Category Archives: Beating that Dead Horse

January 4, 2016 · 0:00

By Any Other Name

Sometimes,  as I fulfill my contractual duty to the WordPress community to write about all the news that is, well, news-y, I find myself unable to keep up with the fast pace of the current most blog-worthy items.

For example, today I wanted to write about the Bundy Boys while I sipped my coffee at breakfast.  I wanted to rant about bozos with bazookas, but alas, I had to go to work.  I could not rant.

You’ve heard about the Bundy Boys, haven’t you?  Ammon and Ryan (Ammon???? WTF?)  Two sons of Cliven Bundy have taken over federal land (a bird sanctuary, because we all know that those folks pack heat(ed hand and foot warmers) to protest what they claim is unfair guv’ment action.

Here is the low down from the Washington Post:

A group of armed anti-government activists remained encamped at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Sunday evening, vowing to occupy the outpost for years to protest the federal government’s treatment of a pair of local ranchers set to report to prison Monday.

The occupation of a portion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles southeast of Burns, Ore., began a day earlier, after a small group of men broke off from a much larger march and rally held on Saturday evening

The armed occupation is being led by Ammon Bundy, an Idaho rancher whose father, Cliven Bundy, led an armed standoff with federal agents in Nevada in 2014 and who has described his supporters as “militia men.”

Oregon birds 1

If you continue trying to send these convicted arsonists to jail, I will hold my breath until I turn blue.  Oh, yeah, I AM blue.  My bad.  (Google Image)

 

On the way to work, I formulated perfect sentences expressing my disdain for folks who claim to be patriots but who work against the government.  Petulant ammosexuals.  Boys with more guns than either brains or balls.  And if you’ve been paying attention, you might recall that I’m not big on guns.  Or dopes. Or armed-fucking-rebellion.

Well, today, the delay in my blog drafting reaped rewards.  Huge rewards.

Because at lunch time, because the interwebs are/is alive with ideas on just what to call the Bundy Boys.  As described in a Huffington Post article, folks are rising to the challenge of just exactly to what to call the boys.

Here are the current contenders:

#Y’All Qaeda

#VanillaISIS:

#YokelHaram

#al-Shabubba, and say the group is waging #YeeHawd

I thought we might help.  You see, originally I had planned to insert a poll RIGHT HERE to see which name y’all prefer, but in the newest new Word Press format, there appears no way to insert a poll.*

Oh and the two men who inspired this anti-guv’ment protest?  They were convicted of arson on Federal land and they served some time in prison.  Recently a federal judge determined that they had been improperly sentenced, and that there was additional time to be served.

But my favorite tweet?

Every successful revolution starts with takeover of closed visitor center with gift shop.

These two guys oppose the Bundy Boys, and turned themselves in today.  They didn’t condone the Bundy Boys take over of the bird sanctuary-with gift shop.

In fact, it seems that self-proclaimed “patriots” — “militia men” are fallin’ all over themselves to distance themselves from the Bundy Boys.

I can’t imagine why.  Can you?

***

* When the Bundy Boys are done with this here protest, I’m gonna call them up.  Then they can take over Word Press and we can call it:

#stop-all the damn changes-Word-Press-or-I’ll-shoot

***

This story just keeps on giving.  Just after I posted, I read this post, by I Tried Being Tasteful.

You really can’t make this shit up.

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January 1, 2016 · 0:00

Hillary’s Chicken

Yesterday, I braved the grocery store to come up with an edible antidote to 2015.

I found myself pacing the aisles of the local Giant Foods, and well, I heard voices.  Or a voice.

If I were a Republican, I would have assumed it was God.

Jesus Meme

But as it was, I realized I was talking to myself.  Chanting.  And naturally I listened.  I’m not crazy, you know.

The Voice, my voice, told me what to do.  What to get.  How to do it.  And I saw that it would be good.

