Oz never gave nothin' to the tin man...that he didn't, didn't already have.

I've been all about signing petitions lately. Especially after the one regarding the presidential debate in Nevada being hosted by FOX had some effect.

Anyhow, I just sent one off in support of the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to try to get some light shed on the mess in DC, and I attached a note that is either melodramatic and overwritten or melodramatic and dead on and exactly the point:

It is not our war machine that makes me proud to be an American. It is not our global efforts to strong-arm the world into acting on our behalf and ignoring our transgressions. It certainly isn't our present administration, whose geopolitical fumblings have made the world a more volatile, unsafe place. What makes me proud to be an American is our potential for sound, honest government: the possibility that when the Constitution works, unfettered by political bias, it serves to create a national fairness, an even playing field that disregards wealth and party and family background.

Ours was a government created by the people, for the people -- for *all* the people, not for the privileged few who have manipulated themselves into a position of undeserved and unbalanced power. It is time for the people to take it back; time for the people to find the courage and the voice to reign in a power-hungry and ill-conceived network of the amoral and the unscrupulous. It is time for an accounting of the past 6 years; it is time for finger pointing to evolve out of the blogosphere and whatever has become of the mainstream media to become an understanding of the state of the world and the state of our nation. It is time for the righteous accusations we have continually seen dismissed or lied away to be backed by the swift and sincere administration of justice. It is time for the tide to turn in favor of the actual, rather than the distorted, manipulated and misrepresented principles upon which this nation was built. It is time for full disclosure; it is time for all things hidden to be held up to the sun; it is time to set things right.

I ask you, please, on behalf of my country, my fellow countrymen and my Constitution, let the FOIA let our elected representatives begin the accounting.

(the original article -- http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadshee… )

Conveniently truncated the quote

Curious how Lynn cut off that snippet from the article, isn't it? For some reason, she omitted the final sentence in the paragraph: "No self-respecting man would rape in the first place, so ugly women are guaranteed a romp with not only a sober man, but a bad boy too; and we all know how much ladies like the bad boy."

This is the sentence that lets the reader know the article is satirical, and that the author doesn't really approve of rape. I mean, it's terrible satire, and the article really does offend, but it's clearly meant as satire. But I guess if Lynn had included that, it would have been clear to readers that it was not a serious article, and she couldn't have gotten on her high horse to claim it's not recognizably satirical. Please, Broadsheet, stop slanting your reports to enhance your supposedly feminist outrage. It's annoying, dishonest, and not feminist.

-- Lisa

PermalinkFebruary 17, 2007 3:48:04 PM EST

Mine eyes have been opened and Truth pours into them like sunbeams...

Thank you Lisa, for opening my eyes to Lynn Harris' McCarthyesque smear of what turns out to be a masterpiece of satire penned by a genius demi-god. Let the Swift comparisons turn favorable, for we have slighted his heir in our blind appraisals of the truncated version of his work!

Look here, everyone -- "No self-respecting man would rape in the first place..." Ah! Our prodigy, our fledgling Twain has shown us the turn if you will, the magical climax to his verbal wizardry and then, just then, just at the very second we are to be enlightened, Lynn Harris has done the editorial equivalent of sitting right in front of us with a fat head or a beehive hairdo or one of those mesh baseball caps that just sits right on top. For shame, Lynn Harris, for shame.

I join Lisa, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Gary Trudeau and Matt Groenig in their collective call for you to come down from your high horse, Lynn Harris and apologize at once! If not, we may be forced to find an equally high ladder or a construction lift from which to wag our collective finger in your "annoying, dishonest, and not feminist" face. Or, I feel it is only fair to warn you, if it comes to it, we may vote, fairly and democratically, and then decide to eat you. Maybe with an inappropriate wine.

Warn the others at your Anti-Petroski League meetings, Lynn, for the opposition is alert and will pounce panther-like on any attempt to squelch his gospel.

-- T

(http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2…)

A few words....

Britney Spears may not be important, but our cultural reaction to her rise and subsequent fall certainly are. We are a nation of angry, cynical, gossiping, condescending, self-important teenagers. And yes, I mean “we,” because this is the fishbowl we are all swimming in; no one is above it all, no one is looking in from the outside; when there is crap in the cultural water, we all suck it into our mouths and pretend not to taste it. We are spoiled, self-righteous, unsympathetic and unmotivated. We work at jobs that contribute less to the greater good than to the bottom line, yet we feel the right to point fingers at everyone else and accuse them of not helping.

