Margaret, tell Howard that the difference between me and Rush Limbaugh is that I don’t lie in order to support my opinion. That fat bastard Limbaugh will say anything to keep his ratings up and counts on his fans being too lazy to check the facts. And as far as the next election, Howard is probably right. This fickle country of ours will probably put the Republicans back in control of something and it will start all over again. It’s sad really.
I wonder if the Grand Old Party has taken a step back recently and gotten a good look at just how tarnished they have become? You’ve got one Governor shooting wolves out of helicopters and another using laser guided missiles to take out coyotes during his morning jog. You’ve got the Tea Party rooting for insurance companies instead of kids and the Right-To-Lifers shooting doctors at church. The GOP even has homophobes practicing homosexuality. And “drill, baby, drill” isn’t sounding too great for a battle cry these days, but by God they’re sticking to it. From where I sit, the entire Republican Party should head to OZ – looking for a brain, a heart and a pair of testicles.
Honestly, do Republicans put their guns down long enough to wipe their asses or do they just take a chance and occasionally wound themselves in the privates? What the hell are these people thinking? Have you listened to Rush Limbaugh recently? And if you have, please tell me why. We know he never graduated from College. We know his mother said he flunked everything. We know that much of his career was spent high on hillbilly heroin. And we know for damn sure he lies. There is actually an entire organization dedicated to exposing his lies from each and every broadcast. So how in God’s name can you repeat his garbage in your emails and comments to me and not expect me to immediately discount you for a fool?
For the record. I have no issue with all these morons asking to see President Obama’s birth certificate. After all, for eight years I demanded that President Bush produce a GED document to prove he had a brain. I never did get proof, but I also knew when to give up… right about the time he said that the human being and fish could coexist peacefully. The birth certificate argument is a horse as dead as the coyote that almost ate Governor Good Hair.
The absolute absurdity of it all has become… well… absurd.
Margaret, you have to ask yourself:
How many guns do you need before you cross the line from hunter to paranoid militia member?
How much oil has to wash ashore in the Gulf Coast before we seriously consider solar, wind and other alternative fuel sources?
How many skeletons and fossils do we have to dig up before evolution seems more plausible than the story of God sleeping in after six days of hard work?
How many wars do we have to start before we realize that, in war, there are no winners except Dick Cheney and Halliburton?
How long before Tea Party members stop misspelling signs and just start burning crosses?
Does that law in Arizona really do anything to fix immigration or is it just a new way of saying you don’t want a Mexican buying the house next door?
And just how stupid does Sarah Palin have to be before you reconsider giving her the codes to the nukes?
About that last one. I really, really do mean it.
love this, YOU ROCK
By: cris on July 9, 2011
at 7:46 AM
Well, hello Jean.
You asked for a favor, and I was the only one who delivered. I didn’t expect a “thank you,” but you now know I will return good for evil. You, on the other hand return evil for good, don’t you?
I do enjoy knowing I am inside of your head. Why else would you be so apparently obsessed by people like me? A normal person would ignore us, but not you. Now, you compare us to barnacles. I am still a producer, and my taxes help pay your bills. That makes you more of a parasite than I.
Which species of barnacle are you? I vote for Pilumnopeus serratifrons.
Aloha! Namaste. Shalom.
Uncle James
By: James on May 1, 2011
at 8:59 AM
Hi Congenial Gang,
Any one of Helen’s posts is as timely today as when she first put it up and is worth re-reading. That is the hallmark of a great writer. Most of the contributors here have been quite informative and congenial with the exception of only a few. Those few remind me of barnacles.
This vital information is a brief summary of what barnacles are all about. In case you are not familiar with these critters, you can read more on Google and see pictures of them too. They are not very pretty! Barnacles are anthropods who live in their shells in the water, mostly oceans. They attach themselves to rocks instead of crawling after food. They are hermaphrodytic. The barnacle will live out its life inside its “shell house” firmly attached to one spot on the rock. It cannot move about and is dependent upon the high tides to bring all the things that it needs to survive.
However, many genus of barnacles live quite high on the shore and may only be covered with water for a few hours each day. For the rest of the time they must endure the baking sun.
Barnacles also attach themselves to the hull of ships and boats. Mariners have to scrape them off the bottoms of those vessels from time to time during routine maintenance or painting. Slimy.
A most unusual barnacle which does not construct a shell-like covering for itself is the parasitic barnacle. It takes residence under the abdominal flap of a small shore crab, the Smooth-handed Crab, Pilumnopeus serratifrons. The parasitic barnacle feeds off the living tissues of the crab.
