A Woman's Right

I'm not a big Diane Feinstein fan, but when she earns cookies, I gotta give her cookies.

The meek-n-mild Appeal To Emotion by begging to be allowed to win just one after losing so many for so long ain't gonna cut much, but even tho' it's not a great argument, she kinda makes it stick by stealing the "deeply-held principle" angle.  Not a bad turnaround.

So OK - but here's what I'd really love to see (shit, I'd be glued to C-SPAN all day if I tho't this'd pop up once in a while):

CORNYN: Why shouldn't the law take exception to paying for abortions with tax dollars?

FEINSTEIN:  This isn't about your objections to using tax dollars in a way you find inappropriate - that's just a quickie handjob for a buncha rubes who think your "opposition to abortion" is actually a solid campaign promise instead of the Contribution Gravy Train we've all been riding for as long as anybody can even remember.  Look, I know you're not such a bad guy, but on this one thing, within this narrow focus, here it is: Fuck you - keep your fairy-tale religions out of this government, and keep your government out of my granddaughter's uterus.  Now, how 'bout we stop fuckin' around like this and let's get somethin' done for a fuckin' change?

I'll be emailing this post to my congress critters.  Feel free to do the same.

Shut Down The Fuck Barrel

When I see "police", I think "Sheriff".
And when I see [insert city name here],
I think "Nottingham".

I Am Troll Man

In this week's installment, Troll Man posts a comment at Right Wing News, on a post regarding student loans:

We all love watching people on TV talk about how rough their lives are, right?  Click here to watch MSNBC’s Blake Zeff complain about his student debt…

MSNBC host, and “lucky idiot” by his own admission, Blake Zeff gave the ending rant on today’s “the Cycle” show, and he used the occasion to whine that it wasn’t fair for him and his wife to have to pay back the $170,000 in student loan debt they racked up.

So the bank is just supposed to forget that they made the decision to spend money on an education that wouldn’t pay for itself? Or perhaps he wants the American taxpayer to foot the bill. Does anyone actually think banks will continue to loan out money for student loans if they can never get it paid back?

If we want to have a serious discussion on student loans, that’s great! Sen. Marco Rubio has some ideas, including making sure students have an idea how much the can expect to make before they take out a loan. Though if we wanted a serious discussion, we wouldn’t be watching MSNBC.

Here're the highlites of just how magnificent I am (on annoyingly rare occasions):

And then - crickets.

--snip - onto a slightly different thread.  What's interesting to me here is that they kinda start to engage, but it's like they suddenly realize I'm "the enemy", and they run away.

I'll try to post updates as (if) some of these folks come back at me.  It's weird tho'.  I ask questions and I try not to be too bellicose (yeah, yeah I know - but sometimes it's just not possible to let the shit slide), but I seem to be goin' nowhere in a big fucking hurry.

Today's Turnaround

That Pesky 1st Amendment

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hat tip = FB Friend VWE

Today's Pix

Happy Equinox

Let's Play

Burning Up --Calum Graham

Gimme One Reason (cover) --Kelly Clarkson

Goin' To California --Led Zeppelin

Sadder Days, (Won't Be) Comin' Home, I'm Done Cryin' --Robert Cray

The "New" GOP

Grifters  On   Parade

Jay Smooth

Shocked But Not Surprised

Gotta Go

Too much cookin' for me right now.

I gotta walk away for a while and try to decompress; get some shit done for myself and - uhm - whatever it is I think I'm trying to do in general.

Sorry.  I'll try to do some pix and some music once in a while, but really, I just gotta get outa here.

You Only Fool Yourself

hat tip = Democratic Underground (AngryDem001)

NPR Tiny Desk Concert et al

New one for me - Phox

Evil --Phox

Noble Heart --Phox

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Look At Yerself

Here's a bit from Scabrous Joe and Mika The Attack Bunny - along with other MSNBC Meat Puppets - saying how can we expect these fine innocent teenagers not to behave like racist assholes when it's so obvious that all those rotten hip-hopsters are putting out all those horrible rap songs that use the n-word and kill this muthuhfuckuh and bang that bitch and blah blah blah.

Aside from the standard bullshit trying to make this all about Respectability Politics (tell it, Brother Jay - from way back when)...

...and aside from more of the standard bullshit trying to make some stoopid point about 'reverse racism', maybe we could look at why all the white folk gettin' all bent outa shape.

I think I hear something along the lines of "well, if black people can call each other nigger, then why can't we call 'em niggers?"

That's a question that comes from way down deep in the bottomless well of White Privilege.

Look, guys - I'm not likely to be brutalized and/or murdered by the cops just because I was driving at night in a nice neighborhood.  I'm not gonna get Red-Lined by the mortgage companies; I'm not gonna be the suspect in a string of crimes because my facial features and my skin tone fit some artificial profile manufactured by a "justice system" that's become cynical and corrupt.  And there's a shitload more examples of built-in prejudice once you start thinking about it.

Secondly, the use of any of the words available to us has to be subject to scrutiny from a standpoint of what relationship we have with the people we're trying to communicate with.  If you sidle up beside your wife, and you give her a little squeeze on the buns and a peck on the cheek, and you say, "Hey babe - wanna get laid tonite?", you're just trying to be playful or romantic or provocative or whatever.  If you do that with somebody's teenaged daughter, you don't get to be all huffy and indignant when they take exception to it and start pounding you down into a greasy spot with a piano leg.

So after all that; knowing what Privilege allows for The Privileged, and what it does not allow for those Un-Privileged, can't we let up on the idiot notion of being so fucking privileged that we insist on "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too"?

Can't we give black folk one lousy word that they get to own and the rest of us just get to stay the fuck away from it?