Zane Gray

My friend Zane died last night after a short illness. He was good company and always kind. He will be missed.

The GOP and the Ignorance Demographic

We have completed a process that began when the Repubican party conciously went after the disaffected Southern democrats after the Democrats endorsed the civil rights movement.  The result, a bipolar party with the boring low energy traditional component strangely hitched to the can of mixed nuts that have always inhabited the ignorance demographic of the south and intermountain regions of this country.  Motivating the base for the new GOP has meant empowering and affirming the creation science/prayer in school/right to life/homophobic crowd, gold standard economics, anti science anti environmentism, while faning racial sterotypes, zenophobic impluses and paranoia among the gun nuts and the UN is coming for us cohort of our society.  They courted it, they wanted it, now they have it in spades.  A classic case of having a tiger by the tail.  A cure will come, but only when they are totally in the wilderness.  They must be defeated in the House.  Then the GOP can rejoin modernity and redefine a progressive path for legitimate conservative values.  There can be no real progress in solving this country's problems until both parties reject the mythologies and prejudices of ignorance.  Reason, science, facts and a common recognition that for prosperty to be preserved it must be shared in some measure by all.

THE HORSE TALKERS

The Koch Bros. issue one mild reading between the lines missive and all of a sudden the unruly children are picking up the play area. Amazing what a few billion dollars can do to refocus the political mind, especially one whose place in power has been bought by that same money in the first instance and whose only economic alternative is as a shoe or car salesman. (Does the blatant ignorance of these Tea Party representatives not scare you?) - Of course it is great fun to manipulate the gullible voters through their prejudices and mythologies, and to hype the evils of "big government" when in pursuit of lower taxes and stymying regulation of your extraction industries etc., if you are a self-centered billionaire, but a whole lot less fun when the morons you have sold to the gullible public start to really act on all that BS you have underwritten them to say; threatening to turn the world economy and all your vested wealth into a vapor of chaos, which is were everything goes in the absence of rational government. I love the laundry list of government agencies the Reps. have been feverishly voting to reopen, it reminds one of Perry's debate, as it would seem that even collectively now, they can't remember what part of the government it was that we did not need.

Congratulations Siobhan Keane Queen Puck 2013.

Queen Soibhan, Mary and I wish we could be in  Killorglin to celebrate with you.  Your reign is a credit to the Puck Fair.

Bad President My Sweet Bippy. You Go Jimmy. Integrity is a Good Thing.

Down With Deforestation.

Some say they shave because hair is "dirty." If it's so dang dirty, why don't they shave their heads? It's just wrong. See, Ban Brazilians &; Just Say No To Hardwood.

The Enemy is Us.

Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert has reportedly responded to the Mayflower oil spill by playing on Exxon’s remorse.   He has convinced Exxon to re-commission the Valdez, to make continuous runs from New Orleans to Little Rock.  The new legislation allowing more stream pollution helped, and of course, there were a few tax breaks thrown in.  A spokesperson said “It will create jobs. Working with industry-not regulating them is the key.  What could possibly go wrong?"
 

Science & The Arkansas General Assembly

 It’s reported that a Republican senator was overheard discussing gay marriage yesterday- “Procreation isn’t just the primary purpose of marriage-it’s the only purpose. We’re not just talkin about tradition, this here is science.  God sends babies to married people.  If we allow homasexyals to marry, He’s honor bound to send um babies.  As sure a Jesus walked with dinosaurs, they’ll pass on them homasexyal genes.  After a while, everyone will be homasexyal, and the whole world will go to Hell.  If dinosaurs hadn’t turned queer, they’d be around today.”  Whether the report is true or not, I don’t know.  It’s frightening that it could be.  (Senator Rapert wasn't named, but I like the picture.)

The Roman Easter Parade-Is It About Jesus or Just Smells & Bells?

"Today's the day when a bunch of old men in Rome put on their red dresses and fight over who gets to wear the prettiest hat."  Mrs. Betty Bowers

Arkansas Legislature to Ban Masturbation.

The Arkansas State Senate in it’s zeal to purify the state, is considering a bill which would ban male masturbation (self-abuse).  “It not only causes warts, it’s murder” according to one senator.  “Sperm and egg cells are genetically unique haploid humans who have a right to life," he said. A more moderate group in the House suggests that, instead of an outright ban, that males be required to wear condoms and give the semen to the state to be used to fertilize eggs harvested during vaginal probes of women seeking abortion.  “Those eggs would go to waste on a woman who would seek an abortion anyway,” said one representative.

Alive At The Johnny Mack Brown High School

Thanks, The Other Jim.

Shortly before Christmas, someone dropped this fine brew and note at Cuz's office. Thank you so much "The Other Jim." These folks must be my kin. See, My Profile at
http://www.blogger.com/profile/06644617320283553932
A belated Merry Christmas to ye "The Other Jim." Both Cuz and I have tried to find out who you are so we could thank you. If ye see this message, come say hello. If you're a spirit who only comes by at Christmas, please say "hello" next time if you're allowed.

Follow the Money

DISCLAIMER- VIRG EXPRESSES NO OPINION ABOUT THE MOTIVES ANYONE SELLING CHICKEN OR ANY HOBBY LOBBYISTS. 

A Man Will Hear What He Wants To Hear And Disregard The Rest.

