pregnant daughter. The same thing happened to my son, his cousin on dad's side, my oldest uncle on mom's side, Mr. Obama, and several members of your own family whether you know about it or not. The dinosaurs of feminism, Quinn and Steinem, for whom Sarah Palin represents everything they claim to admire, say she has too many children and she can't look after them properly and work outside the home. Nobody said that to Al Gore, who has four kids, or Grammaw Pelosi, who rounded up every child in a five-mile radius and a couple of short adults for her swearing-in photo, or JFK, who had his kids in his office with him while he was President. Maybe men are better at thinking about more than one thing at a time.
I think I know what the problem actually is. I ran into this attitude a lot when I was working construction. The idea of me appealed to the "hear me roar" crowd. You know, single mommy gets herself off welfare, works in a nontraditional field, competing with the menfolk on their level, yada yada yada. The most patronizing and obnoxious people, the ones who took the most care to remind me that I was there because of affirmative action and not because I worked damn hard, the ones who expected me to be grateful to them specifically, were my union reps, every man Jack a good liberal. When I made it clear that I not only did not feel beholden, but that I thought they should thank me for making it so they could work indoors swinging a pencil was when they started in with the "stupid girl" crap. Like in that movie -- "Full Metal Jacket," I think it was-- where the soldier slaps the Vietnamese guy upside the head and says "We're doing you gooks a favor, here!"
Sarah Palin's problem is that she's uppity and she doesn't know her place.
Of course none of this is true. Alaska's pretty big and it borders on two foreign countries, one of whom hates us while the other merely tolerates us. You pick which one's which. People in the lower 48 ( No, really, Mr. Obama. 48. ) tend to forget about Alaska, all tucked away up there like that. It's got military installations, some that are en clair and some that aren't. I suspect she already has a working relationship with the top brass. They produce and export energy, although I don't think they have refining facilities up there, so they pay the most for the petroleum and propane they consume. More than Hawaii, even. Sucks. Because Alaska's so big it's a logistical challenge to get anything civic done statewide, like law enforcement. Mrs. Palin has to coordinate the activities of state and local authorities with the Feds, who are run from DC, the opposite of Alaska. She's had as much experience running a government as Harry Truman did when he became President. He managed.
So she's got to be on the ball to do all this and coordinate the activities of all those kids. And don't start on the pregnant daughter. The same thing happened to my son, his cousin on dad's side, my oldest uncle on mom's side, Mr. Obama, and several members of your own family whether you know about it or not. The dinosaurs of feminism, Quinn and Steinem, for whom Sarah Palin represents everything they claim to admire, say she has too many children and she can't look after them properly and work outside the home. Nobody said that to Al Gore, who has four kids, or Grammaw Pelosi, who rounded up every child in a five-mile radius and a couple of short adults for her swearing-in photo, or JFK, who had his kids in his office with him while he was President. Maybe men are better at thinking about more than one thing at a time.
I think I know what the problem actually is. I ran into this attitude a lot when I was working construction. The idea of me appealed to the "hear me roar" crowd. You know, single mommy gets herself off welfare, works in a nontraditional field, competing with the menfolk on their level, yada yada yada. The most patronizing and obnoxious people, the ones who took the most care to remind me that I was there because of affirmative action and not because I worked damn hard, the ones who expected me to be grateful to them specifically, were my union reps, every man Jack a good liberal. When I made it clear that I not only did not feel beholden, but that I thought they should thank me for making it so they could work indoors swinging a pencil was when they started in with the "stupid girl" crap. Like in that movie -- "Full Metal Jacket," I think it was-- where the soldier slaps the Vietnamese guy upside the head and says "We're doing you gooks a favor, here!"
