OK, I thought I'd lost my job after my piss-poor performance last time, but, yes, it turns out I had nothing to worry about because I worked for them again yesterday. Well, now I think I lost my job after a run-in I had with the company my company works with.
I'll keep this as vague as possible so I don't incriminate myself. I was told by the people I work for to get something from the company my company works for. I basically made a promise that I'd return these things when actually the people I work for kept them.
They told me not to worry about it. I ran into one of the people from the company my company works for. I should have noted that when I introduced myself and the company I was working for, he noted that of course I was working for them because I was wearing my company's gear.
Little did I know I was a crossroads. In retrospect, I should've kept my mouth shut; no one would've been the wiser. Instead, I confessed that I made a mistake when I promised to return them. I asked this guy if they could keep them.
And that's when this person turned into a preening, grade-A jackass. He started demanding who asked for them. Then he threatened to have his bosses speak to my bosses; reading between the lines, he said it wouldn't end well for me if he had to "resort" to that. Finally, he told me to get them back. Thankfully, the people I work for told me to return it to them.
What an asshole. There was no reason to pull such a power trip. First of all, these things aren't all that precious, except to his dumb ass. And second, he's an assistant. That still makes him several pay grades over me, but that's the only good thing about living life in the bottom of the professional totem pole: You can tell it like it is and you don't have to shovel figurative shit for a living.
I'm sure he's petty enough that he still might get me fired over this. I wouldn't put it past him to try. Worse yet, I have to work with him again. What's the next run-in going to be like? Is he done with it, or is he going to be a prick again? And will I be forced to defend myself?
I am still so angry and upset over his treatment of me. And I still don't know whether he wanted to come after me, Lowly Day Laborer Guy, or not. On the one hand, he seems to be the type to be a miserable jackoff to everybody he meets. Then again, before I left, the people I worked for told me they did, in fact, get the items I initially got them. Turns out that somebody else in the company I work for -- somebody higher up, natch -- got them. So maybe this douchebag's problem isn't the request, but the requester.
And of course I won't be able to do anything about it if I'm never hired again.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
My Grandmother And Me, Part I
Three frustrating interactions with my Grandmother:
1) Some time last week on a Thursday. A Thursday? I don't know, whatever.
She asks me to rake the leaves even though I think there'll be a lot of time to get to the leaves later but there isn't time to paint the shed, which I wanted to do. But I have to.
And of course Grandmother comes out and meddles. I want to make sure I do this shit only once, so I'm careful to rake everything. But she wants to pick up the leaves now! So even though I do my best to ignore here, she comes in and breaks up the lawn-wide phalanx of leaves and brush I've accumulated through my raking. She does it by intercepting the next part of leaves I was about to rake and uses, I think, a cereal box to break it up into little piles.
I fucking hate that. My plan was to slowly and carefully gather one huge pile of leaves. That way, not only do I have to worry about spots I missed, I'd have to just carry the plastic bags to this pile. The fucking way my Grandmother did it this day left me to gather up all the leaves -- and it was a fucking small pile; I swear I've eaten food piled on this small -- then go to another part of the lawn and pick up the next pile. I have no goddamn clue why Grandmother thinks this is the best way to do this.
And I missed some spots! It's driving me fucking crazy!!
2) This was the conversation she had with me on Friday morning.
(weak tapping on my bedroom door)
I'm going to the Mimi's and getting my hair did!
(groggy) OK.
(minutes later, more weak tapping on my bedroom door)
OK, let's go!
(still groggy) Huh? Go where??
Mimi's.
Huh?
I need you to take me to Mimi's.
What?! I thought you said she was picking you up.
No. Come on, let's go.
This was ten in the morning when I had at least two good hours of sleep to get through. I swear I didn't hear her incorrectly. I swear she told me she was going to her friend's.
There's more, but I have to go to work in three hours. Part II will have to wait.
1) Some time last week on a Thursday. A Thursday? I don't know, whatever.
She asks me to rake the leaves even though I think there'll be a lot of time to get to the leaves later but there isn't time to paint the shed, which I wanted to do. But I have to.
And of course Grandmother comes out and meddles. I want to make sure I do this shit only once, so I'm careful to rake everything. But she wants to pick up the leaves now! So even though I do my best to ignore here, she comes in and breaks up the lawn-wide phalanx of leaves and brush I've accumulated through my raking. She does it by intercepting the next part of leaves I was about to rake and uses, I think, a cereal box to break it up into little piles.
I fucking hate that. My plan was to slowly and carefully gather one huge pile of leaves. That way, not only do I have to worry about spots I missed, I'd have to just carry the plastic bags to this pile. The fucking way my Grandmother did it this day left me to gather up all the leaves -- and it was a fucking small pile; I swear I've eaten food piled on this small -- then go to another part of the lawn and pick up the next pile. I have no goddamn clue why Grandmother thinks this is the best way to do this.
And I missed some spots! It's driving me fucking crazy!!
2) This was the conversation she had with me on Friday morning.
(weak tapping on my bedroom door)
I'm going to the Mimi's and getting my hair did!
(groggy) OK.
(minutes later, more weak tapping on my bedroom door)
OK, let's go!
(still groggy) Huh? Go where??
Mimi's.
Huh?
I need you to take me to Mimi's.
What?! I thought you said she was picking you up.
No. Come on, let's go.
This was ten in the morning when I had at least two good hours of sleep to get through. I swear I didn't hear her incorrectly. I swear she told me she was going to her friend's.
There's more, but I have to go to work in three hours. Part II will have to wait.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Catching Up On An Embarrassing And Pathetic Thing That Happened To Me This Week
I have a lot of downtime at "work" because I'm told to take a lot of breaks while listening to the bloops and bleeps that are my job to differentiate.
Oftentimes when I'm letting my ears rest I do paperwork. One of those paperwork tasks is writing down expenses in my day planner. That's why I always ask for receipts if I can get them.
This Monday at the U. I reached in my backpack to get my pens. Then I tried to find my day planner. It was not there. Shit, I remembered it was in my laptop bag when I was carrying it around.
I made an effort to remember to take the day planner from my laptop bag to my bookbag, even as I was lugging my laptop around to write everywhere. So on Thursday I was confident that I'd finally be able to catch up on my expensing.
So I reach into my bookbag to take out my day planner ... and I realize that I won't be doing anything productive that day either ... because I left my pens ... in the laptop bag.
Fuck my life.
Oftentimes when I'm letting my ears rest I do paperwork. One of those paperwork tasks is writing down expenses in my day planner. That's why I always ask for receipts if I can get them.
This Monday at the U. I reached in my backpack to get my pens. Then I tried to find my day planner. It was not there. Shit, I remembered it was in my laptop bag when I was carrying it around.
I made an effort to remember to take the day planner from my laptop bag to my bookbag, even as I was lugging my laptop around to write everywhere. So on Thursday I was confident that I'd finally be able to catch up on my expensing.
So I reach into my bookbag to take out my day planner ... and I realize that I won't be doing anything productive that day either ... because I left my pens ... in the laptop bag.
Fuck my life.
Friday, November 5, 2010
The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey
#-1: Gopher soccer (Last Week: -5). Coincidentally enough, the distaff footballers also beat Northwestern -- the soccer team -- 2-1 on Friday night. Did the two Wildcat teams travel on the same plane or bus? They should have; cuts down on expenses and stuff. That breaks a four-game winless streak.
They have followed that up with a very impressive 3-0 win at Indiana to finish their regular season 4-4-2 in the Big Ten and 12-5-3 overall. More importantly, it's the 200th victory in program history. That should raise their RPI, which as of last week was #35. That should be enough to make the NCAA Touranment, right?
