‘Tis the season…to be armed to the teeth

Today on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, I read a wonderous story of holiday cheer and goodwill.  Apparently, on black friday, at a Toys R Us in Palm Desert, California, 2 grown men killed each other.

After the initial shock and wave of disgust passed, I found myself reciting a Shel Silverstein poem in my head:

“…Back to back they faced each other

Yes we can. Yes we will

The streets of denver are wild tonight.  People cheering, horns honking.

That rush of uplifting hope you felt at 9pm pst tonight?  That was the collective cheer of hope that rushed through the country when hearing the news.

Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States of America.

I Voted…

We live in california, my lovely wife and children and I. California is a blue state. My vote isnt going to help the obama-biden ticket.

California has a number of ballot initiatives that do, in fact, affect my life in one way or another. Several affect my wallet, several affect my spirit.

I was able to gleefully vote my wallet AND my spirit.

Seriosuly, early voting in California has gotten really bad. I had to travel in 2004 as well, so I early voted then. I was able to go to the Jackie Robinson center in pasadena to early vote. THIS year, I was forced to go to the county registrar in Norwalk of all places.

Upon arriving (and parking in the wrong lot which gave me something to worry about all day), i walked all the way around the building before finding the end of the line. By my estimate, the line was about 500 yards long.

I immediately made friends with my “linemates”. They are Keion and His mother, Maegan, Shannon (I mention them by name because they are rather public figures), a pair of sisters, and later 2 more of Maegan and Shannons friends. Maegan has a rather fabulous blog at www.maegancarberry.com. Keion, Maegan, Shannon and her other friend Megan (sounds like a line from the Bob Newhart show) I found to be extremely engaging. More importantly, they were (in my judgement) interesting, interested people.

Most importantly, these people were “movers and shakers”. Maegan is the former chief of staff for Arianna Huffington. These are the young progressives in our world today.

My son is voting up in berkeley tomorrow. His facebook status said “Shane is nervous and excited about what could be one of the most important things he’ll do in his lifetime tomorrow. Remember to vote tomorrow! “

And it was Maegan who said “I have waited all my life to vote for a competent person…I can wait another 3 hours”

Keion is a recruiter for a major university and is clearly interested in making his mark in his field. His mother works 2 jobs and was voting early because she wasnt sure she would have time between jobs.

Maybe im way too hold to be cool now. I feel very good about our future with youth like this. These are positive and motivated people. It was very infectious. And for a few moments in my life, I felt young and cool again.

It turns out I am actually not as unconnected as I thought, as I ran into my old friend, colleague and former comrade, Mike and his gf (wife yet?) Robin. Mike and I actually go back 4 years. He is an ace unix sysadmin, so if you are in need of his services, please let me know!

We all split up when we got to the “tent” and waited our turn in line. I made sure I didnt miss my call. In the back of my mind I wondered if my voter registration had been kicked back. Why hadnt I gotten my card? What the hell was wrong now.

When my number was called, I didnt hestitate to make an ass out of myself, charging up the aisle like I was on the Price is Right. I waved at my new friends as I passed them.

When I was handed my ballot (with my name on it), I actually paused. I felt like I had some serious power. I felt a rush of images pass through my head, of everyone who ever died for this country, of everyone who has ever suffered, for everyone who has been disenfranchised.

Of everyone who was ever enslaved.

I said it.

Im sure Im being overly dramatic. Its one vote. Who gives a fuck?

Im 42 years old. I grew up in a very bigoted blue blood social register southwest bluebook family. I love my mother and my father, but I didnt grow up like them. I learned that black people were PEOPLE, not black, as an adult. I learned that mexican people were just like people like me that spoke a different language that ironically, i became fluent in as I went through school.

I wielded my pen as though it was excalibur. Holy, mighty, doer of only good deeds and I used it to vote for a good man. A highly educated, highly competent black man and his running mate – just as competent and intelligent and good.

I voted for compassion for drug users and livestock and childrens hospitals. I was cruel and unyielding to billionaire businessmen who pretended to give a fuck about our environment.

