The Smirking Cynic 2.0

In a 5-0 decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court, arguments offered by Norm Coleman have been disregarded as the political jockeying they were and instructed that Al Franken be issued the election certificate he needs to be seated as Minnesota’s second United States senator. To end the brief post-decision speculation, which was actually speculation for months that Norm and the GOP would drag this out even further in Federal Court, Norm held a presser where he finally, blessedly, conceded the race to Al. In his speech he sounded almost like he wanted Al to sound back on November 5th when he stated, since he was initially declared the winner in this squeaker, that Al should concede because it was important to Minnesota to let the healing process begin.

My lawn sign for Al is still in my yard. I vowed that it wouldn’t be taken down until he is seated after this intergalactic carnival freakshow finally concluded as a sort of visual reminder to all that pass by my house how ridiculous and unnecessary this was.

But the bottom line is that this only ended yesterday because our Governor has aspirations beyond his current post. Truth be told, he’s pretty much the only solid GOP candidate for president in 2012. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal pretty much ended his own hopes when he spoke out of both sides of his mouth about the stimulus package, joking about the apparently excessive request to fund monitoring volcanic activity only to have an eruption shortly afterward. And between the rising stars of Nevada Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, it would seem the only competition they can offer is who can violate their marriage vows in a more publicly embarrassing fashion.

So that left Pawlenty in a rather awkward position. After making it clear that the GOP needs to shed itself of the image of the “Party of No” or the “Grand Obstructionist Party”, Pawlenty had to make it clear to the GOP leaders that hanging on to this election and forcing it through the federal courts system wasn’t exactly the best idea. After all, not one judge during this whole legal contest had sided with Team Coleman. Pursuing this further would just serve as a shining example that the GOP was only interested in keeping Al out of the Senate, and not so much because Team Coleman’s case had any real merit. They could make all the excuses they wanted — it was clear to anyone who was watching. Even the trolls of the comments section of the Star Tribune gleefully prodded that this be strung out more because they just didn’t want Al in office.

And now that it’s finally over, I can honestly say that I’m proud of the system that is in place. Yes, this took an assload of time, but it wasn’t the debacle of Florida in 2000. This was a wholly transparent process that exhausted the legal requirements that should be necessary to any contested election. Conservatives may not like the outcome, but that’s only because their man lost. I’m sure that many would have very different opinions had it turned out opposite. That’s just human nature. (Conspiracy is a funny crutch.) But I’d like to think that I would’ve been just as proud of the system regardless.

But regardless of how it happened, Minnesota has a new Senator and I wish him all the best. If he is half of the statesman that his hero, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, was, I have great hopes for him.

I always liked Google Books. It’s a wonderful online and fully searchable database of books and magazines. You would think that’s cool enough. But now, like Google Maps, you can code them to your website.

I think I just wet myself.

I give Fox News a great deal of grief and I find much of it completely justified. But it’s due to that very fact that I will go out of my way to give some props to Shep Smith. Over the past few years he’s let slip that he’s a conscientious commentator who isn’t interested in selling the Murdoch line of right-wing talking points so much as he is in trying to keep things on a sane level. I think my first indication that he wasn’t knee-deep in the Kool-Aid was the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. “This IS context!”

But he’s a Fox News commentator. I try to keep him at arm’s length because I firmly believe that channel to be the root of all evil as it deals with the social fabric of this nation. But every so often, as in the case where he let the F-bomb fly on live TV (”We do not fucking torture!“), he’ll let it be known that he’s a human being. And you can’t beat Shep’s unabashed mockery of Glenn Beck’s histrionics as true comedy. edfaHere’s the latest example, where he takes a viewer’s email and hoists it up as the example of true idiocy.

It used to be that the only way I could truly respect Shep was if he ever left Fox News. After all, being the only sane guard in the lunatic asylum is guaranteed to ultimately call one’s judgment into question. But as I look at it now, I want Shep at Fox News — I need him at Fox News. If they ever want to have an air of credibility as even a political commentary network, let alone a news network, they need folks like Shep in place to keep them from completely abandoning all hope for unbiased coverage of anything.

So Shep finally earned me as a fan. Now if they could just oust Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Hume, Doocy, Kilmeade, and the dozen or so brainless bimbo blonde commentators who actually believe guys are not watching them for their looks, Fox might actually have a balanced broadcast. Until then I hope Shep sticks around for quite some time.

In my quest to be a good parent, I’ve given up a great deal. At least if you look at it selfishly. But that’s to be expected. No more smoking, very little if any drinking, dropped out of the band so I could concentrate my efforts into being a steady breadwinner. All in all I’d say we’re doing okay. My kids are nowhere near as perfect as I’d like, but you’ve got to learn to roll with the punches. Besides it’s not like I gave up all my vices. I still had my cooking and burning affection for chocolate chip cookies.

So it was a complete shock a couple weeks ago when I went to the doctor to see what the hell was wrong with my legs. They were horribly achy. It was like growing pains but I’d stopped growing a long time ago. And this had been going on for weeks. I spoke to a doctor who was on rotation in my clinic since my regular doctor dropped off the face of the planet, so this poor guy already didn’t have much of my trust. But what really threw me off was the unbelievable amount of weight I’d gained. Since Christmas.