You see, I remembered a long-ago gift from my niece that actually held the secret antidote to 2015.  Only I had forgotten about it.

Congressional Cookbook

The Congressional Club Cook Book, Copyright 1987, The Congressional Club, Washington, DC

Yup.  Who woulda thunk that an antidote would be in a cookbook!  But this one is special.  You see, it was published in 1987, when the folks in government still believed that the government has an important role in the country.  When the government is, essentially, how we all contribute to improving our society.  Educating our kids, making workplaces safer, the air and the water and the land cleaner.  Yeah, I know it was published at the end of the Reagan years, but that cancer hadn’t yet metastasized.

Here’s the antidote to 2015:

Hillary’s Chicken.

Hillalry's Chicken

Congressional Club Cook Book, 1987, at page 266

As you can see from years of cooking smears, this is a well-used recipe.  It is simple and delicious. And I’m going to make it for New Years’ Day — and often between now and November.

Because while this woman eats chicken.  She is NOT a chicken.

Hillary Clinton at Bengazi hearings -- LA Times Photo

Hillary Clinton, Testifying for 11 hours at the Bengazi show trial.  Photo Image, LA Times

And the GOP?  I see little evidence that the GOP clowns are anything but chicken, can you?

Air Force

Google Image

 

Happy New Year!

 

***

 

It’s a little hard to read the instructions from this picture —

Combine all sauce ingredients, mixing until well blended.  Wipe each piece of chicken dry and coat well with sauce.  Place chicken,skin side up, in shallow baking pan.Tuck edges under, forming a compact shape, about 1-1/2 inches thick.  Roast in preheated oven at 450 degrees, basting occasionally with pan drippings.  Bake until opaque nearly to center, about 14-18 minutes, depending on thickness.  Remove to warm plates.  Spoon pan juices over chicken and sprinkle with parsley.  Makes 4 servings.  May be frozen.

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December 20, 2015 · 0:00

Give Peace A Chance – Bomb Agrabah

It was one of the most embarrassing things about working at the World Health Organization for an American like me.  My knowledge of geography really wasn’t all that hot.

I was pretty good at Europe.  I knew that Italy is shaped like a boot, and Switzerland, where I was living, looked like a delicious croissant.  Russia and China?  No problem.  South Africa and Chile — those were easy — they’re at the bottom (and I had been to Chile, so I knew that it was south).

It didn’t help that several countries changed names at the precise moment when I was trying to find them on the map.  Yeah, I’m talking to you Burma/Myanmar. 

But I’m a pretty quick study.  My knowledge of geography grew daily as I had to figure out where the hell everybody was when they went away without me.  Today I can proudly say that I, an American citizen, am no longer geographically challenged.  I’m so good, I can even find Malawi on a map.

Malawi

It’s right there at 4:00.  Google Image.

So I will admit feeling a wee bit sanctimonious when I learned that the GOP wants to bomb every Arab city including Agrabah.  Because I know where it can be found.

GOP voters support bombing Agrabah!

Those stupid Republicans!  They don’t even know where Agrabah is!  They don’t remember their, umm, history.  I know that it’s the town from The Arabian Knights.  Agrabah, the city of magic is the stuff of fiction, and folk lore and Disney movies.

 

Agrabah is where Aladin and Jasmin lived.  The city they flew over on the magic carpet.  Oh and the Genie.  He was there too.

My bloggin’ buddy, Bruce Thiesen wrote an interesting piece about the GOP, that made me think that bombing Agrabah isn’t such a bad idea.

I figure, by focusing all our military efforts on Agrabah, we can rewrite Middle Eastern politics and history.

  • We can shoot fictitious people instead of real flesh and blood ones!
  • We can carpet bomb the hell out of a magic city instead of ones with bricks and mortar and things like hospitals and schools.
  • We can demonstrate to the world that we are willing to use the most terrible of weapons if anybody tries anything on us, but without hurting a fly.  Or a flying carpet.