Aloha! Namaste. Shalom.
Auntie Jean
By: Jean on May 1, 2011
at 1:20 AM
It is clear that ignorance isn’t an age issue. As far as I can see, Obama is Bush on Steroids. Bush funds the first bail out, leaves the borders open and funds a war that has gone now where. And Obama follows in spade. Wake up and smell reality.
I have to thank you because it is your kind that have spawned the beginnings of new parties. Democrat or Republican same shit different animal.
By: Dan Tocchini on October 27, 2010
at 4:49 PM
Diane, you mean the honor that Bush managed to tar during his illegal tenure?
I was in Washington, DC three years ago visiting the National Archives. I really wanted to see the US Constitution but was told that it was out for repairs. I laughed to myself and replied, “Of course it is, because Bush shredded it.” They just smiled.
Love your site ladies – thanks for sharing your letters with us.
By: TinkerToy on August 31, 2010
at 3:47 PM
Please keep writing. You are voices of sanity in an absolutely insane world where Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are holding a rally about our country taking back its honor.
By: Diane Beeler on August 27, 2010
at 11:40 PM
We miss you Whirled Peas.
By: poolman on August 22, 2010
at 4:01 PM
Out of the mouths of cartoon characters oft times come history lessons:
The Pinky Show: Vietnam
PEACE
By: Anonymous on August 22, 2010
at 12:52 PM
Pfessor, ironic, my husband survived an aortic arch dissection in 2006. Yes I get GE makes some good stuff (not appliances – ours are all GE, and being replaced with anything but) It’s just ironic that they profited from the destruction of a country, and profit in it’s rebuilding…
By: Dawn on August 19, 2010
at 11:43 PM
pfessor, I devoured science fiction, and thought of Clark’s law too, also. We could buy paperback books for $.25 or so through our school book club.
You are right. The wagon tracks still remain in the Platte Valley of Nebraska. So do buffalo wallows if you know where to look.
An old stage road remains on the loess hills east of us, and arrowheads are easy to find where Indians were buried after an inter tribal battle. People here still tell stories of how it was when Jessie James’ gang rested in our county.
My great grandmother thought something was wrong on a sunny January day in 1888, and when the weather turned bad that afternoon, she refused to let her students go home. Because of her caution, she probably saved their lives from the Blizzard of ’88 or the Childrens’ Blizzard because so many children died on their way home from school.
She and her students formed a chain because the visibility was so low. Someone held on to the sod building while the group swept through the school yard until they found her horse. They put it in the school with them.
My great grand mother’s brother walked 14 miles to see his first electric lights.
My grandfather used to sing
“Nebraska land, Nebraska land
Upon your fruited plain I stand
I watch the sun rise and fall each day
and wonder why it never rains.”
Yes, they would have thought any one suggesting how we would live now to be crazy.
By: James on August 19, 2010
at 6:14 PM
James -
“Professor, we live in an age of miracles don’t we?”
When I was in grade school and high school I devoured science fiction and I often think of Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
What I have always found most remarkable though is man’s range from good to bad, from almost unfathomable innovation and beauty to really unfathomable depravity. I often fly, and when I cross the Plains, I always look down to see if I can find the wagon tracks that legend has can still be seen if you know where to look. And the thought is always the same: If you told those people in those wagons that their young children would – in their lifetimes – be able to make the same trip in two hours that was taking them three months; that they would do it six miles straight up, at 550 miles per hour, in air 120 degrees below zero – and would do so in perfect comfort, with a cute young lady or gentleman serving them lunch – they would tie you to the wagon for the rest of the trip, since you were obviously crazy.
Yet here it is. Yes we live in an age of miracles. And it can only get better.
(cross posted to M&H new posting)
Jim
By: pfesser on August 19, 2010
at 11:43 AM
Our niece and her husband returned from their second tour in Iraq last winter. They also spent time in Afghanistan, so I know how you feel. As Poolman wrote, “May God bless all those in the midst of warefare…”
I agree Poolman, but we have to live with the world as it is. l can’t think of any country which would dominate the world with greater good than the United States. That is why I root for our side though the other side can have valid grievances.
It is ironic isn’t it Dawn. These are multinational companies that hire people where ever they can pay the lowest wage.
Professor, we live in an age of miracles don’t we?
By: James on August 19, 2010
at 9:52 AM
Dawn -
I wonder what Mr. Edison would think of the Edison General Electric Company these days?
