Digital technology has sped up the reaction time of everyone, and nowadays it's very common for something to happen in the world and almost instantaneously, reactions and comments pop up on Facebook.
Twenty years ago, none of this was even imagined, let alone remotely possible. And back in the day, when I was young, news came from either the newspaper, the radio or national televised news shows. We got our news basically twice a day, when the newspaper was thrown on the front porch, or when the evening news programs came on.
Today, we are immersed in news from the second we awake to when the nights go out at night. Instead of a couple of places to get news, we have many dozens. The internet has brought an astonishing, incomprehensible amount of information to our fingertips, pretty much for free, day and night. But so much of this information comes not from independent, credible news sources, but from thinly-disguised echo chambers of political entities for whom journalistic truth is the enemy, not an ideal to which to aspire.
In the vast, global, digital melting-pot that is Facebook, there is always something cooking. The media stew it serves up can be a smorgasbord of interesting, funny and enlightening photos and comments from my Facebook friends - whom I genuinely appreciate and enjoy reading - to a witches' brew of insanity, paranoia and batshit-craziness from the darkest gutters and cesspools of the American psyche.
Politically-inclined FB pages are public pages, and that opens up the floodgates for all the virulent strains of craziness that seem to be running rampant in this country. In particular, conservative trolls are ever-ready to inflict their narrow-minded, pointless slander and undisguised racism into any and all discussions, even if they are not even slightly political. No insult is too cheap, no snide remark too juvenile to make when it comes to denigrating our President.
Disclaimer: I have certainly put in my time as a liberal troll, and I spent a fun-filled two weeks after the elections last November carpet-bombing political pages and websites with all the eat-shit-and-die liberal gloating I could muster. I gleefully and mercilessly rubbed as many conservatives noses as I could into the messy bowel movement that was the Romney campaign, with completely predictable results. Heads exploded everywhere, and the bile and hatred I elicited was quite impressive. I felt that if I could raise conservative blood pressures to stroke-inducing levels and ruin as many of their days as possible, I was doing my job and life indeed was wonderful. It was almost too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel, but eventually it ran its course and I don't do it anymore. At least not as much.
The Sandy Hook elementary school shootings in mid-December brought a whole new array of crazy conservatives to the forefront, and these were the extra-paranoid, gun-nut variety. It really is something when you find out how many of our fellow citizens spend their lives gripped by an intense, irrational fear that someday, vast armies of criminals, armed to the tits with AK-47s, are going to march down every street in every town and city in this country and storm the doorway of their home in a enormous Armageddon-type apocalypse, and the only way they can hope to survive is to make sure everyone in their family, from little two-year-old Nutley to ninety-year old Grandma, has a couple of automatic rifles at their disposal to dispatch all these bloodthirsty felons to the lower depths of hell where they belong.
I was surprised to find out that a lot of people take seriously the notion that their individual liberty and freedom are in constant, grave peril, either from armed, highly-organized criminals or from our own government. Paranoia and conspiracy theories go hand-in-hand, and these people can see heinous, nefarious plots in every single thing that happens. Evil socialist Muslim Kenyans are behind everything, and they are well on their way to converting every Starbucks in this nation into Islamic indoctrination centers, and Walmart will start selling burkas any minute. Actually, it would really be a good idea if some of Walmart's customers wore burkas.
These pathetic, disturbed individuals have a doomsday scenario playing in an endless loop in their heads, that they will someday have to engage in mortal combat with a mysterious Fascist movement which will suddenly rise to power and all the U.S. military forces will fight blindly for the prophet Mohammed, despite nearly 250 years of Judeo-Christian culture and government influence. How little faith these people have in their fellow citizens, and in the form of government which has produced the wealthiest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen, and has gotten us through a bloody Civil War and two World Wars as well as numerous other skirmishes. To these hopeless paranoids, it's just a tiny step to go from an established, representative democracy to Sharia law.
The Republican party, along with their mangy, yappy little attack dog the NRA, is expert at cultivating and empowering such mindless paranoid fantasies, and there seems to be no limit to the number of gullible dupes and stooges out there who are ever-so-eager to swallow this claptrap. Personally I feel it's indicative of the extreme intellectual laziness that has taken hold in his country. Why make the effort to learn about the world and the things that are happening in our culture, when you can sit comfortably on your couch with your TV and a giant bag of Doritos, and let blowhards like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or the dimwitted hacks of Fox News fill your head with whatever garbage they choose, because somehow it sounds like they might be right, or at the very least their drivel seems to fit into your personal delusions and biases? They are the professionals when it comes to providing very simple-minded, ineffective, populist solutions to complex problems. Why bother thinking about stuff on your own when you can let someone else do the thinking for you?
There is a herd-mentality aspect in people that makes them want to be a part of something bigger, which seems counter to the famed American "independence of spirit." People want to align themselves with other like-minded people, because there is safety in numbers and comfort in shared attitudes. Going out on a limb and actually deconstructing problems in order to understand them is scary and way too much work, and many people just do not have the mental capacity, experience or inclination for critical analysis, thanks to our failing educational system. They instead opt for the demagogues who speak in terms that sound familiar, or at least non-threatening, and engender an us-and-them separation that puts their followers clearly on the "us" side, and anyone who doesn't agree with them or maybe challenges their long-established biases and prejudices are the "them" that they have to be afraid of.
What people don't understand they fear, and that's been true throughout history. Overcoming fear requires courage, fortitude and persistence. Sadly, sometimes it seems all too clear that people are not being enlightened by reason and understanding, but instead are turning their backs and marching into the darkness.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
My Excellent Lobbying Adventure
Last Wednesday I went to the AZ state capitol here in Phoenix to participate in the AZ Humane Lobby Day, sponsored by the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the US.
Despite living in Phoenix for nearly 20 years, it was my first trip to the state capitol, actually located only about 10 miles from where I live. It was an interesting, eye-opening experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There were about 120 people attending, representing 23 of the 30 state legislative districts. We met in the Old Senate chambers and discussed the three bills we were there to lobby. They are:
1) Animal Fighting as Racketeering - would classify any kind of animal fighting as a racketeering activity, opening the door to easier prosecution and stiffer penalties.
2) Prohibiting the Roadside Sale of animals - Already banned in Maricopa and Pinal counties, this law would prohibit animals being sold on the side of the road statewide
3) Prohibiting Live Animals being given away as prizes - this law would prohibit statewide the heinous, loathsome activity of giving away live baby bunnies and other animals as prizes at carnivals, events, etc. to idiots who have no clue or desire to care for them properly.
All 3 bills are working their way through committees, and we are hopeful they all will be passed through. Then of course they have to be voted on by both legislative bodies and signed by the Governor, and there are many ways the measures can be derailed and killed, but we are hopeful they will become law.
All us lobbyists were scheduled to meet with our three legislators, 2 representatives and 1 senator. Our two representatives were busy running all over the place doing other things, but we did meet with our state senator, Ms. Katie Hobbs, and she was extremely nice and supportive of our efforts and the causes we were advocating.
Needless to say, I took each and every opportunity to mention the plight of rabbits in the context of all three bills, especially the carnival prize one, because it's so easy just to focus on dogs and cats. While that is indeed worthy and necessary, I was not about to let bunnies get pushed into the background and given the short shrift.
There was a lot of legwork, running between the state House and Senate buildings, and a little bit of chaos as we tried valiantly to meet with our representatives, but in the end we met with one rep's staffer, and for the other one we only dropped off materials for them to review, but I believe we got our message to them.
While lobbying, I got a chance to visit the Arizona Capitol Museum in the Capitol building, with its graceful, colorful dome:
Also, there was a model of a very interesting design by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a new capitol area, created in the 1950's but never built:
I had a really good time at my first try at political lobbying, and I think I may have somewhat of a knack for it. I would love to do more and I'm sure I'll be participating in the next Humane Lobby Day. I will use each and every opportunity to bring awareness and raise consciousness of the treatment of rabbits in this state. I consider it an honor to raise my voice for those who can't speak.
