With a Crowbar

13. November 2011 · Comments Off on With a Crowbar · Categories: Domestic, Good God, Rant, sarcasm, World · Tags: , , , ,

That is the sarcastic answer to an ancient question lately revised in the matter of the Penn State University athletic department having enabled a coach to serially molest young boys for decades – the question being, ‘How you separate the men from the boys at ____?’ Understandably, a large portion of the public is upset to furious about this, and those who are Penn grads and/or college football fans, and/or Joe Paterno fans are particularly distressed and/or seriously disillusioned.

The very saddest result from this appalling state of matters is something that I had meditated upon five years ago, when it was the matter of the Capitol Hill pages and a one Representative Mark Foley, who was forced to resign once his apparent inability to keep his hands, metaphorically speaking, off the junior staff became public knowledge outside Washington. I noted that the long-term and most damaging after-effect was how this kind of predation – after the immediate damage is done – screws up any chance of a teenager having a good mentorly relationship with an older person not their parental unit. Any cross-generational friendship will be looked at with grave suspicion – and that is so not a good thing.

We came to the point several years ago – after the various scandals in the Catholic Church – of having to consider an apparently friendly overture from an older man to a teenage boy or child as potentially the first move of a chicken-hawk. This just has to poison the pool just that much more, adding one more smidgeon of crappiness to a teenager’s lot in life, or to that of a child from a dysfunctional home. Being a teenager is an awkward age, for a variety of reasons; being physically nearly an adult but emotionally nearer to being a child, craving respect and responsibility, but really getting much of a chance for earning either, the utter pointlessness of much that is taught in a public school setting . . . and then add to the fact that the average tweener or teen is stuck with their peers, by custom and institutional practice for much of each day.

Picture it, if your own memory of middle or high school is not painfully vivid in your memory: stuck with inane conversations, pointless rivalries, even more pointless academic curricula, bitter feuds, bullying and mind-games. Feeling ill and over-grown, flushed with too many hormones, and no outlet – and even if you are one of the lucky ones who do get along with your parents – they are, after all, your parents.

For a lot of teenagers, a friendship with an adult not their parent is a lifeline, and an anchor to sanity, a connection to a real world outside the confines of high school and their peer-group, a reassurance that they can connect with the real world. I have always had a conviction that teenagers – in order to get through the worst of it – need more than anything else, the companionship and example of adult friends who have common interests and enthusiasms. It tends to take the younger generation out of an insular round of strictly teen-approved interests, encourages them to connect and to get away from that sour view expressed in my own youth of “not trusting anyone over thirty.”

One of our joint enthusiasms, when my daughter was in middle school and we lived then in Ogden, Utah, was a regular meeting of the Salt Lake City Chapter of the Dr. Who Fan Club. Thirty or forty Whovians met socially once a month at a certain member’s house to watch an episode of Dr. Who on video and chat about their mutual liking for the series. (I rather liked the Whovians by the way; they were much more cerebral and grounded than the Trekfans. One felt that they had fairly successful and interesting lives, and their appreciation for The Doctor was merely an amiable eccentricity, not an overwhelming obsession.) Anyway, it gratified me as a parent to notice my daughter’s social assurance, and that of some of the other younger Whovians. At fourteen, she was much the youngest; I think the next youngest was sixteen, and the ages of the other members ranged well up into the seventies. But everyone always had a wonderful time at meetings, interacting as equals and friends, and I thought it was marvelous for the youngest fans, in that they were tacitly reassured that there was an escape over the walls of the teenage ghetto, and an wide world full of interesting friends on the other side. And at the very least, I am sure they came away from the meetings of the Whovians with the assurance that they would not be trapped in the teenage wasteland forever.

So the mentoring aspect in society is critically important, for boys and girls alike: How the heck and from whom – are you going to work out what being an adult really is – if all you have is your teenaged idiot peers, and the crazy-house hall of mirrors that is the media? Who can you pattern yourself after? What if your parents are dysfunctional and you do not get along with them? I had friends in the military in that situation, who were able to find another mentor to pattern themselves upon, and thereby have a chance at becoming reasonably well-adjusted and functioning adults. I have mentored a friend of my daughter whose parents were perfect studies in rotten parenting skills, and any number of young female airmen along the way. Adult friends and mentors are the fallback position, the rescue, and second chance at becoming a well-adjusted and functioning adult. That sexual predators can inject themselves into this situation, can extend a pretend hand of friendship and respect, while all the while be looking for their own sexual interests – this is an obscenity. It casts a more-than-decade-long shadow of suspicion and distrust on those – mostly male –volunteers willing to involve themselves in youth betterment-programs as well as discouraging any well-inclined adult from opening themselves up to potential accusation.

So, thank you, Coach Sandusky, and by extension those personnel in the athletic department faculty at Penn State U – who covered for your insatiable need to get your rocks off by molesting children – just thanks. You’ve proved yourself to be a really putrid, manipulative and exploitative human being, if the published indictments are anything to go by. And everyone else in the chain of command that enabled this? Well, just thanks again. Hope you feel good about having kept your job secure by keeping silent. In addition to having facilitated the serial abuse of kids, you have also put another obstacle in the way of well-intentioned men and woman wanting to do their bit for the larger community in ministering to kids and teenagers with issues and problems. Again, just thanks.

(Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

Memo: You First, Maxine

22. August 2011 · Comments Off on Memo: You First, Maxine · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

From: Sgt. Mom
To: The Hon. Maxine Waters,
Re: Telling the Tea Party to Go to Hell
1.Dear Maxine, when I call into memory the particulars regarding your district, I can only assume that you are already well acquainted with Hell, and the audience you were addressing with your recent inflammatory and insulting diatribe are a pretty fair assembly of your constituents. So nice to see that you are upholding the new civility in our political discourse.

2. Allow me to enlighten you – or bring it to your own awareness – that the so-called Tea Party are a leaderless and distributed insurgency of involved and patriotic citizens united by three basic concerns: fiscal responsibility, strict dedication to the precepts for self-government outlined in the Constitution, and an affection for free markets – which is not anything like crony capitalism, as is currently practiced among the current corruptocracy. A limited federal establishment, state and local control, a high degree of personal responsibility also come into it.

3. I can also see why this Tea Party political tendency would greatly concern a certain kind of long-established political parasite; that kind of machine-based, racial-grievance charlatan who battens onto the American body politic like a tick, exploiting the life-blood of the Republic no less than the woes and miseries of their constituencies for decades. A new political class imbued with devotion to Tea Party principles is very likely viewed by such a politician as akin to the approach of someone with a pair of tweezers and a hot match . . . I only draw the parallel. You may take that simile as far as you like.

4. Finally, I expect that within my lifetime, there will be another person of color – man or woman elected to the Presidency of this country. He – or she – will definitely not be a product of the corrupt special interest, racial-grievance chasing, big-city machine-oligarchy. They will most likely come out of the larger business world or the military . . . and very likely will be Tea Partiers. This will probably not please you, but life is just full of these little tragedies.

