Congratulations, Harry!

I am glad Harry Reid won his bid for reelection. He always reminds me a little of that cartoon character, Droopy.

I must admit though, I  am a little disappointed that we won't have Sharron Angle to kick around any more. She probably has some illegal immigrants cleaning up her campaign headquarters this morning.

Harry, you are going to be the first line of defense in whatever cockamamie schemes the Republican run House is going to come up with; school vouchers, overturning health care, White House investigations. Good luck, Harry. We are relying on you.

Oh brother are we in trouble....

I Won't Watch, Don't Ask Me

I can't bear the thought of watching election coverage tonight. Thank goodness I have Dancing With the Stars recorded. 

I used to really like election night coverage but I just can't take it any more.

When I went to vote today I had no idea what any of the candidates stood for. I only know what the opposing candidate accused them of being.

I guess I could watch on Comedy Central.

At some point isn't Jon Stewart going to have to come out of the closet  and admit he is more than a comedian? He is a political analyst. Thank goodness. Someone has to have some sense about the whole thing.

The same pundits that declared the Republican party dead. two years ago will declare the Democrats terminally ill tonight. Doesn't anyone, anywhere have any foresight?

I can't watch tonight because someone (it's usually James Carville) will declare, "The American people have spoken. They are always very wise."

What????? If they were would Sharron Angle be on a ticket anywhere except the ballot to elect representatives to the patient advisory board at Bellevue?

Would any campaign manager anywhere have to suggest to a candidate, "I think we should go with the "I am not a witch ad?."

I was slow, very slow to get on board the Barack Obama campaign wagon in 2008. I probably would never have gotten on it had McCain not decided to "spice up" things in his campaign by choosing that little spitfire from Alaska.

I wanted Hillary to win. I still think it would have been a lot more interesting to have the first woman president than the first half-black one.

Hillary has no chance of ever becoming President now. She has had way too many bad hair days on her journeys as Secretary of State. Can you imagine the pictures her opponents would post of her now in campaign ads if she did decide to run? I am sure it was Michelle's idea to send Hillary globe trotting.

Once I finally resigned myself to the fact Bill would not be the first First Gentleman, (Clearly he would have had trouble in this role) I backed Obama. But even as I found myself caught up in the glow of that election night rally in Chicago. (Where Michelle wore that striking red and black dress) I knew that we don't raise people up that high in this country not to knock them down. And if Obama rose that far that fast clearly the fall would be devastating. It may come tonight.

I don't want to watch. It's too painful You see, I am that wise American that the pundits talk about. I just wish I could multiply myself on election day. (If I lived in Chicago perhaps someone would do it for me)

If it had been up to me Ford would have won election in his own right....

We would never have had Carter....

He would never have been defeated by Ronald Reagan....

George H. W. Bush would never have succeeded him....

Clinton would not have been able to run on the weakened economy in '92...

He would never have named Gore as his running mate....

Gore would not have lost to George W.....as a result....

We would have never heard of global warming.

I have no idea who would have followed Ford. Probably Betty. She was pretty darn popular. And even she admitted she was high on pills and liquor most of the time.
Which explains why the press found her so refreshing and entertaining.

Isn't that what we really need in this country? Refreshment? Entertainment? Maybe all those Nevadans voting for Sharron Angle are just tired of that sad sack look on Harry Reid's face.

You should have listened to me in '76, America when you had the chance.

A Beautiful Day in Washington

I was hoping that the beautiful October weather we had here in Sparta would spread as far as Washington for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear yesterday and it was. When I first started watching the coverage they weren't showing a wide shot of the crowd but when they finally did it was clear the size was impressive. The reports this morning are anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000. With so many news organizations banning their workers from attending that makes it even more remarkable since we know the media is filled with liberals.

I didn't know  how Jon Stewart was going to pull the rally off but he did. The music was great. Most of the bits worked well. At times it was like listening to one of those spots on Sesame Street where they try to teach kids how to get along. Unfortunately that seems to be a lesson the nation (or at least the media) needs to be reminded of.

I was really impressed with the signage at the rally as well. Sharing some of my favorites here.

This sign isn't the most profound but it sure was pretty. I was impressed with how well behaved everyone seemed. I hate crowds so I'm sure I would not have been as cheerful as most people there but then again it was free.

