stupormarkets

i frequent the demoula's on broadway, popularly referred to as the "ghetto basket" by more people than with which the store chain might be comfortable to realize. (as in, being introduced to the mother of a neighbor, and having her remark upon my having remarked about just having walked back from the grocery store, "you walk to the ghetto basket"?). it's my go-to neighborhood place for orange juice and butter, two staples not commonly stocked in your average asian grocery, where i get a lot of my other stuff that others who are not quite so in-the-know continue to pay more than they need at your average round-eye supermarket. (yeah, that's racist, i know, but you know your average southeast asian store clerk has to be thinking something like that when this clueless guy in khaki shorts, rock and roll t-shirt and sandals keeps asking the same questions every week about which one of the inscrutible bottles of non-descript brown liquid is the fish paste he wants, which would be like, i'm sure, having some old guy from phnom penh keep asking you about ketchup every time you see him, but lets not digress).

anyway, it was my birthday last weekend, and someone very near and dear to me who understands such things offered to cook me up a giant batch of one of the most perfect foods on the entire planet to celebrate. mais oui!!! absolument!!! so we trundled into my automobile, (for who wouldn't offer someone who prefers not to drive a ride to drive to get the ingredients for one of the most perfect foods on the entire planet), and headed on over to the ghetto basket for some grocery love.

anarchy.

anarchy and chaos.

it's the day before the hurricane, and the demoula's parking lot is packed full, the overflow spots we like to steal along the city pool parking area are all full, and there are dozens more jalopy's and poorly maintained ford tauri circling the area like buzzards waiting for fresh parking meat. the walkways are jammed with people with jammed shopping carts, and it's pretty clear that entering that maelstrom was an investment of time, patience and possibly property, life and limb, that only the most fully committed and desperate among us would calculate to make. and, this time, instead of being on foot, i'm in my fully air-conditioned automobile, with premium sound system (thanks, car-risma!) and complete with travel companionship and conversation. so, off to hannafords!!! of course we could have chosen another demoulas, and i do more frequently than not, either down in chelmsford, or up in hudson, nh when i'm up that way scoring beer at sam's club. but it was my birthday, and if you've never experienced the produce, deli and other specialty sections of a hannafords supermarket, you haven't yet seen what you're missing. why shouldn't we go there and pick up some goodies for the birthday boy. so it's off to rogers street with a happy whistle on our lips and more than a little saliva brewing to keep it wet.

promising enough.

and then...

to her credit, my personal chef suggested on the way that we may be disappointed at hannafords, but what does the grocery novice understand about such things? if they carry it at the ghetto basket, where they carry so very little, (it's one of the most peculiarly-stocked demoulas you'll ever visit, with so many items ignored that you or i or anyone else raised on a real grocery store would scratch our heads not to find), why wouldn't they carry it at one of the best-provisioned hypermarkets around? because, dear readers, it's pork belly, and pork belly, as was pointed out by my personal chef, is "poor people food".

???

i was raised on the offal (i've often mused on the word's homonym as it was prepared by my cooking-impaired grandmother, not to be confused with my cooking-savant grandmother on the other side) of farmer's market butchery, and knew and know tripe, sweetbreads, brain, kidneys, and all manner of other animal innards that most people, i know, retch just a little to even think about. yes, a lot of it is as bad and worse than you imagine, (especially when prepared boiled with cabbage, which seemed to be about the only way my cooking-impaired grandmother knew how to do it), but i'm here to tell you that, properly prepared, beef tongue is one of the most savory cuts on the animal, (and go to phien's kitchen for theirs if you want one superlative and outstanding example), and pork belly stands alone as the sine qua non of prepared meats. yeah, i know, you've been told by the omaha people that it's filet mignon, but, seriously, is there anything you know that's better tasting than bacon, and if they're slabbing off huge chunks of it and calling it pork belly, why wouldn't you want them to break you off a giant piece? seriously--they cure stuff from sheep, cows, chickens, goats, turkeys and almost everything else that walks or crawls upon the earth and call it "whatever-bacon", but only the pig-based variety needs no qualifier at all--"bacon" is exactly what you know it is. and it's goo-o-o-ood.

so, back to the butcher counter at hannaford's. pork belly. do you have any pork belly. "no, i checked with my manager, we're out of it right now", and with the look that tells you that "right now" means "all the time", and "nobody asks for that here--what are you, some kind of poor person?" it's exactly to me like the old stories they tell of lobsters washing up all over the beaches of new england in colonial days, mixed in with the seaweed like so many party favors, yet being tossed into the hole for fertilizer when planting other stuff because only the poor and desperate would actually boil 'em up or roast them for food.

people are crazy.

we drove to the demoula's on rogers street and laid in about ten pounds of the magic stuff, and, good thing, because almost double the actually invited number of folks crashed the little dinner party that was being planned so i could enjoy a sit-down plateful of all my favorite stuff, and we had to send out for a tray full of boneless wings from wings over lowell (we went with the "concorde" with "cruising altitude" for heat) to keep the hordes satisfied so there's actually be enough of stuff to go around. (who does that--crashes a dinner party and doesn't even bring food?) the USDA defines "bacon" as "the cured belly of a swine carcass", and i would not have hesitated to remind everyone of the legal definition phrasing if it came right down to it, but, as it stood, "pork belly" was enough to scare away enough of the philistines so that i could get a good pile of the stuff, though today i'm rueing the lack of leftovers and thinking that, next year, i'm going to be much clearer with the invitees about the privilege they're being offered, and how important it will be to respect that.

compliments to the chef, and a great big raspberry to the pretentious folks at hannafords who just don't get it.

why they call it a band

i had the privilege of catching the frank morey band at the back page last night, and was thoroughly entertained, enthralled, and blown away by how simply amazing these musicians are. youtube clips and various official and unofficially recordings cannot do this ensemble justice, and even in the years since i first saw frank here in lowell at sangria's it's been taken to an entirely new level.

confusions of frank's voice with tom waits, and the potential similarities of certain material have tended to induce casual listeners to think they're getting it, but i can't stress enough how deep the musicianship and ENSEMBLE runs through these songs, and how it's oh so much more than that. i've heard scott pittman play drums on many occasions, but it's here, in this format, with these players, that i've really heard the genius in such stark and jaw-dropping terms. it can't help but be concluded that it's in those incredibly and all-at-once subtle, complex, compelling and infectuous rhythms that the soul and essence of the music is born, except, you then can't help but notice how the rhythm SECTION is so tight, and that matt murphy is not only keeping up, but he's putting meat and sinew to the bones without which the frame could not alone stand. and then you realize the songs in such a direct and elemental way, are frank's above all. the voice and the playing is of an era that is its own, and it gets the room moving and feeling and swaying o each lilt and growl that only happens in the most magical of musical circumstances.