Despite living in Phoenix for nearly 20 years, it was my first trip to the state capitol, actually located only about 10 miles from where I live. It was an interesting, eye-opening experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Arizona State Capitol building
(Click on the pictures to view them full size)
There were about 120 people attending, representing 23 of the 30 state legislative districts. We met in the Old Senate chambers and discussed the three bills we were there to lobby. They are:
1) Animal Fighting as Racketeering - would classify any kind of animal fighting as a racketeering activity, opening the door to easier prosecution and stiffer penalties.
2) Prohibiting the Roadside Sale of animals - Already banned in Maricopa and Pinal counties, this law would prohibit animals being sold on the side of the road statewide
3) Prohibiting Live Animals being given away as prizes - this law would prohibit statewide the heinous, loathsome activity of giving away live baby bunnies and other animals as prizes at carnivals, events, etc. to idiots who have no clue or desire to care for them properly.
All 3 bills are working their way through committees, and we are hopeful they all will be passed through. Then of course they have to be voted on by both legislative bodies and signed by the Governor, and there are many ways the measures can be derailed and killed, but we are hopeful they will become law.
Arizona House of Representatives, meeting in session
All us lobbyists were scheduled to meet with our three legislators, 2 representatives and 1 senator. Our two representatives were busy running all over the place doing other things, but we did meet with our state senator, Ms. Katie Hobbs, and she was extremely nice and supportive of our efforts and the causes we were advocating.
Needless to say, I took each and every opportunity to mention the plight of rabbits in the context of all three bills, especially the carnival prize one, because it's so easy just to focus on dogs and cats. While that is indeed worthy and necessary, I was not about to let bunnies get pushed into the background and given the short shrift.
There was a lot of legwork, running between the state House and Senate buildings, and a little bit of chaos as we tried valiantly to meet with our representatives, but in the end we met with one rep's staffer, and for the other one we only dropped off materials for them to review, but I believe we got our message to them.
While lobbying, I got a chance to visit the Arizona Capitol Museum in the Capitol building, with its graceful, colorful dome:
Also, there was a model of a very interesting design by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a new capitol area, created in the 1950's but never built:
I had a really good time at my first try at political lobbying, and I think I may have somewhat of a knack for it. I would love to do more and I'm sure I'll be participating in the next Humane Lobby Day. I will use each and every opportunity to bring awareness and raise consciousness of the treatment of rabbits in this state. I consider it an honor to raise my voice for those who can't speak.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Peaches at the Bridge
Last Monday I had to say goodbye to my beautiful Flemish Giant girl Peaches. She didn't want to go, and I didn't want her to leave me, but her body said it was time. Reluctantly, she crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge. I was holding her in my arms and am confident she knew I was there, helping her make the transition to the next world.
Peaches came into my life in 2005, after a hoarding situation in the Show Low area of Arizona sent a number of Flemish Giant rabbits to our shelter. She got her name from the bright orange-tan color of her fur. Flemish Giants, or "Flemmies" as they are affectionately called, are one of the largest breeds of rabbits. The purebred males can sometimes get to be 20 or 22 pounds in size, and can measure nearly three feet in length when stretched out. Peaches wasn't a purebred, but in her prime she tipped the scales at 15 pounds, a very respectable weight for a bunny. By the way, the internet stories you sometimes come across where someone claims to have a 50-lb. rabbit are most likely bogus. A rabbit's skeleton and physiology could not support that kind of weight, and the rabbit would be unable to move around.
I didn't adopt Peaches right away. For a while she was up for adoption, along with the other Flemmies she came with. Flemish Giants are very popular rabbits, due to their large size and sweet, loving, gentle personalities. We don't get them very often at the shelter and when we do, they usually get adopted quickly. I was fostering Peaches for a while and took notice of her sweet disposition and excellent litterbox habits, a winning combination in the eyes of any prospective bunny adopter.
It wasn't long before a woman came forward to adopt Peaches, and Peaches went to live in her new home. Not long thereafter, the woman contacted me and reported that Peaches is acting very strangely - urinating all over the place except her litter box, hiding behind a stairwell whenever she was let out of her pen for playtime, and generally behaving badly. The woman had a male roommate and Peaches loved him, but she would have nothing to do with the woman who adopted her. I tried to give her advice on how to counteract Peaches' recalcitrant behavior, and even went over to the woman's house to work with them, but Peaches just dug in her bunny heels and would not change her antisocial behavior for anything. Eventually the woman could not deal with the constant urination and reluctantly returned Peaches to the rescue. I went to her home, picked up Peaches and brought her back to foster care in my house. The minute Peaches got to my house, the bad behavior vanished, her perfect litter box habits returned, and I realized that Peaches was finally back to where she really wanted to be. I officially adopted her soon after, and she had not left my care since.
Peaches loved to go out in the back yard for playtime when the weather permitted. I have memories of her joyfully bounding across the back yard, kicking up her heels and leaping into the air in what bunny people call the Rabbit Dance of Joy, otherwise known as a "binky." She would launch her 15-pound bulk straight up and catch some really good air, kicking up a cloud of dust as she did. Once she was outside, she never wanted to go back inside the house, and not even the darkening skies of evening would change her mind. She quickly learned that if she hid under some shrubbery in the yard, it was hard for me to force her back inside. In particular, a large bougainvillea bush next to the cement block wall was her favorite hangout, because she could observe the whole yard without being seen, and the hundreds of sharp thorns would make it a difficult and painful proposition for me to drag her out of her very comfortable spot to go back indoors.
In the 8 years I had her, Peaches was never anything other than extremely sweet, docile and affectionate. Her health was really good throughout her life, although once she had a case of urine sludge that was very severe. Her urine got really thick with excess calcium and minerals in her diet, and came out of her body with the consistency of toothpaste. She was very sick and at times her body was completely limp, but luckily I pulled her through that and made changes to her diet, and she was fine from then on. About 6 months ago she had trouble walking around, and was losing the use of her back legs. Eventually her back legs did go out on her and I had to move her from the exercise pen where she had lived her whole life to a cage lined with soft, fleece padding.
I could tell she got really depressed when this happened, because she had always been so active and vital. She was sad that she couldn't move on her own, and I helped as much as I could by keeping her clean, holding her over her water dish so she could drink and changing her position several times a day. She still loved to eat her vegetables and treats, and she would yank a treat out of your hand with as much gusto as she always did (ask my friend Julia). Last weekend things started to get really bad for her, and she began losing her appetite, a sure sign of her decline. By Monday morning, she was virtually paralyzed, her food left untouched. I knew the end was near for my dear girl.
I was able to spend a lot of time with her on Monday - holding her, brushing her beautiful fur, and letting her know I was nearby. Monday evening she started crying and moaning, and I knew the end was imminent. She did not want to go, and fought very hard to stay with me, even though I told her over and over it was okay if she needed to move on. Tears started to form in her eyes, and in mine, too. Eventually she realized it was time and when she surrendered her spirit, a palpable wave of relief crossed over her face. She relaxed a final time, and she was gone.
I am still dealing with the loss of my dear girl, and I don't think it's fully hit me yet. I keep walking by the bunny room expecting to see her there, her big, dark eyes sparkling under her long, long eyelashes and her huge ears pointed directly at me in anticipation of a treat I might have for her. I will think of her every time I'm sitting on the back patio, gazing out into the back yard at her favorite bougainvillea bush on the side, expecting to see her stretched out underneath it like Cleopatra on her barge.
When an animal touches your life and your heart as much as she had, she never really leaves you. One of the amazing things about having animals in your life is that they change you. They bring such goodness of spirit into your life, that you can't help but be a different (read: better) person from the experience. I've always maintained that animals make us better human beings, and show us by example how to live our lives. Animals can teach us so much, if we only open our hearts and minds to them, and I know my life was made immeasurably richer by the presence of a big, beautiful tan-colored Flemmie named Peaches.
