In response to my last post...

A friend of mine emailed me some alternative meanings for the acronym, TSA ("Therapeutic Sensual Assistants" is a fave), and it made me wonder: Since my wife and I are flying out of the Greatland for the Holidays, does this mean I can expect from TSA a "Christmas Goose?"

Not since...

University of Florida student Andrew Meyer uttered those famous words,
"Don't taze me bro!" inspiring rock groups The Clash and Devo to include the quote in their lyrics, and becoming part of the common currency of modern speech, has any one phrase perhaps so quickly entered the urban lexicon.

Until now. We have to thank software engineer, would-be airline passenger and privacy-of-private-parts freedom-fighter John Tyner for informing, on video, the TSA guy who was about to give him the full body-probe pat down:

"If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."

Tyner's words may now eclipse the 3 year-old taze-phrase. Surely, given the state of today's rock lyrics, there's room for this.
~b

Democrats...

Need some balls, its sure. President Obama too, I'm afraid. If you want your Congressman to spine-up and deny tax cuts to the rich that, if not allowed to sunset, will cost us $700 Billion, call (202)224 - 3121 and ask for your representative or senator. I called Senator Mark Begich and left a message about the Bush tax cuts, and the U.S. Senate's idiotic filibuster rule. I would rather let the whole thing sunset and see my tax burden go up a couple of hundred than give more $$ to the very wealthy, particularly in view of the fact that we now have the greatest disparity of wealth in this country since the 1920s.
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Speaking of the former president, "W" has been on tour plugging his book "Decision Points." In one interview he both bragged about giving the order to water-board torture prisoners, a war crime, and actually blame Saddam Hussein for the Iraq War, because Saddam fooled Bush into thinking he had WMDs, when in fact he had none. 4000+ American lives, 100,000+ Iraqi lives, probably $2 Trillion in lost American treasure, all because George Bush was duped into invading the wrong country? Do you miss him yet?
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For all those Tea Party types who carry the signs quoting T. Jefferson about the "Tree of liberty" needing to be watered by the "blood of tyrants:" Jill Lepore (Bill's book of the month recommendation "The Whites of Their Eyes") writes that "aside from Jefferson,whose enthusiasm for revolution did not survive Robespierre [and the Terror] most everyone else [other Founders] came down in favor of order." The Teahadists still have it all wrong.

Alan Seeger...

Was an American poet who was born in 1888 and died on a WWI battlefield on July 4, 1916. Seeger was a Harvard educated elite, who became a bohemian who, as a bohemian might, joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 in order to fight the "Hun." His brother Charles was the father of American folk singer Pete Seeger.

I always recite this, perhaps Seeger's most famous poem, to my U.S. History students, on or around Veteran's Day, formerly Armistice Day, commemorating the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. It was one of John Kennedy's favorites:

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air -
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It maybe he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath -
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill
When Spring comes round again this year
and the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged words am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

In college...

Midterms were never good to me either. And so it is for the Democrats, but there remain a few bright spots, particularly in the west, like Colorado and Washington, as well as "Left Coast" California, where the progressives more or less prevailed. And good riddance to the "Blue Dog" rubbish that was thrown out of office. These were conservative Dems who ran away from health care reform, Wall Street reform, and the stimulus, in order to save their own political hides in conservative districts, mostly in the mid-west and plains. Of 54 Blue Dogs in Congress, 24 were voted out. After all, if you're going to vote for a Republican, vote for a Republican, not a faux model. The "Progressive Caucus" did measurably better, losing 8 of 80 last Tuesday.
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Watching Jon Stewart interview Texas Governor Rick Perry on The Daily Show, I was immediately suspicious of what the governor - plugging his book, "Fed Up" - claimed about American history. What Perry was trying to sell to Stewart, was that the growth of federal government really began in 1913, with Progressivism and the coming of the 16th Amendment. This ushering in income taxes, which gave the federal government virtually limitless power over the states. Governor Perry is an unabashed "Tenther" who also advocates secession if needs be, for Texas. He also blamed a Democrat by name for this federal over-reach: President Woodrow Wilson. But wait - wasn't Teddy Roosevelt,a Republican, considered the 1st Progressive President? And Congress sent out the amendment proposal in 1910. Republican President William Howard Taft was in office then. Wilson's 1st term began in January of 1913, barely before the ink was dry on the Revenue Act of 1913, the trigger for federal income taxes, took effect.
Jon Stewart didn't catch it, but he's not a history teacher! BTW, Texas was the 9th state to ratify the 16th Amendment - in 1910.
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Book Recommendation for November: The Whites of Their Eyes, by Jill Lepore. An easy read from the professor of American History at Harvard, explaining how the Tea Partyers have tried to remold America's Founders, and the American Revolution into their own image. Good stuff.