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SoCalDem's Journal
disclaimer: new ad I would PAY to see  Ad opener: McCain's casual attempt to tell us what is "rich"..followed by Gramm's "nation of whiners"..and then Mccain saying he doesn't know how many houses he has.. Scene 1: Mom, Dad & a couple of kids (hot, tired & sweaty), loading stuff in clothes baskets, trash bags & produce boxes into a U-haul... camera pans forward to a bedraggled dirty car, to which the UHaul is attached.. camera pans to house..focuses on a "bank-owned" FOR SALE sign. microphone appears in front of Dad, who says.." How many homes do I own?...NONE" camera shows Mom hugging her kids as they leave their house for the last time & wave bye to their little friends who watch them drive off.. final camera pan shows the street they lived on..with many For Sale signs..
Scene 1:
All the friends & family have gathered to celebrate the engagement of James & Tiffany.. They are the perfect couple..all the guests agree..
Everyone's assembled in the party room, the food should be great..there's entertainment.. Everyone's so excited.
James's parents are prepared make toasts to the happy couple, telling all assembled how much they love Tiffany, and how perfect she is for their son.... Her folks can't wait to do the same.. Friends have little notes, with all their funny and touching stories about the couple, written down...ready to tell the gathered friends & family..
(clink-clink-clink)..someone's tapped a champagne glass, to get everyone's attention...the "tell-all" portion of the evening is about to start:
BUT... before any of that happens, in walks.......(drum roll)
Sarah...(James' ex-girlfriend)...and Louis ( Tiffany's ex-boyfriend)..
and trailing behind them..THEIR parents & friends.. They all gather at the head-table, and wrest away the microphones..and ask for THEIR champagne.
Louis regails everyone in the room, with cute stories from when he and Tiffany dated...like the first time she "stayed over"..and the time, they had a "scare"...no one's laughing..
Then Sarah approaches Tiffany, and insists on trying on her engagement ring...and has her friends gather to take some pictures of HER wearing the ring.. She reminds the crowd of all the times SHE had to pay the rent on the place they shared, because James blew the money on rims for his car, or lost it in poker with his buddies.. She tells them all about how they had picked out names for THEIR children, and how she's had to start taking anti-depressants, because she's just so angry and sad..all the time.. and how, she KNOWS that James really still loves HER... her friends all hoot and holler and say "Sarrrrrrahhhh, Sarrrrrrahhhh, Sarrrrrahhhhh!"...
Scene 2:
Sarah & Louis & their friends have finally left, but the mood is somehow "different" now..
All are wondering about the wedding day now.. Will those two show up with their friends and disrupt that day as well?
A google accident led me to this story..which led me to more... People look down on homeless people, but even though they end up resembling each other, as do many of their dogs, they still have a gentle hand for Man's Best Friend...at least for some of them.. They may not have a warm bed and a roof over their heads, but they have compassion and a willingness to share what they do have.. SJ Homeless Man Dies After Someone Attacks His Dog POSTED: 9:26 am PDT May 1, 2007  A homeless man died Monday after a scuffle on San Jose's busy West Santa Clara Street just before lunchtime, according to San Jose police. The man, Cornelius Van Der Vies, was a well-known figure in downtown San Jose because of his friendly nature and his constant companion Boo Boo. According to witnesses, another homeless man began throwing things at Boo Boo and Van Der Vies jumped in to defend the animal. Witnesses said the man then turned on Van Der Vies, kicking and hitting him until he collapsed. The San Jose Mercury news reported Van Der Vies may have suffered a heart attack. The newspaper set up a condolence page that was quickly filled with dozens of responses. People who knew Van Der Vies have also set up a make-shift memorial in his honor. People have been adding flowers and notes throughout Tuesday. Many people are just learning of the death as they come upon the memorial. Some openly weeped and were comforted from strangers who were gathered. Van Der Vies' dog is now in an animal shelter on Monterey Highway in San Jose. More than 20 people have volunteered to adopt the animal, but a worker at the shelter told NBC11's Garvin Thomas that Boo Boo has a history of bites and may not be suitable for adoption. snip Link To Mercury News Condolence Link Pat from San Leandro wrote: "Cornelius, I never met you, but my future wife thought the world of you. When she heard of your death this morning, she cried all the way to work. You were (and still are) obviously a wonderful person. You are no longer 'homeless', you have a better home than any of us!" More Homeless from all over the world, sharing what little they have, with their best friend               
SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts)Thu Apr-24-08 06:32 PM Original message "Presumptive nominee" John McCain.. I think we may get "Schwarzeneggered" Out here in CA, for those who do not remember, we had a governor recalled in 2003..Gray Davis.. For MONTHS and MONTHS , we had hundreds (literally) of people running for governor.. We had debates ..we had petitions going around.. It was a feeding frenzy.. leading the pack was Darryl "Crybaby" Issa. He was so sure he would be governor, he could TASTE it. He co-hosted local radio shows, he did interviews.. he was Mr. Important... until... The republican party put the hammer down on him, and slipped Ahhhnold into place, and shoved little Darryl off the cliff, without so much as a" thanks, pal".. Of course, at the 11th hour (so to speak) it was conveniently "too late" for him to participate in debates, or face much real scrutiny, and the opposition research and planning had all been to run against Issa, a lowly congressman...not a Mooooovie star, married to a Kennedy. The rest is history.... Which brings me to my point.. John McCain is a TERRIBLE campaigner He has ZERO charisma He's cranky He's creaky (not entirely his fault, but it's still a fact) He's not up to snuff on details, he's lousy on the economic facts He could only muster 73% as the ONLY (running) candidate in PA He's showing little or NO energy out on the trail Once his medical records come out, people will peel away from him as if he bathed in skunk-water I think he's a place-holder.. The lack of enthusiasm might be because he's been "told" that he will NOT be the nominee in the end, but might be Secretary of Defense (He would like that job more anyway, probably) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our researchers are planning a campaign against him, but in the end..at the last moment, after a fractious primary season of our own, we may end up facing a well-rested Romney-Jebbie ticket. Our nominee will be faced with picking a cabinet, a running mate, arranging their schedule for the campaign, and trying to rest a bit..and then face a team they did not even expect. This team would have had months of rest, and ample time to study up on all the foibles that were so generously put out there by our own party.. All of a sudden the republicans would be jazzed up and excited to have REAL republicans running, and after a protracted fight and probably discordant convention, our party could be rife with wounded dignities and hurt feelings.. See where I am going? Things may not be what they seem.. Republicans are nothing, if not sneaky 
What if?
What if people had paid attention to Carter, and his plan to wean us off of oil?
What if we had seriously explored becoming "green".....waaaaaay back in 1976?
The 200th year of our country would have been the perfect time to launch ourselves into the future.
What a way it could have been, to start the Second Hundred years of our nation.
Given the technology head-start we still had back in those days before Nafta/Cafta/Shafta, and before the outsourcing-of-american-companies, and before college became unaffordable to most young people, we literally still "had it all".
Solar technology was beginning to be talked about in a serious way, and many smart people were just itching to get started. Wind "technology" had been used seriously by every sodbuster who headed west. The windmill pump was no secret, and if a 3rd grade educated immigrant farmer could figure it out, surely the brain-trust of America, circa 1976, could have embellished the basic principle.
Every structure built since 1976, could have (should have?) had solar shingles, or solar panels on every rooftop. High rises could have had solar energy generating glass in every window and its own converting station in the basement. Every garage roof could have been solar, with special facilities for recharging those cars, who slumber inside every night..
Every "Home Show" on TV, has had a show devoted to some "smart guy" who ...all by himself..has converted his home to solar/wind or a combination of the two. There is always a tour of the home, that shows us how they live like "everybody else"...with all the electricity they need, and plenty of hot water..
It's not magic.. It's science.
Cutting edge science and innovation used to be the hallmark of America.....until someone somewhere saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided that we needed to be LESS scientific, LESS cutting edge, and that we needed to go back to the "olden days".
We sent people to the moon with less computing power than most have in their cell phones or in their high schooler's graphing calculator.. The technology is NOT the "problem". It's our ATTITUDES toward science and knowledge.