the room was electric. maybe it's because so many players, songwriters, musicians and artists were among the crowd that they could recognize the depth and emotion on display. maybe it's just because it was THAT GOOD, and no one in the presence of such could help but be carried away and fully into it.

this one i'm going to remember for a long, long time.

why do some americans insist on characterizing concern as discriminatory?

over at the dick howe blog, paul marion links a concerned opinion by john lewis in the new york times that current voter ID initiatives are to be thought comparable to supporting poll taxes. paul's take is that some americans don't want other americans to vote.

fair enough.

in the comments, to my suggestion that voter fraud requires as much attention as voter disenfranchisement, dick howe defensively suggests that he knows of no incidents of fraud warranting concern. though i replied in the comments there with some examples, i thought i might list those here, and open up the discussion on how to regard both points of view, and protect both the integrity of ballots currently being cast, as well as address the forces that might deny others the right to cast their own.

my comments:

don’t misunderstand my point. i am NOT for burdensome, discriminatory or ill-conceived voting standards that would deny any citizen the fair right to vote.

however, to dick’s request for examples, consider the april 2011 conviction of lessadolla sowers for fraudulent voting in the 2007 democratic primary election. (http://www.tunicatimes.com/index.php?view=article&id=1176). peter roff writes about the subject in greater detail in this US news & world report opinion piece from just a few weeks ago: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2011/07/29/despite-what-democrats-claim-voter-fraud-is-real.

i agree with peter roff, and i believe claiming this isn’t a real issue is naive. there’s more in the current headlines:

voter fraud against the potential first black city councilman in waller, TX, is being investigated by the DOJ. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Voter-fraud-allegations-stir-Waller-controversy-2122602.php.

Troy, NY city clerk William McInerney pleaded guilty this week to knowingly submitting fraudulent absentee ballots, and at least two sitting politicians have been indicted as part of the case. http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S2257559.shtml?cat=300

mother jones even points out potential voter fraud in mitt romney’s ballot in favor of scott brown: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/did-mitt-romney-commit-voter-fraud

the lightning rod, of course is the 64,000 possible cases of voter fraud being investigated in new mexico: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64000-cases-possible-voter-fraud-being-i

it’s a difficult issue, which is why i suggest the focus should be on means to enfranchise those groups currently underrepresented in our elections. having a simple, consistent and fair means of identifying voters is just one piece of that.

more to love about lowell

yes, i've poked fun at the frequently less-than-professional editing at the local paper of record--and stand by all of it--but that only makes it all the more remarkable when reporters are able to produce such timely, accurate, balanced and compelling stories as robert mills has produced for this morning's paper.

you saw a bit of my perspective on the licensing commission meeting yesterday, but rob has done it far better, and far more professionally, than i or apparently anyone else can. if you haven't already seen today's sun, grab yourself a copy and dig into the page three top story--it's one of the best pieces about and for the city that i've read in a long, long time. ignore the fact that there's a pointless loco-emotive obama-bashing feature on the far left, wasting still more column inches and newspaper resources on absolutely worthless bloviating, and look past the very attractive feature story on the 4H fair in westford, soon to be hurricaned out this weekend, and, most importantly, completely ignore the idiotically sensationalist-oriented headline the editor(s) chose to headline the piece. "flare"? yeah, attendees were very much emotionally invested in the success of the meeting and didn't mind to show it, but as i hope i was able to convey yesterday, the lasting impression from the peanut gallery was one of shared goals and common interest, not the occasional rhetorical stridency of the speakers. (well, the one bit when the license commissioner couldn't name the average price of beer in a bar did get me a bit distracted, but i would prefer not to digress, even though it still makes me chuckle).

get yourself a look at rob's piece. (no links to a pay site from here, sorry, but you can get it online as well as printed as i do). he's done a remarkable job, and i'm finding his reputation with me has drifted into lisa redmond territory, which is the highest journalistic praise i have to offer here or anywhere else for that matter. it's rare these days that a reporter is as fairly balanced, sensitive to the actual points being offered from all sides, and presenting the story in a way that everyone, from all sides, as well as the middle, can understand the details. i've heard first-hand from bar owners, neighborhood association members and police that he's done a great job, even with the parts that came from all the other sources in addition to their own.

hats off to rob, and i'm going to buy that man a beer at my next available opportunity to say "thanks", and to make sure he knows how much the community owes to his hard, professional and excellent work.

ok, THAT was funny

spent an hour or two downtown today at the licensing board meeting and came away impressed at how much people with the same concerns like to argue with each other. for example, as is, i expect, a regular topic for discussion at these 3-in-the-afternoon soirees, we got to hear people debating whether it's any less of a hardship for a liquor commissioner to leave work early each second thursday to make the meetings, compared to general citizens with an occasional interest in what's being discussed, and why it should be that the commission executive secretary doesn't receive nearly as many emails from such folks about the actual issues about which they're concerned, as opposed to complaints at meetings about the standing time for such. (helpful hint to those concerned: write it up, and send it in to the commission's executive secretary, ryan winn, at rwynn@ci.lowell.ma.us, and ask for your point to be considered by the commissioners).

but that's by no means the funny part: line of the day was offered by the commission meeting chair, walter bayliss, who had to ask what the going rate for a beer might be these days--supposing if it might be as much as two dollars. (really, walter?!?, but, yeah, ok, the pbr drafts at furey's are a buck fifty and it's probably not as funny as it struck me when he said it, but, yeah, i laughed anyway).

the major portion of the meeting was in RE the police superintendant's downtown neighborhood crime stats, that he came to offer in request for better cooperation in addressing what he believed were significant issues with the liquor establishments downtown. considering the recent flurry of injury, (e.g. a person had teeth knocked out in a brawl, policemen have been assaulted, etc.), this is not an unreasonable point, even though we can also all agree that occasions of women being arrested naked in public (that's right, more than one!) are a bit more amusing than they are alarming from a public safety point of view. overall, a point for the superintendent, and let me say that i thought the frustration pointed in his direction about the lawlessness from commissioners (well, one commissioner in particular, right, walter?) was disrespectful to the intent of his raising the issue, and to his difficult position with an under-staffed force with a lot more going on in town than just late night weekend rowdies. (perhaps point two for the superintendent).