5. Bless your heart, Maxine – you have a nice day, you hear?

I remain, most sincerely,
Sgt Mom

(cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

Reissue of Memo: John Wayne is Dead and Arnie Has a Day Job

14. August 2011 · Comments Off on Reissue of Memo: John Wayne is Dead and Arnie Has a Day Job · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm, War

(In light of the current ruckus over President’s Obama’s very personal wet smooch from Hollywood regarding the proposed “get Osama” movie, I am reissuing my historic memo, from 2004 or so. Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette has the whole depressing, infuriating saga of the world’s longest proposed political advertisement, here.)
To: Providers of our Movie & TV Entertainment
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Lack of Spine and Relevant Movies

1. So here it has been nearly three years since 9/11, two years since the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a year since the thunder run from the Kuwait border to Baghdad, and all we get from you is a TV movie, a couple of episodes from those few TV serials that do touch on matters military, and a two-hour partisan hack job creatively edited together from other people’s footage. Ummm … thanks, ever so much. Three years worth of drama, tragedy, duty, honor, sacrifice, courage and accomplishment, and all we get is our very own Lumpy Riefenstahl being drooled over by the French. Where is the Casablanca, So Proudly We Hail, Wake Island, They Were Expendable? My god, people, the dust had barely settled over the Bataan surrender, before the movie was in the theaters. You people live to tell stories— where are ours? What are we fighting for and why, who are our heroes and villains, our epics and victories?

2. And it’s not like other media people have been laying down on the job: writers, reporters, bloggers have been churning out stories by the cubic foot: the brave passengers taking back Flight 93, the stories of people who escaped the towers, and those who helped others escape, as well as those who ran in, the epic unbuilding of the Trade Center ruins. What about the exploits of the Special Forces in Afghanistan, on horseback in the mountains with a GPS, directing pinpoint raids on Taliban positions, the women who ran Afghanistans’ underground girls’ schools? What about Sgt Donald Walters, Lt. Brian Chontosh, the 3rd ID’s fight for the strong points at Larry, Curley and Moe and a dozen others. There’s enough materiel for the lighter side, too: Chief Wiggles, Major Pain’s pet turkey, the woman Marine who deployed pregnant and delivered her baby in a war zone, the various units who have managed to bring their adopted unit mascots back from the theater. (Do a google search, for heaven’s sake. If you can’t handle that, ask one of the interns to help.) The shelves at my local bookstore are pretty well stocked with current writings on the subject, memoirs, reports, thrillers and all. Some stories even have yet to be written; they are still ongoing, and even classified, but I note that did not stop the movie producers back then: they just consulted with experts and made something up, something inspiring and convincing.

3. Of course, actually dealing with a contemporary drama in the fight against Islamic fascism would mean you would have to actually come down out of Hollywood’s enchanted world, and actually, you know … speak to them. Ordinary people, ordinary, everyday people, who don’t have agents and personal trainers and nannies, and god help them, they don’t even vote for the right people, or take the correct political line. Some of them (gasp) are even military, and do for real what movies only pretend to do … and besides, they have hold to all these archaic ideals like honor, duty, and country. (Ohhh, cooties!)

4. And since even mentioning the Religion of Peace (TM) in connection with things like terrorism, mass-murder, and international plots for a new caliphate is a guarantee to bring CAIR and other fellow travelers seething and whining in your outer office … ohh, best not. Drag out those old villainous standby Nazis, or South American drug lords, even the odd far-right survivalist for your theatrical punch-up, secure in the knowledge that even if you piss off what few remains of them, at least they won’t be unleashing a fatwa on your lazy ass, or sending a suicide bomber into Mortens’. Just ignore the three large smoking holes in the ground; cover your eyes and pretend it away. Never happened, religion of peace, all about oil, la-la-lah, fingers in my ears, I can’t hear you.

5.To make movies about it all, is to have to come to grips with certain concepts; among them being the fact that we are all potential targets for the forces of aggressive Islamo-fascism, that it is not anything in particular which we have done to draw such animus, and that we are in this all together, and that we must win, for the consequences of not winning are not only unbearable for us all — but they would be very likely to adversely affect you, too. I would expect an industry dependent on the moods and fashions amongst the public at large to have a better feel for what would sell … but I guess denial is more comfortable, familiar space, Sept. 10th is what you know best.

6. Still, if you could pass a word to Lumpy Riefenstahl, about getting signed releases, for footage, interviews and newsprint. It would be the courteous gesture towards all the little people for whom he professes to care, and save a bit of trouble in the long run.

Thanks
Sgt Mom

Strong Tea

08. August 2011 · Comments Off on Strong Tea · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

Well, it looks like the accusations of Tea Partiers being terrorists may be falling a little flat, or maybe the usual media tools and pols have gotten some blow-back for jumping on that particular bandwagon. Me, I’m beyond outrage. Anyone mouthing that poisonous little meme –– is someone that I will cheerfully boycott, vote against, disregard and shun – and that even includes John McCain. I took his description of Tea Partiers as hobbits as meaning to be demeaning. Once, I had expected better of him. Now – just another bitter establishment RINO, one of a number of old-line Republicans, seeing the writing on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin and not liking it a single bit. You have been tried and found wanting, and your kingdom will be divided between the strict constitutionalists and the fiscal conservatives. Rage, rage against the dying of the light of things in Washington as they have been for lo these many years.

Frankly, to me – for a professional politician of either party to have been happily ensconced within the Beltway for more than a term or two or three is now a positive dis-recommendation, and I shouldn’t be the least surprised to find out that my attitude is shared, and will be demonstrated in November, 2012. It is to laugh, though – to see the established political elite twist and squirm over the last two years since the first Tea Party rallies, and the conventional wisdom morph. Let’s see – first, just bitter clingers having a tantrum, and if there were more than a dozen or a couple of hundred, the protests would peter out for lack of continuing enthusiasm. I think this attitude among established pols and the mainstream media began to change after the humongously large gathering in Washington, late in 2009. I could almost hear the grinding of the gears inside the political and media Leviathans: Oh krep-we’d better start paying attention to those freaks with the Gadsden flags, there’s a whole lotta them out there! And then when Senator Bennett of Utah was given the bum’s rush by the Utah GOP caucus – packed full of Tea Partier sympathizers, who were only following up on the same earnest intention of the Tea Partiers I knew in Texas – to take over the local GOP caucus from the inside . . . well, it was to laugh.

Really, at first the local establishment Repubs were all enthusiastic about the Tea Party; some of them were naturally in sympathy anyway, but I am sure the higher-ups were seeing it as a new source of money, and volunteer enthusiasm, all ready to be bridled, saddled and ridden. It was sweet and kinda pathetic – they heard what they wanted to hear, and disregarded the rest. I distinctly remember a strategy meeting about this, sometime in the summer of ’09 or so; third party was out, no future in that. Taking over the Dems from inside – we did kick around the idea, but concluded that – given our various backgrounds and inclinations, probably the GOP was a better fit. And such was the genius of the self-organizing Tea Party, all of the leaders and local enthusiasts were talking to each other, emailing and sharing information on a grand scale; what one local party came up with swiftly spread by internet osmosis to others. It was a demonstration of the principle of the wisdom of crowds, or if you like – a number of minds tackling the same problem from many different angles and coming up spontaneously with pretty much the same answer.

And now the old-line, established Republican politicians and strategists – among others – are belatedly discovering that many of the Tea Party candidates meant exactly what they said, having said what they meant. Good luck with trying to marginalize them – that feline has already exited the fabric containment field.

2012 is shaping up to be a really fun election year, I must say. (Note to self – buy some more popcorn, before the price of it goes up. And note to everyone – last week was invited to be one of the contributors to the Chicago Boyz blog. I had been commenting there since forever, in blog-years time, and so Lex and Johnathan very kindly invited me. I’ll try and cross-post as much as possible.)

