The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Gotta love this picture of Arlen in the court!

I found it at MacYapper... great blog post today there about Arlen's vote on President Clinton's impeachment:

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(snip)

And who can forget his classic vote AGAINST the evil nutbag impeachment (which, BTW, is merely an indictment, and he was NOT convicted by the Senate, hence, NOT GUILTY!).He quoted Scottish law and said "not proven." Billy the Election Thief Rehnquist rolled his eyes, and recorded it as a big fat NO vote!Why Arlen was quoting Scottish law remains a mystery. But the GOP crazies can blow on his bagpipe today, baby!He's quirky, he's smirky, and yes he's kind of jerky!He sometime is a turkey. But that's what makes Arlen, Arlen.

Welcome Arlen! Way to go!

"When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing."


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"Since then, I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania."



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"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."



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"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

The Sunday Morning Muse, April 26, 2009

The list of things I do not want to write about is rather long today. I am bored to tears with the topic of torture. This nation used to do it, now we are not. Turn the page.

As for guns, well, what a wonderful country we would have if every man, woman and child owned an AK 47. Just bliss. Personally I have no use for one and I can't fathom needing it anytime soon. If things get that bad, I'd just as soon not be here.

I don't want to ramble on about the first 100 days about the Obama presidency. The bottom line is I'm happy with him, and he deserves a chance. If you want him to fail, listen to Rush or Hannity or Faux News. I'm sure the happy readers of Fox Nation... Fox's online family of like minded people will be picking apart every blessed thing the man does. If you want to wallow
in all that negativity, be my guest.

As for Climate Change... How much evidence do you need? How may parts of particle pollution do we have to breathe? I don't feel like writing about that either. The last person I would trust on the Subject is Newt Gingrich. He is well financed by the oil people. And he wants to be president. Yeah, as if that can happen. He's the guy who LEAD THE IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS AGAINST BILL CLINTON...WHILE HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH HIS CONGRESSIONAL AIDE.


One thing I do want to write about! There is a rumor that Kinky Friedman may take another stab at running for Governor of Texas. This time he would go the traditional route instead of as an independent. Texas hasn't elected an independent since Sam Houston... over 100 years ago.

Perhaps Kinky can make it as a Democrat!

Welcome to the Party!

Jon Stewart Said...

"Do you really have to waterboard somebody 183 times? Doesn't the efficacy go down? I assume after 90 waterboardings, the guy's thinking: 'You're not really drowning me.' "

The First Hundred Days is Coming Up and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

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Thinking About Merwin's Poems Today

I was listening to Fresh Air again on the way home and caught a rebroadcast of a conversation with W.S. Merwin. He won his second Pulitzer Prize for poetry on April 20 for The Shadow Of Sirius.

In the interview, he read from a poem about a photograph of his mother, taken when she was young, which had faded and was deteriorated and all he was left with was his memory. From there it led to a discussion about memory itself, and whether we should document our lives with photos and journals and such and involve ourself with preserving the details of the "past," or focus our efforts on the "now."

During my younger years I saved everything. I preserved photos, videos, scrapbooks, and enough journals for someone to publish my whole sordid life in a multi-volume boxed set should they choose to do so in the future after I am famous or dead. I also spent five years tracking down the family history...gathering photos, articals, obits, death certificates, old letters and anything I could to try to document where I came from.

Now as I'm getting older I do it less. Pictures for the past 5 years sit in boxes or drawers willy nilly mixed in with all my other junk. My journals have been hit or miss too, with weeks, and even a whole month gone by with nothing really to show for myself. I like to spend time outside in the garden, or reading, or spending time with friends or my pets. Writing gets put off.

Merwin read from another poem he wrote about what it felt like to be in his parents' house after both of them had died. It dealt with the grief, and trying to remember conversations, and also the task of sorting belongings. His father had been minister, and had requested all his sermons be burned. I can relate to that. Part of me wants all my own journals burned. My writings, my personal thoughts. Because they are unpolished, carelessly worded. Easy to misinterpret.

The last line of the poem grabbed me because of it's simplicity, yet deeper meaning. In that house, that space occupied by his parents who were no longer there, suddenly it occurs to him.

"I can do anything I want."

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Loris Who Like to be Tickled

Too Cute not to share. Wait for the sad look when the tickling stops...

The Sunday Morning Muse, April 19, 2009

"If it all gets too much and they lock me up, I want a great big strait-jacket with spots on it. A pink one... and a big zip on the back so I can escape." Susan Boyle
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You have probably seen Susan singing her "I Dreamed a Dream," by now or have watched her interviewed on one of the many TV shows. If not, there is a link to it in one of my recent posts below. I've thought a lot about Susan this week. She is a good reminder that talent doesn't have anything to do with perky boobs, white teeth and bouncy hair.