I think this was my favorite sign of the day. He could have gotten even more points if it had been lettered more carefully. This guy just impresses me by his good nature. It's nice to see a mellow demonstration.

I have to admire this person. I am not sure I could carry this sign in good faith but it is a goal worth aspiring to.

In the spirit of the rally I would have to respectfully disagree with her. I don't find anything funny about
Fox, not even when Glenn is wearing his clown suit.

I love the fine print on this one. (click to enlarge)  And for a jacker he sure has good good computer graphic skills (or whatever he used to create this) Very professional looking.

What a refreshing point of view. Points off for spacing and sizing though.

This pretty much sums up the tone of the rally. I kept expecting them to bring out Rodney King. Can't we all just get along? I think this rally proved that nice can make good TV too.



Now Vote! Even if you disagree with me. Despite my recent misgivings about James Madison our Constitution works pretty well. Got to love that free speech thing even if when we disagree with someone's point of view. I am talking to you, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Only Jon Stewart Can Save Us Now

A couple months ago on this blog I bemoaned the fact that Glen Beck held a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He even had the audacity to hold it on the anniversary of Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech.

Today Jon Stewart is holding a rally to restore sanity to America. I am ashamed of myself for not being there so I am doing the logical thing and blaming Larry for not taking me.

Many people are now questioning whether a comedian should be holding such  a rally. My response to that is this: He wouldn't have to if the news outlets would have been doing there job for the last ten years.

Since the advent of Fox News we can no longer trust any of the other news broadcasters to report for us. As soon as a news organization, any news organization attempts to cover both sides of an issue Fox News complains loud and long that they are biased. In the tradition of Ronald Reagan, Fox has repeated their lies so loudly and so long that a frigthening number of people in this country have started to believe them.

News networks like MSNBC now feel that if they don't have a slant on the news they can't compete. Poor CNN, who started the whole 24 hour news network thing in the first place is becoming a dinosaur in their attempt to remain neutral.

I don't think Fox or MSNBC should be prohibited from broadcasting their opinions. But I don't believe they should be allowed to call themselves news channels. They ought to at least be honesst enough call themselves opinion channels. I doubt anyone would watch.

Jon Stewart has now become the person that an entire generation of Americans turn to for their news. Being a dinosaur myself I still watch a network news broadcast daily but I have to rely on Stewart to do what they won't: expose the idiocy of so much of what is taken at face value by the networks.

I think he is brilliant.

The President appeared on his show this week and Stewart held him to task for promising a lot more than he has delivered in the past 18 months. The Octomom accomplished a lot more in nine.


Frankly, I am getting tired of the President and his followers' time excuse, "I've only been in office 100 days...six months...12 months... 18 months........"

Should we blame the Republicans for there obstruction and failure to compromise? Sure, but blame the Democrats too for not having the guts to do what the American people put them in power to do two years ago.

I haven't seen one Democrat respond to ads attacking health care reform or the stimulus package respond by standing up for the laws they voted for. No wonder they are told to "man up"  This is surely one of the most blatantly sexist phrases I have ever heard. John Wayne is dead, people. There are no more men on the planet. Unless you count Rosie O'Donnell.

So we need Jon Stewart to hold a big giant mirror up to ourselves on The Mall this weekend. Let's hope we have the courage to look at ourselves honestly in it and start expecting more from ourselves and our news organizations.

Kudos for Christine

I read with great pleasure a recent NY Times review of my good friend, Chrstine Brewer's concert in for The New York City Opera. The only negative thing they had to say was that they don't get to hear her often enough. Something tells me The powers that be in New York will set that to rights soon enough.

Congratulations, Christine. It's good to know you are also doing show tunes now. Can country gospel be that far behind? They'd never believe me if I told them we used to do a mean version of "Turn Your Radio On"

The link to the article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/arts/music/30brewer.html?ref=arts

It is worth a read especially for those of you who know her.

Bitter Musings on Halloween (reposting)

I admit it. I am bitter. I don't understand when Halloween became a major holiday. Maybe it's because as a kid when all the other kids were traipsing all over town gathering huge amounts of candy I was being driven in my car by my parents to just a few houses of people we knew. We arrived home with a nice amount of candy but not the huge bag fulls I imagined my friends with parents who didn't care about their safety as much as mine did received.