----------------------------------
The day after Peaches passed, I got a call from the local humane society. They had received a young, injured bunny and needed to know if our shelter could take it from them. Of course I immediately went down there to pick the bunny up.
I was not quite prepared to find a tiny, incredibly soft ball of the purest, whitest fur imaginable, barely weighing a pound and probably no more than 5 weeks of age, with an eye injury. The doctors there said the eye itself was intact, just the conjunctive tissues surrounding it were damaged. Her thin, fragile body was covered with numerous scabs, indicating that her life had been a difficult one so far. That was bad enough, but unfortunately I came to realize that the poor little soul had suffered some critical internal trauma, because she was passing blood out her anus. I gave her as much supportive care as I could, but knew that only time would tell if she was going to survive her injuries. I keep telling myself that having hope in situations like this is important for both me and the bunny being treated.
The next morning she was even more listless and lethargic, refusing food and water, and I became increasingly pessimistic about her chances. Sadly her injuries overwhelmed her and she passed away quietly in the afternoon, less than 24 hours after I brought her to my home.
She was not going to die alone and unnamed, an anonymous victim of the ignorance and cruelty for which the human race is so infamous. Droplet was a tiny, sweet angel who deserved so much better than the extremely short, brutal, pain-filled life she had to endure. I like to think that for the last day of her life, Droplet knew she was safe and maybe for the first time, experienced the caring touch of a human who held her close and whispered into her ear that she was loved, she was valued, and her life indeed meant something.
Peaches came into my life in 2005, after a hoarding situation in the Show Low area of Arizona sent a number of Flemish Giant rabbits to our shelter. She got her name from the bright orange-tan color of her fur. Flemish Giants, or "Flemmies" as they are affectionately called, are one of the largest breeds of rabbits. The purebred males can sometimes get to be 20 or 22 pounds in size, and can measure nearly three feet in length when stretched out. Peaches wasn't a purebred, but in her prime she tipped the scales at 15 pounds, a very respectable weight for a bunny. By the way, the internet stories you sometimes come across where someone claims to have a 50-lb. rabbit are most likely bogus. A rabbit's skeleton and physiology could not support that kind of weight, and the rabbit would be unable to move around.
Peaches in 2005
I didn't adopt Peaches right away. For a while she was up for adoption, along with the other Flemmies she came with. Flemish Giants are very popular rabbits, due to their large size and sweet, loving, gentle personalities. We don't get them very often at the shelter and when we do, they usually get adopted quickly. I was fostering Peaches for a while and took notice of her sweet disposition and excellent litterbox habits, a winning combination in the eyes of any prospective bunny adopter.
It wasn't long before a woman came forward to adopt Peaches, and Peaches went to live in her new home. Not long thereafter, the woman contacted me and reported that Peaches is acting very strangely - urinating all over the place except her litter box, hiding behind a stairwell whenever she was let out of her pen for playtime, and generally behaving badly. The woman had a male roommate and Peaches loved him, but she would have nothing to do with the woman who adopted her. I tried to give her advice on how to counteract Peaches' recalcitrant behavior, and even went over to the woman's house to work with them, but Peaches just dug in her bunny heels and would not change her antisocial behavior for anything. Eventually the woman could not deal with the constant urination and reluctantly returned Peaches to the rescue. I went to her home, picked up Peaches and brought her back to foster care in my house. The minute Peaches got to my house, the bad behavior vanished, her perfect litter box habits returned, and I realized that Peaches was finally back to where she really wanted to be. I officially adopted her soon after, and she had not left my care since.
Peaches snuggling with mini-Rex Marty in 2011
Peaches loved to go out in the back yard for playtime when the weather permitted. I have memories of her joyfully bounding across the back yard, kicking up her heels and leaping into the air in what bunny people call the Rabbit Dance of Joy, otherwise known as a "binky." She would launch her 15-pound bulk straight up and catch some really good air, kicking up a cloud of dust as she did. Once she was outside, she never wanted to go back inside the house, and not even the darkening skies of evening would change her mind. She quickly learned that if she hid under some shrubbery in the yard, it was hard for me to force her back inside. In particular, a large bougainvillea bush next to the cement block wall was her favorite hangout, because she could observe the whole yard without being seen, and the hundreds of sharp thorns would make it a difficult and painful proposition for me to drag her out of her very comfortable spot to go back indoors.
In the 8 years I had her, Peaches was never anything other than extremely sweet, docile and affectionate. Her health was really good throughout her life, although once she had a case of urine sludge that was very severe. Her urine got really thick with excess calcium and minerals in her diet, and came out of her body with the consistency of toothpaste. She was very sick and at times her body was completely limp, but luckily I pulled her through that and made changes to her diet, and she was fine from then on. About 6 months ago she had trouble walking around, and was losing the use of her back legs. Eventually her back legs did go out on her and I had to move her from the exercise pen where she had lived her whole life to a cage lined with soft, fleece padding.
I could tell she got really depressed when this happened, because she had always been so active and vital. She was sad that she couldn't move on her own, and I helped as much as I could by keeping her clean, holding her over her water dish so she could drink and changing her position several times a day. She still loved to eat her vegetables and treats, and she would yank a treat out of your hand with as much gusto as she always did (ask my friend Julia). Last weekend things started to get really bad for her, and she began losing her appetite, a sure sign of her decline. By Monday morning, she was virtually paralyzed, her food left untouched. I knew the end was near for my dear girl.
I was able to spend a lot of time with her on Monday - holding her, brushing her beautiful fur, and letting her know I was nearby. Monday evening she started crying and moaning, and I knew the end was imminent. She did not want to go, and fought very hard to stay with me, even though I told her over and over it was okay if she needed to move on. Tears started to form in her eyes, and in mine, too. Eventually she realized it was time and when she surrendered her spirit, a palpable wave of relief crossed over her face. She relaxed a final time, and she was gone.
I am still dealing with the loss of my dear girl, and I don't think it's fully hit me yet. I keep walking by the bunny room expecting to see her there, her big, dark eyes sparkling under her long, long eyelashes and her huge ears pointed directly at me in anticipation of a treat I might have for her. I will think of her every time I'm sitting on the back patio, gazing out into the back yard at her favorite bougainvillea bush on the side, expecting to see her stretched out underneath it like Cleopatra on her barge.
When an animal touches your life and your heart as much as she had, she never really leaves you. One of the amazing things about having animals in your life is that they change you. They bring such goodness of spirit into your life, that you can't help but be a different (read: better) person from the experience. I've always maintained that animals make us better human beings, and show us by example how to live our lives. Animals can teach us so much, if we only open our hearts and minds to them, and I know my life was made immeasurably richer by the presence of a big, beautiful tan-colored Flemmie named Peaches.
----------------------------------
The day after Peaches passed, I got a call from the local humane society. They had received a young, injured bunny and needed to know if our shelter could take it from them. Of course I immediately went down there to pick the bunny up.
I was not quite prepared to find a tiny, incredibly soft ball of the purest, whitest fur imaginable, barely weighing a pound and probably no more than 5 weeks of age, with an eye injury. The doctors there said the eye itself was intact, just the conjunctive tissues surrounding it were damaged. Her thin, fragile body was covered with numerous scabs, indicating that her life had been a difficult one so far. That was bad enough, but unfortunately I came to realize that the poor little soul had suffered some critical internal trauma, because she was passing blood out her anus. I gave her as much supportive care as I could, but knew that only time would tell if she was going to survive her injuries. I keep telling myself that having hope in situations like this is important for both me and the bunny being treated.
The next morning she was even more listless and lethargic, refusing food and water, and I became increasingly pessimistic about her chances. Sadly her injuries overwhelmed her and she passed away quietly in the afternoon, less than 24 hours after I brought her to my home.