I thought about my wife and my children. And I saw that Obama logo in my head, and the one word that has signified his campaign:

Hope

I got chills as I marked my circle for Obama. I choked up a little bit.

We are making history.

For your viewing pleasure, I provide a new commercial from progressive future…check out the Paul Simon tune!

John Lyle

What a difference a week makes!

I was going to entertain myself with another vitriolic invective filled with generalizations and thought changing rhetoric but after a week or so since my last entry, it seems that the people most deserving of it have done my work for me.

Certainly, many of these fabulous citizens of the United States of America deserve special coverage.  For your own entertainment and my editorializing here are what I think to be some of the top stories in the last week.

1.  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) 6th District in Minnesota.

If memory serves me, it is considered proper etiquette to refer to a congressman in the third person as “The Honorable” as in “The Honorable Michele Bachmann”.  I think if you watch the now famous Chris Matthews interview with her, honorable will not be a word you would use.  I urge you all to watch this outstanding interview:

Not to detract from the absolute hilarity of watching this doe eyed botox queen jackass lean into a punch with her chin, it is fair to say this woman is a moron.  People who vote for people like this are morons.  Michele Bachmann was listed in Esquire Magazine this month as one of the worst congresspeople in office.  This is a woman who had Disneys Aladdin banned from a public library viewing because some people might see its usage of witchcraft as inappropriate.  I personally dont like watching people cry, but if she loses her contest, I will thoroughly enjoy watching her cry at her concession speech.  Her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has received 1.3 million dollars in donations since the interview and the RNC has pulled all of its own ads supporting her from the state.  It may be too little too late, but I have faith in a reconvergence of sanity in our country.  The race is now officially considered a toss-up.

Since we brought up Michele Bachmann, we certainly must bring up this years round of Republican fear mongering, we can mention the McCains robocalling campaign and this weeks deployment of smearfest v3.8.  According to this weeks robocalls, we have Mayor 9/11 Rudy Giuliani telling us:

Obama will be soft on criminals, doesnt support federal sentencing guidelines for sex offenders, drug dealers and violent offenders.

FACT:  Barack Obama does, in fact, support federal guidelines for sentencing. Dont trust me, check his website

Obamas Plan to lower taxes on the middle class and “spread the wealth around” amounts to socialism

FACT:  Obama will return the tax rates to the Clinton era tax rates. The mere notion that we have a progressive tax system is DESIGNED to “redistribute wealth”.  This has been the system since woodrow wilson implemented the income tax.  For those who are home schooled, Woodrow Wilson was president during World War I.

FACT:  John McCain voted AGAINST George Bush’s tax cuts back in 2001.  I say again:

JOHN MCCAIN VOTED AGAINST THE BUSH TAX CUT THAT HE IS FIGHTING TO SAVE TODAY.

Syllogism would heretofore conclude that  John McCain a socialist.  Republican logic, however, is a special breed of logic.  Home schoolers might understand the term “opposite day” better…or the ever ready “I am rubber you are glue” defense.

FACT:  (uh oh.another fact for the same argument) 98% of small businesses earn less than 250,000.00 per year.  Therefore they would be NOT ONE EXTRA DIME.

2. Colin Powells endorsement.

Remember Colin Powell fuckers?  He was your darling back in 2001.  In 2002 he was conned into walking into the U.N. with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz’s fable about Saddams Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Remember that, you fuckers?  Yes…since that day, Powells career took a nosedive and our President, backed by 50 million mouth breathing morons in 2004, have sent 4000 american men and women to die in that middle eastern shithole in a ham fisted plan engineered by chickenhawk Donald Rumsfeld.

Mission Accomplished.

Sunday Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.  He said nothing that a majority of Americans haven’t been saying.

