Hey Hey Hey

If you're as old, or older than me you will remember Dwayne from What's Happening. I loved Dwayne.

Anywho.....growing up, I always felt older than I was. That changed at 35. At 35 I finally felt that I was in the right body and the right mind. It was pretty cool. Well, tomorrow I will be 44 and I have to say I am surprised. It feels odd to me. I haven't been bothered by any birthdays, but this one is freaking me out. I think I will stay at 43.
It's not that it feels old....I am happy to be my age and I don't mind getting older. We all live and grow old, everything on this pale blue dot. It's the way it's supposed to be. It's that feeling I had before 35 coming back, except in the opposite direction. I don't like that. My life has been so topsy-turvy the last 3 years and I hope this is the year I get back to that even keel. Hell, maybe that's all it is. I'm not too bright sometimes, I miss the most obvious things sometimes....I really am blond. I'm not a natural blond, but in every wonderful dumb blond joke way, I am. I like that about me, but it makes me slow sometimes....
So Happy weird Birthday to me and here's hoping for this year to be better than the last few.....

So what's going on out there that I should be posting? I have gotten into a funk with that as well....there's so much going on. Michelle Bachmann? Same sex marriage in New York...by a GOP controlled legislature? What the fuck is in the water? I am dumbfounded and scared and hopeful and confused by how we get through the next year. Endless political campaigns are hurting this democracy and the media does nothing that it should...and we're back to being jaded again....

a leave of absence?

whoa...I didn't realize it has been almost 2 months since my last post. where does the time go?
when I started this I knew there would be times when I didn't post but I didn't think it would be this long. I don't know what to say....apparently, if the stats are correct, there are actually people coming to my little house of useless knowledge. thank you for that, though I am a little unsure as to why. must be my wittiness. :)  yeah, I didn't think so either.
there have been a lot of things going on around this little corner of the world. In April I was diagnosed with my first case of skin cancer. the 'good' kind, if there is such a thing. it was just below my eyebrow. that freaked me out. I don't know why though. if you knew me personally you wouldn't be surprised. I'm not really white, I'm sorta purplish/pink with a lot of freckles thrown in. I have only been tan once in my life and I got that very lovely tan at the expense of not being able to move for 3 solid days while wearing only my bathing suit. I had my 2nd sun poisoning that time. oh the good ole days when you're a young lady in the 80's and the 'in' thing is being tan, if you were a white girl like me. oh how stupid we are as kids. anyway, that's why it shouldn't have been a surprise that I had some version of skin cancer. I always burn, I am a red head, my father has had skin cancer so many times I can't count them and I am fair skinned. these my friends, are 4 out of the 5 items that answer the question, how high is your risk of skin cancer?

so that's where I have been. I had it removed a couple of weeks ago and did NOT get a very cool scar like I asked the doctor for, but it is all gone, so there's that.

another reason I haven't been here is that there is also something wrong with my thyroid....what you ask? I don't know. I haven't had the courage to make an appointment with my doctor to find out. I have been feeling a bit depressed about how this shitty life has been going, I just don't have the courage, nor the money, to find out why. it could be something as easy as adjusting my meds or not....I just can't handle it.

and then there is the world we live in. half-wit, half-term former governors making traitors out of our revolutionary heroes and a 13 year old Congressmen from New York thinking he can send crotch shots to women he isn't married to and current Supreme Court Justices not understanding the law and violating,  what should be clear to everyone, ethics of some sort.

I watch Rachel Maddow and then clean the house a bit until Stewart and Colbert come on, go to sleep, wake up, go to a job I really could care less about and back home to do it all over again....that's what's been going on in Vera Lynn's world. maybe the summer will bring better things.

one bright spot? my birthday is at the end of the month and I have 2 wonderful friends coming to see me. I need that.

so what have you guys been doing?

