Easing the sting

So while I don't like making fun of people to make myself feel better (or at least I don't like that I LIKE making fun of people to make myself feel better) I thought this picture was a riot.  The think I like best is that it doesn't even make any effort to be clever, and the man clearly knows he's being photographed.  He's holding it up for the camera...and he doesn't realize we're all giggling at him....

Czars and Witches

OMG, I was furious this morning while I was driving in listening to squeaky little Marsha Blackburn, representative from Tennessee on this whole Czars thing.  If you haven't heard, they have introduced a bill with 100 co-sponsors to - oh I don't know - oversee the presidential appointments to a wide variety of staff positions.  They want to be able to "fully vet" people he wants to hire in his administration.  NOW you think of it?  After we let Brownie ruin a major US city?  WhatEVER.  The irony is unbelievable - Bush was fine to appoint his frat brother's illiterate junkie kid but now when every indication is that Obama wants to appoint QUALIFIED people to important federal positions, now we somehow need oversight. Talk about Congressional overreach.  This post about Obama's appointment to the Justice Department head of the Civil Rights Division made me hopping mad.

So I was wondering, how in the heck do these people - the "unhinged zealots" in the immortal words of Jason Linkins, manage to be so destructive when they are such a minority?  They are following up on the firing of Van Jones by saying that there should be congressional oversight of something like all of the president's staffing decisions.  It's so absurd!  And it chips away, chips away, chips away at Obama's ability to move forward with the country's agenda.  Which is just their goal.  Hmmph.  But how do they do it?  I think it's Fox News!  They have this enormous pulpit from which they can fling this nonsense and the Fox News viewers just eat it up.  And then, by the laws of the "Crank Cycle" it somehow gets picked up as reality and covered as news.

Anyway, so really I just wanted to say that Fox News is really bad for America.

And also, I wanted to point out that little Marsha totally reminded me of Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter!  What do you think?

Here's Marsha

Here's Dolores 

This is really bad news.

This is a very clear-headed analysis of the new Baucus plan.  RUN AWAY!!

New Periodic Award

I am reminded of Stephen Colbert and his periodic placing of people "on notice."  I love doing that!  I think I'll do that too.

But *today* I'd like to start a preiodic award that I will bestow when someone calls a spade a spade - when someone looks at the emperor and rightly concludes that he is, in fact, au naturel.  My award will be called the NEKKID.

Props today to Jason Linkins who wrote a great post on HuffPo calling out the crazies who opposed Obama's speech to America's school children today.  RIGHT ON, BROTHER!  Congratulations!  You are the first ever recipient of the Nekkid!

Why We Bother

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GoFj8Fc9iM

Hangin' with the mild-mannered, fresh-breathed, rainbow-colored, Jesus-lovin' crowd

Took some time at lunch today to go down to the rally to support health care at the Georgia capitol.

I was struck by how very nice the crowd was.  Perhaps this is why our crowd is smaller than the tea party crowd - we are really not all that angry about this issue.  We are passionate, I believe, but we aren't mad down to our core.  Honestly, I think we have all the moral high ground to be angry to our bones - it should make everyone mad as hell that innocent Americans are suffering and dying in the disgraceful lottery that passes for a health care "system" in this country.  We should all be trembling with rage at the injustice of it.  But even those of us passionate enough to make it down to the Capitol today were not angry.

A gal behind me tapped me and politely asked if I had any gum or breath mints.  She said she had had a flavorful lunch.

I noticed how very diverse we were.  This group was even more diverse than many pro-Obama events I attended which were much more likely to be majority African-American affairs.  This group was young, old, black, white, gay, straight, and everything in between.

We prayed a lot.  And there was a great sign, "50 million uninsured..[with a sad-face emoticon]...what would Jesus do?"  And I saw three priests in the crowd.  And the Pastor of First Iconium Baptist Church addressed the crowd with a great speech and brought greetings from the Reverend Joseph Lowery.

Larry Pelligrini, bless his heart, who served as the MC, was the most direct.  He said, and I paraphrase, "if you are a birther or a tea bagger or whatever you are out there, if you like the status quo, fine.  Be aware that probably you will have your small claims denied and when you have a large claim, you will be kicked out of your plan.  But if that's what you want, fine.  But please don't get in the way of those who have nothing."  Wow.  That was our tirade against the tea baggers.  Really, it was so sweet.

So. Wow.  I hardly know what to say.  Those of us who really have a right to be hopping mad - dare I say - mad enough to spit - so mad we can't see straight -  at a corrupt and unjust system are just amazingly reasonable.  This didn't feel much like storming the barricade.  I felt cozy and self-righteous, but I don't know if this is going to cut it.