on the other hand, the commission was in a bit of pique at the crime stats being covered in the press without having been previously shared with them for their edification (point to the commission) though the explanation that they had been shared with the city council first, which caused the publicity, hadn't been intended as a slight to the commission, was fairly made as well. (half a point to the superintendent for it not being entirely his fault, though half a point deducted for not knowing better how city publicity works and/or having released the info anyway). the bar owners singled out in the report had their justifiable concerns that stats were first of all inflated by domestic incidents at the riverview towers, and second of all highly subjective in the way that they penalized an establishment for calling in a neighborhood problem (e.g. denying entrance to a previously intoxicated person, or phoning in about vandals in a neighboring space) and ostensibly exhonerated others for a lack of attribution, when, for example, i can speak firsthand, they refused to call in a police report for a patron being passed out drunk on a neighboring apartment entrance, forcing residents there to do the calling themselves, which, of course, wasn't logged as related to that establishment even though it ought to have been. this particular incident occurred outside the establishment offered by the superintendent as one of the "good establishments", so deduct a point from his running total. (i have it on good authority, i.e. a relative of the officer in question, that a policeman was also assaulted at that particular establishment, making it especially hard to understand why the superintendent wouldn't have known before claiming a clean sheet for them, but i don't want to presume intent when it could just be a lack of good information).

which brings me to my actual point: stats are dangerous when the effort is not made to better understand them. the police superintendent knows that things can be dodgy downtown, and he'd like the license commission to be more active in assisting him to police it. the license commission wants there to be good order in and around the establishments over which they regulate, and they'd like the police to be more active in cracking down, too. but the stats are questionable, so they end up arguing data and not substance.

ironic. and unfortunate.

two sides, both interested in the same thing, arguing over it anyway, and stymied by the very thing that ought to make it easier for them.

my two cents? the establishments that are chronic offenders, like the one with gunshots going off in their parking lot on top of coincidental liquor violations, need to be squeezed from both sides. well, the cops are indeed busting the miscreants, but the license commission isn't squeezing the establishment owners and management from the other side for their complicity, and it would seem that such needs to be improved. however, other establishments are working with detail officers and neighbors to do things like deny entrance to intoxicated people and call in other neighborhood disturbances, and the commission is rightly declining to penalize them for that, and i think the cops are somewhat distracted, just a little bit, by their occasionally faultily-based statistics, and they need to pause and consider the "cried wolf" effect of making cases out of everything. there are indeed problems, so why can't everyone focus on the same things and get something done?

i can tell you that one particular establishment downtown has been caught by the police with a prodigious number of underage drinkers on premises on multiple occasions, but nothing has ever been done by the commission to address it. maybe the police reports weren't clear. (yet another reason not to clutter them with quantity). as a downtown resident, i'd surely like for there to be consequences to such things.

i think i'm going to write an email to secretary wynn...

2nd amendment ukulele chic

you're looking at a "bunny ear rear bag" from protektor model in galeton, pa, the "original source of sandbag rifle rests", and "still the best".

you're also looking at a finely crafted luthier's tool for resting the necks of various stringed instruments for re-stringing, re-fretting, re-cleaning, etc., and if you don't believe me, check out this instructional video on how to change the strings on a kala u-bass. (i'm guessing ted nugent has something similar in his basement...)

it's not often that you get to mix your metaphors so easily at home--and i'm very much looking forward to delivery!

if you hadn't noticed...

if you hadn't noticed, you might want to take yet another peek at the lineups scheduled for thursday nights at ole on merrimack street in downtown lowell. andy kaknes has a knack for lining up the best of lowell and elsewhere's best, and as much as last week's gumbo diablo was an ear-opening treat, this week's lineup, if anything, only takes it higher.

assembled by chad verbeeck of rockspring if the legends are to be believed, "lost at the altar" puts chad's dream lineup of musicians into an ensemble for his wedding this fall, and they're warming up for the occasion by booking themselves into ole for this week's one-of-a-kind show of shows. opened for by tim kochanski of cottonmouth, who lowellian music enthusiasts will recall from the kick-ass set at the uptown music and arts festival this past folk festival weekend, lost at the altar combines rockspring's mike testagrossa on lead guitar and james paone on rhythm guitar with the jen kearney and the lost onion's jen kearney on keys, and the entire hot day at the zoo rhythm section, otherwise recognized as jed rosen on bass guitar, and michael dion on drums.

it all goes on after 8 (9?) at ole on merrimack, and if you've ever had an itch to head out on a thursday night and see the best of the best while still staying close to home, then this here's your chance. (of course, if you live some distance from downtown lowell, the rationale becomes finally finding something worth traveling for, and this is absolutely worth traveling for). some of us will be taking in the early show at toad in cambridge for our bi-weekly dose of melvern, (these past weeks, in light of his great sets at the tsongas last week, it's been weekly, and what better way to celebrate summer than that), but we'll all be seeing you and each other down at ole for the headline sets.

shangri-lowell--you know it.

wake da man

it hasn't been easy working for #200 these past few weeks, but while we wait at least we can wait happy:

wake likes beer. (as do quite a number of his staff-mates :-)

jackpot

those of you, like me, who were cost the treat of arte k, steve esposito and carl johnson at 31 main last night because we were being treated to the living legend who is mavis staples at boardinghouse park last night, are in supreme luck--"artie kenyon with carl johnson eclectic americana: blues, rock, country, folk" is playing at the gazebo in groton center as part of the main street cafe summer music series at 6pm. it's free. it's outdoors. and it's a great way to start your saturday evening if, like me, you're allergic to fiddle music. (if you're not, eileen ivers is at boardinghouse park after 8 tonight).

see you out and about!

the fed--does anybody pay attention in school or anywhere else anymore?

over at the dick howe blog, a younger contributor has contributed a thoughtful review of the latest campaign week by the horse's ass that is rick perry. embedded within this essay is a comment of telling wording, to the effect that the fed is required to print money by federal law.

oh, if only kids these days, or their parents for that matter, or anybody else at all while we're asking, actually paid attention in history class, or read the actual source documents instead of the populist publishers who spread ignorant misinformation like manure...

in point of fact, as i mention in my comment to the post, the fed is not required to do a single thing under federal or any other law. the sole influences wielded over this private bank (that is legally empowered to print our money) is that its chairman and board of governors are appointed by the president, and that its existence is enabled by a federal law (the federal reserve act of 1913) which congress would theoretically be able to change. (as they did in 1930 when establishing the FOMC–federal open market committee). no other oversight exists–it is not audited, and it does not share its books with any entity.

to wit: the fed is not required to print money.