#-2: Wild (Last Week: -4). Finish the screening week 2-1, which is a shock. They should've gone 0-3, but they picked up victories over the best team in the regular season last year, San Jose, on Tuesday, and then outlasted the Bastard Atlanta Flames tonight (Friday night) 2-1. They finish their five-game homestand at 3-2. And the bag skate continues to pay dividends.
They have two games against fellow expansion squads this week: They're at Columbus Saturday, then wait till Thursday before playing at Atlanta.
#-3: Lynx (Re-Entry!). They have done what the Timberwolves have not done. No, not win championships, silly rabbit -- win the lottery! They did so for the third time in the last six years on Tuesday. Barring a calamitous injury, in April they will be selecting Connecticut Small Forward Maya Moore, who helped the Huskies run the table last year and win the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.
One problem: The Jynx already have an overall #1 -- Seimone Augustus. Moreover, they have, get this, four other first-round draft picks on their roster. Plus, they have four more first-round draft picks chosen by other teams on their roster. What I'm saying is, if these guys have nine first-round draft picks on the team, why are they in a position to be so bad they could wind up out of the playoffs and getting the first pick in this year's lottery? Shouldn't the Jinx be good enough to get into the postseason by now?? Shit, man, they should've won a championship or two by this point. And if they haven't, will adding Maya Moore really change things?
#-4: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3). What the fuck got into the Gopher men's hockey team??? The team not only swept Colorado College in Colorado College, they destroyed them, by scores of 4-1 and, get this, 9-4. That's the most they've scored in almost five years.
These teams were evenly matched and shared space near the bottom of the USCHO.com Top 20. So these two resounding victories, by a combined total of 13-5, have to put these guys on top this week. Maybe this is a sign this team is no longer fucking around.
But then came Monday. Sophomore Forward Zach Budish was fucking around in his moped when he got into an accident and tore the ACL in his right knee. Torn ligaments in the knee mean Budish is out for the rest of the year. And for a program that is still razor-thin in talent and still hasn't demonstrated they have the fire to compete (last week's game excluded), this is the worst thing that can happen to them.
And then came tonight (Friday night). Hated rivals Wisconsin came in to Mariucci and introduced them to a little bit of prison sex, 6-0. The Badgers are ranked right in front of the Gophers in this week's USCHO.com Div. 1 poll and it's a rivalry game -- how the fuck do you get blown out by such a high crooked number at home???
I thought these guys deserved a rare spot at the top of the WMNSS, but after this (and because I was really late in doing this) I have to drop these guys down. Sorry, but they don't deserve it. Just be glad I'm not doing this this time tomorrow night, after they lose to Wisconsin again at home.
#-5: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2). They needed a solid win against a ranked opponent and they did against Northwestern Friday night. I was there to see the Gophers' four-set win over the Wildcats. They gave us a scare because they won the third set; Minnesota's main problem is that they have not been able to deliver the killing stroke, and in fact they've lost, I think, two matches after winning the first two sets. But they won the fourth set relatively easy, 25-18.
Unfortunately, I saw Sophomore Outside Hitter Katherine Harms sprained her ankle while diving for the ball over the scorer's table; her prognosis remains unknown. The injury bug has infected the Gophs this year, with Hailey Cowles gone for the season and Lauren Gibbemeyer missed the first part of the year because of her wrists. But Gibbemeyer's back, and in fact she won Co-Big Ten Player Of The Week for her output in this and the Iowa game.
So what the fuck happened tonight (Friday night)??? Seriously -- a four-set loss at nondescript Indiana??? They have never been an even good team as long as I can remember. How the fuckity-fuck do you lose to Indiana when you're the 19th-ranked team in the country??? How???
I thought these ladies deserved the #-2 spot, but now I can't. They don't deserve it. They have no excuse losing to the Hoosiers, even with the loss of Harms. And they, now sitting 7-6 in the Big Ten, goddamn well don't tomorrow (Saturday) night at Purdue.
#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1). The best women's hockey program in Minnesota will, once again, not hail from the Twin Cities. It'll be in Duluth, where last weekend the Bulldogs swept the U. by a combined score of 7-4. It was close, but the Gophs could not get over the hump.
One quick comparison as to why UMD has had a better team the past half-decade than the Minnesota. I bought the program for last year's Women's Frozen Four, which was being held at Ridder. Nearly every player on the Gophers is from Minnesota. The vast majority of UMD players are not from Minnesota. And the Bulldogs beat the U. in the semifinal and beat Cornell in the title game (in triple overtime, I have to add). Conclusion: The Gophers get the best from the state; the Bulldogs get the best from the country. This is a trend that warrants further observation, in this program and others with the U.
They've gotten back on a winning note tonight (Friday night), however, with a 7-5 victory over Wisconsin. However, they still are under .500 (3-4) in the WCHA. They play the Badgers again at Ridder tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.
#-7: Timberwolves (Last Week: -7). Any fancy ideas they could be a contender this year were obliterated in their 1-4 week. They got their first win out of their way last Friday against Milwaukee, but then reality set in.
They sent the signal that they would have trouble again with back-to-backs because they lost by 20 to a Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies team that is getting better but still beatable at home.
Then they went to Miami and Orlando, and expected blowouts came to be. But the Magic game, another back end of a back-to-back, was particularly disgusting. Two dubious records were set Wednesday: It was the worst ass-kicking the Woofie Dogs ever suffered, 42, and Orlando set a franchise record by scoring 78 points in the first half. Yeah, you read that right. Teams sometimes don't score 78 points a whole game. They finished this shit week by losing by ten at home to Atlanta. The Bastard St. Louis Hawks are a real good team; does losing to them by ten count as a moral victory?
Jonny Flynn is still injured, and Ricky Rubio still doesn't want to play here. But those excuses aside, I still have no idea how Head Coach Kurt Rambis is deploying his roster. What are their fucking roles? Who's the #1 scorer? Who's the #2? The #3? The sixth man, etc. I don't think Rambis has any clue.
This Bataan Death March of a season continues with three games this screening week, all on the road: Houston, Bastard Minneapolis Lakers, Sacramento. The number in their win column should remain at "1."
#-8: Gopher football (Last Week: -6). Just playing out the string. I was hoping that maybe, maybe, they would spring a surpise upset of Ohio St. because they were playing the national game Saturday night. And they did ... through the first quarter after they tied the game up at 7. Then they got blitzed the rest of the game 45-3.
Have the players given up? That's a very good question. There is such a talent gap that we probably won't know for sure. We definitely won't know tomorrow (Saturday) early afternoon as they trot out like lambs to the slaughter in East Lansing to play Michigan St.
#-9: Vikings (Last Week: -8). Quick analysis of the loss to New England: Lost like I predicted and many thought. Having Tom Brady basically stand in place and kill clock for two downs knowing the mellifluously named BenJarvis GreenEllis will undoubtedly punch it in on third down is a dick move by Bill Belichick, even if it was genius, because he wants everybody to know that he's a dick and doesn't care what anyone else thinks.
Now, to Mossgate ... both sides are right, and yet both sides are so, so wrong. If you go up to the owner after the game and implored him to fire the coach that he went out of his way to hire, then you say in your press conference that you basically want to suck Belichick's dick, then you tell the coach that you don't respect that you're staying behind to see family against team rules, you're asking to be fired. I wouldn't put it past him.
Then again ... he has talent. Even if he was bitching and moaning about his role, he grabbed two touchdowns and was a big part of opposing defensive coordinators' gameplans all week. There was always double coverage on Moss, and that's why Percy Harvin had so much time to run free; that's gone (and that doesn't even account for Harvin's ankle injury, let alone his migraines). Finally, what if he's right about Head Coach Brad Childress not taking his suggestions in planning against the Patriots?