On the Internet No One Knows You Are a Dog

19. June 2011 · Comments Off on On the Internet No One Knows You Are a Dog · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, Geekery, General, Media Matters Not, sarcasm, Technology, That's Entertainment!

Yes, it would appear that the lesbians are actually straight men, the women are women, and the tween-agers are FBI agents, and a certain NY congressman with a slightly risible last name and a penchant for tweeting suggestive pictures of his body or parts thereof – is a bit of a perv. Honestly, I thought everyone had gotten a piece of Wiener last week, and there were absolutely no further possible ways in which the gentleman in question could embarrass his party, his constituents and his spouse, after the pic of him in the gym dressing room, clutching his ding-a-ling through a towel, but my daughter alerted me to this gem, courtesy of the UK Daily Mail. Seriously, I am wondering what possibly could top that for humiliating revelations, although now that he has resigned, perhaps that will stop any more from appearing.

The Gay Girl in Damascus and the Paula Brooks thing – honestly, it seems like the plot for a movie – something titled The Gay Deceivers just suggests itself right off the bat. Seldom in real life do we have such a delicious confluence of pretense . . . what is real, what is the real identity behind those pixels on a screen, and how much of what you put out there is really, really, really real. And I speak as someone who has been blogging under a not-terribly opaque nom du-blog since 2002, mostly because I didn’t want to put my real name out there. My daughter was still on active duty, my parents and brothers are listed in the phone book, and I had enough of demented devotion from eccentric fans when I was on radio, here and there among military radio stations. Yes, you have a million fans, if you are in the public eye in some manner, and a half-dozen really sick f**ks as enemies, all of whom have never met you, don’t really know any more about you than what you put out about yourself . . . and I didn’t really want to deal with it, or have my family deal with it.

There were often discussions, early on – about blogging under a real name, or under a nom-du-blog; questions of credibility, of standing behind what you wrote. I took the line that yes, for piece of mind or actual physical safety, there were excellent reasons for someone to blog under another name. One could establish a reputation for verity, and honesty, no matter what name you called yourself. Over time, your on-line reputation could be as solid as it was in real-space, congruent with your real-life experience.

And there are bloggers who have been doing that – under cover or by their real names in various countries, and some of them in physical danger: Salam Pax is one that comes to mind at first, mostly because of the blogosphere controversy over whether he was a real and credible person, reporting from inside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Hossein Derakhshan, the godfather of Iranian blogging may or may not still be imprisoned by the Iranian authorities. The Egyptian blogger who goes by the nom du blog Sandmonkey was briefly arrested in the recent past. They took – and still are taking risks by writing, and blogging. Creating a whole other persona and identity, at odds with real life, and claiming to bear first-hand witness in a blog to extraordinary current events, when you are actually hundreds or thousands of miles away?

When I do that, I call it a bit of historical fiction, and clearly label it such. Dunno why “Amina” and “Paula” didn’t think of doing it that way. Would have saved a bit of embarrassment, all the way around.

Shoot, Shove Overboard, and Shut Up

05. May 2011 · Comments Off on Shoot, Shove Overboard, and Shut Up · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm, War, Wild Blue Yonder

Ya know, at least Obama actually did a very good speech, announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been taken down, and he did have the stones in the first place to step up to the plate and give the order for the SEALS to take out the trash. No shilly-shallying around and voting ‘present’ on that one, even if there are reports that he chewed over the decision for 16 hours. Well, it was momentous decision; a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize authorizing a targeted assassination, within the sovereign territory of a nation frequently described as being an ally. The irony abounds – one can only imagine the political and media response to GWB giving the go-ahead. So, our boy-king has the advantage of being one of those with a D after his name, which – when it comes to this sort of thing pretty much affords all-over protection against blowback.

So, approving noises all the way around, all the day long on Monday and into Tuesday this week: OBL sleeps wid da fishes, and the most sycophantic media tools are crowing that he will be a shoo-in for reelection in 2012 on that account . . . never mind that gas will probably close on $5.00 a gallon by mid-summer, and joblessness is endemic and the prices for basic groceries are sneaking up. And then . . .

And then . . . oh, oh. Different stories: firefight with the SEALS . . . or not. Use of a woman – perhaps wife, perhaps not – as a human shield. Plain old down and dirty execution, or did the plan call originally for everyone in the house in Abbottabad to be taken away for leisurely interrogation? Video or still documentation of the whole thing – as well as that rushed burial at sea, proving that OBL did indeed go over the side of the Carl Vinson? And now, not releasing any of the pictures of OBL, pining for the fijords because of inflaming the Muslim street, or something? People, get a grip – the Muslim street is always inflamed over something or other. Besides, they are always telling us that OBL was a bad Moslem, that he hijacked the Religion of Peace . . . so, wouldn’t they also want to see visual proof of his demise. There have been enough bloody pictures circulating in the last ten years, and anyone who has ever watched an episode of CSI has probably already seen many scenes at least as bloody and stomach-churning.

And no one at the higher levels of the administration had any idea as to how to deal with this, as an important news event and public affairs challenge – other than the boy-king making a speech. It was as if that was as far as they could see it going; the Administration appears to have felt no need to work out an in-depth response. Just take their word for it, no need to work out a coherent narrative, backed up by pictures, video, carefully shielded witness testimony, et cetera. Just shoot, shove overboard, and shut up.

Not gonna fly, in this wired world, not with so many people wanting to see just a little bit more, within the boundaries of operations security. I’d guess that the pictures and video outlining just a few more answers to questions will leak or be released within days. Just too many people, who are just too damn curious and haven’t had that curiosity satisfied in the least. I’m a long-retired military media professional – and I am offering this feedback gratis. The Administration better start working out a better response to this, and any future-type events.

Later: Froggy and Blackfive thinking along the same lines…

Oh, This is So Not Good

07. April 2011 · Comments Off on Oh, This is So Not Good · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Military, sarcasm, Working In A Salt Mine...

Just so we get this perfectly clear, the active, serving military will go on earning their pay over the period of the shut down of the federal government . . . they just won’t be getting any actual paychecks, or automatic deposit of it into their bank accounts. In a time where there are kinetic military events going on – what we used to call hostilities – in three different countries. No matter what you call ‘em, it means that the families of troops serving in an active war zone are not going to be happy. Especially the families of those junior troops who are already living close to the bone anyway; there were years when I finished out the last day or so before a payday with $1 in my bank account and a handful of change in my handbag. And I’ve lost track of how many times I floated a check for groceries at the Commissary, a day or two before payday.

Just to throw some gasoline on the fire, it seems that just that very week that the paychecks won’t be arriving, the First Lady and Mrs. Biden are launching a big push to support military families. Nice timing, ladies – because they certainly will be needing support by then. Seriously, though, I would reconsider rescheduling any events involving actual military members’ families during this period, as you’re liable to get an earful of how they really feel and I don’t think the protocol officers are gonna be able to cope.

Heck of a job, Barry. Heck of a job.

The Duck of Death Quacking Up at Last?

