Rear End Review, Part 2

Last chance to pick apart the carcass of 2011 in search of anything of any value:

MOST EGREGIOUSLY RIDICULOUS BULLSHIT OF 2011: As usual the Republicans have a lock on this topic. Hurricane Horseshit started on January 1st, when the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy were renewed for two years. The Republicans were positively giddy that President Obama caved in to their extortionist demands that the tax cuts remain because the "job creators" needed them in order to create the millions of jobs that were lost in the financial collapse of 2008. The Republicans harped unmercifully on how important the "job creators" are and the jobs would surely follow. And a lot of them did - in China, India, and other parts of the world, just not in the United States. These mythical and elusive "job creators" would be invoked incessantly as a favorite Republican mantra. Every time a proposal would come up to change the tax code the Republicans blocked it because the "job creators needed stability." Every time the administration would try to get a jobs bill passed and pay for it with a surcharge on the wealthiest 0.5% of taxpayers the Republicans blanched in horror, because the "job creators couldn't possibly create any jobs if they had to pay more in taxes." As of this writing, blubbery, carrot-colored buffoon John Boehner and his Republican-controlled House of Representatives have not come up with a single jobs bill, and the "job creators" have so far created nothing. It also is pathetically hilarious every time the Republicans say that there is "class warfare" going on because the billionaires are being attacked merely for being successful. What a horrible thing this "class warfare" is on the ultra-rich, they say without a hint of irony, when everyone knows the Republicans have been waging class warfare against the middle class and the poor for decades. It's almost like the part of the Theory of Relativity that says space is curved, and if you could look far enough in one direction you would see the back of your own head. In the crazy, curved-space world of the Republicans, the same thing happens except you see your own ass.

MOST OBNOXIOUS PERSON OF 2011: There certainly is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to obnoxious people in 2011. To the surprise of no one, most of the political ones are Republicans. Whom shall we pick? It could be Sarah Palin, who inexplicably continues her high-pitched bleating on Fox News, or as Keith Olbermann consistently calls it, "the political whorehouse that is Fox News." Is it Michelle Bachmann, who always shows that women can be every bit as ignorant, misinformed and just plain stupid as men? Is it perennial toilet monkeys Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich? Or how about a broomstick-up-the-butt prig like Rick Santorum? And I'm more than willing to bitch-slap former Democrat Representative Anthony Weiner for sharing photos of his junk with the world. Maybe we should look to the world of entertainment, there must be plenty of candidates there. Oh, I know - how about someone who pretends to be in both worlds? That would be none other than roadkill-crested gargoyle Donald Trump. Whether he's boring everyone on the planet with that birther nonsense, or wasting everyone's time with his farcical campaign for president, Trump has shown that there is nothing too underhanded or idiotic or just plain deadheaded for him to do, as long as he can get his puffy, Botoxed face in front of the cameras.

MOST PROMISING POLITICAL MOVEMENT: Occupy Wall Street, and all the other "Occupy" offshoots which have taken hold. This is quintessentially American - citizens coming together to raise their voices against the Republican-supported notion that corporations can do anything and everything they damned well please, regardless of how many people they injure. Of course the slimy douchebags on the political whorehouse that is Fox News (thanks again, Keith) take every opportunity to ridicule and mock the Occupy protestors, characterizing them as filthy hippies and malcontents allergic to employment. How very odd that they had nothing but praise to heap on the Tea Party, choosing to portray that motley bunch of corpulent, racist rednecks and senile, confused old people blissfully unencumbered by anything higher than a third-grade education as a true "grass roots" movement of righteously indignant patriots.

MOST APPALLING POLITICAL CONCEPT: That would be "personhood," which is the idea of bestowing the full rights, privileges and protections of a real human being on entities that normally wouldn't have them. This has turned into the latest ploy of anti-abortion activists to strike down abortion rights, by claiming that a fertilized human egg is a "person" from the instant of conception and should be protected as a real live human being. This would obviously preclude any form of abortion, even when the health of the mother is in jeopardy, but also would outlaw what is referred to as the "morning after" pill and other forms of birth control and family planning which have been around for decades. Clearly a draconian, over-reaching attempt to take away rights from the American people by marketing it as "protecting the unborn," its advocates saw it as a slam-dunk in conservative southern states with large Christian populations. That is, until the state of Mississippi stunned everyone by soundly and decisively rejecting a personhood ballot initiative last month. This is not the end of the story, unfortunately, and proponents will be back with a state-by-state battle plan to shove their radical agenda down everyone's throats. Equally disturbing is the trend to give corporations a measure of personhood, blithely articulated by presidential candidate Mittens Romney when he simply said at an August 11th, 2011 campaign stop in Iowa, "Corporations are people!" Presumably because they pay taxes like normal people do, Romney and others seem to think they should be afforded free-speech protections. Coupled with the horrendously awful Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case which gave the green light to corporations to pump as much money as they want into an already-choked political system, "personhood" is rapidly becoming a political monstrosity of Frankensteinian proportions.

TV WORTH WATCHING: Sons of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, Nurse Jackie, The Walking Dead, Homeland, True Blood, and if they ever get off their butts and finish it, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.

BEST REASON TO GET UP IN THE MORNING: Rabbits! Oh, and fresh-brewed coffee.

2012 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS: I resolve to read more books and watch less television. I resolve to get off my lazy ass and start painting and drawing again. I resolve to do my best to become a vegetarian. I also resolve to be kinder, more understanding and more respectful toward conservative Republicans and fundamentalist Christians. Guess which resolution I'm lying about.