Do you See Yourself Here?

I don’t.

The Way it is Done

I watched and listened to President Obama tonight.  His address was quiet, sincere, heartfelt, and nothing like what W. did back on “Mission Accomplished” day.

I’ve wasted things in my life: money, time, opportunities, other people’s time, but I have never wasted as much money or as many lives as George W. Bush has.  The woman Margaret interviewed on the News Hour tonight just made me cry.  It reminded me of the one Iraqi student we’ve had in our program at school.  Iraq is cursed, she said.  Margaret said she hoped the woman was wrong.  It was heartbreaking.

The president addressed our nation well and all of the criticism — from both the left and the right — is uncalled for.  This president has had to walk a line few others have — perhaps none other has.  He’s doing a good job and his poll numbers are coming up — despite the spitefulness of people on both sides.

I still believe in Hope.  I still believe in Change.  I am also realistic and pragmatic.  It will take time.  How much time depends on this November.  We can go forward — pick up a stronger Democratic majority — or go backwards — return to the frivolous investigations and government shut downs brought about by divided government in the 1990’s.  Remember, when Dems took over in 2006, they didn’t shut things down.  The Republicans will if they have just a one seat majority.

I was proud of my president tonight — I’ve been proud of him for a long time now.  I am hopeful that the economy will start coming back in the next couple of months and that come November, we will see that the hate and anger directed toward him will be recognized for what it is.

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Another Term Starts

I’ve been back to work for a few days, but today was the real thing.  We have new teachers and new agendas for this term.  I think it will go well.

We’ve got a nice mix of students — most continents represented well, but for Europe.  That’s always the case.

I really love my job.  Unlike most people who lie about actually knowing people of different faiths or from different countries, I have the opportunity to not only interact with them, but it’s on a daily basis.

I’m pretty lucky.

I was alive and paying attention

back in the 2002 midterms for congress.  It’s when Karl Rove and his buddies rolled out the Iraq invasion authorization that caused Hillary so many problems in the primaries.

I think Obama remembers that too.

Here’s a link to someone I trust — someone who helped get the Health Care act through with his work.

I’m hoping that there’s something in the works.  It’s a great deal different than cowing people into a senseless war.  It’s about getting the economy back on its feet.

Hopey Hopey Hopey.

He’s in NOLA tonight.  I’m too sleepy/lazy to point to all of Jindalh’s idiotic stances during the oil spill, but I am sure he hoped that it would last until November.   As I told my absent commenter bubba, everything would work out in August.  And it has.  Jindalh’s berms weren’t needed or smart.  And that independent stance he took, while looking for every dollar he could get doesn’t match up with his philosophy, much like Alaska’s debt to the rest of us is never going to be repaid.

Republicans and conservatives are not going to make anything in this country better — they are just in it for themselves, see :  Palin and Beck.

Who is in Charge of Harris County Voting?

Republicans.

Where is Bill White’s support the strongest?  Here in Harris County.

And then the machines burned.  Literally.

What a back-assward place I live in.

First, we get voting machines that force voters to “trust” since there is no paper ballot.  Now we have no machines to vote on.  Perhaps we will all have to do mail in ballots.

This is the last straw.  All of the idiots in charge of voting here will by hell or high water make sure that the voter turnout is low.  It’s the only way they can win here.

As an aside, it must chap Michale Berry’s ass that callers confuse him with Chris Baker — especially since Berry fired Baker and then brought him back.

Good times.

Oh, and remember that the Harris County official who is in charge of voter registration was a Latino who was appointed by the guy who left the office (Bettoncourt) and then defeated by the stupid Republican voters by a guy who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

How better to screw voters and make sure the turnout in Harris county is screwed than set fire to all of the voting machines.

Given Perry’s belligerence and Michale Berry;s freakish rants, I don’t put anything past the “brigade” especially since Berry has sent them on a fool’s errand more than once.

“They sure as hell don’t represent me. They represent hate-mongering and angry white people. The happy white people are here today. We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!”

Jaime Contreras

I’m not sure about that exactly.  I watched the Rodeo Clown’s Rally this morning and most of the crowd shots showed somewhat bewildered white people.  The only people of color I saw were on the stage in speaking or singing roles.  (I am certain that the happy white people were in fact a Al Sharpton’s march.)

