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.

Viva Manuel Gonzalez!

According to whitepages.com, there are 2,879 Manuel Gonzales' in the U.S. I don't know how many more may be in the world, but at this moment, they should all be proud, for it was a Manuel Gonzalez who was the Chilean rescuer who was the 1st man down into the Copiapo Mine to the 33 trapped miners. He was also the last man up. Never mind the nerve and courage it took to go down 2050 feet into the bowels of the earth in a makeshift rescue capsule hooked to a pulley and cable. I'm not sure which was the more daunting, the trip down, or the lonely wait to be the very last one to the surface. Well done Manuel, truly an unsung hero. Gonzalez families across the globe, name your next son Manuel and your next daughter Manuela, in hopes that he or she will grow to be as brave as this man.

Just back from a four month haitus...

...and glad to be here, although I miss Oregon, where our condo, son and his family, and others did such a marvelous job keeping us happy, along with real summer temps and a swimming pool a full 30 second walk away. Heard we missed no Alaskan summer, as there apparently was none.

I moved to half-time teaching and my wife already says it's made me a more "live-with-able" man. So, I hope to devote more time and effort to things like the blog, which may be good or bad for my small band of readers.

Wife Genie just got off the phone with DNSC (Democratic National Senatorial Committee). When the poor young kid working the phones there got through his pitch to give $100 to keep the likes of Sharon Angle from defeating Harry Reid in Nevada, or defeating the "abstinent witch princess of Delaware, Genie let him have it. It seems neither Scott McAdams nor Alaska was mentioned in the kid's donation pitch, which really pissed her off. "Why, she asked, should I give $100 to save Harry Reid's lame ass (my interpretation), when we have a viable senate candidate right her in Alaska, whom the DNSC has written off?" She then went on to tell the poor phone schlub to "Tell somebody at the DNSC!"

Truth is, while the national punditry has guessed that "Lisa M." mounting a write-in campaign is good for McAdams, because it "splits the GOP vote" with the tea-bagger Joe Miller, I disagree. In fact I know of people who called themselves "Republicans for Scott McAdams" who now are going back to Lisa. Lisa, as you know, is busy spending her $1 million media war chest on the gamble. We'll see how it plays out, but for what it's worth, our $$ stays instate.

Speaking of Harry Reid, his decision to postpone a tax-cut-for-the-middle-class-and-not-the-rich has me pissed and perplexed. I can't think of a single legislative accomplishment by this Congress that can better benefit the Dems going into November, particularly since the GOP has poisoned the minds of so many Americans on health care reform. I only hope our milk toast Mormon from Nevada can grow a pair similar to Nancy Pelosi's. If he gets re-elected.

Don't you, as I do in darker moments, think that maybe six years of Joe Miller, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell is what this country needs, in order to finally get it?