FIRST DRAFT

How soon they forget

It's not news that a GOP Congresscritter elected in the 2010 teabagger wave election would vore against aid for Hurricane Sandy victims. It is, however, news when that malaka is from Biloxi, MS and his district was ground zero for Katrina. Here's a statement from Congressman Steven Palazzo's office:

Congressman Palazzo fully supports a Sandy relief package that includes spending offsets.  On the heels of a fiscal cliff deal that added $4 trillion to our existing $16 trillion national debt, we must ensure that disaster relief is paid for.  He also hopes we will be able to have a much-needed national discussion on disaster relief reform in the coming days.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so pitiful. I *hope* that the voters punish him in 2014 but I'm not optimistic. Next thing you know he'll blame the Real Housewives Of New Jersey for his vote. Relief money could fall into the hands of Tree and Juicy Joe Giudice, after all...

In Palazzo's lexicon, E is not for empathy but H *is* for hypocrisy.

A really funny gang rape

Here’s a great joke:

How do you know a 16-year-old girl is likely dead?

“You don’t sleep through a wang in the butthole!”

Wait, here’s a better one!

How dead is a 16-year-old girl who was kidnapped by a group of high school classmates and repeatedly raped?

“She’s deader than O.J.’s wife!”

Have you stopped laughing yet? Then you'll love this one:

How hard did a group of high school football players, one by one, rape a girl after they had to physically carry her unconscious body from one party into their “rape crew” party?

“They raped her harder than that cop raped Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction. And they raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl…”

Do you need to catch your breath? Laughing so hard? Yeah, here’s another one that will have you just crying:

How pointless is it to try to help a 16-year-old girl who, after being raped while unconscious (possibly because some asshole roofied her), was peed on and still didn’t wake up?

“That’s like trying to help wood turn into stone. That’s like trying to help the Padres to a .500 season. That’s like trying to help Tim Tebow be a good quarterback. That’s like trying to help Natty Light become a refreshing beer.”

Wait… You’re not laughing?

I guess you’re not from Steubenville, Ohio’s proud high school. If you were, you’d probably think this stuff was hysterical. At least, that’s what the video evidence that was leaked earlier this week reveals.

An anonymous hacker posted a 12-minute clip of a young man, identified as former Steubenville High School baseball player Michael Nodianos, detailing how “raped” a young woman was at the party. Those one-line zingers above? Nothing but his comedic genius at work.

Not satisfied to simply take his one-idiot improv act to video, Nodianos is said to have also tweeted about the incident, so his brilliance could be enjoyed by those without the inclination to sit through a fifth of an hour of pure dickheadery.

The rape was said to have occurred in August, but the prosecution of the football players who were said to be responsible for these acts failed to gain traction until the blogosphere took hold of the story. Allegations that police had brushed the incident under the rug in this 18,000-person football-crazed town were refuted by prosecutors, who said almost no one came forward to offer any information about this vile act.

Now, it seems that everyone’s eyes are on this hamlet best known for its dying industrial base and as the birthplace of famed gambler Jimmy the Greek.

Prior to this national shaming, it seemed as if nothing could bring down the “Big Red” spirit. To wit, here’s the opening line from the “investigative” piece from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It’s Monday, and ominous-looking clouds are pushing over Harding Stadium as dozens of football players in practice jerseys prepare to take on Cleveland’s Benedictine Bengals.

But this day two key players are missing from the field.

Right. Because that’s the news. We’re missing two key players from this “Championship-Bound” group of extraordinary young gentlemen. Never mind that the story also notes that several players linked to this shameful act were still PLAYING ON THE TEAM at the time this was written.

Talk about a joke…

If you want to spend 12 of the creepiest minutes of your life, watch the video. Usually, when someone tells me something is “extremely disturbing” they’re trying to warn me off about a blood-soaked scene, an obscenity laced tirade or a speech Mitt Romney is giving. In any of those cases, I can eat a ham sandwich and watch it no problem.

