Societal Overhaul

“Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.”

Shakespeare ~ The Tempest

If it hasn’t become clear to most of you by now, it should have. We are in the middle of a blatant attempt by certain political elements  to completely and utterly overhaul society as it has existed for at least the last 100 years, if not longer. I call these elements by what they call themselves – Republicans. A little history is in order.

IRS Profiling. Scandal? I Think Not.

Republicans are so transparent, so self-centered, so clueless, yet so stupid, that everything they do in Washington is getting to be…so tiresome. Now we have another minor administrative, bureaucratic glitch in one agency of Washington, and the dumb R’s are flogging it like they flog all the other dead horses they dig up, in the hopes that unlike all the other scandals that come and go, these will be remembered in the elections of November, 2014.  It turns out the election of Obama in 2008 ignited a  flurry of so-called patriotism. We elected a black man to the White House.

Benghazi – Much Ado About Nothing

Does anyone understand WTF is going on with this trumped up controversy? I watch the news, and I thought the whole thing died down after the election, when  the false indignity of the Republicans was used to hopefully, maybe, possibly push Romney over the edge and into the Oval Office. It didn’t work. So it should have dimmed, even died, because there was no “there, there” as Obama has pointed out.

Six Years

Uneventfully, last week marked the sixth anniversary of when I started this blog. Since then,  a lot has happened.

• The Boston Bombers killed 4 and maimed scores in another “faith based initiative”, were discovered, one was killed and the other captured, and (finally) read his Miranda rights.
• Congress failed to pass a weakened version of a bill designed to require people to get background checks when they buy a gun, despite overwhelming popular support.
• A fertilizer plant in Texas, that had not been inspected in decades, blew up, killing scores (we think – it’s so bad, it’s hard to count the bodies).
• Related to the last one, Texas legislators that voted against federal support for Hurricane Sandy relief came begging for federal support for West, Texas.
• Anonymous hacked The Facebook page of the Westboro Baptist Church, and have been running it quite successfully, and humorously, since then.
• Ricin-laced letters were apparently sent to President Obama and another US Senator.
• Multiple countries are legalizing same-sex marriage. New Zealand and, it looks like, France are the latest.
• A Pennsylvania couple, previously convicted of allowing their child to die by refusing medical care in favor of the power of prayer, apparently did it again.
• The poor are still getting poorer; the rich, richer.

All in one week!

Repeal The 2nd Amendment

This one sentence has caused more trouble than it’s prevented.

I propose that it be repealed.

Tea Party Thinking

Since I began this blog back in 2007, not a month has gone by where I have not written at least one post. So, this being January 31st, and having not written anything this month, I decided I’m not going to purposely ruin that record. It’s a meaningless record, but if it spurs me to write something, then so be it. I’ll write something.

A Couple of Thoughts on the Newtown Tragedy

I have a couple of thoughts, by no means exclusive or comprehensive.

1. We definitely need a dialogue on how best to handle mental illness. There is such a societal stigma attached to it, and then we seem to only want to touch it with kid gloves, by making light of it, or joking (have you ever called a psychiatrist a “shrink”?). We are far more educated about the workings of the human brain than we were even 50 years ago, but we are light years away from understanding it completely. We have no problem running off to a doctor for the slightest physical ailment, yet despite the fact that the brain is far more complicated than all the other organs in the body combined, we hesitate to do something when things “aren’t right”. Often mental illness is left to the parents, or families, and society simply ignores it. We need to change our attitudes about it. In the process, we’ll not only have a better understanding of what makes the Adam Lanza’s of the world tick, but we’ll make great strides in dealing with other societal ills, such as homelessness, suicide, drug addiction, etc.

I Get (Snail) Mail

Real mail. Snail mail. It was delivered by the Postal Service.

Recently I wrote a column and submitted it to my local paper. The paper actually printed it. I received a lot of responses, and some were actually written and delivered the old fashioned way.  I though I’d reproduce one of them here, along with my response to my fan ( a term I use loosely). I know, this is a cheap and easy way to get another post up on the blog, but I did write it, so why not?

My Endorsement

Here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. Both of you. Who will SI endorse for President of the United States? I’m sure that if you’re a regular reader, you really have no idea, because I’m so obviously impartial in my politics,  and I clearly lean in both directions depending on the issue, that you are all scratching your heads, trying to tease some sense of who I will ultimately pick. Let me ease the suspense, and give it to you straight.

{drum roll}

Barack Obama.

Obamacare,Taxes and Hatred

For my 500th post (yes, an auspicious post it is!) I’m going to reprint a piece of ignorance and vitriol I was involved with on Facebook, with the follow up comment I made. Some people seem to go out of their way to find fault with Obama, and his favored policies. They really have latched onto Obamacare with a certain amount of irrationality that bespeaks some un-articulated motivation. I can think of nothing that would cause such nonsense  other than pure and simple bigotry.