The Better-Off Dead
1.
A policeman was blocking the front door when I arrived. Serious sunglasses, snug short-sleeved shirt, stiff slacks, arms locked across his chest. The splotchiness of his freckled skin could only be seen when you were immediately in front of him. Probably because his forearms glistened with smooth layer of sweat–a necessary reaction to the burn of the desert sun, still brutal at minutes after five PM. Read more »
Nothing to Sell But Fear Itself
Newt Gingrich has always had a problem with context.
He didn’t get that impeaching a President for lying about an affair while he was having an affair wasn’t a brilliant move.
And he doesn’t quite get that the terrorist threat, while grave and serious, isn’t the same existential threat that marked the Cold War.
And he especially doesn’t get that selling the fear of boogiemen to people who are worried about keeping their job, their health care, their 401k isn’t going to work—even a world where an act of nuclear terrorism is likely if not inevitable.
But on Sunday, the thrice-married, recent Catholic convert, former Speaker of the House said these words: Let me just say, I think people should be afraid. He then listed a series of Al Qaeda attacks (all of which resulted in less loss of American lives than the Iraq War) from the 90s, ignoring that the Bush Administration ignored intelligence that predicted the 911 attacks.
Fear doesn’t keep anyone safe. Either does blind aggression. What keeps people safe is realistic threat assessment, constant engagement and willingness to learn from mistakes.
What keeps us safe is context, and Newt’s fear mongering is just a non sequitur.
Child Abuse?
I’m not certain I would diagnose myself with chemical depression. But if I am currently suffering, a definite symptom would be my recent interaction with a nine-year old girl.
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Jonah Goldberg — Fortunate SOB
Do you remember Jonah Goldberg? His mom was the woman who convinced Linda Tripp to tape her private conversations with the twenty-one year old Monica Lewinsky.
Goldberg has made his way into a high-paying profession where ethical standards don’t help you find work: Conservative punditry.
This article about Obama fear-mongering is the most unconsciously satiric thing I’ve ever read.
Look out Americans, your President is trying to trick you into creating jobs, improving education and fighting global warming with FEAR. Don’t let him trick you into capriciously preventing “moral hazard” and “creative destruction.” The consequences could be horrible: I might have to pay more taxes on the money I earn pooping out Conservative nonsense.
If Obama were conjuring terror alerts to distract us from NOT finding weapons of mass destruction in a country we invaded because of its weapons of mass destruction, then calling Obama’s well wrought rhetoric “fear mongering” might make sense.
Goldberg’s family legacy is a stain on the shapeless dress that is the politics of distraction. He’s the Kato Kaelin of the Lewinsky Scandal, and the LA Times should be ashamed they’re passing this drivel as discourse.
Arguing with the Losers
In teaching there’s a saying: Arguing with a student is like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
In this analogy applied to politics, Rush Limbaugh is obviously the pig.
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For Some Reason It Never Feels Right
In high school, I was sexually desperate.
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From the people who brought you blatant Holocaust denial
How I Know My Soul is a Bit Rotten
1. I’ve never had a decent relationship with anyone. Not with a parent, nor with a boy. Not with a Jew. Not with a Goy. Not when I was nine, and not when I was ten. I used to be passive-aggressive about watching Friends. Even my pets have usually been aloof. Ask anyone I know for proof.
2. I’d eliminate the need to procreate from the human genome, if it were easy to do.
3. I only enjoy oral sex if the man is, what I perceive as, too good for me or married. I rarely cum with fat men.
4. Sometimes when I’m depressed, I think the only thing in my life I’ve ever done right is to not have a kid.
5. I find that as I get older that I’d rather not hear about child abuse rather than actually do anything to stop it.
6. I think people who’d rather cut taxes than build schools should have to park there their car in Richmond, CA once a week.
7. I think racial humor is hilarious. Misuse of the word Oriental always makes me smile.
8. I think having a kid should cost you money on your taxes.
9. Knowing that 99% of the girls are drugged, abused or both, I still watch porn, and somehow, I always feel worse for the guys—those peach tanned, van-driver types.
10. I’m glad my parents got divorced. I only wish they’d tortured each other longer.
“For Some Reason It Never Feels Right” is the occasional blog of Linda Weissberg MFT.
The Illest Place to Put a Dime
My Great Aunt Ginny never married. Because of that she had become sort of pet of the family. She’d come live with a brother or a sister for a month or two, and then try life again on her own. When things got bad or tight again, she’d send a postcard to the oldest sister, Ethel, who’d arrange a place for her to stay.
She was a decent house guest. She had one decent dessert she’d make every Sunday, Lemon something. And she always wafted along with a fragrant scent of something that seemed to lighten moods and soothe stomachs. She swore it was Dove soap, but her married sisters, whenever they congregated in groups of two or more, forever complained that their single sister was far too possessive of her personal whatnots. And that, obviously, was part of her problem. I think her pleasant smell and demeanor kept our family from overreacting to her occasional fits of strange behavior. Someone was always willing to take her in. My mother often bragged, “You know what the Kennedys would’ve done to her, don’t you?”
Ginny stayed with us once. It was just before the home and the lawsuit and all that mess.
It was pretty uneventful. I had been up all night so I was ditching school and sleeping in. Around eleven, the doorbell rang. I put my glasses on and had my retainer half out when I heard the front door open.
I snuck out my bedroom door and Pink Panthered to the top of the staircase. There I saw my Great Aunt Ginny standing at the door—in her bra and panties.
Loose skin vibrated into every direction as she pressed rumpled dollar bills against her bare belly.
The delivery boy—who was my age, ok looking, not great, not terrible—was watching Ginny like a puppy watches a burrito in a child’s lap.
When Ginny grabbed the pizza box out of the boy’s hands, I had to turn away.
“And here’s the tip,” she said.
“Nah. It’s ok, m’am, seriously,” the boy said, suddenly hurried.
Ginny implored, in something resembling words.
“But seriously,” the kid said, now horrified, “that’s the illest place in the world to put a dime.”
“For Some Reason It Never Feels Right” is the occasional blog of Linda Weissberg MFT.
The California Catastrophe and the Death of the Front Page
California’s economic nightmare is about to get a whole lot worse.
If we were reading our local newspapers, we’d know that the budget compromise that Governor Schwarzenegger has nearly worked out with the Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature will do massive damage to California’s schools and economic future.
$8 billion will be cut from K-12 and community colleges. Another $800 million plus from the Cal State and UC systems.
Basically, as Californians by the tens of thousands are tossed out of work and not able to find another job, they won’t be able to find the classes they need to pursue the training and education they need.
To magnify the problem, schools will be laying of hundreds, maybe thousands of educators and support staff. This is our Republicans’ idea of a stimulus.
So as the Bush Depression accelerates at a reckless pace in California our state government is taking off the seatbelt and disarming the air bags.
The worst part is it seems that nobody notices what’s going on. I know more people read the news now. But since more and more people get their information online, they may never even come across local reporting.
Without a front page we’re forced to skim, life becomes an endless BS bitch session about Net Neutrality or Zionists or Miley Cyrus’ slant eyes.
If we were reading our local paper, we’d know that a minority of Republicans in the State Senate and Assembly are holding our collective future hostage.
The only taxes they’ll even consider are those that punish the working poor while slashing services. It’s Bush logic that’s been rejected again and again. But because of California’s insane budgeting process, it’s happening again in the most Progressive state in the Union.
This generation has never seen the likes of the crisis that’s about to hit California. And the Republicans in this state will get away with it, if they can keep news about their dirty work contained to the front page of our local newspapers.