it's authorized to do so, surely, but not required. nor is there anything the president, the congress, or rick perry, or you and i could do to make them do or print a single thing. federal reserve notes (our dollar bills) are authorized by section 411 of title 12, and issued by the fed at the sole discretion of the fed board of governors. period. the actual printing is done by a department of the department of the treasury (the bureau of engraving and printing) but only at the direction of the fed, not our own government.

there is no system like it anywhere in the world, and we americans are staggeringly ignorant about the whole racket. (for it is, indeed, the world's largest legally-authorized racket). our entire financial system, including the federal treasury, is vulnerable to any and every nuance spoken by the fed chairman, and decided to do with his cabal of fed governors. but we pretend that there's some reason behind such sweeping and unaccountable power, even though there is clearly not.

rick perry was not, in his intention, wrong, even though he was chillingly un-presidential in his phrasing. the fed needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, if we are ever to regain control over our financial house and put it in order. or, put in a way that liberals might understand--if we are to be able to afford to pay for our great society, we have to stop the fed from undermining it at every step along the way in favor of our bankers.

it's something upon which righties and lefties SHOULD be able to agree.

music happens

last night was a great night for music in downtown lowell. melvern taylor and his fabulous meltones played for a couple hours along the river from 6 to 8, (and they were great--big line for cd's after their sets, and lots of new fans), gumbo diablo and their dual-accordian mix of cajun/zydeco and latin were ripping it up at ole, and the blues jam at the back page kept the party going until the proverbial wee hours--great night to be a fan out on the town.

tonight it's mavis staples at boardinghouse park in one of the best-anticipated summer concert series shows of the season. (folks looking for something quieter and more delicious can opt for arte k, carl johnson and steve esposito over at 31 main in ayer, which is a great room for music, good food, fresh beer and cupcakes, but the coin flip for me went to mavis before i even knew arte and friends were playing in ayer, so i was already committed...)

i keep telling these people to check with my calendar before double-booking shows, but somehow this keeps happening... either way, get yourself out and live a little!

you don't tug on superman's cape...

jim croce sang that you "don't mess around with jim", and to his chorus he might have been helpful to add a little something about tweaking the federal government so that standard and poors wouldn't have become confused. downgrade the feds? how about we investigate stuff from years ago and hang you up? how'dya like them apples?

who says the financial pages aren't as interesting as the sports or as amusing as the funnies?

more cause and effect nonsense

salon has weighed in on the ron paul media anomaly, and pronounced the near-blackout of coverage of his candidacy as reasonable. their reasoning, summarized in their closing sentence, is that "what paul and his supporters did this past weekend is something we've long known they're capable of doing".

huh?

so the editors of salon have long known that ron paul has supporters who prefer to vote for him, so when they do vote for him in quantities that surpass every other candidate in the race save one, it's clearly not news, and it's perfectly reasonable for them and everyone else in the media not to cover them?

this rationale is even more offensive than the lack of coverage itself.

"the top tier"

jon stewart, love him or hate him, often (generally, if not always) does a better job with analytical reporting, ESPECIALLY about the state of analytical reporting in this country, than anyone else on television. to wit, this past monday evening, he took on the ames, iowa republican straw poll results and all the media reports about them, and the results should be required viewing for anyone interested in our representative democracy, from both the right and the left. take a look at the look our media is taking at our ongiong presidential plebiscite, and how the media wants to define for us to whom we should listen and about whom we should pay attention. the clips stewart and his writers and producers have collected are jaw-dropping in their journalistic ignorance, corruption and irresponsibility, as well as, for a bonus, funny. (at least in my humble opinion).

per cnn after listing EVERYBODY except ron paul in their analysis, "let's not count out john huntsman". stewart's observation?:

"if all of john huntsman's supporters met at the same ames, iowa quiznos, the fire marshall would say "yeah, that's fine, no problem".

there's more and better. watch it, and think for yourself.

monkey see, monkey do

americans were largely silent about british PM david cameron's pursuit of government media control/shutdown as a policy to respond to rioting, but it's only taken a week for the tactic to be copied here in the US: to wit, the unplugging of SF bay area rapid transit cell transmitters so as to disrupt protests against alleged police brutality (ie a shooting) on a subway platform.

the issues are important: they involve oft-conflicting constitutional expressions and protections, (speech and assembly vs. life, aka citizen safety), and the government's ability and right to control we citizen's social networks--but nobody outside of the specific protest seems to care. i think that's unfortunate, and a bad omen for all of us.

in 1775, benjamin franklin wrote that "they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety", and we ignore his experienced advice at our peril. imagine egypt without these tools we see here denied to free americans, and look at syria. we kid ourselves to think it would never happen here, just because we prefer to think of ourselves as better. we're not, and the management of the SF BART just proved it.

"when i want your vote i'll tell it to you"

we can all agree that michele bachmann is a flawed candidate unlikely to be able to overcome the farce of her whole self, not to mention being married to an effeminate man of self-professed sexual ambiguity. (no, marcus, not all kids question their sexuality and "experiment" as teenagers, but only the supreme assholes among us judge and condemn those, like you, who do). lexington and concord were fought in massachusetts, and our founders did not fight tirelessly against slavery if owning and writing laws perpetuating the enslavement of slaves is any indication, and people who are confused about these important facts should not be entrusted with government, no matter how many people fervently agree with the rest of their politics. but for democrat better and republican worse, she's "won" the iowa vote buy, aka straw poll, and rates requisite coverage for it. fair enough, yet, if only, because another iowan consequence is the departure from the race of tim pawlenty, who seems to have concluded, if you can't reach people with reason in the face of such farce, you're better off saving your ammunition for another day, and the arrival into the race of one texas governor, rick perry. these coincidences have now driven the national journal to pronounce in an exclusive to yahoo news that it's now just perry vs romney for the title.

huh?

first of all, romney sucked so badly in iowa, that he could find barely 500 iowans out of over half a million registered republicans willing to take $30 of his money. (seriously--he couldn't even pay people to support him). second of all, rick perry didn't garner a single vote there or anywhere else for that matter yet. and third of all, ron paul, perennially dissed as a "fringe" candidate, aka "one that we don't want you to vote for", is the one who really did something worth talking about, creating an effective grass-roots organization and successfully getting out his vote, yet we're hearing nothing at all about him from the national journal or anyone else. and you know why. romney has so far raised the most money, and perry is the only one prettier than he is among the challengers, and nobody likes a third option who, unlike the front runners, hasn't been bought. (again, righties, take it from me and everyone else not drinking your rightie kool-aid that bachmann is a loser among everyone else who is not a rightie, and it's nothing personal against the ideology--only the idiocy--and we really don't need to take her all that seriously while we sift among your party wreckage for someone else we can get behind, like, say, for instance, dr. paul...)