Sarah Palin's problem is that she's uppity and she doesn't know her place.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Earth Has a Cold Sore
Al Gore, Oscar winner, Nobel Laureate, and Darwin Award nominee, has long been pestering all of us about the noxious effects of global warming, the primary one being it seems to make him sweat like a pack mule. Last year the Tennessee Center for Policy Research discovered what he actually meant was for us to cut down on electricity so there'd be more for him. The same way the father of four was about overpopulation back in the 1980's. Remember that, back when he was just some ineffectual nerd senator with a pushy wife?
Mr. Gore has taken my personal approach to financial management and applied it to his home's energy consumption. After the news broke in Feb. 2007 that he was a hypocritical slob, he fell all over himself to make his home more energy-efficient. Now, after the improvements, the house actually burns more energy than before. In fact, every single month Maison Gore consumes an amount of energy equal to what one and two thirds average houses consume in a year. That's a carbon footprint the size of a horse's ass. Poetic.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Greetings From Bizarro World
If the democrats are the Party of Peace, why is the city of Denver investing in riot gear in advance of their convention? It's certainly not because Denver is a nest of right-wing fascists; I've been there. I was born in Boulder, in fact, a dubious honor at best and a tradition I've carried on to the next generation by forcing my child to admit to having been born in Berkeley. Nope, they're all peace, love and cheap incense in Denver. The place that you'd think ought to be battening down the hatches is St. Paul, MN, host to the republican convention. Yet after a diligent five-minute search on Dogpile the most I was able to find was this protest site. They plan to 'Demand peace, justice, and equality.' They don't say for whom. Ron Paul intends to hold a parallel convention outside the venue if they won't let him speak inside. He could carpool with the peace guys.
Meanwhile, back in Denver, The police are investing in everything from the "brown gun," a sonic device that allegedly makes you -- ahem -- let yourself go, to pepper spray grenades. There is a group called Recreate '68 that plans to -- I forget. Do something, I suppose. Get high on Oaxacan ditch weed and run people down with their Lark Scooters, maybe. I'm thinking that the brown gun might have been money poorly spent. Certainly this is not the crowd to test it on.
What a freaking headache all the way around for poor Denver. Imagine the police brutality lawsuit after some fragile firebrand shatters a hip. Or the property damage done by their more vigorous great-grandchildren. Remember Seattle? Also, I'm sure the local criminals would never take advantage of the chaos downtown and the slower response times to carry on with their business in other parts of the the Metro Area. No wonder DPD is considering the logistics of carpet bombing and napalm. I'm kidding. They would never use napalm. The carbon footprint is huge.
Somebody really ought to explain to Denver how this is supposed to be an honor for them. I bet they forgot. In the meantime, St. Paul seems pretty sedate, considering they're hosting a group of folks quite a few of them disagree vehemently with. I wonder how that's going to go. Hopefully it will be dull. Republicans are very good at dull. I'll bet they clean the hall up on their way out, too. That would be cute, and it's happened before. With the passing of my dear grandmother last year I no longer have family in Denver. If you do, seriously, you should offer them refuge come August. The Peace Lovers are coming.
Meanwhile, back in Denver, The police are investing in everything from the "brown gun," a sonic device that allegedly makes you -- ahem -- let yourself go, to pepper spray grenades. There is a group called Recreate '68 that plans to -- I forget. Do something, I suppose. Get high on Oaxacan ditch weed and run people down with their Lark Scooters, maybe. I'm thinking that the brown gun might have been money poorly spent. Certainly this is not the crowd to test it on.
What a freaking headache all the way around for poor Denver. Imagine the police brutality lawsuit after some fragile firebrand shatters a hip. Or the property damage done by their more vigorous great-grandchildren. Remember Seattle? Also, I'm sure the local criminals would never take advantage of the chaos downtown and the slower response times to carry on with their business in other parts of the the Metro Area. No wonder DPD is considering the logistics of carpet bombing and napalm. I'm kidding. They would never use napalm. The carbon footprint is huge.