At least we never had to hunt for razor blades in our apples. I always threw them out anyway. I have a few core principles I live by. One of them is: FRUIT IS NOT DESSERT! And it sure as heck isn't a treat either.


Halloween used to be strictly for kids. Lately more and more adults seem to relish this holiday. Personally I think they just want another occasion to drink after baseball season is over. Why? If you are an adult and you want a drink, drink. There is no reason to go to the trouble of dressing up to do it.

I guess I have been asked to wear too many strange outfits on stage. I don't understand why adults want to dress up. If you want to wear funny clothes audition for a show, spend weeks in rehearsals and perform. At least then there would be a point to you wearing a silly outfit. (There are other reasons to dress up I suppose but I don't want this to be one of those kinky sex blogs.)

The Halloween interests must have gotten a better PR man than they had when I was a kid. It seems to have become a major event now. I should be grateful I suppose otherwise the stores would already be overrun with Christmas decor.

I love people who decorate the outside of their homes for Christmas. I am much too lazy to ever do this of course. But lately I see people doing the same thing at Halloween with purple and orange lights, giant spider webs  and those awful huge nylon blow-up characters.

 Don't people realize this is the latest communist plot? Those nylon characters are all made in China after all. Soon Americans will have spent so much money on them that they will all have to file for bankruptcy, leaving the Chinese to scoop up huge amounts of real estate all over the country. I beg you if you don't want to eat chow mien the rest of your life stop investing in these characters.

I guess I would like Halloween more if there were better songs for it. The only one that comes to mind is Monster Mash and I never really understood it's appeal.

Hallmark came out with a Halloween song book a few years ago but they substituted new words to Christmas tunes. I never liked that idea much. Whatever words I hear to a tune the first time I hear it are the words I expect to hear every time. If you can't come up with your own tune, don't write a song! (This includes you Elton John. If you had really loved Lady Di you wouldn't have recycled your Marilyn Monroe song at her funeral.)

And please! While I am on the subject would someone please stop writing new verses to Amazing Grace? Any song with more than three verses is repugnant. You can imagine how I feel about the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Let's get back to traditional values this Halloween. If you are an adult, celebrate the old fashioned way this year by sitting at home waiting for your neighbor children to show up asking for candy. The only acceptable decoration is a jack-o-lantern outside your door. I am not talking about one of those polystyrene models or whatever carcinogenic material that it is I see in Hobby Lobby.

Remember none of those decorations is made in America. If you  love America you will carve your own pumpkin this year.

Rand Paul Supporter Steps on Woman's Head

Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Later the guy that stepped on her head expected an apology from her.

That's about as likely as Sharron Angle sending flowers to Joy Behar.

What? She did?

I have to say I love you, Joy for being as outspoken as the Democratic candidates should be themselves and yes, Sharron Angle is reprehensible.

Joy donated the flowers to a local children's ward. Superior move.

Note to Taylor Swift: Put on a T-shirt or a Meat Dress

I really don't know who you are, Taylor but you are starting to irritate me. Like Justin Bieber you are way too young to have all this success. I am sure there are thousands of people who have been hanging around Nashville for years trying to catch a break who haven't made it. But somehow the fickle finger of fate or some savvy producer singled you out for success.

Yes, we know you look great on the red carpet. And I am sure the designers all clamor for you to wear one of their dresses. But just once I would like to see you looking grungy. Slap on a a t-shirt or a meat dress. I would love to see if you could pull off that look. And while your at it lend one of your pretty little frocks to Lady Gaga. I bet she could knock one of your looks out of the park (that is if anyone would recognize her wearing something normal).

Last night you appeared on Letterman and like he always acts around young women he was going googly eyed while you moaned about how John Mayer treated you badly. Hello!!! He's John Mayer. How did you expect him to treat you? And I can assure you that if things didn't go well between you and Taylor Lautner it had to be your fault.

I would tell you to enjoy the ride because someday your looks will fade but that isn't very likely. Look at Cher. She defies mortality. At least her face does and Bob Mackie can still shove her into one of those body hugging outfits of his. I don't even want to know what kind of industrial strength netting they have to use to hoist her into one of those things any more. By the time you are her age no telling what kind of death defying beauty secrets they will come up with.


I guess we are going to have to get used to seeing you looking beautiful on the red carpet for years. Just watch out for Joan Rivers. Once false move and she'll be serving you up for dinner on Fashion Police.