She was not going to die alone and unnamed, an anonymous victim of the ignorance and cruelty for which the human race is so infamous. Droplet was a tiny, sweet angel who deserved so much better than the extremely short, brutal, pain-filled life she had to endure. I like to think that for the last day of her life, Droplet knew she was safe and maybe for the first time, experienced the caring touch of a human who held her close and whispered into her ear that she was loved, she was valued, and her life indeed meant something.
Friday, January 11, 2013
I Am OZ, the Great and Powerful
There are some movies which are called "classic" and really deserve that title; one of them is the 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz." Starring Judy Garland in her timeless role as Dorothy Gale, the flick is an absolute feast for the eyes and the imagination of people of every age.
There is amazing stuff from start to finish. Initially the film is in black and white, and it shows the quintessentially American life of Dorothy and her Auntie Em and a couple of hangers-on living on an idyllic farm in Kansas. Then wealthy, elitist Bitch-From-Hell Ann Romney, I mean Elvira Gulch, shows up with an order from the sheriff to confiscate vicious hell-hound Toto. Dorothy finds herself having the Worst Day Ever, and just when she thinks things can't get any worse, a tornado blows in and really screws everything up. This is the part that used to completely terrify me as a child; I remember being unable to breathe, paralyzed in fear, watching the thrashing, writhing tornado funnel bearing down on the Kansas farm like some huge dinosaur marching across the flat Kansas plains under a black sky.
Dorothy is not amused when she finds herself locked out of the storm cellar and runs inside the house for shelter. She gets knocked on her butt by a flying window frame and hallucinates this extremely intricate dream about the whole farmhouse getting sucked up into the tornado vortex and transported to a place called Oz. Still in black-and-white, there is a neat cinematic trick after she crash-lands La Maison Gale on top of an innocent pedestrian who turns out to the Wicked Witch of the East: when Dorothy opens the door onto Oz the screen explodes into mind-blowing Technicolor, an effect which is considerably muted when you only have a black-and-white television.
After being flash-mobbed by weirdly-dressed midgets called the Munchkins and getting her marching orders - not to mention a fabulous pair of red-sequined Espadrilles - from Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, Dorothy starts out for the fabled Emerald City to find the all-powerful Wizard of Oz, who reportedly has an awesome GPS system and can get her back to her bland, boring, black-and-white life as a hopeless farm slave in Kansas. She picks up some friends along the way, all with their own issues, including another wicked witch with anger-management problems and a whole squadron of flying monkeys. If you think pigeons are messy, you should try to clean up after a bunch of airborne chimpanzees.
Eventually they do find themselves in the stunning art-deco audience hall of the Wizard of Oz, who proceeds to scare the bejeezus out of them with a lot of hollering and bellowing, and special-effects like blasts of flame and clouds of acrid smoke. Dorothy and her crew completely buy into the all-powerful-wizard scam, but not Toto, who pulls a back curtain open to show a dumpy old man working all the bells and whistles that make the Wizard so gawd-awful scary and Wizard-y. It turns out the Wizard relies a lot on reputation and overblown bluster and is not nearly as powerful as he would like you to believe.
What's the point of all this, you probably asked yourself three paragraphs ago? Anyone who reads Careless Whispers knows that "making a valid point" in any blog post is entirely optional and when it does happen, should be considered unexpected good fortune, like finding a $20 bill on the street. But oddly enough this post does have a point, which is we are seeing a variation of this Wizard story playing out in the raging gun control debate following the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
Playing the role of Dorothy we have the American public, thoroughly traumatized by gun violence, and seeking a way back to a world where 20 grade-school kids are not mowed down by a psycho with an assault weapon. Obama is the Good Witch of the North, pointing the way to a sensible, middle-road solution like banning those weapons and high-capacity ammo clips. Congress is there too, playing the role of the Munchkins, a role they play so very well - a bunch of annoying, helium-voiced douchebags that you just want to slap the crap out of.
The choice role of Wizard is played by the National Rifle Association, which for many years has relied on its reputation as the most powerful lobbying machine ever, and who uses gross intimidation, threats and blatant coercion to maintain its iron-clad stranglehold on members of Congress. The NRA would have us believe they are all-powerful and anyone who dares to speak up to them and challenge their authority will surely get slapped down and ground into dust like some disgusting bothersome insect. You mess with the Great and Powerful at your own risk, and punishment will be sure and swift: you will find yourself thrown out of office faster than you can say, "There's no place like home."
All the cross-dressing midgets in Congress tremble and cower in fear of the Wizard/NRA and consider it a privilege to grovel in the Wizard's presence and do whatever they're told. But the Wizard just might have finally met his match in the shock, anger and disgust that have swept the nation as it awakens to the horrific, awful things that gun violence causes in the life of this country. People are beginning to feel that this problem is getting progressively worse, and that the answer is not what the Wizard wants - which is more guns everywhere in the United States, especially in the schools themselves. The answer, which will by no means eliminate all gun violence, seems to be to take these automated weapons of mass killing and huge ammo clips and make them much more difficult to fall into the hands of the mentally deranged, while leaving responsible gun owners access to the firearms which make sense for level-headed people to own.
Bottom line is, what we have been doing up to this point when it comes to guns in this, the most heavily-armed nation in the world, is not working. The answer, in spite of the horrendous screaming and yelling of the Wizard, is not more guns for everyone. The public seems to be figuring out that the Wizard is all bluster and bombast, and there has never been a better opportunity to pull the curtain away from the Wizard, and see that his power is just an overblown illusion.
There is amazing stuff from start to finish. Initially the film is in black and white, and it shows the quintessentially American life of Dorothy and her Auntie Em and a couple of hangers-on living on an idyllic farm in Kansas. Then wealthy, elitist Bitch-From-Hell Ann Romney, I mean Elvira Gulch, shows up with an order from the sheriff to confiscate vicious hell-hound Toto. Dorothy finds herself having the Worst Day Ever, and just when she thinks things can't get any worse, a tornado blows in and really screws everything up. This is the part that used to completely terrify me as a child; I remember being unable to breathe, paralyzed in fear, watching the thrashing, writhing tornado funnel bearing down on the Kansas farm like some huge dinosaur marching across the flat Kansas plains under a black sky.
Dorothy is not amused when she finds herself locked out of the storm cellar and runs inside the house for shelter. She gets knocked on her butt by a flying window frame and hallucinates this extremely intricate dream about the whole farmhouse getting sucked up into the tornado vortex and transported to a place called Oz. Still in black-and-white, there is a neat cinematic trick after she crash-lands La Maison Gale on top of an innocent pedestrian who turns out to the Wicked Witch of the East: when Dorothy opens the door onto Oz the screen explodes into mind-blowing Technicolor, an effect which is considerably muted when you only have a black-and-white television.
After being flash-mobbed by weirdly-dressed midgets called the Munchkins and getting her marching orders - not to mention a fabulous pair of red-sequined Espadrilles - from Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, Dorothy starts out for the fabled Emerald City to find the all-powerful Wizard of Oz, who reportedly has an awesome GPS system and can get her back to her bland, boring, black-and-white life as a hopeless farm slave in Kansas. She picks up some friends along the way, all with their own issues, including another wicked witch with anger-management problems and a whole squadron of flying monkeys. If you think pigeons are messy, you should try to clean up after a bunch of airborne chimpanzees.
Eventually they do find themselves in the stunning art-deco audience hall of the Wizard of Oz, who proceeds to scare the bejeezus out of them with a lot of hollering and bellowing, and special-effects like blasts of flame and clouds of acrid smoke. Dorothy and her crew completely buy into the all-powerful-wizard scam, but not Toto, who pulls a back curtain open to show a dumpy old man working all the bells and whistles that make the Wizard so gawd-awful scary and Wizard-y. It turns out the Wizard relies a lot on reputation and overblown bluster and is not nearly as powerful as he would like you to believe.