The whole thing was kind of weird.  At one point Beck was going on about a “40 day challenge” which automatically made me think of Jamie Lee Curtis.  Also, in between speakers they played Beck speaking to a musical backdrop  and later this video.  That reminded me of that “song” that was popular in the late ’80’s or early ’90’s of some guy (not William Shatner) talking dramatically over music.  (I don’t even know how to start searching for it.  Perhaps one of you will remember it.)

And even though I don’t want to get into crowd numbers — the audio proved that Beck’s crowd wasn’t very loud, given how many were there (supposedly).

On top of all that, I didn’t see or hear much of anything I would call “restorative.”  It was just weird.

And no matter what Beck or Palin says, they are not in any way connected to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream or cause.

I want to make one other connection.  Here’s David Brooks on last night’s PBS News Hour, when asked about Beck, Palin and this morning’s rally:

You know, one of the things to me, though, that I’m beginning to think more and more about is sort of the demographic chasm between people in the Tea Party movement and who they perceive as the elites, and they feel that both parties, the media, all of Washington and New York, is controlled by people with a tiny sliver from America, of highly educated, more affluent, and that those people feel completely unrepresented by the entire system. And so there is a political element, which we have talked about a lot, an economic element, an anti-government element. But there is also a class element in this. And that has the potential, I think, to get much more nasty and long-lasting, if that class element is really there. And, frankly, I think there is some basis to it. I do think a lot of people in the country look at a lot of people in Washington and say, those people are not me. And that’s one of the newer themes I will be looking for. I’m going to try to go tomorrow and see what it is all about.

Seriously, WTF?  Both Palin and Beck are millionaires.  Beck is part of the media elite.  Every teabagger I know is making very very good money even in this economy.  Who has the money and the free time to go to D.C. after school has started?  It’s not us working poor mother fuckers.

Clue bat for David Brooks:  These teabagger people are just SORE LOSERS.  Period.  There’s nothing complicated about it.  They’ve been on the losing side of every bit of long term social and political progress in this country and they HATES IT, I tell ya.

And Beck decided it was a good idea to state that poor people in the U.S. have it far better than poor people around the world.  That wasn’t a statement meant for poor people to hear, it was a statement for his audience to hear:  DON’T FEEL SORRY OR CARE ABOUT THE POOR IN THIS COUNTRY.  THEY’VE GOT IT GOOD.  NO GUILT NEEDED.

The whole thing was weird and pathetic.  Since teabaggers are pretty vocal, I wonder how long it will take for some of them to turn on Beck and Palin and then how soon they will be driven away, much like the Texas teabaggers were, by none other than the same Glenn Beck.

What to name it

I’ve decided that I will start another blog.

I want to separate it from the unfocused (deliberately so) main blog I have and just focus on where stuff is made.  I wish I would have started it before now, but now is better than never.

I want to state first off that I do not have a problem with some things made in China.  And I also want to make sure that it’s not a “made in ‘merika’ ” fetish either.

I just want to show that if you search a bit, and if you want something enough, you can avoid buying from China and buy either USA or from another country.

I just don’t know what to call the blog.

Calle Viena was easy enough.  This one is a little bit more difficult.

Any suggestions?

Michale Berry: Liar or Just Dumb as a Box of Rocks

Yesterday, Michale Berry pointed to, among other things, a tragedy in Mexico and a worrisome occurrence in Iowa.  Anyone who simply listened to him and didn’t check up on what he stated to be fact (not opinion), would be misinformed.

First, the tragedy in Mexico:

The gruesome killing was discovered after the lone survivor, 18-year-old Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, staggered wounded to a marine checkpoint on a highway and told authorities about the slaughter.

The Mexican military went in and in the ensuing gun battle, lost one of their own.  The news reports have been updated, so the information is different at the same links that I accessed yesterday, but suffice to say, when Michale Berry said the following, I was able to look up the AP report within seconds and determine that what he had said was inaccurate.

Berry:

Seventy-two murdered migrants from Central America shot and killed by a racist navy in Mexico.  The Mexican Navy shooting and killing 72 migrants that were coming from Central America through Mexico. You see, Mexico doesn’t like illegal aliens unless they’re theirs.  They don’t want any Guatemalans or Hondurans or Belizians (sic).  They don’t want any Panamanians or Uruguayans or Paraguayans Ecuadorians.  Anybody coming here illegally it’s gonna be their people because when the money gets sent back they want it coming into Mexico. Yes, indeed, yes indeed.