Their products are pretty remarkable. Our hospital just purchased a 64-slice GE CAT scanner; I just diagnosed a 49 year-old man’s aortic dissection yesterday (that’s where the lining of the largest blood vessel in the body peels away from the wall and the blood begins to leak out. In past times, they were over 95% fatal.) When I was in training, to diagnose this condition we would spend hours in a dangerous arteriogram procedure, hoping to get a hint of what was wrong; now it takes me four minutes from the time the patient gets on the table until he gets off. Then another minute for the computer to reconstruct the images. Then one minute for a phone call to the Emergency Room. From the time he hit the door until he was on the helicopter was twenty minutes. Amazing technology – it clearly saved this 49 year-old father’s life.
You mentioned GE engines. As also a pilot and electrical engineer, I am in awe of GE aircraft engines; conceded by even their competitors to be the best in the world. When you fly, those engines are constantly being monitored by GE from the ground, and any anomaly is fed into computers which diagnose the most likely cause and feed the data to the airplane’s next stop so technicians can fix it if necessary. This is all done without the pilot’s knowledge, unless it is a safety issue. What a shame to see such beautiful engineering go for the purpose of killing humans…my college roomie used to say that if we could kill people with sunbeams we’d have had solar power years ago.
By: PFesser53 on August 19, 2010
at 4:13 AM
Who benefits from our toil you ask? (military) Uh, that would be the corportations who sell war.
I find it incredibly ironic that GE now has a stong foothold in Viet Nam ( USA TODAY, 8/18) First the company makes $ building engines to drive the airplanes that drop the bombs that destroy the flora, fauna, and those pesky live of people that live there.
Now, it is making money giving the Vietnamese people jobs… don’t bother making things here in the US. Truly ironic.
By: Dawn on August 18, 2010
at 10:17 PM
May God bless all those in the midst of warfare, where ever they are, I pray. Help them, Father, to make wise choices and keep them under Your Almighty wings. Bless those over them. Give them noble commanders. Please give us all a desire to end these wars and our occupations. Let us support our troops by bringing them all home to their families. Let all those who perpetrate war disappear from among our numbers. Let us learn to be doers of good and supporters of life, I pray.
When will our military actually support our troops?
By: poolman on August 18, 2010
at 9:29 PM
I hold your hand Greytdog, since I am also concerned this a dangerous time, I too have family members still in Iraq.
By: no one's puppet on August 18, 2010
at 8:34 PM
The last American combat brigade has left Iraq & is now Kuwait. In a couple of weeks or so, they will be home. Troops still in country no longer on a combat mission but are in a training/transition m.o. Security for American personnel & the International Zone (aka Green Zone) will be shared between Iraqi army & mercenaries. My oldest stepson is there. The Intl Zone shelled twice already tonight…he expects an uptick in violence. . .
By: Greytdog on August 18, 2010
at 8:25 PM
James, mankind hasn’t changed over generations in the way they desire to manipulate others for personal gain. It is that inherent nature that we have to overcome to truly subsist peacefully on one planet. Many have gone before us and we have hand-me-down knowledge to sort things out. Those that hold power and wealth have always resorted to any means, no matter how extreme, to hold on to it or gain more.
Afterall, one person’s jihad movement is another’s crusade. Who benefits from the chaos? That is who stages it. It is an orchestrated game for control of the resources. Look beyond the players to those that actually have admitted to using terror to force their agendas. Sometimes the hardest things to truly see are the most familiar and in plain sight.
By: poolman on August 18, 2010
at 7:05 PM
Poolman, I posted an answer, but I think the internet ate it. I agree in part, but our response to the jihad movement was more defensive than offensive. We didn’t wage a serious attack until after 9/11. The Cold war began more as a reaction to the Soviets than the other way around.
I think the United States should behave as TR advised. “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”Don’t go looking for trouble. If we have no choice but to fight a war, it is best to do it with overwhelming force and end it as quickly as possible. Then, make a friend of our defeated enemy as we did the Germans and Japanese.
By: James on August 18, 2010
at 4:25 PM
Craig, I’m good with our Republic as was the original intent. Any form of government can be oppressive or not, it depends on how those in power use that authority in the treatment of others.
Meinst du, macht nichts, pfesser? Oder macht keinen Unterschied? Vielleicht ist das Problem mit deinen zehnten Rang-Physik-Klasse. Wissenschaft entwickelt sich.
James, I have been researching much of that era now that a lot of classified information is available through the FOIA. It doesn’t make mainstream news. We tend to want to forget that era, and actually have been quite successful in that. Except, that is, for those directly involved. They are fewer and fewer as time advances. But we have not learned from that time what we hoped and vowed. Today peoples have to prove they are not enemies or threats to us, rather than the other way around. We have a proactive stance, rather than reactive. Offensive rather than defensive. That works well for humanity with medicine, not so much in war.