3. Sarah Palin the clothes horse
I understand that its expensive to be a woman. I believe this to be another method of social engineering.
Is there some reason, however, that she needs 150k worth of clothes for 8 weeks? Furthermore, I contend that spinning your “joe the plumber” fables at rallies in Louboutins and Dior is somewhat of a dichotomy.
“Oh come on, John, you are making a mountain out of a molehill”
I merely bring this up as yet another indication of GOP double standards. How does it look to be greeting the right wing base in their clothes from Target and Monkey Ward in 4,000.00 worth of duds?
Furthermore, how do you justify that IN YOUR HEAD? Is it safe to assume that she doesnt think about it?
I think that Sarah Palins expenditure (20grand!) in airfares for her kids to attend state events they werent invited to speaks volumes about the clothing issue.
No. She doesnt think about it. God has seen fit to do this for her.
Have fun at your depositions this week, honey.
I have read numerous articles (some slanted, some not) regarding Obamas seeming inability to “close the deal” on this race. Quite frankly I am still apprehensive myself. While California is a blue state lock for Obama, we will still be voting.
However what I find more telling is how stupid people still are, especially after the last 8 years, regardless of the current economic nightmare. Here is a story you will love – watch Palin supporters during the VP debate:

Nice

Look how people laugh when Joe Biden chokes up a little bit. Just after, notice Palins complete inability to even momentarily empathize. Mother of the year.
A woman in Ohio was recently quoted as she planned to vote McCain because she is of the understanding that Obama “…thinks people like us are trash…”.
Of course Obama never said that. In the helping field, this statement would be called a “transference”. A transference is what people do when they feel a certain way about themselves but prefer not to acknowledge it. Instead they “transfer” this feeling to someone else, in this case, to Michelle and Barack Obama.
There is a new NBC interview of McCain and Palin that will be released fully in the next 2 days. I look forward into leaning into that one.
Todays definition of the day:
Socialism: Paraphrasing – this is where the government owns everything. Look it up in a dictionary.
We are fighting for our very lives. Be vigilant. Have hope.

John Lyle

Handwringing and screeching – Wingnuts and their Hate.

I got some hatemail this morning from my facebook page.  James B, a nurse from San Diego, decided to troll the facebook group “Sarah Palin doesnt know shit about fuck”.  I display his first email to me as such:

I removed his last name to protect him from his own stupidity and highlighted the time he posted.  Also note that I am

1.  A Crazy Liberal

2.  A socialist

Apparently he was really mad.  Or really bored.  Or both.  Maybe the WoW servers are down.  Here is his second email 2 MINUTES LATER.

Apparently I am unemployed, leaching off the wealthy and am a socialist waste of life. Ironically, James is the one who is up at 2:28am trolling a silly facebook group sending hatemail.

I was in fact, in bed.  I will certainly not dignify the statement with how many hours I put into work yesterday.  However I went back to my house that I bought with my hard earned money after a full day and put in some more work from home.

<MARLONPERKINSVOICE>

Here we are witnessing the witless and vitriolic renderings of the uneducated.  Take note of the lack of specifics – empirical evidence is not the hallmark of the neocon wingnut – frothing and barely intelligible despite the availability of spellchecking, “IM Speak” and buzzwords such as “Socialist” and “Liberal” are tossed about with wreckless abandon.  They are masters of “modem courage”.  They would never speak this way to people in real life. Their bookshelves are filled with material written by the “Literati” of the right wing:  Coulter, Kristol, Frumm, Hannity, O’Reilly.  They seek out the hate merchants for their material.  Their television experience consists of Faux News. Anyone who doesnt see the world as they do are “socialists, lazy, liberal, unemployed, unproductive”.They clearly dont read much, as I didnt actually start the group….however as I mentioned earlier, the evidence isnt important to uneducated troglodytes such as James

</MARLONPERKINSVOICE>

For the record, James response was based on the following set of FACTS as I laid them down in the group “Sarah Palin doesnt know fuck about shit”

FACT: McCain didnt pick this stupid brain dead fucknozzle. Tim LaHaye and James dobson (Those champions of constitutional law and compassion) did.

FACT: Her “Stunt Value” wore off after the Charlie Gibson interview

FACT: The Levi/Bristol Palin wedding is NOT a shotgun wedding – its more likely a 7mm winnie mag or 30-06 wedding.

