My Lady and I were GLUED to the radio during this man's talk... Seriously. We were almost late signing papers for our "upcoming artist lofts" for this guy... Click Rabbi calls "spiritual progressives" to action to listen to it.
Here we go again: English Tell the Scots to go for Independence You know, this comes up all the time. Seriously. There's pros and cons to this idea. A Free Scotland would allow them to do a bit of "re-design" for the EU charter with Scotland. (You know, the pesky one that says Britain is too rich, and therefore Spaniards,'cause their 'poorer' or something, get to send their fishing boats to the waters surrounding Scotland... BUT SCOTS CAN'T FISH THEIR OWN WATERS!) Of course... Scotland without England is just a weird idea. I don't know... I'm just not enough of a SNP member to get really up and arms about a "independent Scotland" or anything... Gah...
Well, readers... That's it for today. I know, I know... It was ALL OVER the BOARD! Well... I'm like that somedays.
Well, after my friend N8 said I was getting "a bit moderate" due to my comments on the Rummy affair yesterday (read the comments from yesterday's post) I thought I should put up a link that helps to "re-infuse" my liberalness in my blog...
I get an e-mail from Michael Moore, whenever he gets around to writing a "letter" to his "peeps" or whatever, and there's a link to this letter on his website.
The letter was good. Honestly. And it goes a long way towards saying the things that I wish I could've said. Damn. I'm just not a writer, I guess. Anyhoo... Here's the "Michael Moore's Letter to the Democrats: Cut and Run"
A few highlights, before I convince you to read the letter?
There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience. That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how Canada did it.
The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating for them.
Oh, and here's another good quote from the letter:
So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do 'til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.
Okay... There... Thank you Mike!
Just so's you know... I realise that N8 was giving me a well deserved bit of shite... But to my OTHER readers that may have wondered... I'm still a Liberal! Ger!
Okay, so... The "Liberal Press" says that Rummy 'okayed' torture. And instantly, I was outraged! I mean, who wouldn't be? Especially since they said: "Abu Graib" in the article, I mean... We all know what happened at Abu Graib, right? It's horrific! He okayed naked piles of men, attacks by dogs? Wiring up prisoners with a battery? This is...
Infamous!
But then... Then, um... You know, I, like, READ, the article. Rummy, did NOT okay any of those things... In fact, he didn't even okay "Water Boarding" which is the "false drowning" torture that has been bandied about lately... No...
He okayed "Sleep Deprivation" and "Loud Music" and oohhh... The horrors... "BEING MADE TO STAND FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME!!!!!!!!!!!"
Please... My Lady is forced to stand for long periods of time. She's forced to listen to loud HORRIFIC music, like James BLUNT, for chrissakes... And never gets a good night's sleep... And you know what? She's not a prisoner at a U.S. military prison, no... She's an employee at the Mall of America.
Folks... I am completely against torture. Full, bloody, STOP! However, the things that Rummy authorised is NOT torture... It's uncomfortable. It is a tried and true interrogation technique. Hell... Our POLICE do crap like this to teenaged gang-members.
I oppose TORTURE, not "being mean." And although I'm a bleeding heart liberal, and even though I'm VERY against all the Donald Rumsfeld stands for... Saying that he "Authorised Torture" when, blatantly, he DID NOT DO SO, is fugging WRONG!
Jesus-cluny-frog! Let it GO, fellow Liberals... He's gone, okay? Now we begin fixing what the bastard did, whilst in office... However, let's not play "Republican Games" with the truth, okay? I mean... We don't need to make crap up, or 'embellish' the truth... Rummy did PLENTY of REAL things wrong.
Christ on a crutch.
Anyhoo... On a happier note...
I found this fun "Create your own official seal" thing thanks to the City Pages Blotter page...
Here's mine:
Make your own here at: Says-it.com Quick note: on two of my browsers, the "form" on this page that allows you to CREATE your own seal, seems to jump about to the bottom of the window, so... Scroll down, and you'll see the form. Don't ask me. Someone needs to fix their CSS or something.
And two really, really funny videos that I ran across on You Tube:
One for EVERYONE with a bit of a weird sense of humour...
and one for the guys...
Alrighty then... I'm off.... Have a great weekend!