obama is indeed vulnerable. he's a chicago machine gangster wolf in profoundly tattered liberal sheep's clothing, and even the lefties are starting to see through most of it. he'll win, certainly, if righties keep on insisting on propping up tax breaks for the wealthy (that even billionaires are saying have to be dropped) but he'll surely lose (you can quote me on this) if anyone within even a mile of the middle gets it and can speak to the fact that the bending and soon breaking middle class is mad as hell and not interested in taking it anymore, and they're here to bring the republican recalcitrants to heel and get them working with democrats to do the right things. (of course, that's easier said than done, since republican voters, emboldened by fox news and national journal bullshit seemingly can't get the hang of compromise).

and it's too bad.

forensic musical archeology

martha davis, the aforementioned "sexiest housewife in america", is generally best known as the iconic vocalist from the late 70's phenomenon that became the 80's hit machine known as the motels. she was, to many, THE motels, though i still know jeff and marty jourard, brian glascock, michael goodroe and guy perry by name, even while i'll tell you right now that martha davis singing chanteuse-style at the old axis club on landsdowne street right in front of me (and when i say "right in front of me", i mean "RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME", so as to my being able to feel her breath on me) was enough to forget everything else in the world but her eyes... those green eyes...

by the later 80's it was all off the radio again, where i first and loved it best, and martha davis found herself in possession of an album's-worth of songs and no band with whom to make them, and so begat "policy". she's since admitted it's the one she's loved least, because it all became finally subsumed by the session musicians and slick production that she always knew was never her point, but it was always meaningful to me because it was nevertheless so much of her and her voice, and the final, fully-produced farewell that i had to the dependable appearance of a new offering in my music collection every long year or so. yes, this is the album with all of it: timothy b. schmit backing vocals, richie zito and charlie sexton guitar leads, clarence clemons sax solos, diane warren covers, randy jackson bass lines, yet it was still all of martha in each and every line.

i had forgotten all of this, it would seem, until i was driven to pull the vinyl out of the stack by a friend's observation that these songs still aren't distributed electronically. that. just. won't. do. i just put both sides through the .wav ripper a moment ago so as to churn out the necessary little .mp3's at some point this afternoon or tomorrow or the next day, (chopping up song files and labeling them is a very time-intensive process), and was reminded yet again of how much i love them all. it's suggested by those who know the recordings that there are a couple should-have-been-hits, but listening straight through i'd be hard press to pick for you which ones they might have meant by that, which is how i know that i love martha davis' music in a way that most people don't understand. (i'm not sure i can explain it, either).

production? tell me that counting wasn't the reason we have the cowboy junkies, and then listen to just like you and tell me you can't hear it there, too, down deep inside, with clarence and without him, just like on the first record that brought martha to me and to us all those years ago.

the sexiest housewife in america

not sure from whom and when the title was conferred, but martha davis was, is and will always be the sexiest housewife in america to me. she and her motels are playing at johnny d's in somerville on the 9th of september and i've got my tickets right up front for dinner and the show. (7pm start--get there early!) folk festival nostalgics will also note the bill kirchen is there that same night for the late set. (separate admissions, but johnny's have been known to make deals for early patrons willing and interested to stay on for the second show, so don't count yourself out even if you just, like me, have the hots for martha). it's been forever, and i know she misses me...

who says the kids don't get it

this most recent thursday night was the annual camp (no) talent show, and having ukulele will travel, i couldn't resist the two most beautiful voices in the place bemoaning their pitch-perfect and harmonious rendition of train's "hey soul sister" lacked accompaniment. "i can play that".

it was twice through in rehearsal that we had all the breaks and changes down, and once more for the show, and if i may take credit for other people's voices, our performance of it was one of the many highlights of the evening. (the others including, but not limited to, a string quartet backboned by a 7 year old violinist and a 5 year old chellist that would put a lot of professionals to shame and had the entire auditorium in rapt enraptured silence and almost to tears it was so beautiful, and the drag lip-sync romp to "in my bathroom", which i learned from the artist was a commissioned work by the american standard bathroom fixtures company circa 1952, that had the place both stunned and laughing so hard our sides ached).

the more remarkable part of the collaboration (back to my comely ukulele-friendly collaborators) was fishing for ukulele samples from my iPod, and tripping over melvern taylor's "sleepy eyes" and being grabbed by the elbow to stop and play that again. love at first listen, as they say, and now a pair of 17 year old women of endless musical potential (seriously, their voices are incredible) are in cahoots to bum a ride from my son (he's no fool) to catch melvern's show behind the tsongas center on thursday evening. (from 6 to 8 pm, and, as melvern says, you should totally come).

who says the kids these days don't get it.

straw polling

fewer than 3% of the half million republicans in iowa played dress up the other day, and only around 3% of those proved unable to see through the mittster's slick willy impersonation (his points to the right) while handing michele bachmann her latest little plastic tiara. (tell me the obama folks weren't elated). for my money, the one thing the children of the corn got right was sporting for ron paul just 152 votes shy of the leader. yeah, he's affiliated with one of the national political rackets, but you can't dislike a guy who is so disliked by his own party for his propensity to speak the truth.

as an aside, i'm amused that though michele bachmann has the gender credentials that would otherwise qualify her to become the first lady to be elected president of these united states, we'd still be spared that historic "first gentleman" we've all been fearing all along. (oh, yes, marcus, you surely are).

ahhhhh

it's nice to toss everything with a battery and/or a power cord into the glove compartment, toss the car keys to the bottom of the duffle bag, and live barefoot for a week. it surely is.

there are more stories to share than this, but none more needing to be told, so i'll start with a quick recap of an evening conversation with a genuine 60's lefty counterculture "we shall overcome" idealist--a jen-yoo-wine freedom-riding article in the flesh. his point, and spittle-spraying frustration with my refusal to yield to it, was that the US government needed to pass a law modeled after canada's radio act that would likewise make illegal the broadcast of any "false or misleading news", and enable us once and for all to rid our airwaves of one particular network.

now, to be clear, i am appalled at the factual inaccuracies that are lobbed like so many hand grenades into our difficult national debate by the irresponsible and semi-literate folks at that particular "institution". i believe there is no single greater force against reason or reasonable government here than rupert's reactionaries, and the world would be a far better place without them. but, see, i was also around while nixon's plumbers were playing their practical jokes on our democracy, and cannot believe even for an instant that handing the government the means to censor news could ever end well. yet this man, who had BEEN THERE outside the hilton hotel in '68 to chant "the whole world is watching" for the cameras, was seriously advocating to me that the government (now of all times) should be empowered to decide what can and cannot be broadcast.