2012 will be memorable

I think I have posted that I think the end of the Civil War is coming, but I also think it will be a strong pivot in our history. And with that, there will be some very enjoyable moments I think. :)  One of the ways I think it will be enjoyable is the complete and utter destruction of one of the major political parties of my lifetime.
They are going to implode. And as long as no one gets hurt, I am going to enjoy the hell out of it. They have been on a road to destruction for the last 40 years. They have sacrificed all their interest in this country for power and greed. Greed has indeed, been good for them. They have told half-truths and whole truths and have happily taken this country for a ride. And since they destroyed the banking system by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act.
And ever since have done nothing except lower the regulations on the banking industry. And they learned nothing after the bottom fell out. And they were the strongest supporters of no strings attached to the bailouts of the financial wiz-kids that got us into the mess.(And I'm not even going to talk about the constitutional violations and the torture and the lying us into war.)
Now they are coming right out and saying they want to destroy Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And then give another 10% tax break for the wealthiest 2%. Another one. On top of the one the President was blackmailed into agreeing in December.
So, yeah, I'm going to enjoy watching them capitulate to the racists in their heart and soul and try to win the Presidency or feeling the wrath of the extremists and disavowing The Crazy. Something I hadn't realized until today is that their propaganda media arm, faux, can't stop indulging the them. Adam Serwer  did think of it though, much to my delight. :)

This is a problem of Republicans’ own creation, and it’s one that illustrates what is likely to be one of the more odder elements of the 2012 presidential race — the distinction between what helps the GOP win elections, and what helps Fox get ratings.

rant

I just posted this over at BobCesca,com and thought I should put it here. It is in response to a discussion about John Boehner and his job as Speaker and the upcoming fights on the budget and the raising of the debt ceiling. 

nope....what'll happen is what's happened for the last 30 years. the establishment repubs and their constituents, the corporation, will keep the debt limit ceiling from being stalled. They will do that because as we all know, all their money is overseas and they won't let anything happen that could further damage the worldwide economy.
The problem is going to be over Ryan's budget. Then Boehner will have to have dems help and if that happens, then he will be in a heap of shit so deep. I don't know if you can remove a Speaker before the session is over, someone smarter may know (and please share). but if he has to capitulate to the dems to avoid a shutdown, he's going to have to go talk to some dems. and after that, who knows.....but if they can't remove him, they can make his term miserable. preferably just his...I don't want to pay for his 20 year power indulgence. He gets that hangover. They'll play the same culture war issues and get shot down every time. it's been this way for 30 years...it's getting old and tired, sure...but they are good at it.
but what's changed are contradictory...the media has become corporate owned and operated with no regard for their prestigious position in out democracy and we can no longer count on them to do their civic duties. the other thing that's changed is that we are in the worst economic times since the 1930's and there are too many people out there who are just now waking up and realizing we don't have the status quo anymore, we did get change, just not the change we thought. I voted for President Obama and will do everything I can to see that he is re-elected by a much bigger landslide than the last one. no matter who they put up. because our fourth estate hasn't been doing their jobs for decades now, it's up to us. It's up to the American people to stand up and call liars liars and stupid people who can seem to only pay attention to 30 second soundbites our neighbors. because that's who they are. they are our families (mine anyway) and show them what is actually going on. we are on the verge, possibly, of losing our very way of life. I never thought that would ever happen. I never thought that we would be so stupid to believe and be distracted by shiny objects that we would let out troops languish in shoddy equipment over politics. I never thought of even asking the question, it seemed so remote.
But this coming election is where you sit down with the young people and make sure they know that because they didn't vote this round, we have to fight this battle again....and the stakes are higher. We have to take our country back from the corporations that have bought their way into our government and gotten themselves rewarded by taking all the money and not sharing it.....I want their citizenship taken away. If they want to show their patriotism, then prove it. take one for the team and smile about it. I want dems and repubs alike to do the same. I'm not doing the equivalency thing, of course the right is much better at mind fucking people than we are. But we are better at being the real Americans they so often mock while pretending to give a fuck about any of it. I'm a dem because for the majority of them, they act like elected leaders should. they don't act like it's junior high all over again.
wow, went on a little rant didn't I? I'm sure I left more stuff out, but that's enough for now. Thank you for your time. :)

must reads

This isn’t government we’re watching; this is junior high.