This one? No way. I saw it twice and that was three times too many.

The worst part was that this kid and most of his friends were in no way empathetic. They laughed. They cracked jokes. They sipped beverages out of Styrofoam cups while musing about how little this girl's life mattered.

When a friend asked, “What if it was your daughter?” Nodianos replied, “It’s not.”

Well, I have a daughter.

She’s seven.

I worry every day about what’s going to happen to her.

When I see assholes like these strutting around like roosters, proclaiming the awesomeness of someone else’s daughter being brutalized, every ounce of fear and rage I have heightens in my desperation to protect her.

The kid recording all this said he planned to watch this video every day.

I hope he does. I hope it eventually sinks in what actually happened to this girl.

I don’t know if that kid or Nodianos or any of the other vidiots can be charged with a crime. At the very least, I wish they would be forced to stand in front of their peers, the school administrators, the parents and the loved ones of everyone in their school at some giant assembly.

Then, I want someone to play this whole video on a projection screen as they stand there and watch how people stare at them in horror and disgust.

I want every college recruiter and every employer who Googles these pecker-heads to have that video pop up front and center so they can see exactly what they had to say about how “raped” this poor child was.

I hope they do have families and then have to explain to their kids why Daddy was laughing in that video about the hurt girl. I also want them to simply have to worry about people like them being out there, all too ready to take advantage of an incapacitated child.

I’ll bet all of that would just be downright hilarious.

Friday Night Music: The Devil's Right Hand

Speaking of guns, this song is a real pistol. Steve Earle swears it's not about gun control but it's unlikely to become the NRA's anthem:

  

Malaka Of The Week: Marion Hammer

I have a new motto for this feature: when in doubt select someone from the NRA, where malakatude along with smoking guns is what they do best:

 ...even by the standards of what we’ve heard from the NRA recently, comments made by former NRA president Marion Hammer earlier this week stand out.

Appearing on an episode of the NRA news show The Daily News on Wednesday, Hammer concluded a discussion of the prospects on gun control initiatives prompted by the Newtown, Conn. massacre by drawing a comparison between attempts to ban guns and racism.

“And they even admit this is about banning the ugliest guns, it’s about cosmetics and it has nothing to do about how a firearm works,” host Ginny Simone said toward the end of the segment.

“Well, you know, banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago,” Hammer responded. “But here they are again. The color of a gun. The way it looks. It’s just bad politics.”

TPM's Eric Lach compared Ms. Hammer's comments to Jim Crow, which is a pretty good analogy. I see his Jim Crow reference and raise it with an Apartheid one...

I don't know about y'all but I don't even know what these malevolent rods look like, nor do I care. The ugliness is in what they do, not in how they look. I'm surprised that Malaka Hammer didn't suggest that manufacturers paint the guns pink or even in team colors. Just imagine the Badger red or the LSU purple and gold on an assault weapon or ammo cartridge. Of course, there are people in both states who might like that idea so...

Wingnuts seem to specialize in inappropriate and OTT "historical" references these days. I'm surprised she didn't mention Hitler and guns since the right is fond of comparing us commie-pinko-socialists to the Nazis. Me, I don't compare anyone to the Nazis, it is almost never appropriate or accurate. Maybe the wingers have read their history and know that their formal name was the National Socialist party. Nah, when did a winger ever crack open a book that wasn't on the approved batshit crazy teanut reading list?

I realize picking an NRA honcho as malaka of the week is like, uh, shooting fish in a barrel but it's irresistible. Hmm, I wonder if she's any relation to Mike Hammer?

 

Friday Ferretblogging: Hibernation

Bucky's a big sleepy sleepyhead.

A. 

Friday Catblogging: Della Street is awesome...

...and she'd be the first to tell you that:

Marriage Equality for Illinois

The conservative Chicago Tribune: 

Much of the opposition stems from religious concerns, such as those cited by Cardinal Francis George, who has urged a "no" vote. We fully understand and respect the cardinal's view that same-sex marriage violates natural law. But nothing in this bill affects the church's authority to define what is right for Catholics. It recognizes the difference between religious rites and civil institutions.