chilling.

i hugged my children a second time that night for sure.

have the lefties all lost their memories as well as their minds????


edited to add a nod to cameron's government's moves to disconnect "social media" so as to take away citizens' ability to communicate with each other in london. yeah, riots are ugly, but take a look at the news from syria if you'd like to see something uglier.

freddie fivefingers

just picked up a pair of machine washable (air dry) vibram fivefingers bikila ls sport shoes(?) at eastern mountain sports this morning. i say "?" because they're not quite shoes--kinda like gloves--and not like anything you've ever had on your feet before. the guy at the store said don't run more than 20% of your usual the first time out, though, as you know, i don't run anymore so i can save whatever is left of my knees for soccer, so i'd have to guess my usual is probably around five miles, because i made just about one along the river this afternoon in these little conversation pieces, and felt the knots in my calves tell me it was time to quit. and i loved it.

the theory is that our feet have been designed over the millennia to be the perfect little shock absorption devices for distance running, over just about any and every surface on earth. but by jamming them into 21st century, thick-soled shoes and pounding on our heels, we more or less thwart all the potential relief from such, and end up well-abusing our knees, hips and back instead. and, tell me--despite all the space-age cushioning you've ever jammed beneath your heels, is there any runner out there (or walker for that matter) who doesn't get sore knees, hips and/or back from running?

if i understand those experienced with these things, it takes a good little while to rebuild the strength in your feet and lower legs to recover the resiliency with which we were born and bred. but, when natural strength is recovered, there's no more pounding from the pavement at all--your foot's 33 joints and 20 muscles (and a few from your lower calf if my run today is any indication) naturally adjust themselves to soak up all of it, leaving your upper mechanics a nice, smooth ride and run. you bounce along essentially on the ball of your foot, and your toes actually contribute a good deal to the forward locomotion. (hence the need to cosset them each in their own individual toe region of the shoe). in regular shoes, your toes can't work individually so they get lazy, your foot muscles weaken along with them, and the shock of all your weight hitting the ground goes straight from your heel to all the joints which are likewise ill-designed to take that kind of pounding. plantar fasciitis. knee tendonitis (if you're lucky) or osteoarthritis. hip pain. spinal misalignment and everything from lumbar discomfort to headaches. no bueno.

so i'll let you know how things come along, but my first experience is very promising. my knees feel great, and my feet, though tired, are feeling like they'll want to try it again tomorrow. no, i haven't given up on the bike, but i feel like the combination is going to be very therapeutic.

so i can play more soccer, natch. why else???

i've got an idea to save some money

republicrats and demicans have cratered both our federal finances and our economy, and now they're all jockeying for favorable spots for the public-sponsored partisan political horse race slash beauty contests known as primary elections.

think about it--electioneering is one of the reasons the donkeys and dunces in DC couldn't get a damn thing productive done these past months, and first of all we'd be doing them and ourselves a huge favor to skip part of the cause for that. secondly, and not for nothing, but we'd be saving ourselves huge sums of money in the process, and be putting the expense for such privilege back onto the shoulders of the criminal gangs i mean political parties who take otherwise take advantage to effectively eliminate all effective choice for general election office as part of the scam.

i say enough is enough.

cancel the primaries, and offer to sell our state and local election infrastructures back to the parties at whatever reasonable cost would pay for them, if, in case, the criminal gangs i mean political parties would be willing to put their money where their double-talking mouths are and have their own little private horse race slash beauty contest in advance of the general election, where any candidate submitting the proper papers and number of endorsement signatures to earn place on the ballot can stand shoulder to pinhead and show us exactly how badly our options have been perverted all these years.

it would save money, improve legislative behavior, and clean up our environment. (only cigarette butts are more worthless than campaign trash).

who's with me?

your mileage may vary

yes, i've been hanging out with people who have been working at the car wash. (props to rose royce). it's what i do when it's time to do it.

no word of a lie, the other day i gave a ride to some friends (my car is 9 years old to give you some context) and they assumed from its appearance and condition that it was brand new. this is not a coincidence, for i purchased it with extremely low mileage and in like-new condition, and i have washed and waxed it regularly for as long as i've owned it, as is clear was done by the previous owner before me. but it is also testimony to a philosophy i share in common with the fram oil filter man, that "you can pay me now or you can pay me later" is one of those automotive laws of the universe that stands by every day of our lives to either reward or punish, depending on how well we're listening.

i'll take a moment to brag that i've done very well for myself automotively over the years, so you can count me solidly among the "pay me now" philosophers who have proved to themselves and anyone who will listen (though it seems kids won't, or don't at first, but i guess that's the way parenthood goes), that it's easier to invest in a car each and every day you own it than to live in constant frustration for how it will let you down if you don't. even skeptics can kinda sorta see the logic with preventative maintenance like oil changes and brake jobs and such, but extremely few people i know go out of their way to invest so heavily in the exterior of their automobiles. it's just appearance, right?

yes, this is the part where mileage does, indeed vary...

first of all, road salt eats cars the way teenagers eat potato chips, and rinsing your ride through the snow months here in the northeast US is the minimum you can do to save it from rust, corrosion and the failure of various undercarriage parts, like steering, brakes, etc. most people, i'm afraid, skip even this step, and you can tell (at least i can) by looking at a car after even just a few years that it's breaking down because of it. worn shocks and tired springs, after all, don't just wear for their own sakes, but the resulting rough ride takes its toll on literally every element of the automobile. yet people just wait for stuff to break, and then complain about how expensive it all is. even the summer sun, pleasant as it may seem through an air conditioned window, does the same thing to your automobile that it does to you when you sit out in it all day long every day, which is to say, burns it right up, fries the rubber and other plastic parts to a crisp, and softens up your paint to the point where it's even less resistant to salt than ever before.

yet, think about it--at 12 bucks a pop for a wash and wax every month of the year, you're not even dropping 150 bucks per annum, which, if you've ever had your car repaired lately, isn't even a down payment on something seriously wrong as a result of not doing it. AND, you get to cruise around town in a sweet looking ride that makes you feel good about yourself at the same time. throw in a garage roof to keep the sun, wind and falling snow at bay, and you could be driving the same car your entire life if you really wanted to. (i so dearly wish i hadn't beat my 1970 chevelle malibu to death, i so dearly do). it's all about taking care.