21. March 2011 · Comments Off on The Duck of Death Quacking Up at Last? · Categories: Ain't That America?, Air Force, Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General, sarcasm, World

Yeah, I know – juvenile humor at best, but somehow that’s about the only reasonable response you can make to a walking, talking comic-opera cartoon villain like Moammar Khadaffy. Or Quadaffi, or what the hell – Khadaffy-Duck. I mean, the clothes, the sprocket-hung uniforms, the transparent megalomania, the fembot body-guards, the rip-off of Mao’s Little Red Book . . . and was he the inspiration for the villain in Jewel of the Nile? And then you remember the serious stuff: the airplanes and discos bombed, the terrorists like the IRA generously funded – the politicians and intellectuals paid to be his respectable front, the plight of those foreign doctors and nurses who were accused of deliberately infecting patients with AIDS, the death of a British policewoman in front of the Libyan embassy in London (who was shot from within the embassy), and the brutalization of his own people . . . no, Quadaffy-Duck was every bit as malevolent as Saddam Hussein; his pretensions and dress-sense was just a little more risible. Otherwise, just a matter of degree, and frankly, I can’t think of a nicer person to have a J-DAM coming down the chimney with his name on it, no matter how the heck you spell it. I did so hope that he would wind up like Mussolini (his corpse hanging from a gas-station – which would be ironic in the extreme) or stood up in front of a wall like Ceausescu; the thing being that it would be Libyans themselves performing the necessary chore of taking out the flamboyantly-clad trash. Ah, well; however the job gets done.

Anyway – as you can guess, I’ll be breaking out the popcorn and celebrating the immanent demise of the Duck of Death; it’s been long overdue, no matter who or what is responsible for seeing that he achieves room temperature. However . . . the infamous however, well-freighted with irony . . . I do have a few small concerns, chief among them being – who and what are the anti-Khadaffy Libyans, exactly? When all the dust settles, and someone who is not the Duck of Death or of his ilk and kin is in charge . . . who will that person be, and will they be an improvement?

Secondly; what next? Are we just clearing out the Duck’s flyable assets so that a no-fly zone may be installed? How long will the no-fly zone be in effect – as long as the no-fly zone over Iraq, which protected the Kurds? Months, weeks, days? Of the allied nations assisting in this, who will have the resources to continue that long? Should it be necessary to put boots on the ground . . . whose boots will they be, and what exactly will be the assigned duties of those boots?

And the irony of Obama doing just about what Bush was damned up one side and down the other for doing, with regard to another middle-eastern oil-rich nation ruled by a brutally iron-fisted autocrat with a penchant for seeing his own face everywhere? Rich, I tell you – as in two scoops of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. Watching half of Obama’s backers turn themselves into pretzels trying to explain how one of these things is so not like the other, and the other half going into gibbering hysterics realizing that it is . . . it’s turning out to be quite a giggle for me. Enough reason for anther round of popcorn, anyway.

And finally – you know, they told me if I voted for McCain/Palin, that there would never-ending war in the Middle East – and damn if it doesn’t look like it.

Memo: With a Bang and Not a Whimper

26. February 2011 · Comments Off on Memo: With a Bang and Not a Whimper · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Politics, sarcasm, World

To: AIG
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Things Happening Almost Too Fast to Keep Track

1. So, it looks like the End is Nigh for Moammar Ghadaffy, or however the heck his name is spelled. I swear, over the last thirty years, it’s different every time he swims back up from the cesspool and back into public consciousness again. There is probably some rule governing this; something to do with whether there is an “r” in the month, or if the aurora borealis is showing . . . anyway, I suspect that when a dictator gets to the point of hiring masses of obviously foreign mercenaries because he can’t trust anybody but his immediate family – not his military, or his secret police, or his own body-guard – and orders those troops who do obey him to drop bombs on their own people . . . game over. There hasn’t been an equal to him as megalomaniacal, totally erratic, terrorist-enabling, crazier-than-a-shit-house-rat brutal dictator since Idi Amin shuffled off the international scene. Is anyone setting up a pool on when Ghaddaffy Duck gets the Mussolini-stone-dead-and-hanging-from-an-urban-gas-station-canopy? Can I get in for Friday?

2. Contemplating current unrest in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Iran and Lebanon, it looks like a good time to get out that old record of Barry McGuire, singing “Eve of Destruction.” Just saying.

3. It looks like the Koch Brothers are selected as this month’s Emmanuel Goldstein for the progressive-lefty media. Not bad for two guys who hadn’t been heard of until two or three months ago, out outside of libertarian and big-charity donor circles. Note: they really aren’t that big as donors go – the Tides Foundation and George Soros probably spend as much on coffee and crullers as the Koch Brothers donated to libertarian-oriented politicians. It seems to be that the Koch Brothers have committed the solecism of not doing things properly. Donations from billionaires ought to go to the proper causes and people. You know, the causes and people that that all socially conscientious and proper-thinking people endorse – because otherwise it would just wreck everything.

4. Madison, Wisconsin as the epicenter of the political s**tstorm-du-jour, American-style . . . whoever would have thought it, eh? Good old progressive, earnest mid-west Wisconsin, who elected a governor (by the same margin as the current resident of the White House was elected to his current office) who said what he meant, meant what he said, and then went out and did it. Wow – and now we are seeing the public employee unions and their sympathizers having a major meltdown. I somehow think that this will not end as the proper progressive people expect it to end; those who believe with the force of holy writ that a 21st century workplace is just exactly the same as a 20th century factory floor or a 19th century sweatshop. Allow me to break it to you gently, people: All the good things that unions did, they did a good while ago, and yes, it’s OK to be sentimental as all get-out about that and to honor the organizers – well, many of them anyway – who fought for all that. But that was then, this is now. The Man is just not slavering to put all working-class people back in the company town, working for a pittance and persecuted by the Pinkertons any more. (Maybe in China they are, or in Burma, though.) Now, a lot of ordinary, working-class and middle-class Americans do not have a good opinion of union labor as practiced in their own working lifetimes – because they have had experiences with it that were less than salutary. Rotten teachers in public schools to can’t be fired, surly and unhelpful DMV clerks, closed shops with enforced union membership, the antics of the SEIU –also known as the Purple People Beaters, unions who seem to benefit the union management rather than the rank and file, assorted criminal goonery, union demands which essentially wrecked various manufacturing companies, and insupportable levels of pay and benefits charged to taxpayers, politicians in the pocket of public employee unions . . . a word to the wise, oh union bretheren and sisteren – our affection and respect for unions has been worn to a thin shred. Don’t presume upon it. And the noisy antics of your union members and allies in public spaces everywhere in the last year or so is neither winning friends or influencing ordinary people – and voters – in a positive way. Especially when y’all don’t pick up the trash afterward.

5. Finally, how long was that plea for civility in the civic arena honored? A whole six weeks, eight weeks, tops? Ah, well – pleasant while it lasted.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

Tea Leaves

05. November 2010 · Comments Off on Tea Leaves · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

Ok, so I can’t stop snickering at all those poor lefty-progressives at Open Salon, now that they have stopped whimpering and sucking their thumbs. Gosh, I wouldn’t be so cruel as to begin deriding them openly, for I have made a solemn vow not to be to terribly candid about my Tea Party sympathies over there. For several reasons – one being that OS is to promote my mad writing skilz, a second being that the Tea Party is a state of mind about fiscal responsibility-strict Constitutionalism-free markets, and thirdly, that the old axiom about teaching a pig to sing grand opera applies when trying to teach lefty-progs about the Tea Party. In that it’s a waste of your time and only annoys the pig. Intelligent people will eventually figure it out on their own, or when reality applies the clue-bat on a regular basis.