And this is where it's about the coach. Has he lost the locker room? He may very well have. In fact, Owner Zygi Wilf delayed okaying Moss's waiver because he wanted to talk to players before doing so. Reports say there was a possibility that Wilf was going to fire Childress and keep Moss. Unbelievable.
Finally, as Bill Parcells said, you are what your record says you are. And the Vikings, Childress's team, is 2-5 and tied for last place in the NFC North with the fast-improving Detroit Lions. There is a huge chance that their game this Sunday against the Bastard Chicago/St. Louis Cardinals could be the tipping point of the season, the coup de grace for Chilly's time in Minnesota, and maybe the beginning of the end for the Vikes in Minnesota. They could still go on a run and win the Super Bowl. Or they could give up starting this weekend and turn in a 2-14 season. Right now it could go either way. One thing I know will be true: You will never hear the Metrodome louder with fans booing than Sunday.
They have followed that up with a very impressive 3-0 win at Indiana to finish their regular season 4-4-2 in the Big Ten and 12-5-3 overall. More importantly, it's the 200th victory in program history. That should raise their RPI, which as of last week was #35. That should be enough to make the NCAA Touranment, right?
#-2: Wild (Last Week: -4). Finish the screening week 2-1, which is a shock. They should've gone 0-3, but they picked up victories over the best team in the regular season last year, San Jose, on Tuesday, and then outlasted the Bastard Atlanta Flames tonight (Friday night) 2-1. They finish their five-game homestand at 3-2. And the bag skate continues to pay dividends.
They have two games against fellow expansion squads this week: They're at Columbus Saturday, then wait till Thursday before playing at Atlanta.
#-3: Lynx (Re-Entry!). They have done what the Timberwolves have not done. No, not win championships, silly rabbit -- win the lottery! They did so for the third time in the last six years on Tuesday. Barring a calamitous injury, in April they will be selecting Connecticut Small Forward Maya Moore, who helped the Huskies run the table last year and win the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.
One problem: The Jynx already have an overall #1 -- Seimone Augustus. Moreover, they have, get this, four other first-round draft picks on their roster. Plus, they have four more first-round draft picks chosen by other teams on their roster. What I'm saying is, if these guys have nine first-round draft picks on the team, why are they in a position to be so bad they could wind up out of the playoffs and getting the first pick in this year's lottery? Shouldn't the Jinx be good enough to get into the postseason by now?? Shit, man, they should've won a championship or two by this point. And if they haven't, will adding Maya Moore really change things?
#-4: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3). What the fuck got into the Gopher men's hockey team??? The team not only swept Colorado College in Colorado College, they destroyed them, by scores of 4-1 and, get this, 9-4. That's the most they've scored in almost five years.
These teams were evenly matched and shared space near the bottom of the USCHO.com Top 20. So these two resounding victories, by a combined total of 13-5, have to put these guys on top this week. Maybe this is a sign this team is no longer fucking around.
But then came Monday. Sophomore Forward Zach Budish was fucking around in his moped when he got into an accident and tore the ACL in his right knee. Torn ligaments in the knee mean Budish is out for the rest of the year. And for a program that is still razor-thin in talent and still hasn't demonstrated they have the fire to compete (last week's game excluded), this is the worst thing that can happen to them.
And then came tonight (Friday night). Hated rivals Wisconsin came in to Mariucci and introduced them to a little bit of prison sex, 6-0. The Badgers are ranked right in front of the Gophers in this week's USCHO.com Div. 1 poll and it's a rivalry game -- how the fuck do you get blown out by such a high crooked number at home???
I thought these guys deserved a rare spot at the top of the WMNSS, but after this (and because I was really late in doing this) I have to drop these guys down. Sorry, but they don't deserve it. Just be glad I'm not doing this this time tomorrow night, after they lose to Wisconsin again at home.
#-5: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: -2). They needed a solid win against a ranked opponent and they did against Northwestern Friday night. I was there to see the Gophers' four-set win over the Wildcats. They gave us a scare because they won the third set; Minnesota's main problem is that they have not been able to deliver the killing stroke, and in fact they've lost, I think, two matches after winning the first two sets. But they won the fourth set relatively easy, 25-18.
Unfortunately, I saw Sophomore Outside Hitter Katherine Harms sprained her ankle while diving for the ball over the scorer's table; her prognosis remains unknown. The injury bug has infected the Gophs this year, with Hailey Cowles gone for the season and Lauren Gibbemeyer missed the first part of the year because of her wrists. But Gibbemeyer's back, and in fact she won Co-Big Ten Player Of The Week for her output in this and the Iowa game.
So what the fuck happened tonight (Friday night)??? Seriously -- a four-set loss at nondescript Indiana??? They have never been an even good team as long as I can remember. How the fuckity-fuck do you lose to Indiana when you're the 19th-ranked team in the country??? How???
I thought these ladies deserved the #-2 spot, but now I can't. They don't deserve it. They have no excuse losing to the Hoosiers, even with the loss of Harms. And they, now sitting 7-6 in the Big Ten, goddamn well don't tomorrow (Saturday) night at Purdue.
#-6: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -1). The best women's hockey program in Minnesota will, once again, not hail from the Twin Cities. It'll be in Duluth, where last weekend the Bulldogs swept the U. by a combined score of 7-4. It was close, but the Gophs could not get over the hump.
One quick comparison as to why UMD has had a better team the past half-decade than the Minnesota. I bought the program for last year's Women's Frozen Four, which was being held at Ridder. Nearly every player on the Gophers is from Minnesota. The vast majority of UMD players are not from Minnesota. And the Bulldogs beat the U. in the semifinal and beat Cornell in the title game (in triple overtime, I have to add). Conclusion: The Gophers get the best from the state; the Bulldogs get the best from the country. This is a trend that warrants further observation, in this program and others with the U.
They've gotten back on a winning note tonight (Friday night), however, with a 7-5 victory over Wisconsin. However, they still are under .500 (3-4) in the WCHA. They play the Badgers again at Ridder tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon.
#-7: Timberwolves (Last Week: -7). Any fancy ideas they could be a contender this year were obliterated in their 1-4 week. They got their first win out of their way last Friday against Milwaukee, but then reality set in.
They sent the signal that they would have trouble again with back-to-backs because they lost by 20 to a Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies team that is getting better but still beatable at home.
Then they went to Miami and Orlando, and expected blowouts came to be. But the Magic game, another back end of a back-to-back, was particularly disgusting. Two dubious records were set Wednesday: It was the worst ass-kicking the Woofie Dogs ever suffered, 42, and Orlando set a franchise record by scoring 78 points in the first half. Yeah, you read that right. Teams sometimes don't score 78 points a whole game. They finished this shit week by losing by ten at home to Atlanta. The Bastard St. Louis Hawks are a real good team; does losing to them by ten count as a moral victory?
Jonny Flynn is still injured, and Ricky Rubio still doesn't want to play here. But those excuses aside, I still have no idea how Head Coach Kurt Rambis is deploying his roster. What are their fucking roles? Who's the #1 scorer? Who's the #2? The #3? The sixth man, etc. I don't think Rambis has any clue.
This Bataan Death March of a season continues with three games this screening week, all on the road: Houston, Bastard Minneapolis Lakers, Sacramento. The number in their win column should remain at "1."
#-8: Gopher football (Last Week: -6). Just playing out the string. I was hoping that maybe, maybe, they would spring a surpise upset of Ohio St. because they were playing the national game Saturday night. And they did ... through the first quarter after they tied the game up at 7. Then they got blitzed the rest of the game 45-3.
Have the players given up? That's a very good question. There is such a talent gap that we probably won't know for sure. We definitely won't know tomorrow (Saturday) early afternoon as they trot out like lambs to the slaughter in East Lansing to play Michigan St.