The Catholic church, after all, bars remarriage by divorcees, but Illinois grants marriage licenses to them. Allowing same-sex marriage does not limit the freedom of religious believers to reject it; it merely allows those who differ to practice what they believe.

Which is the best argument ever and I wish I'd thought of it. The Church is in no danger of being sued out of existence by divorcees demanding the right to marry with its sanction, therefore, I mean, whatever, and can we get back to making sure poor people are fed please? 

Also FUCK YEAH HEATHER STEANS: 

The future of gay couples' right to marry in Illinois could very well, as god intended, rely on the automobile industry. Illinois Senators haveattached the legalization of gay marriage as an amendment to House Bill 4963, which itself amends the state's Collateral Recovery Act. Feasibly, a bill which seeks to "define 'automobile rental company'" could also end up defining marriage in the nation's fifth largest state.

The bizarre move comes after Senate Republicans succeeded in blocking the bill from getting a first hearing Wednesday. So, as a last ditch effort, the bill's champion, Sen. Heather Steans of Chicago, has tacked legalization of gay marriage as an amendment to another bill that was already scheduled for a vote Thursday. Illinois' General Assembly is in its last days.

The bill passed out of a Senate committee tonight, clearing the way for a full vote. 

About damn time my state joined the rest of the civilized world. 

A. 

A Thousand Dollars

For Jenny McCarthy, kids: 

Dear Jenny :

I was married for 21 years and got divorced in January 2011. I'm having a tough time dating and hope you can give me some help.

- Norm from Wheaton

Jenny says: Oh man, Norm. I feel ya. I know exactly what you are going through. I was married for seven years and then jumped into a relationship for another five. When I was finally free, I was scared. I didn't know how to date. I would meet someone and stay with them for five to seven years just so I didn't have to go on any dates.

Now I'm proud to say I've turned into a date-aholic. So you asked the right person, my friend.

Or, some might say, you've asked exactly the wrong person. But it gets better.

The first thing you need to do is hang out where single people are. If you are young, it's the clubs.

Um, read closer, Jenny. He was married for 21 years. So not young. Also: Lives in Wheaton. So, no clubs.

This is the kind of value we place on journalism these days: 

Each minor celebrity receiving a $1,000 check from the Sun-Times has agreed to donate the money to charity. McCarthy has given hers to Generation Rescue, which bills itself on its website as "Jenny McCarthy’s autism organization." Generation Rescue is engaged in the important scientific work of raising questions about whether childhood vaccinations cause autism, which they don't.

Regardless of whether they donate those checks to charity, it's still money the Sun-Times is out, and when they first announced their lineup of "celebrity" columnists there were 30 of them. In other words, $30,000, or the cost of a beginning reporter's salary for a year. Or a shitload of freelance investigation money. 

As a comparison, when I worked for a Sun-Times property as a columnist back in the day, I made $150 a column AT MOST. That number dropped steadily over the years. I can't complain too much, really. I wasn't a celebrity, after all. Maybe if I'd gotten a dye job and tried to kill a bunch of people, I could have commanded a higher price. 

Tell me again about how traditional journalism's decline is all the fault of kids who don't read the news enough and only care about their iPods. 

A. 

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Only Angels Have Wings

 

Only Angels Have Wings is a hard boiled movie with a sappy title. It's not exactly genuine pulp fiction but it's my blog and I felt like writing about it. Dr. A and watched this 1939 Howard Hawks classic the other day and it grabbed me like it always does. It's about a group of stoic pilots flying the mail in impossible conditions and the dames who sass them.

Now for a few fun facts about one of my favorite films from Hollywood's so-called golden age. I think it was really made outta Zinc:

Cary Grant's character, hard-bitten and sarcastic airline boss, Geoff Carter, is the template for the badass heroes of many future Hawks films from His Girl Friday to To Have And Have Not to The Big Sleep to Red River to Rio Bravo.