Hey, the radical libertarians are taking over . . . and they’re going to leave everyone alone!

It is refreshing though – that the frequency and use of the word “tea****er” seems to have fallen off markedly, though, although there are some interesting hissy fits going on over at Daily Kos. (Notably with this lefty-progg screamer – I’m posting the link as an example of the genre, but all you really have to know is that his screed is called An Open Letter To The White Right On the Occasion Of Your Recent Successful Temper Tantrum). I can only suppose that those most prone to brandish the “Raaaacist” stick at the Tea Party have only got around to noticing that candidates like Nikki Haley, Allen West and Quico Canseco were carried to victory on the shoulders of extensive Tea Party interest. Ah, yes – the reality clue-bat – fair and impartial.

Can’t help wondering if the various traditional news orgs haven’t been taking notice and pulling up their socks: OMG, those Tea Party people are successful! And coming close to being a majority! And perhaps we might rethink constantly denigrating them, ‘cause our ratings are tanking worse than the post-iceberg Titanic and selective appeal doesn’t sell the advertising. I’m amused as heck that Keith Olbermann has been given the sack from MSNBC – you suppose he and Juan Williams are going to get together for a drink?

See, it’s not the beginning of the end – it’s more the end of the beginning. What got overlooked perhaps, in the national election-night coverage, was how many state legislatures have turned from Dem to GOP, and how many of those GOP legislators are now more aligned with Tea Party sympathies, and how many local GOP caucuses have been also taken over by those with a taste for Tea and a new enthusiasm for political involvement. No more the go-along-to-get along career RINO squishes; they’re almost as disconcerted as the traditional mainstream media. That’s another part of the real story – and it wasn’t any big secret, it’s just that no one was looking. No wonder the senior GOP leadership cadre and strategists like Karl Rove look – and are acting – just like they have just discovered half a dead cockroach in their breakfast taco.

Just wait until 2012, people. It’s gonna be fun!

What is Best in Life: Post-election Thoughts

03. November 2010 · Comments Off on What is Best in Life: Post-election Thoughts · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, sarcasm, Tea Time

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!

And the lamentations of their media creatures and commentators … although most of them over at Open Salon just seem to be sniveling and cringing in the corners. Life is good this morning. I think I’ll have another cuppa Tea. Tea Party tea, that is.

So, not a full sweep – Harry Reid still embedded in Nevada, and Our Witch didn’t make it far off the ground in Delaware. But Colonel West is in, and a good many other citizen-legislators, and it seems like the House is ours, and San Fran Nan will just have to climb onto her broomstick now, when she wants to fly back to California. A nice day’s work, being that the turnover at the state level was huge. That is where it counts; since hopefully, the states will be the counter-weight to the federal establishment in coming years.

Yeppers, thinking long-term, people. Long-term. And first on the agenda will be to remind all these newly elected legislators not to get cocky and thinking what a nice office they have and wouldn’t it be shiny to stay there forever’n’ever, amen. Not a chance. To paraphrase Bill Cosby “We put you there and we can take you out again.”

Not the beginning of the end – but maybe the end of the beginning.

Memo for NPR

15. October 2010 · Comments Off on Memo for NPR · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, sarcasm, Tea Time

(Shamelessly quoted entire, from commenter FordPrefect 1969, on this story at Big Journalism. Enjoy the delicious sarcasm, and thank you, Ford Prefect!!)

To: all NPR Staff

It has become exceedingly obvious that we are about to be forced to justify our existence to a group of people who to whom we have shown nothing but condescension and contempt for our entire careers here at NPR. I’m going to go ahead and continue to work on the assumption that they will be Buckleyesque whipping boys who will treat our apologies and sudden willingness to have a conversation with reciprocal honesty and forthrightness as sincere, rather than simply pulling the goddamned flush lever on us like someone with basic self-respect would. It is quite possible with influx of the Tea Party caucus that that will not work out, but since our lavish paychecks, benefits, and vacation time have always been dependent on revenue confiscated from the aforementioned group, and we have, frankly, been dicks to them 100% of the time, and have very much enjoyed the process of lecturing from a tax-funded ivory tower that they were forced to finance. It has that Orwellian tang to it that really makes it an authentic experience.

So, at any rate, you are, from here on out, to pretend that you think people who are not within the Progressive fold have the same rights good people like us have. Under no circumstances will you communicate to our new bosses that you would put a boot on their necks and make slaves out of them if only you could switch sides of the desk, which, frankly, is what we were really expecting after Dear Leader was installed. Now, it appears, we may all meet our Fryolators of Destiny.

Hopeychange Uber Alles,

Some Fascist Parasite

Monday Miscellany

10. October 2010 · Comments Off on Monday Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, On The Border, sarcasm, Stupidity, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs

So, a scattershot essay with a number of different topics that have come bubbling up to the top of my admittedly scattered attention this last week:

The Neighbors from Hell, part –I-don’t-know-how-many, there are just too many to count. See, there are bad neighbors who commit sins of omission, such as not mowing their lawn, keeping up with house maintenance, or just have an aesthetic sense that does not jibe with the others in the ‘hood. Every neighborhood seems to have a couple of those; people who are just fricking clueless. Think of them as small lumps in the happy oatmeal of life. Sometimes you can work with them, bring them around to the right way of doing things, but generally it’s not worth the effort. Just look away from them as much as you can, and call city Code Compliance only when absolutely necessary, because they just might turn into Neighbors from Hell – the other kind of bad neighbor; the aggressive, sins-of-commission kind. The ones who deliberately court offense, who declare open war upon another neighbor, and generally do their best to create Suburban Hell; I’d guess that this piece o’work is that kind of neighbor. Frankly, I’m glad she’s not ours, and extend my heartfelt sympathy to the people who are.

Life on the border, Falcon Lake edition: kinda hard to say at this point exactly has been going on there . . . save to say that the just-south-o’the-border lawless’n’drug-gang situation has been heading to the proverbial nether regions in the proverbial wicker-work carrying container for quite some time now. Seriously, it’s getting really, really bad. Blondie was freaking out this spring when my SO and his snowbird friends and I went to Progresso, Mexico for a day jaunt. How bad is it going to get in the next five months? The odds on some horrific cross-border affray which might actually make the Mainstream f*****g Media sit up and pay attention due to the penetration distance within the US, the number of innocent lives messily lost and the presence of YouTube video detailing every splatter are pretty high. Just my semi-educated guess, people. Just my guess.

Kind of nice, how everybody wants to be a Tea Partier now, isn’t it? Or at least, not be an incumbent. (November is coming – I can see it from my house!) Seriously, everyone is pretty well wise to the method of getting expensive federal government crap for your district, and expecting to get votes in response? They are bribing us with our own money, people. It’s a local and parochial benefit, at the expense of the long-term national good. Personally, I don’t think any federal or state installation should be named after a local politician still living, but that’s just me.

Which brings me to Jerry Brown getting the NOW endorsement not twenty-four hours after being inadvertently recorded as calling Meg Whitman a whore . . . Guess she isn’t the right kind of feminist. Funny, that. Reminds me of why I no longer subscribe to Ms. Magazine. Or identify myself as a capital F feminist . . . It seems as if only the properly credentialed can apply. Screw that, and identity politics generally.

