Author: Mark Alexander

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Quote of the Day

“When you rape children, cover it, rape them again, cover it up, rape them again, finally get caught, still cover it up, apologize, recant your apology, then blame the victim, you have zero moral authority to lecture others about their supposed sins.” – John Aravosis at AMERICAblog, writing about the Catholic Church’s most current bit of pearl-clutching over marriage equality.

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Under-appreciated

The other night I was watching a documentary about the life and times of Sir Elton John, and as they were reeling off all his albums, I noticed that they completely skipped over one of my personal favorites, his eleventh studio release, Blue Moves.

Even at the time it came out, the two-disk Blue Moves was considered a bit of an anomaly, and as I recall the critics were unerwhelmed. It was Elton’s first release on his own label (Rocket Records) and contained many strictly instrumental cuts, which was unusual for EJ. It also wasn’t the “classic” Elton John sound we’d all come to know and love, but it in retrospect—having begun with Rock of the Westies—it was the sound he was moving toward.

It garnered one hit single: Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.

I personally consider it one of his best, and most under-appreciated albums.

My favorite high-energy cuts are Crazy Water (I love to crank this one in the car), One Horse Town, Boogie Pilgrim,  and Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance). Elton is quite soulful on Someone’s Final Song and If There’s a God In Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?). Elton’s fun, indomitable story telling talent is highlighted in Shoulder Holster.

But you know what the strongest memory this album invokes? The time I had recorded it onto one of those notorious 120-minute cassettes that should never have been used for anything, and the cassette player in truck ate it while I was out running around one afternoon with my friend Steve.

Here are a couple photos from that afternoon…

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Excuses

Via Salon:

Here are just a few of the excuses why, according to the GOP, Lord Mittens will not be the next President of the United States:

1.  Someone forgot to block off the wheelchair ramps in Ohio.

2.  It’s not Mitt Romney’s fault that racism just isn’t as fashionable as it used to be. What’s next? Petticoats? Butter churns? Blood-letting?

3.  No one could have anticipated that single mothers (the ones whose children Mitt blames for all the gun violence in this country) owned shoes with such good arch support they could wait in line for nine hours to vote.

4.  The public insisted on thinking of the trans-vaginal probe as the 10-inch shaming wand instead of the Romney-and-Ryan-approved euphemism, God’s pointer finger.

5.  The elimination of the swimsuit portion of the debates! Paul Ryan in a silver banana hammock versus Joe Biden in a pair of old Birdwells? Ryan was a lock!

6.  America’s failure to cotton to the GOP vice presidential candidate due to naked pictures of “Randy Ryan” pretending to make sweet sweet love to Ayn Rand’s corpse.

7. Mitt Romney’s Axis of Evil: Children, Minorities and Muppets.

8. Romney’s refusal to appear on Nickelodeon’s long-running “Kids Pick the President” special; his demand to see Latina cartoon superstar Dora the Explorer’s papers — and the subsequent illegal search of her backpack on suspicion of possession–were blown way out of proportion. Como se dice self-deportation en Español?

9. Romney’s threat to “end” the PBS family, “fire” Big Bird (the don of Sesame Street) and turn out one-time Log Cabin Republicans and domestic partners Bert and Ernie was read as disrespect, when it was just a Mitts-understanding. (He’s lucky he’s still got legs.)

10. The unladylike behavior and sack-shrinking smarts of female debate commentators Candy Crawley and Martha Raddatz. On the spot fact checking! Insisting on the truth! Didn’t they watch Jim Lehrer? Who gave women the vote?

11.  The discovery of Karl “Poppin Fresh” Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter’s “Be Nice to the Retard” sex tape.

12. Canon. Or whichever company made the sweet little camcorder that filmed the fundraiser where Lord Mittens made his 47% speech.

13.  The feline stars of YouTube. Henri the Existential Cat, Maru the Magnificent, and Tard née Grumpy Cat repeatedly drew attention away from the Romney campaign.

14. The moon. Thanks to some freak astronomical whammy, the menstrual cycles of all the young unmarried women in America synched, and the rush of hormones caused them to vote overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.

15. The Romney/Ryan “Rape is one more means of conception” and “Honk if you’re a Rape Baby!” bumper stickers were even creepier than “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”

16.  The fact that Romney’s religion strictly forbids caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes, spurred rumors that he’s hooked on endangered Panda jerky and gets goofy snorting torn up food stamps. Oh, and that “special underwear” is Mormon for diaper.

17. The expectation that after pandering to Latino voters by appearing in brown-face for an interview on Univison, that Romney wouldn’t appeal to the League of Women Voters by appearing in full drag (or even show a little cleavage) was a disappointment. Although he did rock some Mom jeans.

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Tone Deaf

So now all the blame and finger pointing begins with those on the reich.

It seems it’s always someone else’s fault that they didn’t walk away with the White House or—for that matter—succeed in keeping marriage equality at bay. “We didn’t get the message out.” “We were outspent.” “It was Sandy!” Blah, blah blah.

The Neanderthals in the Republican party and the far right wingnuts they so assiduously integrated into their fold will never admit that they were just plain wrong. It wasn’t that they failed to do anything; it was that the American people rejected their goddamned message!

And rightly so!

