From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Monday Morning Civility. I Haz It.
Every now and again, when things start getting really tense, I put on my diplomat's bowler hat and visit the major right-wing blogs to find some common ground---tidbits of truth, wisps of wisdom or knuggets of knowledge we can all agree on. It ain't easy, but I have yet to return from Rightyville empty-handed. These are actual snippets proving, once again, that our respective circles in the Venn diagram of life do indeed intersect a teeny weeny bitty bit:
Life has a funny way of working out, and people have a funny way of being unexpected.
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Republicans are losing ground on social issues.
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They can pry my Jimmy Dean Pork Patty from my cold dead hands!
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Good gosh, chill!
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God is not voting in 2012
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Stop the madness!
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Your desire to masturbate doesn’t grant you the right to control my life.
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“Be respectful, or be banned.”
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Romney often sounds like HAL refusing to open the pod-bay doors in 2001: A Space Odyssey…
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I should never type in a hurry.
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With Breitbart, you can bet it will be very anticlimactic.
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Why yes America, there IS a Santa Claus
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Sometimes people do what they know or suspect is wrong
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Cheers (clink)
My hope for the survival of the republic remains guardedly optimistic.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, February 13, 2012
Note: Last call for the New England Kossack Meetup this Saturday, February 18, from 1-4pm at Margarita's Mexican Restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Please RSVP today or tomorrow to my partner Michael at cuckolds04103@gmail.com so we can get a final count (we have over 25 people confirmed at the moment). Forecast says partly sunny and 42. Hope you can make it!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til spring: 36
Days 'til the 25th Maine Boatbuilders Show in Portland: 32
Number of Americans who have knee replacements per year: 620,000
Increase in demand for knee replacements among 45-64 year-olds since 1998: 3x
(Source: USA Today)
Rank of "bread/rolls" among the major sources if salt in the American diet: #1
Rank of "potato chips/pretzels/popcorn" on the list: #10
(Source: CDC)
Average amount people who celebrate Valentine's Day will spend this year, up 8.5% from last year: $126
(Source: National Retail Foundation)
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NEW! Revvin' Up for Rhode Island!
Brought to you by the 2012 Netroots Nation Convention in Providence, June 7-10. The Rhode Island State House is Gorrrrrrrgeous! And, we hear, somewhat historic:
The Rhode Island State House is composed of 327,000 cubic feet (9,300 m3) of white Georgia marble, 15 million bricks, and 1,309 short tons (1,188 t) of iron floor beams. The dome of the State House is the fourth-largest self-supporting marble dome in the world, after St. Peter's Basilica, the Minnesota State Capitol, and the Taj Mahal. On top of the dome is a gold-covered bronze statue of the Independent Man, originally named "Hope." The statue, weighing more than 500 pounds (230 kg), is 11 feet (3.4 m) and stands 278 feet (85 m) above the ground. … The State Room is an entrance area for the office of the Governor and contains a full-scale portrait of George Washington by Rhode Island native Gilbert Stuart.
It's also got a reproduction of the Liberty Bell inside and a blogger-proof (so they say)
safe containing the state Charter and one of the copies of the Declaration of Independence. Get a permission slip from your parent or guardian, cuz we are
so there.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Splash!!!
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CHEERS to restoring order in the galaxy. The 2008 version of Mitt Romney beat the tar out of the 2012 version of Mitt Romney in the Maine caucus Saturday. The final tally: 2008 Romney got 52 percent, while 2012 Romney got 39 percent. So congratulations, 2008 Romney, on your come from behind win. I knew you could pull it off!
P.S. Looks like Romney huddled with the Republican leadership here to use a non-existent snowstorm to steal the win. Jeez---at this rate the Republicans are gonna run out of their allotment of primary season asterisks before spring.
JEERS to the CPAmnesiaC convention. Quick! Name one thing you remember from last year's CPAC convention! Yeah…me neither. So it'll come as no surprise next year when I ask the same question and get the same mass-shrug about this year's media over-hyped minority-belittling conference. In the meantime, here's a quick recap: "Gloom! Doom! The Muslim Brotherhood wants your precious bodily fluids! Repeal anything that moves! Reclaim something something something! Restore something else something else and something else! President Obama wants to steal your baby's SOUL!!!" (Okay, that last one is true, according to Conservapedia.) In the end it was three days of vapid ideas, conspiracy theories and barely-concealed horror at how weak the 2012 GOP field is. But at least the self-loathing closet cases got some m4m sexytime. Conservatives---so romantic.