Maybe James Madison wasn't so Bright After all

I used to admire James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution." But do we really need elections every two years the way he planned?

He may have lived at the time of the original tea party but why didn't he foresee the bunch of nut jobs running around today that have taken on that mantle?

Maybe it's because I have too much free time on my hands any more but I have been subjected to way too many political ads this year. I keep telling myself that it will all be over in a week but with the advent of cable news we seem to be in an election cycle that never ends.

I wish James Madison would have had the foresight to realize that someday TV would be invented and we would be barraged not only by ads for months leading up to the election but by analysis. Holding elections every two years seems excessive to me. It just gives Wolf Blitzer an excuse to analyze trends leading up to the election.

I won't be able to breathe a sigh of relief even after next Tuesday is over because sometime in the middle of the evening, while we are waiting for votes from Anchorage to come in, they will start predicting who will be running in the Republican and Democrataic Presidential primaries in 2012. Thank goodness Glee is on on Tuesday nights. It will give me something to watch instead. And there is no way I am giving up The Good Wife even for Anderson Cooper.

I am trying not to become distraught at the idea that The Democrats will lose control over one or both houses although I really don't know why. They seem to have the habit of working against themselves even when they do get the majority. Why is it that when Republicans have a slim majority in each house they can't find one member to break ranks on partisan issues but when the Democrats are in control (and I use that term lightly) there are always a few of their members that are more concerned with self preservation than their party's agenda?



And couldn't they have found someone a little less abrasive and polarizing than Nancy Pelosi to elect Speaker of the House? Someone like Howard Stern?

 Maybe it is a rule. The Speaker of the House has to be unpopular with everyone except their peers. The Republicans gave us Newt Gingrich for heaven's sake. And now they have John Boehner waiting in the wings. Someone please lend him a sequined jacket. He already has the orange tan required to appear on Dancing With the Stars.

Pelosi and Boehner cannot possibly be that popular even among their peers. They must just be the members of Congress that have the most dirt on everyone else.

I do sometimes feel that government works best when neither party controls both Congress and the White House. That way only the important stuff, the stuff everyone can agree on gets done. Maybe we should just convene Congress during emergencies. We could save a lot of money.

The economy is in the tank but somehow millions of people had money to donate billions to run campaign ads this year. Couldn't we have used a little of that on new textbooks somewhere?

If the Democrats do lose next week it is their own fault. They have run a spineless campaign so far, letting the right wing label health care Obamacare and failing to remind voters that the stimulus kept us from a depression.

The Republicans have Fox News on their side. The Democrats are forced to rely on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to get their side of the story out. In retrospect I guess that is fair. It is hard to tell which is the bigger joke, Comedy Central or Fox News.

The Democrats always seem to be running scared even when they are in power. They need to remember a phrase that worked pretty well for them in the past; "We have nothing to fear but fear itself.".......well that and Wolf Blitzer.

The End of Civilization as we Know it

Forget Madonna, The Situation, Snooky or even that Marxist-Socialist-Nazi loving Barack Obama.The end of civilization as we know it is upon us. And who is leading us down this path if not Madonna, Lady Gaga or  their ilk? None other than the sweet unassuming Betty Crocker smiling down at you from the corner of that cake mix box.

Who would have suspected when she introduced her first cake mix in 1947 that her real goal was the end of life as we know it? Weren't we destinded to slave away in a kitchen if we wanted to eat? I am sure there is something about it in Genesis.


Want to make some fudge this upcoming  holiday season? Forget about buying the ingredients. Someone has packaged them all for you and put them in a kit. Who do people think they are these days? Martha Stewart? She may be rich enough to hire someone to measure out all her ingredients but average people like me aren't so why should we expect to have everything premeasured for us?

This kit isn't going to produce the huge batches of fudge that my mother whipped up during the holiday season. You are only going to get enough fudge to fill a nine inch square pan. That won't be enough to feed you for breakfast all week the way my mom's batches did.

Yes, I got fudge for breakfast but only throughout December when my mom made batch after batch of fudge for the entire neighborhood. It was healthy compared to the Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies I had for breakfast the other eleven months of the year. We always had a big glass of milk with it too; whole milk, none of that two percent, one per cent or heaven forbid half percent stuff. Can you imagine the poor emaciated cow that produces that inferior product?