Thomas Mitchell had an amazing year in 1939, appearing in Gone With The Wind, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Stagecoach and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington as well as this flick.He copped a best supporting actor Oscar for Stagecoach but could have won for any of those performances.

Here's the trailer:,

 

The House Republican Caucus Meets

From Album4

Despite Cantor's recent efforts to castrate Boehner -- yeah, cheap pun intended -- the Speaker's expected to keep his position.

And, given Boehner's recent behavior, I'm starting to wonder if the refusal by Redumblicans to even mention the name "George W. Bush" is from fear they don't measure up to his...dignitude.

Hard to imagine, but they've actually sunk that low. 

Welcome to the United States of YOUR OWN PARTY, You Monumental Assclown

Fuck Chris Christie, okay?

During a press conference in Trenton, N.J., Christie directed his fury toward House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who shelved an expected vote late Tuesday on the Senate-backed relief package worth $60 billion.

Christie said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) called him at 11:20 p.m. ET following an 11th hour deal on the so-called fiscal cliff to inform him there would be no vote on the supplemental funds. After that call, Christie said he phoned Boehner four times. Boehner never returned the calls. Christie also added that he was never given an explanation for the canceled vote.

“Shame on Congress,” Christie said, accusing lawmakers of putting “politics ahead of their responsibilities.”

“Our people were played last night as a pawn,” Christie added. “Last night, my party was responsible for this.”

Because here's some things that happened while you were a Republican that didn't appear to make you go all NOT ON MY WATCH until now. Republicans have: 

Blocked Katrina aid.

Denied relief funds to Missouri.

Told parts of Virginia caved in by an earthquake to suck it.

And acted like the last big hurricane to hit the East Coast was just one more welfare queen. 

All of that happened before you climbed up on stage and told everybody that big government was the enemy and unions sucked and Mitt Romney deserved to be president and by the way OH YEAH SO DID YOU. All of that.

Of course, all of that that wasn't about your people or your state, but hey, guess the fuck what? It's always your state. It's always your people. That the POINT of that big government you hate so much. If it isn't you today it will be tomorrow, which is why what happens to somebody can happen to anybody, so maybe you should have thought about that before here you come the inquisitor demanding to know what assholery commences here.

Maybe you should have recognized that as small as your beloved party likes to draw the circle, you are statistically likely to end up on the outside of it at least once in your life. And then you blow up all I SAY HOW DARE YOU SIR, when the same thing happened to about a thousand people last week and you didn't say shit. 

You're not wrong in this instance, Christie, but the point is you wouldn't have been wrong in ANY instance involving any other state had you chosen to open your yap and risk breaking a rib speaking up, and you waited till now, so don't you dare act surprised.

A. 

Time for a Cantor Coup?

I am an agnostic when it comes to the fiscal cliff/slope/curb/grassy knoll deal. I'm not sure that I like it BUT I am also sick and tired of the teahadists in the House taking the economy hostage as if it were an Embassy or something. I'm waiting to see what happens when the next round starts before shooting from the lip, hip or any other orifice. No instant analysis from me this time around, unless Nancy Smash starts fretting publicly about what comes next.

I am, however, fascinated by the maneuvering and intercine strife on the GOP side. Majority Malaka Cantor seems to be erasing the entries marked Boner on his dance card. I'm not sure if he's coup plotting but he's keeping his distance from the weakest Speaker in recent memory. Speakers such as Carl Albert, John McCormack, and Denny Hastert were not exactly dynamic and charismatic but they had helpful chairmen, majority leaders, and whips. Speaker Boner has the weaselly Cantor instead.