Whatever Rebecca Traister may or may not have written columns about in the past, whatever the Broadsheet may or may not have done for feminism, she is right about Britney and our collective reaction to Britney. We, as a nation, bought her records or allowed them to be sold without protest; we, as a nation, picked up the Rolling Stone with her sexualized, almost soft-core photographs or decided against writing the editors to protest. We, as a collective body of people who know better or who should know better, allowed her look and her music to be sold to young girls as the ideal to which they should all aspire. We all took advantage of the chance she gave us to bask in the glow of her exploding virginity or each of us, in our pursuit of unimportant things, did absolutely nothing about it. None of us, not a single one, has the right to watch it all unfold, then point fingers at everyone but himself.

Britney Spears is important because her story shows once again that money means more to our nation than humanity. Britney was allowed to sell sex to 12-year-old girls and 15 to 50-year-old boys because it made a lot of people an obscene amount of money. And now, she’s not allowed sympathy because she has money and we want it for ourselves. We’re jealous of the success that seemed to come to her so easily -- she merely sings for outrageous sums of money while we work 9 to 5 for less than we're worth -- so she will not have our sympathy. There are those among us who would feel sorry for her if she were a waitress and Oprah cried over her on national television, but, no, she has a mansion (the slut), she has hot cars (the whore), she has obnoxiously expensive shoes (the trash)…let her beg for our sympathy. Let her fall until she has as little as we have and when in our egotistical pursuit to bring her down, she has been proven beneath us, then we will feel sorry for her.

We, as a nation, have treated Britney shamefully. We have praised her for dangling her innocence in front of us like a carrot; we have given her millions of dollars for dancing in her panties on MTV so that teenaged boys of all ages could get a quick wank; we have worn her hairstyle and bought her plaid miniskirts and interviewed her with gum in her mouth; we have baited her with questions we knew she couldn’t answer graciously; we have made her a commodity; we have made a pastime out of watching, waiting for her to fall; we have collectively shouted at her that she’s a bad mother for almost dropping her son, while forgetting that that moment of sheer parental terror is as much apart of motherhood as the pain of childbirth; we have sucked the usefulness out of her, and now that she’s no longer Britney-o-Matic, vending cash and gossip columns, we will throw her away. Of course Britney has made some bad decisions and of course she's put herself where she is, but now that she's there, why do find her unworthy of our help?

Last week three climbers were stranded on Mt. Hood and we, as a nation, held our breath for their safe return, but none of us stopped to say that they had brought themselves to that place, that they were adults, responsible for their own actions. Some of us prayed, others hoped, still others wrote letters of support, because that's what we do, we take care of each other; in our finest hours, that's what makes us human. Britney Spears may be incredibly rich, she may technically be an adult, but Craig Ferguson's right, she's a baby; not in some misogynistic way where no 25 year old woman can be expected to be strong, because of course they can be, but in that way most of us can become at any age when we're physically sick or incapable and we just need looking after. How about treating her the way we'd all treat a 25 year old friend or sister whose life just got to be too much? Or the way we treat stranded mountain climbers who aren't delivering transplant kidneys or curing cancer, just enjoying themselves and their time outdoors? Why not simply offer compassion or offer help, rather than gathering around like some sub-human species, chattering and throwing sticks at the weak one?