FACT: John McCains judgement was gone the moment he announced LaHaye and Dobsons pick for running mate

FACT: She will singlehandedly make the republican party irrelevant for a longer period quicker than George W Bush

Cletus from San Diego has nothing except name calling, as you have seen.

It sounds alot like the McCain campaign, doesnt it?  Ironically, James is a nurse by profession.  Wouldnt you all love to have him caring for you in surgery?  What if he finds out you are a transient or on medicare?

Your parents must be so proud.

Pussy

Cultural Pathology

Look, Son. Its an Asshat Parade.

A friend passed me a link today from blogger interrupted.

I urge you all to check this out.

First of all, major kudos to the author and cameraman.

There is a tremendous amount of material for me to be incredibly judgmental about.  Sticking with the theme of this post:  Cultural Pathology.  I have no idea if this is an existing field of study.

I was moved when I saw this video, and not in a positive way. If you didn’t bother to watch the video, the scene is the parking lot outside a McCain/Palin Rally

Oh, and gosh, I guess im generalizing too.

So my question is this:  At what point do these worshipers begin showing up with torches and pitchforks?

George Will thinks McCain should get off this Ayers thing.

In fact the only people who dont think he should get off the Ayers thing are people whose judgement might not be so great. People like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity come to mind first.

If im not mistaken, these are people who have complained bitterly about McCains lack of coherence and unified message.

So with Trillions of dollars missing from IRAs over the last 3 weeks, isnt it somewhat specious and unpresidential to try and insinuate with fear tactics that Obama is a terrorist?

It would seem at this point that all Senator McCain has left is his twice daily choirs to preach at.  Lathering up the conservative “base”, as it were.  Perhaps we can invoke the secret Jesus magic of the “bradley effect”.

But I digress.  Witnessing this video is disturbing at best.  If we are to assume these people ALL think the same, I would have to change my characterization to terrifying.  I would consider myself one who can lose himself to the warm gooshiness of passion, however these are angry stupid people.  These are sick people.  These are people with a world view unlike any I have witnessed.  Dont get me wrong, I know a fair amount of flat earth hyper conservative people.  However the crowd in Strongsville takes this 10 steps further.

It reminds me of the Salem Witch Hunt.  Do you guys remember that?:  Thats when rich white men came up with an excuse to steal land from widowed women in Salem (Brookline), Massachusetts 300 years ago.  Women lived in abject fear for their lives and the lives of their children.

What is the matter with you people?  Cant you get some help for this condition?  Clearly you caught this malady somewhere.

Come on, Strongsville peasant farmers. Put down your pitchforks.  You and I both know he isnt a terrorist.  You’re just bitter because 8 years ago you were wrong.  4 years ago you were wrong again.  Today you are still wrong.  The same stupid shit that comes out of McCains mouth is just another 4 years of that brain dead hick carpetbagger from Greenwich, CT via West Texas.

And for God’s sake would you please let this old man lose this election with some FUCKING dignity?  I think another thing we can agree on (remember we agreed earlier that Obama isnt a terrorist) is that if McCain starts up with Ayers, Wright, Rezko, Barney, Voldemort and whoever else you maggots can think up, then hes going to have to relive Keating, Iran-Contra, John Hagee, Rick Davis, Phil Gramm and UBS, Carly and her AWFUL botox job and Carl Linder (to name a few).

But then again, from the party that sends thousands of our children to die in the middle eastern shithole that we built while Osama bin Laden runs free, since YOU have nothing to lose in an attack like what you beg McCain to do, why the fuck would any of you care?

Just pass your disease along to your children.  Eventually you will die out.

Its called evolution.

John Lyle

Seriously. What is the matter with you people?

Who laughs at this? I realize for some of you morons, your tracking and attention span may prove fleeting and unhelpful. This is a clip prepared by the american news project. About 2/3 of the way in, you will see the crowds response to Joe Biden getting choked up as he relates his own experience of being a single father (widowed) and wondering if he and his kids will be ok.