Who benefits from the 32 year "nap" we have taken?
Instead of living in a house that generates its own power...pollution-free power, and driving cars that do not pollute, we are still using the same old oil, only we are using it at the "new and improved" pricing.
We are paying more than any of us ever imagined, to (mostly) Texas-owned energy companies, for our electricity, as we are constantly insulted by their TV commercials, where they paint themselves as humanitarians.
Many of us drive BIGGER vehicles that get LESS gas mileage than in 1976..They cost too much to even pay off in 3 years (like car loans used to be)..They are made of plastic and tin-foil instead of metal, like the older ones were, and still they get bad gas mileage.
Gas that used to be under 50cents a gallon, when we drove metal-monster-cars, is now approaching $5 a gallon to fill our plastic, $30K behemoths...
Our houses got bigger, but now we find out that bigger really only means more space to fill up with more toxic plastic shit from China, and more airspace to heat/cool with expensive energy. Most people work too nuch to spend much time IN those McMansions.. We have succeeded in building manions for our dogs & cats to enjoy, while we bust our asses 60-70 hours a week to afford those dog/cat houses.
Some pundits have commented about how we have wasted 8 years in the global warming dilemma...
Well, they are partially right...BUT we have wasted THIRTY TWO years..
32 years of enriching oil-companies, corporate executives, politicians...all at the expense of US..and the US..
We wasted a third of that second hundred years.. Those years would have passed, no matter what we did, but wouldn't we all have loved it if they had been well-spent on making us energy self-reliant, and green, and healthier..all at the same time.?
There have been many stories lately about homelessness. People get annoyed when they see people living in campers/cars/vans. I think many are frightened, because they are on the edge, themselves
Perhaps it scares them to actually SEE it near them..
Look at YOUR OWN situation:
What would happen if your company sold out/downsized/moved and all of a sudden your household had ZERO income..
Let's say it lasted 6 months..
After 6 months would you still have your house/apartment/car?
What if you had a good job, and a house or apartment that you could barely afford, and you had a car payment, and some debt..maybe some credit cards debt and some school loans?
The DEBT you owe, stays with you, no matter your job situation.
You could go from being a "normal person", with a kid or two, a few pets, living paycheck to paycheck and then in one fell swoop, you could lose it all..
What DO you do about those kids & pets?
You could drop off the pets at the pound, and live with the knowledge that the 8 yr old dog will be euthanized because you lost your job, and the cat may meet the same fate.....But are you willing to give up your kids because you can no longer feed them or give them their own bedroom?
Before you get booted out of your house & apartment, you will no doubt, stop paying, and start making excuses as you "hide" from the landlord/bank for a while./..but eventually they will make you move..
Maybe before that happens, you will have sold your stuff (or tried to)..but that cash may have to be used to try and hold on the credit cards you will surely have to use to stay alive (whether you can pay them for long, or not)..
Once you miss a few payments, your credit report will surely prevent you from even renting a place that's halfway decent..and many that are not even anywhere near halfway decent..
Your car insurance will go up, due to the credit report, and some employers will trash-can your application if they run a credit report (many do that these days)..
When you lost your job, you also lost your health care insurance (if you even had it), so if you or a kid gets sick, you are screwed again..
How do you buy food? Where do you store it? How do you cook it?
You have to buy prepared foods (usually the least healthy), or maybe you could steal fruit from trees you see in people's yards.. BUT if you do that and get caught, you will surely lose those kids...and might call extra attention to yourself & end up arrested for vagrancy
So..why not just "get a job"?..Walmart's always hiring..
Let's see.. an $8 hr job might at least give you SOME cash, but what DO you do with the kids while you work? Where do they go to school? How do they get there? What address do you use for them?
There are millions of women in this predicament .... men too.
Once you lose your grip on the "middle class", you are POOR.. there is no in-between.. no safety net.
Some will say..
what about subsidized housing?..around here it's a FIVE YEAR wait..
what about job training for a new job?...how do you live while you're "training"? and what DOES that "new job" pay? will that job even be there when you're done with "training"?
but but but.. what about welfare & food stamps?.. there are still some benefits to be had, but they are time-limited and many single Moms are actually scared to show how desperate they are, for fear that they will lose their children to foster care, so many never really lay out their dilemma..and even if they did, benefits are limited.