Cantor may not be ready to plunge the dagger all the way up to the hilt BUT he *has* inflicted a series of cuts this week that, at the very least, have Boehner bleeding and as pale as a guy who uses too much spray tan can be. We all know that Cantor wouldn't carry the Speaker's tune of the cliff/slope/curb bill but he's also pointing a boney finger of blame at Boner for the Hurricane Sandy aid bill fiasco:

 At a press conference in New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday that he’s “distraught” and “angry” over the House’s failure to hold a vote, blaming it on a House GOP “leadership squabble.” He said Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has been “truly helpful” in piecing together the package and blamed Boehner.

“Cantor has been very much for us, but Speaker Boehner … pulled the rug out from under us,” Schumer said. “It’s a Boehner betrayal.”

A Cantor aide affirmed that the majority leader has been pushing for the package.

“Majority Leader Cantor is committed to ensuring the urgent needs of New York and New Jersey residents are met, and he has been working tirelessly toward that goal,” the aide told TPM.

So, will the Boehner betrayal lead to a Cantor coup? I think the odds are 50-50 but if Cantor is as snakily shrewd as he seems, he'll let Boner bleed slowly to death instead of moving immediately. Who the hell would want to be in charge of the fractious and ideologically idiotic House GOP caucus, after all?

Since I've used a lot of bloody imagery, I'll let the Rolling Stones have the last word, since we all need someone we can bleed on:

 

 

 

You Done Good

Hey, remember that classroom we helped out? Check them out: 

The teacher writes: 

Dear Allison, 

Thank you all so much for your wonderful donations. Another teacher is so jealous of my new printer, she's going to ask for one of her own. The printer is wonderful. It's so compact, quiet, and it works great. It feels good to know I have a modern piece of equipment that I can always depend on. As soon as I hooked it up I was helping students print out their assignments. I was able to print beautiful programs for our Winter Concert, lyrics for the students to use, and not to mention activities for my classes. It has truly been a blessing. Thank you so much for your donations.

With gratitude,
Ms. Rice

You are an awesome blog. Just thought I'd begin 2013 by telling you all that. 

A. 

Happy Blue Year

It’s mourning in America, peeps! Last night we went over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” actually more like a bungee jump because apparently the House is going to vote on the Senate’s bill this morning and (hopefully) pull us back. Oh, goodie.

I’m sitting here enjoying my first cup of coffee of the day and haven’t yet read up on all the details, but it sounds like it’s what they were talking about yesterday: raising taxes on incomes over $400,000 for single filers, $450,000 for families. On hearing the news that $400,000 is now “middle class,” Mr. Beale enthusiastically quipped, “Great! I can’t wait to be upper middle class.” Dude.

Nobody likes this deal but everyone on my TeeVee is telling me that is a sign of “bipartisanship” and good negotiating. Um, bullshit. I’m trying to remember the last time I haggled over the price of something, say a car, and both parties walked away pissed off and angry and called it a win. That would be never. The essence of a good compromise is that all the negotiating parties have something to be happy about. People do not walk away from a successful negotiation pissed off.

Sigh.

Yesterday during the media circus over this deal I saw Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York tell us,

I've always believed that $250,000 may make you rich in some parts of the country, but not in places like New York. A higher threshold, I think, is a good compromise.

... to which I say, Fuck you. Don’t live in New York, then. I mean, seriously? This is the Democratic position? Since when do we craft national tax policy to cater to the most privileged extreme? (Don’t answer that.)  

I know Rep. Israel was just speaking out on behalf of his constituents, but that attitude really pisses me off. There are very few places in this country where the cost of living is so high that $250,000 is not enough to get by, where people will really suffer if their marginal tax rate goes up a few percent. In fact, please show me the New Yorker who will really, really be hurt by a tax increase at the $250,000+ level. And I mean seriously hurt, not just whining, but will not be able to make it. Where is the person who will have to put off sending their kids to college or put off the knee operation another year or take a second or third job to make up that extra $2,000 or so in taxes? Yes, Rep. Israel, find me that person. Good luck.