Real talent, not the synthesized, repackaged, slick, remakes of songs by little girls with a lot of makeup and sexy clothes--- touches your soul.
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It is precisely what is gone from the commercial airwaves today.

Here's a Toast to Aunt Millie

Aunt Millie would have been 99 years old. I drank a toast to her today with a friend. I came across an old journal where I jotted down a couple of her sayings. Her favorite was.....

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"We are all God's children living on borrowed time."

You GOOOOO Girl!!!

Here is the video. Read more Here about Susan Boyle.


A 47 year old "spinster" with a 10 year old cat becomes an overnight singing sensation.
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Now that is something I can smile about.

The Sunday Morning Muse, April 12, 2009

Musing about Easter.

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I watched the sunrise through the bathroom window as I was brushing my teeth this morning. Easter Sunrise. I thought of Alex getting up and going to church. He doesn't drive a car, so Alex has to go to church when he can bum a ride. He used to walk to the Polish Church over the hill, but now it's closed. So he must find a ride downtown.
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I asked Alex about Easter Sundays. He said they aren't as big a deal at the big church. Men don't wear suits anymore. The ladies don't wear hats. Most people go to church on Saturday night...and then out to dinner. It's easier for them, he said. They don't have to get dressed up twice. Sunday's pews aren't filled with people like they used to be.
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I can remember toward the end of my church-going days, I felt like they needed to give everyone a punch card. Catholics were big on attendance. It was some kind of sin if you missed church, and unless you confessed it or something, you faced consequences. As I remember it, I was scared to miss church, for fear with that sin piled up on top of my other sins, (lying, talking back to my parents, etc) that somehow, if I got hit by a bus and died I'd go to Hell.

There is a rumor spreading that the Catholics are "doing away with" the old ethnic churches. Actually I know a few people who chose to join a Polish National Catholic Church rather than go to the big church downtown. And they are happy. They like the old Polish songs.

When I was a kid on Easter I had to dress up in a Polish costume and participate in a big procession around the church. We had weeks of preparation, learning Polish songs, and practicing the procession so that we knew where to sit. The hardest part actually was not the procession itself but sitting for almost two hours up front in church, where you had to behave. And you breathed in most of the incense, so you had to struggle to keep from coughing while you sang.

I still know a lot of those songs.

Happy Easter.

Lucy Van Pelt Said

"All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt!" ~ Lucy Van Pelt

Grip It and Rip It

"Now Momma Lou makes chocolate gravy; Lord, she is so nice /Poppa Jim pulled me aside and gave me some advice/ He said, 'Quit spending all your money on all those old skanks/Just put some in your pocket and put some in the bank.'"—John Daly, "All My Exes Wear Rolexes"

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The bigger they are, the harder they fall. John Daly certainly resembles that old saying.

He's one golfer you won't see on the Leaderboard at The Masters this year. But you could go up the street and buy something from him.

He's got a bus on Washington Road up from Augusta National, where he is hawking T-shirts, head covers, hats and and stuff, trying to make a buck. (Link) He is on the outside looking in, literally, because he is temporarily suspended from the PGA Tour.

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More from ESPN:

John Daly smashed one tee shot off the top of a beer can during a pro-am. At another tournament, he returned from a rain delay with Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden as his caddie. And his most memorable photo this year came in an orange jail suit, eyes half-closed.

Daly has had his share of problems over the last few years. Alcohol, a few failed marriages, weight challenges, money problems, etc. Let's hope he gets it together at some point and makes a come back.

PS -- if you want to watch the beer can shot.... here.

400 Years of the Telescope

If you are home Friday night, don't miss the PBS Special 400 Years of the Telescope.

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(from the Post Gazette) - Watch the Video Trailer Here.

Since Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) first turned his primitive spyglass on the heavens in 1609, it has moved the Earth from the center of the universe. A new PBS documentary, "400 Years of the Telescope: A Journey of Science, Technology and Thought," is poised to shed light on the telescope's contribution to our understanding of the cosmos. It will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Friday on WQED-TV.The film is part of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 that commemorates the anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope for astronomical purposes in 1609. Subsequent telescopic observations disproved the widely held belief that Earth was the center of the universe; rather, our planet is one of eight major bodies that orbit the sun with a congregation of other objects that include minor planets, asteroids and comets.

