Friday Visitor

My dear good friend, AnonymousNFS, graciously zapped by this evening with a letter that she sent to several news organizations:

This exclusive focus on race in the Shirley Sherrod story
exemplifies what we really can't talk about in America--which is
class. Shirley Sherrod said her realization in helping the
individual of another race was that the battle in this country is
between the "haves and have nots." How true. Except that it isn't a
battle. It is a massacre. Recent moves by a cowardly Congress that
can't even require transparency in television advertising, show
that the top 2 percent of America's wealthiest have effectively
destroyed any pretext of equality in this country that once prided
itself on a vibrant, innovative, enterprising middle class.

Well, say goodbye to all that. We can't even cover the Sherrod
story honestly, preferring to wallow again in the pain and self-
righteousness of our twisted heritage of white oppression.

Meanwhile the super rich nod thoughtfully, buy another home or
another wardrobe or two, and allow their kids to pursue again some
courses in graduate education--or party in the local bar--and get
richer.

Or, as they say in that song, "The rich get richer and the poor get children....
Ain't we got fun?" Not much!

Still, today was a gorgeous day, especially in the morning until Mother Nature remembered it was supposed to be HOT and kicked up the thermostat. And Chelsea gets married tomorrow, thanks be. May all go very well with everything.

Prom songs

Which one of these songs do you think would be the last song played on prom night, 1954?   My daughter just put a song on Facebook that recalls to her the "slow, smoochy last song played at the prom."  Well, these are slow--and I'm not sure they're zackly smoochy--but they were popular in 1954, when Shanley High School had its jr-sr. prom.  I like them all, and I remember dancing to them--just not at the prom, per se.  You pick...or if you remember a totally different song, and you're of a certain age, let me know what it was.  (Also, remember that Doris Day's song would have been played on a record--without the costumes...)

Thoughts on a Saturday Night without Effective Air Conditioning.....

Xtreme English is feeling a bit cranky tonight.  Even though the AC has been on all day, set responsibly at 78, it's around 90 in my room cuz it's so hot outside no AC can keep up with it.  Needless to say, I'm not complaining about the heat per se.  I've said many times that I'd rather be hot than cold any day.  Still true.  If you grew up where I did and in the era I did, you'd know what "cold" means.  Cold is not 40F.  It's -40F.
But I digress.  I'm cranky cuz I'm sweaty and because some loud and pushy residents of this country seem to be set on driving us all off a cliff.

I just read this on Prairie Weather (not exactly weather-related, but prairie weather is especially harsh).

Here's the last paragraph:

Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still—free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules—and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage “Beware what you wish for.”...Excerpts from Mark Lilla, "The Tea Party Jacobins," NYRB

 G'night, y'alls....Remember: "The family that sweats together frets together"--that's not exactly it, but you know....Have a nice evening....

Just in case the WAPO editors don't read this, here it is again: UPDATE

After seeing the WaPo's first page this a.m. (in the actual, grubby newspaper) and feeling incensed at this print headline--"New front in racism battle: USDA official's words provide fodder to those who call Obama biased"--my dear good friend Anonymous-NFS sent the following letter to the WaPo editors:

"New Front in Racism Battle?' If I hadn't had the misfortune of watching some TV last night, I'd believe your front page story. But I was stuck with TV. And it showed Ms. Sherrod's entire speech which shows the Post--as well as the NAACP and most of America--continue to be snookered by our vitrolic Right wing, which continues to dominate our discourse with lies and hate. You owe your readers an apology.

 So when I went to look for the article in the ONLINE WaPo just now (hours later),  I found the article, all right, but it now has a new headline: "Firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod now under review"

Don'tcha just grit your teeth over this kind of b.s.?  How long are we going to suffer the slings & arrows of the Right wing?

UPDATE:  This is my comment to Rachel Maddow on Huffington Post this evening:

Rachel, the WaPo is in there pitching along with Fox. This morning they tried to pitch the story as "providing fodder for those who call Obama biased." Now that the whole story has come out, and Vilsack has apologized to Ms. Sherrod and offered her another job with the Dept of Ag., WaPo is saying "how the White House veered off message." Anything to dump on Obama. The whole thing is disgusting. 

Barney Frank and Ron Paul on Cutting Military Spending??

NPR's OnPointRadio carried this wonderful show with Barney Frank and Ron Paul today. 

My favorite of the comments is from someone named Mark.  He says this:

We liked him. We just wouldn’t listen to him:

“We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

-Pres. Eisenhower, 1961.

Thanks, NPR, Barney, Ron, and Mark.  (Ike, too, if you're listening.....)

Pardon my French.....

I just read Paul Krugman's 4th of July column about the blankety-blank Senate going home for an undeserved, uncalled-for vacation over July 4 without extending unemployment benefits to our friends, relatives, and neighbors who have been unemployed for months in this *@!! idiot-generated Depression. 

I'm trying to think of how I can express my OUTRAGE over these motherblankers and still have this post pass muster with the language nannies.  As Krugman says, the members of the Senate have flown home (at our expense, natch--or maybe, fearing criticism for throwing our money around, they've presciently paid for it themselves this time out of their supergenerous salaries--but these also are at our expense) to go glad-handing at 4th of July picnics and parades among their constituents--many of whom seem as clueless and heartness and lost in space as their elected representatives.

Nobody, including our beloved administration, seems to have the cojones (alert--foreign language, possibly illegal alien vocabulary) to stand up and do the correct, compassionate, SENSIBLE thing and EXTEND THE UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS INDEFINITELY UNTIL THE CONGRESS CAN GET THEIR CRIPE TOGETHER AND CREATE JOBS THAT WILL SUPPORT FAMILIES AND GET US ALL BACK ON OUR FEET AGAIN!!!!  Can't we start making sneakers and t-shirts and bicycles HERE IN THE USA again?  Don't we have any empty factory buildings (or whole cities--Detroit??) waiting? Can't we trash-can that stupid war and put Blackwater and Cheney's little fiefdom, Halliburton, OUT OF THE BUSINESS OF SUCKING AWAY OUR NATIONAL TREASURE????

Alas, I fear the blanket-blank, good-for-nothing, pigs-at-the-trough who call themselves U.S. Senators, Republican or Democrat, will do nothing. What more can we expect?  As I said, please pardon my French.