It pisses me off that there are Democrats who don't understand the razor's edge on which so many people live these days. Meanwhile, we have the Republicans for whom this is all one giant game. Let's look no further than my own Senator Bob Corker, offering this astonishing butthurt after Obama’s remarks yesterday:

"I know the president has fun heckling Congress. I think he lost probably numbers of votes with what he did."

Guess what, the Senate bill passed 89-8, so that would be a big, fat wrong-o, buckaroo. And oh, did some Republicans get their widdew fee-fees hurt? Awww! Let’s make the entire country pay higher taxes because some pampered millionaires in Congress don’t like getting scolded by the black POTUS. Grow the fuck up.

I realize this is all theater, it's all pandering to the cameras, which is just further proof of our massive institutional failure. Our government simply no longer functions. At this point I’m just throwing up my hands. I honestly don’t know what to do. I despair, people, I really do. The solution, if there is one, lies elsewhere. Somewhere along the way, some forces came into play to cause this institutional failure. We need to find those forces and, like a skilled surgeon, excise them. Remove the tumor, be it the media, lobbyists, corporate personhood, whatever. 

Last night Mr. Beale and I saw the excellent documentary Chasing Ice. It’s about climate change, and it’s gorgeous, scary and frustrating. It reminded me that we’ve got some really big issues facing us, globally-speaking. So grow up, already. We all need to stop being such big fat babies about everything because there are some massive problems coming down the pike that make tax cuts for millionaires look so petty. We can't have our government run by a bunch of thumb-suckers -- of either party. The zombie apocalypse is upon us, people, and we simply don't have that luxury. We can't afford posturing and butthurt and ego-stroking.

I didn't intend to be such a downer today. Sorry. And maybe there's a silver lining here. Since we obviously can’t get our own house in order, my advice to the world is: better solve the big stuff without us. Clearly other nations are more rational and intelligent about things like climate change and world hunger and the like; they don’t have the crackpot “end times” yokels dragging their policy machinery back two centuries. The past few years have shown that America does not want to be the grown-up in the room. So please, carry on without us.

Why I Hate New Year's Eve

Hate is probably too strong a word but I wanted to get your attention. I'm really more bored than anything by NYE. I'm not a fan of firecrackers since my boyhood pal Kirk blew off 2 of his fingers with them and they're an integral part of NYE. I'm also not wild about the forced jollity and the public drunkenness, which this year is magnified in NOLA by the presence of Florida Gator fans who *almost* make Bama fans look civilized. Almost. Btw, I have nothing against drunks but stupid drunks I'm not crazy about.

Dr. A and I had a quiet day watching some old movies and making corn bread (her) and a massive pot of (Fergie-free) black eyed peas and green onion sausage (me.) Yummy if do say so myself.

A more recent reason to dislike NYE is the fact that LSU keeps getting invited to the Chick-Fil-a Bowl in Atlanta when they have a semi-off year. What the fuck kind of name for a bowl game is that? I'd rather go to the Tidy Bowl or some such shit.

Anyhoo, NYE has been all downhill for me after all the times I saw the Grateful Dead on that day when I was a tadpole. Of course, that was before I became a consummate curmudgeon so that may not be the real reason BUT it sounds good, has a beat and you can dance to it, which reminds me: Dick Clark is  as dead as Guy Fucking Lombardo who was the main man on NYE before America's oldest teenager. 

Where is all this going? Nowhere in particular. This is a pretext to post the Dead from the closing of Winterland on-when else?- New Year's Fucking Eve. Okay, time to push Chinless Mitch and Speaker Boner off the fiscal cliff/curb/slope. Happy Fucking New Year:

 

 

'All of it is an act of love'

Go. Read. NOW. 

There was something disturbing about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship—if you can even call it that. Within less than a week, they profess their undying love to each other and get hitched. Juliet delivers her famous “parting is such sweet sorrow” line, and the next time Romeo sees her, she’s unconscious from a potion that was designed to work for 42 hours, just enough time to trick her family into thinking she’s dead so that she won’t have to go through with the arranged marriage to Paris. Romeo, with whom she has had about three conversations, was supposed to find her alive and whisk her away to a life totally cut off from her friends and family for all of eternity. GOOD PLAN.

