March 3, 2021

A break for the Group from true art, just for a (smile?)

February 26, 2021

You've heard of "Shrub" and "Goodhair" (thx Molly IVINS). Now meet "Drug Store Cowboy"

“ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Texas_gubernatorial_election 1994 Texas gubernatorial election - …. Before the election, Richards had a high approval rating due to the strength of the state economy. However, Bush's campaigning on cultural and religious issues resonated with many Texan voters, and the race was considered a tossup on election day.”

And then, as The University of YouTube might call it, came the Bronze Age Collapse for the decades of Democratic rule in Texas. This collapse happened from a combination of things – the “Weak Governor” system, wherein the Governorship is a figurehead with the Lieutenant Governor being dominant in running the Legislature and being the attack dog; the collapse and defection to the Fatcats of the last young generation of Democratic leaders (think, Ben BARNES) ; the soft underbelly of Hispanic non-voters or voters-against-their-own-interests; the active but can’t-do-it-by-themselves Black voters; the myth of Tough Talk Texas “rugged individualism” and the Easy Pickings of Repukes who discovered The Secret to power in Texas; and an ever smaller but engrained apartheid ruling structure. In Texas even a civic minded project like anti-littering is masked threateningly as “Don’t mess with Texas.”

The secret for Repukes in Texas started with Poppy BUSH, the managerial secret of keeping a low profile (see, “Dark Legacy I & II” ), claiming to stay out of the loop, and creating an image of being inoffensive and replacing outer substance with smiling – lots of smiling. Why would the heir of Eastern Power set up in backward Texas?! Poppy of the hidden hand discovered the easy pickings that is Texas, the hot knife in butter.

But Poppy used the Texas low profile as a cover. George W. used the low profile as a claim to higher power and set the template for Repuke governors in Texas – big talk, “tough” talk, suck off of the Fatcats and screw the most vulnerable – swagger but with a cute, fratboy air of playfulness and humility and above all SMILE. Photo ops with mariachis after refusing Medicaid dollars.

So there were Shub (George W., thanks to Molly IVINS) and Goodhair (Rick PERRY) – two of the luckiest little a-holes ever. And now one Greg ABBOTT, who has been difficult to nickname. Until now. How do you make fun of somebody in a wheelchair with a half-Hispanic wife – a Gold Card of insulation, firewall.

Well, Repukes are always hoping for a Great White Hope, and currently in Texas in the aftermath of a humongous disaster, they think they found the Hope in ABBOTT, who is at the epicenter of all the characteristics – tough talk against the electric grid villains but who will not endanger the inherent structure of the Texas-only grid. Yes, after his first five years of weak governorship – nondescript, no distinguishing characteristics, tough talk but smilingly inoffensive on the outside – he “addressed the people of the State” firing up his wingnuts with brimstone on the grid villains – “ https://www.kxxv.com/hometown/texas/many-of-you-are-angry-im-angry-too-abbott-addresses-power-outages-states-winter-storm-response 'Many of you are angry... I'm angry too': Abbott addresses power outages, state's winter storm response”.

So there you have him, “tough” but safely so on a safe issue, and promising Judgment Day but not in a meaningful way (e.g., ditching the lone Texas grid).

So what do you call Greg ABBOTT – that mixture of bluster and namby-pambyism? I humbly offer:

February 9, 2021

Don Quixote was not meant to dress sensibly. Before and After.

O.K., this is the last of my craft therapy. Previously were the Roman "bocca", seahorses, soccer Cup. These little paint jobs were for a change in the near year of quarantine, when cooking was probably the first choice as an escape and now past its appeal. So this craft thing has reached its two weeks' shelf life, and the objects can go back to gathering dust and spider webs.

I had painted these things some 20 years back upon acquisition, and the taste was different at that stage of my life, more "tasteful" instead of garish. So Mr Quixote was done up in baby blue pantaloons to complement the gray armor. Now, the paint technology is metallic and glitter and black light, and it occurred to me that his very essence is batshit cray-cray, so now he is in RED metallic. Red and yellow are (now, not in the 16th Century?) the colors of Spain (are you listening, Hilaria BALDWIN?), so there's this little double meaning.

February 3, 2021

Not art, barely craft. Before and After.

Our friends, the Artists in their group, are amazingly gifted and accomplished. This ain't it. The seahorses in particular were a bummer just to stay inside the lines. These items have been around here for 15-20 years, faded, dusty, spider webby. Cooking by quarantine is getting old. Was just looking for some mind numbing activity to freshen up things. The Bocca della Verita original in Rome is thought to have been a sewer cover, is gigantic like 5? ft in diameter? And is plain off white marble. With its legend that anybody who puts the hand in the mouth and tells a lie will have it chomped off, as in the Audrey HEPBURN/Gregory PECK Rome movie. As for the Cup, yeah the original real green looks better, but I wanted Metallic paint and the avocado was what had it. As for the seahorse garish colors - the yellow/red/green are Vietnam, and seahorse might suggest Navy (when I say so). ON EDIT, P.S. The Before seahorses were also my paint job, bland colors to be "tasteful" in years past, now I'm old so torpedoes be garishly danged!1 ************ON 2ND EDIT: Corrected the "Cary GRANT" to great Democratic luminary "Gregory PECK" of "Roman Holiday" - surprised that a Lounge movie buff who might have strayed here didn't catch me out.

January 22, 2021

2fer: Proofing/impervious against Executive Orders. And wingnuts' concept of "unity"

President BIDEN has already fired a passel of the “Acting” goons that the Nameless One had plugged in there to cravenly do his bidding. And as for the SEVENTEEN Executive Orders he signed yesterday afternoon, he wiped out some of the worst that the Nameless One had inflicted – the climate, the environment, et al. Not that he or the Dems need my advice but why can’t these issues be legislated now that we have a chance into solid form so they can’t be easily trifled with by whatever whippoorwill flies down the chimney?