All this, and the Great VFW Endorsement disaster, which I think must be close kin to the AARP ObamaCare endorsement disaster. Way to go, people . . . umm, or way to go those at the tippy-top of such national organizations who have decided it is nicer to go along to get along than pay attention to the real interests and needs of those who have joined your association voluntarily. Shoot yourself in the foot, much?

Well, that should get you off to a good Monday start. No need to thank me, I live to serve.

Sgt. Mom

PS – Apparently someone winged a book at the Mighty O-man last night at a speech – and missed by a narrow margin, but no one knows the title of the book! My guess is a copy of the Constitution, or maybe the Federalist Papers. Blondie ventures: “Maybe a copy of that craptacular autobiography and they wanted a refund!”

Standards, Double, Society, for the Use Of

09. September 2010 · Comments Off on Standards, Double, Society, for the Use Of · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, GWOT, Politics, Rant, sarcasm

So, now in the multitudinous fall-out from the Ground Zero Mosque, or Cordoba House or Park51, or whatever the heck it’s being termed – is a threat by a Florida whack-job minister to burn Korans as a public demonstration of something or other on Saturday. Cheesncrackers, people, just when I thought this whole issue couldn’t get any more demented. Is there someone I have to sleep with, in order to live on a planet with sane people, preferably ones with a sense of proportion and humor, not to mention toleration for those who don’t agree with them in every aspect of existence?

Frankly, I’d like to set the good Iman Rauf and the good Reverend Jones down on the other side of my official Sgt. Mom desk for a nice discussion of principles. And those would be principles which would apply to both of them, and yes, I expect to be the one doing the talking.

Yes, there is nothing in this supposedly free country which would prevent the Reverend Jones from incinerating copies of the Koran, as a demonstration of his lack of appreciation for Islam and his ingratitude for the many blessings that the strict practice of Salafist Islam brings to the modern cultural table. And yes, there is also nothing which would legally prevent a mosque/community/cultural center from being established adjacent to that place where there were 5,000 people (give or take) crushed or incinerated when a pair of hijacked airplanes were deliberately crashed into two tall and shining skyscrapers nine years ago to the day by representatives of the Religion of Peace.

So, established – they each can do this thing which they want to do, for whatever reasons. And Andres Serrano can take pictures of a crucifix in a vial of his own pee, and Chris O-whatever can adorn a painting of the Virgin with mounds of elephant dung, and Danish cartoonists can do cartoons about how fear of drawing a picture of Mohammad leads to self-censorship, and Salman Rushdie can joke around with Satanic Versifying and all of that is perfectly OK in a free country, or it ought to be.

But where is the line to be drawn, then? And if you are offended by one or the other, than what is the acceptable response? Letter to the editor, an angry post on a blog, a boycott? Threatening violence? Should the fear of violence lead one to self-censor? What about a fear of offending people? Why is it OK to offend one particular class of people by your actions in support of religion or art, but tip-toe around giving offense to the other? Exactly what is the standard at work here, and who decides to apply it? And hey, isn’t the poor old bourgeois getting a little tired of being constantly epatered?

Just as a final aside – the copies of the Koran that Reverend Jones is planning to flambé – are they English translations of the Koran, in which case it doesn’t really count as a Koran, per se, because the only Koran that counts as a Koran is the one in Arabic. Revelations straight from The Big Guy to Mohammad has been my understanding. Everything else is just a translation, and so it really isn’t the Koran, except for when it is. And I think Pastor Jones looks amazingly like the historic John Brown, of Pottawatomie, who tried to kick-start a slave insurrection, pre-Civil War. If The Reverent Jones really wants to cover his posterior for this little venture into protest, he ought to announce the Koran-B-Que as a piece of performance art and apply for a NEA grant. Your mileage may vary. Discuss.

News Blogging, Linky-Love and Righthaven

19. August 2010 · Comments Off on News Blogging, Linky-Love and Righthaven · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, sarcasm, Technology

I find three definitions of the term ‘barratry’ when I look it up – two of them are obscure, but the third is relevant, and if stretched a bit, can apply to the current blogosphere kerfuffle-du-jour – the Righthaven violation of copyright lawsuits. Well, that’s the politer term; a quick internet search on ‘righthaven’ also turned up qualifiers such as ‘trolling’, ‘extortion,’ ‘bottom-feeders’ and ‘barratrious a**holes.’ A more thorough search would, I am certain, turn up more pungent terms of abuse and a fair collection of lawyer jokes. (Sample – what’s brown and black and looks good on a lawyer? Answer – a Doberman.) Suffice to say, I went through five or six pages of google-search results before finding a single link to a post which made a feeble attempt at defending Righthaven’s practices – of searching out instances of copyright infringement on the part of bloggers and news aggregators and without warning, or demanding credit and a link to the original story – suing the bee-jezzus out of the proprietor – usually small enthusiast bloggers without deep pockets or institutional support. Adding fresh insult, Righthaven LLC also demands that the domain name of the offending website or blog be turned over to them, as well as fairly substantial payments. Yes, copying someone elses’ work off a website or blog and posting it on your own and taking credit for it. Quel tacky, and plagiaristic, and someone doing it probably richly deserves being served with a complaint, a cease-and-desist order, or just hunted down, smeared with honey and staked out over a fire-ant nest.
However: is posting the story with a link to the original source, with a plainly posted credit – is that plagiarism as well? What about a paragraph excerpt, or the ‘three line’ fair-use standard, with a link, a credit and a recommendation such as “Read this!” A discussion group, with members posting excerpts, and links and talking about it? Is that a violation of copyright also? What about just a link . . . urm, through those little news feed dinguses at the bottom of the page. A Facebook recommendation? News aggregate sites consist of constantly updated pages of all these variants, with links to the new, the weird, the newsworthy or just plain interesting, from a variety of sources, large, small, official, unofficial, regular media or whatever. Even blogs like my main blog which focuses on original writing – I’ve occasionally posted interesting links. Linking, promoting, tweeting and favoriting interesting stories has been the lifeblood of the blogosphere as I have known it for yea these many years; advantageous linkage is beneficial to bloggers and websites alike, guaranteeing a larger and wider audience than the unlinked story or post might have had. But the way that L’affiare Righthaven is shaping up, it appears that all of the above may open up liability among news aggregate and commentary blogs for legal action from the ‘barratrious a**holes.’
The Righthaven law firm has entered into a professional alliance with an enterprise called Stephens Media Group, which owns a number of local newspapers across the southern and western states. One of their publications is based in Las Vegas, a city large enough to generate a fair amount of national-interest news – and it appears that bloggers who excerpted or linked to stories from that particular newspaper over the last few years are now providing a rich harvest of copyright lawsuits brought by Righthaven. Righthaven’s method of operation appears to be either to search out those posted and linked stories, and obtain the copyright for the story from Stephens Media, or to have had the copyright in their sweaty little hand all along before filing suit. Give them credit – Righthaven has figured out how to monetize the blogosphere, and Stephens Media has figured out how to extract a few more bucks from their newspaper holdings. For now, at least – until bloggers and news aggregate sites begin acting on the principle that any content in any Stephens Media newspapers is about as toxic as radioactive sewer sludge. While a fair number of bloggers and websites have paid up just to make it all go away, others are fighting back by either ‘Righthaven-proofing’ their sites, or blacklisting Stephens Media through their site-posting rules. There are even Firefox and Chrome plug-ins to automatically exclude Stephens Media from your internet browser. Righthaven and Stephens Media may perhaps gain in the short run, but prospects for long-term gain seem pretty iffy.