By: poolman on August 18, 2010
at 11:27 AM
Craig’s interpretation of history is reasonably accurate.
As he wrote, our forces are usually the first to show up during emergencies and natural disasters. For example, the UN complained that not many countries who could have done as much as the United States for flooded regions of Pakistan.
A difference between us and most of our enemies is we don’t institutionalize cruelty, and they do.
The history of Vietnam is more complex than our schools usually teach. Ho Chi Ming was one of many revolutionaries who wanted to be independent of Europeans like the French. He asked the United States for help. We refused because France was our ally.
Ho turned to the Soviets and became a communist. WW11 and the Japanese occupation united all sides, in part because of Japanese cruelty. After the war Ho’s group systematically eliminated his competitors, some of whom wanted a democracy.
They defeated the French and a struggle between the autocratic north and democratic south resumed. Thousands of northerners fled to the south to escape Ho’s brutality.
The geopolitical reality of enough nuclear bombs and missiles to destroy the world made the Soviets and West reluctant to wage face to face hot wars. Both sides were rational enough to do what they could to avoid a fatal mistake, so they fought proxy wars.
Thus, the communists helped the North, and we responded with aid to the South. The major powers had taken over a local civil war, and it took on a greater meaning than it previously had. The war became a test of the two systems and the domino theory was born. If Vietnam fell, South East Asia and maybe the Philipines would become communist.
Johnson lied when he used the Gulf of Tolkin as an excuse to escalate the war. He said he was not going to be the first modern Democrat to lose a war.
One thing our planners failed to take into account was a thousand years of bad blood between the Chinese and Vietnamese. The Chinese and Vietnamese were reluctant allies. I read that after the Soviet Union fell, researchers found documents recording important Soviet involvement in the war. I think the war reduced to its basic components was between the Soviets and the West.
The Tet Offensive was a military victory for the West. We won most of the other battles, as General Giap noted. He also said the North won the war on American and European college campuses. The North Vietnamese realized they could win through public opinion and propaganda.
The United States didn’t have the stomach for such a long, inconclusive war which killed so many of our youth, and the North used that fact to their advantage.
The United States negotiated a pseudo peace with Ho’s government, and if I remember correctly Kissinger and his counterpart won the Nobel Peace Prize. South Vietnam’s president Ky condemned the treaty as a sell out.
The treaty created something like the Korean stalemate. The North planned to violate the treaty and conquer the South after our attention turned elsewhere. Fighting continued but most of our troops were gone or in support positions. The South made lavish use of air power as we had taught them, and they held their own.
After Watergate, an anti- war generation of representatives gained enough power to stop aid to South Vietnam. Gerald Ford practically begged Congress to keep helping the South, but his political position was so weakened there was nothing he could do.
The emotional impact on the South was dramatic. An experimental northern incursion turned into a rout which surprised Ho’s forces. They took advantage and pressed on. Panic stricken Southerners fled for safety, and so did many of the military. They stole helicopters, trucks and other machines to transfer them and their families to safety.
It became a tidal wave which fed on itself. An Army man told me Montenarg tribesmen who bravely helped us for years radioed for help as North Vietnamese troops surrounded their bases. There was nothing he could do, so he sadly turned off the radio.
A local television meteorologist I knew was an Army reporter and one of the last to leave Saigon. He was a comedian, and made weather shows interesting. Tom was also a civic power house in Sioux City. I wasn’t the only one who felt a dark cloud which seemed to surround him. He saw things he never talked about.
We made the South Vietnamese dependent on our money and they created an urban economy which mirrored ours. We unintentionally corrupted their society. We promised them they could depend on us, and they believed we would keep our word.
We lied to people who had risked their lives to help us. We left them standing outside our embassy walls waiting for rescue we knew would never come.
Many Vietnamese airmen took their families and flew helicopters to our ships stationed off shore. Some jumped out of their helicopters a few feet over the water within sight of our ships and hoped for rescue. So many landed on carriers, our sailors had to push them overboard to make room for more.
We owed the South Vietnamese who had faith in our word. They ended up in re -education camps and some were killed or tortured. Others died as boat people who tried to escape.
After news of the Killing Fields spread, Joan Biaz, who was prominent in the anti-war movement, said maybe they had misjudged the North Vietnamese. Most didn’t care.
I think “War on Terror” had roots in our abandonment of Vietnam.
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” and both sides who used Vietnam for their own battles created Hell in Southeast Asia.
By: James on August 18, 2010
at 8:51 AM