#-9: Vikings (Last Week: -8). Quick analysis of the loss to New England: Lost like I predicted and many thought. Having Tom Brady basically stand in place and kill clock for two downs knowing the mellifluously named BenJarvis GreenEllis will undoubtedly punch it in on third down is a dick move by Bill Belichick, even if it was genius, because he wants everybody to know that he's a dick and doesn't care what anyone else thinks.
Now, to Mossgate ... both sides are right, and yet both sides are so, so wrong. If you go up to the owner after the game and implored him to fire the coach that he went out of his way to hire, then you say in your press conference that you basically want to suck Belichick's dick, then you tell the coach that you don't respect that you're staying behind to see family against team rules, you're asking to be fired. I wouldn't put it past him.
Then again ... he has talent. Even if he was bitching and moaning about his role, he grabbed two touchdowns and was a big part of opposing defensive coordinators' gameplans all week. There was always double coverage on Moss, and that's why Percy Harvin had so much time to run free; that's gone (and that doesn't even account for Harvin's ankle injury, let alone his migraines). Finally, what if he's right about Head Coach Brad Childress not taking his suggestions in planning against the Patriots?
And this is where it's about the coach. Has he lost the locker room? He may very well have. In fact, Owner Zygi Wilf delayed okaying Moss's waiver because he wanted to talk to players before doing so. Reports say there was a possibility that Wilf was going to fire Childress and keep Moss. Unbelievable.
Finally, as Bill Parcells said, you are what your record says you are. And the Vikings, Childress's team, is 2-5 and tied for last place in the NFC North with the fast-improving Detroit Lions. There is a huge chance that their game this Sunday against the Bastard Chicago/St. Louis Cardinals could be the tipping point of the season, the coup de grace for Chilly's time in Minnesota, and maybe the beginning of the end for the Vikes in Minnesota. They could still go on a run and win the Super Bowl. Or they could give up starting this weekend and turn in a 2-14 season. Right now it could go either way. One thing I know will be true: You will never hear the Metrodome louder with fans booing than Sunday.
I See Enemies All Around Me Now
Still can't get my mind off Election Day three days ago because I still haven't talked about the Republican sweep in the Minnesota Legislature.
If few people saw Jim Oberstar being defeated in his House race, no one, and I mean no one, thought the GOP would steal back both houses of the state legislative branch from the DFL. Republicans surmised they had a chance. But they had, what, two dozen seats they needed to take back both houses. And by fucking God, they did. And now the numbers they have over DFLers aren't even close.
Why? Do Minnesota voters hate President Obama so much that they'll vote Republican all the way down to their state Senator and Representative? Is it because they saw the polls that gave Mark Dayton the lead over Tom Emmer and wanted the Minnesota Legislature to flip red to blunt the actions of a DFL-led executive branch -- in other words, to throw the entire state, six billion dollars in debt, into gridlock? Or, worst of all -- is this state, a state that has been a bastion of liberalism all my life, the only state that has voted for the Democratic nominee for President the last 38 years, is slowly turning, ugh, conservative?
These questions and fears have haunted me ever since I witnessed Tuesday's bloodbath. I've been, for the most part, housebound the previous two days, trying to paint the shed, surfing the Internet and working out, all the way dazed at the goddamn flurry of punches me and other common sense people got by the ignorant among us.
But I had to "work" today, and everywhere I went I saw the worst in the strangers surrounding me. Let me take what I said in the last paragraph-plus back; this all started when I was helping Grandmother get stuff at the grocery store Wednesday. There were two guys proudly wearing NRA gear and the "I Voted" sticker on them. They didn't do anything to me, didn't even sneer at me, even though I expected to because I was colored. They certainly had a lot to crow about, and I don't think these gun nuts would be so goddamn proud that they voted if the candidates they voted for lost. Shoot, I'm convincing myself they were trying to intimidate people.
It felt like everybody was trying to intimidate me today. This girl named Elizabeth at the McDonald's closest to my house, I tried to hurry up and give her exact change, and even though I hadn't picked through the pile of coins I had to find the exact amount, she already rang me up and was asking for the next person in line. I had to tell the person behind me, "I'm not done." Thanks for nothing, Elizabeth, you bitch. Has this got anything to do with Election Day?
And then walking to the U. there was another bitch (I don't hate women, honest, I really, really love women -- I love their titties and their twats and want to see them naked all the time because they can touch my cock) who not only was walking past me because she was walking faster but she cut me off, like a car does on the highway, for no reason. There wasn't anyone coming our way, she wanted to get in front of me because she wanted to send the message that she didn't like how "slow" I was walking. Like the teabaggers voting to "send a message" that they don't like Obamacare, even though the health insurance we're getting right now is going to bankrupt all of us. Is she a teabagger? I think she's a teabagger.
Or maybe these two ladies did vote Democrat and are pissed off that they lost, alongside me.
Maybe I'm paranoid.
These are dark times. But am I in the darkness, or is the darkness in me?
If few people saw Jim Oberstar being defeated in his House race, no one, and I mean no one, thought the GOP would steal back both houses of the state legislative branch from the DFL. Republicans surmised they had a chance. But they had, what, two dozen seats they needed to take back both houses. And by fucking God, they did. And now the numbers they have over DFLers aren't even close.
Why? Do Minnesota voters hate President Obama so much that they'll vote Republican all the way down to their state Senator and Representative? Is it because they saw the polls that gave Mark Dayton the lead over Tom Emmer and wanted the Minnesota Legislature to flip red to blunt the actions of a DFL-led executive branch -- in other words, to throw the entire state, six billion dollars in debt, into gridlock? Or, worst of all -- is this state, a state that has been a bastion of liberalism all my life, the only state that has voted for the Democratic nominee for President the last 38 years, is slowly turning, ugh, conservative?
These questions and fears have haunted me ever since I witnessed Tuesday's bloodbath. I've been, for the most part, housebound the previous two days, trying to paint the shed, surfing the Internet and working out, all the way dazed at the goddamn flurry of punches me and other common sense people got by the ignorant among us.
But I had to "work" today, and everywhere I went I saw the worst in the strangers surrounding me. Let me take what I said in the last paragraph-plus back; this all started when I was helping Grandmother get stuff at the grocery store Wednesday. There were two guys proudly wearing NRA gear and the "I Voted" sticker on them. They didn't do anything to me, didn't even sneer at me, even though I expected to because I was colored. They certainly had a lot to crow about, and I don't think these gun nuts would be so goddamn proud that they voted if the candidates they voted for lost. Shoot, I'm convincing myself they were trying to intimidate people.
It felt like everybody was trying to intimidate me today. This girl named Elizabeth at the McDonald's closest to my house, I tried to hurry up and give her exact change, and even though I hadn't picked through the pile of coins I had to find the exact amount, she already rang me up and was asking for the next person in line. I had to tell the person behind me, "I'm not done." Thanks for nothing, Elizabeth, you bitch. Has this got anything to do with Election Day?
And then walking to the U. there was another bitch (I don't hate women, honest, I really, really love women -- I love their titties and their twats and want to see them naked all the time because they can touch my cock) who not only was walking past me because she was walking faster but she cut me off, like a car does on the highway, for no reason. There wasn't anyone coming our way, she wanted to get in front of me because she wanted to send the message that she didn't like how "slow" I was walking. Like the teabaggers voting to "send a message" that they don't like Obamacare, even though the health insurance we're getting right now is going to bankrupt all of us. Is she a teabagger? I think she's a teabagger.
Or maybe these two ladies did vote Democrat and are pissed off that they lost, alongside me.
Maybe I'm paranoid.
These are dark times. But am I in the darkness, or is the darkness in me?
