Uncle Joe

Lots of families have a creepy uncle. You never feel right about him, don't want to be alone with him and wouldn't bring your friends to visit him.

Now, it appears that Penn State has had one for the last 61 years, but didn't know it. Footbal icon, Coach Joe Paterno was rightfully fired last night by Penn State's Board of Trustees because, well, they don't want a Grand Jury to start looking at them and making comparisons with the Catholic Church and its monsterous worldwide criminal pedophilia organized crime family.

Grown men weep on television when discussing this sickening case of serial rape of children, because it's bringing down Uncle Joe. That one coach who everyone thought was above reproach -- he always ran a clean program. Well, now we know that ... no, no he sure didn't. He ran a dirty, disgusting, tainted program that facilitated the rape of children.

Bye-bye Uncle Joe. Good Riddance.

Now, the question turns to why-oh-why did it take a Grand Jury so long to report on this? The Justice Department should get involved here as it appears that a criminal investigation was obstructed. Penn State's season should be over as of right now and they should make no plans for next year. Instead, the numbskull who walked in the rape of a 10 year-old boy, did nothing to intervene immedately and waited a day to report it, will be coaching Saturday against Nebraska. That game should be a default win for the Cornhuskers but it won't be. I hope that whatever network is airing the game will be listing child abuse hotline numbers throughout.

It's a hope I have.

OMG, GOP

What in the WORLD is happening with the Republican party? So askew are you, GOP, that I find myself with progressive columnist Dana Milbank (Washington Post), who said last night on MSNBC, "I never thought these words would pass my lips, but Karl Rove is exactly right."

Seriously. Seriously. If it's so bad that Rove states what is blisteringly obvious, then it can only mean one thing ... the GOP is now officially the Goofy Oddball Party.  Maybe for keeps.

Rove was talking about Rick Perry trying to re-ignite the Birther nonsense for having heard it from His Majesty, the Donald. Desperate, pathetic Donald of Trumply.  Karl Rove is now openly concerned that crazy people are noticeably running the republican party. Raising money off the wing nuts is one thing, but having them drive policy and coming down from the attic to speak to the public -- wow that's a big problem.

So, yeah, I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but Rove is right -- pairing up with these nuts is bad for the country. Of course, it was always bad, but now it's on Main Street, so I reckon it's worse.

Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama,
I'm writing today to tell you that we did try to buy American when it was time for a new television a couple of years ago. Couldn't do it. Nothing made in America.

But as I wanted a new car, my husband and I talked extensively about features, about brand, about quality. If it doesn't get 30mpg on the highway, it's out of the question, I said.

Months of looking, WANTING to buy American, we held firm. Safety. Quality. Features. Good mileage. Great service. Not negotiable.

Mr. President, we were not going to take second place. And we didn't. We bought a Chevy Equinox. They say it gets 32 mpg on the highway! But I find it's more like 35 mpg.

We bought a car from a great American company whose course you corrected. Good call.

AZ Shooting - The Ultimate Hate Speech

Did you ever hear the expression "to send a message"? He slammed the ball through the hoop - that really sent a message. It's something we often hear in sports and in politics to indicate that someone's actions are emphatically communicating - usually serving to push back and intimidate the opposition.

Jared Loughton, the Tucson shooter, went to Rep. Giffords' "Congress on the Corner" to "send a message." His actions are speech - hate speech - and to suggest that there is no relationship between this speech and the Republican culture of violent political speech is a child's "nu-uh" argument. Specifically, the Alaskan Quitter-in-Chief has made herself such a reputation for provocative rhetoric, she welcomes the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" and gleefully compares herself to a pit bull (with lipstick). She and her running mate, Senator McCain, were only too happy to benefit from their campaign crowds screaming their heads off when Palin referred to candidate Obama as "palling around with terrorists" and claiming that he, a sitting U.S. Senator posed a threat to the security of the United States. I know you've seen this, but watch as an elderly woman confronts McCain and says she's afraid of Obama. McCain is nodding in affirmation. Then she says she thinks he's AN ARAB. McCain's only response is no, no, he's a decent family man (was that supposed to refute his being an Arab?). He retakes the microphone to get back to the stage and away from specifics. His supporters were so extreme (two of them saying they feared Obama) that McCain is in the ridicuous position of spending his campaigning time talking about the fact that a U.S. Senator is not an enemy of the county. And he does so, by the way, rather superficially.