Somebody really ought to explain to Denver how this is supposed to be an honor for them. I bet they forgot. In the meantime, St. Paul seems pretty sedate, considering they're hosting a group of folks quite a few of them disagree vehemently with. I wonder how that's going to go. Hopefully it will be dull. Republicans are very good at dull. I'll bet they clean the hall up on their way out, too. That would be cute, and it's happened before. With the passing of my dear grandmother last year I no longer have family in Denver. If you do, seriously, you should offer them refuge come August. The Peace Lovers are coming.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Now I can die...
....because I have officially seen everything now:
That's right. George Freaking Carlin, hero of my teenage years. From "AM and FM." The Class Clown, for crying out loud. Wow. The older you get the more likely you are to embrace a more conservative worldview. In his case, it took , like, 78 years. I may actually be able to listen to him again without feeling like a shmuck. Thanks for snapping out of it, George. Although 11 million is a lowball figure. There may be 11 mil in California alone. Still, his heart's in the right place.
George Carlin's Solution to Save Gasoline:
Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use.....
The best way to stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal
immigrants!
That would be 11 million less people illegally using our gas. The
price of gas would come down...
Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Borders...
When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a
canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq!
Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in
the U.S. military...
Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it...
After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he
defended this country...
He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot...
This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a
solution for the troops in Iraq and the illegal aliens trying to make
a better life for themselves...
If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the
canteen, rifle or ammo...
Problem solved!
If you think this is a good solution to both the problems, forward it
to your friends.
That's right. George Freaking Carlin, hero of my teenage years. From "AM and FM." The Class Clown, for crying out loud. Wow. The older you get the more likely you are to embrace a more conservative worldview. In his case, it took , like, 78 years. I may actually be able to listen to him again without feeling like a shmuck. Thanks for snapping out of it, George. Although 11 million is a lowball figure. There may be 11 mil in California alone. Still, his heart's in the right place.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
And What a Mother
In most elections, the deceased mother of a candidate in the primaries is not the subject of a magazine profile. But Ann Soetoro was not like most mothers.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html
You have to read this article. Every page has at least one gem. The "natural-born mother" who scraped her kid off on mom and dad used to cry "when she felt like she wasn't being understood in conversation." Spoiled much? Manipulative often? She met Barack Obama, Sr. in college in the early 1960s. In Russian class.
"He had this magnetic personality," remembers Neil Abercrombie, a member of Congress from Hawaii who was friends with Obama Sr. in college. "Everything was oratory from him, even the most commonplace observation."..."We would drink beer, eat pizza and play records," Abercrombie says. They talked about Vietnam and politics. "Everyone had an opinion about everything, and everyone was of the opinion that everyone wanted to hear their opinion—no one more so than Barack."
Yay. A chatty, know-it-all drunk. Mom hooked up with the commie Cliff Clayburn. He was married back home as well as to Ann and he dropped her like a hot rock when he got a scholarship to Harvard. Isn't that where his kid went to school? His American kid, I mean. So he's a legacy, then.
In1967 Ann Dunham Obama married an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro and moved to Indonesia.
"Walking off the plane, the tarmac rippling with heat, the sun bright as a furnace," Obama later wrote, "I clutched her hand, determined to protect her."
He was five. When your kindergartener feels the need to protect you, perhaps you have not been diligent in providing him a sense of security. She did keenly feel the white man's burden, though, dispensing alms to every beggar that came by. Word travels fast in Jakarta, and soon she was forced to pass judgment on who was the most needy of the flood of people who came looking for a handout. Who saw that happening? Fortunately, Lolo worked for an American oil company, so they were pretty well set up.
Around the time that marriage ended, Barack was sent to live with his grandparents, the typical white people. Mom kept his sister. When Ann decided to return to Indonesia her 14-year-old son said, pass. He stayed in Hawaii. Ann didn't seem to mind. While he embarked on a dynamic career in Chicago politics his mom puttered about on the literal other side of the planet, spending over two decades to almost complete her doctoral dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia.