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Poor Bastard Of The Moment (Tie): Jim Oberstar
Although I am just as sad about Representative Oberstar's ouster as I am about Senator Feingold's, I am still shocked to my boots about it.
Minnesota's 8th District was safe. No worries at all. In fact, Jim Oberstar has represented the Minnesota arrowhead for the past 36 years. He started before I was even born. Solid blue as long as I've known its existence.
But something happened in this race. I read from trackers, most notably Nate Silver of the fivethirtyeight New York Times blog, that he took MN-08 from "lock Democrat" to "lean Dem."
OK, so he has a fight this time around. It's within the realm of possibility that Oberstar would have to sweat it out because Obama's so unpopular that it might affect even House races. But lose?
Every other congressional seat in Minnesota was called at around 1 in the morning, I think, and yet Oberstar's was not. And then I saw this Jim Cravaack upstart, a Republican naval officer and former pilot for Northwest, hanging tough with the grand lion of the Minnesota delegation. And even though Oberstar was leading, he wasn't pulling away, he wasn't shaking this guy.
I heard one report say that Oberstar had St. Louis County, the county which includes Duluth, presumably a place he has in his back pocket, and they always report last. OK, he'll pull it out in the end, I thought, as the race remained close through 70%, 80%, even 90% of the precincts reporting.
And then, at around 92% of the precincts reporting, at around 3:00, I think, Cravaack pulled ahead. No! Oberstar's been around as long as I've been on this earth, and he's now losing?!?! And as the precincts slowly trickled up to 94, 95%, Oberstar was still chasing him. Where in the hell was Duluth???
And then I refreshed the CNN.com screen one last time and I saw their logo that denotes when they have declared in a race. And I saw the red "R" on top of the blue "D." What was once considered safe was now gone. Those goddamn teabagger bastards took poor Oberstar in their gunsights, ambushed him, chased him down and got him in the end. I am stunned and crestfallen. And I don't even live in the Eighth District.
As I lamented in my last post about Feingold, I'm still baffled as to why Oberstar's constituents turned their backs on him this election. Was it that he voted for the health insurance reform bill? Was it that he went negative? Did he not campaign enough in Duluth? Did people in the other parts of the district think he was neglecting them? Was it just one of those wave elections where Oberstar was in jeopardy because he was in the same party as Obama? Did people think he was in office too long? Do they think he's too old? Are the people there racists so hellbent on taking down a half-black man that leads their country that they'll take down anyone else that even smiles in his general direction?
I don't know. All I know is that, like all of Wisconsin, voters in this state's Eighth District are stupid. They have traded away the Chair of the Transportation Committee for a backbencher who has a mission of repealing the health insurance reform bill, something that ain't gonna fuckin' happen, asshole.
I saw his concession speech in the news today. His words were spoken quietly, as if to hold his composure lest he start sobbing on the spot if he spoke at a normal level. And he looked ashen-faced, like he still doesn't believe he lost, and that he is now facing the fact that he has been forced into a career change at the age of 76.
The last congressperson whose name I remember learning, memorizing and seeing in the newspaper when I was a child was voted out of office Tuesday. Rep. Oberstar is one of only a few people who is taking the death of his life in public service worse than I am.
I mean this with all due respect, Representative Oberstar -- Poor bastard.
Minnesota's 8th District was safe. No worries at all. In fact, Jim Oberstar has represented the Minnesota arrowhead for the past 36 years. He started before I was even born. Solid blue as long as I've known its existence.
But something happened in this race. I read from trackers, most notably Nate Silver of the fivethirtyeight New York Times blog, that he took MN-08 from "lock Democrat" to "lean Dem."
OK, so he has a fight this time around. It's within the realm of possibility that Oberstar would have to sweat it out because Obama's so unpopular that it might affect even House races. But lose?
Every other congressional seat in Minnesota was called at around 1 in the morning, I think, and yet Oberstar's was not. And then I saw this Jim Cravaack upstart, a Republican naval officer and former pilot for Northwest, hanging tough with the grand lion of the Minnesota delegation. And even though Oberstar was leading, he wasn't pulling away, he wasn't shaking this guy.
I heard one report say that Oberstar had St. Louis County, the county which includes Duluth, presumably a place he has in his back pocket, and they always report last. OK, he'll pull it out in the end, I thought, as the race remained close through 70%, 80%, even 90% of the precincts reporting.
And then, at around 92% of the precincts reporting, at around 3:00, I think, Cravaack pulled ahead. No! Oberstar's been around as long as I've been on this earth, and he's now losing?!?! And as the precincts slowly trickled up to 94, 95%, Oberstar was still chasing him. Where in the hell was Duluth???
And then I refreshed the CNN.com screen one last time and I saw their logo that denotes when they have declared in a race. And I saw the red "R" on top of the blue "D." What was once considered safe was now gone. Those goddamn teabagger bastards took poor Oberstar in their gunsights, ambushed him, chased him down and got him in the end. I am stunned and crestfallen. And I don't even live in the Eighth District.
As I lamented in my last post about Feingold, I'm still baffled as to why Oberstar's constituents turned their backs on him this election. Was it that he voted for the health insurance reform bill? Was it that he went negative? Did he not campaign enough in Duluth? Did people in the other parts of the district think he was neglecting them? Was it just one of those wave elections where Oberstar was in jeopardy because he was in the same party as Obama? Did people think he was in office too long? Do they think he's too old? Are the people there racists so hellbent on taking down a half-black man that leads their country that they'll take down anyone else that even smiles in his general direction?
I don't know. All I know is that, like all of Wisconsin, voters in this state's Eighth District are stupid. They have traded away the Chair of the Transportation Committee for a backbencher who has a mission of repealing the health insurance reform bill, something that ain't gonna fuckin' happen, asshole.
I saw his concession speech in the news today. His words were spoken quietly, as if to hold his composure lest he start sobbing on the spot if he spoke at a normal level. And he looked ashen-faced, like he still doesn't believe he lost, and that he is now facing the fact that he has been forced into a career change at the age of 76.
The last congressperson whose name I remember learning, memorizing and seeing in the newspaper when I was a child was voted out of office Tuesday. Rep. Oberstar is one of only a few people who is taking the death of his life in public service worse than I am.
I mean this with all due respect, Representative Oberstar -- Poor bastard.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Poor Bastard Of The Moment (Tie): Russ Feingold
I'm frustrated, disappointed, sad and very pissed off that the Democrats got the shit kicked out of them by the Republicans tonight. As Savannah Guthrie of NBC News put it, still retaining control of the Senate while losing the House (by a large margin) may be the worst scenario that could befall President Barack Obama. Because while he loses any power to get legislation crafted and passed, he is still perceived to have influence on the legislative branch.
Two years is a long time; many pundits said the Republican party was dead two years ago. But this is not going to forebode well for the President.
A lot of Democrats got massacred tonight, some of them unfairly. I should (and probably will) write about one of them later. But I wanted to first give a more somber Poor Bastard Of The Moment shout-out to now-former Senator Russ Feingold, a very progressive Democrat from Wisconsin who had served proudly and valiantly for the past 18 years.
I have no idea why Sconnies threw him out of office. Is this, uh, Ron Johnson businessman really a good enough person to turn out a three-term Senator who knew the rules of law and parliamentary procedure and gave no quarter in defending his morals in the face of byzantine bills and sneaky horse-trading? His attributes are eloquently summarized by Esquire, whose Politics Blog is now must-read for me on the Internet. But let's just say that he frequently marched to the beat of his own drum, no matter how much the Democrat apparatus tried to get his attention and force him to step in line with the others.