So is it speech? Was a message sent? Recall, painful as it is, when JFK was gunned down. Was that a statement? How about his brother, Robert, then a sitting U.S. Senator? How about Martin Luther King, whose birthday we observe today? How about San Francisco Mayor George Moscone? Harvey Milk? Rep. Leo Ryan, murdered in Guyana while investigating the Jonestown cult?

Do you see a pattern in those names? Do you notice the progressive tilt? This helps to explain the red-faced anger and sentitivity on the part of progressives when it comes to modern day political assasinations. With the notable exception of Ronald Reagan (who very nearly died when he was shot) and the attempts on then- President Gerald Ford, this practice has been one that has pushed back and sent a message mainly to the political left >> sit down, be quiet. Not now, not yet.

When the Quitter-in-Chief invokes the term Blood Libel, it is no accident due her ignorance. No, indeed. Her accusation stated plainly is that the Jewish-owned and run media is taking the shooting of a Jewish Representative and the killing of a young child and others and using the blood of that crime to "feed" the media beast, directing its hungry attention to chewing on her, America's most successful quitter. Hence, the stain of that ugly lie is continued in the modern age, via Facebook. Like dropping leaflets from an airplane, there's no talking back. It's a one-way message.

When she claims innocence in the AZ shootings, I am reminded of another group that uses inflammatory language and the anonymity of numbers to do the work of spreading their ugliness, then claiming that they didn't light the match that burned the cross on your lawn. That's right, the Klan is great at this stuff -- spreading malicious, racist lies in ways that tend to be protected by the first amendment and are attributable to the "atmosphere" rather than recognized for being expressly incendiary. You know the problem with these things usually is that you can't demonstrate that the speech that was made was clearly a threat, was construed as a threat and was specific enough to act on as a threat.

And certainly we would not typically find a television interview featuring the victim (who was being interview because her office was vandalized) talking about how this "hit list" being posted for all the world to see HAS CONSEQUENCES.

My good friends in the mainstream media are quick to say there's "no connection" between Palin's crosshairs graphic and this shooting. They likely mean on the most literal level that nobody thinks she ordered a hit on a Congresswoman.

If Loughton were at large and you found that list in his apartment -- just a list of names of 20 members of Congress -- after one of them had been shot ... I think the other 19 would be on lockdown. But that's just me.

Still ... is that the standard now? We cannot prove she personally tried to KILL a member of Congress, so leave her alone? You know what? I don't think we will.

About John & Elizabeth and John & Elizabeth and Being a Hero

Such an unlikely collision of similarity and diversity – all at once.
I’m tired of hearing the standard caveat when John McCain is introduced … that he’s some indisputable hero. He’s not. He may have behaved heroically once, while being psychotically tortured as a prisoner of war, but that’s all. Has he conducted himself in a manner since then that even approaches a description of “hero”? No. His modern political life and description of his personal conduct reverts back to another word – bully. Watch video of him as he’s confronted with the irrefutable fact that the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy has caused hundreds of fine officers to be tossed out of the military on account of their status (not for conduct, for status) and you’ll see a belligerent, repetitive, stubborn son-of-a-bitch insisting that “it's not the policy,it's not the policy,it's not the policy,.” No matter. The policy doesthat and he knows it.

Contrast this with Elizabeth Smart, who (like McCain) was a kidnapping victim. She, too, was psychotically tortured; abuse of her body and her mind is now public record. There may be, in fact, much more similarity in her time of captivity and that of Sen. McCain than has ever been publically acknowledged. But Elizabeth has shown nothing but courage since her rescue, bravely facing her abuser in court and addressing the public after the trial to tell other victims that they are not alone. You can go on, she said. You can live your life – it belongs to you, not your attacker. She has demonstrated the mature presence of mind that is credited for her survival and eventual escape from captivity and torture.
As a Senator, McCain has failed to stand up for veterans (yes, those closeted gay solders), insulted the intelligence of every military leader on the topic of DADT, looking much like he is on the brink of a tantrum or threatening to hold his breath until he gets his way … his homophobic way. What a shame and what an incredibly lucky thing that we kept this guy away from the Situation Room.