What's the point of all this, you probably asked yourself three paragraphs ago? Anyone who reads Careless Whispers knows that "making a valid point" in any blog post is entirely optional and when it does happen, should be considered unexpected good fortune, like finding a $20 bill on the street. But oddly enough this post does have a point, which is we are seeing a variation of this Wizard story playing out in the raging gun control debate following the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
Playing the role of Dorothy we have the American public, thoroughly traumatized by gun violence, and seeking a way back to a world where 20 grade-school kids are not mowed down by a psycho with an assault weapon. Obama is the Good Witch of the North, pointing the way to a sensible, middle-road solution like banning those weapons and high-capacity ammo clips. Congress is there too, playing the role of the Munchkins, a role they play so very well - a bunch of annoying, helium-voiced douchebags that you just want to slap the crap out of.
The choice role of Wizard is played by the National Rifle Association, which for many years has relied on its reputation as the most powerful lobbying machine ever, and who uses gross intimidation, threats and blatant coercion to maintain its iron-clad stranglehold on members of Congress. The NRA would have us believe they are all-powerful and anyone who dares to speak up to them and challenge their authority will surely get slapped down and ground into dust like some disgusting bothersome insect. You mess with the Great and Powerful at your own risk, and punishment will be sure and swift: you will find yourself thrown out of office faster than you can say, "There's no place like home."
All the cross-dressing midgets in Congress tremble and cower in fear of the Wizard/NRA and consider it a privilege to grovel in the Wizard's presence and do whatever they're told. But the Wizard just might have finally met his match in the shock, anger and disgust that have swept the nation as it awakens to the horrific, awful things that gun violence causes in the life of this country. People are beginning to feel that this problem is getting progressively worse, and that the answer is not what the Wizard wants - which is more guns everywhere in the United States, especially in the schools themselves. The answer, which will by no means eliminate all gun violence, seems to be to take these automated weapons of mass killing and huge ammo clips and make them much more difficult to fall into the hands of the mentally deranged, while leaving responsible gun owners access to the firearms which make sense for level-headed people to own.
Bottom line is, what we have been doing up to this point when it comes to guns in this, the most heavily-armed nation in the world, is not working. The answer, in spite of the horrendous screaming and yelling of the Wizard, is not more guns for everyone. The public seems to be figuring out that the Wizard is all bluster and bombast, and there has never been a better opportunity to pull the curtain away from the Wizard, and see that his power is just an overblown illusion.
The Power of Nine
As far back as I can remember, my favorite number has always been the number 9. There's something about it that is so complete, self-contained and satisfying. The number nine always looks like it's smiling - you can't be in a bad mood when you're looking at a number nine.
1's were always so plain and uninteresting. 2's resembled a question mark and looked confused. 3's looked like they were running away from something. 4's seemed dour and humorless. 5's were always smiling, but more like the crazy people on the bus who talk to themselves and laugh at their own jokes. 6's looked apprehensive and fearful. 7's looked stern and unforgiving. 8's appeared smug and self-satisfied. But with 9's, the best was saved for last, and it was always a great way to end a counting lesson.
But wait, there's a lot more to nines. Nine is ten minus one-tenth of ten:
9 = 10 - (0.1 x 10) = 10 - 1 = 9
This little numeric twist gives nine all sorts of mathematical powers. For instance,
One ninth = 1 / 9 = 0.111111....
Two ninths = 2 / 9 = 0.222222...
Three ninths = 3 / 9 = 1 / 3 = 0.3333333....
Four ninths = 4 / 9 = 0.4444444....
and so on. Also, if you add the digits of multiples of 9, they will add up to nine. As in:
9 x 1 = 09 ... 0 + 9 = 9
9 x 2 = 18 ... 1 + 8 = 9
9 x 3 = 27 ... 2 + 7 = 9
9 x 4 = 36 ... 3 + 6 = 9
9 x 5 = 45 ... 4 + 5 = 9
From this point, the digits in the product reverse themselves:
9 x 6 = 54 ... 5 + 4 = 9
9 x 7 = 63 ... 6 + 3 = 9
9 x 8 = 72 ... 7 + 2 = 9
9 x 9 = 81 ... 8 + 1 = 9
9 x 10 = 90 ... 9 + 0 = 9
The cautious reader will note that the left digits count up from 0 to 9, while the right digits count down from 9 to 0.
Things even go further, if you skip the strange anomaly of eleven:
9 x 11 = 99 ... 9 + 9 = 18 (wtf?)
9 x 12 = 108 ... 1 + 0 + 8 = 9
9 x 13 = 117 ... 1 + 1 + 7 = 9
9 x 14 = 126 ... 1 + 2 + 6 = 9 ....
Eleven is kind of a mirror-image, bizarro-world version of nine. It's like the antimatter version of nine. All manner of ungodliness ensues when you divide by 11:
1 / 11 = 0.09090909...
2 / 11 = 0.18181818...
3 / 11 = 0.27272727...
4 / 11 = 0.36363636...
All the way up to:
10 / 11 = 0.90909090...
If that stuff doesn't give you a headache, nothing will.
Right after the start of the new year, another indication of how awesome nine is came to the rabbit rescue in a litter of NINE baby bunnies! Just feast your eyes on these pictures, and tell me nine is not an amazing, awesome number!
1's were always so plain and uninteresting. 2's resembled a question mark and looked confused. 3's looked like they were running away from something. 4's seemed dour and humorless. 5's were always smiling, but more like the crazy people on the bus who talk to themselves and laugh at their own jokes. 6's looked apprehensive and fearful. 7's looked stern and unforgiving. 8's appeared smug and self-satisfied. But with 9's, the best was saved for last, and it was always a great way to end a counting lesson.
But wait, there's a lot more to nines. Nine is ten minus one-tenth of ten:
9 = 10 - (0.1 x 10) = 10 - 1 = 9
This little numeric twist gives nine all sorts of mathematical powers. For instance,
One ninth = 1 / 9 = 0.111111....
Two ninths = 2 / 9 = 0.222222...
Three ninths = 3 / 9 = 1 / 3 = 0.3333333....
Four ninths = 4 / 9 = 0.4444444....
and so on. Also, if you add the digits of multiples of 9, they will add up to nine. As in:
9 x 1 = 09 ... 0 + 9 = 9
9 x 2 = 18 ... 1 + 8 = 9
9 x 3 = 27 ... 2 + 7 = 9
9 x 4 = 36 ... 3 + 6 = 9
9 x 5 = 45 ... 4 + 5 = 9
From this point, the digits in the product reverse themselves:
9 x 6 = 54 ... 5 + 4 = 9
9 x 7 = 63 ... 6 + 3 = 9
9 x 8 = 72 ... 7 + 2 = 9
9 x 9 = 81 ... 8 + 1 = 9
9 x 10 = 90 ... 9 + 0 = 9
The cautious reader will note that the left digits count up from 0 to 9, while the right digits count down from 9 to 0.
Things even go further, if you skip the strange anomaly of eleven:
9 x 11 = 99 ... 9 + 9 = 18 (wtf?)
9 x 12 = 108 ... 1 + 0 + 8 = 9
9 x 13 = 117 ... 1 + 1 + 7 = 9
9 x 14 = 126 ... 1 + 2 + 6 = 9 ....
Eleven is kind of a mirror-image, bizarro-world version of nine. It's like the antimatter version of nine. All manner of ungodliness ensues when you divide by 11:
1 / 11 = 0.09090909...
2 / 11 = 0.18181818...
3 / 11 = 0.27272727...
4 / 11 = 0.36363636...
All the way up to:
10 / 11 = 0.90909090...
If that stuff doesn't give you a headache, nothing will.
Right after the start of the new year, another indication of how awesome nine is came to the rabbit rescue in a litter of NINE baby bunnies! Just feast your eyes on these pictures, and tell me nine is not an amazing, awesome number!