On the one hand I don't want to be thought of as badmouthing the dead; on the other hand, she's dead, she won't care. Her son is running for President; looking at how he was raised is prudent. If my own personal son became a hatchet murderer you can bet people would be taking issue with the way I toilet trained him at knifepoint. Mr. Obama has a problem with "white people" like his mother and the people who raised him. He married a woman who is stridently dissatisfied with the racist, sexist, backwards country that gave her everything. How he came to be that way has everything to do with how he'd run the show.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html
You have to read this article. Every page has at least one gem. The "natural-born mother" who scraped her kid off on mom and dad used to cry "when she felt like she wasn't being understood in conversation." Spoiled much? Manipulative often? She met Barack Obama, Sr. in college in the early 1960s. In Russian class.
"He had this magnetic personality," remembers Neil Abercrombie, a member of Congress from Hawaii who was friends with Obama Sr. in college. "Everything was oratory from him, even the most commonplace observation."..."We would drink beer, eat pizza and play records," Abercrombie says. They talked about Vietnam and politics. "Everyone had an opinion about everything, and everyone was of the opinion that everyone wanted to hear their opinion—no one more so than Barack."
Yay. A chatty, know-it-all drunk. Mom hooked up with the commie Cliff Clayburn. He was married back home as well as to Ann and he dropped her like a hot rock when he got a scholarship to Harvard. Isn't that where his kid went to school? His American kid, I mean. So he's a legacy, then.
In1967 Ann Dunham Obama married an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro and moved to Indonesia.
"Walking off the plane, the tarmac rippling with heat, the sun bright as a furnace," Obama later wrote, "I clutched her hand, determined to protect her."
He was five. When your kindergartener feels the need to protect you, perhaps you have not been diligent in providing him a sense of security. She did keenly feel the white man's burden, though, dispensing alms to every beggar that came by. Word travels fast in Jakarta, and soon she was forced to pass judgment on who was the most needy of the flood of people who came looking for a handout. Who saw that happening? Fortunately, Lolo worked for an American oil company, so they were pretty well set up.
Around the time that marriage ended, Barack was sent to live with his grandparents, the typical white people. Mom kept his sister. When Ann decided to return to Indonesia her 14-year-old son said, pass. He stayed in Hawaii. Ann didn't seem to mind. While he embarked on a dynamic career in Chicago politics his mom puttered about on the literal other side of the planet, spending over two decades to almost complete her doctoral dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia.
On the one hand I don't want to be thought of as badmouthing the dead; on the other hand, she's dead, she won't care. Her son is running for President; looking at how he was raised is prudent. If my own personal son became a hatchet murderer you can bet people would be taking issue with the way I toilet trained him at knifepoint. Mr. Obama has a problem with "white people" like his mother and the people who raised him. He married a woman who is stridently dissatisfied with the racist, sexist, backwards country that gave her everything. How he came to be that way has everything to do with how he'd run the show.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Hairstyles and Attitudes
This post is not about freedom of religion or the nature of dissent or Tibet's right to exist or how all-round evil China is. It is also not about the Olympics or world unity or any of that hippie twaddle. San Francisco's pretty, pretty mayor did something that should outrage everyone who lives in the world's largest open-air looney bin: When confronted with potentially volatile political protesters bent on impeding the flow of traffic on city streets and the implicit threat of violence against the citizenry Mr. Newsom found a way to thwart their purpose and defuse the situation. There ya go, San Franciscans. He does have it in him, but only when he's worried about looking like a schmuck to the rest of the world. For you, every month, not so much.