Then we have John & Elizabeth Edwards – a collision of human weakness and exceptional strength. Let’s be gentle … John simply lost his way. He may have behaved heroically once or twice – fighting like a pit bull for his clients and winning them millions – but when temptation came knocking, he rolled over, then lied and lied about it. He’s human. People lie to cover their mistakes in judgment. It’s not fair to call it natural, but it’s fair to call in understandable. Unfortunately, he forged ahead in denying his paternity of an out-of-wedlock child, likely because he wanted to preserve the possibility of being a candidate for the Obama administration’s VP or attorney general slot. What a shame. That was an opportunity to step forward and own his mistake. Instead, he looked around himself and said “Who, me? Naw, that’s tabloid trash …”

For Elizabeth Edwards, there were some bad decisions, too. Let’s be real (she’d insist). She, too, concealed her husband’s failings in nudging him to continue his campaign after learning her cancer had returned. She knew he’d been unfaithful and thought they could control (keep quiet) that information. But the campaign decisions aside, her story is all about what she did when confronted with irrefutable facts – another woman’s baby, paternity results, a continuing deception and oh, yes, the cancer. She took charge, made real-world assessments and bold choices. She spoke of the other woman’s child and said that her children needed to have a relationship with her … they were family, she said, they have the same father. The child, after all, was innocent in all this. They’d work it all out, she told a stunned Oprah.

And that’s the other part – telling Oprah. She not only had to face all this, she did it under an amount of public scrutiny that’s pretty rare for a private citizen. She understood the meaning of this outreach and not being overtaken by the grief of losing something dear – your son, you husband, your health, your privacy. She, like Elizabeth Smart, owned her survival and would tell her own story. She lived inside its organic value – to her. She knew that this pain and the scar tissue that would form from these injuries are what made her Elizabeth and that choosing to give up any part of it would make her less than what she was – a fully realized human being – the genuine article.

That is heroic.

Customer Go Home

It’s become a Saturday night ritual. I send a text message to my son and daughter-in-law: “10:00 @ AMF?”
He replies: “Yep” and most Sundays for the last six or so months, we have met at that time and place (on Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd.) to bowl two or three games, then go out for lunch.
We’ve done this because we’ve come to enjoy bowling and we’ve done this because games during that time are $1.29 each – far less than the usual freight.
When we started going every week, we practically had the place to ourselves. We told everyone we know about this recession-busting special, especially friends with kids or those facing employment challenges. This was one of the few options available for family fun that was affordable. Now, the place is jumping with activity. Lots of families ... especially with young kids.
But this weekend we learned that AMF has apparently added a Highway Robbery Division to its organization chart. In two weeks, they will discontinue the $1.29 Sunday rate and open bowling will be $6.00 per game.
When I inquired about the change, the person at the “service” desk confirmed that starting in two weeks, yes, $6.00 per game. No explanation, no apology, no other special offer (frequent bowler miles) to mitigate the pain.
This is no simple rate change for understandable reasons. This is pure hostility. Message received: Dear Regular Customer – please go home and don’t come back.
We will.

The close of our most cynical year

What? Chest pains for Limbaugh?

I mean, can you STAND the thrilling irony of him being in a hospital in Hawaii (yep, the same one where Obama wasn't born) and is admitted for chest pains that my have indicated a heart attack.

Hey, I've been around for this stuff. It's scary. We've lost dear friends who didn't act quickly enough. If your chest hurts, take an aspirin and get thee to a hospital.

So, now Limbaugh emerges, all okay, holds a press conference to announce that because they found nothing wrong, America's healthcare system needs no fixing. I don't rall when, in the debate of '09, anyone suggested that medical care needed reform -- you know -- that nurses and doctors were bumbling fools who couldn't tell a rash from a tumor. I thought it was the funding -- the insurance aspect that needed reform, so that a millionaire got the same basic treatment as the groundskeeper at his hotel. I must have missed something while watching balloon boy coverage or the Tiger-tree-tramp channel.

Doesn't he care that this same hospital was part of this long conspiracy to give us a Kenyan as our president?

How does he conclude that there's no need for reform? Because they ran tests on him, found nothing and he didn't die?

He forgets, I guess, about the many examples (Chicago mayor Harold Washington comes to mind) who walked out of their doctor's offices with a clean bill of health and then dropped dead of a heart attack.

This was a stunt, kids. Complete fakery. Rush has no proof and, since he ripped my president even after he provided proof FROM THE SAME HOSPITAL, I will reject any/all proof that may subsequently flow.

He will blow hard on this for months if not the whole year. I'll never believe he was in distress. Never believe this was ANYTHING but a publicity stunt from a guy with absolutely no ethical standard. None.

Happy New Year Rush!