May 2009 archive

     Memo to Rush: if you want us to stop laughing at you, stop saying stupid shit.

    Keith Olbermann lays down the vicious and savage beating all over Rush Limbaugh’s fat keister. WTF!

    To sum this total owning up.

    “The crushing majority of America thinks you suck”

    The mental gymnastics engaged in by Rush on a daily basis do not make up for his lack of physical gymnastics over the last 2,000 mid night snacks. If Rush evened the score between the two, he could run marathons and power the national grid with the hot air emitting out of all of his orifices.

    The irony is that Rush wants the attention either way, but he wants to be able to entirely control the message, from the moment it passes by his hungry lying lips to the second those words pass your ear drum. The problem for Rush is in how to control the message even after facts prove that he is entirely full of shit.

   Now, if only Rush could eat his own words with the same zeal that he attacks the native salmon making their return to the river during spawning season.

In this diary, we address more directly what I’ve mostly skirted around in this New Deal series – something I’m completely unqualified to talk about.  That being race relations in the South.  I know it’s a cheap shot to give a diary this potentially misleading title, but I couldn’t resist.  STFU stands for Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which organization this diary will come around to after some introduction.

     

     Delta Cooperative Farm, Hillhouse, Mississippi, July 4, 1936

     (Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration)

STFU was an important progressive organization in its day.  I’ve come across the argument that it was a key precursor to the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.  There’s probably something to that.

Yes I have been gone for four days but feels like a month.  Did I have fun?  Well yes I had so much fun I’m not going to tell anybody where I went.  Why?  Well because I don’t want Massholes, flatlanders and or any otherwise un-intitiated city folk messing it up for the rest of us.  The Apocalyptic horses went on a trip to an ideal spot.  Trails are straight, surface sandy so we can just let er rip, go for it.  I mean if we’re all gonna die in the next few months I for one am gonna die with my riding boots on.

This country has become full of Darwin Award candidates and my recent wild west vaction has cemented that meme firmly in my mind.  We have a great  “adjustment” coming even if most refuse to believe it.

Once upon a time I started a story.  Well, actually, I borrowed some dead guy’s story and decided to add to it, subtract from it and generally mold it into something else.

I’ve been asked to relate a bit more of the story.  The last snippet was added to the Ifalong on what we humans describe as November 28, 2008.  Much has transpired since then so I need some time to connect to the Rainbow computer, where the files are kept…if only because it is easier to initiate something comprehensible that way.

It might also be time to learn some other parts of the story.

The Engineer downshifted and the locomotive slowed as it traversed a difficult curve.

The Storyteller began a new story.  Actually, it was an old story.  One of the oldest…and most important.  The Rainbow computer had it exactly, it was assumed, but nobody told it as well as as the Storyteller.  The Listener became intent on trying to discover previously undiscovered nuance.  And the Passenger continued to dream.

Warning to All Pony Lovers: this may upset you, a LOT!

It may make you want to tar, feather,and banish me forever.

But I cannot pretend any longer.

I don’t like Ponys.

They scare the HELL outa me.

I have Pony PTDS.

And very time I post a comment, someone gives me (shudder) MORE ponies.

I don’t know what to do.

I am also scared to death of HORSES, and the mere thought of running into a (cringe) UNICORN, makes my teeth chatter, even if they’re not in my mouth at the time.

I wasn’t born this way. Once upon a time, I even asked Santa to BRING me a Pony.

I was really pissed when he didn’t.  

I wasn’t born scared of ponies. Or horses.

But that was before I met one of each in person.

My kids wanted a pony. I bought one for them and that’s how I met “Puffin”, the Pony from Hell.

He was one of those pretty miniature ponies. I’d seen some dogs as big as that pony , so I wasn’t a bit scared of him, besides I probably weighed more than HE did.  The guy showed me how to put a bridle and saddle on him. Puffin stood there so patient and docile, such a sweet, gentle boy. With his owner leading, he gave both of my little girls their very first pony ride around our yard. I was so happy! I never got my own pony, but I got one for them and it felt like some long awaited victory!

Then the guy turned him loose in my small fenced in pasture, and left. They were moving out of state the next day.  Later that day, sugar cubes and apples in hand, I went out to get acquainted with Puffin by myself. Being a city girl, I wondered how you call a pony: do you whistle? Say “Here, Pony! Here, Pony?” What?

Puffin finally wandered over to the fence where I was. I held out the sugar cubes. He just looked at them and snorted.  The apple, then? Same thing. He sniffed it, snorted, shook his head then  went right back to standing stock still, staring me right in the eye with a distinctly UNFRIENDLY stare. I gingerly offered the apple again..at which time he dropped his head, knocked the apple to the ground, BIT MY HAND ,then walked a few steps off,turned his back and took a big crap.  

Now I am not stupid. I can read non verbal cues. This pony definitely did NOT like me.

To make a long story short, over the next month I must have run ten thousand miles around that pasture trying to catch that damned pony, to no avail. More than once he turned the tables and chased ME with those big teeth bared! Nothing worked. I made sure he was well fed, well watered, had good shelter and endless treats, all of which he rejected in favor of another bite of my hand.  I spent countless hours sitting by the fence, using my most persuasive communication skills to win his trust, but he’d just stand there munching grass and pooping as if I didn’t exist. Meanwhile, I’m  trying to explain to two tearful little girls that Mommy just can’t CATCH their pony, so they could ride it. Having to look at a pony they could not ride became just too much, SO I found another good home for Puffin, who, it eventually turned out, simply hated women, but not men.

As for HORSES, meet Diamond, a Tennesee Walker, about 16 hands high.  I rented the pasture to his owner, who was flat out determined to teach me to ride a horse. Diamond was gentle, he said, no reason to be afraid of good ol Diamond!  Oh, hell no!  The minute I climbed up onto his back, he reared up, took off like a bat outa hell, and threw me hard into the creek! Dislocated shoulder. Nice horse, that ol Diamond.

So there, now I’ve done it.

I have outed my self as non-pony-lover.

I am aware this may be grounds for banning.

Just please don’t give me any more ponies.

give them to each other instead.

Please?

 

The Dog is all about progress, so when progress on an issue like torture, however small it is, happens, the Dog is always trying to look down the road and see what will be the next step or counter step. This week with the very public and very limited waterboarding of Mancow (a conservative radio shock jock) and his admission that even his sanitized and safe version was indeed torture; the Dog thinks we should talk about one of the next memes you are likely to hear about from the torture apologists.