As you probably have surmised, your humble hostess has been inundated with work and these pages have been neglected. While I would like very much to be penning a proper essay, I just don't have the time right now. So your getting an acquisition update and a political prediction. So it's a grab bag. So kill me already
Now dig this:
Maybe the fine people at Keim Lumber Company had this 1,000-piece puzzle made for employee appreciation gifts or to celebrate the completion of their sprawling campus. Dunno. Don't care. All I know is that I totally dig this baby, which I purchased or FIFTY CENTS at (of course) Unique Thrift.
Only problem is, it is still sealed in the box. So, do I open it or leave it in it's pristine condition. Talk about your conflict ...
Then we have this:
That beauty--the CorningWare nine-cup stove top percolator circa 1975--brewed the Coffee of America for years. She cost me nine clams at some resale shop I came across in Burton, Ohio where I had a speaking engagement last month. Yes, I know these were recalled at one point and yes, I will be careful, but COME ON. Is this kickin' it old school or what?
Lastly my prediction: the honorable Governor John Kasich of Ohio will be the GOP's 2016 nominee and it will herald him as such right here in Cleveburg in the summer of 2016.
First off, let me come clean: you could write what I know about football on one square of toilet paper.
Gram Soos knew cute buns.
I know the football is the oblong brown one with the two white circle/stripes and that my Gram Soos used to say that football players had "the cutest little buns" (usually accompanied by the assertion that "it's a well known fact that body-builders are not well-endowed").
I don't know about your buns or whether or not they are cute (they probably are, Gram Soos knew some stuff). I do know you're A-list football, A-list God Squad, and that you do some kneel/pray thing that your other God Squadders dig, which brings me to the point of this correspondence.
I think you can see that gassing on too loudly about your God Squadliness can get you into trouble. Because today while everyone's talking about how the Lord helped get you as far as you got, they're thinking that it wasn't quite far enough.
Just an aside question: Is Newt Gingrich a dead ringer for BamBam Rubble all grown up and then some (with a bad case of gout), or what?
My whole point is this, Timster: God Squadliness is one of those things you probably should keep sort of quiet along with your sex life, your guns, and your money. The more you crow about some things, the further you push them away.
Once you give something power, watch out. And trust me, you're the only one who can give power to the Lord or the money or the guns or the sex.
Guess that's about enough of that. Better luck next year, kid.
Dear Cain campaign staff: Wait. Let me get this straight. Politico contacted you on October 20th. Their sexual harassment story ran on October 30. Hence you had ten days to prepare the Boy Wonder for the fallout and yesterday's stumbling bumbling mumbling was the best he could do? This, my pretties, does not bode well.
Dear conservative pundits: breaking a story about formally paying off a woman who made allegations of sexual harassment against a presidential candidate is neither racially motivated nor irrelevant.
Dear Hermain Cain: When you announce that you support forcing a woman who was brutally raped to carry her attacker's child to term, women are going to be very interested in your general attitude towards them. So here's a Code Red News Alert: Unwanted sexual advances made by men who support forcing women to bear unwanted children doesn't play real well.
Oh, and another thing: Singing to the National Press Club? That shit's just weird.
Erin O'Brien thinks Herman Cain is in big trouble. Erin O'Brien thinks Hermain Cain had better keep his pizza ovens warm.
"Tickled pink" is a favorite phrase of the Republicans.
Salted cashews, according to the Republicans, are a superb accompaniment to a gin martini.
The Republicans detest poorly made appliances.
The Republicans enjoy mail order shopping.
The Republicans, when with other Republicans, bashfully admit to owning ebook readers.
Impeccable dental hygiene is important to the Republicans.
Republicans prefer fruity wines (chilled) when dining al fresco.
Dining al fresco inflates the Republicans with great breathy sighs.
The Republicans, being Republican, are Republicans.
The Republicans have a difficult time finding appropriate shoes.
The Republicans lament the lost art of letter writing.
The nuances of boat ownership are not lost on the Republicans.
The Republicans drive sedans.
Quiet fears haunt the Republicans.
The Republicans find the decline in the quality of Coleman outdoor products shameful.
The Republicans are wholesome.
* * *
Your humble hostess believes the solid majority of Republicans can laugh at this post, would not boo an American soldier, applaud execution tallies or rally around a cry to "let him die." Your humble hostess is relying on the benefit of doubt.
Gingrich says legal immigration documentation should be handled by "American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, so there’s no counterfeiting, which there will be with the federal government."
Paul reveals new levels of paranoia, saying that he worries a southern border fence could be used to keep Americans from fleeing to Mexico in an emergency. "Every time you think of [a] fence keeping all those bad people out, think about those fences maybe being used against us, keeping us in," he says. He also wants to end federal restrictions on drug use. Totally unrelated.
So I'm driving down Royalton Road doing about 40 and some idiot in front of me starts chucking garbage out of the passenger window. I've got two teens in the back and it's raining like hell. There's a semi on my ass.
"Jesus Christ," I mutter. "Would you look at this jackass?"