I think we celebrate tortured romance in art because conflict is inherently dramatic, whereas doing the laundry for 20 years really ... isn't, but we've fallen down somewhere when our ideal of love is agony. Worse than that, is uncertainty: Do you know how exhausting it is to be with someone you're not certain of? It's so exhausting. It doesn't leave you room to have a life of your own because you're so busy watching your own soap opera. Some of my Facebook acquaintances, I don't know how they hold down jobs and still have time to keep track of who lied to them about who was still sleeping with his ex even though he promised last time was the last time and whatever. 

Before Mr. A I kept auditioning losers and wondering why it wasn't working, and I'm talking about a cokehead poet and a guy who made a lot of money and thought that was as good a reason as any to order me around. In actual fact none of those relationships were designed to be relationships at all. They were designed to be sideshows, distractions from life. They weren't life. They weren't about building a home or a life or a place or anything bigger than ourselves together. It's no wonder we would end up making each other miserable even though we had all kinds of chemistry and things in common. We didn't have a life in common, and we didn't know how to make one. We didn't even really know we had to. 

A lot of our ideas about love are poisonous. It's not just the "love is drama and heights of ecstasy and depths of despair." It's the "love is HARD WORK" stuff, too. People say relationships are work, that marriage is work. They usually mean drudgery, like ha ha, sometimes he wants to watch the game instead of Sex and the City with you. But work is joyful, work is purposeful, work gives shape to your waking hours and improves the world around you, or at least it should. It should reward you as much as it wears you out.
It should be the good kind of worn, like after a hard workout, when your muscles are tingling and you feel like you could go another mile even though you know in a minute you'll collapse into the embrace of a pizza. If it just grinds you down, if you're always watching the clock, if you're making cute little jokes about hanging in there until Friday, you need to find something else to do, and if you're dragging yourself through your relationship with the idea that suck and yawn is what it's supposed to be like, oh God, no it's not. 

I think we spend so much time rationalizing the bad stuff, calling anything that isn't constant implosion boring, making the lows about the corresponding highs as if the latter justifies the former, we overlook all the ways in which love is every day: 

I think there’s another kind of cherishing that is possible, one that doesn’t kill us. Last month, I went with my parents to the dentist to get a cavity filled. My mother went to get some groceries while my father and I were in the waiting room. I noticed that he had his phone clipped to his belt.

“That looks so dumb,” I said.

“Well, I don’t miss your mother’s calls this way.”

A. 

Not That I Shopped There Anyway ...

But suck it, Hobby Lobby. 

They've always been sanctimonious assholes and look, at times convenience overrides my conscience and I go get something somewhere because it's cheaper or closer, but this kind of thing's a no-brainer. These people, and the pizza dicks, and everybody else braying all day long about their religious freedom, are just begging for attention. They don't actually want to help anybody, they're not actually concerned about their immortal souls, and they can't see the difference between the freedom to do what they want to do (like, don't take birth control pills if you think they're putting you in danger of hell) and the ability to coerce others into behaving like you would. Giving someone coverage for something is not the same as mandating they do it, whereas denying them coverage may well prohibit it. 

To Michael's for yarn I shall go. 

A. 

Save Traditional Journalism!

I swear, there are days I wonder what exactly I'm supposed to be mourning, when idiots like this are at the head of the class. 

Decent journalists should turn away from Gregory in the street. Had we all started shunning morons long ago, we most likely wouldn't be forced to defend ourselves from all comers quite so hard now. 

A. 

Love Wins

MAINE! 

Look at them. Just look at them. How happy they are. Years from now, we will never be able to adequately explain to anyone why we ever thought this was a problem at all. 

A. 

Sunday Morning Video: Louis Armstrong Live In Belgium 1959

A bit of Satchmo on the penultimate day of 2012: