Christmas Message, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read recently with some sadness about how a fellow blogger friend of mine had gotten his family Christmas Tree "from a lot" and I nearly wept, such was my trepidation for the future of the Nation.  This is decidedly not how one is supposed to go about obtaining the family tree.  One must, and I cannot stress this enough, venture forth into the Wilderness, just as Chevy Chase did in the epic Christmas Vacation, and battle the elements and, indeed, Nature herself in order to obtain the prize. 

This is how we do it and, therefore, this is how it must be done.  Enclosed please find pictures of this year's hunt for the Kincaide Family Christmas Tree.  The site is a Christmas Tree preserve located about an hour and a half north of Detroit, deep in God's Country.  Lot, indeed.

Above, please note that the quarry has been pinned down by my wife Jeannie and my daughter Laura.  Moments later comes "The Moment of Truth":

Note the look of satisfaction on the face of the young huntress after she has made her kill!  And now, a trophy shot:

 

 

 

So, there you have it.  The game has been dressed, not field-dressed, more like Living Room dressed, and is now on display in our home.  A local beastie has been employed to guard the prize:

As a finishing touch, we have surrounded the tree with an entire village, the residents of which spend most of their time looking up with wonder and awe at the tree which towers over them:

Such is our life on Christmas Eve, 2008.  I wanted to take a moment to thank so many of you for enriching my life in the past year.  I lift a glass o' Nog to you David von Ebers, and to you Democommie, and to you General, sir, and to Jay and Dave and Nomi and all the rest.  Merry Christmas friends!

Road Trip!

I know most of you don't have time to scroll through yet another Wonkette post as the Big Three CEOs today take another field trip to DC (driving there in cars built by the companies they head instead of flying there in corporate jets this time) to ask, hats in hand, for 25, uh, 34 billion in loans to save their asses and the three million or so jobs which depend on those asses.  So I've done it for you.  The highlights so far:

OK, so who’s going to be the brave filmmaker who turns this into a road movie? I imagine scenes in which:

• They hit the Bunny Ranch
• They get lost in the “wrong part of town” and lose their hubcaps
• Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and Alan Mullaly has to change the fan belt
• They  pick up a hitch-hiker who may or may not be a serial killer
• They fight over what radio station to listen to
• Rick Wagoner ties Robert Nardelli’s shoes together while he’s sleeping
• They dig up an old bottle of “Dom Perignon” they buried in Death Valley 10 years earlier
• They go skinny dipping just outside Oram, Utah and someone steals their clothes
• They finally arrive in D.C. with a completely changed outlook on life

---

“Yes, Congressman, we feel we have comprehensive plan to make the most of the $34 billion we’re requesting.”
“Uh, Mr. Waggoner, wasn’t it $25 billion?”
“Two weeks ago, it was. But after we put our heads together and came up with an actual plan, we found that the figure was more like $42 billion.”
“Wait — you just — ”
“And with this $47 billion, we think we can get on a sound footing — for the next three or four months, at least.”

---

Is this a milestone when the CEOs all rode in one of their products? There was a deeply transformative moment when Wagoner started sniffing the air and said, “Is this what they all smell like?” Nardelli got carsick and Mulally was just annoying the whole time, reading out the signs of failing businesses along the highway as they drove...

Surviving the Current Economic Unpleasantness

The best advice on what to do with the economy collapsing around us comes to Everybody courtesy of Wonkette commentator Serolf Divad: 

"If I lived in Australia I’d be welding massive gas tanks onto the back of my black 1973 XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe right now. I’d get a dog and learn to enjoy eating dog food out of the can. I’d dress in black leather and carry a sawed off shotgun and lots of shells."

So, there you have it.

In a totally unrelated note, the best line Everybody heard following the recent Electoral Good News comes to us from the hallways of one of the local high schools where one of the youngsters was overheard wailing on the morning after the vote, "I don't even want to live in a country where Barack Obama is president!  Do you know what his middle name is?  It's Al Queda!"

So, there you have it again. 

My teenage daughter is a Democrat, big time.  Just like her parents.  Her classmate, the girl who apparently thinks Hopey is a terrorist, is a Republican, big time.  Just like her parents.  The affirmative case for the efficacy of political indoctrination is therefore made, no? 

How then to explain that I was raised by a Republican?  In fact, during a recent visit I teased my mom about how she had voted for Nixon.  Twice.  (Upon further reflection I realized that I had misstated the case.  She probably voted for Tricky Dick 5 times: in 1952,'56,'60,'68 and '72!)

But having spent her 14 years as an inmate, I mean student in my political re-education camp, our daughter was really quite concerned, worried sick is more like it, about the impact a win by the other side would have on the future of our nation and on the future of our household.  Having previously mentioned indoctrination as I did, you can see why I would blame myself for her feeling the way she felt, but what could I do?  With the exception of the lies all fathers tell their children, (i.e., "There is too a Santa Claus"; "There is too an Easter Bunny"; and, of course, "You do too have a really, really great dad!") I am unerringly truthful with my child.  My defense for scaring my kid is therefore the virtual impossibility of overstating to her or anyone else the dire consequences of a victory by a ticket which presents on it the name "Sarah Palin".

Laura, like the rest of us, feels much better now.

Meanwhile, I see the middle-aged men gather after church or before choir practice and I overhear snippets of their conversations.  They are auto guys, middle management, mostly.  They work for Ford or GM or a company whose business and existence depend on Ford or GM.  "What have you heard?"  "Are you taking the buyout?", etc.  They are worried.  They are scared for their economic lives.  I wonder how the Republicans among them, a majority I am sure, have taken the news that Senate Republicans are poised to filibuster the $25 billion in loan guarantees for the Big Three.

Finally, an excellent thesis on how the mind of Sarah Palin works in the wake of her presser this week at the Republican Governors Association meeting from the superb Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone magazine.  Enjoy! 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes We Did.

It's Election Night:

A few minutes after Barack Obama became the president-elect, I called my black friend and said, "A Brother in the White House.  What's that all about?"  We had a great laugh but I think maybe he'd been crying a little bit.  What's that all about?  I haven't been able to wipe this smile off my face since California went to Obama and put him over the top at a second after eleven and that was about an hour-and-a-half ago. 

It was the cracking-voiced reaction of the blacks I saw on TV tonight, Eugene Robinson on MSNBC and Juan Williams on FOX that affected me most.  (And wasn't best part of the night watching those Fox News Channel creeps with the looks on their faces that said, "We are SO screwed"?) 

I'd never realized how much the election of Obama would mean to black people.  How could I?  I'm a white dude.  I just wanted to get a good man in there.  Which we did.  But, to be honest, I hadn't really thought about how blacks would take it before tonight.  it touched me to see how much it meant to them.   

I looked at that crowd of several hundred thousand gathered in Grant Park and I told my wife Jeannie, "I just hope this means we can all get along better now, you know?"  It's what I want more than anything from this new day.

The thing I will remember most about the presidential campaign of 2008 was the Labor Day trip my family made to downtown Detroit for an Obama rally.  I was born in Detroit and I've lived here pretty much my whole life and I've never seen the place so happy.  I've seen it on fire, literally, but I've never seen it happy.  We were walking back to the car and passed a parked school bus filled with kids from Southfield Lathrup High School.  Black kids.  A whole bus full of them.  One of the kids stuck his head out the window and asked, "You for McCain?"  "Oh, hell no," I said.  "Obama!  Obama! Obama!"

The bus went completely nuts.  It was rocking as the kids cheered along with me.  What a great time we were having together.  I'll never forget it.  I'll never forget this night.

I watched McCain giving his little concession speech in front of his little crowd of rich people with their cocktails glasses clinking at a resort for rich people in Scottsdale and then I saw We the People gathered in a city park in Chicago waiting to hear the winner speak.  It was the perfect metaphor for what this whole campaign was about.  Not to mention the perfect ending to it.

Yes we can?  Yes, we did!

Only 13

I was listening to Harry Beadle deliver the 1pm (Eastern) edition of "CNN Radio News" today (Friday, October 31) and old Harry sounded like he was pretty geeked up about what he called, and I quote, "Good news out of Iraq today."