Then he tosses out a big coffee can, which most likely has Mini Cooper tire-chewing capabilities, so I brake and swerve. The truck behind me lurches. I swear with more intent.
"MoOOoom," my kid admonishes.
##
Dear Youth of America: This is a rare site nowadays but people used to chuck garbage out of their cars all the time. The litter you see around roads and highways isn't one tenth what it was back in the 60s and 70s. The turn around was due largely by the Keep America Beautiful campaign. Behold the iconic crying Indian:
And it wasn't just garbage on the street.
There were parts of Cleveland that always smelled bad back then, particularly those surrounding the steel mills. Out-of-towners would wrinkle their nose when you got to the Pershing exit on I-77 SB and say, "What's that smell?"
By the time I was a shiny-faced field engineer with BP in the late 80's, things had gotten better, but the old timers used to like to talk about, well, the old times. They had names like Denny and Lou and Harry.
"Back in the day, we didn't have to worry about all your regulations," Lou would say. "We didn't have any regulations." Then he'd lean back in his chair, put his feet on his desk and take a long drag from his Pall Mall. "Back then the answer was smokestacks. You just pushed the smoke way up high where it didn't bother anyone. Back then, kid," he'd say, then purse his lips into a perfect O and blow a plume of smoke straight up by way of demonstration, "dilution was the solution to pollution."
Guys like Denny and Lou and Harry loved that line.
Lake Erie sometimes smelled bad, particularly during long dry summer spells. The shore was infested with rats, which did not deter my playmates and me from crawling under Lakewood Park's northernmost fence, scattering down the escarpment and poking around.
Then there was the Cuyahoga River.
In the late 60's and early 70's, the Cuyahoga was simply terrifying. This was no silly group of hippies protesting a pipe trickling some dubious liquid into the river. Everybody knew the Cuyahoga was filthy and dangerous. My nightmares were filled with images of falling into the thick black water and being surrounded by the industrial bridge pilings, the massive ore boats and tugs. I still occasionally dream about the murky waters of the Cuyahoga.
That picture of the Cuyahoga was taken in the 60's. You have to see it to believe it. I wanted to embed it here, but the Plain Dealer denied my permission request.
So then, Youth of America, be wary of ham-handed righties telling you how deregulation is a good thing and how the (admittedly sometimes exasperating) EPA needs to be defunded. No, I can't say pollution would return to what it was 50 years ago, but I'd hate to find out what might happen to a river that I've literally watched come back to life over the past 40 years.
Remember when us Little Guys were disgusted over massive Wall Street bonuses that cascaded over the Super Rich amid catastrophic financial failure and taxpayer bailouts?
Back then, the Super Rich directed us bewildered Little Guys to their Representative. We Little Guys stepped into his imposing office and asked:
Hey, what gives?
The Representative of the Super Rich chortled indulgently from behind his mahogany desk, then removed his pipe from his mouth, leaned back whilst crossing one Brooks Brothers clad leg over the other.
We have contractual obligations, he said. And besides, you have to pay for talent. You do want top talent, don't you? Now run along.
We did.
Fast forward to, say ... today.
Some of us Little Guys are wondering why contractual obligations and paying for talent has somehow become less important for, say ... teachers and cops and firefighters. The Super Rich once again direct us to their Representative.
We Little Guys step into his imposing office and say:
Hey, what gives?
The Representative of the Super Rich lets out a great disgusted sigh and stands. Straightening his spine, he steps from behind that massive desk, revealing the knife-sharp creases in his Brooks Brothers trousers.
Don't be ridiculous, he booms. These people must sacrifice!
Make no mistake: I take the man at his word, but I'd just like to raise the question:
Is Donald Trump's hair really a natural pompadour?
I mean, can anyone remember ever actually combing Donald Trump's hair? Can anyone attest to actual hair follicles residing beneath that thick golden fold of hair on his pate?
If you ask anyone about my hair, you'll find people who remember me actually combing it. If anyone wants to come over here and study my hair follicles, I'm ready. Is the Trumpster ready for that level of scrutiny?
I'm just raising the question. I'm really concerned over this.
So this is what the Grand Ol' Party has come to. From Politico:
Maine’s governor has set his sights on a 36-foot-wide mural of the state’s labor history, which includes images of worker strikes and “Rosie the Riveter.”
Gov. Paul LePage has ordered that the mural, in the lobby of the state Department of Labor’s building in Augusta, be painted over to show business leaders that the state is just as friendly to them as it is to workers.
Please gather your checkbooks, credit cards, piggy banks et al., and catch the next plane, train, or automobile to New York City. Once there, you can begin negotiations on your forthcoming purchase of 45-51 Park Place, Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States of America.
The righties say they don't want any gov or that they want smaller gov. They like the word freedom.
Oh really? That freedom will stop ringing as soon as their neighbor starts doing something they don't like.
Truth: Righties hate governmental laws and regulations when they apply to them, but they love those same laws and regulations when they apply to someone else. Just go to a local zoning board meeting. The righties will be there, pounding their fists. I know, I covered local gov for years.