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
2012 Year End Review: Part 2
Oh I'm not finished yet. 2012 offered an embarrassment of riches when it came to batshit-craziness. To wit:
Most Baffling Cultural Phenomenon: Gangnam Style. Not that I follow popular culture all that closely (yes I do), this "Gangnam Style" thing completley blindsided me. Apparently some South Korean rapper (and I can't quite wrap my head around THAT concept) named Psy came out with this song and accompanying spazzy dance moves which has swept the nation and the world too. I just read where the YouTube video of this has just passed one billion views. That by itself is astonishing and worthy of some kind of recognition, but everything boils down to the question of "Why this?" and not something else? The music is not that remarkable, and the pretend-pony-riding dance step doesn't seem all that inspired, either. In fact, "Gangnam Style" makes the Macarena look like the Bolshoi Ballet. So I'm left scratching my head wondering what the hell is going on. I'm sure this Psy person has had a field day being the center of the world's attention for more than his alloted 15 minutes, but now he's facing the unenviable, Herculean task of coming up with something new and better to surpass this big splash he just made (not likely), or getting thrown on the next bus to oblivion and never being heard from again. We will see if anyone remembers what Gangnam Style is in a month or two.
Most Hysterical Meltdown of 2012: Has to be Karl Rove's total schizophrenic breakdown on Faux News' election night coverage. Things started going south early on for the Mittster, as state after state went into the Obama column. But when the race in Ohio was called and thus the election, Karl Rove crapped his Depends undergarments right on camera and had some sort of grand-mal seizure that made him get all flustered and bug-eyed like a walrus getting a prostate exam. He looked like he was going to pop a sphincter blathering about two or three Republican votes not being counted in some hinterland Ohio county, even though several HUNDRED THOUSAND votes in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga county were still outstanding. But the piece de resistance was when some siliconed Fox newsskank toddled off backstage on her stripper heels and confronted the numbers geeks at the "decision desk" where the Ohio call was made. The math nerds were NOT HAVING any of this "Are you reeeeally sure?" whining, and bitch-slapped that newstrollop (and Karl Rove, by proxy) back to whatever passes for reality on Fox. In the end, Obama won, Karl Rove got banished (for a while) from spewing lies on Faux News, and I had a big ol' glass of chocolate wine. Now THAT was a good night!
The "You Want To Do WHAT?!" Award for 2012: Okay so, there's this dude, right? And he has this balloon thing with a space capsule attached to it and rides it up to over 120,000 feet, which is like 700 miles or something, I don't know. And he opens up the capsule and he's like, right on the edge of outer space! No kidding, it's like the Starship Enterprise could run his ass over if he's not careful. And it's like 500 degress below zero, too. So he starts to crawl out of his space capsule like he totally wants to jump out or something! I KNOW! This other camera shows him looking downward probably thinking either, "Yeah, I can do this, no sweat!" or "This is one of the most f**ked-up things I've ever tried." So he says YOLO and jumps out! On the way down there's no air resistance and he hits over 800 miles an hour, and my cousin told me that's like four times the speed of light. Dude starts to spin and twirl around until he finally remembers to press the SAVE MY ASS button and his parachute opens. Believe it or not he lands safely, but I don't care how many dry cleaners he goes to, he will never get the puke and nasty B.M.s out of that space suit.
Biggest Buzzkill of 2012: Climate change. People keep screwing up the climate and most are completely oblivious to what they are doing. This summer saw the biggest ever melting of Arctic ice, and that by itself has world-wide consequences, mainly in the disruption of long-established weather patterns and warmer-than-normal sea temperatures, which generate bigger, meaner and more destructive storms and hurricanes (hello, Hurricane Sandy). The shape of things to come? Yeah, most likely. Is anything going to be done about it? Not until it's too late.
Best Things of 2012: "The Walking Dead," chocolate wine, Greek yogurt, board game parties with friends, sushi, "Sons of Anarchy," vegetarianism, desert sunsets, more states approving same-sex marriage, clear dark moonless nights, and of course RABBITS!
Worst Things of 2012: Republicans, conservative trolls on Facebook, Fox News, the NRA, religion, terrorism, bigotry, hillbillies with guns, animal abuse, murdered children.
Proof That Some People Still Live in the Dark Ages in 2012: The astonishing, unrepentant and deliberate ignorance of some Republican legislators regarding rape. The very idea of "legitimate" rape, and the belief that a woman's body can "shut down" the pregnancy process after a rape clearly shows that they are beyond any kind of help or redemption. The fact that they are anywhere near a public office shows that their supporters are equally pathetic and worthless, and they deserve nothing but the highest contempt and most strident condemnation.
Extra Credit for Scientific Achievement in 2012: The landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover. Sheer joy, and an absolute, unmitigated triumph. The fact that they were receiving photographs from the surface of Mars within SECONDS of landing is completely mind-blowing.
Mr. "No I Can't Keep It In My Pants and Thank You for Noticing" for 2012: Gen. David Petraeus. Really? Are you that desperate? You just threw away your marriage, your career, your reputation and your legacy. I hope it was worth it, but I'm sure it wasn't.
Loathsome Disgusting Toilet Scum of 2012: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint, Orrin Hatch, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Allen West, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, that token Negro in the Republican primary debates, Sean Hannity or anyone on Fox News. Sadly, this looks like last year's list. Nothing changes.
Ultimate Obnoxious Blowhard of 2012: Donald Trump. Once again, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that a huge amount of money can't buy even the tiniest iota of class. He truly is a national embarrassment and a disgrace.
Best Reason To Remain Hopeful in 2013: Rachel Maddow said it best in a short promo-segment on MSNBC. She said that in the last election, we had an opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood, institutionalize bigotry by outlawing same-sex marriage, continue giving outlandish, obscene tax breaks to people who already have so much, privatize Social Security and Medicare, pack the Supreme Court with right-wing creeps for decades into the future, and listed a number of other horrible legal consequences of electing Romney president. She said we had the opportunity to do all that... AND WE SAID NO! That fact, that the American electorate finally said enough of the extremist conservative bullshit and decisively kicked the Republican party square in the crotch, means that there is still hope for our democratic form of government.
I'd like to think that 2013 will be better than 2012, but I'm starting to realize that these days, the best you can hope for is that 2013 won't be quite as awful.
Most Baffling Cultural Phenomenon: Gangnam Style. Not that I follow popular culture all that closely (yes I do), this "Gangnam Style" thing completley blindsided me. Apparently some South Korean rapper (and I can't quite wrap my head around THAT concept) named Psy came out with this song and accompanying spazzy dance moves which has swept the nation and the world too. I just read where the YouTube video of this has just passed one billion views. That by itself is astonishing and worthy of some kind of recognition, but everything boils down to the question of "Why this?" and not something else? The music is not that remarkable, and the pretend-pony-riding dance step doesn't seem all that inspired, either. In fact, "Gangnam Style" makes the Macarena look like the Bolshoi Ballet. So I'm left scratching my head wondering what the hell is going on. I'm sure this Psy person has had a field day being the center of the world's attention for more than his alloted 15 minutes, but now he's facing the unenviable, Herculean task of coming up with something new and better to surpass this big splash he just made (not likely), or getting thrown on the next bus to oblivion and never being heard from again. We will see if anyone remembers what Gangnam Style is in a month or two.
Most Hysterical Meltdown of 2012: Has to be Karl Rove's total schizophrenic breakdown on Faux News' election night coverage. Things started going south early on for the Mittster, as state after state went into the Obama column. But when the race in Ohio was called and thus the election, Karl Rove crapped his Depends undergarments right on camera and had some sort of grand-mal seizure that made him get all flustered and bug-eyed like a walrus getting a prostate exam. He looked like he was going to pop a sphincter blathering about two or three Republican votes not being counted in some hinterland Ohio county, even though several HUNDRED THOUSAND votes in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga county were still outstanding. But the piece de resistance was when some siliconed Fox newsskank toddled off backstage on her stripper heels and confronted the numbers geeks at the "decision desk" where the Ohio call was made. The math nerds were NOT HAVING any of this "Are you reeeeally sure?" whining, and bitch-slapped that newstrollop (and Karl Rove, by proxy) back to whatever passes for reality on Fox. In the end, Obama won, Karl Rove got banished (for a while) from spewing lies on Faux News, and I had a big ol' glass of chocolate wine. Now THAT was a good night!