I spoke to the doctor about the possibility of diabetes or low vitamins in my blood, so they ran the gamut of blood tests and all came back fairly normal. High blood pressure was a minor concern, but not enough to warrant medication. The main message I left with was that I needed to adjust my diet. A lot.

FUCK.

Let me being by stating that my linguiphile nature prohibits me from calling this anything but “a change to my diet”. People who “go on a diet” make it sound like “dieting” is tantamount to temporary self-inflicted torture. A diet is the food you take in to survive as a living organism. I was changing my diet, not going on a day trip to fat camp. But I’ve decided to make an effort to significantly cut fats and saturated fats from my intake. This should neither be temporary nor self-inflicted torture, though at times I struggle to remember why for godssakes I’m doing this to myself. So it’s easy to see why people get confused by the lingo.

I’ve now been eating differently for about three weeks or so. This is made difficult by the fact that I’m the cook of the house and not all of us need to cut fat from their diet. Specifically, my son Stirling needs to eat a lot of calories because his metabolism is running like a Ferrari, his stomach is smaller and he’s skinny as a rail. My dear wife, Patton, is also wanting to cut calories from her diet but still demands her Sunday breakfasts of bacon, eggs, potatoes and toast. (I’m a good husband, but not a perfect one; I meet this demand, but with considerable vocal complaint.) I stick to granola, skim milk, fat free vanilla yogurt and pineapple from the can. My lunches tend to be light and I try to maintain what would be referred to as “reasonable” dinners, but for the love of all that is good an holy, I’m starving.

After going through all of this I’ve concluded the following:

1. I hate you all.
2. I miss cheese in ways I never thought humanly possible.
3. Giving up smoking was arguably easier.
4. In the context of salad dressing, the words “fat free” should legally be required to be changed to read “tastes like ass”.

I know what I’m doing is helping to lengthen my life. But I can’t help but hear Denis Leary’s words in my head: “They’re the ones at the end!” I’m coming up on 35 years on this hot, wet planet, and human beings – by design – aren’t supposed to hang around this long to begin with. At least that’s what the little devil on my shoulder keeps telling me when I pass the “Homebaked” chocolate chip cookies that are placed inconveniently across from the fruits and veggies at my grocery store. If I’m burning calories from any activity above all, it’s arguing with myself.

But something I’m consciously not doing, it’s following any published “diet”. Take Adkins for example. Let me get this straight: No bread? Yeah, fuck you. The day I give up bread is the day I give up breathing. I’ve always loved grain breads, so I’m not losing out on things, really. I’ll cut back on white breads, of course. And as far as “South Beach” and “Jenny Craig” are concerned, all I see are companies trying to make buck. I don’t need a fancy label to help me figure out what’s good for me and what’s not good for me. Besides, I’m a firm believer in an individual’s diet to be completely personal. Not everyone likes guacamole, so it stands to reason that not everyone is going to process it in their body the same way. Some people are able to maintain a healthy physique on what many would consider to be garbage diets. It’s all about how you and your body understand one another.

In the mean time, I’m arguing with mine. My body is, metaphorically speaking, like a neglected patient who can barely communicate with me anymore and my appetite keeps trying to speak on behalf of my body like some ambulance-chasing lawyer from hell, so it’s tricky to say the least.

One of my favorite pastimes is getting email forwarded to me that makes a particular point and debunking the living shit out of it. If liberals like myself have a reputation for being “know-it-alls”, it’s more than likely because we do things like this. It’s a curse — it comes from understanding nuance and rejecting simplistic equivocal thinking.

A friend of mine received the following and asked that I give it a once over and post about it. But due to the length and overall stupidity of the email in question the responses make this post rather long. Get yourself something cool to drink and maybe some popcorn before you continue.

Ready? Here we go.

I think my favorite part of it is the opening:

Passing it on.

To me, this letter is absolutely a “grand slam home run”. It says it all.. If you agree with what it says, share it with as many people as you can! If not , delete it and go on your merry way.
God Bless America! We need all the help we can muster.

Yes, gotta love those “grand slam home run” emails. I fail to see how it even warrants a hit. But the opening tells me a great deal about the author. Roughly translated: This email appealed not only to his political bent, but also did it in a way that it appealed to his base reactive nature. And by sharing it verbatum it means that they can’t form their own arguments in a cohesive fashion and rely on the words of everyone else to articulate their points for them. How inspiring.

April 17, 2009

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC
20500
Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

And it took you a total of three months to come to this rather complicated conclusion? Wow. Three whole months? I’m surprised it took you that long. Of course an intellectually honest person would have just acknowledged that they more than likely never liked him in the first place and are nitpicking details in order to justify their blind rage. But hey, kudos for holding out for the past 3 months. Only 45 more to go (44 at the time of this response). Maybe you should pace yourself.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.
I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

It’s funny you should ask that last question, because I don’t think you understand history either. But we’ll get back to that in a second because I think you’re more upset with current events — like losing the election. (And he didn’t even need the Supreme Court to get the job in the first place.) But more to the point, I think you’re upset that Obama wants to fulfill one of his campaign promises to “restore the good name of the United States” in the rest of the world. He’s even gone as far as to reassure Muslim nations that we’re not on some kind of crusade.