most folks, however, take their shortcuts and fall out of love with their dulling and dilapidated duisenbergs and let it all go to rust and ruin, and complain about how expensive it is to afford a replacement. (go ahead, cry me a river...)

jim croce sings a bit about the end state of such an impoverished predicament, too.

lowell car wash rocks!

lowell car wash rocks

this will all be my usual long-winded explanation about things about which you may care very little, so i'll give everyone the headline/punchline right up front so nobody misses it: lowell car wash ROCKS.

a readers digest version would include that i had a paint finish emergency today (long story having to do with calcium and other caustic chemicals dripping from the ceiling above my jet black, impeccably polished like-new and new-to-me volkswagen passat over the past few days without my being aware of it), and so i took it to lowell car wash the same way a kid takes their expired pet goldfish to the vet in vain hopes to see what might be done. short answer: imagine your vet had a goldfish-sized CPR setup in their back room, and the ace pet doctor to run it. that's what just happened with my pet goldfish, aka passat, just a few moments ago, and i cannot be more grateful. a longer version would go into the details behind my having the lowell car wash "menu" of services in my apartment, in the exact same exalted place where i keep my viet thai, china star and sammy's pizza to-go menus, which is the highest praise i possibly have to offer for any business, but let's not digress too far...

all this might seem to you a bit over the top, because aren't professional car washers supposed to be able to do professional things with dirty cars? well, two things about that: first off, most ace cardiac surgeons make you make an appointment weeks in advance, (which i know first-hand, having watched a close friend of mine maneuver to get himself his heart bypass operation just a few months ago), and second of all charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege. i rolled up to lowell car wash just a few moments before closing time, and not only was taken in like i was related to the owner, (which i'm not, but what a nice daydream that would be), but they did what amounted to a mini detail on the exterior of the car and would only take 20 bucks for it, buffing out and polishing the damaged area to the point where it looks better than most year-old cars, let alone 9-year-old cars as is mine, and poly-sealing the damage to ensure what paint remains is protected as much as can be. i tipped 'em heavily, and still felt like i was stealing.

the full solution, kinda like the bypass after the emergency catheterization, is to polish down the entire area with buffing compound and spend a couple hours on it before really sealing and polishing the finish. i'm smart enough to know (more on that in a subsequent blog post) this is a job for someone who knows what they're doing, (just like i imagine heart surgery comes out better in the hands of an experienced heart surgeon), and i'm looking forward to giving them my fuller business as soon as is feasible. (will have to wait for my vacation next week).

a more thorough and professional job could not have been done at three times the price anywhere i've ever been, and certainly not on a moment's notice and right before quitting time on a beautiful summer evening. but, professionals are as professionals do, and the need to get the caustic minerals off the paint could not let things wait, and the team at lowell car wash went above and beyond for me, and i am sincerely grateful, impressed, and looking forward to seeing how beautiful things will be once they're given the proper time and preparation to really do things right.

the longer version would go into how much fun it is to watch your car moving through the car wash from the walkway beside, like you remember from the 50's and 60's, and how economical it is to have someone doing it all for you, complete with a hand-rubbed finish to make sure there are no water spots or any other blemishes on your favorite ride, as opposed to spending all that time in your driveway or do-it-yourself sudseria and dropping all your money on supplies and still not getting a finish that looks nearly as nice.

count me as a fan. and more now than ever.

fiscal conservatism, social liberalism

the democrats are still crying in their low-fat lattes over having had the cookie jar slammed shut on their ambitious social agendae, and i am finding it harder and harder to muster sympathy with each peevish and self-involved essay. yes, a small dedicated group of legislators just successfully outmaneuvered both major political parties and forced the government to bend to its will. get over it!

somewhere between the republican and democrat parties, (for surely it was between no one else), it was decided that we could spend at an historically unprecedented deficit, and so far beyond 20% of our GDP that we even surpassed the defaulted nations of greece and others in our fiscal irresponsibility. in the history of the world, and the example of the union of soviet socialist republics is a good place to start, no government has been capable of sustaining spending at such levels on the backs of their taxpaying public without failing. which is to say, even when tax receipts are raised to cover the spending, the governments STILL fail, most directly via revolt, but also via the sad, slow demise we've crowed about when it happens to others. but, see, it's happening now to us, and that's a serious, serious problem.

democrats have for the past couple years correctly cited the bush tax cuts as the largest source of our current deficit. i can also brag that my company is the largest provider of the kind of software we sell, but both would deny the greater truth that the aggregate of other elements is still greater, and in our national budget we have foreign wars, unfunded pension liabilities, and burgeoning interest payments to discuss, though no democrat seems to want to discuss them.

i am a social liberal. i believe in marriage equality (to make an example of a current topic) and in everything else that seems to offend the "morality" of the republican party to its core. i love the ACLU. i hate big money (banks and insurance companies are the devil incarnate), big oil (did you see the profits they turned in this quarter?), big pharma (look no further for the reason healthcare is so expensive), big farma (monsanto, et al. and the destruction of our planet's ability to sustain itself), and nuclear power (nobody is adding in the cost of fukushima, chernobyl, etc. to the figures) just like every card carrying democrat does.

but i am a fiscal conservative.

i do NOT accept that the government has the right to spend without restraint. i will insist on a properly balanced and reasonably-sized budget, and i will cheer when like-minded people stand up and insist upon it, too.

put another way: if we would like a US government in place to protect our social security pensions in a few years time, we would be stupid to bankrupt it now. but stupid is as stupid does, and there are a lot of aggrieved democrats out there who would have you and me believe that if we just raised taxes on the wealthy, we could continue to spend at a pace that's rapidly approaching 30% of our entire economy.

the fact is that raising taxes on the wealthy won't come anywhere near balancing this budget, and only via spending cuts can we hope to preserve our nation and it's higher-minded liberal ideals.

democrats aren't getting it

reading yet more op-ed wailing from lefties accusing the "tea party" of playing chicken with our financial ruin (defined by themselves as debt default, though, honestly, i'm not sure one can agree with such a conclusion, but that's too long a discussion, so we'll just have to let this part slide) and being the villains of this piece.

here's what i believe is a reasonable point of view: government spending, as a percentage of GDP, cannot be maintained at unreasonable levels, and we can ask greece, portugal and others these days about what those might be. unfortunately for us, US government spending as a percentage of GDP actually exceeds that of greece, which just defaulted, so we must all look ourselves in the mirror and agree that our government spending as a percentage of GDP is past reasonable levels, and will destroy our nation as surely as it destroyed the union of soviet socialist republics a few years back. (we gave ronnie credit for that, and i'm afraid we're going to have to give osama posthumous credit for this if it's allowed to happen, and won't that be ironic). as a corollary, tax revenues, as a percentage of government spending, have to eventually settle on 100%, or the same will occur, since the interest payments on top of the government spending will grow to exceed previously discovered reasonable limits, and the whole dance starts all over again.

