I'm Back from the Big Blue

Had a blast in New York City. Hey, if you haven't been there, you should know that it's a VERY big place. Lots of people. Huge buildings. The city goes on and on and on and on...

A few amusing points to note:
--I was watching a newscast on WCBS and Roz Abrams asked her co-anchor who was going to be on Letterman. He said Tim Robbins. "Oh great...he's one of my favorites!" she gushed. If I didn't know before, I knew then "buddy, you ain't in Texas anymore..."
--Sitting in a Greenwich Village Thai restaurant and having Hillary Swank walk by with her dog. --Having a subway faux pas wherein we had to go all the way to Harlem to get downtown from Midtown.
--Seeing summer-attired (think skimpily-clothed) women walking by Orthodox Jewish men.
--Hearing Robert F. Kennedy call George W. Bush a son-of-a-bitch.
What? You didn't hear about this? It was outstanding. I was at a convention and Kennedy was a keynoter. He'd been asked there to speak on his passion: the environment.
I can tell you this...he had no prompter, no notes, no nothing. He spoke from his heart for probably 40 minutes. And he got himself quite worked up over the environmental protection rollbacks/corporate polluter giveaways that GW Bush has been responsible for. He was talking about one of his favorite activities: taking his kids fishing. Unfortunately, every year when he gets his license, New York state gives him an inch-thick booklet detailing all the rivers and lakes, and fish that he shouldn't eat because of how much mercury and other chemcals there are in the water. Just after he referenced the polluted waters, the sonofabitch comment slipped out.
Since I figured there would be those who told the organization they were offended, when I saw the chairman of the organization, I told him that I appreciated Mr. Kennedy's speech. He told me that Kennedy had called from his car after he left and apologized. The chairman told him there was no need for an apology.
To those of you offended by such talk, please accept my apoligies.
On second thought, never mind. I apologize for nothing. Besides Bush being responsible for everything that Kennedy pointed out, he started that unnecessary war, within which tens of thousands have died. I understand he's our president, but there's no getting around it: he's everything Kennedy called him. And honestly folks, far worse.

Off to the Chief Blue State

I'm going to New York City tomorrow, and will be there for the rest of the week. Ah, New Yawk. It's the chief Blue State. The land of Hillary. The office of Bill. The trip is a combination work and vacation. The family is going along and I really look forward to it.

Sorry I've been so inconsistent recently. My grandmother died and I went out to West Texas to bid her goodbye. My Pennsylvania sister was there, and it was nice to see her, as well as the other relatives.

My family has PHDs and farmers, professionals and ranchers, gamblers and evangelist assistants. I tend to think of us as a standard American family, a la Texas. But surely your family tree doesn't grow as twisted as ours. Or does it?

I can trace a lot of those people right back to the day they were born, as many can me. Seeing them is yet another one of those ways you measure yourself in life. What have they done with themselves? What have you done with yourself? It was a bit like a high school reunion, but it didn't for me have the loaded interpersonal intrigue that those do. I'm sure the funeral held that for some, but for me it was a very pleasant experience.

It was good to hear what was said about my ancient grandma. She was a significant person in west Texas. She was a no-nonsense mover and shaker, in a common-person fashion. But this isn't a piece about her. I'll do that later. This is just a promise for more thoughts headed your way. That gives you plenty of incentive to come back...or perhaps to stay away!

See you next week.

Republican Target has a picture on it: Howard Dean

The current "let's laugh Dean out of office" campaign by Republicans is cynical beyond what one would expect, even from them.

In case you've been living in a cave the last few months, Howard Dean now runs the Democratic National Committee. He's not minced words when citing his distaste for the direction Republicans have guided ( and I use that term loosely) this country in the last several years. Because of that, he has raised the hackles of Republicans.

Or is it that simple?

Fundraising: Despite flawed comparisons by right-wingers, Dean's raised more money than any predecessor. Regrettably, that's one of the position's primary functions.

Public Relations: The Republicans would have you believe he's a walking talking disaster. Common sense will tell you that walking, talking disasters don't outpace all predecessors in fund-raising.

Here's what's really happening: Dean's determination and willingness to speak the truth--even if the Republicans scream like stuck pigs--plus his not backing away from his words, is exactly what we need. If he continues, Republicans will begin to see what many of us already know: Dean is what Democrats need to overcome 8 years' worth of namby-pamby Presidential candidates.

The Republicans realize that Dean's got the policy wonk intelligence of Clinton, but also an unwavering confidence in his beliefs. That combination makes him extremely dangerous to Republicans. So what do they do? They do this.Vice President Cheney goes on the attack. While you'd expect an attack, you'd at least expect an attack which wasn't provably stupid. I mean just s-t-u-p-i-d.

Cheney: "I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell."

