My favorite diary since the election, This Miracle Brought To You by American Unions, written by Empywheel, illustrated beautifully how “the gain” of unions is so much greater than “the cost”.

My story, and this diary, is smaller in scope because its more personal and is about what unions really mean to those of us lucky, no BLESSED, enough to be in them.

I try not to visit Redstate.com because 1) there are all of twelve contributors over there and 2) eleven of those contributors have the mental capabilities approximating a medium-sized, rabid rodent (the remaining blogger rising to level of a lobotomized caribou or maybe a tapir), but today my browser misfired and I stumbled upon THIS (link not provided because without OUR traffic there is NO traffic)…

Six Years Ago Today…

…Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, later to be brutally beheaded by his captors with the video proudly posted on the Internet for the world to see.

The terrorists who committed this act, were they to be captured today under the Obama Administration’s policies, would be brought to the mainland United States for trial in civilian courts, be granted the rights of habeas corpus and the right to remain silent, could not be subjected to any coercive interrogation practices, and would have the right to see all evidence against them, as well as cross examine their accusers.

Rest in peace, Daniel.

Now…

Dude, Wazzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap:

Tonight, hours from the end of the Bush nightmare, I sat in my bed, next to my wife, and watched Paddy Cheyefsky’s Network, a movie I had seen before, but never SEEN and certainly never REALLY SEEN since I became one of the people who dream up the kind of media that Cheyefsky excoriates and lays bare.

The film, thirty years old, but as vital and powerful as its ever been, predicts the rise of reality television as well as the birth of “newsertainment”, wherein the truth is secondary to the drama.

Watching it I wondered if maybe… possibly… PROBABLY… the entire 2008 election could have been a subplot left on Sidney Lumet’s cutting room floor.

The political neophyte with the charming smile. The wife of the ex-President who was OWED the highest office in the land. The crazed, if justified preacher, spewing the darkest fear of the WHITE MAN straight from the pulpit. The war hero and the porn star Alaskan governor and the ruin of CAPITALISM played out night after night after night as a necessary means of keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat.

So, yesterday in a diary about the looming shortage of uppercase I’s and P’s (not to mention the dire virgules (“/”) epidemic (warning: link to the GOS) there was some back and forth about “heads in sand” and “trying to silence discussion” to which I responded:

There are HUNDREDS of places in the world where people are dying RIGHT NOW… of starvation… of genocide… of apathy… of dehydration and NONE OF THOSE PLACES get 1/3 the screen time here (or anywhere else on the web) because they’re just not “SEXY” in an anger inducing way. And the next Israel vs. Palestine diary that seeks to HELP anyone may be the FIRST of these diaries I’ve ever seen.

I was referred to THIS DIARY by the Droogester which has some GREAT links for giving aide to the people who are actually suffering in Israel, but then… as if on command… the WHAT ABOUT YOU MIRROR on my computer screen was automatically enabled and suddenly I was staring right at myself.

So, since election day I’ve been searching for a single word to encompass the feelings  I’ll have on the day in which Barack Obama will be inaugurated.

It’s a word that has to connote joy and wonder and the adrenaline charged exhilaration of escape (from the politics of the last eight years) and anticipation and triumph and, well, BOTH “the kit” AND “the kaboodle”.

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

“My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security,” Irfan said. “The only thing my brother said was, ‘Wow, the jets are right next to my window.'”

AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding, and he denied any wrongdoing on the airline’s part.

“At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn’t have made on the airplane, and other people misconstrued them.”

It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance.“

The below has very little “political” in it, other then since the election, with no common enemy and too much time on our hands, “we’ve” spent a lot of time yelling at each other, which brought to mind…

1) I will not write numbered, list diaries as a way of making it seem like I have more content than I actually do.

“My, your marital obligation looks lovely tonight and in the light of these florescent tubes (candles are for sissies) may I tell you that I treasure your choice to submit to the duties of your vows MORE today than on the day you signed your name to a contract dooming you to a life of faking it for sake of my self-image!”

It’s a rainy Christmas Day here in Los Angeles and so, after the waking up and the present opening (the Jew in the house still a tad bit disquieted by the decorated evergreen being kept alive by sugar water in the living room) and some of the food eating, we, the family, headed upstairs to watch a movie my wife, Holly, had managed to avoid for 38 years; It’s a Wonderful Life.

You know the tale… George Bailey gives and gives only to find himself in dire straights on Christmas Eve.

He’s suddenly short $8000 and wishing to God, quite literally, that he had never been born.

Well, there’s an angel and a look at a world without him and then there are his daughter’s Zuzu’s petals, that fell off a flower she was given and ARE in George Baily’s pocket when he’s alive and not so much when he’s not.

Look, I understand times have been pretty tough; what with half my flock suffering from footrot, the constant sandstorms across the Judean, this Census of Quirinius which is nothing more than a pain in everyone’s donkey (excuse my French) and, y’know, the road back from Nazareth is just one sig-alert after another (Beth-Lehem Ephratahian drivers are the worst… THE WORST I tell you!), but no amount of suffering can excuse my wife’s LYING TO ME in order to cover up her wanton, marital indiscretions!

“An angel of God came and impregnated me.”

I mean, REALLY, do I look like I was born since the last daybreak!?!