Category: Deep political thought

Love train

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

You gotta feel for Jon Stewart, who has one of the toughest jobs in show business. He has to be informed, folksy, intelligent, self-deprecating, persistent, polite, informative without being pedantic and both witty and funny simultaneously, which is not easy.

And today, he had to be reasonable.

Oy. Reasonable. How’s a guy supposed to run a 150,000-person rally on the Washington Mall being reasonable?

Pretty well, actually. Considering the self-imposed handicap, Stewart and Stephen Colbert could’ve done worse with their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Some of the musical guests were predictable (John Legend, Sheryl Crow), others less so (the O’Jays and Ozzy Osbourne).

I could have done without a benediction from Don Novello’s Father Guido Sarducci, an act that should’ve gotten the hook about 20 years ago. I’d also have liked to have seen the Mythbusters orchestrate the crowd into a halftime-show marching-band arrangement that spelled “WTF?”, something a guy could see from the International Space Station, just in case the aliens are watching. But I’m funny that way. Maybe not.

Stewart was Stewart, albeit dialed down a couple of notches. But Colbert gets the Doggy for best gag. He “honored” the mainstream media (including The New York Times, CNN and NPR) with one of his Fear Medals for ordering their employees not to attend the rally, and then draped it around the neck of someone with more guts — a 7-year-old girl.

I would’ve liked more snark, but then I’m a bitter old left-wing partisan media hack. And even I, Captain Cynical, got a little lift from seeing all those folks in one place, having a more or less good time. No screamers, no book-burners; nobody with fake blood (or the real deal) on his or her hands, or being hanged in effigy. Just a bunch of folks who had come to the nation’s capital to be reasonable.

Let’s hope we send a few more of them there on Tuesday.

A tough slog

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, being of the non-white, non-Christian, non-tea-partying persuasion, reports that she will be hiding behind the coffeemaker until the midterms are over.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla, being of the non-white, non-Christian, non-tea-partying persuasion, reports that she will be hiding behind the coffeemaker until the midterms are over.

We’re seeing lots of journalism from The Old Gray Lady, McClatchy and other national news sources lately about politics in Colorado.

The Senate contest between the right-wing dingbat Ken “Aw, She Was Askin’ For It” Buck and Democrat Michael Bennett is a tossup in the final stretch, despite the nearly $30 million spent on it by deep-pockets interest groups outside Colorado, a state that had to slash $260 million from its funding for public schools this year and still faces a $262 million deficit.

And voters in Larimer County are said to be confused and angry, which will surprise no one who is actually from Colorado; Larimer is only slightly less fire-engine red than our own El Paso County.

Speaking of which, the local cage-liner has come out for Buck, naturally, and I expect Bibleburg to turn out in force for him, though we went for Obama way back when “change” wasn’t all that was left in our pockets. The electorate has the attention span of a retarded golden retriever and will eagerly bite the hand that feeds it, regardless of race, creed, color or religion.

Well, maybe and maybe not. The Washington Post recently undertook a massive survey of the so-called Tea Party “movement” and 11 percent of these fine, upstanding Americans said that the prez’s race, religion or ethnic background was either a “very important” or “somewhat important” factor in the support their groups have received.

Surprise, surprise. Some angry, dumb-ass honkies are scared of anyone who doesn’t share their skin color, superstition or ethnic heritage. They get to vote right alongside the smart people, and anger is a powerful motivator, especially in tandem with ignorance (ask any opinion-page editor).

Fact is, shit rolls downhill, and Obama and the Donks are living in the valley. Doesn’t matter that the Daffy-Fudd administration piled all those turds up there and then gave them a push on their way out the door — or that all us little folk are trapped down there in Smelly Valley, too.

Toss the rascals out! If only we were talking about the right ones. …

Scared strait

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Hello, Comrade Yeti, me love you long time.
Zdravstvuĭte, tovarishch Yeti, me love you long time.

Ho, ho. The brownshirts who cuffed one journo’ and tried to intimidate a couple more during a Joe Miller tea party at an Alaskan public school are apparently active-duty soldiers moonlighting without approval from their chain of command.

You’ll notice in the video still that one of these Nazis is giving the sieg heil with the wrong hand. Thirty days close arrest, Heinrich. If you’re lucky. Dis-miss.

What is it with Alaska, anyway? These Arctic Circle assholes suck the public sugar tit drier than a popcorn fart, like Nosferaturu locked onto a fat artery after a few hits of killer bud, then complain that they don’t like the taste.

What say we hire a few of these out-of-work fellas I hear so much about lately in the lower 48 to saw this frozen shithole off the continent and shove it across the Bering Strait to to Siberia, see how these freedom-loving dingbats like it over there? Love it or leave it, beeeyotch. Preferably the latter.

That lame-ass beard surrounding Miller’s smirking yap ought to look like porn-star poontang to some horny Russian yeti. Probably be the first time that mouth of his has been put to good use since his mama whelped him in a Kansas trash can.

Cool today, chile tomorrow

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
A touch of yellow among the green.
A touch of yellow among the green.

Summer is hitting the door running with its bike slung over one shoulder. The leaves are turning, we’re back to breakfasts like steel-cut Irish oatmeal with black tea, and dinners involving copious quantities of freshly roasted green chile and free-range pork are in our very near future.

I haven’t made the ultimate concession to cooler weather — pulling on the ratty old gray sweatpants — because I’m still a tad scabby and stiff from stacking it on the trail last week. But I may have to start adding socks to my usual T-shirt-and-shorts ensemble, if only in the early mornings.

Political signs have replaced roses in the yard — Hickenlooper, Bennet, Merrifield and Mowle — and a few more opposing three insane tax-slashing initiatives will be joining them soon. I don’t see that overfed, under-taught windbag Doug Bruce volunteering to underwrite a few streetlights, patch a couple potholes or water a park, and frankly some things are worth paying for.

Between you and me, I’ll be glad when the midterms are behind us if only so we won’t have to listen to the ceaseless drumbeat of an ass-whuppin’ a-comin’ from the mainstream media. I’d rather take three beatings than endlessly anticipate one.

Meanwhile, cyclo-cross season starts this weekend. Already? I can still walk, but I haven’t tried running lately, and I haven’t been on a bike since a week ago Monday. So don’t look for me at the Pikes Peak Velo Supercross on the 18th. On a bike, wearing a number, anyway.