In her teens and twenties, my mom was a singer. She had a lovely, haunting voice and great style. By the time I came along and was growing up, Mom mostly sang while she did chores. She always seemed to have her hands in the sink with a load of dirty dishes from our good Irish Catholic family of five.
Mom was a Connelly and her mother a Kennedy. Yes, we’re related. But then, Ireland is a small island; everyone is really related to everyone else.
So on St. Paddy’s day, here is the closest thing I could find to my mother singing her very favorite song.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day up there, Mom. I hope your Irish eyes are smiling and dancing up there with Dad.
I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I am slow. So it has been many weeks since Ramblings and Rumblings’ Speaker7 “tagged” me, during which time several other folks she tagged answered her questions. Now that no one is paying attention any more, and all the funny answers have been, well, answered, I’m going to play. Don’t hate me just because everyone else has gone home.
First off, I need to tell you about Speaker7 who is right more often than my husband (he is always right — my advice? Don’t marry a lawyer.) She understands politics, politicians and turds. What more does anyone really need to understand? Thanks for including me on your list, Speaker7.
Upon realizing that he had traded in a career doing something cool to staring with the Kardashians in wasted TV airspace, Bruce Jenner’s face cracked wide open. This crack was large enough for what remained of his brain to escape and take up residence in a less compromised skull: Matt Lauer’s.
3.) Please explain what a Kim Kardashian is and why anyone would know what a Kim Kardashian is?
A severe lack of talented writers in Hollywood led to the current crop of celebrities who have even less talent than the writers writing about them. The antidote is to hire us, clever bloggers who understand comedy, real life, and how nobody with a lick of sense gives a shit about reality TV.
4.) How doomed are we?
Not at all. Because we survived and there is a T-Shirt to prove it. All we need is $9.95 and we are invincible.
5.) Is Ryan Seacrest a robot or is he something less artificial?
A robot.
6.) Why isn’t Rush Limbaugh kicked in the nuts daily?
Because he is a coward and has no nuts. No vagina either. He is an alien. A zombie. A plague on humanity. A soon to be four-times divorced roll [sic] model with a drug problem and vanishing sponsors.
7.) Which religion is correct?
Mine. And I’ll kill you to prove it. Or maybe I’ll just revoke all your rights. And mess around in your girlie/boyie parts.
8.) Can you think of someone who is worse than the current slate of Republican presidential candidates?
Sarah Palin would be even worse. Funnier, but way worse.
9.) Why do people enjoy the book Twilight?
People who did not grow up on Dark Shadows enjoy Twilight. They enjoy seeing the movie because they want to see Cedric Diggory come back to life so Voldemort will lose. Oh, yeah, he does.
Why, oh why, do they keep making such stupid movies? And why does Nick Cage keep doing stupid shit? I know he needs money, but perhaps we can pay him to stop.
My questions:
It’s been a busy week. You have 155 blogs to read and comment on tonight. Do you:
Read the new ones first
Read the old ones first
Pick out your favs
Delete them all and hope you do a better job next week
Beatles or the Stones?
Favorite vacation ever.
When you hit the “Like” button on a blog post, which posts does Word Press say are your ‘great posts worth seeing? Do you agree that those are your best?
All-time favorite commercial
Favorite stupid comment about contraceptives
Things you’d rather do than watch college basketball.
Most embarrassing experience
THE word you simply cannot spell correctly and why we should change to your version.
Your special punishment for the lame-ass individual who came up with “REALITY TV.”
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
Now, I’m not going to tag anyone, but I am going to list some folks here for you all to check out if you don’t already know them. These are mostly old blogging buddies. I’ll do another list of newer ones, too.
I’m a white woman of Irish descent, and so I am pretty sure that I can explain exactly why President Obama, and really, all African-American men and women, would do just about anything to return to the way life was before the Civil War. Life was so much better way back then, don’t cha think? Especially for people of color.
Shopping!
You gotta love Sarah Palin. You gotta pay attention to the former candidate for Vice President of the United States. Well, you gotta do something with her. Slapping would work for me.
You see, she couldn’t keep quiet knowing that the new movie GAME CHANGE might just imply that she was, well, not the brightest star in the GOP firmament. She couldn’t rest thinking that some people who once thought that she really did have a brain might see this movie and change their minds. Instead, she made sure that nobody will mistake her for someone who should be allowed out without a muzzle.
I’ve got to say, though, she is so dog-gone creative in her criticism of the President. You betcha!
[Sorry – this is an Obama fundraising ad – I’m not pushing you to give. But the full video, surprise, surprise, seems to have been taken off of Fox News.]
Now, Poor Sarah has contended that this video was edited to quote her out of context. So, here, you be the judge. The stuff between the italics is what was edited out.
He is bringing us back to days, you can hearken back to days before the Civil War, [when unfortunately too many Americans mistakenly believed that not all men were created equal. And it was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes we are equal, and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of your skin, you have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace God-given opportunities to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand the gravity of that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America.]What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards?[instead of moving forward with that understanding that as our charters of liberty spell out for us, we are all created equally?]
Huh?
