He always taught us to think for ourselves, and
he told us that we would not be allowed our
basic freedoms in the military, and he would
DISOWN any of us who joined.

I didn't even know that he had been a DI
until I was 17! He didn't want us to
glamorize the military in ANY way.
He encouraged his "men" to find state-side
service.

Once he told me that a particularly "gung-ho"
recruit was anxious to get to Korea, my Dad
told him
"You could get SHOT over there"

He told my Dad
"If there's a bullet with my name on it,
it will find me.."

My Dad told him
"If you stay HERE, that bullet will be
lodged in a TREE in Korea!"

He raised us to question authority, not to
blindly and willingly follow orders.

...put the gas, BUT he always told me that
whenever I saw a Renault Alliance, I should
shake my head slowly and say:

"piece of shit",

and everyone would instantly respect my
knowledge of automobiles.

He also taught me how to look under a hood
while someone else was fixing a car and say:

"Well THERES your problem"

when they suspect something.


My dad knew a lot about humor...

even YEARS after his death. BUT


...when I was a young woman (19) he told me
that he would throw me out of the house if
I dated a black man (an interested swain had
called the house).

The black man who had called was from a
rich, much admired family, but my Dad
didn't know that, all he heard was a
black "accent", and he WENT OFF.

I pushed it with him, and he said
"Don't bring him home!"

Total KNEE JERK reaction from a guy who
was raised in a world where racism was
as natural as BREATHING.

I have no doubt, that had the "relationship"
gone anywhere (it didn't), my father would
have eventually been forced to judge the guy
on his own merits.

If this recollection is "throwing my Dad
under the bus", then he is the one responsible
for gassing it up and laying on the accelerator!

Obama's white grandmother has a LOT of company.
We can speak out against the BIGOTED perceptions
and STILL LOVE the "wrinklies" that don't examine
their own prejudices.

Note: My apologies to the Wrinklies that have
grappled with institutionalized prejudice and WON!

"You can say what you want to about Bill Clinton, but I think he's the best president we've had in my lifetime. (Jimbo's in his 60s.)
I made more damn money and lived better the eight years he was in than ever before or since."

Never mind NAFTA.
Never mind the steady erosion of the middle and lower middle classes.

Well at least it IS a reason.......

I see Hillary as inevitable.
She is the party (read DLC) choice.
She has been since the beginning.
The democratic strategy has been to let the
pukes hang themselves with their own rope.

So be it. We believe that we can win the election
running a HAM SANDWICH against any of their candidates.

We believe that the BASE is unnecessary. Totally.
We believe that the "war" will continue.
That outsourcing is good for the economy.
That insurance company profits are sacrosanct
and health care is a privilege, not a right.

We are the New Democratic Party.

Why I saw this SMART gentleman on FOX this morning, talking SMARTLY on
this very subject! His name was Mr. Kagan and he is COLLEGE EDUCATED.
He even works for an INSTITUTE! (Of American Enterprise!)

Anyway, HE said that there IS no "civil war". That the Shiites (SHEE-ITES)
and the Sunnis (SOO-NIS) are fighting because Al-Queda (AL-KAY-DUH)
bombed some mosque last year, causing those two loving religious groups
to fight each other.

Now IRAN is supplying Al-Queda with guns and money (and probably lawyers)
and causing US Soldiers to DIE, so we MUST fight Iran. It is the only
way to bring peace in Iraq.

Don't you SEE! We must FIGHT THEM IN IRAN, so we don't have to FIGHT THEM
IN IRAQ, so we don't have to FIGHT THEM HERE, in our BACKYARDS.

Have a nice day, AMERICA HATER!



You KNOW I love you, Pat!

My father approached me about buying the crappy yellow Vega
with the smashed in front quarter panel owned by the guy
across the street from us.

He made me a deal -- he'd loan me $300 bucks if I could come
up with the other $300 of the $600 that our neighbor was
asking for the car. "It's a good deal", he told me.

I was 17 and I needed the car to get to the crappy community
college I was planning to go to, so I gave him the $300 bucks
and he arranged the sale. I paid him the other $300 over the summer.

Well, I drove that car for about a year, and one day, as I
parked it across the street, the guy who used to own it happened
to be out mowing his lawn. He turned off his mower and said,
"I can't believe that car is still running! I thought it was a
total loss after ...




















...your father pulled out of the driveway and crashed into it
last year!"

My dad was a practical joker of the FIRST WATER!

and 3000 DEAD AMERICANS that their
vote authorized.

It was a CYNICAL vote.
They thought it was a WIN/WIN
vote for them.

If bush had pulled off "shock and awe",
we'd be ROLLING in stolen oil and we'd
all be drivin' our SUV's into the SUNSET
right now.

The more likely version, which we are
experiencing...could be sloughed off
to "bad intel" or "they were tricked".

But we KNOW too much. The PEOPLE
knew. WE WATCHED as Colin Powell was
FORCED to take his BULLSHIT documents to the UN.
We SAW Scott Ritter rail-roaded. We READ
Joe Wilson's report. We KNEW about the ALUMINUM TUBES
and the WEATHER TRAILERS.
They WENT ALONG WITH IT because they
didn't understand the power of the
"internets".