Bombing the shit out of Agrabah will satisfy the blood lust of the Right Wing without hurting any real people.  The GOP will be happy, the Military-Industrial Complex will get their $$$$$ and nobody gets hurt (well, except the taxpayers). It’s a win-win-win.  Lots of wins.

This is how we give peace a chance.

I’m expecting the Nobel Peace Prize for this baby.

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December 5, 2015 · 0:00

The NY Times — Right on Target

On the front page of today’s New York Times is an editorial I could easily have written. If I could write that well.  If I worked for the NYTimes.  If I had millions of readers who’d nod and say “Right On!”

Silence on Guns - Eiko Ojala NYT

Image credit:  Eiko Ojala – for the New York Times, 12/4/15

Actually I’m mixing this image from an editorial published yesterday in the NY Times.  Because like me, the NY Times believes that we need sensible gun laws.  And so they, like me, keep beating that dead horse.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here’s today’s front page editorial reproduced in full:

End the Gun Epidemic in America

By DEC. 4, 2015

Half staff - Doug Mills - The NYTimes

Doug Mills for the New York Times


 All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It’s me again.

Yes I know that I keep beating this dead horse.  I know that we are all feeling hopeless.  But really, it is up to us.  And the remedy can be found in the ballot box.  Gun Control must be a make or break criteria for any vote we cast in 2016 and beyond.  Because the folks in office today are cowards.  They fear the retribution of citizens over gun control legislation.  So let’s show them that they work for us.  For the US.  Not just for the NRA.

Elections Matter.

 

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December 2, 2015 · 0:00

How To Get Gun Control Legislation Enacted

It was a Sunday night in, I think, 1982, and I arrived home from my late night walk with Goliath at the U.S. Capitol grounds.  We’d had a lovely walk, on the always safe grounds.

US Capitol

US Capitol at night. Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/intrepid00/14504378266

 

When I got home, my roommate Keily met me at the door.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, thinking she was weird.

“They just reported on the 10 O’Clock News that a bomb went off at the Capitol.”

“Oh!” I responded, and sat down to watch the news.

If I had heard or seen anything, I would have reported it. But in fact, there was nothing unusual about my walk that night.  Nothing at all.

Tuesday morning, I headed to the Rayburn House Office Building bright and early to attend a hearing.  I was stopped by the guard on my way in.  My briefcase and my purse were searched.

36 Hours Later.

Stupidly, I cracked a joke to a security guard who was suddenly actually guarding security.

“Now why did you have to say that?” he said. “Now I really have to look.”

As the days went on, more and more security was added.  No longer could I be at two places at once.  I (and half of the other twenty-somethings in DC) had long been leaving my briefcase in one hearing with a tape recorder running while my body attended a second one.  That became a thing of the past.

Within a very short time, security increased by leaps and bounds.  Metal detectors were installed; the life of a low-level lobbyist became more of a pain in the ass than it had been.

Our Congressional Representatives and our Senators were protected, though.  For a long time, I thought that was fine.

Until mass shootings became common.  And until those very same Congressmen and Senators refused to act to protect people in the US from the danger of random gunfire.  Until fealty to the National Rifle Association (the NRA) and keeping their jobs — became more important than the safety of regular people.  More important than protecting students in their schools, shoppers in their stores, workers in their offices.

So here’s my idea:

Let’s take down those metal detectors.  Stop paying for them to have security guards at every door.

The real world is a dangerous place.  And the folks who refuse to make it less so, should not hide behind shields the rest of us don’t have.

*     *     *

 I am not advocating violence against Congress or against anybody.  I oppose violence — and I am strongly in favor of sensible gun control laws.  But until the folks who make the laws — or in this case, DON’T make the laws — have the same concerns as the rest of us, well, nothing is going to happen.

And in fact, in the 1960s, Governor Ronald Reagan actually repealed open carry laws when Black Panthers led by Huey Newton made the legislators a wee bit nervous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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