For my international readers, pre-Civil War America was not a nice place for blacks. Trust me on that one.
But you know, only Sarah Palin would say out loud, and in front of a television camera, that a black man would want to go back to the days of slavery, of being sold away from your family, of being whipped to death for the smallest reason, or for no reason at all. Only Freedom lovin’ Sarah Palin could even think that. Yup, those were the days. Who wouldn’t want to go back? Those dresses were amazing. And the lifestyle? Well, it was to die for” You betcha, especially if you were a slave.
Apparently, it was very hot that day.
In fact, I bet Barack is irritated as hell that there is no “Way Back Machine.” Because, although Sarah didn’t say it, I bet President Obama might also like to go back in time to the fifties, where being the biracial son of a white woman and a black man was the height of cool. I bet he’d love those fire hoses — so refreshing on a hot summer’s eve.
And the dogs that sometimes greeted blacks like this one in Birmingham.
Hey, aren't you Rin Tin Tin?
Hey, the President is a dog lover — maybe he could bring Bo with him!
Look! They already know how to play!
Perhaps we can even throw in a visit to South Africa, say, sometime between 1948 and 1994, you know, during Apartheid! He could hang with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island! Who hooo – wouldn’t that be a time.
Nelson Mandela in prison on Robben Island in 1966
Me, I’d like to use the Way Back Machine to find a time when I’d never heard of Sarah Palin.
* * *
There is really nothing funny about Sarah Palin. She is evil and dangerous. Oh, and stupid.
I just don’t get it. And I’m hoping someone can help me out here. You see, my parents left the Catholic Church when I was only 10. So there is a whole lot about religion that I just don’t get. (Yeah, it’s their fault.)
I got the basics. I don’t kill people or steal or do other bad things. I love my neighbor, but not too much. I’m involved with and engaged in my community, but just not in an organized religion sort of way. Lack of church membership doesn’t make me a bad person, although I realize that some people would argue with that. I can handle being on my own should “The Rapture” come to pass.
The thing is, a vocal minority of those folks are really getting all up in my face these days. They are bouncing up and down and crying “religious freedom” all day and night. And I don’t know about you, but I think the word “freedom” has been hijacked. Whenever someone tries to tell me that they are “protectingfreedom,” well, it’s more likely that he or she is trying to take away some of myfreedoms. And yours.
Yup. I’m getting the feeling that “Freedom” is becoming less and less free, right here at home. That noise is Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers rolling in their graves. You remember, those cool old guys who set up a government with a clear separation of Church and State? I’m pretty sure they’re ticked.
So here is my issue. My problem. My query. When God created man (and women), however that happened, He did it in His image right? Isn’t that what the bible says? I’m pretty sure that I got that part right.
These guys do look alike, don't they? But is beauty only skin deep? (Google Image)
Then here’s my question: Was that image complete? Whole hog? I mean, did that “image” include the brain? And if so, doesn’t that make using one’s brain “Godly” or “Godlike” or, at a minimum, “Good”? Doesn’t that mean that to NOT use one’s brain is ungodly? And shouldn’t we use our God-given brains to make things better for God’s creatures, including our fellow man?
You see why I’m confused. Maybe you are too.
I just can’t figure out why some folks apparently think that we were created in God’s image, but only on theoutside. On the inside, well, I guess we’re just created in someone else’s image. I guess the only interior options would be the fish in the seas or the animals on the land. That just doesn’t seem Kosher, now, does it?
Spencer Tracy's Father Flanagan doesn't look at all like Rick Santorum -- Google Image
If we were created in God’s image, inside and out, shouldn’t that mean that the wonders created by mankind are God’s work, too? Isn’t that, well, logical?
So I just don’t understand the folks who hate science, who disdain learning, and who seem to want to go back to times when the folks organizing religion weren’t exactly like Father Flanagan.
Because it seems to me that Rick Santorum, the Virginia Legislature and the GOP in general look and act a lot like these guys:
Fun Times with the Spanish Inquisition -- Google Image
Hey, hey, don’t leave women out! Those sluts.
Don't want to leave the little woman out of the Inquisition! (Google Image)
Because if these “religious freedom” folks have their way, “Freedom” will, in fact, be just another word for “nothin’ left to lose.”
Perhaps I should have taken more philosophy courses and fewer writing ones. Because I just don’t get it.
A couple of years ago, I was corresponding with a high school classmate of mine about a reunion. Hugh had left the east and was living in New Mexico.
“What I really miss is the green,” he said to me in an email. “I’m thirsty for it.”
Well, it was spring, and that evening I was walking my dog Cooper by the river. It was hazy, but very green and bluebells were blossoming. Thinking of my friend Hugh, I snapped a cell-phone picture and sent it off to him.
It was actually a nice picture, somewhere between a color and a black and white, because the light was diffused. I liked the picture, and made it my computer’s background photo. About two weeks later, while talking with a client, I realized that there was a bonus to this picture. There on the right, was Cooper. Pooping.
Today is Cooper’s 14th birthday. We didn’t think he would make it this long, as he has been in poor health for the last couple of years. He’s always made me laugh, usually at myself.
FiftyFourandAHalf 