CHEERS to protecting the homeland. Last Friday Gabrielle Giffords got a U.S. Navy warship named after her. Shortly afterward, Jared Loughner gulped really hard.
CHEERS to blessing our unions. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein made a video for the Human Rights Campaign in which he expresses his support for gay marriage. It's yet another major sign that corporate America profits handsomely from having non-discrimination policies and coming down on the side of pro-equality consumers. In fact, I only have one small quibble with Blankfein's video: he didn’t make it from behind bars.
JEERS to things not working in reverse. When contraception coverage creeps into the insurance plans of church-run institutions, the response from the religious muckety mucks is, "Get Your government hands out of our saintliness!!! But when a governor---say, Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage---proudly proclaims that he wants to give public funding (i.e. lots of atheist and agnostic dollars) to religious schools, the response is, Splendid! Simply SPLENDID…
"We love the idea," said Keith Dawson, head of the Greater Portland Christian School in South Portland. … If his school received public funding, Dawson said, it would want to maintain "the ability to teach based on what we feel is best for our students." The school wouldn't be willing to provide instruction on evolution and sex, he said…
Just what I always wanted: a chance to have some of my tax money thrown at educational institutions dedicated to making their kids dumb, by design, in the name of God. I swear, I'm running out of things to check off my bucket list.
JEERS to early departures. The world loses another superstar---Whitney Houston gone at 48. My closest brush with her was catching a glimpse as she filmed scenes with Denzel Washington on the ice skating pond in Deering Oaks park for The Preacher's Wife. But working on the air at a lite rock radio station for a buncha years in the mid-to-late 80s meant serious Whitney Fatigue. It's not that I didn’t like her (you can't not like someone who commands five octaves and wins 400+ music awards), it's just that she constantly had a new hit in the "power rotation" category that got played every three hours…for weeks and weeks and months and months and years from a tiny booth with very large speakers. In a word: Gah! (Adding: I said that about a lot of other artists, too.) But now, like I did after Michael Jackson's death, I'll dust off a greatest hits CD and start re-appreciating the artistry in a new light---without the circus in tow.
CHEERS to movin' and groovin'. Speaking of music, congrats to the winners last night at The Adele Variety Show (aka the Grammy Awards), including Louis C.K. for Best Comedy Album (Hilarious), Betty White for Best Spoken Word (If You Ask Me), and Tony Bennett for Traditional Pop Vocal Album (Duets II). And, thanks to the Best Hard Rock award bestowed on Foo Fighters, the world finally has its first award-winning song with the words…
I've got you stuck in the Habitrail
You've grown to lovin' this shit
Way out on a back shelf
Yeah you don't know what you've done
Look what you're doin'
Now mama says it's ruined
You've got a mollusk in the palm of your hand
So it's a bad smell
Your eyes wanna win
Mark my words, DJs. That's got "wedding song" written all over it.
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Five years ago in C&J: February 13, 2007
JEERS to our Commander-in-Chief. All he had to do a few years back was slam his fist on his desk and say, "Goddammit, I want those Humvees up-armored now!!" But I guess that was just too much to ask:
The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs---including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP)---that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials. [...]
U.S. Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan lack more than 4,000 of the latest Humvee armor kit, known as FRAG Kit 5, according to U.S. officials. The Army has ramped up production of the armor, giving priority to troops in Baghdad, but the upgrade is not scheduled to be completed until this summer, Army officials said.
And yet he boasts of sleeping soundly at night. I can only assume he's still a thumb-sucker, too.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a happy finish (via Kossack Vinnie Vegas). Since it's Monday and all, I wanted to end today's column with something that'll make your heart feel light and your spirit soar. As you head out to face the noise and the haste, here's a little bon mot you can carry with you to add a little spring in your step:
British police threw Rupert Murdoch's scandal-hit News Corporation into fresh turmoil on Saturday by arresting five senior staff at the top-selling daily The Sun in a probe into journalists paying police for tip-offs..
Now go forth and save the planet.
Have a nice Monday. Oh, and in case you haven't seen this yet, President Obama approves this message (the one after the ad). Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Bill in Portland Maine cannot fucking cheer and jeer at the same time!"
---Gisele Bundchen
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