The "You Want To Do WHAT?!" Award for 2012: Okay so, there's this dude, right? And he has this balloon thing with a space capsule attached to it and rides it up to over 120,000 feet, which is like 700 miles or something, I don't know. And he opens up the capsule and he's like, right on the edge of outer space! No kidding, it's like the Starship Enterprise could run his ass over if he's not careful. And it's like 500 degress below zero, too. So he starts to crawl out of his space capsule like he totally wants to jump out or something! I KNOW! This other camera shows him looking downward probably thinking either, "Yeah, I can do this, no sweat!" or "This is one of the most f**ked-up things I've ever tried." So he says YOLO and jumps out! On the way down there's no air resistance and he hits over 800 miles an hour, and my cousin told me that's like four times the speed of light. Dude starts to spin and twirl around until he finally remembers to press the SAVE MY ASS button and his parachute opens. Believe it or not he lands safely, but I don't care how many dry cleaners he goes to, he will never get the puke and nasty B.M.s out of that space suit.
Biggest Buzzkill of 2012: Climate change. People keep screwing up the climate and most are completely oblivious to what they are doing. This summer saw the biggest ever melting of Arctic ice, and that by itself has world-wide consequences, mainly in the disruption of long-established weather patterns and warmer-than-normal sea temperatures, which generate bigger, meaner and more destructive storms and hurricanes (hello, Hurricane Sandy). The shape of things to come? Yeah, most likely. Is anything going to be done about it? Not until it's too late.
Best Things of 2012: "The Walking Dead," chocolate wine, Greek yogurt, board game parties with friends, sushi, "Sons of Anarchy," vegetarianism, desert sunsets, more states approving same-sex marriage, clear dark moonless nights, and of course RABBITS!
Worst Things of 2012: Republicans, conservative trolls on Facebook, Fox News, the NRA, religion, terrorism, bigotry, hillbillies with guns, animal abuse, murdered children.
Proof That Some People Still Live in the Dark Ages in 2012: The astonishing, unrepentant and deliberate ignorance of some Republican legislators regarding rape. The very idea of "legitimate" rape, and the belief that a woman's body can "shut down" the pregnancy process after a rape clearly shows that they are beyond any kind of help or redemption. The fact that they are anywhere near a public office shows that their supporters are equally pathetic and worthless, and they deserve nothing but the highest contempt and most strident condemnation.
Extra Credit for Scientific Achievement in 2012: The landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover. Sheer joy, and an absolute, unmitigated triumph. The fact that they were receiving photographs from the surface of Mars within SECONDS of landing is completely mind-blowing.
Mr. "No I Can't Keep It In My Pants and Thank You for Noticing" for 2012: Gen. David Petraeus. Really? Are you that desperate? You just threw away your marriage, your career, your reputation and your legacy. I hope it was worth it, but I'm sure it wasn't.
Loathsome Disgusting Toilet Scum of 2012: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint, Orrin Hatch, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Allen West, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, that token Negro in the Republican primary debates, Sean Hannity or anyone on Fox News. Sadly, this looks like last year's list. Nothing changes.
Ultimate Obnoxious Blowhard of 2012: Donald Trump. Once again, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that a huge amount of money can't buy even the tiniest iota of class. He truly is a national embarrassment and a disgrace.
Best Reason To Remain Hopeful in 2013: Rachel Maddow said it best in a short promo-segment on MSNBC. She said that in the last election, we had an opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood, institutionalize bigotry by outlawing same-sex marriage, continue giving outlandish, obscene tax breaks to people who already have so much, privatize Social Security and Medicare, pack the Supreme Court with right-wing creeps for decades into the future, and listed a number of other horrible legal consequences of electing Romney president. She said we had the opportunity to do all that... AND WE SAID NO! That fact, that the American electorate finally said enough of the extremist conservative bullshit and decisively kicked the Republican party square in the crotch, means that there is still hope for our democratic form of government.
I'd like to think that 2013 will be better than 2012, but I'm starting to realize that these days, the best you can hope for is that 2013 won't be quite as awful.
2012 Year End Review: Part 1
2012 was a year dominated by politics, from beginning to end. The batshittery started early, like on January 1st, and did not let up through the November elections and beyond. 2013 looks like it's going to do much the same, as scary as that sounds, but for right now let's review shall we - Why 2012 Sucked:
Theatre of the Damned (Presidential Election Edition): The Presidential election this year was a galaxy-class train wreck, populated by the creepiest characters this side of a zombie apocalypse. It was like someone loaded up your DVR with the most badly-written, incomprehensible, nonsensical, parallel-universe, bad-LSD-induced, four-month-long psychodrama imaginable. Possibly the zenith (or the nadir, if you prefer) of that whole passion-play-from-hell was the Republican National Convention. Almost derailed at the beginning by a hurricane, even devout atheists like myself knew that was a big "thumbs-down" from the Old Man Up In The Clouds. It most certainly did not disappoint when it came to utter, total disappointment. Spectacularly boring, this celebration of fat, old, white people had something to offend and annoy everyone. The most unbelievable thing of the whole convention was aging, grizzled movie icon Clint Eastwood having some sort of bizarro-world conversation with a chair. Once revered as the ultimate big-screen tough guy in edgy, stylized westerns (like High Plains Drifter or The Outlaw Josie Wales) and shoot-the-uppity-minorities cop potboilers (the Dirty Harry series), it was more than a little disconcerting seeing him degenerate into a disheveled, wild-eyed, crazy old man who could easily be mistaken for a deranged old coot having a political shouting-match with his dish of lime Jell-o in any cafeteria in this country. It showed once again that mental illness is not at all pretty, and I can only hope when I turn into an unkempt, babbling, glassy-eyed old geezer, I can hopefully get caught talking back to a radio or something. At least THAT would make a tiny bit of sense.
2012 Douchebag of the Year: Hands down, the leader in this sorry category has to be Willard Mittens Romney, The Asshole That Roared. Republicans have this uncanny talent for choosing the most repellent, unattractive and unelectable candidates for national office, and we didn't think they could do any worse than John McCain, the goofy, senile old dickhead they nominated for President in 2008, or the execrable Queen of the Inbred Sarah Palin, but damned if they didn't top themselves this year. Apparently they base their choices on the highly questionable premise that if you stick around on the political radar for years and years, losing more primary elections that you can count, eventually that will make you look supremely qualified for the highest office in the land. Romney's candidacy was its own worst enemy, and it was very entertaining to watch him torpedo his own chances at every turn - the leaked "47%" comment, his disastrous European visit - the list goes on. At nearly every instance he came across as a creepy, awkward, socially inept douchenozzle with a very unfunny sense of humor, and I think a lot of Americans decided early on that they did not want to put up with his weirdly stilted persona and scary, sexual-predator smirk for four long years. Dishonorable mention in this category has to go to anyone who participated in the Republican primary debates, a veritable smorgasbord of everything that's wrong with American politics, but the mildly-surprising runner-up to Mitt is his own wife, Ann. Ostensibly brought into the campaign to "humanize" her husband to wary, unfamiliar voters, she managed to hammer the last couple of nails into the coffin of his candidacy by coming across as nasty, imperious, short-tempered, sharp-tongued, condescending, bitchy and elitist. I find it endlessly amusing that Ann Romney turned out to be the one who needed "humanizing," and I'm just waiting for all the tell-all post-election books that will document her sloppy-drunk (I wouldn't be surprised if she has a drinking problem, Mormon or not), profanity-laced, behind-the-campaign-scenes tirades. You just know she used the N-word a lot.
Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends: Gun violence is like a big ugly wound across the heart of America. Gun violence in this country left its mark in a big way on 2012, most horribly on December 14th when 20 young children and 6 adults lost their lives to one deranged, monstrous murderer with a semi-automatic rifle. Earlier this year another psychotic loser shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. There was also a smattering of mall shootings and workplace violence incidents and incredibly, on Christmas Eve, some scumbag shot to death two firemen responding to a building fire. But, the 20 dead children in Newtown, Connecticut, seem to have really set people off, maybe because of the sheer immensity of the horror or the fact that it has happened so close to the holidays. Not surprisingly, the NRA held a news conference in which they blamed everyone and everything in the world for what happened, without even touching, however tangentially, on the fact that some of the blame just might be due to the easy availability of ridiculously powerful assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition delivery systems. Even for a bunch of ignorant douchebags like the NRA, it was an astonishingly stupid, arrogantly defiant, self-serving, tone-deaf non-response to a really critical national problem. Their "solution" is to place armed guards in every school in the United States, at an estimated cost of nearly $7 billion a year. Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans in Congress are going to pass THAT appropriation. According to the NRA, the answer is guns, guns, and more guns. It's really amazing that the NRA can't see what everyone else can - what hopeless, pathetic assholes they are, and what spineless, evil cowards the members of Congress are who buckle under it like wet cardboard.
Death We Regret The Most: Lots of notable people passed away this year (Michael Clarke Duncan, Neil Armstrong, Whitney Houston, Phyllis Diller, Donna Summer to name a very few), but one passing hardly anyone noticed was the death of representative democracy. We learned this year that Congress does not give a single crap about doing its job - which is representing their constituents and working to, you know, get stuff done and accomplish things. Instead, we learned that they prefer to spend their time manufacturing financial-Armageddon events in order to scare themselves into doing something (i.e. THEIR JOBS), and then when they do nothing and the contrived financial-Armageddon event actually begins to draw near and - much to their surprise and horror - MIGHT ACTUALLY HAPPEN, what do they do? Bail out of town on a Christmas break, leaving the rest of us to peer over the edge of the so-called "fiscal cliff" they created and wonder how the hell we got into this situation. It's pretty easy to understand - Congress is utterly and totally devoid of integrity and courage, does not give a rat's ass about what's best for this country, and would much rather postpone uncomfortable decisions so they can screw stuff up not only in the present but in the future, too.
More vicious slander and blatantly biased criticism in 2012 Year End Review Part 2, coming up next!
Theatre of the Damned (Presidential Election Edition): The Presidential election this year was a galaxy-class train wreck, populated by the creepiest characters this side of a zombie apocalypse. It was like someone loaded up your DVR with the most badly-written, incomprehensible, nonsensical, parallel-universe, bad-LSD-induced, four-month-long psychodrama imaginable. Possibly the zenith (or the nadir, if you prefer) of that whole passion-play-from-hell was the Republican National Convention. Almost derailed at the beginning by a hurricane, even devout atheists like myself knew that was a big "thumbs-down" from the Old Man Up In The Clouds. It most certainly did not disappoint when it came to utter, total disappointment. Spectacularly boring, this celebration of fat, old, white people had something to offend and annoy everyone. The most unbelievable thing of the whole convention was aging, grizzled movie icon Clint Eastwood having some sort of bizarro-world conversation with a chair. Once revered as the ultimate big-screen tough guy in edgy, stylized westerns (like High Plains Drifter or The Outlaw Josie Wales) and shoot-the-uppity-minorities cop potboilers (the Dirty Harry series), it was more than a little disconcerting seeing him degenerate into a disheveled, wild-eyed, crazy old man who could easily be mistaken for a deranged old coot having a political shouting-match with his dish of lime Jell-o in any cafeteria in this country. It showed once again that mental illness is not at all pretty, and I can only hope when I turn into an unkempt, babbling, glassy-eyed old geezer, I can hopefully get caught talking back to a radio or something. At least THAT would make a tiny bit of sense.
2012 Douchebag of the Year: Hands down, the leader in this sorry category has to be Willard Mittens Romney, The Asshole That Roared. Republicans have this uncanny talent for choosing the most repellent, unattractive and unelectable candidates for national office, and we didn't think they could do any worse than John McCain, the goofy, senile old dickhead they nominated for President in 2008, or the execrable Queen of the Inbred Sarah Palin, but damned if they didn't top themselves this year. Apparently they base their choices on the highly questionable premise that if you stick around on the political radar for years and years, losing more primary elections that you can count, eventually that will make you look supremely qualified for the highest office in the land. Romney's candidacy was its own worst enemy, and it was very entertaining to watch him torpedo his own chances at every turn - the leaked "47%" comment, his disastrous European visit - the list goes on. At nearly every instance he came across as a creepy, awkward, socially inept douchenozzle with a very unfunny sense of humor, and I think a lot of Americans decided early on that they did not want to put up with his weirdly stilted persona and scary, sexual-predator smirk for four long years. Dishonorable mention in this category has to go to anyone who participated in the Republican primary debates, a veritable smorgasbord of everything that's wrong with American politics, but the mildly-surprising runner-up to Mitt is his own wife, Ann. Ostensibly brought into the campaign to "humanize" her husband to wary, unfamiliar voters, she managed to hammer the last couple of nails into the coffin of his candidacy by coming across as nasty, imperious, short-tempered, sharp-tongued, condescending, bitchy and elitist. I find it endlessly amusing that Ann Romney turned out to be the one who needed "humanizing," and I'm just waiting for all the tell-all post-election books that will document her sloppy-drunk (I wouldn't be surprised if she has a drinking problem, Mormon or not), profanity-laced, behind-the-campaign-scenes tirades. You just know she used the N-word a lot.
Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends: Gun violence is like a big ugly wound across the heart of America. Gun violence in this country left its mark in a big way on 2012, most horribly on December 14th when 20 young children and 6 adults lost their lives to one deranged, monstrous murderer with a semi-automatic rifle. Earlier this year another psychotic loser shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. There was also a smattering of mall shootings and workplace violence incidents and incredibly, on Christmas Eve, some scumbag shot to death two firemen responding to a building fire. But, the 20 dead children in Newtown, Connecticut, seem to have really set people off, maybe because of the sheer immensity of the horror or the fact that it has happened so close to the holidays. Not surprisingly, the NRA held a news conference in which they blamed everyone and everything in the world for what happened, without even touching, however tangentially, on the fact that some of the blame just might be due to the easy availability of ridiculously powerful assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition delivery systems. Even for a bunch of ignorant douchebags like the NRA, it was an astonishingly stupid, arrogantly defiant, self-serving, tone-deaf non-response to a really critical national problem. Their "solution" is to place armed guards in every school in the United States, at an estimated cost of nearly $7 billion a year. Yeah, I'm sure the Republicans in Congress are going to pass THAT appropriation. According to the NRA, the answer is guns, guns, and more guns. It's really amazing that the NRA can't see what everyone else can - what hopeless, pathetic assholes they are, and what spineless, evil cowards the members of Congress are who buckle under it like wet cardboard.
Death We Regret The Most: Lots of notable people passed away this year (Michael Clarke Duncan, Neil Armstrong, Whitney Houston, Phyllis Diller, Donna Summer to name a very few), but one passing hardly anyone noticed was the death of representative democracy. We learned this year that Congress does not give a single crap about doing its job - which is representing their constituents and working to, you know, get stuff done and accomplish things. Instead, we learned that they prefer to spend their time manufacturing financial-Armageddon events in order to scare themselves into doing something (i.e. THEIR JOBS), and then when they do nothing and the contrived financial-Armageddon event actually begins to draw near and - much to their surprise and horror - MIGHT ACTUALLY HAPPEN, what do they do? Bail out of town on a Christmas break, leaving the rest of us to peer over the edge of the so-called "fiscal cliff" they created and wonder how the hell we got into this situation. It's pretty easy to understand - Congress is utterly and totally devoid of integrity and courage, does not give a rat's ass about what's best for this country, and would much rather postpone uncomfortable decisions so they can screw stuff up not only in the present but in the future, too.
More vicious slander and blatantly biased criticism in 2012 Year End Review Part 2, coming up next!
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