I realise that most of my readers from outside the States may be slightly confused as to our weird holiday of Thanksgiving. To put it into context, it's basically a harvest festival where we celebrate the harvest and give thanks for our crops/lives/etc... Its foundation is traced back to the Pilgrims first year in America. They sat down with the Native Americans and shared the fruit of their first harvest with their neighbours. Of course, in the intervening years, the children of the first Pilgrim settlers would go on to enslave and kill their Native American neighbours, but the first 15 or so years the settlers and the natives lived in peace.
Americans like to think about the FIRST Thanksgiving in a "good way" and avoid the historical destruction of the Native peoples. But hey... That's colonisation for you. No one has clean hands.
Anyhoo... We spent our "Thanksgiving" with a portion of the extended family. My aunt and uncle had the celebration at their house in Forest Lake, MN. Which is about 30 miles north of the Twin Cities. The typical familial strife was experienced... The same GREAT food was served of course, with a side order of sniping relatives.
Our REAL fun, came about after we had left the family event, and returned to our housesit. My best friend Matt and his partner Anna and his sis Janice were in town from Portland, Oregon for Thanksgiving with THEIR crazy family. The three of them came over to our housesit, and we proceeded to get good and sauced as a remedy for our days. Matt was my best man in my wedding, and we have known each other since we were little kids. It's not easy having my best friend and "brother" living 1000 miles away from me, however... As is the case for MANY best friends... Our time apart doesn't seem to affect our relationship. We are somehow able to pick up right were we left off, and continue our strong relationship.
I'm hoping, that with the friends I've made in Britain, the same will be true. I truly miss my friends over in England, and I'm certain that My Lady feels the same. (I'm certain of this, 'cause she just told me this morning that she was!)
Och weel... My Lady is visiting her friends and family in Britain in January, and I'm hoping that that will help assuage her pain in separation. I, however, must wait a LONGER time before I'm able to visit. This is a really painful fact of life, innit?
Well... I'm off. I want, however, to say a personal THANK YOU to one of my British Friends... Abi, we've received your anniversary gift, and we adore the piece you sent along! It's going to take an honoured space of wall in our new flat in February! Thanks for the well wishing!
Sorry... Today there was a great speaker on MPR (well, NPR, actually...) Mel Levine, a neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina gave a speech broadcasted on the Midday programme on MPR, titled: How Children Learn and I was stuck to the radio. I mean, here's a scientist, he has a few issues with public speaking, but he was amusing, and erudite. If you have time, listen to the show.
Anyhoo... In America, there's a big push to "medicate" a "problem child" rather than to get down to the root-causes of the child's behavior. He finds this appalling. And so do I. I'm not going to go into this one any more, except to say to Dr. Levine... "Yeah, that's it!"
Really fun reading if you're interested in "American Politics" is NPR's Political Editor and "Political Junkie" Ken Rudin. His blog-like column:The Political Junkie is a fun/interesting/savvy read. He was on the radio today on my way to work talking a bit about the current situation in Yankee-land... And I was again taken by the fact that the Dems actually took both houses of Congress. I mean, it's been 12 years since the Senate and House have both been Democrat, and I'm still in shock. I know that nothings going to get accomplished this time around either, not with Bushie and his buds still hanging out in the Whitehouse, but... Man. I'm still in a great mood!
Edit Well, fugging BLOGGER was not working last night when I tried to upload this entry, so I'm uploading it now. Crud. Sorry folks.
And this one photo will sum it up for the Tuckmac...
Anyhoo...
Yeah. The round-up...
Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty beat Democratic challenger Mike Hatch. SHIT Democrat Amy Klobuchar beat Republican weenie Mark Kennedy for Senate Yay! Dems took BOTH houses of the Minnesota congress. Dems took the House of Reps in the U.S. congress, and MAY get the Senate as well, after Virginia stops freaking that a Dem actually took a senate seat in their state, when they are so VERY Republican...
Bush is in trouble.
That being said. What we're also in for, in the States, is a lot of partisan grid-lock, and crap.
To my British readers (and Yanks that don't watch T.V. or listen to the radio, or anything except read MY blog for their news):
Things are looking up. But, it's still a mess over here, and bound to be really interesting in the next couple of years. Well... At least I'm not going to be kicked out of the States for a while.
I'm gonna party. After work. I'm still here. Gah. Oh... Dumb "cheese-sandwich" sort of information... L.O.L.A.U. has given me a "work mobile phone" So... now I'm really caught in the web, that is L.O.L.A.U. But... it's a nifty Nextel i760 phone with a nifty "walkie-talkie" dohicky built-in. I'm chuffed. But also a bit freaked out. I mean... Now, work will have a leash connected to me at all times of the day and night... And weekends. And stuff. My friend Joann made "now you're one of us" noises at me in the hall today. And she's right. But... I also like the fact that I'm not feeling like the bastard-step-son of the I.T.S. department.