They have blood on their hands.

The republicans are paying at the hands of the voters.


Our wrong voting dems should be held accountable in some capacity too.

numbers of districts, we won't win.

We NEED 50 state structure. We NEED to make them RUN
in every race. Spend in EVERY race. We need to recruit
sincere people who will actively campaign and stay on
message. LOOK what we can achieve when the structure
is THERE, and the grassroots are willing to WORK.

DLC CANNOT continue to choose our candidates.
The grassroots are WATCHING NOW.

WE HAVE THE INTERNETS.

Like a driver of a get-away car who sees the cops coming
and realizes that his buddies can't get out fast enough,
he's putting the pedal to the metal and zoomin'.

We're STUCK with their MESS. And WHAT A MESS.
Over HALF A MILLION INNOCENT people killed.
They have sucked profit from the blood and the
oil, now they are getting while the getting is
good, and leaving the dems to clean it up as
usual. "You want it, you got it", will be their
attitude. They will be praying for another
attack on 'murkin soil, just so they can say
that we are "soft" on defense.

They are weary of being accountable for their
greed and stupidity. They want us to take responsibility
for their *uckups.

I wake up with bile in my throat EVERY MORNING.
I haul my tired butt off to work and try to sell
advertising to companies TOO BROKE to PAY FOR WHAT
THEY ALREADY HAVE!

I worry for my kids, who will surely have to get
scholarships for college, because I have had to
use our savings to pay the rent in our "off" months.

Now I learn that the chimp plans to run on the
"strength of the economy".

I seriously don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
I sometimes find myself doing BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!

Still the war rages on...
Still he pumps a BILLION a week into the sand...
Still he wipes his ASS with OUR constitution...
Still he bulldozes OUR WALL OF CHURCH/STATE SEPARATION
Still increasing MILLIONS go without health care...
Still the debt increases...
Still foreclosures soar...

I have no problem going to sleep at night...
it's the waking that horrifies me.

Dear Senator Levin:

In the interest of the Democratic Party, I am writing to suggest that you endorse Ned Lamont for the U.S. Senate unequivocally and publicly.

He is the right man for the job, and the ONLY DEM running for the position. The integrity of the party is at stake, and millions of people are watching.

You have a chance to take the high-road and make a difference.

As a Michigan voter, I have cringed as your senate counterpart, Debby Stabenow, has made several questionable votes which have hurt average Americans. I am SO disheartened, that although she will have my vote in November, I will not volunteer, nor will I donate money to her campaign.

The American people seriously do not see much difference between Democrats and Republicans. Please give them something to be passionate about again.

Stand for truth, transparency and democracy. Stand for the Democratic party.

Take a public stand for Ned Lamont!

Thank you.

..to support public education in America.

It is the MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in our
rise to prominence in the world, and it
is a NECESSARY building block in assuring
that the promise:
"..all men are created equal" is kept.



It is also singled out as a BASIC tenet
of the democratic party. Democrats should
strive to IMPROVE public education, not
GUT IT like the puglicans.

On Edit:

Here is the "30 second" statement that we
ALL should agree on when asked what democrats
believe. And you might be surprised just how
many times this has been debated in our local
dem club, and with other groups dedicated to
shaping the message and the debate.

As usual, Howard Dean sums it up pretty well:

Howard Dean on

"What Dems Stand for:"

1: "American jobs that will stay in America and using energy independence to generate those jobs."

2: "A strong national defense based on telling the truth to our citizens, our soldiers and our allies."

3: "Honesty and integrity to be restored to government."

4: "A health care system that works for everyone, just as in thirty-six other countries."

5: "A strong public education system so that we can bring optimism and opportunity back to America."

Note #5, on education.

I have not run into ANYONE who disagrees with these basics.

If I did, I'd know they were unrepentant republicans.

Taught me how to laugh in the face of certain disaster.

Let ME be right once in a while.

Taught me to laugh at myself.

Taught me that a fevered mind was conquerable.

Never turned away ANYONE asking for help.

Caused me great grief when he died.

Taught me the meaning of immortality through works.

I miss him every day.

I appreciate what he gave me every day.

When I was a teen, my brother answered the doorbell one evening when we were all
laying around watching TV.

He came back into the living room and said, "Hey, Dad, there's a MISSIONARY at the door".

And my Dad shot back, "Great ask him in. I'd like to have him explain his POSITION"!

Hilarity ensued, and my blushing little brother told the young Mormon it would be
better for him if he just went on to the next house!

everyone else does.

If you get a chance, watch
ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room

They would STILL be ripping people/US
off if it hadn't been for a couple of
financial journalists picking at the
corner of the scab of their accounting
practices.

The Enron pirates blame the JOURNO'S!
for bringing them down.

I truly believe that if an "Emperor's
Clothes" situation occurred in this
climate, the little boy who "outed"
the Emperor wouldn't embarrass the
citizens, he would be knifed by them.

No one WANTS to know the full extent
of the damage. They will have to
find out, ONE by ONE.