The Bush Administration’s approach to foreign policy was “my way or the highway”, and burned nearly every bridge to these countries. Now these are the same countries that we’re demanding assistance to locate and eliminate terrorism, correct? So how is it a bad thing to repair those relationships? Are you really that xenophobic that you’d blindly ignore what another country has to say simply because they’re Muslim? Or are you shortsighted and frankly stupid enough to think that the United States possesses the capacity to eliminate Muslim countries? Well, let’s take a look at your rather tenuous understanding of history.

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

This, of course, is typical right-wing bullshit talking points. A clear-eyed reading of the documents in question clearly dictates that not only was this country not founded on Christianity, it was founded to protect the religious freedoms sought by English people who wanted out from under the Church of England’s heavyhanded rule by a king whose very position was justified by said church. A close inspection of of the writings of all the founding fathers finds a clear desire to make the fledgling government of the United States one without deference to a god of any kind.

But since you put such an emphasis on history, let’s take a look at the Treaty of Tripoli, which was a treaty ratified by the US Congress on June 7, 1797. Atricle 11 of said treaty reads as follows: As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

But I’m sure that your point was that the laws of this country strongly mirror the laws of the Bible. This is, of course, complete nonsense. It was founded on the commonly accepted behavior of societies all over the world and these laws have changed significantly over the past 200 years. If they hadn’t, then you must’ve missed the part of the Constitution where it states clearly that slaves are worth three-fifths a person. Or you actually still think this, which is positively frightening.

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans.. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don’t show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You just let Fox News do all your thinking, don’t you? While I admit it’s odd to see a leader do strange things to convey proper respect and political protocol, it’s part of the job. Ergo…

Isn't love beautiful?

What isn’t part of the job, mind you, is the long-standing and well documented business relationships that exist between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. That said, with the hundreds of billions the Saudis have loaned to and invested in the United States, I’d say we’re lucky the President isn’t expected to literally kiss King Abdullah’s ass for the international press.

You can’t find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don’t want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What’s the matter with you?

Now I have to admit — I had to look up this gem. I guess it’s stemming from the fact that Obama’s first visit to Europe didn’t include a side trip to Normandy. Well, if judging by those standards, neither did Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Bush II. And I’m guessing it is this glaring hole in your logic that is why I didn’t hear a thing about it in the first place. But by all means, let your uncontrolled vitriol blur judgment. It makes it more fun to illustrate how foolish you are.

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

Oh, the irony.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven’t said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn’t!

Well, if I were to venture a guess, I don’t think it was Obama’s decision either. At first glance it appears you “took a 5% cut” in pay, so it looks like you authorized it in some kind of labor agreement. Grammar doesn’t seem to be one of your strong points because you then deny authorizing it in the first place. In fact you’re equating Obama with powers he has never and will never possess. Not only does he have zero control over how much you make as an individual, he possesses zero power to hire or fire any member of congress. They’re elected officials just like he is. It’s a separation of powers thing that’s also detailed in the Constitution.

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that’s $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million, not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven’t you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.

Actually he’s expressed a considerable amount of outrage, and he caught a good deal of flack for it because his words can impact the state of the economy. If you recall, right-wingers like you cursed him for saying things that drove down the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And when it rebounded, they fell silent. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was Republicans, by and large, that caused this economic mess in the first place. Now unlike you, I’ll admit that Democrats share some of this responsibility, but they certainly didn’t author the laws that stripped the protections that were established after the Great Depression.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Of that last sentence, I have no doubt. Enjoy being further marginalized by your right-wing, contradictory thinking because the vast majority of Americans outright rejected it in the last election. As for Obama not caring, perhaps you’ll enjoy this quote from about a week ago.

“But one of the things I’ve actually been encouraged by—and I learned during the campaign—was the American people, I think, not only have a toleration but also a hunger for explanation and complexity, and a willingness to acknowledge hard problems. I think one of the biggest mistakes that is made in Washington is this notion you have to dumb things down for the public.”

Sincerely,
Every real American
P.S. I rarely ask that emails be ‘passed around’
………….PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST……
it’s past time for all Americans to wake up!

“I am not in favor of concealed weapons. There has not been any evidence that allowing people to carry a concealed weapon is going to make anybody safer.” –Barack Obama

For the record: The fact that your signature directly suggest that anyone who disagrees with this tripe is any less than American is, quite frankly, about as unAmerican as one can get. You can argue that point, but you’re wrong. It’s a fact. You can speak your empty head all you like and I can ridicule it from dusk ’til dawn. Free speech is an American right that we all share and you don’t get to pick and choose who can use it.

And it’s funny that this quote fell at the end of this email. Today President Obama will be signing into law the credit card reform bill. Attached to this legislation is a rider which make law a provision allowing visitors of national parks and refuges to carry concealed weapons. Stay frosty, Smokey the Bear!

This is how I tend to handle this type of email. So by all means forward away — it speaks volumes to your ability to think objectively, think individually…or just think at all.