Category Archives: Real Estate

March 26, 2016 · 0:00

Note to David Brooks …

The  image of the New York Times as the bastion of liberalism is completely over-blown.  The paper has a mix of liberal and conservative columnists which is important to enable people to view two (or more) sides to an issue.  And while I will admit to rolling my eyes quite a bit and feeling queasy when I read some of the more rabid conservative columnists, it is good for me to do so intellectually.

Yesterday, columnist David Brooks bemoaned the fact that Donald Trump is destroying the wonderful world Ronald Reagan created:

This is a wonderful moment to be a conservative. For decades now the Republican Party has been groaning under the Reagan orthodoxy, which was right for the 1980s but has become increasingly obsolete. The Reagan worldview was based on the idea that a rising economic tide would lift all boats.  But that’s clearly no longer true.

We’ve gone from Rising Tide America to Coming Apart America. Technological change, globalization and social and family breakdown mean that the benefits of growth, to the extent there is growth, are not widely shared.

Republicans sort of recognize this reality, but they are still imprisoned in the Reaganite model. They ask Reaganite questions, propose Reaganite policies and have Reaganite instincts.

First of all, Reaganomics did not call for all boats to rise; it called for all yachts to rise and the rest of us to row through their wake with little or no paddle.  But Brooks goes on to say how wonderful it is that conservatives will be able to take part in the creation of a new, post-Trump GOP.

Reading this  was one of those time when I realized, yet again, that it is good that I don’t believe in violence.  When I realized that I can stop myself from vomiting if I really try.

When I realized that to this day, Republicans have no fucking clue about how much damage Ronald Reagan and his philosophy caused our country.

But just now, I read the most wonderful comment to David Brooks, courtesy of a post in the Daily Kos.  For those of you who don’t get The Times, or who (like me) read blog comments but not newspaper column comments, here it is for your enjoyment.  For your use.  So that the cinematic image this commenter used will be forever in your heart whenever you hear or see a Republican.

soxared040713

Crete, IL From Boston, MA 15 hours ago

Mr. Brooks, I don’t know where to begin. It would be impolite for me to tell you that you have lost your mind. Well, I’m willing to be impolite. I sincerely wish that I wasn’t limited to 1,500 characters. I’ve already wasted 227.

Ronald Reagan was evil; he took an axe to the foundation of the American democratic system “government is the problem”, a failure, then set about dividing the country by income and race and section. And smirked when while his clueless base looked the other way while his cronies hogged the government trough they so hated.

Mr. Brooks, please recall the unforgettable scene in Alien. Donald Trump, today, is the awful, bloody thing that forced itself out of the GOP’s breast. It uncoils from the corpse, snarls and snaps at everyone standing around in horror and scuttles off, leaving a clattering, putrid mess behind. The image is violent. After Reagan, H. W., Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, W. and Cheney (and now McConnell, Ryan and the departed Boehner), what on earth did you expect from the wreck?

And how do you get off writing “Trump is loveless. There is no room for reciprocity and love in his worldview.” ? No, there isn’t nor has there been any in the GOP’s since, oh, Richard Nixon (1968).

Mr. Brooks, there will be a post-Trump era because we’re still in the Reagan area. The merest child could see through your references to Thomas Kuhn’s “model.” The GOP’s a complete disaster. You were there at its creation and cheered it on. Happy today?

Yup.  The GOP is reaping what it has sown.  But why do the rest of us have to deal with it too?

Trump - Alien 2

Photo Credit:  Dailymail.co.uk

Bravo to soxared040713 for hitting the nail on the head.  Now, please hit the real thing for me.

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August 5, 2014 · 0:00

Self Protection for the Gun Control Crowd

My husband John believes that the whole reason that the NRA is bat-shit crazy about getting everybody guns is so that bit by bit, everybody will become afraid enough of their own shadows and/or that of their neighbors that they will have no choice but to buy their own gun to protect themselves from everybody else in the US who has one and is likely to come a-callin’.  And then, of course, the gun manufacturers would get even more blood money and pay more dues!  It’s a win-win for the NRA and the manufacturers!  The fact that the country will lose is just collateral damage.

John may be on to something.  Because just today I read that there are folks in the NRA who are advocating that non-eagle-eye folks have the right to guns, too.  Not only people who need corrective lenses, but folks who cannot see at all.  In a less politically correct time we might have called them “Blind Folks.”

Now, now, don’t get all worried.  According to Dom Raso, the guy in this video, since blind folks have such good hearing, they don’t need to see what they’re shooting at. 

So the logical conclusion is that they will not just randomly start firing their guns around like irresponsible folks.  (Not that there are any irresponsible gun owners out there, natch.)  That makes me feel much better.

Now I grant you, there is scientific evidence that blind folks can hear better than those with better vision.  Still, I’m really not at all comfortable with the idea that one of my neighbors who is vision impaired might have a gun.  Well, not if he can put bullets into it and fire it, anyway.

But this discussion led me to a brilliant idea.  Now I know how I will protect myself during the apocolypse and/or the rapture and/or when the guvment’s jackbooted thugs come to my house.

I’m gonna make a sign:

Beware of The Jumpy Blind Woman with The Gun 

 

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Filed under Adult Traumas, Conspicuous consumption, Criminal Activity, Disgustology, Elections, GOP, Gun control, Health and Medicine, Huh?, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Mental Health, Real Estate, Stupidity, Voting, Wild Beasts

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November 1, 2012 · 0:00

Please! Say it Ain’t So!

In the in-between time between sleep and being awake I thought I was hallucinating.  Dreaming.  Making shit up.

I had left the TV on in the next room so that I could hear just a little bit of a great MSNBC news show called The Last Word, hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell.

