Thursday, August 20, 2009

why I love Barney Frank




Finally. A congressman with the cajones to speak Truth to Idiots. And obnoxious dining room furniture. Because the Nazis ~ well, they were all about the health care.

Those who cannot read history books are doomed to make complete asses of themselves in public forums.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

who will give me Xanax when you're gone? a thoughtful debate in free rant form

One of the advantages of having a blog that nobody reads is having a blog that nobody has to write. This has been a pleasantly liberating experience for me, and I have appreciated the time spent cleaning, cooking, and writing cranky letters to my reps, many of which begin with the phrase, "Dear Lame Duck Governor Schwarzenegger; I am writing to urge you to follow the courageous example of fellow LD Gov Sarah Palin and quit while you are still a viable entertainer..."

Another benefit of having a de facto private page is being able to write whatever you please without concern for diplomacy. Therefore, if you are offended by poorly written postings of a political nature that fly in the face of your considered beliefs in UFO's, the integrity of Dick Cheney or the wisdom of Elizabeth Hasselbeck, be forewarned: this is not the place for you. You will not like what you read. And if you are a member of the anti-Obama Birther movement, you will not understand it.

At long last we elected a president ready, willing and able to take on the enormous task of reforming the massively dysfunctional health care system in this country, only to see what is a truly heroic effort of monumental proportions being once again derailed by the health care industry itself. In a manufactured 'grassroots lobby', funded by the insurance industry and Big Pharma and whipped into a frenzy by a conscious-less right-wing media, pitchfork wielding citizens are showing up at town hall meetings screaming spontaneously memorized Republican talking points about roving death panels prowling the country eager to toss Granny down the shoot and faceless, uncaring federal bureaucrats replacing the compassionate and caring corporate bureaucrats currently coddling you, your family and that $200 bottle of Viagra.

Holding up copies of their own birth certificates, carefully preserved in Ziploc baggies these informed consumers of the best of American punditry demand to know why no one has looked into the fact that Barack Hussein Obama was almost certainly born on a UFO somewhere off the Beta Quadrant, the product of a human woman and an alien race of beings committed to bringing health care and gun control to a struggling populace.

As Peter Sagal of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me put it ~ the government wants to give the American people health care. And they don't want anyone to give them health care. Motto: Give us Liberty And give us Death!

I am sick and tired of the will of the majority of the American people as expressed by the electoral process being subverted by corporate behemoths and their Republican operatives in the legislature and media. I am sick and tired of bullies taking over the democratic process. I am sick and tired of self-righteous, misinformed, hotheaded zealots shouting down any voice raised against them. Just because you're loud doesn't mean you're right ~ my god, didn't your mother teach you anything? Don't make me come back there and euthanize you.

I am sick and tired of a propaganda machine so efficient in it's systematic demonization of intellectualism, education and indeed of any knowledge based on actual proof of fact that there are people out there who honestly believe that the government of the United States of America is coming to euthanize its citizenry.

Seriously, people. Get a grip. The administration is trying...to bring you...health care. Don't let the bullies scare you. We can do it. We voted for this. Change. It's a good thing.

And I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Of people.

Where's a roving death panel when you need one?

Sunday, August 02, 2009

a long and winding road


I actually, finally finished a painting today.

I'd been working on this particular canvas on and off for, quite literally, years now. I've posted pieces of it over the centuries, I think. But it just never seemed to be finished; there was always some element, some signifier that would be missing and would not let me put it to rest, as I probably should have long ago. Until today, when I picked it up, added that which I suddenly knew it needed and voila! C'est complet. I regret that I cannot get a decent picture of it no matter how hard I try, mostly because it was, at one point in it's travels, poorly and unevenly varnished by its creator in a hurried fashion before it was ready, causing it to pick up light and reflection in unappealing ways. And then again, perhaps it won't photograph prettily because it is, in fact, unlovely, an idea which does not displease me overmuch. It always was an unruly child ~ errant, frustrating, even, dare I say it? ~ ill-conceived. But what the hell. It's mine.

I call the picture "Journey," and in the course of those long and winding years it has been on one of it's own. It has undergone considerable revision, both in content and intent, it's direction and execution meandering far and wide, gathering paint, dust and ephemera along its way. Until it emerged to become the thing that it is; dark, dense, and not at all what it imagined it would be when first conceived.
Like life, and most of our journeys. Or so I imagine. This one's mine, for what it's worth. Because I made it so. And no one chooses my path but me.