Millions of people are deluding themselves into thinking that it cannot happen to THEM...but it can.. and it does ..every day..
Goodness knows, they have been TRYING (in both senses of the word) Maybe Hillie's big fat MOUTH has finally shocked some of them to forego the paycheck & drop her like the hot-rotten potato she is.. BTW..did those checks clear??? or did she send you ruber IOUs  .............................. Vote for Hillary: Get paid to post positive comments about Hillary But enough about that, you want to know about getting paid to write positive comments about Hillary. The way it works is this: in your spare time, ... voteforhillaryonline.blogspot.com/2007/11/get-paid-to-post-positive-comments.html - 137k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this .................................................. Tuesday, November 20, 2007 Get paid to post positive comments about Hillary Vote for Hillary Online is so dedicated to making sure Hillary Clinton wins this election that we've started a program that rewards those of you who post positive replies about Hillary on political blogs. By the way, we can't take credit for this idea, thanks Richard Sears! Our main premise is this: the opposition has the media by the collar. They are one in the same. One thing they don't have control over however is the internet. And we're not doing nearly as well as we could be doing at using this tool effectively. Folks, we have monitored the traffic on our website. We see thousands pouring in daily, yet we only get a couple hundred e-mails from grassroots supporters wanting to help out in the cause. We know a lot of you just don't know where to begin. You've never participated in politics before. And that's fine! Gotta start somewhere, might as well be with Hillary. We're giving you an easy opportunity right now to become part of the political process. I've come to find that a lot of bloggers who talk about Hillary in a negative tone simply don't know all of her positions on the issue. They've been caught up in the character assassination game that the media started. They simply need to be educated, and it's our job to correct them. Then you have other bloggers who are so caught up in other candidates, they haven't taken the time to look into Hillary and have simply ignored her out of ignorance. We can't get mad at these people, it's easy to understand how the opposition has made the United States a nation of sheep. It's not the people's fault however. And we won't be effective communicators if we approach them with that attitude. But enough about that, you want to know about getting paid to write positive comments about Hillary. The way it works is this: in your spare time, you visit several political blogs. Whether they're for a specific candidate, undecided, or even a downright Hillary hater, your job is to post comments that portray Hillary in a good light. Each time you post a comment like this, make a note of the website's address in a text file (we recommend notepad) snip....
It really is all about Meeeeeee.  Mustttt-countttt-Michigannnn... heeee getssss zeeeerrrrro  Follow every dreeeeeeam (no matter how crazy it is)  Reminds me of   Tilt!! Tilt!! Game Over  Cool ..Crowd surfing.. catch me  I thought this would all be so easy  Keep your um..um...chins up, girlfriend  Heads UP!! Fireball.. third row  So , it's 3AM, That's a problem? Hillary NEEDS money, dammit..  Ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille 
One has to really give credit where credit is due, whether you support Obama or NOT.
Think back to ancient times....Feb 8, 2007... Obama announced that he was planning to run for president. A few weeks earlier, Clinton formally announced her intentions, although most of us have known she was running, since...oh..let's see... since she ran for the NY senatorial seat back in 2000.
Back then the Clinton's were (still are?) the de facto party bosses of the DNC (& DLC), and their guy Terry Calif ran the show for them. They, no doubt, set the pace and understood, if not set in place, the RULES.....The rules being, the manner of running elections, choosing candidates, and the day to day coordination and running of the democratic party. They probably also set long-term goals for the party. The Clinton's were (are) intimately involved in party functioning.
There probably has NEVER been a candidate more perfectly groomed, and prepared for a presidential run, than Mrs. Clinton. The presumption of a run had over SIX years to percolate and permeate the political landscape. She had a ready reservoir of cash, TOTAL name recognition, and 6 long years to rehabilitate any Clinton administration ill-will.