Now Laurence is an amazing guy, actually.  He worked for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (one of my all-time favorite Senators) and later for the Senate Finance Committee including during 1986 when they revamped the whole tax code.  He was a writer/creator/producer for that wonderful TV show, The West Wing.  He understands politics from the inside and from the outside.  Lawrence is brilliant and funny and quite often finds interesting quirks in the day’s news.

But what I thought I heard as I drifted between states of consciousness must have been a dream.  It couldn’t be true.  It just couldn’t be.  Then I promptly forgot it, which made me positive that it was just a dream.

Until just now when I bought my lunch and pulled up one of my favorite websites, CrooksandLiars.com to read while I ate.  And I realized that my dream had come true.

Shit.

Mitt Romney really did compare cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy to cleaning the field up after a high school football game.

[Lawrence:]  And to buff his own image as a disaster-relief specialist, Romney compared the Sandy relief effort to … his experience cleaning up the field after a high-school football game. Seriously.

[Mitt:]  I remember once we had a football field at my high school. The field was covered with rubbish and paper goods from people who’d had a big celebration there at the game. And there was a group of us there assigned to clean it up. And I thought, ‘how are we going to clean up all the mess on this football field?’ There were just a few of us. And the person responsible for organizing the effort said, ‘Just line up along the yard lines. You go between the goal line and the 10-yard line, and the next person between the 10 and 20, and just walk down and do your lane. And if everybody cleans their lanes, we’ll get it done.’ And so today, we’re cleaning one lane if you will.

You’ll have to click on the CrooksandLiars post above for the video.  I can’t embed.

Somewhere, deep down inside of me, I thought that perhaps I was wrong about Mitt being an oblivious heartless bastard who believes, along with Annie-poo, that he has suffered.  You remember how bad it was for him and Ann while in college and law/business school because he had to sell some of his stock portfolio and eat tuna while living in a basement apartment.  Perhaps I was missing something in his personality.  Perhaps he isn’t really such a dick.

But no.  I was wrong in being charitable to Mitt.  And (sadly if there is any chance at all of his being elected) I was right – he really is a dick.

Excuse me now.  I have to go find a brick wall to slam my head against.

 

Elections Matter — Please don’t let this guy get into the White House without a tour guide.

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Filed under Campaigning, Childhood Traumas, Conspicuous consumption, Criminal Activity, Elections, Global Warming, Humor, Hypocrisy, Politics, Real Estate, Sandy, Science, Stupidity, Voting

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October 30, 2012 · 0:00

Back in the Saddle

Hi everybody,

Just wanted to let you know that we were really lucky when Sandy came to visit.  She wasn’t too bitchy around my ‘hood.

Power was out for about 24 hours, but all those trees that were standing Monday morning around my house remain upright.

Thanks to everyone for your good wishes.  Let’s forward all our good thoughts and wishes on to the folks who are really dealing with some serious shit.  Because, as you know:

Blogger karma is awesome!

Good luck to anyone still hangin’ with Sandy, or cleaning up after such a rude guest.  Hope you are all safe.

And if you can, here is a link to the American Red Cross to donate to folks who are gonna need it, cause sometimes karma isn’t enough:

http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations

48 Comments

Filed under Bloggin' Buddies, Climate Change, Fashion, Global Warming, Health and Medicine, Humor, Neighbors, Real Estate, Sandy, Science

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October 28, 2012 · 0:00

I’ll Be Seeing You

I don’t know what you’re going to do for the next few days.  I mean without me.  Because I am pretty sure that you won’t be hearing from me for a bit.

Why?

Sandy, of course.

Damn — not THAT Sandy.  This one, The “Frankenstorm”:

The Weather Channel Hurricane Specialist Carl Parker says Sandy is expected to bring widespread damage over a wide area.
SHIT.

Some areas are prepared for nasty weather events.  Given that the Greater Washington DC  area closes down with snow flurries, well, it won’t be pretty here, even though other areas will likely get hit harder.

Still, I can safely say that:

  • I will be powerless for many days.
  • I will have no running water until the power comes back on sometime around Thanksgiving.
  • Trees will fall on my once wooded lot and I will have to remortgage to pay for the cleanup.  Then I will plant wheat.
  • I will be unable to flush the toilet for a very long time which is especially pleasant if you live with Crohn’s Disease.
  • I will be unable to shower for days.
  • We will not relocate to a hotel because it would upset our dog, Cooper, too much.  Cooper is very old and has been dying any day now for nearly three years.  He will bury John and I when we smell so bad that he mistakes us for dead animals.
  • I will not be pleasant to sit next to until sometime after the election when I promise to shower.

I can also safely say that I will be going completely out of my minds being unable to check polls, hear about what is happening in the run-up to the election and what stupid things Ann and Mitt Romney, and Pauly Ryan have said lately.

But you won’t have to suffer, unless you too are in Sandy’s way.  When you are looking for your bizarre little bits of what the crazies on the left are doing, here are two of my favorite locations:

http://www.dailykos.com/

http://crooksandliars.com/

Meanwhile, until the storm starts, I will be at the grocery store.  Handing out copies of this picture:

You gonna vote for a guy with even less heart than Bush???

 *     *     *

To all my friends who are also in Sandy’s way, good luck with the storm.  Remember, that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  And of course, by “stronger” I mean more fragrant.

To all of you who are not impacted by Sandy, please go to our websites frequently so that we will feel the love later, when we have electricity and want to know that our bloggin’ buddies have been by to help keep our stats up.

And Sandy of Sandylikeabeach?  I expect you here by Friday with a chain saw!

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Filed under Bloggin' Buddies, Campaigning, Climate Change, Criminal Activity, Family, Global Warming, Humor, Hypocrisy, Music, Real Estate, Voting

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