Rantburg, my own favorite one-stop website for all things sarky and WOT-related, is one of those sites being sued. They are taking donations. A blog which lists the websites being sued is here.

Michelle Antoniotte and Her Vacation in Spain

06. August 2010 · Comments Off on Michelle Antoniotte and Her Vacation in Spain · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, sarcasm, The Funny

Apparently, our own very dear royals are having a wonderful time in Spain. Kinda makes GWB chopping brush on the ranch in Crawford look positively plebian.

Found through Neo-neocon

The Shape of Things to Come and Go

09. July 2010 · Comments Off on The Shape of Things to Come and Go · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Reader Mail, sarcasm, World

You know, out of all of the things that I was afraid might happen, after the presidential coronation of Obama, the Fresh Prince of Chicago . . . I never considered that race relations might be one of those things which would worsen. Hey – lots of fairly thoughtful and well-intentioned people of pallor voted for him, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, or at least in some expectation of him being a fairly well adjusted and centrist politician, or at least a fast learner. Wasn’t that what all the top pundits, and the mainstream media were insisting, all during the 2008 campaign . . . well, once they got up from their knees and wiped the drool off their chins.

And when he won the election by a respectable although not an overwhelming margin – hardly a crushing mandate – I am sure there were other bloggers thinking as I did, and looking on the bright side; hey, can we finally get past this “AmeriKKA is the most racist nation evah!” crap. Here I was hoping – even as I knew full well that the man had spent twenty years sitting in the Reverend Jeremiah’s mega-church. I could tell myself that maybe he went to that church for street cred and connections within the black community – no, Obama couldn’t possibly give credence to the sewage-spew of racial hatred that the good Reverend spouted like a fountain, every Sunday, to tumultuous applause from the pews – no, not when he moved on from grubby Chicago politics, and was running to be the president of this country – a country in which the race that Obama identified with is only 13-15% of the population. No, better to think (assume, pray!) that his membership there was a grubby political square-filling, in the Chicago political machine.

If I have known anything at all in my life, I know that a politician who is a minority hoping to get elected to any office get anywhere at all with a racially or sexually diverse electorate had best not be identified strictly as representing only that minority, to the exclusion of all others. In plain words, a seeker for an elected office, being a racial minority, or female had a better chance of success in downplaying their minority-hood, generally, in being seen to represent larger values than just their membership in a relatively small segment of the electorate. This was plain to me, as I grew up in Los Angeles, in the 1970s and 1980s. The mayor – Tom Bradley, who seemed to have been mayor for ever, demonstrated exactly that: he was black, but black with a small ‘b’ – in that he had the year-round dark tan, but actually seemed to be more motivated in being an effective mayor for the good of the entire community – rather than just catering to the racial special interests. Tom Bradley got elected, over and over again, without any particular fuss that I recall, in a racially diverse and wealthy city in which the color of his skin mattered less – much less – than the content of his character or his ability to administer to the interests of all of his constituents.

I had so hoped – against any evidence produced by the mainstream media and bloggers alike during that campaign season – that Obama would prove to be more of the Tom Bradley-variety of politician/administrator. That he would live up to the generous advance billing provided by the press . . . but alas. False hope, that. As if it weren’t annoying enough that any criticism of his policies is dismissed with a swipe of the race card through the electronic dispenser o’ sweet creamy diversity pablum, now it looks like justice is to be administered – not in a color-blind fashion, but according to the color of the skin of the person accused. It is perfectly acceptable to the current top administrators of the Department of Justice to have representatives of the New Black Panther Party, swaggering up and down at a polling place, intimidating voters. Nice. So, what are we to expect out of this new, post-racial, Obama Administration? Not having a pundit-approved crystal ball at my disposal, I couldn’t begin to guess – but I will venture one small prophecy: that the Icecapades will be hosted in Hell before another small-time, relatively obscure and totally inexperienced – yet somehow charismatic minor pol, spat up from the unsavory bowels of a big-city political combine will be elected to such a high office. Not all the efforts of all the media punditocracy will be able to make that happen again . . . and we’d better do more than pray it doesn’t. We can probably endure another two and half years of the Won, but I don’t think we could survive another of his ilk, or the rank stupidity of those who put him there in the first place.

Live by the Media

05. July 2010 · Comments Off on Live by the Media · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, sarcasm, World

… die by the media image. Fawning media coverage dragged Obama over the finish-line in 2008, so I am fairly sure that our Dear Leader knows very well the power of the image.
Link found through da Godfaddah – from Hot Air, the pictures of the Gulf Oil spill that ought to be front and center on our beloved national main-stream media.

The True Face of Serious Ugly

04. June 2010 · Comments Off on The True Face of Serious Ugly · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Israel & Palestine, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, The Tiger, War, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

You know, being that I am a lady of certain age, and since I will freely admit – that in the full bloom of youth I was really nothing to launch a thousand ships over, and being presently quite grateful for any kindly camera angle and trick of fortunate lighting which does not make me look like my Dad in drag – I really have felt kinda queasy about making fun of Helen Thomas, the doyenne and senior-most reporter of that bit of preciousosity known as the White House Press Corps. Age has not been kind to her – it has been quite brutally and infamously unkind, but I really never felt a need to add to the mockery … well, until now.

Ma’am, I am given to say now that this video clip shows as ugly an interior as an exterior – and that is an exterior which resembles Jabba the Hut with lipstick. From now on I live in hope that this performance will see you exiled from the White House Press Room … but I really am not holding my breath. Have a nice day … you ugly, ugly bigot.

So if the HCR Act is Rammed Through Today

21. March 2010 · Comments Off on So if the HCR Act is Rammed Through Today · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, sarcasm, Tea Time, World

…It’s not over. Oh, no, my friends – it’s definitely not over.

It’s just beginning. And the gestures won’t be stupid and futile.

Later – yep, just as I suspected. As one of those e-mails going around says:

Let me get this straight……we’re trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Still Later – While I am doing quotes, howsabout this one?

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams

Historical Trivia Question

02. December 2009 · Comments Off on Historical Trivia Question · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, sarcasm

(Not an original – from one of those satiric e-mails going around)

Do you know what happened way back in 1850 – a hundred and fifty-nine years ago this fall?

More »

Memo – Fort Hood Fallout

08. November 2009 · Comments Off on Memo – Fort Hood Fallout · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Military, Rant, sarcasm, Stupidity, War

From: Sgt Mom
To: Various
Re: Ft. Hood Murders

1. To the families, loved ones, comrades and friends of those killed at Ft. Hood this last week: I am so sorry; our prayers and condolences go out to you all.

2. To our current President: Please start going to your local Toastmaster’s organization, and work on your impromptu speech-making techniques. You are acceptable when prepped and reading it off the teleprompter, but looking all over the place in a triangular pattern – up left, down right, across and up left again – it’s really distracting. Oh, and as the C-in-C you should really learn the difference between the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Maybe working with flash cards would help you remember this stuff.

3. To CAIR, and other prominent members of various mainstream Muslim-American associations: Clean house. Start shopping violent jihadi a-holes to law enforcement. Immediately, if not yesterday.

4. To various deep thinkers, bloggers and trolls of the leftish persuasion, who are inclined to write and post with variations of really, those violent, warmongering and racist, hicks all got just what they deserved; just stop. Just stop it.