It’s unclear where the adults are, but they don’t seem to be in Washington. Beyond the malice of the threat to shut down the federal government, averted only at the last minute on Friday night, it’s painful how vapid the discourse is and how incompetent and cowardly our leaders have proved to be.

 What does all this mean? That we’re governed by self-absorbed, reckless children. Further evidence comes from a new study showing that American senators devote 27 percent of their press releases to “partisan taunts” rather than substance. “Partisan taunting seems to play a central role in the behavior of many senators,” declared the study, by Justin Grimmer of Stanford and Gary King of Harvard.

 Read it here.

Get Out The Vote

If you give a damn about who we are as a country, Get Out The Vote!! Get involved, walk your neighborhoods and talk to people. Let them know what's going on. Make them realize they have the power to keep us in a democracy and not turn us into a plutocracy or worse, a theocracy. seriously people...our entire way of life is being torn down and stepped on....look anywhere where republicans are in power and you will see they don't give a damn about you or your family....not one bit. It's early in the season, I know...but this is the culture we live in. And tell your media outlets and sources that they need to do their job.  I will leave you with John Cole's words.....

And btw, we’ve talked about the Ryan plan to gut medicare and medicaid and give the proceeds to the rich while feeding the warpig, and it is important to recognize this is not some one-off. This is what they want. They are also coming for your pension, they are after your social security, they want to destroy your union so you can not organize against them, they will go after your minimum wage next, they want to get rid of the EPA so their donors can pollute your water, air, land, and food and not have to worry about being punished, they want to deregulate Wall Street more so they can screw you again and not face any consequences, they want to tell you what you can do with your body, and they are spending lots of time and money making it harder and harder for you to vote. The Ryan plan isn’t an isolated incident, it was just shots fired on another front. If you are disheartened by the budget deal the other night, which is one small skirmish in a big war, you probably should just give up and go buy yourself a ton of lube.

read the whole post here.

Class War, been a long time coming....

there is a class war in this country....don't let anyone tell you otherwise. it used to be it was kept in check, but apparently no more....thank you people who don't think your vote counts.....
and in honor of this, I give you the timeless words and music that expresses it on the level of the everyday person....you know, the ones who don't vote.
assholes

We're not with him....no....

Eight Republican state senators have issued a rare public rebuke of Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), writing an op-ed expressing "discomfort and dismay" with some of his recent comments directed at labor backers.

Even the repubs are distancing themselves from the freaks who got elected.....do you still think your vote doesn't count?
Read the whole post here.

must reads

He sums things up nicely.
Thank the stars in the heavens for John Cole.

April 3, 1968

Us and Them

why am I here?

I have asked myself, several times, why I have a blog. Part of it is because Facebook gave me the ability to share with people the things I believe and feel are just and true and funny and share who I am through posting youtube videos of my favorite music. And I like that. As for this blog, it's the invisibility. I like that I can do all the things I can do on Facebook, but here...only a few people know who I am. I like the invisibility.  I like that you are reading this all over the world....or you can from all over the world. And you have no clue who I am other than what I post here. I really like that. Because I think people are the same all over the world...unless you're rich....then I got nothing for you. I've never known what that feels like. :)
As I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of close friends. I like it that way. I have always felt apart, separate from most people, and more often than not, from my family. So this is where I'm most comfortable.


So I'm over at Balloon-Juice and reading this and it occurs to me that this is one of the reasons I want to keep writing here as well. I want to record what happens before the Civil War finally ends...hopefully with the ballot box, but more likely with bullets.

I am a student of history, American history. I have a degree from a state university in history. I am getting old and have forgotten most of what I learned in school....for you kids out there, let this be a lesson, get a job in the field of study you choose. If I had done that, I'd be a better person I think. Then again, that would mean being a bureaucrat (public employee) or a college professor (perhaps a public employee, but certainly a liberal elite). I did want to be a bureaucrat in the State Department. So I would be demonized by one of the major parties in this country...I already am, so I'm good.
Anyway, I digress.....
I never, ever, ever would have thought that one of the political parties in our two party system would lose their minds completely. I knew that during the Civil War, that we lost our minds. But, I thought that the people who still felt the way the southerners who declared their independence felt were so few that I didn't need to worry about them doing anything stupid. Even after Reagan....then shrub came along and took all of the worst of Reagan and ran with it. I find it amazing that this country put republicans back into power after they had totally torched everything they could think of after only 2 years. It boggles the mind.

