December 2007 archive

Cross-posted from Top Comments at GOS

I was having a tough time finding a topic for my Top Comments diary (on the GOS, as linked above). My Eureka! moment was when I looked through the Spam folder in my email account, just for laughs. “Spam,” I thought, “what a truly horrid food substance.” And then I had it! I should write about all the bad food I’ve eaten in my 30-something years on the planet.

Having been born in the 70s, I’ve had my fair share of food with low nutritional value. The 70s and 80s seemed to be the era of junk food, and my family was far from immune. I’m not sure if it was a matter of convenience or whether it was because junk food was cheaper. Both are reasonable possibilities: my mom was the parent who worked AND did everything around the house (until we kids were old enough for household chores) and our family didn’t have a lot of money.  

My father’s family are Mormons.  In the mid-eighteen hundreds they gave everything they owned to the church that Joseph Smith founded.  My paternal ancestors came from Sweden and England and most pulled handcarts from Independence, Missouri to the Great Salt Lake.  The church couldn’t afford oxen and wagons for everyone so this is what they pulled.

Over trails like this.

The Democrats in congress are almost all alienated from us bloggers.

They think we’re crazy and only good for use as an ATM during elections.

The incumbents don’t give a rat’s ass what we say.

They are alternately ignoring or insulting us while giving Bush everything he wants.

This gift to Bush includes at least thirteen more months of hell for our military and the people of Iraq and many billions more of our cash.

credit: http://www.alexrossart.com

How can we damage these arrogant, constitution-shredding, Bush-loving DINOs?

They have three dumb candidates hanging out in the open, just begging for our wrath.  

The best show on television today is “The Wire.” In subsequent entries, I’ll explain why I think so. Its new season, Season 5, starts in January and The Wire will be one of the things I write about. Season 4 focused on politics a good deal.

At the finale to Season 4, the new mayor of Baltimore, where the show is set, is faced with the dilemma of doing “the right thing” and doing what he perceives is the right thing politically (the plot point involves “eating shit” so the Baltimore schools get money it needs vs. what’s right for his shot at being Governor. You know what he does.

Afterwards, his close aide, who fought the campaign with him, discusses this with the chief of staff of the former mayor, saying “can’t believe he left the money on the table.” The former COS responds “they all disappoint.” And indeed, they do. They’ve all disappointed, even Lincoln, FDR and Bobby Kennedy.

As citizens and activists, our allegiances have to be to the issues we believe in. I am a partisan Democrat it is true. But the reason I am is because I know who we can pressure to do the right thing some of the times. Republicans aren’t them. But that does not mean we accept the failings of our Democrats. There is nothing more important that we can do, as citizens, activists or bloggers than fight to pressure DEMOCRATS to do the right thing on OUR issues.

And this is true in every context I think. Be it pressing the Speaker or the Senate majority leader, or the new hope running for President. There is nothing more important we can do. Nothing. It’s more important BY FAR than “fighting” for your favorite pol because your favorite pol will ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, disappoint you.

In the middle of primary fights, citizens, activists and bloggers like to think their guy or woman is different. They are going to change the way politics works. They are going to not disappoint. In short, they are not going to be pols. That is, in a word, idiotic.

Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. Do not fight for pols. Fight for the issues you care about. That often means fighting for a pol of course. But remember, you are fighting for the issues. Not the pols.

More on this theme in a week or so. I’m traveling.  

I must admit I’m pretty tense and nervous this time of year.  There are incredible numbers of deadlines, much more than usual and an impossible amount of work to be done.

The fact that there is so little daylight to go buzzing around in contributes to the sense of urgency as do the cars and crowds everywhere at every time of day.  I find it almost claustrophobic.

I have a whole crowd of places to be and people to see too.  Folks want me to hang out with them for some reason, so the mail is full of invitations most of which I have politely declined.  I’ve done the 4 parties in 3 days Thanksgiving to New Years about as much as I really need to satisfy myself.

Family is of course not easily put off and this year as usual the Gilmores will visit my sister and her kids for a few days right on the 25th.  It may not be so easy for me to get internet access right from the 23rd to the  26th.  After that I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to spend some time with my Aunty Mame (who really likes this blog much better than the orange one, says it’s more relaxing) in the frozen north.

She has good ‘net, I’ve used it before, the problem is that the TV is across the hall in the other room and if I turn it up too loud it disturbs everyone else.

And of course I watch TV all.  the.  time.

That’s why it grieves me so much to bring you the following discouraging news from Reuters on the Writer’s strike-

Prolonged writers strike a nightmare for TV biz

By Paul J. Gough, Reuters

1 hour, 12 minutes ago