Besides the bizarre tactic of dragging Dean's mother into it, Dean was quite popular in Vermont, and his campaign attracted millions of Americans. And then there's the quote about Dean never having won anything. Perhaps it escaped Cheney's attention that Dean won five Gubenatorial races in Vermont. And then there's his winning of the chairmanship of the Democratic party, after his catastrophic defeat in the primaries. Most pundits thought his political career was dead and buried after that.

But then this idiotic statement about Dean follows: "That's not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party."

Perhaps he would prefer someone running the party like...say Tom DeLay. Ol' Tom's been the subject of three ethics investigations. He exploited the Terry Schiavo case for political gain. He's taken junket after junket after junket on the tab of companies who stood to profit from legislation before the house.

In fact, Cheney probably would prefer someone like Tom DeLay to run the Democratic party. If he were corrupt he'd be a much easier target.

But while Dean is clearly the target of the Republican slime machine, he's not an easy one. Here's what he said in Iowa:

"We need to be blunt and clear about the things we're going to fight for. I'm tired of lying down in front of the Republican machine. We need to stand up for what we believe in."

Now that's how we're going to beat the Republicans. Standing up for our beliefs, and not backing down when the fecal matter starts flying.

Your President Is a Lying Son of a Bitch

I apologize for that kind of talk, but Bush has earned it.

I am mad as hell. I'm spittin' mad. I'm beside myself. I'm so beside myself that I'm looking over at myself thinking, "man, you need to lose some weight." (I try to humor myself when I'm this angry.)

YOUR PRESIDENT IS A LIAR

How else can I put this? Here's the deal: When Bush ran for President in 2000, he said that he was concerned with Global Warming, but that it needed more study to determine if in fact existed. As the studies keep piling up, Bush continues to dance around actually admitting that the phenomenon is real, or that we should be doing anything about it.

But as much as that's reason to be angry, that's not what I'm mad about. No, your President has done something far more shameful than that. What your President did is to hire Philip Cooney to take Scientific reports and water them down. If they sounded conclusive about Global Warming, he made them far less conclusive. If the findings sounded dire, he made them sound less dire.

You're wondering what kind of a bought-n-paid-for scientist would threaten his credibility by such behavior? A scientist didn't. Philip Cooney was a lobbyist for the oil industry "once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases." This article goes into more detail about the shameful person who your President employed to alter scientific documents to change the tone. This allowed Bush to continue skating for several more years because the evidence wasn't conclusive. In fact, just this week in a press conference with Tony Blair, Bush called for more study.

What, pray tell, has he been doing over the last five years?

Allright...so it's one thing to be catty and deceptive and maybe even employ someone to water down scientific reports. But what, in the final analysis, is the upshot here? Bush is mortgaging your kids' future.

He's not interested in scientific reports which tell him what he doesn't want to hear (kind of like the intelligence reports which didn't suggest WMD).

This man is beyond shameful. He doesn't so much deserve impeachment as imprisonment.

And the liberal media: where are they in all this?

Political Potpourri

There's not a single theme here...so let me just rant a bit.

Last night I was blogging here and fortunately showed it to the wife before I hit publish. Basically I was going to post that you'll be surprised by this post: I don't have a lot of sympathy with the Gitmo prisoners who had to witness Koran abuse. I went into a rant about how a Koran--or a Bible--is just a book. That the value it has is contained within each of our hearts and brains and that the book was just that--a book.

Further I said I thought everyone was being waaay too sensitive about this whole Koran thing. I'm a believer in Americans' right to buy a flag, and if they choose, burn it. That the flag contains nothing--it's what it represents inside us all that has value.

About that time the wife walked up and informed me that it was the prisoners' Korans that were abused, not something the guards brought in. Boy did I feel dumb! Still do. Don't know how that fact escaped me, but there it is. So my sympathy returned from where it had been.

Shut up Joe Biden! I didn't think I'd ever say that, because I like ol' Joe. But a couple of times recently he's said a couple of things I really didn't like. For one thing, he's mentioned that despite all these massive misgivings against Bolton, he intends to vote for him.

Huh?

We're supposed to find the best man for the job. When you say you have tons of misgivings, you've not found the best man for the job. Could that be any more obvious?

Joe Biden: call Dr. Howard Dean. He can help you find your spine.

Speaking of Howard Dean, Joe Biden said that Dean doesn't speak for him, or a lot of Democrats. Well, I'll tell you Joe: Dean speaks for me. I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. When I see Republicans doing awful things to the country, I'm not going to say "I think we may be headed in the wrong direction." I'm going to say "Republicans are doing awful things to the country."

That's what Dean is doing. That being direct and forthright and to speak the truth is perceived as a mistake by you Mr. Biden is a damned shame. Because I think the only way that Democrats can stop being perceived as wimps and without a strong sense of self is for Democrats to stop being wimps and to establish a strong sense of self. This namby-pamby, meet-'m-3/4-of-the- way-towards-their-side tactics that Democrats have been using the last 2 and 1/2 decades has a very poor track record.

There. Rant done.