5. Department of Homeland Defense: Nice set of priorities, Janet! Looks like everyone was too busy running around in circles, looking for violent Tea Party activists to pay any attention to a whacked-out jihadist. Nice job, lady.

6. Army Personnel Management cadre at Walter Reed: Yeah, I know the usual drill for dealing with a problem troop/officer – quietly send them TDY, give them a pencil-pushing job someplace where they can do the minimum amount of damage, and eventually transfer them someplace remote. Didn’t work out well this time –maybe it would have been worthwhile doing some direct attitude adjustment on Major Hasan?

7. Major Hasan: Hmm … I guess Leavenworth still has a place where they can stand up traitors against a wall and have the firing squad finish the job?

8. Police Sgt. Kim Munley: most excellent job. Need something with more stopping power than a 9mm. Just sayin’…

Sgt Mom.

I Love the Smell of Dripping Sarcasm in the Morning

15. October 2009 · Comments Off on I Love the Smell of Dripping Sarcasm in the Morning · Categories: Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, sarcasm, The Funny

(From one of those e-mails going around, this one from the military broadcaster’s discussion group, a well-known nest of racists and terrorist sympathizers. This will no doubt get me on several watch lists as a person of doubleplusungoodness.)

Wonderful news! After astonishing the world by receiving the Nobel Peace Prize that was so richly deserved (according to the Democratic leadership and all right thinking people everywhere) Our Dear Leader Barack Hussein has been honored again; the Pentagon announced today that the wonderful light of greatness that is our glorious leader has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor! this after visiting a Marine Corps base last summer. General Sabot, the new military czar in charge of “honoring dear leaders” stated today “We know some reactionary types both in the civilian sector and those in the military (who unlike myself have had their decision making process clouded by actual combat experience) will not agree with this decision. Nevertheless, a careful review of a cellphone photo-capture of the presidents’ arrival clearly shows the light of virtue and really great greatness that is our savior and bringer of change, his majesty Barack (the peace bringer) He has the clear facial expressions of someone who is really going to do something really really brave and stuff!”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated: “It’s about time we gave this award to someone who deserves it!” she then expanded: “In the recent past we have given this medal to mostly Warmongering military types who followed the orders of the disgraced prior administration! These mostly Republican types received this award while committing horrible war crimes during the period when this was a illegal war. It is appropriate then that his majesty be given this honor as the war has magically become legal under our more enlightened leadership.” Col. Savemyarss, under-military czar of “sayin’ good stuff about our dear leader” stated: “We believe this award is a proper follow up to all those on the General Staff who are now saying that the new administrations’ war plans are enlightened and much better than the old plans of the prior administration and that it is better way to show our loyalty to the new administration since after almost a year we still have no idea what the new administrations war plan are yet. But don”t take that to mean that I think that a year is to long to come up with a plan! It’s just about right! and I am sure the plan will be like the greatest ever! As a matter of fact I hear there is a school in New Jersey that is writing a new song of praise for our dear leader based on the wonderful new plan we all know he is putting together! “and that you can quote me on!”

The Mockery, It begins

22. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Mockery, It begins · Categories: Domestic, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Politics, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!, The Funny, World

And it burns, it burns us, it does!

Yeah, I saw this at Protein Wisdom. In a perfect world, this would have been on Saturday Night Live. Alas, most funny and deeply sarcastic stuff is on YouTube, these days.

A Thought

28. June 2009 · Comments Off on A Thought · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, N. Korea, sarcasm

Supposedly, North Korea is going to shoot a missile towards the Hawaiian Islands on the 4th of July – but with all the mainstream media still going on about Michael Jackson, will anyone ever hear about it?

Just For Fun

18. June 2009 · Comments Off on Just For Fun · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, sarcasm

I’t been around for a bit, but I thought you all might enjoy the worlds’ shortest slasher flic –

Broadcast Standards

15. June 2009 · Comments Off on Broadcast Standards · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm

Well, far from me to hold off giving another couple of energetic thwacks to the deceased equine, with regard to David Letterman’s tasteless and ill-considered joke about Governor Palin’s daughter (whichever daughter was meant) and a baseball player, but what the heck, now Bill Maher has gotten into the act – apparently aggrieved at how upset a large portion of the people who heard about said tasteless and ill-considered joke have become. Ah, well, that’s what happens when you engage your yap before your mind is in gear.

So – do I think people are overreacting? Meh … maybe they are – it was pretty crude ‘n crass, but stacked up to all the bales of crude n’ crass delivered to Chez Palin, courtesy of our so-called media and intellectual elite over the last eight months, it was a pretty pale effort. But that might be the point – it was the final, absolutely last, penultimate straw. Look, a lot of people in flyover America really liked Sarah Palin, when she sprung up onto the national scene, like Athena stepping out of Zeus’ absolutely splitting headache. So she turned out to be John McCain’s absolutely splitting headache, as well as an opportunity for a lot of the mainline established feminist figures to go eeek! over a woman who turned out to be everything they claimed to have been working for, lo, these last forty years. The monstering of her, and her family, and even the heave-ho from John McCain when it was all over did not go over real well in flyover country … where blue-collar couples work a couple of jobs, and scratch together their education from no-name community colleges and state schools, and where the grandparents look after the children, and going to church on Sunday (not just for weddings and funerals) is pretty much a given. People hunt, and hike, and plant gardens and run for the PTA or the city council, and do a pretty good job at looking after themselves and their communities. And we sat back and watched all that be slimed by the very superior political aristocracy and their sycophants in the old-line media, and god save us, what passes for intellectuals in these degraded days. And no, we did not care for it at all. Not one bit.

And so an aging and unfunny late-night talk host slaps a knowing smirk on his face and delivers a desperately crass and barely humorous line, while his obliging audience of wanna-be hipsters obediently chortle … and some days later he (and his equally knowing and sarcastic friend) is wondering loudly what happened, and why is everyone picking on him, what did he do? It was only a joke, man … don’t you hicks in the sticks have any sense of humor? There is talk of consumers boycotting Late Night Show sponsors, and even a letter or two of complaint filed (with much noisy fanfare to the FCC) and even the National Organization of Women has bestirred themselves to file an angry comment.

OK, Mr. Letterman, I’ll explain it to you in simple terms: no, you did not happen to tread heavily and publicly on your own d**k. Not with that particular joke. You just had the bad luck to be the one among the smirking brigade of so-called comedians who delivered the one single line that crossed the line, that was the absolutely last straw – or even the match that set the whole gasoline-soaked pile of previous straws alight. All that accumulated anger on the part of the public just picked your face to explode in, like one of those joke cigars in an old Three Stooges comedy. It isn’t personal, and it may even not be about that particular joke. It’s just that there’s a lot of suppressed anger in flyover country … you know, from those people outside your cozy little studio and oh-so-hip little world, all those people in Lubbock, or Muncie, or Bakersfield or Peoria. Hey, sport, they watch your show, too – remember? So, they just got fed up about the treatment of Sarah Palin and her family, and your little throwaway gag exploded all that combustible material. Hey, they just picked that joke and you as the chosen scapegoat; could have been any other joke, any other late night host or TV anchor with delusions of adequacy. You just got lucky, and now you are an object lesson, in what happens when you blunder over that line, and just that one little step too far. You must feel so special.

Oh, and say hi to the Dixie Chicks next time you see them.

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