I've seen it, and the First Amendment just does not read like this.

It's ok to believe in the Baby Jesus though and to think everyone else is wrong if they don't.  See, Bobby Family Values.   It's just that the goverment can't make us believe or disbelieve anything.  That's a wonderful thing that makes this the land of the free. Do I hear an amen Elder Leland?
Thanks to Dr. Steve.

“IT'S A WONDERFUL TIME TO BE ALIVE. AS LONG AS ONE HAS ENOUGH DYNAMITE.” Bernard Mickey Wrangle

Thanks to Ken

Dying Like Doctors.

“'Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me' . . .Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo. . . . How has it come to this–that doctors administer so much care that they wouldn’t want for themselves? The simple, or not-so-simple, answer is this: patients, doctors, and the system.. . . .Hospice care, which focuses on providing terminally ill patients with comfort and dignity rather than on futile cures, provides most people with much better final days. Amazingly, studies have found that people placed in hospice care often live longer than people with the same disease who are seeking active cures." How Doctors Die- It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be.  Ken Murray, MD
Thanks to Judge C.

Mothers of My Mother

Though “Sassenaugh” was an insult to some of my ancestors, we speak the name of Æthelflæd with the same reverence as we do the names of Alaisiagae, Aoife, and Boadicea. We are of one blood. Thank you for life my mothers.

THE WHITE ESTABLISHMENT - It is a cultural reality. The Southern colonies were initially established by the third sons of english aristocracy, driven by inheritance law, and the indentured servants, prisoners and slaves they brought over. Hence a class society in which you are suppose to know and respect your betters. With this comes a primitive view of religion that holds everything as ordained on high. Indeed a central function of a church in such a society is to justify the social order. It is god's will that the big man lives in the big house (they are the job creators you see) and god's will that blacks should be slaves. 

The South was/is a culture dominated by belief values that never fully accepted the liberal democratic ideals that sprang from reason and inquiry, so well absorbed in the northern states, populated as they were by a single class of emigrants, most fleeing the rule of the big man.


The northern states evolved a middle class and professional society that emphasized education, free thought, equality and pursuit of science. The tea party was in Boston remember, the South came slowly and reluctantly to the revolution.
Because agricultural practices were so harsh on the land, the inland southern states were progressively populated from this same cultural pool, moving ever westward for fresh land. Being southern born I have to say the south has its virtues or rather there are virtuous sides to its flaws, blind loyalty being one of them; they know how to wave a flag and die for it.


The irony is that the red states peoples believe themselves to be the true Americans largely on the basis of this type of unquestioning loyalty but in reality America's founding political ideals are best expressed in the progressive blue states that drove the original revolution and that have driven the nation's progress and subsidized the South even today as it is still scared by it perverse refusal to educate and empower its people; this to in the interest of keeping wages low for the big man.


An even larger irony is that the Republican party now owns the Southern side of the ongoing civil war (it has never really ended) and the Democrats have adopted the yankees. That itself is an interesting story, born in the civil rights movement where the Democratic party had to choose between it intellectual labor driven values it had picked up over time and the inherited racism of it geographic roots. The Republican party, for two generations in the wilderness as an opposition minority party, could not resist the temptation to broaden its base at the expense of its own traditional values and here we are and here it is, locked into catering and empowering the racist religious ignorance demographic of America.  What a tragedy but Bill does not see it.  No, his stress is that the South is losing again. 

An Email Exchange Accross the Fence.

Damn. You still don't get it, do you!?!  

 

OK I'll try me more time...

 

It's not that the Demos have a "better get out the vote machine", it's that their message is one of Love, Peace, Caring, Respect and Helping their fellow human being. Sometimes they can go overboard, such as LBJs "Great Society" welfare program. But they genuinely show love and compassion for their fellow citizens. 

 

Whereas the Republicans have a dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost, shoot first ask questions later, torture is great, the one with the most toys wins (and gets to make all the rules), government is bad bad bad, the person with the bigger bank account is a better person than any of them horrible ugly poooor people, worship of the giant Golden $ (see the ending of Atlas Shrugged) philosophy. 

 

From the day Obama was first elected the Republican Party stated that they were going to ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in their power to sabotage his Presidency. And they have. But when they did this they were sabotaging MY COUNTRY! DAMMIT! They fought tooth and nail everything Obama tried to do, even when it was something that they would be all for had someone with an (R) after their name proposed it! The Republican Party crawled into the bed of furthest right wing religious racist fanatics and stroked their cocks hoping it would "excite their base"... They have driven from their party the bespectacled, intelligent, moderate by championing the rebel flag waving, rotten tooth, low IQ, the earth is only 6000 yrs old, jock-strap chewing troglodyte. Their champions are the Sarah Palins, the Ann Coulters, the Rush Limbaaaaaaahhhhhhhgghgs... Why the fuck can't you see this shit? The Barry that live on the 3rd floor of that old house next to Audubon Park with Larry and listened to Firesign Theater records would have...

What you saw yesterday is the result... And unless the Republicans learn that respect for intelligence and compromise are qualities that they should embrace then it will only get worse for them. 

 

P.S. I did not write this but it sums things up pretty well in a spontanious way.

Sometimes I Want to Cry Too Abigael.

Thanks to Carol