They don't like their neighbors shed. They don't want any hunting next door. They don't want any drilling next door. Red red righties will turn green green Bambi-loving tree-huggers in an instant--I've seen it. They want laws. They want protection.
Something must be done!
The righties on the other side of the table are just as red-faced and spittle-flecked.
It's my property and I'll do what I want!
The residents of the house in the photo below do not own the property underneath that well. They don't get a dime in royalties from it. They moved in when residential drilling was not allowed in this city. Then the state changed the law and one day a crew came along with trucks and chemicals and a big-ass oil derrick. Finally, when the generators stopped roaring and the Klieg lights stopped glaring, a pumpjack and tank battery established themselves as the new neighbors.
Did somebody say property values?
As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
So then, dear conservative contingent, where exactly does that homeowners nose begin?
Courtesy of frequent Owner's Manual commenter RJ, I offer the following link: Birthers want to see Obama's penis. Apparently, some geniuses among us equate circumcision to being American.
I followed the nested links and ended up at the freerepublic.com discussion thread. Just go over there and poke around. You will be astonished at what fear, ignorance and racism breed.
If you don't care about any of that, I invite you to view one of my favorite photos of all time (it's near the bottom of the post).
Not related at all, so you can delete this if you like. I am OK with that.
What do you make of this poll? I guess I was right when I said conservatives are not as dead as you think. Link to Gallup Poll
pokety poke poke with the sharp stick, baby. (insert smiley graphic that I really hate here) --Hoosierboy
That 40 percent polled called themselves conservative is a very interesting statistic to be sure. So why did the righties get pummeled in the last two elections? The article asserts the following:
There is an important distinction in the respective ideological compositions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. While a solid majority of Republicans are on the same page -- 73% call themselves conservative -- Democrats are more of a mixture. The major division among Democrats is between self-defined moderates (40%) and liberals (38%). However, an additional 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative, much higher than the 3% of Republicans identifying as liberal.
The devil's always in the details. There's hella more conservative Democrats than there are liberal Republicans. And the further to the right the elephants lumber, the smaller the party is going to get. Where are all the moderate Republicans? Simple. They're voting Democrat.
I'm driving with my kid in my 2003 Mini Cooper, which I purchased when gas was about $1.30 a gallon.
"There's another Mini," she says. "How come there's so many Minis around here?"
"Because this part of town is more liberal than our part of town," I say. We are in Cleveland Heights, close to Case Western Reserve University, about 20 miles away from our White Wonder bread suburb on the city's South side.
"Aren't you a liberal?"
"Yeah."
"What's that have to do with cars?" she says.
"A lot of liberals drive small cars in order to conserve gas," I say. The Mini gets anywhere from 30 to 40 MPG depending on any number of things. "You don't find many liberals driving big cars unless they have a pretty good reason."
"You mean big cars like Dummers?" she says.
"Exactly," I say. "Big cars like Dummers. A lot of your conservatives like your Dummers."
"Don't Dummers use a lot of gas?"
"Yeah," I say.
"Then why would a conservative drive one?" she says. "Shouldn't a conservative conserve? I mean, you conserve everything, so you're a conservative, right?"
"It's the terminology. I'm a liberal, but I conserve. A lot of your conservatives don't like to conserve. That's the irony of the thing, kid."
She considers this for a minute and says, "They ought to call those conservatives the wastetives."
* * *
Wastetive: An American "conservative" who fails to actually conserve anything. The wastetive twists the noble concept of freedom into a selfish and childish lifelong tantrum that swirls around the wastetive's own overblown sense of entitlement and sentimental pining for an obsolete perception of the American Dream shaped wholly from conspicuous consumption.
A wastetive complains about having to drop his or her beer can into a different trash can than their Whopper wrapper and will often refuse to do so. They drive their gas-guzzling SUV to work all by themselves, clogging up the highways while feeling smugly "safe" within their giant steel box whilst their exhaust pipe pours out toxic fumes that poison our future. Many wastetives choose to delude themselves into believing that there is nothing toxic about vehicular exhaust fumes. To them, I ask this: how about you load up the Escalade with your wife, kids and dog Spoofy, park it in your three-car garage, close all the doors and fire up the ignition?
No? Gee, why not?
Oh yeah, everyone will be DEAD in about an hour. Will you believe the fumes are toxic then?
Although a wastetives will never conserve anything on their own, they whine and moan whenever someone else suggests that they pay more for their gluttonous ways via taxes or (gasp) legislation. In such a case you will see wastetives do what they do best: use more than they need. But in this case the resource will be words. No one can gas on like a wastetive who is afraid someone will ask them to conserve.
A wastetive demands that they must have everything they want! while a liberal only takes as much as they need.
Fortunately, the idiotic way of the wastetive is finally garnering proper recognition. No one much likes the wastetives except the Saudis. The wastetives fund a lot of the Saudis' operations and are even building a glittering city in the middle of the desert courtesy of the wastetives. It's called Dubai. Yes, the Saudi's really love the wastetives.
Until the wastetives learn their lesson, the rest of us will just have to tolerate them.