According to Harry, it seems not a single US soldier died in Baghdad this month!  Huzzah!

Then Harry had to go and spoil the whole thing and stress my mellow.  In following up he noted that "only 13 American soldiers died elsewhere in Iraq in October."

Really?  Only 13?  Only?

I will say this.  It's the first time this month I've heard any word whatsoever in the broadcast media anywhere about US war deaths in Iraq.  Maybe the first time in weeks.  In fact, there are entire months that go by without any mention of the on-going deaths in the War Bush Lied America Into unless I happen to be listening to This Is America with Jon Elliot (11pm Eastern on Air America Radio, 1310 WDTW-AM here in Detroit) on the first of the month.  During his first show every month, Elliot ends his broadcast by reading a list (name, age and hometown) of every US soldier killed in Iraq during the month just ended.

There have been months when it would take over an hour to complete the list.  May, 2007, for example. That one included 127 names and ages and hometowns. It took Jon almost two hours of airtime to read it.  This is America is billed by its host as "the fastest two hours on radio".  Not that night it wasn't.

Now, I get it that 13 is far fewer than 127.  But 13 of our brothers and sisters who were alive when this month began are now dead.  13 more have died for Bush's lies in the past month.

I fail to see the good news to which Mr. Beadle made reference.

By the way, the most recent Iraq War death, the 13th in the month of October, occurred Thursday.  The name of the decedent has not yet been released.  He or she is the 4,189th American to die in Iraq.  So far.

Four days until we change America.

"And He's A N-----!"

Just to make sure there was no sound dubbing involved, I checked this video against a different feed provided by The Des Moines Register and it is authentic.  This is from a Klan, sorry, a Palin rally Saturday.  The clip is less than a minute.  At about the :14 mark, you will hear a slur that should make your heart sink.

From her reaction (not to mention the slur was shouted loud enough that it actually created an echo in the Hy-Vee Arena) it is obvious that Palin heard it.  Other than stumbling over her words, she did nothing.  Nothing at all.  It was perfectly okay with her. 

It's like I said to someone I know to be a Republican over the weekend: "So, you're voting for Palin, eh?  Tell me what that's like."

Seven days until we change America. 

Spread the Wealth

I hear Insane John McSame scream at his rallies that "Barack Obama wants to spread the wealth!"  while his apparently vapid worth-a-hundred-million-dollar trophy wife stands there with that smug, crap-eating grin on her face and while I think about what a good idea Barack has there, I hear McSame's audience react to the to the suggestion that wealth in the country should be spread around not by cheering wildly, but rather by booing loudly.  As louldy as they can, in fact.  I am left slack-jawed in disbelief.

What could they possibly be thinking? 

Does everybody at a McSame rally make over $250,000 or are they just stupid? 

I usually depend on Wonkette for a laugh or two, but there was nothing in this post to giggle about.  It reports on a 30-country economic study which took two years to complete and which concludes that only two nations (Turkey and Mexico) have greater income disparity between the rich and poor than we have right here in the Good Ole USA.  And it notes that the gap is growing, that it has shot up in the last 8 years after the trend had been reversed  (albeit slightly) the previous 8 years.

The report says that the top 10% of US wage earners control 71% of all the wealth in the United States.  The top 1% owns fully 33% of the nations wealth.  That doesn't leave much for the rest of us, now does it?

So why are these idiots booing the idea of "spreading the wealth around"?  Spreading it around a bit sounds pretty common sense to me.

My wife says it's because all those people aspire to make it to the top 10% and don't want to get taxed once they get there.  I say that I'm all for them reaching that goal and as soon as they do (which, of course, the vast majority never will) they should right away turn around and become big-time Repubs.  But until that day, they are simply cutting their own throats by supporting Republican policies which hurt them; which have never done a single thing for them. 

I think Barack said it best yesterday: "Senator McCain isn't looking out for Joe the Plumber.  He's looking out for Joe the Hedge Fund Manager!"

Right on, my brother.  Right on!