The Good News Flower Hour- Episode 15

Church was Wrong, Galileo was Right

"The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved."
-Psalms 104:5


Link

This bible verse shackled the minds of men for thousands of years, and held back
the advance of science. It was this verse that was used as evidence against Galileo, who argued for the theory of Copernicus, that the earth is not immovable, but rotates around the sun. It was for teaching this that he was called to Rome in 1633, and tried for the crime of heresy. The aged Galileo, in his 70's, was taken down into the dungeons of the church and shown the instruments of torture that were going to be used on him if he did not recant. Fearing the torture, and fearing that he might share the fate of Giordano Bruno, whom the church burned at the stake a generation earlier for the same crime, Galileo recanted the truth. He was confined to his home under house arrest, neither allowed to leave or to receive visitors, for the last seven years of his life.
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It wasn't until 1832 that Galileo's work was removed from the list of banned books that Catholics were forbidden to read. That's two hundred years after his trial... and well after Isaac Newton established the truth of the theory!

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In 1992, Pope John Paul II (reluctantly) formally apologized for the persecution of Galileo. They finally admitted that they, the Catholic Church and all the Popes since the beginning of the Church, were wrong, and that Galileo was right. For fifteen hundred years they had argued that every word in the bible was true-- that it was the perfect word of God, true in it's history and in all of its sciences. They were wrong. They threatened, tortured and killed people who disagreed with this error in the most brutal ways imaginable

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Good News Flower Hour- Episode 14

My favorite part is about the Pope. I haven't forgiven the church for what they did to Galileo either.

The Sunday Morning Muse, April 5, 2009

Thirty years after Three Mile Island. I was only a young teenager when it happened, and barely remember it as a blip on the radar screen of my youth, even though I live here in the Keystone State. I found this Walter Cronkite newscast and it is fascinating to watch. Even if just to see how much things have changed in broadcasting and news conferences. The black and white video also makes it strangely surreal. Like you are waiting for the end of the world and Walter Cronkite will patiently tell you when it will arrive.
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I've been in sort of a self imposed newsblock lately, so I didn't even realize the 30 year anniversary of the event until I started Googling it. Actually I was going to rave about North Korea's missle launch today, and how we really need to put this nuclear nonsense to bed somehow before the whole planet gets destroyed. Now I feel this need to dig up something from the No Nukes Concert from way back then. I think I had it on an eight track.

Touching The Queen? She touched first!

Since when did conservatives start caring about diplomacy, much less obscure rules of diplomatic decorum? I seem to remember these same bloggers defending a previous president who (while not actively pissing off the entire world with his policies and rhetoric), took the time to give the Chancellor of Germany an awkward neck massage, told the Pope he gave an "awesome speech", and, after implying that the Queen was over 200 years old, turned around and winked at her. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that these same bloggers would have lept to George Bush's defense if he had tackled the Queen 'Naked Gun' style or belched in her face.

Quoted from the Anonymous Liberal.

The Sudden Right Wing Obsession with Diplomatic Protocol.

I came across this post responding to the Right wingnuts' determination to find ways to make the Obama's look bad on their first oversea trip. The First Lady was a big hit in Europe... with her genuine warmth and great ability to connect with people. As usual the loons on the Right are so pissed at the Obama's popularity, they resort to sneering and sniping. As for protocol...nothing will ever top W's father--George H.W. Bush--who threw up on the Japanese Minister. (video here, if you can stomach it)

Leonard Cohen on Fresh Air Today

Who but Leonard Cohen, when asked to describe a raincoat he once owned, called it a sort of the opposite of an invisibility cloak...."the garment that will lead you to erotic and intellectual adventures...."

It's always a joy to hear Leonard unexpectedly as I did on my way home from work today. That remark and a bit of the song Famous Blue Raincoat is about 9 minutes or so into the featured program on Fresh Air today. You can go to the website below and hear it.

NPR's Fresh Air ran parts of Leonard's 2006 interview...and intermingled his readings of some of his poetry from Book of Longing. You will also hear snippets of several songs...and I must say interviewer Terry Gross did a wonderful job picking them. You can tell she is a fan. Asking him about different lyrics and asking insightful questions. She gets him to talk about his 5 years at Mt. Baldy at the Zen Center...and he reveals a suprizing insight...it is not as reclusive to go to a monastery as you would think. There are more private moments on Boogie Street.

His voice..though much lower and gravelly than in his youth still rings with his spirit. I can almost hear the younger Leonard underneath in his phrasing...with his pauses, and a smile peeking through the darkness and that sense of longing which Leonard is known for.

There's no better way to hear Leonard's poetry than him reading it. I loved "Titles" and "A Thousand Kisses Deep" (which I taped to my wall a long time ago)

Toward the end a discussion of beauty, prompted by a phrase in the song Chelsea Hotel. "We are ugly...but we have the music." The song is about a tryst he had with Janis way back when. The encounter is immoralized in the song.

"I'll be waiting on the corner where there used to be a street." A snippet of a poem/lyric he wrote for Anjani, comes at the end. There's more to it, but I won't spoil it. Terry Gross seemed awed by it.

He makes me want to write so much better.

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Leonard's new CD is called "Live in London" and it was recorded last July.