WOW, Hillary....!!!

I choked on my fish... talk about unexpected and out there in your face liberal. Kudos.

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So WHY wasn't this the message the past months?

Things I learned on the Intertubes today....

From the trivial to the important.... and will begin with the trivial. Town names.... for instance. Yesterday, Rachel Maddow explained that the people of Newark DE do not pronounce it like their namesake in NJ. The stress is on the second syllable.

I could completely understand that, although I don't know what the historical reason for it is... because we have a BERlin in NH, but the stress on the first syllable came during WWII, and Lord whomever help the hapless who wanders in there and refers to BerLIN.

Middle trivia regards the clip from the Rachel Maddow show last night, which was broadcast live from a bar in NewARK, DE. I was listening attentively, and in the first third, there was a guy in a yellow sweater, next to a grey-fox older guy, and all of a sudden... the older guy's hand was on yellow sweater guy's shoulder, buddy style, and then it changed, and it was on the other side and on his pec.

It was nothing to set off world gaydar, but mine went into the red. Someone on her team must have caught what was up, and for the rest of the show, they got relegated to another place in the bar.

Maddow is, of course. GLBT friendly, but sending subliminal signals in the the middle of a political discourse certainly isn't of help in that context. There is a time and a place, youse guys.... They didn't get thrown out, but it wasn't helpful, am sure. (And gawwd, she is tall... a goddess..)

Now to the important part... I have sort of an 'instant editor'. As soon as I push the 'publish post' button, it immediately goes to the e-mail of my very dear friend and sometimes critic. And if I mess up, oh boy... am going to hear about at as soon as she's awake. (I ususally write when she is sleeping. Time difference...)

Soooooo... I usually avoid posting anything I think about women's rights. Sure, have done some posts on what I think about MEN deciding things about abortion... I AM a man after all, and have strong opinions on that, that WOMEN should decide what options they take, and will never back down on that opinion. Men should never have the right to decide or legislate what women must do . That would be the 'Murkin Taliban.

So yes, that is sort of sexist, but it would be worse to pretend to know what women think. They are sort of terra incognita to me. Obviously...

Today... the clip below from the Ed Show got me annoyed and fired up, so I went to a subject I usually do not touch. Women's rights. And touched on the spinster teachers I encountered in Grade School in the Fifties.

I HAD another example that was in my head, and happened elsewhere in the country only a few years ago, but I felt it was not my story to tell.

I do not go out and spread something told to me in confidence, if it is not my story to tell.

Well, my friend was hurt that I didn't mention her case. So here it is... she finally got a teaching job, and would go on in her mails about her rug-rats in kindergarten, and pretending to carp about how obnoxious they were, and how she had to spend her own money for supplies, but from the photos she sent, I could see how much she was enjoying it. She got fired because.... a)she wasn't married, and more important b) she didn't go to Baptist Church every week, and when one of the kids asked her if she were atheist, she said, 'Yes'.

Death knell, end of job, no alternatives in the entire region, Curtain... end of the play.

I repeat, she gave me permission to impart that, in that she was hurt that I did not.
Am sure getting fired hurt her far more than she ever let on.

It was their loss in that parrish. I knew she was very dedicated and had great plans for those kids.

'Write about what you KNOW.' The golden rule in every writing class I ever had. And I try to cling to that rule.

I CANNOT write about women's issues. I read about them in diverse places, but usually do not sound off on them. I can approach them obliquely, as I did today, relying on memories of the child I was, and the wonderment I felt about things that didn't seem 'fair' to me.

I think that what set me off today was that it was coupled with the fact they don't want gay and lesbians teaching their children either. It makes no sense to me. Part of my family entrusted their first two children to me every day, and they MUST have thought I might be gay, but I took care of them and walked on eggs, making sure they had everything they needed.

So it made me angry to be classed as 'unfit', and it must be the same for a woman who gets put in that category. It is like being relegated to third class degenerate status.

So--- in future, I will NOT butt into women's issues. They have strong voices, very strong ones... But I WILL go into them tangentially if they also concern me and 'my kind'.

Just so's ya know...

And my friend? Thank you for reading, sometimes setting my legs straight forward if I get things wrong, and your patience when I seem to be too 'light'. Love you.

Oh, Joe struck again....

Best ad so far: why you should vote Republican. It can leave you spitless.

Leave it to the Mormons....

Glenn Beck is certifiable. He belongs in a very quiet place where he can't harm anyone. And I despise Chris Wallace, aka 'chipmunk man' to my mind. I usually want to slap the smirk right off his face. Today he surprised me... with the question, 'Who made YOU the God sqad?' I nearly shit myself. Is Chris finding a spine??? You have to hear the drivel that followed.