I thank God every day that I had a mother that did not care about my daily sugar or saturated fat intake. Besides it is a well known fact that fat did not become saturated until the late 70s when the health nuts took over.

Pie crusts? No way am I rolling out my own. I remember my mom rolling out her pie dough two or three times before she got the consistency she wanted. Mine is perfect every time thanks to the Pillsbury Dough Boy. And I don't have any of that pesky flour on my shirt later.


I can't remember the last time I mixed up my own batch of sugar or chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I always reshape the dough so the tale-tale corners of the squares of dough are nowhere to be seen after baking. I can spot the tiny little square peaks they leave and it makes me feel like a fraud so I roll the dough around in my hand before I place the dough on the baking sheet. 

I do have my standards and there is one product I refuse to buy, Shake and pour pancake mix. How lazy do you have to be to open a box of complete pancake mix, measure out a cup of water and stir?

The real waste is the wasteful little plastic bottle it is packaged in. Could we possibly leave a larger carbon footprint?

My grandmother would be appalled. She raised kids during the Depression. When Reynolds Wrap was introduced she bought one box and  never had to buy another as far as anyone knew because she just kept reusing the same pieces until the day she died. Ralph Nader could have learned a lot from her.

I figure in fifteen years no one will be able to make anything themselves. The competition on Top Chef will be reduced to seeing which contestant can open packaging the quickest. Martha Stewart, Paula Dean and Rachel Ray will be reduced to just having their viewers watch them shop for ready made goods. This is where Martha is going to have the edge on her competition. After the shopping episode is over she will still be able to film specials showing her arranging her purchases meticulously on trays. This will all be done after one of her underlings opens the packages for her of course.

Autumn Color

The autumn colors have been a little subdued this year. I can't complain since the temperatures have been really nice and so far we haven't had a whole lot of rain. So I am going to post a few pictures I took last year.

I am so glad to live in a region where I get to experience a big difference in the seasons. Watching the seasons change gives a lazy retiree like myself a sense of accomplishment.

I must admit however that the older I get the less I appreciate winter. A perfect winter would last about three weeks.

I have been promising myself to paint this shed for years. I even started scraping the old paint off one summer. After seeing it against the color of my sugar maple trees last fall I kind of lost the desire to paint it.

Note to Juan Williams: Unlike Fox, NPR is Looking for Intelligent Talk

Maybe all the folks on both sides of the political spectrum that are outraged over Juan Williams firings need to stop and consider this; it wasn't that his remarks were politically incorrect. They were just just plain stupid.

My local NPR station's motto is, "The place for in-depth news and intelligent talk."

When you tell Bill O'Reilly and his audience that you are afraid when you see Muslims dressed in traditional Muslim clothing get on a plane you have pretty much stopped making anything remotely related to intelligent talk.

It's the muslims that aren't in traditional garb that you have to worry about, Juan. They will probably be wearing a conservative navy blue suit to throw off security.


The fact that you would even appear on Fox News is grounds for being fired from any real news organization in my opinion. Even if you go on there to debate they aren't going to let you get away with saying anything that doesn't fit  the talking points of the day. We have all seen them talk over anyone trying to make sense. It's part of there audition process.

Where do you think Gloria Steinem has been all these years? They kidnapped her and keep her in a closet. They only let her out during  audtions, screaming for release. If you can't yell over her you don't make the cut.


I heard Whoopi defend you on The View, claiming that you were just stating a personal fear. But if your fear is as unjustified as this you might want to keep it secret until you see your therapist.


Do people who went to Catholic school become frightened when they see the few remaining nuns that still wear habits board a plane? As long as their homework is finished they have nothing to fear.

Do anorexics get jittery when they see flight attendants passing out those tiny bags of pretzels or nuts? Probably. But they just cinch in their seat belts until they can feel it come to rest against their backbone and buck up!

We all have our fears on a plane these days. When the lady with the six month old twins comes down the aisle we all wait anxiously until she has moved several rows behind us.

I hear Fox has picked you up already. I bet you were already on pretty shaky ground at NPR before this entire episode occured.

Congratulations! Unfortunately you are going to have a lot more to fear than traditionally dressed Muslims. I hear Ann Coulter isn't nearly as nice as she seems on air.