sad news...

i was a bit shocked when i read this morning that Stephen Gately from the group Boyzone was found dead in his hotel room. he was only 33.

the group was the inspiration for the first half of the title of this blog. it's an Andrew Lloyd Webber song from the musical Whistle Down the Wind.

the first time i heard the song was in a performance by the group celebrating Webber's birthday at Royal Albert Hall. Stephen is the lead in the performance and the song instantly struck a chord in me, definitely because of personal struggles. it has meant a lot to me ever since.

as i said, it was the muse for the first half of the blog title - no matter what...

words for today's United States...

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility...."

in this time of crisis with all the forces denigrating and questioning and bombarding us from within, the rest of the world is declaring itself to be back in our corner with the Nobel Peace prize award. they see hope where there has been none for the last several years.

the self-ascribed patriots who live in this country are attacking the very core of its basis and doing it under the guise of their love of country. they are doing everything in their power to derail progress and hope. they avidly state that they want Obama to fail. they openly declare he should be impeached for unknown offenses. they have prediction sites for people to guess when he will be assassinated.

these people hate their country and they are being lead by self-aggrandizing demagogues using the freedom of speech of which they truly believe only they should have. they lie; they cheat; they twist words; and they border on the traitorous with their accusations that others are the turncoats.

they have hijacked the progress of this country. they have worked against the will and promise of the founders of it. they bastardize the words of the founders and ignore their true meaning. worse, they do it in a self-righteous misreading of the worship they portray, their own personal version of judeo-christian dogma at the expense of the true intent of the scripture they spout so often and to the detriment of others with different beliefs.

the quotes that open this post describe more than adequately and with great precision the state we find ourselves in today. the person saying them accurately identifies the force behind the attacks and the situation of the United States and what is happening right now.

sadly, they also give more credence to the George Santayana quote that is always in the right corner of this blog - “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

also, they make the old French adage "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" even truer - the more things change, the more they stay the same....

who originally spoke these words? i would bet certain elements reading them would say Barack Obama, because they would want to use them to discredit him even more.

they would be wrong.

Abraham Lincoln in his Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862 wrote the words.

weekender...

how many times have you felt like doing something like this?

Hate Crimes Bill...

from Pam's House Blend

House Passes Federal Hate Crimes Legislation

The House of Representatives today passed the Defense Authorization Act of 2010 (H.R. 2467), which includes the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act -- the federal hate crimes legislation.

From what I've been reading, it looks likely the bill will be passed by the Senate next week.

Autumn Sandeen

this has been a long struggle and maybe for the first time the end is in sight.

Autumn points out that the Senate is expected to pass the bill next week. it would be monumental if they were to do it on Monday, October 12th - the 11th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, for whom the bill is named.

the first question that came to me is, "Will I feel any safer?"

i really don't know how to answer that. the bill makes harming anyone through hate a crime an illegal act punishable by lay. what it doesn't do is make people understand that doing such a thing is wrong, and it is wrong according to the religion(s) to which the majority of them belong.

of course, we will also be facing years of court case after court case that the christianists will pursue...

sorry, the cynic in me is always lurking. i am happy that this bill is moving forward to enactment and maybe, just maybe, it will save a Matthew Shepard's or Gwen Araujo's life in the future.

we can only hope...

as they did to the Clinton's...,

there is absolutely nothing that the christianist, right-wingnut, ultra-conservative, faux-News crowd will do to stop attacking Obama.

there is nothing that he can do right for them. they have made it very clear that they are against him in every way. they've done this from continuing to spread the lie of his birth to denying that they are being racist - no matter how much truth is thrown into their faces. they continue to lie and call any one sane who decries their mistruths to be unpatriotic and traitors, while they are the worst kind of christians they purport to be.

there is something Obama can do right for the rest of us though:

stop the wishful thinking bi-partisan BS and go on the attack to get the frakking job done.

hit them where it hurts the most - their pocketbooks!

oh, and as far as the conservative Democrats, the correct threats were finally made yesterday telling them if they don't start toeing the line that 1) they could lose their committee chairperson standings and 2) the reconciliation voting will be invoked to cut off the Republican filibuster threats - just like the Repubs did for Bush with his tax rebates for the rich!

it's time the gloves came off.

what's that famous movie line?

oh, yeah...

I'm as mad as hell
and I'm not going to take this any more!

Howard Beale, Anchor from the movie Network

groaner...

"FLU UPDATE "

What is the difference between Bird Flu and Swine Flu?

For bird flu you need tweetment and for swine flu you need oinkment.

weekender...

late in the day but things have been hectic...

from a comment on Pam's House Blend article: Vatican: sex abuse in Catholic Church was a homo problem, not pedophilia


Question: What does an atheist do when they fall to the floor and start "speaking in tongues"?