And here's an answer to the current passive aggressive whimpering of the Wingnuts, their claiming that no unity is possible because WE won’t give them what they want: Wingnuts are mentally Scorched Earth, their way or the highway, Fundamentalists, “originalists” (not really), and uncrackable NUTS – in addition to being insufferable, ignorant fools. Any discussion cannot happen when their one or two points (“abortion”, “Christianity"/not-really) are absolute matters of *BELIEF* (only, not of Reason) and anybody differing with their BELIEF is automatically the *ENEMY*, such that every sentence is a *DEAL BREAKER*. There is NO “come let us reason together”.

And my name-calling them here is descriptive, not my own subversion of "unity".

******ON EDIT: The only communication (information exchange) between them and us is: You can't convert me; I can't get past your wall.

January 9, 2021

Facing it: The wingnuts will *have* only a Balkanized, scorched earth country.

And I realize that my contentious terms ("wingnuts" ) seems like playing their game, but not really.

There is no reaching out, yielding to, or converting them. They won’t have it, period.

We must just put our heads down and focus on our Democratic agenda: Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, Social/Economic Justice, and Stewardship of the Planet. That is all.

When the opposition poses hostile stunts that can’t be ignored, fine, we must deal with those, expeditiously and forcefully and get back to our agenda. Otherwise, we can just be watchful of the rest of their noise that is not threatening and just keep plugging along with our agenda. Any of them who are willing to give and take, fine, we'll do that.

Our own pitfall to watch out for is falling under the spell of The Charismatic Leader with Baggage. We’ve been through that before, when we have to shunt our agenda work aside in order to devote all of our energy instead to defending a seriously flawed leader. When one of those charmers is a choice, we need to wipe away a tear and nominate a less charming but more steady character. It takes too long and too much work to finally win power just to squander it away to one person.

No one person is above our agenda. We honor but don't worship.

December 20, 2020

Need a catch-all thread: Repuke party has forfeited *ALL* of their claimed principles

They can NOT preach about:

* patriotism.
* the military
* small government.
* economic integrity
* democracy
* law and order
* "life"
* family values
* ethics


*****Tell me more.

December 9, 2020

Ha! LIMBAUGH takes iddy-biddy blame/credit for unleashing "partisanship" on the country!1

I stopped close monitoring him in the Opposition Research mode years ago. I was in the intense phase during my working years since my employer allowed radio, starting from when he went syndicated nationwide until I retired, thereafter only catching random snippets sporadically on errands in the car. (Also stopped Tweety several years ago and Joe SCABS definitely in 2012. I remember SCABS' early days when he went 30 straight work days excoriating PELOSI and when he would verbally and emotionally abuse Mika Mouse before she chose her solution of divorcing her husband and marrying him to make it stop - although recently signs of relapsing. But those are other stories. )

So today LIMBOsevic was on about how lamentable it is that the country is swamped with divisive partisanship. Yes, he was saying that.

Almost immediately, he mitigated this by saying that he his own self takes blame for (much/all) of this, here moving on from blame to credit since he said it had to be done by whatever wingnut because the media had officially, at that time, become a voice for Dems/Libs and no real reporting was happening, or rather that reporting certain things(?) was not happening.

And, yes, in my past summing him up I have said that he, single-handedly, resusitated the Wingnut movement that had been discredited first from the McCARTHY era and last gasp with the John Birch Society. And he laid in Roman concrete the Scorched Earth paradigm of never compromising on anything at all, no matter how little. GINGRICH became the official face but LIMBOsevic was the power.

What I've always liked is when he recites what his opposition (us/Dems/Libs) say about him and all wingnuts - he summarizes who wingnuts are better than we do, starts by saying what "they say about us - that we're racists, homophobes, haters, greedy, ... " on and on, spouting all the things Deplorable-him and his, are.

Also funny is how he has insulted his listening audience constantly all his years, when he says, "With half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair." His fans don't get that he only needs half his brain to appeal to them.

that it was misleading when I said he/LIMBOsevic said it was "lamentable ... divisive partisanship". I should have said that he was being arch, pleading wingnut victimhood how us mean Libs don't capitulate to them, crying crocodile tears, etc. In *NO* way of words or tone was he expressing any kind of remorse, and as I did say he immediately shifted to taking *CREDIT* for the partisanship. Since ATWATER became a reference point I will say for me that I don't care that ATWATER repented and apologized and asked for forgiveness because it is almost never enough to make up for extreme harm done. Just as there are stages of grief, there are stages or cycles that perpetrators go through: 1- Bliss, 2- mounting dissatisfaction (increasing emotional, verbal abuse), 3-Explosion (physical abuse), 4- "remorse" (apologies, weeping, promises), 5- Bliss (when the sucker/true-victim forgives) ------and back through the cycle again. Apologies are worthless. And LIMBOsevic never has, never will. I've heard him in many episodes of self-pity - about the drugs, about possibly being frog-marched over the drugs, about how all the millions he has raised for charity have not brought him acceptance from us mean Libs, about being deaf, about the cancer - but have never heard him apologize for anything. When he admits to something like the "partisanship," he is *bragging* about it.

December 3, 2020

My original Deep Thought tonight:

November 25, 2020

Remember his persecution hearings of Hillary? He's the Grand Inquisitor

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

********QUOTE****

The Inquisition, what a show
The Inquisition, here we go
We know you're wishing
That we'd go away
But the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay

*******UNQUOTE**********