taking the position that, let's say, 20% of GDP is that aforementioned reasonable level, then it is hardly playing chicken with financial ruin to insist that spending be reduced to or below that level, and to use whatever legislative means are necessary to achieve it. in fact, not only is that not reckless, it's profoundly responsible conduct. even if we were to roll back all the tax cuts and raise all the necessary revenues to cover the burgeoning expenditures, we'd still all be flat broke busted. (see the soviet example above).

yet here we are reading loud peevish complaints that somehow the process has been disrespected by insisting that we control our spending. seriously??? i would suggest there is greater recklessness in spending beyond our means, and raising this debt ceiling so as to be allowed to spend yet more is the literal sending of good money after bad, and the dictionary definition of such.

as for the righties, this series of votes has proven that the republican coalition is dysfunctional and broken, and having a speaker of the house unable to marshal his rank and file in any meaningful way would, in any parliamentary democracy, have already caused the entire government to collapse.

the heroes of this, beyond those heroically stubborn legislators who have finally insisted that government spending be controlled, are those democrats and republicans who defied their party to vote along with them, even on such a flawed and toothless piece of ultimate legislative crap. nobody wins until we actually stop congress from spending beyond our means (for lack of a better stake in the ground, could we all use 20% of GDP as a benchmark?) and everybody doesn't win until we develop a fair and reasonable tax code that raises that 20% of GDP in tax revenues in a way that respects everyone's benefits for having a government to maintain the environment in which they earn and receive their income.

to the republicans, who have seemingly lost their party in this process, i would say that "bush tax cuts" are flawed public policy, and need to be rescinded, lest the middle class be broken by the crushing weight of 20% of our GDP alone. but that's a battle for another day.

yes, the republicans lost their party, but the democrats seem to have lost their minds.

the politics of programming

at work today i'm embroiled in a difference of opinion that resembles nothing so much as the recent demican/republicrat pissing contest that's stained our entire system of government. in the work case, the spat involves an adamant product management, who insists that any and all questions of their stewardship are, by definition, baseless, arrayed opposite a set of sales figures that suggest improvements are nevertheless possible.

the good news for the work imbroglio is that sales are way up, so we're merely arguing about the gilt on the lily, but the common human tendency to equate disagreement with disrespect, and respond in kind, is remarkably consistent. the figures in question are incontrovertible, much like our deficit and our debt, yet it's being insisted that all decisions which have led to them, along with those making them, are infallible and must be held beyond reproach, and anyone saying otherwise must be an enemy to be resisted at every available opportunity.

wtf

years ago, i was merged into a new corporate area whose leader was conducting that day a recap of the prior year's achievements. as i sat in the audience, and he flashed the #1 achievement of his team onto the screen, i felt coincident urges to laugh out loud, and cringe with despair.

"congratulations on winning the internal battle with [that other corporate area]"

and here i thought my job was to sell software...

the real deficit

we have more than one huge deficit in this country, and the larger and potentially most dangerous one has nothing directly to do with money.

the latest pew poll indicates that republican supporters expressing an opinion were over 50% more likely (29% to 19%) to have a MORE favorable view of republican legislators after this clusterfuck (my 14 year old daughter's latest favorite) than before. not to be outdone, democrat supporters expressing an opinion were over ONE AND A HALF TIMES more likely to look more favorably upon democrat legislators than before this whole, and i'll say it again, clusterfuck.

look no further for the source of our ultimate problem.

overall, the numbers were remarkable for how they showed these partisan pin-heads to have their heads up their partisan political asses. 75% of republicans, 72% of democrats, and 72% of people who are neither agree that, to borrow the AP's words, the last several weeks in washington have been a disgrace. i'll quote further from the AP: "the words most often volunteered to the pollsters were "ridiculous", "disgusting" and "stupid".

amen.

the real deficit, that of reason, is embodied in the emboldened and even-further-entrenched partisan party bases. think about it--three out of four americans recognize this as, as my daughter will say yet again, a giant equal opportunity clusterfuck, yet the hard core elements of both major political parties from which almost every single one of our legislators is culled believe that only one side (the other side) was and is to blame. and there is no reasoning with idiots.

if you own a major political party registration card, you are either such an idiot, (admit it--there are many of you reading this today who will swear to me and to everyone else that THEIR folks in washington are blameless and to be lauded for standing up for whatever it is that they claim to stand up for), or someone who is guilty, guilty, guilty of aiding and abetting idiots.

sapere aude. unenroll. insist that your representation in washington puts country ahead of party. if you don't, as richard millhouse nixon used to say, you are part of the problem.

quote of the week

"i have closely followed the debate over our debt ceiling and have been deeply disappointed at what's going on in washington. i strongly believe that crossing the aisle for the good of the american people is more important than party politics". -- gabrielle giffords

what she said.

i know you are, but what am i

even more childish and smarmy than anything ever offered for our entertainment by peewee herman, today's party polemicists, are setting new standards for infantile public behavior that go even further beyond the profound examples being offered by their elected representatives. no, i'm not talking about commentary on resigned-in-disgrace sex scandals--i'm talking about all the whiny back seat poking and otherwise finger-pointing going on since we supposedly "compromised" on a bill to raise our debt ceiling, accusing everyone but us (of course) of sitting on my side, hogging all the snacks, or advocating violent rhetoric over statesmanship, though it's very hard to figure out which by the pitch and tenor of the "debate".

on the republicrat side, or was that the demican, we have one knot of kindergarten playgrounders stamping their little tiny feet in protest of their opponents' references to their opponents as "terrorists". (you need go no further than the right side of lowell for an extremely recent and local example of such). yes, our veep and other donkey democrats are guilty, guilty, guilty, and let's hang them all, since they want to hang us! (or something like that). on the demican side, or was that the republicrat, we have the other knot of kindergarten playgrounders stamping their little tiny feet in protest of their opponents' equally violent exhortations, this time via democrat distribution of the republican distribution of a film clip from ben affleck's "the town", in which ben invites his violently sociopathic friend on a little adventure by saying "i need your help. i can't tell you what it is. you can never ask me about it later. we're gonna hurt some people". (to which the sociopath in question replies, "whose car are we takin'?").

and so it goes.

all i want to ask is,

really?

no wonder the markets are down for the sixth day in a row...