She was smart, presentable, well-funded, politically savvy, and had the backing of many well-connected politicos. The rules under which the primary season would proceed were (or should have been) well-understood by her and her campaign staff. The Clinton's were involved in MAKING the rules, and Bill had run successfully TWICE, using those rules or a close derivative of them.
The neophyte Illinois senator, on the other hand, was relatively UN-CONNECTED, and would be starting well back in the pack of known candidates. He was the stealth candidate, interesting to think about, attractive to look at, and a spellbinding speaker, but still a "newbie".
With Clinton as the presumptive winner, before a single vote was cast, it was not hard to see the uphill climb that ANY challenger would face. She had the name, the money, the presumptive nature of a winner, and the campaigning skills of a still-popular ex-president husband who would campaign for her. How could she possibly lose?
When Florida & Michigan were disqualified for jumping ahead, no doubt there was a severe scouring of the rules, so everyone would understand exactly how this primary season would work. ALL parties agreed before ANY votes were cast ANYWHERE, and a total of 2025 was set in place as the ultimate goal. This was the 26.2 marathon equivalent. All agreed that this was the total number of DELEGATES needed to secure the nomination of the party.
This was not a secret number, but it did include the possible votes of Super Delegates. Super delegates have been around for a long time, but in past elections, they were like extra frosting on an already frosted cake.. hardly noticed...an afterthought.
They went unnoticed for decades because in MOST election cycles, all but ONE candidate falls away early in the primary season, as they see their fund-raising capabilities shrivel up and fall from the vine.
Mrs Clinton stormed California during November & December of 2007 in a fund-raising frenzy, and to secure votes in the "vault" from California's early voting season. Her name recognition, and her husband's popularity pretty much locked in a vast majority of the early votes and absentee ballots.
Early voting began Jan 07, 2008. Between 1/3 to 1/2 of ALL votes cast in California's primary came via early voting...and it WAS EARLY..many sent in the very day the ballot arrived. Californians were HUNGRY to vote, and Hillary was their choice.
Clinton expected to come in a close 2nd to Edwards in Iowa, but by having Michigan & Florida voting super-early, 200 of the amorphous super delegates on her tally and California's "banked" absentees & earlies, she expected the delegates she WOULD get from Iowa's close 2nd, followed by an immediate blow-out in New Hampshire to scare off most of the contenders, and when Feb 5 rolled around, her other large victories would finish off the rest.
She would indeed be "all done by Feb 5".. The fly in the ointment was when Michigan & Florida really WERE tossed out, and then she actually came in THIRD in Iowa, and nearly LOST New Hampshire. The aura of presumptive winner started to fade, and all of a sudden "rules" no longer mattered.
The upstart senator had caught on with voters, and it suddenly looked as if HE could reach 2025, and he was raising money like no one ever had before, while HER money had dried up due to the fact that her donors had reached their limits.
Rules that had excluded Florida & Michigan were followed by the Obama campaign, but were now being discounted and ignored by the Clinton campaign, and they actively set out to negate wins of their now single challenger. His wins were lessened because black voters left her and lined up behind him.
His caucus state wins were somehow not valid, because all of a sudden caucuses themselves were deemed "un-democratic" by the Clintons. These same caucuses were participated in, and won TWICE by Bill Clinton. Surely he told Hillary about caucuses. They were in all the papers, and on tv. Many hours were devoted in explaining how they work, and advertising for participants & caucus-workers. How COULD she have forgotten about caucuses?
Obama's team always had the 2025 number in their sights. They worked EVERY caucus, every "small" state, every "red" state, every "insignificant" state, every "unimportant" state. Those states always have democratic primary races, and every cycle a couple of candidates participate (in the early ones, at least)..
It's a foregone conclusion that in a race between two democrats in ANY state..red or blue.. there WILL be a democratic winner, no matter if that state will eventually be won or lost by a democrat in the general election. Primaries are about choosing the general elections candidate, and that choice is , and always HAS been, about choosing the DELEGATES, who will ratify their state's choice for candidate.
All throughout the primary season, as Obama's team kept their eyes on the prize, and always on that 2025 number, they plodded along campaigning, running and winning, as Clinton's camp set out to undermine his candidacy in every way possible. Unable to beat his fund raising, and now missing the support of the African-American Community, the ONLY possible ways to salvage the run were to destroy the other candidate, while simultaneously trying to change the rules.