...It is wrong for parents to inspire their children with fear. Instead of inspiring them with terror, they should inspire them with love. Gordon Liddy said on television that when he was a little boy he was afraid of everything! That too can be said of me. When I was a little boy I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of teachers. I was afraid of nuns. I was afraid of priests. I was afraid of churches. I was afraid of the confessional booth. I was afraid of the statues and crucifixes in churches. I was afraid of negroes and jews and Mexicans. I was afraid of movies. I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid of insects and snakes. I was afraid of spiders. I was afraid of dogs and horses (just afraid of animals in general). I was afraid of cars and trucks (one of my greatest fears in childhood was that I might be killed in an automobile accident). I was afraid of atomic and hydrogen bombs (all through childhood I feared that World War Three was going to break out any day). I was afraid of airplanes. I was afraid of dirigibles. I was afraid of water. I was afraid of jellyfish. I was afraid of bridges. I was afraid of canons. I was afraid of forests and woods. I was afraid to sleep (for fear I would have one of my terrible nightmares). I was afraid of the impression I might make on other people. I was afraid of mice, rats and bats. I was afraid of graveyards and hearses and funeral parlors. I was afraid of high places no less than I was afraid of low places. I was afraid of caves. I was afraid of basements and attics. I was afraid of houses and I was afraid of trains. I was afraid of politicians and policemen. I was afraid of taking my clothes off in front of other people. I was afraid of hospitals. I was afraid of doctors and dentists and nurses. I was afraid of criminals and murderers. I was afraid of sex. I was afraid of the bogeyman. I was afraid of elderly men and elderly women. I was afraid of God. I was afraid of Jesus Christ (though Jesus Christ himself never would have deliberately instilled fear into children. He has been used and is used as a medium by others to instill fear in them). I was afraid of The Holy Ghost. I was afraid of The Blessed Virgin Mary and all of the other saints. I was afraid of hell. I was afraid of the Devil. I was afraid of purgatory. I was afraid of girls. I was afraid of other boys. I was afraid of you and I was afraid of Carol. I was afraid of Mother, but chiefly and most of all, I was afraid of the Old Man! Perhaps all these things that I was afraid of were simply projections, as it were, of the Old Man.

[edit]

nm.

Headache wrote:
I've never been terribly fond of Bush, but Kerry is a poll smoker. At least Bush takes a stance and sticks with it. Kerry on the other hand seems to wake up every morning and ask his staff for a 3x5 note card with his core beliefs.


I wrote: Of course it's great for a president to have convictions, but when those convictions fly in the face of reality they need to be changed. A toddler, for instance, is convinced it would be a good idea to touch a hot stove...it's red and pretty. If no one's there to stop him, he burns the holy hell out of himself and changes his mind about the wisdom of stove touching. Sometimes we need to learn from our mistakes or change our decisions to match a change in information. Speaking of changing information, I'm still waiting for the surprise on W's face when somebody finally tells him what his Christ *really* said.

the_tinman
2004-09-07 06:26 (link)
I apologize for having to post this in here, but I was banned from Bush2004 before I had a chance to respond to your last comment. Out of respect for your personal site, though, I'm not going to start the debate in here, so if you want to copy what started in there or just ask your questions again in the electiondebate community, I'll gladly, politely, without resorting to name-calling, tell you exactly why you're wrong.

lol, I know that was cheap, but I couldn't resist. Seriously, though, you believe what you believe and I believe what I believe, so come on over and we'll debate it publicly.
(Reply to this)(Thread)

Almost forgot...
the_tinman
2004-09-07 06:32 (link)
At the very least, if you get a chance go to my page and read the reply to tallymatt (as somthing_to_say) I'm pretty sure he won't post it.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: Almost forgot...
wicked_dolly
2004-09-07 15:31 (link)
A. I never asked you questions.
B. tallymatt banned you from votebush2004 and I could have done exactly the same in bush2004, but the reason I didnt and the reason as to why I unscreened your comments were because you were thoughtful enough to have a civilized debate and you wouldnt resort to name calling or bomb-throwing.
C. You seem to get off at spamming all of these communities, therefore you are a troll. Keep your opinions in electiondebate.
D. What are you talking about? What started? Its finished. I think what your problem is, is lack of experience.
E. I'm not wrong. Youre just slow-minded.
F. Youre the type of person who would sway the undecided voters to our side.
G. tallymatt won't post it because you are unsignificant and there is no reason for us to take into consideration the least bit of your thoughts.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: Almost forgot...
the_tinman
2004-09-07 16:13 (link)
Comment Posted Successfully
A person who uses "unsignificant" shouldn't presume to call another person slow-minded. I could say the same thing about someone who thinks that posting a lot is "spamming."

You said it yourself, I was having a civilized debate where I didn't resort to name-calling. I can only assume you ended it because you couldn't hold up your end. Again, how typically Republican.

I will be watching and commenting in electiondebate. Should you ever have any thoughts of your own or do enough mental weightlifting to feel like you might be able to contribute without throwing fits or cutting me off, please feel free to come in.