Answer: Get a CAT scan.


read the article it's attached to. it's beyond the pale. these old white men of the cloth have no sense of what's going on in the world today. they are so out of touch with reality that they already think they are in heaven.

i was at the Vatican and its museums just a couple of weeks ago. i was defending all of the art collections to my friends with the argument that if the stuff wasn't there it may just have been lost to all.

maybe it would be better off lost...

if you haven't seen this yet...

Jay Leno's 10@10 Segment with Barney Frank



they could be a comic duo that would rival Abbott & Costello...

weekender...

a mysoginistic tome for the weekend...

GEOGRAPHY OF A WOMAN

Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa: half discovered, half wild, fertile and naturally beautiful.

Between 23 and 30, a woman is like Europe: well developed and open to trade, especially for someone of real value.

Between 31 and 35, a woman is like Spain: very hot, relaxed, and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 36 and 40, a woman is like Greece: gently aging but still a warm and desirable place to visit.

Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain: with a glorious and all conquering past.

Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Israel: has been through war, does not make the same mistakes twice, takes care of business.

Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Canada: self-preserving, but open to meeting new people.

After 70, she becomes Tibet: wildly beautiful, with a mysterious past and the wisdom of the ages, an adventurous spirit and a thirst for spiritual knowledge.


GEOGRAPHY OF A MAN

Between 1 and 90, a man is like Iran, ruled by nuts.

THE END.

how the Republicans frakked everything up...

here is the perfect example of the kind of thing that the banks, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, etc., all great supporters of the Republican Party over the decades, have used to screw everyone over...




now, of course, through the likes of Glen Beck, Limbaugh and FauxNews, they are in the business of canning hot air also...

oh, and bringing racism to its next level as they deny it vehemently.

JUST one place i've been the last month...

Falconara Albanese, Calabria, Italy

i've been on the go - Egypt, Greece, Italy - and this was really the highlight of the trip.

Falconara Albanese is in the mountains in the South of Italy, in Calabria. it sits on the side of a mountain. it has been there for 700 years. it was founded by Albania exiles in order to protect themselves from Turkish invaders that pushed them out of their land in Albania.

it is also the town in which my maternal grandparents were born before immigrating to the U.S. about 100 years ago.

monday morning mayhem... for real -

Kent Jones, who appears regularly on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC has discovered exactly what has become of this country; how it has become the raucous, undemocratic mess it is.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

the leap is easy to this conclusion...

newest member of the Bugatti family...

the
Sang Bleu

Bugatti Veyron Gran Sport
Sang Bleu
(Blue Blood)

you can check out more photos at Autoblog.


beautiful, just beautiful...

if we live in a mad world...

as the wingnuts so gleefully like to exclaim, my question is

who made it that way?

just asking...

mayhem...

i come back from Honduras and i have to catch up on the total mayhem about the healthcare proposal(s)...

the biggest issue seems to be on the public option.

hellllloooooooo...

we already have a public option. anyone who goes to an emergency must be cared for! who pays for that? not the government. WE do with the insurance premiums and hospital costs that are passed on to us.

so, why not take and lessen our premiums and putting them into a large national insurance fund?

as far as the Medicare bozos, they are screaming "Don't take away my Medicare." but they are the ones who scream the loudest ABOUT Medicare. are they blowing it out their mouths or their asses?

i heard one person at the riots called town meetings saying, "Read the Bill. Read the Bill." however, having read parts of the bill(s) in the short time i've been back, it's obvious who had NOT been reading the bill(s) - the idiot screaming "Read the Bill!" he was reading from talking points sent out by the Glen Becks of the country who not just twist the truth but fog them up and incite fear and by saying that Obama is going to decide when you will die.

i think the insurance companies and HMO's in particular have been doing a good job about deciding life and death for quite a long time now. and making money from it.

and those twitters by the #1 twit in the world - sarah palin? it's amazing that she doesn't stab herself in the back of her throat with her spiked heels when she puts both of her feet in her mouth because she doesn't know how to think. i believe she's just barely behind Michelle Bachman from MN for the dumbest broad in the world title. trust me, broad is a compliment for these two women. if i were a woman, i'd be insulted if someone referred to them as women. they're not even one of the girls.

and my personal opinion about all of this? IT'S ALL ABOUT RACE. if Obama was totally white, it wouldn't be as bad as it is. the one's doing the loudest screaming are old white men with their women-folk following in the love, honor and OBEY oath they still hold to. they all watch Fox and are dittoheads.

if the heat weren't so bad this year down in Honduras because they've had very little rain during this rainy season, i'd go back. i loved working with the kids in the schools for the last week.

at least i'm only here for a couple of weeks. i'm off to Egypt, Greece and Italy at the end of the month for three weeks.

maybe the nutters will implode while i'm gone?

nahhhhhhhhh...