Always liked the guy for his independence and bravery. That's illustrated in one quote from the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. It was a foregone conclusion that the votes weren't there to toss Clinton out of the presidency, and all Democrats were in unison in declaring him not guilty even before opening statements began; I imagine the trial was such a waste of time it was like they were just chewing gum and passing notes as they waited for the last bell of the school day to ring.
Every Democrat, that is, except Feingold. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I want to hear all the evidence first." Now, I wanted Clinton to be embarrassed for lying (as well as getting masturbated by an intern as fat as Monica Lewinsky, but that's just the Court of Unforgivable Wetness). But here was a guy who really meant it when he said he was going to keep an open mind as a member of a jury impaneled to decide the political fate of The Most Powerful Man In The Free World. That's when he had me as an admirer.
Also, Feingold was a fierce advocate of campaign finance reform. As far as I know, he tried to run a clean campaign free of outside money because that's how he thinks campaigns should be run. Do people not care about campaign finance reform, or even like the money-buys-everything system we have now?
I understand the Republican Wave, but Feingold hasn't been a lockstep Dem, uh, ever. Shit man, he even voted against the stimulus bill and TARP, two things teabaggers who won tonight also hated. What did he do? Seriously, he may be the only true grown-up in the Senate.
Wisconsinites turned their back on a politician in the best sense of the position. And in his place will be some businessman who thinks the country should be run like a business and not a democracy. A guy who has little experience with either parliamentary points of order or the Constitution. A guy who'll accept as much goddamn outside lobbyist money he can because he's good at making money.
The people of Wisconsin are nothing but a bunch of nihilist motherfucking goddamn idiots, and I spit at them with violent contempt. Plain disgusting.
Oh yeah -- Poor bastard.
Two years is a long time; many pundits said the Republican party was dead two years ago. But this is not going to forebode well for the President.
A lot of Democrats got massacred tonight, some of them unfairly. I should (and probably will) write about one of them later. But I wanted to first give a more somber Poor Bastard Of The Moment shout-out to now-former Senator Russ Feingold, a very progressive Democrat from Wisconsin who had served proudly and valiantly for the past 18 years.
I have no idea why Sconnies threw him out of office. Is this, uh, Ron Johnson businessman really a good enough person to turn out a three-term Senator who knew the rules of law and parliamentary procedure and gave no quarter in defending his morals in the face of byzantine bills and sneaky horse-trading? His attributes are eloquently summarized by Esquire, whose Politics Blog is now must-read for me on the Internet. But let's just say that he frequently marched to the beat of his own drum, no matter how much the Democrat apparatus tried to get his attention and force him to step in line with the others.
Always liked the guy for his independence and bravery. That's illustrated in one quote from the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. It was a foregone conclusion that the votes weren't there to toss Clinton out of the presidency, and all Democrats were in unison in declaring him not guilty even before opening statements began; I imagine the trial was such a waste of time it was like they were just chewing gum and passing notes as they waited for the last bell of the school day to ring.
Every Democrat, that is, except Feingold. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I want to hear all the evidence first." Now, I wanted Clinton to be embarrassed for lying (as well as getting masturbated by an intern as fat as Monica Lewinsky, but that's just the Court of Unforgivable Wetness). But here was a guy who really meant it when he said he was going to keep an open mind as a member of a jury impaneled to decide the political fate of The Most Powerful Man In The Free World. That's when he had me as an admirer.
Also, Feingold was a fierce advocate of campaign finance reform. As far as I know, he tried to run a clean campaign free of outside money because that's how he thinks campaigns should be run. Do people not care about campaign finance reform, or even like the money-buys-everything system we have now?
I understand the Republican Wave, but Feingold hasn't been a lockstep Dem, uh, ever. Shit man, he even voted against the stimulus bill and TARP, two things teabaggers who won tonight also hated. What did he do? Seriously, he may be the only true grown-up in the Senate.
Wisconsinites turned their back on a politician in the best sense of the position. And in his place will be some businessman who thinks the country should be run like a business and not a democracy. A guy who has little experience with either parliamentary points of order or the Constitution. A guy who'll accept as much goddamn outside lobbyist money he can because he's good at making money.
The people of Wisconsin are nothing but a bunch of nihilist motherfucking goddamn idiots, and I spit at them with violent contempt. Plain disgusting.
Oh yeah -- Poor bastard.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Teabaggers Are Going To Win The House
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone had an essay about two weeks ago called "The Case For Obama." There he detailed all the bills he passed in his first two years in office. Even though I don't need to be converted, Dickinson is persuasive enough to cement my all-Democrat vote this year.
This conclusion is fused by two things. First off, I remember back in 2000, when Vice-President Al Gore was trying to succeed his boss, Bill Clinton. I've thought for a long time that elections are where people who are running have to pay for their sins. I thought then, and I still think now, that punishment must go to people in the same administration as well. And even though in the end I know Clinton was a good president (a rosy image made rosier in the ensuing years), I was pissed off as hell at how he squirmed and parried and "what the definition of is is"-ed his way into impeachment. It was totally unnecessary and really a ploy for right-wingnuts to show their people how powerful they are. But President Clinton, and the American people, had to go through that impeachment bullshit partly because he cheated on his wife by fucking around with a fat intern. He brought this on himself. And Gore had to pay for his higher-ups intransigence, stupidity, and horniness. And as smart and humanitarian Clinton is, I still believe that.
Now, if there wasn't a viable, or even semi-known, third-party candidate in 2000, I still would have voted for Gore. But there was that crusader Ralph Nader, yay! I liked (and continue to like) many of his suggestions at the time -- who cares if he was kind of an asshole? So I voted for Nader. Moreover, in the days leading up to Election Day, I chided many of the people I know, nearly all of them older than me and left-leaning if not liberal, for being "Gore pragmatists." I believed back then that you vote for the candidate that you feel is worthy of your idea of what a person holding that particular office should be and have.
Well, I think y'all remember what happened afterward, all of it. Changing my vote wouldn't've changed anything. But now I think I understand why those old farts held their noses and selected Gore. Now I'm their age, and I'm scared as hell that, for example, the youth of Minnesota will vote for Independence candidate Tom Horner, thereby siphoning votes from DFL'er Mark Dayton and handing Minnesota's governor's spot to Tim Pawlenty's buttboy, drunkard Tom Emmer.
Second, even though he had to do a lot of horse-trading, I can see that President Obama has been busy working. Yes, I would've been happier with a public option, even single payer. And no, financial regulation reform doesn't have as much teeth as it should. But Obama has passed those huge, complicated, politically toxic pieces of legislation, plus started work on repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell," using stimulus money to reorient the direction of American ingenuity towards green technology, and making sure the bailout money banks and the auto industry begged for is paid back to the American people, us, the people he swore to work for, with interest.
That's a fucking lot of things. And you may not agree with some or even most of the legislation passed. But the President is at least, you know, working. And that is something President W Bush refused to do. He is of the extreme right-wing ideology that there is no government work to be done and he can go down to his ranch and clear brush while corporations and their heavyweights can exploit his laziness for gigantic financial gain, the health and welfare of the American people, the people W swore to work for, be damned. He only comes back if someone is going to be unplugged.
And yet, as Dickinson tries to unpack in his great story, that series of legislative wins has fallen on deaf ears over the country. Either they don't know or appreciate Obama's productivity. And what little bills they know passed they despise. Most of the electorate are pissed off, and when you're pissed off, you don't really care about the facts. And they will vote to let go of many of the President's men (and women) in Congress because of lies, fear and hate.
I want to believe that this firestorm of teabagging is what they call "astroturfing," not real groundswell activism from citizens. And there are a lot of Republican shadow groups giving money and then quickly hiding behind a corner to see what prevaricating damage their money has wreaked. But I think these corporate interests interested only to do away with government just so they can line their pockets with legal tender tapped into something genuine.