New numbers emerged along the way . Is it 2209, 2210, 2116, 2108? The campaign that could not count, disagreed with every number shown to them, all of a sudden seemed emboldened enough to DICTATE what the numbers would be, and set out to show us all how insignificant the challenger's increasing numbers were. As he got closer to the *official number of 2025, the new numbers appeared magically, and always further away.
And now we are where we are..at the end..or near enough to the end, and no one seems to even KNOW what the required number is or will be. Most of the primaries are over, votes are in, delegates are chosen, and we still don't know. The front-runner, Obama, has run a fantastic campaign, followed the rules, piled up delegates, and refrained from taking the "cheap-shots" at Mrs. Clinton that others would surely have taken, and as he reaches what was always supposed to be the "finish line", it's suddenly not there anymore..It's nowhere in sight.
Now we are told that a secret meeting May 31, of a committee set up & staffed by the Clinton faction (or so we are told) will be the final arbiters of the Florida & Michigan "problem". We will then find out what the "new number" will be. This is a recipe for prolonged anger by half the party, at the eventual winner.
The Clinton camp seems to think that NOW, after all or most of the voting has been accomplished, some states should have zero counts for popular votes, and states who were disqualified, should have THEIR votes count, and that popular vote count (which is NEVER part of a primary consideration for candidate selection) should now count as THE important factor. Included in that count , according to them, would be a ZERO popular vote for Michigan voters who did NOT vote for Mrs. Clinton.
Michigan and Florida were to be PUNISHED for breaking the rules, and now in the end, they will be the FINAL states to vote and possible DECIDE the whole shebang, by creating a "new finish line number", and a new popular vote count method of choosing, thereby negating the long-held tradition of DELEGATE selection. Their punishment will be to REWARD them, and to catapult them to premier status as Deciders-of-Record.. It's positively Bushian by design. Will they also have a Medal Of Honor Medal presentation for them?
Obama set out on a 26.2 marathon race, and along the way while he was running the race, more miles were added at each stage of the race, as he kept winning.
The "orders" for miles were being "phoned in" by one far behind him, but still he pulled ahead. No matter the extra miles, he's still ahead. And at the new finish line, there stands Michigan & Florida, with feet fully extended, ready to trip him and stand on him before he crosses the line.
There is huffing & puffing behind him.. Who will trip that one?
Could it just be that the super delegates enjoy watching her wild gyrations and truth-twisting..maybe they like watching her squirm & maneuver..like a cat plays with a mouse...before it just chomps it and swallows it whole?
Surely these savvy people know which candidate is inspiring, which candidate can raise shitloads of money and already HAS offices in all 50 states, which candidate has proven coat-tails THREE Times in recent history..
Maybe they are making a gag-reel of Hillary's most buffoonish speeches or Hillie's Gone Hillbilly, or Hillary's Hometown Campaign Classics..Vol 1,2,3,4,5...
If there is ANY way they can line up their votes before that May 31 fiasco, they may be planning to do just that..
Her behavior alone, has certainly not endeared her to many of the SDs, or more than 1/4 of them would have signed on to her campaign in the beginning, and SHE was the foregone conclusion deeeluxe surefire winner..
So just maybe...in the coming week, we will see a tsunami of delegates to get Obama to that "shut-out" number where even MI and FL will not "do it"..
Then she can cry a little and claim the big bad media & the mean ole boys ganged up on her and chased her out of their clubhouse..
She can go back to DC and pray that someone harms Obama, so she can re-claim her Norma Desmond moment..
The reason her negatives are so high?..well it's pretty obvious now... She's a racebaiting, cheating, conniving, lying ...well.. I dare not say the word..
Apparently, even with our advanced learning and enlightened sensibilities, we seem to be mired in fear of the "other".
That fear "allows" us to kill each other, disrespect each other, deny services to each other.
At our core, all humans are just ONE being..ourselves. We branch out a little to embrace our immediate family, our kin..and then a little more to our KIND.