Second is Iowa:

Capt. Randy Dawson said he cannot find the origin of information that appeared in a police report that said on-duty officers at the fair Friday night said there were 30 to 40 people roaming the fairgrounds openly calling it “beat whitey night.”

The report was written by Sgt. Dave Murillo, but Dawson his efforts to verify the original source of that information have been unsuccessful.

Dawson also said that interviews with victims of attacks outside the fairgrounds have not produced evidence that any of the incidents were racially motivated.

Gonzalez and Dawson said the “beat whitey night” info stemmed from “general intelligence information” that was unsubstantiated and misinterpreted.

Murillo made the report while he was working off-duty at Mercy hospital, Dawson said. It is unclear who told Murillo that people roaming the fairgrounds were making those kinds of statements.

“I’ve been looking into that, and I cannot find the origin of that comment,” Dawson said.

Police do not believe any of the attacks were planned or orchestrated, Dawson said.

“I would say it was random,” he said. “. . .There’s no indication there was a plan to make this kind of disruption.”

—snip —

The violence outside the fairgrounds has garnered national attention and prompted one Aryan group to say it will send members to Des Moines to “answer the call of white people.”

Paul Mullet, national director of the Aryan Nations/ Church of Jesus Christ Christian, sent an email on Wednesday to State Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, that criticized the lawmaker for saying he didn’t have enough information to decide if the fights were racially motivated.

The group’s website says it exists to “safeguard the existence and reproduction” of the white race.

In 2001 Congressional testimony, former FBI director Louis Freeh testified Aryan Nations “represent a continuing terrorist threat.”

Berry, also yesterday, speaking in reference to Democrats and Democratic voters:

If they’re not white, then they tell ’em, hey, you gotta beat whitey.  You gotta show up and vote like at the Iowa state fair, the beat whitey night where they went and attacked white people randomly as some sort of gang initiation.  Well, that’s how they get their minority votes.

Berry repeated the slur against the Mexican military later in his show, even after I had emailed him, telling him he had his facts wrong.  (I also offered to do his research for him to keep him from embarrassing himself, but we all know accuracy is not his point.)

Verdict:  Michale Berry is a LIAR.

The End of Vacation

My vacation is over and I must go back to work tomorrow.

I got a lot done.

It was too short.

I will miss working with Junebug in the morning and taking naps in the afternoon with pups.

IT WAS TOO SHORT!

PUPPIES!

I unexpectedly got a PUPPY fix this evening.

No pictures, sorry only description.

Storm clouds gathered around these parts around 5 p.m. this evening and I hoped for a little rain.  The rain started — while I was watering the new lawn — and around 6, the power went out.

Tammy and Murphy were out in the front yard — they are still — and poor Dora and the inside kittens immediately got hot.  Ok, so did I.

I kept the water on the lawn with my new Taiwanese made sprinkler, since I knew we wouldn’t get enough rain to make a difference.  I also kept checking out the window for a CenterPoint truck — I can’t call since I don’t have a cell and my landline phone needs juice to run.  (I’ve got to solve that problem since Centerpoint doesn’t have a way to report outages online . . .grrr.)

At one point I looked out the front window and saw my neighbor’s female pit bull running after another neighbor’s cocker spaniel, trailed by a  slew of puppies.

PUPPIES!

I went outside and my neighbor who owes me money did the right thing and offered to take momma pup and the puppies in his house since the owner wasn’t home and he couldn’t call her for the same reason I couldn’t call anybody.

Only thing is, he only got the momma pup and three of hers.  I rounded up the other three puppies.  And then I had a PUPPIES moment or two with them.

Two of them were silver puppies.  One was black.  Oh PUPPIES.  Squirmy licky scratchy PUPPIES.  PUPPIES.

Someone stop me.  I have three puppies.

PUPPIES.  I sat on the recalcitrant neighbor’s porch for just a bit before I told him I had three more PUPPIES that needed their mom.

A bit later,  the momma puppy’s mom came home, and upon seeing that she and her pups had gotten out, started calling for her.  I waved to her and said the pups were in neighbor’s house.  I happily helped take two of the six babies home and helped get mom and babies back into the crate.

PUPPIES.