The last Friday of every month with nice weather (I love their commitment) an enormous bunch of jackasses toss their bicycles in the back of the Odyssey or on top of the Forester and drive in from all over to block traffic in downtown San Francisco during the evening commute in a pointless little ritual called Critical Mass. They ride on both sides of the street and both sidewalks. Why should drivers be the only ones to fear for their safety? They vandalize cars and knock pedestrians down, and the police don't do a damn thing to stop them. I'm sure they'd love to, but they're not allowed. Mayor Haircut doesn't want the bad PR from hurting the feelings of some weekend white rasta from Danville with facial tattoos and plates in his earlobes. So everybody who needs to get on the bridge out of town because daycare in Oakland closes at 6pm -- for instance-- must sit and wait for the cyclists to work through their daddy issues. Its only redeeming feature is that it may cause some Bay Aryans to rethink their position on gun control.
Such a pity the only thing the citizens of San Francisco have to offer the mayor is their vote. He seems to think that's worth so much less than face time on CNN.
The last Friday of every month with nice weather (I love their commitment) an enormous bunch of jackasses toss their bicycles in the back of the Odyssey or on top of the Forester and drive in from all over to block traffic in downtown San Francisco during the evening commute in a pointless little ritual called Critical Mass. They ride on both sides of the street and both sidewalks. Why should drivers be the only ones to fear for their safety? They vandalize cars and knock pedestrians down, and the police don't do a damn thing to stop them. I'm sure they'd love to, but they're not allowed. Mayor Haircut doesn't want the bad PR from hurting the feelings of some weekend white rasta from Danville with facial tattoos and plates in his earlobes. So everybody who needs to get on the bridge out of town because daycare in Oakland closes at 6pm -- for instance-- must sit and wait for the cyclists to work through their daddy issues. Its only redeeming feature is that it may cause some Bay Aryans to rethink their position on gun control.
Such a pity the only thing the citizens of San Francisco have to offer the mayor is their vote. He seems to think that's worth so much less than face time on CNN.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Quick question
If you were a terrorist -- foreign or domestic, I'm ecumenical -- which is the more tempting target, the Olympics or the Democratic National Convention? China would definitely kill your ass, but you may have meant to blow yourself up anyway, and you can target citizens of the country you dislike the most today. Denver will have looser security and a town full of people who'll seek to understand why you hate them, but will the world acknowledge your greatness if all you do is take out a bunch of damn Americans? Plus, no matter how hard you try to brand yourself or your organization George W. Bush is going to get all the publicity for allowing it to happen.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Her Name is Kathleen Soliah
The name she's known by, Sara Jane Olson, is an identity she had stolen from a baby who'd died. In February of 1974 she and her buddies in the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped W.R. Hearst's granddaughter Patty to hold for ransom. In the course of a bank robbery in 1975 Kathleen kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry. She also contributed to the death of Myrna Ospahl, depriving her four children of a mother. Kathleen wasn't sorry about it, either; far from it. She said Ospahl deserved to die for being a "bourgeois pig."
She went what the fashionable call 'underground' for twenty-three years, married a doctor, had three daughters, a five-bedroom house in the classy part of St. Paul, traveled the world, expressed herself through community activism and community theatre, and generally lead the life she stole off Myrna. And when she finally got picked up the neighbors had a fit. Why, she was one of them, and that was decades ago, and look at all the good works she's done since, and how can they take a mother away from her children who need her?
So they let her out a little early thinking that no one would notice. D'oh. After five days of her hanging around L.A. they pick her up again to serve out the rest of her time. Imagine how awful that must be for her. I hope they do Mrs. Doctor from St. Paul like that every month or two, myself. Bourgeois pig.
She went what the fashionable call 'underground' for twenty-three years, married a doctor, had three daughters, a five-bedroom house in the classy part of St. Paul, traveled the world, expressed herself through community activism and community theatre, and generally lead the life she stole off Myrna. And when she finally got picked up the neighbors had a fit. Why, she was one of them, and that was decades ago, and look at all the good works she's done since, and how can they take a mother away from her children who need her?
So they let her out a little early thinking that no one would notice. D'oh. After five days of her hanging around L.A. they pick her up again to serve out the rest of her time. Imagine how awful that must be for her. I hope they do Mrs. Doctor from St. Paul like that every month or two, myself. Bourgeois pig.
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