As long as it does not COST us much (prsonally OR financially), it is possible to practice some charitable ignorance of the "others" who brush against us in daily life. In particularly good times, it's even possible to embrace "the other", but usually in a paternalistic manner..and enen then only as long as "the other" does not try to step out of the neatly aligned path we have chosen for them.
When there is equilibrium, people can and do manage to "live together", but once the equilibrium is out of kilter, the first ones to be cast off and or blamed are the "others".
When women entered the job force in a big way, there was a war on, and they were a vital part of the economy and the war effort.. they created a new equilibrium within the manufacturing sector, which had been decimated by the loss of most of the men.
They had been "the other", the few women who had worked at anything but schoolmarm, nurse, nun or wife/mother. The "other" became the norm, but when the war was over, they again became the "other", as far as the workforce was concerned, and most were shuttled back into the housewife role again (most did it happily, since they had babies on their minds, and were quite happy to have their husbands/boyfriends back from the war).
The women who wanted to stay in the workforce had to accept their "otherness", but they laid the foundation for all the current women who are less "other" than at any time in history.... there are women CEOs, women homeowners, women business owners, women politicians, etc.
Immigrants have always DEFINED "otherness" in our midst. Most of the time they drift in and out of all of our lives, unnoticed, for the most part. They clean our offices & homes, they serve us food, they tend our children, cars and lawns, they grow & gather our food, they pick up after us. They are our remoras. They do the dirty work that we used to do for ourselves, but no longer want to do, as we become more affluent.
Immigrants come in many degrees of "otherness" , since some came willingly, and were prepared to struggle, but knew that they could escape the "otherness" and work their way into acceptance, but some came unwillingly, and because they looked so different, they could never truly "blend in", and would always bear the mark of "permanent other".
Societal norms teach us to be generous & accepting , and legislative efforts demand equanimity & fairness from us, but in less than affluent times, or times of war or strife, all bets are off, and we contract into our small selves, where only kin and self reside.
We are ALL "others" to someone, and when we lash out, we only invite retribution and attack on ourselves.
People may have thought it silly
She wanted to win the big race
Which was fine on its face
But she was undone as it all went south
Thanks to Filly Hillie's own Billy's big mouth
Appetizers:
Pastor Pasta.............99cents
(spicy, extra crispy fried ravioli-like pasta pillows..loaded with surprise filling)
Hillary Rings..............99cents
(breaded & fried crisp on the outside, slimy inside)
Bill's BBQ Tongue......99 cents
(a little on the chewy side..sliced thin for those with dentures)
McCain's Nuggets......99 cents
(beer-battered & half-baked fish)
Salads:
Scranton Gal Salad......$5.00
(iceberg lettuce wedges, Kraft™ Catalina salad dressing, Bacos™, Land of Lakes™ cheese crumbles)
Cindy's Favorite Family Secret Salad....$10.00
(orange jell-o, shredded carrots, slivered celery, crushed pineapple)
Bubba's Best Salad........$11.99
( fresh spinach leaves on top, delicately sprinkled with organic feta cheese (looks positively healthy)
....underneath..iceberg lettuce, crumbled bacon, cheese, chunks of ham, diced boiled eggs, bathed in a hefty portion of Ranch Dressing..
Entrees:
Hillie, the Huntress, Mixed Grill..............$22.00
(varies from day to day, but whatever she's huntin', we're grillin'...served with sweet potatoes, radish-roses & Texas Toast)
Bill's Buffalo Burger..............................$22.00
(a big one... with all the fixins'..This one will really "buffalo you"...but good.. served with fries & cole slaw)
John's Asian Medley.............................$market rate*
(a tasty meal of rice*..sure to evoke memories of long ago.. contains vegetables, free-trade shrimp, and much more)
Desserts:
Hillary's Just Desserts Pudding................$5.00
(Tapioca with a sprinkling of bitter chocolate)
Bill's Big Banana.....................................$7.00(serves 2)
(ripe banana-gently simmered, coated with tasty brown sugar sprinkles, then bathed in honey...)whipped cream on request..
Mac's Mango Mash.................................$5.00
(Mashed mango, topped with Cool Whip)
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