Specifically, I believe that there are a lot of people who hate that Barack Hussein Obama is our president because he's not white. Simple as that. And I still believe that to be the case. The signs and the hateful rhetoric comes from a sincere hate, an emotion instilled in these people in their childhood and fomented with every sideways glance and every put-down about black music or black fashion or black demeanor or black something in adolesence. And so, when an adult so willingly demonizes someone who is different from him or her, it is easy to believe the lies said about him or her because you want evidence to hate him or her. Trust me, I do that all the time about sports teams. Only those lies are all true.
That's what's fueling all this teabagger venom. And because they refuse to believe that it'll take a hell of a long time to undo the fucking mess Bush and his boys did his eights years in office, they're mad as fuck and they're not gonna take it anymore. So-called independents seem to feel that way too, and they're abandoning Obama two years after rushing towards him.
That means that Republicans are just about creaming their pants (don't tell anyone, that'd be a sin) about what's about to go down today. According to Nate Silver on his fivethirtyeight blog (in conjunction with the New York Times), the Democrats are going to lose the House with seats to spare. They will keep the Senate, with a minimum score of 52-48, but it looks like they will lose their Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. And there will be 30 Republicans governing states just in time for them to either veto or pass new redistricting plans, thereby ensuring more red seats in the House and, maybe, more dedicated electoral votes for any Republican candidate running for President. Such as Sarah Palin. Or Tim Pawlenty.
And once they win, Republicans have stated for a fact that all they're going to do is say no, obstruct, stall, and do their best to bring down Obama in 2012. Not legislating. Not passing bills that will help the country. Just getting in the way and making the President look bad. Well, fuck them. Sharron Angle, the shadowy cunt who's too chickenshit to give interviews and still is poised to bring down Reid, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and all the rest of the new right-wingnut teabagger freshman class will sit in the back rows of chairs along with new Speaker Of The House George Hamilton and throw spitballs at the President while he's trying to teach. And then they'll laugh and laugh and laugh, and even occasionally insult him in front of the whole class, er, country. Because they're Republicans and teabaggers, and fundamental liars and assholes. And they're going to go after Obama with everything they've got.
Tomorrow is just the first step. Maybe the projections are wrong; these statistical models fucked me over in baseball and football recently. But if things go the way Silver says they're going to go, these juvenile GOPers will make life miserable for the president and just act like a bunch of lazy, entitled, corrput pricks.
So, if you don't want to live under that scenario, you better vote. And not vote for a goddamn Republican. And if they still win, well, be afraid -- be very, very afraid.
This conclusion is fused by two things. First off, I remember back in 2000, when Vice-President Al Gore was trying to succeed his boss, Bill Clinton. I've thought for a long time that elections are where people who are running have to pay for their sins. I thought then, and I still think now, that punishment must go to people in the same administration as well. And even though in the end I know Clinton was a good president (a rosy image made rosier in the ensuing years), I was pissed off as hell at how he squirmed and parried and "what the definition of is is"-ed his way into impeachment. It was totally unnecessary and really a ploy for right-wingnuts to show their people how powerful they are. But President Clinton, and the American people, had to go through that impeachment bullshit partly because he cheated on his wife by fucking around with a fat intern. He brought this on himself. And Gore had to pay for his higher-ups intransigence, stupidity, and horniness. And as smart and humanitarian Clinton is, I still believe that.
Now, if there wasn't a viable, or even semi-known, third-party candidate in 2000, I still would have voted for Gore. But there was that crusader Ralph Nader, yay! I liked (and continue to like) many of his suggestions at the time -- who cares if he was kind of an asshole? So I voted for Nader. Moreover, in the days leading up to Election Day, I chided many of the people I know, nearly all of them older than me and left-leaning if not liberal, for being "Gore pragmatists." I believed back then that you vote for the candidate that you feel is worthy of your idea of what a person holding that particular office should be and have.
Well, I think y'all remember what happened afterward, all of it. Changing my vote wouldn't've changed anything. But now I think I understand why those old farts held their noses and selected Gore. Now I'm their age, and I'm scared as hell that, for example, the youth of Minnesota will vote for Independence candidate Tom Horner, thereby siphoning votes from DFL'er Mark Dayton and handing Minnesota's governor's spot to Tim Pawlenty's buttboy, drunkard Tom Emmer.
Second, even though he had to do a lot of horse-trading, I can see that President Obama has been busy working. Yes, I would've been happier with a public option, even single payer. And no, financial regulation reform doesn't have as much teeth as it should. But Obama has passed those huge, complicated, politically toxic pieces of legislation, plus started work on repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell," using stimulus money to reorient the direction of American ingenuity towards green technology, and making sure the bailout money banks and the auto industry begged for is paid back to the American people, us, the people he swore to work for, with interest.
That's a fucking lot of things. And you may not agree with some or even most of the legislation passed. But the President is at least, you know, working. And that is something President W Bush refused to do. He is of the extreme right-wing ideology that there is no government work to be done and he can go down to his ranch and clear brush while corporations and their heavyweights can exploit his laziness for gigantic financial gain, the health and welfare of the American people, the people W swore to work for, be damned. He only comes back if someone is going to be unplugged.
And yet, as Dickinson tries to unpack in his great story, that series of legislative wins has fallen on deaf ears over the country. Either they don't know or appreciate Obama's productivity. And what little bills they know passed they despise. Most of the electorate are pissed off, and when you're pissed off, you don't really care about the facts. And they will vote to let go of many of the President's men (and women) in Congress because of lies, fear and hate.
I want to believe that this firestorm of teabagging is what they call "astroturfing," not real groundswell activism from citizens. And there are a lot of Republican shadow groups giving money and then quickly hiding behind a corner to see what prevaricating damage their money has wreaked. But I think these corporate interests interested only to do away with government just so they can line their pockets with legal tender tapped into something genuine.
Specifically, I believe that there are a lot of people who hate that Barack Hussein Obama is our president because he's not white. Simple as that. And I still believe that to be the case. The signs and the hateful rhetoric comes from a sincere hate, an emotion instilled in these people in their childhood and fomented with every sideways glance and every put-down about black music or black fashion or black demeanor or black something in adolesence. And so, when an adult so willingly demonizes someone who is different from him or her, it is easy to believe the lies said about him or her because you want evidence to hate him or her. Trust me, I do that all the time about sports teams. Only those lies are all true.
That's what's fueling all this teabagger venom. And because they refuse to believe that it'll take a hell of a long time to undo the fucking mess Bush and his boys did his eights years in office, they're mad as fuck and they're not gonna take it anymore. So-called independents seem to feel that way too, and they're abandoning Obama two years after rushing towards him.
That means that Republicans are just about creaming their pants (don't tell anyone, that'd be a sin) about what's about to go down today. According to Nate Silver on his fivethirtyeight blog (in conjunction with the New York Times), the Democrats are going to lose the House with seats to spare. They will keep the Senate, with a minimum score of 52-48, but it looks like they will lose their Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. And there will be 30 Republicans governing states just in time for them to either veto or pass new redistricting plans, thereby ensuring more red seats in the House and, maybe, more dedicated electoral votes for any Republican candidate running for President. Such as Sarah Palin. Or Tim Pawlenty.
And once they win, Republicans have stated for a fact that all they're going to do is say no, obstruct, stall, and do their best to bring down Obama in 2012. Not legislating. Not passing bills that will help the country. Just getting in the way and making the President look bad. Well, fuck them. Sharron Angle, the shadowy cunt who's too chickenshit to give interviews and still is poised to bring down Reid, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and all the rest of the new right-wingnut teabagger freshman class will sit in the back rows of chairs along with new Speaker Of The House George Hamilton and throw spitballs at the President while he's trying to teach. And then they'll laugh and laugh and laugh, and even occasionally insult him in front of the whole class, er, country. Because they're Republicans and teabaggers, and fundamental liars and assholes. And they're going to go after Obama with everything they've got.
