I date myself by remembering when Halloween wasn’t such a cool holiday.  Instead of trees full of artificial cobwebs we had trees full of toilet paper (it all waits for the next rain to wash it down, sometimes weeks).  Pumpkins were carved by ideas in your head and big sharp knives, not stencils and plastic tools.  Lit with flaming candles and not LED bumps powered by a hearing aid battery.

Used to burn our yard trash too.

I’d tell you a scary story about that but we never had one.  You feed the fire until the brush is gone, you don’t pile it in a huge stack, douse it with kerosene and fire it up (though I’ve been a Boy Scout and we did do things like that).  I’m much more afraid of a wood chipper.

We also used to dump it at the end of the road.  There is a big hill with acres of undeveloped land just down the street and the property owners with road footage were happy enough for the fill.

All yard stuff, no garbage, and you didn’t even have to ask about that.  It was all kind of self organized.

In the Fall it’s leaves, and frankly everyone still kind of dumps them all in the street and lets the wind blow them downhill, though the Town is a little more organized about that now and dusts off the snowplows early and sends them out with huge vacuums.

Yes, we are so damn lazy you don’t even have to bag.

They send out the trucks for old eksmas trees too, and once in the spring for the odd stuff.  Your old washing machine and broken furniture, your 30 year collection of National Geographics with their breathless patriotic coverage of the Vietnam War (I remember a really mint issue featuring the United States Air Force and all the bombs, bullets, and rockets they could carry).  Never could quite decide what made some stuff disposable.

They take it all now to the tipping station where it’s sorted and processed and sent to… wherever.

That’s progress for you.

I think we can all agree that any nominee of the Democratic Party is going to be more receptive to progressive initiatives, make better appointments and nominations, and run the Executive Branch more competently than any Republican.

What I am far more concerned about is-

• The Continuing Occupation of Iraq
• The Erosion of our Constitutional Liberties
• The Congenital Criminal Corruption in D.C.

The solution to these concerns is not in the White House, but at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue- in the halls of Congress.

Through both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 30 years the level of incestuous self absorption by the Beltway Bozo Pandering Pundit Political Media Elite, the Fatheaded Sissies and Whiny Bloviators, the Arrogant Asskissing Acceptors of Access, the So-Called “Serious People” with their Mindless Masturbatory Illusions of Self Importance and Constant Cacophony of Condescending Calumny and Lies has increased to levels not seen since the Gilded Age.

Like gilding their Inflated Pompous Balloon Egos are micrometers thick.  They need a good prick, and I am one.

I think we need to be devoting our time and energy to producing a dominant Democratic majority in Congress and within that a Powerful Progressive Caucus.

Anything else is not going to produce the results we want.  Primary, primary, primary.  Punish the Media with your eyeballs, emails, and money.  Not a dime to the Corporate Enablers, sit on your ass and vote with your wallet.

Or indulge yourself in the amorphous meanderings of your particular cult of personality, whatever.

Wishing for a strong man (or woman) on a white horse is delusional dreaming.  Working with others to produce a profound change in direction is quite something else and one or two elections and lucky breaks won’t do anything but delay the damage and I’m so very tired of being the little Dutch boy with my fingers in the dike.

So BillO has run off the rails again tonight.  Accusing dK of being “Nazis of the Left” and of supporting 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.

More evidence he doesn’t bother to read.

Now if I had a good way to provide you with the Media Matters link I would, but I leave it as an exercise.

On the other hand here on this site we can be as tinfoil as we want because we’re proud to be called “far left loonies” by the likes of BillO and Faux Noise.

Bring it falafel boy.

Tonight we talked about N***** moments again.  Berserkers like me know them.

Aaron says some things that not all agree with.  He’s given up his strip in favor of his animation projects.

How do you feel about that?

In Stars Hollow it’s finally Fall and there are wet leaves on the streets which reminds me of my dog Dally the Dalmatian.

Dalmatians are prone to kidney problems and Dally peed everywhere including my leg at obedience class, had to run home and change my pants.

Part of the training was to walk him, so I did.  It was dark and wet and I’m not sure what Dally saw when he took off because I was totally taken by surprise.

He weighed about half me, but my feet were on wet leaves so part way across the street was kind of like water skiing (and you thought Ralph was a bad Uncle).

The leaves burned out and I was dragged for a while before I could get the leash off.  I suppose you could call it payback.

Well it ruined my good knee and I had to crawl back to my house and bang on the door and scream until someone rescued me, but it evened out in the end.  I’m still here.

Aidan Delgado, author of The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq, will be online  at DocuDharma today, Sunday, October 28th at 9 PM Eastern to talk about the book and his experiences in Iraq.

The son of a diplomat, he spent his childhood and teen years overseas.  He lived in Thailand, Senegal, and Egypt.  He signed a contract to enlist in U.S. Army Reserves on 9\/11.

Enlisted as a mechanic in a military police company, when his unit was assigned to Abu Ghraib his Arabic language skills became especially valuable.  He converted to Buddhism just before his training.  The book (reviewed by On The Bus) is the account of his experiences as a soldier and his struggle to achieve conscientious objector status.

^{Yahoo News Opinion}
William F. Buckley
IMPEACH BUSH?
Fri Oct 26, 7:57 PM ET

Well if you ever needed to have it spelled out for you there it is.

We are not serious people.

We are not “men and women of sobriety who weigh conscientiously what constitutes impeachable presidential behavior.”

And just so you know what “serious” is?

Lying about a blow job.

One of the things I got out of Swim Team was a job.  I was a professional Life Guard and Water Safety Instructor for about 7 or 8 years.

Never had to rescue anybody though I had a supervisor who thought I was waiting too long to save the dog paddling girl who only had a T-Shirt for a bathing suit.  And she was being Black in a pretty white pool.  Not my regular boss the dope smoking Christian so I let it slide but I was pretty pissed off.  She was right by the side and not 10 feet from me, no danger at all.

I picked up a kid out of the gutter at the same pool who I was sure had broken his leg.  Nope.  Bounced right up and giggled.

Good work if you can get it- 2 to 9 and about 50% breaks, harder in the winter when you had to work 12 hour days and teach.  Your job basically is to be an asshole and stop people from having too much fun.  No running, no dunking, no splashing.  It’s Adult Swim because I say so you snotty brat.

I’ve guarded some pretty squirrley places too, above a dam in river water, a pool you had to vacuum every morning because the sport was to heave your beer bottles over the fence and smash them right on the lip of the pool so the shards fell in the water.  Good times.

After all I learned to play very good Pitch.

I like to read a lot, it’s one of my chief pleasures.

I was enforced in my addiction early in life living a mere block away from the local library.  Well equipped in Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, and other classics I soon outgrew the basement kids section and got my ticket to the tall shelves.  As soon as I got to Junior High I started ditching study hall to be a volunteer librarian.

I have a huge collection myself, most of it in boxes.  Dime a cover library sales of my very same childhood classics, I can show you the sign out cards.  Paperbacks when they didn’t cost $10.

Among the authors I like that don’t get talked about much are Dorothy Sayers and Rex Stout the Emily and Richard of Lord Peter Death (and that’s Death as in dead not Deeth you wienie) Bredon Wimsey and Nero Wolfe as recorded by Archie Goodwin.  Peter and Archie have Harriet and Lily, Nero has history.

If you haven’t read Flashman by George MacDonald Fraiser you don’t understand me at all, big C.S. Forester fan too.  I’ve had a Maria in my life.