Fool
tallymatt
2004-09-07 05:11 (link)
Looks like someone knows how to read and follow the rules: This is not a debate community, take the debate elsewhere. Plus listen you piece of trash. My father served honorably in the National Guard during the Vietnam Era, 1971. You're calling Bush a draft dodger because he never saw combat is an insult to my father.Kerry VOLUNTEERED to go to Iraq and because he was so indecisive he put the lives of his comrades in Jeopardy. Not to mention Kerry was never injured by enemy fire but instead his injuries were self-inflicted which leaves us all wondering, why the hell did he get 3 purple hearts? Serving in Vietnam for ONLY 4 months hardly qualifies you as a war hero.John McCain was a Prisoner of War in Vietnam for 8 years, now that's a real War Hero. Kerry was only out of combat for 2 days for his injuries that were bush scratches.Kerry's attack on Bush brings down a lot of people who served in the national guard during the vietnam era and Kerry has even scared off some liberal voters who normally vote Democrat but because he acts as if it's a sin to not see combat, they won't be voting for Kerry. Since you failed to follow the rules, you're BANNED . Now since you liberals are all whiny little bitches it won't surprise me if you go get all your little troll friends to come into votebush2004 to try and start some shit, I'm the ultimate troll patrol they will all be banned. Another thing I can expect is you will make a post in liberals calling me names and inviting your buddies to attack, because you're a whiny little bitch like that. Now run along you fool.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: Fool
somthing_to_say
2004-09-07 06:09 (link)
Comment Posted Successfully
I may from time to time be a fool, but you, sir, are a bigger coward than your president. You and your fellow Republicans are afraid of debate because it's the one place you know you can't win. It's why Sean Hannity has to cut people off. It's why Bill O'Reilly has to try and shout down his guests. It's why members of this community resort to name calling, when, if you'll notice, I never have.

You don't believe in Democracy, you believe in blind compliance. It's why you want the Dixie Chicks to shut up and sing, but accept Toby Keith's loudmouth ignorance. You actually believe yourselves to be better human beings, but you're wrong. Yours is a party built on greed and fear. Yours is a party that puts corporate intesrests above those of the working class. It's a party that lies to the average American that they have the same chance at money and power as their elected leaders.

So fine, ban me from your community, with the exception of this final post I'll respect your wishes, but I'll gladly wait for any of you to step over in to electiondebate and have your tails whipped. In fact, bring the points you made between personal insults in your above post and I'll tell you why you're wrong. I have too much love for my country and the freedoms it represents to just sit by and watch it be destroyed by ignorance, naive loyalties and self-interest.

John Kerry visits Iraq?
The man who wants to be our new Commander in Chief has never gone to Iraq and never will. He won’t go there or even Afghanistan on a fact finding mission. He won’t go visit our troops because ...

Anyone care to finish that sentence?

the_tinman
2004-09-06 05:29 (link)
...he knows the facts -- A) We shouldn't have gone in without UN approval, unless we had substantial evidence of an imminent threat. B) Bush shouldn't've held his aircraft carrier victory party because we still had A LOT of work to do C) He's not the one who has to prove he'd go into a war zone. Whether he deserved a purple heart, whether he earned a silver star, whether he came back and spoke rightly or wrongly about war crimes, put his ass in a uniform and shipped out to where it could get shot off. Bush hid. He used his Daddy's power to make sure he was never in harm's way. He, like a lot of rich boys, partied while honorable men died. Let's not forget the "Bring it on" speech. How much help is that to the men and women with their lives on the line? It doesn't matter who brought up Vietnam as an issue in the election...in the matter of Bush-during-Vietnam vs. Kerry-during-Vietnam, one had the sack to actually go, the other just had a good time.

At the risk of being banned forever...
the_tinman
2004-09-05 17:58 (link)
That whole ketchup thing is the single most ignorant thing I have ever heard. I'd have said so too if I'd heard of The Workingman's Pineapple or Democrat Fruit Cocktail or any crap like it during the Clinton/Dole race.


(Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: At the risk of being banned forever...
_afterthoughts
2004-09-05 23:51 (link)
It's not ignorant. It's fun.

Obviously you don't have a sense of humor ^_^
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

Re: At the risk of being banned forever...
the_tinman
2004-09-06 00:10 (link)
Comment Posted Successfully
But I *do* have a sense of humor. I love to laugh. I just think W ketchup is retarded. It's not like Kerry himself runs Heinz. So, it goes like this -- "Don't use the Ketchup that Kerry's wife's company puts out...it's unamerican." If it was something Kerry owned...something actually named Kerry, maybe then it would be funny. Maybe.

I'm thinking in answer, though, I might boycott something with close ties to the Bush family...like Saudi Arabia. Maybe I'll put out my own competing middle eastern oil-rich monarchy/dictatorship and call it "K - America's Human Rights Violating Arabian Business Partners."