I'm Growing a Little Obsessed with This Song

And think that my new favorite lyric of all time is "In the barlight/She looked all right/ In the daylight/ She looked desperate"

Another Scary Parenting Thought

I tell the story all the time about how my Dad taught me to read. It's not a warm, fuzzy story. He used Clifford the Big Red Dog books. He determined how much I should read and then if I didn't get there, he wouldn't kiss me good night. Isn't that awful?

It's probably not true. I realized recently, that he probably did that once. One time. I was probably telling him I didn't want to read and being whiney about it. And he was probably tired and irritated and made a poor parenting choice. Or, shoot, maybe he was just kidding.

But, I'm willing to bet this wasn't something that happened repeatedly. I bet I've been hating poor Clifford for years no for no good reason.

Which, of course, makes me think of all the times I've gotten tired and lost my temper and made poor parenting choices. And it would just serve me right if Laney is well into the 30s before she realizes I wasn't always saying "Goddammit, Laney, we're LATE!" That only happened once.

Sigh. With that, I leave you with a little Philip Larkin. Ignore the third stanza. I think he exaggerates. Still, it's a good poem:

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

What's Wrong with a Little Impeachment?

I blame California. They treated their recall of Gray Davis like it was some grand justice achieved by the people when it was really just political machinations aimed solely at putting the other party in charge.

Impeachment, as my girl Rachel said a few nights ago, can be cleansing. The legislature holds a trial, the evidence is presented and a decision is reached. They should be like any criminal case: deliberate, fair, and as dispassionate as possible.

In the interest of full disclosure: I voted for Blagojevich in the last election. And I voted for him because if I had to pick between two inherently corrupt parties in Illinois, I'm picking the democrat. I picked wrong. Although, it's fair to say, had the Republican won, she'd be replacing Barack Obama and she'd probably be picking some bullshit Illinois Republican. Illinos Republicans seem remarkably fuckwitted: when they couldn't get Ditka (DITKA!) to run against Obama, they picked Alan "gay marriage leads to incest" Keyes. Fuckwits.

We elected Rod Blagojevich. And the best way to get rid of him, if he won't resign, is impeachment: legal, deliberate and constitutional. By proceeding so, we'll end up with better democrats.

Our elected officials need to stop looking at office in Illinois like hors d'oevres. Impeaching one of them seems like a good way to get this done. It's not like we'll fall off the map if we have to live with one senator for a few months. He's a really good senator!

Revisiting

So, I was on TPM this morning (as I often am) and decided to catch up with a little TPMTv.

Buckle up and revisit the ride! You'll feel rage and pride and amusement and irritation and then, at the end, you may remember how good it felt on November 4th:

Makes Me Wish I Believed in Hell

There's nothing more galling than the knowledge that the corrupt, criminal commander-in-chief will leave office thinking he's done no wrong. And his underlings will leave without caring.

It makes me wish I believe in hell. Even better, Angel's gypsy curse.

The Definition of Insanity...

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.

This morning The Chicago Tribune was wall-to-wall Blagojevich coverage. My personal favorite was an OpEd column titled "Obama's My Pet Goat Moment", which makes the perfectly reasonable comparison that not commenting immediately on a state-level scandal IS just the same as reading a book to preschoolers while the country is attacked and 3000 Americans are killed.

I appreciate that the Trib is the paper of record on the scandal and, as such, has a responsibility to cover the shit out of it. But, I read the entire front section (the "news" section) today and there wasn't one story about that damn senate report.

I am not a professional journalist, so maybe I'm making more out of this senate report than I should be (note: I am NOT making more out of this senate report than I should be). The Tribune, like just about every other news organization in America, seems to have decided that their sole responsibility as powerful pillars of the fourth estate is "to give the people what they want."

The definition of insanity. Check it: when folks stop obsessing over Blagojevich, there will be some intrepid blogger talking about what we ought to be doing about the various and damning criminal activities perpetrated during the Bush years by the Bush administration. And the folks who read the newspaper when there isn't a fat, juicy scandal du jour (folks like me) will be reading those blogs instead of the newspaper, and wondering if the comics and crossword are really worth $35 a month. And somewhere a "real" reporter will be complaining about the damn bloggers and their responsibility for the demise of print journalism.

Things that Make me Want to Bang My Head Against the Wall

A bipartisan senate report came out this week which said:

The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of “a few bad apples” acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.

Read that again. Read it a few times. Let that really sink in.

There was a lot to be ashamed of during the Bush years, the cynical, political, amoral Bush years. But of all this, the fact that we became a nation that tortures stands in relief as the single most damning, shaming thing that Bush criminals committed in our names. And we've collectively ignored it.

I stand by my contention of a few days ago:

I really believe that if mainstream media (front page, evening news kind of stuff) reported on torture like professional journalists instead of like a bunch of fucking retards then we'd care about this more.

Our national media is so busy obsessing over finding SOME (PLEASE DEAR GOD, THERE'S GOT TO BE SOMETHING) tie from Obama to Blagojevich, that they ignore this, just as they have for the past six years. Forget about making me want to bang my head against the wall. It makes it really hard to keep the contents of my stomach intact.