Tomorrow is just the first step. Maybe the projections are wrong; these statistical models fucked me over in baseball and football recently. But if things go the way Silver says they're going to go, these juvenile GOPers will make life miserable for the president and just act like a bunch of lazy, entitled, corrput pricks.
So, if you don't want to live under that scenario, you better vote. And not vote for a goddamn Republican. And if they still win, well, be afraid -- be very, very afraid.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Local Stations Say Goodbye To Randy Moss
Well, it was a nice run.
I was at "work" when news came down that the Minnesota Vikings released Wide Receiver Randy Moss. People are coming down hard on Head Coach Brad Childress about cutting a guy whom they knew was kind of ... OK, a loose cannon, plus they're 2-5 and could use all the help they can get.
What seems to be lost here is the outright insubordination Moss exhibited in his postgame press conference. It was so traitorous as to be crazy; even people who aren't happy with their team wouldn't go out of their way to suck the dicks of the people, in this case the New England Patriots, that traded him less than a month ago. I really didn't think he would pout and be an asshole at all this season because he seemed to like the situation in Minnesota. Apparently even he couldn't keep a good attitude even for a month.
But the sports departments of the news stations here have had a field day with the Moss cutting, and I love it. It may be tabloidy, but the taglines and package names have been awesome. In particular, I credit WCCO for prefacing their highlight reel of things Moss said in his presser as, "$#*! Randy Moss Says," a great allusion towards a sitcom on CBS, which WCCO is the local affiliate of. And kudos also to KSTP, the ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities; before throwing to commercial, they teased the sports and the main story with the tagline, "Straight Cut, Homey!"
I was at "work" when news came down that the Minnesota Vikings released Wide Receiver Randy Moss. People are coming down hard on Head Coach Brad Childress about cutting a guy whom they knew was kind of ... OK, a loose cannon, plus they're 2-5 and could use all the help they can get.
What seems to be lost here is the outright insubordination Moss exhibited in his postgame press conference. It was so traitorous as to be crazy; even people who aren't happy with their team wouldn't go out of their way to suck the dicks of the people, in this case the New England Patriots, that traded him less than a month ago. I really didn't think he would pout and be an asshole at all this season because he seemed to like the situation in Minnesota. Apparently even he couldn't keep a good attitude even for a month.
But the sports departments of the news stations here have had a field day with the Moss cutting, and I love it. It may be tabloidy, but the taglines and package names have been awesome. In particular, I credit WCCO for prefacing their highlight reel of things Moss said in his presser as, "$#*! Randy Moss Says," a great allusion towards a sitcom on CBS, which WCCO is the local affiliate of. And kudos also to KSTP, the ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities; before throwing to commercial, they teased the sports and the main story with the tagline, "Straight Cut, Homey!"
Why I Hate Halloween
It's not like I don't do Halloween. I think it's partially that my parents never celebrated the holiday. But it's more like I don't do Halloween well. I have never been creative enough to think up an idea. And then I have to execute the idea, and I have no clue how to gather the material and turn them into a costume.
I'll give you a bad memory. When I was in elementary school we'd always dress up for a special day celebrating Halloween. We'd give candy to each other, and we'd all parade through our three classrooms.
But for those occasions we'd have to have a costume. I just followed my brother's and parents' lead, go to the grocery store, and buy a costume. You remember those ones where there's a mask and a shirt and pants you just put on? Bought one every year. Usually they are cartoon characters; I remember being Good Luck Bear one year, maybe GI Joe another. Anyway, whenever Halloween rolled around, we had to remind my parents, and they'd take us to the grocery store to buy it. And that continued, year after year.
Then, one year, maybe fifth grade, I noticed something. In past years, I saw my other classmates also decked out in these store-bought, ready-to-wear Halloween costumes, and there were only a few people who "were so poor" they had to make up their own costume at home. But in fifth grade, there were more people who came up with their own ideas. Whoa, I thought, What did you all do? When I did my parade, I felt very awkward that I had this plastic fucking mask on while my classmates seemed to be wearing their own clothes and pulling it off.
This pendulum swung all the way in the sixth grade, where there was nobody who wore a costume that was bought from a store except for me. I really felt like an idiot for not being able to come up with an idea and instead needing to buy a costume, and that fear either created or cemented my disassociation with Halloween.
It continues to this day. It's not that I'm scared that I can't come up with a more creative get-up; shit, man, all the girls do nowadays is dress up as a sluttier version of something or other. (More and more, Halloween is becoming an excuse merely to let your inner whore out.) It's also because I just can't commit any brainpower into crafting any pathetic idea I have. I saw on my facebook that my friend is going as, get this, the Old Spice guy. His current profile picture is of him trying out his Old Spice costume (his abs are painted on). I don't want to see my friend with his shirt off, but that was a fucking awesome costume, and idea. I could not have come up with something like that, let alone figure out what I needed to put it together.
So, I opt to not celebrate Halloween and run away from my bad memories instead of confronting them. What did I do this Halloween? I would blog about it, and in fact I intended to blog about it, but my writing sent me down this path, and my blog post is now so long that I'll just post about what I did tonight maybe tomorrow or some other day. Hell, what I did to avoid trick-or-treaters this Halloween isn't worth a post, it just serves as an ending to what is now another story, one I originally wanted to blog about here.
I'll give you a bad memory. When I was in elementary school we'd always dress up for a special day celebrating Halloween. We'd give candy to each other, and we'd all parade through our three classrooms.
But for those occasions we'd have to have a costume. I just followed my brother's and parents' lead, go to the grocery store, and buy a costume. You remember those ones where there's a mask and a shirt and pants you just put on? Bought one every year. Usually they are cartoon characters; I remember being Good Luck Bear one year, maybe GI Joe another. Anyway, whenever Halloween rolled around, we had to remind my parents, and they'd take us to the grocery store to buy it. And that continued, year after year.
Then, one year, maybe fifth grade, I noticed something. In past years, I saw my other classmates also decked out in these store-bought, ready-to-wear Halloween costumes, and there were only a few people who "were so poor" they had to make up their own costume at home. But in fifth grade, there were more people who came up with their own ideas. Whoa, I thought, What did you all do? When I did my parade, I felt very awkward that I had this plastic fucking mask on while my classmates seemed to be wearing their own clothes and pulling it off.
This pendulum swung all the way in the sixth grade, where there was nobody who wore a costume that was bought from a store except for me. I really felt like an idiot for not being able to come up with an idea and instead needing to buy a costume, and that fear either created or cemented my disassociation with Halloween.
It continues to this day. It's not that I'm scared that I can't come up with a more creative get-up; shit, man, all the girls do nowadays is dress up as a sluttier version of something or other. (More and more, Halloween is becoming an excuse merely to let your inner whore out.) It's also because I just can't commit any brainpower into crafting any pathetic idea I have. I saw on my facebook that my friend is going as, get this, the Old Spice guy. His current profile picture is of him trying out his Old Spice costume (his abs are painted on). I don't want to see my friend with his shirt off, but that was a fucking awesome costume, and idea. I could not have come up with something like that, let alone figure out what I needed to put it together.
So, I opt to not celebrate Halloween and run away from my bad memories instead of confronting them. What did I do this Halloween? I would blog about it, and in fact I intended to blog about it, but my writing sent me down this path, and my blog post is now so long that I'll just post about what I did tonight maybe tomorrow or some other day. Hell, what I did to avoid trick-or-treaters this Halloween isn't worth a post, it just serves as an ending to what is now another story, one I originally wanted to blog about here.
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