I said up the post that I wanted to record what happens before the Civil War ends. No, it isn't a typo. I don't think we have finished the Civil War. I think we have just been in a very long pause. I think, after living in the south for more than 30 years, that there are too many people who are the stupid and ignorant who have never forgotten. They don't only live here though, they are everywhere in this country. And now, they have a major, international media organization and our SCOTUS has made it possible for corporations to be persons...as in We The People persons. What the Fuck????
For the majority of people, those who get their news from corporate media on the networks and who don't pay attention to politics until a presidential election, it may seem that things are all of a sudden crashing down. They heard the repubs talk about jobs and instead they have seen the repubs do all the culture war items on their agenda...along with others they never would have told us about before the November 2010 elections. Just take a gander at this Google page.
I am writing here because this has to be documented. I know there are a lot of other blogs that are, and have been, doing this much better and I read them everyday. I just feel like I need this place to get out even those things that I feel are more intimate, more personal for Facebook. And the beauty part of this is that only a few people who know me in real life ever come here and mostly its people that wouldn't know me if I passed them on the street. I like that.
It's also narcisstic I think too...but we all have a 'dark side'....ying and yang and all that.

quote

The precise, numerical answer to the question "How stupid do you have to be to belong to a Party where Newt is 'The Brain Guy'?" remains unknown. - Driftglass

must reads

Wake up America. You are under attack. Stop kidding yourself. We are at war. In fact, we have been fighting this Civil War for a generation, since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981. Recently Buffett renewed the battle cry: The “rich class” is winning this war. Except most Americans still don’t realize they’re losing, don’t see the prize at stake.

read it here

Hell Yeah!

If Democrats can flip the State Senate, it will be big. Even gaining a seat or two will be big. The nation is watching. I think you’re gonna find, when all this shit is over and done, I think you’re gonna find yourself one smilin’ motherfucker.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has enough signatures to recall one of the repubs.....and I hope he's correct.

read about it here

New Left Hipster?

I took this quiz.

This is my result.

You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservative hatriots must be exposed and mocked for every fanatical, puritanical, paranoid, fact-allergic, reality-challenged, obstructionist ideal for which they stand.

I don't know if that's good or not. If memory serves, it's not good to be a 'hipster'.....times like this I need my niece to tell me. I will say that on most questions I wanted an 'all of the above' option.

Otherwise, it is pretty much accurate. I don't tolerate stupid when it's me or others...especially others. (I live me and have to forgive my own stupidity)
I find it surreal that the only news shows I watch, other than Rachel Maddow, are on Comedy Central, another landmark on this road to hell we have been on for 30 years.

the wonders of the universe

It's that time again...since this has been a really weird week for me, I like that I can start up my computer and be comforted by the fact of our pale blue dot is a wonder. I love that universes and galaxies are still being formed out there and for the first time we can see it happening. How freaking cool is that?

So let's go see what's out there.....take it away Sir Redshirt......

favorite quotes and lyrics

My niece asked me to choose my favorite Green Day quote. I asked if she wanted quotes from the band members or lyrics. She said I was free to choose. I'm good with lyrics, but not actual quotes....but I just found one. I am listening to a preview of Awesome As Fuck here.  While listening, I'm looking through my favorite Green Day site and I found this one quote I like a lot.

"And for our fans, they're just crazy people anyway. I always look at people in a Green Day shirt, and I think, 'What's wrong with that person? What kind of hang-ups does that person have?' Obviously, it's not just the catchy songs, it goes deeper than that." - Billie Joe

I will be thinking on Green Day lyrics, but it got me thinking of all the other lyrics that I really like from other artists. That is my job today. That and calling Directv to change my programming. That is my Sunday without football and a brand new war. yay. 

If you want, you can list your own Green Day lyrics or any other lyrics that strike your fancy in the comments.