There were people in the audience laughing at this.

What kind of trash laughs at this? Who are you people? I actually got choked up, as did my wife. To be honest, at that point in time, there were few people on this earth that I had more respect for.

You laugh at this man? Do you laugh because you are incapable of empathizing? Did I miss the joke here?

Seriously. I want to know.

Is it because your ideology is more important than human decency? Is your ideo(path)ology so overwhelming that inappropriate laughter is your only response?

What was so FUCKING FUNNY? I want to know. I want to know which one of you toothless, fat, slobbering troglodytes would choose to laugh at the notion that Joe Biden (or ANYONE) would have a moment of pain and fear when considering his situation after the loss of his wife in a horrific car accident.

Which one of you cowards has the gonads to lay it on me. Admit that you are sick, explain why it is that demogoguery outweighs human compassion. Why do you laugh at Joe Bidens tears, you sick little puke?

How sad that you would cheer for Sarah Palins lack of acknowledgement as she droned on into another one of her notecards about being mavericky and a reformer, as she hides from legally issued and enforced subpoenaes and abdicates her governorship to the McCain campaign.

How sad that you cheer division, pain and suffering.

How ironic that you have no message or plan other than hate and lie in your bid to bring honor and dignity to the white house.

Tell any lie. Fabricate and distort if it will help. Who cares as long as you win.

Anyone know what I’m talking about?

Sure you do.

Im talking about the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Are you going to admit that you know WHO I am talking about?

Does your mom need to read this to you?

If you are wondering who I am talking about, then I call you a liar and a cynic.  Dont bother reading the rest of the post.  You are too far gone.

For those of you who (even relunctantly) admit to understand what I am talking about, then you have acknowledged that John McCain is currently running the sleaziest campaign in “modern history”.  Dont take my word for it, go ahead and read here:

Some of the truly mouth breathing jackasses will scream “liberal media”.  If the Washington Post, Associated Press and Los Angeles Times is too liberal for you, perhaps you would prefer Bill O’Reilly who attacks McCains sleazy ads.

At some point I have to wonder if people are just plain stupid.

But I think its actually 2 kinds of people.

1.  Cynics – you are the people that know its all bullshit but no one cares as long as they win.  They are devoid of any honor, integrity or ethics, yet you are people who stake a claim on ethics and honor.  You are typically beneficiary of legislation and or tax rules that benefit you.

2.  Idiots – You can also be referred to as Ignorant. Idiots can be subcategorized as well. You arent in the tax bracket of the cynics, but you so desperately wish you were.  You are most likely culture warriors.  You are anti-choice, you believe that fairy tales should be taught (or even debated) in public school science classes, you think abstinence will make the problem of teenage pregnancy go away and the most extreme of you think that the constitution should be abolished in lieu of biblical rule.

To one extent or another, you also believe in many of the following:

Gay couples do not deserve the same legal status as a straight married couple

The pledge of allegiance was written (and recited) by our founding fathers in its current form (with the “under God” part)

Science is bad (all or part).  Examples would be stem cell research, space exploration that may lead to discovery of extraterrestrial live and of course evolution (See Fairy Tales earlier).

That the United States is a “Christian Nation”.

Al Quaeda was in Iraq before 9/11 and had Saddam Hussains assistance in the 9/11 attacks.

The War on Terror began in and will end in Iraq

Democrats (all liberals) are bad. It is your core belief that Communism is a tiny step away from being liberal.

SUV Owners/Drivers

Yes you. All of you gas sucking, Arab loving SUV Driving Road Hogging Self Important Lemmings:

Call me old fashioned. I learned to drive a volkswagen beetle in Mexico when I was 14. We were spending several weeks in Mexico. I learned to drive on the runway they used in the movie “Catch 22″ where there wasnt anyone else and I couldnt kill anyone except myself.

Can one of you morons explain to me where you learned that it was OK to drive your beast of an automobile in a manner that makes truckers look like a scene from “Driving Miss Daisy”?