Bedtime for Bonzoids

I am going to be off-line for a few days.  All the little people in my brain are going to be held captive in a bland, dull, generic, boring, hopeless, mind-numbing, horrific, probably-smelly hotel conference room for the next two days.  And they have to go to a baseball game.  I know it brings my creds into question, but I hate baseball.  Except for when the batters go bonkers with all the crossing, spitting, scuffing-the-dirt and scratching-the-crotch routines.

Update on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 11:11PM by Queen1

I’m going to read a few poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  That’s not humorous at all; but his poetry has a poignancy and freshness about it that I find intensely moving.

See, THIS is Funny

Conservatives like visceral, graphic humor.  Like this from Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner:

Rich you write:

The over-the-top attacks on Sarah Palin (my column topic today) and the way the press is writing her off are enough to get anyone’s blood up. But let’s not get carried away. This moment reminds a little of when Fred Thompson was first considering running and it seemed every conservative out there was convinced he was going to carry all before him and any gentle dissent was greeted with outrage. We know how that turned out. Palin is exciting, likable, and obviously has skills, but we just don’t know how she’s going to perform at this level…

Me: Rich, I will tear out your eyes and urinate on your brain. Banishment from polite society is too good for you. You should be slit from belly to chin and have a half-starved weasel sewn into your abdomen. I cannot believe you would even think, never mind utter, such heresies. For shame.

Just when I start to think I’m funny…

OK, There ARE Still Neanderthals Among Us

And apparently, they will NOT be voting for McCain, because (gasp, shudder, pee in pants in fear) Sarah Palin is a WOMAN!  I’m at a loss for words, although I am not surprised, really.  Just sitting here with one of those bemused frowny-faces at comments like this (from iSteve; here is the link:  http://www.isteve.blogspot.com.).

I always thought that I was a conservative.

But if being a conservative means having to vote for a woman, then I guess that I’m not one.

I guess I AM sorta flummoxed.  Even my dad would vote for a woman.  He’d vote for a black conservative.  Hell, he’d vote for a black, conservative woman. 

I don’t think I want the average woman serving in combat or even rushing into a burning building to save me, but since holding national office traditionally requires nothing more strenuous than wielding a weighty fountain pen, I fail to see how not having a Y chromosome disqualifies one from being VPOTUS or POTUS or SCOTUS or anything but SCROTUS come to think of it. 

I suspect such thinking originates in the fundamentalist Christian nether regions of American politics, where one might agree with the jihadists that nations ought really to be theocracies—where of course men are destined to be in charge.  I think one is stretching exegetical boundaries to take St. Paul’s description of the relationship between husband and wife and apply it to national governance; no less so to take Paul’s understanding of sex roles in the administration of the church and apply it to secular politics.  Similar thought processes could come from an Orthodox Christian or an RC—maybe; probably not.  Orthodox Jew—yes; but I doubt many of those are posting at Steve’s site.  So, it’s gotta be those dang fundies again.  One does just sort of want to wrap them in duct tape and shove them in the closet until the guests leave. 

I wonder if the pollbots will investigate this particular prejudice the way they have “exposed” all the (purported) racism driving the NObama voters.  On the one hand, I think not, because the MSM won’t want to encourage any sympathy for Palin—we can’t have any undecided women coming down for McCain just because.  OTOH, they might be salivating just dreaming about hyperbolic descriptions of misogynist conservatives who would rather open their femoral arteries than vote for a woman.  Even better if they can grub up conservative Christian women who believe Palin’s place is cooking her moose stew barefoot in the kitchen.  With that, they could highlight McCain’s brain-clanging misapprehension of his own base, while pretending themselves to be above such primitive nonsense.

The McCain campaign better start driving the story line now.  Marginalize the lizard-brains who won’t vote for a woman by lumping them in with the bigots who won’t vote for a black, and push the “Sarah Palin is Teddy Roosevelt for the 21st Century” theme. 

But Max is with me.  I like this one better:  Sarah Palin will give birth to the man who saves the human world from the machines.  After viewing the Terminator movies uncountable times (triple digits, REALLY), we know what she’ll say come November:  “You’re terminated, f*****.”

Some Days Are Like That

We used to have a children’s book called something like Alexander’s Terrible Awful Horrible No-Good Very Bad Day.  Maybe there weren’t quite so many modifiers, but you get the picture.  At the end, Alexander’s mom tells him, “Some days are like that.”  Which is a kid-friendly version of “Shit happens.”  As long as my kids aren’t eating dirt cookies, we’re o.k.

My Blackberry decided to croak.  Jeremiah was my BB…the good news is I had remembered to back it up a few days ago.  If I lost my calendar, I ‘d be fine—I have to see a month at a time, on paper, in my itty-bitty handwriting, so I keep a hard-copy planner.  But the contacts!! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth there would have been.

Mountains and mountains of homework tonight.  I don’t remember having homework in elementary school.  Ever.

Mule-headed doctors. 

And on top of Old Smokey…my mouth itches.  Something I eat or breathe or drink during the day is making my mouth itch, and it is driving me ape. 

Quite the To-Do List

Go, go, go said the bird.  Humankind cannot bear very much reality.  That’s the truth, Ruth.  The little people in my head are running around in circles, frantically waving their arms, all het up about how much I have to do today.  Nothing to be done for it except getting it done.  So, off we go!