America or Amerika?

We are still the United States of America, right? We are still a representative democracy with the power to the people, right?
Wrong. All you have to do is look to Michigan. The new governor is well on his way to creating his own little state bought and paid for by your tax dollars and given to corporations.
I am posting this post in full .

The phrase "company town" is loosely applied to any locale dominated by a single employer. But real company towns – the kind built, managed, and subject to the paternalistic control of private enterprise – have been an important part of American economic history. From Gary, IN (U.S. Steel) to Pullman, IL (now part of Chicago) to Hershey, PA to Alcoa, TN to the hundreds of textile mill towns of the South and coal mining towns throughout Appalachia, municipalities founded without incorporation or elected government are more numerous than many Americans realize. To live in these places meant to depend entirely on the munificence of one's corporate nobleman for the services one usually gets from local government. It usually meant getting paid in company scrip usable that limited one's economic transactions to company-owned banks, stores, and so on. Some company towns, notably Hershey, PA, were considered relatively swell places to live. Most, as in the case of Appalachian coal company towns, were efficient means of brutal exploitation and debt peonage.
Michigan's widely reported 'Financial Martial Law' bill, soon to be signed into law by teabagging mannequin Rick Snyder, is portrayed by leftists as another salvo in the ongoing Republican war against teachers and public sector unions. I find that conclusion overly linear and too simplistic. This legislation – which allows the Governor to declare financial emergencies and appoint individuals or corporations to serve as city managers with the power to dissolve local elected councils and nullify employment contracts for public servants – is the first step in an effort to do away with municipal and local government altogether in favor of quite literally having private enterprises replacing government and contracting out its functions to the lowest bidder. How beautiful it will be: Wackenhut cops and local jails, Waste Management goons collecting trash, utilities sold off to Aqua America and Exelon, tax assessments mailed to homeowners from a financial services boiler room in Bangalore, and municipal employees of all types fired and replaced by temps from Manpower, Inc.
Gives a new and literal meaning to the phrase "company town," doesn't it? And the kicker is that the Governor is empowered to pay the new city managers any amount he sees fit before turning over total control so that they may further profit from a variety of harebrained privatization schemes.
This legislation speaks to the ideas that have kept right-wingers' hearts aflutter since the early Reagan years. It's not removing government from the private sector; it's replacing government with the private sector. For-profit education corporations running the schools. Private military/security outfits as cops. Subscription-only fire protection and ambulance service. City property auctioned off to developers (with zoning laws created ad hoc by unelected city managers; sure, you can bury nuclear waste here!) No pesky citizens, city councils, or local laws to get in the way. Corporate owner-governments that can charge you whatever they're bold enough to charge for services and utilities. And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Your government will be a board of directors in some office park in Arlington, VA.
What a beautiful vision. It's like watching the Koch brothers masturbate.

And you don't think your vote counts? Oh, it's just the midterms, there aren't any reasons to vote unless there is a presidential election......

That kind of thinking really pisses me off. If it was only you, the ones that don't do your civic duty, I would be fine with you being an idiot and not voting. But it isn't just you. Teabaggers want the fascist state they think President Obama is implementing. They think it's a great idea....and THEY VOTE! The people who didn't vote because it didn't seem important or the parties are the same or I'm going to show Obama!.....you did this. YOU. So get your ass in gear and volunteer or give money if you can....get involved. State and municipal elections matter more to your every day life than what happens in Congress.

The founding fathers created this government for the people, by the people. Guess what? YOU ARE THE PEOPLE!

...the world is spinning round and round, out of control.....again.....

One day us humans may figure out how to live with each other, but until then.....more war! not that I don't think Libya needed to be dealt with long before now, I do think it is the Arab League's business. They should be taking the lead, with the US only in a support role.

And since we now have a President who is not a 'cowboy' (god help us, we barely survived), I don't expect anyone in the Obama administration to do this. But just in case, since it seemed to be so well liked by the public the last time. Here is a BBC article telling us who the major players are in Libya. So, before you see the playing cards, you already know who they are....just consider this a little useful knowledge.