So what’s their plan now? We’ve already heard that more Republican obstructionism is Congress is on the way (if not the outright circus of impeachment proceedings—really?), and all the usual suspects who are against marriage equality are vowing that their fight to keep everyone locked in a bronze-age mindset isn’t over.

Talk about tone deaf.

Talk about denying reality.

With any luck, President Obama (who has nothing to lose) should whip out that Executive Order pen and move this country forward—dragging, if necessary—those who wish to keep us mired in the eighteenth century.

To both the Republicans and the Christopaths I have only this to say: please continue doing what you’re doing. With any luck the American people will be so utterly disgusted by your antics that by the time the next election cycle comes around they will finally put you both down like the rabid animals that you are.

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Quote of the Day

“Tonight is the night when our collective civic unconscious puts on its party dress and fuck-me shoes and comes slouching out of the swamp. It is Democracy’s Prom Night, and whether you wake up tomorrow full of fond memories and renewed hope, or face down, naked, in a pool of your own sick all hinges on the whim of nine low information, undecided voters in the People’s Republic of Ohio.” ~ Driftglass

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A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

From my friend Mark:

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water for his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging, commie liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil, lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of Joe’s medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some fire-breathing, lazy-ass union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it, too. Never would turn it down.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some cry-baby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is healthy because some wacko, trouble-making, militant environmentalist fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Then Joe walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants, limp-wristed, freethinkng asshole fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some fire-breathing, Viet Cong-loving union members fought and died for these working standards.

Joe’s employer pays these high standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union in. So Joe benefits from what others have gained.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a workers compensation or unemployment check because some stupid, pinko troublemakers didn’t think Joe should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.

At noontime Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless, liberal red wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. He can thank that Stalinist Franklin D. Roosevelt for that.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist, pointy-headed liberal decided that Joe and society as a whole would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. That’s okay, but the bastards tricked him because he has to pay taxes. Romney will fix that, he tells himself.

Joe gets home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government, New Deal, Stalinist liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating Marxist made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that over the decades the beloved Republicans have fought to defeat every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees with the talk-radio loudmouth: We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man and a good Republican and I believe all Americans should take care of themselves, just like I have!

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The View From Abroad

“A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between.”

By Matt McCarten of the New Zealand Herald via Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease:

On Wednesday the Americans will decide who their next president is. After the recent Republican Party conference I wrote in this column that their nominee Mitt Romney could actually win. It seems incredible that this obvious phoney could beat incumbent Barack Obama.

With increasing globalisation and dominance of the US, any visiting aliens would assume the US president was the leader of the world. Every day, the world’s newspapers and television breathlessly cover each twist and turn of the presidential campaign.

If the world got to vote, Obama would romp home. We scratch our heads that there is barely one percentage point between the two presidential candidates. Racism plays a big part.

But it’s even more depressing than that.

Because American culture via media, film and lifestyle so dominates us, we think we know the American psyche. A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between.

It’s true that the west states and the New England states in the northeast are liberal and the south and much of the mid-west are barking mad. And I’m being polite.

I admire Americans. I love their enthusiasm and self-assuredness. They have an innocence and a naivety that you don’t find in countries with more history. There’s an ugly side to them, too. They are spoilt and have simplistic views about life. These traits infect and drive their politics.

Despite depressingly regular massacres by deranged nutters, no politician dare oppose the pro-gun lobby. The mind boggles that people are allowed to carry concealed guns in bars when they’re drinking; buy machine guns at fairs and over the internet; and have the right to shoot someone on their property. No wonder they have more handgun deaths than the rest of the Western world combined.

New Zealand’s Christian right-wing are so fringe they can’t get a class monitor elected. Unfortunately in the US, they run the Republican Party and intimidate the Democrats into going along with much of their nonsense.

No US politician is elected without saying God told them to do it. When a majority of their right-wing voters actually believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old and really was created in a week you know what a candidate has to spout to succeed.

Abortion has been off the political agenda in New Zealand for a generation. In the US election, it’s the number two issue after the economy. The Republican Party official election platform is no abortions for women even in cases of incest or rape.

Their Indiana candidate claims a rape victim has to carry a rapist’s child to birth because it’s a gift from God. Presumably God was okay about her being raped too. If she aborts, she and the person who carries out the procedure go to jail. His colleague running in Missouri publicly claims that if a woman is “legitimately” raped then her body has mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of conception. Both of these candidates could win their seats along with their vice-presidential nominee and 13 other Republican senatorial candidates who have signed up to the same policy.

If Mitt Romney and his party win, women’s rights will be set back two generations. The Republican Party already opposes equal pay. With impending new appointments to their Supreme Court by the next president, women’s rights to control their own bodies will be illegal. I can’t believe any woman would vote for these men. Do the Republicans see the irony of their holy war against Muslim fundamentalists espousing the same reactionary beliefs?

Let’s hope enough Americans do their duty for the rest of the world’s humanity and save us from Romney and his dangerous ilk from becoming an example for every right-wing nutcase who wants to get into politics.

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Unfuck Your Election Day By Getting Your Ass to the Polls

Here’s some useful shit you need to know before your epic journey on November 6th…

This list is fucking incomplete—so if you have anything important, how about adding that shit? People out there could fucking use it, you know.

Unfuck your voting!

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