Listen, I don't know how much Beck believes, or how much is show, he's despicable. And seems to be on a self-aggrandizing trip. And I am agnostic. I don't believe in anything. But this clip is mind-bending. I should have stuck with looking at the Daytime Emmys I caught on YouTube today. There was an amazing tribute to Dick Clark, and it was stellar with live acts. He broke down and cried. American Bandstand was a wonderful invention. I don't think Dick is doing all too well, health-wise, but he was part of my childhood. So yeah, that would have been better, getting all nostalgic.

This just ticked me off.

Oh WOW! And they used to call ME 'Flipper' at work when I got angry....

Congressman Anthony Weiner of NY (Queens) must be my sneakret half-brother with my Bio-Mom's bad genes. He's been on my radar for a while now in the news, tough, hard, but very likeable. The GOP blocked a bill to give health benefits to 9/11 first responders who are ill due to all the toxins they were subjected to, and he flipped out on the House floor. I wish he were my sneakret half-brother.... I really do. High drama. It's less than two minutes, but boy, I love that fire.

I remember things like this....

You'd meet someone on a Saturday night, fall 'in-love', only to run into him Sunday morning, out with the wife and kids, and of course he didn't recognise you... Same principle here, and Dan Savage is right.

link HERE.

The Sotomayor hearings....

I had never seen Senate hearings for a prospective Supreme Court judge televised before.

And am disgusted. Talk about grandstanding much?

For nearly eighty minutes, the oh-SO-important senators glorified themselves with ----oh how important and astute they are. It was disgusting.

Lindsey Graham wins best closeted man of the year, and bitch.

Just sayin'

Autotuned news # 6

Fun... Esp. Boehner.

The Ash Wednesday after (Ha) Tsunami Tuesday

Really, you just have to give a Pulitzer Prize to some so-called journalists who come up with something that assinine. Oh, I know they have done worse..... Why don't they have a sort of Raspberry award for the ones who dumb-down a world audience so that they might get a clue, huh?

Yes, you guessed correctly, I did my rounds on the blogosphere this morning, curious as to what the peeps 'decided'. The MSM is pushing the sHill as winner-in.... The link above tells us why the results might be something else altogether, although the tone is sort of cheerleading....

I have this very uncomfortable mental connection when I hear the term 'Ash Wednesday'. At first, it didn't mean much to me, and yes, was brought up in the RCC faith, but it was just the day you were forced to go to Church, and some creep dirtied up your forehead with a thumb-print.... probably from the cigarettes they smoked out of the ash-tray from the night before, after having had a hell of a time on Maundy Tuesday with a bunch of cabana boys, looking back at it now, but what do I know?

But when I was about seventeen or so, and a very verklemmt and inhibited young person, I read a novel, you see. (Nothing new, I read seven to ten books a week for over thirty years of my life, hey...) That one totally shocked me. The novel was in four (or five?) sections, and was extremely well-written. It was about a young man, who sells himself sexually. (There is a point to this, btw.) It was brilliantly written, not pornographic, but way out there for telling some truths absolutely no one ever wanted to hear.

It ends in New Orleans, on Ash Wednesday, and is so depressing. The I-narrator has been offered love the evening before and rejected it, and is in a world of pain. And that is what Ash Wednesday became to me. I knew I had 'feelings', and they frightened me to death. Almost... And that novel opened up a world I had no idea existed. It shook the foundation of the world as I knew it. I had felt like the most alone person on the face of this planet.

But that was in the Sixties, and in the whole book, just about every figure was a sort of a freak, someone you so NOT to want to emulate. And then the main character rejects the only person who seemed 'normal', and reached out. I believe I read it later, but it shook me then, as well. It left me with absolutely no hope, probably retarded my personal development by years. I so did NOT want to go there, not if there were people like that around.... Like most people, I just wanted to be loved..... What a crime.....

So why am I telling you all this? Easy. I look around me, as a person open to the world, and in the election race, looked for someone to believe in and who would give you hope. Someone who would give everyone a sense of anticipation, and participating, and being a part of a community. (Yeah, am so old I saw John Kennedy speak, and you wouldn't BELIEVE how he electrified the public.)

I wish I could be as enthusiastic as the diarist up in the link, but I am not. One needs leaders one can look UP to. Where did he suddenly get thirty MILLION dollars, huh? Something fishy there. And the sHill is suddenly short on funds? Uh-uh....

Tja. Ash Wednesday, hey. You were expecting Herring salad, maybe? (I have done it---out of lurrv... that and eel.... just don't get me started, ok?)

Oh yes, the novel. 'City of Night' by John Rechy. I later read he got a professorship in English, but didn't give up selling himself. And don't we all, in one way or the other.....