Weird. Anyhoo...
I'm off for the evening. Smiles and kittens!
-- Tuckmac
*Of COURSE I don't condone the use of bigoted slang for Muslim-peoples, that's simply my way of describing RUMMY'S feelings toward the people of the Middle-East, as his policies have shown. Man... You all should KNOW better!
It's funny... I've received text messages from my "Across the Pond" friends for the past couple of days. And I was thinking... Wow, this is weird... Why is everyone spending like, 60 pence on a text message to me this week. And then I realised.
It's been an entire year, now, that I've been back in the States.
One whole year.
Man.
You know, it's funny... As My Lady and I spend time going through our "Yankee Lives" and planning for the future, there's always this, um... I don't know... Yearning for Britain. Don't get me wrong, Yank readers... Both of us do actually like living here in Minnesota. And once we move into our "Artist Lofts" our life-styles will be really really interesting. I'm sure. However, no matter "how much fun" we seem to be able to have... I just don't see myself "hanging around" in the United States of America. It's a beautiful country, I've been all over the country. It has its good people, and its bad people. Good politics, and bad politics... Et al.
But it's not Britain. That's all. It just isn't. I found a "home" when I was living in Canterbury, and I LEFT that home to come back here.
Like Anastasia said in yesterday's comment area... She misses Canterbury and is homesick more about Canterbury than Athens! (her 'real' home). I'm much the same.
I don't know. All I know is that My Lady and I are going to give it a shot here, and we'll see what we see. I will continue to make jokes about the fact that if the Republicans get back into office AGAIN, I will leave... (I actually can't leave yet). But I will stay here. For a while. We'll see, what we see... What we see.
And eventually, I'll come home.
Home. It's a fabulous word, and I dream of it every day.
Google buys YouTube and they're getting lawsuits up the ying-yang. Typical. Fugging America.
I'm really rather shocked by this news item: Price is Right Host, Bob Barker steps down. This guy has been on T.V. since, well... Since long before I was even a zygote let alone most of my readers. I'll miss you Bob. Well. Um. Actually I haven't watched your show since the mid '70's. However, I still think it's sad you're going away. Good luck.
For pure weirdness/funny value: Unusual eBay Feedback is really good for a quick chuckle.
My friend N8 turned me onto this on-line comic-strip. Damn him. Here's a funny one: Automatic Doors. True story: I was at my old university (for my MFA) in Canterbury, and they installed these new "automatic doors" on the front entrance. Anyhoo... They were the "slidey kind" that opened something like the StarTrek doors. Well... They were 'brand new' and only a day or so old, when My Lady and I were walking outside and... Wait for it... I walked into the door. "How could you be such an idiot, Tuckmac?" I hear you saying. And no, it's not 'cause they were glass, although they were, or 'cause it didn't open due to a malfunction, although that's close. No, I walked into the door 'cause it only opened half-WAY and I clipped the fugger. Bloody door. From that moment on, the doors never seemed to stick "half-way" again. I think it was some sort of karmic thing, and that somehow I deserved a kick in the face from a recalcitrant doorway. Hmm...
And on that note, I leave you, fine gentle and gorgeous readers... I spoke (well texted) with my friend Toby W. today from Canterbury. He was at the KIAD bar (our old uni in Canterbury) and was with other friends of mine... And they were listening to a CD-mix that I had created for the joint. Toby sent me a text to tell me that they were there, and thinking about me, and missing me.
I almost cried.
Homesickness is not just a malady for those that are away from their "homes" as it were... It's also a sickness that effects those of us that found a home, and miss it dreadfully.
I miss you all, over there... And hope that someday soon, I'll be able to get back to where I belong. If the Republicans take the Senate and the House again... I may be there in a week.
I've been called:
"Bleeding Heart Liberal" (True)
"Mean" (Occasionally true)
"Amusing" (Rarely True)
"Commie Pinko" (Not true, I'm a Socialist)
"Talented" (Depends on what you're talking about)
"Anarchist" (Which I still don't get.)
"Evil"(Now, hold on!)
"Tree-hugger" (Never actually hugged one)
"Cute" (Only to my wife, or my mother)
"Funny" (I can be)
"Skinny" (I prefer thin)
"Silly" (All the time)
"Annoying" (Sometimes)
