Category: Deep political thought

Dumbing it down

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Anyone besides me miss the good ol’ days when our political adversaries were smart?

I have disagreed heartily, sometimes violently, with many a Republican over the years — Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, my father — but I never thought they were idiots. Even Dickless Cheney must be considered a sort of evil genius, the Doctor Strangelove of the previous administration, which ushered in the Age of the Boneheads with Alfred E. “What, Me Worry?” Bush as patron saint.

But Jesus, these shitheels we hear spouting off without letup in today’s 24/7 news cycle are feebs, dumb as a bag of hair, stupid all the way down to their bones.

• Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who apologized to BP for its harsh treatment at the hands of Democrat green meanies — and quickly retracted said apology after John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence (the holy trinity of fucktardery) called him an imbecile. This is like getting smacked down by Carrot Top, Howie Mandel and Pauly Shore. Barton’s chief corporate donor is (wait for it) Anadarko Petroleum, a 25 percent partner in the Macondo Prospect, which was the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

• Bill Randall, a GOP congressional hopeful in North Carolina, who thinks the federal gummint and BP planned to spill that oil.

• And let’s not forget Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, Haley Barbour, Tom Price, Dick Armey … the list goes on and on and on.

The real idiots, of course, are the people who voted for this lot. I hope they’re enjoying the show. To me, it looks like “Jackass: Dumbing It Down in D.C.”

Fuelishness

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

The sun has returned, and just in time, too. I got the hell out of the house and onto the bike the past couple days, thereby missing the roundly panned Obama address from the Oval Office, the Limeys finally figuring out that Bloody Sunday was a bloody cock-up, and Apple’s quiet update of the Mini (we’ll be buying one to run the 20th Century Dog videoplex so I can get my ’06 MacBook back for purposes of revenue generation).

The cycling was the usual hodgepodge of on road and off, with one ill-advised, impulsive detour through the Garden of the Gods on Tuesday. How some folks pass a driver’s exam is a mystery to me. In one half-lap of the Garden I encountered three SUV pilots who apparently were incapable of reading the ubiquitous “No Parking” signs stenciled in the bike lane and posted at roadside.

At least one of them didn’t even understand spoken English, because I explained the bike lane/no parking concept to him after watching him park in the bike lane for a photo, leave it without signaling, and then zip back into it again for another snap, confusing two- and four-wheeled traffic equally. Ever try reasoning with a feedlot cow? You get the idea. Dude was 25 meters from a parking lot and 25 pounds shy of that first ton, which I hear is the hardest to lose. At least this one didn’t want to fight.

Today, as a change of pace, I fired up the Vespa for my trip to the chiropractor, who hates it when I show up all sweaty from cycling (makes it hard to get a secure grip for the back-cracking, don’t you know). The carb’ was fouled after a particularly damp and chilly May, but the folks at Sportique set it right and now I’m back to scooting hither and thither, drawing admiring glances from all and sundry.

“Cool scooter,” said a fixie hipster with the iBuds in as we both sat at a stoplight. Yes, indeedy. Don’t have to pedal or nothin’. Burns gas, too, just like a Harley, if at a slightly reduced rate.

After the back-cracking and a bit of cartooning for fun and profit I went for another one of my patented weirdo cyclo-cross rides (concrete, asphalt, pulverized granite, singletrack, etc.). Then I broke out the townie and a messenger bag for some light grocery shopping.

First it was south to America the Beautiful Park for this summer’s inaugural Colorado Farm and Art Market, buying some frozen free-range pork chops from Doug Wiley of Larga Vista Ranch. Next it was north to Ranch Foods Direct for a flatiron steak and some asparagus from Pueblo’s Milberger Farms so I’d have something to eat tonight.

Mind you, this was hardly the Frozen Chosin in the Freezing Season — I’m talking about 10 miles of leisurely cycling in fine weather for a dinner of grilled steak, boiled spuds and asparagus. Wiley’s pork chops are thawing in the ’fridge awaiting Herself’s return from The Big Easy. But my velo-shopping set me to to thinking about that roundly panned Obama speech.

The prez spake thusly:

The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again. What sees us through — what has always seen us through — is our strength, our resilience, and our unyielding faith that something better awaits us if we summon the courage to reach for it.

If we can’t park our SUVs and walk a few meters for a Kodak moment, how strong, resilient and courageous are we? Because the hard times are surely coming. And the SUV pilot who couldn’t be bothered to hump a few meters? He was a Marine.

Meandering and Miranda

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Elephant Rock, as seen from the bike trail near Palmer Lake.
Elephant Rock, as seen from the bike trail near Palmer Lake.

It’s Bike Month here in Colorado (yeah, we’re off the back on a lot of things, including that). So, lacking official duties, I went for a nice 50-mile ride to Palmer Lake and back.

I rode the Nobilette and took the trail, and it was just about as perfect a day as could be. Just a wee bit of cross/head wind on the way out and mostly tail wind on the way home. Fat city. I celebrated with the leftovers from yesterday’s Memorial Day steak, spuds and broccoli feast and then treated myself to a short nap.

All good things must come to an end, of course. I awakened to find that yet another 5-4 majority of the Supremes has been chiseling away at the Miranda decision again. From The Washington Post:

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the sharpest dissent of her young career on the court, accused the majority of casting aside judicial restraint and creating a rule that marks “a substantial retreat from the protection against compelled self-incrimination” that Miranda established more than 40 years ago.

“Today’s decision turns Miranda upside down,” Sotomayor wrote. “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent, which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak.” She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Well, boys, there you have it. When the deal goes down and the coppers have you in that windowless back room, give out with two quick sentences — “I ain’t sayin’ shit, and I want my lawyer” — and then shut the fuck up. Assuming you ever want to enjoy another glorious June outing on the bike, that is.